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Syria Still Needs Aid; Yazidi Women and Children Freed from ISIS; Manhunt for Terror Suspects Continues in Belgium; Kurds Angered at No Invitiation to UN Syria Talks; Dozens of Yemeni Civilians Reportedly Killed in Saudi Air Strikes; Suicide Attacks in Nigeria; Trump Believes Suporrters Would Riot if Nomination is Contested; China Trade Deficit. Aired Midnight-1a ET

Aired March 17, 2016 - 00:00   ET

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

[00:00:11] JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: This is "CNN Newsroom," live from Los Angeles. Ahead this hour: five years into a brutal civil war, and Syrian Kurds want their own government. They're working on a plan to redraw the map and reshape the Middle East; Donald Trump says riots are possible if he is denied the republican nomination; also ahead, how China and Russia are preparing for a possible Trump White House; tensions are escalating between Washington and Pyongyang over military drills; and, an American student sentenced to hard labor in North Korea.

Hello, everybody; great to have you with us. I'm John Vause. The first hour of "Newsroom L.A." begins now.

We begin with the ongoing peace talks to end the Syrian civil war. The U.N. is welcoming a new group to the negotiating table, the so- called "Moscow Group" is an opposition coalition backed by Russia. Plus, Kurds in Northern Syria say they will declare a federal system in areas where they already have de facto autonomy. The U.S., Turkey and Syria oppose that move. And, Russia is partially withdrawing its military. Moscow tilted the war in favor of the Syrian regime, effectively giving Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, a much stronger bargaining position.

Even in the midst of a ceasefire in Syria, just delivering aid is still dangerous. In this exclusive report, CNN's Senior International Correspondent, Carissa Ward, went undercover in rebel-held Syria, where virtually no western journalists have gone for more than year. She met up with an aid worker as he dodged air strikes trying to help civilians trapped by the violence. And a warning, there are graphic images in Clarissa's report.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLARISSA WARD, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's a Tuesday in Syria, and British aid worker Tauqir Sharif is making the dangerous drive to Aleppo.

TAUQIR SHARIF, AID WORKER, BRITAIN: It's really important that we drive with the windows open because any kind of explosions that land close to us, the last thing we want is shrapnel of glass and so on and so forth landing in our face. WARD: He is traveling to the devastated city to deliver an ambulance

but it isn't long before he is diverted. Four air strikes have hit. Sharif runs into the wreckage to see what is need.

SHARIF: This was a house right here. Look, it's all houses.

WARD: Remarkably, no one has been injured or killed, but the sound of another jet means it's time to leave.

SHARIF: Everybody out; let's go, let's go! They are saying that the plane is in the sky. We can hear it. They're saying a tactic that it uses when ambulances turn up, they'll hit the same place again. So we're just going to try to get to a safer place.

WARD: Sharif is one of just a handful of western aid workers living in Syria.

SHARIF: Most of the big aid organizations, they don't want to go into the line of fire in a sense. This is something that we have to do. This is something that is a human response. If we don't do it, then who will?

WARD: In the relative safety of an olive grove near the Turkish border, he told us that religious conviction played a big part in his decision to come here three years ago.

SHARIF: We need to look at what do the people really want and if the people are Muslims, this is not me saying it, if people are Muslims and they want some form of Islamic governance, then it's important that we help them to establish that.

WARD: Is that what they want?

SHARIF: In my opinion, that's what I believe; and you can ask, you can go over and ask the people what do they want. I don't think the people will settle for anything less, especially after all of this bloodshed. The right to self-determination.

WARD: For many of the 6.5 million displaced people in Syria, there are perhaps more immediate concerns. Most live in sprawling tent cities along the border. Conditions in the camps are brutal. There is a lack of food and clean water, and they become more crowded every day.

SHARIF: We just recently done a survey of this camp, just this camp here alone, which is a conglomeration of about 40 camps, is around 80,000 people.

WARD: 80,000 people?

SHARIF: And this is just one on this border. There is another one over, not too far from here, another maybe 65-70,000 people.

WARD: Sharif's favorite project is this smaller camp that houses roughly 100 widows and their children. Syria is now a country full of widows and orphans, some still too young to understand what has happened to their country, others who have seen too much; all of them dependent on the mercy of others.

