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Trump Claims All Allegations of Women are False; 21 Women Released From Boko Haram; Thailand Mourns Loss of King Bhumibol Adulyadej; Reuters: Obama to Meet Aides about Syria, ISIS; Russian Lawmaker Warns of Dire Consequences if Clinton Elected President; Iraqis Follow U.S. Presidential Race; Bob Dylan Receive Nobel Prize in Literature. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired October 14, 2016 - 01:00   ET

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

[01:00:00] JOHN VAUSE, CNN NEWSROOM ANCHOR: This is CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. Ahead this hour, Donald Trump on the attack. The republican nominee lashes out at his accusers, Hillary Clinton and party bosses. Free at last, Boko Haram releases 21 girls kidnapped more than two years ago but about 200 girls remain missing. And later, the times they are a changin'. Bob Dylan becomes the first musician to win the Nobel Prize for literature. Hello, everybody. Great to have you with us. I'm John Vause. We're now in to the second hour of NEWSROOM L.A.

If Donald Trump loses this election, he'll have no shortage of people to blame. In a campaign stop on Thursday, he said the allegations of sexual misconduct made by multiple women is part of a grand conspiracy. On Thursday, Trump he called his accusers horrible, horrible liars, and he did not spare his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This election is a simple choice. It's a choice between putting our faith in failed politicians -- and she is a failed politician. Look at what she's done. Everything she touches -- I'm going to be very nice -- turns bad. See, I've learned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Joining me now, a democratic strategist Matthew Littman, and CNN political commentator and Trump supporter John Philips. OK. It has been a no-good, horrible, awful week for Donald Trump. You know, it seems to him, at least, they're coming at him from all sides, and he's feeling it. You know, listen to him earlier today on the campaign trail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They knew they would stop at nothing to try to stop me. But I never knew -- as bad as it would be, I never knew it would be this vile, that it would be this bad, that it would be this vicious. Nevertheless, I take all of these slings and arrows, gladly for you.

(END VIDEO CLIP) VAUSE: Matt, the thing that struck me about that, vile and vicious, this is coming from a candidate who accused Ted Cruz's father of being involved in the assassination of JFK and then a whole lot of other stuff.

MATTHEW LITTMAN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: When he says that he didn't know it would be this vile and vicious, we didn't know that this would this vile and this vicious. It's been a pretty horrible campaign. And you know - and --

VAUSE: Yeah. But he's responsible for many ways -

LITTMAN: Well, he - well, he is put in a serious moment here. We're not talking about the issues, because we've been side-tracked by the horribleness of Trump's personality, and it seems pretty apparent at this point that Hillary is going to win this election. But we're not talking about the issues. There are lots of serious issues before the country. We've been side-tracked by the Trump nonsense with all of his horrible behavior, his changing of positions about every other week on the issues that he does talk about. I don't think it's doing the country any favors.

VAUSE: And John, to that point, you -- we have not had a serious discussion as much as, you know, Trump supporters say we wanted to return to the issues and we don't want to talk about, you know, allegations and sexual misconduct, we don't want to talk about the tape, you know, all these kind of stuff. Donald Trump keeps changing the topic to discuss just that.

JOHN PHILIPS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND TRUMP SUPPORTER: Well, Trump is at his best when he is talking about the issues. You go to that first debate, his strongest 30 minutes were the first 30 minutes when they talked about trade, they talk about the economics. If you go to the second debate, I think his strongest minutes were the final 60 minutes after they got away from the personal stuff and he got back to the substance. I would expect to see more of that in the third debate. If he's going to find a way to stop the bleeding and push the numbers in his direction, he's going to have to find a way to talk about what he's going to do with ISIS, immigration and trade.

LITTMAN: So, I'm going to disagree with John on that. I don't think that Donald Trump is going to do that, because Donald Trump only has a certain attention span. And so for a few minutes, I think he can talk about the issues, and I think he did in that first part of the first debate, did well because we're grading him on a curve for that first debate when he talked about the issues a little bit. But Donald Trump can't talk about the issues for an hour and a half. His mind doesn't work like that. If you ask Donald Trump to name the people he'd like to appoint to the Supreme Court, do you think he could do it? He can't do it.

PHILIPS: He put the list out.

