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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

New York Prison Break: New Arrest; More Charges for Church Shooter; President Obama Snags Major Trade Win; Stocks Fall on Greece Concerns; Tsarnaev Apologizes at Sentencing; Pakistan Heat Wave. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired June 25, 2015 - 04:00   ET

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


[04:00:01] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking overnight: a new arrest in the prison break of two escaped killers. A second prison worker now behind bars for his alleged role in the crime. Details ahead.

New charges can soon be coming for the Charleston church shooter as the first of his victims is laid to rest today.

The Boston marathon bomber says he's sorry. New reaction after the killer's apology.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm John Berman. It's Thursday, June 25th, 4:00 a.m. in the East. Christine Romans is off today.

Happening today: New York state prison guard is expected to plead not guilty in connection with the shocking escape of two convicted killers nearly three weeks ago. Investigators tell CNN that 57-year-old Gene Palmer gave the inmates tools to fix circuit breakers in the catwalk behind their cells. Palmer told detectives he supervised the work and reclaimed the tools after. But this is the same catwalk that Richard Matt and David Sweat used in their escape.

For the latest, let's turn to national correspondent Jason Carroll in Plattsburgh, New York -- Jason.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John, that prison guard was arraigned Wednesday night. He's now in custody, facing several serious charges, including promoting dangerous contraband, destroying evidence, and official misconduct. I'm told that these are low-level felonies and at one point, he could have faced an even more serious charge of aiding and abetting.

But because he was cooperating with investigators, I'm told the district attorney chose not to pursue that particular charge. But still, serious charges nonetheless for his alleged involvement in all this. His attorney tells me that his client did admit to passing on that frozen chunk of hamburger meat to Richard Matt inside, that frozen chunk of meat there were those hacksaw blades but there by Joyce Mitchell. Joyce Mitchell, also the prison employee who convinced Gene Palmer to pass on that chunk of frozen meat.

Once again, he was arraigned on those charges Wednesday night. His attorney tells me he will be entering pleas of not guilty.

ANDREW BROCKWAY, GENE PALMER'S ATTORNEY: I believe that he was conned by Joyce Mitchell. She duped him. And looking back on that, he can't believe that someone would take advantage of him. He knows he made a mistake and that he shouldn't have done what he did but I think at the end of the day, he's a man of integrity. He has taken a polygraph test. He passed the polygraph test.

The district attorney has stated that he does not believe that Mr. Palmer aided and abetted the escape of Mr. Sweat and Mr. Matt. And that's what the story should be here.

CARROLL: And Palmer's attorney also wanted to make is he clear that his client says he did not know what was inside that slab of meat and had no knowledge at all about any escape plan -- John.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Well, thanks to Jason for that.

There's new information this morning that Charleston church shooting case. Overnight, law enforcement sources tell CNN that the Justice Department is likely to pursue hate crime charges against the gunman in this case. That's in addition to nine state murder charges.

Also last night, bible study began once again at Emanuel AME Church, just one week after the mass killing there. The interim pastor discussion Jesus saying because he lives, we can face tomorrow. Today, funerals begin for the victims.

In response to threatened protests by a far right group, the Charleston City Council passed an order barring demonstrators within 300 feet of the funeral services. On Friday, Emanuel's pastor, Clementa Pinckney, he will be laid to rest. The president will deliver the eulogy at that event. The vice president and the first lady are also attending. Reverend Pinckney's casket was placed for public viewing at the state capitol in Columbia as the Confederate flew nearby.

CNN's Ryan Young has the latest from Columbia.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, a lot of people here in Columbia will remember this day. As the caisson passed through the streets, you could hear the wheels slowly turning through the streets. But here outside the capitol, you could so many people lining up in 100 degree temperatures, all alongside that flag that still remains here. There's still a fight but most people here want to honor a leader.

STATE REP. WILLIAM CHUMLEY (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: These people sit in there, waited their turn to be shot. That's sad. Somebody in there with the means of self-defense could have stopped this and we'd have had less funerals than we're having.

YOUNG: And a local paper caught up with Representative William Chumley to ask him about his comments that he made to CNN. He released a statement, "Please let me be clear, the responsibility for the despicable murder in Charleston rests solely on the murderer. If any of my remarks suggest differently, I am deeply sorry."

