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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Breakfast With Prime Minister May; GOP Lawmakers Discuss Blocking Trump's Mexico Tariffs; Big Tech Targeted; Jeopardy: The Run is Done; World Marks 30-Year Anniversary of Tiananmen Massacre; Blues Beat Bruins to Even Stanley Cup Final. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired June 04, 2019 - 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: I guess I'm old school. I'm still an iTunes user.
All right. EARLY START continues right now with the latest out of the U.K.
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CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump sitting down right now with the British prime minister just hours after trading toasts with the queen.
BRIGGS: "The Washington Post" says Republicans in Congress could revolt against the president's new tariffs on Mexico.
ROMANS: Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, all targeted as House lawmakers join federal regulators taking aim at big tech.
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ALEX TREBEK, HOST, "JEOPARDY!": What a game. Oh, my god. What a way to start the week.
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BRIGGS: A librarian from Chicago takes down Jeopardy James Holzhauer, ending his $2.4 million run, and a wrote a masters paper on "Jeopardy!".
She knew what he was doing.
ROMANS: Yes.
BRIGGS: Went to Princeton as well.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Dave Briggs.
ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. It is Tuesday, June 4th. It is 5:00 a.m. in the East, everyone.
And this is day two of the president's three day state visit to the U.K. Over the next few hours, things could get interesting. There's the president right now sitting down talking about trade. The president and British prime minister may be spending a lot of time together.
First up on the schedule, this business roundtable at St. James Palace. Then the president and prime minister host a breakfast attended by the duke of York and prominent U.S. and British business leaders. Bilateral trade talks follow later in the day.
It's anyone's guess how this is going to go. The two leaders have a rocky relationship before the president publicly second guessed the outgoing prime minister this week on her Brexit strategy.
Let's go live to London and bring in CNN's Nic Robertson.
We have heard the president commenting at that business round table saying many people might be surprised to know the U.S. is the largest export market for the U.K. Maybe that caught the president by surprise, I'm not sure, but they are trying to talk about the two trade ties between these two countries, both countries embroiled in trade disputes everywhere you look.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Indeed. If that wasn't odd enough that they're engaging in the language, the trade issues go on around the world. President Trump arriving here, having criticized the Theresa May, the way she's handling Brexit, saying that her former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson could be a good prime minister.
Today in this business meeting this morning, President Trump said that Theresa May should stick around to work out this new trade deal 2000 the between the two countries, it had been an honor to work with her. She has been working in the best interests of the country, the new trade deal he said would be fair and substantive.
It's kind of a mirror of when President Trump came last summer when again he criticized Theresa May for Boris Johnson, and then the following day said that he got on fine with Theresa May, she was doing a great job. More of that this year.
I think the tough talks after this business meeting where it is all about how much business Britain does with the United States, vice versa? Theresa May's message here will be, it's deep, it's good, it's substantive, but we could do more in the future.
Perhaps the tougher talks will come when they get to Downing Street in an hour or so's time. That will be about the issues that divide the two countries, Iran being one of them. That will be a big issue, so China, potentially doing business for the British government with Huawei, the 5G operator there. Those could be more divisive issues.
This business meeting underway right now, all about the raid and strength and depth of relationship between the two countries and President Trump is saying that Theresa May should stick around to work out this deal. ROMANS: Nic, what does a successful trip look like. Is it just no
gaps, no mistakes or is it some kind of a trade deal.
ROBERTSON: Successful for who, for the British, I think, you know, there would be a subtle political messaging that conservative party right now doesn't need wrinkles as it works out the new leader, so it really doesn't need President Trump saying that he backs one leader over another.
ROMANS: Sure.
ROBERTSON: That would be success I think on the British side. For President Trump, it really has to be able to walk away, having had a successful state visit and not made gaffes with the queen present, you know, would be dug up in future years, maybe when he's no longer president. So, you know, both sides have an interest in getting the staging of it right.
ROMANS: Yes, the president seems to do well with pomp and circumstance, so, you know, playing by the book over the last 18 hours or so.
Nic Robertson, thank you so much at 10 Downing Street. Thanks, sir.
BRIGGS: They do expect protests today but yesterday was pomp and circumstance, with the president and first lady attending a state banquet hosted by the queen at Buckingham palace. The president walked with the queen.
[05:05:00] Both the queen and Mr. Trump celebrated the special relationship between the U.S. and Britain.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: She has embodied the spirit of dignity, spirit and patriotism that beats proudly in every British heart. On behalf of all Americans, I offer a toast to the eternal friendship of our people, the eternal friendship of our people, the vitality of our nations, and to the long cherished and truly remarkable reign of her majesty, the queen.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II, UNITED KINGDOM: Ladies and gentlemen, I invite you all to rise and drink a toast to President and Mrs. Trump to the continued friendship between our two nations and to the health, prosperity and happiness of the people of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Prior to the event, the first couple had tea with Charles and Camilla. Earlier in the day, Britain rolled out the red carpet for President Trump, receiving him with the royal troops salute.
