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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Trump Fighting Halt To Travel Ban; Travel Ban Legal Fight; Trump Attacks Judge Who Suspended Travel Ban; McConnell Questions Trump's Russia Comments; Patriots Win Fifth Super Bowl Title; Confusion Over Travel Ban At Airports. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired February 06, 2017 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: -- slipped away. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN GUEST ANCHOR: I'm Miguel Marquez. It is Monday, February 6th. I almost said Friday, 5:00 a.m. here on the east. It was super, Super Bowl. Tom Brady becoming the first quarterback ever to win five championships. He did it in epic fashion bringing the New England Patriots back from a 25--point deficit late in the third quarter for a stunning 34-28 overtime victory over the Atlanta Falcons. We will have much more on this historic comeback coming right up for you.
ROMANS: But we begin this Monday morning with breaking news, attorneys for Washington State and Minnesota have filed legal papers with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals beating the 4:00 a.m. Eastern deadline.
They are trying to keep the suspension intact on President Trump's refugee and travel ban. The ban was halted four days ago by U.S. District Court Judge James Robart. That prompted angry Twitter attacks by the president of the United States.
Democrats and even some Republicans are blasting Mr. Trump for his attack on that judge. And now the president is coming under more fire for apparently suggesting the U.S. has been just as bad an actor as Russia and Vladimir Putin. We get more on all of this from CNN's Suzanne Malveaux.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: After just the first two weeks in office, President Trump is preparing now for a judicial showdown over whether his travel ban by executive order can stand. To the dismay of both Democrats and some Republican lawmakers, Trump spent part of his weekend disparaging the federal judge who temporarily suspended the ban through tweets calling him a so-called judge who made a ridiculous ruling.
Adding, "Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens, blame him and the court system. People pouring in bad."
This could become an issue for Republicans trying to get the 60 votes necessary in the Senate to confirm Trump's pick for Supreme Court Justice, Judge Neil Gorsuch. Also Republicans publicly distancing themselves from Trump's comments about Russia. He suggested in an interview with Fox News, there was a moral equivalency between the U.S. and Putin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you respect Putin?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I do respect him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you? Why?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I respect a lot of people, but that doesn't mean I'm going to get along with them. He's a leader of his country. I say it's better to get along with Russia than not and if Russia helps us in the fight against ISIS, which is a major fight and Islamic terrorism all over the world, major fight. That's a good thing. Will I get along with him? I have no idea.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a killer, though. Putin is a killer.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: There's a lot of killers. We got a lot of killers. Why you think our country is so innocent?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know any government leaders that are killers.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Look at what we have done too. We made a lot of mistakes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi is now calling for a formal investigation in a Trump and Putin's relationship. Monday, President Trump makes his first major public address to U.S. troops since his inauguration when he goes to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. There he's also going to be briefed by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and Special Ops Command.
MARQUEZ: Thank you, Suzanne Malveaux. Expect a flurry of legal activity today in the battle over the president's travel ban. The Justice Department expected to file legal briefs by 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time tonight in their fight to lift the federal judge's suspension of the Mr. Trump's order.
I want to go live to Washington and bring CNN justice reporter, Laura Jarrett. Good morning to you, Laura.
LAURA JARRETT, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Good morning. A lot of activity we are seeing overnight in the fast-moving case. So first of all, the Washington State Attorney General's Office has just filed its response to the Justice Department motion to try to get the travel ban reinstated.
They argued that the government must show that it was irreparably harmed. That's the standard everyone agrees on, but they say that the Seattle judge's suspension of the executive order doesn't make any sense to try to say that the government has been irreparably harmed by that.
It would just be returning to the pre-executive order state of affairs so how can that be harmful is what Washington is saying. Now the filing also includes some pretty high profile names attached to it.
It includes a declaration filed by former national security and State Department officials such as former secretary of state, Madeline Albright and John Kerry, who claimed that Trump's executive order is not only unnecessary, but it harms the interest of the United States.
In other words, there is no national security purpose for it. So later today, we will see a response from the Justice Department and then it's in the hands of the Ninth Circuit.
MARQUEZ: All right, that may be the most amazing thing about this is that the Trump administration hasn't ever indicated what the actual problem was with the current vetting system that we have out there. Laura Jarret for us today in Washington. Thank you very much.
ROMANS: Let's bring in our guests, CNN politics reporter, Eugene Scott joining us here in New York and in Washington, Bloomberg News White House correspondent, Shannon Pettypiece. Nice to see you both of you this morning.
Eugene, let me start with you. This idea on the travel ban that the president of the United States was tweeting about a district court judge, I mean, this feud with the judge. A lot of Republicans over the weekend were really alarmed by that.
And you look at some of the tweets. I have instructed Homeland Security to check people coming into our country very carefully. The courts are making the job very difficult, and then he says, "Just cannot believe a judge will put our country in such peril. If something happens, blame him and court system. People pouring in bad."
