Return to Transcripts main page

EARLY START

President Trump Visits U.S.-Mexico Border; Senate Republicans Ditch Immigration Compromise; Robert Mueller Met with Trump's Campaign Pollster; Mike Pompeo Insists No Contradiction in U.S. Syria Policy; Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired January 11, 2019 - 04:30   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[04:30:39] DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have the absolute right to declare a national emergency.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: The White House considering taking money meant for disaster relief in Puerto Rico, Texas, California and Florida, taking that money to build Trump's border wall.

DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: 800,000 federal workers will not be paid today. The drastic steps some are taking to get through this shutdown.

ROMANS: Mark your calendars, Michael Cohen set to testify publicly before the House next month. What we could learn from his testimony.

BRIGGS: Breaking overnight in Wisconsin, a teenage girl missing for nearly three months after both her parents were murdered has been found alive.

ROMANS: Thank goodness. The family is relieved. That's a long road for her.

BRIGGS: What a dramatic development there.

Happy Friday, everybody. And welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Dave Briggs.

ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. It is 31 minutes past the hour this Friday morning.

The administration now actively looking for funds to use for building a border barrier in and when the president declares that national emergency. One prime source under consideration, billions in unspent Defense Department disaster recovery money meant to help victims in Puerto Rico, Texas, Florida and California. The president now warning he will declare a national emergency if talks with Democrats to end the government shutdown are at a standstill.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If this doesn't work out, probably I will do it. I would almost say definitely. This is a national emergency.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: Such a declaration would be subject to an immediate court challenge and even Trump's advisers have told him it probably wouldn't work legally, that is. But there are not many other paths out of a shutdown that at midnight becomes the longest in modern American history.

CNN's Jim Acosta traveled with the president to the border and filed this report.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Dave, President Trump came down to the border here in McAllen, Texas, to get a sense of the situation down here and talked with law enforcement officials and other Border Patrol agents. At one point during the day the president described the situation down here as being under attack. He said the nation is under attack down here on the border.

It was an odd case to make because he was sitting in one of the safest communities in the country. McAllen, Texas, has consistently ranked one of the most secure communities in the United States. But yet the president tried to make the case that this community and other communities along the border are under attack trying to bolster his case potentially to declare a national emergency so he can secure funding for his wall. Here's more of what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We're certainly under attack by criminal gangs, by criminals themselves, by the human traffickers and by drugs of all kinds. Much of it comes through the southern border.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Throughout the day the president made several misleading statements about his case for a wall on the border with Mexico. At one point he told reporters that he never said during the campaign that Mexico was going to hand over a big check to pay for the wall. Of course during the campaign the president repeatedly said that Mexico would pay for a wall and at various points he said yes, Mexico would actually deliver a payment to the American people to fund that wall.

As a matter of fact his campaign put out a document saying that Mexico could end this once and for all and hand over to the United States a payment, a one-time payment they put it, of $5 billion to $10 billion -- Christine and Dave.

ROMANS: All right. Jim Acosta at the border for us. Thank you.

Republicans in the Senate ditching an 11th hour plan to find a compromise on immigration after President Trump rejected it. The measure spearheaded by Lindsey Graham included border wall funding and temporary protections for Dreamers. House Democrats forging ahead, passing two spending bills. Twelve Republicans joined them to pass the first measure which would reopen the Transportation Department and Housing and Urban Development. But as Phil Mattingly reports, it may be all for nothing.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Dave, for a brief moment, there was hope. Not hope that there is going to be a solution to the government shutdown but hope because at least people were talking. To be specific a group of Republican senators, senators who had expressed some frustration with the president's strategy, senators who had said they didn't want to shut down at all, that they wanted to find a way out.

Now they have been working since Wednesday night on a proposal that would essentially trade DACA protections on a temporary basis for the money that President Trump asked for for the wall. That deal fell completely apart. Why? Because President Trump rejected it. How did the top senator who was working on this deal feel? Well, take a listen to Lindsey Graham.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I have never been more depressed about moving forward than I am right now.

[04:35:04] I just don't see a pathway forward. Somebody has got to like get some energy to fix this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: And Graham in that statement is really kind of talking for all 535 members of Congress, at least those that I've spoken with over the last couple of days. There's a recognition right now that there is a no clear pathway out. Both parties are very entrenched that their positions are not moving and at the near-term there is no legislative solution at the moment for a fix, for a way out of the government shutdown.

There's a real question right now whether or not this is not going to go days, or whether this is actually going to end up going weeks. And is it going to be sold any time soon? Well, talks aren't continuing, meetings aren't scheduled. The Senate is out of session and won't be back until next week. And House Democrats are still passing individual funding bills that Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has made clear he won't take up.

