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tv   CNN Special Report  CNN  August 16, 2019 6:00pm-7:45pm PDT

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people worked at his resort. it's possible. it doesn't seem likely that the president himself made that because, you know, time is spelled correctly. as for the bogus michigan man of the year award, citizen trump gave a speech at a local county dinner back in 2013 where he most definitely was not named michigan of that year or any other year but that's the best theory as to where the president first gave himself the invisible crown. and if you're waiting for him to clear things up, good luck to you. in president trump's world, every year is his year in michigan, washington and on the ridiculist. that's it for us. the age of amazon starts now. >> announcer: the following is a cnn special report. ♪ >> hi, there, who are you? >> i'm jeff bezos.
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>> what is your claim to fame? >> i'm the founder of amazon.com. >> what began as an online bookstore -- >> a millennia from now, people are going to look back and say wow. >> -- has become a virtual empire. >> amazon really is arguably the most successful company in the history of business. >> wow, that's saying a lot. >> this is the beginning of e-commerce. >> you guys didn't even know if this thing was going to work. >> we had a pretty good instinct. >> if you make the best service online, people will come. >> this is a company that wants to control the infrastructure. >> as computers continue to get cheaper, we will layer innovation on top of that. >> it's plausible that amazon will know you better than you know yourself. >> alexa. >> it's in our homes. >> should people trust that it won't be used against them in some way that they don't authorize? >> absolutely. >> at our fingertips?
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>> amazon web services took over the web basically in a decade. >> does having that much power give you pause? >> that's a significant responsibility. we're aware of that. >> and now it fuels our economy. >> amazon is america's second trillion dollar company now. >> the company is now worth almost as much as the entire economy of australia. >> is amazon too big? >> i don't think amazon is too big. >> i think they have monopoly power. >> amazon has become an invasive species. >> so you think amazon should be broken up. >> oh, 100%. >> a journey. >> it's a business miracle. >> and a leader unlike any other. >> this is blue moon. >> i asked people at amazon to wake up every morning afraid, wake up terrified, be afraid of our customers. those are the people we have to pay attention to. >> a cnn special report. >> i can guarantee you one thing, it will be fun. >> "the age of amazon."
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♪ >> how has the retail industry changed during this rise of amazon? >> well, you have this great white shark that's kind of looming offshore. >> great white shark? >> this thing does and can eat everything. >> despite holding only a small fraction of global retail sales, today amazon takes claim for nearly 50 cents of every dollar spent in online e-commerce in the united states, an astounding market dominance. you've called what jeff bezos has built a miracle. >> miracle. it's one of the -- maybe the greatest before it gets all
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through. >> legendary investor warren buffett called himself an it yac idiot for not investing in amazon earlier. warren buffett told me just a few weeks ago, the rise of amazon in his view is a miracle. is it a miracle? >> it's a business miracle. you wouldn't thought that almost a trillion dollar company would be formed in 25 years, that it would disrupt so many different things and create so many different things and it's still a growing machine. so, yeah, it's a business miracle. >> miracle seems like it's an act of god and amazon has been anything but. i think it's the application of business wisdom over a long period of time. >> brad stone has been studying
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amazon and writing about its growth since the late 90s. >> you're writing another book about amazon. where does that bik up? >> the everything store and in about 2011, and there was so much story left to tell. the company is about four times larger than it was then and so much has happened. >> in addition to selling millions of products, amazon also manufacturers thousands of its own products for the amazon marketplace. everything from batteries to luggage to motor oil. >> more than half of what sold on amazon comes from a contribution of mom and pop sellers to bigger operation that is are selling directly to amazon customers on their own and amazon is just taking a cut. >> a seller, a manufacturer, a marketplace and just the beginning of amazon's reach.
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>> they're making investments in health care. >> you're trying to fix that, make it better with jamie diamond and jeff bezos. what should america expect the three of you can do on health care? >> we'll do our best. it's a $3.4 trillion industry. >> in finance. >> what would your over/under be on amazon becoming a bank one day? >> i think it's -- i really don't know. >> even a category like online advertising, they're the third biggest platform for ads in the u.s. only after google and facebook. >> television, who's the second largest spender on television in the world right now, amazon. >> how big do you guys want to be? >> it has been reported that amazon spends $5 billion a year on original and licensed
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content. am i in the ballpark. >> i can't confirm nor deny that. >> okay. >> the most innovative product is amazon's alexa device. >> alexa, turn on the shower. >> whether they're bumping up against, anywhere they're bumping up against other big players, they're winning. >> they're also shipping. amazon has amassed its own logistics empire with an expanding fleet of trucks, planes, drones, robots and of course warehouses, hundreds of warehouses. >> it makes same-day possible and makes next-day delivery possible. >> there are some who say that amazon killed traditional retail. how do you see it? >> we're trying to do is invent
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for customers. we look at things that we can make better by innovation. >> i would describe amazon in medical terms, an opportunist infection. were some of these companies going out of business anyways, yeah, but amazon made the decline much faster. >> in part, by reimagining the physical store experience with their own amazon-branded retail stores. >> amazon is now the only firm in the world that can really perform consistently what i refer to is jedi mind tricks. when they announced the acquisition of whole foods, kroger declined a third. >> stacey mitchell is codirector of the institute for local self-reliance, a non-profit that
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studies economic concentration. >> a handful of big companies have taken over large swaths of our economy. >> we try to understand amazon by talking about all of the different businesses it's in. this is a company that wants to control the infrastructure, the rails that other companies need to use in order to get to market. >> the infrastructure -- >> infrastructure lets entrepreneurs do amazing things. >> in addition to the retail platform, the cloud is another area that's infrastructure. >> speed is really important part of the culture at amazon. >> we're trying to enable really any company or any government to run their technology infrastructure on top of our technology infrastructure platform. >> the lesser known part of amazon, amazon's cloud business has been instrumental to the company's bottom line. >> amazon web services took over
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the web basically in a decade. >> when technology journalist started noticing the growing footprint of amazon in her family's life, she decided to try an experiment, to live without amazon. >> i worked with this technologist who built a tool for me that just prevented any of my dwevices from talking to amazon servers. that prevented me from using amazon web services. >> not surprising given that aws powers one-third of the world's cloud. >> netflix, the cia all rely on amazon web services. >> it's impossible to avoid. >> amazon has become an invasive species, 100%. >> next, how bezos did it. >> hong kong, japan, australia.
