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EARLY START

Trump Tweets Ugly Remark About T.V. Host; Mosul Nearly Liberated; Minimum Wage Hike Tomorrow. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired June 30, 2017 - 05:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[05:30:00] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: "I heard poorly rated Morning Joe speaks badly of me. Don't watch anymore. Then how come low I.Q., crazy Mika, along with psycho Joe came to Mar-a-Lago three nights in a row around New Year's Eve and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a facelift. I said no."

Now, Mika and Joe, moments ago, posting a "Washington Post" op-ed, the headline "Donald Trump Is Not Well." They say this, "The president's unhealthy obsession with Morning Joe does not serve the best interest of either his mental state or the country he runs." More from that article in just a moment.

DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: Despite the nature of the tweets, the president's backers are lining up to defend him. Chief among them, first lady Melania Trump who is said to be combatting cyber bullying. That's part of her White House platform. Here is the statement from her office. Quote, "As the first lady has stated publicly in the past, when her husband gets attacked he will punch back 10 times harder."

The president's strategy is unclear as the tweets pull focus off of some important issues and force lawmakers to once again answer for the president's social media habits.

ROMANS: All right. Let's break all of this down with senior media correspondent Brian Stelter, CNN Politics reporter Eugene Scott, and CNN contributor Salena Zito. Good morning to all of you.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN ANCHOR, RELIABLE SOURCES: Morning.

ROMANS: So, Brian, we need that this was coming --

BRIGGS: Morning, guys.

ROMANS: -- that there would be a "Washington Post" op-ed from Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough. It just landed.

STELTER: Yes.

ROMANS: It's called "Donald Trump Is Not Well." And they have -- let me just read the beginning. "President Trump launched personal attacks against us Thursday, but our concerns about his unmoored behavior go far beyond the personal. America's leaders and allies are asking themselves yet again whether this man is fit to be president. We have our doubts but we are both certain that this man is not mentally equipped to continuing watching our show, Morning Joe."

And they go on to talk about this unhealthy obsession with his portrayal on their program -- criticism that has come out in their program -- and his unhealthy obsession with the media in general.

STELTER: Yes, they definitely wanted to respond. They responded in a strong way here, trying to reorient the conversation to make it about the president and about his emotion well-being. I think Mika and Joe, they don't want the conversation to be about whether she had a facelift -- whether her face was bloody. That is ridiculous. Not only offensive but they say, also, inaccurate. So they're trying to put the focus much more on the president, which makes a lot of sense.

Normally, Scarborough has a Friday morning "Washington Post" column so they made a choice as a couple, last night -- they're recently engaged -- to write this together. So they wrote this, they filed it, and it's online now. It is their way of addressing this controversy and saying the president, in their own words, should not be watching our program.

They also point out he reacts all the time to all the morning shows -- all the television shows that he's watching. This was just probably the most shocking example yet as president.

BRIGGS: And it's interesting. This is a couple he offered to marry just a few short months ago. This is not ordinary --

STELTER: Right. The president offered to marry them at Mar-a-Lago or something.

BRIGGS: Right. This is no ordinary relationship between the president and cable news hosts.

STELTER: Yes.

BRIGGS: But, Eugene, let's talk about the consequences.

EUGENE SCOTT, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Yes.

BRIGGS: Here we are on day two of the story. What is -- what are the consequences? Are there any for the president, for the party, for the country?

SCOTT: Well, I think something they pointed out in their column is the impact that this perception has on the United States on the global stage. We've seen polling that people around the world do not view us the same way that they used to since the president has entered the White House.

Whether or not he will be able to negotiate deals that are in the favor of the American people and manage our national security policy when he responds in a way that even people in his own party, leaders at least, find problematic it's worth paying attention to.

I think what also is worth paying attention to, as we've all noted, is that many voters -- people on the ground -- do not have a problem with how he has responded --

ROMANS: Yes.

SCOTT: -- and the question becomes why. I think, in short, it's because many Republican voters are being attacked in the exact same way that Donald Trump finds himself being attacked and they're looking to him as a -- as a leader in how to respond and, unfortunately, this is how he's responded.

ROMANS: Salena, I want to bring you into this conversation and I want to talk about a specific criticism in this "Donald Trump Is Not Well" opinion piece in "The Washington Post" by Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough. They talk about -- they talk about how he's obsessed with women's blood, first of all, and they also talk about his continued mistreatment of women.

