♪ ♪ wow, we're crunching tons of polygons here! what's going on? where's regina? hi, i'm ladonna. i invest in invesco qqq, a fund that gives me access to the nasdaq-100 innovations, like real time cgi. okay... yeah... oh. don't worry i got it! become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq a lot of news breaking tonight. let's hand it over to chris for "cuomo prime time." chris? >> all right, anderson, appreciate you. i'm chris cuomo and welcome to "prime time." we have some scary questions and some answers tonight. here's a question. how many of us are going to get our younger kids vaccinated against covid-19? it's been hypothetical until now. the fda panel approved the use, meaning we could be a week or two away from having to make this choice. we're going to talk about it tonight. what we know and what we need to know. we have answers on that. but first, we have questions. questions of criminality being asked in the "rust" movie shooting. the d.a. of santa fe county says everything at this point is on the table. the prosecutor tells "the new york times" this investigation is focusing on ballistics. what kind of round was in the gun handed to alec baldwin? and who put it there? the d.a. says there was an enormous amount of bullets on this set. the key question, of course, is why? but again, the larger question for me is will real guns keep being used to make believe in movies? now, have you seen this? this may be the last photo, or one of the last. and it's not just about no, sir cal ja or the macabre. this gives us the best sense of what was happening when this tragedy occurred. the cinematographer on "rust," halyna hutchins, you see her there with the hat. you know, with the arrow obviously. so you see alec baldwin, where he is? this idea of you never point a gun at somebody. but you see what they're doing here. they're blocking a shot. she's in line with alec baldwin and with the director. okay? and this is a very interesting angle into why did this happen the way it did. but the picture does not tell the entire story because it's all about the weapon. it should have never been in his hand for a rehearsal. he shouldn't have been -- look, again, i've been very clear. i don't think that they should have real guns in make believe at all. in truth, i used to say prop gun all the time. there's no such thing. there should be. he should have had a prop gun, especially for a rehearsal. there was no need for anything approximating reality in a rehearsal. who gave it to him? did they check it? did he check it? how did it get a bullet in it that could blow a hole through somebody and take their life? we don't know when the picture was taken, but we do know that's hutchins. we do know she cared tremendously about her job and she had a young family. and that's why this all matters. it won't be the last time this happens if nothing changes. now, the detectives put together an inventory list. it shows what was seized on set. among the items, ammunition found in boxes and loose around the set. some of it may have been live, meaning real bullets, ammunition haphazardly strewn around. as for the gun that ended up in baldwin's hands, reportedly used for target practice in the hours before this tragedy. target practice means live ammo. some crew members apparently used it to go plinking. shooting at cans. that's the sound. plink. now, should you do that? no. but more importantly, bringing back and mixing live ammo with the blanks, is that what happened here? when you aggregate all the red flags we've heard about so far, it really is jarring. a gun used for target practice by the crew hours before? reports of at least two accidental gun discharges on the set prior to the shooting? ammo found loose in a fanny pack tray, boxes not organized. crew members reportedly quitting due to safety concerns before this incident. a veteran prop expert saying he turned down a job on the set because of safety. and then there's the two crew members at the center of this all. assistant director dave halls. he said the gun was cold. that means you don't have to worry about it. when he gave it to alec baldwin. why? does it have anything to do with why he was fired by another film production in 2019 over another gun incident that injured another crew member? and of course the armorer. why do i put it in quotes? because i think that's a title that's earned, not just a name on a production sheet. hannah gutierrez is 24 years old. she's only done this twice. this was her second time. she was in charge of this gun. she even expressed doubts about her capabilities specifically about loading blanks. she said that was really scary in the job she did before "rust" because she didn't know what she was doing. those are her words. so what should happen to those who made this happen and what must change? let's ask an actor and producer who once worked with halyna hutchins on a movie called "the mad hatter." his name is armando gutierrez. also with us, dutch merrick, an armorer, a real one. a propmaster with more than two decades of experience in film and tv. i welcome you both. i want to talk about the analysis here. but i don't want to forget about the people. armando, halyna hutchins, only 42 years of age, young family, but a lot of shine in the industry. people believed in her, believed