a new variant of coronavirus

is detected in the united states just as there are new predictions of a much higher potential death toll. donald trump left the white house, but many republicans are refusing to leave him. we have the latest as some party members swear their loyalty to the former president. and the sub reddit page that has wall street in a spin. the latest on gamestop's crazy ride on wall street. live from cnn world headquarters in atlanta, welcome to all of you watching here in the united states, canada and around the world. i'm kim brunhuber. this is "cnn newsroom. " a new forecast warns that more contagious strains of the coronavirus could cause an additional 85,000 deaths in the

u.s. by may. the first two cases of the variant first detected in south africa have now been confirmed in the u.s. it's already circulating in at least 30 other countries. two americans who have it don't know each other and haven't traveled abroad. now this variant may make at least one potential new vaccine less effective. drug maker novovax shows u.k. trials show 85% effectiveness but only 60% in south african trials. the easy spread may complicate u.s. vaccination efforts which are lagging in many states. here's nick watt. >> reporter: the more contagious variant first found in south africa is here. two cases just confirmed in different parts of south carolina. >> there is no known travel history and there's no known connection between the two cases. >> these first documented infections actually happened weeks ago. all this means the mutation is spreading on american soil, and

lab tests of this variant versus the vaccine, the vaccine is -- >> diminished by multi-fold in its ability to cover it. it's still within the range of what you would predict to be protective, but i take no great comfort in that. >> reporter: still fewer than 15 million vaccine doses distributed, a little over than half of them actually in arms. >> on the administration side there is some delay in reporting. >> in these states more than half the doses are still sitting in the freezer. maybe states holding back second doses? >> we need to make sure that's available for them when they return for their second shot. when you do all that math, you still end up with some millions of doses that are sitting on the shelf and have not yet been administered. >> 20,000 national guard already deployed to the effort. fema now asking for more help. up to 10,000 active duty could be deployed. >> we are actively considering support for the vaccine effort

and are prepared to certainly do so. >> reporter: the various variants now circulating here also impact tests, says the fda. >> there may be a difference going forward. >> reporter: testing never quite reached the numbers needed and now it's falling. right now average new case counts are falling all across the country, but still averaging over 160,000 new cases every day, and those faster spreading variants -- >> are now going to overlay on top of that very high baseline. so what we can expect to see in the course of the next i think 6 to 14 weeks is something that we haven't even come close to experiencing yet. >> reporter: the superintendent of schools here in los angeles, the second biggest district in the nation, said maybe schools can reopen here and across the country. more schools sometime later in the spring. the word maybe is doing a lot of work there. he wants to have all staff in

this district vaccinated before the schools open, and the infection rate here is going to have to drop dramatically before those schools can reopen. nick watt, cnn, los angeles. health officials are particularly worried about forbearance. the south african strain plus others from brazil, the u.k. and a new one emerging in california. earlier cnn chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta discussed these variants with our chris cuomo. >> so the numbers are starting to come down in cases and now we start getting the variants, and it raises a question that people don't want to ask, let alone answer, which is are these variants going to force, should we expect, lockdowns? because if they spread so much more quickly and we know we don't have the mask compliance we need, is it going to change the case rate and require more

extreme compliance? >> you're right, no one wants to hear this, chris. i look at the data and understand what is happening in other countries. we talked to clarissa ward in the u.k. yesterday. it's a dire situation, the transmissibility of the u.k. variant has really reeked a lot of transmissibility over there. let me show you the sort of important numbers here if we have them. if something is more lethal than more contagious. play it out. play it out for six months. a generation is five days. what happens after a month, after six generations, you get far more deaths from something being more contagious versus being more lethal. basically it's more contagious, therefore it's likely to spread to vulnerable populations, therefore encounters where you weren't likely to get infected before become higher risk, grocery stores, whatever it may be. that's how you get a much higher

