Return to Transcripts main page
Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Eagles Stun Patriots, 41-33; GOP Lawmakers Contradict Trump; Trump Jr.: Memo Release Is "Sweet Revenge"; Markets Off To Ugly Start This Week; Two Die In Huge South Carolina Train Collision; Uma Thurman Speaks Out; Winter Olympics Begin Friday. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired February 05, 2018 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:00]
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: -- correction, but watch the bond market. It is telling us it is expecting higher interest rates. That is causing trouble for stocks.
The commercial that aired during the Super Bowl last night is not sitting well with many viewers. Ram Trucks used a sermon by Martin Luther King Jr. in the ad. Some thought it was distasteful to use the civil rights leader's speech to sell trucks.
Fiat Chrysler which owns Ram said in a statement that it worked closely with the representative of the Martin Luther King Jr.'s estate during the creative process. Another ad featuring Eli Manning and Odell Beckham Jr. reenacting a scene from the movie "Dirty Dancing" that seemed to be a hit with viewers.
Apple music is adding subscriber accounts in the U.S. at a higher rather than its rival, Spotify. That is according to "The Wall Street Journal." While Spotify is larger globally and continues to grow slightly faster, Apple is gaining ground.
Apple subscribe account base in the U.S. has been growing about 5 percent monthly versus 2 percent for Spotify. Apple's popular devices have helped add subscribers to its music service, which is preloaded on all iPhones, Apple watches and other hardware sold by the tech giant.
RYAN NOBLES, CNN ANCHOR: You left out the fact that Dundee movie is not actually movie. It is an ad for people to visit Australia.
ROMANS: They tricked you.
NOBLES: I love the Dundee series. It needed to continue. Maybe I'm alone.
The Eagles soaring to victory defeating the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. Philadelphia celebrations going haywire overnight.
ROMANS: There it is. The victory in Minneapolis for the Eagles. Eagles win the Super Bowl. It gets rough on the streets.
NOBLES: And fallout from the Nunes memo. President Trump says it proves the FBI was targeting him. Few Republicans say not so fast.
Two dead and more than 100 injured in the Amtrak crash in South Carolina. The investigation is focusing on a switch that sent the train hurdling into another.
Good morning and welcome to EARLY START. I'm Ryan Nobles.
ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. It is Monday, February 5th. It is 5:00 a.m. in the east. That's right. Nick Foles and the Philadelphia Eagles going from underdogs to top dog knocking off Tom Brady and the defending champion, New England Patriots 41-33 in Super Bowl LII.
Foles, he nearly quit football three years ago. Started the season as the Eagles backup quarterback and he took home MVP honors. He went toe-to-toe with Tom Brady and beat him. Throwing three touchdown passes and catching a fourth.
NOBLES: But in a game that featured record shattering offense, it was a clutch defensive play that sealed the win for the Eagles. Coy Wire live from U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis where it is still cold. Coy, what a remarkable football game last night.
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Incredible. It is very cold. I wet this wash cloth 30 minutes ago. It is already frozen. It was hot in there last night. Oh, my goodness, this was the most exhilarating Super Bowl that I can ever remember. It may go down in history as the best ever.
How wild and wacky was this? We had Patriots star quarterback, Tom Brady, trying to catch a pass, but then Eagles star quarterback and MVP of the game, Nick Foles caught the pass for a touchdown. That's when you knew it was not the average Super Bowl.
Tom Brady, though, could you count him out in the fourth quarter throwing to the Gronk star? They take the lead for the first time in the game. You think, oh, here go the pass again. No, Nick Foles says let me show what you I can do.
Zach Ertz with this touchdown, regains the lead. Tom Brady, though, everyone in the stadium, 2 minutes left. Tom with the ball on his hands. They are going to come back and Brandon Graham with the strip sack and fumble recovery.
Eagles get the ball back. There would be that one last Hail Mary. I have to admit everyone in the stadium was like here they go again. They will find a way. This game will go to overtime somehow, some way but no. Absolute exhilaration.
