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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

CNN Republican Town Hall: Part One; National Poll: Cruz Inches Ahead of Trump; Apple Versus FBI; At Least 28 Killed in Turkish Blast. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired February 18, 2016 - 04:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:30:48] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Republicans running for president on the CNN town hall stage. Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, taking tough questions from South Carolina voters. We break down the big moments and the big momentum for some of the candidates.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Interesting night. I'm Miguel Marquez. It is 31 minutes past the hour.

Breaking overnight: Republican presidential candidates making their cases to viewers in the first of two town hall events. The meet the voter town halls comes as Ted Cruz is edging ahead of Donald Trump by a two point margin. Trump still holding a commanding lead in the next two states, Nevada and South Carolina, scene of these back-to-back town halls.

Chief political analyst Gloria Borger is there. She has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Christine and Miguel, Republican presidential candidates tried to take a break from the heat of the campaign last night here in Greenville, South Carolina. And some of them, like Marco Rubio, actually succeeded when he tried to present himself as the unifier in the Republican Party.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My promise to you if I'm the nominee, I'm not just going to unify the Republican Party. I'm going to grow it. We're going to take our message to people that haven't voted for Republicans in the long time.

BORGER: But it wasn't all sweetness and like. Rubio doubled down on his charges against Cruz as being a liar.

RUBIO: I said he has been lying because if you say something that is not true and you say it over and over again and you know that is not true, there is no other word for it. And when it's about your record, you have to clear up your record, you have to clear it up, because if you don't, then people say, well, then, it must be true. He didn't dispute it.

And he's done that a number of times. We saw what he did to Dr. Carson in Iowa, which is wrong. We saw yesterday, Trey Gowdy, somebody came up with a fake Facebook post saying Trey Gowdy was no longer endorsing me, a very popular congressman here in South Carolina. So, these things are disturbing and they need to be addressed.

BORGER: And Cruz couldn't resist taking on Donald Trump one more time.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is quite literally the most ridiculous theory that telling the voters what Donald Trump's actual record is, is deceitful and lying. And listen, when I said this morning -- I held a press conference where I read his letter to everyone, and I invited Mr. Trump. I said, please, Donald, file this lawsuit.

BORGER: And there was the lighter side of the candidates.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: What do you do to relax?

BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Play pool.

COOPER: Play pool?

CARSON: I love to play pool.

COOPER: Are you competitive when you play pool?

CARSON: I like to win.

RUBIO: I actually grew up listening to '90s hip hop music, especially the West Coast stuff and I really like it. In the last few years, what's happening with EDM, you've got this electronic disc jockeys or these deejays that are taking electronic music and overlaying it with tracks, country music, and all sorts of things. So, the lyrics are clean, the beats and the music is fun, I've gotten into it. So, it's a lot of fun.

CRUZ: I actually don't sing music -- I mean, I will sing things like "oh, my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling Heidi-tine."

COOPER: OK.

CRUZ: Which is really corny. But, you know, I used to do it when she put it on speaker phone in her office and embarrass her. You know, I kind of do -- you know, I just called to say I love you, I just called to say I care. I cannot not sing to save my life.

BORGER: Tonight, Jeb Bush, Donald Trump and John Kasich take the stage with Anderson Cooper.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE) ROMANS: All right. Gloria Borger, thank you.

Singing is always risky, you know? It's always a risky gamble, unless you are a kid.

Now to assess last night's GOP town hall, we are joined by CNN political analyst, Josh Rogin, live in our Washington bureau.

MARQUEZ: He actually watched the debate.

ROMANS: He did --

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I did.

MARQUEZ: He's here. Amazing.

ROMANS: We love it. He is like the college all nighters, right? Where you are cramming for the test, getting all that information.

Your assessment, first of all. Donald Trump was not on the stage. We have two nights of these town halls -- three candidates one night, three candidates the other night, really allowing them to have a full discussion. What the South Carolina want to hear.

I heard them attacking Donald Trump who was not on the stage. Is that what you heard?

