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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

President Trump Visits U.S.-Mexico Border; Senate Republicans Ditch Immigration Compromise; Robert Mueller Met with Trump's Campaign Pollster; Mike Pompeo Insists No Contradiction in U.S. Syria Policy. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired January 11, 2019 - 04:00   ET

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


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[04:00:18] DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have the absolute right to declare a national emergency.

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DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: The White House considering taking money meant for disaster relief in Puerto Rico, Texas, California and Florida to build his border wall.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: 800,000 federal workers will not get a paycheck today. The drastic steps some of them are taking to get through the shutdown.

BRIGGS: Mark your calendars, Michael Cohen set to testify publicly before the House next month. How President Trump is responding.

ROMANS: And breaking overnight in Wisconsin, a teenage girl missing for nearly three months after both her parents were murdered has been found alive. That is such a great development. There were so many concerns about her.

BRIGGS: Yes.

ROMANS: Good morning. And welcome to EARLY START, everybody. I'm Christine Romans.

BRIGGS: It seemed like hope had been lost.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Dave Briggs, Friday, January 11th, 4:00 a.m. in the East. That means day 21 of the government shutdown. Tomorrow it becomes the longest in U.S. history.

The administration now actively looking for funds to use for building a border barrier if and when President Trump declares a national emergency. One prime source under consideration, billions in unspent Defense Department disaster recovery money intended to help victims in Puerto Rico, Texas, Florida and California.

The president now warning he will declare a national emergency if talks with Democrats to end the government shutdown stay at a standstill. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If this doesn't work out, probably I will do it. I would almost say definitely. This is a national emergency.

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ROMANS: Such a declaration would be subject to an immediate court challenge and even Trump's advisers have told him it probably would not work legally. But there are not many other paths out of a shutdown that at midnight becomes the longest in modern American history.

CNN's Jim Acosta traveled with the president to the U.S.-Mexico Thursday and filed this report.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Dave, President Trump came to the border here in McAllen, Texas, to get a sense of the situation down here. I've talked with law enforcement officials and other Border Patrol agents. At one point during the day the president described the situation down here as being under attack. He said the nation is under attack down here on the border.

It was an odd case to make because he was sitting in one of the safest communities in the country. McAllen, Texas, has consistently ranked one of the most secure communities in the United States. But yet the president tried to make the case that this community and other communities along the border are under attack trying to bolster his case potentially to declare a national emergency so he can secure funding for his wall. Here's more of what he had to say.

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TRUMP: We're certainly under attack by criminal gangs, by criminals themselves, by the human traffickers and by drugs of all kinds. Much of it comes through the southern border.

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ACOSTA: Throughout the day the president made several misleading statements about his case for a wall on the border with Mexico. At one point he told reporters that he never said during the campaign that Mexico was going to hand over a big check to pay for the wall. Of course during the campaign the president repeatedly said that Mexico would pay for a wall and at various points he said yes, Mexico would actually deliver a payment to the American people to fund that wall.

As a matter of fact his campaign put out a document saying that Mexico could end this once and for all and hand over to the United States a payment, a one-time payment they put it, of $5 billion to $10 billion -- Christine and Dave.

BRIGGS: Jim Acosta, thank you, sir.

Republicans in the Senate ditching an 11th hour plan to find a compromise on immigration after President Trump rejected it. The measure spearheaded by Senator Lindsey Graham included border wall funding and temporary protections for Dreamers. House Democrats forging ahead meanwhile passing two spending bills, 12 Republicans joining them. It passed the first measure which would reopen the Transportation Department and Housing and Urban Development or HUD. But as Phil Mattingly reports, it may all be for nothing.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Dave, for a brief moment, there was hope. Not hope that there is going to be a solution to the government shutdown but a hope because at least people were talking. To be specific a group of Republican senators, senators who had expressed some frustration with the president's strategy, senators who had said they didn't want to shut down at all. That they wanted to find a way out.

