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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Hurricane Michael Left Devastation and Rising Death Toll; Kanye West in the Oval Office; New Evidence in Case of Missing Journalist; Turkey May Release Pastor Andrew Brunson; Another Royal Wedding Just Months After Harry and Meghan; Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired October 12, 2018 - 04:30   ET

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

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[04:30:14] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's obliterated and it's awful. It's awful to look at.

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DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: The wrath of Michael wiping out an entire oceanfront community. Some returning home saying it looked like a bomb dropped. A report from Florida as the death toll rises.

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KANYE WEST, MUSICIAN: I love this guy right here.

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CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump facing criticism for spending his afternoon with Kanye West as millions of Americans pick up the pieces from Hurricane Michael. The bizarre Oval Office meeting.

BRIGGS: Turkish officials claimed they have new evidence that proves the missing "Washington Post" journalist was murdered inside the Saudi consulate. What they say led up to his killing.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Dave Briggs.

ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. It is exactly 31 minutes past the hour.

Let's begin with the clean-up underway this morning in the wake of the worst hurricane to hit the Florida Panhandle ever. The death toll from Hurricane Michael has risen to six people in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, including an 11-year-old girl killed when debris punctured her trailer home.

Nearly 1.4 million customers without power this morning in six states. Officials say nearly 4400 people remain in shelters. Recovery efforts underway now in Florida, Georgia, Virginia and the Carolinas.

BRIGGS: From the air in this Coast Guard footage, you can see the rows of homes and ocean-side businesses in Mexico Beach, Florida, reduced to wreckage. Some residents returning to find their homes destroyed.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's so many memories here. I can't describe it. It's just terrible. I just can't describe the feeling. And I know I'm not the only one here that feels the same. They've lost everything.

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BRIGGS: Many survivors who stuck it out in their homes say they feel lucky to be alive and -- recounting, excuse me, the surreal experience.

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SCOTT, SURVIVED HURRICANE MICHAEL: The car just started flowing by and stuff. And all the debris was in the air. And the wind was so tremendous. So strong. We had furniture in our house that wasn't even our furniture. The surge had brought stuff in so bad.

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BRIGGS: Some devastating pictures brought to us by Brooke Baldwin.

National correspondent Miguel Marquez on the ground for us in Mexico Beach with the latest.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Dave and Christine, I want to show you what Mexico Beach looks like tonight and we actually have a lot of resources now pouring into town. This is the first time we've seen this today. Just dozens and dozens of vehicles from -- this is Orange County Sheriff's Department bringing in boats and all- terrain vehicles with the hope of getting into these areas of Mexico Beach and areas east of here to help search for people.

But this is pretty much what is left of many parts of Mexico Beach tonight. It is completely wiped off the planet. These were beautiful homes and businesses along the beach here 36 hours ago. It has now been scrubbed down to the foundations. And I've met a lot of people here in Mexico Beach in the time I've been here, searching for their loved one. They are stuck here. They cannot get word out to anybody that they are OK.

But just absolute devastation here. It looks like a bomb went off destroying much of the city. And then for 20 or 30 miles out as we were driving in, the trees just all taken out in sort of neat rows. All bending over in the same place. All broken in the same place and all facing the same direction. It's eerie, it's bizarre. It is just heartbreaking to see what is happening here. It is going to be a very long time before Mexico Beach is back in business -- Dave, Christine.

ROMANS: All right, Miguel for us, thank you.

At this hour, Michael remains a tropical storm packing 50-mile-an-hour winds. More than 60 million people are now under a flash flood watch from the Carolinas into New England. Michael still driving weather as it moves northeast. In Philadelphia, New York and Boston, tropical moisture is combining with the strong cold front to produce the threat of flooding.

Meteorologist Karen Maginnis is tracking it all from the CNN Weather Center -- Karen.

KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. And if two images don't really explain the entire situation, and that is Mexico Beach and Panhandle in Florida.

[04:35:03] Just a little less than 48 hours ago, this is how pretty it looked. People enjoying their homes, their lifestyles, their businesses. Life was pretty good. But then they have to return to this, which is we heard in Michael -- Miguel's piece just how devastating it is. A lot of people also did not leave this area.

But not just Mexico Beach, but also Panama City Beach and all those beautiful little communities. Beautiful beaches where people were looking at a hurricane that maybe wasn't a category four, but category three, still very, very powerful. And people are still missing. That death toll of six, it is going to go up. They are searching for the missing. And perhaps the fatalities associated with that once it made its way onshore.

