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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Six Philadelphia Police Officers Shot in Standoff; Global Markets Jittery as Recession Fears Grow; China's Paramilitary Unit Moves Near Hong Kong Border. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired August 15, 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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[04:03:27] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Keep your hands up. Keep your hands up. Keep your hands up.

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VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking overnight, a dramatic standoff ends with six officers shot in Philadelphia. More gun violence in a nation waiting for answers.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN ANCHOR: Stock selloff. Markets falling after a key indicator points to trouble on the horizon. What's in store today?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And breaking overnight, another Democrat set to bow out of the 2020 race. We'll tell you who.

Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is EARLY START. I'm Victor Blackwell, in for Dave Briggs.

KOSIK: Good morning. I'm Alison Kosik. Welcome to New York and happy Thursday to you.

BLACKWELL: Thank you.

KOSIK: I'm sitting in for Christine Romans. It's Thursday, August 15th, just after 4:00 a.m. in New York.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Keep your hands up. Keep your hands up.

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KOSIK: And breaking overnight a dramatic end to a nearly eight-hour standoff with a gunman that left six Philadelphia police officers shot.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get up here now. Get up here. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSIK: Terrifying moments on the streets of Philadelphia's (INAUDIBLE) section. All this began when officers tried to serve a warrant. Listen to the police scanners now, blaring with desperate calls for help.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Use caution. Police are (INAUDIBLE).

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Stand by. Stand by. Second and Fifth, 3750 North (INAUDIBLE). Shots fired.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ringing off. You need SWAT ASAP.

[04:05:03] Long guns, ASAP. I've got officers shot. I've got officers shot, radio. All right? So I need SWAT.

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BLACKWELL: In the wake of deadly massacres in El Paso and Dayton, Philadelphia's mayor now wants to know when is enough enough?

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MAYOR JIM KENNEY, PHILADELPHIA: It's aggravating. It's saddening. And it's just something we need to -- we need to do something about. And if the state and federal government don't want to stand up to the NRA and some other folks, then let us -- let us police ourselves. Our officers deserve to be protected and they don't deserve to be shot at by a guy for hours with an unlimited supply of weapons and an unlimited supply of bullets. So it's disgusting and we've got to do something about it, and we need to do something about it quickly.

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BLACKWELL: Jason Carroll is in Philadelphia with more on the shooting.

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Alison, Victor, it was just around midnight. That's when we started hearing the officers shouting out on a loud speaker for the come out with his hands up. Minutes later then we heard the command, get on the ground, get on the ground. Shortly thereafter police tweeted out that the suspect was in custody and the standoff was over.

This all began yesterday just at about 4:30 in the afternoon. That's when the initial calls started coming in. Police had gone out to this row house trying to serve a search warrant. Narcotics officers responded. They were met by gunfire. Officers had to jump out of the second story window to escape some of the gunfire. And then for the next several hours, there was a standoff between the suspect and police.

At one point, two officers were held up on the second floor. They were able to escape by late evening with the help of SWAT. Six officers were injured during the shooting. Those officers eventually released from hospital. A seventh officer actually was injured when he was trying to get to the scene. He was caught in some sort of a car accident. He's going to be OK as well.

Officers throughout the evening tried to negotiate, tried to speak with the suspect. They were met by gunfire. And then during the last two hours they was -- they were met with silence as they kept shouting commands but then once again finally just after midnight the standoff came to an end -- Alison, Victor.

KOSIK: All right. Jason Carroll, thank you.

President Trump's disruption of global norms now hitting his crown jewel, the economy. Markets tumbled after a warning signal that has an eerily accurate track record for predicting recessions. The Dow plunged 800 points. It was the worst trading day of the year.

Now Asian markets closed mostly higher, although you can see a 1 percent decline in the Nikkei there. We are seeing U.S. futures stabilizing a bit, seeing the Dow could open a little over 100 points when the bell rings at 9:30 this morning. But Wednesday's selloff is the fourth biggest point drop in American history.

So what happened here? Investors, they're concerned about the inverted yield curve. So in basic terms, it basically means it's when short-term bonds pay out higher interest than long-term bonds. So what happened was the 10-year yield dropped just below the two-year bond and this is the first time that's happened since 2007. So that really spooked the market.

Investors are concerned about slowing global growth. So what they're doing is they're piling money into long-term investments which are usually riskier because your money is at risk for longer. Analysts say the yield curve isn't the only concern, though.

