Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Biden Visits New York to Focus on Combating Surge in Crime; Cases Climb in Alabama Amid Low Vaccination Rate; Cases Rise in Some European Nations as Others Ease Rules; Four Senior Aides Abruptly Resign From Downing Street; NFL Coach Alleges Owner Offered Money to Lose Games. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired February 04, 2022 - 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: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Isa Soares. If you're just joining us, let me bring you up to date with our top stories at this hour.
We are just a few hours from the Beijing opening ceremony at the Beijing Winter Olympics. Despite Beijing's best efforts, the pandemic is still weighing on the games with many athletes worried and unsure if they'll even be able to compete. Thousands of athletes and just over 20 world leaders are on hand. And that includes Russian President Vladimir Putin who in the last hour met with Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss trade, energy and the tension on Russia's border with Ukraine. Mr. Putin's visit comes as the U.S. is accusing Russia of planting, quote, a false flag operation to justify an invasion of Ukraine. We'll have much more on both those stories in about 30 minutes on "EARLY START."
New York City was gripped by a heartbreaking scene on Wednesday as NYPD Officer Wilbert Mora was laid to rest after being shot and killed along with his colleague while responding to a domestic violence call last month. It comes on the heels of a spike in violence right across the city. NYPD data shows that in New York alone shooting incidents went up more than 32 percent. You can see there in January 2022 compared to the year before.
The rising crime is one of the reasons President Joe Biden visited New York on Thursday. He stopped by the NYPD headquarters to discuss combatting gun violence. Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Every day in this country 316 people are shot, 106 are killed and 6 NYPD officers have been victims of gun violence so far just this year. 64 children injured by gun violence so far this year, 26 killed. It's enough. Enough is enough because we know we can do things about this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: Mr. Biden also spoke with New York City mayor and retired NYPD Captain Eric Adams, who was elected in part on a promise to reduce crime that has overrun the city. Here's what he said about the president's visit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D) NEW YORK CITY: Unfolding on our streets every day places like Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, San Francisco, New York, we are witnessing this violence that was isolated to black and brown communities and it was as though no one saw this crisis. We talked about assault rifles but we never talked about the handguns that was really carving highways of death in the communities of color across America. This president has taken a different direction. He took his spotlight and he stated that we're going to look at this gun violence and we're not going to allow it to continue.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: President Biden also told Mayor Adams that he can consider him a partner when it comes to ending the search and violent crime.
The U.S. Labor Department will release its January jobs report in just a few hours. And it comes of course, at a critical time for the economy with inflation continuing to rise. Forecasters surveyed by Bloomberg expect the report to show that employers added about 150,000 jobs, but other estimates vary widely. The data for the report comes from mid-January in the peak of the Omicron wave of the coronavirus. We'll stay on top of those numbers for you.
CNN has learned that two aides of former Vice President Mike Pence are not answering some questions from a House committee investigating the Capitol riots. Three sources told us the aides do not want to talk about their direct conversations with former President Trump. That's because his legal team told them, those conversations are protected by executive privilege. But Greg Jacob and another aide, Marc Short, did answered questions about their conversations with Pence. Trump's legal team is still using executive privilege claims despite losing a recent lawsuit at the U.S. Supreme Court.
The U.S. officials responsible for air travel safety say they've made a lot of progress in mitigating the potential effects of the new 5G networks on commercial aircraft. The Federal Aviation Administration said they have now received detailed data on the locations of 5G towers and the footprints of their signals. The FAA says the new data will help ensure aircraft of both potential interference with critical navigation systems. But at a Congressional hearing on Thursday, one Democratic lawmaker blasted government regulators for not being better prepared for the 5G rollout.
[04:35:02]
Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PETER DEFAZIO (D-OR): Everybody else has taken measures to protect aviation but we didn't until the last minute and it's a temporary agreement and something has to work out long term in the next six months. We cannot have conflicting industries. Having a dropped call is way less serious than having a dropped airplane out of the sky.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: Besides providing technical data, telecom companies are being urged to give the FAA more advanced notice about when and where they plan to expand their 5G networks -- especially, of course, near U.S. airports.
