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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Sanders Beats Clinton In WV; Biden "Confident" Clinton Will Win White House; Rubio Not Interested In Running For VP; Authorities Execute Search Warrant At Prince's Estate; Facebook Denies Anti- Conservative Bias; ESPN Dragging Down Disney. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired May 11, 2016 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:30:00] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: A big win for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders overnight, Trump cruising toward the official GOP nomination as Sanders complicates Hillary Clinton's pivot to a general election. We're breaking down the overnight election news that only the way CNN can.
Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm John Berman. It's 30 minutes past the hour right now. This morning Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, they're waking up with big Virginia (sic) wins. Trump is the only guy still running for the Republican nomination right now.
He easily won West Virginia, also Nebraska. He adds at least 39 delegates to his total. It's going to end up being more than that once West Virginia's convoluted process works itself out. He needs, of course, 1,237 to clinch the Republican nomination. He is getting ever closer there by the day.
On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders -- he won big in West Virginia, the only state voting on the Democratic side. That was just fine by Bernie Sanders. He crushed Hillary Clinton there. You can see a 15- point win, but even with that 15-point win he really barely chips away at Hillary Clinton's delegate lead.
If you include superdelegates -- superdelegates get to vote in the convention -- she is about 148 short right now of securing the majority for the nomination. Even so, Bernie Sanders told supporters last night he can still win.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: With our victory tonight in West Virginia we have now won primaries and caucuses in 19 states. And let me be clear as I can be. We are in this campaign to win the Democratic nomination.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: All right, this morning Donald Trump is looking to unite the Republican Party and he says he wants to put states in play in November that have gone to the Democrats in recent elections. CNN politics reporter Sara Murray has the latest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Good morning, John and Christine. Donald Trump picked up two more victories last night, winning in West Virginia and Nebraska. Now, we shouldn't be totally stunned by this since all the rest of the Republicans have now dropped out of the race, but it still brings Trump even closer to officially becoming the Republican nominee.
Now, of course, part of doing this means rallying the Republican Party behind him. Trump has had some hiccups along those lines. House Speaker Paul Ryan said he wasn't quite ready to endorse Trump. The two are going to be meeting later in the week in Washington to try to hash out those differences.
And Trump was talking last night in some interviews and he was sounding a much more optimistic tone. His aides believe that they can reach some agreement, some common ground, on issues like cutting taxes for the middle-class, on issues like debt reduction.
And Trump even said he wants to see Paul Ryan stay on as co-chairman of the Republican convention coming up this summer in Cleveland. So, this could be a sign that they're ready to sweep their differences under the rug or there could be more fireworks ahead. Back to you guys.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: All right, Sara, thank you. Bernie Sanders scored a huge win in West Virginia but it really barely budges the needle in the delegate race where Hillary Clinton has a big, big lead without many states left. Still, Sanders is vowing not to quit. He not only continued to challenge Clinton at a victory rally late last night, he also went hard at Donald Trump.
CNN's Brianna Keilar was there. She has the latest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, on the evening of the West Virginia primary that Bernie Sanders won, talking to this crowd here in Oregon he sounded like a candidate who's really pushing through this primary season to win.
He took on Hillary Clinton on a number of issues. On the environment, on trade, on campaign finance including a donation that her Democratic fund received from Alice Walton of the Walmart Walton family. But he also garnered a lot of energy and excitement from his supporters here when he took on Donald Trump.
SANDERS: Donald Trump is not going to become president for a number of reasons, and the major reason is that the American people understand that we cannot have a president who has insulted Latinos and Mexicans, who has insulted Muslims. Who every day is insulting women in one way or another. Who has insulted veterans like John McCain and others. Who has insulted African-Americans in a very profound way.
[05:35:00] KEILAR: Bernie Sanders explaining to his supporters that he has received 45 percent of the pledged delegates. That goes to show you the math and why it is so difficult for him because moving forward, in order to tie Hillary Clinton in just the pledged delegates, he would need to seize 66 percent of the pledged delegates in all the primary contests ahead. That is a huge undertaking, nearly impossible, John and Christine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BERMAN: All right, Brianna Keilar for us. Let us discuss what happened last night. CNN political analyst, columnist for "Bloomberg View", Josh Rogin is with us. And CNN White House producer Kristen Holmes is with us as well.
ROMANS: Hi, guys.
BERMAN: You know, Josh, it's interesting. Bernie Sanders won big in West Virginia. He may win big in the states that vote next week, as well -- Kentucky, Oregon -- and some of the states even that vote on June 7th.
But again, you know, we keep talking about how the math is on Hillary Clinton's side and you heard some of that in an unusual -- I was surprised by it -- statement from the vice president of the United States who's been careful about how he weigh in on this presidential race. Listen to what Joe Biden told "ABC NEWS".
