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U.S. Considering COVID Restrictions for Travelers from China; House GOP Leadership Silent as Santos Faces Growing Condemnation; House Lawmakers Ban TikTok from Official Devices; Pending Home Sales Drop for 6th-Straight Month. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired December 28, 2022 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: China's sudden rollback of its COVID measures is having a major ripple effect. Despite soaring case rates, foreign governments are grappling with how to handle Chinese passengers once the country's ban on air travel is lifted next month.
The U.S. is now considering new COVID measures on travelers from China. And just today, Italy also announced it'll enforce mandatory testing.
Let's discuss this with CNN medical analyst, Dr. Jonathan Reiner.
Dr. Reiner, thanks for joining us.
What do you think should be done about this situation? Do you hope that there will be new requirements on travel, travelers from China? And if so, what would you do?
DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Hi, Abby.
Well, China's got a big problem. And unfortunately, it's very difficult to shield the rest of the world from China's massive surge right now.
We learned early on in the pandemic that these travel restrictions don't work. Their benefits are really illusory. They give you a false sense of security, kind of like locking a screen door.
This virus is all over the world. And the variants that are circulating in China are already in the United States.
I think the predominant variant in China right now is something called Bf.7, which has been in the United States since September. Not the predominant variant but it's already here.
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And the other thing to remember is that if you try and test passengers, a test is a snapshot of time. So if a passenger is tested a day before their flight or even the day
after their flight, they are negative at that moment. That doesn't mean that they are not already infected, just not testing positive.
It's really impossible to block people from coming into the United States. And I think these restrictions have no real public health benefit.
PHILLIP: Are you concerned, though? You mentioned one of the variants that's been, you said, in the United States already. Are you concerned with what we all don't know, what we all don't know?
I think there are some concerns the Chinese government hasn't been forthcoming about their data, what kinds of variants they might -- that might be circulating among their population.
REINER: Well, absolutely. And we know the Chinese are incredibly opaque and their numbers make no sense.
When you look at the numbers coming out of certain regions in China, it suggests that the growth of the pandemic in China is now explosive.
In the eastern city Chengdu, which is where maybe a half a million people a day are becoming infected. That's a city of about 10 million people.
So from outside sources and from looking at sort of regional reports, we do have the sense that the virus is just widespread throughout China.
The Chinese all along have been very opaque about the variants and the degree of disease. The Chinese are not reporting deaths. We think, unfortunately, the mortality toll in China before this surge is done may reach 500,000 to a million people.
PHILLIP: But do you think that we have a handle on the variants that might be there, that could come here, is what I'm wondering?
REINER: What I'm saying is -- what I'm saying is we don't have a full understanding of all the variants that are circulating in China or for that matter in the United States.
But what I'm also trying to say is there's no way to keep whatever is spreading from China from spreading to the United States.
Which is why I think what the world should be doing is urging China to put in place a measure to more fully vaccinate their population with more effective vaccines than they've used.
They've used sort of homegrown, old technology attenuated live virus vaccines. They have shunned the predominant mRNA-based vaccines that have been used in other parts of the Western world.
And the net result of that is going to be a massive loss of life in China.
PHILLIP: Yes, it's very troubling.
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PHILLIP: Dr. Jonathan Reiner, thank you so much for that.
We should hear soon what the decision from the United States government is going to be to do about what they're going to do about the situation with China.
Thank you.
REINER: Thanks, Abby.
PHILLIP: Today, Pope Francis is asking for prayers for his predecessor. At the end of his final audience of the year, the pontiff announced that Pope Benedict is very sick. Francis issued a statement saying, the 95-year-old's condition has worsened.
In 2013, he became the first head of the Roman Catholic Church in almost 600 years to step down, citing his advanced age.
Benedict's legacy has also suffered recently following a review of his handling of sex abuse cases during his time as archbishop of Munich.
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And he's still defiant. George Santos, the man who lied on his record, still thinks that he should serve in Congress. Why are Republican leaders still using -- still refusing to say anything about all of this?
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PHILLIP: There's a new hard truth for incoming Republican Congressman George Santos. A growing number of his soon-to-be colleagues want him out or at least investigated over all of these lies that he's now admitted to.
His former opponent telling CNN this --
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ROBERT ZIMMERMAN, DEMOCRATS WHO LOST THE ELECTION TO REP.-ELECT GEORGE SANTOS: The idea that he would actually use the Holocaust, the atrocity, the unspeakable tragedy of the Holocaust as a political stunt, it is such a hateful, disrespectful act to take towards the Jewish community.
It really is the ultimate act of anti-Semitism when you try to manipulate and exploit a tragedy like that for political gain.
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PHILLIP: CNN's Melanie Zanona is following all of this on Capitol Hill.
Mel, Zimmerman's comments, as you just heard, are shared by Democrats who have been speaking out about Santos. But on the Republican side, Republicans have been pretty quiet.
What's new today on that front?
MELANIE ZANONA, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: Yes, well, actually, we have seen some New York Republicans start to turn on Santos, which is notable.
In fact, two incoming freshmen who are supposed to be in Santos' freshman class and who represents districts near where Santos is set to represent his district in Long Island have come out with statements condemning Santos.