And then he says, "The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law enforcement away from our country is ridiculous and will be overturned." Give me a sense of how remarkable it is for the president of the United States to be in a feud with a judge?
EUGENE SCOTT, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: It's a huge deal. I mean, the reality is this is not our first time hearing Donald Trump attack a judge that he thought was going to rule differently than he wanted him to, but this is the first time he has done it as president of the United States.
I think something that we have not seen the Trump administration display their understanding of is that we he do operate in a system of checks and balances.
One of the big criticisms of this entire situation is that Donald Trump did not take a team approach checking with people who have expertise in various areas about the best way to roll this out. I think the fact that he saw pushback from a federal judge show how frustrated he was with all of it.
BERMAN: The fact that he tweeted that if there is something that happens here, it is this judge's fault. It is meant to chill the judiciary basically. It is very specific what he did in that tweet.
SCOTT: And the thing that is most shocking about all of that is that we have repeated documents and policy papers and even articles on cnn.com that show that we don't have records of terrorist attacks coming from refugees in the first place. His whole argument that this judge could be responsible for something that we have not seen happen is just odd.
ROMANS: He likes to use the Boston bombers as an example. They were radicalized here, but they were refugees. They came in as -- were granted asylum here.
Let me go to you, Shannon, and talk about just this fight now, I would call it recoiling. You think that recoiling is too strong a word, but the Republicans yesterday, some of them upset about the moral equivalency between the United States and Russia. Particularly Vladimir Putin on this. Let's listen what Mitch McConnell had to say on this on "STATE OF THE UNION."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL (R), MAJORITY LEADER: Putin is a former KGB agent. He is a thug. He was not elected in a way that most people would consider a credible election. The Russian annexed Crimea and invaded Ukraine and messed with our elections. There is not equivalency with the Russians and the way they conducted themselves and the way the United States does.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: I'm just playing this sound. There is a lot of other sound from other Republicans including some of who've sort of stayed out, John Kasich for example, stayed out of the fray of criticizing the new president for a while here. What do you make of the Republican response here?
SHANNON PETTYPIECE, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, BLOOMBERG NEWS: It's coming at a time when Republicans really need to be united if they are going to get a Supreme Court justice through and the rest of Trump cabinet nominee through. We still don't have a date scheduled for big important cabinet positions like HHS secretary.
Not to even mention trying to get through policy things like tax reform or replacement for Obamacare. Last weekend, there was a dissent from the Republicans over the travel ban. Now these Putin comments, you know, bring out a whole new crop of Republicans.
And even though the Republicans control the House and Senate, they control the Senate by a thin margin. They have 52 votes there. They need a united front and the president's actions in the past weeks have made the Republican Party even more divided.
MARQUEZ: I take it, Shannon, that if they continue down this road, the chances for dealing with substantive issues like Obamacare and massive tax plan that they want to enact, all of those things will be sidetracked by things that don't matter.
PETTYPIECE: On the Hill right now, it is really quickly moving to gridlock. There is this battle over the cabinet secretaries where, you know, Democrats are boycotting them last week. They cannot get unity on that. Until they get those cabinet nominees through, they will not deal with health reform or tax reform.
Now you add a Supreme Court justice into the mix. That may be in a different time the Democrats would have come and said OK, fine. We'll move this along. But you know, given -- after last week's actions and these remarks this week, it is definitely getting in the Democrats on board, it's going to be impossible not to mention getting some Republicans on board.
[05:10:10]MARQUEZ: And given you now have the president attacking the judiciary while you have a Supreme Court justice process coming up is going to be a very tricky one indeed.
ROMANS: All right, Shannon, thank you so much. Eugene, come back in a few minutes. Shannon, I'll ask if she thinks there are questions at the podium today for Sean Spicer after that "SNL" thing.
MARQUEZ: Will he have a squirt gun?
ROMANS: I can't wait to see what he has there. Markets higher around the world. Asian markets also closing higher. European markets and U.S. stock futures following their lead.
Stocks ended the weekend on high note after that strong jobs report, the Dow above 20,000. The economy added 227,000 jobs in January. The jobless rate up to 4.8 percent. More people started looking for work.
This is week three of the Trump presidency. Everyone is waiting for the big pivot towards pro-growth policies, but so far, the big winners have been Wall Street.
Trump took the first steps to dismantle Dodd-Frank to put in place to safeguard against another financial meltdown like Wall Street had on 2008. JPMorgan Chase up more than 3 percent and Goldman Sachs up more than 4 percent.
MARQUEZ: Good for the banks.
A heart-stopping finish to Super Bowl LI. Tom Brady engineering a comeback for the ages bringing the Patriots back from a 25-point deficit to win his fifth Super Bowl ring. Coy Wire, fresh and ready us brining all the highlights and post-game reactions when EARLY START comes back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:15:39]
ROMANS: That was a thrill. The New England Patriots comeback to win Super Bowl LI in overtime. Wow.
