tv CNN Newsroom CNN July 29, 2020 10:00am-11:01am PDT
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brianna keilar. have a good afternoon. i'm brianna keilar and i welcome viewers here in the united states and around the world. just a short time from now the united states will cross another devastating milestone. 150,000 americans dead from the coronavirus. a leading u.s. medical group now saying the deaths will be in the "multiple hundreds of thousands unless the country gets its act together." still, there is no national testing strategy and the president is spending his time promoting an unproven drug and a doctor who believes that your health is impacted by alien dna and dream sex with demons. that is real. more on that in a moment, but that is what's happening. dr. deborah birx of the white house task force is saying there are signs that a surge could soon hit the "yellow zone" states including colorado, indiana, iowa, kansas, kentucky, nebraska, ohio, missouri a utah.
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and the hot spot state of texas is in the range of passing new york landing's most total cases in the country. as the nation trying to control the spread, the cdc director acknowledges more could have been done by the trump administration sooner. >> the introduction from europe happened before we realized what was happening, and by the time we realized, europe, threatened, shut down travel to europe already two or three weeks of 60,000 people coming back every day from europe and that's where the large seeding came in the united states. but we begin with breaking news. republican congressman louie gohmert, who frequently refeesed to wear a mask on capitol hill subjecting others to his germs has now tested positive for coronavirus. here he is just 24 hours ago during a committee hearing with the attorney general women barr wearing a bandanna around his neck. and frequently not at all.
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this picture earlier that day at another committee meeting. again, no mask. in may gohmert and other house republicans met with trump at the white house. they were all not wearing masks. take a listen to what he said then. >> and i do want to advise our media friends before they write stories about how we didn't wearing a masks and we didn't possibly socially distance adequately, that you saw to it that we had tests and that nobody in here has the coronavirus, unless it's somebody in the media. so the only reason we would wearing a masks is if we were trying to protect ourselves from you, in the media, and we're not scared of you. so that's why we can be here like this. >> they are afraid of the media. in fact, the media is tested at the white house. we should take that that very clear and they are tested often if they are going anywhere near the president. going to cnn senior congressional correspondent manu
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raju joining us now from capitol hill. ing senator gohmert was scheduled to travel with the president. >> reporter: yes. he tested positive for the virus and now is not traveling along with the president in air force one down to texas, but louis germ e -of- -- louie gohmert is not wearing a mask even when not social distancing with members of congress. i spent a lot of time in the house watching them interact during extended vote series. he often would sit on the floor interact with members face-to-face, sit down next to them and engage in these prolonged conversations, not wearing a mask. not social distancing. just a few weeks ago, late last month, i caught up with louie gohmert and asked directly, why are you not wearing a mask? he told me he's been tested. said if i get the coronavirus you'll never see me without a
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mask. that was an exact quote. i asked him, well, you know, the health experts say that you don't have to show symptoms to carry the virus, which is why they want you to wear a mask. he said, but, i keep getting tested and i don't have it. i'm not afraid of you, but if i get it i'll wear a mask. i asked when was the last time you were tested and he did not respond to that question. his refusal to wear a mask on the house floor prompted alarm from aides, people who interacted with him and some democrats as well including chairman of the judiciary committee jerry nadler frequently admonished members of had his committee for not wearing a mask and he, nadler said in a tweet after the news broke, he said, why individuals refuse to take the necessary precautions, it puts everyone at risk and i regularly instructed all members to wear their masks and hope this is a lesson to uhl of my colleagues. in house proceedings, brianna,
