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CNN INTERNATIONAL: Russia Updates Death Toll In Makiivka Attack To 89; U. S. House Paralyzed As McCarthy Faces Hardline GOP Revolt; Uncle: Damar Hamlin Still Sedated On Ventilation After Hit; E. U. Officials Meeting Today To Discuss Rules For Chinese Travelers; CNN Speaks To Refugee Who Survived A Month At Sea. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired January 04, 2023 - 08:00   ET

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

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[08:00:30]

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, and welcome to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster in London. Just ahead, the blame game over. A deadly strike takes a new turn, with Moscow appearing to blame its own soldiers for their deaths.

A tumultuous turn of events on Capitol Hill, as the man expected to take the speaker job failed to get the votes. But not once, not twice, actually three times. And knee jerk or just cautious, health officials around the world are grappling with how to deal with China's reopening, and Beijing isn't happy.

Well, Ukraine is claiming another devastating hit on Russians forces, as Moscow appears to blame its own soldiers for a deadly strike in the occupied eastern region. Kyiv says around 500 enemy troops were either killed or wounded near Chulakivka village in southern Kherson area on New Year's Eve.

Further north, the Kremlin is now increasing the death toll in Makiivka attack to 89, and says the use of cellphones among Russian soldiers is what allowed Ukraine to track and target them. Ukraine says the death toll in that attack is in the hundreds.

CNN's Scott McLean joins me now live in Kyiv. And what's interesting about this, away from the devastation of the deaths, is that there's a blame game going on with Russia about what actually happened here.

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is a remarkable statement, Max, coming from the Russian Ministry of Defense, essentially blaming Russian soldiers for their own death. Statement says that there will be an investigation, a full investigation carried out, but that the conclusion is already abundantly clear and that is the mass use of cell phones by soldiers too close to the front lines in violation of Russia's own policies around this kind of a thing, which ultimately allowed the Ukrainians to find, based on those cell phone signals, the precise location of a large concentration of Russian troops that they were able to very quickly strike. The Ministry of Defense says that the military officials who allowed this use of cellphones on mass would be held to account. The statement also said that it was the HIMARS rocket system, this is the mobile U.S. supplied artillery system that the Ukrainians are using that was used in this strike.

According to the Russians, this kind of a system has allowed the Ukrainians to really strike much deeper inside of Russian held territory than they had been with earlier artillery systems. They say that two of the six rockets were shot down, four of them hit the target, causing the roof to collapse.

And the head of the Donetsk People's Republic, that breakaway region, says that there was terrorism on display from the Russian soldiers. Some of them managed to escape on their own and then went back inside of the building to help their comrades, and some of them were ultimately killed.

The Russians have also updated their official death toll from 63 up to 89 as they find more bodies in the rubble. And a pro-Russian blogger, who is well read and frankly well respected by the Kremlin as well, having recently received an award for courage from President Putin himself, says that his expectation is that that death toll will continue to rise as they continue to find and identify more bodies.

That blogger, his name is Semyon Pegov, was also remarkably critical of this assessment that it was simply the use of cell phones, saying that soldiers know better, they know when they can and cannot actually use them. And he said that this was a deliberate attempt or a blatant attempt to smear blame. Max?

FOSTER: OK, Scott, thank you for joining us from Kyiv.

Now it's back to the drawing board. After a day of drama and chaos on Capitol Hill, the U.S. House of Representatives is set to reconvene in four hours with the top job still up in the air. It comes one day after Republican Kevin McCarthy lost three speakership votes amid a hardline revolt.

As of now, there doesn't appear to be any resolution in sight, but McCarthy remains optimistic, vowing to continue his bid for the gavel. The House can't proceed with any other business until it elects a speaker essentially paralyzing part of U.S. government.

CNN's Lauren Fox has more.

[08:05:01]

LAUREN FOX, CNN POLITICS CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Max, a day, really a century in the making. This hasn't happened on Capitol Hill since 1923. The future of the Republican Party still uncertain as we await whether or not McCarthy can clinch the votes.

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FOX (voice-over): The newly elected Republican majority on Capitol Hill at its stalemate with no speaker elected.

KEVIN MCCARTHY, U.S. HOUSE REPUBLICANS: This is a healthy debate. It might not happen on the day we wanted, but it's going to happen.

FOX (voice-over): Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy still fighting for the leadership role even after losing three rounds of votes Tuesday. Congress adjourned after the third vote, when 20 GOP members voted against McCarthy, all voting instead for Representative Jim Jordan. Jordan, for his part, does not want the job, voting three times for McCarthy.

The so-called Never Kevin Republicans working the phones well into the night, trying to grow their opposition to McCarthy.

