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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
President Re-Tweets Racist Ad as Midterm Approaches; One Black Box Recovered from Doomed Lion Air Flight; New Theory in Khashoggi Case. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired November 01, 2018 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[04:30:23] LUIS BRACAMONTES, CONVICTED OF KILLING TWO CALIFORNIA DEPUTIES: -- out soon, and I will kill more.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: A new campaign ad portrays Hispanics as criminals, part of the president's eleventh hour pitch to rally Republicans around immigration.
DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: Three more funerals today for victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre. The suspect faces dozens of death penalty counts.
ROMANS: One of the black boxes has been recovered from the downed Lion Air jet off Indonesia. Will it help determine what brought down the new model airplane?
BRIGGS: And the University of Maryland fires football coach D.J. Durkin. The school president defying a recommendation to let him stay after a player died on his watch.
Highly recommend the piece of the journalism from Sally Jenkins of the "Washington Post." I tweeted that out at DaveBriggsTV.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Dave Briggs.
ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. It is 31 minutes past the hour.
One rally down, 10 to go. President Trump in Florida, the first event in his week-long eleventh hour push to the midterms. But it is the Web ad he tweeted out before the rally that is drawing attention and being called out for blatantly portraying Hispanics as criminals.
The ad echoes that notorious 1988 Willie Horton campaign ad for Bush 41 targeting Michael Dukakis.
BRIGGS: The Trump ad features a California cop killer in the U.S. illegally bragging about his crimes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRACAMONTES: I will break out soon, and I will kill more. GRAPHICS: Democrats let him into our country.
BRACAMONTES: The only thing that I (EXPLETIVE DELETED) regret is that (EXPLETIVE DELETED) just killed two. I wish I had (EXPLETIVE DELETED) killed more of those (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
GRAPHICS: Democrats let him stay.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: The cop killer had actually been deported twice, once under Clinton, once under George W. Bush. Democratic Party chairman Tom Perez says it's just another immigration dog whistle.
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TOM PEREZ, CHAIRMAN, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE: This is distracting, divisive Donald at his worst. This is fear-mongering.
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BRIGGS: The White House not exactly disagreeing. A source there telling CNN the ad and the president's immigration push are, quote, "clearly working. We are talking about it and not health care."
The president also now claims as many as 15,000 troops could be sent to the border to stop the migrants heading toward the U.S. Worth noting that figure exceed the number of troops currently in Afghanistan. About 14,000. The caravan that is now more than 800 miles and several weeks away from our border.
Chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta in Florida with the president's midterm pitch.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Dave, President Trump appears to have found his closing argument for the upcoming midterm election. It is the subject of immigration. Using some of his most inflammatory rhetoric to date on the issue at a rally here in Fort Myers, Florida. The president demonized repeatedly the caravan of migrants heading toward the U.S. border with Mexico. And he also vowed once again to end birthright citizenship that is baked into the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.
Here is more of what the president had to say.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Democrat Party is openly encouraging millions of illegal aliens to break our laws, violate our borders -- you see what's happening right now. A vote for Democrats is a vote to liquidate America's borders and is a vote to meth, Fentanyl, heroin, and other deadly drugs pour across our borders.
(END VIDEO CLIP) ACOSTA: The president also vented his frustrations over the media coverage over his recent trip to Pittsburgh to honor the people who died at the Tree of Life Synagogue. The president referred to the press as the enemy of the people less than one week after package bombs were delivered to CNN -- Christine and Dave.
BRIGGS: Jim Acosta, thanks. Interesting to hear Guns N' Roses there. We'll talk about that later.
President Trump taking a lot of heat over his penchant for using falsehoods to advance his midterm messages on tax cuts, health care among others. ABC News asked the president straight up about his honesty.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I do try. I always want to tell the truth. When I can I tell the truth. I mean, sometimes it turns out to be where something happens, it's different or there's a change.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: The president also going after Paul Ryan tweeting the House speaker, quote, "should be focusing on holding the majority rather than giving his opinions on birthright citizenship. Something he knows nothing about."
In an interview with the Kentucky radio station Ryan made it clear he believes you cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order.
[04:35:01] I should note, Ted Cruz agreed with that last night on FOX News.
The president will not be campaigning in two states where Democrats are hoping to flip Senate seats, Nevada and Arizona. Democrat Kyrsten Sinema's lead over Republican Martha McSally in Arizona has narrowed from seven points in September to a four-point edge now. That falls within the poll's margin of error.
ROMANS: And in Nevada just three points separate Democrat Jackie Rosen and incumbent Republican Dean Heller with 10 percent of likely voters in the state still undecided. Two officials involved in shaping the president's travel tells CNN Republicans in both Arizona and Nevada asked the White House to keep Mr. Trump away in the closing days of the campaign. Possible appearance was not viewed as helpful. The president did visit Arizona and Nevada in October.
