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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

"Affluenza Teen" Detained In Mexico; Winter Storm Batters Nation; No Charges In Tamir Rice Shooting Death; Mayor Emanuel Cuts Vacation Short; Trump On The Attack; Iraqi Forces Liberate Ramadi. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired December 29, 2015 - 05:30   ET

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

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[05:31:02] ALISON KOSIK, CNN GUEST ANCHOR: Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Alison Kosik.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Christine Romans. It is 30 minutes past the hour.

Breaking overnight, authorities in Mexico detaining the so-called "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 month two years after being sentenced to probation for a drunk-driving crash that killed four people and badly injured several.

I want to bring CNN justice reporter, Evan Perez, live from Washington with the latest developments -- Evan.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Good morning, Christine. The U.S. Marshal Services in recent days alerted Mexican authorities that they believed they had tracked down Ethan Couch. Police in the Mexican coast region of Puerto Vallarta moved in yesterday to make the arrest.

And they found the 18-year-old with his mother, Tanya. He seems to have darker hair and grown a mustache and beard. The so-called affluenza teen is expected to be turned over to the marshals for his return to the United States perhaps as soon as today.

Officials at Tarrant County, Texas issued a warrant for Couch's arrest after his probation officer was unable to reach him earlier this month. This is after a video on social media appears to show Couch playing beer pong at a party. That would be in violation of his probation.

Couch made headlines two years ago, as you mentioned, when he only received ten years' probation for a drunk driving crash that killed four people. Couch's lawyers argued that the teen suffered from affluenza meaning that he was raised rich and didn't know any better.

Authorities also listed his mother, Tanya, as a missing person because they believe she was helping her son and she was also detained by Mexican authorities. ROMANS: Evan, this case outraged so many people who just said because a child is raised with no consequences and too much money does not mean probation is the appropriate response. This left four people dead and several others badly injured. Families shattered here. What does Ethan Couch face if a judge finds that he has violated his probation?

PEREZ: He could face a lot of time in prison. I think up to ten years in prison. If that is what is deemed to be his violation of probation. That is also going to be worked out once he gets back to the U.S. authorities.

But obviously, the families, as you mentioned, are going to be pushing for some very tough prison time here because it shows to them at least that there has been no remorse for what has happened.

ROMANS: No charges yet for the mother, but would that be obstruction of justice? What kinds of charges could she be facing if she helped him flee the country?

PEREZ: It is interesting because they only listed her as a missing person. That will be an interesting situation there in Mexico. The procedure, I'm not sure how she will be brought back. Whether or not the Mexican authorities will expel her.

It is obvious that they had to have entered the country with fake documents because if they have used their regular passports, this would have been flagged by the Mexican authorities.

So the fact that they were and who were undetected by the Mexican authorities means that they believe the two of them entered illegally. So that is one way they could expel her.

Right now, we know that the authorities in Texas say they believe that she was helping him out along the way.

ROMANS: All right, Evan Perez, thank you.

KOSIK: New this morning, two people arrested in a terror raid in Belgium. Police suspect they were planning attacks in Brussels during the holidays this week targeting tourist areas. Authorities are not releasing details about the suspects or their nationalities.

One of them is charged with acting as a leader and recruiter for a terrorist group. The other is charged with participating in terror activities. Police recovering military style uniforms and ISIS propaganda materials from the suspects.

ROMANS: A massive winter storm battering the nation with everything in its arsenal, tornadoes, ice storms, flash flooding claiming dozens of lives and there is more pain ahead.

A freakishly mild December comes 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 there. Nearly a dozen tornadoes touched down in the Dallas area leaving homes flattened, lives shattered, 11 people killed.

And Mother Nature adding insult to injury damping ice and snow on parts of North Texas. It has been a deadly, destructive week in the lone star state. We get more from CNN's Alina Machado.

[05:35:07]ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Alison, weather conditions in some of the hardest hit areas here in Texas are expected to continue to improve. Offering residents a chance to clean up what the 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. The reality of what happened really settled in. Listen to this.

