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EARLY START

Trump Angry Aides Are Admitting He Lost Debate; Sanders Joins Clinton In New Hampshire; Yellen Pressed On Political Motives; Russia Ready To Resume Syria Talks?; FBI Reveals Attempted Election Cyberattacks; Child Care More Expensive Than College. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired September 29, 2016 - 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: Protests escalate overnight in California over the deadly police shooting of an unarmed African- American man. This, as police reveal what was in that man's hand when he was shot down.

Welcome back to EARLY START, I'm Christine Romans.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm John Berman. We're looking at 30 minutes after the hour right now. And this morning, Donald Trump says he won the first debate no matter what anyone else says or no matter what the polls say, for that matter.

In fact, in a conference call, campaign officials suggested Trump is angry at some aides and advisers for publicly admitting that he struggled in the first debate and they've been pushing him to change tactics for the second.

And in a rally last night Trump even raised a new conspiracy theory that the Internet is rigged against him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The new post-debate poll that just came out -- the Google poll has us leading Hillary Clinton by two points nationwide and that's despite the fact that Google's search engine was suppressing the bad news about Hillary Clinton. How about that? How about that?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Googlegate -- now this is something that CNN and others have looked into -- the idea that Google somehow rigging its results in searches. It's not true.

ROMANS: Meantime, Trump is also refusing to back down on his criticism of one-time Miss Universe, Alicia Machado. Overnight, Trump told "FOX NEWS" he saved Machado from being fired by pageant officials after she gained weight. In return, as Trump put it, I got nothing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: This is a person, Bill, that was the first one under my ownership and she did not do well. She had a lot of difficulties and, you know, they wanted to fire her. The company, itself, wanted to fire her. I saved her job. I bet you if I -- if you put up and added up all the time I spoke to her it was probably less than five minutes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Overnight, we also got our first look at talking points the campaign is using to defend Trump in the Machado controversy. They focus almost exclusively on Bill Clinton's extramarital affairs, saying that Hillary bullied Bill's accusers, asking why Monica Lewinsky has not spoken up during the campaign, and arguing that Hillary Clinton's claims she is some kind of a feminist champion is a joke.

BERMAN: All right. Today, Hillary Clinton -- she is in Iowa, the same day early voting kicks off in that state. That's no coincidence. As of today 11 states now offering early voting, including New Hampshire where Sec. Clinton is getting a new, more aggressive assist from former rival Bernie Sanders. He's trying to give Clinton a boost with younger voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So I am asking you here, today, not only to vote for Sec. Clinton but to work hard to get your uncles and your aunts, to get your friends to vote. If anybody tells you that this election is not important, you ask them why the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson and other billionaires -- why they are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to elect their candidates.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: All right, let's talk about all the day in politics -- the one that passed, the one that's coming ahead with the managing editor of CNN Politics Digital, Zachary Wolf. Good morning, Zach.

There you have Bernie Sanders out there really trying to help Hillary Clinton pull in -- pull in the millennial voter, the voter who really went for him -- the millennial Democrats who really went for him. And then you have the first lady of the United States -- no surprise -- in Pennsylvania yesterday talking to college students. Let's listen to a little bit of what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: We also need someone who is steady and measured because when making life or death, war or peace decisions, a president just can't pop off or lash out irrationally. No, we need an adult in the White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Does Michelle Obama's popularity help Hillary Clinton with millennials? ZACHARY WOLF, CNN POLITICS DIGITAL, MANAGING EDITOR: Yes, I think it does, and that was quite the stem-winder that she delivered yesterday. You're going to see Bernie Sanders, now that Congress is out of session, go, I think, a lot more aggressively to college campuses.

Michelle Obama is an effective ambassador for anybody and she's -- ever since that Democratic Convention speech she has really shown that she's vested in trying to help out Hillary Clinton even after their, you know, troubled relationship back in 2008.

So, you know -- and with all the polls tightening recently, Democrats -- the stakes have never been higher for them. You're going to start to see this more and more and especially in these college campuses. They're going to need more help with millennials because those young voters -- their perception of Hillary Clinton is back from when they were born when her husband was president.

