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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Ethiopia 737 MAX Pilots Followed Procedure; House Democrats Voting on Subpoena for Full Mueller Report; Brunei's Sharia Law Goes Into Effect Despite Global Outrage; Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired April 03, 2019 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:31:46] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking overnight, pilots on that doomed Boeing flight in Ethiopia last month used the exact procedures Boeing recommends, but still couldn't keep the plane in the air.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Anything we give them will never be enough.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: House Democrats will vote to authorize a subpoena for the full Mueller support. But will the Judiciary chairman see it through?
ROMANS: History in Chicago. The city elects its first mayor who is black and who identifies as gay.
BRIGGS: And another case of a fake ride share driver. Police are looking for a man in Washington state who raped a woman who got in his car.
Welcome back to EARLY START on a Wednesday. I'm Dave Briggs.
ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. It is 32 minutes past the hour. Nice to see you this morning.
BRIGGS: Good morning. Good to see you.
ROMANS: All right. Breaking overnight, pilots flying that Boeing 737 MAX that crashed in Ethiopia last month initially followed Boeing's recommended emergency procedures but were still unable to recover control of the jet. That report coming from the "Wall Street Journal" citing people briefed on preliminary findings from the plane's black boxes.
For the very latest, let's turn to CNN's Robyn Kriel. She is live for us in Ethiopia.
And Robyn, this "Wall Street Journal" reporting is very detailed and says that these pilots did exactly what the Boeing manual told them to do and still couldn't right this jet. ROBYN KRIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, indeed, Christine. From what
the scenario that the "Wall Street Journal" has outlined states that pilots recognized this problem with this MCAS system that pushes the plane's nose down. And they followed the emergency procedures outlined by Boeing. They turned it off, they went to -- they deactivated it, went to manual trim which is really a backup, a failsafe, but yet they still could not keep that plane's nose up.
They then turned the MCAS system back on. We're not sure why. Perhaps to try and follow other emergency procedures, to try to troubleshoot further. But they could not keep that plane from plunging into the ground.
And I just want to read you something that a pilot here has said. He said, normally pilots are confident because they are highly trained for the job. Simulators are where the pilots are made. You're pretty much trained for every possible scenario that might come your way. But never for such a scenario as Flight ET302. He says it was not in the script. And that pilot should never have to fight against the plane.
So some really tough questions are going to be asked of Boeing. These emergency procedures reportedly, according to the "Wall Street Journal" being put in place after the Lion Air crash and the question everyone will ask is, why was it not fixed the first time? Six minutes into flight, pilots plunging to the ground with all kinds of emergency sirens and warnings going off in their cockpit, trying desperately, fighting desperately to keep that plane from going down. And unfortunately, it did, killing 157 people.
Enormous backlash here in Ethiopia. A lot of people asking tough questions. But if the "Wall Street Journal" reporting turns out to be true, then it does look to spell good news for Ethiopian Airlines, particularly those two pilots involved in the crash.
ROMANS: Just awful to think of what must have been happening in that cockpit and in that plane.
[04:35:06] Thank you so much, Robyn Kriel for us in Ethiopia.
BRIGGS: Meantime whistleblower reports are raising new questions about the FAA inspectors who reviewed the 737 MAX planes for certification and whether they were properly trained. According to information from whistleblowers and documents reviewed by the Senate Commerce Committee, the FAA may have been notified about training deficiencies as early as August of 2018. That's two months before the first of those two deadly Boeing crashes.
ROMANS: An investigation is now under way to determine how the Boeing 737 MAX fleet was certified to fly. Justice Department prosecutors have also issued subpoenas as part of a grand jury criminal investigation. One former Boeing employee is being asked to turn over all communications including drafts related to the Boeing 737 MAX.
BRIGGS: A significant security breach at the president's Mar-a-Lago resort. Federal prosecutors filing charges against a woman carrying Chinese passports and malicious software who they say entered the facility illegally over the weekend. The president was staying there at the time, but was not on site when Yujing Zhang initially gained access through a miscommunication with members of the resort's security detail.
