good evening, the set of the movie "rust" is dark tonight in more ways than one. in a letter we learned about late today, the production team said it would shut down indefinitely at the new mexico location where alec baldwin fatally shot the film's director of photography, and wounded its director. cnn has new reporting tonight on the assistant director who handed baldwin the fateful gun and just before air time, the los angeles times moved a new item on a veteran hollywood prop master who was offered a job on a film but passed. he tells the times' meg james he felt at the time this was quote an accident waiting to happen. she joins us shortly. also, our gary tuchman with another hollywood veteran as he learns exactly how gunfire is supposed to be simulated on screen safely with no one hurt but the fictional bad guys. stephanie elam starts us off. >> reporter: a new red flag from the "rust" set. the assistant director who gave alec baldwin the gun before that fatal shooting had been fired for gun safety issues before. a newly released affidavit says baldwin was handed the weapon from a cart by assistant director dave halls who did not know there were live rounds in the gun. cnn has now learned halls has been the subject of safety and

behavior complaints during two different 2019 productions, and was fired from a previous movie after a gun incident. >> the ultimate arbiter of safety is the first ad, the first assistant director. but they know they can inspect the gun but they can't go take the gun. >> reporter: a prop maker on a 2019 film said halls neglected to hold safety meetings or announce the presence of firearms on set. on the "rust" set, alec baldwin thought he was firing a cold gun during rehearsal. director joel souza told investigators baldwin was sitting on a wooden pew, cross drawing his weapon, and pointing the revolver toward the camera lens when he heard what sounded like a whip and then loud pop according to the search warrant affidavit. souza was shot in the shoulder and hutchins was killed. >> the first thing that went wrong is that they used a gun that was capable of having live ammo put in it. >> reporter: on the "rust" set, there were concerns the armorer

or person responsible for prop weapons was 24-year-old hanna gutierrez. on a podcast last month, gutierrez said she had recently finished her first job as head armorer on a film titled "the old way" with nicholas cage and that her father, an industry vet, had been teaching her about guns since she was 16. >> i was really nervous about it at first and i almost didn't take the job was i wasn't sure if i was ready but doing it, like, it went really smoothly. >> reporter: a crew member on the set of "rust" calls out the armorer's level of experience, and made claims of the producer's cost cutting in a public-facebook post writing, there is no way a 24-year-old woman can be a professional with armory. to save a dime sometimes, you hire people who are not fully qualified for the complicated and dangerous job. and the los angeles times reports there were accidental prop gun discharges on the "rust" set before thursday's shooting. on october 16th, baldwin's stunt

double fired two rounds after being told a gun was cold, witnesses said. no charges have been filed, but as a producer on the film, baldwin may have some civil liability. >> there are two views on that. one would be that, you know, an actor's job is just to act, and they rely on the people around them to make things safe. the other point of view is that if you have a firearm in your hand, you are responsible for what happens with that firearm. >> stephanie, i know cnn has reached out to halls and gutierrez for comment. have you heard back? >> no, we have yet to hear back. we did hear from the production company behind "rust," and they say that they are conducting their own investigation into the safety protocols while also cooperating with law enforcement investigations going on, as well, anderson. >> so at this point, is it known or do we know what was in the gun fired by alec baldwin? >> that's what everyone wants to know, and at this point, no. what we do know is that investigators here are waiting

for the forensics to come back from the autopsy report to, hopefully, make it clear what this projectile was that ended up taking the lives of halyna hutchins. but right now, we still don't know the answer to that. anderson. >> stephanie elam, thank you. i want to go to meg james with new reporting on the prop master who says quote, there were massive red flags, unquote, that led him to turn down a job on the film. what are you able to tell us based on your reporting on why this veteran prop master turned down the job on the set of alec baldwin's movie? >> yes, thank you, anderson, it's a very interesting story. i spoke to a veteran prop master -- um, neil -- yesterday and he talked about how he was really excited to be part of this production because he's had this long list of credits in hollywood, but never on a western. but when he was talking to the -- the production manager to try to iron out the logistics of his assignment, the -- the producers were a bit evasive. he thought that they were trying to do too much with too small of

