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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Virginia Cavaliers Beat Texas Tech in NCAA Men's Championship; Attorney General William Barr to Testify to Congress; Trump Removes Secret Service Director; Election Day in Israel. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired April 09, 2019 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:00:21] DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: Virginia captures its first ever men's basketball title in an overtime thriller.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Democrats plan to grill Attorney General Bill Barr about the Mueller report in a Capitol Hill hearing just hours from now.
BRIGGS: Israelis are voting right now as longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's reign hangs in the balance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm ready to solve these problems. I'm running for president of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: A new Democratic candidate just joined the 2020 race for the White House. If you're counting, folks, 18 -- 18 declared or with exploratory committees on the Democratic side.
BRIGGS: Crowded field.
ROMANS: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.
BRIGGS: Good morning. Soon to be headed over 20 it looks like. I'm Dave Briggs. Tuesday, April 9th, it is 4:00 a.m. in the East.
A new national champ, from national embarrassment to national champion, the Virginia Cavaliers putting the final touches on a remarkable turnaround, beating Texas Tech, 85-77, in overtime last night to win their first ever NCAA title. And you might remember one year ago Virginia became the only one number one seed ever to lose to a 16-seed in the first round. But they exercised those demons last night in Minneapolis thanks in large part to De'Andre Hunter.
He scored 27 points and drained a critical three-pointer with under 13 seconds left to second this into OT. It was Hunter's three-pointer with just over two minutes left in overtime that put the Cavs ahead for good. Hunter actually missed last year's tournament with a broken wrist making this title so much sweeter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DE'ANDRE HUNTER, NCAA CHAMPION: The joy is in the competition, like I said. This is a great win for our program, a great win for our coach. We worked for this all season and all that work just paid off.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: They are still partying in Charlottesville, Virginia, this morning and all over the state of Virginia. The team returns home late this afternoon and an official celebration will take place at Scott Stadium Saturday afternoon at 2:00 p.m.
Congrats to Coach Tony Bennett and the Cavs.
ROMANS: Some excitement later this morning in Washington, but maybe not the same kind. Attorney General Bill Barr facing lawmakers this morning for the first time since issuing that four-page summary of this 300-plus page Mueller report. We are already hearing from House Democrats who plan to grill Barr about it.
House Appropriations chairwoman Nita Lowey previewed her opening statement last night. "Your four-page summary seems to cherry pick from the report to draw the most favorable conclusion possible for the president."
To draw their own conclusions, Democrats want the full Mueller report as soon as possible. Expect tons of questions this morning about any redactions Barr plans to make.
Senior congressional reporter Manu Raju has more on that.
MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Good morning, Christine and Dave.
Bill Barr coming before the House Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees his budget to talk about the president's request for funding for the Justice Department. But even though Bill Barr's opening statement does not mention the Mueller report, that is going to be the focus of today's hearing.
Democrats, in particular, plan to push Bill Barr over the four-page letter he sent outlining the top line conclusions of the Mueller investigation. Also they want to understand why he did not charge the president with obstruction of justice, with his decision-making behind that, as well as how he's handling the effort to redact information from the Mueller report before it becomes public.
I had a chance to talk to one congressman who plans to do the questioning at today's hearing and he said redactions are going to be a key line of questioning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MATT CARTWRIGHT (D-PA): How much is he going to redact? And I hope that he takes a very sparing approach to his redactions because he knows that everybody is going to want to know what's behind the black ink.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: This is the start of two days of testimony for Bill Barr. He will also come before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees his budget on Wednesday.
Today will be a first sense of how Barr plans to handle the Mueller report and we'll see if he sheds any light on his thinking -- Christine and Dave.
BRIGGS: All right. We'll be watching, Manu. Thanks.
The top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee is calling on Robert Mueller to testify. But it's not clear whether the special counsel would oblige.
Georgia Republican Doug Collins writing a letter, asking Chairman Jerry Nadler to invite Mueller to testify later this month. He says, quote, "If you seek both transparency and for the American public to learn the full contours of the special counsel's investigation, public testimony from Special Counsel Mueller himself is undoubtedly the best way to accomplish his goal."
