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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Senate Intel Committee Subpoenas Don Trump Junior; House Judiciary Threatens to Subpoena Special Counsel; Students and Family Mourn Kendrick Castillo; Trump Laughs at Audience Member's Suggestion to Shoot Immigrants; North Korea Launches New Projectile; World Welcomes Newest Royal Baby. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired May 09, 2019 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:31:22] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: A subpoena for Donald Trump, Jr. The Republican-led Senate wants to bring him in. We'll tell you why.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NYKI GIASOLLI. MOTHER OF STUDENT: If it had not been for him, I wouldn't have my baby today.
NATE HOLLEY, STUDENT: I was going to go down fighting if I was going to go down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: Shock and grief in Colorado as a community mourns a hero who took down a school shooter.
ROMANS: Breaking overnight, the second launch in a week by North Korea. Why now? We go live to Seoul.
BRIGGS: And more than a thousand weapons seized by the feds, guns and ammo tracked down at a home in Los Angeles.
Welcome back to EARLY START on a Thursday, I'm Dave Briggs.
ROMANS: I'm Christine Romans. Nice to see you all this morning.
BRIGGS: Good morning.
ROMANS: Thirty-one past the hour.
The Senate Intelligence Committee wants another round with Donald Trump, Jr. but will the president's son comply? The subpoena for Don, Jr. comes from a committee led by Republicans. Discussions over his testimony began before the release of the Special Counsel Mueller's report. Don, Jr.'s team resisted in part, they say, because Mueller's findings were still secret.
BRIGGS: The subpoena is a sign the committee is escalating its probe into Russian election interference and raises two major questions. Why do senators want to speak with Don, Jr. and will he show up?
Phil Mattingly has more from Capitol Hill.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Christine and Dave, case closed was the message from Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. It appears, at least in the Senate, including the Republican-led Senate, the Republican-led Intelligence Committee, the case is not quite yet closed.
Why do we know that? Well, we have now discovered, according to sources, that a number of weeks ago the Republican-led committee issued a subpoena to Donald Trump, Jr. As far as we know this is the first subpoena issued by anybody on Capitol Hill related to any of the president's children.
Now the issues here, while still not totally clear, appear to really run through two different tracks. And these were comments that Donald Trump, Jr. made related to a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russian individuals who were claiming they had dirt on Hillary Clinton, as well as discussions he may or may not have had with Michael Cohen related to a potential Trump Tower in Moscow.
Now both of those issues were issues that Donald Trump, Jr. testified about previously. He's testified in front of three committees for dozens of hours. And we know right now that will the committee has subpoenaed Donald Trump, Jr. there is currently a standoff. Donald Trump, Jr. is not planning on coming to Capitol Hill. The considerations were either pleading the Fifth or not showing up at all.
And based on the statements that sources close to Donald Trump, Jr. have released attacking the Republican chairman of the committee, Richard Burr, making clear that in their eyes this was a PR stunt. It doesn't look like this standstill is going to change anytime soon. Basically things aren't actually over. The case not quite closed -- guys.
ROMANS: All right, Phil Mattingly, thank you for that.
The next subpoena could have Bob Mueller's name on it. Democrats are determined to hear from the special counsel but President Trump is trying to block his testimony by invoking executive privilege over the entire Mueller report and its underlying evidence. It's a dramatic step considering the president recently suggested he didn't mind the report being released at all.
House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler dismissing the administration's stonewalling.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): I certainly hope that we will hear from Mueller. And eventually -- by the way, yes. Eventually we will hear from Mueller because we will -- if we have to -- we will subpoena him if we have to. And the nonsense claim of executive privilege will be pierced by the court and he'll be ordered to testify. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: The full House will now take up whether to hold Attorney General Barr in contempt for refusing to hand over the unredacted Mueller report.
[04:35:06] The Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to advance the measure. Chairman Nadler says we are now in a constitutional crisis. The matter appears headed for a courtroom showdown between House Democrats and the Justice Department.
ROMANS: Overnight, a vigil to honor an 18-year-old student killed in a gun attack at a high school in suburban Denver. At least 2,000 people packed the gym at STEM School Highlands Ranch to pay tribute to Kendrick Castillo who tried to stop one of the suspects from firing.
