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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Today's Pivotal Runoffs In Georgia Will Decide Control Of Senate; Prime Minister Johnson Announces Six-Week Lockdown For England; 250-Plus Networks Breached In Suspected Russian Hack Of SolarWinds. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired January 05, 2021 - 05:30   ET

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

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[05:30:15]

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone, this is EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Laura Jarrett, about 30 minutes past the hour here in New York.

And it's Election Day again and this time all eyes are on Georgia. Senate runoffs there will decide the balance of power in this country and really, the success of the Biden administration. Polls open at 7:00 a.m. eastern.

Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock trying to oust incumbent Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. The Democrats need to win both of those races to wrestle control of the Senate from the GOP.

Among many things, the outcome of today's races will determine how much more pandemic aid, if any, comes from Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile, President Trump casting a long shadow on these races. He's waging nothing less than an attempted coup from the Oval Office. 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), GEORGIA: To have a statewide elected official, regardless of party, tape unknowingly -- to tape without disclosing a conversation -- private conversation with a President of the United States and then leaking it to the press is disgusting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: As for Loeffler, she added herself to that list of senators vowing to challenge the presidential election results in Congress tomorrow.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KELLY LOEFFLER (R), GEORGIA: I have an announcement, Georgia. On January sixth, 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)

ROMANS: Actually, no, they won't be getting anything done. There is no chance the election results -- the will of 155 million voters -- will be overturned.

Those on the ground actually overseeing elections like the one in Georgia today, they 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 rebuttal 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 that there is 2,423 people who voted without being registered. Let's just be clear about this, you can't do it.

Then there was the 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 legal registration deadline. Again, it's zero.

There is no shredding of ballots going on. That's not real. It's not happening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: 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 back in November -- well, they're now old enough. Organizers are hoping to mobilize this new pool of younger voters to turn out.

It's important to note here just as with the general election back in November, this could take some time for results to come in, so let's be patient and get it right.

ROMANS: And that's OK. That's what this process is all about here. Now, despite the president's blatant abuse of power caught on tape, the GOP is standing by him. Nearly three-quarters of House Republicans plan to object to the Electoral College results tomorrow when these votes are tallied.

Now, really important here. They're vote -- they're objecting to Joe Biden. They're not objecting to their own elections on the same ballots as Donald Trump.

On Monday, just hours after he was spotted with the vice president in the Oval Office, the president turned up the pressure on Pence 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 he -- you know one thing with him, you're going to get straight shots. He's going to call it straight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Well, call it straight is just about all the vice president can do. He cannot override anything no matter how much the president would love to ignore this Constitution. Pence is literally there to pull out envelopes and call the final count. That's his role.

[05:35:02]

Fifteen days until Joe Biden's inauguration. Time for three questions in three minutes. I want to bring in CNN senior political analyst John Avlon. Good morning, John.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning, guys.

ROMANS: So this runoff in Georgia is one for the ages. I mean, this is literally the center of the political universe.

And it's so incredible what a vote cast in this election will mean. It will mean could there be more stimulus? Could there be an infrastructure bill? Could there be a rollback of the president's -- President Trump's tax reform.

This is literally the Biden agenda here hanging in the balance.

AVLON: One hundred percent. Votes don't come much bigger than this. Runoffs don't come much bigger than this. Not just one Senate seat, but two, and this control of the Senate hanging in the balance.

So, Georgia's got a real opportunity today, they've got a real responsibility. And part of what they've got to confront is the divided government, which used to mean you'd still be able to get things done in the past. It's doesn't mean that anymore. Divided government means dysfunctional government. So the stakes couldn't be higher.

We know the last run was razor-thin. The reason we're having this is no one cleared the 50 percent hurdle. That's how tight it was. So this is -- this is really one of those cases where we learn again that every vote matters and decisions are made by people who show up.

JARRETT: John, the conventional wisdom is that President Trump is dividing the GOP on his way out the door, right -- tearing everything down in this doomed effort to try to convince himself and his supporters, apparently, that he didn't lose.

It seems any Republican now saying that they won't object to the election results facing reality tomorrow -- well, the president attacks them. Tom Cotton, Mitch McConnell -- the list goes on and on.

Fast-forward two weeks from now. Who's in charge of the GOP?

