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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Trump Intensifies Attacks Against Hillary Clinton; Obama to Visit Flood-Ravaged Baton Rouge; Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired August 23, 2016 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:46] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump calling for a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton. He wants to know more about ties between her State Department and her husband's charitable foundation and his attacks on Clinton didn't stop there.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Another 15,000 e-mails and other documents from Hillary Clinton are set to go public and it could happen just weeks before the election. So what's Clinton saying to Jimmy Kimmel about it?
ROMANS: President Obama heads to Louisiana today to survey the damage from devastating flood. We got preview of the president's trip from Baton Rouge.
Welcome back to EARLY START. Bright and early this morning. I'm Christine Romans.
SANCHEZ: And I'm Boris Sanchez. A pleasure to be here with you, Christine. We're 31 minutes past the hour and we start this morning with what else? With Donald Trump.
He is turning up the rhetorical heat on Hillary Clinton calling the Democratic nominee corrupt, slamming what he described as Hillary Clinton's criminality, and calling for a special prosecutor to probe links between the State Department under her leadership and the Clinton Foundation. Trump again demanded the foundation be shutdown.
In a speech last night in Akron, Trump also targeted Clinton on immigration. The attack coming just hours after his own planned speech on that subject was abruptly postponed.
CNN's Sara Murray has more from Ohio.
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Good morning, Boris and Christine. This was supposed to be the week Donald Trump was talking about immigration. But instead he is on the trail using his time to hammer Hillary Clinton. He accused her in Akron, Ohio, of pay-for- play and called up for a special prosecutor to look at the ties between with the Clinton Foundation and the State Department.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Pay the Clinton Foundation huge sums of money and throw in some big speaking fees for Bill Clinton, and you got to play. The amounts involved, the favors done, and the significant number of times it was done require an expedited investigation by a special prosecutor immediately, immediately, immediately.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MURRAY: Now not only was this red meat to his Republican base, but it's of course an overture to independent voters who might wonder whether Hillary Clinton really is trustworthy.
Now of course all of this comes as there is a fervor around Donald Trump about whether he might be moderating his stance on immigration. He met with his Hispanic advisory council and his campaign manager suggested that the deportation force he once called for may not come to fruition.
But in Akron, Ohio, there was no sign of moderation. He vowed to build that wall along the southern border with Mexico and called for extreme vetting for immigrants coming to the country.
As for the immigration speech he was planning on giving later this week in Colorado, the campaign has scrapped that. He'll be back on the trail today but in the very red state of Texas.
Back to you guys.
ROMANS: All right, Sara. Thank you for that.
As for Trump's planned immigration speech have been set for Thursday, a campaign source now tells CNN it is off the schedule at least for this week. The source says the campaign wants more time to fine-tune Trump's immigration policy and the language of the speech.
Trump himself on Monday saying he is not flip-flopping on immigration. This despite his campaign manager suggesting a day earlier that it's, quote, "to be determined," if Trump will stick with his call for a deportation force. For now Trump saying only that he'll come up with a firm but fair process for deportation.
SANCHEZ: Donald Trump's wife Melania Trump is threatening to sue the "Daily Mail," "Politico" and at least eight other news outlets for defamation. Trump's lawyers says the publications are being put on notice for stories about Melania supposedly having been an escort in the 1990s. The stories quoted a Slovenian magazine's claim that Melania had been represented by a New York modeling agency that, quote, "also operated as an escort agency for wealthy clients."
Two of the smaller publications swiftly published retractions. The "Daily Mail" and "Politico," though, among others have not yet commented.
ROMANS: Hillary Clinton facing the possibility that the controversy over her e-mails could produce a damaging October surprise right before Election Day. A federal judge on Monday ordered the State Department to speed up release of nearly 15,000 documents including e- mails and attachments, documents all obtained in that FBI investigation of Clinton's private server. The Clinton campaign saying she has already turned over all the work-related e-mails she had in her possession.
