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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

"Increasing Frustration" Within Trump Camp; Clinton Campaign Rakes in Big Money & Endorsement; Zika Virus Spreads in Miami; Olympic Torch Arriving in Rio. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired August 03, 2016 - 05:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: "They feel like they're wasting their time", that word from Trump staffers telling CNN there is growing frustration in the campaign and with their candidate for the things he just keeps on saying.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Hillary Clinton with that prominent new Republican endorsement and a record month in fund raising.

BERMAN: The Zika virus now spreading in Florida, with new cases reported in a different Miami neighborhood.

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

ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. It is Wednesday, August 3rd. It is 5:00 a.m. in the East.

[05:00:01] Let's begin with the breaking news this morning. Donald Trump's campaign staff said to be increasingly frustrated as their candidate gets repeatedly sidetracked by battles that pull him off message.

Republican sources tell CNN that campaign staffers, quote, "feel like they're wasting their time." Among them campaign manager Paul Manafort. The distraction cited included Trump's fight with the Gold Star parents of a Muslim American army captain, his unprecedented snub of high profile party leaders.

This morning, Trump is refusing to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan in his primary campaign. He even heaped praise on Ryan's underdog opponent.

This is on top of new criticism by Trump of Senator John McCain. And that is on top of other high profile Republicans coming out overnight saying flat out, they will vote for Hillary Clinton.

CNN's Jason Carroll has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is really a stunning development. We'll have to see how this plays out across the GOP landscape. Donald Trump saying in an interview with "The Washington Post" that he's not ready to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan in his upcoming primary election.

Trump saying, quote, "I like Paul, but these are horrible times for our country. We need very strong leadership. We need very, very strong leadership. And I'm just not quite there yet. I'm not quite there yet."

If that language sounds familiar, it's pretty close to the same language Ryan used when he waited to endorse Trump.

Trump also saying he's not supporting Senator John McCain in his primary bid in Arizona. Trump saying "he has done a good job for the vets, and I always felt he should do a better job for the vets. So, I've always had a difficult time with John for that reason because our vets are not being treated properly."

Trump did not stop there. He also took aim at Senator Kelly Ayotte, calling her a weak and disloyal leader in New Hampshire.

For his part, Trump involved in another controversy, this after he talked about a Purple Heart recipient at his rally yesterday in Virginia.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Something very nice just happened to me. A man came up to me, and he handed me his Purple Heart.

Now, I said to him, I said to him, is that like the real one? Or is that a copy? And he said that's my real Purple Heart. I have such confidence in you.

And I said, man, that's like -- that's like big stuff. I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.

CARROLL: Trump already under fire for comments he made about the family of a slain Muslim U.S. soldier Humayun Khan. Trump telling a local reporter late yesterday, he has no regrets about anything he has said about Khan's family.

Both Ryan and McCain did release statements defending the Khan family. It should also be noted that Chris Christie also spoke out in defense of the Khan family. Clearly, this is something that so far has not set well with Trump.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

Hillary Clinton just scoring a Fortune 500 size endorsement, and it's coming from a Republican. Meg Whitman is the chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard. She said, quote, "Donald Trump's demagoguery has undermined the fabric of our national character. America needs the kind of stable and aspirational leadership Secretary Clinton can provide."

Whitman will also donate to the Clinton campaign and a super PAC. She's been a big donor to GOP candidates in the past. She ran for governor of California, as a Republican.

Whitman is now the third prominent Republican woman to endorse Hillary Clinton in the past three days. A longtime aide to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is backing Clinton and a, former top Jeb Bush adviser is also jumping to the Democrat side.

BERMAN: Meg Whitman, prominent CEO in the tech world, prominent Republican, donor, prominent Republican woman, three things that are, you know, dangerous for Donald Trump to be losing at this stage.

Let's talk about what is not like a wild 24 hours, but a wild like five hours for Donald Trump. We're joined by CNN senior Brian Stelter, host of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES." Also with us, CNN politics reporter, Tom LoBianco.

