Return to Transcripts main page
Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
13 Charged In Plot To Kidnap Michigan Gov. Whitmer; Trump's Physician Says He Can Resume Public Events Saturday; Pelosi Pushes Bill To Let Congress Determine If Trump Is Fit. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired October 09, 2020 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:32:58]
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: New information this morning on what motivated the men accused of plotting to kidnap the Democratic governor of Michigan.
LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: And, President Trump pushing to get back on the campaign trail, even as he refuses to say when he last tested negative for coronavirus.
Good morning, this is EARLY START. I'm Laura Jarrett.
ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans this Friday morning, 33 minutes past the hour.
Let's begin with these new developments this morning -- what federal authorities say was a plot to kidnap Michigan's governor, Gretchen Whitmer.
Thirteen people now under arrest. These six charged federally with conspiracy to kidnap. Seven others associated with an extremist group facing state firearm and terror charges. Overnight, law enforcement sources tell CNN authorities believe several of the suspects are supporters of the anti-government Boogaloo Movement.
Authorities allege the plot was motivated by a belief that Whitmer was a quote "tyrant" because of the restrictions she imposed to control the spread of the coronavirus.
More now from crime and justice correspondent Shimon Procupez.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GOV. GRETCHEN WITMER (D), MICHIGAN: I never could have imagined anything like this.
SHIMON PROCUPEZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan foiled by the FBI. The FBI charging six men in the conspiracy.
ANDREW BIRGE, U.S. ATTORNEY, WESTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN: The FBI began an investigation earlier this year after becoming aware that through social media that a group of individuals was discussing the violent overthrow of certain government and law enforcement components.
PROCUPEZ (voice-over): A months' long investigation alleges the men met on June sixth with several others and discussed taking a sitting governor before one of the men, Adam Fox, reached out to a Michigan- based anti-government group.
The complaint says on June 14, a confidential informant recorded a conversation between Fox and the group saying he needed 200 men to storm the capitol building before the November 2020 presidential election. Officials say Fox and others met again on June 20th to discuss plans for assaulting the state capitol, planning for firearms and tactical training in July. In August, the group allegedly shifted their plan to kidnap Whitmer at her vacation home.
[05:35:07]
BIRGE: And members of this conspiracy, on two occasions, conducted coordinated surveillance on the governor's vacation home.
PROCUPEZ (voice-over): The group allegedly used cold language and encrypted messages to communicate. And according to the complaint, successfully detonated an improvised explosive device in October, while Fox confirmed he purchased a Taser to use in the kidnapping.
Officials say the group planned to meet again on October seventh.
BIRGE: The FBI and state police executed arrests of several of the conspirators when they were meeting on the east side of the state to pool funds for explosives and exchange tactical gear.
PROCUPEZ (voice-over): Several others linked to an extremist group were also charged separately in state court for planning to storm the state capitol building taking hostages, including Whitmer, and planning to instigate civil war.
COL. JOSEPH GASPER, MICHIGAN STATE POLICE: All of us in Michigan can disagree about politics, but those disagreements should never ever amount to violence.
PROCUPEZ (on camera): And the FBI director recently warned members of Congress that one of the biggest threats this country faces are from domestic extremist groups, saying that this is something that they are very concerned about.
Shimon Procupez, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JARRETT: Shimon, thank you for that report.
President Trump's physician giving him the all-clear to return to public engagements on Saturday. Now, we're told the president has completed his course of therapy for coronavirus, but meanwhile, there still hasn't been any information on the last time he tested negative before he tested positive for the virus, or even when he was last tested at all -- so he could still be contagious.
And yet, the president talked to Sean Hannity just last night about the rallies he wants to do this weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think I'm going to try doing a rally on Saturday night if we can -- if we have enough time to put it together. But we want to do a rally in Florida -- probably in Florida on Saturday night. We might come back and do one in Pennsylvania in the following night.
And it's incredible what's going on. I feel so good.
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Have you had a test since your diagnosis a week ago?
TRUMP: Well, what we're doing is probably, the test will be tomorrow.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: So he says he wants to get back on the campaign trail but what's clear is he's still actually fighting this virus. He's gasping and he's clearing his throat during that same interview with Fox.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I mean, the last time, I had a big problem. They oscillated my mic when I had the one debate. We had three debates with Hillary and on I think the first debate (clearing throat) they --
HANNITY: Yes.
