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U.S. to Restrict Travel from South Africa, Seven Other Countries on Monday Due to New Coronavirus Variant; GOP's Boebert Makes Anti-Muslim Remarks About Dem Colleague; Ukrainian President Claims Coup Plot Against Him; GOP's Boebert Makes Anti-Muslim Remarks About Dem Colleague; "Smash and Grab" Burglaries Plaguing U.S. Retailers. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired November 26, 2021 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:05]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Thanks so much for joining me today. And have a wonderful weekend, everybody.

THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: And this is CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

And we do begin this hour with breaking news. President Biden says he will restrict travel from South Africa and seven other after African nations starting on Monday. He tells reporters her decided to be cautious after public health experts spotted an alarming new coronavirus variant spreading rapidly in South Africa. The World Health Organization moving quickly to call it a variant of concern and giving it the name, omicron. Cases had already been detected in Botswana, Hong Kong, Israel and Belgium.

Investors, by the way, are rattled. The Dow Jones, you see right there, had its worst day in more than a year.

And CNN's Jeff Zeleny is traveling with the president in Nantucket. Pete Muntean joins us from Reagan National Airport, outside of Washington.

Jeff, this is going to be startling news to a lot of Americans out there who are just out there doing their Black Friday shopping. Why is the administration waiting until Monday to restrict travel?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, President Biden said that was a decision based on his medical team, the experts. So, we do know, talking to other White House officials, they said it simply takes time to put in a travel ban. It takes time with the airlines, and the White House had a phone conversation with airline executives earlier today, we're told. And President Biden also spoke on the phone with Dr. Anthony Fauci and other experts on his COVID-19 team for about a half an hour or so earlier today here on Nantucket. They said it simply takes time to put these travel bans in place, but it will be South Africa and seven other neighboring countries there. But President Biden also used this as an opportunity to urge all Americans to get vaccinated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Every American who has not been vaccinated from age five years and up, number one. Number two, everyone eligible for the booster shots should get the booster shot, immediately upon being eligible. That's a minimum that everyone should be doing. You know, we always talk about whether this is about freedom, and I think it's a patriotic responsibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: So, President Biden was speaking to reporters here a little bit earlier this afternoon as he is spending a Thanksgiving holiday weekend here on Nantucket. He was speaking to reporters after lunch there. And he also was pretty frank. He said there's not -- there's a lot about this variant we simply do not know, but they're going to try and use this period of time to get more information and watch the science of this, but they also know it's spreading very rapidly, and that is something that deeply worries them.

So, again, of course, the president calling on more vaccines globally be sent to South Africa and those other African nations. But, certainly, Jim, the White House acting swift on this, but it is a delay until Monday when the travel ban takes effect. We should point out American citizens are not affected by this ban. They can still fly back here to the U.S. -- Jim.

ACOSTA: All right. That's good to know, Jeff.

Pete, I'm sure as Jeff was alluding to a moment ago, travelers are going to have a lot of questions moving through the airports over the next 72 hours. How is the travel industry responding to all this?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, we were wondering when this would all come down, Jim, after announcement after announcement came from country across Europe, including the United Kingdom. We now know that there was a meeting earlier today between the industry and the White House.

We also know that the federal government is formulating a bit of a directive, some guidance to give to airlines on how exactly to enforce this and go through with this. We know this will go into effect 12:01 a.m. on Monday. It will not apply to U.S. citizens, as Jeff mentioned, only foreign nationals. What's so interesting here is that there's still very few flights already operating from this region of Africa to the United States. Delta and United both operate plights from Johannesburg. Delta to Atlanta, United to Newark five times a week, Delta, three times a week.

We're still waiting on a bit more of a response from them and the travel industry, although this is a bit of a gut punch after travel restrictions were relax not even three weeks ago, allowing foreign nationals who are fully vaccinated who can prove they're fully vaccinated, who can prove negative coronavirus tests, they have been able to come into the United States after months of not being able to, 600-plus day of that.

So, it just shows how quickly things can change here in this travel space in the pandemic era. Things can move really quick and go sideways very fast.

ACOSTA: Yeah, a lot of travelers going to be scrambling because obviously this is a major concern, not just for American travelers but people all around the world. Everybody around the world is going to be scrambling over the next 72 hours. Jeff Zeleny, Pete Muntean, thanks so much for that.

