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G7 Leaders Brace for Trump's Arrival; Trump Hiking Tariffs on Billions in Chinese Imports; North Korea Fires Two Projectiles; Brazilian President Authorizes Armed Forces to Fight Amazon Blazes; New Reports of Radiation Exposure after Russian Missile Test; Church Loses Much of Its Congregation after ICE Raid; Christians Discuss Supporting Trump in 2020; Democrat Seth Moulton Drops Out of Presidential Race. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired August 24, 2019 - 03:00   ET

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

[03:00:00]

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CYRIL VANIER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): The U.S. president amps up his trade war with China. We're live in Beijing with reaction.

Donald Trump heads to France for the G7 summit. Sources tell CNN he is not too keen on attending.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is not new rhetoric. It's just that we have a president now who speaks plainly.

VANIER (voice-over): Remember when Donald Trump said he was the chosen one?

Evangelical voters talk about whether the president's behavior will affect their votes in the next election.

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VANIER (voice-over): Live from the CNN Center here in Atlanta, great to have you with us.

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VANIER: As we speak, the U.S. president is flying over the Atlantic on his way to the G7 summit that gets underway in the coming hours. President Trump is not a fan of the international forum. He considers it a waste of time. But he is going reluctantly.

Looming over the summit, the trade dispute between Washington and Beijing that rattled markets. It blew up on Friday when he announced he was increasing tariffs on Chinese imports after China imposed new imports on American goods.

That sent Wall Street into a panic. The Dow plunged more than 700 points and finally closed down 623. Before leaving the White House, the president claimed he was simply cleaning up the mess left by previous administrations.

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TRUMP: Look, China has been hurting our country for 30 years with the money they have been taking out. Other presidents should have done something about it and they should have done it a long time ago, whether it was Clinton or Bush or Obama, any of them. They should have done something about it. And they didn't.

I'm doing it. I have no choice because we are not going to lose close to a trillion dollars a year to China. And China understands that. I hope that with President Xi, I have a good relationship, but they understand we are not going to do it.

This is more important than anything else right now just about that we are working on.

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CNN's Steven Jiang joins us from Beijing. He has the latest from there.

Any reaction to the U.S. response?

In other words, to the U.S. promise of increased tariffs?

STEVEN JIANG, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER, BEIJING BUREAU: The government has not responded to the latest twist. And state media have stayed quiet. The swiftness of Mr. Trump's we tariff hikes probably caught people off guard.

But the Chinese counter tariffs announcement Friday night was not a surprise. They had been saying for some time they would retaliate against the new tariffs Mr. Trump announced earlier on $300 billion of China's imports.

One thing to note, the Chinese countertariffs are not dollar to dollar. The Chinese are literally running out of things to tax on. They import a lot less from the U.S. So this could mean the Chinese government could launch more non-tariff barriers against the American business here.

They want to launch a non-reliable entity list, a block list against foreign companies the government deems to be harming consumer and national interests. A few American companies' names have been floating to be put on that list for some time. They can delay licensing deals or customs clearance, just making American companies' life difficult.

So that could be even more escalation in this trade war that really shows no sign of ending anytime soon.

VANIER: You know, over here, Donald Trump says that the U.S. economy can outlast the Chinese economy in this trade war.

How long can China last here? JIANG: That's the thing. Mr. Trump has made a lot of claims, including how the Chinese economy is hurting and all of the tariffs he put on Chinese goods are more money going to the U.S. Treasury.

A lot of those claims are being disputed in the U.S., as well. Here, a lot of his tactics, according to many analysts, may strengthen the hand of President Xi, who had been, according to observers, facing critics and skeptics over his handling of U.S.-China relations after the trade war broke out.

Now Xi can push back the criticisms, telling people, look --

[03:05:00]

JIANG: -- Trump is impossible to manage. And all of his flip- flopping and trade bullying only means one thing, that China needs a powerful leader like me to really push back on America. We can defeat the American plan to contain the rise of China on the global stage. That's the political implication here in Beijing.

