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U.K. Prime Minister Hits Back at Musk; Gabbard Meets with Lawmakers; Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) is Interviewed about Gabbard; Cases of Norovirus Surge in U.S. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired January 07, 2025 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

MARY SCHIAVO, FORMER INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION: Illegal immigration or, literally in some cases, just wanting to go visit relatives, reconnect with a mom, reconnect with friends, et cetera. And, of course, air - it's not likely airline or airport employees because they know that a wheel well is a very dangerous place. You can get crushed. You can die from hypothermia. You know, and the noise is horrendous. Even if you do survive, you might have long term damage to any number of body parts.

But the issue that this has been done and now in the United States done repeatedly is a huge concern for aviation safety and security. And, of course, there's almost always a very sad result for the person attempting to do this.

And by the way, almost all of them are male and under 30. So, obviously, they realize it's a physical feat and they're going to have to crawl around the wheel well, but it is clearly an aviation security violation and a very serious one.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: You have delved deep into this because you even have a profile of who tends to do this, Mary Schiavo, and it is such a pleasure to have you with us to give us some of these details. I had no idea that there was an actual profile of those getting into wheel wells. But the fact that we've seen it over the last couple of weeks, twice, very concerning.

And thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate you.

SCHIAVO: Sara, thank you.

SIDNER: Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Coming up for us, strong winds whipping up fire danger in southern California. Now officials are warning the windstorms will be life threatening and the most destructive in decades.

And a potentially game changing meeting on Capitol Hill today. Donald Trump's controversial pick to be the next director of national intelligence about to sit down with a top Democrat on the committee that will decide if her nomination will survive. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:36:19]

SIDNER: Elon Musk, the billionaire political pot stirrer, is now on the attack in Britain, where he has accused the prime minister of malfeasance using his X platform to level the accusations. Now, British lawmakers are demanding action over Elon Musk's inflammatory social media campaign against their government. The tech billionaire has launched repeated attacks against British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over his past role in handling historic child abuse cases. The prime minister is barking back, calling his accusations misinformation and lies.

CNN's Nic Robertson has more on the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (voice over): Elon Musk is gunning for world leaders. In his crosshairs, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, alleging failings in a child sexual abuse scandal when Starmer was the U.K.'s chief prosecutor more than a decade ago, and posting this question to his followers, if America should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government. Starmer, firing back.

KEIR STARMER, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We've seen this playbook many times, whipping up of intimidation and threats of violence.

ROBERTSON (voice over): Musk's inaccurate and sensationalist accusations are catching U.K. politicians off guard.

His trolling of Starmer is not new. Last summer, claiming racist riots were tipping the U.K. into civil war.

But this, and his international meddling, is reaching new levels. Since becoming President-elect Donald Trump's adviser, Musk's words have more muscle. The power pair have teamed up on calls with world leaders, notably with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, one day after the U.S. presidential elections. But it is Musk's right wing push picking up on what former Trump strategist and adviser Steve Bannon began eight years ago, championing Europe's far right populist disrupters, that has Europe's leaders worried.

PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON, FRANCE (through translator): Ten years ago, if we'd been told that the owner of the largest social media networks would support an international reactionary movement and directly intervene in elections, including Germany.

ROBERTSON (voice over): Musk, also supporting the hard right AFD, Alternative For Germany Party, which has been accused of resurrecting Nazi rhetoric ahead of elections there next month.

But Musk is going further right than Bannon, attacking a staunch Trump ally, Nigel Farage, saying Farage doesn't have what it takes to lead his upstart reform U.K. party. Farage, the British populist who pushed Brexit, just hours before Musk's put down, had counted the tech titan a supporter who might finance his fledgling party.

NIGEL FARAGE, LEADER, U.K.'S REFORM PARTY: The fact that he supports me politically and supports reform doesn't mean I have to agree with every single statement he makes on X.

ROBERTSON (voice over): Why the falling out? Possibly differences over this man, known as Tommy Robinson, a jailed anti-Muslim campaigner who fanned the flames of racist riots last summer. Musk praises him. Farage doesn't. The question in Europe now, how far right will Musk go?

Nic Robertson, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening today, President-elect Donald Trump's pick for director of national intelligence is set to meet with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat, will meet with the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Mark Warner.

CNN national security reporter Zach Cohen is with us now.

