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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

The New England Patriots Win Super Bowl LIII For Sixth Title; Advertisers Score At The Super Bowl; Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam Under Pressure To Resign After Racist Yearbook Photo Emerges; President Trump Won't Take Another Government Shutdown Off The Table. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired February 04, 2019 - 05:30   ET

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


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[05:30:17] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rob, how does it -- how does it feel as it goes by?

ROB GRONKOWSKI, TIGHT END, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: Unreal, man. This is unreal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYLEE HARTUNG, CNN ANCHOR: Rob Gronkowski, Tom Brady, and the Patriots dynasty rolls on. New England grabs its sixth title in the lowest-scoring Super Bowl ever.

DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam under pressure. Calls for his resignation intensify over that racist yearbook photo.

HARTUNG: And, President Trump refusing to rule out another government shutdown as he gets set to deliver his State of the Union address tomorrow.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Kaylee Hartung, here in Atlanta.

BRIGGS: Good to have you here.

We're outside Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, site of Super Bowl LIII, 5:30 a.m. Eastern time, as the Patriots are now Super Bowl champions once again, the sixth Super Bowl ring for Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.

And what a great combination they are. We'll never know -- if you separate them would either be great on their own? We will never need to know. But this duo is not going away anytime soon.

HARTUNG: No. I don't think we'll see anything like this in our lifetimes.

BRIGGS: I guarantee you that.

It wasn't a perfect start, though, for Tom Brady. Even though he is the GOAT, he didn't start that way.

His first pass of the game is picked off. It floated a little bit and it felt like the air went out of the Patriots team earlier in this night. But, you know, they're New England. They bounced back.

HARTUNG: It wasn't until the second quarter, though, that anybody got points on the board. Stephen Gostkowski moving that 42-yard field goal to give New England the 3-0 lead.

BRIGGS: He had missed earlier. Some felt that might be consequential. It was not, fortunately, for Stephen, punting.

Sadly, the theme of the game for much of the way and for the Rams -- that's where they got in the record books. A 65-yarder from Johnny Hekker, the longest punt in Super Bowl history. They punted on their first seven possessions.

HARTUNG: Fourteen punts in the game. That's a stat you're not looking for in a Super Bowl.

And that's not what the Rams fans wanted to see in that drive. It could have been the play of the game.

BRIGGS: Jason McCourty -- twin brother there -- just comes all the way across the field to break up the play. Goff's got to throw that ball when Cooks raises his hand, and even when he did throw it, it sailed. And that play could have changed the entire game.

HARTUNG: And midway through the fourth quarter, this 29-yard hookup from Brady to none other than Rob Gronkowski. It put the Patriots on the Rams' 2-yard line -- the first action we saw in the red zone all game long.

BRIGGS: Yes, there was double coverage there. The safety over the top and still, the completion.

Sony Michel, the former Georgia product who lost the National Championship game on this very field a year ago, the only touchdown and his sixth of the post-season.

HARTUNG: And right here, the Rams had a chance to tie it. Another missed connection between Goff and Brandin Cooks.

BRIGGS: That one was perfectly thrown, though. Goff threw a beauty. Great defensive play but I think Cooks could've and should've come up with it. And it ended up with this throw, not a good one for Goff and one he'd love to have back.

HARTUNG: The dagger --

BRIGGS: Stephon Gilmore.

HARTUNG: -- to the Rams, right there.

Gilmore sealing the win for the Patriots, but the game ends with the ball in Tom Brady's hands. TB-12 doing what he does. BRIGGS: The GOAT taking a knee. The lowest-scoring Super Bowl in history. And, Bill Belichick, at 66 years old, claims yet another Super Bowl ring.

HARTUNG: Nobody has ever accomplished what Tom Brady did last night. Six Super Bowl wins, all with Bill Belichick, and to hear them tell it --

BRIGGS: Yes.

HARTUNG: -- no matter how much people like to hate on the Patriots it never gets old.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HINES WARD, CNN SPORTS CONTRIBUTOR: What does it mean to win six, man?