ROMANS: Zhang was detained after telling a receptionist she was there to attend an event that did not exist. Secret Service agents found four cell phones, a laptop, an external hard drive device, and a thumb drive in her possession. Prosecutors say the thumb drive contained malware. The Secret Service says Mar-a-Lago management is responsible for deciding who is permitted access to the club but not who gets access or proximity to the president.
BRIGGS: In a matter of hours House Democrats will vote to authorize a subpoena to get the full, unredacted Mueller report. That will give House Judiciary chairman Jerry Nadler the green light to issue a subpoena. He's not said whether he would do that before Attorney General Barr releases a redacted version sometime this month. The president still says release it, but he is clearly agitated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I think it's ridiculous. Now we're going to start this process all over again? I think it's a disgrace. Anything we give them will never be enough.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What about the --
TRUMP: We could give them -- it's a 400-page report, right? We could give them 800 pages and it wouldn't be enough. They'll always come back and say it's not enough, it's not enough.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Democrats argue there's ample precedent for Barr to release to Congress the full report, including grand jury material. They point to investigations into Watergate and former President Bill Clinton. Former FBI director James Comey says Barr deserves the benefit of the doubt on the report, but top House Democrats don't see it that way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JERRY NADLER (D), CHAIRMAN, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Well, the attorney general is an agent of the president. He auditioned for his job by saying that this kind of investigation was wrong and that the president could not possibly commit obstruction of justice, which is a rather extreme legal view, and he got the job in order to protect the president.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: If he came to the job clean, without any history in this investigation, I would say yes, give him the benefit of the doubt. But he didn't. He wrote a 19-page legal memo, which was basically a job application, saying if you pick me for your AG, I will have your back on the obstruction of justice case. And that's exactly what he's done. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: The House Oversight Committee voted yesterday to authorize subpoenas in a White House security clearance probe. Among those targeted, Carl Kline, the former personnel security director at the Trump White House. That's even though Kline offered to testify.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JIM JORDAN (R), OHIO: Today we're going to subpoena a guy who just sent us a letter saying he's willing to come here voluntarily. I have been on this committee 10 years, I've never seen anything like this.
REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D), CHAIRMAN, OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: Oh please.
JORDAN: Never seen anything like this. I haven't.
CUMMINGS: Yes, you've done it.
JORDAN: I haven't.
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D), NEW YORK: We are conducting foreign relations with folks with security clearances via WhatsApp. I mean, every day that we go on without getting to the bottom of this matter is a day that we are putting hundreds, if not potentially thousands of Americans at risk. I mean, really, what is next? Putting nuclear codes in Instagram DMs?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: That her latest viral clip. This after White House whistleblower Tricia Newbold told the committee she kept a list of 25 instances in which decisions to deny security clearances were reversed by the Trump administration.
ROMANS: All right. President Trump calling on fellow Republicans to be, in his word, paranoid after falsely claiming Democratic victories in 2018 were the results of voter fraud. That's right. Listen to what the president is telling his supporters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We are going to watch those vote tallies. You know, I keep hearing about the election and the various counting measures that they have.
[04:40:02] There were a lot of close elections that were -- they seemed to -- every single one of them went Democrat. If it was close, they say the Democrat, well, there's something going on. You've got to -- hey, you've got to be a little bit more paranoid than you are. But we have to be a little bit careful because I don't like the way the votes are being tallied.
(END VIDEO CLIP) ROMANS: That probably sounds familiar because the president also falsely claimed in 2016 that millions of illegal votes in California, that's what cost him the popular vote.
History in Chicago. Lori Lightfoot elected mayor of the nation's third largest city. She becomes the first African-American woman to lead Chicago. She's also the first to identify as gay. The 56-year- old former assistant U.S. attorney vowing to remake the city by putting the interest of all the people over the powerful few.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LORI LIGHTFOOT, MAYOR-ELECT OF CHICAGO: I remember something Martin Luther King said when I was very young. Faith, he said, is taking the first step when you can't see the staircase.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
LIGHTFOOT: Well, we couldn't see the whole staircase when we started this journey, but we had faith and abiding faith in the city, its people and its future.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Lightfoot faces some serious issues like crime and police community relations. She will be sworn in next month replacing Rahm Emanuel who chose not to seek a third term.