[08:40:03]

Look, there have been some bumps in the road in Gabbard's nomination. She's trying to maybe smooth those out.

ZACH COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, John, we've seen Gabbard make the rounds up here on Capitol Hill over the last few weeks, meeting mostly with Republican senators, trying to convince them that she should be confirmed to be the head of Donald Trump's intelligence community.

But look, today's meeting - expected meeting with Senator Warner could provide - or could prove to be a unique test for Gabbard as she continues to try to get through the confirmation process. Warner, as you mentioned, a Democrat, which is the party that Gabbard used to belong to, could push Gabbard in a way during this private meeting on issues that maybe didn't come up or didn't, you know, warrant follow up questions in her prior meetings. That includes questions about her notorious 2017 trip to Syria and where she met with the Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad. We know senators, including Warner, have questions about that trip, about why - what Gabbard said to Bashar al- Assad during that meeting.

Also about Gabbard's views on things like government surveillance. We know Gabbard has been sort of a unique skeptic and had some unique - a unique level of distrust of the government agencies who do the surveillance. And those are the agencies that she would, in part, be leading as the head of the intelligence community if she's confirmed.

So, look, a pivotal meeting potentially today with Senator Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, as Gabbard is trying to pave the way to a confirmation hearing and ultimately to confirmation. But look, at the end of the day, Gabbard is really relying on and only

needs Republican votes to get confirmation. And that will largely be dictated by whether or not Republicans fall in line behind the likely and expected chairman of the Senate Intel Committee, Tom Cotton, a Republican who Gabbard will need his vote in order to get confirmed.

We'll be watching closely to see what, if anything, Warner or Gabbard says after today's expected meeting. But be sure that today will be a unique test for Gabbard as she makes her way to a potential hearing.

BERMAN: Zach Cohen, parked right outside Senator Mark Warner's office.

Zach, great to see you. Thank you very much.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Thanks, John.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Thanks, John.

Joining us right now is Democratic congressman from Illinois, Mike Quigley, to talk much more about this and more.

Let's start there. Tulsi Gabbard going to meet with Mark Warner today. What is your sense of the direction do you think of her nomination? I mean, as Zach says, she basically needs Republicans. But do you think Mark Warner's opinion coming out of this meeting could change things?

REP. MIKE QUIGLEY (D-IL): Well, I'd like to think it would. This is a nomination of great concern, widely inexperienced and a critical role. Let's remember why we formed ODNI in the first place. It was post- 9/11. It was to coordinate the intelligence community, to force them to share information to avoid another 9/11. Couple that with the fact that her meeting with Assad isn't just an isolated incident. The fact that she came back from that secret meeting saying he's not an enemy of the United States, it concerns me that our allies wouldn't share critical information that keeps us safe because they simply wouldn't trust her.

BOLDUAN: It will be interesting if we hear from Mark Warner coming out of that meeting for sure.

Also in the House, the focus now turns, especially for Republicans, pushing for one big bill to kind of come out of the gate with of all of Donald Trump's priorities as he comes into office. The discussion was really pushing for that. That was Sunday, Monday. And now come Tuesday, you're hearing it - I don't know if it's people are saying pump the brakes or just reality is setting in. Even Republicans seeming to think this might not be the way to go about it.

Let me play what Lindsey Graham said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Is it a risk to put it all in one bill?

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I think it's a risk to our country to delay border security. So, if you're a tax cutting person, which I understand, and you're holding the border bill hostage, I think that's a dangerous thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Are you more or less likely to sign on to a massive bill that includes possibly, maybe something for everyone, border security, energy tax cuts, debt ceiling suspension?

QUIGLEY: Well, obviously, we haven't seen any text yet. But let me go back.

The fact of the matter is, the margins are close. And I'd like to think they'd need Democratic support. The way to get people to agree to something is to communicate ahead of time, and to try to meet in the middle. It's hard to expect people to compromise if you take extreme positions at the beginning.

So, if they want to work with Democrats, well, we're there to do just that. But let's talk about what we're - what we're trying to address. And the fact of the matter is, I've been here 16 years. The bigger the bill, the more issues that are involved, the more likely you are to draw opposition to it. You know, look, I've got a two-year term here in the majority. Let's work at these issues one at a time, try to get it right.

