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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Republicans Step Back From Pledge; Brussels Death Toll Now 32; Hijacked Flight Raises Security Questions. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired March 30, 2016 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[04:30:45] ALISON KOSIK, CNN ANCHOR: Republican presidential candidates all backing up their pledge to support the eventual party nomine at a CNN town hall, and Donald Trump standing by a top staffer. His campaign manager arrested only hours earlier.
Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Alison Kosik. Good morning.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Christine Romans. It's so nice to have you here today, Alison.
It's 31 minutes past the hour.
Breaking over night, the three remaining Republican candidates taking the CNN town hall stage in Wisconsin. The state that holds the next presidential primary on Tuesday. Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, John Kasich taking questions from voters on topics ranging from terrorism to jobs. Trump defending his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski who was arrested and charged with simple battery after roughly grabbing the arm of a reporter. Trump says he won't fire Lewandowski and he even mocked that reporter, Michelle Fields.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It would be so easy for me to terminate this man, ruin his life, ruin his family. He's got four beautiful children in New Hampshire. Ruin his whole everything and say you're fired, OK? I fired many people, especially on "The Apprentice."
But, look what she says, Michelle Fields. Oh, by the way, she's not a baby, OK? In her own way, exactly, "I was jolted backwards." Well, she wasn't -- I mean, she's standing there. "Someone had grabbed me tightly by the arm", tightly, "and yanked me down." She wasn't yanked down. She was like, she didn't even have any expression.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Trump also walking away -- walking away from his pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee. Repeating that he's been treated very unfairly by the Republican Party. In fact, all three candidates stepped back from that pledge. Cruz refusing to say he would back Donald Trump if Trump becomes the nominee.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not in the habit of supporting someone who attacks my wife and attacks my family. I think that is going beyond the line. I think our wives, I think our kids should be off limits. They don't belong in the attacks. Donald is not going to be the GOP nominee and we're going to beat him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Trump and Cruz both challenged on their rhetoric in the so- called now war of wives.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I didn't start it.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: That's --
TRUMP: I didn't start it.
COOPER: But, sir, with all due respect, that's the argument of a 5- year-old.
TRUMP: I didn't start it. No, it's not.
COOPER: The argument of a 5-year-old is he started it.
TRUMP: You would say that. That's the problem with our country. That's not a 5-year-old.
COOPER: Every parent know the kid who says, he started it.
TRUMP: Excuse me, no, no. That's the problem.
Exactly that thinking is the problem this country has.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Meantime, John Kasich tried to stay above the fray.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I can say all kinds of things to get people stirred up. But leaders don't do that. Leaders tell people the way that they see it. Even if it means for a while, you're unpopular.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KOSIK: There were so many memorable moments in last night's town hall.
Helping us to break it all down, CNN political analyst Josh Rogin. He's a columnist for "Bloomberg View". He joins us now from our Washington bureau.
Good morning to you.
JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.
KOSIK: So, let's talk about this pledge. Not one, not two, but all three Republican candidates backing down from supporting whoever the nominee is. Here's a listen from the town hall yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Do you still sand by the pledge to support the nominee, even if it's Donald Trump?
CRUZ: Well, Anderson, as you mentioned, what I said is true. I'm not in the habit of supporting someone who attacks my wife and attacks my family.
TRUMP: Obviously, he doesn't have to support me. I'm not asking for his support. I want the people's support.
COOPER: Do you pledge to support whoever the Republican nominee is?
TRUMP: No, I don't. Look --
COOPER: You don't?
TRUMP: No, we'll see who it is.
KASICH: If the nominee is somebody that is think is really hurting the country and dividing the country, I can't stand behind them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KOSIK: Well, well, well, at least they agree on something. They're not going to support each other. What kind of impact, Josh, does this have on whoever the nominee is, what impact does this have on the nomination process?
ROGIN: Sure. You're absolutely right in pointing out this was the biggest news of the night. All three Republican candidates acknowledging their previous pledges to support whoever the nominee is are no longer valid. That's a pretty public acknowledgment of was privately insiders and campaign officials have been saying for days if not weeks, that all bets are off, OK?
[04:35:05] There was a presumption that the party would unify around whoever got the votes. That's no longer the case. And although Ted Cruz said last night his goal is to win the nomination outright, the truth is that the Cruz campaign, the Kasich campaign, the never Trump movement, they're all working on the same thing, to deny Trump the number of delegates he needs to win the vote outright, to work the convention so that if he comes in under the limit, that they can keep him from getting the nominee.
