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EARLY START

Search Expands for Teens Lost at Sea; Did Obama Ignore Ethiopia's Election Abuses?; Trump Targets Obama. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired July 28, 2015 - 04:00   ET

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


[04:00:14] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: New overnight, the search for two missing teens off the Florida coast growing in size and scope. The navy scouring the area the size of Indiana. And we will hear from the parents of the missing boys.

The president wraps up an historic overseas trip, but what did he say that has him in some hot water. A live report just moments away.

And the Republicans in the race for the White House. Well, they're saying a lot of things, slamming President Obama following his most pointed remarks yet about the Republican field. We will have the reaction.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm John Berman. It is Tuesday, July 28th, 4:00 a.m. in the East. Christine Romans is off today.

Developing this morning, the search for two boys in Jupiter, Florida, lost at sea has focused further north, about 60 miles off the coast of Jacksonville, an area the size of Indiana. Coast Guard officials say they have been searching for Perry Cohen and Austin Stephanos for 72 hours, night and day. They're not giving up hope they say and neither are the boys' mothers who spoke last night to Anderson Cooper.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAMELA COHEN, MOTHER OF MISSING 14-YEAR-OLD PERRY COHEN: Both boys are very, very comfortable on the water. They are just as comfortable on a boat and on the water as they are on land. They are avid fishermen, they're avid swimmers, they are extremely athletic and very skilled and knowledgeable about being on the water which is one of the reasons why the search and rescue has maintained the force it has because there is such strong belief that they will be rescued and found very soon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Let's get the latest from the search now from CNN's Martin Savidge.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. Of course, the families continue to be hopeful that those two

teenagers will be found alive and well. But the Coast Guard actually says, you know, there is actually reason to have that hope. They say, one, they are aggressively searching but two, given the weather conditions in the Atlantic that they are seeing, it is possible a person in the water could survive for four to five days. This would be day four.

One troubling factor is, of course, that their boat was found upside down and they weren't with it. Now, we don't know how it got upside down or when it happened. The authorities say that they sent a rescue swimmer down to investigate.

One of the things he noted of the vessel, the engine cover of the outboard was off. Did that mean they had some kind of a mechanical breakdown of some sort? And then later that afternoon, Friday, we're talking some severe storms went by, which on land may not seem that bad, but when you're out in the water in a small boat, that could actually be very bad.

And then also, the finding of the boat itself. The coast guard says there is good and bad to that. The bad is the fact you did not find the two young men with it. The good is it gives them a specific area to search and by using drift and current models, they can extrapolate. The bad is, it is much harder to find a person in the water than it is to find a boat. But, again, back to where I started with, there is still reason for hope -- John.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: All right. Thanks to Martin Savidge for that.

Happening now, President Obama in the final hours in the trip to Africa, a trip that is focused on the fight against terrorism and for human rights. But President Obama is coming under fire for ignoring Ethiopia's human rights issues during his time there. The president praised the country's government as democratically elected, even as his aides expressed concern about the integrity of those elections.

This morning, the president becomes the first ever sitting president to speak before the African Union.

CNN's Robyn Kriel joins us now live from Addis Ababa with the latest.

Good morning, Robyn.

ROBYN KRIEL, CNN AFRICA CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.

Yes, his words about Ethiopia being elected democratically did cause some controversy. Obviously, there are a number of undemocratic things about Ethiopia, including the incarceration of journalists, including the 100 percent vote win that the ruling party enjoyed earlier this year, just sort of just about a month ago.

And they have come under tremendous criticism for this because President Obama's visit, a lot of opposition and democracy groups say this is legitimizing the Ethiopian government and therefore facing that 100 percent win, which a lot of people say could have been impossible, only have been impossible really because it was 500-odd seats, just legalizes the fact that the Ethiopian government rules this country with an iron fist and rules it in an authoritarian regime.

BERMAN: Robyn Kriel in Ethiopia -- key moment for the president today when he speaks to the African Union, a historic moment -- thanks so much, Robyn.

