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Netanyahu Ousted as Prime Minister; Reported Leak at Chinese Nuclear Facility; Australian Baseball Team Pulls out of Olympics; Record Heat Wave. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired June 14, 2021 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: But as president. But he's spent the bulk of his life trying to build this trans-Atlantic alliance.

Brianna.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, he's changing how he says it, if not exactly what he is saying there in Brussels.

ZELENY: Right.

KEILAR: Jeff Zeleny in Belgium, thank you so much for that.

Next, an historic shift in power in Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu pushed out as prime minister following a chaotic vote. We will take you live to Jerusalem.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And new video overnight. What sent this race car flying into a crowd?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: An historic change of power in Israel. Naftali Bennett was sworn in as Israel's new prime minister ending Benjamin Netanyahu's 12-year grip on power. In the streets of Jerusalem there were celebrations.

Oren Liebermann joins us from those streets this morning.

[06:35:00]

The last 24 hours have been remarkable, chaotic and the start of something really that we have never seen before, Oren.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: An absolutely major change in Israeli politics. From one perspective, it's simply a change of government in a democracy. But, of course, this is so much more than that. After over 4,400 consecutive days in office, more than that, in fact, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been ousted by his former chief of staff. Naftali Bennett being sworn in last night. What difference does this make? Well, you already see it happening.

Just a couple of hours after that swearing in, a congratulatory message from President Joe Biden, from the secretary of state, from the defense secretary. Then, shortly after that, the first phone call between Biden and Bennett.

Meanwhile, it took more than a month after Biden's inauguration, or just about a month, for Biden to call Benjamin Netanyahu. So you already see the difference there. Certainly the U.S. sees it and the EU will see that as well.

Nevertheless, Benjamin Netanyahu lashing out at his rivals in his last speech as prime minister, promising not go quietly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, FORMER ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): You call yourself the guardians of democracy, but you are so afraid of democracy that you are ready to pass fascist laws against my candidacy, the language of North Korea and Iran in order to maintain your regime.

NETANYAHU: We'll be back soon. We'll be back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIEBERMANN: Bennett now leads the most diverse coalition in the history of Israel, eight different parties, right wing, left wing, and the first Arab party ever to take -- ever to be part of a government. He sees that as a source of strength, not weakness, for his coalition.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAFTALI BENNETT, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): Now, the citizens of Israel, all of them are looking up at us and we must deliver. We will act together in partnership and responsibility to heal the rift amid the people and immediately bring the country back to functionality, regular functioning after a long period of paralysis and strife. We are looking ahead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIEBERMANN: So much of Netanyahu's last few years will be defined by his relationship with former President Donald Trump. But for all the political gifts and the diplomatic victories that Netanyahu -- that Trump gave Netanyahu, the one thing he couldn't give him was an electoral victory.

John, Netanyahu lasted just 144 days after Trump. Netanyahu had a functioning government for zero of those days.

BERMAN: Yes, hardly a graceful departure.

Oren Liebermann, thank you so much for being with us this morning. Appreciate it.

Brianna.

KEILAR: This morning there are dozens of people hurt, at least three of them critically, after a car plowed into a crowd of spectators at a mud racing event in Texas.

(VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So the crash, obviously, caught on camera here. We should tell you that the man who shot this video is OK. Authorities say that one of these cars, the one you see there, veered off of the track. It hit several other vehicles before breaking through a guardrail. This is a track that is located in Fabens, Texas, near El Paso.

And coming up, we have a CNN exclusive, what we know about a possible leak at a Chinese nuclear facility. We'll have the response this morning from China.

BERMAN: Plus, CNN's Barbara Starr will join us live, speaking out for the first time since we learned that the Trump Justice Department went after her records.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:42:27]

KEILAR: CNN has learned that the U.S. government is accessing reports of a possible leak at a Chinese nuclear power plant after the French company that part owns and operates had warned of an imminent radiological threat.

At the center of concern here is a nuclear plant that is located in southern China. And, for now, the Biden administration believes the facility is not yet in at a crisis level. But what is happening there?

Let's check in with CNN's David Culver and Kylie Atwood, who join us now.

Kylie, you have some exclusive reporting. Tell us.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so what happened here is the U.S. government was pulled into this situation over the last week or so when this French company, which part owns and part operates this nuclear power plant in China, reached out to the U.S. government with some concerns.

In one of those letters, a letter to the Department of Energy, obtained by my colleague, Zack Cohen (ph), this company warned of an imminent radiological threat. And in these warnings, they also raised some concerns that the Chinese were raising limits, the safety authority in China was raising the limits of the actual radiation detection so that they didn't have to shut down this power plant.

Now, of course, this raised some concerns in the U.S. government. One source tells us that this is not a crisis-level situation. And folks at the State Department, at the Department of Energy, tell us that if there were a risk to the Chinese public, they would have had to make this information public.