VAUSE: That's right. But he can't remember the list.

LITTMAN: But if you ask him, I don't think he can remember the list. (CROSSTALK)

VAUSE: About the third debate, though, you know, I was always taught never get into a bar fight with someone who has nothing to lose. And at this point, Donald Trump has nothing to lose. So, this third debate could be quite, you know, vicious, to say the least.

PHILIPS: Right. Whenever you're the candidate that's trailing in the polls, you obviously have to do something that's going to resonate with voters. Now, again, I would still say that the game plan should be to resist your impulses and talk about those issues. I mean, the Frank Luntz panels, they chronicle voters as they're watching them.

[01:05:02] PHILIPS: And you can see when Trump talks about the issues and when he's on the attack on, say, the e-mails, that was very effective in each of the debates. He needs to hit her on her e-mails and needs to talk about the issues.

VAUSE: OK.

LITTMAN: But Trump does not - does not want to fight on the issues, because he's going to lose. And at this point, I think he knows he's going to lose, so he's fighting for something afterward, which is the reasons why he lost. He's looking to blame everybody else, because he ran a horrible campaign. And so, that's what he's fighting about now. So, I think in the next three weeks, that's all you're going to hear.

VAUSE: OK. Michelle Obama, she was out on the campaign trail today. I mean, to Hillary Clinton, there are a lot of people out on the campaign trail. She had Joe Biden, today she had Barack Obama and also the First Lady Michelle Obama, who already gave a very powerful speech at the Democratic Convention. Now, people are saying this speech was as good, if not better.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHELLE OBAMA, UNITED STATES FIRST LADY: We all know that if we let Hillary's opponent win this election, then we are sending a clear message to our kids that everything they're seeing and hearing is perfectly OK. We are validating it. We are endorsing it. We're telling our sons that it's OK to humiliate women. We're telling our daughters that this is how they deserve to be treated, we're telling all our kids that bigotry and bullying are perfectly acceptable in the leader of their country. Is that what we want for our children?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: John, how effective is that, you know, as going up against Donald Trump who is simply out there, you know, really going hard and heavy against everybody?

PHILIPS: Yeah, you need co-signers when your credit is bad. And Hillary Clinton has very high unfavorables. Michelle Obama is probably the most popular figure in the Democratic Party, so she figured, "All right. Let's go ahead and have Michelle Obama put this message out there." Earlier in the week, it was Al Gore. She's had her husband, Bill, out there campaigning on her behalf. And I don't think that's a mistake. I think it's because they recognize she is a highly unpopular figure.

VAUSE: Well, as Donald Trump has huge negatives as well, but again, this is - this is Michelle Obama. Many people are saying, you know, she is coming into her own, and the reason why that speech is so powerful is that because for the past eight years, she's been sort of apolitical. And so she's (INAUDIBLE) a lot of credit.

LITTMAN: Yeah. And I think this speech breaks through for Michelle Obama. You know, a lot of politicians gives speeches all the time most people don't pay a lot of attention. With Michelle Obama, I actually think people are going to pay attention. Donald Trump does have a problem, because the more Donald Trump talks these days, the more he gets in trouble, but he doesn't have anybody else out there talking for him. He said his wife was going to be out there talking for him, she's not. What happened to Sarah Palin, by the way?

VAUSE: Yeah, where did she go?

LITTMAN: Where did she disappear to?

VAUSE: She's with you at POLITICO.

LITTMAN: Right. Right. Right. But she's not out there, and I can't find, you know, Rudy Giuliani who's not the same Rudy Giuliani he was 15 years ago. Chris Christie is working behind the scenes. Where are the Trump supporters? You don't find people who work with Donald Trump supporting him, there are no friends of Donald Trump's out there. Where are these people?

VAUSE: We've got Andy Dean on CNN. But this is -- all of these as Mike Pence and Donald Trump holding rallies.

PHILIPS: Yes. Well, look, he was unpopular with the Republican elites in the primary, hew as unpopular with the media elites in the primary. Not much has changed between the primary and the general. Now, he was popular with Republican Primary voters. And as - up until the last few weeks, I mean, he was pretty much neck and neck with Hillary in the polls, she had a slight edge, but he was doing formidable. He's had a very bad week, the numbers are bad, and he needs to get it together, and this third debate is probably his last chance to move the needle.

