Return to Transcripts main page

Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Netanyahu Warns Congress About Iran; Clinton's Camp Slams N.Y. Times Report; Supreme Court Takes Up Obamacare; Turkish Plane Skids Off Runway

Aired March 04, 2015 - 04:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: A nuclear Iran. Israel's prime minister warning Congress that any nuclear deal with Iran is a bad one. Benjamin Netanyahu's speech creating controversy in Washington and around the world, but will his stand against this White House backfire?

Live team coverage breaking down our very big story begins right now.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good to see you today. I'm John Berman. Thirty minutes past the hour right now.

New reaction this morning in Washington, around the world to Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu's speech on Capitol Hill, blasting the notion of a nuclear deal with Iran. The prime minister really held nothing back in his address to a joint meeting of Congress that drew repeated standing ovations. The speech is also drawing full-throttle criticism from the White House and the president himself.

Let's bring in CNN's White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski -- Michelle.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, John and Christine.

I think it's safe to say that Prime Minister Netanyahu did not disappoint. For many of those who wanted to go there and hear him speak. This was an impassioned speech, drawing thunderous applause from the U.S. Congress, especially those Republicans who invited him there without the White House even knowing about it.

Netanyahu laid out first of all that the U.S. is great, standing with Israel, that Iran is bad, calling it a dark and murderous regime. And then, he ripped to shreds this potential deal that the U.S. and its allies are trying to work out with Iran over its nuclear program by the end of this month.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: That deal will not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. It would all but guarantee that Iran gets those weapons, lots of them. That's why this deal is so bad. It doesn't block Iran's path to the bomb. It paves Iran's path to the bomb.

KOSINSKI: The White House tried to downplay this, of course, saying this isn't anything we haven't heard before, that the prime minister presented no viable alternative. Even though President Obama did not watch this speech, he did spend it nearly 15 minutes responding to it.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The alternative that the prime minister offers is no deal, in which case Iran will immediately begin once again pursuing its nuclear program, accelerate its nuclear program, without us having any insight into what they're doing and without constraint.

KOSINSKI: So, now that we've heard Netanyahu, we can see how over the past couple of days, the White House really tried to steal his thunder and preempt virtually everything he said and make an argument against it, saying that if you add more restrictions on to Iran now, more sanctions, or trying to get it to entirely dismantle its nuclear program or set an indefinite time frame on the deal, then Iran just won't take it -- tantamount to no deal at all and in stark contrast to the Israelis, this administration feels that no deal would be way worse than this one.

But keep in mind, Obama did say that at this point, it is more likely than not that Iran rejects this deal -- John and Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: Thank you for that, Michelle.

Now, while Benjamin Netanyahu spoke in the House chamber, an audience just as important was 6,000 miles away in Israel, the prime minister, of course, facing an election in only two weeks. Many people back home feel that speech was part of his re-election campaign.

For the latest reaction in Israel, let's bring in CNN's Oren Liebermann. He is live in Jerusalem for us this morning.

Good morning, Oren.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN REPORTER: Good morning, Christine.

There is no doubt that even if Netanyahu did not intend this as a political speech, it is certainly being viewed through that lens now with less than two weeks to go until the elections. This is polling as a very close election with Likud neck and neck with Labor or the Zionist camp on the left to see who will win the election and be Israel's next prime minister.

If this is viewed as a political speech, then Isaac Herzog, viewed as his main rival, came out immediately after Netanyahu's speech and blasted the prime minister for straining U.S./Israel relations and doing nothing to advance the dialogue on how to keep Israel safe from a nuclear Iran.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ISAAC HERZOG, CHAIRMAN, ISRAELI LABOR PARTY ZIONIST UNION (through translator): The painful truth is that after the applause Netanyahu remained alone, Israel remained isolated, and negotiations with Iran will continue without the involvement of Israel. This speech, therefore, greatly undermined the relationship between Israel and the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIEBERMANN: Now, the shift focuses to those elections. And the real question in light of this speech is whose opinion did he change? Those who liked him before certainly like him even more now after a very charismatic speech. Those who didn't like him before and view this purely as a political move still don't like him.

