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EARLY START

BuzzFeed Reports President Trump Ordered Michael Cohen to Lie to Congress; Top North Korean Envoy Arrives in Washington; Theresa May to Skip World Economic Forum in Davos; Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired January 18, 2019 - 04:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:30:00] DAVE BRIGGS, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking overnight, two law enforcement sources tell BuzzFeed President Trump told Michael Cohen to lie about the Moscow Trump Tower project.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: The president fires back in the shutdown grudge match pulling Nancy Pelosi's plane right before she is set to fly overseas.

BRIGGS: A police body camera captured the risky rescue of an injured woman from her burning truck in Texas.

ROMANS: Dangerous avalanches in New Mexico and Utah with a major winter storm closing in on the Midwest and the northeast both bearing the brunt of it this weekend. Get ready.

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

BRIGGS: I'm Dave Briggs. 4:31 Eastern Time. Day 28 of the longest government shutdown in our country's history, but we begin with breaking news.

BuzzFeed reporting that President Trump personally directed his longtime attorney and fixer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about a proposed Trump Tower Moscow project. BuzzFeed's sources, two law enforcement officials, say the president instructed Cohen to say negotiations to build the tower ended months before they actually did.

The sources say Cohen confirmed to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team that the president issued the order to lie to Congress. BuzzFeed reports Mueller's office learned about it through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization, internal company e- mails, text messages, and other documents.

ROMANS: Here's how Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani responded to the bombshell report. "If you believe Cohen, I can get you a great deal on the Brooklyn Bridge." But a key Democrat House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff was dead serious, saying, "The allegation that the president of the United States may have suborn perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date. We will do what's necessary to find out if that's true." It's worth noting that during his confirmation hearing this week,

attorney general nominee, William Barr, said coaching a witness to give false testimony is obstruction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: So if there was some reason to believe that the president tried to coach somebody not to testify or testify falsely, that could be obstruction of justice?

WILLIAM BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE: Yes, under that -- under an obstruction statute, yes.

GRAHAM: So if there is some evidence that the president tried to conceal evidence, that would be obstruction of justice potentially, right?

BARR: Right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: CNN has not yet corroborated that BuzzFeed story.

BRIGGS: And that's not all. Michael Cohen confirms he paid the head of a small technology company to rig two online polls in 2015 at the direction of Donald Trump. The story was first reported by the "Wall Street Journal." Cohen says he paid between $12,000 and $13,000 to John Gauger of Red Finch Solutions to manipulate two polls in Mr. Trump's favor.

The attempt was not successful. Cohen telling CNN he regrets his blind loyalty to Mr. Trump. The president's former fixer still intends to testify before Congress early next month despite expressing concern for his family.

ROMANS: All right. Rudy Giuliani cleaning up his own mess after trying to move the goal posts on possible Trump campaign collusion. Now here's what the president's lawyer told our Chris Cuomo on CNN Wednesday night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, LAWYER FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP: I never said there was no collusion between the campaign or between people in the campaign.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST, "CUOMO PRIME TIME": Yes, you have.

GIULIANI: I have no idea -- I have not. I said the president of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: That claim by Giuliani was false. He has often maintained there was no collusion by the campaign. Then yesterday he told our Dana Bash he never meant to send any new signals about what the Mueller investigation might be finding, and he followed that up with this tweet, "My statements on collusion," OK, everybody, listen carefully.

"My statements on collusion haven't changed. The misinterpretation has changed. The point is, I represent the president, not the campaign, but from both perspectives, there is no involvement in collusion with Russians on the e-mail hack, the only possible crime."

[04:35:06] BRIGGS: Got it. The Supreme Court meets behind closed doors today to discuss a mystery case related to the special counsel's Russia probe. It involves an unnamed foreign government owned corporation that's fighting a subpoena request from a Washington, D.C. based grand jury. Lower courts have already ruled the company must turn over the information that is being requested and imposed fines for every day it failed to do so.

ROMANS: It's King Kong versus Godzilla. That's how one Trump adviser describes the shutdown battle between President Trump and Nancy Pelosi. The president now denying the speaker a military plane for her trip to the warzone in Afghanistan. The move coming just before her congressional delegation was to leave. It's apparently in response to Pelosi's letter a day earlier suggesting Mr. Trump postpone the State of the Union address until the shutdown is resolved.

The president in his letter to Pelosi said, "In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate."

He's calling a trip to the warzone a public relations event.

BRIGGS: Right.

ROMANS: He just took a trip to the warzone on a shutdown as well. It's his public relations event.

