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Omarosa: Recorded Chief of Staff Firing Her in Situation Room; Turkey Launches Action Plan After Currency Plunges Again; White Supremacist Rally Poorly Attended in D.C. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired August 13, 2018 - 00:00   ET

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

[00:00:00] NATALIE ALLEN, CNN NEWSROOM HOST: Smiling faces right before a horrific tragedy. CNN has a pained (ph) video showing the final moments of the Yemeni school boys aboard the school boys that was hit by an airstrike.

CYRIL VANIER, CNN NEWSROOM HOST: Whilst a march for white supremacists fizzles after they're greatly outnumbered by counter protesters.

ALLEN: And a major win in California as emergency teams take a big leap in containing a massive wildfire.

VANIER: Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I'm Cyril Vanier here in Atlanta.

ALLEN: I'm Natalie Allen, and this is CNN Newsroom.

VANIER: So CNN has a pained (ph) cell phone footage showing the final moments of a group of school boys in Yemen before many of them were killed in airstrike by the U.S. backed, Saudi led coalition. We've been following this story for you for a number of days now.

The airstrike was on Thursday. This was filled by one of the students, Osama Zade al Hamran (ph). It shows the classmates jostling, yelling during roll call on the bus and playing chase with friends.

ALLEN: It's just being kids, and then the worst happened. The trip was a reward for the religious school's graduation summer class and their teacher told CNN the boys had been sleepless with excitement for days. Less than one hour after the video ends, Osama (ph) and many of the children seen in the video were dead.

Some of the scenes (inaudible) report now are graphic and distressing, that they reflect the reality of this horrible tragedy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're taking roll call. They probably wouldn't even (ph) bother. This is the day we're told the students have excitedly been awaiting for weeks. The little boy filming, Osama (ph), swings the cell phone around to capture all his friends. They're due to graduate today after two months of going to (ph) summer school. First stop is a shrine to houthi masses (ph). It may not seem like a fun day out, but in a city ravaged by war, this cemetery is one of the key remaining green spaces. The children scatter in a game of chase. Less than an hour later, most of the children you see in this video were dead.

Osama's phone was found in the wreckage of the bus and with it the children's last moments. CNN obtained the footage houthi officials. This attack on the school bus carrying children of the U.S. back, Saudi led coalition in Yemen has drawn condemnation.

The coalition maintained the attack hit a legitimate target. Trainers and recruiters (ph) of child soldiers. Still, the coalition is investigating and says it is fighting to reinstate Yemen's legitimate president after his overthrow by the Iranian backed houthi militias. Three years on, though (ph), and the devastation in Yemen continues.

The surviving children struggle to piece together what happened.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I could see my friends, then I found one of them. I helped him get up and told him to run, but he stopped and said I will go find my brother. He kept looking for his brother but didn't find him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The scope of the tragedy still too difficult to absorb. Husien Husein (ph) is a medic, the first at the scene.

HUSEIN HUSEIN (PH): As I was nursing people, I lifted a body and found it was Ahmed's face. I carried and hugged him, he was my son. It was a scary situation. Very scary. But may God give us patience from his strength.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Many of the bodies found after the attack are so mutilated that the process of identifying them has been drawn out and torturous. While the men busy themselves digging little graves waiting to be filled one-by-one.

You can hear the joy in Osama's (ph) voice. Ali, Muhamed (ph), he calls out, chasing behind them. Wait. Let's take a picture, and the camera goes dead. (inaudible) CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VANIER: Now, the U.S. backed Saudi collation said that it launched the airstrikes on missile launchers, and it was what they calla legitimate military operation, their words. Now, they accused the houthi rebels of using children as human shields.

The U.S. Defense Secretary, Jim Mattis, has come out in support of an investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

JAMES MATTIS, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: I have dispatched a three-star general into Riyadh to look into what happened here and if there's anything we can do, if we clued (ph) this in the future even while we support State Department's call for an investigation.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

[00:05:00]ALLEN: Mattis added the U.S. is concerned about the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and support a U.N. brokered negotiation.

There are reports of sporadic clashes in the strategic city of Ghazni, Afghanistan. Taliban militants launched a fierce attack there Friday. Ghazni is on the main highway connecting Kabul with the country south (ph).

VANIER: The hostile (ph) official says more than 100 people have been killed since the fighting between the militants and government forces began. Afghan forces are in control of government centers. That according to U.S. military spokesmen. American planes conducted five airstrikes Saturday and four more on Sunday.

