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CDC to Require Negative COVID-19 Test for UK Passengers; East Coast Storm Brings Flooding, Rain & Wind. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired December 25, 2020 - 08:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a special edition of NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Merry Christmas, everyone, and welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is a special Christmas edition of NEW DAY. Merry Christmas.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Merry Christmas to you. It's great to be here with you, I have to say.

CAMEROTA: It's very warm and toasty with the fire that we've built in the studio.

BERMAN: It is. I'm pleased to see my stocking isn't filled with coal, at least not the top of it. I think it's down buried in the toe like it usually is.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: Exactly.

BERMAN: So we hope you are home safely with loved ones. This is such a different year, and hopefully the last year like this. We're going to talk about when and how you can start to get together with the loved ones that you are celebrating with by Zoom today.

CAMEROTA: We will also celebrate some of the heroes of this pandemic who have done so much to help and of course inspire the rest of us. So all of that and more ahead. But first let's get a check of your headlines at the news desk.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Alison Kosik. The CDC announcing it will require all passengers from the United Kingdom to prove they've tested negative for coronavirus before they can fly to the United States. The order is a response to the new COVID variant that appears to have originated in the U.K. CNN's Salma Abdelaziz is live in London for us. Salma, what's the latest on that?

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN REPORTER: I can tell you, Alison, that the U.K. government is not going to be happy with that news, and I will tell you why. Just yesterday a Brexit deal was announced. Officially the U.K. will be leaving the E.U. in just one week's time, and they need important trade relationships with countries like the United States. And you can only imagine how this travel restriction will only get that much more difficult for business to flow between the U.K. and the United States.

So what are the rules? The rules are that within 72 hours of you taking over for the United States, you have to have that negative coronavirus test. It will be up to the airliners to hold you responsible. It will be the airliners who turn you around if you don't have proof that have negative test.

But the U.S. is kind of late to the party here. There's already over 40 countries that have put restrictions into place, and it's important to remember that Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced this new variant last Saturday on Saturday. So you have about a week here where I am sure that many planes have already taken off to the United States, potentially with people who are already carrying that very variant.

An I want to remind everyone that it's not easy to get a coronavirus test here in London. Yes, there is mass testing being rolled out in parts of the country, but London in particular there is no mass testing yet. If I wanted to get a negative coronavirus test and go home to the United States, I would either have to have symptoms of coronavirus and go through the National Health Service, or I would have to spend $200 going to a private clinic to get the test done. Alison?

KOSIK: Salma Abdelaziz, thanks so much.

Pope Francis delivering his Christmas message a short time ago at the Vatican, calling for coronavirus vaccines to be made available and accessible to all. The Pope called the recent scientific breakthrough as a light of hope. The Pope says world leaders should work together and share vaccines, saying walls of nationalism could not be built to stop a pandemic that knows no borders.

At least 7,000 people who live near a California military base forced to evacuate on Christmas Eve because of a wildfire. The Creek Fire near the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base about 50 miles north of San Diego, it scorched more than 4,000 acres. Santa Ana winds have brought dangerously gusty and dry conditions to southern California. Those evacuated have since been allowed back to their homes.

Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff have each raised more than $100 million in a two-month span in their attempt to unseat two Senate Republican incumbents in Georgia. With the balance of power in the U.S. Senate on the line, Warnock reported more than $103 million in donations compared to nearly $64 million collected by Republican Kelly Loeffler. Ossoff raised $106.8 million compared to $68 million by his opponent David Perdue.

Stimulus checks for millions of American workers still in limbo this morning. The relief bill that President Trump has so far refused to sign has been flown to Trump's Mar-a-Lago golf club in Florida where the president is spending the holiday. More than 12 million laid off Americans could lose their jobless benefits as early as tomorrow. Joining us now is Ron Brownstein, he is a senior -- CNN senior

political analyst and senior editor at "The Atlantic." Thanks for getting up early on this Christmas morning. Happy holidays to you.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Happy holidays.

KOSIK: So let's walk through the impact of this. If this bill doesn't get signed by the president, what kind of impact will this have on Americans, what will it have on the U.S. economy?

[08:05:11]

BROWNSTEIN: Well, look, as I understand it, if he doesn't sign it by tomorrow, at the least unemployment benefits will be disrupted, the extended unemployment benefits will be disrupted for next week. You have the operation of the government, you have the eviction moratorium, obviously you have the extended unemployment benefits, the new benefits for -- the renewed benefits for small business and the paycheck protection.

So there's just an enormous economic impact, an enormous impact on human need, and just frankly, Alison, an enormous level of chaos that the president is continuing to introduce into the system at a point when Americans need some sense, many as we've seen in the coverage, millions of people are literally at the end of their rope and need to know that there is a pathway forward, and he is producing uncertainty instead of that pathway.

