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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Trump Vs. Corker: The Feud Escalates; Trump Campaign Fundraises On NFL Walkout; New Details On Vegas Shooting Time Line. Aired 5:30- 6a ET

Aired October 10, 2016 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:33:04] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump isn't finished with Sen. Bob Corker. What's in store in the feud between the commander in chief and a leading member of his own party?

DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: And, the vice president's NFL walkout now in fundraising e-mails. The White House standing by its football fight, saying this could be a winning issue for the president.

ROMANS: Plus, wildfires rage across California. At least 10 dead. The death toll expected to grow.

Wine country -- we're showing you Anaheim, California there, but wine country in the crosshairs here. Evacuations of some of these vineyards. Just a really dangerous and scary situation there.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

BRIGGS: These winds need to die down.

I'm Dave Briggs. It is 33 minutes past the hour.

We begin this morning with new details on the president's escalating feud with a member -- a leading member of his own party. That person, Republican Sen. Bob Corker, the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Now, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon calling on Corker to step down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: McConnell and Corker and the entire clique -- establishment globalist clique on Capitol Hill have to go. And if he needs any -- if we need any more proof about what they think, you heard it tonight. It's an absolute disgrace. If Bob Corker has any honor, any decency, he should resign immediately.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: Don't count on it.

Bannon demanding that Sen. Corker resign for his open skepticism of President Trump's fitness to lead. That skepticism expressed in an interview with "The New York Times."

We now have audio from that interview. Here's a portion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BOB CORKER (R-TN), CHAIRMAN, SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: I do worry that he's -- yes, and sometimes I feel like he's on a reality show of some kind, you know, when he's talking about these big foreign policy issues. And, you know, he doesn't realize that, you know, that we could be heading towards World War III with the kind of comments that he's making.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[05:35:04] ROMANS: Now, sources also tell CNN the president is lashing out at Corker, in part over frustration that his legislative agenda is stalled in Congress even though the president -- the president needs senators like Corker to get that agenda passed.

One GOP source in touch with the White House tells CNN Corker has more allies in the Senate than the president and that the feud is a bad idea for Trump.

And there could be more to come. More on that from CNN's Sara Murray.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA MURRAY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Dave and Christine.

This is a feud that could continue. White House officials say Trump is not yet done with Corker. That's not necessarily good news to everyone here in the West Wing.

This is after President Trump spent the weekend going after Corker on Twitter, saying the only reason Corker has decided not to run for reelection is because Trump wouldn't endorse him and Corker knew there is no way he would win without Trump's backing.

Now, Corker's staff has taken issue with that characterization disputing it, insisting the president said that if Corker would reconsider and would run again that Trump would back this senator.

Some are concerned that Trump could be alienating a key ally, both on foreign policy and on budget issues.

Back to you guys.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right. Sara Murray at the White House.

President Trump is using the controversy around Vice President Pence's walkout at an NFL game over the National Anthem to raise money. This, as critics charge that Pence's walkout was really just a staged stunt paid for by taxpayer dollars. In Monday's fundraising e-mail, the president slammed members of the San Francisco 49ers who took a knee during the anthem, writing "Your vice president refused to dignify their disrespect."

BRIGGS: The president, last night, also praising one NFL team owner in a tweet. "A big salute to Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, who will bench players who disrespect our flag. Stand for anthem or sit for the game."

One administration source telling CNN that some in the White House actually believe this issue plays well for the president.

For more, we turn to CNN's Rene Marsh.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION AND GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Dave and Christine.

It appears the vice president made the trip on Air Force Two knowing that he'd walk out before the main event, and it comes as government watchdogs are investigating several Trump cabinet officials for their use of private jets and military planes.

Well, Pence left the Indianapolis Colts versus San Francisco 49ers game in his home state when players from the 49ers took a knee during the National Anthem.

Well, Sunday started with Pence tweeting that he was looking forward to cheering on the Colts. Once at the stadium, his aides told reporters that Pence may depart the game early and that they should stay in their vehicles.

Well, after around 30 minutes in the stadium, Pence tweeted that he left the game because "@POTUS and I will not dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our flag, or our National Anthem."

