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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Biden, GOP Senators Still Far Apart On COVID Relief After Meeting; Fierce Winter Storm Slams Northeast With Record Snowfall; Biden Threatens Myanmar With Sanctions After Military Coup. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired February 02, 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]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM BRADY, QUARTERBACK, TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS: I've got to get a picture of this.

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ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: (INAUDIBLE).

In the NBA last night, the Lakers at the Hawks. Fourth quarter, LeBron getting into it with some fans in Atlanta that were sitting courtside. One lady could be seen yelling at LeBron with her mask lowered. Four fans were ejected from the game.

The Lakers would go on to win. LeBron said afterwards he missed mixing it up with the fans.

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LEBRON JAMES, FORWARD, LOS ANGELES LAKERS: I miss that interaction. I need that interaction. We, as players, need that interaction.

I don't feel like it was warranted to be kicked out. They might have had a couple of drinks maybe, and they could have probably kept it going and the game wouldn't have been about the game no more, so I think the referees did what they had to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Yes. LeBron later tweeting "Courtside Karen was MAD MAD" with some laughing emojis, Laura.

I think this is one of those situations where, you know, fans think they can continually just say whatever they want to the players and they'll never respond. But then when the player responds they get really mad about it. But, you know, props to LeBron for handling it the way he did.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Look, he was good-humored about it. But fans have to wear masks in the arena, right? SCHOLES: Yes, they do. And she was right there courtside yelling at the players, which I think would be a problem, you know?

JARRETT: Not OK, not OK.

SCHOLES: Yes.

JARRETT: Thanks, Andy. Appreciate it.

SCHOLES: All right.

JARRETT: EARLY START continues right now.

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. A pleasure to join you as always, Laura.

JARRETT: Always great to have you, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Thanks.

JARRETT: Republicans projecting optimism this morning but there is a race against time and a very long way to go to reach a deal on a new coronavirus relief bill. President Biden meeting for two hours in the Oval yesterday -- socially distanced, as you can see -- with GOP senators offering their own proposal.

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SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): It was a very good exchange of views. I wouldn't say that we came together on a package tonight. No one expected that in a two-hour meeting. But what we did agree to do is to follow up and talk further.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: Now, the White House says $1.9 trillion in spending is COVID-related. The GOP not so convinced. More on that in a minute.

But as lawmakers try to bridge the gap, conventional political wisdom is being turned upside-down in West Virginia. Here's the governor, a Republican, dismissing the GOP's stated concern about the debt.

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GOV. JIM JUSTICE (R), WEST VIRGINIA: But trying to be, per se, fiscally responsible at this point in time with what we've got going on in this country, if we actually throw away some money right now, so what? We have really got to move and get people taken care of and get people back on balance.

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SANCHEZ: With the most important swing vote in the country, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, also from West Virginia, isn't even on board with the Biden proposal. And now, the White House is in damage control mode after Vice President Kamala Harris went on local T.V. in Manchin's home state to push for the American Rescue Plan.

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SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): I saw it, I couldn't believe it. No one called me. We're going to try to find a bipartisan pathway forward -- I think we need to -- but we need to work together. That's not a way of working together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: And it comes down to simple math. You lose Manchin, you can't pass a relief bill, even using an arcane budget maneuver, reconciliation, that only requires a simple majority in the Senate.

JARRETT: Yes, he's going to be one to watch in all of this.

Well, there's no shortage of disagreements on what should and shouldn't be in the next relief bill. One major difference, the price tag. The GOP's proposal comes in at roughly $618 billion. That's less than one-third of the size of the president's plan, as we've mentioned.

So what are the differences? Let's take a look.

Biden's plan calls for direct checks of $1,400 to eligible Americans. The Republicans want to send $1,000 checks and target them to the people with lower incomes.

The GOP's proposal doesn't include money for state and local aid, which was a key sticking point in past rounds of negotiations. No state and local aid could mean a lot of layoffs because of budget shortfalls.

Unemployment insurance, another big difference here. The president wants to extend benefits through September. Republicans only want to extend support through June with less money per week.

Now, both plans include $160 billion for vaccines, testing, and tracing -- all key for battling coronavirus. Both plans include money to reopen schools as well, but Biden's plan offers more than eight times as much money.

There is also new urgency for Congress to pass something as a new CBO report says American jobs won't return to pre-pandemic levels until 2024, Boris.

[05:35:00]

SANCHEZ: Well, it is Groundhog Day and whether Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow or not, today is going to be a day for the books.

