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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

President Trump Claims Whitaker would Make the Call on Whether to Restrict the Russia investigation; Trump Mocks Architect of Bin Laden Raid; A Senior Official Says the CIA Believes Saudi Crown Prince Ordered Killing of Jamal Khashoggi; Broward County Elections Supervisor Resigns; Florida Senator Bill Nelson Concedes to Rick Scott; Democrats Pick Up 3 More House Seats; Bloomberg Gives Record- Breaking $1.8 Billion to Johns Hopkins; Apple CEO Tim Cook Tells Axios New Regulations are Inevitable; Another Camp Fire Victim Raises Death Toll to 77; Trump Says He was Told Finns Avoid Forest Fires By Raking; Bus Driver in California Rescues Young Children from Wildfires; Kanye West Donates 150k to a Murdered Security Guard's Family; Experimental Treatment Helps Children with Peanut Butter Allergies; Alex Smith Out for Season After Breaking Leg; Saints Blow Out Eagles 48-7 in Historic Loss; LeBron James Scores 51 Points in Return to Miami; Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Downplays Report of a Possible Interview with Cleveland Browns. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired November 19, 2018 - 05:00   ET

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


[05:00:00] DAVE BRIGGS, CO-HOST, EARLY START: Acting Attorney General will decide how to deal with the Mueller probe.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CO-HOST, EARLY START: Mike Bloomberg donates $1.8 billion with a b dollars to his alma mater for financial aid, 2020 Democratic hopefuls no doubt taking notice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM COOK, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, APPLE: I'm a big believer in the free market. But we have to admit when the free market is not working.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: Apple CEO Tim Cook says he expects regulation for Silicon Valley and the growing skepticism of the tech industry.

ROMANS: And a possible breakthrough for children with peanut allergies. The trick, peanuts. Doesn't work for everyone. But --

BRIGGS: No --

ROMANS: This is really important study here to look at, good morning and welcome to EARLY START, I'm Christine Romans --

BRIGGS: I'm Dave Briggs. One in 50 American children do have a peanut --

ROMANS: Yes -- BRIGGS: Allergy. It's November 19th, 5:00 a.m. in the East, we start

at the White House where President Trump says acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker will make the call whether to restrict the Russia investigation. All eyes on special counsel Robert Mueller waiting for his next move.

"Fox News'" Chris Wallace asked the president whether he would allow Whitaker to limit the Mueller probe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS: If Whitaker decides in any way to limit or curtail the Mueller investigation, are you OK with that?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Look, he -- it's going to be up to him. I think he is very well aware politically. I think he's astute politically. He's a very smart person, a very respected person. He's going to do what's right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: In the weeks since the president forced Jeff Sessions to resign as Attorney General, Democrats have called for Whitaker to recuse himself from oversight of the Russia probe, given his past criticisms of that investigation.

The president claimed he was unaware of Whitaker's criticism of Mueller, although Mr. Trump said he agrees with him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: There is no collusion.

TRUMP: Chris, I tell you what? I mean --

WALLACE: He says we can -- you can --

TRUMP: I mean, he's right --

WALLACE: Stop his investigation --

TRUMP: What do you do when a person's right? There is no collusion, he happened to be right. I mean, he said it, so he said there was collusion, I'm supposed to be taking somebody that says there is? Because then I wouldn't take them for two reasons. But the number one reason is the fact that he would have been wrong.

If he said that there's no collusion, he's right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: The president backing off earlier claims he wants to sit down with Mueller for an in-person interview. Now he says he plans to submit written answers this week.

ROMANS: In the same "Fox News" interview, President Trump also attacked the retired Navy Admiral known as the Architect of the bin Laden Raid. William McRaven, he has been critical of the president. Last year, McRaven called the president's attacks on the free press "the greatest threat to our democracy" in his lifetime.

He also called Mr. Trump's leadership embarrassing and humiliating after the president revoked former CIA Director John Brennan's security clearance this Summer. It doesn't sound like Trump has forgotten those rebukes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Look, right, retired Admiral Navy SEAL, 37 years, former head of the U.S. Special Operations --

TRUMP: Hillary Clinton fan --

WALLACE: Special operations --

TRUMP: Excuse me, Hillary Clinton fan.

