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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Senate GOP Facing Tough Votes On Defense Spending And $2,000 Checks; Sources: Pentagon To Resume Some Briefings For Biden Transition Team; Vaccine Arrives At Washington Nursing Home, Site Of Early COVID Outbreak. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired December 29, 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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[05:31:13]

RYAN NOBLES, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, this is EARLY START. I'm Ryan Nobles.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Christine Romans. It is 31 minutes past the hour this Tuesday morning.

And we begin with a nightmare after Christmas for Senate Republicans staring down two votes they'd rather not take with national security funding and 1,400 extra dollars for most American families on the line here.

Now, the House of Representatives voted to override President Trump's veto of the sweeping defense bill. Now, the GOP-led Senate may hand Mr. Trump the first veto override of his presidency, testing his grip on the party as his term expires.

The House also passed a measure increasing stimulus checks for most Americans from $600 to $2,000.

NOBLES: President Trump, meanwhile, staying on the sidelines during stimulus talks. Now he's championing bigger checks. He even tweeted about it just before 2:00 a.m. But, Senate Republicans, all of the sudden, rediscovering fiscal conservatism and they've resisted this for months.

Keep in mind, American livelihoods are at stake, including restaurant owners in Kentucky. That's the home state of Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. They are agonizing there over the huge loss of revenue on New Year's Eve because of pandemic restrictions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAX BLOOM, MANAGING PARTNER, CRAFT CULTURE CONCEPTS: The first shutdown was, you know, I think pretty emotionally taxing on not only small business owners or any business owner and employees, so we're just hunkering down and just hoping to get through it.

(END VIDEO CLIP) NOBLES: Right now, it is unclear whether the bigger relief checks can pass the Republican-controlled Senate, but a vote could further divide President Trump and the GOP ahead of the crucial Senate runoffs in Georgia next week.

ROMANS: And tying the two questions together, Bernie Sanders is threatening to delay a Senate vote on the defense bill unless McConnell allows a vote on the bigger stimulus checks. What's his goal here? CNN's Phil Mattingly has the state of play on Capitol Hill.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Well, Christine and Ryan, you never want to read too much into a single vote of the United States House of Representatives or maybe even two votes to the House of Representatives, at least in terms of what it means for the broader state of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. But it was tough not to do just that with two votes that happened on Monday night.

One vote trying to acquiesce the demand from President Trump to increase direct payments from $600 to $2,000 in the coronavirus relief package.

The other, to sustain President Trump's veto of the National Defense Authorization Act. The defense policy bill that has been signed into law with wide bipartisan support for 59 consecutive years. How it broke down? Well, it underscored the tightrope that Republicans are facing.

One hundred thirty House Republicans voting against the democratic measure to increase those stimulus payments from $600 to $2,000. Now, it passed. It is now heading over to the Senate. With 130 no's it kind of underscores that from an economic and ideological perspective, Republicans generally against it and willing to split with the president, at least on that issue.

On the veto override of the National Defense Authorization Act, some Republicans changing their votes from a yes to a no. But the vast majority sticking with their original votes which, again, it passed with major bipartisan support. The reason why? Well, take a listen to what the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee said before the vote.

REP. MAC THORNBERRY (R-TX): I would only ask that as members vote they put the best interest of the country first. There is no other consideration that should matter.

MATTINGLY (on camera): And guys, this is this complicated dynamic or even dance that Republicans are facing in the wake of November third. How you deal with somebody who is very clearly still extremely popular with the base. Who is very clearly still the head of the party but is also on his way out the door who lost but doesn't seem to be willing to accept that loss and still demands loyalty from absolutely everyone.

[05:35:00]

And it's an open question. It's one that I think we're going to see play out over the course of the next several days. See it play out in a runoff in Georgia on January fifth and also see it play out in the United States Senate, which now has to consider its own override of the veto of the National Defense Authorization Act. Republicans expected to join with Democrats to do just that.

But also, what Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell will do about those stimulus checks -- about that $2,000. Right now, he hasn't weighed in. He's supposed to on Tuesday -- guys.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right, Phil Mattingly on Capitol Hill. Thank you.