case fatality rate. what causes shutdowns? people will see those numbers but i can tell you what ultimately drives it is what's happening in hospitals. you start to get hospitals that are overwhelmed, they have no more space and they call the leaders and they say, look, we've got no escape hatch here. you've got to stop transmission and the most effective way to do that is to just basically stop people actually coming together in any way for a period of time. who knows. i don't think the country is ready for it. they don't wear masks. that would be an effective strategy, at least for a period of time. the economic fallout has caused the biggest contraction in the u.s. economy since 1946, the year after world war ii ended. president joe biden has a price tag of almost $2 trillion. political divisions mean that quick passage isn't likely. cnn's phil mattingly reports.

>> the first thing we have to do is get this covid package passed. >> reporter: president biden's goal of a bipartisan covid package may be slipping away. >> reporter: the white house and allies ready to press forward. >> republicans can vote for this. >> reporter: top white house officials continue to have discussions with republicans in search of a path forward. >> he wants this to be a bipartisan package. he's listening to democrats and republicans, we all are, to ensure that's what it looks like at the end of the day. >> reporter: biden has also made clear splitting key elements out to reach a deal is not on the table. >> time is of the essence and i must tell you i'm reluctant to cherry pick and take out one or two items here and then have to go through it again because these all are kind of -- they go

sort of hand in glove. >> reporter: and democrats on capitol hill are increasingly convinced a deal with any republicans on biden's $1.9 trillion proposal simply not possible, sources say. >> the smartest thing we can do is act big. >> reporter: and they are ready to push ahead on a partisan basis. >> we would hope that we would have bipartisan cooperation, but we're not taking any tools off the table should they not. >> reporter: all as the depth of the economic destruction comes to light. the u.s. economy contracted 3.5% in 2020, the first annual decline since the 2008 financial crisis and the worst drop since 1946. the damage from the pandemic also driving biden's newest executive action on obamacare. the man who made bfd famous. >> [ bleep ]. >> reporter: now reopening

enrollment for the law whose deal was so big as he presses to undo his predecessor's efforts to kill the law. >> basically the best way to describe it, undo the damage trump has done. >> reporter: while president biden's days have focused on executive actions, that covid relief package, $1.9 trillion proposal is the focal point of the administration right now. the president, as i noted in the piece, has been reaching out to republicans. spoken to two republican senators behind the scenes, rob portman of ohio, susan collins of maine, seeing if they can bring them along. the reality right now both on capitol hill and the white house, there is a recognition that a bipartisan proposal given how big democrats want to go, democrats including president biden seems very out of reach at the moment but they have the numbers right now. no matter how slim those margins are to get something passed. both biden and his top economic advisers have said going big and

acting fast is the number one priority. the number one priority won't get republicans support. phil mattingly, cnn, the white house. in a few hours u.s. president joe biden will be visiting wounded u.s. soldiers. he's to visit with troops at the walter reed military center in bethesda, maryland. the white house hasn't released any other details yet. the chief judge of federal court in washington, d.c., scolded capitol riot suspects on thursday. he said it wasn't a peaceful protest on january 6th but was an attack on the peaceful transfer of power. suspect richard barnet who bragged about sitting at a desk at speaker nancy pelosi's office is still in jail. he's shown a disregard for the law and poses a threat.

u.s. capitol police on wednesday arrested a man who say they had a gun and 20 rounds of ammunition near the u.s. capitol. the 71-year-old west virginia man was taken into custody and he started angrily shouting at national guard troops. he had stop the steal paperwork and contact information of senators and representatives. republicans lost the white house, senate and house during donald trump's single term, so why do some of them still believe he can help republicans regain majority control two years from now? we'll explain coming up after a short break. stay with us. one or two clicks and everything was up and running. i was printing out labels and saving money. shipstation saves us so much time. it makes it really easy and seamless. pick an order, print everything you need, slap the label onto the box, and it's ready to go. our costs for shipping were cut in half. just like that. shipstation. the #1 choice of online sellers.

