>> why are you arresting her? >> let her go. >> why are you arresting her? tell us now. why are you arresting her? cite it! give me a reason why you are arresting her. give me a reason why you are arresting her. >> let her go! why are you arresting her? >> she is an elected representative. why are you arresting her? why are you arresting her? >> that was georgia state representative park cannon being arrested and removed from the capitol in handcuffs last night. it happened while the governor brian kemp signed a bill that restricts ballot access. and it's all based on the lie that there was vast voting fraud in that state. remember, republicans told us there was not. representative cannon faces two felony charges. president biden called republican efforts to limit voting rights un-american and sick. joining us now is georgia state representative erica thomas who you just heard on that cell phone video trying to defend her colleague while being arrested. representative, thank you for being here. i know you spoke to your colleague, representative cannon, this morning after she was released from jail. what did she tell you? >> well, of course, at this time, she's traumatized. it was a very traumatic experience. just listening to it before we came on took me back to that moment. and we're doing everything we can to protect her in this moment. at the same time, trying to protect the voting rights for the citizens of georgia. >> yeah, i can understand. if you haven't heard that video before it is really striking. to hear that video and watch that video. did you ever get an answer? do you understand why she was arrested? >> no. i don't understand at all. seeing that we -- it was a group of us that were there, watching it, as it panned out. i did hear that someone said, you know, different things. she stepped on someone's toe. all these different kind of allegations that nothing was done. and we were standing right there. you know, it's her right to be able to knock on the governor's door. he works for all of us. >> but what did you want? why did you go to the governor's office? did you hope to disrupt the signing ceremony? >> well, we do believe that it was our right to be able to even witness what was going on. you know, usually there's different types of signings of the bill, but the public is allowed to be able to watch this to be signed. we got a text at 6:15 we were letting out of session that in 15 minutes, this bill is about to be signed. and it was just on the house floor yesterday. so they tried to move very swiftly without us even knowing. >> had you gotten in there, what would you have done? >> to be honest with you, i don't know. i can't speak on that situation. we weren't able to get in. i don't know. i do know that -- i can't even answer that question to be honest with you. i have no idea what would have happened. but there were citizens standing outside that wanted to be able to see what was going on, and they should have been able to see the signing. >> here's a picture of the people who were allowed inside for the signing ceremony. and it's other representatives, all of them, it has been noted, white men. you say that you sit there every single day. you and your colleague who was arrested. and defend these, quote, bad bills like this one. what specifically makes this one a bad bill? >> well, so many egregious things in this bill. it's a 100-page bill. and they put so many different things in it. one thing is creating a state election board. right now in the state of georgia, the chief officer of the elections is the secretary of state. and this will remove him as the chair of the election and create a board that will be governed by the state legislator, which, of course, we all do know is run by republicans. and so with that being said, they would be able to fire electors. they'd be able to take over and the craziest thing about this election board is that all of their decisions do not have to be public. their meetings do not have to be public. nothing has to be public if they are doing a firing of a state superintendent or whatever. it can be, again, behind closed doors like what you saw yesterday. >> do you think this is punish am specifically for brad raffensberger because president trump was mad at him? >> i do. i do think that this is the republican party being upset because they lost. they lost. this is a time where we should be excited. we had record numbers turning out this last year and the beginning of this year. we should be celebrating, but because it did not go the way that they wanted, we're not celebrating. we're talking about getting rid of mobile voting. we're talking about giving a misdemeanor to volunteers that are passing out water to people that have stood in lines for five, six, seven hours. we are talking about things that are egregious and that are going to hurt the georgians that we represent. >> is it your belief that this will hurt voters of color or all voters? >> i believe that, of course, it will hurt voters of color, but it will hurt every -- all voters. all voters. when you think about these drop boxes that are placed all over the state of georgia and that gave so many people access to vote and now we're cutting it down to one per 100,000 people and to have a police officer standing right beside a ballot drop box, that is voter intimidation. and that hurts all georgians. >> your colleague, representative park cannon who was arrested last night, what's her plan now? you spoke to her and said she's traumatized. what's going to happen today? what does she plan to do? >> we don't really know what is going to happen