[John Berman, Cnn Anchor:] Hillary Clinton hoping to gain some of those anti-Trump Republican votes in the general election. But Bernie Sanders not letting her get ahead of herself, pledging to stay in the race until the last vote is counted.
[Christine Romans, Cnn Anchor:] Huge wildfires consuming hundreds of thousands of acres of land. 90,000 people evacuated. Firefighters hoping for a change in the weather to help combat these flames. Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.
[Berman:] I'm John Berman. Nice to see you. 30 minutes past the hour right now. Kicking off a big unexpected week for Republicans this morning. Six months to go until election day. Mark your calendar for that November day. Tomorrow when no one else in the race it is all but certain that Donald Trump will sweep primaries in Nebraska and West Virginia. But no competition does not mean no drama. Trump now says he will not rule out an effort to dump House Speaker Paul Ryan as chairman of the Republican convention if Ryan fails to endorse him. The two rival leaders of the party, they meet on Thursday. No doubt on their agenda, Trump policies that Ryan says are at odds with Republican dogma like two things he seemed to shift on this weekend. The issue of raising taxes on the wealthy and perhaps a higher minimum wage. Let's get the latest from CNN Politics reporter Eric Bradner in Washington.
[Eric Bradner, Cnn Politics Reporter:] Good morning, John and Christine. The GOP civil war is raging on ahead of a big meeting this week between the party's highest ranking official, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and its presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump. Here is what Trump told ABC on Sunday about that meeting.
[Donald Trump , Presidential Candidate:] He wants to meet. He'd like to meet and I think we are meeting on Thursday. And we'll just see what happens. It's just more drama. But I think it's a mistake not to do this. We want to bring the party together. Does the party have to be together? Does it have to be unified? I'm very different than everybody else perhaps that's ever run for office. I actually don't think so.
[Bradner:] But the meeting might not heal many wounds. Ryan wants Trump to adopt more conservative policy positions. But Trump broke from the right in two big ways on Sunday. He said he wants to support higher taxes on the wealthy in exchange for a deal that would see Democrats give him a cut in business taxes and a cut for the middle class. And he also said he's open to a minimum wage increase even though he wants that to come from the states. Now all of this is happening against the backdrop of a big threat by a Trump supporter. The 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin. Palin told CNN that she is going to support Ryan's primary challenger.
[Sarah Palin , Former Vp Candidate:] I will do whatever I can for Paul Neelan. This man is a hard-working guy, so in touch with the people. Paul Ryan and his ilk, their problem is they have become so disconnected from the people whom they are elected to represent as evidenced by Paul Ryan's refusal to support the GOP frontrunner that we just said he's our man.
[Bradner:] It's the first threat of retaliation against the Trump opponent within the party that we have seen so far and it could deepen the divide Christine, John.
[Romans:] All right, Eric, thank you for that. John McCain who picked Sarah Palin as his running mate echoed her claim that Ryan and other top Republican leaders reluctant to back Trump are out of step with voters. The former Republican presidential nominee defended Trump as a strong and capable leader especially on foreign policy. And McCain offered the presumptive nominee advice on who to pick as a running mate, someone who could unite the party suggesting Senator Joanie Earnest who's tremendous and remarkable. But McCain also urged Trump to retract his slam against prisoners of war.
[Sen. John Mccain,  Arizona:] What he said about me, John McCain, that's fine. I don't require any repair of that. But when he said I don't like people who are captured, then there's a great there's a body of American heroes that I would like to see him retract that statement. Not about me. But about the others.
[Berman:] Donald Trump will be on CNN live this morning. He joins "NEW DAY" during the 7:00 hour.
[Romans:] All right. Donald Trump is ramping up the rhetoric against Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton, saying she is, quote, "married to a man who got impeached for lying." Trump accused Mrs. Clinton of being a, quote, "enabler" and added for good measure that she wants to abolish the Second Amendment. The Clinton campaign responded with a tweet that said, "It must be liberating to just have no regard for facts whatsoever." And Clinton herself responded as well. Listen to this.
[Hillary Clinton , Presidential Candidate:] I think saying that he's a loose cannon really focuses on some of the statements he's made, which I find concerning. Going back to torture, killing terrorists' families, which would be a war crime. And those are just some of the concerns that I hear people talking about, which I think does fit the definition of a loose cannon.
[Berman:] The FBI sorry. Hillary Clinton says the FBI has not yet contacted her to set up an interview about her use of a private e-mail serve while she was secretary of state.
[Clinton:] It's a security inquiry. I always took classified material seriously. There was never any material, marked classified, that was sent or received by me. And I look forward to this being wrapped up.
[Berman:] In recent weeks, investigators have interviewed top Clinton aides including her longtime close adviser, Huma Abedin. Officials tell CNN that so far investigators have found no evidence proving Clinton willfully broke the law. Happening this morning, Bernie Sanders holds a rally in New Jersey trying to capture a state where Hillary Clinton holds a pretty big lead in the polls. In Piscataway on Sunday, Sanders was defiant, showing no signs of giving up. He slammed both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. CNN's Rachel Crane was there. She has the latest.
[Rachel Crane, Cnn Correspondent:] Christine and John, Sanders was greeted by about 7,000 passionate supporters on Sunday in New Jersey. One particular point that got a lot of love from the crowd, when Sanders highlighted the fact that he performs better against presumed Republican nominee Trump than his opponent Clinton. Now he also highlighted the fact that he is well aware that this is an uphill battle. He even got specific. Take a listen.
[Sen. Bernie Sanders , Presidential Candidate:] We have still won as of today over 45 percent of the pledged delegates. But as all of you who are good in arithmetic know 45 percent is not good enough. We've got to make 50 percent. And that is what we intend to do.
[Sanders:] So from now until the last primary which will be in Washington, D.C. on June 14th, we are going to fight for every single vote.
[Crane:] Now we had a chance to speak to some of his supporters and we pressed them that if in fact Hillary Clinton is the nominee, if they would back her. And we got a mixed response. Some of them said it would be incredibly difficult for them to back Clinton if she wins the nomination. Now Sanders is back on the campaign trail today. He'll be in Atlantic City. This is of course all leading up to the New Jersey primary which is on June 7th. Same day as the California primary John and Christine.
[Romans:] Rachel Crane. Thank you, Rachel. New this morning, Uber and Lift slamming the brakes on rides in Austin, Texas. And the move could spread to other cities. Residents voted 56 percent to 44 percent against an ordinance called Proposition 1. So now to keep operating Uber and Lift would have to use fingerprinting and other background checks to hire new drivers. Now the companies argue fingerprinting relies on out-of-date databases, makes it difficult to hire enough drivers quickly, and says that's why they'll stop rides in Austin. Advocates say fingerprinting is more effective at screening out potential criminals. Uber stopped serving the Houston area after the city cancelled their passage of similar measure last month. And Uber recently paid out $25 million to the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles for misrepresenting its background check system.
[Berman:] All right. Wildfires bigger than New York City. Just hammering parts of western Canada. The fight to contain these flames, that's next.