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CNN This Morning

Luka Doncic Makes NBA History With 60-Point Performance; Southwest CEO Apologizes For Leaving Holiday Travelers Stranded; Buttigieg Vows To Hold Southwest Accountable For "Complete Meltdown"; Supreme Court Keeps Trump-Era Border Policy In Place For Now; WH: U.S. Considers COVID Measures For Travelers From China; Family Decides To Drive From Phoenix To Boston After Flight Canceled. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 28, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: He ties the game, watch this, by intentionally missing the free throw, grabbing his own rebound, and getting to put back himself.

In the last 20 years, no NBA team had ever come back. When trailing by at least nine, with 35 or fewer to go in overtime, Luka would pour in seven of Dallas' 11 points to bring him to 60 on the night. And after Dallas' 126-121 win, Luka wanted to pour a cold one.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LUKA DONCIC, DALLAS MAVERICK'S GUARD: I'm tired as hell.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can rest later. You're young.

DONCIC: I need a recovery beer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: He want a recovery beer, but his teammates were waiting for him in the locker room with a nice, refreshing water bottle shower. Now, isn't that how we finish the show every morning --

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, that's what I do.

WIRE: -- too, right, after a good one?

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: It's totally what we do at 9:01.

COLLINS: I've never heard the phrase recovery beer, but I love that.

HARLOW: I love it, too.

WIRE: Yes. All over it.

HARLOW: Thanks for making our morning, Coy.

WIRE: You got it. HARLOW: We appreciate it. CNN This Morning continues right now.

COLLINS: All right. Good morning, everyone. Don is off this morning. Southwest Airlines, though, coming under federal scrutiny as officials are vowing to hold the company accountable for the meltdown that has left thousands of passengers stranded. More flights have been canceled today, and the chaos is expected to continue into the new year.

HARLOW: Also overnight, the Supreme Court handing a victory to 19 Republican led states, ordering Trump-era border restrictions known as Title 42, to remain in effect for now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: She says that she thought that her daughter was going to die overnight because it was so cold.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Thousands of migrants in limbo and in serious danger at the southern border. We are live in El Paso with our Rosa Flores, talking to them about their dangerous journeys.

COLLINS: Also new this morning, a big development as the U.S. is now considering new COVID measures for people traveling from China. Is China is easing its restrictions? But we start with what's happening here in the U.S. No end in sight to the chaos that has been created by the meltdown at Southwest Airlines.

The company now under federal scrutiny as they are confirming that today, more than 60 percent of the flights have already been canceled. The CEO, Bob Jordan, is insisting that the airline is doing everything possible to return to normal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB JORDAN, CEO, SOUTHWEST AIRLINES: I want everyone who is dealing with the problems we've been facing, whether you haven't been able to get to where you need to go or you're one of our heroic employees caught up in a massive effort to stabilize the airline to know is that we're doing everything we can to return to a normal operation. And please also hear that I'm truly sorry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Adrienne Broaddus is live for CNN this morning at Chicago's Midway International Airport. Adrienne, you spoke to passengers yesterday who were incredibly frustrated by what these cancelations were doing to their plans. What are you hearing there this morning?

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's quieter this morning, Kaitlan, but those passengers who we heard from were frustrated. We've seen some progress, but certainly not perfection. And you can see that for yourself if you lookbehind us here, where all the bags have piled up. Some of the areas are thinner, but we see there are crates like this where these bags have been brought over from carousels five and six. We saw crews pulling these bags over yesterday as flights were actually coming in. Some bags were left behind, but still a familiar scene. If you look at the information board, you still see canceled flights.

Some flights are arriving, but as you mentioned, Southwest has reduced its schedule and canceled more than 60 percent of its flights. And passengers, even some of the most loyal Southwest customers, says there needs to be a change.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAMI NASHASHIBI, SOUTHWEST TRAVELER: This last 48 hours has been the worst fiasco I've ever seen in the last 20 years plus with Southwest. This is one of those moments where I think there needs to be some type of federal intervention, because this is just clearly whoever is guiding the ship has lost their way at this company right now, and they have completely bungled this in ways that have really caused great hardship to a lot of folks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROADDUS: And the Transportation Secretary calling for accountability, even speaking about finding some of the airlines. One thing that is different this morning, some Southwest crews are inside of this, shall we call it, the new baggage area, as passengers show up to collect their bags. Kaitlan and Poppy, I'll send it back to you now.