So, there are some undecided voters here. We'll find out especially in the next few days what they thought of this and if their opinions on Netanyahu changed at all because of this speech -- Christine.

ROMANS: Meantime, two world leaders who do not see eye to eye at the moment, very publicly airing those disagreements. Thank you so much for that, Oren.

BERMAN: The furious controversy in Washington and in Israel does not seem to be slowing down the ongoing nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran. The Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif noted that even though the Israeli prime minister is, quote, "trying to disrupt a deal," the negotiations are, as he put it, starting to move forward.

Secretary of State John Kerry is still in Switzerland for those talks. He heads to Saudi Arabia later this week to try to reassure King Salman that any agreement will also be in Saudi interests.

But let's go to Iran right now. Senior international correspondent Frederik Pleitgen is in Tehran where he can tell us how this is being received there.

There's a lot of talking about Iran going on right now in the United States and Israel. What's the Iranian reaction?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, John.

Well, it certainly was a vicious reaction to that speech. They are basically going along several lines. On one hand, they're saying that the speech unfairly criticized Iran. They are also, of course, maintaining that their nuclear program is for solely peaceful purposes. They called the speech Iranophobic.

It was interesting because as it was going on, it wasn't being aired live on TV because the Iranians would never air the speech of an Israeli prime minister, but they did have video of the speech up and immediately, that banner saying it was an Iranophobic speech. That's the line that the Iranians have continued to take. They are saying that the speech and we got this as a statement from the spokesperson for the foreign ministry saying that the speech was purely for political purposes, purely for election purposes, they say.

And the other main point that they're trying to make, John, is they are saying that this will do nothing to derail the negotiations. However, it will drive a wedge between Israel and its Western allies and specifically between Israel and the United States. There was some analysis going on on Iranian state TV, also, of course, from Iranian politicians. They view this as a big humiliation for the Obama administration and for the president himself.

But again, they are saying this is not going to do anything to change their own position. They're saying they're going to remain a part of these negotiations. At the same time, of course, John, we always have to keep in mind that there are different views of opinion here as well. And there are a lot of hard-liners in Tehran also that want this deal to fall through, and they are saying that they would rather live with sanctions than to do a deal with the West -- John.

BERMAN: It is so fascinating to see that its domestic politics in Israel, domestic politics in the U.S., and domestic politics in Iran which may complicate this nuclear deal more than anything else.

Our Frederik Pleitgen in Tehran this morning, lucky to have you there -- thanks, Fred.

ROMANS: Back home, Hillary Clinton's camp firing back at "The New York Times" report about her exclusive use of personal e-mails at the State Department. One of her aides telling us nothing shady was going on, that her actions were in keeping with what former secretaries had done.

Brianna Keilar has the latest for us -- Brianna.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John and Christine.

While heading the State Department, Hillary Clinton relied solely on a personal e-mail account. It's not that strange for a secretary to have a personal account, but only a personal account, this is out of the norm.

And while Clinton may not have broken the law by doing this, she certainly broke with the spirit of the law. Clinton released 55,000 pages of her e-mails to the State Department recently, but she has unilateral control over this account, and Republicans are hammering her for it.

REP. TREY GOWDY (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: The State Department does not have all of Secretary Clinton's e-mails on its servers. Only she has a complete record. And the committee is going to have to go to her and her attorneys and her e-mail providers to ensure we have access to everything the American people are entitled to know.

KEILAR: A Clinton aide tells me her use of just a personal account was nothing nefarious. She had a BlackBerry before she became secretary, he tells me, and she kept using it after she entered the Obama administration.

But security experts warn there are huge security risks using just a private account. There's no backup system to keep e-mails if they are deleted. Since Clinton left office, the National Archive Laws have changed. Private accounts are only to be used for official government business in the case of emergencies now -- John and Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right. Brianna Keilar, thanks for that.

The fight to fund the Department of Homeland Security is over. House Republicans abandoning their attempt to gut the president's executive actions on immigration, passing a clean funding bill that heads off a partial DHS shutdown. President Obama will sign the measure. There was speculation such a move could cost John Boehner his speakership, but most Republicans are praising him for standing up to the White House.

