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EARLY START

Ambassador Mark Lippert Attacked; Snow Storm Slams the Northeast; Ferguson Police Report; Hillary Clinton Emails Subpoenaed; Obamacare in the Supreme Court, Again; Boston Marathon Bombing Trial; Russell Westbrook Makes Case for MVP

Aired March 5, 2015 - 05:00   ET

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


CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: A U.S. ambassador attacked in South Korea, slashed in the face before giving a speech. What motivated the attack? And the latest on the ambassador's condition. We are live.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, there is this monster storm hitting 90 million people from Texas, all the way to the Northeast, thousands of flights canceled, roads everywhere just a mess. We will tell you what you need to know this morning.

ROMANS: Michael Brown's parents set to respond to the federal investigation that cleared the police officer who killed their son, but found racism in the department.

Good morning and welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

BERMAN: Good to see you today. I'm John Berman. It is Thursday, March 5th, it's 5:00 a.m. in the East.

ROMANS: Are you out of salt yet? I'm completely out of salt.

BERMAN: I'm out of everything. I'm out of patient.

This morning, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea is recovering from surgery. He was attacked. He was slashed in the face in Seoul overnight. The Ambassador Mark Lippert, you can see the dramatic pictures. He was preparing to give a speech when he was attacked. Officials say the surgery to repair the four-inch wound in his face was successful. Eighty stitches, the police now do have a suspect in custody. Why did this man do this?

Our international correspondent Andrew Stevens tracking developments for us.

Good morning, Andrew.

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.

Yes, Mark Lippert was the guest at Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation, which is a group aimed peace and reconciliation between the two Koreas. What we know was before he was due to give a speech, he was an approached by this man, Kim Ki-jong, who started shouting slogan saying that the war games between or the maneuvers, military maneuvers between the U.S. and South Korea must stop. This is the report. He then assaulted the ambassador.

And as you say, the ambassador receiving some very, very nasty wounds indeed. Not life threatening, but a gash to the right side of his face and also a gash to his left forearm, needing 80 stitches in the facial wound. The pictures, though, show that he is able to walk from that room. The assailant was wrestled to the ground by other people at that meeting. He was taken away by police.

Mr. Lippert was able to walk to a car. He was then taken to hospital. He is still in hospital. He is expected to be there for a couple more days. He was likely -- some surgeons are saying if that facial wound was deeper, it could have been life threatening.

What we know about the assailant Kim Ki-jong, he's a 55-year-old. He does have a previous conviction, something quite similar really. He was given a two-year suspended sentence back in 2010 after he threw a lump of concrete at the Japanese ambassador to the South Korean Republican. So, there is some indication there of this man's motives.

He is described by police as a person of unpredictable behavior. Certainly, that was borne out today.

Mr. Lippert, though, putting on a brave face. He tweeted not that long ago from his hospital bed. He certainly showed that he hasn't lost his sense of humor either. He tweeted on behalf of himself, his wife, his son and also his dog. In the tweet, he says he is deeply moved by the support he had gotten from the people of South Korea. "I will be back ASAP to advance U.S.-ROK, Republic of Korea alliance."

And that wording in Korean there on the bottom which he wrote says, let's work together. So, he looks like a man who is ready to get back on the job. He has been contacted by the U.S. president. They are close, those two, John. The president basically making sure he is OK and giving some words of encouragement.

BERMAN: Yes, Mark Lippert had been a long-time supporter of President Obama. Worked in his Senate office on those few years that President Obama served in the Senate.

Andrew Stevens, thanks so much for being with us. I appreciate it. We wish the ambassador a speedy recovery.

ROMANS: Yes, and we hope they'll take look at security actually when you think of all the ambassadors and all of the American diplomats around the world right now, the state the world is in.

Four minutes past the hour.

Overnight storm slamming much of the nation, up to another foot of snow expected from Texas to the Northeast, nearly 90 million people under a winter watch or warning or advisory.

BERMAN: The weather having a serious impact on travel. Look at that board. Ugly. Cancellations everywhere. More than 2,000 flights already canceled today. And that number is

going to go up. Look at the situation outside Boston, maybe not as bad as they feared. Still bad enough considering that more than 8 feet of snow has already fallen there. They are two inches away from setting an all-time record.

This is what it looked like in Fall River, Massachusetts. You can see the weight of all that snow and water on roofs, the collapsed roof at the Shell station.

ROMANS: Snow and ice paving the roads in Ohio. It made for a messy travel when snow started falling overnight. Cars stuck in the street. Some folks forced to get out and push their vehicle off the road.

