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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Olympic Opening Ceremony Begins in Just Hours; Russia Denies U.S. Claim It Plans to Stage Fake Attack; ISIS Leader Killed During U.S.-Led Counterterror Raid in Syria; Winter Storm Cripples Parts of U.S., Heads to Northeast. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired February 04, 2022 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:26]

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: All right. It is Friday, February 4th, 5:00 a.m. exactly here in New York.

Thanks for getting an EARLY START with us. I'm Christine Romans.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: You made it to Friday. I'm Laura Jarrett. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world.

We begin here in Beijing where the opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics is now just two hours away. You are looking at a live picture from the stadium where the Olympic flame will soon be lit. World leaders are arriving minus the U.S. and several other countries staging a diplomatic boycott.

The Olympic Committee reported 21 new COVID cases Thursday. That brings the total number of cases to 308 since Beijing started it's so- called Closed Loop bubble separating Olympic.

ROMANS: Back here in the U.S., you're looking at a live picture now of the White House, all lit up in red, white and blue to cheer Team USA. The State Department Thursday publicly defended the right of U.S. athletes to speak out against human rights abuses in China despite Olympic Committee rules prohibiting any protests.

Just a short time ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Chinese leader Xi Jinping meeting in person at a time of high tension with the West.

CNN's Ivan Watson joins us live from Hong Kong this morning.

Ivan, this will be an Olympics like no other.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. You know, I'm down here in Hong Kong, but my colleagues up in Beijing, some of whom have covered other Olympiads, really say the atmosphere is different. For example, in Beijing those who were around in 2008 when the city hosted the Summer Olympics there, they say they're not anticipating large viewing parties or any large gatherings because the city's been struggling with outbreak out omicron and delta variants of COVID. So you're not having people encouraged to gather in large numbers.

Meanwhile, on the other side of this kind of parallel universe, the so-called Closed Loop where all the athletes and the Olympic organizers are inside the Olympic bubbles, there one of the prevailing concerns is COVID because there have been hundreds of cases detected. Athletes who have trained for years are worried that they may test positive and may have to skip out on the event.

So you've got the champion U.S. figure skater Nathan Chen, he's not going to march in the opening ceremony because he's worried about being around too many other people and maybe contracting the virus. Meanwhile, the U.S. flag bearer, the flag bearer for Team USA, Elana Meyers Taylor who is a four-time Olympian bobsledder, she cannot carry the flag because she tested positive. And somebody else now has to do it for her.

So, that's just giving you a sense on top of the existing stress, there's a lot more and the fact that all the athletes are behind fences and walls and unable to move around freely in Beijing.

ROMANS: Yeah, the families and friends are back home, with viewing parties and watching. I mean, many journalists and people covering the event say this is really like no other. Not the fun that it usually is when you go to cover an Olympics.

We also know, Ivan, that this is the first meeting right now between the Russian President and the Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the first meeting face to face in two years. What do you expect?

WATSON: Well, we're already hearing some of the lines coming out in a joint statement. They have been celebrating friendship between these two countries, deepening friendship, deepening economic ties, security ties, but also a statement that is certainly going to be celebrated by Kremlin which China agrees with Russia and has spoken out against any further expansion of the NATO military alliance. This is something that Russia perceives as a threat to its own national security. It's part of the whole standoff around Ukraine right now.

And Putin has traveled to Beijing, Vladimir Putin, and has gotten the Chinese leader to agree with him on this key point. So, a sign of solidarity between two key authoritarian leaders whose relations with Washington have deteriorated in recent years. And this right before China hosts -- has the world's eyes on it for the Winter Olympics. So, it's a welcome moment for both of these leaders.

ROMANS: Ivan Watson in Hong Kong -- thanks, Ivan.

JARRETT: All right. To Russia now where the Kremlin is denying a Pentagon claim that Russia plans to stage a fake attack to create a pretexts for invasion.

[05:05:09]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: As part of this fake attack, we believe that Russia would produce a very graphic propaganda video which would include corpses and actors that would be depicting mourners and images of destroyed locations as well as military equipment at the hands of Ukraine or the West.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: CNN's Nic Robertson is live in Moscow for us.

