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Freedom Caucus Members Upend McCarthy's Speakership Bid; Prince Harry's Memoir Details Drug Use, Family Drama, Death; Biden Unveils New Measures to Address Migrant Surge; China Again Insists It Is Openly Sharing Covid-19 Data. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired January 06, 2023 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: FOSTER: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster. If you are just joining us, let me bring you up to date with the latest top stories. The NFL says it has canceled the game between the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals. The decision not to resume play comes just three days after the severe hit Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapse during Monday Night Football when he suffered a cardiac arrest.
Plus, the House of Representatives reconvenes at noon today for a 12th vote to elect a new speaker and get on with the business of governing. Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is making major concessions to conservative holdouts, but so far he hasn't swayed a single member of the "Never Kevins."
BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR: It's that slim minority who are keeping the House from moving forward. Over the past three days 20 Republicans have been voting directly against Kevin McCarthy in his bid to become speaker. They represent less than 10 percent of House Republicans. Yes, they've managed to completely grind Congress to a halt.
The group includes some of the chamber's most hard right lawmakers including many who question the integrity of the 2020 election. So, what are their reasons for not supporting McCarthy? Let's take a closer look at what some have said. The Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, it's personal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): Maybe the right person for job of the speaker of the House isn't someone who has sold shares of themselves for more than a decade to get it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBILO: Others like Lauren Boebert say McCarthy isn't making the concessions that they want to see on issues across the board.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. LAUREN BOEBERT (R-CO): I will not withdraw, our ask were-- UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why not?
BOEBERT: -- our asks were not petty of Kevin McCarthy. They were not self-serving. We simply were asking for commitments on what the American people want to see. They want to see a vote on term limits, a vote on the Texas border plan to secure the southern border.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: Most of those blocking McCarthy's speakership bid are part of the House Freedom Caucus, a group that's caused disruption over the years. Sunlen Serfaty reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REP. SCOTT PERRY (R-PA): I don't take orders from anyone in this town.
SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They have become some of the most obstructionist.
MARK MEADOWS, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: It gives us the power of negation. It's the power of no.
SERFATY (voice-over): And antagonistic Republican members on Capitol Hill.
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): Fed up with the ways of the swamp and fed up with leadership that fails us, telling us to vote along with a Democrat agenda that is completely failing America.
SERFATY (voice-over): The House Freedom Caucus, a small but feisty group of Republican rebels that has become a thorn stuck firmly in the side of Republican leadership for nearly a decade.
REP. CHIP ROY (R-TX): What I do not support is blindly supporting legislation that is critically flawed at its core because of, oh, we're in the minority.
SERFATY (voice-over): Building a brand on challenging GOP leaders, earning them various nicknames from their own party like "Legislative Terrorists" and "The Taliban-19."
REP. BOB GOOD (R-VA): Being told by our own Republican leadership, well it is 90 percent good, it's 90 percent tasty, it's 90 percent pure, there's only 10 percent poison and toxins in it, but drink it anyway.
SERFATY (voice-over): The group has been at the center of some of the biggest fights on Capitol Hill.
MEADOWS: At this point, it looks like we could be in for a very long- term shutdown.
SERFATY (voice-over): Consistently making the task of governing more challenging.
PAUL RYAN, (R) FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I don't want us to become a factionalized majority. I want us to become a unified majority.
SERFATY (voice-over): To the frustration of past House Republican speakers.
RYAN: I share a frustration. About 90 percent of our conference is for this bill, to repeal and replace Obamacare and about 10 percent are not.
SERFATY (voice-over): The Freedom Caucus was involved in former House Speaker John Boehner's ouster in 2015.
JOHN BOEHNER, (R) FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER: In my case, on any given day there were two or three dozen that what I call knuckleheads who just wanted -- they wanted chaos. They wanted like all their way or no way.
SERFATY (voice-over): He stepped down amid difficulty managing the faction.
BOEHNER: Well, people on the fringes have a bigger platform to make their point, and frankly, create chaos.
SERFATY (voice-over): Later that year, they blocked Kevin McCarthy's first bid for speaker.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are looking for a speaker who works with conservatives rather than against us.
SERFATY (voice-over): Having a hand in his withdrawal then from the race.
MCCARTHY: I think I shocked some of you, huh?
SERFATY (voice-over): The caucus was first founded in 2015. Born out of the Tea Party Movement.
REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): Do what we told the voters we were going to do.
