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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Michael Slam Into Florida as Category 4 Hurricane; Trump Call Jamal Khashoggi's Disappearance as a "Bad Situation"; Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired October 11, 2018 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:17] DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: A deadly storm dropping devastating rain on Georgia after tearing through the Florida Panhandle. Two people killed, including one child. Where the storm is headed next.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: The Dow plunging more than 800 points. The third worse point selloff in history. How President Trump explains the drop.

BRIGGS: And growing pressure on Saudi Arabia to explain the disappearance of a "Washington Post" journalist. One senator warning significant wrath from the United States.

We are live in Istanbul with a very important story. A graduate of Indiana State. A U.S. resident. A "Washington Post" journalist, missing by all indications, disappeared by the Saudis.

Good morning and welcome to EARLY START. I'm Dave Briggs.

ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. It is Thursday, October 11th a.m. in the East. We begin with the breaking news this morning.

Michael now tearing its way across Georgia. Headed for South Carolina. Still a very dangerous tropical storm. At this hour officials in three states say more than half a million people are without power. Nearly 6700 people are still in shelters. Two people died in separate incidents. A Florida man killed when a tree fell on his home. And an 11-year-old boy in Georgia. Officials are still investigating that death.

No telling what first responders will find. They are beginning to search through homes as conditions improve.

BRIGGS: Michael made landfall near Mexico Beach, Florida, with winds in excess of 140 miles an hour. This stunning video just in to CNN. Wow. Look at the sudden calm in the eye of this hurricane and that spectacularly defined eye wall. The storm just shy of a category five. Enough to launch rooftops across the street. It was the strongest hurricane to hit the continental U.S. since Andrew in 1992. And the strongest to hit the Panhandle in recorded history.

Michael leave devastation in its wake. Check out this drone footage of a school gym in Panama City just blown apart. Same story with this nearby shopping mall which locals say was recently remodeled. This boat warehouse in Niceville, Florida, a total loss.

ROMANS: The power lines and transformers down across the region. It may be weeks -- weeks -- before power is restored everywhere. But for proof of the awesome power of the storm, look at this. A train blown completely off the rails in Panama City.

CNN's Derek Van Dam was in the thick of it all. He joins us live from Apalachicola with the latest.

Good morning, Derek.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hey, good morning, Christine. You know, it only takes one foot of rushing water to pick up a truck and move it down river per se. But look at what seven feet of storm surge can do. It can take semi trucks and flip them on their sides. Look at the high watermark behind me. You can see some of the debris leftover on this pile of oyster shells.

Actually we're near the Apalachicola River and there's all kinds of fishing businesses located along this area. But that high watermark just gives you an indication of how bad the storm surge was here. And to put it into perspective for you, we did a live shot yesterday at the height of Hurricane Michael. There was a truck behind us that was completely submerged by the rising seawater. That truck was taken about two to three blocks behind us.

And there it is. Just incredible to see how the force of the storm surge and the moving water can take objects and take them down. Recedes with it as well. There were hundred-mile-per-hour wind gusts here. Very difficult to stand up. There are trees down. Electricity is down. Communication is also down.

In fact the sheriff's department here talking about having difficulty with their communication lines. So it may be difficult for any residents who are left in Franklin County, where I'm located, to get in contact with emergency personnel.

Christine, reporting from Apalachicola in Florida.

ROMANS: Derek, there's a saying -- you know, sunrise is never two and a half hours away from you there. They're saying that it will take sunrise to get a full scope of what happened there?

VAN DAM: Without a doubt. You know, just trying to navigate this area without electricity, it hides all the dangers around this particular region.

ROMANS: Right.

VAN DAM: So once we start to see some glimmer of light, that will really put the whole thing into perspective. It will give us a broader scope of the full fury of Hurricane Michael.

ROMANS: All right, Derek, be careful in the meantime. Thank you.

BRIGGS: Overnight, Michael punished Georgia with torrential rain and destructive wind. It arrived as a category three hurricane and weakened to a category one as it moved northeast across the state making it the most powerful storm to hit the area in 120 years.

