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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Trump and Family Head to Pittsburgh to Pay Respects; Stocks on a Rollercoaster; Merkel Will Not Seek Re-Election. Aired 4-4:30a Et
Aired October 30, 2018 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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BILL PEDUTO, PITTSBURGH MAYOR: I do believe that it would be best to put the attention on the families this week.
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CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN HOST: Some in the community not ready, but the President and his family head to Pittsburgh today to pay tribute after the worst attack on Jews in American history.
DAVE BRIGGS, CNN HOST: Stocks are on a rollercoaster ride, the future is way down after a 900 point swing for the DOW amid tariff concerns.
ROMANS: A seismic shift in European politics, Angela Merkel will not seek another as chancellor. Her power is waning. It made a rightward tilt in the west. Good morning everyone. Welcome to Early Start. I'm Christine Romans, a lot going on.
BRIGGS: I'm Dave Briggs. Yes, you know, I was recently over in Europe and the people were talking about Angela Merkel as the leader of the free world. So, this is a seismic shift. It's Tuesday, October 30th, 4 a.m. in the east. We are one week away from the midterm elections.
President Trump, today, heads to Pittsburgh following the synagogue massacre there that killed 11. He will be joined by the First Lady, along with daughter Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner, both Orthodox Jews.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I'm just going to pay my respects. I'm also going to the hospital to see the officers and some of the people that were so badly hurt. So - and I really look forward to going. I would've done it even sooner, but I didn't want to disrupt anymore than they already had disruption.
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ROMANS: The rabbi at the targeted synagogue, The Tree of Life, says the President is welcome. But some of the committee - in the community, rather, are not ready. A group of Pittsburgh Jewish leaders writing in an open letter that Mr. Trump is not welcome until he fully denounces white nationalism. And Pittsburgh's mayor, urging the President, hold of until later.
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PEDUTO: I do believe that it would be best to put the attention on the families this week. And if he were to visit, choose a different time to be able to do it. Our focus as a city will be on the families and the outreach and they'll need this week, and the support that they'll need to get through it.
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BRIGGS: The President himself, showing no signs of becoming the unifier and chief most Americans expect in troubled times, on Monday, still blaming the fake news media for social divisions. And still describing the migrant caravan as an invasion, language the synagogue shooter cited as, impart, the basis for his attack.
ROMANS: Asked about another hateful crime, the package bombs mailed to Trump critics and to CNN, the President instead chose to contrast media coverage of himself and his predecessors.
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TRUMP: They didn't say bomber found. They talked about Trump in the headline. Now, they didn't do that with Bernie Sanders when he had - they didn't do that with the Democrats when other people came out. They didn't do that with President Obama with the church, the horrible situation with the church. They didn't do that. They put my name in the headlines.
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ROMANS: The President speaking, there, about the 2015 Charleston church shooting when white supremacist killed nine people.
BRIGGS: The first funerals from the synagogue shootings are scheduled for today, brothers, Cecil and David Rosenthal, and Doctor Jerry Rabinowitz being laid to rest and more harrowing stories emerged from the worst anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history.
Eighty year old Judah Samet survived 10 months in a concentration camp as a child. He says he always arrives on time for the 9:45 service at Tree of Life, but he was running a few minutes late when he got there on Saturday.
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JUDAH SAMET, SYNAGOGUE SHOOTING SURVIVOR: And all of a sudden I see this guy standing right outside my car, behind the wall with a pistol and he started shooting. And he was shooting two, two, two, two, three. The - the other guy was answering with rapid fire (inaudible).
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Do you hate the man who did this?
SAMET: No, I don't know. I hate what he did, but I don't know the guy. But evidently he's a subhuman.
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ROMANS: The suspect, Robert Bowers, made his first court appearance Monday on charges of federal murder and assault. He was detained without bond. Two of the four Pittsburgh police officers he allegedly wounded remain hospitalized. And part of the downtown Pittsburgh skyline lit blue overnight to honor the victims from the Tree of Life synagogue.
