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Trump Transition; U.K. Prime Minister on Trump: Change is in the Air; Future of Polling; Repairing Relations with Turkey a Big Challenge; Trump Adviser Calls for Extradition of Exiled Imam; "Fantastic Beasts" Coming to a Theater Near You. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired November 15, 2016 - 00:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:00:11] JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN newsroom live from Los Angeles.

Ahead this hour --

The pieces of the Trump White House are coming together but there is backlash after the architect of his scorched earth campaign is rewarded with a key job in the new administration.

President Obama has some advice to his successor, telling Donald Trump he is in for a wakeup call once he takes office.

And broken polls -- they got Brexit wrong, they got Trump wrong -- but a South African company nailed both and is now sharing their secrets.

Hello and welcome to our viewers all around the world. I'm John Vause. NEWSROOM L.A. starts right now.

Barack Obama is headed to Greece on his last overseas trip as U.S. president. He spoke to reporters before he left in his first news conference since Donald Trump was elected. Carefully choosing his words and his tone, Mr. Obama urged Americans to give Trump a chance. The President says the job has a way of waking you up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As I told my staff, we should be very proud that their work has already ensured that when we turn over the keys, the car's in pretty good shape. We are indisputably in a stronger position today than we were when I came in eight years ago.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Joining us now is CNN political commentator and Trump supporter John Philips; Mitchell Schwartz the Democrat candidate for mayor of Los Angeles; and CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein. Guys -- thank you very much for being with us.

Today Barack Obama tried to actually normalize Donald Trump. He told him being president is very different from campaigning for president. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: This office has a way of waking you up. And those -- those aspects of -- his positions or predispositions that don't match up with reality, he will find shaken up pretty quick because reality has a way of asserting itself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: So, Ron, first to you, there seems there's this assumption for many in Washington that Donald Trump will govern sort of as a conventional conservative now.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Now look, I think Donald Trump is in many ways an independent presidential candidate who ran under the Republican banner. There is -- the best way to think about this is a Venn Diagram -- there's about half of his agenda that overlaps with what Republicans in Washington have wanted to do for years. Those are things like rolling back regulations, rolling back the financial regulations of Dodd-Frank, undoing President Obama's the climate plan, repealing Obamacare, cutting taxes, expanding domestic energy production.

There's a lot of overlap and those are areas where they will move forward very easily. And in some ways that is embodied in the choice of Reince Priebus as the chief of staff.

But there is a whole other half of the Donald Trump agenda that moves away from many of the things that had been kind of Republican dogma over the years -- whether that's walking away from NAFTA or abandoning the Asian-Pacific trade deal, significantly reducing legal immigration as well as rolling back -- expanding deportation of undocumented immigrants, questioning the NATO alliance. There's a whole series -- expanding infrastructure spending and not touching entitlements.

So I think there is going to be really two stories here. I think on the one hand there are going to be areas where he works very well with Republicans in Congress and really he is going to challenge a lot of Democratic priorities and shibboleths. On the other hand there are going to be a lot of elements that were unique to Trump that has kind of made him different than a typical Republican and in many ways may have been critical to his connection with his working-class base that is embodied in Stephen Bannon in the White House.

And those, I think outlook is much more uncertain not only for Republicans in Congress but for the pillars of the Republican coalition like the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and so forth.

VAUSE: And John, to you, what should Republicans be expecting from this incoming administration? I mean there -- Ron is disputing it but there is this (AUDIO GAP) he will just be like, you know, (AUDIO GAP) conservative after all.

JOHN PHILLIPS, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I think Ron is largely right. And I think one of the things that we have been decrying in Washington D.C. and in the states and our state capitols is this partisanship where you have Republicans lining up on one side, the Democrats lining up on the other and you know exactly how everyone is going to come down on every single issue.

With Trump, I think you might see a lot of issue by issue coalitions. Take TPP for example. He may cobble together votes to kill TPP by getting half of the Republicans to support it and half of the Democrats to support it and then move on to a different subject and come up with an entirely different coalition. That is very possible in a Trump administration.

