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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Deadliest Fire in California History; Florida Recount Underway; betrayal Of Patriotism; Top Democrats Take Aim; Turkey Gives Jamal Khashoggi Audio To Allies. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired November 12, 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)

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My whole town was wiped off the face of the earth in a matter of eight hours.

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DAVE BRIGGS, EARLY START SHOW CO-HOST: The death toll rising in California where the firefighters are now battling the most destructive and deadliest wildfire in the state's history.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we are here to do today is to count every vote.

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BRIGGS: At this hour, Florida election officials are recounting ballots for three statewide races. One official in Palm Beach claiming it is impossible to recount by Thursday's deadline.

Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. Some stinging words delivered by French President Emmanuel Macron as President Trump calls himself the nationalist. We a live report from Paris.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If he stays there, he will create a constitutional crisis by inhibiting Mueller.

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BRIGGS: Democrats vowing to protect special counsel Robert Mueller from acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker a vocal critic of the Russian investigation. How the president is distancing himself from Whitaker. Good morning everyone. Welcome back to "Early Start." I'm Dave Briggs. 4:33 Eastern Tim, 1:33 in California. Where 31 people are now dead in these raging wildfire with at least 200 people still missing and 29 killed in the camp fire in northern California and two killed by the Woolsey Fire in southern California. Found in their car apparently trying to flee the flames. At least six firefighters injured statewide.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've never been so scared in my life.

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BRIGGS: In Northern California, terrifying drive through flames and heavy smoke as the entire town of paradise, almost 30,000 people was forced to evacuate at a moment's notice. That fire now is the most destructive in California history destroying nearly 6,700 buildings since it started on Thursday. High winds and tinder dry weather in the state putting 25 million people, nearly 1 in 13 Americans, under a red-flag warning at this hour. CNN's Scott McLean is Los Angeles, where 170,000 people had been forced to evacuate their homes.

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SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Dave and Christine, the Woolsey Fire certainly has lost the strength and intensity that it once had, but that doesn't mean the danger is over by any stretch even in this part of Malibu. Where it seems that the worst has come and gone. There are still hot spots. There are still smoldering areas obviously in this home, there is not really anything left to burn. But in other cases, there is, if you look on the other side of the canyon, you can see the fire got to the bottom of it and raced up to the other side.

Somehow, it managed to stop before it burned through those condos. I know from talking to people on the other side that there is concern that as the winds pick up right through to Tuesday that some of those fires could reignite and burn through some of the fuel that hasn't already burned.

[04:35:02] In this part of Malibu, well, there's some pretty stunning views and pretty amazing properties here. If you look down here, well, you can see that there's a tree down. It seemed to have been burned at the bottom and then collapsed under its own weight. One of the many hazard in this area along with downed power lines and burned through power poles, thing like that. And check out this view right here.

Someone had a view right out to the Pacific Ocean. Would had been absolutely stunning. There's nothing left of this house right now except for a pretty view and some charred remains. This area is under a mandatory evacuation order. But even once people start to get back in, well, it will be a long time before Malibu really looks like Malibu again. Dave.

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BRIGGS: OK. Scott, thank you. Those strong winds and dry conditions expected to fuel the wildfires. Here is meteorologist Pedram Javaheri.

(BEGIN VIDEO) PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Dave and Christine, another rough

day here across portions of the state in particular down towards the south. You notice a critical risk has been issued and also an extreme level concern were erratic fire weather behavior definitely going to be a high probability today with low humidity and a lot of fuel to go around and extreme heat still in place across portions of the state.

So, this is a trend and with the Santa Ana expected to pick up, we know as the winds really sinks down in mountainous terrain, they warms by compression. And often, I use the analogy of pumping a bike tire and see that pump begin to warm up, that is precisely what is happening across portions of the state. In fact in Los Angeles and Santa Monica and Sacramento, the last time these areas saw rainfall that was more than half an inch, seven to eight months ago. And this particular trend, begin expect to continue at least through the next two days here with maybe a window of improving weather conditions.

