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Congress Approves $900 Billion Coronavirus Relief Package; BioNTech CEO: Significant Confidence Vaccine Works On Variant; Russian Opposition Leader Speaks To Toxin Team That Tracked Him. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired December 22, 2020 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[05:30:25]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, this is EARLY START. I'm Boris Sanchez in for Christine Romans.
LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Great to have you, Boris.
SANCHEZ: Thank you.
JARRETT: I'm Laura Jarrett. About 30 minutes past the hour here in New York.
And breaking overnight, Congress has finally approved the long-awaited $900 billion pandemic rescue package. So when could you see this money? Treasury Sec. Steven Mnuchin says stimulus payments could start being sent out as early as next week.
And here's what's in the deal. Six hundred dollars checks for people below a certain income level, an extension of extra weekly unemployment benefits, $284 billion in small business loans, and billions more for vaccines and rental assistance, so much needed there.
The president is expected to sign the bill and did sign a stopgap measure last night to keep the government open for seven days to get the stimulus and the spending deals done.
SANCHEZ: Yes. And now, as a new variant of the pandemic worsens the situation in the U.K., two officials tell CNN the White House is thinking of requiring travelers from Britain to present proof of a negative COVID test before arriving in the U.S.
At least 40 countries are banning travel from the U.K. over the new coronavirus variant that officials say may spread up to 70 percent faster, although there's no sign, so far, that it is any more lethal.
JARRETT: This new variant of the virus in the U.K. prompting Pfizer and Moderna to test their vaccines against it. The CEO of BioNTech, which helped developed Pfizer's vaccine, just spoke about the situation. CNN's Fred Pleitgen is live in Moscow with more. Fred, how concerned does the company seem about this new variant in the U.K.?
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Laura, they believe that they have that under control.
So they say that they are testing -- the CEO of BioNTech is saying that they are testing their vaccine against this new variant, but he says that he's scientifically confident that the vaccine will still be effective. And he says, essentially, that the vaccine -- or that the virus -- this new mutation of the virus has nine mutations but that the vaccine attacks the virus in so many different ways that they still believe that the vaccine will be just as effective as before.
However, he also did say -- and I think this was very important -- he said that if the virus itself becomes more effective infecting people -- which, of course, the U.K. believes could be the case -- that it could actually take longer to achieve herd immunity in any country.
Let's listen in to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UGUR SAHIN, CEO, BIONTECH: The topic of herd immunity, there is all this discussion about 60 to 70 percent. But if the virus becomes more efficient in infecting people, it might need even a higher vaccination rate to ensure that normal life -- normal life can continue without interruption.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PLEITGEN: So that was Ugur Sahin, the CEO of BioNTech.
And he said also, Laura, that there had been mutations of the novel coronavirus in the past and they ran their vaccine against those mutations. And they said in pretty much all cases -- or in all cases up until now, the vaccine has still been effective. So potentially, some good news coming there. But again, those trials -- those tests are ongoing as to whether or not that vaccine is still just as effective as before -- Laura.
JARRETT: Yes, certainly important to see the results of that further testing.
Fred, thanks for staying on top of this for us.
SANCHEZ: U.S. health officials say that at this point, they do not believe the situation in the U.K. warrants suspending travel from Britain, though that could soon change.
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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: Given the travel throughout the world, I would not be surprised if it's already here. When we start to look for it we're going to find it.
I think we should seriously consider the possibility of requiring testing of people before they come from the U.K. here, but I don't think that there's enough evidence right now to essentially lock down any travel from the U.K.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Some airlines not taking any chances. Virgin Atlantic is going to require proof of a negative test for all passengers traveling from London to the United States. Meantime, British Airways and Delta are going to test all passengers before they enter New York State.
JARRETT: All this as a big spike in air travel is already increasing the risk of spreading COVID-19 here in the U.S. More than one million Americans passed through TSA checkpoints for three consecutive days over the weekend. That's the biggest surge since the start of this pandemic and it's despite pleas from the CDC for folks to stay home -- a plea echoed by President-elect Biden yesterday as he received the vaccine shot.
[05:35:03]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT-ELECT: If you don't have to travel, don't travel -- don't travel. It's really important because we're still in the thick of this. It's one thing to have the vaccine show up at a hospital; it's another thing to get the vaccine from that vial into a needle into an arm.
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SANCHEZ: The U.S. is now hitting 18 million cases in total. And more alarming than that overall number is simply the pace -- the rate of these new infections. It makes the spread of the disease we had in the spring look tame by comparison.
It took 283 days for the U.S. to hit nine million cases. The last nine million, only 52 days, and that's before the inevitable surge that we're expecting after Christmas and New Year's.
JARRETT: Well, some new reporting for you this morning. The growing fear over what the president will do with his final days in office now stretches from the White House all the way to the Pentagon.