Now they have been working since Wednesday night on a proposal that would essentially trade DACA protections on a temporary basis for the money that President Trump asked for for the wall. That deal fell completely apart. Why? Because President Trump rejected it. How did the top senator who was working on this deal feel? Well, take a listen to Lindsey Graham.

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SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I have never been more depressed about moving forward right now. I just don't a pathway forward. Somebody has got to, like, get some energy to fix this.

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[04:05:02] MATTINGLY: And Graham in that statement is really kind of talking for all 535 members of Congress, at least those that I've spoken with over the last couple of days. There's a recognition right now that there is a no clear pathway out. Both parties are very entrenched that their positions are not moving and at the near-term there is no legislative solution at the moment for a fix, for a way out of the government shutdown.

There's a real question right now whether or not this is not going to go days, or whether this is actually going to end up going weeks. And is it going to be sold any time soon? Well, talks aren't continuing, meetings aren't scheduled. The Senate is out of sessions and won't be back until next week. And House Democrats are still passing individual funding bills that Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has made clear he won't on take up.

So where does that leave things? Well, a lot of Republican aides are looking toward the president to take some executive action, declare a national emergency, that might be the next path. Lindsey Graham is straight-up advocating for that, saying that's really the only path left. That is something Democrats have made clear they will quickly try and take to court, see if they can block it in some ways. So a fight is going to continue. When it's over is still an open question. What's not an open question is that the government is going to remain shut down and likely for a while -- guys.

ROMANS: All right, Phil Mattingly. Thank you for that, Phil.

Federal workers staging protests across the country as they prepare to go without their first full paychecks since the shutdown started.

In Washington, the president of the AFL-CIO was joined by members of Congress and hundreds of federal workers demanding an end to the shutdown. Listen to one of the protesters in Utah, with no paycheck, she is resorting to desperate measures.

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LYNN STRATTON, FURLOUGHED FEDERAL WORKER: I have enough for one more mortgage payment then I've got to go to CarMax tomorrow and sell my car.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You're going to sell your car?

STRATTON: I have to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: And in Atlanta, TSA workers led a protest against the government shutdown right outside the busy North Terminal at Hartsfield Jackson International Airport.

BRIGGS: Miami International Airport will close one of its terminals early for three days beginning on Saturday due to a shortage of screeners at security checkpoints. TSA employees are working without pay due to the government shutdown. An airport spokesman tells the "Miami Herald" that screeners are calling in sick at double the normal rate.

TSA managers concerned they won't have enough workers to operate all of the checkpoints in normal hours at the Miami International Airport.

ROMANS: All right. The shutdown also affecting active FBI investigations due to a lack of funding. Nearly 5,000 FBI employees are among the hundreds of thousands of federal workers told they cannot show up to work. They have been sent home without pay, no work, no investigations. The limited budget means money to pay informants, for example, dries up.

Law enforcement sources say agents have been told to make payments to informants only if the integrity of an investigation is at risk.

BRIGGS: Michael Cohen, President Trump's former lawyer and fixer, will testify publicly before the House Oversight Committee on February 7th. Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison on multiple charges that included campaign finance crimes and lying to Congress. He implicated the president in a scheme to pay hush money to two women claiming they had affairs with then Citizen Trump.

Here is what Cohen told ABC after his sentencing in December.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MICHAEL COHEN, FORMER TRUMP LAWYER: I am done with the lying. I am done being loyal to President Trump. I followed a bad path and hence how we started this conversation. I have my freedom and I will not be the villain as I told you once before. I will not be the villain of his story.

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BRIGGS: Cohen set to begin his three-year prison sentence in March.

ROMANS: All right. New developments in the Russia investigation. It turns out Special Counsel Robert Mueller interviewed Donald Trump's top campaign pollster last year, a man named Tony Fabrizio. Fabrizio also happens to be an ex-business associate of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. And that could be significant.

