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Obama Arrives in Cuba; The Text at the Core of ISIS Recruitment; 2 Altercations at Trump Arizona Rally; GOP Primaries Tuesday in Arizona, Utah, Idaho as Violence Increases; Indians React to Possible Trump Presidency; American Football Goes Abroad; Meyer Lansky Family Seeks Cuban Compensation. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired March 21, 2016 - 01:00   ET

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

[01:00:10] JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN NEWSROOM. Live from Los Angeles.

Ahead this hour the historic visit many thought would never happen in their lifetime. We'll have the latest on President Obama's trip to Cuba.

In Belgium the arrest of Salah Abdeslam is highlighting the country's jihadi problem. And our Nima Elbagir has a special report on just how deep it goes.

And in the U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump is on the offensive after violence at a number of his rallies over the weekend.

Hello, everybody. Great to have you with us. I'm John Vause. NEWSROOM L.A. starts now.

The first full day of President Barack Obama's historic visit to Cuba will include a meeting with his Cuban counterpart on Monday. Mr. Obama became the first U.S. president to visit the island nation in 88 years when Air Force One landed on Sunday. The trip ends more than 50 years of diplomatic estrangement.

Crowds watched the Obama family as they walked through the colonial- era streets of Old Havana. The president toured the city's 18th century cathedral, meeting with Cardinal Jaime Ortega, he is a supporter of improving U.S./Cuban ties.

Hours before Mr. Obama arrived police arrested scores of dissidents from a group Ladies in White. They hold a weekly protest in Havana. One protest leader reportedly calling on Mr. Obama to demand the freedom of political prisoners and an end to police violence.

The president is scheduled to meet with the Cuban dissidents later on his trip. Jim Acosta has more now reporting in from Havana.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Change is in the air here in Cuba as President Obama prepares to spend his first full day here on the island. The president will begin his day laying a wreath at the memorial remembering the Cuban revolutionary, Jose Marti. And then the president will sit down for a formal bilateral meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro.

As for last night, the president and the first family, they took a walking tour of Old Havana, even stopped at the Old Cathedral here in the Cuban capital. And that was after the president addressed members of the U.S. embassy here in Havana where he talked about the significance of this trip.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's been nearly 90 years since a U.S. president stepped foot in Cuba. It is wonderful to be here. Back in 1928, President Coolidge came on a battleship. It took him three days to get here. It only took me three hours.

(LAUGHTER)

ACOSTA: Later on, tomorrow, the president will be delivering a speech to the Cuban people. And the White House says the president will be talking about expanding human rights for the Cuban people, talking about freedom of speech and freedom of the press. After that, the president will wind down his trip to Cuba with a baseball game between the Cuban National Team and the Tampa Bay Rays.

Jim Acosta, CNN, Havana.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: OK, so for more now on President Obama's trip to Cuba, we're joined by Luis Alvarado. He's a political affairs -- public affairs, sorry, political and media strategist.

Luis, thanks for coming in. OK. We're looking at the pictures. I mean, they're moving, they're monumental, they're historic. But, you know, to actually see an American president, and this is really the first time a U.S. president has gone to post-revolutionary Cuba. So, you know, can you sort of put into words just how significant this event will be, not just today but in the coming days?

LUIS ALVARADO, POLITICAL AND MEDIA STRATEGIST: Well, the question is significant for who. If you look at the Cuban people, I think everybody's excited about watching the motorcade. They've never seen a motorcade so extensive.

(CROSSTALK)

VAUSE: So all the people driving down the (INAUDIBLE), right?

ALVARADO: They want to see the beast. Right. If you look at the Cuban government, they're looking to see how they're going to take advantage of this presidential visit, because President Obama's actually been very forthcoming from a policy perspective that he's offering him. He's traveling with all these businesspeople --

VAUSE: It's like 800 people with him, I think.

ALVARADO: Yes. It's a huge delegation.

VAUSE: Yes. ALVARADO: So that's for them. Not for the Barack Obama

administration, you know, that's still a big question in the air with regards to what are they looking for. What's a big win for them. Obviously we know that he is going to address the human rights issue in meeting with dissidents, but at the same time we hear the government has ordered the Cubans not to meet with the president.

VAUSE: Right.

ALVARADO: And actually are going around arresting dissidents. So --

VAUSE: And so I just -- I will pick up that point because we saw dissidents being arrested just hours before President Obama arrived. You know, that's not exactly a good sign, is it?