We get a little more of a marine influence sometimes towards in the middle of the week. But really, no chance for rainfall not until thanksgiving, when you take a look at the long-range models. But here we go with the gusts this afternoon potentially as high as 70 miles per hour across the mountainous terrain. Certainly not going to be helping the firefighters out at least across southern California. Guys.

BRIGGS: Not good. Pedram, thanks. President Trump's tweets on the California wildfires sparking backlash from the firefighters on Saturday. The President tweeted there's no reason for these massive and deadly and costly forest fires in California except for forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year with so many lives lost all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now or no more fed payments. Well, the head of the California professional firefighters union, Brian Rice shot back in a statement calling the President's comments ill-informed, demeaning and dangerously wrong.

Wildfires are sparked and spread not only in forested areas, but in populated areas and open fields fueled by parched vegetation, high winds and low humidity and geography. In my views the shameful attack on California is the attack on all our courageous men and women on the frontlines. Worth noting, nearly 60 percent of California wildfires are federally managed. That is according to the U.S. forest service report. For ways you can help those affected by the California fires, go to CNN.com/impact.

Recounts are underway this morning in three Florida races including governor and U.S. Senate. Florida Govern Rick Scott who is also the Republican senate candidate claiming with no evidence that his Democratic opponent, incumbent Senator Bill Nelson is committing election fraud.

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RICK SCOTT, (R), FLORIDA GOVERNOR SENATE CANDIDATE: Senator Nelson is trying to commit fraud to try to win the election. That is all this is. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: The recount scheduled to go on around the clock until it is complete. The recount deadline is Thursday, but as CNN's Ryan Nobles tells us, the process may last well into next month.

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RYAN NOBLES, WASHINGON CORRESPONDENT, CNN: Dave and Christine, good morning from Tallahassee where these recount in Florida is under way. A massive effort where 8.5 million votes cast in these big elections are going to be recounted by machines in the 67 counties across the Sunshine State. Over the weekend, we have several important developments in these recount process. The first is a trio of lawsuits that were filed by Rick Scott, the current governor and candidate for U.S. senate. One of those lawsuit accuses the Broward County supervisor of election of counting ballots after the Saturday deadline.

Scott also is asking for the sheriffs involve in those counties to be responsible for the machines and ballots in both of those counties to impound them when there isn't counting taking place and after recount is over. Now in addition to those lawsuits, we learned that in Palm Beach County, the supervisor of elections there says that she thinks it is impossible for her county to complete their count on time. And that is significant.

Because that is a Democratic strong hold and it could potentially be a spot where in the recount Democrats could gain some ground. If they don't get their vote count on time in the recount, it reverts back to the initial count that they delivered on Saturday at noon.

[04:40:03] Now, this all has to be done by Thursday. That could trigger then a hand recount of the over votes and under votes. This is supposed to be certified by 20th November. That is of course, Thanksgiving week. But there is always a possibility that lawsuits could come into process. That it could take even longer. Dave and Christine.

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BRIGGS: Buckle up folks. In Georgia, the state Democratic Party and its candidate for governor Stacey Abrams are suing the halt to rejection of absentee and provisional ballots in the governor's race. Right now, Republican candidate Brian Kemp leads Abrams with 50.3 percent of the vote. If that drops below 50 percent, the race automatically goes to a run-off.

The Kemp campaign argued there is not enough outstanding ballot to force a run-off. CNN has not projected a winner in the race. The Democrats lost two claims more than 1,000 absentee ballots were wrongly rejected. And asked a federal judge to order election officials to count them. The Abrams campaign says 5,000 votes were counted this weekend and most of them absentee or mail ballots. Nearly all of those votes were for her. In the Arizona Senate race, Democrats Kyrsten Sinema's lead over

Republican Martha McSally is widening as of 1:00 Sunday afternoon, Sinema held a 30,310 vote's advantage. That puts her 1.4 percentage points ahead. And Sinema's campaign manager believe there is are more Democratic votes left to be counted than Republican. President Trump casting doubt on the election's legitimacy despite again no evidence of fraud.

