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North and South Korea Meet for Third Time at DMZ; Steve Bannon Subpoenaed in Russia Probe; Japan Sends Out False Missile Alert; Dow Briefly Tops 25,000 for First Time; U.S. Withholds $55M in Aid for Palestinian Refugees; Detroit Man Deported To Mexico After 30 years In U.S. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired January 17, 2018 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ISHA SESAY, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. Ahead this hour, the latest face-to-face between North and South Korea.
Are the two sides making real progress or is the North just stalling for time?
Plus Steve Bannon gets a 10-hour grilling on the Russia investigation but the former Trump strategist refuses to answer questions about his time at the White House.
And it happened again: another false alarm scares people into thinking a North Korean missile might be heading their way.
Hello and thank you for joining us. I'm Isha Sesay, this is NEWSROOM L.A.
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SESAY: Well, North Korea could face tougher sanctions if it doesn't halt its nuclear program. Foreign ministers from 20 countries met Tuesday in Vancouver, Canada, and agreed to consider unilateral sanctions that would go beyond U.N. Security Council resolutions. The U.S. secretary of state warned Pyongyang to enter talks or face a possible military response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REX TILLERSON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: The object of negotiations, if and when we get there, is the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of North Korea.
SESAY (voice-over): Meanwhile, the North and South met again at the DMZ to discuss participation in the Olympic Games. Japan's foreign minister said he thinks Pyongyang is using the talks to buy time for its nuclear program. Ivan Watson joins us now from Seoul with the very latest. Ivan, that's the real question here, whether this rare show of
cooperation between the North and South pursuant to the Olympic Games, will yield dividends in wider nuclear talks.
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. And from what we've heard from the North Koreans over the first three rounds of these discussions is that they bristle when the issue of denuclearization comes up from the South Korean side.
But one area where they do seem to come to agreement is on North Korea's participation in the upcoming Winter Olympics, which will be held here in South Korea in a little bit less than a month's time.
Now we've just learned from South Korea's unification ministry, Isha, that North Korea, at today's talks, has requested that it can bring some 230 members of its cheerleading squad to attend the upcoming Olympics.
Those cheerleaders, we don't know yet what the South Koreans will say to that request, would be cheering on, to the best of our knowledge, perhaps two North Korean ice skaters, figure skaters, who we believe are the only athletes from North Korea who may qualify for the Winter Olympics unless some additional kind of favors are extended by the International Olympic Committee.
If South Korea agrees to allow these 230 cheerleaders to come, they would also be joined in parallel by an orchestra from North Korea of some 140 members. And part of these talks have revolved around where to put the stages for that orchestra's performance, letting an advance team come in. So a lot of logistics here.
Long story short, a huge entourage of North Koreans, potentially very few actual athletes at the Winter Games.
SESAY: Yes, if those numbers are indeed correct, 230 cheerleaders and 140 members of an orchestra, that's a lot of folks not taking part in sporting events. Bizarre. We'll see how that shakes out.
But Ivan, there's also been some discussion and some -- I don't know if really light has been shed but certainly the issue of ghost ships has been on the table.
What more can you tell us?
WATSON: Right. Well, the discussions have provided a platform for dealing with other problems and challenges between North and South Korea.
Like how do you repatriate corpses?
Earlier this month, the South Koreans found a floating fishing boat, capsized, wooden, carrying four bodies. That was on January 7th. It has been agreed today that, on Thursday morning, these four bodies would be returned to North Korea via the demilitarized zone, the Panmunjom complex where today's talks are taking place. So what we're seeing is perhaps dividends there; these two neighbors
are using this negotiating platform for the Olympics to talk about other issues. That brings me to another regional issue and that's the phenomenon of these ghost ships.
It's not just one boat from North Korea, washing up with corpses of fishermen on board. This is a much bigger phenomenon; Japan has counted close to 100 of these boats last year alone, washing up from --
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WATSON: -- North Korea. So this is a much bigger problem certainly plaguing North Korea's fishing industry but, as we can see, these negotiations are allowing the South Koreans, at the very least, to return some of these unidentified North Koreans back to their homeland -- Isha.
SESAY: Grim discoveries indeed. Ivan Watson joining us there from Seoul, Ivan, always appreciate it, thank you.
Well, Donald Trump's former chief strategist is refusing to answer certain questions from the House Intelligence Committee about the Russian investigation. Steve Bannon is now facing two subpoenas, one from the committee and another from Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller.
Bannon spent 10 hours before the House panel on Tuesday. The committee's top Democrat says the White House has put a gag order on Bannon and claims he might try to invoke executive privilege in the future.
Joining me now, CNN political commentator, Democratic strategist, Dave Jacobson; Republican strategist Charles Moran and professor of law and government at Loyola Law School, Jessica Levinson.
Good to have you with us once again.
Charles, I'm going to start with you. I want you to take a listen to what the ranking Democrat had to say after Mr. Bannon made his appearance on Capitol Hill because he wasn't in the mood to say a great deal. Take a listen.
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REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CALIF.), MEMBER, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: And he refused to answer a broad range of questions concerning any meeting, conversation or discussion that took place, either during the transition or while he was with the White House and any significant set of conversations that may have taken place, even after he left the White House.