[04:35:03] But the campaign says that if there is anything new and work-related in this batch, Clinton supports its public release. Separately the conservative group Judicial Watch released 725 pages of documents obtained through a Freedom of Information lawsuit. The group says the documents showed donors buying access to Secretary of State Clinton by giving money to the Clinton Foundation. A Clinton spokesman called the Judicial Watch attacks utterly false, saying Hillary Clinton never took action as secretary of state because of donations to the Clinton Foundation.
House Republicans also took a crack at the e-mail controversy Monday sending subpoenas to three tech companies involved with her home server. GOP leaders say the companies have not cooperated with the House committee's probe of that e-mail issue.
SANCHEZ: A lot of politics to get to this morning.
ROMANS: A lot to get to.
SANCHEZ: Fortunately we have some help, joining us now to talk about all the political action, senior political correspondent Brian Stelter, host of "RELIABLE SOURCES."
Brian, good morning to you.
BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
SANCHEZ: We start with what's been dominating the conversation the past two days, this health question about Hillary Clinton. It's not something new. It's something that Trump surrogates have brought up repeatedly. We heard Rudy Giuliani yesterday asking people to go and Google Hillary Clinton illness. She was on Jimmy Kimmel last night and she approached the subject in a kind of comedic way. I want to play that clip for you now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST, "JIMMY KIMMEL SHOW": Are you in good health?
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, this has become one of their themes. You know, you take my pulse while I'm talking to you.
KIMMEL: OK.
CLINTON: So make sure I'm alive.
KIMMEL: Oh, my God. There's nothing there.
CLINTON: There's nothing there. What did I say? Back in October, the "National Enquirer" said I would be dead in six months.
KIMMEL: Oh, wow, oh.
CLINTON: So with every breath I take, I feel like it's a -- KIMMEL: You have a new lease on life.
CLINTON: Yes, a new lease on life. I don't know why they are saying this. I think on the one hand it's part of the wacky strategy. Just say all these crazy things and maybe you can get some people to believe you. On the other hand, it just absolutely makes no sense. And I don't go around questioning Donald Trump's health. I mean, as far as I can tell, he is as healthy as a horse, you know.
KIMMEL: Well, his doctor said he had the best health examination he's ever seen in a human being.
CLINTON: Yes. Yes, I saw that.
KIMMEL: Can you open this jar of pickles? This has not been tampered with. This is --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: That probably has to be the best way to approach the wacky strategy.
ROMANS: As long as you can actually open the jar of pickles.
SANCHEZ: Right.
ROMANS: You can't get it open. It is hard to open the jar of pickles.
SANCHEZ: Right. You keep it lighthearted. But how effective do they expect this wacky strategy, quote-unquote, to be?
STELTER: It makes sense she's thought through this approach. Using humor to try to deflect and to try to reject, really, these unfounded whispers about her health. This has been going on for weeks but it was really coming to a head in recent days with Donald Trump on the campaign trail frequently referring to her stamina, questioning her strength and stamina, which is a cue to his supporters to believe what they read on the internet. The unfounded lies about her health, about her secret illness.
What she's really doing here is humor very effectively to try to reject those claims. I think it will be widely seen this morning. But I don't think the claims are going to go away.
ROMANS: Right.
STELTER: Certainly some of Trump's supporters who believe this stuff want to see her medical records, they want to see more detail about her health. I doubt that's forthcoming.
ROMANS: Now she has released a pretty detailed medical reports. He released a letter from a doctor saying, you know, that he is the best -- most fit candidate ever to run for president. You know, a big claim like that.
STELTER: Right.
ROMANS: The reason why this is swirling, this conspiracy theory gets legs because of the kernels of truth that are in it.
STELTER: Yes.
ROMANS: Now you have to go back to December, 2012. She was dehydrated, she had the flu, she fell, right. She sustained a concussion. She was treated for that. She was then treated for a blood clot in her brains, she was on blood thinners, and then she was -- the Benghazi testimony was delayed as she was wearing kind of these funky glasses.
STELTER: Yes.