ROMANS: Right.

BERMAN: You know, you can just see where the Clinton team is going. They had -- they had Hillary Clinton at Temple University, Joe Biden at Drexel, Michelle Obama at La Salle, and Bernie Sanders out in New Hampshire. Clearly, this is something they're very focused on.

[05:35:00] As for the Trump campaign, they bought themselves another day of coverage yesterday on Alicia Machado. She is the former Miss Universe who Donald Trump criticized for gaining weight when he owned the pageant back -- I think was 1996. Donald Trump went on T.V. yesterday morning, he repeated those criticisms. And last night on Bill O'Reilly he said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: This is a person, Bill, that was the first one under my ownership and she did not do well. She had a lot of difficulties. And, you know, they wanted to fire her. The company, itself, wanted to fire her. I saved her job. I bet you if I -- if you put up and added up all the time I spoke to her it was probably less than five minutes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: You know, it's interesting. This is bait that Hillary Clinton dangled at the end of the first debate. Donald Trump didn't really address it on the debate floor but, man, the day after, and days after, he certainly did.

WOLF: You know, this is another example of Trump. When these things happen you think also of the father of the Muslim soldier who was killed the day after in the Democratic Convention. Trump can't seem to help himself. He doesn't seem able to make these sort of small scandals turn into very big scandals when he goes out the day after and really attacks the people who raise questions about him.

ROMANS: Zach, what does this say about the advice that Donald Trump is taking or not taking, or the advice that is around him? You know, there was some really interesting "New York Times" reporting about just what exactly was happening as he was preparing or not preparing for the debate.

And then, now our own reporting about how Donald Trump is mad at surrogates -- furious at surrogates who are going out there saying, you know, we're going to try to help him prepare differently next time so he wins the second debate. He doesn't -- he doesn't like that.

WOLF: Well, you know, I'm not sure about what advice he's taking or not. You can tell that the top -- the decision-maker in this campaign is clearly Donald Trump --

ROMANS: Right.

WOLF: -- and he's leading from his gut. And when somebody like Alicia Machado comes out and says something about him, with the help of Hillary Clinton, he takes the bait and he fires back.

BERMAN: One thing that seems to be dangled out there by the Trump campaign is the idea that maybe he will go after Hillary Clinton harder on Bill Clinton and his indiscretions as part of some internal talking points memo in how to deal with the Alicia Machado situation. Talk about Bill Clinton, talk about Monica Lewinsky, talk about Hillary Clinton really being an enabler. Why do they think that this is a potent line of attack?

WOLF: Well, you know, I think that Hillary Clinton's big problem is her honest and trustworthiness. If they can paint her as someone who is -- who is, you know, devilishly trying to, you know, go after Bill Clinton's accusers -- the facts of that, I think, will be something, if we even get into them, that are up for dispute. But I think that that will add to that. And, plus, it's something that they would rather talk about than Alicia Machado, for instance. It's not a good chapter in the Clinton's past.

ROMANS: You'd have to imagine that team Clinton is ready for that when it happens. That they have thought about it maybe for the 10 years that she has been running her president.

BERMAN: Her advisers have been coming on our air and making clear that she's ready for that. It's a question she's got an answer to, at least on a debate stage. Whether the voters but that answer is a different story, but they know it could be coming.

Zach Wolf, great to have you with us. Thanks so much.

WOLF: Thank you.

BERMAN: Families of the victims of the 9/11 terror attacks are now legally free to sue Saudi Arabia. Both chambers of Congress voting overwhelmingly to override President Obama's veto of the Saudi lawsuit bill. This is the first time the president has suffered a veto override in his presidency.

But in a CNN town hall last night he blamed politics for the setback even though lawmakers from both parties opposed him. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm concerned -- and this is not just my concern -- General Dunford, chairman of the Joints Chiefs, said this is a bad idea. The Secretary of Defense said it was a bad idea. And then we found out some of the people who voted for it said, frankly, we didn't know what was in it and there was no debate of it and it was basically a political vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: The president's press secretary called the Senate's override vote the single most embarrassing thing the Senate has done in decades. That suggestion is provoking anger from some Democrats with one aide calling the comment "amateur hour at the White House".

