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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Cruz Campaign Hit Hard in Wisconsin; Trump Targets John Kasich; Democrats Debate Over Debates; Amtrak Derailment Kills Two Workers; Greece Begins Deporting Refugees To Turkey; Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired April 04, 2016 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:42] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. New this morning, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz now both say John Kasich should get out of the race. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, they can't agree on the terms of their next debate.

The race for president gets heated one day before the next key primary.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: New information on an explosive Amtrak derailment. Two killed. Dozens injured. What we're learning this morning ahead.

BERMAN: And happening now, thousands of refugees who risk their lives on a dangerous journey to get into Europe, they are being deported this morning. EU's controversial new plan now in motion. We're live.

Welcome back to EARLY START, everyone. I'm John Berman.

ROMANS: Nice to have you back from vacation.

BERMAN: It's good-ish to be here.

ROMANS: Nothing happened. Nothing happened while you're gone.

BERMAN: It's OK to be here.

ROMANS: I'm Christine Romans. It's 4:31 in the East.

Now just one day before voters head to the polls in Wisconsin, there's an intense battle going down to the wire between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Both of them campaigning across the state today. The latest polls show Cruz out front, leading Trump by as much as 10 points. And Cruz picked up new key tactical victories over the weekend in Colorado. He won the first six delegates to the Republican convention. Picked in a week-long selection process there.

In North Dakota, the Cruz team claims it did well in packing that state's delegation to the convention, though all North Dakota delegates are unbound. But today, today is all about Wisconsin where a Cruz win could alter the momentum of the Republican race.

CNN's Sunlen Serfaty has the very latest from Green Bay.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine and John. Well, the Cruz campaign had hit the ground hard here in Wisconsin. Dispatching Heidi Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Governor Scott Walker, all barnstorming the state this weekend.

The Cruz campaign manager declaring an all-hands-on-deck situation in the final 24 hours before voting starts in Wisconsin tomorrow. And Cruz for his part, the senator has really been projecting confidence on the stump. He's been predicting that he will get most if not all of the state's delegates tomorrow night.

And on the stump here in Green Bay, he told the crowd really playing up the importance of this moment going forward saying that it's going to be a decision point that will resonate across the country beyond just here in Wisconsin.

The senator also seemed to get a little reflective on the state of the race and all that has transpired.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This has been quite the election cycle. It hadn't been boring. There were all sorts of things a year ago someone had said you are going to see and you would say no, that will never happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: And there's a notable strategy shift coming from the Cruz campaign here in Wisconsin. They are out with their very first negative TV ad targeting John Kasich. This is a candidate that they have in large part attempted to marginalize throughout this campaign calling him point blank, a spoiler.

So this focus on him in these last few hours here in Wisconsin certainly suggests some concern on their level about what role he might play tomorrow night -- Christine and John.

BERMAN: All right, Sunlen, thanks so much.

The stakes very high for Donald Trump in Wisconsin. Losing there would make it much harder for him to clinch the nomination before the Republican convention. Still he is predicting he will win the state. In a rally there last, Trump blasted Ted Cruz.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Lying Ted Cruz. He comes in bible high. I'm lying Ted Cruz. I put the bible down and then I start to lie. He's a dirty rotten cheat. Remember that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Subtle. All right. Like Ted Cruz, Trump took aim at the man running a distant third right now in the Republican battle.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond was there. He has the latest. JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Good morning, John and

Christine. With less than 48 hours until Wisconsin Republicans head to the polls, Donald Trump stumping last night here in West Alice, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee. He was of course hitting his key issues on the campaign trail. But he also devoted a little bit of time to hitting Ohio Governor John Kasich.

Now that's a little bit unusual for Donald Trump as far as his stumping in Wisconsin has gone. He's really focused the brunt of his fire on Texas Senator Ted Cruz. But last night, Donald Trump talking about Ohio Governor John Kasich, calling him a nasty guy, saying that with Kasich, it's going to be harder for him to reach the 1237 delegate threshold to cinch the Republican nomination before the convention.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Kasich is now 1 for 30.

[04:35:02] Is he 1 for 30 or 1 for 29? He is 1 for 30. It's good if he gets out. I don't want him in. I don't want him in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: All of this of course coming as the Wisconsin delegate fight in the delegate fight across the country. It's coming into focus with Donald Trump now acknowledging putting a team in place to really bring those delegates into the fold, get delegates that he needs in case this goes to an open convention. But certainly Donald Trump now lagging in the polls in Wisconsin hoping to make up some ground. He'll be stumping all day today as well and hoping to make up that ground.