COLLINS: Yes. Amazing. I mean, Pete Buttigieg saying that they're going to just not only make sure they get through what's happening now, but make sure it also doesn't happen again. Adrienne Broaddus, thank you.

[07:05:01]

HARLOW: Well, this morning, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is vowing to hold Southwest accountable for these mass cancelations. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: I understand you just spoke directly with the CEO of Southwest Airlines. Did you get any explanation at all for this horrendous meltdown of epic proportions?

PETE BUTTIGIEG, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: Meltdown is the right word. This is an unacceptable situation. You look at the numbers of passengers who are stranded. You look at how hard it is, even to get somebody on the phone to address it. From what I can tell, Southwest is unable to locate even where their own crews are, let alone their own passengers, let alone baggage.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HARLOW: Passengers, as you've been hearing from all morning, having a very hard time getting in touch with anyone on the phone for customer service, trying to rebook flights or find lost baggage. Employees themselves, if you can believe it, have not been able to reach or communicate with the airline.

I want you to listen what Lyn Montgomery, she's the President of the Southwest Flight Attendants Union, told CNN about the system.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LYN MONTGOMERY, PRESIDENT, SOUTHWEST FLIGHT ATTENDANTS UNION: The phone systems that the company uses is just not working. They're just not manned with enough manpower in order to give the scheduling changes to flight attendants. And that's created a ripple effect that is creating chaos throughout the nation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: So let me bring in now former Vice President of American Airlines and now an Aviation Consultant, Scott Nason. Scott, thanks very much for being with us. How can this --

SCOTT NASON, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT, AMERICAN AIRLINES: My pleasure to be here.

HARLOW: How can an airline in 2022 be operated largely by reliance on a 1990s phone system? Because that's the crux of this, right?

NASON: Well, I think there are several cruxes that seems to be one of them. And the simple answer is, I don't understand how this can happen either. On the one hand, scheduling crews is complicated and recovering from what the industry calls off schedule operations. Putting the airplanes and the crews back together again is a very difficult problem.

But airlines have been working on this for a longtime, and we built systems to deal with it 35 years ago and have improved them over the years. So the systems are better, the algorithms are better, the communications are better, cell phones and texting, and giving the crews access to these systems from home. It's hard to understand how Southwest could have gotten themselves in this situation.

HARLOW: So what's different? You are a high-ranking executive in American Airlines. What's the system that an American or United or a Delta uses that is so different than the system that Southwest uses?

NASON: Well, I'm not specifically familiar with Southwest. I will tell you that most of the big airlines built their own systems, but you can also buy a system off the shelf from another company that will take this problem and says, OK, our airplanes and crews are out of position.

Here's the schedule we're trying to fly. What is the best thing to do? How do we put things back together again? How do we marry crews with the airplanes and fly as much of the schedule as possible? And these systems and algorithms were put in place over the last 10, 20, 30 years.

HARLOW: So I'd love your reaction to something else that the Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, said to Wolf yesterday. Here he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUTTIGIEG: I also talked with union leadership from the pilots and from the flight attendants. They made clear that they have been raising the alarm about these issues in their systems for some time and that this really has to do with decisions and choices in terms of the investments that this airline has made or has failed to make over the years that seem to be catching up to them now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: How long will this fix take, do you believe?

NASON: Well, my sense is that fixing the communications problem is probably the easier fix. It ought to be possible to put in place the manpower, the electronic communications in order to be able to better reach your crews relatively quickly, say, within the first year. But building a system to help them solve this problem.

So imagine what they're looking at is they've got airplanes and crews all over the place and very few of their scheduled flights, of which they have, I think, about 4,000 a day are prepared to operate without some intervention. Building the system to help their crew schedulers and their operations control people to figure out what to do is a harder problem.

And if they really don't have anything in place to help them with that today --

HARLOW: Yes.

NASON: -- they might be looking at a couple of years or more to get a good system in place to be able to handle the problem the way American and probably United and Delta do.

[07:10:03]

HARLOW: A couple of years. OK, quickly, Scott, before you go and thanks for this insight, it's so helpful to help us understand. One of the reasons. I think so many people love Southwest is because there's more affordable than a lot of the bigger carriers. Can they make these fixes and remain as affordable as they've been?

NASON: Well, I think they have to. I don't think they have any choice at this point whether or not Pete Buttigieg and the DOT decides to impose legal sanctions or obligations. This is not something that Southwest can afford to have ever happen again.

HARLOW: Yes.

