Return to Transcripts main page

Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Almost Half of Texas Residents Ordered to Boil Water; Sen. Cruz Admits Trip to Cancun Was "Obviously A Mistake"; Pfizer Launches First Vaccine Trial for Pregnant Women; Biden to Reaffirm Transatlantic Ties Strained by Previous White House. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired February 19, 2021 - 05:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[05:00:24]

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is EARLY START. I'm Laura Jarrett.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Christine Romans. It is Friday, February 19th. Happy Friday, everybody. It is exactly 5:00 a.m. in New York.

First it was unemployment lines, then food lines, then vaccine lines. Now it is waterlines in America, the largest economy on Earth.

Americans resorting to desperate measures just to survive after a brutal freeze leaves Texas crippled. About 13.5 million residents now have to boil their water. That's about half the state.

Dallas resident Thomas Black who took this picture tells CNN he and his girlfriend are running out of food and they are boiling snow for water.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THOMAS BLACK, TEXAN "UNPREPARED" FOR DEEP FREEZE: I only knew to do that because I had a pouring of outreach giving me tips on how to weather this out and without them, you know, as a Texan, we're just not inherently prepared for something like this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: Austin's water system lost 325 million gallons of water after thousands of pipes burst there. Officials say city reservoirs were drained by the water demand and they're warning this could go on for days.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declaring a public health emergency in Texas. But the lack of water means hospitals can't provide critical treatments like dialysis. It also causes problems fighting fires. Crews in San Antonio working through the night to put out an apartment building fire that broke out moments after water was shut off to the building. ROMANS: Hydrants are frozen so firefighters are trucking water to the

scene. Roads are so slick and dangerous the Red Cross is providing support virtually.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I haven't been able to go to work all week long. And now, everything that we have there is gone. We had actually left, we had left to go stay with someone and that's when we're on our way, that's when we got the alert that the building was on fire. I don't know if it's godsend what we just had to left on time. And when we came back, we drove around, and it was on fire.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: President Biden spoke with Texas Governor Greg Abbott and promising the federal government's help. But even with the power mostly back on, conditions are still tough and there's no real end in sight at this hour.

CNN's Ed Lavandera on the ground for us in Dallas.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Laura, officials with the state power grid system say none of the remaining power outages is being caused by problems at the power plants across the state. That is the first time we've been able to say that in the last four nights.

But having said that, it is another frigid night with temperatures well below freezing. And this happens as officials here in the state continue to point fingers over exactly what went wrong in this weather disaster. Governor Greg Abbott says that he takes responsibility for the issues at ERCOT. That's the state -- the agency that runs the state power grid system. But he also leveled a new round of attacks on the executives at ERCOT who says ensured to him and assured him that there would be enough power to get through the winter storm.

ERCOT officials are saying that they had to make the decisions they made because they were seconds if not minutes away from a catastrophic failure, a total black out across the state, that could have taken months to repair -- Christine and Laura.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JARRETT: Ed Lavandera, thank you so much.

Well, first came poor judgment, then came the lie, but no one saw the leaked text chain among friends coming. Republican Senator Ted Cruz now admits his trip to Cancun as millions of his fellow Texans struggled without power, in a bitter cold, was, quote, a mistake. The controversy started when travelers first spotted Cruz on a flight to Mexico on Wednesday.

For hours silence from Cruz's office about this, then the senator tried pinning the trip on his kids claiming, quote, when school canceled for the week our girls asked to take a trip with friends. Wanting to be a good dad I flew down with them last night and am flying back this afternoon.

Cruz even told NBC he was dropping his children off even though he was spotted with way more than an overnight bag. Then the text to neighbors and friends come in.

ROMANS: Yeah, that's right. A group chat leaked to "The New York Times" shows the senator's wife Heidi asking friends, anyone can or want to leave for the week? She made a reference to direct flight, mentioned her house was freezing and suggested a trip lasting until Sunday.

After taking a public relations beating, Cruz flew back home yesterday and said this.

[05:05:05]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): The plan had been to stay through the weekend with the family. That was the plan. I started having second thoughts almost the moment I sat down on the plane but I also have a responsibility that I take very seriously of fighting for the state of Texas. Look, it was obviously a mistake and in hindsight I wouldn't have done it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: That's stating the obvious. Then Senator Cruz paid a visit to the friendly confines of the "Hannity" show last night and fessed up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: We lost power for two days. Our house was dark, we had no heat. Actually, the fireplace behind me, we were all huddled around the fireplace because it was the only heat in the house. And after a couple of days and the girls being really cold and being in the teens and 20s outside, our girls asked, said, look, school's been canceled for the week. Can we take a trip and go somewhere warm?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Apparently, Senator Cruz didn't get the memo from former Texas Governor Rick Perry who said Texans were just fine with all of this if it kept the feds away from regulating their power grid.

Not everyone agrees, though. Protesters were outside Senator Ted Cruz's home last night.

