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Kim Jung Un Shows Off Missiles, Daughter At Military Parade; Biden: Relations Between U.S. And China Have Not Taken A Hit; Zelenskyy At EU Summit In Brussels After U.K. And France Visits. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired February 09, 2023 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:00]

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Now, we simply don't know at this point but this is the fifth time that we have heard about her being seen in public. So every time that we see her it does raise that question once again -- is this Kim Jung Un saying that this particular child is going to be groomed for great things.

Now, a little bit about the parade itself. One significant part was the fact that we saw almost a dozen ICBMs -- the intercontinental ballistic missiles that North Korea says can reach mainland United States and many experts believe they may be right.

This is the most amount of these larger ICBMs that we have seen in any kind of parade in North Korean history as well. And also a solid fuel ICBM -- a mock-up they showed us showing what they are intending to do. That this is the next thing that they would like to be able to achieve.

Solid fuels mean it's much easier to assemble. You can move it around far quicker as well, and it's much harder to track -- Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, dangerous, indeed.

All right, Paula Hancocks. Thank you so much for that.

President Biden says U.S. relations with China have not become worse after that Chinese spy balloon was shot down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The idea of shooting down a balloon that's gathering information over America and is -- and that makes relations worse? Look, I made it real clear to Xi Jinping that we're going to compete fully with China but we're not going to look -- we're not looking for conflict.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: CNN's Kristie Lu Stout joins me live from Hong Kong this morning. And Kristie, we heard what President Biden said there. What is China saying? KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: You know, in that interview with "PBS NEWSHOUR" the U.S. president, Joe Biden, said that the U.S. shooting down the Chinese balloon -- it did not make U.S.- China relationships worse, but a number of China observers would disagree. U.S.-China relations are under strain and there is no apparent window of opportunity for a reset in the near future.

Pretty soon China is going to be preoccupied with the National People's Congress, which is going to kick off in early March. And the U.S. House speaker is reportedly planning a visit to Taiwan which, if and when that happens, that will provoke the ire of Beijing.

Earlier today we heard from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Once again, they said that the balloon is a civilian vessel that blew off course, but the United States says it is a spy craft. And not only that -- it was part of a wide Chinese military surveillance operation that spanned multiple continents.

So what did MOFA have to say about that? Let's bring up the statement for you from Beijing. This came out earlier today saying this.

Quote, "The U.S. side claims that this balloon is part of a fleet of aircraft. I do not know that. I think this may be part of the U.S. side of the information and public opinion warfare against China. The international community can see clearly who is the world's largest spy surveillance monitoring country."

Christine, a rather bold and unsubstantiated claim from Beijing at the end there.

Back to you.

ROMANS: All right, Kristie Lu Stout. Thank you, Kristie.

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in Brussels right now addressing EU leaders gathered for a summit. It follows a surprise visit Wednesday to the U.K. where he met with the prime minister there. And then to Paris, meeting with the leaders of France and Germany.

CNN's Nic Robertson is live in Brussels. And Zelenskyy, Nic, has pleaded for more long-range weapons. In the U.K. he was asking for fighter jets to counter an expected Russian offensive. How close is he to making that happen?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: He's definitely driving towards it. I don't think it's going to happen while he's here but it will really trigger more and deeper conversations. He's very persuasive one-on-one.

Obviously, he met with the French president and the German chancellor last night in Paris -- Rishi Sunak, the British prime minister, early on in the day. And even managed to sort of seem to shift the British position further forward on the issue of fighter jets. No commitment but training for them and the consideration of how that might be done in the future. Here, the message that he's just given -- he's just spoken to the 705- member European Parliament -- a very emotional speech. A lot of applause. He was being very humble. He said look, this applause isn't for me, it's for the people of Ukraine.

And this was a speech through all these parliamentarians to try to connect with the people of Europe, thanking them for coming out in their market squares over the past year to express their support for Ukraine.

