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Biden & Harris To Receive First Presidential Daily Briefing Today; Iran Vows To Retaliate Over Assassination Of Top Nuclear Scientist; Broncos Forced To Start Emergency Quarterback; Severe Storms Take Aim At The U.S. East Coast; Study: Restrictions Are Leading To Decline In Infections In UK. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired November 30, 2020 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: In a torrent of private conversations, Trump was in the telling of one close advisor like, quote, Mad King George muttering, I won. I won, I won. What does all of this tell you about national security at the moment?

MIKE ROGERS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY COMMENTATOR: Well, I feel confident in the professional layer of our national security environment, that they're getting ready and doing the -- everyday they're showing up, they're doing their work. I mean, you do worry a little bit about the President's just not lack of engagement on those big issues. His presidential calendar certainly speaks to the fact that he's just not engaging. You know, listen, he will be president until January 20th, at noon. And so, that does mean that there will be decisions even in the national security space that have to be made. I'm just hopeful that the team around him in the White House shake him out of this. I mean, how you lose sometimes is as important as how you win. And I think, clearly, he has not been impressive. And the way that well, he ran the campaign, obviously, and the way that he is losing here.

At some point, this is getting long in the tooth, even for some of his passionate supporters are starting to think scratching their head and think, OK, time to move on. I'm just worried about making sure that all of the levers of our national security infrastructure, are being worked in a way that's good for the long term interest of the United States. So far, I haven't seen anything that doesn't do that. I just don't think the other -- matter of fact, the president elected and vice president elect may be getting more briefings on national security than the President does these days.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes or more willing to listen to information and the President is that's for sure.

I'm not sure, Natasha one more point on your attendant who I should have said is being nominated to run the Office of Management budget, which deals a lot with government spending, which is something she has experience with. There's a theory out there, right that this nomination could just be nominate somebody who Republicans can vote against, nominate somebody who will fail, so it focuses all the ire on one person and everyone else gets confirmed. That's sort of the one possible theory that's floating out there. It's also possible, I would expect that there'll be a lot of people coming out in support of her today now the first full day ever nomination is out there.

NATASHA ALFORD, VP, DIGITAL CONTENT, THEGRIO: Yes, that's an interesting theory. I haven't heard that. I mean, I think it's so important to give people the opportunity, again, to state where they stand. And, you know, President-elect Biden has such a tall order in front of him in terms of being able to get people to focus on the fair (ph), to think about what his vision of America is. And so, being able to sell people on this, whether we're talking about Neera Tanden or any nomination is going to be really important.

I wanted to actually make a larger point to about representation and diversity. So, you know, we talk about a lot of these headlines focused on people of color, and this idea that people would be satisfied with that. But I think it's actually important that he nominated a black woman to help lead this economic team, Cecilia Rouse. You know, with African-Americans facing so many economic issues beyond racial justice, and police reform or police brutality. I think those are the things that voters are going to be looking for making sure that they see themselves represented in the people who are leading. And so again, he's going to have to sell us on more than just her past experience. But really, how is she going to represent this new vision of America.

CAMEROTA: Natasha Alford, Mike Rogers, thank you both very much, great to see you.

ROGERS: Good to see you.

CAMEROTA (voice-over): All right, Iran is vowing to retaliate after the assassination of their top nuclear scientists. Iranian officials are blaming Israel. We discuss what could happen, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:37:53]

BERMAN: Developing this hour, Iran's top nuclear scientist was buried this morning after being assassinated on Friday. Iranian officials say he was shocked by an automatic remote control machine gun operating from another car that then exploded. Iran accuses Israel of orchestrating the attack and is vowing revenge.

Joining us now, CNN's Oren Liebermann in Jerusalem and CNN's Frederik Pleitgen who has reported extensively from Iran.