BERMAN: Sleet, heavy snow in southern Indiana. You can see it right there. Forecasters say up to a foot of new snow could be on the ground there by this morning. Schools have been shutdown. Businesses closed. Man.

ROMANS: West Virginia has severe weather and it is prompting an emergency declaration from the governor. Flooding is the concern in many of those areas. The latest storm could dump up to 8 inches of snow on that state.

BERMAN: Virginia dealing with dangerous flood conditions, the snow and all that is melting and heavy rains. A lot of the state there is under water. Emergency responders using rafts like this one to try to rescue people trapped in their homes.

ROMANS: All right. So, how bad will this thing get?

Meteorologist Derek Van Dam is tracking it all for us.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, John and Christine, considering that over 90 million Americans are under some sort of a winter storm watch, warning or advisory, you can imagine this is going to somehow negatively impact their Thursday commute.

Just look how expansive this storm is, stretching all the way from central Mexico, Texas through the Mid-Atlantic States. There is quite a temperature contrast with this particular cold front as well. Very warm, moist air across the southeastern U.S. that cutoff right across the Tennessee River Valley, of course, cold enough for all snowfall to the north here Louisville, Kentucky, where temperatures range in the lower 20s, the middle 20s.

Now, our ice potential today not looking too good for the I-40 corridor, stretching anywhere from Mississippi through Tennessee and all the way to West Virginia. We have the possibility of a quarter to a half an inch of ice and on top of that, we have upwards of a foot of snow in some locations. Lesser amounts for New York City and nation's capital, but we could still pick up 4 to 8 inches throughout the course of the day.

Look at the temperature contrast -- Louisville, Kentucky, through Jacksonville, Florida. New York City, your temperatures are taking a nose dive as well.

Back to you.

ROMANS: All right. Thanks for that, Derek.

The family of the unarmed black teen who's shooting death by police set off days of unrest in Ferguson, they're set to speak out this morning at a news conference in Ferguson. We're going to hear their reaction to a Justice Department decision not to bring criminal charges against the officer who shot their son Michael Brown.

Brown's family will, no doubt, have something to say about the Justice Department's blistering new report. It's 102 pages. It's a document that details systemic discrimination against African-Americans in the city of Ferguson and by the city and by the police department.

CNN's Sara Sidner is in Ferguson. She has the latest for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ferguson mayor responding to the scathing report by the Department of Justice. The DOJ highlighting issues they say that blacks were unfairly targeted, especially during traffic stops and arrests and tickets. The DOJ saying that it seems the department and the city were more concerned about getting revenue than about public safety and that black folks paid the highest price.

ERIC HOLDER, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: A community where local authorities consistently approached law enforcement not as a means for protecting public safety, but as a way to generate revenue, a community where both policing and municipal court practices were found to be disproportionately harmful to African-American residents.

SIDNER: While the population is 67 percent black, at least 85 percent of those who were pulled over for traffic violations were arrested or ticketed were black. The Department of Justice pointing that it's that toxic background that was around and helped create what happened after Michael Brown was killed by Officer Darren Wilson.

However, the DOJ did not find enough evidence to charge Darren Wilson with civil rights violations. He was not indicted by a grand jury either.

However, the police chief and others inside the department may have to pay the piper. The DOJ talking about e-mails, including racist e- mails that were sent by the department. We do now know that the mayor has responded to those who have sent those e-mails.

JAMES KNOWLES, FERGUSON MAYOR: This type of behavior will not be tolerated in the Ferguson Police Department or any department in the city of Ferguson. Immediately upon leaving that meeting, the three individuals were placed on administrative leave pending an investigation. One has since been terminated.

SIDNER: A source close to the investigation tells me that the two others put on administrative leave will no longer work for the department either -- John and Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Sara Sidner, thanks for that.

Breaking overnight, and I mean the middle of the night, Hillary Clinton calling for the release of her State Department e-mails. This comes after those e-mails were subpoenaed by a House committee investigating the attack on the consulate in Benghazi.

The former secretary of state tweeted this in the dead of night. "I want the public to see my e-mail. I asked the State to release them. They said they will review them for release as soon as possible."

Republicans also subpoenaed e-mails that Mrs. Clinton stored on a private server on operated out of her New York home. The State Department is already looking into Mrs. Clinton's use of the personal e-mail account. Exclusive use, she did not have a State Department e- mail account when she served as secretary of state.

