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International Condemnation of Military Coup in Myanmar; Fewer than 100,000 Americans Hospitalized for COVID-19; More Than 31 Million COVID Vaccines Administered in U.S.; Trump Names Two New Lawyers After Defense Team Collapses; Millions of Americans Facing Powerful Winter Storm. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired February 01, 2021 - 04:00   ET

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

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ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States and all around the world. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM and I'm Rosemary Church.

Just ahead, world leaders are condemning a coup in Myanmar after the military seized power and launched early morning raids.

And January set a tragic record in the U.S. for COVID-19. But there are positive trends in hospitalizations and vaccines. We'll share that with you.

Plus, a powerful nor'easter rolls in bringing up to 18 inches of snow to New York City. A full forecast ahead this hour.

Good to have you with us. Well Myanmar's army is facing global backlash after ousting civilian leaders in a surprise coup. The military announced it had declared a state of emergency taking power from the ruling political party and handing it to a top general. These are some of the most recent images from inside Myanmar showing soldiers blocking road in the capital. The scenes overnight were dramatic as military personnel arrested members of Parliament. The spokesman for her party said de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi is among those politicians detained.

The White House says the U.S. urges the military and all other parties to adhere to democratic norms and the rule of law, and to release those detained today.

Well British Prime Minister Boris Johnson posted this message on Twitter just moments ago. He writes -- he condemns the coup and unlawful imprisonment of civilians, including Aung San Suu Kyi, in Myanmar. The vote of the people must be respected, and civilian leaders released.

Well CNN's Will Ripley is following developments for us from Hong Kong. Good to see you, Will. Talk to us more about what more you're learning about this military coup and of course how damaging it could prove to be for Myanmar's democratic future particularly when you hear these responses from world leaders. WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know the countries that are

not responding with condemnation, Rosemary, include China and Russia. China, in fact, according to, you know, journalists on the ground working with CNN, said there were meetings within the last few days with Chinese officials in Myanmar. And China's ministry of foreign affairs put out a statement saying that they hope for a political solution.

Of course China for a long time has had kind of a mixed record with, you know, working with Myanmar's, you know, military dictatorship that was in place up until five years ago when they helped the civilian leadership kind of take control, while holding to control of key levers of Parliament and many key government positions. Now it seems as if they are basically now taking that control back or at least being quite overt about it.

Because a lot of people suspected for quite some time that the generals were indeed the ones calling the shots particularly when the civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi who was celebrated for years for being a beacon of democracy, was at the United Nations defending the military's, you know, treatment of the Rohingya Muslims. Which has been described by U.N. experts as genocide or a least genocidal intent.

But now you have the, you know, elected leader of Myanmar whose party gained more seats in Parliament than even in the previous election, whose popularity domestically is arguably at an all-time high, detained by the military along with all of her top officials. And you have military propaganda playing on television screens again, internet, telephone service and free TV channels other than state propaganda disrupted fears of social unrest, banks temporary closed, soldiers on the roads and fears that this country's very fragile democracy, which the military helped write the constitution.

Now the military using that constitution to seize back control, declare a state of emergency for the next year. Saying that they will hold an election after that. But a lot of questions about whether this will just be a return to military dictatorship in Myanmar -- Rosemary.

CHURCH: We will continue to follow this story. Will Ripley, many thanks for bringing us up to date on that. Appreciate it.

Well the U.S. has just marked its deadliest month yet in the coronavirus pandemic. More than 95,000 people died from COVID-19 in January.

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The previous record high was set in December. But there is an encouraging trend. COVID hospitalizations in the U.S. dipped below 100,000 this weekend for the first time in nearly two months. And when it comes to the vaccine rollout, more than 31 million Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech doses have been administered across the United States. And this week Johnson & Johnson is expected to file for Emergency Use Authorization for its vaccine. Well even with more vaccinations and fewer hospitalizations, the

country is far from out of the woods and one expert says he expects a variant of the coronavirus to impact the U.S. in a way the nation hasn't seen since the pandemic began. CNN's Natasha Chen has more.