Coming up right here on CNN NEWSROOM, why some European countries are easing restrictions while their neighbors are reporting record case numbers.
Plus, for top aides to Prime Minister Boris Johnson abruptly quit as his premiership hangs in the balance. We'll have a live report coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SOARES: In the U.S. COVID case counts show the pandemic is not yet over. A new report reveals more than 200,000 residents and staff at long-term care facilities have died from the virus since the start of the pandemic. Kaiser Family Foundation analysis adds that this makes up at least 23 percent of all COVID-related deaths in the United States. And unfortunately, that's not all. A long COVID advocacy group estimates long haulers have lost a total of $88.8 billion in income. CNN's Nick Watt has more for you from Los Angeles.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's OK.
NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Three-year-old Justin still too young for a vaccine, but among the lucky ones, pulled through.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you sit up?
[04:40:00]
WATT (voice-over): Most places Omicron is now the ebb. Alabama the only state court case counts our climbing. Alabama also has the lowest percentage of fully vaccinated people in this country. Meantime, about half of Americans now eligible for a booster haven't gotten one. So, 84 million people gotten vaccinated but for whatever reason not boosted. .
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: I don't have an easy explanation for that. That's one of the reasons why we keep trying to put the data out.
WATT (voice-over): Like the benefits of the booster in significantly reducing your chance of death. Israeli researchers now claim a fourth Pfizer dose was instrumental in preventing hospitals from being overwhelmed during their Omicron surge. It's a pre-print study.
Here, hospitalizations highlighted by the White House as the key metric they'll watch while weighing when to lift restrictions, like mask mandates.
DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: What I expect, and I hope that we'll see from the CDC, is clear guidance about what to do in the upcoming months. Again, I'm hoping this is going to be the last surge we will have to deal with. We don't know.
WATT (voice-over): Super Bowl next Sunday. LA's mayor among officials urging fans to mask up. But a tweeted snap shows his naked face in a game last weekend. How do you explain that?
MAYOR ERIC GARCETTI (D) LOS ANGELES: When people asked for a photograph, I hold my breath and I put it here and people can see that. There's a zero percent chance of infection from that.
WATT (voice-over): Oh, I see. By the way, this is Bellevue, Washington. A gas station clerk argues with the customer who refuses to wear a mask. They tumble outside, she pulls a gun.
WATT: So just back to the Super Bowl for second. Officials here in Los Angeles are going to be handing out free N-95 masks to fans. They hope those fans will wear the masks in the stands, apart from the brief moments when they're eating and drinking. But I'm confused. Because according to the mayor, you can also take off your mask if you're getting a selfie taken with a celebrity just so long as you hold your breath.
Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOARES: A confused Nick Watt there. Well, Mayor Garcetti's comment about holding his breath while taking a photo without a mask has a lot of people scratching their heads. Here's what one health expert has to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. MEGAN RANNEY, ASSOC. DEAN OF PUBLIC HEALTH, BROWN UNIVERSITY: It sounds like something that my 10-year-old who is quite prone to exaggeration, would say. Let's be clear on what likely protected him from getting infected. It's being vaccinated, being boosted, being outdoors and being around other people who are vaccinated, boosted and in the case of NFL testing. Holding your breath when you're sharing here with other people, you still got to take a breath in. That's a silly explanation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: Now, let's get you up to date on the COVID headlines making its way around the world. Cases are surging in Brazil as the country reports a new daily record of nearly 300,000 new cases. In some regions ICUs are 80 percent capacity. Austria's new rule making COVID vaccinations mandatory for all adults
is expected to go into effect in the coming hours. And beginning next week Sweden will lift most of its COVID restrictions. The government health agency said the COVID situation in the country is stable enough to start easing the rules.
But it's really a mixed picture, as you can imagine, in Europe. As some countries ease restrictions, others like Germany are reporting record daily cases. Let's get more on this from CNN's Jim Bittermann. And Jim, very different policies, a very different picture that we're seeing. What is the situation where you are?
JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT Well, in France one of the things that's gotten a little bit brighter here is the news from the health ministry. The health minister himself was on television and basically saying that the COVID fifth wave is now behind us. Here's what he had to say to the French public.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OLIVIER VERAN, FRENCH HEALTH MINISTER (through translator): My message tonight is that the worst is behind us. We've done the worst, first of all, because we've lived the worst COVID wave for two years. Even if we have other waves, we have every reason to think this will be the less variant. So, the worst is behind us, and we've done the hardest in this wave.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BITTERMANN: In fact, you may have noticed that he wasn't wearing a mask. That's the first time we've seen him appear in this kind of public forum without wearing a mask. And so, it is kind of a mixed bag around Europe. One of the parts of good news is that the Pfizer drug known as Paxlovid is going to be available as of today in pharmacies around France. This is a drug that is an antiviral that can be prescribed by doctors and basically will prevent COVID from becoming more serious. It has to be prescribed in a very tight window between the time the person has been diagnosed, but before the symptoms got too bad. And it can prevent hospitalizations and death.
Elsewhere though, as you mentioned, Austria, for example, is tightening regulations with a vaccine mandate.
[04:45:00]
And in Germany, cases have continued to climb. They're touching almost a quarter of a million cases in the last 24-hour period -- Isa.
SOARES: Jim Bittermann for us there in Paris. Thanks very much, Jim.
Embattled British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing one of his most embarrassing political setbacks to date. Four top aides abruptly resigned from Downing Street on Thursday. Perhaps really the biggest blow was the departure of policy chief and longtime senior aide, Munira Mirza. She resigned over the Prime Minister appearing to blame opposition leader Keir Starmer for not prosecuting an infamous pedophile more than a decade ago. Mr. Johnson off topic and misleading broadside, outraged members on both sides. Here's what he had to say about it on Thursday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: I want to be very clear about this because a lot of people have got very hot under the caller, and I understand why. Let's be absolutely clear, I'm talking not about the leader of the opposition's personal record when he was -- when he was DPP. And I totally understand that he had nothing to do personally with those decisions. I was making a point about the -- his responsibility for the organization as a whole. And I think people can see that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: CNN's Scott McLean is covering this for us. And Scott, really two points having listened to the Prime Minister there. One, that wasn't an apology. That wasn't and I'm sorry. But also, for viewers right around the world, this has gone past "Partygate" here.
SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you're absolutely right. So, the government this morning is trying to frame this as an expected shuffle in the wake of "Partygate" but the bottom line is, for people, four top aides resigning on the same day, the day after we had three MPs submit letters of no confidence. Certainly, it doesn't too much dispel the public perception that things are may be a little bit chaotic inside Downing Street.
So, Boris Johnson lost a chief of staff, his director of communications, who had "Partygate" allegations against him. And also, his principal private secretary, a man that the British press was referring to, as "party Marty." Because he's the guy who wrote now infamous email inviting Downing Street staff to this garden party where they should all bring their own booze.
In the case of Munira Mirza though, the woman that you mentioned, this is sort of in a different category. She is resigning because of the Prime Minister's failure to apologize for this false claim that he made implying that Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition had somehow personally been responsible for the decision not to prosecute this notorious pedophile well over a decade right now.
And so, you heard the Prime Minister there in his comments. He clarified what he meant but he certainly did not apologize. And that was not enough for her. So, she wrote in her resignation letter that this is not the usual cut and thrust of politics.
And she said, quote: You are a better man than most of your detractors will ever understand which is why it is desperately sad that you let yourself down by making a scurrilous accusation against the leader of the opposition.
