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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Trump's Iran Strategy; Sanders Tackles College Debt; Officers Rescues Girl And Grandmother; Lottery, Absolute Zeroes; America's Choice 2020; Tenth American Tourist Dies In Dominican Republic; Storm Batter Midwest; Trump Not Too Prepared To Lose In 2020; Trump Delays 10 City ICE Raids For Two Weeks; San Francisco To Ban E-Cigarette This Week; FEDEX Cuts Prices To Fill Planes; White House offers Palestinians Cash For Peace Deal; Toy Story Four Opening Weekend; Oregon Senators Skip Sunday Session; Remembering Judith Krantz; Iran Tensions Weigh On Markets; Toy Story Four Tops Weekend Box Office; Emission Scandals Hurts Daimler Profits. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired June 24, 2019 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm not looking for war. And if there is, it will be obliteration like you've never seen before, but I'm not looking to do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN HOST: President Trump says he is willing to meet with Iran without preconditions, but will that change after a new threat overnight against American spy planes?
DAVE BRIGGS, CNN HOST: A college debt in America could be wiped out under a new plan from Bernie Sanders. But where will he get the $1.6 trillion to make it happen?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back up. Back up. Back up. Back up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: An incredible rescue caught on camera. A girl and her grandmother pulled from a burning house.
BRIGGS: How would you like to share a lottery jackpot with 2,000 of your closest friends? Well, a lot of people in North Carolina are about to find out to start this week. Welcome back to "Early Start." I'm Dave Briggs.
ROMANS: Good morning. I'm Christine Romans. Happy Monday. It is 31 minutes past the hour. Let's begin here with the U.S. and Iran. They seem to have stepped back from the brink of imminent confrontation, but tensions still loom as the administration weighs its response to a series of apparent provocations by Tehran. Chief among them the downing of that unmanned spy plane last week. President Trump extending an olive branch to, quote, start all over with nuclear talks. On Meet The Press, the president tried to strike a forceful and yet diplomatic tone.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm not looking for war and if there is, it will be obliteration like you've never seen before. But I'm not looking to do that, but you cannot have a nuclear weapon. You want to talk, good, otherwise you can have a bad economy for the next three years.
CHUCK TODD, MSNBC HOST: No preconditions?
TRUMP: Not as far as I'm concerned. No preconditions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: The president also emphasizing that he makes the final decision after he called off a retaliatory strike last week. Mr. Trump said, he decided the projected death toll from the strike was too high, now despite the urging of some top national security officials.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TODD: Do you feel like you were being pushed into military actions against Iran by any of your advisers.
TRUMP: I have two groups of people. I have doves and I have hawks.
TODD: You have some serious hawks.
TRUMP: I have some hawks, yes, John Bolton is absolutely a hawk. It is up to him, he'd take on the whole world at one time, OK? But that doesn't matter, because I want both sides.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: National Security Adviser John Bolton in Israel, Sunday had this message for Iran.
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AMB. JOHN BOLTON, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: Neither Iran nor any other hostile actor should mistake U.S. prudence and discretion for weakness. No one has granted them a hunting license in the Middle East.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: The U.S. expected to level major new sanctions on Iran this morning. For the latest we turn to Senior International Correspondent Fred Pleitgen standing by live in Tehran. Fred, it does not appear Tehran is in any mood to back down despite the threat of military confrontation. FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes,
you're absolutely right, Dave. I have a little bit of breaking news for you guys right now. Because it seems as though Iran is shooting down the notion of negotiations without preconditions and of course President Trump put out there in that interview in Meet The Press. It was just a couple of minutes ago that a senior adviser to Iran's president Hassam Rouhani came out and said the following that America's claims, this is a quote, to negotiate without preconditions is unacceptable threats and sanctions continue. The Iranians then saying, that they consider war and sanctions to be two sides of the same coin.
Of course, one of the things that the Iranians have been saying for a while now, is that they can send you the -- they consider the maximum pressure policy of the Trump administration to be, as they put it economic warfare or economic terrorism which brings us back to that fundamental disconnect that we had been talking about between Tehran and Washington D.C. with the Trump administration keeps saying that they are going to put sanctions on Iran until they go back to the negotiating table, whereas the Iranians are saying, it is precisely the sanctions that are keeping them from going back to the negotiating table.
But you are also absolutely right, the Iranians issuing some new threats of their own saying, that the shooting down of the drone last week as they put it, was crushing response to the United States and can be repeated. So, they are obviously saying, they're not backing down.