So we served him with a subpoena during the hearing, to convert it from a voluntary appearance to a mandatory one. His counsel then went back to the White House and came back to us with essentially the same gag rule from the White House, which is, they're been instructed not to answer anything during those time periods.
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SESAY: And Charles, what is remarkable here is that we've heard from the president say over and over again, that this is a partisan witch hunt that is driven by Democrats. The Republicans know that there's no there there, there's nothing there to be discovered.
But this was a moment on Capitol Hill that united Democrats and Republicans of this House Intelligence Committee. That is not a good moment for the White House.
CHARLES MORAN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, Steve Bannon is clearly complying with the law. He was served. He was there, testifying before the House of Representatives.
But while he was an employee of the White House, while he was in that capacity as a commissioned officer of the White House, the President of the United States does have the ability -- it's not a gag order. It's executive privilege; the President of the United States used it. Other presidents in the past have used it. It's his right to do so.
Now whether or not in the potential grand jury investigation that's going to happen in that potential deposition and that conversation that going to happen, whether or not Steve Bannon continues to abide by the executive privilege or whether or not he divulges more information, is going to be questionable.
But up to this point, everybody on both sides is cooperating with the full extent of the law here. And President Trump, as president, does have the right to invoke executive privilege on those privileged conversations.
SESAY: You're making a lot of insertions that impinge on Jessica's area of expertise. So I have to bring in Jessica.
Would you like to respond?
Is Charles correct in his assertions?
You can say no. It's OK.
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JESSICA LEVINSON, LOYOLA LAW SCHOOL: There's absolutely no indication that Steve Bannon or anyone else is complying to the full extent of the law. Steve Bannon started the day as a voluntary witness, he ended the day as an involuntary witness, he was subpoenaed, he was mandatorily there.
And his attorney invoked -- it's -- let's call it what it is. It's not a broad reading of executive privilege. It's a different reading than anyone has ever accepted and it's a reading that frankly strains common sense.
Executive privilege is this thing that we like to say and we think it means, whatever the president says, he can tell people, don't talk to another branch of government. It's actually much narrower than that.
And executive privilege, while it embodies a number of different specific privileges, it's really about protecting national security or protecting the president's deliberative processes when there's an overriding public interest in keeping that process private.
There's nothing to indicate that the executive privilege can or should apply when there's no executive, when we're talking about a president- elect. There's nothing to indicate that all of these conversations that dealt with Steve Bannon fall within one of these buckets that we've talked about with respect to executive privilege.
And there's nothing to indicate that, even if some of them do, a court would say there's not an overriding public interest in finding out. So the idea that just because he's showing up means that there's legal compliance is simply inaccurate.
And a number of people have said who have -- actually in the committee --
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LEVINSON: -- this is going to keep the lawyers very busy. I actually think it won't keep them all that busy because this is --
SESAY: You think it's easy to dismiss it?
LEVINSON: -- this is a reading of -- I think that there may be some there there, in terms of executive privilege but it is so broad and it is such an enormous overreach, that it will be quick, it will be easy to disband with much of the assertion.
SESAY: OK. I want to bring in Dave, because Steve Bannon, clearly is the man of the moment, as it emerges from "The New York Times," according to their reporting, that Robert Mueller has subpoenaed Steve Bannon now and has used a grand jury subpoena.
I mean, talk to me about the significance in this moment and in the narrative of this investigation. Steve Bannon, who was once on the inner part of the inner circle of the president.
DAVE JACOBSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's potentially politically explosive because we haven't had somebody forced to compel themselves to Bob Mueller in a way that Steve Bannon has.
And, look, the reality is, Steve Bannon has this scorched earth relationship with the GOP establishment because of his comments and Michael Wolff's "Fire and Fury" book. There's now this divide and this rift between Donald Trump universe and Steve Bannon. So he's got nothing left to lose at this point. He's been booted out of Breitbart. I think at this point there's already been four people who have been charged by Bob Mueller. It's in Steve Bannon's best interest to tell the truth, be fully candid and transparent with Bob Mueller.
But at the same time, it continues this drip, drip, drip narrative for the Trump administration. And I think this sort of Russian cloud, this toxic cloud that's hovering over the administration and Donald Trump himself is going to continue to hinder the president's agenda.
And that is a very bad thing as you get into the midterms. It's going to put him in a bind and make it tough for him to get anything done in Congress. And that gives Democrats the upper hand going into 2018.
SESAY: At least that's the hope.
Jessica, I want you to weigh in very quickly on the Mueller angle on this, the Mueller subpoena.
What do you make of the legal calculation?
Why go for the grand jury subpoena?
Why not just call him in to have a conversation?
Why go down that route and, really, does it set to rest the White House assertion that this thing's about to wrap up?
LEVINSON: Well, no because so many other things set to rest the White House's assertion that this thing is about to set up. There's just no -- we talked on Christmas and I said, people want to believe there's Santa Claus but there's no reason to believe that.
And there's no reason to believe, if you look at Robert Mueller's investigation and if you look at how large and complex investigations like this are typically handled, we're going layer by layer. And we are now getting closer. So I think this is just another reason why this is clearly not a witch hunt. This is Robert Mueller, who's no one's flame-throwing liberal, who is going --
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JACOBSON: He's a Republican who was appointed by a Republican, Rod Rosenstein, who was appointed by a Republican president.
