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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
President Demands Georgia Officials "Find" Votes To Tilt Election; U.K. Begins Rollout Of Oxford/AstraZeneca Vaccine; Israel Has Already Vaccinated More Than A Million People. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired January 04, 2021 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:30:00]
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Happy this morning that the Eagles decided to bench Jalen Hurts there in the fourth quarter. It really hurt their chances. I'm sure that rivalry just added one more thing next year when the Giants play the Eagles.
LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, we'll have to see what happens. Thanks, Andy -- appreciate it.
SCHOLES: All right.
All right. Still ahead for you, every living former U.S. Defense secretary just joined forces to issue a remarkable rejection of the GOP's efforts to try to overturn this election. We'll tell you what they're saying, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
JARRETT: Good morning, everyone, this is EARLY START. I'm Laura Jarrett.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you, and Happy New Year, Laura.
JARRETT: Happy New Year.
ROMANS: Nice to see you again. I'm Christine Romans. It's 33 minutes past the hour.
And we begin with breaking news. The President of the United States, on tape, pressuring Georgia's secretary of state to quote "find votes" to help him steal an election that he lost two months ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state. And flipping the state is a great testament to our country because, you know, this -- there's just -- it's a testament that they can admit to a mistake or whatever you want to call it if it was a mistake -- I don't know. A lot of people think it wasn't a mistake. It was much more criminal than that.
But it's a big problem in Georgia and it's not a problem that's going away. I mean, you know, it's not a problem that's going away.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: So, finding more votes isn't how elections work. The American people voted this man out of office but for weeks now he's been making these calls. He went to the courts. Even the Supreme Court turned him away. So now he's turned to threats because he's not getting his way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The ballots are corrupt and you're going to find that they are, which is totally illegal. It's more illegal for you than it is for them because you know what they did and you're not reporting it. That's a -- you know, that's a criminal -- that's a criminal offense and, you know, you can't let that happen. That's a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer -- and that's a big risk.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[05:35:19]
ROMANS: So, another lie wrapped in a -- in a hollow threat to state election officials who were forced to tell the president again and again his information was dead wrong.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Do you think it's possible that they shredded ballots in Fulton County because that's what the rumor is? And also that Dominion took out machines. That Dominion is really moving fast to get rid of their machinery. Do you know anything about that? Because that's illegal, right?
RYAN GERMANY, GENERAL COUNSEL FOR GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE'S OFFICE: This is Ryan Germany. No, Dominion has not moved any machinery out of Fulton County.
TRUMP: But no -- but have they moved -- have they -- have they moved the inner parts of the machines and replaced them with other parts?
GERMANY: No.
TRUMP: Are you sure, Ryan?
GERMANY: I'm sure. I'm sure, Mr. President.
TRUMP: What about -- what about the -- what about the ballots -- the shredding of the ballots? Have they been shredding ballots?
GERMANY: No. The only investigation that we have into that -- they have not been shredding any ballots. There was an issue in Cobb County where they were doing normal office shredding, getting rid of old stuff, and we investigated that. But this is stuff from, you know, past elections.
TRUMP: I don't know.
GERMANY: And that's what --
TRUMP: It's very -- it doesn't pass the smell test because we hear they're shredding thousands and thousands of ballots. And now what they're saying -- oh, we're just cleaning up the office, you know. I don't think they're cleaning.
RAFFENSPERGER: Mr. President, the problem you have with social media is they -- people can say anything.
TRUMP: No. No, this isn't social media. This is Trump media. It's not social media -- it's really not. It's not social media.
I don't care about social media. I couldn't care less.
Social media is big tech. Big tech is on your side, you know. I don't even know why you have a side because you should want to have an accurate election -- and you're a Republican.
RAFFENSPERGER: We believe that we do have an accurate election.
TRUMP: No, no you don't. No, no you don't. You don't have. You don't have -- not even close.
You've got -- you're off by hundreds of thousands of votes. And just on the small numbers, you're off on these numbers and these numbers can't be just --
Well, why won't -- OK, so you sent us into Cobb County for signature verification, right? You sent us into Cobb County, which we didn't want to go into, and you said it would be open to the public and we could have our -- so we had our experts there. They weren't allowed into the room.
But we didn't want Cobb County. We wanted Fulton County and you wouldn't give it to us. Now, why aren't we doing signature and why can't it be open to the public? And why can't we have professionals do it instead of rank amateurs who will never find anything and don't want to find anything? They don't want to find -- you know they don't want to find anything.
Someday you'll tell me the reason why because I don't understand your reasoning. But someday, you'll tell me the reason why. But why don't you want to find --
GERMANY: Mr. President, we chose Cobb County.
