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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Donald Trump Firing Up Supporters; Presidential Candidates Campaign for New York; Devastating Earthquakes in Ecuador and Japan; Cavs' Big Three Come Up Big Against the Pistons. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired April 18, 2016 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The lower house votes to impeach the president of that nation. We could see economic upheaval -- not just there, but spreading around the world as well.

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

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Christine Romans. It is Monday, April 18. It is 5:00 a.m. in the East. Nice to see you all this morning.

We are 24 hours away from the big dance in the Big Apple -- the New York presidential primary. Hometown billionaire Donald Trump hopes to crush opponents Ted Cruz and John Kasich here. And the polls do show him well ahead right now. Trump campaigns across the state today, which no doubt means new attacks against his own party. Trump is furious about his new losses over the weekend in the race for the delegates, getting swamped by Ted Cruz at the Wyoming state convention. Is the system, Trump says is rigged. More on that from CNN's Chris Frates.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, John and Christine. Donald Trump firing up his fellow New Yorkers ahead of the crucial primary here on Tuesday after what was not a great weekend for Donald Trump. He lost to Ted Cruz in Wyoming, losing all 14 of those delegates at a state convention there. Similar to what happened to him Colorado where he lost to Ted Cruz about a week or so ago at the state convention there. And Donald Trump saying these state conventions are rigged. Saying that they're not primaries or caucuses where the voters go to vote and calling the big bosses out.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You have a system that's rigged. We have a system that's crooked. We have a system that's got a lot of problems. And we have a system that doesn't allow the people to vote, in many cases, and if they do vote their vote isn't really representative of what it should be. We have this delegate system which is a sham. So in Colorado the people are going crazy out there because they never got a chance to vote.

FRATES: Now, the Republican National Committee firing back and saying that the candidates have known the rules for months. In fact, this is the same process that they used to nominate Abraham Lincoln back in 1860, so there really should be no surprises.

But, Ted Cruz using his victory in Wyoming to take a little poke at Donald Trump, tweeting on Sunday, "Donald, over 1.3mm people just voted in UT, ND, WI, CO & WY. You lost ALL FIVE in a row, by huge margins. #NoWhining."

So, Ted Cruz -- I think he had a little bit of a victory lap after his big win in Wyoming on Saturday, and he better enjoy it if he believes the polls because Donald Trump winning by double digits here in New York. A recent "Wall Street Journal" poll showing that he had 54 percent support. Ted Cruz, on the other hand, had just 16 percent, so it's a tough slog for him.

Donald Trump looking to take all 95 delegates here on Tuesday. If he can win by 50 percent statewide in each of the congressional districts, he could go a long way toward getting to that magic number of 1,237. Of course, Ted Cruz and John Kasich trying to stop him -- John, Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: All right, Chris Frates, thank you so much for that.

Joining us to discuss the last-minute scramble for votes in New York, CNN politics reporter Eugene Scott live in our Washington bureau. Eugene, thanks so much for being with us. Donald Trump now has been complaining about the process for a couple of weeks. And, yes, you think he would want some of those delegates he's been losing, but you get the sense now it's part of the bigger strategy. He's trying to drum up new votes by complaining about the delegate votes that he's losing. He was doing that that this weekend in Staten Island. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I hope it doesn't involve violence. I hope it doesn't, and I'm not suggesting that. I hope it doesn't involve violence and I don't think it will. But I will say this. It's a rigged system. It's a crooked system. It's a hundred percent crooked.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Trump suggesting he doesn't want violence at the convention in Cleveland if it doesn't work out his way, but, hey, you never know. He's predicting chaos here. Why?

EUGENE SCOTT, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Well, he's predicting chaos because he has a passionate support system and we have seen that people who are getting behind Donald Trump have an issue with the system, as well as issues with what is happening with the Ted Cruz campaign. So they will respond. How they will respond is not completely clear at this moment. But I think Donald Trump's being honest and saying they have responded in some ways that have included violence. I think he's doing the right thing in terms of trying to encourage people not to respond that way. But I think he's being aware of how some of his supporters could react to this situation. ROMANS: And I think, Eugene, you know, we've seen him almost on a

daily basis poke his own party. Poke it harder. He's getting more, I guess calling it crooked, calling it rigged. I mean, he's really going after his own party. Reince Priebus, who runs the Republican National Committee, he yesterday addressed this and said, look, he's exaggerating. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REINCE PRIEBUS, CHAIRMAN, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: I find it to be rhetoric and hyperbole. I think everybody understands these rules have been in place for years.

