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EARLY START

Senate on Verge of Unlocking Ability to Pass COVID Relief Without GOP; Dems (Plus 11 Republicans) Kick Rep. Greene Off Committees; Trump Rejects Democrats' Demand He Testify; Johnson & Johnson Seeks Emergency Authorization; Biden: "America is Back, Diplomacy is Back". Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired February 5, 2021 - 05:00   ET

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


[05:00:24]

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Laura Jarrett. It's Friday, February 5th. Happy Friday, everyone. You made it to another Friday. It's 5:00 a.m. in New York.

And breaking just moments ago, the Senate in session all night. Democrats on the verge of unlocking the power to pass a major coronavirus relief bill without Republican support.

Let's get straight to CNN's congressional reporter Daniella Diaz live for us on Capitol Hill this morning.

Daniella, a voterama going early in the morning for all of these lawmakers. Bring us up to speed on what's going on now and what it all means for Americans who need help in this pandemic.

DANIELLA DIAZ, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: You know, guys, when I thought when I'd wake up this morning -- I woke up this morning, I thought it would be over and it's still going on. Voterama is still going on. Senate is still in this marathon session to try to pass amendments for budget reconciliation. This is the first step that needs to happen so that they can pass COVID-19 relief without any Republican support. It would require a simple majority.

Now, the Senate doesn't do this very often. It shows how important it is. There was one amendment that all senators, how important they think this is for it to pass.

There was one amendment that all the senators agreed on, except for Rand Paul, but 99 senators signed which was to pass targeted stimulus checks for the next round of COVID-19 relief. This comes as 10 senators were clear with Biden that they want to continue this dialogue. They want to continue talking about COVID-19 relief. They have concerns about his $1.9 trillion package. They want something smaller. They want something more targeted. And they sent a letter last night to him hoping to continue that

conversation, but Janet Yellen has been clear, she said that the risk of doing too little is worse than the risk of doing too much.

And Jared Bernstein, the White House econ adviser, also agreed with her. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JARED BERNSTEIN, MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS: I already went through the cause of inaction. And those costs are incredibly steep. They're incredibly lasting. Long-term unemployment can have permanent damage to people's careers. I talked about the damage to lifetime earnings if kids who missed a year at school. So, I just don't want to lose the cost of the plan against the cost of inaction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAZ: Look, guys, bottom line, Biden wants a COVID-19 relief package, and there's just too much divide between the Republicans and Democrats in the Senate to try to pass something together, a bipartisan bill. So, he's willing to move with Democrats on this alone and that's what we see happening right now -- guys.

JARRETT: What I really want to know is, when am I going to get my check and how much is that check going to be for us? So, this is all setting the stage for what is to come.

Daniella, thank you so much.

ROMANS: Meantime, she has now lost her committee assignments but is arguably more influential than before.

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene tossed off two House committees by Democrats who are joined in the vote by less than a dozen Republicans. After years of lying, fearmongering and spewing hateful rhetoric, Greene did not take responsibility for her words. She said she stumbled across QAnon at the end of 2017 and began posting about it on Facebook because she felt she could not trust the government.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): I was allowed to believe things that weren't true and I would ask questions about them and talk about them, and that is absolutely what I regret, because if it weren't for the Facebook posts and comments that I liked in 2018, I wouldn't be standing here today and you couldn't point a finger and accuse me of anything wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: Well, that's certainly true. She wouldn't be standing there if it not for the things that she said which unfortunately is the entire point. The anti-Semitic and other vitriol that she spouted at the time was well known and embraced by those who voted for her and is now endorsed by her party. And the proof is in the number. Look at this, 61 Republicans voted to remove Congresswoman Liz Cheney from leadership after she tried to hold Trump accountable for inciting the deadly mob. Yet just 11 thought Marjorie Taylor Greene should lose her committee seats.

ROMANS: Impeachment offers a chance for the Republican Party to cleanse itself of Donald Trump's influence. But that's clearly not the way things are headed here. At the moment, it seems impossible that 17 Republican senators would sign on to convict the former president.

And now, Trump is defying Democrats' demand that he show up at the trial to make his case, a move impeachment manager Jamie Raskin says just reinforces the idea Trump is guilty.

Chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju has the latest for us this morning from Capitol Hill.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine and Laura.

House Democrats are setting up a dramatic showdown with Donald Trump. They are demanding his testimony next week at the Senate impeachment trial saying he should come and testify in his own defense. They're pointing to the legal brief that Donald Trump's team put out earlier in the week in which he made a number of claims disputing the key facts in the case.

Donald Trump charged by the House for inciting an insurrection. But in that legal brief, he disputes some key facts, his role about it, what his intention was in speaking to that rally. Everything that he said in the run-up to the rally that led to the protesters coming to the Capitol, storming the capitol, leading to the deaths of number of deaths including a U.S. Capitol police officer.