Nic, how confident is the U.S. in making that type of serious claim and what is the Kremlin saying about all this? I see the Russian foreign minister spoke out just a short time ago.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called it delusional. We heard from the Russian ambassador to the E.U. yesterday say that it wasn't true. He said it didn't make logical sense.

All of these claims that we've heard of Russia, you know, planning false flag events to trigger a conflict and trigger their entry to a conflict in Ukraine. The Russian officials have been knocking down. We've heard from U.S. officials that there were other false flag operations that might be being planned that didn't have this sort of specificity. They said that was untrue. The British government said that Russia was trying to put in a puppet government in Ukraine after they moved in and tried to occupy Ukraine.

So -- and, again, on that Russia denied that as happening. Here we have a lot more specificity coming from the Pentagon and other officials. The State Department, Ned Price there the spokesman, declined to get into details about, you know, about the claim that's being made. Not unusual to want to give away details that might then, you know -- might then give Russian officials an opportunity to understand where the information came from.

But here, you know, absolutely categorical denial that that's about to happen. We also had push back against the Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland who TASS, the state news agency here, in an interview with them, she said -- and she has publicly said that it was Russia that was responsible for leaking the document to the Spanish newspaper, leaking the United States and NATO's response to Russia that were private and the United States asked to be kept private. Russia was responsible for that.

Russian officials are coming back and saying that is not correct. Obviously, they're claiming it's propaganda so, you know, a lot being said on these topics here.

JARRETT: Sure. All right. Nick, thank you for your reporting.

ROMANS: All right. We're getting new details this morning on the dramatic U.S.-led raid in Syria Thursday that left the leader of ISIS dead.

The White House calls the leader's death a catastrophic blow to ISIS.

CNN's Jomana Karadsheh live in Istanbul with more. Jomana, we know U.S. intelligence gathering gave momentum this fall. We know the president was briefed just before Christmas.

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Christine, this is one of the most -- it is the most significant operation carried out by U.S. Special Forces in Syria since 2019, since the killing of ISIS's former leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

As you mentioned, we understand that the U.S. military intelligence had been watching this location in northwestern Syria for months, waiting for that right opportunity for them to carry out this raid. The opportunity presented itself on Wednesday when this happened. Now, one major issue that everyone is looking at right now is this discrepancy we're getting into the count of civilian casualties. The U.S. forces are saying as they approached the three story building, the House where the ISIS leader was, he pretty much straightaway detonated explosives killing himself, his wife, his children.

On the second floor, there was a lieutenant, deputy with his wife and he engaged U.S. forces. He was killed, his wife was killed and we understand a child on that floor was killed. The U.S. military has not clarified how that child was killed. They also say that members of an al Qaeda affiliate approached that building and they described them as hostiles, engaged them and they were killed.

The U.S. says that in total four civilians were killed in this operation and five combatants.

Now, what we're getting from Syrians on the ground, from rescue workers, they are saying that 13 people were killed including 6 children and 4 women. And the U.S. is saying that they are looking at these reports. They are reviewing this operation.

We've heard from President Biden and the secretary of defense saying they did opt for a Special Forces operation to try and minimize civilian casualties and at the same time the secretary of defense, Christine, saying that given the complexity of this mission, we will take a look at the possibility of our action may have also basically led -- may have possibly led to harm to innocent people.

[05:10:14]

So everyone is going to be waiting to see what the conclusion, what the outcome of this review is going to be. This is coming at a time when the U.S. military is under a lot of scrutiny for civilian casualties in Afghanistan and also in Syria where civilian casualties in airstrikes, something that has only come to light in recent months, Christine.

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

Laura?

JARRETT: Also this morning, we are learning more about the tense moments inside the Situation Room as President Biden and his team watched the raid that killed the ISIS leader in real time. Let's go live to Washington and bring in CNN's Jasmine Wright.

Jasmine, good morning.

The reporting here is pretty incredible from the White House team. It also has shades of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN REPORTER: Yeah, stunning amount of detail from officials who over the last 24 hours have given more and more detail about some of those really tense moments in the Situation Room as the president monitored this raid in real time. Of course, he was joined by his vice president and other national security officials.

They described moments filled with anxiety when they watched the helicopter on the ground malfunctioning. We learned that was destroyed by U.S. Special Forces to moments of levity when they saw children coming from -- coming safely outside from the first floor of the building.