today. she has lawyers on her side. she has representatives on her side and, of course, senator raphael warnock was here straight off the plane. came try to the jail and he was right by her side. he's been our pastor for many, many years. we're praying for her strength to get through this. we're definitely lawyered up to defend her in every way we know how. >> representative erica thomas, we really appreciate your time. we know you've had a long night. thank you very much for being here. >> thank you. president biden with a message for the american people and for republicans in his first press conference. more from our white house team, next. so you're a small business, or a big one. you were thriving, but then... oh. ah. okay. plan, pivot. how do you bounce back? you don't, you bounce forward, with serious and reliable internet. powered by the largest gig speed network in america. but is it secure? sure it's secure. and even if the power goes down, your connection doesn't. so how do i do this? you don't do this. we do this, together. bounce forward, with comcast business. here's the deal. i think my republican colleagues are going to have to determine whether or not we want to work together or they'll decide the way in which they want to proceed is to -- is to just decide -- divide the country. continue the politics of division. but i'm not going to do that. i'm just going to move forward and take these things as they come. >> president biden at his first formal news conference. joining us now, cnn chief white house correspondent kaitlan collins and correspondent john harwood. kaitlan, you were in the room where it happened. you there were for president biden's first formal press conference. stepping back, you know, what do you think the biggest of big picture takeaways is from what we saw? >> well, i think we learned a lot about his agenda and what we should expect to come up over the next few months and what we should not expect to be something that is going to be at the top of his priority list. and i think that was really revealing in his answer where he turned to infrastructure and what that plan is going to look like because, of course, we knew it was on the horizon. we knew it was something he had been formulating. but in the context of whether or not he's going to pursue something like that or guns, he made pretty clear he wants to go after infrastructure because he thinks that's going to have a bigger effect on the country in the wake of not just the pandemic but also in a global sense talking about our competitiveness with china. so he made clear that, yes, this week he was calling for legislation on guns. he was talking about executive actions and that's something his aides are working on behind the scenes. he made clear he's sticking with what he came into office with back in january with that recovery plan and infrastructure is next up for him. >> john harwood, your biggest takeaway from the press conference? >> well, similar to kaitlan's, but what struck me was that what he was doing was preparing to make the case for plan b if plan "a" doesn't work. that is to say, on infrastructure, for example. plan "a" is to try to entice republicans to make a deal with him. i think few people in the white house expect -- i don't think president biden expects, that they actually are going to make a deal. they made pretty clear they're going to road block opposition wherever they can. but he's making the case that i'm trying. if i can't get it done that way, i'll go another way. the other way in this case is the reconciliation that -- the special budgetary path that lets you proceed with only democratic votes as they hit on the american rescue plan. similarly, on the filibuster, his plan "a" is to work with republicans. not seek the abolition of the filibuster. talk about potentially tweaking it to prevent the abuse of the filibuster but also making clear that if that doesn't work, he said, i think if they want a complete lockdown of chaos, we're going to move forward. so he's making the case that action is what his top priority is. and if he can't get it one way, he's going to seek to get it the other way. now, of course, on the filibuster, the challenge there is that the president does not possess the power to abolish the filibuster. he does, however, possess the power to exhort his party to do so. and i think that's what plan "b" is if other things, like voting rights, which he said was elemental, if those get roadblocked there. >> stylistically, how did that presidential news conference differ from the ones you've covered for the previous four years in the previous administration? >> well, it was a lot different because it was more structured in a sense that -- i can remember one time with a trump press conference and we got a 20-minute heads-up. it wasn't just in the briefing room, something like that. it was in the east room. a real press conference by trump and to just give examples of how different that is from this one. we found out nine days in advance about this press conference. and it also alonged a lot different than a first presidential press conference normally does. only 30 reporters in the room this time. we were all really spaced out. there were very few senior staff in there. of course, when it came to the answers, you also saw a difference to where the immigration thing really spoke to it the most, i think, because that is something that president biden was pressed repeatedly on given the numbers and, of course, the scramble that we've seen that ensued to find space for those children on the border. despite being asked about it, time and