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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

White House Forced To Say Trump Is Not A White Supremacist; President Trump Unhinged On Twitter; New Trouble For Boeing; Mosque Massacre Death Toll Stands At 50; Is Facebook Doing Enough To Protect Users; Biden Nearly Declares His Candidacy; Deadly Floods In Nebraska. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired March 18, 2019 - 04:00   ET

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


[04:00:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICK MULVANEY, ACTING WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: The president is not a white supremacist.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN HOST: The White House forced to offer an unprecedented defense of the president. He refused to condemn white supremacy after the mosque attack in New Zealand, changes to gun law are already on the way.

DAVE BRIGGS, CNN HOST: The president unleashing on his comments and even some allies, an epic weekend tweetstorm that targeted among others the late John McCain and Fox News.

ROMANS: And subpoenas have been issued as the Feds probe the Boeing 737 Max planes, new similarities between two jets that crashed in five months. Good morning everyone. And welcome to "Early Start." I'm Christine Romans.

BRIGGS: Welcome back my friend.

ROMANS: Thank you. Nice to be back.

BRIGGS: We miss you.

ROMANS: Thank you.

BRIGGS: Good morning everyone, I'm Dave Briggs. Monday, March 18, it is 4:00 a.m. in the East, 9:00 p.m. in Christchurch, New Zealand. We will take you there in just a moment. But first, file this under words you never imagined you'd hear in defense of the president of the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MULVANEY: The president is not a white supremacist. I'm not sure how many times we have to say that. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: That was acting Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney. The White House forced to address the president's response to the shooting Friday in New Zealand. A terror attack at two mosques that left 50 dead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think white nationalism is arising threat around the world?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't really. I think that it is a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: The president seemingly unconcerned despite the gunman's manifesto filled with anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim invective. The 87 page diatribe claiming he was inspired by Trump and by white nationalists. It was not the first time the president hesitated to be critical after an attack by someone espousing white nationalism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You also had people that were very fine people on both sides. The world is a violence -- the world is a violent world. And you'd think when you're over it, it just sort of goes away, but then it comes back in the form of a madman, a whacko. This has little to do with, if you take a look, if they had protection inside, the results would have been far better.

There are attacking us, because we are speaking the truth, changing people's minds and proving every day that our policies work. I get attacked also, you'd get attack. I get attacked all the time. In fact, I'm just thinking, come to think of it, who gets attacked more than me?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: But on a subject of radical Islam, the president sounds drastically different.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.

I think Islam hates us. There is something -- there is something there that there is a tremendous hatred there. There is a tremendous hatred.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BRIGGS: President Trump also on the attack this weekend, he was busy

on Twitter at Manu Raju notes here with nearly three dozen tweets over the weekend hitting the late John McCain twice, GM, the auto workers union and even Fox News. We'll get to some of those in just a minute.

ROMANS: Yes, that was a (inaudible). But first, breaking news, cabinet officials in New Zealand agreeing in principle to toughen gun laws in the wake of the mosque attacks. According to the Prime Minister, the changes will be announce in about a week. Family members bracing now for the agony of claiming the remains of their loved ones, the first body now released by New Zealand police. Let's go live to Christchurch and bring in CNN's Ivan Watson. Just heartbreaking, Ivan. Bring us up to speed.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it is after 8:00 p.m. here and at this make shift memorial site, there are still people walking through some three days after the deadliest terror attack in modern New Zealand history. Many of them with tears on their faces, laying flowers, putting up signs like we stand with our Muslim brothers. And they are us.

So a message of inclusion to this tiny minority which makes up about 1 percent of the population in New Zealand, Muslims, who were so viciously attacked on Friday here in Christchurch.

The Prime Minister of New Zealand has said that there will be proposals to change the gun laws in this country within 10 days of last Friday's terror attack. We don't know exactly what will be proposed.

[04:05:01] We do know that one business here in New Zealand, Gun City, its owner has said that four of the four -- firearms that the key suspect had were legally purchased from that store. The key suspect, 28 year-old Brenton Tarrant, an Australian citizen who did not have any prior criminal record, he has told a public defender here that he wants to represent himself in upcoming court appearances.

As for the effort to cope with this violence here, the authorities are here are still struggling with it. Christchurch hospital for example which is fighting to keep critically wounded people alive, it is postponing previously scheduled surgeries. The police are calling this the biggest investigation they have ever mounted. And it has been very slow going returning the bodies of some of the 50 killed on Friday to their anguished families for burial. Christine.

ROMANS: Just awful. All right, Ivan Watson, thank you for that this morning, evening there in Christchurch.

BRIGGS: An act of kindness being repaid in the aftermath of the mosque killings when 11 people were murdered at a Pittsburgh synagogue last year, Muslims community in the area raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the victims. And now the Jewish federation of Pittsburgh is paying it forward, setting up a fund for the victims in Christchurch. The chairman of the board of the federation says quote, unfortunately we are all-too familiar with the devastating effect a mass shooting has on a faith community. ROMANS: There a growing criticism though of Facebook this morning.

