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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
President Trump's Final Pitch And His Pre-Existing Promise; Criticism For SNL Cast Member; Trump Vows Protection For Preexisting Conditions; New York Suspect Faces Multiple Hate Crimes Charges. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired November 05, 2018 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:00:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No nation can allow its borders to be overrun.
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Don't be hood winked. Don't be bamboozled.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAVE BRIGGS, EARLY START SHOW CO-HOST: Power players from both sides making a final pitch in the last hours of the midterm campaign. Expected to be a referendum on President Trump.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, EARLY START SHOW CO-HOST: The President vows to protect pre-existing conditions and says this, he did not know his Justice Department would be urged a court to throw them out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETE DAVIDSON, SNCL COMEDIAN: -- War or whatever.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: And mounting criticism for an "SNL" cast member. Pete Davidson made fun of a congressional candidate who lost an eye on Afghanistan. Boy, it did not go over well, we will dive into that later on.
Good morning. Welcome to "Early Start." I'm Dave Briggs.
ROMANS: Good morning. I'm Christine Romans. It is Monday, November 5th. 4:00 a.m. in the East and we are there folks. The midterm's elections is just one day away. 26 hours until polls open in the east deciding the 35 Senate races, 435 House seats and 36 races for governor. A new NBC news Wall Street Journal poll has Democrats with a seven point edge in the generic Congressional ballot. And the latest Washington Post ABC News poll shows 69 percent of registered voters under 40 say they are certain they will vote. That is up from 44 percent in the last midterms. A lot riding on whether Democrats can flip the House. CNN political Director, David Chalian handicapping the state and play for us.
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DAVID CHALIAN, POLITICAL DIRECTOR, CNN: Nearly 70 districts truly in play. Some leaning a little blue, Democratic, some leaning a little red, Republican, 31 in yellow. True toss ups. Total coin flip and of those, 30 of them are currently held by Republicans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: The President going all out in the home stretch holding three rallies today in three states. Ohio, Indianan and Missouri. Where he will be joined by a special guest. Someone from an actual television network. Sean Hannity of Fox News. So much for fair and balanced. On Sunday, the President was in Georgia and Tennessee. He repeated his ominous warnings about that migrant caravan. The first members have just reached Mexico City. That is about 500 miles away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: No nation can allow its borders to be overrun. And that is an invasion. I don't care what they say. I don't care what the fake media says. That is an invasion of our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: The president has kept up that Trump bid on the caravan and the border for more than a week, but the Republican Party's chairwoman downplaying that focus.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RONNA MCDANIEL, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE CHAIRWOMAN: I'm with the president at this rallies, the President is talking about. All the accomplishments, I think the media is focused on immigration constantly and I get that. But he is focusing on the economy. He is talking about the jobs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: The President this week actually admitted when he starts talking about the economy, after a couple of minutes, people lose interest. So, he goes back to what energized them. The president admitted that on the campaign trail this weekend. CNN political analyst Rachel Bader reporting this morning for Politico. Saying that Paul Ryan called the president Sunday, for one final plea, please talk up the booming economy in the final hours before the polls open. The President instead boasted to Ryan that he is focus on immigration has fired up the base. We will talk about that with Rachel when she joins us at 5:00 a.m. in just an hour.
BRIGGS: All right. Democrats are deploying their heavy hitters to make closing midterm arguments with Party leaders from the past and the present and perhaps the future. Fanning out across the nation notably absent from the trail is Hillary Clinton. President Obama campaigning in Indiana and Illinois on Sunday. Delivering a stinging indictment of the Trump administration record and its rhetoric.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Don't be hood winked. Don't be bamboozled. Don't let them run oki doki on you. Because while they are trying to distract you with all this stuff, they're robbing you blind. They will be like, look, look, look. Caravan, caravan. Then they give tax cuts to their billionaire friends. They promised they would take on corruption in Washington, instead they racked up enough indictments to fill a football team.
(CHEERS)
Nobody in my administration got indicted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: As of Sunday morning, over 34 million people had voted early in these country. That is 67.8 percent more than early votes cast in all of 2014.
[04:05:05] ROMANS: Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp's office says, it is investigating the state's Democratic Party over where it described as an attempted hack of the state's voter registration system on Saturday. Kemp, who is the Republican nominee for governor, has not provided any evidence or said why the Democratic Party is being investigated so close to the election.
BRIGGS: CNN has learned the accusation started when a voter reached out to Georgia's Democratic Party to say he discovered potential vulnerabilities in the registration system. Georgia Democrats, including Kemp's Democratic rival Stacey Abrams vehemently deny the claim.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STACEY ABRAMS, (D), GEORGIA GOVERNOR NOMINEE: There were imperfections in their system. There are weaknesses and vulnerabilities. They were told about this on Friday. And instead of owning up to the failure, and making it right, he decided to blame Democrats. We are not responsible. We have nothing to do with this. And I'm very sad that instead of owning up to his responsibility and honoring his commitment as Secretary of State, that he is once again misleading Georgia.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Democrats advocacy groups previously argued Kemp is a conflict of interest. Overseeing an election, he is also running in.