ROMANS: All right. Back home, congressional Republicans may be planning a revolt to block President Trump's new tariffs on Mexico. And according to "The Washington Post," the vote could also block billions of dollars in border wall funding announced by the president in February when he declared a national emergency.
Senate Majority Whip John Thune tells "The Post", we have a lot of members who are very concerned about where this is headed. Congress is going to want to be heard from in terms of trying to limit Trump's tariff authority. The president, of course, threatening to impose a 5 percent tariff on Mexican imports beginning next week, the rate raising incrementally to 25 percent by October 1st.
BRIGGS: A setback for Democrats in their bid to stop President Trump from building a border wall. A federal judge in Washington ruling the president can transfer funds from appropriated accounts to pay for construction. The judge also says the House lacks standing to even challenge the president and it concludes the court should get involved in the fight between the president and Congress. The ruling not expected to impact other lawsuits by House Democrats and various states to block construction.
ROMANS: House is launching a top-to-bottom antitrust probe with Google, Amazon, Facebook, some of those targets.
Rhode Island Congressman David Cicilline leading the investigation.
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REP. DAVID CICILLINE (D-RI): This is a broad investigation of the whole marketplace. So, it involved a whole range of companies. But it's really to look at competition in the digital marketplace, to look at anti-competitive behavior and determine whether our existing antitrust statutes are working, whether they need to be modernized and updated.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: It's been scandal after scandal for tech, right? Critics have called for tough regulations. They demanded the companies be broken up.
The investigation comes as the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission recently agreed to divide oversight of the tech industry.
Congressman Cicilline says this is the first time Congress has launched a significant antitrust investigation in decades.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CICILLINE: And, frankly, you know, I don't have a lot of confidence that this administration has been particularly aggressive in their antitrust enforcement. In fact, they very often have co out on the side of monopolists and big mergers. So, I think, again, they have a responsibility in particular, enforcement actions.
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ROMANS: Officials have notified Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook of the coming investigation. Amazon and Google declined to comment to us. Apple and Facebook did not immediately respond to our request for comment.
BRIGGS: The House passing a $19.1 million disaster aid package sending it to the president for his signature. The Senate passed the bill last week. President Trump has said he supports it. The legislation will speed relief funds to communities hard hit by tornadoes, floods, wildfires, and other disaster. The bill also includes money for Puerto Rico which is still rebuilding after Hurricane Maria.
ROMANS: All right. The long reign of "Jeopardy" champ James Holzhauer is over.
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TREBEK: So, Emma, it's up to you. If you came up with the correct response, you're going to be the new "Jeopardy" champion. Did you? You did. What did you wager? Oh, gosh, $20,000. What a payday? $46,801. What a game? Oh my god.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Well done, Emma Boettcher, a librarian from Chicago dethroned the champ. Holzhauer's remarkable run ended after 32 straight wins, he was less than $60,000 away from Ken Jennings all time record.
Don't shed a tear for this guy. The professional sports gambler from Las Vegas, he won a total of $2.46 million during his "Jeopardy" reign.
BRIGGS: He'll be all right.
ROMANS: You told a "Jeopardy" fact I did not know, that Emma Boettcher wrote a paper --
BRIGGS: A masters paper at North Korea.
ROMANS: A piece, a dissertation on "Jeopardy!".
BRIGGS: She has been studying it a while. She was first an undergrad and masters at North Carolina.
Ahead, people around the world are publicly marking 30 years since the Tiananmen Square massacre, but not in China.
[05:10:04] We're live in Beijing, next.
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ROMANS: All right. Thirty years ago today, the world witnessed a massacre in Tiananmen Square, hundreds of people killed in Beijing as the People's Liberation Army cracked down on pro-democracy protesters.
[05:15:04] That iconic image, tank man.
Events will be held, speeches will be made around the world today but you won't hear about it in China. Any coverage or discussion of this event will be tightly censored there.
Let's go live to Beijing and bring in CNN's Matt Rivers.
And, you know, those pictures, that moment really galvanized the United States about, you know, the fact that China, which has grown into a huge trading partner of the United States has fundamental beliefs and standards that are very at odds with the United States, even today. You know, you cannot talk about this event. You cannot Google this event. You cannot, you know, talk about democracy on a search engine. I mean, those basic Democratic rights don't exist.
MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, I mean, frankly they just don't. To illustrate that point, Christine, we were out on the streets of Beijing all morning, 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and it was an ordinary Tuesday. There was no memorials, no remembrance events for the hundreds if not thousands to have people that were killed. Nobody is talking about it.
Chinese state media is not allowed to print anything about it. If you go on the internet all mentions about the massacre will be censored. The Chinese population here is basically not allowed to talk about this events and that is specifically because of a policy in place by China's government. They do not want to talk about this, because talking about an atrocity committed by the government here, well, that's not in the government's own interest. So, they're not going to do it.