SERFATY (voice-over): With founding members like Congressman Jim Jordan.
RON DESANTIS, (R) FLORIDA GOVERNOR: We all swore an oath of office.
SERFATY (voice-over): Ron DeSantis and Mark Meadows among others, under the original founding principles of open, accountable, and limited government, the Constitution and the rule of law. The group attempts to operate with a bit of mystique.
MEADOWS: We would have to kill you if we told you.
SERFATY (voice-over): They don't publish their member list, which is around 35 members. And as now, a small number of them are again threatening to derail the next speaker.
REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): If you want to drain the swamp, you cannot put the biggest alligator in charge of the exercise. SERFATY (voice-over): Their fight has become personal, emboldened in the culmination of this moment.
REP. LAUREN BOEBERT (R-CO): The president needs to tell Kevin McCarthy that, sir, you do not have the votes and it's time to withdraw.
SERFATY (voice-over): Sunlen Serfaty, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[04:35:00]
NOBILO: U.S. financial markets are looking to close out the week on a high note after a disappointing day on Thursday. A stronger than expected jobs report pushed stocks lower. It shows the labor market apparently immune to the Federal Reserve interest rate hikes to tame inflation.
FOSTER: The Dow fell more than 300 points a bit more than one percent. The Nasdaq was down almost 1.5 percent. In the S&P 500 loss more than 1 percent.
The new trading day gets underway in five hours' time. And here is where U.S. futures stand right now. So we can see not a great picture at the moment, but things are moving.
Meanwhile, the European markets are up and running and here's how a look at markets across Asia have been performing as well.
On the U.S. jobs front, tech and media companies are leading layoffs in the end of 2022. According to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas, employers announced more than 43,000 job cuts in December. That's an increase of 129 percent in the same period back in 2021.
Among the other companies laying off workers as they brace for potential economic trouble ahead, AMC Networks, DoorDash, Facebook, parent company Meta also Blue Apron and Amazon. The e-commerce giant says it plans layoff more than 18,000 employees.
NOBILO: So, are American companies hiring? We'll find out in just a few hours when the U.S. Labor Market releases its monthly jobs report. Economists anticipate that employers will have added 200,000 jobs in December. That's good but it would be a slight drop in gains from previous months. The unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 3.7 percent.
FOSTER: Now Delta leading the way in upgrading your inflight experience. The airline announced its providing free wi-fi on most of its U.S. flights beginning next month. You have to use your free SkyMiles apparently, but about 700 planes will offer high speed service by the end of the year. Delta is the first of the major airlines to offer fast and free wi-fi. JetBlue passengers have been enjoying the perk since 2017. It should be free, don't you think.
NOBILO: I absolutely think so. I can't understand -- FOSTER: Well, that's the one place you go away not on your phone as well.
NOBILO: There is that. But as you know, I like to distract myself on planes --
FOSTER: Me too.
NOBILO: -- rather than switch off.
Prince Harry's new memoir reveals private conversations between him and his brother. And we're getting new details on their alleged scuffle. The latest on that is coming up next.
FOSTER: Plus, President Biden's new border strategy could allow 30,000 migrants to legally enter the U.S. each month. We'll take a closer look at his plan when we return.
[04:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: Prince Harry is promoting his new book, in case you didn't notice. He said he was probably bigoted before his relationship with Meghan, the now Duchess of Sussex. That's just one of the new details emerging today from his interview with Anderson Cooper on 60 minutes.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PRINCE HARRY, DUKE OF SUSSEX: What Meghan had to go through was similar in some part to what Kate and what Camila went through. Very different circumstances but then you add in the race element, which is what the press -- British press jumped on straightaway. I went into this incredibly naive. I had no idea the British press was so bigoted. Hell, I was probably bigoted before the relationship with Meghan.
ANDERSON COOPER, 60 MINUTES: You think you were bigoted before the relationship with Meghan?
PRINCE HARRY: I don't know. Put it this way, I didn't see what I now see.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NOBILO: During his media blitz Harry also elaborated on the alleged physical altercation with his brother. He told ITV that after Prince William knocked him down, he, quote, wanted me to hit back but I chose not to. Harry spoke about seeing a red mist take hold of his brother that he recognized all too well.
And the son of a notorious drug lord, El Chapo Guzman is now in police custody in Mexico.