ALVARADO: It's not because it actually reinforces the sense that with Cuban Americans and many of our elected officials are saying that regime is actually a bad regime, it's actually --

VAUSE: It's not changing?

ALVARADO: It's not changing. And I don't see how it can actually change overnight. I don't see that this is going to make things faster. I think Barack Obama understands that and I think American and Cubans understand that. The question is, how do we move the chess game to America's advantage down the road when the next president, the next administration, has an opportunity to address the same issues and with the Cuban government be willing to go further and actually have a meaningful conversation.

[01:05:06] We hear Raul Castro saying that, absolutely, the U.S. has to give up its base in Guantanamo. And I assure you that's not going to happen.

VAUSE: Not going to happen. And so how much leverage -- a lot of the criticism of President Obama, even from his own party, from Democrats, is that he gave away the farm, gave up too much for this diplomatic thaw to happen. And he doesn't have a lot of leverage now. On those issues like human rights, freedom of the press, democracy. That kind of stuff.

ALVARADO: Because we have checks and balances in America. And he cannot give away that much of the farm because Congress has to ratify whatever treaties there have to be. The reality is, we still don't know what he's giving away. From a PR perspective, I think it's understandable that the vice president should have been the first one to go there, or there should have been a slow escalation, but I think --

VAUSE: Well, we saw Secretary of State Kerry, though, so --

ALVARADO: Absolutely. But for President Obama to go and take his whole family, including his mother-in-law.

VAUSE: Right.

ALVARADO: It almost seems like he's the one who personally wanted to go.

VAUSE: OK.

ALVARADO: And I think it also gives us a window what kind of president he's going to be after the White House.

VAUSE: Yes.

ALVARADO: With regards to how he's going to deal with world issues.

VAUSE: All of this was done with executive action. The ending -- re- establishing the diplomatic relations. It can all be undone with executive action. But having the president physically on the ground with his wife, his daughters, and his mother-in-law, I mean, that doesn't change anything legally, does it change the perception, though, that this is now pretty much set in stone?

ALVARADO: It does. But the question still remains also, for America, what happens to the rest of Latin America? I mean, my Puerto Rican friends are telling me, you know, the president never set foot in Puerto Rico, which is one of the U.S. territories.

VAUSE: Right.

ALVARADO: Other friends of mine who used -- who were in Cuba and were detained and were tortured at the -- Bay of Pigs.

VAUSE: Yes.

ALVARADO: They're incensed about this visit. But we know by looking at the polls that America is ready to move on and naturally expand the relationship with the Cuban government. The question is actually how long will that take? And we know that this trip could be a catalyst to actually having that relationship. But it's certainly not going to be the one that's going to close and making sure that it's done all the way.

VAUSE: And of course the big issue is the trade embargo. As you said that can only be lifted by Congress. If you say that Americans and in particular, you know, Cuban Americans who live there now, most of them are looking at this and saying, it's about time. How long, though, before Congress will act to lift that trade embargo? What needs to happen before the blockade as the Cubans call it is lifted?

ALVARADO: Well, the oath of office the president took is to look after the interests of the American people. And although there is a global responsibility by this nation in regards to foreign policy, there has to be something that is beneficial to the American people. And not until an administration is willing or able to present that argument will I think Congress be looking forward to expanding that. But at the end of the day, I think everybody knows we're looking for the Castros themselves to be out of the picture before anything of substance can be negotiated to bring that relationship together.

VAUSE: I guess finally this is the point. I mean, Fidel Castro is 90 years old. He's in poor health. Raul Castro is not much younger. It was interesting, though, that the day that President Obama arrived, Fidel Castro issued these photographs of his meeting with Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela. And that he won't be meeting with President. In some ways it's actually the conflict which is happening on the Cuban side.

ALVARADO: Well, we have to remember that the Cubans have been playing political chess with American presidents since 1959.

VAUSE: They're good at it.

ALVARADO: Barack Obama is very -- is the rookie in this negotiation process.

VAUSE: Right.

ALVARADO: And Fidel Castro knows exactly what he's doing. And ensuring that he contains and maintains control of the Cuban people inside Cuba. That's the first order of business for the Cuban regime.

VAUSE: Yes.

ALVARADO: And Barack Obama's visit, as we saw with the Pope's visit, is always going to be contained. We saw in earlier reports that Cuban themselves don't know what Barack Obama's doing. They're asking the reporters.