NASON: So they're going to have to do that. Now, as your costs rise, it certainly is logical to expect fares to rise somewhat, but they also are going to be governed by the marketplace.

HARLOW: Yes.

NASON: And since their competitors have better systems in place already, those airlines aren't going to be facing increased costs. And so Southwest is going to have to deal with the fact that their costs are rising faster than their competitors are.

HARLOW: Well, Scott Nason, you really helped us understand what's going on, so thanks very much for your time.

NASON: My pleasure.

COLLINS: Also this morning, thousands of migrants are now facing potentially months of more uncertainty after the Supreme Court's decision that the border restriction known as Title 42 is going to remain in effect for now. It was a brief, unsigned order from the justices yesterday that halted a trial judge's ruling that would have lifted the measure.

Obviously, this is the measure that allows for the swift expulsion of migrants who could potentially seek asylum. Instead, the court granted that Republican led request to prevent the winding down of Title 42. The court says it will hear arguments from the case from these Republican led states in February.

CNN's Rosa Flores is live in El Paso, Texas. Rosa, you've been reporting on how these migrants are feeling, and I'm sure understandably, a lot of them are confused by what this development means for them.

FLORES: You know, you're absolutely right, Kaitlan. There is a lot of confusion because these migrants are trying to figure out how it's going to impact them. And, of course, this is all on a case-by-case basis, so it depends. But because they're already in the United States, here in El Paso, there's a sense of calm. And so what they're focusing on right now are the basics -- food and shelter.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES (voice-over): One-year-old Brenda has no shoes. Her tiny feet, bear on the cold pavement of an El Paso parking lot.

(on-camera): Are you going to sleep outside again? What are you going to do?

(voice-over): Her parents, Anthony Blanco and Glenda Matos (ph), say they wrapped this rosary around her ankle for protection when they left Venezuela four months ago and say it has saved her life multiple times in the Darien Gap, a dangerous jungle between south and Central America.

(on-camera): He says that the most dangerous part of the journey was through the Darien Gap. He and his daughter almost lost their lives three times, and they say that they saw adults who died. They saw children who died. (voice-over): Brenda's most recent brush with death, they say, crossing the Rio Grande into El Paso.

(on-camera): She says that she thought her daughter was going to die overnight, because it was so cold. They had just crossed the river. They were wet.

(voice-over): Desperate, Matos (ph) says she started knocking on doors asking for help.

(on-camera): She says that she prayed to God, that she hugged her daughter as tight as she could, and tried to warm her with her own body heat as much as she could to try to save her daughter's life.

(voice-over): The Blanco family is part of the growing number of migrants who are crossing into the U.S. during this latest surge. This as the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump-era pandemic public health rule known as Title 42 remains in place, while the legal challenges play out.

Migrants like them, line the streets of El Paso near a Catholic church that turns into a shelter overnight. Many here have no money for transportation and some have no family in the United States.

(on-camera): He says that they don't know anyone.

(voice-over): The Texas National Guard erected over 2 miles of fencing along the U.S. side of the Rio Grande in El Paso in the past week. The barrier is not deterring up to 1,600 migrants border patrol has encountering every day, a federal law enforcement source says.

Migrants, like Selena Varela, a Venezuelan mother of two has decided to wait in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, where she says shelters are at capacity, which means sleeping on the street.

Officials there say they don't know how many migrants are waiting in their city for Title 42 to end. Advocates and officials in the three northern Mexican cities of Tijuana, Reynosa and Matamoros estimate nearly 22,000 migrants are waiting in shelters, on the streets and in camps.

[07:15:07]

As for the Blancos, they credit the rosary with a tiny image of our Lady of Guadeloupe for saving them during their journey.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES: Brenda and her parents are still here in El Paso, and they've been staying at that parking lot that you saw in that story. Now her parents are trying to raise money, Poppy, to get out of the border area, out of El Paso, but they don't have any money and they don't have any family in the United States.

And that's the situation that a lot of these migrants that we've been talked to are in. They just don't have money, they don't have connections in the United States, and so they're stuck here. Poppy?

HARLOW: And I think what often gets lost -- Rosa, and thank you for that great reporting. What gets lost in this conversation is that to seek asylum is a legal action. It is legal for people to go through the process and seek asylum in the United States. But you have some really interesting reporting on how backlog that system is for people that even get in that line.

FLORES: You know, you're absolutely right. And the backlog is of historic proportions. There's a group at Syracuse University that crunches all this data, and according to their data, the number of immigration cases and immigration courts here in the United States and at USCIS, nears 1. 6 million cases. And they say this is the highest on record. And they say that it's a sevenfold increase since 2012.