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its is required to wear a mask. if they don't the chairman cannot recognize those members. on the floor of the house, there are no rules to enforce not wearing the mask, that is strongly recommended by the capitol physician. members like louie gohmert have not listened to the recommendations and now members are concerned he may have put them at risk. >> interesting. you said he wasn't afraid of you, although he didn't seem to understand that you and certainly now have reason to be afraid of him. thank you so much, manu raju. appreciate the report. turn now to the grave warning by the association of american medical colleges. dr. ross mckinney jr. is the aamc's chief scientific officer, and, doctor, your organization says there is not a course correction that deaths could be "in the multiple hundreds of thousands." tell us how you came to that figure. >> well, it's a fairly easy figure to come to. we're 150,000 now. we have a lot of states where
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the epidemic is currently out of control. and we're starting to see some of the states that were in between, the so-called yellow states, where there is a drastic rapid upswing in infections. places like nebraska and iowa. so it's really important for us to organize as a country, to try and control this infection before the number of cases goes up higher, before the number of deaths goes higher, because we're not on a good path at present. >> no, we are not. and your association represents 400-plus teaching hospitals and health systems in more than 170 medical schools. so what are you hearing from your members about the number of deaths that they're seeing, and tell us how the crisis is impacting hospitals right now. >> well, the crisis is terrible for hospitals. we're hearing, some of our hospitals in areas like southern florida, that, in fact, they're full, but their staff is getting sick. as their staff gets sick, there's nobody there to be able
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to fill in. so people are having to work extraordinarily long hours, and as you get more tired, you end up taking more risk. just because you make mistakes. so we are really pushing at the limits of what our health system can deliver, and some of the parts of the country where there has been a lot of disease. arizona, florida, texas, houston area. we are really hitting the limit and as disease hits the staff it's becoming even more of a crisis than it already was. >> the aamc is now calling for a reset, which includes increasing supply of ppe and increasing testing to more than 2 million tests a day. what are you hearing from your members about why that is not happening now? >> well, our members don't know necessarily why it's not happening. they just know they don't have what they need. the academic medical laboratories need the supplies to run their pcr machines. the intensive care units need ppe.
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even out-patient clinics need protective equipment so staff can be safe. nursing homes don't have supplies they need. essentially everywhere is short of the critical supplies and we as a country have not attempted systematically to upgrade our production of either ppe or of the supplies needed by the laboratories in order to meet the demands we have for testing. the demands we have for ppe. >> white house task force member dr. anthony fauci said that a nationwide lockdown is not necessary at this point. you are all calling for establishing and enforcing national criteria for local stay-at-home orders and reordering protocols. what does that mean and how does that differ from town to town or city to city? >> well, having common standards sort of sets expectations. provid provides's consistency. you know, in new york where they've actually done very well. they could begin to ease off,
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but the standard should be the same for easing off there, or easing off in alabama. if they get it under control, because at the moment, in alabama it's not. in new york it is. they don't necessarily have to have the same degree of lockdown, but they should use the same criteria to try and move from one phase to the next. so that we can learn what are the best standards to use. so that we don't get these continuous waves of infection that have followed our premature reopening so far. >> all right. doctor mckinney, thank you for takes us through that. >> thank you. the president doubling down on an unproven drug and his support of a doctor who believes that your health is connected to alien dna and dream sex with demons, and, no, i am not making it up. that is what she says. plus, just in. the president announces he's ending an obama era housing rule and does so by congratulating
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suburbs for no longer having low-income housing in their communities. the backlash is coming in fast. and lawmakers grill the big tech ceos on their unprecedented power. this is cnn special live coverage. if you have moderate to severe psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis, little things can become your big moment. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not an injection or a cream. it's a pill that treats differently. for psoriasis, 75% clearer skin is achievable, with reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques.
