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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
New Trump Video Lays Out First 100 Days; Trump Cabinet Announcements Today?; Trump: We'll Immediately Withdraw from TPP; Deadly School Bus Crash in TN. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired November 22, 2016 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:00:10] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: All right. The next president's plan of action. Donald Trump tells America what he will do on day one in office. Some key campaign promises don't make the list.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Plus, a disturbing display. Nazi salutes to celebrate Donald Trump's election. This morning, team Trump responds.
ROMANS: The top contenders for treasury secretary, one from Hollywood, the other from Wall Street.
Good morning and welcome to EARLY START. I am Christine Romans.
SANCHEZ: Always a pleasure to be here with you, Christine.
ROMANS: Thank you, Boris.
SANCHEZ: I'm Boris Sanchez. It is Tuesday, November 22nd, 4:00 a.m. on the East Coast.
And we begin this morning with the agenda at Trump Tower in New York. Before Donald Trump packs up and heads for his Mar-A-Lago Resort in Florida for Thanksgiving, the transition team hinting that there might be new cabinet announcements today. Monday passed without any new announcement. Instead, the transition's public focus was on policy, posting a web video with an early look at plans for Trump's first 100 years in office.
Politics reporter Sara Murray has the latest from Trump Tower.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Good morning, Boris and Christine.
The revolving door at Trump Tower continued to churn in potential candidates for a Donald Trump cabinet on Monday. Among the meetings was Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. I'm told the meeting went very well, and she's under serious consideration for a national security post. Now, the other potential announcement we're looking out for is
commerce secretary today. Multiple sources say that Donald Trump has all but settled on billionaire investor Wilbur Ross. But it's unclear if we will get that announcement.
Meanwhile, while Donald Trump is mostly avoiding the press, he is laying out his strategy at least when it comes to executive actions through a video he shared on social media.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: On regulation, I will formulate a rule which says that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated. So important.
On national security, I will ask the Department of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a comprehensive plan to protect America's vital infrastructure from cyber attacks and all other form of attacks.
On immigration, I will direct the Department of Labor to investigate all abuses of Visa programs that undercut the American worker.
On ethics reform, as part of our plan to drain the swamp, we will impose a five-year ban on executive officials from becoming lobbyists after they leave the administration, and a lifetime ban executive officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government. These are just a few of the steps we will take to reform Washington and rebuild our middle class.
MURRAY: Now, one thread the initiatives in the media had in common, they did not necessarily require Congress to participate. These are all executive actions that Donald Trump could do on day one. And that's the reason you're not seeing some of his bigger priorities, like repealing Obamacare or building a wall along the southern border.
Back to you, guys.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: All right. That will take Congress, no doubt. Sara Murray, thank you.
Donald Trump narrowing down his pick for treasury secretary, possibly the most financial job in the world. Sources close to the transition tells CNN it's down to two men, Steve Mnuchin and Jonathan Gray.
Mnuchin is a former Goldman Sachs partner turned Hollywood producer. He also invests in films. He served as Trump's campaign finance chairman. Sources say he made it clear he wanted the treasury secretary post.
Jonathan Gray is a billionaire who runs the real estate arm of private equity firm Blackstone. He spent his entire career there building up the company's global real estate holdings from China and Latin America. He's donated the personal maximum to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
Both would be seen as political moderates. Mnuchin has supported Democrat and Republicans.
The treasury secretary is a cabinet position requiring Senate confirmation. This man will be the face of the American economy around the world. I say it is probably the most powerful financial position second to the Fed chief. The Fed chairman is the most powerful financial position in the world. This is someone who will work separately, but closely with the Fed.
SANCHEZ: It should be interesting to see how Trump approaches the Fed, too, considering some of the things that he said, specifically about the politicization of the Fed.
ROMANS: Oh, yes, oh, yes.
SANCHEZ: One photo op with a possible cabinet pick has proved especially revealing. Look at this -- Trump posing Sunday with Kris Kobach. He is under consideration to head a Department of Homeland Security. But how do we know for sure? Because of the photos he is holding they say he is.
