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Trump Casts Doubt on Summit with Kim; Michael Cohen's Business Partner to Cooperate with Special Counsel; Rockets Look To Even Series With Warriors; Former Arsenal Great Comments On Every Reports; Report: NFL Owners To Discuss Anthem Protest. Aired 2-3a ET
Aired May 23, 2018 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): This is CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. Ahead this hour: maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't. Donald Trump says the summit with Kim Jong-un might be in jeopardy at the same time the rogue regime prepares to put on a show for the world.
The U.S. says it'll crush Iran unless it makes sweeping changes. Iran is now responding with a promise to punch the secretary of state in the mouth.
And Mark Zuckerberg apologizes again to a different set of lawmakers during a master class innovation.
Hello and welcome to our viewers all around the world. Great to have you with us for this last hour. I'm John Vause. NEWSROOM L.A. starts now.
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VAUSE: Donald Trump is casting doubt over his much-hyped summit with the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The clearest sign yet the meeting may be in trouble. The U.S. president says there's a very substantial chance the summit might not happen in three weeks as planned.
And while the of the summit hangs in the balance, a handful of journalists, including CNN's Will Ripley, are in North Korea to witness the dismantling of its main nuclear test site. But no weapons inspectors or outside nuclear experts are expected to attend, meaning it will be difficult to verify if the site is truly shut down for good.
Will Ripley is one of the few television journalists who has regularly reported from inside North Korea Here's more now on his journey to the site as well as details about the Trump-Kim summit.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We learned overnight here that President Trump made remarks that there's a chance, a substantial chance, that the summit that is planned for June 12 in Singapore between the president and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, may not happen. He's not saying for sure but that's certainly a very different tone from what we had heard from South Korean officials, including their national security chief, who said there was a 99.9 percent chance that the summit would take place as scheduled but that they were preparing contingency plans just in case it didn't happen.
Obviously the South Koreans want these talks to happen. They want North Korea and the United States to have a conversation and to try to strike some sort of a deal but that does look increasingly difficult for a lot of different factors.
Here in North Korea they're really not happy about what they're seeing in the South and also what they're hearing from the United States. There are those joint military exercises taking place, including fighter jets and bombing runs, the kind of thing that North Korea considers as a dress rehearsal for an invasion of this country.
And they are also not happy about the rhetoric that's coming out of Washington. President Trump's national security advisor, John Bolton, saying that they are looking North Korea and "the Libya model," of course, Moammar Gadhafi gave up his nuclear weapons and was dead just a few years later, overthrown by U.S.-backed forces.
The North Koreans say they would never accept anything like that here in this country and they're also looking at the joint military exercises happening between the U.S. and South Korea, as I mentioned, as a sign of a potential dress rehearsal for an invasion of this country.
They have said that they will walk away from this summit as well if they don't like what they're seeing and hearing from the U.S. And right now with the rhetoric and the tensions heating up and these new remarks from President Trump, it's really an open question what's going to happen.
But as of now we are still planning to travel nearly 20 hours by train and car and by hiking to one of the most remote areas inside North Korea, the nuclear test site at Punggye-ri, where we, along with a very small group of fewer than 2 dozen international journalists, expect to witness what North Korea says is the dismantlement of their nuclear test site.
Now there are no experts in our group that we're aware of so they won't be conducting any substantial inspections of the site. We don't know how long we're going to be there. We don't know what distance we're going to be kept from the site itself.
But we will do our best to be the eyes and ears here on the ground inside North Korea -- I'm Will Ripley, CNN, Wonsan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: For more, CNN's Ivan Watson joins us now live from Seoul in South Korea.
Ivan, the blog site 38 North, which closely monitors North Korea, has published some satellite photos which show the preparations are still underway for the ceremony, for the closure of North Korea's nuclear test site.
There's an observation platform apparently which has been built for journalists. The area's been landscaped and we heard from Will Ripley, he's heading to the site now with a few international journalists.
So assuming the site is actually permanently closed -- and that's not a given -- but does that necessarily mean that next month's summit will go ahead?
Does one event guarantee the other?
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, this is apparently a confidence building measure. But it doesn't necessarily mean that this summit goes off because, while North Korea has moved forward on this, what's going to be clearly some kind of a show for some international media, it has continued to criticize the South Korean government.
And it has hurled criticism at the U.S. as well for --
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WATSON: -- conducting joint aerial defense drills here. Among the journalists invited, there are now going to be eight more South Korean journalists; at the last minute, North Korea agreed to accept them, even though it had initially invited them and the South Korean government has scrambled to get them to catch up with Will Ripley's group of international journalists there.
There been some senior officials in Washington that have thrown some cold water on this whole ceremony, a U.S. defense official saying that many in the Trump administration, telling CNN, that many in the Trump administration think that this whole dismantling of the Punggye-ri nuclear testing site is a, quote, "PR stunt," and that the underground site has long been considered to have been destroyed by the six previous nuclear tests that North Korea has conducted there, the most recent one being in September of last year.
Now President Trump has raised the question, hey, maybe this meeting doesn't go off in Singapore on June 12th. The Trump administration has also made it clear that what they're going for is complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization.
