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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Some GOP Senators Concerned About Kavanaugh After the High Court Nominee's Accuser Steps Forward; Kavanaugh Categorically Denies Sexual Assault Charges; Florence Devastates Carolinas; Typhoon Mangkhut Pounds South China; U.S. Border Patrol Agent Charged in Four Deaths; U.S. to Announce New Tariffs on Chinese Imports; Biden Regrets Holding His Tongue on Trump; Swimmer Killed by Shark on Cape Cod; Massachusetts Residents Cleared to Return to Areas Hit By Gas Explosions; Researchers Find Daily Regimen of Low Dose Aspirin could Increase Risk of Internal Bleeding; Vontae Davis Retires from NFL at Halftime; Cowboys Dominate Giants on Sunday Night in a 20-13 Win; Patrick Mahomes Sets NFL Record in Win; Ryan Fitzpatrick Swagged Out at a News Conference. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired September 17, 2018 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:00] DAVE BRIGGS, CO-HOST, EARLY START: Supreme Court and Florence in the Carolinas. "I fear he may inadvertently kill me", words of a woman accusing Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct decades ago. Now, even some Republicans want this week's committee vote delayed.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CO-HOST, EARLY START: Record flooding in the Carolinas in the wake of Florence, the death toll is climbing, rising rivers will keep the fertilized well into the week, we are live this morning in North Carolina.
BRIGGS: And would you quit your job halfway through the workday? Why one NFL player says he ditched football for good at halftime on Sunday. A rough start in Buffalo continues and a bizarre story. Good morning everyone, welcome to EARLY START, I'm Dave Briggs.
ROMANS: Nice to have you back --
BRIGGS: Good to be back --
ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans, it is Monday, September 17th, it is 5:00 a.m. in the East and let's begin with the Supreme Court nomination. Brett Kavanaugh's nomination with the Supreme Court faces furious new concerns this morning. The woman accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, she has come forward and is adding explosive new details to her claims in an interview with the "Washington Post".
Her name is Christine Blasey Ford, now that her identity is known and with the clock ticking toward a Senate confirmation vote. Judiciary Committee is trying to arrange staff phone calls with her and Kavanaugh.
BRIGGS: But already some Republicans are showing signs of concern, here is Senator Lisa Murkowski.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI (R), ALASKA: There are more questions that need to be asked than answered. Then I think it would be appropriate to allow for that time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Bob Corker and Jeff Flake who are on the Senate Judiciary Committee believe the committee should hear from Ford in person before voting. Republicans can afford to lose just one vote.
ROMANS: Several House Democrats are already calling for a delay, including Senator Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, she is the senator who Ford first reached out to with her allegations, she is a constituent. But Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley calls the timing of the revelations disturbing.
And a Republican source tells Cnn, the committee's vote on Kavanaugh is still scheduled for Thursday afternoon. A Supreme Court reporter Ariane de Vogue has more on the allegations.
ARIANE DE VOGUE, CNN SUPREME COURT REPORTER: Christine and Dave -- Christine Blasey Ford has publicly come forward in the "Washington Post" and alleged that Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her at a party more than 30 years ago when they were both in high school.
Kavanaugh categorically denies her allegations. She says she attended a party in suburban Maryland home in 1982, Kavanaugh and a friend were drunk, she was allegedly corralled into a bedroom. At one point she said he tried to take off her clothes and he put his hand over her mouth.
"I thought he might inadvertently kill me", she told "The Post". She only shared the details years later in 2012 with a therapist and her husband. According to the article, the husband recalls his wife using Kavanaugh's name, but the therapist notes reviewed by the "Washington Post" do not mention him.
The other man who she alleged was in the room back then told the "Weekly Standard" last week that he never saw Kavanaugh act that way. Christine, Dave?
BRIGGS: Ariane, thanks. Christine Ford struggled for months with her decision to come forward according to a source familiar with her story. We're told in late August she made up her mind not to go public fearing it would end up hurting her life, while not affecting Kavanaugh's confirmation.
But Ford tells "The Washington Post", she reconsidered because people were repeating a lot of inaccuracies about her and her privacy had already been compromised.
