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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Today's Pivotal Runoffs in Georgia Will Decide Control of Senate; Israel on Verge of Stricter Lockdown, Cabinet Set to Meet; France to "Accelerate and Simplify" Strategy for Vaccine Rollout; Giants Coach Blasts Eagles for Disrespecting the Game. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired January 05, 2021 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:24]
LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is EARLY START. We have reports this morning from Paris, Jerusalem, London, and the Pentagon. I'm Laura Jarrett.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, and I'm Christine Romans. It is Tuesday, January 5th. That's right. It is finally January 5th. It's 5:00 a.m. in New York.
And Georgia is the center of the political universe today. Senate runoffs there will decide the balance of power. What happens there today is everything for the Biden administration agenda.
Polls open at 7:00 a.m. Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock trying to oust incumbent Republicans, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.
The Democrats need to win both races to rest control of the Senate from the GOP. The outcome will, among many things, govern how much more pandemic aid comes from Washington and shape the strength of the post-pandemic recovery.
President Trump is casting a long shadow on these races. He's waging nothing less than an Oval Office coup attempt. He even begged Georgia's secretary of state to find votes to overturn the election he lost. The candidates weighed in on that yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JON OSSOFF (D), GEORGIA SENATE CANDIDATE: The president of the United States on the phone trying to intimidate Georgia's election officials, to throw out your votes. Let's send a message.
REV. RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D), GEORGIA SENATE CANDIDATE: He is being aided and abetted by two United States senators, Kelly Loeffler, and David Perdue.
SEN. DAVID PERDUE (R-GA): Have a statewide elected official, regardless of power, take, unknowing, to tape, without disclosing, a conversation, a private conversation with the president of the United States and then leaking it to the press, it is disgusting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: As for Loeffler, she added herself to a list of senators vowing to challenge the presidential election results in Congress tomorrow.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KELLY LOEFFLER (R-GA): I have an announcement, Georgia. On January 6th, I will object to the Electoral College vote. That's right. That's right. Thank you. We're going to get this done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: Actually, no, they won't be getting anything done. There is no chance the election result, the will of 155 million voters will be overturned.
Those on the ground overseeing the elections like the one in Georgia today understand how misguided this effort of seeding lies and misinformation is, so much so that after Trump's attempted shakedown of Georgia's secretary of state, another Republican election official felt compelled Monday to offer this surgical takedown of all of the bogus claims made by Trump on that now infamous call.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GABRIEL STERLING, GEORGIA VOTING SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION MANAGER: The reason I'm having to stand here today is because there are people in positions of authority and respect who have said their votes didn't count and it's not true. They say there's 2,423 people who voted without being registered. Let's just be clear about this. You can't do it.
There's a claim that 66,248 people below the age of 18 voted. The actual number is zero. Four thousand nine hundred twenty-six voted past the voter registration deadline. Again, it's zero. No shredding of ballots going on. That's not real. It's not happening.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: More than three million votes have already been cast in Georgia's early voting period, about a million of them absentee. Thousands of new voters who were too young to vote in the general election in November, well now they're old enough and organizers are hoping to mobilize this new pool of younger voters to turn out.
It is important to note, just as in the general election, it could take some time for results to come. In it is really important here. Let's take time to count the vote.
JARRETT: That's exactly right. Unlikely we will see results tonight.
Meantime, despite the president's blatant use of power caught on tape again, the GOP is standing right behind him. Nearly three quarters of House Republicans plan to object to the Electoral College results tomorrow when votes are tallied. On Monday, just hours after he was spotted with the vice president in the Oval Office, you can see there, the president turned up the pressure on Pence, publicly, while speaking to voters in Georgia, who will decide today's Senate runoffs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I hope Mike Pence comes through for us. I have to tell you. I hope that our great vice president, our great vice president comes through for us. He's a great guy.
Of course, if he doesn't come through, I won't like him quite as much. He's going to have a lot to say about it. And you know one thing with him, you're going to get straight shots. He's going to call it straight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: Call it straight is just about all the vice president can do here.
[05:05:03]
He can't override anything. No matter how much the president would love to ignore the U.S. Constitution, Pence is literally there to pull out envelopes, and call the final vote tomorrow.
President Trump was not the only one campaigning in Georgia. President-elect Biden was also there to offer a last-minute boost to the two Democratic candidates. He's tying their success in today's runoffs to bigger stimulus checks, but also key issues for his agenda, issues like immigration policy, climate change, and health care.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT: Without introduction, and a great lineup of entertainers.
And this is not an exaggeration -- Georgia, the whole nation is looking to you. The power is literally in your hands. Unlike any time in my career, one state, one state can chart the course, not just for the next four years, but for the next generation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: President-elect Biden also still has some big cabinet posts to fill. Five actually, including attorney general. That choice perhaps even more significant now, after President Trump's call to Georgia secretary of state, which could put him in legal jeopardy, once he leaves office, Christine.
