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Aftermath of Brexit; Coronavirus Outbreak; Trump on Trial; Trump Travel Ban; Kobe Bryant Remembered. Aired 3-3:30a ET

Aired February 01, 2020 - 03:00   ET

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

[03:00:00]

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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome everyone from the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Michael Holmes.

And ahead here on CNN NEWSROOM, done deal. After more than three years, the U.K. has left the E.U. But plenty of hard work still ahead.

The growing coronavirus outbreak, more than 200 dead in China, almost 12,000 infected.

And day of decision, U.S. senators announced when they will decide Donald Trump's fate.

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HOLMES: Well, the U.K. has officially ended a new era. This has finally happened, Britain now stands as the first nation to have ever left the European Union.

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HOLMES (voice-over): Celebrations held in London on Friday, as the United Kingdom counted down to the exact moment of Brexit, some crying tears of joy, others mourning the end of this 47 year old marriage.

However the U.K. now faces an uncertain future as it embarks on a transitional period, to hash out its newfound relationship with the E.U. For a look at what is to come, CNN's Hadas Gold standing by on 10 Downing Street in London, Nina dos Santos, is live for us in Brussels.

Hadas, let's start with you it is a done deal, day one of the post E.U. era in the U.K.

HADAS GOLD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Three years, three prime ministers, plenty of false starts but finally we are here, the first day of a post Brexit United Kingdom, just after 11:00 pm last night there were celebrations as you saw in Parliament Square, people celebrating alongside Nigel Farage, Brexit Party leader.

But not everybody was celebrating, in Scotland first minister Nicola Sturgeon said it was a profoundly sad day, that she was trying to get another independence referendum for Scotland. There was a big projection of a countdown clock in Downing Street.

Prime minister Boris Johnson held a reception for some of his staff and Brexit ministers, also released a video message just before that 11:00 pm deadline, calling for the country to come together take a listen.

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BORIS JOHNSON, U.K. PRIME MINISTER: For many people, this is an astonishing moment of hope they thought would never come and there are many, of course, who feel a sense of anxiety and loss.

And then the third group, who started to worry the whole political wrangle would never come to an end. I understand all those feelings. And our job as the government, my job is to bring this country together now.

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GOLD: Although Brexit has technically happened you could call this the end of the beginning because now comes the hard work this next few months until December 31st 2020, it will be very busy, full of negotiations, new trade deals, what the relationship look like, essentially right now nothing is really changing, for E.U. citizens here in the U.K., for U.K. citizens in the E.U.

Their life goes on for normal because of the transition period. But the real deadline is December 31st, because that's when the activity at the border, the trade will all feel very different from what it is today -- Michael.

HOLMES: Hadas Gold in London, thank you very much.

Let's bring in Nina in Brussels.

You know Europe didn't really want this to happen but then now has to deal with the fallout, how difficult is it going to be to adjust, especially in those areas like trade?

NINA DOS SANTOS, CNNMONEY EUROPE EDITOR: Well, there's going to be a big debate about whether or not the European answer to Brexit should be soul searching, that should end up with offering more flexibility, not forcing everybody to adhere to the same rules, whether or not it should be more cohesion and basically binding E.U. members, as it continues to grow and possibly in the future members of the Western Balkans, countries like, Serbia, Montenegro, they have ambitions to be part of this European machinery.

That is the internal debate that the E.U. has to deal with in the post Brexit fallout. So in the 11 months to come, that is immediate pressure point, the idea of what the E.U. have to try and prioritize, as it tries to hammer out a free trade agreement with the U.K.

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DOS SANTOS: Let's face it, the E.U. has made it very, very clear, it doesn't need quite as much as the U.K. needs itself. The U.K. sends in 45.3 percent, of exports here to Brussels, that's a huge chunk of its economic might, that it would need to immediately try to replace quickly.

If by the end of this year it can't find a free trade agreement, the E.U. only sends about 6 percent or 7 percent of its exports here. So you get an idea of how the chips are stacked in the future.

Also when it comes to a timeframe, of negotiating these free trade agreements, Michael, it takes an awful long time. We saw the Canadian- E.U. free trade agreement, took several years and was almost scupper by a local party in Belgium a few years ago. It has taken it to similar timeframe for trade agreements with the likes of South Korea.

