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U.S. Releases Video in Gulf of Oman Attack; Republicans React to Trump "Dirt" Comments; Federal Watchdog Called for Kellyanne Conway to be Fired; Sarah Sanders Stepping Down as Press Secretary. Aired 4- 4:30a ET
Aired June 14, 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] MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: The Islamic Republic of Iran is responsible for the attacks that occurred in the Gulf.
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DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. says surveillance video of a damaged oil tanker points straight to Iran.
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REP. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): That would be simply unthinkable for a candidate for president.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): He gets picked at every day over every different aspect of it.
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CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Republicans slamming, spinning or defending President Trump's comments about foreign dirt on political rivals.
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LARRY KUDLOW, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: They are on the wrong side of history. We will win this battle.
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BRIGGS: The president's economic minister defiant as hundreds of companies take a stand against the trade war with China.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a new NBA champion. And it's the team from Toronto, Canada.
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ROMANS: The Raptors captured the NBA title in a nail-biter. Good morning, and welcome to EARLY START, everyone. I'm Christine
Romans.
BRIGGS: What a game it was. I'm Dave Briggs. It's Friday, June 14th. Happy Friday, everybody. Congrats to all our friends north of the border who are watching this morning.
ROMANS: Yes.
BRIGGS: But some terrible news on the West Coast in that NBA loss for the Warriors.
ROMANS: Yes.
BRIGGS: It is 4:00 a.m. in the East, noon in the Strait of Hormuz. That's where we begin this morning.
The U.S. Military releasing video last night that it says shows an Iranian Navy crew removing an exploded mine attached to one of two tanker ships attacked in the Gulf of Oman. The tankers were attacked in international waters near the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. officials believe the Iranians were trying to recover evidence of their involvement in the attack.
Our senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman joining us live from Abu Dhabi with the very latest.
Ben, good morning.
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Dave. Well, in this video we do see a ship coming right up to the Kokuka Courageous, which is one of the two tankers that was hit yesterday in the Gulf of Oman just outside the Straits of Hormuz. What you see in this video provided by the Pentagon is that men seem to remove an object from the side of the ship.
The Americans are suggesting that this is a limpet mine which is a mine that is attached by magnets to a ship. But what's interesting, however, Dave, is in the meantime we have heard from the Japanese company that owns this tanker that says that one of their crew members saw, just prior to the attack, a flying shell, as it's described going in the direction of the ship.
The owners seem to discount the possibility that the damage caused to that tanker was from a naval mine or a limpet mine but rather some kind of flying object, whether that be a missile or an artillery round of some sort. So there does seem to be confusion on this end regarding exactly what happened.
Now not surprisingly, the Iranians have flatly rejected any involvement in this incident. It's interesting of course that it happened the very day that Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, was on the first visit to Iran. This at the prompting of the United States. The first visit to Iran by the Japanese prime minister since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in that country. So even though there were high hopes that perhaps Mr. Abe's visit to
Tehran might represent a breakthrough in the mounting tensions between the United States on one side and Iran on the other, if anything the tensions are higher than they have been in years -- Dave.
BRIGGS: Indeed. And the Iranian Foreign minister tweeting at the U.S. plan B, team B he calls it, also tweeting at Shinzo Abe. You're right, the tensions very much escalating.
Ben Wedeman, live for us in Abu Dhabi, thank you, sir.
ROMANS: All right. Republicans have begun to respond to President Trump's comment that he would accept dirt on an opponent from a foreign government. That is a possible violation of U.S. law. The president told ABC News that he might go to the FBI if he received such an offer, and casting doubt on the idea that it would even be election interference.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's not interference. They have information. I think I'd take it. If I thought there was something wrong I'd go maybe to the FBI.
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ROMANS: On Thursday some Republicans joined Democrats in blasting the president. Many more offered no comment or deflected when the dubious claim -- with the dubious claim that Hillary Clinton's campaign did the same thing.
CNN's Sunlen Serfaty has more from Capitol Hill.
SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine and Dave. Lawmakers up here on Capitol Hill responding to that admission from President Trump, his willingness to take dirt from foreign adversaries potentially, and much of the reaction rather predictably falling down party lines with Democrats outraged and blasting President Trump for saying he would not immediately report that to the FBI.
[04:05:20] Here's speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
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REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Yesterday the president gave us once again evidence that he does not know right from wrong.
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SERFATY: And Republicans as we have seen in the past have been very hesitant to wade into this. Here's Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.
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SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Yes, I think it's a mistake. I think it's a mistake of law, I don't want to send a signal to encourage this. And I hope my Democrat colleagues will be equally offended by the fact that this actually did happen in 2016 where a foreign agent was paid for by a political party to gather opposition research. All those things are wrong.
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SERFATY: And that is very similar to what we are hearing from many Republicans up here on Capitol Hill. The ones that would take a question and answer this, they said that they personally would not take oppo from a foreign adversary, but tried to steer and stay very far away from being very critical of President Trump's comments themselves and tried to quickly pivot to redirect attention to the Democrats. Republicans, Christine and Dave, very clearly walking a political tightrope in their response to this.