[04:05:13] Nadler agrees. The chairman tweeting his committee must first receive the special counsel's full report and hear from Attorney General Barr about that report on May 2nd. Nadler says he looks forward to hearing from Mueller at the appropriate time.
ROMANS: President Trump appears to be overseeing a systematic purge of the Department of Homeland Security. One day after DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was forced out, Randolph "Tex" Alles has been told he is being removed as director of the Secret Service. The announcement catching officials at the agency off guard, many of them finding out their boss was leaving by watching CNN. It was especially surprising since the president said this just last week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I could not be happier with the Secret Service. Secret Service has done a fantastic job from day one. I'm very happy with them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: The White House says the president has picked career Secret Service official James M. Murray to replace Alles.
BRIGGS: It certainly did not help Kirstjen Nielsen that she repeatedly pushed back against President Trump's effort to slash migration. Senior administration officials telling CNN that over the last few months, the president has been pushing Nielsen to enforce a stricter version of zero tolerance and family separations. That's the same policy Trump himself rolled back under heavy criticism. Multiple sources say the president wanted families separated even if they were asylum seekers at a legal port of entry. Nielsen tried to explain that court rulings banned reinstating the policy. Other White House staffers explained it would be an unmitigated PR disaster.
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley deflected responsibility of the proposal to Congress and migrants themselves.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOGAN GIDLEY, DEPUTY WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The separation of families, you know, the president has said before he does not like that. It's a horrible practice. But Congress has a way to fix that so that it will not be a magnet for people to come here and use children to do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: About two weeks ago, the president ordered Nielsen to shut down the port of El Paso, Texas. The next day, a person present at the Oval Office meeting says Nielsen told the president closing the port would be a bad idea, even a dangerous idea. She said it would stop legal trade and travel, and migrants would just go between ports. Two witnesses say the president responded, I don't care. Acting Chief of Staff Mulvaney seemed to have been able to talk the president out of closing that port.
BRIGGS: And just last Friday, the president visited Calexico, California, where he told border agents to simply not let migrants in no matter what a judge might say. After the president left the agents asked their bosses what they should do. The supervisors said they had to follow the law, not the president's orders.
ROMANS: Some fascinating behind-the-scenes details on the last few days there.
BRIGGS: Stunning.
ROMANS: All right. A major blow to the president's immigration effort, a federal judge in California blocking the policy of returning some asylum seekers to Mexico while they wait for their immigration court hearing.
Now this preliminary injunction takes effect Friday. The so-called remain in Mexico policy was rolled out by the administration in January. Secretary Nielsen recently ordered an expansion to the program to stem the flow of migrants. According to DHS, as many as 400 asylum seekers have already been returned to Mexico under that policy.
BRIGGS: Eric Swalwell has just become the 18th Democrat running for president. The California congressman making his big announcement on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." Swalwell says he's been thinking about entering the race for months. He says too many Americans feel like they're just running in place and getting nowhere.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SWALWELL: And I see a country in quicksand, unable to solve problems and threats from abroad, unable to make life better for people here at home. Nothing gets done. And none of that is going to change until we get a leader who is willing to go big on the issues we take on, be bold in the solutions we offer, and do good in the way that we govern.
I'm ready to solve these problems. I'm running for president of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Swalwell plans to hit the road with a frantic week of campaigning ahead, hosts a town hall in Sunrise, Florida, today, the focus on combating gun violence, and travels to Iowa Thursday, South Carolina Friday, and his home district in California Sunday, where he'll lay out what he calls his vision for the East Bay and America.
ROMANS: Eighteen in that field. A programming note, be sure to watch Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in a live presidential town hall moderated by Erin Burnett. That's tonight at 10:00 Eastern only on CNN.
BRIGGS: Actress Felicity Huffman, 12 other parents will plead guilty to bribery and fraud charges in the college admission scandal you know as Operation Varsity Blues. Federal prosecutors alleged Huffman paid $15,000 to a fake charity to facility cheating for her daughter on the SATs.
