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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Bill Peuto Would Like to Focus on Families of Pittsburgh Victims; Dow Swings 900 Points. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired October 30, 2018 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL PEDUTO, MAYOR OF PITTSBURGH: I do believe that it would be best to put the attention on the families this week.
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DAVE BRIGGS, CNN HOST: Some in the Pittsburgh community are not ready but the president and his family head there today to pay tribute after the synagogue massacre. The first funerals are today.
CHRISTI ROMANS, CNN HOST: Stocks on a roller coaster ride, futures are down after a 900-point swing for the Dow. Renewed tariffs concerns.
BRIGGS: It is unlikely remains from everyone on board that doomed flight out of Indonesia will ever be found. Still unclear what brought down the brand new passenger plane? Welcome back to "Early Start." Thanks for joining us, I'm Dave Briggs.
ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. It is 31 minutes past the hour. The president heads to Pittsburgh today 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 of them are Orthodox Jews.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But 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 and I really look forward to going. I would have done it even sooner but I didn't want to disrupt anymore than they already had disrupted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: The rabbi at the targeted synagogue, The Tree of Life, says the president is welcome, but some in the community 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 to hold off. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
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 they'll need this week and the support that they will need to get through it.
ROMANS: The president, himself, showing no signs of becoming the unifier in 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 the basis for his attack.
BRIGGS: Asked about another hateful crime, the pipe bombs mailed to Trump critics and CNN, The president instead choose to contrast media coverage of himself and his predecessors.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
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 did not 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.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: The president speaking there about the 2015 Charleston church shooting when the white supremacist killed nine people.
ROMANS: The first funerals from the synagogue shootings are scheduled for today. Brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal and Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz are being laid to rest. More harrowing stories emerge 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 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 or three. The other guy was answering with rapid fire. Da -- da - da - da.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Do you hate the man who did this?
SAMET: I don't know. I hate what he did but I don't know the guy. But evidently he is a sub-human.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Suspect Robert Bowers made his first court appearance on Monday on charges of federal murder and assault charges. He was detained without bond. Two of the four Pittsburgh police officers he allegedly wounded remain hospitalized and parts of the downtown Pittsburgh skyline were lit blue overnight to honor the victims from the Tree of Life Synagogue.
ROMANS: A lot of the president's rhetoric describing this supposed invasion from the south apparently coming from his favorite echo chamber.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is not a caravan. It is invasion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Overwrought coverage of the invading horde.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Literally marching to the U.S. in what would be a mass invasion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks like an invasion. It doesn't look like a family reunion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What about diseases? There is a reason you can't bring your kid to school unless he is inoculated.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[04:35:00]
ROMANS: "Fox News" hosts and guests hyped this invasion at least 60 times in the last two weeks. On "Fox Business" 75 times not counting invaders and other variations. Now at least one "Fox News" host has had enough.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHEPHERD SMITH, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Tomorrow is one week before the midterm election which is what all of this is about. There is no invasion. No one's coming to get you. There's nothing at all to worry about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Even conservative media icon Matt Drudge pushing back against "Fox" calling out a segment where the hosts seemed to laugh and joke their way through a discussion on the political impact of terror. Drudge tweeted, quote, "Not even 48 hours since the blood flowed at the synagogue. Check your soul in the makeup chair."
ROMANS: 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 be the leader of a party, but to be the leader of this country. There are consequences to words.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Bloomberg adds Republicans have not fulfilled their obligation to provide checks and balances on the president.
BRIGGS: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at an event on Monday was asked about the divisive political rhetoric.
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SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL, (R) KENTUCKY: It is terrible. I think that there had been a lot of contribution to it on both sides. I think the whole country has been on edge. I hope it settles down after the election.
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BRIGGS: McConnell says he expects the country to heal from the division. He says America has seen worse in its history.
ROMANS: The fatal shooting of two black people at a Kroger grocery store in Kentucky is investigated as a hate crime. Gregory Bush, the white 51-year-old suspect is accused of killing 69-year-old Marie Stollard and 67-year-old Vicki Jones last week. Before the shooting, Bush allegedly tried to enter a mostly black church nearby, but couldn't get inside. Investigators are looking into reports that he told a bystander quote, "White's don't shoot whites," before he was captured. Bush is being held on $5 million bond.
BRIGGS: The man suspected of sending at least 14 pipe bombs to prominent Trump critics and CNN made his first court appearance Monday where he was formally read the charges. Cesar 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 more than 100 people he planned to send packages. Authorities have been reaching out warning all of them. Another suspicious package showed up yesterday addressed to CNN headquarters in Atlanta. It was intercepted before delivery.
ROMANS: All right we are one week out from the midterms and President Trump is targeting Andrew Gillum, the Democratic nominee for the governor of Florida with what some critics are calling racially- charged attacks. President Trump tweeted that Gillum is quoted, "a thief," with no evidence and claiming he oversees one of the country's most corrupt cities as Mayor of Tallahassee. Mr. Trump doubled down on 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 his job he has done as Mayor of Tallahassee. He is a total disaster.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BRIGGS: 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 said the FBI told him he is not a focus of an ongoing Federal corruption investigation and there are new tensions in Florida out of the midterms, more bullets smashed the glass door in front of a Republican Party office in Volusia County. No one was inside at the time.
Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill putting some distance between herself and a top Democrat. McCaskill in the fight of her life against Republican Josh Hawley, but here is a bit from her latest radio ad.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Claire is not one of those crazy Democrats. She works right in the middle and finds compromise.
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BRIGGS: Not one of those crazy Democrats. Asked on "Fox" to name names, she said this.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To be clear, there is not another crazy Democrat in the Senate.
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.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Fascinating. McCaskill served in the Senate since 2006. She is three points ahead of Hawley among likely voters in the latest CNN poll.
ROMANS: Roller coaster ride, a terrible cliche for the stock market.
[04:40:00]
Turns out yesterday was one of the rare incidents where it fits. This is what a correction in the stock market looks like, folks.
We haven't seen one in a long time. It was a 900 point swing for the DOW Monday. Finally closing down one percent, 245 points, renewed tariff concerns drew the blame. You know, but we all knew that the president would be meeting with China's president in Buenos Aires at the G20 next month.
We knew there is a December deadline to ratchet up tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent on $200 billion in Chinese goods. We knew there's a potential for $260 some billion more in tariffs.
None of that is new, but it certainly hurt the stock market yesterday, the renewed concern about that. Some context here, the major averages are up 22 to 35 percent since the election.
Times right now are so good that investors are also starting to think that maybe this can't last. Also sectors tell different stories. Amazon and Netflix ended down six and five percent, Amazon in a bare market right now.
It's down more than 20 percent from its peak. But bank stocks rallied. Also the comparisons here, the superlatives in the market are pretty uncomfortable. The S&P 500, the NASDAQ on track for the worst month since the days after the financial crisis.
As for October, a train wreck as one analyst called it. Facebook and Apple report earnings this week.
BRIGGS: Lawmakers want to know why the U.S. Air Force paid almost $1,300 each for coffee cups. Now to be fair, these are not paper Dixie cups, they can reheat beverages like coffee and tea on tankers and cargo aircraft.
Secretary of state - secretary of the Air Force rather said that they (ph) 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.
ROMANS: All right (ph), it's unlikely the remains of all the people on that doomed Lion Air flight will be found. Still the search expanding today, CNN is live at the Indonesian port running search operations.
[04:45:00]
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BRIGGS: More bodies are being pulled from the waters off Indonesia, but officials now say it's unlikely that remains of all 189 people aboard the doomed Lion Air flight will be found.
And so far, no answers on what caused the plane to go down. CNN's Ivan Watson live at the port where the search efforts are unfolding. Ivan, good morning, just 13 minutes in. Any information on what happened to this plane?
IVAN WATSON, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, CNN: And that is the big mystery, why the cockpit radioed requesting to return to its point of origin and then shortly after that it disappeared from the radar of the air traffic controllers.
And without that information, that's left the - the search operation to continue with dozens of ships and aircraft, hundreds of people who are out in the Java Sea, essentially fishing out debris and I'm sad to say remains from the 189 passengers and crew all believed to have been victims of this doomed flight.
So at this port, we're watching ships come in periodically bringing in some of this debris. I saw a child's shoe if you can imagine, pieces of the plane as well. This was a effectively brand new Boeing 737, built in 2018 and the crew had thousands of hours of - of flight time.
They were quite experienced. There have been reports of some kind of technical problems on board the very same flight the night before it took off early in the morning on Monday from Jakarta's main airport.
But the airline says that the plane was repaired and it was deemed flight worthy. So a big mystery why it went down and whatever the reason is, very little consolation to the relatives of the passengers and crew.
One little girl who had to find out, a 14 year old in high school, her freshman class, find out that her mother was on this plane that then crashed and you can just imagine the sadness and the grief that the families of these passengers are going through right now. Dave.
BRIGGS: I can't imagine. Ivan Watson, hopefully that flight recorder is found and holds some answers. Ivan Watson live for us this morning, thank you.
ROMANS: All right, how many days until the holidays? How many days until Christmas?
BRIGGS: Not enough.
ROMANS: I don't even know, I only know it's seven days to the midterms. But there's holidays after that quickly approaching and Best Buy is looking to claim a piece of the billions in toy sales left behind by Toys"R"Us.
We'll give a (ph) check on CNN Business next.
[04:50:00]
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ROMANS: A dramatic and deadly end to a freeway chase in Arizona Monday. A police cruiser bumping the back of the suspect's vehicle on Interstate 17, forcing it off the road. That's when state troopers and officers with the Mesa Police Department got into a shoot out with the suspect.
Authorities telling CNN affiliates KPHO and KTVK the suspect was then killed. Three troopers were hurt, all have since been released from the hospital.
BRIGGS: New Jersey Health Department dispatching an infection control team to inspect several pediatric long term care facilities. It's 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 chance they occur among the must vulnerable patients.
