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Appeals Court Denies Immediate Stay of Judge's Order; Trump's New Praise for Putin Draws Criticism; Iran-U.S. Tensions Escalate After Trump's Travel Ban; Trump Voters in Wisconsin Firmly Behind Him; France's Le Pen Unveils Presidential Election Platform. Aired 4-5a ET

Aired February 05, 2017 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:24] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

ROBYN CURNOW, CNN ANCHOR: Live from CNN's world headquarters in Atlanta, welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Robyn Curnow.

CYRIL VANIER, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Cyril Vanier. And we have new developments in our breaking news on U.S. president Donald Trump's travel ban affecting seven Muslim-majority countries.

The White House has now suffered its second defeat in two days over the ban. A U.S. appeals court has just denied the Department of Justice request to immediately stop a judge's suspension of the ban. That means the Trump travel ban will remain on hold for now. The court has asked for both sides to file legal briefs before the court makes additional decisions.

CURNOW: Well, CNN U.S. justice reporter Laura Jarrett is on the phone with us now from Washington.

You have been watching the twists and turns of this legal drama. What do you make of what's just happened?

LAURA JARRETT, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: This is pretty incredible, Robyn. I mean, just shortly after midnight on Sunday, we saw the Justice Department file an emergency request on -- within the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals asking essentially to push pause on the sweeping decision that came out of that Seattle court on Friday evening. And then just a few hours ago, or actually just -- I should say an hour ago, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has responded and said, in short, we need further briefing on this. We cannot give you your emergency administrative relief. We need to hear from the other side. So what we're now going to see is more full briefing from the plaintiff in that case that was the state attorney general. And then we will hear again from the Justice Department on Monday afternoon.

CURNOW: So what this means for Homeland Security, for example, administering the entry and exit of America's borders is that, for the moment, business as usual, anybody from anywhere with a valid U.S. visa, even if you are on the list of seven countries, can still come into the U.S.? JARRETT: That's correct. As of right now, Judge Robart's order, the

Seattle court's judge, his ruling is in full effect. And so everything that has started on Saturday morning where DHS, I should say, Homeland Security and the State Department has started to roll back some of the implementation of the travel ban, all of that, what's happening on Saturday morning is still going to move forward as long as Judge Robart's order is in full effect.

CURNOW: But also this is still pending, these legal briefs that want to be examined. So it could be slapped back on by Monday?

JARRETT: Well, that's right. We just don't know. It's sort of a legal ping-pong, if you will, right now in the courts trying to keep up with it. But as of right now, it appears that the Court of Appeals, the higher court that evaluates that Seattle court, is saying we need to take a step back here and we need full briefing on this before we can decide.

CURNOW: This is not the first time a president has issued a controversial executive order. It is certainly not the first time the courts have pushed back on that. Why is this such a problem? Why are we seeing this legal ping-pong as you say?

JARRETT: I think it has to do with the fact that the order itself, the way it was crafted originally last week was quite raw, right? And so you remember last week there was a whole question of whether green card holders were included. And then we saw the White House changed course on that. And in the intervening time, this whole week we've seen just a cottage industry of lawsuits being filed all over the country. And so, as a result, you have sort of a patchwork going on here, right? You have rulings in New York which say you can't deport people. You have rulings in Boston saying well, we can have this temporary restraining order, but only until a certain amount of time. But the Seattle court was the one who really took things a step further and said, I am putting a nationwide halt on this travel ban.

CURNOW: And a lot of these, as you say, patchwork of legal defenses against this bill, for and against, have been quite specific, have been quite narrow, but broadly there is also going to be the question on not only was that initial executive order badly implemented, but is it -- is it constitutional?

JARRETT: That's exactly right. We haven't even gotten to the larger question of the constitutionality of this order. Right?