In Washington now, thousands of anti-racist protesters are cheering after a much hyped racist rally turned into a bust. Organizers had expected hundreds of White Nationalists for the Unite the Right 2 event, but only about two dozen showed up. They marched near the White House wearing masks and American flags.

ALLEN: But they were confronted by huge crowds of anti-hate groups who shouted "shame shame" and "Nazis, go home." Organizers for the counter protest said they marched in force to show White Supremacists that bigotry and hate in the U.S. are not welcome.

The rallies in D.C. wrap up a weekend of mostly peaceful protests, we're happy to say, on the first anniversary of the deadly Charlottesville riot.

VANIER: And that's went White Nationalist violence led to injuries and the death of a young counter protestor. Anti-hate groups were not about to let that happen again in Washington on Sunday. CNN's Brian Todd reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This was a day of passion and high- energy here in Washington, and just about all of it was on the side of the anti-racist protestors who vastly outnumbered the White Supremacist protestors. There were several thousand anti-racist, anti-fascist demonstrators from a collation of about 30 different groups, Black Lives Matter to ANTIFA to other groups, opposing the White Supremacist message.

They showed out in force on the streets of Washington where the White Supremacists only had maybe a couple of dozen people if that many, and their message was drowned out.

This is just a bit of a flare up toward the end of the day here where some - a few of counter protestors, people who may have been White Supremacists - we don't know - showed up with a flag and were confronted by some of these people here with a counter messaging. And we don't know if they were White Supremacists or not, but there was a flare up. It was a little bit of jostling. There was some screaming at them. They quickly took refuge behind a line of police, and that was what lead to this confrontation here over my shoulder. So some of these protestors are now leaving and kind of moving this way after police have basically cordoned off this area and gotten those few counter protestors out of the way to safety.

So while you can say that most of the protests were peaceful and dispersed earlier in the day than anticipated, some of the anger has not dissipated. So some of these people are still hanging around.

And, you know, what we can say kind of carried the day is the security measures that the police have put up. Right here and elsewhere in Lafayette Park over here, the counter racist protestors - the anti- racist protestors were not allowed to get really within about 100 yards of where the White Supremacists were, and that prevented what could have been a confrontation similar to what happened in Charlottesville.

The police are very cognizant of that, but that really didn't happen in any large measure. And what did happen was that the White Supremacists were so severely drowned out by the counter protestors that they left. They didn't even finish their speaking program. Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VANIER: OK, the one-year anniversary of the events in Charlottesville. Let's discuss with Mo Ivory. She's an attorney and professor of law at Georgia State University. Chris Faulkner joins us as well. He's a Republican strategist.

Mo, let me turn to you first. So in the end, there were just two dozen people who showed up on the side of the extreme right. Do you take any comfort in that?

MO IVORY, PROFESSOR, GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY: I do. I really do. I was very glad to see that, that they were - they just - it was just so different from last year and, you know, so the -

VANIER: We were discussing the legacy of the Charlottesville yesterday -

[00:10:00] IVORY: Yes, you know, and Chris was even saying yesterday that it was just a disgusting display that they came out and I was thinking, I wonder what it will be like tomorrow.

And so, here today there was only a dozen, two dozen of them. I think it's a real symbol that, you know, American's are standing up to this and they're saying no. I mean, greatly outnumbered.

I had many friends who were in D.C. today and we're out there and they felt that it was a -- they were a little bit disturbed about the way the police handled and sort -- that they got an escort and they had their own transportation ...

VANIER: Okay. IVORY: ... but that's fine. You know ...

VANIER: But that's a separate debate.

IVORY: Right. I think that the whole message of today was that we will not stand for that and that people will come out in great numbers to protest against it.

VANIER: Chris, yesterday we started to starting the legacy of Charlottesville when you're on and how it has changed the conversation on race in the U.S. What does today and what we saw from Washington today tell us?

CHRIS FAULKNER, SENIOR NATIONAL STRATEGIST: I think it's just a continuing evolution of race relations and the conversation on race in our country.

I tweeted a photo earlier, before we started on the show, you know, 1925 there were 15 -- or there were, excuse me, there were 50,000 Ku Klux Klan members that marched down that same street in Washington, D.C., and today you could -- less that, what, 25 or something like that.