And in his comments, Trump went on to say that he would like a kind of a one-shot deal, that this would all come together in a short period of time and he repeated some of the inducements that he's willing to offer North Korea, pledging safety for Kim Jong-un and some kind of immense prosperity for North Korea as a whole.
But you know, how that would be delivered and whether or not these kind of vague promises are enough to get North Korea to give up its entire nuclear arsenal, all that several generations of Kim leaders have worked on and invested so much money on and time on, that is the big question that is on the table right now -- John.
VAUSE: And to that point, you have Donald Trump once again making this guarantee to Kim Jong-un that he will remain leader of North Korea, that the country will be rich, the people will be happy. It's an extraordinary statement in and of itself.
But it seems that that's directed to Kim Jong-un. Also it seems it's directed to the hardliners as well within the North Korean government, who are very concerned about the so-called Libya model that's Moammar Gadhafi dragged through the streets and killed and basically thrown from power after he'd given up his nuclear arsenal about 10 years earlier.
So this message of not Kim Jong-un, you will stay in power, it seems that Donald Trump has gone to great lengths to stress that. So clearly that seems to be one issue here for the North Koreans.
WATSON: Trump has dangled security guarantees. Let's face it, the biggest threat to the North Korean regime are the 30,000 U.S. troops stationed here in South Korea and the greater kind of defense shield that the U.S. provides here through the Asia-Pacific region, ready in case North Korea goes too far or does something.
But when President Trump makes these promises, can he guarantee the safety of the Kim regime if the people rise up against him, as we saw happen in Libya?
Can he guarantee the safety of the Kim regime if generals in the North Korean military turn on Kim Jong-un?
These are just scenarios I'm throwing out there.
Can he guarantee the safety of Kim regime when another president is in power in White House and maybe reneges on the deal as President Trump has just done on the Iran deal that President Obama negotiated with Iran?
These are all kind of questions you throw out there and they must be part of the calculus that North Korea and the government there, part of their kind of evaluation of this right now and part of why they were so angry with the fact that John Bolton, the White House national security advisor, raised the specter of the Libya deal, which involved Western powers making a deal with Moammar Gadhafi and then turning on him a decade later and supporting the rebels, who ultimately dragged him into a ditch and shot him dead.
VAUSE: Amid all of this, the nagging coming from the North Koreans, the doubt coming from the U.S. president, there is still optimism, for some reason, coming from the South Korean president, who was at the White House on Tuesday. This is what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MOON JAE-IN, SOUTH KOREAN PRESIDENT (through translator): And I have every confidence that President Trump will be able to achieve a historic feat of making the upcoming U.S.-North Korea summit successful and the Korean War that had been lasting for the last 65 years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: No shortage of praise there from Moon Jae-in to Donald Trump. He's continuing that pattern, I guess.
But there is this concern that maybe it's the South Koreans who, in the first place, essentially overstated how far the North Koreans were willing to go at this summit when it comes to giving up their nuclear arsenal.
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WATSON: Remember it is Moon Jae-in and his administration that first came to the White House saying we think Kim Jong-un is ready to negotiate away his nuclear weapons and that led to President Trump making that very quick decision to agree to a summit with Kim Jong-un several months ago, a summit that now appears to be in question.
And Moon Jae-in's line in Washington for those several hours of meetings with President Trump and then some of his top advisors, his message was stay the course, don't get scared basically by North Korea's sudden criticism in recent days and threats to pull out of the summit. Stay the course; you, President Trump, are the man of the hour who can fix this problem that has been a virtual state of war on the Korean Peninsula for more than 60 years.
I don't know how the discussions went behind closed doors. But certainly when President Trump and President Moon were sitting side by side, they were trying to send a message of unity and solidarity that there is no daylight between these two allies.
VAUSE: And while there is unity and solidarity between Seoul and Washington, there's no love and friendship it seems between Beijing and Washington, at least with Donald Trump accusing Xi Jinping of trying to essentially undermine these negotiations by exerting influence over the North Korean leader.
Listen to what Donald Trump said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: President Xi is a world class poker player. There was a different attitude by the North Korean folks when, after that meeting. All of a sudden, it was reported that he was in China a second time. The first time everybody knew about. The second it was like a surprise.
And I think things changed after that meeting. So I can't say that I'm happy about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Which kind of begs the question, why would Beijing want to undermine the summit between the U.S. and North Korea?
What's in it for them?
And it was only a few weeks ago when everyone was talking about China being sidelined and its lack of influence and the sudden flurry of diplomacy.
WATSON: If we follow President Trump's narrative, then this could be a way for Beijing to un-sideline itself, to be a major player here, a spoiler perhaps or to at least slow a possible peace process down to a tempo that it might prefer.
But it's not the first time that President Trump has mentioned, has attributed North Korea's sudden reduction of cooperation on China and on that surprise meeting in Dalian that took place. Journalists have asked South Korean officials about that.
Do they think that China is really a spoiler here or has put the brakes on this process?
