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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Trump: "McCain Has Abandoned Our Veterans"; Tennessee Gunman's Family Grieves; Debate Begins On Iran Nuke Deal; New Bill Cosby Revelations; Seven Prison Workers Charged In "El Chapo's" Escape; Surfer Escapes Shark Attack. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired July 20, 2015 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:00] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking overnight, new information about the attacks that left five people dead in Tennessee. CNN is taking you to a Middle East village speaking with his relatives.

A key vote on the nuclear deal with Iran, the United Nations considering the agreement, a move that is causing controversy this morning. We are live where the Obama administration has a tough sell ahead.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans. It's 30 minutes past the hour. John Berman has the morning off.

Breaking overnight, Donald Trump escalating his criticism of Senator John McCain, the billionaire Republican candidate is already the target of criticism for saying McCain is not a war hero.

Now Donald Trump in the "USA Today" op-ed blames McCain for covering up the V.A. Hospital scandal and says the senator, quote, "has made America less safe and sent our brave soldiers into wrongheaded foreign adventurers."

Trump also tears into other Republican candidates who have blasted him for his criticism of McCain. He writes, quote, "a number of my competitors to the Republican nomination have no business running for president. I don't need to be lectured by any of them. Many are failed politicians or people who would be unable to succeed in the private sector."

National correspondent, Sunlen Serfaty, has more from the White House.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine. Donald Trump is not backing down from his comments and he's been digging in even more. Offering no apologies and refusing all the calls from other fellow candidates that he should drop out of the race. Here is what he had to say Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you owe John McCain an apology?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (via telephone): No, not at all. I believe that I will do far more for veterans than John McCain has done for many years with all talk and no action. He is on television all the time, talking, talking, nothing gets done.

You look at what's happening to our veterans. They are getting decimated. So I will do far more for veterans than anybody. I'll be able to build new hospitals and care centers. I'll be able to help the veterans.

John McCain has failed because all you have to do is take a look at what you report on all the time. Take a look at the scandal at the Veterans Administration and the disastrous conditions under which our veterans have to live.

And believe me I built with a small group the Vietnam Memorial in downtown Manhattan. I know what it is to help people. I know what it is to help veterans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SERFATY: Many have been quickly coming to the defense of Senator McCain and his service to the nation. The senator, a former Navy fighter pilot shot down, put in prison and tortured in Hanoi for five years. He refused early release and later went on to earn the Purple Heart.

But this controversy surely has given an opening to many of the Republican candidates, many who were just waiting for this opportunity to come out more openly and criticize Donald Trump. Some are saying that this should disqualify him from running for the presidential race.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO (R), 2016 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's not just absurd, it's offensive. It's ridiculous and I do think it is a disqualifier's command-in-chief.

RICK PERRY (R), 2016 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Until Mr. Trump apologizes directly to John McCain and also to the veterans of this country. I don't think he has the character or temperament to hold the highest position in this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: And the RNC took the rare step and responded directly to Trump's comments saying, comments like those have no place in their party. Now we still have not heard from Senator John McCain. He has been silent since Trump made those comments, but we did hear from his daughter, Megan McCain. She says that she is horrified and disgusted by Trump's rhetoric -- Christine.

ROMANS: All right, Sunlen Serfaty at the White house, thank you, Sunlen.

Breaking overnight, new information about the gunman who killed five service members in a shooting rampage last week in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The federal investigation into Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez turning up evidence he suffered from mental illness and had been abusing drugs.

A U.S. law enforcement official familiar with the case says family members are telling investigators Abdulazeez suffered from bipolar disorder. He had been abusing painkillers, sleeping pills, marijuana, and other so-called party drugs.

The official says Abdulazeez have sought treatment from the psychiatrist. The family sent him away to Jordan last year to be with relatives, to get him away from friends they believe were bad influences.

Security investigators in Jordan have interviewed Abdulazeez's relatives there to see what light they can shed on his time there. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh has also spoken to other members of the gunman's extended family in the Middle East. He joins me now live from Jordan.

