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First Move with Julia Chatterley

Alphabet and Microsoft Earnings Soar; Robinhood Shares Plunge as Retail Trading Disappoints; NBA star, Enes Kanter Tackles Nike over Chinese Slave Labor. Aired 9-9:45a ET

Aired October 27, 2021 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:00:25]

JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN BUSINESS ANCHOR, FIRST MOVE: Live from New York, I'm Julia Chatterley. This is FIRST MOVE and here is your need-to-know.

Tech triumph. Alphabet and Microsoft earnings soar.

Meme muddle. Robinhood shares plunge as retail trading disappoints.

And continuing criticism. NBA star, Enes Kanter tackles Nike over Chinese slave labor.

It's Wednesday, let's make a move.

A warm welcome to an electric and supercharged FIRST MOVE today. Motoring us through the next hour, the Hertz CEO Mark Fields and the Uber CEO Dara

Khosrowshahi who both had a busy week. The car rental firm announcing it is buying 100,000 Teslas, now the two CEOs are tying up to make Musk's motors

available for Uber drivers to rent. Yes, stick with me.

And tackling rental car resells, Hertz is also announcing a deal with online car giant, Carvana. We've got all the details on that and the

explanation coming up. We also have a tank full of earnings to digest today, too, and the Dow and the S&P are charging up after hitting fresh

highs on Tuesday.

The NASDAQ closer to a fresh record after Microsoft and Alphabet posted huge sales gains late Tuesday. Its Cloud and advertising powering their

results.

Twitter also rising premarket though, too, assuring investors that Apple's new privacy policy is having a quote, "modest impact." We'll discuss all

the details.

In the meantime, it's a more cautious day in Europe and across Asia. Hong Kong falling some one and a half percent, the stock market there.

Washington's decision to ban China telecom from operating in the United States, too, citing national security concerns could put further pressure

on U.S.-Chinese relations. Just another signal coming from the U.S. there.

And a bold call to from JPMorgan saying India's bond market could see overseas inflows of some $25 billion, now that India is included in

JPMorgan's very own global emerging market bond index. China's inclusion in the index triggered a similar cash flood. So, that's the comparison there.

And high voltage returns for India's mean stock index, too. The Sensex up some 27 percent so far this year. Wow, look at that performance. And

speaking of electrifying, let's get right to our drivers and Big Tech's high wattage results.

Both Alphabet, the parent of Google, and Microsoft beating Wall Street expectations. Paul La Monica joins me with all the details.

The year-on-year comparisons here are pretty astonishing, which I think you would expect given where we were this time last year, but we're talking

revenues of $110 billion combined. Wowsers.

PAUL LA MONICA, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: Yes, Microsoft and Alphabet are two, of course of the tech juggernauts that are helping to dominate the

NASDAQ and leading this stock market to those record levels that you alluded to earlier in the show, Julia.

I think what is really noteworthy is that Microsoft in particular, the Cloud momentum is so stunning. You're talking about 50 percent year-over-

year revenue growth for that business, and it is obviously a validation of the strategy of CEO Satya Nadella to transform Microsoft into a company

that we all knew as being one where we would just go to a store or download software, you know, their operating system, Windows and Word et cetera.

But this is really not Bill Gates's Microsoft anymore. It is clearly a Cloud leader, and that is why that company in particular is having such

strong performance and the stock is doing very well also.

CHATTERLEY: Yes, so one of the analysts out there saying how much better can this get? The best revenue growth at Microsoft in seven years. I think

your point about this having moved on actually from Bill Gates is a pretty important one.

If we move on to Google, though, and look at their own Cloud computing, initially, that missed expectations. It is lovely to make $5 billion worth

of them -- of revenues and still don't meet expectations. They're looking at growth there I think a 45 percent year on year, Paul, which was amazing,

but what was powering their search results for me actually was most interesting.

Shopping and travel restarting. Searches for "open now near me" four times higher year-on-year, but the geographical split of that and the mix, very

uneven.

[09:05:06]

LA MONICA: Yes, I think that Google, like many other tech companies around the world is seeing this kind of choppy recovery as delta variant COVID

fears persist, and that is going to be something that I think will be an issue going forward. The search revenue, of course, is very significant for

Alphabet, and that is helping to boost the company's overall growth.

