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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Deadly Winter Storm Batters the Nation; "Affluenza" Teen Detained in Mexico; No Charges in Tamir Rice Shooting; Trump on the Attack; Peyton Manning Strongly Denies Ever Using HGH. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired December 29, 2015 - 05:00   ET

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

ALISON KOSIK, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news this morning. The manhunt is over for the so-called affluenza teen. Now detained in Mexico with his mother.

[05:00:02] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Protests overnight after police are cleared of shooting and killing a 12-year-old boy while he was playing in a park.

Good morning and welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

KOSIK: Good morning. I'm Alison Kosik. It's Tuesday, December 29th. It is 5:00 a.m. in the East.

Up first, a bruising storm, battering the nation with everything in its arsenal, tornadoes, ice storms, flash flooding, you name it, unfortunately claiming dozens of lives. And there's more pain ahead. A freakishly mild December coming to an end today with a major snowstorm in the Northeast, up to 1 foot of snow in the forecast for parts of New England.

In Texas, they are beginning to pick up the pieces. Nearly a dozen tornadoes touching down in the Dallas area, leaving homes flattened and lives shattered with 11 people killed. And Mother Nature adding insult to injury dumping ice and snow on parts of North Texas. It's been a deadly destructive week in the Lone Star State.

Let's get more now from CNN's Alina Machado.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Alison, weather conditions in some of the hardest hit areas here in Texas are expected to improve, offering residents a chance to clean up the mess that this tornado left behind.

This twister killed eight people here in Dallas County. The youngest victim was just a year old. Yesterday, many survivors had a chance to return to their homes for the first time and the reality of what happened really settled in.

Listen to this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You see it happen on TV and you try to understand how do those people feel? Those and everything. But now, it happens to you and you have to borrow stuff to stay warm and because you have no shoes on your feet because I left the house with no shoes on my feet.

MACHADO: The focus now turns to Missouri and Illinois, where they could see significant flooding -- Alison and Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

And, you know, flood warnings in effect across Missouri. Deadly winter storm finally clearing out overnight. But not before killing at least ten people. The Mississippi River now 7 feet above flood stage. It is expected to rise to 8 feet before cresting on Thursday.

Now, some communities have been underwater since Saturday night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were rescued by a boat with the fire department. But we were rescued at 9:00 this morning and stood in that water for about three hours waiting for them to get here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSIK: In southern Illinois, more rain and flooding overnight, forcing hundreds of families to evacuate their homes. With the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers already above flood stage, it could be a while before they could return.

And a close call for the girls basketball team at Mt. Vernon High School in Mascoutah, Illinois. Their bus swept right off Highway 161, really scary there, into a retention pond. Everyone was rescued. No injuries reported.

ROMANS: Take a look at this -- yes, thankfully. Take a look at this ice storm. It's half an inch thick. Throw in 40-mile-an-hour winds, you got the perfect recipe for downed power lines and tree limbs. They are breaking out snow blowers in Omaha, finally some seasonable weather, close a half of snow falling on parts of Nebraska on Monday.

KOSIK: The severe winter weather forcing airlines to cancel over 2,800 flights with 4,800 more delayed. Almost 2/3 of all cancellations coming at Chicago's two main airports and Dallas Ft. Worth. A lot of headaches there.

ROMANS: Really, all of this holiday travel people are doing. So, it really is. And for more on the severe weather threat, let's go live to CNN Center in Atlanta and bring in meteorologist Pedram Javaheri.

Good morning.

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hey, good morning, guys.

You know, this is a pattern that we're finally looking forward to getting out of here in the next couple hours. I think this is the last day we have in inclement weather associated with a series of weather patterns that we've seen in recent days that spawned tornadoes, of course, the icy conditions and the snowy conditions.

And take a look at this, northern portion of New York and Scranton, that's where the cut off line is for the wintry mix, the sleet, some of the freezing rain that's coming down this morning. Temperatures just too warm across the surface for anything significant to accumulate, but get up into New England and we're talking about a half an inch to quarter of an inch of ice accumulation, especially northeast of Syracuse, just west of Albany. Some of these pockets on those highways certainly going to be iced over at least the first couple hours of the morning.

But the morning commute, a rough go around Boston. By the afternoon, all rain in the region. We bring the cloud cover into the evening hours as well. So, it looks like it is a quick moving feature that moves on out of here and certainly travel delays expected for the first several hours of the morning.

But here we go, the snow expectations. Boston generally less than 1 inch. Again, get up around Concord, Portland, Bangor, could get upwards to 8 inches and 12 inches in some of these favorable locations in this region and look at the temps. You think it's cold today, it absolutely feels that way.