ROGIN: Yes, absolutely. He's got to be the number one target.

[04:35:00] He's the man to beat. This is the only time that these candidates will have this much national coverage where they can attack Donald Trump and he can't attack them back. He's got -- they have a monopoly on that time.

But Donald Trump will get his chance tonight. You know, Donald Trump is not a guy who will spend lots of answers describing policy positions and plans. So, you can be assured that he's going to spend time responding to the attacks we heard last night -- launching new attacks of his own, reinforcing his calls on Ted Cruz to settle the issue of his natural born citizenship and reinforcing all of the sort of broad statements that he's made about all these candidates in the trail until now.

MARQUEZ: I'm going to call this for all the candidates. They all seem to echoing this in one way or the other -- the "liar, liar, pants on fire" strategy. They are really going after this. Cruz more than anybody against Trump.

Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: This is a strange election season, in many ways. Both Donald Trump and Marco Rubio are following this pattern that whenever anyone points to their actual record to what they said and voted on and what they have done. They start screaming liar, liar, liar. I mean, it is the oddest thing. I cannot think of any precedent in any previous Republican presidential election now.

Now, from my end, I have not and will not respond in kind. If they want to engage in personal insults, if they want to go to the mud, I'm not going to say the same thing about them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: Now, of course, this is exactly what Donald Trump says that he is doing with his advertising and other things. I mean, are they scoring points on Donald Trump? That NBC/"Wall Street Journal" national poll is revealing. It puts Cruz two points over Trump, but, BOY, Trump was up so far ahead of him in the previous poll of the NBC/ "Wall Street Journal" poll. The momentum clearly with Cruz.

ROGIN: Right. I think both Trump and Rubio have the same calculation, which is that they have to stop Cruz's momentum. That's job number one. After that, they can figure out what happens next.

I think what you are seeing is that, you know, Ted Cruz is taking a little more risk, a lot of his ads, some of his mailers, some of his robocalls. Whether or not they are lies is subjective, but they definitely push the envelope, especially in South Carolina where dirty tricks are sort of a tradition.

So, by making big hay out of all these incidents, what they are basically doing is they're giving Ted Cruz a brushback pitch and they're saying, OK, if you are going to do this, there will be a price to pay. Going forward, the Cruz campaign can decide whether it wants to pay that price, risk becoming called a liar to take these more risk steps to try to attack the other candidates.

I would say one thing. Cruz said that he is not a very good singer. I think he was honest about that.

MARQUEZ: That was the truth.

ROMANS: Ben Carson says he likes to play pool. Marco Rubio is color blind. Those are the other things I learned from the trivia file of all of these candidates. Let's listen to what Marco Rubio said about race.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUBIO: I personally know someone who happens to be a police officer and a young African-American male, who told me he has been pulled over seven, eight times in the last few years and never gets a ticket. What is he supposed to think? And here's the bottom line, whether you agree with him or not, I happen to have seen this happen. But whether you agree with him or not, if a significant percentage of the American family believes that they are being treated differently than everyone else, we have a problem and we have to address it as a society and as a country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: This is a discussion we have been hearing on the Democratic side. But maybe it's a sign that he knows exactly who he is talking to, a more diverse audience in South Carolina than the last two states.

ROGIN: Yes. I think the African-American vote factors in more heavily on the Democratic primary in South Carolina. I think what you see here is Marco Rubio making a general election pitch, not necessarily a primary election pitch.

But that is his narrative. Every candidate has a narrative about why he can win. And Marco Rubio's narrative is that he's in touch with the youth, he's in touch with the minorities and that he can represent them in a possible battle against Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders who may not appeal as much to minority or youth voters.

MARQUEZ: All right. We have this other debate or town hall coming up tonight. Obviously, the three candidates there have taken it all in -- Kasich still sort of playing the moderate. And I assume he will continue with that.

But what does Donald Trump need to do tonight in order to turn the tide here?

