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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Today: Biden To Speak On Manufacturing Jobs And Energy Costs; Soon: 2022 Oscar Nominations Announced; Auto Industry And Economy Take Major Hit From Chip Shortage. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired February 08, 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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[05:33:04]
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Fresh off a strong jobs report, President Biden will address other economic priorities today, including manufacturing and energy costs.
CNN's Jasmine Wright live in Washington. Do we know what the president plans to announce today, Jasmine, on the economy?
JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN REPORTER: Well, Christine, this is all about President Biden's plan to take the message of what his administration is doing directly to the American voters. So today we will see him standing alongside Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg and Energy Sec. Jennifer Granholm talking about ways that this administration has worked to expand manufacturing in the U.S.
Now, as you know, he is not the first president to focus on trying to get more things made here in the U.S. He will say and he's expected to say that will lead to, of course, better-paying jobs here in the country and also lowering costs for Americans. So this is really the president here trying to get back to those kitchen-table issues that we know voters are really, really concerned about -- Christine.
ROMANS: Jasmine, we know the president's top science adviser resigned following an internal investigation into his behavior. What do we know about this?
WRIGHT: Well, the internal investigation found that he had violated workplace policy at -- in the administration when he was kind of bullying and talking down to his colleagues. And remember, this is important because President Biden, really within his first weeks of his tenure, said that if he found any staffers to be disrespectful to others they would be fired on the spot. So this is really holding the president's feet to the fire here. And now, a source familiar told us that the president did not ask for Lander's resignation but that Landers (sic) offered it when the situation became too untenable.
Now, earlier in the day, administration officials said that Landers (sic) had behaved inappropriately and that corrective actions would be taken and, of course, Landers (sic) would be held accountable while he stayed in this role. But clearly here, Christine, that did not last for long.
[05:35:02]
ROMANS: All right, Jasmine Wright. Thank you so much. Have a good day, Jasmine.
LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: An early wake-up call in Hollywood this morning. Nominations for the 94th Academy Awards will be announced later this morning. Who will be in and who will be out?
Here to solve it all, CNN entertainment reporter Chloe Melas, joining us on-set. All right, Chloe, I'm way behind --
ROMANS: I know.
JARRETT: -- on my movie-watching, I am embarrassed to say.
CHLOE MELAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: I think everybody is, right?
ROMANS: Moms of toddlers can't watch movies by definition.
JARRETT: I watch a fair amount of T.V, I'm just saying. But who -- what -- who's going to get best actor? What's the buzz?
MELAS: OK, so let's go straight into best picture so that you guys have a shortlist of some of --
ROMANS: OK, good.
MELAS: -- these that maybe you guys can start --
ROMANS: Good.
MELAS: -- watching because you have a little bit of time since the Oscars were pushed back this year.
Let's start with "Dune." So this is a movie getting a lot of buzz. It's like the third adaptation of this story. The first one that came out in the 80s didn't really do very well. This one, though, a big hit among fans.
It's a sci-fi movie. It stars Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Jason Momoa. So if you're into sci-fi this is for you.
A movie I saw last night, you guys, I really loved, is called "The Power of the Dog."
JARRETT: You liked it.
MELAS: Yes.
JARRETT: It looks so tough to me.
MELAS: It's a dark western. It gives me some there will be blood vibes.
An interesting fun fact here. You guys might not know this. My husband actually didn't know this. So, Benedict Cumberbatch does an amazing job in it. but Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons also star in this and in real life, they have two children together and I think they're engaged. I don't know if they ever got married but, yes, they're --
JARRETT: They're a couple.
MELAS: -- they're a couple.
So this movie really a good one to watch.
Now, "West Side Story," Steven Spielberg's big hurray into the musical world. This movie stars Ansel Elgort. It's such a great movie. It's such a great soundtrack.
And so many people are wondering if he's going to get a nod, although it didn't do that well at the box office. But the people who loved this movie loved this movie.
I also, though, want to take you to a big moment for someone who I love. Today could be a really big day for Will Smith.
ROMANS: Is it finally his time?
MELAS: So, he has been nominated for two movies before. He's been nominated for "Ali" -- for playing Muhammad Ali, and "The Pursuit of Happyness," which I loved that movie. But he's never won, so some people are saying this is his -- this is his year.
Remember when Brad Pitt had that year when it was like this is his year -- he's finally going to win an Oscar? This is that for Will Smith for his role as Serena and Venus Williams' father Richard Williams in the movie "King Richard."
JARRETT: Yes.