[00:05:03] Clarissa Ward, CNN, Syria.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VUASE: Ayman Abdel-Nour, joins us right now. He is a Syrian writer and an activist in exile. He is also the Founder and Editor-In-Chief in the "All4Syria Bulletin."

Ayman, thanks for being with us; thank you for coming in. When you look at Syria, when you see the images of all the destruction and the devastation, do you even recognize that country now?

AYMAN ABDEL-NOUR, FOUNDER & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, "ALL4SYRIA BULLETIN": No; it's totally different and this is not only my saying. I will use, let's say, the U.N. (inaudible), how they describe the situation in Syria. They say this is the biggest humanitarian and refugee crisis in our time. They also said that this in history, and when you say in history that this is unprecedented; and, really, it's totally different since I left in 2007. It's totally different what I see.

VAUSE: How much longer can this go on for because when you look at some of those images, Aleppo especially, there doesn't seem much left to fight over?

ABDEL-NOUR: The war, when the (inaudible) have said in history, that mean this war should stop yesterday, --

VAUSE: Sure.

ABDEL-NOUR: -- not waiting until tomorrow, because the destruction is horrible or the infrastructure are crumbled ruins, the hospital, cities by itself completely demolished by this bombing from the airplane, Russian airplane, and the regime airplane and I raise my hand high for Clarissa Ward for this nice report from the field.

VAUSE: You were telling me you still have family, still have relatives in Aleppo?

ABDEL-NOUR: Yes.

VAUSE: How do they cope? How do they survive day to day?

ABDEL-NOUR: Day to day, even the water is a precious matter. The electricity, it's something also came two hours per day, and sometimes they stand there a few days without electricity.

VAUSE: Right.

ABDEL-NOUR: So just imagine what happened in the food inside the refrigerator. They are living day by day.

VAUSE: One of the things which -- there are so many numbers, so in statistics about this, but one thing is this entire generation now growing up who know nothing but war, and also there is kids who haven't been inside a classroom for five years. This is a lost generation. How does a country recover with that?

ABDEL-NOUR: This is one of the important issue. This is the future generation that we should count on and depend on in the future to rebuild the country. Now they are illiterate, outside the official schools and we have a problem for that. They also miss critical vaccinations. They miss a lot of the necessity of life, the very basic ones. This is - should -- one of the biggest problem. Plus, all of this, you have to add the mental problems they are facing --

VAUSE: And physical problems too: they've been maimed; they've been wounded.

ABDEL-NOUR: Yes; one leg, one hand, and the number of hundreds of thousands.

VAUSE: And the emotional trauma as well. One thing which struck me about your story is that you know Bashar al-Assad. You went to university with him. You know him from many, many years ago.

ABDEL-NOUR: I know him from '84.

VAUSE: You know the man, I guess, from a long time ago. Is he ever likely to go away quietly? Would he go into exile in Iran or Russia, or is he a man determined to take this country with him no matter what and destroy it?

ABDEL-NOUR: No, he will stay; that's the problem.

VAUSE: He will never leave?

ABDEL-NOUR: No.

VAUSE: Okay; who shares the blame for this civil war which just never seems to end?

ABDEL-NOUR: For sure the regime, the government, the system who run the country, who has the police, who has a military, who can come down. He has full ministries that can go and meet with all the people the demonstration, which was nonviolent for six months. This is by the president himself.

VAUSE: What about the West? What about the United States? What about Europe? What about the failure to intervene?

ABDEL-NOUR: Yes, they get part of the blame too because they waited so much to start acting and they did nothing, just in humanitarian after two years. Until today there is still a lot of efforts needed to be done for the Syrian people.

VAUSE: Ayman, thank you for coming in.

ABDEL-NOUR: Thank you.

VAUSE: Well, a dramatic rescue in Iraq right now. Troops free dozens of Yazidi women and children held captive by ISIS. An Iraqi lawmaker tells CNN they had been held since 2014. The former captives say ISIS moved them a number of times so they never really knew where they were. Thousands of Yazidi families live in refugee camps, like this one, after fleeing the terror group.

Meanwhile, U.S. military intelligence officials say they know exactly where ISIS is strongest in Iraq, this corridor between Mosul and Tal Afar. The U.S. calls it the thickest, strongest stronghold of ISIS, where senior leaders probably head for when pressure is on from Coalition forces.