[04:05:07] Meteorologist Pedram Javaheri tracking Michael live from the CNN weather center this morning as it moves into the Carolinas.

Pedram, good morning.

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Dave. Yes, you know, when you're thinking about a storm system here that has been over land for 13 hours, and still have some organization, some symmetry, and really something fascinating to point out here. Again 13 over land, with wind gust the storm 90 miles per hour even at this hour. Keep in mind Hurricane Florence made landfall near Wilmington a couple of weeks ago but sustained winds at 90 miles per hour. So really shows you the ferocity of the storm system as it moves to shore. Again back around 1:30 p.m. Around Mexico Beach there on Wednesday afternoon.

But we do have tropical storm warnings now in place for 23 million people. That means we have sustained winds to be expected around 40 to about 65, 70 miles per hour over the next several hours across this region. In fact Tornado watches in effect this morning from Columbia up towards Charleston, South Carolina, as enough rotation from the storm, which by the way is crossing into the state of South Carolina as we speak right now.

And the storm system with enough rotation, enough friction on the ground and the terrain and landscape, spinning up tornadoes as it goes, generally ef-0 or ef-1 but another element of concern to add to all of this and then of course all the rainfall in store with those system. Potentially another four to six inches to come down and keep in mind, in the state of North Carolina, Cape Fear, we saw water levels at that river finally dropped below flood levels on Monday afternoon. And guess what, heavy rainfall begins later on this morning.

We expect that water level to gradually want to rise again. The good news here is this is a very quick moving system. It will be offshore later on tonight but with it of course widespread power outages still expected right along the coast of the Carolinas as the system moves over in the next few hours -- guys.

ROMANS: Quite a day to come. All right. Pedram, thank you so much.

A lot more pain to come for the region, flooding and storm surge posing an enormous threat right now. Joining us on the phone from Tallahassee, hurricane expert Ryan Truchelut.

Nice to see you again or hear you again this morning. Now this is a tropical storm, this is still a dangerous situation. Tell us what to expect.

RYAN TRUCHELUT, HURRICANE EXPERT, WEATHERTIGER: Yes. There are still a number of risks associated with now tropical storm Michael over the next 24 hours. This is going to be a fast-moving storm. Yes, but still a major rainmaker across the Carolinas. Rainfall totals over the next three days for eastern and central North Carolina and South Carolina and Virginia are likely to be three to five inches generally.

A woman I think reported this morning a very minor piece of good news is that the track has shifted a little bit more inland in the last 12 to 18 hours. The track across the Carolinas. And that does shift the heaviest rainfall expectation away from the coastal Carolinas, which is a good thing because eastern South Carolina, southeastern North Carolina are the regions that saw the heaviest rainfall with three to four-foot totals in Florence and that now they can expect more like one to two rather than three to five inches of rainfall.

BRIGGS: So some good news in all of this. Ryan, we are seeing some just stunning video of this storm Michael as it hit Panama City as it hit parts of Florida and Mexico Beach including. What to you made this such a devastating and obviously now a deadly storm?

TRUCHELUT: You know, the fact that Hurricane Michael intensifies all the way to landfall. I mean all the way up until the very last pass the Air Force reconnaissance aircraft made before it hit Mexico Beach, just minutes before it hit Mexico Beach, the pressure fell. Every time that aircraft went through the circulation center. That's very dangerous. That's a uniquely dangerous situation because when a hurricane intensifies all the way to landfall, it makes the wind damage much worse.

Intensifying storms are highly conductive. There's a lot of mixing of stronger winds aloft down to the surface as devastating and catastrophic gusts more effectively. So as the last report just said, I think there is a lot of work still to do in figuring out exactly how bad Michael's wrath was in north Florida just because yesterday was so chaotic. I think we still are going to be finding out quite a bit about how bad this thing really was as sunrise approaches here in a couple of hours or so.

