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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
California Wildfire Deadliest in State History, Killed 44; "Ramp Down the Rhetoric"; WashPost: Trump to Remove Nielsen; Dow Drops 602 Points; 49ers Help Community Affected by Wildfire. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired November 13, 2018 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[05:00:06] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's our house.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that yours?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's mine. That's ours. Gone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gone?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She's gone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: Wildfires in California claiming 44 lives, the deadliest and most destructive in the state's history.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. RICK SCOTT (R), FLORIDA: He's just a pure sore loser trying to steal election.
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CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: The recount in Florida gets heated as the judge calls on both sides to ramp down the rhetoric.
BRIGGS: "The Washington Post" reporting Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen could be fired this week. Why President Trump wants her out.
ROMANS: And the Dow dropping more than 600 points. President Trump blaming Democrats for the drop. We will breakdown what's really behind it.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START this Tuesday morning. I'm Christine Romans.
BRIGGS: Good morning. Good morning all of you. I'm Dave Briggs. Tuesday, November 13th. It is 5:00 a.m. in the East. And another high wind warning in California, not what they need to hear. The death toll there keeps rising. Forty-four people now killed in wildfires statewide. In northern California, 42 people have died in the Camp Fire. Making it the deadliest wildfire in state history, more than 7,000 buildings destroyed. Fire officials say the Camp Fire has burned 117,000 acres. They estimate it's 30 percent contained.
ROMANS: In southern California, 57,000 structures threatened by the Woolsey Fire, which has grown to 93,000 acres, also 30 percent contained and has killed two people.
CNN's Nick Watt has more from Malibu which has been devastated by the Woolsey Fire.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Dave and Christine, the death toll at the Camp Fire in northern California has risen to 42. Thirteen more bodies were found on Monday. Now, ten of the bodies that were found on Monday were found in the little town of Paradise, once home to 26,000 people, almost completely blown, burned off the map by that fire.
And sadly, the death toll up there could rise even further. The sheriff has called for more search and rescue teams to come in Tuesday, along with cadaver dogs to try to find more of the missing.
The last we heard, there are 100 people are still missing. But that doesn't mean they're all dead. A lot of people go missing because of cell service drops. So, we are waiting, hoping that figure doesn't rise, but fearing the worst.
Now, the winds up there in northern California have died down a little bit, down where we are in Malibu in southern California, the so-called Woolsey Fire, the winds here are still whipping and they will continue those Santa Ana winds through Tuesday and Wednesday into places, but on Friday, they're going to change direction and bring some much needed humidity in from the ocean.
Dave and Christine, back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRIGGS: All right. Nick Watt, thank you. As Nick mentioned there, the weather is expected to make things very difficult for firefighters for the at least the next couple of days.
Here is meteorologist Pedram Javaheri.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Dave and Christine.
Yes, these conditions here are going to begin to improve actually over the next couple of days. So, at least some good news to tell you across this region of California in particular, to the north initially. But here is how we get here. We have, of course, the hottest July on record this summer. We had the hottest single month on record for California's state history. So, plenty of fuel, plenty of dry conditions across the region.
But going into Tuesday, now, notice the elevated concern in place. We dropped it down from extreme to critical. The winds will be 5 to 15 miles per hour across the north.
To the south, it's an entirely different story. Still looking at critical to extreme conditions for fire weather behavior. And a lot of concerns is due to spot fires. In fact, guts are picking up embers carrying downstream and essentially creating smaller fires across the same vicinity of these wildfires.
So, firefighters have had their work cut out for them tracking those. Winds peaking across southern California as high as 70 miles an hour. We do expect calmer conditions by Wednesday across southern California. So, containment numbers could begin to go up as well -- guys.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: All right. Pedram, thank you for that.
To Florida now where the lawsuits are mounting, accusations flying in that chaotic election recount. Officials scrambling to count every vote by Thursday's deadline. As the race for Senate gets uglier by the hour, Republican Rick Scott and Democrat Bill Nelson blasting one another.
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SCOTT: What Bill Nelson needs to do now is what he would be asking me to do if I have lost an election is say, look, you know, the election happened. Let's go forward. But he is not. He is a pure sore loser trying to steal an election.
SEN. BILL NELSON (D), FLORIDA: Rick Scott isn't interested in making sure every lawful vote is counted. And the second is that he is using his power as governor to try to undermine the voting process.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: A reminder here, Florida law requires a recount if there is a less than 1 point difference between their vote totals.
[05:05:02] And there was. So, this is -- this is the legal framework at play here.
A Florida judge is warning both sides to ramp down the rhetoric. Republicans, including Scott and President Trump, still alleging fraud in the election process without offering any evidence. And despite repeated denials from the Florida Department of State, the president actually suggesting in a tweet an honest vote is no longer possible. Ballots massively infected. Must go with election night. And again, a reminder, the election night total is what triggered the
recount process.
BRIGGS: Automatically.
In the Florida governor's race, Democrat Andrew Gillum continues to call for every vote to be counted. His rival, Republican Ron DeSantis, is staying under the radar.