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a book that you're ready to share with the world? get published now, call for your free publisher kit today! new today, a study suggesting that state-wide school closures in the u.s. during the months of ma, april and may could be linked to fewer coronavirus cases in those cities. approximately 1.37 million fewer cases of coronavirus over a 26-day period and more than 45,000 fewer deaths over a 16-day period. checking in with colleagues across the country for more on
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the coronavirus day's headlines. >> reporter: i'm in miami. the state of florida shattering its death toll record second day in a row reporting 216 deaths today. the state also reporting more than 9,000 new coronavirus cases. this as the covid-19 pandemic tests the hospital system in this state. today state-wide, 54 icus at capacity. 10 right here in miami-dade county. >> reporter: i'm joe johns at the white house. president trump left here today headed for the hard-hit state of te texas. from what we know about the schedule he's not attending events related to the coronavirus but he is expected to attend a fund-raiser and visit an oil rig highlights his energy policies and intends to roll back federal regulations. >> reporter: i'm lauren fox on capitol hill. this morning the small business
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administration inspector general is sounding the alarm over what they say may be $250 million in loans and direct payments that may have been paid to ineligible abo applicants. the program expanded in the spring with the stimulus bill and it is a program that they argue has been taken advantage of. they say some of these schemes were perpetuated in social media. they have some evidence money was transferred into foreign bank accounts, but this just goes to show how difficult it can be to get this money out the door and to protect against fraud. that the sba's i.g. says may have occurred in the loan program. the trump administration just rescinded an obama era fair housing rule and the president is marking it with a tweet that once again stokes the culture wars. moments ago he tweeted "i am happy to inform all the people
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living their suburban lifestyle dream you will no longer be bothered or hurt by having low-income housing built in your neighborhood. your housing prices will go up based on the market and crime will go down. enjoy." joining me now, the white house correspondent for american urban radio networks. so april, first of all, explain what the fair housing rule was intended to do, and why this tweet is seen as incendiary? >> reporter: it's racist, it's not just incendiary, it's racist. in the 1960s the fair housing act was put into place and where we came on the air i talked to former hud secretary julian castro of the obama administration, and he informed me that they enforced this rule, even put more into it, to bolster the fair housing act for equality's sake, for neighborhoods across the land. not just for inner cities.
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for the least of these that live in the inner cities that they have a chance at life in suburban america as well. what the president is doing is definitely racist. when he says things like this it's targeting certain communities who go into suburbia. basically saying, we don't want you there. that is what he's saying by rescinding this act and it goes back to history. the fair housing act, when we talk about history and civil rights, that is one of those pieces that we talk about when we talk about people like john lucey, ct vivian, fair housing act, civil rights and voting acts right, all three synonymous around the same time. this president is trying to deconstruct sieve's rights history as well as trying to be racist in 2020 with keeping minorities out of suburban america. >> and i wonder, april, if you think this is, if part of this is a, i guess, a political overture to people, or if this is something very much in line
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with the president's own past real estate practices? when you see, for instance, going back looking at how the trump family contacted rentals. they would put a sea next to a persa -- a c next to a person of color and clearly an effort not to have people of color in their buildings. >> not just a c. a c on the politicians. for what they did, the justice department dealt with the trump family on this matter. so the justice department found what they were doing at the time wrong and illegal. fair housing is fair housing for all. not just for white america. brianna, this president is definitely trying to rally his base. when i say, his base, white america that feels like they have been left out and want to stay on top if they're even on top. so this is what the president is consistent about. he's done it when he was civilian donald trump, working with his father, in his father's
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real estate business. and now as president of the united states, when he's supposed suppose ed to cover all of america. not just that racist white america. >> thank you so much, april ryan joining us from baltimore. appreciate it. president trump admitting he never pressured vladimir putin about reports of bounties placed on u.s. troops despite speaking to the russian president several times. multiple times since the story broke. plus, big tech ceos set to be grilled by lawmakers thinking they're too powerful. that high-powered hearing getting under way in a few moments. this is cnn special coverage. sixty-two thousand seven hundred and ten dollars and thirty-one cents. sofi allowed me to refinance all of my loans to one low interest rate and an affordable monthly payment. and i just feel like there's an end in sight now and that my debt doesn't define me anymore. ♪ sofi is helping me get my money right.
