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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
More Devastating Tornadoes; McConnell Flips On Supreme Court Vacancies; Huawei Wants U.S. Ban Lifted; Child Attacked By Mountain Lion. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired May 29, 2019 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:00:18] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: For the 13th straight day, tornados carve a destructive path. This time, the worst damage is in Kansas. And historic flooding is expected in Arkansas and Oklahoma.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): Oh, we'll fill it.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: A total 180 from Mitch McConnell who now says he would fill a Supreme Court vacancy during an election year.
ROMANS: An embattled Chinese firm wants back in with U.S. companies after being blacklisted two weeks ago. Huawei claims it's no security threat despite accusations it stole trade secrets.
BRIGGS: Ahead, a boy attacked by a mountain lion in San Diego, with a first attack of its kind in more than 20 years.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Dave Briggs.
ROMANS: Nice to see you this morning.
BRIGGS: Good morning.
ROMANS: I'm Christine Romans. It is Wednesday, May 29th. It is 4:00 a.m. in the East.
And it was another night of tornado terror, stretching from the Southern Plains to the Northeast.
Eastern Kansas hit especially hard. The cities of Linwood and Lawrence suffering extensive damage there. They're located just across the border from Kansas City. Linwood's mayor says dozens off homes in the area are gone.
(BEGIN VDIEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It got really dark, and it started raining really hard and I could feel air moving the walls, and I could feel the air coming from above and then all of a sudden, I heard stuff flying around up above me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Storm clouds stretching for miles across the region. Homes in the area flattened. Lawrence police warning residents about downed trees and power lines. At least 12 patients are being treated for injuries. Some people forced to take cover in a safe room at a local gas station.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRAD PERKINS, KANSAS RESIDENT: Just lightening hitting the ground in front of me. Just everything pitch-black. (INAUDIBLE) my wife, too. She called me, too, though, and said, hey, it's right in front of you. You need turn around.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Wow. The red cross has opened shelter for anyone in the county displaced by the storm which crossed into Missouri and spawned a tornado near the town of Kearney.
A tornado also touched down in Berks County, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday. One neighborhood, in Morgantown, suffered heavy damage, with several trees uprooted. At one point last night, about 1 million people in the New York area were under a tornado warning and a New Jersey high school was damaged by a severe band of storms while event was going on in the school's gymnasium. Nobody was injured.
BRIGGS: Remember all the damage and destruction coming from the same system stretching from Texas to the New York City metro area. Authorities in Ohio are getting a handle on all the damage suffered late Monday. This home's ceiling fan remained intact, the ceiling itself, though, did not. For 13 consecutive days, the tornado has touched down in the United States, the longest stretch since 1980.
Is there more ahead?
Karen Maginnis joining us live with the latest forecast.
Karen, good morning.
KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning.
Yes, it has been devastating, another afternoon where about 114 million people in the line of fire, for potentially dangerous and severe weather. What you're looking at here is a rain-wrapped tornado.
This in Linwood, Kansas, Linwood and Lawrence, Kansas, just about an hours drive outside of Kansas City to the west. What we're looking at is severe weather that is shifting a little bit further towards the east. But overnight and yesterday, in the past 24 hours, 19 reports of tornados, all the way from the Ohio River Valley, some funnel clouds into the northeast in New England. But it looks like that shifts further to the east. So, Washington,
D.C., yes, and Baltimore could see an isolated tornado, also from St. Louis, to Springfield, to Dallas, you're looking at an enhanced risk. So, about 39 million people could see it the potential for severe weather.
All of this part of a very vigorous and very robust weather system that is impacting the Midwest and Central Plains. But it isn't just the tornadoes. It's the heavy rainfall that's going to impact this region as well. Already, some areas experiencing severe flooding.
But the Arkansas River, as that frontal system moves through, the Arkansas River will move to historic levels. None like we have seen since the 1940s or in recent times, 2009. Millions of people can expect to see yards flooded, homes flooded, but not just there. Also across the northern sections of Missouri and into Iowa.
But we have seen the severe weather just kind of cool down just a little bit for the overnight hours as the heat of the day has died down just a little bit.
[04:05:02] But even by May's standards, this has been phenomenal. About 1,200 tornados reported every year across the United States and we're closing in on 500 over the past several weeks.
Back to you, guys.
ROMANS: Yes, just unrelenting between the rain and tornado activity.
All right. Karen, thank you so much for that.
The flooding in Arkansas turned deadly overnight. Police say a driver steering around a barricade on a flooded roadway drowned. And the rain soaked Arkansas River could crest at nearly 41 feet later today.
