Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Biden Signs Executive Order to Hit Net-Zero Emissions by 2050; Canada and U.K. Join Diplomatic Boycott of Winter Games; Instagram Boss Testifies on Safety for Young Users; Seventh Round of Negotiating to Resume in Vienna on Iran Nuclear Deal; Cuban Activist Ponders Next Move After Fleeing to Spain. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired December 09, 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]
KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday setting a target for the country to reach net zero emissions by 2050. It's the latest step in the president's infrastructure plan which he touted Wednesday while in Missouri.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're in a situation where we've known that our infrastructure had problems from long, long time. I don't think I could take one more phrase, it's going to be infrastructure week. And guess what? It's going to be infrastructure decade now, man. No more talking. Action.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: The president toured the Kansas City Transportation Authority while the infrastructure bill is still being negotiated back in Washington. The White House hopes the executive order will show a readiness to reach the president's ambitious climate change goals.
Russia and China are busy attacking President Biden's summit for democracy set to begin in the coming hours. Neither country was invited to attend. Chinese diplomats have been mocking the summit online while state media in both countries suggest the project is hypocritical. Propaganda experts say the fact that officials mouth pieces for Russia and China are speaking out shows just how nervous they are about potentially being isolated over their antidemocratic policies. The White House says the summit will include commitments, reforms and initiatives to defend democracy and human rights.
Canada and the U.K. are the latest to announce a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics. They join the U.S., Australia and Lithuania which have chosen not to send delegations to the games. Chinese officials in Canada say Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is humiliating the country by politicizing the games. While the Chinese embassy in the U.K. accuses the government of a political smear campaign.
CNN's Kristie Lu Stout joins me from Hong Kong with the latest. Kristie, momentum behind the boycott is slowly building. But China seems desperate to stop that in its tracks with some fairly threatening language.
KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, some pretty forceful language as more nations join the United States in its diplomatic boycott of the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympic Games. We heard from China's ministry of foreign affairs saying that these countries will also, quote, pay the price, unquote.
Now on Wednesday, we heard from the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the U.K. will also participate in a diplomatic boycott. So, you have the U.K. joining Canada, Australia and the United States in taking this action. This is not a full boycott, of course. Athletes from these countries will still be free to participate, but a diplomatic boycott means that government officials from these participating countries will not be sending officials to, let's say, the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games. Which are due to kick off in about two months from now.
It was on Monday, earlier this week, when the United States formally announced its diplomatic boycott, citing concerns over human rights abuses in China. Including the charge that the Chinese are committing genocide in Xinjiang, a charge that China vehemently denies.
[04:35:00]
How China responded to that by saying that the United States will, quote, pay the price. It also warned of resolute counter measures. But today, just a couple hours ago at the daily ministry of foreign affairs briefing, we heard from the spokesman who said that all the countries, not just the United States, but all the countries that are taking place in this diplomatic boycott of the Beijing games will be paying the price. Take a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WANG WENBIN, CHINA'S FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESMAN (through translator): The United States, Australia, United Kingdom and Canada used the Olympics for political manipulation. They cannot win the hearts of the people and are isolating themselves. They must also pay the price for their mistaken acts.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STOUT: And that was China's ministry of foreign affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin speaking earlier today. Kim, China has yet to articulate what that price would be. Back to you.
BRUNHUBER: Yes, that's exactly the question I was going to ask you. Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong, thanks so much, appreciate it.
STOUT: You got it.
BRUNHUBER: U.S. lawmakers grilled the head of Instagram on Wednesday about the harm the app does to the mental health of younger users. They claim the company hasn't done enough to protect children, but the Instagram executive told a different story. CNN's Donie O'Sullivan reports. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): Self-policing depends on trust. Trust is gone.
DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The head of Instagram facing a disturbing picture of his platform and the harm it causes, especially among kids.
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): You view the kids as a theater way for people to get into your product. Have you not done things to get more teenagers interested in your product? Are you not worried about losing them to other platforms? You better tell the truth. You're under oath.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): It is the latest round of tough questions from lawmakers for Meta formerly Facebook which owns Instagram.
BLUMENTHAL: Shouldn't children and parents have the right to report dangerous material on youth and get a response?
ADAM MOSSERI, HEAD OF INSTAGRAM: Senator--
BLUMENTHAL: Yes.
MOSSERI: I believe we try and respond to all reports. And if we ever do so, that is a mistake that we should correct.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Instagram embroiled in controversy since whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked internal documents from the company about the harms of the social media platform on young people, particularly teenage girls.
FRANCIS HAUGEN, FORMER FACEBOOK PRODUCT MANAGER: Facebook's internal research is aware that there are a variety of problems facing children on Instagram. They know severe harm is happening to children.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Mosseri today pushing back.
MOSSERI: I firmly believe that Instagram and that the internet more broadly, can be a positive force in young people's lives. I also know that sometimes young people can come to Instagram dealing with difficult things in their lives. I believe that Instagram can help in those critical moments.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): The Instagram boss being asked about research released this week that shows teenagers are easily able to find account advertising the sale of drugs like Xanax and Adderall. It's algorithms even promoting these accounts to some users.
