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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Clinton And Sanders Battle For Title Of "Progressive"; Clinton Defends Attacks About Taking Speaking Fees; Criticism Of Sanders' Proposed Budget; Health Emergency Declared In Florida; "Playboy" Publishes Non-Nude Magazine; U.S. Airstrikes Target ISIS Oil Fields. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired February 04, 2016 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:30:17] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton battling it out on the CNN town hall stage late into the night. Who made the best case to New Hampshire voters?
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Welcome back to EARLY START, everyone, I'm John Berman.
ROMANS: I'm Christine Romans. It is 30 minutes past the hour. We begin with a flurry of action in New Hampshire. In just hours, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders face off in a debate. Overnight, they made their cases directly to voters in a CNN town hall in Derry, New Hampshire. They battled over who is the most progressive, who is the most effective, and who is the real underdog in a state where Bernie Sanders now leads by more than 20 points. So did this change the race?
CNN's Jeff Zeleny was there, he's got the latest for us.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, the voters of New Hampshire and in fact, across the country, got a look at Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in a bit of a different light at the CNN town hall on Wednesday night here in Derry, New Hampshire. They tangled, once again, on what the definition of being a true progressive is. They spent more than 24 hours now on the campaign trail arguing about their politics, their brand of politics. Listen to how they distinguish themselves.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I do not know any progressive who has a Super PAC and takes $15 million from wall street. That's just not progressive. As I mentioned earlier, the key foreign
policy vote of modern American history was the war in Iraq. The progressive community was pretty united in saying, don't listen to Bush. Don't go to war. Secretary Clinton voted to go to war.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I was somewhat amused today that senator Sanders has set himself up to be the gatekeeper on who's a progressive because, under the definition that was flying around on Twitter and statements by the campaign, Barack Obama would not be a progressive, Joe Biden would not be a progressive, Jeanne Shaheen would not be a progressive, even the late great Senator Paul Wellstone would not be a progressive. So I'm not going to let that bother me. I know where I stand. I know who stands with me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZELENY: Now with five days remaining until this New Hampshire primary, it's going to be up to the voters to make a final decision. And many voters we talked to after they left the town hall meeting say they're still undecided. Not unusual for New Hampshire. Some 40 percent of the voters are independent voters, many of whom will pick up their ballot on primary day and decide who they will vote for, Democrat or Republican, and make their decision then. John and Christine --
BERMAN: All right, Jeff Zeleny, thanks so much.
Let's talk more about this with political economist Greg Valliere, chief strategist for Horizon Investments. Greg, great to have you here with us. I've got to say, I love these town meeting settings because you really get to see voter concerns, voter issues, and you get to see a candidate on stage for a long time and sometimes it reveals things you haven't seen before, even from these candidates who you've seen for many, many years. In the case of Hillary Clinton, she was asked a question by a rabbi, essentially asking, how do you deal with being in the spotlight for so long and all the questions that are asked and all the difficulties that come with it, and she answered in a way that I've never really heard before. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: I've had to be in public dealing with some very difficult issues and personal issues, political, public issues. Regardless of how hard the days are, how difficult the decisions are, be grateful. Be grateful for being a human being, being part of the universe. Be grateful for your limitations. Know that you have to reach out to have more people with you to support you, to advise you. Listen to your critics. Answer the questions. But at the end, be grateful.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Interesting to see because where Hillary Clinton has had some success in the past, even in New Hampshire in 2008, it is when she opened up the door a little bit so voters could see inside. Still, you can tell it's not easy for her to do.
GREG VALLIERE, CHIEF STRATEGIST, HORIZON INVESTMENTS: Well you make a great point. I think she can talk about an eight-point program to deal with child care, whatever, but when she opens up and shows the human side, I think it really helps her.
ROMANS: You know, Greg, if that was one of her strongest moments, there's another moment that many this morning are looking and saying they didn't really think she had a strong answer and that's the answer about taking $675,000 for three speeches at Goldman Sachs. Listen to the answer and I want to get your response on the other side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: Look, I made speeches to lots of groups. I told them what I thought. I answered questions.
ANDERSON COOPER: But did you have to be paid $675,000?
CLINTON: Well, I don't know. That's what they offered. You know, every secretary of state that I know has done that.
COOPER: But that's usually once they are out of office and not running for office again. You must have known --
CLINTON: To be honest, I wasn't committed to running.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[05:35:03] ROMANS: What did you make of that answer?
VALLIERE: Well, it goes to one of her great weaknesses. If you look at polls, an awful lot of Americans don't trust her. They feel that ethically, she's a little challenged. And an answer like that reinforces that stereotype.