TOM BRADY, QUARTERBACK, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: You know --

WARD: You're the greatest of all time.

BRADY: I don't believe that.

WARD: Huh?

BRADY: I don't believe that. I don't think about that. I just think I play with so many great guys on so many great teams and I still get to do it. I'm 41 years old and play a sport I grew up loving, and I'm proud of my team tonight.

BILL BELICHICK, HEAD COACH, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: It's all about the players. These guys work so hard all year. They just competed every week and they competed today like champions. They played like champions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARTUNG: The game was dominated by defense, but --

BRIGGS: Yes.

HARTUNG: -- it was Julian Edelman who took home MVP honors. The wide receiver had 10 catches for 141 yards and was the consistent go-to weapon for Brady when they could get the offense going.

Edelman now has six career post-season games with 100 yards or more and he gives all the credit for his success to his future Hall of Fame quarterback.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JULIAN EDELMAN, WIDE RECEIVER, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS, SUPER BOWL MVP: Just through his actions and how he is as a football player, as a professional, as a father, as a family man -- you know, it's pretty -- it's an honor to get to -- to get to play with a guy like that. I mean, he's got six Super Bowls now, so that's pretty insane.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[05:35:11] HARTUNG: Edelman now second all-time in postseason receiving yards. And he told reporters after the game, the MVP award should have gone to the entire New England defense.

BRIGGS: That would have been appropriate.

HARTUNG: I don't disagree.

BRIGGS: That would have been nice.

All right. Twitter raving at the Empress of Soul. Gladys Knight's rendition of the National Anthem that kicked this game off. The 74- year-old Atlanta native delivering a perfect Star-Spangled Banner and it was perfectly timed at the end with an Air Force flyover.

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GLADYS KNIGHT, SINGER-SONGWRITER: Singing the National Anthem with a U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds flyover.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: What a sight, what a sound. One of the great performances of Super Bowl history. Maybe not quite Whitney Houston, but certainly close. And certainly, better than the halftime performance.

HARTUNG: Yes, nothing by praise for Gladys Knight and the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds who you saw there.

But, that takes us to Maroon 5.

Adam Levine, himself, taking to Instagram to thank fans after the band's halftime show. And he thanked his critics for, quote, "always pushing us to do better." It's because the reviews of the performance were not all that kind. Critics called it predictable, trite, and artless.

He also had Georgia native Big Boi of Outkast fame. He made a fleeting appearance to perform his hit song, "The Way You Move."

And the show also featured rapper Travis Scott.

BRIGGS: And, of course, SpongeBob because the SpongeBob creator died earlier this year. More than a million petitioners signed a petition to get "Sweet Victory" in the halftime show and they delivered.

Half of the fun of the Super Bowl, of course, has nothing to do with football, it's all that other stuff. The super-glossy commercials and all that stuff that cost $5.2 million for 30 seconds.

Helping us break it down, CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy, there in New York. Good to see you, my friend.

Let's start with that halftime show. What did you think of it? Nothing to knock there. Was it exactly what the NFL wanted?

OLIVER DARCY, CNN SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER: I think it might have been. I mean, like you said, there was nothing to knock. There's no real headlines coming out of it other than it may have been boring.

I think largely, though, if you were hoping that the halftime show and maybe some of these advertisements would distract from the game, which was a bit of a snoozefest, you were out of luck, right?

The halftime show was nothing remarkable and I know we're talking about some of these ads, but these ads did not really stand out to me.

HARTUNG: But stand out -- I might ask if "The Washington Post" ad did?

DARCY: Right.

HARTUNG: How powerful did you feel it was?

DARCY: That was one of the -- that was maybe the only ad actually of the night that I think we'll be talking about or remember a few years from now. I thought it was a very, very well-done ad. It was narrated by Tom Hanks.

It hit some of the keys that you would expect. It was powerful and moving when you saw at the end of the ad some of the journalists who have been slain or missing in action as they're reporting abroad. And I thought -- I thought that was moving and powerful. But that was really the only -- that was the exception of the night.