LITTMAN: Let me - let me assure John of something, it is his last chance to move the needle. The Election is November 8th, it's not six months from now. It's already too late, I think.

VAUSE: Did the Trump campaign pull its sabotaging out of Virginia because essentially the Republican Party, the GOP is now saying, if you want to play in Virginia, you got to write your own checks?

PHILIPS: You know, I was having a conversation with our colleague Ron Brownstein about this, is why Virginia of all the states that's just going blue and has been in the last several presidential cycles. And my opinion is, that when the recession hit the country in 2008, Virginia was really the one place that didn't get hit because the main economic engine in that state is the federal government. And the federal government is essentially recession-proof. So, these people rely on federal spending, they rely on the federal government expanding. And when you have that as your economic engine, you're going to tend to go blue.

VAUSE: OK.

LITTMAN: Let me just also say, though, that it's way too late. The Trump campaign could have pulled out of Virginia a while ago. Donald Trump's son advised him not to pull out of Virginia. That was a big mistake, they've wasted their money. Also, keep in mind, when Trump won the republican nomination, where was he campaigning? California.

VAUSE: Yes.

LITTMAN: He's losing by California in 30 points.

VAUSE: 35 points. Yeah.

LITTMAN: Yeah.

PHILIPS: But he is and historically polled better in some swing states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, than Romney did.

VAUSE: OK. We're talking about a lot of republicans pulling their endorsement for Trump. And we have President Barack Obama out on the campaign trail. He said it's simply too little, too late.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[01:09:56] BARACK OBAMA, UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: They don't get credit for at the very last minute when finally the guy that they nominated and they endorsed and they supported is caught on tape saying things that no decent person would even think, much less say, much less brag about, much less laugh about or joke about, much less act on. You can't wait until that finally happens, and then say, "Oh, that's too much. That's enough." and think that somehow you are showing any kind of leadership -

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Essentially Obama is pinning, you know, all of this onto the Republican Party.

PHILIPS: Yeah, and that's frustration that republicans are doing well in senate races, republicans are up in Ohio by large margins, they are up in Florida, they're tied right now in Pennsylvania and only down by two in Wisconsin, up in North Carolina. He probably assumes with as bad as Trump has been doing in the last week in the polls, both nationally and in the states, that they should be winning the senate easily and maybe even being competitive in the house, that's not happening.

LITTMAN: I think that's true. I think you're seeing more - you're going to see more split ticket voting than you normally would, given the overwhelming victory that Hillary is going to have here. I think Trump that - Trump - Barack Obama certainly expresses the frustration that a lot of people have with the republicans not being brave enough to stand up to Trump.

VAUSE: And a split ticket means, you know, the republicans might retain the house, and the senates and other -

LITTMAN: I think republicans will retain the house. They may not retain the senate -

(CROSSTALK)

VAUSE: Another four years of divided government. Oh, good. OK. Matt and John, thanks for coming in. Appreciate it. Thank you. The beat goes on.

Well, since 2005, "Access Hollywood" - about 2005, Access Hollywood recording while it came to light, Trump has insisted Bill Clinton did worse. On Thursday night, Fox News spoke with three women who accused the former president of sexual misdeeds. One of them, Paula Jones sued him for harassment in the 1990s.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All three of you in your own way have said you fear Hillary being the president.

PAULA JONES, FORMER ARKANSAS STATE EMPLOYEE: Absolutely.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why?

JONES: Why wouldn't we? I mean, there's been so many things happened to so many people that are connected to the Clintons and we are -

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You fear for your life?