BRIGGS: The President's redirect describing a supposed invasion from the south apparently coming from his favorite echo chamber.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's not a caravan. It's an invasion.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Overwrought coverage of this invading horde.
SEAN HANNITY, FOX HOST: Literally marching to the U.S. in what would be a mass invasion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That looks like an invasion. That doesn't look like a family reunion.
BRIAN KILMEADE, FOX HOST: What about diseases? I mean, there's a reason why you can't bring a kid to school unless he's inoculated.
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BRIGGS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To humanize them.
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BRIGGS: That happened. Fox News hosts and guests hyped an invasion at least 60 times in the last two weeks on Fox Business, 75 times not counting invaders and other variations. By now, even some Fox News hosts have had enough.
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SHEPARD SMITH, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Tomorrow is one week before the midterm election which what all of this is about. There is no invasion. No one is coming to get you. There's nothing at all to worry about.
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ROMANS: Even conservative media icon Matt Drudge pushing back against Fox calling out a segment where the hosts seem to laugh and joke their way through a discussion on the political impact of terror. Drudge tweeted, not even 48 hours since blood flowed at a synagogue. Check your soul in the makeup chair.
BRIGGS: Michael Bloomberg says a recent spike in anti-Semitism is a consequence of President Trump's words. The former New York City mayor telling CNN, the President has a responsibility to unify, not incite.
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MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: The President's words matter more than anybody else, and his job, I've always thought, is to be a unifier, not to be the leader of a party, but to be the leader of this country. There are consequences to words.
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BRIGGS: Bloomberg adding, Republicans have not fulfilled their obligation to provide checks and balances on the President.
ROMANS: The Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell at an even Monday was asked about the divisive political redirect. He took a page from President Trump's playbook.
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MITCH MCCONNELL: It's - it's terrible, yes. And I think that there's been a lot of contribution to it on both sides. I think the whole country's been on edge. I hope it settles down after the election.
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ROMAN: Don't we all? McConnell says he expects the country to heal from the divisions. He says America has seen worse in its history.
BRIGGS: The fatal shooting of two black people at a Kroger grocery store in Kentucky is being investigated as a hate crime. Gregory Bush, the white 51 year old suspect accused of killing 69 year old Maurice Stallard and 67 year old Vickie Jones last week. Before the shooting, Bush allegedly tried to enter a mostly black church nearby, but could not get inside.
Investigators are looking into reports that he told a bystander, quote, whites don't shoot whites, before he was captured. Bush is being held on $5 million bond, Maurice Stallard there with his grandson getting art supplies.
The man suspected of sending at least 14 pipe bombs to prominent Trump critics and CNN made his first court appearance Monday where was formally read the charges, Caesar Sayoc faces up to 48 years in prison. He was emotional in court, red-faced, and teary-eyed. Sayoc's lawyer tells CNN he intends to plead not guilty.
Officials tell CNN Sayoc had a list of more than 100 people he planned to send packages to. Authorities have been reaching out and warning those people. Another suspicious packaged showed up yesterday addressed to CNN headquarters in Atlanta. It was intercepted before delivery. BRIGGS: We are one week from the midterm elections, the President Trump, targeting Andrew Gillum. He's the Democratic nominee for governor of Florida with, what some critics were calling, racially charged attacks. President Trump tweeting that Gillum is a, quote, thief. With no evidence, and the claiming he oversees one of the country's most corrupt cities as mayor of Tallahassee, Mr. Trump doubling down his claims on Fox News.
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TRUMP: This other guy is a stone-cold - in my opinion he's a thief. How can you have a guy like this? And you just look at his record. Also, look at the job he's done as the mayor of Tallahassee. He's a total disaster.