[05:05:00] But ultimately, about cleaning things up, it's up to the delegates. I mean, by majority, the delegates decide. They decide everything. So it's not a matter of party insiders; it's a matter of 2,400 plus grassroots activists. And whatever they want to do, they can do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: That's an interesting way to put it, you know, that it's the little guys in these precincts around the country who are really making these rules. It's not some big rigged game.

SCOTT: I definitely think it was a savvy move by the chairman. I think he recognizes that continuing to say, "No, that is not true, Mr. Trump," will not keep Donald Trump from saying the system is rigged. But it certainly does give him the opportunity to deflect power and say it's ultimately not us who will make the decision, but the delegates. If you have a concern, you should approach the delegates because ultimately they will have the last say, not us.

ROMANS: Is it really the same system that elected Abraham Lincoln?

BERMAN: No. Do you remember Abraham Lincoln like on the streets of New Hampshire campaigning in the, you know, the New Hampshire primary? Or Abraham Lincoln, the super PAC? No, that's just patently false that it's the same system. They had conventions then, but they didn't have a primary nominating system like they do now.

Eugene, I want to switch to the Democrats, if we can. Because, you know, Bernie Sanders went to the Vatican on Friday. He was off the trail for a day. Hillary Clinton went to California to fundraise with the Clooneys. And George Clooney was on the Sunday talk shows this week. He's a pretty famous guy in political circles. And he was talking about the influence of money, which he helped raise in big sums for Hillary Clinton, and he had some surprising words. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE CLOONEY, ACTOR, CLINTON SUPPORTER: It is an obscene amount of money. The Sanders campaign, when they talk about it, is absolutely right. It's ridiculous that we should have this kind of money in politics. I agree completely. The overwhelming amount of money that we are raising, and it is a lot, but the overwhelming amount of the money that we're raising is not going to Hillary to run for president. It's going to the down-ticket. It's going to the congressmen and senators to try to take back Congress.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: By the way, George Clooney comes from a Democratic family from Kentucky, has a long history in politics. But what he's saying there is that it's an obscene amount of money in the game that he helped raised with Hillary Clinton, which is exactly the argument that the Sanders team has been making against Hillary Clinton. Do these comments from the "ER" star hurt Hillary?

SCOTT: Well, I think you cannot deny the facts when you look at the prices for those tickets. What would you call it besides obscene? I don't think there is any value in dismissing these valid concerns that the Sanders campaign addresses in terms of the few powerful, the few wealthy having such significant influence.

I do think what may help Clinton in the long run is Clooney acknowledged that the money is not just for her, but for other people in the party. And one thing that the Clinton campaign has been very vocal about is that it's not been just about fundraising for them, but for the party as a whole. And so even while -- even though Mr. Clooney acknowledged that it's a lot of money, I think he helped her ultimately in saying it's a lot of money for everyone.

ROMANS: Well, it's an interesting point because, you know, you get elected by helping other people get elected, too, right? Who's Bernie Sanders going to help get elected down ticket? Really, Hillary Clinton is the one who -- her team at least would say -- has really been working that angle.

All right, Eugene, nice to see you this morning.

SCOTT: Thank you. You too.

ROMANS: Talk to you in a few minutes. Love it, you getting up early for us.

Bernie Sanders will talk to CNN live later this morning. That's at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time on "NEW DAY". Don't miss it.

Breaking news this morning, searching for survivors after those powerful earthquakes devastate Ecuador and Japan. We're going to take you there next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:12:49] ROMANS: Two countries 9,000 miles apart, they are struggling to cope with devastating earthquakes this morning. Right now, a state of emergency in Ecuador, where a 7.8 magnitude earthquake killed more than 272 people this weekend. Emergency officials admitting they cannot even calculate how many people at this hour are missing. BERMAN: In Japan, aftershocks are hampering the rescue efforts there.

That's after powerful earthquakes two days apart rocked the southern part of that country. Dozens are dead. Thousands without power this morning, as well as without food and shelter.

We are covering these stories in each nation. We want to start with Boris Sanchez, live in Ecuador. Boris, what are you seeing this morning?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John and Christine. We're seeing a lot of scenes like this behind me. I'm not sure if you can see the full extent of it, but this is a very large bridge, an overpass in the city of Guayaquil. It's a coastal city in Ecuador and the bridge essentially just collapsed. Came down on top of a car, killing one person inside and injuring another.

