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First Move with Julia Chatterley
President Trump Tells The Davos Elite To Avoid The Doom And Gloom Prediction Of The Climate Apocalypse; Activist Greta Thunberg Says Planting Trees Is Certainly Good, But Nothing Has Actually Been Done To Tackle Climate Change Itself; U.S. Senators Are About To Start President Donald Trump's Impeachment Trial. Aired 9-10a ET
Aired January 21, 2020 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:15]
ZAIN ASHER, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Live from New York, I'm Zain Asher and here is what you need to know.
Feeling optimistic. President Trump tells the Davos elite to avoid the doom and gloom prediction of the climate apocalypse.
On the flip side of the coin, climate activist Greta Thunberg says planting trees is certainly good, but nothing has actually been done to tackle
climate change itself.
In the backdrop of all of this happening far, far away from the Swiss Alps, U.S. senators are about to start President Donald Trump's impeachment
trial.
It is Tuesday and this is FIRST MOVE.
Welcome to FIRST MOVE coming to you live from New York and the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. We'll get the latest from Davos with
our Julia Chatterley and Richard Quest in just a moment, but first, it is looking like a lower start to the holiday shortened trading week.
On Wall Street, there you see you on your screens, Dow Futures are down about 60 points or so, all the major averages are set to fall from record
highs in early trading. Early trading set to begin in about half an hour from now, but losses should be modest with tech stocks falling the most.
Wall Street is taking its cue from weak overseas markets as well. Look at your screen there, look at all the red across the screen. Stocks are down
in both Europe and Asia. Asian stocks fell on word that a serious respiratory virus originating in China can actually be spread through human
contact.
Hong Kong stocks tumbled almost three percent after Moody's rating downgrade as well. In the meantime, shares of Swiss banking giant UBS are
tumbling almost five percent after posting disappointing 2019 profits.
The U.S. and France are hitting the pause button on a trade dispute that could have slapped hefty tariffs on French imports. France says that it
will not collect a digital tax on U.S. companies for now.
And of course hanging over all of the mark actually today is the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, which kicks off in just a few
hours from now in Washington.
So let's get straight to the drivers right now. So President Donald Trump is taking or did rather earlier take center stage at Davos thousands of
miles from Washington as his impeachment trial is set to begin in just a few hours from now.
He touted the U.S. economy in his speech at the World Economic Forum. Julia Chatterley is joining us live now from Davos. So Julia, the President there
really sort of patting himself on the back for what he sees as various economic victories here in the U.S.
JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR, FIRST MOVE: Thanks so much, Zain. Welcome to the second day of the World Economic Forum, and you're
absolutely right of course, we did see President Trump speaking a line that he often speaks and was, well, he might, of course talking about the US
economy and pulling out the strength that we are seeing right now.
You said he took center stage, I'd argue, actually, he had to share that stage with another anticipated person today, of course too, and that was
17-year-old activist, Greta Thunberg and a lot of the debate, of course, is the two extreme sides of the sustainability and the climate debate of those
two sides.
So perhaps, the truth is somewhere in the middle, and we'll be talking about that here later on in the show, but you know, in line with what you
were saying about what he had to say about the U.S. economy, in amongst the impeachment drama that we saw last week, you'd be forgiven for missing the
signing of that Phase 1 trade deal with China and of course, the President giving his sign off on the USMCA, the NAFTA mark 2 of course. Listen to
what he had to say about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: America is thriving. America is flourishing. And yes, America is winning again like never
before.
Just last week alone, the United States concluded two extraordinary trade deals: The agreement with China and the United States, Mexico-Canada
agreement; the two biggest trade deals ever made. They just happened to get done in the same week.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHATTERLEY: So that was President Trump there speaking about the U.S. economy. Richard Quest joins us now. You and I have already said this week
actually, probably part in result of what we've seen in terms of trade deal signings and some decrease in the tensions.
It's not about the economy. It doesn't feel like it's about the economy this week. It's about sustainability and climate.
RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS ANCHOR, QUEST MEANS BUSINESS: It is, and the President elegantly ignored that for most of his speech. But the bit when
he did start talking about it was fascinating because he said he liked clean air, he said he liked clean water, which you've heard.
CHATTERLEY: For the United States.
[09:05:00]
QUEST: Yes. And then he immediately launched into a rather strange section where he talked about apocalypses, fortune tellers, pessimists and he is an
optimist.
CHATTERLEY: Prophets of doom.
QUEST: Prophets of doom. And then he lumped them all, calling them all socialists. So I think that was the part that was for domestic consumption
at home, but Greta Thunberg who is here, I've just read her speech that she is going to be talking about.
She cuts no quarter in any way. She basically says to the people here, I told you last year that the house was on fire, you've done nothing. It's
burning. But don't worry, we're just naive. We're just children. We don't know what we're doing.