Now, Donald Trump's team calls this a publicity stunt. Yesterday, they push back. They said he will not agree to testify. They called this a sham proceeding of sorts. And there's no expectation he will unless Democrats take a step to subpoena him which appears like an unlikely route that they will go with this moment. So, next week sets up the impeachment trial itself.

The question, too, remains whether Democrats will terminate any witnesses whatsoever. That is still an unsettled question as well. The expectation is that there will be several days of arguments on both sides. Democrats will present video evidence trying to show Donald Trump intentionally incited rioters and rally-goers, fomented disinformation, put out, or spewed a bunch of different information and fomented discord about what was happening that day. Those arguments will take place starting next week -- guys.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JARRETT: Manu Raju, thank you so much. Without any true villain, defendant's invented one. A quote from a new

$2.7 billion lawsuit filed by a voting technology company swept up in all of the baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. Smartmatic accuses lawyers Rudy Giuliani, and Sidney Powell, Fox News and its host Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro of deliberately lying about the company into believing the election was stolen from Donald Trump.

Now, there's no shortage of evidence to support the claims in the suit. It says, quote: The Earth is round. Two plus two equals four. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election. The election was not stolen, rigged or fixed. These are facts.

All of the defendants dispute the claims in the lawsuit. Meanwhile, a different voting tech company Dominion revealed it sent letters to Facebook, YouTube, Parler, and Twitter asking them to preserve posts relevant to its defamation claims against Giuliani and other Trump allies. Dominion has already sued Giuliani and Powell for $1.3 billion in damages.

ROMANS: So, if you need a reminder of just how toxic Rudy Giuliani is viewed these days, listen to the disclaimer that a New York City radio aired during Giuliani's own talk radio show on Thursday.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: The views, assumptions and opinions expressed by former U.S. attorney, former attorney to the president of the United States, and New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, his guests and callers on his programs are strictly their own and do not necessarily represent the opinions, beliefs or policies of WABC Radio.

ANNOUNCER: Now, it's former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani on New York's talk radio 77 WABC.

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: I would have thought they would have told me about that before just doing what they just did. Rather insulting. And gives you a sense of how far this free speech thing has gone and how they frighten everybody.

I mean, we're in America. We're not in East Germany. They've got to warn you about me?

(END AUDIO CLIP)

ROMANS: Given Giuliani's legal issue, WABC management is clearly trying to protect itself from any possible liability.

JARRETT: Christine, what's so interesting about that is he still has a show on the radio. So he's complaining about free speech on his own show.

ROMANS: We've heard time and time again when people are criticized for holding way far out of the norm and incorrect positions, when they're criticized for that they call it cancel culture, infringement of their free speech while they have a huge national platform to spread the lies.

JARRETT: Exactly. Exactly.

All right. Still ahead, big news overnight about a third coronavirus vaccine potentially rolling out soon in the United States.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:13:44]

JARRETT: The Food and Drug Administration will meet in three weeks to consider authorizing Johnson & Johnson's new coronavirus vaccine. J&J is requesting emergency use authorization and says trial data shows its vaccine prevents severe illness and death. Now, unlike Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines, J&J doesn't have to be stored at the super cold temperatures. And it also doesn't appear to trigger allergic reaction.

The U.S. government has purchased 100 million doses already. That will go a long way towards meeting the enormous demand right now. COVID deaths remain high and variants are increasingly viewed as a real concern. A recent decline in cases and hospitalizations suggests the country could be turning an important corner.

Erica Hill has more for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Laura, good morning.

A big development on the vaccine front. Johnson & Johnson officially asking the FDA for emergency use authorization on Thursday. The single dose vaccine has shown an efficacy of 72 percent in its U.S. trials.

Meantime, here in New York, Yankee stadium opens a mass vaccination site at 8:00 a.m. this morning. The city scheduling 15,000 appointments for the first week here.

Dr. Anthony Fauci tweeting Thursday he's hopeful kids ages 12 and up may be able to get the vaccine in late spring or summer. Even expanding to younger children, as more data becomes available.

And speaking of younger kids, youth sports can actually resume Monday in Michigan. Masks mandatory at practice and competitions. But each athlete will be permitted two spectators at competitions.

And amid concerns that those fast-spreading variants, specifically the U.K. variant which could soon become dominant in Florida and California, there is a bright spot in the Golden State. Hard-hit Saint Mary Medical Center dismantling its COVID overflow tents. The hospital's chaplain offering a prayer of gratitude for the space and for those who treated the COVID patients there. Powerful images -- Christine, Laura.