So where does that leave things? Well, a lot of Republican aides are looking toward the president to take some executive action, declare a national emergency. That might be the next path. And Lindsey Graham is straight-up advocating for that, saying that's really the only path left. That is something Democrats have made clear they will quickly try and take to court, see if they can block it in some ways. So a fight is going to continue. When it's over is still an open question. What's not an open question is that the government is going to remain shut down and likely for a while -- guys.

ROMANS: All right. Federal workers staging protests across the country as they prepare to go without their first full paychecks since the shutdown started.

In Washington, the president of the AFL-CIO was joined by members of Congress and hundreds of federal workers demanding an end to the shutdown. And in Utah, listen to this protester with no paycheck she is resorting to desperate measures.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LYNN STRATTON, FURLOUGHED FEDERAL WORKER: I have enough for one more mortgage payment then I've got to go to CarMax tomorrow and sell my car.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You're going to sell your car?

STRATTON: I have to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: And in Atlanta, TSA workers led a protest against the government shutdown right outside the busy North Terminal at Hartsfield Jackson International Airport.

BRIGGS: Miami International Airport will close one of its terminals early for three days beginning on Saturday due to a shortage of screeners at security checkpoints. TSA employees are working without pay due to the government shutdown. An airport spokesman tells the "Miami Herald" that screeners are calling in sick at double the normal rate.

TSA managers are concerned they won't have enough workers to operate all the checkpoints at normal hours at Miami International Airport.

ROMANS: The shutdown also affecting active FBI investigations due to a lack of funding. Nearly 5,000 FBI employees are among the hundreds of thousands of federal workers told they can't up to work. The limited budget means money to pay informants, for example, dries up. Law enforcement sources say agents have been told to make payments to informants only if the integrity of an investigation is at risk.

BRIGGS: Joshua Tree National Park outside Palm Springs, California, stayed open through the government shutdown despite the lack of funding and short staffing. But the park hasn't made it through unscathed. According to the Web site National Parks Traveler visitors are chopping down these beautiful unique trees creating illegal roads and setting fires. The park superintendent also says visitors have left graffiti and gone off-roading through this pristine desert.

ROMANS: I find that shocking. What is the point of that? Why --

BRIGGS: I don't know.

ROMANS: Why would anybody want to do that?

BRIGGS: Serves no purpose whatsoever. One of my favorite national parks in the country. Just a beautiful sight. Another casualty of the shutdown. ROMANS: And for those -- anybody out there saying government shutdown

doesn't matter, why do we need -- you know, big deal, just who cares about tourists.

BRIGGS: There you go.

ROMANS: All right. Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell said he is worried policymakers won't have a complete picture of the U.S. economy if the shutdown continues.

Look, the Commerce Department is among the agencies swept up in the third week of a shutdown. During remarks at the Economic Club of Washington Powell said he expects the effects of a longer government shutdown to be seen clearly in the economic data.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEROME POWELL, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN: One of the agencies that shut down is Commerce which has the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Census Bureau and some of the pretty important data that we get is published by them and would not be published including retail sales and GDP and a bunch of other things that are coming up this month. So we would have a less clear picture into the economy if it were to go on much longer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: You know, there is also a bunch of agricultural data that is really important. Crop sales and forecast. I mean, in the midst of a trade war where agricultural is right in the middle, these are important numbers to have and we will not have them.

A Fed spokesman told CNN this week staffers will continue to draw from public and private data to guide policymakers ahead of upcoming rate setting meetings.

Powell has been under fire of course from the president over previous rate increases. He says he has yet to receive an invitation by the way, Powell does, by the White House for a meeting with the president.

BRIGGS: Michael Cohen, President Trump's former lawyer and fixer, will testify publicly before the House Oversight Committee on February 7th. Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison on multiple charges including campaign finance crimes and lying to Congress. He implicated the president in a scheme to pay hush money to two women claiming they had affairs with then citizen Trump.

[04:40:05] Here's what Cohen told ABC News after his sentencing in December.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL COHEN, FORMER TRUMP LAWYER: I am done with the lying. I am done being loyal to President Trump. I followed a bad path and hence how we started this conversation. I have my freedom and I will not be the villain as I told you once before. I will not be the villain of his story.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: The House Intelligence Committee also wants Cohen to testify behind closed doors about the Russia investigation. Again that behind the closed doors, not for the public to see.

ROMANS: New developments in the Russia investigation. It turns out Special Counsel Robert Mueller interviewed Donald Trump's top campaign pollster last year, a man named Tony Fabrizio. Fabrizio also happens to be an ex-business associate of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

CNN's Evan Perez has more.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Dave, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigators interviewed Tony Fabrizio, one of the Trump campaign's pollsters, last year as part of the Russia investigation. This is a discussion that possibly takes on new importance now that we know that the Mueller investigators even recently were asking questions about internal polling data that Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, shared with a former business associate who the special counsel says is connected to Russian intelligence.