President Trump receiving some backlash after a visit to Paris to commemorate 100 years since the end of World War I. How the trip exposed increasing tensions with European allies.

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BRIGGS: 4:45 Eastern Time. President Trump is back in Washington after a brief weekend in Paris commemorating the end of World War I. The White House revealing the President had lunch on Sunday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. According to Russia's state news agency, Putin felt the conversation, went well. President Trump facing some backlash though for cancelling his visit to an American burial ground because it was raining.

The optics were undeniably awful as other world leaders were able to pay their respects. The President's visit also exposing cracks in the relationship between with Mr. Trump and Macron. The French President offering a sharp warning against the dangers of nationalism. The label President Trump has embraced. Let's go live to Paris and bring in CNN's Melissa Bell. Melissa, good morning to you. The New York Post pretty Trump friendly typical but they say this is a French dis. Is the split being covered the same way there in Paris?

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely. Emmanuel Macron's are words were taken to be clearly directed at the American President, sitting just near him, there at the event just behind me yesterday. He has always taken on Donald Trump on the question of how Donald Trump's views unilateralist views were likely to be damaging to the world order. Always try to bring him back into the fold. This is the first time that he really took on the American President on what is in the heart of his political platform, Dave in that question of nationalism. But I think, it is important to remember that he wasn't just addressing Donald Trump and perhaps the reason why he went so much further than he had before was because he was also talking to a domestic audience.

Here in Europe, you know, we are preparing for elections next year. E.U. elections. That the populous nationalist forces in Europe believe that they can win really tipping that balance of power on the European continent as well. Emmanuel Macron has made it clear that he intends to lead the charge against that. And his words speaking so brutally, so forcefully against nationalism and its resurgence was addressed as much to Donald Trump as it was to Europe where there is very populous wins that brought him to power in the states, has threatened to do something similar here.

BRIGGS: All right. Melissa Bell, live for us in Paris this morning, thank you.

Democratic leaders in Congress vowing to block the new acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker from interfering with the Special Counsel Russia investigation. New York Congressman, Jerry Nadler said to chair the judiciary committee when Democrats take charge of the House, telling CNN if Whitaker doesn't recuse himself from overseeing the Mueller probe, he can be expect to be center stage at a hearing in January.

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JERRY NADLER, (D) JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: The questions we will ask will be about his expressed hostility to the investigation. How he can possibly supervise it when he has express the -- when he has come out and said the investigation is invalid and contrary to the findings of every Intelligence agency, there was no Russian interference in our election.

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BRIGGS: Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer warns if Whitaker doesn't step aside, they plan to attach legislation protecting the special counsel to a must-pass spending bill. In the face of the Democrat's concern that Whitaker was put in place to stop the Russian investigation. President Trump appears to be distancing himself from this acting A.G.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't know Matt Whitaker. Matt Whitaker worked for Jeff Sessions. And he is always extremely highly thought of, but he is still is. But I didn't know Matt Whitaker.

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BRIGGS: That of course, flies in the face of what the President told Fox News just last month.

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TRUMP: I never talk about that. But I can tell you that Matt Whitaker is a great guy. I mean, I know Matt Whitaker.

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BRIGGS: All right. So, which is it? White House counselor Kellyanne Conway trying to explain the discrepancy here.

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KELLYANNE CONWAY, WHITE HOUSE COUNSELOR: What the President means is, he is not sliding in somebody that is an old friend or somebody he thinks that he has discussed the Mueller investigation with at length.

(END VIDEO CLIP) [04:50:04] BRIGGS: All right. You got it. Meanwhile, SNL star Pete

Davidson apologizing for mocking Congressman Dan Crenshaw, former Navy SEAL wounded in Afghanistan.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean this from the bottom of my heart, it was a poor choice of words.

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BRIGGS: How the two came together in the sincere plea for unity and you won't believe the cracks that Crenshaw had for Davidson.

