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CNN Goes To The Mosul Frontlines; Melania Trump Stands By Her Man; Russian; Syrian Forces To Pause Airstrikes Thursday; Iraqi & Kurdish Forces Advance On Mosul; Amnesty Intl. Accuses Iraqi Forces Of Torture Killings; Trump Says Sexual Misconduct Claims Politically Motivated. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired October 19, 2016 - 01:00   ET

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

[01:00:00] MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, thanks for joining us. I'm Michael Holmes, live in Erbil, Iraq, where it nests just one 8:00 in the morning on Tuesday.

SARA SIDNER, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: And I'm Sara Sidner, in Los Angeles, where it is now just past 10:00 at night. Ahead this hour, CNN goes to the front lines in the battle for Mosul, and our crews get caught in the crossfire as Peshmerga fighters, launched their assault against ISIS. And a bit later, standing by her man, who Melania Trump blames for her husband's raunchy hot mic moment. This is NEWSROOM L.A.

An Iraqi-led coalition is taking on ISIS on the outskirts of Mosul, fast approaching the terror group's last stronghold in Iraq. Military leaders say they're already making major progress, clearing nine surrounding villages, but the fierce fighting in the early on now, has dispelled any notions that this fight would be short or in any way, easy. I want to bring back Michael Holmes who is live for us from Erbil in Iraq. Michael, give us the latest on what is happening there on the ground.

HOLMES: Yeah. A lot of people thought that this would be a long process, and it could well turn out that way. A lot of unknowns. But I can tell you this, the fighting has already begun in various places, south and to the east of Mosul. In fact, our colleague Nick Paton Walsh has been out. He was with a convoy of Peshmerga fighters. They were facing gunfire. They also faced a suicide bomb, as they tried to clear one particular road of militants. We're going to show you his report now, but we need to warn you, it does show the violent death of one ISIS fighter and some viewers might find that disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They've been waiting years to finally push through the lines and take on ISIS' brutality. And when the day came, it was still a dusty slow grind. Peshmerga into the desert to flank a main road to Mosul. Distinctive American vehicles with Western occupants in their convoy, airstrikes often hitting the places they were headed to first. Hopes ISIS might not fight for the tiny settlements around Mosul quickly dashed. This is the first village they move down the road towards Mosul, and they're encountering pretty heavy resistance. Returning fire with what they have, which are often blunt and old. They want this over fast. Suddenly, there's panic. They spot a car, a suicide car bomb racing towards them. It's ISIS. One, two rockets try to hit it. The third is lucky. They pushed on towards the main prize, the road itself to Mosul flanked by all fires lit by ISIS and airstrikes piling in regardless. Shells still landing near the Peshmerga, a casualty taken away. Down on the main objective, the road itself, ISIS sent two car bombs at them, and attacked from both sides. The Iraqi military, too, at some point, will have to push down here towards Mosul, but this has been an effort with much international support, a lot of coalition planning, American airpower.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shut the doors.

WALSH: It's best they move. This is yours.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay in the car now!

WALSH: ISIS still everywhere, even in the hills. They give chase to one man, an ISIS fighter. He shoots a Peshmerga, Humvees rescue him and they hunt on. An ISIS fighter pops up from a tunnel, shoots, and he blows himself up. The tenacity and desire to die that will surely slow and bloodied the fight ahead. Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, near Mosul Northern Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: And our thanks to Nick for that report. But also important to mention the crew, who was there with him. The photographer was Scott McWhinnie and the producer Ghazi Balkiz. Now, there are more than a million, it is thought, men, women, and children, living in Mosul. We're talking about civilians here. Now, the Norwegian refugee counsel warns, they could be in graves danger if they stay in the city, but it can be too dangerous to try to flee as well. Wolfgang Gressman is the country's in-country director in Iraq and joins us now to discuss. And Wolfgang, thanks for doing so. First of all, when it comes to these camps, there has been plenty of time to set up but not a lot of money to do so. How prepared are aid agencies, yours, others, the U.N. to deal with what could be a big influx?