CNN has learned there is increasing anxiety over what the next 29 days could bring, whether it's launching a foreign conflict or trying to draw the military into the president's effort to overthrow the election results. Some senior military officers are trying to steer clear of the White House for the next month, we're told, remaining out of Trump's orbit.
With the pandemic raging and no shortage of governing to do, the president is focusing still on trying to stay in power. And last night he proved that, once again, anyone who states the obvious -- that he lost the election -- will only be seen as disloyal.
SANCHEZ: Yes. The president now targeting frequent ally, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, who recently acknowledged Joe Biden's victory after the Electoral College certified it.
Trump's office sending this slide to a dozen or more Republican congressional offices to claim that McConnell's success is tied to public support for Trump. The message not at all subtle. Look at the big red letters at the top of this slide reading, quote, "Sadly, Mitch forgot he was the first one off the ship." Even though remember, he took weeks to even acknowledge President-elect Biden's win.
The effort to keep President Trump in office, though, hinges on the fringes. For the third time in four days, conspiracy theorist and attorney Sidney Powell was spotted at the White House.
JARRETT: We've also learned that President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence met with House conservatives over this push to challenge Biden's win on January sixth. Pence, of course, presides over the joint session of Congress that will count the electoral votes that day.
Now, any bid to overturn the vote here is certain to fail. Even the number-two Senate Republican, John Thune, saying quote "It would go down like a shot dog."
SANCHEZ: So many drama. Twenty-nine days until Joe Biden's inauguration and it is time for three questions in three minutes.
Let's bring in Axios politics and White House editor, Margaret Talev. She's also a CNN political analyst. Margaret, thanks so much for getting up early for us on EARLY START.
MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, POLITICS AND WHITE HOUSE EDITOR, AXIOS: Thank you.
SANCHEZ: Look, the president -- the president is doing everything he can to stay relevant even if the country largely has moved on. Even Bill Barr is moving on. We'll get to that in just a sec.
But really, for Republicans, it's hard to separate entirely from Trump especially before the Georgia Senate runoffs.
TALEV: Yes.
SANCHEZ: Pragmatically, many Republicans across the country have rejected Trump but they're still voting for Republican House and Senate candidates. Republicans in Congress don't seem to need Trump to win.
So ultimately, what do conservatives gain by trying to help Trump overturn the will of voters, as we've heard that some of these Congresspeople are meeting with the president in the White House to try to plan some objection on the sixth?
TALEV: Boris, overwhelmingly, the answer is there's absolutely nothing to be gained from doing this. But there are probably, for a few members of Congress, some upsides in terms of mismanagement or fundraising (ph). These are the outliers.
And just to be clear, as you said at the top of this segment, there is no will in the House or the Senate to overturn legitimate election results that put Joe Biden in office starting on January 20th. But that doesn't mean that procedurally, there can't be some gumming up of the wheels.
That's not to normalize this. Like, this is not normal behavior by a president and the longer that these sort of steps go on, the more it just becomes clear, like, that we don't really know what additional sort of steps are going to come in the next month. And that members of Congress need to be prepared, that members of the White House staff and the U.S. government need to be prepared, and that some other people may need to be willing to resign or otherwise put their jobs on the line in order to maintain some guardrails in the final days and weeks of the administration.
JARRETT: It's what seems to unique about the situation. Of course, the president's gambit is going to fail. But at the same time, it's an attempted assault on the democratic process. And even if it's an attempt it's still something that should be called out.
[05:40:09]
Margaret, I want to get your thoughts on what's happening with the attorney general. Apparently, it's always easier to speak your mind when you have nothing to lose on your way out the door. In Barr's final news conference yesterday as attorney general, he pushes back against some of the president's most public and false stances on election fraud, this whole idea of seizing voting machines, the president elect's son Hunter Biden.
In case our viewers missed this, why don't we listen to some of it?
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WILLIAM BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I see no basis now for seizing machines by the federal government -- you know, a wholesale seizure of machines. We had looked at suggestions or allegations of systemic or broad-based fraud that would affect the outcome of the election and I already spoke to that, and I stand by that statement.
If I thought a special counsel at this stage was the right tool and was appropriate, I would do -- I would name one. But I haven't and I'm not going to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: Not going to. Of course, something that the president has been demanding for a while now.
You wonder whether this was a message to the acting attorney general Jeff Rosen. Do you think he was the audience of one for some of those statements from the attorney general? TALEV: I think there are three audiences, right? One is the president. It's Barr saying to the president I'm not going to help you do any of these things.
Number two, it is Barr's signaling to Jeff Rosen who will take over but whose expertise is primarily in corporate law. He's never really had the preparation to take on a job like this.
JARRETT: Never been a prosecutor.
