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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Donald Trump Lays Out First 100 Days; Trump Cabinet Announcements Today?; Trump: We'll Immediately Withdraw from TPP; Deadly School Bus Crash in TN; Arrest in Fatal Shooting of San Antonio Cop; Monday Night Football in Mexico City. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired November 22, 2016 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: The next president's plan of action. Donald Trump tells America what he'll do on day one in office.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: A disturbing display. Nazi salutes to celebrate Trump's election. This morning, team Trump responds.
SANCHEZ: And top contenders for the treasury secretary. One from Hollywood, the other from Wall Street.
Good morning and welcome to EARLY START. I'm Boris Sanchez.
ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. It is Tuesday, November 22nd, it is Thanksgiving week. It is 5:00 a.m. in the East.
Nice to see you this week.
New closed door transition meetings on the agenda this morning at Trump Tower in New York, before Trump packs up and heads to his Mar-A- Lago estate in Florida for Thanksgiving. The transition team hinting there may be new cabinet announcements today. Monday passed without any new announcements. Instead the transition's public focus on policy.
Here it is. The web video with an early look at plans for Trump's first 100 days 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.
[05:00:06] 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 video 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. Sara, thank you, at Trump Tower for us.
Donald Trump is narrowing down his pick for treasury secretary. Sources close to the transition telling CNN it's down to two men, Steve Mnuchin and Jonathan Gray.
Now, Steve Mnuchin is a former Goldman Sachs partner turned Hollywood producer more recently. 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.
There was controversy involving Mnuchin after he led a group that bought failed housing lender IndyMac for pennies on a dollar in 2009 then sold it a few years later for a huge profi.
Now, Gray, 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 has donated the personal maximum to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Both would be seen as political moderates. Mnuchin has supported
Democrats and Republicans. The treasury secretary is a cabinet position that requires Senate confirmation. This man will be the face of the American economy around the world.
SANCHEZ: It's certainly been fascinating to watch all of these people in a very public way. Something that's usually very private.
ROMANS: I know.
SANCHEZ: In a very public way. And it's open for interpretation.
ROMANS: In a very Donald Trump way.
SANCHEZ: Yes, but one photo op in particular between Trump and a possible cabinet pick has proved especially revealing. Trump posing Sunday with Kris Kobach. He is under consideration to head a Department of Homeland Security. But how do we know that for sure? Because of the photos he is holding say so.
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. The Donald Trump transition team is responding to this disturbing celebration of the president-elect's victory by some in the so-called alt-right Members of the White Supremacist National Policy Institute gathered last weekend in Washington for a hate-filled tribute to the president-elect.
Listen to the leader of the group using Nazi-type language to rev up the crowd.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hail Trump. Hail our people. Hail victory.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: The Nazi salute there.
Here is the Trump team's response: "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."
SANCHEZ: Also yesterday, top executives and anchors from the nation's five biggest TV networks sat down with President-elect Trump on Monday. The meeting was off the record, with both sides agreeing not to discuss details. But a source tells CNN that 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 reports. One of the big questions for Trump had been when you're going to have a press conference, when are we going to be able to ask you questions? His answer, soon.
ROMANS: Soon.
All right. Joining us to talk about the latest twist and turns of the Trump transition, political analyst and best-selling author, Ellis Henican.
Good morning.
ELLIS HENICAN, POLITICAL ANALYST AND BEST-SELLING AUTHOR: Good morning, guys.
ROMANS: You know, I was not inside that room yesterday and it is off the record. But I can only imagine he laid into the reporters there, that they didn't get it, they didn't get him. You know, his surrogates have told us that again and again that the media has lied, lied about him and tried to scuttle his candidacy.
He is the president now and he has revealed what he will do in the first 100 days. I just want to show you some of the things he said. He's going to withdraw from TPP. That is a promise he made. He wants to negotiate bilateral trade deals instead. He wants to slash restrictions on domestic energy production. He wants to cut two old regulations for every new one created, and it goes on and on with a national security and ethics reform as well. But you can see them there.
But let me show you the banner headline in the "Wall Street Journal", banner headline. You can't see this if you read on the phone. If you get the actual paper like me do, you can see banner headline. Small stocks lead record charge. All for major averages were record high.
Everyone who said Trump was bad, bad, bad, bad, this is more evidence from Donald Trump's camp that you are all wrong. Why were you so wrong?
HENICAN: First of all, I don't know we were all wrong. I mean, if you expect the media to foretell the future?