ROMANS: Let's hear a little bit of that performance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILL SMITH, ACTOR, KING RICHARD: And I don't even mind you saying we hard on these kids. You know why? Cause we are. That's our job -- to keep them off these streets. You want to check on the kids, let's check on the kids.
We've got future doctors and lawyers, plus a couple of tennis stars in this house. KEVIN DUNN, ACTOR, KING RICHARD: The chances of achieving the kind of
success that you're talking about is just very, very unlikely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: OK, that I want to see.
ROMANS: I want to see --
JARRETT: Now you have my interest.
ROMANS: It gets -- everyone who has seen it really loves it.
MELAS: And Venus and Serena -- they were executive producers on this movie. He does the performance so, so well.
ROMANS: And I love when they talk about this movie. They talk about also thanking their mother for all the sacrifices she made to get them, so it wasn't just about King Richard, the dad.
MELAS: But, I love a little competition and I love a little competition between the ultimate most famous married couple ever --
ROMANS: Yes.
MELAS: -- Jay-Z and Beyonce. They might be both nominated this morning for the first time for each of them. I couldn't believe that.
JARRETT: Yes.
MELAS: I was Googling it -- wait, Beyonce has never been nominated for an Oscar? Well, they're both competing, potentially, for the best song category. Beyonce did "Be Alive" for "King Richard," which we just saw. Jay-Z, "Guns Go Bang" for "The Harder They Fall."
So they could be competing in the same category, which I always love it when they show up to the red carpet at any awards show, especially the Oscars. The glam this year, I'm excited for.
JARRETT: Now, they'll be in person. I mean, these awards --
MELAS: Yes.
JARRETT: -- unlike so many others, like the -- you know, the Grammys and the Golden Globes --
MELAS: Exactly.
JARRETT: So many of these have been sort of on and off again.
MELAS: That's the reason why they pushed back all of these award shows. And so, we're hoping that this will be in person. And to see Jay-Z and Beyonce there together, that'll be fun.
Now, something that I, though, want to mention getting a lot of buzz. Kristen Stewart, as her role as Princess Diana -- ROMANS: Yes.
MELAS: -- in "Spencer." If you guys like things about the royals, Princess Diana -- I certainly do --
JARRETT: Of course.
MELAS: -- Kristen Stewart is really phenomenal in this movie.
And it tells the story about Princess Diana on a weekend. She's in the tumultuous divorce with Prince Charles. And it's her relationship with her children, having to like flee from the paparazzi. And it's just -- it's a -- it's a dark, sad window into how tough her life really was.
ROMANS: All right, if there --
JARRETT: So many things to add to the queue.
ROMANS: If there are three things I need to watch just so that I can be --
MELAS: OK.
ROMANS: -- well-informed for our audience here --
MELAS: "The Power of the Dog," --
ROMANS: OK.
MELAS: -- "King Richard" --
ROMANS: OK.
MELAS: -- and "Spencer."
JARRETT: Yes.
ROMANS: All right.
MELAS: Why not?
ROMANS: All right, Chloe Melas.
JARRETT: You just simplified our weekend. Thank you.
ROMANS: Nice to see you. All the news you need to know, folks.
All right, sticker shock at the used car lot. Drivers -- or dealers in the driver's seat, rather, with prices near all-time highs.
[05:40:00]
JARRETT: And the American-born skier who just won Olympic gold for China. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) JARRETT: Welcome back.
This morning, an investigation is underway after a woman fell through the gap on a drawbridge in Florida. Police say the woman was walking her bicycle across the Royal Park Bridge, which connects Palm Beach and West Palm Beach, when the worst happened.
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MIKE JACHLES, PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER, WEST PALM BEACH POLICE DEPARTMENT: She had almost reached the end of the bridge -- about 10 feet from the end. The bridge went up at some point and she tried to hold on but just couldn't.
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JARRETT: That's terrible. A bystander tried to rescue the woman but it was too late. Police are investigating how the bridge was raised before it was cleared of the pedestrians and whether safety protocols were violated.
ROMANS: All right, let's get a check on CNN Business this Tuesday morning.
[05:45:00]
Looking at markets around the world, in Asian markets, a mixed performance. Europe has opened higher. And on Wall Street, stock index futures leaning up.
A quiet day on Wall Street Monday in what has been a rough 2022 for investors. The Dow ended flat. The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 closed slightly lower.
A Peloton power ride. Shares surged 23 percent on takeover interest from Amazon and Nike. Tyson Foods rose more than 12 percent on strong quarterly sales.
Earnings season is in full swing. More than half of S&P 500 companies have reported so far and the majority are better than expected.