Nick, let me ask you this, they are trying to find a motive for this young man. What caused him to go from a typical college engineering graduate to a killer, a cold blooded killer? What is the family there saying?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they are looking at the twist in the family statement. His time here in 2014 in Jordan meeting his uncle, Jordanian officials confirm may have been to get away from bad influences in the United States as the party drugs perfects affecting his personality disorder as the family suggested themselves.

[05:35:00] Here in Amman, Jordanian officials say they are talking to the extended family to get more information about what he may have done while he was here and who he may have met.

Conversely, we went to the west bank in the village from which his father hails. His father Youssef well respected there, well liked and went to town in fact mourning the shame brought upon the father by Mohammad's actions.

They recall that kid going there at age 15 in 2005 wearing American shorts, seeming very much the American kid out of water in what was then during the uprising of the west bank.

They say in fact he was there taking specifically by his father to get his Palestinian ID sorted out a bit trying links to a Palestinian heritage if you are a naturalized American like Mohammad was.

But nothing really that they were aware of about radicalization because they haven't seen him they said for about a decade and no suggestions from them either that there had been radical parts of the family sort of floating around.

So a big question mark still there, we know that the extended family being talked to. It is likely they will be asking them for probing their past for any link to radicalization here.

But I should point this is not a hotbed of radicalism, Jordan, far from it. ISIS is unpopular here. There are occasionally radical individuals who spring out.

There are moments when radical (inaudible) may not flourish, but it is not really the place you put on top of your list if you are looking to get a connection with radicalism.

So a big question mark certainly about his time here, and frankly also because after he left the Middle East, he went back and was caught drunk driving. That is not the case for a devout Muslim. A lot still to be answered.

BERMAN: Yes, and he was expected to appear this month in court for that dui, drunk driving back in April. So you are right. A lot of it doesn't square up. Thank you so much, Nick, in Amman, Jordan for us.

Happening this morning, United Nation Security Council vote on lifting sanctions against Iran, an end to those sanctions was the main carrot used during negotiations in Vienna that got Iran to agree to the limitations on its nuclear program.

The White House decision to let U.N. vote on the nuclear deal before Congress has the Capitol Hill in an uproar. On Sunday, the administration officially submitted the deal to Congress starting with what looks to be 60 days of no holds bar debate.

Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter arrived in Israel earlier this morning. Carter's visit to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Jordan this week comes to what he calls a, quote, "very important moment" because of that Iran deal.

Erin McLaughlin is in Jerusalem for us this morning in Jerusalem. Good morning, Erin.

ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine. Secretary Carter received a very warm welcome from his Israeli counterpart. The two met this morning in which they talked of the country's mutual friendship, a friendship which, of course, by all accounts have been put to the test in recent days.

Israel is after all one of the Iran nuclear deals staunchest and most vocal critics, a deal which the United States, of course, helped to broker. Carter on the plane flight to Tel Aviv seeming to address those differences saying even friends disagree.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ASH CARTER, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I'm not going to change anybody's mind in Israel. That's not the purpose of my trip. The purpose of my trip is to work on all the things that we do together to guarantee the security of American interests in the region and very importantly, one of those is the security of Israel.

Obviously we believe that the nuclear deal promotes the security in the region. The American strategy and also the defense of Israel, but as I said, friends can disagree.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MCLAUGHLIN: Iran as well as the nuclear deal is expected to be topics of conversation throughout this visit. Minutes ago, Iran's supreme leader taking to Twitter to post the following, saying, quote, "#Israel's security will not be insured whether there will #irandeal or not."

That's of course adding to the supreme leader's comments from Saturday in which he said that Iran will not change its policy stance towards the United States in the wake of this agreement.

Comments which outraged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on Sunday told his cabinet, quote, "As long as the Iranian leadership continues for its calls for death to America and death to Israel, there is no reason to make any compromises."

