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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Attorney General Bill Barr's Testy Testimony; Joe Biden Gets Pushback For China Remarks; Government Protests Rage In Venezuela. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired May 02, 2019 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:30:44] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): He's trying to blackmail the committee.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Democrats could hold the attorney general in contempt. Bill Barr refusing to testify today, a day after some testy testimony on Capitol Hill.
DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: Joe Biden says China is not competition for the United States, and he's hearing from a lot of people who disagree.
ROMANS: Why was $6.5 million paid by a Chinese family to the man behind the college admissions scandal?
BRIGGS: And her dying wish was to watch the Battle of Winterfell on "GAME OF THRONES." She got that and so much more.
Welcome back to EARLY START on a Thursday. I'm Dave Briggs.
ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. It is 31 minutes past --
BRIGGS: Good morning.
ROMANS: -- the hour. Good morning, everyone.
One day on the hot seat apparently enough for the attorney general. William Barr informing a House panel he will not testify today as scheduled. Barr's move raises the prospect Democrats will hold the nation's top law enforcement official in contempt of Congress.
He had been scheduled to testify to the House Judiciary Committee about his handling of the Mueller report, but Barr rejected the committee's plan to have one of its staff lawyers question him alongside lawmakers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NADLER: He is trying to blackmail the committee into not following what we think is the most effective means of eliciting information we need. And the Congress cannot permit the Executive Branch -- we cannot permit the administration to dictate to Congress how we operate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Chairman Nadler says the panel will meet today as planned and Nadler says he'll give Barr a day or two to comply with his subpoena for the full and unredacted Mueller report -- information that was actually due Wednesday morning.
Chairman Nadler says the committee is looking at May 15th as a possible date for the special counsel Robert Mueller to testify.
ROMANS: Now, as for the testimony Barr did give before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the attorney general made no apology for his handling of the Mueller report. This, just a day after it was revealed Mueller told Barr he did not think Barr's 4-page summary properly characterized the full report.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: The letter's a bit snitty and I think it was probably written by one of his staff.
His work concluded when he sent his report to the attorney general. At that point, it was my baby.
It was my decision how and when to make it public, not Bob Mueller's.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Calling the letter "snitty" got the attention of Merriam- Webster. Their definition, "to be disagreeably ill-tempered." Got it, Romans?
ROMANS: Got it.
BRIGGS: Got it. We like snitty here.
As for Barr, he tried to recast some of Mueller's findings, including that President Trump told then-White House counsel Don McGahn to get rid of Mueller.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARR: The president never directed him to fire. And there is a distinction between saying to someone go fire him -- go fire Mueller, and saying have him removed based on conflict. The difference between them is if you remove someone for a conflict of interest then there'd be another -- presumably, another person appointed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: So he went from snitty to hair-splitting there.
Important to note that in May 2017 before the McGahn incident, the Justice Department made clear Mueller had no ethical conflicts.
ROMANS: All right. Let's bring in CNN digital director Zach Wolf, live in Washington. Good morning, Zach.
I know you were glued to your T.V. yesterday as all of Washington was. What do you make of Bill Barr's performance yesterday and what he was -- what he was trying to do there?
ZACHARY WOLF, DIGITAL DIRECTOR, CNN POLITICS: I think what we've seen with Bill Barr from the beginning of his interaction with the Mueller report, releasing the summary, holding the press conference, he's almost trying to do this Jedi mind trick thing on Washington where he sort of convinces him -- you know, the entire city and the country -- there's nothing to see here.
But if you read it for yourself and then you listen to what he says about it they are two very different things.
BRIGGS: Obi-Wan, Bill Barr. Yes, I do see the Jedi mind trick.
WOLF: Yes.
BRIGGS: In particular, you talk about the snitty letter, which we have here, from Mueller to Barr in which he talks about the context, nature, and substance missing from Barr's conclusion. And he says, "As a result, there is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation."
[05:35:02] So ultimately, you have to ask yourself what was Bill Barr trying to do? Was he trying to act as the attorney for Donald Trump or for the United States?
WOLF: You know, I -- having watched this, I think that he had that line about how we have to not use the political process as a weapon.
I think in the most charitable thing that you could -- the most charitable way you can look at this for Bill Barr -- he's basically trying to depoliticize this process. But he comes off looking as -- shill (ph) would be the last charitable way to put it -- as a shill for the president is the -- is the way I think a lot of people will see him.
ROMANS: You know, if you've read the report -- the Mueller report -- it's very clear that Russian interference in the election is a very big concern here. And we keep --
BRIGG: Yes.
ROMANS: We keep talking about all these other things but the core of this is Russian interference in the election.
It's interesting because Hillary Clinton was on MSNBC last night and, you know, some of these senators kept going back to the origin story -- where this whole thing came from.
BRIGGS: Right -- ROMANS: It's about Hillary Clinton.