I think, largely, we saw ads that didn't really hit home with viewers. There was a weird theme on robots. The whole thing was -- the whole thing was strange.

BRIGGS: I thought the "Game of Thrones" collaboration with Bud Light was certainly interesting, and I thought it was brilliantly designed. I thought it was a bit of a cliffhanger, if we can show folks some of that.

Did it surprise you? Did you know this was coming, and how did it all come together?

DARCY: That one -- that one surprised me. I'm not sure it if was a great ad but it certainly was surprising. And I think the backstory behind it is very interesting.

HBO collaborating, obviously, with Bud Light to make this ad and there was a lot of behind-the-scenes play that'd kill of Bud Knight, which is one of Bud Light's biggest fictional self (INAUDIBLE). And, HBO convinced Bud Light to kill him off.

There was talk about how graphic the killing would be and Bud Light pushed back, saying they didn't want some of the skull-crushing noises. That the killing was alluding to -- you know, Thrones. So that whole thing was very interesting.

HARTUNG: And, HBO here. We also saw Netflix and Amazon.

BRIGGS: Yes.

HARTUNG: Did it --

BRIGGS: It was cool.

HARTUNG: Did it surprise you to see those streaming services, who I can only imagine took a hit in their own viewership last night, really get in the commercial game for the Super Bowl?

DARCY: Yes, we know that Netflix said that their viewing was down last night.

And it was surprising. I think, you know, 10 years ago we would never have expected to see streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime advertising during the Super Bowl, and I think last night that was extremely striking. It showed how much we've changed over the years and entertainment's now really becoming a streaming -- a streaming war if you will.

[05:40:00] BRIGGS: I can't help but wonder if we will see a bit of a ratings drop just because of how much people are watching Netflix, given the lack of climatic feelings in the game. I just can't help but wonder.

HARTUNG: A lack of offense.

BRIGGS: Do you feel, though -- Oliver, I want to ask you quickly about all these ads being leaked early. Is it working for advertisers or is it something they might get away from, even though the NFL 100 ad -- we thought was the best of the night and LeBron James agreed? It was spectacular, hilarious, 26 players, but people knew it was coming.

Is that working out?

DARCY: That's a good question.

I think that these ads -- these brands, when they're advertising at the Super Bowl they're trying to capitalize as much as they can outside the actual advertisement that airs during the Super Bowl. And what I mean by that is they want their ad to go viral, they want people to be talking about it online. Half of the marketing behind the ad is geared toward that.

So I think they do -- they do upload them a lot of times online earlier and sometimes that does work. Sometimes those ads do go viral and people start talking about them, they get some earned media, and it works.

But in this case, I just think that the ads missed the mark so much that no one was really sharing a lot of them. It just wasn't -- it wasn't something that hit home with viewers.

And, you know -- like, frankly, we're talking about whether Netflix and some of these other services would rip into the ratings for the Super Bowl. I think it's possible.

I mean, frankly, if I hadn't been coming on air to talk about the Super Bowl this morning with you guys, I may have changed the channel as well. The ads, like I said, weren't hitting home, the game was a bit of a snoozefest, and the halftime show was underwhelming, to say the least.

HARTUNG: Oliver Darcy and Coy Wire, different opinions on the viewing quality of that football game.

But, Oliver, we appreciate your time so much. Thanks for keeping T.V. on and being able to join us this morning.

DARCY: Thank you.

BRIGGS: He's not a fan of defensive football games, clearly.

All right. Coming up, pressure mounts on Virginia's Democratic governor to resign over that racist photo in his med school yearbook. We'll tell you what Ralph Northam plans to do, coming up.

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[05:46:07] HARTUNG: Well, while you were sleeping, embattled Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam met with people of color who work in his administration to talk about the racist photo in his med school yearbook. He, at first, apologized for the photo, then claimed he was not in it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RALPH NORTHAM (D), VIRGINIA: I am deeply sorry. I cannot change the decision I made nor can I undo the harm my behavior caused then and today.