"It's disturbing that the President of the United States keeps up his unrelenting assault on women." And it goes on to list again and again and again some of these things that have made headlines. Do you think this hurts Donald Trump -- his brand -- with his base at all?

SALENA ZITO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR, REPORTER, WASHINGTON EXAMINER, COLUMNIST, NEW YORK POST: Right -- not right now, no. They are -- sort of in the way that Eugene said, they see themselves through his eyes. You know, see themselves through him, right? So when he is attacked they feel as though they are being attacked.

It's going to take a lot more than this, as shocking as it may seem, to dislodge his voters from him because, you know, they -- look, they knew what they were getting into when they voted for this guy, right? They understood. They saw the "ACCESS HOLLYWOOD" tape, they saw how some of his statements at his rallies or on Twitter before he was even elected president.

[05:35:15] So what he said yesterday is -- it's sort of not, you know, not surprising to them. You know, it doesn't mean that they all like it, especially, you know --

STELTER: Right.

ZITO: -- women or older people who were brought up with, you know, a different way of communicating. It doesn't mean they find it acceptable, it just means that it's not going to dislodge him at this moment.

And the theme of Joe and Mika's -- I haven't read it about the mental health state. That's a common theme and a common topic that they have about him on their show. So, you know, it's part -- it's part of probably what set him off yesterday --

ROMANS: Right, right.

ZITO: -- and they just sort of reinforced it in the column.

But he should be above this, right? Who cares what anybody says about you on television? You've got the best job in the country. Go with it.

ROMANS: That's what's so confounding about this. That's what's so confounding to me about it. I mean, he won, he won. He has the White House.

ZITO: He won.

ROMANS: He has the White House so why the petty gripes and criticism, you know -- go ahead.

BRIGGS: But -- well, "The Art of the Deal" -- we've talked about his before. It says things about this. Quote, "Art of the Deal" -- "Critics get to say what they want about my work so why shouldn't I be able to say --

ZITO: Yes.

BRIGGS: -- what I want about there's?"

Salena, does that speak to -- this is nothing new. This is the character -- this is who he's always been.

ROMANS: But he criticized her --

ZITO: Absolutely nothing new.

ROMANS: He talked about her face and her I.Q. I mean, then that just becomes sexist --

ZITO: And the --

ROMANS: -- not about work. He's like -- that's a personal attack.

ZITO: Yes. I mean, the best thing he could have said was liberal Joe, liberal Mika --

STELTER: Right.

ZITO: -- they're ripping on me or they're talking about my mental health. They're uncool. Boom, you win the day, right? That's punching back twice as hard. But when you get into the personal things about someone's looks and their I.Q. or their state of mind, uncool.

I mean, you know, there's a lot of reporters out there that we get -- we get a lot of this on Twitter. I would love to have a discussion with someone about, you know, something I reported on. You don't -- you don't want to bring it down to --

ROMANS: Yes.

ZITO: -- looks and mental -- you know, mental state or whether you're smart or not.

STELTER: Yes, it's a vicious cycle. When the president believes that he is being unfairly attacked, he attacks back, then it causes more criticism in the press so it's just like a vicious cycle that we're in. Now we have Mika and Joe saying Donald Trump is not well, trying to focus on that.

Normally, guys, we'd be wondering what's the president going to say about this today. He has the South Korean leader in town in Washington. He's having an event later today but he's not taking questions.

It's the second time the week the president's with a foreign leader where there's not going to be a normal press conference. Usually when someone comes to town there's a press conference. Each side takes a couple of questions.

But this president is so insulated, so wary of taking questions about James Mueller (sic) -- about Robert Mueller and James Comey, et cetera, that he's avoiding that. So we may not hear from him on this topic today.

ROMANS: The strategy from Sarah Huckabee Sanders yesterday, which we played a few moments ago, which basically said look, he gets punched and punched and punched and punched, and then you're all appalled when he -- when he -- when he punches back. Is that the right strategy for them, do you think?

STELTER: I don't know what else she could have said.

ZITO: Right.

STELTER: She's talking about fighting fire with fire. That's true in forest fires but, to me, it just makes a bigger fire in this instance.

ZITO: Right.