As we saw people standing here together, one of the things they wanted to talk about the unity they experienced since this horrific tragedy -- John.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[04:05:02] BERMAN: Our thanks to Ryan for that.

South Carolina is one of many Southern states suddenly caught up in the debate over the Confederate flag. In Alabama, Governor Robert Bentley ordered four battle flags taken down in a Confederate memorial at the state capitol.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ROBERT BENTLEY (R), ALABAMA: If there are flags that are actually flying over the grounds, if I have the authority to remove them, then I'm going to. And I looked into it. We researched it. We looked at the laws. There was nothing that said that it should be flown. There was no reason that I could not remove it, so that's exactly what I did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: In Virginia, the governor has said he will strike the Confederate symbol from license plates. But a former U.S. senator there has raised some eyebrows seeming to defend the flag. Possible Democratic presidential candidate Jim Webb wrote on Facebook that the issue is complicated.

In Mississippi there's a discussion to completely change the state flag which does include the Confederate emblem.

CNN's Ed Lavandera is in Oxford, Mississippi with the latest -- Ed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, here in the town square of Oxford, Mississippi, the state flag is still flying with the Confederate symbol. But across the state, there is a growing push to have the state flag changed. The two U.S. senators from Mississippi are calling for the flag to be changed, as is the Republican speaker of the House and other state lawmakers to say this is to become a symbol of hatred and the flag should be changed.

But Mississippi's governor, a Republican, is also saying he does not think the legislature will act and that voters had a chance to make a change back in 2001, but by a 2-1 margin voted to keep the flag as is. But it's interesting as you look around here, John, in the town square

of Oxford, a number of businesses have put up old flags that once used to represent the state of Mississippi. Several people that we've spoken with say this is their way of saying this could be a change that could benefit the state in the long run and something that would take away the symbol of hatred that is on the state flag today -- John.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Thanks, Ed.

Breaking overnight, five former key advisers to President Obama on Iran said they are concerned that the pending nuclear deal may fall short of the administration's own standards for a good agreement. The advisers, among them, former CIA Director David Petraeus, read an open letter that expresses concerns about the concessions the White House may make on the way to a deal. A senior administration official tells "The New York Times" that the concerns in the letter, quote, "It large part tracks with the American negotiating position."

President Obama is telling the French President Francois Hollande that the United States will abide by commitments not to eavesdrop on French leaders, anymore that is. This comes after reports that the U.S. spied on Hollande and two of his predecessors. Secretary of State John Kerry denies any ongoing surveillance, and he says it will not happen again.

Unusual drama on Capitol Hill as a House committee grilled the director of the Office of Personnel Management over the worst ever breach of U.S. government data. Katherine Archuleta will face new questions today from a Senate committee. Archuleta disputes CNN's reporting that 18 million current and former and prospective government workers may have been affected. She says those numbers are preliminary, unverified and approximate and she stands by the original estimate of 4.2 million people affected, which in any case is a lot.

New information this morning about how many Americans are being held hostage overseas. A top adviser to the president says that more than 30 Americans are being held, a handful by terror groups but most by drug cartels and other criminal groups. The revelations came as the president made clear that the families of hostages will not face prosecution for paying ransom. But one former hostage says the move is not likely to change whether Americans are actually taken captive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Many of the families told us that they, at times, felt like an afterthought or a distraction. That too often, the law enforcement or military and intelligence officials they were interacting with were begrudging and giving them information. And that ends today. I'm making it clear that these families are to be treated like what they are, our trusted partners and active partners in the recovery of their loved ones.

DAVID ROHDE, FORMER TALIBAN HOSTAGE: I don't know of any studies that show that American and British citizens, because their governments don't pay, are somehow being kidnapped less because of those government policies. When I was in captivity, my Taliban captors, they simply thought the U.S. government secretly did pay ransoms. That's false but they really believed it.

So, captors aren't hearing the message or believing it. And you know, even if they think, you know, they're not going to get money for an American or British captive, they still can use them for publicity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: The families of several American hostages killed in the last year call the changes a step in the right direction.

Pretty big victory for President Obama after the Senate approves fast track trade authority.

[04:10:01] The vote sets up a chance at a legacy-making deal for the president, joining the markets of a dozen Pacific Rim nations accounting for 40 percent of a global economy. Congress would have a say on that accord, likely by the end of the year. But lawmakers would not be able to amend the pact. There will be an up or down vote on it. No guarantee they will approve that measure when all comes to pass.