ROMANS: In a new interview with Axios, President Trump claims he will reinstate protections for pre-existing conditions if the lawsuit his administration supports successfully guts the affordable care act. That is right. Right now, the Justice Department is arguing the court should strike down Obama cares pre-existing conditions protections. That could lead to skyrocketing cost or lose of coverage for millions of people. Republicans have never come up with the replacement plan that would offer the same level of protection as the affordable care act. The President blaming the entire mess on his embattled Attorney General.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did Jeff Sessions give you a head's up before the Justice Department?
TRUMP: No. He didn't. Actually --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's an amazing lawsuit. I mean, you have seen this, right?
TRUMP: No, I didn't. But it won't matter, because pre-existing conditions on anything we do will be put into it. So, it doesn't matter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: We should note Attorney General Sessions said the President did sign off on the lawsuit. The Justice Department is referring all questions by Axios about that discrepancy back to the White House. Which claims the lawsuit is about a quote, technical constitutional issue and does not represent the administration's general position on pre-existing conditions.
ROMANS: To be clear, every move from the administration has been to get Obamacare. That Obamacare is not good. Obamacare, the cornerstone of Obamacare is pre-existing conditions. So, in action, this administration has not supported pre-existing conditions. Only in words.
BRIGGS: Say for a thumb's down from the late John McCain, they would have got it protections.
ROMANS: that is right. All right. SNL's comedian Pete Davidson facing growing backlash for mocking a Republican Congressional candidate who lost an eye in Afghanistan. Dan Crenshaw did five tours in duty in Afghanistan as a Navy Seal, he lost his eye in 2012 in an IED blast. On "Saturday night live" he made Pete Davidson list of gross people running for office this year.
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DAVIDSON: This guy's kind of cool. Dan Crenshaw.
(LAUGHTER)
Come on, man.
Hold on. You may be surprised to hear, he is a congressional candidate from Texas and not a hit man in a porno movie.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
I'm sorry. I know he lost his eye in war or whatever.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO)
BRIGGS: Interesting laughter there on the set as well. That joke met with anger from veterans and the national Republican Congressional Committee. It needled him about his break up Ariana Grande, writing getting dumped by your pop star girlfriend is no excuse for lashing out at a decorated war hero. Crenshaw, himself taking the high wrote, tweeting, good rule in life. I try hard not to offend. I try harder not to be offended. That being said, I hope SNL recognizes the Vets don't deserve to see their wounds used as punch lines for bad jokes.
ROMANS: All right. A positive jobs report Friday was good news for President Trump heading into tomorrow's midterms. The economy added 250,000 jobs in October. That is significantly better. Look at it. A quarter of a million jobs. 3.7 percent, that is 49 year well wages group 3.1 percent that is almost the fastest wage growth in about nine years.
The President took a victory lap that the U.S. added 250,000 jobs in October. This was despite the hurricanes and unemployment of 3.7 percent. Wages are up. These are incredible numbers. Keep it going? Vote Republican. The GOP chairwoman Ronna McDaniel trying to shift the Republican message from caravan backed to the economy and criticize former President Obama at the same time. Here her tweet from Saturday. Under Donald Trump, 87,000 more jobs are being created per month than under President Obama. Looks like Trump found the magic wand.
[04:10:00] Well, the magic wand -- what McDaniel fails to acknowledge is that President Obama was handed a financial crisis by President Bush when Obama came in to office, his first months in office, the economy was shedding up to 700,000 jobs a month. President Trump was handed a healthy economy just hitting its stride. The magic wand, I think, for President Trump was handed to him by President Obama.
BRIGGS: Well, right, and juicing the economy with $2 trillion in tax cuts is certainly going to improve conditions.
ROMANS: Yes. The fiscal stimulus also, you know, defense spending is as well. But physical stimulus on an already strong economy is something that we really never have seen before. So, you can see that right in the deficit. You know, so that is the number the Republicans tend to not like to see.
BRIGGS: All right. Ahead, a fist fight between a teacher and student. What prompted it and which one is facing charges?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BRIGGS: Police in Tallahassee, Florida say the gunman who killed two
women and wounded five others at a yoga studio Friday had previously had been accused of harassing women in the area.
[04:15:02] The New York Times reports he also made misogynistic remarks on YouTube videos. According to police, Scott Beierle posed as a customer when he entered hot yoga Tallahassee and fired a handgun without warning.
ROMANS: The yoga students fought back, but 61 year-old Nancy Van Vessem and 21 Maura Binkley were killed. Binkley's father said his daughter was a gun control advocate White House had gone to Washington to protest after the Parkland shooting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She grew up in the age of these mass shootings often in schools. And she just saw the suffering and also the senselessness of this and just wanted to do something. She became a victim. That is a cruel irony. Cruel irony.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Police say the gunman fatally shot himself before officers arrived.