Tom, you are new to our morning festivities. Let us begin with you. Bring us up to speed on just what Trump insiders are telling CNN about concerns inside the Trump campaign?

TOM LOBIANCO, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: At this point it sounds like there's concerns this is the old Donald Trump. This is the Trump who is getting in trouble all the time. This is not, I don't know if you want to say the reformed Donald Trump but the Trump who showed up at the Republican national convention just a few weeks ago. He was on point, was on message.

The teleprompter seemed to be a thing that was normal for him. Now, we're back to the Donald Trump that maybe he doesn't even win the nomination from a few months ago. And this is concerning because the window here is rapidly closing. I mean, we're within, what, 97 days, 97, 96 days.

[05:05:01] I mean, you can't keep having these stumbles. These massive trips and falls like this. That doesn't work in the general.

ROMANS: So, let's talk about the leaks then, and, Brian Stelter, what the leaks mean when so many people talk about what's going on behind the scenes.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Right.

ROMANS: And you look at the front pages of the "Wall Street Journal," "Trump missteps, GOP unease." What do these leaks mean?

STELTER: Partly, these leaks are staffers, aides, veterans of campaigns trying to communicate to get Trump to improve with the media. They know he watches television, they know he reads the papers. He gets printouts of the articles from the web. So, they're trying to communicate to him to try to steer him through this.

I thought the report from John King overnight was interesting, talking about how there were days ago when aides were advising Trump to back away from the Khan family and apologize and try to move. That was on Sunday, it's now Wednesday. And as of yesterday in Trump's most recent interviews, he wasn't backing down at all. So, so far, he hasn't gotten the advice, taken the advice, listened to

it. I think these leaks are more greater and greater signs that these aides are trying to communicate to him, but also maybe looking out for themselves. Oftentimes, when we see these kind of leaks, it's because people are trying to set the stage because they leave.

BERMAN: Jason Miller is now a guru inside the Trump world put out a statement overnight saying this is all bull. It's not happening. Everything is perfectly happy and wonderful.

STELTER: He said, we're hiring more staffers. We've got enthusiastic crowd. Clinton wishes she had.

He was trying to truly put a happy face on this. Some of the aides that are leaking, they're thinking about their next job. They might be thinking about 2020.

BERMAN: Exactly. Whatever happens, campaigns say these are unnamed sources. I'm going on the record. Yes, but unnamed sources still talk to reporters and they're telling us all of this for a reason. It's interesting to see.

STELTER: By the way, Clinton campaign is backing up and letting this happen.

ROMANS: I think that's so interesting.

STELTER: Talk about leaks, I tried for hours yesterday to get a Clinton staffer just on background on a source. It's difficult to get this kind of information.

Trump campaign now, though, seems like it's leaking like a sieve.

ROMANS: Well, I wonder, you know, and, Tom, let me ask you this, you know, I don't now the machinations behind politics and how it works in D.C., as well as you do. But it seems that the Clinton campaign set up this perfect softball for Donald Trump to take a hit at last week in the DNC. And he took it. He hit it out of the park.

And now all we've been talking about is the Khans for these four days. Not talking about Hillary Clinton statements about James Comey. And the DNC upheaval.

STELTER: Resignations.

ROMANS: Resignations. Almost like they set the trap, he took the bait. Am I being cynical?

LOBIANCO: Well, it's hard to be too cynical in politics.

(LAUGHTER)

LOBIANCO: But it sure looks that way. The Democrats are stepping out of the way. They're letting him keep on digging a hole with this. You know, he has yet to put down the shovel. You know, it's compounded. I think what's different about this Khan controversy versus some of the previous ones, it's such a broad swath of people.

This -- I mean, this might be finally, a taboo that he's broken. I mean, we've been asking this question for months and months and months, did he finally cross the line? And this might be it.

We saw Eric Trump yesterday say that he had actually apologized for this. He hasn't apologized for this. That added fuel to the fire.