[04:05:05] Every court so far has been dealing just in the very administrative early stages trying to figure out, do we need to use a temporary restraining order while we figure that out, right? So the temporary restraining order just gives them immediate release to press pause on what is going to happen in terms of the implementation of this executive order. But the constitutionality of the order hasn't been reached yet. Courts so far have just said the plaintiffs show a likelihood of success on the merit, but that's just an initial finding. It doesn't -- it doesn't reach the ultimate question of whether this entire order is constitutional.

CURNOW: OK. Thanks so much, Laura Jarrett, there in Washington, giving us your perspective. Thank you.

VANIER: We've got a lot more questions, obviously, on all of this. And Troy Slaten joins us now from Los Angeles to answer some of them. He's a legal analyst and a criminal defense attorney.

Troy, just before we get into our questions, I want to point out to our viewers that we're getting information on the Washington state attorney general's Twitter page. He, too, is confirming that the stay has been denied. There you can read it, the Trump administration's request for immediate administrative stay denied. If you want the full text, it's on that Twitter page.

Troy, it seems to me that there are a series, and we've got to make this clear to viewers, a series of bigger and bigger legal battles that are going to be fought.

TROY SLATEN, LEGAL ANALYST: There are. This is just a small step. What the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has said is that Judge Robart's order stands. And the executive order cannot be enforced as of right now. That could change by Monday afternoon when President Trump is to respond to the state's attorney general reply or request for the immediate stay of that temporary restraining order. I know that sounds like a mouthful, but basically in simple terms the court wants to hear more before it makes its final decision about whether or not Judge Robart's order stands.

VANIER: Now for travelers wanting to come to the U.S. who are or have been affected by the travel ban and are wondering what this means for them, just to be crystal clear, that means currently the travel ban is not in effect, but could it come back? Come back into effect?

SLATEN: It could. Right now the Department of Homeland Security has taken steps immediately after Judge Robart's decision, to sort of unwind those actions. And -- the executive order, rather, and we're really now at the status quo before the executive order was signed.

VANIER: And when might the status quo changed? When will we have an answer on that?

SLATEN: We could have an answer as early as Monday afternoon because this three-judge panel is going to make a decision probably by Monday afternoon, maybe a day later, when they're going to have to decide whether or not they're going to stop Judge Robart's temporary restraining order or let it stay in place. If it stays in place, then the executive order cannot be enforced. If it's lifted, then we'll see the executive order pop right back into place.

VANIER: And Laura Jarrett, our U.S. justice reporter, was reminding us just a second ago that there have been, you know, federal -- several multiple federal judges who have actually ruled on this issue. So --

SLATEN: Yes.

VANIER: How could those various legal proceedings interact? SLATEN: Well, this -- Judge Robart's decision was the most sweeping

out of all of them. It's his decision that said it applies nationwide. And effectively blocked the implementation and execution of that executive order.

Now there was a judge out of Massachusetts that said -- that denied the request for a temporary restraining order to do this same exact thing. So the bottom line is, we're going to see this play out in the lower courts. And the United States Supreme Court is going to have to weigh in eventually to solve it and decide it, rather, once and for all.

VANIER: But at some point, what we're seeing happen in this case that was the suit that was filed by the states of Washington and Minnesota, could that be overridden by what is going on either in Massachusetts or New York or another state?

SLATEN: No. The circuits act end independently.

[04:10:004] And it happens very often that one circuit may make a decision that is completely opposite and contrary to what another circuit decides. And in that case, that is the exact type of case that the United States Supreme Court wants to take up. Right now we have an eight-person United States Supreme Court. They could end up ruling 4-4 on one of these cases that makes their way up to them, in which case the lower court's decision would stand.

VANIER: And if we step back a bit on the overarching question of whether this is actually legal, who do you think ultimately wins?

SLATEN: In my opinion, I believe the President Trump prevails.

VANIER: Yes.

SLATEN: Because I believe that the -- the Congress has given authority to the president to decide which class of aliens could be admissible. This is a matter of national security and immigration open enforcement, which the president has nearly plenary powers to decide. And we can even -- I don't think that this executive order was absolutely necessary for the Trump administration to accomplish their goals. I think this was a lot of window dressing because even without this executive order, the president retains power in the executive branch retaining so much power to decide who comes in and who doesn't to this country.