BRIGGS: Sunlen, thank you.
To each his own was the rule among Republicans when there was a wide range of reaction. Take Utah Senator Mitt Romney.
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ROMNEY: That would be simply unthinkable for a candidate for president to accept that involvement, to encourage, to participate with it at any way, shape or form. It would strike at the very heart of our democracy.
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BRIGGS: Now contrast that with Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell immediately turning attention right back on Democrats.
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MCCONNELL: He gets picked at every day over every different aspect of it. But the fundamental point is they're trying to keep the 2016 election alive. I would ask the Democrats in the House this, is there anything you're willing to do other than harass the president for the next two years? Anything at all?
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BRIGGS: This was entirely about moving forward, not backward. One last point from the chairwoman of the Federal Elections Commission, Ellen Weintraub. She said on a statement, quote, "Let me make something 100 percent clear to the American public and anyone running for public office. It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election."
ROMANS: And that includes information.
All right. The Trump administration coming to the defense of White House counsel Kellyanne Conway. They are rejecting calls from a federal agency for her to be fired for criticizing political opponents while in her official government capacity. Conway's violations center around TV interviews in the run-up to a special Senate election in Alabama in 2018 when she said this about Democrat Doug Jones.
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KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO THE PRESIDENT: Doug Jones in Alabama, folks, don't be fooled, he'll be a vote against tax cuts. He's weak on crime, weak on borders, he's strong on raising your taxes, he's terrible for property owners.
STEVE DOOCY, CO-HOST, "FOX AND FRIENDS": So vote Roy Moore?
CONWAY: And Doug Jones is a doctrinaire liberal which is why he's not saying anything and why the media are trying to boost him.
DOOCY: So vote Roy Moore?
CONWAY: I'm telling you that we want the votes in the Senate to get this tax -- this tax bill through.
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ROMANS: All right. We get more now from CNN's Abby Phillip at the White House.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: A federal watchdog is recommending that President Trump fire counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway claiming that she repeatedly violated the Hatch Act which prohibits government employees from using their official offices to do political work. And now this office, the Office of Special Counsel, which is not related to the Mueller report office, is saying that Kellyanne Conway has repeatedly used her office to disparage political candidates to promote other candidates and if on one occasion she flouted this in the face of that office and said essentially when does the jail time start? Listen to what she said a couple of weeks ago.
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The Office of Special Counsel which says that you impermissibly mixed --
CONWAY: I don't know -- listen.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: -- official government business with political --
CONWAY: I'm sorry, are you talking about something from a year and a half ago? So if you're trying to silence me through the Hatch Act, it's not going to work.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I'm not trying to silence you. The Office of Special Counsel said you violated it.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Kellyanne, (INAUDIBLE).
CONWAY: Let me know when the jail sentence starts.
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PHILLIP: But the White House is pushing back on this ruling. The deputy press secretary Steve Groves said in a statement that the office's ruling is deeply flawed and violates Kellyanne Conway's constitutional rights to free speech and due process.
The White House is rejecting the notion that she did anything improper in her role as counselor to the president when she made these statements on social media and even on television appearances from the White House North Lawn.
[04:10:02] But ultimately none of this might actually matter because the Hatch Act is one of those provisions that is rarely enforced. And in fact President Trump himself is responsible for enforcing it. Sources say that the president is very unlikely to fire Kellyanne as a result of something like this, particularly when it comes to these sorts of ethical violations which multiple White House officials at this point have been dinged by this very same office over the last several months -- Christine and Dave.
BRIGGS: OK, Abby, thank you.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders stepping down at the end of the month after just shy of two years on the job. President Trump heaping praise on Sanders saying they've been through a lot together.
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TRUMP: She has been so great. She has such heart. She's strong but with great, great heart. And I want to thank you for an outstanding job.
SARAH SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Thank you, sir.
TRUMP: And thank you.
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BRIGGS: The president also applauding Sanders as a warrior on his behalf. And she redefined the role of press secretary as combatant both as an unapologetic defender of the president on cable TV and dealing with the media in the West Wing. In that role she stayed behind the scenes far more than any modern press secretary. Her resignation coming on the 94th consecutive day without a White House press briefing. Longer than any stretch in the last two decades. She told reporters off cameras she has no regrets about that.
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SANDERS: No, I don't. I still contend that we are the most accessible White House and certainly the president is the most accessible president. And I think it's far more important for me to have played a role in facilitating direct contact with the president of the United States to the American people to hear from him and in his voice than it is to hear from me and mine.
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BRIGGS: Sanders stood by the president nearly every turn, during the Russia investigations, during his attacks on the press, and she did her best to square his initial denial he paid hush money to women who alleged affairs with lawyer Rudy Giuliani later admitting Trump did pay the women.
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SANDERS: There was no knowledge of any payments from the president and he's denied all of these allegations. The first awareness I had was during the interview last night. And I've given the best information I had at the time.
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BRIGGS: Sanders will return to her native Arkansas where she has said privately she may run for governor.