Oren, first to you just on the what happened, and what the various alleged actors are saying about it this morning. What can you tell us?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Iran has blamed Israel, that's certainly not a surprise even though Israel has kept quiet, it was an official no comment from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, and there were no illusions or even references to this in Netanyahu's cabinet statement from yesterday. That's no surprise, Israel tends to stay quiet at times like this, there is no reason to invite further retaliation.

(voice-over): But it's not hard to see why Iran would blame Israel. First, as a couple of years ago, Israel stole Iran's nuclear archive from the middle of Iran. And Iran and others blame Israel for a series of nuclear scientist assassinations between 2010 and 2012.

So, it's easy for Iran to come to that conclusion. As for what happens next, Iran has vowed retaliation. And there are a number of options there. There are being looked at and evaluated here. It could theoretically come from Lebanon and Hezbollah. That seems unlikely at the point as well. Hezbollah said it's up to Iran and tends to stay out of friction between Israel and Iran. It could come from Syria where there are Iranian proxies, or perhaps Iran could try to target Israeli, targets overseas, such as embassies, or maybe even tour groups, Israeli citizens, especially now that Israelis will soon be able to travel the Gulf States like the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

As for the claim that this was a remote controlled attack. We've spoken to a couple of Israeli security experts who say, look, that technology is there to do something like that remotely and autonomously theoretically. But it's unlikely to have happen in this case on such an assassination that requires such precision movements to have left that to something remote and autonomous simply doesn't seem credible right now. John.

BERMAN: All right. So Fred, you've been at Tehran more than a dozen times. What kind of pressure does this put on the Iranian regime? And what do they make of the timing of this attack?

[06:40:10]

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think that those are really two key questions right now that people are looking at and are really debating right now in Tehran. You looked at today, there was a funeral for that scientists who was assassinated and pretty much every top level official who was there, and in the past couple of days, John has said there will be retaliation. However, the big question right now in Iran is, what is that retaliation going to look like? And when could that retaliation possibly happen?

Now, on the one hand, you have the Iranian hardliners who obviously usually want a very strong reaction to something like this. They're usually in the orbit of Iran supreme leader who has already said that he believes that there should be strong retaliation, and that it should happen fairly quickly. The Iranians, at least the hardliners believe that if they don't retaliate in a strong way right now that perhaps in the not too distant future, there could be more assassinations, or that their military facilities, for instance, could be attacked, as well.

But then, you also have the more moderate forces, for instance, around Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, who said, yes, there has to be some sort of retaliation. But he does say that something like that will happen on Iran's own terms, and in Iran's own time, essentially, what the Iranians believe is that the Netanyahu government and the Trump administration are trying to bait Iran into some sort of irrational move just a couple of weeks or a couple of months before the Biden administration takes over which they believe could lead to new diplomacy between the U.S. and Iran.

So, it's going to be very interesting to see how this plays out what the Iranians in the end decide to do, whether or not there will be some sort of strong retaliation, whether or not they'll put forward more evidence, and then whether or not maybe they'll just wait for a couple of months, because one of the things that the Iranians have always said, they believe that essentially, time is on their side in all of this Trump administration isn't going to be around for much longer. And they think that maybe with the Biden administration, it could be some sort of new diplomacy. Of course, Joe Biden was a part of the Obama administration, which put forward that nuclear agreement with the Iranians in the first place, which led to a major thaw between Iran and the U.S. something that we haven't seen since President Trump took over, John.

BERMAN: You know, on the issue of timing or and it is interesting. Why would if the Israelis did do this, why would they do it in the closing weeks of a Trump administration?

PLEITGEN: (INAUDIBLE).

LIEBERMANN: Of course again, it's key to point out that there's no acknowledgement from Israel at this point, then, then it's, for one thing, it's important to again, point out what you just said that there is no acknowledgement from Israel that they did do this. But if it was, the Trump administration has basically given them a free rein to do whatever they feel is necessary to do against Iran. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been the loudest opponent of the Iranian nuclear deal. Even just said a couple of weeks ago, there can be no returning to that deal.

