emily: chang in san francisco and this is "bloomberg technology." trump defiant. the president says he is at zero risk of being removed from office from the 25th amendment. lawmakers consider impeaching him for a second time. we will have the latest from washington. twitter deletes more than 70000 and 10 -- 70,000 accounts tied

to qanon. the star of the netflix hit "the social dilemma." plus, the high-stakes work to reveal covid mutations by the biotech firm illumina. we will talk to the ceo about just how dangerous the new strain is. u.s. stocks moving higher as investors mulled the prospect of an economic recovery and the rollout of a vaccine. we want to get the latest with ed ludlow. in equity trading markets, but we ended the day in the green across all major u.s. indices. if there was one area of underperformance, it was technology stocks. if you look at some of the points moves, microsoft really dragging that down along with

comcast and google. there were some gains notably in intel, having a good day on the back of the announcement that the ces conference is happening virtually. the philadelphia semiconductor continuing outperformance above the s&p 500 index. again, a real focus today on small caps. anotherell up by 1.8%, fresh record high for that index. faang plus index was up by 0.8%, but only three names in their actually in positive territory. and baidu. 4.7% lots of energy behind that tesla story. now we see new names. including lucid motors, looking

at accessing the public market. but, again, the market is pretty sanguine about everything going on. we are in the depths of a pandemic. lots of focus on a vaccine and focus on why we are h on in the. still on much focus what is happening in washington and what is happening with facebook and twitter after they banned the president. facebook indefinitely, twitter permanently. both company shares continued to fall today. pressure continuing on social media. facebook shares down about 2.2%. -- 2.4%.own two point wallhange now is that street and analysts are looking more closely at what twitter's decision to remove president trump from the platform means for its overall business.

one analyst saying that it could -9sult in a decrease of 60 million monthly u.s. users. snap rising foray fourth straight session. it seems immune from some of the pressures other social media stocks have been under. optimism around advertising. the president speaking today, no direct rebuke of social media companies. president trump saying that free speech is under assault. of course, republican lawmakers, some of them, have said they will focus on banning section 230 for good. thank you so much for that update. president trump saying he is at zero risk of being removed from office after encouraging supporters who went on to attack the u.s. capitol last week.

but, he suggested president-elect joe biden could be. trump did not elaborate on how this might be used against biden. but, let's discuss. ofare joined by a professor iona college. we are getting reporting from the new york times that republican leader mitch mcconnell is saying that he is pleased that the democrats are moving to impeach the president, and that he does believe the president committed impeachable offenses. what do you make of this? >> fascinating report out of the new york times just moments ago that mitch mcconnell has privately told people that he believes the president committed an impeachable offense. course, we saw his wife resign her cabinet position a few days ago. mitch mcconnell, let's not forget, also lost his majority leadership in the senate, something else we also

understand he blames trip -- blames president trump for. we also heard he discussed with joe biden whether there was a prospect of the senate both holding an impeachment trial and looking at and confirming his nominees as he takes office. we have not heard back as to whether or not that in fact would be possible. but we believe that mitch mcconnell sees this as a way to purge the president from the party. who, evenmebody before that happened, said he did not go along with his colleagues on the republican side over trying to decertify the election. emily: we have a quote from the president speaking at the border earlier today. let's take a listen. pres. trump: before i begin, i would like to say that free speech is under assault like never before. the 20 for the amendment is zero

risk to me but will come back to haunt joe biden and the biden administration. as the expression goes, be careful what you wish for. what is your reaction? >> the president is reported to be furious that he was kicked off the social media platforms. he has made that clear in his first remarks since wednesday. you were talking about, saying that free speech is under assault. he has called a long time for the revocation of section 230. of course, we may see some of that as we get into the new congress from the democratic side. it was very odd to hear him talk about the fact that he is not going to be subject to the 20 for the amendment. have spoken he may to mike pence last night. that mikenderstands

pence is not going to invoke that is the democrats would like him to. the bidenhreat to administration that joe biden could be subject to that. democrats will vote on this resolution for the 25th amendment. then they will move tomorrow and probably tomorrow evening on a vote on this one article of impeachment which, as we were just discussing, apparently has at least some support from mitch mcconnell and potentially we are also hearing maybe we will see some support on the republican side, maybe as much as a handful of republicans in the house or more who may support it. from: does this reporting the new york times that mitch mcconnell supports the democrats moving forward with impeachment, does that change anything? what do you expect the last few days leading up to january 20

will look like? >> i think we will get a vote out of the house and have at least a handful of republicans go along with the impeachment vote. it will move to the senate. we still do not have a sign as to when they will take it up. and we still don't know if there will be enough republicans in the senate to support a conviction. of course, he will have left office by then. but there is discussion as to whether you can hold a trial after somebody leaves office. some people think you can. i am not convinced we will see enough republicans go along with that in the trial. but we will probably see that trial go forward. think thet do you president will do next? do you see him starting his own social network? a broadcast network? and can he do that without even some sort of institutional republican support.