ROMANS: All right. A new warning to President Trump about the damage a trade war with China could cause. More than 600 companies and trade groups including Walmart, Costco, and Target wrote in a letter that more tariffs will have a significant negative and long-term impact on American businesses, farmers, families and the U.S. economy.
The Trump administration is devoted, though, to its tariffs strategy. The chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow said people don't have to buy goods from China so they don't have to pay the tariffs and he's confident about the future of trade.
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KUDLOW: The world's trading system is broken and President Trump is the guy that's trying to fix it. And it's not easy. But he believes it will help, you know, America's long run. They are on the wrong side of history. We will win this battle.
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ROMANS: Cooperate actions are beginning in some cases to prove Kudlow right. RH, formerly known as Restoration Hardware, said it is moving production out of China to avoid paying tariffs. Nintendo and Google are reportedly looking to do the same.
BRIGGS: The Toronto Raptors are NBA champs for the first time in team history, the first in Canada's history.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a new NBA champion and it's a team from Toronto, Canada. We the north are now we the champions.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BRIGGS: Toronto beating the two-time defending champions, Golden State Warriors 114-110 in an incredible game last night to win the NBA battle series in six games. They are the first Canadian team to win an NBA title. The Raptors' Kawhi Leonard was named the Finals' MVP. The superstar free agent to be averaged more than 28 points a game against Golden State. Kawhi also becoming the first player in league history to win Finals MVP with teams in both conferences.
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KAWHI LEONARD, RAPTORS PLAYER: This is what I play basketball for, this is what I work out for all summer, during the season and I'm happy that my hard work paid off.
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BRIGGS: The scene back in Toronto, a wild one of jubilation. Raptors fans erupting after the team's first ever championship. Some 100,000 people including of course rapper super fan Drake jammed Toronto's Jurassic Park to watch their beloved team make NBA history.
[04:15:02] So the dethroned Warriors are licking their significant wounds this morning. They now include the loss of another superstar player, Klay Thompson's agent confirms he suffered a torn ACL right there when he was fouled going up for a dunk in the third quarter, coming down awkwardly on his left leg. So if you're keeping track they have now lost two of their three superstar players, Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson for a long time.
ROMANS: Is that just bad luck?
BRIGGS: That one is bad luck. Kevin Durant, well, probably shouldn't have been on the court in the first place.
ROMANS: All right.
BRIGGS: Just a tough morning in Oakland.
ROMANS: All right. Fifteen minutes past the hour, a congressman accused of corruption, his wife now pleading guilty. Will she flip on her husband? That's next.
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[04:20:21] BRIGGS: New this morning, nine suspects in the shooting of former Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz appearing in court overnight in the Dominican Republic. The nine including eight men and one woman charged in connection with the attempted murder of Ortiz and TV host Joel Lopez at a Santo Domingo nightclub on Sunday. A 10th suspect remains at large. Officials say the suspected gunman, 25-year-old Rolfi Ferreira Cruz has been accused of several armed robbery and firearms charges in Passaic County, New Jersey.
A major legal setback for California Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter in his federal corruption case. Hunter's wife Margaret pleading guilty Thursday to knowingly and willingly converting her husband's campaign funds for personal use. She also agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Both Hunters previously pleaded not guilty to the federal charges. They're also accused of stealing a quarter million dollars in campaign funds to finance a lavish lifestyle.
Ahead Kim Kardashian at the White House talking policy with the president. You'll hear from her next.
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[04:26:21] BRIGGS: A towering figure in the world of pro-football has died. Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen passed away Thursday after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease. He was 75. In a statement the Bowlen family says more than important than being a great owner, Pat was an incredible human being adding heaven just got a little more orange and blue. Pat Bowlen will be posthumously inducted into the pro-football hall of fame in August. His team has won three Super Bowls.
ROMANS: Reality TV star Kim Kardashian West visited the White House Thursday to speak about a new initiative aimed at helping former inmates get jobs. She announced a new ride share partnership that provides ex-cons with gift cards for rides to things like job interviews and for visiting family members. She also thanked the president for his help.
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KIM KARDASHIAN WEST, REALITY TV STAR: These people want to work. They want the best outcome. And I just want to thank the president for really standing behind this issue and seeing the compassion that he's had for criminal justice has been really remarkable.
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ROMANS: Kardashian West began a four-year apprenticeship with a San Francisco law firm earlier this year. She plans to take the California bar exam in 2022.
And, you know, this issue is so interesting because this has been a barrier to expanding the labor force. The labor force participation has been the fact that, you know, one of the things you're asked is do you have a criminal history when you're going to apply for a job.
BRIGGS: Yes.
ROMANS: And in so many cases people don't have driver's licenses, they don't have means to get to a job. If we want to expand the economy, we have to have more people off the sidelines and working and that is a perfect example.
BRIGGS: I know Van Jones has been instrumental in this battle as well.
Ahead the U.S. Military releasing surveillance video of a damaged oil tanker. Why the U.S. says it points straight to Iran, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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