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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Republican Party Civil War; Bernie Sanders Fights to Flip New Jersey; Alberta Wildfire Forces Evacuation of 90,000; Shaky Ceasefire in Syria. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired May 09, 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] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A civil war erupts within the Republican Party. Donald Trump hitting back at House Speaker Paul Ryan. Threatening to drop Ryan as chairman of the Republican convention if Ryan does not endorse Donald Trump.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Hillary Clinton doubling down. Accusing Trump of being a loose cannon while Sanders -- Bernie Sanders insists he's in the race until the last vote is cast.

BERMAN: 90,000 people evacuated. The wildfires bigger than New York City raging. Is help finally in sight?

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

ROMANS: Happy Monday. I don't know.

BERMAN: Yes.

ROMANS: I'm Christine Romans. It is Monday, it is May 9th. It is 4:00 a.m. in the East.

Another big week for Republicans begins this morning. A week marking six months to the presidential election. Goodie. On Tuesday, Donald Trump is expected to sweep both Republican primaries in Nebraska and West Virginia. But no competition does not mean no drama. Trump now saying he will not rule out an effort to dump House Speaker Paul Ryan as chairman of the Republican convention if Ryan fails to endorse him.

The two rivals for the leader of the party meet on Thursday. Likely to be on their agenda, Trump policies at odds with Republican dogma. Two things in particular have shifted just this weekend. Committing to raising taxes on the wealthy and a higher minimum wage.

More now from CNN Politics reporter Eric Bradner in Washington.

ERIC BRADNER, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Good morning, John and Christine. The GOP civil war is raging on ahead of a big meeting this week between the party's highest ranking official, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and his presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump.

Here is what Trump told ABC on Sunday about that meeting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He wants to meet. He'd like to meet and I think we are meeting on Thursday. And we'll just see what happens. It's just more drama. But I think it's a mistake not to do this. We want to bring the party together.

Does the party have to be together? Does it have to be unified? I'm very different than everybody else perhaps that's ever run for office. I actually don't think so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRADNER: But the meeting might not heal many wounds. Ryan wants Trump to adopt more conservative policy positions. But Trump broke from the right in two big ways on Sunday. He said he wants to support higher taxes on the wealthy in exchange for a deal that would see Democrats give him a cut in business taxes and a cut for the middle class. And he also said he's open to a minimum wage increase even though he wants that to come from the states.

Now all of this is happening against the backdrop of a big threat by a Trump supporter. The 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin. Palin told CNN that she is going to support Ryan's primary challenger.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH PALIN (R), FORMER VP CANDIDATE: I will do whatever I can for Paul Neelan. This man is a hard-working guy, so in touch with the people. Paul Ryan and his ilk, their problem is they have become so disconnected from the people whom they are elected to represent as evidenced by Paul Ryan's refusal to support the GOP frontrunner that we just said he's our man.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRADNER: It's the first threat of retaliation against the Trump opponent within the party that we have seen so far and it could deepen the divide -- Christine, John.

BERMAN: All right. Our thanks to Eric Bradner.

John McCain who of course picked Sarah Palin as his running mate echoed her claim that Ryan and other Republican leaders who are reluctant to back Trump are out of step with voters. McCain defended Trump as a strong and capable leader especially on foreign policy. And he offered the presumptive nominee advice on who to pick as a running mate, someone he says who could unite the party suggesting either Senator Joanie Earnest from Iowa, as tremendous and remarkable. But McCain also urged Trump to retract his slam against prisoners of war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (R) ARIZONA: What he said about me, John McCain, that's fine. I don't require any repair of that. But when he said I don't like people who are captured, then there's a great -- there's a body of American heroes that I would like to see him retract that statement. Not about me. But about the others.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Donald Trump will be on CNN live this morning. He joins "NEW DAY" during the 7:00 hour.

BERMAN: All right. Donald Trump is ramping up the rhetoric against both Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton, saying she is, quote, "married to a man who got impeached for lying." Trump accused Mrs. Clinton of being an enabler and added for good measure that she wants to abolish the Second Amendment. The Clinton campaign responded with a tweet that said, "It must be liberating to just have no regard for facts whatsoever."

And Clinton herself responded as well. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think saying that he's a loose cannon really focuses on some of the statements he's made, which I find concerning.

[04:05:06] Going back to torture, killing terrorists' families, which would be a war crime. And those are just some of the concerns that I hear people talking about, which I think does fit the definition of a loose cannon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Clinton said the FBI has not yet contacted her to set up an interview about her use of a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: It's a security inquiry. I always took classified material seriously. There was never any material, marked classified, that was sent or received by me. And I look forward to this being wrapped up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: In recent weeks, investigators have interviewed top Clinton aides including her longtime close adviser, Huma Abedin. Officials tell CNN so far investigators have found no evidence proving Clinton willfully broke the law.

