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CNN This Morning

CNN Poll Shows Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) Holds Narrow Lead Over Walker in Georgia Runoff; GOP Tensions as Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R- CA) Preps for Floor Fight Over Speakership; Biden Open to Negotiations With Putin, But With Conditions. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 02, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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

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DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: How many of you believe your candidate is going to win?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm very pessimistic. It's -- we keep saying we're a blue state and the numbers are showing we're not a blue state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Can't wait for that.

LEMON: I know, it's interesting to talk to voters.

Hello, good morning, everyone. That was, by the way, part of my interview with a panel of Georgia voters. They laid it all out on the table on what they want to see. And you're right, the responses were extremely interesting, one that you and I were talking about, we're going to talk about the Trump effect.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: So many Georgians have already voted, it's crazy.

LEMON: Yes, and more. The last day of early voting, I think, is today, right, or today or tomorrow?

COLLINS: Today.

LEMON: Today.

So, this morning, we have new CNN polls out of Georgia with just days to go until the Senate runoff. We're going to be live in Atlanta for you.

HARLOW: Also speakership shutdown, tensions are building within the -- showdown, I should say. Tensions are building up in the Republican Party over whether Kevin McCarthy should be the leader as his critics gear up for a potential floor fight. COLLINS: Also, President Biden says he might be willing to talk to President Putin but he has conditions. Russia is casting doubt on whether or not a conversation like that could ever have. We'll tell about the issue they say could complicate any talks between Biden and Putin.

But first this morning, we start with the race for that last remaining Senate seat of the 2022 midterms. It is extremely tight with just four days to go until voters have actually Election Day. We talked about the early voting numbers.

But look at these new CNN numbers, because Georgia's incumbent Democratic senator, Raphael Warnock, who is trying to hold onto his seat there in Georgia, has a slim four point lead over the Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, within the margin of error, I should note.

Former President Obama once again campaigning with Warnock, telling supporters he thinks it's critical they go and vote for Tuesday's runoff.

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BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Some folks are asking, well, if Democrats already have control of the Senate, why does this matter? What's the difference between 50 and 51? The answer is a lot.

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COLLINS: The answer is a lot.

Dianne Gallagher is live for CNN This Morning in Atlanta. Dianne, what is the latest on the race as it stands this Friday?

DIANNE GALLAGER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, Kaitlan, you guys talked about it, it's the last day of early voting here in Georgia. You can see the line behind me starting to form. They are starting to let those voters in, so they can cast their ballots. More than a million Georgians already done that. And they anticipate today to be very busy, long lines likely across the state.

You mentioned that CNN poll of likely voters where Raphael Warnock getting 52 percent, Herschel Walker, 48 percent. As you said, still within the margin of error but that is a slightly more comfortable lead than Warnock had over Walker in the general election. Of course, neither got 50 percent, and that's why we're here today for this runoff.

But there were other aspects of that poll that were very interesting, including asking those likely voters if the candidate was well qualified. And remember, 48 percent of voters said that they would vote for Herschel Walker but only 27 percent said they considered him well qualified and 33 percent that he had good judgment.

Now, in the run up to election day on Tuesday, and trying to get all of the voters out today on this final day of early voting, both campaigns have employed very different strategies. It appears Raphael Warnock, as you know, the incumbent Democrat, bringing in those heavy- hitting surrogates, like former President Obama, a very aggressive campaign schedule.

Herschel Walker, a little bit more relaxed schedule. He was with Lindsey Graham last night trying to talk to his supporters, also talking about ad spending, Kaitlan, Don, Poppy, astronomical numbers, more than $77 million for this four-week runoff. But Democrats outspending Republicans 2 to 1 and, look, Raphael Warnock has outspent all the GOP spending combined just as a candidate.

COLLINS: Yes, cash was pouring into that race.

But, Dianne, I want to ask you, because you're on the ground in Atlanta, I was there on Monday, I saw Senator Warnock, he was pretty easy to talk to. He was standing outside a bus greeting students at Kennesaw State. Herschel Walker has not been the same. And I was looking at some reporting that you had because you were at that Walker rally last night, he is not taking questions from reporters and it seems he's not letting reporters really get close to him, depending on which outlet you work for.

GALLAGHER: Yes. It's been months since Herschel Walker has held what we call a gaggle, where they come and talk to press after one of these events that a candidate holds.

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It has been since well before the general election. I haven't experienced any of those during the runoff. And at this point, they're not letting us even get close to the candidate after his events to answer any sort of questions. So, we haven't had the opportunity.

But he did do an exclusive interview once again with a friendly network immediately afterward but we were told we had to stand back and couldn't come near Herschel Walker.

COLLINS: Dianne Gallagher, thank you.

