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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Trump Fires Back at Clinton; Clinton Mocks Trump in Foreign Policy Address; Golden State Warriors Take Game One of NBA Finals. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired June 03, 2016 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:01] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: ROMANS: Somewhere on my body. It is Friday.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And EARLY START continues right now.
ROMANS: Breaking overnight, Donald Trump lashing back after Hillary Clinton delivers a scathing speech on Trump's foreign policy plan and his temperament.
MARQUEZ: And breaking news this morning. Five soldiers dead, four others missing as floods ravage parts of Texas. And there is more on the way. We are tracking the latest.
ROMANS: New information in the death of Prince. We now know what killed the pop icon and where the investigation will go from here.
Good morning. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.
MARQUEZ: And I'm Miguel Marquez in for John Berman. It is Friday, June 3rd. 5:00 a.m. here on the East Coast.
Up first, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump taking the gloves off. Both candidates campaigning for votes in California and trading insults at every stop. Trump hoping to turn the traditionally blue states red in November. And he just picked up a key endorsement from Paul Ryan. The House speaker announcing he is voting for Trump in the fall after an awkward -- very awkward -- three-week courtship.
Meanwhile, more protests at a Trump rally in San Jose last night. American flags and "Make America Great Again" hats set on fire. Pro and anti-Trump demonstrators separated by riot police.
More now on the bitter war of words between the candidates from CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Miguel, in response to Hillary Clinton's fiery foreign policy speech, Donald Trump blasted right back, accusing the former secretary of state of delivering a political address that had little to do with world affairs.
In her speech, Clinton said that Trump is so dangerous he should not be allowed near the nation's nuclear codes. Trump called those jabs pathetic. Here's more of what he had to say at a speech in San Jose.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I watched Hillary today. It was pathetic. It was pathetic. It was so sad to watch. And you know, she's up there and it was supposed to be a foreign policy speech. It was a political speech. Had nothing to do with foreign policy. She made a political speech tonight, folks, and it was pretty pathetic.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: Trump also told the crowd here in San Jose that Clinton should go to jail over her e-mail scandal at the State Department. He did not comment on the judge handling the Trump University case, but he told the "Wall Street Journal" that Judge Gonzalo Curiel has a conflict of interest, he said, because of his Mexican heritage.
Trump did start the event, though, here in San Jose telling the crowd, quote, "We love the Hispanics" -- Miguel and Christine.
ROMANS: All right, Jim Acosta. Thanks, Jim.
Hillary Clinton was supposed to deliver a foreign policy address on Thursday, but it felt more like a dump Trump rally. Clinton mocking her Republican rival warning Americans not to let him anywhere near the nuclear codes. The former secretary of state unveiling an aggressive new persona four days out from the California primary.
We get more from CNN senior political correspondent Brianna Keilar in San Diego.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine and Miguel. This was a character speech, perhaps more than it was a foreign policy speech, a roast, almost at times. Hillary Clinton eliciting boos and cheers and guffaws from this audience here in San Diego as she took aim at Donald Trump on, yes, some foreign policy, but mostly his temperament.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Now imagine Donald Trump sitting in the situation room, making life or death decisions on behalf of the United States. Imagine him deciding whether to send your spouses or children into battle. Imagine if he had not just his Twitter account at his disposal when he's angry, but America's entire arsenal.
Do we want him making those calls? Someone thin-skinned and quick to anger, who lashes out at the smallest criticism? Do we want his finger anywhere near the button?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: The timing of Hillary Clinton's speech coming as Donald Trump has criticized her on foreign policy, repeatedly using the two words "bad judgment" to talk about her involvement in Libya, her vote on the Iraq war, and also beyond foreign policy, her handling of e-mails while she was secretary of state -- Christine and Miguel.
MARQUEZ: Brianna Keilar, thank you very much.
Now let's bring in senior media and politics reporter Dylan Byers. He joins us live from Los Angeles. Thanks for getting up early for us.
ROMANS: Is it early or late for Dylan? I never know.
