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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Trump & Biden Debate Tonight; Troubling Questions About Trump's Debt; Patrick Mahomes Leads Chief Past Ravens on Monday Night. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired September 29, 2020 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:20]
LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump and Joe Biden go head to head tonight. Their first presidential debate is now finally here.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Troubling questions about Trump's crushing debts exposed by "The New York Times." Could they be used as leverage against him and the nation?
Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.
JARRETT: And I'm Laura Jarrett. It's Tuesday, September 29th, 5:00 a.m. here in New York. Exactly five weeks to Election Day.
Now nothing has been normal about campaigning in the middle of this pandemic. But tonight, both candidates will have America's attention for the very first presidential debate. One topic sure to come up tonight, the growing fallout from "The New York Times" expose on the president's finances, huge losses, crushing debt. A tiny $750 tax bill during his first year in office and for 10 of the last 15 years he paid nothing at all.
So, one crucial question is who exactly does he owe? There's new reporting from the "Times" this morning as well.
But, first, CNN's Arlette Saenz sets the stage for tonight's debate in Cleveland.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Laura and Christine, Joe Biden and President Trump have sparred from afar from about the past year and a half. But, tonight, here in Cleveland, they will face off for the first presidential debate. Each of these candidates has intensely prepared for the debate in their own ways. Biden reading through briefing books and huddling with his top advisers as he prepares for what he believes will be personal attacks from the president.
For the president's part, he's been studying up on possible lines of attack from Joe Biden, and even Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie have at times stood in for Biden during his debate preparations. Now, this debate will look very different from past debates due to the coronavirus pandemic. There will be no traditional handshake between the two candidates when they pick the stage.
The audience is much smaller. And everyone who is on site will be tested for coronavirus before they enter this debate hall. One big question about the debate is how will the story about the president's tax returns factor into the debate messaging? The Biden campaign says this feeds into their argument that this is a campaign between Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Park Avenue, insisting that the president is only interested in his own self interests and not the American people.
But tonight, we will see Joe Biden and President Trump at those podiums potentially lobbying some aggressive attacks that we've also seen out of the campaign trail as they continue to try to make their case to voters -- Laura and Christine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: Arlette, thank you so much for that.
New reporting this morning in "The New York Times" on President Trump's financial troubles. The new story laying out in detail how reality TV fame from starring in "The Apprentice" rescued Trump from the brink of ruin with a $427 million lifeline. But the TV and licensing deals have since dried up and now, "The Times" reports he has huge balances on loans soon to come due from Deutsche Bank, including $160 million on his Washington hotel in the Old Post Office building, $140 million on the Doral Golf resort. Neither of those businesses is turning a profit.
One key question on that front, other than Deutsche Bank, who else does he owe money to?
The president ignoring shouted questions yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLPI)
REPORTER: Mr. President, who do you owe hundreds of millions of dollars?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: More now from White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins at the debate site in Cleveland.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Laura and Christine, what you saw yesterday was the president lashing out at this idea that he is not as wealthy as he has portrayed himself to be for the last several years, even before he ran for president. What he and his aides are not doing is denying any documents to back up their denials about this "New York Times" expose on the state of the finances. And instead, they're portraying it as a last-minute political hit job before he takes the stage with Joe Biden here in this room tonight, something that is likely going to come up either from the moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News or from his opponent, Biden, whose campaign has already capitalized on the revelations in that "New York Times" report.
The president has a lot of unanswered questions. He didn't answer those questions from reporters yesterday about the deductions that he made as most would have seen as personal expenses, not business expenses. The fees he paid his daughter Ivanka Trump, even though she's already a member of the Trump Organization, or that $75 million nearly refund that he got when he did pay his taxes.
So there are a lot of questions and also ultimately the big question is whether or not this changes how the president is in the eyes of the voters, which, of course, are going to be the deciding factor about whether or not he gets four more years in office. That could really determine a lot of things for the president because one thing in this report was talking about the financial pressure that he could soon be facing for the millions of dollars in loans that according to the "New York Times", he's personally responsible for.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JARRETT: All right. Kaitlan, thank you so much for that.
