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New Threats from Pyongyang After Deflection; Terror Suspect Reveals Planned Attack on Euro2016 Championships; Taliban Claiming Responsibility for Bus Bombing; Polls Show Kasich Can Beat Clinton; Zika Virus Linked to Premature Births, More Birth Conditions; LGBT Battles in North Carolina and Mississippi; China's Plan to Become A World Class Football Power . Aired 12-1a ET

Aired April 12, 2016 - 00:00   ET

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

DON LEMON, CNN HOST, "CNN TONIGHT": Got all that out. That's it for us tonight. I'll see you right back here tomorrow night. If you missed any of our Town Hall with John Kasich and his family, you can watch the whole thing starting right now.

[00:00:24] JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: This is "CNN NEWSROOM" live from Los Angeles. Ahead this hour, a senior official defects from North Korea and its notorious spy agency. What closely held secrets could he reveal?

Plus, Donald Trump complains the system is rigged, lashing out once again at the Republican Party.

And, protesting in the USA. Two music legends cancel their tours in states with new laws which target the LGBT community.

Hello everybody; great to have you with us. I'd like to welcome our viewers all around the world; I'm John Vause. "NEWSROOM" L.A. starts right now.

There are new threats from Pyongyang after a senior intelligence official deflected to South Korea. North Korean state media is warning the army will wipe out defectors, calling them "despicable traitors." The commentary goes on to say "in case the enemies desperately defy the warning, the invincible Revolutionary Army will launch preemptive, consecutive attacks on them in a more deadly and severe punishment without any warning and prior notice, bound not to anything."

South Korean official say the defector was a senior colonel with a unit specializing in espionage operations against the South. He's the highest level North Korean military official known to have defected. Just last week officials in Seoul say 13 North Korean restaurant workers defected from an unnamed Asian nation. They had been working in a Pyongyang owned restaurant.

CNN's Paula Hancocks is covering the story for us from Seoul, South Korea. She joins us now live with the very latest. Paula, just lay it out for us. How senior is this defector and what kind of intelligence could he have? PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT, via satellite: Well, John, all we've been told he is a senior colonel in the Reconnaissance General Bureau. We don't know that much officially from authorities. We know that this Bureau itself though has certainly been blamed for many attacks on the South in the past. Remember the Choenan warship, the (Inaudible), which was sunk back in 2010, killing 46 sailors. At that time a South Korean official said they believed that this Bureau was behind that, although they didn't give solid evidence for that. So these are the types of attacks that authorities will be trying to find out intelligence on.

Certainly we are not going to see this defector any time soon, likely to be briefed by authorities for some time to come. Of course any normal defector, when they come to South Korea, they have three months' re-education and questioning. It will be very different for a defector who has this level of intelligence. Potentially it could be a treasure trove of intelligence for the South Koreans. John?

VAUSE: Should we be looking at this claim from the South Koreans about the defection with the degree of skepticism, that similar claims have been made in the past and discredited?

HANCOCKS: Well, this has been brought up. Remember, we're just one day away from the general elections here in South Korea. Now the Opposition Party has suggested that this defection has been announced, as well as a diplomat, we understand, who has defected, as well as 13 restaurant workers from a Chinese based North Korean restaurant who defected last week. There's an awful lot of defections that have been confirmed recently and it's quite rare for the South Koreans to even confirm this kind of deflection. The highest known military official to ever have defected, we're being told, by a government source. That's very unusual to get that kind of confirmation and so certainly the Ministries are being asked by journalists, is this related to the election? Is this the ruling party, President Geun-hye's party, wanting to appear competent and wanting to have this good news just before an election? They say no, it has nothing to do with it. John?

VAUSE: And with regards to those 13 North Koreans that have deflected, the presumption is they came in from China, although that's yet to be confirmed; but there's some interesting details here about exactly why they decided to make that move and deflect to South Korea?

HANCOCKS: That's right. The ministries themselves saying that it was because of the sanctions, these unprecedented they're being described as, U.N. sanctions passed back in March and whether or not that was having an effect on these restaurant workers. Now, of course, workers overseas that are North Korean, are expected to send the majority if not all of their wages [00:05:01] back to the North Korean regime.