It's putting western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma on alert for record-break flooding. The mayor of Tulsa warning residents to prepare for a worst case scenario. The Army Corps of Engineers has been releasing water for the Keystone Dam ahead of the river cresting. But this could worsen the flooding in nearby communities.
Further east, flooding in at least eight states along portions of the Mississippi. It's the longest lasting since the Great Flood of 1927.
BRIGGS: Wow.
For a second time of the week, a House Republican has blocked passage of $19 billion disaster relief bill. Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky objecting to the measure, even though it has overwhelming bipartisan support and the president promised to sign it. It only takes one person to block a bill from passing, evidently by unanimous consent.
Massie says he is trying to stop what he calls legislative malpractice. He wants all House members present before taking a vote. On Friday, Republican Congressman Chip Roy of Texas also objected to a unanimous consent. ROMANS: Presidential candidate and former vice president, Joe Biden,
back on the trail in Texas. He's talking more about policy, laying out part of his view in education in Houston. It includes more funding for schools and low income areas, and helping teachers pay off student loan debt.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You all gone (ph) and went to college, you spent four years. You ended up with a debt, most of you, if not all of you, and you end up in a situation where you in fact are making 25 percent less than most college graduates. And it's a just -- it's just not right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Biden's campaign also hit back at President Trump's low IQ comment overseas, criticizing him for embracing autocrats like Kim Jong-un saying: To be on foreign soil on Memorial Day and to side repeatedly with a murderous dictator against a fellow American and former vice president speaks for itself.
Now, Trump defended his comments by saying he was actually sticking up for Sleepy Joe Biden. Trump tweeting that Kim Jong-un called Biden a low IQ idiot, while he claims he used a much softer term, low IQ individual. That's giving it an upgrade apparently.
Trump adding, who could possibly be upset with that?
BRIGGS: The entire country.
A brazen flip-flop. Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, says if a Supreme Court vacancy occurs during next year's presidential election, he will work to confirm a nominee appointed by President Trump. Here what the senator said at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Paducah on Tuesday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUESTION: If a Supreme Court justice was to die next year, what would you do?
MCCONNELL: We'll fill it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: A sip of iced tea and a smirk.
You might recall McConnell's decision to block President Obama's nominee to the high court, Merrick Garland, following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February of 2016.
(BEGN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCONNELL: All we're doing, Chris, is following a long-standing tradition of not filling vacancies on the Supreme Court in the middle of a presidential election year.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: McConnell's explanation for the flip-flop. His spokesman claims there is a big difference between now and three years ago because in 2016, the White House was controlled by Democrat and the Senate by Republicans, and this time both are controlled by the GOP. Of course, that's not what McConnell just said.
ROMANS: Yes, from do as I say not as I do file or -- anyway.
The Supreme Court side stepping a big decision on abortion but still ruling on two key parts of an Indiana abortion law. The court leaving in place a block that keeps the state from prohibiting abortions based solely on race, sex or disability. Justices did decide part of the law that favors clinics, requires clinics to bury or cremate fetal remains can go forward. The split decision seems to signal there's little appetite to reexamine core abortion precedence like Roe v. Wade.
It comes as a number of states push anti-abortion measures with a goal of getting the issue back before the Supreme Court.
BRIGGS: Missouri has poised to become the first state in the country to stop offering abortions since the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. On Friday, the state's health department is expected to block services at the last health center providing the procedure.
[04:10:06] Missouri's annual license for abortion services expires on May 31st.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. LEANA WEN, PRESIDENT, PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA: We know that banning abortion is not going to stop abortion. But it will stop safe, legal abortion. We are seeing now just how extreme these anti-women's health politicians are and how far they're willing to go.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: A circuit court judge in St. Louis will hear arguments today in Planned Parenthood's lawsuit against the state. Missouri has not renewed Planned Parenthood's license. On May 24th, Missouri Governor Mike Parson signed a bill prohibiting all abortions after eight weeks of presidency.
ROMANS: All right. Ten minutes past the hour.
A first of its kind trial. Did Johnson & Johnson flood the market with prescription painkillers? And should the company pay for it? The state of Oklahoma says yes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [04:15:31] ROMANS: All right. Chinese tech giant Huawei claims the United States is setting a dangerous precedent by cutting off business ties with the company. The firm says it will ask a U.S. court to reverse measures that bar federal agencies from buying Huawei products.
CNN's Sherisse Pham has been inside Huawei. She joins us live from Shenzhen, China.
And I think this is really important to know. This company is sort of the crown jewel of China's economic strategy, right, to really dominate high tech into the next century and expand beyond, you know, making shoes and basketballs and the manufacturing floor of the world, but really being on this high-end tech supplier to the world.
