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The Difficult Road to Diplomatic Solutions in 2023; China Stops Reporting Daily Cases as New Infections Surge ; Raskin: Electoral College is a Danger to Democracy. Aired 12-12:30a ET

Aired December 26, 2022 - 00:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LAILA HARRAK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Welcome to our viewers watching from around the world. I'm Laila Harrak.

[00:00:35]

Ahead on CNN NEWSROOM, the holiday season offering no break from Russia's relentless attacks on Ukraine as Volodymyr Zelenskyy warns of dark and difficult days ahead.

Plus, a deepening crisis in Afghanistan as several foreign aid groups suspend work in the country following the Taliban's ban on female employees.

And China tops -- stops, rather, publishing daily COVID data, even as new infections explode amid rolled-back restrictions.

ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Laila Harrak.

HARRAK: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is warning difficult days may lie ahead before the end of the year, even as Ukrainians across the country gathered to pray for peace and mark the Christmas holiday.

Inside a Kyiv metro station, the sounds of resilience as Ukrainians break out in song during an air-raid alarm. Residents joined a singing group performing carols on Christmas day, with some saying the songs helped lift their spirits.

To the South in Kherson, some Ukrainians marked Christmas in church just a day after a deadly wave of Russian strikes targeted the city.

And even on Christmas day, the sounds of shelling could be heard in Bakhmut, a frontline city that's been the scene of fierce fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces.

Mr. Zelenskyy issued this warning ahead of the new year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Only a few days of this year left. You must be aware that our enemy will try to make this time dark and difficult for us.

Russia has lost everything it could this year, but it is trying to compensate for its losses with the gloating of its propagandists after the missile strikes on our country, on our energy sector. I know that darkness will not prevent us from bringing the invaders to their new defeats. But we must be ready for any scenario.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRAK: Russian President Vladimir Putin says he's now ready to negotiate over the war in Ukraine. That's according to an interview with the state television.

Mr. Putin says he's ready to talk with everyone involved about acceptable solutions but claims Ukraine is refusing to negotiate.

Well, Ukraine says it's actually Russia who doesn't want to negotiate. In a tweet, the Ukrainian presidential advisor said, quote, "Putin needs to come back to reality." And that it's Russia who's trying to avoid responsibility.

Well, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, tensions with China and climate change. Nic Robertson has a preview of what to expect in global diplomacy in the new year.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (voice-over): This year's war in Ukraine, the biggest land war in Europe since 1945, is both a symptom of diplomacy's limits and a harbinger of potential decay to come.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's unprovoked aggression is yet to be tamed by sanction or reason, despite diplomatic outreach.

OLAF SCHOLZ, GERMAN CHANCELLOR (through translator): I believe it's right to have constant discussions. There must be a moment where Russia realizes that it needs to get out of this situation.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): China's Xi Jinping, whose increasingly bellicose diplomacy defying claims to Taiwan is watching Ukraine, learning possible international limits on his own potential land grab.

Scholz, who is picking up his predecessor Angela Merkel's peacemaking mantle, used his recent visit to Beijing to try to shut down Russia's war and head off one over Taiwan.

SCHOLZ (through translator): It is important for China to use its influence on Russia. It is about principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): 2022 has tested diplomacy more than any other year in decades. On the upside, democracies have risen to the challenge. Diplomatic unity in the face of Russian aggression.

[00:05:02] EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT (through translator): As war returns

to European soil, we need to become brothers in arms once more.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): On the downside, it's shown diplomatic words alone will not work. They need to be backed by military muscle.

JENS STOLTENBERG, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: What happens at the negotiating table depends on what happens on the battlefield. Therefore, the best way to increase the chances for a peaceful solution is to support Ukraine. We will not back down.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): The past year is setting the stage for diplomatic storms to come.

PUTIN (through translator): We will defend ourselves with all available means at our disposal.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Putin continues to tease the threat of a nuclear strike, potentially taking diplomacy in 2023 to its limits.

FERNANDO ARIAS, DIRECTOR-GENERAL, ORGANIZATION FOR PROHIBITION OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS: It has exacerbated existing tensions to a point where unity of the international community cannot be presumed.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Add to this the increasing tensions with China, and 2023 is shaping up to be an even greater challenge than 2022.

RISHI SUNAK, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We recognize China poses a systemic challenge to our values and interests, a challenge that grows more acute as it moves towards even greater authoritarianism.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Paradoxically, another growing challenge, climate change, perhaps offers a way out to the downward diplomatic spiral. A need to combat global warning together.