in her talent, believed what she was about as a person. you knew her. who did we lose? >> you lost a very talented director of photography, camera operator, dreamer, and future director. i worked with her on "the mad hatter," and from day one i was extremely impressed with her capabilities. she knew everything about lighting, cameras, lenses, and she was on her way. this was her second career. she started in something else and really, you know, gravitated toward the creative of this industry. i -- you know, we did stay in touch, and i was hoping to work with her again. so obviously when i heard about this news it was extremely tragic. >> especially because it didn't have to happen, right? i know that you were talking about how this usually works on set. do we have it right in terms of, you know, you're blocking a shot, you're going to set up how it is, and that's why you'd have your d.p., in this case halyna, and have the director behind her lined up next to the camera trying to get alec, you know, to have the right line of sight and what it's going to look like for them. what stands out for you as strange in that kind of setup and how it was done here? >> i mean, just from what you were discussing, why is there live ammunition on set in the first place? and why is the armorer not an experienced, you know, individual with a federal firearms license and years and years of training? there's no reason to use live ammunition in these kind of things. you could do it through cgi. you could do it through a rubber gun. there's a lot of options. i was extremely, you know, angered by the fact that you had crew members that were, you know, calling out the red flags before and people were ignoring it. these guys -- you know, just because you're on a western set doesn't mean you can lower your guards and not be prepared for the dangers of any kind of filming. but the fact that there was live ammunition and guns of this sort without the expertise of either officers, agents, somebody with 20, 30 years of experience is appalling. >> right. >> and that's where the real problem is. there needs to be a law that forces you to use experienced individuals with the experience to manage this if you are going to use it. but to it also analyze the fact that if you don't use it you're going to be penalized and potentially charged criminally for violating these kind of safety protocols. if the union strikes, what, that means the medic can go home too? if somebody gets sick there's no medic? no, no, no. the medic and armorer, these kind of individuals need to be on set no matter what. and don't give me the excuse of a budget because a life is worth a lot more than a few hundred dollars more a day. >> dutch, let me bring you in on this. help me understand. i was talking to bill davis, i'm sure you know that name, another guy who's been in the industry a very long time. and i said, you know, i've always used the term "prop gun." i didn't know that most of the time these are real weapons and you just are swapping out the type of slug in there for a blank instead of a live round. do you think the time has come to no longer use real weapons in making a movie? >> no, i don't. i don't see that coming. we've used real guns in hollywood for more than a century. 100 years of an overwhelmingly safe craft. because it's fake. it does put fire out the front, but we accommodate for that by blocking the shots very carefully. hollywood shoots millions, literally millions of blank rounds, and without a fatality. it's been 28 years, and the last one was an anomaly like this with a chain of events that happened that was unpredictable. all the safety procedures were not met. this show sounds like it was a disaster from the very beginning and it was a recipe for something to go wrong, a stunt or who knows what. and it was unfortunately that it was this. and the day that it happened it sounds like it was a bit of mayhem on the set with the camera crew leaving, bringing in new crew. one can only imagine what it was like to stand on that set that morning. and of course an inexperienced armorer, and i understand that the prop department, the original propmaster they asked to do it asked for five people to do it because it's such a big show. and the producers gave the propmaster that took the job two assistants. and they said one of your assistants will also be the armorer. so a department that should have been five or six or seven people was three people. so if you don't have enough money to make this film you shouldn't have made it. >> you had two real issues here. one is that they may have been using the weapon with live rounds to target practice. and then they -- or she or someone brought live ammunition back onto the set and somehow confused it and put it into the weapon, assuming this was unintentional. how hard is it to mistake a blank for a live round? >> very, very difficult. a blank is shorter. it's crimped. there's no bullet. when you look at it, it's very, very obvious to the layperson the difference between a bullet and a blank. so if they were shooting and didn't empty the gun -- i mean, the thought of having actual gunfire to goof around on a lunch break at a film set, that's insane. absolutely insane. and goes against every standard and every common sense. so if they left over a round after