KOSIK: Can you go through some of the motivations? What is motivating him to do this? Does he understand what he's doing, or is he just kind of giving the big middle finger up not just to Republicans but to the American public as well?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, look, I mean, I think by now it's pretty clear what motivates the president on every front, which is what he perceives as his own political interest. And no one knows for sure where this objection -- where these objections have come from since he remained disengaged from a process that has been going on pretty much almost for the last six months or so as Republicans and Democrats -- Republicans have resisted the Democratic effort to have a bigger, broader package.

So he has had innumerable opportunities to weigh in, and I think as a result the fact that he's doing this now is seen largely as a temper tantrum, a pique at the Republicans who have had the temerity to finally acknowledge six, seven weeks after the fact that he lost the election.

KOSIK: Is there anybody who is in his ear at this point who can try to talk some sense into him, or is everybody just gone at this point?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, I think, pretty much everyone in the organized Republican Party wants to talk some sense into him, particularly because they realize how damaging this is in the two January special elections in Georgia that will determine control of the Senate. But whether he is listening to anyone, all the indications are that

Mitch McConnell isn't even trying. When you take this and you add it to what we have seen since the election, the sustained effort to undermine the outcome of the election, and then you throw in the pardons to cronies, just transparency corrupt pardoning of people who refused to cooperate in an investigation in which he was personally implicated, and then you add to it yet still his pressure on the Justice Department to appoint special prosecutors to target his political opponents, to target the incoming administration, you add all of that up, and this is the kind of thing you see in a tin pot dictatorship, really, in the final days of a strongman who is about to fall, whether it's Somoza or Ceausescu, or Noriega in Panama. This is what happens when the walls close in, you get an angry, vengeful, addled, erratic leader who is lashing out in all directions and really making a mockery of the rule of law and the American -- really the mainstream of the American political tradition.

KOSIK: Ron, walk me through now what you think -- how you think this relief bill is going to play out. Will the president veto it and give Congress a chance to override it, or will he sit on it, ultimately letting it die before the new congressional session is in play on January 3rd?

BROWNSTEIN: Look, I think anybody at this point who is going to wager on what the president is going to do, it's very -- it's a very hard bet to place. In the end it still seems more likely than not that he signs it only because the alternatives are almost unimaginable. Letting it completely lapse right before the Georgia special election in particular would be an unbelievable act of self-immolation within the Republican Party.

And renegotiating a new deal between now and the end of this Congress after it has taken so long to get to this point also seems very improbable. As I said, he has had opportunities all year to weigh in if he had genuinely had substantive concerns. And he's complaining about spending that is literally replicated from his own budget.

So you kind of back yourself into it, you say, well, I think most Republicans still believe that in the end he will sign this bill because not doing so is so catastrophic, but the president doing things that are catastrophic, the president breaking windows, he started that way. It would not be shocking if he goes out that way, despite the enormous human need and really tragedy that it would trigger.

KOSIK: Absolutely. All right, Ron Brownstein, thanks so much for coming on the show today on Christmas. Merry Christmas to you.

BROWNSTEIN: Merry Christmas. I think I'm up early enough that I still have a shot at seeing reindeer, so thanks.

(LAUGHTER)

[08:10:00]

KOSIK: Got it. All right, a message of hope this holiday season from a rabbi and a

pastor who spent the past year guiding their faithful through adversity. A dose of inspiration next.

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CAMEROTA: 2020 has been a difficult year for so many Americans, of course, with the coronavirus pandemic, a terrible unemployment crisis, and so much uncertainty about what lies ahead. So how can people keep hope alive? Well, joining us are two people who know. They are two faith leaders with shared experiences of tragedy at their places of worship. We have Pastor Eric Manning of the Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Gentlemen, merry Christmas. It's great to see both of you.

RABBI JEFFREY MYERS, TREE OF LIFE SYNAGOGUE: Pleasure to be here.

PASTOR ERIC MANNING, MOTHER EMANUEL AME CHURCH: Merry Christmas.

CAMEROTA: Rabbi Myers, I just want to start with you because, obviously we were together, I remember so well the tragedy, the mass shooting that happened there at the Tree of Life Synagogue. And so you already were dealing the aftermath of tragedy, and now this year, of course, with the pandemic and coronavirus. So how are you? How is the Tree of Life doing?

MYERS: Well, thank you for asking. It's a pleasure to be here today. For some it's been very difficult, to be frank. They were retraumatized. Not only were we initially, shall we say, kicked out of our house of worship, but with the pandemic, the closure of the synagogue that's been so kind to host us, so we've been displaced twice. So that's added strain to a lot of people, but it's also caused people to think about what really matters and what are the really important things. And when you get down and dig deep, you recognize the things that matter most, and that buildings are less important than people.