So, Ryan, Bernie Sanders wants Republican senators, especially those two from Georgia -- he wants them on the record on whether that extra cash should go to struggling Americans. You have new reporting on this.

NOBLES: Yes. Christine, it's pretty incredible how this confluence of events plays right into Bernie Sanders' wheelhouse, right? You know, I talked to an aide that's very close to Sen. Sanders last night and he said -- he made it clear that Sanders' number-one priority is to get those checks increased from $600 to $2,000.

But it is pretty remarkable about the political benefit that the Democrats have here by forcing these Republicans, particularly these two senators in Georgia hoping to be reelected, to come out and say where they stand. Do they support those $2,000 checks?

And then as a side note to all of this, using the National Defense Authorization Act as kind of the tool to force Mitch McConnell to bring this to the floor also is something that is easy for Bernie Sanders to do because he's often critical of the --

ROMANS: Yes.

NOBLES: -- Pentagon and defense spending in general.

So, there's no doubt that Sanders is much more concerned about getting that aid in the hands of everyday Americans. But he is not ignoring the fact that there is enormous political benefit here, not only in the short-term by forcing those GOP senators not only to take a stand on the $2,000 checks, but also physically having to be here in Washington --

ROMANS: Yes.

NOBLES: -- as opposed to Georgia in the closing days of this campaign. And then the long-term impact of whether or not Mitch McConnell is still the Senate majority leader.

They've all kind of come together in this neat little package and Sanders is taking advantage of it. ROMANS: Absolutely fascinating. Fascinating there.

Also new this morning, sources tell CNN a small number of Defense Department briefings are set to resume after President-elect Joe Biden went public with what he called obstruction from the political leadership at the Pentagon. Biden said the roadblocks could undermine national security during this transition.

NOBLES: And so far, Biden has taken a mostly hands-off approach, even as the current administration delayed recognizing the transition for weeks. But now, the president-elect is warning that foreign adversaries could gain an advantage if his team is kept out of the loop.

CNN's MJ Lee is with the Biden team in Delaware.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MJ LEE, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Good morning, Christine and Ryan.

President-elect Joe Biden expressing real concern after meeting with members of his national security and foreign policy agency review teams, basically saying that they are not getting everything that they need in this transition process. This is a process that was already delayed with the GSA having been slow with the ascertainment process.

And now, Joe Biden is saying that in some parts of the Trump government he is seeing obstruction. Here is what he said.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT: We've encountered roadblocks on the political leadership at the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget. Right now, we just aren't getting all the information that we need for the ongoing -- outgoing -- from the outgoing administration in key national security areas. It's nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility.

LEE (on camera): Now, some of the transition concerns aside, this was also a revealing foreign policy speech from the president-elect. He talked about how some agencies have been hollowed out. International alliances have been weakened under President Trump. And he said that the "go it alone" approach from President Trump simply will not work to address some of these global challenges, including something like climate change.

I also just want to note that the focus on Tuesday for the president- elect is going to be COVID-19. This, as a lot of experts are concerned that we are going to see massive spikes in COVID-19 cases after the Christmas holidays.

Christine and Ryan, back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right, MJ. Thank you so much for that. Now today, the Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and future second

gentleman Doug Emhoff -- they are set to receive their coronavirus vaccines. They will take the shot on-camera, part of the public effort to build confidence in the vaccine.

President-elect Biden has already taken it. President Trump still has not.

The vaccine rollout is still lagging behind projections. Eleven million have been distributed, two million have been administered. Officials say that number trails by several days but is still behind the pace.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: I think one part of the problem is that the federal government has thought that their responsibility ends when the vaccine gets delivered to the states. There's a lot of work of getting the vaccine from the state into people's arms and we needed a clearer set of plans than we've had on that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBLES: Now, it is worth noting that one item not in that stimulus bill, which is now law, state and local funding, which would go to things like vaccine distribution.

[05:40:03]

A member of President-elect Biden's coronavirus advisory team tells CNBC that Biden plans to invoke the Defense Production Act to produce production of the coronavirus vaccines.