MOSSERI: Accounts selling drugs or any other regulated goods are not allowed on the platform.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Apparently, they are.
MOSSERI: Senator, respectfully, I don't think you can take one or two examples and indicate that is indicative of what happens on the platform more broadly.
O'SULLIVAN: Mosseri pledging the company will do more to protect young users, but it's too little, too late for people like Ian Russell who lost his daughter Molly to suicide in 2017.
IAN RUSSELL, LOST DAUGHTER TO SUICIDE: There was no sign of any mental ill health in Molly before her death and we couldn't work out what could have possibly triggered it.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Russell says he looked at his daughter's social media and was disturbed by what he saw on platforms including Instagram.
RUSSELL: We haven't had a glimpse of what Mollie was exposed to. I think I now understand why she was pushed to do what she did.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Adding to the pressures on the social media giant, recently a bipartisan group of state attorneys general launched an investigation into the potential harms of Instagram for children and teens. Meta claiming the allegations are false.
Donie O'Sullivan, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: Top U.S. airline executives will be on Capitol Hill next Wednesday to explain mass flight cancellations this fall. Carriers scrapped thousands of flights despite receiving $50 billion in pandemic relief from the government -- the federal government. The money was meant to help airlines stay afloat and prevent large layoffs.
A Cuban activist has his loyalties questioned after fleeing his country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ISA SOARES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You could actually be an agent for Cuba. Are you a double agent?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: You'll hear his response when we return. Stay with us.
[04:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BRUNHUBER: A seventh round of negotiations on reviving the Iran nuclear deal is set to resume today in Austria. In a tweet the U.S. special envoy for Iran said Russian and Chinese diplomats agreed to continue talks towards bringing Iran back into compliance. But there was pessimism after talks were put on hold last Friday. A senior State Department official told reporters Iran came to Vienna with proposals to walk back the compromises that had previously been reached and then made new demands. CNN's Fred Pleitgen has covered Iran significantly and he joins us
now. Who So, Fred, considering the pessimism and skepticism surrounding these talks, where do they go from here?
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I do think you're absolutely right there is a lot of skepticism and pessimism as well. But at the same time, Kim, you do have all sides who are saying that they certainly want to save the Iran nuclear agreement and want to try and get the U.S. back into that deal as well.
And certainly, the most difficult issues are the ones that you mentioned as well. Essentially what the Iranians are saying is, first of all, they want full sanctions relief. That in itself is very difficult. Because one of the things we have to keep in mind is that the Trump administration put in place a lot of sanctions that actually don't directly relate to the Iran nuclear agreement, and those sanctions were actually meant to make it more difficult for the U.S. to get back into that deal.
Now, the Iranians are saying that they want guarantees, that the U.S. is not going to exit the deal again if there is or when there is a new administration, and the U.S. says those guarantees simply are not going to be forthcoming. Now, the spokesman for the State Department, Ned Price, he also seemed quite skeptical the last time he spoke to the press. Listen to what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NED PRICE, U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON: It remains in our interest above all the other alternatives to seek a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA. Eventually, we may conclude that either the Iranians aren't serious and won't be serious going forward, or the technological clock will have run out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: Fred Pleitgen there.
Earlier this year Cuba was swept by its largest anti-government rallies in decades. But one of the activists involved fled his homeland. Now he's facing anger from his supporters back on the island and questions about where his loyalties really lie. He sat down with Isa Soares in the midst of a self-imposed exile to tell his side of the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
[04:45:00]
ISA SOARES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For many Yunior Garcia was the rising star of Cuba's protest movement. A renowned playwright who hoped to bring the curtain down on the world's last communist strong hold. Before he and his wife suddenly fled to Madrid.
YUNIOR GARCIA, CUBAN ACTIVIST (through translator): I think if I had stayed in Cuba, I would be able to do a lot less for my people.
SOARES (voice-over): His dramatic departure in November under the cover of darkness caught many by surprise. But he tells me he did not abandon the very cause he's been fighting for.
GARCIA (through translator): I appreciate that some maybe don't understand my decision to leave, but time will show where one can be more helpful to its companions.
SOARES (voice-over): Still, some, including supporters of his archipelago movement, now accuse him of surrendering to pressure from the regime, even calling him a traitor. His former supporters now raising questions about his true allegiance.
SOARES: Now, the Cuban government says that you work for the United States, but the way in which you left begs the question of whether you could actually be an agent for Cuba. Are you a double agent?
GARCIA (through translator): Neither double nor single nor of any kind of they call me an exchange agent. They don't even dare say I'm a CIA agent. What they say is the CIA has been using me without me knowing it.
SOARES (voice-over): His departure followed months of pressure from the Cuban government. He says they blocked him from leaving his house, threatened him with arrest, and even left a dead bird on the door of his apartment as a warning.
