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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

The Race for President: Battle for New York; Houston Under Water: Deadly Flooding; Hundreds Injured in Kabul Suicide Attack; Will Supreme Court Back Obama's Immigration Plan?; Obama Visiting Saudi Arabia. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired April 19, 2016 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:13] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: The battle for New York is here, folks. The fight over delegates now critical as voters head to the polls today in the race for president.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: State of disaster. Deadly flooding in Texas. The damage done and where the rain strikes next.

ROMANS: Supreme Court justices appearing divided on President Obama's plan to shield millions of immigrants from deportation.

Good morning. Welcome to EARLY START. Nice to see you all. I'm Christine Romans.

BERMAN: I'm John Berman. It is Tuesday, April 19th. It's 4:00 a.m. in the East.

And no more waiting. The New York primary is now, or at least very, very soon. Polls open in just a big, and the frontrunners on both sides are hoping for wins they return them to those days long, long ago, like four weeks or so, when they had all the momentum.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton trying to fend off Bernie Sanders. Both candidates campaigned late into the night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We win when the turnover is high. We lose when the turnout is low.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So, please, come out and vote tomorrow. I will work hard for you. Thank you all very much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: What a competitive race it has turned to be here in New York.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny has more from Bernie Sanders' closing rally in Queens.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, Bernie Sanders wrapping up his final rally after two strong weeks of campaigning across the state. He has gone from borough to borough across the state of New York rallying supporters to his side, trying to make one last victory here in New York a chance for him to erase the big lead that Hillary Clinton has in delegates.

Now, this has been something of an extraordinary two weeks. Both candidates have strong ties to the city and to the state. Of course, Bernie Sanders born and raised in Brooklyn. He has literally attracted tens of thousands of people everywhere he goes. By our count, he has appeared before nearly 100,000 people over the past two weeks.

Now, Hillary Clinton has been campaigning as she is running for mayor here. She has been going store front to store front on the subway. Now, this election today is going to be a pivotal moment in the primary race. Hillary Clinton with the large lead, but Bernie Sanders believes this is a place where he could make up some delegates. If Bernie Sanders were to win here today in the New York primary, it would in fact upend this race.

Hillary Clinton still has a strong lead in delegates, but Sanders has momentum on his side. He won the last eight of nine. This New York primary could not be more critical in terms with the importance of this race going forward. Bernie Sanders has pledged to go to the convention in July. He almost certainly will. But a win here in New York would make that more possible. A Hillary Clinton win would begin to set in reality mathematically, at least, that she cannot be defeated, that she has too big of a lead here.

But all eyes will be on turnout across the boroughs of New York City, across the state as well. Vermont, of course, where Sanders has lived for years is close to Upstate New York. So, the New York primary is important on the long road to the White House -- John and Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: All right. Our thanks to Jeff Zeleny for that.

I'm having a hard time placing that background music. If you know it, please tweet us, but it's going to will dominate our thoughts.

ROMANS: I was thinking the same thing. What is that song? Try to place it.

We have to text Jeff Zeleny.

All right. Let's bring in CNN politics reporter Tom LoBianco, to break down the New York primary.

In just a matter of hours, Tom, New Yorkers are going to head to the polls in a tight contest. You have to be already be a registered voter to go in New York, right? So, this means that the last minute, last second, or maybe inspired by the last couple of days voters are not going to be there. These are people who have a history with their party in many cases.

So, let's talk about Donald Trump. Talk -- how he's going to do -- let's to what he said last night actually at a rally here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Tomorrow, we're going to show Ted Cruz who hates New York -- hates New York. When you look at that debate and see the way he talked about us and New York values, here's a man that turned down Sandy money for the state. No New Yorker can vote for Ted Cruz.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Will Trump stop some of that delegate advantage that delegate -- he's been adding on that delegates, Ted Cruz has, over the past few weeks. Is Donald Trump going to be able to change that narrative today?

TOM LOBIANCO, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: First, I want to hop back to the first question. That was Muse playing in the background.

(LAUGHTER)

ROMANS: Thank you, Tom LoBianco.

LOBIANCO: Always here to help with the political insights, right?

(LAUGHTER)

ROMANS: The important information around the campaign.

LOBIANCO: Yes, you know, what is important here for Trump tonight and for Cruz is that 50 percent mark. You know, Trump has been incredibly strong in New York.

