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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Police Search for Suspect in Connection with Bangkok Attack; Hundreds of Clinton Emails Flagged for Review; GOP Candidates Divided on Birthright Citizenship; Yankees Rookie Hit by Line Drive, Breaks Nose. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired August 18, 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 ANCHOR: Donald Trump's controversial immigration plan dividing people running for president, igniting a new debate over birthright citizenship.

[05:00:08] Good morning and welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans. It is Tuesday, August 15th, 5:00 a.m. in the East. John Berman is off this morning.

We begin with breaking news out of Thailand. Police there have a suspect in Monday's deadly bombing attack in Bangkok. Now, this is your first look at him.

Officials say he is seen on closed circuit TV. They cannot confirm his identity just yet. He's seen in a yellow shirt, jeans, glasses carrying a backpack. Authorities now looking at footage going back as far as two weeks before the attack to see if they spot anything suspicious. There is devastation following the blast, a blast that killed 22 people. Hundreds -- more than 100 others hurt. The pipe bomb targeted a Hindu shrine in the heart of the Bangkok shopping center. The explosion shattering windows, creating panics in the streets.

We're looking at frightening video captured of the bomb at the time of the blast.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

ROMANS: With explosions jarring people on the street and the area and those who rushed to respond.

Listen to one paramedic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PARADEMIC: The people that seemed to survive were the ones that ended up underneath the dead people. So I'm guessing that the person in front of the blast took the blast and the person behind was somehow saved. And so, we've had to remove dead bodies from the living people underneath. I've never seen injuries this bad before. I've been to a few bomb blasts before. This bomb was particularly, I don't know the word, vicious and obviously designed to cause maximum damage. (END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: CNN's Asia Pacific editor Andrew Stevens with the latest developments in Bangkok.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN ASIA PACIFIC EDITOR: Christine, police now say that they are looking for the man in connection with this devastating attack on a Hindu shrine in Central Bangkok at peak hour, designed to cause maximum damage, maximum loss of human life.

There has been a picture circulated by the police which shows a man in a yellow shirt and glasses carrying a dark backpack very close to where the shrine is located in downtown Bangkok. He was later seen leaving that same area without the backpack. Police say they can't from the pictures at this stage identify his nationality. They don't know whether he's Thai. They don't know whether he is a foreign national.

Meanwhile, also getting reports of a second explosion, much smaller explosion at a pier on the river here in Bangkok close to an area which has five star hotels. No injuries there. Police are at the scene at the moment. But this investigation is covering a lot of angles. The forensic team been there this morning, at the site combing the area. They're also looking through CCTV going back days just to see if they can establish anything unusual at that shrine.

And also, there are still many, many injured in hospital. The list of nationalities who died on that blast include Chinese, Thai obviously, Malaysians, Hong Kong and Singaporeans.

Several theories of who could be behind this. At the moment, nothing has been proven. There is no clear indication of which lead the police are most favoring at this stage -- Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right. Andrew Stevens in Bangkok following this story for us as they look for the suspect on closed circuit television.

New fallout this morning regarding Hillary Clinton's e-mails. Intelligence officials now recommend 305 of her e-mails from her private server be referred to their agencies for consultation. Officials looking to see if classified information was sent to receive. Now, Clinton has long assured the public that never happened. Only 20 percent of the e-mail on that server has been sampled so far.

So, how much worse could this get for her?

CNN's Pamela Brown with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine. Three hundred and five documents from Hillary Clinton's private server

have been referred to various intelligence agencies for consultation to determine whether the contents are classified. That's according to a court filing from the State Department. This is after intelligence community reviewers from five different agencies joined the process of looking at Clinton's e-mails. And the court filing says, quote, "Out of approximate lid 20 percent of the e-mails the intelligence review jess have recommended 305 documents, approximately 5.1 percent for referral to their agencies for consultation."

So, this filing is update for a federal judge on review efforts in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit and basically these intelligence agencies will now have to determine whether or not there is classified information in these documents and whether or not these documents should be released to the public as part of this lawsuit.

[05:05:08] And Hillary Clinton, as we have heard, repeatedly has denied sending or receiving information marked as classified through her personal server. It's unknown at this point if any of the 305 flagged e-mails contain classified information, but this does come at a time when the FBI is investigating the security of Clinton's private server -- Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: Pamela Brown, thank you for that.

