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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Trump Goes to War Against New York Times; Kentucky and Oregon Primaries Today; NTSB Blames Train Crash on Engineer Distraction; Syria Peace Talks Resuming; Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired May 17, 2016 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:00:13] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump's problem with women. His attorney now threatening to sue the "New York Times" for painting the presumptive nominee as misogynistic. This as his last primary rival lists his wife and daughters as reason he may not even vote for Trump.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: In just hours Hillary Clinton hoping to bounce back after a couple of primary losses. Two states voting today. So will this be where Hillary Clinton seals the deal?
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm John Berman.
ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. Nice to see you this morning. It is Tuesday, May 17th. It is 4:00 a.m. in the East.
Breaking overnight a lawyer for Donald Trump suggests Trump might sue the "New York Times" over its article portraying his treatment of many women as sexist and unsettling. Trump's fury over the story extended late into last night with a series of tweets. One said, "No wonder the 'Times' is failing. Who can believe what they write after the false, malicious and libelous story they did on me?"
Picking up on the word libel, CNN's Erin Burnett asked Trump Organization attorney Jill Martin about the chance of a lawsuit against the "Times." Martin responded that it is, quote, "a distinct possibility." All this as the "Times" defends the piece. A reporter, Michael Barbaro. telling John Berman that none of the facts are in dispute. One of the women quoted in the story backed up the "Times" telling CNN last night that her portrayal was factual.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARBARA RES, FORMER ENGINEER ON TRUMP CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS: The article has pretty much quoted me the way I spoke it.
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Did you think it was negative? Do you think there was an agenda attached to it?
RES: It's hard to say. You know, I -- I think that you would probably come away with a negative feeling about Trump, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there was an agenda to make it that way. I would say good luck with life, Donald. But I don't think that you, you know, should be president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: But not all the women quoted agreed the "Times" played it straight.
CNN's Sara Murray has more.
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Good morning, John and Christine. Donald Trump kicked off his week by going to war with the media. He took aim at the "New York Times" for a report they had in which they interviewed dozens of women who were in Donald Trump's orbit who said he seemed to objectify them. He seemed to make unwelcomed advances toward them. One woman who was a contestant in his pageant even said she received an unwanted kiss on the lips from Donald Trump. But there was one of the women who was prominently featured in the story who came out. She was on CNN and said she felt misrepresented by her portrayal in the "New York Times." She said she never felt uncomfortable around Donald Trump.
And that sent Donald Trump off on Twitter. He raised the alarm with CNN's own control room when this women originally appeared on FOX News to make sure that there were people disputing the story. He took to Twitter to say that the story was false, to say it was malicious
Now all of this just builds into a broader narrative when it comes to Donald Trump, and that is the issue of how he deals with women, how he's dealt with women in the past. One thing we still haven't seen from the campaign is a cohesive attempt to try to improve Donald Trump's favorability numbers with women in the broader electorate, and he does have an issue on that front. Many of those women do have an unfavorable view of him and that's something the campaign is going to have to deal with if they hope to win in November.
Back to you, John and Christine.
ROMANS: All right, Sara, thanks for that.
Almost on queue overnight Priorities USA, a Hillary Clinton super PAC announced it is releasing its first commercial of the campaign targeting Trump. It hits him for past comments about women. It's part of a $6 million buy in the battleground states of Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Nevada. Priorities USA plans to spend well over $100 million by the time the campaign is done.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, you can see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of here wherever.
Does she have a good body? No. Does she have a fat ass? Absolutely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: You see it's very similar to an ad put up by the never Trump folks earlier in the campaign but this is significant and coming from the Democrats and the Hillary Clinton super PAC. Expect to see a lot more of this going forward. Also new, overnight, John Kasich says unless Donald Trump changes all
his views and becomes a more unifying candidate, the Ohio governor will be hard pressed to endorse him. Kasich says he's less inclined to become Trump's running mate.