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coupled with the zinc and perhaps the sizithromycin. some people i think it's become very political. i happen to believe in it. as you know i took it for a 14-day period, and i'm here. right? i'm here. >> he is wrong. doctors don't believe in it. not the doctors that you would be smart in trusting your life to, anyway. we will fact check that again for the umpteenth time and tell you how the president is ignoring his own public health officials. first look at the doctors he's lyning to. one in particular he gave a personal shout-out to falsely says hydroxychloroquine is a cure for the virus, which it is not and that same doctor believes alien dna is used in medical treatment. what she believes. that gynecological issues caused
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by sex and witches and dreams and scientists are creating vaccines to prevent people from being religious. that part of the government is run by -- and that is what the president is listening to. >> very respected doctors. a woman spectacular in her statements about it that she's had tremendous access with it, and it took her -- i don't know why they took her off. said she's had tremendous success with hundreds of different patients and i thought her voice was an important voice. >> facebook, youtube and twitter pulled a video featuring that doctor and others, because their claim was so demonstrably false they violated policies of the social media outlets. before they could take those down the president retweeted his
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individu video and so did his son donald jr. it's so problematic twitter suspended donald junior's ax to his account for 12 hours. trump says they're speaking out about it because they don't want them to be right. the media, they're not the ones standing in the way of the hydroxychloroquine claims. his scientists are. the president is contradicting his own health officials as he pushes an anti-malaria drug as cure for coronavirus. he can't admit he's wrong about it. as public health watchdocks testi watchdogs testify it was a black eye on the trump administration's fda. >> it's been a disappointment and i don't think it's because of the career officials and fda who i believe are committed to scientific integrity and proper regulatory procedures in this pandemic but i do think people have turned out to be
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susceptible to political pressure. the hydroxychloroquine is frankly an embarrassment. in the end it turned out to be a black eye for the agency. >> here is dr. fauci recently. >> i go along with the fda. the -- the overwhelming, prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in coronavirus disease. >> fauci says because study after study and trial after trial show hydroxychloroquine does not benefit patients treated for coronavirus and it can be harmful. the fda revoked its emergency use authorization of hydroxychloroquine. the world health organization, novartis, the national institute of allergies and infectious diseases, part of the nih, the veterans health administration of research and development, the national heart, lung and blood institute all dropped studies of the drug because it did not work
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on cove ids patients. the latest prominent study out of brazil says the same but at patients experienced unusual heart rhythms more frequently than those not taking the dru. s when the white house or trump campaign officials quoted it is always the henry ford health study and in that study they were twice as likely to receive a steroid and doctors accounted that is better survivors rates. the study not individualize hydroxychloroquine as a variable. but trump's reliance on crap science is part of a science we've been seeing, relying on doctors from media. prefers them. remember this guy? >> i watch you all the time and watch you almost like my guide to this because frankly, you really have a good take on it and know how important it is. >> a reminder, the president's guide on coronavirus as he calls
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him also sent this. >> this virus should be compared to the flu, because at worst, at worst, worst scenario, could be the flu. >> cnn reported in the early months of the crisis the president also relied on dr. oz who apologized for telling millions of viewers this -- >> i tell you, schools are very appetizing opportunity. i just saw a nice piece in the lannette arg lancet opening of schools 2,% to 3% of fatality. getting every child into a school, being fed and making the most theoretical risk aside might be a risk people consider. >> the president is rejecting science. science is there to protect us from the human tendency to believe what we want to believe. which is, perhaps, president trump's greatest affliction. science shows us that masks
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work. social distancing works. science shows us that this virus is nearly 20 times more transmissible inside, indoors, than outdoors. science also shows us hydroxychloroquine does not benefit covid patients and can exacerbate heart problems. when you reject science, more people die. more americans die. and the president says that his opponents don't want it to be right. they don't want it to be wrong, because lives depend on it. joining me now is "daily beast" politics reporter will summer who first broke the story. i have to tell you, will, when you read the story, it's -- it's hard to believe that you're actually reading what someone believes. it is so out there. so tell us what you have learned about this doctor and her beliefs. >> sure. absolutely. so dr. emanuel came to my attention as one of these doctors who gathered on monday
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to push hydroxychloroquine as kind of this miracle cure despite as you mentioned a total lack of science saying that. and so i was looking at her website and realized she has pretty bizarre claims on her church's website she runs. particularly about other medical issues. so she says that aelalien dna i used in medical treatments. basically various gynecological issue, impotence, can be caused by haves sex in their dreams with witches or demons. she says the government is run in part by sort of reptilian lizard people. so normally, she can believe what she wants. at the point where the president is relying on her for medical advice or taking that input and she's claiming hydroxychloroquine works, she offers, refuses to offer studies or evidence from her clinic supporting that, you know, i think it's ominous stuff to find out about her other held in