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talking about. >> that person was jeff bezos's biological father. >> i was like, well, he's your son. and he was perplexed. and i said when you were in high school, you know, you had a son named jeff. and he said, is he still alive? and i was like, yeah, he's one of the wealthiest guys in the world. >> jeff bezos was born in new mexico in 1964. his mother was a junior in high school when she and her boyfriend became parents. >> she doesn't talk about it that much, my mom had me when she was 17 years old. i'm pretty sure that wasn't cool in 1964 to be a pregnant mom in high school. >> but by the time jeff turned two, his mother and boyfriend had split up. and jackie was left to raise her son on her own. >> look at jeff. look at that hair and the
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glasses. >> one of bezos's closest friends from high school remembers jackie as a loving and determined mother. >> jackie is the toughest, hardest working person i've ever met and the most loyal, and jeff gets that from jackie. >> jackie bezos was clearly the force in jeff's life. a fiercely protective mother who got jeff into the best schools and got him the best opportunities and she also recognized i think jeff's abilities early on. >> jackie and jeff wouldn't be a family of two for long. soon, jackie would fall in love with a cuban immigrant. they married when jeff was 4. >> my father adopted me when i was about 4 years old. i have the world's best dad. >> jeff bezos is an outstanding student. >> bezos's academic ambitions
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would lead him to the top of his high school class and then to princeton university. >> i went to princeton specifically to study physics, but a couple of years into it, i realized that i wasn't smart enough to be a physicist. and then i transferred to computer science which i loved and never looked back. >> after college, bezos landed on wall street, at the hedge fund de shaw where he would mean his soon to be wife, mackenzie. >> he called me up one day and said i'm getting married. and i said to who? >> just six months after they began dating, bezos and mackenzie were married and bezos continued to rise through the ranks where he began to explore a new medium, the internet. >> it spans the globe like a
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superhighway. it's called internet. >> i started looking at the internet and i found this incredible fact. >> jeff bezos saw that web activity has jumped 230,000% in a short period of time. that was the ding, ding, ding in his head. >> i think he was able to see that the web was growing and it would create a new set of business opportunities. >> jeff called me and he said, mackenzie and i are quitting our jobs and we're moving to seattle and we're starting a company. and i said, great, what are you going to do? he said we're going to sell books. i said nice. he said on the internet. i said cool. what's the internet? >> in 1994, then 30-year-old jeff bezos ditched his wall street job, borrowed his father's car and drove with his wife mackenzie to bellevue, washington, just outside seattle. and inside that garage, jeff
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bezos started his own company, an online bookstore. by the end of the year, that company had a name, amazon. >> i went to www.amazon.com and started searching for books and was immediately hooked. >> thank you for calling amazon.com. >> by the time she was hired in 1996 to run marketing, amazon headquarters had moved from the bezos' garage to actual offices in downtown seattle. >> it was a start-up feel. the first building, it was a dump. jeff thought it was too fancy for us. there was no air-conditioning. stained carpets, but we loved it. >> the first thing that you did when you started at amazon is you built your own desk. >> greg joined amazon in 1997, working in product management
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and marketing for books. today he runs amazon into hollywood, prime video. >> tell people what door desks are. >> it was frugal. it's a good symbol of the mind set that jeff wanted to create. we had to be resourceful and creative. >> but in order to expand beyond books, way beyond books, bezos needed capital and a lot of it. >> amazon.com jumped $5 on its first day of trading. >> in the middle of the dot com frenzy, amazon went public. >> this is day one. this is the very beginning. >> day one. it's always day one became the bosem bezos mantra.
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>> i like babe ruth calling his home run shot. >> bezos would stick to that long-term thinking, even during amazon's toughest times. >> amazon's stock has lost much of its luster. >> amazon price stock price tumbled losing more than 90% of its value in the next two years. >> there were famous analysts who said amazon would run out of money. but it was a hard time, they were losing a lot of executives. >> our first announcement is a complete video game store. >> facing intense pressure, bezos pushed ahead right into new markets. >> tomorrow, we launched these four new stores. >> people were amazingly customer focused. they felt like they were inventing and breaking new ground. >> but with new inventory came
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new problems. how to store and ship all of it. so you're referred to as the other jeff. >> that's my name. i think it's great. i grew up as a programmer, that's me. >> jeff has been with amazon for 20 years and rarely gives television interviews. he's one of bezos' top executives. but back in 1999 when he first joined amazon, he used his background in manufacturing to transform amazon delivery into what would become amazon prime. >> you guys didn't even know if this thing was going to work, true? >> we didn't know for sure that customers would love it, but we had a pretty good instinct. >> both of you, both jeffs are big risk-takers. is that right? >> i think. i think prime, at the time, was a big risk. >> today it's estimated that more than half of u.s.
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households are prime members. >> what should that tell us about how important prime is to amazon's success? >> i think it's very important. but it's not the only thing that's important for its success. >> they say about you that you're the most powerful man in the cloud. do you like that description? >> the man behind amazon's cloud next. family, starting with unlimited data. use as much as you want, when you want. and if you like netflix, it's included on us. plus no surprises on your bill. taxes and fees are included. and now for a limited time, with each new line, get one of our latest smartphones included. that's right, only $40/line for four lines and smartphones are included for the whole family.