The suspect in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre set to appear in court this morning. On Wednesday a federal grand jury indicted Robert Bowers on 44 counts. Many of them carry the death penalty.
Today's services will be held for 65-year-old dentist Richard Gottfried and a married couple Bernice and Sylvan Simon, they were 84 and 86 years old. Yesterday three other members of the congregation were laid to rest, 75-year-old Joyce Fienberg, Melvin Wax aged 87 and Irving Younger who's 69. Several hundred University of Pittsburgh students and supporters also rallied on campus in favor of tighter gun regulations.
BRIGGS: Police in Irving, California, are hoping this surveillance video will help them find a vandal who defaced a synagogue with anti- Semitic graffiti just days after the Tree of Life massacre in Pittsburgh. The vandal spray painting F-Jews on the synagogue. Workers spotted it Wednesday morning. The Orange County Human Relations Council says the number of hate crimes in the area jumped last year continuing a trend that began in 2015.
ROMANS: All right. October was a frightening month for investors around the world. From Hong Kong to New York, stock market was slammed by a wave of fears about slowing growth, trade wards and higher interest rates. The Nasdaq took the brunt of the damage falling 9 percent in October. The biggest monthly drop for the Nasdaq since November 2008. Even though markets enjoyed a sweet Halloween rebound on Wednesday, the broader S&P 500 lost nearly 7 percent last month. Its worst month since September 2011. And despite the Dow's 241-point rally, it shed 5 percent in October. That hasn't happened since January 2016.
Chief investment strategist at BMO Capital Markets Brian Belski told CNN that October was a normal correction.
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BRIAN BELSKI, CHIEF INVESTMENT STRATEGIST, BMO CAPITAL: We needed to take some complacency out of the market. And that's exactly what we've done. We think this is a bull market correction within a very large secular longer-term bull market.
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ROMANS: So don't worry about the money you lost. Stocks also fell overseas due to weaker economic growth and concerns about trade. Hong Kong's Hang Seng toppled 10 percent in a month. China's Shanghai Composite lost 8 percent.
President Trump will meet with China's president in Buenos Aires at the G-20 next month.
BRIGGS: The National Archives has just released the so-called Watergate roadmap. The documents from the Watergate scandal include a would-be indictment against then President Richard Nixon that has never been seen before. It reveals how a grand jury plan to charge Mr. Nixon with bribery, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and obstruction of a criminal investigation. The president was never formally charged, but was named as an unindicted co-conspirator.
The group that petitioned for the release of the documents believes Special Counsel Robert Mueller should use them as a roadmap if he decides to issue a report to Congress.
ROMANS: Google employees planning to stage a walkout today at offices around the world to protest the company's handling of sexual harassment. It comes after a "New York Times" investigation that detailed years of sexual harassment allegations, multimillion-dollar severance packages for accused executives, and a lack of transparency.
Google CEO Sundar Pitchai voicing his support for employees who wish to participate in the protest. The "Times" reports organizers expect more than 1500 people to take part across nearly two dozen Google offices worldwide.
BRIGGS: Coming up, the body of the murdered "Washington Post" columnist Jamal Khashoggi may never been found. Now Turkish authorities are pursuing a gruesome new theory about what happened to him. We're live in Istanbul.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:43:30] BRIGGS: Indonesia's search and rescue agency said it has located one of the black boxes from that doomed Lion Air flight that crashed into the Java Sea earlier this week just 13 minutes after takeoff.
CNN's Ivan Watson live in Jakarta, Indonesia with the latest. Ivan, good morning.
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Dave. That's right. This is a potential breakthrough and it wasn't easy to do. The divers, the fleet of ships involved in the salvage operation they took them days to locate the sonar ping, the beacon from the flight data recorder, and then to dive down braving in the currents and depths of more than 100 feet. Then the divers say that they had to dig in the mud to pull this flight data recorder out.
And it's since been handed over to the National Transportation Safety Committee here which is overseeing the investigation of this deadly disaster which has resulted in the deaths of 189 passengers and crew.
Now this isn't the cockpit voice recorder which would let us hear the last minutes of the interactions of the pilot and co-pilot. Remember that in the first minutes of this flight on Monday morning, they requested to return back to the main airport here in Jakarta. But they never had the time to sound a mayday, an emergency call. But what this recorder does is it measures scores of different kind of flight instruments, wind speed, altitude, even smoke detectors in some cases.
[04:45:05] It could take weeks if not months, we're hearing now, for all of that to be analyzed and hopefully provide an answer to the mystery of why a brand new Boeing 737 plunged out of the sky minutes after takeoff taking down all those passengers and crew with it -- Dave.
