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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

President Trump Scraps Stimulus Talks Until After Election; Pence, Harris Face Off In Vice Presidential Debate Tonight; Hurricane Delta Bearing Down On Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired October 07, 2020 - 05:30   ET

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

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[05:32:43]

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: The president kills stimulus talks with the livelihoods of millions of struggling Americans hanging in the balance.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: And tonight's vice presidential debate takes on new urgency with President Trump's health still in question.

Good morning, this is EARLY START. I'm Laura Jarrett.

ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. It is 32 minutes past the hour this Wednesday morning.

And the art of no deal. President Trump kills stimulus talks, saying relief for millions of struggling Americans will wait until after the election.

In a series of tweets, he said this. "After I win, we will pass a major stimulus bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and small business."

Now, the move stunned lawmakers, especially since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Sec. Steven Mnuchin had been talking over the last few days in a last-ditch effort to reach a deal.

Now, investors hoping for any sort of agreement reacting quickly. The Dow swung more than 600 points before closing down 376 points. If we take a look at futures right now, a little bit more stability here -- I think coming to the conclusion that yes, there won't be new stimulus until next year.

To be clear though, canceling talks means no money in enhanced unemployment benefits for jobless Americans, no new funds for struggling small business. Any new relief that would have allowed airlines to bring workers they furloughed back on the job, gone.

The world's largest retail group coming out strongly against the president's move, saying the pandemic isn't over and neither is the economic crisis it has created.

Now, the president's move came just hours after the Fed chief Jerome Powell said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEROME POWELL, CHAIRMAN, FEDERAL RESERVE: Too little support would lead to a weak recovery creating unnecessary hardship for households and businesses. Over time, household insolvencies and business bankruptcies would rise, harming the productive capacity of the economy and holding back wage growth. By contrast, the risks of overdoing it seem, for now, to be smaller.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Translation: the economy needs more help from Congress right now.

Now, perhaps realizing the bad optics of denying millions of Americans relief, the president, late last night, then dangled this on Twitter. Quote, "If I am sent a standalone bill for stimulus checks ($1,200), they will go out to our great people immediately. I am ready to sign now. Are you listening, Nancy?"

[05:35:04]

JARRETT: It's noteworthy that he said unnecessary hardship, Christine. In other words, people can do something about this in Washington right now.

ROMANS: The president also going at length about how great the economy is right now. How the unemployment rate is coming back so quickly and how well we're doing. I wonder if that's going to resonate with millions of people who -- we know that half of American families with kids under the age of 18 say that they've lost either a job --

JARRETT: Yes.

ROMANS: -- or lost income this year. It's a problem.

JARRETT: It's a real problem.

All right. The other big story this morning, the outbreak at the White House is spreading as top Trump aide Stephen Miller tests positive for coronavirus. Miller's diagnosis Tuesday adds to at least 10 others in the White House who have tested positive for the virus.

Miller is also a member of the team that prepped the president for his last debate last week. Of that group, six people, including the president, have now tested positive. There's also Kellyanne Conway and Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien.

Miller is best known for promoting his anti-immigration policies but he's also championed the president's message that the pandemic doesn't pose an outsized threat to the U.S.

White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Christine and Laura, add Stephen Miller to this growing list of officials inside the West Wing who have now tested positive for coronavirus.

He released a statement last night, along with this disclosure, saying that he'd actually been at home for the last several days. Of course, he was in close contact with a lot of people who have already tested positive and he said he'd stayed home out of caution and tested negative every single day. But we're told that when he went to go to work today, he got tested and it was a positive result. And, of course, now he's at home again.

And viewers might remember it was actually just a few months ago when Stephen Miller's wife, Katie Miller, who is a top aide to the vice president, also tested positive for coronavirus. So this case is going to raise questions about whether or not living with someone in close quarters -- if he did not contract it then, what may happen now -- all of those questions about how this transmission spreads because, of course, now we are seeing just how prevalent it is in the White House.

And an e-mail went out to staffers overnight saying that all contact tracing for the positive cases they knew about so far had been done and to reach out if they had not been contacted when they believed they should have been.

But we are told by one official they actually did just that. They reached out because they believed they came into contact with someone who tested positive --they were not notified. And now, CNN is told that person was not told any instructions on how to proceed, what to do.