JOHN KERRY: Without China, even as the U.S. is, as we are, moving towards a 1.5 degree program, which we are, if we don't have China, nobody else can make to that goal.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): As with previous years, 2023 will offer opportunity to develop diplomatic off-ramps, perhaps none more poignant than the G7, to be hosted by Japan in Hiroshima.

There will be another climate summit, too, but as this year's COP27 in Egypt showed, during global economic hardship, domestic politics trump collective salvation.

The G20 in India could be a place where compromises are made. The war in Ukraine would be its 19th month, and by then, battlefield realities hard to ignore, despite Putin's new threats of a long war.

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: This will end, and it will end almost certainly with diplomacy, with a negotiation. But what I think we have to see is a just and durable peace, not a phony peace.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): So the big diplomatic question for 2023: how to get Putin to agree.

The answer may lie in the soaring food and energy costs triggered by the war. If the global situation worsens, collective pressure for some kind of peace will increase. The test of 2023: what to do if Putin ignores the warnings.

Nic Robertson, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRAK: Multiple countries are condemning the Taliban's decision to ban female employees of aid organizations from working. Four major international aid agencies have announced they're temporarily suspending operations in Afghanistan.

A senior official for Save the Children says female staff are crucial in getting assistance to children and other women.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID WRIGHT, SAVE THE CHILDREN INTERNATIONAL: But to have access to women and children, you need to have female health staff. And so if you don't have female staff, you won't have access to -- to those people. So essentially, it's just not possible for us to do our job if we -- our female colleagues are not able to get out there.

It really is a grave situation, and particularly when it comes to the stabilization centers. But of course, as I say, we're in the middle of winter. There's a case of pneumonia that needs treating. So ultimately, if this is not resolved within a week or so, children are going to start dying as a result of this decision.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRAK: Well, meanwhile, the Red Cross and the European Union say the move will severely restrict the delivery of aid. And the E.U. is urging the Taliban to reverse its decision.

Qatar also expressed deep concern over the ban.

However, in a tweet, a Taliban spokesperson lashed out at a U.S. official, asking her not to, quote, "interfere" in Afghanistan's internal issues.

China is changing the way it reports new COVID infections. Its national health commission announced it would stop publishing a daily case count. That responsibility now falls to China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which only publishes new numbers once a month.

[00:10:10]

Well, it comes as China is seeing a surge in new infections after a dramatic reversal of its strict zero-COVID policy. Officials in an Eastern province near Shanghai are reporting more than 1 million new cases a day. And they expect that number to double in the coming days. CNN's Kristie Lu Stout joins me now from Hong Kong with more. Kristie,

an extraordinary turn of events. Just as China is experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases, its top health body has now stopped posting daily case numbers. Why?

KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it is a very puzzling move. And it just adds to the concern out there that China may be attempting to conceal negative information about this COVID-19 outbreak.

As cases are surging across the country, China's top health body has basically stopped reporting daily COVID case counts. On Sunday, the National Health Commission, or the NHC, said that all relevant outbreak information would, instead, be handled by one of the departments that it manages, a sub-department called China CDC.

Concern is indeed rising about the true scope and scale of China's outbreak. Official figures have been unreliable, especially now, as China has stopped conducting those mass testing programs as it unwinds from years of zero-COVID regime.

But data is still coming in from some provinces in some cities. For example, Zhejiang (ph) province. This is located just South of Shanghai. This is home to 64 million people.

Health officials there are posting 1 million new COVID cases every day. And it's important to contextualize that number. According to CNN's calculations, that breaks down to about 1,563 new daily infections per 100,000 people.

And health officials there in Zhejiang (ph) also add the peak of this outbreak will soon come. It will happen around New Year's. That's the next weekend when it will reach about 2 million new daily COVID infections.

Also getting data coming in from Qingdao, which is the port city that is located in the North of the country. This is a city of about 9 million people. They're reporting about half a million new infections every day.

Also, Dongguan. That's a major manufacturing hub. This is a city of 10 million people. It's reporting about 250,000 to 350,000 new infections a day.

Now let's us bring up this statement I want to share from you from Dongguan health officials, just underscoring the increasingly dire situation there.

They say this, quote, "The peak of COVID infection is approaching. Infection numbers are increasing at an accelerating rate in Dongguan. Our health system and health workers are facing an unprecedented challenge and immense pressure," unquote.