VAUSE: Yes.

ALVARADO: Hey, what's going on?

VAUSE: And there were just two lines in state media today about it which gives you the idea that no one really knows what the end result of it --

ALVARADO: The most impressive thing that I saw in earlier reports was when they asked a Cuban today, hey, would you be interested in having access to the Internet? And his response was, what for? If I can't say what I feel or I think about?

VAUSE: What's the point?

Luis, thanks for coming in.

ALVARADO: It's my pleasure.

VAUSE: Good to talk. Thank you.

ALVARADO: Thank you.

VAUSE: A short break. When we come back, CNN's Nima Elbagir goes into the heart of Belgium's fight against homegrown terrorism, and she reports on the extremist texts at the core of ISIS recruiting.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(SPORTS) (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:13:45] VAUSE: Turkish authorities postponed a soccer match in Istanbul on Sunday because of security concerns one day after a suicide bombing in the city killed four people and wounded dozens. The Interior minister says the Turkish citizen with ties to ISIS carried out Saturday's attack in a busy tourist area. Five people have been detained in connection to the blast.

Turning now to Belgium and the capture of Salah Abdeslam who investigators allege was involved in the Paris terrorist attack in November that killed 130 people. Abdeslam's capture has put the spotlight on the number of jihadists in Belgium. He was caught in a police raid in the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek.

Hundreds of Belgians, one researcher says, more than 500 have gone to Syria and Iraq to fight with ISIS. By those estimates Belgium has contributed more fighters per capita than any other country in Europe. Authorities believe 130 of those battle-trained extremists have since returned. And a CBS News report estimates there are now more than 800 suspected jihadists in Belgium.

And Belgium's Foreign minister says Salah Abdeslam was planning fresh attacks in Brussels before he was caught on Friday.

Even with his arrest Belgium's fight against homegrown terrorism is far from over. One battle combating an epidemic of extremist literature.

[01:15:02] In the first part of CNN's exclusive series, "Frontline Belgium," Nima Elbagir looks at the textbooks at the core of ISIS recruitment.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A sunny day in the center of Brussels. For years authorities here have been combating an epidemic of extremist literature. We set out to find how easy it still is to access these texts.

Using an undercover camera, we visited a number of book shops, asking for books we knew espoused violent jihadi ideology. This man stammers nervously before telling me he doesn't have them in but knows where to find them.

Saint-Josse, he says. A small district in the north of Brussels. We head to Saint-Josse.

Another bookshop. Another stammered answer. We're directed to the center of town, back to the first shop. It's starting to feel like we're being given the run around.

Hind Fraihi knows these bookshops all too well.

HIND FRAIHI, RESEARCHER: In several stores, book stores in Brussels -- ELBAGIR: Ten years ago the researcher visited many of them undercover

to expose the extremist literature openly for sale. After she published her findings she found herself at the center of a whirlwind of recrimination, criticism and threats.

FRAIHI: The mayor, the police, the Secret Service, they all said it was too sensational. That I exaggerated. My conclusions were based on, well, just street talks. So they didn't take me serious and they didn't take the young people on streets seriously.

ELBAGIR: The buying and swapping of the books is itself part of the radicalization, seen as evidence of commitment, that the ideology is taking hold.

Armed with the titles and the publishing houses, we don't have to search much further. Through online bookshops in Belgium, extremist literature is delivered right to your front door.

(On camera): We're not disclosing the names of these books but these are amongst the extremist texts being found in the homes and hideouts of suspected militants. They're, essentially, Jihadi 101s. The language in here is horrifying, justifying the targeting of Jews, the conscription of children and matter of fact statements that it is every Muslim's responsibility to bear arms. These are key ISIS tenets.

(Voice-over): In many European countries these books are banned. In Belgium, at best, buying these books may attract unwanted attention from the authorities, but the books and their sale is completely legal.

Videos like this have grown infamous here. Belgium jihadists exhorting those still at home to join them in Iraq and Syria. Estimates vary, but Belgian security sources calculate the average number of Belgians who have successfully left to join ISIS since the Paris attacks, at almost two dozen.

The dramatic capture of the so-called eighth Paris attacker, Salah Abdeslam, just a street away from his childhood home in Brussels after months on the run, a stark reminder of how hard it's been for Belgian authorities to stay one step ahead of the extremist networks, and the tide of extremist literature bolstering the networks is proving even tougher to quell. If anything it appears to be even easier to obtain.