Ahead, Don spoke with Georgia voters on the state of the race. What do they think? What are they thinking of when they go and cast their ballots in this election? We'll show you that interview coming up.

LEMON: New CNN reporting this morning, tensions building within the GOP as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and conservative headliners gear up for a potential fight on the chamber floor over his speakership bid.

Let's go straight to CNN's Melanie Zanona live on Capitol Hill for us this morning. Good morning to you. How are McCarthy and his team preparing for a fight?

MELANIE ZANONA, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: Yes, good morning to you, Don.

Let me first explain how the speaker's vote would actually work. So, under House rules, if no candidate secures a majority of the vote on the first round, then the House just keeps voting until somebody does. The last time it went to multiple ballots was in 1923. And the anti- McCarthy group is hoping that if McCarthy can't get it on the first round, that he'll drop out and then they can rally around an alternative. Congressman Bob Good, a member of the Freedom Caucus, told us that there are quiet talks going on to recruit a candidate for that exact scenario.

But Kevin McCarthy is signaling he's not going to go down that easily and that he's prepared to go through as many rounds voting as it takes. He also has its allies promising to keep voting for McCarthy on multiple rounds of voting. And so we could potentially see a very messy and chaotic process on the House floor, which is not what Republicans want heading into their new majority. But given the small margins, it is a distinct possibility, Don.

LEMON: Is there any feeling on the Hill that this is all one big bluff from the Freedom Caucus?

ZANONA: Well, Kevin McCarthy certainly feels like the Freedom Caucus is bluffing but they feel like McCarthy is bluffing, that he's not actually going to go to the floor if he knows he doesn't have the votes. And I would also point out the Freedom Caucus met with the House parliamentarian earlier this week to get a briefing on how the House floor procedures and rules works for the speaker's vote, so perhaps a sign that they are taking this seriously and they do mean business but a floor fight. But at the end of the day, it does seem to be shaping up to be like a political game of chicken, Don.

LEMON: All right. Melanie, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

HARLOW: Also this just in this morning, Formula 1 has canceled the 2023 Chinese Grand Prix, citing COVID difficulties. The sport have been set to return to China for the first race since 2019 there. It would have been the first home race for the only Chinese driver in F1. We've shown you these protests especially this week breaking out over China, over its COVID -- zero-COVID policies. CNN now reports that China may soften some of those strict COVID restrictions.

COLLINS: This morning in Idaho, police are still searching for clues into that murder of four University of Idaho students in their off- campus home. It's been weeks. There have been no arrests, still no motive that we have heard of publicly established. They say now there may have been a sixth person living at the address that they're trying to track down. They don't believe the person was at home at the time.

CNN's Veronica Miracle is live in Moscow, Idaho. She's been on the ground covering this. Veronica, still so many questions, but have you learned anything new about at least what police are looking at right now?

VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kaitlan, with no suspects identified, there is an intense focus on anyone who was in and out of that house. And now we know there was a sixth person on the lease.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MIRACLE (voice over): For the first time, police tell CNN there may have been six people living at the house where four University of Idaho students were killed. Until now, police have only released information about five of the roommates, three of the victims and two other roommates who were not harmed. A fourth victim, Ethan Chapin, did not live at the home.

A spokesperson for the Moscow Police Department tells CNN investigators are aware of a sixth person who could have potentially lived at the residence. That person was not at the residence on the night of the murders. An employee with the property management company for the home tells CNN that six people are listed on the lease but they would not release the names. It remains unclear if that sixth person lived at the property at any point.

We asked police if they have found the potential sixth roommate, questioned them and cleared them as a suspect. All they can tell us is that they continue to investigate anyone who potentially has information about this case.

Kaylee Goncalves' mother tells CNN, quote, Kaylee never mentioned that they were looking for a sixth roommate. If there was a sixth person on that lease, I didn't know about it. But she also said she'd never been to the home and didn't know the other roommates besides Kaylee's best friend and victim, Madison Mogen.

Goncalves family among those at the University of Idaho candlelight vigil, where hundreds of students came together to honor their fallen classmates.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They shared everything. They eventually get into the same apartment together. And in the end, they died together in the same room and the same bed.

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MIRACLE (on camera): We did reach out to multiple people connected to the home but we have not yet heard back. So, we don't know if that person was living at the home at the time of the attacks. Kaitlan?

COLLINS: Yes, still so many questions. Veronica, thank you.

LEMON: President Biden says he is open to a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin but under certain conditions. Listen.

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JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: I have no immediate plans to contact Mr. Putin. Mr. Putin is -- let me choose my words very carefully. I'm prepared to speak with Mr. Putin if, in fact, there is an interest in him deciding he's looking for a way to end the war. He hasn't done that yet. If that's the case, in consultation with my French and my NATO friends, I'll be happy to sit down with Putin to see what he has in mind.