a budget. and the one thing that really bothered him was that when he asked for two assistants -- one to be in charge of the guns and another to help him with the props -- they said, no, they wanted that to be filled with only one person. the -- the armorer or the gun person would have to also help out with props. and he found that that was a red flag. >> hmm. so, were -- were his -- just to be clear, were his safety concerns most about just budget? i mean, not having enough personnel? not having enough training and preparation? was -- was that the main thing? >> i think that it was the fact that he couldn't have a dedicated person to handle the -- the guns. and also, that he thought it was odd that they reached out to him like a little bit more than two weeks before the cameras were

supposed to roll. and typically, these jobs are filled, you know, a lot longer lead time. so the fact that they were sort of scrambling around at the last minute to have a prop master. and then, it appears that the person that they did put in the job has very little credits. and the armor -- as -- as you pointed out -- this was only her second, you know, major project. >> it's -- i mean, it's fascinating that -- that -- i guess, obviously, the -- the -- the refusal to have two -- two assistants. one, a dedicated prop assistant. was basically just a budget concern? >> that was -- um -- neil's understanding was that, you know, that they were really looking to be really tight on the budget. this was a low-budget production, and that's -- you know, last week, i spoke to camera operators and other -- um -- staff members of the -- the set. and they also expressed that there was some real concerns. there were some real concerns about safety. there were these accidental

discharges. and also, the -- the fact that, you know, so many of the crew members were asked to drive more than 50 miles each way a day to go to a set when they were already spending 14 hours a day on set. >> i'm wondering the -- the prop master you talked to who as you said is a veteran -- had he worked on lower-budget films before? i'm wondering if his surprise was in general, you know, general surprise that would be for anybody who hadn't worked on a low-budget film and expected to sort of cut corners and, i assume, in some ways with a low budget. versus, he had worked on low-budget films before but this one seemed different? >> um, he has been working on low-budget films. he had just finished a streaming production on the east coast before this opportunity came up. i think one of the things that we've seen sort of a trendline that's come out of this reporting is that, you know,

hollywood has been gearing up to just -- was shut down for several months during covid. it's gearing up, and the producers are just -- you know, it's go, go, go, to try to make up for lost time and fill this -- this whole, you know, plethora of streaming services that have come online in the last two years. so there's -- there's tons of work for everyone. and in some cases, i think the budgets are -- are smaller because of the streaming productions. but also, that the crews are stretched a little too thin. >> yeah. meg james, i really appreciate your reporting. thank you. more now on the precautions that are supposed to be observed whenever a weapon is brought on set. also, what blank cartridges can and can't do to actually harm someone. our gary tuchman went to an expert for answers. >> two, one. >> reporter: larry is a renowned motion picture armorer. a weapons safety specialist in the entertainment industry.

>> the idea is we have the cups here in this white background because we are going to show this can make a lot of noise but there's going to be no residue, and no cups knocked over because this is not a live bullet. >> reporter: exactly. it is a blank cartridge. >> so i will give you a countdown here. three, two, one. >> no residue, no cups. created the illusion that you want in hollywood without a bullet coming out. >> correct. >> reporter: we are at the independent studio services prop house north of los angeles. props which they say include north america's largest private armory. safety in the industry starts with a lock box for weapons. >> the gun that we are going to use is inside here. this is a single-action revolver. you can see that at the moment, it's empty. >> and you keep turning it so we're sure it's empty. >> so, i show you this particular one has six cylinders. i will always click it over seven times just to make sure