But this did cause some concern. In the U.S. government there were meetings at the National Security Council about it. And our understanding is that this company reached out to the U.S. government at all because they wanted a waiver from the U.S. government so that they could provide U.S. technical assistance in order to resolve this problem.

Now, Framatome, that's this French company that we're talking about here, they had actually told us over the past few days that they were resolving a problem at the plant, that the plant was operating within safety parameters. And then today they gave us an updated statement describing environmental conditions at the plant and the surrounding areas as normal.

But they also said that there was a successful overhaul in recent days. They didn't really give us any description as to why they had to carry out that overhaul.

Brianna.

KEILAR: And, David, obviously a lot of information coming from sources that are not China. What is China saying here?

DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Most of the information, Brianna, coming outside of China. It's not surprising given the most frustrating factor in dealing with China has been in recent months and years, lack of transparency. And so we've put request for a response from the Chinese foreign ministry, as well as authorities in Guangdong, that's the province in southern China where the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant is located.

[06:45:09]

We've not heard back.

We did see late last night local time that on the nuclear plant's website there was a statement that reiterated what Kylie there said about the plant operating within safety parameters. The real issue here is, what exactly are those safety parameters? Are they going up so as to accommodate the continued operation of this plant and allow the Chinese to push past any skepticism and concern that it's perhaps malfunctioning? That remains to be known.

I think when you look at, from a diplomatic standpoint, we have reached out to sources within the embassy, as well as consulates here in China, and those sources have told me that they have not noticed any mass movement. So perhaps you would expect that there would be a relocation of some of the residents. You've got a million folks that live within Taishan, that city, and then you've got 126 million that live within Guangdong province. As of yet, they have not seen any mass migration or movements or anything to that nature.

It is interesting to note, Brianna, that there was a COVID outbreak and some soft lockdowns that were in place there. I asked one of my sources if that perhaps was cover for what was going on at the plant. Doesn't seem to be as of yet.

KEILAR: All right, we know that you'll keep reporting this out. David and Kylie, thank you so much to the both of you.

John.

BERMAN: An alarming development out of the United Kingdom, which is now delaying its reopening because a coronavirus variant is spreading so rapidly there and now officials here in the United States are sounding the alarm.

KEILAR: Plus, America's other epidemic. The nation saw nine mass shootings in seven different states since Friday alone.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:51:26]

KEILAR: There's a record heatwave in the west. More than 40 million people are under excessive heat alerts across parts of Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California. And this is happening for most of the upcoming week.

So let's check in now with our meteorologist Chad Myers.

This is a scorcher there across the west.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Truly. This will break record temperatures for all time, not just daily record temperatures, over 300 record-breaking temperatures expected.

Look at Phoenix, 115 degrees and then moving up to the 119 as we work our way into tomorrow afternoon. Temperatures in Vegas and Phoenix going to be very hot.

This weather is brought to you by Carvana, the new way to buy a car.

Now switching to the northeast, 25 million of you are under the risk of severe weather for today. Most of the weather for the big cities will be in the dark after you go to sleep tonight but there will be big weather across parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and also Virginia over the next couple of hours and into New York City right around midnight or so. Temperatures are going to be held down, quite mild there.

One more thing we're watching, Brianna, is the potential for some development in the tropics. The Bay of Campeche there, 50 percent chance of maybe a tropical system developing by the end of the week.

Brianna.

KEILAR: All right. Certainly we'll keep an eye on that, Chad Myers. Thank you so much.

John. BERMAN: All right, we do have breaking news. Moments ago Novavax announced that its coronavirus vaccine is 90 percent effective overall and 100 percent effective against moderate or severe disease. This is a phase three trial conducted across the United States and Mexico. The company says the vaccine was generally well tolerated and common side effects included pain at the injection site, fatigue, and headache lasting less than three days. The company says it's now on track to manufacture about 100 million doses per month by the end of the third quarter.

KEILAR: Very good news there.

Australia's baseball team is kissing its hopes for Olympic gold good- bye. The team pulled out of all qualifiers for the Tokyo game set to start next month citing concerns about COVID.

And joining us now is Glenn Williams. He is the chief executive of Baseball Australia.

Glenn, I'm so sorry. This must be very hard to deal with. Tell us about the factors that went into your decision to withdrawal from disqualifying from the Olympics.

GLENN WILLIAMS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, BASEBALL AUSTRALIA: Yes. Thanks, Brianna. It was, yes, quite a challenging decision for us, obviously. The event was scheduled for Taiwan from the 16th of June, and then with the country being locked down there, the event got shifted to Mexico and subsequently the dates were shifted as well.

