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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Trump To Speak At D-Day Commemoration; Biden Campaign Amends Climate Change Plan; Former Deputy Arrested In Parkland Case
Aired June 05, 2019 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[04:00:19] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump departing London for a D-Day commemoration at any moment, but not before making more headlines in the British media.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it's more likely that the tariffs go on.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): There is not much support in my conference for tariffs, that's for sure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: The president on another collision course for Senate Republicans over tariffs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We swear an oath to protect the public. If you don't do your job, you will be held accountable.
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ROMANS: The deputy who stayed outside during the Parkland School shooting fired and arrested on felony charges.
BRIGGS: Plus, a dizzying helicopter rescue that almost spirals out of control.
ROMANS: Oh boy.
BRIGGS: Good morning, everyone and welcome to EARLY START. I'm Dave Briggs.
ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. It is Wednesday, June 5th. It is 4:00 a.m. in the East, it is 9:00 a.m. in England, that's where the president is. President Trump departing from London in Air Force One this hour heading to Portsmouth on England's southern coast, it's a major key embankment point on D-Day. He'll be speaking at an event in a couple of hours marking the 75th anniversary of D-Day.
Before he even lands, the president is making headlines for an interview he gave to Piers Morgan, host of "Good Morning Britain".
CNN's Phil Black joining us now live from Portsmouth with the latest. Good morning, Phil. What did the president say?
PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Christine. You're right. He'll be coming here to Portsmouth very shortly for what will be a really big commemoration to mark a key moment in history, the D- Day landings, the huge military operation that the United States played an enormous role in which swung the tide of World War II and ultimately led to the defeat of Nazi Germany.
The key guest of honor here will be the veterans, the men now in the '90s who stormed those beaches 75 years ago, but it's a big international event. Donald Trump will be one of 15 global leaders that will be hosted here by the British government. And before traveling here, he has given this wide-ranging interview with a British broadcaster in which he was pressed for his views on a couple of controversial points, climate change and Meghan Markle. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I believe that there's a change in weather and I think it changes both ways. Don't forget, it used to be called global warming, that wasn't working, then it was called climate change, now it's actually called extreme weather.
I wasn't referring to she's nasty, I said she was nasty about me. And essentially, I didn't know she was nasty about me. So I said, but, you know what, she's doing a good job, I hope she enjoys her life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACK: So, Donald Trump will be arriving here shortly in Portsmouth for what is to be the final official engagement on his state visit to the United Kingdom. Christine.
ROMANS: Closely watching as those events unfold. And we know you'll be there for us, Phil Black, in Portsmouth. Thanks, Phil.
The tariff man, the president, not backing down on Mexico, President Trump standing by his threat to impose a 5% tariff on Mexican goods next week, just in a few days, this during a press conference in London.
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TRUMP: I think it's more likely that the tariffs go on and we'll probably be talking during the time that the tariffs are on and they're going to be paid.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is scheduled to meet with Mexico's foreign minister today to talk about tariffs and immigration. The president has grown frustrated with the numbers of migrants crossing in to the U.S via Mexico. He is using tariffs to punish Mexico, even in the face of heavy criticism.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you think of Republicans who say that they may take actions to block you imposing those tariffs?
TRUMP: Oh, I don't think they will do that. I think if they do, it's foolish. There's nothing more important than borders.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: And then there's this, the Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, he weighed in on trade developments yesterday.
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JEROME POWELL, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN: We are closely monitoring the implications of these developments for the U.S. economic outlook and, as always, we will act as appropriate to sustain the expansion with a strong labor market and inflation near our symmetric 2% objective.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Translation here. If the president sacks the U.S. economy with his trade policies, the fed would have to come in and rescue the economy to bail it out. Stocks rallied after those comments. The Dow closed up 512 points. That's the best day since January 4th. Investors taking those comments as a sign the fed may cut interest rates to bail out the president's trade policy.
BRIGGS: I'm happy to hear you were shocked by that. It felt like here is your bailout, President Trump, for your messed-up trade policies. What about this as related to the Mexico tariffs? This is about China primarily, yes?
[04:05:05] ROMANS: Well, but this --
BRIGGS: Or is it also in case you mess up things with U.S. and Mexico will bail you out?
ROMANS: The fact -- look, the fed speak is very circumspect, right? But the point here is that the fed -- that the president is on multiple fronts in his trade war now and that becomes more dangerous for the economy.
BRIGGS: And encouraging the president to further the trade wars.
All right, if the president follows through on his threat to impose those tariffs on Mexico, he could be facing a bit of a Republican rebellion. About a half dozen GOP senators railed against the idea at lunch with White House and Justice Department officials Tuesday. Even the most hardened Trump loyalists are resisting.
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MCCONNELL: There is not much support in my conference for tariffs, that's for sure.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Will you try to block those tariffs?
MCCONNELL: Well, what I'm telling you is, we are hoping that doesn't happen.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-L): Yes, I think it's a mistake. I'm not saying we don't have a crisis on the border, we do, clearly. I'm not saying it won't work, at least short term. My concern has to do with the long-term ramifications.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Republican Senator Ted Cruz summed it up this way, "What we are seeing now is a giant game of chicken, like two trucks headed straight at each other on a country road. If the outcome of this is that Mexico blinks and they turn, and they actually become active, productive partners in helping stop illegal immigration, that would be a good outcome, but if the outcome is massive new tariffs that destroy jobs in Texas and the rest of the country, that would be a terrible outcome."
