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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Deadlocked on Day 32; Giuliani "Clarifies" Comments; Accused Spy's Bid for Freedom; NFL Discussing Replay for Pass Interference Plays. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired January 22, 2019 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:00:17] LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Deadlocked on day 32 of the government shutdown, Democrats already rejecting the deal Republicans plan to offer today.
DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: A new interview with Rudy Giuliani released overnight. The president's lawyer -- stop me if you've heard this before -- contradicts himself.
JARRETT: Happening right now: a U.S. citizen accused of spying on Russia appeals for his freedom before a judge in Moscow.
BRIGGS: And how Sunday's blown call in a championship game could lead to new rules in the NFL. Too little too late for Saints fans, but good to see some changes could be on the horizon.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Dave Briggs.
JARRETT: And I'm Laura Jarrett, in for Christine Romans today. It's Tuesday, January 22nd, 4:00 a.m. in the East.
President Trump hoping to put the squeeze on Democrats to end the government shutdown, by offering them a plan they won't accept. That's the state of play on day 32 of the government shutdown, as over 800,000 federal workers prepare to miss a second paycheck on Friday. And 10 percent of the nation's TSA agents are calling out sick.
The president's new proposal will be part of a larger package that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to introduce today. That could set up a vote as early as Thursday, but a Senate Democratic aide tells CNN the measure does not have the 60 votes it needs to advance. McConnell moving ahead anyway, hoping to shift blame for the shutdown onto the Democrats.
CNN's Phil Mattingly has more for us on Capitol Hill.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Laura and Dave, there will be competing proposals, there will be competing votes. What there won't be is, at least at this point in time, any resolution to a shutdown that has dragged on now more than 30 days. As it stands right now, Senate Republicans will introduce as soon as today a proposal that mirrors what the president outlined on Saturday, a proposal that would have $5.7 billion for the wall and in a tradeoff from the immigration perspective of a three-year temporary reprieve for DACA recipients and three-year temporary reprieve for those with protected temporary status.
Here is the issue right now for both Democrats and Republicans. Democrats have rejected that proposal out of hand. They have said they are more than willing to have negotiations about border security, negotiations about border security, but they will not do so until the government is open. In other words, something clean on the funding side of things needs to be passed before any conversations about the wall, about DACA, about TPS or anything else comes to the table. Right now, it appears Senate Republicans will fall short of the votes to move forward on the president's proposal, a vote that could occur likely on Thursday.
Over on the house side of things, House Democrats will continue doing what they have been doing for weeks, passing proposal after proposal to open up the government without any funding for the wall, proposals that have largely fallen flat because the president opposes them and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made clear he won't bring any of them up so long as the president opposes them.
So, where does that leave things? Well, right now, it appears still very much at an impasse. The big question going into this week is given the Senate is finally taking up some kind of legislation, whether it start to jar some type of bipartisan talks to reach a resolution.
Again, the biggest challenge at this moment guys is the baselines. Democrats have made clear they won't do anything on border security until the government is reopened and president has made clear he won't reopen the government until he gets money for his wall. Until that changes, right now, everybody seems diametrically opposed to anything that would lead to a resolution -- guys.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRIGGS: No off ramp in sight.
Thanks, Phil.
Nearly 300 furloughed workers from the Department of Homeland Security are being called back to work with pay, all of them from the E-Verify division of U.S. citizenship and immigration services, but they won't be performing their regular jobs. Instead, they will be asked to take on other responsibilities that are fee-funded at the same pay right they had before the government shutdown.
JARRETT: Rudy Giuliani walking back comments and changing his stories at warn speed. The president's attorney giving a new interview to "The New Yorker". He now denies telling the "New York Times" the president admitted having discussions about the Trump Tower Moscow project all the way through the 2016 election. Giuliani claiming he was speaking in the hypothetical and he says it wouldn't be a crime even if the president did. "The New Yorker" asked Mr. Trump's lawyer if he ever worries that his
legacy will be telling untruths for the president. He replied, I'm afraid it will be on my gravestone, Rudy Giuliani, he lied for Trump.
BRIGGS: Breaking overnight, U.S. citizen Paul Whelan making an appearance in a Moscow courtroom. He faces up to 20 years in a Russian jail on espionage charges. His family claims he was only in the country to attend a wedding when he was arrested in late December.
[04:05:00] CNN's Fred Pleitgen is joining us by phone live outside the courtroom in Moscow.
Fred, good morning.
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Dave, good morning, Dave.
Certainly is a big day for American citizen Paul Whelan. We actually haven't seen him inside of the court. We went inside the courtroom a little earlier, but essentially what was said by the prosecution, that when Paul Whelan was arrested, they claim he had material on him which is considered state secrets in Russia.