You did have a little bit of a disappointment with the Cloud growth and that could be in part due to the competition from Microsoft, as well as

Amazon with AWS. YouTube revenue was also still very robust, but the growth was a little disappointing, and like many other social media companies,

they did allude to those Apple iOS privacy changes, just like Facebook and Snapchat have done as a potential reason for a bit of a slowdown in growth

there.

But make no mistake, Google is the best performing FAANG stock this year. It is up about 60 percent. So it's not really struggling in any stretch of

the imagination, and the stock isn't down that much premarket this morning.

So investors might be slightly disappointed, but it's hardly a major setback for Alphabet.

CHATTERLEY: Yes. I was going to say -- I was just looking at all the comparisons there. YouTube had revenues up 40 percent year-on-year,

Facebook 35 percent year-on-year, Twitter 37 percent revenue increase. It is lovely when you make a growth in something like the Cloud computing at

Google, and it is 45 percent year-on-year, and you're disappointing what clearly seems to be great expectations.

We'll say no more. Paul La Monica, thank you so much for that.

A crypto trading slowdown is costing Robinhood in the premarket trade. The trading app shares fell below July's IPO price of $38.00. That's after the

retail breaker reported lower than expected revenues in Q3. Anna Stewart joins me now. They did have a great first half of the year, I think that

has to be said at this stage. But what we saw obviously, in the quarter for crypto was a decline in price, and with it came a decline in general

trading activity. And of course, that hits the bottom line for Robinhood.

ANNA STEWART, CNN REPORTER: Yes. And I think there was an expectation for some sort of slowdown, given two thirds of their revenue in the second

quarter was attributed to Dogecoin, which has clearly off its highs.

But I think these numbers have really shocked investors and even analysts looking at the notes this morning. It wasn't just the decline in active

users. As you say, it's also the decline in revenue per user and then there was the fact that the executive team are really expecting just more of the

same next month, flat user growth and so on.

So, I think that's a shock. I think it's not been helped me by some of the executive comments this morning, both in interviews, and in the analysts

call saying that really, I think they said it was nearly impossible to predict revenue on a quarter by quarter basis, and so what are you

investing in here? It's very difficult without that sort of visibility, I suppose -- Julia.

CHATTERLEY: What was the stat you gave us about Dogecoin? Just say that again?

STEWART: Two thirds attributed to Dogecoin in the second quarter.

CHATTERLEY: Yes, I think that needs reiterating to your point about difficulty of foreseeing future flows.

What did they have to say about payment for order flow? Because the way that their business model works and what allows them to offer zero fees is

that they give a lot of the trades to market makers to try and do the trades for them and obviously minimize the costs associated with that.

What did they have to say about that? Because that does feel important, too. And I guess, a key question, having just mentioned the point about

Dogecoin again, what are they doing in crypto to try and offset some of that?

STEWART: Well, they are shrugging off concerns pretty much across the board here. They say they are not focused on profitability yet. You know,

they are focused on putting more money into products, into services, into new talents. And to that point, they are very excited about the launch of a

new product, which is the crypto wallets.

They've got a shortlist already of one million users. It is going to be rolled out with a soft launch in the coming weeks that won't be readily

available until next year. But it was interesting on the earnings call that the questions which are given in a very egalitarian measure, you get to

vote on them, and the top one was, when are you going to add more coins to it? We want a bigger range, we've only had -- you haven't added a new coin

for two years now. And are you going to add Shiba Inu?

And to that end, they said, well, they're very aware of regulation. And so really, it was a wait and see. And I don't think that's going to do

anything for the share price today or for driving up, you know, active users in the coming months to make that fourth quarter better than this

one.

CHATTERLEY: Yes. Particularly when some of their competitors out there had a relatively good quarter by comparison. So, it's a case of watch this

space. I think, investors waiting and seeing here and as we said --

STEWART: No one likes to watch this space, do they, Julia?

CHATTERLEY: No, exactly. Yes, how unfortunate. It takes the whole quarter. But as we pointed out, crypto activity has picked up. Yada, yada, yada. So,

yes. Anna Stewart --

STEWART: Throw in the dice.

CHATTERLEY: Actually. Yes, Anna Stewart, thank you so much for that, a virtual one in crypto land.