Now Manafort's lawyers this week accidentally made public in a court filing that prosecutors claimed Manafort was lying to them about sharing the polling information with his business associate Konstantin Kilimnik. Now we don't know why that information was being shared and whether any of that data ended up with the Russians who at the time were trying to launch a campaign to try to help Donald Trump win the White House.

The president was asked by reporters whether he knew that his campaign chairman was sharing that information.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: No, I didn't know anything about it. Nothing about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: CNN reporters in February of last year saw Fabrizio leaving his interview at the Mueller offices here in Washington. And we've since confirmed that he provided information to the Mueller investigation.

Fabrizio is a former business associate of Manafort and he is someone who would have knowledge about the inner workings of the Trump campaign as well as Manafort's connections in Eastern Europe. Fabrizio worked with Manafort on elections in Ukraine and he went on to serve as the chief pollster for the Trump campaign in the spring of 2016.

Fabrizio declined comment for this story, but a source familiar with his testimony says that he was asked about Manafort's business dealings. We don't know whether he had any follow-up interviews and what other topics he provided information on -- Christine and Dave.

ROMANS: All right, Evan Perez. The plot thickens.

All right, after nearly three months of searching, a Wisconsin teen has been found alive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just cannot believe this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: What we know so far about her rescue.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:47:12] ROMANS: New details overnight about the rescue of a 13- year-old girl Jayme Closs from her captor in northwest Wisconsin three months after she vanished. The "Minneapolis Star Tribune" reporting the malnourished, bedraggled girl walked up to a woman near the town of Gordon, Wisconsin, and said she needed help. The girl was skinny, her hair matted, shoes too big for her feet.

But the woman realized it was the missing Jayme. She banged on a neighbor's door yelling, this is Jayme Closs, call 911. "The Star Tribune" reports she was taken to the hospital for examination and a 21-year-old suspect was almost immediately arrested.

BRIGGS: Jayme vanished on October 15th, 66 miles to the south near the town of Barron after emergency dispatchers received a mysterious 911 call with yelling in the background. Police arrived at the home to find Jayme gone and her parents, James and Denise Closs, shot to death. Investigators think Jayme was home during the shooting. Authorities say they'll offer more information at a news conference later this morning.

ROMANS: All right. A manhunt under way right now in California right now after a police officer was shot and killed. Authorities say 22- year-old Natalie Corona, Officer Natalie Corona, was gunned done Thursday night while responding to a traffic accident in Davis, just west of Sacramento. Authorities urge people across the city to shelter in place. The UC Davis campus also placed on lockdown. Corona had only been with the Davis Police Department for a few weeks.

BRIGGS: Las Vegas Police demanding a DNA sample from soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo. The "Wall Street Journal" reporting the LVPD sent a warrant to authorities in Italy where Ronaldo plays for the legendary Juventus Club. Investigators want to determine whether Ronaldo's DNA matches a sample found on Kathryn Mayorga's dress. Mayorga filed a lawsuit alleging Ronald raped her in Vegas in 2009 and then paid her $375,000 for her silence.

Ronaldo's attorney releasing this statement, "Mr. Ronaldo has always maintained as he does today that what occurred in Las Vegas in 2009 was consensual in nature, so it is not surprising that DNA would be present, nor that the police would make this very standard request as part of their investigation."

ROMANS: All right. A Royal Caribbean cruise ship is headed back to Florida this hour. 277 passengers and crew members suffering from gastrointestinal illness. A Norovirus is suspected because the cruise had to be cut one day short. Royal Caribbean says all of the guests will receive full refunds. The Oasis of the Seas set sail last Sunday with stops at Haiti, Jamaica and Mexico.

One of my worst nightmares, being on one of those ships when a Norovirus goes through.

BRIGGS: No doubt about that.

A Milwaukee bus driver honored for rescuing a barefoot baby from the freezing cold. Irena Ivic was on her regular route on the morning of December 22nd. She looked across the freeway overpass and saw a 1- year-old child in a diaper running toward an intersection.

[04:50:06] She stopped, rushed to the little girl, scooped her up and brought her back to the bus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IRENA IVIC, BUS DRIVER: Oh, my gosh.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my gosh.

IVIC: Oh my gosh.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh no.

IVIC: I'm shaking.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am, too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: Oh, wow. A passenger on the bus took off her coat and draped it around the baby. Irena, a mother of two, stroked her hair until she fell asleep. Officials believe the child went missing after his mother experienced a mental health crisis. She was eventually reunited with her very relieved father.

