Return to Transcripts main page

Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Major New Revelations on January 6th Investigation; Soon: Top U.S. Diplomat to Speak with Russian Counterpart; Pfizer Vaccine for Kids Under 5 Could Be Available By End of February; Beijing Olympics Detects 24 New COVID Cases Among Games Personnel; Biden Meets Today with Judiciary Committee Leaders on SCOTUS Nomination. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired February 01, 2022 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:13]

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. It is Tuesday, February 1st, the first day of Black History Month. It is 5:00 a.m. here in New York. Thanks so much for getting an EARLY START with us. I'm Laura Jarrett.

So great to have you back.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: We're back on a new set.

JARRETT: New set for your birthday.

ROMANS: I'm Christine Romans. It's nice to see you all this morning. Welcome to all of our viewers in the United States and around the world.

We begin this morning with major new revelations on the January 6th investigation. Multiple sources tell CNN that Trump advisers drafted two different versions of an executive order to seize voting machines to preserve non-existing evidence of election fraud that never happened. One draft order directed the military to seize voting equipment. The other would order the Department of Homeland Security to do that job. It's unclear who drafted the orders and very important to note here, neither was ever sent.

JARRETT: And now the committee has the testimony of someone who might know something about all of this. CNN was first to report, former Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff Marc Short quietly testified before the House Select Committee.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz starts us off this morning in Washington, D.C.

Katelyn, help our viewers out here. What might Marc Short be actually able to offer investigators about what was going on inside the West Wing leading up to January 6th.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Laura.

Well, Marc Short is really the top guy around Mike Pence in the vice president's office at key moments. We don't know exactly what he told the committee, but m colleagues did learn this my colleagues did learn this was a lengthy session that he took part in last week when he went to speak to the committee. He also had handed over a limited amount of documents previously and pence -- I'm sorry, Short really was the person that was with Pence in all of the moments.

So he was with Pence at the capitol on January 6th when Pence's life was in danger. He was in key meetings at the White House with the president and the vice president where there was this pressure campaign building to try to get Pence to stop and not certify the congressional vote for the election and what this does is it really is more building momentum.

We've seen this for weeks and weeks now, that the House committee is getting more and more people closer and closer to Donald Trump in the room for key moments and it really signifies progress to the point where there are people close to Donald Trump who including Short's counterpart, Marc Meadows, the chief of staff to Trump himself, who are refusing to speak to the committee at this point and what we are still wondering is how much of a willingness does this reveal of people around the vice president.

Does this mean that Pence himself could be willing to testify or is this enough for the committee where Pence can potentially say, you know, you heard from my top guy. I'm not willing to go in? That still really remains to be seen.

JARRETT: Maybe the top guy can be perhaps a little bit more frank than Pence might want to be. They now have people. They also have papers.

Let's talk about that scoop from Paula Reid and Zach Cohen on this draft executive orders.

We knew that certain advisers to the president, people on the fringes like Mike Flynn, had been advocating actively to seize voting machines. We now know that there were actually two draft orders here. What's the significance?

POLANTZ: Right. Laura, what we learned yesterday, the scoop from Zach Cohen and Paula Reid, is that the National Archives, when they were handing over documents that the house was requesting and Trump was trying to keep secret, they got this draft executive order. We learned about this a couple of weeks ago that said that the White House theoretically could go in and use the Pentagon to seize voting machines. The new revelation is there were two of these. There was also one that could have directed the department of homeland security to go in and seize voting machines.

Now, these weren't signed by the president but it really does show that this wasn't just a quick idea. It was something that apparently got into the White House records, was something that was floated around Trump and was being discussed from what we understand among top people that Trump was talking to, maybe not employees themselves at the White House. Everyone I've talked to said this would have been something the

administration could have feasibly done legally but it was an idea that was persisting up to and until January 6th as far as what we know about these themselves, these documents.

JARRETT: Katelyn, I want to ask you while I have you about this extraordinary statement last night from the National Archives talking about having to tape back together documents that they believe, I say they believe because we don't have the evidence, to suggest that Trump actually was ripping up documents in the Oval Office, documents of course that the committee wants related to January 6th. This is something that others have reported is a habit of him, routinely destroying documents.

Isn't this obstruction? This is outrageous.

[05:05:01]

POLANTZ: Well, we don't know if it's obstruction because we don't know what the documents are. We don't know what the intent is. A lot of questions before we get to that place, but the archives did say whenever CNN asked and other news outlets, some of Trump's presidential records received by the National Archives included paper records that were torn up by former President Trump. And this was documents that went over in the batch to the House.

