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Journalist Grant Wahl Dies While Covering World Cup; Americans Celebrate Brittney Griner's Return To The U.S.; President Vladimir Putin Says Russia May Abandon "No First Use" Nuclear Doctrine; Global Condemnation For Execution Of Iranian Protester Mohsen Shekari; U.S. Faces Tripledemic Of RSV, Flu And COVID-19. Aired 3-4a ET
Aired December 10, 2022 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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LAILA HARRAK, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Welcome to all of our viewers watching from around the world. I'm Laila Harrak.
Ahead on CNN NEWSROOM, shock and heartbreak in Qatar. American sports journalist Grant Wahl dies after collapsing at the World Cup. How friends and colleagues are remembering him.
Home at last: basketball star Brittney Griner finally back on American soil. We're learning new details about what it took to bring her home.
And nuclear fears rising once again after Vladimir Putin floats the idea of changes to Russia's nuclear doctrine.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Laila Harrak.
HARRAK: There's grief and disbelief at the World Cup in Qatar after prominent American sports writer Grant Wahl died while covering the tournament. A witness tells CNN he collapsed during Friday's match between Argentina and the Netherlands.
Qatar's Supreme Court Committee for Delivery and Legacy says he fell ill in the press area and received immediate medical treatment, which continued as he was taken to the hospital.
We still don't know the exact cause of his death. But on Monday, Wahl said he visited a clinic after feeling chest discomfort.
He said, quote, "My body finally broke down on me after three weeks of little sleep, stress and lots of work."
CNN's Don Riddell has more on the sudden passing of Wahl as well as his health concerns ahead of the tragedy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) DON RIDDELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What we do know is that he collapsed during the game. It was an extraordinary game, a quarterfinal match between the Netherlands and Argentina. He had been complaining about a tightness in his chest. He had spoken about it in his podcast. He had written about it.
He had said this is not his first rodeo. He's covered eight men's World Cups before or eight including this one. And he said it's just -- you know, it's just par for the course. This is one of those things that happens.
Clearly he was concerned about it but not concerned enough to stop working. And, you know, he admitted that the schedule of covering these World Cups is absolutely grueling and, arguably, this one more so, because, you know, it's a condensed schedule because it's being played in the middle of the European club season.
So they wanted to kind of race through the tournament and get it over as soon as possible. That meant 17 consecutive days of multiple games. Because this tournament is being played essentially in a city, it means that fans and journalists can attend more than one game a day.
So that's what many journalists, including Grant Wahl, were doing.
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HARRAK: That was Don Riddell. Let's get more now from CNN's Darren Lewis, who is in Doha, Qatar.
Darren, shocking and unexpected news.
What is going through your mind right now?
DARREN LEWIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Laila, I woke up in total disbelief. And I can tell you many other European journalists, American journalists, all of us feeling the same right now. We just cannot believe that an icon of sports journalism, Grant Wahl, has gone.
Don was explaining the workload out here. I can tell you firsthand he's absolutely right. We're out there; the games finish late. Last night's game between the Netherlands and Argentina finished in the early hours.
After you finish writing or broadcasting, you then get home around about 3:00 am, 4:00 am and then you're up again, what, five or so hours later and it all begins again. It is so difficult out here.
And yet it's a privilege to be here. This is the premier event in world football. And you want to be a part of it. You want to be a part of the big stories.
That's what Grant did. He was at the vanguard of the biggest stories in world sport, in world football. That's what made him the legend that he is and was. And it's just a sense of disbelief right now, Laila, that he hasn't come home. HARRAK: Now Darren, this was Grant Wahl's eighth World Cup. Both of
you are seasoned football journalists.
What goes into covering a tournament this big, you know, the size of the World Cup, specifically this one in Qatar?
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HARRAK: What does a typical day look like for you?
LEWIS: Well, as I've been suggesting, the days are not just determined by the football and by the action; the days are determined by the news stories around them. Of course, CNN have been right across all of those stories. And Grant will have been among those people breaking that kind of story.
We obviously had him on the "WORLD SPORT" show alongside Don Riddell, talking about his experience. He'd worn that rainbow T-shirt. He'd been accosted by the guards for doing so.
But what he was trying to do is what he's always done, promoting LGBTQ rights, anti-discrimination and standing on his principles, as he always has done. So it hasn't just been about traveling and covering the football matches.
But it's also been about being across the big stories. And for somebody like myself, who has been working those long hours, I can tell you, as I say, it is wonderful to be here. But there are long days.