And then later, the president tweeted he and Pence discussed walking out beforehand. "I asked @VP Pence to leave to stadium if any players kneeled, disrespecting our country. I am proud of him and @SecondLady Karen."

Well, the walkout is drawing some sharp criticism with some calling it a very expensive political stunt on taxpayers' dime. It costs $30,000 per hour to fly Air Force Two. Pence flew from Las Vegas to Indianapolis on Saturday, then flew from Indianapolis to Los Angeles on Sunday.

The cost, nearly a quarter million dollars. The Flight cost estimates do not include the cost of advance personnel, Secret Service, and support on the ground.

We will say that Pence's office contends if it wasn't for the game he would have flown back to Washington, D.C. and they say that would have been a greater cost -- Dave and Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRIGGS: Rene, thanks.

The White House standing by its hardline demands for any deal to protect the young, undocumented immigrants here known as Dreamers. Democratic leaders in Congress calling President Trump's immigration wish list a non-starter, with one aide saying the decision to release it on Sunday night before Columbus Day looked like an effort to bury it.

But a Republican adviser to the president says quote, "Democrats have to compromise to get their goals or why bother?"

ROMANS: House Speaker -- House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi suggests her side of the aisle might withhold support for spending bills if there's no deal on Dreamers. That needs to happen by March or some 690,000 young people brought to the U.S. as children will lose their protections that allow them to work and stay in the country legally.

To help us break it all down let's bring in "Washington Examiner" White House correspondent Sarah Westwood live in our D.C. bureau.

Let's stay on Dreamers since we've just filled everybody in on where we stand on that. So, Congress is up against this deadline and then overnight on Sunday, the White House throws out this proposal with everything but the kitchen sink with immigration restrictionism in the eyes of the Democrats.

[05:40:00] And then, Ivanka Trump, an adviser to the president -- someone with his ear -- she was speaking yesterday at the Fortune Most Powerful Women conference and I want you to listen to what she said and let us know on the other side, is she on the same page as her dad or a little softer on this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IVANKA TRUMP, ADVISER TO THE PRESIDENT: I, personally, am of the opinion, and the president has stated this, that we have to figure out a good solution that protects these innocent people, many of whom were brought to this country as children. But, you know, there has to be a long-term fix and it cannot be bandaged over at a presidential level for another executive order that can be rescinded by a subsequent administration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: What do you make of that?

SARAH WESTWOOD, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, WASHINGTON EXAMINER: That seems to be more or less in line with what the president has said, not mentioning the other half of the equation which is that the White House plans to use those protections for Dreamers as a bargaining chip to get some of the other immigration restrictionist items that you mentioned. To get e-verified, to get construction of the border wall, perhaps.

To get more additions to ICE and more people to adjudicate these immigration cases.

So, these are all things that the president has been clear at one time or another that he wants, but to include them all in this deal -- which Democrats are under the impression they could secure without having to fight over the border wall -- came as a bit of a surprise to Capitol Hill and could complicate the situation.

But on the other hand, you did have conservatives who were excited to see that President Trump included all of these border security measures in the immigration deal --

ROMANS: Sure.

WESTWOOD: -- with the DACA protection. They were afraid that President Trump was going to seed the best leverage he'll ever have and give up, perhaps, what will be his best chance for the wall to get this DACA with Democrats.

BRIGGS: All right. All this with the backdrop of the feud between the president and Bob Corker, the chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, continuing.

And at the heart of what Bob Corker is saying is that it's not just him questioning the president. He's basically saying the majority of the Republican caucus agrees with me. And, he says I know it for a fact that those in the White House just want to keep the president and his words in the middle of the road.

So are his opinions shared in the White House and according to your contacts, by other senators on Capitol Hill, and will they be expressed?

WESTWOOD: Well, there've always been whispers that a lot of Republicans on Capitol Hill were particularly unhappy with the way President Trump tweets, but also the way he gets distracted from his own message.

Corker is in a unique situation because he's no longer running for reelection so he's freed from the restrictions that come with worrying about keeping your seat.

Now, with Steve Bannon outside the White House launching challenges against these incumbent Republicans that have to run for reelection in 2018, that could prompt another wave of early retirement to Republicans who just don't want to deal with the drama that Trump brings.

