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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Confederate Flag Fight Gains Momentum; New York Prison Break: How They Did It; Obama Changes Hostage Policy; Freddie Gray Autopsy Report; Bobby Jindal Joining GOP Race; Brady's "Deflategate" Appeal Ends After 10 Hours. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired June 24, 2015 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:00] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: John, you're out of the -- we're not new grads. We're out of that stage.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: EARLY START continues right now.

(MUSIC)

ROMANS: Happening now: a debate rages nationwide over the Confederate flags. Several states making new moves to vanish the historic symbol, as new retailers push it from store shelves. What's happening today, ahead.

BERMAN: Pastries for prison favors. How Joyce Mitchell may have manipulated her coworkers to help two dangerous killers escape. Still more stunning new details. That's coming up.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm John Berman.

ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. It's Wednesday, June 24th. It's 5:00 a.m. in the East.

Happening now: new momentum building across the South to banish the Confederate battle flag. Leaders in seven southern states debating everything from removal of the Confederate emblem from the state flag, to striking it from license plates. The flash point for the controversy, South Carolina, racist killer gunned down nine people in an African-American church last week, and where protesters are demanding the removal of the Confederate flag from the state capitol grounds.

CNN's Ryan Young is in Columbia, South Carolina 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: All right, Ryan.

As he mentioned, you know, big retailers have joined this movement to take the flag down. Again, you won't find merchandise online or in stores anymore at Walmart, Amazon, eBay, Sears, Kmart.

The CEO of Walmart telling CNN Money's Cristina Alesci 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: Top retails are shunning the symbol. Some smaller stores have seen the sales spike in the last few days. Even Amazon saw things bearing the flag soar more than 2,000 percent before the companies took those items down.

BERMAN: You know, the pace of this change is extraordinary. To go all those years with very little change and now go to six days and it all just fall down immediately. Stunning.

Many Republicans running or expected to run for president in 2016, they are now also 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 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 are sticking to their position that the flag issue is one that states should decide for themselves, which is happening.

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: That speech in Florissant, Missouri, which is very near Ferguson, Missouri.

Another Democratic candidate, Vermont Senator Bernie also spoke out against the flag. He called it a relic of our nation's stained racial history.

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, they released dash cam video of the remarkably low key arrest of 21-year-old killer.

The 911 recordings also released Tuesday, they are remarkable. Dispatchers cannot 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.

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

(END AUDIO CLIP)

[05:05:04] BERMAN: Let's get more on the arrest video now from national correspondent Martin Savidge who is 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)

ROMANS: All right. Thanks, Martin.

Law enforcement officials say they are closing in on two convicted killers who escaped from prison in Upstate New York. Sources telling the men scrambled out of a cabin they broke into in Upstate New York. In such a hurry, they left their boots behind, meaning they may be moving through dense brush barefoot. At least one may be barefoot.

Meanwhile, there's a stunning new admission from Joyce Mitchell. The prison worker who helped them break out. 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)

ROMANS: Yes, there's a lot more to learn about what was going on behind those prison walls.

For more, we turn to national correspondent Jason Carroll in Cadyville, New York.

(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. And he 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)

BERMAN: All right. Thanks to Jason Carroll for that.

New developments in the cyberattack that lawmakers are calling the most devastating in the nation's history. Katherine Archuleta, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, tells a Senate committee that no one in her agency is to blame for a breach that compromise the personal files of at least 18 million federal workers, including White House spokesman Josh Earnest. [05:10:02] It is believed that China is behind the hack. Archuleta who appears before a House committee today, she blames a lack of investment in information technology and is now seeking a $32 million budget increase to pay for IT upgrades. This is a big subject today.

ROMANS: It is, yes. There's an economic and security dialogue going on between the U.S. and Chinese. Some 400 top level Chinese officials are in Washington. Seven years this has been going on and I would say the mistrust between the U.S. and Chinese right now the highest it's been in seven years on this. The Chinese officials confirming that, yes, this will be a basis of conversation with the U.S. going forward that cybersecurity, they know the U.S. is ticked off about this, about Chinese behavior and it has been raised at all levels with these negotiations in Washington.

All right. The trade bill battle appears to be over, folks. Today, the Senate is expected to pass a fast-track trade measure after Tuesday's 60-37 procedural vote cleared the way. This ends a bitter battle that split the Democratic Party. It's a big victory for the president, and a blow to labor unions and environmentalists.

Happening now: French President Francois Hollande, he just finished an emergency meeting with his defense council over new revelations that the U.S. spied on him and his predecessors. Documents released by WikiLeaks Tuesday show the National Security Agency eavesdropped on Hollande, as well as former French leaders Jacques Chirac, and Nicolas Sarkozy.

The spying reportedly spanned a period from 2006 to 2012, and also targeted the communications of cabinet ministers and the French ambassador to the United States. A statement from the French defense council calls the eavesdropping unacceptable.

And now, the U.S. ambassador has been summoned to a meeting at the foreign ministry this afternoon. That will be tense.

ROMANS: I will say. I will say.