And the great irony -- the great irony that most of those police officers that we're putting their lives and their personal safety on the line to protect the freedom speech that they heavily disagree with, those officers were mostly African-American.

If that doesn't speak just volumes I think about the, is our country perfect? Absolutely not. The conversation on race and equality needs to continue, but we've show, obviously, a lot of progress and I think that's very encouraging for anyone.

VANIER: So, then I wonder and I want to put this question to Mo, because this is something, Chris, you were telling us yesterday. You -- I remember the first thing you said, was why are we even talking about this so much and I sort of pushed back saying, well, this is a legitimate conversation. So, Chris has a point doesn't he? If two dozen people show up, maybe it isn't as big a deal as perhaps yesterday. Only yesterday we thought it was.

IVORY: No, I don't think that. I think that what happened was that they was so much coverage and so much concern about what was going to happen on the anniversary of Charlottesville, that I think America became mobilized and the anti-protestors came out to say, no, we're not having this again.

But I don't think it at all reduces the conversation that continues to need to -- that needs to continue to happen and, you know, frankly, that legislation and that protections and that police reform and all kinds of things go together in trying to bring the racial tension down in America. That has to continue.

VANIER: All right, there's another aspect that I want to bring in now, and it is this, a reality TV star turned White House aide, is stepping up her attacks on her former boss. Omarosa Manigualt-Newman has been promoting her new, and it has to be said, mostly unverifiable memoire of here time, her short time in the White House.

She writes that President Donald Trump is a racist and she likens him to a cult leader. And now, she is releasing what she says, are secret recordings of White House Chief of Staff, John Kelly, firing here.

She says those recordings were made in a situation room, which by the way, is supposed be one of the most secure places in the White House, and indeed, in the world. Here's one of those recordings.

[00:15:00](BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OMAROSA MANIGAULT-NEWMAN, TELEVISION ACTOR: Can I ask you a couple of questions? Does the president -- is he aware of this?

JOHN KELLY, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: Don't -- let's not go down the road. This is a non-negotiable discussion.

MANIGAULT-NEWMAN: I don't want to negotiate. I've never -- I never had the chance to talk to you (inaudible). So, if this is my departure, I'd like to have at least an opportunity to understand.

KELLY: We can -- we can talk another time. This has to do with some pretty serious violation -- integrity violations. So, let it go at that. So, the staff and everyone on the staff works for me, not the president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: Well now, White House Press Secretary, Sarah Sanders, is responding to Omarosa's secret recordings.

VANIER: In a statement, Sanders writes, that the very idea a staff member would sneak a recording device into the White House situation room shows a blatant disregard for our national security and then to brag about it on national television further proves the lack of character and integrity of this disgruntled former White House employee.

So, let's get back to our panel then.

Attorney, Mo Ivory and Republican Strategist, Chris Faulkner, is still with us. Christian on the -- Chris on the anniversary of Charlottesville, the most recognizable African-American figure to have worked in this White House says, number one, the president is racist and number two, that he used her as political cover to hide that. What's your reaction to that?

FAULKNER: I think Dr. Carson would disagree with you. He is a member of the cabinet heading up HUD.

VANIER: He's a member of the administration, but not the White House.

FAULKNER: The Administration is the White House. But to be clear here, I mean, the only group of people smaller than the clowns who showed up in D.C. today to rally for supremacy, is probably the group of people that would actually buy her book. I can't imagine a scenario where she would be in the situation room, if that, in fact, does prove out to be true, would be amazing.

VANIER: Note, that the White House put out a statement and they didn't deny it.

FAULKNER: No, they didn't deny it and I don't know what the details are. I wasn't there. I don't know the circumstances if ...

VANIER: I mean if it were untrue, that's the first thing they'd do, they'd just deny it, plain and simple, like they do many things.

FAULKNER: I, you know, I think that there were a few hiring errors, certainly at the beginning of the administration, it's good to see them corrected.

VANIER: Did -- Mo, did Donald Trump -- is indirectly cause this for himself, by perhaps in the early days of the administration, hiring so many people who maybe were not qualified for their positions?

IVORY: Oh sure, but I think bigger than that, you know, Donald Trump sort of trained Omarosa in her days -- early days from the Apprentice and sort of helped her along, always bringing her back in to be sort of that divisive personality. And so, why wouldn't do what he normally does ...