VANIER: Steven Jiang, thank you so much.

Let's go to Nic Robertson. He is standing by for us in southern France.

President Trump is still a few hours away, coming to the G7 summit. He has such different policy priorities than the other countries that will be attending, maybe with the exception of Italy.

Is the G7 still a good place to do diplomacy in this context?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: The G7, like the G20 and other big international forums, are created for multilateral diplomacy for a number of nations to get together on climate and trade, to fix problems.

One of the big concerns coming into this is the escalating trade war between China and the United States. In the past, these forums would have been a place -- go back to the big economic crisis of 2008 -- where world leaders can together shape a policy and a plan that can deal with a global issue.

Here in France, climate change would be one of those. But the United States and President Trump is an outlier. A lot of people look at the G7 and think of it as a 6+1. Trump likes bilateral meetings. He doesn't like multilateral meetings. He has different views on trade, different views on climate change.

But they are still -- if you go back and look at last summer's G7, when all the leaders sitting around Trump, that infamous photograph of Angela Merkel in a staredown with President Trump, it didn't produce the required diplomacy at the end. President Trump refused to sign a joint communique, that, here in France, president Macron has said won't be a communique.

But it does allow the other concerned and important nations around the world to put their views to what many would consider the most powerful leader in the world.

Yes, in that context. But they're much more fraught. I give you a sense of how fraught they are. President Trump is pushing back -- excuse me -- on what France proposes on taxation, on digital companies, the likes of Amazon and Google. President Trump is pushing back on that and threatening president Macron with taxes on French wine. This is how he put it.

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TRUMP: I don't want them doing anything having to do with taxing unfairly our companies. Those are great American companies and, frankly, I don't want France going out and taxing our companies; very unfair. And if they do that, we'll be taxing their wine or doing something else. We'll be taxing their wine like they've never seen before.

It's for us to tax them. Other than that, I have a good relationship with -- as you know, with Macron, as you say. I think we'll have a good couple of days.

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VANIER: This is a perfect example of what diplomacy can actually happen at a G7. You had Britain and Italy thinking of similar types of taxation although I don't expect Boris Johnson to stand up too strongly to President Trump behind closed doors. And Germany and Japan, not taken a view the way France has on this issue.

It is an opportunity for those leaders to put their views in front of President Trump.

Will it count for anything so far?

We've seen not so much.

VANIER: Nic Robertson. It is 9:00 am in France where you are. Trump will be with you in about three hours or so. Nic, we'll speak to you again. Thank you so much.

For more on all of this, CNN national security analyst Samantha Vinograd joins me via Skype.

The trade war just escalated sharply between the U.S. and China. That perhaps was predictable. But this time, Donald Trump dropped any pretense he was still friends with the Chinese president.

In fact, in a tweet, he wondered if President Xi was the greatest enemy. For the president it was between Xi Jinping and his own Fed chairman, Jay Powell. But we'll set that aside for a moment.

Is that a turning point, the fact that Donald Trump is no longer touting his relationship with Xi as a potential gateway to solution?

[03:10:00] SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Donald Trump flip-flops on his relationships almost as quickly as he makes friends with dictators and despots.

We know that President Trump has tried to court Xi Jinping since he came into office, just like he tried to court despots like Vladimir Putin or Erdogan, Mohammed bin Salman and even Kim Jong-un. He is operating based on a strategy that his personal rapport with these men can help navigate highly complex issues.

We've seen up until this point is President Xi and President Trump getting together, making some grandiose statements about how to end this trade war, when the underlying facts haven't changed.

There's strategic issues, between the United States and China, from intellectual property theft to cyber espionage, to the trade deficit, that negotiators have not been able to make headway on. So it's not surprising we are with where we are.