VAUSE: That is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade deal which he has denounced it on arrival.

PHILLIPS: Correct.

VAUSE: Mitchell -- when we listen to Obama, is he putting on a good face here or is he just sort of denying reality of what an incoming Trump administration is all about?

MITCHELL SCHWARTZ, L.A. DEMOCRATIC MAYORALTY CANDIDATE: He's on record as being pretty disparaging of Donald Trump as a person, about his temperament and ability to lead the country. And he's kind of -- if not walking it back, he's got to show for this country to do the right thing, that he's got to help this, or next president succeed.

So it's got to be difficult for him. There has never been in my lifetime a president who's campaigned so vigorously for somebody to succeed him and that didn't work out and now he's got to deal with the person that he probably made an enemy of a little bit. Or always was, I guess, an enemy.

VAUSE: You can only imagine what that 90-minute meeting in the Oval Office was like last week. Obama did actually urge the President- Elect to reach out after such a nasty and divisive campaign as we said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: And it's really important to try to send some signals of unity. And to reach out to minority groups or women or others that were concerned about the tenor of the campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Trump did address this during the interview with "60 Minutes" on Sunday. Quickly -- listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LESLEY STAHL, "60 MINUTES": Harassing Latinos and Muslims?

DONALD TRUMP (R), U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: I am so saddened to hear that. And I say "stop it". If it -- if it helps. I will say this, and I'll say it right to the camera, "stop it". (END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: John -- is there a responsibility for the President-Elect to do more than just say stop it?

PHILLIPS: By the way, that was taped on Friday and CBS chose to sit on that tape and not release that portion until Sunday on broadcast.

VAUSE: If the President-Elect wanted to say something he had many avenues, not just the CBS interview to urge people to stop what's going on.

PHILLIPS: He's got a lot on his plate right now. Look, if I'm Donald Trump I bend over backwards to let the country know that I'm the President of all the people. And there is a lot of his agenda that does appeal to groups that didn't vote for him, for example charter schools in the cities which he spoke about during the campaign. That's something that is -- would help out people that live in America's inner cities where the school systems are awful. And he could go into these places and sell those programs and then follow through with it with legislation and send that back to those areas and really help them out.

But he's got to be the communicator. He's got to be the guy that goes out there and goes to these cities, travel to these places, talks to these voters and he's a guy that comes from the world of television. He can do that.

SCHWARTZ: What I would say is Donald Trump had enough time to tweet about a bunch of things that really weren't important. So it would be nice -- and I appreciate what he said on the "60 Minutes" interview. I wish he would tweet out continually until people are assured that they're going to be safe here but it's just a small example.

I've gotten to know the Bangladeshi-American community here. For some reason, in Los Angeles, a lot of those folks are supporting my run for Mayor. They are some of the most patriotic people, wonderful people that I have ever met. And I was talking to one of their community leaders and I said how is it with Trump now being president. Are you ok? He goes, "I'm really scared. I'm scared for me. I'm scared for my kids."

Now, does Donald Trump wish ill to these people? Of course I don't believe that. But he does need to because of the campaign he waged, go above and beyond just saying "stop it" once or twice. He really needs to, like you say, communicate the message that he is president of everybody. Everybody's rights are going to be respected.

VAUSE: And Ron?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Look, there is something more than words -- right. I mean every president has to say they're going to be the president of all the people. Every president-elect has to say that.

Not every president appoints someone like Steve Bannon to a senior position in the White House. In fact I don't think we've ever had anything quite like this -- someone with his background, with you know, coming out of Breitbart with the kinds of arguments that Breitbart has advanced and the way in which this -- his appointment has been welcomed by so many white supremacy groups and kind of extreme elements in the political dialogue. I mean that is a loud signal too.