VANIER: And Troy, just one last thing, is it possible that we can have a case whereby ultimately within possibly years the U.S. Supreme Court hands a legal victory to Donald Trump and that executive order is deemed legal, but in the interim, the executive order cannot be applied by law, in other words, for one, two, three years he cannot apply this executive order, but down the way he's actually proven to be right?

SLATEN: Yes, and, you know, the same thing happened with President Obama. It took several years to decide on the issue of recess appointments, on the issue of some of his executive orders. And yes, that's the way that it works. I mean, justice isn't always swift in this country, but that's why we have seen so many people who follow this, so many legal observers like myself, are amazed that the Ninth Circuit made this decision in hours. And that is because the Ninth Circuit knows that the world is watching. And people around the world are relying on some sort of semblance of knowing what to do in this situation. And some sort of semblance of normalcy.

VANIER: All right, legal --

SLATEN: That's why the Ninth Circuit works so quickly.

VANIER: All right. Legal analyst Troy Slaten, so glad to have you with us this hour to make sense of all this. Thank you very much.

CURNOW: So let's get some international perspective now from Scott Lucas, professor of International Politics at the University of Birmingham in England.

We've just heard the legal expert trying to understand the twists and turns in this but many of our viewer who are watching around the world probably had a few raised eyebrows in the last day or two.

SCOTT LUCAS, PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM: Well, I think there have been raised eyebrows ever since this executive order was issued on January 27th. It was so sweeping, affecting tens of thousands of people who already had visas that it raised concerns from Europe to the Middle East and Asia. And indeed that uncertainty continues because, although the executive order has been suspended, you're seeing some passengers who are now scrambling to get into the United States while there's a window who have visas.

How long that window is open of course is dependent on what happens in the Circuit Court. You could close by Monday night, you could stay open for a while longer.

CURNOW: And the messaging, the optics of all of this?

LUCAS: Oh, it's terrible. I mean, the message in terms of American image abroad is that the so-called soft power, you know, of American freedom, American values has just been trampled underfoot. You know, whatever you think about the question of immigration, the way it was done through the executive order gives the impression that a few men in the White House, the president and a couple of advisers, against their own agencies, against their own attorney general, have just pushed through a ban which appears to be directed at Muslims.

Now that is when you get to areas like the Middle East, Africa and Asia, a really damaged message if you're trying to say, look, America is here to help with these conflicts rather than to contribute.

[04:15:03] CURNOW: What we have seen since President Trump took power is an increased uncertainty, increased instability in terms of trying to understand exactly what his administration's next moves are going to be. Some suggest that is a policy, that is their vision in many ways. Others suggest it is just about inexperience. Either way, having America as a predictable institution, a predictable power to the world order seems to throw everything into question.

LUCAS: You're absolutely right. The stability is what the world counts on even if they disagree with American policies. And that stability is outside the window because you've got a president who has a shotgun approach, not only to policy, but to what he says about it, quite often insulting other countries, other people. And you've got strategists like a Steve Bannon who I think are being seen as having an agenda, which is very much directed to a minority in the U.S. to extend their power and the rest of the world can just be damned.

Now compound that with the fact that President Trump has just again praised Vladimir Putin of Russia, giving him high praise while casting doubts on, say, NATO and European countries, while casting doubt on what the U.S. should do in the Middle East and you've got the recipe for turmoil.

CURNOW: OK. The international perspective there from Scott Lucas, thank you so very much.

I'm Robyn Curnow. You're watching CNN. More news after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(SPORTS)

[04:20:19] VANIER: Welcome back, everyone. There are breaking developments in the court fight over U.S. president Donald Trump's travel ban involving seven Muslim majority nations.

CURNOW: Now the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied the U.S. Justice Department's request to press pause on the suspension of the week-old travel ban. It's asking the Justice Department and the states of Washington and Minnesota which requested the suspension to file legal briefs.