John Kasich spoke exclusively to Anderson Cooper. He said that even though he has deep reservations about Trump, he will not mount a third party bid. In Kasich's words, it just doesn't feel right. Even as Kasich prepared himself as a local Republican, though, he told Anderson he has not made up his mind about backing the party's presumptive nominee.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, AC 360: So just for the record, you're undecided about whether or not you would endorse Donald Trump.
GOV. JOHN KASICH (R), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes, I am, right. Right. I'm undecided.
COOPER: Are you undecided about whether you'd actually vote for him?
KASICH: You know, at the end of the day endorsing is going to mean a lot and, frankly, my wife and my daughters have watched this.
[04:05:01] And if I were to turn around today and endorse him they'd be like, why, dad, and that matters to me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with former secretary of state Henry Kissinger tomorrow in New York. Dr. Kissinger widely consider the Republican Party's elder statesman on global affairs. Trump looking to develop his foreign policy chops according to a report in the "Washington Post." The 92-year-old Kissinger was the top adviser to President Nixon and Ford. His particular expertise is with relations.
BERMAN: In the Cold War era to be sure.
ROMANS: That's right.
BERMAN: I mean, he's dealt a lot with Russia and whatnot, you know, missiles. The guy has been around for a long, long time.
Donald Trump also hired his first pollster of the election right now. Tony Fabrizio, a well known Republican pollster. So for a guy who --
ROMANS: Entering a new phase.
BERMAN: Entering a new phase to be sure.
All right, In just hours, Hillary Clinton hopes to bounce back in at least one state after losses to Bernie Sanders in Indiana and West Virginia. Both campaigns thinks Sanders has the edge in Oregon today but Secretary Hillary Clinton has been investing a lot of money, a lot of time in Kentucky, which her campaign thinks she has a better chance to win.
Let's get the latest now from senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, another election day today, Kentucky and Oregon. The Clinton campaign is really looking to a win in Kentucky as one of the states they believe they could possibly use to break Bernie Sanders' recent winning streak.
Hillary Clinton campaigning across the state of Kentucky, making some 11 stops in her last series of visits over the last couple of weeks. But yesterday, she campaigned aggressively across Kentucky. She of course had Donald Trump in her main focus here even as she tries to outrun Bernie Sanders. But she took on a bit of Donald Trump's own words as she imagined what a debate against him would be like.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Let's just imagine I'm on a debate stage with Donald Trump. Now personally I am really looking forward to it.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: And so let's suppose here's the question. So what is your plan to create jobs? His answer is I'm going to create them. They're going to be great. I know how to do it. But I'm not telling you what it is I'm going to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZELENY: So even as Hillary Clinton keeps her eye on Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders has his eye on Hillary Clinton. That's why he is coming here to Los Angeles to have a campaign rally tonight. He believes those 475 delegates in the state of California on June 7th could be at least a moral victory for him, even if it's not enough to put him over the top. But he'll be campaigning aggressively here in California for the final three weeks until the June 7th primary here and this long Democratic fight finally wraps up -- John and Christine.
ROMANS: All right, Jeff Zeleny. Thanks, Jeff.
President Obama is defending his order to the nation's public schools. That order allowing transgender students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity. In his first public comments since issuing the directive, the president said his administration used its best judgment to help schools that are struggling with the issue. Even more important, say the president, are the children it might help.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Anybody who has been in school, been in high school, who has been a parent, I think should realize that kids who are sometimes in the minority, kids who, you know, have a different sexual orientation or transgender, are subject to a lot of bullying, potentially. You know, they're vulnerable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Many Republican lawmakers have condemned the federal transgender bathroom order to the nation's public schools. They call it presidential overreach.
BERMAN: The Supreme Court chose not to resolve the dispute between religious employers and the White House over the contraceptive coverage mandate in Obamacare. The justices sent the matter back to lower courts hoping the two sides can reach a compromise in the four- year legal battle. It actually asked the sides for compromised ideas. This could be a new example of how Justice Scalia's death has affected how the court approaches contentious cases until at least they get a justice back on the court.