Nima Elbagir, CNN, Brussels.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: This week, Nima will bring you more from inside Belgium's fight against homegrown terrorism including a look at the fear of radicalized Belgians coming home, also losing more children to the lure of ISIS.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELBAGIR: Belgium security sources tell CNN in 2015 an average of five to six Belgians a month left to join ISIS. And it's a pipeline that flows both ways. For the families and the communities they return to it only exacerbates the fear.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (Through Translator): Every sign, every case, is different. When you look at them separately they don't look like signs of radicalization but when you look at the whole picture you realize that these are signs of radicalization, they're part of the recruitment process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Watch Nima's investigation Tuesday on our series "Frontline Belgium," you'll see it only here on CNN.

And we have more now on Abdeslam's capture. We're joined in the CNN by CNN law enforcement contributor Steve Moore and by Skype, our intelligence and security analyst Bob Baer.

First question to you, Bob, and it's regarding a couple of things that were brought up in Nima's piece, and one of the things we said before we got to you about the situation in Belgium.

[01:20:09] Why is Belgium such a fertile recruiting ground for ISIS? Specially compared to other countries in Europe like France just next door.

ROBERT BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Well, it's the North African community there, John. They're unassimilated, high unemployment. There's very few opportunities. There's prejudice against North Africans. These young men and women just don't have ways out. And a lot of them have turned to crime. They're recruited in prison or even if they haven't been arrested, they still look at Islam as an alternative. And the whole idea of going to Syria and Iraq is giving them a cause they didn't have before. You see the same thing in France, though. Just Belgium is worse and it's because it's more difficult for them there.

VAUSE: OK. Steve, to you, about Abdeslam, his lawyer is now saying that he's talking, he's given up the right to remain silent. As an investigator, as a former FBI officer, you get somebody like this in your custody. How do you go about getting the information out of them and making sure that what they're telling you is the truth?

STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRIBUTOR: You have to verify everything they say. If they say they went to the shop, you're going to have to verify everything about this because they'll send you down all sorts of different little roads and alleys that aren't true. So you'd have -- the key is verifying everything that they say right down to the smallest detail.

VAUSE: OK. And Bob, to you, how important is having Abdeslam, you know, the eighth Paris attacker? How much will the information that he gives up lead to other terror cells there in Belgium, also in France?

BAER: Well, John, what we know about him, he's not completely committed. He was supposed to have killed himself with a vest in Paris and he didn't. He backed out. And he's been talking about carrying out other attacks, but you know, how serious is that? He seems to be in a sense on the fence and once he gets, you know, extradited to France, I think the French will work on him. They don't use torture there but they're very good.

And as Steve was saying, you know, once he starts talking, he'll start giving up things. And it's a matter of, you know, giving damaging information. And that's when you know you finally turned him. Once these people are on -- you know, in a system where they're interrogated every day, they tend to break down.

VAUSE: And Steve, you know, a lot of people are surprised that he was actually found just a short walk from grandma's house about 500 meters or 500 yards away. They say he had this -- they have now this crucial insight into this sort of local network that was supporting him. So, you know, in your experience, when you deal with these kind of guys, who makes up that network of people, who would they be?

MOORE: Well, in Nima's report. we saw the bookstores. That's where this comes to the surface. You're going to find the network starting to connect from there. Anywhere where you find these radicals, it's going to be -- whether it's family, friends, or people involved in this type of dissemination of radical information, that's where you're going to look.

VAUSE: OK. But Bob was saying before that one of the things he was surprised at was that family members who are actually involved in hiding this guy. Were you surprised by that? Or do you think that's fairly common?

MOORE: I understand what Bob's saying. And I agree with it. But in working fugitives I found that family sometimes doesn't -- don't really care about what their relatives have done. They may not be ISIS supporters or extremists, but it's their son, daughter, whatever it is.

VAUSE: And Bob, to you, you know, a lot of people may be saying, well, why didn't the family turn this guy in? Why didn't they call up? Is it because they're supporters? Or because they're afraid? Or maybe both?

BAER: They could be afraid, John. But also you have to look at the conflicts in the Middle East. These people are identifying with orthodox Muslims, Sunnis who are dying in droves, whether it's Raqqa, or Tikrit, or Ramadi, and the rest of it. And they look at Iran in particular. You know, supposedly a relationship with the United States destroyed them and so they sympathize with these people.

