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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
GOP Debate: Carson & Trump Ahead of the Pack; Violent Student Arrest: Will the Officer Be Fired?; World Series Drama. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired October 28, 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] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: In just hours, Donald Trump, Ben Carson and the rest of the Republicans running for president take the debate stage. Who will come out on top?
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A decision comes today. An officer body slamming a student, will he be fired?
ROMANS: World Series drama. A four-minute blackout, a 14-inning game, and unbelievable first matchup between the Royals and the Mets. They finished just like, what, 10 seconds ago.
BERMAN: I was afraid I was going to miss this game, because of my sleep schedule. But it was on when I woke up.
ROMANS: Good morning, and welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.
BERMAN: I'm John Berman. Great to see you. It's Wednesday, October 28, 4:00 a.m. in the East.
And in just hours, Republican candidates take the stage for a crucial debate. The very first one with Ben Carson on top in the national poll. The neurosurgeon jumped ahead of Donald Trump in the new CBS News/"New York Times" poll. He is now four points ahead. Sure, that is within the margin of error. But that was enough to put Donald Trump in unchartered territory campaigning in Iowa, on the defensive.
CNN's Sara Murray was there. She has the latest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARA MURRAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John and Christine.
Donald Trump showed up here in Sioux City, Iowa, yesterday, with some more bad news from the latest polls. A new CBS/"New York Times" poll shows Donald Trump is trailing Dr. Ben Carson by 4 percent nationwide. It comes after a string of polls show Trump is also behind here in Iowa. Now, Trump took the stage here on the Hawkeye States, pressing his supporters to work even harder and said he's not giving up on victory here.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: From the time I announced, I've been at the top of the polls, almost at the top -- you know, we're doing well. Iowa, will you get your numbers up, please?
(APPLAUSE)
Would you get these numbers up? I promise you, I will do such a good job.
MURRAY: Trump also took a couple swipes at Carson last night, basically saying he couldn't believe his competition. All this, of course, is going to come to a head on the debate stage in Boulder tonight. This is the debate where Trump's campaign really feels like the candidate is in his wheel house. It's focused on economic and policy issues and Trump can put a spotlight on his business record, something he believes will shine when he's up head to head against Ben Carson.
Back to you, John and Christine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: All right. Sara, thanks for that.
One interesting dynamic to watch tonight, Ohio Governor John Kasich down around 3 percent in the polls. He sped up and apparently not afraid to talk about it. He says he's tired of some of the ideas his fellow Republican candidates are pushing, calling them crazy, ridiculous and hysterical.
Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I've about had it with these people. We got one person saying we ought to have a 10 percent flat tax that will drive up the deficit in this country by trillions of dollars that my daughters will spend the rest of their lives having to pay off. You know what I say to them is why don't we have no taxes? Just get rid of them all, and a chicken in every pot on top of it.
We've got one guy says we ought to take 10 million or 11 million people and pick 'em up. I don't know where we're going into their homes, their apartments? We're going to pick them up, and we're going to take them to the border and scream at them to get out of our country?
What has happened to our party? What has happened to the conservative movement?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: It is a frustrated John Kasich. We'll see if he gets that message out on the stage tonight. Sometimes it's hard to fight through.
All right. New this morning, one of Florida's largest newspapers calling on for Marco Rubio to step down while he runs for president. Rubio has accumulated the worst attendance record in the Senate. The senator tells "The Washington Post" he is frustrated by the slow- moving chamber. A long-time friend, though, told "The Post" that he hates it there.
An editorial in the south Florida "Sun-Sentinel" says, "If you hate your job, senator, follow the honorable lead of House Speaker John Boehner and resign it. Let us select someone who wants to be there and earn an honest dollar for an honest day's work."
By the way, this paper endorsed Marco Rubio in 2010. So, it's not like it has a long time grudge with him.
Senator Rubio told CNN's "STATE OF THE UNION" on Sunday that he is running for president, so the votes they take in the Senate are actually meaningful again.
ROMANS: All right. Breaking overnight, Hillary Clinton says she would allow big banks fail if they got in trouble. Clinton told Stephen Colbert last night she would no rescue failing banks the way her former boss, President Obama, did in 2009.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW": If you are president --
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes.
COLBERT: -- and the banks are failing. Do we let them fail this time?
CLINTON: Yes. Yes.
COLBERT: We let them fail this time?
CLINTON: Yes. Yes.
COLBERT: Wow.