they were shooting in the gun that's a major problem. if someone put it in there deliberately as a gun, also a major problem. we don't know how it got there. who brought the ammo? there's just no reason in any film or television production to have real ammo. i've never heard of such a thing. >> why would they -- if i handed you a gun or the person that hands the gun and says "cold gun," meaning, dutch, that this doesn't have -- what does it mean? if i say "cold gun," obviously it means it doesn't have a live round, it will never have a live round. a cold gun means what? >> well, the terminology we use, it started with special effects when they wanted to make something hot, meaning they're ready to make it dangerous and ready to go, some pyrotechnics. so that kind of crept over into firearms. they say okay, last thing before we roll, make the guns hot. and then from that you ended up are the guns hot or cold? so that's the term that we use. there's a chain of custody that armorers have. we take the guns from a locked gun safe. we transport them to set on a cart, as you've seen a cart in the photos. and we maintain custody of those guns the entire time. nobody else should be touching a gun other than the armorers and the actor who's going to use the gun. the first assistant director is the ultimate arbiter of safety and they can inspect the gun and they should inspect the gun to make sure the barrel's clear and it's only using authorized blanks for that gun. but he shouldn't touch it. and then the armorer hands it to the actor. they get the scene. when they're done with the scene, the armorer comes in, removes the gun from the scene and makes it safe. so it only goes between the armorer and the actor. and it's a very regulated process. and we do it every day in hollywood. >> armando, when you get handed a weapon and they say it's cold or it's safe or it's whatever, do you check it? >> of course, i would check it again myself. it reminds me of when we were working on a movie in the united kingdom. not only i checked it, i had the director and another producer check it. on top of the armorer. and the armorer verified it several times. but just like he said, the fact there was live ammunition on this set tells you everything. >> right. >> tells you exactly how irresponsible they are. and they thought this was a joke because you're filming on a western set. so i mean, there's huge fundamental safety violations in this, and i think that they're going to be studying this for years. but the bottom line is unless there's some kind of federal law that actually forces you to be responsible and fined heavily and prosecuted when you make stupid mistakes like this, that's the only way you're going to be able to prevent this from happening again. >> well, the industry can make its own rules, and you guys have grown up in and around that process. however, then you get to a point like this where now you have a district attorney who is going to say that what was being done wasn't just stupid, wasn't just unprofessional, but did it rise to the level of criminality in terms of the level of negligence. we'll see. the d.a. said everything is on the table. armando, thank you for reminding us of who halyna was, to her colleagues and of course to her kid and her husband. and dutch, thank you for reminding us how it's supposed to be done when it's done right. thank you both. all right. now to politics. a very different type of violence. this virginia race, why do you have to watch it? because they're fighting right now about teaching in schools. race, what you read. why? because this is what they believe works. it's not about education. this is a bigger play than that. and it's probably headed to your state. so we have a veteran of republican politics to tell you exactly what the play is here and what it means for left, right, and for the rare few who are still reasonable. next. 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the messaging present in a new ad. terry mcauliffe, democrat, doesn't want parents to have a say in what their kids learn in school. it features a mom expressing outrage, saying her child was exposed to explicit material in the classroom. watch. >> they passed bills requiring schools to notify parents when explicit content was assigned. it was bipartisan. it gave parents a say. the option to choose an alternative for my children. i was so grateful. but then governor terry mcauliffe vetoed it. twice. he doesn't think parents should have a say. >> the mom in the ad? she made headlines in 2013 for campaigning against toni morrison's "beloved." you heard of it. won the 1988 pulitzer prize. considered one of the greatest novels in american history. her son was assigned to read it in an advanced placement english course. it's college level. smart kid. the parent maybe not so much. but you could dismiss the absurdity of this. right? what is this, "fahrenheit 451"? no. this is modern day, and it is messaging that may work. you will likely see these kinds of scare tactics. the government, the democrats, they're the same thing, and they want to ruin the way you live. testing, masks, vaccine. now your kids in school, critical race theory, whatever that is. let's get some perspective from former republican strategist stewart stevens. you know what always amazes