We cannot underestimate these people are driven by a conflict in the Middle East. Until that conflict is stopped you're going to see people self-recruited or recruited at bookstores or mosques.

VAUSE: And Bob, how many more Abdeslams do you think are hiding out there? You know, what's the ISIS game plan here at the end of the day? BAER: Well, John, look, what surprises me -- I worked in Europe for

many, many years -- is the availability of automatic weapons. That didn't used to happen. A lot of these have come out of places like Albania. You know, and remember, this Paris cell, we've got 18, 20 people, maybe 30 part of it. The question is how many more cells are there out there that we don't know about, that have arms, and that certainly are capable of building -- of making these bombs of TATP, peroxide acetone bombs.

[01:25:09] It's very easy to make. The technology's out there. So I think the danger is very real. And when the police warn about it, I think that they're justified.

VAUSE: And Steve, the authorities say they found a lot of weapons, a lot of heavy weapons behind. What else would they have found, and, you know, how does that lead to the next cell, I guess?

MOORE: They're going to look for the documents that they use, their travel documents. Because they're falsified, they're stolen. And sometimes you're going to find that large blocks of these things were stolen at one time. And if you can find some similar documents in other locations, it ties the two groups together. And like Bob says, we may not just be looking for one cell, we may be looking for a dozen cells.

VAUSE: OK. Steve Moore, former special agent with the FBI, Bob Baer, formally with the CIA, and contributors and analysts for our network, thank you both. Appreciate it.

Take a short break here. When we come back, Donald Trump supporters have not pulled any punches when it comes to protesters at their rallies. Now Trump's campaign manager has jumped into the fray in his very own special way.

Plus voters in the world's biggest democracy weigh in on Trump's fast rise in American politics.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause with the headlines.

(HEADLINES)

[01:30:40] VAUSE: There were two physical altercations at the rally for Donald Trump in Arizona Saturday. This is some images of Trump's manager. He appears to be yanking a protester by the collar. A Trump spokesman said the man already had been kicked out of the rally. He made his way back into the event. Then there was this protester with a Ku Klux Klan hood. What can you say? One of Trump supporters was not amused. He responded with a sucker punch.

The Republican front runner described the incident this way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & CEO, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: So they have this guy walk in and the one is dragging the flag and has no respect for the flag whatsoever. Just so you understand, no respect for the flag, no respect for the country whatsoever. And his partner, whoever that may be, has a Ku Klux Klan hat on. You had an African-American man, got incensed and he started hitting the people. At least the one that I saw. And they put him in -- they took him away. And we don't condone violence at all. But they don't say why. We don't condone violence, but why aren't they showing the Klan outfit walking up the stairs? Why aren't they showing that? Again, I say it for everybody, especially for the media, we don't condone violence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Ron Brownstein is with us, a senior political analyst for CNN. Also, senior editor for "The Atlantic."

Ron, always good to have you with us.

We'll get to the violence at the Trump rally in a moment. We have three states voting on Tuesday for the Republican nominee, including Utah. Very interesting poll came out, KSL, a local TV station, and "The Desert News." This poll shows Hillary Clinton beating Donald Trump by a small, narrow margin admittedly, within the margin of error. Look at this Bernie Sanders beating Donald Trump by even a much wider margin. Utah has not gone Democratic in more than 50 years. It's only one poll. Is this a warning sign for the Republicans?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: There are a lot of warning signs for the Republicans. Donald Trump, he has shown the ability to dominate the media, shown the ability to connect with white working-class voters, but he is looking at astronomical negative numbers among all the groups that are growing in the electorate, minorities, Millennials, a college-educated white woman. 70 percent to 80 percent unfavorable ratings among all those groups. Trailing Hillary Clinton I believe in all but three polls since last November. So, yeah, there are a lot of warning lights blinking on the dashboard. The problem is his plurality of the party continues to propel him toward the nomination, even as his warning signs about the general election proliferate.

VAUSE: It's such an incredible confluence of events that have come together to create the situation we're in right now.

Utah isn't the only state which is voting on Tuesday. Arizona also voting on Tuesday. They have some complicated rules about not quite winner take all, you need 50 percent, then it's proportional. This is going to be very important for Ted Cruz. John Kasich, the other challenger, seems to have given up on Arizona. But for Ted Cruz, there's been so much early voting already in this state, this seems like almost impossible for him to get back.

