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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Trump Reverses Abortion Position; Clinton, Sanders Working Hard to Win New York; Dutch Police Arrest Terror Suspect; Golden State Warriors Move Closer to Record. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired March 31, 2016 - 05:00   ET

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

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: EARLY START continues right now.

(MUSIC)

[05:00:08] SANCHEZ: Donald Trump's newest controversy, saying that if abortion becomes illegal, women who get them should be punished. He later recanted the statement, but this morning, he is taking condemnation from both sides of the aisle. The race for the White House more contentious than ever.

Good morning and welcome to EARLY START. I'm Boris Sanchez.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: So nice to see you this morning, Boris, Thursday morning. I'm Christine Romans. It is Thursday, March 31st, last day of the month, last day of the quarter. It's 5:00 a.m. in the East.

And this morning, Donald Trump's campaign facing another day of putting off fire, touched off when the Republican frontrunner took three different positions on abortion in the space of a single day. First, he said on MSNBC that if abortion were made illegal, women -- women who get abortion should be punished. Then, he put out a statement walking that back, saying the issue is unclear. But then he sent out a third more detailed statement calling for the person performing the abortion to be punished. Not the woman.

Now, Trump's wobbling on abortion drawing fire from both sides of the aisle. An angry bipartisan backlash.

CNN's Jim Acosta has details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Boris, Donald Trump carved out a very hard line position on abortion, just to walk it back hours later. His comments came during an interview with MSNBC earlier in a day when he said women who undergo abortion should be punished if the procedure were made illegal. Here's what he had to say.

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: Should abortion be punished? DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, people in certain

parts of the Republican party and conservative Republicans would say yes, they should be punished.

MATTHEWS: How about you?

TRUMP: I would say that it's a very serious problem. And it's a problem that we have to decide on. It's very --

MATTHEWS: You're for banning it.

TRUMP: Wait. Are you going to say put them in jail? The answer is thereat there has to be some form of punishment.

MATTHEWS: For the woman?

TRUMP: Yes, there has to be some form.

MATTHEWS: Ten cents, ten years? Why not? You take positions on everything else.

TRUMP: I do take positions on everything else. It's a very complicated position.

ACOSTA: But then Trump did a complete 180, releasing a statement saying it would be doctors who will be punished, not women. Here's that statement.

It says, "If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and the federal courts upheld this legislation, or any state permitted to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other person performing the illegal act, they would be held legally responsible, not the woman. The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb. My position has not changed", Trump said. "Like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life, with exceptions."

But the damage may already be done. Not only did Trump's rivals slam his original remarks on abortion, saying, you don't punish women who go through the procedure. He united both sides of this very hot bottom issue, something you hardly ever see in politics -- Boris and Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: All right. Jim, thank you.

Both Republicans and Democrats had a field day responding to Trump's swiftly changing abortion stances. Helping us break down their attacks and all the political action, CNN political analyst and "Bloomberg View" columnist, Josh Rogin.

Josh, good morning to you.

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.

SANCHEZ: Hey, Josh. So, I wanted to ask -- Donald Trump seemingly losing support among women. Not just with this flub, but also a couple weeks ago, we saw the release of that ad with women, using his words against him. And as we look at the CNN/ORC poll, nearly three quarters of women say that they view him unfavorably.

How could he potentially win a general election if 73 percent of women see him negatively?

ROGIN: Yes, I would just add that list to the fact that his campaign manager was charged with battering a woman reporter this week. So, this feeds a long standing narrative that Trump has a problem with women, and it's finally showing up in the numbers, and I think that's what you see here.

So, of course, this is more of a general election issue where he is likely to be facing a woman candidate on the Democratic side. And it's not just the about voters. It's about the delegates. And as the fight really becomes more about the delegates than about the voters, especially as Ted Cruz and John Kasich try to peel off delegates in all of these other states, they're increasingly going to make this electability argument.