BRIGGS: Police have a suspect in custody for the murder of rapper Nipsey Hussle. Authorities say Eric Holder and Hussle knew each other, and the shooting appears to be the result of a personal dispute. The 29-year-old Holder was identified from surveillance video. Police say he can be seen approaching Hussle and other people several times before finally returning with a handgun.
The rapper was killed and two others injured. Actress and model, Lauren London breaking her silence on Instagram to pay tribute to her long-time boyfriend. She writes, "I am lost, I lost my best friend, my sanctuary, my prosecutor, my soul." London was in a five-year relationship with Hussle, has a 2-year-old son named Cross with him.
ROMANS: In Washington state authorities are looking for this man. They call him a person of interest in the reported rape of a passenger in a fake ride share. The woman told Kind County sheriff's detective she got into a car she thought was the ride share she had ordered and was raped inside the vehicle.
Authorities say the man was seen near the victim's home the night of the reported rape last December. The sheriff's office not releasing the name of the ride share company because it has confirmed the woman never made contact with any of its drivers that night.
BRIGGS: A sad farewell to the victim of a ride share killing in Columbia, South Carolina. The New Jersey town where USC student Samantha Josephson grew up posting a candlelit vigil in a her memory. Police say (INAUDIBLE) was killed after getting into the wrong car while waiting for an Uber early Friday. 24-year-old Nathaniel Rowland is charged with kidnapping and killing her.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEYMOUR JOSEPHSON, VICTIM'S FATHER: He was a monster, right? What he did was -- I don't want anybody else to go through it as a parent.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Josephson's funeral will be held today at noon. In the wake of her death South Carolina lawmakers planning legislation to require ride share vehicles to display lighted signs.
We remind all of you, your ride-sharing app does include a license plate number, even the make of car and the name of the driver. Check it all.
ROMANS: She thought she was waiting for a Chevy -- a black Chevy Impala. That's exactly the make of the car that pulled up for her and the child safety locks engaged in the back of the car. Her father says she simply had no chance. She was trapped in there.
All right. 43 minutes past the hour. Hidden cameras were used to record hundreds of patients in delivery room at a California hospital. Why the hospital says those cameras were installed in the first place.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:48:23] ROMANS: All right. Time for business 48 minutes past the hour. Trouble for Walgreens. Walgreens stock dropped nearly 13 percent after weak earnings and sales. It also lowered its profit outlook for the rest of the year. Now Walgreens facing a number of challenges, including lower prices for generic drugs. A decline in reimbursement rates and overall a healthcare cost. It's now facing increased competition from Amazon and Walmart.
Amazon bought online pharmacy Pill Pack last year. It's also been hit by a crackdown from the Food and Drug Administration. FDA wants to meet with Walgreens to discuss the sale of tobacco and e-cigarettes to teens. Earlier this year it put the company on notice for selling more cigarettes to minors than any other drugstore retailer.
Walgreens is taking steps to boost sales. Sales recently announcing plans to offer products containing CBD, that's the non-psychoactive component of cannabis, do that in stores in nine states. Still CBD won't be enough to get Walgreens back on track. It is down almost 20 percent this year making it the worst performing stock in the Dow.
BRIGGS: Jamal Khashoggi's children could be receiving as much as $70 million in compensation from the Saudi regime for the murder of their father. They've already been given millions of dollars worth of property as well as hefty one-off payments in monthly allowances. The slain journalist's family could also receive tens of millions in so- called blood money following the trial of the alleged killers in Riyadh. In exchange for the compensation, a source tells CNN the royal family expects no public criticism from the Khashoggi family. The CIA has concluded Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered Khashoggi's murder.
[04:50:02] ROMANS: A South Carolina fifth grader will be laid to rest today one week after dying in a fight at school. The funeral for 10- year-old Raniya Wright is being dubbed a celebration of life. The girl's parents say they still do not have answers about how she died and who was involved. On Friday, her classmates will take part in Remembrance Day. They'll be wearing pink and purple, Raniya's favorite colors.
