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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Iowa Caucuses Last Minute Pitches for Votes; Democrats in Tight Race in Iowa; Zika Virus Active in More Than 20 Countries. Aired 4- 4:30a ET

Aired February 01, 2016 - 04:00   ET

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


[04:00:15] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: All right. It's here. It's finally here. In just hours, the Iowa caucuses begin. The first -- the very first contest of the 2016 presidential campaign. Candidates making their last-minute pitch to voters late into the night, but with tight races on both sides, who will come out on top tonight in Iowa?

Good morning and welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans. I'm here in New York.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm John Berman in Des Moines, in Iowa. It is Monday, February 1st, caucus day. 4:00 a.m. in the East. And it is finally here. At long last.

After months of campaigning, hundreds of rallies, town halls, speeches, debates, in just a few hours the first actual votes to elect a president will be cast at the Iowa caucuses. 7:00 p.m. local time. 8:00 p.m. Eastern. Voters across this state will walk in to their caucus sites.

I am here at the Mars Cafe in lovely Des Moines. What the site this is. The city just beginning to wake up. They are waking up to tight races on both sides. The Republicans, the Democrats, locked in these last-minute battles. Every candidate from each party engaged in a huge turnout operation.

I'm going to make a prediction here. Whoever turns out the most voters will win. It's like saying whoever scores the most run in a baseball game will win. It all comes down to turnout, they say. What else will it come down to?

On the Republican side, the main battle is between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz very tight. CNN's Jim Acosta with the Trump campaign. He has the latest.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, Trump sounded confident heading into the Iowa caucuses. He was here in Sioux City, Iowa, where the evangelical leader Jerry Falwell, Jr. where both men accused Trump's chief rival in Iowa Ted Cruz of dishonest attacks. The GOP frontrunner predicted a win here in Iowa could make his candidacy unstoppable. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have to win this election. And we have to win in Iowa. You know, a lot of people say, Donald , just say do well in Iowa. I say, I can't do that. I really want to win. Now maybe it won't work that way, but if we do, we're going to run the table, folks, and we're going to make this country so great you're going to have victories all over the place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Trump also handed out a check for $100,000 to a local veterans group as part of that fundraising effort he kicked off as part of skipping last week's GOP debate. Trump has two more rallies later today before he does something he's never done before. That is sit and watch and wait for election results -- John and Christine.

BERMAN: It will be so interesting to see how Donald Trump does handle an election night. Election night is very different when you are an actual candidate.

On the Democratic side, very tight there. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders running neck and neck. All the polls have Hillary Clinton persistently three to four points ahead. But the big question, will the passionate, young, first-time voters who fill the Bernie Sanders rallies, will they show up tonight to caucus?

CNN's Jeff Zeleny, he was at Bernie's final event in Iowa. He has the latest.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, with caucus day finally here, Bernie Sanders had a bounce in his step as he made his final stop of the night in Des Moines, speaking to hundreds of screaming supporters. In the same venue where his rival Hillary Clinton was only a few days earlier, the difference in energy and enthusiasm was palpable.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: A poll done by the "Des Moines Register" eight months ago had us 41 points behind. We have come a long way in eight months.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: Bernie Sanders is trying to drive young voters to the polls. Young women voters are the key demographic for his campaign. They are trying to get them out. One by one, every supporter I'm told is being called, text messaged, e-mailed. They're being contacted in the final day here making sure they show up in these town meetings across the state of Iowa. There are 1681 precincts.

The Bernie Sanders supporters believe that they are strong in college towns and urban areas. The question is, how much support will they have in rural area. They hope the power of social media, through SnapChat, through Facebook, through Instagram and others will help drive young voters to the polls.

Senator Sanders announced that he had raised some $20 million in January alone with an average contribution of $27. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDERS: We have received up to know $3.2 million individual contributions.

(CHEERS)

SANDERS: And that is more contributions that any candidate up until point in a campaign in the history of the United States of America.

(CHEERS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[04:05:03] ZELENY: He believes -- his campaign believes that that is a sign that he has reached beyond Iowa and this campaign could go on regardless of what happens here in Iowa as he heads to New Hampshire and the rest of the states as this campaign finally gets under way -- John and Christine.