ROMANS: Secretary of State John Kerry arriving in Saudi Arabia fresh off the latest round of nuclear talks with Iran. He is there to ease concerns because officials in Sunni Saudi Arabia are nervous about making any deal with the Shiite Iranians. Kerry is also expected to discuss the unrest in Yemen and other Middle Eastern countries with the new Saudi King Salman.

BERMAN: The White House is warning the U.S. Supreme Court that the fate of health care for millions of Americans is in its hands this morning. The justices heard arguments on the meaning of a four-word clause in the Affordable Care Act that has the potential to -- the potential to derail Obamacare.

The White House is trying to make sure members of the High Court is clear on the stakes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We would see millions of people lose their health insurance. We would see prices would likely go through the roof. And there is not a whole lot, frankly, that the government can do about it other than Congress passing legislation to fix it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: CNN's Pamela Brown has more now from Washington -- Pamela.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, John and Christine.

It was a sharply divided court along ideological lines during these latest Affordable Care Act oral arguments. What happened here could impact millions of people. The stakes are very high. And if the justices rule in favor of the plaintiffs, it could derail

the Affordable Care Act.

So, there are a lot going on here and right out of the gate of liberal justices had some tough questions for the plaintiff's attorney and said that you have to look at the law as a whole and the context. You can't just look at those four words really at the center of the debate established by the state. The justices said that it would be a death spiral if subsidies were taken away from the Americans and the 34 states what the federally run exchanges.

However, on the other side of this, the conservative justices really focused on the fact the law has those four words, established by the state. It makes it clear according to the plaintiffs that that's what the law intended. They didn't intend for people in the states with federal run exchanges to have subsidies.

Chief Justice Roberts did not have a lot to say during the oral arguments. And I think that surprised a lot of people, because as we know, he upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, several years ago. So, all eyes were on him to see which direction he was leaning in. He did not want to tip his hand. Ultimately, it could come down to his vote or of course, Justice Kennedy who is the deciding vote in these cases so often. He was asking questions favorable to both sides.

So, it remains a mystery as to how the justices are going to rule and is bound to be a close case -- John and Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right. Pamela, thank you.

Time for an early start on your money. Asian stocks mostly lower. China lowered the growth target from 7.5 percent to 7 percent. Hey, that's still pretty good.

BERMAN: That's great.

ROMANS: It's still pretty good. But, you know, that's not as much as the world expecting.

European shares are more optimistic. We're expecting an update from the European Central Bank today on the timing of its buying stimulus program.

U.S. stock futures barely moving right now. We will see if the stocks can break the two-day losing streak. The Dow fell 106 points yesterday. The S&P 500 took a similar dip, pulling back further from Monday's records. Remember, we are in the middle here of the six-year bull run that has really, really remarkable. Still very close to record highs.

Coming soon to Wall Street, homemade crafts and jewelry. Online marketplace Etsy filed its IPO yesterday, hoping to raise $100 million. About 1.4 million people use that Web site. Like many startups, Etsy does not make a profit. Tiny little company, $100 million. That's not a lot, but it is a brand that maybe you heard about.

BERMAN: All of my jewelry, I make, from Etsy. I'm heavily bejeweled.

ROMANS: Jeez.

BERMAN: A good word, though, right?

ROMANS: Thirteen minutes after the hour.

We know the defense strategy to save accused Boston marathon suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. We've got that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Day two of testimony at the trial of accused Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. On opening day, jurors saw graphic images and they heard witnesses describe the scene near the marathon finish line. But before that, during opening statements, the defense admitted that Tsarnaev took part in the bombing, admitted it, revealing a window into the strategy for saving Tsarnaev from the death penalty.

Let's get more from CNN's Alexandra Field.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christine and John, the start of this trial marked by emotional testimony from the victims, graphic images and videos never seen before. One video that particularly resonated inside the courtroom was taken from surveillance video inside a running store on Boylston Street. It's recorded at the time of the explosion. You can see a panel of glass blown out of the window, people from the street running to the store, trying to take cover.

At the same time, we heard testimony from the manager of that store who says he was the one in those videos grabbing clothes off the rack, running outside, trying to use those clothes to make tourniquets and trying to triage some of the injured who are out there on Boylston Street on the day of the marathon.

The prosecution made opening statement laying out the charges against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. They paint him as a self radicalized extremist who is bent on attacking America. A man with a plot that he planned to carry out alongside his brother.

He faces 30 charges, 17 of those charges come with a possible death sentence. In a move that may have surprise some people on the courtroom, the defense made their opening statements conceding the vast majority of the facts of the case. Saying that, yes, in fact, their client, the defendant, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was the man behind this attack.

