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President Biden In Brussels For His First NATO Summit; U.S. Assessing Reported Leak At Chinese Nuclear Power Facility; Delta Variant's U.K. Dominance Sparks Concern In The U.S. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired June 14, 2021 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:00]

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Become the chief foreign policy concerns.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: President Biden will underscore the U.S. commitment to the alliance charter, which spells out that an attack on one member is an attack on all and is to be met with a collective response.

CNN's Melissa Bell live in Brussels, Belgium for us. Good morning, Melissa.

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine.

We've been hearing already this morning from the British prime minister something of the position of so many of the Europeans that have begun arriving here at NATO for this summit that what they're looking for is no new cold war with China and some kind of dialogue with Moscow.

And I think one of the big divisions we're going to be seeing here at this 30-strong NATO organization summit so well-represented by Europeans are some of those divisions, with the United States pushing for tough language on China, tough language on Russia. Europeans looking for some kind of middle ground that's going to avoid getting too confrontational, that's going to allow for dialogue, but it's going to allow NATO also to contain any threats that they might pose. So that's going to be the subject in a lot of the conversations.

Another really interesting thing is what's going on immediately behind me ahead of this summit kicking off, and that is the bilateral meeting between Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and the Turkish president. Their relationship, Christine, is at an all-time low, down to trading insults these last few months. Erdogan calling into question the mental health of the French president. So you can bet that in that room right now the tension and the atmosphere is pretty frosty.

But they have, of course, been on -- either on the divide of so many different issues these last few years -- Syria, the eastern Mediterranean. This is one of the problems for NATO that Turkey behaving in a way that has been more and more autocratic -- has been difficult for NATO members increasingly to deal with, and that's going to be one of the subject matters.

Later today, after the summit with all the allies, Biden will also have his bilateral meeting with Erdogan -- again, a meeting that promises to be pretty frosty, partly because of the recognition only recently by the United States of the Armenian genocide, a very touchy point for Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

ROMANS: All right, Melissa. Thank you so much for that. Keep us posted.

JARRETT: So, President Biden coming off the G7 meeting having persuaded other leaders to take a stronger stand against China. The president proposed a global infrastructure program to compete with China and called for a new study into the origins of coronavirus. Everyone wants answers on that.

G7 leaders also agreed to speak out against human rights abuses in China, something that had been hotly debated behind closed doors, we're told.

CNN's Ivan Watson is live in Hong Kong for us. Ivan, Biden got some of what he wanted but European leaders appeared resistant to go as far as the president wanted in holding China to account. And, Beijing is now exploiting that divide, it seems.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Exploiting that divide and also bristling at the fact that the G7 issued a final communique that was critical of China.

And even though it's a holiday here in China, the Chinese Embassy in London put out a number of statements. One of them saying, quote, "The days when global decisions were dictated by a small group of countries are long gone." It slammed what it calls the so-called system and order advocated by a handful of countries.

And then put out a subsequent statement really slamming the G7's final communique, accusing it of slander and of distorted facts, and accusing the U.S. of sinister intentions and firing back at criticism that was in that final document calling on China to respect human rights in its Xinjiang region where it's accused of genocidal policies and here in Hong Kong where it has stripped autonomy and democratic freedoms.

Accused China, basically, of encroaching on other country's territory in the East and South China Sea, threatening Taiwan. Calling for an end to forced labor being used in products produced in the global supply chain.

And also, as you mentioned, calling for an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus which were first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019.

These disagreements -- the harsh rhetoric between Washington and Beijing -- this is nothing new. What is new is the U.S. president -- this president getting countries like France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain, and Canada all to sign on to a document criticizing Beijing. That is something that the Chinese government was not used to during four years of the Trump administration.

JARRETT: It's a different day. All right, Ivan, thanks so much.

ROMANS: All right.

The backdrop of the president's trip, rising prices around the world. A growing number of countries facing the same supply bottlenecks just as demand surges. In the U.S., prices are higher for most things you buy -- food, gas, furniture, air travel. Used car prices are up 39 percent since the start of this year.

In May, so-called core inflation that leaves out volatile food and gas -- that rose at the fastest pace since 1992.

[05:35:05]

Yet, investors and the Federal Reserve are shrugging off rising inflation as transitory is the Fed's word. It means temporary.

Goldman Sachs says three factors are driving prices higher here and they are all temporary. Demand will level out, the computer ship shortage will rebound, and low-wage workers will go back to work over time and when those extended employee benefits end.

Higher wages will likely help get them there. We've told you about hiring bonuses and wage hikes for the lowest wage workers. But look at this. The New York Fed found the minimum salary workers without a college degree will accept for a new job -- it's at an all-time high, above $61,000 a year.