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I feel confident that Hillary will be the nominee and I feel confident she'll be the next president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: So Josh, what do you make of what the vice president said right there? I mean, obviously, Joe Biden says a lot of things but this feels like the administration coming around and making the official statement this is how it's going to go. Get used to it.
JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I think Joe Biden is simply being Joe Biden and he's saying what he honestly thinks, and I agree with his analysis about the nomination. I mean, the Sanders campaign has this message that they're going to convince superdelegates, based on their momentum and success, to switch sides and join them at the convention. That's not a real thing.
The Hillary Clinton campaign has spent years and years locking up these superdelegates. There's no real scenario where they're all going to jump ship at the last minute unless something drastic happens, and that's just the reality. So I think Joe Biden is pointing that out.
But, Bernie Sanders' continued victories is having an effect on the Clinton campaign. What the West Virginia polls showed is that people care about the economy and that people care about trustworthiness and honesty over experience and electability. That's why Bernie Sanders keeps getting votes and that's the big problem that Hillary Clinton has to solve.
ROMANS: And Kristen, team Clinton has just rolled out a new policy proposal. This has been their big focus, right? They say look, we're going to talk about policy. We're not going to talk about personality and insults on the campaign trail as they're pivoting toward the general election.
But, Clinton has proposed this plan to cap what childcare expenses families spend to 10 percent of family income. This, clearly, one of those policy proposals meant to say, look, I'm a grownup. I've got real ideas on how to fix things, not just complain about the economy.
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN WHITE HOUSE PRODUCER: Yes, exactly. I mean, this has been the Clinton campaign strategy from day one, which was to focus on the policy. We do know from her past election from 2008 that these are the things that work for her.
It doesn't work for her to make personal attacks. It doesn't work for her to go after a candidate. It works for her to focus on the policy and to say just what she's saying now, which is that I'm going to continue with my liberal ideas, that I am established.
Now, as Josh was saying, there are some problems here. The polling in West Virginia is just one example of how this is the year of the outsider. People aren't looking for that establishment person. They aren't looking for the person with, necessarily, the most experience or, as we've seen, any political experience at all.
They're looking for the person who can shake up Washington. Now, that's just going to be a hurdle that the Clinton campaign has to overcome in the upcoming primaries.
BERMAN: I want to shift to the Republican race, Josh, if I can. We've seen Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio all struggling to varying degrees to figure out how they want to support Donald Trump or not support Donald Trump, or endorse him or not endorse him, or vote for him and not like it one bit.
Marco Rubio had an interview with Jake Tapper yesterday. We've been playing sound about how he will support him, but I wonder if we have the sound about what Marco Rubio says about possibly being Donald Trump's vice presidential pick? There are people who said that Rubio had been positioning for that. Rubio says uh-uh, I don't want it one bit. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's the presumptive nominee at this point, but he'd be best served by having someone -- not just, by the way, a vice presidential nominee, but active surrogates who agrees with him on his issues. My differences with Donald, both my reservations about his campaign and my policy differences with him, are well-documented and they remain, and I think he would best served by having people close to him in his campaign that are enthusiastic about the things he stands for.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: All right, two things there. Number one, that statement that he is not enthusiastic about the things Donald Trump stands for, that should not be lost in anyone. But secondly, Josh, is Donald Trump's vice presidential pick and he says he's down to five or six people right now, although he'll officially make the choice in July.
This is really important. I mean, this is the first chance anyone's going to get to see about how he makes decisions about the possible presidency.
ROGIN: Right. I think Marco Rubio, after having campaigned against Donald Trump's policies for so long, simply cannot prostrate himself and make it seem like he all of the sudden believes in all of the things that he's spent months saying that he doesn't believe in, especially on the national security stuff.
[05:40:00] If you believe that Donald Trump's foreign policy is a danger to the security of America and the world, that's what you believe and there's no getting around that. When it comes to the vice presidential pick Donald Trump has said he was going to choose a politician. Someone who can do deals on Capitol Hill.
But he has to choose someone from the side of the party that basically sees the world and the country the way that he does. That's why people are looking at a Newt Gingrich or somebody like that.
People in the neocon or in the hawkish part of the party -- those are the people who are on the downswing. Those are not the people who the voters seem to be leaning towards so it doesn't really make sense, either for them or for Donald Trump, to unite on that level at this time.
ROMANS: All right, Kristen Holmes, Josh Rogin, nice to see both of you this morning. Thank you so much for getting up early for us.
ROGIN: Anytime.
HOLMES: Thank you.
ROMANS: All right, 40 minutes past the hour. Investigators back at the home of Prince, now examining the doctor who was treating him in the months before he died. We've got that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:45:00] ROMANS: Potentially major new developments in the investigation into the death of Prince. A flurry of law enforcement activity at his Paisley Park estate. Authorities executing a federal search warrant Tuesday, attempting to learn more about the late entertainer's death. This, as new details emerge about a Minnesota doctor who visited Prince right before he died.