ROMANS: All right, Janet Yellen facing tough questions about the Federal Reserve's political motives. A Republican congressman questioned her yesterday for what he described as a conflict of interest with one Fed governor.

That governor is Lael Brainard. She's a voting member of the Fed, a former Under Secretary of the Treasury Department and economic adviser to President Bill Clinton. Before that, she worked in consulting. But she donated to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and there is speculation Brainard is seeking a top position in Clinton's administration if she's elected and that got Congressman Scott Garrett's attention.

[05:40:00] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. SCOTT GARRETT (R), NEW JERSEY: If you learned that she has had communications with Clinton as far as trying to get a job, would that change your opinion as to whether she should be asked to recuse herself?

JANET YELLEN, CHAIR, FEDERAL RESERVE: I don't think that there is a conflict of interest.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: It is legal for Fed governors to donate to campaigns but Garrett argues she should not be allowed to if the Fed truly is free of political influence.

BERMAN: All right, protesters ignoring calls for calm in California after the police shooting of an African-American man. What police just revealed about the investigation coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Despite the mayor's call for peace and patience, protests are escalating -- or escalated overnight in El Cajon in California in the wake of a fatal police shooting of an African-American man. Protesters marched in the streets holding signs and chanting and blocking traffic. Some jumped on a bus at one point. There were reports that bottles were thrown.

[05:45:00] Police now say the object that 38-year-old Alfred Olango drew from his pocket and pointed at officers when they shot him was this vaping -- a smoking device.

ROMANS: Authorities in Townville, South Carolina are searching for answers after a 14-year-old allegedly opened fire outside of an elementary school Wednesday, wounding a teacher and two students. The teenage suspect was taken to the ground by a volunteer firefighter. The suspect now in custody.

Police say the school shooting came just after that suspect -- the teenager's father was fatally shot. Forty-seven-year-old Jeffrey Osborne was found at his home about two miles from the elementary school.

The teacher and one of the students wounded are out of the hospital. The other student is still recovering after emergency surgery. We certainly wish those kids and that school well. It's a really, really tough situation for them.

BERMAN: All right. Let's take a look at what's coming on "NEW DAY". Chris Cuomo joins us now. Good morning, sir.

ROMANS: Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": I'm getting hit with the allergies. You guys getting hit with the allergies at all? You feeling it?

BERMAN: Kids up all night coughing. It's there.

CUOMO: Oh, you got it? All right, well, J.B. is usually immune to most things that affect average men so I'm surprised to hear anything from him.

BERMAN: I'm more machine than man.

CUOMO: That is true, that is true -- bionic. All right, so we're going to be talking about the campaign in a little bit of a different way this morning. Donald Trump telling his supporters to follow the money when it comes to Hillary Clinton's campaign contributions.

This morning we're going to take a closer look at a new "Newsweek" report that follows allegations of following the money when it comes to Trump with his business interests, traveling to Cuba during the embargo. We're going to take a closer look at the new information and discuss if it would sway voters, is it relevant, should it be relevant?

Plus, they asked tough questions last night. I hope you got to see President Obama doing his veterans town hall with Jake Tapper. The widow of an Army vet who shared serious concerns with the president is going to join us to discuss what she says needs to be done to help vets. That will be on today will all the headlines from around the world, my friends. ROMANS: All right, can't wait. I'll give you some throat lozenges. We'll come up there and help you out there with your -- with your allergies. Thanks, Chris.

CUOMO: Thank you.

ROMANS: The skies just got a little more unfriendly. I'm going to tell you why there's a rise in passengers behaving badly when we get an EARLY START on your money, next. Why do you think it is?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:51:25] ROMANS: President Obama leaves for Jerusalem this afternoon to lead the U.S. delegation at the funeral for Shimon Peres. (Video playing) You're looking at live pictures of the Knesset where the former Israeli prime minister and president is lying in state right now. Members of the public and dignitaries are arriving to pay their respects. One dignitary who arrived there a few moments ago, former president Bill Clinton.