And despite that dire picture and despite the surge of infections and deaths across the country, we have heard recent data come out from China's CDC. Chinese officials now reporting zero COVID deaths for the six days leading up to Sunday.

Back to you, Laila.

HARRAK: Kristie Lu Stout reporting from Hong Kong. Thank you so much.

STOUT: Thank you.

HARRAK: Taiwanese officials say nearly 50 Chinese aircraft have crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait. That's the informal barrier between China and the self-governed island.

The incursions on Sunday are Beijing's largest show of force against Taipei in recent months. They were a part of so-called strike drills that China conducted in response to, quote, "provocations" from Taiwan and the U.S.

They come just days after U.S. President Joe Biden signed a new law to modernize defenses for Taiwan to deter Chinese aggression.

Millions of Americans could soon get relief as the arctic blast that pummeled most of the U.S. in the days before Christmas slowly starts to weaken.

Well, the winter storm brought heavy snow, bitterly cold winds and frigid temperatures to Central and Northeastern states. At least 37 people have died as a result of the storm and about 98,000 homes and businesses are still without power.

Well, the National Weather Service says Buffalo, New York, caught the brunt of the storm, getting more than a meter of snowfall over the weekend.

New York's governor asked the federal government on Sunday for an emergency disaster declaration to help the state cover the costs of what she called a once-in-a-lifetime storm.

The White House is blaming Texas Governor Greg Abbott for the migrants who were dropped off at the U.S. vice president's residence. Busloads of migrants arrived outside Kamala Harris's Washington home in below- freezing temperatures on Christmas Eve.

It was not clear who's responsible for sending the migrants, although Abbott has sent busses of migrants North in the past.

The White House released this statement, saying, "This was a cruel, dangerous and shameful stunt. As we have repeatedly said, we are willing to work with anyone, Republican or Democrat alike, on real solutions. But these political games accomplish nothing and only put lives in danger."

[00:15:11]

Still to come, why a high-ranking House Democrat is calling for big changes to the way Americans choose their president.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRAK: Well, now that the January 6th Committee has wrapped up its investigation, one of its members, House Democrat Jamie Raskin, said the -- says the next step to safeguard democracy is to reform the Electoral College.

Well, right now, Americans don't select the U.S. president directly. They vote for their states' electors, who are then expected to carry out the will of the voters when they vote for president. Mr. Raskin says it's time to revamp the system.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): The Electoral College now, which has given us five popular vote losers as president in our history, twice in this century alone, has become a danger, not just to democracy but to the American people. It was a danger on January 6th.

There are so many curving byways, and nooks and crannies in the Electoral College that there are opportunities for a lot of strategic mischief. We should elect the president the way we elect governors, senators, mayors, representatives, everybody else. Whoever gets the most votes wins.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRAK: While Mr. Raskin's remarks come just days after the House committee investigating the U.S. Capitol riot and Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election wrapped up its probe. Well, in a symbolic move, the committee referred Trump to the Justice Department on four criminal charges.

Well, joining me now from Los Angeles is CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein.

Ron, so good to have you with us. We just heard House Democrat Jamie Raskin. He believes that, in order to safeguard democracy, the Electoral College should be reformed. How do you see it? What are the chances of this actually ever happening?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: No, you know, you can't change something like that, because the states that will be disadvantaged will -- will refuse to do so.

I mean, he is right that we are seeing increasing divergence, increasing frequency of divergence between the popular vote and the Electoral College. It only happened three times until the year 2000. Now it's happened two out of the last six elections and both in the same direction, with the Republican losing the popular vote but winning the Electoral College because of their dominance of small, relatively sparsely-populated, predominately white rural interior states that are over represented in the Electoral College.

But that is a system that, Laila, we're have to have to live with for a while here in the U.S.

HARRAK: Let's look ahead, I mean, Republicans are set to take over next month. What are you watching for from the Republican-led House come January?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, it's really going to be interesting, because obviously, the election did not go nearly as well as they expected. And the consequence of that is they have a much smaller majority than they expected.

[00:20:08]

And they have a majority that is really bifurcated between two very distinct poles. The biggest bulk of the caucus are from Republicans representing Trump country. I think something like three-quarters of the Republicans in the House are from districts that Trump won by ten points or more.

But their majority, the reason they got over the top, is because there are 18 Republicans in the House who won districts that voted for Joe Biden in 2020.