LEVINSON: And he's going piece by piece, testimony by testimony. With respect to grand jury versus just come in talk to us, that's still a possibility. So you can have a grand jury subpoena and there can still be a negotiation and a discussion that, how about you come in and talk to the investigators?
But the subpoena is showing that Robert Mueller's using validly the full force of the law and he has the power to say, you come in and you need to talk can about everything for what you can. So if you can't validly assert a privilege, then you need to provide information.
SESAY: All right. I want to turn our attention to the president's remarks last week, we all heard them. Sadly, we can't forget them, the president's shithole comments, regarding Africa and Haiti and elsewhere.
President's now engulfed in a storm, to put it mildly, struck a slightly different tone on Tuesday when asked about who he'd like to come to the United States. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM ACOSTA, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Mr. President, did you say that you want more people to come in from Norway?
Did you say that you wanted more people to come in from Norway?
Is that true, Mr. President?
TRUMP: I want them to come in from everywhere, everywhere. Thank you very much, everybody.
ACOSTA: Just Caucasian or white countries, sir?
Or do you want people to come in from other parts of the world, where there are people of color?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jim, thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SESAY: (INAUDIBLE) at that point, Charles, "Out," to the media. That is very different from what the president said last week, remarks that were not denied by the White House before you take us down that rabbit hole, (INAUDIBLE).
So what gives, Charles Moran?
MORAN: Once again, we're spending more time talking about, you know, the president's choice of words or not choice of words in this meeting when Democrats are clearly trying to push away from coming up with a real commonsense solution for (INAUDIBLE) of immigration reform.
The Republican Party and President Trump have been very steadfast in saying that we are not going to deal with immigration reform until we deal with border security. These things go hand in hand. I think we're moving --
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MORAN: -- down that road. The president's choice of words or not have clearly escalated the tensions and feelings behind that. But Democrats still don't understand that they are not going to get comprehensive immigration reform from this president without border security. It's just that simple.
JACOBSON: I beg to differ.
(CROSSTALK)
SESAY: -- before you go on, I just want to say this. I said it last night. I'm going to say it again because sometimes I think maybe it is unclear to people.
I am African. So the question about the president's comments and people just wanting to turn the page and say, let's just talk about DACA and these comments don't matter, because I heard another Republican say that on CNN a couple of hours ago, they do matter. They matter to millions of people around the world.
And it is not right that people come on our air and think that they can just brush them aside, as if our feelings do not matter, as if offending millions of people around the world is of no consequence. So let us not do that.
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MORAN: -- in this country has been populated by people who have come here from all corners of the globe, for every purpose imaginable, looking for what the -- what does bring people together in America is people looking for opportunity --
SESAY: Absolutely.
MORAN: -- and looking for freedom.
SESAY: Absolutely.
MORAN: And that is -- that quality should be looking to better your life, looking for the opportunity to work hard and avail yourself of everything that our country, that for hundreds of years, people have built. That should be the baseline qualifying between literacy, religion orientation, anything.
SESAY: And respect. And respect of people, regardless of where you fall in that --
MORAN: And respect for people, people who have come here, the other compatriots from other countries or the people who are here. The baseline should be wanting to achieve the American dream, first and foremost, without exception.
SESAY: Well said, Charles Moran.
Let me bring you in, Dave, the president doing this new pivot to, we want people from everywhere. His Homeland Security secretary was on Capitol Hill and she was asked about the president's comments, because, again, I stand by what I said, the comments do matter and they should be clarified.
Take a listen to how Kirstjen Nielsen -- I don't know what she tried to do. Take a listen to her performance on Capitol Hill.
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SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D): Norway is a predominantly white country, isn't it?
KIRSTJEN NIELSEN, U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: I'm -- I actually do not know that, sir, but imagine that is the case.
(END VIDEO CLIP) SESAY: So let me give our viewers some context. The reason she's being asked about Norway is because the president made it very clear in those remarks that were attributed to him that he didn't want Africans coming here or people from Haiti but he does quite like Norwegians, the inference being Norwegians are white.
When it was put to the Homeland Security secretary, Dave, she said she wasn't sure whether Norway was white.
Your thoughts?
JACOBSON: It's pathetic. She knows the answer. She's just performing for the president. It's sickening and disgusting and racist. And she shouldn't be in the position that she's in, if she doesn't know the ethnicity of the folks from Norway.
But going back to Charles's point from earlier, I want to point out, that there was an comprehensive immigration plan that was proposed to Donald Trump, with the Republican Lindsey Graham, who we knew had been building a better relationship with the president, and Senator Dick Durbin.
They presented a plan to the president, he shot it down. It was comprehensive immigration reform, it included a fix to the DACA issue, to the DREAMers, allowing a pathway to citizenship but it also included key elements of border security.
The fact of the matter is, Donald Trump didn't want to cut a deal. And I think That's a reality. It's a campaign issue that he -- one of the platforms that he campaigned on was building the wall; it didn't include elements of that. And I think he's doing everything he can to put politics first to get that done.