BROWNSTEIN: Arizona is a tough state. Arizona really has been the epicenter of the backlash in the Republican Party on immigration issues. There was S.B.1070, the "show us your papers" law. VAUSE: The sheriff --

(CROSSTALK)

BROWNSTEIN: Sheriff Arpaio.

An interesting fact, in 16 states, the exit polls have asked Republican primary voters, do you support deporting all people here illegally? Or do you believe they should get some kind of legal status? In 14 of the 16 states, less than a majority have supported deportation. The only exceptions are Alabama and Mississippi. But in all 16 of those states, the people who do support deportation are giving Trump such an overwhelming percentage. They are providing a majority of his votes. That is the Republican dilemma here in a nutshell. Trump has a very strong hold on what is probably still a minority of the party. But it is much bigger than the coalition anybody else has put together. So you have a situation where he's moving forward but he is not a majority figure. He is a plurality front runner even at this point.

VAUSE: You think maybe he'll get over 50 percent in Arizona?

BROWNSTEIN: If he's going to get 50 percent anywhere, he has a shot, especially with Kasich not participating. Again, an older electorate that has shown receptivity to the kind of anti-immigration, anti- illegal immigration message he's put forward.

[01:35:11] VAUSE: Donald Trump in Arizona, we've seen another violent clash there at one of his rallies, a couple in fact. This is becoming a hallmark of his campaign so far. Let's look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The press is now calling this thing, oh, but there's such violence. No violence. You know how many people have been hurt at our rallies? I think like basically none.

(SHOUTING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The First Amendment!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get your hands off me!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mother (EXPLETIVE DELETED)!

TRUMP: If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you?

I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees, I promise.

(SHOUTING)

TRUMP: You have to be so nice, so nice, so nice, so nice.

Lies, he lies. I've never seen anything like it.

(SHOUTING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I couldn't believe, man. (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

(SHOUTING)

TRUMP: How many people have been injured at my rallies? Zero. Zero.

(SHOUTING)

TRUMP: There's no violence. There's none whatsoever. People say, well, is there violence? There's no violence. They're love fests. These are love fests.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: It's a love fest. You know, that was over a period of months. We put it all together, so it kind of looks as some may argue it is.

The interesting thing is there was no violence at Jeb Bush rallies, at Marco Rubio rallies. A lot of the reporters covering Trump would say there has always been violence at the Trump rallies.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWNSTEIN: Those are five more incidents than we've seen anywhere else. There hasn't been anything like this since the George Wallace campaign, in 1968, the segregationist governor, who ran as a third- party candidate, as a candidate of white backlash. The racial element can't be papered over. Until the incident in Tucson, all the major incidents have been white Trump supporters fighting with non white Trump protesters. I think that part of the reason is the overall tenor of this is one of the reasons why there are so many Republicans concerned that whatever happens in 2016. Even if Trump, who has shown himself to be a master communicator, can be an effective, competitive general election candidate, that he holds the risk of a lastingly stamping the GOP as a party of racial backlash, at a moment when the country is going through this historic evolution demographically. When George Wallace ran in 1968, non white voters were 7 percent of the voters. They're going to be 30 percent in all likelihood. It's one thing when it's 7 percent. It's another when it's 30 percent.

VAUSE: Donald Trump has a meeting on Monday with Republican Party senior members, if you like the elder statesmen of the Republican Party. What do you read of this meeting? Is this now his attempt to make nice with the establishment, to try and bring them together? And clearly they will want to talk about the violence, they'll want to talk about the tone of his campaign.

BROWNSTEIN: I think the moment for that was after Super Tuesday. When he won Arkansas and Massachusetts, Georgia and --

(CROSSTALK)

VAUSE: Quite a spread.

BROWNSTEIN: It was incredible. And in a traditional race, that is the moment you would have seen the party calling for consolidation. Instead we've had two, three more weeks of just intense polarization, this dispute about the violence, him hinting he would pay the legal fees for the elderly white supporter who sucker punched the black protester, then backing off. The David Duke -- I mean, I think the prospect of a lasting rapprochement between Trump and the party leadership seems to me extremely unlikely, if not impossible at this point.

VAUSE: They keep talking about the stop Trump forces, but they're not putting anyone forward.

BROWNSTEIN: Right.

VAUSE: There's no one actually out there for anybody else to support.

BROWNSTEIN: No.

VAUSE: Isn't that the problem? They need to put a name forward.

