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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Russia: Democrats Face Hard Choice After Mueller; White House Backs Full Obamacare Repeal; Avenatti Charged in $20 Million Plot; Duke Settles for $112 Million Over Fake Science; Conor McGregor Announces Retirement from MMA. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired March 26, 2019 - 05:00   ET

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


CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: In 1984, photographer Jacobus Rentmeester took a photo of Michael Jordan before he joined the NBA and signed a deal with Nike.

[05:00:07] In 2015, he claimed that Nike copied virtually every original element in that photo that Nike used to market its Air Jordan. There is his on the left I believe, and then the marketing on the right. The court threw out the case and an appeals court upheld the decision. The appeals court found that Nike's photo was not substantially similar to Rentmeester's.

DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: All right. EARLY START continues with breaking news on Obamacare.

(MUSIC)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Speaker Pelosi, are you ready to say that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in light of the Mueller finding?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: Not much.

Democrats facing a hard choice post-Robert Mueller, do they keep investigating Trump, they focus on their agenda, or can they do both?

ROMANS: And the White House now backs a full repeal of Obamacare. The major shift after saying parts of the law could stand.

BRIGGS: A $20 million extortion plot, serious charges against the lawyer who helped expose the hush money payments from President Trump.

ROMANS: Duke University used fake science to get real federal money, and now the school is paying up. Paying back taxpayers.

Good morning and welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

BRIGGS: I'm Dave Briggs. And it's Tuesday, March 26th, it's 5:00 a.m. in the East. There is always a tweet for that, but here's a doozy from President

Trump. Republicans will totally protect people with pre-existing conditions, Democrats will not vote Republican. That was ahead of the midterms, kind of ironic given our breaking news this morning. Overnight, a major reversal by the Trump administration on exactly that, protecting preexisting conditions and Obamacare.

In a Monday court filing, the administration said the entire Affordable Care Act, all of it, should be struck down. The Justice Department says it now agrees with the federal judge in Texas who invalidated the ACA in a December ruling. At the time, the administration said that it would not defend certain Obamacare provisions including pre-existing condition protections covering 52 million Americans, but it argued the rest of the law could stand.

ROMANS: The president has repeatedly promised to protect people with pre-existing conditions. Now, his administration is doubling down on stripping away those and all other protections. The case is currently before a federal appeals court, 1.4 million Americans signed up for Obamacare coverage, down 300,000 from last year.

BRIGGS: Democrats at a critical juncture this morning after President Trump is effectively cleared by special counsel Robert Mueller on collusion. For 22 months, many Democrats all but guaranteed Mueller would find the president or his campaign had conspired with Russians. When he did not, even Nancy Pelosi was short on explanation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Speaker Pelosi, are you ready to say that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in light of the Mueller finding?

REPORTER: Does this exonerate the president?

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I think that the Mueller report was clear. The president is not exonerated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Not exonerated. The speaker is right. Mueller said he did not exonerate the president of obstruction of justice. Trump Attorney Rudy Giuliani complained about that to our Chris Cuomo.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S ATTORNEY: This was a cheap shot.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST, "CUOMO PRIME TIME": Then I don't know why Mueller said it.

GIULIANI: It was a cheap shot.

CUOMO: He either makes a decision to prosecute or not.

GIULIANI: For a prosecutor, this is unprofessional. If people get prosecuted for what they're thinking -- if somebody says oh, I think I'm going to -- I might want to kill that guy because he was mean to me --

CUOMO: But doesn't he need formulation of intent?

GIULIANI: No. That's what he says --

CUOMO: Corrupt intent?

GIULIANI: No. That's why he says there is no obstructive conduct.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: While everyone haggles over obstruction, Democrats are still not ready to conclude that there was no Russia conspiracy. They say they will continue to investigate ties between the campaign and Russians, but that strategy risks a political backlash if voters think Democrats are grasping for evidence where Mueller already investigated.

It's a point 2020 hopeful Elizabeth Warren made last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I spent the last couple of days in New Hampshire. I did a bunch of big public events.

Altogether over the weekend, I got maybe 100 questions. And do you know the number that were about the Mueller report? Zero, because what people were talking about -- what they're asking about are the things that touch their lives every day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Like health care, jobs. Speaker Pelosi is already moving to move past Mueller telling the leadership team, House Democrats should focus on their agenda, message, not Russia interference. Still the calls to release the full Mueller report are growing louder by the hour. Even the president seems OK with it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's up to the attorney general, but it wouldn't bother me at all. Up to the attorney general. It wouldn't bother me at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: On the Senate side, Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked efforts by Democrats to make Mueller's report public.

[05:05:06] McConnell saying Attorney General Bill Barr should not be rushed as he reviews the report to determine how much to release. A CNN poll finds 87 percent of Americans across party lines believe Mueller's team should produce a full public report of their findings.

ROMANS: We will hear publicly from Attorney General Barr on April 9th. He is set to testify before a House committee on the DOJ budget, and you can expect questions about Mueller and his report.

