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Gen. Mattis' Message on North Korean Missile Launch; Trump Meets with Merkel at G-20; ISIS Strongholds in Iraq & Syria on Verge of Collapse; Protests at G-20 Summit Turn Violent; Interview with Amb. Peter Wittig. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired July 06, 2017 - 13:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:31:04] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. This just in to CNN. The federal governments ethics watchdog, who has battled the Trump administration for months about conflict of interest, he says he's leaving. Walter Schaub is the director of the Office of Government Ethics. He took on the president most notably over the president's refusal to separate himself from many of his business interests. He also called out the president's aide, Kellyanne Conway, for plugging products from Ivanka Trump during a live TV interview. Schaub says he's is taking a job for Campaign Legal Center, which is non-profit, non-partisan advocacy group for tougher campaign finance law. His resignation is effective on July 19th.

All right. As we heard before the break, President Trump says he's considering some "pretty severe things" -- his words - to deal with the latest sabre rattling from North Korea. The president also says he does not draw red lines when it comes to options. So how should the U.S. deal with North Korea's successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile that is believed capable, in theory, of reaching Alaska.

Joining me now to discuss, CNN Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, and CNN military analyst, retired Air Force colonel, Cedric Leighton

Barbara, I want to start with you.

I understand you just heard from Defense Secretary James Mattis briefing reporters on what's going on with North Korea. What did you learn?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: It was an extraordinary couple of moments. Defense Secretary Mattis coming down in the Pentagon to the press area and speaking on the record. We will have that audio a little bit later.

But I want to tell you exactly what the headline was. Let me quote the secretary. He told reporters, "I do not believe this capability in itself brings us closer to war, because the president has been very clear, the secretary of state has been very clear, that we are leading with diplomatic and economic efforts. The military remains ready in accordance with our alliance." That is the message that Defense Secretary Mattis thought was so

important that he wanted to come and tell reporters on the record, which he usually doesn't do, very directly. So when he says the capability doesn't lead him to believe we're going to war, he's talking about the capability of the North Korea missile they launched. They saw the launch, the U.S. intelligence monitored it, they knew it wasn't headed towards the United States. They do take it very seriously. North Korea is making progress.

But this missile, in and of itself, is not something that James Mattis wants to see lead the country to war. He, in the past, has been very public that war with North Korea could be a disaster, a catastrophe for the people of South Korea, for the entire Asia-Pacific region. So he is reinforcing that what he believes the president is talking about is that this effort still will be led with diplomatic initiatives -- John?

BERMAN: Do you get the sense, Barbara, that the defense secretary was trying to, maybe, cool off some of the rhetoric or at least some of the questions raised over the president's language this morning when he talked about pretty severe action? When people were briefing saying that the president was discussing military options? Is he trying to back off a little bit?

STARR: I think what he's trying to do is walk the line, if you will. That, in his view, diplomacy leads the options at the moment. That is the view of Defense Secretary Mattis.

Look, this is a guy who served in the military for decades. Right? He has a very fine knowledge of what the military options are. The military options are continuously updated. They've been updated for President Trump.

And make no mistake, the U.S. military does need to be ready to go -- he made that very clear -- should North Korea engage in a significant additional provocation.

He just doesn't think, from everything he told us a short time ago, this one-launch capability will get the U.S. into a war with North Korea at this point --

BERMAN: Right.

STARR: -- because of the dire consequences of it. So I think he wants to cool off a bit of rhetoric, shall we say, all the way around.

[13:35:11] BERMAN: The other part of it is his language choice about the capabilities not changing things, Colonel, because everything we've been hearing about this test this week, is this is a very different weapon, something the North Koreans have never used before, never shown any success with. We're talking about a missile which could, in theory, reach Alaska. It seems the defense secretary is quite deliberately saying, don't be alarmed just by that?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: I think that's right, John. And to add to what Barbara was saying, one of the key things the military looks at is whether something not only is capable of doing something but also what is the intention of the adversary. When you look at the intentions, you're seeing Secretary Mattis saying, they don't want to go to war with us either at this point. They're going to provoke. They're going to do all kinds of things. But they're not going to deliberately attack us. And they're definitely not going to send something that will land in Anchorage tomorrow.

