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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Super Bowl LII; Tom Brady; Nick Foles Super Bowl MVP; Politics; Controversy; Donald Trump White House controversy; Accidents; Death; Transportation; Business; Money; Reality TV; Entertainment; Missing Persons; Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired February 05, 2018 - 04:30   ET

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


[04:30:01] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: The Philadelphia Eagles defeat the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl for their first title ever. Fans in Philly take to the streets to celebrate, some taking it too far.

RYAN NOBLES, CNN ANCHOR: Fallout from the Nunes Memo, the President said the memo totally vindicates him from the Russian probe difficult. The true Republican is saying that's just not true.

ROMANS: New proof this morning into the investigation into a deadly Amtrak train crash, one train slamming into a parked freight train. Welcome back to Early Start. I'm Christine Romans.

RYAN NOBLES, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Ryan Nobles. It is 34 minutes passed the hour. If you are in Philadelphia, you're likely haven't gone to sleep yet, celebrating, Nick Foles and the Philadelphia Eagles going from underdogs to top dog, knocking off Tom Brady and the defending champions, the New England Patriots, 41-33 in Super Bowl LII. This story of Nick Foles is really incredible. He nearly quit football three years ago and he even started this season as the Eagles back-up quarterback.

He was the MVP last night, going toe-to-toe with Tom Brady, and he beat him, throwing three touchdown passes -- and look at this, catching a fourth.

ROMANS: Wow. In a game that featured record-shattering offense, it was a clutch defensive play that sealed the win for the Eagles, Andy Scholes is live from US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. What a game. That was a terrific game.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: It's going to go down as the most exciting Super Bowl we have ever seen, guys, especially offensively. What could you say about these Philadelphia Eagles? They have been underdogs in every single playoff game they played in the post season. They won every single one of them.

[04:35:01] They were pulling out all of the stops in Super Bowl LII, like we just showed you. Nick Foles even catching a touchdown pass. That gave Philly a ten-point lead going into the half. As we all expected, Tom Brady did lead a comeback. Here, he finds Gronk to give the Patriots the lead in the fourth quarter, but Nick Foles just going toe-to-toe with Brady, leads the Eagles down the field, finds Zach Ertz overt middle.

He stretches over for the touchdown. Brady would get another chance, but the Eagles defense finally stepped up and made a play, Brandon graham causing the fumble on the sack. Eagles recover. Brady again would get one last chance, this one a little less likely to work out for the Patriots. He had to go with the Hail Mary. It would be incomplete. And the Eagles have their first Super Bowl championship and Nick Foles now forever a hero in the city. He was the Super Bowl MVP, and our own Coy Wire caught up with him after the game.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICK FOLES, PHILADELPHIA EAGLES, QUARTERBACK: Just to be part of this. To be part of the Philadelphia Eagles organization and to be part of the first world championship, we are blessed, it's an unbelievable feeling. Honestly right now, it is just soaking in. It's unbelievable.

ZACH ERTZ, PHILADELPHIA EAGLES: The city of Philadelphia deserves for so long and we're happy to deliver. People are partying in the streets.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: What do you have to Eagle nation?

ERTZ: Please be safe. That's all I have got to say. Don't destroy everything. See you at the parade.

TOM BRADY, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS, QUARTERBACK: Losing sucks but that's part of it. You show up and you try to win and sometimes you lose. That's the way it goes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: There were a ton of records that were broken in Super Bowl LII. The two teams combining for 1,151 yards. That's the most in NFL history for any game, regular season or playoff. Nick Foles, we showed you twice, him catching a touchdown pass, the first player in Super Bowl history to catch and throw for a touchdown in the big game. And then Tom Brady, he is the first quarterback in NFL history to lose a game when throwing for more than 500 yards and three touchdowns and have no interceptions. It has never been done before, guys.

And you know he has five Super Bowl rings. He is married to a supermodel Gisele. But I still feel bad for him that he lost this game because he had the best game ever for a quarterback in the Super Bowl and still wasn't able to win.