BRIGGS: -- which is being investigated --
ROMANS: It's about her e-mails.
BRIGGS: -- yes, by the I.G.
ROMANS: True, of course. But you could see that some of those senators are playing right to what the president wants to be talking about, which is Hillary Clinton.
Here's what Sec. Clinton said yesterday about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON (D), FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: The real story is the Russians interfered in our election and Trump committed obstruction of justice. That's the real story. That's what they don't want the American people thinking about.
So when in doubt, say something wild about me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: There she is on the record there.
You heard so many times yesterday, essentially, but her e-mails, but her e-mails when we're talking about this.
WOLF: Yes and ultimately, they're going to have to find something different to say because she is not going to be on the ballot in 2020 here.
ROMANS: Right.
WOLF: The political conversation, at some point, will move forward. The American voters will no longer care nor will they have her to sort of dislike anymore. There will be somebody new there. So this will have to move forward at some point.
BRIGGS: Then let's do that. Let's move forward to 2020 and Joe Biden, who is currently the frontrunner according to all the polls, and said some things that raised a few eyebrows yesterday, specifically targeted about China and are they really our chief competition -- listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't know a single solitary one who would not change places with the problems the President of the United States has versus the problems they have.
China is going to eat our lunch. Come on, man. They can't figure out how they're going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system. I mean, you know, they're not bad folks, folks, but guess what? They're not -- they're not competition for us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: OK, they're not bad folks, but I guess set aside their human rights abuses. And they're not competition for us. They've stolen tens of billions of dollars -- intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers.
How liable is he with that comment in the weeks ahead in this race?
ROMANS: He was there in Iowa, by the way, where farmers are hurt by --
BRIGGS: Are getting crushed.
ROMANS: -- a trade war we have with China right now.
WOLF: Right, the tariffs. And they're having -- this is something -- I don't -- I think you would be hard-pressed to find another single person in the United States who said that China was not some sort of competition of some kind for the United -- for the U.S.
So I think this is an interesting point though because Joe Biden says -- and he has a long track record of this. He says weird things sometimes and we've now entered that phase of the campaign. When this man goes off-script --
ROMANS: Joe Biden says weird stuff -- part of the campaign.
WOLF: Yes. This is that part of the campaign and it's going to last a long time. He has interesting things that he says and sometimes they're completely wrong and we'll have to see --
BRIGGS: Yes.
WOLF: -- if he has to dial this back a little bit or calibrate it or something. But he has a long track record of this.
ROMANS: I mean, I think --
BRIGGS: Weird or ignorant?
ROMANS: I think being sanguine on China is dangerous. I mean, you could argue that one of the reasons why Donald Trump was elected was because there are a lot of people who feel that previous administrations didn't take Chinese competition --
BRIGGS: Yes.
ROMANS: -- seriously enough and that hurt American jobs. I mean, that's one reason why he was elected.
BRIGGS: It will be interesting to see if he dials that back today --
ROMANS: Yes.
BRIGGS: -- or this weekend.
Zach Wolf, thanks. Good to see you, sir.
WOLF: Thank you.
BRIGGS: OK. Why did a Chinese family pay $6.5 million to the mastermind behind the college admission scandal? The source confirms the payments from the family of a Stanford student.
No definitive word why the payment was made but we do know the parents were referred to Rick Singer by a Morgan Stanley adviser named Michael Wu. He's been fired by Morgan Stanley for not cooperating with an internal investigation into the admissions scandal.
No charges have been filed against the student, the parents or Wu.
Meantime, federal prosecutors in Boston have subpoenaed other parents who were not originally charged. An official tells us prosecutors are looking for financial records and call logs related to those parents.
ROMANS: A vigil Wednesday night at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Thousands of students attended, honoring the lives of two students killed in Tuesday's campus shooting, 19-year-old Reed Parlier and 21-year-old Riley Howell.
[05:40:11] Witnesses say Howell rushed toward the gunman to stop him from firing. The local police chief says Howell's sacrifice saved lives.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHIEF KERR PUTNEY, CHARLOTTE-MECKLENBURG POLICE DEPARTMENT: You're either going to run, you're going to hide and shield, or you're going to take the fight to the assailant. But for his work, the assailant may not have been disarmed. Unfortunately, he gave his life in the process.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Four people were also injured in the attack.
Staff is expected to return to campus today. Meantime, officials say exams have been canceled through Sunday.
BRIGGS: All right.
Ahead, parts of the Heartland devastated once again by floods and the threat is not going away. The latest, next on EARLY START.
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[05:45:31] BRIGGS: Five forty-five Eastern time.
And the threat of more severe weather across the central part of the country today. More than 30 million people from Texas to Illinois under a flash flood watch.
This is Davenport, Iowa one day after the swollen Mississippi River broke through a temporary barrier and inundated downtown.