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NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In some ways, Americans may feel the beginning of a light at the end of the tunnel. The number of people hospitalized from COVID-19 dropped below 100,000 on Saturday for the first time since December 1. And more than 30 million doses of the vaccines have been administered so far.

RON YABROUDY, RECEIVED SECOND DOSE OF VACCINE: I feel now that I can go see my grandkids. Getting a second shot, it just has done wonders for me, and it really has boosted my confidence to the point where I feel I can take on the world.

CHEN (voice-over): Ron Yabroudy, who's about to turn 89, got both doses of the Pfizer vaccine, which showed 95 percent efficacy during trials.

YABROUDY: Let me tell you something: There's nothing like having 95 percent on your side.

CHEN (voice-over): Moderna's trials did similarly well. But these modest signs of progress come amid a troubling development. In the U.S., there are more than 400 cases of the variant first identified in the U.K.

MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH AND POLICY: The fact is that the surge that is likely to occur with this new variant from England is going to happen in the next six to 14 weeks, and if we see that happen, which my 45 years in the trenches tell us we will, we are going to see something like we have not seen yet in this country.

CHEN (voice-over): And variants first identified in South Africa and Brazil have turned up in a handful of U.S. states this week, causing some health experts to sound the alarm.

DR. CHRIS PERNELL, PUBLIC HEALTH PHYSICIAN: My primary concern is that we need to do more surveillance in this nation. We actually trail our peers on this. We need to do more genomic sequencing. There are U.S. variants. We just don't know because we don't really work to identify them.

CHEN (voice-over): While new research is promising, it's not yet clear if those vaccinated could still get sick or even die from the variants. A troubling thought, especially as we close the month of January with the most deaths of any month since the first reported case in the U.S. a year ago.

HOLLY VANATTI, HUSBAND AND FATHER-IN-LAW DIED: That's been really hard, too, is because she's asking every day, where's my daddy? CHEN (voice-over): Some families like Holly Vanatti's have lost more than one relative. In her case, her husband and father-in-law died of COVID-19 within 24 hours of each other.

VANATTI: Every day, I wake up and I think that it's -- this nightmare is going to be over, and unfortunately, it continues to go on.

CHEN (voice-over): Natasha Chen, CNN, Atlanta.

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CHURCH: And in Los Angeles County, California, a glimmer of hope in the battle against the coronavirus. We are following reports of COVID- 19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths are dropping while vaccinations are going up.

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PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Paul Vercammen on the campus of Cal State Northridge University where they had 2,400 appointments for vaccinations of the Pfizer vaccination, first one, on Sunday. And things seemed to move swimmingly. We also got good news at the same time from L.A. County. We cannot definitively say that there was not a gap in reporting of the numbers. But we saw a drop in the number of cases by about 1,000. A huge plunge in the number of deaths. And we also saw a drop of 1,600 hospitalizations.

This seemed to be the reason why L.A. County officials were so optimistic and eased up on some of the restrictions. Now back here at Northridge we saw mostly senior citizens getting their first shot and were they ever ecstatic.

VERCAMMEN: Never has anybody felt so happy to be stuck by a needle I would imagine.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I didn't feel it. In fact, I'm not even sure she gave me the shot. I didn't feel it, so. I mean, it was smooth as could be and everybody knew their role, everybody was cheerful, pleasant. It was boom, boom, boom.

VERCAMMEN: This is one of five sites where they hope to give 2,400 vaccinations a day. That would be 7 days a week by Los Angeles County. And this is a lot better scenario than what we saw just a short time ago where it was much more chaotic.

Reporting form Northridge, I'm Paul Vercammen, now back to you.

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CHURCH: Joining me now is CNN medical analyst Dr. Esther Choo. She is a professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health and Science University. Thank you, doctor, for being with us and for all that you do.

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DR. ESTHER CHOO, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Thanks for having me on, Rosemary.

