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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Debate Countdown; Hacker Arrested in Huge Capital One Data Breach; FBI Surging Resources to Gilroy to Assist with Investigation; Trump Escalates Attacks on Rep. Elijah Cummings; U.S. Teens Charged in Stabbing Death of Italian Officer. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired July 30, 2019 - 04:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:30:21] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: The final countdown to the CNN debate the first ten Democrats take the stage to face off tonight.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And the search for answers after the Gilroy shooting. What investigators know about the alleged gunman?

ROMANS: New details on two American teens arrested in Italy. Detectives trace the knife they say was used to kill a police officer.

SANCHEZ: Plus, Capital One hacked. A hundred million credit card applications and accounts compromised in one of the biggest data breaches ever.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Boris Sanchez, in for Dave Briggs.

ROMANS: Almost like you get immune to these data hacks. This one really big and really important.

I'm Christine Romans, 30 minutes past the hour here in New York.

Let's begin with our debates. It's now just hours to go until the start of CNN's debates, clashes among two fields of 10 presidential candidates each that could reshape the Democratic race. On the eve of the debates, new poling shows Joe Biden bouncing back to 34 percent, roughly his share before the first debate and Biden has done it at the expense of Kamala Harris who polled to a statistical tie with the information vice president after the earlier debate.

And with President Trump injecting race and racism into the campaign as never before, note Biden has 53 percent among black Democrats more than twice the share of all other candidates combined. But when Democrats were asked who has the best policy ideas, they picked Senator Elizabeth Warren over Biden by five points.

SANCHEZ: Her campaign's message she has a plan for everything is paying off.

Tonight's lineup includes three of the front-runner, Senators Warren, Bernie Sanders and the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg.

Yesterday, Warren declined a chance to criticize her colleague Sanders ahead of the debate. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Bernie and I have been friends forever. We all have a chance to talk about our vision for America, to talk about our plans for America, to talk about how we see building a future in this country. And that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to talk about my plans to make this America work, not just for a thin slice at the top but make it work for everyone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Senator Sanders, meantime, with a bit of what you can call an unorthodox campaign prep. He spent the day before teaming up with rap artist Cardi B to shoot a campaign video. He spoke exclusively to CNN about it afterward.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What Cardi B does is not only is she an enormously popular entertainer, what she's doing is speaking to young people about the important issues that are on their minds and I applaud that very much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Meantime, Mayor Pete was making some news on CNN speaking to Chris Cuomo about how he has the nerve to take on President Trump. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not scared of this president. I mean, this is a guy who was working on season 7 of "Celebrity Apprentice" when I was driving armored vehicle cars outside the wire in Afghanistan. I'm not afraid to take him on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: Quite a distinction there.

It's going to be two big nights of CNN Democratic presidential debates. Ten candidates each night starting at 8:00 p.m. tonight. Marianne Williamson will be there. Who knows what she will say about New Zealand's prime minister. It's live from Detroit, right here, only on CNN.

ROMANS: All right. Now to this, one of the biggest data breaches ever. A hacker gained access to more than 100 million, 100 million, Capital One customers accounts and credit card application. Paige Thompson is accused of breaking into a Capito One server, gaining access to 140,000 Social Security numbers, a million Canadian social insurance numbers, 80,000 bank account numbers. She also accessed an undisclosed number of names, address, credit scores, credit limits, balances and other information. According to the Department of Justice, she worked as a tech company

software engineer for the cloud hosting company that Capital One was using. Capital One said the hack happened March 22nd and 23rd. It said they found the vulnerability and fixed it, adding the largest category of information accessed was credit card application from 2005 to early 2019.

The bank says no credit card numbers or log in credentials were compromised. Thompson was arrested on Monday in connection with the breach. Her attorney could not be immediately reached for comment. Capital One said it would move to people affected by the breach. It will make free credit monitoring and identity protection available. The bank is still investigating this incident.

SANCHEZ: We're learning more this morning about three people who died at the shooting rampage at the Gilroy Garlic Festival. Trevor Irby was a 2017 graduate of Keuka College in central New York. His family says the 25-year-old moved to California to be with his fiancee.

Another victim was Keyla Salazar. She was a 13-year-old from San Jose.

[04:35:01] And the youngest victim was a 6-year-old Steven Romero who was playing in a bounce house with his mother and grandmother when all three of them were shot. His father, Alberto Romero, says he got a panicked call from his wife and he raced off to the hospital.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALBERTO ROMERO, 6-YEAR-OLD VICTIM'S FATHER: I can't believe what was happening. What she was saying I thought was a lie. Maybe I was dreaming. They told me he's in critical condition and they were working on him. Five minutes later, they told me that he was dead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Romero's wife and mother-in-law both survived their injuries.