ROMANS: All right. The former Broward sheriff's deputy who waited outside Stoneman Douglas High School while a massacre was under way inside was arrested Tuesday on child neglect, negligence, perjury and other charges. Former school resource officer, Scot Peterson, retired after the Parkland massacre and he's been collecting a pension. That pension now in jeopardy after Peterson was also officially fired at a disciplinary hearing. Peterson's arrest warrant says, after he arrived on the scene, the gunman fired 75 times killing five students and a teacher and wounding four others.
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RICK SWEARINGEN, COMMISSIONER, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT: When we saw the timeline that day and he stood there for some 45, 48 minutes and did nothing. You know, as law enforcement officers, despite whatever policies and procedures our agencies have, we swear an oath to protect the public that we serve. And I think it says now that you will be held accountable. If you don't do your job, you will be held accountable.
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ROMANS: Peterson's attorney calls the charges a "thinly veiled attempt at politically motivated retribution" against Mr. Peterson. But parents of murdered Parkland students applauded his arrest.
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LORI ALHADEFF, DAUGHTER KILLED IN PARKLAND MASSACRE: He needs to go to jail and he needs to serve a lifetime in prison for not going in that day and taking down the threat.
GENA HOYER, SON KILLED IN PARKLAND MASSACRE: We miss our children every day. And there's nothing that's going to bring them back and we know that. But just hurts so much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Fred Guttenberg whose daughter, Jamie, was killed in a massacre tweeted this, "I have no comment except to say, rot in hell, Scot Peterson. You could have saved some of the 17. You could have saved my daughter. You did not and then you lied about it and you deserve the misery coming your way."
BRIGGS: Turning to the mass shooting in Virginia Beach over the weekend, witnesses now say the gunman appeared to target supervisors in his department during a shooting rampage that left 12 dead Friday. A survivor of the attack and a city councilman say DeWayne Craddock walked past several employees before firing his first shots in an area where senior engineers and supervisors sat.
Councilman Louis Jones say Craddock was apparently looking for specific people at least initially. The 40-year-old city engineer submitted a resignation letter Friday before the rampage. Officials say he was in good standing and was not on the verge of being forced out.
ROMANS: The governor of Virginia is convening a special session of the state legislature to take up gun measures in the wake of the Virginia Beach massacre. Democrat Ralph Northam says there's an urgency to act and he wants to see common sense public safety measures passed.
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GOV. RALPH NORTHAM (D-VA): I will be asking for votes and laws. Not thoughts and prayers.
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ROMANS: Republicans in Virginia's House of Delegates are heading in a different direction. They plan to push legislation to stiffen penalties for those who use firearms to commit crimes including mandatory minimum sentences.
BRIGGS: The Trump administration has ordered former staffers, Hope Hicks and Annie Donaldson, to defy subpoenas and not turn over any documents to the House Judiciary Committee from their time at the White House.
White House attorneys are claiming executive privilege, but Hicks, the former communications director, can still turn over documents from the 2016 Trump campaign. Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler says that period is not covered by executive privilege.
[04:10:06] ROMANS: The Democrat controlled House passing a bill that would offer a pathway to citizenship for many undocumented immigrants including DREAMers. The measure would allow DACA recipients and two other undocumented categories the chance to gain lawful, permanent resident status. Now, the bill is unlikely to become law any time soon, even if it
passed the Republican-controlled Senate, it would then go on to President Trump who has sought to end these programs.
BRIGGS: "Jeopardy" James Holzhauer now reflecting on his historic run on the iconic game show.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is your wager? Oh, gosh, 20,000, what a payday.
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BRIGGS: Holzhauer dethroned there as "Jeopardy" champ after winning 32 straight games. He fell just short of the all-time record for total winnings. But Holzhauer did earn 2.64 million bucks.
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JAMES HOLZHAUER, JEOPARDY CONTESTANT: I did expect to do pretty well when I was on the show. And I felt maybe I could win six, seven episodes and certainly not 32 and certainly not this level of money.
The biggest preparation was the buzzer but, you know, just kind of keeping it in my head that like, hey, this is it. This is a game. It's just gambling. It's just what you do at work. Give me a segment of the population out there that doesn't forget about this. I don't think that I've changed the game of "Jeopardy" forever but I guess I'll have to watch future episodes and see if everyone is playing this style now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Holzhauer, a professional sports gambler from Vegas, says he's very proud of how he got on the show. He's one of only three players to cross the $2 million mark in "Jeopardy" winnings. And always the business correspondent, Christine Romans has the tax tab for James, which is?
ROMANS: Well, I was trying to figure out, I think the tax tab is going to be well over a million dollars.
BRIGGS: $1.2 million.
ROMANS: Yes, yes.
BRIGGS: California state taxes --
ROMANS: Yes.
BRIGGS: -- don't help you. That's where "Jeopardy" is.