I believe, then and now, that I am not either of the people in that photo.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARTUNG: Well, a Democrat briefed on the session tells us not a single person at last night's meeting stood up and said Northam should stay and fight.

Northam's cabinet set to have its regularly scheduled meeting at 9:00 a.m. today, just a few hours from now. Our source says the governor has given no firm indication what he might do next.

For more on the governor's thinking, we send it to Jessica Dean in Richmond.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JESSICA DEAN, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kaylee and Dave. Reporting here from Richmond we are getting new information from a source with direct knowledge of the governor's thinking about this whole scenario, and the bottom line is this. As of right now, that source is saying the governor's thinking has not changed. That the governor has no plans to resign.

That the weekend's press conference was really put there for him to be able to explain that photo, to explain himself. To offer his thoughts to the public and also give himself some time to think about what the next moves might be.

That source is saying that he's evaluating this minute-by-minute, day- by-day, but that the only reason he would resign right now is if he believed he was no longer able to govern effectively. And as of right now, that's not the case.

Now, there have been calls all across the spectrum -- Democrats, both locally here in Virginia and nationally -- calling for the governor's resignation. A lot of pressure on him to do that right now.

The Virginia Legislature is scheduled to go into session later today -- on Monday. But right now, no public discussion, no official discussion of any sort of removal from office. We'll see what the days bring -- Kaylee and Dave.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRIGGS: OK, Jessica Dean. Thank you.

Let's bring in, now, Princeton professor and historian Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst. Good to see you, my friend.

Let's talk more about Ralph Northam. To Jessica's point, Democrats have lined up, both locally and across the country, saying he has to step down.

You wrote a piece on cnn.com and you talk about the time at which this photo was posted. It was 1984. MLK Day just became a holiday in '83. And, Julian, what was happening in Virginia at that time?

JULIAN ZELIZER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, HISTORIAN AND PROFESSOR, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, AUTHOR, "FAULT LINES: A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES SINCE 1974": Virginia is actually resisting the Martin Luther King birthday and they'll combine it with the Lee Jackson birthday, which is to celebrate the Confederacy. So this is an era where there's a lot of a backlash in Virginia and other parts of the country toward the civil rights movement.

It's also the same year Ronald Reagan denounces the KKK publicly when they endorse him.

So, putting this picture in your yearbook from medical school is quite a statement. We don't know why he did it, but to see it there isn't simply oh, that was just what people did back then.

HARTUNG: You know, these two real dueling news cycles Julian, right now, for Democrats. The northern controversy on one end. On the other side, this real diverse array of 2020 candidates.

You know, the Democratic senator from Ohio, Sherrod Brown, could be one of them. Listen to this sound bite from him on "MEET THE PRESS" yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. SHERROD BROWN (D), OHIO: I think this country hasn't dealt well with the issues of race. I mean, we have a president who's a racist. I know that he built his political career knowing what he was doing on questioning the legitimacy and the birthplace of the President of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARTUNG: So there you have Sherrod Brown calling the president a racist.

What's your perspective on the role that race will really play in the 2020 campaign?

[05:50:02] ZELIZER: It's going to be a big issue. For many Democrats, this has been a central issue in the Trump administration, both with the president and many of his supporters. Race defined as relations between black and white Americans but also, the issue of immigration.

So that's why you're seeing a lot of pressure from national Democrats to deal with this issue and really, a frustration to see this emerge with a Democrat in the middle of the opening bell, really, of the 2020 campaign.

HARTUNG: As --

BRIGGS: Yes. The last thing they want -- sorry, Kaylee --

HARTUNG: No.

BRIGGS: -- is a drag on the party in 2020.

And they want to be able to separate themselves and say Republicans, you have hung onto Steve King for all these years. He remains a part of the party even though he's had some responsibility stripped away.

But I want to talk about tomorrow night's State of the Union where the president will clearly make his final pitch for the wall.

Can he get any border wall funding from Nancy Pelosi or are we headed towards another government shutdown? He addressed that with CBS on Sunday.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARGARET BRENNAN, CBS MODERATOR, "FACE THE NATION": Would you shut down the government again?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, we're going to have to see what happens on February 15th, and I think --

BRENNAN: You're not taking it off the table?

