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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Manafort's Cooperation Agreement is Dead; Trump Dismisses Climate Report; Major Cuts at GM; FBI Overhauls Tip-Line After Deadly Oversight; World Condemns Russian Aggression, But Not Trump; NASA's "Insight" Spacecraft Lands on Mars; Texans Beat Titans for 8th Straight Win. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired November 27, 2018 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:01] DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: EARLY START continues right now.
(MUSIC)
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: The plea deal is off. Prosecutors say Paul Manafort lied to Robert Mueller.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't believe it. No, no. I don't believe it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: The president outright dismissive of government scientists who say climate change is a crisis.
ROMANS: And the president lashes out at GM. The automaker shuttering five North American plants, slashing its workforce by some 15 percent.
BRIGGS: And missed tips about this man, the Parkland shooter, now forcing the FBI to overhaul its public tip line.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Dave Briggs.
ROMANS: I'm Christine Romans. It is exactly 5:00 a.m. in the East, Tuesday, November 27th.
The big cliffhanger in Washington this morning: Did Paul Manafort lie to Robert Mueller? And if he did, why? Prosecutors say the former Trump campaign chairman has breached his plea agreement with the Justice Department. For more than a year, the biggest open question about the Russia investigation has swirled around Manafort.
BRIGGS: For example, what's the full story on the Trump Tower meeting he attended with Russians who claimed to have incriminating information about Hillary Clinton? Well, we may never hear Manafort testify about any of it.
Jessica Schneider has more from Washington.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Dave, the lingering question after this filing, what did Paul Manafort lie about? The special counsel saying he lied on a variety of subject matters, but they won't disclose exactly what they were until they file a sentencing submission with the court a little bit later.
But remember, Paul Manafort, he's been working with Mueller's attorney since he pleaded guilty to two charges he faced in Washington, D.C. That guilty plea was back in September.
And, of course, on top of that guilty plea, we know that Paul Manafort, he was found guilty by a Virginia jury on eight counts back in August. But now, the special counsel is calling off the cooperation, no more talks, no more opportunity to cooperate. And they are ready for a federal judge to sentence Manafort.
Now, Paul Manafort's attorneys, they responded to this filing, and they said that Paul Manafort believes he was truthful and he does not agree that he breached any agreement. So, we'll have to see what the judge says in this case. But, for now, the special prosecutor's team saying to the judge, let's go ahead with the sentencing of Paul Manafort -- Christine and Dave.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: All right. Jessica, thank you for that.
President Trump dismissing a new study about the dire consequences of climate change. The findings contained ominous warning about global health and conclude the U.S. economy could lose hundreds of billions of dollars every year, with the extreme heat in the southwest, and major declines in corn and dairy production.
So, what does the president think about his own government scientists' assessment?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Have you read the climate report yet?
TRUMP: I have seen it. I've read some of it. And it's fine.
REPORTER: They say the economic impact will be devastating.
TRUMP: Yes, I don't believe it.
REPORTER: You don't believe it?
TRUMP: No, no. I don't believe it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: The study was supposed to come out in December, but released by the administration on Black Friday when few Americans were paying attention. It was conducted by 13 federal agencies and departments with over 300 prominent climate scientists. One of them Katharine Hayhoe tweeted this on Friday: I wrote the
climate scenarios chapter myself. What the White House says is demonstrably false.
Katharine Hayhoe will be on "NEW DAY" later this morning.
ROMANS: The White House says it only considered the most extreme scenario and said that was not fair.
All right. General Motors, let's look at the General Motors story, reinventing itself and will close five North American plants to do it. GM will cut its salaried work force 15 percent, trim a quarter of the company's executives, to pivot toward electric vehicles and self- driving tech.
In a statement Monday, CEO Mary Barra said this: The actions we are taking today continue our transformation to be highly agile, resilient and profitable, while giving us the flexibility to invest in the future.
GM will shut plants in Detroit, Ontario, Warren, Ohio, White Marsh, Maryland, and Warren, Michigan. The plants made sedans that have waned in popularity, including the Chevrolet Volt, the Impala, the Cruze, the Buick Lacrosse, the Cadillac CT6 and STX. GM said it will no longer make those cars.
Those shutdowns translate to 8,000 salaried workers, 6,000 hourly workers will either lose their jobs or be reassigned to other plants. There's a lot of families very upset this morning.
President Trump said he talked with Barra after the announcement and he is not happy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I was very tough. I spoke with her when I heard they were closing. I said, you know, this country has done a lot for General Motors. You better get back in there soon. That's Ohio. And you better back in there soon. So, we have a lot of pressure on them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: At the rally in Mississippi on Monday night, the president said the administration has found the magic wand for manufacturing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The previous administration, they said manufacturing is never coming back. It's gone.
[05:05:00] You need a magic wand.
Well, we found the magic wand. And that's actually -- that's actually going to be increasing by a lot in the next short while because we have a lot of companies moving in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: If they found the magic wand and he fixed NAFTA, then why is GM closing all these plants in North America? It's also going to close three plants outside North America by the end of the year. One of those in South Korea has already been announced.