So you do see how maybe they've done contact tracing but it has clearly been incomplete in some situations.

And, of course, add Stephen Miller onto the four press aides who have now tested positive, making that list of those cases inside the West Wing just continue to skyrocket in recent days, Christine and Laura.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right, Kaitlan. Thank you so much for that.

Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris square off later tonight in Salt Lake City at the only vice presidential debate. Vice presidential debates, of course, aren't typically expected to move the needle for voters. However, President Trump's coronavirus diagnosis puts tonight's debate in sharper focus.

Voters will get a closer look at the person they're electing to be second in line should something happen to the commander in chief.

Let's bring in CNN senior political analyst John Avlon for three questions in three minutes with Laura and I. You know, look, nice to see you this morning.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning. ROMANS: That debate really has been shaped by the pandemic. What

should voters watch for tonight?

AVLON: Look, this is going to be the most consequential vice presidential debate perhaps in history because, as you said, the president is suffering from coronavirus and isolated in the White House. It elevates the entire attention people should be giving to the second person on the ticket.

Also, Kamala Harris is an enormous jolt of energy into the Biden campaign and a lot of folks are going to be looking for her to really play that traditional attack dog role. Now, her team is trying to lower expectations because she does have a good reputation for being a debater.

Pence, calm, cool, collected compared to Donald Trump, but he's going to be in a difficult position in terms of trying to defend some policies and actions which are difficult to defend.

So this is going to be a big one -- watch it.

JARRETT: John, one thing that may come up tonight is the president's blowing up stimulus talks for all intents and purposes. Then he tries to backtrack just dangling something on Twitter after 10:00 p.m.

How is all of this supposed to sit with voters who are actually desperate for relief -- desperate for any help? Is this a -- is this a strategy at all just a month before the election?

AVLON: No, this is somewhere between a cry for help and a kamikaze mission. Look, this makes absolutely no sense from a political standpoint and Trump aides were face-palming after they saw the news. I mean, this comes minutes after Jerome Powell says we need another round of stimulus.

Days and weeks of negotiation between Nancy Pelosi and Steve Mnuchin blown up, apparently impulsively, by the president who is, in his recovery, on some kind of cocktail drugs that might be increasing his instinct towards erratic behavior. A tweet does not compensate for a totally scuttled negotiation until after the election.

[05:40:03]

So this is real, potential pain for the economy and people suffering right now. This does not make any rational sense less than three weeks before the election.

ROMANS: Yes. I don't even know what the political advantage of doing that was. I mean --

AVLON: It's done (ph).

ROMANS: -- the strategy just -- I just don't -- I don't even get it.

Meantime, yesterday --

AVLON: (INAUDIBLE).

ROMANS: -- in Gettysburg, Biden gave an address that you say was one of the best -- the best speech of his campaign. Let's listen to a little bit of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Too many Americans see our public life not as an arena for mediation of our differences but rather, they see it as an occasion for total unrelenting partisan warfare. Instead of treating each other's party as the opposition, we treat them as the enemy. This must end.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Yes.

ROMANS: Unity -- he's talking about unity. We haven't had that in a while.

AVLON: I know, it's like an undiscovered country.

Look, I was deeply impressed by this speech. This was his big unifying speech. This was a vision speech, it was not a policy speech.

And yes, I am guilty of being a Lincoln nerd. But I was so inspired I wrote a column about it for CNN because this was a presidential speech about how we can unite as a nation. That we've been through divided times before but we need to remember that a house divided cannot stand. And I thought it was eloquent and it came from a place and at a time when people have forgotten what a unifying president sounds like.

ROMANS: You say Lincoln nerd like that's a bad thing.

AVLON: Oh, no -- it's a good thing.

ROMANS: That's a good thing.

AVLON: One hundred percent.

JARRETT: We're big nerds on this show.

AVLON: Absolutely.

JARRETT: All right --

ROMANS: John Avlon --

JARRETT: -- John. Thanks for getting up with us. Appreciate it.

AVLON: Take care, guys.

JARRETT: All right.