BERMAN: All right. Jeff Zeleny for us following Bernie Sanders.

Just under 16 hours now until voters show up to their caucus sites all around the state. I'm joined by CNN Politics reporter Eric Bradner here in the Mars Cafe in Des Moines.

Eric, thanks for being with us. Let's start with the Bernie Sanders- Hillary Clinton dynamic.

ERIC BRADNER, CNN POLITICS DIGITAL REPORTER: Yes.

BERMAN: We just saw Jeff Zeleny in a Bernie Sanders rally and he was getting to what is the crux of the entire campaign here. Will the Bernie Sanders voters who we have seen at these events all over the state, will they show up to caucus?

BRADNER: Yes. Absolutely. I mean, that's -- the question is whether this is going to look more like 2008 when Barack Obama turned out nearly 240,000 people or 2004 when about half that turned out. And another liberal icon, Harold Dean, ended up sort of puttering out here in Iowa.

The key areas to watch are going to be college towns, Ames and Iowa City. So Story and Johnson Counties. If Bernie Sanders wins, not just by a little bit there, but absolutely crushes Hillary Clinton, it's a good sign for him. He's going to need to run up big margins in areas like that if he's going to have a chance to make up her advantages in urban suburban areas.

BERMAN: And not to make things too complicated because it does get complicated when we're talking about the Democratic race, though. There is only so much of an advantage to running up the score in the college towns because it is a portion by delegates not by voters. The bottom line is this, Bernie Sanders would be better served to get some of those people in those college towns to go to the rural counties. BRADNER: That's exactly right. So the delegates are pre-chosen. We

know how much delegates each county is going to have. It's not like by turning out a ton of people at a college, you suddenly can get more delegates. So Barack Obama actually had an advantage in 2008 because the Iowa caucuses were a month earlier and so the students were at home. They could go caucus in their home precincts, whereas now they're all be concentrated in one place.

BERMAN: The term is clumping. So you can tell your friends you learned a political term this morning. Clumping where too many voters in the same place.

Let's talk about the Republicans. The polls have now all shown a trend. And that trend is Ted Cruz had been on top ahead of Donald Trump. That has switched. Donald Trump now leading in almost all the polls going into the caucus night. What's the mystery there?

BRADNER: Well, you know, in part, nobody really knows how broad Donald Trump's reach is. I mean, he's bringing all these people sort of into the process, but it's a bit a chaotic. It's not like anything we've really seen before and so it's hard to know exactly whether -- you know, whether this enthusiasm that you see at a Trump event can ever actually manifest itself on caucus night.

BERMAN: Yes. Look, we talked about a Bernie Sanders mystery, we will know in 17 or 18 hours if this Donald Trump phenomena we've been seeing on stages and on our TVs for the last several months, if it's for real. And if he does actually win, you know, an event, an electoral event, that will be a huge, huge deal.

BRADNER: Yes.

BERMAN: And he is not taking anything for granted. Right? Everyone assumes that Ted Cruz has a big advantage among evangelical voters. And Cruz does.

BRADNER: Right.

BERMAN: But Donald Trump is fighting for the evangelical voters.

BRADNER: He is. He's sort of making the case to evangelical voters that, you know, OK. Perhaps he is not one of them, but he will fight for them. Right? He's making the case that they have been sort of under siege here in the United States for a long time. And he will be there to defend them at every turn. And that's sort of where this idea of Trump's strength above all else comes into play. Right? The idea that he can defend them against all of these challenges they're facing whether or not he is one of them. And I think evangelical voters kind of get that. That's why they're drawn to him even though in someone like Ted Cruz they might recognize more of themselves.

BERMAN: I got to tell you, being here for the last four or five days, you do realize that, though Trump is running a different type of campaign or is a different type of candidate, he's got a staff here in this state and they're all running an actual campaign. And you can see by where he's been and how he's done his closing arguments the last few days. They are organized, they're taking this seriously. Look, he was with Jerry Falwell, Jr. yesterday.

BRADNER: Right.

BERMAN: In the western part of the start which is a big evangelical base.

BRADNER: Absolutely. Right.

BERMAN: He's got Sarah Palin on the stump with him today. They're not messing around here.