ROMANS: That people thought, you know, why is, you know, Hillary Clinton wearing these weird glasses and it was because she was getting over that issue. Now what you hear from Trump supporters is that she was secretly hospitalized for 30 days. She was in the hospital for three days, am I right?
STELTER: Yes.
ROMANS: So just those little kernels of truth. They have to keep it --
STELTER: Exactly. Kernels of truth.
ROMANS: Keep it going.
STELTER: That's what it is. Kernels of truth. But then it becomes -- some of the people online or some of these right-wing Web sides have used those kernels of truth to come up with this conspiracy idea. It just does not have any evidence to support it.
Frankly, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, both of them are relatively old for presidential nominees. So there's questions about both of these candidates' health. But it's one thing to ask questions and encourage more reporting. Another thing to suggest she's secretly ill and that she's covering something up. And there's just no proof of that. So I think the way she handled it on Kimmel both on that front and on her e-mails is a very logical way while she's on a West Coast fundraising tour to address some of these issues.
[04:40:04] SANCHEZ: And we have to talk about those e-mails. Yesterday the announcement that more than -- about 15,000 e-mails and documents are going to be released. The Clinton campaign saying that they support the transparency as long as, you know, they are work related. She approached that yesterday on Kimmel. Let's play that clip now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KIMMEL: I would be terrified if my e-mails were released.
CLINTON: But, Jimmy, my e-mails are so boring. KIMMEL: Yes, mine aren't.
CLINTON: And, I mean, I'm embarrassed about that. They're so boring.
KIMMEL: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
CLINTON: And -- so we've already released, I don't know, 30,000 plus. So what's a few more?
KIMMEL: So at the end, you're not concerned that there's going to be something that --
CLINTON: No.
KIMMEL: That Donald Trump is able to use against you? That the Republicans -- that comes in at the last seconds?
CLINTON: But he makes up stuff to use against us. So if he would stick with reality I wouldn't have a worry in the world.
KIMMEL: Have you ever sent him an e-mail?
CLINTON: No.
KIMMEL: You have not, OK. Well, that would be some plot twist.
(LAUGHTER)
CLINTON: No, I think I -- I think -- I think I have missed that opportunity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Now humor certainly works with the conspiracy theories, the wacky strategy. Does it work with this? This is something that's been dogging her for months. First she said, she tried to simplify and just use one device. Turned out that wasn't true. She said that Colin Powell suggested she use private server. Colin Powell is denying that. How does she approach this moving forward? Because it doesn't seem like it's going away.
STELTER: Yes, I would argue this is actually a more significant story because this one -- every time there new e-mail releases, there are new stories that come from those e-mail releases. New points of curiosity if nothing else. Now she's saying her work-related e-mails have already been released. Now what can there possibly be? But there is a drip, drip, drip aspect to this. Not because it's necessarily criminal, but because there continue to be more releases of more e-mails. And certainly we know there's more that are still to come. Maybe before the election, maybe after the election. Donald Trump has a real, you know, opportunity here between now and the election to continue to prosecute this issue.
ROMANS: And let's listen to a little bit of what Donald Trump said on Hillary Clinton and her immigration policies last night because he was in Akron really just laying into her.
STELTER: Yes.
ROMANS: And the Clinton -- you know, the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Hillary Clinton is either too corrupt or too cowardly to meet with the families of those killed by the policies she and Obama support. Hillary Clinton has totally forgotten the first rule of public service. The job of an elected official is to serve the citizens of the United States. That's what the job is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: I noticed a couple of things. He is a teleprompter first and he's really going after her on immigration, something that even a day before he was accused of flip-flopping on.
STELTER: Right. He may be focusing on Clinton as a distraction from his own questions about what exactly his immigration plan consist of. He has -- the latest speech he was going to give later this week doesn't seem like he's ready to address those detailed question about the exact specifications of his immigration plan. But in the meantime, he can always talk about Hillary Clinton. And that's of course what his allies want him to do. He said again last night that he feels Democrats have failed minorities in this country.
ROMANS: That's right.
STELTER: This is going to trigger an entire new news cycle conversation about that issue as well.
