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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

House Benghazi Committee to Grill Clinton; Paul Ryan Wins New Support for Speaker Role; The Race for President: Inside Biden's Decision; ; Kerry Meeting Netanyahu in Germany; Mets Sweep Cubs in NLCS. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired October 22, 2015 - 05:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We are just hours away from a huge day on Capitol Hill. Hillary Clinton faces the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Facing tough questions about what happened on that compound, facing questions about her e-mail.

[05:00:04] What will her strategy be?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Paul Ryan could be speaker of the House if he wants it.

New support overnight from congress's most conservative Republicans.

BERMAN: How Joe Biden got to know. We have new information about the decision he made, how late he made it and who knew, when did they know it? There were a lot of people surprised yesterday.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm John Berman.

ROMANS: I'm Christine Romans. It is Thursday, October 22nd. It is 5:00 a.m. in the East.

And it all happens this morning. Hillary Clinton goes before the House Benghazi Committee, questions and answers that could last eight hours. The committee says the focus willing on the 2012 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, attacks that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

The Republican-led committee is expected to ask then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about what she knew, about reported problems at the compound and why the U.S. even had a diplomatic outpost in Benghazi. There are huge political stakes here. Hillary Clinton is running for president. And Democrats say this is all about the campaign.

CNN's Elise Labott has the very latest in Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, Christine, after months of anticipation, the day is finally here. It's going to be a long day. We understand there will be four two- hour rounds of questioning of Secretary Clinton, with breaks.

Aides to Clinton say she's ready. She's spent the week preparing with policy and legal teams, going over potential questions and studying up on the events leading up to and following the Benghazi attacks. It was a long time ago, after all.

Now, there have been more than a half dozen congressional investigations following the attacks. But there has been a greater political tone to this one. Democrats, of course, maintain it was designed as a takedown of Clinton. And you have a string of comments recently by Republicans almost backing up those accusations.

But Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy says he will prove the committee is not about politics with a hearing that is respectful of Clinton and focuses on the facts surrounding the Benghazi attacks. Democrats, Republicans, the State Department, all will be watching this hearing, putting out their own spin, or their own talking points. But for Secretary Clinton, this is really a chance to defend her record at secretary of state and argue that this committee is retreading old ground here.

And, you know, in some ways, it's a chance to lay out her foreign policy as she campaigns to be commander in chief. So, clearly, this hearing a key moment for the presidential campaign the future of this committee -- John, Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: All right. Elise, thanks so much.

Breaking overnight, Congressman Paul Ryan cleared a pretty big hurdle in his bid to become the speaker of the House. Overnight, a super majority of the House Freedom Caucus, that's the group of conservative Republicans voted to back Ryan. They say to support him. He didn't get fight enough support for a formal endorsement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: The Freedom Caucus supports him but didn't fully endorse him. What does that mean in practical terms?

REP. MICK MULVANEY (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Well, practical terms means we couldn't get 80 percent as our rules require. But we got more than two-thirds of our group saying they want to support Paul for speaker.

So, if Paul really has the votes that we all think that he has in the other portions of our conference, he's got enough votes to be the speaker of the House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Paul Ryan had earlier set a formal endorsement as a condition by his bid. By last night, two-theirs with be that was enough for him. He put out a tweet, "I'm grateful for the majority of the support from the House Freedom caucus. I look forward to hearing from the other two caucuses by the end of the week. But I believe this is a positive step toward a unified Republican team."

The other two groups almost a certainty. So, this is essentially a done deal.

ROMANS: All right. There are new details about Joe Biden's decision not to run for president. The vice president he ended months of intense speculation, speculation much of it was wrong it turns out, with this announcement in the White House Rose Garden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But while I will not be a candidate, I will not be silent. I intend to speak out clearly and forcefully to influence as much as I can where we stand as a party, and where we need to go as a nation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Biden's decision is big news for Hillary Clinton. Polls show she's likely to benefit the most from his absence.

Let's get more on this from senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John and Christine.

In the end, Joe Biden followed his head not his heart, as he decided to back away from what surely is his last chance at the presidency. In closing the doors to weeks of self-induced speculation about joining the 2016 presidential race, he opens the door to the rest of the Democratic campaign.

So, was he ever serious at all? Several advisers and friends insist that he was. I'm told the more he knew about the race, the more exploring he did in calls of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, the more daunting his path to victory actually seemed.