WALLACE: Who led the operations, commander of the operations that took down Saddam Hussein and they killed Osama bin Laden says that your sentiment is the greatest threat to democracy in his lifetime --

TRUMP: OK, he's a Hillary Clinton backer and an Obama backer. And frankly --

WALLACE: He's a Navy SEAL for 37 years --

TRUMP: Wouldn't it be nice if we had got Osama bin Laden a lot sooner than that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: McRaven telling Cnn he did not back Hillary Clinton or anyone else in 2016. Saying in a statement, "I admire all presidents who uphold the dignity of the office. When you undermine the people's right to a free press and freedom of speech and expression, then you threaten the constitution and all for which it stands."

By tomorrow President Trump expects a full report on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. He says the U.S. has the copy of the audio that captured part of the "Washington Post" journalist's brutal killing. But the president says he won't be listening to that recording.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I don't want to hear the tape, no reason for me to hear the tape.

WALLACE: Why don't -- why don't you want to hear it, sir?

TRUMP: Because it's a suffering tape. It's a terrible tape. I've been fully briefed on it. There's no reason for me to hear it. In fact, I said to the people, should I? They said you really shouldn't. There's no reason. I know exactly -- I know everything that went on with the tape without having --

WALLACE: And then what happened?

TRUMP: It was very violent, very vicious and terrible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: The president says he does not know if Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman was lying when he told him he didn't have any involvement. That conflicts with the CIA's assessment on Friday that the Prince personally ordered the journalist's killing.

That conclusion -- that CIA conclusion based partially on the audio, the president will not listen to. U.S. lawmakers seemed to have made up their minds.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: If you know anything about Saudi Arabia and anything about MBS, the fact that he didn't know about it is impossible for me to believe. They're an important ally, but when it comes to their Crown Prince, he is irrational, he's unhinged.

[05:05:00] SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: I think the evidence is overwhelming that the Crown Prince was involved, and say no, I don't think we can sweep this under the rug.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: On Saturday, Vice President Mike Pence described the murder as an atrocity, and said the U.S. is determined to hold accountable all those who are responsible.

ROMANS: Right, multiple reports from Florida say the embattled supervisor of elections for Broward County has resigned. Brenda Snipes had served 15 years, she came under strong criticism for problems with vote counting in heavily-Democratic Broward County which missed last week's recount deadline by two minutes.

It's unclear if her resignation is effective immediately. Florida has a brand new senator-elect this morning, Republican Governor Rick Scott. Democrat Bill Nelson conceded following a state-wide recount.

BRIGGS: The results show Scott with a lead of just over 10,000 votes and of 8.2 million cast. Nelson's lost ends a nearly two-decade tenure in the Senate. Florida's junior Senator, Republican Marco Rubio praising his colleague in a statement, writing, "I knew Bill Nelson not just as a Democratic senator, but also as a man of genuine faith, integrity and character.

A man who served our country with a dignity that is increasingly rare in our modern politics. I will miss working with him very much." Now, Rubio had claimed that Democrats were trying to steal the election prior to that unity call there about Nelson. ROMANS: All right, in the House, over in the House, Democrats picking

up three more seats ending decades of Republican dominance in Southern California. Look at that, in fact, Democrats have now achieved a total takeover of congressional seats in the one-time GOP bastion of Orange County, once called Reagan Country.

The 40th president himself quipped the conservative county was where good Republicans go to die. The beach Republicans sometimes are called with the three new House wins, Democrats now have a net pick up of 37 seats, there are still three races uncalled.

BRIGGS: Still to be called. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg who is said to be considering a possible run for president in 2020, making a massive $1.8 billion donation to his alma mater Johns Hopkins University. The gift being called the biggest contribution to an academic institution in American history.

It will fund financial aid for qualified low and middle income students, allowing Johns Hopkins to admit students on a need blind basis and replace loans with grants in more aid packages.

ROMANS: Bloomberg writing in part in the "New York Times" op-ed, "America is at its best when we reward people based on the quality of their work, not the size of their pocketbook."

BRIGGS: Bloomberg's long focused his philanthropy on improving access to top colleges and universities for students who can't afford it. He says he plans to decide on a 2020 bid no later than February. Coming up, imagine driving through this to get more than 20 students away from a raging wildfire. The latest efforts to contain the Camp Fire, still nearly a 1,000 unaccounted for.