NOBLES: And he is also 40 years old, we should point, which usually is past the prime for the NFL quarterback, Andy, of course, Justin Timberlake performing the Halftime Show there in Minneapolis. What are the reviews?

SCHOLES: For the people that were in the stadium, sitting around me and myself, I enjoyed his performance. His tribute to Prince I thought was nice. He played all the hit songs and even went into the stands and sang and took selfies with the kid. I thought he was a pretty good Super Bowl performance, but then you look on social media and it got mixed reviews. One of the biggest knocks, guys, was there no surprise cameo. No other acts that came in and joined him.

That is something we see traditionally at the Super Bowl. Justin Timberlake had it all to himself last night.

NOBLES: My wife hoping for an appearance by his former band mates from N Sync.

SCHOLES: Women everywhere.

NOBLES: Thanks, Andy, meanwhile, back in Philadelphia, thousands of delirious Eagles fans jamming Broad Street and marching to City Hall last night to celebrate the first Super Bowl title, now police did use hydraulic fluid on sign posts to keep fans from climbing them.

ROMANS: How did that work out?

NOBLES: But it did not work. Several poles were pulled down, of course, a lot of reports of looting and smashed out windows. Why people do this when their team wins I will never understand. Authorities say a car was overturned and people were seen jumping off the Ritz Carlton awning and of course, it collapsed. Local media outlets are reporting several injuries.

New fallout from the memo that Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee released Friday, top GOP lawmakers disputing President Trump's claims, they say the Nunez Memo does not clear him in the ongoing Russia investigation as the President has been saying since he signed off on its release.

ROMANS: The President said to speak today in Cincinnati where he will probably echo comments like this tweet from the weekend where he refers to himself in the third person. He wrote this. This memo totally vindicates Trump in probe but the Russian witch hunt goes on and on. There was no collusion and there was no obstruction. The word now used because after one year of looking and finding nothing, collusion is dead. This is an American disgrace. For more, let's bring in White House Correspondent Boris Sanchez, in West Palm Beach, Florida.

[04:40:01] BORIS SANCHEZ, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: We heard several Republican lawmakers, some of them on the House Intelligence Committee, outright contradicting the President and his stance that he voiced several times over the weekend via Twitter, that the Nunes Memo vindicates him and proves that the Russia investigation this is a witch hunt. Listen to South Carolina Representative Trey Gowdy on one of the Sunday morning talk shows.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TREY GOWDY, SOUTH CAROLINA REPRESENTATIVE: There is a Russia investigation without a dossier. To the extent the memo deals with the dossier and FISA process, the dossier has nothing to do with the meeting in Trump Tower. The dossier has nothing to do with an email sent by Cambridge Analytica. The dossier really has nothing to do with George Padopoulos' meeting in Great Britain. It also doesn't have anything to do with the obstruction of justice. So there's going to be a Russia probe even without a dossier.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: That statement coming from Trey Gowdy is especially significant because even according to Devin Nunes, Rey Gowdy is the only Republican on the House Intelligence Committee that has actually seen the raw data, the raw intelligence that allowed a FISA court judge to go ahead and issue the warrants to surveil Carter Page. So if anyone knows about the validity of the Nunes Memo or its potential implication on the Russia investigation, it is certainly Trey Gowdy.

Despite that, the President also tweeted portions of a Wall Street Journal editorial that suppose there are political actors within the Department of Justice and the FBI that are anti-Trump. We also heard from Donald Trump Jr. on Saturday and he said the release of the Nunes Memo is like sweet revenge for him and his family.

Democrats are pushing for the release now of the so-called Schiff Memo, that is the rebuttal to the Nunes Memo, which according to the Democrats contains more contexts and contradicts in, portions the Nunes Memo. We could potentially see the Intelligence Committee vote to declassify that as early as today. What is unclear is whether the White House will allow for its declassification the way it did for the Nunes Memo, Christine.