AVLON: Mitch McConnell. But, you know, that's simply as a -- as a matter of leadership. You know, whether he's the majority leader, in which case he's got real power -- whether he's the minority leader, which is the highest-ranking Republican official, make no mistake -- there's still going to be a major Trump hangover affecting the party.

There's going to be people -- you know, between the relationship between Donald Trump, his Twitter followers, hyperpartisan news. An enormous amount of the gravitational pull of the Republican Party will still be in that direction and that's one of the things that Republicans need to get their heads around.

Already, they've been -- and this vote tomorrow is such a big example of it. You're seeing Republicans -- and we've seen this before -- do what they know to be wrong because they're afraid of the lame duck president's tweet or what people might say about them on T.V. What they're really afraid of is losing a close partisan primary. The incentive structure is completely off.

JARRETT: Well, it also seems that many on the radical right, as you might call it, sort of think that everything is fair when it comes to politics. But I think it's important to point out there are real-life consequences here.

There are death threats for election officials who are standing up to this president. There are conspiracy theories running rampant online. Thousands of Americans -- everyday Americans who spent months planning an election in a pandemic, then weeks counting and recounting and auditing ballots are having their work questioned every day by people who know nothing about it.

You're doing a reality check later on divided government --

AVLON: Yes.

JARRETT: -- and dysfunctional government. So how can people overcome dysfunctional government -- a lot of what we've seen?

AVLON: So that's the biggest question there is. Look, I think we need to recognize that we need a period of democracy reform in this country. We need to strengthen the guardrails that have been deeply damaged. And really, at the end of the day, we need to adjust the incentive structures around our politics, which right now push people towards the extremes. They push people towards illogic.

Look, presidential leadership matters. I mean, with the call we heard yesterday -- the full transcript of the call -- the full -- you heard a president trafficking in conspiracy theories trying to appear to fear and greed. And you had honorable Republicans standing up to him in Georgia and a handful in the Senate. But those folks need to have more influence. And if more Republicans and Democrats, frankly, realize they had to face competitive general elections it would mean they would stop playing almost exclusively to the extremes.

But this is part of a larger process we need to undergo -- don't underestimate -- but it's going to stop us from being able to reason together and that's what democracy is based around.

JARRETT: Can't wait to talk to you after we see what happens.

AVLON: Big one.

JARRETT: Yes, it's all on the run today.

ROMANS: Your vote always counts but, boy, does it count in Georgia today, man.

AVLON: Arguable, never as much.

ROMANS: Wow.

John Avlon, CNN senior political analyst. Thanks, John.

AVLON: Take care, guys.

ROMANS: All right.

This was supposed to be the smartest guys in the room disrupting broken health care, but three years later, Jamie Dimon, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett are shutting down the company they created together to do just that.

Haven's goal was better, more convenient healthcare at a lower price to workers and families at Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, JPMorgan Chase. And then eventually, you take that model and you spread it to other companies. But it struggled to expand beyond its three partners.

The companies are expected to focus on boosting healthcare offerings for their own employees, especially as the COVID-19 vaccine becomes more available. Amazon already owns the online pharmacy PillPack. It started shipping prescriptions to prime members at the end of last year.

[05:40:09]

Now, Haven's shutdown shows just how difficult it can be to disrupt healthcare. A spokesperson for Haven said it will shut down at the end of February. The three companies still plan to informally collaborate on healthcare projects.

We'll be right back.

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ROMANS: We are seeing the first real sign of the post-holiday coronavirus surge that so many experts have warned about. The U.S. reported more than 128,000 hospitalizations Monday -- quadrupled in three months. That's not only a new record but a big jump to almost 2,700 admitted in a single day.

Now, in the U.S., one person has been dying about every 33 seconds. Families left shaking their heads after President Trump said the case and death counts are inflated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROSE CERNA, LOST FATHER AND UNCLE TO COVID-19: It's an insult to every family because there's absolutely no way for somebody to say that it was fake because my dad is not fake dead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[05:45:08]

JARRETT: Major trouble also brewing in Southern California. Officials calling the situation a human disaster. In L.A. County, someone dies there every 15 minutes. In San Joaquin County, intensive care unit demand far exceeding capacity. L.A. ambulance crews being told not to transport patients with little chance of survival to conserve oxygen use.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're waiting two, three, four hours minimum. It used to be a seven to 10-minute drive to a hospital and now we're having to drive even further for hospitals that are open, since everything's closing. It could turn into a 30-minute drive just to get to a hospital and then to wait another three hours.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: God bless those frontline workers who have to make these horrible decisions every day.