Meantime, the U.S. hitting a record number of hospitalizations again -- more than 121,000. The share of COVID patients in intensive care keeps climbing, up from 16 percent in September to 40 percent last week.

ROMANS: It's just such a troubling graph there.

In Los Angeles, some patients at Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital -- they're being put into the gift shop, a chapel, or a conference room.

Hospitals nationwide are forced to consider the once unthinkable, rationing health care.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. JONATHAN REINER, PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: When you run out of capacity, physicians and bioethicists in these hospitals will need to decide which patients are salvageable -- potentially salvageable -- and which patients aren't. So the final decision in many instances may not be up to the family. If you don't have respirators, if you don't have nurses to care for patients, you don't have ICU beds, we will have to have these terrible discussions with families.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBLES: A conversation about which patients are salvageable. Unbelievable that's a conversation happening in this country.

The regional stay-at-home order for Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley is likely to be extended today. ICU bed capacity for these regions has fallen to zero percent.

And again, even though holiday surges have devastated the country all year, almost 1.3 million people traveled through U.S. airports on Sunday. That's more than any other day during the pandemic, setting the stage for waves of new infections.

And we'll be right back.

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[05:45:32]

NOBLES: Nursing home residents in New Jersey are receiving their first coronavirus vaccinations. That includes 103-year-old Mildred Clements, who also survived the 1918 flu pandemic.

Vaccines are arriving at other long-term care facilities, including the original epicenter of the virus in the U.S. where the deadly threat still lurks.

CNN's Sara Sidner reports from Kirkland, Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALICE CORTEZ, NURSING MANAGER, LIFE CARE CENTER OF KIRKLAND: That feels good.

(LAUGHTER)

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These were some of the very first people in the United States to go to war with a new virus without weapons to fight it. Ten months into the pandemic they are finally getting the most powerful weapon available, a vaccine.

SIDNER (on camera): What is this day like for you?

CORTEZ: What I feel right now is a new life. A new beginning, but a better life.

SIDNER (voice-over): This was the first epicenter of America's deadly coronavirus outbreak.

SIDNER (on camera): What was your most difficult day?

CHELSEY EARNEST, NURSING DIRECTOR, LIFE CARE CENTER OF KIRKLAND: March fourth.

SIDNER (voice-over): Registered nurse Chelsey Earnest cannot get the memory of what happened that day out of her head.

EARNEST: That was the night there was like five ambulances in the parking lot.

SIDNER (voice-over): Patients were dying or needed to be hospitalized. Ultimately, 39 patients died. Ten died at the facility.

SIDNER (on camera): Whose job was it to call the family members?

EARNEST: There were many that I had to call to either say they were going out to a hospital or that they didn't make it.

SIDNER (voice-over): The trauma of those days in March and the family members' cries haunts them all. That same month, several members of the staff spoke to CNN. Life Care Center said in the first few days they begged government agencies for help and received little.

SIDNER (on camera): Did you get what you need when you needed it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, no.

SIDNER (voice-over): Testing took days to get the results then. Now, they have a rapid test that takes minutes. Initially, the staff was blamed for not controlling the COVID outbreak by just about everyone.

EARNEST: We got threats.

SIDNER (on camera): What kind of threats?

EARNEST: All kinds of death threats. We ended up getting security.

SIDNER (voice-over): And soon, threats of a loss in funding and fines of $611,000 unless the facility resolved problems found by inspectors. Federal inspectors said Life Care failed to rapidly identify and manage all residents, putting them in immediate jeopardy. State inspectors reported similar findings. Life Care Center appealed.

NANCY BUTNER, VICE PRESIDENT, LIFE CARE NORTHWEST DIVISION: We knew what we had done was the best we could have done.

SIDNER (voice-over): In September, a state administrative judge largely agreed, saying the state provided relatively little evidence that the facility actually failed to meet any expected standard of care or failed to follow public health guidelines. The federal case is still pending.