And there are conflicting reports about who is responsible for a deadly air strikes, which targeted a market in Northern Yemen. Medical officials in Hajjah tell CNN Saudi Arabia launched the attack which killed at least 78 people on Tuesday. But a Saudi military spokesman posted on Facebook that claim is not conclusive and that investigation is now under way.

[00:10:03] To U.S. politics now: Donald Trump is warning of riots if he gets to the Republican convention with most delegates but does not get the nomination. Trump says that even if he falls short of a majority, there could be trouble if he isn't automatically made the nominee.

Meantime, FOX News has canceled Monday's Republican debate after Trump said he would not take part. The billionaire businessman has been extremely critical of negative ads against him, but he had no problem posting this video on Instagram attacking Hillary Clinton, showing the democratic front-runner barking like a dog.

[Trump commercial showing Hillary Clinton barking]

VAUSE: Okay, well, for more we're joined by Democratic Strategist Dave Jacobson; Republican Consultant John Thomas.

It is a funny ad. Okay, first up, though, I really want to play the sound bite from Donald Trump talking about the riots if he doesn't get the nomination. Listen to this:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R) REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, via telephone: If we're 20 votes short, or if we're, you know, 100 short and we're at 1100 and somebody else is at 500 or 400, because we're way ahead of everybody, I don't think you can say that we don't get it automatically. I think it would be -- I think you would have riots.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Okay; there is always a fine line between a warning and a threat. So where does that stand? Is it a threat? Is it a warning?

JOHN THOMAS, REPUBLICAN CONSULTANT: It's not the right language. I mean, that kind of language is going to tee up his voters, who are already charged up and think the establishment is going to take the nomination from Donald Trump. It's not the right language, but truthfully, his voters whether they physically riot or just defect from the party in protest, that is a possibility and the police did get riot gear for the convention.

VAUSE: Actually, I'm going to get to that in a minute but --

DAVE JACOBSON, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Clearly he is a bully, but it's doing real damage to the dialogue that we're having, the context of the presidential campaign, particularly for people who are looking at this race abroad. I think the reality is this guy is increasingly becoming a dictator in the way he is running his campaign.

You know, he told FOX today he wasn't going to do next week's debate and John Kasich immediately followed his lead and sort of dropped out of that and then FOX had to cancel the debate. So clearly he's driving the conversation and he is dictating his rules in how this presidential campaign is going to be run.

VAUSE: Okay; now, a lot of talk that (no audio) contested, brokered or open convention. Call it what you will, they're going to get there and there is going to be a lot of horse trading and the nomination will be declared open. So if it does come to that, you know, we heard from the former

Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, who basically said that if no one gets the numbers, then he would like the current Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, to be the nominee. This is what Paul Ryan had to say about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI) SPEAKER OF HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: I actually think you should run for president if you're going to president, if you want to be president. I'm not running for president. I made that decision consciously not to. I haven't given any thought to this stuff. People say what about the contested convention. I said well, there are a lot of people running for president. We'll see. Who knows.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: We'll see. Who knows. I mean, this is a guy who also said I don't want to be Speaker of the House.

THOMAS: Right.

VAUSE: He is Speaker of the House.

THOMAS: Right.

VAUSE: So is this a possibility, sort of a Paul Ryan-John Kasich ticket?

THOMAS: You can't rule anything out. I mean, if this cycle taught us anything it's you just don't know. I would highly doubt it. I mean, if Trump has to win 40-46-percent of the remaining delegates between now and the convention, and if he does he is the walk away winner of this thing.

VAUSE: (Inaudible), I thought he needed to get 57-percent from this point on.

THOMAS: He does; but if he gets over 40-percent, and he is going to have such momentum -

VAUSE: Okay.

THOMAS: -- going into this convention, I just don't know how they don't give it to him. Look, anything can happen but I think that scenario is very unlikely, with the Speaker.

VAUSE: You don't think Paul Ryan is their safety net?

JACOBSON: Well, I think he has an equal shot of becoming the Republican nominee that Mitt Romney does.

[Laughter]

VAUSE: Okay, so none at all. Okay.

JACOBSON: But I did hear -

THOMAS: And Bernie Sanders.

JACOBSON: Right; but I did hear, in fact, that there is, sort of, now talk again about a potential third-party run by some other republican, some sort of establishment type if John Kasich can't continue to sort of collect more delegates. There have been those conversations behind the smoke-filled rooms, behind closed doors. So I think that's part of the narrative now, unfortunately.