We know Mueller is investigating why Manafort shared internal polling data with a Russian military intelligence operative while he was running the Trump campaign.

CNN's Evan Perez has more.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Dave, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigators interviewed Tony Fabrizio, one of the Trump campaign's pollsters last year as part of the Russia investigation. This is a discussion that possibly takes on new importance now that we know that the Mueller investigators even recently were asking questions about internal polling data that Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, shared with a former business associate who the special counsel says is connected to Russian intelligence.

Now Manafort's lawyers this week accidentally made public in a court filing that prosecutors had claimed Manafort was lying to them about sharing the polling information with his business associate Konstanin Kilimnick. Now we don't know why that information was being shared and whether any of that data ended up with the Russians who at the time were trying to launch a campaign to try to help Donald Trump win the White House.

[04:10:02] The president was asked by reporters whether he knew that his campaign chairman was sharing that information.

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TRUMP: No, I didn't know anything about it. Nothing about it.

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PEREZ: CNN reporters in February of last year saw Fabrizio leaving his interview at the Mueller offices here in Washington. And we've since confirmed that he provided information to the Mueller investigation.

Fabrizio is a former business associate of Manafort and he is someone who would have knowledge about the inner workings of the Trump campaign as well as Manafort's connections in eastern Europe. Fabrizio worked with Manafort on elections in Ukraine and he went on to serve as the chief pollster for the Trump campaign in the spring of 2016.

Fabrizio declined comment for this story, but a source familiar with his testimony says that he was asked about Manafort's business dealings. We don't know whether he had any follow-up interviews and what other topics he provided information on -- Christine and Dave.

BRIGGS: Evan Perez, thanks.

Special counsel investigators said to be focused on false or misleading public statements by President Trump and his team. Sources say they are trying to determine if some public remarks were aimed at influencing witnesses or obstructing justice.

Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani responding to CNN's reporting in a tweet Thursday night slamming the Mueller team, quote, "Read CNN article that Mueller wants to use the president's public comments as part of an obstruction claim. According to this latest oppressive legal theory, you can't even defend yourself."

Meantime the White House working hard to keep much of what will be in the Mueller report private claiming it should be protected by executive privilege. The new White House counsel has hired 17 new lawyers to help in that effort.

ROMANS: Seventeen new lawyers. Wow.

All right. Wall Street rallied for a fifth day in a row. Wow, that hasn't happened in a long time. The Dow climbed 123 points Thursday recovering from a slide earlier in the day. Triple-digit slide. The S&P 500 gained about half a percent. Its first five-day win streak since September. The Nasdaq closed up higher as well. U.S. oil prices climbed to $52.59 a barrel advancing for the ninth in a row. That hasn't happened all the way back since January 2010. So a real rebound here in oil prices.

While the major averages continue their winning streak, retailers are struggling, Macy's shares plummeted 18 percent. Wow. That's the worst day in history for Macy's. Weak holiday sales and lower guidance for earnings going forward. Macy's has been shrinking its store sizes, adding more discount, backstage locations, rolling out buy on line, in-store pickup capabilities, but those investments fell short as more shoppers went to discount chains like T.J. Maxx and online to Amazon. Real seismic change in how we shop. The sharp decline in Macy's dragged down other retailers. Kohl's lost close to 5 percent. JCPenney and Nordstrom fell sharply as well.

Those are big moves in one day.

BRIGGS: Good news, bad news on the market.

ROMANS: Right.

BRIGGS: Ahead, some really good news. After nearly three months of searching, a Wisconsin teen has been found alive.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's OK. I just cannot believe this.

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BRIGGS: What we know about her rescue, ahead.

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[04:17:13] ROMANS: Breaking news, a manhunt under way in California right now after a police officer was shot and killed. Authorities say 22-year-old Natalie Corona was gunned down Thursday night while responding to a traffic accident in Davis, that's just west Sacramento. Authorities urged people across the city to shelter in place.