BERMAN: All right. Happening this morning, Bernie Sanders holds a rally in New Jersey trying to capture a state where Hillary Clinton holds a pretty big lead in the polls. In Piscataway on Sunday, Sanders was defiant, showing no signs of giving up. He slammed both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

CNN's Rachel Crane was there. She has the latest.

RACHEL CRANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christine and John, Sanders was greeted by about 7,000 passionate supporters on Sunday in New Jersey. One particular point that got a lot of love from the crowd, when Sanders highlighted the fact that he performs better against presumed Republican nominee Trump than his opponent Clinton. Now he also highlighted the fact that he is well aware that this is an uphill battle. He even got specific. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have still won as of today over 45 percent of the pledged delegates. But as all of you who are good in arithmetic know 45 percent is not good enough. We've got to make 50 percent. And that is what we intend to do.

(CHEERS)

SANDERS: So from now until the last primary which will be in Washington, D.C. on June 14th, we are going to fight for every single vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CRANE: Now we had a chance to speak to some of his supporters and we pressed them that if in fact Hillary Clinton is the nominee, if they would back her. And we got a mixed response. Some of them said it would be incredibly difficult for them to back Clinton if she wins the nomination.

Now Sanders is back on the campaign trail today. He'll be in Atlantic City. This is of course all leading up to the New Jersey primary which is on June 7th. Same day as the California primary -- John and Christine.

ROMANS: All right. Rachel Crane, in New Jersey for us. Thanks, Rachel.

The cornerstone of Donald Trump's tax plan is lowering taxes on businesses. The U.S. has the highest corporate income rate among developed nations. 35 percent. But most of those companies don't pay that top rate. They use loopholes, they use deductions. France, Belgium and Australia also above 30 percent but the average worldwide is 22.9 percent.

Now as for individuals, Trump says rates for the wealthy will probably increase after he is done negotiating with Congress. Some of those top earners are backing Hillary Clinton. The securities and investment industries has donated $4.2 million to Hillary Clinton so far this election cycle. Solid chunk of that coming in March. Wall Street is the top donating industry to super PACs supporting Clinton with more than $19 million raised so far.

Clinton of course was a New York senator for eight years so this is a hometown industry for her. But it's pretty notable that this weekend another one of those cornerstones of a Donald Trump economic policy which is lowering taxes for everyone kind of faded away when he said, oh. I would negotiate and perhaps wealthy people would pay higher taxes.

BERMAN: He said by the end of the day their taxes are going to go up.

ROMANS: Pay higher taxes.

BERMAN: He all along has sort of said the very rich may pay more and more taxes but that was because of loopholes he would close.

ROMANS: Right.

BERMAN: Protection -- but it's a moving target to be sure.

ROMANS: It is a moving target.

BERMAN: This morning, hundreds of thousands of acres burned. Wildfire blazing over western Canada. Look at this. Just destroying everything in sight. Is there a turn in the weather, though, that could help turn things around there?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:13:17] BERMAN: Nearly 90,000 people in Alberta have been forced to flee their homes to escape a devastating wildfire burning an area half the size of Rhode Island. More than 1600 homes and buildings have already been destroyed. And as firefighters struggle to beat back the flames, officials are concerned about extremely dry conditions and unpredictable winds. They fear this could just be the beginning of a long, difficult summer.

Let's get more now from CNN's Paul Vercammen in Edmonton.

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John, Christine, I'm in front of the evacuation center where many of the fire refugees are either grabbing supplies or spending the night or both. They are all concerned about what has happened to their homes. Some know, some don't. One factor in all of this, the wind, you can hear it. Firefighters battling with it.

Now fortunately the wind blowing the fire away from Fort McMurray, that was the town ravaged by the blaze. Quite an ordeal for the families in Fort McMurray and imagine what all of this was like as it blew through there last week in the eyes of a small child.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: I saw the flames and they were very bad and like the fire, it was like very big. I saw the smoke downtown. And we thought my school was burned down, but it wasn't. It's like very bad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VERCAMMEN: And as we said, you could hear what firefighters are up against. It's that wind. Some 40 blazes in all burning in Alberta, Canada. We've got about 1500 firefighters on the line. Some of them becoming beleaguered, needing a break.

Help is coming from Quebec and from New Brunswick. There's already more firefighters here from parts of Ontario. All of them hoping that they get the relief in terms of more manpower and that this wind somehow dies down.

[04:15:06] Back to you now, Christine, John.

ROMANS: All right. Thanks for that, Paul Vercammen.

Just a wild weekend of weather, severe weather across the Midwest this weekend. Tornadoes in Colorado. Will all of this severe weather continue today? Meteorologist Pedram Javaheri joins us now with the latest.