me, young man? what is old is new again in politics all the time. this is no different than the kind of culture clash that we've seen in many different iterations. but it seems to be working for youngkin. what do you see in this new version of a tried and tested tactic? >> well, i think it was inevitable this was going to be a close race. it's an off year. that doesn't surprise me. look, this is a completely phony issue for glenn youngkin. and here's the proof of that. he spends almost $40,000 a year to send his son to georgetown prep, where toni morrison is required reading in certain courses. i mean, we're talking about the only african-american nobel laureate in literature. the idea you're going to be afraid of a book? i don't know what happened to the republican party. it used to be that we prided ourselves on standing up to dictators and now we're fighting to read a book, if you read a nobel prize-winning book? the irony is this is the ultimate cancel culture. they want to cancel a nobel prize laureate? that just happens to be african-american? it's all about race. it's all about trying to up white turnout. i hope it doesn't work. >> forcing it. that's the point, stuart. it's not read the book, don't read the book. it's you're going to read the black book. you're going to do what they tell you to do and you're going to appreciate the black culture and you're going to get away from your whiteness and you're going to be told what to do if you won't do it when we ask you. that's what this is all code for, isn't it? >> yeah. i mean, what was shocking about the book was that it was about slavery, right? so, i mean, slavery is shocking. and so you have this kind of confluence of forces here. you have this attempt to rewrite history and deny history, which is one version of what's happening with 1-6. you have this attempt to sort of hold on to some white identity in america that won't acknowledge the pain and suffering that others who are non-white more often than not particularly those who are african-american, have suffered in the country. and i don't think glenn youngkin believes any of this. i mean, this guy wouldn't send his son to a place where he had to spend $40,000 to expose him to what is a good education. it's just completely phony, but it shows where the party is and he thinks -- this is a guy who wants to run for president. and when you elect people who are reasonable but act unreasonably, i think it's extraordinarily dangerous. you see this is what's happening down in texas with governor abbott, who is not a crazy person but he's passing crazy laws because he sees that's the way to advance in this republican party. >> but the challenge -- you say dance. it takes two to tango, though, right? and when mcauliffe says hey, i don't think parents should be telling schools what to temperature, you're creating an opening of oh, they want to take away my rights. this is what hillary did with deplorable. this is what obama just did with phony culture wars. you don't want to play with legitimate pain, legitimate fear and frustration. you want to speak to it. you want to have a countermessage that makes people feel included and empowered. do the democrats you think recognize what's coming their way? because mcauliffe opened the door to this. >> yeah, it wasn't a great line. but look, terry mcauliffe was governor for four years and virginia seemed to do very well under terry mcauliffe. >> very well. >> you know, he's not a frightening guy. and that's why they're going this way. i -- look, i think the democrats can't get drawn in if we go into 2022, into these culture wars. and the way to counter this is with a message that is bigger, that is positive. and i believe that what democrats need to do is nationalize this race about a defense of democracy. because ultimately just donald trump is on the ballot on november 2nd in virginia, democracy itself is on the ballot. because that's what this is about. why all of a sudden is donald trump interested in this governor? because he wants to run again in 2024 and he knows in close states if they pass the right laws they'll empower these state legislatures to overturn the results. and that's what he wanted to happen. it didn't happen. that's not to say it's not going to happen again. so this is very methodical. it's about something much bigger than the virginia governor's race. just as georgia was about something much bigger than georgia. and really what the democrats have to do is make voting for democracy patriotic. and they're the defenders of democracy now. i don't think it's a perfect party. but they're the pro-democracy party in this country. and the other one isn't. so take your pick. i'm with the pro-democracy party. >> look, i hear you. and it would be nice if you had more than two choices. this is a big thing for me. the binary system. you know, it started with a warning from washington not to get into the party game. the binary system has led us into a place where it exacerbates all of our problems of division. and you're right. right now the democrats do have a big stick to swing if they want which is you have a party that is invested in ruining our democracy. but then again, the democrats let that fight go. they did not pick as a hill to die on getting the voting rights passed. maybe they'll come back to