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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Pence Aides Refuse To Discuss Direct Conversations With Trump; Four Boris Johnson Aides Quit Amid 10 Downing Street Party-Gate Scandal; Against Pandemic Backdrop, Opening Ceremony Draws Near. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired February 04, 2022 - 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: What they're saying and more importantly, what they're not.

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JARRETT: Welcome back.

Two top aides to former vice president Mike Pence have now testified before the January 6 Committee -- notable appearances for what both men did and did not talk about.

Katelyn Polantz joins me live from Washington this morning. Katelyn, what was off-limits for these two witnesses?

[05:35:02]

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, good morning, Laura.

These are crucial witnesses in the House select committee investigation. This is Marc Short, the chief of staff to Mike Pence as vice president, and Greg Jacobs, the chief counsel to Pence.

Now, these two would not discuss, when they sat for interviews over the last two weeks, their direct conversations with President Donald Trump or other conversations they knew of that were direct conversations with Trump. That's because Trump's team came to them and instructed them not to talk about what's called presidential communications. Those were off-limits. And more importantly, the vice president's office -- their team -- decided that they were willing to oblige with this request from the Trump team.

So the thing is here, though -- I mean, it's important, the parameters that are being set. But the thing is they were willing to talk about a lot of things. This was a very small amount of questions in the interviews. There were already negotiations beforehand with the committee. And so these two top aides to Vice President Mike Pence were speaking

quite a lot about their conversations with Pence, what was happening in the days up to January sixth, and they were advising him what was happening when he was the person getting this pressure campaign before -- as the vote was being certified -- Laura.

JARRETT: Well, and almost serving as Pence's proxy since we don't yet know whether Pence will actually testify. They were in the room where it happened. They know quite a bit.

Katelyn, thank you.

ROMANS: All right. Later today, the Republican National Committee will formally vote to censure Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. Their offense? Well, investigating the January sixth insurrection.

Daniella Diaz is on Capitol Hill this morning. Daniella, we understand the censure resolution -- it's actually been watered down from the original version. Why?

DANIELLA DIAZ, CNN REPORTER: Christine -- well, that came after committee members decided to water it down. One committee member told us they're concerned that by the original resolution, which was to expel Congresswoman Liz Cheney and Congressman Adam Kinzinger from the House GOP Conference, would make it and set precedent for the RNC to continue doing something like this in the future if there were any Republicans that went against or were criticizing the party.

But look, this censure was voted out of the Resolutions Committee yesterday. Now, the whole 168-member RNC is going to vote on this later today.

But I want to emphasize that these two lawmakers, Congresswoman Liz Cheney and Congressman Adam Kinzinger -- both of these members who sit on the House select committee investigating the January sixth insurrection -- they are -- they shrugged this off. They are not concerned about this resolution at all.

And in different statements, they both said that they stand by their decision to be part of this panel to investigate what happened on January sixth and to continue to call out that big lie that Republicans keep pushing that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump -- Christine.

ROMANS: All right, Daniella. Thank you so much.

JARRETT: All right, jumping overseas now.

A new blow to Britain's Boris Johnson. Four of his top aides just quit as his lockdown party scandal rages on.

CNN's Scott McLean is live in London on this story. Scott, who's gone, and what did they say on their way out the door?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Laura, yes. So, the government is trying to frame this, first off, as sort of an expected staff shakeup, but the optics of four top aides leaving all on the same day certainly doesn't do much to dispel this perception that things are looking a little bit chaotic at Downing Street.

So, Boris Johnson is losing his chief of staff, his communications chief, and also his principal private secretary -- the same guy penned that now-infamous e-mail inviting Downing Street staff to a BYOB party at Downing Street during lockdown.

The resignation that's really going to sting though is his policy chief, a woman named Munira Mirza. She's been with him for 14 years. She's highly influential. And she wanted him to apologize for extremely misleading comments that he had made earlier this week implying that the leader of the opposition, Keir Starmer, had personally failed to prosecute one of Britain's most notorious pedophiles back when he was England's top prosecutor.