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♪ jeff bezos, the richest man in the world, but they say about you that you're the most powerful man in the cloud. do you like that description? >> i don't think of it that way. >> in the heart of amazon's seattle campus i met with andy
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jassy, one of jeff bezos's top leaders, the ceo of aws, the man who built amazon's cloud. >> we're in the spheres which is kind of an amazing place when you look around. it's a place that amazonens can come and do work. it's really nice to be able to get away from what you're doing every day and be inspired by what's around you. >> whose idea was this? >> i think it was jeff's idea. >> but amazon web services, that was jassy's idea. an idea so powerful, it's now perhaps amazon's most valuable business. >> it generates an unusual amount of margin for amazon. >> the best margins for amazon, period. >> and it's changed enterprise computing. >> i think it is fair to say
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many people watching this have no idea what aws is. where did it come from? >> there were a few things going on that made us think that this was an interesting idea. >> most notably, jassy realized that in order to continue experimenting and expanding, amazon's computing technology would have to move a lot faster. >> if you need a server to try and experiment, typically it takes you 10 to 18 weeks to get that server. with the cloud, you can spin off thousands of servers in minutes. we figured if we needed it, other companies needed it as well. >> in the same way that amazon transformed the speed of shipping physical products, aws has done the same for data. >> the cloud is not up there, it's in machines sitting on the ground all around the world and
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they're storing all of this content and shipping it out to web users. >> what strikes me is that it worked and then you had a seven-year lead on all of your competitors. >> this is like the greatest piece of business luck in the history of business so far as i know. >> why did no one follow quickly? >> it's a really good question and i don't know if we know the answer for sure. in the beginning, a lot of companies would pooh-pooh the cloud and say no one was going to use it for interesting. when the value proposition is that good, you can howl at the wind all you want, but you can't fight gravity. >> 13 years later, the cloud is now a $70 billion industry. and while competitors have emerged, amazon continues to dominate with a seemingly endless list of customers from fortune 500 companies to, yes,
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cnn, even secretive government agencies, including the cia. >> the cloud is crucial to the economy, it's now crucial to national security. do you think there should be more federal regulation of it? >> governments are going to make their own decisions on what they feel like they need to regulate and what they feel like they don't need to regulate. and we expect governments will want to understand how we're operating as more and more workloads are being put on top of aws. >> for now, the federal government is busy deciding how much more of the nation's most sensitive data it wants to place in amazon's hands. >> we think it's sbimportant fo the department of defense to have access to the most
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cutting-edge technology. we have over 3,000 government agencies using aws. that's a significant responsible. we're aware of that. >> but most americans are not aware of the extent to which our government, our economy, and our homes now rely on amazon. >> alexa, popcorn. >> starting popcorn. >> although a vastly different kind of technology, alexa, like the cloud, has unleashed its own revolution. >> we launched with 13 skills. now we have over 80,000 skills. alexa can do over a million things. >> tony reed has been with amazon for 21 years and headed alexa's introduction to the world. >> you have said that voice is the technology that in your words we didn't know we needed. why? >> it's so natural. this is our natural user interface. >> voice is going to quickly
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emerge as one of the primary ways that we interface with machines. and this is happening faster than a lot of analysts even projected. >> alexa, tell me the news on cnn. >> what it means is that we are talking more than we're typing. and if it's the case, then we have a very close and personal relationship with these companies. but how close is too close and who exactly is listening? >> alexa, stop. >> what does and doesn't alexa record? >> alexa only records after she hears the wake word. >> who at amazon hears what i tell alexa. >> a small group of people who do some ground truthing. they take very small subsets so help train the models that go back into improving speech
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technology. >> there are people on the other end. >> this man is one of them, during his seven-month contract at amazon, he analyzed alexa commands gone wrong. he works in artificial intelligence at microsoft. >> amazon is listening to what you tell alexa. i believe that everything that they do is based on quality assurance. but people should know that. i think that that is something that is not advertised. >> what do you say to those folks who think, oh, my gosh, someone is listening to me? >> it's important for customers to understand that -- we're not listening to them. it's a very, very small percentage that is carved off for ensuring that the models are doing -- that they're supposed to do. >> but if you're one of the estimated 66 million americans
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who use a voice assistance speaker, you know that voice technology today is far from perfect. >> many people have heard the story of the couples' conversation that got recorded without them triggering alexa and emailed to a contact of theirs. how does something like that happen? >> in that particular case alexa did what it thought the customer was intending alexa to do. and in the end, we still got it wrong. they're defects from us and we try to learn from those. >> is there a day that you foresee where you can 100% guarantee that won't happen again? >> there's no technology that works 100% of the time. we should strive towards that, which we are. >> i think the problem is the law. we have a very weak legal
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framework around privacy that doesn't give consumers a lot of rights unless you're monitoring the traffic, your network, you can't know what's happening in the background. you have to trust what the company is telling you they're doing. >> should people trust that if parts of their conversation are listened to, that it won't be used against them in some way that they don't authorize? >> absolutely. >> next. >> the most important thing that we've done over the last 20 years is earn trust with customers. >> but is that trust in amazon eroding? >> i think they have monopoly power.
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♪ i think the most important thing that we've done over the last 20 years is earn trust with customers. we've worked hard to do that. [ applause ] >> today, americans trust amazon with just about everything. >> if you're a consumer, it's hard not to love amazon. >> according to a 2018 study, amazon is the second-most trusted institution in the country, second only to the u.s. military. >> is there any sign that that trust is eroding? >> i think there's a general erosion of trust across all of big tech. >> companies like amazon that made billions of profits did not pay one nickel in federal income tax. >> how is it that amazon is paying less than taxes than you and your family. >> technically it's more
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complicated. amazon does pay state taxes and it has paid federal taxes in the past, but it's taken advantage of tax breaks. >> we pay all of the taxes we're required to pay. we pay 2.6 billion in cash taxes in the last two years. if last year we paid no tax, it was because the law required us to pay no tax. since 2011 we've invested $200 billion in the u.s. in infrastructure for fulfillment and solar farms and wind farms, these are the kinds of investment that is the tax code was trying to stimulate, but that ends up being a deduction that means we didn't pay any tax last year. >> but it's not just taxes that have people questioning amazon's business practices.
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in 2017, yale law student published amazon's anti-trust paradox, a paper in the yale law journal that reframed the national conversation on anti-trust law in america. >> when you have a situation when a single company is effectively able to set if terms of the marketplace, that's a situation where we should worry about the market not being competitive. >> critics argue that amazon's platform has become so dominant, anyone looking to sell products online is practically forced to sell there. >> if you want to reach consumers online and you're not selling on amazon, you're giving up half the market right out of the gate. >> questions have been raised about the data amazon collects from all of its marketplace sellers. >> we see amazon mines their data, watches what they're selling well and becomes a seller in the category itself. it's a very difficult environment in order to succeed
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in. >> but the man in charge of the amazon marketplace sees it much differently. >> we don't use any data about specific items that's not available to the world by just looking at our website. >> which may be true, but amazon knows how to access and analyze its data better than anyone else. >> does amazon give priority to its private label in search? >> we prioritize the things that customer wants. >> in a recent hearing on capitol hill, an amazon attorney went a step further and categorically denied the claim. >> we do not use their individual data when we're making decisions to launch private brands. our incentive is to help the seller succeed. >> third-party vendors make up more than half of amazon's online sellers helping to fuel its dominance. >> worldwide retail is something like $30 trillion.