it. we'll see. i'll tell you what i'll come back to. you. stuart stevens, you are a gift to the audience. you know the game and you know how to explain it and you're doing it for the right reasons. i appreciate you. >> thank you. >> be well. let's go deeper. i'm telling you, this is the secret sauce for the midterms. it's being seasoned right now. and we can see the ingredients in place. i want to bring in someone who's no chef. the wizards of wizard of odds. but he can cook when it comes to television. and he's going to show us what the issues are and how you can play to fear. if voters gobble it up, the incumbents may get agita, sick stomach. next. wealth is your first big investment. worth is a partner to help share the load. wealth is saving a little extra. worth is knowing it's never too late to start - or too early. ♪ ♪ wealth helps you retire. worth is knowing why. ♪ ♪ principal. for all it's worth. you could wait... all night... for an email response from steve, who will sign back in at 9 am tomorrow morning. orrrr... you could find the answer right now in slack. and give steve a break. slack. where the future works. tonight, i'll be eating lobster ravioli with shaved truffles. yes! you look amazing! no, you look amazing! thank you! thank you! thank you! thank you! thank you! thank you! haha, you're welcome. moving is a handful. no kidding! fortunately, xfinity makes moving easy. easy? -easy? switch your xfinity services to your new address online in about a minute. that was easy. i know, right? and even save with special offers just for movers. really? yep! so while you handle that, you can keep your internet and all those shows you love, and save money while you're at it with special offers just for movers at xfinity.com/moving. the virginia race isn't really about education. of course education matters. but it's about the context. see, the important thing is to see how the issue's being framed. you're going to see this on all major issues. the issues will be obvious. it will be the economy. it will be education. it will be covid. but it's how. it's always about the how. the era of white fright is upon us. is we see the battle before us in the numbers. so says no less than the wizard of odds. unpack it for us. >> it's fear. fear is the big issue here. fear of government. you know, one of the biggest shifts that we've seen nationally from 2020 to 2021 is now the majority of americans think that the government is doing too much. last year they said the government should do more. and we see that on the issues that you mentioned, right? it's about that the government's doing too much on the economy, that they want to make too big of drastic changes. it's about education, as you point out. the government going in and telling you how your kids should actually be learning and taking away parental rights. it's even on the coronavirus, telling businesses whether or not they in fact have to basically regulate who comes into their restaurants or whether it's telling you that you in fact have to have a vaccine in order to go to work. it's fear of government intervention, and we're seeing that in virginia. >> so show us in virginia, because i remember not too long ago a really smart analyst i think was sitting on my couch eating free food saying terry mcauliffe should win this pretty easily. i forget who it was. but it's not looking like that right now. >> no, it's not looking like that right now. look at this. who do you trust more on the important issues? look at this. glenn youngkin with a five-point lead on jobs and the economy. even a one-point, basically to a draw on education and schools. education is usually a big democratic advantage. and look at that. even on the covid pandemic. remember when joe biden had like these 20, 30-point edges over donald trump on who you trust more on the covid pandemic and now terry mcauliffe has -- yes, it's a lead but it's just a six-point advantage. and you know, the other thing i will note is how the issues have been changing during the course of the campaign, right? it used to be that the coronavirus was a huge issue nationally and it was one of the top issues in virginia. i don't know if we have that slide. but what we see now is that the economy and jobs as well as education and schools have become the top issues in that race, and i think it's all just kind of falling back. this is going right into where glenn youngkin wants this race to be. >> so it's working for him there. at least it's making it very, very close. >> yes. >> now, what does that look like projected on it tot national scene? >> i think it looks like the following gets projected on the national scene. if we go to slide 4 here, which is the economy and joe biden, and what do we see? we see, look at this. look at how the approval rating on the economy traces so well with joe biden's overall approval rating. you see, as basically the economy, economic approval rating starts to fall back from june, then august, 52 to 46 to 42. look at the overall approval ratings. 