that we didn't miss anything and that you're comfortable with the fact that it is, in fact, an empty firearm. >> and i'm comfortable. wonderful. >> reporter: this is what a blank looks like. >> it's a cartridge case that's crimped over. you can see there's no projectile. >> reporter: no bullet or projectile. >> no bullet or projectile. >> it has gun powder. >> it does have gun powder. it has a primer in it. this is what's called a modern theatrical blank. >> reporter: but under safety regulations, such a bullet -- >> is a dummy cartridge? >> empty shell case, no gun powder in it, totally inert primer. it can't go bang. there is a projectile on the end of it. but you can see, there's a bb. i can rattle it next to your ear. >> no gun powder in it. >> if means that cannot go bang. >> reporter: there many other mandated precautions. >> so we have our single-action revolver. we have our blank cartridge. you can see there is no projectile. i've measured out 20 feet for you here, which is the minimum-safety distance on a film set.

we have a target there. i am going to load up the blank into the gun, and i am going to announce that the gun is hot. so, hot gun on set. >> and it's a hot gun when there's something in the gun, in the chambers that will go bang? >> correct. if the gun's going to go bang, it's a hot gun. if it's empty and it can't go bang, it's a cold gun. we are going to go three, two, one. i'm going to unload the gun now. presumably, they have yelled cut. and then i make as the armorer the announcement cold weapon on set. >> i ask the armorer, what if someone walks right in front of a person while they are firing a gun with a blank. could you be seriously hurt? >> as you will see, there's some smoke and flame coming out. you know, you might feel the effect of it, a little bit. but there is no projectile. >> okay. that's good to know. >> okay. counting down. three, two, one.

>> gary tuchman joins us now. so did larry say if people sometimes get too close to weapons before being fired on a set? >> larry says that happens. he gave me one example in a movie he was working on. there were actors who were s.w.a.t. team members so a lot of people had guns. he saw one guy pointing the gun in kind of the wrong direction, he was alarmed, he jumped from the camera and yelled cut. that is an armorer's job. it's interesting, next time you watch a tv show or movie and you see people with guns, keep in mind the armorer is very close to the people with guns. they stay out of camera range but they stay as close as possible to the people, to the actors with the weapons. >> gary tuchman, appreciate it. thank you. coming up next, what new whistle-blower testimony and internal facebook papers reveal about the social and political damage facebook causes and the financial incentive it has not to stop it. later, why the president might prefer to get out of the country now as he tries one last time to get his fellow democrats to agree on huge pieces of his

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we're learning more tonight about the anti-social tendencies of the world's leading social network and we are learning it from the inside. the information comes, as you know, from a trove of internal corporate documents being dubbed the facebook papers provided to cnn and other news organizations by facebook whistle-blower, frances haugen. she testified today in british parliament and spoke plainly about company research identifying the network's central feature, its algorithm for determining what people see more of. that's also being its fatal flaw. >> i have seen lots of research that says that kind of ranking, engagement-based ranking, prioritizes polarizing, extreme, divisive content. it doesn't matter if you are on the left or on the right. it pushes you to the extremes, and it fans hate, right? anger and hate is the easiest way to grow on facebook. >> so, the algorithm ramps up extremism she is saying and facebook's own research shows it. other documents show discontent

within the company at efforts to curb the so-called stop the steal movement which was organized and amplified on facebook. they also reveal an internal experiment from 2019 that essentially produced the same kind of radicalization that led to january 6th. today, in the company's quarterly earnings call, ceo and founder mark zuckerberg told listeners something especially apt in light of the facebook papers. quoting him now, the reality is that we have an open culture that encourages discussion and research on our work so that we can make progress on many complex issues that are not specific just to us. cnn's donie o'sullivan joins us with more. so mark zuckerberg said facebook has an open culture. do they? >> they have an open culture to the extent that we have seen from these documents. certain employees feel free to express criticism of the company. we saw that on january 6th where there were staff telling