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the deadly riot at the u.s. capitol on january 6th has many lawmakers deeply concerned for their own safety. the acting capitol police chief has proposed ringing the capitol with a fence but it's not popular. they don't want the people's house to become a fortress and house democratic leader nancy pelosi says the security threat isn't just outside the capitol, she said it's also coming from

other lawmakers. >> i do believe, and i have said this all along, that we will probably need a supplemental for more security for members when the enemy is within the house of representatives, a threat that members are concerned about in addition to what is happening outside. >> former president trump may have retired to florida, but his influence within the republican party is as potent as ever. despite the deadly attack on the u.s. capitol, some cling to president trump as the key to their political futures. here's cnn's jeff zeleny. >> reporter: the american flag is proudly waiving at former president trump's mar-a-lago resort, but the shining sun belies the storm brewing inside the republican party. kevin mccarthy, the house gop leader made a pilgrimage to florida hoping to get back into the former president's good

graces after angering trump. >> the president bears responsibility for wednesday's attack on congress by mob rioters. >> reporter: mccarthy has been backpedaling ever since making clear he still sees trump as the leader of the republican party, a view not shared by senate minority leader mitch mcconnell who hasn't spoken to trump in more than a month. the mar-a-lago meeting was focused on taking back the house in 2022 adding his endorsement means perhaps more than any endorsement at any time. with his looming impeachment trial, trump remains front and center in the republican party even as it faces an identity crisis. in a private call with house republicans this week mccarthy admonished his members to stop the in fighting cnn has learned bluntly saying to cut that crap out with no more attacks on one another but he's done little to actually stop it with florida congressman gates traveling to wyoming to try taking down liz

ch cheney, the number three house republican who called for impeachment. >> if you want to prove you have the power, defeat liz cheney in this upcoming election and wyoming will bring washington to its knees. >> the gop turmoil is playing out as a series of side shows, none louder than marjorie taylor greene who deleted her social media posts. >> enough is enough. enough is enough. >> that's what happens. people will still do mass shootings. being used by the left because you're young. >> reporter: the congresswoman who has promoted qanon security theories was given a plumb seat on the house education committee. they said the party is at a dangerous crossroads. >> she's not a republican. i don't think she should have any committees.

>> a fear of reining in fringe republican elements has created an opening for democrats which speaker nancy pelosi seized on today. >> assigning her to the education committee when she has mocked the killing of little children at sandy hook elementary school, when she has mocked the killing of teenagers in high school at marjorie stone ham douglas high school, what could they be anything. >> david hogg, the parkland student who was the subject of taylor greene's harassment telling cnn he had a message for leader mccarthy. >> if you say this is not your party, actually call it out and hold her accountable. >> just a week after donald trump left office clearly in disgrace after a second impeachment, many republicans said it was time to turn the page but house republican leader kevin mccarthy made it clear the gop is still the party of donald

trump. jeff zeleny, cnn, washington. cnn politics white house reporter steven paulsen joins me from washington. after the election i spoke to plenty of experts, i'm sure you did as well, this was it, donald trump's incitement of the insurrection would give them the cover they needed to distance themselves and make the republican party more than the party of trump, a few high profile republicans seemed to have taken some hesitant steps and came scurrying back. of all the ways republicans showed their feelty to trump, what surprised you the most? >> i think what surprised me the most, kim, is nine days into the biden administration the fight for democracy that took place during the last few weeks and months of the trump administration isn't over. in fact, it may be just beginning. the forces in the republican party that supported and lifted