And the South Koreans have been loath to comment on that. They haven't wanted to chime in on this. But President Trump putting the blame on China, a government that he was so quick to praise for helping in what he describes as his maximum pressure campaign, on trying to strangle the North Korean economy and bring North Korea to the negotiating table in the first place.
It's a complicated game that's playing out here and it's clearly still playing itself out in these last weeks, before we think a summit might happen in Singapore and, again, what we've heard from U.S. government officials is they're still planning as if the summit will take place.
They're still scouting out hotel ballrooms in Singapore for what could be this historic first-ever meeting of a North Korean leader and a U.S. president.
VAUSE: It could be an historic first meeting. That is certain, which could then be an historic disaster after that if it doesn't go ahead or it could be an incredible success if it happens. We'll wait and see.
Ivan, thank you. Appreciate it.
Up next, the business partner of Donald Trump's personal lawyer has agreed to a plea deal. The report cooperate with prosecutors so does that spell big trouble for Michael Cohen and his bestie, the U.S. president?
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VAUSE: A close business partner of President Trump's personal lawyer reportedly will avoid jail time after striking a deal with prosecutors. Evgeny Freidman is a Russian immigrant known as New York's taxi king.
Freidman pleaded guilty to tax evasion on Tuesday and "The New York Times" reports his testimony could be used to pressure Michael Cohen into helping the special counsel's Russia investigation. Last month, federal agents raided cohen's office, home and hotel room.
His role as Mr. Trump's attorney and paying hush money to the adult film star, Stormy Daniels, has come under increasing scrutiny.
For more on this, we're joined by CNN legal analyst, Areva Martin, and CNN's former senior political analyst, Bill Schneider.
And Mr. Schneider, welcome. It's great to have you with us
OK. I want to start off with the issue regarding Cohen. Freidman, his close business contact, described as a shady business contact in many reports, pleaded guilty as part of a deal. But it's not actually clear if part of that deal involves flipping on Cohen.
There was a report a few hours ago in the New York "Daily News" that Freidman had told them he won't actually flip on Cohen. Here's the tweet from the reporter.
"Taxi King Gene Freidman texts: 'Michael is a dear, dear personal friend and a passive client! That's it! This is me taking responsibility for my actions, and has nothing to do w/MC'" -- Michael Cohen.
So Areva, he could be coverage up. He could be trying to protect himself. He could actually be telling the truth. If there was a deal for him to flip and testify and put pressure on Cohen, would prosecutors advise him not to say anything about that, to keep it quiet?
AREVA MARTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: No, absolutely, it wouldn't be something that they would want him to broadcast. What we do know is there's no way he would have gotten the kind of deal that he got -- he was facing serious jail time for several felonies.
And for him to have only pled to tax evasion as it relates to $50,000, he's got to pay back I guess $5 million or so dollars that they say he basically stole from the city of New York and face probation instead of jail time, you don't get that kind of a sweetheart deal unless you have some very valuable information to give to -- and what will know in this case is both federal and state prosecutors.
So they said his deal requires him to cooperate in the -- both federal and state cases. So he can say what he wants to say in that tweet but I don't think we should read too much into that because he got a sweetheart deal and he had to be able to not just say he was going to give them information but actually proffer the information.
They'd have to have a clear understanding of what is this information that you're going to give us to determine if it was valuable enough for them to give him the deal.
So, Bill, if you're Michael Cohen, and President Trump this evening, regardless of the report quoting Freidman, you'd be wise to assume that Freidman has, in fact, flipped regardless.
BILL SCHNEIDER, POLITICAL ANALYST: I think that would be a smart decision, a smart conclusion to make and Freidman and Cohen are both facing some serious charges. Clearly, as Rudy just said, Freidman made a plea deal. He pled --
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SCHNEIDER: -- guilty to a fairly small count of tax evasion. So he's got something to give. Michael Cohen, very close to the president, knows where all the bodies are buried and he could be very dangerous for President Trump.
I've always said that the Stormy Daniels issue will probably be more dangerous for President Trump than the Russia investigation.
VAUSE: It's interesting because this is how Michael Cohen has talked about Donald Trump and their relationship in the past.
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MICHAEL COHEN, TRUMP PERSONAL ATTORNEY: I protect Mr. Trump. That's what it is. If there's an issue that relates to Mr. Trump, that is of concern to him, it's, of course, concern to me. And I will use my legal skills within which to protect Mr. Trump to the best of my ability.
Donald Trump is in fact a great unifier. He's a man of great intellect, great intuition and great abilities.
The next President of the United States --
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Obviously there is this very close relationship thee between these two men but if Cohen does flip, Bill, is it possible to know how much trouble that could actually mean for the president?
SCHNEIDER: Well, look, the payoff to Stormy Daniels, $130,000, that could be an illegal campaign contribution and that could be a felony. That could be impeachable. We don't know. We know something about where the money came from but it was done shortly before the election. There was a widespread assumption that it was done for political purposes to protect the president.
And Michael Cohen just said he's the president's fixer. That's his job.