BERMAN: Also in conjunction with the fact, Colonel, the president doesn't set red lines, the notion we just heard, Barbara's reporting from the defense secretary saying the capability doesn't change things. It seems to me a deliberate message from the administration, that, hey, look, a red line for us is not an ICBM test?

KIRBY: That's right. A red line, I think, would be something much more significant, dare we say, much more kinetic. Something that would actually explode somewhere and cause casualties, that would be a definite red line. And I think the North knows that. But what the administration seems to be trying to do is ratchet things back. Yes, they understand that this is a new capability, something that is different from what the North Koreans have done before. But it is maybe not the game-changer that we thought it initially was.

(CROSSTALK)

STARR: And, John, if I could just jump in one second to underscore what Cedric said. The secretary chose a specific word that military people would recognize, "capability." This is a missile that could have that capability. But everyone we've talked to throughout the week says, look, North Korea would have to still make a number of advances, a number of improvements for it to be able to actually hit the U.S.

BERMAN: All right. Barbara Starr, again, the breaking news. Comments from Defense Secretary James Mattis, talking to reporters by choice, saying the capability now, this ICBM capability of North Korea doesn't change the situation, and quite deliberately saying diplomacy is still our first option.

Barbara Starr, Colonel Cedric Leighton, thank you for joining us.

LEIGHTON: You bet.

Very shortly, the German ambassador to the United States will join me live. President Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel just wrapping up their meeting. What did they discuss? Is there common ground between the two nations? Perhaps some of the conflicts between these two leaders, did they mend some of those fences?

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[13:42:28] BERMAN: All right. Looking at live pictures from Hamburg in Germany, site of the G-20 summit. These are protests going on for some time outside these meetings. Our Fred Pleitgen on the streets there tells us about 10,000 people outside protesting. We believe they've been mostly peaceful. We believe these have been the types of protests seen at other international gatherings. Nothing that out of the ordinary. But we are keeping our eye on them and will let you know if anything develops there.

President Trump had a number of tense, high-level meetings on the agenda for this trip. Tomorrow, he meets face-to-face with Russian Leader Vladimir Putin. He also speaks with the Chinese President Xi Jinping.

And he just finished a meeting with the host of this conference, German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

We want to talk about that meeting and that relationship. Joining us is, Peter Wittig, the German ambassador to the United States.

Ambassador, thanks for being with us.

I should tell our audience, we were just talking, neither of us knows what happened inside that meeting that just wrapped up. I wish I had a read out of what went on. Neither of us knows.

I'll just jump into the discussion now. Leading up to the meeting, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel noted there are differences now between the United States and Germany. Differences that the countries need to be honest about. What would you say are the biggest differences?

PETER WITTIG, GERMAN AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S.: First of all, the two leaders have a good and productive working relationship. They met in Washington. They were over the phone lots of times on the whole of the international agenda. Just last Monday, the president assured the chancellor he wants to contribute to the success of the G-20 meetings. But, yes, you are right, there are some differences. And I would name here climate change, of course, and trade. And I guess those differences will be, or will have been addressed during that meeting.

BERMAN: How important is it for the two leaders -- and we're looking at pictures, I should tell you, of their greeting today before the meeting and there was a handshake there.

How important is it to send this image of unity, or at least greater unity here? So much was made of the fact of a meeting at the White House where there was no handshake. Do you think it's important that the would see these two leaders shaking hands now?

WITTIG: That handshake that never took place in Washington, that was overblown. It didn't correspond to the friendliness of the meeting. It was productive meeting in Washington. Both of them were satisfied. So don't read too much into that.

They have a good and productive relationship. And the chancellor will go out of her way to turn this important G-20 summit, you know, where the 20 leaders of the biggest economies in the world get together, turn this into a success. And she will, you know, work to forge compromise, to find common ground, including the interests of the United States. And I think this is such an opportunity that the chancellor will not want to miss for -- for the good of that forum, the G-20. [13:45:26] BERMAN: Earlier today, President Trump, in Warsaw,

affirmed the U.S. commitment to Article V of NATO, collective security. I know the G-20 meeting is not a NATO meeting. It's a separate organization. That aside, Germany is a key member of NATO. How important is it for Germans to have heard out loud that commitment inside Europe from President Trump?