ROMANS: All right. Billionaire Mark Cuban says Donald Trump's unpredictability and flip-flopping on major issues would be a big loss for anyone with money in the stock market. Here's what he told CNN's Erin Burnett last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK CUBAN, BILLIONAIRE BUSINESSMAN: That uncertainty, you know, potentially as the president of the United States, that's the last thing Wall Street wants to hear. And I can say with 100 percent certainty that there's a really good chance we could see a huge, huge correction.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: A correction would be a drop of at least 20 percent for the stock market. That would end t bull market in stocks that has spanned the last seven years.
Mark Cuban is of course the owner of the NBA Dallas Mavericks and the star in a ABC show "Shark Tank." Cuban says he likes Trump. He respects him as a businessman but he would vote for Hillary Clinton if the election were now. And she were the Democratic nominee. He went on to say that all of those Trump supporters would see their own 401(k)s, potentially their paychecks, shrink if you had a Donald Trump presidency just because of all the uncertainty his policies would bring to the world's economy.
[04:10:09] BERMAN: All right, 10 minutes after the hour. New information coming out today into what caused a deadly Amtrak derailment. Remember these pictures? Details next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BERMAN: A loss of focus by an Amtrak engineer is expected to be blamed when the NTSB issues its findings today on the derailment last year near Philadelphia that killed eight people. Investigators say the deadly crash happened after someone threw a rock at a commuter train nearby. The agency says the distraction from radio traffic caused the engineer to take a 50-mile-an-hour curve at more than 100 miles per hour.
CNN's Rene Marsh has the latest.
RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION AND GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, John and Christine, a source tells CNN an NTSB investigation into the Amtrak 188 derailment that killed eight and injured more than 200 people in Philadelphia last year has concluded that the train's engineer, Brandon Bostian, was distracted prior to the crash.
[04:15:06] Specifically he was distracted by radio conversations between other trains and dispatchers about other trains being hit with projectiles.
The NTSB will announce this morning at a public meeting their conclusion. Investigators say they found no evidence that the Amtrak engineer was using alcohol, drugs or a cell phone.
We do know that the ride from the train station in Philadelphia to the site of the derailment was 11 minutes. And investigators say seven to nine of the minutes, the engineer was listening and participating in the radio conversations regarding other trains being hit with a projectile. Bostian approached a 50-mile-per-hour curve at 106 miles per hour last May -- John, Christine.
ROMANS: All right, Rene Marsh. Thank you for that, Rene.
A federal judge ordering that the names of the so-called unindicted -- co-conspirators, rather, in the New Jersey bridgegate scandal be made public by noon today. We could learn if anyone else in Governor Chris Christie's inner circle or Christie himself was involved in a 2013 the decision to close lanes at the George Washington Bridge as an act of political retribution. One person has already pleaded guilty, two others are going to trial in connection with that bridgegate scandal.
BERMAN: Defense testimony resumes this morning in the trial of the Baltimore Police Officer Edward Nero, one of the six officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray last year, who died while in police custody. Before the prosecution rested its case, Officer Garrett Miller testified he alone took Gray into custody after a chase. Nero contends he had just a minor role in the arrest.
Miller is one of two officers who were compelled to testify at Nero's trial despite their own pending charges.
ROMANS: This morning, the gun George Zimmerman used to kill unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin back in 2012 goes back on the auction block. Zimmerman will try again to sell the 9 millimeter handgun after a failed attempt last week. He says the new online auction will begin on the United Gun Group site at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time. The starting bid for the firearm, which Zimmerman calls a piece of American history, is $100,000.