[09:10:07]

CHATTERLEY: Yes, basketball star, Enes Kanter is not backing down from his criticism of China. The Boston Celtics center is issuing a personal

challenge to the founder and longtime head of Nike for staying silent about oppression in China against Uyghur minorities as Steven Jiang reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEVEN JIANG, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: In his latest video message, Kanter not only mentioned Phil Knight, the longtime head of Nike, but also

NBA legends and Nike ambassadors, LeBron James and Michael Jordan, challenging all of them to go to China in person to check out under what

conditions Nike shoes are being made.

Now Kanter, of course, is trying to shine a spotlight on this issue we have been covering for a long time that has allegations of widespread abuse and

ill-treatment of the Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Western China, including allegations of forced labor.

The U.S. government has assessed up to two million of them have been sent to internment camps in this country. Now, Beijing of course has denied all

those allegations. But one of Kanter's hashtags this time was hypocrite Nike that really illustrates how a growing number of multinational

companies and institutions are caught between upholding values and principles they claim to hold dear back at home, and not to running afoul

of the Chinese government and this country's increasingly nationalistic consumers in a very lucrative market.

And NBA, of course, has been in this kind of trouble before. Just two years ago, Houston Rockets, then General Manager tweeted in support of Hong

Kong's prodemocracy protesters, and shortly after that, there are games being blacked out here and sponsors pulling out in this country, and this

time around, Celtics games have been pulled from the video side of Tencent, the Chinese tech giant that holds the digital broadcast rights to NBA games

in this country.

But the official response has been more muted, probably because the country is counting down to the Winter Olympics here in Beijing and officials are

very much aware the whole world is watching how they handle the fallout when politics and sports clash.

Steven Jiang, CNN, Beijing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHATTERLEY: And just to be clear, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to the allegations by saying that Kanter was trying to get

attention and that his remarks were not worth refuting.

In March, Nike issued a statement maintaining that it is committed to ethical manufacturing, and does not source products from the Xinjiang

Uyghur region.

Okay, stay with FIRST MOVE for more on this story, too. I will be speaking to the man who created Kanter's "Free China" shoes, the dissident Chinese-

Australian artist, Badiucao. He is coming up later on in the show.

For now, let me bring you up to speed with some of the other stories making headlines around the world.

Protesters took to the streets of Sudan again to denounce Monday's military coup, even as the country's top general defended the takeover. The

country's main airport, meanwhile, is set to reopen in the next few hours.

On Tuesday, the civilian Prime Minister was reportedly allowed to return home a day after the military detained him.

[VIDEO CLIP PLAYS]

CHATTERLEY: A chaotic scene in Ecuador as police used teargas to break up the crowd of protesters in the capital. Five officers were injured in the

demonstrations against the President's economic policies, particularly a recent decision to raise fuel prices.

The District Attorney in New Mexico is not ruling out criminal charges over the deadly shooting on the set of the film, "Rust." One person was killed

and another injured after actor Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun. Officials are holding a news conference on the case later today.

China is 100 days away from hosting the Winter Olympics, but celebrations have been muted due to the growing COVID outbreak. Some cities are facing

tighter restrictions including Beijing where most of the games will be held. The Vice Mayor says containing the virus will be the capital's

biggest challenge as the host city.

Okay, still to come here on FIRST MOVE, why your next Uber might be a Tesla and it is all down to a deal with Hertz. I'll bring you clarity after the

break along with both CEOs. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:16:48]

CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to FIRST MOVE this Wednesday. The bulls hoping for yet another effervescent day of trading as Coca-Cola raises its annual

guidance. Coke just one of a number of huge U.S. consumer brands reporting results. McDonald's posting strong international sales numbers, and

carmaker, GM navigating supply chain challenges, too, beating on the sales line and assuring investors that full year results will come in at the high

end of forecasts.

Now this week, we reported on a massive order for Tesla supplying 100,000 vehicles to the rental giant, Hertz. Half of those cars are going to be

available for Uber drivers to rent by 2023. Drivers are being offered Tesla rentals in four U.S. cities for $334.00 a week and that includes insurance

and basic maintenance. A nationwide rollout is planned after that.

Uber itself is committed to a green path saying it will be a zero emission platform by 2040. That means all rides will be in emission-free vehicles in

the United States, Canada, and European cities. That zero emissions target is 10 years earlier by 2030.

