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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
White House Breach More Serious; ISIS Pushing Toward Turkish Border; Massive Hong Kong Protests
Aired September 30, 2014 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHRISTIEN ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Armed, dangerous and much further into the White House than we knew. Shocking new details about the fence jumping intruder arrested in the president's home. This as the head of the Secret Service is expected to be grilled by Congress this morning. Is the president being kept safe?
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: ISIS fighters gaining new ground in Iraq and Syria, moving ever so closer to key cities. This as ISIS releases new propaganda video with British hostage. We'll have live team coverage.
ROMANS: Pro-democracy protesters taking over the streets of Hong Kong there, demanding change from their government. We're going to take you there, live.
Welcome back to EARLY START this morning. I'm Christine Romans.
BERMAN: And I'm John Berman. About 30 minutes past the hour right now.
And this morning, a stunning revelation about White House security. We know the man who jumped the fence earlier this month made it much, much deeper into the White House than previously reported. Now, the director of the Secret Service testifies before Congress this morning. It was already going to be a tough morning for her, but it just got much, much tougher.
CNN's Jim Acosta has the story now from the White House.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, Omar Gonzalez made it much farther inside the White House than previously acknowledged by the Secret Service.
According to congressional and law enforcement sources, once Gonzalez entered the White House, he managed to get through a Secret Service officer at the north portico door, went past the stairs, leading to the first family residence, and then ran into the East Room before he was tackled just as he was trying to head into the Green Room. No shots were fired inside or outside the White House.
And according to a memo that will be used by lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee at a hearing later on this morning, there were multiple lapses that allowed Gonzalez to make it that far. One of them being the failure to use what's called the crash button, that would have instantly locked down the White House. The question, of course, is, why that button was not used? And this information runs counter to what the Secret Service initially said on the night of the fence-jumping incident, when a spokesman told reporters that Gonzales was apprehended just inside the north portico door.
The director of the Secret Service, Julia Pierson, is scheduled to appear before the House Oversight Committee later on this morning. According to White House officials, the president has confidence in her leadership -- John and Christine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: That will be some hearing. No question.
All right. Residents of the Syrian city of Kobani are terrified this morning. They are pleading for help. ISIS is closing in. Islamic militant fighters less than two miles from the Kurdish town near the border with Turkey. A U.S.-led forces intensified air strikes in Iraq and Syria, but is ISIS still gaining ground there.
Standing by live at the Turkey/Syria border is CNN's Phil Black.
We have been hearing for some 48 hours now officials there in Kobani pleading, pleading for help, Phil.
PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Christine. Everyone we speak to here and on the other side of the border as well by phone asks where is this international coalition. Where are the air strikes? Why are they letting the Kurdish people die? Why they are not getting involved in the fight behind me?
That's where you can see the city of Kobani. And it is the city approached by ISIS from the west and south and east. That is where we are on the east side of the city across the border in Turkey. And it's where in recent days we have seen firsthand the fact that ISIS is advancing and using much heavier weaponry than the Kurdish that are so desperately trying to resist them.
Yesterday, ISIS was shelling Kobani directly, as many as 20 times according to people inside the city. And they believe at least three civilians were killed as a direct result of that shelling.
Most of the residents have fled the city. They crossed the border into Turkey. But there are still a few thousand are left behind. We are concerned about what will happen to them in the event that ISIS does make the last final lurch into Kobani.
This morning, we heard shelling. We believe coming in from the south. It is mostly quiet, however, but there is every sense here on the ground that ISIS is really at the gate. It is very close to achieving its goal and taking Kobani -- Christine.
ROMANS: Give us a sense, Phil, then of the reach of ISIS in that part of Syria. If it manages to make it to Kobani, and take Kobani. what kind of stretch and reach does ISIS now have?
