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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Who Will Replace Speaker John Boehner?; Terror Concerns Over Syrian Refugees; Nobel Peace Prize. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired October 09, 2015 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:14] MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN ANCHOR: Congress in chaos. The man expected to be the next speaker of the House drops out of the race. Republicans left with no clear frontrunner, except one who doesn't want the job.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A new warning from the FBI and Homeland Security about Syrian refugees coming to the United States.

KOSINSKI: The Nobel Peace Prize set to be awarded in one hour. We're breaking down the top contenders.

Good morning and welcome to EARLY START. I'm Michelle Kosinski.

BERMAN: And I'm John Berman. It is Friday, October 9th. It is 4:00 a.m. in the East.

Four a.m. in the East -- and, Republicans, do you know where your next speaker is?

At this point, the answer is no. Welcome to political twilight zone. The capitol is reeling this morning after Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the clear frontrunner for the job, he dropped out at the last minute and now, there is no clear pick to replace John Boehner. This was McCarthy's explanation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA), MAJORITY LEADER: I'll stay on as majority leader. But the one thing I found in talking to everybody, if we are going to unite and be strong, we need a new face to help do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So many House Republicans are now trying to convince Wisconsin's Paul Ryan to fill the void. The former vice presidential candidate said "no way" not once, but twice.

But as we sit here this morning, maybe, just maybe, there is some wiggle room. Let's get more from CNN's chief political correspondent Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: John and Michelle, shock, stunned, complete disbelief. We have run out of words to describe the feeling among House Republicans, what we witnessed and what we were part of when Kevin McCarthy went into what we thought would be an anti-climatic event. We thought he would get the majority of votes within the Republican caucus to be the nominee for House speaker.

And then before it started, it was over because we were learning very quickly standing outside the door that Kevin McCarthy, instead of giving his speech about why he wanted to be the House speaker, gave a speech of why he was dropping out of the race.

Lots of reasons why he did that. First and foremost, because it was going to be very tough to get the majority of the House, 218 votes, at the end of October. And another, we are told, if he did get that, it would be hard to govern. Right now, the question is, who is going to be House speaker? Somebody has to do the job. At this point, the name of the game is Paul Ryan.

Problem is he doesn't want the job and he made that very clear from the get-go. He doesn't want it. He wants to continue his current position of chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. It is a tax writing committee.

He is a self described policy wonk. He was looking forward to trying to reform the tax code and doing that with his current perch, and then may be leaving the House, not staying in Congress forever. He is a young man.

But he is getting a lot of pressure. House Majority Leader John Boehner is trying to convince him to stay. Others are trying to convince him to put his hat in the ring. There is a meeting later this morning among House Republicans where they're going to try to begin to sort out their differences and try to figure out if they can find that person to replace Kevin McCarthy to be in the running who can get the majority. All we know is John Boehner, the current House speaker, still insists he is out of there at the end of October -- John and Michelle.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOSINSKI: Thanks, Dana.

So, now, with McCarthy out of the race for speaker, who else is left? Jason Chaffetz has already declared he is running and conservatives are backing little known Florida lawmaker Daniel Webster, a fierce critic of John Boehner. Also in contention, Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia, best known for backing an amendment to a spending bill that would have allowed confederate flags to fly at grave sites and federal cemeteries. And former House Speaker Newt Gingrich indicating he would be interested if asked.

BERMAN: You know, you don't actually have to be a member of the House of Representatives to be speaker. So, that's where that goes --

KOSINSKI: Yes. They're officially declaring they're not running -- are Washington's Kathy McMorris Rodgers and Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, the chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

BERMAN: You know, people who say no, people who say yes. Now, we have no idea what's going to go on. There's a meeting at 9:00 a.m. this morning. Maybe there will be some clarity there. But as I said before, this is the political twilight zone, this kind of thing doesn't really happen this way in Washington.

KOSINSKI: And after the last two weeks. This happens at the 11th hour. You just said what when you saw the news.

BERMAN: Can you imagine Paul Ryan now taking calls for John Boehner? And everyone saying, take the job, take the job. I should call -- I'm the only one who hasn't called Paul Ryan this morning.

[04:05:00] KOSINSKI: And you kept talking about how much he wanted.

BERMAN: I do.