ROMANS: They don't trust Wall Street, either, and that's a -- we've heard Goldman Sachs over and over again. And Bernie Sanders mentions Goldman Sachs by name and it seems to help him every time because he tries to sound tough on them, even the Goldman Sachs CEO yesterday saying, it's a dangerous moment if you're calling out a bank like that. But, that's the way he's playing.
VALLIERE: And you know, Christine, I'll make one other point. If you hear Donald Trump talk about wall street, you think is this Elizabeth Warren or Donald Trump? Donald Trump has similar antipathy toward Wall Street. This is a big issue for the entire industry that so many politicians and the public hate Wall Street.
BERMAN: Nevertheless, Wall Street will continue to do pretty well. I don't think anyone has to take out a collection for them to be sure, but it is interesting to hear the rhetoric almost all universally anti Wall Street.
You hear Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, this whole campaign on the defensive. You rarely hear Bernie Sanders on the defensive. Hillary Clinton forced to defend her positions much more, certainly in this race, than the other side. Yet she does have some advantages. Though she trails by 20 points in New Hampshire, she has a structural advantage in the Democratic race when it comes to the super delegates who are almost all universally behind her grip.
VALLIERE: Yes, fearless forecast guys. This is going to become a big controversy over the next few weeks, that maybe as many as 20 percent of the delegates who will vote in Philadelphia are super delegates. Not elected, but they're part of the party establishment. I would argue that the vast majority will go for her. And I think Sanders and his supporters will cry foul that this was rigged by people who weren't even elected. BERMAN: Well many of the super delegates are elected, by the way.
Super delegates are often elected officials. The Democratic party set up this apparatus over the last 30 or 40 years to solve a problem if they don't think in the primaries they've elected or nominated an electable candidate.
VALLIERE: Right, but I would argue this will become a big controversy. By the way, on the Republican side, they have about 150, 170 super delegates. If this thing is a photo finish in Cleveland, the Republican super delegates could make a difference.
ROMANS: Interesting. Let's talk about Bernie Sanders when asked about raising taxes. Bernie Sanders, he's offering universal health care, free college tuition, although he says he'd make Wall Street and rich people pay for that. Listen to middle class voter asking about their taxes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first thing I hear about you is that you're going to raise taxes on the middle class. I support my family on a salary of $41,000 a year. I'm wondering if you raise my taxes, how does that help me?
SANDERS: Let me tell you what we do. We raise your taxes, if you're somewhere in the middle of the economy, about $500. But you know what we're going to do? For health care, we're going to reduce your health care cost by $5,000. So you're going to pay a little bit more in taxes, but you're no longer going to have to pay private health insurance premiums.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Is he making his case, you think?
VALLIERE: Well, I mean the numbers don't add up. I think there is one of two things would have to happen to pay for everything he wants to do. Either you do have big, big tax increases or the deficit explodes or a little bit of both. And I think for all the candidates, not just the Democrats, but most of the Republicans, if you carefully look at their map, it just doesn't add up.
ROMANS: All right, Greg Valliere, so nice to see you this morning. Thank you for getting up so early for us. Nice to see you, Greg, Horizon Investments.
38 minutes past the hour. Let's get a quick check of your money this morning. The first question Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders got from the audience was about his tax and healthcare plans. Well they're popular among his supporters. A new analysis shows a giant gap in funding. Sanders' Medicare for all plan has an estimated price tag of $14 trillion over ten years paid for in full by higher taxes, especially on the rich. But the committee for responsible federal budget think tank suggests that the plan may lead to a shortfall that leaves $3 trillion, assuming Sanders correctly estimated that cost. The group also says higher taxes on the wealthy could push the top tax rate to more than 85 percent, a tax rate of 85 percent on the rich. The Sanders campaign dismissed that analysis saying the plan will save the average American thousands of dollars a year and is financed in a fair and reasonable way. That is what the campaign said.
BERMAN: You just heard Bernie Sanders saying that in the debate. And it's interesting, in a Democratic primary, unlikely to hurt him. In New Hampshire, independents can vote. So perhaps people in the middle there, more deficit conscious voters, they may look at it differently but we will see.
ROMANS: All right, the Flint water crisis reaching Capitol Hill. The blame game has now begun. Who congress is demanding answers from next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:44:10] BERMAN: Attorneys for Bill Cosby plan to appeal the ruling by a Pennsylvania judge that allows a sex assault case against the comedian to go forward. The judge rejected a defense motion to dismiss criminal charges. Cosby's lawyer cited a unwritten agreement with a former D.A. back in 2005 that they claim gave Cosby immunity from prosecution. Andrea Constand accuses Cosby of assaulting her in his home in 2004.