Remember, the U.S. -- the ISIS target lived on the third floor above families and so that was the reason why as we heard Jomana say, the president opted for a Special Forces mission. To, of course, another tense moment when that initial bomb went off, the ISIS target killing himself and his family in that suicide bombing at the third floor.

So, really some tense moments here. And, of course, we are learning all these details, Laura, because the administration officials view this as a success and are detailing it as so he and are taking a victory lap. President Biden joined in on that yesterday when he spoke at the White House talking about this mission and really offering a grave warning.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This operation is testament towards America's reach and capability to take outer or list threats no matter where they try to hide anywhere in the world. We will come after you and find you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WRIGHT: So we are also learning of just how much detail went into planning this. Months and months of course. The president was briefed late December. Making the final decision on Tuesday.

But in December when they were going through the painstaking details, even bringing a tabletop model of the building so the president could see exactly how this plan would lay out.

But, yes, Laura, lots and lots of detail as we come from hours and hours after this raid.

JARRETT: Yeah. Just amazing to sort of get the behind-the-scenes story of all this. Jasmine, thank you.

ROMANS: All right. To CNN business now, the big story this morning, the January jobs report in just a few hours. President Biden will speak about it afterwards. The White House has been warning us for days don't get your hopes up for a good report here. You had millions of people out sick and some businesses temporarily closed because of omicron. That will hold back the numbers.

We'll talk more about that with Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody's in just a few minutes.

Inflation watch, more pain at the pump. U.S. oil prices jumped above 90 bucks a barrel for the first time in more than seven years on Thursday, just one day after OPEC plus decided not to ramp up production more aggressively to ease those energy prices.

Add to that, new pain on your porch. Amazon is hiking the price of its prime service by 17 percent. It will be $139 bucks a year. That's 15 bucks a month. It's to pay for expanded prime membership, added video content and more expanded free shipping, March 25th for existing prime members.

JARRETT: All right. Right now, a live look in Dallas with almost 100 million people in the path of a major winter storm coming.

ROMANS: Two top aides to the former vice president talking to the January 6th committee but not telling all.

JARRETT: And how rich is too rich? Well, Jeff Bezos, his yacht and the bridge that's in the way. That's next.

ROMANS: And hear pounding video of a dog in distress. See the moment he was saved at the last second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:18:58]

JARRETT: New this morning in Georgia, one of two men convicted in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery says he's going to trial. Gregory McMichael had been plea negotiations with federal prosecutors on federal hate crime charges, but he informed the court late Thursday he will not plead guilty. He and his son Travis were sentenced to life in prison in state court but Arbery's murder in state court last month, but Arbery's mother objected to a plea deal in the federal case. Travis McMichael who fatally shot Arbery will appear in court to confirm if he, too, is going to trial.

ROMANS: Nearly 100 million people from Texas to Maine now in the path of major winter storm. Heavy snow in major cities in the Midwest causing some dangerous whiteout conditions. In Texas, freezing temperatures and ice, look at that, testing the state's power grid again.

This is Texas. This morning, more than 300,000 customers in six states, including Texas, still without power. The storm is crippling air travel with thousands of flights canceled. Today, the storm system pushes to the Northeast.

[05:20:02]

Let's get to meteorologist Karen Maginnis.

Karen, is this getting worse before it gets better this weekend? What do we expect?

KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It looks like, Christine, it's going to be shifting. Those areas so deeply impacted from Texas into the Tennessee Valley, they start to ease up a little bit. And I do mean ease up. It's not going to be a sudden return to really beautiful conditions but it is going to be the northeast, New England, portions of the Great Lakes that would really start to suffer.

What you're looking at, those images, those were shot by a drone operator. That was Matt Lantz. He took out the drone showing the beautiful images coming to the west of the Fort Worth area. On the ground it's terrible.

Road conditions were bad. They get about three to five inches of snow and a little bit of ice.

All right. Let's show you what happened near the St. Louis area. Interstate 70, there were three tractor trailers that mixed it up on icy roads. Two vehicles, one of which went under one of those tractor trailers, they're saying that that person was taken to the hospital in critical condition.

Also, want to show you what's happened right around Memphis. There was so much ice. Ice covered trees, ice covered roads. So the ice brought the trees down and this landed on top of an automobile, a truck.

