Return to Transcripts main page
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; Drug Lord El Chapo Transferred to Juarez Prison; Shaky Ceasefire in Syria. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired May 09, 2016 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:01] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: 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.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Huge wildfires consuming hundreds of thousands of acres of land. 90,000 people evacuated. Firefighters hoping for a change in the weather to help combat these flames.
Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.
BERMAN: I'm John Berman. Nice to see you. 30 minutes past the hour right now.
Kicking off a big unexpected week for Republicans this morning. Six months to go until election day. Mark your calendar for that November day.
Tomorrow when no one else in the race it is all but certain that Donald Trump will sweep primaries in Nebraska and West Virginia. But no competition does not mean no drama. Trump now says 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 rival leaders of the party, they meet on Thursday. No doubt on their agenda, Trump policies that Ryan says are at odds with Republican dogma like two things he seemed to shift on this weekend. The issue of raising taxes on the wealthy and perhaps a higher minimum wage.
Let's get the latest 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 its 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.
ROMANS: All right, Eric, thank you for that.
John McCain who picked Sarah Palin as his running mate echoed her claim that Ryan and other top Republican leaders reluctant to back Trump are out of step with voters. The former Republican presidential nominee defended Trump as a strong and capable leader especially on foreign policy. And McCain offered the presumptive nominee advice on who to pick as a running mate, someone who could unite the party suggesting Senator Joanie Earnest who's 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)
BERMAN: Donald Trump will be on CNN live this morning. He joins "NEW DAY" during the 7:00 hour.
ROMANS: All right. Donald Trump is ramping up the rhetoric against Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton, saying she is, quote, "married to a man who got impeached for lying." Trump accused Mrs. Clinton of being a, quote, "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. 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)
BERMAN: The FBI -- sorry. Hillary Clinton says the FBI has not yet contacted her to set up an interview about her use of a private e-mail serve while she was secretary of state.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[04:35:07] 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)
BERMAN: In recent weeks, investigators have interviewed top Clinton aides including her longtime close adviser, Huma Abedin. Officials tell CNN that so far investigators have found no evidence proving Clinton willfully broke the law.
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: Rachel Crane. Thank you, Rachel.
New this morning, Uber and Lift slamming the brakes on rides in Austin, Texas. And the move could spread to other cities. Residents voted 56 percent to 44 percent against an ordinance called Proposition 1. So now to keep operating Uber and Lift would have to use fingerprinting and other background checks to hire new drivers. Now the companies argue fingerprinting relies on out-of-date databases, makes it difficult to hire enough drivers quickly, and says that's why they'll stop rides in Austin.
Advocates say fingerprinting is more effective at screening out potential criminals. Uber stopped serving the Houston area after the city cancelled their passage of similar measure last month. And Uber recently paid out $25 million to the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles for misrepresenting its background check system.
BERMAN: All right. Wildfires bigger than New York City. Just hammering parts of western Canada. The fight to contain these flames, that's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:42:28] ROMANS: Nearly 90,000 people in Alberta have been forced to flee their homes escaping this devastating wildfire burning an area half the size of Rhode Island. More than 1600 homes and buildings already torched. And as firefighters struggle to beat back these flames, officials are concerned about extremely dry conditions and unpredictable winds. They fear this could just be the beginning of a long, hot summer.
We get more 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.
Back to you now, Christine, John.
ROMANS: It's remarkable.
BERMAN: It is devastating there and they could be in for a lot more as the summer increases. It's so early still.
All right. Here in the United States, severe weather all across the plains this weekend. Multiple reports of tornadoes touching down in Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. Along with hail. Very big hail in some parts of the country. Here's some stunning footage.
ROMANS: Whoa.
BERMAN: From Colorado. Look at that. Is that real?
ROMANS: Looks like a classic EF-2 to me.
BERMAN: It is in fact a classic EF-2 twister. I almost can't believe that's real. It looks like a CGI.
ROMANS: It's real. Really --
BERMAN: Can you imagine seeing that? That is just terrifying. Oh my.
