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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
GOP Faces Its Destiny: Centrist Conservatism Or Conspiracies?; Pilots Blame Pandemic Downtime For In-Flight Mistakes; Biden's Focus On Restoring America's Place In The World. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired February 04, 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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[05:31:11]
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: All right, good Thursday morning. This is EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.
LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Hello there, I'm Laura Jarrett. It's 30 minutes past the hour here in New York.
And today, the Republican Party will have to go on record about what kind of party they want to be. Overnight, the GOP split the difference.
Congresswoman Liz Cheney surviving a battle to keep her leadership post. She was unapologetic for voting to impeach Donald Trump. The vote in a secret ballot, 145 to 61, sparing some members from being outed for supporting her.
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REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): We really did have a terrific vote tonight -- a terrific time this evening laying out what we're going to do going forward, as well as making clear that we're not going to be divided and that we're not going to be in a situation where people can pick off any member of leadership.
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ROMANS: But also an admission of what's now considered tolerable in the Republican Party.
That woman, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, was not forced to face any consequences for years of hateful rhetoric. We're told she showed some contrition behind closed doors and was applauded for doing so.
Here's the House GOP leader.
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REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): She said she was wrong. She has reached out in other ways and forms. If we are now going to start judging what other members have said before they're even members of Congress, I think it's going to be a hard time for the Democrats to place anybody on a committee.
I think it would be helpful if you could hear exactly what she told all of us, denouncing QAnon. I don't know if I say it right. I don't even know what it is.
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JARRETT: He does know what it is and he gave her a pass for the sake of so-called unity on the same day that she used an interview to attack other Republicans.
So today, Democrats are going to force a vote on removing her from committees. Their majority is slim on this but they're expected to have the votes.
But this is really about more than one person or one vote. It's about the GOP embracing extremism within the party -- forces that were always there but no longer banished to the fringes. Extremism, lies, and conspiracies parroted on right-wing media and social media that left QAnon diehards thinking things like this.
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DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER: Right before the inauguration, you didn't believe Biden was really going to get sworn in.
ASHLEY VANDERBILT, FORMER QANON BELIEVER: No. I expected a blackout. I expected the T.V. to go black and nothing to work, and so we wouldn't see anything.
The assumption of what would happen would be that most of the Democratic leaders there, quite a few of the Republican leaders, all the Hollywood elite that attended, they'd all be arrested. The military is going to haul them off. They said that Trump opened back up Guantanamo Bay.
And then the military would run the country and put us in martial law because the left had become too unhinged and they'd be a danger to us. And then Trump would come back when the government was rebuilt. I know it sounds crazy.
O'SULLIVAN (on camera): But you believed this.
VANDERBILT: I did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: She really believed it and others do, too. Donald Trump almost got members of Congress killed but there was Kevin McCarthy, last week, visiting Florida to make up.
Faced with the choice between the seal of the presidency and the seal of approval from Trump, Republican leadership is choosing the latter. And that is the pervasive discharge that's left many lifelong Republicans across the country on the outside looking in.
JARRETT: House Democrats now inching closer toward a party-line approval of President Biden's $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill. It's the president's first big agenda item but the White House and Republicans are still about $1.3 trillion apart. Biden is asking Democrats for something Republicans still blindly offered former President Trump -- unity.
Kaitlan Collins has more from the White House.
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KAITLAN COLLINS, CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Good morning, Laura and Christine.
House Democrats have taken that step paving the way to get President Joe Biden's pandemic relief bill passed without any Republican support. He has still said he wants to get Republicans on board. But as he told House Democrats in a call Wednesday morning, he said that the idea that they're going to go from the $1.9 trillion that he's proposed to the $600 billion the Republicans have counteroffered is quote "not in the cards right now."
[05:35:16]
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We hold a small majority in the House and the barest majorities in the Senate, and we're going to succeed or fail together.
And, you know, there have been three Democratic presidents in 28 years. Each one faced a tough midterm loss that cost a lot. It happened in '94 and it happened in 2010. We don't want to let that happen here, so let's stick together.
COLLINS (on camera): He talked about the idea where he is willing to budge on some things, maybe further targeting those stimulus checks. But he said he's not willing to walk away from that $1,400 number that he has promised so far, saying that as soon as he gets in office he cannot break his promise to the American people.
He's also standing by that top line -- several other aspects of the bill -- according to the White House. So basically, what they're saying is they are willing to compromise but if they do so with the Republicans it's going to have to be on their terms and it's not going to be about the major aspects of this legislation.