But the fact of the matter is, I think politically, Democrats understand that the American people are on their side; 80 percent of Americans overwhelmingly, in poll after poll, most recently in Quinnipiac, have said we want a deal for the DREAMers, we want a deal for DACA.
And the president refuses to acknowledge that, he dug his heels in and he refuses to cut a deal. That's why we're now facing a potential government shutdown on Friday.
MORAN: We have until March and that's the deadline the president established. We have many months to go until we actually hit that. President Trump said from day one, he wants a congressional solution to this.
President Obama took the easy way out and just did this through an executive order instead of working with his party and across the aisle when he had the chance to do it. Republican have a good amount of runway here to be able to come up with a solution that the Democrats couldn't do.
SESAY: Last word to Jessica. I guess my takeaway from all of this was what the president said last week, really comes back to the point that words matter. The words he used have effectively derailed DACA talks and have brought the prospect of a government shutdown front and center. Words matter.
And it would seem that this White House still hasn't quite grasped that, whether it comes to the travel ban and how it is --
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SESAY: -- really being tied to the words of the president and here we are again with DACA. It's almost a year for this administration and they still haven't quite nailed that lesson.
LEVINSON: I guess I would say, I would agree and disagree. So I would say two things. One is, if words don't matter, we're a lawless country. The only reason that we adhere to legislation, that we adhere to executive orders, that we adhere to judicial decisions is because we know that words matter and we respect words and we respect the rule of law.
But I would say that I think that President Trump does know that words matter. And I would say that these are words that are very consistent with what he's been saying for years now, since he started running for president, and this is very consistent with things that he said when he first announced his candidacy.
And I think that the idea that the Trump administration didn't immediately back off showed that they absolutely feel comfortable. And this is just chapter seven in a lengthy book, where we're using words. And the words matter and people are listening.
And we can tell from the fact that he keeps saying these things, we can tell from who he keeps retweeting, that he's comfortable with the words that he uses.
SESAY: Well, on that note, we shall wrap this conversation up. Dave, Charles, Jessica, many thanks. Very much appreciate it, thank you.
All right, quick break. Up next, adding to the tension over North Korea's nuclear program, another false alarm about incoming missiles. Stay with us for all the details.
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SESAY: Hello, everyone, recapping our top story now, North and South Korea met again for a third round of talks at the demilitarized zone. They're working on the logistics of the North attending the upcoming Olympic Games.
But on a separate issue, Seoul agreed to return the bodies of four North Korean nationals found off the South Korean coast.
Underscoring the tension over the nuclear threat is another false alarm that said North Korea had launched a ballistic missile. Japanese national broadcaster NHK apologized for the alert and the mistake was corrected within minutes.
But it comes just days after Hawaii issued an emergency alert of an incoming missile that wasn't corrected immediately. Hawaii immediately created new alert procedures.
Let's bring in journalist Kaori Enjoji. She joins us now from Tokyo now with more.
So, Kaori, in the case of Japan, it took five minutes to correct the false alert, which is a much better record than Hawaii's 38 minutes that it took for them to put out a second correction.
In the case of Japan, we're hearing that this was something to do with a switching error.
Can you tell us a little bit more about what happened?
What details have emerged?
KAORI ENJOJI, JOURNALIST: Well, Isha, for five minutes, Japan was on alert again last night about a possibility of a missile coming in. But this was a false alarm, triggered by the public broadcaster, NHK. They say it was a completely human --
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ENJOJI: -- error, where someone in the newsroom was trying to send out an alert onto the website or onto the app that is used by about 300,000 people in the country, about another alert.
But they mistakenly pushed the wrong button and sent out a prescripted alert about the possibility of an incoming North Korean missile.
So as you say, this comes on the heels of the error made in Hawaii. But I think the similarities really end there. As you pointed out, it took them just five minutes to take the alert away from the website and away from the app. There was an apology issued fairly quickly after that.
But I do think that it highlights the hypersensitivity of the media and the nation after repeated missile launches by the North over the last year.
SESAY: And that being said, for the five minutes that it was out there before it was retracted, how much panic did this cause there in Japan?
ENJOJI: I think it's more confusion, rather than panic. And I think a lot of people in Japan are asking themselves one big question. These Jay alerts -- they're known as Jay alerts here -- have been going out periodically over the last year.
And one big question people are asking is that, in the Jay alert, it will say something like, go into a strong building or underground in case of a missile. And I think a lot of people are questioning, is that really going to help me if Japan comes under missile attack?
And I think also, these Jay alerts, people have become so hypersensitive towards it, it was actually one of the top 10 trendiest new terms of 2017.
You have to remember, these alerts were not just designed for missiles but for things like earthquakes as well, which is really more of a tangible threat to the Japanese than the possibility of war with North Korea. So I think people are wondering as to what extent they should really take seriously these alert systems, because there have been many technical failures on behalf of the government in the past as well.
So I think there's a huge difference in the level of tension that the government wants the public to feel and the actual level of concern and nervousness that the public actually feels.
And I think the government is trying to address that. On Monday actually, next week on Monday here, Tokyo will be holding its first evacuation drill in the event of a missile attack, here in Tokyo, in central Tokyo in broad daylight during the middle of the day.
