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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Countries Are Halting Flights Of Their Boeing Plane Following Another Crash; Pelosi Believes Trump Is Unfit For Office But Does Not Want To Impeach Him; The State Department Will Pull All Personnel Out Of Venezuela; Facebook Reversing Course And Restoring Ads Place By Elizabeth Warrens Presidential Campaign. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired March 12, 2019 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
DAVE BRIGGS, CO-HOST, CNN NEWS: The Boeing 737 MAX 8 can (ph) keep flying with more airlines, countries are halting flights following another crash.
JESSICA DEAN, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, CNN NEWS: Breaking overnight, the State Department will pull all personnel out of Venezuela. The options are narrowing for what comes next.
BRIGGS: Speaker Pelosi believes the president is unfit for office but does not want him impeached yet. Some Democrats disagree.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
TUCKER CARLSON, HOST, FOX NEWS: Iraq is a crappy placed filled with a bunch of, you know, semi-literate primitive monkeys.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
DEAN: And more disgusting audio of Tucker Carlson resurfaces, will Fox News stand behind him? Welcome back to "Early Start", I'm Jessica Dean.
BRIGGS: Wow, interesting audio, Tucker. I'm Dave Briggs. It is 30 minutes past the hour. People around the world fear for their safety in the fall down from that plane crash over the weekend. That's where we start.
The Boeing 737 MAX 8 can stay in the air despite growing calls to keep it on the ground. The Federal Aviation Administration declining to ground the Boeing model following two recent crashes.
Investigators have not determined whether the same problem cause Sundays crash of an Ethiopian airline's plane and a Lion Air jet of the same type last October.
DEAN: Boeing confirmed last night it will deploy a software update for the MAX 8 that's been in the works since the Lion Air crash. That announcement came a few hours after the FAA said it's mandating design changes to the aircraft's flight control systems. After the Lion Air crash last year, Boeing CEO stood by the 737 MAX 8.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DENNIS MULLENBURG, CEO, BOEING: Here (ph) very important is that the 737 MAX is safe. We're very confident in that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Overnight several airlines and entire countries temporarily suspended operation of the 737 MAX 8. Singapore, Aeromexico, Aerolineas Argentinas joining Indonesia and all of China.
U.S. based carriers sticking with the Boeing model. American Airlines flies 24, Southwest 34, and they will continue to do so. Neither is changing cancellation flight change or refund policies.
DEAN: Expert's opinions on whether to fly the 737 MAX 8 are mixed, former NTSB Chief Jim Hall says Boeing should do, quote, "the responsible thing and ground the plane until a cause is determined and any problems are addressed".
CNN's Farai Sevenzo is live in Nairobi, Kenya at the airport where that doomed flight was supposed to land.
FARAI SEVENZO, INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, CNN: Absolutely, Jessica, it was supposed to land here, and of course there's so many concerns about the Boeing 737. Well now how do Americans feel about it? What have they heard? What have they read? Here are some views?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STANLEY WILLIS: People were nervous, reading - a lot of reading on the paper and also on the internet. I don't think we have the option to change our mind.
JULIE BROUE, PASSENGER: I heard about the crash in Ethiopia, but I had no clue that there was another crash within four months or so. I would prefer that they take a caution approach.
MORTY PLOTKIN, PASSENGER: But I read in the newspaper yesterday, so we're fully aware and we have flown on that plane prior and never had a problem. When your time is up, your time is up, there's nothing you can do about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
And this is it - this is it, Jessica, because now we're starting to hear about who was affected by this tragic events of flight 202. I had to (inaudible) I mean 35 nations were affected, and we're hearing now about the first Americans identified.
There's brothers Mel and Bennet Riffel and also a second year medical student out of East Tennessee State University of Quillen College of Medicine. And then there was another incredible story of a young Greek man, Antonis Mavropoulos, who actually because of his punctuality had missed the flight and he says in his message on Facebook that this was his lucky day, my lucky day he calls it.
He says when he arrived, boarding was closed, and he watched the last passengers go into the tunnel and he was screaming for them to put him on but of course they wouldn't do that. And of course for that reason he's still of this earth, Jessica.
DEAN: Wow, amazing. All right, Farai Sevenzo for us, thanks so much.
BRIGGS: Breaking overnight, the State Department pulling all remaining diplomatic personnel out of the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the decision, quote, "reflects the deterioration - deteriorating situation in Venezuela" and says the presence of U.S. diplomatic staff at the embassy has become a constraint on U.S. policy.
In January, the State Department ordered all non-emergency employees to leave.