VANIER: President Trump tells FOX News now in a brand new interview that he respects Russian President Vladimir Putin.

CURNOW: Mr. Trump acknowledges Putin may be a killer but responded, "We've got a lot of killers." Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL O'REILLY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Do you respect Putin?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I do respect him.

O'REILLY: Do you? Why?

TRUMP: Well, I respect a lot of people. But that doesn't mean I'm going to get along with them. He's a leader of his country. I say it's better to get along with Russia than not. Will I get along with him? I have no idea.

O'REILLY: He's a killer, though. Putin is a killer.

TRUMP: There are a lot of killers. We've got a lot of killers. Why, you think our country is so innocent?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CURNOW: Let's go straight to Moscow. Our Clare Sebastian is standing by.

And Clare, what do comments like that mean to the Kremlin, to the Russian public? Is it music to their ears?

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, I think there's a sense, Robyn, of cautious optimism in Russia about the future of the U.S.-Russian relationship. But the most striking about these comments is how closely they resemble the kind of rhetoric that we have seen over many years from the Kremlin, the kind of moral relativism that they employ. Others call it what-aboutism? We've seen it from President Putin talking about Russian actions in Crimea. He compared them to U.S. and Western actions in Kosovo.

Around the U.S. election recently there was a sense in the media, you know, you accuse us of having a weak democracy, well, look at the divisiveness of the U.S. election. This is very much part of the kind of -- the kind of playbook that they employ.

As for an official reaction here in Moscow, nothing as of yet around lunchtime on a Sunday. It is fairly quiet, but just to give you a sense of this feeling here about the Russia-U.S. relationship, there are new comments out today from Foreign Minister Lavrov speaking to an Austrian magazine, he said, you know, they're still basically waiting to see how the key members of the Trump Cabinet are going to define their foreign policy objective. And until that happens, they are really just kind of watching and waiting how things unfold -- Robyn.

CURNOW: Watching and waiting as well is the Ukrainian president, the Ukrainian people who want to kind of impact this administration will have on them. There was a phone call today, do we know what was said in it?

SEBASTIAN: It was a very closely watched phone call here in Moscow, Robyn. We know -- well, they tell us, there was a statement out from the White House, a very short one, saying that -- you know, this was a very good phone call according to Mr. Trump and that the U.S. has pledged to work with Russia, Ukraine and all sides in resolving that conflict. They said they were going to meet at some point, much longer and much more detailed statement out from the office of President Poroshenko pointing to the devastation, the damage in the town of Avdiivka, north of Donetsk, that's a government-held town. Didn't talk about the damage in the rebel-held areas. And the Ukrainian side said that they had expressed to Mr. Trump that they appreciated the U.S. commitment to Ukrainian territorial integrity and sovereignty.

That perhaps a reference to the very stern comments we heard this week from the U.S.'s U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley saying that Russia was to blame for the violence in Eastern Ukraine and that no sanctions should be lifted until Crimea was returned to Ukraine. So, you know, it's difficult to know exactly how that conversation went from those -- from those two statements. But certainly the Ukrainian side is trying to draw out all the positives they can while the U.S. side seems to be leaving things open to interpretation, Robyn.

CURNOW: OK. Laying it all out from us there from Russia, Clare Sebastian in Moscow. Thank you.

VANIER: And that's the latest on how the U.S.-Russia relationship is evolving. How is the U.S.-Iran relationship stacking up? The new U.S. Defense secretary has some harsh words for Tehran calling it the world's biggest state sponsor of terrorism.

CURNOW: Now this comes a day after the U.S. placed fresh sanctions against Iran which carried out a missile test last week. Now that's just days after the Trump administration says it's placing Iran on notice.

Our Nic Robertson has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: With the tension on this, the rhetoric and the actions with Iran really seem to be ratcheting up. You have the U.S. secretary of Defense James Mattis saying that Iran is the world's biggest sponsor of terrorism, a very strong statement.

