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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Barr Vows to Let Mueller Finish; Shutdown Taxes the Economy; Brexit Crisis in the U.K. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired January 16, 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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[04:00:17] WILLIAM BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE: I will not be bullied into doing anything I think is wrong by anybody.
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CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Bipartisan praise for William Barr. The nominee for attorney general vows to let Robert Mueller finish his work, but will the public see a final report?
DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: The cost of the government shutdown is growing rapidly. The president's own economic advisers are doubling the projected losses.
ROMANS: Another democracy in crisis. U.K. lawmakers reject the Brexit plan. Theresa May faces another no confidence vote today.
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UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: Baby sister.
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BRIGGS: A little girl hears her sister's voice for the first time. What happens next might melt your heart.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Dave Briggs.
ROMANS: I'm pretty sure I'm going to need that today. And I'm Christine Romans. It is Wednesday, January 16th. It is 4:00 a.m. in the East.
President Trump's nominee for attorney general delivering a notably un-Trumpian performance at his confirmation hearing. William Barr setting a tone before the Senate Judiciary Committee that had both parties mostly pleased. Barr split from the president and his aides on several talking points, among them, disagreeing with the president's claim that the special counsel Robert Mueller is on a witch hunt, vowing he will not allow Mr. Trump or his lawyers to correct or put their own spin on Mueller's final report and committing to release as much of that report as possible, quote, consistent with the regulations and the law.
BRIGGS: Barr also did his best to assure senators that he would allow Mueller to finish his work.
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BARR: I am not going to do anything that I think is wrong. And I will not be bullied into doing anything I think is wrong, by anybody, whether it'd be editorial boards, or Congress or the president. I'm going to do what I think is right.
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BRIGGS: Barr also promised to quit if the president crossed the line.
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BARR: If someone tried to stop a bona fide, lawful investigation to cover up wrongdoing, I would resign.
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BRIGGS: But Barr did hedge on one issue that cause trouble for Democrats.
CNN's Jessica Schneider has more from Washington.
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JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Dave and Christine, an unanticipated contentious hearing was actually quite calm. With top committee Democrat Dianne Feinstein saying this, so far, so good. And even Delaware Democrat Chris Coons saying he is going to seriously consider supporting William Barr's confirmation, and the reason for that, maybe Barr's strong stance defending Robert Mueller, pointing to their 30-year friendship and also vowing to protect the Russia probe and make as much as he can about Mueller's final report public.
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: Will you commit with providing Mr. Mueller with the resources, fund and time needed to complete his investigation?
BARR: Yes.
FEINSTEIN: Will you commit to assuring that special counsel Mueller is not terminated without good cause, consistent with department regulations?
BARR: Absolutely.
FEINSTEIN: Will you provide Mueller's -- excuse me, Mueller's report to Congress, not your rewrite or a summary?
BARR: My objective and goal is to get as much as I can of the information to Congress and the public. I don't know what -- at the end of the day, what will be releasable.
SCHNEIDER: Barr did say that he won't fire Mueller, saying it will take something egregious, since he knows what type of investigator Mueller is. But in one issue that could potentially rankle Democrats, Barr was asked, can a sitting president be indicted?
BARR: For 40 years, it's been the position of the executive branch that you can't indict a sitting president.
SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D), CONNECTICUT: I'm asking you what your view is right now.
BARR: You know, I actually haven't read those opinions in a long time. But I see no reason to change them.
SCHNEIDER: Now, Barr was also asked several questions about presidential pardons, while he did say it is within the president's power to pardon individual, he stressed it is also possible that the president can abuse his power by issuing certain pardons. And Barr also wouldn't rule out the possibility that Mueller could subpoena the president.
But overall, Barr wanted the takeaway to be that he will be an independent attorney general. More, of course, to come in the second round of the hearing that starts this morning -- Dave and Christine.
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ROMANS: All right. Jessica, thank you for that.
With lawmakers at an impasse over a border wall funding, the government shutdown now in its 26th day, 800,000 workers and the families they support, real people, feeling the pinch.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's earning his paycheck, but he's not getting it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The shutdown isn't just a Washington, D.C. problem.
[04:05:01] It's affecting real people here in Iowa.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got our pay stubs on Thursday and seeing zero dollars is just very disheartening. It makes it hard to wake up and want to go to work.
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BRIGGS: Yes, hard to imagine. Liz Runge is a mother of two in Summerville, South Carolina. She depends on food stamps to care for a disabled daughter, and does not have a plan B if those benefits dry up.
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LIZ RUNGE, WORRIED GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE WILL BE CUT: It's important that the people that maybe aren't so affected by it, you know, either that they don't have a government job or don't receive assistance, they need to see the faces of the people that it is affecting. (END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: For now, those food stamps are paid out until February, beyond that, we don't know what will happen.
The Coast Guard is the only branch of the military not being paid during the shutdown. In Monterey, California, dive shop employees just down the road from a Coast Guard station decided to start a food drive to help their friends. Again, a branch of the United States military is not being paid, everybody, just think about that in the largest economy in the world. And the IRS now is bringing back 36,000 furloughed employees. They will work without pay, that is so Americans can get their tax refunds, of course, at the expense of those employees.