WOLFGANG GRESSMAN, NRC COUNTRY DIRECTOR IN IRAQ: Good morning, Michael. Yes, camps have been set up, the current capacity is around for 60,000 people, which is insufficient when you compare it to the expected number. We still believe, so that the number of people that have to - have to flee Mosul, will be in the range of 200,000 over the next couple of days and weeks. Humanitarian actors like the Norwegian Refugee Council are working around the clock to prepare the sites, to preposition relief items, but it's a race against time.

HOLMES: So what then is the worst-case scenario? The Iraqi government, also the Kurdish leadership have been saying to people, stay there, hunker down, and the Kurdish situation in particular, they can't take any more in their territory. But how realistic is it for people in the middle of what's going to be urban warfare, to hunker down and not flee, and for that point as well, how hard will it be to flee? GRESSMAN: Yeah, well, we have to see. I mean, we are extremely concerned that with no safe routes out for civilians and Mosul City expected to be soon under heavy fire, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are at the extreme risk of either being caught in the cross fire or being shot at by snipers when they are trying to flee or coming under attack at their own homes.

HOLMES: You know, when you talk about what the capability is at these camps versus the numbers of people who could flee, you mentioned a couple hundred thousand. Other people talk of several hundred thousand who might end up pouring out of Mosul, in the worst-case scenario. What could be the worst-case scenario when it comes to aid groups? I mean, we saw around Fallujah, people sleeping out in the open, insufficient sanitation, insufficient food and up here, in this part of Iraq, it's a sunny day today, but the rains aren't too far away.

GRESSMAN: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we really have to see, obviously there's a huge gap between the existing capacity of emergency sites and existing camps and the expected case load. Some tiny figures indicate also about 700,000 people will be displaced from Mosul City. On top of this, you must not forget that the military operation has already been ongoing for a couple weeks and months and already more than 130,000 people have been displaced from Mosul area. Most likely, (INAUDIBLE) you will have to find alternative solutions outside camps, when the numbers continue to increase.

HOLMES: Could be a very dire situation. Wolfgang Gressman with the Norwegian Refugee Council. Our thanks to you and thanks for the work that you and other organizations are trying to do in very difficult circumstances. I'm going to have much more from Erbil, a little later this hour. But first, let's take it back to Sara Sidner in Los Angeles. Sara?

SIDNER: Thank you, Michael. We also have a special guest here, Retired U.S. Marine and Green Beret, Chase Millsap, who joins us here in Los Angeles. And we talked a little bit before that you have been in the thick of things on the battle - on the battle lines, in the frontlines. Can you give us some idea, how difficult it is to attack? There's sort of -- it seems that they're kind of trying to surround the city and move in.

[01:10:02] CHASE MILLSAP, RETIRED U.S. MARINE: That's right. Yeah, I mean, this is - you know, we're talking about an urban area here in Mosul. And if you look at the terrain, it's mountainous to the north and to the desert, out to the south and to the east. So you really have to isolate the area first. And that's exactly what they're doing right now. And you have seen the coalition, both with the Iraqi security forces and with the Kurdish Peshmerga, really going through those key cities on the outside and making sure those are locked down, before we move into the city. And that's an absolute key part of this, as we start talking about one, being ready to move in and make sure that those things are in place to help the civilians in there, but also we talk about the ISIS fighters, that may be fleeing. We want to make sure that those safe havens are there, as we saw on the video earlier. SIDNER: Give us some idea, because, you know, there's regimes that you fight against, like Saddam Hussein and his army, and then there's ISIS.

MILLSAP: Yeah.

SIDNER: What's the big difference? What's the big difference that soldiers need to know in these scenarios?

MILLSAP: Well, functionally on the battlefield, I mean, bullets are bullets. We're not talking about things that are - that are that different here. But what you really see, is the way we fight things. So the conventional fight, where we see tanks on the street, mechanized infantry, moving street to street, that can only go so far and our enemies are smart enough to know that when they are faced with overwhelming firepower, they're going underground. So, the question really right now, isn't is this coalition between the Iraqis and the security forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga, strong enough to go in militarily, we know they are. The question is, are they strong enough to maintain the peace? So, what happens after the fighting stops and ISIS comes back and starts to try to go at -- back at the population, use suicide bombs and things like that. Are we ready to establish the security measures? They're going to make sure people can go back to their daily lives.