executives, saying we should take look inward, but seemingly that message doesn't seem to make it to the top. i want to play a clip from that earnings call zuckerberg was on today. have a listen. >> my view is that what we are seeing is a coordinated effort to selectively use leaked documents to paint a false picture of our company. >> yeah. this idea that these documents are being selectively picked. there are tens of thousands of pages in this leak and i mean they point to very real issues on the platform. and i will just say that facebook -- zuckerberg there it is starting to sound more and more like the former president trump rather than engaging on issues of substance going after the media, attacking the company's critics. >> well i mean, obviously, u.s. officials are focused on facebook's connections to january 6th or the connections people involved to january 6th to facebook but as i mentioned, whistle-blower frances haugen testified in front of british parliament today. discussed facebook's role in other countries, as well. what did she say on that? >> yeah, so we are learning a lot about facebook's biggest

market is actually in india and where the platform there has been used to stoke a lot of sectarian divisions. also, in ethiopia with the ongoing conflict there, how it has been used by militias. and look, anderson, i mean, there are countries -- there are many languages that facebook is available in. that facebook doesn't have staff to moderate its content. so, as bad as the issues are here in the united states, they are far worse in other countries on this platform. >> i mean, this is one of the reasons to me it seems like it's one of the reasons they have always made -- tried to stick to the argument they have stuck to which is well, look, we're just a platform. we're not there to police content. we're not there to make decisions, we are not a news organization even though they are making a lot of money from -- from -- from news and -- and -- and information. because they are in so many countries that, if they do start to go down this road of having to kind of monitor what is being said and make judgments about it. i -- i mean, can they even do that with their business model? they're in so many places and so many languages.

>> yeah. well, i mean, they certainly won't be as rich, right? um, but i mean, facebook does make decisions every single day. in fact, their algorithms make millions of decisions every minute and we saw that through these documents as well where a researcher ran two experiments. two different experiments were ran both here in the u.s. and one in india. both setting up accounts as regular facebook users just following what the algorithms were recommending. so what facebook's algorithms were recommending. nothing about free speech here. this is decisions that facebook's algorithms are making and after a few weeks in both cases, in the u.s. and in india, that person was dragged down rabbit holes of misinformation and in some cases being shown content that could provoke or glorify violence. >> meanwhile, they are still making massive profits. donie o'sullivan, appreciate it. joining us now scott galloway, professor of marketing at nyu stern school of business. scott, i am wondering what jumps out at you from these papers. i mean, they really seem to show time and time again, facebook knowingly put profit before public safety. >> yeah.

it's sort of more from individuals to really more their business model. and the structure of the business and the culture that you have a company that knowingly has let algorithms kind of run unfettered to elevate content, distinct the fact that it might result in insurrection, might result in human trafficking, might result in much lower vaccination rates. and kind of this delay and obfuscation and hide the ball, such that they can continue to engage in this kind of massive profitability that that type of unfortunate elevation of oftentimes misinformation results in. i mean, this really is a bombshell report here. >> do you think there is -- i mean, whether it comes from outside or inside, do you think they are, from inside, capable of making changes? >> you know, it's interesting. we are waiting on legislators. we are waiting on media.

we are waiting on academics to have a change here and it ends up that an employee that it's people internally who are really having the most impact here. but if you think about the product launches of the last year, it would probably be virgin and amazon tied in terms of their rocket launches. but i would say the product launch of the year has been the rollout of this whistle-blower. whether it's the coordination, the 17 articles that ever been branded the facebook files. going on national tv. she has literally put on a master class. she is kind of big tech-big tech. this has just been incredible. i don't think so. for the first time, actually believe it's -- this is elevated from regulation from anti-trust to criminal charges. i think there are now, in these documents, evidence of several different fronts that the company will be -- or individuals will be charged criminally with. >> you know, it's so interesting, though. i mean, the future is -- i mean, these algorithms. which, you know, a lot of folks -- i have just kind of learning about them, really -- don't even really know, you know, netflix picks the movies it thinks i might like and i think, okay, well that's a good idea. but we are allowing more and more control over to these algorithms using artificial