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

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

KOSIK: Thank you, Alina. Flood warnings in effect right now across the state of Missouri. A deadly winter storm finally clearing out overnight, but not before killing at least ten people.

The Mississippi River is now 7 feet above flood stage and it's expected to rise another 8 feet before cresting on Thursday. Some communities under water since Saturday night.

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

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ROMANS: 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 return.

It's a very close call for the girls basketball team at Mt. Vernon High School in Illinois, their bus ran swept right off Highway 161 into a retention pond. Everyone was rescued, no injuries thankfully reported. KOSIK: When you look at this evidence of an ice storm crippling part of Central Oklahoma. It's half an inch thick there, throw in 40-mile- an-hour winds and you have the recipe for downed power lines and tree limbs. They are breaking out the snow blowers in Omaha, close to a half of foot snow falling on parts of Nebraska Monday.

ROMANS: The severe winter weather forcing airlines to cancel more than 2,800 flights, 4,800 more flights delays on Monday, nearly two- thirds of all the cancellations coming in Chicago's two main airports and also Dallas Fort Worth.

KOSIK: For more on the severe weather threats, let's bring in meteorologist, Pedram Javaheri. Good morning.

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

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 that fatal shot had no way of knowing Rice was holding a pellet gun and not a real weapon.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Given this perfect storm of human error, mistakes and miscommunications by all involved that day, the evidence did not indicate criminal conduct by police.

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ROMANS: The grand jury decision not to file charges triggering peaceful protests overnight in Cleveland and in New York. Let's get more from CNN's Martin Savidge in Cleveland.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine, Alison. So far the reaction publicly to the announcement that there would be no indictment of these two officers has been subdued. There have been protests, but not in great numbers.

We will get a better read on that today as word of the decision spreads not just here in Cleveland, but across the country. The family of Tamir Rice said they were deeply disappointed.

But beyond that, the mother of Tamir Rice said this added to her grief and she believes her son was murdered. That essentially these officers are getting away with a crime.

[05:40:09]And she also says that this was mishandled. Not just mishandled. She used the words sabotaged by the county prosecutor. In other words, he didn't want the officers indicted and presented the case in a slanted way.

The prosecutor would disagree with that and independently, the grand jury also said that there should be no indictment of the officers. But also the prosecutor did say there was significant errors. 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 was a tragic and serious error -- Christine and Alison.

KOSIK: Tragic all around. Thanks for that, Martin Savidge.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has cut short his family vacation to Cuba and he is heading back to the city just in time for the arraignment of Officer Jason Van Dyke.

Van Dyke 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 is facing another wrongful death lawsuit filed by the father of 19-year-old Quintonio Legrier. He was fatally shot by a Chicago police officer over the weekend along with a 55-year-old grandmother.

ROMANS: It's 41 minutes past the hour. Time for an EARLY START on your money. A good morning for stocks around the world. You can see European and Asian shares are higher. U.S. stock futures are up.

Yesterday was a quiet day on Wall Street. Stocks down a bit as oil prices fell again. It was enough to put the S&P 500 lower for the year.

It's not all bad news for your portfolio this year. If you own Netflix, you are probably very happy. The stock soared 140 percent this year. That is the best performer in the S&P 500.

Number two, Amazon shares up 118 percent in 2015. Starbucks and Google near the top. Good gains for both of those. At the bottom of the list, energy companies, Chesapeake down 77 percent. No surprise there. Oil prices have crashed.

Some other big losers in retail, Macy's and Michael Kors and Gap losing more than 40 percent. And the most widely held stock, Apple. Not a good year for Apple. Apple shares down 2 percent this year after soaring 40 percent in 2014.

KOSIK: Things could turn around.

ROMANS: They can.

Donald Trump on the attack in a late night rally. Who the Republican frontrunner is targeting this time? That's next.

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[05:45:52] ROMANS: Welcome back to EARLY START. Presidential politics now, Donald Trump on the attack in New Hampshire taking aim at both Hillary and Bill Clinton. Trump tweeting overnight, remember that Bill Clinton was brought in to help Hillary in 2008 against Obama. He failed terribly.