The president then twisting the knife a bit more, said Pelosi's seven- day, quote, "excursion" would be rescheduled when the shutdown is over. Another top House Democrat, Adam Schiff, blasting the president for he calls childish behavior.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: All too often in the last two years the president has acted like he's in the fifth grade and to have someone who has that kind of character running the country is an enormous problem at every level.

We are co-equal branch of government and it may not have been that way over the last two years when he had a Republican Congress willing to roll over anytime he asked, but that is no longer the case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Republican Senator Lindsey Graham admonishing both sides on Twitter, "One sophomoric response does not deserve another. Speaker Pelosi's threat to cancel the State of the Union is very irresponsible and blatantly political." Graham adding President Trump denying Speaker Pelosi military travel to visit our troops in Afghanistan, our allies in Egypt and NATO, is also inappropriate.

Just hours after, the president ground the speaker, though, a lot of attention to this. A government jet touched down in West Palm Beach, Florida, with the First Lady Melania Trump on board. So government travel during a shutdown for a vacation spot but not to visit troops and commanders and NATO allies.

BRIGGS: Interesting optics to say the least.

With an address in the House chamber now uncertain, the White House considering alternative plans for the State of the Union. Some have suggested the president deliver the speech from the Senate chamber instead. That would still require 60 votes to invite the president to speak meaning the Republican majority would need some Democrats to be on board with it.

White House officials are also said to be considering a rally style State of the Union which would be coordinated through the Trump reelection campaign.

The White House will not be sending a delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos next week. According to Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, the president canceled the trip out of consideration for the 800,000 federal workers who are not getting paid because of the government shutdown. Mr. Trump pulled out of the event himself earlier this month.

ROMANS: If there is a series of recession on the horizon, the world's central banks may have trouble fighting it. Interest rates in some economies around the world remain incredibly low. In some places they're even negative. The question now is whether central banks waited too long to raise rates to more normal levels, leaving them unprepared for the next crisis.

There are concerns over political independence. President Trump has repeatedly criticized his Fed chair Jerome Powell for raising interest rates, calling him a threat. The outlook for the global economy is lower as trade tensions weigh heavily on countries like China of the International Monetary Fund to cut their growth forecast for this year. Experts warn more pain from U.S. interest rate hikes and political risks such as Brexit.

But economists say the Federal Reserve is in better shape than other central banks. The European Central Bank's key lending rate is zero percent. The Back of Japan's short term rates have been in negative territory since 2016.

BRIGGS: Vice President Mike Pence defending his wife's new job teaching at a Christian school that bans gay and lesbian students and parents. Karen Pence announced earlier this week that she was returning part-time to Immanuel Christian School in Virginia. She previously taught there for 12 years. The vice president responding to the criticism in an interview with the Catholic News Network EWTN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're used to the criticism, but I have to tell you, to see major news organizations attacking Christian education is deeply offensive to us. This criticism of Christian education in America should stop.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights advocacy group, accused the Pences of showing that their public service extends only to some.

[04:40:03] ROMANS: We've been doing this for the last couple of days, I've been getting a lot of questions about how you can discriminate against a child for his parent's sexuality or even --

BRIGGS: Nothing Christian values about those values.

ROMANS: Came through -- I mean --

BRIGGS: Speaks for itself.

ROMANS: All right. A nuclear envoy from North Korea wakes up in Washington this morning. Will it lead to a second Trump-Kim summit?

BRIGGS: And police officers struggle to pull a woman out of a burning truck. More dramatic body camera video just ahead.

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ROMANS: North Korea's lead negotiator in nuclear talks with the U.S. is in Washington this morning. He is expected to meet with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and deliver a letter from Kim Jong-un to President Trump.

The visit is the latest sign the U.S. and North Korea are finalizing plans for a second Trump-Kim summit.

CNN's Will Ripley is live in Tokyo with more.

[04:45:03] What can you tell us, Will?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Christine. Well, we know that in the coming hours North Korea's top negotiator and ex- spy chief Kim Yong Chol and his delegation will be meeting with the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the special representative for North Korea policy, Stephen Biegun. Will they go to the White House and meet with President Trump? I'm told that is the expectation on the North Korean side but that has yet to be confirmed on the U.S. side. We'll see what happens.

