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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
President Trump Doubles Down On Racist Politics; Biden And Sanders Battle Over Health Care; Missing Camper Found Alive. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired July 16, 2019 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:30:09] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As far as I'm concerned, if you hate our country -- if you're not happy here you can leave.
REP. ILHAN OMAR (D-MN): This is the agenda of white nationalists.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: The defense of racism now an ironclad part of the president's playbook. His rhetoric met with mild criticism from the Republican Party he reshaped.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The transition of dropping 300 million people on a new plan is a little risky.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The system that Joe and others are trying to prop up is the most wasteful, bureaucratic, and expensive system on earth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders squaring off on health care, the pivotal issue now dividing some Democrats.
DEAN: Joy and relief after a missing hiker is rescued in California. Sheryl Powell went missing for four days. We'll tell you what happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DEPUTY WILL KIMBRO, BERKELEY COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE, BERKELEY COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA: There we go, there we go. Come on -- come on, baby. She's breathing. As long as she's crying like that, she's breathing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: A heart-pumping rescue in South Carolina. A deputy pulls a car over for speeding and saves a baby in distress.
Welcome back to EARLY START on a Tuesday. I'm Dave Briggs.
DEAN: Good morning. I'm Jessica Dean in for Christine Romans. It is 31 minutes past the hour.
President Trump escalating the ugliest of ugly politics. Instead of apologizing for his racist attack on four progressive House members, he justified it at a White House news conference.
Trump sparked the controversy Sunday when he tweeted the congresswomen, all of them U.S. citizens, should, quote, "Go back where they came from."
John Roberts, of Fox News, put this question to him yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN ROBERTS, CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, FOX NEWS: Does it concern you that many people saw that tweet as racist, and that white nationalist groups are finding common cause with you on that point?
TRUMP: It doesn't concern me because many people agree with me. And all I'm saying -- they want to leave, they can leave.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEAN: The episode reflects the president's certainty he won't lose the support of his base or the Republican Party he's reshaped.
BRIGGS: Most GOP lawmakers kept silent, but a number of prominent Republicans did come out against the remark, if not against the president.
Here's the only black Republican in the House, Will Hurd, of Texas.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. WILL HURD (R-TX): The tweets are racist and xenophobic. They're also inaccurate. It's behavior that's unbecoming of a President of the United States and a leader of the free world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: George Conway, a conservative prominent Washington lawyer, Trump critic, and husband of Kellyanne Conway, wrote a blistering op- ed for "The Washington Post" saying, quote, "Sunday left no doubt. Naivete, resentment, and outright racism, roiled in a toxic mix, have given us a racist president."
Now, the women Trump painted as the America-hating face of the Democratic Party are pushing back.
So let's bring in Nathan Gonzales, editor and publisher of "Inside Elections" and a CNN political analyst. Good to see you, sir.
DEAN: Hey.
NATHAN GONZALES, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, EDITOR AND PUBLISHER, "INSIDE ELECTIONS": Good morning.
BRIGGS: All right, let's play a little game of then and now with Sen. Lindsey Graham.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): He's a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot. He doesn't represent my party. He doesn't represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for.
We all know that AOC and this crowd are a bunch of communists. They hate Israel. They hate our own country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: OK, Nathan, so what's the calculation for Republicans, like Graham? Is it about tax cuts, and conservative judges, and deregulation or is it about those few names -- Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, Mark Sanford -- and maybe you could throw in Justin Amash who was forced to leave the party that they cannot survive after criticizing the president?
Is there any room for true criticism of this president? And then, that question is can Will Hurd stick around?
GONZALES: Well, yes. I don't -- I don't think there's a universal reason why for the lack or delayed response from the Republican Party.
I mean, specifically, with Sen. Graham. He went from someone who was running against candidate Donald Trump to someone who is up for reelection in a very pro-Trump state in South Carolina in 2020. And so, I think that he started to make that transition a while ago -- you know, really interjected himself in the Kavanaugh hearings and now he is definitely as pro-President Trump as it gets.
You know, I keep coming back to a piece on cnn.com that Scott Jennings, a CNN contributor, wrote about attitude and gratitude, and that you could put a lot of the Republican support for the president into either they like when the president talks this way or tweets this way or they have gratitude for those judges.
[05:35:01] And I think there's another category, though, of candidates and Republicans who don't want to have to answer for every tweet. I mean, these have been going on for four years now from since when Trump was a candidate. And -- but -- and so their initial response is I'm not going to respond because if I respond to this one, then I'm going to get asked about all the others, even though this one, I think, is different than a lot of the other tweets.
DEAN: Yes.