ROMANS: Yes. And -- that's right. I mean, sunrise in Panama City is 6:42 a.m. When you get people starting to venture out, that's where there's more real danger. I mean, we should remind people that oftentimes the fatalities happen long after the storm has been downgraded to tropical storm and move out of the region. What should people be watching for?

TRUCHELUT: Well, they need to be aware of such hazards as downed power lines, potentially live power lines resting in puddles. Electrocution risks are always an issue here.

[04:10:03] There's also always a few hurricane fatalities, indirect fatalities sadly from people who run generators inside their homes.

ROMANS: Yes.

TRUCHELUT: They're not properly ventilated and die of carbon monoxide poisoning.

ROMANS: Yes. TRUCHELUT: So that's really something -- proper generator use is

something absolutely to be aware of. I personally have a power line down blocking my driveway so when I went outside at dusk last night after the storm, I very quickly turned around. I didn't want to be the professional meteorologist who made an idiotic mistake and wound up, you know, a headline for that reason.

ROMANS: That's a great, great public service announcement. And, you know, Governor Rick Scott yesterday said and it bears repeating do not run a generator in your house or inside your garage. Do not do that.

BRIGGS: The worst could still be yet to come. That is a word of wisdom there from Ryan Truchelut. Great information for us this morning.

ROMANS: Thank you.

BRIGGS: Thanks for being with us.

All right. Coming up, President Trump vowing to get to the bottom of what happened to that Saudi journalist who vanished in Istanbul more than a week ago. We are piecing together the disturbing timeline that led to his disappearance next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:15:23] ROMANS: A brutal day on Wall Street. U.S. stocks suffering their biggest drop in months. All three major averages lost at least 3 percent. The Dow plunged more than 800 points. That makes it the third worst point decline in history.

Now the selling this morning has spread around the world. Shanghai down more than 5 percent. That is a big move for the Shanghai stock market. European stock markets are lower. U.S. futures suggest more selling when the market opens here in a little over four hours.

Now this started with tech stocks. Big names that have previously fueled most of the markets' gains, Netflix, Amazon, Apple. Those three alone lost nearly $120 billion in market value.

It's been a tough October for stocks. Investors are worried about the U.S.-China trade war, slowing growth next year, and they're worried about higher interest rates. Higher interest rates increased borrowing costs, eating into corporate profits. Rates are rising because the U.S. economy is so strong. Super strong. The yield on the 10-year treasury is near a seven-year high. And the Federal Reserve is raising interest rates to keep the economy from overheating.

Now the president, President Trump, often uses a high stock market as his personal scorecard. So what does he have to say about yesterday? Well, he's blaming the Fed for the plunge. First after arriving in Pennsylvania.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think the Fed is making a mistake. They're so tight. I think the Fed has gone crazy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Then on FOX News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The Fed is going wild. I mean, I don't know what their problem is, but they're raising interest rates and it's ridiculous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Jerome Powell who runs the Fed was appointed by the president. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin does not blame the Fed, telling CNN Wednesday's drop is a normal correction, a correction or a 10 percent drop is normal. And the bull market is 9 years old and even now the Dow and the S&P 500 are still only -- important perspective here, everybody, Dow and the S&P 500 only 4 percent away from record highs.

BRIGGS: President Trump meanwhile insists he will get to the bottom of Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance. That's the Saudi journalist who writes for "The Washington Post," lives in the United States, lived rather, vanishing after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He's been missing for more than a week now.

The president claiming he has contacted the highest levels of the Saudi government to get answers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you hold the Saudi government responsible?

TRUMP: Well, I have to find out who did it, but people saw him go in but they didn't see him come out as they understand it. And we're going to take a very serious look at it. It's a terrible thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: A bipartisan group of more than 20 senators sent a letter to President Trump Wednesday triggering an investigation into his disappearance.

Nic Robertson with the latest live from Istanbul.

Nic, you wrote a great piece for CNN.com. We have tweeted that out. But President Trump late last night telling FOX News' Shannon Bream if the Saudis are responsible, and this is the bully that everyone elected to push around world leaders, said it would not be a good thing at all. I think a stunning response to what appears to be the disappearance of a "Washington Post" journalist.