So this, as Fred pointed out, appears to be an attempt to try to derail any attempted diplomatic moves or negotiations, leading into that an attempt to create enough bad blood there that the U.S., Israel and Iran can't find some way to move forward at this point. One of the non-proliferation experts I spoke with just a couple of days ago said this appears to be an attempt to poison the world and to try to derail any attempt at diplomacy, coming up with a Biden administration.

It is worth noting that Israel has always believed that Iran is a patient actor that it's not going to react in some sort of knee jerk way that perhaps is why the Israeli military is not on high alert at the moment. Now, it doesn't seem they expect any imminent retaliation, and they're no troop reinforcements or anything like that, that we're aware of. Instead, as they have believed in the past, they believe it seems Iran will take its time and figure out how exactly wants to respond before moving forward. One of Israel's leading strategic analysts said that response could very well come right before the end of the Trump administration.

BERMAN: Very interesting. Orin Liebermann and Fred Pleitgen, thank you so much both for your expertise on this matter. (voice-over): This morning, a new coronavirus outbreak in the NFL led to the benching of all four Denver Broncos quarterbacks, they didn't have anyone who played quarterback. So what did they do? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:47:55]

CAMEROTA: The NFL was hit hard by coronavirus over the weekend. The Denver Broncos had to play without a quarterback.

Andy Scholes has more and is going to explain how that works in the Bleacher Report. Andy?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, it didn't go well for the Broncos yesterday. And, you know, the NFL is taking all the promises they can right now they're closing all team facilities today and tomorrow following the holiday weekend. Right now, more than 40 players are on that reserved COVID-19 list including all four of the Broncos quarterbacks, but despite that they still had to play against the Saints yesterday.

(voice-over): So, Kendall Hinton, a wide receiver on their practice squad who was working in Saints a month ago. Got the start and well it didn't go very well. Hinton completed just one pass as the Saints ended up crushing the Broncos in this one 31 to 3.

All right, there's good news and bad news with a 49ers. Good news is they beat the Rams yesterday 23 to 20. The bad news is they don't have a home anymore. Santa Clara County is banned all professional collegiate and high school contact sports for the next three weeks. The 49ers have two home games in that timeframe. So the whole team now going to have to go elsewhere to play and practice during the holiday season.

All right, what a weekend for women in football, Callie Brownson became the first woman to be a position coach and an NFL regular season game yesterday. The Browns' Chief of Staff filling in as a tight end coach, that game a day after Sarah Fuller became the first woman to play in a power five college football game and she picked for Vanderbilt against Missouri. The Women's Soccer goalie filling in for kickers who had to sit out due to COVID-19 concerns.

You probably want to show you this a terrifying moment in Formula One yesterday. Romain Grosjean veered off the tracks on the first last night for come into contact with another driver. His car plowing into the barriers exploding on impact. Look at this miraculously, the French driver emerged from the flames and was able to walk away. So that was his car afterwards. He posted a video from his hospital bed where he's just recovering from burns to his hands.

Incredible Alisyn, I can only imagine the moment his team was watching that car just burst into flames and to see him jump over that barrier and walk away, incredible.

[06:50:03]

CAMEROTA: All cars need to be made of that material. We should all drive racing cars, race cars or what are they called? Race cars. That's what we should drive. Andy, thank you very much.

SCHOLES: All right.

CAMEROTA: John.

BERMAN: I think it's the suit. I think it's the protective suit --

CAMEROTA: OK, whatever. I'm taking a lesson from that.

BERMAN: We should wear that now.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BERMAN: All right. So, severe storms taking aim at the East Coast. It's going to be a soggy start to the week. CNN meteorologist Chad Myers with the forecast. Chad, I understand we're in for it.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: We are, even across North Florida, South Georgia even had some tornadoes on the ground overnight. There's the storm system right there, the first really decent storm big storm of the year. This weather is brought to you by O'Keeffe's, guaranteed relief for extremely dry, cracked skin.