CHIP ROY, U.S. HOUSE REPUBLICAN: We need the leadership and the tools to stop the swamp from running over and stepping all over the American people. Right now, I'm holding the line because I think we need this place to operate differently.

FOX (voice-over): The California Republican remaining confident, telling reporters Tuesday night he only needs eleven more votes, suggesting that some members of Congress may vote present. To lower the threshold, he needs to cross the finish line.

MCCARTHY: We got to find a way that we all work together, so I don't know who else could actually put that together. I don't think there's enough.

FOX (voice-over): Although the GOP infighting, race is on, with Representative Matt Gaetz in a letter to the architect of the Capitol questioning why McCarthy is allowed to occupy the Speaker's office, writing, "How long will he remain there before he's considered a squatter?"

MATT GAETZ, U.S. HOUSE REPUBLICANS: If you want to drain the swamp, you cannot put the biggest alligator in charge of the exercise.

FOX (voice-over): McCarthy supporters feel it was a mistake to adjourn Congress Tuesday and are frustrated the party's being held hostage by 2 percent of its members.

BLAKE MOORE, U.S. HOUSE REPUBLICANS: The support is still very strong for Kevin McCarthy and no one's now saying we want to find a consensus candidate.

FOX (voice-over): It was conversations like this one between Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Paul Gosar where some in the GOP feared Democrats were planning to leave the floor or vote present so McCarthy could have a lower threshold to become the speaker.

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, U.S. HOUSE REPUBLICANS: It is unlikely, but there is always a possibility. I do believe that in some of those conversations, there are things that are happening on the floor. These machinations are happening on the floor.

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FOX: One thing we're going to be watching today is whether or not McCarthy loses additional conservatives on subsequent votes. It's still unclear whether or not he is going to have further votes today or whether the House will stay adjourned when they come into session at noon.

But, obviously, a lot of questions right now whether or not Republicans can coalesce around McCarthy or whether he'll eventually have to bow out. Max?

FOSTER: Well, we're going to stay in the U.S. where NFL star Damar Hamlin remains in critical condition after he collapsed on the field. The Buffalo Bills player suffered a cardiac arrest just after he made a tackle during Monday night's game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

Players say they knew the situation was dire when more and more medical personnel swarmed the field. We're going to get the latest now from our Adrienne Broaddus joining us from Cincinnati, Ohio. Adrienne?

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Max. Still here we are. And Damar Hamlin is still listed in the intensive care unit here at this hospital behind me in critical condition. His uncle Dorian Glenn speaking with me late last night outside of the hospital, and he told us that his nephew is on a ventilator and he's sedated.

He, however, through the entire time he's been here at the hospital, Damar has been surrounded by family. Some of his players has -- have also shown up here. But his uncle Dorian telling me watching this all play out on TV was tough. Listen in.

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DORIAN GLENN, DAMAR HAMLIN'S UNCLE: We were in Pittsburgh watching it on TV, and his little brother was there with us. And when he's seen his brother drop like that. And when I tell you, I never seen him crash, scream like that, like, we were trying to calm him down, like, you know, it's OK. You know, he'll go and get back up. He'll be back in the game. You know, we'll do the woo.

Next thing you know, it's 10 minutes later, they're doing chest compressions. It's a half hour later, they're still not playing it. I'm like, you know, what's going on? What's wrong with my nephew? And then when I say, like now, we were all in the room crying. Man, we were all in tears, man.

And I'm not a crier, but I never crashed so hard in my life, man. Just to know, like, my nephew basically died on the field, and they brought him back to life. I mean, that's just heartbreaking.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROADDUS: Dorian also telling me once Damar arrived here at the hospital, medics had to resuscitate him again, and that in itself, the family is saying a miracle, that his heart stopped beating twice and they were able to restore his heartbeat -- doctors -- twice. [08:10:11]

Meanwhile, Dorian saying the family is expecting a miracle and they are holding on to hope. Max?

FOSTER: Adrienne Broaddus in Cincinnati, thank you very much indeed.

E.U. health officials plan to meet later today to discuss a coordinated approach for handling incoming Chinese travelers. This as China deals with soaring COVID-19 infections after easing its zero- COVID policy. More than a dozen countries, including the U.S. and the U.K., have already imposed restrictions on travelers from China. Beijing is hitting back, calling the measures excessive and unacceptable.

CNN's Ivan Watson joins me now from Hong Kong. This is causing a lot of concern, isn't it, in China, but the other countries involved here say they're just not getting the data they need from China to make the right decisions.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's a real tussle over what to do after China is basically ending nearly three years of self-imposed isolation, now allowing its citizens to travel freely. It's going to lift quarantines on people coming into China as of Sunday of this week.