ROMANS: He was in Vegas. He earned it in California.
All right, 2020 Democratic frontrunner, Joe Biden, fending off attacks from opponents who say he's stuck in the past. You'll hear from him, next.
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[04:16:35] BRIGGS: Joe Biden's presidential campaign scrambling to amend his $1.7 trillion climate change plan just hours after releasing it. That's because questions were raised about several passages in the proposal that appear to borrow language from progressive policy papers and websites. The Biden campaign says it inadvertently failed to cite sources and immediately corrected the problem once it was pointed out.
Biden's first bid for the presidency in 1998 was derailed when plagiarism in his campaign speeches came to life.
ROMANS: He's also fending off -- Joe Biden also fending off allegations he's stuck in the past following this dig from rival Senator Elizabeth Warren.
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SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Here's the deal, we have this chance. We have this time. We have this opportunity together. It comes to us. This fundamental question about what kind of America do we want to be. Do we want to be the America of the last two years?
(CROSSTALK)
WARREN: But here's the deal, I want to be the America of 10 years back, of 20 years back or 30 years back. I want to build a better America. And I think this is (INAUDIBLE) our time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: The former vice president and 2020 frontrunner calling for unity while also doubling down saying he's not looking to go back to the past.
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SEN. JOE BIDEN (D-DE), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You got to get people working together because otherwise there is no way this country can continue to function like it had in the past. And will in the future. It's really -- and I'm not talking about going back to the past. I'm talking about avoiding a terrible future if we do not, if we do not figure out how to make this work.
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BRIGGS: Biden's also making a punchline out of the claims that he has inappropriately touched women in the past. The former vice president brought a chair to a woman at a town hall event in New Hampshire Tuesday. She then whispered something in his ear prompting this response from the Democratic frontrunner.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BIDEN: We have a little secret going here. I want the press to know, she pulled me close. I just want you to know, OK. All right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Earlier this year, several women alleged Biden inappropriately touched or kissed them and invaded their personal space during public events.
ROMANS: Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib bring personal experience to a Capitol Hill hearing on domestic terrorism. The Michigan Democrat reading from an ugly message sent to her and other lawmakers during a hearing on the lack of domestic terrorism law.
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REP. RASHIDA TLAIB (D-MI): When you get something like this attention, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and rag heads, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, I was totally excited and pleased when I heard about 49 Muslims were killed and many more were wounded in New Zealand. This is a great start. Let's hope and pray that it continues here in the good old USA. The only good Muslim is a dead one.
How is that enough? Not enough to fall under domestic terrorism, if they're targeting solely based on my faith and others in saying that a good Muslim is a dead one, obviously directed to me.
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[04:20:07] ROMANS: The FBI's assistant director for counterterrorism, Michael McGarrity, he urged her to work in Congress to develop domestic terror legislation.
BRIGGS: Check out this dramatic video of a helicopter rescue that turns into a terrifying ride for a 75-year-old woman who is injured while hiking in Phoenix. As she's being hoisted to safety, the basket is windmilling in a furious, out of control spiral. Emergency responders in an effort to explain say sometimes stuff happens.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sometimes if we're in a canyon, if there's -- if it's a strong, windy day, it'll just -- it'll spin on us. It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes it just does. And when it does, we're trying to take care of it.
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BRIGGS: Officials say the woman felt nauseous and dizzy after being whipped around but otherwise was not injured during that rescue.
ROMANS: OK, that looks terrifying. Worse than the rattlesnakes that are in that canyon is the risk, the ride out.
All right, one of these women is the richest female musician in the world. Find out which one next.
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[04:26:09] BRIGGS: All right, it's 4:25 Eastern Time. And according to "Forbes" magazine, Rihanna is now the world's most -- richest female musician.
ROMANS: Are you flustered on the name?
BRIGGS: I am flustered about her name. The 31-year-old super star singer and entrepreneur has amassed a $600 million fortune surpassing Madonna, Celine Dion and Beyonce. They're runners up on the magazine's annual list.
Formally known as Rihanna as well, the popular business and makeup and lingerie have helped significantly to build her wealth. "Forbes" says her Fenty Beauty cosmetics company raked in an estimated $570 million last year alone. Certainly helps marketing when you have 72 --
ROMANS: Yes.
BRIGGS: -- million followers on Instagram. But please explain, and I was flustered because I've known her as Rihanna my whole life and now you tell me it's otherwise.
ROMANS: Well, she has always said her name Rihanna, and for some reason, the world says Rihanna.
BRIGGS: We just decided otherwise.
ROMANS: But she says Rihanna and it is Rihanna.
BRIGGS: You heard it from --
ROMANS: Out of her mouth.
BRIGGS: OK.
ROMANS: Rihanna. Her name is Rihanna.
BRIGGS: Rihanna. I'll get it. It'll take time.
ROMANS: You know what, it sounds like she'll answer to Rihanna because there is plenty of money rolling in --
BRIGGS: Yes.
ROMANS: -- for Rihanna Rihanna.
BRIGGS: Good point.
ROMANS: Right. All right, President Trump has another term for climate change, that and much more on his trip to the U.K., next.
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