ROMANS: Police say the 19-year-old gunman who opened fire there created an Instagram account days before the shooting and posted two messages shortly before the attack. One of those messages quoting a book from the late 1800s that say white men must rule over those in color.

Our Josh Campbell has the latest on the investigation from Gilroy, California.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Christine and Boris, another week, another incident of mass violence here in the United States. This one taking place here in Gilroy, California.

We're told by authorities that on Sunday afternoon a 19-year-old local resident made his way to the grounds behind me. This was the site of an annual festival some four decades old. Officers telling us that using a tool, the suspect was able to cut his way through a fence and bypassing security protocols that were in place. Once inside, he opened fire.

Now, he was quickly engaged by law enforcement officers. Within the span of one minute, he was killed, but not before taking life of his own to include two children.

Now, this remains an ongoing investigation. There are many threads here, to include the weaponry. We're told by officials that this was an AK-47 style rifle which we've seen in a number of incidents in the United States involving the mass loss of life. We're told that the weapon was purchased legally in nearby Nevada and brought here to California.

One other thread officers are looking at is whether this person had any assistance. There were witness accounts perhaps that there was an accomplice. That's something officers continue to run down as we speak.

Finally, we're hearing from the FBI that they are surging resources from around the country to this location to assist with this investigation, specifically we're told bringing in victims specialists to assist with those who made an impact, and as well as forensic examiners.

We're told that this is a massive crime scene behind us. A large plot of territory they have to go over and comb over in order to find, spend rounds, and look for any evidence that they can use to track the shooter and his movements on the day of the attack. Again, multi investigation continues, even as citizens of this community continue to grieve on the strategy that struck them here Sunday afternoon -- Christine and Boris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Thanks for that, Josh.

Weapons from the United States will continue flowing to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The Senate on Monday failed to override President Trump's veto of resolutions banning arm sales to the Saudis and to the UAE. The resolution initially passed Congress with bipartisan support. The override vote comes two months after the administration used an emergency declaration to bypass Congress and expedite billions in arm sales. The White House said it needed to he deter Iran's malign influence in that region.

ROMANS: Asylum claim for some migrants will be harder to make under a new decision by Attorney General William Barr. Barr moved to end asylum protections for migrants based solely on having relatives who were persecuted. Barr overturned the 2018 Justice Department ruling that said a Mexican migrant whose father was targeted by a drug cartel could be eligible for asylum. President Trump sought to restrict access to asylum which the administration views as a magnet drawing migrants north from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to the U.S. southern border. One Republican Congressman Mark Meadows was accused of being a racist

earlier this year. Cummings, who's a very close friend of his, came to his defense. This time around, Meadows, who was a very close friend to Cummings, was slow to return the favor and cautious with his words.

We get more now from CNN's Pamela Brown.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Christine and Boris.

President Trump is expanding his attacks against Baltimore Congressman Elijah Cummings to include activist Al Sharpton and even Bernie Sanders. Trump tweeting Cummings' district is rat infested and a place no human would ever want to live.

Now, Cummings fired back, saying he goes to his district in Baltimore every day and fights for his constituents. Cummings recently subpoenaed Trump's family and complained about the administration's handling of the border crisis.

Trump also went after Democratic activist and Reverend Al Sharpton for supporting Cummings, sayingM next, Reverend Al will show up to complain and protest, adding Sharpton is just a con man at work.

Sharpton fired back that if he was con man, he'd be nominating him for his cabinet.

Now, amid the criticism of the president's attacks on Cummings, that they were racist, President Trump used Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' description of Baltimore to defend himself against those accusations, tweeting: Crazy Bernie Sanders recently equated the city of Baltimore to a third world country.

[04:40:08] Based on that statement, I assume that Bernie must now be labeled a racist.

The president's chief of staff defended his boss, saying that he is not a racist. But this is the second time the president used the word "infested" in connection with a person of color. Just recently, the president said four minority congresswoman should go back to the crime infested countries, where they came from. A senior White House official told me that the president's use of that word has nothing to do with race.

But the latest round of tweets are putting some of the president's allies in a tough spot, namely Congressman Mark Meadows who was close with both President Trump and Congressman Cummings. He released a statement saying he doesn't believe either man is a racist.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right, Pamela. Thank you for that.

President Trump signing into law a bill for the permanent extension of the 9/11 victims compensation fund. The measure was passed overwhelmingly by the House and Senate. The president was joined at the White House ceremony Monday by first responders and surviving family members.