The thing the U.K. has on its side in terms of advantages, is that it has already been a member of the European Union, with a 47 year membership. So both sides feel they have something to build on.

When we know how things are looking pretty soon, Michel Barnier, E.U. negotiator, is staying in his job for the European Commission and as of Monday he will be laying out the mandate that the E.U. has given him, to enter into tough negotiations with the U.K.

HOLMES: Nina dos Santos, thank you very much in Brussels.

Let's have a look at some numbers now in the Brexit story, the U.K. was in the E.U. for 47 years and one month. That is more than 17,000 days if you're counting. When the U.K. joined in 1973, the European Economic Commission was made up of six countries. After Brexit, the E.U. has 27 member states; 60 percent of the U.K. population, was born after the U.K. joined the E.U. That's more than 39 million British citizens.

Well, around the world, numerous governments are trying to get their citizens out of China, as the coronavirus outbreak continues. Spain the U.K. and India successfully flew have some of their compatriots home on Friday and other countries still trying to arrange flights amid a transportation lockdown.

In China at least 259 people have died, nearly 12,000 others are infected. The U.S. on Friday said the coronavirus was officially a public health emergency in the United States, people who have recently visited China will either be barred from entering the U.S. or quarantined for two weeks.

David Culver joins us now from the Chinese capital, an increasingly isolated mainland.

But you're hearing some really strict restrictions being put into place,

DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Listen to this, Michael, this is out of Hubei province, part of the lockdown zone, and this is happening in one of the cities that is neighboring to Wuhan, the epicenter of all of this. They're announcing an implementation of a restriction of sorts, that would allow one person from each household to leave the house every other day.

That is what they are stipulating here, that's about 400,000 people within the city center this applies to you and they are suggesting it be implemented to some of the regions outside of that.

So if it encompasses the entire population of Guangdong, that's 7.5 million people. That's like the entire population of Hong Kong. You can only have one person to leave your house every other day to go grocery shopping, that's it.

The exceptions are folks who need medical attention and those working alongside this with this virus control, those who work at the supermarkets and the pharmacies. But incredibly stringent conditions here.

Now we are also seeing China as a whole, is becoming increasingly isolated, more and more countries saying that folks who come from China cannot enter or even in the U.S., if you are citizen, you have to subject yourself to 14 days of self-quarantine.

But if you're coming directly from Hubei province, you are going to have to do mandatory quarantine for 14 days. Australia doing similar measures. China is pushing back, state media harping on some of the words from the World Health Organization, who preaches against doing trade and travel restrictions and China is hoping that the global community will be more receptive of that. It doesn't seem to be the case.

According to the foreign ministry, some 62 countries have implemented some sort of immigration control against Chinese nationals, either restricting them from coming in altogether or having some heavy stipulations for them to come through their country.

And China is also pointing out, this is going to hurt tourism around the world. You have to think about the number of Chinese nationals.

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CULVER: They go in large groups to these other countries, mostly in the Asia Pacific area but also in Europe, in the Americas. And those groups are going to be restricted, tour companies will be losing a great deal of money. But all of this massive containment effort that's underway, reaching extreme levels at this point.

HOLMES: Obviously a human cost and an economic one as well. David Culver in Beijing, thank you.

And joining me now Dr. Carlos Del Rio, a professor of medicine and global health at Emory University in Atlanta.

Thanks for your time, Doctor, new cases and in the U.S. and elsewhere, the death toll is growing.

How do you evaluate the pattern of the spread?

DR. CARLOS DEL RIO, EMORY UNIVERSITY: Well, I think it's early to know because when an epidemic is starting, we really don't know what exactly is going to happen. But the exponential growth is highly predictable. I think you're seeing a virus that has a reproductive capacity of 2.5. For every new infection, there's about 2.5 additional infections that happen.

You also have an issue of a new disease where there is not a test available so as more tests are being done, more people are being found. The exponential growth is part of those two things.

A modeling exercise by scientists in Hong Kong suggesting that the true number of infected in Wuhan will be closer to 10,000. I think most of us are thinking that there really is a 1:10 ratio between the cases we know about and the ones who are really out there.

HOLMES: Speak to the effectiveness of quarantining all these people, tens of millions of people. It's a bold attempt, stopping flights but perhaps it's too late. There are 5 million people that left Wuhan before travel out of the city was restricted.

Is it effective?

What's your thought on the containment efforts?