(END VIDEO CLIP) LEMON: But just moments ago, a Kremlin spokesperson casting doubt on those talks given the U.S. doesn't recognize the territories, it is legally annexed.

So, CNN's Matthew Chance joins us now live from Kyiv, Ukraine, with the very latest on this. Hello to you this morning here in the United States. Are we likely to see talks? I mean, this is pretty complicated, Matthew.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is pretty complicated, Don. But these remarks by President Biden were the furthest he's gone, to my knowledge, anyway, in suggesting he would be open to the possibility of talks with the Russian president over the future of the conflict in Ukraine. But, of course, you have to remember there's not an appetite on either side at the moment either on the Ukrainian or the Russian side, to sit down at the negotiating table. The Russians are still got it into their minds that they're going to be pressing ahead with what they call their special military operation. The Ukrainians are saying they want a complete withdrawal of all occupied territory by Russian forces, including the strategic Crimean Peninsula as well.

And so at the moment, very little sign despite the words of President Biden that there's any prospect of peace talks, unfortunately, because that means the war will continue and it is getting increasingly bloody. Don?

LEMON: And we're just getting word that the Ukrainian embassies around the world are getting threats. What do you know about that?

CHANCE: Yes, I'm just looking at that alert that's just come in now. That's right. There has been some incidents in Ukrainian embassies around the world. A couple of days ago, there was a letter bomb apparently that was sent to the embassy in Madrid, injured a Ukrainian diplomat there, not seriously, but, nevertheless, it was a serious concern. And they took steps to raise security in embassies around the world, the Ukrainians that is.

In the last few minutes, it's been confirmed by the Ukrainian Foreign Minister that a bunch of embassies, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Italy, Austria, some others as well, they have received these letters containing blood and the eyes of animals, obviously really bad, really disgusting. They don't know who is responsible for it, obviously very worrying and very disturbing and there's an investigation now under way in all of those places, I expect, to try to get to the bottom of this.

LEMON: Matthew Chance in Kyiv, thank you, Matthew, I appreciate that.

Coming up on CNN This Morning, ten students suffering suspected overdoses at a middle school, this is in California.

HARLOW: Also, wait until you hear about this. Teenagers' brains are now aging faster than normal because of the stress of the COVID pandemic. Dr. Sanjay Gupta will explain ahead.

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COLLINS: All right. This morning, seven students at a Los Angeles area middle school have been hospitalized after a suspected overdose. It's a total of ten students that have been evaluated. We don't yet know what the substance in question actually was. We do know it was not fentanyl. That had been a primary concern.

According to the Los Angeles Fire Department, authorities and school personnel systematically searched the entire school premises to make sure no other students were sick. The district says that the school is safe. It's not clear how the students are doing this morning. Big questions remain though.

HARLOW: It's terrifying for every parent out there.

All right, a new study says the stress of the COVID pandemic appears to have actually physically changed teenagers' brains aging them faster than normal.

Let's go to our Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta who joins us. Is this from like staring at screens and phones? Why did this happen? DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I got to

tell you, first of all, I have three teenage girls at home. So, we saw this personally and now we're starting to understand to get a better idea of what exactly was happening to teenagers and get a good idea of what was happening to their brains specifically.

A lot of it is what you say. I mean, it was the uncertainty of what was happening during the pandemic but a lot of it also was the sort of reduced social structure of being around friends and the social development that simply happens by being around friends and other people during your teenage years in particular.

We know there's been lots of what are called internalizing symptoms that develop. People had increased rates of anxiety and depression. What was so fascinating, even before the pandemic, there was a study going on where they were looking at adolescent brains doing these MRI scans every couple of years trying to understand how brains change specifically during that period of time. And so they had these studies already under way, pandemic happens, they continue the study. So, they can look at brains before and during the pandemic.

And what they found was pretty staggering. Let me show you here on the brain model, if I can. Basically, they showed that the brains aged more quickly.

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What does that mean? This area of the brain over here, which is called the cortex, think of that like as the bark on the tree, the outer layer, it got thinner. That happens with age. It happened much more quickly during the pandemic for these adolescent brains. That's the area of the brain that's responsible for executive thinking, for example.

The same time you look deep into the brain, areas over here, which are responsible for your ability to regulate emotions, for example, they aged more quickly as well. So, all these things are sort of happening simultaneously, and it was something that they could actually study in these children because, again, they had the scans before the pandemic and then, again, at least a year into the pandemic.