All right. So will this severe weather continue today? Meteorologist Pedram Javaheri has the latest.
[04:45:03] PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: John and Christine, good morning, guys.
(WEATHER REPORT)
ROMANS: All right, Pedram. Thank you for that.
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 he complains U.S. officials did not give him enough time to stop enforcing the law or to repeal it altogether. At stake 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)
ROMANS: The Justice Department has warned North Carolina its new law -- a law which requires transgender people to use public bathrooms corresponding to the sex on their birth certificate. The Justice Department says that's a violation of the Civil Rights Act.
BERMAN: Ferguson, Missouri, swears in its new police chief today. Major Delrish Moss, the longtime spokesman for the Miami Police Department, is taking over nearly two years after the shooting death of Michael Brown. Moss says the Ferguson Police Force needs diversification. And his first order of business would be to increase interaction between officers and young people.
ROMANS: All right. The jailed drug kingpin El Chapo is closer than ever to the U.S. border this morning. He was transferred from his maximum security prison over the weekend. El Chapo's attorney has claimed their client wants to be extradited to America as soon as possible because prison conditions in Mexico are making him ill.
Our CNN's Boris Sanchez reports he could get his wish very soon. BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, one of the most
notorious criminals in the world on the move this weekend. Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman now closer and closer to U.S. soil. Mexican authorities confirming that El Chapo was transferred from a central Mexican prison to a maximum security lockup in Ciudad Juarez. That's just a few miles away from the United States.
The exact reason for the transfer is still unclear. But officials on both sides of the border tell us that they have been preparing for months for the extradition of El Chapo to the United States. The drug kingpin had been held at the Altiplano prison, the same one that he fled last July in that brazen escape through a series of tunnels that garnered international attention and sparked a huge manhunt. He was finally captured of course in January. Returning to the prison after his recapture.
The transfer to Juarez interestingly comes just one month after attorneys for El Chapo said that they were eager and looking forward for him to be extradited to the United States. Now attorneys walked that back in an interview with CNN last month actually saying that the whole thing was a ploy to get try to get El Chapo transferred because the conditions in the prison that he was being kept were unbearable. Making him ill.
El Chapo, once he is extradited to the United States will go to court in Brooklyn, New York. He's said to face charges for murder, kidnapping and torture as well as importing more than a quarter million pounds of cocaine into the United States -- John and Christine.
ROMANS: A quarter million pounds.
BERMAN: It's a lot.
ROMANS: Wow.
BERMAN: All right. New Jersey sold the only winning ticket for Sunday's $429.6 million Powerball jackpot.
ROMANS: Wow.
BERMAN: The winner has not come forward. Whoever it is will take home the third most valuable lottery ticket ever sold in the United States of America. Your winning numbers, if you happen to be the one who bought that ticket at this Trend 7-11 are 5, 25, 26, 44, and 66. The Powerball number 9. Those seem like such obvious numbers.
[04:50:04] ROMANS: I know. I know. But I guess only one person got it.
BERMAN: I guess .
ROMANS: A better investment than a lottery ticket? The stock market. The first week of May wasn't much to write home about. Could a rebound be in store this week? We'll get an EARLY START on your money next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: 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 are tangling with rebel fighters recently joined by an al Qaeda splinter group. Meanwhile, Syrians say the lull in the action brought by the ceasefire is literally coming as music to their ears.
CNN's senior international correspondent Frederik Pleitgen is live for us. He is there in Damascus, in the Syrian capital and he is going to bring us up to speed on this part of the story.
What are you seeing, Fred?
[04:55:04] FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you're absolutely right, Christine.
ROMANS: All right. We have lost our signal from Fred Pleitgen. Sometimes it's difficult to get those live shots from there. We'll continue to monitor the situation and go back to Fred if he can get him live.
BERMAN: Fred was telling us a short time ago in Damascus the ceasefire has brought out things he hasn't seen there in years. Families letting kids play in the streets for the first time in years.
ROMANS: Yes. Five years of civil war. It's just been devastating.
BERMAN: Yes. People in the capital itself at least very helpful. We'll see if it lasts.