time again, president biden was asking those questions but then kept going back to what his agenda is going to look like. and it wasn't really this attempt to let it derail what he wanted to talk about at the press conference. of course, his agend ahe talked about his new pandemic goal at the beginning and then infrastructure as well. but despite what's happening at the border and what we've seen happen with these two mass shootings, he's still trying to stay focused on what his ultimate agenda is. that is something that former president trump obviously struggled with. there would often be a press conference that was ostensibly on vaccines and progress there and we would end up talking about something completely differently because of how the former president would -- what he would tweet about or what he himself would focus on in those briefings, those press conferences. >> one other stylistic difference is that president biden doesn't seem to need to be loved in the way that president trump needed to be. and president trump, if you didn't love him, would punish you. and president biden, i think, wants to be loved through his policies or through what he deems success. and so when he was asked maybe by kaitlan about, are you going to -- you haven't invited mitch mcconnell over. he's like, i know mitch. all in good time. he wasn't currying favor. he didn't seem to be. and when asked when kaitlan did ask him if he was going to run again and pointed out his predecessor already set up an election campaign. he chuckled and said, my predecessor. was interesting these little asides he gave away. >> i think that's right. look, he is not going to go out of his way to smack anybody politically, to take cheap shots at them. but he's also making clear he's not going to suck up to anybody either. this is somebody who has been around, as he said, for 120 years in washington. he understands the rhythms of the place. he understands when legislators need to posture and when they don't. he was not -- he is not questioning their motivation. that's something that he's always said he learned early in his career that you don't get anywhere if you start questioning somebody's motivation. but he's clearly trying to stay focused on the substance of his agenda, the rescue plan and the infrastructure, the build back better recovery plan, and i think that's a pretty striking level of discipline that contrasts with former president trump. the one other thing i would just say to kaitlan's point, i don't want to tell on myself, but i've been going on these presidential press conferences since ronald reagan was president. they've come a long way and covid is a part of that. the way reporters were spaced out. the way the president had a list of people he was going to call on. when reagan was president, people used to lift their hand and strain like they were getting the teacher to call on them. they'd wear a red outfit in order to -- red tie or red dress because president reagan responded to red. this was a much more orderly and subdued affair, i think, that's in keeping with the discipline that joe biden is trying to project in the opening days. >> john, kaitlan, thank you. >> wore a red suit. the red suit really stood out. >> strange. the former director of the cdc speaking out in ways that he never has before. hear him tell our dr. sanjay gupta when and where he thinks the pandemic really started. that's next. the world around you may seem like an immovable, implacable place. it is not. it can be bright. quiet. and safe. it's a change that will be felt from this street. to this street. to no street. and everywhere in between. all it takes is the slightest push in just the right place and that will be the tipping point that changes everything. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ we made usaa insurance for veterans like martin. when a hailstorm hit, he needed his insurance to get it done right, right away. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. usaa that's why at america's beverage companies, our bottles are made to be re-made. not all plastic is the same. we're carefully designing our bottles to be one hundred percent recyclable, including the caps. they're collected and separated from other plastics, so they can be turned back into material that we use to make new bottles. that completes the circle, and reduces plastic waste. please help us get every bottle back. dr. robert redfield, a former cdc director, is speaking out for the first time saying publicly where he believes the coronavirus that caused the pandemic came from. these extraordinary comments come in a cnn documentary airing this weekend. dr. sanjay gupta joins us now. dr. redfield says he's giving his opinion, but i think you're about to break some pretty significant news here. >> yeah, this was extraordinary, john. for certain. he is the former cdc director. he spent his entire career as a virologist. i interviewed all six of these doctors in the form of an autopsy. really to meticulously dissect exactly what happened here. really no preagenda. dr. redfield when we sat down to talk, he wanted to start at the beginning. the origins of this virus. what he believed actually transpired. take a listen. >> if i was to guess, this virus started transmitting somewhere in september, october in wuhan. >> september, october? >> that's my own view. it's only an opinion. i'm allowed to have opinions now. i'm of the point of view that i still think the most likely idology of this pathology in wuhan was from a laboratory. escaped. other people don't believe that. that's fine. science will eventually figure it