The Eagles earn their city, their first ever Super Bowl title. It was incredible. Afterwards, I caught up with Nick Foles to check him down to see how he was feeling.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICK FOLES, PHILADELPHIA EAGLES: Just to be part of this and be part of the Philadelphia Eagles organization and first world championship. We are very blessed. It is an unbelievable feeling. Honestly, it is all soaking in. It's unbelievable.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No team deserves this more than we did. All of the things we fought for and what this means for the city. We cannot wait to bring it back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wasn't breathing easy until the last second.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't even put into words. I'm 30 years old and I have to come up with a new life dream.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 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)
[05:05:07] WIRE: The Philadelphia Eagles went from having a losing record last season to winning the Super Bowl in the very next. The last team to do that? The New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXVI when a back-up quarterback came in midway through the season and then won the Super Bowl and became the MVP just like Nick Foles. That quarterback's name was Tom Brady. Incredible stuff, incredible victory for Philadelphia.
ROMANS: What a parallel. All right. Thanks so much. Nice to see you.
NOBLES: Thanks, Coy.
ROMANS: Thousands of delirious Eagles fans jamming Broad Street marching towards City Hall last night to celebrate their first Super Bowl title. Police used hydraulic fluid to keep fans from climbing light poles. Did not work.
Thousands of the poles torn down along with reports of looting and smashed out windows. Authorities say a car was overturned in Center City and people were seen jumping off the Ritz Carlton awning. That was a bad idea until it collapsed. Local media outlets reporting no surprise here several injuries.
NOBLES: Moving on to politics now, 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 Nunes 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 is said to speak today in Cincinnati where he will likely echo comments like this tweet from the weekend where he refers to himself in the third person. This memo totally vindicates Trump in the probe, but the Russia 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 endlessly 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. BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN 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 is a witch hunt.
Listen to South Carolina Representative Trey Gowdy on one of the Sunday morning talk shows.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPRESENTATIVE TREY GOWDY (R-SC), HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: There is a Russia investigation without a dossier. So, to the extent, the memo deals with the dossier and FISA process, the dossier has nothing to do with the meeting in Trump Tower or an e-mail sent by Cambridge Analytica.
The dossier really has nothing to do with George Papadopoulos' meeting in Great Britain. It also doesn't have anything to do with obstruction of justice. So there will be a Russia probe even without a dossier.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Now that statement coming from Trey Gowdy is especially significant because even according to Devin Nunes, Trey Gowdy is the only Republican on the House Intelligence Committee that has actually seen the raw data and intelligence that allowed the FISA court judge to go ahead and issue those 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 that 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 that the release of the 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 of the Nunes memo, which according to Democrats contains more contexts and contradicts in portions of 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 that they did for the Nunes memo -- Christine.
ROMANS: All right. Thank you.
NOBLES: All right. Let's talk more about this. We'll bring in "Washington Examiner" White House correspondent, Gabby Morrongello. Gabby, good to see you. I want to play a sound bite from Donald Trump Jr. This is the talking point the White House is using after release of this memo. Let's take a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP JR., PRESIDENT TRUMP'S SON: There is a little bit of sweet revenge in it for me and the family in the sense that if they would not have done this, this stuff would be going on. This would be going on at the highest levels of government. It would be continuing to do it to my father and undermine his actions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBLES: It seems as the Trump white house continue to use this word vindication as a result of the memo, but they have been undercut by a lot of their fellow Republicans. It seems as though vindication seemed to be a bridge too far in the wake of this memo again.
GABBY MORRONGELLO, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "WASHINGTON EXAMINER": It is a little bit of a weird way to spin it most definitely. You have a number of Republican lawmakers, including Trey Gowdy, who we just heard from, say this doesn't vindicate the president if anything. It actually validates the Russia investigation.
I mean, if you look at the contents of this memo, one thing that we did learn from it, which was pretty big and under cuts the Republican talking point is that the investigation into the president's campaign began with George Papadopoulos.
[05:10:12] It didn't start with this dossier by Christopher Steele, which is something that a lot of Republicans have said because they feel that this dossier was compiled by somebody who was biased against the president.
