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Bannon's Role in Trying to Overturn 2020 Elections; Moscow Sets New Restrictions Amid Rise in COVID Deaths; Democrats Debate Next Move as Manchin Demands Spending Cuts; Some West Virginians Choose Coal Over Tackling Climate Change; Bucks Take the Court as Basketball is Back. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired October 20, 2021 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

ISA SOARES, CNN ANCHOR: ... among seniors in the city. We'll have a live report next.

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SOARES: Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Isa Soares. If you're just joining us, let me bring you up it date with our top stories this hour,

A Brazilian Senate panel will present their report from President Bolsonaro's handling of the coronavirus pandemic in the coming hours, a report of criminal charges. They accuse him of crimes against humanity and blame his policies for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

And the committee investigating the January 6th insurrection unanimously voted to hold former Trump aide Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress. A full U.S. House vote is expected on Thursday to refer those charges to the Justice Department.

Well, the committee is focused on getting Bannon's testimony because he's been an outspoken supporter of Trump's big lie that the election was stolen. Bannon was fired from his White House post in less than a year, but his connection to Trump has actually survived. Brian Todd reports for you.

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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In those tense days after the 2020 election and before January 6th, Steve Bannon had no formal role at the White House, but according to credible accounts was a key player in then-President Trump's efforts to overturn the election results.

JOSHUA GREEN, AUTHOR, DEVIL'S BARGAIN: From the moments the polls closed, Bannon was busy trying to stir up chaos, trying to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Joe Biden's election.

TODD (voice-over): Right after the election, Bannon called the results fraudulent. BANNON: Biden can only win by cheating. He can only win by stealing Trump's victory. We are not going to let it happen.

[04:35:00]

TODD (voice-over): On December 30th of last year, according to the book "Peril" by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, Bannon was feverishly trying to prepare Trump for January 6th when Congress would certify the election results. Telling Trump, quote, we're going to bury Biden on January 6th, f-ing bury him, we're going to kill the Biden presidency in the crib.

On his podcast "War Room" recently, Bannon didn't deny saying that.

BANNON: Yes because it is illegitimacy. Just let this go with this illegitimate regime is doing. It killed itself, OK? But we told you from the very beginning, just expose it, just expose it, never back down, never give up, and this thing will implode.

TODD (voice-over): Now, the House Select Committee investigating January 6th wants information from Bannon on what he did just before the insurrection. The committee says on January 5th Bannon was involved in a war room at Washington's Willard Hotel helping plan Trump's Stop the Steal rally, which took place the morning of the attack. On the 5th, Bannon said on this podcast.

BANNON: All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. Just understand this. All hell is going to break loose tomorrow.

TODD (voice-over): But there's no evidence Bannon was involved in planning any aspect of the actual attack on the Capitol or that he knew it would happen. Author Joshua Green says Steve Bannon was introduced to Donald Trump at least a couple of years before Trump's 2016 presidential run. Bannon was a perfect fit, Green says, to be the CEO of that campaign.

GREEN: He didn't come from the Republican establishment. He didn't have to answer for anybody. He didn't have a background in GOP politics. All he wanted to do was come in and burn things down.

TODD (voice-over): Bannon lasted only about seven months as Trump's Political Advisor in the White House. Booted out, authors say, because Trump was jealous of the attention Bannon was getting. How did Bannon win his way back into Trump's good graces?

GREEN: He became Trump's biggest defender and pushed a lot of these conspiracy theories that have gone from the fringes of U.S. politics to the very center of Republican politics today.

TODD: And Joshua Green believes the Bannon/Trump partnership could be further rekindled in the future, even if Steve Bannon has no formal role in a possible Trump presidential run in 2024. If Trump runs, Green says, Bannon could be Trump's proxy in attacking the media, promoting conspiracy theories, re-empowering the MAGA movement, and trying to undermine electoral integrity to benefit Trump.

Brian Todd, CNN Washington.

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SOARES: Now the FBI has been searching the homes of a Russian oligarch with close ties to the Kremlin. It is not clear what they are looking for at Oleg Benpaska's Washington and New York homes. But the activity is connected to a federal investigation out of New York. Benpaska's spokesperson says the searches are, quote, related to U.S. sanctions. The Russian tycoon was sanctioned back in 2018 over Moscow's meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He was investigated for money laundering, wiretapping, extortion and racketeering. Allegations he denied.

Now, Moscow is ordering new restrictions as its COVID death toll rises. The city's mayor says seniors are especially vulnerable with people over 60 accounting for 86 percent of COVID deaths. CNN's Sam Kiley joins me now live from Moscow. And Sam, talk us through the measures that's being announced and critically, how they're being received here?

