Return to Transcripts main page
Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Trump Proposes Ending Birthright Citizenship; Trump Visits Site of Synagogue Massacre; DOJ: Pipe Bomb Suspect a "Domestic Terrorist"; Stocks Rebound After Monday Decline; Officials Detect Ping from Lion Air Black Boxes; Facebook Earnings Slightly Disappoint. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired October 31, 2018 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:30:35] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump kicks off an eight-state campaign blitz less than a week from the midterms.
DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: The president coming off a somber and tense visit to Pittsburgh where more synagogue massacre victims will be laid to rest today.
ROMANS: Prosecutors say the accused pipe bomber had been planning his attack for months.
BRIGGS: A Republican congressman faces political and corporate backlash for his hard-line views in race and immigration. He's had the views for a long time, since 2003. He represented Iowa -- we'll talk Steve King in a moment.
Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Dave Briggs.
ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. It is 31 minutes past the hour. Happy Halloween, everybody.
Let's begin here with the president returning to the campaign trail tonight, barnstorming 11 cities across eight states with six days to go until the midterm elections.
Tonight, the president will be in Ft. Myers, Florida, trying to boost Republicans' Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis locked in tight races for senator and governor respectively. It is the president's third visit to Florida with one more rally scheduled in Pensacola over the weekend.
Expect to hear plenty about immigration. The president's key focus as he tries to drive Republican voters to the polls next Tuesday. He's certainly to talk about the caravan and the more than 5,000 U.S. troops he is sending to the Mexican border to stop migrants who are still weeks away.
BRIGGS: The president claiming he will sign an executive order to end automatic citizenship of all children born to noncitizens on U.S. soil. There are huge questions about ending it with the stroke of a pen. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway argues some constitutional scholars believe such an order might be approved by the courts and she denied the president's move was an effort to whip up the base ahead of the midterms.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No, because if only the base had voted for him he wouldn't be president. So I think -- I understand that that's like the Sesame Grover word of the day -- that, and fear, and some other stuff. But, no, it's not whipping the base.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Among those who disagree with the president's suggestion, House Speaker Paul Ryan who told the radio show it would never pass constitutional muster.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Well, you obviously cannot do that. You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order. We didn't like it when Obama tried changing immigration laws via executive action and obviously as conservatives, you know, we believe in the Constitution. You know, as a conservative, I'm a believer in following the plain text of the Constitution and I think, in this case, the 14th Amendment's pretty clear and that would involve a very, very lengthy constitutional process.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Kellyanne Conway's own husband, George, also scoffed at the idea in an op-ed, coauthored with President Obama's Solicitor General Neal Katyal. They write, quote: Sometimes the constitution's text is plain as day. Such a move would be constitutional and would certainly be challenged, and the challengers would undoubtedly win.
ROMANS: President Trump stirring up anger and controversy with his visit to the site of the synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh. The president and first lady visiting the Tree of Life synagogue. They lit candles, laid stones and white flowers at a memorial for the 11 people who were killed.
Now outside the temple, protesters yelled "go back, we don't want you here."
More now from CNN's Pamela Brown.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAMELA BROWN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Dave and Christine.
President Trump ignored calls to visit grief-stricken Pittsburgh in the wake of the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue, moving forward with that visit on Tuesday. He visited the Tree of Life synagogue with the first lady Melania Trump. He was also joined by prominent Jewish members in his administration, including his daughter Ivanka Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
He went to light a candle in the synagogue and then he laid stones from the White House, as well as white roses outside of that synagogue. And then he went to the hospital to visit those who were wounded in the shooting, as well as some of the medical staff. And during all of this, there were protesters nearby -- protesters carrying signs asking the president to denounce white nationalism. Some of these protesters said they blame the president -- his rhetoric for the recent string of violence. They believe his rhetoric has only created an environment for those predisposed to violence to act out.
[04:35:01] The White House has pushed back on that notion, saying that basically, the media is to blame for that, and saying the president wanted to go to Pittsburgh to share in the grief with the rest of the nation in mourning following the shooting there.
There have been many questions about why he chose to go now when those on the ground there -- local officials, including the mayor, have asked him wait. Well, White House aides say a big reason is because of his campaigning schedule. Tuesday was the best day to do it and they were concerned about the optics if he went to Pittsburgh on the same day as one of his upcoming rallies.
Back to you, Dave and Christine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: All right, Pamela at the White House.