I'm pleased to say Dara Khosrowshahi is Uber CEO and Mark Fields is the interim CEO at Hertz and they both join us now.

Dara, great to have you with us. Mark, the same. Welcome to the show.

Mark, I want to begin with you and talk about these two deals actually that you've announced today. The Uber deal I think helps you monetize the Teslas

that you've announced you've purchase this week, the Carvana deal, too, that you also announced this day with the online sales giant helps you

ensure the resale route, I think for some of these cars. Talk us through what you've been up to.

MARK FIELDS, INTERIM CEO, HERTZ: Yes, well, overall, this all ladders up to our strategy of wanting to become a central component of the modern

mobility ecosystem, and so all of these partnerships kind of reinforce that.

And to your point, the Carvana relationship, this is very important to us because when you think about a rental car company, the three biggest

operations are buying vehicles, deploying them, and then disposing them or exiting from your fleet.

And with the Carvana relationship, this allows us to access their digital platform and gives us another retail outlet to sell our vehicles. And

importantly, on the deploy piece of our business, that's why we're so excited for the relationship with the Uber and Dara's team on helping to

accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles and sustainable technology and transportation.

CHATTERLEY: Yes, and Dara, come in here because you know, you talked to us last time you were on the show about the importance of becoming a fully

electric mobility platform in in North America and Europe, let's talk about that specifically by 2030.

But you were also -- an in this statement, you again reiterate that adoption of electric vehicles is expensive and we need to tackle that. Talk

to me about the pricing and the economics of this deal because surely you've got to make it somewhere near equivalent to what your drivers are

paying today for a traditional fuel driven car.

DARA KHOSROWSHAHI, CEO, UBER: Definitely and affordability. Once you get over the affordability hump, I think, the cars are just terrific. The

experience is terrific and I think everyone wants to play their part in terms of helping the environment and being sustainable.

[09:20:11]

KHOSROWSHAHI: These cars in terms of renting from Hertz are essentially as available as gas powered cars. So, actually someone who rents a Tesla

through Hertz, not only gets a benefit of the affordability of $300.00 rental on a weekly basis, but also they get bonuses of $1.00 a ride extra

that they are making up to $4,000.00 per year because they are driving a green car and an electric car.

This is our way of pushing the economics and kind of tilting the economics a little bit of in favor of sustainability, which is something we should do

and I think other companies have to join in as well.

CHATTERLEY: Dara, very quickly, what percentage of your drivers rent? Do you have that stat?

KHOSROWSHAHI: The percentage is less than 10 percent as far as the percentage that rent, but the average driver who rents actually drives more

hours and drives more miles. So, this is the most effective way of us putting a single vehicle on the road and having that vehicle cover maximum

miles.

CHATTERLEY: Yes, I think that differential is really important. Mark, you know, when I look at the Uber drivers that I see in the road, and here in

New York, you can identify them by the number plate, which helps.

They're not high end cars, they're Toyota Camrys. They're Honda Civics, those are the ones that I see most on the road here. You know, if I look at

how much I could lease one of those cars for sort of $70.00 a week, talk to me about the rental and it still feels and again, it comes back to the

economics of being able to afford to rent a Tesla vehicle. The prices that we're talking about here relative to some of the other options out there,

it is that jump and convincing them of the economics.

FIELDS: Well, I think overall, as Dara mentioned, you know, the benefits to the Uber drivers are first they -- first off, they get to drive in a

terrific vehicle. So, there is some value around that for the driver.

CHATTERLEY: You're willing to pay for that, you're saying?

FIELDS: And secondly, they have the option -- excuse me?

CHATTERLEY: You're willing to pay for that, you are saying?

FIELDS: Yes. There is a bit of a premium there because they are terrific vehicles to drive, and they are helping the environment, and that's

important to a lot of folks, including Uber drivers.

But then as Dara mentioned, they also have the opportunity to earn more money than driving an internal combustion engine vehicle. And from our

standpoint, from Hertz, there's -- listen, there's benefits on both sides for each company, and that is so key for any partnership and we love this

exclusive partnership with Uber and Dara's team.

But there's equal benefits, obviously, from a driver standpoint, from a company standpoint, from Uber's standpoint and from Hertz's standpoint, in

terms of it allows us to use our fleet utilization more. It is good economics for us, and it positions as well, ultimately, for an autonomous

world.

