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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

FBI To Athletes: Leave Personal Phones Home, Use Burner Phones; Prime Minister Boris Johnson Appears Before Parliament With Job On The Line; Football World Reacts To Tom Brady's Retirement. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired February 02, 2022 - 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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[05:34:30]

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: The torch relay underway for the Beijing Olympics but it's a more understated affair this year, shortened to just three days because of COVID. Meantime, the opening ceremony for the games is just two days away.

And not only does the pandemic cast a shadow over the games, there's also the issue of China's human rights abuses. More on that in a moment.

But the current geopolitical tensions have also prompted a new warning from the FBI.

[05:35:02]

CNN's Steven Jiang is live in Beijing. What's this warning?

STEVEN JIANG, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: Well, Christine, the FBI is urging Olympic athletes to leave their personal phones at home and instead bring a burner device to the Beijing games, citing cybersecurity concerns. Obviously, this is not a shocking revelation because even before this warning some national Olympic committees have been telling their athletes to do this, and also reminding them of the pervasive high-tech surveillance both online but also in the real world while in Beijing.

And for travelers coming to China regularly, at least before the pandemic, this had been known for quite some time. But obviously, the high-profile nature of the Olympics is now throwing this under a growing -- global spotlight.

And another issue of growing concern, of course, is the COVID cases inside the so-called closed loop -- the Olympic bubbles. Thirty-two Olympic personnel tested positive on Tuesday and -- in the bubbles. And this is part of the reason, as you mentioned, why the torch relay is such a truncated affair confined to areas only in and around Beijing in a very controlled setting.

But this may not be a bad thing for the authorities. Remember back in 2008 before the Beijing Summer Games protesters actually dogged parts of the global relay over China's human rights record, Christine.

ROMANS: All right, Steven. Thank you so much for that. Keep your phones at home, I guess, Laura.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: All right, let's dig in on all of this with Josh Rogin, CNN political analyst, and columnist at "The Washington Post." Josh, nice to see you this morning.

When you're at the point that you need a burner phone to go somewhere it feels as though we've reached a pretty low point.

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, COLUMNIST, THE WASHINGTON POST (via Webex by Cisco): Right. It's just one of the visual signs that this Olympics is much different than any other that we've seen -- even much different than the Olympics that Beijing hosted in 2008. The reason is because the Chinese government has become more repressive and more aggressive, and more brazen about its crackdown on human rights and even the rights of visitors inside of its own country.

I mean, just in the last two weeks, they threatened athletes that if they spoke up about human rights they could be arrested on Chinese soil. They're making them download a health monitoring app that's riddled with security vulnerabilities, according to the independent researcher Citizen Lab. And then, they're going around and intimidating all of the teams and all of the journalists and all of the coaches to say that if you get out of line there could be consequences for you.

And that's not only against the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which China signed, but it's also against the spirit of the Olympics and the values of the Olympics. But it doesn't seem like the International Olympic Committee is going to side with free speech in this case.

ROMANS: Yes. Olympics, you know, founded in a Greek democracy, right?

Here's what FBI Dir. Chris Wray said Monday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER WRAY, DIRECTOR, FBI: China's government has the global reach and presence of a great nation but it refuses to act the part and too often uses its capabilities to steal and threaten. So in many ways, it's reached a new level -- more brazen, more damaging than ever before. And it's vital that all of us focus on that threat together.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ROMANS: So that is a pointed comment. How has the Chinese threat become more brazen, and what does Dir. Wray mean by facing the threat "together?"

ROGIN: Right. Well, all countries spy and all countries steal, but what's going on with China is that they've expanded their espionage, especially on the economic side, so much that the FBI can't just -- it can't handle it anymore. Two thousand open investigations in all 50 states. That's what FBI Dir. Chris Wray said.

They're stealing from our private companies, which the FBI doesn't have control over. They're stealing from our academic campuses, which the FBI doesn't work with well.

So what he's saying is that this is a whole of society threat and we need a whole of society response, although because of our broken politics, and our broken government, and our broken Congress, it's really hard to see that happening right now.

JARRETT: Josh, despite the U.S. government's diplomatic boycott of the games, they're still starting in two days with no sponsors withdrawn. They're still being covered on television -- on national television.