And I think they're trying to raise awareness of that. So I think there's a little bit of discrepancy as to what the government is feeling and also what the general public is feeling here in Japan -- Isha.
SESAY: Very interesting perspective there. Kaori Enjoji, join us there from Tokyo, always appreciate it. Thank you.
Next on NEWSROOM L.A., the U.S. stock market's record rise. The Dow fled to yet another milestone but is it in danger of a meltdown?
We're going to be exploring that next.
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SESAY: Hello everyone. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles, I'm Isha Sesay. The headlines this hour.
Prime ministers from 20 countries are agreeing to consider more sanctions on North Korea. the U.S. Secretary of State says it's time to talk to Pyeongyang but the North has to indicate its willing. Meantime, a third round of talks between the North and South was in agreement to return the bodies of four North Korean nationals found off the South Korean coastline.
Well, days after false alarm of incoming missiles in Hawaii triggered a panic, Japan's National Broadcaster send out its own mistake and alert. NHK corrected its mistake in five minutes and apologized on air for the error.
Well, Donald Trump's former chief strategist is facing tough questions in the Russia investigation. Steve Bannon met for 10 hours with the House Committee Tuesday, refusing to answer certain questions, so the Committee issued a subpoena. Special Counsel Robert Mueller also wants Bannon to testify before a grand jury.
Well, U.S. stock market keeps tantalizing investors, the DOW floating, yes, another milestone on Tuesday, it rose above 26,000 and intraday all-time high. The spike didn't last, the DOW closed slightly lower but consider this, it took the DOW just seven, just seven trading days to go from 25,000 to 26,000. And take a look at this with me, you can see the DOW's meteoric rise in just the past 12 months, up, up, up, and up.
But along with the euphoria there, also concerns, the U.S. stock market is in danger of overheating and all the gains we've seen could just melt away. Joining me now, Global Business Executive, our own Ryan Patel is in the house, happy New Year.
RYAN PATEL, GLOBAL BUSINESS EXECUTIVE: Happy New Year.
SESAY: Good to see you. So, there are those first of all who say all of this excitement and these -- the DOW performing so wonderfully well if you're an investor. It's really about the Fed and that it has the Fed's fingerprints all over this as opposed to the President taking credit for this. How do you see what we're witnessing right now? What's happening?
PATEL: Yes. This definitely is the Fed. This is -- and the Fed for the last eight to nine years that this is in place, it's not -- obviously people are taking credit for -- administration would be taking credit for it.
But I mean, they've definitely have helped it over the last few months with the tax reform but it's -- this doesn't happen overnight, it's been going -- it's a bull -- it's a bull market for eight to nine years for a reason, it wasn't just a market that just came over last year.
SESAY: The President doesn't agree, take a listen to what President Trump had to say.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The stock market is way up again today and we're setting a record literally all the time and I'm telling you, we have a long way to go. And had the other side gotten in, the market would have gotten down 50 percent from where it was, 50 percent from where it was remembered that. It was stagnant and it was going down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SESAY: And not once but twice, the market have gotten down 50 percent if the other side got in and the market was stagnant going down. Ryan Patel, can you fact check for us?
PATEL: You're going to get him to tweet on me.
SESAY: You should be so lucky.
PATEL: No, I don't know. You know, that number happens to be what the market was when he got in the administration. I think the fact check is unemployment, jobs have been getting over for the last six, seven years behind it.
And I think for him, what has changed from what it looks out today, the Fed is going to get involved now. And this year, you can kind of see them having to step in because of bonds, because of interface are probably going to have to increase, and then what are you going to say?
SESAY: Yes, indeed. John who is not here loves to say, if you take credit for the sunshine, you got to take credit for the rain. But there's the other -- you mentioned that the tax plan that got passed before Christmas and being partly responsible for what we're seeing, there's also this whole issue of deregulation. I want you to take a listen to our very own Richard Quest with his take on what's playing out.
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RICHARD QUEST, QUEST MEANS BUSINESS ANCHOR: Donald Trump was never a major player on Wall Street, that is until he became President. Now he's overseeing an historic rally in financial stocks and cutting regulation whereas he can.
One of the biggest moments of the first year was overhauling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, it's a banking regulator which the President called a disaster. And he picked an enemy of it, of regulation, Mick Mulvaney to run the very organization he criticized. The first thing the man did was block all new rules.
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MICK MULVANEY, ACTING DIRECTOR, CFPB: Effective today, we've put something similar in place here to what we did across the entire executive branch at the outset of the administration. To get the outset of the administration, we did a 90-day hiring freeze, we'd put a 30-day hiring freeze here at CFPB.
[01:35:17]
Probably more importantly, we put a 30-day immediate freeze on any new rules, regulation, and guidance. It's in the pipeline, stops for at least 30 days while I get a chance to see exactly what's going on and kick the tires here at the bureau.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: Now those like Senator Elizabeth Warren who helped create the CFPB are furious saying, the right regulation can help stop another financial crisis. Anyway, it's not like the banks are having problems giving out loans in any event but the cuts, well they still keep coming. Relaxing things like the fiduciary rule making it easier for banks to sell products including risky ones at that. For now, Wall Street remains happy, this banking index is up more than 20 percent since the inauguration and if everything we hear follows through, it's going to continue. Richard Quest, CNN New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SESAY: Ryan, you're still with me, thank you. I want to take up on what Richard said that is going to continue, right, that's the expectation. My question is typically, how did bull markets end up?