Secretary Carter for his part on that plane flight to Tel Aviv saying that the nuclear deal does nothing to prevent a U.S. military option, one of the reasons he says that this is a good deal.

And we understand from U.S. officials that one of the key objectives of this trip to the region is to address what they perceived to be Iran's destabilizing behavior in the region.

But clearly what we are also seeing a key objective from this visit as is evidenced by the warm welcome that was received this morning.

[05:40:03] It's clearly both countries trying to illustrate that aside from political differences, political discord, the military operation that exists with the united states and Israel continues -- Christine.

ROMANS: All right, Erin for us this morning, Erin McLaughlin in Jerusalem, thank you for that.

It is opening day for embassies in Washington, and Havana marking the start of a new era in diplomatic relations between the two countries that severed ties 54 years ago.

Officials say the American flag will not immediately fly outside the embassy in Cuba. That will happen during a formal ceremony when Secretary of State John Kerry visits in August.

Time for an EARLY START on your money this Monday morning, European stock markets are higher, six-week highs in Europe. U.S. futures are following their lead. Greek banks are open for the first time in three weeks.

They were shut down last month to prevent the country's financial system from collapsing amid a run on cash by nervous Greek citizens. But not all is back to normal, the banks are open, but Greek citizens can only withdraw up to 420 euros a week. The Athens stock exchange remains close.

The banks are open as negotiations are set to begin on Greece's third bailout since 2010. Last week, Europe's Central Bank promised 900 million euros in new emergency funding. Europe is giving Greece a bridge loan worth nearly $8 billion while a new deal is hammered out. New testimony from Bill Cosby revealing the comedian under oath about drugs, sex and younger women, what we are now learning ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:45:06]

ROMANS: All right, new and graphic details about Bill Cosby's troubling behavior from a deposition he gave ten years ago. Cosby in that deposition admits he had sexual relationships with five women outside his marriage.

He gave prescription sedatives to women he wanted to have sex with and tried to hide the affairs from his wife. Cosby also calls himself, quote, "a pretty decent reader of non-verbal clues that women were welcoming those sexual advances."

The deposition stems from a civil lawsuit by a woman who claimed the comedian drugged and molested her. Two dozen women have publicly accused Cosby of sexual assault. One of them, Barbara Bowman says his admissions under oath come as no surprise.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARBARA BOWMAN, ACCUSES COBSY OF RAPE: It is classic narcissistic behavior. It is the ego. It is the control and the diabolical thinking and behaviors. It's classic. It is exactly what was perpetrated upon me. It's the smoking mirrors. It is the reverse pointing the finger back at the victim making us all wonder how did I just get raped, why did that just happen?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: The 78-year-old Cosby has never been criminally charged and denies any wrongdoing. In the 2005 deposition, he claims the sex and the drug taking were always consensual.

Former President George H.W. Bush home from the hospital, he was discharged Sunday after four days of treatment for a fractured vertebrae he suffered when he fell at his summer home in Kennebunk Port, Maine. Bush was fitted for a neck brace and is undergoing physical therapy. The 91-year-old suffers from Parkinson's disease and is in a wheelchair.

Caught on camera, a surfer confronted by a shark in the middle of a surfing competition, forced to wrestle it out. We've got the dramatic video next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:50:41]

ROMANS: Right now, authorities in Mexico are back at it searching for escaped cartel leader, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. The massive manhunt entering its ninth day and to put it simply, authorities have few leads. Meanwhile, seven prison workers were charged this weekend in connection with Guzman's escape. And as CNN correspondent, Polo Sandoval reports more charges could be on the way.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This morning, Mexican prosecutors are taking a good hard look at all of the employees at Altiplano Prison, that's a facility that Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman managed to escape from just over a week ago.

The focus however is on the director of maintenance at that facility. Investigators are suspecting that Francisco Laisaca (ph) kept the prison floor plans and may have allowed unauthorized access to those documents.

A local civil engineer is telling me that access to those plans would have truly been necessary to know exactly where to cut through the prison's foundation and eventually to the actual floor of that cell.