Here to break it all down is Steven Sloan, managing editor of cnnpolitics.com. Welcome to the program. Let's talk about this Trump attack on Hillary Clinton. Listen to what he said. He says he hasn't started on her yet. Listen.

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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We haven't started on her. You know, she says we love to run against Trump. It's her worst nightmare. These people, these people back here. They said, well, the Hillary campaign said they would love to run. Yes, she wants to run against me instead of somebody else.

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ROMANS: Being very ironic there. You know, he is taking aim at her husband this week trying to draw Bill Clinton into the mess. You heard him in the tweet saying that he was called a racist in 2008. He was a disaster. Listen to him here from the archives in 2008 praising Bill Clinton.

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TRUMP: Look at the trouble Bill Clinton got into with something that was totally unimportant and they tried to impeach him which was nonsense. Bush got us into the horrible war with lies by lying saying they had weapons of mass destruction and saying all sorts of things that turned out not to be true.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: What do you make of the attack by Donald Trump? What is he trying to do here?

STEVEN SLOAN, MANAGING EDITOR, CNNPOLITICS.COM: You are seeing a preview of what a Trump/Clinton race would look like if they win the nomination. He is trying to test the lines and see what works. He is trying to neutralize the advantage she may have among women and bringing up Bill Clinton's past.

It could back fire. Trump is not the first politician to bring up Bill Clinton's past. When other politicians have done so, it has made women sympathetic to Hillary Clinton. It is unclear that this strategy might work.

KOSIK: The one thing that Trump has pointed out is Hillary's record with women is questionable as far as the money she's taking from certain countries. Saudi Arabia for one and its treatment toward women. She hasn't answered those questions. SLOAN: She hasn't really. You will see more of these back and forth as the campaign unfolds. You are seeing this is how a general election campaign might unfold with Clinton and Trump. It is aggressive.

ROMANS: It is so interesting when you think about as you get closer to the actual election next year. I think you will see from the Democrats things that matter to women paid leave, higher wages. Some of the things that Bernie Sanders has been talking about on the campaign trail a lot.

Hillary Clinton has been talking about it less. What do you make of the Donald Trump wage spat with Bernie Sanders? Donald Trump in the Republican debate on Fox Business News said he was against raising the minimum wage.

Last night, he goes on the attack saying that wages are too low in America and his policies will raise them.

SLOAN: He said this before. He has gone back and forth on this issue.

ROMANS: Has he flip flopped on it? I see it as threading a needle. He says don't raise the minimum wage, but my policies will grow the economy and that will create good jobs.

SLOAN: Exactly. I don't know if it is a full flip flop. He has tried to thread the needle carefully throughout the campaign on this issue, on the issue of income inequality. It has revved-up people in both parties.

KOSIK: Quickly, Marco Rubio picking up an endorsement here, Trey Gowdy. How big of a deal is this?

[05:50:05]SLOAN: It is an important move for Rubio. Rubio has struggled with conservatives who are suspicious of him when it comes to immigration, for his past work on immigration. Trey Gowdy is the chair of the House committee on investigating the Benghazi attacks. Having Gowdy by his side will really help him.

KOSIK: We shall see the impact. Steven Sloan, thanks so much for coming on the program.

In Texas, gun owners will soon be able to openly carry their weapons. Why there is a backlash from businesses next.

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KOSIK: Now that Ramadi is back under Iraqi control an Iraqi military official says it will take two to three weeks to cleanse the city of remaining pockets of ISIS fighters.

CNN's senior international correspondent, Nima Elbagir, live in Baghdad for us tracking the latest on the retaking of Ramadi. Nima, we are seeing a lot of confidence going into the fight for Ramadi and the Iraqi prime minister vowing to defeat ISIS in 2016. NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We are also hearing reports of families moving into that Central Ramadi district from other ISIS held territory in Anbar. There is a growing sense for now that the Iraqi security forces are in control of the territory at the heart of that city.

We are hearing a lot more cautiously optimistic notes struck by U.S. officials. They are only congratulating Iraq on continuing successes against ISIS. Not quite ready it seems to call it fully liberated.