VANIER: Sure.

IVORY: ... which is say one thing one moment, say another thing another moment, turn your story around, change what actually happened or change the story about what happened.

I mean, she's following, to me, she's following exactly his playbook. I mean, that's what he does. If it fits the situation at the time, say it, the minute it doesn't fit the situation, change the thought and that's exactly what she's doing. And she's trying to capitalize on it, the same exact way he has.

VANIER: What about this argument that she was used as cover? As cover to deceive the American people that this was a president who had some consideration for African-Americans, that's what -- that's what she's saying.

[00:20:00]IVORY: Yes, well maybe she was, but she agreed to it. So, I don't -- I feel it's a little bit disingenuous of her to come back now and to say, oh he just used me. I mean I've -- I watched Omarosa say a lot of things that were very offensive to me, not only as just a black woman, as a woman, as an American.

So, I don't think that she can now say, oh, you know, I didn't know what they were doing. They were just using me. It was an affirmative actions hire.

No, she was very well aware of what was going on and I think she also was well aware that at one day, one point the day would come that it would be over and I think that she was making sure she had here chips backed for that moment. VANIER: Yes. And I should have, reminder of you, as when Chris

started doing this, that we have to take this in the context of, she has a new book coming out.

IVORY: Of course.

VANIER: And, of course, she is seeking publicity and we all know that.

IVORY: Of course.

VANIER: Mo Ivory, Chris Faulkner, thank you very much. Pleasure speaking with you again today, thanks.

FAULKNER: Pleasure. Thank you.

ALLEN: And coming up here, investigators begin piecing together how an airline employee was able to steal a commercial plane from a U.S. airport and then crash it.

(COMMERICAL BREAK)

(WEATHER)

ALLEN: Investigators of the U.S. state of Washington are trying to understand how an airline employee could have stolen a passenger plane. Richard Russell took an empty Horizon Air plane from the Seattle airport on Friday.

VANIER: He flew it for about an hour before it crashed and he died. Investigators have now found the flight data recorder and they're hoping it will provide some answers. Our Kyung Lah has the latest.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: PSV says the flight data recorder is on its way to Washington D.C. for analysis. They hope to begin that sometime this week. It was recovered over the weekend by investigators. They say very little is left of the plane. But the data recorder is intact.

The investigation shifting now to 29 year old Richard Russell, he is the man the Horizon Air employee who had worked there for three and a half years, a ground service employee. He stole the plane, flew it in the sky for an hour here, many people recording this seeing the stunts that he took in the plane before crashing it into a remote island.

He had security clearance. He is described by his family as having no outward signs of mental illness, also described that way by his friends at work. To hear his voice on these recordings say the people who know him is heart breaking.

[00:25:00] (BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

RICHARD RUSSELL, HORIZON AIR EMPLOYEE: I got a lot of people that care about me. And it's going to disappoint them to hear that I did this. I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. I'm just a broken guy. Got a few screws loose I guess. Never really knew it till now.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: May seem difficult for those watching at home to believe, but Vivo (ph) was a warm compassionate man. As the voice recordings show Vivo's (ph) was not to harm anyone. He was right in saying that there are so many people who have loved him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAH: Vivo (ph) is the family name for Russell. That's how they refer to him. Before that family gave a statement to the press they held hands. They prayed. They said their faith in God is the only thing helping them get through this. Kyung Lah, CNN Seattle (ph), Washington.

VANIER: Crew's are making progress against one of the massive wild fires raging in Southern California. The so called holy fire was only 10 percent contained on Friday. But that has now jumped to 52 percent as of Sunday night. So it's more than half contained.

ALLEN: At least 21,000 people were forced to evacuate. Though many we're happy to say have now been allowed to return home. They've got to be so thankful for that. One man is in custody in this fire. He's accused of starting it and sending threatening messages to a Fire Chief saying the place is going to burn.

VANIER: All right we've got meteorologist Ivan Cabrera who joins us now from the weather center with more on all of this.

(WEATHER)

VANIER: All right, stay with us we're back right after this.

(COMMERICAL BREAK)

[00:30:00] ALLEN: Welcome back. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Natalie Allen.

VANIER: I'm Cyril Vanier. Let's look at your headlines. Former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman is releasing what she claims as a secret recording of the White House Chief of Staff, John Kelly, firing her inside the Situation Room.