TRUMP: Excuse me. On the first debate, they oscillated the mic.
But I want them to vote, but I will say this. Absentee is OK (clearing throat) because absentee ballots (cough) -- excuse me. Absentee ballots are fine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: CNN's Kaitlan Collins has more now from the White House.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Laura and Christine, we haven't actually seen the president on our own since Monday when he returned back to the White House. And since then, it's just been these edited videos that have been produced by the president's political aides.
But he did phone in to Fox News last night where he refused to answer three pretty direct questions about when or whether or not he had last tested negative for coronavirus -- that would be since that positive test -- and could potentially give some kind of indication of where he's at right now in his diagnosis.
But the president did not answer that question and instead, said he would be tested today. He said he didn't see a reason to test a lot and even seemed to try to cast doubt on the idea that he was ever infected at all with coronavirus though, of course, we know that he was. We've spoken to his doctors about this. The president very much did have coronavirus.
But this comes as the president is really trying to put his own spin on his health by saying things like he's no longer contagious, something that his experts -- the health experts have not said, since we haven't seen them in person since Monday either.
But also saying other things -- that he's basically ready to get back on the road on this Saturday, maybe holding a rally in Florida or in Pennsylvania, you know, just about 10 days after he first tested positive for coronavirus. And the president is saying he's ready to do these rallies.
He's talking about getting back on the campaign trail though, of course, we do not know if the president has tested negative for coronavirus. And that's something that I think most people would want to know before they felt comfortable being in the president's presence.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: All right, Kaitlan. Thank you so much for that.
So, you know, the president doesn't believe he's contagious and the White House doesn't appear to be taking social distancing or mask- wearing very seriously. But you know who is not taking any chances with that? Listen to the Senate's top Republican, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): I haven't actually been to the White House since August the sixth because my impression was their approach to how to handle this is different from mine and what I insisted that we do in the Senate, which is to wear a mask and practice social distancing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[05:40:06]
ROMANS: And, McConnell says the Trump administration is paying the price for not following its own coronavirus guidelines.
JARRETT: So alarmed by the president's behavior in recent days, Nancy Pelosi will introduce a bill today to give Congress a role in deciding whether the president is incapable of doing his job.
Under the Constitution's 25th Amendment, the president can be suspended from office if a majority of his cabinet members and the vice president consider him to be unable to carry out his duties. But, Pelosi and other Democrats now appear poised to zero in on another provision of the 25th Amendment that references another body as Congress may by law provide. This measure, however, stands little chance of becoming law before the November election.
ROMANS: Vice President Mike Pence took an unplanned flight back to Washington overnight. He canceled plans at the very last minute to travel to Indianapolis where he was set to vote early in the 2020 election Friday. A spokesperson says Pence's sudden schedule change had nothing to do with anyone getting sick with coronavirus, but we still don't know why that change.
JARRETT: All right. With 25 days to the election, it's time for three questions in three minutes. Let's bring in CNN senior political analyst, John Avlon. John, happy Friday. Great to have you.
JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Happy Friday.
JARRETT: OK, so overnight, the president goes after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, saying she should essentially be thanking him because his FBI stopped this plot to kidnap her.
You know, there's a fair amount of outrage over what he says on Twitter but is there no bottom -- how are voters, especially undecided voters, supposed to make sense of this?
AVLON: Look, no, there is no bottom. That's the first thing.
Second of all, look, Michigan is a state he won narrowly last time. The governor of the state, albeit a Democrat -- the FBI, who works for the federal government, just busted a vigilante group who was planning to kidnap her and try to start a second civil war.
And some of the rhetoric is kind of resonant. For the President of the United States to turn around that evening and criticize the governor is not political malpractice, it's not a moral blind spot. It is a reflection of the state of mind that doesn't make any sense. The president is not well when he's attacking a victim, who happens to be a governor of a swing state, from a violent plot.
JARRETT: Yes. She said, you know, you could just say how are you doing?
ROMANS: Right.
JARRETT: Are you OK?
ROMANS: Yes.
AVLON: Yes, that'd be fine -- that's acceptable.