VAUSE: It's interesting because while this is happening, the president and his allies continue to push this allegation that the FBI planted a spy in the Trump campaign for political purposes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN HANNITY, FOX HOST: (INAUDIBLE) again tonight on the deep state, spying on the Trump campaign.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Possibly paid informants to spy on the Trump campaign.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: May indicate that the Obama administration did, in fact, spy on the Trump campaign.
HANNITY: The spying they did on the Trump campaign.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm shocked to hear that they put a spy in the campaign/
HANNITY: FBI spies.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Or maybe two spies.
HANNITY: These spy revelations.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To spy on the Republican candidate for president.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a spy. They got nothing from it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If they ran a spy ring, that is an absolute red line.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Areva, there's a big difference between a spy and a source and whether that person was sent for specific political purposes or whether the information on Russian interference, words matter.
MARTIN: And, just listening to those clips, there's one spy, two spies and then a spy --
(CROSSTALK)
MARTIN: -- so absolutely matter. And facts do matter and this whole notion of a spy is antithetical to the facts that have been disclosed to date. There's no evidence that a spy was implanted in the Trump campaign.
We know that there may have been someone that was -- the more technical term being an informant -- that might've been providing information. But again it was related to these meetings now, which we know have been multiple, multiple meetings between members of the Trump campaign and individuals associated with the Russian government. Nothing improper about it. This is all about changing the narrative,
deflecting from what the real issues are here, trying to get, as we've seen some Republicans call for, a second special prosecutor to investigate the investigators, to cast aspersions on the FBI, to cast aspersions on Robert Mueller and his investigation.
The whole goal here is just discredit this entire investigation so in case they reveal something that's damning or damaging to Trump and his team, they've done such a hit job on everyone involved that the American public doesn't have any faith or trust in what the special prosecutor may find.
VAUSE: And Bill, talking about spies and spy rings from the president and his allies, it's part of this new aggressive approach that they've come up, this group of advisers outside the White House, essentially to go after Robert Mueller, the special counsel, and the Russia investigation and also the man who can fire him, Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general.
Listen to what president said on Tuesday when he was asked specifically about Rosenstein.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you have confidence in Rod Rosenstein?
TRUMP: What's your next question, please?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm a reporter for --
TRUMP: Excuse me, I have the president of South Korea here. OK? He doesn't want to hear. He's (INAUDIBLE).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: So, Bill, that answer had nothing to do with the South Korean president sitting in the room.
SCHNEIDER: That's right. It has nothing to with him. Trump's whole method here is attack, always going on the attack, always go on the offensive. You're investigating me, I'm going to investigate you, how do you like that?
It's an old technique.
VAUSE: Also at the same time, there's reports that the source, the spy, the informant, whatever you want to call him, received payment from the Department of Defense about $1 million. And now that's been conflated to he was paid by the FBI.
But there is no evidence for that. And again, this is all part of the tactic to muddy the waters.
SCHNEIDER: That's right. And the only thing we know about is that he did interview a couple of people involved in the Trump campaign about the connections to Russia, which is what Mueller is supposed to be investigating.
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SCHNEIDER: That's all we know for a fact right now.
VAUSE: Let's (INAUDIBLE) with the never-ending negotiations it seems for the president to sit down with -- for an interview with Robert Mueller. CNN is reporting that Trump's lawyers, who are urging Mueller to wrap up his investigation, are looking for a way to get him to agree to limit or eliminate questions regarding Trump's conduct after he won the presidency, especially those related to whether he might have obstructed justice while in office.
Their goal is to move past a standoff that threatens to drag out Mueller's investigation and appears to be part of a larger strategy to negotiate with the special counsel through the media. Ultimately their success depends on Mueller's willingness to cut a deal. There is no indication so far that he'd be open to any such proposal.
Areva, firstly, why eliminate (INAUDIBLE)?
What's the relevancy pertaining to Trump's timing office?
What does that say to you?
MARTIN: Well, what Rudy Giuliani has been floating as his theory is that Trump had unfettered authority to fire Comey and to make any decisions as it relates to the executive branch and that it is not the business of the special counsel to question him or to challenge him on any of his firing decisions.
So therefore he said he shouldn't even be questioned about anything that he's done in office. And to the extent he's -- you're even allowed to talk to him it should be on a very limited basis about the Russian investigation.
Giuliani himself has said if Trump had to answer questions about obstruction of justice, he could make himself a target. There's this real fear that Trump doesn't have the ability to tell the truth, that he cannot go into a meeting with federal prosecutors without perjuring himself or somehow creating a bigger legal liability for himself.
So they are trying to do everything within their power to limit the questioning while at the same time saying he's willing to participate. If you would just be reasonable and limit the questions, he would sit down and allow himself to participate --
(CROSSTALK)
VAUSE: And Bill, to that point, negotiating this through the media, that clearly would have very limited impact on Robert Mueller.
(CROSSTALK)
VAUSE: -- is obviously what, the Trump base? SCHNEIDER: He can -- yes, of course, he's playing to his base. He's declaring open war, warfare on Robert Mueller and on the whole investing. He's rallying his constituency. He is expecting a fight. And if he has to fight with Mueller, it's going to be a political fight, not just a legal fight. That's what Trump is really aiming it.