CHATTERLEY: I think, it is important that we understand --

KHOSROWSHAHI: And Julia, these --

CHATTERLEY: Yes, come in Dara, please.

KHOSROWSHAHI: If anytime -- listen, renting a car on a weekly basis is always going to be more expensive than leasing a car, it's less of a

commitment. The rental with Hertz, the program with Hertz actually includes insurance, it includes maintenance.

So for us, it's also a really easy way for a driver to try out driving, maybe try out a Tesla see what it's like, are the bonuses in terms of the

dollars that you're bringing in worthwhile? Is it easy to get charged up, et cetera?

One of the biggest bridges that we see in terms of people making the jump to electric vehicles is it is a big jump. What's it going to be like? So,

this is an open doorway for our driver community to try it. And I think, you know, if you've been in a Tesla, I have, once you try it, you want to

buy it, and that's what this is all about.

CHATTERLEY: It's not a problem, though, Mark, if you -- if you try it, and then you want to buy it. Assuming that you're going to rent this thing on a

long term basis, then the economics of leasing, come back into play surely?

FIELDS: Well, you know, we're in the business of renting vehicles. At the end of its life, we sell them. But I think you know, Dara makes a really

important point when you think of it from a driver's perspective.

As you mentioned, this includes basic service, it includes insurance, and you know, as the other piece of this is also, you know, the higher order

piece of trying to make sure that we accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles across the globe, and you have many products coming -- electric

vehicle products coming in the marketplace, not only from Tesla.

And as Dara mentioned, when you get in one and when you drive one, you're three times more likely to buy one, so I think that'll be good for our

respective businesses, but importantly I think it'd be good for the planet.

CHATTERLEY: And Dara, you'd be giving away secrets if you told me how many drivers you currently have in the United States, but how confident are you?

But feel free to tell me if you want to. How confident are you that you have 50,000 drivers in the United States that will be using these cars when

all are available in 2023?

[09:25:20]

KHOSROWSHAHI: Oh, we're quite confident. We actually have other electric cars on the network, and consistently, we see significant demand for these

kinds of cars. I think, listen, people -- people want to help. I've always said that climate change is a team sports, and our drivers want help.

So we do think that based on the demand that we've seen for electric vehicles on our network and Tesla, obviously is a great brand. It's a great

product. I think if we put -- make Teslas available, there'll be plenty of takers.

CHATTERLEY: Good to know. And, Mark, you're obviously making huge changes over at --

FIELDS: And I --

CHATTERLEY: Go on. You can justify that.

FIELDS: I would just add that you know, part of our agreement is that if this program is successful, and I believe -- we believe it will, that over

the next three years, this could grow to up to 150,000 Tesla's that can be provided by Hertz to Uber as well.

CHATTERLEY: So far, we've only seen 100,000 announced as the deal with Tesla. Are you saying that you're going to go back to Tesla and say, hey,

we'll take more Tesla's depending on what demand looks like?

FIELDS: Absolutely, this commitment of if the Uber program, and when it is successful, grow up to 150,000 vehicles. Clearly, that will be reflected in

our future orders from Tesla, just as we will, you know, order from other OEMs that are going to be providing electric vehicles to the marketplace.

CHATTERLEY: It's been called so far, on that point, a sort of four, four and a half billion dollar deal, which is 100,000 cars times the sort of

base price of the Model 3. Please tell me you got a discount? And did you add the self-driving capabilities with those cars as well?

FIELDS: Well, I won't go into specifics of what the actual cost was in the overall purchase with Tesla. I only mentioned that listen, at the end of

the day, these things have to have positive economic benefits for the company at Hertz, and it does.

And in terms of your second question, these will not include the self- driving feature on the vehicles that we offer to the Uber drivers.

CHATTERLEY: But is that an option going forward? Just very quickly?

FIELDS: Well, for right now, we're starting the program with not offering it, and we'll go from there. But for right now, it will not be an option on

the vehicle.

CHATTERLEY: Reserve the right to change your mind in the future, I understand.

Dara, let's talk more broadly, because I think you have been very passionate about saying that we have to find ways wherever we are in the

world, not just in the United States to work on the economics here, allow people greater access to what remains a very expensive relative car for

many people around the world.