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we're about 1% of that. >> you're about 1% of worldwide retail, but you're about 50% of u.s. e-commerce. >> no customer that i've talked to wakes up in the morning and says, what am i going to buy from e-commerce today and then says what am i going to buy from the store today. they say, what do i need or what do i want. >> what do you say to folks who say i like amazon, but it did kill mom and pop shops. >> i don't think it killed mom and pop shops. there's plenty of evidence that mom and pop shops are thriving. >> but according to a study by the institute for local self-reliance, 90% of more than 850 small businesses surveyed say amazon has had a negative impact on their revenue. >> we've seen this sharp decline in the number of small businesses across a lot of different industries. we're now creating new businesses at about one-third the rate we were in the 1980s. >> and washington has started to
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take notice. the justice department announced it is conducting a broad anti-trust review of the online marketplace while congress has also launched its own investigation of big tech including amazon. >> i think they're behaving like a monopoly. like they have monopoly power. >> the internet that has become increasingly -- >> david cicilline is leading the probe. >> we can set the statutory framework and provide the resources and the regulatory guidance to make certain that competition exists in all of these spaces. >> regulators in europe have had their eyes on big tech for some time. >> amazon has to repay the tax benefit -- >> this past july, the eu's top anti-trust official, formally
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launched an investigation of amazon's marketplace. so i asked the ceo of consumer for amazon flat-out, does amazon give priority to its private label in search and he said to me, we prioritize things that customers want. >> we don't take what you say for granted. we want to see the evidence. and a lot of people who want to sell what people want. so we would like to see, how does this dual relationship work that you're both the host and the competitor. that's the key question here. >> if you're jeff bezos, how freaked out would you be about european regulators right now? >> i think they are freaked out. >> you think that amazon should be broken up. >> 100%. >> we have intense competition everywhere in the world, in every one of our businesses. the main question for me is why? >> is amazon too big? >> i don't think amazon is too big and i think if you look at most of the business segments in
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which we operate, we're a relatively small percentage of the total market segment. >> what do you make of the calls to break up amazon? >> i think that's a silly idea and concept. amazon is doing a lot of good things for a lot of people. they have a lot of competitors. >> one of those potential competitors is jamie diamond, ceo of america's largest bank. >> jeff bezos tried to hire you. >> yeah. >> we first had lunch and we hit it off and we've been friends ever since. >> are you more partners or competitors with amazon? >> we're partners. we do business together. we have -- >> i know. >> we do a bunch of stuff. >> since 2002, j.p. morgan chase has partnered with amazon on a consumer credit card, yet dooimd remains acutely aware of amazon's ability to disrupt new markets. >> you did create a team, i think it was 2017, to think about amazon. >> it was all of them. >> all of the internet giants.
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>> all of them. what would you do? how would you look at it? how might we want to partner? >> competitor, partner, or both, diamond warns that the days of an unregulated tech industry may be numbered. >> what's coming? >> i'm not warning them like they're bad. i'm saying they better get ready for this. if they're not geared up for that, i think they are gearing up for it, they should be. >> for his part, jeff bezos seems confident in his company's ability to battle whatever storm may be coming. >> we are so inventive that whatever regulations are promulgated or however it works, that will not stop us from serving customers. >> have a good weekend. ♪ ♪ ♪
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i'm tom steyer and i approve this message. i'm running for president because unlike other candidates, i can go head to head with donald trump on the economy, and expose him fo what he is: a fraud and a failure. hi, do you have a travel card? we do! the discover it® miles card. earn unlimited 1.5 miles on every purchase, plus we'll match your miles at the end of your first year. you'll match my miles? yeah! mile for mile! and no blackout dates or annual fee.
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where are we? this is iconic. >> culver studios. this is the "gone with the wind" house. >> it's now the home of amazon prime video. >> it's the home of amazon prime video, exactly. >> the worldwide vice president of prime video, amazon's video streaming service. ♪ i'm just a man who came up with that idea? to create the video? >> jeff said, what if we licensed a bunch of content and made it available at no additional charge to prime members? and everyone sort of looked at each other and looked at him and thought, okay, that's an interesting idea. people play come fmay come for g but stay for the entertainment. >> is the goal to win oscars or sell more paper towels? >> people who engage with prime video convert from free trials
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to paid membership at a higher rate, renew their memberships at a higher rate and shop more. >> did you know it was going to work? >> of course, not. ♪ >> this phone is gorgeous. i can't wait for you to get your hands on it. >> in jeff bezos' mind, any risk on behalf of the customer is a risk worth taking. >> when we've made mistakes, we made doozies like the fire phone and many things that didn't work out, we don't have enough time for me to list all of our failed experiments, but the big winners pay for thousands of failed experiments. >> back in 2009, hart who has been with amazon since 1997, got a behind-the-scenes take on how the amazon founder thinks, spending two years in a coveted role as bezos' shadow. what's the most important lesson jeff bezos taught you during that time? >> the incredibly high standards he has for what amazon is capable and what the people of
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amazon -- >> you think the bar is higher, it can be higher. >> exactly. >> the secret sauce of amazon, the number one thing that's made us successful by far is obsessive compulsive focus on the customer as opposed to obsession over the competitor. >> when you look at amazon and jeff, they're always -- that is so paramount and, you know, transcends almost all other things so you learn from that. >> has he affected the way you run your bank? >> oh, sure. we had a bunch of products and services where you click on it, you have to wait a second. and we didn't really think about it very much until i was reading something about amazon. i said, my god, we're just -- we got to be much faster. >> we're too slow. >> we're too slow. >> that exacting culture has brought amazon extraordinary customer satisfaction, it has also brought on harsh criticism from some of its workers. >> the culture is competitive and cutthroat, i would say. >> mt. everest, 29,029 feet.