[05:05:04] You're going to be disappointed. I mean, we are not great predicting --
ROMANS: The media record history in the present, does not foretell the future.
(CROSSTALK)
HENICAN: We're pretty good about gathering facts if what was going on, giving some analysis and getting a variety of insights about it. If you want me to tell you what's going to be popular three weeks from now or nine years from now? I'm sorry. My average is not that great.
ROMANS: But I think what is interesting to me is the investors around the world are taking Trump at his word that he's going to cut these regulations, that he is going to get out of TPP, that he's going to bring American jobs back, that he's going to cut taxes. They believe him when the media took him literally about the other things he said and did not take him seriously.
HENICA: Well, fair enough. But remember in the campaign, we get such contradictory explanations. That's why even this video. We know it is pre-processed. We know that it's an internal job, but it's important, because it's giving us our very first hints of what at least he intends to do in the early days of the administration. And what we are getting now, frankly, are some of the little things.
ROMANS: Yes, this looks to me like these are things he can do with executive order.
HENICAN: Without Congress.
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: No Obamacare on there. You don't see the wall.
HENICAN: No wall. Muslim ban. None of that stuff.
SANCHEZ: The other question I have for you. I want to pull up this video. We played this video earlier. You saw some of it. White nationalist meeting in Washington, D.C.
Here is the sound bite from that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: America was until this past generation a white country, designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation. It is our inheritance, and it belongs to us.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Now, you saw the response from the Trump camp. They don't say the words Nazis, obviously that's what these folks are. Is that enough from the Trump camp? Do you think he suddenly is still trying to court some of the fringe supporters?
HENICAN: Well, I don't want to suggest motives. I think it would be nice if we had a specific disavow of this stuff. Not just a broad base, we're against racism and hatred in all forms. It would have been better to nail in on it a little bit.
SANCHEZ: That's interesting partly because he made such a big deal about (AUDIO GAP)
Do you think maybe it is a sign there is some level of inequity there?
HENICAN: Right. Hey, Mr. Trump, use the word right supremacist. Use the word white nationalism. Speak its name.
(CROSSTALK)
HENICAN: That's a good point, Boris.
ROMANS: From the campaign, it was interesting to me, because they said to focus on this ignores the movement that Donald Trump was brought to the White House to represent all Americans. People in that room think he was brought to the White House to represent all Americans. They have not been represented. People like that have not been represented.
HENICAN: Listen, Christine, it is not fair to blame a politician for every person that supports him, right? But when horrible people support you, I do think you have some responsibility to say, that's not who I was running for. Those aren't the values I am carrying forward. I think we have a bit of distance.
ROMANS: I think a lot of people watching at this hour, 5:08 a.m. in the East, business people, people who want to know whether he's going to keep his promises on the things that he says he is going to do, you know, on the economy, on these $1 trillion in infrastructure. I was with CEOs last week. (AUDIO GAP) enough workers to do the shovel ready piece, which is ironic since Donald Trump thinks there are millions of people in the streets who need jobs.
HENICAN: Listen, the story of the next three months will be taking the promises that were made in the campaign, right? And some of them were contradictory. And some of them were hard to figure out the specificity of and figure out at least what's the plan for turning this stuff into reality.
And I think as we sit here now, there's still a lot of question marks about that.
ROMANS: All right.
SANCHEZ: So many question marks. Ellis, thank you.
ROMANS: All right. Go to Starbucks and get a Venti tall iced tea, and then come back in 20 minutes.
HENICAN: I'm sticking with coffee. I hear I can afford.
ROMANS: Our frugal morning guest. All right. We'll talk to you in a few minutes. Thanks.
Nine minutes past the hour.
Up next, a deadly school bus crash. Six school children killed. Now, the driver facing multiple charges. We've got the latest on this investigation ahead on EARLY START.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:13:30] SANCHEZ: A Chattanooga bus driver arrested and charged overnight for a deadly bus crash that killed at least six school children. The school bus was carrying 35 kids all in kindergarten to a fifth grade when it flipped over and slammed into a tree, and as you can see, tore in half Monday afternoon. Twenty-three of the kids had to be transported to the hospital.
The tragic accident leaving the community 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)
SANCHEZ: Conditions were clear and dry at the time of the crash. The bus driver has been identified as 24-year-old Johnthony Walker. He's 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 to wreck.
ROMANS: A manhunt for the killer of the 20-year veteran of the San Antonio police department ended with a capture of a suspect on Monday. The motive for the fatal shooting is still not known. But the city's police chief believes it was a targeted killing.