Ten months after the initial chaos of the outbreak, the closest we could get was a look from the outside in. In-person visits are still forbidden.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why don't you guys cover his legs up?

SIDNER (voice-over): The chairs outside patients' windows used by families to communicate in March are now a semipermanent fixture here.

This facility is COVID-free right now but several of the nursing homes Nancy Butner oversees are not.

BUTNER: There is not a day that goes by where I don't get a phone call or a message that we have a new positive patient or staff.

SIDNER (on camera): Coronavirus is still killing patients --

BUTNER: Absolutely.

SIDNER (on camera): -- and still sickening staff.

BUTNER: Yes.

SIDNER (voice-over): Which is why this day is one of the most hopeful days they've had.

But for this physician's assistant, the day was bittersweet.

CHRISTY CARMICHAEL, PHYSICIAN'S ASSISTANT, LIFE CARE CENTER OF KIRKLAND: I have one resident who, last week, asked me if she can get the vaccination. I said sure, you can. Unfortunately, she passed away. So I did promise her that she would get it, so it's just sad that she didn't get to see this.

SIDNER (on camera): Now, we should mention that the nurses here, when this all first happened, knew once they figured out that it was coronavirus that other facilities across America and the world would be dealing with something similar. And, indeed, if you look at the numbers that's just what happened.

The federal agency that oversees America's nursing homes now reports that more than 86,000 nursing home residents have died of COVID-19 here.

Guys, back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: Sara Sidner, thank you so much for that reporting.

To Russia now. Russia is threatening to arrest opposition leader Alexey Navalny if he doesn't return to the country immediately. Navalny, of course, is in Germany right now where he's been since he was treated there after being poisoned with a nerve agent.

[05:50:07]

CNN's Frederik Pleitgen is live for us in Moscow. Hi, Fred.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Christine.

And he's actually already missed the deadline to return here to Germany. Essentially, what the Russian penal service -- the federal penal service here in Russia said late last night is they said he had to be here at 9:00 a.m. early this morning for a hearing or risk being arrested. And as you see on the clock there behind my head, you can see it's already 1:50 p.m. here in Moscow so he has already missed that deadline.

It's interesting because we asked the Kremlin about this earlier this morning and they said, of course, he's free to return at any point in time but the Russian penal service is just doing its job.

Now, all of this stems from a case from 2014 which Navalny says was politically motivated, but where he was sentenced to a suspended sentence here in Russia. And now, essentially, what the authorities here are saying is that look, he needs to come to this hearing because they believe that he's already recovered from his Novichok poisoning and needs to show up here. And if he does not, then he risks arrest.

Now, Alexey Navalny, of course, didn't show up here. And we looked at this late last night and when the news came out that he had to come here there was physically no way for him to get here. There were no direct flights between Germany and Russia. It was impossible for him to get here at that point in time.

Alexey Navalny already taking to Instagram, Christine, and ripping into all of this. He obviously believes that the Russian authorities are embarrassed by the fact that the CNN and Bellingcat investigation uncovered large parts of the plot to poison Alexey Navalny -- pinning it, of course, on the Russian intelligence service, the FSB. And that Alexey Navalny was actually able to contact one of the agents who was allegedly part of that plot and get him to admit large details of the plot.

Alexey Navalny, on his Instagram feed, said -- this is a quote -- "Like I said, somewhere there is Vladimir Putin in his bunker, stomping and yelling 'Why didn't he die?' And if he didn't die then he is twice guilty and now we will jail him."

So obviously, Alexey Navalny saying that he believes, once again, this is a plot by the Russian authorities. The Russian authorities, of course, have consistently said they were not behind the poisoning of Alexey Navalny. And, Alexey Navalny has said he wants to return to Russia. We're going to have to wait and see whether he rethinks all of that now, Christine.

ROMANS: Yes, Fred, it is just amazing -- all of that reporting that CNN and Bellingcat have done. I would -- I would encourage our viewers to go back and just spend some time reading through that amazing reporting. It has just been quite a -- quite a story there.

Thanks, Fred.

PLEITGEN: Yes.