You don't get to see the unfashionable stuff, the waiting, the traveling, the stress involved, the filing, the broadcasting, the working hard to get it right. They are all things that meant a great deal to Grant Wahl. But they made him the great journalist that he was.
HARRAK: If I can ask you to elaborate on that, I mean, what made Grant Wahl so special?
LEWIS: Well, he worked hard to advance the cause of U.S. men's and women's soccer. You only have to look across social media right now and see the athletes, past and present, and the clubs that have been paying tribute to him to know just how hard he worked.
I don't mind saying, Laila, that, as a young journalist, I looked up to him as somebody on the other side of the Atlantic, as somebody who was on the front cover of "Sports Illustrated" and somebody who told the world about a teenage LeBron James, as somebody who was a leader in his field, a master of his craft.
LeBron has been talking about Grant and his shock at Grant's passing. And that shock will be shared by a lot of people, because this is a man who really did fight for the cause of U.S. sport, U.S. soccer in particular, when lots of other countries would look down their noses at the U.S. game. Grant was fighting for it. And a lot of people today, they'll tell you
themselves, Laila, just how much he was respected and admired. And I think his legacy will live on and he will inspire people as well to get into the game.
I must just point that aspect of it out, because he will have opened the gateway for people to want to be a part of this sport and to want to use their voices within this sport. He was a wonderful journalist and a wonderful man.
HARRAK: And a great legacy that you outline right there. Darren Lewis, talking to us from Doha, Qatar, Darren, thank you so much.
LEWIS: Thank you, Laila.
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HARRAK: Now that WNBA star Brittney Griner is back home in the U.S., it's raised hopes about Paul Whelan and other detained Americans being freed in similar deals.
Russia's president appears to be leaving that possibility open. Griner stepped off a plane unassisted early Friday in Texas and was taken to an Army medical center to get checked out. She'd been imprisoned in Russia for the past 10 months on a drug charge but was said to be in good spirits upon her release.
Most recently, Griner had been laboring at a Russian penal colony, where the women inmates make uniforms. Her attorney said Griner cut off her long dreadlocks about two weeks ago to better handle the extreme cold. For the very latest, here's CNN's Kylie Atwood at the U.S. State Department.
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KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the moment basketball superstar Brittney Griner stepped back on U.S. soil for the first time in nearly 10 months.
Leaving early morning in San Antonio, Texas, and taken to Brooke Army Medical Center, the same facility where Trevor Reed was treated after his release from Russia earlier this year.
The Defense Department will offer what is known as post-isolation support activities. Griner was said to be in good spirits on the journey back to the U.S. despite being held in difficult conditions of a Russian penal colony.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: She's on the ground.
CHERELLE GRINER, BRITTNEY'S WIFE: Stop it.
BIDEN: Yes, she's on the ground. ATWOOD (voice-over): The White House releasing this new video of Griner's wife and President Biden moments after the prisoner exchange in Abu Dhabi.
GRINER: It's such a good day.
ATWOOD (voice-over): WNBA coaches and players celebrate the release of one of their own.
VANESSA NYGAARD, PHOENIX MERCURY HEAD COACH: I think it is really a testament to their hard work, their energy, their commitment to keeping BG's name in the news.
ATWOOD (voice-over): But the Biden administration is also playing defense.
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): It's made us weaker --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
MCCARTHY: -- it's made Putin stronger and it's made Americans more vulnerable.
ATWOOD (voice-over): Amid criticism of the deal privately from DOJ officials and publicly from Republican lawmakers. That deal release notorious arms trafficker Viktor Bout, who is senior defense official says, could go right back to arms trafficking. Some fear he could help funnel weapons into the Ukraine battlefield.
ADM. JOHN KIRBY (RET.), COORDINATOR FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: Nobody is doing backflips that Mr. Bout is back on the streets here.
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KIRBY: I think it speaks to our understanding of our ability to defend our national interest that the president was able to make this deal.
ATWOOD (voice-over): And though the administration was not able to free fellow U.S. citizen Paul Whelan from Russian detention in exchange, a senior administration official says the U.S. is now considering new offers to Russia that could help bring Whelan home.
PAUL WHELAN, AMERICAN IMPRISONED IN RUSSIA: I don't understand why I'm still sitting here.
ATWOOD (voice-over): And despite extremely strained relations between the U.S. and Russia over Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Putin not taking further exchanges off the table.