Also this week, big inflation news. January's Consumer Price Index is out Thursday. It's expected to hit a fresh pandemic high.
Two of America's best-known budget airlines joining forces, creating what would be the country's fifth-largest carrier. The $6.6 billion merger between Spirit and Frontier Airlines could result in 1,000 daily flights to 145 destinations. What it means for you is fewer low fares, but the companies are promising to keep their prices down.
No word on what brand they'll be under or who would lead this new airline. The deal still has to be approved also by federal antitrust regulators.
America's largest car company suspending production at several factories. The reason? That global shortage of semiconductor chips. That shortage means sticker shock at the car dealership and in the American economy. Used car prices are up almost 38 percent over the past year -- 38 percent more for a used car. New cars up almost 12 percent.
I want to bring in Pat Ryan, CEO of CoPilot. It's an app for buying and selling cars. And no surprise, I think, that Ford is halting some production. This is something that the big car manufacturers have really struggled with, right?
PAT RYAN, FOUNDER AND CEO, COPILOT (via Skype): And Ford's not alone in this. Toyota is going to produce 150,000 less cars globally in the month of February -- about 25,000 or 30,000 in the U.S. VW says they won't get anything close to an improvement to normal until the new year. But GM, on the other hand, just said that they're really doing better every quarter -- quarter-on-quarter -- the second half of the year will be good. And they're even able to put chips on non-popular models.
So it's a tale that's different for each manufacturer and that's going to change more and more over the year as some have been able to navigate this better than others.
ROMANS: Yes. A lot of folks out there trying to buy a car -- they either can't afford it or they can't find one.
When are prices on cars going to drop? We've shown you these numbers here. Do you think in some categories, in some model years that we're going to start to see some relief?
RYAN: Well, it feels like we're at peak right now. If you look, December -- kind of when the stock market peaked was around the time that used car prices peaked. And you saw a slight decrease, about 1.4 percent, in near-new cars over the last month. And so, we're starting to see that little bit of softening really peak prices there.
I mean, a 2019 Honda is 103 percent of the original sticker price. A 3-year-old Toyota is 97 percent of the original sticker price. It's unclear how long Americans are going to pay new car prices for 3-year- old cars.
ROMANS: It's like upside-down economics -- right, Pat? I mean, it used to be the minute you drove the car off the lot it just went down, down, down. But some of these used car prices just went up, up, up the last year and a half.
RYAN: It's incredible. It really took off -- when COVID started and we started to see more and more -- as people needed cars more for vacations, for commuting to work, and public transportation -- Uber and Lyft use went down. But when the stimulus checks hit in March we saw used car prices skyrocket in a way we've never seen. Kind of like the bubble in the stock market.
And I would say the bubble in the car market is a few months behind. It will take longer to adjust because this new car chip shortage supply chain shortage is really extending it longer. And so, the first half of the year if you don't have to buy a car you're better off not doing it. But if you have a car to sell, it'd be like selling a stock in the fourth quarter -- you'll be glad you did it.
If you can wait until the second half or even early '23, things will start to come back down to earth. This bubble is bursting like the stock market one. It's just going to take a little more time because of the supply chain issue to get back to normal.
ROMANS: That's really good advice. I want to hear that again. If you're in the market for a new car, wait maybe six months, right? If you're selling a car, do it.
RYAN: Absolutely. Eighty-six percent of Americans are paying sticker price or higher. The average price is now $700 over sticker. So waiting six months is important and then watching.
One of the things we're doing for our members is watching the different manufacturers. For example, Ford's stopping production right now but they have 34 days of cars on the ground to sell. Toyota is only 19, so there's almost no selection of Toyotas.
So deciding which manufacturers, as they start to stock back up, are right and who's ahead of the curve, it's going to give you better selection and better prices as we move in the second half of the year and hopefully, a return to normal in '23.
ROMANS: Yes, it's all about the inventory -- what people have -- and, you know, that chip shortage. We're building factories -- semiconductor factories at home and trying to not be so reliant on a couple of different countries. But that's two years out, right, before those are all up and running?
[05:50:06]
RYAN: The chip -- exactly. The chip factories take years to build. They're huge capital endeavors.
And the truth is the auto industry learned the hard way. They're always the biggest customer to their suppliers, but to the chip players they're not. The electronics companies are much bigger. And auto companies rely on old chips, which are less profitable and less high-margin to the manufacturers.
So when this disruption happened they really learned a lesson about where they fit in the global chip supply chain, and it was humbling. And they're learning how to do it.