(END VIDEOTAPE) ROMANS: Erica Hill, thank you, Erica. Real concern that the jobs loss in the pandemic won't come back. The unemployment rate hasn't moved in months. And economists forecast it was stuck again in January at 6.7 percent for the third month in a row.

Now, the forecast says the economy added 50,000 jobs. That would be a welcome change from what we saw in December, 140,000 jobs lost. But look at that chart. That shows you a country still deep in a jobs hole here.

This is not a normal downturn. We don't have any historical comparisons for this. And the Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says, we need to get people back to work. And until then, we need more money to support the economy and combat the virus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANET YELLEN, TREASURY SECRETARY: To seeing long lines of people waiting to get food around the country is something we should never see in the United States. Too many people have to worry about whether they'll have a roof over their heads and he wants to address that? This is really an urgent need. And we need to act big.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: The "he" there is Joe Biden. The acting big is the stimulus, $1.9 trillion stimulus on the table in Congress.

There have been some signs of improvement in the labor market. Thursday's jobless claims showed 779,000 Americans filed for benefits last week. That is the lowest since the end of November but cold comfort. Seven hundred and seventy-nine thousand is a lot of layoffs for just one week.

And the crisis is far from over. Earlier this week, the Congressional Budget Office said the jobs market won't return to pre-pandemic levels, Laura, until 2024. Even if the size of the economy is expected to come back by the summer, when you get the vaccine uptake and the virus under control, jobs are not coming back the way the economy is.

That K-shaped recovery, people who have jobs and money are doing great. People who don't, have never seen a situation like this, almost Depression era.

JARRETT: So important. You are the one always staying on top of this, and I think it's so important to highlight.

All right. If you miss seeing people's lips moves when they talk, Ford may have the answer. The automaker expects it to work just as well as the N95. A Ford executive says one of the things that's missing during the pandemic is the power of a smile.

And this isn't just about statistics. Facemasks have made life harder for those that are hearing impaired. Ford hopes its mask will be available this spring.

ROMANS: All right. President Biden says America is back. What his priorities mean for allies and adversaries, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:22:43]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: America is back. America is back. Diplomacy is back. You are the center of all that I intend to do. You are the heart of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: President Biden announcing America's return to the world stage with diplomacy and democratic principles at the forefront. Mr. Biden used his first major foreign policy speech to highlight his aim to counter what he called advancing authoritarianism.

International diplomatic editor Nic Robertson live in London for us.

Nic, the president put a lot of focus on the Saudis and war in Yemen. Explain why.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah. He's been reviewing what President Trump had left in terms of how the United States is dealing with Yemen and dealing with Saudi and has come to a very simple conclusion, he's not going to support the war in Yemen that's led by a Saudi coalition.

But he is. He said, and here's a nuance on what he said, is that he will help -- help defend Saudi Arabia from aggressors in the region, proxies backed by Iran. So, that was a message that not just about Saudi, but about Iran as well, positive feedback from the Saudis. They're saying that they'll support President Biden in his efforts for a diplomatic solution, not a military solution in Yemen. So, coming together in one way with one ally there.

Look, I think what we heard from President Biden is very clear laying out the United States needs to earn its place back in world leadership. It's a necessary place. The sell to the international community is one they're hearing. It had phone calls in London, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Seoul and Australia as well.

So making very clear that he's talking to his allies again, that he wants their support again and he's also talking to the United States enemies. He said he had a phone call with President Putin in Russia saying this was no longer a United States that was going to roll over and let Russia continue what it has been doing, destabilizing the electoral process in the United States, poisoning political critics of Putin in the country, clear reference to Navalny there.

You know, on China, going to confront China, but all of this working with allies.

[05:25:00] But I think the message here as well is, you know, his heart is behind the diplomatic effort coming the State Department. But his sell here and I think this is something that will be looked at by the international community, his sell to Americans is important because the international community, does wonder if there's a President Trump in the waiting to come back with future presidencies.

So his message to Americans about diplomacy was that very clear one. We're not doing this just to help the world, i.e., this is not the transactional causes of President Trump. We're doing this because peace, it brings prosperity in the United States. This is naked self- interest.

But the very diplomatic message, absolutely. This is going to go down very well among our allies, Christine.

ROMANS: All right. Nic Robertson for us in London, thank you for that so much.

JARRETT: One notable omission from Biden's speech is rejoining the Iran nuclear deal. Today, the National Security Council will host a top level meeting to discuss Iran's escalating nuclear enrichment program. There are growing concerns Iran's activities are ruining any chance for a renewed deal.

In 2018, former President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal, and by 2019, Iran began reaching the agreement.

ROMANS: All right. The Senate still in session, poised to give Democrats the power to pass a much needed coronavirus relief bill, without any Republicans.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)