And South African public health experts are warning this variant has an unusually high number of mutations. That's the concern right now.

As CNN's Elizabeth Cohen reports, scientists are racing to find out if the current vaccines can still fight off this variant.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A new COVID-19 variant spreading quickly in South Africa. U.S. health authorities in contact with officials there.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We want to find out scientist to scientist exactly what is going on. They're seeing that it's a bit more widespread in South Africa than was originally felt.

COHEN: Researchers in South Africa say there's likely reason to be worried. They say this new variants that 30 variations in the spike protein. That's a part of the virus that gains entry to human cells to cause infection. The COVID-19 vaccine's target the spike protein. If the spike changes too much and in the wrong way, it could make the vaccines less effective.

Learning exactly where the mutations are and how they change the spike protein will be key.

FAUCI: First of all, you want to find if, in fact, it does evade the vaccines that we're doing. Right now, we're getting the material together with our South African colleagues to get a situation where you could actually directly test it.

COHEN: Scientists at BioNTech have already started investigating the impact of the variant on its vaccine developed with Pfizer, with data expected within the next couple of few weeks. This isn't the first variant to be detected in the South Africa. Last year, the beta variant was identified there and there were fears it could quickly spread around the world and become dominant worldwide. That didn't happen.

And now, authorities are waiting to see whether this new variant will slowly smolder or quickly spread around the planet.

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: And our thanks to Elizabeth Cohen for that.

Joining me now to share her insight, Dr. Megan Ranney, professor of emergency medicine at Brown University.

Dr. Ranney, are you surprised how fast the U.S. moved to restrict travel from these eight African countries? This happened -- this happened, we woke up this morning, some people weren't aware of this variant to new travel restrictions before the sun goes down.

DR. MEGAN RANNEY, ASSOCIATE DEAN OF PUBLIC HEALTH, BROWN UNIVERSITY: I think most of us were spending yesterday gathered around Thanksgiving tables giving a bit of thanks we were coming to another phase of this pandemic, and we woke up this morning seeing news of another variant. I don't think Biden had much choice in restricting travel. You look at the other countries that have done so, from a political perspective, he really had his hands tied.

But I will say I don't think this travel ban is going to the much. We've already seen the virus spread to many countries outside of south Africa. The ban only is around nationals of those countries. Our citizens can still go become and forth.

What would be much more effective would be having either universal vaccination requirements for all air flights, right, or having quarantines when people arrive in the U.S. from other countries. Neither of those are particularly politically palatable right now, but they would make a much bigger difference in the spread of this variant.

ACOSTA: And we don't know everything about this variant at this point, Dr. Ranney, and so, I hesitate to ask you to look into your crystal ball too much, but how concerned are you that this new variant will be more transmissible than its predecessors. And, I mean, you have to include in the predecessors the delta variant which just -- I mean, knocked everybody down for the last six months.

RANNEY: You know, that is the thing that's so concerning is that it looks like this variant is displacing the delta variant in South Africa, and your point is exactly right -- look what delta variant has done in the U.S. I've seen some reports this new variant may be hundred of times more transmissible than delta. We don't really know yet.

I think for today, the takeaway is pay close attention, but let's not have mass hysteria yet. More information will be available in the days and weeks to come. In the meantime, the best protection remains, vaccination and those other non-pharmaceutical measures like masks that we've all been following all along.

ACOSTA: And, actually, scientists are already testing the new variant to see if our current vaccines will be effective. What are your thoughts on that? How soon do you think we're going to get that information?

RANNEY: I think it's going to be a week or two until we really know. I'll say, one thing about South Africa is that only about 35 percent of adults are fully vaccinated, and initial reports show that almost all of the folks who have been hospitalized with this new variant -- again, it's a very small number, so we're working with huge margin of error here, but almost all the adults hospital hospitalized to date are unvaccinated. So, there's a good possibility that our vaccines will still work okay. I'm expecting to have more answers in the week or two.

ACOSTA: Yeah, I just exchanged a couple of messages very briefly with Dr. Anthony Fauci a few moments ago, and I asked, you know, should we still go out and get our boosters?

[16:10:04]

And he said absolutely, exclamation point. All the more reason to do so was essentially his response. So, at this point, people should not hit the pause button on vaccines because we're seeing this new variant emerges. Is that right?