And the result is that you have a population here who fundamentally doesn't have all the information they could have about a seminal event in the history. It's not just state media. Earlier today, we were doing live shots on the street, in an area where a lot of the killings happened on June 4, 30 years ago, and we were blocked by the police.
First, it was the police uniformed and told us we were violating a nonexistent traffic violation, which was obviously a lie, and then it was police who were not in uniform who came over and literally physically shoved us out of the way. We stopped broadcasting because we didn't want to escalate the situation.
All of that goes to show you, China's government does not want to talk about this, and they're going to do everything they can not only for Western journalists but also for state media the and domestic population to erase this incident from the history books.
ROMANS: You know, so interesting, the State Department, the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued, what I think is a remarkable statement about this anniversary and talked about the Tiananmen mothers who have never stopped seeking accountability, despite great personal risk, the mothers, the parents who lost children, lost their kids, he says over the decades that followed Tiananmen, the U.S. hoped that China's integration into the international system would lead to a more open tolerant society. Those hopes have been dashed. I think that's a remarkable statement from the U.S. secretary of state.
RIVERS: Yes, absolutely. And he goes on to say that there is no dissent, no room for dissent in a one party system. And that's exactly the case right now.
China responded, calling the U.S. arrogant, saying the human rights situation has never been better here but that is absolutely not true. I have been here for four years now. We have reported on all kinds of human rights abuses, wide range of human rights abuses.
So, what the secretary of state is saying there, Christine, is absolutely right. China's government, though, you better believe they're not going to admit that.
ROMANS: Of course, in the middle of a trade war. So, it's multiple levels.
All right. Matt Rivers, thank you so much for that.
BRIGGS: OK. We'll talk little sports ahead. The Stanley Cup final now, a three-game series after the St. Louis Blues rebound to take game four against the Bruins. Andy Scholes has that story in the "Bleacher Report".
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[05:23:34] BRIGGS: Let's talk some hockey. Blues bouncing back in game four against the Boston Bruins to even the Stanley Cup Final at two games apiece.
Andy Scholes has more in this morning's "Bleacher Report".
Hey, buddy.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Dave.
You know, the fans in St. Louis have been waiting forever to celebrate a Stanley Cup final win on home ice. They mean that literally. They had never won a game at home in their history. They got blown out game three.
But that didn't discourage all the fans. Actor Jon Hamm, a St. Louis native, rocking a big beard on hand cheering on the Blues, the team wasting no time giving the fans something to go nuts about. Ryan O'Reilly scoring 43 seconds into the game. This was tied in the third period when O'Reilly again comes through, knocking this out of the air for another goal.
That was your winner. Blues take it to even the series two games apiece. The fans finally getting to celebrate a home win in the Stanley Cup Final.
And yes, that is a fan dancing to the song "Gloria" holding a chinchilla. How you get a chinchilla into the arena, I don't know, but if you were wondering, that chinchilla's name is Boris.
NBA finals continues on Wednesday. In the meantime, Raptors star Kawhi Leonard has filed a lawsuit against Nike over the use of his logo. This is Kawhi's claw logo that he said he created back in 2011. [05:25:05] And Kawhi, you know, has massive hands on the logo, the big
hands made with his initial K and L. The lawsuit claims that Nike filed an application for copyright registration on Kawhi's logo and falsely represented in the application that Nike had authored the logo.
Kawhi was a member of Nike's Jordan brand but left them and he's been with New Balance since the start of the season.
A Nike spokesperson told CNN Sports: We do not comment on pending litigation.
All right. Will the dreaded four NFL preseason finally will be shortened? Well, Commissioner Roger Goodell says he feels it's time for a change.
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ROGER GODDELL, NFL COMMISSIONER: I think things have evolved over the years. I'm not sure, you know, talking to coaches at four preseason games is necessary anymore to get ready for a season to evaluate players, to develop players. There are other ways of doing that. And we have had a lot of discussions about that, and I feel like what we should be is always of the highest quality, and I'm not sure preseason games meet that.
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SCHOLES: Yes, the change would have to be collectively bargained. Players have been against an 18 game regular season, citing safety concerns.
All right. Finally, what would you do if your prom date broke up with you right before the dance. Invite Juju Smith-Schuster, of course. Anthony Molinaro ended up no date for prom, so he direct messaged the Steelers wide receiver and as you can see, he accepted. They wore matching turquoise velvet tuxedos.
Dave, the prop picks are pretty great, although Anthony and Juju, they opted out of that typical prom pose together, and kind of just stood side by side instead.
BRIGGS: Who picked the suits? He further ingratiates to that loyal fan base there. I want more chinchilla if we can later in the series, Scholes. Thank you, my friend.
SCHOLES: All right.
BRIGGS: Romans?
ROMANS: His name is Boris, if you were wondering.
BRIGGS: Why was there a chinchilla there?
ROMANS: Well-delivered, well-delivered.
All right. Thank you.
President Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May get down to business today. More on the meeting happening right now and the rest of Trump's state visit. That's all next.
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