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beliefs. >> and she's a practicing physician? >> that's right. she's a registered physician in texas. she has a clinic in houston. you know, one thing i think is notable is that she said in her speech masks are not necessary, because you can just take hydroxychloroquine, but at her own clinic she's wearing an n95 and you can't come into the clinic without a mask. a situation she's not practicing what she preaches to the public. >> and she's a critic of anthony fauci, of course, the white house task force's top infectious disease doctor. called him a liar on twitter, yet the president touts her as an important voice. i mean, i've heard allies of the president say there should be a second opinion, but that's of dr. fauci, but that's a far cry from someone saying that he's a liar. how is the administration, how are they responding to this? >> sure. i mean, it's been bizarre, frankly. i think donald trump, i think
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we're used to him retweeting crazy stuff. conspiracy theorist, but after it's brought to his attention perhaps you would think he would distance himself, but we saw yesterday at the press briefing he called dr. emanuel spectacul spectacular. an important voice in the nation's coronavirus response. basically they're not backing away and, again, the president is sort of setting up these doctors as a foil to dr. fauci and the actual experts. >> we have also seen some conservative media, for instance, tucker carlson on fox news trashed your reporting claiming you were out to destroy this doctor's reputation since it's an election year. i guess what is your response to that considering all you did was basically point out what she has tweeted and what she practices. >> yeah. i mean, there are hours and hours of footage of dr. emanuel making these claims about lizard
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people and demon sex and aliens and their various uses in medicine. so you know, after my story ran she said it was completely accurate and she thanked me for warning everyone about demons. so you know, this idea that this is kind of some scheme to bring her down i think it's not the case. conservative media along with trump is very invested in hydroxychloroquine, as a way to sort of blame somebody else rather than the president for this terrible pandemic response. >> yeah. i am filing this one under "is this real life?" will sommer, it's wild. thank you for sharing your report. appreciate it with "the daily beast." >> thanks for having me. more on breaking news. republican congressman refusing to wear a mask on capitol hill has just tested positive. so why are lawmakers scrambling? we'll tell you. right now the heads of apple, google, facebook, amazon, all on capitol hill for a historic
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hearing. lawmakers are about to get their chance to grill the ceo over their unprecedented power. we bring that to you live. associates doing their best to keep our nation going. because despite everything that's changed, one thing hasn't and that's our devotion to you and our communities. our priority will always be to keep you and our associates safe, while making sure you can still get the essentials you need. ♪
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vladimir putin over intelligence reports that russia offered bounties to taliban fighters to kill u.s. troops in afghanistan. this is according to the president. >> you had a phone call with vladimir putin on july 23rd. did you bring up this issue? >> no. that was a phone call to discuss over things and frankly an issue many people said was fake news, who said -- >> reporter: who said that? >> i think a lot of people. look at some of the wonderful folks from the bush administration, some of them, not any friends of mine, were saying it's a fake issue. but a lot of people said it's a fake issue. >> reporter: there was a -- >> talking about nuclear proliferation, a very big subject where they would like to do something and so would i. we discussed numerous things and not that. >> reporter: you have never discussed that with him? >> i would. i have no problem with it. >> president trump also said the intelligence didn't reach his desk, but cnn reporting found
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intelligence that assessed the bounty effort was included in one of the president's daily briefings back in the spring. president trump and president putin have spoken eight times since then. i'm joined by former cia chief of russia and ukraine operations and cnn national securities analyst steve hall with us. first, i'd like your response to the president's comments. >> well, you know, brianna, it's really amazing. this is the commander in chief, the guy who is the art of the deal supposedly the great negotiator, can't figure out a way in a telephone conversation with vladimir putin to include his concerns about troops and the fact that the russians might be offering bounties in afghanistan for our troops. yes, nuclear proliferation is an important thing but last time i checked there is no imminent threat of a nuclear war between the united states and russia or anything else. u.s. forces in afghanistan, however, are under an imminent threat and now appears they're