[08:45:01]

BOLDUAN: Nic Robertson's reporting that we played just a short time ago about foreign leaders now speaking out against Elon Musk. I mean, Elon Musk has used his platform to say a lot of things long before he was in Donald Trump's orbit, opining on lots of things. And now it seems world leaders seem to take him very, very seriously, from the prime minister - the British prime minister, even French President Emmanuel Macron speaking out yesterday, seemingly baffled and accusing Elon Musk of meddling in European elections.

Do you think Elon Musk has that much power?

QUIGLEY: Well, I think the fact that people think he does means he probably does. Look, what - look what happened in the United States when we tried to pass a bill before the holiday break. That was a compromise, bipartisan, bicameral bill that virtually everyone agreed on. It was going to become law. And Elon Musk enters the fray and defeats it. And then we pass something just to move along, just to kick the can down the - the street. It accomplished absolutely nothing. But it showed early on that he does have this.

You know, the joke was calling him president Musk. I think the - the actual term that should be played is oligarch. This is an extraordinarily wealthy person who has disproportionate political power, having not been elected to absolutely anything. BOLDUAN: Elon Musk also connected with another news - breaking news

story that's come out today. Meta has announced this morning that it's making major changes to its content moderation on Facebook and Instagram. Mark Zuckerberg saying they are getting rid of fact checkers, replacing them with user generated community notes, which is similar to what we know Elon Musk has done with X.

The way Mark Zuckerberg puts it in his announcement was that - that he says the fact checkers were getting - were too politically biased, and he's now attempting to restore free expression. "The New York Times" is reporting, Congressman, the Trump administration got a heads up about this move. What do you think of this?

QUIGLEY: Look, it's the lack of profiles in courage. Would Zuckerberg do this if Trump had lost the election? Is this just an attempt, blatantly trying to appease the president going in so he's not attacked?

Let's just remember, in 2017, the entire intelligence community said that the Russians attacked through social media our democratic process, and they did it to help the Trump campaign. So social media is an extraordinary weapon against our democracy. There is a balance to protect our First Amendment rights. But when you take away the guardrails and you see the far-right connections here, it's a great concern.

BOLDUAN: So, what do - what do you, can you do about, I'll say the Elon Musk-ization (ph) of the federal government, if that's the direction it's going, not elected, not in - not going into the government. What is - what direction is this heading?

QUIGLEY: Look, what we can do as Democrats is draw attention to what he's done and the fact that, obviously, he wasn't elected and how this impacts him. The - when we took out that first bill, the disaster relief, all we could do was communicate with the American people, though, how much it would cost each state in disaster relief. That had to get put back in the next bill. And it did. But that's all we can do, is communicate directly with the American people and our colleagues, and hope that they understand Mr. Musk, while wealthy, is not particularly intelligent about a lot of items. If you're so rich, why aren't you smart? And he's not connected to the American people. And he has a disconnect that isn't really concerned with their needs.

So, I think that's the limits of what we can do, where we vote in Congress.

BOLDUAN: Congressman Mike Quigley, thank you for coming in.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, Kate, stick around for this one. You may think twice about getting into one of those driverless cars. Waymo gone wild. A passenger gets trapped going in circles in a self-driving car. How this all ended.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, I got my seatbelt on. I can't get out the car. Has this been hacked? What's going on?

I feel like I'm in the movies.

Is somebody playing a joke on me? And I got a flight to catch.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:54:10]

BERMAN: All right, this morning, cases of norovirus are surging throughout the United States with outbreaks of the stomach bug in schools, holiday gatherings, cruise ships. Hopefully not news broadcasts.

Chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is on call with us this morning.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

BERMAN: Looking spry, I might say.

Look, we're talking about a surge of norovirus cases. How big is this surge?

GUPTA: This is big. I mean, you know, we typically think of norovirus as sort of the cruise ship virus. And for good reason. But this is clearly expanded beyond that, as it often does this time of year. This is sometimes called the winter vomiting virus because it really surges in the winter.

But to give you - if it seems like you're hearing about it more, it's because there have been a lot of outbreaks, some 500 since August. There was one week - I don't know how well you can see that graph - but there's one week in December where we had nearly 100 outbreaks in that one week alone.

[08:55:03]

So, there is a lot of norovirus out there.

And, you know, you're seeing a lot of the - the transmission of this virus, not only again in cruise ships, but in all these other locations. And if you look at the numbers now in terms of overall impact, it's significant. Every year about, you know, up to 20 million illnesses, 400 some thousand ER visits, 100,000 hospitalizations and 900 deaths. That's a typical year.