BERMAN: If you happen to be flying this morning, good luck. Get to the airport early. Lines at security check points longer than ever. Many passengers reporting wait times of two to three hours. That means a lot of frustrated travelers missing connections. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We were just in security for almost two hours and ran to our gate and it was three minutes shy of the door closing, so we got a hotel and are back and hopefully I'll make this one.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got here about three -- two and one-half hours early and it still wasn't enough time. I had to go back to my friend's place and try it again this morning.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: So what will the crush at security points ease? Sometime this summer, the TSA hopes. Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson says it is a matter of money.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEH JOHNSON, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: We're working with Congress to get TSA more funding. Congress last week approved a reprogramming of $34 million for more overtime and to expedite the hiring of more TSOs. And with OMB, we are evaluating whether more will be necessary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Secretary Johnson is hoping to have 768 new TSA security officers in place by mid-June.
ROMANS: This is rapidly becoming the biggest complaint among air travelers right now and looking to see what happens this summer. But something has to be done here. Some people are calling for the TSA to be kicked out of some airports actually. You know, some of the smaller airports want to take over security themselves.
BERMAN: That guy -- that guy really did get there two and a half to three hours before the flight and still didn't make or barely made it.
ROMANS: Yes. That's a problem.
BERMAN: That's crazy.
ROMANS: That's a problem.
BERMAN: All right. New negotiations beginning today to try to stop the crisis in Syria. The U.S. and Russia leading that discussion. Is there hope for common ground? We are live in Damascus next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:23:20] ROMANS: Talks aimed at resolving the civil war in Syria resume today. The International Syria Support Group led by the U.S. and Russia will meet in Vienna, Austria. Secretary of State John Kerry says they hope to rebuild on efforts to restore a nationwide cease-fire. It comes as the Assad regime claims local reconciliation efforts are working. CNN's Fred Pleitgen is following developments. He is live for us in
Damascus this morning. Good Morning, Fred.
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Christine. And certainly the odds seem to be stacked up against those who are trying to negotiate that renewed cessation of hostilities here for Syria in Vienna. On the one hand, you do have those local efforts by the Assad government which we actually saw on the ground here outside of Damascus.
But it's also the problem that the U.N. says that those kind of efforts, local efforts, is not what they want to see. They want to see a nationwide reconciliation process. They want to see all rebel groups part of that process and at this point in time, quite frankly, they are very, very far away from making that happen.
The big problem continues to be the fact that the opposition says that as part of a transitional process here in Syria, they want to see Bashar al-Assad step down at some point. The Syrian government not surprisingly says that is absolutely not going to happen. It's not even up for negotiation. So it seems as though there is a deadlock on that issue. And that's why the goals of the negotiators there in Vienna are a lot more humble than trying to move some sort of political process forward.
They want to renew the cessation of hostilities which is all but falling apart especially up north in the Aleppo area where there is still a lot of fighting going on.
And the center piece, really is, Christine, trying to get aid to besieged areas. You know, I was talking to the Red Cross here on the ground recently and they told me that they were trying to deliver aid to the besieged area. They were held up at a checkpoint for seven hours.
ROMANS: Wow.
[04:25:10] PLEITGEN: And then turned back. It's a problem that happens on both sides of the equation here in this country -- Christine.
ROMANS: And it's just hard to imagine the suffering for five years now, the people there who are just trying to survive as the political process so slowly grinds.
Thank you so much for that, Fred.
BERMAN: The U.S. and its allies have agreed to provide weapons to the internationally recognized Libyan government to help fight ISIS and other militant groups. Libyan officials are submitting requests to be exempted from a U.N. arms embargo that is now in place. Libya is a big concern for this White House. The lack of a working central government has allowed ISIS to gain a foothold in that country with an estimated 6,000 fighters now entrenched there.
ROMANS: Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl is expected to appear at a court hearing at Fort Brag this morning. He faces desertion and misbehavior charges for leaving his post in Afghanistan. Prosecutors are asking to delay his trial date from August to December because Bergdahl's defense team has requested more than one million pages of documents connected to their client's capture by the Taliban and his five years in captivity.
BERMAN: All right, 26 minutes after the hour. Donald Trump furious and his attorney threatening to sue the "New York Times" over a controversial article on how he treats women.
Plus. Why Donald Trump's former rival John Kasich says he can't endorse and may not even vote for Donald Trump.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