RANNEY: That's exactly right. If anything, hurry up and get your vaccines. If you haven't, get your booster, if you haven't. And most of all, let's provide vaccines to the rest of the globe.

If it does say true the variant does not evade our vaccine, the best thing we could have done in South Africa would have been to speed up vaccination of their population. I hope this will be a call to action for countries around the world to do that.

ACOSTA: All right. Dr. Megan Ranney, great advice as always. Thank you so much. We appreciate it.

RANNEY: Thank you.

ACOSTA: All right. And just ahead, Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert makes disgusting Islamophobic remarks about her Democratic colleague, Representative Ilhan Omar. But so far, we haven't heard any condemnation from Republican leaders.

And later, a rash of smash and grab robberies sweeping the country shows no sign of letting up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:15:12]

ACOSTA: Still no condemnation from Republican leaders today after a video surfaced of Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert making horrific Islamophobic comments about one of her Democratic colleagues. Boebert suggesting she was scared to get on an elevator with Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar who is Muslim, because she was worried Omar might blow it up. That's right.

As CNN's Sunlen Serfaty reports, Boebert is now apologizing to anyone she may have offended in the Muslim community as other disparaging remarks of hers emerge.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Congresswoman Lauren Boebert making an Islamophobic joke about being in an elevator with Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

REP. LAUREN BOEBERT (R-CO): I look to my left and there she is, Ilhan Omar. I said, well, she doesn't have a backpack. We should be fine.

SERFATY: Suggesting she was concerned Omar would blow up the elevator.

BOEBERT: We only had one floor to go. And I was like, I look over, and I said, oh, look, the jihad squad decided to show up to work today.

SERFATY: The now viral video was posted by Patriot Takes, affiliated with left-leaning groups claimed to have been shot over Thanksgiving break.

Omar responding saying the whole story is made up and calling Boebert a buffoon. Sad she thinks bigotry gets her clout. Anti-Muslim bigotry shouldn't be normalized. Congress can't be a place with tropes get no condemnation.

Today, Boebert tweeting an apology saying she's reached to Omar's office to speak with her directly. I apologize for anyone offended with my comments about Representative Omar, adding there are plenty of policy differences to focus on without this unnecessary distraction.

But Boebert did not apologize for other remarks made during the same event, including a homophobic remark about Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg taking paternity leave.

BOEBERT: He wasn't even put in charge of the supply chain crisis. No, someone else was tapped for that because Mayor Pete is still at home trying to figure out how to chest feed. Somebody ought to tell him so he can get back to work.

SERFATY: GOP leadership has been silent in response so far to the series of derogatory comments but Republican Congressman Kinzinger calling Boebert trash.

BOEBERT: Cancel culture isn't just to keep us quiet. It's to stop the very plan and movement of God Almighty.

SERFATY: This isn't the first time that Boebert, who entered Congress with this provocative video has made inflammatory remarks.

BOEBERT: I will carry my firearm in D.C. and in Congress.

SERFATY: Most recently, Boebert defended Congressman Paul Gosar before he was censured by the House, for tweeting an anime video depicting him of killing Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez.

BOEBERT: The left has nothing else to do but troll the Internet looking for ways to get offended. SERFATY: Turning her floor speech into a tirade, singling out

Democrats like Omar.

BOEBERT: The jihad squad member from Minnesota has paid her husband, and not her brother husband, the other one, over $1 million in campaign funds. This member is allowed on the foreign affairs committee while praising terrorists.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SERFATY: And this afternoon, Congresswoman Omar called on House leadership to take action against Boebert. She says that normalizing this bigotry endangers her life and the lives of all Muslims across the nation. She did not mention specifically Boebert's apology today. Nor, Jim, did she mention if her office has heard from the other congresswoman.

ACOSTA: All right. Sunlen Serfaty, thanks so much.

Let's discuss with our panel, former Republican Congressman Charlie Dent and Democratic strategist Maria Cardona.

Congressman, you know, looking at that video I can't tell if it's a member of Congress or a performer of the MAGA open mic night. It's holiday week. It would take 60 seconds to tweet condemning the comments. And it's crickets from every Republican member of Congress. What's going on?

CHARLIE DENT, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, Jim, first, there's really no place for add homonym personal attacks. In this place, it was clearly an Islamic -- Islamophobic attack. It's incumbent upon leaders of the House to maintain and enforce standard of conduct. I was chairman of the ethics committee I used to have to deal with situations like this, fortunately not that often.