The papers are headlined "Kobach strategic plan". They detail his proposals to bar the entry of potential terrorist. Among them are extreme vetting of high risk aliens, asking them about support for jihad and Sharia law, and ending all immigration of Syrian refugees.
ROMANS: All right. Florida Governor Rick Scott will not be joining the Trump administration. After meeting on Monday with the president- elect, Scott told reporters he already has a great job and wants to spend the next two years getting things done for his state.
[04:05:06] Scott called his meeting with Trump friendly and described the president-elect as energized and hardworking.
SANCHEZ: The Trump transition team is responding to a disturbing celebration by the alt-right. Members of the White Supremacist National Policy Institute gathered last weekend in Washington for a hate-filled tribute to Trump.
Listen to the leader of the group using Nazi-type language to rev up the crowd there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hail Trump. Hail our people. Hail victory.
(APPLAUSE)
SANCHEZ: Now, the Trump team has responded to this video from "The Atlantic", writing, quote, "President-elect Trump has continued to denounced racism of any kind and he was elected because he will be a leader for every American. To think otherwise is a complete misrepresentation of the movement that united Americans from all backgrounds.
ROMANS: All right. Top executives, news executives and anchors from the nation's five biggest television networks sat down with President- elect Trump on Monday. The meeting was off the record. Both sides agreeing not to discuss details, but a source tells CNN, quote, "real progress was made on the thorny issue of media access to Trump."
Later today, the president-elect is scheduled to meet with the publisher of "The New York Times" and several of its reporters.
SANCHEZ: Among the plans that Trump has offered up on that new web video, the one that he most frequently mentioned on the campaign trail is the promise to pull the U.S. out of the Trans Pacific Partnership. That's the 12-nation trade deal lowering trade barriers among Pacific Rim countries notably excepting China. Trump is vowing to tear up that deal saying it will cost Americans jobs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I am going to issue a notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country. Instead, we will negotiate fair bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Donald Trump's determination to abandon the TPP has other nations that have signed on to the pact worried to say the least.
Joining us with the latest, CNN's Andrew Stevens is live this morning in Hong Kong.
Andrew, the TPP was designed as a way to try to compete with China in that region as far as trade goes. This has to be welcome news for Beijing.
ANDREW STEVENS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, absolutely. I mean, there's been a lot of concern that the U.S. is now pulling out of the TPP. The New Zealand prime minister said we want America in the region, we like America in the region. If they pull out, if they leave the TPP, that is going to leave a vacuum and that vacuum is going to be filled by China.
What the TPP did, Boris, and you can argue the pros and cons whether it's good or bad for American jobs. But what it did do, it did create an American-led level playing field in things like environmental standards, in labor standards in the 12 countries. So, if they were in the TPP, they had to reach certain standards for export. So, there was that sort of soft power, if you like.
That's all gone. China can step into the breach, it can lead by the sheer says of the economy the next round of trade negotiations in Asia. That's not to say China is going to do bad negotiations. China has said very clearly, we believe in a multilateral trade platform, but we just don't know what they're going to do.
Donald Trump says that, as I say, this is potentially disastrous for the U.S. We have no way of knowing whether that's true or not. What is more disturbing perhaps is not so much pulling out of the TPP, but if Donald Trump carries through with his other campaign rhetoric on trade on relations, economic relations and slaps traffics on Chinese exports into the U.S. 45 percent. If it calls China a currency manipulator, China will more than likely to respond to that. That is where you get a trade war. And that will be devastating for the global economy, Boris.
SANCHEZ: Certainly, Trump saying that he wants to pursue bilateral trade deals instead of the more multilateral approach that we saw with the TPP.
Andrew Stevens reporting from Hong Kong, thank you.
ROMANS: That is rejection of the past 30 or 40 years of philosophy from both parties in Washington. It is really a reversal of everything we know from the second half of the 20th century. It will also be fascinating. This is what leaders are trying to get their heads around and trade negotiators -- do you take Donald Trump's campaign promises literally or is that a starting point and the conversation starts.