[05:05:08] So, over the past several days, when he was out calling Hillary Clinton for saying Republicans are the biggest enemies, he wasn't firing a warning shot as much as offering a lesson in bipartisanship for how he thinks Washington should actually work.

Now, Hillary Clinton is surely relieved. Bernie Sanders is now the leading alternative if Democrats are still looking for one.

Now, Biden made clear he would not remain silent in the race going forward, urging Democrats to embrace President Obama and his legacy tightly. But his endorsement may depend on which candidate listens -- John and Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right. Thanks, Jeff. BERMAN: Yes. If you're keeping score at home, what a 24-hour period,

Joe Biden out, Paul Ryan essentially in as speaker of the House, Hillary Clinton about to face what could be the biggest hurdle in her campaign yet.

So, joining us to talk about all of this, CNN politics reporter Eric Bradner.

Eric, good morning. Welcome to EARLY START in your world premiere here.

I want to start with what about to happen a few hours, these Benghazi hearings. Hillary Clinton, face-to-face with the select committee. There's been so much talk. Is this a little witch hunt, is this about uncovering new facts about what happened in 2012?

Let's quickly listen to Representative Susan Brooks, Republican from Indiana, what she says she's after today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. SUSAN BROOKS (R), INDIANA: I'm particularly focused on the security incidents and the posture of the State Department with respect to the security requests. We have learned through emails and through documents, but there were hundreds of mentions about security incidents particularly in 2012. So, we have questions for the secretary about what she did with respect to those security requests.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: What do you think the risks are for Secretary Clinton today? This is obviously right in the middle of her presidential run.

ERIC BRADNER, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Right. Well, she believes she's prepared for this. She's testified about Benghazi before. There have been several other investigations into this.

So, she feels like she has a good grasp on answering the questions. The risk is that this is going to be the most politically charged hearing of all of them. This is coming at, as you say, a key moment in her campaign. She's gotten through the hurdle of the first Democratic debate. This is next big marker.

So, she's probably going to have some terse exchanges with Republicans today. She will not start there but won't hesitate to counterpunch. It's a matter of coming out looking good, not looking overly political, not looking like she's trying to politicize this incident. In those exchanges, in what's going to be an eight plus hour hearing. This is going to go all day. One bad moment could be a big problem.

ROMANS: One bad moment could be a big problem. One bad moment find its way into a campaign ad in the months ahead. So, every word she's beginning to be scrutinizing here even as she's trying to honestly answer the questions and get to the bottom of this, because there are four Americans who are dead. We -- what is the risk for new information? What is the hope for new

information here? For example, why was there an embassy compound in Benghazi in the first place? Are there these new e-mails showing exactly all the concerns of Chris Stevens over security in the region? And did she read those e-mails? Those are the kinds of things that Republicans are going to try to get to, right?

BRADNER: Right, absolutely. Republicans have been preparing for this exhaustively. They've been practicing. They know this is going to be closely watched. They're well aware of the politics here. They're not going to play this as a political hearing, a political event.

But they do know they'll be heavily scrutinized. They've invested $4.5 million of taxpayer money in this investigation, the Trey Gowdy, the chairman of the committee, has staked a lot of his reputation on the outcome of this investigation. And so, they've been prepping for this, they know they're going to have America's eyes on them.

So, you're right, it's going to be tough to sort of surface new information here. After so many investigations, after such a close look at this. But they do believe they have new points to make and how Secretary Clinton responds to those will be sort of the key to watch through this entire hearing.

BERMAN: You get the sense over the last several days that Brooklyn, Hillary Clinton campaign has had one eye on the Benghazi hearings, one eye on Joe Biden. Well, the Biden hurdle has been cleared right now.

BRADNER: Right.

BERMAN: What is his announcement? What do you think that means for them going forward? It's not about today, really but about tomorrow once the Benghazi was over.

BRADNER: Right. Coming in October, it was the first Democratic debate, Joe Biden's decision, whenever that would come and the Benghazi hearings. Now they're thinking two down, one to go.

If they get through all thee of these unscathed without a new opponent, without a really bad moment, that will be huge. That will sort of send a signal to Brooklyn and to Clinton's donors and her supporters, especially in early states, that perhaps the worst is over.

[05:15:02] They've hit rock got on with the e-mail scandal. They've overcome it through this contentious hearing where Republicans will take their absolute best shot at her.