But, you know, it's better for Republicans to deal with these things internally. I felt there's been a major failure in that regard, not only with respect to Congresswoman Boebert in this case -- I'm glad she's apologized but Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar more recently. When they make these kinds of incendiary, inflammatory statements, it's really important for the Republican leaders to crack down on it, and deal with it internally.

[16:20:05]

The Republicans should have taken Marjorie Taylor Greene off the committees. They shouldn't let that thing go to the House floor, as an example, but they didn't.

And I served with John Boehner and Paul Ryan, and I watched them deal with members who would become embarrassments or distractions. And they took strong action, often forcing them to resign. But too many members these days don't feel much shame and then figure out a way to monetize their bad behavior.

ACOSTA: Yeah, the trolling is the point more than anything else, Maria. If Lauren Boebert worked in any other place she would be fired for this, but it's the voters who ultimately decide whether or not to fire her.

What are your thoughts on why Republican leaders are silent right now on this?

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Because they're absolutely spineless, Jim, and there clearly are not enough like Charlie Dent or like Adam Kinzinger, who really is the only one who tweeted out that Lauren Boebert is trash, and he's right. And they need to step up to the plate if they want to be considered real leaders.

But the problem is, who is it that they are following? Whose example is it that she is following? It's Donald Trump, and we know that Donald Trump is still the leader of the Republican Party, and until that changes, these kinds of comments are going to continue to be things that we're going to see, and I hope that we do not normalize this, because these comments are so, so just completely disgusting, inappropriate.

She is an affront to her district, to her state, to her country, to her party, frankly, to all decent humans all over the world. And I think what it represents, Jim, is -- Charlie mentioned this -- the lack of shame that Republicans have these days, and that is not something that we need to be allowing in our leaders.

She was talking about a fellow member of Congress. Like you said, it looked like she was doing a standup comedian act. And you know what is even sadder about what happened during that whole rally speech is that she said it, and her voters laughed. They laughed, Jim. So until that stops, we're going to continue to see these kind of things.

ACOSTA: Yeah, some of these more extreme members of the caucus are rewarded for this activity. Lauren Boebert tweeted out a half apology saying to anyone in the Muslim community I offended with my comment about Representative Omar. We're not seeing an apology to Congresswoman Omar, though. I mean, that is -- that is what an apology is, you apologize to the person you offended by calling them, you know, a bomber or whoever she was suggesting.

DENT: Yeah. Again, yeah, sound like somewhat of a halfhearted apology. I agree.

But at the same time, I get back to the question of standards of conduct.

ACOSTA: Yeah.

DENT: Bring discredit upon the house, that's when the leaders have to act. And sadly, it's just not occurring enough. I mentioned earlier, I watched John Boehner and Paul Ryan and Nancy Pelosi deal with members who became real distractions and embarrassments and did far less and were forced to --

ACOSTA: So how did we get here do you think, Congressman? How did we get here? DENT: I think the standards bar has been lowered, and I think you can thank the former president for that, Donald Trump. Because he made so many outlandish statements on a daily basis that I think we all became somewhat numb to it.

Before if a member of Congress made a statement like this, it would be quite an outcry and a big deal. But this will just be a few news cycles for him.

ACOSTA: Yeah.

DENT: Before Donald Trump, these were much bigger issue, and they cause a lot more internal turmoil since Donald Trump, you know, we've become numb, desensitized because we heard so often, and nothing seems to surprise us anymore. Or shame us.

ACOSTA: That's right.

All right. We got leave it there. We got to run. But, Charlie Dent, Maria Cardona, thanks so much. We appreciate it. Happy holidays. Thanks for your time.

CARDONA: Thank you, Jim. Happy holidays.

ACOSTA: Coming up, markets meltdown as global fears over a new COVID variant rattles investors. The Dow just plunged more than 900 points.

And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:29:16]

ACOSTA: Breaking news -- President Biden is restricting travel from eight African countries starting Monday after health experts spotted an alarming new variant spreading in South Africa. Now, investors are spooked. Stocks are tumbling all around the world and the Dow Jones logged its worst day in more than a year.

Let's get right to CNN business editor at large, Richard Quest.