This morning, North Korea is 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 that Wingfield-Hayes was interrogated for what North Korea deemed his inappropriate description of leader Kim Jong-un.
North Korea's Workers Party Congress held for the first time in 36 years is slated to wrap up today. Over the weekend Kim Jong-un said his country would not use nuclear weapons unless it is attacked first.
ROMANS: ISIS is claiming responsibility for the murder of Egyptian police officers over the weekend. Four gunmen killed eight plainclothes officers who were conducting security sweeps in the Helwan District south of the capital.
Egyptian Security Forces have set up checkpoints all over the district, launching an exhaustive search this morning for those escaped suspects.
BERMAN: The entire world will get to see which politicians, business leaders and celebrities allegedly used secret overseas shell companies 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 connections between 368,000 individuals and 300,000 offshore entities.
Millions in the Philippines casting their votes today at a huge election for various local and regional national posts including a new president. The leading presidential candidate is Rodrigo Duterte. He's the mayor of a southern Philippine city. He is known for making pretty controversial inflammatory comments about rape and his sexual conquests. He's also vowed to execute 100,000 criminals and dump them in Manila Bay if elected.
ROMANS: All right. 57 minutes past the hour. Let's get an EARLY START on your money.
Dow futures are higher. Stocks markets in Europe and Asia higher. Oil back above $45 a barrel.
This guy was the most powerful man in the global oil industry for the past two decades and now he's out of a job. Saudi Arabia removed its oil minister this weekend. He's been replaced by the current chairman of the official state-run oil company. Analysts do not think the change will significantly alter the country's oil strategy. But the replacement shows Saudi Arabia is shifting course after that crash in oil prices.
It is pushing toward a more diverse economy, less focused on oil. Saudi Arabia and other top oil producing nations, they have been struggling with whether to cut oil production while keeping a tight grip on market share.
"Captain America: Civil War" cashing in big at the box office this weekend. The latest installment in Disney's red hot Marvel franchise raking in more than $181 million in North America.
BERMAN: It seems like a lot.
ROMANS: It's a lot. It's the fifth best opening weekend ever. That puts Disney over the $1 billion mark domestically for the year.
BERMAN: That seems like a lot.
ROMANS: It's a lot. Internationally "Civil War" has already taken in $678 million. Also a lot, Berman. Including $100 million in China alone.
It's interesting. The construct is interesting, too, because they are fighting each other. They're not fighting, like, aliens and bad guys. They're fighting each other. I haven't seen it.
BERMAN: They need to get along. I think they need to iron out their differences so they can take on the bad guys.
ROMANS: Are you Team Cap or are you Iron Man? BERMAN: I don't like either. I'm more of a -- I like the X-Men. I
like the mutants. I think Captain America and Iron Man are kind of tacky.
ROMANS: Well --
BERMAN: I don't like their outfits.
ROMANS: $678 million disagrees with you.
BERMAN: I understand it's a lot of money.
All right. EARLY START continues right now.
ROMANS: A civil war raging within the Republican Party. Donald Trump hitting back at House Speaker Paul Ryan, threatening to drop Ryan as chairman of the upcoming convention if he doesn't endorse Trump.
BERMAN: Hillary Clinton accusing Donald Trump of being a loose cannon while Bernie Sanders insists he's still in the race. Look at me. I'm still here. I'm not going anywhere.
ROMANS: 90,000 people evacuated, wildfires bigger than New York City raging. Could help be in sight?
Good morning. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.
BERMAN: I'm John Berman. It is Monday, May 9th. It is 5:00 a.m. in the East.
Big unexpected week for the Republicans this morning. Six months to go until the big election day in November. Mark your calendars. Tomorrow, when no one else in the race, it's almost certain that Donald Trump will sweep primaries in Nebraska and West Virginia. But no competition does not mean no drama. Trump now says 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.
These guys are really fighting now for the soul of the Republican Party. These two leaders in the party meet Thursday. Probably one of the things they'll talk about Trump policies that seem to be at odds with Republican dogma. There's the issue of taxes, raising taxes on the wealthy.