ROMANS: Yes, there had already been a leak, this had been done confidentially and then there was a leak. The "White House" is still standing by its nominee, a spokesperson says Judge Kavanaugh categorically and unequivocally denies this allegation, and that has not changed. No tweets from the president.
BRIGGS: Devastation in the Carolinas this morning in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence. And authorities say the worst of the catastrophic flooding is still yet to come. Hundreds remain trapped, now 18 storm- related deaths confirmed. The latest is a 3-month old baby killed by a tree that fell on his family's mobile home.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They've been doing CPR for the last 30 minutes, and they just want permission to stop. I said no at first, but after another 30 minutes, he wasn't coming back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Tragic there. Overnight, new mandatory evacuation orders for Hoke County, North Carolina, where there are concerns about a possible dam breach. In Lumberton, North Carolina, residents bracing for disaster as the Lumber River sieves through a patched up gap in the levee system.
The river now close to 25 feet and rising if it gets to 26. It could overtop the permanent levee if that happens, an official says all bets are off.
BRIGGS: Over a half million customers are without power in North Carolina. The State Attorney General's office has received more than 500 complaints of price gouging for hotel rooms, gas and water, and more than 15,000 people are in shelters statewide.
[05:05:00] Transportation officials telling people not to travel anywhere in North Carolina. Flooding has already cut off coastal city of Wilmington from the rest of the state, and that's where we'll find Cnn meteorologist Derek Van Dam this morning. Derek, good morning, what are you seeing there?
DEREK VAN DAM, METEOROLOGIST: Dave, what I witnessed in Wilmington yesterday and late last night was a city's infrastructure on the verge of complete collapse. Literally, 30-foot wide sinkholes forming on some of the major thoroughfares across the city completely flooded out roadways.
In fact, parts of interstate 40 northbound, just north of exit 420 was completely abandoned, void of people that on any given Sunday would be full of residents and tourists coming home from a weekend at the beach. Well, this time, it is a river of water rushing down the highway, a very kind of surreal scene to see.
Of course, this makes it so difficult for authorities to move critical supplies, food and fuel to the impacted areas across this region. There have been just in North Carolina alone over 1,000 high water rescues since Florence began and since the flooding rains set in which we all know will only get worse before it gets better because the rivers, the estuaries, the creeks and the sounds across this region had to take a lot of that freshwater that fell in land.
And it's all eventually making its way towards the coast line. I came across a lot of desperate people, a lot of scared people coming to roadways that were flooded out and just peering off into the distance kind of blankly just knowing that their relatives and friends were on the other side of a flooded roadway, and they couldn't access them.
They didn't know whether or not they were safe. The flood waters here continue to rise, the rain however has come to an end for a brief moment, but there's more precipitation in the forecast here. Dave, Christine, from Wilmington.
BRIGGS: And we're still yet to come, Derek Van Dam live for us, thank you.
ROMANS: Right, Florence will dump more rain in parts of North Carolina over the next few days. River levels keep rising most of this week, Cape Fear River is now 35 feet, it's expected to crest tomorrow at 62 feet. Water already flowing into the streets, meteorologist Pedram Javaheri standing by live in the Cnn Weather Center with the latest of pictures are just really amazing. The water on water and more coming.
PEDRAM JAVAHERI, METEOROLOGIST: Yes, absolutely. You know, unfortunately, even when the sky turns blue above you, it's still a big concern of what's going to be happening right next to you as far as the rivers are concerned. And to take a look, just towards the west, about 120 miles west of Norfolk, that's where the center of the storm is right now.
But plenty of moisture still streaming right along, and pushing off towards portions of the Carolinas, impact right towards Eastern North Carolina, still getting heavy rainfall, going on three consecutive days in some of these regions and some 600 roads across the state have been closed or impacted by what's been happening across the area.
And in fact, when you go in for a closer perspective, you have river gauges, we have access too that are still functioning, which by the way are becoming limited in number over the last several days because of how much has pushed right through them, some of the instrumentation damaged by this as well.
But over 36 gauges now reporting at least moderate to major flooding across this region. That's from all the rainfall that has come down. Look back up stream, heavy rains still coming down into the Appalachians, all of that water essentially becomes a slow motion disaster, right?