VAUSE: I find that third-party stuff fascinating -

JACOBSON: Yes.

VAUSE: -- because normally it's the rebels break away from the party -

THOMAS: Right.

VAUSE: -- you know, they form -

THOMAS: Now the party is breaking away from the rebels; right?

VAUSE: So what is going on here?

THOMAS: Well I think at some point the establishment needs to learn they can't control this process.

VAUSE: Right.

THOMAS: They can try whatever shenanigans -

VAUSE: Right.

THOMAS: -- they're not in control, because look at the last two serious remaining candidates are not establishment figures. Ted Cruz is hated by the senate colleagues. He has to figure out how he can bring them in; and obviously Donald Trump is detested by 60-percent of the Republican Party. I don't think he is part of the establishment either.

JACOBSON: Right.

VAUSE: Okay; we heard from Hillary Clinton. She went after Donald Trump on Tuesday night in her victory speech. Now we've got this campaign ad from Donald Trump with the barking, attacking her. Effectively, have we now pivoted to the general election at this point?

JACOBSON: Indeed we have. The gloves are off, it's bare knuckle general [00:15:02] election campaign politics. I mean, yes, and this underscores the fact that Donald Trump is going to do whatever it takes. He is going to get into the mud and start mudslinging immediately, to do whatever it takes to win this race. I think, you know, Hillary has to go into the general election with that mind-set and mentality to sort of compete with him on that level because, at the end of the day, there is a lot at stake in this election and Democrats have to do everything they can to win.

VAUSE: Hillary Clinton is considered one of the most admired women in the world. Can Donald Trump --

THOMAS: According to who?

VAUSE: According to -- a lot of polls out there.

THOMAS: Sure; okay.

VAUSE: There's also a lot of --

THOMAS: She also has a lot of high negatives.

VAUSE: -- people who don't like her, but she polls consistently high as one of the most admired women in the world, and she has for year after year after year. But my point is, can Donald Trump do to - can Donald Trump Donald Trump Hillary Clinton and not come off as somebody trying to bully a grandma?

THOMAS: Well I don't think -- first of all, I don't think Hillary Clinton is a grandma that you feel sorry for. She is a very powerful woman.

VAUSE: Right; good point.

THOMAS: A multi, multimillionaire. I think if about anyone can do it, Donald Trump can; and, quite frankly, Hillary is not good when she is off script. And if there is any candidate on the Republican side that gets someone off script, it's Donald Trump.

VAUSE: My question for you thought, about Bernie Sanders, everyone admires Bernie Sanders. He has run this upstart campaign. He has done better than anybody could have ever imagined. There is a lot of love for him right now in the Democratic Party. When does that dissipate and they say okay, Bernie, you've made your point; it's time to drop out? When does that pressure start coming on?

JACOBSON: I think from the establishment and from the Clinton world, that conversation already started weeks ago. I mean, he had this enormous upset victory in Michigan that sort of created a little bit of momentum going into the Super Tuesday 3.0., but the reality is he lost every state yesterday. He needs to win something like 69-percent of the delegates moving forward to tie Hillary Clinton, in terms of delegates. So at this point, the window has closed for Bernie Sanders.

I think now at this point it's less about sort of winning the battle for delegates and it's more about winning the war, in terms of message and sort of anchoring Hillary Clinton to the left, continuing to have that dialogue on the income inequality issue, making sure it's part of the Democratic Party platform at election time there.

VAUSE: You know, there are consequences if Bernie stays in the race because they continue to burn through cash.

THOMAS: Right.

VAUSE: He continues to attack Clinton. He continues to try to bring her down.

THOMAS: Yes; last night Hillary finally stomped on Bernie Sanders's throat. I mean, that was it. And if Bernie Sanders thinks he has a strategy for victory, he is wrong. He needs to get checked for early onset of Alzheimer's.

VAUSE: Oh, my gosh.

THOMAS: It is bad. I mean, it's bad if he thinks he can go forward. Dave is 100-percent right. The only reason he keeps moving forward is what else does he have to do? He has the cash and the small donors, and he wants to extract something from Hillary at the convention.

VAUSE: Right; okay. We'll talk to you guys again next hour.

THOMAS: Sure.

VAUSE: Thanks for coming in.

JACOBSON: Thanks for having us.

VAUSE: Always fun. Always a pleasure; thank you. And, we have lots more on Donald Trump still to come. The billionaire businessman likes to take shots at China; after the break, we'll see how China is hitting back.

