Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Trump Defends Foreign Worker Visas; Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) is Interviewed about the Visa Debate; Dr. Leana Wen is Interviewed about Bird Flu; New CNN Film on Luther Vandross. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired December 30, 2024 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Well, Omar, we did hear him weigh in on the side of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy this weekend, defending the H-1B visa program. As you mentioned, the program that allows highly skilled foreign workers to come and work in the United States.

This is what he told "The New York Post" over the weekend. He said, quote, "I've always liked the visas. I have always been in favor of the visas. That's why we have them." He went on to say, "I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I've been a believer in H-1B. I've used it many times. It's a great program."

Now, just to be clear here, Donald Trump is talking about H-1B visas, obviously, in this quote. But our colleagues actually dug into the data with the Department of Labor and found that most of the foreign workers at Donald Trump's properties are here with H-2B visas. Those are, you know, allow for jobs like landscaping and hospitality.

But all to say, the reason this is so notable is because one, as you mentioned, this issue over H-1B visas and whether or not there should be more highly skilled foreign workers in this country, as Elon Musk has been calling for, is something that has really caused a massive rift among his supporters. On the one hand, you have the MAGA faithful who many of them attracted to Donald Trump because of his hardline immigration policies. And then you have some of the, you know, Silicon Valley latecomers to this, people like Elon Musk, but also David Sacks, a venture capitalists in California who liked Donald Trump and supported him this past election cycle, but also rely on these H-1B visas to bring these foreign workers for their businesses and their companies.

Now, what's also interesting about this is that Donald Trump has not always been supportive of the H-1B visa program. I'd remind you that back during his first administration, he actually signed an executive order that limited the H-1B visa program and also you - the visa program saw a decline during his first term. He also ran on a platform in 2016 where he argued that American companies should be prioritizing American workers, not foreign workers, all to say Donald Trump is now coming in on the side of Elon Musk on this issue. Still unclear, though, what any sort of policy around this could be once he's actually in office. Omar.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, we will see.

Alayna Treene, thank you so much.

Rahel.

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Omar, thank you.

And joining us now is Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois.

Congressman, great to have you this morning. Welcome.

REP. RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI (D-IL): Thank you, Rahel.

SOLOMON: I want to pick up where my colleague, Alayna Treene, left off there. These new comments over the weekend from President-elect Trump on the H-1B program. He said, look, he supports these visas. He has used it many times. They're great. Your reaction, Congressman?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: I actually agree with him. I think that this H-1B program is an essential component of maintaining our competitiveness. I happen to be the ranking member of the committee charged with trying to win the competition against the Chinese Communist Party. We can't win that competition unless we retain, attract and get the very best talent from around the world. That's our number one killer competitive advantage as a country. And so, we have to improve that.

SOLOMON: I want to speak - I'm glad you mentioned the competitive nature of the relationship with China. I want to actually turn now to Trump's threats to the Panama Canal.

Here's what outgoing Senator Ben Cardin had to say about it over the weekend.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BEN CARDIN (D-MD): I don't know what the president-elect is saying in regards to how sincere he is, but I can tell you, it does raise questions globally as to whether we're a reliable partner.

And it really feeds in to Russia and China's appeal to other countries as to whether they need to make alliances with Russia and China, whether America will be there for them globally.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: I mean it's a pretty strong statement. I mean do you agree that this makes - these threats make the U.S. look like an untrustworthy ally in a way that it could ultimately benefit countries like China and Russia? KRISHNAMOORTHI: Yes, absolutely. You know, part of maintaining our

deterrence against the CCP or Russia or other adversaries in terms of deterring aggression by those countries is binding closely together with our friends, partners and allies. So, when we push them away, we are reducing our deterrence and inviting aggression. We're also creating openings for our adversaries to then grow closer and to take advantage of our rifts with our friends, partners and allies and reduce our kind of deterrence and basically harm our national security.

SOLOMON: At the same time, though, I mean Trump's - Trump's point is that the fees are exorbitant. And the fees vary. They can range from a few dollars to a couple hundred thousand dollars. Should there be, Congressman, a revisiting of those fees and how they impact Americans?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Sure. And we can do that in the context of not saying things like, we're going to take back the Panama Canal. Remember, this is a transfer that happened that was ratified by the U.S. Senate.

[09:35:06]

It actually happened under President Jimmy Carter. And I think that this is something that we have to respect, and, at the same time, we have to maintain our national security. We also want to maintain cordial relations with countries like Panama that maintain a very important waterway for our commerce.