MARQUEZ: Oh, he's just rolling in from, you know, a long night, I'm sure.
Hey, OK, big -- yesterday, the table is set, it seems, between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Her speech yesterday very, very muscular. Really going after him. Not exactly a foreign policy speech, but taking digs and using his own words against him. Is this what we can expect for the next several months?
DYLAN BYERS, CNN SENIOR MEDIA AND POLITICS REPORTER: Yes. I think it's absolutely what we can expect for the next several months. And I also think for many Democrats, it's a side of Hillary Clinton that they were hoping to see earlier.
MARQUEZ: It's a fair point.
[05:05:01] BYERS: Donald Trump has largely dominated the news cycle, you know, on a day-to-day basis. And people were waiting -- Hillary Clinton was sort of taking a backseat and people were waiting for Hillary Clinton to come out and deliver a strong message. Sort of juxtaposing herself against Donald Trump in which she did here. I mean, it was a scorched earth campaign and not -- you know, it reminded and reminded some other folks I've been talking to of LBJ's 1964 ad basically suggesting that a vote for Barry Goldwater would be a vote for nuclear destruction.
I mean, she really made the case that it would be a historic mistake to elect Donald Trump president and that he was unfit for office. And though it wasn't a foreign policy speech, she was emphasizing the fact that he was unfit to guide America on the international realm. And look, I think that's a case that she's going to be able to make and she's going to continue to make over the course of the next five to six months. Particularly because Donald Trump has not put forward a coherent foreign policy strategy despite what he says.
In fact, at many times, he said that he won't say what his foreign policy strategy is because he doesn't want our enemies to know what he would do. So I think there are going to be a lot of questions there for him to answer and he's going to have to figure out a more effective answer for the general election voters than just, you know, going back after Hillary Clinton.
ROMANS: And he responded by saying his temperament is strong, that her temperament is weak. You know, she questioned his temperament, that he's too thin skinned to be in the room with the nuclear codes, he's too think-skinned to have access to America's arsenal. When anything more than a Twitter account would be dangerous for this man to have.
Clinton's speech aimed at those Dems who are watching the polls, the general election polls that show a pretty tight race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. But also maybe on Republicans who are very wary -- national security Republicans who are wary of him as commander-in-chief.
BYERS: No, I think -- that's absolutely right. And in fact this is sort of a rare election where you have a Democrat who appears to be more of a hawk and a Republican who appears to be more of a dove. But again, you know, I think one of the reasons that you have many sort of establishment Republicans wary of Donald Trump is again just because they don't know. They don't know where he stands.
And Hillary Clinton's point about Donald Trump not being a steady hand on the wheel, if you're are anywhere on the fence between these two candidates, you know what you are getting with Hillary Clinton. You've seen her as secretary of state. You've seen her hold, you know, public office before. Donald Trump, you don't know. And so, look, there are Republicans who are very firmly in Donald Trump's camp and there are Republicans who are very wary about getting into Donald Trump's camp. But I think when it comes to foreign policy, that's not the issue that's going to sway them to his side.
MARQUEZ: The other big issue that he's going to have problems with are Latino voters. I mean, if you look at the electoral map. You need 270 to win. Even by CNN's count, on Election Day, there's about 233 safe electoral votes for Democrats. They only need three states for Hillary Clinton or for whoever the Democrat is in November. You know, Colorado, Nevada, Florida, all very big Latino populations.
He has angered Latinos across those country and brought them together in a way I have never seen. Here is how he responded last night, saying that Latinos love him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Latinos for Trump. That's what I like. I love that. Latinos. We're doing well with Latinos. Nobody knows about it yet. We're bringing so many jobs in. You watch what happens. The Hispanics. We love the Hispanics.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MARQUEZ: Recent FOX News polls says unfavorable among Latinos 74 percent, favorable is 23 percent. He is going to have to better that number. It goes against every ounce of political wisdom in America that if he doesn't win key groups like Latinos, African-Americans, he's just not going to win, yes?