Also ahead, Washington calls the punishment unduly harsh; North Korea's sentencing of an American student. Also coming up, Belgian police get into a firefight with terror suspects. Up next, how they got away and what officers found in the apartment which they raided.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [00:21:58] VAUSE: Thousands of protesters are on the streets in Brazil after a surprise move to bring a former Brazilian president back into the government. Lula da Silva has agreed to be chief of staff to his successor Dilma Rousseff, and, as a cabinet minister, he now has legal protection in an ongoing corruption investigation. He faces money launders and fraud charges.

Paris police say they have arrested three men and one woman on suspicion of planning a terror attack in the French capital. A source tells CNN the main member of the group had been under house arrest because of ties to

Islamic extremism. The arrest came after investigators say the four discussed trying to get in touch with ISIS, but the source says there is no evidence an attack was imminent.

The manhunt continues in Belgium for two terror suspects who escaped after a shoot-out with police. Investigators in Brussels recovered a Kalashnikov rifle, an ISIS flag, ammunition and a book about radical Islam from the apartment where the firefight happened.

Nima Elbagir reports from the scene.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was through this window that a police sniper managed to neutralize as they're characterizing it. One of the two men holding offices in abeyance with Kalashnikovs. It was only once they entered the premises that they realized that two of the men they were searching for had managed to escape, and you can see coming around the back of the building how easy it was.

You can see more broken windows and what is presumed to be the suspects' escape route. As the manhunt continues, of course, so too does the fear and the confusion as residents, not just here but all over the Belgian capital, struggle to come to terms with exactly what is happening, again, in their midst.

UNIDENTIFIED FEAMLE: There with the weapon and different kind of hard equipment from 3:00 until 6:00 in the night.

ELBAGIR: What is clear is that Belgian police were unprepared for what unfolded here at this premises. They were, as they describe it, carrying out an ongoing manhunt, only to find themselves caught in a firefight. This will only, of course, increase the scrutiny on Belgium's handling of its terror threat and the impact that that has and is having not just here in Belgium, but across Europe.

Nima Elbagir, CNN, Brussels.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Tension between Washington and Pyongyang continues to escalate. North Korea sent a letter to the U.N. Security Council calling for a meeting on the joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises. Pyongyang calls them an "urgent and great threat." Meantime, President Obama imposed sweeping new sanctions against the North in response to its recent nuclear tests and rocket launch. The order blacklists government officials, a number of banks, shipping agencies, as well as mining companies.

And the State Department is condemning North Korea's punishment of a U.S. [00:25:02] college student who was charged with committing a hostile act against the state. The North sentenced Otto Warmbier to 15 years hard labor for allegedly removing a political banner from the lobby of a hotel.

Ivan Watson joins us from Seoul with more on this. Ivan, right now it seems the North Korean government is pretty unlikely to listen to what the U.S. State Department has to say.

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT, via satellite: Yeah, I'd say that this is a very difficult time for diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang; and this 21-year-old student at the University of Virginia, a junior there, seems to be very much caught in the middle, sentenced with 15 years of hard labor, the crime being state subversion.

Otto Frederick Warmbier was arrested in early January, at the end of a tourist trip to North Korea; and in his appearance in a North Korean court, he basically begged for clemency. Take a listen:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OTTO WARMBIER, COLLEGE STUDENT, UNIVERISTY OF VIRGINIA: I entirely beg you people and government of the DPR Korea for your forgiveness. Please, I've made the worst mistake of my life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATSON: Well, so, John, Warmbier has appeared before cameras before, making these confessions, confessing to having pulled down a government sign that he was then planning to smuggle out of the country. He was pulled off a plane at Pyongyang Airport. We can't confirm whether or not these confessions have been made under duress; and you have to keep in mind that the United Nations Special (Inaudible) For Human Rights just this week published a report accusing the North Korean government of crimes against humanity and calling for prosecution of North Korean government officials and suggesting that the appropriate venue for that would be the International Criminal Court. John?

VAUSE: Ivan, look at this sentence. 15 years? By all accounts, everyone agrees, this is incredibly harsh, this sentence. Is it harsher than it would normally have been because of the political tension right now between Pyongyang and Washington?