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under imminent threat by the taliban perhaps with the russians paying bounties for them. that's a various thing and i can't figure how the president, mast every negotiators, missed an opportunity or chose not to do that. i've been in a room with senior national officials sit down with russians and say whatever you just did is not acceptable and we're not going to tolerate it. the russians listen to that very, very carefully and notice when it's not said. when it's not said take it as a green light to push forward with whatever it is they want to do until they get resistance from the united states. that resistance by the president's own admission has not come from him. that's a various matter, in my view. >> russia is always looking to see where the line is. right? does this signal to them that they can cross that line of putting bounties on the lives of u.s. troops and they will go unchallenged by the president, and if so you what does that mean for their future actions? >> yeah. absolutely it does. the russians have long
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understood, this goes back long before it was russia. when it was back in the soviet union and before, stalin and others understood you basically continue to push until you run into some blockage, until you run into a red line and told there's going to be a significant price to pay unless you stop doing that. that has not come from the person they listen to most. the president of the united states. again, he has essentially green lighted what the russians want to do in afghanistan, and i argue in other places because the russians aren't just looking at this particular thing. they will also expand it out to say, well, if he was weak on that, if we didn't get pushback on that we should try other things and push forward on meddling in the elections in 2020. push forward on a number of different other things as were el. yes. until there is firm pushback by the president himself, vladimir putin's going to say, yeah. i guess i can keep moving ahead. >> and for what reason would he have to not push back? i mean, i'm not sure there's anything more important than american lives, the lives of
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u.s. troops. what possible objective could the president have in not bringing this up? >> you know, it's -- boggles the mind. i can't think of anything either. it's not an either/or thing. the self-proclaimed master of the deal should know it's not a zero come game with the russians on our side of it. he can say, yes, i want to talk to you about nuclear arms control. a good thing to talk to russians about, yes. but it does not preclude him from doing what he must do as commander in chief and as president of the united states, which is, help to try to protect his troops, american troops, in afghanistan who have been threatened, intelligence tells us, by the russians. difficult to imagine why it is he would choose not to raise this to the great detriment of our troops in the region. >> they have a compact with their country when they put their lives on the line and it's not for their commander in chief to further jeopardize that. the president asked during this
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interview about russia supplying weapons to the taliban, which he said, "we supplied weapons when they were fighting russia, too." what do you say to that? something we heard from russia as a talking point. >> yeah. this moral equivalency the president somehow likes to do with russia is disgusting, in my view. he did it earlier in the election cycle last time in 2016, asked what about russians murdering people and killing journalists inside of russia? he said, well, you know, we kill a lot of people, too. it's nothing short of disgusting. look, the united states was indeed supportive of afghans in the soviet era when afghanistan was trying to push the soviets out. so you know, you have to ask yourself. what is the motivation? that's the important part here. we were trying to rid afghanistan of an authoritarian soviet-style system. that's a worthy goal. worthy of supporting the
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afghanistans, of folks in afghanistan, the government there. but the idea that for some reason because we've supported a good goal in the past that somehow the united states can't stand up to russia and say, look. this will not be topplerated wh talking about american troops is unfathomable. >> thanks for being with us. joining us from arizona. appreciate it. so we want to get back now to breaking news. texas republican louis gem ert tested positive for coronavirus. earlier today another committee meeting, again, no mask there. kaitlan collins is at the white house, and this was only discovered, kaitlan, because the congressman was actually supposed to travel to texas with the president today, and folks who get close to the president are tested, and this is when
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they discovered that he was positive. tell us what you've learned. >> reporter: right. before the president makes any kind of trip or anything like that they test everyone before they get on air force one and how we found out others who tested positive in the past because of that. that's when he was caught. in a pre-flight test louie gohmert was doing and it came very close to him being onboard with the president and traveling to texas. you saw the former primary physician dr. ronny jackson also on the plane and that's how he found out. louie gohmert went back to his capitol hill office and record add video about his diagnosis and trying to blame wearing the mask, the few times he did on the reason he caught this. of course, he was wearing it improperly, that's up to him. not, of course what you've heard from medical experts who say if you wear a mask, wear it properly, it's important so you do not have any risk of something like that. so it's interesting seeing him now make that argument. but it comes as he is just one
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of many people who has now tested positive. people often around the president. leaving to go to texas we talked about his national security adviser robert o'brien, the president now says he has spoken but that's someone else who has been on white house grounds, who tested positive this week, raising concerns about possible expoexer. and this comes as a person in the president's orbit tested positive for covid-19. and that's why they say wearing a macsk, social distancing is s important because it's happening in the halls of the west wing where people are testing positive and it's having this effect on other cabinet officials. the governor was in the room with attorney general bill barr as he was testifying.