PATEL: Yes. And overheating component that we're seeing is that we're near the end of this thing. I think what we -- for right now, let me just be very clear, fourth-quarter earnings, corporate earnings are going to come out pretty good and it -- above analyze -- analyst expectations.
So it's not like he's going to turn probably this quarter but when you start to see is when the conversation goes to the Fed looking to increase the interest rate, you look at what foreign -- foreign countries stop buying into the U.S. bonds, right? The bond market becomes the higher yields. That kind of has to show kind of what happened before the bubble. The Fed has to kind of step in here. And these conversations are happening right now, so it's going to be very interesting to when --
SESAY: Happening within the --
PATEL: What I think -- yes, I think what's -- the conversation is, when do they step in? When is this the right time to increase the interest rates? I'm not saying that they're going to do it right now but is an eye to keep eye on for the rest of the year for them because if they wait too long, there will be a bad reaction to this.
And so I think they're looking at science of what we happen to saw at the recession in 2007, 2008, there's some signs that are here too, we mind that.
SESAY: Yes. The overheating, the melt-up as they --
PATEL: Yes. I mean -- and even -- you can argue that the tax reform has kind of given a little bit of a breather just a tad and that's great. But at the end of the day, like you saw today, the reason why the down didn't hit finish because energy stocks came down. All -- so it's -- again, there's a reason for these things that are happening.
SESAY: So interesting. Ryan Patel, we very much appreciate it. Some saying this is like a freight train that's going off the tracks, I've heard various descriptions. But then the best I saw was that the Fed is going to have to take the punchbowl away, this has to wrap.
PATEL: And truthfully, you're going to have -- someone has to make a decision and it's going to be, if you take credit for the market, you got to take credit for when it goes down too.
SESAY: We'll see what happens. See if the President is saying that come that time. Ryan Patel, always appreciate it. Thank you.
All right. Well, we are just days away from the one year anniversary of Donald Trump's inauguration. Ohio is one of the states that pushed him to victory, filled in part by democrat to cross party lines. Now the question is, would they do it again? CNN's Martin Savidge went to Ohio to find out.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Anywhere you look in Youngstown are reminders of what's been lost: factories, jobs, the city's population is down by almost two-thirds from the 1950s. The economy wasn't just disappearing here, so was the way of life.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I realized that the core foundation of our country is slipping away.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, I got to the point where I did not like the direction that my country was going.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SAVIDGE (voice-over): The answer for many was Donald Trump. In 2016 according to the Mahoning County Board of Elections, approximately 7,000 registered democrats switched parties to become Republicans.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He said he's going to make America first and he's going to bring jobs back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump says we have lousy trade deals, we fix that, the jobs can come back.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Something that he said that really sticks with me is that he wants to give the power back to the American people and that's something that I can certainly get behind.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SAVIDGE (voice-over): I'm with the pastor, a stay-at-home, a student, a machine shop worker, and a union member, Democrats were raised in democrat families who crossed over to vote Trump.
We're one year, one year in, how's he doing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fantastic.
ANNA PARA, MOTHER OF FOUR: Great. Better than I ever would have dreamt, I mean necessarily.
SAVIDGE: Really?
PARA: Oh yes.
SAVIDGE: Derrick?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I agree. Yes, he's doing wonderful. He's staying on task.
SAVIDGE (voice-over): We start with a hot-button topic at the moment, how big an issue to all to all of you is immigration?
[01:40:17]
GINO DIFABIO, MACHINE SHOP WORKER: Huge.
PARA: Huge.
SAVIDGE: Really?
DIFABIO: Absolutely.
SAVIDGE: In Youngstown, Ohio?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely. And as far as I'm concerned, they're stealing jobs of rightful citizens.
SAVIDGE (voice-over): It's also about something else, Trump voter say is important, rules and respect.
JUSTIS HARRISON, STUDENT: I feel like when people come here illegally, that's just very disrespectful, you don't respect our laws, and you shouldn't be able to come here free willing like that.
SAVIDGE (voice-over): A year later, they all still want the wall. As for the President's inflammatory tweets and speech, Gino says he used to cringe, not anymore.
So, you don't cringe anymore because you've grown numb to it or --
DIFABIO: No, not numb at all, I know what he's done. And I'm starting to get an inkling why he uses Twitter in the way he does because if all he had to rely on is what people say about him, oh my God, I might not like the guy. I love the guy, I love the job he's doing.
SAVIDGE (voice-over): Justis met Trump in a rally and says he's not a racist.
HARRISON: He was just the nicest person and honestly he -- if he was a racist as everyone paints him out to be, he could have just walked right past me and not even said a word.
SAVIDGE: What about the lies? Well let me ask you this, do you think he is a liar?
DIFABIO: Do I think he's lying? No. Do I think he's fallen short in some of his goals, we all do?
SAVIDGE (voice-over): Economically, they say things aren't getting better. The stock market and their home values are up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Industries are booming everywhere I've seen.