BRIGGS: Mexico's interior ministry says 98 migrants will be deported following Sunday's disturbance at the U.S.-Mexico border. And Mexico's foreign ministry is asking the United States to investigate the use of tear gas by border patrol agents after a group of migrants tried to rush across.
The White House trying to justify the response. Here's the president suggesting that adult migrants grabbed children to improve their chances of entering the U.S.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They feel they are at an advantage with a young child. And they call them grabbers. That's the term I've heard. But it's -- what they're called. Grabbers, they grab a child, because when they have a child, they feel a lot of safer.
All over the border, you have a lot of grabbers. You have a lot of people that grab children. And they have no idea who these children are. They are not parents.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: The president also denied tear gas was used on children. He said we don't use tear gas on kids. Either he did not see or he ignored this picture of the woman and two children running from the gas.
The Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen claims some women are being used as human shields. Right now, more than 5,600 migrants are in a makeshift shelter in Tijuana.
BRIGGS: Voters in Mississippi head to the polls today in the final Senate race of 2018. Democrat Mike Espy against Cindy Hyde-Smith in a runoff. She is heavily favored despite a number of controversies. Among them, the video of her saying she would be in the front row for a public hanging. President Trump headlined two rallies for her yesterday.
Two nooses were found at the state capital the day ahead of the emotionally charged vote. Along with the nooses, signs like this, reading: We are hanging nooses to remind people that times have not changed.
ROMANS: Democrats still making gains in the House this morning, three weeks after the midterms, a flip in California's 21st congressional district. The latest vote shows that the Democrat T.J. Cox ahead of Republican David Valadao.
One other race remains uncalled by CNN. They're in New Mexico. The Democrat is ahead there as well. So far, Democrats have picked up a net gain of 38 seats in races called by CNN.
BRIGGS: One of those in Utah where Republican Mia Love conceded against Ben McAdams. She responded to the president Trump who attacked her the day after the election before the race was even called.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Mia Love gave me no love and she lost. Too bad. Sorry about that, Mia.
REP. MIA LOVE (R), UTAH: What did he have to gain by saying such a thing? This gave me a clear vision of his world as it is.
No real relationships. Just convenient transactions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: The president's own approval rating taking a hit in the wake of the midterms. Six in ten Americans now disapprove the job he is doing, 38 percent approve. That is down five points since last week's Gallup poll.
ROMANS: All right. Even visual proof of a Russian ship ramming a Ukrainian tugboat is not enough for the president to condemn Moscow.
We go live to Ukraine.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: President Trump offering a muted response to the escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine. Russia seized three Ukrainian navy ships in a key waterway. Other world leaders condemning the move swiftly as an affront to the sovereignty of Ukraine, so did the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
But this though was the president's response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm not happy about it at all. Not at all. We let our position be known.
We do not like what's happening. Either way, we don't like what's happening. And hopefully, it will get straightened out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Ukraine has declared martial law in the border regions. Twenty-four Ukrainian sailors are still detained by the Russians.
CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is live in Ukraine.
And this is a military to military conflict here. No proxies right out in the open. NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it is
hard to underestimate the seriousness and how quickly this could escalate. Doesn't seem massively like now, but it has the potential to be the flash point that really has already brought this simmering conflict into global view back on the world stage.
There has been an ongoing war here for years in the separatists in the east of the country, backed by Moscow, very clearly, not fought for by Russia's main military and the Ukrainian military. What was difference in the Kerch Strait where the ships rammed into each other, this was Russia's military against Ukraine's military, in the open and Russia denying access to the Azov Sea, a vital waterway to many Ukrainians.
Now, the question now is, does the world respond like it did when Russia invaded Crimea and east of the country with sanctions? The Obama administration was clear uniting the international community against Moscow's aggression there. As you heard, Donald Trump, a little softer, frankly, in his language, perhaps maybe straightening it out at the sidelines of the G20 in Argentina with Vladimir Putin.
But the broader question here is we are hours away from martial law in Ukraine, the first time it's been implemented. It will be in ten regions. Not the whole country, but certainly in a very complicated political climate where many worry what they might do to Democratic freedoms potentially.
The bigger question, is Moscow really trying to see what it can get away with under the Trump administration? It has effectively expressed its influence now over that massively important waterway, the Sea of Azov. Do they now think, well, we got away with that, nobody is doing anything back to us, what can we possibly try next?
[05:15:02] That's what many Ukrainians worried here.
ROMANS: Fascinating.
All right. Nick, we know you continue to watch it for us. Nick Paton Walsh for us in Kiev, Ukraine -- thanks.
BRIGGS: All right. We'll turn to sports ahead. Make that eight straight wins for the Houston Texans. Lindsay Czarniak has more in the "Bleacher Report", next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: The FBI announcing an overhaul to its public tip line system. The bureau faced stiff criticism after the February massacre at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. It had received tips about the alleged gunman Nikolas Cruz well before the shooting.
In a letter to the Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, the FBI says it is adding 12 supervisory special agent positions and 50 professional staff positions to the public access line division.