[05:10:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Apple's CEO Tim Cook says new regulations are coming for tech companies. Silicon Valley faces anger and skepticism after privacy breaches, one after another and manipulation by foreign adversaries. In an interview with "Axios" and "Hbo", Tim Cook said "regulations are inevitable".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You think that's inevitable?

COOK: Generally speaking, I am not a big fan of regulation. I'm a big believer in the free market. But we have to admit when the free market is not working. And it hasn't worked here. And I think it's inevitable that there will be some level of regulation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: OK, that camera shot is making me dizzy. Cook has also pushed for a comprehensive privacy legislation. Cook told Cnn last month that privacy is the issue that will define the century and the data industrial complex as he calls it data industrial complex needs government regulation. In the meantime, big backlash against Facebook after that "New York

Times" investigation suggested it spectacularly failed to recognize and stop Russian interference. Hired a PR hit firm to write negative stories about its critics, withering assessment of the management and leadership abilities of both Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg.

Facebook's former chief security officer Alex Samuels writes in the "Washington Post" that lawmakers, the intelligence committee and the media were also all to blame in 2016, and called on Congress to update quote, "Nixon-era laws."

BRIGGS: All right, to California now. Authorities in Butte County say they found the remains of another victim in the Camp Fire. So the death toll in California's deadliest wildfire now 77. Nearly 1,000 people though still unaccounted for.

Officials expect the death toll to climb. The fire has wiped out nearly 10,000 homes and scorched an area the size of Chicago. The fire is 65 percent contained. Fire officials don't think it will be fully contained until November 30th.

ROMANS: President Trump has been criticized for blaming forest management for those fires. He mentioned raking the under growth as he surveyed the devastation Saturday. Now it appears he made up a story about a world leader backing his claim.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I was with the president of Finland and he said we have a much different -- we're a forest nation. He called it a forest nation, and they spend a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things and they don't have any problem, then when it is, it's a very small problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: Just one problem, Finland's president says he and Trump never spoke about raking, even though they did talk about the wildfires and how Finland manages its forests. As for the fire's incredible stories of heroism emerging, Cnn's Paul Vercammen with more.

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Dave and Christine, so many stories of absolutely stomach-churning despair, but here is one of great heroism. There was a bus driver just about two or three months into his job, he goes to Ponderosa Elementary School that's in Paradise.

[05:15:00] The flames were burning ever so close to the school, it would eventually be damaged, but he gets 22 school children, two teachers on that bus and they begin a harrowing drive to safety.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARY LUDWIG, TEACHER: My first thought was just getting them on the bus and getting them out of there because the sky was really menacing. CHARLOTTE MERZ, FOURTH GRADE STUDENT: It was so crazy, and there were

like fires left and right, everywhere you look, there was like smoke everywhere.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VERCAMMEN: So the odyssey through the inferno continued. Some of the young lungs of these little school children started filling up with smoke, they were on the brink of passing out, so they made makeshift respirators dampening pieces of the bus driver's T-shirt and putting it over their mouths.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN MCKAY, BUS DRIVER: We started getting fire on both sides of the bus, kids started to get pretty antsy, at a couple of points I think that, you know, we had some honest discussions about is this the time to get out of the bus?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VERCAMMEN: Eventually, they made it to safety, parents just so relieved, and that bus driver Kevin McKay made a joke, he said I'm sure glad I paid attention closely in class when I was taking those safety lessons. Him pointing out that after all, safety is the first issue for a bus driver. Dave, Christine.

ROMANS: Paul Vercammen, wow, what he has been seeing there --

BRIGGS: Oh, man --

ROMANS: Is just unreal.

BRIGGS: They are expecting far rain --

ROMANS: Good --

BRIGGS: Over that Camp Fire --

ROMANS: Good --

BRIGGS: Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Ahead, don't expect to see Condoleezza Rice coaching the Cleveland Browns, but she is using a shocking "Espn" report to push for more women in the football coaching ranks. Andy Scholes has more in the "BLEACHER REPORT" next.

[05:20:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Twenty one minutes past the hour. Kanye West donating $150,000 to the family of a black security guard shot by a white police officer in Kanye's hometown of Chicago. The rapper sent the cash through a GoFundMe page set up to raise money for Jemel Roberson's funeral services.