BRIGGS: A California hospital facing a lawsuit for using hidden cameras to record hundreds of patients without their consent. Those cameras were located in three labor and delivery rooms at the Women's Center at Sharp Grossman Hospital in La Mesa. About 1800 patients were recorded over a period of more than 11 months beginning in the summer of 2012. Among the secretly taped images partially robed women on operating tables and C-section procedures.
ROMANS: The lawsuit states the recordings were stored on desktop computers, some could be viewed without the need for a password. Now Sharp Healthcare claims it installed these motion-detecting cameras because drugs were disappearing from operating rooms. And in its attempt to catch the thief patients and medical personnel were sometimes recorded.
BRIGGS: Mick Jagger, the legendary front man of the Rolling Stones, scheduled to have heart surgery this week in New York. According to a source the surgery is to replace a valve in his heart. The news comes just days after the Stones announced the postponement of their "No Filter Tour of North America." It was set to begin April 20th in Miami. The 75-year-old Jagger took to Twitter to apologize to Stones fans, saying, quote, "I'm devastated for having to postpone the tour but I will be working very hard to be back on the stage as soon as I can."
ROMANS: We certainly wish him the best.
BRIGGS: We do indeed.
ROMANS: All right. Did you get your "Avengers: End Game" tickets? Presale for the latest Marvel movie. Let's just say it caused some chaos online. CNN Business has the details next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:56:33] BRIGGS: Despite worldwide condemnation, Brunei's controversial Sharia law punishing gay sex and adultery with death by stoning goes into effect today.
CNN's Ivan Watson live in Hong Kong with the latest. Hi there, Ivan.
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Dave. The sultan of Brunei has announced as this newer, stricter Islamic Sharia law goes into effect in his small and wealthy Southeast Asian country. He's announced that he wants to see Islamic teaching get stronger and he also insists that his country's system of government is global friendly. He did not directly address the chorus of criticism that has come as a
result of Brunei's decision to impose this strict Sharia law, which could result in the death penalty for homosexuality or for committing adultery, for example. It is a chorus of criticism that includes the State Department, it includes the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights who has called on Brunei to turn this around, and it includes a campaign for a boycott of luxury hotels owned by the government of Brunei, which has been led by George Clooney.
Now CNN has been talking to members of the LGBT community from Brunei, some of whom have fled the country, others who are inside were talking about a climate of fear, the idea that they could potentially be stoned to death literally just for their sexuality. Meanwhile, the sultan of Brunei insists that this system of government will protect the rights of all citizens, regardless of their race or faith -- Dave.
BRIGGS: Just deplorable. Ivan Watson live for us in Hong Kong, thank you.
President Trump taking the bizarre factor to the next level yesterday. And really, you've got to wonder why sometimes. Why would he lie about this? He was discussing NATO and Germany needing to pay more as part of the alliance. During a White House event with NATO Secretary- General Jens Stoltenberg. The president taking issue again with Germany's contribution to NATO and brought up his own family history.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: My father is German, right? Was German. And born in a very wonderful place in Germany and so I have a great feeling for Germany.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Problem there, the president's father, Fred Trump, was born and raised in New York. His grandparents were both born in Europe and later immigrated to the U.S. This is at least the fourth time President Trump has falsely stated where his own parents were born.
ROMANS: Why? Why? Why? What's wrong with New York?
All right. Let's get a check on CNN Business this morning. Global stock markets are higher. Hopes this morning the U.S. and China are closer to a final trade agreement. The head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce telling reporters 90 percent of the deal is done. Another round of talks start today in D.C.
On Wall Street, we got futures up a little bit right now, about 100 points. The Dow closed lower Tuesday. Problem there was Walgreens which cut its profit goal for the year. The Dow closed down 79 points. The S&P 500 flat. The Nasdaq ended up just a bit.
The mixed trading day comes after the Dow closed at the highest level since October on Monday, just 3 percent away from record highs for the Dow and the S&P.
All right. Did you get your "Avengers: End Game" tickets? Presale for the latest Marvel movie caused, shall we say, chaos online.
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