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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Trump Trial Starts Tuesday With Length And Witnesses Still Unclear; White House Says President Biden Focused On Pushing COVID Relief Bill; Tom Brady Leads Bucs To Dominating Win Over Chiefs. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired February 08, 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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[05:31:47]
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, this is EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.
LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Laura Jarrett, about 31 minutes past the hour here in New York.
And former president Donald Trump's second impeachment trial is set to begin tomorrow. It's a historic test on the meaning of accountability, though the outcome seems predetermined. The former president will likely be acquitted unless 17 Senate Republicans join the Democrats and vote to convict him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): If you believe he committed a crime, he can be prosecuted like any other citizen. Impeachment is a political process. We've never impeached a president once they're out of office. I think this is a very bad idea.
SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): Zero chance of conviction. Forty-five Republicans have said it's not even a legitimate proceeding. So it's really over before it starts.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: Key questions though about the trial itself still unanswered, even at this late date, including just how long this trial will last. Both Republicans and Democrats say they want it over quickly but it's still unclear whether any witnesses will be called. House Democrats wanted Trump to testify but his legal team shot that down.
Democrats think they can make the case against him for inciting the insurrection at the Capitol by using videos from the January sixth riot as evidence -- evidence like this new clip showing the man known as the "QAnon Shaman" appearing to act at Trump's direction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what's your message to everybody now? Like, what are you yelling at them?
JACOB CHANSLEY, AKA QANON SHAMAN, POLITICAL ACTIVIST: Oh, Donald Trump asked everybody to go home. He just said it. He just put out a tweet. It's a minute long. He asked everybody to go home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why do you think so?
CHANSLEY: Because we won the f****** day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: House managers will also cite Trump's rally speech right before that riot. Trump's lawyers will likely argue that the speech is protected by the First Amendment.
ROMANS: Congresswoman Liz Cheney is not backing down. The Wyoming Republican is rejecting calls to resign from her own state party. She says the GOP needs to move on from President Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): Somebody who has provoked an attack on the United States Capitol to prevent the counting of electoral votes, which resulted in five people dying, who refused to stand up immediately when he was asked and stop the violence, that is a person who does not have the role as the leader of our party going forward.
That's going to require us to focus on substance and policy and issues going forward, but we should not be embracing the former president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: The Wyoming Republican Party has voted to censure Cheney for voting to impeach the former president. Cheney survived a House Republican Conference vote last week to keep her leadership role.
JARRETT: Well, President Biden is determined not to be distracted by the impeachment trial. The White House says he remains focused on pushing Congress to pass his coronavirus relief bill and help millions of struggling Americans.
CNN's Jasmine Wright is live for us -- live for us at the White House this morning. Jasmine, one of the pieces in that funding bill, of course, that's so important is funding for schools, something that is top-of-mind for the president. What's he saying?
JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN REPORTER: Well, Congress will shift its focus from the president's COVID relief bill to the Senate as it turns to the impeachment trial of former President Trump.
[05:35:00]
Now, the White House's plan is to press on with business as usual as they are in the middle of these relief bill negotiations. One White House official telling me that President Biden will keep a busy schedule, pushing that relief bill -- pushing the message of that bill instead of getting pulled into the impeachment process.
Now, one part of this whole idea, again, as you said, is education and when to open schools safely. President Biden weighed in on that conversation yesterday in one of those traditional Super Bowl interviews on CBS.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NORA O'DONNELL, ANCHOR, "CBS EVENING NEWS": Do you think it's time for schools to reopen?
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it's time for schools to reopening safely -- safely. You have to have fewer people in a classroom. You have to have ventilation systems that have been reworked. Our CDC commissioner is going to be coming out with science- based judgment within -- I think as early as Wednesday to lay out what the minimum requirements are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WRIGHT: Now, President Biden has said that he wants to open most K through 12 schools in those first 100 days in office. He said he's going to adhere to the science. But it's also, again, part of funding, as you spoke about. And part of that funding is requested in that $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill that he has asked of Congress.
But it is still an open question of when exactly that can get done as the Senate is now turning to the impeachment trial of former President Trump starting Tuesday afternoon.
JARRETT: Jasmine, in that same Super Bowl interview, they also covered some foreign policy news. The president finally weighing in on Iran and the nuclear deal. What's his position?
