Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

New Travel Restrictions Begin Today Over Omicron Variant; CNN Reports, Biden to Announce Diplomatic Boycott of Beijing Olympics; What This Christmas Card Says About Our Congressional Dysfunction. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 06, 2021 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:02]

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN SENIOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: But, yes, this is all up to Vladimir Putin and what he ultimately decides to do. For the most part, he's a rational player, but on this issue, analysts say that he is determined whether it's now, a few months from now, a few years from now, to bring Ukraine back into Russia's orbit.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: This is dangerous, delicate stuff and it's playing out before our eyes. Bianna Golodryga, thank you very much.

New Day continues right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN NEW DAY: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. It is Monday, December 6th, and I'm Brianna Keilar with John Berman.

We are beginning with some breaking pandemic news. Restrictions on international travelers coming to the United States taking effect this morning. So, if you are entering the U.S., you must show proof of a negative COVID test taken within one day of your departure. And foreign nationals will now have to show proof they are fully vaccinated.

BERMAN: COVID is surging in the United States, which the average number of daily cases climbing to 120,000, that's the highest in two months. The omicron variant has now been detected in at least 17 states. And that has demand for vaccines spiking. Scientists are still waiting for conclusive information about the severity of the omicron variant. In other words, does it make you more sick?

Dr. Anthony Fauci says while it is early and things could change, there are some encouraging signs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Thus far, it does not look like there is a great degree of severity to it. But we really have got to be careful before we make any determinations that it is less severe or really doesn't cause any severe illness comparable to delta. But thus far, the signals are a bit encouraging regarding the severity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: CNN's Global Aviation Ambassador Pete Muntean live at Dulles International Airport this morning, where I think travelers have a lot more in store for them, Pete.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: It's so true, John. What's so interesting here is that these changes took hold at midnight, meaning that flights coming into United States will be complying with this for the first time. Passengers coming into the U.S. now need to show proof of a negative coronavirus test to the airline. The test needs to be taken within one day of their departure.

The example the CDC gives is if a flight is on Monday, you have to take the test any time on Sunday. So, it's not a 24-hour rule, it's a one-day rule. But what's also so interesting here is that this applies to foreign nationals and U.S. citizens and this is regardless of your vaccination status.

The CDC shortened this timeline. It was three days. Because of new concerns over that new omicron variant, airlines say they are complying with this. But they do not think that this will really impact things when it comes to the variant all that much. This is what United CEO Scott Kirby told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT KIRBY, CEO, UNITED AIRLINES: And the reality is omicron is already out of South Africa. It's already escaped. It's on every continent. COVID is unique. COVID is endemic. We need to learn to live with it. But we're not going to learn to live with it by simply locking down and shutting borders. And the right answer is to get everyone vaccinated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: Another huge changes to the transportation-wide federal mask mandate was set to expire January 18th. It has been extended two months. Now, the expiration date March 18th, 2022, that applies to all public forms of transportation. That includes planes, trains, buses, boats, and also here in terminals. John and Brianna?

BERMAN: Pete Muntean at Dulles, thank you so much.

One of the key questions overhanging all of this, what is the deal with omicron? How severe are the illnesses there? We get new information from South Africa, from one of the leading scientists there who may have some answers as to how severe the cases are. That's coming up.

KEILAR: This week, the Biden administration is expected to announce a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, meaning that no U.S. government officials would attend. The goal is to send a warning message to China about recent human rights abuses without preventing American athletes from competing.

Joining us now to discuss is CNN Political Analyst who first broke the rumblings of this story in a Washington Post op-ed, Josh Rogin. He is also the author of "Chaos Under Heaven, Trump, Xi and the Battle of 21st Century."

And as we mentioned, Josh, athletes will still go, right? Just to be very clear, people here boycott. The athletes are still going. So, what is the effect of this? Is this about shaming China?

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, Brianna, as we have discussed, this is a half measure. This is a compromise. The athletes can go. The diplomats can't go. It is kind of like what I call a Goldilocks approach, not too hot, not too cold. The administration is trying to get it just right. And, yes, the idea is to send a message that the Chinese government can't use the Olympics to bolster its legitimacy and get people to shut up about its genocide. And that while athletes will have to make their own decisions, corporations to make their own decisions and viewers and fans will have to make their own decisions.

The U.S. government is not going to go to Beijing and say everything is fine here, because everything is not fine, because the Chinese government perpetrating mass atrocities against Uyghur Muslims, forced labor, forced orphanages, forced abortions, all of that stuff.

[07:05:14]

So, it doesn't solve the problem, it just doesn't let the Chinese government use the games to whitewash these atrocities. And so in that sense, it's better than nothing.

KEILAR: So, you mentioned the atrocities in Xinjiang, right, and outlying areas there. What about Peng Shuai, the tennis player who accused a former vice premier of sexual misconduct and the World Tennis Organization has pulled out all of its involvement in China? Did that play into this at all?