CHATTERLEY: You know, where I stand on that. I think that's not fair. I don't think that's fair, and I think the views perhaps on both sides, we
can argue, are extreme at this point.
I mean, I was looking through them. We're not telling you to keep talking about reaching net zero emissions or carbon neutrality by cheating and
fiddling around with the numbers.
QUEST: She is right.
CHATTERLEY: Granting if you're --
QUEST: She is right. Now, come on. I'm not a Greta Thunberg supporter, but she's right, in the sense of, if you look back at the last COP and if you
look at the way they fiddle the numbers, everybody -- nobody comes to this table with clean hands.
CHATTERLEY: No one comes with clean hands, but progress is being made to suggest --
QUEST: Not enough.
CHATTERLEY: To suggest that companies have done nothing is wrong. Agree or disagree?
QUEST: Oh, I agree and disagree.
CHATTERLEY: Oh, Richard Quest.
QUEST: Well, you ask your later guest Brad Swift -- you asked him whether he thinks enough is being done. Very ambitious goals have been set. But
Greta says stuff then that's not enough.
You've got to get to zero if you're going to meet your 1.5 degrees limit. If you don't get now to zero, not in 2030, not in 2040. Now.
CHATTERLEY: Zero and not net zero. You can't plant a few trees or sell credits or buy credits in order to be able to. However, if you take all the
money away from fossil fuels, you switch that off overnight, the lights go out, and who gets hurt most? The most vulnerable in society.
QUEST: But Greta said --
CHATTERLEY: The debate has to shift to the middle, and I agree with you that people have to do more.
QUEST: Greta says that even Polish coal miners who have lost their jobs are supporting her campaign. I think the naivete of the position that she
holds is that if you do it overnight, you will throw tens of millions right into abject poverty.
CHATTERLEY: Right.
QUEST: And I'm not sure you solve one problem by creating another.
CHATTERLEY: But you know what I like about this. We're having the debate, big corporates, game changers, those that are providing huge innovation in
technology. We're all having the debate now.
This at heart is stakeholder capitalism for me because workers, shareholders, everybody is having this debate and that surely will push us
forward or am I just being a huge optimist, Richard? You can tell me.
QUEST: No, but -- I think the important point about -- you know, the difference between this debate and all the others, cyclical economic
growth, recession, blah, blah, blah. It happens every few years. I've been doing it long enough. I've seen more economic cycles than a bicycle shop.
But what you do -- this is existential. If we get this wrong. Well, you know, just turn to forget to turn off the lights and go home, which is why
the corporations are making their promises. The question of course, begged is whether they are enough.
CHATTERLEY: You know, I sat on a panel today, and it was a representative of Microsoft that said to me, 85 percent of the jobs in 2030 -- 2030 --
have not yet been created.
So as focused as I am on sustainability and on climate, the future of technology, the transformation that's happening today, not in the future
and the impact that's going to have, if we think we've got an anger problem now, you fast forward 10 years with those kind of statistics, we have
equally, if not more pressing problems to tackle.
QUEST: Klaus Schwab said exactly that, which we earlier -- at the beginning of the week -- the two biggest problems in the world at the
moment, climate change, which is by far the number one, and the fourth industrial revolution.
CHATTERLEY: The future of work.
QUEST: And the provision of employment, or at least the sustainability of employment for people, I'm at the wrong edge. I'm at the wrong age of this
curve. I pity those that are at the other end.
CHATTERLEY: You're young, Richard.
QUEST: You're very kind. Flattery will get you everywhere.
CHATTERLEY: That's what I hoped. Richard Quest, thank you so much for that.
Zain, quick, take it away from me.
ASHER: Julia Chatterley and Richard Quest, enjoying a fun little debate there at Davos. All right, around four hours from now or rather after the
President spoke in Davos, his impeachment trial is set to start in Washington and it all begins with a debate over the rules that Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell wants to bring to the process. Here's our Lauren Fox with more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAUREN FOX, CNN POLITICS U.S. CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER (voice over): If Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has his way, the vote to convict or
acquit President Trump will come sooner rather than later.