ROGIN: Oh, Donald Trump's basic strategy is to control the news cycle by making news. He's going to, you know, say things that are so shocking and so newsworthy that they are designed to create headlines.

His challenge will be that in this sort of long format where he has to give long answers about detail proposals is, can he come up with that? I think if you watch the town hall, of course, I was watching CNN last night. Other people were watching the town hall that Donald Trump had last night. He was challenged to name his national security advisers, and he couldn't do it, right?

So, when he is faced with voters who want real information and want real policies, not just attacks, not just sort of insults, that's where he really falls short. So that's going to be his challenge.

I think we're also going to see Jeb Bush really fighting for his life. You saw in the national CNN poll, 4 percent nationally. That's not good. He is about 10 percent barely in South Carolina.

This is Jeb Bush's last stand. He's going to have to pull some tricks out of his bag in order to really make his case for why he should stay in the race past this weekend.

MARQUEZ: He's clearly in trouble. The MSNBC/"Wall Street Journal" poll as well, who would Republicans trust as president? It was Rubio, Cruz and Carson over Trump and Bush.

ROMANS: Wow.

MARQUEZ: Trump over Bush. Amazing numbers.

Josh Rogin, more coffee for you. We'll be back in a little bit. Thank you very much.

ROGIN: You too.

MARQUEZ: One more CNN Republican town hall live tonight from South Carolina, John Kasich, Jeb Bush and Donald Trump will address directly to the voters. Coverage begins 8:00 p.m. tonight, only on CNN.

ROMANS: All right. A Republican heavyweight speaking out in favor of President Obama getting the chance to name Antonin Scalia's replacement on the Supreme Court. Retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor says, quote, "We need somebody in there to do the job and just get on with it."

Meantime, conservatives are slamming the president's decision not to attend Justice Scalia's funeral on Saturday. Now, the White House is not giving any reason for the decision but says the Obamas will pay their respect as Scalia lies in repose tomorrow.

MARQUEZ: Now, happening today, the White House will officially announce President Obama's plan to visit Cuba next month as part of the trip around Latin America for President Obama. The Cuba visit comes as the U.S. rebuilds ties with the communist nation after a half century of sanctions and estrangement.

CNN's Republican last night, Cuban American candidates Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz both criticized the president's plan, saying he should push for a free Cuba.

ROMANS: All right. Let's get an early start on your money. Stocks have now cut the year's terrible losses in half in just three days. Dow futures are holding on to slim gains this morning. Crude above $31 a barrel. That's why. Stock markets in Europe are mixed.

But there are strong results in Asia overnight. It is the first time this year that the Dow and S&P 500 put three higher days together. The Dow up 794 points in just three little days. A week ago, the Dow was down 10 percent for the year. It is now down just 5.6 percent.

Some analysts are saying the worst may be over for this quarter. Driving the rally, oil prices are climbing. The second is U.S. economy is holding strong. Finally, the Fed is more cautious. The initial plan was for four rate hikes this year, interest rate hikes. That's now looking highly unlikely, and that's something stock investors wanted to hear. They want to know that rates were going to be rising too quickly if there's all those uncertainty in the global economy and the stock market.

MARQUEZ: I just get so excited when you get excited about the stock market.

ROMANS: I know. I'm a little nerdy.

MARQUEZ: You're a money nerd.

ROMANS: I'm a money nerd. But everybody cares -- I mean, if you have a 401(k), you care.

MARQUEZ: I don't look. I keep charging ahead. ROMANS: I like that philosophy.

MARQUEZ: Yes, a showdown over the locked iPhone owned by the San Bernardino terrorist. Why Apple doesn't want to help the U.S. government opened it up, next.

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[04:47:15] ROMANS: Apple is fighting a court order requiring it to give the FBI access to encrypted data from the iPhone of San Bernardino Gunman Syed Farook. Apple CEO Tim Cook, he calls it an unprecedented step that threatens all Apple customers. Both sides are digging in their heels and the company appears willing to take the fight if necessary all the way to the Supreme Court.

