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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
President Trump Calls for Unity But Launches Attacks; Trump Defends Syria Withdrawal in SOTU; Senator Warren's Woes; Boston Honors Patriots with Victory Parade. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired February 06, 2019 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation.
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DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: The president's calls for unity, a speech laced with partisan notes. Highlights and reaction to the State of the Union, right now, and the moment that really caught the president off guard. Why he was applauded by all of the Democrat ladies there in white.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Dave Briggs.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Those women thanking him for their jobs, helping get them elected.
BRIGGS: I don't think he gets that.
[05:00:00] ROMANS: I'm Christine Romans. It is Wednesday, February 6th. It is 5:00 a.m. in the East.
President Trump holding firm on demands for increased border security in a combative State of the Union address that straddled the line between calls for unity and attacks on Democrats. The president with Nancy Pelosi looking over his shoulder opened with an appeal for bipartisanship.
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TRUMP: We just reject the politics of revenge, resistance and retribution, and embrace the boundless potential of cooperation, compromise and the common good.
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BRIGGS: But the call for harmony didn't carry far. He did not call it a hoax, but the president did make this allusion to the Russia probe and the investigations yet to come.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: An economic miracle is taking place in the United States. And the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics or ridiculous partisan investigations.
(APPLAUSE)
If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation. It just doesn't work that way.
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ROMANS: The president gave no sign he's interested in compromise on border security with another government shutdown or possibly another national emergency declaration. Looming next week, he dug in on what he called the very dangerous border with Mexico.
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TRUMP: No issue better illustrates the divide between America's working class and America's political class than illegal immigration. Wealthy politicians and donors push for open borders, while living their lives behind walls and gates and guards.
My administration has sent to Congress a common sense proposal to end the crisis on the southern border. It includes humanitarian assistance, more law enforcement, drug detection at our ports, closing loopholes that enable child smuggling, and plans for a new physical barrier or a wall to secure the vast areas between our ports of entry.
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BRIGGS: Notably, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shh'd Democrats with the hand who started booing when President Trump warned of new migrant caravans headed toward the U.S. border. Some policies the president mentioned, were, however, received warmly.
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TRUMP: Both parties should be able to unite for a great rebuilding of America's crumbling infrastructure.
To lower the cost of health care and prescription drugs, and to protect patients with preexisting conditions.
To eliminate the HIV epidemic in the United States within 10 years.
Many childhood cancers have not seen new therapies in decades. My budget will ask Congress for $500 million over the next 10 years to fund this critical life-saving research.
I'm also proud to be the first president to include in my budget a plan for a nationwide paid family leave so that every new parent has a chance to bond with their newborn child.
(APPLAUSE)
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ROMANS: And other subjects, namely, late-term abortion, lawmakers' reactions were very mixed.
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TRUMP: I am asking Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the late term abortion of children who can feel pain in a mother's womb.
As we work with our allies to destroy the remnants of ISIS, it is time to give our brave warriors in Syria a warm welcome home.
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BRIGGS: There were some noteworthy omissions from the State of the Union, at no point did the president mention gun violence, climate change or Supreme Court.
ROMANS: There were some memorable moments when the president touted gains for women, job gains for women in the booming economy. He seemed to be taking credit for the job gains by woman. He got an interesting reaction from the women in Congress, many dressed in white, a tribute to the suffrage movement of a century ago.
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TRUMP: No one has benefited more from the thriving economy than women who have filled 58 percent of the newly created jobs last year.
(APPLAUSE)
[05:05:28] You weren't supposed to do that.
We also have more women serving in Congress than at anytime before.
(APPLAUSE)
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ROMANS: But most of the women went to the other party, not his party. But he is right on that.
BRIGGS: That was an interesting moment, certainly the optical moment of the night.
The president also paid tribute to Judah Samet, a Holocaust survivor who merely escaped the Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh last October. He turned 81 yesterday and wound up being serenaded.
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(SINGING "HAPPY BIRTHDAY")
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP) ROMANS: Happy birthday.
Outside of the capitol, President Trump earned positive response from 6 in 10 viewers in a CNN instant poll. One caveat, of course, the viewership skewed largely Republican. It is a Republican State of the Union Address. So, that stands reason.
BRIGGS: The Democratic response to the president given by Stacey Abrams, a rising star in the party, even after losing her bid for governor of Georgia. She blasted the Trump administration for the government shutdown.
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STACEY ABRAMS (D), FORMER GEORGIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Making livelihoods of our federal workers a pawn for political gains is a disgrace. The shutdown was a stunt engineered by the president of the United States. One that defied every tenet of fairness and abandoned not just our people, but our values.