Today, the threat of more severe storms in Texas and parts of the Ohio River Valley, and an early tropical disturbance could bring heavy rain to Florida.
Here's meteorologist Derek Van Dam.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good day, Dave and Christine.
We are, indeed, monitoring several areas of active weather today. Some potential tropical development across the southeast and severe weather across the central U.S.
Let's talk about that first. It is springtime. We get the collision of air masses -- all of the ingredients necessary for stronger storms.
We'll keep an eye to the sky near Austin and the Del Rio region -- damaging winds, large hail. More of the same across the Ohio River Valley -- Louisville to Memphis. Maybe an isolated tornado.
Now, you can see the precipitation expected to move across the area. We're focusing in on Central Texas. This area has seen copious amounts of rain lately, including parts of Oklahoma.
More additional precipitation in the forecast and that's why we have over 30 million Americans under some sort of flash flood advisory stretching from Chicago all the way to Dallas.
Here's the potential tropical development. Nothing more than really heavy rain across Central Florida, so keep that in mind.
Otherwise, today is going to be a scorcher along the mid-Atlantic. Look at the nation's capital, 87. Chicago will top 48.
Back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: All right. Thanks, Derek.
Neither side backing down in the power struggle in Venezuela. Embattled President Nicolas Maduro blaming the U.S. for the turmoil. Opposition leader Juan Guaido calling on government workers to go on permanent protest.
The head of Venezuela's Secret Police has now broken from Maduro, but Maduro is vowing to stay in control and the U.S. weighing its options.
CNN's Nick Paton Walsh, he is live for us this morning from Caracas. Good morning, Nick. NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Juan Guaido looked like he might have been able to move the dial here early on Tuesday morning when he had the military come out alongside him. He's the interim president recognized by dozens of countries here and the opposition leader.
But really, since that moment, he hasn't managed to keep momentum on the streets. We've seen pockets of violence both on Tuesday and yesterday. And today, Juan Guaido is calling people out on the streets again, nationwide, and hoping that they will protest by sitting in at strikes in their own workplace.
For his part, President Nicolas Maduro, as you said, pointed towards the U.S. to blame for this. But he also said over the weekend that his people should get together and work at how they can improve the country. Basically, both sides are recognizing they didn't achieve what they expected to in the past few days.
And the U.S. is just piling on the pressure. Donald Trump saying, today, it could, quote, "be very bad" and calling what's happening in Venezuela "a terrible mess."
Certainly, Mike Pompeo has said military action is possible. Long- term, it could be hinted as a threat but nothing explicit as that.
And even the acting secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan has canceled a trip to Europe to partly focus on the crisis in Venezuela.
Does this outside pressure move the dial here? We have a lot of concerns that maybe the military was beginning to rethink its allegiances on Tuesday. That seems to have quietened down now. It's very volatile, but it's very hard to tell.
Unless we get large numbers on the streets repeatedly whether or not Nicolas Maduro is rethinking his future.
Back to you.
ROMANS: All right. Nick Paton Walsh for us in Caracas this morning. Thanks, Nick.
We'll be right back.
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[05:53:08] ROMANS: All right.
More Republicans senators are making their concerns about Fed pick Stephen Moore known, with several predicting his nomination could be dead by the end of the week.
Senator John Thune told reporters there are ongoing discussions and conversations with the White House about Moore, adding, "We'll know more about that before long."
Senator Richard Shelby said Wednesday he thought the nomination was in trouble. Shelby, a current member of the Senate Banking Committee, added, "You should not have controversy following you in or out of the job."
A White House source told CNN Moore is being encouraged to keep a low profile and that the West Wing canceled a visit to Capitol Hill to meet with Republican senators.
Moore has been under scrutiny over his writings that seem to disparage women, his personal financial issues, and also his views about the Fed. Earlier this week, Moore suggested the decline in men's earnings is, quote, "the biggest problem" over the past 25 years in the economy.
Fed chair Jerome Powell was asked about wages Wednesday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEROME POWELL, CHAIR, FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM: I think men and women should make the same for the same work, by and large.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: But, Powell declined to comment directly on Moore's remarks.
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POWELL: It's really not my role to engage with potential nominees to the Fed, so I'm really not going to -- not going to go there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Moore has not been formally nominated yet. He told "The Wall Street Journal" he would back out of the process if he becomes a political liability. This week, he said he would fight to stay in. That he's got the support of the Fed's econ team and so he will fight to stay in the process.
Wall Street futures right now are barely moving, leaning up just a little bit. Investors still digesting the Federal Reserve's latest rate decision. The Fed left interest rates unchanged and reiterated it is going to be patient about monetary policy.
The Dow closed 164 points lower. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed down just under one percent.
