Return to Transcripts main page

Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

U.S.-Mexico Border Crossing In San Diego Reopens; New Tensions Between Russia and Ukraine; Cyber Monday Expected To Be Largest In History; Blizzard Warning At Close Of Thanksgiving Travel. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired November 26, 2018 - 05:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:30:24] POLO SANDOVAL, CNN ANCHOR: Drama on the border. Hundreds of migrants overwhelm police over the weekend. The move bound to inflame the heated rhetoric we've already seen on immigration.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Tensions flare between Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine says Russian boats opened fire and seized three of its ships -- even, right there, ramming a Ukrainian tugboat.

SANDOVAL: Back here at home, grab your digitals wallets. Cyber Monday is here with deals nationwide today. We have what you should be looking out for as you head online.

ROMANS: Look out for credit card debt. That's what I say.

SANDOVAL: That, too. Another reality check from Christine Romans this morning.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Polo Sandoval in for Dave Briggs.

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

Let's begin here with the busiest land port of entry in the U.S. back open in both directions this morning. The border crossing near San Diego was closed for hours Sunday after about 500 migrants rushed the border from the Mexican side, overwhelming police barricades.

SANDOVAL: U.S. Border Patrol agents eventually able to regain control of the situation there by firing tear gas.

Tensions have really been mounting since groups of Central American migrants have made their way to Mexico and began to arrive at some of the Mexican border towns, like in Tijuana just a few weeks ago. Mexico's Interior Ministry saying dozens identified among those trying to cross illegally will be deported back to their home countries.

ROMANS: The Ministry warns that far from helping the migrants cause, the source of provocations could result in a serious incident on the border.

All of this likely to inflame the president's rhetoric on immigration.

CNN's Nick Watt has more from the San Ysidro port of entry.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Polo, Christine, this border in San Ysidro is one of the busiest land borders on earth and it was shut Sunday afternoon for four hours to pedestrians and a little bit longer to all vehicular traffic.

And the reason -- well, there were protests, there was a march. There was a supposed to be a peaceful protest on the other side and apparently, that got a little bit out of hand.

People say that as many as 500 migrants tried to storm the border. They managed to get past Mexican police and the tear gas was actually fired. This is what eyewitnesses tell us. Tear gas was fired from this side of the border at those people.

Now, Kirstjen Nielsen said -- in a statement Sunday evening, she said that some of these migrants tried to scale what she describes as legacy fencing on either side of the port of entry and that they were also throwing projectiles at Customs and Border Patrol officers.

Listen, the president, last week, said that if we feel we are losing control of the border at any point, if we feel there's a danger of people getting hurt, we will temporarily close down the border, and that is exactly what they did.

The Mexican government now is saying that they plan to deport any of those people they manage to identify who tried to get into the U.S.

But the border did reopen after a few hours after the CBP said they managed to get things under control. They had beefed up their staffing here at the border in anticipation of these protests, suspecting that something might go wrong. It did, they closed the border, and they dealt with it.

Polo, Christine, back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right, Nick. Thank you for that. And the border is open now.

Joining us now, Princeton University historian and professor Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst. Good morning.

JULIAN ZELIZER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, HISTORIAN AND PROFESSOR, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, AUTHOR, "THE FIERCE URGENCY OF NOW": Good morning.

ROMANS: You know, I'm looking at the president's hometown tabloids -- "Border Chaos" here. This is a "New York Post" interesting picture here of a little -- a little -- a child in a diaper and flip-flops has been seen all over the world. And then, the "Daily News" -- "Mexican Standoff." It's almost like a Rorschach test, right, because there are those who have been very critical of American immigration policy who say what you're seeing there are migrants invading the United States. And then there are others who say what you are seeing is desperation and the U.S. has to fix its policy.

ZELIZER: That's exactly right, so an incident like this is going to provide photos and audio for everyone to see in it what they already believe. That's why leadership is important. That's why cooler heads need to prevail.