ROMANS: You know, the president started the day yesterday on Fox News. He ended the day yesterday on Fox News. He's more than happy to talk on the telephone --
AVLON: Yes. ROMANS: -- but it seems like he's not happy to have a virtual debate.
We are in debate limbo here. What does it mean? What's the strategy here?
AVLON: Again, don't look for strategy. This is all impulse. The president is not particularly well at the moment.
But he was thrown off by the -- by the debate -- by the debate commission trying to say it should be remote. Which, by the way, makes all the sense in the world given that the President of the United States has COVID and has not been transparent about any aspect of testing or his health.
I think his real concern is that he wants the energy from the crowd and he's afraid his mic will get shut off in a virtual debate, so he's making all kinds of stuff up. There's a lot of chaos around this because there always is when it comes to this president.
The president needs the debates more than Joe Biden. Biden is going ahead with the town hall; Donald Trump, TBD.
JARRETT: So, the president may not attend that second debate but he was certainly interested in the vice-presidential debate. Listen to how he referred to the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Kamala Harris.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And this monster that was on stage with Mike Pence -- who destroyed her last night, by the way -- she's a communist. She's not a socialist. She's well beyond a socialist.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JARRETT: So he picks these words --
AVLON: Yes.
JARRETT: -- because they trigger something, right -- but a communist? Really?
AVLON: Really. And it's -- this is not a distinction without a difference. This is dangerous stuff and it's not just because of the history of McCarthyism.
I want to go back to the first story. You know, these self-styled (ph) vigilante folks, anti-government, pro-Second Amendment -- one of their alleged gripes was the country was being turned into a socialist or a communist country.
You know, socialism, we can have a big debate anywhere from Sweden to Venezuela. Not a big fan myself. Communism has a record of murdering millions of people.
And to blur those two distinctions or to disturb -- you know, blur distinctions from people who might have a center-left point of view, as Kamala Harris does, with communism is an intentional incitement. It is demonizing your opposition, in this case, with an ideology that has a lot of blood on its hands.
This is dangerous stuff. We should not normalize it. It is disgusting for the president to go there.
ROMANS: All right.
JARRETT: Yes, we certainly cannot normalize any of this.
ROMANS: All right, John Avlon, CNN senior political analyst. Have a great weekend. Thanks, John.
JARRETT: Thanks, John.
AVLON: You, too, guys. Be well.
JARRETT: Appreciate it.
OK. Wisconsin, right now, still struggling with a new surge of coronavirus cases. CNN has pandemic developments covered coast-to- coast for you.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Omar Jimenez.
And across the Midwest, we have seen coronavirus positivity rates over 10 percent and in some spots, surges -- especially in Wisconsin. The state is now opening a field hospital at their state fair park in response to a surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations that are overwhelming hospitals.
[05:45:08]
Gov. Tony Evers says this is a day he hoped would never come but says it's a move that's necessary to again combat the surges and the overwhelming situations we have seen in health care systems across the state.
Thursday, Wisconsin set a record for the number of coronavirus cases reported -- a record they have continued to push further multiple times now over the course of the past two weeks alone.
BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Brynn Gingras in Hoboken, New Jersey.
One of the states hardest hit by the pandemic is seeing COVID-19 case numbers that it hasn't seen since May. Gov. Phil Murphy reporting about 1,300 new cases, putting the state's positivity rate at more than 3 1/2 percent.
Now, after announcing those sobering numbers, Murphy took the time to lash out about the president's recent comments about not letting the virus dominate your lives. Murphy saying that he talks to families who lost loved ones from COVID-19 almost daily and they always have two things in common. One, that their loved one fought tooth and nail against this virus, and two, that their loved one didn't survive.
JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: I'm Jacqueline Howard in Atlanta.
The nation's Health and Human Services secretary says there could be enough COVID-19 vaccine for everyone by this spring. Speaking at a conference, Sec. Alex Azar said quote, "We project having enough for every American who wants a vaccine by March to April 2021."
His comments come just days after the FDA made clear it wants to see two months' follow-up of safety data before considering a vaccine for authorization.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: All right.
President Trump wants no part of a virtual debate, but Kennedy and Nixon had no problem with it. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:51:06]
JARRETT: Welcome back.