Now, his defense lawyer says that he wasn't aware of the fact that he received things considered to be state secrets here in Russia. He recalled that when he was arrested, apparently he was given a thumb drive inside the Moscow hotel, unclear who he received that from, but apparently, this was part of a larger sting operations by the Russian police and by Russian intelligence services. And the trial has adjourned for about 15 minutes, but essentially what this, Dave, is this is a pretrial bail hearing. He's trying to get out on bail until his actual trial begins.
Not massive hope of that actually happening, but his lawyer saying cases like this one that's involving espionage in front of Russian court, it is almost impossible for defendants to actually receive bail. But we do expect that we're going to be at least hear when the decision is announced about, actually the first time that we're going to see Paul Whelan since he has actually been arrested. It's a huge day for him. We'll obviously be looking at this very closely, obviously keep you posted as well the moment that we hear something from inside that courtroom, Dave.
BRIGGS: OK, thanks, Fred. We'll check back to you in just a bit.
JARRETT: As the U.S. formalizes plans for another summit between President Kim Jong-un and the think tank, I should say, rather, the Center for Strategic and International Studies claims an undeclared missile base may be operating inside North Korea.
CNN's Will Ripley live in Beijing.
Will, what is the latest on all of this?
WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I need to point out that this is not the new information to United States intelligence. And in fact the existence of this base has been known for quite some time. However, this is the first time that the general public is hearing about it and researchers at beyond parallel have put out this study and they point to this base Sino-ri as one of 20 secret North Korean missile bases that are believed to be in existence right now.
It's no surprise that North Korea has top secret military facilities, just like China, just like Russia, just like the United States frankly. But there's two ways of looking at this. Is Kim Jong-un being somehow disingenuine, pledging going to work towards the complete denuclearization of North Korea, you know, sending friendly letters back and forth with Trump, but yet also maintaining and operation this secret web of missile bases?
Or you could look at it as North Korea simply, you know, maintaining their leverage in the denuclearization process when they come to the bargaining table because at some point they are going to have to give the United States a list? Will they disclose this facility? We don't know the answer to that. But certainly the United States knows that it exists and is that one factor that will be playing into the talks as they move closer to this planned second summit that's supposed to happen at the end of February, the likely location, Vietnam.
JARRETT: Will, thanks. We'll be following that closely.
BRIGGS: All right. The U.S. expected to make a formal request for the extradition of Huawei's chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou. Canada's ambassador to the United States telling CNN I've just saw a clarification that this is a legal matter and not a chip in a trade dispute. Meng Wanzhou's arrest has strained relations between Canada, U.S. and China. A spokesperson from Canada's Justice Ministry said it hasn't received the full extradition request from the United States. Deadline for filing is January 30th.
Meanwhile, President Trump urging China to stop playing around and make a deal the president tweeted. China posted slowest economic number since 1990 due to U.S. trade tensions, and new policies makes so much sense for China to finally do a real deal and stop playing around. March 1st is the deadline for an agreement. No deal in the U.S. jacks up tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods from 25 percent to 10 percent. So a pivotal couple of weeks.
JARRETT: Yes, absolutely.
Well, now that Senator Kamala Harris is formally in the race for president, who is next? Another Democrat drops a hint, next.
BRIGGS: And Anthony Scaramucci, the Mooch, in the "Big Brother" house, telling us how he got fired from the White House.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:13:41] BRIGGS: Four-thirteen Eastern Time.
And western avalanches claiming the lives of two more skiers. A man skiing with his family and friends near Aspen, Colorado, buried by an avalanche on Monday. Authorities in Pitkin County say that the weather delayed a 26-member rescue crew which eventually reached him and attempted to revive him, but it was too late.
Another skier critically injured in an avalanche in Taos, New Mexico, last week died on Monday. Corey Borg-Massanari was 22 years old.
JARRETT: The University of Notre Dame president says that the school intends to cover up Christopher of Columbus murals in a main campus building following criticism that the images show Native Americans in stereotypical submissive positions before white European explorers. The school president says that the paintings conceal a darker side of the Columbus story, the exploitation and oppression of Native Americans.
In 2017, hundreds of Notre Dame students, employees and alumni signed a letter in the campus newspaper calling for the murals to be removed.
BRIGGS: Two prominent liberal Democrats using Martin Luther King Jr. Day as their backdrop to label President Trump a racist. Senator Bernie Sanders, a potential 2020 presidential candidate, appearing at an MLK event in South Carolina, well, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, was speaking to the National Action Network in New York.
[04:15:03] Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D), NEW YORK: We have a hater in the White House, the birther in chief, the grand wizard of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: Today, we talked about justice, and today, we talk about racism. And I must tell you, it gives me no pleasure to tell you that we now have a president of the United States who is a racist.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel defending the president, tweeting Donald Trump has brought African-American and Hispanic unemployment to record lows, passed historic criminal justice reform, even worse that Bernie is using MLK Day to make an incendiary comment like that.