So, from what I can understand from people I've talked to, that this was just a quirk of the Trump presidency. It was something that happened all the time. Like you mentioned, we don't know why the archives says it was Trump himself that was doing the ripping up, but the documents here, these are not tissues, these are pieces of paper that were federal records from the Trump presidency that Trump, from what we understand, was trying to hold back to protect the secrecy of his administration, of his White House and that the house was going after for months, and finally won that Supreme Court case that gave them access.

JARRETT: Just incredible. Never mind the Presidential Records Act violation there, just the image of some soul that has to piece back together all of these documents is just incredible.

Katelyn, thank you.

ROMANS: All right. To the tensions now between Russia and Ukraine. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken about to have a crucial phone call with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. He'll hopefully dial down those tensions over Russia's military buildup which almost surrounds Ukraine.

That tension on public display at the U.N.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VASILY NEBENZIA, RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS (through translator): Since our American colleagues convened yesterday, let them show us any evidence apart from bogus narratives that Russia is intending to attack Ukraine.

LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: If Russia further invades Ukraine, none of us will be able to say we didn't see it coming and the consequences will be horrific.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: CNN is there. Melissa Bell is in Ukraine, but first to international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson. He is live in Moscow.

Take it away, Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah. What we're expecting for that phone call, it will be a conversation perhaps that will get to some of what Russia's final response -- full response is going to be to the United States, response to Russia's demands last week.

It's still waiting in the wings to happen. The president's spokesman at the Kremlin said that it was going to happen. The response would come -- a full response would come when the president is ready to give it.

We may get an inkling of that today. President Putin is going to be on camera later today. Meeting with perhaps his friendliest co-leader in the European Union, Viktor Orban, from Hungary is coming to Moscow. They're having a meeting. They're having a working lunch.

And afterwards, in about three or four hours from now, they're going to have a press conference. It is expected that President Putin would be asked the question about the response to the United States response to his demands. It's not clear that it's going to give a full reply to it, but I think that's the first venue where we may get an inkling into what president Putin is thinking. His diplomats, foreign minister has been sort of keeping a diplomatic track open. They have written over the weekend to NATO and the OSCE asking for clarity on a previously raised security question issue affecting Russia and Ukraine.

But at the moment we just do not have that full response from President Putin.

ROMANS: All right. Nick, thank you so much.

Laura?

JARRETT: All right. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson heads to Kyiv soon for a face to face talk with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Let's go live to Kyiv and bring in CNN's Melissa Bell.

Melissa, Johnson has some other things on his plate right now. What he's hoping to accomplish there?

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. He's leaving behind a fair amount of noise in London and that will be a welcome relief for the British prime minister. But most importantly, for the point of view of the Ukrainians, this is all about the solidarity that President Zelensky is seeking from NATO allies, not only in the shape of these sorts of visits, and we'll have Boris Johnson today, but also the French and German foreign ministers early next week.

It is also about the concrete aid that those NATO allies can bring. Boris Johnson promising as he leaves London 88 million pounds to Ukraine in order to help bolster its economy and lessen its energy dependence on Russia. This is in addition to the $1.3 billion pledged by the European Union last month to help Ukraine withstand what's been going on these past few weeks.

President Zelensky has put a figure on that, what the uncertainty has cost the Ukrainian economy, asking that NATO allies to help him plug the $5 billion gap that he's been talking about. So, there's that. The financial aid that allies are bringing, but also the logistical aid, military aid. A fifth shipment of weapons arrived overnight from the United States and in the shape of 84 tons of ammunition, Laura and Christine.

JARRETT: Melissa Bell, thank you for that.

[05:10:01]

All right. Up next, the news parents of toddlers have been waiting for.

ROMANS: Plus, the three-way sit-down just hours on Joe Biden's Supreme Court decision.

JARRETT: And Wordle gets a new owner. What this means for everyone's new favorite word game.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JARRETT: Some major news this morning for parents of young children. COVID vaccines for kids under 5 years old could get the green light by the end of this month. "The Washington Post" and "New York Times" both report Pfizer is expected to submit a request to the FDA for emergency use authorization as early as today.

ROMANS: Let's bring in Dr. Elizabeth Murray. She's a pediatric emergency medicine physician at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

[05:15:02]

Thank you so much for joining us this morning.

What do you think is behind the decision making on this? We know the process had slowed down because of the disappointing results of a two- shot regime?