out. it's not unusual for respiratory pathogens that are being worked on in a laboratory to infect the laboratory worker. >> it's also not unusual for that type of research to be occurring in wuhan. the city is a widely known center for viral studies in china, including the wuhan institute of virology, which has experimented extensively with bat coronaviruses. >> it's a remarkable conversation. i feel like we're having here. because you are the former cdc director, and you were the director at the time this was all happening. >> for the first time, the former cdc director is stating publicly that he believes this pandemic started months earlier than we knew. and that it originated, not at a wet market, but inside a lab in china. >> these are two significant things to say. >> that's not implying any intentionality. it's my opinion, right? but i am a virologist. i have spent my life in virology. i do not believe this somehow came from a bat to a human and at that moment in time, the virus came to the human, became one of the most infectious viruses that we know in humanity for human-to-human transmission. normally it takes awhile for it to figure out how to become more and more efficient in human to human transmission. i just don't think this makes biological sense. >> so in the lab, do you think that process of becoming more efficient was happening? is that what you are suggesting? >> let's just say, i have coronavirus and i'm working on it. most of us in the lab are trying to grow virus. we try to make it grow better and better and better and better so we can do experiments and figure bought it. that's the way i put it together. >> it's a pretty extraordinary conversation. and a little glimpse of what we revealed sort of within these couple of hours. i should point out, the world health organization calls the lab leak theory unlikely. and chinese officials have started increasingly pointing to a multiple origin theory saying that this pandemic may have started in multiple places, even around the world, including u.s. military labs. that's unsubstantiated, but that's sort of the back and forth happening right now. we still don't know, a year later, exactly how this pandemic started. >> he's the former cdc director. so when he says it's just his opinion, it's not just an opinion. the former cdc director sees things and knows things the rest of us don't see -- >> life long expertise. >> when he was in the u.s. government seeing things that the rest of us aren't entitled to. how much of just an opinion can it be? >> that's exactly right. he's talking to people on the ground, not just as counterparts of the china cdc, but we have investigators on the ground in various countries around the world, including china. if you look even at our preparedness and response sort of strategies in the united states, it's medical and public health. but it's also intelligence gathering. so when we're sitting down and talking to all these people, we're giving a sort of overall picture, i think, for the first time of what they knew, what they knew at what time, and how they were sort of piecing that together. so it's really -- and it's not just intrigue. it's important to know how this started if you are going to best prepare for a possible future pandemic. to go and -- from an animal to a human and suddenly become one of the most infectious pathogens we've ever seen in humanity simply doesn't happen very often. that's the point dr. redfield was trying to make. >> sanjay gupta, thank you very much. we really appreciate that. and it does sound like something we need to discuss more. let's do that right now, john. let's bring in cnn political analyst josh rogin. he's done a lot of reporting on the origin of covid-19. the author of "chaos under heaven: america, china and the battle for the 21st century." josh, you've done reporting on the origins. you -- we've had these discussions with you. tell us the significance of hearing dr. redfield, former director, say this. that's what he thinks, it came from a lab. >> you know, my initial reaction, alisyn, is, wow. stunning. ground-breaking. really narrative-changing conversation that sanjay gupta had with robert redfield for a couple of important reasons. one is as you mentioned, he is not any schmo -- joe-schmo scientist. he was the head of the cdc, a virologist and he's making two very shocking allegations. one is that the virus started in september or october, according to his opinion, which implies that the chinese government hid it for several months. and two, that he believes not just based on, you know, supposition but based on the way the virus emerged, in his professional analysis of the way it acted, that it was too strong and too advanced to have come from nature. and he's referring to the research at the wuhan institute of virology. now that matches the information that came out of the trump administration, and was confirmed by the biden administration to some degree when they came in and checked the u.s. intelligence work. so it's not just robert redfield's opinion. there's a growing body of evidence that points to this lab accident theory. while we don't know what happened, we can't say we know what happened, this makes it very, very important that there's more investigation and that we regard the ongoing investigation, frankly, by the w.h.o. and chinese scientists as not the end of the inquiry here because, as you noted, they are poo-pooing this theory again. >> redfield says it's just his opinion, but he's not just any guy or any joe-schmo as you said. don't we need to see the evidence, how this opinion of his and then the