[04:05:00] CLINTON: First of all, under Dodd-Frank, that is what will happen, because we now have stress tests. I'm going to impose a risk fee on the big bank if they engage in what risky behavior. They have to know, their shareholders have to know that, yes, they will fail. And if they're do big to fail, ten under my plan and others that have been proposed, they may have to be broken up because if you can't manage it, then it's more likely to fail.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Do you think the big bailouts started under the Bush administration. Saving the banking industry started in the Bush administration. She is talking about all of these different plans and rules and regulations to make sure they don't get to that point again, where they could need to be saved.
She has surged with a huge 41-point lead over Bernie Sanders in Iowa. That's that new Monmouth University poll, following a strong performance before the House committee and, of course, Joe Biden's decision not to enter the race. Clinton is now the choice of almost two-thirds of Iowa Democrats.
BERMAN: I was with Donna Brazile yesterday when that poll came out, and Donna hasn't endorsed anyone in this race. She has no dog in this fight. She said, when that poll number showing Hillary Clinton 41 points ahead, she went. Donna Brazile was like that, that's the big, big number.
ROMANS: It really is.
BERMAN: A major action on Capitol Hill today. House Republican leaders scrambling to lock down enough votes to pass a bipartisan budget agreement reached between outgoing speaker, John Boehner, congressional Democrats and the White House. House leaders believe, or at least they hope, there are enough votes to pass the bill as soon as today. This is despite pretty strong opposition from some Republicans that feel Boehner gave too much away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's an actual bipartisan compromised, which hasn't been happening in Washington a lot lately.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: The agreement isn't perfect by any means. But the alternative was a clean debt ceiling increase, without any additional support for our troops and without any entitlement reforms. So, this is a good deal.
SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's hard for me not to use profanity in describing it. It's a bill that shows careless disregard for debt. It will raise the debt with no limit. It basically is a blank check to the president and to Congress to raise as much money and spend as much money you want through March, 2017.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Rand Paul says he will filibuster. That will happen next week if the bill does get to the Senate.
Also, today, House Republicans are expected to nominate Paul Ryan as the next speaker. Now, Ryan was not involved over the budget deal. He says the secretive bankrupt process to reach the agreement, quote, "stinks", although, he won't say whether he supports it or not. My hunch is he probably wants to get this all out of the way before he takes the chair. So, it might stink, but he might be willing to put with the stench.
ROMANS: John Boehner cleaning up the barn for him.
All right. A group of House Republicans making a last ditch effort to impeach the head of the IRS. Republicans on the House Oversight Committee introducing a resolution calling for the ouster of John Koskinen. They say he misled the committee and destroyed emails as the panel probed the IRS admitted targeting of conservative groups back in 2012. He promised a Senate committee Tuesday, the agency would do better after preserving like e-mails.
BERMAN: Defense Secretary Ash Carter, signaling a change in military strategy in the fight against ISIS. The defense secretary told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the U.S. is considering a step up assault on ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria, which could include American boots on the ground.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ASH CARTER, DEFENSE SECRETARY: We won't hold back from supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against ISIS, or conducting such missions directly, whether by strikes in the air or direct action on the ground.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: The White House says it has to decide on its options for the campaign against ISIS.
ROMANS: The United States and its allies are inviting Iran to take part for the very first time in talks over Syria's future. Officials say the Iranians have yet to reply. They have backed the Assad regime throughout Syria's four-year long now civil war. The next round of diplomatic negotiations scheduled for Thursday and Friday in Vienna. Secretary of State John Kerry and the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, will be attending.
BERMAN: The Senate has approved a controversial cyber security measure that will give legal protections to companies who share information with the federal government. Critics say the legislation lacks adequate privacy protections for every day Americans. The Senate passed the measure. It must now be reconciled with the bill already passed in the House.
ROMANS: All right. Time for an early start on your money this Wednesday morning.
Asian stocks closed lower, but European stocks and U.S. stock futures look a little bit more upbeat. Waiting on news from the Federal Reserve. No interest rate hike is expected today, but the Fed's read on the economy could give clues if an increase is likely in December.
A giant pharmacy merger, Walgreens is buying Rite Aid. It's $17.2 billion deal. It would create the country's biggest pharmacy. Thirteen thousand stores in the U.S. Rite Aid would keep their names initially but would be converted over to Walgreens stores overtime.
More consolidation in health care as the industry adjusts to the Affordable Care Act, and an aging population and a focus frankly on wellness for that aging population.
[04:10:02] This deal would still have to pass antitrust review.
BERMAN: All right. The World Series, world chaos overnight and into the morning. The Kansas City Royals, they won a marathon over the New York Mets in the World Series opener. It was 5-4 after 14 innings. The game was five hours and 9 minutes long. It was over when I woke up this morning. The longest game winner in World Series history there.