There is no doubt about the strategic importance of this and importance for the resurrected U.S. strategy in the fight against ISIS.

[05:55:05]When the Iraqi forces were forced to flee Ramadi ahead of that advancing ISIS force, it was as much a humiliation for the U.S.

And what they were hoping to achieve on the ground as it was for the U.S. trained Iraqi forces. They are back with a new strategy. A strategy that brings in play similarly to what they did in 2006 and 2007 in the Sunni awakening that moved out.

They are now pulling back on the Sunni mobilization. And Ramadi, when it is fully purged of the ISIS fighters, this is the first major Iraqi city retaken with the help of those tribal forces and not with the help of those Iranian backed Shi'ite forces.

KOSIK: And the real test will be to see if Iraqi forces can hold on to Ramadi as well. Nima Elbagir, thank you for your report.

The State Department taking credit for bringing peace to Syria in 2015. Even though the country is still embroiled in a bloody civil war. State Department spokesman, John Kirby, writing a recap of the State Department wins for the year lists Syria among them.

He also claimed the U.S. is winning the fight against ISIS. Other wins listed by Kirby, reestablishing ties with Cuba and clinching the Iran nuclear deal.

A key provision of the Iran nuclear deal has been fulfilled by the Iranians. They shipped thousands of pounds of enriched uranium on Monday. Secretary of State Kerry calling the development a significant milestone to full implementation of the deal.

A Chinese official who approved the dumping of construction debris that led to a deadly landslide has committed suicide. A report in the "South China Morning Post" says he jumped to his death from a building. The landslide killed 7 people with more than 70 others still missing in Shenzhen.

Let's get an EARLY START on your money. Looking like a good morning for stocks. European and Asian shares higher today so are U.S. stock futures. Yesterday, the stocks fell a bit to put the S&P 500 in the red for the year.

The problem here continues to be tumbling oil prices in recent weeks dragging down the energy sector causing concerns about the health of the global economy.

Texas has a new open carry gun law on its books that takes effect New Year's Day. It permits those with concealed licenses to carry the holster weapons in plain view. Some businesses will not allow it.

Whole Foods does not welcome fire arms in stores and will have updated signs addressing the law. HEB grocery chain will not allow visible carry and neither will Whataburger. The company's CEO explaining many customers say visible firearms make them uncomfortable.

Did you get a gift card you are not crazy about? Target wants it. Target is buying unwanted gift cards at a reduced price. Here is an example. A $100 Walmart gift card swaps for an $85 Target gift card.

Target will take gift cards from more than 600 brands including Old Navy, Tiffany's and Cheesecake Factory. That hit an estimated $26 billion this holiday season.

Busted after weeks on the run, the so-called affluenza teen detained in Mexico. "NEW DAY" starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The so-called affluenza teen. He and his mother in custody.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were found near the popular resort town of Puerto Vallarta.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a mother that needs to be held accountable for her actions as well.

KOSIK: Millions bracing for their first snowfall of the year.

ROMANS: Up to a foot of snow in the forecasts for parts of New England.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This will be a test for us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have no faith at all.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it cannot get worse than last year.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was awful.

ROMANS: Authorities in Belgium believed they have foiled a possible New Year's Eve terror attack.

KOSIK: Police recovering military style uniforms and ISIS propaganda materials.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Tuesday, December 29th. It is 6:00 in the east. Chris and Alisyn are off. Don Lemon and Christine Romans join me here. We begin with breaking news, after being on the run for several weeks. Mexican authorities apprehended the so-called "affluenza" teen, Ethan Couch and his mother were picked up overnight near the resort town of Puerto Vallarta. They are both now awaiting extradition to the United States.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. He is 18 years old. He went missing after failing to keep a mandatory meeting with probation officers a week ago. Couch was two years into a ten-year probation sentence for killing four people in a 2013 drunk driving crash.

I want to get right to CNN's justice reporter, Evan Perez, who broke the story, he has the breaking details this morning. Good morning, Evan.