WRIGHT: That's right. President Biden gave his sharpest comments on the escalating situation in Iran really since taking office, as you said, in that Super Bowl interview. Take a listen to what he had to say here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
O'DONNELL: Will the U.S. lift sanctions first in order to get Iran back to the negotiating table?
BIDEN: No.
O'DONNELL: They have to stop enriching uranium first.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WRIGHT: Now, this comes after Iran has demanded the U.S. lift these sanctions even before they come to the negotiating table. Obviously, this is something that President Biden is saying no. And CNN has reported that there are meetings happening both inside the government and alongside allies on exactly how to address the situation in Iran. Now -- but we know, of course, that President Biden is saying no, he won't lift sanctions, obviously continuing this real stalemate between these two countries.
JARRETT: Yes, certainly something to watch there.
All right, Jasmine Wright. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.
ROMANS: All right, to the economy now.
The Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen says the benefits of Joe Biden's America Rescue Plan outweigh the risks and it could help the economy recover faster.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JANET YELLEN, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY: There's absolutely no reason why we should suffer through a long, slow recovery.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Do you have a timeline, though, for full -- for full reemployment?
YELLEN: Well, I would expect that if this package is passed that we would get back to full employment next year.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Optimism if the stimulus bill passes, but Yellen warned the unemployment rate would remain high over the next few years without more support.
The unemployment rate dipped to 6.3 percent in January but not for a good reason. More than 400,000 workers left the labor force and the jobs recovery has lost steam. Even though 49,000 jobs were added last month, the country is still down nearly 10 million jobs since February.
The recovery is not v-shaped. It's more like a reverse square root symbol and the damage is uneven. Women are still down 5.3 million jobs during the pandemic, accounting for the majority of the jobs lost. Two and a half million women have dropped out of the workforce altogether. President Biden calling it a national emergency, Sunday.
JARRETT: Well, Tom Brady is claiming his place as one of the greatest QBs of all time, leading the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to victory in Super Bowl LIV. Coy Wire has more on their win over the Chiefs in this morning's Bleacher Report. Hey, Coy.
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Laura.
This was billed as the greatest quarterback matchup in Super Bowl history. Young Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs going for back-to-back titles, but it was 43-year-old Tom Brady winning a historic seventh title in his first season with a new team. Brady throwing the first touchdown of the night to none other than his
former Patriots teammate Rob Gronkowski, who came out of retirements to play with Tom in Tampa. And the two would connect again to score. They surpassed Joe Montana and Jerry Rice for the most TDs by any QB receiver combo in post-season history.
But if a Super Bowl MVP could go to a coach, it might have to go to Tampa's defense coordinator Todd Bowles pressuring star QB Patrick Mahomes -- a Super Bowl record 29 times, three sacks, two interceptions, including Devin White, as the Chiefs are marching for a score. The Bucs' D holding the high-powered Chiefs to nine points.
[05:40:00]
But the MVP goes to Brady for a fifth time in his career. Three touchdowns and zero interceptions. His seventh Super Bowl win gives him more than any franchise in NFL history. No need to debate anymore. Tom Brady is the greatest of all time.
Afterwards, Gronk ranks this title up there with the best of them -- listen.
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ROB GRONKOWSKI, FOUR-TIME SUPER BOWL CHAMPION: It's hands-down one of the greatest accomplishments in sports history. I mean, I'm not going to say it's the greatest but I would say it's up there for sure, you know?
Come down here to Tampa and come to an organization that was ready to win. Come down here with the players. You know, they're all fantastic players and great guys. It's everyone, overall. I mean, the story is just unbelievable and it definitely ranks up there as, you know, one of my biggest accomplishments ever.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WIRE: Tampa Bay, the first team, Laura and Christine, to ever make it to a Super Bowl being played in their home stadium, and they win it all. And that led to this -- not what you want to see in the middle of a pandemic. People in the Tampa area celebrating, mostly without masks or social distancing.
You know, the players on the field -- they were disciplined and focused enough to follow protocols and rules. It enabled them to have a season at all. The league showed just a .08 percent positivity rate over the course of this season. But this type of reaction just cringeworthy for so many.
ROMANS: Yes.
JARRETT: Oh. It's the last thing we need right now is a super spreader event because of the Super Bowl.