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RANA FAROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: There is all kinds of things that have been leading up to this. Fed cutting rates simply didn't void the markets the way it used to. I think we are at the end of 10 years of easy money.

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KOSIK: Trump blamed Fed chief Jerome Powell, not his trade war with China, for the selloff calling him clueless and saying that the problem is the Fed.

I want to note here that the yield curve nearly inverted two months ago and no one panicked but investors reacted forcefully now because I think they've had enough of President Trump's constant waffling on the trade war. BLACKWELL: With growth slowing in the U.S. and China, and Germany's

economy actually shrinking in the last quarter, do all of these signs of global weakness point to a recession?

CNN's Hadas Gold is live in London with a lot more. A lot of concerned people here in the U.S. and around the world, Hadas.

HADAS GOLD, CNN MONEY, POLITICS, MEDIA AND BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Victor, there are a lot of concerns around the world because if you just look at the list of what's happening, it's rather depressing. There is instability, there's the trade wars, the growing rise of populism and nationalism. There's just warning signs around the world and a lot of economists and investors are worried that a global recession is on the rise.

You think about, you go to Germany, Europe's biggest economy shrank .1 percent. The Eurozone barely grew. China has its slowest growth of industrial output in 17 years. There's concerns in India about the autonomy of the Central Bank and of course tension in Kashmir. Not to mention, of course, back to China the issues in Hong Kong. Argentina, huge issues with the Argentine peso.

And of course, with Britain and Brexit, brings government bond yield curve also inverted on Wednesday for the first time since the global financial crisis. And of course it's Brexit.

[04:10:02] Businesses here in the U.K. and around the world still to this point do not know what's going to happen with Brexit, whether there's going to be a hard no deal or whether there's going to be a deal with the E.U. All of this is adding to this instability, this uncertainty around the world. And in the past the United States might have had -- might have tried to sort of help it out a little bit. Might have tried to sort of ease tensions but now you have the U.S. president advocating for a no deal hard Brexit, something that businesses do not want.

And not to be a sort of Debby Downer here but we've had huge global expansion. You've heard the phrase earlier about that sort of easy money. And the economists are worried. We've been on such this expansion for such a long time, what comes up must come down at some point -- Victor.

BLACKWELL: We'll see what happens when the market opens later today.

Hadas Gold for us, thank you.

KOSIK: Breaking news from the campaign trail. Democrat John Hickenlooper is ending his bid for president. Sources say the former Colorado governor will make a formal announcement today. He is said to be considering a run for the Senate, something party leaders have urged him to do. Hickenlooper struggled to break out of the crowded Democratic field. He was a moderate voice making his opposition to Democratic socialism central to his campaign. He was not likely to qualify for the next round of debates in September.

Beto O'Rourke plans to return to the trail today. He returned home to El Paso after the Walmart shooting. An aide said O'Rourke will have a refocused message.

BLACKWELL: Breaking overnight, autopsy results on Jeffrey Epstein reveal multiple breaks in his neck bones. According to the "Washington Post," the breaks are consistent with a person who hangs himself, especially if he's older. The results do not rule out another cause of death, but to be very clear, there is no evidence of anything nefarious.

The convicted sex offender died Saturday morning. He was found hanging in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan.

KOSIK: None of us would be here without rape or incest? Sounds crazy but that's Congressman Steve King's latest bizarre theory.

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[04:16:38] BLACKWELL: Sixteen minutes after the hour. Congressman Steve King seems to believe that many of us would not be alive today if not for rape and incest. A video posted online by the "Des Moines Register" shows the Iowa Republican offering up this defense for not allowing exceptions for abortions.

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REP. STEVE KING (R-IA): What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled those people out that were products of rape and incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that? Considering all the wars and all the rape and pillage that's taken place? And whatever happened to culture after society. I know I can't certify that, that I'm not part of a product of that.

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BLACKWELL: CNN reached out to King's office for comment but did not receive a response. Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the number three House Republican, called the remarks appalling and bizarre, and said King should resign. He's a Republican. Represents a district in Iowa.

King is a polarizing figure on Capitol Hill with a track record of making racist comments. In January he was stripped of his committee assignments after lamenting the fact that the term white supremacist is considered offensive.