[04:05:03] The New York Republicans, closed primary. So, this is true New York Republicans have been above 50 percent for Trump. So, if you are Cruz and if you're Kasich, you really got -- your benchmark is knocking him out, anti-Trump 50 percent. If you can keep him to 49 percent and you keep him from taking all of those delegates, you count that as a win.

I don't think anyone is expecting Cruz or Kasich to win New York tonight. The benchmark is a little bit lower. But, boy, Trump, it's his town.

BERMAN: Kellyanne Conway who runs Ted Cruz super PAC told me that Ted Cruz will get more than zero delegates in New York. So, setting the bar high for Ted Cruz. But, look, it is a delegate battle right now.

There was some big news overnight within the Trump campaign itself, word of a shakeup. Look, we have known for a few weeks that Paul Manafort was brought in to run the convention strategy and also really the next couple of months. But now, the first tangible signs of it, the guy who had been running their field operation up and quit, Tom. What's going on there?

LOBIANCO: Well, you have a major shift in the campaign right now. A lot of this has to do with loyalist Corey Lewandowski. Jeremy Diamond is with us was out there and heard about this last night and sent around some information. The field director is really one of Corey Lewandowski's people.

What's happening is, I don't know if you want to call them consultants or political professionals, insiders or whoever. But you have this major shift atop the campaign. You had Paul Manafort come in with the focus on delegate strategy. They know they have to win there, because that's how the nomination is made. That's how you become the Republican nominee.

And then you brought on Rick Wiley, the former campaign manager for Scott Walker. Obviously, this is a big shift away from the Trump -- people who put Trump here versus the people who could put Trump in the White House.

ROMANS: But is that ultimately not very surprising really? I mean, because now, you are talking about a different strategy, before it was harnessing his brand and energy with the popular vote. Now it is about hunting for delegates.

LOBIANCO: Absolutely. He can't just fly in and do a rally outside a state party meeting in Florida, for instance, you know? That doesn't work on those guys. It's works to rally on massive level. That's worked so far.

But you need people who understand the game who have relationships, who have some respect inside the party. At the end of the day, this is the Republican Party's nominating process. So, he's got to win there.

BERMAN: What it does mean, though, is it wins that Corey's people are leaving and Paul Manafort's people are coming in here. I mean, you are seeing a campaign change among his personnel and I think it is interesting to see that.

ROMANS: Meantime, Ted Cruz is focusing on Maryland. He was in Maryland yesterday at a rally. I mean, if he's going to get, maybe, somewhere north of zero delegates in New York, he's focusing. Let's listen to something he said yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Maryland votes over a week from now. Maryland is a battleground. Maryland is going to have an outsized voice as the nation is looking to Maryland to decide, do we nominate Donald Trump and hand the election to Hillary Clinton or do we unite behind the Cruz campaign and beat Hillary Clinton.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: That Maryland primary is next Tuesday with a whole bunch of other states. So, you've got another sort of Super Tuesday strategy coming up for him. Is that the right strategy for him? Can he make that pay dividends?

LOBIANCO: You know, I grew up in Towson. I don't think I ever heard any presidential candidate refer to Maryland as a battleground.

But it matters. I mean, this is how remarkable this phrase is. Those of us who are political junkies have never seen this before, at least not in the last four years. This is remarkable. You have to win.

There is a big Tuesday coming up. New York is huge, OK? But you also got -- after that, we've got Maryland, we got Pennsylvania, I think New Jersey's on the 26th, too. I might be wrong about that.

BERMAN: June 7th for New Jersey.

LOBIANCO: OK. Rhode Island and Delaware, you got this mid-Atlantic grouping coming up. There are tons of delegates at play.

You know, it's not over. I mean, in all reality, this looks like on the Republican side and Democratic side, they're going to be fighting to the conventions. This is remarkable to have.

BERMAN: The political reporter full employment act, if you will. Tom LoBianco, we thank you and we thank Muse for writing the song "Uprising" as a background at the beginning of our show.

ROMANS: Yes.

BERMAN: Thank you all so much for that.

Nine minutes after the hour right now.

At least five people have been killed in record-breaking floods that hit the city of Houston. All of the reported deaths occurred in vehicles that drove into the high waters.