[04:10:05] The admission scheme helped students getting into elite universities like Yale, Stanford, USC and UCLA. Huffman acknowledging her guilty and apologizing in a statement Monday, saying, quote, "I am ashamed of the pain I have caused my daughter, my family, my friends, my colleagues, and the educational community. My daughter knew absolutely nothing about my actions and in my misguided and profoundly wrong way, I have betrayed her."
Prosecutors say they will recommend incarceration for Huffman at the low end of the sentencing range. Actress Lori Loughlin and her husband designer Mossimo Giannulli also charged in the admission scandal. There has been no sign that they plan to plead guilty.
ROMANS: All right. All eyes are still on Boeing. Now investors will start to find out what the 737 MAX crisis means for Boeing's bottom line. Boeing reports the number of planes it delivered during the quarter today. The company did not delivery any of its best-selling 737 MAX planes in the last two weeks of the quarter. It halted those deliveries after the planes were grounded around the world following the Ethiopian Airlines crash last night.
Boeing stock down 11 percent since then shaving about $27 billion off its market cap. It closed down -- the shares closed down on 4 percent Monday after announcing a plan to cut back production on all 737s from 52 a month to 42. Now investors will be waiting to see if Boeing's forecast -- the forecast the costs of the grounding and the halt of the deliveries. Today's report is an early look at the financial cost of its 737 problem. Boeing is scheduled to report first quarter results on April 24th. One analyst estimates the disruption to Boeing's business could last between six to nine months, adding it could take the company until 2021 to catch up on promised deliveries.
BRIGGS: Wow.
ROMANS: But more important than the financial bottom line, of course, is the bottom of safety from the flying public.
BRIGGS: Right. And the more you peel back the layers, this just -- it stinks. And there's a "New York Times" article out today, you should read it. They say Boeing 737 MAX 1960s design, 1990s computing power and paper manuals. I tweeted that out. You must read that.
Ahead, Israelis are heading to the polls right now with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu facing the stiffest challenge of his political life. We go live to Jerusalem next.
ROMANS: And more questions about ride share safety, what police say an Uber driver was doing -- caught doing on that doorbell cam.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:16:30] ROMANS: All right. It is election day in Israel. And in a matter of hours, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will learn whether he's won the fight of his political life. Netanyahu seeking reelection to a fifth term. He faces multiple corruption investigations and a formidable opponent in the former General Benny Gantz.
Joining us this morning live from Jerusalem, CNN's Michael Holmes. And as you were reporting to us yesterday, Netanyahu has tacked to the right here in a bid to win this tough fight.
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Yes, indeed. His tack to the right was saying that if he were elected he would bring all Israeli settlements in the West Bank under Israeli sovereignty, a very controversial thing and a massive sort of policy declaration to be making a couple of days out from an election, and a lot of people saw it that way. As an election ploy, a tactic, a strategy to try to draw more votes from smaller right-wing parties and get people to vote for his Likud Party.
The reason for that, the way the Israeli elections work, there's two main parties here, Blue and White, Benny Gantz, the former chief of staff of the military here, and of course Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party. They are the two main parties. Whoever gets the most votes, head to head, generally speaking, is going to be the one that is asked to try to form a coalition, and when it comes to Benjamin Netanyahu and Likud, he seems to have the edge in terms of other parties and who will go with him in a coalition situation.
It's fascinating, Christine. This is a pretty vibrant democracy, if you like. There's more than 40 parties running but there is a threshold. You've got to get 3.25 percent of the vote to get seats in the Knesset. Probably only anywhere from 10 to 14 parties will reach that threshold, and they're the parties from which the coalition horse trading will begin.
We'll know at about 10:00 p.m. local time. It's just after 11:00 a.m. here now. 10:00 p.m. local time we'll get exit polling, not always reliable but an indication of how this has gone for Netanyahu or Benny Gantz -- Christine.
ROMANS: Fascinating. We know you'll be there covering for us all day. Thank you so much, Michael Holmes for us in Jerusalem.
BRIGGS: All right. The woman who allegedly breached security at President Trump's Mar-a-Lago club last weekend, several electronic devices in her hotel room, along with thousands of dollars in cash. Yujing Zhang appeared at a detention hearing in Florida Monday. Prosecutors suggesting she was trying to spy on the U.S., telling the judge she is a flight risk. The judge will decide next week whether Zhang should stay in jail until her trial. Prosecutors says a signal detector that can seek and locate hidden cameras was one of the devices found in her room.