ROMANS: All right. This questioning the election result nonsense is just not good for America say American business leaders. Two hundred of America's top business leaders urging Congress to accept reality, certify the Electoral College results for Joe Biden. In a letter released Monday, these leaders said the incoming Biden administration faces the urgent task of defeating COVID-19, restoring the livelihoods of millions of Americans who lost jobs and businesses during the pandemic.
These are executives from a range of industry, banks, airlines, investment firms, pharmaceutical companies, professional sports leagues, real estate conglomerates, top law firms, media companies. This is the corporate America's biggest push yet in support of a peaceful transfer of power which again is critical for America's standing in the world.
In addition to this letter, the powerful Business Roundtable released a statement saying it opposes efforts to delay or overturn the clear outcome of the election. Business Roundtable, these are America's most prestigious business executives. They say there's no question Joe Biden won. The integrity of the system is intact, time to stop this PR stunt.
JARRETT: Yeah, it is interesting that they're weighing in now, of course, ahead of the vote tally tomorrow, and for the president, who bills himself as such a deal maker to be essentially rejected by the business community I think is pretty notable there.
All right. Still ahead, the pandemic is so bad in California, ambulance crews in Los Angeles are getting new instructions you will not believe. Still ahead.
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[05:11:57]
JARRETT: Welcome back.
We are seeing the first real sign of the post-holiday coronavirus surge that experts feared. The U.S. reported more than 128,000 hospitalizations Monday. That's not only a new record but a big jump to almost 2,700 people admitted in a single day. In the U.S., one person has been dying about every 30 seconds, and families left shaking their heads after President Trump said the case and death counts are being inflated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROSE CEMA, LOST FATHER AND UNCLE TO COVID-19: This will do (ph) with every family, because there's absolutely no way for somebody to say that it was fake, because my dad is not a fake death.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Major trouble -- major troubles brewing in southern California, officials calling the situation a human disaster. In L.A. County, someone dies every 15 seconds. Just think about that for a minute, in L.A. County, someone is dying of COVID-19 every 15 seconds.
In San Joaquin County, intensive care unit demand, an all-time high of 175 percent. L.A. ambulance crews, they're being told not to transport patients with little chance of survival, so they can conserve oxygen use.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT BYINGTON, NURSE, ST. FRANCIS MEDICAL CENTER: We needed a high flow oxygen, and we were able to obtain it, because a patient recently died in the E.R. and so we're able to get the equipment because somebody else, you know, had died. And that sounds gruesome and horrific, but that's where we are today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: At the same time, the vaccine rollout still struggling to gather speed. Only four states, South Dakota, North Dakota, Tennessee and Connecticut have administered even half of their vaccine doses. Meantime, the FDA is pushing back on ideas to speed things up here, such as giving half doses or one dose instead of two. But with inconsistent efforts, some areas are running out of vaccines in places like hard-hit El Paso, Texas.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
INTERVIEWER: Will there be a lag time when we run out of vaccines awaiting the next shipment?
MARIO D'AGOSTINO, EL PASO FIRE CHIEF: The city of El Paso has no vaccines in stock.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: The governor of New York says he wants to make it a crime to sell or administer coronavirus vaccine to people trying to skip the line.
In Wisconsin, the pharmacist who was arrested last week for trying to sabotage the vaccine, he now admits he is a conspiracy theorist and believed the vaccine was not safe for people.
The FAA had to temporarily close a facility in Jacksonville, Florida, due to a coronavirus case. It caused a big ripple effect as that facility handles 160,000 square miles of air space over the South. There were similar closures last week in Dallas and Chicago.
All right. Breaking moments ago, Israel is on the verge of expanding its coronavirus restrictions to make sure its strong vaccination program stays effective.
CNN's Sam Kiley live in Jerusalem.
And, Sam, I have been amazed at what Israel has managed to achieve in terms of vaccinations over the past week or so. It has been the best response in the world.
SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Israel is the world leader now, with close to 13 percent of the population inoculated, some 1.3 million people and climbing.
[05:15:05]
It's been a huge success. It is a small country. With, as we all know, a heavily militarized nation, due to the security situation that's prevailed since the new modern Israel was created.
And an efficient in formality, in its approach and the National Health Service, all of that meaning that ultimately, it's been efficient in rolling out this inoculation, but it is deeply fearful that that success could be overtaken very rapidly by the very fast expansion of the numbers of people going down with the virus, and being admitted to hospitals, with daily rates of around 6,000 or more, each day, new cases being diagnosed.
And for that reason, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, very likely to announce possibly today, that Israel will go into a national lockdown. It's already under the sorts of restrictions that we've seen elsewhere, in the world, and people can't gather in large numbers, and above all, children are likely to get sent home from school, and gatherings, particularly problematic, for religious communities, are going to be banned.