JONES: Absolutely, I feel that way if she gets -- becomes the president.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, yes. I -

(CROSSTALK)

JONES: She's going to rule the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: And Donald Trump invited those same women to sit in the audience during the second presidential debate last Sunday. And just an hour before that, they held a news conference linking Hillary Clinton to her husband's sex scandals of the 1990s.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUANITA BROADDRICK, CLAIMS BILL CLINTON: Actions speak louder than words. Mr. Trump may have said some bad words, but Bill Clinton raped me and Hillary Clinton threatened me. I don't think there's any comparison.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Bill Clinton's lawyer has always denied the allegations made by Juanita Broaddrick and charges were never laid, but for the Trump campaign, that's not the point.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: And Hillary was an enabler and she treated these women horribly, just remember this. And some of those women were destroyed, not by him, but by the way that Hillary Clinton treated them after everything went down. So just remember that, folks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: That was Donald Trump back in May, and all of these raises the question, what precisely is the evidence proving Hillary Clinton either enabled her husband or tried to intimidate his alleged victims on his behalf? Well, for more on that, Jill Abramson is a political columnist with the Guarding Newspaper. Also, a visiting lecturer at Harvard University, she joins us now from Boston. So, Jill, the three women here, Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broaddrick and Paula Jones, what is the evidence they have on Hillary Clinton?

JILL ABRAMSON, POLITICAL COLUMNIST OF THE GUARDIAN: The evidence is very flimsy. And very circumstantial and, you know, I find it completely unpersuasive. I don't think there's any evidence that Hillary Clinton intimidated these women or as Trump has said, did horrible things to them or ruined their lives, but the idea that she's an enabler, again, I just know of know of no evidence to support that, and everything that she has said on the record, and that I've reported on, there's just really nothing to that. In the case of Juanita Broaddrick, her claim is that back - again, this tracks back to Arkansas when Clinton was running one of his gubernatorial campaigns after he won, but this was after she says he raped her.

[01:15:02] Hillary Clinton came up to Juanita Broaddrick at a - at a celebratory event and walked over and twice, all she did is -- she said, thank you for what you did for my husband, and said it twice, and for some reason, Juanita Broaddrick, you know, interpreted this as a terrible threat against her, which I just don't see how you could interpret someone saying, "Thank you for helping my husband," as a threat, it just doesn't make sense to me. In Kathleen Willey's case, she says, you know, dead cat was left on her porch after, you know, she went public with her charges that Clinton groped her in the White House, said she found a dead cat, that there's a shadowy man lurking in her neighborhood asking questions about her family, but again, even if these things happened, why is Hillary Clinton connected to them? There's no connection.

VAUSE: They explain the tactics here you --being used by Donald Trump, because there's no point in their view, I guess, in raising the allegations against Bill Clinton if they can't be linked in some nefarious way to Hillary Clinton, if she can't be implicated because that's what this is all about. ABRAMSON: It's true that in the general election, he's tried to put

the focus on Hillary Clinton in terms of what he says without support she's done to them, but I think he was happy to bring up Bill Clinton's misbehavior with women on its own, because he thinks it plays to his advantage.

VAUSE: OK. Jill, we'll leave it there, but we really appreciate you coming in. I appreciate your reporting on it. Thank you.

ABRAMSON: Oh, thanks, John. It's been great talking to you.

VAUSE: We'll take a short break, when we come back after two and a half years, 21 Nigerian school girls are heading home. Also ahead, Thailand mourns its king who served for more than seven decades.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PATRICK SNELL, CNN WORLD SPORT ANCHOR: Hi there, I'm Patrick Snell with the World Sport update. With the recent International Football right behind us, all eyes now on Europe's top domestic leagues which swing back into action this coming weekend. And you could argue, nobody needs a win more right now than Chelsea Manager, Antonio Conte. The Blues Home English Premier League clashed with defending champs Leicester, is a must-win now for the Italian as it follows reports that two leading British bookies has suspended betting on in becoming the next Premier League head coach to be dismissed. Currently, Chelsea sits seventh in the Premier, with 13 points in Conte's first season with the Blues.

[01:19:58] One of the most controversial figures in boxing facing a fight of a different kind right now, Britain's Tyson Fury voluntarily vacating his world heavyweight titles as he tries to fully focus on medical treatment and recovery, this after admitting his battles with depressions. Now, it comes as the British Boxing Board of Control announced its decision to remove Tyson's boxing license pending further investigation into quote, "Anti-doping and medical issues."