So we were all down the line of planning to be able to get to Taiwan. We've country there -- we've currently got closed borders here in Australia as well. So we had permission for the players to be able to leave and to be able to get a group of people to Mexico on short notice wasn't the issue. But with passenger cuts and the limited seat availability back into Australia, the challenge of getting a group of 35 people back to Australia, transitioning through the U.S. and back into Australia in time to be able to get our Olympic qualification or our Olympic planning done and make the Australian Olympic team on the way to Tokyo was -- was quite challenging.

KEILAR: So quite challenging as in you couldn't do it? This was really just a logistics issue?

WILLIAMS: Yes, logistically, it was -- it was quite difficult. And -- and to be able to plan for the what-ifs in the event that someone had fallen ill either in Mexico or in the U.S. on the way back, just being able to try and plan for the group in their transit and looking out for their health and safety was something that was quite concerning for us.

[06:55:02]

And logistically, and the timing and the like, we were attending this event and the pretense of going there to qualify for the Olympic games and our path to Tokyo was essentially cut short based on the flight capacity back to Australia, the hotel quarantining requirements back into Australia as well and the timing just didn't match up for us.

KEILAR: Well, I know this must be incredibly frustrated, Glenn, for you and for team members. You're going to miss the Olympic games. It's also possible that baseball will be very likely actually dropped from the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

As you look at this experience you have as part of the overall experience of how the Olympics are being handled, given the nature of the pandemic, how do you assess how they've been handled?

WILLIAMS: Look, from our perspective here in Australia, I think that the Australian Olympic Committee have done an amazing job. There's a lot of planning, obviously, going into an Olympic games at the best of times, but, you know, with the COVID situation at the moment, there's a lot of complexity in terms of the planning for athletes and, you know, for events to be able to take place.

You know, we were one of the sports that was affected with our qualifying being pushed back. So from our personal perspective, it's been quite challenging. We've had our athletic group and our program has been working for a significant amount of time to be able to qualify for the Tokyo Olympic Games. We're obviously really disappointed that we won't be there. But, yes, it's quite challenging Olympics to be able to coordinate.

And, you know, from our perspective, the International Federation was faced with challenges in terms of, you know, putting the qualification events on and (INAUDIBLE) postponed. So, obviously, disappointing from our end, from baseball's perspective, but, you know, in working with the Australian Olympic Committee, they've been fantastic in terms of coordinating our team and preparing our team in the event we have qualified.

KEILAR: Well, it is incredibly disappointing. And for that we are so sorry, Glenn. But we certainly appreciate you joining us from Sydney this morning -- this evening for you. Thank you.

WILLIAMS: Thanks, Brianna. Thank you. Bye-bye.

BERMAN: All right, news for the highly selective this morning. The 145th Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, the top honor went to Wasabi, a Pekingese. There he is, the best dog in the world, according to the Westminster Kennel Club.

Now, Wasabi seems like a nice, small dog, very small. Somewhere underneath the hair is probably some bubbly charm and a warm smile. Probably. Who could say for sure? His breeder and handler says Wasabi has showmanship, he fits the bread standard, he has that little extra something, that sparkle that sets a dog apart. Showmanship and sparkle. Which is nice. You know what else is nice? Legs. Where are Wasabi's?

But, again, the larger issue here is not with Wasabi, who really does seem nice, though small. But this is the fifth time a Pekingese has won. His grandfather, Malaki, won in 2012. Is this what we want to celebrate in America, rarefied, excessively combed and a tiny big inbred lineage?

And I don't mean to single out the Pekingese. Scottish terriers have won eight times and wire fox terriers 15 times. This was the 145th show. The Kennel Club brags on its site that, quote, since Westminster held its first show, 12 states have joined the union and there have been 27 men elected president. Yes, 12 state, 27 presidents. And you know how many labs or golden retrievers have won? Zero. Zero. How is that even possible? What disqualifies them besides their accessibility, overall normal dogginess and legs?

So, no labs or golden retrievers. And then what might be the biggest outrage of all, no mutts. So nice, so friendly, so essentially democratic. What's more American than a mutt? They can't even enter. Just think about that. They don't have the right breeding? What kind of message does that send? It's 2021 for mutt's sake.

Now, I know this opinion is upsetting to people. How do I know? Because last year when I stated my concerns, I received a sternly worded open letter from the people behind National Purebred Dog Day, which is a thing. National Purebred Dog Day. They apparently need their own day because an exclusive dog show that gets all the attention and bans mutts isn't enough.

But the leaders of National Purebred Dog Day wrote me, quote, as an alleged reporter who has covered stories from Iraq to Lebanon, you are presumed to have an insatiable desire to learn the truths and report facts, but your appalling coverage of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show smacks of an opinion rooted in ignorance. That's what they wrote me because I stood up for mutts. The people from National Purebred Dog Day.

Well, if love of adorable, huggable and gloriously imperfect companions is wrong, I don't want to be right. Not now or for another 145 dog shows.

[07:00:01]

So, Congratulations, Wasabi. Enjoy your win. Walk into glory, if you can.