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BRIGGS: All right, Abrams said she's disappointed by the president, but does not want him to fail.
ROMANS: All right. Joining us now, Princeton University historian and professor, Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst.
Good morning. I'm so glad to have you here. It's important moment. It's so great to take kind of the longer view here.
What happened last night and where it stands for this presidency, right? This is the halfway mark of his presidency. And he's not a new sheriff in town. Nancy Pelosi right over his left shoulder. And all these women in white.
Talk to me about the optics of last night and what we saw.
JULIAN ZELIZER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, the optics capture the tension that's going to define the next year, control of the House of Representatives, Democrats are now in power. And the president understands that this is going to be a tough year ahead.
And I think a lot of speech last night was actually trying to shore up support from Republicans, not achieve bipartisan unity which he's going to need as he faces off against the speaker.
BRIGGS: Now, context, Gallup has tracked this back in 1978. The average up or down, the bump is 0.2 percent. So, these things rarely, if ever, move the needle.
But when he says that we can build new bridges, heal new wounds, build coalitions, Americans have seen this movie before. Should we be optimistic that anything is different this time around?
ZELIZER: Not even a little bit. Those parts of the speech are totally at odds with everything that he's done. He's a president who is a divider. He's a partisan. And he won't change at all.
Even yesterday at a lunch with reporters, he was attacking Senator Schumer. Just look at his twitter feed. He hasn't really diverted from his basic message.
So, it's not going to be any big change from the president. We're going to be back to where we are today a few hours before the speech.
BRIGGS: Just to your point about -- he called Chuck Schumer on this off the record meeting a nasty SOB and also ripped the intelligence of Joe Biden, in fact, said, when President Trump makes a gaffe, he's doing it in purpose. But when Joe Biden does it, that is because he's dumb, just so you know that. "New York Times" reporting, Peter Baker.
ROMANS: But it's pretty clear that the president is rankled by what we'll be a year of investigations. I mean, look at the investigations already, oversight, judiciary, homeland security, energy and commerce, transportation. I mean, that goes on and on and on. This is a president who is rankled by this, I think.
ZELIZER: Absolutely. It's funny, in 1974, Nixon actually called to an end for the Watergate investigations during his State of the Union Address, so this resonated a little bit with that moment.
Let's also remember, in the speech, didn't refrain in going really deep into the two hot button issues right now, both the immigration issue and the wall and the, quote/unquote, caravan. And then he added on to this, the debate that's unfolding over abortion.
[05:10:03] And so, that was also a key part of the speech.
ROMANS: I think, look, I have been saying this for the past couple weeks that Virginia bill, and the late-term abortion law in New York is something that has really, really fired up people in his base and Republicans and Democrats, and some Democrats, more conservative religious Democrats, I think that could be a real big issue going into 2020.
ZELIZER: I think it could be a little like in 2004 when the Bush administration focused on same-sex marriage rulings in the state as a way to mobilize the religious right and the conservative base. My guess is you're going to see that, combined with continue on immigration.
BRIGGS: Immigration clearly the central issue here, some optimism. In Congress, that have an agreement, no guidance on whether the president will sign that deal or not but he alluded to prescription drugs, infrastructure, paid family leave, things that could get bipartisanship cooperation agreement.
Will they?
ZELIZER: Well, I don't think there's a lot of trust right now, that's the problem. Not only do Democrats not trust him to follow through on any of that, but many Republicans on the Hill aren't even certain what he stands for, what he's going to do. So if that's the atmosphere you created as president, it's then hard to have any breakthroughs.
Obviously, there's a lot of support for those issues. But that's not the question. It's what does the president do on a daily basis. That's the measure of presidential leadership.
ROMANS: All right. A lot of the moments to analyze. You're going to come back and help us go through some of the others in a just moment. Julian Zelizer, thank you so much.
The president last night, President Trump claimed credit for roaring economic growth.
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TRUMP: In just over two years we have launched an unprecedented economic boom, a boom that has largely been seen before.
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ROMANS: All right. Fact-check, the president can claim some credit for acceleration of economic growth on his watch, but not all of it. And, yes, the economy grew at a rate of 4.2 percent in second last year, fueled in part by the surge in defense spending. By the third quarter of last year, growth had slowed to 3.4 percent.
The president said this about wages.
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TRUMP: Wages are rising at the fastest pace in decades. And growing for blue collar workers who I promise to fight for, they're growing faster than anyone else.
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ROMANS: Fact-check, wage growth has picked up since late 2017, especially for those rank and file workers, but not as quickly above 3.5 percent as it did in the late 1990s and mid-2000s, with better wage growth in those recoveries.