And other countries around the world are concerned because of just the sheer colossal spread of the COVID infection within China, the world's most populous country. So, as you mentioned, the European Union on Tuesday conducted a meeting and considered three potential approaches, which would be pre-departure testing for travelers from China and then stepping up wastewater monitoring, which other countries are doing as well, and increased domestic surveillance.

They're going to have a subsequent meeting about this to try to sort this out. There is a map that we've put together that shows just a swath of different governments around the world that have introduced different kinds of restrictions on travelers from China. The U.S. also requesting, demanding a negative COVID test within 48 hours of departure. That's at one end of the extremes to the other, which is Morocco, which is completely banning any travel from China, whatsoever.

The airline industry is not happy with these moves, particularly after China threatened reciprocal measures. So you have the head of the International Air Transport Association, Willie Walsh, who came out basically slamming these restrictions, saying, quote, "It is extremely disappointing to see this knee-jerk reinstatement of measures that have proven ineffective over the last three years.

We have the tools to manage COVID-19 without resorting to ineffective measures that cut off international connectivity, damage economies and destroy jobs. Governments must base their decisions on science facts rather than science politics."

And I'm going to direct you now to the government of New Zealand. Unlike Australia, which has also imposed some of these requiring testing, New Zealand has said it is not going to take this measure. Take a listen to the Health Minister of New Zealand.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As part of the public health risk assessment, officials also work through scenarios of potential case numbers traveling from China using our projected arrivals over the next few weeks. And this analysis confirmed that visitors won't contribute significantly to our COVID case numbers. Meaning, entry restrictions aren't required or justified.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATSON: Now, another wrinkle to this, Max, is that there have been criticisms, including from the World Health Organization, that the Chinese government and health authorities aren't sharing enough information about the scope and the speed of the spread of the virus in China.

The World Health Organization invited Chinese officials to a meeting on Tuesday, and we're waiting to hear what came out of that, whether they got some of the data that they had publicly requested from Beijing. Max?

FOSTER: OK, Ivan Watson in Hong Kong, thank you.

Still to come, what happens without a U.S. House Speaker? Well, not much. More on that coming up.

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[08:16:19]

FOSTER: Welcome back. How's the U.S. government ground to a halt? Well, the chaos to elect a new House Speaker isn't just politics as usual. It's holding up much of a functioning of the entire chamber. And here's why. The U.S. government is divided into three separate branches of government, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial.

Now, the speaker leads the House of Representatives, and that is part of Congress alongside the Senate. And none of it can really operate without the House of Representatives. And no speaker means no swearing in of new lawmakers, no new bills, the list goes on and on.

The speaker is also the second inline to the presidency after the Vice President, and the position is currently vacant. And this race could drag on. This is what one Republican had to say about the main candidate, Kevin McCarthy.

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GAETZ: Those of us who will not be voting for Kevin McCarthy today take no joy in this discomfort that this moment has brought. But if you want to drain the swamp, you cannot put the biggest alligator in charge of the exercise.

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FOSTER: More on how this stalemate could affect the country, let's bring in Washington Correspondent Sunlen Serfaty. Thank you so much for joining us. I mean, it's got a particular set up, hasn't it, the U.S. government. And this is a central role, and it literally can't function without it.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: That's absolutely right, Max. And this notion is not lost on many lawmakers on Capitol Hill who are wondering right now how long this stalemate is going to last. Because at a very basic level, the House of Representatives needs a speaker of the House to operate efficiently or effectively or really at all.

On the speaker of the House, this is a huge role in charge of the political arm, the lead of the House of Representatives, in charge of the administrative functions of the House, also procedurally, all of that. And the head of essentially what gets done.

Now, a few examples of what is grinding to a halt now, you know, every new Congress, they need to come in and start putting together a rules package that essentially sets the rules up of how they'll operate. If that does not get approved by January 13, which is, you know, drawing near, people on the committees, they will not get their paychecks.

People who work on Capitol Hill will not get those paychecks. That certainly important. Committee work is really affected here with no committee chairs in place. That means the committees who are in charge of going through, working through legislation, advancing them to the floor to potentially turn into bills in law, that grinds to a halt too.

So no new legislation right now is going to be happening. And of course, you mentioned new members will not be able to be sworn in. So they're in a state of limbo as they start their new jobs or hope to officially start their new jobs.

And, of course, the line of succession also a very real question given the fact that the speaker of the House is next in line to the presidency after the Vice President. So certainly, an ominous way that many Republicans feel about this start of the new Congress, wondering what that portends for how Republicans will rule going forward in the House and lead.

But, of course, the big question is how long this will drag out. There are very real actionable items that are right now grinding to the halt because they don't have a speaker. Max?