intelligence that we have no idea even the programmers, themselves, often don't know all the decisions, how the algorithms make the decisions that they do. >> yeah, and that's really the correct point, anderson. i spoke to roger mcnamee's today and he pointed me to some great work. at some point, the violation of your privacy becomes criminal when it results in a loss of autonomy. so we decide children don't have their own agency and that they don't have the autonomy in child labor so we have laws against that. did the people who stormed the capitol on january 6th have a loss of autonomy because they have been fed so much misinformation? do we have individuals all over the world that are losing their autonomy because facebook is able to gather data and decide that you would like to hear a confirmation bias. you would like to hear more misinformation on vaccines. have we gotten to a point where literally billions of people have lost their autonomy and results in insurrections, low vaccination rates, being more subject to human trafficking? have they -- you know, have we lost out to the algorithms. have they taken over? but netflix algorithm might --

might send you the wrong program and send you to queen's gambit instead of another program but these algorithms and the decisions they are making for an intention economy could result i inn -- in incredible harm. >> that's for another discussion here. you can address your hate e-mails about queen's gambit to scott galloway. scott, appreciate it. thank you. up next, late reporting on another executive privilege rejection for the former president. also, number cruncher harry enten -- is that what we are calling him now? number cruncher. on how president biden's popularity or shortage of it could affect the governor's race next week in a reliably blue state that democrats are terrified of losing. wealth is shutting down the office for mike's retirement party. worth is giving the employee who spent half his life with you, the party of a lifetime. wealth is watching your business grow.

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it's the start of a critical week for president biden that could make or break his agenda and senator joe manchin whose vote is essential to passing that agenda tells cnn a deal could be reached on the president's social safety net package as soon as this week. also, president biden has once again refused to assert executive privilege over more documents his predecessor sought to keep out of the hands of the committee investigating the assault on the capitol january 6th. cnn chief white house correspondent, kaitlan collins, broke that story, joins us now. so what is the latest? >> yeah, this is a letter what the white house counsel sent to the national archives today saying this next batch of

documents that the former president has tried to keep out of the hands of the january 6th committee. they are not going to assert privilege over it here at the biden white house. they say yes, this is something that is clear to them that the former president would like but the white house counsel, which is the top lawyer, of course, in the west wing says that she has reviewed this with president biden and with the office of legal counsel at the justice department. and they still maintain the position that they had with earlier requests from the former president, which is that basically executive privilege isn't justified here. and they say that's because of the extraordinary events that happened that day. though, of course, we should note this is likely to just add to that legal battle that is happening between this white house and the former white house where the former president is suing the national archives and the january-6th committee to keep these documents out of their hands. and so, it is only going to add to the court battle that is like to play out in the coming weeks and months. >> turning to the negotiations on the president's legislative agenda, where do things stand on that? >> essentially, they say that they feel optimistic about

coming to a framework agreement on the social spending and climate change bill. but we should note the realities of this which is that publicly, they still have not agreed to a price tag on this. which, of course, is important when you are deciding what's going into the bill. you need to know how much money they are willing to spend here. and so, when it comes to the substance, they are also still divided on a few key issues which democrats are openly acknowledging and that's paid leave which, of course, president biden told you last week he thought he was going to get four weeks. that still seems to be up for discussion since he, initially, wanted 12 weeks. four weeks may not even happen. also, the expansion of medicare to include dental, vision, and hearing. that is something that senator manchin who has been one of those key holdouts has expressed opposition to and so there are a lot of sticking points including how to pay for it all. >> do you have any idea on timeline? >> this is interesting what we are learning tonight from what the head of the congressional progressive caucus has told cnn which is that pramila jayapal, the congresswoman, she still wants these bills to be back to back.