John and Christine, back to you.

ROMANS: All right. Jeremy, thank you.

The head of the Republican Party says that Trump backing out of his pledge to support the party's eventual nominee could hurt him with delegates to the Republican convention. RNC chairman Reince Priebus says Trump's decision could make it harder to, quote, "get people to fall in line for him."

Priebus also says that if there is a contested convention, it will not pick a candidate who did not run in the primaries. Someone like his friend, perhaps, House Speaker Paul Ryan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REINCE PRIEBUS, CHAIRMAN, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: If anything like that were to happen, which I think is highly, highly unlikely, I think our candidate is someone who is running. OK. That's pretty obvious. But number two, if something like that were even remotely possible, that candidate would actually have to have a floor operation and an actual campaign going on with the delegates to make something like that possible. And Paul is not going to do that. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders locked in a debate over debates. Both of them campaigned over the weekend in Wisconsin where Sanders holds an edge in the latest polls. But they're already looking ahead to the next big prize, which is New York. The big sticking point is debates, if they will debate, where they will debate, when they will debate. And as we sit here this morning there is no agreement.

CNN's Chris Frates has the details.

CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, John and Christine. The dispute over when Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are going to debate in New York exploded on the campaign trail this weekend with the Sanders and Clinton camps trading barbs over who was to blame. It all started on Saturday when the Clinton campaign said that they had offered the Sanders campaign three different dates. April 4th, April 14th and April 15th. All to be rejected.

The Sanders campaign responding that April 4th was a terrible idea with the NCAA finals happening. That's today of course. Nobody would be paying attention to politics. They'd be watching basketball. Not to mention that the big Wisconsin primary is the next day.

On the 15th, they didn't like the idea of doing a morning debate on one of the networks and so that left the 14th. Bernie Sanders telling CNN on Sunday that he's got a big rally planned and the Sanders campaign countering with four or five other dates of their own. No word yet from the Clinton campaign about where that stands.

But take a listen to how Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton talked about these debates.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm confident that there will be. But I'm not -- I'm not the one negotiating it. That's going on between our campaigns. And I do know my campaign has been really trying to get a time that Senator Sanders' campaign would agree with.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think what we want is to look at the maximum viewing audience. And any time and any venue that works that has that viewing audience will be good. So we're looking at a lot of options right now. But I think at the end of the day, George, we will have a time and a place that will be, I suspect, a very spirited debate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRATES: So obviously both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton want to debate. In fact, Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver told me that he believes that this dispute will be settled fairly soon. And it's a very big and important thing for Bernie Sanders. He is expected to do well tomorrow in Wisconsin. He needs those delegates and then he needs to move to New York and upset Hillary Clinton in her adopted home state. There's about 250 delegates at stake in New York, and second only to California. Bernie Sanders looking for the upset there. So when this debate is, where it airs is a big deal. So we'll continue to watch that as Bernie Sanders continues to try to close the gap on Hillary Clinton.

John, Christine, back to you guys.

ROMANS: All right, Chris Frates. Thanks, Chris.

Time for an EARLY START on your money. Global stock markets unfazed, nonplused, unmoved by Donald Trump's claim this weekend that it's a terrible time to invest in the stock market. Dow futures are up slightly. Oil is down. Stock markets in Europe trading higher, basically just another day at the office. Shares in Tokyo closing slightly lower overnight.

Drivers are loving Tesla's new lower priced electric car. Pre-orders topped 275,000 so says Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk. He's been tweeting sales updates. Customers must put down $1,000 deposit to reserve their spot in line. The new ride expected to start rolling off the production line in late 2017. Tesla will make the car in California but batteries in Nevada.

The Tesla Model 3 starts at $35,000. It can get up to 215 miles on a full charge. It can go zero to 60 in less than six seconds.

[04:40:03] And I got to tell you, people were tweeting like -- and instagraming pictures of the lines. There were huge demand for this.

BERMAN: And remember, it's not like it's on sale tomorrow.

ROMANS: No.

BERMAN: It's getting in line for a car that's going on sale next year. When fuel prices right now are so low it shows the demand for the Tesla is not totally based on fuel prices.

ROMANS: It's true.

BERMAN: Interesting to see.

ROMANS: All right. 40 minutes past the hour. Two killed, dozens injured in the new Amtrak derailment. What investigators are revealing this morning next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right. This morning the NTSB is investigating a deadly Sunday train derailment that happened Sunday south of Philadelphia. One of three serious accidents involving Amtrak this weekend. Rail officials said the train was carrying more than 300 passengers when it left the tracks moments after hitting a backhoe. And two Amtrak workers, both of those workers were killed, nearly three dozen passengers were hospitalized.