DEAN: Venezuela's National Assembly has now official approved a state of emergency at the request of self declared interim president Juan Guaido. Much of the country has been without power since last week.
The state of emergency allows the assembly to seek international cooperation or foreign intervention. Guaido tells CNN's Patrick Oppmann this could include U.S. military intervention.
The White House says all options are on the table.
BRIGGS: Nancy Pelosi in no hurry to impeach President Trump. The House speaker believes he is unfit for office, but in an interview with the Washington Post Magazine, Pelosi says, quote, "impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there's something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don't think we should go down that path because it divides the country and he's just not worth it."
[04:35:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), CA: They wanted me to impeach President Bush for the Iraq War, I didn't believe in it then, I don't believe in it now. It divides the country. Unless there's some conclusive evidence that takes us to that place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
But a number of Pelosi's Democratic colleagues don't see it that way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JOHN YARMUTH (D), KY: Impeachment means nothing if you don't use the - use the power and begin the process. So to me it's not a question of whether, it's a question of when.
REP. BRAD SHERMAN (D), CA: You don't impeach Trump for him, you impeach Trump for the Constitution. (END VIDEO CLIP)
DEAN: So Pelosi clearly faces a challenge getting everyone in her party on the same page, but House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has her back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CA: Well I'm going to wait to see what Bob Mueller produces, but I think the speaker is absolutely right that if the evidence isn't sufficient to win bipartisan support for this, putting the country through a failed impeachment is not a good idea.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
The House Judiciary Committee has launched a sweeping investigation sending letters to 81 people and entities with ties to the president, including the White House. The Justice Department senior campaign officials, Trump Organization officials and the president's sons.
They're looking for evidence of possible corruption, obstruction of justice and abuses of power.
BRIGGS: The New York State Attorney General's Office issuing subpoenas to Deutsche Bank and Investors Bank. According to the New York Times, they're looking for records relating to the financing of four major Trump Organization projects, including a failed attempt to buy the NFL's Buffalo Bills in 2014.
Deutsche Bank is one of the few lenders willing to do business with Donald Trump in recent years, the subpoenas were prompted by Michael Cohen's testimony last month.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did the president ever provide inflated assets to a bank in order to help him obtain a loan?
MICHAEL COHEN, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: These documents and others were provided to Deutsche Bank.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Deutsche Bank and Investors Bank are refusing to comment, the Trump Organization did not respond to CNN's request for a comment.
DEAN: The White House refusing to contradict the president's claim Friday that Democrats are anti-Semitic.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Democrats have become an anti-Israel party, they've become an anti-Jewish party.
(END VIDEO CLIP) Speaking at her first formal briefing in more than a month, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders put the burden on Democrats, not the president, to justify their view.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does the president really believe Democrats hate Jews?
SARAH SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: Look, the president's been an unwavering and committed ally to Israel and the Jewish people.
And frankly, the remarks that have been made by a number of Democrats and failed to be called out by Democrat leadership is frankly abhorrent and it's sad and it's something that should be called by name, it shouldn't be put in a watered down resolution to -
(END VIDEO CLIP)
The Democrats' views on Jews and Israel in the spotlight since Congresswoman Ilhan Omar suggested Jewish money is behind support in Congress for Israel.
BRIGGS: Facebook is reversing course and restoring ads placed by Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign. The ads called for the break up of Facebook, Amazon and Google, claiming the three tech giants have, quote, bulldozed competition, used our private information for profit, and tilted the playing field in their favor".
Facebook's spokesperson says the ads were originally removed because of a policy against using the company's logo. Senator Warren responded with a tweet Monday night saying thanks for restoring my posts, but I want a social media marketplace that isn't dominated by a single censor.
DEAN: Stacey Abrams is thinking about entering the race for president. The former Georgia House minority leader rose to national prominence last year in her failed bid to become the nation's first black female governor.
After attending the South by Southwest Conference in Texas, she tweeted "20 years ago I never thought I'd be ready to run for POTUS before 2028, but life comes at you fast. Now 2020 is definitely on the table."
BRIGGS: Two other potential candidates keeping their options open, Joe Biden will address two labor organizations in Washington today, and a former Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke could be heading to Iowa as early as this weekend. One Democrat already in the race getting a boost from his appearance at a CNN Town Hall, South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg raising $600,000 in donations in 24 hours after the broadcast.
Mean time, the Democratic Party announcing it has chosen Milwaukee for the site of its 2020 convention in July of 2020. It's a nod to Wisconsin, the state where Hillary Clinton failed to campaign in 2016.