While addressing the assembled heroes, the president couldn't help but mention his role in the 9/11 response effort.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I was down there also. But I'm not considering myself a first responder but I was down there. I spent a lot of time down there with you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Comments were reminiscent of previous no evidence claims the president has made concerning 9/11. That includes stating during the 2016 election campaign that he helped a little bit to clear the rubble. He also said that he saw people on roof tops in New Jersey.

SANCHEZ: Muslims celebrating.

ROMANS: Celebrating the fall of the towers. On a radio show after the towers came down, he said he now had the highest building in Manhattan.

SANCHEZ: Right.

A leaked photo has now led to a new investigation involving two American teens arrested in Italy. We have a live report from Rome, next.

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[04:46:03] ROMANS: All right. Face-to-face talks, trade talks back on between the U.S. and China. Senior Trump administration officials are in Shanghai to resume negotiations. You know, expectations for a long term fix, though, are said to be low. A source familiar with the plan telling CNN officials have been talking by phone since President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to that truce at last month's G-20 Summit in Tokyo.

SANCHEZ: Two teenage American tourists accused of killing an Italian police officer allegedly stabbed him 11 times with a knife they brought in to the country from the United States. Officer Mario Rega was buried on Monday in his hometown in Naples, in the same church where he was married less than two months ago.

A photograph of one of the teen suspects, 19-year-old Finnegan Lee Elder of San Francisco shows him blindfolded while in custody. That's raising questions about how Italian police have handled these arrested.

Barbie Nadeau is live from Rome tracking the latest incidents.

And, Barbie, an officer was disciplined for having blindfolded that suspect.

BARBIE NADEAU, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: That's right. You know, when these pictures came out early Sunday morning, it really raised a lot of eyebrows about this treatment and alleged confession that Boston these young men gave to investigators. But the investigation is continuing. There are a lot of moving parts.

Behind me in about an hour will be the first official briefing by the Carabinieri police, the arm of police under which this dead officer served. They are going to be telling about quite a few details. One of them is about the knife. The knife used in this attack was an 7- inch military style knife. They're calling it a trench knife.

Now, we haven't seen a picture of that and we may get that in the press briefing. We've not seen any photos of surveillance footage of the actual attack but these 11 stab wounds were made in a military style. The young men, however, when they were questioned in the beginning of this investigation, said they did not understand that they were being approached by police officers. The Carabinieri were undercover and the police say they did identify themselves as Carabinieri, but it's unclear whether these American tourists would have known what that meant. Their defense certainly that they didn't.

Right now, though, we haven't had a lot of information from the defense. Only heard the narrative dictated by the Italian police who lost one of their own -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: All right. Barbie Nadeau, thank you so much for that report.

Meantime, in Asia, service was temporarily shut down on two of Hong Kong's busiest subways this morning when anti-government protesters blocked trains at rush hour. Yesterday, the Chinese government accused pro-democracy protesters conducting evil and criminal acts and claiming they damaged the semiautonomous city's reputation and stability.

A spokesman in Beijing warning Hong Kong citizens to be aware of the current grave situation. He said, quote: Hong Kong is China's Hong Long. Hong Kong's affairs are China's domestic affairs.

Those comments likely to add fuel to the fire raging during these protests.

ROMANS: That's why so many of those people, many, many young people are upset.

All right. A warning to candidates on tonight's CNN debate stage. It's not just what you say, it's the look on your face. More from Jeanne Moos, next.

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[04:53:49] ROMANS: All right. Pay attention during tonight's CNN debate. Experts say Democratic presidential candidates will speak volumes without saying a word.

A facial decoder told CNN's Jeanne Moos what to look for.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sometimes the faces debate candidates make are debatable, and who better to dissect them than the guy who wrote the book, actually several books on facial decoding.

Dan Hill has some advice for the Dems based on their previous performance, what not to do.

DAN HILL, FACIAL DECODING EXPERT: Glare and stare and be full of grimaces. You have to come across as someone who's going to occupy the White House, not burn the place down.

MOOS: He points the finger at Bernie Sanders, oh, yes, you, Bernie.

SANDERS: Nothing will change.

MOOS (on camera): President George W. Bush once looked so cranky during the debate, that Democrats turned it into a negative ad.

(voice-over): Call it faces of frustration. Not too annoyed but not too smiley, either.

HILL: The biggest thing you shouldn't do is big cheesy grins like this.

MOOS: It may look like pleasant smiling to us.

[04:55:02] SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Immigrants, they do not diminish America, they are America.

MOOS: But Hill says it took away from Amy Klobuchar's gravitas to compare it to Walter Mondale's smiling too much. When Reagan joked about not exploiting --

RONALD REAGAN, FORMER PRESIDENT: My opponent's youth and inexperience.

(LAUGHTER)

MOOS: Joe Biden has plenty of experience but our facial decoder cited hesitation.