The possibility that President Trump owes hundreds of millions of dollars to unknown creditors is also raising national security concerns. It's something Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris pounced on Monday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Who does he owe the money to? Tell us, who do you owe the money to? And do you owe debt to any foreign nation? Do you owe -- you know, do you owe debt -- do you own money, let's just be clear about what debt means, you owe somebody money. Do you owe anybody money who is impacted by any decision you make as president of the United States? We need to know that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: Also, Andrew Weissmann, a former prosecutor on Robert Mueller's team in the Russia investigation. Well, he highlighted a comment made by the president's son Eric back in 2014. Quote, we don't rely on American banks, we have all of the funding we need out of Russia.
Weissmann tweets: Now ask to whom does Trump owe the hundreds of millions of dollars coming due soon?
I remember what Bob Woodward recently reported about former director of national intelligence, Dan Coats. Woodward writes: Coats continued to harbor the secret belief, one that had grown rather than lessened, although unsupported by intelligence proof that Putin had something on Trump. How else to explain the president's behavior? Coats could see no other explanation.
And, Christine, you know, it's interesting. I saw a lot of people saying yesterday when this reporting came out that the voters, that Trump supporters don't care about this. But, you know, to the larger American public, people still have a right to know exactly what do the president's financial entanglements entail even though the supporters don't care.
ROMANS: Yeah, transparency is key. You know, he's the first president, or first candidate since the Nixon administration not to reveal those tax returns. It has been just sort of protocol in Washington and this is a president that breaks protocol but we are learning more by the day.
JARRETT: Learning more by the day for sure.
Well, the most anticipated moment of the election season is finally here. Donald Trump and Joe Biden face off in the first presidential event. Watch it all play out live with special coverage tonight starting at 7:00 p.m. Eastern.
ROMANS: So, millions are out of work in a pandemic. It's worsening in 21 states. But tonight, the president is expected to rebrand the coronavirus recession and tout his economic record.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president is focused on the issues. He's focused on the American people right now, bringing back the economy, a V-shaped recovery that's looking more like a super V, working through COVID, breaking through barriers as we aim to get a vaccine by the end of the year, fastest rate in history.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: The president has repeatedly touted that super V recovery in the middle of the pandemic but his record does not match his hyperbole. Past economic growth is likely for the third quarter, but that's because the economy crash, look at that, crash in the second. Even pre-pandemic, Trump's 4 percent economic growth target was elusive. There was a small boost after the 2017 tax cuts, but it never reached that 4 percent growth he promised.
On jobs, the unemployment rate in August was 8.4 percent. It could drop a bit in Friday's job report. That would be welcome news. It would be the highest jobless rate ever heading into a presidential election. And the pandemic puts Trump in a jobs hole, down 4.7 million jobs since he came into office.
Look at April there. That's when the economy shut down. Now, with the pandemic, President Trump has the worst jobs numbers of any president based on records going back to World War II. Of course, the pandemic, though, is not his fault.
Even before the pandemic though, a jobs growth in the Trump administration did not match the phase of jobs growth before he was president. There was a long economic recovery there, and the president, his policies manage to sustain it a little bit longer. But it was never that rocket fuel that he promised on the U.S. economy from his policies. JARRETT: The numbers tell the real story.
All right. Still ahead, new reports overnight that White House officials pressured the CDC to play the risk of sending children back into schools. You're going to hear from a former aide to the vice president. That's next.
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[05:13:43]
ROMANS: Thirteen minutes past the hour. The world has now reached another staggering milestone. More than 1 million lives lost to coronavirus. Now, the U.S. accounts for over 20 percent of those deaths with most deaths at more than 205,000. The nation's top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci fears the numbers could get worse.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: There are states that are starting to show uptick in cases and even some increase in hospitalizations in some states, and I hope not, but we very well might start seeing increases in debts.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: CNN's Alexandra Field has more for us.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It honestly looks like it's business as usual here.
ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Pre-COVID Florida in a post-COVID world, packed bars and restaurants all weekend in south Florida, just days after Republican Governor Ron DeSantis dropped virtually all coronavirus restrictions.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's going to have a huge impact.
FIELD: No more fines for people who refuse to wear a mask. The state's new daily case count has been well below its July peak for more than a month, with the positivity rate remains over 10 percent. Across the country, new cases are on the rise in 21 states. In just the last few days, at least seven states saw their highest weekly averages for new cases with Wisconsin reporting its highest single day increase over the weekend.
[05:15:05]
JOE PARISI, COUNTY EXECUTIVE, DANE COUNTY, WISCONSIN: One of the biggest challenges we have is that some people don't believe this is a serious disease, even to this day. FIELD: In New York, more than 1,000 new cases on Saturday, the most
since June. A major cluster in Brooklyn and Queens forcing the city to decide whether to bring back restrictions and impacted neighborhoods.
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: It is very targeted and very focused in those clusters.
FIELD: All this as the nation's top disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci says the White House is pivoting away from Daily Coronavirus Task Force meetings and as new top force member and top virus advisor to the president, Dr. Scott Atlas, was reportedly criticized by another top official.
NBC News reporting that CDC Director Robert Redfield was overheard on phones speaking about Dr. Atlas on the commercial flight, saying, quote, everything he says is false and going on to suggest that Atlas has provided the president with misleading data.
The CDC has responded saying Redfield and Atlas has differing positions on those issues and agree on many other issues.
Dr. Fauci weighed in with this.
FAUCI: For the most, they are working together. I think, you know what the outlier is.
FIELD: Alexandra Field, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JARRETT: Alexandra, thank you so much for that report.
Well, a former top staffer for Vice President Mike Pence tells us CNN the CDC was pushed to downplay the risks of reopening schools during this pandemic. Olivia Troye worked with the White House Coronavirus Task Force for months before she resigned in August and he now says the White House officials tried to work around the CDC.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OLIVIA TROYE, FORMER STAFF MEMBER FOR VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: This was an effort, you know, at times where I would get blindsided where there would be chief of staffers tasked to find different data for charts that would show that the virus wasn't as bad for certain population, ages, or demographics.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: The search for alternative data was coming at the same time that President Trump was publicly saying things like this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have to open our schools, open our schools. Stop this nonsense. We open our schools. Schools have to open. Young people have to go to school and there's
problems when you don't go to school, too. There's going to be a funding problem because we're not going to fund -- when they don't open their schools, we're not going to fund them.
I think most governors, many governors want these schools open. I would like to see the schools open. They don't catch it easily. They don't bring it home easily. If they do catch it, they get better faster. If you look at children, they're able to throw it off very easily.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: Troye says the president's narrative that everything is okay has been challenging for the task force members and the doctors involved. She says the president's response to the pandemic has been to tell anything but the truth.
ROMANS: All right. New this morning, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron says the only charge he recommended to the grand jury in the Breonna Taylor case was wanton endangerment. Meantime, last night, the judge in the case granted a highly unusual Louisville detective Brett Hankinson pleaded not guilty. They broke down the door to Taylor's apartment and fatally shot her.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOICE 1: Was there any guns visible?
VOICE 2: I, we, did not see any.
VOICE 1: Like a long gun?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Police say the officers serving the no knock warrant were not wearing body cams. The video doesn't begin until patrol officers arrive on the scene.
JARRETT: So many troubling questions still in that case.
While in Northern California, two new wildfires forcing thousands of residents from their homes. The entire city of Calistoga, about 5,000 residents, went under mandatory evacuation due to the fast blast fire burning in Napa Wine Country.
The fire has tripled in size, just 36,000 acres and has now destroyed nearly 115 structures. It's currently zero percent contained.
Also out of control is the Zogg Fire in the Shasta County. Three people have died in that fire, which has burned nearly 150 structures to the ground. Officials say strong winds, high temperatures and low humidity continues to hamper firefighters' efforts. In total, wildfires in the states have caused 29 deaths since August 15th.
