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At Least Five Killed In Florida Bank Shooting; Sen. Joni Ernst Talks Publicly About Alleged Abuse By Ex-Husband; Sen. Ernst Reveals She Is Sexual Assault Survivor; Trump Recognizes Venezuelan Opposition Leader As Nation's President. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired January 24, 2019 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:31:47] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Investigators are trying to figure out why a 21-year-old suspect allegedly walked into a central Florida bank and opened fire killing at least five people. CNN's Nick Valencia, live in Sebring, Florida, with the very latest. Nick.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, just an absolutely tragic scene here yesterday morning. According to police, 21 year old Zephen Xaver walked into the Suntrust Bank behind me opening fire killing at least five people. He was barricaded inside that bank. Initial negotiations by authorities failed so the SWAT team went in there eventually taking him into custody. We want to show you video here as well.

After he was take mean into custody, he was shown wearing a t-shirt that said "Death to the wicked", written across the front. Police have not released a motive. In fact, they haven't released the identities of those who were killed in this shooting. But we are learning a little bit more about this 21-year-old.

Up until very recently he worked as a trainee correctional officer at a facility nearby. We also got the chance to speak to his father late last night who was just so distraught and seemed to be very caught off guard by this. And this is what he had to say to our national desk. "He wasn't raised like this. He's always been a good kid. He's had his troubles but he has never hurt anyone ever before. This is a total shock."

It is certainly a shock to this community here in Sebring, Florida. Police are expected to host a press conference a little later this morning where hopefully we'll learn more details. Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: That's important. Nick, thank you very much for the report.

So, Iowa Republican Senator Joni Ernst just speaking out about alleged mental and physical abuse by her former husband. Ernst says she was forced share her private pain after her divorce documents became public. The senator also revealed she's a rape survivor. CNN's MJ Lee joins us now with more on this story.

This is shocking and, you know, sad that for her that she was forced to talk about this before she was ready.

MJ LEE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And remember, she is the highest ranking female Republican in the Senate and also an army combat veteran, Ernst revealing that she is a sexual assault survivor. She is now one of so many women to come forward in the me too era, but she says she was forced out as a survivor before she was ready.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. JONI ERNST (R), IOWA: I think every survivor should have the right to decide when it's their time to tell a story and when it's not their time to tell a story. And unfortunately that was taken away from me.

LEE (voice-over): Iowa Senator Joni Ernst forced to speak out publicly for the first time about physical and sexual abuse she says she experienced in past relationships. After the details in her divorce papers were reported publicly.

ERNST: Those documents were to be sealed. That was our understanding. I was completely caught off guard by that.

LEE: In an interview with Bloomberg, Ernst says that her ex-husband Gail physically attacked her during a fight over a decade ago. "He grabbed me by the throat with his hands and threw me on the landing floor. And then he pounded my head on the landing."

The Senator says she reported the incident to a victim's advocate but never filed a police report because she didn't want to embarrass her husband. Adding, he said it would never happen again and blah, blah, blah, and it didn't. But there was that underlying threat.

CNN has not reviewed Ernst divorce filings and has reached out to Gail Ernst for comment but has not received a response. Ernst, also revealing to Bloomberg, that she was raped by an abusive boyfriend when she was a student at Iowa State University.

[06:35:09] Ernst says she ended the relationship but never reported the assault to police. Telling Bloomberg, "I was embarrassed. I didn't know how to explain it. I was so humiliated."

Speaking to reporters, Ernst seeking to reassure other victims.

ERNST: Eventually things can be OK and you can move beyond that and you don't have to be defined in one bucket or another as being a survivor. You can just be Joni.

LEE: The Republican Senator has been an advocate for sexual assault and domestic abuse survivors for years.

ERNST: People will be my work in those areas, not as a senator that is working to support them, but now as somebody who has been in that situation that will be supporting them. But what I want to remind everybody is that I'm still the same person as I was a week ago. The only difference is that you know more about me now than you did a week ago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: Now, something else reported this week from the divorce affidavit for the Gail Ernst' allegation that Senator Ernst had an affair. She categorically denies this. Ernst is facing what could be a tough re-election next year and she tells Bloomberg that she's hoping to move forward with her campaign and be honest about her past now that those details have been disclosed. Guys.

CAMEROTA: That was really -- really heart wrenching hearing her how emotional she got. And, you know, her story will help other people. It will help other people now that she's public, it will help other survivors. But it is just unfortunate that she wasn't ready to talk about all of this.

LEE: Well, for other abuse survivors to see that someone like her can experience this just makes it much more relatable.

BERMAN: But that last thing she said really is powerful. I'm the same person I was a week ago, you just know more about me now. And more about me she feels than she was ready to say.

LEE: That's right. And for a public figure like her, even for someone like her, you're not ready until you're ready to speak out and she unfortunately had to address these things before she was ready.

CAMEROTA: And I think her point there is that she said that she doesn't want to be defined by that.

BERMAN: Right.