Three more funerals for the city of Pittsburgh and the nation today. Longtime University of Pittsburgh researcher Joyce Feinberg will be laid to rest at 10:00. At 11:30, services begin for Irving Younger, a former business owner and youth basketball coach. And the funeral for 88-year-old Melvin Wax, who was leading the Shabbat services, when the gunman opened fire, will be held this afternoon at 1:00.
BRIGGS: About 100 members of the Pittsburgh Steelers attended the funeral of brothers David and Cecil Rosenthal on Tuesday. Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and head coach Mike Tomlin, you see out front. For them, the synagogue massacre was intensely personal. Tomlin lives in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, just 800 yards from the scene of the massacre. David and Cecil's sister Michelle used to work for the Steelers.
ROMANS: And the Pittsburgh Penguins honoring the victims of the synagogue shooting with a moment of silence before last night's game against the New York Islanders. Penguins players also wore a "Stronger Than Hate" patch on their uniforms. And two -- this gives me goose bumps -- two of the police officers who were wounded in the attack were honored during a ceremonial puck drop.
BRIGGS: Good stuff. New this morning, the Department of Justice accusing pipe bombing
suspect Cesar Sayoc of conducting a, quote, domestic terrorist attack that he'd been planning since July. In a new letter asking the judge to deny bail, prosecutors say Sayoc's laptop held lists of addresses that matched labels on the explosive packages. They say his Internet search history included the CNN building, George Soros and his family, and Hillary Clinton and family.
ROMANS: Republican Congressman Steve King of Iowa losing support from his own party and two key corporate donors. The Land O'Lakes Company and Purina announcing they will no longer provide financial support to King after their political donations to the eight-term congressman triggered an online backlash.
King's hard-line views on race, ethnicity, and immigration, along with his recent re-tweet of a well-known neo-Nazi also drawing criticism from the chairman of the Republican Congressional Committee, Congressman Steve Stivers of Ohio, tweeting, Congressman Steve King's recent comments, actions, and retweets are completely inappropriate. We must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms. I strongly condemn the behavior.
BRIGGS: A new face on the legal team representing longtime Trump political adviser Roger Stone. The First Amendment and constitutional law expert Bruce Rogow joins Stone's roster of attorneys just as special counsel Robert Mueller tightens his focus on Stone. One of Rogow's first steps, encouraging Stone to take a polygraph on questions Mueller may ask. Stone tells CNN he's passed two lie- detector exams, although we have no way to independently confirm it.
Mueller's team has summoned nearly a dozen of Stone's current and former associates with interviews or grand jury testimony. Among them, former White House strategist Steve Bannon, who was interviewed by Mueller's team last Friday, for at least the third time. "The Washington Post" reporting Bannon was asked about comments Stone made privately in 2016 about WikiLeaks. It was just before WikiLeaks released emails prosecutors say were hacked by Russian operatives.
ROMANS: All right. Market volatility is weighing on Trump ahead of the midterms. Is he inoculating himself against the decline in stocks? The president tweeted yesterday, quote, the stock market is up massively since the election but is taking a pause. People want to see what happens with the midterms. If you want your stocks to go down, I strongly suggest voting Democrat. They like the Venezuela financial model, high taxes and open borders.
Presidents never talk like this about the stock market. And for a reason -- and nowhere in the Democrats' platform is a Venezuela economic model, higher taxes or open borders, by the way. The problem with Trump is he spent so much time using the stock market as a proxy for his economic programs, he has to cast blame when it doesn't fit his narrative.
In the run-up to the elections, Trump has repeatedly blamed his Fed Chair, Jerome Powell, for a wobbling stock market. He's more recently called the Fed crazy and loco over interest rate increases. The midterm elections are exactly six days away.
And we'll see. We had a bounce in the stock market yesterday. So, we'll see happens this morning.
BRIGGS: You've warned all along that using the stock market as a scorecard can be dangerous for a president.
ROMANS: Yes, it sure can.
BRIGGS: Yes, turn against you.
OK, ahead, it could be a break for searchers trying to find a passenger jet that's mysteriously crashed on Monday.
[04:40:05] A live report from Indonesia.
ROMANS: And a notorious mobster meets his end in prison. What happened to Boston's Whitey Bulger?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BRIGGS: Searchers have detected a ping from the black boxes belonging to that Indonesian flight that crashed into the Java Sea earlier this week, minutes after takeoff. This major development could help recovery crews find the plane's missing fuselage.
CNN's Ivan Watson live at Jakarta's main port with the latest.
Some good news here, Ivan. Good morning.
