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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Immigration Reform Plan from Trump; Republicans Pounce on Clinton's Snapchat Remark; Search and Rescue Continues for Crashed Indonesian Airliner; Firefighters Battle Western Wildfires; Jason Day Wins PGA Championship. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired August 17, 2015 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN HOST: All right. The happiest place on earth headed to a galaxy far, far away. Disney announced the creation of two "Star Wars" expansions at both its California pack. "Star Wars" theme parks. Cool. That would be Disney's biggest expansions ever covering 14 acres each, featuring new rides and restaurants.
[05:00:00] No word yet at exactly when those new expansions will happen.
EARLY START continues right now.
The 2015 circus came to town to the Iowa State fairgrounds, Donald Trump revealing a six-page plan to stop illegal immigrations. Hillary Clinton defending her e-mail use as Secretary of State. And more than a dozen other candidates buy to make their voices heard.
Breaking news this morning, an Indonesian airliner crashed with 54 people on board. Search and rescue teams trying to get to the wreckage facing challenges this morning. We are live with new development.
Good morning, welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans. It is Monday, August 17th, it is 5 a.m. in the east, nice to see you this Monday morning everybody. Let's start with politics, shall we?
Donald Trump this morning finally filling in details on his plan to immigration reform after weeks kept talking about immigration but avoiding specifics. Now, we have them, some at least, a six-page blue print for how a President Trump would fix immigration. Garnish illegal wages from low-wage workers, raise visa fees, reform the H1B system
CNN's Sunlen Serfaty has the latest from Washington.
SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christine, Donald Trump is off the campaign trail today doing something that all of us can relate to all too well. He's been called in for jury duty. He will report for his civic duty at a state court in Manhattan today. Trump said he thinks it'll be fun and he is looking forward to it.
It comes as Trump is trying to put forth a little more substance as a candidate, the campaign releasing its first policy document on his plan for immigration. The issue that really ignited the initial burst of support that he saw for the first time revealing how Trump proposes to get Mexico to pay for building a wall along the U.S. border, that wall he's been pushing forth since he got into the race, saying until they do, he would impound all remittance payment from illegal wages, increase fees on visas issued to Mexican CEOs and fees on border crossing cards.
He also more broadly proposes to end the U.S. law of birthright citizenship saying that it's the biggest magnet for illegal immigration. He calls for the number of ICE officers to be tripled along the border and for funding to be cut off for sanctuary cities.
Now, there are parts of the immigration policy that are still not clear, Trump in his policy document only calls for criminal undocumented immigrants to be deported. He doesn't say anything about at all legal immigrants being deported which he has called for in the past and repeated again on Sunday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have to make a whole new set of standards. And when people come in, they have to come in legally.
CHUCK TODD, NBC'S MEET THE PRESS MODERATOR: So, you're going to split up families. You're going to deport children.
TRUMP: Chuck, Chuck no, no, we're going to keep the families together, we have to keep the families together, but they have to go.
(CROSSTALK)
DONALD TRUMP: They have to go.
TODD: What if they have no place to go?
TRUMP: We will work with them. They have to go. Chuck, and either have a country or we don't have a country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SERFATY: And the DNC wasting no time in responding saying that Trump has reignited, in their words, the GOP's longstanding obsession with mass deportation. Christine.
ROMANS: All right, Sunlen Serfarty, thanks for that.
Vice President Joe Biden expected to stay at home in Delaware this morning, high on his agenda no doubt, more time to consider whether he should jump into the race for the White House.
Vice President hearing from advisers on whether there is room for him in the Democratic contest where a lot of the money in the campaign talents has already spoken for. Senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta has the latest. JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Christine, while President Obama is enjoying his vacation here on Martha's Vineyard, Vice President Joe Biden was spending some of his time off last week determining whether he should make a run for the White House. A source who's close to Vice President say he is nowhere near a decision which is expected to come at the end of the summer but Biden is putting out feelers, talking to loyalists who are gaming up the challenge the Vice President would face, should he choose to take on Hillary Clinton, the Former Secretary of State. By the way, she's already seen by top Democrats both inside and outside the White House as someone who will protect and expand on President Obama's legacy.