TRUMP: Well, I don't -- I don't take anything off the table. I don't like to take things off the table.

It's that alternative, it's national emergency, it's other things. And, you know, there have been plenty of national emergencies called.

You need a wall, and anybody that says you don't, they're just playing games.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: There have been no national emergencies called in which a president failed to reach a legislative goal and that's why he called the emergency.

Is that where we're headed? Can President Trump make the case, Julian, for his wall at the State of the Union?

ZELIZER: No, he can't make the case. He's not going to persuade Democrats to support this nor is he going to convince many judicial officials or members of Congress that there is a national emergency.

So, if he deals with this in the State of the Union, it's simply going to be a talking point -- an effort to rally the base, once again, behind a wall that he's not been able to get.

This will not be a speech that unites America. Even if he tries to do that he will be right back to divided government, divided politics within a day.

BRIGGS: OK. So you -- that's what you feel about the State of the Union.

What about the optics? Nancy Pelosi sitting right behind the president.

What's the one surprise you think we could have tomorrow night?

ZELIZER: A smile. I think, most likely, there will be some stern looks coming from Speaker Pelosi. She's not happy hearing that he's still threatening a shutdown.

But she is pretty firm. She is not going to concede. She has the votes.

So I assume the image will be one fraught with tension, which will tell the story of the next year in this battle between House Democrats and the President of the United States.

BRIGGS: Don't look for any legislation happening at all between those two. It should be an interesting night.

Julian Zelizer, thank you for being with us this early morning -- appreciate it.

ZELIZER: Thank you.

HARTUNG: CNN's coverage of the State of the Union starts tomorrow at 8:00 p.m.

A look at one of our favorite ads from last night's Super Bowl is next. Stay right here with us on EARLY START.

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[05:57:47] BRIGGS: All right. We're back outside Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta talking about one more Super Bowl Ad. Stella Artois brought back two beloved characters from the past for its Super Bowl commercial.

In the ad, "SEX AND THE CITY's" Carrie Bradshaw and The Dude from "THE BIG LEBOWSKI" reject the drinks they've known for a long time in favor of Stella.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cosmopolitan?

SARAH JESSICA PARKER, ACTRESS, CARRIE BRADSHAW, "SEX AND THE CITY": Nope, tonight I'll have a Stella Artois.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Here's Stella.

PARKER: Thank you.

JEFF BRIDGES, ACTOR, THE DUDE, "THE BIG LEBOWSKI": Wild night, huh?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: White Russian?

BRIDGES: No, Gary. Give me Stella Artois.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: You noticed the most interesting man in the world also in that ad.

Adweek said the HBO "Game of Thrones" Bud Light commercial was their number one of the night. Yours was?

HARTUNG: NFL 100, but I have to give honorable mention status to Verizon. I thought you saw real emotion from Chargers' coach Anthony Lynn seeing first responders who helped save his life after a tragic car accident.

BRIGGS: All right, that will do it for us. I'm Dave Briggs, live outside Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Thank you, Kaylee Hartung, for filing for Christine Romans.

We leave you with the front pages from the Boston papers as the Patriots are Super Bowl champs for a sixth time. John Berman celebrating as "NEW DAY" takes over from here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We have now set the table beautifully and everybody knows what's going on because of the shutdown.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's getting increasing pushback. The president has to see Tuesday as a moment to reunify Republicans behind him.

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY (R), ALABAMA: The president is dead set on keeping his campaign promise. I support border security -- whatever it takes.

SUPER BOWL LIII ANNOUNCER: To the end zone and it's intercepted at the 3-yard line.

BRADY: I'm so happy for my teammates. This is a dream come true for all of us.

BELICHICK: It's all about the players. These guys worked so hard all year. They played like champions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Monday, February fourth, 6:00 here in New York.

Alisyn is off. Poppy Harlow joins me. Long time, no coanchor.

END