CNN's Stephanie Elam has the latest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Late Tuesday afternoon local sheriffs, as well as officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration, showed up here, back at Paisley Park, to further their investigation.
This, as the "Los Angeles Times" has gotten ahold of some documents from a county -- not the same county where Prince lived, but one county over -- that say the day that Prince died that they interviewed the people who were here. One of those people was a local doctor who actually showed up at the scene with test results for Prince because he had seen Prince twice before in April, including the day before Prince died.
We have reached out to the place where this doctor is employed. They say that he is no longer employed there. But they are investigating this further. It's just a new wrinkle in the sad, sad story of how Prince passed away at just 57 years of age.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: All right, Stephanie Elam for us in Minnesota.
Time for an EARLY START on your money. Dow futures retreating after a nice rally yesterday. Stock markets in Europe and Asia are mixed. Oil is down.
Shares of Staples and Office Depot halted overnight. Expect them to plunge when they open after a judge blocks their $6.3 billion merger. The judge siding with the FTC -- the Federal Trade Commission -- that a combined company would violate anti-trust laws.
Both companies often the top two fitters for large corporate contracts. Their stock is down more than 30 percent over the past 12 months amid tough competition from Amazon and Walmart. A merger between the companies was also denied back in 1997.
All right, are news articles trending on Facebook politically biased? The U.S. Senate now involved, demanding answers. We're live, next.
[05:47:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:51:00] ROMANS: Facebook on the defensive this morning with a direct denial that its trending topics are politically biased. An anonymous former employee first made this allegation, saying he saw Facebook editors suppress conservative-leaning stories. Now, Facebook admits the list is filtered, but only to a point.
Joining us to discuss is senior media correspondent, host of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES", Brian Stelter. Brian, what's going on here? BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Well, we all think when we hear about trending stories that it's all just decided by a computer algorithm. That when you see that Facebook trending stories box in the right-hand corner of the Facebook homepage that is must be a computer that's deciding what's actually getting buzz about, what's actually popular.
But in this case, Facebook editors and news curators have a role to play, as well, choosing what's going to show up in the box and what's not. And there's good reasons for that, you know. They take out spam and scams and hoaxes, but this allegation from the tech blog Gizmodo, according to this anonymous former employee, is sometimes they were also taking out stories about Ted Cruz or about Glenn Beck, or other stores of interest to conservative readers.
Now, Facebook has pretty strongly denied this but it's become a political football now. And we heard yesterday from Sen. John Thune, from South Dakota, asking a long list of questions to Mark Zuckerberg about it. I think they even put part of his statement on screen.
What he says here is "Any attempt by a neutral and inclusive social media platform to censor or manipulate political discussion is an abuse of trust and inconsistent with the values of an open Internet." Now, he's not saying he did this for sure, but he's asking a lot of questions about it. I think in this election season, in particular, this is a very hot topic.
ROMANS: Right. Well, it's interesting because Donald Trump has criticized Mark Zuckerberg on his immigration position --
STELTER: Yes, that's right.
ROMANS: -- and Mark Zuckerberg has criticized Donald Trump. So does that kind of weigh into this, as well, where you have maybe a media or conservative follower saying look, I mean, these big tech companies are all run by a bunch of liberals.
STELTER: This is contributing to that narrative, which has been around for a while, about Facebook and Twitter and other sites. There's no evidence of a top-down systemic bias. In fact, Mark Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives have said the opposite. They've said we need this site to be appealing to everybody.
ROMANS: Right.
STELTER: We need everybody's views to be represented to we can have the highest number of users. But, that narrative is out there, that perception is out there, and it could be a problem for Facebook going forward.
ROMANS: Does Facebook have to answer to John Thune's questions? Could you have Mark Zuckerberg in front of a hearing on Capitol Hill?
STELTER: That's where this gets really interesting because if we were talking about CNN or the "Wall Street Journal" or the "New York Times" being asked a longer list of questions from a senator, being asked to hand over records of editorial decision. I think people would get pretty uncomfortable and they would say what's the first amendment for if not to protect a news organization from the prying eyes of the Senate?
However, Facebook is in this strange space and we don't know what it is exactly. It started as a way for kids at Harvard to connect. Now, though, it's one of the biggest publishers in the whole world. It's the way a lot of us get our news. And so, does it have those protections or not? I think it probably does, or it would say it does. But Facebook also says it's going to cooperate and wants to help explain this.
ROMANS: I think it's also fascinating, the human hand. To use the verb curig (ph). You know, the human hands behind -- the human brains behind an algorithm --
STELTER: Yes.
ROMANS: -- that effects what so many people see and read.