Ryan Nobles with more now from Tallahassee.
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RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Dave and Christine, here in Leon County, which is where Tallahassee, the state capital resides, they expect to have the counting wrapped up on Tuesday. Now, each one of Florida's 75 counties operates just a little bit different. But most counties are confident they will have all 8.5 million ballots recounted at least in that U.S. Senate race.
And that U.S. Senate race is the one getting the most attention. That's because the margin between Rick Scott and Bill Nelson is tight, 12,500 votes separate the two. And that's why there are so many people focused on it. Democrats believe they have the chance to flip the race from one hand to another.
Now, while there is a lot of focus on the vote counting, there is another battle playing out in the courtroom. Lawsuits filed by both sides in the past couple days, including the lawsuit filed on Monday by the League of Women Voters. It's a lawsuit that's going to attempt to compel Rick Scott and his capacity as governor to step away from the recount process, recuse himself.
And Scott has been very aggressive on that front. He has actually instructed the Attorney General Pam Bondi to get involved. He's also asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate any potential claims of fraud or criminal activity of which the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has said they have not found any as of yet.
The next big thing we're waiting for, though, is Wednesday. That's when a significant court hearing takes place. The Democrat Bill Nelson filing a lawsuit to get clarification on how to handle the adjudication of some provisional and mail-in ballots. That has the potential to impact as many s 20,000 votes. So, that will be an important court hearing that will be waiting for on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the vote continues as we wait to figure out who the next U.S. senator and governor is from Florida -- Dave and Christine.
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ROMANS: Ryan, thank you.
Six days after the midterms, a big win for Democrats. Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema defeating Martha McSally in the Arizona Senate race. Sinema, the state's first female senator flipping a seat that had been on GOP hands for more than two decades. She also becomes the first openly bisexual member of the U.S. Senate, period.
McSally conceded the race Monday night, congratulating Sinema in a video message on Twitter. The victory means among the races settled, the Senate have 51 Republicans and 47 Democrats in the new Congress.
BRIGGS: McSally could still get appointed to the John McCain seat. Stay tuned.
President Trump reportedly ready to fire Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. "The Washington Post" quoting current and former White House officials says her departure is expected in the coming weeks, perhaps as soon as this week. The president canceled a planned trip with Nielsen to visit the troops at the border in Texas. He says he wants her out as soon as possible.
"The Post" reporting that the president has grumbled for months about what he views as Nielsen's lackluster performance on immigration enforcement.
ROMANS: All right. Monday saw a huge sharp drop on Wall Street. President Trump blaming the Democrats and their impending control of the House. The Dow fell 2.3 percent. That's more than 600 points. The S&P 500 also down 2 percent, and it was even worse for the Nasdaq, almost 3 percent.
So, why are stocks falling again? The president is blaming Democrats. He tweeted Monday that the prospect of presidential harassment by the Dems is causing the stock market big headaches. Stocks have multiple reasons for any movement.
Apple led the tech selloff, that was down 5 percent. A key supplier cut the sales forecast because of weak demand. So there are questions if America's love affair with expensive iPhones may have peaked.
Amazon fell nearly 4-1/2 percent, Tesla more than 5 percent. The strong dollar weighed on stocks. Prospects of another rate hike from the Fed next month lifted the dollar. The rising dollar is a signal of the strong economy, but hurts businesses with overseas connections. It has been a volatile six weeks or so.
BRIGGS: It has. We'll talk to Greg Valliere about that in the next half hour.
Ahead, the security guard shot and killed by police while he was trying to arrest a gunman.
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[05:10:01] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why did you kill him? It don't make sense.
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BRIGGS: What witnesses say led up to that shooting. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:14:15] ROMANS: This morning, police in Albuquerque, New Mexico are searching for a gunman. A gunman on the loose suspected of shooting three people in a warehouse. Officers responded to the scene Monday night after a call of an active shooter. They found three people with gunshot wounds which were taken to t university of New Mexico hospital. The hospital says all three are in critical condition.
BRIGGS: The family of the Chicago security guard killed by police as he tried to detain a gunman has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the officer who shot him and his department. Court documents say 26- year-old Jemel Roberson was working security at a bar and had detained a shooting suspect.
Witnesses say people in the crowd yelled to arriving police that Roberson was a guard.
[05:15:02] Still one responding officer shot Roberson who later died at the hospital. Friends and family says Roberson was studying to become a police officer himself.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's got his life took by people who he looked up to, who he wanted to become.
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BRIGGS: The Midlothian Police Department says the unnamed officer who shot Roberson has been placed on administrative leave.
ROMANS: A report in "The Wall Street Journal" says that an investigation has found that Boeing withheld crucial information on its new Boeing 737 model planes. It concerns potential hazards with an automated flight control that feature that officials suspect played a role in the crash of a Lion Air jet in Indonesia last month, a crash that killed 189 people. Safety experts involved in the investigation say both airline managers and pilots at U.S. carriers were not told the system had been added to the new 737s and so were not prepared to deal with potential risks.