VLADIMIR PUTIN, PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA (through translator): This is the result of negotiations and the search for compromises. In this case, compromises were found. We do not refuse to continue this work in the future.
ATWOOD: Now the question is what will it take from the United States for Russia to agree to another prisoner swap to get out Paul Whelan?
That is the question that remains. And U.S. officials grew frustrated in recent months because Russia kept demanding something from the United States that they couldn't deliver on.
They wanted a Russian who is serving a life sentence in Germany because of murder to be released. That's something U.S. officials said they simply couldn't do.
So the question going forward is do the Russians effectively and productively engage in future discussions with U.S. officials? -- Kylie Atwood, CNN, the State Department.
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HARRAK: A U.S. federal judge has declined to hold former president Donald Trump in contempt of court for failing to turn over classified records. That's according to two sources familiar with the matter.
They tell us that the judge instead urged Trump's legal team and the Justice Department to resolve their differences. An FBI search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort and home in August uncovered scores of documents marked classified.
And while Trump's lawyers have since turned over some additional documents, the Justice Department is concerned that Trump still might have more classified material in his possession.
Ukraine may get a better fighting chance against Iranian drones used by Russia. Next, new anti-drone defenses soon to be on their way to Kyiv.
Plus, Russia may reconsider one of the pillars of its nuclear strategy. President Putin says the first-strike approach may no longer be off the table.
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HARRAK: -- for its defenses against Iranian drones that have been wreaking havoc on its energy system. On Friday, the U.S. announced a new batch of military aid, which includes capability to fight drones like these.
Ukraine says Russia has fired more than a thousand drones and missiles on its energy facilities over the past two months. The last wave of strikes came on Monday, taking a number of power plants offline. Now Ukraine says it's working to repair the damage and restore electricity to critical infrastructure, like water plants and hospitals.
In the east, Ukrainian officials say Russia is making an unprecedented push on the city of Bakhmut. Russian troops are also raining artillery fire on other cities along the front line. President Zelenskyy says the damage that Russian guns leave behind is staggering.
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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): For a long time, there is no living space left on the land of these areas that has not been damaged by shells and fire. The occupiers actually destroyed Bakhmut, another Donbas city, that the Russian army turned into burnt ruins.
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HARRAK: Russia's president Putin, is taking his nuclear saber rattling to a whole new level. On Friday, he said the Kremlin might abandon its stated commitment never to use nuclear weapons first.
He says U.S. nuclear doctrine does not rule out a first strike, so why should Russia?
CNN's Sam Kiley has more from Ukraine.
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SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, is continuing to play with the narrative of the potential threat coming from Russia over the use of nuclear weapons.
Now some months ago, this was raised as a specter, hinting that, if things went very badly for Russia, perhaps on the Ukrainian battlefield, that perhaps somewhere, emerging from the Kremlin back then, there were hints there might be the use of something like a tactical nuclear weapon if Russia's back was to the wall.
Since then, recently, Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, said, in his view, the likelihood of a nuclear escalation has gone down as a result of red lines being drawn and explained for Vladimir Putin.
Putin followed up those statements by saying that Russia would never be the first to use a nuclear weapon, that it was purely defensive, that only Russia had nuclear weapons on its own territory.
And then just in the last 24 hours, he's now slightly changed that narrative, saying, well, maybe we'll look at first use as part of the Russian doctrine; in other words, the preemptive use of nuclear weapons to attack a potential enemy, to take out its capability to fire nuclear weapons back.
Now this would, in Vladimir Putin's view, represent a shift in Russian doctrine. It's not one he's saying he's going to adopt but he at the same time said that only Russia had these hypersonic missiles. These may be mythological.
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KILEY (voice-over): They may be real. The Russians claim to have used them in the early stages of their invasion of Ukraine here in this country. But he says they are superior to anything in the American arsenal and that is significant. He pointed out the American arsenal as being inferior -- Sam Kiley, CNN, in Kyiv.
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HARRAK: Protesters returned to streets across Iran, making their voices heard, despite the execution of a demonstrator just one day earlier. That story and more after the break.
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HARRAK: Welcome back to all of our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Laila Harrak and you're watching CNN NEWSROOM.
Condemnation rolled in from around the world Friday over the execution of an Iranian protester. Mohsen Shekari was hanged on Thursday and many nations have strongly denounced his death.
European foreign ministers will discuss it Monday at a meeting in Brussels. And Germany and the U.K. summoned their respective Iranian ambassadors.
Even so, inside Iran, protesters were undaunted.