The northeast still grappling with historic snowfall today. The fierce winter storm prompting emergency declarations across the northeast and mid-Atlantic -- and by the way, shutting down crucial vaccination sites.

JARRETT: Yes. Parts of northern New Jersey have seen more than two feet of snow.

And take a look at this. A scary scene caught on camera as firefighters in Stamford, Connecticut rescuing two people from a submerged truck -- icy there. You can see one of them had been trapped inside.

SANCHEZ: And blizzard-like conditions are not the only threat today. Let's turn it over to Chad Myers. Chad, coastal flooding putting millions, potentially, in harm's way today.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. All of those people that live very close to the coast, whether it's Long Island, New Jersey, Massachusetts, or Maine, the wind is blowing the water onshore. It's blowing it up into your bay, onto your beach. And when high tide comes, we're about three feet above where we should be right now. When high tides comes you have to add that three feet on top of what a normal high tide would be.

Get ready for saltwater inundation in some places today. We saw it yesterday. The storm is even stronger right now.

The snow, though, has moved away from New York City. It never really snowed that much in downtown Boston. But you get out into the suburbs -- Blue Hill, 12-13 inches. But downtown, one to two inches of just like concrete snow.

It's still snowing in Upstate New York right now. It's still snowing in parts of New Jersey. We're going to get new snow totals soon but they are piling up right now. It piled up last night as well.

Most of the snow will be west of where it was yesterday because there's some dry air that's wrapped into the storm. Down into New York City, into Long Island, the air is drier. It's not snowing as heavily as it was here.

Spaces in New Jersey, New York, 30 inches -- and it's heavy, heavy snow. Be careful when you're shoveling it today. Do it in three-foot sections and take a break. This is very heavy snow. Lots of weight on your driveway and lots of weight on your back as you're moving it, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Yes, a lot of folks get injured doing that, thinking they can get it all done quickly.

MYERS: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Important to pace yourself when there's that much powder on the ground.

Chad Myers, thanks so much for the update.

JARRETT: Well, President Biden is expected to sign three executive orders on immigration today, taking direct aim at reversing President Trump's policies.

Priscilla Alvarez is live for us in Washington. Priscilla, nice to see you this morning. Thanks for coming on.

So, the president moving full steam ahead on this even though his pick for Homeland Security hasn't quite been confirmed yet. He's doing a lot to try to undo things that were done under President Trump. So walk us through exactly what's coming today.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: So, these orders will really start to advance Biden's immigration agenda and bring into focus what the priorities will be for his administration on this issue.

So first, one of the executive orders will focus on creating a task force that will focus on reunifying families who have been separated at the U.S.-Mexico border. Now, this had happened under Trump and the consequences of his policy are still felt today. In fact, lawyers are still looking for the parents of more than 600 children who had been separated at the U.S.-Mexico border.

So the idea of this task force is to come in and to help identify and locate these families, and then work to reunify them. Now, the latter part -- how the reunify -- is likely to be on a case-by-case basis. But the second order will look at the root causes of migration -- so, why migrants make the dangerous journey north.

And that order will provide aid to the Central America region to start to combat corruption, but it will also look at reviving programs that allow for legal pathways and safer pathways to the United States. Like, for example, bringing back a program from the Obama administration that focused on at-risk youth in the region.

And the third order will address legal immigration. So, look at the changes made under the Trump administration and start to review those changes that ultimately dramatically limited immigration to the United States and then work to reverse those. And it will also look at other measures like, for example, streamlining the citizenship process.

So taken together, these orders will ultimately advance the president's agenda, and administration officials say there's a lot more to come.

JARRETT: So, Priscilla, as you just laid out, you can get a sense this agenda is extensive, it's progressive. But, of course, it's already running into legal challenges as well and you have a judiciary now staffed with judges that the former president appointed. What are you finding on that front?

ALVAREZ: Well, we saw this play out only days into the Biden administration. A federal judge has already blocked Biden's 100-day pause on deportation. And, in fact, late last week the judge said that block will likely extend into this month. So that was one of the first actions that Biden had pledged to do on the campaign that has already been put on hold.

[05:40:15]

So as this new slate of executive actions comes out and as officials really put urgency behind these actions, it is very likely that we will continue to see legal challenges come up. And that will be something that this administration will have to contend with along the way.

JARRETT: Yes, that is for sure.

Priscilla, thank you. So great to have the expert on all of this -- the person who is covering this on the ground every day. We appreciate it.

ALVAREZ: Good to be with you.