The 26-year-old was killed last Sunday morning by an officer from Midlothian, Illinois while detaining a suspected gunman. Could peanuts be the cure for peanut allergies? An experimental treatment published in the "New England Journal" medicine exposed children to tiny doses of the allergy and in the form of a peanut powder capsule.

The doses will then increase slowly. By the end of the study, two- thirds of patients were able to eat a dose equivalent to two peanuts without suffering a severe allergic reaction. The lead author says now the treatment is not a cure, but it could provide a safety net for kids who suffer life-threatening reactions to trace amounts of peanuts. Dave?

BRIGGS: All right, let's talk some sports. Washington lost the game to Houston yesterday, but more importantly they lost their quarterback to a horrific injury. Andy Scholes has more in the BLEACHER REPORT. Andy, good morning. This was a tough one to see and of course Joe Theismann there to see it.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS REPORTER: Yes, that's right, Dave, you know, that's the most gruesome injury in NFL history as always thought to be that Joe Theismann broken leg back in 1985. And on the 33-year anniversary of that play, it happened again to the Redskins quarterback, this time to Alex Smith.

It was the third quarter, Smith gets sacked by J.J. Watt and Kareem Jackson, and immediately he knew he was hurt bad. He took off his helmet, he covered his face with his hands. Smith breaking his Fibula and Tibia on the play. He's already had surgery.

Now before being carted off the field, the Texans and Redskins all came over, gave their best to Smith, and Joe Theismann was actually at this game. And he said seeing this happen again brought back all of those bad memories from that day.

Watt tweeting after the game, "thoughts are with Alex, absolutely gutted about it, never want to see that for anyone ever, wishing you all the best brother." And I already told you that it happened on the 33-year anniversary of the Theismann injury. The game also ended with the exact same score too, 23-21, although, this time the Redskins lost.

All right, well, the New Orleans Saints ever lose again? Drew Brees and crew blowing out the Eagles 48-7 yesterday. It was the worst loss ever by a defending champion. The Saints, the first team in NFL history to score 40 points in six of their first ten games. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, they are just rolling.

All right, in the NBA, LeBron taking his talent to South Beach for the first time as a Laker last night, he did not disappoint his old fans. King James on fire in this one. LeBron finishing with 51 points, and the final three right here coming from way downtown in the closing seconds. The 12th 50-point game of LeBron's career. He's also the fifth player in NBA history to score 50 with three different teams. The Lakers, they beat the Heat 113-97.

All right, finally, "Espn" was reporting yesterday morning that the Cleveland Browns wanted to interview former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for their head coach opening. This despite Rice having zero football head coaching experience at any level.

But the Brown's quickly said this report was untrue, the team's General Manager John Dorsey saying in a statement, "we are still in the process of composing the list of candidates and Secretary Rice has not been discussed." Rice who is a big Browns fan posted on Facebook saying, she knows the Browns are going to hire an experienced coach to get them to the next level and that she hopes to see more women coaching in the NFL.

And you know, Dave --

BRIGGS: Yes --

SCHOLES: She joked, she is not ready to coach, but she --

(CROSSTALK)

BRIGGS: Of course, she's not.

SCHOLES: A player or two. Yes, you know, I shook my head when I saw this report. I was like what?

[05:25:00] BRIGGS: It's ridiculous, I mean, she could probably be a terrific commissioner, but she's never coached. To your point, do you think --

SCHOLES: Right --

BRIGGS: Becky Hammond though gets an NBA job in the next, say ten years?

SCHOLES: Oh, absolutely, she's already raising the ranks, you know, on the Spurs bench.

BRIGGS: Yes --

SCHOLES: I wouldn't be surprised at all --

BRIGGS: Agree there --

(CROSSTALK)

But we will not. See an NFL head coach in our lifetime is my prediction. Andy, thank you, Romans --

SCHOLES: Yes --

BRIGGS: You can take issue with my --

ROMANS: It certainly won't be me --

BRIGGS: Guess --

(LAUGHTER)

ROMANS: I can say that. BRIGGS: Over to you.

ROMANS: All right, thanks, Dave. All right, the acting Attorney General has criticized the Russia investigation before, and it sounds like the president won't get in the way if Matt Whitaker decides to limit the probe.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

END