Return to Transcripts main page
Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
President Pushes Border Wall in Oval Office Address; Democrats Push Back on Border Wall; No Paycheck for Federal Workers; Bombshell Mueller Filing; Clemons Returns Home After Title Win. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired January 09, 2019 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[05:00:02] DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is a growing humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump making his case on immigration, did he change any minds?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: Mr. President, reopen the government, end this shutdown now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: Democrats head back to the White House today to meet with the president. Are they ready to make a deal?
ROMANS: It's official, hundreds of thousands of federal workers on the front lines for national security will not receive their paycheck on Friday. We'll tell you their stories.
BRIGGS: It may be the clearest public evidence yet of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. What Paul Manafort shared with an alleged Russian operative during the 2016 election.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Dave Briggs.
ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. Nice to see you all this morning. It's Wednesday, January 9th, 5:00 a.m. in the East.
And we are entering day 19 of the federal government shutdown. This afternoon, the president will attend a Senate Republican lunch and then return to the White House for a meeting with top congressional leaders. The president setting the stage for today's meeting, in his Oval Office address last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The federal government remains shut down for one reason and one reason only, because Democrats will not fund border security. This situation could be solved in a 45-minute meeting. I have invited congressional leadership to the White House tomorrow to get this done. Hopefully, we can rise above partisan politics, in order to support national security.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: But those top Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in a mean inducing speech rebutted the president this way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCHUMER: This president just used the backdrop of the Oval Office to manufacture a crisis, stoke fear and divert attention from the turmoil in his administration.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: President Trump must stop holding the American people hostage. Let's stop manufacturing a crisis, and must reopen the government.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Despite the hints dropped by the White House, the president did not declare a national emergency in his speech. That does not mean it's off the table. But a source close to the president says he's been told by several advisers that an emergency declaration probably won't work.
CNN's Jim Acosta has more on the address from the White House.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDEN: Christine and Dave, President Trump did make his pitch for a border wall from the Oval Office. And while the president did not declare a state of emergency down at the border, he did talk about the situation on the border and humanitarian and national security terms, at one point saying he wanted to appeal to the heart and soul of the country.
Here's more of what he had to say.
TRUMP: Over the years, thousands of Americans have been brutally killed by those who illegally entered our country, and thousands more lives will be lost if we don't act right now. This is a humanitarian crisis, a crisis of the heart, and a crisis of the soul.
ACOSTA: The president did manage to tell a number of falsehoods in that brief eight-minute address, at one point saying it was Democrats who were requesting a steel barrier down at the border, when a Democratic aide up on Capitol Hill tells CNN that is not the case. The president also said that Mexico would somehow pay for that steel barrier through the new trade between the U.S. and Mexico, but that's not how that trade deal works -- Christine and Dave.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRIGGS: Indeed, it's not. Jim Acosta, thanks.
At the stroke of midnight last night, it became official, federal employees at America's airports, borders, prisons, men and women who are working hard to feed their families and serve all of us will not be getting paychecks come Friday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CATHERINE FICCO, FORLOUGHED IRS EMPLOYEE: We are deferring payments where we can. We are boning everything back to the bare necessities to try and make it through.
CHRISTINE VITEL, TSA EMPLOYEE WORKING WITHOUT PAY: I am a single mom. My son just graduated his first two years of college. He's going back. I'm not getting paid. I just bought a house. I'm not going to be able to pay my mortgage.
ANGIE ACKLIN, CORRECTIONAL OFFICER: You have the stress of I'm not getting paid. I'm not getting a paycheck. And you have inmates who, you know, just want to tease and mess with you as an officer, so they can make it a more dangerous place. For safety and security, I mean that puts that at risk.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: A very good point.
And now this CNN exclusive, an e-mail written by a high-ranking official at TSA, raising new concerns about airport security becoming compromised.
Rene Marsh has the details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION & GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Dave, excessive callouts by TSA officers have hurt security operations at a southern California airport. That is the assessment of a high-ranking TSA official. It's all laid out in an internal e-mail dated Monday.
[05:05:02] The TSA official in charge of security operations at Palm Springs International Airport wrote, and I'm quoting, due to excessive, unscheduled absences recently experienced at this airport, PSP, Palm Springs International, that has adversely impacted security operations. If you have an unscheduled absence, you will not be placed in an intermittent furlough status. Plainly speaking, concerns about the number of callouts at the airport have reached the point that TSA management is now warning in this e-mail that there may be disciplinary action if employees call out.
Now, the e-mail was directed to all TSA personnel at the airport. And it's significant, because it exposes for the first time an acknowledgement that this partial government shutdown now stretching into a third week is impacting some aviation security at least one airport. Now, we received a statement from TSA, it says in part that Palm Springs airport is a small airport that requires a full-team effort. The deputy FSA who is the federal security director referenced in the e-mail obtained by CNN was simply expressing that all screening employees must report to work during the current lapse in appropriations as required by federal rules.