So certainly that appears to be the assumption, was that they were feeling the pinch of trying to make this amount of money for the North Korean Regime and finding it difficult because those U.N. sanctions were starting to have an effect. Of course we don't know if that is in fact the case. We have not been able to speak to them ourselves. John?

VAUSE: Okay, Paula, thank you; Paula Hancocks live this hour there in Seoul. Much appreciated.

A new alarming claim from one of the Brussels terrorist suspects, an alleged plot to attack a major sporting event. We get details now from CNN's Jim Sciutto.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Mohamed Abrini, arrested on Friday on a Brussels street corner, now telling investigators that his terrorist cell was planning an attack at one of the biggest sporting events in the world: the Euro 2016 Soccer Championships in France. This as Abrini also confesses to Belgian prosecutors that he's the so-called "man in the hat" caught on surveillance video in the Brussels airport moments before the attack, an attack which investigators say was not the cell's original plan.

MANUEL VALLS, PRIME MINISTER, FRANCE, via translator: The investigation has established that the group that hit Belgium had originally planned to strike France again. It's further evidence of the high threat to all of Europe.

SCIUTTO: Investigators believe that terrorists scrapped plans to attack Paris a second time after the arrest of Salah Abdeslam alerted them the police were getting closer. They then set their sights nearer to home, and the devastating attacks at the Brussels airport and metro station followed just four days later.

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: When you arrest this guy it's not about what does he know about Paris and Brussels, it's what does he know about the next attack?

SCIUTTO: Now there is growing evidence that the Brussels cell was directed by ISIS in Syria. A computer found in a garbage bin last month, belonging to two of the Brussels attackers, containing an audio file of a conversation between Najim Laachraoui, the bomb maker for the Paris and Brussels attacks, and a senior ISIS operative in Syria. The two brainstorming additional potential attacks in Belgium and France.

On the same computer, police found a file indicating that the cell considered targeting the La Defense Shopping Mall in Paris as well as a Catholic association. Investigators piecing together the entire network of the ISIS cell have now identified five members who played a direct role in both

the Paris and Brussels terrorist attacks.

BERGEN: While it's great that this guy is being arrested, the network, as we've come to realize, includes dozens of people; and we may not be at the end.

Jim Sciutto, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: The Taliban is claiming responsibility for a bus bombing which targeted Afghan army recruits. 12 people were killed, at least 26 wounded in Monday's attack in Jalalabad. It's just the latest setback for Afghanistan's military, which is facing a Taliban resurgence. U.S. says more than 5,000 Afghan troops were killed last year alone.

All this week we have exclusive reporting by CNN's Nick Paton Walsh, in Afghanistan. Despite U.S. air strikes ISIS is gaining control over parts of the country's east, luring followers with a mix of brutality, terror and big promises. Nick spoke with two former Taliban commanders who defected to ISIS, but they've now turned against the terror group.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Looking for ISIS I found in Afghanistan's ISIS' radio broadcast of hate was bombed off-air recently by the U.S.; but here, it's been coming back in the past week.

It was there three days ago and it's gone again, says one man.

They were talking nonsense, says another. They're asking people to pledge allegiance and march on Kabul, he adds.

This is one broadcast they recorded early. ISIS is trying to put down roots here, but every day, more Afghans want to tear them up; and that starts here, with Arabistan and Zaitoun. Two months ago we wouldn't have been sat like this. Then, they were commanders in ISIS.

ZAITOUN, FORMER ISIS COMMANDER, via translator: They just like beheadings, think they're good to do.

WALSH: ISIS, they say, came from Pakistan not Iraq, and promised guns and money to their struggling group of Taliban. Their agenda, black flags, killing and looting which they did go along with at first.

ARABISTAN, FORMER ISIS COMMANDER, via translator: They knew who was rich, to take their money. The poor, they would arm to fight with them or kill them.

WALSH: It went south fast and they both remembered the moment when.

ZAITOUN: I remember when they beheaded seven people in the bazaar, including government workers and Pakistani Taliban. I saw the long strip of wood they did it on, covered in blood. They just threw the bodies away unburied. It [00:10:01] was very un-Islamic.

ARABISTAN: My worst memory was if you were killed fighting for them, they wouldn't hand you your wife and children to your relative, but put them in a camp.