And we can tell you the National Hockey League, Auston Matthews making it a debut to remember, in a record fashion, too with the Toronto Maple Leafs as they lost to the Ottawa Senators. The 19-year-old rookie becoming the first player in NHL history to score not one but four goals in a debut to remember, not only did he score four, he did this in two periods, as well. Thanks for joining us, I'm Patrick Snell. Bye for now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: There's new hope because Nigeria after Boko Haram released 21 kidnapped girls. They're said to be among the 276 young women, the militant group kidnapped in 2014 at their school in Chibok, while others have escaped, around 200 girls are still missing. Nima Elbagir has their story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN LONDON CORRESPONDENT: It's been a long and torturous journey, these grainy stills, the first sighting of the 21 released Chibok girls. The Nigerian border town of Banki, their 3:00 a.m. handover point. In April 2014, we travel to Chibok to meet with shell-shocked families reeling from the abduction of the almost 300 girls. Nearly 60 managed to escape their captors, but the fate of the remaining girls remained uncertain. The world waited along with their families. Campaigners tirelessly worked to maintain pressure on the government to bring the girls home. Today's release and the negotiations that facilitated it, perhaps the first without pressure.

LAI MOHAMMED, NIGERIAN INFORMATION MINISTER: -- the release (INAUDIBLE) the painstaking negotiations and trust of both sides, we see this as incredible first step in the eventual release of all the Chibok girls in captivity.

ELBAGIR: More girls could soon be on their way home. Nima Elbagir, CNN London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: A baby boy was also freed along with the 21 young women. Officials say he was born to one of the girls, doctors believe he's about 20 months old. Obiageli Ezekwesili is the former Vice President of World Bank Africa and Nigeria's former Education Minister, she joins us now from San Francisco. Obi, there is this hope now that the rest of the girls may in fact be released. What is the reason for the optimism and what is the timeframe? When do you think that could happen?

OBIAGELI EZEKWESILI, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF WORLD BANK AFRICA: I don't think the government has even so much as eluded to a timeframe, I think what they've done is to reassure that they're not going to drop the ball at all, and that they would press on to ensure that the rest of the girls are rescued. We would love to see the fiercest urgency to this, of course mindful that they would have to continue with the necessary negotiation in order to ensure that no one is imperiled in the process of bringing back the rest of the 197 girls that are waiting to be rescued.

VAUSE: These negotiations have already taken, you know, many, many months, even maybe, you know, years, in fact. So, would you see it taking that long or would there be a shorter horizon here?

EZEKWESILI: I don't want to see anything longer -- not one bit. You know, the girls should have been back on the 15th of April, 2014, the day after they were rescued - they were abducted. So nobody wants a protracted process at all. I think that until the next couple of days and the events leading up to it are clearer, and then the government, you know, focuses on the necessity to not lose the momentum, it's always important to just keep that momentum and, you know, we would then be able to, perhaps, contextually look at, you know, the - a vision of milestones that the government can obtain. I do - I do believe that all the other parents whose daughters are not part of this batch of 21, are going to be even much more anxious. And so, to allay and to assuage the anxiety, it is necessary for the government to be very much engaged on bringing the entire episode to closure. VAUSE: Sorry to interrupt, what do you know about this little boy who was born about 20 months old? What do we know about him and his mother?

EZEKWESILI: Well, you know, just exactly as happened with (INAUDIBLE), she's a victim of, you know, a young woman being hanging around men that are not parents, that are not their fathers, that are not their siblings, and so they took advantage of her, and now they have children, and these are part of the challenges that we would have to resolve. It was clear that you know, we risked so much of this by, you know, not rescuing these girls as quickly as they should have been rescued.

VAUSE: What was - what was the deal made here to get these girls back, because, you know, there's some speculation that the government may have swapped Boko Haram fighters for the girls, they say that's not the case. What is your suspicion here? What do you think happened?

EZEKWESILI: I don't - I hate to speculate. I'm always driven by facts, by evidence. And so, I wouldn't want to get into any dangerous speculations. But one thing is clear, in a situation where you are negotiating a rescue, where you are negotiating release of a target, there would be all kinds of -- all kinds of conversation. We don't know exactly what, you know, went for what in this particular case. But whatever may be the case, one thing is clear, our government is going to tackle Boko Haram, it's already tackling it, it's going to decimate Boko Haram. In the meantime, we've got very, you know, inner (INAUDIBLE) priceless citizens of ours in the hands of you know, blood hounds. We won't have to do everything necessary to ensure that their lives are secure, and that's what the government has done. And I think we should, you know, remember that in many other circumstances around the world, governments have done similar things to ensure that their citizens are not - are not destroyed for nothing.