ROMANS: Just terrifying these scenes of these pictures, and how quickly these families are having to get out of their neighborhoods. That's some of the most beautiful country in California there in Napa and Sonoma Counties. Really, our thoughts to everybody there this morning as they battle those wildfires.
All right. Chiefs star Patrick Mahomes is tough to beat. You don't want to mess with his mom either.
Our "Bleacher Report" is next.
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[05:24:12]
ROMANS: All right. Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes put on a show for Monday night football, outdueling the Ravens' Lamar Jackson.
Andy Scholes has this morning's "Bleacher Report".
And my little -- my little son, Eddie, Patrick Mahomes is his favorite.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Patrick Mahomes is a lot of kids' favorite right now.
And, you know, Mahomes and Lamar Jackson are the two brightest stars we have in the NFL. They've won the last two MVP awards. And after last night, Jackson calling Mahomes and the Chiefs his kryptonite. He's now 0-3 head and head against Mahomes. He's 21-1 against the rest of the NFL.
Now, this game, it was all Mahomes from the start. He had four touchdowns in the first half, and a fun moment in the fourth quarter. Mahomes calling his offensive tackle Eric Fisher's number, the former number one overall, 6'7", 315 pounds, but still able to haul it in.
[05:25:06]
Great catch.
Mahomes has five total touchdowns in this one as his Chiefs dominate the Ravens, 34-20.
Mahomes' mom had to be pleased with the outcome but she clearly wasn't happy with the announcers in the Monday night football.
Brandy Mahomes tweeting: If this announcer doesn't stop calling my son Pat, ugh, I may scream. LOL. #help.
Mahomes says, well, mom's not happy. No one is happy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PATRICK MAHOMES, KANSAS CITY CHIEFS QUARTERBACK: My mom says I'm Patrick, and my dad's Pat. So, hopefully, we get -- we can start going Patrick, and just keep her happy, because I don't want to hear that tonight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: All right. The Tampa Bay Lightning are your 2020 Stanley Cup champions. The Bolts shot to the Dallas Stars 2-0 in last night's game 6 in the bubble in Edmonton. This is the second time in franchise history that the Lightning have hoisted the cup. The other was in 2004.
Defense man Victor Hedman named the playoff MVP, after wrapping up 10 goals. And he talks about what it's like to win the first championship in the age of COVID.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VICTOR HEDMAN, TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING DEFENSEMAN: I'm at a loss for words like it's -- you obviously wish your family and fans could be here. We felt the support from back home, and it's -- so many emotions at the same time, it's tough to describe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: In the meantime, Lightning fans gathering outside the arena in Tampa to celebrate. They'll get a chance to get a closer look at Lord Stanley's Cup tomorrow afternoon with a parade and celebration set to begin at 1:00 Eastern.
All right. Big news in the NBA. After seven seasons, Los Angeles Clippers and head coach Doc Rivers have decided to part ways. This comes after the Clippers collapsed in the playoffs, squandering that 3-1 series lead over the Nuggets. Rivers holds the franchise Clippers franchise record for most wins and the highest winning percentage, but the Clippers still haven't made it to a conference finals in their 50- year history.
And, finally, Serena Williams, one step closer to a record-tying 24 grand slam title. First set against Kristie Ahn, not easy. Serena winning in a tie break, but then she cruised in the second, winning that one, 6-0. Serena now 75-1 in openers at Majors.
Fun fact on the first player ever to draw Serena in the opening match at back-to-back Majors, on laughing after saying, what are the odds?
Yeah. Tough break for her there, Laura. But Major League Baseball postseason gets started today, Astros and Twins at 2:00 Eastern. Yankees and Indians, the night game. That was at 7:00 Eastern.
It should be fun.
JARRETT: Something to look forward to.
All right. Andy, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
All right. Coronavirus should be a major focus of tonight's first debate between President Trump and Joe Biden. Just ahead, the latest on new case spikes in New York and what's being done about them. That's next.
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