CAMEROTA: And I think that that's a really valuable point. That you -- she wants to be seen as strong and capable and not defined by that and hopefully her story, though it came out in an unfortunate way, will help people to be able to meld those two things together.

LEE: Absolutely.

CAMEROTA: Well, thank you very much, MJ.

All right, so there's this deepening crisis in Venezuela as President Nicolas Maduro cuts ties with the United States. What will the U.S. do now?

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[06:41:35] CAMEROTA: Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro severing ties with the United States after President Trump officially recognized the self-proclaimed Acting President Juan Guaido as Venezuela's legitimate leader. So let's bring in Rear Admiral John Kirby, he was the assistant secretary of state for public affairs under President Obama.

Admiral Kirby, thank you very much for being here. Let's start with the U.S. response, OK. So president -- current president Nicolas Maduro wants U.S. diplomats out in 72 hours. The state department says they're not going to honor that. What's going to happen in the next 72 hours?

REAR ADMIRAL JOHN KIRBY (RET.), CNN MILITARY AND DIPLOMATIC ANALYST: Well, I think it's going to be a tense situation and I suspect the state department will be monitoring this very, very closely from a security perspective. You're absolutely right, Alisyn, Maduro is still technically president. He still has the lever rage of power which means he still basically runs the military.

So it's going to be a real tense situation. I think I would expect the state department to be reviewing if they haven't already their security posture around their embassy and their consular staff. They'll be monitoring the protests and the counter protests very, very closely.

They've already issued an advisory to U.S. citizens who are in or thinking about traveling to Venezuela to warn them about the security situation. So I think right now it's going to be a watch and see kind of attitude.

CAMEROTA: Nicolas Maduro does not look kindly upon his opposition. He has jailed opponents in the past, protesters are being killed. So what happens to Guaido who has taken this whole step of announcing himself as acting president?

KIRBY: It's going to be really important for him to make sure he has a coalition around him. The national assembly obviously supports him until he'll have -- he has the legislative support but he's not, you know, he doesn't have the levers of power. He cannot executively control the country because Maduro still does that.

So he's going to have to be very careful here. I think it helps him that so much of the international community has already come out and recognized him as the legitimate leader, not just the United States but the E.U., the organization of American States and the Lima 13 which includes Canada. So that's a good thing. It's also helpful that the U.N. secretary general called for dialogue and sort of a peaceful way out of this. They're in a tough position. They can't really claim him as a legitimate because Russia and China are going to oppose that. But I think it's important for the international community to continue support him going forward.

CAMEROTA: Well, in terms of a peaceful way out of this, you know, it was about a year ago that there was unrest of course in Venezuela, as there so often is, and President Trump had mentioned using military force, let me just remind people of what the president said then.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And we have troops all over the world in places that are very, very far away. Venezuela is not very far away and the people are suffering and they're dying. We have many options for Venezuela, including a possible military option if necessary.

(END VIDE CLIP)

CAMEROTA: What of that, Admiral?

KIRBY: I don't see that as an option right now, Alisyn, to be honest with you. I thought that was a very unfortunate thing for the president to have said back then. It's particularly a dangerous thing to start talking about right now when there's so much uncertainty. And this really could flash up into violence very, very quickly down there in Venezuela.

I do think that certainly you have to have options on the table, military options included if, in fact, the lethal threat to U.S. personnel and to American citizens becomes that great, you obviously have an obligation to protect them. But to threaten intervention at this time I think would be very, very premature and actually could only inflame the potential for violence down there.

Remember, Maduro has looked for and continues to do it now excuses to blame America for all of this. In fact, he is blaming America for this exact outcome here with the national assembly. He honestly believes that the United States has designs on his country in terms of intervention and active, you know, boots on the ground.

[06:45:14] And So we don't want to give him an excuse to believe that that's in the offing, unless of course, you know, actually the security of our people is that much at stake.

CAMEROTA: When you were in the state department and President Obama was in office, obviously you confronted conflicts with Venezuela. Was there something that worked then that you would apply now?

KIRBY: What works is economic pressure. I mean, now, you have to be careful with that because the Venezuelan economy is basically in tatters thanks to Maduro. Inflation is like a thousand percent or something that's ridiculous. But we are an exporter -- we are an importer of a lot of their oil and I think we need to be looking to see what the administration does on those oil imports.

Now, it's going to hurt us, too, in our refineries here and the Russians and the Chinese are going to continue to buy Venezuelan oil. But we are the major exporter of Venezuela oil --Venezuela exports their majority of crude oil to us. So we have some leverage there economically. And I would look for the administration to sort of see how they can play that out.

CAMEROTA: Many things also tense there, why not bring the U.S. diplomats home right now?

KIRBY: Well, because if you're going to, look, we have a sovereign responsibility and right as a country to recognize the government there and we have chosen we're going to recognize the national assembly government under Guaido as other nations have.