And whereas early in the primary season, electability wasn't really something that everyone was focused on as we get towards what might be a contested convention. That's exactly what these people are going to be focused on.

And if you look at a candidate who has a 73 percent negative rating with women, that's going to be something that both his primary challengers and then his general election challenger will use to make the argument that he is not fit to be president.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: The -- what some are calling the waffle, the flip-flop-flip on abortion yesterday, remarkable. In three hours, three different positions on abortion. On the right and on the left, outrage. People who are -- you know, long time pro-life supporters concerned because this candidate doesn't know the parameters for the discussion on abortion. And people on the left say they don't think this man has thought deeply on this issue at all.

[05:05:03] Listen to what Ted Cruz said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That comment was wrong. And it really is the latest demonstration of how little Donald has thought about any of the serious issues facing this country. I am pro-life. Being pro-life means standing and defending the unborn, but it also means defending moms, defending women, and defending the incredible gift women have to bring life into the world. And Donald's comments, they were unfortunate, they were wrong and I strongly disagree with him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: You know, the outrage was fast and furious and bipartisan. And speaking of a gift, I mean, something -- this is a gift for a female potential candidate. Listen to what Hillary Clinton said last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (via telephone): The choice is really clear. The Republicans all line up together. Now, maybe they aren't quite as open about it as Donald Trump was earlier today, but they all have the same position. If you make abortion a crime, you make it illegal, then you make women and doctors criminals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: How badly does this hurt Donald Trump with women?

ROGIN: Yes. No, I think you've identified two separate issues and two separate ways it can really hurt Donald Trump. One is that it reinforces the narrative that he doesn't really understand women's issues. He doesn't really delve into the details of it. And the second is he doesn't seem to have policy chops in the first place.

I mean, when we had 17 candidates, Donald Trump benefitted from the fact he could give short answers in debates and put out tweets. That would be that, right? And now, he's getting really detailed scrutiny. He seems to make these things up on the fly. It's a pattern of follow-up questions that seem to prompt impromptu answers that don't really make any sense, that it has to walk back later, and it speaks to his basic competence, right?

The last thing is that, you know, Donald Trump has benefitted for months by the fact that all these other candidates were attacking each other. It was Jeb versus Rubio, Rubio versus Christie. Now, everybody's trained on the Donald, right? Democrats are trained on him. The White House decided to pile on just for fun on these comments.

So, yes, the issue of Donald's problems with women is the frame here. The back story is that all guns are trained on Donald Trump and that's new and that's having an affect and this is the worst time it can have an effect for Donald Trump because he is very close to the 1,237 delegate threshold on or on pace to it anyway. And whether or not he gets there and stays on pace, or doesn't get there and stay on pace, and Wisconsin will be a huge indicator of that, it speaks to really what's going to happen in this Republican primary.

SANCHEZ: Now you mentioned Wisconsin potentially being a barrier to that 1,237. I want to show you a poll: Ted Cruz leading in Wisconsin. He's up about 10 points over Donald Trump in the latest CNN/ORC poll, 40 to 30 percent. John Kasich, a relatively close third compared to how he was doing in February. He's up to 21 percent.

How vital is Wisconsin for the stop Trump movement considering states after Wisconsin like New York, relatively more friendly to Trump?

ROGIN: Yes, it's crucial. I have been talking to political operatives in all of the campaigns over the last couple of days and this is what they say. They say if you go along the current trajectory and if you just game it out all the way to the convention, Trump is very close to the 1,237. There's a bunch of uncommitted delegates that could push him over. Then, again, if they are able to peel away maybe 10, maybe 20, maybe 50 delegates over the course of the next few primaries, that could stop him, and then you get to the contested convention, and then you get to the vote and anything is possible, and then there's chaos and an open ballot, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So, every state counts and every delegate counts. And the Cruz campaign is much more savvy in playing the delegate game and the Trump has been. The Trump campaign just realized that about a week and a half ago in Louisiana when they won the election but lost he delegate count. They hired new staff to try to figure it out. They are way behind.