STELTER: It just creates a bigger controversy. I would love to know, one day later, if she really is proud of her answers yesterday.

BRIGGS: But Ivanka Trump, Eugene, has made combating women in the workplace --

SCOTT: Right.

BRIGGS: -- standing up for their rights her central theme --

SCOTT: Right.

BRIGGS: -- her existence in the White House. Should she have to say something? She said she was surprised by the viciousness of the tone in this town. She's said nothing.

SCOTT: There's certainly going to be an expectation that she is because there are some voters -- we wrote about it at CNN -- who got on the Trump train because they were really in the Ivanka car, right?

ROMANS: Yes.

SCOTT: So they're looking at her to be a leader in terms of how he views women's issues in the workplace. If she -- and she has said she doesn't always agree with him. If she doesn't speak out I think some people will assume that this is something that she's getting behind.

ROMANS: The fact that we -- I'm sitting here reading paragraphs about whether a woman had a facelift or not in the professional world. It's just --

SCOTT: Right.

STELTER: Right, but she feels the need to have say by the way --

ROMANS: Yes. I mean --

STELTER: -- it's not even true what you said, never mind how offensive it is.

ROMANS: You know, I just -- it just -- it's so -- it's just -- it's just -- we're going backwards. I feel like we're going backwards.

BRIGGS: To quote the "New York Post" op-ed, "Stop, Just Stop."

ROMANS: I know.

BRIGGS: That was the entirety of the "New York Post" op-ed --

ROMANS: All right.

BRIGGS: -- his favorite paper.

ROMANS: Salena, guys, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

A lot to talk about and, again, "The Washington Post" just landed -- "Donald Trump Is Not Well." It's a response from Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough.

All right, to money now. Forty minutes past the hour. Blistering sell-off in tech stocks. Big names like Apple, Google parent Alphabet, Microsoft, they all tumbled yesterday pushing the Dow down 168 points. The Nasdaq also fell sharply. It's been a crazy, wild week for the Nasdaq. It split on Tuesday, then it had its best day in months the next day.

[05:40:09] A few things going on here. The dollar had its worst quarter in seven years. Bond yields are rising. There's this expectation that Central Bank's going to be raising interest rates. That has investors selling their big dividend and tech plays and moving money into things like bank stocks. They've seen a jump after the Fed allowed them to give generous payouts to shareholders.

And Wall Street is still holding out for tax reform. Another wrinkle in that ugly day yesterday. Some GOP senators said they are considering keeping an Obamacare tax on investment income.

In all, a wild way to end the first half of the year. It is the first half of the year -- 2017 halfway in the books. Even with the recent volatility and turmoil in Washington it's been a great year for stocks. The Dow and S&P 500 both up eight percent. Look at the Nasdaq, up 14 percent.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYING)

BRIGGS: All right. Ahead, Mosul is on the verge of being liberated from ISIS as a House committee votes to take up who calls the shots in the U.S. war on terror. We're live in Iraq, ahead on EARLY START.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:45:25] BRIGGS: All right, time for a look at what's coming on "NEW DAY." Chris Cuomo joining us. Not much to talk about, once again, here on a Friday, my friend.

ROMANS: All right. I'm reading the -- I'm reading "The Washington Post" op-ed from Mika and Joe right now.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, you've got to read. You've got to read for a while until you get down to the sum and substance of what we're dealing with, right Christine? The whole top of their op-ed is kind of an explanation of how the president is so into their show. But we shouldn't be looking at Joe and Mika for what the solution is in this situation. They deserve our respect. They're our colleagues and what was said about Mika just shouldn't be said about women in this day and age.

But I think, Dave -- you know, Christine, we've got to figure out well, how does it get better. We know what's going on here. We understand who Donald Trump is. Those of us who've grown up around him and know how he succeeded here in New York are not surprised by his behavior.

BRIGGS: No.

CUOMO: What's surprising is a couple of other things. One, the reaction from other GOP electeds around him, especially when you look at the leadership. You know, Paul Ryan, someone who's prized for his family values and who always put that first as a character concern.

And then you have the people who back President Trump and many, many of them with very good reason. They rejected that Washington culture. They wanted disruption. They wanted someone to put them first again and in that desire comes a need to back the president because he was supposed to be a change agent.

ROMANS: Yes.

