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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

New Calls to Ban Confederate Flag; New York Prison Break: How They Did It; Obama Changes Hostage Policy; Freddie Gray Autopsy Report; Bobby Jindal Joining GOP Race. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired June 24, 2015 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:15] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now: the debate grows nationwide over the Confederate flag. Several states making new moves to vanish the historic symbol, as new retailers push it from store shelves. We'll tell you the new developments happening this morning.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Pastry is for prison favors. How Joyce Mitchell may have manipulated her coworkers to help two dangerous killers escape. Stunning, stunning new details this morning.

BERMAN: Wafers.

ROMANS: Good morning. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

BERMAN: I'm John Berman. Great to see you today. It is Wednesday, June 24th. It is 4:00 a.m. in the East.

And this morning, there are new moves to banish the Confederate flag and remove Confederate symbols from the public square across the South. Leaders of at least seven southern states are debating everything from the removal of the Confederate emblem, from the state flag. That's in Mississippi, to striking it from license plates.

The epicenter of the discussion is in South Carolina, where a racist killer gunned down nine people in an African-American church last week. It is where state leaders and protesters now together are demanding the removal of the Confederate flag from the state capitol grounds.

CNN's Ryan Young is in Columbia with the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, a lot of debate about the flag behind me, the Confederate flag. There was a large group of people who came here today that talked about taking the flag down.

But across the United States, the conversation has now gotten a lot of steam. In Mississippi, where the Confederate flag is a part of the state flag, they're talking about taking that off as well. And in North Carolina and Georgia, they are talking about removing the Confederate flag from state-sponsored license plates. But in Virginia, that move has been made. The governor doesn't want

it on the license plate any more.

GOV. TERRY MCAULIFFE (D), VIRGINIA: Although the battle flag is not flown on our capital square, it has been subject to considerable controversy, and it has divided so many of our people.

YOUNG: And that flurry of activity continued in the business world as well. Walmart, Kmart, Sears, Amazon, and eBay have all decided to stop selling the Confederate flag. This conversation has been sparked by the deaths of nine people, and now, it started a wave -- a wave of people seeing the Confederate flag, for so long, a symbol here in the South, getting removed all at once -- John and Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: As Ryan mentioned, big retailers have joined the movement to take down the Confederate flag. You won't find merchandise online or in stores anymore at Walmart, Amazon, eBay, Sears, Kmart.

The CEO of Walmart telling CNN, selling items featuring the flag was an oversight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DOUG MCMILLON, CEO, WALMART: We just don't want to sell products that makes anyone feel uncomfortable and we felt like that was the case. This was a right thing to do.

CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Were you shocked to see that kind of merchandise on Walmart's platforms?

MCMILLION: I was surprised, yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: The top retailers are shutting the symbol. Some smaller stores have seen the sales spike in the last few days. Even Amazon saw items bearing the flag soared more than 2,000 percent before the company took those items down. And small companies, small businesses, the small retailers who sell some of these memorabilia, they say they can't believe how brisk business has been the past couple of days.

BERMAN: Interesting.

All right. Many of the Republicans running for president in 2016 are also now calling for the removal of the Confederate flag within hours of each other. Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, John Kasich, Rick Perry, Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham and Chris Christie, they all endorsed South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley's call for banishing the flag from the capitol grounds.

Two sort of holdouts are Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. They're sticking to their position that the flag issue is one that states should decide for themselves, which South Carolina is. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton applauded the growing momentum against the flag.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Recognizing it as a symbol of our nation's racist past that has no place in our present or our future. It shouldn't fly there. It shouldn't fly anywhere.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: She was giving that speech in Florissant, Missouri, which by the way is very close to Ferguson, Missouri.

You're looking at Bernie Sanders right now, another Democrat running for president, Vermont senator. He spoke out against the flag as well. He called it the relic of our nation's stained racial history.

ROMANS: All right. New police audio and video giving us a fuller picture this morning of the man who has confessed to killing nine people in that Charleston church last weekend. North Carolina police, look at that, releasing dash cam video of last Thursday's remarkable low key arrest of 21-year-old Dylann Roof. The 911 recordings also released Tuesday are anything but ordinary. Dispatchers can't hide their surprise at call from a flower shop employee who recognized the killer from media reports almost 250 miles from where the shootings took place.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just got a third-person telephone call behind a vehicle matching the description of the Charleston shooter.

[04:05:03] UNIDENTIIFED MALE: The suspect looks like the subject they are talking about on the news from that Charleston shooting.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

ROMANS: We will have more on the arrest video now from national correspondent Martin Savidge in Charleston.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN NATIONAL CORRRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. Good morning, Christine.