[04:40:00]
DEAN: For the second time in two days, clips surface of "Fox News" host Tucker Carlson making offensive remarks. "Media Matters for America" published clips of the "Fox News" host using racist and homophobic language on a radio program between 2006 and 2011.
(BEGIN AUDIO)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A place filled with a bunch of semi literate...
TUCKER CARLSON, "FOX NEWS" HOST: Yes, keep it...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just have zero sympathy for them or their culture, a culture will people don't use toilet paper or forks.
CARLSON: Obama could kick your ass playing basketball.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Of course he would. Basketball, come on.
CARLSON: He's black, saying, he's a real brother. Do you think - do you think he...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know how black he is.
(END AUDIO)
BRIGGS: Carlson has not yet commented on the latest round of clips, but they were released a day after audio surfaced of him making misogynist comments and expressing disturbing views on child rape, rape shield laws and underage marriage. Afterward he said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
CARLSON: The great American outrage machine is a remarkable thing. It is a bewildering moment especially when the quotes in question are more than a decade old. There is really not that much you can do to respond. It is pointless to try to explain how the words were spoken in jest or taken out of context or in any case bears no resemblance to what you actually think.
(END VIDEO)
BRIGGS: Of course there is no context to make those comments sound better. "Fox News" has not commented publicly on the Carlson controversy, but the host himself says "Fox News" remains behind him.
President Trump's 2020 budget cuts spinning nearly across the board, but not projected to balance the budget for 15 years even with ambitious economic growth forecasts. High on the president's agenda, $8.6 billion for that southern border wall.
The budget has an additional $3.6 billion in military construction funds to pay back the money the president redirected using his executive authority. It's a plan lawmakers will likely ignore as the nation's debt reaches record highs. The budget also includes an optimistic forecast of American's economy. The White House forecasts the economy will grow at an average of 3 percent each year over the next decade including 3.2 percent in 2019.
But the figures contradict projections released by several government agencies and economists. The international monetary fund anticipates growth to decline to 2.5 percent this year and soften to 1.8 in 2020 as the sugar high of the republican-backed tax cuts fade. Economists are concerned that slower growth in Europe and China could drag down the U.S. economy.
DEAN: The U.S. Warns a critical ally could lose access to U.S. intelligence if it partners with a Chinese tech giant accused of stealing trade secrets.
[04:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DEAN: The Trump administration is warning Germany against doing business with the Chinese tech giant Huawei. Administration officials claim Huawei stole trade secrets and violated Iran sanctions, and now the U.S. is threatening to limit intelligence sharing with Germany and other countries that use Huawei. CNN's Sherisse Pham who visited Huawei headquarters last week is live in Hong Kong with more.
SHERISSE PHAM, CNN REPORTER: Jessica, this is really the United States ramping things up and in its campaign against Huawei. The Trump administration has been pressuring allies to limit or restrict or ban Huawei from participating in build out of their 5G network, saying that using Huawei poses a national security risk. And as far as we can tell, this letter to the German government is the first time that the U.S. has issued such an explicit warning to a U.S. ally.
Now of course, this is all happening against a broader backdrop of a battle between China and the United States over who controls the technologies of the future and 5G is one of those technologies. 5G is ultra fast, wireless network connections, and it will handle a lot of sensitive data. It will handle the data from smart speakers and mobile phone and connected cars.
So U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo just last week in Iowa saying look countries who are considering using Huawei need to consider the risks carefully. He didn't name the countries directly, but certainly, this is a broader warning to allies to the United States like Germany and the U.K. and Canada who are all considering using Huawei in the build out of their 5G networks, Jessica.
DEAN: Alright Sherisse, thank you so much.
BRIGGS: 5G is the future. Not -- I mean that is such an important story that not enough people know about.
DEAN: And we're all so interconnected now, you know. She's right it's in your homes, in your cars, yeah -- BRIGGS: It is a huge story, and will be everywhere. Ahead attention
Amazon users, you might be able to buy your favorite products for less on other websites. CNN Business has those details next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:50:00]
BRIGGS: President Trump fresh off losing an hour of executive time tweeted his support Monday for making daylight savings time permanent, a common justification for Americans to spring forward is we use less energy.
But a 2008 Department of Energy study found annual energy use is reduced by only about 3/100 of one percent, if that. Daylight savings time has been observed in the U.S. for more than a century.
The amount of time we fall back to standard time has been shrinking. Right now, most states are in daylight savings time for eight months of the year.
DEAN: $77 million worth of cocaine seized in a drug bust at the port of Newark, New Jersey. That's 3,200 pounds and it's the largest cocaine seizure at the Newark port in 25 years and the second largest ever that cocaine was found in a shipping container that entered the U.S. from Buena Ventura, Columbia last month.