And more workers are quitting their jobs. In April, the highest rate of quitting in 20 years. Now that, Laura, can mean higher prices for businesses but also labor economists say it shows dynamism, really, in the American labor market, so you want to see people kind of retraining, moving to new parts of the economy. So we're at really a big dislocation right now.

JARRETT: But you would think if they get that higher wage then, hopefully, they're actually more likely to stay in that job for a longer period of time, which employers should want.

ROMANS: It's good for retention -- that's right.

JARRETT: All right.

This morning, CNN has exclusive new reporting on the U.S. assessing a report of a leak at a Chinese nuclear power plant. It does not sound good.

Let's bring in CNN's David Culver. He's live in Shanghai for us. David, bring us up to speed on what you know here.

DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You hear this Laura and it sounds incredibly frightening. But one thing that's been stressed to me by several diplomatic sources here in China, as well to our colleagues in Washington who initially broke this story, is that yes, this has the potential to be incredibly serious, even dangerous, but it also could be resolved rather quickly and be a non-issue.

Let's start with what we know. This has to do with the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant. That's in southern China. It's in Guangdong province. It's about 80 miles from Hong Kong.

Now, going back to late last month, the French company that co- operates that power plant along with the Chinese sent a petition for a waiver of assistance, if you will, to the Department of Energy in the United States. Now, they filed that petition in hopes of getting, likely, some technical support.

However, they then followed up with two more requests -- one as recently as last week. And in it, they worded this as -- and I'll quote here -- "an imminent radiological threat." And they've accused the Chinese of raising the threshold -- the limits for what is radiologically acceptable and safe in that region.

Now, it all sounds terrifying and it sounds quite alarming but one thing that has been stressed by the Biden administration, in particular, to our CNN colleagues in Washington is that this is not yet at the crisis level.

Something else we need to put in context here is we've heard from the French company that runs this plant and despite what our colleagues in Washington got from that petition and despite that being labeled an imminent radiological threat, they publicly are saying that this is operating within the safety parameters and is under control -- that there doesn't seem to be an issue. And perhaps it's downplaying it to the public and trying to calm or perhaps they're genuinely thinking that this is going to be controlled and not going to be a problem.

The biggest issue here is that we simply don't know. It's a lack of transparency. And we've seen that with other situations involving China. But going forward, what the intention from the U.S. will be is to assess this to see how the Chinese are going to handle it.

And complicating matters more than anything else, Laura is that you've got a geopolitical back-and-forth between the U.S. and China where between allied countries if this were to have happened, experts tell me you could simply have an operator at the plant pick up the phone and call someone in the U.S. and say let's work through this. That's not the case in this climate, Laura.

JARRETT: More on this case, of course. And as you said, it's about trust, it's about transparency, and how do we know that when they say that it's contained it's actually contained.

David Culver, glad you're staying on top of this for us.

CULVER: Right.

JARRETT: We'll be right back.

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[05:43:08] ROMANS: Welcome back.

President Biden now the 12th American president to meet with Queen Elizabeth. The audience at Windsor Castle was the queen's first one- on-one meeting with a world leader since the pandemic began.

These meetings, of course, are famously private but we got a bit of a reveal from the president. Here's what Biden had to say.

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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: She was very generous and very -- I don't think she'd be insulted, but she reminded me of my mother in terms of the look of her and -- you know, just the generosity.

And I said you know, ma'am, this is -- you know, it's been a long time. And she said oh, no. I said I wish we could stay longer. Maybe we could hold the cars up a minute and stuff. Anyway, she was very gracious.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: And he also said that she asked about Putin and Xi.

Biden joins a long list of American presidents who have visited the queen. This was one of the queen's first public engagements since the death of her husband Prince Philip earlier this year.

JARRETT: I'm glad he took off the aviators for the picture.

ROMANS: Yes.

JARRETT: All right.

New overnight, England's big reopening plan now delayed. The problem is a COVID variant first detected in India, known as the Delta variant. You might have heard about it. It's now the dominant strain in the U.K. and it's driving a spike in new cases there.

CNN's Scott McLean is live in London. Scott, it just goes to show even as effective as these vaccines are -- and they are very effective -- the variants can be the real wildcard here.

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You're absolutely right.

So, freedom day in England was supposed to be a week from today, Laura, where the last of the restrictions were set to be lifted, allowing for things like full capacity sports venues, theaters reopening at full capacity, and even nightclubs as well.

But now -- well, it seems more like Ground Hog Day and the Prime Minister has apparently seen his shadow because according to the British press, we are in for four more weeks of restrictions. And it is all because of this Delta variant -- the one that was first spotted in India.

[05:45:00]

And I want to show you a graphic which really illustrates just how quickly this variant has spread. The darker the color on that map, the higher the proportion of cases of the Delta variant. And it's spreading 64 percent faster than the Alpha or the U.K. variant. It now makes up more than 90 percent of all new cases.