DEL RIO: There's a lot of discussion about the (INAUDIBLE) social distancing strategies that include quarantine and closing schools, businesses, public transportation. What we know from the flu pandemic of 1918 is that you need to implement those things early in the epidemic.

Was this done early enough?

I don't know the answer. As far as airlines closing, I think time will tell; stopping flights is a business issue. If nobody is flying to China, it makes no business sense to have the planes flying, right?

HOLMES: That's a good point. I think it's probably important to have perspective and I know you think the same. The flu, the regular flu, for example, kills 35,000 Americans every year and this season I think 15 million have been sick and 8,000 have been killed, according to the CDC.

So with that sort of perspective how do you see the rate of fatal cases with coronavirus?

DEL RIO: Well, again we don't know but what we know is that this doesn't appear to be such a lethal coronavirus as SARS or MERS. This appears to be a mortality rate about 2-3 percent. So it's lower; it's not insignificant but it's closer to the flu.

I think, Michael, you said exactly the right thing; if I am concerned about something, I'm concerned about the flu. I would encourage people to get their flu vaccine. I would encourage people to practice public health, wash your hands, respiratory hygiene. Make sure you don't cough or sneeze on somebody else.

That will prevent spreading the flu and would also prevent spreading this new virus.

HOLMES: Good advice. And you mentioned SARS; unlike SARS, you can apparently infect others before you are even are sick or symptomatic.

How big a problem is that if it's true, given the number of contacts that people might have had during the incubation period?

DEL RIO: We don't really know. The same thing happens with influenza. You start infecting people the day before you have symptoms. That's what makes influenza difficult to stop. By the time you say I'm feeling sick, you've been infecting people for 24 hours.

In this virus, we know that there's space and traumatic (ph) transmission. But we don't know if it happens all the time, part of the time, how effective it is. A lot of research needs to be done.

So can it happen?

Yes.

What's the impact it has on the epidemic?

It is unclear.

HOLMES: Dr. Carlos Del Rio, really appreciate your time, thank you so much.

DEL RIO: Take care, Michael, thank you very much.

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HOLMES: U.S. senators say no to witnesses but yes to an end date.

Also still to come in the program, American basketball great, Kobe Bryant, honored in an emotional ceremony Friday night in Los Angeles.

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HOLMES: Welcome back.

When it comes to the impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump, the fight for witnesses is over, the end date is now set and the outcome, well, it's certain. Our Phil Mattingly with the latest from Capitol Hill.

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PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well the United States Senate, is one step closer to officially acquitting president Donald Trump of the two impeachment charges the House passed late last year.

But it didn't quite get to the final judgment vote. The final vote that they actually expected to push through over the course of Friday night or early Saturday morning. And there was a reason for that.

Republicans who control the United States Senate, really control this entire process, had a problem. Internally. And that problem has led to President Trump having to wait at least a few more days before he gets that final judgment, a judgment he was looking for before Tuesday night's State of the Union.

That won't happen. Republicans basically found themselves behind closed doors, fighting over the process of how the trial was going to end. Some of the Republicans wanted opportunities to speak publicly about their decision, about their views, how they came to their conclusions, related to whether to acquit or remove the president from office.

Other Republicans wanted to press through, including Republican leaders. The White House was in the same boat but the reality in the United States Senate is, if you don't have a majority to move forward, you don't move forward.

And Democrats certainly weren't going to lend a hand with their own votes. This is how it's going to play out going forward.

The Senate ended up defeating a vote to hear from witnesses, to consider witnesses or subpoenas. Republicans stuck together for the most part, defeated that vote 51-49.

Over the course the next few days, on Monday at 11:00 am, the Senate will reconvene for closing arguments, two hours for each side. Then it will essentially adjourn. For the next two days and during that time senators will have opportunities, 15 minutes each, to come to the Senate floor, live on television, live on C-SPAN, and make their final statements as to why they came to the decision that they came to.

After three days, it will be back to the Senate impeachment trial. The Senate will reconvene for the trial, on Wednesday at 4:00 pm, at which point they will hold the final vote, on the two articles of impeachment, whether to remove the president from office for the first time in U.S. history or whether to acquit the president, something the White House was pushing for.

The president has as well, you can read his Twitter account, for the better part of the last couple of weeks and maybe even months. The bottom line is this, the president will be acquitted. There is nowhere near the 20 Republican votes necessary to create the 67 votes needed to remove the president from office.