[04:10:02] Actually, the drivers drove them into high waters.

Officials say at least 10,000 homes were flooded in Harris County alone. Crews performed 1,200 high water rescues. You can see this man frantically trying to swim to a rescue boat. That's how bad it got there. Crews even had to save horses that were stuck in the rising waters. Wow.

Officials say this is the worst flooding since Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 killed 41 and caused $5 billion in property damage.

ROMANS: So, is the worst over for Houston? What is to come today? Let's bring in meteorologist Pedram Javaheri for the very latest.

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: John and Christine, I think the worst is over for a lot of the areas, unfortunately, there is plenty of rainfall in the forecast. I'll show you how this transpired.

What we call the omega block developed. A pattern that resembles the Greek letter with the system over the center of the country. This pattern tapped into tremendous moisture off the Gulf. This storm will begin to move. Unfortunately, not fast enough to remove the moisture entirely out of your forecast.

If you take a look at what transpired on Monday afternoon across portions of Texas and really early morning hours as well. Up to 17 inches just west of Houston coming down in a matter of a few hours. That alone in the town of Hockley, a western suburb of Houston, would be greater than what Salt City sees in an entire year on average, incredible amount of rainfall when you think about that.

And, of course, the thunderstorms are forecast to regenerate right around Houston by this afternoon. Forecast total take you up to 2 to 4 inches which you see with the yellow and oranges and potentially up to 6 inches in the next 2 to 3 days.

Cincinnati about 81 degrees. Nashville, 82. Chicago in the low 60s. In New York, we'll shoot for around 70 by this afternoon -- guys.

BERMAN: All right, Pedram.

Breaking news out of Afghanistan. The Taliban is claiming responsibility for a blast that rocked central Kabul during the morning rush. We're told right now that a number of people were killed, also getting reports that more than 200 people were injured. Afghan officials say a suicide car bomber targeted the country's government security office.

Several witnesses reported hearing gunfire after the explosion. The blast was heard near the U.S. embassy. The compound was not affected there.

But this obviously a very large explosion, more than 200 people injured. No word of the exact number of deaths. Now, you can imagine, if more than 200 people are injured, there will be some kind of toll in the terms of those killed.

Again, the Taliban claiming responsibility. At one point, word of gunmen still on the loose. A very chaotic situation in Kabul. We'll get more information as it comes in.

ROMANS: All right. Twelve minutes past the hour. Time for an early start on your money.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average broke through an important milestone yesterday, crossing 18,000 for the first time since last July. Get this, at the low point hit in February, remember those dark days in February, Dow down 15,000. That means this bounce is an incredible run of more than 16 percent. If you bought stocks in February, you are now up 16 percent.

Three factors pushing stocks higher. The rebound in crude oil prices, subsiding fears of the U.S. recession and no interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve at least until this summer. The next number is 18,351 is the all-time high for the Dow. That's right, 18,351, that was hit last May.

What is also encouraging is stocks and oil seem to be drifting apart, decoupling if you will. Crude prices fell yesterday, but the stock market pushed higher. Futures are flat this morning. Oil is up slightly.

BERMAN: Like the Gwyneth Paltrow effect in oil, the stock market, the conscious uncoupling of all prices --

ROMANS: Crude oil and stocks, an analogy I never heard. But yes, conscious uncoupling --

BERMAN: The uncoupling is upon us.

All right. President Obama's plan to shield millions of immigrants from being deported. That plan could be in jeopardy, as justices in the Supreme Court, they're voicing their concerns. We'll tell you about it, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:18:12] ROMANS: Supreme Court must now decide whether President Obama's executive actions on immigration are constitutional. The eight justices heard arguments in that landmark case yesterday. Twenty-six states challenging the president's authority to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation.

We get more this morning from CNN justice correspondent Pamela Brown.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, John and Christine.

This is a case that could have broad implications for the relationship between the president and Congress. It could impact millions of people in the United States. And you could feel how high the stakes were inside that courtroom during the 90 minutes of oral arguments.

The justices seemed divided along ideological lines on the issue of immigration and this question of whether the president has the authority to shield 4.3 million undocumented immigrants from deportation and give them work benefits that come with Social Security and Medicare benefits.

And the conservative justices seemed to side with the states, bringing this lawsuit, that this is executive overreach. In fact, at one point, Justice Kennedy said it seems that the president is coming up with the policy and Congress is executing it. That's just upside down.

