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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
20 Killed In Limo Crash; Kavanaugh Fallout For Midterms; China, Interpol Chief Under Investigation; Tropical Storm Michael Heads For Florida; October's Record Box Office. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired October 08, 2018 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOE JOHNS, EARLY START SHOW GUEST CO-HOST: The deadliest transportation accident in the U.S. in a decade. What caused a limo to crash in New York killing 20?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, EARLY START SHOW CO-HOST: Democrats are a mob? Republicans angered women. Both sides are now trying to spin the Brett Kavanaugh debacle for the gain in the midterms.
JOHNS: China says the missing head of Interpol is under investigation for corruption. He has been missing for days. His last contact a text message with a knife emoji.
ROMANS: And tropical storm Michael headed for the Florida Panhandle. Hurricane-force impact expected Wednesday. An update in less than 30 minutes away. Welcome back everybody to "Early Start." I'm Christine Romans. It is Monday morning.
JOHNS: And I'm Joe Johns. It is 31 minutes past the hour.
State and Federal investigators on scene in upstate New York following the deadliest transportation accident in the U.S. since 2009. 20 people died when a limousine carrying several couples to a birthday party plowed through an intersection and crashed into a parked SUV about 40 miles from Albany. State police say all 18 people in the limousine were killed, including the driver. Two pedestrians near the SUV also died. Among the several victims, married couples and four sisters, here is their aunt.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were fun loving, they were wonderful girls. They would do anything for you. And they were very close to each other and they love their families and they loved their parents. They had one -- one has two little children and one has one child. And they now have no home or no parents.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: So far, officials have not been able to answer some crucial questions about the limo and its safety record. But one woman says her niece who died in the crash was uneasy about riding in it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My niece said before she got in the vehicle, she texted a friend of hers and said, oh my gosh, you would not believe what they just said. And she says the vehicle is a little sketchy, because it made a lot of noise. It didn't look good. She says I don't know if we're going to survive this and 20 minutes later she died.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Officials have not yet identified the company that owned the limo. It is also unclear whether if the passengers were wearing seatbelts or the brakes working or if the driver was speeding.
JOHNS: The Supreme Court nomination fight is now over. Now both sides digging in trying to use the fallout from the bruising battle for gain in the midterms. President Trump and Republicans are defiant branding Democrats as a mob for the way they attack Brett Kavanaugh.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In their quest for power, the radical Democrats have turned into an angry mob.
SEN MITCH MCCONNEL, (R) MAJORITY LEADER: We refuse to be intimidated by the mob of people that were coming after Republican members at their homes and in the halls.
CHUCK GRASSLEY CHAIRMAN SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: What we have learned is the resistance that has existed since the day after the November 2016 election is right here on Capitol Hill. They have encouraged mob rule.
(END VIDEO CLIP) JOHNS: Senate Democrats arguing that many voters, women especially,
are still furious. Hawaii Senator Maize Hirono says Democratic voters will be highly motivated to punish Republicans in November.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAZIE HIRONO DEMOCRAT HAWAII: He is going to be on the Supreme Court with a huge taint and a big asterisk after his name. The partisanship that he showed was astounding. The conspiracy theory that he accused us of was bizarre.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Senator Susan Collins, one of the crucial swing votes is defending her decision to back Kavanaugh. She said she thought he stepped over the line during the confirmation process, but he had some justification.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN SUSAN COLLINS, (D) MAINE: I put myself in his shoes. He is coming forward and answering an allegation that includes that he was involved in gang raping and doping girls. I mean that is so devastating. And I think he reacted with anger and anguish as a father of two young girls.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[04:35:03] ROMANS: Senator Collins says she believes Christine Blasey Ford was assaulted, but she does not believe that Brett Kavanaugh was her assailant.
JOHNS: In a move generously described as hypocritical, Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell, is leaving the door open to confirming the Supreme Court nominee in 2020. During the last Presidential election in 2016, Republicans refused even to hold hearings for President Obama's nominee Merrick Garland. They said the next president should choose the next Supreme Court Justice.
