Harvey Weinstein Under Investigation; Russia Bid To Interfere In U.S. Election Went Away Beyond Facebook, Twitter
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have horror stories not too long ago about what goes on with women entrepreneurs when they go to pitch their ideas and their businesses to many that are venture capitalists. It's awful. It happens in every industry. We do need to find a solution here. We need to have more women in positions of leadership, more women CEOs, more women on board that should be 50/50, more women in executive leadership positions, and we need to stop electing Presidents who are self-professed grabbers of women's genitals.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I agree. Build a time machine to go back to the '90s.</s>DON LEMON, CNN TONIGHT NEWS SHOW HOST: Not to cut you short. You wrote about this piece in Cosmopolitan, right?</s>AMANDA CARPENTER, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I did. It talk about how I thought it was cheap for people and Republican national committee to score political shots off this because in my mind, there is a form of political abuse. They are not standing up for women and trying to stop this, but scoring political points using the women like Donald Trump did before the St. Louis debate by holding up Bill Clinton's accusers to deflect criticism for his own conduct towards women, but there's a hopeful note, I think, we can take from the way that all of these great men are being brought down. We asked why women didn't say something. You have to have proof. Jane couldn't have spread rumors to everyone saying, I heard something, you know, through the grapevine. You need the proof. Gretchen Carlson had that bringing Roger Ailes down, she had secret recordings. Harvey Weinstein would not be a story, I don't think, if we didn't have that audio tape of him pressuring that model to go into the room, so, women, if you come at the king, come with audio recordings or video.</s>LEMON: Thank you. I appreciate it. Write it down. It's always a thing. Write it down. Thank you very much. This CNN tonight. I'm Don Lemon, just past 11:00 p.m. here on the east coast and we are live with new developments tonight. More and more pro-sports teams are staying away from Trump hotels across the country. Could that be why the President has a beef with the NFL? Plus, the President himself seems to disrespect a long standing military tradition when he makes a joke as the flag is lowered in an air national guard hanger. Also, new reporting tonight on Russian election meddling from Facebook to Pokemon go. Is there anything that the Russian didn't have their hands on in - during this election and did they target you? I want to bring in, now, CNN Dylan Byers our senior reporter for media and politics and national security analyst Steve Hall. Juliette Kayyem and CNN political commentator David Swerdlick. Good evening, welcome to the program, all of you. Dylan, you have exclusive new reporting about Russian attempts to meddle in the U.S. Election way beyond Facebook and twitter, what are you learning?</s>DYLAN BYERS, SENIOR REPORTER FOR MEDIA AND POLITICS, CNN: That is right, Don. Way beyond Facebook and twitter and way beyond YouTube and Tumblr. We learned the Russians even tried to use Pokemon go, augmented reality video game, to effectively galvanize African- American outrage over police brutality, over police killings of African-American men. It, you know, the idea that Russians are, you know, exploiting racial tensions by Pokemon go would be funny if it were not so troubling. They actually created this contest where they sent people out to find Pokemon and name them after victims of police brutality, and they said that whoever won the contest would be awarded with amazon prime gift cards, but, look, on a more serious note, the fact that the Russians were sophisticated and strategic enough to use Facebook, twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pokemon go and effectively create an ecosystem where the messages were reinforced for any vulnerable leader, who is vulnerable to any sort of politically charged messaging, you know, it just speaks to how deep and widespread this effort was by the Russians, by this troll farm known as the internet research agency.</s>LEMON: You also found Russian link groups trying to organize their own black lives matter protests in the U.S. Explain that Dylan.</s>BYERS: Yes. That is right. So after all of these sort of digital platforms, social media efforts, some of these people reached out to journalists, reached out to editors at local newspapers to try to tell them about protests that were happening. They also advertised protests on social media platforms to effectively get people to go out in the real world and protest. What that speaks to, you know, on this issue, it was black lives matter. It could have very well be with other issues they pushed whether it was gun rights, whether it was LGBTQ issues, anything that could drive a wedge between Americans, anything that could sew discord. Giving the impression that America is in a state of chaos before, during, after the Presidential election, all of it is sort of geared towards that, and, you know, we spoke to some of the journalists who worked in the papers and they said these people reached out to them. They had no idea who the people were. They only could correspond via e-mail. They thought they were black activists. They were actually trolls in Russia.</s>LEMON: Yes. Steve, take us inside the minds of the Russians. What do they think they'd accomplish with Pokemon go players?