BRIGGS: Yes. Mark Meadows said that he doesn't respond to tweets. But let's just be clear, as the courts have made clear. These are
official statements from the President of the United States. You can couch them as tweets -- that is not what they are. But it is a nice duck for some of those that don't want to comment.
DEAN: And if we turn to the Democrats involved in all of this, I want to listen to the congresswomen. They responded yesterday. Let's listen to that, first.
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): Weak minds and leaders challenge loyalty to our country in order to avoid challenging and debating the policy.
OMAR: This is the agenda of white nationalists, whether it is happening in chat rooms or it's happening on national T.V. And now, it's reached the White House garden.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEAN: And, Nathan, we've seen that fracture within the Democratic Party between those four particular congresswomen and Nancy Pelosi. There was all of this back-and-forth.
Did the president turn around and unify the Democratic Party? In a way, does this affect the party in any way, politically?
GONZALES: Yes. Well, just a couple of days ago -- you're right -- we were talking about the rift between Speaker Pelosi and Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez. And now, look what we're talking about.
DEAN: Yes.
GONZALES: In a few hours, we'll probably have more tweets --
DEAN: Yes.
GONZALES: -- and we'll see -- we'll see what the president tweets today.
But, I think this is a microcosm of what we're going to see over the next year and a half, meaning I think the Democratic primary and the rift in the Democratic Party is actually going to get larger and bigger and nastier as the presidential race continues.
But when we get to November of 2020, we're going to see a unified Democratic Party against President Trump getting a second term. I think that all the Democrats are going to come together and try to defeat the president, and then we're going to see a rift again about where the party should go, and what it should look like, and what it should stand for.
DEAN: Yes.
BRIGGS: And the central issue that probably decides this election is not these four House members or racist statements from the president, but health care. And that's the issue, really, they're talking about on the campaign trail -- that people are asking about.
Joe Biden unveiled his health care plan yesterday. He and Bernie Sanders, obviously, very contrasting versions of what's ahead -- listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: The transition of dropping 300 million people on a new plan -- a totally new -- is, I think, kind of a little risky.
SANDERS: The system that Joe and others are trying to prop up is the most wasteful, bureaucratic, and expensive system on earth. And when you talk about subsidies, what you're talking about is spending even more money -- in this case, taxpayer money -- on a dysfunctional, wasteful, and bureaucratic system. We need a simple system.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Say for the irony of Bernie Sanders talking about excessive spending, where is the party on this central issue? Joe Biden is the only -- the only Democrat, according to the latest polls, that leads Trump with Independents.
What's the winning plan ahead?
GONZALES: Well, I think we saw from the debates -- the initial debates that there's not a clear consensus on the issue. I think that there's a clear consensus on the Democratic side against what Republicans on the Hill and what President Trump have tried to do. Kind of a coalition behind initially helping the Affordable Care Act -- Obamacare -- and making that better.
But, you know, everyone didn't raise their hand when the question was asked about abolishing private health insurance. But I think it's an important issue because Democratic primary voters do care about it.
But there's also a concern on the Democratic side that the Democratic nominee is going to define the Democratic Party for the general election. And so, whether it's defined -- doesn't want to be defined as the party that wants to --
DEAN: Yes.
GONZALES: -- abolish private health insurance --
BRIGGS: Yes.
GONZALES: -- or defined as something else.
And I keep -- you know, that clip of Bernie Sanders talking about what wasteful, bureaucratic, expensive -- I could just see Republicans playing those exact words over and over in their ads, even if Joe Biden or someone who has a more moderate position on health care ends up winning the nomination.
DEAN: Yes. BRIGGS: Yes. On the flip side, if someone like Sanders or Warren gets the nomination and you have Republicans suddenly in the position of perhaps defending Obamacare, you could have a very interesting optic ahead. But health care will be the central issue.
Nathan Gonzales, good to see you, sir. Thank you.
DEAN: Thanks so much, Nathan.
GONZALES: Thank you -- appreciate it.
[05:40:00] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHERYL POWELL, MISSING CAMPER FOUND AFTER FOUR DAYS: I'm so happy. I can't believe it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEAN: Tears of joy after a missing camper in California is found alive. Sixty-year-old Sheryl Powell, of Huntington Beach, disappeared Friday near the Grandview Campground in the Bristlecone Pine Forest. She'd taken the family dog for a bathroom break and her son believes someone threatened her, forcing her to run down the hill where she got lost.
This is a photo of Sheryl reunited with her husband and her children, Greg and Darrah.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Magnificent.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Magnificent. We were so --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a miracle.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a miracle after so many days gone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEAN: Powell's son tells CNN his mother was dehydrated but is otherwise doing well.