But they're at least going to have to wait another couple days for that to occur --

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MATTINGLY: -- Phil Mattingly, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE) HOLMES: Now I spoke with political analyst Michael Genovese not long ago and asked about Republican senator Lamar Alexander, whose vote helped block witnesses and argued that none were needed since the case had already been proven. It just wasn't impeachable. Here is Michael Genovese.

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MICHAEL GENOVESE, POLITICAL ANALYST: He basically said, look, the House proved its case, the president did, wrong he may have done something illegal even and he did try to get his adversary to be investigated, by another country.

But. That's not an impeachable offense, so they want to have it both ways, that he has done wrong but it didn't rise to the level of an impeachable offense, so what they're going to do is let him off pretty much scot-free without any real punishment in the eyes of some.

But remember the most elementary fact he, has been impeached.

HOLMES: I thought perhaps senator Marco Rubio has that most head- spinning statement, that spoke to the position as well, he said, "Just because actions make us meet a standard of impeachment, does not mean it's in the best interest of the country to remove a president from office."

On its face it doesn't make sense.

If it meets the standard of impeachment, then surely that's it, isn't it?

GENOVESE: Well, you've done the major crime but we're going to let you go, if only the world worked like that so the police stop you and said you went 50 miles over the speed limit, it's OK though.

It's not OK. The Republicans felt a lot of pressure in three different ways. One, some felt pressure because the White House put pressure on them. Others felt pressure because they are up for reelection and they will be voting; some people may have even have trouble getting reelected.

But the third thing is some people really have trouble because, they had a moral problem, struggling with, was this an impeachable offense, was it not. So the Republicans had a variety of different pressure points that were leveled against them; in the end they could not resist.

HOLMES: What plenty are saying and a lot of the editorials today in the major broadsheets, are suggesting this too, a decision to not allow witnesses, which on its face seem extraordinary.

In the court of public opinion, will no witnesses, no documents in this trial, mean no exoneration?

I mean turning away a fact witness like John Bolton is stunning to many people and the majority of Americans do think that the president committed a crime, 75-80 percent wanted witnesses.

Will not having witnesses cost the Republicans?

GENOVESE: No doubt the president will claim victory, will take a victory lap but Bolton has the unexploded bomb. And the Republicans would not let it explode. They sat on the bomb, they stopped it.

And in a few months, when his book is out, we may learn more. In fact, more things may trickle out between now and March, April, may, June. The fact is, in the timeframe of the impeachment and the trial, the president is going to get away with it, because they will not call witnesses.

The first impeachment trial in history, where no witness has been called. So people say, that is not really a trial, they covered up for the president, he is getting away with an impeachable offense. I think that is an arguable case.

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HOLMES: Michael Genovese.

Now the Trump administration is expanding its controversial travel ban to six more countries. All immigrants from Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan and Nigeria will now be banned. And green card lotteries will be restricted from Sudan and Tanzania.

As you see here, most of the new countries are in Africa. The move coming after President Donald Trump's original ban on several other countries, largely Muslim majority countries. The original ban faced court challenges but a version of it was upheld by the Supreme Court.

When we come back, an emotional light on the court in Los Angeles, how Kobe Bryant's former teammates and fans, honored the basketball legend. We will be right back.

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HOLMES: An emotional night on Friday. The Los Angeles Lakers said goodbye to the American basketball legend, Kobe Bryant.

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HOLMES (voice-over): With 24.2 seconds of silence, represented by Bryant's jersey number, 24, and his daughter Gianna's number, 2. The two were among the nine people who died last Sunday, when their helicopter crashed on the way to a youth basketball game.

Current Laker LeBron James said the evening was a celebration of Bryant's accomplishments, on and off the court. LEBRON JAMES, LOS ANGELES LAKERS FORWARD: Tonight, we celebrate the

kid who came here, at 18 years of age, retired at 38 and became probably the best that we've seen over the last three years, man. So in the words of Kobe Bryant, mamba out. But in the words of us, not forgotten. Live on, brother.

HOLMES (voice-over): James described the Laker team and fans as a big family who needed to lean on each other in this difficult time.

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HOLMES: Thanks for watching CNN news, I am Michael Holmes, I'll have your headlines in just a moment.