Authorities are not sure whether the drugs were supposed to stay in the U.S. or continue onto Europe.
BRIGGS: A global pandemic of fake drugs is killing children worldwide. According to a new study, hundreds of thousands of children are dying every year from falsified and substandard medications that are used to treat diseases like malaria and pneumonia.
A big finding in the study from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the drug maker Pfizer found 95 of its products falsified in 113 countries last year. That's costing low and middle income nations up to $200 billion.
The most common fake drugs are often peddled on the internet and sometimes linked to organized crime and terrorist groups.
[04:55:00]
DEAN: 2019 is on track to be the worst year for measles in the U.S. in nearly three decades. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed 228 individual cases of measles in 12 states since January 1; that is 22 more than reported last week. New Hampshire now joins the list of affected states. The disease had been eliminated in the U.S. 19 years ago but is endemic in many other countries which is what triggered the current outbreaks.
BRIGGS: Smoking during pregnancy, even just one cigarette a day, doubles the risk of sudden death for a baby. That traumatic finding from a new study published in the "Journal Pediatrics" analyzed data on 20 million births. The study found by the time you smoke a pack a day, your baby's risk of unexpected death was nearly three times that of nonsmoker's babies. Women who reduced or quit smoking by the third try semester cut the risk to their babies between 12 percent and 23 percent.
DEAN: This story could have been funny, now just downright bizarre. Remember this from last week?
(BEGIN VIDEO)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And you really have. I mean you've really put a big investment in our country. We appreciate it very much, Tim Apple.
(END VIDEO)
DEAN: A slip of the tongue, right? Well, President Trump now trying to explain why it happened and now late night is weighing in.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This should have been just a fun slip of the tongue. We laugh, we move on, but because Donald compulsive liar can't let anything go, this morning he tweeted this. "I referred to Tim and Apple as Tim Apple as an easy way to save time and words." Really, Donald? Really? That's what you were doing? Well, allow me to save time and words. Get the beep out here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That is how serious Trump is about saving words. He just used 55 of them to explain why he didn't say Cook.
(END VIDEO)
BRIGGS: All right, 4:57 and a check on CNN Business This Morning. Global markets positive this morning. Asian markets closed higher; European markets opening higher. On Wall Street, futures are mostly higher; all three major averages snapped five-day losing streaks.
The Dow climbed 201 points Monday, recovering from an early slide of as much as 242 points. The S&P 500 advanced 1.5 percent and NASDAQ climbed 2 percent, its best day since January 30. The rally represented a rebound from the 2 percent slide for the Dow and S&P 500 last week; the worst of 2019.
Tesla raising prices after backtracking on store closures. The electric carmaker said prices for most models would go up by about 3 percent after it decided to keep more stores open. Less than two weeks ago, Tesla announced that it would shut down most of its stores to help reduce the price of its best selling Model 3 to as low as $35,000. Tesla said it will now close only about half as many stores as previously planned. The 3 percent increase will apply to more expensive editions of the Model 3 as well as the Model S sedan and the Model X crossover. The higher prices will take effect on March 18.
And good news for shoppers, sellers on Amazon just got a little more freedom. Amazon will no longer prohibit its third party sellers from listing their products on other sites for less than they do on Amazon. The change comes amid concern that price parity could be in violation of U.S. antitrust law. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut previously asked the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate antitrust violations and how that could affect the prices that consumers pay for goods. Amazon would not comment any further about the policy change which went into effect yesterday.
DEAN: "Early Start" continues right now.
BRIGGS: The Boeing 737 Max 8 can keep flying, but more airlines and countries are halting the flights following yet another deadly crash.
DEAN: Breaking overnight, the State Department will pull all personnel out of Venezuela. The options are narrowing as for what comes next.
BRIGGS: The House Speaker believes the president is unfit for office, but doesn't want him impeached. Some democrats disagree.
(BEGIN AUDIO)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Iraq is a crappy place filled with a bunch of, you know...
CARLSON: Yes...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... you know semiliterate (inaudible).
(END AUDIO)
DEAN: And more disgusting audio of Tucker Carlson resurfaces. Will "Fox News" stand behind him?
Good morning to you. Welcome to "Early Start." I'm Jessica Dean.
BRIGGS: Good morning. Good morning to all of you. I'm Dave Briggs. Tuesday, March 12th, 5:00 a.m. in the East and people around the world concerned following that deadly crash over the weekend. That is where we start this morning.
[05:00:00]
END