and were exploited by donald trump are very much alive and far from learning the lesson of his defeat, the loss of the house and the loss of the senate over his four year term, those radical extremist voices in the republican party are doubling down. they've decided, i think, that the future of their party lies with trump and trump's voters. >> you asked the question rhetorically in your excellent piece there. the question is, is yet another doubling down on grassroots fury and the trump base the best way to win back americans, especially those in suburban areas who rejected the ex-president, lost the house to the senate in a single four-term year? the answer seems to be yes and no depending whether you're talking about the house or the senate. explain the contrast here. because as you say, they lost everything. why would you double down on that? >> that's right. now one of the reasons why the house and senate are different is because a lot of the

districts in the house have been gerrymandered. they've been drawn by the parties in such a way that it's very difficult for them lose. you get bunches of republican voters put in one district, bunches of democratic voters put in another district. what that really means is in the house that is elected every two years, you have to have a massive base turnout from your more enthusiastic activists. you can win seats that way. we're talking about probably 40, 50 competitive seats in the house. so massive turnout either way can swing it. that's why you really need your engaged base. >> it seems like such an easy win to sanction the extreme of the extreme like congresswoman marjorie taylor green instead of promotion, stern talking to. what's the calculus there? it's not as if she wields enormous influence and power. >> the extreme of the extreme is becoming the mainstream of the republican party.

it's much more right wing than it was even four or eight years ago. i think marjorie taylor greene is not an outlier in terms of the way that she's viewed by the base of the party, and she may actually be a harold of more extreme radical conspiratorial candidates that are coming up. kevin mccarthy, he's made his bed with trump. he cannot now start sanctioning people who are endorsed by the former president and who support former president. marjorie taylor greene had a town hall meeting in her district in georgia just this evening and she was recycling those lies about the election being stolen. of course, it wasn't. massive numbers of republicans believe that, believe those conspiracy theories now. that's donald trump's legacy and that is now working on the

republican party and u.s. politics more generally. >> so among the people calling for the expulsion of marjorie taylor greene are parkland school shooting survivors and victims' families. scott beagle was one of the 17 people killed in the 2018 school shooting. geography teacher was shot while trying to save his students. his mother spoke earlier with cnn. we'll hear from her in a moment. first, a video she shared before talking with don lemon. some call it disturbing. it's silent and show the moments her son opened the door to allow his students to run to safety before he was shot .

linda, again, you asked us -- you wanted to show us this. why was this important for us to see tonight? >> because congresswoman greene talks about the shooting as a staged event. it was not a staged event. you know, i only wish that the body in the casket that i identified was a prop and not my son. for the -- you know, for the past 1080 days, and that's how many days it was since the massacre, and i will probably be counting days for the rest of my life, i wish the shooter was a paid actor. if that was so my son would be

alive today and i'd be watching your show, not be on it responding to her lies. i mean, she has no right to trivialize the murder of 17 innocent lives that were taken on february 14th, 2018. she has no right to negate scott's heroism and she has no right to demean my son's memory with her conspiracy theories. >> heartbreaking. we'll have more news after the break.

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you're watching "cnn newsroom." it's been anything but a smooth rollout for the covid vaccines in europe this week amidst a very public fight with british swedish drug maker astrazeneca over drug delays. they're imposing new rules that require vaccine exporters to get their national government's approval for any vaccine shipments outside of the european union be and there is a wrinkle over astrazeneca's vaccine in germany where they will limit the vaccine to people under 65 years old citing insufficient data for its efficacy in older people. amid the dispute, belgian health authorities have done a spot inspection and that's where we find cnn's melissa bell this morning. melissa, it must come as a shock to the millions of older brittains who have got that oxford astrazeneca shot that german scientists say they're not confident it will work. what's behind this? >> reporter: that's right.