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ROMANS: Gillum is facing scrutiny for his 2016 decision to accept a ticket to see the Broadway show Hamilton from a group that included an undercover FBI agent. He says the FBI has told him he is not the focus of an ongoing federal corruption investigation.
And there are new tensions in Florida ahead of the midterms. Four bullets smashed the glass door-front of a Republican Party office in Volusia County. No one was inside at the time.
BRIGGS: Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill putting distance between herself and a top Democrat. McCaskill, in the fight of her life, against - political life, rather, against Republican Josh Hawley, but he's a bit from her latest radio ad.
So, what she was saying in that ad is that she's - she's actually questioning actual crazy Democrats in that ad. We'll play the actual audio for you later. Asked on Fox, the name of who that crazy Democrat might be, she said this.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And just to be clear, there's not another crazy Democrat in the Senate?
SEN. CLAIRE MCCASKILL (D), MISSOURI: Well, I would say this, I would not call my colleagues crazy, but Elizabeth Warren sure went after me when I advocated tooling back some of the regulations for small banks.
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BRIGGS: Wow. McCaskill also said she believes 100 percent that the president has to use every tool at his disposal to handle the caravan of migrants coming from Central America.
ROMANS: All right, to markets now. I've always said that the rollercoaster ride terms was a terrible cliche for stock market reporting. Turns out, yesterday was one of the rare instances where it fits.
This is what a correction the stock market looks like. It was a 900 point swing for the Dow Monday, finally closing down about one percent, 245 points. Renewed tariff concerns drew the blame.
Now, we all knew that the president is meeting with China's president in Buenos Aires at the G20 next month. We all knew there is a December deadline to ratchet up tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent on $200 billion in Chinese goods. We all knew who there's the potential for $267 billion more in tariffs, but all of that really got the blame yesterday.
The major averages, by the way, are up 22 to 35 percent since the election. Times are so good today that investors think, maybe it can't last. Sectors tell different stories as well. Look at Amazon and Netflix ended down six and five percent, but bank stocks rallied. The comparisons are uncomfortable.
The S&P 500, the Nasdaq on track for the worst months since the days after the financial crisis. As for October, as train wreck as one analyst called. Apple and Facebook report earnings this week. So, there's a minefield here for more economic news and from the earnings reports.
BRIGGS: Typically a down month for the markets, October?
ROMANS: But this is -- this is out of the normal
BRIGGS: This is unusual.
ROMANS: Very out of normal. Yes.
BRIGGS: OK, lawmakers want to know why the U.S. Air Force paid $1,280 each for coffee cups. To be fair, these are not paper Dixie cups, they're not even the Early Start mugs we use here. They can reheat beverages like coffee and tea on tankers and cargo aircraft. The Secretary of the Air Force says it has suspended the purchases, is looking for more cost effective solutions. Senator Chuck Grassley sent a letter last week demanding to know why the cups were purchased in the first place. Thirteen hundred dollar coffee cup.
ROMANS: My goodness. All right, 12 minutes past the hour.
Her one-year-old drowned during Hurricane Florence. Now she's facing criminal charges. We'll tell you why.
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ROMANS: The New Jersey Health Department is dispatching an infection control team to inspect several pediatric long-term care facilities. It is in response to the Adenovirus outbreak at the Wanaque Center in Haskell. Nine children have now died.
The State Health Commissioner says, outbreaks are not always preventable and officials are taking aggressive steps to minimize the chances they occur among the most vulnerable patients.
BRIGGS: There are 10 more confirmed cases of the polio like illness, AFM. That means there are now a total of 72 confirmed cases in 24 states, with 119 other patients currently being evaluated.
The CDC's medical advisors criticizing their own agency for being too slow to respond to the disease. Doctors who are caring for the sick children say the CDC has been slow to gather data and provide guidelines to pediatricians for diagnosing and treating AFM.
ROMANS: A North Carolina high school freshman facing first degree murder charges in the fatal shooting of a classmate Monday. The school officials say the conflict between the suspect and the victim began with bullying that spiraled out of control.