The conservative justices also seem concerned with the language in the memorandum, saying that this would give these undocumented immigrants lawful presence, they say. How can that be if they're in the United States in violation of the law?

Now, on the other hand, the administration says that simply this program would give them a tolerated presence in the United States and the liberal justices seemed to side with the administration on this notion that there are 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. and the president is giving discretion under the Constitution to manage immigration issues.

So, if there is a 4-4 split, that is bad news for the Obama administration, because the lower courts ruling would stand and the programs would continue to be blocked.

[04:20:07] Another issue could be standing if the justices find that Texas and these other states didn't have standing to bring this lawsuit. That would mean the programs would go into effect. Texas contends that it has to spend millions of dollars subsidizing these driver's licenses. But this is no doubt one of the most highly anticipated cases of the term and we expect to find out what the opinion is later term in June or July -- John and Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

BERMAN: All right. Just in a few hours, President Obama heads to Saudi Arabia. Tension rising over how to battle ISIS and a controversial bill over September 11th that's being discussed in Congress right now. We'll have details next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:25:16] ROMANS: President Obama heads to Saudi Arabia today with relations between those two countries strained at best. The Saudi regime is coping with plunging oil prices, that means devastating decline in oil prices for its coffers, civil war raging along three of its borders. And now, a bill before Congress that would allow victims of the 9/11 attacks to sue the Saudis. That's becoming a real sticking point between these long-term, long time allies.

I want to go live to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and bring in CNN's Nic Robertson.

Nic, you have said the president wants to get there and not oversee a divorce, but a de-escalation in the estrangement between these two.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, this -- the 9/11 commission issue, the 28 pages, Saudi's response to that, saying that they are willing to pull out $750 billion worth of investments in the United States. It's really the tip of an iceberg, something that's been growing for a long time. Go back to 2002, President Obama's speech in Chicago before he became president, talking about Saudi Arabia as a so-called ally.

You know, when he came into office, there were great expectations in the region here. But then, after the Arab spring, from the Saudi point of view, the United States and President Obama in particularly ditched his allies in the region, didn't support them, did not stand up and support them enough like the Egyptian president, the Tunisian president all forced from office. That was bad.

Things got much worse with the Iranian nuclear deal. Saudi Arabia just sees Iran as a huge issue and a huge enemy in the region. So, tensions are really bad. So, on the one hand, we have President Obama laying out why it would

be bad from a United States perspective to open up this 9/11, the 28 pages issue, while he lays that out, the Saudis have their own point of view.

But this is what President Obama said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If we open up the possibility that individuals in the United States can routinely start suing other governments, then we are also opening up the United States to being continually sued by individuals in other countries.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: So, with all these other issues in the background, it's a sensitive and difficult issue for President Obama arriving here at this time, when he wants to achieve different things here. He wants stability in the region.

The Saudis for all the estrangement wants to buy weapons to improve their own stability and security in the region. They are the world's third largest spender on defense and security now. They've overtaken Russia. They're now behind the United States and China.

So, all of this is a difficult balance. So, what we're hearing from President Obama in advance of arriving here, trying to sort of tamp down that pressure and tension on him, but he's walking into a hotbed of issues here right now, Christine.

ROMANS: He certainly is. You know, where I am here, a lot of focus on those 28 pages. Remind our viewers what the relationship and role of Saudi Arabia and the 9/11 attacks revealed.

ROBERTSON: Yes, we don't know precisely what is laid out within those 28 pages. The question remains, is there a smoking gun in those 28 pages of the 9/11 commission that say that the Saudi Arabia government somehow had a hand or knowledge in helping the 15 of those 19 hijackers to perpetrate their terrible acts on 9/11? That's the question. We don't know the answer.

Of course, Saudi officials are very, very sensitive to that. But there are certainly some evidence, if you will, in there that really raises that as a possible question.

ROMANS: What are the roles of rich people there, of charities, of maybe not the government, maybe not coordinated, but other kind of support. That's what the question is.

All right. Nic Robertson, thanks so much for that, from Riyadh for us this morning.

BERMAN: All right. Just a few hours from now, voters make their choice in the race for president here in New York. This is a critical primary election. Both frontrunners want big days. Will they get them? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)