CNN spoke to his father who as you can imagine is simply heartbroken.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN CASTILLO, FATHER OF VICTIM: One of the kids told me that like a flash he jumped up. She said, you know, he's a hero. He saved me. He said he jumped up and he ran. Said you couldn't even see how fast he was running, you know, out the door and after this person. There's another part of you that wishes he would have just turned and ran, retreated, hid, you know, did something to put himself out of harm's way if that was possible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Other students and families are remembering Kendrick Castillo as they come to terms with their own grief.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TUSCANY "NUI" GIASOLLI, STUDENT: Kendrick lunged at him to try and subdue him. As soon he said, "Don't you move," Kendrick lunged, giving all of us enough time to hide under our desks.
N. GIASOLLI: If it had not been for him I wouldn't have my baby today, and I can't imagine that I will never able to thank him.
HOLLEY: I was hiding in the corner and they were right outside the door. I had my hand on a metal baseball bat just in case because I was going to go down fighting if I was going to go down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Hard to imagine.
ROMANS: That a child even could say that in this country.
BRIGGS: It's unthinkable.
Kendrick is part of a tragic new trend in American schools looking out for a shooter then sacrificing yourself to save your classmates. Last week Riley Howell, the screen left. Howell was killed as he tackled a shooter at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Here's what his parents told CNN last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NATALIE HENRY-HOWELL, MOTHER OF RILEY HOWELL: It's just terrible that more families and communities are going through this. And while I'm angry and I feel embattled, I think at the same time we have to instead of just lionize, we have to galvanize. There just has to be some dialogue from people all around so that we can never ever, ever let a community have to go through this again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: CNN has obtained cell phone audio capturing the moments police moved in on those shooters in Colorado.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lock down.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They found him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lock down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Authorities have identified both shooters, one is an 18-year- old male, the other a 16-year-old. Police initially said the second suspect was a girl, but he identifies as male. Both are due back in court to be formally charged Friday.
BRIGGS: The vigil last night actually turned into a demonstration. Some people walked out after Senator Michael Bennet and Congressman Jason Crow spoke.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Mental health. Mental health.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: They say they didn't want politics and the media taking advantage of the shooting pushing an agenda. Now mental health was the chant you hear there, with a focus on that.
If you'd like to help the Castillo family a donation account has been set up with Wells Fargo. You can go to any branch and ask to donate to the Kendrick Castillo Memorial Fund.
Illegal border crossings from Mexico are rising at a staggering rate between October and April. The U.S. Border Patrol reported 460,294 people apprehended. That is the highest number in a fiscal year since 2009, and the issue came up at a Trump rally last night in northern Florida. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I mean, when you have 15,000 people marching up, and you have hundreds and hundreds of people and you have two or three border security people that are brave and great, and don't forget, we don't let them and we can't let them use weapons. We can't. Other countries do. We can't. I would never do that. But how do you stop these people? You can't. That's --
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: That's only in the panhandle you can get away with that statement.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: That's right, laughing at the notion of shooting illegal immigrants. The president also promised to increase hurricane relief efforts seven months after the hurricane devastated the panhandle.
[04:40:05] Many loyalists at the rally are still recovering. The relief money they need is tied up in negotiations over a broader disaster relief package with a dispute brewing over how much assistance should go to Puerto Rico. The president falsely claimed 91 billion has gone there. Again, not true.
ROMANS: Not true.
All right. Ever wanted to know how much your prescriptions would cost before you got to the drugstore? I mean, there's just zero transparency in drug prices. Well, TV ads will soon start telling you. The Trump administration says drug makers will have to include the list price in the commercials. The president says he wants to lower drug prices and officials say knowing the price will give patients more information to bring into discussions with their doctors.
But some experts fear that advertising list prices may scare patients with health coverage away from medications mostly paid for by their insurance. There's no enforcement mechanism in the new rule. But officials say violating it would be a deceptive trade practice that could prompt lawsuits from rival drug makers.
BRIGGS: Breaking just moments ago. North Korea launching a, quote, "unidentified projectile," the second launch in a week.
CNN's Paula Hancocks is live for us in Seoul. Hi there, Paula, what do we know?
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dave, the latest information we have is from the Joint Chiefs of Staff here in Seoul, and they have said that an unidentified projectile, potentially more than one, we simply don't know at this point, has been launched at 3:30 a.m. Eastern Time, around then, so just within the last hour.