SAVIDGE: I look around here, I don't see a boom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well in this area, no. But I feel like there's small businesses that are starting to pick up.
SAVIDGE (voice-over): Derrick says Trump's tax reform will fuel the recovery.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You expand your business in the inner city so then my community will benefit from this tax cut.
SAVIDGE: Do you think the media gives the President a fair shake?
HARRISON: I don't think so at all.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
SAVIDGE (voice-over): One year later, these voters couldn't be happier. They see achievement, most of all they see a President like them.
PARA: He's like tenacious sometimes and says stuff off the cuff like we do, like real Americans do, we're not perfect. I'm tired of suave, I'm tired of polished, I'm tired of the teleprompter. I am. I want my country back.
SAVIDGE (voice-over): Martin Savidge, CNN Youngstown, Ohio.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SESAY: Next on NEWSROOM LA, a man caught in the middle of the fight over U.S. immigration, how he ended up in a country he hasn't lived in for decades.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SESAY: The U.S. is holding back more than half of the funding, a plan to give the U.N. agency who support Palestinian refugees. After this warning that could further destabilize the region. The Trump Administration wants the aid group to make unspecified reforms and is asking other countries to contribute more. Ian Lee has the details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
[01:45:03]
IAN JAMES LEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Aida refugee camp in the West Bank home to 5,000 people. History and symbolism are important here. When war erupted in 1948, Palestinians in their hundreds of thousands fled or were expelled off their lands, moving to the West Bank in Gaza and neighboring countries. Returned to their old family homes in Israel was blocked. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency or UNRWA was created to look after these refugees. International Rights lawyer Mohammad Abu Srour says people would struggle if it was taken away.
MOHAMMAD ABU SROUR, INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS LAWYER: Many of the people will lose their own job, many of the refugees will lose like the opportunity to get like more services. We speak about sanitation, we speak about health care, we speak about education.
LEE: UNRWA says it educated more than half a million children over 3 million people receive health care and almost 300,000 received other relief services like food aid and work. The agency relies on over a billion dollars to maintain services, of which the United States donates roughly 30 percent. President Trump put on UNRWA on notice earlier this month, tweeting, "With the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?" Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu agrees and says, a new agency should pick up responsibility.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: The perpetuation of the dream of bringing the descendants of refugees back to Jaffa is what sustains this conflict. UNRWA is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
LEE: Mohammad Abu Srour sees Trump's funding tactics as one simple thing.
ABU SROUR: This is blackmail and this is like threatening at the same time. For us, like we don't want like anybody (INAUDIBLE) money. We want like our dignity and our rights.
LEE: The fate of Palestinian refugees once more front and center in the conflict. Ian Lee CNN at Aida refugee camp in the West Bank.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SESAY: Well, a man in Michigan has been deported to Mexico after 30 years of living in the U.S. Jorge Garcia was brought to the country as a child when his family came as undocumented immigrants. This video that you're looking at here shows his very, very painful farewell to his wife and children at the airport Monday morning, the airport in Detroit. Garcia had been ordered to leave since 2009, but the Obama administration granted him extensions. The current administration ordered him to return to Mexico.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JORGE GARCIA, DEPORTED TO MEXICO: It was kind of hard to explain it to them because you know, I -- it's kind of hard to explain something to a kid which most of the time they don't understand. And it was hard.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SESAY: Well, Alan Diamante joins me now. He's an immigration attorney and the founder of the Diamante Law Group. Thank you for being with us.
ALAN DIAMANTE, FOUNDER, DIAMANTE LAW GROUP: My pleasure. SESAY: It is so painful to see that family being separated. And I guess my question to you is, and I think it's the one on the minds of many of our viewers, why is it the Obama administration gave him several stays and the Trump administration said, you have to leave?
DIAMANTE: Well, the Obama administration have something called prosecutorial discretion, where the Department of Homeland -- the Department of Homeland Security could consider different factors in allowing someone to stay in the country a little bit longer. Especially in light of the fact that we've been pushing for immigration reform and we couldn't get anywhere in Congress. Now, the Trump administration eradicated for the most part prosecutorial discretion.
So, now, what they're doing with all these people that have been seeking stays to stay in this country for a variety of factors. One of the factors is, they have no crimes, the others, the years they've been living in the country. Another factor is a family they have in the United States, children, maybe a U.S. citizen spouse. All these factors are taken into consideration under prosecutorial discretion. But the Trump administration isn't. Moreover, anybody who entered the country unlawfully under the Trump administration is a criminal. And they don't distinguish that from a child or from an adult. So, that's the problem that we have here.
SESAY: And specifically in the Garcia case, it's worth pointing out to our viewers, he had been trying to find a path to being here legally. According to reports I've read, he spent well over a hundred thousand dollars, he'd never had a parking ticket, he'd never done anything that would have get -- put him in contact with the authorities. And yet, they made the decision that he should leave after being in this country for decades. There seems to be a zealousness on the part of immigration authorities under the Trump administration that we -- I mean, can you remember a time where you were hearing of immigration authorities storming, you know, 7-Eleven convenience stores to round up people who were here illegally?