[04:25:03] You have, within hours after that, the commander of the aerospace part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, that is the elite force in Iran, saying if the enemy makes a mistake, our roaring missiles will come raining down on their heads. A very clearly escalation here of the rhetoric. But at the same time over the weekend, Iran has begun military drills by again that aerospace section of the elite force. They've been testing their missile systems, testing their radar systems, testing their electronic counter measure systems.

The very clear message there is, if there is any kind of military action, aircraft flying into Iran's air space, if there is any kind of military action like that, Iran is ready for it. That's the message. And we know that President Trump, his secretary -- his spokesman, Sean Spicer, have both been very clear the United States is not taking anything off the table in their potential actions against Iran. So at the moment the tensions, the rhetoric, the actions just keep escalating.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Violetta, Malta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CURNOW: OK, our thanks to Nic for that report.

You're watching CNN. Coming up, we continue with our breaking news. The U.S. appeals court has just denied a Justice Department effort to end the suspension of the U.S. travel ban. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [04:30:04] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

CURNOW: So welcome back to our viewers in the United States and around the world. You're watching CNN. I'm Robyn Curnow.

VANIER: And I'm Cyril Vanier. And we're following breaking news of the legal battle over President Donald Trump's travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries and refugees. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has just denied a Justice Department request to restore the ban.

CURNOW: That means for now the travel ban remains suspended. The court has asked for both sides to file legal briefs before it makes additional decisions.

CNN's U.S. justice reporter Laura Jarrett is on the phone with us now from Washington. You have been watching the twists and turns of this legal drama. What do you make of what's just happened?

JARRETT (via phone): This is pretty incredible, Robyn. I mean, just shortly after midnight on Sunday, we saw the Justice Department file an emergency request on -- within the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals asking essentially to push pause on the sweeping decision that came out of that Seattle court on Friday evening. And then just a few hours ago, or actually just -- I should say an hour ago, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has responded and said, in short, we need further briefing on this. We cannot give you your emergency administrative relief. We need to hear from the other side. So what we're now going to see is more full briefing from the plaintiff in that case that was the state attorney general. And then we will hear again from the Justice Department on Monday afternoon.

CURNOW: So what this means for Homeland Security, for example, administering the entry and exit of America's borders is that, for the moment, business as usual, anybody from anywhere with a valid U.S. visa, even if you are on the list of seven countries, can still come into the U.S.?

JARRETT: That's correct. As of right now, Judge Robart's order, the Seattle court's judge, his ruling is in full effect. And so everything that has started on Saturday morning where DHS, I should say, Homeland Security and the State Department has started to roll back some of the implementation of the travel ban, all of that, what's happening on Saturday morning is still going to move forward as long as Judge Robart's order is in full effect.

CURNOW: But also this is still pending, these legal briefs that want to be examined. So it could be slapped back on by Monday?

JARRETT: Well, that's right. We just don't know. It's sort of a legal ping-pong, if you will, right now in the courts trying to keep up with it. But as of right now, it appears that the Court of Appeals, the higher court that evaluates that Seattle court, is saying we need to take a step back here and we need full briefing on this before we can decide. CURNOW: This is not the first time a president has issued a

controversial executive order. It is certainly not the first time the courts have pushed back on that. Why is this such a problem? Why are we seeing this legal ping-pong as you say?

JARRETT: I think it has to do with the fact that the order itself, the way it was crafted originally last week was quite raw, right? And so you remember last week there was a whole question of whether green card holders were included. And then we saw the White House changed course on that. And in the intervening time, this whole week we've seen just a cottage industry of lawsuits being filed all over the country.

And so, as a result, you have sort of a patchwork going on here, right? You have rulings in New York which say you can't deport people. You have rulings in Boston saying well, we can have this temporary restraining order, but only until a certain amount of time. But the Seattle court was the one who really took things a step further and said, I am putting a nationwide halt on this travel ban.