53 to 48 to 43. as basically the republicans have gone after joe biden's handling of the economy saying he's trying to do too much, they're trying to do too much, they're trying to change the ultimate size of government, they're not focusing enough on inflation, the problems that are actually hitting your everyday pocketbooks. it's all coming down to the size of government and the fear that government is not doing enough for you and doing too much to line their own pockets or too much to control your lives, whether it be on education or whether it be on the coronavirus. >> so i'm filling up my car today literally. i'm at the gas station. guy says to me -- he says hey, where do you think this deal's going to get made on spending? and first it was interesting to me, all he was talking about was the amount. and i'm telling you, price tag politics does more bad than good. very rarely do people talk about the size of programs as a good thing. you've got to break it down for them. and he said, boy, 1.5, 2 trillion dollars and he might get beat by a dollar at the gas pump. that's not a bad point. you may pass this spending bill but if people play pocketbook economics and don't understand the value of the bill but they understand gas prices, biden could be in trouble on that. >> you know, one of the more interesting things to me is i've sort of been digesting these numbers as they've sort of come out, right? initially we all saw oh, wait a minute, voters were heavily in favor. they heavily approved on the build back better agenda, heavily approved of the infrastructure bill. but then you ask them a second question. you ask them the question of whether or not, number one, it's going to help you and your family. number two, is it going to actually help the national economy? and we see a far bigger split here. far more of a split. far more of a 50-50 split. and that's generally what we've been seeing all along. things that you think that democrats should have large advantages on all of a sudden get shrunk and all of a sudden republicans are basically saying you know, we're going to fight to a draw on the issues on which you were ahead on and we're going to blow it out on other things. and we even see that on vaccine mandates. if we go to slide 5 here, i mean, look, vaccine mandates. an infringement of rights. what do we see? look at that. only 51% say it's an acceptable way to increase vaccinations. 49% say it's an unacceptable infringement on rights. you and i have sat here before, right? and i was saying vaccine mandates could be something good for the democrats, especially given that now near 80% of adults have at least one covid shot. but -- >> they work. >> -- republicans have been able to change things so much and really put it onto an infringement of rights and it seems to be working for them even in virginia, a state biden won by ten points. >> literally to be continued. harry enten, thank you very much. >> thank you, sir. >> all right. so should be good news, but i think it's going to get slotted right into this conflict that we have about us and them. covid shots going to kids. look, even the way i wrote it. shots going into the arms of children between 5 and 11. very menacing. or is it what the science suggests, which is this is the final chapter in being able to protect ourselves and the people we care about most, our kids, in this virus? the fda panel put out big, big news today. will people do this? what do they need to know? and how might it get twisted? keen insight from a former fda commissioner. ♪ i try so hard, i can't rise above it♪ ♪don't know what it is 'bout that little gal's lovin'♪ ♪but i like it, i love it♪ applebee's. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood. discover card i just got my cashback match is this for real? yup! we match all the cash back new card members earn at the end of their first year automatically woo! i got my mo-ney! it's hard to contain yourself isn't it? uh- huh! well let it go! woooo! get a dollar for dollar match at the end of your first year. only from discover. as a dj, i know all about customization. that's why i love liberty mutual. they customize my car insurance, so i only pay for what i need. how about a throwback? ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ ♪ your new pharmacy is here. to help you compare prices, and save on your medication. amazon prime members get select meds as low as $1 a month. who knew it could be this easy? your new pharmacy is amazon pharmacy. for people living with h-i-v, keep being you. and ask your doctor about biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in certain adults. it's not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v to help you get to and stay undetectable. that's when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. research shows people who take h-i-v treatment every day and get to and stay undetectable can no longer transmit h-i-v through sex. serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. rare, life-threatening side effects include a buildup of lactic acid and liver problems. do not take biktarvy if you take dofetilide or rifampin. tell your doctor about all the medicines and supplements you take, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you have kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis. if you have hepatitis b, do not stop taking biktarvy without talking to your doctor. common side effects were diarrhea, nausea, and headache. if you're living with hiv, keep loving who you are. and ask your doctor if biktarvy is right for you. covid is scary for kids between 5 and 