BLACKWELL: Well, it increases it significantly. What it means it will have in its possession, a large stretch of the Turkish border and from that point here on the Turkish border, it will have a direct route from here all the way back to Raqqa. It's unofficial declared capital if you like. It is important, because the Turkish border is considered by most analysts to be the key resupply point for ISIS. It is where most foreign fighters believed to have crossed over to join their ranks. It is where contraband has been flowing backwards and forwards as well.
Now, it would appear that the Turkish government is trying to crackdown to some degree on illegal movement and illegal smuggling across the border. But it's still porous. And what it would mean is it is a significant territorial gain for ISIS at a time when the United States and its allies claim to be degrading its capabilities on the ground here in Syria -- Christine.
ROMANS: OK. Thanks so much, Phil, out on the border. Thanks, Phil.
Meanwhile, ISIS released a propaganda video last night featuring British hostage John Cantlie. We are live in London with that in 15 minutes.
BERMAN: Syria's foreign minister is slamming the United States and the West for the way they are conducting the war on ISIS, telling the U.N. General Assembly the Western governments ignored his country's warnings about ISIS for years. And they now need to coordinate against ISIS with the Syrian government. The White House is refusing to do that. The Syria's foreign minister went on to say that the U.S. is making a mistake by not targeting other extremist groups, along with ISIS.
ROMANS: The cost of the war is climbing, the war against ISIS. According to new research from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, U.S. military operations against ISIS have already cost between $780 million and $930 million in the last two months. The cost going forward depends on duration and intensity. But the think tank estimates the lower intensity campaign would cost as much as $320 million a month.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says the U.S. spending up to $10 million a day and is likely to request more money.
Time for an EARLY START on your money this Tuesday morning. Asian stocks mostly lower. Those pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong rattling nerves there. European stocks are mixed right now and U.S. stocks futures are pointing higher, just slightly higher.
BERMAN: Thirty-six minutes after the hour.
Fiery words for ISIS and Hamas from Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister warning the United Nations General Assembly that the two organizations are, quote, "branches of the same poisonous tree", bent, he says, on world domination through terror. He compared both groups to the Nazis. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: So, when it comes to their ultimate goals, Hamas is ISIS and ISIS is Hamas. What they share in common, all militant Islamists share in common.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Netanyahu went on to tell the United Nations that Israel's fight against Hamas and the U.S. war on ISIS are part of the same cause.
ROMANS: All right. A long term agreement between the U.S. and Afghanistan set to be signed today, allowing nearly 10,000 American troops to remain in Afghanistan beyond the end of the year. Officials agreed to the deal a year ago, but the former president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, refused to sign it as a protest against U.S. airstrikes that killed Afghan civilians.
Under the plan, all U.S. troops would be out of Afghanistan by 2017.
BERMAN: Thirty-seven minutes after the hour.
The first Clinton grand child is waking up this morning. That's assuming she ever went to sleep, if she's walking up after sleeping for an hour, after waking up after sleeping for an hour, after waking up.
ROMANS: Eating, feeding --
BERMAN: You get the point.
That is her right there, the little one that's being held right now. Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky leaving the hospital on Monday, along with their mother and father, and also a couple of other people behind them that you may recognize.
That baby Charlotte will be busy over the next few days. I mean, she will be eating repeatedly, sleeping repeatedly. Also visiting with aunts and uncles on her father's side. She has 18 first cousins to meet.
ROMANS: That's great.
BERMAN: Happy napping.
(CROSSTALK)
ROMANS: All right. Thirty-eight minutes past the hour.
Happening now: thousands of protesters taking over the streets of Hong Kong there, demanding big changes. And let's just say the Chinese government is not happy about it. We're live with the very latest.
BERMAN: Plus, a Texas hospital patient in isolation now being tested for Ebola. What we are learning this morning right after the break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BERMAN: A new day of protests in Hong Kong as demonstrators brace for a possibility of a crackdown. Thousands and thousands of people have jammed into the heart of the city. They are demonstrating against a move that would allow only Beijing-approved candidates in the upcoming election for Hong Kong's chief executive. Violence did flare over the weekend after the ranks of the largely student-led protests that begin last week got unruly. You see tear gas that was used there. That may have back fired on authorities.