No matter what else Donald Trump says he has brought into the government someone widely viewed by civil rights groups, by, you know, others as promoting kind of anti-Semitic racist, sexist, anti-Muslim arguments. So you know, that is an important signal as well. And I think that is a signal that he is not simply going to be tamed or domesticated in the way that some Republicans in Congress may have hoped and that the edgier elements of his agenda -- the ideas of banning immigration from big parts of the world or significantly accelerating deportation or perhaps even questioning birthright citizenship which is something he did as a candidate. Those are not off the table.

[00:10:04] And I think, you know, in this case the actions may speak louder than the words.

VAUSE: And on the issue of Steve Bannon, this is what the reaction was today from the Anti-Defamation League to Steve Bannon's appointment as the White House strategist position. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JONATHAN GREENBLATT, ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE: We were troubled by some of the rhetoric on the campaign when stereotypes were invoked but in particular, we're very disturbed by the emergence of Breitbart as really the haven for the alt-right -- this kind of loose-knit band of white supremacists, racists and anti-Semites.

And so we were enthusiastic about the President-Elect's comments on Tuesday night after the election about bringing the country together. We believe that he's a president for all the people. So it's troubling to see him appoint as one of his senior advisers someone who doesn't support all the people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: And so John, obviously Breitbart is the Web site that Steve Bannon used to run -- a lot of criticism not just from the ADL but from other rights group. That is sort of a very public message in a way coming out of the Trump administration.

PHILLIPS: I was a friend of Andrew Breitbart when he was alive, the founder of the Web site who was an observant Jew. A lot of the people I know who work over there are -- their faith is Judaism.

I think the reason a lot of people really dislike Stephen K. Bannon is because he was the architect of the victory. He was the guy that won the election that no one thought was winnable. People were popping champagne corks in the Hillary Clinton campaign before the election because they thought they had this in the bag. And he stunned the world by winning this election and I think there will be hostility for Stephen Bannon forever because of that reason.

BROWNSTEIN: John.

VAUSE: Ron.

BROWNSTEIN: John -- I was going to say, you know, yes. I think that, you know, a lot of Democrats were stunned that Donald Trump won this election but John, you don't really believe that is the only reason there as objection to Stephen Bannon, taking a position in the White House. I mean that he won -- that's it? That's the sole objection to him? Not, the kind of argument that has been advanced on Breitbart under his direction -- far more than under Andrew Breitbart himself?

SCHWARTZ: And by the way, there is a fellow, who used to be a senior editor there, Ben Shapiro who has been pretty critical of Steve Bannon. He worked with Breitbart from -- not the beginning but he was there for a while.

So Bannon has a lot of -- he's said some bad stuff and he hosted a bunch of bad things and Trump I guess felt like he had to throw some red meat, I guess, to his supporters. What will Bannon help him do that's going the help him govern effectively that he feels he needs him as White House senior adviser?

PHILLIPS: He was the one guy that called the election correctly. He was the one guy that was able to win this thing --

SCHWARTZ: Not Kellyanne Conway?

PHILLIPS: They couldn't do it. Well -- the two of them together. But there's no doubt in my mind that a lot of people dislike the editorial slant of Breitbart. But I do believe the hostility why there is such hostility is this guy won the election for Donald Trump.

VAUSE: Ok. I want (inaudible) around the world because after Trump's win in Sweden over the weekend neo-Nazis held their biggest rally, reportedly saying Trump's election marks the start of a revolution.

We have the leader of the far right anti-immigrant party in France telling the BBC this. "Clearly Donald Trump's victory is an additional stone in the building of a new world order destined to replace the old one."

And John -- to you as a Trump supporter, is that the kind of reaction you are looking for around the world from these kinds of groups? Surely that must be disturbing when you hear that.

PHILLIPS: You can't blame that on Donald Trump. There's a lot of nuts in the world. There's a lot of nuts in the world that like a lot of different people. There are similar concerns, I think that are going on in many western countries in regard to immigration. Countries should be able to have control over their borders. And a lot of countries for whatever reason have had open borders for a long period of time and that is a concern that was on nobody's radar until Donald Trump ran for president and stunned the world by winning the primaries and stunned the world by winning the general. BROWNSTEIN: John --

VAUSE: Ok -- Ron, go ahead.