KOSINSKI: We could start this campaign today.

BERMAN: Donald Trump is actually taking credit for knocking Kevin McCarthy out of the race for House speaker. Donald Trump expressed doubts about McCarthy's fitness last week after the majority brag about the political damage done to Hillary Clinton by the committee investigating Benghazi.

Listen to Trump's reaction to McCarthy's decision to pull out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: A lot of people are giving me credit for it, and it's only because of the level of toughness. We need somebody that's very tough and I've been saying that, and I think Kevin is a very nice guy. But we need somebody that's very tough and very smart, not just tough. We need somebody that's very, very smart and can do the right thing for the country. Kevin was showing that it was a hard thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Chris Christie campaigning in New Hampshire insists that voters don't care about the speaker race. He says the American people just want the dysfunction in Washington to end.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is an inside Washington game, but I have to tell you the truth, Jake, nobody in America could care less about. They don't care who the speaker is going to be. What they want a Congress that's actually going to do something.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: What he meant, they couldn't care less, because if they could care less, it means they care a little. Dr. Ben Carson praised McCarthy for his decision to withdraw from the speaker's race. He says the California congressman is unselfishly putting the party ahead of his own political ambitions.

KOSINSKI: And Ben Carson is not backing down from comments about how he once deflected an armed robber at a fast food restaurant. The retired neurosurgeon drew a lot of criticism for suggesting victims of the Oregon college massacre victims should have rushed the gunman instead of sitting back and getting killed.

And earlier this week, he told a story about how a would-be robber once put a gun against his ribs at a Popeye's. Carson claims he redirected a gunman to hold up a store employee instead.

Now, he's trying to explain why he didn't attack the suspect instead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is somebody who comes into a joint to rob it. Not somebody who sequentially killing people.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: But you didn't know he was going to rob the joint.

CARSON: I did know that.

BLITZER: He potentially could have killed you.

CARSON: I did know that.

And the fact of the matter is, you know, maybe this is a level of sophistication that people learn from living on the streets. I knew that guy was not there to murder everybody.

BLITZER: How could you possibly know that? He had a gun.

CARSON: I knew he was not there to murder all the people. I knew he was there to rob the place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSINSKI: So, now, Carson is triggering a new around of controversy with the comments he made yesterday on CNN, suggesting the holocaust might have been prevented if more Jews had guns. Here's what he told Wolf Blitzer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: But just clarify, if there had been no gun control laws in Europe at that time, would 6 million Jews been slaughtered?

CARSON: I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people have been armed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSINSKI: As you might expect, the Anti-Defamation League is blasting those comments, calling them historically inaccurate.

And we have a programming note: don't miss the first Democratic debate hosted Tuesday night by CNN and Facebook. Coverage starts from Las Vegas at 8:30 Eastern.

BERMAN: President Obama travels to Roseburg, Oregon, today. Nine days after a gunman killed nine people at a community college there. Now, he might not receive a very warm welcome. Despite the shooting, the residents in the conservative are angry about the president's gun control campaign. There are some protests planned. There are people who say he is politicizing this tragedy.

The president will spent time with the families of the victims. But at leas one parent of a survivor is refusing to meet with him.

KOSINSKI: With the U.S. agreeing to take in 10,000 more Syrian refugees to help with the growing migrant crisis in Europe, top national security officials now are sounding a warning. The heads of the FBI and Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center telling the Senate committee there are serious gaps when it comes to our ability to screen them all.

We get more from CNN's Evan Perez in Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

EVAN PEREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John and Michelle, top national security officials say there are gaps in data that the government will use to screen potential Syrian refugees. Now, the U.S. says that plans to take in 10,000 refugees in the next year. The chief of the FBI, the Homeland Security Department testified on Thursday in a Senate hearing. They say that incomplete intelligence information poses a problem for screening Syrian refugees.

Here is FBI Director Jim Comey discussing the challenge.

JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: My concern there is there are certain gaps. I don't want to talk publicly in the data available to us.

PEREZ: Officials are trying to avoid a repeat of problems in screening Iraqi refugees in the past decade. U.S. authorities failed to flag terror suspects who entered the country among legitimate refugees. In 2013, these two Iraqi men were sentenced to long prison sentences in Kentucky after their fingerprints were found on explosive devices used against U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

Now, officials say they believe the U.S. is doing a much better job in how it screens these refugees.