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Some progress in the search for what's left of Lion Air Flight 610 with Indonesian officials ahead of the national travel safety board now saying that they are picking up a series of pings at 3.7 kilohertz, giving him a 70 percent assurance that this is coming from the underwater beacon of the flight data recorder, the black box.
[04:45:17] And also saying that they believe one of the Navy ships out there, one of a virtual armada of virtually 40 ships involved in the search and recovery effort has located what they believe to be the main part of the fuselage of the Boeing 737 Max 8 airline which was less than a year old when it plummeted from the sky minutes into its flight from Jakarta's main airport on Monday morning.
Meanwhile, the recovery effort continues as you can see behind me here. This is some of the debris from the smashed airplane, as well as possession. We've seen poignant scenes in the last hour or so as authorities have escorted relatives of some of the 189 passengers and crew to look at things like shoes and backpacks that have been recovered from the Java Sea.
In the meantime, we've learned that the technical director of lion air, the low-cost Indonesian air company, that a technical director has effectively been fired based on the orders from the transport ministry of Indonesia. A spokesperson for the ministry said the former director is now currently under investigation, of course connected to this deadly air disaster -- Dave and Christine.
BRIGGS: OK, Ivan Watson there for us live in Indonesia. Thank you, Ivan.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis calling for a cease-fire in Yemen and peace talks in the next 30 days. Mattis insisting that the U.S.- backed Saudi-elderly coalition and the Iranian-aligned Houthis stop their aerial and missile attacks. This call coming amid criticism of U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition and questions about whether enough is being done to avoid civilian casualties in the brutal civil war.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES MATTIS, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Improved accuracy of bombs is still a war. So, we've got to move toward a peace effort here. We can't say we're going to do it sometime in the future. We need to be doing this in the next 30 days. We've admired this problem for long enough down there. And I believe that the Saudis and the Emirates are ready and, in fact, had the Houthis not walked out of the last effort that Martin Griffin (ph) had going, we would probably be on our way there right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Mattis' call later echoed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
ROMANS: Two fiery helicopter crashes under investigation by the FAA this morning in Beekmantown, New York, near the Canadian border. Two people died, and two were injured in this crash. All four aboard the chopper.
Video taken by a witness shows utility wires and grass engulfed in flames there. The helicopter was flying under contract to the New York Power Authority, but a spokesman did not know what it had been hired to do.
BRIGGS: In Sebring, Florida, two people died when a gyrocopter smashed into a mobile home. The pilot identified by the Highland County sheriff as Christopher Lord (ph) and his passenger Christopher Brugger (ph) identified. One man on the ground suffered serious burns but was taken to the hospital. Witnesses say the copter was in some kind of distress before clipping a power line and crashing to the ground.
ROMANS: This is just a really tough story here. A 24-year-old woman is facing three felony charges of reckless homicide for allegedly passing a stopped school bus with its stop sign arm extended and killing three young siblings. Six-year-old twin brothers Xavier and Mason Engle and their 9-year-old sister Olivia were pronounced dead at the scene. A fourth child had to be airlift out with life-threatening injuries.
The driver of the pickup truck that struck the children has been identified as Alyssa Shepherd of Rochester, Indiana. Police say she ran them over as they were crossing the street to board their bus. BRIGGS: Awful.
A violent end to the life of one of America's most notorious criminals. Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger killed Tuesday in a West Virginia prison. The FBI investigating the killing which came one day after he was transferred to the facility. The 89-year-old Bulger eluded federal authorities for more than 16 years until his arrest in 2011. He was serving a life sentence for a host of crimes that included 11 murders.
I lived in Boston for a long time, and all ages knew the common phrase where's Whitey? It was just something that plagued the city forever. Now the cover of "The New York post" changed "Where is Whitey" to "Whitey whacked." It is a huge story there in Boston.
ROMANS: His victims' families will never come with the grips that he lived 16 years relatively happy on the run with his girlfriend in Santa Monica just blocks from the beach.
[04:50:04] All right. Facebook's quarterly revenue disappointed investors. How much did it earn? We're going to get a check on CNN Business, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: The Justice Department investigating Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke for possibly using his office for personal gain. Two sources familiar with the investigation say the move follows a referral from interior and tourism watchdog.
[04:55:04] The full extent of the inspector general's inquiry unclear. But Zinke has faced multiple ethics questions during his tenure. The inspector general's office has opened multiple public inquiries into Zinke including the department's handling of a Connecticut casino project where the boundaries of a national monument in Utah were redrawn to benefit a state lawmaker, and looking into conversations between Zinke and an energy company chief executive about a Montana land development project.