So that, in turn, is creating the natural question of what is it going to look like when it actually comes to the votes. And Utah Sen. Mitt Romney who, of course, has been a pretty outspoken Republican lately, said he does not think that it will get a single Republican vote if they don't make changes to it and come down from that $1.9 trillion price tag that it currently stands at.
So while Joe Biden has been at the center of these negotiations between Democrats and Republicans, Democrats are moving forward. The House took that step and now we do expect the Senate to take it later this week, putting them one step closer. Because as he said to Democrats on Wednesday, he is urging them to move quickly.
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ROMANS: All right, Kaitlan. Thank you for that.
The decline in air traffic during this pandemic has left airline pilots idling at home for long stretches of time, and in their line of work, rust means risk. After almost a year on the ground, pilots are making now a frightening confession.
CNN's Pete Muntean reports.
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PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Commercial pilots are now blaming unprecedented pandemic downtime for in-flight mistakes with passengers onboard.
While the latest safety data shows flying is the safest it has ever been, CNN analyzed publicly-available incident reports submitted by U.S. flight crews. Pilots self-reported being rusty in at least 26 separate cases since the start of the pandemic.
PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST, FORMER MANAGING DIRECTOR, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD: It's a serious issue.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): Peter Goelz is the former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board. He reviewed the reports where pilots say they drifted from assigned altitudes and courses, aimed for the wrong runway, and even landing without proper clearance from air traffic control.
In one instance, a pilot forgot to engage the plane's critical anti- ice system. "This was my first flight in nearly three months," the pilot said. "I placed too much confidence in assuming that it would all come back to me as second nature."
GOELZ: These kinds of fairly mundane -- what appear to be mundane errors can really result in terrible events.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): Goelz says he's reminded of the 2006 Comair crash that killed everyone but the first officer, who was partly blamed for taking off from the wrong runway.
The reports, which date back to the spring, do not specify where the incidents happened or the airlines involved.
JIM THOMAS, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF FLIGHT TRAINING, AMERICAN AIRLINES: Day-to-day, there's at least 400 that are in some sort of training environment.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): American Airlines gave us an exclusive look at its program to keep pilots in practice. At its simulator center in Dallas, pilots are retrained before they return to the flight deck.
MUNTEAN (on camera): There has to be a bit of butterflies. CURTIS JOENS, CAPTAIN, AMERICAN AIRLINES: Sure -- oh, I acknowledge that. Sure, a few butterflies.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): Twenty-nine-year American pilot Curtis Joens recently returned from a company leave of absence because of the pandemic.
JOENS: We don't just sit down and say OK, start engines and fly by the seat of our pants. We -- there's a checklist and a methodology for everything that we do, all the way from the preflight to starting engines, to taxi, to takeoff.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): American analyzed its pilots and insists the pandemic has not led to a decline of their skills.
JOENS: Just realize you've got two pilots up there. They're supporting one another. They're watching one another. They're challenging one another.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): The airline underscores that pilots discuss specific risks with each other before each flight and they can request extra training.
THOMAS: We're not going to allow them to go fly the line until they're fully trained and ready to go fly.
MUNTEAN (on camera): As a pilot, I can tell you that flying is a perishable skill and pilots are taught early on in their training to be especially careful after taking a break. There's no been uptick in crashes during the pandemic but airlines say this is an issue they're going to keep an eye on.
Pete Muntean, CNN, Reagan National Airport.
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JARRETT: Pete, thank you for that.
[05:40:00]
California Gov. Gavin Newsom says schools in the state can begin to reopen before all teachers are vaccinated. But emotions are running high across the country with a growing divide over how to get kids back into school safely.
CNN has the pandemic covered coast-to-coast.
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DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): I'm Dan Simon in San Francisco where the city took the extraordinary step of suing its own school district to try to force public schools to reopen.
Now, unlike most private or parochial schools, public schools have remained shuttered during the pandemic and the city actually says that the district is violating state law by not coming up with a plan to safely reopen schools whenever possible.
Now, for its part, the school district blasted this lawsuit, calling it frivolous. And the school board president blamed the city for not providing enough resources or help when it comes to vaccines and testing.
Now, this could certainly foreshadow other legal action in other cities as parents are becoming increasingly frustrated by the slow pace of schools reopening.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): I'm Miguel Marquez in New York. And though we still have lots of snow on the ground there's a bit of a thaw in coronavirus restrictions.
In neighboring New Jersey, the government there has gotten rid of the curfew for restaurants -- a 10:00 p.m. curfew they were under. He's also increased the number of people who can gather inside from 25 percent to 35 percent of capacity. This applies to places like restaurants, churches, and funeral homes. But if in New Jersey you still want to go to the bar inside in a restaurant and have a drink, that is still not allowed.
JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN REPORTER (on camera): I'm Jacqueline Howard in Atlanta.
A new study says there is one age group tied to most of the spread of COVID-19 in the United States. As of October, that's younger adults, ages 20 to 49. This new study finds that younger adults accounted for 72.2 percent of coronavirus infections after schools reopened in October.
Meanwhile, less than five percent originated from children nine and younger and less than 10 percent from teenagers ages 10 to 19.
ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR AND NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): I'm Erica Hill in New York where we've just learned that opening day at Yankee Stadium is tomorrow -- for vaccinations, that is. The mega-site will open Friday morning.
Fifteen thousand appointments available in the first week. Now, those are just for Bronx residents. It's the borough with the highest positivity in New York City.
Officials also hope that by opening this site it will increase distribution equity.
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ROMANS: All right, incredible reports from all of our correspondents. Thank you for those.
Restoring America's place in the world tops President Biden's agenda today. He's expected to deliver his most substantive remarks yet on foreign policy when he makes a visit to the State Department. It will be Mr. Biden's first visit to a cabinet agency to demonstrate a renewed commitment to rebuilding alliances. Nic Robertson is live for us in London. And Nic, what should America's
allies and adversaries expect today?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, I think the headline is not to expect too much detail. Of course, they're readily waiting for that detail. President Biden has said he really wants to work with these allies. If you're in London or Berlin or Seoul or Tokyo or Canberra in Australia, or Ottawa in Canada, these are all allies who are looking forward to a new relationship with the United States and working with President Biden.
But, you know, the United States has got a number of key international issues on review. The relationship with China where that was left by President Trump's administration. The Taliban -- the deal with the Taliban -- that peace deal in Afghanistan where (INAUDIBLE) effects of Russia over the past number of years.
And all of these issues -- these capitals kind of want to see well, what's President Biden going to say on these issues? Are these reviews concluded? Can we see a direction of travel here other than we'd like to work together?
If you're in one of these capitals, however, the direct -- you know, the working end of these reviews, like Saudi Arabia -- what's happening -- what was the deal that President Trump had with the Saudis over the war in Yemen. That's up for review at the moment.
If you're in one of those capitals -- Moscow, Beijing -- you're going to be looking again for that same level of detail. Which way is Biden going on this and what are the repercussions going to be?
So at the moment, I think don't expect a lot of detail. Do expect him to sort of double down on the idea of taking a holistic approach to these -- to these relative enemy countries and to working with allies. It's the detail, of course, that really counts here and I don't think we're going to get that, Christine.
ROMANS: Certainly symbolism, though -- his first visit to a cabinet agency and restoring America's place in the world is the theme of the day.
Nic Robertson in London, thank you so much for that. Nice to see you.
We'll be right back.
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[05:49:08]
ROMANS: The giant consulting firm McKinsey has agreed to pay $573 million for its role helping accelerate opioid sales. According to multiple reports, the firm advised controversial drug firm Purdue Pharma and other drug manufacturers on how to aggressively market these painkillers. In 2019, McKinsey told CNN Business it would no longer do work for Purdue, which later pleaded guilty to federal charges for its role in distributing OxyContin, worsening the opioid crisis.
JARRETT: This morning, Virginia is a step closer to banning the death penalty. The State Senate, Wednesday, approving a bill to abolish capital punishment after a similar measure passed in the House. The legislation would commute the sentences of two inmates on death row in Virginia to life without parole.
Historically, Virginia has topped the list of states with the most executions, second only to Texas. Now, if the bill passes, it would make Virginia the first southern state to eliminate the death penalty.
[05:50:03]
ROMANS: Prosecutors in Kenosha, Wisconsin want an arrest warrant issued for Kyle Rittenhouse, alleging he violated his bond by failing to notify authorities about a change of address. Essentially, prosecutors say they don't know where this man is -- young man is.
Rittenhouse is charged with fatally shooting two men and wounding another at a protest in Kenosha following the police shooting of Jacob Blake last summer.
Prosecutors are also seeking to increase his bond to $200,000. Last month, prosecutors raised concerns when he was seen drinking in a bar with his mother and members of the Proud Boys.
JARRETT: A fired Columbus, Ohio police officer charged with murder in the fatal shooting of Andre Hill, an unarmed Black man in December. Adam Coy was indicted by a grand jury and later arrested Wednesday. Prosecutors say he shot Hill within seconds of approaching him after responding to a call about a suspicious vehicle.
Coy also faces charges for not activating his body camera until after the shooting. An automatic lookback feature captured it without audio.