What do you make of this?

ROGIN: Well, it seems that the -- all of the official corporate sponsors and the IOC have been silent about the gross human rights violations going in China which, incredibly, accuses genocide against Uyghur Muslims, a repression of Tibetans and Hong Kongers. And the reason that they're doing that is because of their financial interests because they're either paying the Chinese Communist Party for the privilege of sponsoring or they have some interest in doing business in China that would be squashed if they stood up for human rights.

And it really leaves the burden on the athletes, which is really unfair, Laura, if you think about it. Because they're the ones with the least amount of money and the least amount of power in this whole thing but they have the spotlight on them.

And I think what you're going to see in a couple of days is some very brave athletes -- this is my prediction -- who are going to do some things that are going to make sure that these games don't go by without people noticing and mentioning that there's a genocide going on in that country. And those athletes are taking a great risk and they deserve our support, in my opinion.

[05:40:01]

JARRETT: Yes. Christine and I were talking this morning about Jesse Owens and you think about what Enes Kanter -- Enes Kanter Freedom has been doing. It's just -- it will be interesting to see what athletes stand up and how they choose --

ROMANS: Yes.

JARRETT: -- to do it.

ROMANS: And sometimes, just winning is enough.

ROGIN: There will be something.

ROMANS: Sometimes just winning is enough --

JARRETT: Yes.

ROMANS: -- if you're facing totalitarianism, right, and showing that one system is better. But we'll see if they speak up.

Josh Rogin, CNN political analyst, thank you so much.

JARRETT: Thanks, Josh.

ROGIN: Any time.

JARRETT: All right.

In just about 90 minutes from now, Boris Johnson comes face to face with Parliament again, with his job on the line. The British prime minister has already apologized for the Partygate scandal, vowing to reform the culture at 10 Downing Street.

That's where CNN's Salma Abdelaziz is this morning. Salma, what do we expect to hear from him? What more can he say at this point?

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN REPORTER: Laura, Johnson is going to be just back from Ukraine so you can expect him to talk about anything -- literally, anything at all -- Ukraine, Brexit, the vaccine, COVID -- anything but Partygate because right now, his plan is distraction and delay.

And that delay is pointing to a police investigation. It's not exactly the best strategy because the police, right now, are pouring over 500 documents, 300 images, zeroing in on eight different gatherings -- eight different parties allegedly where COVID rules could have potentially been broken.

So, bottom line, time is not on the prime minister's side because there is this growing rebellion inside his own party against him.

Today, we got news of another conservative lawmaker, Tobias Ellwood, a former minister, who has said he's going to file that letter -- that letter of no confidence to try to trigger that vote. Now, again, the Conservative Party has to reach a certain threshold. Fifteen percent of Conservative lawmakers have to submit that letter. But this is not good news for the prime minister if we continue to hear of more and more lawmakers turning against him.

It's sure to be a very loud session in Parliament today. But I don't know what the prime minister can do to defend himself now against these growing accusations and anger, Laura.

JARRETT: We'll see. Salma, thank you. ROMANS: All right. Dramatic video now showing the moment strong winds forced the pilots of a British Airways flight to abort a landing at Heathrow.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Easy! Easy! Easy! Easy! Oh my God!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: The tail all but hitting the runway before the pilots pulled back up. The pilots were able to successfully land the plane 16 minutes later. It was high winds, of course, but --

JARRETT: Can you imagine being on there?

ROMANS: How many times have you been landing and it's been shaky at LaGuardia or something?

JARRETT: Yes.

ROMANS: And to actually pull up again -- that is remarkable. Glad everybody's OK.

JARRETT: Yes. Incredible work.

More pain this morning for U.S. drivers when they pull up to the gas pump.

ROMANS: And the beginning of the post-Tom Brady era in football.

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[05:47:07]

ROMANS: All right, we made it to Wednesday, folks. Let's get a check on CNN Business this Wednesday morning.

Looking at markets around the world, Asian shares closed up -- a bounce in Tokyo and Hong Kong. On Europe has opened higher.