Richard, this is so worrisome. We saw similar trends when the delta variant emerged over the summer. You have such expertise, global business travel. How do you see this playing out, and are we moving fast enough?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR AT LARGE: No is the short answer. Or if we are moving fast enough, we're moving in the wrong direction. I think it's entirely understandable why you would ban travel from these countries. But the experts say it's no good and it won't work any way, because the virus is probably already there and with proper testing and proper vaccination policies, it doesn't really make much difference.

[16:30:06] I can certainly see why, Jim, countries have moved to ban from these areas but as the WHO has said on numerous occasions, it really is an infective policy that only basically creates, if you like, a security blanket. It creates an appearance of doing something. Think about the way the global travel flows actually go and you start to see the reality of it.

Secondly, we are paying the price now of the negligence of not giving more vaccines in countries in Africa. You know the old adage, no one's safe until everyone is safe. Well, omicron is an example of the failure of that policy. We ignored for too long the needs of those countries, and as a result, yep, it will be on our shores.

ACOSTA: Absolutely.

And, Richard, stay with us. I want to bring in CNN's global economics analyst, Rana Foroohar.

Rana, thanks so much for being with us. I suppose you're going to echo what Richard is telling us. This variant is surely going to impact sectors like leisure, hospitality. You already see President Biden restricting travel from Africa.

But it's just might be too late. It's already spreading to other parts of the world.

RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: Indeed. You're seeing rising cases in Europe, and what happens in the economy national security last two years is all about COVID. It will still be all about COVID. What's interesting is you're also seeing certain worries like gas prices, inflation and food and fuel. Those may be abating because everyone is worry about demand. Will demand continue as the virus spreads?

And I completely agree with Richard that we just did the wrong thing by not getting more vaccines out to the rest of the world early. We are paying this price for this now.

ACOSTA: Richard, this news comes as inflation surged at its fastest pace since 1990, gas praises nearing their highest levels in a decade. I suppose what Rana is saying is fascinating and probably going to bear out to be true in that we could see gas prices, oil prices go down if people start pulling back.

QUEST: Right, so, we're into the old economists on the one hand, and on the other hand, and so, you know, on the one hand, oil prices are coming down. Heavily today, 11 percent. That will very quickly feed into reducing inflation.

But on the other hand, if there are more restrictions you're back to trade problems and supply chain issues, which pushes prices up. And then throw in a few more ands and you've got a Fed which wants to tighten but really frankly dare not even give a spooking of tightening.

And the reality, Jim, is stagflation. There's the word. We're not 1970s again, but could we end up with a slowing economy and spill perpetually high inflation? Absolutely.

ACOSTA: Yeah. And, Rana, this is the concern a lot of people have. I was wondering if you could play off what Richard said. We were just get to the point where we could see light at the end of the tunnel, sort of like we were back in the summer before the delta variant clobbered everybody. Might we get to a point where there's so much doom and gloom covering the globe that that causes a major economic ripple around the world, that this could cause serious problems for the global economy?

FOROOHAR: Well, 100 percent, and many of us -- I think Richard and myself included have been worried about this for some time. In particular, the fact that the Fed -- I and agree with Richard that the Fed probably can't raise rates now -- all right, on the one hand you don't want them to hike rates and we get a bigger market demand, but we are brewing up a bubble that's been in the works for some time.

At some point, that is going to deflate, and it may deflate in a crash. I don't wish that, but I think it's possible. I think everything now is going to depend on technology, going to depend on science.

Will the vaccines that we have work against this new variant? Will the technology that companies are putting in place help us to speed up supply chains? That's where we're going to be looking in the future.

ACOSTA: All right, I was hoping you would spread some holiday cheer on this Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, but we're not going blame it on you. We just have to get a handle on this.

Thank you so much. Appreciate both of those perspectives there. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

And coming up, the president of Ukraine accuses Russia of plotting a coup against him. Stay with us. We're getting new reaction from the Kremlin.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:39:20]

ACOSTA: The Ukrainian president says a group of Ukrainians and Russians is planning a coming coup against him in the coming days. That's right, a coup.

CNN senior international correspondent Matthew Chance is in London with details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These are disturbing allegations from the Ukrainian president. The serious and new threat posed by Russia against his government. We have information there will soon be a coup in our country, he announced at a round table discussion with journalists. It's in just a few days, he said, on the first of second of December. The Kremlin denies any such plot.

But it's a dramatic escalation in the war of words. As Russia is accused of amassing forces near Ukraine's borders, poised to invade. The Kremlin also denies.