and that is the social spending bill that they are still in disagreement over what it should actually look like and that infrastructure bill, the bipartisan one they passed earlier this year. of course, those votes essentially the thinking had been lately was if they came to an agreement on the framework, then they could have that. everyone would be in agreement. and they'd go ahead and pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill which we know democrats in virginia would like them to get passed before the governor's race next tuesday. but pramila jayapal is saying tonight that she still expects those votes to be back to back. and so, that seems to downplay the idea that they are going to get an actual infrastructure vote this week. so, anderson, a lot of this is up in the air before the president does leave for europe on thursday with meetings with world leaders in that big climate summit. >> yeah. kaitlan collins, appreciate it. thanks. the lack of a deal is having a negative impact on the president's poll numbers, senior data reporter, we call him number cruncher earlier, harry enten joins us now. i know. >> whatever, man. >> no, i -- i was as shocked as anyone. harry, what did you learn about the latest poll numbers and how they may be impacting the race

in virginia? >> nationally, president biden's approval ratings have been dropping and virginia is no different. look at this, right? look at that. in august, he was barely positive at plus one. september, minus one. now, in october, minus four points. my goodness gracious we are seeing a clear drop there. and you know, what's so important is how is this impacting the race in virginia? what do we see, terry mcauliffe, the democrats leading that race over republican glenn youngkin. look at that. mcauliffe's lead five points. september 25th, three points. now, just two points. so biden's declining popularity clearly having an impact in this race at this point. i really wouldn't be surprised if near either candidate won. >> and what about the president's popularity in virginia? i mean, how much is that, you know, predicting what may happen in midterms? >> you know, one of the reasons we look to virginia isn't just because what is happening in virginia is important what's in

virginia. it's how is it telling us how the national sort of environment is going to be going forward? and what we look back over time, the last few times we have virginia gubernatorial election, right, in 2009, 2013, and 2017, what we see is that the president, each of these cases, had negative net ratings. net approval ratings. that is the same as joe biden's is right now and you can see, look at that. all three times, the president's party lost seats in the house of representatives. and so, that's why it's so important that joe biden has a negative rating right now in virginia because as virginia has tended to gone in off-year elections, the next midterm, that's how the nation has gone. >> and what does the polling tell you about what voters care about most right now? >> yeah, look, it's the economy, stupid. that's -- that's what the polling is telling us. it's not just nationally, right? what we see is also in virginia, look. nationally, inflation most important issue. in virginia, voters' choice for governor, it's economy and jobs. it's no longer the coronavirus. that is gone now as a top issue for voters. and you know what is so important? why this is so important? because look at who virginia

voters trust on the issue of the economy. if you look at the polling, what the polling tells us is who do you trust more? glenn youngkin has a five-point lead over terry mcauliffe on who voters trust more on the jobs and economy. so as this race shifted from one in which covid was a top issue to one which jobs and the economy has been a top issue. the top line numbers have changed as well and youngkin now is within striking distance of terry mcauliffe in a state, again, that joe biden won by ten points last november. >> harry enten, appreciate it. >> thank you and you can call me whatever you want. i don't care. >> up next, organizers of the unite the right rally, some of them white supremacists, return to charlottesville to face a civil trial. also, new york city firefighters. mandates in place in other cities. take a look at what is at stake ahead.

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in charlottesville, virginia, more than four years after white supremacists descended on the city, jury selection is under way in a civil trial against organizers of the unite the right rally. 10 people, including counterprotesters, are seeking

unspecified damages against the defendants. the plaintiffs say they suffered physical and emotional injuries during the two days of clashes in august, 2017. hard to forget the images from that weekend. white supremacists marching with torches, chants of jews will not replace us, dozens of people were injured. one person, heather heyer, died, and was killed in the chaos that followed. cnn's elle reeve has more on this new legal battle. she was there that weekend. she stayed on this story ever since. >> jews will not replace us! jews will not replace us! >> i have never, ever seen anything like this. >> it was crazy. so violent. >> it was like a civil war happening. >> on a saturday morning. >> on a saturday morning. >> reporter: tanisha hudson and i came within a few feet of each other on the morning of the unite the right rally. hours before a white supremacist drove a car into a crowd, killing a woman and injuring many people. i interviewed her after. >> this is the face of supremacy. this is what we deal with every