BROWNSTEIN: Real quick, John -- these are exactly the groups that you just described in some respects as the nuts that Stephen Bannon has been trying to ally with, to kind of build world wide movement of these kind of ethno-nationalist, anti-globalist parties and in many ways I think will seek to ally the Trump administration with as certainly a continuation of what he has been doing at Breitbart.

And he clearly sees -- and he's talked about Donald Trump as part of a worldwide movement that includes these other parties in other countries that are kind of recoiling against many of the aspects globalization. So again it is -- these are views that are very different than we've ever had this close to the Oval Office.

And it is, I think the equivalent to compare him to David Axelrod or Karl Rove. This is something that is different. Donald Trump, won the election. He has the right to appoint who he wants but Americans also have the right to kind of make their own judgments about the virtues of what he has chosen here and the signal that it sends about the kind of president he intends to be.

[00:15:00] VAUSE: Ok. We're going to take a very quick break. So hold all your thoughts -- John Phillips, Mitchell Schwartz, Ron Brownstein. Stay with us. We'll take a short break.

When we come back, Britain's Prime Minister comparing the U.K. Brexit vote with last week's presidential election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THERESA MAY, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Change is in the air. And when people demand change, it is the job of politicians to respond.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Also ahead, many of the polls got it wrong on election night in the U.S. but one South Africa company got it right -- how they predicted a Trump victory, coming up.

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ALEX THOMAS, CNN WORLD SPORT: Hello -- I'm Alex Thomas for your "CNN WORLD SPORT" headlines.

Andy Murray opened up his campaign at the ATP World Tour finals against Marin Cilic. This is the first time since computerized rankings began more than four decades ago that a British singles player has been in action as world number one. And the Scot did not let the title daunt him. He took the opening set against the former U.S. Open champ 6-3 and then sealed a winning start to the tournament by losing just two games in the second set. Murray's 20th successive singles victory on tour. Also in action on Monday, world number 3 Stan Wawrinka and Kei

Nishikori of Japan -- Nishikori making quick work of the Swiss beating him in 67 minutes while losing just 11 service points. 6-2, 6-3 the final score Nishikori competing in the ATP finals for the third straight year.

It didn't look as if they needed divine intervention when they became the first European country to lift the World Cup in South America two years ago but that didn't stop Germany's softball team visiting the Pope this week. The sport and staff given a private audience at the Vatican before heading off to Milan to face Italy in a friendly international on Tuesday evening. Germany presenting Pope Francis with a signed team shirt.

That's a look at your sport headlines. I'm Alex Thomas.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: In her first major foreign policy address since becoming Britain's Prime Minister, Theresa May pointed to Donald Trump's election as another rejection of liberalism and globalization.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAY: A year ago, few of us would have predicted the events ahead. A clear determined decision to leave the European Union and forge a bold, new, confident future for ourselves in the world. And of course a new president-elect in the United States who defied the polls and the pundits all the way up to Election Day itself. Change is in the air.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[00:20:07] VAUSE: A week after of the U.S. election many are still asking how the polls got it so wrong. But a social media company in South Africa got it right calling the Trump victory, also predicting Brexit. David McKenzie explains how they did it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A week later the protests continue, the shock remains -- let down they say by the media, the pollsters that didn't predict a President-Elect Trump. But a small software company in Cape Town, South Africa did exactly that.

JEAN PIERRE KLOPPERS, BRANDSEYE: Because Trump was a very kind controversial figure we had a suspicion how he was kind of resonating with people might play out differently to what traditional media was saying.

MCKENZIE: They called it for Trump and they predicted Brexit, too.