[04:10:04] That's a key part of reassuring lawmakers and the public to support helping more refugees -- John, Michelle.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: All right. Evan Perez, thanks so much.

New concerns this morning about Russian's military campaign in Syria. Four Russian cruise missiles launched from the Caspian Sea, apparently fell short of their target in Iran, landed instead in Iran now. The Russians deny missing their targets. Iran says they don't know anything about missiles in their country as well.

But NATO officials, they are condemning Moscow right now. They are concerned about the timing of Russia's decision to launch the 26 cruise missiles across nearly 1,000 miles of terrain in Iraq and Iran and to Syria. Let's go to Moscow right now live, bring in senior international correspondent CNN international correspondent Matthew Chance.

Matthew, among other things, France now just launched some air strikes against ISIS in Syria.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. The skies over Syria are crowded indeed, which is why the military talks that had been underway with the United States and Russia, the U.S. being a coalition of 60 countries, striking ISIS targets is so important. All sides want to avoid any unwanted confrontation in the skies. There is very little agreement on which targets should be hit. So, the idea of cooperation is something that is essentially off the table. They are not going to be cooperating when it comes to these air strikes inside Syria.

I have to quickly point out there has been a strong denial from the Kremlin to those reports, coming from the Pentagon. U.S. officials anonymously in Washington that four of these Russian cruise missiles a couple of days ago fro in the Caspian Sea, didn't hit their target. They are saying, look, no matter how unpleasant and unexpected it is for our colleagues in the Pentagon and at Langley, it is unexpected fact. That's the stern message from the defense ministry with regards to those allegations, John.

BERMAN: It's important to note, Matthew, even if they did or did not land in Iran and we are told they did, it doesn't change the intention of where those missiles were being sent, which is the real conundrum that the Pentagon and the United States find itself in right now.

Matthew Chance for us in Moscow, thanks so much.

BERMAN: Time now for an early start on your money. Alison Kosik here with that.

Good morning, Alison.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to both of you.

Seeing a bit of a mix picture today, some red arrow, some green arrows. But a good start for stocks around the world. Asian shares are higher this morning. European shares are following their lead. But U.S. stock futures are slightly lower.

Now, yesterday, the Dow had another triple digit rally, closing up 130 points. So, that makes it five straight days of gains for the Dow, the S&P 500 closing above 2,000 for the first time since August, the Dow closing above 17,000 again. Wall Street rallying around the news coming from yesterday's Fed meeting. The central bank saying it is worried about low inflation and China's slowing economy. So, that means chances of a rate hike coming at the end of the year seem less likely. What Wall Street is looking for is certainty. They are getting it with a bleaker picture.

BERMAN: The Michelle Kosinski bubble right now. Since you've been here, the market has been going up.

KOSIK: You need to stick around so we see the green arrows.

KOSINSKI: I love you, guys.

BERMAN: An American who helped stopped a Paris terror attack, attacked himself. Stabbed outside a California bar. Really, really bizarre story. We will tell you what happened next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:16:42] KOSINSKI: Spencer Stone, the American hero who helped disarm an attacker on a train in Europe, is in the hospital this morning after being stabbed during an apparent drunken street fight. The violent confrontation involving Stone and a number of other men was captured on surveillance video. Look at that. CNN's Kyung Lah has more now from Sacramento.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John and Michelle, he is someone who is known an international hero, someone who thwarted a potential terrorist attack. Here in the streets of Sacramento, he was just another victim in a street fight.

Take a look at the surveillance video. You see a number of men -- they are in a fight. A large man in a white shirt in the center, his name is Spencer Stone. You can see he is fighting with a number of men.

Police say this all started in a bar and spilled out into the street. Stone was stabbed three times according to the hospital. Stone is known as one of three Americans who took down a would-be terrorist on a French train. His actions were hailed as heroic around the world, saving countless lives.

When he returned to the United States, he met with President Obama and he received a hero's welcome. He is now back in the hospital this time in serious condition. He suffered three stab wounds, according to the hospital. They say his injuries potentially life threatening at one point. He is now expected to make a full recovery. In the meantime, police are continuing to search for two suspects who they want to speak with -- John, Michelle.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: All right. Kyung Lah, thanks so much. Let's hope he does make a recovery and soon.