CURNOW: And a lot of these, as you say, a patchwork of legal defenses against this bill, for and against, have been quite specific, have been quite narrow, but broadly there is also going to be the question on not only was that initial executive order badly implemented, but is it -- is it constitutional?

JARRETT: That's exactly right. We haven't even gotten to the larger question of the constitutionality of this order. Right? Every court so far has been dealing just in the very administrative early stages trying to figure out, do we need to use a temporary restraining order while we figure that out, right? So the temporary restraining order just gives them immediate release to press pause on what is going to happen in terms of the implementation of this executive order.

[04:35:03] But the constitutionality of the order hasn't been reached yet. Courts so far have just said the plaintiffs show a likelihood of success on the merit, but that's just an initial finding. It doesn't -- it doesn't reach the ultimate question of whether this entire order is constitutional.

CURNOW: OK. Thanks so much, Laura Jarrett, there in Washington, giving us your perspective. Thank you.

Well, Washington state attorney general had a simple response to the denial of the stay saying the ruling speaks for itself. He also tweeted, "Trump's administration's request for immediate administrative stay denied."

VANIER: Protests against President Trump's travel ban have drawn the cameras, but those angry with President Trump's policies are only one side of the national move.

CURNOW: Many Americans are behind Mr. Trump 100 percent.

CNN's Jason Carroll met some of them in Wisconsin, a state that was key to getting Donald Trump elected in the first place. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When you look at the reason why Donald Trump unexpectedly flipped the state of Wisconsin, look no further than this bar right outside of Milwaukee. It caters to a lot of Harley Davidson employees who come from the plant just a few miles away. The patrons have plenty of praise for the president and find little tolerance for those protesting against it.

KIM GAMROTH, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Get over it. He's in. He's in. And just stop it. Stop it.

CARROLL: Kim Gamroth (PH) owns this bar and says her feelings mirror those of many in the community, a community that voted for Trump over Hillary Clinton by nearly 2-1.

And Donnie Balusik is a Trump supporter. Balusik said he worked at Harley-Davidson for more than 40 years before he retired and was also a small business owner.

DONNIE BALUSIK, TRUMP SUPPORTER: It cost me a good business, I guess. Like a bar like this. You know, all of a sudden, certain people moved in an area and the white people move out.

CARROLL (on camera): You mean certain people, people who look like me?

BALUSIK: Or -- well, look, neighborhood changed, like 90 percent in less than two years, white people won't come in, and I had to sell it.

CARROLL: I wonder going forward, does it give you with a -- an unfavorable view of black people, Mexican people?

BALUSIK: Yes, it does. I'll be honest with you, I'm very prejudiced. And a lot of people know that.

CARROLL (voice-over): Balusik says his point of view is unedited. One that he says few people like him share publicly.

(On camera): Do you believe that a lot of other people who feel the way you do also voted for Trump because they feel the way you do?

BALUSIK: They do, trust me.

CARROLL (voice-over): Jennifer Murray and Kim Gamroth say they don't share Balusik's views and that they welcome all who come to the bar no matter their race, but they support Trump and are happy with what they've seen so far.

JENNIFER MURRAY, TRUMP SUPPORTER: He is backing up what he had said, you know, which is finally standing up for America, for the citizens of America.

GAMROTH: For small businesses or for everybody who voted for him. He said what he was going to do and he's doing it. CARROLL: They also hope the president will keep pressuring U.S.

companies to make more products in the United States.

Lane Davidson, for example, assembles bikes in the United States but makes many parts overseas in countries like Mexico. Ross Winklbauer, the head of the local steel workers union, is encouraged by Trump pulling out of the Transpacific Partnership which he says was not good for U.S. workers, but he's personally troubled by the administration's immigration ban.

ROSS WINKLBAUER, LOCAL DIRECTOR, UNITED STEELWORKERS: The green lady, the Statue of Liberty, you know, welcome. And I just believe that's the way it should be.