And so if we're going to recognize them as the legitimate government and that legitimate government in our view has offered to keep us there and keep our diplomatic presence, we should observe that. And I don't think we should be backing down from this challenge.

Now, look, if the threat gets too high we'll have to do that and we do have to recognize it. Maduro has the military power in his hands, but I do think in this case that the Trump administration made the right decision. I think they're on the right side of history. I just think they have to be very, very careful going forward.

CAMEROTA: Rear Admiral John Kirby, thank you very much for your expertise with this.

KIRBY: My pleasure.

CAMEROTA: Thank you John.

BERMAN: Anthony Scaramucci said he wanted to last longer in the big brother house than he did in the White House. Well --but he didn't. So what happened? One of America's great unsolved mysteries next.

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[06:51:10] BERMAN: The president's new slogan for his border wall getting a lot of play from the comics. Here are your late night laughs.

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JAMES CORDEN, THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH JAMES CORDEN HOST: This morning in a series of tweets the president introduced what he's calling his new theme for the next two years, OK. His new theme is, get this, build a wall and crime will fall.

Genius. This replaces the theme for his first two years in office, consumed with pettiness and rage embarrassing myself on the world stage.

STEPHEN COLBERT, THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT HOST: Over the weekend the White House asked for but was denied he walked through by the House of Representatives sergeant at arms to prepare for the speech.

In other words, after Pelosi nixed the speech, they tried a time- honored tactic used by kids everywhere, mom, can I have a State of the Union? No? Dad, can I have a state of the union?

TREVOR NOAH, THE DAILY SHOW HOST: By the way, I don't know if Nancy gave trump a wedgy behind Congress one day, but she did something because she's the only person he hasn't given a nickname to. Everyone else is like crying Chuck Schumer, little Marco Rubio, Pocahontas Elizabeth Warren. Lying Ted, he's like Nancy Pelosi or as I call her, Nancy.

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BERMAN: That's exactly what he said by the way, reading from the transcripts. CAMEROTA: That's right. I mean, I do think that's notable beyond punch lines. I think that is notable. What is it? What is her super power that she has not gotten a derogatory nickname? We'll explore that.

Meanwhile, one person with a nickname, "the mooch", it appears that Anthony Scaramucci stint on celebrity big brother may have been even shorter than his time in the White House. Just days after Monday's, season premier, "the mooch" was gone from the big brother house. And he reappeared as if by magic in Davos, Switzerland for a business conference.

He's not there if he's officially out of the reality competition? In Davos, Scaramucci could not say why he left. The producers say it will be explained further in the next episode. I am on the edge of my seat.

BERMAN: Yes. I would only suggest, though, that every second we talk about Anthony Scaramucci and big brother is admitted that the terrorist win. I mean, that the sort of my general feeling on mooch and big brother.

CAMEROTA: Well, I wanted to get to the bottom of this. If he had a shorter stint than 11 days, well, then I think that he failed.

BERMAN: The world needs to know.

Well, no, I mean OK well, failed. It's all relative, it just means he'll be on T.V. more.

CAMEROTA: Fair enough.

BERMAN: Overnight, President Trump gave in to house speaker Nancy Pelosi on the State of the Union Address. He says he will not give it at the House or anywhere next Tuesday. So, why the reversal? What changed in the span of just a couple hours? Details next.

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[06:58:11] TRUMP: The State of the Union speech has been cancelled. She's afraid of the truth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now is not the time for the president to act like everything is normal when Americans are suffering.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This idea of not letting the president speak is really overplaying your hands.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right now what we're most concerned with is figuring out how to open up the government and get people paid.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have those worried about paying their mortgage, how can you be well rested when you don't know when the next time you're going to get paid. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At first he wanted to come and tell his story to the American people and now he's afraid.

TRUMP: He should give information on his father-in-law because that's the one that people want to look at.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These kinds of tactics smack of what the mob does.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This story needs to be told. The public needs to hear the whole story.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is New Day with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Good morning, welcome to your NEW DAY and a new President Trump this morning.

CAMEROTA: That's -- I think that's fair.

BERMAN: All right, breaking overnight, the president blinked in his battle with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over the State of the Union Address. He now says he will not deliver that speech until the government shutdown is over.

This is a full 180 in tone and in substance from where he had been just a few hours earlier begging the question what has changed? This is what the president wrote overnight or someone wrote for him.

"As the shutdown was going on, Nancy Pelosi asked me to give the State of the Union Address. I agreed. She then changed her mind because of the shutdown suggesting a later date. This is her prerogative. I will do the address when the shutdown is over. I am not looking for an alternative venue for the State of the Union Address because there is no venue that can compete with the history, tradition, and importance of the house chamber. I look forward to giving a great State of the Union Address in the near future."

CAMEROTA: CNN has learned the White House was caught off guard when speaker Pelosi called the president's bluff. Sources tell us the president is increasingly mystified that his tactics had not turned the tables on Democrats. So today, the Senate takes up two dully measures, it could end the shutdown though neither is expected to pass.