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Battle for Mosul; Syria Ceasefire Sought; Another Trump Accuser; WikiLeaks Releases Clinton Speeches. Aired 3-3:30a ET

Aired October 16, 2016 - 03:00   ET

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

NATALIE ALLEN, CNN HOST: On the brink of battle, a coalition of forces prepares to retake Mosul after more than two years of ISIS control. Without a breakthrough at the latest Syria talks, leaders meet again searching for a way to bring peace to the war-torn country.

And Donald Trump is accusing Hillary Clinton of taking performance- enhancing drugs on the same day another woman accuses him of sexual assault. It's all ahead here on "CNN Newsroom."

Thank you for joining us. We're live in Atlanta. I'm Natalie Allen. A major battle against ISIS draws near in Iraq.

Government forces, Kurdish Peshmerga, and Shiite paramilitaries are preparing to retake Mosul. ISIS has held the key city for more than two years.

Some one million people may still live there. And aid groups warn of a potential humanitarian crisis ahead of the battle. The Iraqi air force dropped leaflets on Mosul Saturday night, warning residents to avoid ISIS positions and promising victory.

Our Ben Wedeman is in Iraq with the latest on the coming fight.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The day of reckoning for Mosul is fast approaching. Thousands of troops including Iraqi special forces, paramilitaries, the army, Iraqi police, and Kurdish fighters are assembled on the outskirts of the city, Iraq's second largest, occupied since ISIS since June of 2014. All that remains is for Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to announce the beginning of the offensive.

Now, we're hearing from sources inside Mosul that the group is trying to bolster its defenses. It apparently has released many prisoners being held for offenses like smoking cigarettes, wearing the wrong clothing, and shaving, have been released and forced to dig trenches and tunnels on the outskirts of the city.

Sources also tell us that ISIS has authorized wounded militants to leave the city, presumably to Syria. In the meantime, we learned that six buses left the city early this morning with women, children as well as men.

Now, others, however, who tried to flee the city suffered a different fate. Sources tell us that 14 ISIS militants, including two leaders, were executed for abandoning the city. The battle for Mosul is going to be long and difficult.

Keep in mind, it's a city where perhaps at this point, one million people still live. For ISIS, the loss of Mosul will be a critical blow. It was there that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the caliphate in 2014.

Losing the city will be a blow, not only to its ambitions, but perhaps to the very existence of the group. Ben Wedeman, CNN, Erbil, Northern Iraq.

ALLEN: The search for a ceasefire in Syria is now shifting to London, where a meeting is planned Sunday. Main talks in Switzerland ended late Saturday with a few minor agreements but nothing major.

CNN International Diplomatic Editor, Nic Robertson, was in Lausanne.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: The talks lasted for about five hours, ending with no apparent breakthrough. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, got into the talks saying that he had no special expectations, no special hopes for a positive outcome. And Secretary of State John Kerry, the state department said, the pride of the talks, that they were focusing on trying to get humanitarian aid into Aleppo, trying to bring an end to the fighting in the city of Aleppo.

That was a specific focus. They were joined in that meeting by the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, of Qatar, of Turkey, of Jordan, of Egypt, of Iraq and Iran, and also the U.N. Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura -- U.N. Special Envoy to Syria -- all in that meeting.

The idea was to bring around the table the key players from the region who can have influence on the battlefield, influence with the different groups there. The talks now, the focus now shifts to London.

Secretary of State John Kerry going to a meeting in London Sunday, hosted by the British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, the aim of those talks are to look at -- at how the United States and its European allies can move forward on Syria and on Iraq. What happens after the -- after ISIS is forced out of Mosul, that would be on the agenda, but also essentially to follow up on these talks here in Lucerne, Secretary Kerry having heard what he will have heard from Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, from those other regional players, taking it to his European partners, so they can find a way of moving forward.

Boris Johnson, the British foreign secretary, had said earlier in the week, that it needed a large coalition, that that coalition would have to be headed by the United States, that there would be no way of moving forward either on upping the military tempo or really sort of finding coalescence on how to achieve that humanitarian -- that important humanitarian mission to Aleppo. Nic Robertson, CNN, Lausanne, Switzerland.