[05:20:09] And it's also adding training on issues like identifying pre-attack mental health indications.
BRIGGS: Hate crime investigation in Los Angeles after police say a driver tried to run down two men outside a synagogue, look at the surveillance video here of 32-year-old Mohamed Mohamed making a U-turn and allegedly driving toward the men as they were living Friday night services. One of the worshippers said Mohamed yelled anti-Semitic slurs before trying to run them over.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was bleeping and screaming F-ing Jew, F-ing Jew, F-ing Jew. He's laughing the entire time. He's actually dancing. You could clearly see in his face that he just wanted to do something.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Minutes later, surveillance video captures Mohamed leaving the scene, running a stop sign, broadsiding another car. Mohamed being held on $55,000 bail.
ROMANS: One person is dead and six injured after a minivan crashed in the crowd in lower Manhattan. The NYPD says the elderly man behind the wheel was trying to back up when he lost control. Two of the injured are in critical condition. Two are listed as serious and two patients have minor injuries. No word whether charges are expected.
BRIGGS: The Food and Drug Administration closing in on the source of romaine lettuce responsible for an E. coli scare just before Thanksgiving. Officials now say only romaine lettuce from certain parts of California is unsafe to eat. Lettuce entering the market will be labeled to give information about when and where it was harvested.
The FDA says the most likely source of the E. coli contamination is from California's central coast. The growing reasons were the harvest season is ending. The number of people sickened has grown to 43 in 12 states.
ROMANS: All right. Cheers at NASA when the "Insight" spacecraft safely reached Mars.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Touchdown confirmed! "Insight" is on the surface of Mars!
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: That's like an end zone victory dance. That was awesome. It was the culmination of "Insight's" seven-month 300 million mile journey through space. The Mars lander will spend the next two years studying the interior of the Red Planet.
It wasted no time. It got right to work beaming back the first picture from the Mars surface. The image includes the dust cover still on the lens. That will be removed this week.
BRIGGS: A Florida man decided to try hang gliding during vacation in Switzerland and wound up hanging on for dear life. Check this out. His pilot forgot to connect the harness and the glider pilot says he thought he was going to die. He managed to hang on just long enough to fall into an open field. He suffered a fracture wrist and torn bicep tendon.
He says he's not mad at the instructor and is even grateful for the skilled landing. Oh, my gosh, (INAUDIBLE) Lindsay Czarniak.
ROMANS: There's like 15 fears all in one there, heights and hang gliding.
LINDSAY CZARNIAK, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: What a story for life, right?
BRIGGS: Another great story with the Houston Texans were not just hanging on, they are controlling the division.
Good morning, Lindsay Czarniak.
CZARNIAK: Good morning, guys.
They are hot at the right time. That's for sure. It was a fun game to watch. There was extra meaning.
They had to work for it because they found themselves down to the Titans early. This game had meaning for the Houston because the Texans wanted to honor their owner Bob McNair who died last week at the age of 81. The best way to do that, clearly, keep that winning streak going.
Players and fans honored him with a tribute before the kickoff. Texans got off to a slow start. They were down 10-0 early. But then quarterback DeShawn Watson continued to shine. He threw two touchdowns. He ran for another.
And besides Watson, Lamar Miller, he had a game. Miller went 97 yards. That was the longest touchdown in franchise history. The Texans run away with this one, 34 to 17, for a team record, eighth straight win. By the way, they are also the first team in NFL history to win eight straight after starting the season 0-3.
Next up, by the way, is the Cleveland Browns who have something going on.
Hey, to the NBA we go. Rockets star James Harden, he rocked the headband last night. And I think he's going to keep it going on, because check out what he did. This is amazing.
He had a monster game. Last year's league MVP with 54 points. That includes 21 in the third quarter alone. He has a 50-point game in five straight seasons. Wilt Chamberlain is the only player to have a longer streak. But Washington did spoil that performance by wining 135 to 131 in overtime. And elsewhere, Kevin Durant scored his season best 49 points. The Warriors needed every one of them against the Magic. Golden State down by as many as 18 points.
Then, K.D. took over. He was unstoppable down the stretch. This three-pointer with just 21 seconds left with the Warriors up by four, essentially sealing the win.
[05:25:02] The Warriors win their third straight, 116-110.
And, finally, this is an emotional night at Madison Square Garden as the New York Ranger celebrated Hockey Fights Cancer night. This is 13-year-old Max Bergen. He was diagnosed with brain cancer last year. He dropped the ceremonial first puck.
Look what happens next. Max touched the bell at the center ice. That bell ringing signaled the end of his chemo treatment. That sound was better than any bull horn that that could have sounded there inside that arena.
ROMANS: Go, Max. That is just awesome.
BRIGGS: To the power of sports, the healing power of sports.
(CROSSTALK)
BRIGGS: Thank you, my friend. Good to see you.
ROMANS: Thanks, Lindsay.
Prosecutors say Paul Manafort lied to Robert Mueller. His plea deal is now off. What might he -- why he misled investigators.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BRIGGS: The plea deal is off. Prosecutors say Paul Manafort lied to Robert Mueller.