[09:10:08]
FOX (voice over): McConnell presenting his proposed trial rules that break from the Clinton model. He wants House Impeachment Managers and Trump's
legal team to present their case over two days in two 12-hour sessions that could stretch well into the night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MAZIE HIRONO (D-HI): He has many motivations, but they're all political, and they're all designed to help his people and certainly
they're designed to cover up what the President did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOX (voice over): Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer outraged by McConnell's resolution, saying he'll offer amendments to address its "many
flaws."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): It's clear McConnell is hell bent on making it much more difficult to get witnesses and documents and intent on rushing
the trial through.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOX (voice over): McConnell's proposal also does not automatically include evidence submitted by the House and any subpoenaed witnesses would have to
be deposed before the Senate decides if they will testify publicly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BOB CASEY (D-PA): So I guess we're going to have a trial not only with no witnesses, but no evidence. That is bizarre and insulting and
damaging to the national security of the United States of America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOX (voice over): Trump's Republican allies suggesting they're eager to move forward with the facts already presented.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R-TN): For the House to send us something, two articles and then say, oh, by the way, hey, Senate, we want you to call all
these other witnesses that, you know, we didn't have time to do that because we were in such a rush. We had to get it done before Christmas. We
had to fulfill a political promise.
Donald Trump has done nothing wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOX (voice over): In 110-page filing, Trump's lawyers blast the impeachment trial as a, "rigged process" and "a brazenly political act that
must be rejected."
The House Managers submitting their own rebuttal, asking senators to "honor their oath by holding a fair trial and convict the President on both
Articles."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ASHER: And Lauren Fox joins us live now. So Lauren, today is the first day of the impeachment trial. It is set to start officially at 1:00 p.m.
Eastern time. Just walk us through what today is actually going to look like, because there's going to be a debate at some point setting the rules
of the impeachment process.
FOX: Well, that's exactly right, Zain. And those -- that debate is going to start out very early this afternoon. Basically, you can expect the
Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell will come in, he will lay down the resolution essentially the rules that will govern this trial. They will be
read aloud and then you can expect that Democrats are going to force votes on amendments to change it.
They have a couple of key concerns. One of them is the fact that this resolution does not name specific witnesses that will be called, instead
what the resolution does is it sets up an eventual vote on witnesses, but it's going to be an up or down vote and Democrats would need four
Republicans to cross the aisle and vote with them to even get on to the question of who those witnesses would be.
The other concern that Democrats have this morning is the fact that each side, both the House managers and the President's defense team will have 24
hours to make their case.
But here's what's different from the Clinton resolution in 1999. Essentially, this new resolution makes it so that each side only has two
days to make their case.
So if you do the math there, 24 divided by 12, you get two days of arguments. They're going to essentially have to be making them late into
the night. Democrats argue, that's because Republicans don't want this case to be heard in the light of day, but that's a key concern for Democrats.
So that leaves out the fight that we expect today. We won't get to opening arguments likely until tomorrow -- Zain.
ASHER: All right, Lauren Fox live for us, thank you so much and stay with CNN, our special coverage of the Senate impeachment trial of President
Donald J. Trump begins at the top of the hour.
So these are the stories making headlines around the world. As I speak, China's coronavirus has claimed its sixth victim. Officials have confirmed
that the virus can spread between humans.
Meantime, Taiwan has reported its first case as well. Authorities fear that the Lunar New Year travel will accelerate the infection rate.
David Culver has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Lunar New Year is supposed to be marked with celebrations, this year, it's met with unease and uncertainty
as concerns over the spread of a potentially deadly illness are rising.
Health officials here in China now believe the Wuhan coronavirus can be transmitted from one person to another.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ZHONG HANSHAN, PULMONOLOGIST, CHINESE ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING (through translator): Now, we've seen cases of the virus being transmitted from
person to person, so now is the time we should be on high alert.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CULVER (voice over): The illness is believed to have originated in the city of Wuhan in central China. Chinese health authorities suspect that
this wildlife and seafood market is the source. They shut it down on New Year's Day trying to ease fears and suggesting that the virus is
preventable and controllable, but the number of cases continues to rise both inside China, in major cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen and
outside.
Cases confirmed in Japan, South Korea and Thailand. Officials say the vast majority are linked to Wuhan. They're now relying on intense health
screenings to try and contain it.
[09:15:10]
CULVER: At Wuhan's airport and train station, thermal detectors scan incoming and departing passengers. They are looking for folks with a fever,
just one of the primary symptoms of the pneumonia-causing virus.
But on Chinese social media, some are expressing concerns, worried that the outbreak is far worse than being portrayed. The efforts to screen and
prevent the spread are not calming fears. Face masks are spiking in demand here, so much so that a search through Chinese online retailers show some
stores running low, several more just sold out.
Just how contagious and severe this coronavirus is remains unknown for now. But health experts warn that during this massive travel holiday which
promotes being together, promotes sticking close with loved ones, the human to human spread could worsen if containment efforts fall short.
David Culver, CNN, Beijing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ASHER: All right, some positive news for a part of Australia that's been ravaged by bushfires. Officials say the ravine fire on Kangaroo Island has
been contained. Nearly half of the island has been burned. Thousands of animals have died and those who survived are struggling to find food.
The Fire Service warns that windy conditions could cause the fires to spread again in the next couple of days.