ROMANS: But Sunday, McConnell argued that if the White House and Senate are controlled by the same party, the nomination can proceed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCONNEL: We simply followed the tradition in America which is if you have a Party of a different Senate of a different Party than the President, you don't fill the vacancy created of a Presidential year. That went all the way back to 1888. The answer to your question is we will see if there is a vacancy in 2020.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Last week, Senator Lindsey Graham says if a vacancy does comes up in 2020, the Garland standard applies and the nomination should be put on hold.
JOHNS: Former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, tells CNN Fareed Zakaria, he does not believe President Trump can be a moral leader. During a rare interview with CNN Powell, pointed to Trump attacks on the press and his tendency to insult his opponents.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLIN POWELL, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: My favorite three words in our constitution is the first three words. We the people. We, the people. But recently, it has become me, the President as opposed to we, the people. And you see things that should not be happening.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNS: Powell spoke alongside former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, she said despite the president's claims, the U.S. is not being taken advantage of and we have the strongest country in the world.
ROMANS: After days of mystery surrounding the disappearance of the head of Interpol, the International Police Agency, the Chinese government admits Meng Hongwei is under investigation for alleged corruption. Chines officials say, Meng insisted on taking a wrong path and had only himself to blame. Chinese authorities have been tight-lipped about his sudden disappearance late last month. Now, his last message to his wife, is under the microscope. CNN's Sam Kiley monitoring the situation from us, joins us live from Hong Kong with the latest. Sam, he sent his wife a message of what show of a knife.
SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, just before the four minutes before that, the message was wait for my call and then that knife emoji indicating perhaps that he felt some kind of danger was imminent. He has now been confirmed as being in detention by none other than the ministry for public security which is the ministry that he was the vice minister of while he was simultaneously the President of Interpol.
The International policing organization that links 190 countries police forces together to fight crimes internationally. Now, his wife, Grace, is being given protection by the police in France, because she has had threats that they consider sufficiently credible. Both on social media and over the telephone. But at least, his whereabouts is now known. He is in custody in China facing an investigation for alleged corruption.
Corruption of course being in China is a crime that can carry the capital punishment. There have been some executions of fairly low level officials in China in the past. And there is an ongoing campaign by the Chinese communist Party to round up officials and business men accused of corruption wherever they may be.
ROMANS: Fascinating, Sam Kiley in Beijing for us. Thank you so much, Sam.
JOHNS: Dire warning this morning from the United Nations science board. They say the world has barely ten years to get climate change under control or the results could be catastrophic. A new report says the planet is already 2/3 of the way to the climate tipping point. The panel says if we don't reduce greenhouse gases, the earth will reach that critical threshold as early as 2030.
ROMANS: Sea levels would rise to an extra four inches and extreme heat and weather events would be much worse and more frequent. Holding global warming below these limit would require, what the panel calls, rapid for reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society. The U.S. is the world's second largest emitter of carbon dioxide and the Trump administration has rolled back Obama era, climate measures.
All right. The President pledged trillion dollars towards U.S. infrastructure. But despite with little progress on that promise, investment is actually is booming. Private equity firms are set to race a record amount of infrastructure investment this year $68.2 billion during the first three quarters. That is 18 percent more than last year and higher than all of 2016. But money managers are not necessarily investing in roads and bridges.
[04:40:00] Instead, they are putting money to things like, natural gas pipelines and data centers. Why? Energy and telecom are booming industries in the U.S. and they don't require working with local government like the roads and airports. This fund raising comes despite little help from Washington. President Trump introduced a proposal earlier this year to spur a trillion dollars in infrastructure spending. A campaign promise. The plan faced tough opposition. It relies on states to put up most of the money.
JOHNS: A journalist for the Washington Post goes to get a marriage license and hasn't been heard from since. Are his harsh words about the Saudi crown prince the reason why? We are going to be live in Istanbul.
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JOHNS: Starting to look like things are off to a rough start for Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, in Beijing this morning. Pompeo meeting with the Chinese foreign minister, started with bold aggressive language on topics including trade. These meetings comes just days after the Vice President launched a reset of sorts with China. CNN's Alexandra Field is live now in Seoul with more.
[04:45:11] ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Joe. Yes, a chilly reception in Beijing for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who sat down right away with the foreign minister there Weng. He blasted recent U.S. remarks and actions saying that they cast a shadow on bilateral ties and eroded trust between the nations. This does of course, comes on the heels of that speech from Vice President Mike Pence. It was a broad speech in which he attacked the Chinese for military aggression and efforts to under undermine the trump presidency, to interfere with the election and for unfair trade practices.