BRIGGS: High profile lawyer Michael Avenatti arrested in New York for allegedly trying to extort more than $20 million from Nike. He was released last night on $300,000 bond and claims he is innocent.

According to the criminal complaint, Avenatti met last week with attorneys for Nike and threatened to release allegations of misconduct.

ROMANS: That was on the eve of the company's quarterly earnings call, start of the NCAA tournament. Avenatti allegedly telling Nike's lawyers, quote: I'll go take $10 billion off your client's market cap. I'm not F-ing around.

The charges against Avenatti coming minutes after he announced a press conference for today to disclose a major -- a supposed major scandal perpetrated by Nike.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL AVENATTI, ATTORNEY: I have fought against the powerful -- powerful people and powerful corporations. I will never stop fighting that good fight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: Celebrity attorney Mark Geragos is an unnamed co-conspirator in the case. He was a CNN contributor, but is no longer as of Monday.

Minutes after news about the New York charges broke, federal prosecutors in California charged Avenatti in a separate case, a separate case involving wire and bank fraud. Those charges could bring a maximum sentence of 50 years in federal prison.

ROMANS: Pilots may have had less than a minute to override a system suspected of failing in at least one crash of the Boeing 737 MAX. "The New York Times" spoke to two unnamed pilots who recently conducted flight simulations. The point was to recreate a crisis situation similar to what investigators suspect went wrong on the doomed Lion Air flight last October. Now, they discovered, those pilots discovered they had less than 40 seconds, 40 seconds, to override the automated system on Boeing's new jets and avoid disaster.

BRIGGS: The pilots reportedly did not fully understand just how powerful the system was until they flew the plane on a 737 MAX simulator. The automated MCAS system is the focus of the investigations into the Lion Air disaster and the Ethiopian Airlines crash this month that killed a combined 346 people. Boeing is expected to propose a software update that would give pilots more control over the system.

ROMANS: So, Duke University agreeing to pay a $112 million settlement to the U.S. government after it was accused of falsifying scientific data to win federal research grants. The school allegedly submitted bogus data to the National Institutes of Health and EPA from 2006 to 2018. A former Duke employee who filed a whistle blower suit against Duke will receive nearly $34 million.

BRIGGS: As part of that settlement. The university president says, quote, we expect Duke researchers to adhere always to the highest standards of integrity. When individuals fail to uphold those standards, we must accept responsibility.

A federal ban on bump stocks begins today. The devices enable semiautomatic rifles to fire continue police like machine guns. Bump stocks came under scrutiny after the Las Vegas massacre in 2017 when a gunman killed 58 people and wounded hundreds more.

After the shooting, President Trump vowed to outlaw bump stocks. Last night, the Supreme Court received at least two emergency appeals asking the justices to put the ban on hold. The Justice Department calling on bump stock owners to destroy the devices or turn them into an ATF field office.

ROMANS: The Green New Deal backed by many Democrats is expected to be blocked in the Senate today by Democrats. They believe Republicans are trying to on score political points by forcing a quick vote on the still developing proposal. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has publicly stated he is pushing for a vote to put the opposition on the record, but Democrats plan to counter McConnell by voting present instead of for or against the deal. They will argue the Green New Deal at this stage is more of an aspirational document than a piece of legislation.

President Trump is breaking precedent again with his latest pick to the Federal Reserve. The president announced his plans to nominate Stephen Moore, a former campaign adviser to the Central Bank's Board on Friday. Moore says he is unfamiliar with monetary policymaking.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN MOORE, FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD NOMINEE: I'm kind of new to this game frankly, so I'm going to be on a steep learning curve myself about how the Fed operates, how the Federal Reserve makes its decisions. And this is a real exciting opportunity for me. So, it is hard for me to say what even my role will be there assuming I get confirmed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[05:10:01] ROMANS: Moore's nomination has raised concerns given his previous comments about the Fed and his close relationship with the president. In December, Moore blasted Fed Chairman Jerome Powell for raising rates at the end of last year, saying they, quote, should be thrown out for economic malpractice.

There are currently two vacancies on the seven-member Fed board. The president is considering former pizza executive and Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain for the second open seat. The nominations would have to be confirmed by the Senate.

It's very rare to see somebody nominated and then do television interviews. So, a lot of buzz.

BRIGGS: And acknowledged a lack of knowledge on monetary policy.

Ahead, the struggle to cope with mass shootings has claimed a third victim in a week. This time the father of a child killed at Sandy Hook Elementary.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRIGGS: Two escaped inmates captured overnight in North Carolina, but three are still at large.

[05:15:01] The prisoners broke out of the Nash County Jail Monday night. The sheriff says they escaped by cutting an already weakened fence in the exercise yard. He believes they had outside help.

The sheriff telling the public to lock their cars and doors and if they see a strange person walking around, notify them immediately. There is a $1,500 reward for the capture of these remaining inmates.

ROMANS: Authorities now investigating a third suicide in the past week linked to school massacres.