But they went on to say the case they will make, the place they differ from the argument made from the federal government is what motivated Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. They say this is a young man preyed upon by his older brother, the true mastermind of this plot.

The plan here for the defense is to try and build some measure of sympathy for Tsarnaev. They feel that will be key when it comes to the sentencing phase of this trial and jurors are faced with the question whether or not they could choose the death sentence here -- Christine, John.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: It's very hard for a lot of those families up there.

A 17-year-old Virginia student accused of being a recruiter for ISIS. The unidentified teen was taken into custody last week. Right now, he's charged as a juvenile. But prosecutors want him tried as an adult. Federal investigators said the suspect helped a man travel to Syria where it is believed that he successfully joined ISIS.

In a separate case, a California man tried to board a plane for Turkey with a fake passport last year was indicted Wednesday for trying to provide support to ISIS.

ROMANS: More expert testimony on tap today in the trial of former NFL star Aaron Hernandez. The judge dealing prosecutors significance, but actually expected set back. He ruled evidence that Hernandez was involved in a shooting of a friend in Florida a few months before Odin Lloyd was killed, that evidence would not be admissible in the case. Hernandez is accused of fatally shooting Odin Lloyd back in June 2013.

BERMAN: Twenty minutes after the right now.

He is back. I'm talking about the most significant New York Yankee of the last decade. He is back in uniform. He saw his first game action in more than a year. Andy Scholes will have all of the glorifying details in the "Bleacher Report", next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: You know, it has been an unusual basketball season. Something remarkable going on right now that you have to see. Russell Westbrook just recorded his third straight double-double. This guy is a guard and this time, he had 49 points as part of this.

ROMANS: Andy Scholes has more in this morning's "Bleacher Report".

Hey, Andy.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, guys.

Yes, this run by Westbrook has been nothing short of amazing. He is the first player to have four straight triple-doubles since Michael Jordan back in 1989. Jordan had seven in a row that year.

In case you did not know what a triple-double is, it's having double digits in three statistical categories. Westbrook did it again last night by scoring a career high 49 points, grabbing a career high 16 rebounds to go along with 10 assists. The Thunder beat the 76ers 123- 118 in overtime. And with this recent stretch of incredible performances, Westbrook, he really is quickly becoming one of the front runners for the MVP this season.

Alex Rodriguez made his long awaited return to the Yankees yesterday. In the first at bat, he singled to left field. After that, he would ground out and have a walk. A-Rod missed last season as he served a suspension for using performance enhancing drugs.

After the game, A-Rod said he was thrilled to be back on the diamond.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEX RODRIGUEZ, 1ST GAME WITH YANKEES SINCE 2013: It was pretty exciting, pretty emotional to be honest with you. I'm just happy to put the ball in play a couple times. You know, it's a really dream come true to be back in pin stripes. I'm grateful for the Yankees for giving me an opportunity to put the uniform back on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: It looks like Peyton Manning is choosing a possibly Super Bowl ring over $4 million. According to reports, Manning has agreed to a $4 million (AUDIO GAP) flexibility and free agent (AUDIO GAP) $15 million instead of $19 million. Manning will have a chance to make that money, though, with bonuses for winning in the playoffs.

Rockets and Grizzlies last night, a fan had a chance at a half-court shot to win $25,000 in scholarship and the bank is open. The fan knocked it down. He would go nuts, and a pretty cool moment. One of the workers at the Toyota Center actually carried him off the court.

Here is another look. It goes in. That however was the highlight of the night guys at Toyota Center, because the Rockets were absolutely robbed of a win. James Harden got hacked on the way to the basket as he was trying to win and game and Marcus had the game winner for the Grizzlies.

I'm a little upset about it, as you know, guys, because I'm a Houston Rockets fan.

(CROSSTALK)

SCHOLES: Yes, he was mad. He went after the officials after the game.

BERMAN: Maybe that guy who hit the half-court shot and won the money, can lend some to Peyton Manning who no doubt --

SCHOLES: Oh, I'm sure he needs it, right?

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Pay cut down to $15 million. Poor Peyton manning.

SCHOLES: Makes $4 million in pizzas, selling pizzas every year.

ROMANS: Yes, maybe.

BERMAN: Andy Scholes, great to see you this morning.

SCHOLES: Have a good one.

BERMAN: Twenty-six minutes after the hour.

A knife-wielding man attacking the American ambassador in South Korea. You can see it there -- his face slashed as he was about to give a speech. What was behind the attack? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)