ALLEN: To the campaign trail now, Donald Trump is on the offensive, denying mounting accusations of sexual assault and attacking rival, Hillary Clinton. He suggested Saturday, Clinton was taking performance-enhancing drugs during their first two debates and advocated for a drug test prior to their next showdown.

He's made a habit of questioning Clinton's health and stamina without evidence throughout the campaign. Meantime, another woman is accusing Trump of sexually assaulting her, bringing the total to at least nine now.

The Trump camp has categorically denied each accusation as quickly as they've surfaced. And as our Jessica Schneider reports, this time is no different.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sixty-three-year-old Cathy Heller is now the ninth woman to speak out, claiming that Donald Trump kissed her without consent in the middle of a Mar-a-Lago brunch in the late 1990s. Cathy Heller first shared her story with "The Guardian" newspaper.

And CNN is working to further corroborate her story. But I did speak with Cathy Heller on the phone as well as her friend Susan Klein (ph), who she shared her story with a year and a half ago when Donald Trump was rising in political prominence.

Now, Heller tells me she was at Mar-a-Lago on Mother's Day with her extended family since her in-laws were members of that private club. Heller says, when she was introduced to Trump, he allegedly pulled her toward him and then kissed her.

Heller said she was startled and pulled back. She tells me her husband saw it happen as did other members of their family. And they just considered it a family joke. But she says once that "Access Hollywood" tape came out, it became a real issue in this presidential campaign, she realized it was no longer a laughing matter.

And Cathy Heller says she became compelled to speak out along with those eight other women. Now, the Trump campaign vigorously denying all of these allegations, the Trump team issuing the latest statement about Cathy Heller's claims, saying this, saying, "The media has gone too far in making this false accusation.

There is no way something like this would have happened in a public place on Mother's Day at Mr. Trump's resort. It would have been the talk of Palm Beach for the past two decades.

The reality is this, for the media to wheel out a politically motivated democratic activist with a legal dispute against the same resort owned by Mr. Trump, does a disservice to the public. And anyone covering this story should be embarrassed for elevating this bogus claim."

Now, I did talk to Cathy Heller. She admits that she is a Hillary supporter. And she also says that she did have a legal dispute with Mar-a-Lago.

But still, she became compelled to speak out. ALLEN: Dr. Erik Fisher is with us now. He's a licensed psychologist

here in Atlanta to talk about the situation with Donald Trump and these women and what they are alleging about him.

Thank you for joining us.

DR. ERIK FISHER, LICENSED PSYCHOLOGIST: My pleasure.

ALLEN: First let's talk about his reaction to these allegations. He certainly vehemently denies them. But he's gone even further than that, kind of making fun of them, saying she's not pretty enough, I would never do anything, you know.

And we've seen people in his rallies supporting his, you know, poking fun at them because they're -- Trump's their guy. But what do you make of his behaviors after this and these women, you know, if -- if they are telling the truth, they certainly corroborate what we heard on the bus (ph).

FISHER: Right. Well, I think what we have to talk about is looking at the issue in a more global view, that this is an issue that is endemic to many cultures. It's not about the United States.

It's not about a gender. It's about what people do with power and then how their emotions affect the way that they perceive power. People in positions of power don't want to lose it.

We live in a hierarchical culture. So what they want to do is to do things to maintain power. And when people threaten that power, they'll do or will say what they can to undermine the people who they may feel attacked by or questioned by or people who made allegations for.

And often, throughout their lives, you'll find that their behavior has been excused time and time and time again, which often results in them believing that it's...

ALLEN: They didn't do anything wrong.

FISHER: Exactly. They didn't do -- they can justify, rationalize it, minimize their behavior. And we can look at many people and situations around the world and throughout history that the same situation has happened.

ALLEN: And with this power, our -- our culture somewhat supports this behavior.

FISHER: We do. We do because we have to look at the -- we want to see the people we have aligned ourself (ph) with as being good and strong and right. So they can be seen as winners. Why?

Because we want to see ourselves as winners. We don't want to ally ourselves with somebody who would be seen as bad or wrong or weak. So we often reward those people with accolades.