President Trump has for the moment said nasty things about President Xi but what a difference 10 days make. Ten days ago, he was tweeting about the great leader that Jinping is.

So my prediction would be that, if President Trump and President Xi reconcile at the G7 meeting, we will go back to roses and rainbows with respect to their relationship. But again, their negotiators have not made progress on the scope of issues that need to be addressed.

VANIER: Donald Trump is heading towards a G7, this is the G7 weekend. Apparently, he didn't want to go to the G7. I would assume that the world leaders there, who are seeing and feeling the effects of a world economic slowdown, are going to want to address the U.S.-China trade war.

You've been --

VINOGRAD: -- it used to be the G8.

VANIER: -- with the Obama administration.

How do you think other world leaders will address this with the president, if at all?

VINOGRAD: I think they're going to try to work around him. Macron has already announced there won't be a communique, that is a hallmark of the G8 or the G7 because it is an international message of cohesion and coordination.

Typically in that communique, you have leaders talk about how to stabilize the global economy. As you mentioned because of the trade war, there are downside risks because of our economic outlook.

But because President Trump and President Xi are the primary instigators of that, the best case scenario here, with respect to the other leaders, is trying to get President Trump and President Xi not to make more escalatory statements that rile markets. President Trump tweeted today; markets nose-dived in the United

States. You can see a scenario where Macron, Merkel, Boris Johnson and others try to encourage the president to not upset markets further and to take his conversations on the trade front behind closed doors, so we don't do any more damage.

VANIER: Just for context, I want to bring up a picture of last year. This is Trump surrendered by world leaders. They didn't look best pleased with him. He left that meeting calling the host of the Canadian G7 a liar.

That didn't go down too well. What's going to -- what's it like, when the leaders don't get along, when they have a president like Donald Trump, who is not playing the game. He does not like multilateralism, he does have the same policy priorities as they do?

What is the point of the G7?

VINOGRAD: The last G8 I went to at Camp David, it wasn't dissimilar in that the Russians were present. And they by no means saw eye-to- eye on myriad issues that the other leaders were discussing.

So it's not atypical that there's a skunk at the party, so to speak. The difference this time is that it's the United States. The United States used to lead multilateral institutions and organizations.

Instead, now, these other leaders are trying to, as I mentioned, babysit the president. So in terms of what they're trying to get out of this, the other leaders, I do think they're going to try to make progress on environmental sustainability and gender equality. Two issues on the G7 website that Macron posted.

But when it comes to the core issues that Trump disagrees on, Iran or North Korea even or how the U.S. economy is doing, I think we're going to see some public distance.

And I also think that's unfortunately going to have an impact on markets going forward. It's not like Trump's going to be honest with other leaders publicly and privately about the real dynamics at play here in the United States. He will probably make statements that are detrimental to our allies, detrimental to multilateralism --

[03:15:00]

VINOGRAD: -- that put him in the camp of autocrats that try to game the system, rather than make the system work.

VANIER: The host this year, the French president already said, we're not doing a communique this year. So that speaks volumes. Samantha Vinograd, thank you for joining us.

VINOGRAD: Good night.

VANIER: The number of launches continues to climb. North Korea carried out another missile test. We'll get the late in a live report from the region and tell you what the U.S. president has to say about that.

Also ahead, fires are raging in the Brazilian Amazon. That's impacting even more than the rain forest. Stay with us.

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TRUMP: Kim Jong-un has been, you know, pretty straight with me, I think. And we're going to see what is going on. We'll see what is happening. He likes testing missiles. But we never restricted short- range missiles. We'll see what happens.

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VANIER: President Trump downplaying there, the latest North Korean missile test. The South Korean military says it detected two projectiles thought to be short-range ballistic missiles launched early Saturday morning. David Culver is in Seoul, South Korea, monitoring this for us.

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VANIER: David, what do we need to know?

DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Picking up where the president left off. These were short-range missiles, according to South Korean military officials. He says he never restricted those. He is referring to his agreement with Kim Jong-un in Singapore.