[04:35:00] However, there even appears to be some praise for President Trump's decision not to fire back against the Iranians. Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif saying he believes there are some on the Trump administration who are trying to box him into a war, but he said in the end, prudence prevented it. So seemingly, a little bit of praise for President Trump's decision not to strike back at Iran from the foreign minister, Dave.
BRIGGS: Will only begin another contentious week there. Fred Pleitgen live for us in Tehran, thank you.
ROMANS: All right. If President Trump loses the 2020 election, he admits, he may not be ready to handle defeat. Listen to how he responded to this question from Chuck Todd on Meet The Press.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TODD: Are you prepared to lose?
TRUMP: No, probably not. It would be much better if I said -- it would be much easier for me to say. Well, yes. No, I'm probably not too prepared to lose. I don't like to lose. I don't like to lose. I haven't lost very much.
TODD: You didn't like the fact that you lost the popular vote. That bothered you, didn't it? TRUMP: Well, I think it was a -- I mean, I'll say something. That
again, this controversial, there were a lot of votes cast that I don't believe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Of course, there is no proof, no proof of significant voter fraud in 2016 and within the Trump campaign internal polling has already raised concern about the president's chances in 2020 in several critical states.
BRIGGS: A big week ahead for the 2020 Democrats with their first presidential debates schedule for Wednesday and Thursday nights. Bernie Sanders (inaudible) bounce after losing some progressive support through Elizabeth Warren. NBC polls, she is set to announce a plan that cancel all $1.6 trillion in student loans for some 45 million people.
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SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I-VT), 2020 U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is a little bit crazy for people to do what they have to do, which is to get a quality education and then find themselves in the absurd position of having to pay that debt off for decades.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: The ambitious plan goes beyond the proposal from Elizabeth Warren. It has no eligibility limitations. The Sanders plan would be paid for with a new tax on buying and selling stocks bonds and derivatives.
ROMANS: ICE raids in 10 major U.S. cities, delayed for two weeks by President Trump. After that he insist, deportation will proceed unless congress finds a solution to the crisis at the border. The president announcing the delay after criticism from the mayors of those cities and Democrats. And what was billed as his first television interview with a Spanish language network, Mr. Trump was questioned about his administration's zero tolerance immigration policy. Listen to this rather remarkable claim.
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TRUMP: I'm the one that put people together. They separated. I put them together.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You did not. 2800 children were reunited with their parents in the last year after the zero tolerance policy.
TRUMP: Excuse me, because I put them together. That is because I put them together. Under Obama, you have send them --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Under a court order, right?
TRUMP: No, I put them together.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Acting ICE director Mark Morgan blamed leaks for the delayed immigration raids. He did not specify what information was leak or who leak it. Member of the nation found out about the plan from the president himself in a tweet.
BRIGGS: A New York area man has died while vacationing in the Dominican Republic, 56 year-old Vittorio Caruso, is the tenth American tourist to die there in the past year. Caruso's family was told he died of respiratory distress and possibly a heart attack. Dominican officials are struggling to reassure worried tourist that the deaths are isolated events.
Meantime, the Hard Rock Hotel in Punta Cana said it's removing those liquor dispensers from guest room mini bars. It says the decision had nothing to do with two deaths that occurred there.
ROMANS: San Francisco is set to become the first U.S. city to ban e- cigarettes this week. The city's board of supervisors will hold a final vote Tuesday, it's a move that pits the city against one of the fastest growing startups, Juul Labs which has criticize the measure. Juul is the dominant e-cigarette maker and has skyrocketed in popularity since launching its sleek vaporizer in 2015. Last week the company announced the purchase of a 28 storey office tower in San Francisco.
BRIGGS: Wow. Infant formula sold exclusively at Walmart has been recalled because of the possible presence of metal foreign matter. The recall affects a single lot of the 35 ounce container of parents' choice advantage infant formula milk based powder with iron. The company says, no adverse effects have been reported. They issued a voluntary recall of more than 23,000 containers of the baby formula out of an abundance of caution.
ROMANS: FedEx is shaking up its air network, according to the Wall Street Journal the shipping companies cutting prices to fill up its planes and will offer two day delivery for the same price as ground shipping. The move partly in effort to win business from the competition. FedEx announced earlier this month, they end its air shipping contract with Amazon which build its own delivery network putting it in competition with its partners and UPS, has spent billions of dollars to adapt to the shipping boom building automated sorting facilities and delivering packages now six days a week.