You have to step back and you have to look at is this an invasion or is this a bad incident that happened at the border that shouldn't lead to a reversal of immigration policy? Those are the real questions that have to take place in Washington.

SANDOVAL: Supporters of the president who would say this is one of the key reasons why we are sending this -- these reinforcements. But you have critics of the policy who say this is no way to treat some of the members of that caravan -- that migrant caravan.

Another question on this -- on this issue, Julian. I was reading this morning a post from the mayor, right across the border there, who says that -- I'm going to read you what he posted this morning.

[05:35:08] ROMANS: The mayor of Mexico.

SANDOVAL: The mayor -- the mayor in Mexico who says, "I will not allow our binational relationship to be fractured by the troublemakers in the migrant caravan. They are doing things illegally." So, some interesting tone that we're hearing from the Mexican mayor here, in this case in Tijuana.

So, some of these people -- really, they may not have a whole lot of support right there where they are at this moment.

ZELIZER: Right, and that's why the reports of a deal this week where a lot of this will be thrown to Mexico is going to cause a lot of tension within Mexico. It's raising questions about how asylum seekers will be handled.

And in some ways, the president is triggering a crisis within Mexico now by the way he's handled the process.

You have to remember, a lot of the confusion -- a lot of the conditions that the asylum seekers are facing is a response to this month-long attack that we saw in October by the president --

ROMANS: Yes.

ZELIZER: -- warning what was about to happen.

ROMANS: Let's look here at the -- at the Mueller probe. You have George Papadopoulos reporting to prison today for a 14-day stint.

You have Jerome Corsi talking to the Mueller team. He says he's talking to the Mueller team.

And then you have Alan Dershowitz, who has been a friendly legal scholar to the president, saying this about what could happen with the Mueller probe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALAN DERSHOWITZ, CNN POLITICAL AND LEGAL ANALYST, PROFESSOR EMERITUS, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL: When the report's made public -- and that's a very hard question considering the new attorney general who has the authority to decide when and under what circumstance to make it public -- it will be made public probably with a response alongside.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: And he says it could be devastating, politically, for the president.

But the win is what's really important here because Matt Whitaker could theoretically just sit on this report and we never know about it.

ZELIZER: I think that's exactly right. There's an assumption the report is finished -- and it looks like it's about to be finished -- everyone sees the report, and there's a reaction.

There's a big step in between. What does the Justice Department do with this report? Does the report ever become public?

That's not clear. I would guess Whitaker doesn't want it to become public.

Whatever is in it, it probably will cause political turmoil for the president, given what we already know from the convictions.

So that's why Democrats have an eye on Whitaker. That's why they're going to want this to be public.

ROMANS: Depending on what happens, though, I mean he has to inform Congress, right? So you -- that's where you start the leaks and the like. Once Congress is involved then maybe we know more about it.

ZELIZER: Now that the Democrats control the House or that they will in January. That's the real kind of danger for the president.

SANDOVAL: I want to switch gears just one more time here and specifically, a piece that you wrote for cnn.com. It's analysis about this Mississippi run-off election.

Today, President Trump will be heading to the reddest of red state --

ZELIZER: Yes.

SANDOVAL: -- to back up Cindy Hyde-Smith, who is in the running here.

You wrote that this is a key test for America. I want you to explain for our viewers really why. And even though she may come out on top here, the question is why is President Trump even going here?

ZELIZER: Well, this is a story we see again and again.

Hyde-Smith, who is the Republican, not only is 100 percent Trumper, but in the last few weeks we've seen more and more evidence of her passion for the Confederacy, for its symbols, and a kind of open embrace of an ugly kind of politics that has surfaced in the United States in recent weeks, and the president doesn't seem to mind.

She literally joked about a public hanging in the state that has the highest number of lynchings by the NAACP track list (ph). And there's no excuse for this.

But if this stands -- if this kind of candidacy is OK, it says a lot about where the Republican Party has shifted in parts of the country and what is tolerable. This is a neo-Confederate candidacy, in some ways, that might very well be victorious.