And, you know, what's the impact of Title 42 on all of this? Well, effectively, Title 42 stops migrants from going to a port of entry and seeking asylum, which is supposed to be legal in the United States. But that's not happening right now because of Title 42. But the impact is that because of the surge that's happening, because there's so many migrants coming to the border hoping to enter the United States, those numbers are just shooting through the roof, probably between October and November.

Those -- that federal data shows that more than 30,000 asylum cases were added just during that short period of time, and that's expected to continue. As you can see behind me, a lot of these people, what they want really is asylum. And here's the thing. The wait just for a hearing right now, according to this group, could be more than four years. Poppy?

HARLOW: And they can't legally work during that time, right?

FLORES: You know, you're absolutely right. If they are not here legally in the United States, they can't work.

HARLOW: Yes.

FLORES: Once they are in the asylum process, legally, they can file for an application for a work permit. But I've covered those stories too, Poppy, there's been backlogs --

HARLOW: Yes.

FLORES: -- on that too. So even if they have an application, even if they qualify for that work permit, sometimes they are delays on that and their hands are tied. They can't work.

HARLOW: Yes.

COLLINS: Yes. It's remarkable reporting. Rosa Flores live in El Paso. We'll check back in with you. Thank you.

Also this morning, we're learning about how the United States is considering a new measure, a new restriction on people traveling to the United States from China as Beijing is easing their travel protocols, getting rid of that quarantine period that was required when you initially went to China, where CNN's Selina Wang is live in Beijing. Selina, what are you hearing from Chinese officials about their concerns about these measures that the United States might put in place here?

SELINA WANG, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kaitlan, Beijing's response is basically to defend its own decisions and to urge countries to work together. This was at a press briefing when the ministry also accused western countries and media for hyping up and distorting China's COVID policy changes.

Now, this is what the Foreign Ministry said in specific about the possible moves from the U.S. It said, quote, "We need all parties to work together scientifically against the epidemic to ensure the safe movement of people between countries, maintain the stability of the global industrial supply chain, and promote the resumption of healthy growth in the world economy. China has always believed that the measures taken by countries to prevent the epidemic should be scientific and moderate and should not affect normal people-to-people exchanges."

Now, Kaitlan, the irony here is that since the start of the pandemic, China has had some of the strictest border controls in the world. But now that the country is finally abandoning zero-COVID, starting to open up and cases are surging, other countries, they're now getting nervous.

U.S. officials said they're concerned about the lack of transparent data from China, including viral genomic sequencing, which makes it difficult, the U.S. officials say, to identify any potential new variants from China. The U.S. said they are considering a testing requirement for travelers from China.

So far, Japan, India, Taiwan and Italy's Lombardy region have put COVID testing requirements in place for travelers from China. Kaitlan?

COLLINS: Yes, there's a real sense of distrust between the United States and China on what these numbers look like.

Selina Wang, thank you so much for that reporting on that response.

[07:20:01]

Up next, we're going to talk about more on the Southwest Airlines meltdown. It's still underway. It has forced one Arizona family to drive across the country to make their son's Christmas wish come true. They're going to join us live during that journey next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: All right. We've been talking about the chaos happening in Southwest Airlines all morning. It's very serious for all of these thousands of flyers that have been caught up in it. One family that has been also caught up in this is a family that is now going the distance to make their son's Christmas wish come true. Bowen's only wish this Christmas was to go to the NHL Winter Classic to see the Bruins play at Fenway. But after Southwest delayed and ultimately canceled their flight from Arizona, they decided to drive. Tim and Kelley Maher started their journey in Arizona. They are joining us now from Ohio as they are making their way and as they are also along with their children, as you can see them there, Sullivan, Sailor, Ireland and Bowen.

Thank you all for being here. I mean, this is just a remarkable journey that you have been on, that you have embarked in. I know it's in the hopes of making this Christmas wish come true. But tell us just basically what the last, you know, 36 hours of your life has looked like.

[07:25:15]

KELLEY MAHER, FAMILY DRIVING RENTAL FROM PHOENIX TO BOSTON AFTER FLIGHT CANCELED: Yes, I think a little bit of a whirlwind. When we made the decision in Terminal 4 in Sky Harbor on Sunday to turn this into a drive, you know, I remember my husband saying, guys, this is a really big commitment if everybody up for this. And like I think probably secretly we're regretting it a little bit, but we actually have laughed a lot and had lots of smiles.