NOBLES: All right. Boris, thank you. The Nunes Memo released Friday is less than four pages, but the story it tells us is highly controversial and a bit complicated. Here is a review. The memo claims that an FBI official told the House Intelligence Committee the salacious, disputed Trump dossier was "essential to securing a surveillance warrant for Trump Campaign Aide Carter Page."

ROMANS: The memo then undercuts its own argument. The Russia investigation was triggered earlier by information about a different campaign adviser, George Padopoulos. The memo alleges the Justice Department did not disclose the political bias of the dossier's author, but the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times all report that the FISA Surveillance Court was told about the political motivations behind the dossier.

NOBLES: And already, Democrats are warning the release of the Nunes Memo could lead to a "constitutional crisis." The number two Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin put it that way on CNN's State of the Union.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK DURBIN, UNITED STATES SENATOR: To say that this is the end of the investigation and this is all Donald Trump needs to fire Rosenstein or to fire Bob Mueller. This could precipitate a constitutional crisis if the House Republicans believe they set the stage for this President to end this investigation, they are basically saying in America, one man is above the law. That's not a fact.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBLES: And at that same moment, former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus was on NBC's Meet the Press, saying he never thought Robert Mueller's job as special counsel was at risk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REINCE PRIEBUS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: I never felt of all of the things that we went through in the West Wing I never felt the President was going to fire the special counsel. I only know what I dealt with and I can tell you I never felt that there was some sort of collusion or some kind of obstruction situation going on in the West Wing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBLES: And just to remind you, Priebus left the White House back in July.

ROMANS: All right, time for an Early Start on your Monday. The Federal Reserve has a new Chairman. Jerome Powell began his four-year term on Saturday and will be sworn in later this morning. He inherits a healthier economy than his predecessor, former Fed Chair Janet Yellen, who leaves after a single term as the first woman to leave the Fed. Powell served a Fed Governor for five years and helped shape policy under Janet Yellen.

He has praised the Central Bank's patient approach led by Yellen. And gradually raising interest rates and slowly unwinding the $4.5 trillion balance sheet. Before joining the Fed, Powell spent much of his career an investment banker. Chairman Powell's term begins on the heels of an ugly week for markets, the DOW suffering its worst point decline since the 2008 financial crisis on Friday.

[04:45:01] NOBLES: Investigators getting closer to figuring out why an Amtrak train slammed into a parked freight train. They are focusing now on a key track switch, more ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Investigators have learned the cause of another deadly train crash, the second in less than a week. Sunday's collision in South Carolina killed two people and injured 116, Amtrak train 91 ended up diverted onto the wrong track causing it to smash into a stationary freight train. The two people killed were Amtrak employees, the train's engineer and conductor. CNN's Kaylee Hartung is in Cayce, South Carolina for us with the latest.

KAYLEE HARTUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine and Ryan. The Chairman of the NTSB brought out the white board to diagram the fatal mistake that led to this crash. As he explained it, a switch on the track was locked with a padlock in the wrong direction, diverting that Amtrak passenger train from the main track onto the side track and squarely into the freight train.

[04:50:01] The NTSB investigators have to figure out why it was locked in the wrong position when trains like the Amtrak train 91 travel along the path every day. This is the question that the CSX Corporation will have to try to help them answer. CSX, the railroad group that owns, operates, and maintains the stretch of track where this crash occurred. So they are responsible for the signaling and switching and the dispatching in the area.

CSX offered up a statement with their condolences to the families of the two victims of this crash, the conductor and the engineer of that train. While they did that, they did not acknowledge any wrongdoing of their own, other than to say they would be cooperating fully with the NTSB investigation. Another key piece of evidence in this investigation is a forward facing camera on the Amtrak train that investigators already have analyzed in the lab in D.C., Christine, and Ryan.

NOBLES: Kaylee Hartung, thank you.