The U.K. has called in the army to help with testing door-to-door but that effort has largely failed to bring things under control. And so now the U.K., to prevent widespread deaths and hospitalizations, is down to their last line of defense which is the vaccination campaign.

And while most adults in the U.K. have gotten both vaccine doses, one dose isn't going to do you much good. That's because British scientists say that the efficacy with just one dose with the Alpha variant would have been 50 percent. But now, with this Delta variant, it's down to 33 percent. With two doses it went from 88 percent down to 81 percent.

And so while this four-week delay in the final reopening isn't going to be popular, it at least allows the government to get more shots into more arms. Two doses for older people and at least something -- at least one dose for younger people -- Laura.

JARRETT: Yes, that chart is really striking. The drop from 50 to in the 30s is quite stark.

All right, Scott, thanks so much -- appreciate it.

ROMANS: And it shows you that the vaccine works.

Here in the U.S., one of the biggest hospital groups now requiring its workers to get vaccinated. New York-Presbyterian says all of its staff must receive at least one shot by September.

Courts are now weighing in on this issue. A federal judge sided with Houston Methodist Hospital on its vaccination requirement. It's the first time a federal court has ruled on a COVID vaccine mandate.

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JENNIFER BRIDGES, NURSE, HOUSTON METHODIST HOSPITAL: So we had a feeling he would dismiss it, so we were prepared for that. So we know we're definitely going to get terminated but we're completely prepared. We will be appealing it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: These are frontline healthcare workers, of course.

The hospital suspended 178 employees without pay for failing to comply with the mandate.

JARRETT: Acclaimed character actor Ned Beatty has died. He appeared in many films -- you know his face. One of the most memorable was his first, the harrowing survival sage "Deliverance" in 1972. Beatty also appeared in two "Superman" movies.

He was nominated for an Oscar for his role in the 1976 film "Network."

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Scene from MGM's "Network."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: Ned Beatty died Sunday of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles. He was 83 years old.

All right, here is a whale of a tale. A Cape Cod lobster diver apparently lucky to be alive after he says he was nearly swallowed by a humpback whale.

Michael Packard says he was diving off the coast of Provincetown, Massachusetts when he felt a huge bump and everything went dark. At first, he thought he was bitten by a shark but then he realized what really happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL PACKARD, LOBSTER DIVER NEARLY SWALLOWED BY HUMPBACK WHALE: I realized oh my God, I'm in a whale's mouth. I'm in a whale's mouth and he's trying to swallow me. And I thought to myself OK, this is it. This is -- I finally -- I'm going to die. And all of a sudden he went up to the surface and just erupted and started shaking his head and I just got thrown in the air and landed in the water and I was free.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: He is remarkably calm considering what he went through.

Experts describe this biblical-sounding encounter as rare but plausible. While he is still recovering from soft tissue damage, Packard (the diver) says he will be back in the water as soon as he heals.

ROMANS: All right, let's get a check on CNN Business this morning.

Looking at markets around the world to start a new week, Asian shares closed mixed here. Europe has opened higher here.

And on Wall Street, stock index futures at this hour pointing up. A quiet day on Wall Street Friday was enough for a record high in the S&P 500.

This week, all eyes are on the Federal Reserve. Its two-day policy meeting wraps up Wednesday though the central bank is expected to keep easing money policies in place. Investors will focus on its forecast for the future, particularly rising inflation, which the central bank is shrugging off as transitory.

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Scene from Warner Bros. "In the Heights."

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ROMANS: OK, it was really good. I watched it.

"In the Heights" did not reach box office heights over the weekend. Based on Lin-Manuel Miranda's 2008 Tony-award-winning musical, the Warner Bros. film brought in an estimated $11.4 million. That's well below expectations. Warner Bros., like CNN, is owned by WarnerMedia.

Theaters are still rebounding and the film was released on streaming on the same day.

Meanwhile, there was a blockbuster -- the first blockbuster this year to play exclusively in theaters just crossed a notable milestone. Terrifying.

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SCENE FROM PARAMOUNT PICTURES "A Quiet Place Part II."

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ROMANS: "A Quiet Place Part II" is the first film of the pandemic to earn more than $100 million.

[05:50:06]

All right. Would you pay $28 million to be a space cadet with the Amazon CEO? That's the winning bid for a seat to space alongside Jeff Bezos. Blue Origin, Bezos' rocket company, kicked off the auction last month. It was before the billionaire revealed he would also be on board the company's first crewed mission lifting off July 20th.

The winner's name not released. But, $28 million is much higher than Blue Origin's direct competitor. That's Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. Now, there's no flight plan yet for the other billionaire's space venture but it has sold 600 tickets already for $250,000 a pop.