BERMAN: And, Pastor, actually, I want to follow up with you on that very subject, because this has been such an unusual year, and I'm using that word euphemistically because it's the holidays and I don't want to say something worse. But it's been an unusual year. So, pastor, what have you learned about coming together as a community when you can't physically be together?

MANNING: Yes, John, that's a great question. I think realistically what we have learned is, as Rabbi was already said, that it's not necessarily the building. I know we were always so used to coming together and sharing from a physical perspective. But now we have to learn how to do that, albeit virtually. And it has been challenging, but at least we know that we will get through this together, and that we will be able to share with one another again.

[08:15:00] CAMEROTA: Rabbi, when so many people are struggling all around the country because of unemployment, because of coronavirus, sickness, just everything -- I mean, what do you say to people who, you know, their faith is really challenged right now?

RABBI JEFFREY MYERS, TREE OF LIFE SYNAGOGUE: Wonderful question. I think that the first things for people to understand, they are not alone. They are not alone in their suffering, but they're also not alone in that they're going to be ignored.

That at least from my congregation, there is a community, there is a community of people who care, who telephone, who reach out in any way possible, no matter your skill sets to say, you are not alone, we're struggling, let's struggle together. Let's figure out how can we make this work with the challenges and restrictions that we do have.

And I think just to remind people of their humanity and their responsibilities as citizens to each other, I think, can be comforting to many.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, Pastor, I've been saying for some time that what we've seen with this vaccine or the vaccines, it's a miracle. And to use that word in this season is doubly meaningful, I think, and it strikes me as an interesting question, which is, how do you talk about the combination of science and faith in this season?

PASTOR ERIC MANNING, MOTHER EMANUEL AME CHURCH: And, John, that's a great question. Actually I get with this this past week from a sermon perspective. We consider it to be a miracle because we believe that God has given the scientists the knowledge and the wisdom, the fortitude, the resilience, the determination to be able to bring about this vaccine, and from a historical perspective very quickly. I know it seems as if -- as if it has been a while, and it has, but historically speaking the vaccine has come quickly.

So, we would attribute that, yes, to the Almighty being in the midst of yet again bringing all of us through this pandemic together.

CAMEROTA: Rabbi, do you have many people in your community who have gotten sick with coronavirus? And part of why I ask is because this in particular is such an isolating time and an isolating virus. You can't interact with other people. And so what have you done for the community in that case?

MYERS: Yes, I would see that our numbers are relatively comparable to the average around the country, although here in Pittsburgh it's a bit more isolated because it's a large geographic area, but once you get outside of our greater area, it's a lot more rural, so there is less human interaction and connection with the greater world in that regard.

Insofar as people and challenges, I can say in our congregation we immediately identified those who were technologically challenged and made sure that regular phone calls were made to those people who could not, say, tune into a virtual service because they don't have the skill sets to be able to do that. I've got congregants who will use their cell phones and call other congregants during Friday evening worship and just keep the phone on and put it into the speakers of their computers so people can hear the service because they just don't understand or just can't figure out how to get it together, nor is it safe for us to just enter their homes and help get everything working right for them.

So we're just doing all that we can to regularly connect with people. I think that's our responsibility as a faith community to each other to find out what are people's needs, how can we meet them.

Quite frankly, that's a year-long thing every year. That doesn't change because of COVID. It should be the way that faith communities work with each other regularly and we're trying to just extend those challenges into the COVID community itself.

BERMAN: Part of your job description, it's just more complicated to do that job this year and it's been amazing watching you all figure out how to do it. This is the season of hope, right, Pastor? And one of the biggest hopes we have right now is for the vaccine which people have started receiving. We also know that one group where there is more vaccine hesitancy, where there is more distrust for obvious reasons over the decades is among the African-American community.

So I'm wondering how you plan to address this over the coming months about how much of an obstacle you think this is.

MANNING: Well, again, John, it's a great question and it is, of course, reality. It is a reality based on historical facts that has taken place. I think the thing that I have shared from the community here in Charleston is I volunteer to be one of the first if they would have me to receive the vaccine.

[08:20:10]

I believe by setting a precedent and by setting an example and showing an example that it would hopefully ease the reluctancy that several may have within our community and I think when we do that, then that would hopefully, like I said, inspire others to receive this vaccine so that way we can get back to a degree of normalcy.

CAMEROTA: Rabbi, more than 300,000 Americans have died in the past year because of COVID, and so that's hard every day, but obviously it's very hard around the holidays to have an empty seat, and what solace do you say to people who are grieving?