We get this more this morning from CNN justice reporter Evan Perez.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Christine and Miguel, the battle lines are drawn between Apple and the Justice Department. And one of the most important battles over privacy and national security.

In the coming days, Apple plans to appeal a court order that would require it to help the FBI break into the iPhone that was carried by one of the terrorist who killed 14 people in San Bernardino in December. CEO Tim Cook says the government wants the company to build a backdoor in a top-rated system. In a letter to customers, Cook says, quote, "The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our costumers."

But the Obama administration says that the court order only applies to this one phone. And they say all Apple has to do is get around a security feature that destroys data if someone enters the passcode incorrectly ten times.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest defended the FBI's position.

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: But this case doesn't require Apple to change their -- to redesign some element of their software or to create a new backdoor. It's a very specific request that the Department of Justice and a judge agreed with them.

PEREZ: And you can see why the Justice Department choose this case to fight this issue. We are talking about a terrorist attack that killed 14 people. The phone is owned by his employer, the county government, which has given consent to the FBI and the terrorist is dead. All of this could help the government's case as this fight goes through the courts -- Christine and Miguel.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: Thank you so much for that, Evan.

You know, Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple yesterday sent basically a note to all the people who are Apple customers saying, we're doing this for your privacy. We helped as much as we can. We don't like the San Bernardino situation. We don't want to help terrorists, but this is a situation of privacy and creating back door that could be used in the future to hurt everyone.

The Google CEO also coming out, supporting Apple. The three candidates at the town hall, all three of them supported the government, supported law enforcement --

MARQUEZ: That balance.

ROMANS: Yes, I mean, Marco Rubio --

MARQUEZ: Security and national security, where do people come down on it. I think the better example, really is the Paris attacks and how they were unable to pick up communications there -- as horrible as it sounds, I think the government makes a strong case when it says it needs some access at some point for that information.

[04:50:05] ROMANS: This is just the beginning. This could go to the Supreme Court. Could.

MARQUEZ: This could a long way.

ROMANS: All right.

MARQUEZ: The alleged leader of the plot to attack the anti-Islam cartoon exhibit is now on trial in Texas. Federal prosecutors say Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem was obsessed with ISIS and lead a team of terrorists set on mass murder. Police thwarted the attack on an event that showcased artwork and cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad in Garland, Texas, last year, killing two gunmen in a shootout.

Kareem's defense dismissed the charges as a case of overactive imagination by the government.

ROMANS: The suspect in the so-called D.C. mansion murders has been indicted on 20 charges, including a dozen of counts of first-degree murder. The 35-year-old Darren Wint is accused of killing four people, Savapolous family and their housekeeper and setting the house on fire. A grand jury also charged with aggravating circumstances. He faces life sentences if convicted.

MARQUEZ: Now, the health and human services secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell travel to Flint, Michigan. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder under pressure to take quick action is giving outside engineers a month to locate the underground pipes that had been leeching lead into Flint's water supply. At the same time, the mayor of Flint announced the city intends to begin replacing water pipes next week.

ROMANS: All right. Stocks are in rally mode. Oil is jumping. Why the dramatic turnaround. The year's losses are cut in half in three days.

MARQUEZ: Yes.

ROMANS: That's why you don't sell when the going gets tough.

MARQUEZ: That's right.

ROMANS: So they may just get burned.

Early start on your money is next.

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MARQUEZ: Turkish leaders now say they know who was behind the deadly explosion in that country's capital city. More than 30 people were killed after the convoy was hit near the parliament building.

[04:55:02] Turkey's prime minister says the attacker was a Syrian national.

Senior international correspondent Arwa Damon joins us from Ankara.

Arwa, the Turks clearly dealing with an ISIS threat on one side and fighting a huge crisis that they're also concerned with. Where does this attack come down in all that?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, yes, Miguel, Turkey is dealing with those different challenges. But what we have which is happening right now is something perhaps an added dynamic to it already is a very complicated and deadly situation.