TALEV: Yes, that's right. And it's -- and it's Barr saying to Rosen look, I am going to help you right now preemptively make the case so that you don't have to feel any pressure to take these steps, right?
But it's also Barr signaling to the public -- something that is important for the public to understand -- which is that what the president is asking for. And this is perhaps his most loyal cabinet member and certainly has been extremely supportive of the president through the Russia investigation, through the election. Barr created a lot of space for the president to operate. For Barr to dial back now does send a really important signal.
But also, he may be trying to preserve some aspect of his legacy. He's not going to be the attorney general. So what we don't know is what kind of pressure is the president going to bring starting tomorrow, and how is Mr. Rosen going to respond and how is the rest of the administration going to respond.
But clearly, this is Barr very simply saying no, no, and no.
SANCHEZ: Yes. Even with four weeks left until Joe Biden is inaugurated, what the president is doing now is making those closest to him nervous. According to all the reporting, a lot of those steps that he's considering are really out there.
I do want to ask you about some of the stories that we've seen related to hacking at the highest levels of the U.S. government.
Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, saying that Russian hackers broke into the e-mail system used by the leadership of the Treasury Department.
It's really just another additional injury on this story. The White House was apparently ready to assign blame to the Russians last week. Ultimately, though, they were told to hold off.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, why? I mean, what are you hearing from your sources at the White House as to why they're being told to not point to the Russians when the president seems like he clearly doesn't want to?
TALEV: Yes, our reporting all points to the president as the primary roadblock in the messaging. And you don't have to have inside sources to see this, by the way. Also, you can just read Twitter.
So, the president -- like, the president does not want to talk about this with that kind of message. But you've seen now Pompeo, you've seen Barr, you've seen Mnuchin recognizing what we all know. And I think at this point, this is -- the damage, to some extent, is done. What we don't know yet is how pervasive the damage is and how hard it's going to be to root out.
And how the Biden administration -- which is going to take the reins of this problem in a few weeks -- how well they're going to be able to unlock what's happened so far. But at this point now, this is for President-elect Biden's DHS to straighten out and for Biden's intelligence experts as well.
And so, I think there are people inside the government, whether it is the Trump administration or the Biden administration, at the civil servant level and at the expertise level who are extremely concerned about this, have a very good idea about what happened and who is responsible for it, and are working on it.
But in terms of public messaging, it's the president's decision and he has made his decision clear about how he wants to handle this or not handle it.
JARRETT: Yes. And as you say, we just don't know the full extent of the damage yet. There's still a lot of questions. But we should note that the Treasury secretary said yesterday that there was no break-in to the department's classified systems. I think more to come on this story for sure.
[05:45:05]
Margaret Talev, thank you so much for getting up for us this morning.
SANCHEZ: Thanks, Margaret.
JARRETT: Appreciate it.
TALEV: Thanks, guys.
JARRETT: All right.
Well, one item woven into the pandemic relief bill will come as a real relief to many Americans. Congress has finally agreed to shield patients from many huge unexpected medical bills.
Bills can, of course, run up fast into the thousands of dollars for care that patients didn't realize was outside their insurers' network. Such bills have become increasingly common even at in-network hospitals as some doctors have not agreed to participate in the network. And when care is planned in advance, such as for surgeries, patients do not always know that some specialists can be outside a network.
We'll be right back.
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SANCHEZ: Now to a truly stunning story you will only see on CNN. Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny has duped one of Putin's
spies into revealing how agents poisoned him. Pay special attention to where the toxin was planted and how Navalny tricked the spy into a confession. It's really an extraordinary story.
CNN's Clarissa Ward has this exclusive report.
[05:50:00]
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CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is an extraordinary scene. Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny on the phone with one of the FSB units he believes poisoned him in August. Navalny is pretending to be a senior figure from Russia's National Security Council investigating the attempted assassination.
The operative, Konstantin Kudryavtsev, is hesitant at first but then reveals the poison was placed on Navalny's underpants.
ALEXEY NAVALNY, RUSSIAN OPPOSITION LEADER (through translator): Well, imagine underpants and in what place.
KONSTANTIN KUDRYAVTSEV, RUSSIAN AGENT (through translator): The insides, the groin.
NAVALNY (through translator): The crotch on the underpants?
KUDRYAVTSEV (through translator): Well, the so-called flap. There are some seams there, so across the seams.
WARD (voice-over): The explosive admission punches a gaping hole in the Kremlin's repeated denials that the Russian government played any role in Navalny's poisoning. Kudryavtsev was one of an elite team who trailed Navalny for years, as CNN and online investigative outlet Bellingcat reported last week.
The unit was headquartered in this unassuming building in a Moscow suburb. Most of its members were doctors or scientists. Kudryavtsev graduated from the Russian Academy of Chemical Defense.