BROWNSTEIN: I think -- look, I that I what's not clear -- the goal is not for anybody else to get past Trump, the only goal is to deny Trump the 1,237 --

VAUSE: The majority.

BROWNSTEIN: -- and allow the convention to go forward and pick a nominee. I think at this point it's not necessarily productive to have a vision in your head of who that person would be. The challenge is going to be that no one -- it's possible now, it's plausible that Trump will not get to 1,237. It's not plausible that I believe anybody's going to be close to him. So the question is as Trump has correctly noting, can you leap over someone who may be 100, 150 delegates short, someone who's 500 delegates short? At that point, you may be talking about bringing somebody in from the outside, and the name mentioned is Paul Ryan, speaker of the House.

[01:40:19] VAUSE: Who says he doesn't want to do it but he said he didn't want to be speaker of the House.

BROWNSTEIN: He said he didn't want to be speaker of the House but now he's got that big gavel, so who knows.

VAUSE: Who knows? This story getting more and more interesting by the day. Ron, thank you.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you, John. VAUSE: As Trump gets closer to securing the Republican nomination, many of the world's biggest democracy getting increasingly uncomfortable with the candidate and his views on Muslims.

Sumnima Udas has that part of the story from New Delhi.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUMNIMA UDAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On the cover of one of India's top publications, an angry and petulant Donald Trump, headlined "An American Nightmare."

KRISHNA PRASAD, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, OUTLOOK MAGAZINE: The more incendiary he gets, the more Indians wrinkle.

(SHOUTING)

UDAS: Waking up and noticing a person of Indian origin holding a "stop hate" banner being ushered out of one of Trump's rallies. The man, apparently a Sikh, wearing a red turban, the same color of Trump's signature hat.

TRUMP: No, he wasn't wearing one of those hats, was he? Was he wearing one of those? And he never will.

UDAS: Many here were outraged including provocative TV talk show hosts.

UNIDENTIFIED INDIAN TALK SHOW HOST: This is not an insult of the Sikh community. That is an insult of all Indians. Go and tell this man, this bigoted, semi-literate idiot called Donald Trump --

UDAS: Trump is hardly a household name here, but now the editor of "Outlook" magazine says it's impossible to ignore him.

PRASAD: After Super Tuesday, I think it became more and more clear that United States was moving in a direction of making him the Republican candidate. So having considered him for a period of time the moment arrived.

UDAS: We, too, thought the moment was right to explore what Indians think of a potential President Trump. Most didn't know of him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

UDAS (on camera): No. No idea?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No idea.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.

UDAS: Never?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Never.

UDAS (voice-over): Those who did didn't think much of him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't like him.

UDAS (on camera): No?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not at all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don't like him.

UDAS: You don't like him, why?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's real scary right now.

UDAS (voice-over): The dominant concern, his comments on Muslims.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That is not the kind of leadership we look for.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The way he said for Muslims, maybe one day he'll say for Indians, we don't know.

(CHANTING)

UDAS (voice-over): In a country with 170 million Muslims, his style of politics is a sensitive issue.

PRASAD: The brashness. The insensitiveness. There's enough of it in all that he says. Pretty much what's happening not just in America, but what's happening in India, where there's raging debate on nationalism, raging debate on immigrants.

UDAS: Still, while Indians may relate to the Trump phenomenon, many here say they expect better of America.

(SHOUTING)

UDAS: Sumnima Udas, CNN, New Delhi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Next on CNN NEWSROOM, L.A., American football is heading abroad again, this time to Egypt, where 10 NFL players have a training camp for those who would like to play.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:46:36] VAUSE: Game, set, match for Novak Djokovic, who continued his winning streak Sunday, dominating victory at the VMO finals at Indian Wells. He won 6-2, some say 6-0. I say 6-love. It was a good win. This is the 62nd career title for Djokovic.

American football players traveled to Egypt recently. Hundreds signed up for a training camp in Cairo to learn from some of the best in the field.

Here's Ian Lee.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARSHAWN LYNCH, FORMER NFL RUNNING BACK: Hey, no, don't do that. Do not lead with -- don't do that. Not this, not that.

IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is how you get into beast mode.

LYNCH: Hey, don't dive like that.

LEE: Learning to hit from former NFL running back, Marshawn Lynch.

(LAUGHTER) LEE: This isn't a camp near you. American football is going abroad,

bringing the hits, the pain, and unique motivation.

LYNCH: More you get hit, the more I get paid. The more I get paid! Hey, that's not working!