BRIGGS: On Tuesday, a federal judge denied a request from a federal employee's union to require the government to pay air traffic controllers who've been working without pay.
And bad news for federal employees looking for help from the public. CNN has obtained a letter to Homeland Security employees warning that accepting money from GoFundMe or similar sites could be illegal.
ROMANS: All right. President Trump's own economic advisers now say the cost of the shutdown is worse than they thought. The president's economists doubled projections on how much the economic growth is being lost each week as the shutdown wears on. The chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Kevin Hassett, said the administration now calculates the shutdown reduces quarterly economic growth by 0.13 percentage points for every week it goes on.
And Standard and Poor's estimates each week, the shutdown costs the economy $1.2 billion in growth. How? Workers don't get paid which means they don't spend. That hurts retailers, land lords, auto sales. You know, they can't pay their babysitters, for example.
The shutdown has banks concerned as well. On a call with reporters, JPMorgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon, said they could reduce the growth to zero if it goes down a whole quarter. The shutdown affects the airline industry.
Delta's CEO told CNBC, the airline will see a revenue reduction for the month. Bad news for investors.
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ED BASTIAN, DELTA CEO: One of the other issues to us is that we're seeing a reduction in revenues in the month of January, not huge, but about $25 million due to the fact that government contractors and some government officials are not traveling the way they would anticipate because of the shutdown.
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ROMANS: In many ways, shutting down the federal government costs more than keeping it open. It is obviously a sign of failure of government not to have the largest economy in the world have its company open for business.
BRIGGS: And if you think D.C. is a mess, take a look at the chaos in the U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal crushed on Tuesday by a record margin, a humiliating indictment of her plan to guide Britain out of the European Union. They face another no confidence vote today. The British people facing a very uncertain future.
As the BBC points out, the White House is in crisis, turned to fast food, Downing Street goes for an armed donut delivery. Those are Krispy Kremes in that bag. Not sure why you need an armed guard to deliver them.
But let's go live to 10 Downing Street and bring in Hadas Gold.
Perhaps some donuts for you this morning, because you're going to need it. They're going to need a Trump-sized fast food order that the national champs got. What's the latest this morning?
HADAS GOLD, CNN REPORTER: Well, Dave, to put into context how crushing that defeat was for Theresa May last night, the last time we have record of a defeat like that was in 1924 by 166 votes. Last night, that margin was 230.
Immediately after that vote, Jeremy Corbyn, who leads the opposition party, the Labour Party, tabled a no confidence motion. What that means, members of parliament will have to vote whether or not they have confidence in Theresa May, and the conservative party to lead parliament. That vote will take place tonight at 7:00 p.m.
Now, we expect Theresa May to win that no confidence vote, because it's win thing to vote against a bill. It's another thing to vote against the leader of your party. But if she loses that no confidence vote, that could trigger a general election. That could trigger a change in the hands of government.
Suffice to say, there's a lot of chaos here in the United Kingdom. I actually watched the results last night come in with a big group of staffers of parliament. They were all shocked. Some of them there for decades said they have never seen anything like this.
Theresa May has three days before she has to return to parliament with an update on whatever her plan B might be. She'll be talking to Brussels. She'll be talking to members across the parties here to see if they can come to some consensus from them on what they want.
[04:10:04] But the outlook doesn't look good. And where we standing, it's still the same as we have been in four months, barreling towards that deadline of March 29th where the U.K. will exit the European Union but so far without a deal -- Dave.
BRIGGS: OK. So, if -- can she survive another no confidence vote and could Jeremy Corbyn, does Boris Johnson, could they get the support? It's hard to figure where this is headed, but your guess?
GOLD: Right, my guess is she will survive this vote. Jeremy Corbyn just doesn't have the numbers behind him. The smaller parties that are propping Theresa May's government have already come out and said that they will vote in support and be in her favor tonight, but that they don't support the deal that she has on the table right now. But the labor party has indicated that they might keep putting forward these no confidence votes over and over again. That could shake up the government.
BRIGGS: Much like our shutdown, no off ramp in sight. Hadas Gold live for us in London, thank you.
ROMANS: All right. A bill to block the White House from easing sanctions against three Russian companies with ties to a Kremlin ally faces a key vote today in the Senate.
First up, a procedural vote to advance a measure to a final vote this afternoon, Democrats need 13 Republicans across party lines to pass it. Republican leaders believe they can stop it, but Democrats think they have a chance after 11 Republicans broke ranks on Wednesday. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has been trying to convince Republicans to oppose the bill.
BRIGGS: Add another name to the growing list of Democrats running for president in 2020.
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STEPHEN COLBERT, LATE NIGHT TV HOST: Do you have anything you would like to announce?
SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D), NEW YORK: Yes.
COLBERT: And what would that be, Madam?
GILLIBRAND: I'm filing an exploratory committee for president of the United States tonight.