Thanks to this new video that's been released by the Shelby Police Department, we can now see and hear how 21-year-old Dylann Roof who was then the most wanted person probably in all of America, was taken into custody. And the remarkable thing, especially as you look at that dash cam video, is that he seems completely compliant and he seems actually quite docile for a man who is accused of being a mass murderer and taking nine lives. And as you listen to the police transmissions, one of the things you

find out is that the real trip wire to all of this was a concerned citizen, someone who saw something and then said something to the authorities.

The other thing to note is the radio traffic seems to show is that even though this is a very small and rural police department, they seem to have done everything right. The officers were in all of the right places and if you read the incident report of the one officer who makes the approach to the vehicle, you got to imagine that his heart is beating about a thousand times a minute because he knows he is going up against a vehicle that has an armed suspected mass murderer inside.

He, in fact, shouts out to Dylann Roof to put his hands on the steering wheel, who does, in fact, do that. And he shouts a number of other commands for Roof to follow and it appears that Roof follows every single with one of them. He's taken into custody with no violence.

And then, a search of the vehicle reveals the Glock semiautomatic pistol in the back seat, which is believed to have been the murder weapon. And then also one other item, a pillow, which could suggests how Roof had spent the night sleeping in the car on the run -- John and Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: All right. Thanks to Martin Savidge from that.

A stunning new admission from Joyce Mitchell, the prison worker who allegedly helped two killers break out of a New York prison. Mitchell tells investigators she put hacksaw blades in frozen hamburger meat and convinced a prison guard to deliver it to inmate Richard Matt, which the guard did without passing it through a metal detector first! The lawyer for that prison guard insists his client was duped by Mitchell.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW BROCKWAY, ATTORNEY FOR GENE PALMER: She has conned many individuals inside of the prison. She would curry favors amongst the prisoners. She'd bring them baked goods. She was just very good at what she did. And my client fell for it. I mean, if he is guilty of anything, Anderson, is that he is a very trusting individual and he's looking forward to telling his side of the story.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: It gets stranger and stranger.

For now, let's turn to national correspondent Jason Carroll, who is in Cadyville, New York -- Jason.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John, Christine, that prison guard now in question. His name is Gene Palmer. I have spoken to his attorney at length.

He said that, yes, Gene Palmer did, in fact, help to smuggle in that frozen slab of hamburger meat but his attorney tells me he did not know what was inside that meat. Inside the meat, as you now know, hacksaw blades that Joyce Mitchell had allegedly put inside to be smuggled inside the prison.

We are also learning more information about Joyce Mitchell, herself. Apparently for several months, she vouched for both Richard Matt and David Sweat, convincing other guards there at the facility that they were good guys, that they could be trusted, and in fact, bringing in baked goods to curry favor with other guards.

Also, we are hearing that she went as far as recommending to prison officials that David Sweat's cell be moved right next to Richard Matt. All of this information coming forward as her husband Lyle Mitchell has come forward, speaking about all of those allegations surrounding his wife.

LYLE MITCHELL, JOYCE MITCHELL'S HUSBAND: She told me that Matt wanted to her pick him up and she said, well, I never leave without Lyle, never. She said, I'll give you some pills to give him to knock him out and then you can come pick us up. She said, I can't do this. And then, she told me he started threaten that somebody inside the facilities was going to do something to me to harm me or kill me or somebody outside the jail if she didn't stay with this.

CARROLL: Prison policy now under review. In fact, the New York state inspector general has joined the effort in terms of looking at everything that took place in that prison before the daring escape -- Christine, John.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right. Jason, thanks for that this morning.

Now to the cyberattack lawmakers are calling the most devastating in our nation's history. Katherine Archuleta, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, telling a Senate committee no one in her agency is to blame for a breach, to compromise the personal files of at least 18 million federal workers, federal workers including White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

It's believed that China is behind the hack. Archuleta who appears before a House committee today, she blames a lack of investment in information technology. She's now seeking a $32 million budget increase to pay for IT upgrades.

[04:10:00] BERMAN: The trade bill battle appears to be over for the most part. Today, the Senate is expected to pass a fast-track trade measure after Tuesday's 60-37 procedural vote cleared the way. This pretty much ends the bitter battle that split the Democratic Party, and is a victory for the president, and a defeat for labor unions and also environmentalists.

ROMANS: New revelations this morning from WikiLeaks. Documents published Tuesday show the National Security Agency eavesdropped on the current French president, Francois Hollande, as well as former leaders Jacques Chirac, and Nicolas Sarkozy. The spying reportedly spanned a period from 2006 to 2012, also targeted the communications of cabinet ministers and French ambassador to the U.S. and French president now in response has gathered his defense counsel to talk about next moves.