claims made by the trump administration and verified to an extent by the biden administration, we need to see the evidence of all of this. >> we need to see the evidence on the chinese side and u.s. side. robert redfield, when he was cdc director, he was not a -- treat lead by the trump administration. he has no incentive, no motivation to bail them out or to support their theory for their sake. he's doing this because this is what he really believes, and it's based on what he saw when he was inside the government. so the easiest thing to do is for the biden administration is to release publicly the intelligence that they have but the only real way to crack this is for the chinese government to hand over the data of the early cases, all of the things that were in the lab. what they say is, oh, the lab didn't have the virus, so that's that. but what robert redfield is saying is we can't take that at face value. we'll need an independent investigation, but the biden administration could also be more transparent as well. >> even if there's an independent investigation, would china be inclined to hand over whatever documentation they have about what they were doing in the lab? number one. and number two, why doesn't the w.h.o. seem to be on the same page with dr. redfield? >> right. well, in your first question, the chinese government has had over a year to hand over the data, and they've done quite the opposite. they've hit the date. there are allegations they've manipulated the data. they jailed the journalists, silenced the scientists. that's a pattern of obfuscation and cover-up pretty much undenial at this point. that's a problem that i don't think that we're going to be able to solve. and that's unfortunate. and the w.h.o. team, which i'm sure is full of a lot of well-meaning people, simply doesn't have the access that they need. some of the members of the w.h.o. investigative team have conflicts of interest. and their statements so far show they're not really looking into the lab accident theory at all because they don't believe it to be true. they don't want it to be true. we shouldn't ignore the w.h.o. investigation, but it's not going to be the end all, be all of what we know. it just can't be. as you heard, the head of the cdc during the time of the outbreak says the w.h.o. investigation is on the wrong track. >> josh rogin, so good to get your reporting and expertise into this. >> can't wait for the special. >> it's going to be -- don't miss this unprecedented event with dr. sanjay gupta when the medical leaders of the war on covid break their silence. watch the cnn special "covid war: the pandemic doctors speak out." it airs this sunday at 9:00 p.m. only on cnn. >> don't miss josh's book, "chaos under heaven." so much of this he writes about, just dead on. a texas mom now says she regrets being part of the anti-vaccine movement on social media. >> i've had people tell me that they're not vaccinating because of my posts. >> how does that make you feel now? >> really bad. >> her story, next. we started with computers. we didn't stop at computers. we didn't stop at storage or cloud. we kept going. working with our customers to enable the kind of technology that can guide an astronaut back to safety. and help make a hospital come to you, instead of you going to it. so when it comes to your business, you know we'll stop at nothing. ♪ ♪ locating your parked car with the touch of a button to your business, might seem... excessive. unless... getting lost is the whole point. ♪ ♪ as we continue to return to classrooms... parents like me want to make sure we're doing it safely. especially in the underserved communities hardest hit by covid. trust me, no one wants to get back to classroom learning more than teachers like me. using common sense safety measures like masks, physical distancing, and proper ventilation. safety is why we're prioritizing vaccinations for educators. because together, we all have a responsibility to do our part. and together, we will get through this, safely. a return to normality depends on a vast majority of people getting the coronavirus vaccines. but anti-vaxination groups are working overtime online to promote some frightening and false theorys about vaccines. donie o'sullivan spoke to one woman who got pulled and and talked about how she got pulled out. >> reporter: she got dragged into this as -- before she was about to have her first child. she went on social media and found a whole lot of misinformation. have a listen. >> i was like, oh, my gosh, we are not vaccinating our kid. there's no way. the vaccine goes into our child, she'll just die. >> you thought if your daughter took the vaccine, she might die? >> that she would die. not might. would. >> reporter: until recently, the 30-year-old was somewhat of an influencer in the anti-vax space. now she's changed her tune, although her husband has not. >> you'll get the covid shot when you can? >> yeah. >> and you? >> probably not. i already had covid so i have antibodies. >> reporter: she blames herself for the vaccine misinformation she shared online and with her husband. >> when you went online, you became part of the anti-vax community. tell me how you found it how you got into it. >> when charlotte was like 15, 16 months old, i decided to make a post thinking i was so brave about my anti-vaccine views and vaccine hesitancy, and it got shared like 600 times. and i was like, holy crud. then i got this following of people. >> you got the validation from the likes? >> yeah, the validation. i'm not an idiot. a lot of people believe this. >> and then you got pulled in? >> yes. i