KOSIK: An epidemic of gun violence in St. Louis. Police say seven children under the age of 17 have been killed by gunfire this year. The latest victim, 7-year-old Xavier Usanga, was fatally shot while playing with his sisters in their backyard. He was supposed to start second grade this week. Xavier's mom says two men were shooting at each other in the street when her child became another innocent victim.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Take into consideration what you might -- what is the end result and if you're ready to take responsibility for that end result. Playing with a gun might be fun, it might be something, but do you really know at the end of the day if you take someone's life, what that feels like.

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KOSIK: Police say they have arrested a suspect in connection with Xavier's shooting. FBI statistics show St. Louis has the highest murder rate of any big city dating back to 2014.

BLACKWELL: Another New York City police officer has died by suicide. He is the ninth so far this year. The second this week. The seventh since June. He's 56 years old. The officer was a 25-year veteran of the force. Officials say he was off duty and home at the time of his death.

Now over the past five years the NYPD has averaged between four and five suicides a year. The department is developing a plan to help troubled officers. Beginning this month, 800 staff members will begin retraining with experts on mental health, stress and suicide.

OK, a warning from Microsoft, update your Windows 10 operating system immediately. The company says there are two critical vulnerabilities that are potentially wormable. That means infected computers could spread viruses and malware without any action on your part. Microsoft confirms there are potentially hundreds of millions of computers that are susceptible.

Now if you use Windows 10 and you've enabled automatic updates, you're already protected. But if you update manually, search Windows Update to access the update tool.

KOSIK: A setback for the U.S. women's soccer team in its fight for equal pay. Mediation talks with U.S. Soccer broke down on Wednesday. The case now appears headed to federal court.

[04:20:02] A spokesperson for the players says they are sorely disappointed by the Soccer Federation's determination to operate, quote, "a fundamentally discriminatory workplace." They released this statement, "We want all of our fans, sponsors, peers around the world and women everywhere to know we are undaunted and will eagerly look forward to a jury trial."

The U.S. Soccer Federation has not commented. The women's team does make less than the men but their revenues are also a lot lower. Both sides agreed to mediation after the women won their fourth World Cup in France in July.

All right. China has troops near the border with Hong Kong. What message is Beijing sending after months of protests? CNN is live near the border next.

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[04:25:43] KOSIK: Chinese parliamentary forces are gathering near Hong Kong's border. Observers say it's intended to send a message to protesters who have disrupted Asia's key financial hub.

CNN's Matt Rivers is live in Shenzhen, China.

Good morning to you. So the question that I have is something that can -- hit back and start as a deterrent can quickly turn into an intervention especially when you see the Chinese government roll out a nice, fancy video of the forces moving to the border.

MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. There's no doubt that the Chinese government wants to constantly remind the people who are just across the border there behind me in Hong Kong and also really the international community that in the Chinese government's eyes they have the legal right to enter Hong Kong to try and quell these protests with military forces.

There are a ton of reasons, and I cannot overstate this, why that would be a very bad decision for Beijing to make on a number of different fronts. It would destroy the city of Hong Kong. It would have massive economic, political and military implications for Beijing. It is the nuclear option. There is no other way to put it, but the fact that these troops are here, there are thousands of them just miles away from the Hong Kong border, that is a newsworthy development and it shows you that Beijing is keeping that option on the table.

They are considering it if not ready to implement it. And they probably won't ever be able to implement it, but it's still striking to see. This, of course, comes at the same time as we know President Trump has been tweeting about the situation in Hong Kong, a situation he has largely been quiet about to this point, saying that he is sure that President Xi of China could humanely deal with this problem if he were to choose to do so.

I'm not sure that President Xi is looking to President Trump for advice on this particular situation. President Trump also suggesting that the Hong Kong situation should be resolved before a trade war -- you know, remember that trade war? Well, he said that Hong Kong should be resolved before a trade war can be resolved. So clearly President Trump linking the two. It's not clear at all that Beijing is doing the same thing.

KOSIK: Matt, very quickly, is there any indication how long those -- that military force is going to remain there?

RIVERS: Well, I took a run by there earlier this morning. I saw mess tents, I saw cots. It seems that they're going to be there for at least a couple of weeks.

KOSIK: All right. I know you'll be watching.

Matt Rivers from Shenzhen, China, thank you so much.

BLACKWELL: Well, breaking overnight, a tense standoff ends with six officers shot in Philadelphia. The gun violence epidemic rages on with no end in sight.

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