SOLOMON: Yes, on national security, that sort of brings me to TikTok. Trump is obviously urging the Supreme Court to pause the controversial ban on TikTok. It's supposed to take effect next month. TikTok says it doesn't want to divest. Obviously, Congressman, there are Americans, a lot of Americans, who make a living using the app. You say this is about ByteDance. This is about national security. But if TikTok doesn't sell, you support this ban, this divestment. What do you say to those Americans?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: I say, I think that they should actually ask TikTok and ByteDance to get the move on and make sure that ByteDance does divest itself of TikTok. The interesting thing here is that TikTok says, we are not controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. Neither is ByteDance. But on the other hand, they say, we can't sell - ByteDance can't sell TikTok because the CCP won't allow us to. And as the U.S. district - I'm sorry, the Circuit Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia said, you know, we don't have to, in Congress, legislate around the preferences of the Chinese Communist Party. If they decide they are not going to allow ByteDance to sell, we have to do what's in the best interest of our country, and that is make sure that the CCP can't access our data and use it against us.

SOLOMON: Yes, and that decision is still pending from the Supreme Court. We'll see ultimately how they rule.

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, appreciate the time today. Thank you.

All right, and coming up for us, the number of human cases of bird flu has risen to 66. Could new mutations make it easier for the virus to infect humans?

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:41:31]

JIMENEZ: Welcome back.

Some health experts are raising red flags as U.S. bird flu infections in humans climb past 65, warning that America's sluggish response is setting the stage for a potential pandemic. Now, the CDC is pushing back against claims it's not testing enough to maintain control of the virus.

Joining us now is Dr. Leana Wen, contributing columnist for "The Washington Post" and former Baltimore health commissioner as well.

I mean, Dr. Wen, I just want to start with, I mean, should there be a more aggressive response from the CDC here?

DR. LEANA WEN, FORMER HEALTH COMMISSIONER, CITY OF BALTIMORE: Yes, there should be a more aggressive response, especially when it comes to testing. One of the lessons that we should have learned from Covid is that just because we aren't testing doesn't mean that the cases aren't there. And, in fact, the CDC has data itself that should be alarming. There was a study published recently that found that 7 percent of farm workers in farms where there are active infections in animals had evidence of recent infection of the bird flu themselves.

But none of these individuals tested positive for bird flu or were even tested for bird flu during their infection. Half of them reported having some kind of symptoms. Half of them said they did not have symptoms. So that illustrates that potentially we could have many more infections than we know of among farm workers. It also indicates that there may be some people who are asymptomatic.

Now, we don't know that these people are asymptomatic and spreading bird flu. There has been no documented human to human transmission in the U.S. yet. But that said, we are not doing nearly enough testing to understand the extent of the spread of bird flu. And what we need is rapid tests.

These are not impossible to do. We have rapid flu tests available. We now - we know that there's the ability to get rapid covid tests rapidly distributed, and we should be able to have these rapid home tests available to farm workers for their families and for the clinicians and health care providers taking care of these individuals so that those people can protect themselves and figure out what's going on with the patients and the individuals they're around, but also so that the U.S. can have a better handle on the total number of cases.

JIMENEZ: And, you know, Doctor, I'm - just based on the reporting over the past few days, I was struck by the quote from Dr. Deborah Birx, who was obviously the White House coronavirus response coordinator under President Donald Trump. She said that, "we kind of have our head in the sand about how widespread this is." Specifically, she was talking about animal to human transmission there. But I wonder if you agree with that assessment, but also what lessons can be learned from how the Trump administration handled Covid to what we what we could be doing essentially here?

WEN: Well, the CDC was very slow the first time around with Covid in terms of trying to get tests to be more widely available. And by the time there was rapid testing and more accessible testing, we were finding that there were far more cases.

Also, we did not know about asymptomatic transmission of Covid early on. And I think that there is a lot about the bird flu and how it's mutating that we don't know about this time around, too. And this is the time early on in the course of an outbreak to try to stop it.

JIMENEZ: And, you know, along those lines, you know, the CDC has come out and said that they're doing asymptomatic testing. They're trying to - they're not necessarily dropping the attention that they would give on, you know, differentiating flu. And just because its leaving flu season, things of that nature. But I guess the overarching question is, is our infrastructure right now built more for containment or prevention?

[09:45:09]

WEN: Yes, it's a good question. And I think that right now we are facing - we are seeing a lot more signs that the bird flu is getting more and more out of control. And one of those signs is the fact that we have - we have an individual in Louisiana who is severely ill. There is a strain isolated from the individual that shows that there are mutations such that the virus may be more transmissible in humans. Normally, avian flu virus does not attach well to human airway receptors, but there are mutations that seem to render it to be more capable of attaching to airway receptors and more able to be transmitted.

I think unless we're doing a lot more testing to pick up on who has the virus and therefore what mutations they have, we really don't have a good handle on what's happening.

And you mentioned that we're in flu season. We're in a period where we have the regular flu. In addition, we may now have bird flu as well. And the really frightening scenario is if a single person contracts both avian flu and seasonal flu, in that case, the viruses could exchange genomes and we could have a mutant virus that is more dangerous because it spreads more easily among people.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

WEN: And so I think that that's why we need to be extra vigilant, and the government needs to take more proactive steps.

JIMENEZ: And, you know, for people watching to this point, we have not seen any human to human transmission. But, of course, humans have contracted it to this point. So, I guess the question is, for those watching at home who are

hearing this, who might be concerned, I mean, what should regular people be doing to try to protect themselves, or what should they be looking out for?

