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Trump Cabinet Picks Alarming to Minorities; Pompeo Next CIA Director; Trump Presidency Looms over APEC Summit; Zika Is Here to Stay; Business Falls Flat Near Trump Tower. Aired 2-2:30a ET
Aired November 19, 2016 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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CYRIL VANIER, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump announces key members of his national security team and it's looking like he may stand by some of the extreme rhetoric of his campaign.
Plus the billionaire president-elect settles multiple lawsuits against his defunct Trump University. He won't have to testify but it's going to cost him.
And devastation and horror in Aleppo. The death toll from the last 60 days of airstrikes reaching more than 1,000 killed.
That and more here ahead on CNN NEWSROOM. Thank you for joining us. I'm Cyril Vanier live in Atlanta.
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VANIER: It is too soon to know what Donald Trump will do as president but if his cabinet picks are any indication, a Trump presidency will be shaped by hardline conservatives, especially on matters of national security.
Here are his picks. Starting from the left, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn; Republican senator Jeff Sessions and Republican congressman, Mike Pompeo. All have been asked to join the Trump administration. Flynn would become national security adviser, Sessions would take over the Justice Department and Pompeo would run the CIA.
As CNN's Kyung Lah explains, the controversial nominations are especially alarming to many minorities.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The assisting attorney general for national security --
KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The wait is over for these Muslim activists, who say they now see the real President Trump, his appointments sounding alarms from D.C. to Los Angeles.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whether you are talking about widespread surveillance or detentions or deportations or denaturalization.
LAH: This becomes more real.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, absolutely. We have to accept the rhetoric. We can't wait until the policies are rolled out. These people represent that mentality.
LAH: Al Mariotti (ph) is talking about Trump's national security appointments, Muslims, most concerned about retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
GEN. MICHAEL FLYNN, FORMER DIRECTOR, DIA: Radical Islamists and failed tyrants.
LAH (voice-over): Offered the role of national security adviser, he said this over the summer:
FLYNN: Islam is a political ideology. It is a political ideology. It (INAUDIBLE) hides behind this notion of it being a religion.
LAH (voice-over): African Americans, their main concern: Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, nominated for attorney general.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Sessions overseeing the Justice Department should send chills down the backs of anyone of good faith in this country.
LAH (voice-over): Look at history, says Robinson, in 1986 during Senate judiciary hearings as Sessions sought a federal judge position testimony included accusations that he joked about the KKK and called the NAACP un-American.
SEN. JEFF SESSIONS (R), ALA.: I am not a racist. I am not insensitive to blacks.
LAH (voice-over): Sessions was denied that federal judgeship. The NAACP releasing a statement calling Sessions' appointment as the head of the U.S. Justice Department "deeply troubling" and that "by every means available, the NAACP will continue to stand against the regressive and intolerant views that Senator Sessions espouses."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's the time for religious leaders to come together.
LAH (voice-over): Al Mariotti (ph) says minority groups are furiously reaching out to each other, building a coalition, preparing for the worst in Donald Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is one person. And he cannot rule by the iron fist. This democracy will be upheld. We believe in our democracy.
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VANIER: That's CNN's Kyung Lah reporting here from Los Angeles.
I spoke with CNN national security analyst Bob Baer a short time ago about Trump's picks and whether, in his view, these men are qualified for these positions.
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BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Flynn is definitely controversial. He is not liked within the military particularly. His connections with Russia have been questioned, getting paid by the Russians, working for RT, the Russian television.
You know, as far as I'm concerned, he says some very smart things but they get progressively more radical and more, again, partisan.
And as for Pompeo, he is a -- he's from out of Congress and the CIA doesn't like people out of Congress because they are partisan and he was very partisan on Benghazi. He is very partisan on Iran and I expect that he's going to take those positions to the CIA.
You know, the CIA has been politicized for years and it's not getting any better. And I was sort of counting on Trump -- I was hoping that Trump would appoint a professional in that position.
VANIER: About Mike Pompeo specifically, does it concern you -- should it concern us and Americans --
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VANIER: -- that he doesn't have specific and long-standing background in the intelligence field?
