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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

110 Million Americans In Path Of Blizzard-Like Conditions; Trump Hires New Impeachment Lawyers After Defense Team Quits; Russian Security Forces Crack Down On Huge Opposition Protests. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired February 01, 2021 - 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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[05:31:31]

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Laura Jarrett.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Boris Sanchez in for Christine Romans. We are 31 minutes past the hour. Thank you so much for having me on this snowy start to the week, Laura.

JARRETT: Always great to have you, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Thanks.

JARRETT: And hunker down if you are in the path of this. A nor'easter is moving up the East Coast -- more than 110 million Americans in its path. The snow won't stop until tomorrow.

Two feet of snow expected around New York City. Near-blizzard conditions are possible with downed powerlines and limited visibility on roads always a problem.

SANCHEZ: The Port Authority, which runs the airports, tunnels, and bus terminals around New York, gearing up with more than 500 pieces of snow equipment.

Of course, before it crossed the country, the same system washed out a piece of California's Highway 1 near Big Sur. Look at this -- an enormous gash in the scenic roadway. And yesterday in the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia, this fire truck spinning out of control, overturning, on icy roads.

JARRETT: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio urging New Yorkers to stay home today.

CNN's Polo Sandoval not staying home. This morning he's near Central Park for us. Polo, the mayor wants the roads clear for emergency plows and emergency vehicles. Are people listening this morning? What are you seeing?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So far, so good, Laura. And what the mayor says is starting at 6:00 a.m., they would like to not see any non-essential travel on the streets of New York City, especially so that those plows can continue working as they've been doing through the night and as they will continue to do during the day.

Also, mass transit is really going to be the key for any of those essential workers that are trying to get to work this morning -- authorities really recommending that.

And I have to tell you I drove down some of the side streets here in Manhattan. Definitely looking like in fairly rough shape. And, you know, to answer your question, the streets are relatively quiet. We've seen the occasional plow, seen the occasional bus driving through Midtown Manhattan.

And look, this is shaping up like a multi-act tragedy. You had yesterday morning -- I'm sorry, yesterday evening you began to see some of the snow. Today you're going to begin to see some of these winds. Later today you're going to begin to see some of those winds even begin to climb even higher. So that's one of the reasons why, for example, some of the in-class or in-person classes -- those are going to be done remotely, at least today.

The COVID vaccinations that we know the city has been trying really hard to continue to administer, those -- some of those appointments that people managed to get for today -- unfortunately, those are going to have to be put on pause, but the city is saying they will get to those eventually.

Today it's about staying home and staying safe not just here in New York but also throughout the northeast.

JARRETT: Yes. Hopefully, they can get those vaccination appointments rescheduled soon with everything that's going on right now.

All right, Polo, stay warm out there. We appreciate you coming on for us.

SANCHEZ: So how long is this monster storm going to last? Chad Myers is live for us this morning tracking the storm. And Chad you made clear earlier it's not just the intensity of the storm but also the duration that we have to keep an eye on.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, that's right. Twenty-four hours' worth of snow in places and even that one inch of snow per hour -- and it could be higher than that -- that's going to start to really pile up snow.

Now, this storm hasn't even begun to wind up yet. This thing is still waiting in the wings to get into this very warm Gulf Stream water. You look at it and you go oh, it's almost done -- it's already moving away. Another storm is going to barrel here to the east of Hampton Roads and develop into this nor'easter that we've been talking about.

[05:35:02] So look, there's still a threat of this thing being a bust but every single model says no -- inches, feet of snow in many spots. Boston, a little bit less on my map because I think you're going to mix over with some rain. Philadelphia, it's already been kind of sleeting most of the morning hours. But, New York, especially on up into the Poconos, all snow.

Cancellations -- don't even try to get to the airport in the northeast. Look at some of these numbers. Over 80 percent of the planes are already canceled right now and the planes that aren't canceled are the evening flights. And maybe they're just hoping because there's no real threat here -- no real chance of getting planes in the air.

I just looked at my FlightAware and there's like one plane coming in from Cairo and it's going to be landing in Dulles in an hour. That's the only plane, really, in the New York air space at this time.

Here it is. We move you ahead until 3:00 or 4:00, still snowing. Snowing in Boston but changing over a little bit by 6:00 later on tonight. And changing over in Boston and certainly, the Cape.