WALSH: ISIS recruit children here, their own videos show, another reason that the two men work with Afghan intelligence, who set up our interview, to get other locals to join the uprising program against ISIS; but they say they've lacked government protection and money and that's put potential defectors off. The fight is now just left to American drones, they say.

ARABISTAN: Drones are doing a good job killing ISIS. They target them as they leave their houses.

ZAITOUN: The government hasn't made any progress in those areas. It's only the bombing that's effective.

WALSH: You were in the Taliban, then you were in ISIS; and now the American drones are bombing your own village, but you're pleased about it because it's killing ISIS. Is that that not strange for you?

ZAITOUN: It makes us happy; we want them wiped out.

WALSH: They're killers themselves who know what they're talking about. Arabistan holds up his cloak, holes from an American helicopter attack not long ago when he was Taliban.

ISIS has shattered ordinary lives too. Across town, in a luxury village built for rich people who never came, are hundreds of families who fled ISIS.

Afghanistan, like many nations affected by ISIS, basically has to battle an idea, a kind of virus that appeals to minds warped after decades of war. Those in the Taliban is radical enough, an idea that no matter how hard, you battle up on it. It's very difficult to extinguish.

Many of their homes are still occupied, much damage is irreversible. They killed this man's brother and then shot him in the waist as he helped his family escape. He's left unable to provide for them and ISIS still live in their home.

ISIS savagery was first glimpsed in Afghanistan in this video, where they lined up opponents and detonated a bomb below them. The man who speaks is survived by his nephew.

RUSTAM, DISPLACED BY ISIS, via translator: My brother called our father to tell him the death was on Facebook. We couldn't bury him as we didn't have a body. It's pieces that are probably still lying where he was blown up.

WALSH: Decades of trauma here, yet somehow it gets worse.

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Jalalabad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: A short break here; when we come back we'll have the latest in the race for the White House and we'll tell you why the Republican front-runner, Donald Trump, says the fix is in. Also, we'll hear from a Trump supporter who says what the United States needs right now, most of all, is an entertainer-in-chief.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

("WORLD SPORT" HEADLINES)

VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody; Donald Trump is mad, very mad after being out maneuvered by Ted Cruz. In Albany, New York Monday night Trump complained once again that the Republican Party has rigged the system. He's getting the majority of the votes but that Cruz swept all the delegates in Colorado primary; that's just one example.

Cruz was in California on Monday. He told talk radio he's not sure Donald Trump even wants to be president. A Trump aide has accused the Cruz campaign of using Gestapo tactics to win delegates.

A nationally syndicated radio host and conservative analyst, Larry Elder, joins me once again, here in Los Angeles. Great to have you back.

LARRY ELDER, SYNDICATED RADIO HOST: Thanks very much; appreciate it.

VAUSE: We had a Town Hall here on CNN. It ended about an hour or so ago. It was just with John Kasich and his family. John Kasich clearly has no problems with the way the delegate count is.

ELDER: It's shocking.

VAUSE: He honestly think he's going to wrap this up at the convention. Here's some of what he had to say:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If I'm the only one that can win in the fall, how do you pick somebody else? Let me tell you what the other --

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Why would a delegate pick you if the only state you've actually won is Ohio -

KASICH: Well let's see how many delegates we accumulate; but why would you pick somebody who can't win in the fall? Let me tell you what the stakes are. I believe if you pick these other guys you're not only going to lose the White House, you will lose the Court; you will lose United State Senate; and you're going to lose a lot of seats -

COOPER: Why can't Cruz win?

KASICH: Because they're too divisive. They're too negative.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Okay, so maybe on the third ballot John Kasich will come through like Abraham Lincoln -

ELDER: Right.

VAUSE: -- and clinch the nomination and go on to be president. Well, let's just talk about the nomination. What odds do you give him of that happening?

ELDER: Not very likely, but not implausible -

VAUSE: Right.

ELDER: -- because if Trump and Cruz get to Cleveland without a majority, which I think is probably the case, the longer the voting goes, the more it will turn to somebody who the delegates believe can win. Like it or not, if you're Donald Trump, or if you're a Cruz supporter, the polls do show right now, Kasich is the only one who can beat Hillary head-to-head.