day being african-american. i just knew something bad was going to happen that day. i think free speech ends when violence begins, right? i can say what i want, i can't do what i want. >> that's at the center of a federal civil lawsuit against the organizers of the rally that goes to trial this week. >> many of the plaintiffs in our lawsuit were here that evening. they had been peacefully standing there protesting white supremacists coming to their town. surrounded, beaten, punched, kicked, all while these extremists were chanting things like jews will not replace us and a variety of other violent, racist, anti-semitic chants. what happened that weekend was in many ways intended to be a surprise. the violence was planned in these closed discord chats where they discussed everything in advance from what to wear, what to bring for lunch. how do you use free speech instruments to attack people? cracking commy skulls, quote/unquote.

that is a racially motivated violent conspiracy and that's not anything that is protected by the first amendment or by any other sort of right that people have. >> reporter: the defendants are men who made themselves white power brands. richard spencer, chris cantwell, jeff scoop, matt heinbach, jason kessler, and more. they've argued they were simply engaging in their first amendment right to speech and pro protest. and that the violence is the fault of the police for senator not separating them from the counter protestors but what made the alt right grow so quickly, the internet, has been its undoing in this case because the defendants left behind an enormous paper trail of what they say were jokes about racial violence. >> with an event like charlottesville that was national news, people may have seen the torch march. they might have seen the car attack on the news but if you look beneath the surface, there is just so much more. and what that evidence shows is

that there was a conspiracy to commit racially-motivated violence. >> reporter: the discovery process has turned up documents that, beyond what they might mean for this lawsuit, revealed to the public how this movement worked. the exhibit list contains text messages that show extensive planning among leaders who have tried to distance themselves from each other since 2017. they show an embrace of violence and they show they weren't just jokes. is there like one comment that stands out at you? >> the image that -- um -- has stuck with me ever since the beginning of the case was one of the discord post pictures. it shows a tractor running people over and it's called the protester digester. look. there is many, many posts in this case about running over people with cars prior to the car attack on august 12th. but that one, to me, was like i can't get it out of my head. >> hundreds of fascists on all sides. >> if you are saying organize violence on the one hand is not protected by the first amendment. but speech that does talk about

violence is protected, there is obviously going to be a question of where, along that spectrum, can you say the law should step in or the first amendment doesn't protect you? and that's what this case, i think, is interestingly going to be about which is what is that line? you have to understand the nature of internet communication, and how much that changes the nature of incitements. no matter what the verdict is, you have already won because richard spencer said was financially crippling. heinbach has quit white supremacy, at least officially. so has jeff scoop. they don't hold public rallies, anymore. whatever they might be doing behind the scenes, they are not able to get numbers in public. what do you think about that? >> people need to really understand that -- that this is real, that it's out there. that it allows people from all over the country and the world to organize in ways that were previously impossible. and that's a real and present danger. >> reporter: tanisha says despite all the national intention charlottesville got after 2017, it didn't change the systems that benefit white men. that there are two systems, and two sets of standards whether

that's for leaders in city government or people fighting in the streets. >> i probably could have literally kicked one of their asses that day. but if i put my hands on them, i'm going to jail. but they did it all day and they got to go home, free. >> well, it's very interesting that this civil lawsuit has been the biggest consequence for those organizers, not facing, like, criminal charges. >> right. >> what do you think about that? >> i knew nothing was going to happen to them. why would it? the police are on their side. i mean, we just watched this replay again on january 6th. and i remember posting when the insurrection happened in the capitol, hey, d.c., charlottesville told you so. you believe us now? this is what they did to us. they invaded us. but now that it happened at the capitol, it's, oh, my goodness, they need to go to jail. well, we told you they needed to go to jail here and they didn't go to jail. charlottesville could have did