CARROLL: Patrons such as Donnie Balusik are on board with what Trump has done so far and hope he continues to fulfill his promises.

BALUSIK: I hope he gets another four years after this one. It's got to be better than the Democrats.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VANIER: Our Jason Carroll reporting there. Stay with us, we're back right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:42:48] CURNOW: Back to our breaking news out of the U.S. and another setback for the U.S. president's controversial travel ban.

VANIER: A U.S. appeals court has denied the Justice Department's request to immediately restore the ban.

CURNOW: Now that ban denied refugees and citizens from seven Muslim- majority countries. This appeals court ruling means the ban -- the travel ban will remain on hold for now.

Well, Jomana Karadsheh joins us now from Istanbul, in Turkey with reaction. It's a Sunday lunchtime. Not -- there hasn't been a lot of reaction to all these twists and turns. What are you hearing, though? What is the perspective from the region?

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think, Robyn, to sum up the reaction in this region it's confusion and uncertainty. You know, people a week ago waking up to the news that, you know, tens of millions of people coming from these seven countries were no longer allowed to travel to the United States. The refugees were not allowed to go to the United States. The next thing they know is that has been paused for now and they're told it's just temporary. So it's a lot of confusion and uncertainty about when, how, and if this is going to change.

People understand that this is an ongoing legal battle. And you did see some people trying to take advantage of this temporary pause to try and get on planes to get to the United States. But we're not seeing this really large number of people or long queues of people trying to get on planes. And perhaps that's understandable because they understand that this could change yet again really fast. And people are weary of that. They've seen what happened last week to some of those traveler who were in the air when that executive order was imposed.

And people ended up either being deported, detained and their visas revoked in some cases. So there's that uncertainty where people don't really want to take that risk and lose those precious visas that they managed to get and end up with the cost of a trip to the U.S. and, of course, that humiliation of being turned back. So people might be trying to avoid that and just waiting to see.

And then there's also that cautious optimism right now that some people feel that maybe the American justice system is going to overturn a decision that so many people in this part of the world viewed unjust and collective punishment, Robyn.

[04:45:12] CURNOW: So with that in mind, I mean, you talk about the humiliation, how much resentment is there across the Middle East over this travel ban, over these steps the Trump administration has taken? I mean, how does it hurt? Is it just about optics? Or do you think it will really hurt America's ability -- the Trump administration's ability to do business, to do foreign policy in the region?

KARADSHEH: Well, I think there's a lot of concern, like seeing this ban coming into effect has really gotten so many people in this part of the world concerned about what might happen next. Some people believe that this is just the beginning. And of course, you know, you talk about the feelings towards the United States when it comes to the Arab and Muslim world, there's always this suspicion when it comes to the U.S.'s attention in this part of the world. And as you mentioned, some resentment of the policies. So this really does exacerbate those feelings among so many people here.

And, of course, as we've heard from countries that are allies of the United States like Iraq, for example, so many people there, not officially the government, but people who say they are fighting terrorism on a daily basis, that they are not a terrorist threat to the United States. They say they were insulted by this decision, Robyn.

CURNOW: Yes. You make an excellent point there. Thanks so much for bringing us that perspective from Turkey and the region. Jomana Karadsheh, thank you.

VANIER: All right. Let's take a look at some other world news now. The father of the man accused of carrying out the machete attack at the Louvre Museum in Paris Friday is speaking out. The Egyptian-born suspect was shot and wounded by a guard as he allegedly tried to attack a group of soldiers outside the building. His father insists that his son is not a terrorist.

CURNOW: And he claims French authorities are engaging in a, quote, "cover-up" for shooting his son who he says was on a business trip to Paris.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REDA AL-HAMAHMY, SUSPECT'S FATHER (Through Translator): He called me. He usually calls us from a foreign line, which we answer. He told us he was in France for work and that he would go home on Saturday. So I asked him to buy me a cap, like the ones French people wear in the winter. He called me again yesterday and I asked him, did you buy me the cap? He asked me what color I would like. So I told him either black or gray, that's it.