BERMAN: A big day at the Supreme Court today. There is a new challenge to Obamacare. This is the third time the high court has been asked to rule on the president's signature health care law. This lawsuit claims that the wording of the Affordable Care Act makes it illegal for the government to offer health insurance tax credit subsidies in more than 30 states. More than 7.5 million Americans could lose these subsidies, effectively lose their insurance, if this challenge is successful.

ROMANS: All right. Forty minutes past the hour.

Time for an early start on your money this morning. U.S. stock futures down. They're following yesterday's lead. The NASDAQ pulled back from 5,000, that's a number it crossed on Monday for the first time in 15 years.

The Dow and the S&P 500 also pulled back from Monday's record highs. The iPhone once again the world's top-selling smartphone. Samsung has been outselling Apple for years. But in the fourth quarter, Apple sold 75 million iPhones. That was about 20 percent of the global market, just enough -- just enough to inch ahead of Samsung.

It was the iPhone's best quarter ever, thanks to big demand in the U.S. and major inroads in China. Sales in China surged 70 percent last quarter.

And I encourage you all to look at a great story on CNN Money this morning. It's about all of the regular people who have been getting rich in Apple stock. That stock has been a very good performer for regular good old American folks.

BERMAN: Forrest Gump. Lieutenant Dan invested in Apple for Forrest Gump and he got rich.

ROMANS: That's right. I forgot.

BERMAN: It's totally true. ROMANS: Take a look at the story. I'll send out a link to it. It's really interesting.

All right. Forty-one minutes past the hour.

A troubling new report on racism in Ferguson, Missouri. What investigators found out about justice in the town where unarmed black teenager Michael Brown was killed. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: This morning, the Justice Department will release a report detailing a widespread pattern of racial bias in the Ferguson, Missouri Police Department. The federal investigation was prompted by the shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown by a Ferguson officer last summer.

Let's get more now from CNN's Ed Lavandera -- Ed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christine and John, the report expected to be released by the Justice Department today confirms what many residents here in Ferguson say that they have known for quite some time -- the accusations that the Ferguson police department has been involved in widespread racial bias for years.

Some of the statistics expected to be released in this report include showing that during a two-year period, even though the city of Ferguson is 67 percent black, it found -- the report found that 93 percent of all arrests involved African-Americans, 90 percent of traffic citations were issued by police officers were given to African-Americans, 85 percent of all vehicle stops involved African- Americans. And at any time a Ferguson police officer used force, 88 percent of those times, it involved African-Americans.

And many leaders here say that what they hope this will do is send a message throughout St. Louis County and other cities like Ferguson here in the area. Many community leaders here say that this is not just confined to Ferguson, that it happens throughout the area. City officials here in Ferguson have not commented publicly on this report yet.

They say they are reviewing it. And on Wednesday, later today, are expected to have some sort of press conference, some sort of comments after they review all of the report -- Christine and John.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right. Ed, thanks for that.

We're learning more this morning about the homeless man who was fatally shot by Los Angeles police officers. Demonstrators marched from Skid Row to Los Angeles police headquarters Monday to protest the shooting which was all caught on video. Police say the suspect was known as Africa was shot when he reached

for the officer's gun, so say police. Reports say he was a French national, he was wanted for violating parole on a bank robbery conviction.

BERMAN: The jury is now seated in the trial of accused Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev begins this morning in federal court in Boston. Opening arguments this morning. Eighteen jurors were selected, 10 women, eight men, six will be alternates, although the six will not know until the conclusion of the trial.

Tsarnaev is charged with killing three people, injuring 264 after exploding homemade bombs near the marathon finish line in 2013. Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty. That trial expected to run into June.

ROMANS: Testimony resumes later this morning in another high-profile trial in Massachusetts. Former NFL star Aaron Hernandez is accused of murdering his friend Odin Lloyd. A police fingerprint expert will be back on the stand for more cross-examination by the defense.

On Tuesday, he testified that the fingerprints of Hernandez and Lloyd were found inside a rental car allegedly used to drive Odin Lloyd to where he was ultimately killed.

BERMAN: Former CIA Director David Petraeus striking a plea deal that will allow him to avoid prison time. Petraeus pleading guilty to mishandling classified military information, sharing it with his biographer who was also his mistress. Under the deal, he will get two years probation and a $40,000 fine.