BAER: I think it should concern us that he doesn't really know the intelligence field. I mean intelligence is very complicated. The world has gone beyond the Cold War. It's not Russia against the United States. The Middle East in particular is a complete mess and it's very difficult to understand.
For instance, how can we be, you know, going after Iran, yet in the field and in Iraq, we are providing Iran's air force?
How do you reconcile that?
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VANIER: You are describing the current situation.
BAER: Yes. But he's going on and he's says, well, let's go after the Islamic State with our air force, which means in effect allying with Iran. And yet then turn around and go after Iran and rewrite the nuclear treaty and if we don't, go back to isolating Iran. Nobody has explained how you are going to play out this gambit.
VANIER: That's Mike Pompeo; Mike Flynn as well has been very vocal on cracking down on radical Islam.
Do you think the two of them may drive American foreign policy in a new direction?
BAER: I don't think they will be making any changes in the Middle East.
Where do you even start?
A lot of terrorism, the ideology is coming out of Saudi Arabia. No one has come up with a solution of how you get Saudi Arabia to stop supporting radical Islam.
And what do you do about the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations?
If you move the embassy, for instance, to Jerusalem and not establish a Palestinian state, you're -- it's -- none of these -- all these people have appealed to the domestic audience but I've heard none of them address the actual problems that exist in the Middle East or with China or with Russia.
What do you do about Russia and Crimea?
You simply can't say, hey, Putin is somebody we can deal with. We could really deal with him. We can talk him into leaving Crimea and places occupied by force.
So what do you do about the Eastern Ukraine?
VANIER: Bob, let me just be clear here. You are telling me essentially that they are hardliners, they're a lot more right wing than people who have been in power and guiding American foreign policy for the last four to eight years.
But you are also telling me that they are constrained by America's interests -- is that correct?
And that they are not going to be able to change that much on the international scene?
BAER: They're not dealing with reality, no. This is -- I think -- I think Donald Trump was surprised he was elected. He didn't have a transition team in place. He didn't have coherent policies and now he is tapping hardliners on the Hill and wherever he can find them for a lack of better options.
Hillary Clinton had a transition team in place. She thought she was going to win. And I think Trump woke up and said, what do I do now?
And he is casting around for anybody, names that he thinks he can trust but this isn't Trump's world, picking foreign policy people. He is truly at a loss.
VANIER: All right, Bob Baer, CNN intelligence and security analyst, thank you very much.
BAER: Thank you, Cyril.
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VANIER: Critics of the president-elect charge that his administration is going to be made up of racists and Islamophobes. But CNN political commentator Kayleigh McEnany dismisses these accusations. Here's what the Trump supporter told CNN earlier.
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KAYLEIGH MCENANY, TRUMP SUPPORTER: The Left tried to do this to Ronald Reagan. Voters were told, this is "Esquire" magazine -- if you were voting for Ronald Reagan, you were like a good German in Hitler's Germany.
They tried to do it to Donald Trump.
Guess what?
Ronald Reagan won two elections. Donald Trump just won one so now the effort is to call Steve Bannon a racist, to call Jeff Sessions a racist, to call Mike Flynn Islamophobic. The American people don't buy it. They saw right through your attempt to do it in the election and they voted Donald Trump (INAUDIBLE).
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VANIER: Donald Trump has also agreed to resolve three long-standing lawsuits against Trump University by paying $25 million. The settlement covers about 6,000 former students of the now-defunct real estate seminars.
It also means Trump won't have to testify at a trial later this month. Some alleged victims say they were hoodwinked by the program. But the U.S. president-elect didn't admit any liability during the settlement. Here's how a plaintiff's lawyer described the deal.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It really is a great result. Everybody who was enrolled in this school and wants their money back will get over half their money back at a minimum and perhaps up to all of their money back.
So we're very pleased with the outcome. We were at each other's throat for 6.5 years and we were able to find a common ground with them and do something good here.
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VANIER: The incoming U.S. president will likely be a hot topic at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru. U.S. President Barack Obama landed there a few hours ago for the summit.
World leaders are expected to throw Mr. Obama some questions over free trade and trade agreements, which President-Elect Donald Trump opposed throughout his campaign.