GARCIA (through translator): I withstood everything until a point where I couldn't take it anymore. I was losing my center. A kind of anger started to grow inside me, you know, like a kind of hatred that changes you into someone else.
SOARES (voice-over): Leaving Cuba also meant leaving his 8-year-old son behind, a decision that is still eating him up.
GARCIA (through translator): We hadn't had the time to pause, my wife and I, in the middle of all of this intense beating. Until the moment where we had a break in our schedule, when we had nothing to do. And I heard my wife cry in the room. We found some release together. Neither of us wanted to be here.
SOARES (voice-over): Still, he decided he did not want the Cuban regime to turn him into a martyr.
GARCIA (through translator): I don't want to die trying. I want to achieve it. I want Cuba to become a good country where my son can live in.
SOARES (voice-over): He says his fight will continue away from his homeland, at least for now.
SOARES: You're a script writer. How does the story end?
GARCIA (through translator): This story cannot be written by a single person. It is a collective creation. If I don't return, they win. And if I don't return, I lose myself. So that's the thing. I know that I have to go back.
SOARES (voice-over): A tale of tragedy and sorrow whose last act has yet to be written.
Isa Soares, CNN, Madrid, Spain.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: Winter is about to show up in parts of the country that haven't seen much of it yet. Next, the first major snowfall of the season coming down the pike for millions of Americans. Stay with us.
[04:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BRUNHUBER: Millions in the Western U.S. are about to see their first significant snowfall of the season. Here's meteorologist Derek Van Dam.
DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Winter has finally arrived over the Western U.S. as a very large and expansive storm system moves through the region today and through the weekend. Winter weather advisories, winter storm warnings and winter storm watches in place. By the way, that shading of blue across the Central Plains and upper Midwest, that's for the storm system for Friday and Saturday. It's going to take some of the energy moving across the Great Basin and the Four Corners and move to the Northeast. More on that in just one moment.
We've been focusing a lot of attention on Denver, Colorado. It's because they've gone 231 days without any measurable snow. It's the middle of December and we should see the snowflakes starting to pile up on the streets there. But unfortunately, that has not happened just yet. Will it come to an end? The snowless streak, with this latest round of precipitation? Time will tell. Computer models still divergent on whether or not we'll get that measurable snow on the ground.
Nonetheless, the mountains just to the west of Denver will definitely get snow. Over the next five days we're going to start measuring snowfall in feet across the Colorado Rockies, as well as the Cascades and into the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California. Heads up if you're a skier or snowboarder.
Along the East Coast, no problem. In fact, hi pressure and control of the weather today, we're going to keep the skies high and dry. We have a weak system that is going to bring snowfall today across the upper Great Lakes. But the main event coming Friday and Saturday, lots of wind, plenty of precipitation, too. We're going to get a swath of 4 to 10 inches of snow depending on where you're located from Iowa into southern Minnesota, Wisconsin and into the Northern Great Lakes.
With a cold front trailing behind it, allowing for the potential, at least, for strong to severe storms Friday into Saturday morning. Damaging winds, large hail, isolated tornadoes. Keep an eye to the sky in Nashville all the way to Houston. 58 today in Atlanta, 39 for New York City, and the warm weather continues over the Eastern two-thirds for next week. Back to you.
BRUNHUBER: Tennis champion Serena Williams will miss the 2022 Australian Open. Williams made the announcement online saying she is still recovering from a hamstring injury from earlier this year. The Australian Open tweeted their sympathy, wishing her a speedy recovery. Williams had been previously been slated to head the women's tournament in 2022 after reaching the semifinals this year. The last major win was at the 2017 Australian Open.
[04:55:00]
Nike's swoosh logo will soon be gone from one of the largest shoe store chains in the U.S. The company will stop selling its products at Designer Shoe Warehouse stores next year. Nike is shifting its sales to its own shops, websites and select retailers. The move it says will more than double the profit it will receive from selling through wholesale partners. Nike accounts for about 7 percent of DSW sales.
Rideshare company Lyft is giving its more than 4,000 employees another year to work remotely. Lyft says its workers won't be required to return to their offices until 2023. The company didn't mention the Omicron variant, but said it wanted to give employees more flexibility. Lyft still plans to reopen its offices in February but going there will be optional for now.
New Zealand wants its future generations to stop smoking and the new law could make that happen. Next year lawmakers will kick off a campaign to reduce the number of smokers across the country to less than 5 percent by 2025. Right now, only those 18 and older can buy tobacco, but the new bill would progressively raise the legal age for purchases. New Zealand's government also plans to reduce the number of shops that sell tobacco products as well as cutback on tobacco imports and advertising.
Astronomers have discovered a planet orbiting a pair of stars that are so big and hot it's challenging how scientists understand how planets form. So, these are artist conceptions of the planet and photos of its double stars. The hottest and most massive binary system ever found. It's 325 light years away, with its giant exoplanet ten times the size of Jupiter. So, while the photos were captured from a telescope, the binary star system can be seen with the naked eye.
And that wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber. "EARLY START" is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