SIDNER: So we're not talking about days or even months, we're talking about a very long time, to try and keep things secure.

MILLSAP: Yeah, that's right.

SIDNER: If and when they move ISIS out.

MILLSAP: Absolutely. So, you know, in --from a military perspective, we always talk about this idea of end state. What are the conditions on the ground, where as a commander, you can look and say, "I have achieved my objective." Well, those objectives in this case, are going to spend way beyond the military side of this. We have to look at, what are we going to the to keep the power on, what are we going to do to keep the lights on, the water, all of those things that required to make sure that Mosul can become a living city again? And that something, it's going to be a real challenge to the Iraqi government and the coalition of the Kurdish partners and the militias that are involved here Not to mention, you also have the Turks, that are going to be watching this close by.

SIDNER: Absolutely.

MILLSAP: So you've got a lot of players here, that we're watching very closely.

SIDNER: I want to lastly ask you. You have a personal story. You fought alongside an Iraqi that saved your life. You've been trying to get him -

MILLSAP: Yeah. SIDNER: -- here, to the United States. We're going to see more of that. Are we not going to see more people trying to leave and come into countries like the U.S. and into Europe?

MILLSAP: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the things that we've always seen out of these (INAUDIBLE) we saw it in Fallujah, we saw it in Ramadi recently. There is an exodus that happens after the military operations. We know that's going to happen, so the question is, are the Iraqi security officials planning for that? And are they setting up the camps? Are they setting up the processes? Are they going to make sure that people can get back into their homes. Because if they don't plan for that, then you ran into a scenario like I faced, where an Iraqi soldier call me, say, "I need some help right now." And we hadn't planned for that afterwards. And now, we're scrambling to get him a visa and get his family safe. I think this is a real opportunity for us to look at this and say, "We know there's going to be some outside factors, our enemies go after our partners, especially when they know they're isolated. What can we do to plan for it now?

SIDNER: Chase Millsap, thank you so much for, kind of, digging deeper and letting people understand what it's like, really, to be there on the battlefield. I appreciate it.

MILLSAP: Thank you.

SIDNER: Now, Russia says it will pause its airstrikes on Aleppo, Syria to allow civilians and rebels to leave the city. The attacks will stop for eight hours, Thursday and six corridors will be open for safe passage out of that city. There's been growing diplomatic pressure on Russia, to halt the bombing there. And we have some disturbing pictures out of Aleppo, on this Monday. 14 family members were killed in a single airstrike, 10 of them were children. Western leaders have been calling for a war crimes investigation into the assault on Aleppo. The battle to liberate Mosul, as you heard, is just beginning but the fighting is already extremely vicious. How ISIS is defending its last stronghold in Iraq. Plus, Donald Trump is once again, blaming the system in claiming the U.S. election, is rigged against him.

DONALD TRUMP: The election is being rigged by corrupt media, pushing false allegations and outright lies. The process is rigged. This whole election is being rigged. And remember this, it's a rigged election because you have phony people coming up with phony allegations.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN WEATHER ANCHOR: Meteorologist Pedram Javaheri with you on weather watcher on the Americas and a resurgence of summer like temperatures across the Southern United States, excessive heat building across some of these areas we're talking record temperatures falling by the dozens, over 41 records possible that we work our way across - towards Tuesday. And you notice the expansive nature of that area not just towards the Southern U.S., but it does stretch into the Midwestern and also parts of the Northeastern United States, where the tents actually feel like what they should about two months ago. You're looking at New York City at 27 degrees, this is what impresses me the most. Montreal at 24 degrees, major shift in the pattern. This is not going to last long as you work your way towards the third week of October, the temps will begin to cool off around the Northeast, a little more gradual and then it drops off nicely there Thursday into Friday into (INAUDIBLE) And then looking at areas around Montreal, temps actually in the single digits by Saturday. So you go from 24 down from eight to nine degrees and in fact you can see the cold air try to come in. And then look what happens next week, another ridge begins to build and the temperatures could once again warm up to well above normal values as we approach November at that point, but here's what's happening around the Caribbean, little area of disturbed weather just North of San Juan, Puerto Rico. At this point, if anything forms abyss it looks like it will work his way back out towards the Atlantic. Nassau, nice day, partly cloudy skies around 29 degrees.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SARA SIDNER: Just three weeks to go until the U.S. Presidential Election, Donald Trump is stepping up his claims that the election is rigged against him and alleging widespread voter fraud. In a rally in Wisconsin Monday, he blasted his opponent, Hillary Clinton about her campaign's hacked e-mails. He says one revealed the democratic nominee was fed questions before a town hall during the primaries.