BRIGGS: Hopefully some answers ahead. Ivan Watson live for us this morning. Thank you.
ROMANS: Turkey's chief prosecutor says Saudi agents strangled "Washington Post" journalist Jamal Khashoggi almost immediately after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and then dismembered the body. The Turkish government demanding Saudi Arabia extradite all 18 suspects in the Khashoggi case. And now officials have a gruesome new theory about what happened to his remains.
Want to bring in CNN's Jomana Karadsheh, she is live in Istanbul for us.
And Jomana, it's just so grim and awful. It must be just terrible for his family. But to have him killed so quickly after entering the consulate would suggest that the Saudi are lying when they say it was a fistfight gone awry.
JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Christine, we've had this changing narrative constantly from Saudi authorities on what happened to Jamal Khashoggi. And that is why Turkish officials are really frustrated. They want the Saudis to answer some of those questions and, you know, yesterday for the first time, nearly a month after the investigation, the criminal investigation into the killing of Jamal Khashoggi was launched by Turkish authorities here, the chief prosecutor for Istanbul who is overseeing this investigation came out with the statement.
The most detailed so far of their conclusions as to what happened to Khashoggi after he entered the consulate. As you mentioned there they say immediately after entering that building, he was strangled to death. They say his body was dismembered and then destroyed. Now it's not very clear to us what they mean by destroyed. We are seeking clarification from Turkish officials.
But according to "The Washington Post" they say a senior Turkish official told them that the theory they are going with right, that they are pursuing is that his body may have been destroyed using acid, either here at the consulate or at the nearby consul-general's residence. They say that biological evidence that was collected from the consulate garden does support the theory that his body was disposed of close to where the killing took place.
Now despite these revelations they say they still have some key questions they want answered by the Saudis. Where are the remains of Jamal Khashoggi, they say, and who issued the orders? They were trying to get these answers from the Saudi chief prosecutor who was here for three days and left yesterday. But they did not get the answers. A senior Turkish official is telling us that it seemed to them that the Saudis were not really interested in cooperating in the investigation, that they were trying to find out what evidence Turkey had -- Christine.
ROMANS: All right. Jomana, thank you so much for that, for us this morning in Istanbul in front of that consulate where he was killed. Thank you.
All right. Inappropriate office behavior is under the microscope. Now WeWork is testing new limits on its free beer. We're going to check on CNN Business next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [04:52:59] ROMANS: More than 50 people suspected of fuelling violence in Chicago have been arrested. Police say the suspects were swept up in a series of precision raids overnight carried out by Chicago police and the city's FBI and ATF teams. Authorities collected 20 guns, two cars and $80,000 in cash. This comes after a weekend of violence where 41 people were shot in Chicago, five of them fatally.
BRIGGS: The University of Maryland firing head football coach D.J. Durkin one day after allowing him to return to his job. That initial decision led to outrage and pressure from state lawmakers, students, and the community. Coach Durkin was placed on administrative leave in August after the heatstroke death of 19-year-old lineman Jordan McNair. On Tuesday, Maryland's Board of Regents recommended the coach be reinstated. But yesterday university president Wallace Loh defied that recommendation and fired Durkin, who has not yet commented publicly.
ROMANS: A federal law enforcement official tells CNN the inmates who killed notorious Boston mob boss Whitey Bulger tried to cut out his tongue. That's a well-known punishment for snitches in the world of organized crime. CNN has learned Bulger was in the general prison population at the West Virginia prison at the time of the attack, giving his killers easy access to him. Investigators believe there was more than one attacker and Bulger was beaten beyond recognition. At least one of the inmates involved is believed to have ties to organized crime in Massachusetts.
BRIGGS: An inspector general's report says priceless NASA artifacts were lost because of poor recordkeeping and follow-through. The report found that NASA, quote, "does not have adequate processes in place to identify or manage its heritage assets." Among the relics of space history lost an Apollo 11 lunar collection bag containing lunar dust particles. Also, a prototype lunar rover that was sold to a scrap yard.
NASA told the inspector general's office it would develop better ways for dealing with historical items by the spring of 2020.
ROMANS: An intoxicated American Airlines baggage handler fell asleep on the job and ended up flying from Kansas City to Chicago in the belly of a Boeing 737.
[04:55:02] The unidentified employee apparently took a nap inside the forward cargo hold just before the flight took off last weekend. He wasn't discovered until they landed in Chicago. He wasn't discovered until they landed in Chicago. He told law enforcement he was intoxicated and fell asleep. He was not charged with a crime. American said the airline is investigating and the employee has been suspended.