We'll see what this particular season sort of has in store for us because, again, we're seeing more outbreaks. We don't know for sure why that is. We talked to the CDC. And what we're learning is that the strains of norovirus, and it's a class of viruses, norovirus is not just one virus, but these strains of viruses do seem to have changed this past year. We're not sure if this new strain is actually more transmissible or more lethal, but it is different than in years past, and that could be potentially fueling some of this, John.

BERMAN: And, generally speaking, why is it so transmissible?

GUPTA: Yes, this is interesting. There's two basic reasons. One is that it can take just a few hundred viral particles to get you sick. Typically with other viruses it could be hundreds of thousands. You need a much higher dose, if you will, to actually get sick. Norovirus, a few hundred.

The other thing is, it can live on surfaces for a long time. So, if it gets on surfaces, people touch that surface with their hand and then touch their mouth, that is going to be the most common way that they are actually getting infected.

BERMAN: So, you were saying that it's sometimes called the winter vomiting virus, which is unsubtle, as they say. So, other than that, how do you know if you've got it?

GUPTA: You know, one of the biggest things with this virus - and I, you know, talk to patients about this all the time, the onset of symptoms will seem very sudden. You go from feeling fine to feeling quite sick in a very short amount of time. If you've experienced that feeling, you know what I'm talking about. That is probably one of the noroviruses that's affected that.

And then you see the symptoms on the screen, which are, you know, pretty standard symptoms for GI viruses, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and then also chills and muscle aches. It typically resolves. Most people will do well one to two or three days maybe you have symptoms. But those few days can be pretty miserable. And there's no - there's no vaccine for this. There's no particular treatment. You just have to sort of, you know, weather that storm.

BERMAN: Everyone in this room right now, all around me, we all want to know what we can do to avoid this.

GUPTA: Yes. Well, think about the way that you get this primarily. It is typically from touching a contaminated surface and then touching your nose and your mouth. That's typically how you get sick.

You've got to wash your hands a lot, especially if you're around other people who are sick. That's an obvious one.

What I think is - is less obvious is when you think about cleaning surfaces. So, let's say someone in your house is sick, you want to clean surfaces, that makes sense. You often reach for something like this. This says, you know, kills, what, 99.9 percent of viruses. Well, guess what, norovirus falls into that 0.1 percent.

BERMAN: Oh, no.

GUPTA: So this actually doesn't do a good job there. But what you really need to find are products that have hydrogen peroxide in it. So, look for that. By the way, you can read all the viruses on the back and you won't find norovirus. Hydrogen peroxide and/or bleach. Make your own. This time of year it's really important, especially if you have someone in the house who's sick.

BERMAN: All right, that is good information. I never thought of the 99.9 percent.

GUPTA: I know.

BERMAN: That's a pretty big exception.

GUPTA: I know.

BERMAN: That's like a pretty big, you know, sneak it through there.

All right, Sanjay Gupta, always great to see you. Thank you very much.

GUPTA: You too. Got it.

BERMAN: Sara.

BERMAN: Oh, don't forget, head over to cnn.com and send us your questions on norovirus. Sanjay is going to be here all week to answer them. And really, it's everywhere. I know people have a lot of questions on this.

Now, Sara.

SIDNER: I have never thought about that 0.1 percent.

BERMAN: No.

SIDNER: Who would?

BERMAN: Who would?

SIDNER: But now we know. Sanjay Gupta always has all the good answers.

All right, here is something else that people are worrying about, the first human death from H5N1 bird flu in the U.S. has been reported in Louisiana. Health officials say their investigation found no other human cases linked to this person's infection, but there have been several cases of humans contracting bird flu around the country. The CDC says the overall risk at the moment to the public is low, but if you work with animals or have chickens in your backyard, you are at a higher risk and should watch for breathing problems and red infected eyes for ten days after exposure.

And while the east deals with the snow, it is the wind creating a particularly dangerous situation in southern California this morning. Eighteen million people are under a red flag warning as forecasters prepare for a potentially life threatening wind storm, with gusts up to 100 miles per hour. An exceptionally strong Santa Ana wind event is expected to develop this afternoon and blow through Wednesday.

[09:00:00]

Officials are warning that the extremely dry air could easily fan the flames of a fire and spread dangerously fast.