WATSON: It's not the first time that an American prisoner in North Korea has been sentenced to 15 years hard labor. There are a whole string of American citizens who have been arrested in North Korea in the course of recent

years, and eventually some of them are released through negotiation, but, this is a very difficult time because as you mentioned North Korea is calling for a meeting of the United Nations Security Council in objection to the annual, ongoing joint military drills that are taking place here in South Korea between the U.S. and South Korea. North Korea hates these. It says it could be a precursor for an invasion of the North. It's even threatened preemptive strikes in response to them.

You have sanctions that the U.S. has slapped on North Korea that suggests that intermediaries that may do business with North Korea's key cash earning industries, that they too could be subject to sanctions. All of this is adding to the real pressure here. Then you have North and South Korean tensions and relations, perhaps at the worst they've been in years after North Korea tested, what it claims was a hydrogen bomb, in January, after it vowed to continue with its nuclear weapons program.

All of this makes any diplomatic efforts to try to free Warmbier very, very difficult right now. The former governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, who has a long history of diplomacy with North Korea, he is trying to lobby on Warmbier's behalf; but for now, he is looking at probably not getting out of North Korean custody any time soon. John?

VAUSE: Ivan, thank you. Senior International Correspondent Ivan Watson with the latest there from Seoul; appreciate it.

Well, still to come here, Donald Trump never at a loss for words when it comes to China. After the break, we'll find out what a government newspaper and the Chinese premiere are saying about Mr. Trump.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:32:34] JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everybody; you're watching "CNN Newsroom," live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause. The headlines this hour: Kurds in northern Syria say they will declare a federal system in areas where they already have de facto autonomy. The U.S., Turkey, and Syria oppose that move. Separately, Kurdish groups fighting ISIS are furious the U.N. did not invite them to the U.N. talks to end the Syrian civil war.

In northern Yemen, medical official says at least 78 civilians are dead, more than 100 wounded after three Saudi air strikes on a market in Hajjah. Saudi military official says they're investigating the attacks, and it's possible another group is responsible for the bombing.

A double suicide attack in northeastern Nigeria has killed at least 22 people. The military says two women disguised as men blew themselves up at a mosque during morning prayers. More than a dozen people were wounded. No one has claimed responsibility, but the region has been plagued by Boko Haram for years.

And, Donald Trump says he believes his supporters would riot if the Republican Party tried to contest his nomination at this summer's convention. The U.S. presidential candidate is leading the race for delegates but it's possible he may not reach the number needed on the first ballot to secure the nomination. At almost every campaign rally Donald Trump does not miss a chance to criticize China. It's been part of his stump speech since he announced his run for the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R) REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I've been telling everybody for a long time China is taking our jobs. They're taking our money. Be careful; they'll bring us down.

They've taken our money and our jobs, our manufacturing. They've taken everything. It's one of the greatest thefts in the history of the world, what they have taken out of our country.

We will, some day, in the not too distant future, if I win, otherwise it's not going to happen, and I have to be honest with you; but Apple, and all of these great companies, will be making their product in the United States, not in China.

Negotiating with China -- when these people walk in the room, they don't say oh, hello, how is the weather. So beautiful outside, isn't it lovely? How are the Yankees doing? Oh, they're doing wonderful. Great. They say, we want deal.

We don't make good deals anymore. We don't win anymore.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Now it seems the Chinese are taking notice. A scathing editorial in one state controlled newspaper called Trump a narcissist and a clown. It goes on to say "Americans know elections cannot really change their lives. [00:35:02] Why not support Trump and vent their spleen? ... His remarks are abusively racist and extremist... The rise of a racist in the U.S. political arena worries the world. Mussolini and Hitler came to power through elections. A heavy lesson for Western democracy."

Well for more on the China and Donald Trump rift, Peter Navarro is with us from Irvine, California. He is the Director of the documentary "Death by China." He's also a Business Professor at the University of California. Peter, thanks for being with us.

You know, the interesting part of that editorial, basically they're saying Trump is a good example of why democracy does not work. Do you see this as an early warning shot from the Chinese?

PETER NAVARRO, DIRECTOR "DEATH BY CHINA" & BUSINESS PROFESSOR, UNIVERISTY OF CALIFORNIA: Yes, there is no question about it, John. In all of those soundbites that Mr. Trump laid out for us, factually, they're correct. I mean, China is 50-percent of the U.S. annual trade deficit. We have a trade deficit with China of $1 billion a day here in America, and the Chinese trade deficit costs this country about a million jobs a year. Since China joined the WTO, the World Trade Organization, in 2001, it's over 20 million jobs. so Trump is right there. Now I was surprised that Beijing pulled the Hitler card so soon on Mr.