Each misstep, every time he talked about this, it only gets worse. Everything short of an apology is only adding to the problems here. You know, like I said, earlier, the window is closing.

STELTER: I'll play devil's advocate, talked about a shovel, he's digging a hole and the hole is getting deeper. What if he's picking up a shovel and building a mountain. We're talking elite reaction to his campaign. We're talking about people like Meg Whitman, a Fortune 500 CEO. We're talking about millionaires reacting to his bad behavior allegedly.

Well, we know that that's not what his supporters feel. We know his supporters love when he gets into his fight. We haven't seen the results of the polls necessarily on this Khan family feud. But perhaps in his mind, at least in his supporters' mind, he's building a mountain for him to stand on amid all this.

BERMAN: It's not just what's been going on with the Khans. I think that's the backdrop to it But Donald Trump did an interview by choice yesterday with "The Washington Post" which by choice he repeatedly went out of had its way to say he's endorsing Paul Ryan in his primary battle in Wisconsin. That he's not endorsing John McCain in his primary battle in Arizona. That he's not endorsing Kelly Ayotte in her tough campaign in the swing state of New Hampshire, a state that Donald Trump won.

This is Donald Trump, intentionally, willfully, in some cases gleefully, sticking his finger in the eyes of the Republican Party establishment, Tom, an establishment -- especially Paul Ryan who has done these contortions to at least be willing to stand on the same stage as Donald Trump.

[05:10:11] I wonder how they're going to behave and act and take this for the rest of the week.

LOBIANCO: Well, you know, it's times like this when you start to wonder about that Lindsey Graham comment from a little while ago talking about Gonzalo Curiel comments being an exit ramp for anyone who had endorsed Trump. You know, at this point, there's kind of a risk in this.

And what's interesting is watching Trump play a classical political game, right, which is an endorsement game. There's a little risk there. If Ryan walks out there next week and absolutely crushes Paul Nehlen, his primary opponent, then this looks bad for Trump.

Now, I think it's a hedge risk, and I think Trump probably might have gamed this right, because everything north of about 30 points or so for Paul Nehlen, Nehlen actually doesn't actually have to win this for Trump to look good in this scenario. He only has to get north of about 30 percentage points or so. And that might not be impossible in a scenario like that.

Ryan is incredibly popular in that area, in that border near southern Wisconsin. He works at it very well. We all know he talks routinely, breaks a lot of news on radio stations out there so he's well-known. So I'm not so sure that the bar is too high for Trump to have the eye- poking effect in this case.

STELTER: Meanwhile, Christine, you were talking about Democrats baiting into Trump, what Barack Obama did yesterday, he came out and said Republicans should give up on Trump, un-endorse him. Doesn't that make it more difficult for Republicans to do exactly that?

ROMANS: Well, he said that from the White House, saying next to a head of state which I found was remarkable.

All right. Guys, thank you so much. Nice to see you bright up and early this morning.

BERMAN: All right. Mosquitoes spreading the Zika virus around new areas of Miami. Growing concern there. There's unprecedented health warnings have already gone out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:16:51] ROMANS: Health officials confirming the new case of the Zika virus in South Florida, bringing the number of infections now to 15. The latest cases outside of the Miami-Dade County where active transmission has been identified the. State health department will now begin aerial spraying of a ten-mile area, in an effort to contain this virus. But there's concern about how effective it will be.

We get more this morning from CNN's Nick Valencia in Miami.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Florida governor and the CDC both say to expect even more cases of the Zika virus to be locally transmitted in Miami. Part of the issue, according to the CDC, is that mosquitoes in this area may be resistant to the insecticides that are being sprayed by health officials. Here on the streets in Wynwood, which is ground zero for the local transmission, just north of downtown Miami, reaction is mixed even those who must be most concerned, pregnant women.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We recently went on vacation. We didn't travel to the Caribbean because of the Zika, just so I wouldn't get exposed to them. But I mean, I live here. I'm not going to move. So -- and I'm not going to stop living my life. So (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wasn't aware of it jumping to 14. I know this is ground zero for the initial four cases.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think that's completely nerve-racking. It's scary. I don't know what to say about it. It's just -- I don't know what to do.