Foreign Minister Weng pushed back against all of these accusations. Secretary Mike Pompeo said that there are fundamental disagreements between China and the U.S. But he did say that the two could work together on the topic of course of North Korea. That has been a main focus of Pompeo's Asia trip. He is just back from the visit to Pyongyang. Where he spent time behind closed doors with Kim Jong-un.
We are told the two talked about planning the next sit down with Kim Jong-un and President Donald Trump as well as possible steps that could be taking toward to denuclearization and interestingly an offer from North Korea to allow international inspectors to verify that North Korea had in fact destroyed a nuclear test site over the summer when they said they did.
This is the step that international experts say would simple say indicate that North Korea was getting rid of a test site they no longer needed or wanted to use. It doesn't necessarily represent a step toward denuclearization, but many agree that it would certainly appear to be a good faith or trust building effort. Secretary Pompeo calling his trip to North Korea a step forward. John.
JOHNS: All right. Thanks, Alexandra.
ROMANS: Joe Johns. Already two on first names.
All right. The U.S. Government is quietly working the case of missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Washington Post writer and outspoken critic of the Saudi crown prince Mahammad Bin Salman went missing after entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in his temple last week. CNN's Jomanah Karadsheh live in Istanbul with more. He was going to get a marriage license and disappeared. Jomanah, what do we know?
JOMANAH KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christine, it has been nearly a week and more questions than answers still when it comes to these mysterious disappearance. Now one thing that everyone seems to agree on here is Jamal Khashoggi disappeared after his visit to the Saudi consulate last Tuesday. I met his fiancee out here 24 hours after that. She is still waiting for him. And she was quite emotional. She said he was reluctant about this visit, he was a bit concern about going into the consulate. This is a man who left Saudi Arabia in the midst of that crackdown on critics and activists. But she said, he felt he had to do this, because they were planning on getting married here and so he had to obtain the paper work that he needed.
Now, since the disappearance, we had these conflicting messages, conflicting statements coming from all sides here. Turkey for the past week has maintained that he went into the consulate and he never left. In the past 36 hours or so, we started to hear these leaks by unnamed Turkish officials speaking to the media and we also heard it from adviser to the Turkish President. Saying that they believe that he may have been killed inside the consulate.
But they have not provided any evidence or anything to back up how they reached that conclusion. The Saudis throughout has said that these are baseless allegations. They say he visited the consulate and he left shortly after that. Now, there is a lot of security cameras around here. A lot of people are asking, why doesn't Saudi Arabia just release the footage from the surveillance showing him leaving the consulate? At the same time, many are saying the United States needs to be doing more. That it needs to put pressure on their Saudi allies. They do have a good relationship with the Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman to try and get answers. Christine.
ROMANS: For Saudi men to disappear in the consulate of his own country on foreign soil. Almost unprecedented in modern times. I mean, sounds like a spy novel almost. Jomanah Karadsheh, thank you so much for that.
JOHNS: Indeed it does. Former Right Congressman has won the first round in Brazil's presidential election. Jair Bolsonaro came out ahead of the left wing, former (inaudible) Fernando Haddad. The two candidates head to a run-off later this month. Bolsonaro's victory would signal a historic shift to the right in Brazil. He is often been referred Brazil's Donald Trump. Bolsonaro was stabbed in the stomach during a political rally last month. He cast his ballot yesterday wear a bullet proof vest.
ROMANS: I remember that, that was amazing. All right. Two wildly different movies become instant blockbusters this weekend. Bringing October's best box office ever. Best October ever. More on CNN Money next.
[04:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: Tropical storm Michael on track to slam the U.S. this week. Forecasts have Michael strengthening to a hurricane and hitting the Florida panhandle on Thursday. Meteorologist Ivan Cabrera has the latest for us.
IVAN CABRERA, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hey guys. Good morning. As we check in on tropical storm Michael. This will be hurricane Michael. We get hurricanes in October. In fact we had one last year that was Nathan, and I think it took a similar track to what this is going to do. Where are we here? 60-mile-an-hour winds, the rain that you are going to see in Miami today is already the outer bands of the storm as it continues then heading into the gulf in north.