And then if he does come away with the nomination, to preserve the option of running a third candidate, a conservative candidate, even against Trump in the general election. All those things are on the table. That's the reality. And now everybody knows it.
So, that's where we are. There's the Republican Party is no longer willing to get behind Trump if he wins. That's over. What that means come July, August and September is totally unpredictable.
ROMANS: Josh, let's talk about Corey Lewandowski. This is the campaign manager for Trump. Someone who was involved in an encounter, we'll call it, after an event in Florida some weeks back, an encounter with a reporter. He was accused of grabbing her roughly and there was a simple battery charge yesterday against him.
Donald Trump in vintage Donald Trump form defending his man and some would say mocking the reporter. Listen to what Donald Trump said last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And by the way, she was grabbing me! Am I supposed to press charges against her? Oh, my arm is hurting.
Anderson, my arm is just killing me. It's never been the same.
COOPER: You've suggested you might --
TRUMP: Excuse me, excuse me! I didn't suggest.
COOPER: Oh, yeah, you did.
TRUMP: I tweeted. No, no, I tweeted.
COOPER: A tweet is a suggestion.
TRUMP: Should I press charges?
COOPER: Are you going to?
TRUMP: Sure! I don't know. Maybe I should, right? Because you know what?
(LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: She was grabbing me. And just so you understand, she was off base because she went through the Secret Service. She had a pen in her hand which Secret Service is not liking because they don't know what it is, whether it's a little bomb --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: OK. So, the Corey Lewandowski mess, does this help or hurt Donald Trump? If gives a little bit of fodder for his opponents to try to say, look, you know, just grabbing a reporter is not acceptable. But what does this mean for Trump?
ROGIN: Yes, my take is that this hurts him in a couple of different ways. First of all, the litany of ridiculous explanations that her pen might be a bomb, for example, just show that the Trump campaign's tether to truth and reality is getting more and more tenuous by the day. I mean, there's not really a situation where the Secret Service would prevent reporters from having pens in the sense that they might be bombs. That's not a real thing, OK?
So, on the one hand, they're just willing to sort of say anything to muddy the waters. On the larger scale, it tells u about how this campaign deals with the press, deals with public scrutiny, deals with a crisis. All of these are negative indicators. What they'll always say is Trump supporters will believe what Trump says and stand behind him. But that's not the game anymore.
The game is for Trump to appeal to general election voters in the case he's the nominee, to trustworthy, at least more than Hillary Clinton. This all works for him in the opposite direction. It's really an example of how not to deal with a crisis. Maybe he gets a couple points for loyalty. That's vastly overwhelmed by the absurdity of some of these explanations and sort of the meanness of attacking a reporter who seems to have been assaulted, according to the video, and accusing here and sort of attacking fashion of lying and fabricating an event and having this rolling, changing of stories. It speaks to a campaign that's so reactive and sensitive and so vindictive --
ROMANS: It's a campaign that's winning, Josh. It's been a winning strategy for this candidate.
KOSIK: Although this could be a turning point, though. There's only so much that even his supporters can take. This may be going a little extreme.
ROGIN: Yes, what I would say is, listen, the Republican primary electoral represents about, let's say, 10 percent to 20 percent of those people who will actually vote in a general election.
So, yes, we're facing a situation where Trump can probably win the republic primary, but when he gets to the general election, polls show this despite what the Trump campaign says, that his negatives are going up. His viability against the Democratic candidate is going down. So, yes, in the small world of people who vote in the Republican primary, it probably won't kill him or his chances. But in the broader sense of what he's trying to do, which is to become president of the United States, yes, I think it's damaging over the long run.
KOSIK: One other quick memorable moment that I remember from the discussions, the talk about NATO. Donald Trump basically dissing NATO saying it's outdated. Listen to this.
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TRUMP: NATO is obsolete. It was 67 years or it's over 60 years old.
[04:40:00] It is -- many countries, doesn't cover terrorism, OK?
KASIK: To walk away from that alliance, are you kidding me? If we walk away and it gets weaker, how long do you think it will take the Islamists to come over here?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KOSIK: OK. Well, some will support Donald Trump's argument, saying that America does have a disproportionate burden for guaranteeing Europe's security, there's a lot of what Donald Trump said about NATO that just isn't true. For one, NATO's involvement in terrorism.
ROGIN: Right. So, here are some facts as context. The United States spends about 70 percent of the NATO budget. That's down over the last few years from about 75 percent or 80 percent.
The second thing is that NATO's largest mission ever has been the 14- year commitment to the war in Afghanistan against the Taliban and al Qaeda. It's literally the biggest counterterrorism mission the world has ever seen. So, he's just wrong on the facts there.