All right. President Obama set to unveil some big new changes on what families of hostages held by terrorists can and can't do. This is a surprising shift in policy about how the U.S. deals with hostages. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:15:06] ROMANS: Happening today, the Obama administration set to formally announce a shift in its policy regarding Americans being held overseas. Families will no longer be threatened with criminal prosecution for paying ransom in an effort to secure their release.

We get more from CNN White House correspondent Michelle 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.

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)

BERMAN: Thanks, Michelle.

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

ROMANS: Brand 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. Now, six officers are charged in connection with his death. According to a report in "Baltimore Sun", the medical examiner has determined it was not an accident but a homicide. The ME cited officers' failure to follow established safety procedures by not properly restraining Gray inside that van. The medical examiner says Gray suffered, quote, "high-sudden injuries likely when the van came to a sudden stop."

BERMAN: A big day ahead for Bobby Jindal. The Louisiana governor is expected to announce his entry into the crowded Republican race for president. The Louisiana governor will make it official this afternoon at an event in Kenner, Louisiana. He will be the 13th Republican candidate to officially join the fray. That does not include Scott Walker and Chris Christie.

ROMANS: In the meantime, it appears Donald Trump is catching on with the Republican voters at least in New Hampshire. A Suffolk University poll has Jeb Bush on top of the crowded field at 14 percent and Trump is second at 11 percent, followed by Scott Walker at 8 percent, Marco Rubio at 7 percent. Ben Carson coming in with 6 points. Christie at 5 percent.

Another number from the New Hampshire poll, nearly a third of those surveyed said they were undecided. A third undecided.

BERMAN: That's high. That would be fascinating if the election were today, who would you vote for? Maybe (INAUDIBLE)

All right. Sports fans, Keith Moreland, if you are watching, this is how it's done at Wrigley! Watch this. A Cubs fan with a baby leans over and makes what is easily the catch of the year! The baby does not move.

ROMANS: He is still feeding the baby! He's feeding the baby.

BERMAN: It's stunning. Don Mattingly is complaining about it. I don't know why.

Andy Scholes explains in the bleacher report, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:23:12] BERMAN: Ten hours. That is how long Tom Brady's deflategate appeal lasted in New York yesterday. Now, we're --

ROMANS: Can you imagine being in a room with Tom Brady for ten hours?

BERMAN: No. Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Gazing, gazing!

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: That is Berman's dream being in a room alone with Tom Brady for ten hours.

ROMANS: Hi, Andy.

SCHOLES: Good morning, guys.

You know, over, the last four months, I thought, you know, we talked about deflategate too much. I can't imagine going for ten straight hours in one room on that subject, but that's what Tom Brady and Roger Goodell did yesterday in New York. Brady giving his side of the deflategate under oath to the commissioner.

Sources telling ESPN that Brady gave an A-plus performance, is now up to Goodell on whether or not to uphold Brady's four-game suspension. If he does, Brady's next move would be to take his appeal to the federal court.

All right. Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton made his way to Charleston, South Carolina, earlier this week to visit with the families impacted by last week's shooting. Some of the family members posted these pictures on social media thanking Newton for reaching out to them. Newton's visit comes after Panthers owner Jerry Richardson donated $10,000 to each of the nine families to cover funeral costs and another $10,000 to Emanuel AME as memorial honoring the victims.

A really funny moment in the Tigers and Indians game last night. Check out this kid snagging the foul ball down the line with his hat and then he immediately just starts yelling at the Tigers Miguel Cabrera! Well, Cabrera loves it and playing along with the young man who apparently had too much cotton candy.

But the kid's trash talk actually expressed Cabrera so much after inning, Cabrera comes over to the kid and give him his bat and his batting glove. Now, that is how you turn an Indians fan into a Tiger fan! Look at that. So happy.

But that kid's catch, guys, not even the best of the night.

[05:25:00] This may be the catch of the year. Foul ball heading over to the stands. Check out this dad. Bare hands it while holding his baby who is drinking a bottle!

Dodgers manager Don Mattingly, he came out and argued interference on this play. He was right. The umps called the batter out.

Check this out again. Look at this concentration. The bottle never leaves the baby's mouth. Mom not as impressed. She even looks a little embarrassed by the catch but just amazing.

Berman, I don't know about you but I would never even attempt that. One misstep and that would have been bad news.

BERMAN: First of all, I have twins, so I would have to catch the ball in my mouth, right? So, I would be holding both kids so that would be difficult.

Number two, what does Don Mattingly say? Like, drop the kid? I don't know. What is he arguing for? SCHOLES: Adrian Gonzalez clearly had that ball in the hand when he

reaches over. If I would have been Adrian, that's all you. I'm getting out of the way there.

BERMAN: Exactly. I can't believe the Dodgers came out against children.

Andy Scholes, thank you so much. Amazing picture.

ROMANS: I love that.

All right. Twenty-six minutes past the hour.

BERMAN: The debate is growing across the country. New discussion about the Confederate flag and Confederate symbols. Now, several states and corporate giants taking action. We have all the details, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: New calls to drop the Confederate flag across the nation, politicians and businesses taking new action to ban this symbol of the old South.

ROMANS: Help hidden in hamburgers. Stunning revelations on how two dangerous killers escaped from prison.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.