ROMANS: The new Boston police commissioner, Dennis White, placed on administration leave. Mayor Marty Walsh says disturbing issues about the 32-year veteran of the department have now surfaced. According to CNN affiliate WBZ in Boston, White's ex-wife accused him of hitting her and threatening to shoot her a number of years ago. A restraining order was issued.
JARRETT: A 95-year-old resident of an assisted living facility is facing first-degree murder charges for allegedly shooting and killing one of the employees there. It happened yesterday at Legacy Assisted Living in Lafayette, Colorado.
According to police, the employee was confronted by 95-year-old Okie Payne over a dispute over some money. The investigation is ongoing.
ROMANS: Kroger is closing two of its stores in Long Beach, California rather than pay grocery workers an extra $4.00 an hour in pandemic hazard pay. The move could cost hundreds of people their jobs.
At least six other California cities have passed similar hazard pay requirements. Several cities on the West Coast, including Seattle, now require hazard pay.
JARRETT: The cost of a baguette and coffee in Paris right now, about $5.00. Failing to meet targets for greenhouse gas emissions, also about $5.00.
A Paris court ruling France is responsible for failing to meet its own goals to slow climate change. The government was ordered to pay a symbolic one euro amount. It's about $1.20 for moral damage to four groups that filed a lawsuit over the issue. The charities actually hailed that decision, saying it sets a precedent that the state can be held responsible for climate commitments.
ROMANS: A Thursday look at markets around the world, and Asian shares closed -- it looks like they closed lower and European shares have opened modestly higher.
On Wall Street, futures a little bit undecided here, up a little bit but not much at all. A relatively calm day for investors on Wednesday. The Dow closed up 36 points, the S&P slightly higher, and the Nasdaq -- the Nasdaq down just a little bit, just short of a record high.
Gains on Wall Street and struggles on Main Street. We'll find out how many more Americans filed for first-time jobless benefits later this morning. Claims have remained stubbornly high week after week as businesses are slammed by the pandemic.
Thousands more may be filing for first-time benefits in the spring. And now, American Airlines is warning about 13,000 employees of possible furloughs in April, saying the coronavirus vaccine is not being distributed as quickly as expected.
On top of the slower vaccine rollout, federal aid for airlines expires next month, and demand for travel is still nowhere near pre-pandemic levels.
United Airlines sent similar furlough warnings to 14,000 employees last week.
Robinhood buying a Super Bowl ad a week after its role in the GameStop frenzy landed it in a P.R. mess.
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ROBINHOOD T.V. AD: We make investments morning, noon, and wait -- what time is it exactly?
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ROMANS: The message here, opening America's financial system to everyone. Irony alert -- Robinhood outraged users last week after it temporarily banned purchases of GameStop, AMC, and other favorites of the WallStreetBets Reddit group. Robinhood's post about the ad does not mention that controversy, instead saying it was created to empower millions who have felt left behind by America's financial system.
JARRETT: A Wisconsin mom who gave birth in a coma while fighting COVID finally reunited with her daughter Lucy three months later. Kelsey Townsend is now out of the hospital after a monthslong battle with the virus that her husband says was touch and go at times.
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DEREK TOWNSEND, KELSEY'S HUSBAND: So many ups and downs and just so much uncertainty. It's just -- it's been real difficult. It's going to be really nice to have her home and knowing that she's going to get to meet Lucy and be with the kids, and she's very excited for that.
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JARRETT: Doctors had thought Townsend would need a double lung transplant but just days later, thankfully, her health turned around. She's now recovering at home with Lucy and her three other children.
Just remarkable. Imagine that, Christine, giving birth while in a coma.
[05:55:00]
ROMANS: Just unreal. I'm so glad that she's home now --
JARRETT: Yes.
ROMANS: -- and gets to enjoy this time with her new baby and her other kids. We wish them the best of health and luck.
JARRETT: Yes.
ROMANS: All right, thanks for joining us. I'm Christine Romans.
JARRETT: I'm Laura Jarrett. "NEW DAY" is next.
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MCCARTHY: I denounce all those comments. She came inside our conference and denounced them as well.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Marjorie Taylor Greene -- she is, effectively, the minority leader. She has broken Kevin McCarthy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She is, effectively, getting a pass. She did get a round of applause. Some people did stand up when Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke. And Liz Cheney, she's getting pounded.
CHENEY: We really did have a terrific vote tonight. We're not going to be divided.
COLLINS: Democrats are barreling ahead with Biden's big proposal.
BIDEN: I'm not going to start my administration by breaking promises to the American people. DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, DIRECTOR, U.S. CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: Some of the variants may actually lead to increased mortality. And the jury is still out how these vaccines are going to work against these variants.
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ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.