TSA on its part says it has not seen any impact on its operations there. Of course, this comes from safety warnings from major pilot, flight attendant, and TSA employee unions -- Christine and Dave.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: All right, Rene. Thank you so much for that.
Now, some FDA employees are worried the shutdown is risking the safety and health of the American people. About 41 percent of the FDA staff are off the job. The rest are working without pay.
Geneve Parks is a chemist who tests medications at an FDA lab in Detroit. She tells CNN the agency is doing the best they can with a skeleton skew but she said it's terrifying. What if there's an outbreak and they don't have the staff to handle it. In an emergency, the FDA can call staffers work from furlough for as long as the emergency lasts. But, of course, the point of the federal government is to be in place and ready to roll before an emergency.
BRIGGS: Hundreds of low-income families facing possible eviction this morning because of the shutdown. More than 1,100 contracts with landlords who provide subsidized housing have has expired. Since the shutdown started. Over 1,000 more set to expire by February. HUD is asking the affected landlords to dip into the reserves for the shortfall.
ROMANS: Despite the shutdown, the Agriculture Department says it will provide food stamps to 38 million Americans through the end now of February. Initially, the agency could only guarantee them until the end of the January. Agriculture officials say they will use a provision that allows them to make obligated payments within 30 days of a funding lapse. They're working now with states to issue February's food stamp benefits, $4.8 billion worth by January 20th.
BRIGGS: It may be the clearest public evidence yet of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential race. It came out in a botched court filing by lawyers for Paul Manafort, revealing that the former Trump campaign chief shared polling data with an alleged Russian operative.
More now from CNN's Sara Murray.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine and Dave.
We're now learning that Paul Manafort shared campaign-related polling and discussed Ukrainian peace plan with his Russian associate Konstantin Kilimnik, all while serving as Donald Trump's campaign chairman.
Manafort and Kilimnik stayed in touch after Donald Trump was elected, even meeting in Madrid in 2017.
Now, those revelations are the closest public sign of coordination between a Trump campaign official and Russians. In this case, it's Kilimnik, a man prosecutors says has ties to Russian intelligence. That same Russian intelligence that investigators say hacked the Democratic Party and leaked stolen e-mails during the 2016 campaign.
Remarkably, we're learning all of this thanks to Manafort's legal team. They submitted a filing to explain that Manafort never intentionally lied to federal investigators when he was supposed to be cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller.
Manafort's lawyers insist their client has misremembered certain details. But their lawyer submitted a redacted version with formatting errors that allows all of these details to be made public.
Back to you, guys.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRIGGS: Sara Murray, thanks.
The Supreme Court ruling on a case tied to the Mueller investigation, the justices rejecting a challenge by an unnamed foreign-owned company that sought to avoid complying with the grand jury subpoena. The order reinstates daily contempt fines totaling $50,000 against a mystery company for failing to comply with the subpoena. Chief justice John Roberts had put those fines on hold while the high court considered the matter. The case marks the first time the Supreme Court has had to intervene in the Mueller probe.
ROMANS: A Russian lawyer who met in 2016 at Trump Tower with members of the Trump campaign has been charged with obstruction of justice in a separate case.
[05:10:07] Federal prosecutors in New York charging Natalya Veselnitskaya in connection with a money laundering case. That case is not related to the special counsel's Russia probe, but it does highlight her deep ties to the Russian government. She helped organize the infamous meeting at Trump Tower between members of the campaign and Trump's family and Russians promising dirt on Hillary Clinton.
BRIGGS: Ahead, Grammy Award-winning singer R. Kelly could be under investigation. How a lifetime series resurfaced two decades of allegations of abuse and pedophilia.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: All right. On Wall Street, activism about trade talks with China, the U.S. and China appear to be narrowing their differences a bit. The Dow climbed 256 points, or 1.1 percent Tuesday. The S&P 500 closed up about 1 percent. Both the Dow and S&P 500 are up three days in a row, the longest winning streak since late November.
[05:15:04] That's how hard it's been to put wins together back to back. The Nasdaq closed up 1.1 percent, up for the eighth time in nine days.
And trade sensitive stock of Boeing and Caterpillar and Apple closed higher. Now, while Wall Street is slowly recovering from that horrible December, President Trump thinks the economic slowdown in China gives the U.S. an edge in trade negotiations.
But former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers told Christiane Amanpour, he disagrees.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY SUMMERS, FORMER TREASURY SECRETARY: The president vastly overstates the comfort of our own economic position to look at consensus economic forecasts. People are now saying there's a 40 percent or 50 percent chance of recession within the next two years. That's the right reading of what financial markets are saying. So, our position isn't so strong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Markets around the world are higher. Asian markets all closed up. Stocks in Europe opened higher. U.S. futures opening higher as well. Some investors at least this morning are optimistic on the trade funds.