BRIGGS: Netflix has removed a controversial suicide scene from its hit teen drama "13 REASONS WHY". The move follows a debate over whether the show increased the risk of teen suicide among its viewers.
"13 REASONS WHY" is the story of a depressed high school girl who takes her own life and sends a classmate a tape explaining why she did it and who she blames. In the first season's final episode, the story is told in flashback.
Creator Brian Yorkey says, quote, "No one scene is more important than the life of the show. We believe this edit will help the show do the most good for the most people while mitigating any risk for especially vulnerable young viewers." Coming up here, Huggies diaper boxes getting a much-due makeover. That story ahead in "CNN Business".
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[05:45:40] DEAN: A 27-year-old man has confessed to killing American scientist Suzanne Eaton on the Greek island of Crete. Police believe the 59-year-old molecular biologist went missing during a run two weeks ago while attending a conference.
Her body was found last week deep inside a cave. Investigators say Eaton was asphyxiated and minor stab wounds were found on her body.
More details about the suspect and Eaton's death are expected later today.
Call it a different kind of fire festival. Organizers of Croatia's Fresh Island Music Festival forced to evacuate concertgoers by bus after this huge fire broke out nearby.
Among the acts scheduled to play the festival, American rapper Tyga.
The music festival's Facebook page describes the evacuation as a safety precaution under orders from local officials on the island of Pag off the Croatian coast.
Witnesses at the scene say they believe no one was hurt. We're still waiting to hear back from police and festival organizers.
BRIGGS: Now, let's get a check on "CNN Business" at 5:46 Eastern time.
Amazon's 2-day Prime Day event continues today and some of its employees used the first day to protest. Workers at warehouses in Minnesota walked off the job to protest their pay and working conditions Monday. Employees say they face pressure to fulfill orders and worry that Amazon's move to officer 1-day shipping for Prime members will increase the strain they're under.
Amazon defended its pay and worker policy, saying it offers, quote, "...industry-leading pay of $15.00 per hour, benefits, and a safe workplace for our employees."
Activists also rallied outside of Jeff Bezos' home in New York City, demanding that Amazon cut reported Web service contracts with ICE. Amazon declined to comment on ICE contracts.
Let's take a look at your markets around the world this morning. Asia markets closed mostly lower as investors digest China's GDP data. European markets have opened higher.
And on Wall Street, stocks looking to extend Monday's gains as investors wait for a fresh batch of corporate earnings. All three major averages closed at all-time highs again yesterday. The Dow ended the day up 27 points. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq also surpassed the records they set on Friday. Earnings season in full swing as JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Wells Fargo report earnings today.
A historic first for Huggies. Its new Special Delivery diapers now feature dads on the boxes for the first time ever, believe it or not. The company had received criticism for ads that portrayed fathers as disconnected from the role of caretakers.
The seven different box designs feature men and women with babies for Huggies new premium diaper -- bravo.
We'll be right back.
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[05:52:52] DEAN: Barry is slowly weakening this morning but it will continue to pose a flooding threat over the next few days.
One Louisiana family is homeless after a bee-infested tree crashed into their mobile home during the storm. Listen to this teenager describe how his father tried to free his mother as those bees attacked.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAVIAN ROBERTSON, PARENTS ATTACKED BY BEES: My mom was screaming for help -- bees everywhere. I tried to help my mom but he wasn't -- he got trapped because the bees was eating him up everywhere -- eating them both up. His face was just so swelled up from bees.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEAN: Right now, heavy rain is spreading north into Arkansas, Missouri, and Tennessee. Over 21 million people are currently under a heat warning or advisory.
Here's Pedram Javaheri.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, good morning, guys.
Watching what is left of Barry here with thunderstorms just east and also south of the center of the spin, which is right over portions of, say, southern Missouri at this hour.
But work your way towards southern and central areas of Arkansas and that's the area that has been so hard-hit in recent days. Flood warnings, in fact, in place across this region and some models indicate well over six inches of rain is potentially still in that forecast before the system skirts off towards the north and east and begins to kind of rain itself out.
And beyond that, high pressure becomes the big story here. In fact, once high pressure builds, we expect the ridge to really force its way into portions of the Midwest. Enough heat here being drawn out of the Gulf towards the Midwest and also around the northeast by this weekend where not only the middle-90s into the forecast but, potentially, the 100-degree mark coming into Chicago there by, say, Friday afternoon.
Minneapolis, middle-90s. Boston climbs up to about 90 degrees. And for New York City, how about this trend here? It cools off to 81 by Thursday and dramatically warms up to almost 100 degrees come Saturday afternoon before we drop off gradually into early next week -- guys.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRIGGS: All right -- thanks, Pedram.