Biden would also have to take on a tough battle against Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who is now hot on Clinton's heels in the polls and some key battleground states. And here's what Bernie Sanders had to say about the possibility of a Biden candidacy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have known Joe for many, many years and everybody who knows Joe likes him and respects him. The decision as to whether or not he runs is his. If he does run, I promise him an issue-oriented campaign. We'll debate the major issues facing the American people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: But sources close to Biden are staying very tightlipped on which way the Vice President is leaning. He did spend his vacation in South Carolina, an early primary state in Hondu. One of his biggest loyalists, the former Chairman of that states, Democratic Party all off which, will fuel speculation that Biden is taking a hard look at this. Christine.
[05:05:05] ROMANS: All right Jim Acosta for us. Thank you Jim.
Republicans pouncing on the Hillary Clinton e-mail controversy again this morning after the Democratic's frontrunner made a joke about the disappearing message service Snapchat over the weekend. "I love it," Clinton said to laughter at a Democratic fundraiser in Iowa. The crowd loves it but Republican campaign saw an opportunity to blast Clinton. She dismissed suggestions she was taking the controversy too lightly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Most importantly, I never sent classified material on my e-mail and I never received any that was mark classified. So, I'm going to let whatever this inquiry is go forward and will, you know, await the outcome of it. The State Department has confirmed what I just said to you.
TRUMP: It's a criminal problem. I mean, it's going to be a very serious problem for her, Jeff. It's going to be about as serious as it gets. You look at General Petraeus, and he was destroyed over a much lesser event. So, I think she got a very big problem. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But his e-mails are more classified, hers were not?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I think some of hers were. And it seemed like they took a lot of markings off. I mean, somebody's got a big problem and it looks like it's Hilary
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any worry Republicans could overplay their hand on this e-mail controversy?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look, it is what it is. It was a terrible thing she did. It was actually a very foolish thing. There was no reason to do it and she got a big problem.
CARLY FIORINA, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, in the debate last week, I made the statement that Hillary Clinton has lied. She's lied about Benghazi. She's lied about her server and she's lied about her e-mails. And there were some of the media that found that language harsh, although the majority of Americans agree with me.
And the more the story goes on, the more it becomes clear that she has lied.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Dr. Ben Carson, the number two candidate in FOX News latest nationwide poll trying again to clarify his views on abortion. The retired neurosurgeon was asked last week to square his research on fetal tissue in the early '90s with his current criticism of Planned Parenthood.
On Sunday, he was asked to spoke of the Iowa State Fair Soapbox at an ABC News to explain when he thinks life begins.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. BEN CARSON, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What I believe is life starts at conception. I've said there are lot of people who think that that it's at the heartbeat. And I think most people can come to the conclusion that once you have a heartbeat that you clearly have a living organism.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: The Iowa State Fair at its famed Soapbox offering a platform to three more GOP candidates today. Set for today, Governor Scott Walker, Senator Lindsey Graham and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.
The Des Moines Register Soapbox is a beloved tradition at the fair. It is a right of passage for presidential candidates. If you want to be the president, you go on the soapbox and you do some grilling.
But Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton both chose to skip the soapbox over the weekend. Happening today, the Super PAC allied with the Jeb Bush campaign, will start spending some of the money in its deep pockets. Right to Rise USA set to make an eight figure ad buy in the early primary states at New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina.
The ads start running in mid-September. They air through December. Bush is set to campaign across South Carolina today where he'll meet with Veterans and conduct a military town hall.
Mike Huckabee heading to Israel to meet with officials and discuss the Iran nuclear deal. Just last month, the Republican presidential candidates said the Iran deal will take Israel, "To the door of the oven."
Huckabee telling CNN's "STATE OF THE UNION" on Sunday, it's important to talk about the deal with Israelis.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE HUCKABEE, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think it is the most dangerous situation that we face not just for the Middle East but for the rest of the world in a long time. This is essentially arming and equipping a terrorist state. The Iranian Government is not to be trusted and for 36 years, they kidnap Americans, they killed Americans, they hold Americans hostage right now. And we're being pushed to get into a deal that gives us nothing but gives the Iranians the capacity to ultimately end up with a nuclear weapon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Huckabee also expressed admiration, sort of, for Republican rival Donald Trump calling him a master of branding. He said it helps Trump get 10 times the press coverage of any other candidate. Huckabee said if he got that kind of attention from the press, he would be leading in the polls.
The Pentagon has a plan to expand the network of U.S. drone flights overseas. Under this proposal, the Defense Department says 50 percent more flights would broaden surveillance and intelligence collection in Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, the South China Sea and North Africa. The plan would also grow the military's capacity for lethal air strikes. If put in to actions, it would be the first significant boost to the U.S. drone program since 2011.