Where are you seeing geographically nations getting this right, promoting the ability to try and afford and subsidize these cars? And what more do

you want to see as we head into COP 26? Crucial decisions?

KHOSROWSHAHI: Absolutely. So, we're definitely seeing cities in Europe make positive moves, and either they're giving certain rights to electric

vehicles, special lanes, sometimes they have congestion charges related to the congestion that your car causes, which again, tilt the economics in a

way where you're taking the damage, let's say, you're doing to the environment in a traditional combustion engine into account, which is what

you need to do in order to again, make the economics of favor EV.

So we think those kinds of policies that price into that price sustainability, into the economics of either car ownership, or in Uber's

case, the revenue that you can bring in, we've already leaned into there. Those are the kind of policies that we want to see going forward. And

fortunately, those policies are happening.

I think the one area where we want to see more activity in is charging. A lot of people take for granted, having a garage where they can charge a car

or living in a building that have chargers in there, or a driver community. We need chargers more on the outskirts of town where they live, and a bit

more general availability for those who may not have a garage or may not live in a big building. That is something that we're having dialogue with

many, many cities around the world.

CHATTERLEY: Yes, and that's critical for your Uber drivers as well that are going to be renting these Tesla vehicles. Where are my charging

capacity? And where am I going to be able to do this as I'm driving round on jobs? It's a critical point. Mark, your views on this more broadly?

[09:30:00]

FIELDS: Well, as part -- yes, as part of our announcement earlier this week on our Tesla purchase, we also announced a major investment in

charging infrastructure. And it's not only in the infrastructure on airport, that's obviously very important to us, but we have many off

airport locations that are in suburban areas, literally in cities all over the country.

And so by the end of 2022, we're going to be in 65 markets with over 3,000 charging locations that the Uber drivers can use. And by the following

year, we'll be in over a hundred markets.

At the same time, you know, the drivers will also have access to the over 3,000 locations of Tesla superchargers that are across the country.

So you make a really important point, right? The charging infrastructure is absolutely crucial to getting the adoption of electric vehicles and getting

consumers through that pain point, if you will, where they're going to charge. So, that's an important piece of our strategy.

CHATTERLEY: Cleaning up our cities car by car. Guys, great to chat with you. Thank you, Mark. Thank you very much for coming on and sharing your

time with us this morning and the details of this deal. The Uber CEO there, Dara Khosrowshahi and Mark Fields, interim CEO at Hertz.

Gentlemen, thank you again. Great to chat.

KHOSROWSHAHI: Thank you.

CHATTERLEY: Thank you.

The market opens next. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to FIRST MOVE. A mixed open for U.S. stocks amid a veritable flood of Q3 results from Corporate America. The bulk of today's

earnings coming in market friendly.

The Dow and the S&P pulling back a little from record highs. In the meantime, shares of trading app, Robinhood as we've already discussed, down

over 11 percent after warning that user growth and engagement are slowing.

Facebook is under pressure for a second straight session. "The Wall Street Journal" says the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is looking into the

damaging revelations included in the Facebook Papers on whether the company violated a 2019 privacy settlements. They're down just three tenths of one

percent as you can see there.

[09:35:10]

CHATTERLEY: Okay, NBA star, Enes Kanter says Nike is too scared to stand up to China, and to underline that message he wore these customized shoes

on Monday. Modern day slavery and no more excuses references to the reported use of slave labor in the Xinjiang Province.

Kanter's protests have led to Chinese authorities blacking out his team's games. His protests are unorthodox. At the heart of shoes like these,

customized to send a message to the Chinese state. Their creator is a Chinese-Australian artist and dissident whose identity was a secret until

2019.

A secret no more, joining us is Badiucao. He is a Chinese political cartoonist, artist, and rights activist. It is a huge pleasure to have you

on the show. Thank you so much for making time. Talk to me about the decision to create these shoes and the message that you were intending to

send.

BADIUCAO, CHINESE POLITICAL CARTOONIST, ARTIST, AND RIGHTS ACTIVIST: Thank you for having me here. It's an absolute pleasure and honor to work with

Enes Kanter now on this very special project.

I think if we want to deliver a message about human rights in China to America, sports game is definitely the biggest and the most important

platform that we can use. And I'm on all those forums. NBA is definitely the pearl on the crumb.