DONALD TRUMP, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hillary even got the questions and answers in advance of a major debate. How do you do that? And think of it, nobody made a big deal, nobody even knows about it. She got the questions in advance to essentially, a debate. Can you imagine -- no, no, no, no. Can you imagine if Donald Trump got the questions in advance? You know what they'd do? They'd reinvent the electric chair, that's what they'd do.

SIDNER: Meanwhile, Trump's wife, Melania is coming to her husband's defense for the first time since his lewd comments about women on a 2005 videotape were released. Several women have made accusations of sexual misconduct against Trump after the Washington Post released that tape. Melania Trump calls her husband's comments inappropriate but blames then Access Hollywood Host Billy Bush for leading that conversation.

MELANIA TRUMP, WIFE OF DONALD TRUMP: I was surprised because that is not the man that I know. And as you can see from the tape, the cameras were not on. He puts only a mic and I wonder if they even knew that the mic was on, because they were kind of a boy talk, and he was lead on like -- egg on from the host to say dirty and bad stuff.

SIDNER: Bringing in now Democratic Strategist Dave Jacobson and Republican Consultant John Thomas. Thank you so much for coming back. Nobody got hurt last time, so we're going to try that again. So, you're going to start a couple of things. I do want to go back to what Donald Trump said. He's been talking a lot about a rigged election. He did mention that Hillary Clinton did get some questions for a debate during the primaries, and that turned out to be true. So does he have a point? Because he's using the small details to say this is an overarching problem.

JOHN THOMAS, REPUBLICAN CONSULTANT: I think you have to separate the rigged accusation in two boxes. The one is the voting system, the actual machines we use, are those rigged? The answer is no. But is the system in terms of the establishment is -- are they coalescing around anybody but Trump, in essence to either get their choice candidate, Hillary Clinton and the democratic primary elected, and to ensure that Donald Trump doesn't win? There are pieces of evidence that point to that direction, so I think the rigged argument he has to be more specific about the establishment and not about the institution that our democracy is founded on.

SIDNER: Is this dangerous to use this sort of language that it's rigged and calling for sort of a revolution if, you know, I suspect if he doesn't win because if he wins I'm sure the story will probably be different.

DAVE JACOBSON, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Absolutely, I mean, I think - look, the reality is he is setting up - I think he's setting up a justification for failure. Because this is a guy who only talks about winning and he makes fun of losers. And so, he can't be a loser, right? There's no way that he would lose. And so, if he ends up not being the president, then something was wrong with the system, right, that's the justification. And I think he's also setting himself up potentially for some sort of like media empire, some T.V. Station, we saw his son-in-law was reportedly - you know, going - I think this was reported in "The New York Times, you know going out saying, "Hey, listen, pitching the idea of like a television station or some sort of media empire. And so, I think he's, perhaps, setting himself up for that. You know, Donald Trump has this sort of hard 40 percent base of voters that like, he can do no harm with, right, like whatever he says like they're not going away from him. And I think he's like setting himself up for giving an answer to those voters, like, "Look, the system is rigged, the system failed and here's what we're going to do if I am not the next president."

SIDNER: It sounds like this won't be over, no matter what the outcome of this election is, even if he is not president that there is still going to be these conversations, correct? And he's still going to be on Twitter and he's still going to be talking about the election.

THOMAS: There's a lot of distrust with the system, with the establishment. And so, as a republican, there's really only a couple of outcomes that I know of. On the one hand, if Donald Trump wins, that's OK as a republican. But if he loses, I hope that it's not close, because if it is close within a point or so, that I'm afraid our base is going to burn down the system. Because they're so angry and I feel that the system robbed it. That means, they're going to go after speaker Paul Ryan and anybody who didn't support the nominee, they're going to go after our actual voting process. So for democracy's sake, I hope it's not close.

