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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Trump Critics Slam Second Amendment Comment; Aiming for Gold in Rio; Regulating Amusement Parks; First Texas Fatality from Zika Virus. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired August 10, 2016 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALISON KOSIK, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump accused of inciting violence against Hillary Clinton. What he said.
RYAN NOBLES, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. women's gymnastics team winning back-to-back gold. Michael Phelps picking up has 21st gold medal. Team USA is on fire.
Good morning and welcome to EARLY START. Thank you for joining. I'm Ryan Nobles.
KOSIK: Good morning to you, Ryan.
I'm Alison Kosik. It's Wednesday, August the 10th. It's 5:00 a.m. in the East.
And there's a fierce new controversy for Donald Trump after he made comments that critics say is inciting violence against Hillary Clinton, this as Trump tries to reassert control of his message, following a couple of rough gaffe-filled weeks.
CNN politics reporter Sara Murray traveling with the Trump campaign, she's got the latest from North Carolina.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Good morning, Alison and Ryan.
This was supposed to be the week where Donald Trump was sticking to the script, but instead, he set up yet another political firestorm with his comment.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, if she gets to pick -- if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks.
[05:00:03] Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know.
MURRAY: Now, the Clinton campaign quickly seized on that remark as an apparent threat against Hillary Clinton, saying that Donald Trump was promoting violence. As for the Trump campaign, they insisted that was not the case at all,
saying he was simply talking about coalescing the support of Second Amendment voters behind the Republican nominee. And this is the kind of support that Donald Trump needs. He is lagging behind Hillary Clinton in key battleground states like Ohio in the latest round of swing state polls, but it's offhand comments like that that has given some voters, including Republicans, pause about whether or not they can support the GOP nominee.
As for him, he heads to two key battleground states today, Virginia and Florida, where the latest polls show him neck and neck with Hillary Clinton in the Sunshine State.
Back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NOBLES: All right. Sara, thank you.
Let's sort through the blizzard of reactions to Trump's offhand but highly controversial comments. We'll bring in Steven Sloan, CNN's politics managing editor for content.
Steven, good morning.
KOSIK: Good morning.
STEVEN SLOAN, CNN POLITICS, MANAGING EDITOR FOR CONTENT: Good morning.
NOBLES: I want to start with how Trump supporters are trying to explain away what happened yesterday. Take a listen to what former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said yesterday during a rally of his own.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: They spin out that what he meant by that was that it was a joke. And that what he meant by that was that they would kill her.
Now, OK, now, to buy that, you have to be corrupt. Because if you said that to me, I would say to you, are you out of your mind? I saw it. I heard it, I know what it meant.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBLES: So, Steven, this seems like a pretty typical response by the Trump campaign. Whenever he's faced with a controversy they blame it on the media and Hillary Clinton's campaign. Is that going to be enough, given how controversial what Trump had to say yesterday?
SLOAN: Well, Ryan, you're exactly right. This is the textbook response in the campaign to another controversy, just blaming the media, you know, kind of forcing the conversation back on the people who are kind of saying that there's a controversy. But, you know, I think, this is something that they've done throughout their campaign since June 2015 when the Trump campaign began.
I think, you know, they'll call it part of the same playbook that they have in the past where, you know, this controversy will play out for the next few days and they'll try to move on. A week ago, we were talking about his fight with the khan family. His fight with Speaker Paul Ryan.
We moved on from that. He gave a speech in Detroit on Tuesday that was praised widely and yet here we are in another controversy.
KOSIK: But, Steven, it seems with this one, though, as much as the Trump camp was quick to react with a statement, there doesn't seem to be much continuity, talking about what Giuliani said and what Donald Trump said talking to Sean Hannity, Sean Hannity asking, you know, obviously, what you're saying there's a strong political movement in the Second Amendment and people mobilize the vote, they can top Hillary Clinton from having this impact on the court, but that's not how the media is spinning it.
What's your reaction to that? Here's his reaction to that question.
SLOAN: Well, I think that you're seeing --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Nobody in that room thought anything other than what you just said. This is a political movement. This is a strong powerful movement, the Second Amendment.
You know, Hillary wants to take your guns away. She wants to leave you unprotected in your home. This is a tremendous political movement.
The NRA, as you know, endorsed me. They're terrific people, Wayne and Chris and all of the people over there. And, by the way, they're already -- I just saw, they tweeted out basically they agree 100 percent with what I said. And there can be no other interpretation. Even reporters have told me -- I mean, give me a break.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KOSIK: OK. So, you were in the middle of answering, Steven, sorry for that.
SLOAN: No problem.
KOSIK: So, you know, obviously, his debate setting off what he meant. How do you think this is resonating to people watching at home?
SLOAN: Well, I think a lot of Donald Trump supporters are looking at this as a debate about the Second Amendment. They're looking at this -- they do look at this election that could have implications for gun rights and things like that.
So, I think that they're looking at those comments. But I mean, again, here we are in another, Donald Trump controversy. We're seeing it play out one after the other after the other.
