Sri Lanka Death Toll Spikes To 290; Leaning Toward Impeachment; Comedian Wins Ukraine's Presidency; Nadler Plans To Call McGahn To Testify; Trump Fuming Over Fallout From Mueller Report; Ukraine's Choice 2019
DAVE BRIGGS, CNN HOST: Nearly 300 people dead in coordinated Easter terror attacks in Sri Lanka. A security warning was circulated among police 10 days earlier.</s>REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): It may be that we have undertaken impeachment. What is the best thing for the country?</s>CHUCK TODD, MSNBC HOST: Do you think this is impeachable?</s>REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): Yeah, I do.</s>MICHELLE KOSINSKI, SENIOR DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENT: Some Democrats starting to come around on impeachment in the wake of the Mueller report.</s>BRIGGS: Laughter is the best medicine, comedians score a decisive win as Ukraine's next president, bringing fresh uncertainty to a critical ally.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What are you doing? He's bleeding.</s>KOSINSKI: Claims of excessive force in Florida. Video captured police slamming a teen's head to the ground. But the deputy is saying this morning. Good morning, and welcome to "Early Start," I'm Michelle Kosinski.</s>BRIGGS: Good to see you my friend.</s>KOSINSKI: Thanks.</s>BRIGGS: Welcome back, I'm Dave Briggs. Monday, April 22, it is 4:00 a.m. in the East, 1:30 p.m. in Sri Lanka. That's where we begin this morning in the death toll in Easter Sunday attack in Sri Lanka, rising steeply to 290 people, that number includes at least two Americans. The attack involved coordinated explosions of at least eight locations across Sri Lanka, including three churches, and four high end hotels. Officials now say 24 people are under arrest.</s>KOSINSKI: The state department says terror groups are still plotting possible attacks with little or no warning. Also a police source tells CNN an internal memo was sent by authorities before the bombings that contained a warning to raise security. Senior international correspondent Ivan Watson now is live in the Sri Lankan capitol of Colombo. Ivan, tell us what we're learning right now.</s>IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Michelle, government minister here told me that this is a brand new type of terrorism for Sri Lanka. So the church behind me here is St. Anthony's shrine. It is one of three catholic churches that was bombed apparently by suicide bombers on Easter Sunday. And one of those, another government minister says that at least 102 people were killed and there was a mass funeral in that city. There were also three luxury hotels here in Colombo that were hit as well. Just incredible coordination that took place. The authorities are being very careful at this time not to point any fingers and not to blame any organization. There have been no claims of responsibility even though there's a massive death toll, 209 people killed, at least more than 500 wounded people battling for their lives in intensive care right now in hospitals. But there has been reporting and parts of a memo published by a government minister here. Earlier this month, between different departments of the security forces, warning about the threats of suicide attacks against catholic churches and against the Indian high commission, so one government minister I talked to called this negligence, the fact that nobody had followed up on that and properly protected, churches like this where there is still broken glass on the pavement in front and the clock tower appears to be stuck at roughly 8:45 a.m. That is when we believe that the explosion ripped through this church on Easter Sunday. Michelle.</s>KOSINSKI: That's just an unbelievable thing to wake up to yesterday. Thanks for that, Ivan.</s>BRIGGS: OK. Back here, a frightening scene Sunday at an Easter service in San Diego. Church members tackling a woman carrying a 10- month-old baby and a handgun after she threatened to blow up the church. Witnesses say the woman walked into the auditorium at Mount Everest Academy around noon, during a nondenominational service.</s>DAVID MICHAEL MILLER, HELPED TACKLE WOMAN HOLDING BABY AND GUN: And two minutes after I came in, this lady comes on stage, came through the back with her baby and a gun, and she starts talking all of this craziness about the rapture not being real and everyone is going to hell. After she started pointing the gun at the baby, one of the older gentleman grabbed it from her and me and a couple of other men tackled her.</s>BRIGGS: Police arrested the woman identified by local media, 31 year- old Anna Konke. They later found her 5-year-old daughter healthy and unhurt. The children are now in protective custody.</s>KOSINSKI: A growing number of Democrats are warming up to the idea of impeaching President Trump, including three key committee chairman who seemed hesitate in the past to even discuss the issue.</s>SCHIFF: Now, it may be that we have undertaken impeachment nonetheless. I think, what we are going to have to decide as a caucus is what is the best thing for the country? Is it the best thing for the country to take up an impeachment proceeding, because to do otherwise sends a message that this conduct is somehow compatible with office?</s>REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D-MD): There comes a point in life where we all have to make decisions based upon the fact that it is our watch, and you know, history, I think, even if we did not win possibly, if there were not impeachment, I think history would smile upon us for standing up for the constitution.</s>TODD: Do you think this is impeachable?</s>REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): Yes, I do. I do think that this, if proven -- if proven, which hasn't been proven yet, some of this, if proven, some of this would be impeachable, yes.</s>TODD: All right.</s>NADLER: Obstruction of justice if proven would be impeachable.</s>KOSINSKI: Still a lot of testing the waters out there. Chairman Nadler plans to call former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. According to the Mueller report, McGahn refused an order from President Trump to fire the special counsel.</s>BRIGGS: And Politico is reporting Democrats on the judiciary committee are already engaged with the Justice Department. They're making preliminary arrangements for Robert Mueller to testify next month. The White House now in full spin mode.</s>TODD: Do you feel like he is truthful?</s>RUDY GUILIANI, ATTORNEY FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP: I believe he is truthful, yes, as much as he can be in a world in which every single word you say is picked apart.