Now, the former general resigned in disgrace as the head of the CIA in 2012 after admitting this affair. He insists the relationship did not begin until after he retired from the military. Why is that important? Well, if it had been going on while he was in the military, that would have broken an entirely different law.

ROMANS: That is just a remarkable chapter for a storied general, someone who was the face, really, of the Iraq war who has the ear of presidents.

BERMAN: Still has the ear of presidents. There are a lot of people in Washington who say his advice is so badly need, that it's time to move past this scandal.

ROMANS: Wow. Forty-eight minutes past the hour.

New this morning: a jetliner with hundreds of board crash-lands on the runway. We have dramatic new images of passengers making their escape. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right. New this morning, investigators in Nepal trying to figure out what caused a Turkish airlines flight to crash land nose down and skid off the runway while trying to land at Kathmandu airport. Hundreds of people were forced to evacuate. Just look at that picture.

Let's get the latest now from CNN's Sumnina Udas.

Good morning, Sumnina.

SUMNINA UDAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.

It's still too early for investigators to say exactly what happened in this case, but poor visibility seems to be one of the main reasons here. This plane actually circled the Kathmandu Valley for about an hour and a half, trying to land.

We spoke to one of the passengers on the plane, and he said it circled about seven times around this area, which is about 100 miles square kilometers. And it tried once to land. It sort of went very close to the runway and then took off again. And then again 45 minutes later tried to land, and that's when it crashed onto the runway and off to that grassy area that you're seeing in the pictures there.

Now, all of the passengers were evacuated and crew members were evacuated safely. There are no injuries. And as you can see, the evacuation slides are out. The airport currently is closed for all international flights -- John.

BERMAN: Sumnina Udas for us -- those pictures are remarkable. Very, very good news that everyone did make it out safely. Thanks, Sumnina.

ROMANS: Really frightening.

All right. What is the most valuable skill on Wall Street? An MBA? Math ability? How about salesmanship? It's none of those things.

We're going to tell you --

BERMAN: Tap dancing.

ROMANS: Tap dancing, anchoring TV -- no, that's not one. We're going to tell you what it is after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Let's get an early start on your money this morning.

U.S. stock futures, they're down a little bit right now. They're following yesterday's lead. The NASDAQ pulling back from 5,000. It crossed 5,000 for the first time in 15 years this week. The Dow and the S&P 500 also pulling back from those records set Monday.

One reason for confidence, though, a new survey from the Business Roundtable finds CEOs of major companies are feeling more optimistic than they were late last year.

OK. Being nice, John Berman, is more important than having an MBA. That's according to Blackstone's CEO, Stephen Schwarzman. It's not what you typically hear about Wall Street, but he says the smart, fast-moving environment doesn't work if employees aren't nice to each other. An MBA, he says, is less essential and more expensive. Schwarzman is a leader in private equity, made a stunning $690 million last year.

Perspective, it took him only 12 days to earn Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein's pay of $24 million.

BERMAN: I feel like being nice cost me thousands. I really do.

ROMANS: Nice pays. It pays to be nice. It pays to be smart, and it pays to be nice. Don't you think? An MBA doesn't hurt.

BERMAN: An MBA doesn't hurt, exactly.

ROMANS: Getting paid to graduate on time? That will be a reality at Howard University starting next year. They're going to pay them to graduate on time, John, at Howard. If you graduate in four years, it will pay half the cost of your last semester. That's a savings of about $6,000. It's part of efforts to make Hward more affordable to students and graduate with less debt.

Right now, about 46 percent of Howard's students graduate in four years. That, to me, those numbers scare me that less than half of students graduate in four years. Look at the national average, 39 percent. If you wonder why we have a student loan crisis, it's because people are taking out $20,000 to $40,000 a year in student loans, and they're not getting out on time. Or in some cases they're dropping out, and then that good debt becomes bad debt.

BERMAN: Four-year college is not four-year college for the majority of American students.

ROMANS: So bravo, Howard University. That's what I've got to say.

BERMAN: EARLY START continues right now.

(MUSIC)