TRUMP: Why don't you want to find --
GERMANY: We chose Cobb County.
TRUMP: What?
GERMANY: Sorry, go ahead.
TRUMP: Yes, why did -- why -- OK, so why did you do Cobb County? We didn't even request -- we requested Fulton County, not Cobb County.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, Mr. President, we had an election process --
GERMANY: We chose Cobb County --
TRUMP: Go ahead, please -- go ahead.
GERMANY: We chose Cobb County because that was the only county where there's been any evidence submitted that the signature verification was not properly done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: So how did all this come out? Well, a source says that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger didn't actually want the recording of his call with the president released unless the president attacked him or misrepresented the call which is, of course, exactly what happened.
On Sunday, President Trump tweeted that he spoke to Raffensberger about what he called voter fraud in Georgia. And in his telling of it, the Secretary of State was unwilling or unable to answer Trump's questions.
Well, in response, the Secretary of State tweeted "Respectfully, President Trump, what you're saying is not true. The truth will come out." And then, it did.
ROMANS: The hour-long shakedown of a state election official also raising questions this morning about whether President Trump broke federal or state law.
Representative Adam Schiff, who led the president's impeachment trial for Democrats, tweeted "Trump's contempt for democracy is laid bare, once again on tape, pressuring an election official to 'find' the votes so he can win is potentially criminal and another flagrant abuse of power by a corrupt man who would be a despot if we allowed him. We will not."
Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin tweeted "This disgraceful effort to intimate an elected official into deliberately changing and misrepresenting the legally confirmed vote totals in his state strikes at the heart of our democracy and merits nothing less than a criminal investigation."
[05:40:00]
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also seized on the call, responding in a tweet pointing to "The Washington Post" reporting of the audio. He called out Republican Sen. Ted Cruz saying "Hey, Sen. Ted Cruz, and his gang: You want to investigate election fraud? Start with this." JARRETT: Also this morning, a remarkable show of force against President Trump from all 10 living former U.S. Defense secretaries, including both who served under the president. "The Washington Post" publishing a letter from the group aimed, in part, at sweeping back any thought that the military might somehow settle this election.
They write here, quote, "Our elections have occurred. Recounts and audits have been conducted. Appropriate challenges have been addressed by the courts. Governors have certified the results. And the Electoral College has voted.
The time for questioning the results has passed. The time for formal counting of the Electoral College votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived."
William Cohen, who served under President Bill Clinton, explains here why the secretaries did this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE UNDER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: So it was really our attempt to call out to the American people. We believe all of them are patriotic. They've been led down a path by President Trump which is an unconstitutional path.
And so we felt it incumbent on us as having served in the Defense Department to say please, all of you in the Defense Department, you've taken an oath to serve this country and this Constitution, not any given individual.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: And according to former Defense Sec. William Perry, the idea for this statement came from Dick Cheney who, of course, served as Secretary of Defense under President George H.W. Bush and then later as vice president.
ROMANS: All right, now 16 days until Joe Biden's inauguration as the next president. It's time for three questions in three minutes, and that means CNN senior political analyst John Avlon. Happy New Year, sir.
JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Happy New Year.
JARRETT: Hey, John.
ROMANS: So I'm not the first to note the symmetry here of a president's tenure basically bookended by two tapes -- you know, one, the "ACCESS HOLLYWOOD" tape --
AVLON: Yes.
ROMANS: -- and now this "Washington Post" revealing first, this tape of this shakedown, essentially, of a state election official.
I was listening to an international investor talking about -- calling this an embarrassing end to the Trump presidency but wondering whether this is an attack on democracy and rule of law that lasts in the political climate beyond President Trump.
Does this -- does this anti-democratic behavior end with this Trump presidency or is this now part of the political -- the political world?
AVLON: It depends on accountability and it depends on the Republican Party.
Look, there have been all these calls for fraud -- about fraud -- about election fraud, about voter fraud. What we see in this call, in the president's own words, is the fraud is coming from within the White House. That's what we see laid bare.
On one level, it is sort of the actions of -- that are akin to a mob boss trying to do a shakedown of election officials who are standing up to the President of the United States despite a full-court press. On the other hand, it's also -- if you listen to the full tape, and I have, this is the actions of a conman. He is trying to play any angle he can get.
We see so many of the hallmarks of Trump's rhetorical leadership saying, oh, you know, we've got so many more votes coming. We don't even need this. Look, why don't you -- personal appeals, threats. And they are unmoved because they have done their jobs. They are Republican election officials but they are putting country over party.