The big event tomorrow is the April jobs report. Remember, in March, hiring rebounded, the U.S. economy added 196,000 jobs, and unemployment held steady at 3.8 percent. Investors want to see if that pace is continuing here or whether hiring is beginning to slow.
[05:55:09] All right. Hulu's subscriber base is growing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELIZABETH MOSS, ACTRESS, "THE HANDMAID'S TALE": If I'm going to change things, I'm going to need allies. (END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: This news just as the service debuted the trailer for season three of "THE HANDMAID'S TALE."
Hulu says it now has 26.8 million paid subscribers on the service. It still lags far behind Netflix, which has nearly 150 million subscribers globally, 60 million of those in the U.S. Hulu is available only in the United States.
Its CEO said the growth reflects our deep investment in product, programming, brand, customer experience and business strategy.
BRIGGS: New concerns about exposure to measles in two very crowded places.
First, at the Port of Saint Lucia in the Caribbean where a crew member on a cruise ship has a confirmed case of the viral infection. That ship is now quarantined, so 300 passengers and crew members cannot get off.
ROMANS: In California, moviegoers who went to see "Avengers: End Game" and other films at an Orange County theater last Thursday, they may have been exposed to measles. A woman with measles attended a midnight screening of the "Avengers" at the AMC Dine-in Fullerton late Thursday.
Once eradicated in the U.S., measles are now back at the highest levels on record since 2000 when the virus was declared eliminated. Health officials place some of the blame on anti-vacs parents.
BRIGGS: More than $100,000 worth of rims and tires stolen from a Louisiana car dealership. Dozens of vehicles were left on wooden blocks at the Chevy dealership in Slidell, Louisiana near New Orleans.
Police say the defeated locks, alarms, surveillance video -- even manipulated the exterior lights in the parking lot so they could work undetected. They are investigating whether similar cases at dealers in Texas and Oklahoma are related.
ROMANS: The betting favorite in Saturday's Kentucky Derby, Omaha Beach, has been scratched from the big race.
He was diagnosed with entrapped epiglottis. It's a respiratory issue that compromises a horse's ability to breath during exercise. The horse had already been recovering from a crack in his front left hoof.
With Omaha Beach out, a field of 20 is set for the Kentucky Derby, the first leg of horse racing's Triple Crown.
BRIGGS: A Rhode Island hospice patient's final request was to watch the big Battle of Winterfell on "GAME OF THRONES," her favorite show.
Well, the "THRONES" cast did 88-year-old Claire Walton one better. She watched the episode accompanied by video greetings from 10 cast members. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MILTOS YEROLEMOU, ACTOR, "GAME OF THRONES": I know you can't be here today but I just wanted to say hello and that you are with us in spirit.
LIAM CUNNINGHAM, ACTOR, "GAME OF THRONES": It's Liam here. You might know me as Davos Seaworth. I hope you're fit enough to watch the battle, which is tonight. I wish you the very best.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: The episode aired Sunday on HBO. Claire Walton, sadly, died the next day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALEX TREBEK, HOST, "JEOPARDY!": Let's see if he came up with the correct response. Of course, you did.
And your wager substantial? Of course, it was -- $40,784 -- $101,682 today.
And now, let's take a look at that total, shall we, folks? A 20-day total of $1,528,012.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Just another day at the office for James Holzhauer. With that victory, he is tied for the second-longest winning streak in "JEOPARDY!" history.
Host Alex Trebek things Holzhauer has a -- has a shot at breaking Ken Jennings' record run of 74 straight wins.
BRIGGS: Trebek, in an ABC interview, also opening up about his battle with pancreatic cancer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TREBEK: Well, I'm used to dealing with pain. But what I'm not used to dealing with is these surges that come on suddenly of deep, deep sadness, and it brings tears to my eyes. I've discovered in this whole episode, ladies and gentlemen, that I'm a bit of a wuss.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: No, you are not. You are tougher than all of us. The 78- year-old Trebek says he's fighting through it and his cancer lab tests are improving. Always optimistic.
ROMANS: I think it's really wonderful that he talked about the depression, too. I think it's really helpful for a lot of people who --
BRIGGS: Yes. ROMANS: -- suffer from depression. And I think that that was just honest and brave.
BRIGGS: We're all rooting for you, Alex.
ROMANS: All right, thanks for joining us this morning. Have a great rest of your day. I'm Christine Romans.
BRIGGS: I'm Dave Briggs. Here's "NEW DAY."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Barr is declining to testify before the House Judiciary Committee.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He picked a fight because it's good for him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The attorney general is afraid to be accountable and it's terribly disappointing.
BARR: It was my decision when to make it public, not Mueller's.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They'll want to treat him differently than they have anybody else.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The performance was what you would expect a paid defense lawyer for the president to be doing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Thursday, May second. It's 6:00 here in New York.
And this morning, your move, Robert Mueller. How will the special counsel respond now that the attorney general labeled his.
END
