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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Candidates Sharpen Attacks for GOP Debate; California Wildfires: State of Emergency; Migrant Crisis: Germany Adds Border Control. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired September 14, 2015 - 04:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:30:44] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: New this morning, Donald Trump and Ben Carson surge in a new poll. The CNN Republican presidential debate now just two days, how can these candidates are preparing?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN ANCHOR: California on fire. Hundreds of homes destroyed, thousands evacuated, a state of emergency now in effect. Is there any relief in sight?

ROMANS: Europe's migrant crisis exploding. Germany now at its limit. Germany imposing border controls as thousands more people arrive. We are live.

Welcome back to EARLY START this Monday morning. I'm Christine Romans. Nice to see you this morning.

KOSIK: Good to be here, Christine. Thanks.

I'm Alison Kosik. It's half past the hour.

Republican candidates sharpening their attacks this morning ahead of Wednesday's night's GOP debates here on CNN with a new "Washington Post"/ABC News poll that shows Donald Trump expanding his wide lead, and Ben Carson in second place. All of the candidates who are stuck in single digits are scrambling to devise an effective end Trump's reign.

Candidate Rand Paul telling "The Associated Press", quote, "Someone has to bring him down."

Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus warning debate moderator Jake Tapper that he can expect to referee a rough game.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REINCE PRIEBUS, GOP NATIONAL CHAIRMAN: You know what? Every candidate in all these campaigns are going to do whatever they need to do in order to benefit their own campaigns and there will be more elbows thrown at that debate and you're going to have your hands full.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSIK: Oh, yes, elbows thrown. Hands full. It also should make for as exciting second Republican debate at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

That's where Athena Jones joins us. She has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ATHENA JONES, CNN REPORTER: Good morning, Christine and Alison.

We are now just two days away from the debate here at Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. The stage is set, the podiums are up and the candidates are getting ready.

As you know, one of the big themes of the campaign season so far has been the strength of outsider candidates like Donald Trump who is, of course, the GOP frontrunner and Ben Carson who is not far behind him and also Carly Fiorina.

Now, Fiorina is going to be the new addition to the primetime debate stage here on Wednesday night and she spoke yesterday about her outsider status and what she brings to the table.

CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have been in and around Washington for a long time. So, I don't think it's a big mystery actually. I think one of the dirty little secret is professional politicians want everyone to think it's so hard to do what we do, nobody else can do it. It's hogwash. It isn't so hard. Most of this stuff takes common sense and good judgment. And people are frustrated because they see no common sense or good judgment in Washington, D.C.

JONES: Now, meanwhile, Scott Walker, who was once a serious contender in states like Iowa, but has now sunk in the polls talked about why it is a good thing that he's actually held elected office. Take a listen.

GOV. SCOTT WALKER (R-WI), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Remember, Barack Obama never run anything before and we see what a lousy president he's been not just ideologically but in terms of actually running things. I've run things. I've actually got things done.

JONES: Guys, this is going to be a television audience and a huge opportunity for these candidates to make a strong impression with voters. A lot of them haven't been getting a lot of attention in the media, so this is their chance to create a moment, to have a memorable, effective moment that leaves an impression on voters and hopefully for them, one that gives them a boost in the polls.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: Athena Jones, thank you for that.

You know, Donald Trump and his position on things have really defined how many of these candidates react. So, it will be interesting to see if they can take back the conversation. Donald Trump will face protesters when he speaks at a huge rally at the American Airline Center in Dallas today. Latino groups bringing in anti-Trump demonstrators from as far away as Houston for what one organizer calls a march against hate.

This as two immigration rights groups launched a TV ad that contrast Ronald Reagan's views on immigration with those of the current Republican candidates. Now, this ad includes Reagan's line about a city on a hill teaming with people of all kinds and Trump warning of rapists and murderers among Mexican immigrants.