ROMANS: 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 are criticizing their own agency for being too slow to respond to the disease. Doctors who are caring for sick children say the CDC has been slow to gather data and provide guidelines to pediatricians for diagnosing and treating AFM.
[04:55:00]
BRIGGS: A North Carolina high school freshman facing first-degree murder charges in the fatal shooting of the classmate Monday. School officials say the conflict between the suspect and victim began with bullying that spiraled out of control. The victim is identified as 16- year-old Bobby McKeithen and the suspect is Jatwan Cuffie also 16 being held in the Mecklenburg County jail. No one else was injured in the shooting. Officials say Butler High School will be closed today.
ROMANS: A North Carolina mother facing charges in the drowning death of her one-year-old son. Authorities say Dazia Lee drove around a barricaded during Hurricane Florence. Little Kaiden Lee was swept away in flood waters. His mother is facing several charges including involuntary manslaughter. Lee is due in court on November 20th.
BRIGGS: USA Gymnastics calling on its head tumbling coach to resign. Sergio Galvez will not travel with the U.S. team when it competes in the 2018 Trampoline and Tumbling World Championships in St. Petersburg, Russia next month. He's being investigated after a report was filed with the U.S. Olympic Committee Agency that oversees sexual misconduct and abuse allegations. It's not clear what is being alleged. USA Gymnastics records show Galvez is suspended pending a hearing, forbidden from having unsupervised contact with minor athletes.
ROMANS: Yosemite mystery solved. Photographer Matthew Dippel says he has found the mystery couple. Remember them? He inadvertently captured them during their proposal in Yosemite Park's Taft Point. Dippel was at the Vista earlier this month when he saw the man get on one knee and propose and snapped a picture. He ran over to find them, but they were gone. He posted the photo on social media. Charlie Vo and his now fiancee Melissa told our sister network, HLN they stumbled on the post last week.
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CHARLIE VO, PHOTO SUBJECT: At first, I wasn't sure it was us to be honest. I showed Melissa the photo and I checked with her and then she confirmed and we kind of cross referenced it with the couple of photos we had on our phones. That is how we were pretty certain it was us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: It is like Ansel Adams pic isn't it sort of? Dippel says he is working out the details to get the couple a print of the photo.
BRIGGS: He couldn't have staged it better.
A record-setting night for Klay Thompson of the Golden State Warriors. The all-star swingman dropped 14 three-pointers in last night's 149- 124 rout of the Chicago Bulls. Thompson scored 52 points in just 27 minutes. The previous record of 13 three-pointers in the game was held by Thompson's teammate Steph Curry. The Warriors have a team record with 92 first half points.
ROMANS: All right, let's go check on CNN business this morning. All right after that crazy day on Wall Street, the Asian markets positive overnight following comments from China's security regulator. The Nikkei up just more than 1 percent. You can see Shanghai up a little bit - the Chinese market but Hang Seng down.
So how did the European markets open just a couple hours ago? They are mixed here. The DAX has just turned lower but the FTSE is up and the (inaudible) is down slightly. Trying to find direction I would say. U.S. Futures, they are higher after Monday's just crazy day. The DOW closed 1 percent lower finishing more than a 245--point loss. The S&P 500 down a little bit. The NASDAQ dropped another 1.6 percent. Stocks are lower after reports the White House is considering more tariffs on Chines goods in December which I - is not a surprise. We know this is the timeline here.
The next round of negotiations between President Donald Trump and Chinese Leader Xi Jinping. They are in Buenos Aires. They will meet. If things don't go well, there could be more tariffs and raising tariffs on goods that are already targeted.
Trick-or-Treat or iPad. Apple is hosting a mystery shopping event in a couple of hours where it's expected to announce more product updates including new iPads. Unlike previous product reveals, Apple executives will take the stage in New York, in Brooklyn. Last month, Apple unveiled it's new iPhone XS - XX mat and XR. I can't even say them all. Today, we'll likely see new iPads max and perhaps second generation airpods. The event kicks off at 10:00 a.m. at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
The holiday season is quickly approaching; 56 days till Christmas. Retailers racing to claim a piece of the $10.5 billion in toy sales left behind by Toys "R" Us. One of those retailers, Best Buy. Best Buy is expanding toy inventory at 1,000 U.S. stores. It's also dedicating more floor space to its stores to display popular toys like Nerf and Hatchimals and the Incredibles. Best Buy says that 90 percent of toys this year are new to its lineup. Best Buy will also mail out a toy catalogue for the second year in a row. Best Buy - toys.
BRIGGS: Toy catalogue?
ROMANS: Toys. Yes, there's a big hole left by Toys "R" Us.
BRIGGS: How many days till Christmas did you say?
ROMANS: Fifty-six.
BRIGGS: Fifty-six. So the 56 gingerbread latte comes out in ...
ROMANS: Ten seconds. BRIGGS: All right, "Early Start" continues right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL PEDUTO, MAYOR OF PITTSBURGH: I do believe that it would be best to put the attention on the families this week.
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