DR. ELIZABETH MURRAY, PEDIATRIC EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN, UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER MEDICAL CENTER: Right. So, they're not quickening the science, they're not rushing the research. What they're doing is saying let's at least get the information we have in the hands of the FDA now. It's like watching a TV show every week versus watching the whole series in one session. So, they're saying let's get the FDA as much as we have so they can start reviewing it so when we get this everything else ready, we're good to go. We're not waiting a whole time period for all of the data to be reviewed.

So, I think this is a smart choice because parents very badly want this vaccine for their children. Health care providers very badly want the vaccine for the children. At no point do we want to compromise the actual research.

JARRETT: I will be the first one lined up at my son's pediatrician's office to get that shot in his little arm.

But here's the thing, the numbers show that 5 to 11-year-olds are far and away the least vaccinated group -- age group by percentage. Should there be a new strategy, Doctor, to get this youngest group protected in the way they need to be?

MURRAY: Right. So you're exactly right. More access to vaccines is wonderful but the real deal here is vaccination. We need shots in those arms and so the strategy might need to be a little bit different. We have definitely reached a very granular level of the pandemic where there are so many different groups out there who have heard so many different messages.

Unfortunately, for many in the parent category, it's disinformation. So the one-to-one conversations, the community support is going to be so very vital. Again, this is going to be a granular level approach. Family practice doctors, pediatricians understand the benefit of vaccines. Vaccines have long been a victim of their own success. But we feel strongly that we'll be able to get that message out to parents, their doctors are always willing to talk if you have questions or concerns.

ROMANS: And just to be very clear, Doctor, you're telling your patients to get the shots in those little arms, yes?

MURRAY: Most definitely, most definitely. Both of my children were vaccinated. They were vaccinated as soon as they could be. I would never recommend something I wasn't comfortable giving to my own children.

And I know some of the researchers in town personally and their joy when they were able to vaccinate their own children really resonated with me. They were so excited for their own children and they know the data better than anybody else. This was in the 12 and above group.

And so, again, I think that everybody is looking forward to this but we have some major disinformation that we have to counter.

ROMANS: All right. Dr. Elizabeth Murray, thank you so much.

JARRETT: Thanks, Doctor. ROMANS: All right. Two dozen new coronavirus cases detected days ahead of the Beijing Olympics. Some have also been discovered among athletes and staff living in what's known as the closed loop system. It's a quarantine bubble cut off from the rest of the city.

CNN's Steven Jiang live in Beijing with more for us.

Steven, what happens when a positive case is found in the closed loop?

STEVEN JIANG, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: Well, then they have to be isolated. As you say, this COVID containment policy continues to be the top priority for the organizers and authorities, both in and out of the loop. Out of loop actually not far away from the bird's nest, that's a stadium where the opening ceremony will be held in a few days.

Authorities have sealed off a few apartment blocks because of some fresh cases there, but inside the loop, as you said, which is completely sealed off from the rest of the city, more cases on Monday, 24 people tested positive. But some of the athletes actually testing positive are speaking out, including American bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor. She is a three-time Olympic medalist.

This is her fourth games. But this is the most special because she actually has brought her son Nico with her. And Nico who is turning 2 later this month was born with Down's syndrome.

So, her dream is really to put a medal around his neck on the podium this time. Obviously, now, she's facing obstacles. She's in isolation. According to the rules, she has to test twice negative within two consecutive days before she can be released from isolation.

Best of luck to her, Christine.

ROMANS: Of course. All right. Thank you so much, Steven. We know you'll be following that for us.

All right. A warning from the White House that Friday's jobs report may be weak. The numbers are secret before they come out. But forecasters are predicting somewhere between 160,000 jobs added in January and 200,000 jobs lost. Compare that to last year's average of 537,000 jobs added per month.

The Biden administration racing to get out ahead of the news. Economic adviser Jared Bernstein says the omicron variant was surging right at the exact time the monthly payroll survey was being taken.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JARED BERNSTEIN, MEMBER, WHITE HOUSE COUNCIL OF ECONOMICS ADVISERS: The payroll survey, you're sick, maybe you're caring for someone with COVID. There are millions of people like this.

[05:20:00]

And if you are not at work because of the omicron variant, you're not going to be counted in the payroll.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: So Bernstein says the underlying economy and the jobs market are strong. He says the administration expects jobs numbers to bounce back quickly as the omicron surge increases.

I thought that was interesting. The White House coming out there yesterday and getting out ahead of that and explaining just by the fluke of the calendar, the peak of omicron happened exactly the week they were taking the survey numbers. If you are out of the labor market because you're one of the millions of people sidelined by COVID, that's going to show up.