Maybe even Long Island will have more of a mix. So you're not going to see those big numbers in Long Island like you're going to see in New Jersey all the way even -- we'll call it downstate but it's still kind of upstate New York, north of New York City.

By Wednesday, it's all done. But there will be places with two to three feet, Boris, no question about it.

SANCHEZ: Yes. If this thing is just winding up, as you said Chad, prepare for quite a few headaches.

MYERS: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Thanks so much.

MYERS: All right.

JARRETT: All right. Former President Donald Trump forced to retool his impeachment defense team with just over a week before the start of the U.S. Senate trial. Over the weekend, his lawyers all calling it quits after refusing to mount a defense based on Trump's alternative reality. So what will his actual defense look like?

CNN's Sunlen Serfaty has more.

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SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Good morning, Laura and Boris.

Yes, President Trump here really having to rebuild his legal team from scratch, announcing late Sunday evening the selection of two new trial attorneys that will fill out his legal defense team, including David Schoen, trial attorney and former law professor; and Bruce L. Castor, Jr., former district attorney in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, also a trial attorney himself.

And this announcement comes just two days after all five members of the president's legal team walked off and parted ways with him over a disagreement over the legal path forward. President Trump had wanted them to make the center of their defense the wrong claim that the election was stolen -- that there was mass election fraud -- rather than focusing in about the legality of potentially convicting a former president after he left office.

So, of course, the big question with this new legal team, will they go along with President Trump's defense that he wants or not?

Now, time, of course, is very short. The wheels on Capitol Hill will start turning this week. Their legal briefs are due in a few days and then, of course, the trial is set to start next Tuesday on Capitol Hill -- Laura and Boris.

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SANCHEZ: Sunlen Serfaty, thank you for that.

Another weekend of huge protests all across Russia, escalating the biggest threat that Vladimir Putin has faced in a long time. A record number of protesters taking to the streets backing detained opposition leader Alexey Navalny. Russian security forces cracking down without mercy.

Senior international correspondent Frederik Pleitgen joins us now live from Moscow. Fred, you were there firsthand with a lot of these clashes between protesters and law enforcement.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

SANCHEZ: These protests expected to intensify again tomorrow as a court is set to hear Navalny's case.

PLEITGEN: You're absolutely right Alexey Navalny's troubles certainly continue here in Russia, Boris. He has that court hearing due for tomorrow where he could face up to another 3 1/2 years in jail if he's convicted there. And that's among other legal troubles that he has as well.

And yesterday really was a remarkable day. We're seeing some of the images there on our screen. And just to give you an idea of what the protesters were up against, the authorities here in Moscow shut down basically the entire city center of this city -- a lot of the main streets also shut down. And still, the protesters managed to come out in force.

Now you can see there was also a giant contingent of riot police not just here in Moscow but really, across this country in many cities that really cracked down very hard. You saw people getting hit with clubs. We saw people who got tased by police officers. And obviously, a lot of people who were detained -- not just

protesters who were at the event but also journalists as well. I was, of course, detained for a couple of minutes. But there 82 journalists in total who were detained, according to a monitoring group.

That's also one of the reasons why the Secretary of State came out very early on in the game and condemned what he called Russia's harsh crackdown on both protesters and journalists.

We just got word from the Kremlin. The spokesman for Vladimir Putin just said that the Russians will not listen to any sort of lectures, as they call it, from the United States. The Kremlin insisting that journalists were able to work freely.

[05:40:00]

But again, yesterday, some very, very big protests against all the odds here in Moscow. And one of the things you said at the beginning Boris is absolutely correct. This does not look like something that will go away anytime soon, Boris.

SANCHEZ: And we know you'll be watching it for us, Fred. We appreciate your work, as always. Stay safe, my friend.

And stay with EARLY START. We'll be right back after a quick break.

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SANCHEZ: A leading infectious disease doctor says it's time to call an audible on coronavirus vaccines because of the growing threat from new variants. So far, it seems one dose does provide some protection. And now, Dr. Michael Osterholm says second doses should be delayed to give as many first doses as possible to people over 65 in order to reduce severe illness and death.

[05:45:02]

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DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, BIDEN TRANSITION COVID-19 ADVISORY BOARD: The surge that is likely to occur with this new variant from England is going to happen in the next six to 14 weeks. And if we see that happen, which my 45 years in the trenches tells us we will, we are going to see something like we have not seen yet in this country.

I see that hurricane five -- category five or higher, 450 miles offshore -- and, you know, telling people to evacuate in that nice blue sky day is going to be hard. But I can also tell you that hurricane is coming.