CHURCH: The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is expected to get Emergency Use Authorization in just a matter of days in fact. It doesn't have as high an efficacy rate as the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, but it's only a single shot, which, of course, is a real benefit here. So how big a difference could this vaccine option make once it's made available?

CHOO: Well this is really a game-changer in many ways, and you're right the efficacy for severe disease doesn't match the extremely impressive numbers of the mRNA vaccines. But on the other hand, it seems to have 100 percent efficacy for hospital patients and deaths, and that is the number that we can all stand behind.

And then add on to that the fact that it's a single shot. It doesn't require those ultra-cold freezing temperatures. And so those things make it such a practically easy vaccine to disseminate.

So for those reasons, it will be so good for getting too hard to reach areas, to rural areas, places where there aren't a lot of clinics or pharmacies, and it will just be easier to use all of the vaccine because we don't have these really rigid storage requirements.

CHURCH: And doctor, U.S. COVID hospitalizations have fallen below 100,000 for the first time in nearly two months. And cases are down, which is all very good news. But the new variants pose a threat to that encouraging trend. How concerned are you about that and what should we all be doing about it?

CHOO: Yes, I think we need a little more time to really see what the impacts of the variants are. They certainly have arrived on U.S. shores. But you're right, the second half of January, those were not record-breaking days, which is really encouraging. It looks like we are really cresting the hill for coming out of the holidays.

What we have in front of us is looking to see how much these variants that at least, you know, the U.K. variants seem to be spread much more easily. And then the other variants coming out, we will really look to see what the impact is in terms of not only how easily it is transmitted but also whether it changes severity of disease and whether it changes the efficacy of these vaccines.

But no matter what, the key thing about variants is they really thrive on the element of time. We give viruses more time to mutate and they will do that because they are survivors. So, the faster we move on vaccines, the better we are at interrupting the chain of viruses from person to person with really good mask wearing and social distancing. Those are the things that still will win against this virus no matter which variant we are talking about.

CHURCH: Dr. Esther Choo, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

CHOO: My pleasure.

CHURCH: Well U.S. President Biden is set to be open to some negotiation on his COVID relief package. Later today he will sit down with a group of Republican Senators. We'll have the latest from Washington. That's next.

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CHURCH: In the coming hours, 10 U.S. Senate Republicans are set to meet with President Biden to discuss the latest coronavirus relief package. Over the weekend they pitched a much more scaled down version of the president's nearly $2 trillion plan. CNN's Arlette Saenz has the details now from Washington.

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ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: The White House is indicating they are open to negotiating with Senate Republicans on that $1.9 trillion-dollar COVID relief package. Republican Senators over the weekend introduced their own proposal with which was much smaller in scale, about $600 billion in funding compared to that almost $2 trillion dollar bill from the president. One thing that they are pushing for is more targeted checks to go out to American families who need it most.

Now a senior administration official said that $600 billion price tag is not going to scratch the itch of what they need to accomplish, but one area where they are willing to negotiate and have discussions about are those targeted checks to American families.

Right now, the White House is pushing for $1,400 checks to go out to American families, while one Republican Senator suggested they could go down to 1,000. Now one question going forward is how long President Biden will give these Republicans to negotiate.

The president has also made his preference clear that he wants to pursue this in a bipartisan manner. But he has left open the possibility of moving this without Republican support. He is adamant that he wants action on this measure fast.

Arlette Saenz, CNN, the White House.

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CHURCH: With just about a week to go before Donald Trump's historic second impeachment trial begins in the Senate. The former president has announced the two new lawyers will head his legal team. His impeachment defense team quit after a disagreement over legal strategy. CNN Sunlen Serfaty has the details.

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SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: President Trump really having to rebuild his legal team from scratch, announcing on Sunday evening two new members of his legal team, David Schoen who is a trial attorney and former law professor. And Bruce L. Castor, Jr., also a trial attorney, former district attorney in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

And this announcement by the former president comes just a few days after he split ways after all five members of his legal team walked out and left. There had been a disagreement over the legal direction they were taking.