[04:05:05] The president took time in Ethiopia to slam two Republicans who want his job. With Donald Trump calling him a disaster, and Mike Huckabee accusing him of marching Israel to the door of the oven, the president did not hesitate to fire back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The particular comments of Mr. Huckabee are I think part of just a general pattern that we have seen that would be considered ridiculous if it weren't so sad. When you get rhetoric like this, maybe it gets attention and maybe this is just never pushed Mr. Trump out of the headlines. But it's not the kind of leadership that is needed for America right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Mike Huckabee, not backing down. The former Arkansas governor reissued the warning that the deal with Iran could lead to Israel's demise.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Three times I have been to Auschwitz. When I talked about the oven door, I have stood at that oven door. I know exactly what it looks like, 1.1 million people killed. For 6,000 years, Jews have been chased, and hunted and killed all over this earth. And when someone in the government says we're going to kill them, I think, by gosh, we better take that seriously.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So, Donald Trump, he did not pass the opportunity to pass his view that the Iran nuclear deal and president are bad for America.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's probably the worst president in the history of our country. He's a very divisive person, which is why he brings this kind of stuff up. And he should have devoted more time to working on a good nuclear deal with Iran instead of what he's doing, because he is just a disaster for our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: This morning at 10:00 Eastern, Secretary of State John Kerry, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, and the energy secretary Earnest Moniz, they will testify in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the Iran nuclear agreement.

The House Select Committee on Benghazi has postponed hearing scheduled for Wednesday after the State Department tentatively agreed to turnover new documents. Those new documents include 5,000 pages of e- mails fro Hillary Clinton's top staff during her time as secretary of state. The chairman of the Select Committee warns that if the documents produced are what he calls anemic or underwhelming, again, his words, he will schedule a compliance hearing.

The chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee is calling on President Obama to fire IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. Republican Jason Chaffetz of Utah accused Koskinen of misleading Congress and failing to cooperate with an investigation into claims that the agency illegally targeted tea party groups applying for nonprofit status. House Republicans also announced they have begun contempt proceedings against the IRS chief.

New developments on the death of Sandra Bland, the prosecutor in Prairie View, Texas, announced a panel of lawyers will be brought in to help his office investigate the case. That case could go to a grand jury next month. Police say Bland hanged herself in her jail cell three days after she was arrested during a routine traffic stop.

In Medford, Massachusetts, a 30-year veteran police detective has been placed on leave for threatening to shoot a motorist in the head. That motorist identified only as Michael happened to have a camera on his dashboard when off-duty Detective Stephen LeBert pulled him over Sunday night for driving the wrong way to a traffic circle. At first, Michael says he tried to back away because Detective LeBert was not in uniform.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DRIVER: Oh, I didn't know you were a cop.

COP: I'll blow a hole right through your (EXPLETIVE DELETED head. I'll put a hole right through your head. Pull over.

DRIVER: OK, OK, OK, OK.

COP: You're lucky I'm a cop because I'd be beating the (EXPLETIVE DELETE) out of you right now.

DRIVER: Geez.

COP: Give me your license.

DRIVER: I also want to let you know --

COP: Give me your license.

DRIVER: OK, I also want to let you know I have a dash camera.

It was nerve wracking when someone is like, hey, I'm going to shoot you, digging for his gun, telling me he's going to shoot me. I'm like, that's a bit extreme, don't you think? (END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Medford's police chief calls the Detective LeBert's actions troubling.

A woman in West Virginia who killed her attacker in self defense may have inadvertently led police to a serial killer. Investigators now suspect that Neal Falls may be connected to murders in several states. The woman who survived the attack in her home work as an escort. She tells police she fought him off, grabbing his gun and firing the fatal shots.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HEATHER, ESCORT KILLED ATTACKER IN SELF-DEFENSE: When he strangled me, he would not let me get any air. And when he laid the gun down to get the rake out of my hands, I shot him. I knew he was there to kill me. I could tell he had already something, because he said that he was going to prison for a long time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Police say evidence found at Falls' car included a kill kit which could link him to a string of murders in other states.

This morning, the FBI is investigating suspicious packages sent to government buildings across Oregon. Some of the mail contained an unknown substance. The U.S. postal inspector said it is very likely the mail was all related.

[04:10:00] He said he could not comment on the nature of the letters, but said there was no reason to believe the general public is at risk.