BRIGGS: Multi Grammy-winning singer R. Kelly should be facing a criminal investigation in Chicago and Atlanta. After the airing of a Lifetime documentary series that detailed allegations of more than two decades of abuse and pedophilia. An attorney for the family of Joycelyn Savage (ph), one of the women featured in "Surviving R. Kelly," says the Fulton County district attorneys are investigating the R&B singer. Savage's family claims she was having a sexual relationship with R. Kelly, being manipulated by him, cut off from the outside world. Prosecutors want to know if there are other potential victims out there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KIMBERLY FOXX, COOK COUNTY STATE'S ATTORNEY: Please come forward. There's nothing that can be done to investigate these allegations without the cooperation of both victims and witnesses. We cannot seek justice without you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: In 2002, Kelly was charged with 21 counts of child pornography, for a videotape that allegedly showed him having sex with an unidentified underage girl. He was acquitted. And his lawyers at the time claim Kelly was not in the video.
ROMANS: Police in Phoenix are trying to determine how a woman in a long-term vegetative state gave birth last month. On Tuesday, investigators served a serve warrant seeking DNA from male staffers at the Hacienda Healthcare facility. A CNN Phoenix affiliate reports that the woman has been a patient there for at least a decade.
The family's attorney saying the family is obviously outraged, traumatized and in shock of abuse and neglect of her daughter. The family would like me to convey that the baby boy has been born into a loving family and will be well cared for.
BRIGGS: A second suspect facing murder charges in the death of a 7- year-old girl in Houston. Larry Woodruffe will have a preliminary hearing on Thursday. The news came as Jazmine Barnes' family and thousands other packed a church for her funeral. Authorities say the shooting was most likely a case of mistaken identity. Eric Black Jr. is also been charged in the case.
ROMANS: DNA on chewing gum and a water bottle helped prosecutors in Pennsylvania crack a 30-year-old cold case. The evidence leading to the arrest of Raymond Rowe. He pleaded guilty yesterday to murder and rape in the death of Christy Mirack. The 27-year-old teacher found unresponsive in her home in 1982 when she didn't show up for work.
Rowe will serve life plus 120 years in prison, and that chewing gum and that water bottle, he was a deejay. And at a gig in May, that's where he left the chewing gum and the bottle. And authorities were able to match that DNA with the DNA from the crime scene.
BRIGGS: OK. Ahead, an NBA star makes an exit on a stretcher after a frightening fall. Andy Scholes will have the latest on the Thunder's Nerlens Noel, after the frightening fall last night on "Bleacher Report."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:23:34] BRIGGS: Clemson receiving a heroes' welcome after returning home for their second national title in three years.
Andy Scholes has more in the "Bleacher Report."
Good morning, Andy.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Dave.
You know, it sure looks like Dabo Swinney is building a dynasty. They're all going to be back next season. So, this could become a very familiar scene for the team. Thousands of students and fans welcoming the team home last night.
With the second title, Dabo cementing himself as one of the greatest coaches in history. Dabo's had to fight for everything. He became a football star, went to Alabama, now he's one of the best coaches in history.
Dabo was asked who he'd like to play him in a movie about his life.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DABO SWINNEY, CLEMSON HEAD COACH: Well, I mean, Matthew McConaughey, of course, have you seen my abs, that's a start right there. Drop a mike.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: All right. We'll see if that happens.
All of those Alabama fans are paying back to Clemson fans. Ricky Collins Sexton went there. Sexton had to wear a jacket last night and do push-ups on demand anytime he was asked. Sexton ended up doing 50 pushdowns throughout the night.
Scary moment in the NBA last night.
[05:25:02] Thunders' Nerlens Noel going for a block. His head just slams off the court. Noel was unconscious before taken off on a stretcher.
He was conscious when leaving the court. Noel was taken to OU Medical Center where he was held there overnight to be evaluated.
All right. Three more NFL head coaching openings have been filled. The Packers have hired Matt LaFleur. The Bucs going with former Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians.
The Cardinals meanwhile a surprising hire, 39-year-old Kliff Kingsbury. Kingsbury was fired after failing to make a bowl game. He had a losing record, 35-40 in his six years at Texas Tech. Kingsbury had taken an offensive coordinator job before taking that job.
I'll tell you, Dave, it's a fascinating world we're living these days where you can be an unsuccessful coach in college, get fired and get an NFL job.
BRIGGS: Yes, that was a head-scratcher for all sports. He was under .500 with NFL Patrick Mahomes.
Interesting hire, Andy Scholes. Thank you, my friend.
SCHOLES: Yes, you're welcome.
BRIGGS: Christine, over to you.
ROMANS: All right. Speaking of jobs, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein reportedly preparing to leave the Justice Department. Breaking details on that, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