And this really speaks to the biggest problem in Ecuador right now, the infrastructure. For several weeks, Ecuador has dealt with torrential rains, due in part because of El Nino. That weakened roads. And this earthquake essentially just decimated the roads. So, as you mentioned, Christine, officials don't have an idea of how many people might be hurt because they can't get to a lot of rural areas in the parts of the country where the earthquake hit hardest.

So right now the death toll sits at 272 with 2,500 people hurt. Both those numbers of course expected to climb. There are about 10,000 soldiers on the ground now, along with 4,000 police officers, getting ready for another day of digging through the rubble. Here in the city of Guayaquil, again this is a coastal city, it is many miles away from the epicenter of the country -- or rather the epicenter of the earthquake. The epicenter is roughly 370 miles away from the capital, Quito. To give you an idea, the earthquake was felt in the capital. That's more than the distance of New York and Washington, D.C. So this was a massive earthquake, a 7.8.

But to give you an idea of just how big this was, it's not the deadliest earthquake Ecuador has ever head.

[05:15:03] In 1987, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake killed about 1,000 people. So right now the hope is, as we dig through this rubble and as first responders get a clearer picture of the scope of the damage, we won't reach those cataclysmic levels of 1987. The president of Ecuador actually flew in yesterday; he was at the Vatican and he cut that trip short, hoping to help his country. It is in dire need right now, John and Christine.

BERMAN: All right, Boris Sanchez in Guayaquil with that bridge just collapsed behind you, Boris. Thank you so much.

Want to turn now to Japan. Two deadly earthquakes have killed more than 40 people, well over 1,000 injured. CNN's Matt Rivers live in Kumamoto in Japan this morning. Good morning, Matt.

MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. And we want to show you some of the destruction that has happened as a result of those two earthquakes. This specific house to my left damaged primarily during the Saturday earthquake.

Take a look at this. It really is unbelievable when you see it. During the earthquake on Saturday, we're on a bit of a steep slope here on a mountain side. This house started, the foundation, a solid concrete foundation, started sliding down the hill. That collapsed the first floor of the house, so the second floor now basically sitting on the ground. And it created this trench here. It split this parking lot; the asphalt completely went in half. And in some parts of this trench, which you can't see, it's about two meters deep at some point. Truly remarkable. It honestly looks like something out of a movie set and is a testament, frankly, to how much strength these two earthquakes had.

BERMAN: All right, Matt Rivers for us in Japan. Our thanks to Boris Sanchez as well in Ecuador. So much damage there as both those countries struggle to recover.

ROMANS: You know, two earthquakes on opposite sides of the Pacific hours apart. Are they somehow related? Is it the start of a quake epidemic? It's a question being asked this morning.

We want to get to meteorologist Pedram Javaheri for the answer.

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: John and Christine, let's break this down because people wanting to know, of course, if this is indeed related. And the US geoscientists (ph) have said over and over again no direct relation to this. It's all random chance. I mean, you look at the number of major quakes we've had so far in 2016, that's 7.0 to 7.9, it's five. We had one in Alaska, one in Russia, Indonesia, and of course in the past several days, Japan and Ecuador joined the list. But statistically speaking, that is precisely how many we should have through the first four months of the year, with a 15 per year average being what is considered normal globally speaking.

But again these plates are constantly in motion. The Nazca Plate, the oceanic plate that is diving underneath the South American Plate, is moving at a rate and it's moving at a rate of about 2.5 or so inches per year. Which by the way is equivalent to the rate that your fingernail grows every single year, so it gives you an idea of how quickly these plates are constantly moving towards one another. And of course once they slip, you get the rebound effect. That's the shaking that you feel and that's what a 7.0 occurred over this region on Friday into Saturday caused across the area.

But when you talk about 7.8, the aftershocks, typically, you typically bring that one order of magnitude less. You would expect a 6.8 aftershock in the coming couple of days. That has yet to happen so of course a lot of people still all on alert across this region.

BERMAN: All right, Pedram, thanks so much. Those aftershocks are horrible in these nations after they have these type of earthquakes. They're just frightening for the people and they cause even more damage.