ROMANS: All right. Sam Kiley, in Jerusalem for us, thank you so much. Keep us posted.
JARRETT: All right. There's growing frustration with the vaccine rollout in France as well, leading French health officials to announce a new plan to speed up and simplify the process there.
CNN's Melissa Bell is live in Paris.
Melissa, nice to see you this morning. So what's the new plan?
MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, essentially, they're going to make the early vaccines available to a greater number of people, Laura. Also, they're going to open new vaccination centers. This is a result of the fact that they have been extremely criticized here in France for how slow the rollout has been.
To give you an idea of the figures, Laura, here in France, just a few thousand people have now been vaccinated and that figure in Germany is 260,000 and yet, the German government not exempt also from criticism, it is being criticized for not having ordered a sufficient number of the Pfizer vaccine doses. It's also now considering going down the route of the United Kingdom and not giving out the second doses in order to give out more first doses.
Later today, Angela Merkel will be meeting with the state premieres to look at extending the lockdown that's currently in place in Germany, had been due to expire on Sunday. The possibility is now that it could be extended until the end of January.
This, of course, the last few months, we'll see Angela Merkel at the helm of the German economy. She's to stand down later this year when Germany votes in September, just a few months then to help the country get over the crisis, Laura.
JARRETT: All right. Melissa, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
ROMANS: So, concern about violence over this election has the DC National Guard on high alert.
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[05:22:21]
JARRETT: The D.C. National Guard is being deployed to back up local law enforcement during the pro-Trump demonstrations in the city this week. The president is expected to speak at a rally tomorrow just as Congress meets to count electoral votes that will show Joe Biden won the election.
A number of protests in the nation's capital have turned violent in the past year, including last month, when protesters clashed over the November election. Yesterday, the leader of the Proud Boys, a group known for its misogynistic, Islamophobic, transphobic and anti- immigration views, well, he was arrested for burning a Black Lives Matter banner during the protest. He's admitted doing so.
ROMANS: All right. The head coach of the New York Giants blasted the Philadelphia Eagles for disrespecting the game of football.
Andy Scholes has this morning's "Bleacher Report".
What is this about, Andy?
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine.
So, had the Eagles beat Washington Sunday night, the 6-10 Giants would have made the playoffs and the New York's head coach Joe Judge, he is one of many that are not happy with what they saw from the Eagles Sunday night.
So, down by just three in the fourth quarter. Eagles head coach Doug Pederson, he's pulled the starling quarterback Jalen Hurts for the third stringer Nate Sudfeld, and Pederson says he was still trying to win the game but Judge isn't buying it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE JUDGE, NEW YORK GIANTS HEAD COACH: It's a disrespecting effort that everyone put forward to make this season a success for the National Football League, to disrespect the game, by going out there not competing for 60 minutes and then can help the players win. We would never do that, as long as I'm the head coach of the New York giants.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: All right, it's official. All of March Madness will take place in Indiana this year. The NCAA announcing yesterday that the entire 2021 men's basketball tournament is going to be played in the Hoosier State with the majority of the game being played in Indianapolis. The NCAA said it's also working with local health officials to determine if fans will be allowed to join a small number of family members who will be permitted to attend. The final four is still scheduled to take place on April 3rd, with the championship game on April 5th.
All right. Check this out. The Boston University men's and women's basketball teams opened their season yesterday, wearing masks during the game.
A BU spokesperson telling CNN, that the school requires all athletes to wear a face covering during every activity except for swimming and diving, when they're in the pool. The women hosted Holy Cross, both teams wore masks and that one, there is a school that didn't require them to be worn, but they will wear masks when they play at Boston University today and so, all of the players on the court with that one will have masks on.
[05:25:00]
BU won both of those matchups yesterday.
All right. Finally, Heisman Trophy will be awarded tonight to the nation's best college football player, a virtual ceremony, Alabama wide receiver DeVonta Smith, and a trio of quarterbacks including his teammate Mac Jones, Clemson's Trevor Lawrence, and Florida's Kyle Trask are your finalists.
Smith the front-runner, he'd be the first wide receiver to win since Desmond Howard won that award back in 1991. I'll tell you what, Laura, it's certainly been impressive, he was impressive in the playoff game, just a couple of days ago against Notre Dame. Likely going to be your winner, definitely going to be a different ceremony though watching it virtually, not having all of the past winners up on stage. But here's wishing all of those guys luck tonight.
JARRETT: Sure. Sure. It's a new time. But good for him.
Andy, great to see you. Thanks.
SCHOLES: Yeah. All right.
JARRETT: All right. The country has Georgia on its mind. Two Senate runoffs that will decide control of Congress, polls open in just a little over 90 minutes. What you need to know, next.
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