</s>BRIGGS: Rudy Giuliani not stopping there. The president's personal lawyer launching a blistering attack on the Mueller report, while curiously not questioning its findings.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're saying that this document is not credible.</s>GUILIANI: No. How about looking at it this way, people who wrote an unfair to him, people who wrote an unfair report, people who came close to torturing people to get information and break them --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Came close --</s>GUILIANI: Yes, how about having --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They put forward a report that ultimately cleared President Trump.</s>GUILIANI: And that takes every cheap shot imaginable because he couldn't prove it.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You called it cheap shots. Other people call it evidence.</s>GUILIANI: But you don't just spew out all this stuff.</s>TODD: Do you and the president accept the idea that the Russian interference was designed to help President Trump?</s>GUILIANI: I believe it was. I can't tell you for sure. I haven't examine all that evidence, but I have --</s>TODD: Did the president accept that?</s>GUILIANI: -- no reason to dispute it. I think he does.</s>KOSINSKI: Boris Sanchez traveled with the president for the holiday weekend, filing this report from West Palm Beach.</s>BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Dave and Michelle, according to sources President Trump spent the weekend fuming over news coverage of details in the Mueller report and the depiction from some former White House officials of a White House in chaos. A president that is unhinged, paranoid and angry, and aides that either ignore or refuse to carry out his orders. Meantime, the president's attorney, Rudy Giuliani was on the Sunday morning talk shows. He spoke with Jake Tapper on State of the Union. And Jake asked him about some of the behavior outlined in the Mueller report, specifically whether it was ethical or moral. Listen to what Giuliani's response.</s>GUILIANI: Any candidate in the whole world in America would take information.</s>JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: From a foreign source? From a hostile foreign source?</s>GUILIANI: There's nothing wrong with taking information from Russians.</s>TAPPER: There's nothing wrong from taking information --</s>GUILIANI: It depends on where it came from. It depends on where it came from. You're assuming that the giving of the information is a campaign contribution. We do report carefully. The report says we can't conclude that because the law is pretty much against that.</s>SANCHEZ: The strategy</s>REID: from the president's legal team is one that we have seen before. They are now just questioning the credibility of people cited in Mueller's report even as they accept the report's general findings. We should point out, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is scheduled to hold a conference call with the Democratic caucus at 5:00 p.m. on Monday to talk about the possibility of pursuing impeachment. David and Michelle.</s>BRIGGS: All right, Boris, thank you. Now to an astounding story, where life imitates art. In Ukraine, a TV comedian who played a teacher who becomes president of Ukraine is now the real president of Ukraine.</s>KOSINSKI: Very convincing performance.</s>BRIGGS: Very convincing performance.</s>KOSINSKI: But wait, which is real. Wait, I'm confused.</s>BRIGGS: Tough to tell. Political newcomer, Volodymyr Zelensky, declaring victory after Sunday's presidential election. Phil Black live from Kiev with this astounding story. Look, Phil, we elected a reality show, real estate guy, but Zelensky, I cannot find a single policy, a single platform, a single stance on anything. Did I miss it?</s>PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No. You're right. It has been an extraordinary campaign, one that Zelensky has dominated throughout and he has done it in a really unusual way. You're right, he is famous in this country, not for his political experience, but as an actor and comedian, as you touch on someone who pretends to be Ukraine's president on television. On a TV show, where he is a regular guy who accidentally becomes president and then goes ahead battling corruption, and officials and goes about cleaning up the political system. That is essentially what his campaign was based upon too. No hard ideas or policies. He didn't appear in public much. He didn't give interviews. Instead, he ran online videos, cheeky online videos, attacking his opponents and he campaigned in generalities, just promising to do it better than the other guy, to clean up the system and it all worked, because the exit polls, the count so far shows a spectacular victory with securing -- him securing around 73 percent of the vote. That vote is divided up among those who simply were fed up with the status quo, a protest vote if you like, but also those who really fell for this guy, whose expectations are incredibly high and who believe that he is the man who can once and for all clean up Ukrainian politics, government, the country itself. But this is a country with big problems. A struggling economy, a war against Russian backed separatists in the East. All of this, he is going to have to start dealing with on day one. It all matters in the biggest sense, because Ukraine is on the front line against the West ongoing confrontation with Russia. This professional clown, this comedian is now the man who's going to have to be going toe to toe, facing off against a man who's not known for his easy laughs, the Russian President Vladimir Putin, Dave.</s>BRIGGS: Phil, any reaction from Putin or Russia?</s>BLACK: So, not from Putin specifically, but Russia itself is saying that Ukraine has expressed the desire for change, which is kind of obvious, but there is a theory, often expressed by Zelensky's opponent that Vladimir Putin will be very happy about this, because he is simply so inexperience. This are men with no experience in government as a commander in chief, whereas Putin, of course, as we know has been dominating his country and to a significant extent, international affairs for almost 20 years now.</s>BRIGGS: That is remarkable. Phil Black live for us in Kiev. Thanks again. In Phil's words, Michelle, a professional clown is now toe to toe with Vladimir Putin.</s>KOSINSKI: You know, in Iceland years ago a comedian won.</s>BRIGGS: Is that right?</s>KOSINSKI: And it's a great documentary, and it's called,</s>GNAAR. BRIGGS: Gnaar?</s>KOSINSKI:  GNAAR. BRIGGS: I will check on that my friend.</s>KOSINSKI: It's great. So, eight U.S. allies now could face sanctions if they keep buying oil from Iran. A big move from the state department coming up next.