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>> antonio pettit worked on a seven-month contract for amazon's alexa team. >> not a lot of care seems to be taken to ensure that, you know, people aren't just burning out working there. that's what i see not always taken into account is the cost of having this convenience is oftentimes built on the backs of the people who are working at amazon. >> talk a little bit about the culture. there was that 2015 "new york times" article about culture here at amazon. and employees saying that it can be cut-throat and can be relentless. when you read that, what did you think? >> i think it was quite skewed and i think if you have a company with several hundred thousand people like we do, if you want to write a certain perspective, find some people to support it, you can really write almost anything you want. >> but the "times" interviewed more than 100 current and former amazon employees including executives across departments. describing, quote, sometimes
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punishing aspects of their workplace. complaints have also come from workers at fulfillment centers. >> these jobs are hard. you know, people are standing in the same spot for eight, ten, hours a day, maybe during peak season. there are complaints about limited breaks. there are complaints about just the quotas and the goals. >> just this past july, warehouse workers in minnesota launched a prime day strike during one of amazon's busiest days of the year. you're aware of some of the criticism that some amazon employees have brought against the company from poor working conditions to increased pressure at the time, get it done, get it done, get it done. what's your response to that? >> that doesn't in total describe the experience that i helped to build. one of the things that we did was bring the safety programs from the best manufacturers in
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the world into retail which hadn't been done before. the benefits that folks in the warehouses and fulfillment centers get are the same benefits that my family has access to. >> amazon also raised wages in 2018 for all u.s. workers to at least $is15 an hour following pressure from lawmakers including congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez and senator bernie sanders who at the time praised amazon's decision. >> i want to give credit where credit is due. i want to congratulate mr. bezos for doing exactly the right thing. >> in bezos' words, we listened to our critics. critics have also called on amazon to increase diversity at its highest levels of leadership. would amazon arguably be even more successful if it had more women, more minorities, near the top? >> no doubt. women are the primary shoppers that it's a huge part of their
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business. so the fact that it hasn't been a male-driven organization probably does create some blind spots. >> if you look below jeff's leadership level, there are very, very influential, important, women but do we want and need more? absolutely. and especially in the pockets where we know we can improve. >> improving and maintaining amazon's company culture has kept many employees like andy from ever leaf iving. >> i've been at the company for 22 years now and i would tell you the culture is the primary reason i remain here. it is a place where you're encouraged to think creatively, where there is no ceiling to what you can pursue, where we're willing to make big investments and make big bets and commit to them for long periods of time. >> a uniquely amazonian culture. made possible by bezos'
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relentless focus on the future. >> i get to invent, i get to live two to three years in the future. >> is there something about jeff bezos that makes him markedly different than almost any other leader on the planet? >> you become a good outlier, end up being a great inventor, great thinker, great team builder and obviously very flexible. that's kind of rare. coming up, how amazon transformed seattle. >> i think you'll find a lot of people here will be very angry at amazon.
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♪ in downtown seattle, you can hardly turn a corner without seei seeing or hearing amazon's impact. >> amazon has taken over. >> i call it amazonville. >> in 2010, you know, i think we had 30% unemployment in the construction trades. i think people were saying, boy, wouldn't it be noin nooice to h cranes? by 2013 people were saying what's up with all the cranes? >> for as many cranes as there are in seattle today, there are just as many perspectives. on what amazon's growth has meant for the city. >> amazon has impacted us in a positive way. >> it's a positive and a negative. >> jobs. opportunity. >> i think it's beautiful. >> does nothing to help the city at all. >> it's growing fast. >> just takes and takes and takes. >> i think you'll find a lot of people here will be very angry at amazon. >> mike mcginn was elected mayor
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of seattle in 2009. right as amazon's downtown expansion was accelerating. >> we all knew there was going to be an expansion, but i think, we said, boy, they might go from 5,000 employees to 20,000. but they went to 45,000. >> after losing a re-election bid in 2013, mcginn ran for mayor again in 2017 and lost to a candidate who received money from a pac supported by amazon. isn't amazon largely responsible for much of the job growth during your term as mayor? >> actually, we saw job growth in many places and, again, that's a positive. we wanted that job growth. >> but a lot from amazon. >> sure. it's a lot from amazon. >> amazon's growth in seattle has been good for business, been good for the flower shop, the barbershop. there's a ripple effect that creates economic opportunity for others. >> opportunity, however, not shared by all. >> it's greatly impacted the
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cost of living with rent. especially. pushing people out, especially from neighborhoods like this. >> from a business point of view, i realized the wheels of progress have to keep turning. on the other side, it does not make the people who are being pushed out feel very good about it. >> got a big imbalance in seattle between the number of jobs that we've created and welcomed here and the amount of housing that we built so when you have that imbalance, you're going to get an affordability crisis. we have one today in seattle. >> since 2010, the number of homeless in seattle has increased nearly 34%. to address the crisis, the city council proposed a head tax in 2017 that would tax seattle's biggest companies $275 per employee. but heavy resistance from amazon and the seattle business community led that same city council to reverse its decision. ultimately killing the funding measure. >> i would say that, you know,
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things like the head tax in seattle i think are super dangerous for cities to implement. >> they fought it. >> they fought it hard. and they won. >> it is no surprise to me that amazon -- >> council member. >> sawant is a city council member and one of the few elected socialists in the country. she was a leading voice in the movement to pass seattle's minimum wage increase in 2014. and most recently -- >> amazon and other big corporations -- >> -- a vocal proponent of the head tax. >> amazon has got to pay! amazon has got to pay! it's very clear to ordinary people in seattle that we need a tax on big business like amazon. big business, big tech, big developers, make all the profits and are making life unlivable for the rest of us in this city. >> do you think amazon's done enough to cushion the impact of its growth on home prices in
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seattle? >> well, first of all, our objective was to take care of customers so if we've been successful at that, which means we've needed to higher more employees and build out our headquarters, that's a good thing. it's not like we built this headquarters under a shroud and ripped it off and said, you know, ta-da. this was built over years. so the community had the time with us to, you know, to plan for this growth. i believe that we'll -- the city of seattle working with us, we'll get this right. we want to be a great corporate citizen. >> in addition to mary's place, a permanent homeless shelter set to open inside one of amazon's new buildings, amazon announced $8 million more in donations to homeless charities. still, some say, for one of the richest companies in the world, it needs to do more. >> they are going to do what
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they want for their bottom line. if you want something that is socially beneficial, we are going to have to fight for it as ordinary people. look at what happened in new york city. >> in the fall of 2017, amazon decided it wanted a new place to call home. a second north american headquarters. and in typical jeff bezos fashion, they weren't just going to pick a city like most companies. amazon would hold a year-long competition but the seemingly irresistible prize, amazon's hq2 and the potential for 50,000 new jobs. >> much like amazon, las vegas is truly unique. >> after a 14-month search and more than 200 bids from cities across the country -- >> new york and virginia were the big winners of the amazon hq2 hunger games. >> eye-popping incentives for amazon including a helipad at its planned new york location. >> amazon has got to go! >> but in queens, new york, the winners high wore off quickly.
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days after the announcement, vocal residents, union and community leaders, led protests over the $3 billion tax break for their new neighbor. >> we're new yorkers. you can't walk all over us. >> because of the noise from lawmakers, amazon kind of decided to turn the car around. that it wasn't worth this fight. >> three months later, amazon abruptly canceled its plans for new york's hq2. >> we got a call this morning saying we're taking our ball and we're going home. i've never seen anything like it. >> think it's incredible. i mean, it shows that everyday americans still have the power to organize and fight for their communities. >> i think it's a big loss for new york city. >> i think if anything, amazon came away looking even more powerful. they were able to say no to new york city. >> plus, amazon wasn't faexactl walking away empty handed. >> they now have access to some -- >> all this data. >> all this data. >> frisco is prime to have you. >> there are over 200 cities
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across the country that bid on the hq2, and they put together these big packages of all of this information. things like where are future infrastructure investments going to go, what's the distribution of our population that has different kinds of education degrees? so now amazon has this information about all of these different cities and it's going to put that to really prodigious use in the coming years as it thinks about where to put a new warehouse or new office or retail store. no one else has that. >> r. coming up -- >> i wish them luck. it's going to be a beauty. >> amazon, jeff bezos, and the other washington. >> i think ownership of the post has risks for amazon as well as benefits. choosing my car insurance was the easiest decision ever. i switched to geico and saved hundreds. that's a win. but it's not the only reason i switched.