SANCHEZ: A cancer on the GOP. The top Senate Republican delivering a long overdue rejection of nonsensical conspiracies in his own party. Mitch McConnell finally coming out strong against the irrationality that Donald Trump fueled and, frankly, that McConnell did nothing to stop from taking root in the last four years.

In a statement put out last night, McConnell says quote "Loony lies and conspiracy theories are cancer for the Republican Party and our country. Somebody who's suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr.'s airplane is not living in reality. This has nothing to do with the challenges facing American families or the robust debates on substance that can strengthen our party."

JARRETT: Now, he doesn't mention her by name but it's clear that he's talking about Marjorie Taylor Greene. The freshman lawmaker has come under scrutiny recently for claiming that school shootings were staged to push for stronger gun laws.

The mother of Parkland shooting victim Scott Beigel tells CNN she met with Greene recently and pleaded with her to say that publicly that the school shootings were real.

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LINDA BEIGEL SCHULMAN, MOTHER OF SCOTT BEIGEL: When you tell a lie enough, people start believing it. We all know that, OK? We've just been through that.

But you know what? Let me take them on -- I'll take them on a bus trip. I'll take them on a field trip. I'll go visit -- I will let them visit the 17 gravesites from the people from Parkland and the 26 from Sandy Hook and then let me - let me see them deny it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: In the past, Greene has proudly declared that she won't back down. Well, yesterday, she backed down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): These are not red-flag incidents, they are not fake, and it's terrible the loss that these families go through and their friends as well. And it should never happen and it doesn't have to happen if we would protect our children properly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: That clip belies so many of the sentiments she has shared on Facebook and other forms of social media. This all seems to be a calculated walk back of some of her more extreme positions ahead of a scheduled meeting with House minority leader Kevin McCarthy -- a meeting that could potentially happen as early as today.

Now, with or without McCarthy's help, top House Democrats are planning to deliver an ultimatum to strip Congresswoman Greene of her committee assignments. But some Democrats worry that could set a dangerous precedent, allowing the GOP to do the same the next time they control the House.

Hey, don't go anywhere. EARLY START comes back after a quick break.

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[05:47:35]

SANCHEZ: This morning in Moscow there are reports of mass detentions of protesters outside a court hearing in the case of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny. The hearing could end with Navalny getting a lengthy jail sentence.

CNN's Frederik Pleitgen joins us now live from outside the courthouse. We expected things could be heated today. What's your sense of what could happen on the ground --

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

SANCHEZ: -- if Navalny gets imprisoned?

PLEITGEN: Well, I think that the protests certainly are going to continue here in Russia if he's imprisoned for a considerable amount of time. In fact, Alexey Navalny, over the past couple of weeks, has called for protests to take place on the weekends.

And Boris, if you look at the scene here in front of the court in Moscow, where all this is taking place, you can see that it's secured by a huge amount of riot police. And that's something that we've been seeing -- that all the streets here surrounding the court are full of police officers. They've basically surrounded this entire area.

And you're absolutely right. We were on the ground here for the past couple of hours and we did see a number of detentions ourselves -- about a dozen, at least, in the span of just a couple of minutes as the police cleared everyone out because they don't even want protests to be able to take hold here in the area outside of the courtroom.

Meanwhile, of course, that trial against Alexey Navalny is taking place inside. He faces 3.5 years in prison because he has a suspended jail sentence that the authorities here want to turn into a real jail sentence because he didn't check in to the court, if you can believe that, while he was in Germany in a coma.

Apparently, there was a pretty heated scene inside the courtroom. Alexey Navalny asked the prosecutor what more was I supposed to do to comply with what you want? And he said he needed to check in. He said I was in a coma.

So that trial is underway right now. It will probably take place for another couple of hours as, again, Alexey Navalny is saying that he complied with everything that the courts wanted. Obviously, they are saying that he did not. And he does face considerable jail time if he is convicted.

One last note. We have also checked in with the Kremlin, by the way, and they say Vladimir Putin is not following what's going on in the court today, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Yes, I find that very difficult to believe. A lot at stake on the streets of Moscow with this upcoming decision. We hope you and your crew stay safe. Thank you, as always.

JARRETT: Well overnight in Myanmar, the National League for Democracy called for the immediate release of everyone detained in the country's military coup so the elected Parliament can govern.

[05:50:00]

The country is cautiously starting to function again but there's already a steep price being paid. Suzuki says it has halted production at two plants there to keep its workers safe. And now, President Biden is threatening to renew sanctions.

