[Laura Jarrett, Cnn Anchor:] The record cold has the U.S. hunkered down. Record low temps overnight, life threatening conditions for tens of millions of people.
[Dave Briggs, Cnn Anchor:] Robert Mueller's investigation targeted by the Russians. How a pro-Russian Twitter account spread confidential information.
[Jarrett:] Go back to school. The president seething at his intelligence chiefs who publicly contradicted him on security threats.
[Briggs:] And a California woman with dementia left to wander alone outside a mental health facility in the middle of the night. A disturbing video starts your day there. Welcome back to EARLY START, everybody. I'm Dave Briggs.
[Jarrett:] And I'm Laura Jarrett. 31 minutes past the hour. The record-breaking deep freeze is moving east. But the Midwest is by no means out of the cold, cold woods. Chicago set a record cold high temperature, minus 10, without the windchill. The ultra cold weather will halt postal deliveries and close schools in the area for a second day today. In Milwaukee and Minneapolis-St. Paul public schools also stayed closed to avoid roads that look like this, if you can even see the road there. In Michigan, where it felt like minus 35 with the wind chill, the governor is pleading for people to turn thermostats down to 65 degrees until midday Friday. A fire at a compressor station is limiting gas delivery.
[Briggs:] A fire also causing big problems for firefighters in Hammond, Indiana. At 22 degrees below zero, the water immediately turning into hazardous ice. The fire chief telling us, quote, "I'm currently thawing out and so is my crew." There have been at least nine weather-related deaths across the country. Four of them in Iowa. Nationwide about 6200 flights have been canceled since Tuesday. Hazardous road conditions causing at least seven injuries with this multicar pileup in Pennsylvania.
[Jarrett:] A lot of people doing amateur science experiments including kids and parents stuck at home in Wisconsin. Take a look at that. Hot water instantly turning to ice. There's one group the weather could not deter, runners in the Arrowhead 135 ultra marathon. They kept on going. The windchill at the finish line in Tower, Minnesota, a staggering 52 degrees below zero. Some of the runners finished with their faces completely encased in ice. More than 80 million people face temperatures below zero in the coming day. Dozens of record lows are expected to be set overnight. Meteorologist Pedram Javaheri joins us live from the CNN weather center with the latest where it is warm Pedram.
[Pedram Javaheri, Ams Meteorologist:] Relatively speaking, yes, absolutely. And we're talking about still 40 below, 50 below windchills in a few spots in the upper Midwest and now as you said the energy shifting on towards the northeast. But really odd event taking place outside. Folks reporting that once they step outside, at least those initial breaths at 40 to 50 below, they hear a hissing sound when they take a breath. And of course frost quakes even reported where you have moisture in the soil beneath your feet that's freezing very quickly, the water is expanding, and you get little brief rattles beneath your feet and certainly hear the rumbles as well. But notice this, windchills at this hour in Minneapolis, minus 37. Same score out of Chicago, 19 below in Indianapolis. That's a little bit warmer than this time yesterday, so the wind is dying down just a hair, but the temps themselves without the wind just as cold. And you work your way toward the northeast, hitting in New York there at around five degrees, windchills 14 to 15 below zero at this hour. And of course airlines still severely disrupted by this. And yesterday we have reports of deicing material that was being put on top of the aircrafts that was freezing on contact across parts of the Midwest. That is in part led to some 6500 flights being either canceled or delayed. The vast majority of those across parts of the Midwest and of course Chicago O'Hare, and midway really taking the brunt of that as well. But notice this, as we go in towards Saturday, Sunday, Monday, a dramatic warming trend in store and in places like Chicago, you go from zero to 22 into the 40s eventually. New York 18 up to 37. But it gets better still. So hang in there New York, watch what happens here. You go from 20 for a high expected today up to almost 60 degrees come Tuesday afternoon. At this hour, in Central Park, it's three. So that's about a 60 about 55-degree variance from right now in Central Park to what it will feel like come Tuesday afternoon.
[Briggs:] It is with all due respect very cold in Atlanta, 20s and low 20s which is frigid.
[Javaheri:] It is in the low 20s.
[Briggs:] Warm compared to most of the country. Thank you, my friend. OK, back here, national security concerns after the Mueller probe was targeted again, but this time not by congressional Republicans, the Justice Department says a pro-Russian Twitter account targeted the investigation spreading confidential information. The information is from a case Mueller's team filed against a Russian company. The company is accused of funding an internet troll farm that interfered in the 2016 elections.