JARRETT: And a third woman in the U.S. Senate announcing she intends to run for president in 2020. California Senator Kamala Harris choosing the Martin Luther King holiday to make it official. The first term Democrat touting her experience as a prosecutor and drawing a clear contrast with the president.
We get more from CNN's Kyung Lah.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Dave and Laura, Senator Kamala Harris jumps into the 2020 race. She says she is uniquely poised to take on Trump. She is the daughter of immigrants. She is a woman of color, a former prosecutor who is trained to fight.
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are a diverse country, yes. And some people would suggest that in diversity, when there is a diverse population, one cannot the achieve unity. I reject that notion because this is my belief. Yes, we are diverse and we have so much more in common than what separates us. And when we emphasize that commonalty, when we recognize that commonalty, we will achieve greater unity.
LAH: That prosecutorial path does open up Senator Harris to potential attacks, attacks and questions that she's already had to answer. The left saying that she is not progressive enough because of her time as attorney general, but Senator Harris has addressed it especially during her book tour saying it is quote a false choice to have to pick one over the other -- Dave, Laura.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JARRETT: And Senator Harris will join Jake Tapper live from Iowa Monday night, 10:00 p.m. Eastern, only on CNN.
So who could be next from the Democratic ranks to join the race for the party's nomination in 2020? Well, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker dropping this not so subtle hint Monday night saying just between you and me, I will let you know soon. Stay tuned.
BRIGGS: Anthony Scaramucci, the Mooch, President Trump's communication director for a hot minute is trying to survive longer in the big brother house than he did in the White House. Monday on the season premiere of the CBS' "Celebrity Big Brother", the Mooch spilled the details of his short stint.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR: I was fighting with Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus. The shootout at the OK Corral started, you know, Priebus and Bannon did not want me in that job. So, they started making up stories. But I got my ego got involved and I'm a competitive guy, and so, I trusted a reporter, I said something inappropriate to a reporter. He ran to CNN with it, and so, when the new chief of staff came and he fired me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And who's that?
SCARAMUCCI: That was John Kelly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: That was old friend Kato Kaelin the glasses there.
The Mooch channeling President Trump, telling his housemates, if you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog. And someone remarked isn't Trump the first to not have a dog in the White House in more than 100 years. It's an interesting cast.
JARRETT: We haven't seen Kato in a while. BRIGGS: Kato has been a while.
JARRETT: He's reemerged.
BRIGGS: Yes, with another Heisman Trophy winner Ricky Williams.
JARRETT: Well, upon further review perhaps after listening to Dave Briggs, the NFL is considering changing the rules after a disastrous championship this weekend for the referees.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:23:28] BRIGGS: The NFL plans to discuss whether video replay needs to be implemented for pass interference plays after Sunday's now infamous no call that likely deprived New Orleans Saints of a trip to the Super Bowl. Team owner Gail Benson ripping the officiating on the Saints, official website calling the loss in NFC title game difficult to accept.
She went on to say no team should ever be denied the opportunity to reach the title game or simply win based on the actions or inactions of those charged with creating a fair or equitable playing field.
JARRETT: A pop star Bebe Rexha is calling out fashion designers who say she is too big to dress.
The 29-year-old is dominated for best new artist in next month's Grammys. But she's having a hard time finding an outfit and took to Instagram to vent her frustrations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BEBE REXHA, SINGER/SONGWRITER: If a size 6/8 is too big, then I don't know what to tell you. Then I don't want to wear your (EXPLETIVE DELETED) dresses.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: That was blunt. Rexha is urging designers to empower women to love their bodies.
BRIGGS: And make a new song.
They will be up bright and early in Hollywood on this Oscar nomination morning. Nominations for the 91st Academy Awards announced in just a few hours.
"Shallow", the smash hit song from the film "A Star is Born" sure to be among the nominees.
[04:25:04] The musical drama could end up with the most Oscar nominations. Lady Gaga is an expected nominee for best actress, and best actor could be one of four nominations for Bradley Cooper who produced, directed and co-wrote the film.
JARRETT: Along with "A Star is Born", the feel good movie "Green Book" about race relations is likely a nominee for best picture. Its two stars are expected to be nominated for best actor and best supporting actor respectively.
Alfonso Cuaron's "Roma" is poised to become Netflix first best picture nominee. "Roma" is also a favorite in the foreign language category. Cuaron could hear his name called as many as six times this morning. Also, Spike Lee could land his very first directing nomination for BlacKkKlansman.
The Academy Awards will take place without a host February 24th on ABC.
BRIGGS: That will be interesting optics without a host.
All right. Ahead, with furloughed federal workers set to miss another paycheck, lawmakers in Washington said to introduce a plan that will go nowhere in the Senate. Top stories next.
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