BYERS: That's -- yes, no, you're absolutely right. I mean, Donald Trump is very capable of getting on a stage and claiming that certain people love him even if they don't. Those negatives don't lie. Those are very real. And remember, after Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election, there was a lot of sort of naval gazing and internal soul- searching among the Republican Party about what they needed to do differently. And it only took a matter of minutes on networks like FOX News for several conservative pundits to say we need to do a better job of courting Latinos. That needs to be priority number one.
And then lo and behold, the candidate that they selected was a candidate who the very first thing he did was refer to Mexican immigrants as rapists and said that he was going to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. So it is very much not a Republican Party that I think some of those thought leaders thought that they were going to be getting four years after Mitt Romney's lost.
And what that means is that the map come Election Day could look very different. You could have Donald Trump winning in predominantly white states like, say, Ohio or Pennsylvania, but losing the entire southwest where those immigrant communities are very large.
[05:10:10] It's going to be -- it could be a very different map than the one that we're used to or the ones that we've seen back in 2012 and 2008.
ROMANS: Well, this question of the integrity of the judge in the Trump University case simply because he is Latino, questioning his judicial integrity because he is, as Donald Trump says, a Mexican.
MARQUEZ: Born in Indiana.
ROMANS: Born in Indiana, of course. You know, remarkable. I mean, it's not something you could have thought up even a few years ago.
Let's listen to what Mitch McConnell said. You know, Mitch McConnell criticizing Donald Trump's recent attacks, talking about unifying the party and saying, you know, episodes like, you know, his recent trip to New Mexico, for example, and insulting the governor there are not the way you move forward here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), KENTUCKY: I do. And I think that the attacks that he's routinely engaged in, for example, going after Susana Martinez, the Republican governor of New Mexico, I think was a big mistake. What he ought to be doing now is try to unify the party. And I think attacking people once you have won is a time you can to be gracious and try to bring the party together.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: And Miguel makes a great point. This is Mitch McConnell, even as Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, is endorsing Trump. I would love to be a fly on the wall with their private conversations, among those the Republican leaders, who are trying to figure out how to embrace and manage, you know, in foreign policy I think it's called -- you know, containment. How do you contain Donald Trump but also engage him? BYERS: Right. And look, there's no one's head that is more valuable
to be inside right now than Paul Ryan's. Understanding how he came around to that decision. Obviously it took him a very long time do it. When he did it, he did it well. Hillary Clinton was giving this sort of incredible foreign policy anti-Trump speech that we saw earlier today.
But I think Mitch McConnell, one of e made, is about trying to unify the party and expand the voting base in a general election. We thought that after this hard fought primary in which Donald Trump up ended everyone's expectations, beat out 16 other candidates, we thought he would pivot. We thought he would become a more calmer, more subdued and inclusive presidential candidate. We haven't seen that. We haven't seen that in terms of how he talks about Mexicans or the immigrant community. We haven't seen --
ROMANS: He's not going to change.
(CROSSTALK)
BYERS: In terms of the way that he treats the press, Hillary Clinton --
ROMANS: Dylan, he told you this week. He said this week, I'm not changing. I'm not changing.
BYERS: No. No, he's not. But you have to ask yourself, and this is the question Mitch McConnell is asking. Why not?
ROMANS: Right.
MARQUEZ: Right.
BYERS: Because you might -- the strategy he has now might help him win a Republican primary, it might win, let's call it, 10 percent to 12 percent of the general election voting population. But is that enough to actually get him to the White House?
MARQUEZ: Right.
BYERS: I don't know. I think you have to expand.
MARQUEZ: All right. Early bird-late night owl, Dylan Byers. Thank you very much.
ROMANS: Night owl or early bird.
MARQUEZ: Yes? Not bad. Not bad.
ROMANS: Tweet us what you think Dylan Byers is, night owl or early bird?
BYERS: I'll never tell you which one it is.
(LAUGHTER)
ROMANS: Insomniac.