Now it was launched from the western part of the country close to or at the Sino-ri missile base. Now this is somewhere where we have seen short range and medium range missiles launched from in the past, the scuds, the Rodongs, that North Korea has. It's one of their undeclared missile bases but one that satellite images have picked up in the past.
And we know that this projectile or plural was flying in an easterly direction and that's pretty much the latest we have on the projectile itself. Now it usually takes some time for U.S. and South Korean intelligence agencies to be able to pour through the data, to find out exactly what was fired, and it generally takes North Korea even longer to announce what was fired.
But as you say, it's just within the week, less than a week of launches on Saturday morning local time, which turned out to be multiple rocket launches and also potentially a short range ballistic missile.
Now North Korea has spoken about those through a state-run media saying that was part of a routine drill, saying it was defensive in nature and saying that nobody should get upset by it. And clearly the U.S. and South Korea have been down playing it. U.S. President Donald trump even saying, I am with Kim Jong-un.
BRIGGS: Yes, in a recent tweet. All right, Paula Hancocks, you stay on this for us. Live in Seoul this morning. Thank you.
ROMANS: All right. General Motors' Lordstown, Ohio, plant may get a second life. GM is in talks to sell that plant it closed earlier this year. The potential buyer Workhorse which would use to build electric pickup trucks. President Trump tweeted about Workhorse's interest in Lordstown portraying it as a done deal, the president did, with all the cars coming back and much more, the USA is booming. And then during a rally last night the president said he called GM's CEO to make a plea to do something with that factory.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I call up Mary Berra, will you make a deal or open it please? I'm getting killed with that plant. Anyway, today she called. They're going to be opening. It's going to be a great company going there. It's really wonderful.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: I mean, he's getting killed with that plant because he told the workers there don't move, don't get another job because I'm going to save your jobs, and in the end he did not. Now GM and Workhorse both said no deal has been reached. Talks are still in the early stages. So the president, you know, says it's a done deal. Well, this is early.
The United Auto Workers Union says it doesn't want the plant sold and that GM should reopen it itself. Workhorse could not give any target for how many workers it would employ if it bought Lordstown or when those jobs might start, or what they would pay.
I mean, those GM union jobs are good, solid, well-paying union jobs, which is why the union wants to keep GM there.
BRIGGS: And he's tweeting before a final decision. The right decision.
ROMANS: Yes.
BRIGGS: All right. The world can rest easy today. The royal baby has a name. Did Harry and Meghan buck tradition yet again?
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[04:48:41] BRIGGS: 4:48 Eastern Time. Authorities seizing a cache of more than a thousand weapons from a home in the upscale Los Angeles neighborhood of Holmby Hills. Federal agents and the LAPD served a search warrant early Wednesday while investigating the suspected manufacture and sale of illegal firearms.
Look at this astounding video. Stacks of hundreds of rifles and handguns along with thousands of rounds of ammunition could be seen laid out across the driveway of a large home. One man has been arrested on weapons charges.
ROMANS: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. being called out for his anti- vaccination campaign. Called out by members of his own family. His sister Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland, brother and former congressman Joseph Kennedy, and his niece Maeve Kennedy McKean, writing in a "Politico" op-ed. They say his outspoken stance on vaccines is tragically wrong. They add, "He has helped to spread dangerous misinformation over social media and is complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines."
The son of Robert F. Kennedy has been one of the more notable anti- vaxx activists. There have been nearly 800 reported cases of measles across the U.S. since January. The spike is blamed in large part on anti-vaxx parents who don't believe science.
[04:50:05] BRIGGS: Newly released video shows Southern California police officers firing 76 shots killing a suspect. Authorities say the officers won't be charged.
We do want to warn you, some of the video is disturbing. Anaheim officers Sean Staymates and Kevin Peterson shot and killed 50-year-old Eliuth Penaloza Nava. One of Nava's brothers called police to say Nava was armed under the influence of an unknown drug and hallucinating.
When the officers arrived, Nava sat up in his truck and drove away. The Orange County prosecutor says the officer saw Nava holding what appeared to be a black semiautomatic handgun. It was actually a CO2 air pistol. A D.A. says the officers were justified in believing Nava was a serious threat.