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cholesterol naturally, and it's odor-free, and pharmacist recommended. garlique it was 2013 and one of the country's leading newspapers was in serious trouble. >> the 2008 financial crisis was devastating. we'd been through a lot of recessions, but we'd never seen anything like this. >> the "washington post" had been owned by the graham family since 1933 but now it was struggling to survive. >> i was trying to figure out how a newspaper that had been successful in print could be successful in the digital world. >> so don graham, chairman of the "post" at the time, talked to everyone he could in silicon valley. >> i talked to steve jobs. i talked to gates. i talked to mark zuckerberg. i talked to the founders of
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google. i talked to jeff. over and over again. i remember that it was smart, sensible, and not full of himself. >> bezos came with the influential endorsement of warren buff fet. >> warren at that time was on our board. warren said jeff bezos is the best c oeo in the united states >> really? >> yaerngs. yeah. >> graham made an offer and bezos took it. >> in a surprise move the "washington post" is being sold to the founder and ceo of amazon.com, jeff bezos. >> it the newspaper in the capital city of the most important country in the world. the "washington post" has an incredibly important role to play in this democracy. i know that when i'm 90, it's going to be one of the things i'm most proud of. >> but skeptics wondered if bezos had a different strategy
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at play. >> i think his intentions are good. republican billionaires buy football teams. democratic billionaires buy newspaper. it's also a pretty different heat shield a, if a liberal newspaper is not if favor of antitrust against bezos, it's just a fantastic way to put sheep's clothing around a wolf. >> and over the next five years, bezos invested even more in the nation's capital. purchasing the largest home in the city. choosing its suburbs for amazon's second headquarters. and spending more on lobbying than any other tech company so far this year. >> amazon is one of the single most influential companies in washington. >> do you think owning the "washington post" has given bezos more clout among the political class here in washington? >> no. as the owner of amazon, jeff could hardly have more clout if he wanted to exercise it. but i see no evidence that jeff
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is using the "washington post" to advance any political interest. >> and current executives at the "post" have stated repeatedly that bezos is not involved in any editorial decisions. has it ever been a concern for you at all that the interest of amazon could have motivated the purchase of the "post"? >> i suppose that's possible but i think ownership of the "post" has risks for amazon as well as benefits. the risk is that when the "post" writes a negative article about a politician, about a government, it can make people unhappy. >> i think the "washington post" is a russian asset. it's put there for the benefit, the "washington post," of amazon. that's my opinion and i think it's a disgrace. >> president trump has made a habit of hurling unsubstantiated allegations at amazon and bezos on twitter. accusing him of lobbying through the "washington post." calling the paper "fake news"
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and claiming amazon is scamming the u.s. postal service. what started the beef between president trump and jeff bezos? >> i think fundamentally this is about the "washington post," it's a very influential newspaper. it's a paper that covers trump very critically, and rightly so. as a result, trump lashes out. >> i have seen other presidents do the same thing. >> from now on, no reporter from the "washington post" is ever to be in the white house. is that clear? >> there was a man named richard m. nixon who was very direct and very personal in what he felt about the "washington post" so president trump is doing what an awful lot of politicians have done over the years. >> earlier this year trump also took aim at bezos' personal life after the "national enquirer" leaked revealing text messages between bezos and the woman he was saying one day after he'd announced his separation from his wife, mackenzie.
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president trump weighed in. >> i wish him luck. it's going to be a beauty. >> bezos wrote in a medium post that he suspected politics might be in play in the "inquienquire reporting. >> he wanted to say so. the "enquirer" aim to him and said we have all these photos and could share it unless you stop accusing us of political motivations to the magazine wanted to shut bezos up. >> but instead bezos released emails from the "enquirer" to his team and accused them of blackmail anders torsion. >> i was shocked. i think a lot of people around him were shocked. this is not someone whose personal life had drawn a lot of attention. >> no. >> a situation that was extraordinary. >> in a statement, the tabloid told cnn, "the national enquirer" acted lawfully and stands by the racksy of our reporting." >> to this day it's still a mystery about exactly what happened with the "inquienquire" >> yet the scandal placed bezos
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in an entirely new light. >> i think he thought and probably believed pretty strongly that he was doing the right thing. by confronting this -- this abusive media power. >> i think it was handled brilliantly. i think there's a reservoir of good will toward jeff bezos because he's been seen as a responsible steward of the "washington post." i think his personal reputation has probably never been stronger. >> the "medium" post that surprised everyone with very serious allegations of blackm l blackmail. i'm interested if that has affected amazon at all or changed at all how he leads amazon. >> it hasn't changed how he leads. jeff is as engaged as he's been for years. this ideas are just as clever. i watched him give messages to our teams, all-hands meetings, smaller group messages, the messages are spot-on.
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he's the same jeff i worked alongside for 20 years and i hope he stays the same jeff. coming up, the future of amazon. it's plausible that amazon will pretty soon know you better than your spouse does, better than your kids do, better than you know yourself. fact is, every insurance company hopes you drive safely. but allstate actually helps you drive safely... with drivewise. it lets you know when you go too fast... ...and brake too hard. with feedback to help you drive safer. giving you the power to actually lower your cost. unfortunately, it can't do anything about that. now that you know the truth... are you in good hands? he borrowed billions donald trump failed as a businessman. and left a trail of bankruptcy and broken promises. he hasn't changed. i started a tiny investment business, and over 27 years,
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grew it successfully to 36 billion dollars. i'm tom steyer and i approve this message. i'm running for president because unlike other candidates, i can go head to head with donald trump on the economy, and expose him fo what he is: a fraud and a failure. we're pretty different. we're all unique in our own ways. somos muy diferentes. muy diferentes. (vo) verizon knows everyone in your family is different. there are so many of us doing so many different things. (vo) that's why verizon lets everyone
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ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, command start. >> in 2015 -- >> engine running. >> -- jeff bezos took a giant leap into a new frontier. >> and liftoff.