In the past, these attacks have happened in Turkey. The government has blamed on ISIS. In this case, this attack that took place targeting that military personnel convoy just behind where we are right now is being blamed by the Turks on the YPG.

Now, the YPG is as we know that Kurdish fighting force that is America's main ally inside Syria. You can just imagine what that is potentially going to do for the Turkish/U.S. relations that already are fairly strained because of America's support for the Kurds, which Turkey does view as being a terrorist organization, basically an extension of the separatist group the PKK that Turkey has been battling against within its own borders.

And along those lines, Turkey over the last few days has been launching an intent of barrage of artillery from Turkey into Syria. Turkey is saying that this attack and the fact that it is at least blaming it on the Syrian national -- this member of the YPG. It means that in Turkey's perspective, this is proof that's evidence of what has been saying all along, that the YPG is, in fact, a terrorist organization.

We hear prior to this attack, the Turkish president coming out and basically saying that the United States is going to have to choose between Turkey and the Kurds, all of which puts America in a phenomenally difficult situation as well, trying to not only navigate the complexities of the Syrian battlefield, but also now potentially try to continue to maintain a relationship with a fellow NATO member -- Miguel.

MARQUEZ: Yes, clearly. Turkey torn by this and a fraught situation in Syria.

Arwa Damon in Ankara, thank you very much.

ROMANS: All right. Almost the end of the hour. Let's get an early start on your money this morning.

The stock market winning streak endures. Look at that Dow futures higher. First higher three in a row that we've had all year. Oil prices are higher, that's been driving the rally or helping the rally, along with comments from the Federal Reserve yesterday, showing concern about the global market chaos. That could hold the Fed back from raising rates any time soon.

European stock markets, look at that -- they are mixed. Big rally in Asia overnight, including strong gains in Tokyo. Bottom line here, Miguel, the losses for the year, the terrible loses for the Dow on the year have been cut in half in just three days. Big -- almost 800- point rally in just three days.

All right. Let's talk about oil here. Iran just returned to the global oil market. Iran already causing a stir among the world's oil producers.

Iran's oil minister supports the agreement by Saudi Arabia and Russia to cap production at January levels, but Iran might not do it. It's a unique situation. Iran just started pumping again after the sanctions lifted earlier this year.

It needs the money. It wants the money. It wants to be a player again after years on the sidelines. It wants to get as much oil in the marketplace as possible so it can make money, increase market share. That agreement to cap production comes when Iran wants to pump as much as possible.

Its relationship with Saudi Arabia is also been tarnished recently amid all those geopolitical tensions. So, watch this space about Iran and oil and oil prices.

Now, the cheapest gas in the world is getting more expensive. Venezuela is raising fuel prices for the first time in 20 years to help with lower oil profits and poor exchange rates. Venezuela's economy is just a shambles. President Nicolas Maduro says a leader of gas will cost close equivalent of U.S. 10 cents. For the past two decades, drivers there have been paying only 4 cents a liter, thanks to big subsidies.

Venezuela is home to 30 million people. It's one of the largest oil producers in the world, a member of OPEC. Oil exports account for about 95 percent of its export revenue.

MARQUEZ: Oh, the politics of oil.

ROMANS: Yes, petro politics we call it.

MARQUEZ: It's very interesting. And Iran jumping into the game as the price about that. Not a great time. A little irony. EARLY START continues right now.

(MUSIC)

ROMANS: Republicans running for president taking tough questions on the CNN town hall stage. Who made the best case to voters?

Good morning. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

MARQUEZ: And I am Miguel Marquez.

ROMANS: Nice to see you.

MARQUEZ: It is Thursday, the 18th of February, 5:00 a.m., 4:59 actually hear on the East Coast.

Breaking overnight: Republican presidential candidates making their cases to CNN viewers in the first of two town hall events. The meet the voter town halls come as new national poll shows Ted Cruz edging ahead of Donald Trump by a two point margin. Trump still holding a commanding lead in the next two states, Nevada and South Carolina, scene of the back-to-back town halls.