Dramatic events unfolding overnight in Brazil after five hours of scuffling, shouting, even singing. Lawmakers there voted to impeach the president Dilma Rousseff. A two-thirds majority in favor of impeachment was reached in the lower house last night. The motion now goes to the Senate. And if it is approved there, Rousseff will step down for six months to defend herself in a trial. She's accused of hiding a huge budget deficit to win reelection in 2014, but there are concerns of corruption that predate her, have to do with Lula, the man she followed into that presidency. That country right now in a state of political upheaval, not to mention economic upheaval.

ROMANS: And that's one of the big money stories today. A busy day in money news after a great week last week for stocks.

A lot going on this morning. Plunging oil prices are dragging stocks down around the world. Crude tanking more than 3 percent. OPEC members failed to reach a deal to freeze production. If they can finally freeze production, that could life oil prices. Dow futures are down. Stock markets in Europe are lower. Shares in Tokyo finished with deep losses following the earthquakes in Japan.

Now, we expect a rally though in Brazil. Its benchmark index set to jump after that impeachment vote against its president.

Back here in the U.S. it is April 18, it is Tax Day. You have until midnight to file, except if you live in Massachusetts or in Maine. Residents there get an extra day because of the Patriots Day holiday.

BERMAN: Thank you, Tom Brady.

ROMANS: They're special in Massachusetts. The IRS has already received about 70 percent of the tax returns it expects to be filed this morning -- of this year, rather. The average refund, there you go, $2,961. The normal time to process and issue a refund -- 21 days. If you need more time, you can still file an extension. But if you owe money, you'll have to pay that today.

How long have you been done with your taxes?

BERMAN: I did them this weekend. I did them this weekend. But I do them on a computer and I mostly finished like months ago, and then I wait until the very last minute to actually hit send.

[05:20:05] You asked. You get honest answers. Boring, but it's the honest answer.

ROMANS: (INAUDIBLE) A couple weeks. A couple weeks ago.

BERMAN: A rough day for Nascar's Sprint Cup driver Kyle Busch. Three crashes at the Bristol Motor Speedway, and the third collision with a fan. Andy Scholes with this morning's Bleacher Report. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: The Big Three for the Cavaliers living up to the nickname in the team's playoff opener.

ROMANS: Andy Scholes living up to his name in this morning's Bleacher Report. ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, guys. You

know, we saw a bunch of blowouts this weekend in the NBA. But the Pistons gave LeBron and the Cavs all they could handle in Game 1 of their series.

[05:25:00] Now LeBron looking to make it to his sixth straight NBA final this year. Cavs only up one in the fourth. LeBron finds Kevin Love in the corner for the three. Moments, Kyrie Irving, the fancy moves, takes it to the basket, lays it in. Now the Big Three combining for 81 points in game one. Cavs hold on to win 106-101.

Now, in the late game last night, the Clippers having no problem with the Blazers in Game 1 of their series. Check out Blake Griffin. Just rolling right over (INAUDIBLE) Lillard, throws it down over Mason Plumlee. L.A. would win this one 115-95.

And the action continues on TNT and NBA TV. Pacers and Raptors just getting started at 7:00 Eastern. Mavs and Thunder hit the court at 8:00. And the Rockets and the Warriors at 10:30. And the big question for that game is will Steph Curry play with his bum ankle? He's listed as questionable for tonight's game.

All right, Peyton Maning hanging out at Nascar -- at the Nascar race in Bristol yesterday. He was the guest of Dale Earnhardt, Jr., here, tries to throw a pass. Good thing he's retired. Now crazy moment later in the race. Kyle Busch driving his car back to the garage and he actually clipped a fan. She would reportedly be OK but did have to a local hospital to be checked out. Now Carl Edwards would go on to win the race, and of course does his trademark backflip after taking the checkered flag.

All right, before yesterday's Red Sox game, marathon bombing survivor Patrick Downes threw out the first pitch. Check this out. He's going to fire in a strike right into Big Papi. Downes lost his left leg in the bombing. He will one of the first people to run in the marathon after losing a limb at the event three years ago.

And I'll tell you what, guys, such an inspiration to see what the Boston bombing survivors are doing these days. And I'm looking forward to seeing him participate in the event today.

BERMAN: I was just up at the finish line a couple weeks ago. And people stop. It's every bit as poignant as it was three years ago. And it's great to see that race taking place today, one of the great sporting events in the world. Thanks so much, Andy.

SCHOLES: Absolutely. All right.

ROMANS: Today is the last day, the final day candidates have to sway New York voters in the race for president. An intense day of campaigning ahead. We'll take you there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)