The Royals Alex Gordon put the game into extra inning. With that, a clutch game time, home run at the bottom of the night, off of Mets closer Jeurys Familia, who had not a lot of run the entire post- season. It was his first blown save since July. The guy never does that.
And the game featured just this --
ROMANS: So odd.
BERMAN: -- so horrifyingly embarrassing technical error by Fox on the 4th inning. The network says electronics failure involving primary and backup generator led to the power outage. The game was delayed by about six minutes, because neither team had retaking ability. But once they got underway, it was still another 20 minutes before the Fox broadcast actually came back, so it was like being called by an undisclosed team in an undisclosed location somewhere far away.
Another bit of drama, really sad drama in this game, the Royals starting pitcher Edinson Volquez, he played the game unaware his father had died earlier in the day in the Dominican Republic. Fox says that his wife and the team, his family ask it not be reported, he not be told until after Volquez had pitched the game. Volquez has now left to be with his family. It's not clear when he will rejoin the team.
Game two of that series tonight in Kansas City. I mean, this was weird from the beginning. The Royals on the first pitch on Matt Harvey hitting inside the park home run which is the first time that's happened since 1920s. This one is weird, folks.
ROMANS: Fourteen innings of weird.
BERMAN: Over five hours. Seriously, I wake up and I check my phone the first thing when I wake up, and I'm like the game is still on, where am I? What's going on?
ROMANS: That is so crazy.
All right. Eleven minutes past the hour.
BERMAN: A sheriff is defending his employee, the officer caught on camera in a violent arrest of a student. He tells us something he says the video did not show, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:15:21] ROMANS: In just a few hours in South Carolina, the Richland County sheriff will decide whether Officer Ben Fields will keep his job. Field is the school resource officer caught on video throwing a high school student to the ground. The Justice Department's civil rights division, the FBI and U.S. attorney for South Carolina has agreed to look into the events surrounding that arrest. We are also now hearing from other students who are in that classroom.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NIYA KENNY, STUDENT: We've heard about his reputation. We heard he is a really, I don't want to say -- yes, I don't want to say dangerous man to get involved with, you know, on that level. So when he came into the classroom, I immediately told my classmates, get your phones out, get your phones out, I think this is going to go downhill and they did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: CNN's Miguel Marquez has more for us -- Miguel.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John, Christine, an emotional day here in Columbia, South Carolina, with people and parents of students coming to grips with this video. It's really shocking a lot of people in this area.
A board meeting was held last night and most of the parents who attended that board didn't express a lot of anger. But some did. They were as particularly angry about that relationship across the country between police officer and the African community.
They also talk about the church shooting here in South Carolina earlier in the year. That's so very fresh in people's minds. They see this video in that context now and it is really created a lot of anger, a lot of fear, that if board and the sheriff doesn't deal with this in a direct way, there are going to be consequences.
So far, we have seen none of that sort of angry protest in this episode. The sheriff here has very quick to respond, calling for an independent investigation, which the FBI is now going to do, and even say that in 24 hours, he will have a decision on Deputy Fields' fate.
LEON LOTT, RICHLAND COUNTY SHERIFF: This is something not only people at Richland County but the world wants to know what's going to happen to him. Is he going to be deployed or is he going to be terminated? I think I want everybody to make a very quick decision but also be fair and do a thorough investigation. That's what we have done.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Can you tell us which way you are leaning?
LOTT: No. Really, I don't think that's proper for me to describe which way I'm leaning at this point. I think the video is very explicit, that's probably pretty much speaks for itself.
MARQUEZ: One other thing the sheriff said during that press conference. It came as a bit of a surprised, there has been allegations that this was racially motivated. The sheriff said, look, we've never seen that sort of behavior out of this officer. I've never seen this out of this deputy, and I just want to tell you all, he's had a long-term relationship with an African-American woman. So, if it would cut either way, said this sheriff, I don't think it would cut in the favor of a young woman that this deputy is accused of assaulting -- John, Christine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: All right. Miguel, thank you for that.
A South Carolina prosecutor will not bring charges against the police officer who shot and killed an unarmed 19-year-old during an attempted drug arrest in July. Graphic new video from Officer Mark Tiller's dash cam shows him approaching Zachary Hammond's car in a Hardee's parking lot. Prosecutor Chrissy Adams, her report calls the way Tiller walked up to the vehicle with his gun drawn improper. But she said Tiller's belief he would be run over justifies that shooting.