Of course, Tesla, because of their ability to adjust their software, could adjust the chips that were more in supply. And you see the agility of that model being really important to their success. And other manufacturers are trying to figure out how they get agile like that --
ROMANS: Yes.
RYAN: -- so this doesn't happen again in the future.
ROMANS: A seller's market for used cars -- talking about it like it's real estate or something. That's what has -- COVID has brought us to.
Pat Ryan, CEO of CoPilot, thanks for dropping by. Nice to see you bright and early from Chicago this morning. Thank you, sir.
RYAN: Nice to see you. Thank you.
JARRETT: All right, let's get to the Olympics now. American-born Eileen Gu rallies to win gold for China, her adopted home country, with a dramatic final run in the women's big air.
Coy Wire has it all covered this morning from China. So, Coy, not only did she win, she's now coming to the defense of one of her fellow athletes from some of the haters.
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is an incredible story -- this San Francisco-born star. You can imagine all the pressure she's feeling here. She's 18 years old, in her Olympics debut, choosing to compete for her mother's homeland China instead of Team USA.
But, Eileen Gu says that she's a hopeless romantic when it comes to fear. She says that when you embrace it, the adrenaline that comes with it can propel you to greatness, and that's exactly what happened.
On her final jump, she visualized it and then took that leap of faith, landing a 1620. Now, that's 4 1/2 full rotations. She's just the second woman to ever pull it off in competition. Gu said afterward that even if she didn't land that trick, she hoped that just going for it would send a message and it would encourage more girls to break their own boundaries.
Eileen Gu has a chance to win two more golds here in Beijing.
All right, men's short program figure skating. Team USA's three-time defending world champ Nathan Chen looking for his first-ever individual Olympic gold. And Chen reminds the world why he's nicknamed the "Quad King." His score of 113.97, Christine and Laura, new world record. Nathan Chen taking a commanding lead ahead of the long program on his quest to win that coveted individual Olympic gold.
Let's go to the mountains now -- alpine skiing, men's super-G. Team USA's Ryan Cochran-Siegle is taking home silver. He was beat out by defending champ Matthias Mayer, of Austria, by four-hundredths of a second.
What a story. Fractured his neck a year ago but he perseveres.
And the best part of this, Ryan standing on the medal stand almost 50 years to the day after his mom won slalom gold at the '72 Sapporo games. How sweet is that?
Finally, Joey Mantia just celebrated his 36th birthday in Beijing yesterday and within the next hour or so he could win Team USA's first gold of these games. This third Olympics, seeking his first medal. The number-one-ranked speed skater in the world in the 1,500 meter.
And I love his philosophy, Laura and Christine -- every day is leg day. Look at those cantaloupe crushers.
ROMANS: Are you kidding me?
WIRE: His Instagram is flooded with pictures of these pillars. Go, America! Go get that gold.
JARRETT: No words. That's incredible.
ROMANS: Every day is rest day at my house.
WIRE: I mean, you could -- you could cut your finger on those. I mean, this is --
ROMANS: Wow. That is so --
WIRE: That's an Olympian for you.
ROMANS: That is --
JARRETT: That's just incredible.
ROMANS: Wow, that's --
JARRETT: It doesn't look real but it is.
Coy, thank you.
ROMANS: All right, Coy. Thanks for that mental image.
JARRETT: When you come back from the Olympics we want to see your legs look like that. Thank you.
WIRE: We're going to squat-off? We're going to go squat-off? OK.
JARRETT: Exactly. I'm not participating but --
WIRE: All right, let's squat now.
JARRETT: -- you can.
ROMANS: Thank you, Coy.
JARRETT: Thank you, Coy.
ROMANS: All right, 53 minutes past the hour.
Take a look at a miracle in the making. People who are paralyzed walking again thanks to a device implanted in the spinal cord.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL ROCCATI, PARALYZED IN MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT: Just to do a simple shower, without crutches I can stand up and shower. With the walker, I am free. I can go walk anywhere I want.
(END VIDEO CLIP) JARRETT: Just remarkable. Michael Roccati was one of three men taking part in the STIMO clinical trial in Switzerland. Researchers sent electrical pulses through an implanted pacemaker to activate the muscles. Just incredible. Lots of testing is still needed but the technology could be available in the next three to four years.
ROMANS: Very cool. Oh, love that.
All right, thanks for joining us this Tuesday morning. I'm Christine Romans.
JARRETT: I'm Laura Jarrett. "NEW DAY" is next.
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[05:59:57]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. It's Tuesday, February eighth, and I'm Brianna Keilar with John Berman here in New York.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It's great to have you.
KEILAR: It is wonderful to be here.