SANCHEZ: We'll get into that later on, the next half hour. Brian Stelter, thank you so much for the perspective.
ROMANS: Thanks, Brian. Nice to see you bright and early this morning.
STELTER: Thank you.
ROMANS: We love it when he gets up early.
Time for an EARLY START on your money. It's eerily quiet in stock markets. Futures pushing higher this morning. All three averages hanging near record highs. The true test comes later this week when Federal Reserve chairman Janet Yellen speaks at a conference of central bankers. Job market is humming so will the Fed raise rates soon? Stay tuned. Stock markets in Europe and Asia are mixed right now. Oil is down.
Wells Fargo fined millions for charging student loan borrowers illegal fees. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau slapped the big bank with a $3.6 million penalty. It will also set aside $410,000 to refund customers hit with these illegal fees. These are fees that happened between 2010 and 2013. These charges for borrowers hit borrowers who paid on the very last day of their grace period.
Wells Fargo is one of the biggest private student loan lenders in the country. It currently has about 1.3 million student loan customers.
SANCHEZ: In just a few hours, President Obama is heading south to survey the damage from deadly flooding in Louisiana, but is this trip coming too late? We have a preview next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:48:43] ROMANS: President Obama will get a close-up look at the devastation when he visits the flood-ravaged Baton Rouge, Louisiana, this morning. The president is taking some of criticism for not cutting his summer vacation short to go to Baton Rouge sooner. We know the situation in that state is dire. Over 3,000 people remain in shelters in Baton Rouge alone. More than 25,000 flood insurance claims have now been filed, $55 million in homeowner's assistance funds have been approved.
We get more from CNN's Polo Sandoval.
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And Boris and Christine, these are the scenes that await President Obama as he prepares to tour the devastation for himself in southern Louisiana. You are able to see these piles of debris that continue to grow at this hour. Residents have been gutting the inside of their homes, getting rid of any and all furniture and appliances that were damaged. Of course not to mention some of the construction material would actually made up the interior of their homes.
The president's visit obviously going to be highly watched here. The president himself have been criticized by local newspapers and some residents for not having cut his vacation short last week to actually visit the flooding as it was happening. Of course local governor here did actually throw the president a lifeline saying that it would have taken tremendous amounts of resources to be able to prepare for a presidential visit when rescues were actually happening.
However, we did see a visit from GOP candidate Donald Trump on the ground not too long ago when he actually toured some of the devastation for himself and even left behind a donation there, both material and monetary.
[04:50:12] In the meantime, though, the Hillary Clinton campaign also weighing in saying that the former secretary of state will actually visit Louisiana when that time comes when this campaign is no longer a hindrance for these relief efforts and these rebuilding efforts to continue at this hour.
I can tell you after speaking to people here, they certainly have high hopes that the president's visit will cast a new light on the situation on the ground here. It is far from over. People still on that very long journey to recovery.
ROMANS: All right. Polo Sandoval, thank you so much for that in Louisiana. All right. To money now. Rich investors get better returns than the
average Joe. And there's one simple move that's making them more money. I'll tell you what it is when we get an EARLY START on your money next.
SANCHEZ: What a tease.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:55:06] SANCHEZ: Dramatic new video shows Iraqi police stripping an explosive belt off the waist of a would-be child bomber for ISIS. The video aired by Kurdish TV shows officers in Kirkuk carefully cutting the belt off this boy. He's believed to be 15 years old.
His arrest comes just one day after a deadly suicide bombing at a wedding in Turkey. The president of Turkey claimed that the attacker was between 12 and 14 but other Turkish officials are now backing off the claim that the attacker was a young boy.
ROMANS: North Korea threatening to launch a nuclear attack now that the US and South Korea are conducting joint military exercises off the Korean peninsula. Officials in Pyongyang warning the slightest sign of aggression will be met with a preemptive strike. The annual drill involves 25,000 U.S. troops and comes amid growing concerns of the Pentagon about North Korea's nuclear readiness.