But in places like D.C., it will get up to 63. There's almost 20 above normal, even in New York City, 39 is what's normal. We'll make it up to about 31 in Boston, also with the morning snow showers and some of the sleet still could be above normal for this afternoon's high temperature.

Now, the other big story that's really going to hang out for the next couple of weeks potentially is the flooding story because we know just by nature of how of volumes of water move downstream, you get rainfall upstream, it will take weeks sometimes for the water to work its way downstream, and really inundate communities.

[05:05:11] That's the number of river gauges reporting at least some flooding across the region of the Midwest and the South for the past several days. And that remains in place.

And it's worth nothing that when at least you take a look at national weather fatalities on the 30-year average in the United States, you got to consider flooding because it is one of the top weather killers on the weather world when it comes to annual basis taking some 81 lives, tornadoes with 72 lives in second place. It is something people take seriously. And we know flooding has the potential for damage. A lot of people are paying attention to it guys.

ROMANS: OK. Pedram Javaheri, thanks so much. You'll stay on top of it for us. Thank you.

Breaking overnight: authorities in Mexico detaining the affluenza teen Ethan Couch along with his mother. They were found near the popular resort town of Puerto Vallarta. The 18-year-old Couch disappeared earlier this morning, two years after being sentenced to probation for a drunk driving crash that killed four people and seriously injured several others.

Mexico is expected to turn Couch over to the U.S. Marshals. Of course, you can't leave the country when you're on probation. He did not check in, his parole officer could not find him earlier this morning.

Those are pictures of him at a party. You cannot drink also on probation. He is wanted in Texas for violating his probation.

KOSIK: The Cleveland police officer who shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice will not face charges. Prosecutors in the case insisting the officer who fired the fatal shot had no way of knowing Rice was holding a pellet gun and not a real weapon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIMOTHY J. MCGINTY, CUYAHOGA COUNTY PROSECUTOR: Given the perfect storm of human error, mistakes and miscommunications by all involved that day, the evidence did not indicate criminal conduct by police.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSIK: The grand jury decision not to file charges triggering peaceful protests overnight in Cleveland and New York.

Let's get more now from CNN's Martin Savidge in Cleveland.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine. Good morning, Alison.

So far, reaction publicly to the announcement that there would be no indictment of these two officers has been subdued. There had been protests, but not in great numbers. I guess we really get a better read on that today as the word of this decision spreads not just here in Cleveland but, of course, across the country.

The family of Tamir Rice said that they were deeply disappointed. But beyond that, Samaria Rice, the mother of Tamir Rice, said that this has only added to her grief and that she believes that her son was murdered. And that essentially, that these officers are getting away with a crime and she also says that this was mishandled. Not just mishandled, she used the words sabotaged by the county prosecutor. In other words, that he didn't want these officers indicted and presented the case in a very slanted way.

Of course, the prosecutor would disagree with that. And independently, the grand jury said there should be no indictment of these officers.

But also the prosecutor did say there was significant errors, but not so much with the police, but police radio dispatch. In other words, the information from the caller said this might be a juvenile and the gun may not be real. Apparently, that was never transmitted to the responding officers, that the prosecuted said was a tragic and serious error -- Christine and Alison.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: Martin Savidge, thanks for that. Still hard to watch that video of the last moments of that kid's life.

All right. Eight minutes past the hour.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has cut short his family vacation to Cuba. He is heading back to Chicago just in time for the arraignment of Officer Jason Van Dyke. He is facing six counts of first degree murder for the 2014 shooting death of Laquan McDonald. He is expected to plead not guilty later this morning.

This as the city faces another wrongful death lawsuit filed by the father of teenager Quintonio LeGrier. LeGrier was fatally shot by a Chicago police officer over the weekend. A 55-year-old grandmother was also shot in that incident.

More now from CNN's Rosa Flores.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alison, Christine, sometimes it's about optics. People were wondering where is Mayor Rahm Emanuel? Well, hear this -- he cut his Cuba vacation short, returning to Chicago today.

His office sending CNN a statement saying, in part, quote, "He is cutting his family trip short so that he can continue the ongoing work of restoring accountability and trust in the Chicago police department."

Now, all this after two people were shot and killed by police over the weekend.

First of all, 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier and 55-year-old Bettie Jones. Again, they were both shot and killed by police.

When it comes to the teenager, police say that he was coming at police with a bat after a domestic disturbance. About Mrs. Jones, police saying in a statement that it was a tragic accident that she killed tragically by police. Now, the mayor also returning to Chicago on the day that Jason Van Dyke is arraigned.

[05:10:02] Now, here's a Chicago police officer who shot and killed Laquan McDonald. He's another black teenager. You probably remember the shooting video. He's the teenager that was holding a knife and Jason Van Dyke started shooting his weapon only seconds after arriving on that scene.