MARQUEZ: Breaking overnight. Five soldiers killed. Four more missing as those flood waters bury parts of Texas. And there is more rain on the way. That's coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:17:27] ROMANS: Breaking news this morning out of flood-ravaged Texas. The bodies of two more missing Fort Hood soldiers have now been found. That brings the number of casualties to five. The soldiers were killed after their troop carrier overturned during a training exercise Thursday morning. Now search teams now combing the scene still for four more missing soldiers.
Meantime, evacuations are underway in several neighborhoods. This Houston suburb, wow, surrounded by water. Folks there say this is the worst flooding they have ever seen. And more rain is expected this weekend.
Meteorologist Allison Chinchar is live for us this morning from the CNN Weather Center. Good morning.
ALLISON CHINCHAR, AMS METEOROLOGIST: And good morning to you.
(WEATHER REPORT)
MARQUEZ: Crazy. These guys are used to rain out there.
ROMANS: Right.
MARQUEZ: Allison, thank you very much.
We now know Prince died of an accidental drug overdose. The medical examiner reporting the powerful synthetic opioid Fentanyl was found in his system. Federal health officials say the drug used for cancer treatment is 50, 5-0, times more powerful than heroin. At this point it's unclear if the pills were prescribed or the drug was prescribed. The 57-year-old entertainer was found dead in his April -- in April at his Minnesota home.
ROMANS: And this is the drug you used, you know, on a drip when you have major surgery.
MARQUEZ: It's on --
ROMANS: You know, surgical type drug.
MARQUEZ: You just don't get this stuff for home use.
ROMANS: All right. 20 minutes past the hour, the Golden State Warriors drawing first blood against Cleveland in defense -- in the defense of their NBA title.
MARQUEZ: Defense, defense, defense, defense .
ROMANS: The defense is actually -- even though Steph Curry only scored 11 points. See? Defense. Defense.
[05:20:09] Coy Wire with the "Bleacher Report" next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: So there was a basketball game last night.
MARQUEZ: What?
ROMANS: Berman was there. That's why you're here. He went to see the Golden State Warriors. They seized game one in the NBA Finals to win the powers by the Warrior bench.
MARQUEZ: Very cool. Coy Wire has more on this morning's "Bleacher Report."
Good morning, Coy.
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Mr. Miguel and Miss Christine.
Coming into this game if you think if LeBron and the Cavs can handle the Warriors one-two punch of Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, it would be a wrap.
[05:25:02] But what no one saw coming was Golden State six, seven and eight punches. It was the Warriors bench who brought it. Coach Steve Kerr said his team came out after halftime's lost focus, careless passes, lost on defense. He wasn't having it. He needed his team to step up. Regain that focus and edge. And guys like Shaun Livingston got the message.
Check this out, guys. He came off the bench and scored 20 points. That's as many as Steph Curry and Klay Thompson combined. Curry and Thompson weren't even in the top four of scoring for the Warriors. That's scary news for the Cavs. Warriors win, 104-89. Game two Sunday in Oakland.
NBA commissioner Dam Silver says the idea of moving next year's all- star game from North Carolina is still a possibility. This is in the wake of the passage of the state's controversial LGBT law which requires everyone to use public bathrooms that correspond to their birth gender.
Here's the connection.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ADAM SILVER, NBA COMMISSIONER: The discussions are ongoing. I was in North Carolina about two and a half weeks ago. Spoke to a lot of business leaders in Charlotte who are working behind the scenes frankly to craft some sort of compromise with the governmental leaders both in the city and the state. I would say there is absolutely strong interest in trying to work something out.
(END VIDEO CLIP) WIRE: Guys, boxing legend Muhammad Ali has been hospitalized for a respiratory issue, according to a family spokesperson. He's being treated by a team of doctors and is in fair condition. Ali is 74 and suffers from Parkinson's Disease.
And Christine and Miguel, a brief hospital stay is expected. We all wish him well and his family as well.
ROMANS: Absolutely. Thanks for that, Coy.
WIRE: You're welcome.
ROMANS: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, attacking each other like we have not seen. A new Hillary Clinton showing a new attitude and direction as she faces a general election in the 2016 race now getting personal.
MARQUEZ: Very personal.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