SIDNER: What about you - when you - when you look at the situation here, these e-mails that have come out from Hillary Clinton's campaign and from her herself, that would be big news. I mean, it would top the news cycle but because of comments made and because of these tapes that have come out, it sort of has been pushed down. Is he right in saying, "You guys are even paying attention to these important points that have come out from Hillary Clinton's e-mails"?

JACOBSON: Look, they may be important points in the - given the fact that like we're talking about them but there's no smoking gun. And the other issue was like, they're not Hillary Clinton's e-mails and the audio tape was like, Donald Trump's actual voice. Those were his words and the e-mails are emblematic of, like, people who voters just simply don't know. They don't know who John Podesta is, they don't know Robby Mook, the Campaign Manager, right? That's not Hillary or Bill or Hillary, who's running. And I think that's the clear difference. Moreover, like, there's no proven, like, criminal wrongdoing in these e-mails, like, sure you've got that drip, drip, drip but there's no bombshell or October surprise like we saw with the 2005 audio tape. Moreover, it's not just any time, I mean, this is some of the most salacious stuff that we have seen -- rhetoric that we've seen throughout the course of this campaign. And frankly, it's pretty hard to top what we've already seen throughout the course of this race.

THOMAS: And what these e-mails have done -- Dave's right. What e- mails have done is they confirmed our worst suspicions about Hillary Clinton, that she's the most crass politician, that she has a public position and a private position, that she will do whatever she needs to do politically to please a billionaire leftist donor, that there's a million dollar gift to Bill Clinton for five minutes of his time from a foreign government. What's interesting, this sort of on a bigger deal, but the Clintons, smartly are sitting on the ball right now. She's cancelled her public appearances because she knows that you're right, the Trump tapes are more salacious, they're new women and faces have come out. And so, right now, they're sitting on it, but in any other cycle, these e-mails could take down a candidate.

SIDNER: Yeah. Trust issues, they certainly bubble back up with her. I want to mention one more thing. The thing that we have been talking about a lot here is Mosul and what is happening in Iraq. This is a huge movement internationally and in the Middle East and, yet, neither candidate has talked about it even a little bit. I mean, we have heard almost nothing on this subject. Not just Mosul itself, but what's happening in the Middle East and something that's going to affect our country no doubt in the years to come. What do you make of that? Why is that? Is it the public, isn't that interested, are they more sort of self-centered?

THOMAS: You know, it's a great question. If it's not on our soil, immediately they're not concerned. I think what's going on between the WikiLeaks and kind of Trump the reality show, it's just - it's more salacious. I think Trump would be wise to weave this into his narrative as to how there is chaos and largely because over the last eight years, he's done nothing to stem the chaos and Hillary Clinton has been part of that administration. But --

SIDNER: And that's something that Donald Trump has pushed - has talked about.

THOMAS: Yeah, but he can't do it in a consistent disciplined manner. JACOBSON: Well, I think that's the challenge, like there's no

concrete, like, specific, like, foreign policy plan, whether it comes to ISIS, or Iraq, or Syria, or some of these other challenges across the globe, he'd rather put his arm around Vladimir Putin and talk about how he's going to be buddies with him, and potentially, CNN, I believe reported, would even, you know, contemplate meeting with Vladimir Putin before the election even took place. And so, like, he's talking about those kinds of things, but he's not coming up with like specific plans on how to tackle ISIS.

SIDNER: All right, gentlemen, thank you very much, great conversation. I love this. We could this all day long.

JACOBSON: We appreciate it.

SIDNER: Thank you. I appreciate you be here. All right, coming up - just coming up, the first day of the offensive to drive ISIS out of Mosul. We have seen some of the pictures devastating, but we're also seeing some real advancement there. We'll have more on that live from Erbil. Our Michael Holmes will bring that to us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:30:04] VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody. You're watching CNN. I'm John Vause in Los Angeles.