BRIGGS: Outrage in Wisconsin of a photo of white male students with arms raised in what looks like a Nazi salute. The image was posted on a social media count with the caption, we even got the black kid to throw it up.
And here's the reaction on the Auschwitz memorial Twitter page. This is why every single day, we work to educate. We need to explain what is the danger of hateful ideology. Auschwitz with the gas chambers was at the end of the long process of normalizing and accomodating hatred. The photo has been taken down as the Baraboo school district and police investigates.
ROMANS: Wow. That is unbelievable. All right. Sixteen minutes past the hour.
Stan Lee, the man who revolutionized the world of comic books, has died. The legendary, writer, editor and publisher of Marvel Comics brought superheroes like Spiderman, X-Men and the Avengers, to life in comics, movies and on TV. He helped catapult Marvel from a tiny venture in the 1960s into the world's top comic book publisher and later a multimedia giant.
He died Monday in Los Angeles. He was 95.
BRIGGS: An elephant rescued decades ago from Vietnam is safe and sound this morning after escaping from an animal sanctuary in New York. Fritha is a 44-year-old Asian elephant who made a run for it during her feeding on Sunday night. Police got a call and the trooper who responded was grateful to be met by a woman who owns a farm for rescued circus animals because he didn't have a plan B.
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SGT. DAVE SCOTT, RESPONDED TO CALL OF ELEPHANT ON THE LOOSE: I don't know what we would have done if we hadn't got a hold of the owners. It's not like you can call the local dog warden and have him picked up an elephant.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Human error being blamed for Fritha's escape. The elephant was burned by napalm during the Vietnam War and has spent most of her life at the Upstate New York sanctuary.
Ahead, we talk sports. San Francisco 49ers bringing in very special guests for the game last night with the Giants. How they may have lost the game, but won the day in the "Bleacher Report" with Andy Scholes, next.
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[05:22:34] BRIGGS: As the deadliest wildfire in California history continues to rip through the state, the San Francisco 49ers are trying to do what they can do to help.
Andy Scholes has the story in the "Bleacher Report." Good morning, my friend.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Dave.
You know, one of the hardest hit community has been Paradise, California, 6,400 homes destroyed. The high school football team there is having a great season. They were 8-2. But because of the fires, they had to forfeit the playoff game.
Well, the 49ers wanting to do something to help, invited the team to their game last night. All of the players and coaches and cheerleaders making the two-hour trip to Levi Stadium. The team on the sidelines for the national anthem standing with the 49ers. The school survived the fire, but 90 percent of the players homes did
not. The 49ers did a raffle and they're auctioning off jerseys with all the proceeds going to the relief effort.
Now, the air quality index for the start of the game last night in Santa Clara was 156, which is considered unhealthy, but not unhealthy enough to postpone the game. It had to be over 200 for several two consecutive hours for that to happen. Now, as for the matches, it wasn't a good one. One-seven Giants, two and seven 49ers, Eli Manning led a comeback with the touchdown with under a minute to go to give the Giants the lead. San Francisco had a chance on the final play, but Mick Mullins pass incomplete. Giants back n the win column with 27-23 victory.
All right. It's award season in Major League Baseball. The Angels' Shohei Ohtani bringing home the American League Rookie of the Year. Ohtani, the first player since Babe Ruth to hit more than 20 home runs and win four games as the starting picture.
In the National League, Ronald Acuna Jr. winning the award. The 20- year-old hit 26 home runs in just 111 games, helping the Braves to the post season.
All right. Finally, the Golden State Warriors have a new idea for sports. They're selling a monthly pass for 100 bucks to get you in the arena, but you don't have a seat. You don't have access to the seating bowl. So, you don't get to stand the watch the game either.
But you can be in the arena and go to the bars. You can get the giveaways they have when you walk in throughout the year like bobbleheads and whatnot, Dave.
So, it is an interesting idea. You can do it when you are a team like the Warriors because people want to be there. I can see that.
[05:25:01] If all your buddies are going to the game, you go and maybe they let you sit in their seats.
BRIGGS: Pay for the right to pay for an $18 beer? That's interesting. Andy Scholes.
SCHOLES: The fear of missing out is a big deal these days, Dave.
BRIGGS: Hey, man, good for Golden State if they can get it. Thank you, my friend.
Romans, over to you.
ROMANS: All right, Dave. Thank you for that.
The death toll rising in California, in those wildfires. Forty-four people killed. Firefighters working nonstop against windy and dangerous conditions. We've got a live report from Los Angeles, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's our house.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that yours?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's mine. That's ours. Gone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gone?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She's gone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Wildfires in California now claiming 44 lives, the deadliest and the most destructive in the state's history.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. RICK SCOTT (R), FLORIDA: He's just a pure sore loser trying to steal election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Recount in Florida getting ugly as the judge calls for both sides to ramp down the rhetoric.
ROMANS: "The Washington Post" reporting Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen could be fired as soon as this week. Why President Trump wants her out.