And we give them compliments. And we worship them in many ways. So in many ways, they want to be seen as great and powerful.

And they start to believe it. So they believe that they don't have to live by the rules of everybody else and often believe that they can make their own rules.

ALLEN: This has changed as perhaps we might see more women coming out alleging he did things to them.

FISHER: Well, again, that's going to depend on how deep-seated people's belief systems are in that person, how much have they hooked their train, you know, their wagon to that train. So I think we have to realize that as much as people have put so much into a person is as much evidence they're going to need to the contrary to see that there may be something else.

And they may even realize, these allegations may be true to anybody they've been made. However, they then start to excuse them. And they then start to minimize them.

So the difficulty is people really being honest with themselves. And that's what I often point to, is rather than point to the other person, the other party, the other team, the other country, these are situations to really look at our own gauge of culture and ourselves and our world.

ALLEN: And a lot of people this week have asked why these women wait to come out now so...

FISHER: Throughout history, we have vilified, humiliated, demeaned, and shamed people who've come forward to claim issues of sexual molestation or abuse, not just women, but men. Why would somebody come forward in a culture where people who have power -- it has been shown time and time again, abuse that power to try to gain control over people, whether it was somebody on a football team, at a high school or college or wherever or a minister or pastor or priest in a church, or a politician in many, many places around the world?

We do not advocate for the people who have truly been molested or incested or raped. The issue then we have to look at there is when people make false allegations, it raises that element of doubt of people who have made true allegations.

So there's this whole element of to (ph) raise doubt and then to use manipulation, whether it's to try to get power over somebody by creating an allegation or whether it's to try to control somebody and make it false when you deny an allegation. These are the issue of power -- issues of power we have to look at that feed betrayal, mistrust, fear, and continued humiliation and (ph) shame.

ALLEN: Dr. Erik Fisher, we appreciate you coming on and giving us this analysis. Thank you.

FISHER: Thank you, my pleasure.

ALLEN: Suzanne Conaway is a Trump supporter. She's been across the U.S. on a bus tour called Women Stump for Trump. CNN's Poppy Harlow asked for her take on the accusations of sexual misconduct against the Republican nominee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONAWAY: I think women are smarter than that. I don't think that we're giving women enough credit, to look past some lewd remarks that somebody might have made to get onto the policies that affect our life in America, The way we have in America, The America that my father and my mother and my grandparents gave to me. That's America that I just -- I want to keep.

And I don't think we're on that path. And it concerns me that we're getting off in the weeds about he said, she said, he did, she did. And we're getting off the policies of what we need to do to make America great again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: Conaway said the top reason she supports Trump is because he would build up the military and make America the strongest nation in the world. After Hillary Clinton resisted for months to release transcripts of her speeches to Goldman Sachs, it appears Wikileaks did it for her.

The speeches show Clinton talking about Wall Street's role in financial regulations, relations with Russia, and Wikileaks itself. In 2013, remarks at a Goldman Sachs event, Clinton joked that she had to smooth things over with foreign leaders after the release of the NSA documents.

Clinton said, "It was painful. Leaders who shall remain nameless, who were characterized as vain, egotistical, power-hungry, corrupt, and we knew they were, this was not fiction.

And I had to go and say, you know, our ambassadors, they get carried away. They want to all be literary people. They go off on tangents.

What can I say? I had grown men cry. I mean, literally." Well, for more than a week, Wikileaks has been releasing e-mails it hacked from Clinton's campaign Chairman, John Podesta.

The U.S. says one of its naval ships may have been attacked for the third time this week. But they're still not quite sure what happened.

We'll have the latest from Yemen (ph) coming up here. You're watching "CNN Newsroom."

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ALLEN: A landmark climate agreement was reached in Rwanda Saturday, and Derek's here to tell us what it means and what perhaps impact it will have.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Natalie, this was a monumental agreement by several countries. It's actually an amendment to the Montreal Protocol. And if you recall, that was set up in the late '80s to try and curb the collapse of the ozone layer that scientists were starting to notice over Antarctica.