BRADNER: No, they're not. You know, the western of the state is interesting. There are 44 counties there. They're all rural. They're more evangelical than the rest of Iowa, and Ted Cruz is not going to be -- he's going to need to win but also win by a significant margin there. And Donald Trump is not letting him do that easily. He's really fighting for that area. So yes, Trump's campaign is for real. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump both have the challenge of organizing late, but they were both well-funded and have really put together impressive organizations just a couple of months.

BERMAN: All right. 30 seconds left. Marco-mentum. The Marco Rubio campaign would have you believe he is the surging candidate. Do we know?

[04:10:07] BRADNER: We don't know. And that's the expectations game tonight. OK. It looks like he could finish third behind Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, but there is a huge difference between a really strong third place finish and a really weak third place finish. It's the momentum question. It's whether he can sort of show that he's broken away from the pack of other establishment type candidates. And if he finishes in second or first, that's a clear sign that he's really broken apart.

BERMAN: Right. And a lot of establishment Republicans around the country pulling very hard for him.

BRADNER: That's true.

BERMAN: A lot of establishment Republican media around the country pulling very hard for him also.

Eric Bradner, great to have you here with us this morning for EARLY START at the Mars Cafe in Des Moines.

Christine Romans, you know Iowa as well as anybody. I have to say, a lot of people in Iowa know you. I mean, I walk around this state it's like, you know Christine Romans? I'm like, yes. I know her. People here like you.

ROMANS: That is so nice to hear. That is so nice to hear. Look, I got to ask you, you went to Iowa City I know on Saturday night there was a big Bernie Sanders event there. Tell me a little bit about that because what I hear from my deep sources in Iowa is that Bernie Sanders is sort of still catching fire there. I mean, there are big crowds and lots of young people at those crowds. BERMAN: 3800 people packed in the field house at the University of

Iowa. Vampire Weekend played. Jesse Hutcheson and the guy from "Hunger Games" held up the three finger. Everyone went wild there.

Look, there's definitely a lot of energy. Many, many voters, many, many young voters at this event. They're a little messy. The events are just a little bit messy. They don't feel like the Obama events eight years ago where they were huge energetic but meticulously organized. So it just is -- I don't know from being there if all those people will show up to caucus in ways that help Bernie Sanders or not. And like we're talking about with Eric, I mean, that is the great mystery here.

ROMANS: That is the great mystery. Well, it's going be such an interesting day. Finally able to cast votes. And the Democrats and Republicans do it a little bit differently when they caucus. But clearly, clearly going to be interesting to see who goes out there especially on the Republican side and really brave what could be some ugly weather actually tonight and cast those votes tonight. So we'll talk to you again real soon about that. Thanks, John.

Meantime, 12 minutes past the hour. Three dangerous inmates who escaped from a California jail cell, they are now back behind bars. We've got the brand new details on their capture, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:15:54] ROMANS: Welcome back. You're watching CNN. I'm Christine Romans.

The ESL teacher accused of helping three violent inmates escaped from a California jail, well, made her first court appearance today. She is charged with being an accessory to a felony.

Three fugitives are now back behind bars in Orange County after more than a week on the run. One turned himself in on Friday, the last two were arrested after a tip from someone who saw their stolen van in the parking lot of a Whole Foods in San Francisco.

We get more from CNN's Dan Simon.

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, the one thing you always hear police is that if you see something, you should say something. Well, that certainly came into play here in the famed Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in San Francisco. Someone who was in the area recognized the two fugitives and flagged down police.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get on the ground. Get on the ground. I knew right then that that was more than a homeless person.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A citizen saw someone, saw something suspicious, notified an officer. And that notification ultimately led to the apprehension of two armed and dangerous suspects. SHERIFF SANDRA HUTCHENS, ORANGE COUNTY: I can say this morning that

the entire state can breathe a sigh of relief because we have the other two dangerous individuals back in custody where they should be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIMON: Authorities had offered a $200,000 reward for information that led to the fugitives' capture. The sheriff in Orange County says that the witness here in San Francisco deserves at least part of that reward. It seems like the fair thing to do -- John and Christine.

ROMANS: It sure does. Dan Simon, thanks for that.