Standing by right now live in the middle of this is CNN's Andrew Stevens.
Good morning, Andrew.
ANDREW STEVENS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.
Yes, I am in the middle of it. Let's take a look at the -- I'll get out of the way. Let's take a look at the size of the crowd now. It is just gone at 4:45 in the afternoon here.
And you are looking down across this crowd. Tens of thousands now, I would estimate, people who have joined in the rally in the last two or three hours. And all here with the very common purpose and for Hong Kong protests, quite a unique protest. This is a united front on a Democratic issue. We do have a lot of protests in Hong Kong, John. They are peaceful, but they are fractured with a lot of groups asking for a lot of different things.
This is very much being led by students. And those students are demanding as you were saying, more democracy to come out of Beijing. So, Hong Kongers can choose their own leaders completely. At the moment, Beijing will choose who Hong Kong can vote for.
You say there is a possibility of a crackdown. There is a possibility of a crackdown. We have seen it about 24 hours ago.
But at this stage, most of the indications are that this protest will continue to run its course and probably continue to grow over the next two or three days. It is a public holiday tomorrow. It's the China national day tomorrow, very hard to see Hong Kong police cracking down on national day.
But after that, then things could start to change. It is very difficult to gauge just what could happen given the fact, of course, that the last thing Beijing wants is global coverage of a major crackdown on citizens in Hong Kong -- John.
BERMAN: And what are they seeing of these demonstrations inside the rest of China? China proper, as it were?
STEVENS: Very little is the short answer to that. CNN has been repeatedly blocked and has blocked all day as soon as we come to this story. Twenty-four hours ago, a bit more was getting out. But you got to
remember, too, this is Hong Kong which shares the border with mainland China and thousands of mainland Chinese come across here every day. So, they would have seen this and filmed it. They would have been showing to friends and trying, no doubt, trying to upload it on social media.
Now, the only social media internationally is Instagram which is allowable in China. That has been closed down in last couple of days. Facebook is not available. Twitter is not available. YouTube is not available. There are Chinese equivalence, but they are scrubbed very, very carefully, the content, which would talk about Hong Kong, talk about what's happening here.
So, the bottom line, there would be some information getting out, there won't be much information. Funny you should ask. I was just sitting next to a protester here. Take a look at this. And it was a picture, it was a still screen grab from a Chinese television station showing the protests here where I am, tens of thousands of people. But the caption in Chinese said tens of thousands of Hong Kongers China National Day. This is what they go to keep the news from getting out.
BERMAN: Wow! That is stunning right there. Just, you know, rogue deception and dishonesty.
Andrew Stevens for us inside Hong Kong, where Andrew says he expect this protest to for us. Thanks to you, Andrew.
ROMANS: All right. Now, to a stunning development this morning. The arrest of the man suspected of abducting Hannah Graham may have led to a break in another case. The 2009 killing of Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington. Virginia state police say forensic evidence belonging to Graham suspect Jesse Matthew Jr. matched forensic evidence collected during the Harrington case. For Harrington's parents, the news is a relief, but they say time is of the essence for Graham and her family.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GIL HARRINGTON, MORGAN HARRINGTON'S MOTHER: They've got plenty of time to sort it out and make sure that this is indeed the person who killed Morgan Harrington and who is responsible for the disappearance of Hannah Graham, which is really paramount. I mean, we know where Morgan is. Morgan is in a box over there. Hannah Graham is still missing. And her family needs to know where she is. We need to bring Hannah home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: It's heartbreaking.
Graham's disappearance may unravel other mysteries. According to local media, there are a least two other women besides Graham and Harrington who have disappeared from the same area since 2009. A patient at a Dallas hospital is being held in strict isolation this
morning. The concern the patient may have been exposed to the Ebola virus. Test results to confirm the diagnoses are expected back from the Centers for Disease Control some time today. A specialist at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital will only say that the patient was admitted based on symptoms and recent travel history.