WITTIG: It's good that he reaffirmed it. We've heard it from the secretary of defense, secretary of state, from General McMaster, the national security adviser many times. The president has said it before. And now he's said it again. And it's a good sign. We want to be reassured that NATO is still the bedrock of our common security. For us, you know, facing challenges from a newly sort of Russia in the east, facing challenges from terrorism in the Middle East, that is -- a welcome sign that the president sent out.

BERMAN: I want to play sound of what the president said about trade earlier today. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We want reciprocal trade relationships. We don't have too many of them. I said before that the United States has made some of the worst trade deals ever in history. That's going to change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Now, the German foreign minister, your foreign minister, was warning that the U.S. may be starting a trade war with Europe. What's leading to that concern?

WITTIG: Well, we also want of free and fair and reciprocal trade. We think this open and rule-based international trade order has benefited us, all of us, over the decades, has brought us prosperity and stability. We are concerned, frankly -- and this is one of the differences that I think the leaders will address during that meeting -- that there is a tendency of this administration to succumb to protectionist tendencies. There is a plan in the making to impose tariffs and quotas on steel exports, invoking national security interests. That would be a bad sign as we see it, because that would not basically answer the -- the situation. We know there are steel capacities, over-capacities by China. But it would hit Europe. And Europe could not sit idly by if those measures would be imposed. And eventually, that could spiral to a tit-for-tat and retaliation. That would be bad for us. It would be a lose-lose situation. Whereas, we believe, potentially, free, fair and reciprocal trade is a win-win situation.

BERMAN: Ambassador Peter Wittig, ambassador from Germany to the United States, thank you for being with us.

WITTIG: It was a pleasure. Thank you, John.

BERMAN: Coming up, the last stand for ISIS in Raqqa. Is it the last stance? Will a defeat create new problems inside Syria? We have a rare look from the front line, next.

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[13:52:18] BERMAN: ISIS strongholds in Iraq and Syria could be on the verge of collapse. But the big question is, what happens to these battle zones if and when ISIS is finally gone?

CNN's senior international correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh, has the story from Syria.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm about 40 miles from Raqqa city itself. How things have changed since we were here 18 months ago. This used to be the front line but now ISIS are surrounded entirely, cordoned off in what they still call the capital of their self-declared caliphate. Coalition backing the Syrian and Kurdish Arab fighters behind me and moving into, remarkably, they said, in the last 48 hours, the old city area of Raqqa itself. Pushing through a substantial wall around it using air strikes and being able to bypass the mines and defensive positions that ISIS put into place to try to slow this attack down. It seems to be moving very fast, indeed. We have seen American military vehicles moving around here at a reasonable frequency. This fight is moving fast. And it's the last population center that ISIS control because they are pretty much days away from losing the largest city they ever had, which was Mosul in Iraq. There are matters of hundreds of meters now for Iraqi special forces to clear. They smell victory but it's pretty far away. Because the people they are facing are suicide bombers with civilians being used as human shields. A very difficult task there. But still, a difficult task later, after that, when they try to rebuild. Iraq fractured as a society between the Sunni ethnic group that backed ISIS, many of them, and the Shia that dominate the military and the government. They need healing so they can rebuild. And here in Syria, too, the broader question of what happens when Raqqa is finally liberated of ISIS? Who rebuilds it? Who moves in? Not really answers satisfactually. The U.S. have a plan to move in quickly and try and get things going but they probably haven't got the budget or the patience to stick it out until the end. And the Syrian regime is very close by with an eye on getting back as much territory as it possibly can.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: That was Nick Paton Walsh in Syria.

We have breaking news from the streets of Hamburg, Germany, the site of the G-20 summit. We've been keeping our eye on this over the last hour. Big protests on the streets there. Some 10,000 people, until this moment -- until this moment, they had been peaceful protests. But obviously, something has changed. You're now seeing the police there. Law enforcement authorities firing water cannons at the crowd right there. We're seeing some projectiles thrown back in. No idea what provoked this action on the streets there. Gas of some kind being thrown, a smoke diversion, a pyrotechnic device there. Again, no idea what set this off. [11:55:00] We should note that protests, activities like these at these international gatherings, it has been expected, has come to be expected at this point. In some cases, these protest areas are penned in or walled off, you know, blocks if not miles from where the meetings are actually taking place. I do not know if that is the case inside Hamburg.