Tonight is the night -- the only vice presidential debate of 2020. CNN's special coverage starts tonight at 7:00 p.m. eastern. ROMANS: All right.

Up next, Hurricane Delta barreling toward Cancun right now on its way to the U.S. Gulf Coast. More on its path and the timing, next.

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[05:46:07]

JARRETT: All right.

At this hour, Hurricane Delta is on a collision course with Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and the Gulf Coast of the United States. The governors of Louisiana and Alabama have already declared states of emergency ahead of landfall. The hurricane is expected to directly affect Cancun and Cozumel as an extremely dangerous category three storm.

Let's go live to Mexico and bring in CNN's Matt Rivers. Matt, how is it looking where you are?

MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Laura, it's been a noticeable deterioration in conditions in just about the last half an hour or so.

We are in Playa del Carmen, just a few blocks from the beach. The island of Cozumel is just off the coast behind me there and that's where we're expecting this hurricane to really start to make its impact felt. And we've really experienced it with high winds mainly over the last half an hour or so. For a long time, it was calm as we waited for it to approach, but it is definitely making its presence known now.

This storm -- I've been talking to our meteorological team and this storm is unique in a lot of ways, Laura, in the sense that it's not a huge storm geographically speaking. So from the center of the storm out about 30 miles in each direction, that's where you're going to have damaging winds.

It's a smaller hurricane compared to others but it is a very intense hurricane. And because it is small, the winds are concentrated. And so where it makes landfall, that is going to be the area where we see the most damage because of those concentrated winds. If you're 50 miles south of landfall you might be OK, but if you are in the area where landfall is made it could be quite intense.

We are expecting a lot of damage here. Playa del Carmen, Cancun -- some of the most visited tourist sites for Americans -- one of the few places right now that is open to Americans. Some Americans are stranded here right now and what we could be seeing right now here in Playa del Carmen, is a preview of sorts of what we -- what might be headed to the southern coast of the United States in just a few days, Laura.

JARRETT: So many of those resorts just trying to get back on their feet, of course, after the pandemic. RIVERS: Yes.

JARRETT: Matt, thanks for being there. Stay safe.

Let's bring in meteorologist Pedram Javaheri now for the latest on the path of Hurricane Delta. Pedram, when do you expect to see landfall for the Gulf?

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: For the Gulf, it's -- you know, we're going to see it enter the Gulf within about a 12-hour period, Laura. And then we expect the storm system to eventually make its way closer to the coastline sometime around, say, Monday afternoon and Monday night.

But at this hour, really getting close to making landfall across portions of Cozumel as Matt kind of alluded to there. You take a look at a storm system that has essentially tripled in strength from Monday into Tuesday, going in from 40 miles per hour to more than tripling, getting up to 145 miles per hour to a category four at one point.

It's slightly weakened to a strong category three -- 115 miles per hour -- but really, negligible difference as far as impacts are concerned. We think it is brushing right past the coast of Cozumel at this hour. It could either make landfall there within the next, say, 30 minutes or potentially just bypass Cozumel in its entirety and then make landfall near the Yucatan Peninsula, not far from Playa.

But you'll notice only six major hurricanes have crossed within a 100- mile radius in recorded history of areas around Cancun, so it's a pretty rare sight to see a storm of this magnitude across this region.

But really, the question once we get past this morning into later on tonight, once the storm reemerges in the Gulf, is where is this going to end up. The forecast models have suggested this will take a westerly track into a warmer area of the Gulf, which would be the Western Gulf. That will allow it to maintain its intensity, potentially even strengthen it back up to a category four.

On the immediate coast, it is cooler. But again, that western track does allow this to be a stronger system we think making landfall sometime Friday afternoon or Friday night. Confidence increasing that the state of Louisiana will be the highest likelihood for a landfall location. This would be the fourth land-falling storm for the state in 2020, which would also be a record.

[05:50:04]

But you'll notice we do want to strengthen this possibly back up to a category four based on the models before weakening it on approach to landfall there as still a major hurricane come Friday afternoon -- Laura.

JARRETT: Yes. The Gulf has already been through so much this hurricane season. All right, Pedram. Thanks for breaking all that down for us.

ROMANS: All right, let's get a check on CNN Business Wednesday edition.