And if they can get through those three things, they're looking at polls that show her competing much better one-on-one with Bernie Sanders than she would have against Sanders and Biden. And they're looking at her debate performance and feeling good about the next five coming in the months ahead.

So, if she can get through this hearing unscathed, she's going to be feeling a lot better than she was in the beginning of October. ROMANS: Eric, let's talk about the negotiating skills of Paul Ryan.

Comes out there and says, you know, I'll do take this hard job if you do this, this, this and this. It's looking better for him this morning.

BRADNER: Yes, he really is. He said he wanted the endorsement of the house freedom caucus, this hard line conservative group. He got supermajority of its numbers.

So, the House Freedom Caucus has a lot of rules such as they need 80 percent of their members on board to issue an endorsement. Well, they have something like more than 70 percent. So, that is a big hurdle. He put the ball in their court, said, I'll run for speaker if you're on board. If you're not, then this one is on you.

So he got that endorsement. Right now it looks much, much more likely that Paul Ryan is going to be the next speaker of the House than it did last night. He has two other groups in the House Republican caucus that he needs to get on board. Those have always been much more likely than the House Freedom Caucus.

There's a moderate group and conservative but not fight as hard line group. They've been ideologically aligned with Paul Ryan. They've always seen him as a thought leader. And so, he's almost certain to get their support.

BERMAN: It turns out the easy job is going to be winning the speaker seat, the hard job might be actually holing it and wielding that gavel.

Eric Bradner, thanks so much for joining us. The world debut on EARLY START. Get ready for the fan mail that sure is coming in.

ROMANS: He is officially an EARLY START early bird. I'll tell you, the real challenge will be having work/life balance as Paul Ryan wants and run, and trying to --

BERMAN: Good luck with that.

Breaking news this morning, Secretary of State John Kerry meeting with the prime minister of Israel right now, the subject, the violence in that region right now. Can it come to an end? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Secretary of State John Kerry is in Germany right now holding talks with the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. The secretary is hoping to find some way to bring an end to the violence, the wave of violence that has claimed dozens of lives, Israeli and also Palestinian.

Benjamin Netanyahu, though, raised a lot of eyebrows, really a lot of eyebrows, even among supporters by publicly claiming it was a Palestinian who gave Adolf Hitler the idea for the holocaust.

I want to go live to Berlin, bring in CNN's Atika Shubert for the latest on the talks and also the reaction of those comments -- Atika.

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, Germany's reaction from Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, was to simply say Germany has taken and continues to take responsibility for what happened in the Holocaust and there's no need to revise history. This has been sort of been echoed by his critics in Israel saying that Prime Minister Netanyahu is basically trying to score political points with his own take on history that has been debunked by historians.

However, going into the meeting today, Prime Minister Netanyahu stood by his comments and that he felt that the most recent wave of attacks was incitement by the Palestinian side. That he specifically said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas needs to, quote, "stop spreading lies," which is inciting attacks. Secretary Kerry also spoke briefly before their meeting, saying that all sides need to dial down the emotional rhetoric and to deescalate situation.

Now, what they're going to be doing in the meeting is focusing on the status quo agreement. This is what governs of rules of use for the disputed area of the old city in Jerusalem known as the Temple Mount or Haram al Sharif.

What's really kicked of the most recent attacks has been fears on the Palestinian side that there will be a change to that agreement. So, what Secretary Kerry is hoping to do is perhaps get it down in writing and make sure all sides abide by it, John.

BERMAN: Hopefully, the secretary will have some luck there. Hopefully, the sides will be willing to listen and maybe to talk some more. Atika, thanks so much.

ROMANS: Security in Afghanistan will be at the top of the agenda as the President Obama meets with the Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at the White House today. Just last week, President Obama announced 5,500 U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan until 2017 to help stabilize the region. The U.S. wants Pakistan's government to convince the Taliban to participate in peace talks.

Also on the table, sensitive nuclear negotiations. Sharif plans to tell President Obama that Pakistan will not accept limits on its use of small tactical nuclear weapons. He claims they are vital to deterring neighboring India from attacking.

BERMAN: The U.S. and its allies pressing the United Nations to test Iran. The groups urging the U.N. Security Council's Iran sanctions committee to investigate and take a appropriation action. Still, U.S. officials say the missile test does not violate nuclear deal.

Iran disputes the assessment that the missile is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead.