All right, still to come, a war of words on the climate crisis. Greta Thunberg says pretty much nothing has been done, and President Trump rails
against prophets of doom. We'll head back to Davos after this short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to FIRST MOVE live from the World Economic Forum here in Davos.
We were discussing earlier on in the show, Richard and I, robust debate -- what we saw between President Trump, of course and activist Greta Thunberg
compare and contrast -- I'll emphasize the contrast here -- of the two sides of the debate that we see these two players are on. Listen in.
[09:20:16]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: This is not a time for pessimism, this is a time for optimism. Fear and doubt is not a good thought process because this is a time for
tremendous hope and joy and optimism and action.
But to embrace the possibilities of tomorrow, we must reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse.
GRETA THUNBERG, CLIMATE ACTIVIST: You say children shouldn't worry. You say, just leave this to us, we will fix this. We promise we won't let you
down. Don't be so pessimistic. And then -- nothing. Silence, or something worse than silence, empty words and promises, which give the impression
that sufficient action is being taken.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHATTERLEY: Not the only heavy hitters weighing in on this debate. Microsoft coming into this meeting, pledging to be carbon negative by 2030,
and I'm pleased to say Brad Smith, the President of Microsoft joins us now. Great to have you with us.
BRAD SMITH, PRESIDENT, MICROSOFT: Thank you.
CHATTERLEY: Not just carbon negative, you've gone way further than that, too.
SMITH: What we've said is, we will be carbon negative by 2030, which means we'll be removing from the environment more carbon than we emit.
But by 2050, we will remove from the environment all of our historical emissions, all the carbon that Microsoft has emitted since it was founded
in 1975 either directly or as the result of our electricity consumption.
CHATTERLEY: How easy is that in practice? Even just doing the calculation to work out what you've admitted, what the net position is --
SMITH: We've described it to ourselves, to our employees as a moonshot. It really is. We didn't just make this announcement last week, we have
detailed plans. We have internal carbon fees that every part of our business will pay. We will shift to a hundred percent renewable energy for
all of our data centers by 2025.
It will require an enormous effort, but it is the kind of effort I think we're all going to need to make.
CHATTERLEY: Greta said today she doesn't want people to go to net zero. She wants to see real zero in terms of carbon emission. She said it before,
zero subsidies to fossil fuels, in fact, cut off fossil fuels at this stage and the investments into them. What's that going to mean?
Because you were sitting here when Richard and I were robustly debating the concept of that and I said, look, the lights go out. What do you think of
that?
SMITH: Well, for many parts of the world, it would mean just an enormous change. Yet today, there are more than 50 billion metric tons of greenhouse
gases emitted every year, and the things that add up to that are, you know, every car that's not run on a battery --
CHATTERLEY: So turn the cars off.
SMITH: Every airplane that takes off.
CHATTERLEY: No more flights.
SMITH: Every ship that runs on diesel fuel.
CHATTERLEY: Wow.
SMITH: You know, every home that is heated or lit or air-conditioned from a power plant that's not running on renewable energy. It is an enormous
amount.
I mean, the world is reliant on these fossil fuels today. We need to change. We need to shift. We need to cut our carbon emissions. We need to
initially engage more nature based techniques to withdraw carbon from the environment.
Ultimately, we need technology. We can't turn off our computers because we actually need them to help invent the technology that will be the future
direct air captured technology that will help us remove carbon from the environment.
CHATTERLEY: You know, it's interesting, we're talking about individual leaders and you criticize President Trump for stepping away from the Paris
Accord. You can clap and cheer for companies that step forward and say, look, this is what we're going to do. But it's bigger than any of us,
surely. This has to be a global response -- businesses, governments.
I use the term and I don't use it lightly, do we need a Marshall Plan here to tackle climate change and the effects?
SMITH: I think we do need to bring the world together around this goal, and when you listen to this debate, it is worth reflecting on the fact that
everyone actually is saying something that's important. We need to move much faster. We need to raise our ambition. We actually need to all
understand carbon math.
We also need to preserve prosperity. We want the world to become more prosperous, not less so, and I think that takes us to your point, if we're
going to accelerate the invention of technology to remove carbon from the environment to help us reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, we need a
global R&D alliance. We need global efforts to standardize how we measure carbon emissions.
We need a global governmental effort so that if you look at a product, you can pick it up and you can know how much carbon was emitted in its
creation, and then you as a consumer can use that in your decision making.
[09:20:14]
CHATTERLEY: But you made a great point there, and it is like, there has to be something to substitute, too. The innovation has to be there to replace
what's polluting the environment.
So actually, it's not even about government saying, hey, we need to pump money into innovation here and support our companies and our technology
right now. It's everyone again that has to do that. Collectively. How feasible is that? We've just gone through -- and we continue to go through
a difficult situation between the U.S. and China -- two of the biggest.