President Trump was pushing for them to make the central part of their defense the wrong claim that the election was stolen, the wrong claim that there was mass election fraud, rather than arguing about the legality of potentially convicting a former president after he had left office.

So the big question as the former president moves to make these new legal team part of his team, is will they follow his lead? Will they take his advice on what he wants the central theme of the defense to be?

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Now, time is very short and the wheels on Capitol Hill are already going to start turning this week. The legal brief will be due in the next few days week. And then, of course, the trial is set to begin in the Senate next Tuesday.

Sunlen Serfaty, CNN, Washington.

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CHURCH: Well Republican Senator Rob Portman is calling on his party's leaders to stand up against Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, both for her controversial actions and for recently resurfaced incendiary comments. The newly elected Congresswoman's extremist believes and devotion to conspiracy theories have some calling for her expulsion from Congress. Listen to just some of Greene's remarks.

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REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): How do you get avid gun owners and people that support the Second Amendment to give up their guns? Maybe you accomplish that by performing a mass shooting into a crowd. You make them scared. You make them victims and you change their mind set.

GREENE: I'm an American citizen. I'm a gun owner. I have a conceal carry permit. I carry a gun for protection for myself and you are using your lobby and the money behind it and the kids to try to take away my Second Amendment rights. You don't have anything to say for yourself? I can't defend you stance.

GREENE: She's guilty of treason. It's a crime punishable by death. That's what treason is. Nancy Pelosi is guilty of treason.

GREENE: The so-called plane that crashed into the Pentagon. It's odd there's never any evidence showed of a plane in the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE) CHURCH: People across the globe, CNN's Martin Savidge traveled to Greene's district in Georgia and he met with residents who support her and don't want her to back down.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to hear that she'll continue to be the woman we elected and take the fight to the left while in Washington. She's the most serious candidate and I would follow her more than any other Congressman or Senator I've ever seen in office.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: And that's one voice. So while Republicans debate over Greene, another Republican lawmaker is pushing back on the party's continued allegiance to Donald Trump. Adam Kinzinger has launched a new political action committee to battle the, quote, poisonous conspiracies and lies that defined Trump's presidency. Kinzinger a representative from Illinois, says the Republican Party has lost its way but he admits not everyone supports his view.

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REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): I've gotten a letter, a certified letter, twice from the same people disowning me and claiming I'm possessed by the devil. But the reality is this, this is a time to choose. It's a time to choose what we're going to be. And my goal in launching Country1st.com with the number one is just to say, look, let's take a look at the last four years, how far we have come in a bad way. How backwards looking we are, how much we peddle darkness and division. And that's not the party I ever signed up for. And I think most Republicans didn't sign up for that.

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CHURCH: Joining me now from Los Angeles is CNN's senior political analyst, Ron Brownstein. He is also a senior editor at "The Atlantic." Always good to have you with us.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Thanks, Rosemary.

CHURCH: So, Ron, Donald Trump's entire team quit before his impeachment trial. Now he has assembled a new team. Sources revealed that Trump had wanted to argue that the election was stolen. Now we don't know if this means his new team is willing to run with that lie.

But where do you see all this going and will Trump get acquitted anyway, given most Senate Republicans still appear to stand behind him?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. You know, I think the legal team is running into the same problem with the Senate Republicans did, which is there are essentially no way to defend Trump's behavior on the merits. So, the Senate Republicans have kind of stepped into this very questionable legal dodge, arguing against actual precedent in the 19th century that you can't hold an impeachment trial for someone after they have left office.

And I think most of them will try to stick to that line through this. And as a result, he is highly unlikely to get convicted, but it is also as equally unlikely that you are going to see much substantive defense of his behavior, because that is much harder to defend.

CHURCH: Yes. Sort of the indefensible, isn't it?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

CHURCH: So, what is going on within the Republican Party right now? We are seeing the knives out for Liz Cheney who dared to vote to impeach Trump for his role in the Capitol riot. While the party seems happy to embrace whacky QAnon conspiracy theorist, Marjorie Taylor Greene, where could this take the party?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, you know, it's interesting, it's a split level, I think dynamic underway now. There is a genuine division among Republican voters. I'll come back to that in a minute.