Let's get more this morning from CNN's Dan Simon. He is 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.
[05:15:03] 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)
SANCHEZ: Dan, thanks for that.
At least three people were injured after a 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of northeastern Japan. It triggered a 3-foot tsunami at the Fukushima plant, the site of one of the world's worst nuclear disasters. Fortunately, though, it caused no additional damage.
The biggest wave was about 4.5 feet and hit Sendai to the north of that country. The tremors could be felt as far away as Tokyo. Look at these lights swaying in the bookstore. Tsunami warnings have been since been lifted, but residents are expected to continue to feel aftershocks like these.
ROMANS: All right. Here at home, snow shovels and snow boots, gloves are out in parts of the Northeast. Take a look at Syracuse, New York. More areas will get even more snow. Ooh.
SANCHEZ: The most wonderful time of year.
ROMANS: Let's go 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.
Now, you live in Miami, but you have credibility because you went to school in Syracuse.
SANCHEZ: Yes. I had to deal with some of the awful pictures we saw there.
ROMANS: But he lives in Miami. So --
SANCHEZ: I'm here now. It's kind of chilly.
ROMANS: He is not shoveling his car out.
SANCHEZ: Monday night football with a Mexican flair. Raiders and Texans at Azteca Stadium in Mexico County. Coy Wire joins us in just a moment with this morning's "Bleacher Report".
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:22:31] SANCHEZ: The Texans and Raiders going down to the wire in Mexico City last night. The first time a Monday night football game played outside of the U.S. and it was worth the wait.
ROMANS: Yes, down to the wire. Hey, we just name his segment. Coy Wire down to the wire, has more in this morning's "Bleacher Report".
Hey, Coy.
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: I like it. That's a keeper, Christine. Good morning to you as well, Boris.
The NFL has invested heavily into the globalization of the sport, expanding their brand outside the U.S. and it had success. Last night, the NFL returned to Mexico for the first time in more than a decade. They had a sell out crowd of more than 76,000 fans packing at Estadio Azteca, one of the most famous sporting venues in the world, partying early and often, the crowd got a little overzealous at times as they to do. Brock Osweiler with a green laser while dropping back to pass. This is something that fans soccer games in that stadium in the past.
Now, the Raiders high powered offense on this one stifled until the fourth quarter. That's when David Carr finally found his grove and threw (AUDIO GAP) Raiders up to go ahead for good, 27-20. Carr finished with three touchdown passes of the night. Raiders are the number one seed in the AFC.
The big Steelers-Colts matchup for Thanksgiving lost a little luster yesterday after news broke out of Indy that Colt quarterback Andrew Luck has been placed into the NFL concussion protocol. Luck took a couple of jarring hits to the head during their win against the Titan last Sunday. He did finish that game, but his status for this Thursday is in serious doubt.
Let's move to soccer where U.S. soccer manager Jurgen Klinsmann has been fired. After five years on the job, Klinsmann had mixed results since he took over in 2011, including leading the U.S. team to the round of 16 in 2014 World Cup. But disappointing losses recently to Mexico and Costa Rica in World Cup qualifiers, seemly those were the final straw for Klinsmann.
Now, LA Galaxy coach Bruce Arena rumored to take over for Klinsmann. It would be his second stint leading the (AUDIO GAP). Last stint as manager was from 1998 to 2006.
Finally, NBA action. Warriors faces and there is no end to Steph Curry's awesomeness. Are you kidding me? A three court double clutch three quarter court shot? The buzzer went off. It is awesome. We had to show you. Warriors go on to get the win.
[05:20:00] Their eighth straight, 120-83. Steph Curry is just one of those guys that makes you feel really bad about yourself. You go out there and try to do this. There's no comparison. Kind of like Boris is making me feel bad about my tan right now.
SANCHEZ: Get out of here. Get out of here. Get some sunshine. I'll run away from the storm coming soon.
ROMANS: I know. Or trapped in it. Who knows?
All right, Coy. Down to the wire with Coy Wire on the bleacher report.
All right. Team Trump hosting a web video with the president-elect's plan for his 100 days in office. But will Trump's tangled web of business ties become a distraction? We're going to have a closer look at that ahead on EARLY START.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: Donald Trump's day one plan. He will take action on trade, ethics and national security among other things.
SANCHEZ: Plus, a disturbing display. Nazi salutes to celebrate Donald Trump's election. This morning, Team Trump is responding.
ROMANS: New details on President-elect Trump's global business ties. Hundreds of companies in dozens of countries. Really a situation we have never seen before, folks.
Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.