ROMANS: All right, 51 minutes past the hour. Walmart making big changes in an effort to fight against teen nicotine addiction. This is a real problem, folks. CNN Business has the details next.
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[04:50:37] ROMANS: Coming soon, college admissions scandal the TV series. Annapurna Television is developing a limited series based on "Operation Varsity Blues." The studio has optioned the rights to an upcoming book about the scandal by "Wall Street Journal" reporters Melissa Korn and Jen Levitz. It involves cheating on standardized tests or bribing college coaches and officials to accept athletes -- students as athletes even if they never played the sport.
Fifty people were charged including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin. No word yet if they're being considered for roles in the series. My tongue is in my cheek there.
BRIGGS: I hope not. I'll watch that.
A royal welcome to Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. Quite a mouthful for someone weighing in at 7 pounds, 3 ounces. The world getting its first look at Harry and Meghan's son yesterday and after he met the Queen, they revealed his name. And now the British royal family likes to honor those who came before, but we're told the Duke and Duchess of Sussex just liked the name Archie, and the second name Harrison, it means "son of Harry."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MEGHAN MARKLE, DUCHESS OF SUSSEX: It's magic. It's pretty amazing, and I mean, I have the two best guys in the world so I'm really happy. He has the sweetest temperament. He's really calm and --
HARRY, DUKE OF SUSSEX: He gets that from me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: That will change. They've chosen not to use any title for their son. However when Prince Charles becomes king, Prince Harry's son will automatically become His Royal Highness, Prince Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.
ROMANS: All right. Got that. The "New York Times" says President Trump lost more than a billion dollars over a decade, and in case you missed it, late-night comics had quite a bit of fun at his expense.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": Remember his cameo as the fancy rich guy in "Home Alone 2." Now we know when he recorded that, he was so broke he had to borrow money from the pigeon lady.
JIMMY FALLON, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JIMMY FALLON": Even though the royal baby is only three days old, he's already paid more taxes than President Trump.
Trump basically set a record by losing over a billion dollars. It's crazy if you combine Trump and the Avengers, you break even.
JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST, "LIVE WITH JIMMY KIMMEL": A hundred million a year for a decade. He's like a one-man Fyre Festival, this guy.
SETH MEYERS, HOST, "LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS": Amazing, he was born a millionaire, and then he lost so much money that he ended up in public housing.
JAMES CORDEN, HOST, "LATE, LATE SHOW WITH JAMES CORDEN": To give you some perspective, 1990 was the same year the movie "Kindergarten Cop" came out and that movie made $200 million. It's not like you needed a brilliant idea to make money back then.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: You know, they're making light of it, but Jim Sciutto made the point yesterday, when you pay taxes, you are paying to pay the military, to pay the paychecks of the men and women who support us, right?
BRIGGS: Yes. We don't even know what happened in the 25 years since.
ROMANS: Yes. Exactly.
All right. We were just showing you those global markets. Let's get a check of those right now. You can see another night of global trade gloom. Asian markets fell again, European markets have opened lower. On Wall Street futures are also pointing down here. You know, almost 1 percent. The Dow managed to snap a two-day losing streak Wednesday but just barely, ending the day only two points higher after being up 150 points earlier in the afternoon. The S&P 500, the Nasdaq both closed down.
Now the 11th round of these critical trade talks begin today. The Chinese government said it will retaliate if President Trump follows through on his promise to jack up tariffs to 25 percent on Friday.
So the job market is strong. How strong? For the 13th month in a row, job openings have outnumbered the number of Americans looking for work. The Labor Department shows 7.49 million job openings. These are new details from March labor market data. As of this past March, the latest data available, there were 1.28 million more jobs openings than unemployed workers. People looking for jobs in March faced a record low levels of competition. The (INAUDIBLE) job market is also lifting wages which itself can sometimes slow hiring.
A big move in the fight against teen nicotine addiction. Walmart is increasing the minimum age to buy tobacco products to 21 years old. It announced Wednesday it will stop selling tobacco or e-cigarettes to anybody under 21. This is a really important move, and it starts July 1st. Flavored e-cigarettes have become more popular among teen teenage teenagers. The change comes after the FDA warned several retailers they were violating rules against selling tobacco products to minors. The agency also labeled the use of e-cigarettes by young --
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