No one was injured in that, but just goes to show you just how damaging ice can be. Already across the U.S., they have canceled nearly 2,700 flights, already. That's in anticipation of this frontal system that's ushering the messy weather in the Northeast and New England. And, Christine and Laura, looks like you will see perhaps a little bit of ice, maybe mixed with sleet, frozen precipitation. It will be light and move in and out. Washington, D.C., warmest temperature but it drops throughout the entire day.

So, don't let the temperature of 50 fool you.

ROMANS: We've already got an early dismissal at my school. They don't want to do the big, icy trip home this afternoon.

All right. Karen, nice to see you.

JARRETT: All right. Still ahead for you, the hangover headache that just won't end for Boris Johnson and his lockdown party scandal. The top aides who now say they're done.

ROMANS: And lifestyles of the rich and famous. The old bridge blocking Jeff Bezos new boat, I guess it's really -- wow, a super yacht -- and how money is greasing the wheels.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:26:47]

ROMANS: All right. So, how big is Jeff Bezos' new yacht? Too big apparently to pass under a landmark bridge in the Netherlands. So, part of re the structure, the bridge not the yacht, may have to be dismantled to make way for the Amazon founder's super cruiser.

CNN's Isa Soares joins us live with the details.

A big boat, old bridge and a lot of money, Isa.

ISA SOARES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. It doesn't go too well, does it?

Good morning, ladies.

It is a first world problem, as we sip, of course, our mediocre coffee this morning. Look, this is what we know. It's a new and pretty impressive and pretty massive super yacht is being built in Rotterdam for Jeff Bezos. Now, what we understand is that it's nearing completion. But getting it to Jeff Bezos, to the owner, is not as easy as an Amazon delivery.

It will require, as Christine was just pointing out there, taking out a historic bridge in Rotterdam. Now, the sailing yacht, I've got the numbers here, is 417-foot long and 130 foot tall, but for the boat to reach the ocean, it will have to pass through Rotterdam and navigate the steel bridge known as the De Hef.

Now, the bridge's central span just for those of you trying to get your heads around this can be raised into the air but that's still not enough, it seems, to accommodate the yacht's three giant masts. The company building the yacht has asked the city to dismantle the bridge. If approved, both the company building the yacht and Jeff Bezos said they will pick up the cost of dismantling it and putting it back together.

But as you can imagine, ladies, the request is causing quite a stir. Some in Rotterdam see the value in doing this. The municipality has said that they see this as an important project. It's bringing in a job, strengthening the shipbuilding industry. Others think that Rotterdam shouldn't jump to the wishes of one of the world's richest people in the world.

Have a look at this tweet from a local politician. This man has earned his money by structurally cutting off stuff, evading taxes, avoiding regulations and now, we have to tear down our beautiful national monument. That is really going a bridge too far -- and kudos to him for that pun.

One Facebook group is planning to protest. 2,000 people the last time I saw setting up a protest to throw rotten eggs on the yacht as it passes through the De Hef. The news, of course, causing a stir on Twitter, too, with U.S. House

Representative Adam Schiff saying this: If Jeff Bezos can pay to dismantle a bridge in the Netherlands to fit his super yacht, then his company should have no problem paying its fair share in taxes so we can build a bridges in America. Ouch.

Christine and Laura?

JARRETT: So, just a quick second, is this yacht for his own personal use? Is this just his sort of fun boat?

ROMANS: It's not to deliver packages.

SOARES: It is. It is just for his personal use. What I didn't tell you, there is a yacht within a yacht. Because his helicopter can't land on the main yacht.

JARRETT: I'm sure, yeah.

ROMANS: I don't know, maybe -- we're talking so much money. Maybe they dismantle the yacht and not the bridge and put the yacht back together out at sea.

JARRETT: That will require --

SOARES: That is genius.

JARRETT: -- some effort on his part.

ROMANS: There you go.

SOARES: That's a genius idea.

ROMANS: You're welcome, America.

JARRETT: Thank you, Isa Soares.

ROMANS: The Netherlands. Nice to see you.

JARRETT: All right. Two former aides to former Vice President Mike Pence testifying before the January 6th committee. What they're saying and more importantly what they're not.

ROMANS: Plus, a dog trapped in a burning car and a deputy's dogged determination to get him out.