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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
President Trump Cancels Camp David Talks With Taliban; House Panel To Advance Impeachment Probe; Hurricane Dorian Death Toll Rises To 45. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired September 09, 2019 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: If you're going to negotiate peace you often have to deal with some pretty bad actors.
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CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Is there any way out of America's longest war? The president nixes secret talks in the U.S. with the Taliban.
DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: Congress is back today -- a full agenda with guns, the border, and trade. House Democrats are keeping their focus on impeachment.
ROMANS: Seventy thousand people struggling to survive in the Bahamas. The window quickly closing to find people missing after Hurricane Dorian.
BRIGGS: And, he was mocked for a homemade t-shirt. Now, one Florida boy is getting his swag and so much more.
Welcome back to EARLY START on a Monday. I'm Dave Briggs.
ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. Nice to see you all this morning, 30 minutes past the hour here in New York.
This week marks 18 years since September 11th and now we have learned secret peace talks were planned for this weekend at Camp David with the group that harbored the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
President Trump canceling the talks, accusing the Taliban of an attack in Afghanistan that killed 12 people, including an American soldier whose body arrived back in the U.S. this weekend. Four American soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since mid-August.
The president saying of the Taliban, "They probably don't have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway. How many more decades are they willing to fight?"
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended the president's decision and his original invitation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
POMPEO: If you're going to negotiate peace you often have to deal with some pretty bad actors. And I know the history, too, at Camp David. Indeed, President Trump reflected on that. We all considered it as we were debating how to try and get to the right ultimate outcome.
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BRIGGS: The invitation angered many lawmakers, including some Republicans.
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REP. MICHAEL WALTZ (R-FL): As we head into the -- into the anniversary of 9/11, I do not ever want to see these terrorists step foot on -- in -- on United States soil, period.
REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): Nothing wrong with the negotiation, but the president should not be negotiating with these really evil people. We can't forget what they did. We can't forget what they continue to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRIGGS: Liz Cheney, the number-three House Republican whose father was the vice president on 9/11, says, quote, "Camp David is where America's leaders met to plan our response after 9/11. No member of the Taliban should set foot there, ever.
Pompeo says the U.S. is still interested in striking a peace deal but for now, the talks are dead and efforts to end America's longest war are, once again, moving a step back.
Let's go live to London and bring in Clarissa Ward, who was embedded with the Taliban a few months ago, for what's next.
Clarissa, just so much to get to -- why the president revealed this location and these talks when there was no reason to.
The "The New York Times", though, in the end, says, "All sides agree to one thing. Violence will now intensify."
Where are we now as a result of all that's taken place?
CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's the real fear, Dave, is that after nearly a year of talks -- nine rounds of talks -- real progress made -- the U.S. special representative Zalmay Khalilzad telling Afghan television last week that the deal had basically been agreed to in principle, it just needed to be signed off by the president. And then, within a matter of several tweets, we find ourselves here with no sense of how the peace talks will go ahead -- if they will go ahead.
Both sides leaving the door open for that to happen but there's a sense that a lot would have to transpire before the U.S. would be willing to sit down at the negotiating table. Namely, that the Taliban would have to agree to some kind of a nationwide ceasefire. And from everything we're reading and seeing there's no indication that that would happen.
Meanwhile, there are supposed to be elections -- presidential elections held in Afghanistan at the end of the month. And during the best of times we have seen violence during election season and the real fear now, Dave, is that there is going to be an outpouring of violence -- that the gloves will come off.
The Taliban, in a statement, said to the U.S. that they are to blame for the collapse of these talks. That as a result, they will lose a lot in blood and treasure, as well as credibility.
And no matter what side of the spectrum you're on, whether you were critical of the talks because you felt they didn't do enough to protect women's rights, to protect the Afghan government, to gain key concessions from the Taliban or whether you're a supporter of the talks, saying listen, this is an 18-year war, trillions of dollars spent, 2,400 U.S. servicemen killed, it's time to bring it to a close.