The vaccine rollout still gathering speed slowly. Only four states -- South Dakota, North Dakota, Tennessee, and Connecticut have administered even half of their doses.

Meantime, the FDA pushing back on ideas to speed things up by giving half-doses or only one dose instead of two. But with inconsistent efforts, some areas are running out of vaccine,

like hard-hit El Paso, Texas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will there be a lag time where we run out of vaccines and are waiting for the next shipment?

MARIO D'AGOSTINO, FIRE CHIEF, EL PASO: I'm out. The city of El Paso has no vaccines in stock.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: Also this morning, concerns about a possible superspreader event in the House of Representatives. Republican Congresswoman Kay Granger of Texas has tested positive for coronavirus. Granger was on the House floor Sunday during swearing-in proceedings and the reelection of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Her office says she was masked and following proper protocols. Granger is now quarantined.

ROMANS: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announcing England will enter a six-week lockdown as this more highly-contagious new coronavirus variant threatens to overwhelm the National Health Service.

Salma Abdelaziz has the latest. She joins us live from London. And London, this winter, looks like a very different place than it usually does around the holidays. This will continue now for another six weeks.

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN REPORTER: That's absolutely right and in some ways, this felt inevitable. It seemed like we were barreling towards a full lockdown for a while now, and that's exactly what the prime minister said yesterday.

He said look, we are looking at a record-breaking number of COVID cases. We are looking at a 40 percent increase in hospitalizations compared to the first peak. We are looking at a healthcare system that is overstretched -- it is overwhelmed. It can take no more. I have no option, essentially, but to put England under a full nationwide lockdown.

But people will tell you here that we were already under the country's toughest restrictions -- tier four rules. So what's changed?

What's changed is schools and colleges will now shut down. And they were an area of concern. There had been a spike in cases among students right before the Christmas break. So it's a variable -- a risk that the government simply couldn't take to reopen these schools this month, so shut down.

But the question is, is it enough? I cannot overemphasize how formidable of an enemy this new variant is. The prime minister saying 50 to 70 percent more transmissible.

So we've already heard one minister and his government say look, don't expect that these restrictions will be lifted in mid-February when they are reviewed. Expect the possibility that they could be extended, that they could be -- that they could be eased up slowly.

Really, all the hopes now -- every hope is pinned on this vaccination program. But the prime minister indicating that in order for that vaccination program to be effective you have to have all the most vulnerable groups vaccinated by mid-February. That's 14 million people you're talking about. It's an ambitious, some might say unrealistic, strategy but it's the only tool they have left in the toolbox -- vaccinations to get control of this variant -- Christine.

ROMANS: All right, Salma, thank you for that -- and keep us posted.

JARRETT: All right.

Back here in the U.S., alarm is mounting that a major cyberattack on government and private computer networks was much larger and wider than previously known. The intrusion lasted months before it was caught and top government experts say it may take years to fix. Now questions are swirling about vulnerabilities home and abroad, and the slow response from America's top cybersecurity agency.

CNN's Vivian Salama reports from Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VIVIAN SALAMA, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Good morning.

The scope of these hacks continues to grow by the day. Sources telling me that as many as 250 government networks, as well as private sector networks, appear to have been impacted, and that's likely a conservative estimate. It's possibly a lot more.

Now, the severity of this -- the impact ranges from agency-to-agency and company-to-company, some of them experiencing minor kinks to their systems and others severe impact to their networks. And so, as the forensics take place and investigations go on, authorities are learning more about these attacks. It was linked to Russian-backed actors. Who they are or what their motive is continues to be a mystery.

[05:50:00]

But one thing is for certain. Now we see that the government's cyber defenses at the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Security Agency all failed to detect this breach early on. In fact, they all have what's known as an early warning system and that even failed. It was a private sector company that first detected this attack on U.S. government computers, as well as on private sector computers as well and networks.

And so, one thing is for certain. While there are so many questions still swirling about the nature of this attack and the severity of it, U.S. government systems are definitely vulnerable and our adversaries now know it. (END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right, thank you so much for that.