But the hypocrisy doesn't end with a trip to Cancun. Ted Cruz has repeatedly criticized other politicians for vacationing during a time of crisis. Just two weeks ago, he attacked the mayor of Austin for going to Mexico during the pandemic. And, Christine, I saw so many people on social media last night saying, boy, you better be careful who's in your text chain. But to me, it seems the takeaway is maybe don't abandon your state in a time of crisis and then try to lie about it and pin it on your kids.

ROMANS: This -- yes. And this is something that's caught a lot of people who covered Ted Cruz for a long time by surprise. Ted Cruz, Senator Cruz is nothing if not very calculating about his image and thinking three steps ahead. The idea of just running away to an international trip into the warm luxury resort while your state is suffering just does not seem like politics 101 at all here.

And you often hear from politicians like Cruz and others who talk about the coastal elites, mainstream media, who don't understand how real people live, do real people get on a plane in the middle of a pandemic in a cold snap and go to a luxury resort in Texas? That just doesn't sound like a man of the people to me.

JARRETT: Nope.

ROMANS: All right. As Texas tries to thaw out this weekend, COVID vaccinations are set to resume in Houston. Vaccine distribution slowed across the country this week because the weather held up the delivery from the hubs in the southeast. The big shipping companies are now scrambling. UPS says it has extensive contingency plans.

And FedEx says it's leaning on its number two hub in Indianapolis and regional hubs in Oakland and Newark to get vaccine where it's supposed to be. Health officials say the entire system will have to work double time to make up for ground lost this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDY SLAVITT, WHITE HOUS SENIOR ADVISER FOR COVID RESPONSE: The problem we have is they can only pick up vaccines that have been packaged and are ready for delivery. So we can't get people into those factories right now because the roads are closed to box them. So, everyone's going to have to wait a little bit until the weather turns, then we'll get McKesson in there to box them up, which isn't as simple as it sounds. Boxing these things is actually quite a scientific, deliberate process. We can't just send anybody to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Now the U.S. has made real progress on vaccinations over the last few weeks, but the severe weather has ground that to a halt in many places. This particular problem is only temporary, but it shows how fragile the system is.

CNN's Nick Watt has more from Los Angeles.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Well, Christine, Laura, the sun is shining here in southern California but still, the massive vaccination site at Disneyland has been closed because the shipment of doses has not arrived because the weather is so bad elsewhere in the country, particularly in Kentucky and Tennessee where the shipping hubs for vaccines are located. In fact, the governor of Massachusetts is talking about enlisting the National Guard.

GOV. CHARLIE BAKER (R), MASSACHUSETTS: Us and other states sort of trying to take this one into our own hands where we're currently talking to the National Guard about -- and they will do this, about going down to Kentucky and Tennessee, which is where this stuff is currently located, and bringing it back.

WATT: Now, Dr. Fauci says that some places the weather has caused vaccination to almost grind to a halt but says they will just have to pick up the pace, redouble their efforts once the weather gets better. Now schools another important issue. Here in L.A. County, the case counts have dropped. The elementary schools can open but the superintendent and the union say not until teachers are vaccinated and they are not even eligible to be vaccinated until March 1st.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right. Nick, thank you for that.

Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech are launching a large scale clinical trial to assess the safety of its COVID-19 vaccine for pregnant women.

[05:10:05]

The first U.S. participants have already received shots. The company is hoping to enroll 4,000 pregnant women worldwide. New research shows pregnant women are at a 70 percent higher risk of COVID infection. Pfizer and BioNTech say they will also study young children in the coming months.

Not one but two big events today for the president trying to repair alliances overseas cast aside by the last White House.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JARRETT: President Biden travels to Michigan today to visit Pfizer's vaccine manufacturing plant, a day after bad weather delayed his trip. The president's focus will also be overseas today.

CNN's Jasmine Wright is live at the White House.

Jasmine, the president making two big moves to reaffirm the transatlantic ties that simply were not a priority from the previous White House.

[05:15:04]

Tell us more. What are you learning?

JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, Laura, President Biden campaigned on restoring normalcy in relationship to our allies in America's place abroad. That is going to be the main goal today. And he'll do that in back-to-back events.

First he will be at that closed session G7 summit where he will pledge $4 billion to COVAX. That's the effort to vaccinate poor countries. Then he will turn to the Munich Security Conference where he will declare America is back, in an effort to reunite us with our traditional allies abroad.

And these two actions, as you said, stand in stark contrast to that of former President Trump and his last four years in office because he constantly sought to isolate America, seeking to go it alone against those threats that the country faces instead of in partnership with our allies as is the traditional American way.

Today Biden is saying enough with that. We are done with that. We are reuniting again.

So, in this Munich Security Conference, and again, this is something that Biden has visited often, both as a private citizen, as senator, and vice president, often using it as a soundboard for his own policies.