CUOMO: And it's a very interesting situation those people are in because by calling out what is so obviously wrong in the president's behavior, does that mean they were wrong to want the change they want. And, of course, the answer is no but I think you see all of that at play right here. But it still takes us to the same place, my brother and sister, which is how do we get better than this. Any ideas?

BRIGGS: Well look, I mean, this is a social media story. I've said this in this program. My social media's dominated by people supporting these comments by pushing back on people like you, and me, and Christine, and saying we continue to not get it.

ROMANS: It's a disruption --

BRIGGS: They support this.

ROMANS: Right. They see it as a disruption of the elites, which is what it's all about, you know. You know, when you take it all together, his comments to Megyn Kelly. You know, sort of, as Mika and Joe saying, his fat-shaming of a former Miss Universe, grabbing women's genitalia.

Take it all together -- the whole history -- it's -- it just feels like you're going in the wrong direction of how you're talking about, you know, women at work and women in society. That's what bothers me.

CUOMO: Yes. I think you just -- I think the only thing we need to see clearly is what people are backing. You know, there's no question that there are people who are going to take up for the president and they're going to reject people in the media. I would -- I would guess much more me than you guys on the rejection side and that's OK. I didn't get into this business to be popular, I got into it to be relevant and helpful.

But I don't think -- I don't hear from my friends who voted for the president and back him in office that they like what he just did here.

ROMANS: Yes.

CUOMO: I very rarely hear that they like much of what he says on this type of sparring level, but they wanted change. They wanted something different and they do have greater animosity for that elite culture --

ROMANS: Yes.

CUOMO: -- than they do for anything coming out of him but I think it's because it's a balancing test. But regardless, when something is obviously wrong you've got to figure out what the positive change is. The problem with decency, the defaulting, the saying things are fake when we simply don't like them, attacking truth, attacking institutions is more than the norm in politics. The question is who's going to make the better change. We'll talk about that this morning.

And, lest it be a real distraction, we have issues about what happens with the travel ban, about what happens with health care, and we are not distracted --

ROMANS: Good.

CUOMO: -- by those. But they all matter --

ROMANS: Good.

CUOMO: -- and you guys are doing a great job of balancing it this morning --

ROMANS: Good. CUOMO: -- in addition to having a very fetching suit-tie combination once again --

ROMANS: He looks good.

CUOMO: -- brother Briggs.

ROMANS: He looks good.

BRIGGS: I mean, Chris, thank you, my friend. I really appreciate it. Looking sharp --

CUOMO: I mean, I just call out the obvious.

BRIGGS: Looking sharp, yourself.

CUOMO: It's a never can and it's also fashionable.

ROMANS: All right. Thanks, Chris.

BRIGGS: But he makes a good point. This could have been a very good day for the president.

ROMANS: Yes.

BRIGGS: The travel ban, immigration legislation --

ROMANS: Yes.

BRIGGS: -- in the House.

ROMANS: Yes.

BRIGGS: The health care debate continues.

ROMANS: And there's the tweaking in health care about taxes on the rich. All of this is happening.

BRIGGS: "NEW DAY" in about eight minutes.

ROMANS: All right. And something else Chris Cuomo would be interested in, I'm sure. Low wage workers in two states and at least five cities are getting a raise tomorrow. I'm going to tell you where that's happening and why on "CNN Money Stream."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:54:00] BRIGGS: A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS says he expects Mosul to be liberated within days. That statement comes after the Iraqi prime minister sparked a bit of confusion, effectively declaring victory, but crews on the ground say that's not exactly the case yet.

For the very latest let's turn to CNN senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh, live in Erbil, Iraq. Good morning to you. NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Dave, confusion yesterday afternoon when troops on the ground were still bitterly fighting for the al-Nuri mosque, that symbolic part of Mosul's old city that really sort of marks, I think, the sacred, most important, you know, place of ISIS' former caliphate, declaring victory when the fight was still underway.

We understand now, actually, that the troops overnight have since taken that area so what was untrue has become true in the passage of time. The question now with both coalition and Iraqi officials saying we are literally a matter of days from the remaining part of the old city -- hundreds of meters left of territory being taken back from ISIS -- what comes next?

[05:55:03] The military part has been bloody, brutal. The question is can Iraq heal? Can there be a political, a social healing between the Sunni who have been so disenfranchised and often their extremists moving towards ISIS, that part of Iraqi society and the other ethnic part, the Shia, who are predominantly in the government and many of whom were involved in the fight ISIS as well.