the right thing and made such a big statement and they didn't. charlottesville failed us. and then, after charlottesville failed us, our president failed us. >> elle reeve joins us now. do we know what sort of legal strategies defendants are expected to use once the trials get underway? >> yes. the plaintiffs have to prove both racial intent and conspiracy to commit violence. and the defendants do not deny that they are racist. they are not even embarrassed by it. but they do deny that there is conspiracy. they say they didn't really know each other or if they didn't, they didn't like each other. the working class white supremacists say they weren't invited to events hosted by the fancy white supremacists and they say that for all the violence, that's the fault of the police for not keeping protesters separate from each other. >> elle reeve, as always, remarkable reporting thank you. up next new york city workers and public workers around the country show resistance to serving the public by getting vaccinated.

they see it differently and we will have their viewpoints, ahead.

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in new york city, demonstrators, including firefighters and sanitation workers marched to support workers. anybody must show proof of vaccination by friday. this happened in new york and in a similar perspective across the country. what were the crowds like today? >> for a city that was once the epicenter of this pandemic, that lost so many members of service, it was striking to see the brooklyn bridge be shut down for all the protesters. they're all essentially coining this protest as nonanti-vaccine but an anti-mandate protest. they don't want to be told what to do with their bodies is what

we heard a lot of times echoed throughout the crowd. if you ask them the question, are you vaccinated, the answer is usually no. like you said, that deadline is coming up in new york city, at least, on friday. if the city's employees, about 46,000 of them or so, don't get vaccinated, don't get the first shot, their risk of losing their job, not being paid. and we'll have to see how that plays out as the days come on. this is a strong protest against that mandate. >> new york's vaccine mandate is not the only one to face pushback. >> it's the pushback of lawsuits. we've seen them in chicago, seattle, los angeles, baltimore. they say they don't want the cities pushing the mandate without coming to the table and bargain with them. that's one of the arguments that we've been really seeing across the board. today, the pba, the largest union here in new york city, filed its lawsuit against that

mandate. that's approaching on friday. listing a whole number of issues. one of them being, why not let us test out of this? some cities are allowing. but that's now going to be off the table when it comes to new york. and they also put in that lawsuit, this is going to bring morale down, particularly among police officers. and you know what? the state of florida is trying to capitalize on that. ron desantis is offering $5,000 for officers to move, to relocate to florida, for law enforcement, and saying, really, it's about a morale issue, trying to take officers from the cities, saying it's not a mandate issue, but a morale issue. we'll see if that works. certainly, there's a number of arguments that are being made across the country as the mandates pop up in larger cities. >> appreciate it. thanks so much. update on a story we brought you last week about an about-face about a miami private school that was making

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we told you about a school that made students who received a vaccine stay home for 30 days. gary tuchman brought it to us. here's part of his report. >> and we should -- you know, everybody -- >> it is a family decision. but it makes everyone safer because so many people have gotten the vaccinations, that tens of thousands of people are not dying. >> there's a lot of people that have the vaccine and are dying right now. >> that's not true. >> fox news says it's true. >> reporter: fox news says it's true. but it's false. that's the problem. let me tell you, the greatest scientists in the world say this vaccine is saving lives. >> fauci is not the best scientist in the world. that's just one opinion, you know? >> reporter: yeah, you're hearing bad information, sir. with all due respect, i wish you

good health. >> same to you. have a great day. >> tonight, that controversial policy is no longer in place. the academy changed course after the florida department of education said the quarantine rule was being investigated and it would cut its scholarship funding if it was determined to be in violation of the law, florida law. the chief operating officer moved back to the d.o.e., saying that the school, quote, will continue to be compliant with all of the applicable laws. as gary reported, the school asked parents to keep their children home for 30 days if the child receives a covid dose, fighting claims about the impact of the vaccine shot. that's it for us. the news continues. let's hand it over to chris for "cuomo prime time." i am chris cuomo. and welcome to "prime time." the production of "rust" is shut down indefinitely.