KLOPPERS: And so we kind of use people for what people are great at and machines for what machines are great at. And by using that kind of interplay between the two we were able to measure sentiment very deeply and using computers measure it very broadly. MCKENZIE: Brandseye zeroed in on social media sentiment for clients

like Uber and Pizza Hut by using artificial intelligence to sift through vast amounts of data and crowd sourcing to track sarcasm and interpret slang.

KLOPPERS: 3,100 positive mentions to 1,500 negative mentions about Trump.

MCKENZIE: It turns out politicians are just like brands.

KLOPPERS: It's one thing knowing that people don't like you because of reason x. It's another thing knowing that actually this is twice as much as your competitor.

MCKENZIE: Looking at battleground states in the U.S. they found people far more passionate for Trump and distrustful of Hillary Clinton. Now some critics point to social media networks spreading fake news as the reason for the win.

CRAIG RAW, FOUNDER BRANDSEYE: I think that social media really represents what people are saying. And regardless of whether they are reading a story that is true or false, it (inaudible) this represents the emotion and they're going to vote on that emotion.

MCKENZIE: Like it or not, the power may have been in the feeling not in the polling.

TRUMP: Thank you very much.

MCKENZIE: David McKenzie, CNN -- Cape Town, South Africa.

TRUMP: Thank you to Mike Pence.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Back with us now -- CNN political commentator John Philips; Los Angeles mayoral candidate and Democrat Mitchell Schwartz; and CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein.

Ron -- is there now a need for a new type of polling, one that takes into account social media or the very least, do the polling companies now have to look at their methodology here?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Polling -- not only polling is struggling. But you know, what was supposed to be the more sophisticated, the analytics that the campaigns do where they track, they analyze the preferences and the profile of individual voters and build models to project how the electorate will vote -- even that struggled.

I mean the Clinton models in Wisconsin were not sufficiently raising alarms to cause her to go back there at any point after April -- you know, after the primary. So I think everybody is struggling a little bit to figure out what happened.

On the other hand John -- I would point out that my colleague David Wasserman who tracks this as assiduously as anyone -- Hillary Clinton's lead in the national popular vote is about to go past the million votes probably by tomorrow. It will be at that point, a one- point lead. Many people project that she will win the national popular vote by about two points which is not a terrible variance on polls that had her winning it by about four points.

The bigger problem is some of the state polls particularly in those three critical pieces of the blue wall that fell off for the Democrats -- Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

So yes, there are problems in polling. But you know, when you look at the national number it really wasn't a catastrophic failure. It was a kind of a confluence of events in some of these battleground states where the polling clearly was off, particularly Pennsylvania.

VAUSE: And Mitchell to that point, when we look at the popular vote, I mean she could win by -- or Hillary Clinton could actually win if you like the popular vote by 1.5 percent to 2 percent. Does that mean anything for the next four years?

SCHWARTZ: No, unfortunately not. This has happened -- it happened 16 years ago with Al Gore. He won the popular vote, it didn't matter. And this is a system that we have set up. I don't think it's a good one. I think we should get rid of the Electoral College. Donald Trump at one time mentioned he thought it was -- can't remember his words -- a joke or something.

PHILLIPS: I think he's changed his mind on that one.

SCHWARTZ: But, you know, you can't complain now. Those are the rules so we accept it. But having said that, they shouldn't have the electoral vote, I don't know who supports the Electoral College any more. I'm not sure what use that is. And it tends to disenfranchise three of the four largest states. Republicans don't go to California and New York because they know they can't win it. Democrats don't go to Texas and three of the four biggest states we don't really get to be involved in the political race.

VAUSE: One of the reasons that Trump did so well was because of his message and his policies. But he now seems to be backsliding or softening his decisions on the wall. It could be a fence, on Hillary Clinton being investigating by a special prosecutor. He said they're good people and don't want to hurt them

So John -- how will Trump's voters react if he doesn't follow through on those he promises?

[00:24:57] PHILLIPS: Look, you know when a politician runs for office they are starting out with what the optimal situation is from their perspective. And then you have to deal with compromise. You have to deal with federalism and you have to deal with the system.