what the german authority says essentially is that the data that's been provided on the efficiency of the vaccine for over 65 is not enough. there isn't enough there for them to allow it. it's been available in the united kingdom since early january. many people received it. it's because of those fears that we heard from both the u.k. rec gu lator and astrazeneca their belief it is sufficient that people can be safe even if they're over 65 and taking it. we should hear later today about the european approval of the european vaccination. it's expected to deliver its verdict on the ability of the company to market the vaccine. it's important to know that a vaccine hasn't been available in the e.u. so those shortages we've been talking about are having to do with moderna and pfizer. it's base there are shortages in germany, spain, france all announcing they have to slow

down their vaccination campaigns that you have to understand how difficult the situation is with astrazeneca. the eu was really counting on the vaccines. >> all very complex and intertwined. then there have been further salvos in the vaccine wars between the u.k. and the e.u. i understand the e.u. is deciding whether to place export restrictions on vaccines. explain this for us. what's the latest? >> reporter: that's right, kim. the e.u. has made it very plain that they are playing no games here. there was an inspection that you mentioned that produces the astrazeneca vaccine here on the continent. the europeans want to make sure astrazeneca is telling the truth when it says it's because of slow production at sites like this that the rollout is being delayed and there are shortfalls in the european delivery. the europeans are now urging and we heard from ursula vanderlin, europe is going to make sure

it's crystal clear they're going to get all of the vaccines that have been promised. >> thank you for bringing us through that. appreciate it. portugal will close the border in the coming hours in order to slow the spread of the virus. the restriction will be closed in two weeks. cases are surging of the portugal set another new number with 300 covid deaths. hospitals are full. esa soarez brings us inside. >> reporter: a silence fills the icu ward in portugal. here as patient after patient battle for breath to life itself, only their heart monitors echo through these walls. for a country that mastered the first wave of covid-19, this is an alarming sight. an epidemic so ferocious, they're overwhelmed and nearly capacity.

what's most at need is medical staff. >> translator: i would love to always have one nurse for six patients but most time i have one tending to eight. >> reporter: and they are over worked and beyond exhausted. >> translator: i don't even have words to say it. the difficult part is really working too many hours. >> reporter: but there's no respite for them yet as hospitals feel the immense weight of the latest wave. >> translator: the hospitals are all overwhelmed and this hospital is no exception. we are nearing our limit, if we're not there already, and what we're seeing is that the services that exist in portugal are starting to be over run by the tsunami. >> reporter: across the country hospitals are struggling to work with the rapid surge with doctors telling cnn they estimate 25% of all new cases have been caused by the variant discovered in the u.k., so it's all hands on deck here with large military health units

being set up in lisbon and even cafeterias are being turned into wards. all in a bid to avoid scenes like this, patients being triaged in lines of ambulances waiting outside in hospitals in lisbon. but as the admissions grow throughout the country, so do the scars they carry. the doctor tells me. >> we are dealing with the patients suffering in a way we have never seen before, and it's a very slow disease. it's not like they arrive in the hospital and they die. they are there for hours, for days. >> reporter: dr. corona has been on the front line of wars in the middle east and africa, but this, he tells me, isn't a war. >> it's quite complex to deal with intensive care patients. you cannot find specialists in a vending machine. the problem is that people don't understand that there is a limit to our capacity. >> reporter: doctors say the

messaging out of portugal has been clear. many have criticized the government on relax ing efforts. a debate staff at this hospital simply have no time for. here there's only a spirit of mission. the fear is that this will soon fadeaway as exhaustion and anxiety begin to set in. esa soarez, cnn. the pandemic is piling enormous amounts of pressure on health care officials. some are using brutally frank language to describe what they're facing. some are making matters worse. i talked to katie sanderson in lon done. she's with the doctor's association u.k. i asked her if she had experienced any backlash from covid-19 deniers and this is what she told me. >> it's so upsetting and

demoralizing and i think we need to be very, very careful about these two separate issues. it's completely legitimate to have a debate about how to manage covid in the midst of society from a public health perspective, what measures should be in place, what degree of lockdown we should have. i think that's a totally legitimate debate. that is completely different to denying something which is a fact, which is that covid does exist, it is very infectious, it makes a proportion of people it infects extremely ill and it will make some of them die even with the best medical care and i think it's really important to differentiate between those two things. the reason it is so upsetting, people saying covid is a hoax, is because you know it will cause some people to behave in a way they will take risks they wouldn't otherwise have taken, they get covid and they potentially become very, very unwell.