STELTER: And, ultimately, the newsfeed is incredibly powerful, you know. A billion people see it all the time. WheneverI open up Facebook on my phone I'm seeing that newsfeed and what I see is dependent on what this algorithm thinks I'm going to be interested in. Sometimes that might mean liberal stories, sometimes that mean conservative stories.
There's no evidence that Facebook is messing with that in any way, but I think what's happening here is there's just a lot of curiosity about what Facebook does. There's so little that's known about how it does what it does and a story like this reminds us that it's sort of a black box. That Facebook is more opaque than we might realize. And because it's so powerful there's a lot of responsibility that comes with that.
[05:55:00] ROMANS: All right, Brian Stelter, so nice to see you this morning.
STELTER: Thanks.
ROMANS: Thanks for getting up early for us. Let's get an EARLY START on your money now. A big stock market rally yesterday locks up with a big jump in oil prices. The Dow's biggest jump since mid-February when stocks began that epic rebound.
Investors put aside concerns about disappointing corporate earnings and slowing global growth. The Dow -- look at that gain -- 222 points, more than one percent. The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 showing similar gains. As for today, investors are taking a step back. Dow futures off slightly. Stock markets in Europe down. Shares in Asia finishing mixed. Oil down to about $44 a barrel.
Watch Disney today, Brian Stelter. The stock is down more than five percent in free market trading. Weakness in its T.V. business rattling investors. ESPN lost more subscribers, revenue fell at its parks and resorts. You know, the movie biz was solid. There were blockbusters here.
Think "Star Wars: The Force Awakens", right? Something that got almost no love from analysts on their earnings call with CEO Robert Iger, the only one to talk about those weaknesses.
All right, new data this morning shows there are 5.7 million open jobs in the U.S. That's close to a record. It's good news that companies are hiring. We've got all these open positions. It also shows because those positions are open, they're having a hard time finding the right workers.
In 2007, before the great recession, there were an average of 4.5 million job openings a month. Last year, there were 5.3 million open positions on average. Now, the job skills gap a major reason why there are still high levels of part-time workers, high levels of underemployment in the U.S. economy.
It's why many Americans feel disgruntled about the economy. It's also a big part of why wages have not increased much overall during the economic recovery and it's a really important story on the disgruntled economy front. What are we going to do about skills and education to adapt a workforce?
All right, this afternoon a judge will rule on the mental competency of the suspect accused of killing three people last year at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic. Robert Lewis Dear was in court Tuesday attending a hearing to determine whether he is fit to stand trial. Police say when Dear was captured he told them he anticipated being thanked by aborted fetuses at heaven's gate.
One of six Baltimore police officers facing charges in the death of Freddie Gray has decided to pass on a jury trial. Officer Edward Nero opting for a bench trial instead, putting his fate in the hands of a judge. Nero is charged with second-degree assault and misconduct in office. His trial is now set to begin on Thursday.
Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders win big in primary elections overnight. "NEW DAY" picks up our coverage now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I think we're going to have a very good meeting.
REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: We shouldn't just pretend that our party is unified when we know it is not.
RUBIO: My differences with Donald are well-documented, and they remain.
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I can see no viable path to victory. If that changed we would reconsider things.
BIDEN: I feel confident that Hillary will be the nominee.
SANDERS: You are looking at the Democratic nominee for president.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The American dream is within reach.
SANDERS: We are in this campaign to win.
BIDEN: I feel confident she'll be the next president.
ROMANS: Major new developments in the investigation into the death of Prince.
BERMAN: New details about the doctor who visited Prince before he died.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your new day. It's Wednesday, May 11th, 6:00 in the east. J.B. is also with Alisyn and me this morning, and we have some big winners for you that John's going to tell you about.
Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders winning last night's primary contest. Sanders beating Hillary Clinton in West Virginia, a state she won eight years ago. Sanders' victory is not going to mean that much in terms of delegate math, but it does prolong the nomination fight and also points to what could happen in matchup between Clinton and Trump, who hammered Clinton in West Virginia, framing her thoughts about coal miners.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, so on the Republican side, Trump was the last man standing and he easily won in West Virginia and Nebraska. Now the focus remains on his big meeting tomorrow with House Speaker Paul Ryan. And, Trump's former rivals, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, back in the spotlight and speaking out.
We've got the 2016 race covered the way only CNN can, so let's begin with John Berman, breaking down last night's results and the delegate count. What do you have, John?
BERMAN: Good morning, Alisyn. Well, Donald Trump finished first in a one-man race. Look what happened in West Virginia over here. Donald Trump hit 76 percent of the vote there. In Nebraska, he got 61 percent of the vote. Of course, Ted Cruz and John Kasich, they have dropped out.
On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders with a big win in West Virginia, the only state voting for the Democrats, 15 points. But what does that mean in terms of delegates? Not a heck of a lot. Bernie Sanders, you can see, 16 and Hillary Clinton, 11. That is a net gain of just five despite the big, big win there.