VAUSE: And we should also note the fact there are 21 young women who are now home or on their way home, and that is good news. Obi, thanks for being with us.

EZEKWESILI: Thank you.

VAUSE: Well, the Thai king's body will be moved from a Bankok hospital to the grand palace in a parade in the coming hours. The king died Thursday, aged 88, more than seven decades he served as a unifying figure in an often divided country. CNN's Will Ripley has more on his life and legacy, and how Thailand is mourning his loss.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John, a lot of people might not know the Thai king was born in the United States and educated in Switzerland, but he spent his 70-year reign here in Thailand where he is a deeply revered figure loved by both the poor rural farmers and the elite city dwellers alike. Really, a unifying figure in this deeply divided nation that is now united in grief. "Long live the king," they chant outside the oldest hospital in Bangkok. Thousands wait for hours, finally getting the news they hoped wouldn't come. The announcement broadcast on all TV stations across Thailand.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On Thursday, October the 13th, 2016 at 3:52 p.m. local time, his majesty the king passed away peacefully.

RIPLEY: Outside the hospital where the king died, thousands who gathered to pray are overwhelmed with grief. The only king most of them have ever known is gone.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was a father to everybody, a father who worked every day for past 70 years without holiday, without even vacation.

RIPLEY: For millions of Thais, King Bhumibol Adulyadej was the soul of their nation, the glue that held together a society deeply divided. He helped maintain stability through more than a dozen military coups in a country where citizens were once forbidden to even look at their monarch, King Bhumibol made it a mission to meet his people and improve their lives.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the king who would never take anything for himself, and just keep giving until his very last moment.

RIPLEY: In a speech to the nation after the King's death, Thailand's Prime Minister urged citizens to stay united.

PRAYUT CHAN-O-CHA, THAILAND'S PRIME MINISTER (through translator): Do not let his passing destroy his ambition to see his kingdom prosper and his people content.

RIPLEY: Thailand is now in a mourning period. Government employees are asked to wear black to work for a year and state agencies will fly their flags at half-mast for 30 days. Even Bangkok's red light district, nearly empty, citizens and tourists asked to show respect.

The government said it is waiting for a more appropriate time to announce when the king's successor will take the throne. The crown prince needs time to jointly mourn his father along with the Thai people. What happens next can wait.

Thais right now are grieving their beloved king who ruled for 70 years, the longest reign in Thailand's history.

(on camera): From the beginning of his reign in 1946, the king has seen more than 20 prime ministers, more than a dozen coups, 20 versions of the constitution, and he has remained popular and loved. He is protected by the country's strict les majesty laws that prevent any criticism of the royal family, laws that will remain in place as the crown prince is the tenth monarch of the dynasty -- John?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Will Ripley there. Thank you. Now still to come here, Aleppo is seeing some of the worst violence

ever in an already brutal Syrian civil war we'll take a look at how important that city could be for the Syrian president in his larger plans.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:35:00] VAUSE: You're watching CNN NEWSROOM, live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause, with the headlines this hour.

(HEADLINES)

VAUSE: Aleppo has seen some of the worst violence yet in Syria's five-year long civil war. Activists say at least 79 people have been killed in two days in Aleppo. Russia says it is ready to let rebels and civilians out of the city but that plan has failed before. Separately, at least 17 people were killed after a car bomb exploded near the Syrian/Turkish border. Most killed were rebels. The U.S. and Russia will meet on Saturday in Switzerland to discuss a ceasefire.

And Britian's foreign secretary says coalition partners should consider military options in Syria. But Johnson says that's not likely to happen soon. The U.K. is taking part in air strikes in Syria but not against the Syrian regime. Johnson also talked about a possible no-fly zone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: It is vital we do not raise false hopes. We know the difficulties and the implications of a no- fly zone or a no-bombing zone, and no matter how easy those concepts sometimes may be made to sound. But if there is more that we can reasonably and practically do, together with our allies. Then, of course, we should consider those measures, and believe me that work is now going on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

James Fearon joins us from Sanford University. He's a political science professor.