Now it is racing out to the Atlantic. Moving at just about 25 miles per hour away. But in its wake, numerous power outages and lots of flooding in North Carolina and Virginia.

Back to you, guys.

BRIGGS: All right. Karen, thanks.

For ways you can help those impacted by the storm, go to CNN.com/impact -- Christine.

ROMANS: All right. While millions of Americans were fighting to recover from Michael, President Trump was hosting a bizarre working lunch with Kanye West. This was billed as a meeting about prison reform and job opportunities in Chicago, but it went off the rails in a hurry.

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WEST: Trump is on his hero's journey right now. And he might not have expected to have a crazy mother (EXPLETIVE DELETED) like Kanye West run up and support, but best believe we are going to make America great.

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ROMANS: Kanye with a 10-minute -- a 10-minute diatribe really there uncensored.

For more on lunch with Kanye, we bring in CNN's Jeff Zeleny. JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Christine and

Dave, for all the surreal scenes we have seen this at this White House, for all the unorthodox moments, there certainly was a major one yesterday here at the White House when rapper Kanye West was coming for a meeting, a private meeting with President Trump to talk about prison reform. They were scheduled to have a private lunch and nothing on the public schedule.

Well, all that changed when the president invited Kanye West into the Oval Office. Sitting right there at the Resolute Desk, the president listened as Kanye talked.

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WEST: I love Hillary. I love everyone, right? But the campaign "I'm With Her" just didn't make me feel as a guy that didn't get to see my dad all the time, like a guy that can play catch with his son. It was something about when I put this hat on it made me feel like Superman.

If he don't look good, we don't look good. This is our president. He has to be the freshest, the flyest, the flyest planes, the best factories, and we have to make our core be empowered.

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ZELENY: Now for nearly 10 minutes or so this went on in somewhat of an incoherent rant, with Kanye talking about everything under the sun. About -- you know, about race relations, about other matters.

The president clearly enjoying this moment, enjoying this celebrity moment, but other eyebrows were indeed being raised because so much else is on the president's agenda, the stock market slide, of course, the hurricane recovery and damage and devastation in Florida, and certainly, the escalating crisis with Saudi Arabia.

But the president clearly had time for Kanye West in two separate sessions. The old adage if the most valuable thing is the president's time, if that's true we certainly saw what that was yesterday -- Dave and Christine.

BRIGGS: Jeff Zeleny, thanks.

The president's legal team is preparing answers to written questions it received from Special Counsel Robert Mueller. According to a source familiar with the matter, the questions are focused on possible collusion between Trump campaign associates and Russians seeking to influence the 2016 election. Still no agreement on whether the president will be interviewed in person. Mr. Trump suggesting rather he's not ruled it out.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, it seems ridiculous that I have to do it when everybody says there is no collusion. But I'll do what is necessary to get it over with.

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BRIGGS: This first round of questions may not be the last. The special counsel negotiated an opportunity to ask follow-up questions before the two sides finally agreed to begin the process.

ROMANS: The White House is now eyeing Nancy Brinker to replace Nikki Haley as ambassador to the U.N. Brinker is the founder of the Susan G. Komen Foundation. According to a source close to the administration, officials believe she could be fast tracked to confirmation since she already went through the Senate process before, serving as U.S. ambassador to Hungary back in 2001.

Former deputy National Security adviser Dina Powell is out of the running. She informed the president she is keeping her job at Goldman Sachs. One official tells CNN her nomination became incredibly more complicated by the escalating diplomatic crisis with Saudi Arabia because, quote, "no one knows more about the relationship between Jared Kushner and Crown Prince bin Salman than her."

[04:40:07] All right. With just weeks to the midterms, Facebook purging accounts for flooding users with political spam. Facebook removed more than 800 pages for spreading political misinformation using tactics like fake accounts, inflating user engagement and driving people to ad farms.

Facebook tells CNN the purge was about behavior, not content. Banning sensational political content regarding of its political slant. The purged accounts are quoted both conservative and liberal ideas. Facebook has faced harsh criticism for allowing election meddling and misinformation to spread during the 2016 election. Since then Facebook has been on a crusade to prove its platform will not disrupt the democratic process. But that criticism along with data privacy scandals has hit its stock prices. Shares are down 30 percent since July.

BRIGGS: Wow. All right. Ahead, CNN has learned the U.S. is working on the assumption that that missing "Washington Post" columnist was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Turkey. We go live to Istanbul next.