NOBLES: And once again, Steven, this puts prominent Republicans in an awkward position. Paul Ryan last night, I watched his comments after his victory in the primary. And he continues to walk this fine line where he is somewhat supportive of Donald Trump. But he also finds an opportunity to hit him a little bit.
[05:05:02] Listen to what Paul Ryan said last night without mentioning Trump's name.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PAUL RYAN (R), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: In times as uncertain as these, it's easy to resort to division. It's simple to prey on people's fears. That stuff sells, but it doesn't stick. It doesn't last. Most of all, it doesn't work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBLES: He's clearly talking about Donald Trump here. But then about two minutes later he goes on to say that he still believes the Trump/Pence ticket gives him the best opportunity to push through his Republican agenda.
Can he continue to walk his fine line all the way up until Election Day?
SLOAN: I don't think he has much of a choice now, Ryan. I thought it was such a poetic moment. Here we are, Paul Ryan on his primary night. This is a primary night that got a lot of attention because of Donald Trump saying he wasn't quite ready to endorse Paul Ryan.
And by the end of last week, Trump did endorse, of course, the speaker, and then the speaker cruised through re-election to a primary victory last night. But again, dealing with another Trump controversy. So, it was -- here we are again, Ryan and Trump relationship.
ROMANS: And there is no shortage of reaction about this comment yesterday during this rally. We heard from former CIA chief General Michael Hayden. He's one of the 50 Republicans who wrote that letter condemning Trump just running for office saying he was unfit for office.
I want you to listen to what General Hayden said with Jake Tapper on "THE LEAD" yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN, FORMER CIA AND NSA DIRECTOR: When I heard that for the first time, that was more than a speed bump, all right? That's actually a very arresting comment. If someone else would have said that outside the hall, he'd be in the back of a police wagon now with the Secret Service questioning him.
(END VIDEO CLIP) KOSIK: Is Donald Trump digging himself a deeper hole, or can he weather this.
SLOAN: You know, he's proven such resilience over the past year or so that I think it -- you know, we can't say this is the one that it's going to be tough for him to survive. But I do think that comment does reflect the seriousness of this charge, you know, of this comment, and the seriousness which the people are taking it.
NOBLES: All right. Steven Sloan in Washington for us this morning -- thank you, Steven.
SLOAN: Thank you.
KOSIK: And Hillary Clinton is getting ready to give a big speech on her jobs plan today in Iowa. She's probably going to be discussing spending on infrastructure and hiking the minimum wage to $15 an hour, while criticizing the economic plan Donald Trump outlined earlier this week.
A study from Moody's Analytics shows that if Clinton wins in November and pushes through all of her economic proposals, the economy would add 10.4 million jobs over four years. That's a big jump from the 7.2 millions jobs forecast under current law. GDP would rise at a 2.7 percent annual rate compared to the current of 2.3 percent.
Now, one thing to keep in mind is, Moody's is an independent research group, but the lead author of that report is Mark Zandi, who donated to the Clinton campaign last year. However, he also serves as an economic adviser to former Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
NOBLES: Well, they just keep racking up the gold medals in Rio. This time, it's the final five, officially, the women's gymnastics team in the world, claiming gold for the second time in a row. We'll have their winning moment, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:13:01] KOSIK: Welcome back.
American athletes awash in red, white, blue and gold at the Rio Olympics led by swimmers Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky, not to mention the U.S. women's gymnastics team crushing the competition, in the all around team winning their second consecutive gold medal in the event.
NOBLES: Let's go now to CNN's Coy Wire following it all live in Rio.
Coy, every morning we say this is an incredible day for the Americans and that continues today as well.
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Ryan. Good to see you, and Alison.
Look, what a day for the USA, Michael Phelps, the greatest Olympian of all time had a little extra motivation yesterday. Revenge for his loss back in the 200-meter butterfly in his last Olympics to South African Chad le Clos. Not to mention the little bit of shadow boxing that le Clos did in Phelps' general election, Monday during warmups that caused Twitter to go crazy, remember that?
And once they took the pool, Phelps led early and led on. Le Clos didn't even finish in the top three, a beautiful moment afterwards as well. He got a chance to celebrate, guys, with his 3-month-old son Boomer. That's good stuff.
How about this, Phelps snagged another gold medal with teammates Ryan Lochte, Conor Dwyer, and, 21 Olympic golds in total now for Phelps. And listen to this, only 12 countries have won more gold total than Phelps. Unbelievable.
American Katie Ledecky, she's continuing to dominate in the pool as well, 19 years old, taking the gold in the 200 meter freestyle. Not normally her strongest event. She was in fifth place. But then motor boat. Winning her second gold medal in she'll defend her 800 meter gold from 2012 later this week.
Check out this picture that Katie's family send us earlier this year.
[05:15:01] It's her ten years ago, meeting Michael Phelps. And it's safe to say now guys that young kids around the world are going to want their pictures with her.
Now, as dominant as the U.S. swimmers have been so far in Rio, Alison, your women's gymnastics team has been just as amazing, if not even better. Led by arguably the greatest gymnast of all time, Simone Biles, the U.S. was unstoppable, beating Russia by more than eight points. They were just on a clearly different level in competition. That's back-to-back golds in team competition for the Americans right now.