But if you look back at June, early June when Kim Yong Chol took that daytrip to Washington, handed over that big letter to President Trump, it was shortly thereafter they announced that the summit in Singapore would happen less than two weeks later on June 12th. The first sit- down between a U.S. president and North Korean leader. Will there be an announcement in Washington today? It seems pretty

likely given the fact that North Korea is sending such a high level delegation and given the fact that they were allowed to overnight in the nation's capital for the first time in nearly two decades. But casting a cloud of suspicion over all of it is this new Pentagon missile defense strategy that was rolled out calling North Korea an extraordinary threat to the United States.

Even though that country did not launch a single missile during all of 2018, U.S. intelligence has known that they are upgrading their missile bases and continuing possibly to grow their nuclear arsenal. A lot of people think that North Korea has more nuclear weapons now than they did at the beginning of the diplomatic process. That's going to be a big issue, a key sticking point in negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea and we really hopefully will find out if the two sides are now closer together on what denuclearization is going to look like and how it's going to play out because the North Koreans want economic relief right away, the U.S. wants North Korea to give up nukes.

Both sides have said that isn't going to happen. How are they now going to compromise? Are they coming closer together? It seems as if that needs to happen, Christine, otherwise you're going to have Trump and Kim having a summit whether it be in Hanoi, which is believed to be the front-running location, or somewhere and if they just sign another vaguely worded statement, doesn't have any specifics.

ROMANS: Right.

RIPLEY: That's not going to be a very positive development to say the least for the denuclearization process.

ROMANS: Of course. Will Ripley, I know you'll continue to follow it for us in Tokyo. Thanks, Will.

BRIGGS: The Trump administration has no idea how many children were separated from a parent or guardian at the border last year, but the total is thousands more than the 2700 the government previously acknowledged. That's according to a new report from the inspector general at Health and Human Services who says there is no effort currently being made to locate those children.

Officials estimate thousands of kids who were separated and received by HHS for care were released prior to the June 2018 court order requiring the government to identify and reunify them.

ROMANS: All right. Theresa May is skipping the World Economic Forum in Davos next week. Instead the British prime minister will stay in London to deal with the Brexit crisis. She is expected to hold calls with European leaders. You know, she barely survived a no confidence vote. Britain expected to leave the European Union on March 29th, but there is no plan in place to actually do it.

For the latest, we bring in CNN's Nic Robertson. He's live from Londonderry, Northern Ireland. And the reason you're there is you are on the front lines of sort of this crisis about what happens in the UK if they don't get this resolved.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Sure. The toughest issue in the deal so far is what they call the backstop, which is that European Union's insurance policy with the UK that if the talks really don't work out, then this backstop deal keeps the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, the new land border between the European Union and the UK if you like. Keeps that border open.

And it's important for a number of reasons. That was the reason having an open border that Northern Ireland got its peace agreement 20 years ago which ended 30 years of sectarian violence where more than 3,000 people were killed. And that part of the deal is the most contentious part because there are a lot of politicians here in Northern Ireland, those that support Theresa May and prop up her slender majority in the government in London are saying that this backstop arrangement won't do.

They think it makes Northern Ireland less part of Great Britain. So this is a contentious issue and they want to get that out of the deal. And for the European Union, that is nonnegotiable. That the backstop, the insurance to keep this border which is just a couple of miles away from where I am, to keep that border open. So that's one of the hardest things facing Theresa May. But then she's got all these other issues, the clock is ticking. No deal Brexit. Should there be a second referendum? Just no consensus and agreement. It really is in the UK politics, a period of crisis at the moment -- Christine.

ROMANS: I mean, a new referendum, from this side of the pond, we say, well, OK, fine, just make a new -- have a new referendum, right? I mean, maybe they got it wrong. But there is no time for that.

ROBERTSON: There isn't time for it. The government saying it would take over a year to organize. The clock is ticking. 70 days until Britain is supposed to leave the European Union. People here are saying that would be undemocratic to have a second referendum.

ROMANS: Right. Right.

ROBERTSON: Others are saying it's the most democratic thing that you could do.

ROMANS: The people spoke and now maybe the people are having a change of heart.

[04:50:01] All right. Thank you so much for that, Nic Robertson.

ROBERTSON: Yes.

ROMANS: A complicated story no question.

BRIGGS: Indeed.

Heart-pounding body cam video out of Texas shows the moment police officers rush to pull a woman from a burning pickup truck.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's broken. We need to cut it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The door. I got to --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where you at?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come up here. Come this way. Come on.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right here. Come on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is she OK?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey, put out the other side. Get her, get her, get her. Get her, get her. Come on. Come on. Cut through. Come out. Come over. Come over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIGGS: The accident happened overnight as police were chasing a drunk driver. Police say the victim was trying to turn into a parking lot when the suspect slammed into her traveling about 90 miles per hour. Officers pulled the woman from the car before she suffered any burns and was taken to the hospital for a possible head injury. As for the suspect, he was taken to the hospital for cuts to his face.