ROMANS: Nicole Lovell, the 13-year-old Virginia girl who was abducted and killed last week will be laid to rest this afternoon. One of the two Virginia Tech students charged in her death, 19-year-old Natalie Keepers, will face a judge in just a few hours. There's a new development in this case. A friend of the victim says she told a school resource officer the girl was having an inappropriate relationship with an adult man in the weeks before she disappeared. Now it's not clear if that man was 18-year-old murder suspect David Eisenhauer.
[05:45:02] BERMAN: Florida governor, Rick Scott, declaring a health emergency in four counties with confirmed cases of the Zika virus. At least nine people have been diagnosed in Florida. Officials say all of them caught the disease while outside the country. The first case of Zika transmission in the U.S. was reported this week in Texas, a rare instance of it being spread through sex, not a mosquito bite. Zika has been linked to severe birth defects in newborns. The CDC is advising pregnant women to take precautions if their male partner has travelled to an area with Zika outbreaks.
ROMANS: New developments in the Flint water crisis. Washington lawmakers now trying to determine who is responsible for the lead contamination in the city's tap water. The committee's Republican chairman Jason Chaffetz is issuing subpoenas to compel two officials to testify, including Flint's emergency manager. The Democrats are furious, charging Michigan's Republican Governor, Rick Snyder, is not be subpoenaed for political reasons.
BERMAN: President Obama made his first ever trip to a Mosque in the United States. He spoke to the Islamic Society of Baltimore. The president slammed Republican counter-terror proposals to single out Muslims for scrutiny. He said quote, we can't be bystanders to be bigotry, noting past prejudice in the U.S. against Mormons, Catholics, and Jews.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If we're serious about freedom of religion, and I'm speaking now to my fellow Christians who remain the majority in this country, we have to understand an attack on one faith is an attack on all our faiths.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Now folks in some circles, for a long time, have felt the notion that the president is a Muslim. He is not. After the president's speech, Donald Trump said Mr. Obama chose to visit a mosque because quote, maybe he feels comfortable there.
ROMANS: All right. 46 minutes past the hour. CNN takes you inside Syria to the oil fields ISIS used to make millions. That's next. "Playboy" is putting its clothes on. The first non-nude issue hits store shelves today in New York and L.A.
As CNN Money's Alison Kosik reports, you will hardly recognize it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CORY JONES, CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER, PLAYBOY: We're going to add more mystery to the pages of "Playboy."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "Playboy's" radical reinvention is on news stands now. What's changed? The models are keeping their clothes on. Getting the first ever non-nude issue of "Playboy" ready for primetime has not been easy.
ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You had to reconceptualize a whole new playboy while still putting out nude issues.
JASON BUHRMESTER, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, PLAYBOY: That's true, we've been doing double duty. We've been putting out four or five months worth of issues while also really tearing the magazine down to its core DNA.
KOSIK: Gone from the magazine, the tagline, "entertainment for men" along with the stodgy jokes page. The magazine even feels different. It's bigger with thicker paper. And the photography leaves a little more to the imagination. Like other magazines, "Playboy" is struggling. Internet porn has sapped "Playboy's" circulation but no nudity opens the door to new advertisers like Dodge. But "Playboy's" critics say this strategy is a mistake.
LARRY FLYNT, FOUNDER, HUSTLER MAGAZINE: I knew Hefner was getting old because he's 90 years old. But I didn't know he lost his mind. I think "Playboy" felt they had to go in a different direction. Problem is, there's not another direction.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hef has not lost his mind. Hef is leading the creative repositioning of "Playboy" to make it as relevant today for millennial males as when he launched "Playboy Magazine" in the '50s. We just think we've transcended beyond the need for nudity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:53:09] ROMANS: Coalition air strikes are taking a toll on ISIS financially. The terrorist organization once generated $40 million a month selling oil until the bombs and the revenue started dropping.
CNN's senior international correspondent Clarissa Ward just visited an oil field in northern Syria that was liberated from ISIS. She joins us now live from Erbil, Iraq, with a chilling account of what she found. And Clarissa, we know that ISIS fighters took over these, what can be, lucrative oil fields and storage facilities and in many cases, weren't able to keep them up, but also sometimes turned them into prisons. What did you see?
CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well that's right, Christine. So up until recently, this was oil which was ISIS' most reliable, consistent, largest source of revenue. As you said, $40 million a month. That's nearly $500 million a year that they were making from oilfields. Now on the back of this U.S.-led coalition air campaign against ISIS and against those oil fields and with oil prices plummeting, ISIS has certainly taken a real hit in terms of that stream of revenue. We actually went and visited a field that was liberated by Kurdish and Arab fighters on the ground in Syria about two months ago and it was interesting because the fighter who was taking us around told us that the militants did learn to adapt to the U.S. air campaign pretty quickly. Essentially they would just have one man, one cashier at each pump. They would only allow one tanker to come in at a time to buy gas. But notwithstanding their adapting tactics between those U.S. air strikes and Kurdish and Syrian-Arab forces on the ground, they were able to take back that oilfield.