The victim is identified as 16-year-old Bobby McKethen. The suspect, Jatwan Craig Cuffie, also 16, is being held in the Mecklenburg County jail. No one else was injured in the shooting. Officials say Butler High School will be closed today.
BRIGGS: A North Carolina mom facing charges in the drowning death of her one-year-old son. Authorities say Dazia Lee drove around a barricaded road during Hurricane Florence. Little Kaiden Lee was swept away in flood waters.
They say Lee and her child were on their way to visit relatives when the incident occurred. The 20-year-old is facing several charges including involuntary manslaughter. Lee is due in court November 20th.
ROMANS: USA Gymnastics is calling on it's head tumbling coach to resign. Sergio Galvez will not travel with the U.S. team when it competes in 2018 Trampoline and Tumbling World Championships in St. Petersburg Russia next month.
He is being investigated after a report was filed with the U.S. Olympic Committee Agency that oversees sexual misconduct and abuse allegations. It is not clear what is being alleged. U.S. Gymnastics records show, Galvez, pending a hearing and is forbidden from having unsupervised contact with minor athletes.
BRIGGS: All right, ahead, Angela Merkel unparalleled run as German Chancellor will end in 2021. What her power decline means for Europe and the U.S. We're live in Berlin with an update.
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DAVE BRIGGS, CNN HOST: Its 4:23 eastern time. Officials now say its unlikely remains of all 189 people board the doomed Lion Air flight from Indonesia will be found. More bodies are being pulled from the waters, including a baby.
Officials did try to reassure grieving families that the identification process was moving as quickly as possible. So far, the fuselage flight data recorders have not been recovered so we don't know what caused the new plane to go down.
At least 650 police personnel are involved in the search by boat, by helicopter, and underwater.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN HOST: And German Chancellor Angela Merkel will not seek re-election when her term expires in 2021. She made the announcement Monday in Berlin. Merkel has been chancellor since 2005. With her popularity plummeting, she says that it's time to start a new chapter.
Let's go live to Berlin and bring in CNN's Fred Pleitgen. And this is the most powerful women in the world and there are those who have said she is has been sort of the representative of the west as nationalist governments have risen around the world.
FRED PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and its so interesting, Christine, because she's so popular around the world among many people but here in Germany she has indeed lost a lot of that popularity, even though she was always a big politic Juggernaut especially over the past couple of years.
But it was so interesting to see when she came out yesterday and she gave that speech announcing that she wouldn't seek re-election, announcing also that she's going to step down as the head of her party, she was essentially saying that she's recognized that right now she's part of the problem and not part of the solution here in Germany.
She said that she believes the work of her coalition that she's leading here was unacceptable and that it wasn't solving people's problems. Also very interesting for her to say that for instance, she believed that it's not the voters in this country who are radicalized and compartmentalized but it was Politicians that who were failing them.
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But (ph) of course dealing with a big rise in far right parties here in Germany. a lot of that due to the fact that Germany is obviously still dealing with taking in about a million refugees, first and foremost from Syria.
That has really hurt her, politically, in the long term and Christine, she said she wants to fill out that last term and do the last three years. It's not a done deal that she's actually doing to be able to do that. She is in a governing coalition with another party, so far that other party has said it wants to stay in the coalition.
We're going to have to wait and see if they continue to have bad results whether that is actually going to be in the case. There's already some pretty critical voices out there saying the coalition should be put apart all together, Christine.
ROMANS: All right, Fred Pleitgen. Thanks so much for that, Fred.
BRIGGS: Practicably (ph) no bigger story on the globe than the future.
ROMANS: That's right.
BRIGGS: The President and his family head to Pittsburgh today. They'll pay respects after the synagogue massacre, but some in the community say it's too soon.
ROMANS: Also a GoFundMe page set up for the synagogue has already raised $800,000. To help, go to GoFundMe.com.
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