Will Vice President Joe Biden run for president? Some calls grow louder for him to enter the race but it's crickets from the White House. A Democratic Party source says sport inside the administration is limited. Many in the White House are already heavily invested in the Hillary Clinton campaign. There's also a concern a Biden run would put the president in an impossible spot having to choose between supporting Biden or Hillary Clinton.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump didn't get picked to serve on a jury in New York City. So, he's back to pushing his first major policy proposal on immigration. Some of his GOP rivals are already pouncing on the immigration plan calling it unworkable. So, would it ever have a chance in Congress?

CNN's senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny has a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine.

Well, it's back to the campaign trail for Donald Trump. He was not picked for jury duty on Monday. After spending several hours there, he was not selected. He was let. He'll be back out campaigning. He's been selling his new immigration plan. It's the first real policy proposal that he's introduced so far in his young campaign.

It's drawing some praise for some anti-immigration reform activist, but it's drawing much criticism from some of his Republican rivals. JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I appreciate the fact that Mr.

Trump now has a plan, if that's what it's called, but I think the better approach is to deal with the 11 million people here illegally in a way that is realistic.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump's eight page plan is actually gibberish. It is unworkable. Mitt Romney said his biggest mistake is a candidate for president was embracing self-deportation. That hurt our party.

Donald Trump's plan is force deportation. It's not going to work. It is unworkable.

ZELENY: All of the controversy or most of it centers around the so- called birth right citizenship, a provision in the 14th Amendment that allows U.S. citizens if you were born here the right to citizenship. Donald Trump says he wants to do away with that. Of course, that takes a lot of work. It would take a 2/3 vote in both the House and Senate, it would take a ratification of 3/4 of the state legislatures.

But that is one of the key provisions at the center of Donald Trump's immigration proposal. He'll be selling that on the road as the week continues. They're all gearing up towards the next presidential debate, the CNN presidential debate in September in California -- Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right. Jeff Zeleny, thanks for that.

Now, Trump's rivals are touting similar aspects of their own proposals. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal writing, we need to end birth right citizenship for illegal immigrants.

Scott Walker says he supports ending birth right citizenship. He's also in favor -- excuse me, of the wall and amnesty.

Lindsey Graham telling CNN he, the policy needs to be change. He has said in the past, he would consider a constitutional amendment to change the law, granting citizenship to any child born in the U.S. Rick Santorum has said birth right citizenship should end as part of comprehensive reform.

With Congress in recess, they're wasting no time to target funding for Planned Parenthood. At least five states are now trying to cut off money by ending contracts allowing Planned Parenthood to service people with Medicaid. All this follows hidden camera videos claiming to show Planned Parenthood is profiting from fetal tissue sales, a charge Planned Parenthood denies.

A hack of the IRS three times bigger than reported. As many as 334,000 taxpayer accounts accessed. The initial estimate in May only 114,000. Identity thieves used the agency's get transcript program to access personal information. It's unclear whether the data was stolen from everyone. Time for an early start on your money. Stocks lower around the world. Look at Shanghai's benchmark, down more than 6 percent right now. Majority of companies listed there fell by the maximum daily of 10 percent.

Earlier this summer, the market started collapsing. The Chinese government taking dramatic steps to stop a bubble from popping, but not having success today. This is the sharpest decline since the end of July. The global selloff commodities going strong. Aluminum, copper, zinc all down more than 1 percent right now. Crude oil, new 6 and a half percent. Now it's down about $42 a barrel.

Search and rescue crews reaching that site of a deadly plane crash in Indonesia. Investigators finding the plane's black box overnight. We go there live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:12:52] ROMANS: The worst fears confirmed this morning from that missing Indonesian plane. The bodies of all 54 passengers and crew now located. The wreckage of the Trigana flight was found in a mountainous location of the region of eastern Indonesia. The black box also in the hand of investigators.

Helicopters deployed to begin the recovery process now facing trouble with the weather.

CNN's Kathy Novak on the phone with the very latest for us this morning.

Good morning, Kathy.

KATHY NOVAK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Good morning, Christine.