Losses in markets around the world here. European shares just down slightly now, paring their losses.

On Wall Street, futures at this hour are moving higher here, rebounding from yesterday when stocks fell after the president canceled stimulus talks until after the election. The Dow swung in a 600-point range and closed down 376 points.

The president's announcement came just hours after the Fed chief Jerome Powell called for more stimulus to keep the economic recovery going. Powell with an urgent message at odds with the president's tweetstorm about the economy.

This is what the president thinks about economic conditions for Americans today. "Our economy is doing very well. The stock market is at record levels. Jobs and unemployment also coming back in record numbers."

A reminder here -- your daily reminder. The stock market is not the economy. The country is still down 10.7 million jobs since February.

Moving from a jobs crisis to a ballooning trade deficit. Data from the Census Bureau shows the trade deficit widened to more than $67 billion in August. Guys, that's the highest level in 14 years.

Of course, the president has crafted his trade strategy and waged trade wars to shrink this number. What this means is businesses and consumers are again buying more imported goods while America's trading partners are buying less from the U.S.

The deficit has increased nearly every month since lockdowns in the spring. Economists at Citi tell clients this trend will weigh on GDP in the third quarter.

JARRETT: All right.

And finally this morning, Eddie Van Halen was immortal, even when he was alive. That's how a fellow musician described the legendary guitarist who died Tuesday after a long battle with cancer. He helped give the group Van Halen its signature sound and its name.

CNN's Stephanie Elam looks back at the career of the rock legend.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Eddie Van Halen was hailed as one of the greatest guitarists of all time. His ripping rhythm branded him a guitar God and raised the musical bar for future generations.

Born to a musical family, Van Halen bought his first guitar -- a Teisco Del Rey -- at age 12. He then taught himself how to play.

EDDIE VAN HALEN, MUSICIAN: You take lessons then you're going by a book, which is based on the theory. Whereas, the facts are, again, you only have 12 notes. Do what you want with them. Everything I do is based on tone and sound.

ELAM (voice-over): By high school, he was the lead guitarist in the band that would go on to bear his last name, Van Halen. In the span of four decades, Van Halen released over a dozen albums.

Their 1978 self-titled debut sold over 10 million copies and was certified diamond. Its second track, "Eruption," featured an Eddie Van Halen guitar solo that forever redefined the instrument.

Van Halen's signature two-handed tapping technique allowed him to reach otherwise impossible notes. The sound was intensified by a custom guitar Van Halen designed and built, himself. He called it the Frankenstrat or Frankenstein. Part Gibson, part Fender, the Frankenstein became its own trademark.

VAN HALEN: The guitar is a pretty basic instrument. It's a piece of wood, it has strings on it, tuning bags, tailpiece, pickups, blah, blah, blah. It's -- mine is more like a Formula 1 race car.

ELAM (voice-over): Van Halen's design eventually evolved into his own guitar line. But even with a replica guitar, there's no replicating a Van Halen guitar solo.

From the band's 1984 hit "Panama" to his "Eruption" sequel "Spanish Fly" to his collaboration with Michael Jackson's "Beat It", Van Halen's fast-shredding speed solos will reverberate for all times.

VAN HALEN: My whole life has been music. I could not imagine anything else.

ELAM (voice-over): Eddie Van Halen, a musical genius who pushed life's strings to their limit.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JARRETT: Wow, what a talent.

ROMANS: What a loss, but what an impact, you know, on a whole generation -- generations of Americans.

JARRETT: Absolutely, and so many generations with their stonewashed jeans, as you, Christine Romans.

ROMANS: That's Romans -- all right.

Thanks for watching. We leave you with a little more Eddie Van Halen.

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[05:59:33]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The White House has turned into the epicenter of what is clearly a major outbreak. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Stephen Miller, he has been self-quarantining for five days but nevertheless, tested positive. We're taking all necessary precautions.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The president put out this tweet that surprised everybody on Capitol Hill. It makes it clear that there will not be a stimulus deal before the November election.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): This is so irresponsible when millions are suffering.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the president has mishandled the coronavirus pandemic from the get-go, and I think now that's the only thing on the president's mind.

BIDEN: We can't undo what has been done. We can't go back. We can do so much better.

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ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.