WEN: Yes, I don't think that most of the American public should be thinking, oh, my goodness, my runny nose or cough is due to the bird flu.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

WEN: But there are steps that everyone should be taking. So, for example, if you see wild birds, don't approach an injured or ill or dead bird. Also, it's important to avoid raw milk and also to have your domestic animals, like cats and dogs, avoid raw meat and raw milk during this period where those may be the way that bird flu could be transmitted. And for individuals who keep backyard flocks or who are farm workers, they definitely need to take additional precautions because there is certainly the risk of transmission for them.

JIMENEZ: Yes. All good points.

Dr. Leane Wen, thank you so much.

Meanwhile, an R&B legend and an undeniable talent. A new CNN documentary looks back at the career and legacy of the one and only Luther Vandross.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:52:01]

(VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: His beautiful voice is unmistakable and unmatched.

JIMENEZ: You're not talking about me, right? Yes, of course - of course not. Yes.

SOLOMON: No, no, no, no, no. And his love songs provided the soundtrack to countless romances.

JIMENEZ: We're, of course, talking about legendary singer Luther Vandross. Now, a new CNN film uses Vandross' own words and interviews with his closest friends to tell the story of his iconic career.

CNN anchor Victor Blackwell spoke to Vandross' lifelong friends, as well as the director of the film, about who Vandross was on and off the stage.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Singer, songwriter, producer, eight-time Grammy winner with 11 consecutive platinum or double platinum selling albums.

DENZEL WASHINGTON, ACTOR: Mr. Luther Vandross.

BLACKWELL (voice over): Millions of fans around the world know his unmistakable voice and classic love songs.

LUTHER VANDROSS, MUSICIAN (singing): I can't fool myself. I don't want nobody else to ever love me.

BLACKWELL (voice over): But what you may not know is the story of how he became a star.

FONZI THORNTON, MUSICIAN AND FRIEND OF LUTHER VANDROSS: The day that I met him, it was clear to me, this dude is going to wind up being on the radio. First of all, he sang better than everybody. He had a vision about how he sang.

VANDROSS: Because I try to do songs that I think I can do differently, you know, and that I think fit me, you know, sort of like a - what somebody chooses to wear.

BLACKWELL (voice over): Luther was inspired by the icons, The Supremes, Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick. And before his solo career, Luther grew to be a top background vocalist.

VANDROSS: I used to sing background vocals for Roberta Flack on the road, and Roberta sometimes would have interviews, and sometimes she'd be unable to show up at soundchecks. So, I would sing her songs for her in soundchecks to test her microphone.

BLACKWELL (voice over): And throughout his career, Luther kept those friends from the early days close.

DAWN PORTER, DIRECTOR, "LUTHER: NEVER TOO MUCH": One of the many, many things that's so impressive about Luther over the course of his life is how his friends have remained so constant. I really wanted to have people who could tell you how he laughed, could tell you how he was silly, could tell you about him as a person.

BLACKWELL: What - what memories come back about Luther, when you see these relics, these artifacts from that period?

MARCUS MILLER, MUSICIAN AND FRIEND OF LUTHER VANDROSS: There's people who can sing. There are people who can arrange. There are people who can play. But Luther wanted to be - he had a vision of the entire thing.

BLACKWELL (voice over): What most fans probably don't know is that Luther meticulously designed every aspect of his shows, the costumes, the lighting and choreography.

PORTER: I love talking to people who were the like O.G. Luther fans. And they're like, you cannot tell me something I don't know. And then they're all like, what, what, what? That's a really interesting thing with a - with a black artist, is he literally was everywhere.

[09:55:01]

He just wasn't always visible.

I really like to think of this as also a celebration of black music.

VANDROSS (singing): Inside. Hey, we've got love.

BACKGROUND SINGERS (singing): Love.

VANDROSS (singing): Power.

BACKGROUND SINGERS (singing): Power.

BLACKWELL (voice over): And that's what this film is, a celebration of Luther's artistry and a deeper look at the man, professionally and personally.

THORNTON: He called me from L.A., where he was living. He said, listen, I'm nominated for best R&B vocal. I'm not going to win anyway. Why don't you come out and hang out with me? And we went to the Grammy's and he won for "Here and Now." This is a dude I met in the projects, and here he's winning a Grammy.

PORTER: When you kind of travel through time with this movie and with Luther's journey, you remember these moments, these spectacular moments. This is all part of American culture. It's not just black culture, it's American culture.

BLACKWELL (voice over): Nearly 20 years after his passing, Luther still inspires artists and fans through the power of his voice.

Victor Blackwell, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JIMENEZ: And you can watch the all new CNN film "Luther: Never Too Much" New Year's Day at 8:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific right here on CNN. Can't wait.

And thank you for joining us. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL with Rahel Solomon.

SOLOMON: Good to be with you.

JIMENEZ: Yes, great to see you.

"CNN NEWSROOM," up next. Stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)