We heard this report from Reuters and that the United States president and his aides will meet to consider military options in Syria. And Boris Johnson also talking about military options. Do you expect increased military involvement by the U.S. and its allies?

JAMES FEARON, POLITICAL SCIENCE PROFESSOR, STANFORD UNIVERSITY: It's possible but I continue to think it's not very likely. I think what's happened recently with the collapse of the last ceasefire and the vicious escalation and bombing of neighborhoods in east Aleppo, they're going to revisit, both in Britain and the Obama administration, military options, but they're probably going to run into the same objections that made it seem like not a good idea in the past. It's possible things may change a little bit now in terms of deciding even if the long run doesn't look good something needs to be done in the short term that to communicate to Putin that he can't keep being as aggressive as he is.

VAUSE: Some of the short term option could be striking Syrian military bases or supplying air defenses to the moderate rebels. Bu that all comes with the law of unintended consequences

FEARON: The two main difficulties is that anything we do that really effectively protects civilians or helps the moderate opposition also helps the jihadi opposition who were engaged in an intense war with right there as well, and at least the Obama administration decided is the more vital interest. The other thing is anything we do involves the risks of, say, shooting down Russian aircraft and escalating in a way that could very well pull us in or would be hard to back off from without it looking really terrible and, thus, you know, the concern that you'd be drawn down a kind of road where you'd be getting out ahead of where publics in Britain and the U.S. would be willing to support in the long run.

VAUSE: In the past three hours, we have heard from Bashar al Assad, the dictator in Syria, who spoke about the importance of retaking Aleppo. This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASHAR AL ASSAD, SYRIAN PRESIDENT: First of all, it has political gain.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Political.

ASSAD: Then from the strategy point of view, it is going to be the spring board as big city to move to another area, to liberate other areas from the terrorist.

(CROSSTALK)

ASSAD: This is the importance of Aleppo now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: By other areas, the assumption is he is talking about Idlib and, once Idlib falls, it would be put it back in control of all major urban centers in Syria, except for the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa. That would be a significant win for Bashar al Assad.

[01:40:20] FEARON: It would be but it probably would mainly just move the conflict to another phase where the fighting would continue at more of a lower level insurgency with a lot of terrorist attacks and move to more rural and semi-rural areas. So you know, I still have trouble seeing what the Russians and Iranians see as the long run here. It's seems extremely unlikely that they could imagine their support for Assad gets Syria back like the serious it was in 2010 before the Arab Spring, for example.

VAUSE: Professor James Fearon, at Stanford University, thanks for being with us.

FEARON: Thank you. VAUSE: Next here on NEWSROOM, L.A., a Russian lawmaker is warning of

dire consequences if Hillary Clinton is elected president. Details in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: The Kremlin is trying to distance itself from controversial comments by a Russian lawmaker about the U.S. presidential race. On Wednesday, an ally of Vladimir Putin told the Reuters news agency, if Hillary Clinton won the presidency, there would be nuclear wars and, quote, "Hiroshimas and Nagasakis everywhere."

Brian Todd has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One of Vladimir Putin's most powerful supporters, a man who just won big in a parliamentary election in Russia, warns Americans about their votes. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, an ultra-nationalist firebrand who now leads Russia's third-biggest party, warns Americans about their votes.

VLADIMIR ZHIRINOVSKY, RUSSIAN MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT (through translation): They are voting for peace on planet earth if they vote for Trump. But if they vote for Hillary, it's war.

[01:45:06] TODD: Zhirinovsky says that Hillary Clinton, quote, "craves power," that "she would create panic if elected." Then he goes further.

ZHIRINOVSKY (through translation): If Hillary Clinton wins it will be the last U.S. president ever.

TODD: The Kremlin scrambled to distance itself from Zhirinovsky, a foreign ministry spokeswoman telling CNN that was just his personal opinion.

But analysts say he is helping Putin.

UNIDENTIFIED ANALYST: President Putin has stoked nationalism in Russia in order to shore up political support. And so it's useful for him when he has these types of ultra-nationalist characters making these kinds of remarks.

TODD: Putin and his inner circle are pushing back against allegations that their hackers are trying to sabotage America's vote. CNN has learned investigators believe a Cyberattack that exposed voter data in Florida was the work of the Russians.