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BRIGGS: New York Senator Kristen Gillibrand making her announcement on Stephen Colbert's "Late Show." She released her first campaign video highlighting her work on the 9/11 health bill, women's rights and fighting President Trump. Gillibrand will travel to Ohio this weekend.
ROMANS: Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown could be the next Democrat to jump in to the race. He plans to launch a listening tour of early primary states beginning next month.
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SEN.SHERROD BROWN (D), OHIO: I want to continue to learn about the dignity of work from everybody, from -- whether you swipe a card, whether you punch a clock, whether you work for tips, whether you work on salary, whether you're taking care of kids.
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ROMANS: Brown says he and his wife will decide whether or not he will run in the weeks ahead.
BRIGGS: There was a long pause on Gillibrand.
ROMAN: I know.
BRIGGS: Like she was second-guessing it for a moment.
ROMANS: It's interesting that Colbert has become sort of the go-to guy. And, you know, Brian Stelter has some great reporting earlier this week that a lot of these, you know, teams are -- they have that Stephen strategy. How do you get Stephen Colbert? How do you get on the show? How do you use that to see a different audience?
BRIGGS: The same way Republicans used to run through Fox News, it's now a late comedian.
ROMANS: That's right.
BRIGGS: Ahead, did the former president of Mexico take a $100 million bribe from a notorious drug lord? The courtroom bombshell, next.
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[04:17:05] ROMANS: It appears the Democratic National Committee has pulled out of partnering with organizers of the Women's March in Washington this coming weekend. The group's leaders face accusations of anti-Semitism through their association with Nation of Islam leader, Louis Farrakhan. The DNC's name was removed Tuesday from the list of sponsors for this event. An official says the DNC stands in solidarity with all those fighting for women's rights but declined to comment further.
The third annual Women's March takes place Saturday with rallies in Washington and other cities across the country.
BRIGGS: Bombshell testimony in the drug trafficking and murder trial of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. A former close aide to the drug lord telling a Brooklyn courtroom El Chapo once paid $100 million bribe to former Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. The stunning testimony coming from Alex Cifuentes, a Colombian trafficker who spent three days on the stand. Cifuentes says he spent two years living with Guzman in the mountains of Sinaloa, helping him elude the Mexican army.
Reps for Pena Nieto have not responded to CNN's request for comments.
ROMANS: It is day three of a teacher's strike in Los Angeles.
The rain did not keep teachers from the picket lines Tuesday. An estimated 32,000 teachers and staff walked the walk. They're demanding smaller class sizes, higher salaries and more counselors and nurses. The walkout is affecting some 600,000 students. It may also cost the school district millions of dollars.
The state fund is based on daily school attendance. Only about a third of the usual number of students showed up on Monday, the first day of the strike. Attendance improved slightly on Tuesday.
BRIGGS: All right. Ahead, a 2-year-old in Minnesota lucky to be alive after tumbling out of a moving car still strapped in her car seat.
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[04:23:16] BRIGGS: Four-twenty-three Eastern Time. And a powerful reminder to make sure your car seats are installed properly. Frightening dash cam video from Minnesota shows the moment a 2-year- old tumbles outside of a moving car on to the street. The pink coat still strapped in the car seat.
Chad Mock who posted this video on Facebook stopped his car, carried the child to safety. Remarkably, the toddler was not injured. It looked like the mother drove away there. She did turn around and come back. Officials are looking into charges of child endangerment.
ROMANS: It's hard not to smile when you see and hear this next story. This is 11-month-old Scarlet Benjamin. She was born three months early and treatment for a serious infection impaired her hearing. Scarlet was fitted for her first hearing aid last week. Her older sister Hallie tested out.
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UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: Hey baby sister.
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UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: Baby sister.
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ROMANS: That's awesome.
Scarlet's mom also could not contain her excitement. She said it's been a long and emotional experience.
BRIGGS: Wonderful stuff. What we need.
All right. While were you sleeping, President Trump got roasted over the fast food feast he served up for the national champions Clemson Tigers at the White House. Here are your late night laughs.
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JIMMY KIMMEL, COMEDIAN: The Oscar nominations don't come out until next week. As far as I'm concerned we already have the winner for best picture.
[04:25:01] This to me is the best picture of the year. This is the image you see when you take off your blindfold in "Bird Box."
JAMES CORDEN, COMEDIAN: This doesn't look like a White House celebration. It looks like a divorce dance. He had to figure out Thanksgiving for the first time.
SETH MEYERS, COMEDIAN: President Trump misspelled the word "hamburgers" in a tweet this morning. Normally, you wonder if he misspelled or this is so bad, I think it's both. I think you don't know how to spell it. And then you made a typo off the wrong spelling in your head.
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ROMANS: A lot of analysis there of a little tweet.
All right. Twenty-five minutes past the hour.
William Barr wins over some of his critics. He said he will protect Robert Mueller but will the public see Mueller's report if Barr is confirmed as attorney general?
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BARR: I will not be bullied into doing anything I think is wrong by anybody.
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