We were saying that yesterday morning, we left super early. We got into the car at 04:00 in the morning and our stop that early was in Tulsa. I mean, that lovely women in Tulsa at the gas station wishing us a wonderful journey. So that certainly helped to pump us up a little bit, but it's been a little bit of a whirlwind.

Maybe if we sat and thought about it a little bit longer, we wouldn't have done this, but I'm not sure. But I'm glad that we did.

HARLOW: Yes, probably going to be some of your best family memories, honestly, from this car. Hey, Bowen, do you realize how awesome your parents are?

BOWEN MAHER, FAMILY DRIVING RENTAL FROM PHOENIX TO BOSTON AFTER FLIGHT CANCELED: Yes, I've noticed. I didn't know.

COLLINS: Well, I mean, we talked about the family memories and --

HARLOW: Yes.

COLLINS: -- you guys have amazing attitudes about this, but I know this is also pretty expensive. I mean, this is a very long drive. It would be 40 hours to go the whole way. And so, have you added up the cost of how much it costs to rent a car, for the gas? You know, I know you don't know whether or not your bags are going to be there when you make it, where it's going to be very cold, where you're going?

TIM MAHER, FAMILY DRIVING RENTAL FROM PHOENIX TO BOSTON AFTER FLIGHT CANCELED: So we like to travel, but we had an idea. We had some car set aside and we were just wanting to get to Chicago if we could, but that got canceled. So we just went over to --

K. MAHER: Enterprise.

T. MAHER: -- Enterprise at the South Phoenix Sky Harbor and just what do you have? We got to go. There's really no choice. We were going to go no matter what. But yes, the guy there, well, he was awesome. Got us in a big truck. There's six of us, and went home, went to bed, packed a couple of extra things because we do not have our luggage yet, hoping it's going to be in Manchester.

But that was a big deal for us, too. That's why I started, I just had thoughts about Southwest canceling my flight is irritating, but I'm walking around and there's people everywhere and there's just -- there's flight attendants standing there and there's pilots, but they can't get through to the company to get, I don't know if it's approval to get onto the plane.

I don't know how it works for that. But I'm thinking about people's luggage. They're not able to get their luggage for a week. I'm thinking, this is crazy. People have gifts or medication or electronics in those bags they just handed you, thinking they get it in a couple of hours and they're not going to get it for a week?

If that -- I don't know, but it's just -- those are just my thoughts. I started tweeting out like, Southwest, where are you? Like, I -- it was the oddest thing because we're a loyal Southwest family, like 20 years plus. We look nowhere else except Southwest, are so fun. But this was the first time I've really seen it collapse.

HARLOW: So what are the --

T. MAHER: And the people -- the workers at the counters, the ground crew, they were awesome. It was just -- they were trying to get in touch with people that they couldn't talk to. They were on hold for four or five hours, so.

HARLOW: Yes. Yes. I mean, they're going through so much, too. Those pilots, flight attendants, folks behind the desk working, they're trying to get answers from the airline, too. Hey, I wonder you say how loyal you guys are to Southwest. Do you think that remains after this?

K. MAHER: You know, it's hard to say. Someone asked me that yesterday and we've got a little quick trip in January, that is Phoenix to Anaheim. That would be a super inexpensive flight and save a lot of time. And I think the drive is five and a half hours and I don't know that we would risk sitting.

It's the time lost, right? I mean, we were at the airport at noontime on Sunday and finally made the call at 10:30 p.m. that we needed to go. We could not afford to lose any more time if we were going to drive, and that's what we face. We've got the flights home on January 6 from Manchester that we're sitting here saying, are we going to get back in the car or are we going to risk trying to get -- it's not just, oh, do you have an extra seat at six people? This is very, very impactful.

T. MAHER: Right.

K. MAHER: So, we're certainly thinking things through. It's certainly cause pause. That's what I would say.

T. MAHER: And we have to get back to work as well. And I hate to say, but I can't rely on Southwest to get the family -- us home, so we might have to leave a little early to drive ourselves back. And again, you know, it's -- this has been a good memory for the family. We've had a lot of fun.

But at the same time, it's -- you'd like to be able to rely on a carrier to get you home, but we just can't. We might not be able to, you know, rely on them at this time.

HARLOW: We are rooting for you guys. Kids, do not ask your parents, are we there yet? Do not say that, OK?

[07:30:00]