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[04:45:15] BRIGGS: Some breaking news this morning. New evidence that missing "Washington Post" columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in Saudi Arabia's Istanbul consulate. A CNN source briefed by western intelligence says the evidence shows Khashoggi was killed following some kind of assault and struggle. The source saying the Turkish government told a foreign intelligence service the evidence is in audio and visual form.

The "Washington Post" reports the recordings include voices speaking Arabic and the sounds of Khashoggi being, quote, "interrogated, tortured then murdered." Turkish media reports a team of 15 Saudi men including a forensic expert arrived by private jet in Istanbul and left the same day. Saudi Arabia categorically denying any involvement in Jamal's disappearance. ROMANS: Now that has not slowed momentum in Congress where leading

senators are putting pressure on Saudi Arabia to account for Khashoggi.

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SEN. BOB CORKER (R), CHAIRMAN, FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: My instincts say that there's no question the Saudi government did this and my instincts say that they murdered him.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I have never been more concerned about his well being than I am right now. And all the indicators point to Saudi Arabia and if it turns out to be Saudi Arabia, as I've said before, there will be all hell to pay.

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ROMANS: The White House resisting calls for action against Saudi Arabia. President Trump Thursday said the U.S. sent investigators to work with Turkey. Something Turkish officials flatly denied.

International diplomatic editor Nic Robertson live for us in Istanbul with the latest -- Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, Christine, the source that we've talked to has told us that the Turkish shared this evidence that they have, this audio visual evidence from inside the consulate that graphically portrays and shows the struggle, the fight and the death of Jamal Khashoggi. They've shared it with several of their allies.

And the source we've been talking to was briefed by one of those Western intelligence officials, says that there was absolutely shocking in essence, it took some time for the intelligence agencies who were given this evidence to really get their heads around it, that it was so bad, it was something that they haven't seen before. And this does fit in with what we've heard from the Turkish president here saying that this is not a normal occurrence, that we cannot remain silent on this issue.

The very latest, of course, is that the Saudis and the Turks have agreed a working group to figure out how they can get through this investigation. But it seems impossible with the backdrop of all this information, all this evidence that is clearly being shared around western capitals by Turkish authorities that it is too graphic, too damning and too bad to be washed away and swept under the carpet.

So at the moment, we're still waiting for those Turkish investigators to be able to get inside the consulate. And that hasn't happened. And we understand they know exactly where they want to go. They want a forensic examination and they know which rooms inside the consulate that they want to be able to get into -- Christine.

ROMANS: And, Nic, the U.S. response? I mean, what can the U.S. do? There've been some who've talked about cancelling an arms deal between the United States and Saudi Arabia. But the president doesn't seem to want to do that. He said well, then the Saudis will just buy it from the -- like a business deal. They'll just buy it from the Russians or the Chinese.

ROBERTSON: You know, you might have looked to previous administrations to have conversations in Saudi Arabia that says look, Saudi, the country, is going to go on forever. We want to do business with you, we want to be a partner with you but not as things are being run right now. That would be the conversation you would have had in years gone by. But with those in the royal -- senior royal circles, however, this current leadership, King Salman and his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, have really swept away those circles around the Saudi leadership.

So who do you have a conversation with? The conversation you would expect to be had would be, look, you've got to change and there's a real potential and opportunity here to come clean, to change the leadership and to give us somebody, a country, that we can do business with. The British Foreign secretary told the Saudi Foreign minister just the other day, he said, look, you know, we do business with you on the basis of shared mutual values. And that's how the world sees it. And at the moment, those values aren't aligning.

ROMANS: That's right. All right. Thank you so much for that. Nic Robertson for us in Istanbul.

BRIGGS: U.S. officials believe an American pastor is on the verge of being released by the government of Turkey. Pastor Andrew Brunson has been jailed since 2016 for allegedly plotting a coup against President Erdogan. Brunson is in court right now.

Let's go live to Turkey and bring in CNN's Ben Wedeman with the latest.

Ben, good morning.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning. Well, it is expected that this trial will go on throughout the day. No guarantee about the outcome at this point. But there have been persistent reports, particularly coming out of Washington, that some sort of deal has been reached for the release of Pastor Brunson.