Because all of that water wants to flow downstream and as it does, as Derek was saying right through the rivers, the estuaries eventually going through all the streams and the waterways across this region, it all wants to end up back into the Atlantic Ocean.
And it will by rising across hundreds of rivers across this region. So that is really a major concern, and you can look at just about any gauge and you'll see all of them want to rise through at least Tuesday afternoon, some of them pushing into Wednesday, a lot of them forecasting into record values before they begin recede a little bit, going to Thursday, Friday and hopefully much better come Saturday and Sunday.
But we do have the flood alerts in place, 35 million people impacted by this and the system. What is left of it, actually pushes up towards the Ohio Valley by this afternoon, pushes through New England by tomorrow morning and tomorrow night. Very quickly, but still, brings in a shot of wet weather towards the northeast. So just about everyone on the Eastern Seaboard going to --
ROMANS: Sure --
JAVAHERI: Be at least some rainfall from this system before it's done.
ROMANS: All right, Pedram Javaheri, thank you so much for that.
BRIGGS: In southeast Asia, at least 54 people are dead in the Philippines in the wake of the world's strongest storm this year, typhoon Mangkhut. Government officials say many of the deaths were caused by landslides with dozens of more people still believed to be buried. In Hong Kong, other devastations, fierce winds ripped homes to shreds and uprooted trees.
The storm blamed for four additional deaths in China, nearly 2.5 million people have been evacuated in China's Guangdong Province, and more than 18,000 emergency shelters have been activated.
ROMANS: All right, a U.S. border patrol agent described as a serial killer arrested in the deaths of four people. His capture made possible by a woman's daring escape.
[05:10:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: All right, time for EARLY START in your money and your report is President Trump planning on hitting China with a new set of tariffs. The "Wall Street Journal" reported Saturday that Mr. Trump likely imposed tariffs at around 10 percent on $200 billion more of Chinese goods.
This is expected to happen before planned trade talks at the end of this month. The new tariffs would apply to more than a thousand products including refrigerators, air conditioners, furniture, television and toys. The impact of the tariffs could be felt by millions of American consumers as the holiday season approaches.
The announcement about the new tariffs could come as early as today. This move could put the proposed trade talks with China later this month in jeopardy. China has vowed to respond to increase tariffs with retaliation.
BRIGGS: Joe Biden says he is sorry he gave President Trump the benefit of the doubt in the early days of his administration. Here's what the former VP said at a weekend dinner hosted by the human rights campaign and LGBTQ advocacy group. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[05:15:00] JOE BIDEN, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You know, Barack and I agreed to remain silent for a while to give this administration a chance to get up and run in the first year. God forgive me.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Biden told the audience he can no longer remain quiet once President Trump said there are very fine people on both sides after that deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville last year. And sounds like a guy who is thinking about running, do you?
ROMANS: Well, you know, we have the list, you know, Chris Eliezer(ph) and Harrington(ph) have their list, he is --
BRIGGS: And he's --
ROMANS: Way up on the top of the list --
BRIGGS: Always high up on it. All right, ahead, a two-time pro Bowl cornerback suddenly retires from NFL at halftime. Andy Scholes has more in a bizarre ending in the "BLEACHER REPORT" next.
[05:20:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: Authorities in Texas describing a supervisor U.S. border patrol agent in their custody as a serial killer. Charging documents say Juan David Ortiz who is also a Navy veteran has confessed to killing four people whose bodies were discovered over the past two weeks.
Authorities say all of the victims worked as prostitutes. Officials say the case broke Friday after a woman escaped Ortiz, she ran to a nearby gas station and found a state trooper. A Customs and Border Patrol spokesman says the agency is fully cooperating with state investigators, no clear -- not clear yet whether Ortiz has a lawyer.
BRIGGS: The death of a swimmer at a Cape Cod Beach this weekend believed to be the first fatal shark attack in Massachusetts in more than 80 years. Witnesses trying to carry 26-year-old Arthur Medici to get medical help, you know, the man boogie boarding off Newcomb Hollow Beach in Wellfleet, Saturday when the shark attacked.
Bunker Hill Community College says Medici; an engineering major was enrolled as a part-time student in the Spring. There was another shark attack off the Cape last month, no one was killed. Thought to be a reaction to all of the seals in the area.