ROMANS: An Uber driver in Northern California under arrest after police say he tried to break into the home of passengers he took to the airport. Authorities say 38-year-old Jackie Gordon Wilson was caught on a ring home surveillance camera burglarizing and ransacking a home in San Mateo. Now the homeowners shared the video online.
Neighbors identified him as the Uber driver who tried to break into their house after taking them to San Francisco airport. That attempt was thwarted by their alarm system and was also caught on surveillance video. Hours later police arrested Wilson at his home near Sacramento. Uber says it is cooperating with the investigation.
BRIGGS: All right. Ahead, Whoopi Goldberg steps in to pay peacemaker on "The View."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WHOOPI GOLDBERG, CO-HOST, ABC'S "THE VIEW": Here's what's not going to happen today. We're not going to do this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[04:20:03] BRIGGS: Wait until you see what her co-hosts said to each other next.
ROMANS: And the super rich slugger who just can't buy a hit.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: For the "Daily Hot Topic" segment on "The View," true to its name Monday, things got heated as liberal Joy Behar and conservative Meghan McCain went at it. The two are often at odds with each other during political discussions but they needed Whoopi Goldberg to step in while talking about immigration and the crisis at the southern border.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MEGHAN MCCAIN, CO-HOST, ABC'S "THE VIEW": This is a hard-line issue for people who live in border states.
[04:25:04] Many friends of mine, this is the number one and only issue. And if we sit here and act like there isn't a crisis, that it's just -- it's crazy people living in border states that think that there's a crisis, that would be a winning ticket for Trump going forward.
JOY BEHAR, CO=HOST, ABC'S "THE VIEW: But like -- like I just said, like I just said, this guy who's coming in wants to help those countries. That's the way to solve the problem. Keep them there happy or whatever, solve it. Give them a house, give them food, help them, help their children. Stop the --
MCCAIN: Even if they're robbing a house?
BEHAR: Stop the crime rates. I'm talking about helping --
MCCAIN: Well, we've had a bunch of liberal guests who do not want to send in aid at all.
BEHAR: Hold on. I listened to you. Let me just finish.
MCCAIN: Yes, but part of your job is to listen to me.
GOLDBERG: OK, so here's the deal.
MCCAIN: I'm just saying.
GOLDBERG: Here's what's not going to happen today. We're not going to do this. Everybody gets a conversation piece. Everybody gets to say their piece, and we don't need to comment if we don't like what we're hearing. Just let folks talk. So finish what you're saying.
BEHAR: I forgot what it was now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: And that is the American immigration debate in one tiny TV show.
(LAUGHTER)
BRIGGS: Look, it can be both, a political issue for the president and a bit of a crisis on the border.
ROMANS: Yes.
BRIGGS: Near 100,000 apprehensions in the month of March.
All right. We turn to some sports now. History will remember Oriole slugger, or what used to be a slugger, Chris Davis for something the Baltimore Orioles' first base wants to forever forget. David was hitless again Monday. He is now O for his last 49 at bats. That is a new Major League record for most consecutive at bats by a position player without a hit. Davis' hitless streak dates back to last season, September 14th exact, was his last base.
ROMANS: Wow. BRIGGS: Not that long ago Davis, one of the most feared sluggers in
baseball, leading the majors in homeruns in 2013 and '15 and that's why he got a $167 million contract.
ROMANS: Wow.
BRIGGS: And that's what makes this story so painful for Orioles fans. That's a lot of money.
ROMANS: So baseball player Dave Briggs, how do you get out of the psychology of a streak like that?
BRIGGS: You go to a sports psychologist.
ROMANS: Wow.
BRIGGS: That is the only place to turn right now.
ROMANS: All right. Those brackets you filled out at the office this morning we know the team you should have picked. That's next.
BRIGGS: And just hours from now, Democrats plan to hammer the attorney general about the Mueller report and how much of it they'll get to see. Top stories after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:30:00]