BRIGGS: Baseball mourning the loss of one of its all-time Hall of Fame greats. San Francisco Giants legend Willie McCovey. Stretch as he was known was a fearsome hitter during his heyday in the '60s and '70s teaming with Willie Mays to form one of baseball's greatest duos. The Giants paying tribute to McCovey flying flags at AT&T Park over McCovey cove at half staff. The team says he died after battling ongoing health issues. Willie McCovey was 80 years old.
ROMANS: Two former Supreme Court justices could have been husband and wife. While researching his biography of Sandra O'Connor author Evan Thomas unearthed a letter from March of 1952. In it, future Chief Justice William Rehnquist asked a girlfriend then known as Sandra Day, to be specific, "Sandy, will you marry me this summer?" She declined but not until four months later after she had started dating her future husband. Day and Rehnquist already acknowledged they had dated for a time when they were both at Stanford Law. The late Justice Rehnquist and his wife eventually became lifelong friends with the O'Connors.
Supreme Court trivia there.
BRIGGS: Fascinating.
While you were sleeping, Jimmy Fallon showed some outtakes from campaign ads recorded by the president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: First is Alabama.
JIMMY FALLON, HOST, "TONIGHT SHOW WITH JIMMY FALLON": That sounds too much like Obama. Next.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But --
FALLON: Next.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. How about Hawaii?
FALLON: Hawaii is a beautiful, beautiful country.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Massachusetts.
FALLON: God bless you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh that wasn't a sneeze. That's the next state.
FALLON: What's the next state?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Massachusetts.
FALLON: Gesundheit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oregon.
FALLON: You might now know this but I'm an Oregon donor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What?
FALLON: I'm an Oregon donor. You can check the back of my driver's license.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, I don't think -- FALLON: I'm a hero so.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: New Mexico.
FALLON: There's a New Mexico? Isn't the old one bad enough?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, sir, I --
FALLON: Make New Mexico old again. Put that on a hat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Oh, my gosh. Let's get a check -- let's put that on a hat.
Let's get a check on CNN Business this morning. Asian stocks they kick off November with mostly positive readings here. The Hang Seng is up 2 percent. Shanghai up a little bit. The Nikkei down about 1 percent. U.S. futures are mostly positive right now and Wall Street stocks rebounded.
The Dow closing up 241 points to cap off a terrible October. Nasdaq up 2 percent trimming its monthly decline for the month down more than 9 percent. That's the worst month for the Nasdaq since November 2008. The S&P also up 1 percent but down 6.8 percent for October. The steepest monthly decline since September 11th.
Better-than-expected earnings reports helped lift stocks on Wednesday. General Motors surged 9 percent on an earnings beat there. Despite strong earnings General Motors is offering buyouts to more than a third of its workers in the U.S. as it transitions to self-driving vehicles and other new technology. GM employees who have worked 12 or more years, that's about 18,000 of its 50,000 salaried staff in the U.S. will get this offer. GM is dealing with higher costs associated with tariffs on imported steel and aluminum which has raised its costs by about $300 million in the third quarter and could raise costs by $1 billion next year.
WeWork is starting to curb the beer consumption of some of its New York City members. Testing new rules on its free beer offering. Yes, they give free beer at WeWork. The move comes when inappropriate office behavior is under the spotlight at tech companies. WeWork previously offered an unlimited beer on tap as a perk to member companies. Members will now be limited to four 12-ounce glasses of beer available on tape per day. The taps will only work during the hours of noon to 8:00 p.m. The trial is expected to last between 30 and 90 days.
I don't know about you, I could not work on only four pints a day.
BRIGGS: Four? Four a day? One of our crew here just said where do I get an application?
(LAUGHTER)
BRIGGS: We will check one online for you, Jimmy. I'll get one for you. ROMANS: I love those perks. Those tech company perks does not happen
in media.
BRIGGS: No. None of that.
(LAUGHTER)
ROMANS: We just come here and --
BRIGGS: Just awful coffee.
(LAUGHTER)
BRIGGS: EARLY START continues right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRACAMONTES: -- out soon, and I will kill more.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: A new campaign ad portrays Hispanics as criminals, part of the president's eleventh hour pitch to rally Republicans around immigration.
BRIGGS: Three more funerals today for the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre. The suspect faces dozens of death penalty counts.
ROMANS: The flight data recorder has been recovered from the downed Lion Air jet off Indonesia. Will it help determine what brought down the new model plane?
BRIGGS: And the University of Maryland fires football coach D.J. Durkin. The school president defying a recommendation to let Durkin stay after a player died on his watch.
ROMANS: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START.
BRIGGS: Excuse me.
ROMANS: This morning. I'm Christine Romans.