For at least 17 minutes on Friday, a terrorist streamed live video of his mass shootings, 17 minutes. As CNN's Don Sullivan notes, if the artificial intelligence systems built by one of the richest companies in the world can't identify and take action on a video containing weaponry, repeated gunfire and murder, what can they identify?

Samuel Burke joins us from London. Samuel, what is Facebook doing in response to these demands for action?

SAMUEL BURKE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Christine, I just have to say that lot of times people are saying don't share these videos if you see them on Facebook and other social networks, but even just watching them can help really make them spread across the internet. So, if you see it, don't click it or else that tracking that you see, 10 views, 100,000 views will make it to that even more people are watching it.

Let me just put up on the screen, what we've learned over the weekend about the role that really the social network had during this live broadcast and spreading it around the world over the weekend, Facebook says that they didn't even notice the video until they were alerted by police.

Now, Facebook does say that they blocked 1.2 million of the 1.5 million attempts to upload the video in the first 24 hours. Christine, what does that say about us as humans, that 1.5 million attempts were made to upload the video, but of course, that still means 300,000 times that video made it past Facebook's filters and Facebook still isn't saying how many people would have seen that. I mean, just in mind, you only need a video up once or twice for it to get millions of views, so 300,000 times on the social network.

ROMANS: How it is filtered didn't see this instantly is something that is really shocking to a lot of folks who covered this company. How did hundreds of thousands of the uploads get past Facebook's filters?

BURKE: Unfortunately, it is not just the fault of the social networks. It is also the fault of irresponsible media. Sometimes in one case we did see that a news station uploaded this full clip, they broadcast it and then put it on Facebook and the artificial intelligence looks at that and sees the banners likes ones that we have here on CNN, though, of course, we weren't airing it, the logo, and that tells the algorithms, well, this could be something news worthy. There might be a journalistic principle to having this, which of course we know from all the terrorism experts that that just helps radicalize people.

So, we've all played a role in this. And it just shows that artificial intelligence isn't really that smart. And the other point I think we have to look at here, there was an article -- an investigation a short time ago from Casey Newton at the Verge, which look at how Facebook moderators started embracing the content that they were seeing. Holocaust denial, flat Earth-ers for example. So, imagine it, those people trained to deal with this content started adopting those views, what happen over the weekend when hundreds of thousands if not millions of people saw this video who are not trained to deal with this type of radicalization.

ROMANS: All right. Samuel Burke, thank you. Again, big question about Facebook and the company's too big for its own breaches. If it can't handle this, maybe it needs more scrutiny and regulation right.

We mentioned the president's buffet of Twitter hate this weekend. Here are just a few noteworthy examples. President Trump providing his attacks on a familiar target, John McCain, he is criticizing the late senator on Twitter for his ties to the controversial Russian dossier. CNN's has reported the dossier was received by McCain's associate and shared with a reporter at BuzzFeed.

[04:10:10] President Trump also going after McCain for his vote against repealing Obamacare even calling him, last in his class at Annapolis.

BRIGGS: McCain's daughter, Meghan firing back on Twitter, no one will ever love you the way they loved my father. I wish I had been given more Saturdays with him. Maybe spend yours with your family instead on Twitter obsessing over mine. And here's the prime example of the control President Trump has over his party. Senator Lindsey Graham, McCain's closest friend in the Senate, refusing to criticize the president for his comments.

ROMANS: Instead Graham tweeting as to Senator John McCain n his devotion to his country, he stepped forward to risk his life for his country, served honorably under difficult circumstances and was one of the most consequential Senators in history of the body. Nothing about his service will ever be changed or diminished.

BRIGGS: President Trump urging Fox News to put Jeanine Pirro back on the air. Sources tell CNN the controversial host was suspended for Islamophobic remarks doubting the patriotism of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEANINE PIRRO, FOX HOST: Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: Pirro known well for her full throated defense of the president and her attacks on his enemies and Mr. Trump is using the Oval Office. to moonlight as a bit of a program director here tweeting to Fox, bring back Jeanine Pirro, while telling the network to stop working so hard on being politically correct which will only bring you down.

ROMANS: All right. And there is a whole lot more. There was a lot more that we'll continue to get to. More trouble this morning for Boeing in the wake of two deadly crashes of its 737 Max jet liners. The "Wall Street Journal" reported a grand jury has issued a broad subpoenas to federal offices to probe the development and approval of the jets.

Now investigators have found similarities, this is a big development, similarities between the Ethiopian Airlines crash last weekend at that Lion Air accident last October, both involving the 737 Max.

For the latest, let's turn to CNN's Melissa Bell, outside the French accident investigation agency near Paris where the black boxes from Ethiopia are being examined. And this is a big development, the similarities that they are saying that they have found in those very relic moments of these fight.

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That is right, this is according to the Ethiopian transport minister who spoke out yesterday, Christine. Talking about similarities, we already heard from the CEO of the Ethiopian Airlines a few days before about the similar possibly between the trajectories of those two planes.