MARTIN: It looks like, John, based on some polling that even mainstream Republicans and independents are starting to tire of this investigation and are souring on Robert Mueller. So his strategy of attacking Mueller and attacking the investigation is getting --
(CROSSTALK)
VAUSE: -- when you get more than a dozen, almost 2 dozen Republicans in the House willing to or wanting to appointment a special counsel to investigate the investigators, clearly, as Areva says, there's an effect. There's an impact.
SCHNEIDER: Yes. Look, Trump only knows one way to operate: on the offensive at all times. But Robert Mueller can investigate anything he wants.
Remember Ken Starr's investigation?
Didn't start off with Monica Lewinsky. And it can go in any direction. Rudy Giuliani says he's agreed to stop the concluding the investigation by September 1st. That cannot be true. Any lead he finds, he can investigate.
MARTIN: He said first it was two weeks after he got on the team. So they keep moving the goalpost.
(CROSSTALK)
VAUSE: But the person that matters in all of this is Robert Mueller.
(CROSSTALK)
VAUSE: Exactly. Areva and Bill, thank you.
Appreciate it. Thanks.
Still to come here, America's top diplomat has vowed to crush Iran (INAUDIBLE) sanctions. Now the Iranians have fired back with a warning: they'll punch Mike Pompeo in the mouth.
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[02:30:53] VAUSE: You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause with the headlines this hour. U.S. President Donald Trump says the summit with North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un may not go ahead next month as planned. It's the strongest indication yet the meeting is at risk after North Korea's recent threat to pull out. South Korea's president was at the White House on Tuesday trying to take the summit on track. Pope Francis will meet with more victims on the massive clerical sex abuse scandal in Chile that include five priest who were also (INAUDIBLE) Chile's 34 bishops have said they'll resign after a Vatican investigation found they were negligent in handling the abuse cases. And a Pakistani teenager killed during last week's school shooting in Texas has been laid to rest in Karachi. 17- year-old Sabika Sheikh was one of the 10 people killed at Santa Fe High.
Excuse me. She had a scholarship. She visit Texas on a program funded by the U.S. State Department. Well, one day after America's top diplomat threatened crush Iran with sanctions and military pressure, a senior Iranian military commander has fight back say the Iranian people will punch the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the mouth. Pompeo said on Monday the U.S. would impose new penalties on Iran unless the country makes with the new changes including abandoning its nuclear program. Excuse me again. CNN's Jomana Karadsheh joins us now from Istanbul in Turkey. I'm glad you're with us because I'm (INAUDIBLE) Pompeo's critics on Tuesday, he said the Trump administration was making unrealistic demands of Iran. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE POMPEO, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF STATE: The benchmark I set forth yesterday is a very low standard. It's the standard behavior we expect from countries all around the world. There's -- they are on a special set of rules that we set forth yesterday for Iran. We simply ask them to behave in a way normal man belligerent nations behave.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: OK. I'm back now. So how did the Iranians argue against that point?
JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, as you mentioned earlier, John, you know, you heard that response from one Iranian official about, you know, the people should punch Mike Pompeo in the face in response to this. But this is the kind of rhetoric that you would expect and that we've heard in the past from Iranian officials when it comes to the United States. They think the response that pretty much sums it all is what we heard from President Rouhani right after the Pompeo speech basically essentially that who does the U.S. think it is telling sovereign countries what they should be doing? I think we need to wait and see what the Iranians are going to do next, what their response is going to be, not just to this list of 12 demands that many say is really against what the Iranian revolution was about really asking Iran to change everything that makes Iran what it is. So we have to wait and see what happens with that. That is, you know, that list of demands has been described by so many experts as something that is unattainable, that it's fantasy, that it's really impossible to see Iran caving in and accepting this list of 12 demands.
I mean if this was going to work, this kind of pressure, John, in the past, we wouldn't have ended up with JCPOA and that is one argument looking at this. While you have others who are saying that the Trump administration is doing the right thing by applying so much pressure. But I think essentially what we need to see is what kind of reaction this is going to have internationally. Is the United States going to have the support that it needs to implement this kind of pressure on Iran? You know, you do have some countries in the region g including gulf rivals of Iran that are on the United States' side here. You also have Israel and others. But of course the big question right now is what is Europe going to do? You know, you have seen the E.U. moving towards shielding E.U.-based companies when it comes to doing business with Iran. You've got China and you've got Russia also making it hard to see how these sanctions are going to work and if there is, you know, the -- we'll have to wait and see what Iran's next moves are going to be, John.
[02:35:21] VAUSE: OK. Jomana, appreciate you being with us so much. You have no idea. Thank you. My voice is back. OK. Facebook's CEO has apologized again for data leaks. But European lawmakers say its answers they want from Zuckerberg and they're not getting them. Details in a moment.