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Isa, first of all, you wouldn't know there is a pandemic here in the Russian capital, almost nobody is masked. There's very little social distancing. Most social events are open. Indeed, I was at an opening at the Pushkin Gallery just a couple of days ago, almost nobody masked there. As a result of this though, the Russians are coping with a death toll, a daily death toll that has peaked over a thousand per day now.

And as a consequence of that, the Russian mayor of Moscow has imposed for the over 60s, those who have been unvaccinated, those are not, those who have not had their vaccinations are being told they had to stay home for the next four months, Isa. On top of that, the people in the companies in the service industry, as of January next year, will have to have vaccinated 80 percent of their employees.

All of this being local measures to deal with what is now a national problem, with less than 50 percent of the population has been vaccinated. A great deal of resistance, popular resistance if you like, against the national vaccination campaign. Constant exaltations from Vladimir Putin and others, to get vaccinated here but the uptake has been extremely slow and low and as a consequence of that, the Russians are now seeing these very significant increases in not only the numbers of infections but particularly the numbers of deaths and particularly people over 60 -- Isa.

SOARES: Sam Kiley for us there in Moscow, thanks very much, Sam. Good to see you.

[04:40:00]

And still ahead right here on CNN, there's a battle for funding for climate change in Washington and now we may have an idea why one Senator is blocking some of President Biden's plans to fight global warming.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If somebody said, in order to make sure a flood like this never hit your community again, we need to get rid of coal, what would you say?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let it flood again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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SOARES: Now, U.S. House Democrats are debating how to proceed with president Joe Biden's sweeping spending package after one of their own demanded cuts. Senator Joe Manchin says he would oppose an energy standard which would reduce emissions by half over the next decade. He's not the only one resisting going green, in his home state of West Virginia, coal is king. Manchin's constituents remain deeply skeptical of global warming despite witnessing its traumatic impact firsthand. CNN's Rene Marsh reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our house is about ready to fall and there's a set of babies here and one, two, three, four, five adults.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're in a car, and the car's flooding full of water.

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Floodwaters submerged people, cars and homes in what was dubbed the 1,000-year flood. The town of Clendenin, West Virginia almost wiped off the map in 2016. And this past summer, parts of the state saw more flooding. From raging deadly floods to widespread drought, West Virginians over the past few years have faced weather whiplash, and scientists predict it will get worse.

JIMMY RADER, ELK VIEW RESIDENT: It was rising about 1 foot an hour.

MARSH (voice-over): Jimmy Rader, a retired Iraq war veteran survived the deadly 2016 West Virginia flooding, but his home did not. Five years later, he's still rebuilding. In the meantime, he, his wife and three dogs called this camper home.

[04:45:00]

RADER: It's really tough with my PTSD being in such tight quarters.

MARSH (voice-over): Look around the small West Virginia town of Clendenin and it's still without a grocery store, bank and elementary school. Yet Senator Joe Manchin is blocking the most aggressive climate change legislation in U.S. history.

This neighborhood lost safe access to their homes after the 2016 flood weakened the foundation of this bridge and rested it out.

MARSH: If someone dials 911, could not come across this bridge.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, they'd be afraid that they wouldn't make it, that the bridge might collapse.

MARSH (voice-over): This bridge is Connie Richards lifeline to everyday life, including medical care.

CONNIE RICHARD, CLENDENIN, WEST VIRGINIA RESIDENT: You just keep moving along and praying you get to the other side.

MARSH (voice-over): But even in the face of severe weather and its costly destruction, neither Rader nor Richard blame climate change.

RADER: I'm not buying into the whole climate change thing.

MARSH: So, if somebody said in order to make sure a flood like this never hit your community again, we need to get rid of coal. What would you say?

RICHARD: Let it flood again.

MARSH (voice-over): In the second largest coal producing state in the nation, climate change is a complicated issue. Senator Joe Manchin, one of the key lawmakers blocking the most aggressive parts of climate legislation that would drastically curb greenhouse emissions linked to climate change is currently ranked the top congressional recipient of campaign donations from the coal mining and fossil fuel industry. Manchin's personal investment in Enersystems, a coal brokerage company he founded and later put in a blind trust, is valued between $1 and $5 million.

MARSH: Will you be OK knowing that West Virginia could continue to get hit by severe flooding because we, as a country, failed to curb greenhouse gases?

CHRIS HAMILTON, PRESIDENT, WEST VIRGINIA COAL ASSOCIATION: I think the premise is filled with malarkey. I really do. Now, again, you know, we're sensitive to the fact that if we're contributing towards climate change, but you can't blame every undesirable weather event on West Virginia coal.

MARSH: But it truly --

HAMILTON: We don't have serious droughts here. We don't have serious fires here.

MARSH: You do.

HAMILTON: We have a little bit of flooding --

MARSH: Your governor ordered a state of emergency because there were multiple counties going through droughts, and almost every county in West Virginia has seen massive flooding.

HAMILTON: None. But it's very, very difficult to blame that on coal. Because, again, we've cleaned up every airborne constituent.