ROMANS: Mike Espy, he has to have great Democratic turnout and he also has to have GOP voters stay home if he's going to win, and that's what the polling looks like.

ZELIZER: And he needs some moderate, white, suburban voters and white voters in the state, and that's kind of the big question I raise in the article.

ROMANS: Right.

ZELIZER: Do they exist?

ROMANS: Right.

ZELIZER: Are those voters who want a different kind of south actually going to come out and support a Democrat?

ROMANS: We'll see.

ZELIZER: And we don't know if they exist.

SANDOVAL: Fair point.

ROMANS: Julian Zelizer --

ZELIZER: Thank you.

ROMANS: -- thank you so much.

SANDOVAL: Thank you.

ROMANS: Nice to see you this morning -- Monday morning.

The U.N. Security Council meets in emergency session today. Ukraine says Russian boats opened fire on three of its ships near the Kerch Strait between Russia and Crimea. The standoff, including a Russian ship ramming a small Ukrainian tugboat.

All of this days before Presidents Trump and Putin come face-to-face at the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires.

Senior international correspondent Matthew Chance has the latest from Moscow. Matthew, what's happening?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Christine -- well, already, Russian media is saying that it's because of that meeting and attempts to disrupt it that this whole incident took place. They accuse the Ukrainians of orchestrating it in order to disrupt that forthcoming meeting between President Trump and Vladimir Putin of Russia.

[05:40:05] And, of course, there are already calls for President Trump to postpone it. Whether he will or not, of course, is uncertain at this stage.

But certainly, it is an immensely serious escalation. Potentially, it could get much worse.

The United Nations Security Council is having a special session later on today to discuss the situation. There are calls amongst the international community -- NATO, the European Union -- for restraint and de-escalation by the two sides. But it doesn't seem to be heading in that way.

The Russians -- sorry, the Ukrainian Parliament, over the next few hours, is set to consider whether or not to impose martial law on the country in response to these -- this situation.

Remember, the Ukrainian Navy saying that six of its sailors were injured when the Russians fired on three Ukrainian vessels in that Kerch Strait, the strategic bit of water between the Crimean Peninsula and the Russian mainland. And that three of those ships -- Ukrainian Navy ships -- were impounded by the Russian Navy. Video has emerged of those ships in port in Kerch in the Crimean Peninsula.

So an immensely serious situation between two countries that have essentially been fighting a de facto war with each other at the cost of thousands of lives since 2014, Christine.

ROMANS: Just remarkable. All right, Matthew Chance. Thank you for that.

SANDOVAL: All right. Still ahead, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Tesla almost died earlier this year during its production of the Model 3. What he told Axios about Tesla and his plans to go to Mars.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:45:44] SANDOVAL: Welcome back to EARLY START.

It is finally here -- Cyber Monday. This year, expected to be the largest in history. Consumers expected to spend about $7.8 billion today. That's billion with a "b". And it's also almost above 18 percent from last year.

I want to go now to CNN's Alison Kosik, live at CNN -- Amazon distribution center in New Jersey. Alison, good morning to you. It is going to be a very busy next few hours, days where you are.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Busy is an understatement, Polo.

I am at an Amazon fulfillment center in New Jersey and this is an opportunity for us to really get a peek behind the scenes of what really happens at Amazon when you click "place that order." So I want to quickly show you what exactly happens.

Let's say you went ahead and bought a fabulous toy, Polo, and you clicked "place that order." What happens? Well, almost instantaneously, over here to my left some robotics equipment grabs that item from the shelf and places it in one of these yellow bins that you see moving along the conveyor belt. Then, after that, it comes below here on the conveyor belt where your item is packed and shipped.

This fulfillment center is interesting because it does have one-day shipping, which means that item -- that movement happens almost instantaneously.

Now, let me just give you a picture of where I am. This fulfillment center is massive. It is one million square feet. That's equivalent to about 28 football fields.