>> very tough for him to do. as you mentioned, institutional republican support. also support from banks. deutsche bank moving away from him. very tough for him to do. he is incredibly isolated. obviously, things can change. but this is a man who will leave office facing significant legal jeopardy at least at the state level if not the federal level. again, we may need to look for a pardon in the coming days. he has legal jeopardy. he also has financial jeopardy. he owes a good deal of money. it does not look like he has institutional support at this point in my view to do what i think he could have done prior to wednesday, which is to start a social media platform or some other media platform. i think that is increasingly tough for him at this point. i think he is going to have to lay low and address his financial and legal challenges he will face on january 21.

emily: appreciate you trying to map out the next few days for us. still a lot of uncertainty and of course we will be watching what happens in washington. bloomberg politics contributor also the author of "american democracy in crisis." coming up, twitter has purged tens of thousands of qanon accounts in the wake of a deadly riot. stick with us for more of that conversation. this is bloomberg. ♪ are you frustrated with your weight and health? it's time for aerotrainer, a more effective total body fitness solution. (announcer) aerotrainer's ergodynamic design and four patented air chambers create maximum muscle activation for better results in less time, all while maintaining safe, correct form and allows for over 20 exercises. do the aerotrainer super crunch. the pre-stretch works your abs even harder, engaging the entire core.

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has permanently suspended more than 70,000 accounts dedicated to sharing

qanon associated content. this is the latest example of a major tech platform ratcheting up enforcement in the wake of that deadly riot in washington last week. joining us, kurt wagner. what is the significance of these qanon accounts getting banned? we know that facebook and twitter have been trying to ban more accounts like this. but this seems like a sizable number. kurt: it is. 70,000 is a lot of accounts. i think this comes back to what happened last week at the capital. obviously, there were a number of protesters linked to qanon. there was a lot of discussion online linking qanon and the protests, or the riots. i think this is really twitter , andg to protect itself protect this from happening -- and prevent this from happening again.

think this is just an extension of things that had happened last week and, as you pointed out, both facebook and twitter have already said qanon should not really be allowed on their platform. twitter shares have been down now two days in a row. obviously, their most popular user is gone. but, why do you think that is? it is funny because we were looking into whether twitter's business might be hurt by the end of president trump's term. at the time, the feeling was, no, that he would still be on twitter, at the very least he would still be kind of opining and people would slowly drift into other topics that mattered to them. but that did not really take into account this idea that he

would be off twitter entirely. i think the fact that he is now gone and many of his followers could follow him to something else, is spooking investors that perhaps user growth or engagement would go down. my guess is that people are reacting to this and trying to figure out, could this hurt twitter's business in the long haul? emily: how easy will it be for parler to find another web hosting platform now that amazon web services have cut them off? i think the delay kind of tells you everything. the fact they have not found anything yet, that the site is still down. that, to me, is quite telling, that they are having difficulty doing this. i do not think it will disappear forever. i think there are always corners of the internet where people are willing to play host to these

kind of discussions. but, we have never seen a for donated kind of pushback like this from tech companies either. this is very unique, unprecedented, and the fact that we are now coming up on multiple days where they have not had the service up and running, i think it is telling they are having a tougher time than expected. emily: how would the president go about starting a new social network if he wanted to? kurt: this is a really interesting question. the thing that asked these social networks so valuable is that everyone is already there. when you go to facebook, the reason you may be held on to your account is you have colleagues, college friends, families. it is a communal gathering place in a way. that is hard to build from scratch. that is why we have never really seen a competitor to facebook up until this point. it is that trump is certainly

stronger than most in terms of having a following. if he shows up somewhere, people will go there. the question, will there be more of a community around that? it will be difficult to replicate that facebook and twitter have a clear, distinct advantage on. just beight, will they talking to themselves? thank you very much for your reporting. we will continue to follow. coming up, the new covid-19 strain continues to surface in countries around the world. we will speak to the ceo of illumina, a company trying to identify cases of the new variant here in the united states. this is bloomberg. ♪