So with this collaboration, we really get all the attention from the world and from America that we are sending a very clear information about our

concern of China's human rights abuses against Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Chinese ourselves. I think, well for Enes to actually help on this project

to initiate this project, it is something very valuable and brave.

CHATTERLEY: I mean, you're sending a message and we're talking about it. The United States is talking about it. As I mentioned in the introduction,

the game itself was actually blocked in China. How do you feel that having been born there yourself and having decided to leave that the Chinese

people don't get to see your art, they don't get to see the message that you're sending.

In fact, what they hear is the Chinese government's version of whatever the truth is, or not at all, in this case?

BADIUCAO: Well, I think what the Chinese government trying to do is building a wall to block all the information that we've been able to

discuss in the free world. However, I don't think that any wall is absolutely cannot be infiltrated.

A great news like this must find its way back in China as well, even though the Chinese government has you know, stopped the broadcast of Celtics' game

and you know, they are kind of smear campaigning against him and me constantly.

However, this very gesture of blocking and censorship will make people question even inside of China, because of course, they want to hijack the

narrative. They want twist our information. However, I believe there are still people, even inside of China who are interested in knowing these

things differently and see these things in a different perspective.

So a lot of them while using methods like VPN to go around the censorship, which we call the Great Firewall, and eventually be able to access to the

information they're not supposed to know.

CHATTERLEY: You know, you're an artist, and it's in your blood. Your grandfather was also an artist, your great uncle too, and your family lost

them. You know what the cost can be of being a dissident in China and raising your voice. Does it frighten you what you're doing? Or do you

consider that you're far enough away to be safe doing this?

BADIUCAO: I think to be honest, we have to face this reality that China has been very aggressive, which means even though I'm not located in China

anymore that I'm still being subjected to all sorts of death threats, and the risks, and the dangers all the time.

However, I think fear is a choice that we have to understand the dangers, but we can choose to be brave. We can choose to not to be owned by those

threats. That's very important that I think more people to join me, to may be inspired by my art and campaign like this, so that more people would

help me to deliver the message, but also share the risk together.

CHATTERLEY: Do you -- and we've been sharing your art "Free Uyghurs," "Free China," "Free Tibet." You've also got an art show coming up in Italy

and we can show some of the art that's going to appear there. You've got unofficial 2022 Beijing posters as well ahead of the Winter Olympics.

Again, as we head towards that, what do you want people to see and to understand and they are very graphic images. We are showing one now of a

skater attacking a Tibetan monk. Very emotive, some of these pictures. What do you want people to feel as they see them?

[09:40:26]

BADIUCAO: I think art is a great vehicle in conveying the most important issues of our current world, and the motivation behind me to create art is

sending this message to the people inside of China, as well as the people outside of China to building a better understanding of what Chinese

government means, and what's the difference between Chinese and Chinese government in China.

It's very important to message that the people have to understand what I am doing here has nothing to do against my own people, the Chinese. And all

the criticism is very precisely against Chinese government, because it is not a democratically elected government. It does not have the rights to

represent my people, the Chinese people.

However, in this exhibition in Brescia -- in Italy -- we have received numerous threats from the Chinese Embassy in Italy, and from like

propaganda news outlets, like CGTN online, but I think I'm really grateful and happy to seeing the Brescia government, the Brescia Museum Foundation,

and the very gallery museum center, Julia, is totally supporting my edification for the freedom of speech. And I have great, great solidarity

wisdom.

And I think it's very important that actually, in the western society, that we realize how aggressive the Chinese government has become, and it is very

important for us to form allies to show solidarity with the people who want to speak against the Chinese government, based on all the fact.

CHATTERLEY: Yes. I think your message there when I asked you why you are frightened, we have to be brave. We have to stand up for what's right as

individuals and as governments when we see something wrong, we have to say it.

Thank you for being brave, and for joining us today, and fingers crossed that art event goes ahead. We look forward to it. Come back and talk to us

soon and stay safe. Thank you.

Okay, that's it for the show. If you've missed any of our interviews today, they will be on my Twitter, and Instagram pages. You can search for

@jchatterleyCNN.

In the meantime, stay safe. "Marketplace Europe" is next and I'll see you tomorrow.

[09:45:00]

(MARKETPLACE EUROPE)

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