[04:55:06] It will intensify perhaps even rapidly here. We are going to be looking at a category two storm. In fact that is the forecast at about 100 miles an hour. Inland, it will be 85. The timing of which, I will be specific here, zoom in, what we are talking about here in around Panama city beach, a category two hurricane with 100 plus miles an hour winds, Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. As you know, this area is vulnerable to storm surge that could be catastrophic there. We will continue to keep you posted as the advisories come out. Guys.
ROMANS: All right. Ivan, thank you for that.
Taylor swift weighing in the world on politics. In a rare move, the singer used her Instagram feed to endorse the Tennessee Democrat Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper, who are both running for seats in the Senate of the House respectively. In the post, Swift went after Bredesen Senate rival, race rival, a Republican Congress Marcia Blackburn saying, as much as I have in the past and I would like to continue voting for women in office, I cannot support Marsha Blackburn. Her voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me. Swift also urges her young adult fans to register to vote before the deadline.
JOHNS: That is a sign anything can happen. The Atlanta braves will fight another day in the national league division series. The Braves jumped in front of the Dodgers five to nothing last night. Los Angeles came back to tie the game in the fifth, but hometown hero Freddy Freeman put the Braves back on top with these home run in the sixth innings. Braves win 6-5. Game four is this afternoon. Now whichever team wins that series will face the Milwaukee Brewers. The National league championship series. The Brewers finished off the sweep of Dave Briggs' Colorado Rockies.
ROMANS: Is that why he is not here?
JOHNS: He sorrowful today. Milwaukee hit three home runs in the 6-0 win. The American league playoffs resume today. The Astros look to finish off the Indians and the Yankees and Red Sox series moves to New York tied at a game of piece.
ROMANS: All right. Let us go and check on CNN business this morning. European and Asian stocks are lower right now. Shanghai falling 3.7 percent. That is a big one day move as China pours more cash into (inaudible) economy. China has been hurt by slowing growth persistent debt and President Trump's trade war.
China's central bank plans to free up to $109 billion to spur growth. On Wall Street, stocks closed lower Friday. The S&P 500 lost nearly 1 percent for the week. It is the worst week in a month. You blame the bond market. Look at this, the yield on the benchmark ten-year treasury, even the seven-year high, 3.2 percent. Investors -- stock investors don't like it when bond yields rise too quickly. In September, the U.S had to follow 134 thousands new jobs. And unemployment rate fell to the lowest rate since 1969. That is a strong economy. That is one of the reason why you are seeing those bond yields move.
Lawsuit claims popular sparkling water LaCroix uses cockroach insecticide in its water. LaCroix says this is 100 percent natural. But a new suit claims testing shows includes artificial ingredients. Including one used in a cockroach insecticide. LaCroix denies the defamatory allegations, because everything in its water is 100 percent natural and supervised support for its false statements.
Two very different movies became instant blockbusters this weekend. Bringing in the October's best box office ever. Sony comic feature "Venom" now the tops spot earning 80 million bucks. That is a definitely ever for a movie released in October. Well a star is born. The new music heavy tones starring Lady Gaga, flat in $42 million, bucks. Beating expectations and Bradley Cooper. Both films helped boost the U.S. ticket sales $174 million. That is a record for October, where movie go intense to be light.
JOHNS: Wow. Not bad.
ROMANS: Can he sing? I don't know, I haven't heard much. Can you sing?
JOHNS: Nah.
"Early Start" continues right now.
The deadliest transportation accident in the U.S. in a decade. What caused a limo to crash in New York killing 20?
ROMANS: Democrats are a mob? Republicans angered women. Both sides now trying to spin the Brett Kavanaugh debacle for the gain in the midterms.
JOHNS: China says the missing head of Interpol is under investigation for corruption. He has been missing for days. His last contact a text message with a knife emoji.
ROMANS: And tropical storm Michael heading for the Florida panhandle. Hurricane-force impact expected Wednesday. A new update just in. We have details in moments.
JOHNS: Good morning and welcome to "Early Start." I'm Joe Johns. Good to be back with you.
ROMANS: You are now here. Nice to see you. I'm Christine Romans. It is Monday, October 8th. It is 5:00 a.m. in the East.
JOHNS: State and federal investigators on the scene and upstate New York, following the deadliest transportation accident in the U.S. since 2009.