And a message here about how Ukrainian values align with European Union values. Because, of course, part of what he wants to do here is accelerate the process of Ukraine becoming a member of the European Union. And that's hugely important for Ukraine. That's where they see themselves in the future. It's why all this began, in a way. This was part of the region of Russia's unprovoked invasion.

And he pointed out we have the same values as Europe. Russia doesn't have these values. Russia doesn't care for human rights and the value of individual dignities. The European Union does. Ukraine shares those values.

[05:35:00]

And it was quite an emotive line I thought when he said we're coming home to Europe. And, of course, it was the president of this European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, who was the first foreign dignitary to go to Ukraine in the early days of the war and receive Ukraine's request to join the European Union.

So fighter jets, long-range artillery, long-range missiles -- that's on his agenda and he's going to speak directly to the 27 European Union leaders coming up a little later.

ROMANS: Yes. To think that for a year now he has been pleading with the rest of the world to help, right? And things that seemed early on in the war would be impossible, he has achieved. So he is persuasive.

All right, nice to see you, Nic Robertson. Thanks so much.

Quick hits around the globe right now.

A city bus crashed into a daycare center near Montreal killing two children and injuring six. Police say the bus driver is facing multiple criminal charges, including murder.

Nigeria delaying plans to replace its bank notes after chaotic scenes at ATMs. Millions rushed to withdraw cash ahead of a government deadline to change out the currency.

Authorities in New Zealand seizing more than three tons of floating cocaine at a transit point in the Pacific Ocean. The drugs said to be worth about $315 million.

All right. Just ahead, disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman Freed back in court just hours from now. And another day, another blockbuster trade by the NBA's Brooklyn Nets.

(COMMERCIAL)

[05:40:30]

ROMANS: Here is today's fast-forward look ahead.

FTX founder Sam Bankman Freed due back in court. A federal judge expressing concern about possible witness tampering after learning Bankman Freed sent a text to a former FTX employee.

The House and Senate will receive classified briefings on the Chinese spy balloon. Some lawmakers have been demanding more information and criticizing how President Biden handled the incident.

President Biden heads to Tampa, Florida, the second stop of his post- State of the Union blitz. Neither Biden nor Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has formally announced a 2024 presidential bid.

All right, to sports. The Phoenix Suns pulling off a blockbuster trade overnight, reportedly picking up Kevin Durant from the Brooklyn Nets.

Andy Scholes has this morning's Bleacher Report. Hey, Andy.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Christine.

The NBA trade deadline is today at 3:00 p.m. eastern but already, this has arguably been one of the wildest ones that we have ever seen.

According to multiple reports, Kevin Durant is heading to Phoenix. The Suns getting Durant and T.J. Warren in exchange for Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, Jae Crowder, and four first-round picks. Durant now joins Devin Booker, Chris Paul, and Deandre Ayton in just a stacked Suns lineup that is now the favorite to win the Western Conference, according to the oddsmakers.

It's also the end of what was just a disastrous era in Brooklyn. Just a year ago Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden were supposed to be the big three that brought the Nets a title. Now, none of them are on the team and Brooklyn owes the Houston Rockets their first-round picks for the next five years.

If you know a Nets fan you might want to give them a hug today.

Elsewhere, Russell Westbrook's time with the Lakers is over. He's part of a three-team trade that has him reportedly headed to Utah. The Lakers getting former all-star D'Angelo Russell from Minnesota, as well as Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt from Utah in the deal. Mike Conley headed to the Timberwolves in that trade.

All right, Kyrie Irving, meanwhile, making an instant impact in his debut with the Mavericks last night after his trade from the Nets just a few days ago. He scored 24 points, leading Dallas to a 110-104 win over the Clippers. The Mavs never trailed in this one.

Luka Doncic -- he missed his third consecutive game with a heel injury. He was on the bench for the game. We could see Luka and Kyrie together for the first time tomorrow when the Mavs play at the Kings.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, meanwhile, holding his annual state of the league address yesterday in Phoenix ahead of the Super Bowl. Concussions in the NFL were up 18 percent this season, but Goodell says that the increase could be a result of the league improving its approach at diagnosing concussions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGER GOODELL, NFL COMMISSIONER: Any time we can change the protocols to make it safer for our players we're going to do that. What we changed in October was something that we thought would give us a better opportunity to treat those conditions more conservatively and give the players an opportunity to get off the field and recover.