SANCHEZ: It's part of a bigger negotiation.
ROMANS: And actually, the negotiation before the final deal is done.
All right. Up next, a deadly school bus crash in Chattanooga. Six children killed. And now, the driver is facing charges. The latest on this investigation ahead on EARLY START.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:13:58] ROMANS: A Chattanooga bus driver arrested and charged overnight for a deadly bus crash that killed at least six school children. This school bus was carrying 35 kids all in kindergarten to a fifth grade when it flipped over and slammed into a tree, tore in half Monday afternoon. Twenty-three of its children had to be transported to the hospital. This tragic accident leaving the community just stunned.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KIRK KELLY, INTERIM SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT: This has been a great tragedy for us. We suffered a great loss today. Everyone in the community, this is one of the worst days we had in Hamilton County.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Conditions were clear and dry at the time of the crash. The bus driver is identified as 24-year-old John Anthony Walker. He has been charged with five counts of vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment and reckless driving. Federal agents from the NTSB will be arriving on the scene later this morning to investigate.
SANCHEZ: A manhunt for the killer of a 20-year veteran of the San Antonio Police Department ended with a capture of the suspect yesterday. The motive for the fatal shooting is still not known, but the city's police chief believes it was a targeted killing.
[04:15:03] We get more now from CNN's Dan Simon in San Antonio.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Boris and Christine, as you can imagine, there is unbearable sadness here in San Antonio. But there's also relief that the suspect has been captured. He has been identified as 31-year-old Otis Tyrone McCain. The police tell us they were able to quickly develop some leads and have the suspect under surveillance.
He was pulled over. This was a traffic stop inside the vehicle. You had the suspect along with an adult female as well as child just 2 years old. The suspect was taken into custody without incident.
CHIEF WILLIAM MCMANUS, SAN ANTONIO POLICE DEPARTMENT: This is the person whose image we saw on surveillance. This is also the person we believe is responsible for the cold and calculated murder of detective Marconi. There are many facets of the case which still need to be investigated. This investigation is by no means over.
SIMON: So, while this active manhunt is over, we still don't know the motive behind this. Why this suspect fired on this particular police officer. Was there some kind of personal grievance against this officer, or was there a grievance against the police department as a whole? That we don't know. But as the mayor of San Antonio said, at least the city can breathe a little easier that the suspect has been captured -- Boris and Christine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: All right. Thanks for that, Dan Simon.
Hundreds of workers at Chicago's O'Hare Airport set to strike a week from today, bypassing the busy Thanksgiving holiday week. Those strikes coincide with the nationwide day of protest in the fight for 15 movement to raise the minimum wage. Demonstrations are scheduled at nearly two dozen airports and at a McDonald's restaurants in 300 cities. Organizers expecting tens of thousands of people to participate. They want better working conditions at O'Hare and they want higher wages.
SANCHEZ: Friend or foe or it's complicated. How will the U.S. military relationship with China change under a Trump administration? We are live with some answers, straight ahead.
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[04:21:22] SANCHEZ: Since the election, Donald Trump has said nothing about the U.S. military posture toward its biggest rival in the Far East, China. That mission was highlighted as the U.S. and Chinese military's train and joint disaster relief exercises in Kunming last week. That cooperative venture contrast sharply with the tense standoff between the two countries in the South China Sea. And it raises the question, how will that relationship change under a Trump administration?
Let's bring in CNN's Matt Rivers in Beijing.
Matt, good morning.
Trump and the campaign specifically said that part of the reason China kept pushing into the South China Sea was because Obama did not stand up to him. The implication, of course, being that he would. So, how is this being received there?
MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, China's leaders are just as curious as the rest of the world as to exactly what the Trump administration plans to do when it crafts its foreign policy towards China. When Donald Trump talked on the campaign trail about China, which he did quite often, it really was more about the economics of all this, about how the Chinese economy has hurt the U.S. economy in the words of the president-elect.