the new strain of

covid-19 has affected any more people in the u.k. than the outbreak last year. in canada, the government declared a second provincial emergency as cases accelerate and a new more transmissible variant has been identified. joining us, the ceo of illumina. the company has found more than 51 cases of the virus in the united states. and wely, 51 is a lot can assume there are a lot more. how much more transmissible or dangerous is it? right, we found 51 cases here but it is clear there are many more in the u.s.. it is a more transmissible case of the virus. the thing that we need to do is a lot more surveillance and so we can identify how many cases but also new strains that are

emerging. we are seeing a new strain called the south african strain. although it has been identified in the u.k., we still have not identified it here in the u.s. emily: your work involves genetic sequencing. it has been suggested that the united states especially as dangerously blind to these new covid mutations, that we need a nationwide system that involves genetic sequencing and testing in order to identify and fight this. at this point, is something like that realistic? one of the things that has become clear is that we need is a global community to set up a global pathogen surveillance system. anis clear, to identify if outbreak is happening and then identify the source, we need to be surveilling our environment. then we need to identify how

this virus is transmitting and mutating as it moves around geographically. that is true if it is the coronavirus outbreak but it is also true for things like antimicrobial resistance and bioterrorist attacks. we need to set up this network of this surveillance system to see which pathogens are emerging and then how they are moving around. that is important not just to know what is happening but also to drive policy decisions like, should we be shutting down travel to certain regions? all of that needs to be informed by data. emily: at this point, how do you see the endemic continuing to unfold? i wonder if we are going to be living with this kind of tracking and greater awareness of the dangers in viruses and the world around us forever? francis: we are going to put

together as quickly as we can the surveillance capacity we need to try to deal with the current pandemic. you have, for example, the u.k. leading the way in terms of doing large-scale sequencing and genomic surveillance. you are seeing the government of australia committed to a national system for covert surveillance. we are ramping up capacity here in the u.s. we will put together the surveillance we need right now to get us to this pandemic. this will have to become part of a national infrastructure and part of a global community where we share this data so we can watch for the reemergence of or futureavirus pathogens. emily: your work involves cancer, reproductive health, agriculture. where you expect we will see the biggest breakthroughs with the help of sequencing technology in the short-term? francis: genomics will play an

essential role in dealing with this pandemic in terms of surveillance but, two, you are seeing the emergence of genomic driven vaccines like the mrna vaccines from moderna and pfizer-biontech. in will also see big impacts cancer treatments. we are seeing the emergence of these precision oncology therapies. match cancers to patients to the right therapy that will be most effective for them. in the middle of this year, something that we are in the midst of acquiring, will launch the world's first blood test to identify early stage cancer across 50 types of cancer. that is truly going to be groundbreaking. emily: we will continue to follow the groundbreaking work. ,llumina ceo francis desouza thank you for sharing that with us.

coming up, the star of the netflix film " the social dilemma" joins us to discuss his take. that is next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: this is "bloomberg technology." i'm emily chang in san francisco. president trump has -- president trump's account has been deleted from twitter indefinitely. the fbi is bracing for more potential violence at state capitals across the country before inauguration day. of the social dilemma is calling for people to wake up from the digital spell that has been cast by the social network to avoid more disasters like

this in the future. thank you so much for taking the time to join us. obviously you have been talking about this for years, and now it is at the very epicenter of state and local conversations. what is your take on the social network banning the president? was it the right move, or was it too late? >> this is a really hard place to be in. i think the main thing the social dilemma was trying to communicate as a film is that is not jots -- not just that there's individual accounts that can incite islands, but the business model by being incentivized has put each of us into a narrow were and now are or channel of reality. it produces self reinforcing cults. we just saw that on display on january 6. said thatm it were-term what they

worried about was civil war. a lot of people thought it was too extreme a statement to make. i think were seeing that escalation being the national progression -- natural progression of the business model. now we are in this difficult a handfulhere we have of tech ceos that can make unilateral, nondemocratic decisions about digital impeachment. you can digitally impeach the president and you just have to get employees of those companies to believe and put pressure on the ceos and eventually that is what will happen. i think those who are rightly concerned about that need to ask about the alternative of simply allowing this machine to continue without any kind of digital articles of impeachment. there are conditions in which people violate norms or incite violence. if anything, what this moment calls for is almost a constitutional convention for the digital world so that people don't see this as one power grab

by one political party over another. we should come to the terms -- come to terms with the fact that we need a digital constitution for how to deal with this new situation. say we are onou the brink of civil war? or are we already in the middle of the digital civil war being waged on line exploded at the capitol? tristan: there is a saying in racecar driving that you don't put your attention on where you don't want to go. this is meant to be a warning. you can make the argument that this has been a moment of forming of, the deplat what people voted for is a very significant act. we need to come together to say what is the constitution?