And, you know, I think that's also a reason why concussions went up this year because we had a broader definition, a more conservative definition. We had, I think an increase of 17 percent of evaluations. So if you have more evaluations you're going to have more concussions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: All right. And Damar Hamlin was in Phoenix yesterday receiving the NFL Players Association Alan Page Community Award for all of his charity work.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAMAR HAMLIN, SAFETY, BUFFALO BILLS: One of my favorite quotes -- "It's a blessing to be a blessing." With that being said, I plan to never take this position for granted and always have an urgent approach in making a difference in the community where I come from, and also communities across the world. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Now, Hamlin didn't say anything about his playing future. But on a radio show yesterday, the medical director of the players union said, quote, "I guarantee you that Damar Hamlin will play professional football again."

ROMANS: Wow.

SCHOLES: Isn't that just incredible, Christine? Just imagine where we were after that horrible incident on "MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL" to where we are now.

ROMANS: Yes.

SCHOLES: Awesome to see Damar Hamlin there at the Super Bowl.

ROMANS: Yes, what an amazing young man.

All right, I hope he has a great future ahead of him.

Andy, thank you. SCHOLES: All right.

ROMANS: All right. Coming up on "CNN THIS MORNING," Sen. Rick Scott talks about his Medicare and Social Security proposal at the center of all that heckling at the State of the Union.

And next, right here, the problem with artificial intelligence. Sometimes robots are wrong.

(COMMERCIAL)

[05:49:06]

ROMANS: Your Romans' Numeral this morning is 7,000. That's the number of job cuts coming to Disney. It's about three percent of Disney's workforce around the world. Returning CEO Bob Iger with a restructuring to save $5.5 billion.

Also announced by Disney --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Clip from Disney's "Frozen."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: New sequels in the works for "Frozen," "Toy Story," and "Zootopia."

Looking at markets around the world, European markets are higher this morning. Asian shares closed mixed.

And on Wall Street, stock index futures at this hour leaning higher with a pretty decent bounce in the Nasdaq here. After a down day yesterday, the Dow fell more than 200 points. The S&P and the Nasdaq slid more than one percent.

Investors working through fourth-quarter results from corporate giants, including Disney, MGM, and Chipotle. Uber reported its strongest quarter ever -- strong rideshare and food delivery demand. Uber's rival, Lyft, reports later today.

[05:50:00]

On inflation watch, gas prices down a penny overnight at $3.44 a gallon.

Initial jobless claims due out at 8:30 a.m. eastern. Forecasts are pointing to a -- maybe a slight uptick in claims to 190,000 first-time filings for unemployment benefits. That number would still be historically low.

President Biden giving PBS his prediction on the economy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUDY WOODRUFF, BROADCAST JOURNALIST, PBS NEWSHOUR: Do you think there's going to be a recession --

BIDEN: No.

WOODRUFF: -- this year?

BIDEN: No, or next year. From the moment I got elected how many of the experts are saying within the next six months there's going to be a recession?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: The president has previously said that recession was possible but not inevitable. Earlier this week he said the risk was very low.

Economists have warned of a possible recession. Some thought the Federal Reserve might pause its aggressive rate hikes because data showed inflation was starting to ease. But then you have these strong job numbers raising concerns that the Fed needs to really keep up with those interest rate hikes which, of course, could be trouble for the economy.

Google may still need to work out the kinks in its new artificial intelligence chatbot tool Bard after the Bard was caught making a mistake in a demo this week. When a user asked Bard about the James Webb Space Telescope, one of Bard's responses was that it took the very first pictures of a planet outside of our own solar system, but NASA says that is incorrect.