MARQUEZ: Amazing. CNN's Coy Wire is live in Houston with that historic finish. How are you doing, Coy? Surviving?
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Come on. You just couldn't let me go and talk about the patriots. I know what you are implying. I'm a former Atlanta Falcon. I was sick to my stomach. I got to catch up with the guys afterwards.
What an incredible game. Tom Brady, a record fourth Super Bowl MVP, fifth time Super Bowl champion, more than any other quarterback in history. It wasn't just what he did, but how he did it. Tom Brady solidifying himself as the greatest.
It's 28-20, they are down in the fourth quarter. Julian Edelman with this catch that is literally jaw dropping. How did he catch this? No one knows but he did. The Patriots would go on to score. They would still need to go for two.
And Tom Brady, there he is again, finding Danny Amendola, who runs into a wall of humanity, but not before fighting that ball across the line. This was the first ever Super Bowl overtime that we go to and you could feel it as soon as the Pats won that coin toss, you just knew it was inevitable.
Toss to James White capping off the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history. They were down 25 points. No team had ever come back from more than 10 points. Brady after the game was overcome with emotion. You could see it. He was seen kissing his wife. There was a lot of tears flowing.
His mother has been battling health issues for the past 18 months. You'll see her in the blue head scarf. She hadn't made it to a game all season. They were there to watch their son as the greatest of all time. Here is Brady letting out his emotions after the game. Answers from big name folks when I asked them about the GOAT, Tom Brady.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM BRADY, PATRIOTS QUARTERBACK: Thank you to our fans. Everyone back in Boston, New England, we love you. You have been with us all year. We're bringing this sucker home!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think what happened the first four games engaged fans more. They know we weren't treated fairly. You know, we had a chance to go through the year and I think results speak for themselves.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the biggest stage and he always steps up on the biggest stage and plays unbelievable. To bring that team back. Unbelievable.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Brady is the best ever. Belichick is too. (END VIDEO CLIP)
WIRE: Now we cut off what Gronk did. He started yelling in the camera. What a performance. Something else that was fun to see in person, Lady Gaga tearing up the halftime show, I mean, literally. This was making the hair that I do not have on my head stand up. At one point, they had everyone in the audience hold up the cell phone flashlights. It looked like the movie "Avatar." Lady Gaga absolutely brought it. The Twitterverse had a fun time describing what they saw from her.
BERMAN: I love that Coy Wire is in a magical world. That is awesome.
ROMANS: All right, thank you, Coy.
BERMAN: Poor Coy. Big hugs, my friend.
ROMANS: And to all of those Falcon fans.
MARQUEZ: Visa holders around the world rushing to the U.S. weary that the travel ban could be reinstated any day now. How the world is responding to the battle of the ban coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:23:45]
ROMANS: All right, world leaders this morning keeping a close eye on the legal battles facing President Trump's travel ban. Federal court judge's suspension of the executive order touched off a rush of U.S. visa holders traveling to America.
CNN's Jomana Karadsheh live in Istanbul with more. Apparently, so many of these people see a window, they want to move now. They don't want to get stuck if there is any kind of legal reversal here.
JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christine, this weekend, there was so much confusion and uncertainty in this region among people who are waking up to the news and airlines who just a week before were told nationals from the seven countries could no longer travel to the United States.
Then again this week, they were told they can, but then it is temporary and it could change again. Yes, some people did try and take advantage of this temporary halt of the ban to get on flights and get into the United States when they can.
We didn't see a major rush to the airports of people trying to get on flights I think probably because they wanted to wait and see what happens. There is so much uncertainty that people realize that this could change possibly at any minute.
They understand that this is an ongoing legal battle in the United States. People don't want to take the risk of traveling and cancelling their visas or being deported and taken off planes. So very much wait and see for a lot of people in this region. [05:25:11]I have to say, you talked to people here. They are absolutely stunned to be seeing developments in the United States that they are watching very closely. Some people would tell you that this feels like something that would happen in the Middle Eastern country. Not something they've seen in the past from the United States -- Christine.
ROMANS: Yes, it's just fascinating. Jomana Karadsheh for us live this morning in Istanbul. Thank you, Jomana.
MARQUEZ: Controversial new comments from President Trump. Personally attacking the judge who suspended his travel ban while dismissing Vladimir Putin's deadly past. More on all of that coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MARQUEZ: President Trump going after the judge who halted his travel ban. Questioning the court's authority to suspend the order as the fight keeps up this morning. Lawyers filing their arguments just moments ago.
ROMANS: New criticisms from both sides of the aisle pointing at the president for defending Vladimir Putin again, this time, asking if the U.S. is any more innocent than the --