SMITH: This is probably the greatest challenge that humanity has ever undertaken, to get to where we are today to net zero, you know, within say
30 years. It will require bigger changes, more technology advances, more global collaboration than anything that the world frankly has attempted
before.
So it's right actually to have people who use their voice to say, wake up, everybody, and we have other people who say, and let's do this and continue
to grow economically at the same time.
CHATTERLEY: The greatest challenge we've ever faced. Next time you come on, I'll talk to you about Microsoft. But I feel like this was the moment
to have that discussion. The President of Microsoft, Brad Smith.
SMITH: Thank you.
CHATTERLEY: Thank you.
SMITH: Thank you.
CHATTERLEY: All right. We're counting down to the market open this morning. I can give you a quick look at the futures if we've got them. We
were a little bit softer heading into Tuesday's market session. Plenty more to come from both Zain and myself.
The debate continues here in Davos. As to the sun, I'm not complaining. I'm pretty toasty here, I can tell you. Stay with us. We're back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:30:00]
ASHER: And with those cheers and that little heart shape there, that was the opening bell here on Wall Street. It is a bit of a shorter trading week
as the markets were closed on Monday because of Martin Luther King Day.
Welcome back to FIRST MOVE. I am Zain Asher. As I mentioned, that was the opening bell. Stocks appear to be lower right now across the board. Let's
take a look at your screen. The Dow is down almost a hundred points right out of the gate, pulling back from those all-time highs that was set on
Friday. Investors taking their cue from the negative tone we're seeing in Europe.
And in Asia, there was a lot of concern about the spread of a serious respiratory virus in China, and that is weighing on sentiment in that
region, particularly shares of Asia's major carriers fell sharply Tuesday as virus fears intensified.
Air China was a big loser, down almost six percent. Here in the U.S., a new batch of closely watched corporate earnings will be out after the closing
bell. Results from IBM and Netflix are on deck.
Time now for a look at the Global Movers. Boeing shares are beginning the week with losses. Reports say the company is in talks to borrow $10 billion
to help stabilize operations amid the 737 MAX crisis.
Halliburton shares are lower as well. The oilfield services giant is reporting better than expected profits and revenues due to what it calls a
strong international growth, but it's U.S. shale operations remain under pressure.
And at the bottom of your screen there, Tesla. Tesla shares are actually rallying early trading despite the fact that the company is pushing back
against claims that its cars are accelerating on their own and triggering accidents.
Tesla says the claims are without merit, but the U.S. is considering only a possibility at this point, but they are considering investigating.
Let's look a little bit closely at all of this. Peter Valdez-Dapena joins us live now. So Peter, just in terms of Tesla's response to all of this,
you've got Elon Musk and Tesla coming out and saying that this is not true, they are dismissing these claims, and they're saying this is actually the
work of short sellers. Just walk us through this.
PETER VALDES-DAPENA, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR AUTO WRITER: Yes. Well, Tesla put up a blog post yesterday, the announcement was late last week or the
investigation launch was reported late last week, possible investigation launch.
Now, Tesla is pushing back saying these reports are false and the request for an investigation was made by a short seller, and what Tesla is saying
furthermore, is that now the investigation request cites a hundred and some -- 110 accidents -- 127 incidents overall of people saying that their cars
accelerated without them pressing the accelerator pedal.
Now, most cases of unintended acceleration that have been investigated, we should say, have turned out to be, in most cases, people pressing on the
accelerator pedal. That's what Tesla is saying happened here.
Tesla says we've already looked at most of these and in most of these cases, we've discussed them with NHTSA, and in every case, the vehicle
actually was operating as it was designed to do. And they also went on to list a number of safeguards that Tesla have, they say against unintended
acceleration, even when someone accidentally presses the accelerator pedal.
ASHER: So how does the U.S. actually just in terms of investigators and authorities actually get to the bottom of this? Will there actually be a
formal investigation here?
VALDES-DAPENA: We don't know yet. That's what the person -- the individual or group that requested this is requesting. They're asking for a formal,
what they call defect investigation.
The first thing NHTSA is going to do is what we did here at CNN, was look at through all of these complaints to see if there seems to be any pattern,
any consistency. We do know that pretty much all of these complaints involve parking situation, someone pulling into or out of a parking space
or into or out of a garage. That could be a pattern or it could be that, frankly, that's also the sort of situation where people most often
accidentally step on the wrong pedal because you're moving your foot back and forth a lot and moving around.
So what they're going to do is start looking through all those complaints, digging a little bit deeper. See if there does seem to be any equipment
problem in any of these cases. That's if they do actually launch a defect investigation.
But for right now, they're just looking at them seeing if there's enough reason to even go that far.