And we'll be returning to that story. We're going to chat a little bit about Prince Harry and his memoir. What are your initial impressions, not having yet read the book but having seen all of these allegations? FOSTER: Well, I mean the point I've been making that there is one
sided here. We're not getting the other point of view. So, you have to think about that. And then I think it's just up to people to make up their own minds. I think the most relatable part of it certainly is, you know, his experience of growing up and being so damaged by the death of his mother and then he then brings that forward to, you know, how he was then treated as a spare. So that compounded his sort of suffering.
And America has a lot of sympathy for that. I think there is in this country as well. Also, in this country I think is, you know, the sense of reality that it is a monarchy and he was the spare. And it sounds quite brutal but that is the reality of his constitutional position. But I think William was trying to help him not feel like a spare.
NOBILO: Yes, because you were saying how they were giving him additional responsibilities and essentially trying to beef up his role so it didn't feel that discrepancy so keenly. And I wonder if that's why culturally it would be received differently in the U.K. compared to elsewhere. Because in the U.K. we're aware of that constitutional expectation. But unfortunately, the spare will be treated slightly differently. But also, they are afforded more freedom, more opportunities. And I'm sure in some ways Prince William would wish that he could've had some of the chances that Prince Harry had, but he had to trade that for being next in line to the throne.
FOSTER: What do you make of the fact that the Royal family aren't and never to expose, you know, these moments behind palace walls, whereas Prince Harry is doing that?
NOBILO: I think that's one of the elements that makes it so shocking. It's shocking, first of all, because of the content of the allegations. It's also shocking because it's unusual to see anybody air their family dirty laundry in such a public way, but especially when it goes completely against the grain of every approach we've seen from the Royal family. Never complain, never --
FOSTER: Is he a celebrity now? Is that the difference?
NOBILO: It seems so. I mean, he'll be hitting some of the late night talk shows next week. We're seeing a media blitz. It's a real saturation. And that's perhaps one of the contradictory elements that some people are struggling with is Prince Harry's feelings towards the press are completely understandable because of the circumstances in which his mother died. And he says in the book that he and his brother actually wanted to reopen that investigation because they didn't think that it was entirely plausible. Maybe oversimplified.
But then if he has such strong feelings towards tabloid culture, his book, his memoir has become the ultimate material for the tabloids to dissect, to become click bait and to create that kind of salacious atmosphere in the media that he claims to have such a problem with. And I think that's one of the elements people struggle with.
FOSTER: But they've accuse him as well of using their model, which is selling stories. NOBILO: Yes, exactly.
[04:45:00]
FOSTER: But he sees it differently. He sees it as, you know, his chance to put the record straight.
NOBILO: But it certainly seems like it is escalating, the tensions --
FOSTER: Yes.
NOBILO: -- rather than doing anything to ameliorate them. And we'll have much more in the story throughout the day.
FOSTER: And there will be more material for days, by the way, right after Colbert on Tuesday evening.
U.S. President Joe Biden meanwhile heading to Mexico City, as Bianca was saying, where he'll meet with the leaders of Mexico and Canada. Migration policies are expected the top the summit's agenda there.
NOBILO: And on his way there Mr. Biden will stop in El Paso, Texas, to see firsthand the crisis at the U.S. southern border. It will be his first trip to the U.S./Mexican border since becoming president. On Thursday the president unveiled new measures to help alleviate the migrant surge. CNN's Phil Mattingly has those details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's so easy to demagogue this issue.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Biden moving to have confront an intractable policy and political challenge.
BIDEN: Today my administration is taking several steps to stiffen enforcement for those who try to come without a legal right to stay and to put in place a faster process.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): The Biden administration announcing new plans to allow up to 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti to legally enter the U.S. each month while dramatically cracking down on the total number of people attempting to cross the border.
BIDEN: This action is going to substantially reduce the number of people attempting, attempting to cross our southwest border without going through a legal process.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): It's the latest iteration of a year's long effort to stem a running surge at the U.S. border. Annual border arrest breaking records each of Biden's first two years of office driving relentless attacks by Republicans on an issue with no clear pathway to resolution.
BIDEN: Instead of safe and orderly process at the border, we've a patchwork system that simply doesn't work as it should.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): Biden who for months resisted GOP calls to visit the border and dismissed them as political theater.
BIDEN: The Republicans haven't been serious at all, come on.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): Now preparing to do just that with that visit to El Paso on Sunday. That visit will come on his way to the critical North American leader summit in Mexico City where immigration will be at the top of the agenda. But also, as a Supreme Court case looms on a Trump era pandemic authority that allows immigration authorities to quickly expel many migrants driving a renewed plea to Congress -- when Biden first made with his own immigration overhaul just days after he took office.