[04:50:08] Now according to this deal, the United States will lift sanctions on Turkey's Interior and Justice minister that were imposed over the Brunson case. Something unprecedented when it comes to relations between NATO allies. The United States has also dramatically raised tariffs on Turkish exports of steel and aluminum, and halted the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey as well. So they will change or reverse all of those decisions if the court decides to allow Pastor Brunson to travel which doesn't mean he will be found innocent or pardoned. It just means that he will be free to go to the airport, jump on a plane and leave the country and perhaps never return.

BRIGGS: All right. Ben Wedeman live with the latest from Turkey this morning. Thank you. ROMANS: All right. Now for Dave's favorite story of the morning.

Grab your fascinators, everyone. Nearly five months after Harry and Meghan tied the knot, another royal wedding is getting underway this morning.

BRIGGS: Glorious.

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ROMANS: We go live to Windsor Castle where some big-named guests are making their way into the chapel as we speak.

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[04:56:03] ROMANS: All right. It's time to freshen up the big hats, the fascinators, for a new royal wedding in Windsor. Britain's ninth in line to the throne, Princess Eugenie, tying the knot with Tequila brand ambassador Jack Brooksbank. In St. George's Chapel, the guest list a closely guarded secret but we do know the Clooneys and the Queen are on hand. You can see the arrivals right now.

Max Foster live from Windsor Castle for us -- Max.

MAX FOSTER, CNN ROYAL CORRESPONDENT: Christine, imagine having to turn up in this wind wearing a fascinator. We've seen a few of them fly away into the crowds. Hair all over the place. So crisis, a fashion crisis. And many people turning up here.

As you say, some pretty big names coming along. The Clooneys are expected. We know that Naomi Campbell has gone in there. Also Kate Moss. We know that Eugenie is actually very good friends with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner as well. So some speculation there they may have flown in overnight as well to see them on this big day for them.

She's ninth in line to the throne so she's not a senior royal but the Queen has allowed her to hold her wedding here at Windsor Castle. The Queen will be there, although Prince Phillip isn't expected to attend because there's a lot of tension historically between him and Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York.

Also Camilla is not likely to turn up either. We haven't had an explanation really for that apart from she's got another engagement going on. And of course Meghan and Harry will be coming along as well. First time they've been back here since their big day earlier in the year.

ROMANS: Right. Five months. All right. A royal wedding. There are the arrivals.

BRIGGS: That is kind of a nice vacation.

ROMANS: Fascinators flying. All right. Thanks so much, Max Foster, our royal watcher. Thanks, Max.

BRIGGS: We needed that. All right. Allegations of voter suppression in the Georgia governor's

race. Democrat Stacey Abrams' campaign calling on Republican candidate Brian Kemp to resign as secretary of state. That demand coming after an Associated Press report revealed Georgia put a hold on more than 53,000 voter registration applications with nearly 70 percent of them belonging to African-Americans. The reason? They failed to clear the state's exact match standard. That means even the most minor discrepancy like a typo or a missing letter disqualified them.

Abrams is trying to become the first black woman elected governor of any state. She is running neck and neck with Kemp.

ROMANS: We're now just 25 days from the midterm elections. If you still have not registered to vote today is the deadline in Idaho, Oklahoma, New York and North Carolina.

BRIGGS: Harvey Weinstein's lawyer claiming a positive development after a New York judge dismisses one of the charges against the disgraced movie mogul. The dropped criminal sex act charge linked to a case involving aspiring actress Lucia Evans who alleges Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex on him in 2004.

But a newly unsealed letter says a friend accompanied Evans when she first met Weinstein and says that that friend told investigators Evans engaged in consensual contact in exchange for a job. But the head of the NYPD says the dismissal of one charge does not weaken the case against Weinstein.

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JAMES O'NEIL, NEWSROOM YORK POLICE COMMISSIONER: The overall criminal case against Mr. Weinstein remains strong. The evidence is compelling. The NYPD will continue to work with the prosecution in any way it can to seek justice for these brave survivors who have displayed tremendous courage in coming forward.

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BRIGGS: The next hearing in the criminal case scheduled for December 20th.

EARLY START continues right now with the latest on Hurricane Michael.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do not come down here. Do not. You can't get in. Everything is devastated. It looks like a bomb went off.

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BRIGGS: The storm has passed but first responders are just getting to the hardest hit areas. The wrath of Michael wiping out an entire oceanfront community. A live report from Florida as the death toll rises.

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WEST: I love this guy right here.

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ROMANS: President Trump facing criticism for spending his afternoon with Kanye West as millions of Americans pick up the pieces from Hurricane Michael.

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