Now I believe that will change; between now and November is an eternity in politics, but right now if you're a delegate, and your job is to try to make sure you win, Kasich is the guy that's got strong money.

VAUSE: Okay, let's go on here on with Donald Trump now. He's been complaining a lot lately about how the delegates are awarded -

ELDER: Right.

VAUSE: -- about how the rules. He was especially incensed about what happened in Colorado over the weekend.

ELDER: Mm-hmm.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's a fix, because we thought we were having an election and a number of months ago, they decided to do it by, you know what, right? Right? They saw -- they said we'll do it by delegate. they said they're going to do it by delegate; isn't that nice?

(END VIDEO CLIP_

VAUSE: Okay; Reince Priebus, who is in charge of the Republican Party tweeted this out: "The rules were set last year. Nothing mysterious. Nothing new. The rules have not changed. The rules are the same, nothing different." Okay, we got the point. So is that the case? If you want to play on the republican campaign, you've got to play by the rules and surely Donald Trump should have gotten into this?

ELDER: That's how I see it. If I were advising Donald Trump, and I'm not, I would advise him to follow his own advice, as he's sets forth in "Art of the Deal", know more than your opponent; outfox you're opponent; use the information against him. He does not have a good ground game. Ted Cruz [00:20:01] outflanked him and Donald Trump needs to look in the mirror.

VAUSE: Does he sound like a whiner if he keeps going on like this?

ELDER: He does. He does. I would spend not much time talking about how corrupt and unfair the rules are and more time mastering them and hiring people that can do that.

VAUSE: Okay, very quickly, Ted Cruz hammering him on this. Let's listen to what Ted Cruz said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald has been screaming and yelling, a lot of whining, I'm sure some cursing and some late night fevered tweeting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Very quickly, on the other side of this equation, is Ted Cruz risking losing by winning? Is he just looking a little clever the way he's going about this?

ELDER: I frankly believe that Ted Cruz is a vehicle that the so- called establishment is using to stop Donald Trump. Once they do it, come second or third ballot, they'll throw him overboard as well.

VAUSE: For Paul Ryan?

ELDER: For somebody.

VAUSE: Okay.

ELDER: For John Kasich maybe.

VAUSE: Larry, stick around; we'll talk to you again next hour.

ELDER: Okay.

VAUSE: Thank you, sir. One of the questions around Donald Trump over the past few weeks is when will he make that switch from insult comic to something more presidential; when will he start detailing his policies, make a pivot to a more disciplined campaign? But for the most part it seems, those controversial comments have done a lot more to help the Trump campaign than hurt it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Jeb Bush is a low energy person.

This guy Ted Cruz is the single biggest liar I have ever dealt with in my life.

A vicious, horrible person.

I mean, you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.

He's like a little baby; soft, weak, little baby by comparison.

Hillary Clinton is like a joke. If she gets it, she's a joke.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Along the way his rivals have described him as a carnival barker, a clown and a con man.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: Show time is over, everybody. We are not electing an entertainer-on-chief. Showmanship is fun but it's not the kind of leadership that will truly change America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: But our next guest thinks Governor Chris Christie is dead wrong, American's want an entertainer-in-chief. Clint Arthur is a leadership expert and a Trump supporter, even wrote a book about Donald Trump's performance secrets. He joins us now from New York. Clint, thanks for being with us; it's good to have you here.

You make the argument Donald Trump is basically FDR for the 21st Century, fire side chats replaced by late night chats. Convince me.

CLINT ARTHUR, LEADERSHIP & PERFORMANCE EXPERT, via satellite: America's greatest leaders have been an entertainers-in-chief. Ronald Reagan was an entertainer-in-chief, movie star, advertising pitch man, president of the Screen Actors Guild, a great entertainer and a great president; and it's essentially to be a great entertainer-in-chief because if you want an audience to be engaged, it helps if you entertain them, and you need them to be engaged if you want to be a great leader.

So FDR, another great president, led the United States through the Great Depression, through World War II, with the help of a great radio show called "the fire side chats." This was when the radio was the dominant form of entertainment in the world and those fire side chats he used to host, and the sole performer on those programs. They're legendary entertainment.

VAUSE: A lot of people would say Donald Trump, he's a very, very good campaign, he's entertaining; that doesn't necessarily he will be a good president.