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VAUSE: French President Emmanuel Macron has made technology and start-ups the center piece of his presidency, so he now plans to meet with Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in Paris on Wednesday. And that maybe a welcome reprieve for Zuckerberg after he was grilled by members of the European parliament in Brussels. Well, Zuckerberg began the session by apologizing again for data leaks and insisting that hate speeches no place on Facebook. The session ended with lawmakers accusing him of dodging some question and ignoring others. With me now for more on this, Scott Perry, is the founder of L.A. Tech Digest and author of SNAPCHAT 101. OK. If nothing else from this session before the European parliament, we now have an answer to that question, is there any other institution as dysfunctional and incompetent as the U.S. Congress and that is the European parliament because some genius decided that this was the best way -- this format they came up with was the best way to question Zuckerberg. All the questions at the beginning and then Zuckerberg was going to answer at the end. What I meant was all the time was taken up with questions, so by the time they got to Zuckerberg, there was literally no time left and he was allowed to sort of recycle cliched answers like the ones in the talking points, like the ones he gave to Congress. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK ZUCKERBERG, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, FACEBOOK: We're doubling the number of people working on safety and security at our company to more than 20,000 by the end of this year. On top of the investments that we're making in other areas, I expect that these increased investments in security will significantly impact our profitability. But I want to be clear, keeping people safe will always be more important than maximizing our profits.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: You know, it also gave him the chance to simply ignore the questions he didn't want to answer. SCOTT PERRY, FOUNDER, L.A. TECH DIGEST: Yes, pretty much. I mean the
one thing that came up over and over was shadow profiles -- shadow profiles.
VAUSE: Shadow profiles?
PERRY: Why are you tracking people that are not on Facebook? And they say that you can clear your browser data if you sign-up to Facebook, and his answer was, well, we're doing this for security purposes, but he didn't go in detail beyond that. That's not an acceptable answer when people asking about shadow profiles.
VAUSE: And when we say not on Facebook, we're saying not even members of Facebook? These --
PERRY: Exactly.
VAUSE: OK. (INAUDIBLE) in this hearing was the difference in the questions and, you know, the complexity and the understanding that we had from the Europeans compared today the questions we had from U.S. lawmakers in Congress when they were questioning Zuckerberg. Here's an example. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
[02:40:08] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are here in terms of regulation and the United States is here. You've come here not to Congress, but to the European Union and we have expectations.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How many data categories do you store? Does Facebook store on the categories that you collect?
ZUCKERBERG: Senator, I'm not actually sure what that is you're referring to.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what do you the non-Facebook (INAUDIBLE) do you commercialize it and can you do that? It is morally acceptable? Do you think in your (INAUDIBLE) to collect non-Facebook user's data without them knowing what you do with it?
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (D), LOUISIANA: Could someone call you up and say I want to see John Kennedy's file?
ZUCKERBERG: Absolutely not.
KENNEDY: Could you -- if not -- could you not would you do it? Could you do it?
ZUCKERBERG: In theory and we do not sell data to advertisers.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: You know, and it seems that this was a real missed opportunity to press Zuckerberg before the European power.
PERRY: Oh, a hundred percent because when you do a round robin style and like he's got to answer 45 minutes worth of questions in 15 minutes, that doesn't really give him opportunity to go through everything except for recycle the same talking points. Now, if everybody got together with their questions and then ask them one-on- one, and didn't feel like he answered the first person's question properly, they could have nailed him over and over again. What about shadow profiles? What about shadow profiles? Instead, they just kept on going back to the same points as are you going to be GDPR compliant come Friday? Are you ready for this? Are you going to obey this? Of course, he is. There's a lot on the line and they prepared for this. I mean GDPR has been enacted for the past two years. It's just going live finally this Friday. So Facebook and every other internet company on the planet has had time to prepare for this, so they are ready for it. You know, he made apologies for the past inaction. He is GDPR compliant. He is stressing control transparency and accountability, but he's not answering the questions about the other stuff he didn't want to answer.
VAUSE: Is -- the problem is simply isn't an agreement among lawmakers whether it's Europe or United States to what the problem actually is?
PERRY: Well, yes. I mean the thing is he is fixing the past issues, but we still don't know how bad the data leak was. And they are going through all of their 1000 -- thousands of past apps and they're like booting the bad players, but we really don't know how bad the situation is, and we don't know how to prepare for the future. I mean as we move to a postech environment, who's to say what's going to be done with the data collected on smart speakers? Who's to say that somebody is going to send out like a sonnet code that's going to be able to pull data off of your servers via a smart speaker? Nobody is prepared for that stuff yet.
VAUSE: Because it seem that one of the real concerns that we heard from one of the lawmakers particularly in Europe was that you can't trust a company the size of Facebook with this kind of security. It's too important and it is not accountable.
PERRY: I think they're getting the message and they are addressing issues as being presented now. But they aren't exactly going to explain just how many bad players they're going to find. Now, they did boot 400 -- 500 -- 600 million fake accounts in recent months. That's fantastic. But that's also because they are their own de facto internet, and so they've had a lot of fake accounts just add up and multiply and they kill them the second they come on. But that still doesn't address can they actually handle the responsibility of policing themselves unless they're going to be policed by another government.
VAUSE: Very quickly, one of the threats was to break up the company. Is that -- likely, is that possible?