And if that was the moment that led to this FBI investigation, and then that would somehow undercut the premise of the investigation. Unfortunately, that did not prove true in Devin Nunes' own memo.
I think going forward, though, as the president continues to talk about the Russia investigation and what the contents of this memo mean for him. The big thing to look for is if he is going to take punitive action against Rod Rosenstein, who he learned renewed the FISA warrants against Carter Page and other members of the Trump campaign.
That could be really an important step as he does. It could severely impact Republicans and the party in the midterm year. It could also just create a huge crisis in politics if the president is taking action to end a federal investigation into his presidential campaign.
ROMANS: I guess we know there is a rift within the GOP about all of this and the reaction to the memo. For the Democrats, I assume they are pushing to release their own rebuttal?
MORRONGELLO: They are. The White House has said last week that they are willing to cooperate, and they want to see both the Republican and Democratic memos released. The question is whether they ask for redactions or portions of the Schiff memo to be omitted from the actual release, which is something they did not do with the Nunes memo.
They declassified the whole thing. There were names included in it. So, it is going to be interesting to see whether they actually do that with the Schiff memo or if they are indeed calling for full transparency with both of these documents.
NOBLES: And I wonder, Gabby, if you look at social media reaction, it seems as though, all your Republican friends on Facebook felt that this was something that gave the president an out.
All your Democratic friends said that there is really nothing to this memo. Could that actually in the long run potentially benefit the White House because more of a distraction and more uncertainty seems to benefit them in terms of this investigation.
MORRONGELLO: Well, I don't think that it is quite fair to characterize it like that. I think there are a number of Republicans who are actually quite terrified that this memo was released. You know, a lot of Republicans who may or may not oppose this administration who really felt this was a potential constitutional crisis.
We've heard that as a talking point from a number of Republicans so far. Certainly, there is Democratic opposition to this. The Democrats never wanted this memo to be released. It was a threat to national security according to many Democratic lawmakers and Republicans.
But I think across the board, there is concern that declassifying sensitive government secrets like this is going to have an impact whether you are a Republican or a Democrat.
ROMANS: All right. Come back in a few minutes, we'll talk more about all the news of the morning. Gabby Morrongello, White House correspondent of the "Washington Examiner." Thank you.
Time for an early start on your money this Monday. It's looking like an ugly start to the week for stock investors. Asian stock markets picking up where Wall Street left off. Tokyo and Hongkong both closed. Nikkei fell more than 2.5 percent. Hongkong's Hang Seng down just over 1 percent.
In less than a week, the mood has shifted from greed, the fear of missing out in the markets to just fear. A strong jobs report Friday, it was good for workers. Wages grew faster anytime since 2009. It is bad for investors because it signals inflation ahead and you have a bond market that's reacting pretty sharply.
So, Wall street suffered its worst day of the Trump presidency. The Dow closed down 666 points. That's 2.5 percent, its biggest percentage decline since the Brexit turmoil. Remember in June of 2016, the steepest point decline since the financial crisis.
Both the Dow and the S&P suffered their biggest weekly drops since early 2016, about 4 percent each. That has been rising since November of 2016. Some analysts think the market is long overdue for a pull back or even correction.
I mean, this morning, that is the number one topic of conversation already in markets this morning. Is this the beginning of a correction or buying opportunity? Look to the bond market for clues. The bond market is much bigger than the stock market. The bond market is telling us higher rates are coming.
NOBLES: New clues in the deadly Amtrak crash that killed two and injured more than 100. Investigators are looking into a key switch that diverted the train into another. We will have that story next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:18:36]
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 the stationary freight train. The two people killed were Amtrak employees, the train's engineer and the conductor.
CNN's Kaylee Hartung is in Cayce, South Carolina with the very latest.
KAYLEE HARTUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine and Ryan. The chairman of the NTSB brought out a white board to diagram the fatal mistake that led to this crash. As he explained a switch on the track was locked with a padlock in the wrong direction, diverting that Amtrak passenger train from the main track onto a siding track and squarely into the freight train.