that's preventible. i think when you're in hospital absolutely doing your best to look after people to get them through it, it's just horrifying, the idea that the people are getting this infection needlessly when they could not have done and i suppose that's why we all feel so, so strongly about it. you know, people are entitled to hold whatever views they want, but i don't think we should be tolerant of views that endanger other people's lives. >> often those in power aren't helping either. in the u.k. you see something we see here, medical populism, government-led antiscience views in the most recent case in the u.k. they're a member of parliament endorsed the conspiracy theories. covid numbers are being manipulated to exaggerate the scale of the pandemic which sounds very familiar to those of us here. how has that made the situation worse and harder for you to deal with? >> it's appalling. i think what we need to be very

realistic about is this is the situation we are in in the u.k. with a radical lockdown, which is that we have nearly 4,000 patients on ventilators, we have hospitals where 70 or 80% of the beds are taken up and hospitals which would normally be full with patients with other illnesses at this time of year. we have huge amounts of elective surgery which is han been counselled. knee replacements, hip replacements, cancer and massive situations on their lives. this is a radical lockdown and you have to ask yourself what would convince these people, they say this is a manageable risk and it's being over exaggerated. this is the situation we're in with these measures, you wonder what could these people want. do they want them dieing in streets and corridors before they will accept this is serious.

it's sort of begging belief. the nhs isn't overwhelmed. we have intensive care units where one intensive care nurse is looking after two or three patients which is sort of unheard of previously. intensive care is an environment where people have one-to-one nursing. we're under so much pressure and i think, you know, people need to be careful what they wish for. none of us want to be living with these kind of restrictions, but also just want to make sure that life isn't lost preventively through getting into a situation where people who need medical care aren't able to access it. russian opposition leader alexey navalny will stay behind bars after losing an appeal. what the u.s. state department is saying. a live report from moscow is next. stay with us. even hanging with your dog.

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russian opposition leader alexey navalny will stay in amos could you jail after he lost his appeal to be released. yesterday a judge said his 30 day detention is lawful as he awaits another court date next month. police grabbed navalny last week as he returned from germany where he recovered from novichok poisoning. joe biden brought this up with pliz vladimir putin. here's fred pleitgen. navalny staying in jail wasn't a surprise. it's going to make the tensions between his supporters a lot worse. >> reporter: i think you're right. the tensions are going to grow because of that. i was inside the courtroom and i saw that feed, alexey navalny was on a video link from the jail where he's being held, which is one of the toughest

jails in moscow, which is saying a lot. i think if anything alexey navalny went into that hearing pretty much believing that his detention was going to be prolonged but he did understand that he did have a platform there to speak not only to his supporters, but all that would then be inside the international discussion as well. alexey navalny wasted no time. he ripped into the court, ripped into his detention and also ripped into russian president vladimir putin. let's have a look at what happened. kremlin critic alexey navalny not backing down despite being kept in jail after a russian court hearing that he called a sham. this is demonstrative lawlessness aimed at intimidating me and everyone else, he said. it's not even done by the judges because the judges here are just obedient slaves. it's done by people who have been stealing from our country for 20 years. navalny was detained immediately when he landed in moscow after

recovering from poisoning by the chemical weapon novichok. tens of thousands came out last weekend to demand his release despite a massive police response. far from being intimidated, navalny, who was only allowed to attend his own hearing via video link from the notorious moscow jail where he's detained, called on russians to keep protesting. i support those who protest, he said. they are the last barrier preventing this country from slipping into complete degradation. they are the defenders of our country and true patriots. won't be able to scare us. we are the majority. vladimir putin recently took the unusual step of publicly denying ownership of a palacial black sea residence that navalny's group says was funded by corruption. the opposition leader tells me he believes they are nervous and