The IRS is under renewed scrutiny this morning. The House Oversight Committee will hear testimony from officials investigating former IRS Director Lois Lerner and her e-mails, up to 24,000 of them, missing because agency employees erased the backup tapes. Congress requested her e-mails following allegations that the IRS targeted Tea Party groups applying for nonprofit status. Agency officials told lawmakers last June that an unknown number of e-mails had been lost when Lerner's computer crashed in 2011.

Time now for an early start on your money. Alison Kosik here with that.

Good morning.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: And good morning to you. We are seeing a little bit of volatility for you back into the market. At the moment, European and Asian stocks are lower. But U.S. futures are up a bit after a rough day yesterday.

We did see stocks tumble after those Greek debt talks ended abruptly with no agreement. We saw the Dow fell 178 points or 1 percent. The NASDAQ and the S&P 500 also fell almost 1 percent.

And you know what, with Greece, it couldn't be higher, those stakes as Greece's deadline to reach a debt deal with international creditors. That's next Tuesday. If no deal is reached, it won't be able to pay back the International Monetary Fund, the $1.8 billion that it owes. It would make a Greek exit from the European Union more likely.

What's going to happen later today, those talks will continue, the Greek drama resumes. BERMAN: A tense few days, to be sure. Thanks, Alison. Appreciate

it.

KOSIK: Absolutely.

BERMAN: All right. Not in my house. President Obama had a confrontation with a heckler inside the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: No, no, no, no. Hey, listen, you're in my house --

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: The heckler was a gay activist demanding an end to the deportation of LGBT immigrants. She was escorted from the room as the president requested because she would not quiet down.

The Boston marathon bomber breaking his silence and now says he is sorry. This dramatic apology on his sentencing day. Was it enough for survivors? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:15:34] BERMAN: Dramatic moments inside a Boston courtroom. The marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, he never said a word during his trial. But just before the judge formally sentenced him to death, Tsarnaev stood up and spoke, apologizing to the families of the victims and survivors. They also had their say.

CNN's Deborah Feyerick has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John, it was a very powerful day at the sentencing of marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, as about two dozen survivors and relatives of those who died gave victim impact statements.

One amputee, Heather Abbott, who said, "He did not break me. The memory of those killed will be kept alive by those who survived his terror."

The family of 8-year-old Martin Richard basically condemning what he had done, saying, "He chose to accompany his brother. He chose hate. He chose destruction. He chose death. We choose love. We choose peace."

Among those defiant was amputee Rebecca Gregory. She essentially said, "We are Boston strong. We are America strong. By choosing to mess with us was a terrible mistake. How's that for a victim impact statement?"

Now, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev did offer an apology to the victim's families saying he was sorry for the lives he had taken, the suffering he caused and the damage he had done. He also did confess saying, "The bombing, which I'm guilty of, if there's any lingering doubt, I did do it along with my brother."

But for several family members and for officials here, it was too little too late. The U.S. attorney Carmen Ortiz saying, what Dzhokhar Tsarnaev did not say was he did not renounce terror and he did not renounce violent extremism -- John.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Thanks to Deb for that.

Attorneys for James Holmes will call their first witnesses today at the trial of the Colorado movie theater gunman. The defense is expected to focus on his alleged mental illness and try to convince jurors that Holmes was legally insane when he opened fire inside a packed movie theater, killing 12 people and wounding 70. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Bobbi Kristina Brown has taken a turn for the worst. A family member said the 22-year-old of the late Whitney Houston was moved to hospice care because of her deteriorating condition. She's been unconscious since she was found unresponsive in the bathtub of her home in Georgia earlier this year. An aunt in a statement to reporters says, "She is in God's hands now."

A lawsuit accuses Nick Gordon of transferring thousands of dollars from per bank account to his, without authorization.

Two-term Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is now the 13th official Republican presidential candidate. Jindal made the announcement online before addressing a kickoff rally in Kenner, Louisiana, on Wednesday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. BOBBY JINDAL (R-LA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am governor of the great state of Louisiana. And I'm running for president of the greatest country in the world, the United States of America!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Jindal earned a more enthusiastic response from supporters as he did from his own children. He posted this, which is an exactly unusual, pretty interesting thing. This is the video of him and his wife telling their kids that he was running for president. They didn't know it was happening and their reaction as you can see is in a word, you know, muted.