ROGIN: Yes, well, you're absolutely right. But there are lots of other atrocities going on in China right now. The disappearance of tennis star Peng Shuai and her apparently staged reappearance is important because it comes right before the Olympics. And the International Olympics Committee helped the Chinese government make a hostage video and whitewash the disappearance of Peng Shuai, as was pointed out on State of the Union yesterday.

And it's not directly related to this decision, of course, because the Biden administration was planning to do this either. But what it did is it showed that not all sports organizations have to immediately roll over when the Chinese government says, shut up. And the Women's Tennis Association very -- in my opinion, very courageously and very bravely, sacrificed a lot of money and stood up for the things that they believed in, and stood up for their athletes, especially their women athletes, and whereas the IOC did the exact opposite thing.

So, it just goes to show you that all of the Chinese government is very rich and very powerful. They can't bully everybody. And if you do stand up, you don't actually get punished that bad. And, of course, that still doesn't help Peng Shuai who still seems to be missing in action.

KEILAR: How does China see this move?

ROGIN: Well, it's clear that China doesn't like it. I don't think they're supposed to like it. In my experience as a journalist, it is very rare that genocidal regimes enjoy having their genocides pointed out. It is just not a thing that they want. But I think we make this mistake often in Washington and actually in the media by focusing on how our reaction to a genocide is provocative rather than the actual genocide.

KEILAR: I don't mean it like that. I mean, how does China receive this? Is this actually a lesson that they take and they absorb and they do something about?

ROGIN: That's a good point. I don't think it will convince them to stop the genocide but I think it will -- it could make them think twice about doing worst stuff, at least before the Olympics happen. In other words, they know that the eyes of the world are on them. They know that when they disappear, a tennis star, or if they do any of the other things that they're doing, at least for these couple of months, people care.

After the Olympics are over, I think that's the real test. When the cameras turn away and we don't have a diplomatic boycott, the genocide will still be ongoing. So, I think the real test is this sort of popular sentiment that genocide is bad and that we should stand up to it? Will that survive after the games go away? And I think that's what the Chinese government is looking for as well. And I think they're still hoping that, like after the Olympics, the world will turn away.

And, to be honest, I don't know what's going to happen. I don't if we will or we won't. But, I for one am hoping that we won't and I'm hoping for one that the Chinese government will learn eventually that genocides can't be ignored or whitewashed.

We'll keep tracking it along with you. I don't know. I think the spotlight of the Olympics has done a whole lot to deter China, as we have seen. Josh, thank you so much for being with us.

ROGIN: Thank you.

BERMAN: So, as soon as this morning, the former Republican senator from Georgia and Trump ally, David Perdue, is expected to announce he will challenge conservative incumbent Brian Kemp in a Republican primary for Georgia governor. This sets up easily the most high- profile Republican-on-Republican battle in the country and it's also the very epitome of the struggle within the GOP today.

Governor Kemp is one of the most conservative governors in the country with his only crime in Trump world being refusing to overturn Joe Biden's win in Georgia.

Joining me now is Georgia's Republican lieutenant governor, Geoff Duncan. He's also the author of GOP 2.0., How the 2020 Election Can Lead to a Better Way Forward for America's Conservative Party. Lieutenant Governor, thank you for joining us.

Did I frame that correctly? Is there any doubt in your mind why David Perdue is going to run against Governor Brian Kemp?

LT. GOV. GEOFF DUNCAN (R-GA): No, absolutely. I think you did a great job. Brian Kemp is probably Georgia's most conservative governor in history. He has done everything he needs to do. We have cut taxes, we've increased teacher pay. We've navigated through a pandemic. We've got $6 billion in a rainy day fund. And quite honestly, David Perdue should know better than this. He is the only one to blame for losing his last election on Ossoff and he ran the worst campaign ever. And that's his fault, not Brian Kemp's or Geoff Duncan's or I any other Republican's fault.

[07:10:02]

BERMAN: What issue do you see him running on? I mean, what do you think the big issue for him is then?

DUNCAN: Well, it appears early on that he is going to try to carry Donald Trump's water on the conspiracy stuff, and that seems to be the only tailwind he's got. And it's unfortunate. And it's a continued -- we what much this play out all across the country. But, look, this is a short-term sugar high. It's going to wear off. The quicker we take our medicine as Republicans to move on and focus on the next election, the next opportunity to lead this country, the quicker we are going to get the White House back, the Senate back, the House back and have opportunities to put our conservative leadership on display.

BERMAN: What does it do to your party in Georgia?

DUNCAN: Well, it continues to disrupt us. It's another embarrassing example of our fascination with self-inflicted wounds. But I think we've got some better days in front of us.