LEE: It's American football without barriers, or AFWB for short. 10 NFL players held a three-day camp in Egypt.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here's a sport that it's newer, it's different in their culture. But it's a fun sport. It's a huge team sport. It's really the definition of a team sport. And it builds friendships and life-long friendships.

LEE: Football isn't completely unknown in the land of pharaohs. Egypt already has two leagues and a dozen teams.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People here in Egypt, they like violent sports a little bit. And this is appealing to them. People say, that's amazing, I want to do this, I want to hit somebody.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Actually, I prefer for lineman defense because I love hits. I love being aggressive like that.

LYNCH: Get out of here, get out of here, let's go, let's go, let's go!

LEE: 400 people signed up within hours to learn from the best, including from Egypt's two all-female teams.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had a dream like, for the sport, especially for women here in Egypt to prosper here.

LYNCH: For y'all, y'all show great teamwork, and that's very important in the sport of football.

LEE: But there's more to football than the hitting, drills and push- ups.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want to polish it up from a standpoint of, you have to eat right, you have to be healthy when you play this sport, you have to make sure that you have the right equipment. Because when you have these popup sports in other countries they're not always doing it right.

LEE: It's unlikely the gridiron will overtake the pitch, at least any time soon. Soccer is still king in Egypt. But who knows, football could make an interception and lead to a touchdown here.

(SHOUTING)

LEE: Ian Lee, CNN, Cairo.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[01:49:42] VAUSE: When we come back, more on the thawing relations between United States and Cuba. And that means business opportunities, especially for the heirs from an American mobster. They say Cuba owes them compensation for that hotel, and they want it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: U.S. President Barack Obama's historic trip to Cuba right now is seen as a renewal of ties between both nations, also some business opportunities. And that means a business opportunity for the family of an American mobster seeking compensation from Cuba for a hotel which was seized during Cuba's revolution.

Patrick Oppmann has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY RAPPAPORT, GRANDSON OF MEYER LANSKY: In about a year, he'd have been paid off as far as the investment. He didn't get that year.

PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Gary Rappaport remembers his grandfather's hotel in Havana, the Hotel Riviera. When it was built in 1957, the Riviera was one of Cuba's most luxurious hotels. It catered to the American jet set who wanted a swanky hotel, a place to play some blackjack, with an ocean view. The party ended when Fidel Castro took power and sent the owners packing, including the Riviera's owner, Meyer Lansky.

If the name sounds familiar, it's because Lansky was the brains of the American mafia. He raked in a fortune from bootlegging and gambling. He was so notorious, a character based on Lansky appeared in "The Godfather, II."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: This is the business we've chosen.

[01:55:00] OPPMANN: But Lansky said he went broke when Castro seized his Havana investments. Pursued by the government for decades, Lansky died in 1983. He never put in the claim for the properties he lost in the Communist-run island.

But now that ties are warming between the U.S. and Cuba, Lansky's grandson, Gary, and daughter, Sandra, want the Cuban government to pay them for what they took away.

RAPPAPORT: I think it owes us. And I mean -- I'm speaking for my mom and my Uncle Paul and myself. We're the remainders of the estate of Meyer Lansky. They owed Meyer Lansky.

OPPMANN: Cuban officials say they are willing to negotiate to resettle with the Americans who lost property after the revolution but that Cuba is owed billions for damages from the U.S. trade embargo. It's hard to imagine Cuban officials paying money to the family of a man they call a mobster.

(on camera): One roadblock for Meyer Lansky's heirs could be that the Cuban government views the mob hotels as symbols of vice and corruption. They were confiscated rather than nationalized, Cuban officials say, making it much as likely the government would ever pay compensation for the Hotel Riviera.

(voice-over): Lansky's daughter and grandson live simply in Florida. They inherited Lansky's notoriety but little of his alleged ill-gotten gains.

RAPPAPORT: There was a lot in the estate that never got to us. Do we cry about it? Nah. We're Lanskys. We just move on.

OPPMANN: The Riviera Hotel remains just out of reach for his family. It is now a shadow of its former self, waiting for perhaps another wealthy foreign investor to return Meyer Lansky's hotel to its former glory.

Patrick Oppmann, CNN, Havana

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM, live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause.

The news continues next with Rosemary Church and Errol Barnett right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[02:00:11] BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is a historic visit and it's a historic opportunity to engage directly with the Cuban people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)