SHERISSE PHAM, CNN REPORTER: You're absolutely right, Christine, because Huawei is a crown jewel. That's a great way to put it. They are a national champion. They are a key player when it comes to China's made in China 2025 strategy. That is a strategy where China wants to be leading the technologies of the future.
And the company today really striking a defiant tone, calling the United States -- saying the United States is using state power to crush a private company and also saying that U.S. suppliers like Google and GE and Microsoft have written to the Commerce Department about this ban. Of course, the Commerce Department added Huawei to the so-called entity list, essentially barring American firms from doing business with Huawei which means that companies like Google and Qualcomm can't sell software and computer chips to Huawei.
And this is a crippling blow. it means that Huawei won't be able to build the 5G products for the 5G rollout. It won't be able to service smartphones with the Android operating system.
But let's not forget that the U.S. has also accused Huawei of trade theft, of intellectual property theft, and violating sanctions on Iran, allegations that we should note that Huawei, of course, denies.
And today, we really just saw some fired up executives here at Huawei, defending the company, calling the U.S. a bully, but also, Christine, acknowledging that these latest restrictions are threatening its business.
ROMANS: Yes. That bully line, something you hear from the Chinese foreign ministry as well, that the United States is acting as global bully here.
All right. Thank you so much, Sherisse Pham. Nice to see you this morning.
American consumers are confident, even as the country nears the one- year anniversary of its trade war with China. New data from the Conference Board shows consumer confidence rose in May, near 18-year highs. The Conference Board knows the increase was mainly driven by a strong jobs market, adding, despite retail sales in April, these high- level of confidence suggest no significant pull back in consumer spending in the months ahead.
But high levels of confidence on Main Street may mean tough times for Wall Street. Stocks have pulled back amid trade war concerns. One analyst notes that maximum optimism tends to coincide with maximum prices. Many retailers warned that higher tariffs on Chinese goods will lead to higher prices for consumers. For investors, the recent slide in stocks may be a more important indicator than consumer confidence.
The 10-year treasury yields fell to 2.26 percent Tuesday, the lowest level since September 2017. I guess if you're looking for a bright spot in the uncertainty and the risk aversion in the global markets is that mortgage rates continue to fall. So if you are trying to get in and lock in on a mortgage, those lower bond yields are good for you.
BRIGGS: Ahead, a new nominee, but perhaps the worst pitch all of time. Or was it the best? You decide when we come back.
(COMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:24:00] ROMANS: History unfolding in Oklahoma where the nation's battle with opioids has reached inside of a courtroom. Oklahoma's attorney general accusing Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries of creating the most worst manmade public health crisis in American history by flooding the market and promoting prescription painkillers and then staying silent as the deadly grip of addiction took hold.
The company claims its products are regulated by the government and only just a fraction of the painkillers consumed in Oklahoma. It's also pointing a finger at doctors, pharmacists and manufacturers, arguing the state cannot prove Johnson & Johnson caused the addiction crisis or the overdose deaths. Oklahoma is seeking $17.5 billion to tackle the problem.
BRIGGS: A University of Wisconsin student sentenced to a year of probation for entering a restricted area at the president's Mar-a-Lago resort last year. Mark Lindblom pleaded guilty Tuesday to unlawful entry. Officials say he never encountered the president or the first lady.
[04:25:00] The Secret Service claims Lindblom was screened for weapons and other items but entered the restricted space through a tunnel. He was arrested once agents realized he was not member or a guest of the club.
ROMANS: A San Diego nature preserve is closed to the public after a mountain lion attacked a little boy on Monday. Officials say the 4- year-old and his family were hiking when the boy's father threw rocks at the lion to scare it off. Fish and wildlife officers later euthanized a female mountain lion. Investigators are keeping the park closed until they can confirm it was the same lion that attacked the child. The boy has suffered head injuries is expected to be released from the hospital soon.
BRIGGS: As first pitchers go, new nominee for the worst ever -- ouch. Employee being honored as the employee of the month by the Chicago White Sox threw out the ceremony first pitch last night. Instead of the catcher's glove, she plunks the cameraman.
I believe that would be a team cameraman judging by that position. So that was bad.
How bad was it? Who could forget this one? A first pitch by the rapper 50 Cent. That lives in infamy.
Which Romans, do you think was worse?
ROMANS: I think -- I just know I would never say yes to a ceremonial pitch. I just don't -- I just can't -- if that's not your day job, I don't know.
BRIGGS: I still think 50 Cent holds the crown.
ROMANS: All right. More than 39 million people now under enhanced risk of severe weather today. A tornado is carving a destructive path in Kansas overnight, a 13th day in a row with tornadoes in the U.S.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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