That this is also very important though as it does come amidst suspicions here in Mexico that "El Chapo" had plenty of help not just outside the prison.

But likely within many in fact here in Mexico have told me that they feel this high level of corruption in this country is what actually allowed Guzman to not only maintain strict control of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, but also call the shots inside the prison.

Prosecutors also believe that Guzman may have transmitted his exact location in his cell using what may have been a GPS device. Today, we will be working to actually reach out to prosecutors trying to find out if they have possibly a better sense of where Guzman could be hiding.

Many experts that I've spoken to are not ruling out the possibility that he could be hiding in the city among its roughly 21 million residents. Polo Sandoval, CNN, Mexico City.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right, thanks for that, Polo. Champion surfer, Nick Fanning has battled the biggest waves, but it's this battle, this terrifying close encounter with a shark that has grabbed the world's attention.

This happened during a surfing competition and played out on live TV. Remarkably Fanning came away unscathed and knows just how lucky he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I felt something grab and got stuck in my leg. I instantly just jumped like a lion. I kept coming at my board. I kept kicking and screaming.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you see some teeth? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just saw fins. I didn't see the teeth. I was waiting for the teeth to come at me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you get a couple punches in?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I punched it in the back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: The only damage was a severed leash on Fanning's surf board. He tells us much more in just minutes on "NEW DAY."

Banks have reopened in Greece for the first time in three weeks. Does that mean life is back to normal? Nothing is really normal in Greece these days. We will get an EARLY START on your money next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:57:02]

ROMANS: I'm Christine Romans. Let's get an EARLY START on your money this morning. European stock markets are higher, six-week highs in Europe. U.S. futures are following their lead. Last week, strong earnings pushed the Nasdaq to a record high close.

The major averages all had a pretty good week. The S&P 500 snapped a three-week losing streak. Earnings season continues, this week we will hear from Apple, Amazon, and Chipotle.

Greek banks open for the first time in three weeks, but it's still not business as usual. Greek citizens can only withdraw up to 420 euros a week. The Athens stock market remains closed.

Banks were shut down last month to prevent the country's financial system from collapsing amidst a run on cash by nervous Greek citizens. Negotiations are set to begin on Greece's third bail out since 2010.

All right, baby chicks in Iowa are flying all the way to Brazil to be protected from the bird flu. That's according to a new Reuters report. At least 10 percent of the egg supply has been destroyed by the bird flu.

Farmers are not taking any chances with baby chicks, the source of egg laying hens. To keep the chicks from getting the flu, to protect them, they are relocating them throughout the country and abroad. Cases of the bird flu have decreased recently.

But the U.S. Department of Agriculture is worried new cases will emerge this fall. There have been shortages of eggs and higher prices. Some restaurant chains changing their menus because of the egg shortage.

All right, Donald Trump digs in with new insults for John McCain. "NEW DAY" picks that story now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He is a war hero because he was captured.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump owes John McCain an apology.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There's nothing funny about the hate he is spewing.

MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is not just absurd but offensive.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: New information is revealed about Chattanooga shooter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He had a history of mental illness, depression, and drug abuse.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This man was suffering from a lot of demons.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Another bombshell in the scandal surrounding Bill Cosby.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is taking advantage of people who look up to him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is classic narcissistic, psychopathic behavior.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It just coming at my board. I was kicking and screaming.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Isn't that beautiful? We say good morning to you and welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Monday, July 20th, 6:00 in the east. It turns out even Donald Trump can go too far. Is he really resisting calls to apologize for mocking McCain's war record?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: It looks like it because this morning in a new op-ed, in "USA Today," Trump continues his attacks on McCain. He says I don't need to be lectured by failed politicians. The comments, of course, come on the heels of Trump's suggestion that McCain is only a war hero because he was captured.

Let's go to CNN's chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash, she's been busy this weekend. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In a new op-ed in "USA Today," Donald Trump remains defiant.