ROMANS: There are good people -- that makes me want to cry. There are good people everywhere who just in the course of their jobs do the right thing all the time, and kept their eyes open and --

BRIGGS: Yes.

ROMANS: Thank you, Irena. That was -- you were the story we needed today.

BRIGGS: Indeed.

ROMANS: Fifteen minutes past the hour, Secretary of State Mike -- Pompeo, rather, is on a tour through the Middle East. And he is sending some mixed signals on the president's decision to pull U.S. troops from Syria. We're going to go live to Cairo next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:55:24] BRIGGS: All right. 4:55 Eastern Time.

The Secretary of State Mike Pompeo leaving Egypt today and heading to Bahrain and Abu Dhabi after laying out America's Middle East policy in a major speech in Cairo Thursday. In his remarks, Pompeo assured allies there is, quote, "no contradiction whatsoever" on the shifting U.S. strategy in Syria. Those words come amid mounting confusion over the president's announced withdrawal of U.S. troops in the country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: There is no contradiction whatsoever. This is a story made up by the media. And so it is possible to hold in your head the thought that we couldn't withdraw our forces, our uniformed forces from Syria and continue America's crushing campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: CNN's Ben Wedeman live in Cairo this morning with the latest.

Just to be clear, December 19th, the president of the United States said our men, our women, our troops are coming home from Syria now. He used that word, now.

Ben, any confusion there?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Lots of confusion. Now according to U.S. officials became 30 days and then 120 days. And we heard National Security adviser John Bolton say at the beginning of this week that the pre-condition for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria would be a Turkish commitment not to attack the U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria. But we are hearing this morning from a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS that the process of withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria began today.

And so, no, it's not at all clear at this point what the situation is. But it does appear that U.S. forces are carrying out the orders of the president regardless of what his National Security adviser and his secretary of State are saying. So, no, Dave, confusion continues.

BRIGGS: Yes. If there is no contradiction in the words of John Bolton, the National Security adviser, mean very little.

Ben Wedeman, live for us in Cairo this morning. Thank you.

ROMANS: All right, 57 minutes past the hour. Let's get a check on CNN Business this Friday morning. Markets around the world higher following another day of gains in the U.S. Wall Street right now we've got futures pointing up a little tiny bit here, 17 points. That's not much. So we'll call that flat or even mixed. Stocks rallied for a fifth day in a row, Thursday the Dow climbed 123

points. You can see the red on that chart there. It had been down 176 points earlier in the day. So another volatile day. The S&P 500 gained close to half a percent. The first five-day win streak since September. Been hard to put all those gains together in the end of the year. The Nasdaq closed up higher as well.

The major averages continue that win streak, but retailers really struggled. Look at Macy's. Macy's plummeted 18 percent, the worst single day for Macy's stock in history. Weak holiday sales and dimmed guidance. The sharp decline in Macy's dragged down other retailers as well. Kohl's lost close to 5 percent. JCPenney and Nordstrom fell sharply as well.

Taco Bell wants to help vegans and vegetarians eat there. The chain said it will test out a vegetarian menu board in some restaurants in coming months. Taco Bell will unveil limited time vegetarian and vegan items as part of the test, and highlight the restaurant's current vegetarian options including tacos, tostados, burritos and crunch wraps. The fast food chains are putting all of the meat-free items on one menu which would make it easier for vegetarians to see their options.

OK. In every --

BRIGGS: You're welcome, America.

ROMANS: This is every kid's favorite and it is swimming up the charts. "Baby Shark," which spawned a dance challenge following the release of Ping Pong's 2016 version, came in at number 32 on the Billboard Hot 100 Top 40 Chart. According to Nielsen Music the viral children's song, let's listen.

BRIGGS: Thank you.

ROMANS: It earned 20.8 million streams in the last streaming tracking weak. "Baby Shark" comes in at number two on kid digital song sales which it led for 11 weeks beginning in September.

BRIGGS: I'm Daddy Shark, so I'm --

(LAUGHTER)

BRIGGS: I'm Daddy Shark. You're Mommy Shark. I think we have Grandpa Shark --

ROMANS: There's Grandpa Shark.

BRIGGS: Grandpa is in the house this morning as well.

ROMANS: You're welcome, America. That's going to be in your head now.

(LAUGHTER)

BRIGGS: Try to get that out of your head. ROMANS: That's going to be in your hear all day.

BRIGGS: 2.1 billion -- billion -- YouTube views.

ROMANS: Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

BRIGGS: And all the parents out there pulling their hair out this morning.

EARLY START continues right now on day 21 of the government shutdown.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I have the absolute right to declare a national emergency.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(END)