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>> jeff bezos recently said that blue origin, his space venture, is the most important thing he's working on. why? >> because i think he thinks of it as a long-term solution for humanity's biggest problems. >> it's time to go back to the moon, this time to stay. >> bezos now spending a billion dollars a year of his own money exploring space. and while his rocket ships don't say "amazon" today, that may change sooner than we think. >> and liftoff. >> think we'll ever have amazon fulfillment centers on the moon? >> that's a very good question. >> amazon recently won a patent for a floating warehouse that could store drones 45,000 feet
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into space. one of many stranger than fiction ideas amazon has in the works. >> they're deep in research now on recognizing not only who you are but what you are in that moment in time. >> according to "bloomberg," amazon is working on a wearable device that can read human emotions. >> voice profiles give you the ability to teach alexa your voice. >> using a baseline of your biometrics -- >> alexa, close the shades, please. >> you know, are you depressed? >> alexa, tell roomba to start cleaning. >> are you happy? are you manic? have you had a stroke and don't realize it yet? do you have early onset parkins parkinson's? >> alexa, turn the tv on. >> this is all discoverable if there's a big enough database of your voice. >> alexa, tell my coffee machine to prepare -- >> health care is clearly in the next big business they want to offer. they acquired this company called pillpack which
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distributes drugs. >> it's your medication made easy. >> they're working on ways to turn alexa into a doctor in your home. >> it's flauz plausible that amr any of the other big tech companies will pretty soon know you better than your spouse does, better than your kids or parents do, better than you know yourself. or you're willing to admit. >> amazon knows our food intake. it knows our body mass index because of the clothes we're wearing. it knows if we're in a monogamous relationship. it knows how many kids we have. >> the question is, what is amazon doing with all that information? >> when you search for something, artificial intelligence is making the search result better than it used to be. when we show you the list of recommendations that are personalized for you, that result is improved by artificial intelligence. >> a.i. has also improved amazon's long-awaited drone delivery system. >> you have to be really good at this so customer can trust it completely.
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regulators can trust -- >> ryou have to make the drones even smarter. >> yes . 60% to 080% of the items we shi could be shipped by the drones we're working on. >> all of that convenience, experts say, could come at exponentially higher cost to our privacy. in the case, for example, of amazon, amazon has incredibly powerful image recognition technology. >> people really love this image recognition service. >> at the moment, we don't have any caselaw that answers the question, who owns your face? >> yet, amazon's facial recognition software is already being used by law enforcement across the country. drawing criticism from the aclu. >> let's think about what those powers cold mean erers could m of the government. >> and amazon's own employees who say the powerful technology must be carefully regulated before it's put to broad use. >> you have been pretty open about the fact that this is a service that could do harm, in
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your words. there have been concerns about racial and gender discrimination. how do you protect against that? >> we give pretty clear guidance to the law enforcement agencies that they should only use the predictions that come back from our facial recognition technology if they have confidence levels of at least 99% and then only as one almost of a human-driven decision, but i also understand why people are concerned and i also think that it's very reasonable for governments to put regulations in place that provide extra guidelines for how the technology should be used. >> but what if the problem is not the user but the artificial intelligence taking over all of big tech and its potential for bias? women of color are far more likely to have the secondary screening at an airport than men or caucasian women because you look like an anomaly to a system that for the most part was built by a whole bunch of people who maybe aren't racist but never occurred to them -- >> a whole bunch of white men. >> correct.
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>> one reason another tech giant, google, has been hesitant to bring this technology to market so swiftly. google has chosen, at least for now, not to sell facial recognition technologies while your competitors like amazon are moving full steam ahead. >> we realize there are potential cases in which there isn't a clear regulatory framework around how technology can be used. that gives us pause. >> as opposed to some companies who are backing away from supporting the government, we are unwavering in our support to serve government. >> is it worth to given what amazon has brought to the world? >> so the question is is amazon a net good? 100% yes, but the problem is the word, "net." fossil fuels are a net positive for society but we still have emission standards. pesticides are a net positive
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for us but we still have an fda. amazon has been a net positive. does that mean they shouldn't be broken up when they become noncompetitive? they should be broken up. >> i would argue if you force the companies to break apart, you could say that that's a national security issue because, quite frankly, we all rely on these companies. we need amazon. we need google. we need apple. we need microsoft. so the question is, where do we go from here? >> my have on this is very simple, all big institutions of any kind are going to be and should be scrutinized examined, scrutinized. >> we have customers to serve. >> 5 ye25 year since the age of amazon gone, bezos' bookstore is a national institution and scrutiny is exactly what it's getting. >> you're telling us, sir, under oath, amazon does not use any of that data to favor amazon products? >> from its ever-expanding size
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to its impact on the planet. yet, nothing is slowing amazon down. is it unparalleled? >> there are only a handful of so many things have grown like this and been in so many businesses, invented so many things and invented their own technology to accomplish what they wanted to do. >> yeah. >> still a growing machine. >> jeff bezos is a visionary and you can question whether or not every decision being made is the right one for what's in the best interest of humanity, but i cannot think of very many other people alive today or in recent history that are as capable and as gifted in long-range thinking as bezos is. >> we're now big enough to hurt this planet. we have to use the resources of space. when that is possible, when the infrastructure is in place, just as it was for me in 1994 to start amazon, you will see amazing things happen.