Yes, very tragic confirmation for the families of the 54 people on board including five children that as they suspected, there were no survivors. All the bodies have been located but they are facing the same problems that they have had for the past few days, and that is that there is bad weather and very difficult terrain.

So, now they cannot get the bodies from the crash site, which is about in the half miles from the nearest effort. That is where they are trying to bring them, but it seems like another night is going to go by before teams can continue their operation to get these bodies back to the airport, get them identified and back to their families.

As you mentioned, they also retrieved the black box. And there was no distress signal, so a lot of questions about what actually happened here, if this might have been due to a mechanical problem, bad weather, treacherous terrain that we're talking about. All questions that need to be answered but all questions that once again may have to wait until tomorrow -- Christine.

ROMANS: So interesting how air travel has become so popular in that part of the world. When you look at the topography, the geography, you can see that for many people, especially a growing middle class in Asia, this is how people get around.

Yet, this airline was not allowed to fly in Europe because of its safety record.

NOVAK: One of the many airlines that cannot fly to Europe because of safety concerns or oversight concerns. A growing market is expected to triple in the next couple of decades. This particular airline was selling tickets for as low as $60. People are starting to be able to afford that more and more and more people are traveling.

But as they do, all of these questions come up about whether it is safe. In the past year, even less. You've seen three major crashes now in Indonesia.

[05:15:02] Back in December, more than 160 people died in the Air Asia crash. As recently as June, more than 130 people died when a military plane went down carrying a lot of civilians and also killing people on the ground. And now, confirmation that 54 people on this passenger flight, on this short domestic flight also perished -- Christine.

ROMANS: All right. Kathy Novak, thank you for that this morning. We know you'll continue to follow those developments for us.

Back here in the Environmental Protection Agency is set to propose the first ever federal regulations aimed at cutting methane emissions from oil and natural gas drilling. The agency wants a dramatic reduction, 40 to 45 percent over the next decade. The move by the EPA part of the president's climate change agenda. The EPA already announced new rules designed to reduce carbon emissions from power plants by 32 percent by the year 2030.

Shell Oil getting the green light by the federal government to drill in the Arctic Ocean. The feds approving the permit to drill below the ocean floor of Alaska, after the oil giant brought in equipment to prevent a possible blowout. This is the first time in 20 years Shell can conduct this sort drilling.

For the first time, the Pentagon is deploying soldiers to help fight raging wildfires out west. Some 200 active duty military personnel will join the fight. Right now, 25,000 firefighters are battling fires in ten states, seven of them out west.

Drought conditions, triple digit heat and wind have created the perfect climate for fires. Nearly two dozens burning in Washington state alone, destroying dozens of homes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They came quick. It came hot and heavy, and then the winds kicked up and it just was unstoppable.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We thought it was a little fire and it started spreading this morning and the wind got faster and faster.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ROMANS: In California more than 13,000 firefighters are battling nearly two dozen fires. Federal officials say the U.S. forest service is spending more than half of its budget fighting fires.

For more now, let's get to meteorologist Pedram Javaheri.

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hey, Christine. Good Tuesday morning to you.

Look at the satellite images here from space, looking 22,000 miles down towards portions of Northern Carolina. You see the plume here of smoke from last Thursday, then you fast forward to this past Monday, in the last 24 hours, the smoke certainly there, all of it, across eastern areas of Washington and Oregon, as well as in recent days.

The concern is they're going to remain very dry over the coming weeks. What has already occurred, 7 million acres of land today that burned across the U.S.

That's roughly the size of the state of Massachusetts when it comes to how much damage has been done. That's more 2 million acres above what is considered normal for this time of year in the fire season.

Rainfall is absolutely there. Millions of gallons of it comes down over the eastern part of the country, very little to absolutely no moisture in the forecast. I think that storm system exiting portions of the Plains working towards the Midwest.

The concern if you're in the Northeast, notice some of the summer variety. Storms are getting to get ignited as daytime heating building. Temperatures should be in the low to mid 80s. But again, a few thunderstorms will pop up by early afternoon hours -- Christine.

ROMANS: All right. Pedram, thank you for that.

Live from New York, Tracy Morgan. The comedian set to return to "Saturday Night Live" on October 17th to host the third show of the season. It will be Morgan's first time on stage since a car wreck last June left Morgan with serious injuries and killed his friend, Jimmy McNair.