Over the weekend, Trump previewed his long promised tax plan. He told CBS that as president, he'd end the big tax break for hedge fund managers. He also promised to cut taxes on corporations so they would be more likely to bring foreign profit back to the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[04:35:01] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I want to bring the money back into this country. We have $2.5 trillion, John, out of this country. And big corporations rightfully don't bring it back because they have a massive tax to pay and we've got to make it so they can bring it back and I'll be bringing it back. We're going to have a lot of money pouring into the United States if I get elected.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: So, Trump's plan might be good for corporations, but that chief executives should be weary. Trump says their compensation is a total and complete joke, made possible by putting friends on their boards. Trump's own company has three of his children as executive vice presidents. Overall, he says his plan will reduce taxes with the middle class paying less.

KOSIK: Meantime, Ben Carson walked back his criticism of Donald Trump's faith, telling ABC News that his remarks last week that Trump lacks, quote, "humility and the fear of the Lord" was inappropriate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It wasn't meant as an attack and it was certainly spun that way by the media because they enjoy creating a fight. They love to have a gladiator scene. And, you know, it wasn't my intention and I'm certainly not going to allow my intention subsequently, regardless how anybody reacts to it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSIK: Carson turning Trump's recent put downs about his energy level back against the brash billionaire. Carson telling ABC, quote, "You don't have to be loud to be energetic."

And, of course, you can find complete debate coverage and debate itself, of course, right here on CNN. The main event airing Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. with the undercard debate set at 6:00 p.m. You don't want to miss this one. ROMANS: So, on the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders surge and Hillary

Clinton's slide are unmistakable in the new "Washington Post" poll. Clinton, the choice of 42 percent of registered voters down a whopping 21 points in the same poll since July. Now, Sanders has 24 percent, up 10 points over the same period. Joe Biden is still deciding whether to run. He's third at 21 percent. Look, he's not even a declared candidate, he's got 21 percent of the Democratic vote.

There are new developments in the Clinton e-mail controversy. The company that managed her private server says it has no information indicating the server was ever wiped. That means more than 30,000 e- mails Clinton says she deleted from the server could possibly now be recovered.

Clinton is promising to be nicer to the media, too. She told a packed crowd at a Washington church on Sunday that her former pastor pointed to a New Testament when he suggested she improve her relations with reporters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I got some advice from Dr. Wogaman just earlier this morning.

(LAUGHTER)

Which I promise I will put into effect.

(LAUGHTER)

He basically said, you know, if you are going to read and listen to Romans 12, you got to be nicer to the press.

(LAUGHTER)

So to my friends in the press, I will certainly take that to heart.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: I just read Romans 12 to refresh my memory.

KOSIK: I'm glad you did.

ROMANS: One piece is if your enemy is hungry, feed him. So, feed the press. There you go.

KOSIK: There you go.

And a different part of the bible coming to mind. The one about Daniel in the lion's den as Bernie Sanders heads to Lynchburg, Virginia, this morning. The self-described Democratic socialist is set to speak to the morning convocation at conservative Christian Liberty University.

That is certain to be a more skeptical crowd than the ones he faced over the weekend. At three big events in South Carolina, crowds cheered Sanders' proposals, including more than doubling the national minimum wage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is a starvation wage.

(APPLAUSE)

You can do the arithmetic as well as I can. It just does not add up. And that is why we need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, 15 bucks an hour.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSIK: Sanders also proposing free tuition at public colleges and creating jobs with spending on infrastructure.

ROMANS: Devastation and despair in northern California. Officials say 400 homes have been destroyed by a fast-moving wildfire west of Sacramento. The governor of California declaring a state of emergency. Thousands of residents forced to flee their homes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVE CANNON, RESIDENT: Yes, I'm all right. Everything's OK. This is my parents business. I guess we're just lucky it's not our home.

JAMIE KELLY, RESIDENT: The school's gone. The store's gone. A lot of people have dogs stuck up there and they wouldn't let them go get them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: The so-called Valley Fire consuming more than 50,000 acres so far.