Now, the prime minister clarified his remarks but he didn't apologize. And so, Mirza wrote in her resignation letter, "You are a better man than many of your detractors will ever understand, which is why it is desperately sad that you let yourself down by making a scurrilous accusation."

Now, the British chancellor, Rishi Sunak, a man who is widely seen as a contender to take Johnson's job if he is forced out of office -- he said yesterday that he wouldn't have said the same thing that Johnson said or repeated that accusation that is widely being perceived as a swipe against his boss, Laura.

JARRETT: All right, Scott. Thanks for staying on top of that one for us.

ROMANS: All right. A dog in Colorado lucky to be alive this morning after being trapped in a car fire. Dramatic video shows the moment police arrived when a man was screaming for someone to help save his pet.

[05:40:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hurry up, there's a dog in the car.

POLICE OFFICER: A dog in the car?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please don't let him die. Oh my -- oh my God.

POLICE OFFICER: Where's it at?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's probably in the back -- right here.

POLICE OFFICER: Right here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Oh, Hank -- come on, man.

POLICE OFFICER: Hank? Is it unlocked?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's some sort of manual lock. It's right here. Come on. Hank, come on.

POLICE OFFICER: Come on, buddy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on. Come on, Hank. Oh, God. Oh my God. Oh, Hank -- over here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Oh, wow. A vet -- a vet who lives next door has confirmed that the dog is OK.

JARRETT: Oh my goodness. You know, we are dog people --

ROMANS: Yes.

JARRETT: -- and it's hard to watch.

ROMANS: I know -- terrifying, actually.

All right. President Biden speaking today after the release of the January jobs report. We're going to preview what to expect, next.

JARRETT: And why Colin Kaepernick is teaming up with Spike Lee.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:45:26]

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

Looking at markets around the world, you can see Asian shares mixed here. Europe has opened mixed. On stock index futures here looking like they're kind of indecisive. Chinese markets, by the way, closed for the Lunar New Year.

Indecisive because we have a lot going on today, and we had a lot happening yesterday. Meta's epic crash on Thursday roiled Wall Street. The Facebook parent plunged 26 percent. That's the worst day ever for that stock. It lost $232 billion in value in a single day.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally lost nearly $29 billion. That big $232 billion number -- that loss -- it lost yesterday more than any U.S. company ever has. And the value of the loss is worth more than the entire value of McDonald's, AT&T, Goldman Sachs, or Ford.

A contagion spread through tech and Wall Street -- that rare profit drop for Meta -- because of Apple's new privacy policy dinging ad revenue among other things.

The big event today, a messy jobs reports. Millions of people were out sick with Omicron. It may have -- it may have dented the job market temporarily. The U.S. likely added just 150,000 jobs in January. If that happens,

it would be the worst month since December 2020 when the U.S. actually lost jobs. And we're expecting the jobless rate stayed at a very low 3.9 percent.

But I want to discuss with the experts here, Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics. We saw from ADP, Mark, that the private sector actually shed 301,000 jobs in January.

And they say that Omicron was a big factor. You had temporary business closures. You had all of these people out sick. And we know that the government's report happened exactly at the peak of Omicron.

What are you expecting?

MARK ZANDI, CHIEF ECONOMIST, MOODY'S ANALYTICS (via Webex by Cisco): Yes, Christine, I think the odds are pretty good that we could actually see a decline. According to the Bureau of Census that conducted the survey right when Omicron hit its peak a few weeks ago, 12 million people who weren't working said they weren't working because they were sick, taking care of someone who was sick, or fearful of getting sick. That's a new hide during the pandemic.

So if all those folks that are just out of the workforce can't work because they're ill, I think the odds are pretty good that we'll see a decline. And unemployment may tick a notch higher as well.

ROMANS: I mean, that's remarkable to think that 12 million people were sidelined for whatever reason because of Omicron. You say that shows you that the recovery in the economy depends on the virus. I mean, I think we can assume that January's job losses, if that happens, was temporary, right? I mean, this is a rearview mirror now.