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HARRAK (voice-over): Demonstrators were back in the streets of cities across the nation on Friday. However, Iranian authorities say more executions could take place in the coming days; 11 other protesters have also been sentenced to death. The U.N. human rights chief says the government's goal is to suppress the mass movement.
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VOLKER TURK, U.N. HIGH COMMISSIONER OF HUMAN RIGHTS: We issued a tweet yesterday about the execution -- sorry -- about the execution of Mohsen Shekari. It's very troubling and clearly designed to send a chilling effect to the rest of the protesters.
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HARRAK: The hanging of Shekari is the first known public execution associated with Iran's protest movement. CNN's Melissa Bell has details but we must warn you, some of these images may be disturbing.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The reaction to the news that Mohsen Shekari had been hanged. The howl of a relative as he became the first protester to be executed in Iran in the three months of demonstrations.
Just 75 days later, he was executed. The first protester hanged likely not the last, tens more face death sentences.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why the Iranian authorities choose him as the first victim, I think it has got to do with the fact that we didn't know so much about him that his name wasn't so known.
BELL: It was the deaths in the custody of the morality police of 22- year-old Mahsa Amini that set off the wave of discontent that has only widened and deepened, posing the greatest challenge to Iran's regime since the 1979 Islamic revolution swept the mullahs and their strict Islamic interpretation to power.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then Mahsa was a young girl who just normal young girl but also a Kurdish girl. So in so many aspects it patched, Iranians who have been treated as second class citizens.
BELL: Across Iran this week, a strike called by the protesters and on Wednesday, known as student day in Iran protests at several universities.
Inside Tehran University, Iran's president blamed the United States for what he described as riots. Outside the protesters chants echoed in the grounds.
Tehran's response to the popular anger has been predictably violent. Already human rights groups say 458 protesters have died, many more now face the death penalty.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Death penalty is the strongest instrument of breaking fear. It's more than shooting people on the streets.
BELL: Death to the dictator chanted protesters on Thursday night for now at least unbound by Tehran's campaign of fear -- Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.
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HARRAK: More legal trouble for Hong Kong media tycoon, Jimmy Lai, already in jail. He's been sentenced to nearly six years more prison time and a quarter million dollar fine for fraud.
He founded the pro-democracy Apple News Daily shutdown last year after a police raid during a government crackdown. In this latest case, he was found to have concealed using the newspaper's headquarters to support private firms he controlled, violating its lease.
Lai is a high-profile critic of Beijing, under Hong Kong's sweeping national security law. He was sentenced to almost 13 months in prison last year for participating in an unauthorized protest.
The U.S. is facing a triple threat as the holiday season gets underway in earnest from influenza, the RSV respiratory virus and COVID-19.
The CDC says the U.S. currently has far more flu cases than it normally does as this time of year and the number of communities with high COVID transmission is also increasing. The first week of December saw the highest COVID death toll in two months.
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HARRAK: Meantime, children's hospitals have been especially hard-hit by cases of respiratory viruses like RSV. Pediatric hospitalizations are now slowing but remain high.
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HARRAK: Joining me now from Los Angeles, Dr. Jorge Rodriguez. He is a board-certified internal medicine specialist and viral researcher.
Doctor, I'm told respiratory viruses are typical for this time of year.
So why does this surge in cases seem to take health care workers by surprise?
DR. JORGE RODRIGUEZ, INTERNAL MEDICINE SPECIALIST AND VIRAL RESEARCHER: Well, because,first of all, thank you for having me on the show.
It's taking us by surprise because usually the viruses come sequentially. You have respiratory syncytial virus surge. Then you have influenza surge. This year, they're all happening at the same time and they're all happening in greater numbers than we are used to.
So, unfortunately, it is a perfect storm of two respiratory viruses. And if you throw in the surge of SARS-CoV-2, which is the COVID virus, we're seeing hospitals that are approximately 80 percent full on the average in the United States and upwards of 90 percent in some specific states and counties.
HARRAK: Those are incredible numbers.
What can you tell us about what's happening in California where you are?
RODRIGUEZ: Well, where we are, you know, Los Angeles County is probably, if not the most populous county, so what we're seeing is we have already surpassed the benchmark that puts us in a very high infectivity level.
We're seeing over 200 people getting infected per 100,000. That doesn't sound like a lot but it is. We're at 265. That's one of the benchmarks that have to be reached before the county says, you know what?