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JARRETT: All of these variants threatening to undo any progress that's made, although hospitalizations right now dropping below 100,000 for the first time since December first. But equal access to the vaccine, it's a real problem. And New York

City's Washington Heights, a predominantly Latino neighborhood hard hit by the pandemic -- well, it saw an overwhelming number of white people from outside the community showing up to get the vaccine last month at one site. New York-Presbyterian announces it is dedicating at least 60 percent of appointments for people in minority communities.

SANCHEZ: The flip side to all of this, of course, is expiration dates and efficiency. Moderna's vaccine can only last 30 days, and Pfizer's only five days once they've been taken out of the deep freeze. Mechanical breakdowns, bad weather, and other issues leaving doctors and nurses trying to use the supply without having to throw it away.

You might have seen last week in Oregon, health department workers stranded during a snowstorm, going from car-to-car offering people on the road with them their remaining doses of the vaccine.

JARRETT: Just amazing.

And Chicago returned to in-person classes being delayed for thousands of students until Tuesday after city officials and the teachers union failed to reach an agreement on reopening. About 67,000 students plan to return to class today, still a fraction of the 355,000 students during the last school year.

School officials say teachers who do not report to work will be considered absent without leave and will not be authorized to teach remotely until they come in person as required. The union previously told its members to be prepared to strike if the district retaliated for teachers choosing to stay home.

SANCHEZ: A pair of CDC studies reiterating what the agency has said before, that schools can operate safely with proper precautions in place. But some teachers do not want to return to the classroom until they have been vaccinated.

And as in Chicago, that's putting them at odds with state and local governments pushing to reopen. Most states have not prioritized teachers getting the vaccine even though extended virtual learning is taking a toll. Now, some cities are being forced to consider dramatic steps to address gaps in learning.

CNN has the pandemic covered from coast-to-coast.

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EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): I'm Evan McMorris-Santoro.

School leaders in Hartford, Connecticut have the same problems school leaders around the country have -- figuring out what to do with all the learning loss caused by remote learning this semester.

The school leaders in Hartford have some radical solutions, according to CNN affiliate WFSB. Those include a longer school day, a longer school year, or a special intercession program targeted at the students most affected by that learning loss.

We've seen numbers from across the country showing rising numbers of Fs, lowering attendance levels. Hartford's solution could be to radically change its school year, something you might see in other school districts around the rest of the country.

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): I'm Paul Vercammen on the campus of Cal State Northridge University.

And some glimmers of hope in Southern California. First, this vaccination site -- 2,400 appointments, seven days a week. Things seem to be going more swimmingly than they did just a short time ago when it was chaotic.

Also, we're seeing some numbers in Los Angeles County drop, especially with hospitalizations. You may have heard that they eased restrictions throughout the state of California and especially here in Los Angeles, including allowing restaurants to reopen outside for the first time in a long time over the weekend.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): I'm Alexandra Field at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. The historic ballpark is getting ready for another kind of opening day. It's being turned into a mass vaccination site. People who are eligible to receive the COVID vaccine here in Massachusetts can sign up for an appointment.

The ballpark, the latest in a string of stadiums and ballparks across the nation that are opening their doors to people who are ready to roll up their sleeves. Here at Fenway, the plan is to vaccinate about 500 people a day. They have plans to ramp that up to about 1,250 people a day.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT (on camera): I'm Pete Muntean in Washington.

President Biden is getting new help in enforcing his transportation mask mandate. The Department of Homeland Security just issued what's called a 'Determination of National Emergency.' It lets the TSA enforce mask-wearing at security checkpoints and quote "throughout the commercial and public transportation system."

[05:50:01]

This CDC order impacts anybody on a plane, train, bus, boat, taxi, or rideshare -- also, in airports and other transportation hubs. It goes into effect Monday at 11:59 p.m.

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JARRETT: Thanks to all of our correspondents for those reports.

Well, the U.S. vaccine rollout has stumbled, as we all know, but the situation is much, much worse in Brazil. The country with the world's second-worst outbreak has administered just a fraction as many vaccine doses as the United States.

CNN's Matt Rivers takes a closer look for us.

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MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Well, Boris and Laura, here in Sao Paulo, Brazil, protests like this one behind me against President Jair Bolsonaro have become commonplace, especially as this pandemic just continues to go on and on with no real end in sight.