BERMAN: The Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed a new measure requiring gun owners to store firearms in locked containers or disabled them with trigger locks when not in used. The law which goes into effect next month aims to reduce gun accidents among children. It is being challenged by dozens of groups, including the NRA.
ROMANS: All right. Strong winds, heavy winds in the east today. I want to get right to meteorologist Pedram Javaheri.
PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good Wednesday morning, John and Christine.
Yes, the wet weather the dominant picture in the forecast. And notice the uniform nature of the temperatures, generally into the 50s from Atlanta, all the out towards New York City. And you notice the storm system that came from the Gulf Coast that caused all this. Look what happened, it surges to the north, interacts with an incoming storm system, you put it together, a major wind and also rain event in the forecast here, with a low pressure center interacting with a massive area of high pressure and where you see these lines of equal pressure. What we call isobars and they're tightly packed.
We see major wind gusts in the works, and in fact, we do have high surf advisories over this region and also wind gusts spread. They could over 50 to 60 miles per hour. Coastal New Jersey all the way up towards coastal Maine, notice into the early morning hours of Thursday, some of those flights across this region certainly going to be bump, especially upon landing as well.
[04:20:07] And notice how surf advisories widespread across this region as well. So the wet weather expected on Monday. They expected to stick around for much of Thursday as well across this region. And in fact, models paint the picture the next 36 hours. And notice the areas in yellow, one to two inches in some areas, across northern New England. More than four inches to fall inside the next day-and-a- half, guys. A pretty wet setup for the next few days
ROMANS: Did he say four inches in the next days and a half.
BERMAN: Yes, basically, what Pedram said, if you live in the Northeast, it's going to suck. That's what Pedram says.
ROMANS: That's unprofessional way of saying it. BERMAN: Yes.
ROMANS: All right. Breaking overnight, China summoning the U.S. ambassador. China furious over that Navy warship that sailed into international waters, but waters claimed by China. We are live with new developments, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: All right. Breaking overnight, Syria's diplomatic tensions, as China called out the U.S. ambassador to that country after a U.S. naval ship sailed within miles of artificial islands built and claimed by Beijing in the South China Sea. China's ambassador to the U.S. telling CNN's Christiane Amanpour the U.S. is challenging its territorial claims. It's a serious provocation politically and militarily.
CNN's Steven Jiang has the latest from Beijing.
And, you know, often the diplomatic talk between these two countries is very calm. It's wrapped up in mutually beneficial kind of wordage, verbiage.
[04:25:00] This time, the Chinese very, very sharp in their response to the U.S. sending a destroyer within 12 miles of its man-made islands.
STEVEN JIANG, CNN PRODUCER: That's right, Christine. As you mentioned, the U.S. ambassador to China, Max Baucus, was summoned by the Chinese government and got a severe dressing down.
Now, the message received was consistent with what other officials have been saying publicly, that the U.S. action violated Chinese sovereignty and harm Chinese national security and that was a severe provocation. Chinese wanted Washington to correct its mistakes or face consequences.
Now, interestingly, Christine, before this mission, Chinese officials have been privately telling me, they were perplexed and frustrated by the U.S. insistence by going with this plan, because so soon after what it considered to be a very successful visit by the Chinese president to the U.S., these officials say, of course, the two governments do not see eye to eye on this issue, but dialogue and consultations are the way to go to solve, resolve their differences, not confrontation. That kind of sentiment may explain why the response has been quick and angry, Christine.
ROMANS: Are the Chinese, Steven, likely to follow up their strong words with actions. I mean, I suppose, you know, bringing in the ambassador, the American ambassador, giving him a dressing down is one way to response. Are there other things we expect the Chinese to do?
JIANG: Well, they have certainly hinted on that, yesterday, a foreign ministry spokesman said this U.S. option may force the Chinese to conclude that it will need to strengthen or hasten its relevant capability, certainly a reference to military capabilities. What does that mean? More island building? More artillery positions or more aircraft in the air? We don't know.
But that certainly has the prospects of raising tensions in the region, as well as a possible miscalculation on either side. It could make this issue for serious down the road. That's something nobody wants to see, Christine.
ROMANS: Yes, clearly, those two countries have very different perceptions of what's going on there. The United States thinks that building islands basically out of sand bars and calling them your own territory is just not going to fly in international waters, the Chinese defending their ability to do so. We will hear more on this.
Steven Jiang, thank you so much.
BERMAN: All right. A huge night in politics, debate night in Colorado with Ben Carson now surging ahead of Donald Trump in a new poll. What does it mean? Will Donald Trump go on the attack tonight? We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