No matter which side of the divide you're on there is still a huge sense of loss here that so much work had been done and that there is no sense going forward of how to get the talks back on track -- how to get the momentum going again with those talks.
[05:35:01]
And that in the meantime, until that happens, you can be sure that it is the Afghan people -- it is ordinary civilians who will continue to suffer as a result of continued bloodshed, Dave.
BRIGGS: Yes. And, of course, the question, did the Taliban ever have any real desire for peace? Another erratic foreign policy move.
Clarissa Ward, great reporting. Thank you.
ROMANS: All right.
So, Congress returns from summer recess today with no shortage of issues on the table -- guns, trade, and a government funding bill. But at the top of the agenda for many Democrats is impeachment, moving their probe forward and broadening its scope.
CNN's Jeremy Herb has more from Washington.
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JEREMY HERB, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Good morning, Dave and Christine.
Congress returns to Washington today from a 6-week recess with Democrats preparing to take key steps for formalizing their impeachment investigation into Donald Trump.
The House Judiciary Committee is expected to vote Wednesday on a resolution that would define the parameters of its impeachment investigation and lay the ground rules for conducting potential impeachment hearings. The details of that resolution are expected to be unveiled as soon as today.
The vote represents an escalation of the committee's impeachment probe and it comes as the panel broadens out the investigation to go beyond what was in the Mueller report and examine issues like foreign payments to Trump's businesses, the president's dangling of pardons, and hush money payments made during the 2016 campaign.
There are now at least 134 Democrats who publicly support an impeachment inquiry, and more than 35 have come out in favor since Congress left for recess at the end of July.
House Judiciary chairman Jerry Nadler has set a goal of the end of the year to decide on whether to introduce articles of impeachment. But, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is still opposed to moving forward on it, making the coming weeks a key period for the Judiciary Committee and those advocating for impeachment to convince the public and reluctant lawmakers to join their efforts, Dave and Christine.
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ROMANS: All right, Jeremy. Thank you for that.
BRIGGS: All right. Also back from his summer recess, Princeton University historian and professor, Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst. Good to see you, my friend.
ROMANS: Nice to see you.
JULIAN ZELIZER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, HISTORIAN AND PROFESSOR, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, CO-AUTHOR, "FAULT LINES: A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES SINCE 1974": Good morning.
ROMANS: Back to business.
BRIGGS: It's been quite some time. Yes, back to business.
So, the country clamoring for something -- anything to be done to stop gun violence in this country. If, in fact, impeachment is the focus, is that the right move and do Democrats have the support?
ZELIZER: Well, they certainly have to decide. They don't have enough support within the caucus to make Speaker Pelosi comfortable. She wants the entire Democratic caucus behind her. It's a risky move.
I think the thing Democrats have to decide -- if they're going to do it, they have to do it. They have to for the hearings, they have to go for a vote. If they're not, they need to move on to issues like gun control. The middle way is a bad way.
ROMANS: The other big headline from this weekend -- I think people were gobsmacked when they saw from the president's own Twitter feed --
ZELIZER: Yes.
ROMANS: -- that he had invited Taliban leaders to Camp David for peace talks on this, the very weekend before the 18th anniversary of 9/11.
Unpack this for us about what you think is happening here and just sort of the television presidency part of this. That the president's revealing what this would have been like.
ZELIZER: Well, certainly, the choice of when and where to do this was not a good one and it's not playing out well in either party. It does reflect the visions within the administration. Pompeo much more open to negotiations and diplomacy, whereas John Bolton is dead set against any of this. And this is playing out on the public stage.
But most dramatic is the way the president has handled it.
ROMANS: Right.
ZELIZER: He's tweeting about, he's talking about it in real time, and you can't do that with something this sensitive. So it leaves a terrible aftertaste and the negotiations are in a dangerous state right now.
BRIGGS: What does it say about the process? Just a foreign policy process from this administration in terms of its wildly-erratic nature over the last couple of years?