White House Press Secretary, Sarah Sanders, says the recording shows a blatant disregard of National Security from a "disgruntled" former White House employee.

ALLEN: Turkey's Finance Minister said he's launching an economic action plan, Monday, tor relieve the global market. The country's lira plunged to a new record low at early trading, it had already plummeted more than 20 percent, last week, rattling investors. President Tayyip Erdogan has said the free fall is the result of economic attack on Turkey. VANIER: An explosion killed at least 36 people in a rebel-held Syrian town near the Turkish border, Sunday. A Syrian volunteer force says the explosion occurred in a building that housed ammunition in Sarmada, in the Idlib province. Dozens of people are injured.

Now, we were talking about it earlier this hour, a show of division in the U.S. capital was shouted down by a louder show of unity. White Nationalists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members gathered near the White House, Sunday, for the Unite the Right rally.

Organizers expected hundreds of demonstrators. Instead, barely two dozen showed up and they were met by hundreds of counter protesters.

ALLEN: The white nationalists left Lafayette Park soon after they arrived, they say, because of the stormy weather. This comes one year after the first Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which ended in the death of counter protester, Heather Heyer. Her mother was on hand for a more peaceful rally in Charlottesville on Sunday.

Shannon Martinez joins me now. She's a program manager at the Free Radicals Project and a former neo-Nazi and skinhead, in fact, she has a t-shirt that says, what Shannon?

SHANNON MARTINEZ, PROGRAM MANAGER, FREE RADICALS PROJECT: It says #I'mAFormerNeoNaziAskMeQuestions.

ALLEN: And you were at the rally looking to reform others. Let's talk about that in a moment. But first of all, Shannon, you're so adorable, you've got the cute hat and the braid, and the flower in your hair. How did you become a neo-Nazi and why?

MARTINEZ: As a kid, I always felt like the black sheep in my family and really struggled to have a sense of, like, fitting in anywhere. For the early part of my childhood, I played a lot of sports and that kind of helped me. And then we moved to when I was 11, we moved across country. And I was a big blow to having a place where I felt like I deeply belonged.

And then, I ended up being sexually assaulted at a party by two white men, they were not men of color, by two white men, just shy of my 15th birthday. And I didn't have any adults in my life that I felt like I could really turn to. It was before the internet. So I couldn't just like Google, like, hey, I was just raped, what do I do?

And so, I just took all of that unprocessed trauma and shoved it just down. I was already looking for my identity in the punk movement, so already trying to find out and figure out who I was in terms of like, a counter-culture movement.

Then on the periphery of that, the angriest people that were there were the skinheads. And the rage that I felt so consumed by, within about six month of that sexual assault, I really resonated with the anger that they've displayed and at the same time, they always seemed to have each other's backs.

And so, it felt like a place where the person who I was as a 15-year- old girl, who felt worthless, that it was a place that I could belong.

ALLEN: You know, Shannon, a lot of people think that our President is promoting this hate because he, in some ways, espouses racism, maybe in a veiled way. Do you think that is true?

MARTINEZ: I think it is absolutely true. And I -- you know, I think that our, you know, our President -- I hesitate to say our President, that the President that we have currently, is very savvy in understanding his political base.

And is consistently trying to, sort of, straddle the line of staying in touch with his base, who are people that are generally -- people who are much more fear-based and really express fear about having the resources that they feel like are rightly theirs, no longer being just theirs.

[00:35:09] And also really understanding particularly in so much of the backlash after his abhorrent comments after Charlottesville last year, that -- you know, that I think the counter-protesters who were out in such great number and just so outnumbered the white supremacists today.

ALLEN: Yes.

MARTINEZ: But the more pressure that is put on consistently, that this is not a cultural value that we share as Americans in the 21st century, that this is not -- white supremacy is not a legacy that we want to carry forward anymore.

ALLEN: Last question for you, Shannon. We bring a lot of people on to talk about this issue. You may know more than most what it's going to take to heal outside of, maybe, the President to being enlightened here, but, how do you think this country will heal?

MARTINEZ: I think one of the things that we really need to come to terms with, is being OK with fear, that, you know, we're -- you know, gun toting, John Wayne, watching Americans. Like, we have to learn how to sit with the fear that we have instead of continually trying to act on it.

That so many of us seen an uncertain future, and instead of a reactionary response to that, just sitting and being like, it's OK. Yes, we're afraid. We don't know what our future holds.