Now, NTSB investigators have to figure out why, why that switch was left locked in the wrong position when trains like Amtrak Train 91 travel along that path every day. This is a question that the CSX corporation will have to try to help them answer.
CSX, the railroad group that own, operates, and maintains the stretch of track where this crash occurred. So, they are responsible for the signaling, switching and the dispatching in that area.
CSX offered up a statement with their condolences to the families of the two victims of this crash, the conductor and engineer of that train. While they did that, they did not knowledge any wrongdoing of their own other than to say they would be cooperating fully with the NTSB investigation.
[05:20:03] Another key piece of evidence in this investigation, that would be a forward-facing camera on the Amtrak train that investigators already have being analyzed in a lab in D.C. -- Christine, Ryan.
ROMANS: All right. Kaylee, thank you for that. Uma Thurman, the actress, is detailing a tortured working relationship with Hollywood Producer Harvey Weinstein. In a "New York Times" op-ed, the actress reveals an incident where Weinstein allegedly attacked her. Thurman says it happened in the 1990s in Weinstein's suite at the Savoy Hotel in London. She writes --
NOBLES: Quote, "He pushed me down. He tried to shove himself on me. He tried to expose himself. He did all kinds of unpleasant things. I was doing anything I could to get the train back on the track, my track. Not his track.
ROMANS: Thurman said he sent her flowers the next day. In 2001, she reminded him what had happened at that hotel and he apologized. Representatives for Weinstein provided photos to the "New York Times" of Thurman and Weinstein together. In a statement that it demonstrated a strong relationship between the two when she says it was a toxic relationship.
NOBLES: They also added in part, quote, "Mr. Weinstein acknowledges making an awkward pass 25 years ago at Ms. Thurman in England after misreading her signals for which he immediately apologized and deeply regrets. However, her claims about being physically assaulted are untrue."
ROMANS: The statement goes on to say, "Weinstein is saddened and puzzled as to why Thurman waited 25 years to make these allegations public." CNN also reached out to Director Quentin Tarantino, who's mentioned in this piece, collaborated on many of these Weinstein projects, and Thurman's representatives as well and have not yet heard back. She is speaking to Maureen Dowd. Two long interviews here. This is an op-ed piece.
It's 21 minutes past the hour, the U.S. saying they are getting ready to counter North Korean propaganda at the Olympic games. More on the plans next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:26:42]
NOBLES: The Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea gets under way on Friday and much of the focus is 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 U.S. guest plans to deliver a reality check when he arrives.
Ivan Watson already in Pyeongchang. He has the latest developments from South Korea -- Ivan.
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Ryan. That is right. That joint team, the first ever between North and South Korea forming a women's ice hockey Olympic team. They held their first exhibition game on Sunday against Sweden.
It was the first time that these women who have in the past played against each other, competed against another opponent, they lost 3-1. The coach made it clear that this has not been an ideal situation.
That they were basically lumped together just a matter of weeks ago by a decision made by the North and South Korean governments. They are trying to make the best of it. They speak virtually different languages of hockey between North and South and for some reason, the North Korean athletes are not even staying in the same residence as the South Korean athletes.
All things have lead to kind of additional obstacles that they are trying to surmount at the last minute. In the meantime, we are learning more about the delegations coming to Pyeongchang. The U.S. vice president, Mike Pence, will be coming.
He'll be accompanied by Fred Warmbier. That is the father of the American University student who died after more than a year and a half in captivity in North Korea. The U.S. delegation clearly trying to highlight North Korea's dismal human rights record at a time when the North Korea has been trying to bring up unification and unity with South Korean.
They are sending an orchestra down here to perform in several South Korean cities. There has been a lot of interest. A 150,000 people applying for free tickets which are a few thousand to see this North Korean orchestra in the days ahead -- Ryan.
NOBLES: Ivan Watson live for us in South Korea. Thank you.
ROMANS: OK. So, the Eagles did it. This is what the newspaper says. Eagles achieving what seemed impossible defeating Tom Brady and the Patriots in the Super Bowl. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