ZELIZER: Yes, erratic is a good way to put it. There is no process from what we have seen. This is haphazard.
It's the president making decisions on his own, often undercutting people in his administration and you can't conduct foreign relations effectively that way. He might think there's some magic path to doing that but the record's pretty clear. They have not made progress on many key issues. And so, that's not how a president can do this.
ROMANS: It's just like so undiplomatic diplomacy, you know?
ZELIZER: Yes.
ROMANS: It's just unbelievable.
Let's talk about the 2020 polls. Some interesting new polling shows that Joe Biden is still on top of the heap nationally. But when you dig in some of these early-voting states, not -- he doesn't have the lead that others do here.
Here -- this is the ABC News-Washington Post poll. It shows Biden still on top here but you're just coming together with sort of like a front-runner -- you know, three real big front-runners here. And some other polling shows that when you look at, for example, Elizabeth Warren, she's gaining on whether she could beat Trump, and so is Bernie Sanders.
ZELIZER: Warren's numbers are all moving in the right direction. They keep going up and not simply in terms of support but in terms of is she electable? More people now see her that way. And so she's a pretty formidable opponent.
The question is do Sanders and Warren ultimately divide a vote that could allow them to defeat Biden? Neither is going to step down at this point and so that's a big challenge.
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Biden's numbers aren't -- they're very good and he's in the lead, but they're not going up. So what strikes many people is Warren's trajectory.
BRIGGS: A big debate week. But look, like you said, unless Warren or Bernie can get a solo shot at Biden --
ZELIZER: Yes.
BRIGGS: -- it looks difficult to overtake him at the time.
ROMANS: She was there -- many of them were in New Hampshire this weekend -- at a Democratic convention there in New Hampshire and she had the longest sort of applause and ovation.
BRIGGS: She's got the energy.
ZELIZER: She has the crowds and crowds do matter.
ROMANS: Yes.
ZELIZER: We should learn that at this point. It is an indicator, a little bit, of not just what the support is but what's the intensity of support.
ROMANS: All right, Julian Zelizer. Nice to see you. Thank you.
ZELIZER: Thank you.
BRIGGS: All right.
The Air Force is ordering a review of all international layovers in the wake of some questionable bookings at President Trump's Scotland hotel. The review once again raises questions whether the president is benefitting financially from his position.
Air Force crew members stayed at his Turnberry resort during refueling stops. For one stop in March, Air Force officials claimed Turnberry was less expensive than a nearby Marriott. The Air Force has said the stopover of planes in Glasgow was not unusual. Just last week, Vice President Pence came under fire for spending two nights at President Trump's resort in Doonbeg, Ireland even though he was 180 miles from his meetings in Dublin. He insisted staying at his boss's resort made logical sense, claiming the decision because he had family ties to the town.
ROMANS: The Hurricane Dorian death toll rising to 45 in the Bahamas and it is expected to climb. The USAID describes the destruction looking like nuclear bombs were dropped. Hundreds remain missing and are likely buried beneath rubble on Grand Bahama and Abaco.
Volunteers are doing what they can, distributing food to tens of thousands of Bahamians who are now homeless.
Our Paula Newton has more from Nassau.
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PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine and Dave.
The numbers staggering -- 70,000 people now left homeless because of Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas.
The issue now is how to get the aid that they need to those people. A lot of them are here in Nassau, but even this -- even though it's the capital of the Bahamas, under strain, not just to get people the immediate needs in terms of food and shelter, but what happens next.
As we've discussed before, so many of those islands completely obliterated, homes down to their foundation. And the issue becomes kids need to go to school, people need jobs. This is about long-term care and it's going to take a lot to really get a lot of these people back on their feet.
The other issue here, of course, that we're dealing with is the death toll. We have seen from USAID dozens of search and rescue teams apportioning out to search and recovery. They have canines, they have portable morgues, and morticians all at the ready. This is going to be painstaking work.
And the other issue in speaking to a lot of relatives who say that they don't know what has happened to their family members. They've seen them washed away from the storm surge and they fear that their loved ones will never be found.