GOP 2.0, as you mentioned earlier, is just a better pathway forward. It's one that spends a majority of our energy talking about the policies that we're good at as Republicans, because believe it or not, we are good at a number of policies. And I think a majority of Americans will line up with those. But we just keep forgetting to remind people what we're good at and doing it with a better tone than 280 characters on Twitter.

BERMAN: Governor Kemp says that Perdue promised him he wouldn't run. Do you know anything about that?

DUNCAN: Well, I've certainly heard the governor talk about that. And if that's what he said, it's hard to imagine he wouldn't honor his word. But, look, I think that it's hard sometimes to lose publicly. I'm sure David Perdue feels the tension of losing in a public display in the election and he's trying to save face. And, unfortunately, he's just going to create even more disruption and chaos.

And, quite honestly, I mean, look, I would be really worried if Stacey Abrams was the governor right now, right? I mean, that's the opponent we're trying to beat. If we would had her as governor during the pandemic, we wouldn't have had our kids back in the classroom learning, certainly wouldn't have money in our rainy day fund, we certainly wouldn't have been able to have a 3 percent unemployment rate. I mean, these are real things that Georgians care about. And, instead, we're going to spend millions -- hundreds of millions of dollars trying to defend what was three years of conservative leadership.

BERMAN: Who has a better chance against Stacey Abrams, do you think?

DUNCAN: Well, I think leadership matters. And I think Brian Kemp certainly does. He's going to be able to put on display what small business owners care about, and that's being able to get back to work. Parents care about in the classroom having their kids educated, trying to navigate through the difficult times of civil unrest in the state with the result of being a hate crimes piece of legislation that he signed. Brian Kemp certainly does.

And we don't need the traveling circus of Donald Trump to stay here in Georgia. We need to stay down in Mar-a-Lago, working on his handicap, playing golf. And let us be conservatives here in Georgia and move forward.

BERMAN: Do you know for certain that you can beat a Trump candidate, you can beat Trump in Georgia in a Republican primary?

DUNCAN: Well, here's what I do know. Policies matter. Policies matter. The quality of a candidate matters, the quality of a campaign matters. And if the only thing you've got is talking the policy of conspiracy theories, you're going to lose. And we have seen that unfortunately play out in Senate races here and other races.

Leadership matters, and I think over the next few months, we're going to be able to put those big decisions on display for Georgians. And I think that's going to result in Brian Kemp winning the election.

BERMAN: Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan, I appreciate you joining us this morning. Thanks so much.

DUNCAN: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: So, the parents of the accused Michigan school shooter in jail and under suicide watch this morning. Why police are accusing them of trying to hide from the law.

And a Republican congressman raising eyebrows with this Christmas card released days after the mass school shooting. He says from Santa he wants ammo.

KEILAR: And the January 6th committee says former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows just waived his right to claim executive privilege in the investigation. Hear why.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:00] BERMAN: The week of the school shooting in Michigan, a Christmas card from a Republican congressman stirs controversy, and that's probably the point. John Avlon with a Reality Check.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It's the seasons for Christmas cards, those annual snapshots that show everything is all right on the home front, usually accompanies by wishes for peace on Earth and goodwill to men. And then there's this guy who decided to deck his whole family out with weapons of war, along with a Christmas wish to Santa to bring more ammo.

Now, if you're anything resembling a normal sentient being, you might ask yourself what the hell is wrong with these people, and it's a fair question only partially answered by the fact that dad is a Republican member of congress. That's Thomas Massie from Kentucky. And whether you think this Christmas card was simply trolling or Second Amendment bravado, it came days after America's latest school mass school shooting.

Now, Tom Massie and brand name Republican troll, like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert or Paul Gosar, but despite presumably being a smart guy, he's a tech entrepreneur with a masters degree from MIT, he's the kind of congressman who voted against giving Capitol police officer the congressional gold medal after January 6th, who voted against anti-lynching laws, claimed the military would quit because of vaccine mandates and tweeted then deleted a comparison between vaccine mandates and the Holocaust. Yes.

And yet he's largely flown under the radar because he is considered just a run of the mill wing nut by the standards or Republicans in Congress. And that's the problem. Because the palpable weirdness of picturing your family with automatic weapons for a Christmas card is only a win if you're trying to play to the base, own the libs, or both. And that's the situation Massie is in.

You see, his district is rated R-plus 18 in Almanac of American politics, which means that it's been drawn to have 18 percent Republican registration advantage.

[07:20:02]

Now, that is also in a state with a Democratic governor. In other words, the only meaningful election Tom Massie is going to face is the primary if he wants to stay in power.

Now, consider the flipside. The plight of the few who independent- minded Republicans, congressmen and congresswomen, who had the courage to stand up for real conservative principles and condemn attempts to overturn the election at the behest of a violent mob, they've all got political targets on their back from Trumpists as well as Democrats.