There are tens of millions of products in this fulfillment center ready to head out to people's homes and offices. There are 14 miles of conveyor belts moving those products along, so this is the ultimate in instant gratification.

So what does Amazon expect on this Cyber Monday? Well, they're not giving us any dollar figures but they are giving us a little perspective of what happened last Cyber Monday.

Last Cyber Monday, 83 million products were ordered worldwide. That's, I think -- hmm, 961 items ordered per second. Get this, Polo -- they are expecting to surpass those numbers today.

And if you look at those figures of $7.8 billion expected totally for online shopping, you can expect Amazon is going to be a big chunk of that money, Polo.

SANDOVAL: My wife accounts for about half of those 961 packages, Alison.

Thank you so much for pulling back the curtain --

KOSIK: Good for her.

SANDOVAL: -- on the -- on the Amazon magic for us this morning.

ROMANS: It's a reminder, everyone. If you don't get free shipping, don't do it. You should have -- expect free shipping and big, big discounts.

Let's take a look at global stock markets right now. It looks like they're moving higher after the holiday weekend. This is where we see right now -- the Nikkei, Shanghai, Hang Seng.

Shanghai down a bit here, but the Hang Seng is up almost two percent.

Let's take a look over in Europe where all the markets are higher. Some of the bank stocks doing very well there because there's some signs of hope about Italy and Italy's government being able to rework its framework that it has with the European Union. You can see the FTSE in London is also up, and the CAC in Paris.

Let's go to Wall Street right now where we're starting after the -- you know, the shortened holiday week last week.

Futures -- that's what happened yesterday -- or Friday, actually -- down about one percent. But futures are higher here right now. The S&P 500, the Nasdaq -- all of them down on Friday.

It's been a really rough October and November. We might have a little bit of a bounce here on the open but there's a lot, including those concerns between Russia and Ukraine, that could keep traders a little bit on edge here this morning.

Cyber Monday expected to be the largest online shopping day in history as we told you, generating a record $7.8 billion in sales, so that will get all the business headlines this morning.

Adonis Creed and Wreck It Ralph broke the box office this Thanksgiving weekend. "Ralph Breaks the Internet" and "Creed II" led the way for the highest-grossing Thanksgiving box office weekend on record.

Disney's sequel to "Wreck it Ralph" stole the show, taking the top spot with an estimated $84.5 million 5-day holiday weekend haul in the U.S. That's the second-biggest Thanksgiving opening ever.

"Creed II" earned an estimated $55.5 -- $55.8 million over five days. That's the most a live-action film has ever brought in on Thanksgiving.

The 5-day Thanksgiving weekend total haul, $314 million domestically, according to Comscore.

[05:50:03] According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Tesla almost died earlier this year. In an interview with Axios that aired on HBO Sunday, Musk said Tesla faced a threat of death during the production of the Model 3.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELON MUSK, CEO, TESLA: Essentially, the company was bleeding money like crazy and just -- if we didn't solve these problems in a very short period of time we would die -- and it was extremely difficult to solve them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Musk added Tesla came within single-digit weeks of death before it was able to meet its Model 3 production goals. Musk also said he sees a 70 percent chance that he will live to ride one of his SpaceX rockets to Mars. The 47-year-old CEO said he would unhesitatingly go and there is a good chance he'd die there, comparing going to Mars to climbing Mount Everest.

SANDOVAL: You don't necessarily have to go to Mars for some unforgiving weather conditions, especially right now in the Midwest. There's a blizzard that has been making for a very rough end to the holiday weekend. Flight delays and a very messy Monday morning in store for millions.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:55:33] SANDOVAL: Back here now to some international breaking news now.

A British student accused by the United Arab Emirates of being a spy and sentenced to life in prison has been pardoned. This comes just days after 31-year-old Matthew Hedges' family made a plea for clemency and after the British government warned of serious diplomatic consequences if he wasn't released.