BERMAN: Ten minutes after the hour.

President Obama set to unveil big changes on what families of hostages held by terrorists can and cannot do. A new development in a new policy has a lot of people talking. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Happening today: the Obama administration is set to formally announce a shift in its policies regarding Americans being held hostage overseas. Families will no longer be threatened with criminal prosecution for paying ransom in an effort to secure their release.

Let's get more now from CNN White House correspondent Mitchell Kosinski.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, John and Christine.

Right. Finally today, we're going to hear the result of this review of hostage policy that the White House launched last summer. Some of these details have already come out. I mean, we know they want to build this fusion cell or an intergovernmental group that's going to better coordinate how they deal hostage cases and how they deal with the families.

I think one of the most striking changes is that even though U.S. policy isn't going to change, that the U.S. does not make concessions to terrorists, does not pay ransom to terrorists, the government is no longer to threaten families who might want to do that on their own, and, in fact, may even help them in some cases, as we know the FBI did in the case of Warren Weinstein only recently.

[04:15:05] Now, those two things may seem deeply add odds philosophically but here is how the press secretary says he views it.

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think it is difficult to -- I certainly wouldn't want to put myself in a position in which I judged their reaction or their motivation to do one particular thing or another, because I can't imagine what it's like to be in that situation, to imagine, you know, a mother or a father or a husband and wife or a son or daughter in that situation. I think it's hard to -- to even hypothetically make a judgment about their motivations.

KOSINSKI: Of course, we'll be hearing much more about this today.

Also, some family members of U.S. hostages are going to be meeting with the president. We expect him to make a statement, although we're not sure if he'll take any questions on the subject.

But, you know, not all of the families that the White House has dealt with over the years chose to take part in this process. I think most notably the family of Warren Weinstein who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in April -- he was held by al Qaeda -- they are highly critical of how the government dealt with them through the process, and they're also critical now of what the White House wants to do moving forward.

Also, we should say, that there is a bipartisan group now in Congress in both houses who wants to propose their own legislation on hostage policy because they, too, are unsatisfied with what the White House has come up with -- John and Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right. Michelle Kosinski at the White House -- thank you, Michelle.

Sentencing day in Boston for marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The judge will formally sentence Tsarnaev to death for the 2013 attack in which three people are killed, 200 injured. A jury decided on the death penalty for Tsarnaev last month. Now, he will have the opportunity to break his silence and address the court. It is not known if he will take. Some two dozen people are expected to give a victim impact statements before sentencing.

BERMAN: New details emerging from the still unreleased autopsy report on the death of Freddie Gray back in April while in the custody of Baltimore police. Six officers charged in connection with his death. But is there a new published report out that the medical examiner determined it was not an accident, but a homicide, citing officers' failure to follow proper safety procedures. Again, new details from the autopsy just out.

Let's get more now from CNN's Joe Johns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, "The Baltimore Sun" reporting the injury to Freddie Gray occurred inside a police van while he was in police custody. The paper says Gray suffered a single high energy injury like those sheen in shallow water diving incidents, most likely because the police van he was riding in suddenly decelerated and says the most significant injury to Gray was to the lower part of his head and that the injury may have resulted when he got on his feet and was thrown into the wall of the police van.

It's been wildly reported he was in a seat belt while he was in the van, but the Maryland state medical examiner's report saying his wrists and ankles were shackled, making him at risk for an unsupported fall during acceleration and deceleration of the van. So, given those facts, why wasn't this case ruled an accident?

According to "The Sun's" reporting, Gray's death was deemed a homicide and could not be ruled an accident in part because of what we refer to as acts of omission by the officers who handled Gray after his arrest, that the officers allegedly failed to follow safety procedures.

So that fact that Gray was not properly seat belted inside the van before it started moving continues to be important. Note, that all six officers charged in the case have entered not guilty pleas. This report also raises an issue that's likely to be emphasized by attorneys defending the six officers charged in the case. The newspaper says the medical examiner noted that Gray's body tested positive for opiates and cannabinoids, the active ingredient of marijuana, apparently in his system at the time the autopsy was conducted -- John and Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: Joe Johns, thank you, Joe.

A big day ahead for Bobby Jindal. The Louisiana governor is expected to announce his entry into the crowded Republican race for president. Jindal will make it official this afternoon at an event in Kenner, Louisiana. He becomes the 13th candidate to join the GOP race.

BERMAN: So, it appears Donald Trump is catching on with the Republican voters in New Hampshire. Look at this. This is a poll just out from Suffolk University. It has Jeb Bush on top of the field with 14 percent, but Donald Trump is in second with 11 percent.