feel like a lot of the anti-vax moms all found each other all at once. i was getting a friend request per minute. >> reporter: with the rollout of covid-19 vaccines the stakes of online misinformation about vaccines are even higher. renee, an expert at stanford, explain house negative but not representative stories about vaccines go viral online. >> when i was a new mom, i joined a couple of groups on facebook for new moms where people were saying, i have a friend and she vaccinated and then this terrible thing happened. and it was this concept of like the friend of a friend narrative. the power of the personal story is what social media really brings home for all of us. we may live in a world of facts and statistics in the aggregate, but in terms of what we personally feel, it's what comes to us from our communities. it's what comes to us from people like us. that's what people are really sharing. that's the content that spreads. >> v is for vaccine that protects you from getting sick. >> reporter: heather says her views on vaccines and on medicine began to change when she needed surgery. >> i posted about it. and my friends were like, this is the lazy way out. you need to be eeating this foo and taking this silver to heal yourself. getting surgery is lazy. >> was it overnight you went from -- >> no, it took months. and i had friends that really poured into me and listened to my fears and talked me through it, and it really helped to know that they were scared. even though they're pro-vax, they're scared giving their kids shots because that's normal parental anxiety. >> you said your intent was to inspire some parent to stop their child from getting vaccinated. do you think you did that? >> yeah, like i know i did. i've had people tell me that they're not vaccinating because of my post. >> how does that make you feel now? >> really bad. i'm sure it's not just those few. like the amount of people i reached. because my main way of posting was fear based. and emotional based. and i can't take it back. >> are you afraid you may have harmed some children? >> i would hope that. i'm also hoping that if they still follow me, they're going to see that i changed and maybe i could reverse the damage. i know that's a long shot, but -- >> have you sought to contact any of them to say, wait, i was wrong? >> i don't even know who they are anymore. i shut that facebook down. and i started a new one, and i -- all i could hope is that they will somehow see me changing my mind. but, yeah it is hard to live with. >> wow, donie. what an incredible story. so one mother's misguided fear is one thing. and, obviously, that has ripple effect. what's the role of social media in all of this? >> it was stunning to hear there that she went online searching for this information. she was going to be a new mom. concerned about, you know, everything when it came to her newborn daughter. found this misinformation and then became a spreader herself. once she saw when she started spreading it, she got that dopamine kick from social media. she got all the likes, all the shares, the love and the attention. and that is something which we're going to see across the board on so many different issues. social media addiction and how it really incentivizes how people share this type of dangerous misinformation. alisyn? >> donie, thank you very much. that was a really interesting story. over the past several months, hundreds of schoolxhrn in northern nigeria have been kidnapped. many remain captives, pawns of terrorists in a place where mill tans have killed tens of thousands and displaced milians more. both sides of the boko haram conflict have found bright futures thanks to this week's "cnn hero." ♪ >> they are confused and you need to give them courage. you have to give them hope. >> morning, morning, morning. >> we are in a community where -- >> good morning. >> what keeps you going is the resilience of these children. whenever i see their faces, it gives me hope. it keeps my dream alive. >> to see how he builds peace amid war and the pandemic, and to nominate someone you think should be a cnn hero go to cnnheroes.com. breaking just a short time ago, fox facing a $1.6 billion lawsuit accused of spreading election lies. we're reading through the filing right now. we'll tell you how strong a case it is, next. 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(vo female) get 0% for 63 months on select new 2021 models. now through march 31st. we look up to our heroes. idolizing them. mimicking their every move. and if she counts on the advanced hydration of pedialyte when it matters most... so do we. hydrate like our heroes. so you're a small business, hydrate like our heroes. or a big one. you were thriving, but then... oh. ah. okay. plan, pivot. how do you bounce back? you don't, you bounce forward, with serious and reliable internet. powered by the largest gig speed network in america. but is it secure? sure it's secure. and even if the power goes down, your connection doesn't. you don't do this. we do this, together. bounce forward, with comcast business. developing now, dominion voting filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against fox news after false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election. dominion's ceo says the disinformation campaign waged against our company has caused us severe damage and undermined trust in american democratic institutions. these lies also have threatened the personal safety of our employees and customers. no amount of money will repair the damage done. we're asking for $1.6 billion, though. i added that at the end. joining us, brian