I think he is going to very visibly start deporting criminal aliens. He is going to push Congress to repeal Obamacare. He's going to fill that empty Supreme Court vacancy. And he's going to push along with his agenda. And I think he's going to keep his supporters with him.

VAUSE: Obama talked about the need for reflection within the Democratic Party. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: I think it's a healthy thing for the Democratic Party to go through some reflection. You know, I think it's important for me not to be big-footing that conversation. I think we want to see new voices and new ideas emerge. That's part of the reason why I think term limits are a really useful thing. I think the Democrats should not waiver on our core beliefs and principles.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: So Ron, in the lead up to this election, all the talk was the looming civil war on the GOP, are the Democrats now facing their own crisis.

BROWNSTEIN: I think they are facing a crisis. I don't know if it will be a civil war. But, you know, in essence what we saw here was you had two coalitions utterly divergent kind of meeting in full collision on the battlefield and the Democratic coalition wavered just a little bit.

You know, her showing among millennials was slightly down from Obama. Her showing on African-Americans was slightly down. There is dispute about what happened among Latinos. But at least in the exit poll that was slightly down. And yes they improved among college educated whites but not nearly as much as they expected.

And meanwhile, in nonurban, non-college white America, the consolidation around Trump was epic. He won non--college white voters by a bigger share -- a bigger share of non-college white voters than Ronald Reagan did in his 49-state landslide in 1984.

And I think Democrats now face a fundamental fork in the road. Do they try to go further toward energizing their new coalition, which is essentially Sun Belt based, white collar and minority base or do they try to recapture more of those white working class voters particularly outside of big cities that are so prevalent in the Midwest and in the Rust Belt. And I think that will be a big debate. And as usual the answer will be they have to do some of both.

VAUSE: Ok. Well --

SCHWARTZ: So it's over.

VAUSE: Last word -- very quickly.

SCHWARTZ: I'm sorry. Just one thing, Ron and everyone, the Democrats won six of the last seven popular votes.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, it's never happened in history. Right.

SCHWARTZ: Right. And then also it's really hard, it's only happened once since World War II where the party won the election three times in a row. So it's really difficult. So to say we had a disaster and (inaudible) -- VAUSE: We will pick this up in an hour from now. We have to take a

break.

We will come back in another hour from now. Ron Brownstein -- thank you for your (inaudible); John Phillips, Mitchell Schwartz -- again we'll get into this at the top of the next hour. Thanks -- guys.

We will take a short break and when we come back, Trump's vow to defeat ISIS may first depend on mending fences with a Muslim ally -- Turkey. We'll explain why one Trump adviser thinks the key could be to expedite this ailing exile, this Turkish leader from the United States.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:30:00] VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause with the headlines this hour.

Iraqi forces are facing fierce resistance from ISIS in their push towards the center of Mosul. The terror group has sent waves as suicide bombers, snipers and ambushes against government forces. More than 54,000 people had been displaced since the offensive. The retake of the city began nearly a month ago.

People in rebel held Aleppo, Syria are on edge after text messages warned them to flee before a heavy assault on the city. Those messages sent Sunday said the attack would come within 24 hours. Witnesses say they've seen war planes circling the city, but there are no reports of air strikes as yet.

Barack Obama is encouraging Americans to give President-elect Donald Trump a chance. On Monday, he addressed reporters before leaving to his final overseas trip as U.S. president. Mr. Obama says he is committed to a smooth transition for Mr. Trump.

For the past few days, Donald Trump's White House has started to take shape. Among those seen coming and going from Trump Tower on Monday was this man, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. He is in line for a top national security job.

One of the many foreign policy challenges ahead for the Trump team, whoever that is will be the strained relationship with Turkey. A key ally in the fight against ISIS.

Turkey allows U.S. war planes and drones to use the Incirlik air base, which is very close to the border with Syria. The U.S. wants Turkish involvement in the operation to retake the Syrian City of Raqqah, the self-declared ISIS capital.