[04:40:15] The move will also help FEDEX adapt amid large growth in e- commerce. FEDEX is air network was built to ship items like legal documents and medical devices, long distances in short period of time, but the e-commerce boom has put distribution centers closer to where people live and that cut the need for air shipping especially when it's more costly than ground shipping.
BRIGGS: An amazing rescue caught on video in Hazelwood, Missouri. A body cam video shows a local police officer who was first on the scene responding to cries coming from the basement of a house that was fully engulfed.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back up, back up, back up. Back up.
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BRIGGS: Inside a basement was the homeowner and her 3-year-old granddaughter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Hey, hey, hey, watch this kid. Watch this kid. Go. Go. I'll get your mama.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: The officer kicked open the window and was able to pull the child out of the window and take her to safety. He returned to the window with the help of the neighbor he rescued the homeowner, as well. Latanya Hart and her granddaughter are both OK. So far the hero officer has only been identified by his department as Officer Rodriguez.
ROMANS: You can see the flames coming out of that window in that first floor, just terrifying. You know, just another day at the office for him, we thank him and that whole crew for their fine work.
BRIGGS: Remarkable. Ahead, the U.S. suggesting cash for peace in the Middle East, but neither side quite ready to buy in here. We are live in Jerusalem with the peace plan.
[04:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: After countless attempts at land for peace, the United States is proposing a cash for peace deal to the Palestinians. But this plan spearheaded by the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner is being pan to this morning. Let's go live to Jerusalem and bring in Oren Liebermann and this talks about, you know, investment from Arab partners and private investors in real, I mean, they're real projects here for the Palestinian economy, but what has the response been?
OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORESPONDENT: Where there are at least ideas for real project, who pays for them, and when, where there are implemented, that is still very much up in the air. Instead of getting bug down on the political process, the entire idea behind the White House's peace for prosperity plan was to work on the economic plan. They're saying $50 billion of investment in the Middle East, more than half of which, some $26 billion will go to Palestinians in the West Bank in Gaza over the course of the next 10 years.
Well, that sounds great. It would certainly be a massive infusion of cash and investments. But for the starters, the Palestinians have already rejected this. And they reject on the communication with the Trump administration ever since Trump recognize Jerusalem as the capital if Israel and move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. That hasn't change. They see the economic investment as am attempted buyoff of their
national aspirations. So, they have flatly said, look, we may need the money, but we're not considering it without a political solution. On the Israeli side Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waited 24 hours before he even responded the economic plan. And he wasn't all that much more committal only saying in a quick statement that he would consider it openly and fairly and that was the end of it.
And this is supposed to be the easier part. The economic plan, they haven't even started talking about the political part of this which is the much more difficult issue of where this proceeds from here. So, Christine, Dave, the Bahrain conference starts tomorrow. I don't think anyone has high expectations right now especially since neither the Israelis nor Palestinians have official delegations there.
ROMANS: All right. Oren Liebermann for us in the Jerusalem, thank you for that.
BRIGGS: A sharp loaded Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan overnight, has the main opposition party wins a rerun of the mayoral election in Istanbul. The state news agency reporting a short time ago, the opposition has won with 54 percent of the vote. This was a revote demanded by Erdogan's Party after it lost the original vote in March by a slim margin. It alleged fraud, sued in court for a do over and won. But President Erdogan party has slid in popularity since it clamped down hard on civil liberties following a failed coup in 2016 and a struggling economy.
ROMANS: All right. To infinity and beyond. Pixar's "Toy Story" franchise returns to theaters. Did it meet expectations? CNN business is next.
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ROMANS: Republican state Senators in Oregon failing once again to show up for a legislative session. They staged a walkout last week over a climate crisis bill. Senate president Peter Courtney, a Democrats, adjourned Sunday's session without a quorum. The Republican bailed on last Thursday's session to express their opposition to a cap and trade climate bill that pass the state house a week ago.
Some of the GOP Senators have left the state according to a statement from the Oregon Senate Republican. Democratic Governor Gabe Brown has authorized state police to locate this errant lawmakers and bring them back to the capital.
BRIGGS: It's happened yet again. This time at Dodger's stadium Sunday. A young woman was struck in the head by a foul ball off the bat of the Dodgers Cody Bellinger. She was sitting just beyond the protected netting that extends the end of the dugout. Bellinger who you can was visibly upset went to check on her between innings. At first she stayed in her seat and was given an ice pack, but then was taken to the hospital for precautionary tests. A woman died last August after being struck in the head by a foul ball at Dodger's stadium. Fan safety has received greater scrutiny since a young girl was struck by a foul ball during a game in Houston last month.