[01:50:07]
DIAMANTE: Not only are they storming 7-Elevens, they're storming hospitals, they're storming courtrooms in Texas. So, yes, there's no limit as to how far they're going to go to deport people. And it doesn't matter if they have children here, it doesn't matter if they're sick. There's a lot of stories. Now, the story of Mr. Jorge or Jorge Garcia from Detroit is not exceptional. Here in Los Angeles, I deal with many cases, very similar to his case, people have been here for years. They looked for a legal path. One of the ways they do this, they go to the wrong folks and they have them apply for --
SESAY: What did you mean?
DIAMANTE: They apply for asylum. And they're put in deportation proceedings. And a lot --they're taking -- they pay a lot of money to these folks to help them. What they do is they promise to get them a work authorization for a period. And then when they get denied asylum by the Department of Homeland Security, they're referred to the immigration court. In the immigration court, they could apply for something called cancellation or removal, where they have to prove that they've been in the country for more than 10 years, they're a person of good moral character, and a United States citizen or resident child, under 21, spouse or parent, one of them will suffer an exceptional and extremely unusual hardship if they don't let them stay. So, their promise that they have an opportunity to get is, unfortunately --
SESAY: Someone saying, make themselves available.
DIAMANTE: Well, they're in the system. And once they apply, they don't realize that they only approve 4,000 cases in the country every year.
SESAY: So, let me ask you this. As someone who knows the realities that are now in play under this administration, I mean, what do you do? You've got people who are coming to you, no doubt, who are terrified, what can you do for them?
DIAMANTE: Well, what a lot of people don't realize is that non- citizens are entitled to due process under the constitution. People believe that the constitution doesn't apply to non-citizens. That's not accurate. Due process does. So, there's statutory and regulatory protections for individuals that are here and they're not documented. Or they're residents, but they're threatened to lose their residency. So, they have due process. So, people have to realize that they have this due process and they have to assert their due process.
For example, if ICE comes knocking on the door, they don't have to open the door. They have the right to not open that door. Now, most ICE officers or DHS officers do not have an order from a -- from a court --
SESAY: To come busting through your door.
DIAMANTE: -- to come busting through the door. So, that's one thing they don't realize. And so, that's one protection they have. They have the right to remain silent.
SESAY: So, they do have a number of protections that just aren't well publicized.
DIAMANTE: And if they're put into proceedings, they're entitled to certain defenses, like asylum, like cancellation removal that I mentioned, and other protections. So, what they have to do is go to an attorney, a certified specialist, because unfortunately there's a lot of people that prey on vulnerable immigrants. So, not only do you have a government that doesn't consider human rights, doesn't consider family unity, you have people out there that are preying on them and taking their money. So, it's no surprise to me that he already put a hundred thousand dollars in trying to stay in this country, and he just lost it and he ended up with a deportation order.
SESAY: Alan, we appreciate the insight and the important information you shared that people have rights, whether or not they're citizens or not. I'm very grateful. Thank you. DIAMANTE: My pleasure, Isha.
SESAY: This is a conversation we'll keep going. We are going to take a very quick break. Stay with us. More news right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[01:55:10]
SESAY: Well, ever since Donald Trump announced he was running for President, he's been cranking out nicknames for his political opponents. Some say the President's latest effort has missed the mark. Here's Jeanne Moos.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: All President Trump did was add a Y. Why not?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's calling him Dicky Durbin.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Dicky Durbin, he's called your name. Sticky Durbin.
MOOS: Senator Durbin probably got used to hearing Dicky back in fifth grade. But now?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Dicky Durbin.
MOOS: It's a 71-year-old man using the nickname, the latest edition of that ever-growing list.
TRUMP: Lyin' Ted. Little Marco. Little Rocket Man. Who, Pocahontas? Jeb Bush, we call him low energy. Crooked Hillary Clinton.
HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I really could care less.
MOOS: Senator Durbin called his nickname?
SEN. DICK DURBIN (D), ILLINOIS: Something I should wear with honor. If the President wants to throw adolescent rants at me, that's his business.
MOOS: President Trump's nickname for his former strategist Steve Bannon got raved views.
TRUMP: That's why Sloppy Steve is now looking for a job.
MOOS: Sloppy Steve immediately entered "The Daily Show's" hall of nicknames and its Trump presidential Twitter library where you can also put your own name into the Trump nickname generator, if you want to flagellate yourself with random results like Impotent Jeanne Moos. But critics describe Dicky Durbin as kind of uninspired. It took President Genius four days and the best he could come up with was Dicky? Sad. Tweeted someone else, I'm surprised he didn't also go with Dirt Bin.
The nicknamer in chief tends to get an A in branding but barely passes punctuation.
For instance, Liddle' Bob Corker, the Tennessee senator --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why does he put an apostrophe at the end of liddle? It drives me mad. That apostrophe is like Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. No one knows what purpose it serves, but it's damned if it's not always hanging around towards the back.
MOOS: Tweeted one reporter, I think the apostrophe after the E will be what finally breaks me.
TRUMP: Lyin, L-Y-I-N' --
MOOS: Jeanne Moos, CNN --
TRUMP: L-Y-E-N, lyen.
MOOS: New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SESAY: OK, then. You're watching NEWSROOM L.A. I'm Isha Sesay. I'll be back with more news after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[02:00:10]
SESAY: This is CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles.-