And the political professionals are going to have their day, right? This is going to be the Republican empire strikes back against Donald Trump. And the way that they're going to do is, they're going to shave delegates here, shave delegates there. And, eventually, we're going to wake up one day and Trump is not going to reach that 1,237 number and all bets are off.

ROMANS: Josh Rogin, may the force be with you. We'll talk to you in about a half an hour. We expect more "Star Wars" references in the next half hour. Thank you, sir.

Time now for an early start on your money. Not a good start for the last trading for stocks this quarter. You can see the markets there -- Asian markets, stock markets mostly lower, European markets turned down. U.S. stock futures following their lead.

Great day, though, for Wall Street yesterday. Stocks added to Tuesday's gain. Dow added 83 points, the S&P 500 and NASDAQ also closing higher.

You know, the market started the year in meltdown mode. But, boy, it's been a first quarter comeback.

[05:10:00] Remember, the market tanked more than 10 percent by early February. Now investors are making money again.

So, what's behind this turnaround? Well, the Fed Chief Janet Yellen, she hinted an April rate hike is most certainly off the table. Oil prices are rising again. And fears of a Chinese meltdown on overblown here.

One thing that could slow the rally down potentially, the all- important monthly jobs report that comes out tomorrow. Looking for strong jobs growth there. That gets people concerned about a more imminent rate hike. Maybe you could see stocks turned around.

SANCHEZ: It's fascinating to see, the unemployment rate at or below 5 percent, but still anger and hesitation with the American economy.

ROMANS: I know, it's so -- the disconnect. Economists give the economy a B, B-plus. Voters, primary voters give it an F. There's an angry voter disconnect that I think is a really big storyline this election.

SANCHEZ: Interesting to see how it plays out moving forward.

An imminent terror attack foiled and a terrorist charged. But the fear of more assaults in Europe is growing. So, how big could this terror network be?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:15:10] SANCHEZ: We have new information this morning about a high profile terror arrested in the Netherlands. A 32-year-old French citizen now identified as Anis Bahri was taken into custody on Sunday in Rotterdam. He's now being linked to Reda Kriket. He's the foiled terror suspect who was apprehended last week for allegedly plotting an attack against France.

Let's go live now to Paris and get the very latest from senior European correspondent Jim Bittermann.

Jim, investigators found quite a cache of weapons at this suspect's home, right?

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR EUROPEAN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely.

In Kriket's house, they found five Kalashnikov rifle, seven handguns, a machine gun, as well as bomb-making materials, as well as some TATP, which is the bomb material that was used in the explosions that took place in Brussels and in Paris.

So, it was quite a significant cache of weapons. The Paris prosecutor said that he believes they were planning some kind of an imminent attack, although he didn't know what the target may have been.

Now, the man who was arrested up in Rotterdam, Bahri, in fact, in his apartment, they found something like 6,000 rounds of ammunition for the Kalashnikov rifles. The two men were linked prior to this because both are thought to have gone to Syria in 2014 and 2015. Both were armed robbers, and both did prison time for armed robbery before what was apparently their radicalization -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Jim Bittermann reporting from Paris -- Jim, thank you.

ROMANS: The FBI agreed to help prosecutors in Arkansas hack into an iPhone and iPod that could yield critical evidence in a murder trial. The decision comes just days after the agency successfully accessed the iPhone that is used by San Bernardino terror suspect Syed Rizwan Farook, with the help of an unidentified third party. Authorities in Arkansas are hoping to find evidence on two devices owned by two of the four suspects in the murder of a Little Rock couple last July.