Indoor masks are now mandatory. The second is hospitalizations. We are seeing hospitalizations again increasing to levels that we have not seen in months. That's what's happening here. And it's the height of the holiday season, which means that people are
going to be congregating indoors with their family, with their children. And that is just going to lead to a greater surge. So we think that probably, in the next couple of weeks, L.A. County is going to enforce an indoor mask mandate.
HARRAK: Doctor, I want to talk about RSV, because I understand we're seeing a surge of RSV.
What is RSV and who is most at risk for RSV?
RODRIGUEZ: Well, respiratory syncytial virus is what RSV stands for. Basically it's a virus that attacks the inner meat, if you will, of the lungs. It is usually, by far, something that happens in children. It is something that is seen every year.
Sometimes millions of children get infected and tens of thousands end up in the hospital and, unfortunately, thousands die from this. What we're seeing this year is a larger amount of children that are getting respiratory syncytial virus, RSV, and are getting sicker.
Why this is happening, you know, there are some theories. The theories are that, for the last couple of years, children were not exposed to RSV because we had isolation. We had distancing. We were wearing masks at a greater level.
So all of these children that had not developed any immunity and maybe would have gotten it gradually are all getting it at the same time.
HARRAK: Now COVID in the meantime also persists. It's been three years now. This is going to be the third Christmas basically where COVID is still around.
You know, is COVID still a very serious threat?
Are people ending up in the ER?
Are people dying from COVID?
RODRIGUEZ: Absolutely, people are still dying from COVID and people are still ending up in the emergency room. What people don't seem to want to grasp is that vaccines do work. The bivalent vaccine, if nothing else, will minimize the potential severity of COVID.
You may still get it but you're not going to end up in the hospital dying from it, statistically, if you take the vaccine. Unfortunately, the percentage of people in this country that have been vaccinated is in the teens, maybe 20 percent if we're lucky.
And that's the main thing that can be done to prevent, you know, getting seriously ill from COVID.
Let me put something in perspective. We don't know what next year is going to bring, just like we didn't know what respiratory syncytial virus or the flu was going to do this year. So we don't know; if a great majority of people who get COVID, something catastrophic, unfortunately, may happen. So it's always best to be proactive.
And why not be cautious and take care of your health by getting vaccinated?
RODRIGUEZ: Some final tips from you, Doctor.
What should people do to keep their family safe this holiday season?
RODRIGUEZ: The first thing you should do to keep your family safe is get vaccinated if you're going to be in a large group.
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RODRIGUEZ: If you can, have your family members test themselves, even though rapid tests may linger a few days behind. Get tested before you meet with the family. If you have any symptoms, if you have fever, chills, cough, for God's sake, stay home and continue to wash your hands and, when possible, wear a mask.
HARRAK: Dr. Jorge Rodriguez, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you.
RODRIGUEZ: My pleasure.
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HARRAK: Still ahead this hour, the stunning upsets, the comebacks and all the nail-biting highlights as the first semifinal matchup is now set in Qatar.
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HARRAK: Now is there anything Taylor Swift can't do?
When we come back, we'll tell you about her new project that has Hollywood buzzing. Please stay with us.
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HARRAK: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and Canada. I'm Laila Harrak and you're watching CNN NEWSROOM.
Rapper Ye, once known as Kanye West, has lost an honorary doctorate over his offensive comments about Black and Jewish communities.
On Friday, the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago revoked the distinction. It had been awarded to him seven years ago because of his contributions to arts and culture. But now the school says it repudiates what it called his anti-Semitic and racist statements.
Ye recently lost a number of lucrative business deals. His Twitter account was suspended after he shared an image of a Star of David with a swastika in it.
Sir Elton John is quitting Twitter. The music superstar says, all of his life, he used music to bring people together but it saddens him to see misinformation now being used to divide our world.
He added that he has decided to no longer use Twitter, given the recent policy changes that will allow misinformation to flourish unchecked. Elton John is just the latest celebrity to leave the platform after Elon Musk's controversial takeover.
Taylor Swift is adding a new challenge to her amazing list of accomplishments. The singer-songwriter is going to direct a feature- length movie for Searchlight Pictures but there's more. She also wrote the screenplay.
The president of Searchlight referred to Swift as a, quote, "once in a generation storyteller." No word so far on the topic of the movie.
I'm sure it's going to be a huge success.
That wraps up this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Laila Harrak. Kim Brunhuber picks up our coverage after a quick break.
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HARRAK: I'll see you tomorrow.