Trump, but China and its propaganda machine is no stranger to trying to exert pressure and coercion on political processes. I think that the worse thing that they could do though, if they thought about this, was to overly

criticize Trump and threaten America because that would be a guarantee of Trump getting elected, because the American people don't take very kindly to that, John.

VAUSE: Absolutely; this sort of plays right into his campaign rhetoric exactly what the kind of thing that he could use at one of his rallies. The Chinese don't want me, so I must be good. Is there a possibility that the Chinese could actually influence this election? Have they tried it before?

NAVARRO: There is a great history, John. The first democratically elected president in Taiwan, in 1996, was running on what Beijing criticized as a pro-independence platform and they began a shock and awe campaign in late '95, basically running all sorts of war games. They sent missiles flying through the Taiwan Strait, commercial airline traffic was interfered with. President Bill Clinton in America, at the time, dispatched two aircraft carriers to the Taiwan Straits to back the Chinese off; but the message the people of Taiwan seemed to get was you can't change our mind on this. In the polls, the election basically went from a narrow plurality to a majority, and it was a landslide for the pro-independence candidate.

So Beijing has tried this before with Taiwan. If they try it with a big country like America, it's going to be very serious.

You know they do have some weapons, and Beijing is no stranger to coercion. I mean, one of the things they've always done, John, when the issue of currency manipulation has come up between the U.S. and China, on the floor of the Congress or through the lips of presidents, China threatens what they themselves call the "financial nuclear option," which is basically to stop buying American government bonds to finance our budget deficit and throw our stock market and bond market into chaos. It's a serious threat. So this is something that we're going to be watching very carefully, John.

VAUSE: We should say, though, just to finish this up, Peter, that the Chinese premier was actually asked about Donald Trump at the end of the National People's Congress. He basically said he'll have no impact on China-U.S. relations, but I think they say that every elect, don't they?

NAVARRO: Sure; yeah. I mean I think you look at what the propaganda wing does, what the journalism from the Central Communist Chinese Party is doing, and of course their top leaders are going to have a denial, but we know what is going on.

The other thing that is going to happen here, John, frankly, is there is going to be a lot of Chinese money that will filter into this election because it's very easy right now to send campaign contributions into places without a lot of accurate tracking. So I think we should be on the lookout for that to see if those float - VAUSE: Absolutely.

NAVARRO: -- from China, Hong Kong and the Virgin Islands.

VAUSE: A lot to look for. Peter, thanks for being with us.

NAVARRO: My pleasure, John.

VAUSE: A short break here. When we come back, a pro-Putin pundit is throwing his support behind the U.S. presidential front-runner. Why a top Russian TV presenter says he wants Donald Trump to have the world's most important job.

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[00:41:42] VAUSE: Well, Donald Trump seems to have a fondness for Russia, and that seems to go both ways. A key figure on Russian state television has spoken out in favor of the Republican front-runner. Here is Matthew Chance reporting in from Moscow.

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MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Russian state television appears to have thrown its support behind Donald Trump. Russia's top TV news anchor hailing him as an anti-establishment candidate who would be ready to

cooperate with Moscow over various issues. Trump has, of course, made several complimentary remarks about Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin over the course of his campaign, asking supporter, for instance, wouldn't it be nice if we could get along with Russia, and suggesting that U.S. forces leave Syria, to let Russia fight ISIS, more similar to the Kremlin's position than to Washington's.

Well, the Kremlin's loyal media is now responding in kind, heaping praise on the tycoon turned republican hopeful. During a 2.5-hour flagship news show "The Weekend" on state television here, anchor Dimitri Kisilov said Trump stood apart from the hierarchy of the Republican Party, he wanted to forge good relations with Putin.

When you speak to ordinary Russian, many also see Trump as the most favorable candidate. He is a businessman, one man told us recently, who would build a relationship with Russia. and who understands that Russia is an important player.

Matthew Chance, CNN, Moscow.

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VAUSE: And with that, thank you for watching "CNN Newsroom," live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause. "World Sport" is back up next. I'll be back with more news from all around the world. You're watching CNN; stay with us.

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