JARRETT: The Phoenix Suns now advancing to the Western Conference Finals for the first time in 11 years. Carolyn Manno has more in this morning's Bleacher Report. Hey, Carolyn.

CAROLYN MANNO, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT (via Webex by Cisco): Hey, Laura, good morning to you.

You're right about that. The Suns making things look easy against the Nuggets, and it has been quite a while since they made it to the Western Conference Finals, but they are here.

The story of the game, however, coming during the third quarter -- an incident with the league's MVP. Take a look at this. This is late in the third. Nuggets big man Nikola Jokic taking a hard swipe at the ball and knocking down Cameron Payne. A scuffle ensued and Jokic was eventually ejected for a flagrant two fouls.

After the game, he said he wanted to give his team a little bit of energy so he wanted the hard foul. But he did apologize, adding that he didn't want to injure him or purposely hit a player on the head.

So with Jokic out, Chris Paul and the Suns rolled. They dropped 37 points -- Chris Paul did. He earned the first playoff series sweep of his career.

The Suns await the winner of the series between the Jazz and the Clippers. Utah is up a game with game four later tonight in that series.

To the latest now on a scary story from the weekend. Danish midfielder Christian Eriksen went into cardiac arrest on Saturday during Denmark's Euro 2020 match against Finland. The 29-year-old collapsed on the field. He needed immediate medical attention. Thankfully, he regained consciousness as he was carted off the field. He's still recovering in the hospital.

And now we're continuing to learn a little bit more about just how perilous this situation was. Denmark's team doctor offering a sobering assessment.

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MORTEN BOESEN, DANISH TEAM DOCTOR: He was -- he was gone and we did cardiac resuscitation, and it was cardiac arrest. How close was he? I don't know. We got him back after one defib.

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MANNO: Eriksen's teammates will face Belgium on Thursday and that's going to be very emotional for both sides. There are players involved with his club team where he played. So, a sobering moment there but he is OK and recovering in the hospital.

In the meantime, the finals of the French Open on the men's side to wrap things up for you this morning. Novak Djokovic with quite a performance, coming back from being down two sets to nothing and beating the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas with three straight-set wins to get it done.

It was an exciting moment. And afterwards -- I don't know if you caught this, too -- he ended up giving his racket to a young, excited player on the sidelines. But it turned out he earned that racket. Here's the actual match itself. Just an incredible effort from both sides. But listen to what Djokovic said about the young fan who ended up getting the tennis racket after the match.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NOVAK DJOKOVIC, FRENCH OPEN CHAMPION: I don't know the boy, but he was in my ear the entire match, basically -- especially when I was two-sets-to-love down. He was encouraging me. He was -- he was actually giving me tactics as well. He was like hold

your serve and get the easy first ball and then dictate. Go to his backhand. Like, he was coaching me, literally.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MANNO: It was one of those great sports moments, Laura, so if you haven't seen it make sure to look it up because it's really sweet. The young kid just freaking out and a very big win for Novak Djokovic as well.

JARRETT: I love it. I love it that he had the confidence enough to be coaching Djokovic on all of his plays.

All right, Carolyn.

MANNO: Best player in the world. No big deal.

JARRETT: Thanks so much, Carolyn -- appreciate it.

Well, "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT" welcomes back a full audience in person tonight for the first time in over a year. And last week, Colbert made it pretty clear he needs to get back to normal.

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STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, CBS "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": So, the thing about being live on stage is that everybody's there. Like, Mark, I see more often.

Chris, I have to look at him to see him on stage. Here, I can't escape them. Like, literally, the camera is right here. He's there. He's right there the whole time.

So if he picks up this little -- he's got a Sharpie -- he's got a Sharpie pen that he keeps with him and if there -- if I (bleep) up in any way he goes like this. I just -- I see this -- like this out the corner of my eye.

He doesn't mark it down here where I can't see it. He marks it up on the top of the little stand so like, I'm not going to undermine your confidence at all but just wanted to know you (bleep) up enough and now I'm using a permanent marker for fear that any ordinary pen -- if like a rain came and erased it, all of CBS would collapse from how much I (bleep) up in the monologue.

[05:55:12]

Three more days. It's not getting to me, though. I managed to get out the end without you even knowing that this bothered me. Isn't that amazing? Fifteen months and couldn't really tell I was bothered by it.

What you got, old man? Is that all you got? Give it to me. I can (bleep) take it.

I'm fine. This is a bit, obviously. That's what I do. I'm doing a bit. I don't mean any of this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: I'm going to miss hearing his wife laugh because she was right there the whole time, too.

JARRETT: I know. You can hear the whole team laughing, too.

ROMANS: I know, it's so funny.

JARRETT: Someone had some cabin fever.

ROMANS: He says his kids were deductions and business expenses at the same time because they also help with the show at home.

JARRETT: Nice try.

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

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

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