Now, we should also add that his attorney, Jason Van Dyke's attorney has said that his client acted in self defense -- Alison and Christine. (END VIDEOTAPE)

KOSIK: All right. Rosa Flores, thanks for that.

Breaking overnight: a close encounter for a drone for President Obama. The president vacationing in Hawaii when a drone flying close to the motorcade. Secret Service agents quickly confronting the man who was operating it. He was apparently unaware the president was in the area and cooperated with request to land. No charges were filed.

ROMANS: Flying a drone. Oops.

All right. Eleven past the hour. Donald Trump on the attack.

KOSIK: He's going after the Clintons and Chris Christie. What has the Republican frontrunner all riled up? Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KOSIK: Welcome back.

Presidential politics now. Donald Trump on attack in New Hampshire taking aim at Hillary and Bill Clinton. Trump tweeting this overnight, "Remember that Bill Clinton was brought in to help Hillary against Obama in 2008? He was terrible, failed badly and was called a racist."

Trump saving the sharpest language for Chris Christie and the New Hampshire newspaper that gave Christie its key endorsement.

Here to break it all down for us, Steven Sloan, managing editor of CNNPolitics.com.

Thanks for getting up early for us.

ROMANS: Good morning.

STEVEN SLOAN, MANAGING EDITOR, CNNPOLITICS.COM: Good morning. Great to be with you.

KOSIK: So, let's talk about Trump kind of spreading the love and attacks. This time moving from Clinton to Chris Christie. Listen to what he was talking about.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[05:15:00] DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Put yourself in a common sense mode. You are with your cabinet. You are with them all the time. They are closing the biggest bridge in the United States. Most traveled bridge, one of them in the world, most traveled on in the United States.

You are doing that and you are not telling the governor. Does anybody believe that? Honestly? Is there 1 percent -- no. Right? No. Is there is 1 percent chance?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSIK: OK, so no doubt about it. Bridgegate is something that's going to dog Chris Christie during this campaign. But here's the thing -- Trump coming out and his facts aren't entirely correct. The bridge wasn't closed.

But to be real factual here, it was two to three lanes were closed.

SLOAN: Right. The point here is Donald Trump doesn't just go after anybody. A lot of people in the Republican field, he doesn't just go after anybody. He goes after people who he thinks are threatening to him, who could pose a challenge to him.

And Chris Christie is having a moment in New Hampshire right now. Donald Trump is still in the lead there, but Christie is on the upswing. He's won the endorsement of the "New Hampshire Union Leader", a very important paper in that state. And so, that's I think the takeaway from his comments yesterday that he sees Christie as a threat.

ROMANS: In New Hampshire, he sort of theatrically threw that paper saying it was garbage and worth the paper it was written on.

I want to talk about Marco Rubio. He is campaigning with Trey Gowdy in Iowa. Let's listen to Marco Rubio.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Trey Gowdy has been one of the few people in Washington, D.C. that has held people accountable for wrongdoing and has held people accountable for not doing a good job. We are proud that he is helping us in this campaign. I think he is a phenomenal public servant, and as I said, we are very grateful for having the support of someone of his caliber and quality.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: The Republican frontrunner said Trey Gowdy as a disaster in his Benghazi community. You see Marco Rubio saying, no, he's one of the few people who's actually holding people accountable. How does the Trey Gowdy support help Marco Rubio?

SLOAN: It's really helpful to him. It's an important endorsement for him. Gowdy is still, you know, pretty well-liked among conservatives. That is a constituency that Rubio has struggled with. It's important constituency especially in Iowa, and conservatives have really kind of concerned and suspicious of Rubio, especially for his past work on immigration.

So, Gowdy could help him get cred with conservatives. It is an important person to have at his side today.

KOSIK: Let's move on to Jeb Bush for a moment. You know, he's been suffering in the polls. But I think his personality is finally coming out. Listen to what he said. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We spent a lot of quality time doing that and hoping the person has a long enough arm or I will take over. Just for the record, young people do it better than older people. We will go through a training class here. It is cooler to do it diagonally rather than straight up. Remember that. And it's better to do it higher than lower because you look skinnier.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: The art of the selfie.

KOSIK: He is giving great advice, but showing he has another side to him, isn't he?

SLOAN: Right, he is showing he has a personality, as you just said. That he is not this kind of stiff, wooden character that he's been caricatured on the campaign trail, weak as he's been called by Trump repeatedly.

You know, but the real question is, whether this is too little too late? He is struggling in all the polls. Yes, it's great to see him kind of connecting with people more often. But, you know, it's going to get him across the finish line.