looking to lock navalny up for a long time. >> translator: today's decision is a clear signal that next week he will be essentially sent to prison. >> reporter: surprisingly, turn out at last week's pro navalny demo was high not only in moscow but in many regions across all of russia. the lawyer helps those who get in trouble for protesting five miles from moscow. >> translator: i was honestly surprised by how many people came out. we usually have small demos, under 1,000 people, but this was a huge event. >> reporter: the kremlin has ripped into what it calls, quote, illegal protests, but despite remaining in detention, alexey navalny and his movement so far show no signs of slowing down. kim, alexey navalny at the end of the hearing showed himself to be quite disappointed and angry. the last thing we heard on the video link as it was being cut

from that prison that he was in was that he didn't expect anything different even as that hearing began. alexey navalny later published a letter where he says he continues to support those who are protesting on his behalf. his organization and himself are calling for further nationwide protests here in russia to happen this sunday. so certainly this looks like it's something that at least in the near and mid term is not going away. of course, increasingly also becoming an issue for russian president vladimir putin. >> thank you so much. senior international correspondent frederick pleitgen in moscow. no fee trading app that dared to pump the brakes on gamestop's run is accused of market manipulation not just by millennials but by prominent republicans and democrats. we'll have details next. stay with us.

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right now and see how much you can save. remember, shipping is always free. the u.s. senate banking committee will meet over the turbulent state of the stock market. that's after investors on reddit banded together to stick it to the wall street establishment and get rich quick. they drove up stocks in several companies, including gamestop, a

struggling chain of video game stores. so much so in fact that robinhood, the trading app, blocked trading for the company sparking outrage. to make sense of it all is john deftarios joining us from abu dhabi. john, for nearly a month these day traders could basically trade at will. now that's all changed. explain to us how this is happening. >> well, it's extraordinary because this has been a one way bet before the attention and then the attention and boom attracts some regulation. that's how we saw it here. take a look at three major stocks that have been on the radar of 13, right, gamestop, amc entertainment, bed, bath&beyond. look at the wave and when they pulled the plug on the trade, how much volatility and the correction. robinhood suggesting they had to do this. they are regulated by the sec. they have to have capital

requirements to cover the trades and losses. the first time they did so in a major way. we spoke to the founder of the investment page on reddit and he said the game has changed because the day traders have more sophistication than people think and are armed with technology. let's take a listen. >> the access, which is the key to your question, is the biggest part. because this is so easy, free, readily available, completely gamefied on people's cell phones, they can get in and participate and start using these sophisticated leveraged tools that they're able to exploit the asymmetry of money, right? a lot of people, little money but they're forcing the big guys to -- you know, they're forcing the hands of the big guys. >> reporter: and that's the view on capitol hill challenging the big guys and the question being raised is why would they stop

from buying the stock yesterday? we have this strange alliance between alexandria ocasio-cortez, leftist progressive and ted cruz, alt right progressive saying that should not have happened, trying to protect their ability to trade, and that's why they're calling for investigations on capitol hill. a former regulator at the securities and exchange commission says we have to take a bigger look. you have a herd of 2 million traders acting in unison. if that's the case, it may need to be regulated in the future because of the volatility. >> fascinating story we'll keep following. thank you for explaining it all for us. john defterios, live from abu dhabi. that wraps this hour of "cnn newsroom." i'm kim brunhuber. "early start" is up next. want to brain better?

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welcome to our viewers in the united states and all around the world. this is "early start." i'm laura jarrett. >> i'm christine romans. it is friday, january 29th. happy friday. 5 a.m. exactly in the east. the enemy is within. the united states faces a raging pandemic, a struggling economy, domestic terrorism, but it's hard for lawmakers to address the problems when they don't trust each other. speaker nancy pelosi says it's hard to keep members safe when some of the members are the problem. >> we will probably need a