Part of the reason for that is that the vaccine rollout plan here in Brazil has been a mess. They've only administered about a million doses of this vaccine so far, despite promises from the federal government to have done much more than that by now. Now, there is a plan to make 100 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine here in- country by July. Not one of those doses has been made so far.

And this comes at a time when Brazil, as a country, is being really buffeted by COVID-19, especially in a place where we were just a few days ago in the city of Manaus. The health care system there is essentially collapsing. We're seeing across the country some of the highest daily counts of newly-confirmed deaths and newly-confirmed cases since the pandemic began. We're seeing the emergence of a new, potentially more transmissible COVID variant.

The only way to get out of this mess is to produce enough vaccines for this country and they haven't done it so far. And it's all the more surprising given the fact that Brazil has a long history of successfully vaccinating its population against a number of different diseases -- Boris, Laura.

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SANCHEZ: Matt Rivers, thanks for that report.

From Brazil to Australia now, a country that's been a model for battling coronavirus. But now, one major city in Western Australia is on lockdown after the first virus case there in almost a year.

CNN's Angus Watson joins us now live from Melbourne. Angus, the city of Perth, about two million people, now under lockdown for five days because they have a single case of community transmission.

ANGUS WATSON, CNN JOURNALIST: That's right, Boris. Australia is a country that's done particularly well in terms of suppressing the coronavirus. Just over 29,000 cases here in Australia since the pandemic began. But how they're dealing with this latest small but important hiccup along that process goes to show just how strict and how swiftly they're willing to get on top of it.

The city of Perth, in Western Australia, home to two million people, growing (ph) up its first case of coronavirus in 10 months. Now, how did the government react? By locking down that city from Friday -- from Sunday, I'm sorry, to Friday. That means those two million people are told not to leave their house unless they absolutely have to. Their places of worship are closed, their businesses are closed, their schools are closed, too. And the government said (audio gap) because this case -- this single case came out of quarantine. That's why people were forced to quarantine in state-managed isolation in a hotel for 14 days on arrival into Australia. And this person worked in that hotel quarantine facility and could have been subject to that new case strain that everybody's so worried about now.

So some good news. However, no new cases detected on Monday. So hopefully, the people of Perth can go back to that run of having no coronavirus cases living in that luxury world that is very uncommon throughout the world at the moment, Boris.

SANCHEZ: I certainly hope so. Angus Watson reporting from Melbourne. Thanks so much.

More than 75 years after fleeing from Nazis as a boy, a wealthy Austrian man leaving a small fortune to the French village that sheltered his family during World War II. Erich Schwam was a Jewish refugee who arrived in south-central France with his parents in 1943. He passed away in December and he left the residents of that village a sum thought to be at least a few hundred thousand euro.

In his will, Schwam writes that he wanted to thank them for welcoming him and he asked that the money be used to fund scholarships in schools.

JARRETT: Very cool.

Let's take a look at the markets now. Global stocks looking up after a turbulent week on Wall Street. Asian markets closing higher. European shares have also opened higher. On Wall Street, futures are moving higher, reversing overnight losses.

Investors will be keeping an eye on GameStop and closely watching silver. Prices hit a five-month high over the weekend as the Reddit army targeted precious metals. More on that as the week goes on, for sure.

[05:55:03]

Well, Girl Scouts getting creative for cookie season. Because of the pandemic, everyone's favorite cookies will be sold online again and for the first time, through Grubhub. The partnership is also being used to teach entrepreneurship. Troops will be using Grubhub's technology to track and fulfill orders and manage inventory.

I, for one, think more cookies is always a good thing.

SANCHEZ: This is going to be a personal disaster for me -- ease of access to Girl Scout cookies.

Thank you so much for having me, Laura. Thank you for joining us. I'm Boris Sanchez.

JARRETT: Thanks, Boris. I'm Laura Jarrett. "NEW DAY" is next.

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MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK CITY: This is not a storm to underestimate. Take it seriously.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This storm is different than any other storm (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're going to have up to one to three inches of snow per hour. To be outside, and especially driving, is going to be extremely dangerous if not impossible.

SEN. ROB PORTMAN (R-OH): We sent out a letter to the president saying we would love to work with him.

CEDRIC RICHMOND, SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN, DIRECTOR, WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT: He is very willing to meet with anyone. This crisis is enormous and our response to it meets that challenge.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): I think that President Biden is doing exactly the right thing. He said I invite Republicans to join us and if they do.