ROMANS: Charges were filed against him after a horrific experience.

All right. Former CBS boss Les Moonves locked in a nasty $120 million fight with the network. CNN Business, next.

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[04:55:36] ROMANS: Two skiers are lucky to be alive after they were caught in an avalanche Thursday at a ski resort in Taos, New Mexico. The ski patrol and others nearby quickly responded to the scene and were able to rescue the two skiers who were buried in the snow. Both victims were hospitalized with injuries. One is said to be in critical condition.

BRIGGS: An avalanche in Utah forcing the closure of Provo Canyon. Fortunately no people or cars were caught in the avalanche, which spilled up to 30 feet of snow on the road. The Utah Highway Department says its crews accidentally triggered the avalanche. Right now they are working to clear the road.

ROMANS: From the plains to northeast, more than 100 million people are in the path of this major winter storm this weekend.

Let's get to meteorologist Derek Van Dam with the details.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Christine and Dave. Lots of winter weather to talk about this weekend, but first our opening act, creating the light dusting of snow this morning from D.C. to New York. The bigger picture, though, the major snowstorm evolving from the Midwest through the northeast, over 100 million Americans under some sort of winter weather advisory.

Now the exact track of our low pressure system is going to determine how much rain, snow or mixture of sleet and ice we actually get along the East Coast. Here's the details in terms of timing. 8:00 p.m. Saturday evening, snow starts to make its way into the Big Apple, then it transitions to a rain-snow mix, perhaps sleet and ice involved in that as well. The back side of the system will usher in the coldest air of the season, we'll transition back to all snow for the East Coast cities.

In terms of snowfall totals, two to four inches for New York, slightly higher near Boston, over a foot to two feet for the higher elevations of upstate New York and New Hampshire and Vermont. Ice storm possible out of this system as well, but look at these temperatures dropping significantly by the end of the weekend for New York.

Back to you.

ROMANS: All right, Derek. We'll be ready.

Let's get a check on CNN Business this morning. Global stock markets are up. Optimism about U.S.-China trade talks. Look at Asian markets. You know, more than 1 percent gains. And look, London, Paris, Frankfurt, all up more than 1 percent. Again, this is the idea of soothing tensions about U.S.-China trade. U.S. futures are also higher here right now but not even 1 percent yet.

Look, Wall Street is eager to get this trade war with China over. Investors cheered a "Wall Street Journal" report saying White House officials were deliberating whether to lift tariffs on China in exchange for getting more concessions, real, real concessions from China, structural changes to how it does business.

The Dow closed 163 points higher, but ended lower than the day's highs. You can see there by that -- first the red, then the green. The Dow had been up as many as 267 points at one point. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq gained about 0.7 percent.

All right. CBS' former CEO is planning to go to court to get his severance package. CBS confirmed in a filing Thursday that Les Moonves plans to fight for his $120 million exit package. According to the filing, Moonves notified CBS Wednesday of his election to demand binding arbitration with respect to this matter. Moonves left CBS in September amid sexual misconduct allegations. CBS said it does not intend to comment further on this matter during the pending arbitration proceedings.

Netflix quickly approaching 150 million subscribers. The streaming service now has 139 million subscribers globally. Wow. And it expects to add another nine million by March. Netflix stock is down about 3 percent after it posted mixed fourth quarter earnings results. The earnings report comes as Netflix unveiled plans to raise its monthly prices. The price increase could help Netflix foot the bill for its huge spending on Compass. BRIGGS: Somewhere around $20 billion according to various reports in

future content.

ROMANS: Unbelievable, right?

BRIGGS: EARLY START continues right now. Some major breaking news.

ROMANS: Breaking overnight, top law enforcement sources tell BuzzFeed President Trump told Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the Moscow Tower project.

BRIGGS: The president fires back in the shutdown grudge match pulling Nancy Pelosi's plane right before she is set to fly to warzone.

ROMANS: A police body cam captures the risky rescue of an injured woman from her burning truck in Texas. You just won't believe this. And another reminder, (INAUDIBLE) driving very dangerous.

Good morning. And Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

BRIGGS: I'm Dave Briggs. Happy Friday, everybody. January 18th, 5:00 a.m. in the East. Day 28 of this government shutdown.