Flags are flying at half-staff across Israel and as a show of respect for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, flags in the U.S. have been ordered to fly at half-staff as well. We'll continue to monitor that all morning.

BERMAN: Russia now says it wants to resume talks with the U.S. to work out some kind of a peace deal in Syria but a senior U.S. official says Russia's ceasefire talk is not serious. This comes after Secretary of State John Kerry told his Russian counterpart that the U.S. was preparing to suspend talks with Russia unless it stops helping the Syrian regime's aerial assault on Aleppo.

CNN senior international correspondent Frederik Pleitgen live for us from Beirut. Fred, you just got out of Syria. What is the latest?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, I think all this really shows how frustrated and, really, fed up the U.S. is with the way that the Russians have been trying to negotiate this ceasefire agreement.

Remember, there was an agreement in place that was supposed to see humanitarian aid get into Aleppo. That never happened. Then the ceasefire crumbled and that's when the Russians and the Syrian government launched this massive offensive on the eastern districts of Aleppo.

And, you know, it's not only the amounts of airstrikes that have really increased, it's also the munitions, themselves, that have gotten a lot more tough. Apparently, bunker-busting bombs being used, as well, according to the State Department. Now, the Russians say that they're quite angry at the language of the State Department. They say that they consider this to be an ultimatum and they blame the U.S. for the ceasefire falling apart.

Meanwhile, on the ground in Syria -- and you're right, we've just returned from there, literally, a couple of hours ago -- the situation in eastern Aleppo continues to be absolutely dire. There's airstrikes going on. There's a lot of people who have been killed and UNICEF now says that at least 50 percent of those who have been killed or injured are children. And still, of course, all those battles continuing to rage on.

The one thing that isn't happening, John, is even though there's a ground offensive in place and you have these airstrikes, there's very little movement on the frontlines -- very little territory being gained or lost. But at the same time, many people getting killed in the process, John.

BERMAN: All right, Frederick Pleitgen for us. Thanks so much, Fred.

ROMANS: All right, new this morning, the FBI revealing more attempted election cyberattacks. Two law enforcement officials say investigators think Russia is behind the hacking attempts on voter registration sites in more than a dozen states. They say hackers are looking for weaknesses that will let them enter election computer systems. The FBI director, James Comey, making it clear no information was changed and no voting systems were at risk.

BERMAN: An angry new defense of FBI integrity by Bureau director James Comey. This, in the wake of his recommendation not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for using a private email server. Comey testified before the House Judiciary Committee and got a little emotional about all the name-calling that he and his staff have endured. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: You can call us wrong, you can call me a fool. You cannot call us weasels, OK? That is just not fair and I hope we haven't gotten to a place in American public life where everything has to be torn down on an integrity basis just to disagree. You can disagree with this. There is just not a fair basis for saying that we did it in any way that wasn't honest and independent. That's when I get a little worked up, sorry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: House Republicans are particularly upset with Comey for immunity deals given to Clinton's former chief of staff, Cheryl Mills. The FBI director says that decision was made by the Justice Department.

ROMANS: All right. In California, the statute of limitations on rape is no more. Governor Jerry Brown has signed a bill repealing the law that bars prosecution if an alleged sexual assault happened more than 10 years earlier. Calls for the change grew after dozens of women came forward with accusations against Bill Cosby, but many of them were decades old, unable to be prosecuted.

[05:55:00] BERMAN: Voters in New Hampshire are now free to snap a selfie with their ballot this November and share it on social media. A federal appeals court ruled that the state's ballot selfie ban is unconstitutional. Lawmakers argued that pictures of ballots could be used to help buy votes but the court dismissed that notion citing a lack of evidence.

ROMANS: All right, it's about five minutes to the top of the hour on this Thursday morning. Let's get an EARLY START on your money.