The Obama administration has reportedly told China, its law enforcement personnel do not have permission to secretly work in the US. According to The New York times, the White House has warned Beijing about its operation named Fox Hunt.
[05:10:06] The Times reports Chinese law enforcement agents are covertly working throughout America to hunt down fugitives and return them to China. The States Department has not addressed the operation Fox Hunt directly but Sunday, a spokesperson did make clear that Chinese law enforcement personnel cannot work in the U.S. without the Pentagon's permission. Eleven minutes past the hour. Time for EARLY START on your money. European agent shares, higher U.S stock futures barely moving so far, commodities sell-off going strong this morning. Oil prices falling down to a six-year low for oil.
AT&T worked in a close partnership with the NSA for years to retrieve information. AT&T gave the agency access to billions of e-mails sent on its networks and allowed the agency to monitor communications with the United Nations. That's according to report by the New York Times and ProPublica using NSA documents obtained by Edward Snowden.
Many companies were enlisted by the NSA to help collect information but AT&T's role now appears more extensive than other companies.
AT&T says it only provides information through court order or required by law unless a person's life is in danger.
Breaking news this morning, an Indonesian plane crashes with 54 people on board. The wreckage now spotted in the mountains this morning. Search and rescue teams trying to get there facing difficulties this morning. We are live with new developments next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: Breaking news this morning from Indonesia, two aerial search planes have now spotted debris from what officials believe, maybe an airliner which went missing with 54 people on board.
A search official tells CNN the plan to send out two ground teams to location in the province of Papua now suspended due to weather.
Let's turn to CNN's Kathy Novak for the very latest. Kathy?
KATHY NOVAK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah Christine, these teams tell us they are 95 percent sure that this debris is from the plane that went missing yesterday but they simply cannot get to it.
[05:15:04] These ground teams are now stuck on a mountain that's about 11,000 feet high. It is foggy. It is rainy. And now, it is past 6 p.m. in the Indonesian province of Papua so it's too dark to do anything else, and the search has been suspended once again until the morning. That goes for the ground search and the air search.
Two different planes spotted this debris. They are still looking for big pieces of debris. They were told by villagers that those villagers saw the plane crashed into the mountain and they saw the wreckage but the problem is just getting to it. It is very rugged terrain. To give you an idea of just how rugged, planes have gone down in this area in the past and the wreckage has never been found so, just devastating for the loved ones of the 54 people on board including five children.
They're waiting yet another night to get any news. They're being told that there still is a chance someone may have survived but the likelihood is very slim given the situations they're facing, Christine. ROMANS: Oh, indeed, just a heartbreaking situation, so much waiting. They just got to get to that wreckage. Thank you for that Kathy, keep us posted if you get any new developments.
An army skydiver has died from injuries he suffered when a stunt at this weekend's Chicago Air and Water Show went horribly wrong. 42- year-old specialist Corey Hood collided in midair with another performer. Video showing him falling from the sky. Witnesses described the scene.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He what look like was unconscious as he came down. And eventually, he got hit in the building here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Hood died Sunday at a Chicago hospital. The other parachutist Timmy Holland, he's a member of the Navy's position (ph) diving team, suffered a broken leg in that collision.
Federal investigators trying to determine what caused two small planes to collide in midair on approach to an airport in San Diego. Four people on board the two planes were killed.
Officials said both planes broke into pieces. This happened Sunday morning about 2 miles from the Brownfield Municipal Airport in Otay Mesa, California near the Mexico border.
The FAA says a technical glitch at an air traffic control center in Virginia was responsible for hundreds of flight delays and cancellations of East Coast airports over the weekend.
Official say the problem was actually fixed after several hours on Saturday but, airports and connecting hubs were still experiencing delays on Sunday. The FAA says investigators are, "Continuing to diagnose the cause of the problem."
Wildfires still scorching the West, burning out of control in four states now. These fires are being fueled by drought conditions along with heat and high wind. More than 50 homes have been lost in Washington State. In California, hundreds of firefighters are battling a blaze in the Angeles National Forest. A lightning-cause fire in Oregon has burned more than 34,000 acres. And then Idaho, the soda fire has covered nearly 300,000 acres.
So, will the weather in the west help turn things around in its battle against those firefighters?
Meteorologist Pedram Javaheri has the latest.
PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOLOGIST: Christine, the active fires across the Western United States are remarkable. When you look at this, 106 of them coming into play here as far as large active fires, 6 million acres of land have been scorched. That is over 2 million above what is considered normal for this time of year. And look at the landscape. This is what played out across much of the Western U.S. that a lot of the firefighters have to deal with. And when you get to these fires that develop in mountainous areas, you get winds, of course, that developed into these canyon regions. You see these in major metropolitan cities with large building. Then you get embers that are kicked up. And then you create new spot fires further down stream. That's a major issue for these firefighters across this region.
And I want to show you what's happening over the Southwest as well. Excessive heat warnings in place, temperatures well into the 110, 7 million people dealing with the excessive heat warnings across the Southwestern U.S.
Phoenix gets up to 111. 104 is what is considered normal. Up in Boise, temperatures getting up to the lower and mid 90's over the next couple of days. So the heats certainly in place there and then back to the Northeast, much the same. Washington, it's in the mid and upper 90s while New York City at least the cooling trend, Christine, going from 93 down to the mid 80s, by the later portion of the week.
ROMANS: All right, Pedram Javaheri, thanks to that.
So, apparently 20-under par is a really big deal. Australian Jason Day going where no pro-golfer has gone before in winning the PGA, his first major championship.
Andy Scholes has the bleacher report next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:22:57] ROMANS: Golfer Jason Day finally winning his first major over the weekend and he made history in the process. Andy Scholes has more in this morning's bleacher report. Hey Andy?
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Morning Christine. What an amazing performance by Jason Day. He's been at the PGA championship at 20-under par. That's the best score ever at any major. Day was leading heading into yesterday's final round. He had to have another great round with Jordan Spieth right on his heels when Day came through shooting a 5-under on Sunday. And after finishing in the top five seven times in his career, Day finally captured that illusive first major win.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JASON DAY, GOLFER, 2015 PGA CHAMPION: When I was holding up to the grain, reading that -- reading my finest spot, I started shooting some Ts. And to be able to go as through a lot at a young age and going through some hard times, you know, then I start -- I really started, you know, crying and cry like a baby.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: Generally, 17-under would be good enough to win a major but unfortunately it wasn't this time around for Jordan Spieth. Now, even though he got second place, Spieth have Rory Mcilroy in the ranking, then he's now the number one golfer in the world, the second youngest to ever get to number one behind only Tiger Woods.
Tebow mania is back for the first time in two years. Tim Tebow is back in the NFL football field, the former Heisman Trophy winner coming in for the Eagles in the second half yesterday against the Colts and it was vintage Tebow, he ran for a seven-yard touchdown on this player right here.
After the game, Tebow said, "It was fun to be playing football again." Right now, he's fourth on the Eagles' quarterback depth chart.
Milwaukee Brewers minor leaguer David Denson is the first openly gay active player on a Major League affiliated team. The 20-year-old Denson going public in an interview with the Milwaukee newspaper after first revealing it to his family and the Brewers minor league team in Helena, Montana. Denson says his teammates have been totally supportive.
[05:25:00] And finally, we got a lot of people talking this morning. Steelers' linebacker James Harrison recently posted a picture on Instagram of his son's participation trophies. And he said, well, he's proud of his son, he's sending the trophy back because they did not earn them, meaning they did not get first place so they don't deserve a trophy. And we had a heated debate about this in the sport's office.
Christine, where did you stand on this? Should everybody get a trophy or should trophy only go to the team that went first place?
ROMANS: I am absolutely undecided on this, because, you know, so many people say that you don't make a winner by just giving them a trophy for participating that winning should be winning, but you also wanted to support the little athletes.
SCHOLES: Well, I tell you what, because even when I was in Little League, if we didn't win the championship, we got a snow cone and a happy meal. The trophies went to the first place team, so I'm kind of on James Harrison side in this deal.
ROMANS: I'd rather have a happy meal and snow cone than the actual trophy.
SCHOLES: Me too.
ROMANS: I'm not sure -- it doesn't really work for me. All right, thanks. Nice to see you. Tweet us, what do you think. Should they get the trophy? All right, thanks.
Twenty-six minutes past of the hour. A dramatic development in the race of presidents, Donald Trump finally putting some meat on the bones of his illegal immigration policy and Hillary Clinton fills questions about her use of e-mail as Secretary of State.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ROMANS: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton fill the show at the Iowa State Fair. Trump unveiling his plan to fight illegal immigration, Clinton, defending her use of e-mail as Secretary of State. Dramatic new developments ahead.
[05:30:02] Breaking news this morning, search and rescue team struggling to reach the wreckage of an Indonesian Air crash, 54 people on board. We are live with new information.