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VANIER: Athena Jones has more from Lima.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Obama arrives here in
Lima, facing some difficult conversations during this APEC summit. There's no denying that the White House expected a very different result from the election. President Obama said many times that he did not expect Donald Trump to be elected president.
Well, now that Donald Trump has been elected president, there's a lot of uncertainty about the direction that U.S. foreign policy is going to take in the coming years.
One thing we know is that President-Elect Trump has been skeptical of a series of international agreements. Chief among them is the TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He has called that 12-nation trade deal a disaster.
We know from congressional leaders on Capitol Hill that that deal is not going to come up for a vote in the lame duck session of Congress. That means that it is dead. That's a big blow to the Obama administration's efforts to rebalance foreign policy in the U.S. toward the Asia Pacific region, which is a powerhouse on the economic front and important militarily as well.
The White House says that the president will try to make the case that the U.S. should remain engaged in that region. But it's unclear just how effective he's going to be able to be.
We know that China stands ready to fill the void left by the failure of the TPP with its own massive multi-nation trade deal. The White House says that that deal would lower or eliminate tariffs but wouldn't have the same high standards, standards protecting things like intellectual property, the environment, labor standards.
It wouldn't have those same high standards that the TPP has. And it would leave U.S. companies at a disadvantage. So this is going to be potentially a difficult trip for President Obama, who is scheduled to meet with China's president, Xi Jinping, and Australia's prime minister Malcolm Turnbull during the trip. Back to you.
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VANIER: The U.N. says rebel groups in Eastern Aleppo, Syria, have agreed in principle to let in food and medicine. But Syria and its main ally, Russia, have not approved the relief plan.
A word of warning here: the following video contains disturbing footage and it's believed to show some of the victims of the government airstrikes, which have been just relentless over the last four days. Activists say that Friday was one of the bloodiest days yet in Aleppo with 46 people killed in the strikes.
More than 1,000 have died in the besieged city since the cease-fire collapsed two months ago.
In neighboring Iraq now, video has emerged of the moment that a suicide bomber attacked a wedding party in Anbar province on Thursday.
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VANIER (voice-over): ISIS is claiming the attack, which officials say killed 20 people and wounded 40 more. Witnesses told CNN that the groom was among those killed.
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VANIER: The Iraqi air force said it killed 26 ISIS fighters in airstrikes near Mosul on Friday. The first location was near the town of Tal Afar, west of Mosul. Airstrikes hit an ISIS vehicle as well as several ISIS positions. A similar strike was carried near the village of Omarkhan (ph), south of Mosul.
The world has lost an enormous amount of ancient art at the hands of ISIS. But now an Iraqi team is recreating some of the famous sculptures. He says his work has two goals: to hit back at ISIS and to help his country heal.
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VANIER: The World Health Organization says that the Zika virus is no longer a global public health emergency. However, concern over the virus is far from over. The mosquito-borne illness caused widespread fear when it was linked to pregnant mothers and birth defects in Brazil earlier this year. World Health officials say the change in the Zika's status will help them focus now on a long-term approach to fighting the disease.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are not downgrading the importance of Zika. In fact, by placing this as a longer-term program of work, we're sending the message that Zika is here to stay and WHO's response is here to stay in a very robust manner.
We are dealing with long-term issues here, we're dealing with management of neurological complications in children and adults. We're dealing with family planning issues. We're dealing with health system issues.
We're dealing with maternal reproductive health issues and we're dealing with a long and comprehensive research and development agenda that needs to be multiyear and has been published by WHO just last month.
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VANIER: Pregnant women are still being urged to take great precautions in mosquito-prone areas. The first round of primary voting in France begins on Sunday. Voters will narrow the field for Conservative Party nomination down to just two candidates and whoever ultimately wins will have a good shot at the presidency.
Currently topping the polls is Alain Juppe, the mayor of Bordeaux and former prime minister. His chief rival, former president Nicolas Sarkozy, has been closing in over the last month. And the biggest surprise has actually been Sarkozy's former prime minister, Francois Fillon.
His numbers have shot up as he vies for a huge upset. The eventual nominee's biggest challenge, however, may come from her: Marine Le Pen and her far right National Front party. She has been emboldened by Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. and she hopes to ride a similar wave of populism to the French presidency.