PERRY: It's possible, not totally likely. It will take some really damning evidence in the coming years to force that. You know, when they ask us like is Facebook a monopoly? There are other options. Like if you don't want Facebook Messenger, you can use Telegram. You can use Kik. There are other photo apps out there. There are other social apps, but not as good as Facebook, but there are other options. VAUSE: But not all of them in one place.
PERRY: Pretty much.
VAUSE: OK. Thanks.
PERRY: Thanks a lot, John.
VAUSE: Appreciate it. And thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause. "WORLD SPORT" with Kate Riley is up next. But finally this hour, this is a surprise. The 1965 Ford Mustang is a classic car with admirers around the world. "CNN STYLE" got a ride with one of its young fans model, Kendall Jenner. A little bonus for you to say goodbye.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEREK BLASBERG, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: Wow.
KENDALL JENNER, AMERICAN MODEL: Hi.
BLASBERG: Look at this.
JENNER: How are you? Good. This is my ride.
BLASBERG: Nice ride. What do we got here?
JENNER: It's a '65 Mustang. You want to go for a ride?
BLASBERG: I want to go for a spin. Where do you think your love for classic cars came from?
JENNER: I think I've kind of like been -- like, I was raised to be a tomboy. Like my dad raised me to like love stuff like this. If I love it, I love it. Like if I walk in and it really like just gets to me, I'm like, OK, I need that car. This is a very muscular car that something like a tomboy. Like I would love this, and also every car that I get into my mood changes. Like my Corvette is super like, even though it technically is a muscle car, it's a '50s car, so it doesn't feel like muscular, so I feel very girly in it. I feel like I have to dress a certain way like (INAUDIBLE) win sunglasses and like, you know what I mean? Like there's just -- I don't know.
BLASBERG: How does this car make you feel?
JENNER: It just makes me feel cool, like a cool girl.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[02:46:32] KATE RILEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL SPORTS ANCHOR: Hello and welcome along to WORLD SPORT. I'm Kate Riley at CNN Center. The playoff games are coming thick and fast. Earlier in America on Tuesday night, Houston Rockets were on the road to face Golden State Warriors. This was Game Four in the West Conference. The California is leading a two games to one. The Rockets desperately needed a win to avoid going down three games to one, and James Harden provided plenty of offense serve including this massive dunk of Draymond Green. It was tie for all four quarters of the game. And the Warriors were looking to command after a Steph Curry, three. But the Rockets took the lead back for good with a Harden lay-up.
Curry have the chance to tie the game in the final seconds, but he misses the shot that have not accounted anyway as the time had expired. Houston win this one, 95-92. And that now means the series is tied 2-2, a very impressive comeback if ever their worth one, Game Five will now be held in Texas.
All right, earlier on Tuesday, appeared as though, the Arsenal had confirmed their new manager. And then, it wasn't Unai Emery's personal web site announced the news it looked as though the ex-PSG boss confirmed that he was off to the Emirates. It says, proud to be part of the Arsenal family. And then, when we and countless others checked his web site moments later, there was to be an error page pop up instead. Make of that web error, P.R. teams will be earning their money this week, that's for sure. There is been no official word from the EPL Club.
All right, David Seaman is a former Arsenal great having played more a time -- more forward times for the North London is and anyone else during his ban are lifted. The Premier League trophy twice, the FA Cup four times as well. CNN's Amanda Davies, prompt him in ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix Warriors this weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID SEAMAN, FORMER GOALKEEPER, ARSENAL: Arsenal, this time, I wanted to do it a different way, you know. I don't think the one that manager discuss much from all of the Arsenal had. And although that was a good thing, and you know, so I think they're going down a different route. And maybe this guy's man is symbolic Paris Saint- Germain, you know, I think they're going to travel there. And you get offered new contract, strange. But, yes, you'll be interested because, like I say -- you know, I think Arsenal trying to do a different way. And you know, it will be good -- hopefully, it'll be good to see a more successful Arsenal team.
AMANDA DAVIES, CNN INTERNATIONAL SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Would you want to go back there in any capacity?
SEAMAN: Good question. And yes, I would look too actually, you know, in some sort jaw keeping role. You know, not so -- not so much full- time coach because I'm getting a little bit on now. But yes, some sort of mentor something like that, you know. It's a club that I played for and I look playing for it. You know, and I just feel like, yes, it'd be nice to give something back.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
RILEY: And a reminder, CNN will be live from the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend for update. NFL owners are expected to discuss the league's handling of the national anthem protest which we saw last season. It'll be a subject which is discussed at the annual meeting on Wednesday that's being held here on Atlanta.
There are reports in the American press that say new approaches are going to be looked at allegedly one idea would be to leave it up to the home team to decide whether or not the players come out for the playing of the national anthem.
And if teams appear, they could be assessed 15-yard penalties for players kneeling. And NFL's spokesperson tells CNN, the clubs' explore every option and idea on any policy and discuss the merits and drawbacks of each approach.