Nevertheless, again, what we're seeing right now, the beginnings of what could be some fairly low-scale clashes between law enforcement and the protesters. We see smoke. We've seen water cannons, water being used by law enforcement to the protesters. Seems they've been dispersed right now. What we're seeing right now is primarily law enforcement out in force, we should note, hundreds and hundreds, I'm sure, thousands on the streets there to keep them safe and to keep that city operating while the leaders of the 20 industrialized nations meet. Again, it's something they've come to expect at these gatherings. But it does make it difficult. You can see the haze over the crowd right there.

Our Frederick Pleitgen, who was there -- now we're seeing jostling to be sure. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CROSSTALK)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Again, let's just be completely transparent here. We don't know who these protesters are or what exactly they're protesting. We do know, at these international gatherings, we do see this. You get anarchists on the one hand, anti-globalists on the other hand. People protesting any number of things. Most often, peaceful protests, people who want to have their voice heard to a gathering of the leading economic nations in the world. This had been a peaceful demonstration up until now.

Our Fred Pleitgen was on the streets there. Told us about 10,000 people, he thinks. It could have grown on the streets there. Then something set this off. We saw some skirmishes back and forth right there and then the water being shot there. Again, this has been going on for some time.

This follows the meeting between President Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. We have not had a readout of that meeting. We do know that meeting has wrapped up and President Trump has moved on to other items on this agenda. Not even sure how close these meetings are to where these demonstrations are taking place.

You can see a large-scale action now by law enforcement moving through the crowd, trying to break them up, trying to break them up and disperse the crowd as best they can.

Our Fred Pleitgen has been out on the streets this whole time.

Fred, what are you seeing? (CHANTING)

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPODNENT: Yes. Good. OK.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Fred Pleitgen, can you hear me?

PLEITGEN: Hey, it looks like the things are kicking off here. You can see the water cannon trucks are in use back there. We think that some smoke bombs and fireworks were set off. We're going to try to get a little bit closer. But we have to try to stay safe as well because there is a police line right around here.

I'm going to take you to the front here. This is really the first time the violence has kicked off here. And what's happened as that the protest march was lining up. The cops then stopped them, actually around where we are right now, and told people to take face masks off because you're not allowed to wear masks here. And then, at some point, it seems as though, you know, one thing led to another and then the first smoke bombs were thrown. And now we have this where the water cannon trucks have been in use. The cops are moving around and creating a larger perimeter as well.

We're going to try to get a little bit closer for you guys.

BERMAN: Fred, give us a sense of who is out there protesting. If you can still hear me. You said thousands and thousands of people. And please take care of yourself, Fred. But who's out there?

PLEITGEN: Yeah. Look, a lot of them are sort of people who are left wing. It's a very international crowd. There's some centrist people as well. I would say the vast majority of folks here are peaceful. And the demonstration up until now was peaceful as well. It was quite a good atmosphere over the past couple of hours.

There's obviously a small, you know, arm of the people who are looking for a fight. You did see there were some sort of Black Block left wing people among the crowd as well. But by and large, it was peaceful people.

At the same time, they are obviously have this, you know, sort of anti-capitalist agenda. Many of them highly critical of President Trump especially. There was quite a scene when President Trump's helicopter went over the demonstration.

And as I say, you know, so far, the demonstration has been fairly peaceful. But now it seems as though things are getting a little bit out of hand.

This is also quite a bottleneck. I don't know if we make the shot a little wider., you can see we're on a road that has lings on each side. There's folks up there as well. And the protesters really are sort of squeezed in between. If we go to the front, we can probably see a little more. You guys

follow me around here, you can see. I think, this is about as far as we're going to be able to get. There's some stun grenades and smoke grenades going off. But that's not to worry about. So you can see right here, we're at the first of the police front lines. The cops have taken up a position here --