But those still violate U.N. Security Council regulations. They also threaten South Korea. They threaten Japan. They threaten the tens of thousands of troops in this area. When you look at the short-range missiles and you look at the ones that were test-fired this morning, they have a range, according to South Korean military, of 380 kilometers.

Where we are in Seoul, is about 230 kilometers away from that launch site. Certainly, within range. We look at the missiles that have been tested. While North Korea says they were doing this as a protest to the joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises that wrapped up earlier this week, defense military experts believe they were doing this to enhance their capabilities.

And the technology they claim to be seeing has greatly advanced. This believe this could potentially get to where it's evading missile defense systems operated by the U.S. and South Korea.

So we have to put this in greater context. Two days ago, what we saw from South Korea, ending the intel sharing relationship between South Korea and Japan, this is why this is so important. This is one of those examples, where intelligence from Japan can assist South Korea and vice versa.

And for them to communicate directly with one another is important here.

VANIER: David Culver, reporting live from Seoul. Thank you, David.

Now to the crisis in the Amazon, where fires in the rain forest are having a worldwide impact. And several world leaders, including the U.S. president, have offered to help fight the flames. But Brazil's president has either declined or not responded. Jair Bolsonaro has called in help from the military.

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JAIR BOLSONARO, BRAZILIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): With respect to those who have accepted, I will authorize the operation guarantee of law and order. But showing environmental GLO, the extensive use of personnel and equipment from the armed forces, auxiliaries and other agencies, will not only allow to combat illegal activities but also curb the spread of fires in the region.

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VANIER: Let's talk about the fires in the Amazon with Daniel Brindis. He is a senior forest campaign director for Greenpeace U.S.

So the Brazilian president is sending in the military to fight the fires starting today.

How do you feel about that response?

DANIEL BRINDIS, GREENPEACE U.S.: I think the fires definitely need to be put out. I think the thing we're more concerned about is what is the president going to do, considering that his first eight months in office has been about dismantling environmental protections and dismantling environmental monitoring and transparency and undermining the rights of the indigenous peoples in the Amazon.

VANIER: Who do you think is behind them?

BRINDIS: We know that these are deliberate fires. They're not caused by accident. The fires are burned as part of the deforestation process to clear the climate critical ecosystems for cattle ranches, pasture and cropland.

VANIER: Yes, the Brazilian president, I think 36 hours ago, said -- it was a throwaway comment. But he did say it. He said the NGOs might be behind this.

How did you react to that.

BRINDIS: That's preposterous.

VANIER: Yes, OK. (LAUGHTER)

VANIER: You know what? We'll leave it at that.

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BRINDIS: He actually walked back those accusations and said he actually isn't accusing anyone.

The U.S. has offered help against the fires. So has the prime minister in the U.K.

Do you see them sending firefighters, trucks, planes or not?

BRINDIS: As I said earlier, the issue is not necessarily putting the fires out right now. The emissions from the fires has serious climate consequences.

But the issue I'm most concerned about is what does this mean in terms of concrete steps to end deforestation in the Amazon?

And I'm also skeptical of my own president, Trump, who is taking actions that are hostile to the environment, to science and to endangered species.

VANIER: So when you have a Brazilian president, who doesn't prioritize environmental protection -- he slashed the budgets for his environmental protection agency in Brazil -- what needs to happen?

For example, President Macron decided to make this a priority of his.

[03:25:00]

VANIER: And he says he was lied to by the Brazilian president about environmental commitments. As a result, France is not going to ratify a regional trade deal with Brazil. So they will squeeze Brazil economically. That's a big move if it ends up happening.

Is that the kind of thing you want to see?

BRINDIS: In terms of the overall climate picture, there's a lot world leaders can do in terms of energy use. But a critical part of taking action on climate change is this question of how is the forest protected.