For example, the five Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the insurrectionists attacked the Capitol represent GOP districts in states Biden won. At Illinois is Adam Kinzinger, decided not to run again, after his district dysfunctionally eliminated by state house Democrats. And Michigan's Fred Upton and Peter Meijer are both facing Trump-endorsed primary opponents. In New York and California, Republican Representatives John Katko and John (INAUDIBLE) are both won reelection in districts Biden won easily. And now they are facing possible extinction by redistricting. While the charter members of the sedition caucus, like New York's Stefanik now in GOP leadership, might emerge relatively unscathed.

Think about the message that sends. Trying to overturn an election is politically safer than standing up for basic principles of our democracy. And that's on top of states like Texas and North Carolina, which have submitted lopsided maps favoring the GOP, and states like Ohio, which voted for nonpartisan redistricting in 2018 only to have the state GOP push through an absurd 13-2 map which is headed to the state supreme court. In fact, get this, out of the nine states that have competed their congressional maps today, there are only ten competitive congressional seats out of 116. That's roughly half the number of competitive seats from those same states in the last election cycle, according to an analysts by Princeton University's Gerrymandering Project.

But anyone with an interest of a smooth, functioning democracy should see the dangers. After all, bipartisan margins are the way most meaningful legislation passes, from Biden's signature infrastructure bill to criminal justice reform and NAFTA renegotiation under Trump. But the number of competitive swing seats has declined dramatically over the past 25 years. Get this, there were 164 swing seats back in 1997. By 2017, that was down to 72, with safe seats skyrocketing for both parties. And it's poised to get much worse.

The decline in swing districts has led directly to the decline in centrist lawmakers for both parties, and that's led to a blurring of the fringe and the base to the point where that's a distinction without a difference. And that's a problem for the whole republic, not just the Republican Party. And that's your Reality Check.

BERMAN: John Avlon, thank you very much for that.

A new column suggests that the media is tougher with President Biden than it was with Donald Trump.

KEILAR: First, talk about a cold call, the boss who canned hundreds of workers on a Zoom call.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:00]

BERMAN: A web boss had some brutal news for more than 900 of his workers who had just joined him on a Zoom call, you're fired, less than four weeks from Christmas.

Chief Business Correspondent Christine Romans here with the story. What went on here, Romans?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Dumped via Zoom. The mortgage startup Better.com fired 9 percent of the workforce in a Zoom call that lasted less than three minutes. CNN Business viewed a recording of that call where the CEO, Vishal Garg, told the staff if you're on this call, you are part of the unlucky group that is being laid off. Your employment here is terminated effective immediately. And he fired the firm's entire diversity and equity inclusion recruiting team. The call was short, the CEO emotionless.

Here is the statement to CNN from the company's CFO. He called the layoffs right before the holidays gut-wrenching but a fortress balance sheet and a reduced and focused workforce are necessary to play offense going into a radically evolving homeownership market. The fact is Better.com is getting ready to go public, John. It's backed by Soft Bank, just week, received $750 million in cash as part of that deal. It has more than $1 billion on its fortress balance sheet. And now it has 9 percent fewer workers. Fortune later reported the CEO accused employees of stealing from their colleagues and customers by only working two hours a day.

Now, this CEO is not new to controversy. Forbes said he once sent an email to staffers complaining they were too slow, while likening them to a, quote, bunch of dumb dolphins. The Daily Beast also reported in August he awarded massive perks, such as millions of dollars worth of stock options to one of his top lieutenants who was later forced out of that company, John, for bullying.

BERMAN: Look, it sounds like there's a lot going on there. But the one thing that still jumps out is there are 900 workers four weeks before Christmas without a job.

ROMANS: They will get severance. They were working with H.R. for severance but they are no longer working at that company effective immediately.

BERMAN: Christine Romans, thank you.

KEILAR: Donald Trump's time as president was marked by persistent contempt for the media, once even declared the news media the enemy of the people not once but many, many times. Washington Post Columnist Dana Milbank writes in his latest column that it's President Biden, not Trump, who may actually have a legitimate gripe with the media. Milbank tasked an artificial intelligence company with analyzing hundreds of thousands of news articles from dozens of media outlets, and the results here, quote, the media treats Biden as badly or worse than Trump.

Joining us now is Dana Milbank. He is columnist with The Washington Post, as I mentioned.

Okay, first, let's talk about the media outlets. I just want to be clear, these are not all straight news outlets, right? So, you're looking at Breitbart, you're looking at Huffington Post, also ABC News, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post. What did you find?

[07:30:00]

DANA MILBANK, COLUMNIST, THE WASHINGTON POST: Right. Fiscal note, the folks who did this for me, they cast a very wide net. So, you get the extremes and also all of us in the middle to the greatest extent possible.