[Jarrett:] The Justice Department has been turning over evidence to the company's U.S. legal team. And Mueller's office now claims that some of that evidence showed up on a Twitter account posted from a Russian IP address. The tweets link to thousands of documents altered to make the Mueller investigation look like a big nothing burger. The documents did not have sensitive information, but the concern for the FBI is whether the people behind the account did have access to more sensitive material.
[Briggs:] Lindsey Graham wants a briefing from the FBI on the tactics the agency used to arrest Roger Stone. CNN caught those tactics the senator is questioning on video. You can see the FBI knocked on Stone's front door. Still Senator Graham, a former prosecutor, claims the American people are tired of what he calls the Mueller media circus.
[Sen. Lindsey Graham , South Carolina:] This seems to me over the top, and I don't know what the message was being sent, but I personally didn't like it. You know, I've been a prosecutor, defense attorney, it seems to be sending the wrong message that if you cross Mueller, look what's going to happen to you. Mueller, do your job, but these tactics are unacceptable given the level of threat here.
[Briggs:] President Trump telling the "Daily Caller" he is very disappointed with the way the raid went down. He says he will think about asking the FBI to review how it conducts its raids.
[Jarrett:] When President Trump receives his intelligence briefing today, it will be interesting to see whether the director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, is the one to deliver it. CNN has learned the president was seething yesterday as he watched coverage of his intel chief testifying on Capitol Hill on Tuesday and repeatedly contradict him. Two sources confirming Mr. Trump singled out DNI Coats by name. Here's why.
[Donald Trump, President Of The United States:] We have won against ISIS. We've beaten them and we've beaten them badly.
[Dan Coats, Director Of National Intelligence:] ISIS is intent on resurging and still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria.
[Trump:] Chairman Kim, we have a great chemistry and we're well on our way. You know, we signed an agreement that said we will begin the immediate denuclearization.
[Coats:] North Korea will seek to retain its WMD capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities.
[Briggs:] The president taking to Twitter to rip his intel chiefs as passive and naive concluding they should perhaps go back to school. Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer firing off a letter to Coats calling the president's criticism extraordinarily inappropriate. Schumer writes, "Trump's attack will undermine public confidence and efforts to protect national security."
[Jarrett:] Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz downplaying concerns by Democrats that he could help Donald Trump's re-election if he enters the 2020 race as an independent. On Wednesday morning, Schultz's Twitter account posted then deleted a message pointing to an article that said he could win the White House in 2020. It described Senator Kamala Harris as shrill and called Senator Elizabeth Warren Fauxcahontas. Here is how Schultz addressed Democrats' concerns during a town hall at Iowa State University.
[Unidentified Female:] What you're going to do is you're going to have us have another four years of President Trump. Please explain to me why you feel you can't run as a Democrat.
[Howard Schultz, Former Starbucks Ceo:] The Democratic Party today has moved so far to the left. What better expression of democracy would there be to provide a better choice and not the binary choice of just a Republican and Democrat.
[Unidentified Female:] Two words which a lot of people here probably weren't even born when this happened. Ralph Nader.
[Briggs:] Nader picked up about 97,000 votes in Florida in 2000. Al Gore lost to George W. Bush by 500 votes. Senator Sherrod Brown also testing the waters for a White House bid kicking off a "Dignity of Work" tour in his home state of Ohio.
[Sen. Sherrod Brown , Ohio:] Donald Trump has used his phony populism to divide Americans and to demonize immigrants. He uses phony populism to distract from the fact that he has used the White House to enrich billionaires like himself, because real populism is not racist. Real populism is not anti-Semitic. Real populists don't engage in hate speech and don't rip babies from families at the border.
[Briggs:] Senator Brown's listening tour will take him to Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
[Jarrett:] The White House re-nominating judges to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals a day after blistering attacks from conservative commentators. The left-leaning Ninth Circuit covers seven western states and has been a frequent target of President Trump. But when the White House last week said that it would re-nominate dozens of judges who did not get a hearing during the last Congress, three conservative nominees to the Ninth Circuit weren't on the list. In a tweet, the conservative Judicial Crisis Network questioned why the White House would tarnish a sterling legacy of Circuit Court judges. Last night the White House corrected the apparent overnight resubmitting the names.
[Briggs:] All right. Ahead, the self-declared president of Venezuela taking his message to the American press. How can he translate promises into help for his struggling country?