On Wall Street, stock index futures also leaning up a little bit. This, after a rebound to start the month after, honestly, a rough January. All three averages closed higher. January's sell-off, of course, was the worst month for both the S&P and the Nasdaq since March 2020.

Higher interest rates are coming. Markets are having to adapt. It devalues pricey stocks like tech, so a lot of the focus has been in tech here.

Big tech earnings are on the way, by the way. Google parent Alphabet reported after the close strong sales growth in the fourth quarter, nearly doubling profit for the year. The stock popped after hours. Amazon and Facebook parent Meta report later this week. A stark warning, meanwhile, on oil prices. Goldman Sachs says they're

so high OPEC may have to come to the rescue. Oil above $88.00 per barrel, the highest since 2014. A global oil cartel essentially controls what you're paying at the pump here. So today, OPEC and its allies will be holding a virtual meeting to decide what action to take to curb these increasing prices.

Let's bring in CNN Business reporter Matt Egan for more. Matt, the White House, of course, is laser-focused on lowering gas prices for Americans but, essentially, the fact is they're at the mercy of a powerful international cartel meeting today to decide whether to increase output more.

MATT EGAN, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: Yes, Christine, that's right. I mean, prices are painfully high at the pump and OPEC really is the only game in town with the firepower to quickly fix that by adding supply.

And oil prices have made this remarkable recovery. We have this chart showing how prices crashed in the spring of 2020 into negative territory. Remember that? It's amazing. They've completely recovered. And then, they've also bounced back from this more recent dip that was driven in part by Omicron.

There is a bit of suspense heading into today's meeting between OPEC and its allies -- OPEC Plus.

Essentially, there's three options.

One, do nothing. They could just keep production steady. That feels unlikely but OPEC-Plus has surprised us before.

Two, they could stick to the game plan. That means increasing production by 400,000 barrels per day -- the same they did last month and the month before that.

The other thing they could do is they could actually ramp up production and that's what the White House has tried and failed repeatedly to get OPEC to do.

And I think the good news for consumers is that Goldman Sachs put out this report saying yes, we do think there's a growing chance that OPEC-Plus will really ramp up production. And they noted that yes, prices have entered what they call the political intervention territory.

ROMANS: Right.

EGAN: The bad news, though, is that even if OPEC-Plus does ramp up production, Goldman Sachs doesn't really see a big hit to oil prices. And some on Wall Street -- they don't really think OPEC-Plus is going to intervene, and that's partially because high prices are good for the budgets of these --

ROMANS: Right.

EGAN: -- OPEC nations.

ROMANS: Like Russia.

EGAN: Like Russia. OPEC revenue up by 80 percent in 2021, the fastest recovery since just after the 1973 Arab oil embargo.

[05:50:03]

ROMANS: We had Patrick DeHaan on from GasBuddy last week and he said that we're headed to $4.00 national average gas by Memorial Day because that's -- honestly, in the spring, it's the path of least resistance anywhere. This is what Americans have to endure in the near term here -- higher gas prices.

EGAN: Yes, that's right. We've already seen it. So, the national average hitting $3.40 a gallon today. That's up six cents in a week -- six cents -- 11 cents in a month.

Now, prices at the pump -- they went down to $3.28 a gallon late last year. That was because of that one-two punch of the U.S.-led intervention --

ROMANS: Right.

EGAN: -- into energy markets, and then Omicron.

Now, the Biden administration announced that largest-ever release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve but that was never really going to fix this. It amounted to 50 million barrels.

ROMANS: Sure.

EGAN: That's just 12 hours of world demand. This was always going to be more of a Band-Aid than a gamechanger. And here we are -- flash- forward two-plus months. We're back to where we started, two cents away from that $3.42 high of last fall.

You know, there's no easy answers here, Christine, and we're going to continue to see pressure here -- political pressure on the White House and also inflationary pressure caused by gas prices.

ROMANS: Sure.

All right, Matt Egan, lead writer at CNN Business. Thanks so much.

EGAN: Thank you.

ROMANS: Laura.