[04:45:02] Let's get more now from CNN's Sara Ganim in Chester, Pennsylvania.

SARA GANIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, a source close to the investigation telling CNN that those two construction workers, one in a backhoe and one near a backhoe, were struck by this train, number 89.

They were both Amtrak workers, which raises the question of how they did not know that they were in an active track when this accident happened and how the train didn't know this was an active construction scene when this happened.

The NTSB now on scene working with Amtrak to investigate this accident. You can see behind me, that is train number 89. It was on the Palmetto route from New York to Savannah, Georgia. Three hundred and forty-one passengers on board, 35 of those passengers injured when this collision happened. None of them with life-threatening injuries. All of them were either taken to the hospital or gotten to their destinations by Amtrak today. But you can see the force of that impact just by looking at that front engine car. You can also see that it actually derailed from the track.

Now, on Sunday Amtrak was able to bring back limited service on this northeast corridor which is good news for people in their Monday morning commute because 750,000 people ride the northeast corridor every day between Boston and Washington, D.C. But on Sunday morning around 8:00 a.m. this was a very frightening experience for many of those passengers. One of them telling CNN he could tell something was wrong before the crash happened. Outside the window they could see a cloud of dust and it felt like they were riding on gravel. Another passenger, 15-year-old Linton Holmes, talked about his frightening experience. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LINTON HOLMES, AMTRAK PASSENGER: The train was like rumbling and then we got off track, I guess. And then it was just bunch of dust. It was just dust everywhere. And then the train conductors, they were running to the front. There was some people -- they were pretty bloody from the -- because it was an explosion. We got off track and then it was like a big explosion. Then it was a fire. Then the windows bursted out and some people were cut up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GANIM: Now the investigation is clearly ongoing. The good news is the NTSB has already recovered the data recorder, as well as the forward and inward looking cameras. Hopefully those will yield some answers -- John and Christine.

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

This morning, Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant is deciding whether to sign a new religious freedom bill that passed the state's House and Senate. Now this measure would allow government employees and private businesses to deny services to same-sex couples who want to get married. The governor is expected to decide whether to sign the bill by tomorrow.

On Friday, a federal judge blocked officials in Mississippi from enforcing a law that bans same-sex couples from adopting.

BERMAN: New calls this morning for embattled Alabama Governor Robert Bentley to step down. With state lawmakers back in session, legislation putting Bentley's recall to voters is expected to be drafted as soon as today. The Republican governor has been under fire ever since recordings surfaced last week revealing sexually explicit phone conversations between him and political adviser, Rebecca Mason. Mason has since resigned. But questions remain over whether state funds were used to conceal that relationship.

ROMANS: New Jersey lawmakers are holding a hearing this afternoon to take a close look at the state's aging water infrastructure. Concerns are high after authorities found lead in Newark's public schools' drinking water. Water fountains in 30 schools have now been turned off until further testing can be done. Legislators hoping to fund a lead abatement program for Newark and are considering bills requiring all schools in the state to test their water.

Dangerous, deadly wind storms slam parts of the Midwest and the northeast. A tree smashed into a car in Evington, Massachusetts, killing two people. Officials say the victims were trapped in that car.

This was the scene in Ohio. You can see a huge tree toppled over onto this house. And in New York, much of the same, downed trees everywhere. Debris scattering the streets. At least 370,000 people from Wisconsin to Maine left in the dark. The most significant power outages came in Pennsylvania where at least 82,000 customers had no electricity.

BERMAN: All right. That same system will now bring snow -- snow to the northeast.

ROMANS: Snow.

BERMAN: Let's bring in meteorologist Karen Maginnis.

(WEATHER REPORT)

[04:50:24] BERMAN: We had soccer games canceled this weekend because of snow. There was snow on the field.

ROMANS: Yes. All right. Stocks jumped Friday after the government's monthly jobs report. Are investors still feeling optimistic this Monday morning? We're going to get an EARLY START on your money next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right. Happening now, Greek officials have begun deporting hundreds of refugees and migrants back to Turkey. It's part of a controversial new agreement with the European Union. More than 52,000 men, women and children are stranded in Greece since many Balkan nations decided to shut their borders. [04:55:02] Let's get the latest from CNN's Phil Black. He joins us

live from Turkey this morning.

Give us a sense of what's happening, Phil.

PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, you can see one of the vessels behind me. This is the second of three vessels to pull in here to this Turkish town, and unload passengers who have effectively really failed in their dream of traveling to Europe and establishing a new life there. What we understand is that there are around 200 people on board. Most of them Pakistani, some Afghans, two Syrians who decided to voluntarily return as well.

And as you say, this became necessary, this deal, this arrangement, because countries in Europe beyond Greece began shutting their borders. That created this backlog in Greece. Tens of thousands of people stranded in camps there. So the hope is that this deal would then enable some of them to begin coming back. But more than that, deter others from making the journey in the first place.

We're now moving into the warmer spring and summer months here. The expectation was that you would see once again a huge surge of refugees making the perilous journey across the sea behind us. So now we've seen this first shipment come back. It's going to become a regular sight here for the foreseeable future. What we're talking about will be huge loads like this and the future from this point is really uncertain. Syrians, it is said, will be allowed to stay here in Turkey because Turkey has opened its gates to around 2.7 million Syrians who fled the conflict just across the border in their country.

But as we're talking about here, this is also Pakistanis, Afghanis and people from North Africa as well. The expectation is their future is a little less certain because what they will have do once they get here is apply for some sort of temporary asylum or protection. There is no guarantee they'll get it. And so it's certainly possible that they will be deported from that point.

But a controversial deal to be sure. Critics say that it is Europe abdicating its moral responsibility to help these people. And more than that, they say that shipping them back to a country that may not be in the best position to deal with them, to help them, and give them the protection they need -- John.

BERMAN: It's hard to imagine, Phil, people who have gotten that far, people from Pakistan and Afghanistan, as you say, who got as far as Turkey, would all of a sudden give up once they were shipped back from Greece. Did they say, did any of them say what their intentions are?

BLACK: Well, I think for many of them they wanted to get beyond Greece. They wanted to get to Germany and other countries in northern Europe. But once that has been closed to them, it has become I guess increasingly clear that there were fewer options if they were to continue to proceed that way and settling in Greece was not necessarily their intention.

Also in the case of many of those people from those countries, they don't strictly fit the definition of refugees. They are not necessarily fleeing war and persecution in the same way that the Syrians are. So in the event that they were to apply here, the so- called economic migrants, if you like, they would have a tougher time of getting the sort of official protections in Europe. Now they have to see if they can get them in Turkey. But as I say, no guarantee there. The answer is it's entirely possible they could end up being sent back to their country of origin. Whatever country that is from which they left so long ago, beginning that journey to try and establishment a better life in Europe.

BERMAN: Phil Black for us in Turkey this morning. Thanks a lot, Phil.

ROMANS: All right. 58 minutes past the hour. Let's get an EARLY START on your money this morning. Stock futures are ticking higher. Seemingly unfazed by Donald Trump's claim that it's a terrible time to invest in stocks. That was in a "Washington Post" interview this weekend in which he also trashed the American economy.

Oil is down below $37 a barrel. Stock futures in Europe are up. Shares in Tokyo falling overnight. Stock markets in China closed for a holiday.

After those gains on Friday, the Dow is up more 2 percent this year. Nasdaq is just 1.85 percent lower. It was down almost 5 percent a week ago. The S&P 500 up about 1.4 percent this year. Of the 30 stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, 21 are higher now for the year. The biggest losers are mostly in financial stocks -- financial industry. American Express down 12 percent. Goldman Sachs down 11 percent. JPMorgan Chase off more than 9 percent.

Concerns about their exposure to the oil industry shaking the financial sector earlier this year. Investors are also concerned about how the banks will fair with interest rates expected to remain low for the foreseeable future. They will rise, though, eventually.

Alaska Airlines nearing a deal to buy Virgin America for $2 billion. That's according to reports overnight. JetBlue is also said to be bidding for the airline. All three companies declined to comment on the merger. It would mark another step in consolidation of the U.S. airline industry. Alaska Airlines is the eighth largest carrier in the U.S. by traffic. It's based in Seattle, flies to 90 destinations in the U.S.-Canada-Mexico. Virgin America is outside the top 10. It flies to 22 destinations.

Virgin America stocks has been on a tear over the past two weeks amid rumors of that sale. The company was started by billionaire Richard Branson in 2007 and went public in 2014.

[05:00:02] BERMAN: That chart, though, tells you something is happening.

ROMANS: Yes.

BERMAN: Or about to happen.

ROMANS: It tells you that someone is interested in that airline.

BERMAN: EARLY START continues right now.