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VANIER: And staying in France, the leader of the far-right National Front, Marine Le Pen, has unveiled a platform that she hopes will help her win the presidency in just a few month's time. The vote is in April. She's expected to make a major speech in a few hours in the city of Lyon. That's where our Paris correspondent Melissa Bell joins us.

Melissa, so good to have you with us. Marine Le Pen, Melissa, has been the surging force in French politics for quite a while now. What does she now presenting that is new?

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, she has just unveiled her program for the election. 144 points, Cyril. 144 pledges of what she will do if she becomes the next president of France. And it isn't so much what she's proposing to change, it's rather than the context, I think, in which we understand what she's proposing has changed. So when you look at her program, it's things like the withdrawal from NATO, a retreat within national borders, a referendum on France's belonging to the European Union, the return of national sovereignty, of certain amounts of economic protectionism, political isolationism.

And what you find as you read through her program is that it sounds an awfully lot -- an awful lot like what Donald Trump was stood on and is now beginning to introduce in the United States. And in particular, Cyril, if you look further down the manifesto, point 97, she believes that national unity should be encouraged by a sort of the creation of a national narrative and a refusal to apologize for historical mistakes that might go against that historical narrative.

So it is much more than economic and political changes in a return of national sovereignty. It is, in a sense, a rewriting of France's history in a way that allows the country to unite around certain values. So it is very profound changes that she's suggesting and rather like what we've seen in the United States, I think, Cyril, were she to become the next president. It would feel much more than simply a change of government, perhaps much more like a change of regime.

VANIER: Melissa, if you look at the presidential race right now in France, it's a very unsteady picture at the moment. How strong is the far-right going into this campaign?

BELL: It is the most extraordinary election to cover, Cyril, simply because everything does feel so up in the air. You have on the right the Republican candidate Francois Fillon, who was chosen in November, who had looked fairly unstoppable. His campaign seems essentially to be collapsing under the weight of the allegations that surround his wife and his children who were allegedly paid for work that they didn't carry out to the tune of about million euros.

[04:50:07] So that's now under investigation, but there are growing fractures within his party. Many people calling for his replacement as a party's candidate with less than three months to go before the election. So you have the sense that anything can happen.

The biggest question is what will happen the second round. It's almost certain Marine Le Pen will get to that. Can she get 50 percent of the vote against, say, an Emmanuel Macron? That is the big question that people are wondering here in France and that has yet to be answered, Cyril.

VANIER: All right. Melissa Bell, thank you very much, reporting live from Lyon, we appreciate your time.

We're going to take a short break. We're back in just minutes. Stay with us.

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VANIER: Welcome back, everyone. We're following breaking news at the legal battle over President Donald Trump's travel ban on seven Muslim- majority countries and refugees. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has just denied a Justice Department request to immediately restore the ban.

CURNOW: Now that means for now the travel ban remains suspended. The court has asked for both sides to file legal briefs, more information, before it makes any additional decisions.

And this is already got people talking, "Saturday Night Live" is back to mocking the Trump administration.

[04:55:01] VANIER: And this week's particular target was actress Melissa McCarthy's impersonation of Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary.

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MELISSA MCCARTHY, ACTRESS: All right. Good afternoon. All right. Settle down. Settle down. Settle down. Before we begin, I know that myself and the press have gotten off to a rocky start. All right. All right. All right. In a sense, when I said rocky start, I meant it in the sense of "Rocky" the movie because I came out here to punch you in the face. And also I don't talk so good. So I'll let you begin today by apologizing on behalf of you to me. For how you have treated me these last two weeks. And then apology is not accepted. Because I'm not here to be your buddy. I'm here to swallow gum and I'm here to take names.

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CURNOW: Too good. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Robyn Curnow.

VANIER: And I'm Cyril Vanier. "NEW DAY" with Victor Blackwell and Christi Paul is next. Do stay with CNN.

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