Two Virginia Tech students are being held without bail this morning in connection with the kidnapping and murder of a 13-year-old girl. Nicole Lovell disappeared last week. Her body was found Saturday in North Carolina, near the Virginia border. 18-year-old David Eisenhauer is charged with murder. Police are not commenting on how she died or a possible motive. But they say Eisenhauer and Nicole were, quote, "acquainted" before her disappearance. A second Virginia Tech student, Natalie Kippers, is charged with helping dispose of the girl's body.

Later today investigators plan to release more than 2,000 pages of evidence from last spring's deadly Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia. Eight commuters were killed, more than 200 people hurt. The evidence is expected to include data from the train's black box and could explain why that engineer was traveling at 106 miles an hour as he entered a sharp curb north of the Philadelphia station. The speed limit for that particular curve, 50 miles an hour.

Time for an EARLY START on your money this Monday morning. Stock futures slightly lower as Europe has little changed. Asia finished mixed, a weak manufacturing report out of China.

A big rally on Friday helped gain back some, just some of the deep losses the market suffered to start this year. Here's where the stock market stands after the first month of trading in 2016. The Dow is down 5.5 percent. The Nasdaq down 7.8 percent. The S&P 500 down 5 percent. That's a bad omen for the rest of the year.

There is something called the January barometer on Wall Street. The basic idea is an old Wall Street saying, as goes January, so goes the year. Since 1950, the prediction has been right 87 percent of the time, meaning if there are losses in January, there are losses for the year. It's been wrong just eight times. Most of those years saw major market shocks like wars and recessions. So brace yourself for a wild year for the stock market.

All right. Back to Iowa where the votes will be cast, where people will go to their caucus locations in just hours, and will the snowstorm now tracking east, will it hit Iowa in time to affect the caucuses tonight?

Let's bring in meteorologist Derek Van Dam for that.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Christine.

(WEATHER REPORT)

[04:20:44] VAN DAM: Back to you.

ROMANS: All right. Derek, thank you for that.

Happening now, an emergency meeting over the Zika virus. World Health officials trying to figure out how to stop an explosive pandemic. CNN takes you to the forest where the virus was first found next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Welcome back. The -- Zika virus, rather, now spreading explosively to two dozen countries, the World Health Organization is holding an emergency meeting in Geneva today.

[04:25:03] Scientists and government leaders from around the world trying to come up with a plan to halt this outbreak. Travel warnings are already in effect for pregnant women and officials could decide to declare a public health emergency of international concern. The Zika virus was first detected in Uganda. That's where CNN's David McKenzie joins us live.

Alarm, quite frankly, David, around the world as this thing spreads.

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Christine, there is an alarm. And many people are asking the question, why are we playing catch up on this? Because the virus was identified here in the Zika forest in Uganda way back in 1947. Almost 70 years ago by scientists. They knew the virus was there. They knew it could affect humans and the fact is that there are viruses propping up here all the time and we don't often know what they will lead to.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JULIUS LUTWAMA, LEAD RESEARCHER, UGANDA VIRUS RESEARCH INSTITUTE: We don't know for sure. We don't know completely what is in these forests. We have not done enough. We can't say we know anything. Every other year, we come across new viruses. In the last five years or so, almost each year, we come across a new virus in this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKENZIE: Well, with Zika threatening potentially an entire continent and maybe spreading into the U.S. in the coming months, the scientists say there is a reason that we didn't know about Zika all that much up until now. Only one in five people who are infected show any symptoms. Those symptoms are far less serious up until now than other similar viruses. And it wasn't very easily infecting humans. Certainly here on the African continent.

It waited almost 60 years -- more than 60 years until there was a large pandemic in the Asia-Pacific region, spreading towards the Americas. And now that the WHO is saying it could be linked to serious complications and birth defect. Now we are paying attention but all that time went by and some scientists say more should have been done to the front end to get to a way to combat this virus right now when it could be a crisis.

ROMANS: Yes. And many wondering, David, if travel warnings at this stage are even enough. Thank you for that so much in the Zika forest for us, David McKenzie.

Twenty-seven minutes past the hour. The very first day of voting in the 2016 presidential race. It is here. In just hours, the Iowa caucuses begin. We're going to take you there live for everything you need to know. That's next.

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