Let's get more this morning from CNN's Stephanie Elam for us. She is in Middleton, California -- Stephanie.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine and Alison.

We want to give you an idea of just how intense this Valley Fire has been. It really just exploded in size over the weekend. And look what it did to this community. This little neighborhood here just flattened by this wildfire.

[04:40:00] This is just one home that is completely destroyed. You can see it's still smoldering a bit out there. And the air quality here is still really strong and pungent. It burns the eyes, it also sometimes tingles the back of your throat. This is still a very active fire that they do not have a handle on at

any point right now. And as you can see, this fire getting so hot, that not did it take out the home, it took out the cars as well. Take a look at this car, just gutted, literally gutted here by the wildfire. There is nothing left inside. It melted the windows right out of the windshield here.

But this is not the only wildfire. There's also the Butte Fire due east of here that is burning also thousands of acres, and also homes lost there as well.

So, when you take a look at the picture across California, there are several wildfires burning. You look at the drought that we have had out here, it's really dry, it has been very hot. You put that all together and resources are spread very thin as far as firefighting is concerned, as they try to battle these blazes around the clock. But a lot of displaced people and a lot of loss here as well -- Alison and Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: Just unbelievable the devastation behind her.

KOSIK: Oh, yes, and it really makes you wonder if there is any relief in sight for those firefighters.

Let's get to meteorologist Pedram Javaheri.

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Christine and Alison, good morning to you guys. Yes, you know, the conditions will improve. Unfortunately, it looks like it is toward the middle of the week. But look at the fire conditions across this region of California, because when you look at the valley fire, the amount of land consumed and how quickly it all transpired. One of the most incredible statistics you will come across when you do the math on, going from 50 acres consumed on Saturday, and, of course, the embers often carry downstream that really begin to expand the fire very quickly in a very mountainous region, very hilly region, also windy area as well.

But when you do the math, 34 acres consumed per minute in the 24-hour period over this region of California, where somewhere on the order of half an acre per second. So, pretty incredible to think how quickly things burn out of control over that region of California.

But again, the good news comes out of the Gulf of Alaska. The storm track brings this feature out toward Sacramento and really the central portion of California by Wednesday. So, the rain probabilities up to 60 percent, the temperatures much cooler.

Precisely what's going on in the eastern side of the U.S., if you're waking up this morning, a gorgeous afternoon, up into the 70s in New York City and Washington. Atlanta, one of the more mild temperatures they have seen in a few months, about 79 degrees for high temperature. Not bad, guys.

KOSIK: OK, Pedram, thanks for that. A Kentucky clerk once jailed for refusing gay couples the right to

marry heads back to work this morning, but will Kim Davis comply with the judge's order? Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:46:06] ROMANS: Rowan County, Kentucky, this morning where Kim Davis, the clerk who's become a national lightning rod, returns to work. Davis was jailed for contempt after refusing to issue same sex marriage licenses. She was released last week and it appears only Davis herself only knows what she'll do once she punches in. Will she allow same sex couples to get married?

We get more from CNN's Chris Welch in Morehead, Kentucky.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS WELCH, CNN REPORTER: Christine, Alison, local police and the local sheriff's department here saying they are preparing for potentially large crowd when Kim Davis returns to her job here as county clerk for the first time since being held in contempt of court and spending five days in jail.

Now, the big question remains: will her deputies continue to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples? That is how it worked while she was spending time in jail. But the question remains, now that she is in the office with the deputies, will she continue to allow that to happen or will she step in, put her foot down once again and refuse these couples from getting marriage licenses?

Now, we had known for several weeks now that her attorneys and she had been fighting this and trying to overturn the initial judge's order, which order her to issue these licenses to same sex couples. They have not had much success. She event sent a direct petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.

That did not work. But on Friday, her team of attorneys sent another appeal in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and so far, no word from that court -- Christine, Alison.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOSIK: All right. Chalk up another grand slam title for tennis great Novak Djokovic. The world's best player defeating former number one Roger Federer in four sets to win the U.S. Open men's final on Sunday. It is his second U.S. Open title and tenth career grand slam tournament victory. Djokovic also beat Federer in this year's Wimbledon final.