14. it's top ten of what kills them. it's number 6. the fda advisory panel had a unanimous vote today saying that it's safe for kids 5 to 11. could be a matter of days, week or two. has to go through the cdc, figure out the final processing. and then kids may be eligible for the vaccine. will parents choose for their kids to get it? will the breakdown be the same that we've seen with adults or will it be different? let's break it down. former fda commissioner dr. mark mcclellan. doc, it's good to have you. very different proposition for you or me to get the vaccine versus giving it to our kids, especially younger kids. what do you want parents to know? >> well, you're right, chris, that it is lower risk from covid in kids that are age 5 to 11 compared to you or me. but chris, as you mentioned, this is a serious outbreak, a serious pandemic for kids in this age group. we've seen over close to 2 million infections in this age group. more than 8,000 kids hospitalized. many of those in intensive care units with serious long-term consequences. and close to 100 deaths. that's more than we have for chicken pox or other conditions where we've got vaccines available and use them. so this is a very important option, especially with so much covid around and so many kids trying to go back to school and prevent spread within their families and in their communities. >> this is going to be a mission not of science but of messaging. with all due respect, it keeps getting screwed up at the federal level. one, they don't know how to message, scientists, because it's okay for a scientist to change a position based on a change in fact. people aren't used to that in politics. people hold on to a bad position no matter what the facts are. so now things that change actually scare them as opposed to it just being more, you know, empirical thought. the messaging here is going to be key, doc. what do they have to get right right now? >> well, this is a message that needs to get out very soon because as you said, it's likely that the vaccines are going to be available in a week. i think one important message is there is very unlikely -- very unlikely there will be any mandates anywhere for this age group. in most of the country for kids over 11 there are vaccines available now. almost nowhere, chris, is there a mandate. so that means people and parents can have a chance to look at the facts and make a decision. if you're in an area where there's a lot of covid around, if you look around and see the cases that have happened, the hospitalizations, the long-term consequences of covid, take a look at the data. what it shows is 90% effectiveness of the vaccines. very few, very rare side effects. and those are able to be managed. that's much better, i think, for most people given the way covid is spreading now in the country for protecting their kids. >> doctor, thank you very much. i appreciate it. i want you to come back once we get the final approval and see what the government is saying about this. i would actually flip the message. leave mandates way to the back until you know that people aren't getting it and start out front with why you know it's safe enough to give your kid and pound that message with compelling data. let's see if they do it. dr. mark mcclellan, always a plus. thank you. >> thanks, chris. >> all right. different kind of pandemic. misinformation. facebook is under fire. and they did have a role in fueling. their own documents show that. they're not the only one, though. okay? we just keep learning more. and we've got to be careful not to overdo what we know what the problem is. we have a top insider who worked there for more than a decade with zuckerberg and other top execs. let's talk about what matters here. what he knows from being there and what he also knows that could make it better. next. i thought i was managing my moderate to severe crohn's disease. then i realized something was missing... ...me. my symptoms were keeping me from being there for her. so, i talked to my doctor and learned humira is the #1 prescribed biologic for people with crohn's disease. humira helps people achieve remission that can last. and the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief in as little as 4 weeks. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. be there for you, and them. ask your gastroenterologist about humira. with humira, remission is possible. learn how abbvie could help you save on humira. football, is a game of inches. but it's also a game, of information. because the nfl is connected. and at any moment, the fate of the season can come down to this. billions of secure connections, per second. when the game is on the line and the game is always on the line touchdown! the nfl relies on cisco. 