ARTHUR: You need to entertain in order to engage, and if people are bored, they're not going to be paying attention. No one's bored when Donald Trump is up there talking. They are fully engaged and he is able to then put the message into their minds, just the same way that Abraham Lincoln was a great entertainer in his time. He was a motivational speaker, kind of like the Tony Robins of his time, but instead of entertaining soccer moms and road warriors, Lincoln was entertaining our nation's warriors on bloody battlefields and motivating them and inspiring them to lay down their lives for an idea that all men were created equal. That was entertainment and leadership.

VAUSE: Okay, so as far as Donald Trump is concerned, is this why you think his supporters are willing to give him a pass? You know, a lot of the controversial stuff he says, you hear time and time again, they'll say that's Donald just being Donald. I guess the question is, when does the entertainer end and the serious politician begin?

ARTHUR: I say the entertainer need not ever end because America needs a leader who knows how to entertain so that he can put the message into the minds of the public. VAUSE: Okay, but we have this situation now we have all this tit-for- tat; we've got all these insults going on out there. For the most part of this campaign there's been no oxygen for a lot of serious policy discussion here, especially on the Republican side. Does that actually - does that matter?

ARTHUR: How could it matter? We don't know what's going to happen a month from now, let alone what the policy decision should be a year from now when [00:25:04] the new president comes into office. What's the difference what he says about his policy could be in nine months or 12 months, when everything could be totally different?

As we know, the world is changing really, really fast. What we need is a leader who is able to think on his feet, who is able to make decisions based on the information that he collects from his advisors. Mr. Trump has been leading large organizations, business organizations, very successfully for decades and he'll be able to do the same thing as president.

VAUSE: We shall see. It has been nothing if not interesting; Clinton, good to speak with you. Thanks so much.

CNN's Anderson Cooper is hosting Town Halls with all of the Republican Presidential Candidates, and their families; and if you missed it you can see a replay of John Kasich coming up Tuesday at noon in London. Watch Donald Trump the same time on Wednesday. Ted Cruz Thursday, also at noon. Don't forget, on the democrat side, Hillary Clinton and Bernie sanders will face off in a CNN debate, live Friday at 2:00 a.m. London. Set your alarm clocks.

Well, still to come here, the LGBT community is speaking out against new laws in the U.S. states of Mississippi and North Carolina, and they're getting some support from Republican Presidential Candidate John Kasich, also some big-name musicians are joining the protest as well.

(Song "Summer of '69" by Bryan Adams Plays)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody; you're watching CNN NEWSROOM" live from Los Angeles; I'm John Vause. The headlines this hour: (HEADLINES)

[00:30:09] Officials say the defector was a colonel, specializing in espionage operations against the South.

Investigators in Europe are looking into claims that the Paris and Brussels attackers also planned to hit the Euro 2016 Football Tournament, which takes in June and July in cities across France. A source close to the investigation says ISIS terrorist suspect Mohamed Abrini told interrogators about the alleged plot.

Senior U.S. health officials are warning that the Zika virus is now scarier than they thought. They say experts are now linking the virus to premature births, eye problems and other conditions in babies born to mothers who are infected with Zika while pregnant. They say the mosquito that spreads Zika is now in 30 U.S. states.

There's an outpouring of both triumph and anger in Brazil after a congressional committee recommended that President Dilma Rousseff be impeached. She's accused of manipulating the budget to help win in re-election in 2014. Rousseff says her opponents are staging a coup. The Lower House of Congress will now debate her impeachment starting Friday.

Two southern U.S. states have made themselves the latest battlegrounds in the latest LGBT rights in America. 17 states, plus the Washington Capital district, have laws protecting against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity; but Mississippi and North Carolina each recently passed laws which many say allow for, even promote, discrimination along those lines.

U.S. Republican Presidential Candidate John Kasich weighed in on that during a CNN Town Hall a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KASICH: We may disagree, but you know what? Let's try to understand each other a little bit. What am I going to do, write a law? I read about this thing they did in Mississippi, where apparently you can deny somebody service because they're gay? What the hell are we doing in this country?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Politicians aren't the only public speakers who are speaking out. Some of the loudest voices have been rock stars. Prominent musicians have been cancelling shows in both of those states.