SANCHEZ: And back to the United States now. Wisconsin's attorney general says two body cam videos of the fatal police shooting of a black man in Milwaukee will not be released until the investigation is complete. Twenty-three-year-old Sylville Smith's death earlier this month sparked violent protest leading Milwaukee's mayor to impose a curfew for teenagers. The city is now lifting that emergency curfew saying it's no longer needed.
ROMANS: All right. A new Stanford University policy bans hard liquor and bans shots from all campus parties opened to undergrads. These new rules coming months after former university swimmer, Brock Turner, was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman outside a fraternity. Turner blamed his actions on Stanford's party culture. Critics say the new policy is a public relations stunt, a tone-deaf response to growing concerns about sexual assault and sexual assaults on campus.
SANCHEZ: A federal judge has denied a request by three University of Texas professors for a preliminary injunction blocking the state's controversial campus carry gun law. The ruling comes just two days before classes begin at Texas State University. The new law took effect at the beginning of this month and it allows licensed holders to carry concealed handguns on public college campuses.
ROMANS: Florida Governor Rick Scott pledging $5 million in additional funding to fight the spread of the Zika virus in Miami-Dade County. So far 37 cases of local Zika transmissions are linked to two areas in south Florida. Miami's Wynnewood neighborhood and a mile and a half section of Miami Beach. The governor visited a Miami middle school Monday as students returned to class appealing for more help from Washington in the fight Zika.
SANCHEZ: Ryan Lochte's days as a commercial pitchman appear to be over. Speedo, Ralph Lauren and two other major companies announcing they are ending or not renewing relationships with the disgraced American Olympic swimmer. It comes after Lochte's bogus claim about being robbed at gunpoint in Rio. Lochte now admitting that he over exaggerated that story.
ROMANS: All right. 50 -- almost 60 minutes past the hour. Time for some money. Dow futures edging higher right now. The true test, though, is Janet Yellen's speech in Wyoming on Friday. The jobs market is humming again. Several Fed members warned the U.S. economy is almost ready for a rate hike. Key data this week to help flush out that picture will be numbers on economic growth and housing.
Stock markets in Europe and Asia trading mixed right now. Oil back down near 47 bucks a barrel.
All right. Rich people earn better returns on their investments than the average Joe. They don't pick individual stocks. Exclusive data provided to CNN Money by Open Folio shows the richest 1 percent that invest on that Open Folio platform enjoyed a 3.73 percent return over the past 12 months. The bottom 1 percent losing an average of 3 percent.
Open Folio says its wealthiest clients are more diversified so their investments tend to do better in volatile trading like we saw earlier this year. Those in the bottom 1 percent tend to hold on to just a handful of stocks. So they suffer bigger losses when those companies lose values. It's all about diversifying, folks.
Mobile carriers constantly brag that they have the best service, but Verizon is the only one that is backing that up. At least according to one independent study. In that study Verizon beat its rivals on reliability, calls, data, text and overall performance for the sixth year in a row. Check out the difference for those who live in cities. Verizon scored 98 out of 100. AT&T was second with 51. T-Mobile scores a 40, Sprint only earned a 6 -- a 6 out of 100. Whoa.
SANCHEZ: I'm not great at math, but that's not good. Right?
(LAUGHTER)
ROMANS: Yes.
SANCHEZ: EARLY START continues right now.
ROMANS: Donald Trump stepping up the attacks against Hillary Clinton. He's calling now for a special prosecutor to investigate her ties between State Department and her family's charitable foundation. And that's his -- not his only heated rhetoric.
SANCHEZ: Hillary Clinton facing the release of thousands more documents uncovered during her time as secretary of state. So how is she responding? With a stop by Jimmy Kimmel's show. We'll tell you what she said. ROMANS: And a pickle jar. And President Obama getting set to head to
Louisiana to survey the damage from devastating floods. We'll tell you what else to expect from the president's trip.
Good morning, everyone. It's exactly 5:00 a.m. Welcome to EARLY START I'm Christine Romans.
SANCHEZ: and I'm Boris Sanchez. Thanks so much for having me, Christine. It's Tuesday --