An Indiana police officer who shot and killed a black man suspected of breaking into cars has resigned from the South Bend Police Department. The shooting of Eric Jack Logan, in June, aggravated years of racial tension between South Bend police and the African-American community, and it put a spotlight on South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg's challenge in getting the trust of minority voters.
[05:55:02] The police union says Sergeant Ryan O'Neill is stepping down due to job-related stress, media attention on the case, and hateful social media response. He still faces a special prosecutor investigation and a lawsuit filed by Logan's family.
DEAN: The neo-Nazi founder of the "Daily Stormer" Web site may have to pay a $14 million -- pay $14 million in damages to a Jewish woman harassed by a troll storm he organized.
Tanya Gersh, of Montana, endured years of harassment after Andrew Anglin published her name and information on the "Daily Stormer". One voicemail said, quote, "You are surprisingly easy to find on the Internet and in real life."
Anglin failed to show for his deposition so a federal magistrate entered a default judgment against him. The recommendation must still be approved by a judge.
Anglin did not respond to our request for comment but earlier claimed First Amendment protection.
BRIGGS: A 47-year-old Texas woman arrested after police found her living in a house with her mother's corpse. Investigators believe Delissa Crayton's 71-year-old mother fell and hit her head in 2016 and died a few days later while lying on the floor. Police say the injury was not life-threatening but Crayton failed to provide adequate assistance to her mom. The body was kept in a bedroom in the house for three years.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KIMBRO: There we go, there we go. Come on -- come on, baby. She's breathing. As long as she's crying like that, she's breathing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEAN: Dramatic bodycam video showing a South Carolina officer saving the life of a 12-day-old baby. It happened after Deputy Will Kimbro pulled over a car for speeding last month. The baby was in that car and the driver immediately got out of the vehicle and told him her child had stopped breathing.
Kimbro took the baby's limp body and performed lifesaving first aid, tapping her chest to clear the airway and massaging her heart.
The sheriff's office says the baby is now doing well and Deputy Kimbro was given a medal for his lifesaving actions.
BRIGGS: A Georgia couple married 71 years died last Friday just 12 hours apart. Herbert and Marilyn DeLaigle's love story began just after World War II in a small town Georgia cafe where Herbert asked Marilyn out for a date to the movies. The couple wed a year later.
In an interview with CNN affiliate WRDW last year, they said their secret to a long and happy marriage was to always show their love to one another.
DEAN: First, they put out the fire, then they put on the party. Firefighters in Buffalo, New York throwing a surprise birthday party for 6-year-old Erick Hill just two days after he watched his house burn down on his birthday.
Dozens of Buffalo's bravest joined in the celebration at a local firehouse with songs and truckloads of gifts. They made Erick's favorite character, Batman, the party theme and the Caped Crusader was joined by some of his superhero friends.
BRIGGS: Very cool.
While you were sleeping, late-night returned and they had plenty of material, given President Trump's Twitter attacks on four Democratic congresswomen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TREVOR NOAH, HOST, COMEDY CENTRAL, "THE DAILY SHOW WITH TREVOR NOAH": It's almost like in Trump's head you can't be a person of color and an American, which is strange because he, of all people, should know that you can be two things at the same time. Yeah -- I mean, he's bald and has a full head of hair. It doesn't make sense but we accept it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (CBS "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT"): Who wants to explain how America works to President Trump? Wakko?
WAKKO WARNER, "ANIMANIACS": AOC was born in New York, which is a United State. Pressley's from Chicago, U.S. city by the lake.
Tlaib is from Michigan, it's shaped just like a mitten. On a bus in California, you said, "Grab 'em by the kitten."
Omar's Minnesotan, the place with the mall. New Mexico's a U.S. state, don't try to build a wall.
They're American, most born and bred, unlike the majority of women you have wed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Well done. The "ANIMANIACS" explaining things to the President of the United States.
DEAN: Of, with the fiddle there.
All right, thanks for joining us. I'm Jessica Dean.
BRIGGS: I'm Dave Briggs. Here's "NEW DAY".
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: These are people that hate our country.
OCASIO-CORTEZ: We love this country. What that means is that we propose the solutions to fix it.
REP. AYANNA PRESSLEY (D-MA): We're grateful for your support in the face of the most recent xenophobic, bigoted remarks from the occupant of our White House.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think he's racist. I think he's an equal opportunity offender.
KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: They have no moral authority to talk about the border anymore. They voted against aid.
REP. RASHIDA TLAIB (D-MI): We cannot allow these hateful actions to distract us from the critical work to hold this administration accountable for the inhumane conditions at the border.
(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 Tuesday, July 16th. It's 6:00 here in New York.
And this morning we know a lot more about the president's racist.
END