That crash, of course, in less than six months. And I think that is what the data that has now been successfully downloaded from both those black boxes here in the building behind me, what that data will tell us more specifically about what those similarities are. We know of course the investigation into the Lion Air jet disaster about the question of this maneuvering characteristics automation -- augmentation system, this almost automatic system within the plane that forced the nose down, the fact that the pilots had several times tried to get that nose on that plane back up, the one that crashed back in October.

What are the similarities? Was this same system at fault? We heard from Boeing yesterday that it was in the process of updating, upgrading that system and that this is something that had been in development before the Ethiopian airlines crash which really takes us to that question, Christine of what more should have been done, what more should have been done and whether this latest crash might not have been avoided. Christine and Dave.

ROMANS: All right. Thank you for that, Melissa Bell for us in France this morning.

BRIGGS: All right. Coming up, did Joe Biden tip his hand? A slip that suggests he is all in for 2020. Next.

[04:15:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: All right. We will tell you about this remarkable 12 hours of tweeting from the president. Well, General Motors was one of the targets of his aggrieved to tweets and GM has responded to those angry tweets from the president. He demanded that GM reopen or sell a recently closed plant in Lordstown, Ohio. This is what the union says, to be clear under the terms of UAW-GM national agreement, the ultimate future of the unallocated plants will be resolved between GM and the UAW.

Now, the president of United States on Twitter, tweeted that he spoke with GM CEO Mary Barra about the Lordstown plant on Sunday. Trump said, he asked her to do something to sell or do something quickly, but that Barra blamed the UAW union. The tweet was the third time President Trump took to Twitter to voice his frustrations about GM's plans to cut thousands of job in factories.

On Saturday, he suggested a new owner could manage the Lordstown plant, but that quote, time is of the essence. Production at the Ohio plant ended earlier this month. The president also criticized a local union president, the local union guy, David Green, telling him to get his act together and produce.

Green hasn't responded to a request for comments. GM added in a statement Sunday, its main focus was offering employees jobs in other plants where they have growth opportunities.

BRIGGS: Well, did Joe Biden tip his hand or was it just another of those infamous gaffes? Speaking to an encouraging home state crowd in Delaware Saturday, the former vice president was defending his record when he said, or almost said, this --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm the most progressive record of anybody running for -- anybody who would run. I didn't mean --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: A standing ovation, as you can see there went on a bit. Biden has indicated to friends it is all, but certain that he will run. An announcement could come as soon as April. As for Democrats already in the 2020 race, CNN will host a live presidential town hall tonight with Senator Elizabeth Warren from Jackson, Mississippi. Jake Tapper will moderate. That is tonight 9:00 Eastern, right here on CNN. And Kirsten Gellibrand, the New York senator is officially in.

[04:20:07] ROMANS: She's in? So now the official number is 13?

BRIGGS: I believe, 12 or 13.

ROMANS: We are almost at a baker's dozen. All right. 20 minutes past the hour. Historic flooding in the heartland, two people dead, hundreds are in shelters after an unfolding natural disaster in Nebraska.

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BRIGGS: 4:24 Eastern Time. Historic flooding in Nebraska has broken records in 17 places across the state while about 9 million people in 14 states along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers are under a flood warning.

[04:25:02] Aerial video shows flooding after multiple levees breach along Missouri River in Nebraska. Major flooding on an air force base near Belleview went about 30 buildings are flooded, two deaths are being blamed on the flooding. Hundreds of people have been rescued and close to 700 in shelters.

ROMANS: And the forecast is for more precipitation.

All right. Important information here. New guidelines advise against taking regular aspirin to prevent heart disease. Three recent studies found that for healthy older adults taking a daily low dose aspirin is at best a waste of money and at worst may raise their risk of internal bleeding and early death.

Doctors may consider aspirin for certain high risk patients such as though who have trouble lowering cholesterol or managing blood sugars, however for anyone who has had a stroke or a heart attack, aspirin can be lifesaving. Talk to your doctor.

BROOKS: OK. The field for the NCAA men's basketball tournament -- pardon us, there chair -- a bit loud all set.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Overall number one seed is Duke.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: The Duke Blue Devils your number one overall seed. Other top seeds include Virginia in the south, North Carolina in the Midwest. That means, three teams top seeds in the ACC just the second time three teams from the same conference are one seeds. Gonzaga the final top seed out in the West. The road to the final four in Minneapolis begins with the first four games, they will be played Tuesday and Wednesday night in Dayton, Ohio. That means you have to fill out a bracket this year, Romans.

ROMANS: OK. I will.

BRIGGS: Whether you like it or not. And Iowa State has a decent shot.

ROMANS: I know. They did well in the second, right?

BRIGGS: They look very good stopping Kansas.

ROMANS: All right, new overnight, New Zealand already says that it's going to toughen gun laws just day after 50 people were killed at two mosques. Response from the president, President Trump forcing his chief staff to say this --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MULVANEY: The president is not a white supremacist.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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