An order by Ohio Secretary of State to limit ballot drop boxes to one per county has been struck down by a federal judge. That judge ruling Republican Frank LaRosa's order unfairly burgeons large counties and creates a greater strain on the mail system. He also ruled that LaRosa failed to present evidence that additional drop boxes would cause harm to the election.
The ruling allows Cuyahoga County to set up staff ballot collection sites at six county library branches.
ROMANS: All right, let's get a check on CNN Business this morning.
A mixed performance in markets around the world here. And, U.S. futures leaning higher at the moment. Wall Street still hoping, maybe without merit frankly, for more stimulus. You've got futures up triple-digits right now, although that's not even half a percent.
Stocks finished higher Thursday boosted by those hopes -- those relentless hopes that more money is coming for businesses and for jobless workers and checks for Americans. The Dow closed 122 points higher. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq also up.
But the jobs recovery has stalled. We know 840,000 people filed for the very first time for state unemployment benefits last week. Weekly jobless claims are four times higher than pre-pandemic levels.
On top of those state benefits, in one week, another 464,000 people filed for special pandemic relief programs. These are for gig workers, self-employed people. Altogether, you've got 25.5 million people receiving some sort of jobless assistance. It just shows you how the jobs crisis persists here.
Meantime, the U.S. budget deficit is soaring and America's national debt on track to overtake the size of the U.S. economy. To keep the coronavirus recession from turning into a depression, the U.S. has spent trillions of dollars to support small businesses, the jobless, and American families.
Both Republicans and Democrats say a fifth round of stimulus is necessary but they can't agree on the specifics.
A reminder here that all that spending comes at a cost. The Congressional Budget Office now has the deficit hitting $3.1 trillion for the fiscal year. Fifteen percent of GDP, the highest since just after World War II and more than triple what it was in 2019.
Simply put, the government is spending way more than it's bringing in. It puts the U.S. at greater risk of a fiscal crisis and could mean cuts eventually to services and benefits millions of Americans depend on. But the risk near-term, if you don't do it, you have a depression. So a real conundrum here for lawmakers.
Ford's office employees will be working from home for longer. The automaker said Thursday it will extend work-from-home in North America until June 2021. Ford had previously said the workforce could return to Ford offices no sooner than January 2021.
Ford has about 32,000 office-based employees throughout North America that have been working from home since March.
People keep -- all these companies keep pushing the deadline back, Laura.
JARRETT: Yes.
All right. Finally, this morning, President Trump is balking at a virtual debate with Joe Biden, but it's worth noting here it wouldn't be the first time two presidential candidates debated from remote locations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL SHADEL, ABC NEWS ANCHOR, DEBATE MODERATOR: Good evening, Sen. Kennedy.
JOHN F. KENNEDY, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Good evening, Mr. Shadel.
SHADEL: And good evening to you, Vice President Nixon.
RICHARD NIXON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Good evening, Mr. Shadel.
(END VIDEO CLIP) JARRETT: The year was 1960 when Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy held their third presidential debate 3,000 miles apart -- not because of a pandemic but because their campaign schedules wouldn't allow it. So, Kennedy was in New York and Nixon was in Los Angeles, and there were two shown on a split-screen there. So, see, it can be done.
And, Christine, you and I have been apart for months but we still make it work.
ROMANS: I know, we make it work. It looks like we're right next to each other, doesn't it?
JARRETT: Exactly.
ROMANS: All right, thanks for joining us. Have a great weekend, everybody. I'm Christine Romans.
JARRETT: I'm Laura Jarrett. "NEW DAY" is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:59:15]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thirteen people are facing charges for allegedly plotting to kidnap and kill Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Investigators say the men planned to kidnap Whitmer from her vacation home and put her on trial for treason.
WHITMER: I'm not going to let anyone scare me from doing my job.
COLLINS: The next presidential debate now in doubt after President Trump rejected a move by organizers to make it virtual.
TRUMP: I'm not going to waste my time on a virtual debate.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Claiming the president won't be contagious in a matter of days, the Trump campaign proposed postponing the debate.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: He wouldn't be out of this contagious period yet by CDC guidelines.
(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 is Friday, the end of quite a week, October ninth, 6:00 here in New York.
This morning new information on the alleged domestic terror plot to kidnap the Democratic governor of Michigan.