This morning, the world is trying to make sense of the latest provocations by Iran. Overnight, a South Korean destroyer arrived in the Strait of Hormuz after a South Korean-flagged tanker was seized in the Persian Gulf on Monday.

Hours earlier, Iran announced it would further violate the nuclear accord with uranium enrichment, perhaps the most flagrant step since the deal toward a possible nuclear weapon.

High anxiety at the Pentagon over how President Trump could respond in his final days in office.

CNN's newest correspondent at the Pentagon, our friend Oren Liebermann, has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Christine and Laura, for a few days there it looked like the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz would be heading home to the west coast after a 10-month deployment in the Middle East.

Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller intended it, according to one senior defense official, as an explicit message of de- escalation to Iran since the Nimitz was the only carrier in the region. That message lasted all of a few days. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump ordering and directing Miller to keep the Nimitz in the region, perhaps as a show of force -- a deterrent against Iran as tensions with Iran run high.

One of the concerns here on apparent mixed messaging. Is it one of de- escalation -- the posture of the U.S. military -- or is it one of deterrence as the U.S. has sent B-52 bombers through the region and the U.S. Navy acknowledged that a nuclear sub and two guided-missile cruisers entered and went through the Persian Gulf there?

Meanwhile, Iran is making its own moves, announcing that it will enrich uranium at its Fordo facility up to 20 percent. And in an aggressive move, seizing a South Korea-flagged chemical tanker. It seems putting pressure not only on the other members of the JCPOA but also on the incoming Biden administration -- Christine and Laura.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JARRETT: Oren Liebermann, thank you for that.

Wisconsin is mobilizing the National Guard and officials in Kenosha have declared a state of emergency ahead of state prosecutors' announcement about whether to charge the white police officer who shot Jacob Blake back in August. The decision is now expected within two weeks. Officer Rusten Sheskey shot the 29-year-old unarmed black man seven times in the back. Blake survived but is not paralyzed from the waist down.

And a stunning development concerning actress Tanya Roberts who was reported to have died but is still alive. Her publicist says a miscommunication with Roberts' longtime partner led to his erroneous reporting of her death. She remains in critical condition after she collapsed just before Christmas following a walk with her dogs.

The 65-year-old Roberts is best known for her role as a Bond girl in the film "A View To A Kill" and in the T.V. shows "CHARLIE'S ANGELS" and "THAT 70'S SHOW."

We wish her a speedy recovery.

ROMANS: All right, let's get a check on CNN Business, Election Day version in America. Looking at markets around the world, a pretty narrowly mixed performance here after Wall Street yesterday. Futures, right now, looking at Election Day slight move here but nothing to write home about.

Look, the first day of the year, stocks fell. The Dow closed 382 points lower. The S&P and the Nasdaq also down. It's not too surprising, really, after a very big year of gains for stocks, remember.

Also, there's some new uncertainty about America's response to coronavirus and the economic recovery, and that could hinge on the outcome of Georgia's runoff election today. It is not too strong to say the recovery and the Biden agenda hinge on what happens in the balance of power in the Senate, and that depends on these two votes today.

Tax hikes for the rich, tax hikes for companies, rolling back some of those corporate tax cuts from the Trump administration -- all of that could hinge on what happens today in Georgia.

Gaming has been in high demand as millions of people stay home during the pandemic, but it's been hard for people to get their hands on the latest gaming systems. Microsoft said it has asked AMD for help to make more Xbox consoles. AMD makes the processor and the graphics chips for the consoles.

In an interview last week, Microsoft's executive vice president said he asked AMD for help but didn't say how the chipmaker would be able to make more units available quickly. AMD did not respond to CNN's request for comment.

It's just another sign of the pandemic reality. You know, the demand for some industries has been just unbelievable. But you look at retail, you look at still 9.8 million jobs lost in this country -- just a very split reaction.

[05:55:00]

JARRETT: Yes. Take it easy on your gaming consoles, everyone.

ROMANS: Thanks for joining us. I'm Christine Romans.

JARRETT: I'm Laura Jarrett. "NEW DAY" is next.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So much hinges on the results of this election.

BIDEN: One state could chart the course for the next generation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Republican senators got a presidential boost before the polls open.

WARNOCK: He is being aided and abetted by two United States senators.

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Nationwide, record numbers in the hospital -- 100,000-plus for 34 days straight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of our hospitals are feeling those impacts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.