Good morning.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, good morning. Look, I mean, President Trump has a very strong relationship with Saudi Arabia, with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman which is really the person who actually runs the kingdom under his father King Salman. That relationship is based in -- you know, in what President Trump has talked about. You know, billions, tens -- more than a hundred billion dollars worth of business arms deals with Saudi Arabia.

But let's not forget as well here that the United States really does look, and we heard a lot from former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Saudi Arabia really is the key U.S. ally or one of the two key U.S. allies in the region. The country, the United States, President Trump, looks to help fix problems in this region. So if you're looking to President Trump waiting to see his response to the details as they emerge about Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance. Knowing that Turkish officials think that he was killed shortly after arriving at the consulate here, knowing that U.S. intelligence officials have picked up intelligence conversations between top Saudi officials saying that there was a plan to abduct Jamal Khashoggi.

Knowing all of that, this puts President Trump in a very tough position. And we haven't really seen him have to grapple with something of this magnitude and complexity. This landed on his plate that really will have to be dealt with very much in the public domain. Turkey is putting out all these videos, this narrative about what happened to Jamal Khashoggi.

[04:20:02] The details here are going to be very difficult for President Trump to escape but not less tough for the Saudis to get around either -- Dave.

BRIGGS: Nic Robertson live for us with the latest on a very important story in Istanbul. Thank you, Nic.

ROMANS: All right. Twenty minutes past the hour. Melania Trump weighing in on sexual misconduct allegations during this Me Too Movement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELANIA TRUMP, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: You need to have a really hard evidence that, you know, if you are accused of something, show the evidence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: "Show the evidence." And how President Trump poked at the movement again during his rally last night.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRIGGS: 4:24 Eastern Time.

[04:25:01] A not guilty plea in the deadly limousine crash that claimed 20 lives in upstate New York last weekend. Nauman Hussain is facing criminally negligent homicide charges. He was forced to surrender his passport last night after posting a $150,000 bond. Hussain's father Shahed owns the limo company involved in the wreck. Governor Andrew Cuomo says the vehicle failed the state inspection and should not have been in service. He says the driver did not have the proper license to operate the vehicle.

ROMANS: A New York man charged with building a 200-pound bomb in his basement. Police say he planned to detonate it on election day on Washington's National Mall. 56-year-old Paul Rosenfeld faces one count of unlawfully manufacturing a destructive device and one count of interstate transportation and receipt of an explosive. Each charge has a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

A series of letters and text messages showed Rosenfeld intended to blow himself up to bring attention to a political ideology called sortition which advocates the random selection of government officials instead of elections.

BRIGGS: President Trump taking a new bewildering swing at the Me Too Movement at a rally last night in Pennsylvania. He wanted to say the state was like the woman who got away for most Republicans until he won in 2016. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I used an expression. You know, there's an expression but under the rules of Me Too, I'm not allowed to use that expression anymore. Can't do it. It's the person that got away. See, it feels a little different. Pennsylvania -- he says do it anyway.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: I thought it was the one who got away.

BRIGGS: Yes. It is.

ROMANS: And it goes for men and women.

BRIGGS: It's not one of the rules of Me Too. Not at all.

ROMANS: I don't get it. OK. Just a few hours earlier, ABC released an interview with First Lady Melania Trump. She offered a lukewarm endorsement of the Me Too Movement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

M. TRUMP: I do stand with women. But we need to -- we need to show the evidence. You cannot just say to somebody I was, you know, sexual assaulted or you did that to me or -- because sometimes the media goes too far.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: During the 2016 campaign, at least 13 women accused Donald Trump of sexual misconduct. The White House calls those allegations old news that has already been litigated.

BRIGGS: Speaking of, Harvey Weinstein in a Manhattan today.

ROMANS: Today.

BRIGGS: A trail of destruction left in the southeast after Hurricane Michael tore through Florida. A live report on the aftermath and where the storm is headed now.

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