But in the wake of a failed coup back in July, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has purged the military, the court, universities and the media. More than 30,000 people are being arrested. And critics say this crackdown has moved way beyond the plotters of the coup and is now aimed at crushing any descent. And part of that, Erdogan is also demanding the U.S. hand over Fethullah Gulen. A former imam now living in Pennsylvania. The Turkish says he was behind the plot to overthrow his government.

And last week on the same day as Americans were voting, the political news Web site "The Hill" published an op-ed by General Flynn who argued the U.S. should do just that, hand over Gulen and quickly calling him a shady Islamic Mullah and likened him to Osama Bin Laden.

In that op-ed, he wrote, "If you were in reality a moderate, he would not be in exile, nor would he excite the animus of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government."

We still don't know what a President Trump will do, but could this be an early indication of what we can expect when it comes to foreign policy.

Journalist Lucy Der Tavitian has covered Middle East for much of her career. She joins us now for more on this.

Thank you for coming in, Lucy.

LUCY DER TAVITIAN, JOURNALIST COVERING MIDDLE EAST: Thank you for having me.

VAUSE: On the issue of Gulen, there is an extradition process in the United States. Gulen is a legal resident in this country. And so he is entitled to due process.

DER TAVITIAN: He is. Absolutely.

VAUSE: So that calls for some -- should in fact play itself out, right?

DER TAVITIAN: Absolutely. I mean, essentially, what Erdogan and Cavusoglu, his foreign minister, what they are asking to do is not really legal in the United States. We have a separation of our executive branch and our judicial branch.

So Obama can't just extradite Gulen. It's not all up to him. There's a process in the United States that we have to follow.

VAUSE: And even if a court did agreed to an extradition, the secretary of state could still step in and veto it.

DER TAVITIAN: Exactly.

VAUSE: OK. So to his followers, Gulen is a peaceful humanitarian. He runs charter schools here in the United States. You know, there's some controversy over there, but to his critics, he has this darker side. He is determined to bring down the Turkish government.

DER TAVITIAN: Yes.

[00:35:00] VAUSE: And there has been a lot of accusations coming from Ankara. But in the last four months since that coup, has Ankara provided any hard, firm evidence out there that Gulen was actually involved? DER TAVITIAN: No, they haven't. Nothing that would prove Gulen's culpability in the sense that we have -- that would prove that he's guilty due to the fact that we have to -- for the attempted coup saying we can't extradite him on the evidence that Turkey has offered so far.

So the Turks are saying that there's more evidence to come, but so far there's nothing.

VAUSE: OK. Assuming Gulen had nothing to do with the attempted coup. Should they extradite him anyway? And make sure they just throw due process out the window, essentially, you know, because this is something that would, you know, ingratiate the incoming administration to Erdogan?

DER TAVITIAN: You know, the answer is no. We can't keep changing our rules and our policies to appease Erdogan. It doesn't work that way. And Trump -- we also don't know what kind of relationship Trump is going to have with Turkey.

I think in this aspect, Fethullah Gulen becomes kind of like an asset to Trump, a barter chip if you may, if he is a businessman and knows how to barter. It all depends on what role Trump wants Turkey to play in Syria, in Iraq, in NATO.

You know, Trump was saying that he wants to dismantle NATO and now he is saying today that he wants to uphold NATO. So we don't really know what Trump is going to do. And we don't really, also we don't really know what the goals of the Gulen movement are, movement is.

We do know, what we do know is that Erdogan and Gulen were united, that Gulen actually helped Erdogan solidify his power. But then what happen is once Erdogan used Gulen and his established movement and the bureaucracy, and the judicial system and in the policing forces, then he turned on Gulen because he didn't want to share any power with Gulen.

So it's really complicated. This really has a lot to do with power struggles within the Turkish elite. Gulen in a lot of times has been called the second man of Turkey, and I'm sure that Erdogan doesn't like that. But it really is more of an internal issue rather than a U.S. issue.