And add to that the confusion about exactly who is missing and where they are, the idea that they have to identify all of these victims will be also a very monumental challenge for this country -- Christine, Dave.
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ROMANS: All right, Paula. Thank you so much for that.
BRIGGS: All right, we'll talk a little sports ahead. New season, same old script. The New England Patriots looking like another Super Bowl champion.
Andy Scholes has that story in the "Bleacher Report."
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BRIGGS: All right. Week one of the new NFL season almost in the books. What's new? Nothing in New England -- nothing.
ROMANS: Andy Scholes has more in this morning's "Bleacher Report." Hey, Andy.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, guys.
You know, unfortunately for the rest of us fans that are not Patriots fan, it doesn't look like their reign over the NFL is going to end anytime soon.
BRIGGS: Banner-raising next year at this time.
SCHOLES: Oh, I'm pumped right there (ph).
But still, I mean, they looked really good last night, already one of the favorites again this season.
And then over the weekend, the team signing star wide receiver Antonio Brown to a 1-year deal after his drama with the Raiders ended with them cutting him on Saturday. Now, Brown was not on the sidelines with the Patriots last night. He can play next week.
New England, meanwhile, unveiling their sixth Super Bowl banner last night. Gronk was on hand to come out and spike the banner down.
Now, as for the game, Tom Brady and the Patriots just dominating the Steelers in this one. Brady threw for three touchdowns. New England would win easily, 33 to three.
So, obviously, Bill Belichick was in a great mood and ready to answer questions about Antonio Brown.
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REPORTER: Do you have any comment on the reports --
BILL BELICHICK, HEAD COACH, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: No.
REPORTER: -- of Antonio Brown?
BELICHICK: (Silent)
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SCHOLES: Love it -- no, next. It was so great.
And the top overall pick, Kyler Murray making his NFL debut against the Lions yesterday. He struggled mightily through much of the game but led a furious fourth-quarter comeback. Murray leading the Cardinals to score 18 unanswered points to send the game into overtime.
And then check this out. The game was tied with just seconds left and Matt Stafford threw an ill-advised ball right to Tramaine Brock, but he drops the interception. Look at Murray's reaction. It was priceless.
It would have basically won the game for Arizona. Instead, we got our first tie of the season, 27-27.
All right. Finally, Rafael Nadal outlasting Daniil Medvedev in a 5- set thriller in the men's final at the U.S. Open. It was the third- longest final ever at the tournament, lasting nearly five hours.
Nadal took the first two sets before Medvedev battled back to tie it. The crowd was going nuts throughout. An exhausted Nadal would come back to win that fifth set, calling it one of the most emotional nights of his career.
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RAFAEL NADAL, 2019 U.S. OPEN CHAMPION: The way that that match became -- you know, the fatigue, of course, on the body and on the mental side, too. So all this -- these things make this day unforgettable for me.
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SCHOLES: And that's Nadal's 19th Grand Slam title for his career, putting him just one behind Roger Federer.
And, guys, you know, Nadal, five years younger. But then again, Djokovic two years younger than Nadal. The race to see who ends up with the most Grand Slam titles out of the big three is going to be fascinating.
BRIGGS: It was an outstanding Open.
Good to see you, my friend.
ROMANS: Nice to see you, Andy.
SCHOLES: All right.
ROMANS: All right, let's get a check on "CNN Business" this Monday morning.
And taking a look at markets around the world, a mixed performance, and Asian stocks markets and European markets have opened mixed as well here.
On Wall Street, a little bit of optimism -- 56 points on the Dow futures. See if that holds into the opening bell.
There's this sort of feeling of -- I don't know, pausing here. Two weeks of gains have reversed most of the angst investors felt in August.
It feels likes investors don't want to bail out of stocks right now for a couple of reasons. The Fed is going to cut interest rates as a buffer to the president's trade war -- that's the assumption. And there are trade talks scheduled for October in Washington.