JARRETT: Yeah, coming up, when pulling a book off the shelf in a Tennessee school district backfires in a big way.

And the Republican senator who says he's offended by President Biden's promise to pick a black woman for the Supreme Court but he's not offended by the big lie or overturning the election. What's really going on here?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:25:19]

ROMANS: Welcome back.

President Biden making the rounds with the lawmakers as he narrows down his pick for the U.S. Supreme Court. Later today, he will meet with both the Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

CNN's Jasmine Wright is live in Washington for us this Tuesday morning.

Jasmine, the president it seems is trying to get back to the days of advice and consent when it comes to the Senate.

JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right, Christine.

Look, the president is doing his bipartisan due diligence when it comes to picking a nominee for the Supreme Court. One of the greatest responsibilities a president has, that is what President Biden said in the past. He will meet with the judiciary committee top leaders, Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat chair of the committee, ranking member Chuck Grassley Republican, really trying to get back to that process.

Remember, the president is a creature of the Senate. He held both of those roles in the judiciary committee. He knows this is all about process and this is important to him. And so, we can really look at this as him kicking off the process of a 28-day stretch because we know he said he wants to announce a nominee by the end of February and, of course, this is February 1st.

So while this process kind of happens out in public with the president, there's also going to be things happening in secret behind the scenes with the White House as sources tell me and my colleagues, staff could start meeting or at least could start reaching out to those potential contenders that we know about as early as this week.

So we've been watching this space closely to see what is happening, what the White House is doing as they try to narrow the list down -- Christine.

ROMANS: All right. Jasmine, thank you so much.

JARRETT: All right. Let's bring in CNN political analyst and "Politico Playbook" co-author, Rachael Bade.

Rachael, nice to see you this morning.

RACHAEL BADE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.

JARRETT: Good morning.

So, some Republicans, some Republicans have decided to zero in on President Biden's pledge to put the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.

Let's listen to Senator Ted Cruz and I want to ask you about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): The fact that he's willing to make a promise at the outset that it must be a Black woman, I've got to say that's offensive. Black women are 6 percent of the U.S. population? He's saying that 94 percent of Americans, I don't give a damn about you. You are ineligible.

And he's also saying -- it's actually an insult to Black women. If he came and said I'm going to put the best jurist on the court, he ended up nominating a Black woman, he could credibly say I'm nominating the person who's most qualified.

He's not pretending to say that. He's saying if you're a white guy, tough luck. If you are a white woman, tough luck, you don't qualify.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: OK. I don't have enough time to fact check everything that's wrong and ignorant about that. I want to ask you the strategy question here.

This is so different than what we hear from others in the party like Senator Lindsey Graham who went out of his way on CBS this weekend to praise at least one of the nominees, Judge Childs.

So, Rachael, does the GOP, it seems, not have a unified strategy here when it comes to how to attack this woman?

BADE: Yeah. I mean, you hit the nail on the head right there. That's exactly it. Usually when it comes to Supreme Court nominations it's an issue that really rallies the Republican base. It turns out their voters, and usually, they are in lock step. On this in particular Republicans, you know, are on different pages. Graham saying he's open to this, saying it's about time we have a court that looks like America in terms of diversity. Then you have Cruz trying to gin up his own outrage on the right saying why would you say you would nominate a Black woman.

I also heard from Republicans saying they do that, take the Cruz route specifically that they will take -- move the narrative more towards SCOTUS which they think will help with the mid-terms. There's also that concern.

ROMANS: Yeah. So, what are you hearing from Democrats behind the scenes? Are they happy? Do you have some Democrats shooting themselves in the foot on issues -- Republicans shooting themselves in the foot on issues of race, dragging it out or do they want to get someone confirmed as quickly as possible?

BADE: Well, Democrats certainly want to get someone confirmed as quickly as possible. So I think that's why you're hearing them have a little hope right now that they can actually get some Republican votes for whoever this nominee is.

One of my colleagues Maryanne Levine (ph) just did a story looking at senators specifically in the Senate right now and found that three of them have actually voted for Joe Biden's judge nominations at least 60 percent of the time, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, two moderates. Lindsey Graham is another one. All three of them have voted for Judge Jackson, who is currently a circuit court judge here in Washington. There are some thought by Democrats that maybe if they need someone like her, maybe they can get some bipartisan support.

Then have you people like Cruz who are saying you Republicans aren't fighting enough so the in-fighting in the Republican Party is going to be something to watch in the coming weeks.

[05:30:00]