HILL: During the hesitation, the mouth would fall open a little bit.

DEBATE MODERATOR: You did not raise your hand. Did you raise your hand?

BIDEN: No, I did.

MOOS: Kamala Harris got props for her unusual use of sadness.

HARRIS: And that little girl was me.

HILL: You really can't attack someone who's showing sadness. You're going to look like a heel. So, Biden had no place to go emotionally.

MOOS (on camera): And there is that face not physically present on the Democratic stage but ever present.

(voice-over): Our facial expert says it's not so much the funny faces President Trump makes but signature expression. Chin pushed up, a sign of disgust and sadness.

HILL: Donald Trump shows the largest percentage of sadness of any president we ever had.

MOOS: So sad it makes you want to rub your eyes and blink.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: It will be ten people on that stage.

SANCHEZ: A lot of faces to watch.

Sadness with President Trump. I didn't expect that.

ROMANS: I see frustration.

SANCHEZ: Anger.

ROMANS: Right, right.

SANCHEZ: A day at the beach turned into a desperate effort to save five pilot whales that beached themselves in St. Petersburg. Wildlife agencies, deputies and beachgoers worked together, putting up tents that run in the beach to protect the whales, and pouring water on them to keep them cool. Three of the whales were taken to deeper water in hopes that they would swim back offshore. Two of them were carried onshore to trucks and typhoon aquarium rehab facility for a few days of treatment.

SANCHEZ: Twenty-year-old rapper Lil Nas X makes history with his break out hit "Old Town Road."

(MUSIC)

SANCHEZ: The song featuring Billy Ray Cyrus now has the record for the longest consecutive run on the Billboard Hot 100 list at 17 weeks. "Old Town Road" surpassed 2017's "Despacito" remix featuring Justin Bieber and 1995 "One Sweet Day" by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men. Both of those lasted 16 weeks at number one.

ROMANS: Oh, "Despacito". It's been since "Despacito" that I've had (INAUDIBLE) like this.

All right. Let's get a check on CNN Business this morning. First, a look at global markets. Asian stocks closed slightly higher.

Investors are waiting for clues on several big events, including rate decisions from the Bank of Japan and Federal Reserve, as well as progress on U.S.-China trade talks.

On Wall Street, futures right now look like they are leaning slightly lower. Stocks struggled to find direction ahead of the central bank's meeting. The Dow closed after 29 points. The S&P and Nasdaq closed lower. They had record highs on Friday.

Look, this is all about the Fed, the Federal Reserve. The central bank has a two day July meeting that starts today. It's decision on interest rates comes tomorrow afternoon. If the Fed cuts rates it will push down borrowing costs, rates on credit cards and other loans.

General Motors 78-year-old transition plant in Warren, Michigan is halting production this week. The plan of one of five in North America that GM announced would suspend operation last year. The plans to build fewer sedans, its customers demand more trucks and SUVs. The plant is being called unallocated. Meaning it isn't completely shut down for now. Instead, it's no longer producing anything else once it's done with the current line of transmissions. GM said 60 workers will have transferred to other factories in the U.S., 25 are retiring.

All right. How about streaming your favorite shows in the middle of your Tesla? Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter, announcing the addition of Netflix and YouTube to Tesla's driver assistance assistant system Tuesday. And the feature only works when the car is stopped. And it could be available when full self-driving is approved by regulators and Tesla will enable video while the car is moving. He said it is like a cool surrounded sound experience. You're in this cocoon of your cool car if you're not driving and you can watch Netflix.

SANCHEZ: Yes. I was going to say, as if we needed any more distractions and anymore people distracted while out on the road.

Thank you so much to our international viewers for joining us. We hope you a great rest of your day.

For our U.S. viewers, EARLY START continues right now.

(MUSIC)

ROMANS: The final countdown to the CNN debate. The first 10 Democrats take the stage to face off tonight.

SANCHEZ: And the search for answers after the Gilroy shooting. When investigators know about the alleged gunman.

ROMANS: New details on two American teens arrested in Italy. Detectives trace the knife they say was used to kill a police officer.

SANCHEZ: Plus, Capital One hacked. A hundred million credit card applications and accounts compromised in one of the biggest data breaches ever.

ROMANS: What's in your wallet?

SANCHEZ: Oh-oh.

ROMANS: Hopefully not a hacker.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

Good morning, and welcome to EARLY START. I'm Boris Sanchez, in for Dave Briggs.

ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. It is Tuesday, July 30th. It is 5:00 a.m. in the East.

It is now just hours to go until the start of CNN's debates, clashes among two fields of ten presidential candidates each that could reshape the Democratic race.