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North Korea Fires Short-Range Projectiles; Republicans Look for Ways to Stop Trump; Clinton Dominates Super Tuesday; Possible MH-370 Debris Found Off African Coast; Trump Lays out Details of Healthcare Plan; Canadian Town Welcoming Trump Refugees; EU Plans $760 Million in Emergency Aid; Syria Opposition Doubts Talks Will Resume as Planned; U.S. Forces Targeting ISIS Operatives in Iraq; Adam Johnson Found Guilty of Child Sex; China's Parliament Opens Annual Meeting Saturday; Christie's Eyes Steal Trump's Spotlight. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired March 03, 2016 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[01:00:11] JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles.
ISHA SESAY, CNN ANCHOR: Ahead this hour a show of force from North Korea coming just hours after the United Nations takes harsh action against Kim Jong-Un's regime.
VAUSE: The push to stop Donald Trump from within. His own Republican Party. But it may already be too late.
SESAY: And could it be some wreckage found off the coast of Mozambique help unlock the mystery of MH-370?
VAUSE: Hello, everybody. Great to have you with us again. I'm John Vause.
SESAY: And I'm Isha Sesay. NEWSROOM L.A. starts right now.
Our top story this hour, South Korea says Pyongyang fired six short range projectiles off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula.
VAUSE: This latest show of force comes less than a day after the United Nations Security Council voted to impose harsh new sanctions on the North Koreans.
Paula Hancocks is in Seoul, South Korea this hour watching these latest developments.
And Paula, how long before the South Koreans get some kind of idea of exactly what the North Koreans may fire off their east coast?
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they said that they're analyzing it at this point. We really don't know if they will come up with a response as to exactly what it was or if they'll be able to know what it was. It could be missile, a rocket, artillery, but just the fact that it has been fired is significant in itself. This is clearly Pyongyang's way of showing exactly what it thinks of those U.N. sanctions. Now it obviously wasn't going to be happy with the sanctions the North
Koreans have been celebrating for some time. What they see as a very successful nuclear test and a very successful launch. The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Un, has made it very clear that he intends to carry out far more of these nuclear test and these rocket launches, these satellite launches, I should say, as he says.
So he's certainly pleased with them but he would not be pleased with these unprecedented, ground breaking, whichever adjective you want to use from the United States, these sanctions that have been brought into place.
So just a quick look at what they entail. There will be a mandatory inspection of cargo going in and out of North Korea. There'll also be a complete ban on small arms sale and other conventional weapons. And an expulsion of diplomats for illicit activities and also there are a number of other sanctions that are within this resolution and certainly ones that North Korea would not want to see. That wider ban on luxury goods, a ban on aviation and rocket fuel and limits on North Korean sale of coal and iron ore.
Now that's one that really could hurt the regime. The U.S. says that just the coal exports itself account for about $1 billion. A significant amount of the annual income for the regime.
VAUSE: And, Paula, given just how tough those sanctions are and the response that we have seen from the North Koreans, whether it was artillery fire or short range missiles, which would be consider low level response, could we then expect maybe an escalating response from the North Koreans as we move forward?
HANCOCKS: It's certainly possible. The intelligence agency here in South Korea has already said that they believe the North Koreans are planning for a -- what they call a terrorist attack on the south. They say they could be about to target anti-North Korean activists or defectors or government officials. They've also said they could carry out an attack on a shopping mall or a subway or a convention center, a power plant. So they've really said already that they believe the North Koreans are about to do something. Of course you add the U.N. sanctions on to this.
And bear in mind, we're just a few days away from the joint military drills between the U.S. and South Korea, which are annual but every single year they irritate Pyongyang. The North Koreans see it as a dress rehearsal for an invasion, which Washington and Seoul denied. They say they're defensive in nature. But tensions are always higher at this time of year and of course there's an awful lot else to add to those military drill at this point -- John.
VAUSE: Paula, thank you. Paula Hancocks live this hour for us in Seoul.
So he may be getting the lion's share of the Republican vote but there's panic within the party that Donald Trump might actually win the nomination. The billionaire celebrity won seven of the 11 Super Tuesday states and now has about a quarter of the delegates he needs to win.
SESAY: The 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is expected to criticize Trump during a speech in Utah on Thursday. Meanwhile retired U.S. surgeon Ben Carson is apparently ending his presidential bid. He says he doesn't see a political path forward and will not attend Thursday's Republican debate.
So what exactly can the Republican Party do right now to try and stop Donald Trump?
CNN's chief political correspondent Dana Bash reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
[01:05:07] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump is facing massive lawsuits for fraud.
DANA BASH, CNN'S CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This anti-Trump ad is now flooding airwaves in upcoming contest states, Michigan, Illinois, and Florida.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The truth about Trump University, Donald Trump made millions while hard working Americans got scammed.
BASH: A million-dollar super PAC ad buy. The result of a Super Tuesday conference call with some 50 GOP donors who are begged to help stop Trump as Trump was racking up hundreds of delegates.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Look, I'm a unifier.
BASH: In any other year with any other candidate the GOP establishment would be starting to rally around a candidate with Trump's momentum. Instead, lawmakers are making unprecedented moves away from him.
REP. BOB DOLD (R), ILLINOIS: I will not support Donald Trump now and I will not support him should he move on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think what America sees is Donald Trump is a manure spreader.
BASH: It's nothing short of GOP panic.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Donald Trump is not a Republican.
BASH: Senator Lindsey Graham who can't stand colleague Ted Cruz now says he'd rather have Cruz as president than Trump.
GRAHAM: Ted and I are in the same party. Donald Trump is an interloper. I don't trust him.
BASH: But is this too little too late? Republican strategist Doug Heye wrote an op-ed months ago, calling on Republicans to stop Trump.
DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: There's been a whole mentality of first we couldn't attack Trump because he wasn't serious. Then we couldn't attack Trump because it wouldn't work. Finally we couldn't attack Trump because it's too late. There's one common theme in there and that's allowed him to have a free ride for months and months.
BASH: Even GOP candidates now pouncing on Trump spent most of the campaign embracing him.
(On camera): If you think Donald Trump is so antithetical to conservatism what took you so long to say so because you really cozied up to him for the majority of this campaign?
TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, listen, Dana, for the last couple of months I've been taking Donald on directly. I needed to build my base of support. I needed to take care so that I was on a strong foundation first before I could take him on and that was a natural process.
BASH (voice-over): Yet one former rival warns Republicans are attacking Trump at their own peril.
MIKE HUCKABEE, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Don't pretend that somehow that all these voters who have gone out and voted for him are stupid. They're not stupid.
BASH: Trump argues he is growing the GOP.
TRUMP: We are going to be a much bigger party. Our party is expanding.
BASH: But congressional Republicans and top races worry Trump at the top of the ticket will drag them down. The Democrat running against John McCain is already out with this ad.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But no matter what Trump said John McCain would support him for president.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Including Donald Trump, you would support him?