Let's take a look at the medals, USA putting away 26 in total. China second with 17. Japan third with 14. And guys, we have a lot more action on tap today. Both the U.S. men's and women's basketball teams hit the courts and the men, they're going to play probably their toughest competition of the games that will be, Australia.
KOSIK: Coy, talk to me about Serena Williams. She was kicked out completely. What's going on there?
WIRE: She was a little off her game, Alison, seemingly all week. I was actually at the press conference when they first arrived. They had just gotten off the plane. She and Venus both. We know Venus was stomach issues, she was feeling dehydrated, there was cramping and Serena didn't look that well either. I think it was the situation. She's up against the 20th rank player in the world and she didn't have her best day. And you have to be on point every time here in Rio.
NOBLES: Coy Wire always on point.
KOSIK: Always on point.
WIRE: He's bringing gold medal performances every morning.
Elsewhere, chaos erupting last night in Ferguson, Missouri, on the second anniversary of Michael brown's death. Shots ringing out after a protester was hit by a car. According to police, the protester was trying to block traffic. The driver of the vehicle is cooperating with authorities, but the victim was moved from the scene before police arrived and has not been located.
KOSIK: The Justice Department set to release a long-awaited report on the Baltimore police that says cops routinely violated the rights of residents by conducting unlawful stops and using excessive force. The report also found that police practices disproportionately affected the city's African-American population. The federal investigation of Baltimore's police methods followed the death of Freddie Gray who suffered a fatal neck injury while in police custody.
NOBLES: In North Carolina, a self-described neighborhood watchman is facing murder charges after shooting outside of his home this past weekend. Police say the suspect, Chad Copley, told a 911 operator that he wanted to protect his family from a, quote, "bunch of hoodlums". They say he fired a single shotgun blast from inside his garage, killing 20-year-old Kouren-Rodney Bernard Thomas.
KOSIK: You know, this is growing more and more disturbing for those of who visit in amusements parks in the summer now, two major accidents in two days. The question now is, are amusements parks safe? That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:22:26] KOSIK: A water park in Kansas City, Kansas, will reopen this afternoon just days after a 10-year-old boy died riding the world's largest water slide there. That slide will remain closed for the rest of the season.
Plus, a Ferris wheel accident at a Tennessee County fair in which three young girls found out of a gondola is being blamed on mechanical failure.
The two incidents are prompting new questions and new calls for tighter regulations of amusement parks.
We get more now from CNN's Rene Marsh.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION AND GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Alison and Ryan, it's a patch work of oversight when it comes to amusement parks, and safety advocates say it's creating a dangerous loophole. A child is in intensive in Johnson City in Tennessee and a county fair has been forced to shut down all of its rides. This just one day after a 10-year-old boy died from a neck injury after riding a 115-foot tall water slide in Kansas City, Kansas.
It's the second amusement park accident in just two days. The concern now, there's no set standard for safety regulations at these parks. There are more than 400 amusement parks in the United States with more
than 330 million visitors per year. No federal agency is responsible for oversight. It's up to the states to regulate but some are more than others. The trade group that represents amusement parks tells CNN serious incidents are extremely rare. The most recent data from 2014 shows of the millions of people who visited amusement parks in the United States, there were more than 1,100 reported injuries.
But that number does not account for water parks, traveling fairs and carnivals -- Alison, Ryan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NOBLES: Rene, thank you.
The Zika virus has killed a newborn baby girl in Houston. This is the first fatality in Texas that's linked to the virus. Officials say the girl's mother travelled to Latin America during her pregnancy. Texas Governor Greg Abbott now asking President Obama for Zika funding.
And four more cases of the virus are being reported in Florida. There were now 21 patients in South Florida who contracted the virus from mosquitoes.
KOSIK: The rift between Russia and Turkey is over. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan meeting in St. Petersburg, then announcing the two nations are restoring bilateral relations. The announcement coming nine months after Turkey shut down a Russian warplane at the Syrian border. The reboot with Russia comes at the time when Turkey's relationship with its NATO allies is becoming increasingly strained.
[05:25:04] NOBLES: Donald Trump under fire again, this time for inciting violence against Hillary Clinton. We're going to break down those controversial comments, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NOBLES: New controversy for Donald Trump. Another off-the-cuff comment causing major backlash. Did Trump intend for his supporters to harm Hillary Clinton?
KOSIK: Team USA picking up seven more medals. The epic moments you got to see.
Welcome back to EARLY START. Good morning. I'm Alison Kosik.
NOBLES: And I'm Ryan Nobles. Twenty-nine minutes past the hour. Thank you for joining us this morning.
Fierce new controversy engulfing after he made comments that critics interpreted as inciting violence against Hillary Clinton. This, as Trump tried to reassert control of his message following a couple of rough gaffe-filled weeks.
CNN politics reporter Sara Murray is t raveling with the Trump campaign. She has the latest from North Carolina.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MURRAY: Good morning, Alison and Ryan.
This was supposed to be the week where Donald Trump was sticking to the script, but instead, he set up yet another political firestorm with his comment.