JARRETT: All right. The football world is still trying to come to grips with the retirement news of Tom Brady.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

JARRETT: Andy Scholes has this morning's Bleacher Report. Andy, I feel like he kind of stepped on his own rollout with how he did this. SCHOLES: Well, yes, a little bit. A lot of people in Boston still a

little salty that Tom Brady didn't mention them yesterday in his long retirement post, but he kind of said goodbye to them when he left them a couple of years ago.

But hey, you know, it was still a sad day for sports fans everywhere because Tom Brady's not going to be playing football anymore. And we knew it was coming at some point but, yes, Brady kind of surprised us with that Instagram post early yesterday. And then the rest of the day spent by fans and his peers kind of reflecting on one of the best careers we've ever seen.

Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan, who was on the losing end of the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history, tweeting "Congrats Tom Brady on an amazing 22-year career. Seven Super Bowls (wish it was six) and countless other records will be hard for anyone to pass."

The Jets had some jokes, tweeting, "This better be real." But then congratulated Brady saying we may not miss seeing you on the field but the entire football world will.

Two-time Super Bowl champion Eli Manning, meanwhile, giving us all some perspective on how lucky we were to watch Brady for so long.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELI MANNING, FORMER NEW YORK GIANTS QUARTERBACK: I watched him win a Super Bowl when I was in college. I got to watch you win a few while I was in the NFL. And I saw you win one when I was retired. That's a pretty impressive career right there.

So, good luck in retirement. Congratulations on an unbelievable career. And appreciate your generosity. You know, they shared a few of those Super Bowls with me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: All right.

Brady's former teammate Jimmy Garoppolo is looking for a new home after five years with the 49ers. Garoppolo thanking the fans yesterday and says he wants to go somewhere he can win.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY GAROPPOLO, SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS QUARTERBACK: I've got a long career ahead of me, so I'm trying to -- I'm excited about it. I'm excited about the opportunities to come. I just want to go to a place where they -- where they want to win. It's been a hell of a ride, guys. I love you guys.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: All right. And finally, Beijing's COVID-shortened Olympic torch relay beginning today with Yao Ming. More than 1,000 torchbearers are going to participate in the three-day relay that's going to go by Chinese landmarks like the Great Wall and Summer Palace.

The opening ceremony is on Friday. But guys, the competition starts in the next hour. You've got the luge going at 6:30 eastern, and then curling right after it at 7:00. So, I always find it funny when the action starts before the opening ceremony, but --

JARRETT: I like curling. I find it so fascinating, the sweeping.

SCHOLES: Right. It's fun to watch.

JARRETT: I love it.

ROMANS: I do. I love to watch it, too. But I still can't get over the burner phone part of the story. Bring a burner phone if you're going to Beijing. Oh, someone's phone is ringing, speaking of.

SCHOLES: Yes -- no. Dang it, that was me.

JARRETT: Tom Brady was calling you.

ROMANS: Tom Brady is calling.

JARRETT: Yes.

ROMANS: Tom, call back.

SCHOLES: Oh.

ROMANS: All right, nice to see you. Thanks, Andy.

JARRETT: Thank you, Andy.

SCHOLES: All right.

JARRETT: All right.

Finally, for you this morning, President Biden signing a bill to award the Congressional Gold Medal to a top-secret World War II military unit known as the Ghost Army. Their mission was deception.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I used to refer to us as the Cecil B. DeMille warriors.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: The troop, shown in a 2013 documentary, used inflatable tanks, fake radio transmissions, and sound effects to trick German forces. The Ghost Army was kept secret for more than 50 years until its existence was declassified in 1996.

ROMANS: That's awesome.

JARRETT: Fascinating.

ROMANS: I want to see that documentary now.

JARRETT: Yes.

ROMANS: All right, thanks for joining us this Wednesday morning. Have a great rest of your day. I'm Christine Romans.

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

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[05:59:38]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to viewers here in the United States and around the world. It is Wednesday, February second and I'm Brianna Keilar with John Berman.

On this Groundhog Day, we do begin with police under assault across America. The new heartbreak in Virginia where two officers were shot and killed on the campus of a private college in Bridgewater during an active shooter standoff. Officer J.J. Jefferson and Officer John Painter, known as the dynamic duo, lost their lives in this -- one of whom was the best man at the other's wedding just this year.