BRIGGS: Kanye West is over politics. Just weeks after his bizarre visit with president Trump in the White House, the rapper and designer says he feels exploited. Tweeting, my eyes are now wide open. And now I realize I've been used to spread messages I don't believe in. I am distancing myself from politics and completely focusing on being creative.
This week, West was linked to a campaign to encourage black voters to leave the Democratic Party for the GOP. But west tweeted he never wanted any association with what's called "Blexit". He also wrote he supports common sense gun laws and people seeking asylum to escape violence and war.
ROMANS: The head football coach and athletic director at the University of Maryland will keep their jobs following an investigation into the death of a 19-year-old offensive lineman. The school's board of regents recommending coach D.J. Durkin be retained after being placed on leave in August. The border decided Durkin was unfairly blamed for the dysfunction in the athletic department. Athletic director Damon Evans also gets to stay on the job.
Meantime, university president, Wallace Loh, announced he plans to retire next June to help foster change at the school.
Freshman Jordan McNair died of heatstroke last May. From the moment he began experiencing cramps on the field, it took one hour and seven minutes before a trainer called the team doctor.
BRIGGS: Awful.
Fire up the duck boats because they're preparing for another victory parade in Boston. For the fourth time since 2004, Beantown is celebrating a Red Sox World Series title. The parade starts at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time outside Fenway Park and will follow Boylston Street until it reaches city hall. Officials expect hundreds of thousands of fans to turn out with mostly sunny weather in the forecast. That is rare this time of year in Boston.
ROMANS: Have fun. And then go trick or treating.
Let's get check on CNN Business.
Global stocks mostly higher in the final day of a rough month in Asia. The Nikkei up 2.2 percent. That's a good move for one day. Shanghai up more than 1 percent. The Hang Seng also higher.
European markets up here on the last trading day of the month. The DAX, the FTSE, the CAC all up about 1 percent.
The U.S. futures are looking higher pre-opening. Wall Street rebounded yesterday. The Dow closed up 400 points. That's a big move as wild swings rocked this market. The index has been down five of the prior six days. The S&P 500 jumped 1.6 percent, Nasdaq climbed 1.6. Still on track for the worst month since November, 2008.
G.E., General Electric, plunged 9 percent, its worst day since March, 2009. The sell-off came after G.E. slashed its 119-year-old dividend to just one penny. A storied, storied dividend, only a penny now.
The director of Alphabet's experimental research and development department Google X has resigned. Richard DeVaul resigned following last week's "New York Times" report claiming he sexually harassed a job applicant.
According to "The New York Times" report, DeVaul propositioned a woman who was applying to work at the company. Google did not offer her job and she reported the incident to its HR department two years later. CNN wasn't immediately after to reach DeVaul for comment late Tuesday.
Facebook's quarterly earnings disappointed investors amid a challenging year for Facebook. Total revenue jumped 33 percent. You would think that's good, right, $13.73 billion for the month ending in September. The Dow was slightly short of analyst's expectations. Overall, it's been challenging year for Facebook. Last month, it was
hit with the greatest security breach in its history, nearly 30 million users' phone numbers and email addresses were accessed by hackers. Last week, Facebook said it took down 82 pages and groups and accounts run from Iran but targeting people in the U.S. and the U.K. ahead of the midterm elections. Facebook's going to have to spend a lot of money as it transforms its business, right?
BRIGGS: Yes.
ROMANS: That's going to slow revenue growth. Slow earnings growth.
BRIGGS: All right. EARLY START continues right now.
(MUSIC)
BRIGGS: President Trump kicks off an eight-state campaign blitz less than a week from the midterms.
ROMANS: The president with a somber visit, tense visit to Pittsburgh as more victims are laid to rest today.
BRIGGS: Prosecutors say the accused pipe bomber had been planning his attack for months.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Dave Briggs.
ROMANS: I'm Christine Romans. It is Wednesday, October 31st. Happy Halloween. It is 5:00 a.m. in the East.
The president returning to the campaign trail tonight. Barnstorming 11 cities across eight states with just six days to go until the midterm elections.
Tonight, the president will be in Ft. Myers, Florida, trying to boost Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis locked in very tight races for senator and governor respectively. It is the president's third visit to Florida with one more rally scheduled in Pensacola, Florida, over the weekend. Expect to hear plenty at tonight's rally about immigration, the president's key focus as he tries to drive Republican voters to the polls next Tuesday.