FOSTER: There's no apparent way out of this, though, is there, unless there's some sort of agreement, because the votes under the system just go on and on and on until there is a majority.

SERFATY: That's right. This will have to end somehow. But how it ends? We do not know. We have, of course, heard from Kevin McCarthy that he is being very defiant and, you know, really firm, that he will continue voting, he will continue being a candidate for speaker until he gets there.

[08:20:10]

But the question is, what will the number say in the end? Will they need to eventually pull in someone from the outside, which is approved under the rules of the House to potentially become the next speaker? So a lot up in the air and certainly very important things up in the air as the big question is how long this goes.

FOSTER: OK, Sunlen Serfaty, it's going to be interesting to see how it plays out. Thank you so much for joining us with your insight.

Now, still ahead --

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translation): We are dying here.

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FOSTER: What was supposed to be a seven-day journey turns into a month long ordeal at sea. The story of one Rohingya refugee, when we return.

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FOSTER: The funeral for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is set to take place on Thursday in Vatican City. Pope Francis will lead the mass. Several high-profile dignitaries plan to attend the service. The Vatican says some 135,000 people have so far filed past the body of Benedict, which has been lying in state at St. Peter's Basilica since Monday.

Now I want to bring you a stark story about a refugee who spent weeks at sea drifting in a boat with no food, water or medicine. She and her daughter were amongst the 200 Rohingya who set off on the treacherous voyage from Bangladesh in November.

CNN's Paula Hancocks has our report. And we warn you, some of the images are disturbing.

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PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Despair and misery, etched on every single face. One by one, they collapse. Emaciated bodies clutching small children, others motionless, seemingly unconscious on an Indonesian beach.

They are the Rohingya refugees left to drift on the boat on the open sea, forgotten and ignored. A human tragedy that keeps repeating itself.

Hatima Nessa (ph) and her five-year-old daughter, Uma Salima (ph), were among the 174 to reach Aceh province. After one month surviving on just three days' supply of food and water, she is almost unrecognizable.

(on-camera): What happened when you got on the boat?

(voice-over): She tells me, "There was no food, no medicine, no water for all of those days. Only when it rained could we drink rainwater."

A few days into the journey, she says the engine broke down. They were stranded in the Andaman Sea. Hatima Nessa (ph) remembers watching a baby girl die after drinking salt water. She says the boat driver jumped overboard in desperation from thirst and hunger, and died, leaving his desperate human cargo to drift helplessly, hoping for rescue.

On December 18th, more than three weeks after setting sail, Hatima Nessa's (ph) brother back in Bangladesh managed to contact the boat, trying to organize a rescue from a local boat in Indonesia.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translation): We are dying here. We haven't eaten anything for 8-10 days. We are starving. Three people have died.

HANCOCKS (voice-over): Hatima Nessa (ph) says, "I thought I would die. I thought I would die on that boat."

The United Nations refugee agency says 26 people died before the boat was rescued by Indonesian fishermen and local authorities. The agency said several countries turned a blind eye.

[08:25:04]

BABAR BALOCH, ASIA PACIFIC SPOKESPERSON, UNHCR: We at UNHCR are reaching out from states to states in the region wherever we're getting reports that this is either close to one country or another. No one acted on those requests and appeals.

HANCOCKS (voice-over): Stateless and persecuted, these Rohingya refugees have known little peace, having fled once for their life five years ago in Myanmar after a brutal campaign of killing and arson by the military to Bangladesh and a now-sprawling refugee camp, Cox's Bazar, with little hope of a life. Just survival.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): In Bangladesh, our life was difficult. We were banned from going out to look for work. The children could not go to school.

HANCOCKS (voice-over): This year threatens to become one of the most deadly for the Rohingya in these Southeast Asian waters. UNHCR says at least three boats were rescued in December, one by the Sri Lankan navy, two ended up in Indonesia.

But one boat carrying 180 people has not been heard from since the beginning of December, its passengers feared lost.

BALOCH: These are literally death traps that want to get into those, you end up losing your life. And this is done by the merciless human smugglers and traffickers who don't care about human lives. HANCOCKS (voice-over): For Hatima Nessa (ph), it cost around $1,000 for a false promise of a seven-day trip to Malaysia, a price so high she had to leave her 7-year-old daughter behind with her mother in Bangladesh, assuming she would join later.

"They must bring my other daughter to me," she says. "My heart is burning for her. All I ever wanted was to get an education for my children."

She now faces the torment of living apart from one child while dealing with the trauma of another.

Paula Hancocks, CNN, Seoul.

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FOSTER: Thanks for joining me here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster in London. "WORLD SPORT" with Andy Scholes is up next.

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