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and it will happen fast. i guarantee it. ♪ this is "cnn tonight." i'm laura coates in for don lemon and tonight, president trump's wrappi i wrapping up his attacks on congresswom wowoman rashida tla democrat. she and ilhan omar were denied permission yesterday to visit israel due to their support of a boycott against the country over its policies. and it was president trump who encouraged israel to do that. tlaib was then given the okay to enter on humanitarian grounds so she can visit her grandmother who lives in the west bank and happens to be in her 90s. the congresswoman had to agree to restrictions imposed by
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israel including no talking about the boycott. now, after initially agreeing to the restriction, tlaib canceleded her trip calling the conditions oppressive and her decision set off president trump. in a series of tweets tonight, he accused her of grandstanding and purposely setting up israel, but then tweeting, "the only real winner here is tlaib's grandmother. she doesn't have to see her now." shocking. but is this politics aa grievane that you want to see, especially with warning signs flashing on the economy which until now has been the president's ace in the hole? joining me now to discuss all this, harry, catherine rampell, and joseph pinion, all of you reacted, by the way, to the idea the grandmother has now been attacked. >> everybody went like this. >> you know what, it's funny
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because they may actually play into the whole thing about the 20 20 elections coming up, harry. you've heard about it. >> i believe i heard about it. i may have written about it once or twice. >> you may have once or twice. what we've been talking up until now about the electability of the democratic candidates for president thinking who's going to fare the best but there's actually a new poll out, a new fox poll that has top democrats beating donald trump by significant margins. i mean, he hasn't even reached 40% against any of these candidates. so is trump, harry, the one who actually has an electability problem? >> i mean, look, i've been looking at this numbers since the beginning of his presidency. he cannot get above 45% approval among voters. usually if you look back through history, that basically means adios amigos, good-bye, see you later. this fox news poll is the latest sign this president is in deep trouble. it's not just that he's not unpopular but translating to the ballot and he's down to all the democrats as the fox news poll indicates. >> so the approval rating, we're talking about, how important is
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this number right now? we're still many, many months away from 2020. how much weight do we put into this? >> i mean, what i would put into weight in it, it's been consistently bad, consistently bad among a number of key groups. i mean, look at this fox news poll. among women, he's running a 39% approval rating at this particular time. that is terrible. this is all-time record gender gaps. but more than that, take a look how he's doing among suburban women. 39% approval rating. suburban women tend to decide electi elections. in 2018, democratic house candidates won so big among suburban women and that helped flip the house. one other group i point out, whites without a college degree, women, that particular group, that should be a strength for him. he's only running a 50% approval rating among them. these numbers are all indicative of a president who's in major trouble at least at this point before his re-election. >> i mean, catherine, the power of the women vote is undeniable and the president is well aware of this. he did struggle before. i mean, how impactful are these numbers related to women and suburban women in particular, how are they going to impact this election and president trump's path going forward?
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>> i think we need to step back and think about, you know, what was a likelihood that a guy who lost the popular vote, whose party got trounced in the recent midterms, throws babies in baby cages, makes racist and sexist communi comments, krescredibly accused assaults by women, what would be -- >> a pure hypothetical. >> exactly. i would argue that they're relatively high. i think what he is doing, rather than trying to expand his base, obviously, and appeal to women who he has alienated, he's just doubling down on this stuff that has alienated them. presumably because he thinks, well, to the extent that he's thinking about it at all, well, i guess i got to turn out my base, i'm going to double down on the xenophobic rhetoric, i'm going to double down on the racism and the sexism and the name calling and all of that because i know that that energizes my most loyal people. >> i want to bring you into this, joseph, this discussion, because "the new york times" is
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reporting that before somebody who has been talked about electability, joe biden, the former vice president of the united states, of course, that he had a conversation prior to running with president obama where apparently obama made comments like, joe, you don't have to do this, joe, you really don't. and the reporting that biden said he couldn't forgive himself if he turned down a second opportunity to take a shot at trump. what do you make of this? a plea to say please don't do this or just, you know you don't have to. >> i honestly think that this is a major problem for joe biden. people always talk about the gaffes. i've said many times that the american people know who joe biden is. he is the gaffe man. and i don't think that the gaffes will hurt him provided voters, particularly african-american voters, still believe he's the best person to go toe to toe with president trump. i think that is the litmus test for most rank and file democratic voters. i think the issue that he has right now is the fact he has basically built this campaign in almost noah's arc style. clinton acolytes and obama acolytes walking two by two trying to make him a candidate
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he's never been and the arch is looking like the hull of the toot ta titanic. if he doesn't plug the leak fast, they're going to hurt him more than any of the gaffes ever would. >> do you see the conversation with president obama, the leaking arch, signaling to the american people, e don't think you should run based on the gaffes, is he signaling that or taking out of context conversation? >> i don't believe that. i think realistically if we were saying obama saying these things in the present, i think that might have been a sign. i think the fact that we haven't heard from obama is all the indication you need to know that he is actually with joe. i think that the reality is, we head down further through this process, that all of these leaks seem to be coming from individuals that are kind of really trying to chip away at who joe biden is. i think if you take almost a broader look at it, if you look at all these polls, joe biden is the one person who has consistently been dominating the polls if polls are to be believed against donald trump and he's the one person democrats have been consistently trying to kill. >> you know who else has been
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very consistent on that poll? somebody who's actually not in the race, harry, president obama. what is that telling us about the fact that there's support for him and he's not on the ticket, is this a tie to joe biden or what does it indicate to us? >> it indicates a number of things. first of all, barack obama hasn't been in politics far vng period of time and people haven't been taking shots at him except the last democratic debate, they were more than happy to take a shot at him. the fact that obama is still so popular is an indication of why joe biden is, in fact, leading the democratic field at this particular time. you saw the approval rating on the screen, 60% among all voters. if you look among democrats, it's actually above 90%, his favorable rating. i think, you know, if you break down the fox news poll further, what you see is among democrats who want to build on obama's legacy, 48% in that particular poll, among that subgroup, joe biden is leading by 26 points in the democratic prior mmary. 46% who want to go in a new direction, joe biden is trailing elizabeth warren by five points. his lead is built upon his connection to barack obama and so to me, he's going to hug that
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connection and it's working for him so far. >> how could it be, catherine, that obama left office at 57% approval rating, he's now at 6 0%. how is it notching up when he's not even on the ticket? >> well, i mean, we don't know what the margin of error -- i don't know what the margin of error off hand -- >> wide enough. we have it on this paper. small. >> may not be that different, to harry's point, he's been out of office and hasn't been, you know, hasn't had the same target on his back that he had while he was in office. also, you know, think about what the scandals were. the pseudo scandals were under no drama obama. it was the tan suit. he ordered spicy mustard one time. that was like, you know, an uproar on fox news. >> well, there was also the dad jeans just to be clear. >> there were so many scandals. i can't keep track of them. i imagine there's a significant portion of the public that kind of misses those days when we didn't have a president besmirching the respectability of the office. and enlisting foreign countries
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in feuds with political opponents. and, you know, throwing babies in jails and things like that. so there's some -- like warranted nostalgia i guess is how i put it. >> i think the democrats have to be very careful here. i talk to my friends across the aisle, i say in the words of the most salient, poignant message from van jones' book. what marianne william hson has been screaming across america. what people are polling on in 2019 is not ha people are going to be voting on in 2020. the polls come oust the back side of el paso which realistically horrified a great deal of people across the political spectrum. ultimately when we get past this, two months from now, three months from now, is the economy still going strong, do the 6 million people who got jobs under donald trump still have jobs five months from now? those are the things we need to talk about. >> the biggest poll is the one on election day. thank you, all, for your time.
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