[Bryan Adams "Run to You" plays]

VAUSE: Singer/songwriter Bryan Adams won't be in Mississippi any time soon though. He cancelled a show to protest this new religious freedom law that opponents are calling anti-gay; and before Adams it was Bruce Springsteen, The Boss, cancelling his show in North Carolina. A new law in that state requires people who use bathrooms that correspond only to the gender on their birth certificate. He apologized to fans but said, "Some things are more important than a rock show, and the fight against prejudice and bigotry, which is happening as I write, is one of them."

Bob Lefsetz is a music writer; he's an analyst. He's also the author of the e-mail news and blog "The Lefsetz Letter." He joins us here now with more on this. Bob, thank you for being with us.

We've got these two big names which have just cancelled their concerns. You've got The Boss and you've got Bryan Adams. Is this just the start? Do you expect other musicians to take a stand here?

BOB LEFSETZ, MUSIC WRITER, "THE LEFSETZ LETTER": Oh, absolutely. It's the older generation weighing in because they remember the '60's. They remember when music stopped the Vietnam War and changed the world. The youngsters have no idea there. Music has completely changed. In the Sixties and Seventies if you

were a rock star, you were as rich as anybody in America. Now the richest people are techies and financiers, and the artists, musical artists are chasing those people. This is a wakeup call from Bruce Springsteen and Bryan Adams saying there are things that are more important than money; and art has power in a way that money does not have. The interesting thing is it's been tech companies who were weighing in first.

Tech people are the new rock stars. They don't care what other people think.

VAUSE: Yes, I guess that's the point. A lot of the younger musicians aren't taking a stand in this, but it is risky for musicians to speak out. I mean, remember the Dixie Chicks back in -

LEFSETZ: That's a complicated thing. That's country music and -

VAUSE: They did talk about the Iraq war and they protested George W. Bush and they were put through the wringer for that.

LEFSETZ: (Inaudible) we have Donald Trump all over the news, now saying that George Bush, the middle, did the wrong thing, you know, the middle brother; so basically -- actually, I think he's the older brother of Jeb --

VAUSE: He is the older brother, yes.

LEFSETZ: But the point being the truth is out. The Dixie Chicks should have continued to play. They took themselves out of the game. But what we've learned over a long time in music is, being right is more important, and pays long-term dividends as opposed to playing the game. This is one of the big problems. Everybody's so nice, worried about alienating people. We don't have records that sell 200 or 300 million copies. If you don't have an identity, people can't relate to you and it ultimately works against you.

VAUSE: So how effective though is a boycott? The argument is the state officials are the ones that passed these laws. The only people who are being hurt right now are the fans, the Springsteen fans, the Bryan Adams fan.

LEFSETZ: No; further north we have the situation where they had the law that was paid back to the right wing about people not having the big takes for gay people.

VAUSE: Right.

LEFSETZ: We had Tim Cook, who happens to be gay himself, and other tech [00:35:01] executives blowing back and they stopped that. So many people say oh, Bruce, you should have played anyway and just gave a speech. He cleaved society in a minute and brought this issue to a head; so therefore, people are now discussing it.

A lot of these things, like what we have now, before Scalia died we had a Republican dominated court. As a result of the federalist society, which the Republicans had for decades, they've been planning -- this is not something they did on a whim. This has got nothing to do with bathrooms. This is payback to the rightwing and what we have is -

VAUSE: For marriage equality?

LEFSETZ: Yes; what musicians say, okay, enough.

VAUSE: Okay, you mentioned the country music side of things with the Dixie Chicks and it's tough for them too because their audience is, for a large part, conservative, in the southern part of the country. The Tennessee Equality Project and GLAAD are calling on the Country Music Industry to speak out as well. Will that be tough for them?

LEFSETZ: It's going to be very tough. First and foremost, you know, GLAAD coming out, country music, don't forget, it's hard for country music stars to even come out of the closet. So therefore to stand up for this, -- but, Nashville is much more liberal than many other parts of Tennessee. What it needs is someone to break the lodge in. Who might that be?