</s>STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, this whole story, Don, invokes parts horror and -- but I'm impressed with the amazing resources of the Russians pouring into this. Yes, I mean, nothing sacred? Pokemon go. Remember not many months ago, what did they do? Hack the DNC. Went from that to google to Facebook to basically every major social media platform, and the Russian television services are the ones responsible for carrying this out, and they've done so, you know, with the amazing abilities, and as people have pointed out, the real goal here, because there may be confusion, you can have a couple different goals. The goal was to influence outcome of the election, but absolutely, it's also to find those pressure points in American society to get us going against each other, and, remember, the Russian intelligence services are not just doing that here in the United States, but they are doing it across the west. This is a large active measures campaign, focused partially on the United States, but also on the rest of the west as well. It really is quite impressive and horrifying.</s>LEMON: Juliette Kayyem, bringing you in now, last alive the day after Steele was killed by the white police officer, the Russian linked group was using social media to organize its own protest. What do you think they were trying to do?</s>JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So, just consistent with what everyone is saying to sew dissension. I wouldn't stop there, dissension leads to voting behavior. It galvanizes people to vote or anti-Hillary, it maybe suppresses the desire to vote, and so that is actually what you saw, more Trump supporters or voters came to the polls than they expected, and fewer Hillary supporters voted than expected. So is there a link between this campaign by the Russians and how voters actually behaved is something that I think a lot of people are going to be looking at, not too far away, just about a year away in the next election. I will say, you know, what's been coming out. We laugh about Pokemon go, it's a platform taking advertising, what the Russians want. They just wanted to buy platforms. They did it greatly with Facebook, which they understood was the largest platform, most get their news from Facebook, but they are buying their own propaganda, so the question is now, should we stop treating social media companies like agnostic platforms, or are they actually content providers? That is the $64,000 question going forward.</s>LEMON: David, to you now. The Facebook CEO spoke to Mike Allen today and was asked multiple times whether or not there was an overlap in the Facebook users targeted by Russia in the Trump campaign. Take a listen to this.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did you all learn about the overlap in targeting between the Trump campaign and Russian accounts?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Targeting on Facebook is broad. It's used by everyone.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Overlap between the Trump campaign and these Russian accounts.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Targeting is something everyone uses, goes to the heart of what targeting is.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Trump campaign and Russian accounts, you don't know or won't tell me?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When the ads get released, we'll also be releasing the targeting for those ads.</s>LEMON: Why do you think she dodged the question three times?</s>DAVID SWERDLICK, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So, Don, I think she is responding to Mike Allen question on two levels. One, the general, part of the business model is targeted ads. Forget Russia for a second. They don't want us to think all the time about the fact that, you know, we're being tracked, we're being targeted very specifically and sent ads based on things we like and those things are reinforced. If you go to the question of the internet research agency from Dylan's reporting, the Russia issue, there's a question of, if you're in a position of Sheryl Sandburg there, if you have not determined yet, if there's an overlap per Mike's question about what the Trump campaign was targeting versus what the Russian groups were targeting, you don't want to get ahead of yourself. If you do know, you really are going to hesitate if you're in her position to go public with that information and get ahead of whatever the, say the special counsel Mueller is investigating. In this case, if you say you know there's an overlap, you're to the point saying, yes, we have reason to believe that there's some kind of connection between what the Trump campaign is doing and what these Russian groups were doing, and that is a whole different can of worms that she would open up if she said that.</s>LEMON: But Dylan -- go ahead.</s>BYERS: Don, can I just add to the point, look, based off all my reporting, I believe Facebook does not whether or not there is overlap, but the point is that, which was just made, and it's right, Facebook does not want to get ahead of this special counsel. They don't want to get ahead of the special counsel for their own sake, for Facebook's sake or get ahead for special counsel's sake. That question for every organization involved, whether it's Facebook or twitter or, you know, a media company, anyone else, they are deferring to the special counsel because they believe the integrity of that investigation requires that that be handled by Robert Mueller.</s>LEMON: All right. Thank you, all. When we come back, why the pro- sports team that used to fill Trump hotels are staying away. What that means for the President's brand.