ROMANS: The Centers for Disease Control trying to get a handle on the Enterovirus D68. This is affecting children. Now, officials are also looking into whether limb weakness and paralysis in 10 children in Colorado could be connected to this. Doctors say MRI tests spotted an abnormality that could be causing weakness primarily in their shoulders, triceps, biceps and hips.
BERMAN: New details in the deadly car accident that injured Tracy Morgan. Walmart says that Morgan's injuries were caused in whole or in part because he was not wearing a seatbelt. In July, Morgan's attorneys filed lawsuit against Wall Street, claiming that the retail giant was criminally negligent in allowing the driver to operate a vehicle after already being on the road for hours.
ROMANS: All right. Forty-eight minutes past the hour. New video of a British journalist video released by ISIS. We are live in London with that story next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BERMAN: ISIS has posted a new video this morning featuring hostage John Cantlie. Now, like the two earlier propaganda video showing Cantlie, this one has the British photojournalist speaking directly to the camera with no guards in view. Cantlie reads from a script to apparently under duress. He mocks President Obama's new strategy for defeating ISIS.
CNN's Atika Shubert is live in London.
You know, Atika, good morning.
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.
This is the third in the series of videos released by ISIS using the hostage John Cantlie. He, of course, is a British journalist. And the style of the video is he presents this propaganda as though it's a news broadcast. He reads from what appears to be a prompter. He reads it off screen directly into the camera. It may be written by himself.
But either way, what he does in this video is he basically analyzes Obama's most recent 9/11 speech from the point of view of ISIS. And that's the most important thing to remember about these videos. It is ISIS propaganda. It is made under duress. It is using a hostage to deliver the message -- John.
BERMAN: It is interesting, Atika. It does show ISIS in Iraq and Syria, keeping up to date with the events and not afraid to respond almost in real time. SHUBERT: Very much so. And I think that's one of the points of these
messages. To show what ISIS is watching and what is happening on the political scene in the United States and they are responding as such. This is a common theme of all of the ISIS videos. That they watch these events and they respond to it. It's almost as though they are trying to have a conversation, but through these videos and using these hostages to deliver that.
BERMAN: All right. Atika Shubert for us in London, thanks so much, Atika.
ROMANS: All right. Fifty-four minutes past the hour.
More billionaires than ever before. So many more that "Forbes" magazine had to move the goalpost down the field a little. An EARLY START on your money, next.
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ROMANS: All right. Good Tuesday morning.
Let's get an EARLY START on your money. Asian stocks ended the day mixed, pro-democracy protests continuing in Hong Kong. European shares mixed right now. U.S. stocks futures pointing up for the last day of September. But it hasn't been the best month for stocks. The Dow has dropped slightly about 30 points. The S&P 500 down a little over 1 percent. The NASDAQ is down 1.6 percent. Tech stocks have not had a great month.
The U.S. has 27 new billionaires, a lot of disruptors on tech entrepreneurs, adding their name to the list this year. The newly minted super rich include the founder of WhatsApp, the CEO of Uber, and founder of GoPro. Congratulations, gentlemen.
Familiar faces still top the richest list. Bill Gates is number one for the 21st year in a row. He's got $81 billion, $81 billion. Warren Buffet is the second richest in the country.
ROMANS: Netflix will release its first original movie, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the Green Legend", will premier on Netflix next August on the same day it hits theaters. Netflix partnering with the Weinstein Company and says the "Crouching Tiger" sequel will be the first of several dual releases for major films. The company wants to change the way subscribers consumed movies in the same way it changed television by releasing entire all seasons all at once for binge watching.
BERMAN: Ang Lee will not be directing the sequel, which I find, if you love the first movie which I did, of course, it's one of the first things I look forward to see, if he'll be directing this one. He will be not be, but I'm sure it will be fun.
ROMANS: All right.
BERMAN: EARLY START continues right now.
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