There was an interesting article in the paper the other day, in "The Guardian" about the NRA's efforts in Nashville. Once there was sunshine put upon this other news, all the acts pulled back. So someone will break this lodge in, because it's moving. Listen, it went from Georgia to North Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee; okay? It sounds like Route 66 or something -

VAUSE: Yes.

LEFSETZ: -- but eventually, yes, the country acts will get involved. They don't want to, that's what the funny thing is about it. They're so busy kissing the corporate butt and doing all these things, they don't understand, music when done right is larger than life; okay? And what we have these actors so afraid to piss people off they don't realize that they have no identity, where if they had an identity people could connect with them and their careers would actually be bigger.

So this is only the tip of the iceberg. We have to go to "Occupy Wall Street" and Ferguson and the musicians were sitting on the sidelines; now the musicians are in the forefront and they have more power. Look at Twitter. Look at all the social networks. The musicians dominate that. Once they get into the game, it's a new game.

VAUSE: That's why they call him "The Boss". Bob, thanks so much for coming in. It was a great chat; really appreciate it.

LEFSETZ: Absolutely; I enjoyed it.

VAUSE: A short break here, but when we come back China looking to be a football super power. The new plan with a timeline to unveil. What that goal will be, what they're going to do it in, all that sort of stuff in just a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) VAUSE: China has released a new report detailing its ambition to become a world-class football power by 2050. The China Football Association has set some short-term and long-term goals, including plans to get 50 million people, that's a lot, including school kids, playing the sport within four years, to build 20,000 football training skills and 70,000 pitches and have [00:40:02] the best national team and league in the continent by 2030.

Matt Rivers joins us now from Beijing with more details on this. Matt, what's driving these football ambitions in China? Is it mostly about sport or much about politics?

MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT, via satellite: John, there's no doubt that politics have a huge role in this. You can start with so many other things in China just like them, at the top, and that would be with the President Xi Jinping. He has made no secret that he is a big fan of the beautiful game and that he wants China and Chinese people to follow in his footsteps. He's wants China to have a broader imprint on the international game and he is taking steps to make that happen.

So you're seeing with this announcement that came out last night, that it came from the Chinese Football Association which claims to be a nonprofit organization, but many people suspect that it is really just a quasi-governmental agency following the dictates of people like President Xi Jingping.

Then you look at the scale as well, John. You say those numbers 20,000-some schools. 70,000 pitches. It's not to say that Chinese people wouldn't be playing soccer or football on their own here in China without these kind of governmental edicts, but to get to that level of scale, to get those millions of school children playing the game, that's not going to happen here organically; that's going to happen as a proactive government intervention.

VAUSE: Well, it's one thing the Communist Party does well is organizing a lot of people all at the same time, but they've got a long way to go don't they. The Chinese National team 81 in FIFA rankings right now I think?

RIVERS: Yes, the latest rankings came out April 7th and they do sit at 81; that is one spot behind the country of Cyprus which sits at number 80. So China, despite its size, still, frankly, just not a very good soccer team. They have a very, very long way to go if they want to achieve that goal of being one of the world's best football programs.

It is noting though that the Chinese women's team has experienced a lot more success. The guidelines that came out Monday night hoped that the Chinese Women's team would be a topped rank club by sometime around 2030.

VAUSE: I guess, you know, one of the things they have going for them right now is sheer size and scale, and the local soccer league had a huge cash injection with a multi-billion-dollar deal for TV rights. RIVERS: Yes, that TV rights deal was well over 1 billion U.S.

dollars. When you compare that - that was for 2016. When you compare the rights to 2015, that deal was only around 80 million Yuan. So that just an incredible distance, an incredible scale-up in terms of what people are paying for those rights. That money eventually will go to the clubs, and the clubs can use that kind of money to do the things that we've seen them do earlier this year.

Between January and February, during that transfer window, Chinese clubs paid more, in total, than any other set of clubs in the world before it's players, shelling out deals that were worth tens of millions of U.S. dollars. So there's a lot of money to be spent here in China on football.

VAUSE: Yes, they've certainly got the deep pockets. We'll see how it plays out. Matt, thank you; Matt Rivers live this hour in Beijing.

Thank you for watching "CNN Newsroom" live from Los Angeles; I'm John Vause. "World Sport" is up next and then I'll be back with another hour of news from around the world. Stay with us. You're watching CNN.

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