Now, of course, there's a bipartisan call for Europe to spend more. All of that is true. But the bigger picture is we have a resurgent Russia, Eastern Europe that is very much on the edge. A Western Europe that's facing a litany of threats, refugees, terrorism, all these things that NATO is heavily involved in.
So, the first point is that Trump is wrong on the facts. The second point is sending that message has its own affect. I can tell you, there are a bunch of European leaders coming to town tomorrow for the nuclear security summit. I'll be talking to some of them today.
And I talked to some in Europe last week. They all say the same thing. Why say that? What kind of message are you sending?
It's terrible for American diplomacy, image, influence, power projection to disavow all of these alliances without sort of coming up with a smart way to make your point and usher NATO into a new era which probably has to be done. So, he's wrong on the facts. He's -- the messaging is counterproductive, and it just speaks to his lack of depth on foreign policy, which John Kasich I think pretty ably pointed out.
KOSIK: Yes, the reality is, even if he were president, he wouldn't necessarily have the powers to dismantle NATO.
ROMANS: All right. Josh Rogin, thank you so much. Talk to you again very, very soon.
Time for an EARLY START on your money. Jobs and the economy, the topic issue for primary voters and the U.S. has lost 5 million manufacturing jobs since 2000. Those are from the Labor Department.
The conventional wisdom was always that America would transition from low-skilled factory work, right, to highly skilled, high tech manufacturing and service sector jobs. Manufacturing still remains key part of the U.S. economy. It's not the powerhouse, though, it once was. In 1960, about one in four American workers had a job in manufacturing. That number today is one in 10. Those jobs that are left, some of them are harder to get. Many
require highly skilled workers with specific technical skills or degrees. So, this is a big issue at the core here of so much of this debate.
Dairy producers and farmers asked Donald Trump and Ted Cruz last night what they would do to get America back to work in highly skilled factory jobs. Cruz said education is key and focusing funds on vocational training is important. Donald Trump says the key is fixing bad trade deals.
KOSIK: Daily raids throughout Brussels, the city on edge with at least two bombers and eight other terrorists on the run. That's next.
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[04:47:20] KOSIK: Forty-seven minutes past the hour.
Authorities in Brussels trying desperately to find two unidentified suspects linked to last week's deadly terror attacks. The death toll from those bombings now stands at 32. With the FBI heavily involved in the case now, analyzing phones and hard drives seized by Brussels police. American Airlines announcing all of its flights to and from Brussels are canceled through April 7th.
Let's go live now to Brussels and bring in Alexandra Field for the very latest.
Good morning, Alexandra.
ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there. Good morning, Alison.
We are starting to hear it could be months before the airport here in Brussels is fully operational again after it was devastated by the bombing that took place there a week ago. We know that their efforts are underway to try to get it open on a partial basis, a more limited basis.
But this is a place that serves some 60,000 people a day, so when it does reopen in part, you'll see it reopening on a smaller scale, it seems. They'll make every effort to try and keep every passenger who's going through there safe. At the same time, you've seen European Union institutions reopening yesterday after the Easter holiday. That was done under heavy security as well, and you're still security forces and police throughout the city of Brussels and that's because the major manhunt continues in this city and beyond.
Authorities are still looking for the third suspected bomber at the airport and a second possible bomber from the subway station. There are still 94 people who remain in the hospital fighting the injuries that they suffered just a week ago. The death toll now 32 victims killed in those two blasts -- Alison.
KOSIK: So, you see this city trying to get back to normal a week after the suicide bombings. The city is still really on edge there. Are you hearing reports from authorities about any information, any intelligence coming from the suspects that have been arrested?
FIELD: Look, we have seen them conduct a number of raids in the last week. We know there were at least three more arrests made over the weekend after they took in some nine people. So, it seems what they're doing is conducting raids, they're bringing in people, they're trying to question them. We're seeing various charges come out.
But I think what really stunned people in this city was to see the release of the man identified by authorities as "Faycal C". He was charged with terrorist murder, attempted terrorist murder. So, people believe that authorities had some very solid evidence in order to levy those kind of charges.
But after he was held for several days, a magistrate found that the evidence was not sufficient to proceed with those charges. So, it does seem authorities are casting a wide net. They're trying to bring in everyone who could have possible information and at the same time, we do see them releasing people who appear to be no longer useful to the investigation.
[04:50:00] As far as what information they're collecting from these people, that's something that authorities are certainly keeping a lid on right now, Alison.
KOSIK: All right. Alexandra Field reporting from Brussels with the latest, thanks very much.