Heavy smog continues to blanket the Chinese capital of Beijing, prompting the government to issue the city's first orange alert this year.
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VANIER: Stay with us for this one. You're going to like this
Santa Clara, California, had a mystery to solve on Friday.
What was it all about?
Let's look at the pictures. People there wondered if this was snow.
What does it look like to you?
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VANIER: Or they wondered whether it maybe was an enormous bubble bath. It was actually fire retardant and this came about because a system malfunctioned near the San Jose International Airport.
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VANIER: So a giant blob of foam overtook some streets, obviously as you see. There was no actual fire, thankfully. But it did entertain quite a number of people for a few hours, including that guy on the bike. I think he does the return trip later a little on.
DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: My guess is it was a large foam party.
VANIER: So no snow.
VAN DAM: No snow.
VANIER: All right. Donald Trump has turned Trump Tower into political headquarters. Why some New Yorkers can't wait for his move to Washington -- coming up.
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VANIER: Germany has purchased the California home where Nobel Prize winning author Thomas Mann lived in exile. The real estate company that listed the house said Germany bought it for just over $13 million and plans to turn it into a center for transatlantic dialogue. Mann fled Germany when Hitler came to power.
He lived in the Los Angeles home until the early '50s before his death just a few years later.
Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil announced Friday that he would play at U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump's inauguration but he had to retract those comments just hours later when he was told he had been uninvited.
Neil told "Billboard" that he was asked to play the show months ago, long before Trump's upset win. But he later told TMZ that when Trump won, the invitation was rescinded.
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VANIER: Donald Trump campaigned as a businessman in the U.S. presidential race, vowing to create jobs. But now that he's on his way to the White House, shops and restaurants near Trump Tower say that he is actually cutting into their bottom line. From New York, CNN's Jessica Schneider explains.
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JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fifth Avenue is well known for its holiday festivities and its throngs of shoppers.
But this year, the holiday cheer is hitting some serious roadblocks now that the president-elect has turned Trump Tower into central command for his transition. The typically tied up traffic has turned to a crawl. The slew of shoppers has slowed on the streets and business isn't quite bustling.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, the business here, everything is empty. It's very quiet. I've never seen it this dead.
SCHNEIDER: And it's the holidays.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The holidays. I think it's a total disaster.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): The streets surrounding Trump Tower on lockdown; 56th Street between Sixth Avenue and Madison closed to vehicular traffic. The street shutdowns very bad for business at the Judge Roy Bean Public House on West 56th, where sales are down 25 percent since Election Day. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody can run a business if you have no pedestrians.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Derek Walsh (ph) says the barstools usually occupied during the lunch hour are mostly empty now. A private party for 20 at the rate of $3,000, cancelled last minute when getting here proved unpredictable at best. So now Walsh (ph) has a plea for the president-elect.
DEREK WALSH (PH), BAR OWNER: If you want to look out for the small businessman, move out (INAUDIBLE). You know, we are trying to make ends meet. So please.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) haven't been the same since the streets are closed. We have been having a loss like of 15 percent to 20 percent in sales.
SCHNEIDER: Tina's Cuban Cuisine (ph) also struggling without the typical tourist foot traffic. Carlos Roman (ph) now just waiting for word from the NYPD and the Secret Service about when security might ease up or if this is how it will be for the foreseeable future.
SCHNEIDER: Are you worried that this could affect you for the next four years?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course. We are thinking about it. As long as we know for sure what's going to happen, we have to adjust.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): The luxury stores lining Fifth Avenue aren't immune, either. Tiffany cancelled its annual holiday store window unveiling earlier this week. Customers are still being allowed inside. But with bag checks and security stops nearby, a lot less seem to be spending.
SCHNEIDER: When you went inside, was it emptier than usual?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was empty and I could even hear an echo. I've never been to the store so empty.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): For a street that typically symbolizes the glitz of the holidays, protesters and heavy security seem to be taking center stage this year.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, this holiday season's not going to be the same in New York. This is a prime spot in New York. You know, it's been here for 10 years and I've never seen the streets so empty.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Jessica Schneider, CNN, New York.
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VANIER: Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Cyril Vanier and I will be back with the headlines in just a moment. You are watching CNN.
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