stelter and legal analyst elie honig. >> profiting off the big lies that followed trump's loss in november. this is the second lawsuit from a second voting technology company targeting fox. you'll remember smartmaddics. that case now working its way through the system. this is dominion, which was falsely accused of being in cahoots with smartmatic to rig the election. you had hosts like lou dobbs and maria bartiromo fans them on the air for weeks. that's part of the argument from dominion. fox knew what it was doing and fox took a small flame of disinformation and turned it into a forest fire. fox has no immediate comment on the lawsuit this morning but in response to the earlier lawsuit, they said they believe the charges are meritless and they're proud of their 2020 election coverage. you'll remember that lou dobbs was kind of forced out of his job one day after the smartmatic lawsuit. fox claimed it was a coincidence but we'll see if there's any further fallout as a result of this second lawsuit from a second voting technology company. >> what jumps out as to the legal merits of this case, and what dominion will have to prove here? >> fox is in a tough spot here. and here's why. the first amendment gives media companies very broad protections, but it's not unlimited. dominion has to prove two things to make its case. one, the statements were false. we know they were false. everybody knows they were false. there's no proof of them. and second, that fox knew they were false or was recklessly disregarding the truth of it. here's the thing to remember. just a few days ago, earlier this week, sidney powell, the lead purveyor, one of the lead purveyors of this election fraud theory said my statements were so ridiculous, so obviously false, that no reasonable person would have taken them seriously. that puts fox news in the difficult position of either saying, yeah, we were in on this whole sort of scheme with sidney powell, which is not going to help them or we were so gullible, so noncredible in our reporting that we actually did believe sidney powell's ridiculous theories. either way, they're in a tough spot here. >> put up the all-star team that was there of who is named in this lawsuit. these are all people who were named in the suit? you can read the suit yourself. they're not specifically charged. the reason i want you to see this, at one point, tucker carlson, he explained to his viewers why he wasn't letting sidney powell come on. he actually went through this like ten-minute thing where he described at length what she was accusing of happening in the elections. but he said he wouldn't put her on because she couldn't provide evidence. does that put fox in a weird way in even more trouble, elie, because you have someone on tv saying we don't have the evidence here. if elsewhere on the network they're promoting lies, what does that tell you? >> exactly, john. as to the issue of whether fox knew, right there, of course they knew and dominion points out, we notified them. we told them dozens of times. anchors, producers, this was false. we demanded retractions. what's interesting in this filing is dominion alleges that fox had a very specific reason, intentionality for pushing these lies. dominion alleges fox started losing viewers after the election because they were deemed not sufficiently pro-trump. not supportive enough of president trump. so the allegation dominion makes in order to bring those viewers back, they knowingly and intentionally spread that lie. >> they corrected it because last night they had the guy on spreading more lies. brian, listen to this. >> they go after people that, i guess you'd call them lean toward the right. and they wave american flags in many cases. they're waving the american flag. and they love our country. it was zero threat right from the start. it was zero threat. look, they went in. they shouldn't have done it. some of them went in, and they are hugging and kissing the police and the guards. you know, they had great relationships. a lot of the people were waved in, and then they walked in and they walked out. >> so that was the 10:00 insurrection hour on fox tv last night where the former president gushes about the insurrectionists, saying they caused no harm. there are five people dead after that insurrection for one reason or another there. >> nobody saw anyone kissing the police that day? we all saw people trying to injury the police. this incredible and just absolutely farcical attempt at revisionist history is something laura ingraham should have reacted to. you know what happened because we all saw it on live television. it's so revealing and so sad the former president can promote these old stories about this big lie and tries to rewrite history. it's a shame on the conscience of the country. to have a former president continuing to lie about this terror attack. and yet, you know, we all just accept it at this point because that's the former president. by the way, you know, this is all about money and profits. the murdochs now being targeted for their profits in this dominion lawsuit. i don't know if perhaps trump is safe at mar-a-lago, but the murdochs have to be very worried about these developments. >> elie honig, brian stelter, thank you both for coming on with this breaking news. cnn's coverage continues next. ♪ ♪ we made usaa insurance for veterans like martin. when a hailstorm hit, he needed his insurance to get it done right, right away. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. usaa are your hr processes weighing down your employees? 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