Now after this broke, Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor was asked whether he believed that the Prime Minister should also apologize. And I just want to play what he said. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RISHI SUNAK, BRITISH CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: And with regard to the comments being honest, I wouldn't have said it. And I'm glad that the Prime Minister clarified what he meant.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCLEAN: Now I listened to that and I think that's pretty tame. But the British press is sort of framing this as a swipe at the Prime Minister, sort of a rebuke of the Prime Minister from his own Chancellor. Also, Rishi Sunak people know is widely rumored to be interested in becoming a Prime Minister himself if Boris Johnson issues the call.
SOARES: Yes, I wouldn't have thought he would have said I would take it, but I wouldn't have said it. So, I think that's I think the right being interpreted. We'll see where this leads us. We're on the threshold of MPs actually losing support. I know You'll keep an eye on it. Definitely won't be any leading drinks for these four aides. Thank you very much, Scott. Scott McLean there.
Coming up right here on CNN NEWSROOM a former NFL head coach says he was offered money by the team's owner to lose games. What the owner has to say about those allegations. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM.
[04:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SOARES: Welcome back, everyone. Two former Miami Dolphins assistant coaches are defending their former head coach, Brian Flores. It comes after his racial discrimination lawsuit against the National Football League, as well as others.
Dolphins Cornerback Coach Charles Burks tweeted -- as you can see there -- that Flores is facing a smear campaign and calling him a true leader of men.
Dolphins Defensive Back Coach Gerald Alexander also vouched for Flores's character on Tuesday. At the same time Flores may have an ally willing to join his lawsuit. In an ESPN interview on Wednesday, former Cleveland Browns Head Coach Hugh Jackson claims team ownership rewarded him financially to lose games. Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HUGH JACKSON, FORMER CLEVELAND BROWNS HEAD COACH: I've taken this to the National Football League. When I understood what was going on, I immediately called the National Football League and I talked to Roger Goodell about what I thought was going on. So, this is not new. People don't understand that I tried to sound this alarm a while back but nobody wanted to listen because the record was so bad. So, you didn't have a chance to really make a point because all the narrative was that he was just a bad coach. Well, that's not the case at all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: The Browns have denied this. In his lawsuit Flores made similar claims saying the Dolphins owner Stephen Ross urged him to lose games so the team could get higher draft pick.
Ross denies it saying in part: I take great personal exception to these malicious attacks and the truth must be known. The allegations are false, malicious and defamatory.
A mysterious and rare black diamond dubbed the "Enigma" is up for auction. Extremely large billion-year-old stone is literally out of this world. Thought to have either been created by a meteor impact or emerge from an asteroid that collided with Earth. At over 500 carats the rock is the star of the Sotheby's online sale. It's expected to fetch over $6 million. Get your checkbooks out.
[04:55:00]
And we all know it's important to tip your delivery drivers, but what if you as a customer got the tip -- if you got the customer tip instead. Dominos is giving $3 tips to people who come in and pick up their own pizza. The deal will let you claim the credit towards a future online order. Why the unusual move you ask? Well, Dominos might be the world's largest pizza chain, but like so many other businesses across the United States right now are struggling with staff shortages.
In the '60s and '70s psychologist figured out that yelling might just be the cure for what ails you. Primal scream therapy was born. Flash forward to 2022 as the ongoing stress of pandemic lockdown is still really ruining a lot of our lives. Some moms in Charleston, Massachusetts decided to give collective primal screaming a try. This is what I mean.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMIE LADUCA, MOTHER: Deep breath in.
(SCREAMING)
LADUCA: I lost my corporate job because it became so difficult to manage having two little kids at home and the unpredictability of having daycares closed and what are you going to do with them? I have a 1-year-old and a 4-year-old and they have constant quarantines. The kids can't get vaccines either. Just when you think you get over the hump, you have to start over again.
TESS DARCI, MOTHER: Even though I don't know these ladies, I just felt like we could all relate. Like, it was such an awesome release. I don't even feel the cold.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOARES: And these are all hard-working moms. I could do with some screaming too. At least one of the moms suggested making it a monthly event. And that does it here for me on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Isa Soares in
London. Coverage continues on "EARLY START" with Christine Romans and Laura Jarrett. Do stay right here with CNN. Bye-bye.