BRIGGS: A New York man faces multiple hate crimes charges in connection with anti-Semitic graffiti found at the Brooklyn temple and fires at several locations including a Jewish school. Police arrested 26-year-old James Polite on Friday. The suspect had interned with former New York City council speaker Christine Quinn and volunteered during Barack Obama's first Presidential bid. Registering voters and canvassing neighborhoods. A New York Times report says Polite was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2015.
ROMANS: A fist fight between California high school teacher and 14- year-old student captured on video. The music teacher Marston Riley, in Maywood Academy in Los Angeles, Friday. The brawl ends with students and what appears to be campus resource officer trying to break it up. Now, students told CNN affiliate KTLA, the fight began after Riley, the teacher ask the student to leave the class because he wasn't wearing the proper uniform. The boy refuse and shouting profanity and a racial slur at the teacher. The unidentified teen was treated at the hospital and released. Riley was arrested for alleged child abuse. CNN has reached out to Riley, but has not heard back. You can see all of the kids have their phones out. You know, as if this was -- I don't know. It was something that clearly was very important all the way around.
BRIGGS: "Saturday night live" mocks the fearmongering rhetoric used by Fox News in its coverage of the migrant caravan. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're live from the Arizona border where a vicious caravan of dozens, maybe millions of illegal immigrants is headed straight for you and your grandchildren. Liberal media is trying to label President Trump a racist, but except for his words and actions throughout his life, how is he racist?
Thousands of troops are heading to the border, the goal is to have five armed soldiers for every one shoeless immigrant child. Trump is calling it operation ego with a huge tong. Here with the insider look is the former Milwaukee Sheriff and Trump cheerleader, David Clarke. Sheriff, how are you?
DAVID CLARKE, MILWAUKEE COUNTY SHERIFF: Unpopular among my own people.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And what is your take on the caravan?
CLARKE: Well, the situation is urge end, Laura. The caravan is only 800 miles from our border. If this immigrants will get at a normal phase of 300 miles a day, they could be here in time to vote on Election Day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: 300 miles a day.
BRIGGS: They will be here some time in December. Just a reminder, they also took on the comic stylings of Judge Jeanine and did a pretty good take for hilarious.
ROMANS: All right. U.S. sanctions on Iran, re-imposed overnight, but Iran's President is ready to defy them, CNN is live in Tehran next.
[04:20:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: Just hours ago at midnight Eastern, the U.S. re-imposed all the sanctions on Iran that were lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo calling them the toughest sanctions ever put in place against Iran. The new embargo targets all of the country's oil exports along with other key sectors. But Tehran is apparently ready to defy the order. Senior International correspondent Fred Pleitgen is live in Tehran for us. Hi, Fred.
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, CNN: Yes, good morning, Christine. The flurry of Iranian officials coming out early today denouncing those new sanctions and saying that Iran is going to defy those new sanctions. Not the least which is the country's President Hassam Rouhani who gave a speech earlier today, where he said it would be an honor for Iranian to bust what he calls the unjust sanctions. He says the Iranians believe those sanctions are illegal and even called on other countries to defy those sanctions as well.
As you can imagine, on the ground in Tehran, there has been a lot of anger at the United States. I was at the major anti-U.S. demo that took place here yesterday with a lot of effigies of President Trump, mocking President Trump and generally a lot of anger and a lot of people say that they will defy the sanctions and they will stand up to the United States. But of course, at the same time, you have a lot of people who are
extremely concerned here in Iran about those sanctions. The economy here already very much in a tail spin. If that oil revenue, even a lot of it falls away, many people here fear what the not too distance future might bring for these nation as finances are already in very big trouble. Christine.
ROMANS: Fred, we know that the United States has granted some waivers actually to some countries who imports Iranian oil. There is a little bit of concern that you know, stopping the spigot could raise oil prices and gas prices around the world as well.
PLEITGEN: Yes.
ROMANS: All right. Fred Pleitgen, thank you for that. In Tehran for us this morning.
BRIGGS: Now to a CNN exclusive. The sons of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi pleading for the return of their father's body so they can give him a proper Islamic burial.
[04:25:06] Salah and Abdullah Khashoggi telling CNN's Nick Robertson it has been hard dealing with the loss of their father and the global fallout.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SALAH KASHOGGI, JAMAL KHASHOGGI SON: This is putting a lot of burden on us. All of us. Everybody seeking information just as we do. And they think we have answers. Unfortunately we don't.
ABDULLAH KASHOGGI, JAMAL KHASHOGGI SON: It is difficult and it is not easy. Especially when the story gets this big. It is not easy. It is confusing. Even the way we grieve, it is a both confusing, like we are grieving at the same time we are looking at the media and the misinformation. There's a lot of ups and downs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRINKLEY: I can't imagine. Salah Khashoggi tells CNN that he has faith that the king of Saudi Arabia will bring those responsible for his father's murder to justice.
Congress returns a week after Tuesday's election. So perhaps they will do something. It is not clear who will hold them accountable though.
The final pitch. President Trump tries to rally his base in polls ahead of the midterm with a slew of Democrats past, present, and possibly future countering that message.
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