And that was all because of these CFCs, chlorofluorocarbons. I'll refer to them as CFCs going forward here because (ph) it's such a mouthful.

But those are the coolant kind of chemicals that are found in our air- conditioners and our refrigerators. So what they did with the Montreal Protocol, they said OK, no more CFCs.

We've got to get rid of them. It is starting to eat away this protective layer known as the ozone layer. But what developers needed was a substitute for these CFCs.

We needed to cool our houses. We needed to cool our food within refrigerators and some of the more modern countries out there. So enter HFCs -- these are the hydrofluorocarbons.

I'll refer to them as HFCs going forward for you at home. And basically, what these are is a substitute to CFCs. And they, sure enough, did exactly what scientists expected and developers expected.

They cooled our refrigerators and our homes. And it did not impact the ozone layer. But unfortunately, it took us 20 years to realize that these were actually heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

And unfortunately, it has grown into the world's fastest-growing greenhouse gases and even 10 to 100 times more effective at really holding in the heat, and radiative (ph) heat according to the greenhouse effect, more than that of carbon dioxide. We always talk about CO2 as one of the most negative effects of climate change and global warming and the whole greenhouse effect.

But this HFC is a significant contributor to our warming planet as well. So several countries, we're talking dozens, have gotten together in Kigali, Rwanda this week and finally came to this amendment of the Montreal Protocol and said, hey, look, if by 2019, some of the largest polluters in the world, the United States, the European Union, decrease their HFCs by 10 percent, then by the end of the century, we will keep a decrease in our global warming under half a degree Celsius, which is significant because in the Paris Climate Agreement that was reached earlier this year, they wanted to have two- degree warming curbed.

And this is their best attempt and most significant attempt to do that since Paris and the COP -- COP21 agreement. This is significant as well considering that nine of the 10 warmest years have occurred since 2000.

And we're starting to see these links between climate change and some of the extreme weather events that have occurred across the planet from hurricanes to drought to heavy rain events and coastal erosion and coastal flooding. We've got the fingerprints of climate change all over a significant typhoon that has just walled (ph) up to northern Philippines in the island of Luzon. Manila, you got hit hard. This storm is expected to re-strengthen. And they're even watching

another storm in its wings that's going to bring the potential of category-five winds to the Philippines later next week.

So we're just seeing storm line up -- line up after one after another. And you can just kind of see the effects of a warming planet within some of these weather scenarios that are taking shape.

There it is on the side of your screen there, that secondary typhoon we're watching very closely.

ALLEN: Yes, and it's -- it's -- it's been a pattern.

VAN DAM: It has been a pattern and a scary and devastating pattern.

ALLEN: Yes, all right, Derek, thank you for all that information.

VAN DAM: All right.

ALLEN: Well, South Korea says the intermediate-range missile that North Korea test-fired Saturday failed right after launch. Washington is calling on Pyongyang to avoid vied increasing tensions in the region.

South Korea says its military is prepared for any more provocations. The launch violates U.N. Security Council resolutions.

U.S. officials say the Destroyer, USS Mason, fired countermeasures in the red sea Saturday after it detected an apparent attack from a rebel-held area of Yemen. But it's not clear what exactly happened.

Officials say it might have been a radar malfunction on the Destroyer instead of an attack. The ship and its crew were not harmed. It's confirmed it would be the third missile attack reported against the Mason in the red sea during the week.

A Saudi-led coalition says one of its warplanes wrongly targeted a funeral in the capital of Yemen a week ago. The attack killed more than 150 people, many of them civilians.

Investigators say incorrect information led the coalition, which is fighting Houthi rebels, to wrongly target the site. Also in Yemen, two Americans held captive by Houthi rebels are now free.

The U.S. citizens arrived in neighboring Oman Saturday. Their names have not yet been released. The U.S. is also calling for the immediate release of any other Americans who may still be held in Yemen.

Twenty-one freed Chibok schoolgirls in Nigeria are expected to reunite with their families in the capital sometime soon. The militant group, Boko Haram, released them on Thursday.

Isha Sesay is in Abuja for us and earlier, she spoke with John Vause about the story.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: And Isha Sesay joins us now from Abuja, Nigeria.