[16:40:06]

Now, President Zelensky says he has intelligence, including an audio recording of Russians and Ukrainians discussing the plot against him. But no evidence has yet been made public. He suggested Ukraine's richest man, this powerful oligarch called Rinat Akhmetov, who owns several critical media outlets, may have been involved, something strenuously denied to CNN by Akhmetov himself.

The information made public by Volodymyr Zelensky about attempts to draw me into some kind of coup is an absolute lie, Akhmetov said in this written statement. As the country's biggest taxpayer, the country's investor, taxpayer and employer, Akhmetov continues, I will defend a free Ukraine and do everything I can to prevent authoritarianism and censorship.

For years now, Ukraine has been facing enormous pressure from its powerful Russian neighbor, fighting a trench war with Russian-backed rebels in the country's east. The threat of holding back U.S. military aid led to former President Trump's first impeachment.

Now, U.S. officials say Russia is engage in the destabilizing activities inside Ukraine as well against the Zelensky government. It's one of the reasons the Ukrainian leader seems on edge. Conscious he has enemies outside and the country and within. But there are also fears he's using real concerns about Russia to crack down on his opponents, too.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHANCE (on camera): Jim, tonight President Biden is expressing concerns about what the Ukrainian leader says is that plan to carry out a coup in the country. Meanwhile, U.S. and its NATO allies say they're going discuss ways, meetings next week to further deter Russia from its aggression against Ukraine. Back to you.

ACOSTA: All right. CNN's Matthew Chance, thanks very much for that report on more worrisome signs out of Moscow.

Let's talk about that and more with Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton of Massachusetts.

Congressman, you know, the Russians from time to time, you know, they bubble up -- these kinds of concerns bubble up, and it's a problem for any U.S. administration, Republican or Democrat. But to hear the president of Ukraine, you know, talk about a coup plot in this manner, this has to be very concerning to people on both sides of the aisle here in Washington. How disturbed are you by this report?

REP. SETH MOULTON (D-MA): I'm very concerned, Jim. As you know well, this isn't just about concerns bubbling up and creating a headache. This is about Russia invading sovereign territory of other nations. They did it to Georgia. They've done it to the Crimea.

This is a real serious threat, and the United States of America needs to take it seriously. I certainly am.

ACOSTA: With this potential coup plot and the Russian buildup around Ukraine, what do you think the White House should be thinking about now in term of countering Russian aggression? You brought up Crimea. The Obama administration those deal with this sort of thing. You have to wonder whether Russia is moving in that direction once again.

MOULTON: Well, I think the lesson from the Obama years is that we need to be more forceful. We need make clear that we are going to stand with our allies. I mean, France has already come the Ukraine's side and said they will fight back if Russia attacks. I think we have options to both introduce greater sanctions on Russian officials to make them feel the pain of these threats personally and also provide more defensive weapons, maybe some offensive weapons to the Ukrainians.

But let's be clear -- you know, NATO was established to prevent Russia from running all over Europe. Ukraine's not technically a part of NATO, although they very much want to join, but that really a technicality at this point. We cannot let Russia run rampant over sovereign nations all over Europe. We have a solid national security interest in preventing that, and I think you'll see the Biden administration do more and more to move in that direction in the coming days.

ACOSTA: I want to ask you about the really disgusting remarks from Congresswoman Lauren Boebert. She made a bigoted anti-Muslim comment about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. Boebert has issued this sort of halfhearted apology. It doesn't sound like she's apologize personally to Ilhan Omar as far as we know at this hour.

What is your message to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy who seems to tolerate all this dangerous hateful rhetoric from his members?

MOULTON: He needs to actually act like a leader. He needs to actually take accountability and enforce accountability and prevent this kind of childish behavior.

[16:45:05]

It's childish on the one hand. It's also threatening. If you step back and look at this, it's clear that Representative Boebert is the one who doesn't believe in freedom of speech, doesn't believe in religious freedom and is more to Trump than democracy than she is to democracy. She incited -- she helped incite the attack on the Capitol on January 6th, the attack on the heart of the democracy trying to take away votes from American citizens in states like Georgia, and Arizona and others.

I mean, if that's not domestic terrorism, if that's not un-American, I don't know what is. So I just ask people out there, you know, what's the greater threat, attacking the United States of America or simply being a Muslim? ACOSTA: All right. Congressman Seth Moulton, thanks so much for

joining us. We appreciate it.