ALLEN: Right.

MARTINEZ: And even if we don't have solutions, that -- not pretending that we have solutions that -- you know, that we can answer in a, you know, in a two-year election cycle or anything like that, then it's going to take us understanding and coming to terms which I think we also very, very much need to starkly talk about the origins of our country that are based on genocide and slavery, and violence and exporting violence through war. And that we don't have to pretend like those aren't part of our story.

ALLEN: We appreciate your comments and the work that you're doing. MARTINEZ: Thank you so much.

ALLEN: Shannon Martinez, wish you all the best. Thank you for what you do.

MARTINEZ: Thank you so much for having me on.

ALLEN: Shannon has come a long way since her skinhead days, hasn't she?

VANIER: Great interview. Thanks for putting that out there. All right, let's turn to the Middle East, where U.S. President Donald Trump's often polarizing style has endeared him to the Israelis.

ALLEN: Yes, but on the Palestinian side, the reaction is quite different. CNN's Oren Liebermann takes a look at how these divergent views on Mr. Trump may hinder or halt the peace process.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: These would be some of President Donald Trump's most loyal voters.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Today, we officially opened the United States embassy in Jerusalem.

LIEBERMANN: If they could only vote in the U.S. No country has been so open and so loud about supporting Trump, as Israel.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you for visiting us.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL: My pleasure.

LIEBERMANN: Led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has held those ties at every meeting with the American officials.

NETANYAHU: You have no greater allies than the United States. That's clear. But I think you have no better ally than us.

LIEBERMANN: Trump has cemented his status in the minds of many Israelis, following his visit to the western wall, his opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem and his recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The political bromance looks set to continue with both leaders touting the best relations ever between Israel and America. Despite the strong ties, there is a risk to the unabashed lovefest, warns Analyst Yoaz Hendel.

DR. YOAZ HENDEL, CHAIRMAN, INSTITUTE FOR ZIONIST STRATEGIES: If Trump -- President Trump eliminates a President Obama legacy, probably, the next Democrat president, doesn't matter who is going to be, will eliminate Trump heritage and maybe legacy and maybe we are part of it.

LIEBERMANN: Palestinians have had an equally strong, if very different reaction to Trump. Rallies against Trump have become increasingly common. At first, Trump and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas showed signs of cooperation. But those, soon faded as the Palestinians froze contact with the American administration. Abbas hasn't looked back since.

MAHMOUD ABBAS, PRESIDENT OF PALESTINE (through translator): We have cut all contacts with the American administration after Trump's decision on occupied Jerusalem. And those who do not like it, should hit their heads against the wall.

LIEBERMANN: Abbas has shown little, if any, flexibility in his refusal to work with the Americans, instead, turning to the international community.

The Trump administration is still working on its secretive Israeli- Palestinian peace deal to be presented at some point in the future. Right now, only one side is listening. Oren Liebermann, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: And we will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:40:00] VANIER: Actor, Idris Elba, is toying with all of us -- all of us who are James Bond fans, and it only took five words to do it.

ALLEN: Just five.

VANIER: Yes, it was about 20 hours ago, if you look on his twitter account. He tweeted, my name's Elba, Idris Elba. Of course, that's Bond's catch phrase. And this is at a time when Elba's name keeps coming up as a possible 007. However, just a few hours later, five hours later, to be precised, he tweeted, don't believe the hype.

ALLEN: Oh, man. Come work with us. Elba has said in the past he's open to playing Bond when Daniel Craig steps aside. As for now, Elba's focus is behind the camera, his directorial debut, Yardie, is out later this month, but hey, Elba, Idris Elba.

VANIER: I like it.

ALLEN: I like it too.

VANIER: I believe. I want to believe. Finally, look at one wedding that just would not be cancelled. Monsoon floods could not deter one very determined bride in the Philippines. She must be in love.

ALLEN: I hope so. The couple moved ahead with their wedding plans despite the high water reaching into the church. God (INAUDIBLE) so sweet. The video has won the hearts of Filipinos with some calling it the wedding of the year. She'll walk not on water, but through water for her man.

"WORLD SPORT" is next. I'm Natalie Allen.

VANIER: I'm Cyril Vanier. We're back at the top of the hour with more news. Stay with us on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:45:00] (WORLD SPORT)

VANIER: Kids playing in a school bus, and then, tragedy.