NOBLES: In Georgia, a federal judge is blocking two counties' attempts to remove more than 4,000 voters from the rolls ahead of the January fifth runoff elections. The vast majority were in Muscogee County, which President-elect Joe Biden won handily in November.

The judge is Leslie Abrams Gardner. She's the sister of former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. She found the attempts would likely violate the National Voter Registration Act. The Columbus, Ohio police officer who killed an unarmed black man last

week has been fired. Body camera footage showed the officer, Adam Coy, shoot Andre Hill just seconds into their encounter. Hill was holding a cell phone as he walked toward the officer.

The police chief said Coy failed to deescalate the situation and render aid to the victim. State investigators are looking into possible criminal charges.

ROMANS: All right.

Nearly 200,000 ceiling fans are being recalled because the blades can detach and fly off while in use. King of Fans says it has received dozens of reports of its 54-inch Mara ceiling fans malfunctioning. Officials say it's due to an isolated defect with the fan blades' assembly. The ceiling fans have been sold at Home Depot stores nationwide.

All right. First, looking at markets around the world this Tuesday morning, you can see European shares opening up nicely here. On Wall Street, futures also, this morning, are leaning higher here.

Investors started the week on a positive note after the president finally signed that coronavirus relief bill. The Dow closed up 204 points. That's a record high. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq also hit fresh record highs here.

For the first time in nearly two years, the Boeing 737 MAX will fly again in the U.S. American Airlines is going to use the jet on a roundtrip route from Miami to New York today. The plane has been grounded since March 2019 after two crashes that killed 346 people. Last month, the FAA approved changes Boeing made to the jet.

Some flyers, though, are nervous. A new poll found 57 percent of Americans surveyed said they were unlikely to fly in a Boeing 737 MAX when they were told about the plane's history.

United Airlines and Southwest also own the 737 MAX. Neither have added the plane back to their schedule yet.

NOBLES: A disabled 3-year-old in Denver given the gift of mobility by a kind and handy young stranger 1,000 miles away in Washington State. Ollie Horton was late to crawl and he's still not walking.

[05:55:00]

So a Seattle area eighth-grader named Eli Murphy decided to help him out as a school project. He adapted a rideable electric toy Jeep, altering its steering system pedals and adding some safety features.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELI MURPHY, 8TH GRADER ADAPTED RIDEABLE TOY FOR DISABLED 3-YEAR-OLD: Because it felt like the right thing to do. But I was also looking for something to do while COVID was going and just gave me some sanity, kind of, throughout this tough time. JOHNNY HORTON, OLLIE HORTON'S FATHER: Every time he learns something new on the Jeep you can just see him light up, and that empowerment is really, really fun for us to see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBLES: Ollie's new ride cost under $400, including the Jeep. That's far less than an electric wheelchair, which can run tens of thousands of dollars.

And that eighth-grader spending much greater use of his time --

ROMANS: Yes.

NOBLES: -- in quarantine than my children are.

ROMANS: Yes, exactly. I've been really worried about what the long- term studies are going to say about what our kids learned over the past year. And that guy really has got the right attitude.

NOBLES: No doubt.

ROMANS: All right, thanks for joining us. I'm Christine Romans.

NOBLES: And I'm Ryan Nobles. Stick around though because "NEW DAY" is next.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The House of Representatives voting to increase stimulus checks.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Every Senate Democrat is for it but unfortunately, we don't have the Republicans on board.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've just been waiting for Congress to make some decisions that would be in the best interest of so many Americans like myself.

BIDEN: We have encountered roadblocks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have enemies in America. They know we are vulnerable in these transitions.

LT. COL. ALEXANDER VINDMAN (RET.), FORMER DIRECTOR FOR EUROPEAN AFFAIRS, U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: He's effectively scraped off a top layer of leadership and that is the layer that has been corrupted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It is Tuesday, December 29th, 6:00 here in New York.

John Berman is off today. Jim Sciutto joins me. Great to have you.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: You're stuck with me all week.

CAMEROTA: That, I can handle. It's another pivotal day here so I'm really.