ROMANS: But, Steven, let me ask you, he has deep pockets. His super PACs have deep pockets, his supporters are still his, you know, traditional Republican supporters. Are they waiting for the air to clear above them? Are they waiting for a big shakeup above them for Donald Trump to come around the final -- sorry, for Jeb Bush to come around that final curve and pull ahead?

SLOAN: Yes, that is a big part of the strategy to see how it shakes out. But there's not that much more time to shake out. We are at the end of December. Iowa is February 1st. New Hampshire is February 9th.

That's coming to come out really quickly, we just haven't seen a lot of things moving in Bush's favor. Something needs to move in his favor.

ROMANS: Well, the CNN fact check of how to take a good selfie shows that Jeb Bush is absolutely correct in what he's learned, has learned on the campaign trail.

Steven Sloan, we'll take to you again very, very soon. Thank you.

KOSIK: Good seeing you.

SLOAN: Thank you.

ROMANS: All right. Donald Trump says wages are too low. In a series of tweets, Trump firing back at Bernie Sanders who pointed out Trump doesn't want to raise minimum wage. Trump called Sanders a liar and tweeted, "Wages in the country are too low, good jobs are too few. And people have lost faith in our leaders. We need smart and strong leadership now."

He has said, in the Republican debate, he said he was against a $15 minimum wage. He said that raising wages would make the U.S. less competitive. How exactly would he fix all this? Well, he said his stance on tough immigration would make it easier for middle class workers. And he said, "Don't raise minimum wages. Cut taxes for everyone."

[05:20:01] The largest reductions, of course, in his tax plan go to the very richest.

Twenty minutes past the hour. Let's get a quick check of the markets right now. Good morning for stocks. European and Asian shares higher, so are U.S. stock futures. Yesterday, the Dow is down a little bit.

U.S. oil prices fell. That was enough to put the S&P 500 lower for the year.

KOSIK: Monday night football. Cincinnati and Denver battling into overtime with a playoff berth on the line for the Broncos. Andy Scholes has highlights in the bleacher report, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: All right. The reporter behind the al Jazeera documentary that alleges Peyton Manning's wife was shipped performance-enhancing drugs, that reporter is standing by her story.

KOSIK: Andy Scholes has more in this morning's bleacher report.

Good morning.

SCHOLES: Hey, good morning, guys.

Deborah Davies is the reporter who put together the documentary for al Jazeera. He is standing by everything said and done in the report. Davis says they secretly filmed Charlie Sly, the former intern at the Indianapolis anti-aging clinic for six days. And while filming him, Sly claimed that the clinic shipped Peyton Manning's wife human growth hormone.

While appearing on MSNBC, Davies questioned why no one has denied that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEBORAH DAVIES, AL JAZEERA INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Let's be clear what the allegation is and what it is not. What Charlie Sly says that the Guyer institute shipped human growth hormone to Ashley Manning in Florida. I have not heard anyone deny that. If it was not true, would Peyton Manning have come out and said human growth hormone has never been shipped to my wife in Florida.

[05:25:01] Dale Guyer has not said that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Manning has vehemently denied ever taking anything ever shipped to his wife and he said he has never taken a human growth hormone.

Manning was on the sideline last night in Denver for Monday night football. Broncos needing a win over the Bengals to clinch a playoff spot. They were down 14-0 in the game before making the comeback.

In the fourth quarter, CJ Anderson rumbles for 39 yards for the touchdown to give Denver the lead. The game to overtime. Broncos up three. AJ McCarron fumbles the snap. Broncos jumped on it. They win 20-17.

It was 16 degrees at kickoff for this one, tying it for the third coldest game in Broncos history.

We had a Steph Curry alert last night. The Warriors hosting the Kings, and Curry was red hot in the second quarter. He scored 17 points in the final three minutes of the first half. Incredible. Hitting shots from all over on the place. Curry finished the game with a triple-double, 23 points, 14 rebounds and 10 assists. He only plays 30 minutes, as Warriors beat the Kings 122-103.

All right. Finally, this is awesome. A bat was loose at the AT&T Center in San Antonio last night. The Spurs mascot, the Coyote, dresses up like a bat. He gets a net and he dives and actually catches the bat. It took him a minute to do so. They had a running clock as he ran around trying to catch the bat.

So, there you go. You got a coyote dressed as a Batman catching the bat.

KOSIK: Oh, those crazy bats.

ROMANS: That's right. Thanks, Andy Scholes. Nice to see you this morning.

KOSIK: The monster storm that crippled parts of the South and Midwest moves to the Northeast. Millions bracing for snow and ice. We are tracking the severe weather, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KOSIK: Breaking news this morning, busted. After weeks on the run, the affluenza teen detained in Mexico with his mother.