The UC Davis campus placed on lockdown. Corona had only been with the Davis Police Department for a few weeks.

BRIGGS: Authorities in northwest Wisconsin promised more details today about the apparent rescue of 13-year-old Jayme Closs. Jayme vanished on October 15th after emergency dispatchers received a mysterious 911 call with yelling in the background. Police arrived at the home near the small town of Barron to find Jayme gone and her parents, Jamie and Denise Closs, shot to death. Investigators think Jayme was home during the shooting.

ROMANS: Thursday afternoon Jayme was found in Gordon, Wisconsin. That's about 66 miles north of where she was last seen. The Douglas County sheriff says officers arrested a suspect about 10 minutes later. Jayme's aunt says it was a stressful day with the family's hopes whip-sawed by conflicting reports.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There was rumors earlier today, and I prayed and prayed they were true and they come to not be true, and I just shut myself totally down because I thought today was going to be day. And then to find out two hours later that she was found, I just -- I just cannot believe this.

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ROMANS: Authorities say they will offer more information at a news conference later this morning.

BRIGGS: All right. A full slate of NFL games on tap this weekend as we move into the divisional playoff round. Kicks off Saturday with the Indianapolis Colts playing the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead in KC. That's followed by the Dallas Cowboys and L.A. Rams at the coliseum in Los Angeles. On Sunday, Chargers in New England against the Patriots and the late game, the defending Super Bowl champs the Philadelphia Eagles playing the New Orleans Saints at the Superdome. Winners advance to the AFC and NFC championship games next Sunday. One more note and a historical one. When Sarah Thomas takes the field

for that Charges-Pats game Sunday, she'll make NFL history, becoming the first woman to officiate a playoff game. Thomas was the league's first full-time female official. She's now in her fourth season.

Great to see that development in the league.

ROMANS: All right. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on a tour through the Middle East and he is sending some mixed signals on the president's decision to pull U.S. troops from Syria. We're going to go live to Cairo next.

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[04:24:07] BRIGGS: 4:23 Eastern Time, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo leaving Egypt today and heading to Bahrain and Abu Dhabi after laying out America's Middle East policy in a major speech in Cairo Thursday. In his remarks, Pompeo tried to reassure allies on the shifting U.S. strategy in Syria.

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MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: There is no contradiction whatsoever. This is a story made up by the media. And so it is possible to hold in your head the thought that we couldn't withdraw our forces, our uniformed forces from Syria and continue America's crushing campaign.

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BRIGGS: All right. Let's get more on this from Ben Wedeman, live in Cairo.

No contradiction in U.S. policy. Is that right, Ben?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I don't know about that, Dave. For instance, it was just a few days ago we were hearing National Security adviser John Bolton saying that the United States wouldn't be pulling out of Syria until Turkey gave it assurances that the Turks wouldn't attack the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria.

[04:25:09] But we are seeing this morning the AFP, the French news agency, is saying that a U.S. Military spokesman for the Coalition Against ISIS has announced that American troops have begun withdrawing from Syria. So Secretary Pompeo's address in Cairo was long on rhetoric, it's particularly bashing the former administration's policies in the Middle East, but short on details on how it's going to move forward in countering, for instance, Iran's growing influence in the region.

What is significant is that the American's Kurdish allies in Syria feeling somewhat betrayed by this sudden announcement by President Trump last month about withdrawing from Syria, are now in contact with the government in Damascus to restore relations. And of course Damascus is a close ally with Iran. So how that all makes sense, good guess. I don't know.

BRIGGS: Yes, we're with you there.

WEDEMAN: Dave?

BRIGGS: Ben Wedeman live for us just about 11:30 there in Cairo. Thanks.

ROMANS: All right, 26 minutes past the hour this Friday morning.

A dubious record, the government shutdown now tied for the longest in U.S. history. How the president now wants to fund his border wall without the help of Congress.

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