ZANDI: Yes. I think the economy is still -- clearly, two years into this is still tethered to the pandemic and the waves of the pandemic. And when the waves are washing over us it's tough. It hurts the economy. But fortunately, we have a resilient economy and when the wave passes through -- and it looks like Omicron is passing through here pretty fast -- the economy revives and comes back quickly.

And we created 6 1/2 million jobs last year and we're within spitting distance of getting all the jobs back we lost during the recession.

So I think assuming Omicron continues to fade away, this economy will continue to recover.

ROMANS: Yes, continue to recover. And the headline continues to be this inflation number. I know -- I know last year you said that the typical family is paying like -- something like $200 extra a month because of higher costs for just about everything.

We're seeing wages rise, but is inflation still that big consumer real-feel story to you?

ZANDI: Yes. I think that's really what's stinging people. I mean, the last time we saw inflation like this was 40 years ago. That's two generations ago. So a lot of Americans just have never seen anything like this and it really hurts. And Christine, it's actually up to $250 a month more now to buy the same kinds of goods and services folks were buying a year ago, so it really stings.

And again, I think it goes right back to the pandemic, which has disrupted global supply chains, resulted in shortages, messed up the labor market, and caused all these labor problems and forcing businesses to raise prices.

So, again, I'm optimistic that as the pandemic kind of wind down -- winds down here that inflationary pressures will abate. But that's key to getting people feeling better about how the economy is going.

ROMANS: Yes. We heard Sen. Joe Manchin this week basically say Build Back Better -- what's that? It's not -- it's dead, basically.

Is there anything the White House and Congress can do to help people right now?

ZANDI: Well, I think the most immediate thing is getting this pandemic behind us, which means making sure that everyone gets all the things that they need -- masks and vaccines, and test kits -- and then just working through all the issues in the supply chains and the labor market. It's going to take a lot of -- take time. You know, it's not going to happen very quickly because there's no smoking gun solution here. But all these little things do add up.

[05:50:01]

ROMANS: All right. Well, we know the economy nerds are going to have a lot of fun in a few hours trying to make sense of --

ZANDI: Yes.

ROMANS: -- what all these numbers mean in this jobs report.

Mark Zandi, Moody's chief economist, thank you so much.

ZANDI: Thank you.

JARRETT: All right. The Olympic Games officially kick off in a little over an hour from now with the opening ceremony, but how many athletes will we actually see walking?

Coy Wire is there in Beijing for this morning's Bleacher Report. So, Coy, some people deciding to stay safe and not walk at all?

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Laura. Good morning to you.

A frustrating juxtaposition for these athletes. They want to get excited about these game but it is tough. You have geopolitical rhetoric swirling all around them. There were two layers of chain-link fences around a figure skating venue I went to earlier today, Laura. Opening ceremony around the corner. The threat of COVID looming. One of the games biggest names deciding not to walk in the ceremony. Team USA's star figure skater Nathan Chen told me earlier he is not participating, in part because of the close proximity to so many other people just days before his individual competition begins. And it makes you wonder, Laura, how many other athletes might follow suit.

But, for Team USA, at least, a team official told me 177 of the 224 Olympians will be walking. That's a higher number percentagewise than the Tokyo Games. And they should be in for quite the show.

Beijing, in 2008, had an opening ceremony that's generally regarded as the greatest of all time. Same venue -- the iconic Bird's Nest national stadium. Same director, Chinese film maker Zhang Yimou. And organizers say it will be simpler, though -- 3,000 performers instead of the 15,000 back 14 years ago.