ROMANS: WikiLeaks vowing to publish personal information hacked from CIA Director John Brennan's personal email file. On Wednesday, Social Security and passport numbers belonging to the

director and his family were revealed online, causing a great deal of concern at the agency. We are told no classified data was stolen. WikiLeaks promising

another data dump today, posting this tweet Wednesday. "Tomorrow, we continue our CIA chief John Brennan e-mail series including on U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

Time for early start on your money this morning. U.S. stock futures pointing higher. It's earnings season. Reports from McDonald's, Southwest United, Caterpillar. Dow fell yesterday, dropping 50 points. The company profits are expected to fall in the third quarter. >

Donald Trump's billionaire friend will spend $150 million to fight Congress. Hedge fund manager Carl Icahn announced he will use his substantial fortune to form a political action committee and it will have one goal in mind: force Congress to get its act together. He wants major corporate tax reform, so companies will stop moving overseas and will bring back profits held abroad.

Trump said he would consider him for treasury secretary if he were elected.

[05:20:01] BERMAN: All right. The New York Mets, they are going to the World Series. The World Series of baseball. What does this mean? It means Chicago, the Cubs, 1908 just got one year further away.

Andy Scholes has it all in the bleacher report, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: So the New York Mets have some plans for the next several weeks. They will be going to the World Series. The Cubs plans, to watch it on TV. Daniel Murphy's plans might be to hit 1,000 home runs, because the dude looks like he might be capable of it.

ROMANS: Yes, Andy Scholes has more on this morning's bleacher report.

Hey, Andy.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, guys.

Yes, hard to put in the word how amazing Daniel Murphy has been this post-season. This is a guy who never hit more than 14 home runs this season. He's homered in six consecutive games, a postseason record. He has seven overall in the playoffs. Cubs fans were hoping they could make a come back. The air was let out of Wrigley pretty quickly.

First inning, Lucas Duda a gives the Mets a 3-0 lead with this home run, the center field. Then, the best hitter in the world right now, Murphy, would come out and knock that one out of the park for any assurance run later in the game. He was named NLCS MVP.

The Mets never trailed the Cubs at any game at any point in this series. They win game 4, 8-3. They're not going back to the World Series for the first time since 2000.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[05:25:02] DANIEL MURPHY, NLCS MVP: It's such a blessing to be able to contribute to what we've been able to do. I really can't explain it. It's just a complete blessing. That's the only way I can describe it. I can't explain why the balls keep going out of ballpark but they do and we keep winning ball games, which is the most important part and the coolest part.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: The Mets are awaiting the winner between the Blue Jays and the Royals. Toronto staying alive with a win in game five yesterday. Marco Estrada pitching, a one-run baseball, and Troy Tulowitzki, the big three-run double in the sixth to put this one away. Game six of the ALCS will be back in Kansas City tomorrow night. Royals lead the series 3-2.

This past weekend, the Clemson Tigers band and cheerleaders held a parade and pep rally for a special young fan. Ten-month-old Addison Grace was born with a rare fatal genetic disorder.

Addison's parents, huge Tiger fans. They wanted to take Addison to a game but they couldn't because her condition worsened. That's when they showed up at their home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANIE BOLT, ADDISON'S MOM: To walk out here and see so much support and love is just amazing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Really awesome to see the community rally around Addison, guys. Our thoughts and prayers are with her and her family.

Quickly back to the cubs. I want to tell you something, guys, they don't want to be anywhere near the name Murphy ever again. Their hated owner when they won the World Series in 1908, his last name was Murphy. The goat that cursed them in the '40s was named Murphy. And now, Daniel Murphy just went Babe Ruth on them.

ROMANS: It's a good thing very few people in Chicago are named Murphy, because, you know, I mean, just getting.

SCHOLES: You can't get away from it.

BERMAN: I can't believe how much baseball has changed in like the last five years. These teams that are left, they're good with good pitching and one or two good players but it's just so different. It's not these big bruising teams that we saw for so long. Good baseball, though.

SCHOLES: Young arms, a couple bats.

ROMANS: Next year, Cubbies, next year.

BERMAN: Or next 113 years.

ROMANS: Stop, stop, you're such a downer.

BERMAN: Hillary Clinton, what a day ahead for her. She faces the House Select Committee on Benghazi. How will that committee treat her? How will she treat the committee? We'll talk about it, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)