His family said Hedges was forced to sign a confession in Arabic even though he doesn't read the language or speak it.

ROMANS: Famed Italian film director Bernardo Bertolucci has died at 77.

His best-known films included the controversial "Last Tango in Paris" and 1988's "The Last Emperor." That film was nominated for nine Academy Awards, remember, and won all nine, including two Oscars for him for directing and writing.

A spokesman says he died from cancer after a short illness.

The mayor of Rome, where Bertolucci lived, tweeted her condolences, saying, "With his work and his masterpieces he marked forever the history of cinema worldwide."

SANDOVAL: An Italian legend leaving behind a legacy.

More than 10 million people are facing a blizzard warning today. It's snow, there's wind, rain. It's got it all. It's hitting parts of the Midwest.

At the close of the Thanksgiving holiday travel, thousands of flights were canceled or delayed. And more of the same is expected today, especially if you are in Chicago.

In Missouri, though, in Kansas City, the international airport was closed to incoming flights. The governor of the state of Kansas issuing a state of emergency, declaring roads treacherous as blizzard conditions closed part of the interstate.

So where exactly is all of this crazy winter weather going to? Let's go now to CNN meteorologist Pedram Javaheri with the forecast. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Christine and Polo, good morning to you both.

Yes, we're watching what's happening across the Great Lakes. And not only are we getting significant snow out of this, but even some thunder snow to be had across this region. So it really speaks to the significance of some of these storms in the region.

Blizzard warnings remain in place through at least mid-morning here across portions of northern and central Illinois. And areas of eastern Missouri, as well, getting in on the action with heavy snow in place, gusty winds, reduced visibility. As a result, of course, Kansas City's airport was shut down at one point yesterday.

And now, you notice the system begins pushing in right across the Great Lakes and eventually on across the northeast.

Now, snowfall for the major cities in the northeast not in the picture here. You're going to be way too warm. But get into the higher elevations and also the interior portion of New England and it's all about the wintry weather in the 24 or so hours. Certainly, some disruptions to be had there.

And a lot of disruptions, I expect, on this Monday across areas of the Ohio and Tennessee Valley as well. All of this associated with this frontal boundary across this region that will kick up those winds up to 50 miles per hour.

Look at those temps struggle to make it to the freezing mark in places like Chicago, and Kansas City, and Indianapolis. And places in Minneapolis, highs only around 21 degrees.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right, thank you so much for that.

Mars is about to get a new visitor from earth. NASA scientists say if all goes well, the Insight spacecraft will land near the Martian equator sometime this afternoon. The entire landing sequence is expected to take about seven minutes.

The scientists and engineers who designed the Insight probe are calling the landing "seven minutes of terror." Of the 44 attempts to land on the red planet, only 18 have been successful.

Once Insight lands on Mars it will stay put. It is not a rover. Its mission is to study the interior of Mars from the planet's surface.

SANDOVAL: Fascinating.

ROMANS: Far out.

SANDOVAL: Really cool.

ROMANS: I'm from the 60s.

Thanks for joining us. I'm Christine Romans.

SANDOVAL: And I'm Polo Sandoval in for Dave today. "NEW DAY" starts right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These protesters starting rushing our border and overpowered the police in Mexico.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The U.S. Border Patrol responded by firing off (INAUDIBLE) and then the tear gas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The reality is that the American people are looking for compassion.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will close the border. We're either going to have a border or we're not.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Russia has fired on and seized several Ukrainian Navy vessels.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have seen escalating tensions all this past 12 to 18 months.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The key question now is how the United States will respond.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Monday, November 26th, 6:00 here in New York.

I hope you survived Thanksgiving.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. I hope you like the deluxe model Alisyn. I've been eating since Thursday morning.

BERMAN: There's the trip to Venice still sinking in here. This is still the nap version.

All right. Tensions at the U.S.-Mexico border boiling over. U.S. Border Patrol agents deployed tear gas on Central Americans seeking asylum --