Well, more chance of evasion for this weekend's Champions League final, it will sure to be a nerve rocking occasion. One man who knows all about nerves is Bruce Grobbelaar, we hear from him next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[02:51:17] RILEY: Welcome back to the show. The Champions League final this weekend has all the makings of a classic Real Madrid and Liverpool are two of the most popular teams in the world, not only that but historically, they are among the most successful teams in the competition. And two cubs are both love to go forward on school goals.
Nobody has want it more than Real Madrid, 12-time. Including three of the last four years. And this weekend in key, they're going for three in a row with Cristiano Ronaldo, leading the line. They've scored 30 times in the competition this season. That's an average of 2-1/2 goals per game.
While Liverpool have won it five-time with recently enough thrilling comeback against Milan and Istanbul. One of the most remarkable games we've ever seen. They scored 40 goals in the main competition that's well over three high games this year. And if you include their qualifying games, well, then, they scored another six goals there.
They've already broken the record for goal scored in the single campaign. Well, the European Cup is arguably the most coveted trophy in the club football. And if you win it, you will be a legend. But if you win it in style, well, you will be an icon.
That's how Liverpool fans regard their former goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar after his heroics and his theatrics in the final of 1984. We caught up with him recently when he was visiting the Liverpool supporters group here in Atlanta. And he doesn't just think the Reds can beat Real Madrid. He told our Patrick Snell that he thinks they could destroy them.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PATRICK SNELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL SPORTS ANCHOR: Bruce Grobbelaar is one of English football's most decorated players. Winning six top- flight titles, six F.A. League Cups, and the 1984 European Cup. Keeping the ball out of the net is what the South African Durban, goalkeeper specialized in. So what his take on someone who keep a struggle to contain newly crown Premier League player of the season, the Red Egyptian goal machine, Mo Salah?
BRUCE GROBBELAAR, FORMER GOALKEEPER, LIVERPOOL: We've got a diamond. We had a diamond in the rough, and now he's a pure cut beautiful diamond. He has to produce in the final, and I think he will.
SNELL: And when it comes to the ultimate managerial motivator, according to Grobbelaar, look no further than Liverpool's German head coach Jurgen Klopp that took former club Borussia Dortmund to the 2013 final against eventual winners Bayern Munich.
GROBBELAAR: As offend, you can watch a manager and how he lifts the team, and if you're on the field you can look back at the bench and see a man standing there, come on, and actually kicking every single ball. You know, you've got a good manager.
SNELL: The last time Liverpool won European football's biggest club prize was in 2005 when goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek employed a combination of wobbly legs and windmill style arm movements to try input off opponents, A.C. Milan, during a dramatic penalty shootout after his team at come from 3-0 down.
To the save two spot kicks that night, including famously denying Andriy Shevchenko, would seal the Red's amazing comeback. The pol would later admit he is influenced by advancing Italy over two decades earlier in the 1984 European Cup final. A night indelibly stamped in Grobbelaar's memory as he prepare to face a crucial shootout spot kick from Roma's Francesco Graziani
GROBBELAAR: When he put the ball down, I could see he was nervous, so I came in shaking my legs. Now, we put a spaghetti into a hot water. So I had spaghetti legs are with the net, I would looks like spaghetti. So that's what I did. And yes, he changed his mind and his -- it's a ball in with other.
Now, I was running around the field with that time. Tell them up and down for the -- yes, your beauty. Forgetting that I had to take this -- the fifth penalty, harvest the fifth penalty to you. And there was (INAUDIBLE) standing here with the ball and I said to the boss, excuse me, and it should be me. Is it, if he takes you this long to get back here, you can suffer like the risk of this and watch him take the (INAUDIBLE).
[02:55:36] SNELL: Kennedy, kept his nerve to win the club's fourth European Cup in a seven-year spell. Liverpool's current keeper is the young German, Loris Karius. The 24 year old faced with the prospect of not just the possibility of a penalty shootout but also coming face to face with the Champions Leagues all-time leading scorer, Cristiano Ronaldo.
GROBBELAAR: He is an individual that's if you give him the ball, and he goes with the ball, he can destroy it. If he's on this game, we are going to be in for a hard fight. SNELL: So, 34 years on from the famous night in Rome, is Bruce expecting Real to wobble in Kiev?
GROBBELAAR: I believe we have got the firepower, and are counter- attacking to actually destroy Real Madrid.
SNELL: And if this final does come down to penalties, there's one person, Karius, could turn to for advice.
GROBBELAAR: Just be yourself, but make sure that there is a little twist. Give them something that they've never seen, and we will be OK.
SNELL: Patrick Snell, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
RILEY: Yes, and many thanks to Pat and Bruce for that. And we end the show with a bit of a laugh now. It's the header challenge. You may have seen it last week on the show, but here's Marcelo of Real Madrid.
This time it was the professional doing most of the work, he went to see his son, Enzo, and the youth teammates in their locker room to see if they could also do the trick from last week. Now, there were a couple of wild headers as you could see, Marcelo, did have the salvage a couple of kicks. But this was another very impressive performance, and they all held their nerve to complete the challenge.
And many can get to them, you can see Real Madrid bursting are just so good. They start them young, don't they? Well that got the fun brings this edition of CNN WORLD SPORT, to a close. Stay with CNN, the news is next.