Severe storms struck across the country with damaging hail, heavy rain that caused street flooding and high winds to topple trees, with more of the same lined up for today. In Denver, flash flooding had streets looking like something from a water park. Look at that. Cars going every which way as drivers tried to maneuver through several feet of water, probably a better idea not to drive through that at all. This is powerful rain and huge hail that hit Denver and surrounding

communities. In some neighborhoods, the water from the intense flooding was waist high. That made it awfully hard for people to get around there. This is the scene in parts of Georgia. People this morning waking up to huge levels of destruction, severe storms took down trees, destroyed mobile homes. At the Whispering Pines Park in Tyrone. Residents are having a hard time coping with the sudden devastation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You come home and everything's gone.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A lot of the stuff is lost, but we're alive. I'm so glad my daughter's alive. It scared me. Because I really thought we were going to die.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: For more on the severe weather, let's go to meteorologist Derek Van Dam -- Derek.

[04:20:03] DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, John.

Another day, another chance of severe weather. This time from the plains through the Mid-Atlantic States. In fact, roughly 50 million Americans under the threat of severe weather today including Denver, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and the nation's capital. Damaging winds and large hail as a series of low pressures continues to move throughout the region. The secondary low setting up for Friday. Looks to bring another chance of severe weather, this time from Oklahoma City through Louisville, Kentucky, including St. Louis and Memphis.

Here's the first impulse or short wave of bringing chances of thunderstorms late in day for Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Now, the West continues to heat up while we finally get a break from the heat over the eastern half of the U.S. temperatures cooling down.

And in fact, quite nicely into New York City, look at this, Saturday, 70 degrees. But we have to go through one day of the 80s today. The nation's capital also cooling down.

Here's your forecast: we do have a chance of rain through the course of the weekend for the Big Apple.

Back to you.

BERMAN: All right. Derek, thanks so much.

Breaking overnight, the death toll is rising in a heat wave that's affecting millions of people. We're live right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: A heat wave is taking an unimaginable toll on human life. More than 1,000 people in Pakistan have died from the stifling heat in just the last several days. The majority of deaths were in the city of Karachi where hospitals and morgues were overwhelmed trying to cope with this disaster.

[04:25:02] CNN's Saima Mohsin joins us now live from Karachi with the latest.

Good morning, Saima.

SAIMA MOHSIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.

It's a horrendous state of affairs here in Karachi, Pakistan, highlighting just what a weak and poor infrastructure is in place. They simply can't even cope with a heat wave. We've seen people in hospitals, rushing in.

One hospital I went to has treated up to 8,000 people in the last few days alone. They don't have drips. They don't have hospital beds. In fact, local residents are actually donating those things to the government hospitals to help them out.

Then, we went to a morgue. I've got to tell you, John, it was horrific. These pictures are really graphic that we're going to show you.

The bodies were piled up in that morgue. They only have one cold storage room. By the way, this is run by a charity, not the government. And that cold storage room was hot because there isn't enough electricity.

Pakistan doesn't generate enough electricity for the people and so when the electricity keeps going, there are power outages, that mortuary ended up being pretty hot and sticky and the stench was overwhelming. It's just so shocking that people are not able to be treated in the hospitals and then ultimately when they pass away, there's that indignity to face as well.

And just this morning, I went to a graveyard which doesn't even have enough space for people. They are trying to scrape and eke out thin slits of ground to bury people -- John.

BERMAN: Saima, give us a sense of the forecast over the next few days. Any sense that this heat will break soon?

MOHSIN: Well, certainly we're hoping for everyone involved. There's a bit a breeze as you can tell now. That's the first bit of good news.

But we are expecting rain to come at some point towards the weekend. A couple of days of respite, that will certainly break the weather and the temperature. But we're expecting higher temperatures to come back with a vengeance after that.

And, by the way, John, just to explain, if it's around 45 degrees, it actually feels like 50. There's an intense heat index and a lot humidity. Back to you.

BERMAN: All right. Saima Mohsin, let's hope you get rain there. Thanks, Saima.

A second prison worker arrested, accused of helping two dangerous killers escape. New developments overnight. We'll tell you what prosecutors say this man did.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)