MYERS: You're not alone. We are here for you. We understand. How can we help take away a little bit of the pain that you feel?

The incredible thing about technology is the fact that we can gather in ways that we probably could not have during holidays. It's not likely that a vast family scattered around the country might be together pre-pandemic, so this is an opportunity now for everyone to be together to help ease that loneliness just by seeing the faces of other loved ones in a way that we probably would not.

And that's just one way that technology can be a blessing. BERMAN: You are not alone, and I think it's such a wonderful message

and I know both of you have helped deliver that message always through all the tragedies and especially this last year as well. Thanks so much for being with us, merry Christmas, happy holidays to both of you.

MANNING: Merry Christmas. Thank you.

MYERS: And to you both as well. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Thank you. They always make us feel better.

Okay. It's a holiday season truly unlike any other with many Americans apart from their family and their friends, so we discuss safety and how you can stay safe during the holidays, next.

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[08:25:44]

BERMAN: Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to this special holiday edition of NEW DAY.

Merry Christmas, everyone. It's so great to be with all of you.

It's terrific to be here with you.

CAMEROTA: You, too. We hope that you are as warm and cozy as we are by this wonderful toasty fire that we have.

BERMAN: We're very cozy. Very cozy.

CAMEROTA: We're very hot.

BERMAN: Very hot, and it's not just the fire.

Look, this is a very different Christmas this year, hopefully you have all paid attention to the scientists who said not to gather in large groups for this holiday season, but let's look into the future and this hour we will talk about how and when you will be able to get together with the family you are just being with virtually this morning.

CAMEROTA: OK, also how front line heroes have risked their lives to help others and have inspired help -- hope all around over the world. But first let's get a check of your headlines at the news desk.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, everyone. I'm Alison Kosik.

The CDC announcing all air travelers from the U.K. to the United States must present a negative COVID-19 test before they are allowed to board. The measure is set to take effect on Monday. Passengers will not be allowed on flights if they refuse a test or do not provide documentation. The negative test must be less than 72 hours old and the order is in response to a new coronavirus variant that is spreading in the U.K.

Pope Francis delivering his Christmas message a short time ago at the Vatican calling for crust vaccines to be made available to all. The pope called the recent scientific breakthrough as a light of hope. The pope says world leaders should work together and share vaccines, saying walls of nationalism could not be built to stop a pandemic that knows no borders.

Dr. Anthony Fauci now estimates 70 to 80 percent of the U.S. population has to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. Herd immunity occurs when a large enough portion of the population becomes immune to a disease. Dr. Fauci previously estimated that 70 to 75 percent of the population would need to be vaccinated.

He says he revised his estimate after considering that about 90 percent vaccination rate is needed to control the spread of measles.

The $900 billion stimulus package has been flown to Florida where President Trump is staying at his Mar-a-Lago resort for Christmas, although it's unclear whether he will sign it.

Meantime, as the fate of the relief bill hangs in limbo more than 12 million Americans will lose their unemployment benefits after this weekend. Back rent will be due January 1st for millions of tenants and states could lose unspent funds from the $150 billion that Congress provided earlier this year.

The majority owner of the NFL's Washington football team claims he is being extorted by one of the franchises minority owners. Dan Snyder says in a court filing that Dwight Schar threatened to release information if he didn't sell the team. The filing comes a day after the "Washington Post" reported the team paid $1.6 million to a former employee in 2009 to settle a sexual misconduct claim she made against Snyder. Both the team and the NFL declined to comment.

A harsh winter storm barreling through the eastern U.S., bringing heavy rain to the Northeast.

Let's get to meteorologist Chad Myers.

I know, Chad, this is a storm also bringing big rains with it and big winds.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: You said earlier that you were awake at 1:00 because of the wind pounding on your window and things were being bump in the night. Now, 360,000 customers at this point across the U.S. without power because of that wind and it is going to be a cold night for many if the power doesn't come back.

Look at right now, it feels like 23 in Jacksonville. A lot colder to the North, but that's cold for the Deep South. Let me show you what happened yesterday. In Knoxville, it snowed and it snowed pretty well, and that snow is going to stick around. No question about it, we are going to see pretty, I guess, unless you have to drive in it, conditions there across Tennessee and parts of Kentucky and more snow to come today in some spots. Still winter weather warnings out for much of the Great Lakes. So

watch yourself if you're driving today. A lot of roads are actually closed because of the ice on the roadways at this point. If you're traveling today, you will want to check a weather app or traffic road app.

Here is the rain across the east as you were talking about. There were areas that had 4 inches of rainfall flooding a still going on here. It's the area that had 30 to 40 inches of snow last week. Now it's raining on top -- Alison.

KOSIK: All right. Chad Myers, thanks so much. Merry Christmas.