CHATTERLEY: Okay, so it's still tentative as to whether or not there will be a formal investigation. In the meantime, Tesla undoubtedly is going to
have to suffer some reputational damage through all of this. How are they going to contain that?
VALDES-DAPENA: Well, right now, I don't know that -- it's hard to say how much reputational damage Tesla will take on this. As we noted, Tesla did
come out with a strong response saying, look, there's nothing wrong with our cars implying that look, people are just pressing on the accelerator
pedal when they think they're pressing on the brake.
It's unclear at this point. There wasn't a whole lot of movement on the stock necessarily when the possible investigation was announced, and at
this point, it's very early days yet. I'm not so sure -- Tesla is a company that seems to be given a lot of forgiveness for things.
[09:35:10]
VALDES-DAPENA: Tesla has had some severe reputational damage over potential issues with autopilot and people thought there was a problem
there. The company weathered that okay. This seems maybe so much less serious than that at this point.
ASHER: All right, so their resilience is what you're saying.
VALDES-DAPENA: Indeed.
ASHER: Peter Valdes-Dapena live for us there, thank you so much.
Time now for today's Boardroom Brief. Shares in the Swiss bank, UBS are down. The lender missed profit and cost targets for 2019, negative interest
rates for the fifth year running and increased competition from U.S. rivals are challenging the bank.
In the meantime, Facebook is taking on a thousand extra staff in London. The new jobs include software engineering, product development, and data
science roles. It also needs more people to take down harmful content as well.
India Uber has agreed to sell its food delivery business to local rival, Zomato in exchange for a percentage of the startup. Uber Eats struggled to
compete against already established food delivery services in the country. The latest exit is part of Uber's ongoing effort to shed underperforming
businesses.
All right, still to come here on FIRST MOVE. We are going to take you back to Davos with our Julia Chatterley where both President Donald Trump and
the CEO of China's Huawei have been speaking out at the World Economic Forum. All of that and more, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to FIRST MOVE live from the World Economic Forum here in Davos where the sun and the spotlight was shining on U.S. President
Donald Trump.
Of course, we were interested to hear what he was going to say about sustainability, about climate, but the President, well not surprisingly,
focused on the U.S. economy. The strength that we're seeing.
He did talk about energy policy, but fresh from the signing of course of that Phase 1 deal with China. He also spoke about trade policy with the
country. Listen in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Before I was elected, China's predatory practices were undermining trade for everyone, but no one did anything about it except allow it to
keep getting worse and worse and worse.
Under my leadership, America confronted the problem head on. Our relationship with China right now has probably never been better. We went
through a very rough patch, but it's never ever been better.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHATTERLEY: You know, many participants here believe that technology will continue to be a touch point, a bone of contention between these two
countries. One company that remains caught in the crossfire, of course, Huawei, their CEO, was here in Davos, his daughter's extradition here
currently underway, of course, in Canada and he took the opportunity to criticize the United States. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REN ZHENGFEI, CEO HUAWEI (through translator): But the U.S. has over concerns. The U.S. has got used to being the world's number one, and they
should be the best in everything they do. If there is someone who is better than them, they might not feel comfortable. But that does not mean this is
the trend the world is heading.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHATTERLEY: One of the big up shots, of course, is that most of the tariffs will remain on Chinese goods entering the United States while this
Phase 1 deal and perhaps Phase 2 continues. But what does this mean?
AB InBev, CEO, Carlos Brito joins us now, great to have you with us.
CARLOS BRITO, CEO, AB INBEV: Thank you, Julia.
CHATTERLEY: You and I've talked in the past about the way that you manage operating in a country like China and it's a big business for you. It's
that you've built up from the ground. You have a local presence. What's the situation right now because you've got the broader geopolitical concerns,
but there's also changes going on in China to restrict alcohol sales? So what's going on for you there?
BRITO: Well, first, I have to say that China is an amazing business for us. It's one of our top five countries. We've built pretty much from ground
zero, and we have an amazing team in China, Chinese colleagues that really know what they're doing, building amazing brands.
So we've always felt very welcomed in China. China is always shifting, you know, Chinese consumers are being exposed now to different channels, for
example, Western style restaurants and nightclubs and things that didn't exist before.
So the Chinese consumer today has way more entertainment options, as compared to 10 years ago, and like always, we're following consumers
because if you follow consumers, you follow growth.
CHATTERLEY: On a global basis, and we'll come to that in a second, so you said it's in your top five, do you anticipate it dropping out of the top
five or you're comfortable that you can follow the consumer there and you can continue to keep it in your top five? Keep them all?
BRITO: Oh, yes. Well, now, I took a chance on putting it our top five because we lead the high end segment in China both the premium and super
premium segment, and that's where the growth is and where the margins are.