what are the articles of impeachment for the digital world? in my senate testimony two years private interest starts eating up public institutions. just as i said in the social we lose all the protections for saturday morning. now you have a private company publicng what used to be interest, which is children's television. when you have facebook setting whatection advertising, does it mean for it to be fair? when the private meets the public, it d regulates the public. we lose those protections and we don't have them aquatic accountability. we don't have a constitution for what we want it to be. whether were talking about digital impeachment or the safe norms of morality.

and itcan post anything can be spread to billions of people. we decouple that power from responsibility. i can say anything i want without accountability that is a broken system. we need some kind of constitutional convention to reconcile this. emily: the folks who disagree with the actions facebook and twitter have taken say you can't say anything, because look what happened to president trump's account. one entrepreneur has been arguing strongly against the decisions that facebook and twitter have made. on one of his tweets in response to some and pointing out that they are private company and they can decide who to do business with or not. saying you can instantly get distribution to millions. if not, you can stand in the street yelling like a lunatic. what do you say to the folks who say were walking a dangerous line between free speech and censorship?

knowan: i think we all there is no clean answer here for free speech versus censorship conversations. on forversation we been two years now calling it the difference between freedom of speech and exponential audiences. buyn go to a store and knives and i don't need educational training about how to use them. but when i get an ak-47, there's a background check and training and all sorts of things. that's because it's a more dangerous weapon. -- mistake is to call this we have to have a conversation about selective enforcement. them making a standard and only enforcing it in some areas and not others. freeull dichotomy between speech versus censorship as opposed to what are the rules that make up our digital nation?

this is a digital country now. we are a democracy with a digital rain implant. it has been plucked -- brain implant. we have to have some kind of thatratic governance so brain implant doesn't drive us all crazy, which is what it does. emily: what are your biggest fears right now? you point out it's not just about the president. he has plenty of followers who are still on these platforms and they are angry. what are you most afraid of at this moment of the social dilemma? afraid of'm simply this driving even more polarization. people in this country, it looks like a digital act of war has happened. i worry about what response that

will generate if it is not immediately pull back into a democratic conversation. what is the way to govern the digital world that we are all participating in? works atelect who twitter or facebook. we need to have some kind of democratic process. then you get into conversations about the global process. what would be democratically elected to govern the u.s. sphere is different from other countries. this is really just a need for accelerating the conversation about what do humane and democratic platforms that will become our digital environment, what are the means for them to serve the public interest? they cannot have a business model based on manipulating our attention. emily: assuming that business model is not going to change

before inauguration day, what do you think happens in a post trump world? what do the social networks look like, and how do they change? tristan: i think we are all finding this out. many people have been talking for a long time about d platform and trump and people are wondering what will the consequences be? it's a very complex system. it's led to much more polarization, modern -- monitoring the reaction of the left and right to all this. i worry about conflicts. how do we actually not take an action that only drives up a heightened counter response? there is too much unilateral reaction that drives up the level of escalation on the others. forlooking at models de-escalation. that's what we need to be looking at. i don't think anybody knows what

exactly happened. with this business model, unless you wake up from this 10-year , there is a digital psychosis in which our minds are divided against themselves. ground aboutmon while we lost common grounds. emily: you've offered many solutions, aal digital constitution, a change in the business model. we always appreciate your very reasoned and thoughtful views here. thank you so much. coming up, how people get their news, by the way, is changing. putting a lot of power into the hands of technology. one new platform about the future of public media, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: when it comes to news, accurate reporting has never been more important private with political passions sweeping the nation on all sides, any have looked to alternative means to get the most up-to-date information. by chris best. thank you so much for joining us. i know a few prominent journalists who have left their respectful news organizations to newsletter,own their own audiences. talk to us about what you have to offer readers and journalists in such a to much will -- such a tumultuous time in the news business. subscriptione a

publishing platform for independent writers. we are hearing a lot about how kind of the business model that pays for a lot of the things that we read online is one of distortedauses of the information environment that we find ourselves in. that's kind of the same reason we started sub stack. if you're going to have everyone advertising, how could a better system work? businessan alternative model where readers subscribe directly to writers they trust and they pay them directly. fire the riders that they trust, and is kind of an alternate ecosystem to support social media as we know it. emily: what kind of resources do you provide? you don't provide editing or moderation or advice, right?