The Obama administration has just publicly named and shamed Putin's government for hacks of the Democratic Party, accusing the Kremlin of trying to destabilize America's political system.

Putin says the U.S. is trying to deflect from the damaging content of the stolen e-mails. VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translation): They started this hysteria saying that this hacking is in Russia's interests. This has nothing to do with Russia's interests.

TODD: Analysts say if there is anything to what U.S. officials accuse Putin of doing, this is unprecedented.

UNIDENTIFIED ANALYST: It is extraordinary for a foreign leader to go to these lengths to interfere in an American election and I think it partly shows how bad the relationship is between the United States and Russia at this point.

TODD: Experts say if his hackers are meddling in America's election it is a cold calculation by Putin.

UNIDENTIFIED ANALYST: What he wants to show is that whoever it is that becomes the American president is as flawed as the next person.

TODD (voice-over): Analysts also say Putin is also trying to deflect world attention away from political corruption in Russia by trying portraying the American system as being just as bad and they say he's trying to hit back for what he believes was America's interference in his last election four years ago, an accusation U.S. officials have denied.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: The U.S. presidential race is one of the most contentious and divisive in recent memory. And it's not just American voters who have plenty to say. Here's Ben Wedeman reporting in from Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In this cafe, a retired engineer reads the latest news from the U.S. presidential elections. He is confident Donald Trump will win.

"Hillary has a lot of question marks hanging over her," he says, because of her husband's many scandals. But scandals are normal for the Americans."

A self-described Lakers fan agrees, insisting that no politician or anyone else should be throwing the first stone.

"No one is without scandal," he says, "even you."

(LAUGHTER)

(on camera): America's a land far, far away. And comprehending the electoral process is sometimes difficult. Nonetheless, people here are paying attention this year in a way you might pay attention to a particularly salacious soap opera.

(voice-over): This man follows the campaign closely. "The last few days, I heard reports about Trump's alleged sexual

harassment of women," he says. "It's embarrassing to even talk about it and it will cost him votes."

Across the street, a group of actors hold court in comfortable chairs. Some don't like what they've heard from Donald Trump.

"He wants to stop Muslims immigrating to America," he says. "He wants to take our oil wells because America spends so much on the Middle East. What kind of talk is this?"

Irbil, the capitol of Iraq's Kurdish region, is one of the world's oldest cities. For hundreds of years, its ancient covered market, renowned for its dried fruit and nuts. Here, they say, they know their nuts.

Ben Wedeman, CNN, Irbil.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Still to come here, a stunning announcement in the Nobel Prize for literature. Bob Dylan, the voice of his generation, settles the debate. Yes, lyrics are poetry.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:53:46] VAUSE: For the first time, a song writer has won the Nobel Prize for literature. Bob Dylan's name had been whispered as a possible winner for years, but still he was a surprise choice and settles the debate, lyrics are poetry.

Here's Paul Newton.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(SINGING)

PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Folk singer, song writer, modern-day minstrel, to many baby boomers, Bob Dylan is the voice of their generation.

But his winning the 2016 Nobel Prize for literature stunned the Stockholm crowd at the announcement.

ANNOUNCER: Bob Dylan.

(CHEERING)

NEWTON: Mentioned in Nobel speculation for years but never seen as a serious contender, Dylan is the first song writer to win the prestigious award.

ANNOUNCER: For having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.

NEWTON: And Dylan has created so much poetry for the years.

(SINGING)

NEWTON: From "Blowin' in the Wind" --

(SINGING)

NEWTON: -- to "Subterranean Homesick Blues" --

(SINGING)

NEWTON: -- to his transformative rock anthem "Like a Rolling Stone."

The Nobel is just the latest honor for this performer. He has won 10 Grammy awards, a Golden Globe, an Oscar, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he's also received a Pulitzer Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and sold tens of millions of records in a career spanning more than five decades.

Now 75 years old, Dylan performed this past weekend at the U.S. Musical Festival dubbed Old-Chella (ph) and shows no signs of letting up.

Paula Newton, CNN.

(SINGING)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: You're watching CNN NEWSROOM, live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause.

Stay with us. I'll be back with another hour of news after a short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:00:09] VAUSE: Here we are again. This is CNN NEWSROOM, live from Los Angeles.

Ahead this hour --

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