Bill Cosby under oath. He will face questions today from Attorney Gloria Allred. During a deposition in a sexual assault case. The suit filed by Judy Huth alleges Cosby sexually assaulted her in 1974 at the Playboy Mansion, when she was just 15. The judge ordered testimony sealed until December when the judge will then rule on which parts should be made public. Huth will be deposed later this morning.

KOSINSKI: City of North Charleston, South Carolina, approving a $6.5 million settlement with the family of Walter Scott. The black man who was fatally shot in the back by a white police officer in April. The 50-year-old Scott was unarmed and running away from Officer Michael Slager when he was gunned down. The confrontation captured on video.

Slager was later charged with murder and being held without bond.

BERMAN: New details emerging about the El Faro cargo ship after the coast guard abandoned its search for the 33-member crew. The ship sank during Hurricane Joaquin. Former El Faro crew members tell CNN the vessel had leaks and other structure problems and question whether it should have sailed with a major storm bearing down. The company operating the ship says it was well-maintained and regularly inspected. The NTSB Hopes to recover the ship's data recorder, soon.

KOSINSKI: We are less than one hour from knowing who will win this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Who will it be? We are breaking it down live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:23:20] KOSINSKI: Oslo, Norway in the global spotlight this morning. Just over a half hour from now, the esteemed Nobel committee will announce the winner of this year's peace prize.

Among the contenders is Pope Francis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Secretary of State John Kerry, and his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif, for their work on helping seal the Iran nuclear deal.

So, CNN's Phil Black is monitoring developments for us. He's live in London.

Phil, break it down for us. Is there a feeling that this is going to go the route of the Iran nuclear deal or what else is out there?

PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The fact is, Michelle, that no one, the other five members of the Nobel Committee, actually know who is the winner. We don't know even know who the 273 nominees were this year. Because this committee works in absolute secrecy.

So, we are really left to effectively speculate or follow the money. When you look at the betting agencies, they all consistently have Angela Merkel as the clear, really, favorite to win this year's award, likely for her moral leadership in dealing with Europe's refugee crisis, effectively opening Germany's borders to take some 800,000 migrants, while encouraging other European countries to share the burden as well. That would be a controversial choice, because not everyone in Europe and not everyone in Germany believes or approves of the way that Angela Merkel has handled that particular issue.

Pope Francis is the other high profile favorite. He was considered a likely winner last year, that didn't happen, but certainly the influence and power and popularity of him as an individual and message has grown since then. So, he is considered very much a likely candidate as well.

And then rounding out sort of the top few favorites, there are lesser known grassroots activists, like the Eritrean priest who also works with refugees in Europe as well, a gynecologist from the democratic republic of Congo who works with victims of sexual violence, along way down the betting list, you will find Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart for their work in coming up with that Iranian nuclear deal.

[04:25:18] But it would seem the money is not following them yet, perhaps the deal, its impacts are still something of an unknown, not quite a reality just yet. But all of this could prove to be wildly inaccurate, because the Nobel Committee has in the past often thrown out some surprising results -- Michelle.

KOSINSKI: Thanks, Phil. Yes, it's a life-altering decision as well.

BERMAN: I think Phil is being modest. I think Phil actually knows and just isn't telling us just yet. He's going to hold off, feel the suspense for the next hour.

KOSINSKI: It's interesting that there are hundreds of people though.

BERMAN: Yes, no doubt. And I don't know exactly when they vote because that could play a rule here also.

KOSINKI: Right. And everyone always talks about the top three out that are just sort of out there in the news. But often it is a surprise, but --

BERMAN: Right. Maybe Paul Ryan is a possibility if he can fix what is going on in Washington. Chaos in Congress because of that man right there, Kevin McCarthy. Everyone thought he would be the next speaker, now he drops out. Now, no one knows who will be the next speaker of the House. All the happenings, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Chaos in the Capitol. Republicans trying to find a new leader. The frontrunner to be the next speaker of the House, he drops out at the last minute and now no one knows what's going on.

KOSINSKI: Homeland security with a warning about Syrian refugees heading to the U.S.

BERMAN: And in 30 minutes, the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced. We will break down al the top contenders.