MARSH (voice-over): Senator Manchin echoed this Monday. SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): They want to make sure we have reliable power. We have basically cleaned up the environment more than any other time in the history of this world.

MARSH (voice-over): West Virginia University Professor Nicolas Zegre has studied the state and climate change for 11 years. He says, breaking through the complexity of the issue feels impossible.

NICOLAS ZEGRE, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY: Climate change is so complicated here in West Virginia because West Virginians perceive it as a direct attack on their livelihoods. But it's also interesting too, that inaction of our business leaders and inaction of our decision makers is also a direct attack on livelihoods.

MARSH: Well, there are cheaper energy sources and coal has become quite expensive. This means extremely high electric bills for people in West Virginia. Now the woman in the piece who said let it flood, well, that is an example of the commitment to coal in the face of climate change. She says because historically coal has been a reliable job source. But the reality is, the industry itself has been shedding jobs due to automation. It's a dying industry. And we reached out to Senator Manchin's office but received no comment.

Rene marsh, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOARES: An important piece there from Rene March.

Just ahead here on the show, the new NBA season tips off in Milwaukee. The Bucks get their championship rings before taking the court against the Nets. Sports is next.

[04:50:00]

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SOARES: Welcome back. Now Facebook has agreed to pay more than $14 million to settle claims that it discriminated against U.S. workers. The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the social media giant last year for allegedly reserving jobs for foreign workers in 2018 and 2019. Facebook was also accused of using recruitment methods to deter U.S. workers from applying to certain positions. The money will pay a civil penalty and go toward eligible victims of Facebook's alleged discrimination.

Now, the Olympics flame has arrived in Beijing ahead of next year's winter games. The welcome ceremony was held at the Beijing Olympic Towers -- you can see there -- after the flame arrived from Greece. The flame left Athens Monday after several human rights activists disrupted a traditional lighting ceremony with a banner reading no genocide games. When the games do kick off, the Chinese capital will become the first city to host both the summer as well as the winter Olympics.

Now Novak Djokovic will have to be fully vaccinated if he wants to compete in the Australian Open and have a shot at breaking the world of the grand slam titles. The world's number one has not revealed whether he's been vaccinated. But Australian authorities say all travelers to Australia must be fully vaccinated even athletes, no exceptions. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEX HAWKE, AUSTRALIAN IMMIGRATION MINISTER: The government in establishing its borders has said that you'll need to be double vaccinated to visit Australia, that's a universal application, not just to tennis players. Every visitor to Australia will need to be double vaccinated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Well recently Djokovic told Serbian immediate media he doesn't know if he'll go to Melbourne and that his vaccination status is, quote, a private matter and is inappropriate to ask. Last year he said during a Facebook chat he's personally opposed to vaccinations.

Now basketball is back with the reigning NBA champions on the court. Plus, late innings fireworks at Dodger Stadium. Here's Patrick Snell with our minute in sports -- Patrick.

PATRICK SNELL, CNN WORLD SPORT: Hi, Isa, thanks. A brand-new season in the NBA, the league celebrating its landmark 75th anniversary, and ahead of tipoff, the Milwaukee Bucks getting their rings and raising the championship banner here.

[04:55:00]

Greek sensation Giannis, proving so inspirational again. Milwaukee up and running in style against the Brooklyn Nets, 127 points, to 104.

The reigning world baseball champs the L.A. Dodgers breathing new life into their National League championship series with the Atlanta Braves, the Dodgers with four runs in the eighth inning, to emerge 6-5 winners. Braves still 2-0 on the series though.

And in Boston, the Red Sox take a defeat in front of their own fans on Tuesday night. They were leading though 2-1 until the eighth inning. But in the ninth the Astros taking total control to power their way to the 9-2 victory. The series now level two apiece.

And the UEFA's champions league, a Mo Salah penalty, 12 minutes from time, proving the difference in Madrid as Liverpool emerged 3-2 winners against 10-man Atletico.

And Lionel Messi Panenka style penalty, cool as you like. As French giants PSG beat Germany. RB Leipzig by the same score at the Stade de France in Paris. And with that, Isa, it's right back to you.

SOARES: Thank you very much.

Now, apparently, making it to age 95 isn't that impressive. An aide to Queen Elizabeth says the British monarch politely but firmly decline being named oldie of the year by a British magazine. The aide says the theme doesn't meet the relevant criteria because, quote, her majesty believes you are as old as you feel. Despite the rejection, the magazine, the oldie is keeping the Queen on its cover. Good on her.

And that does it for us. Thanks very much for joining us. I'm Isa Soares. "EARLY START" with Christine Romans and Laura Jarrett is up next. They'll have much more of course on President Biden's economic agenda which includes a new price tag. Do stay right here and I shall see you tomorrow morning. Bye-bye.