Let's bring in CNN media analyst Sara Fischer. This has been remarkable to watch here about this generative technology and how quickly it is moving through the information sphere. And one of the main concerns here is misinformation, Sara.

How concerning is it, especially knowing that these generative technologies might maybe displace media and journalists like us?

SARA FISCHER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST, MEDIAL REPORTER, AXIOS: It is pretty concerning, Christine, and the reason is that generative AI can say things with a lot of confidence even if they're wrong. And so, a lot of people are looking at these results. They might put in a query, get an answer, and say well, it's written in a way that seems very accurate even though it's technically inaccurate.

And now the other challenge with generative AI is they often don't tell you where they're getting their sources from -- where they're pulling this information. If you talk to the people who create this technology even they will have a hard time explaining to you exactly where a certain query is going to get its information from. And so, I do think it's going to have a lot of implications for misinformation.

As far as journalism goes, Christine, there's a way to look at it and be optimistic or pessimistic. You can leverage AI to be more efficient or you could think it's going to take our jobs. I'm choosing to be more optimistic.

ROMANS: Yes, I am, too. There's some mundane work of journalism -- you know, maybe quizzes, for example, that could be done by AI and then you leave -- you free up the high-value work for journalists.

The front page of The New York Times this morning, by the way -- "AI's ease at spinning deception raises alarm. Chatbots can spread falsehoods faster and further." So that's a must-read for today.

BuzzFeed says it's going to use open AI software to automatically generate quizzes on its website. And the company's CEO said this to his staffers. "To be clear, we see the breakthroughs in AI opening up a new era of creativity that will allow humans to harness creativity in new ways with endless opportunities and applications for good."

OK, so they're optimistic, too.

FISCHER: That's right. And I think the way that they're thinking about it is can I leverage AI to be more efficient so that I can use my actual journalists and my content creators -- can I use their time a lot better?

Now, that's the way that a lot of media companies are leveraging AI today. You know, the AP uses it to do automated sports scores. A lot of business outlets, as you know, use it to automate Wall Street results.

ROMANS: Yes.

FISCHER: But I think the challenge, to your point about misinformation Christine, becomes how much do we rely on this technology without leveraging always human discretion to fact-check things.

ROMANS: The first job I had in business journalism, by the way, has been automated for some time now, right? So this has been -- this has been a wave of the future. It's here to stay.

Is there a way to adapt to this internet reality and maybe regulate it?

FISCHER: Absolutely. We're all going to have to adapt. I think regulators are going to have to take a serious look at this and they're going to have to come in early. You know, we were very slow to regulate social media and so I think regulators understand that they need to move quicker here.

I think one of the most important things, too, to understand is whether or not this tool remains free and open to the public or whether or not we start to put a lot of paywalls around it. The more accessible it comes -- it becomes, the more widely used it becomes, the faster we're going to have to act.

ROMANS: All right. Sara Fischer, so nice to -- so many angles of this story to explore. Thanks for dropping by today. Thank you.

FISCHER: Thank you.

ROMANS: All right, time is running out on the danger zone. Can anyone else be saved from the earthquake rubble in Turkey and Syria? Stories of hope and despair ahead.

And a newly-obtained document reveals what one of the former Memphis officers charged in the death of Tyre Nichols told investigators.

(COMMERCIAL)

ROMANS: All right, our Top of the Morning this Thursday. The big game is Sunday, so the top Super Bowl commercials of all time.

Here's number one.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COCA-COLA SUPER BOWL AD, 1980.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: A mean Joe Greene of the Steelers not so mean at all back in 1980.

Number two --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

APPLE SUPER BOWL AD, 1984.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Apple computer's big brother from 1984, directed by Ridley Scott from "Blade Runner."

And here's number three.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SNICKERS SUPER BOWL AD, 2010.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: The late Betty White was 88 when she did that one for Snickers back in 2010.

All right, this story is totally nuts. Pest control found 700 pounds of acorns stuffed inside the wall of a house.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's going. Unreal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: This home is in Sonoma County, California.

[06:00:00]