An emergency meeting called to deal with Europe's migrant crisis. Germany at its limit and now adding border control as thousands more arrive. We're live after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:51:54] KOSIK: Germany growing more desperate by the hour. To slow the unending tide of migrants flooding into the country, German authorities now imposing visa checks at the Austrian border. The temporary new controls seen as a strong statement to the rest of Europe to set up and taking more refugees.

Let's bring in CNN's Atika Shubert live from Munich this morning.

So, Atika, you look at what's going on here with Germany making this decision just one day before European ministers are ready to meet in Brussels to try to come up with a more coordinated plan among E.U. nations. Is there something to be said of the timing of putting these controls at the border?

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I definitely think so. It is a clear signal to Brussels, to the rest of the E.U. states that there needs to be a joint asylum policy that Germany cannot handle it alone. I mean, just take a look at the numbers. Yesterday on Sunday, an estimated 60,000 people coming into this area. Most through the train station here behind me here in Munich. And that's just not sustainable, Germany says.

So, this is why they imposed temporary border controls. That means they've got riot police on the highways, checking IDs, people for visas. Anyone with a Syria or Iraqi ID will be allowed in, but others may well be turned back.

They've also stopped the train service coming into Austria. Most of the train services have resumed, but the main line from Strasburg, Austria, to Munich, Germany, is still suspended. That's the train that most of refugees were taking.

And so, what this is basically is Germany is appealing for help from its E.U. neighbors, saying not only do they have to take in more refugees, but there needs to be a legal and safe route for refugees to come across and not the sort of deluge of refugees you have been seeing last few days, because Germany says it just cannot go on like this.

KOSIK: Do you think anything substantial is going to come out of the meeting?

SHUBERT: I think it's very difficult to get a decision in just one day. This isn't even a summit meeting. It's a ministerial level meeting. So, they're simply discussing proposals. But we have seen already some tough divides, particularly between east and west.

Slovakia, Hungary and Poland saying they don't want to take in, they don't want to have imposed number of refugees on them. And they don't want to be the transit zones in which refugees kind of collect and be registered to figure out which E.U. country they will be going to.

So, it seems very unlikely that we'll get a decision today. In the meantime, it's still expected to have thousands of people coming into Germany and across Austria. So, it doesn't look like the wave of people is stopping, Alison.

KOSIK: All right. A tough divide while the crisis continues. Atika Shubert, thanks so much.

ROMANS: All right. Hey, parents, do you have a child headed to college?

KOSIK: Soon, yes.

ROMANS: We have some important news for you and a new tool, an important new tool to help you avoid crushing debt before the kid picks the school. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:58:54] ROMANS: All right. Welcome back. I'm Christine Romans.

And it is a monumental week for your money. The Federal Reserve could cut interest rates for the first time in nine years, something that would shift the foundation under everyone. Fed Chief Janet Yellen and the Fed policymakers must decide if the U.S. economy is strong enough to take away the emergency stimulus that has been propping the economy and stocks for six years.

The slow down in China and the recent turmoil for stocks may complicated Fed's timeline. Eventually, higher rates mean more expensive home loans, car loans and credit cards. Almost everyone would feel it, people and companies.

Gas prices have dropped an astonishing 27 cents over the past three weeks. According to the Lundberg Survey, the average price of a gallon of regular now $2.44 at the end of last week. Remarkable down more than $1 from a year ago.

Gas is now cheaper than milk. Gas is cheaper than bottled water. And prices are expected to keep falling as refineries are switching to the cheaper winter blend.

Hey, parents, is your child looking at college? Listen up. The White House launched a new college scorecard. It gives them important information about how much the typical graduate makes ten years down the road, plus the average monthly loan payment for a graduate of that college. Too many families are borrowing too much money and they don't have the right information.