[05:54:56] What they realize now, though, is that it is going to be a very long time before they can get the oil pumping again. So much damage has been done to these fields, primarily by those coalition air strikes, but also by ISIS who, just before they fled, did everything they could to destroy what was left behind. We saw they cut electric cables, they planted booby traps, anything they could to try to sabotage future use of that oilfield. Now one thing that they left untouched which was particularly harrowing to see, just behind the refinery, a row of tanks buried underground that ISIS was using as a sort of underground prison. And we were really shocked to see that in each of these small underground cells, we were told 10 to 15 prisoners would have been held. And on one of them, we actually saw some graffiti that had been scrawled in Arabic, obviously by one of the people who was being held there. And it read, I do not fear death, but I fear the tears of my loved ones. I think that really gives our viewers a sense of the horrors that went on there. And while efforts are now under way to try to rebuild, to try to get that oil back pumping again, it will take much longer than that to try to erase the horrors that ISIS did there. Christine.
ROMANS: Remarkable access, remarkable reporting. Clarissa Ward, thank you so much for that. 56 minutes past the hour. Let's get an EARLY START on your money this
morning. Dow futures are higher after gains in Europe and Asia. Why? Well, oil prices edging up above $32 a barrel. A long list of corporate earnings today. The big government job support is on Friday. So the volatility of the stock market is pushing people into safer investments like bonds. That rush into the bond market is pushing down mortgage rates. And this morning, there's new evidence that buying a home is becoming more attractive than renting depending on where you live and work. Zillow calls it the break even point. The break even point for the average U.S. home buyer is now down to 1.9 years. That means it takes less than two years for buying a home to become a better financial move than renting. Pays off in only two years.
But it really depends on where you live. For example, it takes owners in Dallas just a little over a year. In Washington D.C., it takes about 4.5 years to break even versus renting. Also on the home front, home owners are seeing the biggest increase in their home values since 2007. Another real estate firm, RealtyTrac, says Americans who sold their home in 2015 saw an average increase of 11 percent from their purchase price. That's gain of about $20,000. The average home price now stands at $206,500. 91 percent of all housing markets saw home prices rise last year. Home values rose in 91 percent of U.S. housing markets.
57 minutes past the hour. Democrats battling it out for voters in a CNN town Hall. Who is the most progressive? Who is in the pocket of Wall Street? Did they break out? What did we learn new? "NEW DAY" picks it up now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANDERS: You can't go and say you're a moderate on one day and be a progressive on the other day.
CLINTON: Senator Sanders has set himself up to be the gatekeeper on who's a progressive.
SANDERS: We have got to crush ISIS.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you raise my taxes, how does that help me?
COOPER: Did you have to be paid $675,000?
CLINTON: Well I don't know. That's what they offered.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you cultivate the ego, the ego that we all know you must have?
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Oh, that voter fraud. You know, these politicians are brutal.
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yet another trumper- tantrum.
RICK SANTORUM (R), FMR. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are suspending the campaign as of this moment. We decided to support Marco Rubio.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The black gold that has funded the ISIS war machine. Just behind the refinery, a row of tanks turned into an underground prison.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota, and Michaela Pereira.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Thursday, February 4, 6:00 in the East and indeed, the election has entered a new phase. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders sparring directly over progressive credentials. That was the theme at last night's CNN presidential town hall. Sanders forcing Clinton to be on the defensive over her war record and ties to Wall Street. Which of the Democratic rivals fared best with New Hampshire voters just five days before the primary?
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: On the Republican side, the battle between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz getting very personal. Trump accusing Cruz of voter fraud and stealing his Iowa caucus win. Trump now demanding a do-over. This as two GOP candidates drop out. So let's begin our coverage with CNN's senior political correspondent, Brianna Keilar. She's live in Manchester, New Hampshire with highlights of the town hall. Good morning, Brianna.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Alisyn. This was a battle for really the label of being a progressive last night. In the first time that these two candidates appeared jointly since Hillary Clinton eked out a win in Iowa.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANDERS: Of course, we're an underdog. We are taking on the most powerful political organization in the country and that's the Clinton organization.
KEILAR (voice-over): Only five days away from the New Hampshire primary, Senator Bernie Sanders taking off the gloves during last night's Democratic town hall.