BIDEN: This is about how America's safer stronger more prosperous when we have a fair, orderly and humane legal immigration system.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): A proposal rejected by Republicans that also failed for two years to gain any traction at all in the Democratic controlled House and Senate. Biden attempting to lay the blame entirely at the feet of Republicans.
BIDEN: If the most extreme Republicans continue to demagogue this issue and reject solutions, I'm left with only one choice. Back on my own.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): But pledging to negotiate in good faith to address an issue defined by decades of failed efforts.
BIDEN: As I've always done when I sit down, I'll sit down -- I'll sit down with anyone who in good faith wants to fix our broken immigration system. And it's hard. It's hard on the best of circumstances.
MATTINGLY: And as President Biden travels down to the border on Sunday and then on to Mexico City, the push for lawmakers to take up some kind of comprehensive immigration overhaul is expected to be repeated when you talk to his advisers. They make clear that is going to be a central message the president will try and push.
Phil Mattingly, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: Still ahead, crowded hospitals with patients being treated in the hallways. China's COVID outbreak is getting worse and more countries are adding new travel restrictions. Details and a live report from Hong Kong coming up.
[04:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NOBILO: Germany, Greece, and Sweden are the latest to join a growing list of countries requiring a negative COVID test for travelers from mainland China where new Covid infections have been soaring in recent weeks.
FOSTER: Videos shows crowded hospitals as patients wait for care. Despite scenes like this, the Chinese government insists the situation isn't as bad as it appears. Beijing is pushing back against accusations it's not reporting the full scope of the current outbreak.
CNN's Kristie Lu Stout joins us now from Hong Kong with more. It's a difficult narrative to stick to though, isn't it. When we keep getting these images.
KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely, especially in the face of mounting evidence. Look, earlier today China officially reported only five new deaths caused by COVID-19 for January 5th. The previous day reported only one new death caused by COVID-19 and these figures are remarkably low and do not match the video, the footage that we've been screening on CNN of absolutely overwhelmed funeral homes, crematoriums and hospitals in Beijing, in Shanghai, in Hangzhou and elsewhere. We'll bring up the video for you that just came in today of a crowded and just chaotic scenes inside a hospital inside Hangzhou.
And this is the reason why China has been accused by the World Health Organization and world leaders for underreporting the scope and scale of its runaway COVID-19 outbreak. China says it has been open and transparent all along. Let's bring up the most recent response from China's ministry of foreign affairs.
Its spokesperson, Mao Ning, saying this, quote, facts have proven that China has always maintained close communication with the W.H.O. and shared information and data on the epidemic in a timely, open and transparent manner in accordance with the law. She goes on to say: China's COVID situation is under control.
As you recall earlier this week the World Health Organization is warning that China is underreporting the scale of the outbreak in terms of hospital admissions, in terms of ICU admissions, in terms of deaths. And the U.S. President Joe Biden as well as the health ministers of France and Germany have expressed concern about the lack of transparency and the quality of the data coming out of China. And that is one reason why Germany is the latest company to add to the list of governments around the world imposing restrictions on travelers from China.
We have an updated map that we want to share with you. Germany is now requiring proof of a negative COVID test from all travelers from China, as well as Sweden, as well as Greece.
[04:55:00]
The list just keeps getting longer. China, meanwhile, calls the measures unacceptable and is threatening in turn reciprocal measures. Back to you.
FOSTER: OK, Kristie in Hong Kong, thank you.
STOUT: You've got it. FOSTER: California getting a small break after what's called a "bomb
cyclone" roared through the state and headed north towards Canada. The powerful storm brought snow to the mountains, widespread flooding and hurricane force wind gusts. It's been blamed for the deaths of at least six people
NOBILO: The break won't last long. Right behind it is an atmospheric river of warm moisture called the "Pineapple Express." It's expected to bring more rain to the region. And we'll have more on the forecast in the coming hours from CNN's Weather Center.
FOSTER: Before we go, after a nearly one-month pause in activity, Hawaii's Kilauea volcano is spewing lava again. It began erupting Thursday inside its summit crater.
NOBILO: And authorities say it's contained within the crater and that there is no danger to residential communities.
FOSTER: Amazing. Thanks for joining us here on CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Max Foster.
NOBILO: And I'm Bianca Nobilo. "EARLY START" with Christine Romans is next right here on CNN.
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