ROMANS: Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker giving residents in communities north of Boston the green light to return home after a deadly series of explosions and fires last week. The governor says affected homes in Lawrence, Andover and North Andover have been safely cleared of gas.
The NTSB says an underground regulator which measures pressure levels and adjust gas flow was being worked on before the explosions. Officials are looking into whether that had any effect. Schools in Andover and North Andover, they will reopen today, Lawrence needs more time to restore gas and electricity.
A major study finds risks may outweigh the benefits of a daily regimen of low dose aspirin. Millions of healthy people take small doses of aspirin regularly, told that they would prevent heart attacks and strokes. The research is from the University of Melbourne say the regimen has no real benefit for healthy, older adults and may pose significant health risk.
It actually increases the risk of internal bleeding. The researchers do not say whether healthy older people who have been taking aspirin should stop.
BRIGGS: All right, let's talk some sports, things around the Buffalo Bills have apparently gotten so bad, one player called it quits at halftime. Andy Scholes here with this morning's "BLEACHER REPORT", Scholes, this is a rough start for Buffalo and a bizarre end for a pro Bowler.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS REPORTER: Yes, Dave, you know, I don't think we have ever seen a healthy player retire mid game in the NFL. But that's exactly what the Bills Vontae Davis did yesterday. Now, Davis is in its 10th season, he started for the Bills yesterday, but did not come out for the second half.
Bills Coach Sean McDermott said Davis pulled himself out, telling them he was done. Player's teammates not pleased with his decision to leave them hanging mid game.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LORENZO ALEXANDER, LINEBACKER, BUFFALO BILLS: I've never seen it ever, Bob Warner, high school, college, pros, never heard of it, never seen it. It is -- completely disrespectful to all his teammates --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he say anything to you?
ALEXANDER: He didn't say nothing to nobody.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He left?
ALEXANDER: Yes, you know as much as I know. I know, I found out going into the second half. Coming out, he said he was coming out, he's retired.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: Now, Davis who is 30 years old made or issued a statement about his decision to retire, saying "I've endured multiple surgeries and played through many different injuries throughout my career and over the last few weeks. This was the latest physical challenge, but today on the field, reality hit me fast and hard, I shouldn't be out there anymore." The Bills went on to lose to Chargers by final 31 to 20.
All right, Cowboys and Giants renewing their rivalry last night. Dak Prescott trying to find Tavon Austin, this one going to go 64 yards for the touchdown. Giants never really ended the game, Eli Manning was sacked six times, and his face right here pretty much says it all. The Giants 0-2 after losing to the Cowboys 20 to 13.
Chiefs second-year quarterback Patrick Mahomes is off to the best start to a career in NFL history. Mahomes had more touchdown passes yesterday than in completion his fifth touchdown since incomplete passes. Mahomes now has 10 touchdowns through two games this year, now that broke Drew Brees and Peyton Manning's old record of nine. The Chiefs continue lighting up the scoreboard, they beat the Steelers 42 to 37.
And finally, no, that's not Conor McGregor, that's Tampa Bay Bucs quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick. He had another great game beating the Eagles yesterday, and then borrowed DeSean Jackson's clothes to dress up for his post-game press conference.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RYAN FITZPATRICK, QUARTERBACK, TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS: Yes, I borrowed his stuff, sorry, DeSean.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is yours? Is any of this yours or is that --
[05:25:00] FITZPATRICK: The chest hair is mine.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: Dave, you threw for more than 800 yards, eight touch-downs in your first two games, you can wear whatever you want when you go to that post-game presser.
BRIGGS: Yes, shocking people with the stats, but that's a Harvard guy, not what you expect --
SCHOLES: Imagine --
BRIGGS: From Ryan Fitzpatrick on and off the field. Andy Scholes, great stuff my friend, thank you --
SCHOLES: I bet --
BRIGGS: Romans?
ROMANS: Good stuff, Dave, thanks. Serious trouble facing the president's Supreme Court nominee. Senate Republicans say a vote on the nomination should wait after a woman publicly accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct decades ago.
And a thousand people rescued in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence. Hundreds more awaiting help as the river levels pose an ongoing threat in the Carolinas.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