Biden will seek to unite the allies by putting up a united front with the increasing antidemocratic effort that he sees going on in Russia and China, really looking to establish a strategy revealing that to his allies today. And, of course, we know that President Trump did not -- former President Trump did not aid in that COVAX effort.

So, again, this is again something that President Biden does to establish a new order in America that looks a lot like how it was done before the Obama administration and administrations before then seeking to unite these allies -- Laura.

JARRETT: All right. Jasmine, thank you so much for all of your reporting as usual.

ROMANS: All right. In a surprise move, the Biden administration is ready to sit down for talks with Iran and other nations on a nuclear deal.

I want to go to London right now, this Friday morning, bring in Nic Robertson.

Nic, you say the way the United States went about this was extremely creative. Explain.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah, where we were 24 hours ago it was a standoff. It was -- the Iranians saying the United States needed to lift all sanctions or else they wouldn't sit down. And the United States saying, Iran, you've got to get back into compliance because they are way outside of compliance right now with the nuclear deal.

So, there was a standoff, but this is creative because what it does is it calls for the United -- for the European Union to act as an intermediary and invite the United States to come sit at the table with all of the other parties and Iran that signed up to the deal, U.K., France, Germany, China, Russia, European Union and, of course, Iran, then to talk about the way forward from here.

This has been important because Iran essentially put a deadline for this weekend. It has said, look, if the United States doesn't come into compliance by dropping all of the sanctions, they were going to stop allowing into Iran International Atomic Agency inspector. That would have been a big sort of denouement in this already tense standoff. But this has been overcome right now.

And I think what we're seeing is potentially a road forward. Have the Iranians actually said yes? Well, no, they haven't quite but they've made positive sounds about it. The foreign minister of Iran tweeted this morning that the United States still needs to lift all of its sanctions, rename sanctions, re-label sanctions. They need to lift all of those, but they didn't put a deadline on it which makes you understand the maneuver and what have they been given by Biden?

Well, restrictions of the movements of Iranian diplomats in New York have been lifted and the Biden administration said it won't pursue U.N. -- U.N. only snap back sanctions on Iran. So, the signs are good at the moment.

ROMANS: All right. Nic Robertson for us in London, thanks, Nic.

JARRETT: U.S. defense officials signaling they are open to send more troops to the Middle East to support the NATO mission in Iraq. Now, there are no plans to increase troop levels in Iraq itself. The U.S. has been drawing down forces for years.

The Biden administration is weighing whether to stick to a May deadline for withdrawing all U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

Well, still ahead, six Capitol police officers suspended for their actions on the day of the Capitol riot. We'll tell you why.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:24:06]

JARRETT: Six capitol police officers have been suspended with pay and 29 others are under investigation for their involvement in the January 6th insurrection. One of the suspended officers took a selfie with a rioter who was part of the mob that overtook the Capitol. Another wore a Make America Great Again hat and start directing people around the building. At least seven officers and five other police departments across the country are being investigated for their actions at the riot.

ROMANS: All right. The GameStop frenzy came to Congress on Thursday. Lawmakers pressing executives about concerns over market manipulation. At the center of the drama, the free trading app Robinhood. Robinhood infuriated traders when it suspended trading of certain meme stocks like GameStop, in a middle of a mob-fueled. The CEO Vlad Tenev said heavy trading forced his hand but admitted he didn't handle the situation perfectly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLAD TENEV, CEO, ROBINHOOD: I'm sorry for what happened.

[05:25:02]

I apologize, and I'm not going to say that Robinhood did everything perfect and that we haven't made mistakes in the past. But what I commit to is making sure that we improve from this, we learn from it, and we don't make the same mistakes in the future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Tenev didn't elaborate on what those mistakes are but the prices of GameStop, AMC and others were so wild rocketing up quickly the company had to raise billions to cover cash requirements for the high speed trading firms that clear those trades. One of those, Citadel. Its CEO Ken Griffin said his firm had no role in Robinhood's decision to restrict trading of stocks.

Robinhood's Tenev was also asked how Robinhood planned to be more transparent with its customers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TENEV: The $3.4 billion that we raised I think goes a long way to cushioning the firm from future market volatility and other similar black swan events. And I believe that even throughout this process, we improved our risk management processes and strengthened them so that the experience customers had was much improved from Thursday.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: You can expect two more hearings on the GameStop saga.

And, Laura, you can hear background noise. This was the oddest Financial Services hearing I've ever been to. I mean, it started with the guy whose name is Roaring Kitty online saying I'm not a cat and it ended with lawmakers sniping at each other and this feeling among financial journalists that some of these lawmakers had no idea how the guts of trading actually worked.

So, it was bizarre. Expect two more hearings.

JARRETT: Which is too bad, because American people actually need a lot of answers about what happened there.

ROMANS: Exactly.

JARRETT: All right. Human suffering on American soil, 13.5 million people, that's half of Texas, under orders to boil water this morning. Hospitals low on resources and people running out of patience and time.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)