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: John and Christine, good morning to you both.

(WEATHER REPORT)

BERMAN: Our thanks to Pedram. We forgot what sun looked like up here.

All right. The governor of North Carolina has until the end of today to respond to a letter from the Justice Department challenging the state's controversial new transgender law. Governor Pat McCrory says he will answer the letter before the deadline, but insists U.S. officials did not give him enough time to stop enforcing the law or to repeal the law altogether. At stake perhaps more than $800 million in federal education funding that could be pulled from North Carolina schools.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. PAT MCCRORY (R), NORTH CAROLINA: They gave the ninth largest state in the United States, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, three working days to respond to a pretty complex letter and to a pretty big threat.

Well, we don't think three working days is enough to respond to such a threat. We are really talking about a letter in which they are trying to define gender identity. And there is no clear identification or a definition of gender identity. It's the federal government being a bully.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: The Justice department has warned North Carolina that its new law which requires transgender people to use public bathrooms corresponding to the gender on their birth certificate. The federal government says that is a violation of the Civil Rights Act.

ROMANS: All right. 17 minutes past the hour. Ceasefire in Syria giving residents a much needed break after more than five years of war. We go live to Syria with what's they're saying on the ground. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:22:13] BERMAN: Stark contrast unfolding in Syria this morning where the recently brokered ceasefire between the U.S. and Russia is showing both some weaknesses and some strengths. More than 50 ISIS fighters were killed north of Aleppo over the weekend. Further south, Syrian government forces continue to tangle with rebel fighters recently joined by an al Qaeda splinter group. Meantime, residents in Palmyra said lull in the action brought the ceasefire -- by the ceasefire is literally coming to music to their ears.

CNN's senior international correspondent Frederik Pleitgen is live in Damascus with that part of the story.

Good morning, Fred.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, John. You're absolutely right. A very complicated situation in Syria right now. You know, I was on the streets of Damascus late last night and I've rarely seen so many people out and about. There's a local ceasefire in effect here in the Syrian capital. People say that it's the first time in almost five years that they've actually let their kids out of the house. So it seems as though things are on a positive note here. But of course the ceasefire in Damascus is very limited and will only go on for a couple of more hours unless it's extended.

Then you have the situation down there in Aleppo, where there is also nominally a ceasefire inside the city, but outside of the city, the fighting is raging like it has been over the past five years. It was a massive battle in the southwest of the city where Jabhat al-Nusra, the offshoot of al Qaeda here in Syria, set off a massive suicide bomb at a checkpoint. They then took over a village killing some 13 Iranian troops that were on the ground helping Bashar al-Assad's forces.

So the war still very much in full swing in the Aleppo area. And it's absolutely clear to the U.S., to the Russians as well, that if Aleppo goes back to full scale fighting, they believe that the Syrian civil war will go back to the levels of violence that we have seen in the past couple of days. So you're absolutely right. A complicated situation. A delicate situation. One where people here in Damascus are feeling some were spiked, but one where in other parts of the country the level of violence is almost the same way it has been over the past five years.

So certainly still very, very difficult for many people here in this country and many just simply want the fighting to end and for progress to happen -- John.

BERMAN: All right, Frederik Pleitgen for us in Damascus, inside Syria, doing some terrific reporting. Thanks so much, Fred.

ROMANS: All right. This morning North Korea expelling a BBC journalist and two members of his team. Pyongyang officials say they detained Rupert Wingfield-Hayes and his crew for their, quote, "disrespectful reports."

CNN has learned Wingfield-Hayes was interrogated for what North Korea deemed his inappropriate description of leader Kim Jong-un. Meantime North Korea's Workers Party Congress held for the first time in 36 years is slated to wrap up today. Over the weekend the leaders Kim Jong-un said their country would not use nuclear weapons unless it is attacked first.

[04:25:02] BERMAN: The entire world will get to see which politicians, business leaders and celebrities used secret overseas shell companies allegedly to avoid paying taxes when a Panama Papers database goes live online at 2:00 p.m. Eastern today. The searchable database is being released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. It reportedly exposes the connections between about 368,000 individuals and 300,000 offshore entities.

ROMANS: All right. The primary may be wrapping up, but the battle is just beginning. Six months to go. Donald Trump feuding with top Republican leaders. Threatening to pull Paul Ryan as chairman of the GOP convention if Ryan doesn't endorse him. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Infighting in the GOP. Republican Party leaders split over whether to support Donald Trump but Trump is declaring that he does not think unity is necessary to win.

BERMAN: You know, they're wearing the same ties. You'd think they'd get along.

Hillary Clinton hoping to gain some of those anti-Trump Republican votes in the general election. But Bernie Sanders not letting her get ahead of herself, pledging to stay in the race until the last vote is counted.