But we heard him talk less about the military side of things, the geopolitical side of things. And so, really in order to determine what he is going to do next, we have to look for some clues. As you mentioned, he did talk about the South China Sea quite a little bit, but there's also a thought perhaps that if Donald Trump follows through with this kind of rhetoric where he says put America first, if he focuses more domestically, then you hear some experts saying, well, maybe he pulls back from the South China Sea, he doesn't engage quite as much as the Obama administration did. And that leaves China the ability to perhaps further its own goals of building up those artificial islands. So, that's one hand.
On the other hand, you have to look at who the Trump administration might consist of. General Flynn, the new national security adviser, has been very anti-China in some of his statements, as one of the top defenders for the defense secretary post, General James Mattis, saying that China should stop its bullying concepts in the South China Sea.
So, Boris, really, we have a lot of speculation right now. There are a few clues here and there, but this really is one of the big open- ended questions facing the Trump administration as they are set to take power.
SANCHEZ: And one question of many, especially when it comes to China, the TPP, the potential conflict in the South China Sea.
Matt Rivers from Beijing, thank you.
ROMANS: All right. At least three people were injured after a 6.9 magnitude earthquake strikes off the coast of northeastern Japan. It triggered a three-foot tsunami at the Fukushima plant, the site of the one of the world's worse nuclear disasters. But at this point, it caused no additional damage. Thank goodness.
The biggest wave 4.5 feet hit Sendai to the north. The tremors could be felt as far away as Tokyo. You can see them there. You can see the lights in these bookstore swaying. Tsunami warnings have since been lifted. The residents are expected to feel aftershocks.
SANCHEZ: And here at home, as we prep for the Thanksgiving holiday, snow shovels are out in parts of the Northeast. More than a foot of snow has fallen in some areas, and there's more on the way.
Let's get to meteorologist Pedram Javaheri.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Boris and Christine, good morning, guys. Yes, the snow showers still in place this morning around parts of the Northeast. The cold air locked in place as well. Albany around 30 degrees. Syracuse looking at 30 degrees.
Light to moderate snow showers coming down as the lake-effect snow machine cranking out everything it has to offer with the warning still in place from Watertown, down towards Binghamton. And, of course, we have very, very cold air right now, aloft moving directly over what is relatively warm waters over the Great Lakes there.
So, what we're seeing here, the energy set up snow later on this morning. But notice, the winds as go into Wednesday night begin to shift.
[04:25:02] That's wonderful news if you've got plans for Thanksgiving Day as the snow showers should begin to really wane as we go into the Thursday morning.
But if you are across the Midwest, different story. Another storm system begins to move right on in. We have travel plans on Wednesday into Chicago could certainly have some major delays developing across that region.
While it's generally should be on the minor side from St. Louis, out towards Cincinnati, could see some moderate delays if you're planning to take you out towards Minneapolis St. Paul with the storm system again that could bring in snow showers from parts of the Upper Midwest -- guys.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: All right. Pedram Javaheri, thank you for that.
All right. Breaking overnight, Kanye West reportedly hospitalized in Los Angeles, being treated for exhaustion. A source telling CNN he was admitted after police responded to a disturbance call Monday.
Earlier, the remainder of his concert tour was abruptly cancelled. It follows some recent bizarre behavior by West who ignited a Twitter storm during a rant, with a rant during a concert last week about why he supports Donald Trump. He showed up 90 minutes late for a weekend concert. He played two songs and went after Beyonce and Jay-Z in another stage rant.
SANCHEZ: President Obama's final Medal of Freedom ceremony today is heavy on star power. It's the nation's highest civilian honor, recognizing significant contributions to the national interests of the U.S. or world peace. Among the 21 recipients, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jordan, Bill and Melinda Gates, and Tom Hanks. Also being honored, actors Robert De Niro and Robert Redford, talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, legendary baseball broadcaster Vin Scully, and NBA great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
A star studded list to say the least.
ROMANS: Certainly, that's right.
All right. Team Trump posting a web video with the president-elect's plans for the first 100 days in office. Will Trump's tangled web of business ties become a distraction here, though? We got a closer look at that ahead on EARLY START.
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