LEMON: So, teenagers, we know, Sanjay, they like to rebel, so they spend a lot of time with their parents, which I think was constricting for them. And usually how they sort of gain independence is through their friends and the camaraderie that they have, right, these relationships.

But my question is -- look, I don't think you can reverse it. I mean, you would know better than me, but how can it be normalized now? How long does it take at least to go back to normal, if you understand what I'm saying?

GUPTA: Yes. So, Don, you know, it's interesting because there are some things in life and within medicine that just are without precedent. We don't really have a lot to base this on in terms of what is likely to happen in the future.

What we can say is this, is that the types of changes that were seen in the brains during that time period, within a year, so a short time period, the end of 2020 they saw these changes, they typically take years and years to develop those types changes. And they're typically associated with what are known as adverse childhood experiences, meaning witnessing violence, witnessing things that are really traumatic as a child. Those are the types of things that typically lead to these sorts of changes.

We saw them much more quickly within a year. It may be hard to read that screen there, but, basically, you saw more what are known as internalizing symptoms, anxiety, isolation, depression. You didn't see an increase in what are known as externalizing symptoms. Those are rule-breaking, aggressiveness, violence, things like that. So, that was something.

Your question, how long does it last? We don't know. I mean, could there be a reversal of some of those changes? Perhaps, and that is the hope. I mean, the study is going to continue for that very reason.

COLLINS: I guess also the follow to what Don was saying, can you undo it, basically, is now that kids are -- most of them returning to school, they're back around their friends, they're not having the same restrictions like at the height of the pandemic, if it developed as quickly as it did, can it help now that they're back to normal in easing that faster?

GUPTA: That is absolutely the hope, Kaitlan. But I want to be careful here because we are seeing something that is without precedence. So, to try to extrapolate what this might look like in a couple of years, we didn't have MRI scanning during the last pandemic, 1918, 1919. What we do know, and I guess this is a little bit optimistic is -- in a good way, is that after the 1918, 1919 pandemic, there was an earnest return to normalcy. There were the roaring '20s that came back after that 1918 flu pandemic. Might that happen here as well and might we see that reflected in the brains of these adolescents, that is certainly the hope.

LEMON: Doctor, thank you very much. Have a great weekend. Good to see you, as always.

The Georgia Senate runoff is under way and early voting numbers have reached historic highs. I spoke with eight Georgia voters all with a different perspective on the race. We're going to bring you that conversation. That's next. You don't want to miss it.

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HARLOW: Welcome back to CNN This Morning. Coming up for us, we just learned some good news for U.S. soccer at the World Cup. The star, Christian Pulisic, is on track to play in the knockout round against the Netherlands tomorrow morning. His status was in jeopardy after he was injured during his game-winning goal. We have two-time World Cup champ Julie Fowdy to talk about the big game.

Also, two hero cops going beyond the call to save a nine-year-old boy who fell through the ice, dramatic video of that rescue is ahead.

And President Biden shaking up Democrats in the entire state of Iowa by announcing he wants to make South Carolina the first primary state.

LEMON: Well, just four days to go until the first Senate runoff election in Georgia just in. We have some new numbers, new early voting numbers that are shattering a record here. We're told 1.5 million people have cast their votes so far, 1.5 million.

And I want to get an idea of what's on voters' minds in this final stretch. So, I spoke with Herschel Walker supporters, Senator Raphael Warnock supporters, plus voters who split their ticket in last month's election between Republican Governor Brian Kemp and Senator Warnock. And one person from a group who could decide it all, and that's undecided voters. Listen to this conversation. Here it is.

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LEMON: Okay. So, we have the Walker supporters who are up top, one undecided, we have the Warnock deciders on the bottom. Some -- two of them are Warnock/Kemp supporters. So, it's going to be a very interesting conversation.

Okay. So, let's dive right into it. For those of you supporting who are Raphael Warnock, is it more that you like him as a candidate and the job that he's done as senator or are you more motivated by wanting to vote against Herschel Walker? I'm going to start with you, Gabriel.

GABRIEL DELILLIE, JUNIOR AT GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SEN. WARNOCK SUPPORTER: I'm more in favor of Warnock the candidate. Because for me, personally, I can relate to Senator Warnock. He's been in the community in Georgia. He was the pastor of MLK's church in Ebenezer. He doesn't let Christianity be -- he's a Christian pastor who protects a woman's right to choose, who protects the rights of LGBTQ allies and he doesn't let Republicans have the monopoly of Christianity I personally like him as a candidate.

LEMON: Okay. Robert, I see you're shaking your head. Do you want to get in on this?

ROBERT SCHOFER, ACCOUNTANT, SEN. WARNOCK SUPPORTER: Just well spoken there. I'd like to go a little bit further in there to integrity, honesty, speak when you are.