[04:25:00]

But among Republican leaders and elected officials, I mean, it's the same pattern we have seen throughout the Trump presidency. Essentially, a capitulation to the president.

I mean, you know, in the immediate aftermath of the riot and the assault on the Capitol there were signs that there would be, you know, this some thought this was finally the moment when they would use the leverage they had, to try to break out from being under his thumb.

And so, you saw Liz Cheney come out with a very strong statement, Mitch McConnell kind of hinted that he was willing to convict the president. And then what happened? It all melted away as it did throughout his presidency. And you see the overwhelming majority of Republican elected officials again are finding ways to avoid holding Trump accountable for his behavior. And are also finding ways to kind of look the other way and avoid drawing a bright line between the party and the kind of extremist -- extremism that Marjorie Taylor Greene symbolizes that Trump has allowed into the party.

So, all of that at the elite level is pretty clear that they are sticking with this kind of behavior that we saw throughout his presidency. On the other hand, polls are now consistent there is somewhere between a fifth, a quarter or a third, depending on the question, of Republican voters are deeply uneasy with the way the party has been behaving since the November election.

So, this decision to kind of buying themselves, to lash themselves to Trump, it may not be without consequence in terms of reinforcing to move away from the GOP that we are already seeing in those white- collar suburbs.

CHURCH: With that. Ron Brownstein, always a pleasure to have you with us.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

CHURCH: Well, it is a cold and stormy start to February for millions of Americans. A powerful nor'easter is bringing heavy snow and dangerous winds along the east coast. Many cities could be impacted in the coming days. New York City and the surrounding region could get well over a foot of snow and that's more than 30 centimeters for our overseas views.

So let's turn now to meteorologist Pedram Javaheri who's been watching all of this. Pedram, how bad could this get and who's affected?

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know, quite a bit of people here. When you look at the Northeastern U.S., we've about 1,000 mile stretch of land, and 1,600 kilometers where winter weather alerts have prompted. Snow going to be measured on the order of several feet here. And in fact, if you look at impacts, the severity of the impacts and the areas indicated in the purple contours, that's areas highlighted for the highest impact, the extreme zones that include New York City, include portions just to west of the city, northern New Jersey as well.

And then areas indicated in red are major category. On a scale of one to five, at a four. So an expansive area of coverage here for strong winds, blizzard like conditions, power outages possible, and of course, major disruptions. Look at the airports already -- the airlines canceling upwards of 1,300 flights for the early morning hours. Preemptive lights for Monday morning and between JFK, Newark, LaGuardia, about 75 to 80 percent of all flights have already been halted across this region.

It really speaks to the severity of this storm system. Notice these wind speeds could be gusting close to 40 maybe 50-miles-per-hour throughout Monday afternoon and Monday evening. Get into the overnight hours, can see these tropical storm force winds push through portions of northern -- say the northern portion of this region around Boston and Portland, Maine. And of course, all of this happens with heavy snowfall coming down for an extended period for much of Monday into early Tuesday morning.

So at this hour right along the immediate coast it all kind of initializes as rainfall and we expect all of this to become heavy snowfall throughout much of day. And it's going to be multi-day long duration event, which is really what's concerning about this, because of course, this is the most densely populated corner of the U.S. And then, you know, that these snowfall amounts potentially giving up to as much as 20 inches around Central Park. Which would be a top 10 snowstorm there, or a record that are dating back to 1860s. So of all of the winter storms we've seen, this would be potentially the top 10 there, of the most heavy snow we've seen on record around this region of New York. So a pretty impressive run of wintery weather in the next couple of days.

CHURCH: Absolutely. A lot of snow. Pedram Javaheri, many thanks for bringing us up to date on that.

And coming up here on CNN NEWSROOM, protesters in capitals across Europe vent their frustrations over coronavirus restrictions, even amid progress in distributing vaccines. We'll have a live report from London and Paris just ahead.

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