It's the country torn apart, left in ruins so much, in the Sunni areas from this fight. Can they bring it back together or will we risk seeing more extreme in the future? Back to you.

BRIGGS: A big ideological battle ahead. Nick Paton Walsh, live for us in Erbil, Iraq. Thank you.

ROMANS: All right, let's get a look at -- on your money this final trading day of the first half of the year.

Global markets mostly lower after this blistering sell-off in tech stocks. Big names like Apple, Google parent Alphabet, Microsoft all lower, pushing the Dow down 168 points. The Nasdaq down 1-1/2 percent.

What is going on? The dollar had its worst quarter in seven years and bond yields are rising. Bond yields are rising. There's a global expectation that Central Banks are going to raise rates. That has investors selling to big dividend tech plays and moving money into things like bank stocks. Banks, in particular, because they will be able to give big dividend payouts because they passed their stress test.

It's been a great year for stocks, by the way. The Dow and S&P 500 are both up eight percent this year. The Nasdaq is up 14 percent. Look at that. Right now, futures, though, are flat. Again, on the last trading day of the first half of the year.

If you live in one of these places you may start earning a little more. Maryland, Oregon, and at least five cities are hiking their minimum wages tomorrow. This follows 17 states in the beginning of the year. You know, the federal minimum wage hasn't been raised since 2009. Many states, though, are doing it themselves. Now, staggering these rate hikes -- these wage hikes so it doesn't burden businesses all at once. The rallying cry, of course, has been $15.00 per hour by progressives.

That may not help workers the way advocates hope, at least if you believe a recent study that found that when Seattle hiked its wages workers' hours dropped, ultimately earning about $125 less each month. So the jury's still out on all those wage hikes but they're happening today.

BRIGGS: It's far from over in that debate.

ROMANS: Thanks for joining us this morning -- this Friday morning. I'm Christine Romans.

BRIGGS: All right, I'm Dave Briggs. "NEW DAY" starts right now. Have a great weekend. We'll see you next week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: I'm appalled. This is the President of the United States.

SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: When he gets attacked he's going to hit back.

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R), MAINE: He has a role to play in uniting the country and he threw some gasoline on the embers.

REP. LYNN JENKINS (R), KANSAS: To refer to a female's face as someone that's involved in politics, it's just not appropriate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a huge distraction from the real issues at hand.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: Mrs. Rice could have a lot to tell us about Russian intentions, Russian engagement, how Russian active measures work.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Intelligence reports show Russian hackers talking about ways to find Secretary Clinton's e-mails and to get them to General Flynn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.

CUOMO: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is NEW DAY. It's Friday, June 30th, 6:00 here in New York. Alisyn is off. Clarissa Ward has been with me this week. You've been great. Thanks for being with me.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks for having me.

CUOMO: Always a pleasure to have one of the best by your side.

On "The Starting Line" Washington has found a point of agreement, kind of. President Trump's disparaging sexist tweets about yet another female T.V. host are beneath the dignity of the office of President of the United States. The White House is engulfed in bipartisan outrage from the latest self-inflicted roadblock which is preventing the president from moving forward more aggressively with his agenda.

White House officials, even a female press secretary, defending the tweets, excusing it as a response to being attacked mercilessly, saying the president is just fighting fire with fire.

WARD: Meanwhile, there is new reporting on Russia's election meddling from "The Wall Street Journal" that says a longtime GOP operative tried to get Hillary Clinton's e-mails from hackers, which implies he had a connection to fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

And the partial Trump travel ban now in effect with fiances now making the cut under the administration's definite of, quote, "a bona fide relationship." Travel ban 2.0 already facing a court challenge.

We have it all covered here, but let's start out with CNN's Boris Sanchez. He is live in Washington. Boris, what are you hearing?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Clarissa. Yes, the president a full agenda yesterday not only with the implementation of the travel ban, but also legislation in the house that would crack down on sanctuary cities, something that the president championed during the campaign. And, of course, the debate over the repeal and replacement of Obamacare.

But with a single 51-word tweet sent before 9:00 a.m. yesterday, the president took the conversation in a very different direction.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REPORTER: Mr. President, do you regret your tweet?