Jeremy Richman was found dead in his Connecticut office building Monday morning in what police are calling an apparent suicide. His 6- year-old daughter Avielle Richman was among those 20 children and six adults killed in the Sandy Hook shooting back in 2012.

BRIGGS: The news comes as the Parkland, Florida community mourns the death of Sydney Aiello, a Parkland school shooting survivor, who killed herself last week. Then on Saturday, a second Parkland survivor died in what police described as an apparent suicide.

If you or someone you know might be at risk of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-8255.

The Pentagon says it successfully test launched two missile interceptors from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. They were up against a simulated intercontinental ballistic missile. It was a critical test to prepare against potential attacks from adversaries like North Korea.

Defense officials wanted to make sure that if multiple missiles were in the air sensors on the ground based interceptors could distinguish the enemy's missiles from other missiles.

ROMANS: All right. NASA forced to scrap what would have been the first all female spacewalk scheduled to take place Friday. And the reason turns out there is only one spacesuit on board the International Space Station that best fits both female astronauts, Christina Koch and Anne McClain.

So, Friday's spacewalk will now be conducted by a man and a woman, Koch and astronaut Nick Hague. It will be the 215th for the space station and if everything goes according to plan, Christina Koch will become the 14th woman to perform a spacewalk.

BRIGGS: This actually happened Monday. Passengers on a British Airways flight from London to Germany landed in Edinburgh, Scotland. Imagine their surprise. One passenger tells CNN she knew something wasn't quite right when she saw mountains outside the plane instead of the usual German industrial landscape.

Airline officials say the problem was an incorrectly filed flight plan that led the crew to think that they were really supposed to go to Scotland. The captain apologized and after a 2 1/2 hour delay, the plane took off again this time for Dusseldorf.

ROMANS: Do you get free scotch or something?

BRIGGS: I'd hope a free cocktail, yes.

History at the McDonald's All-American dunk contest. Look at her. That's right, her.

Andy Scholes with the "Bleacher Report", next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:22:29] BRIGGS: Breaking sports news overnight. Conor McGregor tweeting that he is retiring from fighting.

Andy Scholes has the conflicting signals though in the "Bleacher Report".

Good morning, my friend

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Dave. You know, is this just a negotiating ploy or is it real? You know, that's the question.

Conor McGregor tweeted, he was retiring back in 2016 when things weren't going his way in negotiations for a fight. And early this morning, out of nowhere, McGregor tweeting this: Hey guys, quick announcement, I've decided to retire from the sport formally known as mixed martial art today. I wish all my colleagues well going forward in competition.

Odd timing because McGregor was on Jimmy Fallon just last night and he said that he and the UFC were negotiating a potential return to the Octagon in July.

All right. Rough night in the NBA for the Portland Trailblazers. One of their best players Jusuf Nurkic suffering one of the worst fast ball injuries you'll ever see trying to tip that ball, and Nurkic sustained a compound fracture. And reaction from the players says it all.

The team personnel ran over immediately and threw a towel on his leg. Blazers coach Terry Stotts said that he was taken to a local hospital and called the injury devastating. Point guard Damian Lillard was on the court when Paul George broke his leg, he said Nurkic's injury looked exactly the same.

All right. We had a history in the McDonald's All-American dunk contest last night. For just the second time ever, a girl won. Fran Belibi from rural Colorado wowing the crowd with the reverse dunk. Then she got another perfect score while wearing a cape jumping over someone in a chair.

The crowd is just looking it. Belibi the first female to win the contest since Candace Parker back in 2004. Last year's winner, a guy by the name of Zion Williamson.

The NCAA tournament will return to action Thursday with the sweet 16 and for the first time ever, someone still has a perfect bracket. Greg Nigel (ph), a 40-year-old neuropsychologist who lives in Columbus, Ohio, has picked all 48 games correctly thus far. And again out of the tens of millions of brackets filled out every year, no one has ever done it.

The odds of picking 48 winners in a row, in case you're wondering, one in more than 281 trillion. When the NCAA contacted him, Nigel joked that he have didn't know his bracket was perfect and he hadn't been following that closely.

[05:25:04] And, Dave, in case you were wondering, Nigel has Gonzaga beating Kentucky in the championship game. We'll see if he runs the table. We'll see. Of all the years to get this far perfect, it was actually not that -- I say not that difficult because it was very chalky, a lot of favorites winning.

BRIGGS: Ones, twos and threes. Who is leading the CNN brackets, do you know?

SCHOLES: I think a guy by the name --

BRIGGS: Right here, buddy.

SCHOLES: I know you are. Thanks for bringing it up.

BRIGGS: Thanks, Andy Scholes. Good stuff.

Romans, what's coming up?

ROMANS: Such a humble guy.

BRIGGS: I know. Aren't I?

ROMANS: Twenty-five minutes past the hour.

The Affordable Care Act could be in jeopardy again. The White House reversing course agreeing with a Texas judge who ruled the entire law is invalid.

(COMMECIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Speaker Pelosi, are you ready to say that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in light of the Mueller finding?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Democrats facing a hard choice post-Robert Mueller.

END