Chinese stocks struggle to recover after a brutal fall in trading yesterday. The 8.5 percent slide in the Shanghai index came after a couple of weeks of relatively calm as government regulators intervened to try to shore up the market.

So, let's get the latest on what is going on right now from Andrew Stevens live this morning in Hong Kong.

Good morning, Andrew.

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning to you, John.

Yes, good morning to you, John.

I think panic over for the Tuesday trade in China. Yes, the market did close down about 1.7 percent, but nothing like that incredibly steep fall we saw yesterday. That dogleg there, that shows you what the market did today after that big, big fall, 8.5 percent on Monday.

The reason for this one has come so much is basically the state is buying. Chinese security regulators saying very clearly after the market closed last night, John, that they were prepared to step back into the market once again to basically prop it up. So, the question is why did it fall so radically on Monday? It is

still unclear as to exactly why because it is hard to get the real information out. But it appears after the three weeks of relative calm with the markets going up by 16 percent after China had issued a lot of measures to support the market, perhaps they stood back on Monday to see whether that calm would prevail without such heavy handed government action. And that was the answer there, another steep selloff.

What that tells us is that there's still a lot of selling pressure in this market and the government is still going to be very active to keep this market going. It is probably still 60 percent up from a year ago, but the question now is how far is the government prepared to let it fall before it stabilizes. That's going to be the question. So, it's going to be volatile for some time to come, John.

BERMAN: All right. Andrew Stevens for us in Hong Kong, and it is that volatility.

Let's get more on the impacted markets here. Alison Kosik is here with that.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: Volatility here. And actually, it looks like it could be quite a good day here on Wall Street. We could see things turn around. Stock futures are higher at the moment, shaking off that turbulence in China.

But as you saw, that wasn't the case yesterday, when the Dow fell 128 points. Stocks have dipped for five days in a row now, the worse losing streak since January. What investors are worrying about at this point is the health of the global economy and a looming interest rate hike.

Today, the Federal Reserve two-day meeting will begin. The rate hike is coming possibly as early as September. And low rate had been key to the bull markets long run.

We're also going to get a closer look at the health of corporate America with earnings from heavy weights like Twitter, Ford, UPS and Pfizer.

We're also keeping an eye on oil prices. They're following this morning. Crude oil just above $47 a barrel right now. The lowest since March, and that's a reaction to China's slowing growth and supply glut that continues to grow and grow.

Great news if you are a driver, though.

BERMAN: Watch that plunge. It keeps going down.

All right. Alison, thanks so much.

KOSIK: Sure.

BERMAN: A series burst of heat moving toward the northeast and it will get worse before it gets better. Let's get to meteorologist Ivan Cabrera with more -- Ivan.

IVAN CABRERA, AMS METEOROLOGIST: John, the heat continues to build, and in fact, the humidity as well. So, we're talking about temperatures in the 90s. But it's going to feel like it's in the 100s.

Look a this, Little Rock, 108. Memphis, 108. It will be about 104 in Jackson. Birmingham, Atlanta pushing 100. You get the idea here.

But look at New York into the low 90s. That's the way it's going to feel this afternoon as the heat continues to build. Temperatures by Wednesday into the mid-90s. We go back the other direction which is what we want to go. The temperatures in the middle 80s for this time of year.

The nation's capital also into the low and mid 90s. with high temperatures. So, we are getting into August here and it is going to be hot, specifically for New York here. Over the next few days, temperatures extended heat wave into the 90s, dipping in the low 90s, but above average for this time of year. And that continues through the weekend. There will be no showers or thunderstorms to cool this off.

So, hang in there. It is going to be a long stretch of hot weather -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Ivan, thanks so much.

NATO less than an hour away from a critical meeting in the battle against ISIS. We will preview what's to expect. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:17:18] BERMAN: In just a few minutes, the crucial meeting of the battle against ISIS, a NATO session called by Turkey to discuss dramatic new steps in the fight with ISIS. Also, other security threats along Turkey's border.

For the first time, Turkey has entered the fight, launching air strikes and allowing U.S. planes to use Turkish bases. At the top of the agenda today, the establishment of a so-called safe zone inside Syria.

Let's bring in CNN's Jomana Karadsheh for the latest -- Jomana.