We've already seen a handful of retirements of House Republicans who don't want to have to run for reelection in swing districts and those individual retirements are less consequential in the House if we see some more of them in the Senate. Senators like Orrin Hatch of Utah, for example, retiring early in 2018. You would see a lot of senators unshackled from the constraints of having to run for reelection and you could see President Trump's agenda unravel pretty quickly on the Senate if that happens.

BRIGGS: Important because Steve Bannon said he's going after every incumbent Republican senator except for Ted Cruz, Christine.

ROMANS: Wow.

Let me ask you this. You know, there's this -- in this reporting -- this Bob Corker reporting -- there's this idea -- this notion that there are a lot of other senators who feel the same way as Bob Corker. That there are folks who are very concerned about the president's temper, about the way he fumes, about the way he lashes it that it could hurt his agenda. And that behind the scenes there is a conventional wisdom among Senate Republicans that this president is dangerous.

You're there in Washington covering this. Is that the conventional wisdom among Republican senators?

WESTWOOD: I think dangerous might be taking it a little --

ROMANS: OK.

WESTWOOD: -- too far. But certainly, Republicans in general have been extremely frustrated with the way that President Trump has occasionally undercut his own message and undermined his own agenda by going off on tangents, whether he's tweeting about morning show hosts and their facelifts, whether he is going off attacking the NFL, and waging all these battles that don't need to be waged while Republicans are trying to focus on repealing Obamacare or pushing through tax reform. Or now, trying to secure some kind of immigration deal.

President Trump has a tendency to distract from what they are trying to do and some of them have expressed frustration about that openly, but not nearly as capably as Bob Corker is.

BRIGGS: All right. I want to ask you about the politics of Harvey Weinstein after this "New York Times" story about the decades' long misconduct.

Democrats have been oddly silent on this. There are some Congressmen and women who have given back donations, donating them to women's' groups.

But, Hillary Clinton, for one, spoke for 90 minutes last night at U.C. Davis. Not a mention of Harvey Weinstein in her prepared or Q&A remarks.

[05:45:05] President Obama, who was very tight -- 13 visits to the White House. Harvey Weinstein raised a ton of money for both -- was a bundler for both.

Should they speak out? Why have they not? WESTWOOD: Well, Hillary Clinton, in particular, I think has some sort of political obligation to speak out because she has made her core issue women's rights, women's empowerment, and she has a lot of damaging photos out there of her and Harvey Weinstein being very friendly.

So I think that she is probably going to face more pressure to speak out against Harvey Weinstein than someone like President Obama who is no longer in office, who doesn't often make public appearances, and who didn't have women's rights as his central core issue and rationale for being in politics.

So, Hillary Clinton, I think, does have more of an obligation to speak out --

ROMANS: Right.

WESTWOOD: -- against Harvey Weinstein. It will be interesting to see if she does.

BRIGGS: And when you're out there selling a book you have plenty of opportunities. And more than $100,000 was given from Weinstein to the Clinton Foundation, not just political donations.

ROMANS: We know that Weinstein -- in the papers this morning, the Weinstein Company is weighing a name change to take its -- the Weinstein out --

BRIGGS: Interesting.

ROMANS: -- of the company name.

Sarah Westwood, White House correspondent, "Washington Examiner." Nice to see you bright and early this morning. Thanks for getting up for us.

WESTWOOD: Thank you.

ROMANS: Oh, I bet she was already up. She's an early bird. She's well read in --

BRIGGS: She'd have to be --

ROMANS: -- by 5:30 a.m.

BRIGGS: -- up early.

All right. New details in the timeline of the Las Vegas shooting, plus we're learning more about the shooter from his own words. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:50:39] BRIGGS: All right. New details in the Las Vegas massacre significantly changed the time line of the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. CNN has also exclusively uncovered new information about the shooter, Stephen Paddock, gleaning from a lawsuit he filed back in 2013.

We get the latest from CNN's Sara Sidner.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, guys. Now we're learning that the time line is very different from what we originally were told by authorities. The sheriff saying things would change and it certainly has in this case.