And you see people like Mark Meadows trying to play the good cop, saying can't we come up with some compromise? It's akin in many ways to the Ukraine tape calling for investigations to help shape -- in this case, an attempt to overturn an election.
So will the Republican members of Congress listen to this and realize they've been had? Realize that they're defending somebody who is trying to seize power by any means necessary. And good for those Republicans who are standing up, particularly in Georgia, and saying no -- you will not intimidate us into changing our votes or finding votes.
It is a harrowing call and it deserves to be held in more infamy than the "ACCESS HOLLYWOOD" tapes, which got a lot of attention because they were about sexual assault.
ROMANS: And everyone should listen to the full -- the full, you know, hour. I mean, this is the President of the United States in his own words.
AVLON: That's right.
ROMANS: I mean, it's remarkable. Everyone should listen to this.
AVLON: Hundred percent.
JARRETT: So John, you mentioned Georgia and I don't think it could be missed that the president didn't just threaten any secretary of state, he threatened Georgia's secretary of state just ahead of this election tomorrow. He gets the date wrong. He thinks it's on Monday.
But putting that aside for a minute, we've talked for weeks about how the president's behavior could affect these two critical Senate -- I mean, these are the races that are going to decide the balance of power --
AVLON: Yes.
JARRETT: -- in the Senate.
What effect do you think that these calls coming out has if any?
AVLON: It cannot help Republicans in Georgia. Look, traditionally, runoffs in the south will revert to the Republicans, but this race is very tight. Turnout has been extraordinarily high.
And Trump has confused everybody by saying elections are invalid and illegal and raising questions -- therefore, why should his supporters turn out? But now voters will hear the President of the United States trying to shake down and pressure its election officials, and that cannot help people rally to his cause.
[05:45:06]
And the question I think today for David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, who have tried so hard to hug the president and create no daylight, is do they condemn this clear attempt to influence, and impact, and shake down Georgia's election officials? Are they going to put Georgia first or are they going to put their fealty to President Trump first? They need to answer that today.
ROMANS: Yes.
You know, and look, this is how we now know how the president spends his time, right?
AVLON: Yes.
ROMANS: This is how -- we've seen his --
JARRETT: Not on coronavirus.
ROMANS: We've seen his schedule before where it just says he has many calls and many meetings. Now we know he's going to be going to -- you know, to rally his base in Georgia.
AVLON: Yes.
ROMANS: But this tells us a lot about what is top of mind for this president and it's not the hundreds of thousands of people who have died. It's not the misery on Main Street --
AVLON: Yes.
ROMANS: -- at the moment. It is his own failed reelection bid that just consumes this man. AVLON: It's always about him. The entire story of this administration
COVID's response has been about how it will affect Donald Trump personally, not how it's affecting Americans.
And the schedule shot for today is worth keeping. It says the president -- the official schedule of the White House is the president will be working from early in the morning to late at night, making many calls and many meetings. I mean, it's like the Ron Burgundy version of the presidency. It's so ridiculous.
And yet, this is how he's really filling his time. It's all about him by any means necessary to hold onto power for a job that he apparently doesn't even really want to do.
ROMANS: Well, you know -- and the other thing about this call that really struck me, you guys, was the number of times he says you know, they're saying, or a lot of people say, or the rumors are, or I hear that.
AVLON: Of course.
ROMANS: And it's just like it's conspiracies plucked out of thin air --
AVLON: Yes.
ROMANS: -- and you wonder -- the circle around him -- who's reinforcing it, right?
AVLON: Oh, I think we know.
JARRETT: Well, we know who is on. We know because they're on calls.
AVLON: Yes.
JARRETT: Lawyers, the chief of staff. These are people who are enabling him from top to bottom.
AVLON: And they're giving him very specific numbers that he believes that evaporate when confronted with people with, actually, data.
We knew about Rudy Giuliani, we knew about Sidney Powell, we knew about Flynn, we knew about other folks. But now, Cleta Mitchell is in on this game as well.
But yes, it's all a conspiracy theory crazy quilt of specific statistics that fall apart when confronted with actual facts.
JARRETT: John Avlon, good to have the gang back together. Thank you, my friend.
AVLON: Happy New Year, guys.
JARRETT: We'll be right back. Thanks so much.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [05:50:55]
JARRETT: Welcome back.
The U.K. begins its rollout of the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, which was recently approved for use in that country.
CNN's Max Foster is live in London for us. Max, nice to see you this morning. So walk us through what happens next now.
MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Laura.
I'm actually in Oxford and the reason we're here is because this is where the AstraZeneca vaccine was developed, but also where the first patient in the world received the vaccine today -- an 82-year-old former maintenance engineer who is on dialysis and therefore, extremely vulnerable. So there's a message there in that he received it first.