VAUSE: Because to some people say, look, we have this pragmatist now in the White House. Donald Trump, he's a pragmatist. He's not really wedded to any ideology and essentially handing over Gulen would be an example of real politic. You know, this is being, you are being pragmatic and realistic. This is one man as Flynn said if he hadn't done anything wrong, why is he in exile anyway?

DER TAVITIAN: Right. Right. Well, again, it goes back to what role Trump wants Turkey to play. I mean, Turkey has been -- the reason why Turkey is such an important ally for us is because they have been helping us fight ISIS. But for the last month, the Kurds had been saying that the Turks have not been attacking ISIS. Actually, the only people they've been attacking are the Kurds and (INAUDIBLE) and Kobani. So it all depends. You know, Trump did, when he was running for presidency, he came out and he attacked Erdogan and his supposed oil ties with ISIS. And then at the same time, he turned around and after the coup, when Erdogan started cracking down on, as you mentioned, on --

VAUSE: Pretty much everybody.

DER TAVITIAN: Pretty much everybody -- the judges, the scholars, everyone. The media for sure.

You know, Trump turned around and said, well, he did a good job of putting the country together and we can't really get involved. We need allies. We can't really get involved in the internal business of other countries. Well, that's music to Erdogan's ears.

But, again, it all -- I really think it comes down to what role Trump wants Turkey to play in the least and how much he wants to appease Erdogan.

VAUSE: Foreign policy is complicated.

Lucy, thanks for coming in.

DER TAVITIAN: Always. That's what makes it so fun.

VAUSE: Thanks.

OK. Well, Russia's economy minister is in custody, accused to accepting a multibillion dollar bribe. Government investigators say Alexei Ulyukayev took $2 million to support a major oil company deal. He's the highest ranking Russian official to be arrested since the failed coupe in 1991 and charges are expected soon.

A short break here. When we come back, holiday boom season is almost upon us. A new entry from the creator of "Harry Potter" hopes to match the fantastic success of its predecessors.

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VAUSE: With all these releases that are hitting the big screen soon. First up, a new film tied with a very popular "Harry Potter" series. While the young wizard is not featured, some fantastic beasts are taking his place. Robyn Curnow tells where to find them.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yesterday, a wizard is in New York with a case.

ROBYN CURNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's a return to the wizarding world of author J.K. Rowling in "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And unfortunately some have escaped.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're the guy with the case full of monsters, huh?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You tell us, first.

CURNOW: The fantasy franchise has generated billions of dollars, but this new film is a spin-off featuring a whole new cast of characters and creatures.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They pick locks, am I right?

EDDIE REDMAYNE, ACTOR: It stands alone as a movie. You don't have to have seen the "Potter" films. If you've seen the "Potter" films, it has elements that are kind of wonderful and juicy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And action!

CURNOW: Set in 1920s New York, the new movie takes place decades before the "Harry Potter" books.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was open? Just a smidge.

CURNOW: Oscar-winning actor Eddie Redmayne stars as mad zoologist Newt Scamander, who carries a suitcase full of strange creatures that quickly escape.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, they are all adorable. They really are. Even the one that is scary. They are all kind of cute.

CURNOW: There's no Harry Potter to be found. Author J.K. Rowling believes filmmakers have recaptured the magic of the original series.

J.K. ROWLING, AUTHOR, FANTASTIC BEAST AND WHERE TO FIND THEM: I don't yet know what the reaction to this movie will be. I am proud of it. That's the most you can say as the creator. I think we all feel very proud of what we've done together.

CURNOW: Plans are already underway for four more films. And Rowling is dropping hints that some familiar names will appear in future movies.

ROWLING: I will say that you will see Dumbledore as a younger man and quite a troubled man because he wasn't always this age.

CURNOW: "Fantastic Beasts" opens in more than 60 countries around the world beginning Wednesday.

Robyn Curnow, CNN.

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VAUSE: Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause. "World Sport" is up next. You're watching CNN.

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