chris: we do provide some advice. we have an all-in-one software. if you are an independent writer that's going out by yourself, you can use the tool that publish email and puts everything in the right format. it makes the entire process really easy. we say if you are a writer, --in tyke -- type in the box come and type in the box. we have some additional services that layer on top of that. have some legal advice. don't provide editors, but people can hire their own editors and that works really well. emily: if you are raising journalistic and individual voices that are subject to the same fact checking and sometimes the your rocker see and red tape you find at traditional news organizations, are you concerned about leading to increasing polarization at a time when our country is so polarized?

miss information and click bait are so rampant. chris: we think about that stuff a lot. we think the substack model helps make that a lot better. tosubstack, the thing i have work towards his earning and keeping the trust of the people who are subscribing. i don't have an incentive to be deliberately polarizing or provoking or playing into the outrage game. i have to convince my readers that i am a thoughtful person that is worth reading. that difference in incentives leads to much better work. emily: you would think at a time like this that more readers might be flocking to authoritative new service -- new sources. transition and how we get our news and what we want to see and read, as

president trump presumably leaves office. driven a lot of the news cycle. i wonder where you think the news industry and substack in it, how does the news business evolve over the next years? chris: i think a lot of people have lost faith in what they used to think of as authoritative new sources. been of places have playing the same unfortunate engagementimizing and outrage in all these things. i think people are hungry for something different. they are hungry for something they believe they can trust and they are increasingly -- they don't know where to find that. that letke substack writers go independent and have their own platform, their own voice, is a very powerful solution to that. emily: what are the kind of

popular rising trends on substack? genres, forular example, local news has been kind of dying a slow death. i wonder what void you think substack will fill. chris: there is a rich diversity .f people on substack it tends to be people that have a point of view that people trust and want to hear more from. we're seeing a lot of politics. dispatches kind of a center-right, independent -- they are building a whole media business on top of substack. filling a void with a trustworthy voice that helps you make sense of all the craziness that is going on is definitely something we see a lot of demand for right now. emily: we will continue to follow your progress.

chris best, founder and ceo of substack. coming up, would you pay more to reduce your bloomberg rides carbon footprint? we will look at one of the new green initiatives hitting the ride-hailing app, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

joining theis pandemic sites, partnering with a dharna to provide vaccine information to riders and even help schedule rides to appointments. will send inapt messages in the u.s. and expect to expand the program to more of uber's 78

million users across the globe in coming months. more news from uber. know --u pay extra to they have a myriad of initiatives aimed at their goal selecting a more environmentally friendly ride with the addition of a one dollar surcharge. adam, thank you so much for joining us. if i pay one dollar extra for my uber, mike green uber, what does that mean? set the context of why you would pay a dollar. a fully is to build zero emission multimodal platform by 2040. we decided during the covid more cleanat we need

air and zero emissions. we committed to being part of the solution for a green recovery. taking action to make more, low emission products s and uberto rider green is our first step. key to strength is giving drivers affordable access to electric vehicles. it's a critical component. the third part is it cannot just be about uber green and electric vehicles, it has to be multimodal. we've doubled down on her partnerships with transit agencies, and the last part is transparency. i cannot tell you where we are

going unless i can tell you where we are. we need to see where our emissions are today and how we get to zero tomorrow. emily: i'm sure you've done a lot of research on this. how likely do you think consumers and riders are to pay that extra dollar? drivers, the the drivers face substantial barriers to access to electric vehicles. where we started in the u.s. and morea, for just a dollar you get a substantially lower emission ride in the dryer immediately gets $.50 of that dollar. the other $.50 goes into a fund that other drivers can access. in europe we see a different

policy context and the governments are more bullish on ev's. a couple of key cities like london and paris have particularly bullish policies. we have a clean air plan that charge all writers and -- allriders. approachaking a bold that generates more clean and electric vehicles. emily: we've got about a minute left. you're also adding more multimodal transportation features, more public transportation features, helping people use multiple forms of transportation including uber from point a to point b. could that potentially undermine uber? riders are looking for more options behind -- beyond

the car they own or don't own. as we think about the long-term goals of european car ownership, ridesharing and on-demand solutions are complementary components and we are excited to be expanding our options and public transportation today. emily: we will catch up in nine years with you at the very latest, adam, as you work toward zero emissions by 2040. thanks so much for joining us. that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." i'm emily chang in san francisco. this is bloomberg. ♪

haidi: asia's major market opens. kathleen: welcome to "daybreak: asia." movechment proceedings forward against president trump as he says there is zero risk of the 25th amendment being used to remove him. we have the very latest from washington.