Dow futures higher -- nice gains yesterday. Oil prices jumped on news of a production freeze. They're giving back a little bit this morning. Stock markets in Europe are rising. Shares in Asia also up.

More trouble for Samsung. Not phones catching fire, but washing machines exploding. U.S. regulators warning that certain top-loading Samsung washing machines have safety issues following reports that some have exploded. It suggests people use only the delicate cycle to wash bedding and bulky items. The agency said it's working with Samsung on a fix for this issue.

Child care costs have been a big topic on the campaign trail. A new report shows just how expensive child care is. The average cost of full-time daycare for kids up the age of four, $9,500 a year. That's according to the think tank, New America. That is more than the average cost of in-state college tuition, but not tuition room and board. That means parents earning the median household income of about $56,500 -- they're going to shell out 17 percent of their pay for the care of just one little child.

Hillary Clinton wants to cap child care costs at 10 percent of income. Donald Trump is proposing a child care tax deduction. And this is why I call them cost centers, and they are.

The skies are getting a lot more unfriendly. Data out this morning shows a 17 percent increase in the number of unruly passenger incidents onboard commercial flights last year. There were nearly 11,000 reports of flyers behaving badly around the world in 2015. There were only 9,300 in 2014. It looks like -- the group says more effective deterrents are needed.

The number of people flying globally is also increasing so there are more people on these planes and about one-quarter of the cases involve drunk passengers. Researchers says the vast majority of those consumed alcohol before they got on the plane. You road warriors out there have all been on a flight, right, with some like crazy guy in first class having five cocktails?

BERMAN: That's not me.

ROMANS: No, no, I didn't mean you, John.

BERMAN: All right. Don't look at me when you say that. I just want to go to sleep.

ROMANS: Yes. I can't sleep on a plane. It is the worst -- it is the worst birth defect I have. I cannot sleep on a plane.

BERMAN: Not with all the unruly passengers now, apparently, flying all the time.

All right, the Trump campaign getting ready to hit Hillary Clinton like they never have before. At least that's according to a new internal memo. "NEW DAY" starts right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We have six weeks to make every dream you ever dreamed for your country come true.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's not just my name on the ballot. Every issue you care about.

TRUMP: You see all the days off that Hillary takes? Day off, day off, day off.

M. OBAMA: We need an adult in the White House.

TRUMP: Bernie Sanders could have gone down in the record books. Now he's supporting her.

SANDERS: It is imperative that we elect Hillary Clinton.

DONNA COATES, WIDOW OF ARMY VETERAN BARRY COATES: We heard a lot of promises and the only true change was that I am now a widow.

B. OBAMA: We've got to meet the sacred vow that we make to our troops.

MARINE CORPORAL BRANDON RUMBAUGH: Men and women served in combat theaters four, five, even six times. What can we do to increase the number of citizens that serve our country?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone, welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Thursday, September 29th, 6:00 in the East.

Up first, after criticism about his debate performance, Donald Trump intensifying his attacks on Hillary Clinton. Trump, once again, mocking Clinton's health, and his surrogates now being told to use former president Bill Clinton's infidelities.

CUOMO: So much for the courage to stay on the high road. How is Clinton going to respond on the campaign trail? Well, she's getting help from some of the biggest names in the party. The provocative question is, is this election about to become even worse, even more of a distraction from what really matters to voters? There is so much at stake. Just 40 days to the election. Only 10 days until the next presidential debate.

We have it all covered for you. Let's begin with CNN's Phil Mattingly live for us in Council Bluffs, Iowa -- Phil.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Chris. Publicly, Donald Trump remains defiant. He believes he was the overwhelming winnerin Monday night's debate. But behind the scenes Trump's advisers are moving quickly, both to sharpen Donald Trump's debate prep but also to sharpen his attacks on Hillary Clinton -- the types of issues that they feel he left out during that debate on Monday night.

And it doesn't just extend to Donald Trump. Those attacks, which are going to be focused heavily on what they call Clinton corruption -- her ties to Wall Street, her ties to corporate interests.