ROMANS: Yes, Tampa has had -- what a great year sportswise for Tampa, but that is not what you want to be seeing in the streets. Thanks, Coy.
JARRETT: Thanks, Coy.
Well, Super Bowl commercials this year struck a much different tone during this pandemic. We'll show you some of them, next.
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[05:46:35]
ROMANS: Distributing vaccine quickly and worldwide is critical to stopping the emergence of COVID variants that could be more deadly or spread faster.
Critical in some African countries where they've already seen one variant appear. In Malawi, resources are scarce. Even oxygen supplies are running low, never mind vaccine.
CNN's David McKenzie on the ground in Malawi. David, what are the biggest hurdles to widespread vaccination?
DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the biggest hurdle is that the vaccines are not just not available, Christine.
You see those tents behind me. This is to deal with the overflow of a dramatic second wave of the virus here in Malawi. It's something happening throughout this region. They need vaccines and they need it now to stop the collapse of this health system.
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MCKENZIE (voice-over): Here, too, COVID-19 is inflicting its most painful toll.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They started treat if (INAUDIBLE).
DR. TAMARA PHIRI, PHYSICIAN, QUEEN ELIZABETH CENTRAL HOSPITAL: Your emotions are very blurred. You don't know when to be the doctor that's lost patients and then to be the family member or friend that's lost people and you're bereaved.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE).
MCKENZIE (voice-over): Dr. Tamara Phiri has a simple message for those who think COVID-19 is only severe in the northern hemisphere or that vaccines are only urgently needed in Europe and the United States.
PHIRI: Now we're on to this second wave, which is a lot harder. So I think it's going to be a long year.
MCKENZIE (voice-over): Follow her on around in Southern Malawi's largest hospital where shifts are measured in days, not hours.
PHIRI: This tent here is used to disinfect the dead bodies. And I think that's one of the most traumatic things. We see people die all the time but not like this. Like, not at this rate. Not this many people who were well just a week or two ago. Yes, so it can get quite brutal.
MCKENZIE (voice-over): In the last available space outside, plastic tents are being erected to handle this and future waves. These are the few extra resources.
PHIRI: We have basics. We don't have fancy treatment. We can't ventilate our patients. We don't have the capacity to ventilate.
MCKENZIE (voice-over): And there is no one else to step into the wards -- just Dr. Phiri and her fellow Malawian doctors who for months have battle the virus that now, because of the new South African variant, is only getting worse.
PHIRI: I don't remember feeling like this in the first week.
Maybe I'll just feel your pulse here.
MCKENZIE (voice-over): Doctors Without Borders is fighting to get vaccines to Malawi and at the very least, into the arms of health care workers like Phiri, one of just three remaining specialists covering four full COVID wards. The other five all out sick with the virus.
PHIRI: (INAUDIBLE). People are dying and like, all of the systems are like really strained with this particular wave.
MCKENZIE (on camera): Some countries have ordered many times the number of vaccines than the size of their population. What impact could that have?
MARION PECHAYRE, HEAD OF MISSION, DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS: The issue right now is more a time issue than a quantity issue. If the health system falls apart, you know, it's not only people dying from COVID that we're going to have here, we're going to -- we're going to have excess mortality related to other diseases.
[05:50:00]
MCKENZIE (voice-over): Hope is still being kept alive if only because of Dr. Phiri and the nurses and the workers constantly delivering precious oxygen tanks to the wards. But, Phiri says to survive as a doctor at Queens also means being a realist.
PHIRI: We have to accept that our situation would all been (ph) different. You have to come in mentally prepared and you have to tell yourself that I'm going to be well and I'm going to look after myself, and we'll deal with what we have but we'll do our best.
MCKENZIE (voice-over): After all, her skills as a doctor are honed by the years of never carrying a full arsenal of weapons.
MCKENZIE (on camera): Twenty-year-olds in Europe might get vaccines before you get a vaccine.
PHIRI: Sure.
MCKENZIE (on camera): How does that make you feel?
PHIRI: It's brutal but it's reality.
MCKENZIE (voice-over): Why would this moment be any different?
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MCKENZIE: Forty thousand vaccine doses -- that's what they're hoping to give to Malawi soon. Right now, in fact, to help these health care workers stay healthy and help their population. For the general population, it could take years to get to herd immunity because of that vaccine inequality.