Sixteen more flu-related pediatric deaths in the US reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which brings the number killed by the virus to 53 since October, and the CDC warns the season has not peaked yet. With influenza activity widespread in 48 states, it could still be several weeks before cases start to decline. According to federal officials, 7.1 percent of all patients who visited health care providers last week were because of flu-like symptoms.

ROMANS: And some of these ERs are frankly just overwhelmed. They're setting up special little clinics and even tents in some places to try to, you know to corral people on the way in. So be careful. Wash your hands, weeks more of this, I'm afraid. Fifty one minutes after the hour. One of the ads that ran during last night's Super Bowl is not sitting well with many viewers. We will tell you which one on CNN Money Stream next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:55:01] NOBLES: The Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea get under way Friday, and much of the focus has been on North Korea, the Kim regime sending a delegation that will march under a joint flag with South Korea. And female hockey players from the two Koreas will play together as one team. A high profile US guest plans to deliver a reality check when he arrives. Ivan Watson is live from Pyeongchang with the latest developments, Ivan.

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ryan, I saw this game. This is the first ever joint North-South Korean Women's Olympic Ice Hockey Team. They had a friendly game against Sweden on Sunday night. It was the first time that these women got a chance to play together instead of against each other. They only had a couple of days to train. They ended up losing three to one1. And afterwards, there was a strange press conference, where the North Korean coach and a player read short statements talking about unity and then they walked off stage in front of journalists to avoid answering any questions, leaving the South Korean coach and player to answer questions.

They pointed out that it's going to be hard for them to work together at the Olympics here in Pyeongchang because they're not going to even be housed together. The North Koreans are going to be in an entirely separate building. They canceled a photo-op for the united team afterwards, which doesn't do much of a symbol of unity. When it comes to politics, they're getting mixed in here.

Mike Pence, the US Vice President will be leading the US delegation here. He will be accompanied, we're learning from the Washington Post by Fred Warmbier, he is the father of the US college student who tragically died after being imprisoned on a tourist trip to North Korea, and clearly the US delegation wanting to highlight North Korea's dismal human rights record at a time when North Korea is trying to show the world, hey, we're playing nice with the South Koreans at the Olympics, sending our athletes here.

One other mixed message we're hearing, Ryan, the North Koreans are going to stage a military parade, showing off their missiles one day before the ceremony here in Pyeongchang, which again, sends mixed message to the international community, Ryan.

NOBLES: OK, of people talking about the sports, but huge international implications as these Olympics kick off. Ivan Watson, thank you.

ROMANS: All right. A California woman listed as missing has turned up on the hit television show The Bachelor, 22-year-old Rebekah Martinez going viral after revelations that she's appeared on five episodes of the popular reality series, while occupying a spot on the Missing Persons List in California.

NOBLES: That seems totally normal. The sheriff's office says Martinez's mother reported her daughter missing in mid-November after not hearing from her for almost a week in December. The mother told the sheriff's office that her daughter returned. But because the deputy could not make direct contact with Martinez, she remained officially missing while on the national television show.

ROMANS: When a local paper ran a story about the high number of Humboldt County missing persons reader called the sheriff to say one of those missing people is alive and well and on The Bachelor.

All right, let's go and check on CNN's Money Stream this morning. Global stocks off to an ugly start to the week. European stock markets have been open for just under two hours. They're trading all lower here. That is after the DOW and S&P 500 suffered their biggest weekly drop since early February, bad, bad week last week.

The DOW closed down 666 points, that is 2.5 percent, the biggest percentage decline since the Brexit turmoil in June 2016 the steepest decline since the financial crisis back in 2008. Friday's strong job report shows wage growth is finally starting to pick up. And what is good news for workers is bad news for investors. Bond yields are higher, stocks rising since 2016.

Some analysts think the market is long overdue for a pull back or even a correction. Watch the bond market. The bond market is telling us it is expecting higher interest rates and that is causing trouble for stocks.

[05:00:01] The commercial that aired during the Super Bowl last night is not sitting well with many viewers.