And the tension between those members, who really need to show voters who are, at the least, ambivalent about Republican control, that they can work across party lines. Their incentives are very different than those representatives of Trump country, who basically feel the need to show their constituents they are fighting Biden in every possible way.

So on everything from legislation to handling the -- raising the debt ceiling for the U.S. debt, to federal debt, to investigations, I think you're going to see a tension between those who want all-out, scorched-earth confrontation and those, really, the majority makers, who realize that that kind of approach, if that's the definition of a party, they are going to have a hard time in a presidential year holding those seats.

HARRAK: I'm hoping that you can weigh in on the following. Of course, we saw that humanitarian situation along the U.S. border with Mexico. It's worsening.

On Christmas Eve, the coldest on record, busloads of migrants were dropped off on Vice President Kamala Harris's Washington, D.C., doorstep. This seems to be designed to call attention to the border situation. Is this tenable?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, you know, it's really not tenable from any direction. Obviously, the level of pressure that we have on the border is anonymously difficult for the states that are on the front line of it.

But these political stunts, which really seem almost like FOX News programming with real-life consequences, from Republican governors in these states. Both the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, and the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis. You know, that is not a solution either.

Certainly, treating people as pawns in this way. Dropping them off on the sidewalk on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C., on Christmas Eve on a frigid night. So inhumane that, you know, it risks a backlash. I think Abbott and DeSantis, the two governors who have done this,

feel empowered, because they won pretty convincing reelections. And there is a constituency in the Republican coalition for the -- you know, the toughest possible action in every way, which this would qualify as.

But I think to most Americans, this seems gratuitous and cruel.

And again, it really goes back to that previous answer. How is the Republican Party going to be defined over the next two years? They did very well in this election in states that already leaned in their direction, the so-called red states.

But in blue states and in swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, where they were hoping for inroads, they were decisively rejected by those swing suburban voters. Even though most of them are dissatisfied with the economy, which is very unusual in American politics.

And so the question is, does the party over the next two years recalibrate in response to that? Or does it double down on kind of the Trumpian-style confrontational politics that this is representative of, at the risk of seeing the same thing in 2024?

HARRAK: Well, continuing on that line of reasoning, I mean, what is the Biden administration's plan for the border? And if the administration can't count on support from Republicans, do you expect to see a continuation of the status quo over the next two years?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, you know there has been -- I've covered this issue of since the early 1990s in the U.S. And the answer to the border has always been that neither party alone can politically do all of the things that need to be done.

The answer has always been some version of a grand bargain that toughens enforcement on the border itself; provides a pathway to legal status for the roughly 11 million people who are here illegally now; and provides for a steady flow of future worker.

We just had the slowest decade of population growth in the U.S., except for the Depression, in American history. We need more working- age adults, particularly as the Baby Boomers age and increases the retirement population.

That kind of grand bargain, Laila, was passed by the Senate on a bipartisan basis in 2006, passed again by the Senate on a bipartisan basis in 2013.

But each time, the Republicans who control the House at that point refuse to even take it up.

And we are kind of stuck. The idea that we are going to pass either an enforcement-only kind of solution or something that the Democrats want to focus only on legalization, that is just not just going to happen.

The only way to deal with this is to deal with it in a comprehensive manner. And the only way to get there is for the two parties to lock arms together and do it jointly. That is just simply still off the table in the Republican-controlled House, because so many of these members are from districts that -- where they feel that it's politically untenable.

[00:25:06]

HARRAK: Ron Brownstein, so good to have you with us. Thank you.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

HARRAK: And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRAK: King Charles honored Queen Elizabeth's legacy in his first televised Christmas address as monarch.

In the speech, he paid a heartfelt tribute to his late mother and talked about all of those who missed someone at the Christmas table this year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KING CHARLES III, UNITED KINGDOM: Christmas is a particularly poignant time for all of us who have lost loved ones. We feel their absence at every familiar turn of the season and remember them in each cherished tradition.

In the much-loved carol, "O Little Town of Bethlehem," we sing of how "in thy dark street shineth the everlasting light. My mother's belief in the power of that light was an essential part of her faith in God. But also her faith in people. And, it is one which I share with my whole heart.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRAK: The message marks Britain's first annual Christmas Day broadcast not delivered by the queen since her first message in 1957.

Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Laila Harrak. "THE JOURNEY MATTERS" is up next.

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