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, we are not expecting to see any sort of military action or military decisions coming out of this NATO meeting. It is called for under Article 4 of the Washington Treaty of NATO. This is when a member of the alliance feels that its territory or territorial integrity is under threat.

We would expect Turkey here to be briefing other members on the action that it has been taking over the past few days and also for consultations with other members. And as you mentioned also on the agenda, they will likely discuss what Turkey has been pushing for and calling for the so-called safe zone. Now, this is what Turkey wants to see along its border with Turkey in

Syria in northern Syria. They want to clear the 60 miles that are still under control of ISIS. They want to clear these areas is controls to create very much a buffer zone there to protect Turkey from militant attacks, from ISIS being right on its door step.

And also, Turkish officials saying that it will be an area where refugees feeling the Assad regime or ISIS can stay in that area. Now, while this could be potentially manned from the air by coalition air power, it is really unclear how it's going to be implemented on the ground just yet.

Lots of questions and complexity about what ground forces are going to be doing that and, of course, here -- lots of complexity when it comes to that issue. We also heard from the Turkish prime minister speaking to Christiane Amanpour on CNN, mentioning this safe zone as something very important for Turkey and also blaming the situation currently. The rise of ISIS in Syria on the international committee saying it is the inaction by the world that has led to the rise of ISIS there and the fight for power by the Assad regime that created that vacuum that allowed it to thrive, calling ISIS a product of the Syrian crisis, John.

BERMAN: All right. Jomana, thanks so much. Again, that big NATO meeting about 40 minutes away.

The Boy Scouts announce historic change, but some are throwing up a red flag. We will tell you about the controversy, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:23:33] BERMAN: It is now official. The Boy Scouts of America has lifted its blanket ban on the openly gay adult scout leaders and employees. Reaction is pouring in and the changes sparking strong resistance from some quarters, especially Mormon officials. The Church of Latter Day Saints, the largest single sponsor of Boy Scouts, says it may leave the organization. In a statement, the LDS church says it is deeply troubled by the policy changed, despite a compromise allowing religious based groups to set their own policies on the long divisive issue.

New York's LaGuardia Airport, yes, it gets no respect. It was voted the worst airport in America, probably deservedly so. Vice President Biden even compared it to a third world country, but now, LaGuardia is getting a makeover.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo with Biden at his side announced a $4 billion plan to completely redesign the airport. It will break ground next year with the completion date set for 2020.

There is actual gold in the shallow waters off Florida's Treasure Coast. A salvage operation uncovered more than $1 million of gold coins and artifacts from a shipwreck nearly 300 years old. It includes a rare gold coin made especially for the king of Spain. The discovery came a few weeks ago, but kept under wraps until now. The U.S. Olympic Committee is looking for a few good cities to bid for

the 2024 Summer Olympic Games now that Boston has withdrawn. Boston had been the U.S. candidate, but pulled the plug on the bid Monday. Mayor Marty Walsh declined to sign the host city contract that would make Boston responsible for Olympic cost overruns.

[04:25:06] Really, the people of Boston never got behind this bid. Runner up Los Angeles is expressing interest in taking Boston's place.

NFL training camp getting under way. The Arizona Cardinals are breaking new ground, hiring the first female coach in the league. The Cards announced Jen Welter has been added to their staff as a training camp and pre-season coaching intern. Welter expressed her appreciation on Twitter, saying she is honored to be part of the team and gave special thanks to Arizona head coach Bruce Arians.

It is now day four of the search of two missing teenage boys missing off the Florida coast. The search grid is growing and the boys' parents refuse to give up hope. We'll have the very latest, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: New overnight, the search expanding for two teens missing off the Florida coast. New resources in the search which has grown to almost 40,000 square miles.

The president with some last minute business this morning before leaving Ethiopia. What did he say about his host country that could sour this historic trip? A live report moments away.

And a full contact campaigning. The Republicans go after the president and still each other in a new round of high stakes campaigning, the scramble to get on the debate stage. You will hear what they said.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm John Berman. About 29 minutes after the hour right now. Christine Romans is off today.

Developing this morning, the search for two 14-year-old boys from Jupiter, Florida, lost at sea has focused further north, about 60 miles off the coast of Jacksonville and enlarged to an area the size of Indiana.