After last week's data there's a feeling that the broader American economy is still strong even though manufacturing is struggling.
So look at this. The S&P 500 is now just 1 1/2 percent below record highs, up 3 1/2 percent the last two weeks, up almost 19 percent this year.
All right. President Trump loves to use the stock market as his personal poll to attack China and criticize his Fed chief Jerome Powell. And now, JPMorgan Chase has created what it's calling the "Volfefe Index." It's a play on his famous -- remember, "covfefe" tweet -- to track the impact that those tweets have on the markets.
"The Hill" and others report that of the more than 4,000 non-retweets from the president's personal account when markets were open from the start of 2018 to now, 146 have moved the market. The report found tweets that include keywords like China, billion, and products have moved markets. The "Volfefe Index."
All right, this is one of the world's great mysteries. What is the best way to get ketchup out of the bottle?
Heinz finally giving us an answer, releasing the pour-perfect bottle. The trick is to tilt the bottle so the label is straight. The bottle only available in Canada for now.
Or you could just use a knife like I do -- the easiest way.
We'll be right back.
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[05:57:32] BRIGGS: Five fifty-seven Eastern.
Four crew members from a South Korea cargo ship that's capsized off the coast of Georgia are still missing this morning. Right now, the 656-foot Golden Ray is on its side off the coast of St. Simons Sound.
Authorities first noticed the vessel was listing at 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Coast Guard crews and other agencies responded and rescued 20 of the 24 people on board before a fire forced them to suspend the evacuation effort.
Officials are working to stabilize the ship.
ROMANS: The heartwarming gesture and support of a Florida fourth- grader bullied for his homemade t-shirt.
The boy wanted to represent the University of Tennessee at his elementary school's College Colors Day, but he didn't have -- didn't have any apparel, so he did it himself. He drew a U.T. logo on a piece of paper and pinned it to an orange t-shirt. But the Vols fan was in tears by lunch after some girls made fun of his homemade sign.
BRIGGS: His teacher wanted to raise his spirits with an official U.T. shirt, so she posted the story online to see if any friends could help. That post went viral and the university sent the boy a big old package full of swag.
U.T. also turned the boy's design into an official t-shirt logo. A portion of the proceeds from every shirt sold will go to an anti- bullying foundation.
Let's get us a couple of those t-shirts, huh?
ROMANS: I will. Remind your kids to be one who's nice to kids --
BRIGGS: Yes.
ROMANS: -- not the one who makes fun of them.
Thanks for joining us. I'm Christine Romans.
BRIGGS: I'm Dave Briggs. Here's "NEW DAY."
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JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, ANCHOR, "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" AND "CNN STATE OF THE UNION": President Trump tweeting that he planned to be meeting with leaders of the Taliban at Camp David.
POMPEO: He's committed to making sure that we reduce the risk that terrorists should ever strike the United States from Afghanistan again.
WALTZ: As we head into the anniversary of 9/11, I do not ever want to see these terrorists step foot on United States soil, period.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had a nephew and three of his kids died. And so, I can't imagine the terror that they were faced with before they passed.
PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN HAVANA-BASED CORRESPONDENT: Hurricane Dorian ravaging everything and everyone in its path.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everything looks totally different. You cannot describe it.
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ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman. JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Monday, September ninth, 6:00 here in New York. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, I did, thank you very much.
BERMAN: You survived --
CAMEROTA: Yes, it was great.
BERMAN: -- mostly?
CAMEROTA: It was wonderful. And you had a great football game? Is that what you follow -- the sports?
BERMAN: Yes. The New England Patriots are a football team --
CAMEROTA: With that guy that you like.
BERMAN: That guy that I like is on it and they won in a big way.
CAMEROTA: Congratulations.
BERMAN: And he looked fabulous --
CAMEROTA: Oh, I'm sure he did.
BERMAN: -- just to be clear.
All right. New this morning, impeachment -- it's not just for kids anymore. Congress returns to work this morning after a 6-week summer break and.
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