MOULTON: Thank you, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right. And coming up, smash and grab burglaries are on the rise across the United States. Do authorities have a plan to put an end to these brazen attacks?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:50:46]

ACOSTA: A smash -- a slew of smash and grab burglaries at high end retailer across the country has authorities on alert and looking for answers.

CNN's Brian Todd has more for us.

Brian, these robberies are being carried out by highly organized flash mobs and they move very quickly. What else are you learning?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, Jim. We have new information that at least three of the robberies occurred at Nordstrom stores like this one. Those hits we're talk about occur in the California. As a result, police and security presence has been ramped up across the country, and customers are nervous.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TODD (voice-over): On the left, thieves violently hack away at a jewelry counter as glass case in San Francisco. On the right, several perpetrators ransack a Louis Vuitton store outside Chicago. Authorities say they made away with $100,000 worth of handbags and other merchandise.

At this Nordstrom in Canoga Park near L.A. on Wednesday, at least five people went in and did more than steal valuable merchandise.

DEPUTY CHIEF ALAN HAMILTON, LOS ANGELES POLICE: A number of suspects entered the door behind me and took several high end purses. Unfortunately, we do have a security guard here that was working for the store, working for Nordstrom that was attacked by the suspects.

TODD: CNN affiliate KABC reports one of the suspects was wearing an orange wig. The same day at an Apple Store in Santa Rosa, California, north of San Francisco, at least four people stole $20,000 worth of merchandise in what police say was a brazen daytime burglary in front of customers and staff. Police said those suspects were between 14 and 18 years of age.

This is all part of a wave of so-called smash-and-grab robberies at high end stores in recent days in California and Illinois, hits that were disturbing for their apparent level of coordination, the number of people involved. BRETT BARRETTE, MANAGER, P.F. CHANG'S, WALNUT CREEK, CALIFORNIA: I

probably saw 50 to 80 people in ski masks, crow bars. They were looting the Nordstrom right here.

TODD: At least three of the robberies occurred at Nordstrom stores near Los Angeles and San Francisco. Customers are terrified.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very disturbing because now, I'm reluctant to come to Nordstrom or even the mall for that matter to come and make my purchases.

TODD: San Francisco's police chief says his department made some arrests and recovered millions of dollars in stolen property. Asked my CNN who's carrying out these burglaries, he said he believes it ranges from common thieves at the lower end to sophisticated organized groups at the top.

CHIEF WILLIAM SCHOTT, SAN FRANCISCO POLICE: There has to be a degree of organization in that. You know, we don't -- there's no way in my mind that we can have a situation where 20, up to 80 people can invade a store -- a series of stores and there'd be not be some communications and some organization.

TODD: Law enforcement tells us some of these could be copycat burglaries. These kind of hits are tough to guard against. Security and police deployments are being ramped up at malls across the country during the busy holiday shopping season. One analyst says customers can also help.

TERRANCE GAINER, FORMER U.S. CAPITOL POLICE CHIEF: They should always be sensitive to their surroundings. If it goes down while you are in the store or nearby, stay out of the way. If you are in a position to take a photo, that would be helpful to police, or just observe what you are doing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TODD: We reached out to Nordstrom to ask about any enhanced security measures the chain may be taking to guard against these robberies and about the possibility of maybe an inside job with some of these hits. The chain did not get back to us.

Analysts say one thing law enforcement is likely doing tonight is monitoring social media for any signs of possibility coordination and signs of anyone bragging about these burglaries -- Jim.

ACOSTA: And holiday shoppers need stay to alert with all of these going on.

All right. Brian Todd, thanks so much for that report.

Just ahead, more on our top story. Scientists are raising the alarm over a new COVID variant just detected in the Southern Africa and a handful of other countries. We'll have expert analysis right after the break.

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ACOSTA: And you're watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington. And we are tracking breaking news at this hour, as alarm spreads about a new coronavirus variant discovered in South Africa. President Biden called the variant a big concern and says he will restrict travel from South Africa and seven other African nations starting on Monday. U.S. officials tell CNN that the restrictions will buy the U.S. more time to learn about this variant.

The World Health Organization moving quickly to call the new strain a variant of concern. That is a big deal and to give it a name, omicron.