These tents behind me, Christine, couldn't just be this wave but might be the next wave and the next wave. As the rest of the world vaccinates their young, healthy population, places like Malawi will be left behind.
ROMANS: Just frustrating.
David McKenzie, thank you so much for that report.
JARRETT: All right, back here in the U.S., no test, no flight. The Biden administration now considering requiring all passengers on domestic flights to show a negative COVID test before flying.
Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg says he is in active discussions right now with the CDC on this, with the goal of making air travel safer as soon as possible.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETE BUTTIGIEG, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: What I can tell you is it's going to be guided by data, by science, by medicine, and by the input of the people who are actually going to have to carry this out. But here's the thing. The safer we can make air travel, in terms of perception as well as reality, the more people are going to be ready to get back in the air.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: Buttigieg also says he and the White House hope to move aggressively in airport funding, high-speed and rural rail projects, battling climate change, and making sure that the Transportation Department ensures equity for communities of color.
ROMANS: All right, it's Monday, so let's take a look at markets around the world to start the week. Asian shares closed higher. Europe has opened up a little bit here.
And U.S. stock index futures are also leaning a little bit higher here, up 95 points for the Dow, above 31,000. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed at record highs on Friday, even as the jobs report showed the recovery losing some steam. The Dow had its best week since November.
So, Tom Brady and the Bucs, of course, won the Super Bowl, but who won the ad game in the more subdued era of COVID?
Bud Light acknowledging a lemon of a year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE 1: When did Bud Light Seltzer start making lemonade?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE 2: Probably when 2020 handed us all those lemons.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twenty twenty was a lemon of a year.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Elsewhere, a recognition of hard times and a focus on inspiration and thankfulness. Bruce, in his advertising debut, selling Jeeps and bringing America together with typical Springsteen poetry.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, SINGER-SONGWRITER: It connects us, and we need that connection. We need the middle.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: And a new entrant to the streaming wars.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And so our heroes reached the summit of Paramount mountain where they are greeted by a very handsome man in a tuxedo.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Paramount with multiple spots, actually, for Paramount Plus, its streaming service.
And General Motors tapped Will Ferrell to challenge Americans to out- EV Norway.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILL FERRELL, ACTOR: With GM's new ultium battery, we're going to crush those lugers -- crush them. Let's go, America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: The automaker plans to sell, of course, only zero-emission vehicles by the year 2035.
There were first-timers, including companies like DoorDash that have grown during the pandemic. And some big names skipped their ads this year. Budweiser said it will invest the millions it would have spent on a commercial to support coronavirus vaccine awareness.
JARRETT: All right, our last word this morning goes to Amanda Gorman, who followed up her sensational performance at the inauguration with the dedication at the Super Bowl last night. Gorman delivered a new poem in praise of the game's three honorary captains. Educator Trimaine David, ICU nurse manager Suzie Dorner, and veteran James Martin, all recognized for their leadership and their essential work in the pandemic.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMANDA GORMAN, POET: Let us walk with these warriors, charge on with these champions and carry forth the call of our captains. We celebrate them by acting with courage and compassion, by doing what is right and just. For while we honor them today, it is they, who every day honor us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: She is so good. I could listen to her all day.
[05:55:00]
ROMANS: I would have -- like three times in the beginning of the Super Bowl where I was crying. My kids were like how can you -- only mom could cry during the Super Bowl.
JARRETT: Mom, keep it together.
ROMANS: But you had the moment of silence and that, and there was a beautiful montage of the families of the players, some of whom are health care workers. It was just --
JARRETT: It was the right tone for the right moment.
ROMANS: It was nice. It really was.
Thanks for joining us. I'm Christine Romans.
JARRETT: I'm Laura Jarrett. "NEW DAY" is next.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Donald Trump's historic second impeachment trial begins Tuesday.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We saw what happened in real time. President Trump sent that angry mob to the Capitol.
PAUL: Zero chance of conviction. Forty-five Republicans have said it's not even a legitimate proceeding.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Health officials in South Africa say they are pausing the rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is a pretty big setback. This South African
variant is in the U.K. It's not only in the United States.
WIRE: Seven Super Bowl wins now for Tom Brady. That's more than any franchise in NFL history.
TOM BRADY, QUARTERBACK, TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS: I think everyone should be celebrating them tonight.
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ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.