So Isha, have the girls, the 21, have they been reunited with their familiamilies yet? Do we know more about their physical and emotional health?

SESAY: No (ph), hi there, John. No, they have not been reunited with their families. Their families obviously, most of them are based in Chibok in the northern part of this country.

They're actually making their way to Abuja, the capital, as we speak. And well, our understanding is they're coming by road. So that's going to make many hours.

And once they arrive, the hope is that they will be reunited with their children immediately. As to how the girls are doing right now, there's been no official word from the government about their condition.

But when you look at those pictures, it's clear that they are -- you know, they're emaciated. They're very much on -- on the skinny side. And we hear that they're doing OK.

This is coming to us by a Chibok community leader, who was called in by the government to help verify their identities. He says he spoke to the girls. He -- he asked them their names.

They hugged him warmly. And according to him, the girls are very happy to be free as one, you know, couldn't recently imagine. He also said, to use his words, that the girls were in their senses, that they recognized him as being someone from the Chibok community.

But how they're really, really doing, how they've held up after two and a half years in captivity, we just don't know. All we have to go on are the comments made by this community leader and the pictures that we -- we have shared with the world, which showed the girls, you know, sitting together somewhat (ph) quietly, some tears shed and looking, you know, looking very thin after this time with Boko Haram.

John?

VAUSE: They look absolutely shell-shocked when you -- when you look at their -- in their eyes, you can just see it.

SESAY: Yes.

VAUSE: There's still a hundred and 97 girls...

SESAY: Yes.

VAUSE: ...who are missing. So what's the progress now on the negotiation for their release?

SESAY: Yes, a hundred and 97 girls still in captivity. But we are being told by two government sources that right now, they're only negotiating for the release of 83 girls.

That leaves a hundred and 14 girls, John, that are unaccounted for. We're hearing that the number is only 83 because all that hundred and 14, some said (ph) they died while being held by Boko Haram.

Others have been married off. And they're saying that the remainder of -- of that group essentially have become radicalized to the point where they don't want to come back.

So this is a heartbreaking situation for families that have been waiting day after day for some two and a half years to be reunited with their children. And now, we're hearing that only 83 may possibly be returned to them through the next phase of negotiations, which are due to be resumed on Monday.

VAUSE: And finally here, that these questions persist about precisely what the Nigerian government offered in return for the girls with Boko Haram fighters who -- who'd been captured, millions of dollars or -- or was it both because it is simply ludicrous to think that Boko Haram gave them up for nothing in return.

SESAY: Yes, absolutely, there was a deal done here. And according to two sources that CNN has spoken to with direct knowledge of the negotiations, they say no fighters were exchanged.

There was no prisoner swap for the girls. But what they do say is that an undisclosed amount of money was handed over to Boko Haram, that we are being told by multiple sources. So a deal was done.

The finer details as yet undisclosed. But money changed hands. No Boko Haram commanders, no Boko Haram fighters were given but money changed hands (ph) and that secured the release of the 21 girls that are here in Abuja right now.

VAUSE: OK, Isha, thank you. Isha Sesay there in Abuja with the very latest.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: Thailand's prime minister is trying to reassure the country of a smooth succession. It revered the king who died this past week after 70 years on the throne.

He was seen as a stabilizing influence in a country which during his reign, had 19 military coups. China is getting ready to send two astronauts into space.

Chinese state media says the Heavenly vessel is expected to blast off Monday morning local time from the Gobi Desert. It will dock at a space lab that went into orbit last month.

This is video from that launch. They'll spend 33 days there, mostly conducting science experiments. China's ultimate goal is to send a space station into orbit in 2022, two years before the international space station is retired. China's space program has made rapid advances in the past decade. In

2003, the country sent its first astronaut, or taikonaut into space before becoming the third country to do so.

Then in 2008, a Chinese astronaut took the country's first spacewalk. The 2013 mission included a successful manual docking with China's first space lab, major step toward Beijing's goal of a permanent space station.

To date, China has made five manned space flights. Thanks for watching "CNN Newsroom." I'm Natalie Allen. Next is CNN's "Erin Burnett Out front" and our top stories.

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