Here is one of the Olympians that we spoke to ahead of the games about what it means for her to be able to walk in the opening ceremony. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AJA EVANS, TEAM USA OLYMPIC BOBSLEDDER: The opening ceremony is my favorite experience of the Olympic Games. I think that it's a really important experience for the athletes because we're so used to being in a zone and being competitive, and opening ceremony is the one moment during the entire process where you get to just kind of let go and enjoy your accomplishments in getting this far.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: All right. Here is the opening ceremony gear that we are going to see -- Ralph Lauren -- the official flag bearer jacket, I am told, that we will see. And they will definitely be warm. This is one of the most comfortable and coolest coats I've ever seen.

I'm considering putting it on and maybe just trying to sneak on in there and make my way into the opening ceremony through all the fences, through all the security. If you see me back in the states tomorrow you'll know why.

JARRETT: You are an Olympian in our heart, Coy. Thank you -- appreciate it.

ROMANS: All right, thank you, sir.

WIRE: Oh, thank you, Christine.

ROMANS: All right.

Former NFL star Colin Kaepernick's story now set to become a Spike Lee joint.

JARRETT: All right. CNN's Chloe Melas is here with us on-set with more. So, Chloe, the NFL is facing this pretty stunning racial discrimination suit from this coach, Brian Flores --

CHLOE MELAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: Yes. JARRETT: -- now at the same time as this Kaepernick story coming out. It's kind of amazing timing.

MELAS: So, it's not a good time for the NFL right now, but this is a really great opportunity for Colin Kaepernick.

So, it's been announced that Spike Lee is going to direct this docuseries. There's no date yet but we do know it's going to include new interviews, new footage. Colin Kaepernick tweeting that it's time to correct the narrative and finally tell it from his perspective.

Now, he did do a documentary with Ava Duvernay --

JARRETT: Right.

MELAS: -- "COLIN IN BLACK & WHITE" last year. But they say this is going to be different.

It's part of his first-look deal with Disney. But it's really exciting. It's also going to be produced by Jemele Hill from ESPN.

ROMANS: Oh, wow.

MELAS: And so, he tweeted a picture of them. They were just sitting courtside last night at the Lakers game and they're all excited about it. And I'm excited to see.

But remember, he was released from the 49ers --

ROMANS: Right.

MELAS: -- in 2017 for kneeling during the National Anthem to protest police brutality. And he still has never received another NFL contract.

ROMANS: Let's talk about female superheroes. Sony has tapped Dakota Johnson to be Madame Web. And we -- you know, we had --

JARRETT: She knows a lot about this.

MELAS: I have my Madame Web notes.

ROMANS: We had Scarlett Johansson, we had Captain Marvel, but this is Sony's first go at it.

MELAS: OK, this is a big deal. Dakota Johnson -- love here. She's been doing Indie movies. I don't have much time so let me just get this out.

So she is Madame Web. Madame Web first came about in the 1980s. She is actually a blind, paralyzed character -- an elderly woman. Some people are criticizing the fact that they cast a younger, able-bodied, not blind person.

But anyway -- so I'm excited. It's going to be a great role for her. And this is coming off of "Spider-Man: No Way Home" making over $1 billion at the box office.

JARRETT: She has come a long way from "50 Shades of Gray," let me just say --

MELAS: Oh, yes.

JARRETT: -- which is how I remember her.

ROMANS: Yes.

MELAS: Me, too.

JARRETT: Chloe, thank you -- appreciate it. I always love to have you on-set.

MELAS: Thank you.

ROMANS: It's a little early in the morning for "50 Shades."

MELAS: Happy Friday.

ROMANS: I've got to say, a little early in the morning. But nice to see you, Chloe.

JARRETT: Speak for yourself.

ROMANS: Thanks for joining -- it's Friday. Thanks for joining us. I'm Christine Romans.

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:59:37]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Brianna Keilar with John Berman on this new day.

Let the games begin. The opening ceremony for the 2022 Winter Olympics is going to kick off here in just an hour amid the coronavirus pandemic and also political tensions over boycotts and alleged human rights abuses.

U.S. officials say Russia plotted a false flag attack against Ukraine, this time using a fake graphic video as a pretext for invasion.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: CNN goes behind the scenes of the U.S. raid in Syria. The complex months of planning.