Will Ripley is live from Hong Kong for us this morning. Will, Myanmar, of course, has a complicated history -- something the president highlighted yesterday when he called the country Burma five times in his statement yesterday. What do you make of the U.S. role here and how Biden is weighing in?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think that the Biden administration is likely to work very closely with the U.N. Security Council, Laura, which is set to meet in the coming hours.

You know, they've been debating back and forth whether to even call this a coup given the fact that if they label it a coup, according to CNN reporting and according to U.S. policy they would have to cut off all aid to Myanmar. More than $200 million a year for that developing country where a lot of people are struggling economically.

So there's also talk right now of looking at targeted sanctions at the generals who essentially made unfounded accusations of widespread voter fraud in their November elections. And under the Constitution that the military helped write, swooped in, declared a state of emergency, and are now in the process of putting in their own people in the government because their own people received an embarrassingly small number of votes, an outcome that could diminish the power of the generals who already have quite a bit of power under that country's Constitution in this democracy that's barely a decade old.

Basically, what the military has done is ignored an overwhelming win for the party led by Aung San Suu Kyi, who was an icon of democracy and freedom for the global community for many years. But in recent years, she has fallen out of favor because she went to the United Nations and defended the very military that kept her under house arrest for 15 years and is now detaining her and other top lawmakers again.

She defended that military against accusations of genocide involving the Rohingya Muslims, many of whom were forced out of Myanmar into neighboring Bangladesh.

Now she's with this group of lawmakers at a guest house in the capital of Naypyitaw. And communications coming back to normal but those lawmakers are really unable to do anything because there are tanks and soldiers and military trucks keeping those civilian-elected lawmakers locked inside that guest house as the country wonders if they're going to be moving towards more of a brutal military dictatorship that lasted for 50 years before this experiment with democracy, Laura.

JARRETT: More to come on all of this, for sure. Thanks for staying on top of it for us, Will. We appreciate it.

SANCHEZ: An anti-vaccine protest in Los Angeles over the weekend was organized on Facebook, a consistent source of misinformation. The page "Shop Mask Free Los Angeles" promoting false claims about the pandemic, masks, and vaccines. The protests temporarily shut down a mass vaccination site at Dodger Stadium.

A Facebook official says they are reviewing the page and if necessary, would take action against content that violates their policies.

JARRETT: Two police officers in Rochester, New York now suspended for handcuffing and pepper-spraying a 9-year-old girl. The officers were responding to a report of quote "family trouble."

Two body camera videos of Friday's incident shows officers restraining the child, putting her in handcuffs, and attempting to get her inside the back of a police car. You can hear her screaming there, calling for help from her father.

The incident, once again, putting a spotlight on cases of excessive force. Last March, you might recall Daniel Prude, an unarmed black man in the midst of a mental health crisis, died after Rochester police pinned him to the ground and placed a hood over his head.

All right. Actor Dustin Diamond, best known for his role as Screech on "SAVED BY THE BELL," has died.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DUSTIN DIAMOND, ACTOR, "SAVED BY THE BELL": Bad idea, sir. Last year, those pranksters stole it. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, what do you suggest?

DIAMOND: Let me hide it, sir. I'll find a secret place where no one will find it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really, where?

DIAMOND: If I tell you it won't be a secret, duh.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: Diamond spent more than a decade as the lovable nerd on the popular show and all of its spinoffs. After leaving the show his career took something of a turn with a series of public struggles.

He had recently been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. Dustin Diamond was 44 years old.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY BENNETT, SINGER: Singing "The Way You Look Tonight."

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SANCHEZ: Beloved singer Tony Bennett revealing he has Alzheimer's. His wife and eldest son telling AARP magazine Bennett began showing signs of the disease back in 2015 and was diagnosed in 2016. The 94- year-old Bennett tweeted Monday "Life is a gift -- even with Alzheimer's."

[05:55:00]

And still hearing that voice, it's still him. A part of him is still there and it's painful, in a way, to listen to it.

JARRETT: Of course. Our heart goes out to him and his family.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

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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COLLINS: I wouldn't say that we came together on a package, but what we did agree to do is to follow up and talk further.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: There's not a lot in this package that the White House wants to change.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At the end of the day, what the president and vice president won't do is compromise their values or let the American people down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Storms are unpredictable, so I want everyone to realize it's not over.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's been a while since we had a snowstorm in this area of this magnitude.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are not out of the fight yet. The continued message is to please stay off the road.

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States.