So we have amazing brands there like Budweiser, like Corona, Stella Artois, Hoegaarden, Leffe. So brands that really command a lot of loyalty and power
with the consumers, so we choose our brands.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, I want to bring it back to the United States, actually, because I saw a headline coming into this year that wine sales in the
United States have dropped for the first time in 25 years. I know it's a competitor of yours.
But to your point about following the consumer and knowing what the consumer is doing. I guess you're not surprised by a headline like that,
because if that is a surprise to you, you've got a problem.
BRITO: What we saw during the last summer was a seltzer phenomena.
CHATTERLEY: Spicy seltzer.
BRITO: Seltzer, spiked seltzer, hard seltzer has been in the market for more than five years. But last summer, it has really picked up and seltzer
is getting a lot of consumers from outside of the beer category, and wine being one of them as well.
So I should put beer and seltzer, because in the U.S., they are considered the same segment. It grew according to estimates that are public for the
first time in seven years, so it's something that consumers are interested. It's something that's light and refreshing. Less calories, less carbs,
gluten-free option and flavor.
CHATTERLEY: Wine is so un-millennial. It's all about millennials going for these --
BRITO: But we are placing a big bet on canned wines. Canned wine -- wine in cans. Our brand Babe Wine is doing very well in the U.S.
CHATTERLEY: Oh, yes.
BRITO: Babe -- and because it's more approachable. It's less stuffy. And it's more, you know, occasions where consumers are gravitating towards. So
it's going with consumers again. That's where growth is.
CHATTERLEY: You know, one the other big themes here is technology. I was on a panel this morning and I made the bold statement that every company,
whatever sector you're in, ultimately you're a technology company because your being impacted to a lesser or greater degree, whether it's social
media, whether it's automation of your workforce, what do you think of that, agree or disagree or somewhere in between?
[09:45:10]
BRITO: I agree that today, a lot of companies have the opportunity to review the way they do business enabled, or augmented by technology. I
think that's totally true.
But you have to bring together your people, capabilities, retraining, because if you buy an amazing car, but you continue to drive as if you're
driving a very cheap car, it's not going to go much faster.
So it's an opportunity we have --
CHATTERLEY: It's how you bring it to life that technology.
BRITO: -- as companies to review ways of work, and to use technology to augment what we can do. But it's something that by itself, if you just
invest a whole bunch of technology and don't change everything else around it, it won't really yield much results.
CHATTERLEY: I want to talk to you about what I feel is the big theme in Davos this year. We could talk about automation, we could talk about the
future of work, but I want to talk about sustainability because I know this is something that your company in particular is incredibly passionate
about, do we need to see more?
And if you as a company, for all that you do, and I know you have four pillars, could you be doing more in light of the conversation that we're
having here this week?
BRITO: I mean, we can always do more. I mean, what we've felt -- what we learned many years ago is that sustainability is not like part of our
business, a bolt on that we can do nice things to do.
Sustainability is our business.
CHATTERLEY: Whole.
BRITO: Without water, there's no beer. Without farming, there's no beer. Packaging is part of our business and energy. It is an integral part of our
business. We know that our people, our consumers and our planet needs you to take a different angle on those things.
So for example, we're committed by the year 2025 to be a hundred percent sourcing our electricity from renewable sources. We started from pretty
much zero, in two years, we're already -- more than fifty percent.
CHATTERLEY: Wow.
BRITO: On a global basis, and by 2025 or before that, we'd like to have all breweries sourcing electricity from renewable sources with solar or
wind. So that's a commitment, and we're going very fast and trying to work together with governments because in some places, you have to look at the
grids. Be sure that the grids are smart.
Sometimes work together with industry and government to adapt legislations for this new kind of energy because sometimes you're generating some to the
grid, sometimes you're buying from grid, and all those things will enable energy matrix of different countries to be more diversified, as opposed to
dependent on only one or two sources.
CHATTERLEY: Wow, we're going to continue this conversation at another time because I wonder how feasible to be to have all companies doing that, at
this moment, not just specific ones.
We shall reconvene my friend, the CEO of AB InBev there Carlos Brito, thank you so much.
BRITO: Welcome.
CHATTERLEY: Wow. Fifty percent -- Zain. We're going to continue this discussion. I'm going to hand back to you. Sorry about that.
ASHER: Okay. All right, Julia Chatterley live for us there in Davos, thank you so much.
After the break here on FIRST MOVE, as President Trump touts his accomplishment to world leaders in Davos, we will look ahead to his pending
impeachment trial which is about to start in Washington. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:50:12]
ASHER: All right, welcome back to the show. You are looking at live pictures of Washington right now where it's almost 10:00 a.m. as the stage
is set for the impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump. That trial is set to begin in about three hours from now.