When Navalny was poisoned back in August, his flight was suddenly diverted to Tomsk. Flight records show that just five days later, Kudryavtsev flew to that same city, taking possession of Navalny's clothes. On the 45-minute call with Navalny, he offers an assurance that no trace of Novichok would be found on them.
KUDRYAVTSEV (through translator): Yes, all is clean.
NAVALNY (through translator): Visually, it will not be visible? They did not remove? There are no stains on them -- nothing?
KUDRYAVTSEV (through translator): No, no -- nothing. They are in good condition and clean.
NAVALNY (through translator): Pants? KUDRYAVTSEV (through translator): There is the same inside area. Perhaps something was left on it, too. We washed it off there also. But this is presumably because there was contact with the pants. Perhaps there was something on there, too.
WARD (voice-over): The FSB toxins team trailed Navalny on more than 30 trips around Russia. Five of its members flew to Siberia around the same time as Navalny during the fateful August trip when he was poisoned.
Toxicologists have told CNN that Navalny is lucky to be alive and that the intention was almost certainly to kill him, a point Kudryavtsev himself appears to acknowledge.
KUDRYAVTSEV (through translator): If he had flown a little longer and perhaps would not have landed so quickly and all, perhaps it would have all gone differently. That is, had it not been for the prompt assistance of doctors or ambulances on the landing strip, and so on.
NAVALNY (through translator): The plane landed after 40 minutes. Basically, this should have been taken into account while planning the operation. It wasn't that the plane landed instantly. They calculated the wrong dose, the probability? Why?
KUDRYAVTSEV (through translator): Well, I can't say why. As I understand it, we added a bit extra, so --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did you do this? How did you do this?
WARD (voice-over): At the end of the call, Navalny and his team are elated that their sting operation has worked. And despite everything he's discovered, he's still determined to return to Russia as soon as possible.
WARD (on camera): CNN has reached out to the Kremlin for comment. So far, we have not heard back.
But, Russia's state security services, the FSB, has called the conversation a fake. They said it was designed to make the state security services look bad and that it could only have been done with the help of foreign special services. This is something they often accuse Navalny of doing -- of working with Western intelligence services.
But one has the suspicion that this story is not going away for them. There will be more questions asked.
Clarissa Ward, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JARRETT: Just incredible, incredible reporting. Clarissa Ward, thank you so much for bringing us that story.
Turning back here now to the U.S., West Point is coping with its worst cheating scandal in decades. Seventy-three cadets are charged under the Army academy's famous honor code with cheating on a calculus exam in May. The school had just switched to virtual classes due to the pandemic.
Fifty-nine of the cadets admitted to cheating and most are now enrolled in a rehabilitation program. Four cadets were reassigned. Other cases are pending.
A West Point spokesman tells CNN while disappointing, the honor system is working.
SANCHEZ: Taking a look at markets around the world, Asian markets closing lower as the new coronavirus variant in the U.K. weighed on investors. European markets mixed, not really moving much.
[05:55:00]
But meantime on Wall Street, U.S. stock futures relatively flat. Stocks falling sharply on Monday before pulling back from their worst losses. Worries about that new variant in the U.K. overshadowing the stimulus deal in Washington.
JARRETT: A statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee removed from Capitol Hill and replaced with a civil rights hero. Lee's statue stood as one of Virginia's contributions to the National Statuary Hall for 111 years.
Now, Virginia will instead use a statue of Barbara Johns. When she was just 16, Johns led a walkout at her high school to protest unequal school conditions back in 1951. Many historians believe that moment was part of what helped launch the desegregation movement in the United States.
SANCHEZ: You may have seen a lot of blurry pictures on your social media feeds of the sky last night. Did you see the Christmas star?
The two largest planets in our solar system, Jupiter and Saturn, coming closer in the night sky than at any time since the Middle Ages. This hasn't been seen in the night sky since March fourth, 1226. You have to wait only 60 years to see it again, then more than 300 years after that.
Were you out there with your phone looking into the night sky, Laura?
JARRETT: I was in bed sleeping --
SANCHEZ: (Laughing).
JARRETT: -- I must confess. But the pictures are very cool.
SANCHEZ: Same here. I was -- I was asleep.
Thank you so much for joining us this morning. I'm Boris Sanchez in for Christine Romans.
JARRETT: I'm Laura Jarrett. "NEW DAY" is next.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Concerns are growing about a new variant of COVID-19 in the U.K. that reportedly spreads faster than others.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It does mean that we have to work a little bit harder about preventing a spread.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: The crisis throwing travel and trade into a nightmare before Christmas.
MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: After months of partisan haggling, stalemate, and gridlock -- finally, the two sides have come together.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The final stage here is to get it on President Donald Trump's desk. That is the final signature.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All indications are that Donald Trump has decided to walk away from his day job of running the country.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are other things.