ROMANS: Back here, Supreme Court decisions in high profile cases could be handed down starting later this morning, including a possible ruling on contraception mandate in Obamacare. The death of Justice Antonin Scalia is already having a big effect here. Organized labor celebrating a big win on Tuesday as the justices split 4-4 in a case involving a public union's right to collect fees from workers who don't want to join. The tie leaves a lower court ruling favoring unions intact.
KOSIK: Mark Kirk is the first Republican senator to break ranks and meet with Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. And the Illinois lawmaker is blasting his party's leadership for stonewalling the nomination process. Senator Kirk calling for rationale, adult, open- minded consideration for the president's pick to replace Judge Scalia. He believes 15 or 16 other GOP senators may follow his lead. ROMANS: North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory facing intense and growing fire over a controversial new state law, a state law that eliminates discrimination protections for gays and lesbians. The ACLU just sued McCrory, and Bank of America, headquartered in Charlotte, is now publicly condemning the measure as bad for business, joining 80 other corporations. That list of companies against this law grows by the minute.
Governor McCrory not backing down, calling the opposition a smear campaign, insisting the measure does not remove any existing protections.
KOSIK: When the Fed speaks investors listen. We'll tell you about the speech that turned stocks around yesterday. What Janet Yellen revealed to investors. An early start on your money, next.
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[04:55:53] KOSIK: New questions raised about the state of airport security in Egypt after a man authorities call mentally unstable with a criminal record hijacks an EgyptAir flight wearing what looks like an explosive vest. No one was injured. And Tuesday's incident, while disturbing, was not linked to terrorism, but there are still a lot of questions including, how did he get on the plane and how was he able to rush the cockpit in a post-9/11, post-Sharm el Sheikh world?
CNN's Ian Lee has been on the story from the beginning and joins us live from Cairo now with the latest.
So, do they know, Ian, yet, how he got on
IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alison, they released the video of him going through airport security, not just one checkpoint, but two checkpoints, having his luggage scanned. He went through another checkpoint where we see him going through a metal detector, and the officer then pats him down.
The Egyptian government the whole time has said everything was done to the letter. That airport security didn't fail because at the end, we found out that the explosive device that he claimed he had was, in fact, fake.
But there are -- they are going to review security. They're going to be looking at this, especially how this deranged man, what the Cypriots and Egyptians are calling him pulled this off. But during the course of the negotiations, they got a better idea who they were dealing with. Someone who had a wide range of demands, from dealing with his ex-wife, to meeting with E.U. officials.
And the whole time they treated it as if he did have a bomb. Only later afterwards did they find out he didn't have one. But all the passengers have been able to make it back to Cairo safely. The hijacker is in court today. This is expected to be a long trial as they figure out what to do with him. Though the Egyptians would like to bring him back and try him here.
KOSIK: Yes, seems like a tough spot. He wasn't caught in a metal anything. Are the talking about what maybe they could have done to catch this guy before he boarded that flight? I mean, was there anything that you can tell that authorities could have done? $
LEE: Well, it's really difficult, because this person didn't have anything that threatened the airplane when he went through the metal detector. He was, as has been described, as deranged. So, he seemed normal going through security procedures. They don't know how this vest was comprised. Did he do it after he got through security? That's the one thing we're looking after.
But this is a person who has had a long criminal record which includes theft, includes false identification, drug dealings. So, this is someone who's had a run-in with the law before. These are all things they'll take into consideration with this investigation going forward.
KOSIK: All right. CNN's Ian Lee live from Cairo, thanks very much.
ROMANS: All right. Let's get an early start on your money this morning.
Stock markets are higher around the world. U.S. futures pointing higher this morning after a great day on Wall Street. The Dow added 97 points, ending the day at its highest level of the year, highs for the year. Apple led the rally, closing more than 2 percent higher. The S&P 500 also turned positive now for the year.
It was Janet Yellen pulling stocks out of that slump speaking at the Economic Club of New York. The Fed chief said the central bank will move cautiously on interest rate hikes. Yellen was optimistic about the U.S. economy but worried about the global economy.
On the top of her worry list, the economic slowdown in China and low oil prices. Yellen's speech hinting that a rate hike next month seems unlikely and stock market investors liked what they heard.
Delta pilots asking for a big raise, a 40 percent pay increase. Now, that pay raise would bring salaries back to 2004 levels. That's according to pilot's union. Pilots took huge pay cuts when Delta filed for bankruptcy. The union says, hey, Delta can afford the pay raise now since it posted record profits last year, Alison.
KOSIK: All right. Let's get on with more. EARLY START continues right now.
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