Doug Heye is a CNN political commentator. He took a leading communications role in the House and Senate and the Republican National Committee, also
served in George W. Bush's administration. Doug, thank you so much for being with us.
DOUG HEYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thank you.
ASHER: So we are seeing history in the making here. This is a major, major day for Washington. Just walk us through what you anticipate the White
House defense strategy is going to be over the next coming days and weeks.
HEYE: Yes, ultimately, what we've seen from this White House, I think is what we'll see over the coming days, which is almost a Star Wars defense of
these are not the droids you're looking for. Donald Trump didn't do anything wrong. It's time to move on.
And certainly we saw in the Mueller report in the days after that, Donald Trump defined how that was reported and that he did nothing wrong, that it
was an exoneration, even though it wasn't an exoneration.
So, if we expect the Senate to acquit Donald Trump, which I certainly expect they'll do barring anything really crazy coming over the next few
days, this will not be a mere acquittal. This will be a big, beautiful exoneration as Trump tries to define it, even again, if it isn't, which may
give him a real advantage moving forward in what otherwise would be a terrible situation for any President to be in.
ASHER: I want to play you what Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had to say about all of this and then we can talk about it on the other end of it.
Let's play it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCHUMER: Impeachment is the only other power that Congress -- that the Constitution gives when you have an overreaching President and we know that
this President has overreached more than any other President; the other, of course, are elections.
But if you don't have a real trial, that you can judge impeachment on the merits, then this democracy is eroded.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ASHER: So here's my question to you, without necessarily bringing in the House's evidence, without necessarily bringing in witnesses, do you think
that this can actually be a full and fair impeachment trial?
HEYE: I don't think that it's a trial in the sense of how most Americans, most of the world views what an American trial is. Zain, this is a
political process. It was a political one in the House. It's a political one in the Senate, which is why I think, basically everybody assumes that,
again, barring something crazy happens and in the Trump administration, we know that can happen, that this will ultimately result in an acquittal.
I think ultimately, the best result could have been for the Democrats to instead of impeaching censure President Trump for his actions because
clearly this was not a perfect phone call and perfect actions, but also to understand that they're dealing in a political world here, that this could
give Trump an advantage of not just again, declaring a big, beautiful exoneration, but also knowing that in the past two or three months, Trump
has been able to raise a ton of money from supporters that feel that this is an unfair indictment and unfair attack on Trump from Democrats who've
targeted him from day one.
And again, whether or not ultimately that's true or not, that's certainly what Trump supporters feel. And this is why it's played to Trump's
advantage so far in and I can tell you having worked in the house during Bill Clinton's impeachment, this was no advantage for Bill Clinton.
As Nancy Pelosi says, he is going to be impeached forever. That's true. But if he is reelected, I don't know if that really matters in the eyes of
voters.
ASHER: You've talked a lot just during this sort of two to three minutes we have spoken about the fact that yes, it is very, very, very likely that
Donald Trump gets acquitted in all of this, so based on that, just explain to our international audience how invested is the average American in this
impeachment trial, given that many people think that the outcome is already predetermined to some degree?
HEYE: Sure. You know, the reality is in my travels in the country over the past four or five months, they're focused on jobs, they're focused on
healthcare, they're focused on schools, all those things that really affect their daily life. They're not engaged on impeachment, in the way that
people in Washington are where it's the hyper focus of everything that we talk about all day, every day.
The conversation outside of Washington is very different than it is inside Washington. It's also why I think, as you see Democrats running for
President as at they are at debates or they're on the stump right now in Iowa, certainly, and in New Hampshire, they're talking about issues other
than impeachment, because that's what voters want to hear about. That's ultimately what they connect on.
Even with Democratic primary voters. They still want to hear more about what those Democrats are running for, than they necessarily do about Donald
Trump's impeachment. It's a very different conversation outside of Washington.
[09:55:04]
ASHER: I mean, given that the idea you know of trading financial aid for the investigation of a political rival isn't exactly perfect. It certainly
wasn't a perfect phone call, as you put it, how heavily will this impeachment trial weigh on moderate Republicans, do you think?
HEYE: Ultimately, I think we're looking at about four Republicans here who may make a difference: Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitch McConnell and
Lamar Alexander, those are the four who are going to get the most scrutiny.
Certainly, they could they could make a move on witnesses that could cause some changes in how this all proceeds. But if those four don't move, and if
they don't vote to acquit, that would be the problem. But right now, I don't think anybody expects that to happen.
ASHER: All right, Doug Heye. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
HEYE: Thank you.
ASHER: That's it for the show. I'm Zain Asher. Stay with CNN. We now head to Capitol Hill for our special coverage of the U.S. Senate impeachment
trial of President Donald J. Trump. You are watching CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:00:00]