On his Twitter account, Morgan says, quote, "Stoked to be going home, #snl."

A very scary moment for the Yankees. A comeback leaves Pitcher Brian Mitchell with a bloody face. Can he get back on the field this season? Andy Scholes has the details in the bleacher report. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:22:18] ROMANS: Boston Red Sox manager John Farrell expected to get treatment for stage one lymphoma. And his friend and Indians manager Terry Francona is going to be right there by his side.

Andy Scholes has more on this morning's bleacher report. Hey, Andy. ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Hey. Good morning,

Christine.

Farrell and Francona, they've been friends since they were teammates back in the Indians, way back in 1988. And when Francona found out Farrell was going to be receiving treatment, he said he would be right there by his side.

Last week, Farrell announced that he has stage one lymphoma and he will not be managing the Red Sox for the rest of the season while he undergoes chemotherapy. Francona who coached alongside the Red Sox in the 2007 championship team says he just wants to do anything to help his good friend, and the Indians happen to be in Boston for a three- game series.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TERRY FRANCONA, CLEVELAND INDIANS MANAGER: I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. None of us do, but he's one of my very best friends and if somehow maybe he ends up laughing or, I don't know, maybe I get in the way like I usually do, but I just felt like I wanted to be there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Yankees taking on the Twins last night. Pitcher Brian Mitchell takes a line drive right off his face. He would stay down for a bit before getting up and walking off on his own. Mitchell went to the hospital but was actually back in the clubhouse after the game. Luckily, he only suffered a broken nose.

As for the actual game, Yankees would win it 8-7 in ten innings.

Northwestern football players hoping to start a union were dealt a blow yesterday by the National Labor Relations Board. The board declined to rule on whether athletes should be considered employees of the school saying their jurisdiction only allows them to look at the private sector and most football programs are at state schools. A rep for the players says efforts to unionize will continue.

The Washington Redskins reiterating once again that they will not be changing the team's name. Redskins President Bruce Allen was asked if they would change the name if it was a stipulation for getting a new stadium. He flat out said, no. The Redskins are currently looking at the possibility of moving back to D.C. federal officials have stated they would not facilitate the building of a new stadium if the Redskins name remains in place.

Finally, a great moment before the Orioles and A's game in Baltimore. Five-year-old Haley Dalton threw out the first pitch using a 3D printed hand. She was born with a rare disease that prevented her from using her hand. Engineering student from UNLV made a special Orioles themed prosthetic just for her.

Christine, she's so cute. I've got to say, those 3D printers, they can do some amazing things. I don't fully understand them but one thing is for sure -- they are awesome.

[05:25:01] ROMANS: I can be amazed even if I have no idea how they did it.

SCHOLES: That is amazing.

ROMANS: She's so cute. Great. Thanks for bringing that to me this morning, Andy -- Andy Scholes.

SCHOLES: Have a good one.

ROMANS: You, too.

All right. Breaking news this morning, the manhunt intensifies for the terrorist or terrorists behind the deadly bomb blast in Bangkok. Police zero in for this man, the man seen on surveillance video. We're back live after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Breaking news this morning: police searching for the terrorists behind a deadly bomb blast in Bangkok. At least 22 dead, more than 100 injured. We're live with who investigators are now zeroing in on.

Hundreds of Hillary Clinton's e-mails have the secretary of state flagged for possibly containing classified information. What we're learning new this morning.

Donald Trump's new immigration plan dividing Republicans running for president. Should birth right citizenship end? What the candidates are saying this morning.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans. It is 30 minutes past the hour. Nice to see you all this morning.

Let's begin in Thailand with this breaking news. Police there have a suspect in Monday's deadly bomb attack in Bangkok. Officials on the hunt for this man. He's seen on closed circuit TV but officials cannot confirm his identity just yet.

He's seen in a yellow shirt, jeans, glasses, carrying a backpack. Authorities now looking at footage going back as far as two weeks to the attack -- two weeks prior to the attack to see if they spot anything suspicious. There is devastation in that city following a blast, a blast that killed 22 people, more than 100 others hurt. A pipe bomb targeted a Hindu shrine in the heart of a Bangkok shopping center popular with tourists.