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and we learned barr is going to be tested because he was in the room and as he was speaking and testifying, he wasn't wearing a mask. and rigit's raising concern wher he's opened the cabinet officials to being exposed to covid-19. >> lots of questions about those around gomert in the close quarters in capitol hill. still ahead big tech ceos being grilled by law maker whose think they're too powerful. and
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let's go straight to capitol hill where big tech ceos testifying before congress. let's listen. >> i'll move on to a new question. most americans believe when they enter a search query, what google shows are the most relevant results. google shows whatever is most profitable from google. so, my question, isn't there a fundamental conflict of interest between serving user whose want to contact the best and the model that incentivize them to keep them on google's own sites. >> we've always focussed on providing users the most relevant inform algz. we rely on the trust of users to come back to google every day. in fact, we don't show ads at all. we show ads only for a small
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substantive, where the it's highly commercial. they may be looking for something like tv sets or so on. >> what is the value of the part that you do use the google ads for? it's a substantial part of your business? 200 billion? 300 billion? >> you know, in terms of revenue, it's around 100-plus billion. >> that's a lot of money, mr. pichai. really, google's business model is the problem. google evolved from turn style to arrest the web that increasingly keeps users within its sights. emails show over a decade ago, google started to fear competition from certain websites and websites that could divert traffic from google. google staff discussed the proliferating threat that these web pages posed to google. other loss to traffic sites was a loss in revenue.
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certain websites were getting, and i quote, too much traction, so google decided to put an end to that. you've been at google since 2004. were you involved in the threat from vertical search? >> congressman, without knowing the specifics, definitely. it validates the competition we see. for example, in users looking to shop online, it shows over 55% of product searchers orridigina with ecommerce company. we see travel, real estate and we are working on -- >> let me ask specifically. the evidence we collected shows google pursued a multi-pronged attack. first they began to steal other web page's content. in 2010, they stole restaurant
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reviews from yelp to boot strap its own rival business. do you know how google responded when yelp asked you to stop stealing reviews? google's response was to threaten to delist yelp entirely. let us steal your content or we'll take you from the web. isn't that anticompetitive? >> when i run the company, i'm really focussed on giving users what they want. we conduct our selves to the highest standards. happy to engage and answer your questions. >> one final question, did google ever use surveillance over web traffic to identify competitive threats? >> congressman, just like other businesses, we try to understand trends from data, which we can
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see, and we use it to improve our products from our users. but we're focussed on improving our product. >> i appreciate that. numerous interviews effected by the conduct show google did just that, which is very disturbing and very anticompetitive. in addition, google began to privilege its own site. an investigative report published just yesterday found 53% of web searches that start on google, end on google's website. it keeps users on google's site, even if google doesn't have the most relevant information and it's catastrophic for other companies online. my time is running out. i'll end by saying the evidence seems clear to me. as google became the gateway to the internet t began to abuse its power t uses surveillance to identify competitive threats and crush them. it's dampened innovation in ne
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