ROMANS: Best-selling romance novelist Judith Krantz has died. She sold more than 80 million copies of her novels which told (inaudible) tales of the rich and elite. They were translated into more than 50 languages. In her 2001 autobiography she wrote, while I seemed like another nice Jewish girl, I grew up in a complicated tangle of privilege family problems and tormented teenage sexuality. She added, I probably feel slightly insecure as I breathe my last, I'm still wondering if I am wearing exactly the right thing. Krantz died of natural causes on Saturday, she was 91.
[04:55:10] BRIGGS: Another round of devastating weather in the already battered Midwest. Multiple roadways washed down in Goodman Missouri. Parts of roaring rivers state park now under evacuation. In Oklahoma a 67-year-old woman is dead swept away in her car by floodwaters. Police say she drove into a flooded creek crossing. And the national Weather service is sending an assessment team to confirm whether it was a tornado that cause extensive damage to a growing kid's daycare facility near South Bend. There were no injuries reported.
ROMANS: My goodness, frightening moments for spectators at the hot air balloon festival in Missouri this weekend. One of the balloons crash landing into a crowd of spectators. One person, a young girl suffering minor injuries. Festival officials say, an experienced balloonist was attempting to land when things went awry. The balloonist can be seen waiving for people on the ground to get out of the way as he made his failed dissent. The balloon festival was part of the bicentennial celebration in Missouri.
BRIGGS: Wow. Well, if you were lucky enough to play the numbers zero, zero, zero, zero, zero in Saturday's $7.8 million North Carolina pick four lottery game, you are the jackpot winner along with 2,013 of your closest friends who had the brilliant idea to pick the four zero's, because they were so many winners, 1002 players who bought a $1 ticket, will get $5,000 each and 1,012 players who purchased the 50 cent tickets, will get 2500 bucks apiece. Lottery officials are warning all the winners to expect extended waiting times when picking up those prices.
ROMANS: All right. Let's get a check on CNN business this Monday morning. Checking now on global market. You can see there, Asian stock markets are higher. Europe has opened mixed here. Looking in Asia, it's mostly geopolitical tensions that we are tracking here between the U.S. and Iran sent oil prices up. So, watching the price of oil here. On Wall Street stocks finished slightly lower on Friday, but futures are up this morning as we look towards that G-20 summit at the end of the week.
Markets will be looking to the president. President Trump's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Well, they are expected to talk about trade.
Daimler, the company that makes Mercedes cuts its profit expectations by hundreds of millions of euros on Sunday. It said government proceedings related to diesel vehicles is a big expense and that expense would rise going forward. German car makers have faced years of scrutiny after that 2015 admissions scandal in which Volkswagen admitted that it rigged millions of cars to cheat on emission test. The news destroyed the confidence in diesel technology and cause Volkswagen tens of billions of dollars recalls and settlements.
Not even Buzz Lightyear could fly high enough to meet Disney's expectations.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's kaboom.
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ROMANS: "Toy Story 4" brought in 118 million bucks in North America in its opening weekend. That was well for it of the 140 that many had hoped for. The film has a 98 percent rating on the reviews site rotten tomatoes. So, that's good. Critically acclaimed, I guess. And features Tom Hanks, Tim Allen voicing Woody and Buzz Lightyear. More important than opening weekend though is staying strong over time. That would be surely needed for a June Box Office has been in a bit of a slump. I'm going to see it.
BRIGGS: Yes. Absolutely. Can Disney maintain audiences for a quarter century? That's the question with Lion King and Toy Story. It will be an interesting summer.
Early Start continues right now with the latest out of Iran.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm not looking for war. And if there is, it will be obliteration like you've never seen before, but I'm not looking to do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: President Trump says he is willing to meet with Iran without preconditions, but will that change after a new threat overnight against American spy planes?
BRIGGS: A college debt in America could be wiped out under a new plan from Bernie Sanders. But where will he get the $1.6 trillion to make it happen?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back up, back up, back up, back up. Back up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: An incredible rescue caught on camera. A girl and her grandmother pulled from a burning house.
BRIGGS: How would you like to get a share of a lottery jackpot with 2,000 of your closest friends? Well, a lot of people in North Carolina are about to find out to start their week. Good morning everyone. Welcome back to "Early Start." I'm Dave Briggs.
ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. It is Monday, June 24th, it is 5:00 a.m. in the East, it is 1:30 p.m. in Tehran. Let's begin there, the U.S. and Iran seem to have stepped back from the brink of imminent confrontation. But tensions still loom as the administration weighs it response to a series of apparent provocations by Tehran.
END