VALENCIA: In an interview earlier with the director of the CDC, Dr. Tom Frieden, I was told that that reaction area is not in the cases that have been announced here so far in South Florida. Some of them were discovered by random door-to-door community surveys. State officials and the CDC has a team here. They expect to continue those surveys in the days ahead.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Nick Valencia, thanks so much.

The Delaware Supreme Court has declared the state's death penalty law is unconstitutional. The court ruled that judges rather than juries are given too large a role in imposing death sentences and it violates the requirements laid out by the U.S. Supreme Court. The state can appeal to the decision, but legal experts say that's highly unlikely. Capital punishment has been abolished in 18 other states.

ROMANS: Authorities in Central California investigating the deadly crash of a charter bus that went off a highway and into a signpost. Five people were killed and more than a dozen others injured. The pole sliced the bus nearly in half. Police have been unable to speak to the driver because of his injuries. The bus company has been cited for more than 40 violations over the past two years, seven of them specifically for the bus that crashed.

BERMAN: Officials in California are blaming an illegal campfire for setting off a deadly wildfire. Authorities say the fire was apparently built around July 22nd and then abandoned in the state park. The persons responsible for the blaze could face criminal and civil penalties. The flame scorched more than 40 acres of land in the Big Sur area. A bulldozer driver died in the fire and at least 57 homes were destroyed.

ROMANS: All right. Ready or not, the Olympic torch arriving in Rio today, two days from the beginning of the Olympic. There's already an event today, right?

BERMAN: Synchronize diving?

ROMANS: I don't know what it is. Synchronize teleprompter reading? No, that's what --

BERMAN: We would do awesome in that. We can like at least the bronze in that.

ROMANS: It is not an Olympic sport, I'm afraid. It is not.

BERMAN: It should be. Along with ever other sport in Olympics this year.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:24:12] BERMAN: In just a few hours, the Olympic torch will arrive in its final destination in Rio de Janeiro the site of the 2016 games. The torch will circulate through the city for the next two games leading up to the opening ceremony Friday night. Meantime, the first Olympic events they actually begin today. It's here now! Yay!

CNN's Christina Macfarlane live in Brazil.

Good morning, Christina.

CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.

You can see it's a new dawn on the coast of Copacabana, and absolutely euphoric. The games are about to start. The first to get under way today is the women's football.

The group stages in the first due to kick off in a couple hours' time will be Sweden against South Africa. And later today, we'll see the reigning world cup champions and reigning Olympic gold medalist, the USA, take on New Zealand.

Now, football, of course, one of the only events that's been played across the country here, making use of those venues left over from the 2014 World Cup.

[05:25:08] But what's been really interesting here, John, that we're seeing the buildup to the opening ceremony on Friday is an increase in security around Rio. Some 85,000 police and military have been brought in to deal with the threat of bomb scares and the threat of terrorism. But it's actually been the petty crime that's been more of an issue here.

There's been half a dozen athletes arriving here and being robbed on arrival. We see that as journalists ourselves, we've been told that the journalists, the athletes and tourists arriving here are being told to keep their belongings alongside you. But just a couple blocks away from here, a couple hours ago, two men were actually arrested for stealing.

You know, it's headlines like this have really been dominating the buildup, and that's why organizers are extremely keen and anxious for the sports to get under way for more reasons than one.

BERMAN: Let the games begin.

Christina Macfarlane, thank you very much. We will be seeing much more of you down there.

ROMANS: It's so pretty to see the sunrise behind them. That's such a gorgeous live shot there, what's going to mean to see Rio over the next few days.

All right. Is Donald Trump's campaign in trouble? What in the world is going inside there? And Donald Trump already up early tweeting about the unity in his campaign. We're telling you what his campaign staff is saying. And what he's saying, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)