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"the washington post" is the latest to report on leaked internal document. turns out when facebook gave you more than a thumbs up to react to posts, their algorithms treated five times more valuable than likes. that means that things that made people angry were pushed harder than what gave you a thumbs up. why? because it pays. decisions like that caused my next guest to leave facebook. brian bowlen, a former vp at the company, good to have you, do i have it right? >> yeah, you got it right, good to be here, chris. >> the only problem i have going after facebook is not just about facebook, he's just the biggest player in the space especially with instagram. every venue to me, i don't like the word platform. you are building the stadiums and just like any of that, you don't control the games and concerts but you are providing the venue for it and you have people there and you have rules about who can come and where they can sit and what allows them to stay and when they have to leave. this should be no different. what could be done to make social media better for us? >> well, chris, you got it right. we see this not just with facebook but every platform that gives you recommendations and algorithms, it could be youtube or tiktok. which hasn't studied any of these problems. now imagine your stadium without building codes. they would not be safe. would the stairs fall down or everything collapse? we need the same kind of response where we can have a regulatory body. kind of like the one that provides us building codes or fda, sort of bring regulations in place to protect people and giving people the base level of safety which they are not getting today. >> we can't afford bolands. we see this every time security industry comes up with a new product that has to be policed. it's very hard and it's a lot easier to find people who understand trading and -- than understand algorithms through software. can you do this? it's going to take a long time on the business side for a long time. >> it's going to be hard, these are complex problems with new technology that didn't exist when you and i growing up. this is brand new stuff. we have a lot of researchers and world class ph.d.s that can take data from these platforms in a privacy safe way. they can study these issues and inform policies and they can inform the kind of safety measures that you would put into one of these platforms. we study medicines and drugs and study drugs for their effectiveness and what they do to people. the problem is these platforms are black box, they don't let academic researchers see the data. the only reason we are getting insights right now because somebody leaked a lot of data from internal studies. these were done by ph.d. researchers. we can take these and extend it across platforms and give us the direction of where to go. >> one of things that pissed you off is you are not special. that what you saw and how you felt about it you believed should have been common. what was your experience with people at your level of understanding what was wrong and their attitude toward it? >> you are told these are hard problems and good people are working on it, or told that the media is overblowing these stories. i started to look around and read more of these things and hear about people like maria aressa, who won the nobel peace prize from the philippines. i started seeing trends that were really concerning to me. so it's my personal journey that led me to that path i was going to change it or go. i was not able to change it so i left and now speaking publicly. >> do you think we can balance rights and responsibilities in a way that does not sensor or chill? >> yeah, absolutely. any time we have these rights and freedom of expression, it's so important to us. we have seen what happens when you limit speech. at the same time a lot of what we are talking about is hate speech. issues around safety and some of it is issues of investment. facebook is talking about $5 billion on safety investments but they're spending twice that on the metaverse, they spent three times on stock buybacks and today announced a ten times that anoumts in stock buybacks. so the priorities are out of whack. there are solutions put in place where they say if we take these measures, people will be safer. we just need that to be a priority. there is a path there and interventions that people suggested. we need to have the pressure to do them. >> i think that pressure is going to come from dealing with competition and allow seed companies to get into the game of saying come on our platform, it's safer. we police it better. i think if they don't get gobbled up early on and guys don't get selfish too early on, the men and women creating this platforms and technology, that will drive it a lot, too. >> brian boland, thank you. >> we'll be right back. and a “did you see my email?” text. orrrr... you could see her status in slack. and give lisa a break while you find someone online who can help. slack. where the future works. bogeys on your six, limu. they need customized car insurance from liberty mutual so they only pay for what they need. woooooooooooooo... we are not getting you a helicopter. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ and there you have it- woah. wireless on the most reliable network nationwide. wow. -big deal! ...we get unlimited for just 30 bucks. sweet, i get that too and mine has 5g included. that's cool, but ours save us serious clam-aroonies. relax people, my wireless is crushing it. that's because you all have xfinity mobile with your internet. it's wireless so good, it keeps one upping itself. thank you for watching. it's time for "don lemon tonight," the big star, don lemon. >> what you got tonight? i heard you talked about facebook. we talked about it today on "the handoff" which we'll relea