But the government is calling this a pivotal moment in the pandemic. And the reason they're saying that is that this vaccine has certain advantages over the Pfizer vaccine, which has already been approved here. And that is that it's cheaper, it's easier to store, easier to transport. And that crucially means it's easier to get out to the care homes, which are at the top of the priority list here in the U.K.
So by the end of the week, the government thinks they should have 1,000 centers across the U.K. getting this vaccine out to more people.
The other reason it's pivotal is because of this graph. Let me show you this, Laura. It shows you the number of coronavirus cases in the U.K. since the beginning of the pandemic. And you can see that recently, it's virtually turned vertical. That's because of this new, fast-moving variant of coronavirus causing a huge amount of concern. And this is a vaccine that hopefully will be used to address that at some point in the near future.
JARRETT: We all certainly hope so. All right, Max, thank you so much for that.
Well, Israel has already administered the coronavirus vaccine to more than a million people at a rate that far outpaces any other country.
CNN's Sam Kiley is live in Jerusalem for us. Sam, how did Israel manage to do this so quickly and get so many people inoculated?
SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Laura, I think the short answer is that Israel, because of where it lives in its neighborhood and its recent history since its foundation, is used to national mobilization. It also has a national health service with four different companies within it competing against one another. And it is a highly militarized country -- a country that's familiar with rather informal but very high levels of efficiency. And because of that and some early negotiations, the Israelis really have been well beaters in distributing this vaccine.
We spoke yesterday to the Israeli health minister and this is how he described their success.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YULI EDELSTEIN, ISRAELI HEALTH MINISTER: We got prepared very early, understanding that we are a very small country and companies would rather sell the vaccine to huge countries once they are successful.
Second was my immediate decision not to put all the eggs in one basket, realizing that we still, at that stage, didn't know who will be successful -- who will be frontrunner in the end.
And the third was that I would say a very active support of Prime Minister Netanyahu, who was very instrumental in bringing the vaccines earlier to Israel.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KILEY: Now, of course, Laura, Netanyahu is facing yet another general election in March, so the timing of the success of this rollout is clearly going to be highly beneficial to him politically.
But I think one of the really key elements here is that Israel is a small country and it is used to mobilizing. And there's also a level of informality. It gets rid of the spare vaccines at the end of the day to whoever needs them or wants them.
JARRETT: Well, it's certainly instructive to show that this can, in fact, be done.
Sam Kiley in Jerusalem for us this morning. Thank you.
ROMANS: And done well, apparently, there in Israel.
Let's get a check on CNN Business this morning. You can see markets around the world balanced in European shares to start this new trading week -- the new year on Wall Street. And futures in the U.S. right now also leaning a little bit higher here -- about 166 points on the Dow if it holds.
Look, it was a remarkable year for stocks despite the pandemic. The Dow and the S&P ended the year at record highs. The Nasdaq had its best year since 2009. The big question, of course, can the rally continue into 2021. And plenty of big analysts and experts say it will, but they're not always right, of course.
The big focus to start the new year will be on the Georgia runoff. That will be key to control of Congress and the ability for the Biden administration to get its agenda through. Also, there's new manufacturing data early this week.
Also key this week, the December jobs report. As coronavirus cases climb, threatening economic growth, economists say it's going to be a dark winter before a rebound. The economy is still down 9.8 million jobs and job growth is slowing. You can see we've ticked those -- each one of those months out there. Economists predict the economy added 100,000 jobs in December and the jobless rate will go up a little bit to 6.8 percent. That would be the first increase in the unemployment rate since April.
But the vaccine rollout and stimulus are giving economists hope for the economy in 2021. Some of America's biggest banks are estimating GDP growth could be as much as six percent in the new year. If GDP hits six percent it would be the best economic growth since 1984.
Now, 2020 was a banner year for Tesla. The automaker hit its goal of building a half million cars in the year, a first for the company. It's an impressive goal, especially since Tesla's factory in California was shut down for nearly two months due to stay-at-home orders there.
Tesla's stock rose a stunning -- I can't even believe I'm saying this -- 743 percent for the year, making it the most valuable automaker in the world. Quite a year for Elon Musk and Tesla.
JARRETT: It's incredible.
ROMANS: I know.
Thanks for joining us, everybody. I'm Christine Romans.
JARRETT: I'm Laura Jarrett. "NEW DAY" is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Monday, January fourth, 6:00 here in New York.
And the breaking news, we know Donald Trump lost the election. This morning it's fair to ask whether he lost his mind. So if you think that's harsh.