HOLMES: And I'm Michael Holmes live in Erbil, Iraq. Well, a Peshmerga commander says the battle to retake Mosul from ISIS could take two months once they are inside the city. But the Iraqi and Peshmerga forces are reporting progress on their approach to Mosul. They're ahead of schedule. Now as they advance, amnesty international is raising concerns about possible human rights violations. The group accuses Iraqi security forces and paramilitary groups of torture and unlawful killings in their campaigns to free other cities like Fallujah and Tikrit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HAIDER AL-ABADI, PRIME MINISTER OF IRAQ: Any case that there are violations for human rights violation, we will bring justice to those who commit these violations. But there are no human rights violations at this point.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Now earlier I spoke with Ranj Alaaldin about the situation in Mosul. He's a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center and specializes in Middle East modern history.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANJ ALAALDIN, VISITING FELLOW, BROOKINGS DOHA CENTER: At the moment, there is some element of deception to the whole operation. The villages, for example, and the towns that are being recaptured from ISIS have been largely without any significant populations. There is a very significant political dimension to this. Because in order to prevent ISIS from resurrecting itself, from reorganizing, you have to address the kind of conditions you've alluded to. That includes things like rehabilitating Mosul, rehabilitating places like Fallujah and Anbar that have been destroyed. You have to integrate the people that have left back into the local communities, back into their homes, back into the local economy. You've got to give them jobs, basic services, because these are the conditions that gave rise to ISIS in the first place, of course.

HOLMES: There are so many interested parties in this battle, literally on the battlefield. And many of them do have differing agendas. I'm curious what your take is on the fragility or otherwise of the Iraqi state at the moment.

ALAALDIN: Well, the humanitarian and the political interact significantly. There's a massive problem when it comes to administration in Iraq. You've got a fragmented security environment. In this operation itself, you've got forces that are loyal to, answer to the Baghdad federal government. You've got an array of Shia militia groups. You've got the Kurdish Peshmerga forces in the north. So what's missing is the political structures and the political agreements and frameworks that could enable military gains to count in the short and medium term. What Iraq really needs is a serious effort to mend and reconcile some of the divisions and the problems. Because you've got a host of actors involved in this operation that have had conflicting agendas. They've had disputes over the past ten years. These are the problems that have enabled groups like ISIS to thrive over the past 10 years, of course. Because the organization has come in different forms in the past, and even after the Mosul operation, it could splinter into different groups and still make use or exploit those kinds of political disputes and disagreements.

HOLMES: That has been a big fear. You have even among the Sunni tribes, you have disagreements. The Kurds aren't even on one page completely when it comes to what they want, what their agendas are. You have got the Turks on the outside looking in and wanting to be involved. It is such a complex geopolitical as well as a sectarian makeup.

You alluded to this a moment ago. But, you know, you can't defeat an ideology militarily. And that's a sort of adage that has been proven true over and over again. I'm curious what you think will become of ISIS once they, in a geographical sense, no longer exist inside of Iraq. They're not just going to go away if that ideology still exists, and the circumstances remain for that ideology to be appealing, correct?

ALAALDIN: You're absolutely right. So we've seen that ISIS, over the past six months, for example, has committed atrocities throughout Iraq in its usual form. And that is by way of its sleeper cells in Baghdad and other parts of the Iraq. It's committing the kind of bombings, suicide bombings, the IED attacks that it's done with deadly impact over the past 10 years. And as you say, that's because the conditions are still there for it to do all that.

[01:34:57] It's important to be wary of any absence of resistance in the coming period. ISIS could very well blend into the local population in Mosul. Just because it doesn't put up much of a fight this time around, that doesn't mean it isn't investing its resources into the kind of terrorist attacks that I just referred to. That doesn't mean it isn't saving itself for another day to put up the kind of violence, the kind of resistance that it's been putting up over the past decade more generally.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: And I will be back with more from Iraq in next hour. But for now, let's turn it back to John in L.A. John --

VAUSE: Michael, thank you. We'll take a short break. When we come back, I'll talk to Gloria Allred. The outspoken lawyer tells me why she goes after powerful men like Donald Trump when they are accused of sexual misdeeds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: For Donald Trump, the multiple allegations of sexual misconduct are all part of a grand conspiracy, all politically motivated. But now one of his accusers has responded to that. Natasha Stoynoff says back in 2005 at Trump's Florida resort, the Republican nominee forced his tongue down her throat and pushed her against a wall. She was a reporter for "People" magazine at that time.