SANCHEZ: The Mississippi Senate giving final approval to the so- called religious freedom bill. The bill would allow businesses to refuse service not only to gay and transgender people, but also anyone who's had an extramarital affair -- rather extramarital sex, I should say, based on the business owner's religious beliefs. The gay rights advocate calls it probably the worst religious freedom bill to date. ROMANS: Meantime, the list of companies calling for North Carolina to

repeal its so-called transgender bathroom bill keeps growing. Today, the Human Rights Campaign plans to deliver a letter to Governor Pat McCrory's office signed by more than 80 CEOs and business leaders. The controversial new law requires people to use bathrooms and other facilities, based on their sex on their birth certificate, their gender on their birth certificate.

It was approved in response to a Charlotte ordinance allowing transgender people to use bathrooms according to their gender identity.

A lot of companies, big name companies on that list saying it is bad for business.

SANCHEZ: Sports leagues as well, threatening to move all-star games out of North Carolina.

ROMANS: The Connecticut's governor saying, hey, if you are doing business in North Carolina, come Connecticut, where we don't do business like that.

SANCHEZ: Road warriors. Golden State coming closer to being the winningest NBA team in history, surviving a tough test against the Utah Jazz.

Coy Wire has this morning's bleacher report, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:22:48] SANCHEZ: It is not been easy, but the Golden State Warriors are still on track to make history and break the NBA all time record for wins in a season.

ROMANS: What a fun team to watch.

Coy Wire has more in this morning's bleacher report.

Hey, Coy.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine and Boris.

We may overlook when you are the best, you get everyone's best shot. They all want to take down the king. That's what makes this historic run by the Warriors even more impressive. Last night, the Jazz gave them all they could handle. It took Klay Thompson's game time three- pointer with 15 seconds left to send this one to overtime.

Then, it was Steph Curry. He takes over. He ends up scoring 31 points on the night, six of them in overtime. Warriors win 103-96, now needs to win five of their remaining seven games to surpass the 72-10 win mark by the Bulls 20 years ago for the best single season in NBA history. Warriors have won six overtime games this year.

Now, check out this scary moment before the game. Fans time to get an autograph from Steph Curry fell out of the stands. A railing gave way. Thankfully, guys, there were no injuries. There were just minor injuries. Nothing serious. Everyone's OK.

How about the Lakers fans who booed rookie point guard D'Angelo Russell when his name was announced before the team's overtime win against the Heat last night. This because he secretly took video of his teammate Nick Young having relations with a woman who was not his fiancee rapper Iggy Azalea. That video was mysteriously leaked.

Drama ensued before the game. They both addressed the issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICK YOUNG, LAKERS GUARD-FORWARD: We say thing that you don't -- you don't really repeat and that was just an incident of I guess playing too much and it goes wrong. I take the full blame for that recording the video or doing that, but leaking the video wasn't me.

D'ANGELO RUSSELL, LAKERS GUARD: I think it's best me and D'Angelo handle the situation we have in a private matter, outside the media.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: Oh, the drama, how will it end?

[05:25:02] Let's go to a good type of drama, shall we? Two days away from the final four. Hundreds of fans gather on campus yesterday to give their teams fond farewells as they left for Houston.

All the Saturday's games are going to air on out sister channel TBS. Villanova and Oklahoma playing the first game at 6:09 Eastern, and then, Syracuse tries to take down number one seed North Carolina. The winners of those games, guys, will play for the national championship Monday night also on TBS.

SANCHEZ: I've got to correct you, Coy. Syracuse will beat North Carolina. They won't even try. No trying involved. It's going to happen.

WIRE: Spoken like a true Orangeman.

ROMANS: My bracket is so busted. But now, I'm just going to enjoy the weekend, you know? I'm just going to get over my pain and suffering and enjoy the weekend.

Coy, thanks for that. Awesome.

WIRE: You're welcome, guys.

ROMANS: All right. Twenty-five minutes past the hour. New trouble for Donald Trump this morning for saying that women who get abortions should be punished if the procedure is outlawed. He recants that statement hours later, but invites an avalanche of next attacks, next:

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ROMANS: New outrage this morning. Donald Trump fumbling after saying that if abortions are made illegal, women who get them should be punished.