Now, some of the pace of the increase also wages have to do with states and cities. They are raising their minimum wages. Their residents voted for that. That has nothing to do with the president and nothing to do with Washington, D.C.
BRIGGS: All right. On the national security front, the president also defends the withdrawal from Syria. He's focused on ISIS losing territory, but ignoring the ideology. We're live in northern Syria, next.
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[05:17:18] TRUMP: When I took office, ISIS controlled more than 20,000 square miles in Iraq and Syria, just two years ago. Today, we have liberated virtually all of the territory from the grip of these blood-thirsty monsters.
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BRIGGS: The territory may be liberated but the ideology is alive and well, president of the United States Trump choosing not to repeat the false claim that ISIS has been defeated. A claim his own generals have contradicted.
Let's go live to northern Syria and bring in Ben Wedeman with the latest.
Ben, good morning.
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, David. It does appear that there's a bit of relief in this part of Syria where you have Kurdish and Arab fighters fighting ISIS, that President Trump did not declare victory as he said before. That there's still very much an ongoing battle against ISIS in this part of the country.
We were at the front lines yesterday, around the last enclave that ISIS controls in this part of the country, and what we saw is that they are continuing to fire out of that enclave on to the Arab and Kurdish forces. There are also 2,000 U.S. troops in this part of the country, it's part of the war against ISIS.
The worry was that if president Trump was going to come out and declare victory, that means that the U.S. will very soon pull those troops out. It does appear that there is hesitation within the U.S. military itself for a precipitous withdrawal. We heard that General Joseph Votel, the head of the Central Command, saying yesterday in Congress that there's still anywhere between 20,000 to 30,000 ISIS fighters still in the country.
And, therefore, yes, an important battle against ISIS, as a territorial entity is about to come to an end. But the war is far from over -- Christine.
ROMANS: All right. Ben Wedeman, thank you so much for that in northern Syria -- Ben Wedeman.
All right. More trouble for Elizabeth Warren over claims of Native American ancestry. Now, more Democrats getting ready to make decisions as well about 2020.
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[05:24:02] ROMANS: Another blow for Senator Elizabeth Warren. "The Washington Post" obtained a registration card for the state bar of Texas filled out in 1986. Warren listed her race as American-Indian, a previously unknown instance of Warren claiming to be Native American.
DNA testing to confirm her extremely limited Native American ancestry last year was fiercely criticized. An aide says the presidential candidate is sorry she was not more mindful about her claims early in her career.
The field of 2020 Democrats may expand, by the way, this weekend. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is ready to announce her plans Sunday at a public event Sunday at a park in downtown Minneapolis. She's also scheduled to visit Iowa in a few weeks, about a year away from Iowa caucuses.
Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio tells CNN he'll likely to decide in March whether to run.
And former Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke told Oprah Winfrey, he'll decide whether to run before the end of this month, Dave.
BRIGGS: OK. Familiar scene in Boston. The city once again holding a championship parade.
[05:25:02] It's old hat there in Boston.
Andy Scholes has this morning's "Bleacher Report".
Good morning, my friend.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Dave.
You know, this is the second victory parade for the city of Boston in the last 100 days. The Red Sox, of course, just won the World Series. Boston's sports spans arguably the most spoiled ever but they still turn out to celebrate their teams. According to Boston police, an estimated 1.5 million people lined the parade route to see Tom Brady and the rest of the team celebrate.
Patriots' owner Robert Kraft, he was there rocking a diamond-encrusted championship medallion that rammer meek mill gave to him. And, Gronk, of course, was the star of the parade. He was dancing around the entire time, grabbing beers from fans. Chugging them.
Lineman David Andrews also doing his Adam Levine impression going shirtless for part of the ride.
And Boston's sign kid, well, he was back. Jason McKeon updating his poster. It's now 12 victory parades in his 17 years of live. And he put small letters on that post, #signkid's reign of terror continues.
You know, Dave, most of us sports fans would be happy with this, 12 in 17 years, come on.
BRIGGS: I have two Boston-born children. They are as spoiled as you can get when it comes to sports.
But I thought Gronk was chugging a $500 bottle of cabernet in addition to beers, Andy, He's really evolved, more civilized Gronk.
SCHOLES: Might be retired Gronk, soon, right?
BRIGGS: Might be.
Thank you, Andy.
Romans, over to you.
ROMANS: A real renaissance man.
All right. Thanks so much, Dave.
Calls for unity and barrage of attacks in the same speech, the president holds firm on border security and slams investigations by Democrats. Reaction to the State of the Union, next.
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