Running second in New Hampshire, Donald Trump. Pause. Scott walker is at 8 percent, Marco Rubio is at 7 percent, Ben Carson at 6 percent, Chris Christie at 5 percent.

This poll is sort of interesting, nearly a third of those surveyed say they are undecided. So, very high undecided right now, which, you know, makes sense six months before the primary.

All right. Deadly storms barreling across the country not over yet. Millions in the path of this severe weather today. We'll give you all the details next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:23:36] BERMAN: A line of severe storms that marched across the country this week, it slammed in the East Coast, with heavy rain, hail, lightning -- some of that lightning sparked fires, also deadly high winds, maybe a few tornadoes as well.

The dangerous weather is not over yet. A new line of powerful storms taking aim at the Upper Plains and Midwest today.

ROMANS: Tuesday's fierce thunderstorms pounded Philadelphia, packing near hurricane-force winds, knocking down countless trees, some toppled on houses. Yes, that's really -- look at that, some of these cars got nailed. One woman said she thought a tornado was ready to hit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I grabbed my kids, I ran into on the basement. It was terrifying. It was loud. And you just saw something like out of a movie when you see the debris going around and around.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Check out this dramatic photo. It shows intense lightning over the Delaware River and the calm after the storm. Quite a sunset.

BERMAN: Oh, that can't be real. No way!

ROMANS: When the severe line of storms finally passed through -- didn't you see how orange the sky was last night?

BERMAN: I know. But I don't buy that. It looks like a Michael Bay film right there.

ROMANS: I think it's real. It's real.

BERMAN: Do you think it's real?

ROMANS: I saw that kind of sky. Didn't you?

BERMAN: Yes, in "Armageddon." You know, in the movies, I saw it. Wow. That's an amazing picture.

Violent storms turning deadly in Maryland. Emergency officials in Montgomery County saying a driver died in an accident involving a downed tree and a power pole. Large chunks of hail tumbled Baltimore. Temperatures in the 90s on Tuesday.

[04:25:02] The city issued a code red and heat advisory.

Listen to the hail coming down there.

ROMANS: That is dinging that car. No question that car is going to be damaged.

BERMAN: That's going to leave a mark (ph).

ROMANS: Wow.

BERMAN: Some amazing pictures.

In addition to damage, there are power outages, also Amtrak disruptions. The storm left behind this spectacular picture.

ROMANS: Again, real!

BERMAN: Or not. You make the call.

Amtrak says train service has been restored but there may be some residual delays today.

ROMANS: Heavy rains and high winds ripping through New York, flooding streets, knocking out power. Take a look at the skies over Manhattan. Rapid fire lightning strikes, damaging buildings, sending everyone running for cover.

BERMAN: That looks real to me.

All right. Look at this mall in southern New Jersey, badly damaged by an expected twister. Winds 80 miles an hour, flipped cars and ripped off rooftops. Shoppers rode out the storm in the Macy's basement there.

ROMANS: The National Weather Service confirming at least nine tornadoes touchdown down on Monday in northern Illinois. The heaviest damage in Cole City where winds were clocked at 160 miles an hour. No deaths or life-threatening injuries reported there on Monday.

BERMAN: We got more severe weather in the forecast today. Let's bring in meteorologist Pedram Javaheri -- Pedram.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hey, John and Christine. Good morning.

Severe weather threat, absolutely there and across the Midwest today. About 20 million people and more than 13 million of them centered across northern Illinois. Of course, you said nine tornadoes in the past 24 hours. The concern is there for another round of active weather, potentially tornadoes.

But the line of weather that moved through on Tuesday across the Northeast, how about some 300 reports of damage, about 80 percent of those being related to wind, very little absolutely known report I should say of tornadoes across the Northeast. That was fortunate, but you can see the cool temperatures have filtered in, 22 degrees cooler in portions of Michigan and Illinois. Eleven degrees cooler in Chicago than this time yesterday.

So, yes, improving conditions if you're tired of the heat. Look what happened, New York, 92 yesterday, will shoot for 85 today, even Philly shooting up to 95 yesterday, 87 in the forecast today. The heat now displaced out towards the Pacific Northwest, massive ridge in place.

So, your heat across New York, going to cool off. Washington as well into the 70s in the coming couple of days, while back around the Pacific northwest, they take the heat from us and take it up to 91 degrees for a couple of days this coming weekend -- guys.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: That is a hot weekend in Seattle.

All right. Twenty-seven minutes past the hour. Debate grows this morning across the country, about banning the

Confederate flag. Several states and corporate giants are moving quickly. Details next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)