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BRIGGS: Turkey says, it has given audio related to the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi to the U.S., European and Saudi governments. Turkish President Recep Erdogan did not say what was on the recordings. Meantime, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo telling Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman in a phone call, the U.S. will hold all those involve in Jamal Khashoggi killing accountable and that Saudi Arabia must do the same. Let's go to Istanbul where CNN's Jomanah Karadsheh is standing by live. Jomanah, good morning.

JOMANAH KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Dave. It has been more than 40 days since the disappearance and the killing of Jamal Khashoggi and that accountability that you mentioned in that phone call between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the Saudi Crown Prince is what so many are demanding. Friends, colleagues, people who knew Jamal Khashoggi are wondering, when are they going to see real accountability?

But before that, there are so many questions to be answered that Turkey has been seeking answers to and they believe that Saudi Arabia has those answers. Mainly the two key questions is where is the body if there is a body left of Jamal Khashoggi or his remains and who ordered the killing. And they put these -- what they say are straight forward questions to the Saudis and so far they say there has been serious real lack of cooperation from the Saudi authorities.

So you see Turkey trying to talk the strategy over the past few weeks of these drip feed of information and leaks trying to put pressure on the international community, especially the United States, to in term put pressure on Saudi Arabia. The latest as you mentioned is President Erdogan on Saturday saying that they had passed on the recordings of the killing without going into details of what these recordings are. But cased on previous leaks, we know that Turkey says that it has audio recordings of the actual killing of Jamal Khashoggi.

And they say they passed this on to the United States, to the United Kingdom, to France, Germany and to Saudi Arabia. Putting much now, putting the pressure on these countries to produce results here. But the concern is based on, you know this meeting that we heard took place between President Donald Trump and the French President Emmanuel Macron over the weekend, where according to the French Presidential spokesman, they did discussed the killing. They said something really bad happened and they want to get to the bottom of this, but also saying they are that the U.S. Administration's position is they don't want to really destabilize Saudi Arabia which they say is a cornerstone of everything in the Middle East. Dave.

BRIGGS: Sounds like the administration wants this to blow over. Congress back in session tomorrow. Maybe we'll hear something. Jomanah, thanks.

Comedian Pete Davidson apologizing to Republican Congressman Ben Crenshaw after mocking the former Navy SEAL wounded in Afghanistan in a skit on SNL last weekend. Crenshaw seem to take it all in (inaudible) leaving appearing on SNL himself.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean this from the bottom of my heart. It was a poor choice of words. The man is a war hero. And he deserves all the respect in the world. And if any good came of this, maybe it was that for one day the left and right finally came together to agree on something. That I'm a (BEEP).

(LAUGHTER)

BEN CRENSHAW, REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN-ELECT: You think?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I just wanted to say for people that don't know, the reason you are wearing an eye patch right now is that you lost your eye to an IED in Afghanistan during your third combat tour. And I'm sorry.

CRENSHAW: Thank you, Pete. I appreciate you saying that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we good?

CRENSHAW: We're good. Apology accepted.

(MUSIC PLAYING) Just keep breathing, breathing, breathing

That sounds like my phone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you going to answer that? Just keep

CRENSHAW: I'm just going to let it ring, because it is rude to answer. I'll let it go to voice mail.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ariana.

CRENSHAW: Do you know her? OK. But seriously. There's a lot of lessons to learn here. Not just that the left and right can still agree on some things, but also this, Americans can forgive one another. Who will never forget the sacrifices made by veterans past and present and never forget those we lost on 9/11. Heroes like Pete's father. So I will just say, Pete, never forget.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Never forget.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: Well done, Congressman Crenshaw. Pete Davidson's father was a New York City firefighter who died in the 9/11 attacks. When Davidson was 7 years old. "Early start" continues right now.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My whole town was wiped off the face of the earth in a matter of eight hours.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: The death toll rising in California where the firefighters are now battling the most destructive and deadliest wildfire in the state's history.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we are here to do today is to count every vote. (END VIDEO CLIP)