And in that same magazine she now writes this. Women are talking about this, and they need to. We cannot be silent anymore. I didn't tell my story for politics. I told it for women. Trump says Stoynoff, along with at least eight other women, they're all lying. But he has yet to provide much evidence to refute their claims.

Civil rights lawyer Gloria Allred joins us now from New York. She is representing Summer Zervos, a former contestant on Trump's reality TV show "The Apprentice", who says she was the victim of unwanted sexual advances by Trump.

Gloria, thank you for being with us. Very quickly, about the Natasha Stoynoff case, because in the last 24 hours, at least 6 other people have come forward to say she is telling the truth, including her former journalism professor. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know that what she told me was true. She wasn't, in 2005, calling me in anticipation of doing something negative to him in 2016 during a presidential campaign. That's preposterous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: So legally, how does all this support her case?

GLORIA ALLRED, CIVIL RIGHTS LAWYER: Well, I think when someone describes an incident that is troubling to them, to people who they trust, whether it's members of their family, whether it's coworkers, whether it's a rabbi, a minister, a priest, a healthcare provider, or a professor, they're generally doing so because it's been disturbing to them, and they just want to share what happened and maybe even have someone help them make sense of it. It's not because they're trying to go out and get or do something to that other person. And especially if they've told the matter near the event and not during their political season, I think that many people would say that there is an aura of corroboration and credibilities to what they said.

[01:40:10] VAUSE: OK. Here we go to your client, Summer Zervos. Donald Trump says he vaguely remembers her. He posted this on his Facebook page. Ms. Zervos continued to contact me for help, e-mailing my office on April 14 of this year asking that I visit her restaurant in California. How does that discredit her allegations?

ALLRED: It doesn't, John, at all. And because we said at our original press conference that she had e-mailed him. And the point of all of this is, she wanted to speak with him. She wanted to meet with him, whether it was at her restaurant or someplace else. And she wanted to meet with him because she wanted to confront him, and she wanted him to apologize for what had happened in the Beverly Hills hotel, is what she alleges. That meeting never took place.

VAUSE: OK. Finally, about half a dozen Trump supporters protested outside your office on Tuesday. They're accusing you of being a part of a much bigger conspiracy. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In a town (ph) where Republican presidential candidate may enroll with black voters, Gloria Allred is dispatched to seek and destroy them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: How do you respond to that?

ALLRED: Patently ridiculous. I've been practicing law for 40 years. I call it as I see it. As everyone knows, I went after Democratic Mayor Bob Filner, formally a congressman. And I had filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Mayor Filner on behalf of his communications director, Irene McCormack. After that, 19 women came forward to say that they had also been the victim of sexual misconduct by Mayor Filner, and he had to step down. He was a Democrat.

I went after Anthony Weiner, who was also a Democrat, on behalf of my client who had received texts from Mr. -- from then congressman Wiener. So then he stepped down. Yes, I also went against Republicans like Herman Cain, and then he had to step down. And so, you know, we just -- I care about women. I care about injustices against women by rich, powerful, famous men who may feel that they are entitled to sexually harass women, to sexual abuse women, or assault them or rape them or cause them to have to suffer injustice, and I will continue to do so, whether the perpetrator is a Republican, a Democrat, a Libertarian, a Green Party or any other person. I'm not going to let them get away with it, and women are not going to suffer in silence anymore. VAUSE: Gloria, thank you so much.

ALLRED: Thank you.

VAUSE: U.S. President Barack Obama hosted his last state dinner Tuesday night at the White House. The guests of honor were Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and his wife. But Michelle Obama went out with a bang, stunning the room in a dazzling rose gold Versace gown designed by an Italian. On that political front, though, Mr. Renzi says he is a Clinton supporter. That was well received by many guests who were (inaudible) to the Democrat Party.

You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vuase. WORLD SPORT is next after a short break.

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