We could even see a few tornadoes up the East Coast later on this afternoon as it rolls on up toward Philadelphia, Hampton Roads and the like. There goes the storm. This is the future radar what it's going to look like all the way to 11:00 tonight. And yes, that is snow back out to the west and an awful lot of it in some places. We are going to see a foot of snow in the south towns of Buffalo maybe around Cleveland as well and snow all the way down to the Blue Ridge Parkway down across the Deep South.

We'll go 47 in Atlanta for a high today, but don't get used to that. Look at tonight down to 28. I've already brought my plants in from outside because they will not survive this evening. Even Houston 31, time to bring those plants in because anything outside won't look very good tomorrow afternoon, John.

BERMAN: Compassionate plant use. Chad Myers, thank you so much for that. Appreciate it as always.

MYERS: OK. You bet.

BERMAN: So who will be the first to get the coronavirus vaccine? We have new details on that this morning, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:56:23]

CAMEROTA: Developing overnight in England, research shows that infections have dropped by roughly 30% there following its second national lockdown. We have reporters all across Europe to bring you the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PLEITGEN (on-camera): I'm Fred Pleitgen in Berlin, as Germany saw a record number of COVID-19 related deaths over the past week.

(voice-over): Now, over the past seven days the country recorded more than 2,100 deaths related to the novel coronavirus and Germany has also acknowledged that the measures that they've put in place so far have essentially failed to bring down surging numbers of new coronavirus infections. The Germans have both extended those measures and tightened them in certain areas as well to try and bring those surging numbers down.

MELISSA BELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on-camera): I'm Melissa Bell in Paris. A very different feel on the streets of France from this weekend with many non-essential shops like hairdressers and closed shops, for instance, allowed to open once again.

(voice-over): And yet the restrictions on people's movements remain in place since the partial lockdown that was brought in on October 30 will stay in place until December 15th. Only then will it be lifted if the figures allow just to give you an idea that target of the French authorities is no more than 5,000 new cases a day. On Sunday, the latest figures we have that figure was just below 10,000.

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN INTERNATIONAL REPORTER (on-camera): I'm Salma Abdelaziz in London, where Prime Minister Boris Johnson is fighting off rebellion from his own party over new coronavirus restrictions that are supposed to go into place this week.

(voice-over): Now the Prime Minister wrote a letter over the weekend to members of parliament to try to convince them that his three tier regional restriction strategy is the best way forward, and that it could be eased by Christmas time. But is it enough to convince dozens of lawmakers who oppose this idea? We'll find out on Tuesday when there's a vote in Parliament.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Well, it's interesting to see that the tighter restrictions are working in the UK. I don't think that there's any appetite for that here.

BERMAN: No, I mean, that's the problem, right? Because we know what works. We know what works. And we talk about lockdown. Lockdown isn't the word we should use? Because that's not what's happening. Kids are going to school, you can leave your house. It's just restrictions on movements. But there doesn't seem to be the appetite here, or at least the political appetite to try anything like.

CAMEROTA: Well not nationally. But I mean, in terms of what governors will have to do. Each governor will have to figure out what the next couple of weeks are going to look like in their state.

BERMAN: Right. And then maybe lock the doors and don't let anyone in from the neighboring states if they're not doing it.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BERMAN: I mean, that's the problem.

CAMEROTA: OK. On that note, "New Day" continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: More than 93,000 Americans are hospitalized right now due to the coronavirus.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: About 20% of all people in the hospital have COVID, so this is a really dangerous time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to be straight with the American people. It's going to get worse over the next several weeks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Biden transition is on in full swing. Senior White House communications team will be a big break from tradition. All posts filled by women.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The whole world is watching and nobody can believe what they're saying.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is continuing to try and convince the American public to take them along with him in his denial of reality.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is "New Day" with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.

CAMEROTA: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is "New Day". And we do begin this hour with breaking news because pharmaceutical giant Moderna has just announced that it will apply today for emergency use authors for its coronavirus vaccine. That's today happening now.

[07:00:05]

Moderna also is releasing new data on the effectiveness of its vaccine.