Now we are hearing that Jesus Campos, the security guard for the Mandalay Bay who was the initial person to take gunfire by Stephen Paddock, went up to the 32nd floor because there was a door ajar and that set off an alarm. Well, it turns out he was shot a full six minutes or so before Stephen Paddock started shooting at the crowd of concertgoers.

Before, we were told that he was shot during that and a lot of people assumed that that may have been why Paddock stopped shooting once he was found out by the guard.

But that is not the case now. The sheriff saying he arrived on the 32nd floor at 9:59 and was shot at that time. Stephen Paddock didn't start shooting until 10:05. So lots of questions will be surrounding that detail.

We're also hearing from the sheriff that they are going back through Stephen Paddock's properties to see if they missed anything. If there was anything of any evidence that could help them put together the puzzle of why Stephen Paddock opened fire on so many people.

We are also learning from a deposition that Stephen Paddock himself gave in 2013 after he sued one of the hotels here in Vegas when he slipped and fell in their lobby. And we hear from him that he calls himself the best video poker player in the world, saying he spent up to a $1 million on any given night in those machines, giving you some idea of his gambling habit.

All in all, though, again, we still don't know the answer as to why Stephen Paddock did what he did and injured and killed so many people here in Vegas.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right. Thank you so much for that, Sara Sidner.

To money now at 52 minutes past the hour.

Millennials don't use credit cards like their mom and dad or their grandparents. I'm going to tell you why that could turn out to be a bad thing. Details on "CNN Money Stream," next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:57:19] BRIGGS: All right. New details this morning on the firing of disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein from the company that bears his name.

A longtime friend tells CNN Weinstein believes it was a takedown, not a reaction to sexual harassment allegations stretching back decades. According to this friend, Weinstein is convinced he was betrayed by his brother, Bob, who he believes is behind "The New York Times" reporting.

ROMANS: We're also learning that Harvey Weinstein e-mailed Hollywood executives in a last-ditch attempt to save his job.

In this leaked e-mail he says this. "If you could write this letter backing me, getting me the help and time away I need, and also stating your opposition to the board firing me, it would help me a lot.

I'm desperate for your help. Just give me the time to have therapy. Do not let me be fired. If the industry supports me that is all I need."

The industry doesn't really support him here. Celebrities like Meryl Street and Dame Judi Dench now speaking out against Weinstein. Also heard from George Clooney and others.

BRIGGS: Kate Winslet --

ROMANS: Yes.

BRIGGS: -- we understand.

ROMANS: All right, 58 minute past the hour. Let's get a check on "CNN Money Stream" this morning.

Global stock markets mostly higher after Wall Street closed lower yesterday, but the trend is what is important here. All three major averages of double digits this year and near record highs. The economy is growing, they think tax cuts are coming, and companies are making tons of money.

The latest earnings season kick off Thursday with JPMorgan and Citigroup profit reports.

So far, S&P 500 companies have had double-digit profit growth -- double-digit profit growth for the first two quarters of the year.

All right. Millennials do not use credit cards like their parents or their grandparents. It turns out that could be bad. Less than a third of millennials have a credit card compared to more than half of people age 30 to 49, and nearly 70 percent of people over 65.

Experts say millennials fear debt, especially after witnessing the financial crisis and the pain and suffering it caused their families. No question, being cautious is smart but it can be smarter to use credit cards responsibly. It helps build credit and credit cards offer better fraud protections than debit cards.

It was actually Congress that put the kibosh on companies being able to, you know, market to 19-year-olds, so they're not going to be marketing to college anymore.

BRIGGS: Right, besides --

ROMANS: But now they're not opening credit cards.

All right, thanks for joining us. I'm Christine Romans.

BRIGGS: I'm Dave Briggs. "NEW DAY" starts right now. We'll see you tomorrow.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He'd say we're going to be OK provisionally as long as the adults are still there. I mean, that's extraordinary.

BANNON: McConnell and Corker and the entire establishment globalist clique have to go.

CORKER: We could be heading towards World War III.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That should be a full-stop, all traffic comes to a halt moment. This is a cry for help for the country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have significant policy agenda problems and these feuds don't help.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Over 14 major fires burning across eight counties.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At one point, the fire gusting to 40 to 50 miles per hour.