Nick Lalota said there needs to be a House ethics investigation as well as law enforcement involvement potentially if necessary. He called the entire controversy a distraction for Republicans.
And Anthony D'Esposito, he came out and said that these lies are hurtful, that he's hearing from constituents that are really concerned by them, and called on Santos to pursue a path of honesty.
However, Abby, Santos continues to lie. He went on FOX News last night. There was a very contentious interview with Tulsi Gabbard, who was filling in. And said he never claimed to be Jewish on the campaign trail.
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Even though, here at CNN, we obtained documents that show he did claim he was a proud American Jew when he was on the campaign trail.
Take a listen to how he's now trying to explain it.
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REP.-ELECT GEORGE SANTOS (R-NY): My heritage is Jewish. I've always identified as Jewish. I was raised a practicing Catholic. I think I've gone through this -- even I've not -- not being raised a practicing Jew, I always said I'm Jew-ish. Remember, I was raised Catholic.
Look, I understand everybody wants to nitpick at me. I'm going to reassure this once and for all, I'm not a facade. I'm not a persona. I have an extensive career that I worked really hard to achieve.
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ZANONA: Now, it is ultimately up to Kevin McCarthy to choose whether to seat Santos or whether to give him any committee assignments. But so far, GOP leaders are remaining silent -- Abby?
PHILLIP: It's really extraordinary to see him doubling down on all of that. But on another topic, Mel, also today the House banned the popular
social media app TikTok from official devices. Just the latest in an effort to kind of crack down on TikTok.
What can you tell us about that?
ZANONA: The chief administrative officer put out a memo to staff saying if you have TikTok on a House issued mobile device you need to delete it. And also letting staffers know that here on out you are prohibited from downloading it on your mobile device.
This comes after the Cybersecurity Unit determined that TikTok is a security risk.
And it also comes after Congress passed a spending bill that banned TikTok on all government issued devices. But that only applied to the executive branch. It did not apply to Congress.
And so now the House is taking matters into their own hands
PHILLIP: That's going to be a little tough for the lawmakers who are trying to reach a younger generation on TikTok.
ZANONA: Definitely, Gen-Zers.
PHILLIP: Gen-Zers won't be too happy.
Melanie Zanona, thank you.
And there's more bad news for the housing market. Sales dropping for a sixth straight month. What does it mean for a potential for a recession next year?
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PHILLIP: It was an epic night last night on the basketball court. Dallas Mavericks star, Luka Doncic, making NBA history with the league's first ever 60, 20, 10 triple double.
The 23-year-old guard racked up 60 points, 21 rebounds and 21 assists, and his team needed every single one of those numbers to pull off a thrilling overtime win over the New York Knicks last night.
The final score, 126-121. Pretty incredible.
Now, for some less upbeat news. The U.S. housing market is not putting up numbers like Luka unfortunately.
According to a new report out this morning, pending home sales dropped by a monster 4 percent last month, marking six straight months of declines. And compared to a year ago, sales are down 38 percent.
CNN economics and political commentator, Catherine Rampell, is joining us now.
Catherine, this drop was worse than the estimates of 1 percent to 2 percent. What does that tell us about where this economy stands right now?
CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS & POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The numbers were certainly -- the drop off, rather, was much larger than expected. But the direction is what people had forecast.
As interest rates goes up, it gets much more expensive to borrow to buy a house. And therefore, you see the market cooling off. So this was a feature, not a buzz.
And it's part oof the reason why you see home sales prices falling not quickly enough, in fact, to get to the volume of sales that we have seen it's in past, but they are coming down.
It's just gotten a lot more expensive to buy a home.
PHILLIP: This is actually the second-lowest reading in about 20 years. I think a lot of people, every time you talk about home prices, they get some PTSD from the housing crash.
So, how should people interpret this, you know, this mark is that we have just reached, it seems?
RAMPELL: I think the dynamics of the decline in the housing market this time around are very different from those in the wake of the housing bubble and bust and financial crisis.
This time around, what happened was you have the longer structural changes, you have Millennials ageing into prime home buying years.
The pandemic pushing people to decide they need more space. They suddenly want to own their own home, and, ideally, a bigger home.
You had a lot of reasons why demand that went up that make total sense, that are not artificially inflated by the cleansing of the need to speculate on the housing market.
And on top of that, you also had, of course, very, very low interest rate, which is made it easier to buy a home.
Now, you still have a lot of people who want to buy houses. You still have the same structural factors, like Millennials wanting to buy homes, having kids, needing more space. But it's gotten more expensive to borrow.
Again, interest rates have gone up. This was by design, by the Federal Reserve. They're trying to cool consumer demand.
And the housing market happens to be the most interest rate sensitive part of the U.S. economy.
PHILLIP: Right. RAMPELL: But that's the reason why you see the market cooling today.
It's not because there was a bubble that burst. There were very real fundamentals that drove higher demand for housing.
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But you have this wrench being thrown into the economy by higher interest rates.
PHILLIP: Right. It might be counterintuitive, but this is kind of what they're going for in terms of the Fed raising interest rates,
Catherine Rampell, thank you once again for joining us for that.
And thanks for joining us here on NEWSROOM. I'm Abby Phillip. I'll see you back here tomorrow. Have a great day.
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