And a country like France imports a lot of the commodities that are produced and produced cheaper because it's done through deforestation. And so it's a problem that doesn't just exist in Brazil, it exists through the world through global agribusiness and trade.

Soy is produced for export, for animal feed. A lot of the cattle, whether it's leather or beef, it's produced for exports.

VANIER: That's interesting and people probably hear what you say and they are purchasing items that might participate in the deforestation of the Amazon. What would you advise to consumers?

BRINDIS: I think as consumers, we need to make our voice heard. These companies that are headquartered in the U.S. around the world, they listen to us. So we need to demand that they produce and sell goods to us in a way that doesn't destroy the Amazon forest. Also there is something to be said about meat consumption.

The U.N. world leading scientists published a report this month that talks about how our current meat consumption is not compatible with preventing climate disruption, with its impact on the forest.

These are all things we need to take into consideration, reducing meat consumption, demanding zero deforestation from multinational companies. And also an important thing to know, standing in solidarity with indigenous peoples and supporting their sovereignty, their land rights.

Scientific data shows when their rights are respected, the forest is in a better condition.

VANIER: A couple years ago, before he was president, Jair Bolsonaro said not one square inch, one square centimeter of the Amazon, would be devoted to their reservations. That's where he stands on that issue.

Thank you so much for joining us today. Appreciate your time.

BRINDIS: Thank you.

VANIER: A Cold War deja vu. The U.S. carries out a missile test and Russia's president orders his military to prepare a "symmetrical response."

Plus separated families in despair and a community torn apart by an immigration raid. Their stories coming up.

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VANIER: Welcome back. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Cyril Vanier. Let's look at your headlines.

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VANIER: With the collapse of a long-standing Cold War nuclear treaty, the U.S. and Russia are back to Cold War style saber-rattling after the U.S. carried out a ground-based Tomahawk missile test, sparking some choice words from Russia's president. Our Fred Pleitgen reports from Moscow.

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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: As President Trump heads for the G7 summit with hopes of once again admitting Vladimir Putin to the exclusive club of world leaders, it appears the two countries they lead are moving even closer to a new nuclear arms race.

During an angry announcement on national TV, the Russian president slammed a recent test by the U.S. of a new type of cruise missile, vowing to match American firepower with his own.

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VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): I instruct the ministries and relevant departments to analyze the level of threat posed by the actions of the United States to our country and take comprehensive measures to prepare a symmetrical response.

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PLEITGEN (voice-over): Russia and the U.S. are blaming each other for killing the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces or INF Treaty, Putin reiterating today, that Russia already has new super weapons in the works.

PUTIN (through translator): We're simply forced and we're obliged of course to ensure the security of our people and our country. We're doing this now and we will certainly do in the future.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): But as Russia vows to develop new weapons, it is still reeling from the malfunction of a nuclear powered missile it was already testing, causing an explosion and a radiation spike in the north of the country and killing five nuclear specialists.

Russian opposition media is reporting two died of radiation poisoning even though the Kremlin is downplaying any dangers posed by the radiation. But authorities in Arkhangelsk, where the explosion took place, acknowledged today, one of the doctors who treated the victims now has the radioactive isotope cesium 137 in his body.

Officials strangely --

[03:35:00]

PLEITGEN (voice-over): -- claiming the contamination didn't come from treating blast victims but from eating seafood.

"Cesium 137 has the feature of accumulating in fish, mushrooms, lichens and algae. With a certain degree of probability, we can assume that this got into the human body through the products of food."

On Monday, Putin told reporters no background radiation had been found. But analysts are skeptical. Moscow has a history of covering up nuclear incidents, including the meltdown at Chernobyl in 1986. The history of that incident now the plot of an HBO series. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- will burn and spread its poison until the entire continent is dead.

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PLEITGEN (voice-over): It's unclear if the leaders of the G7 will discuss the nuclear incident or Trump's interest in readmitting Russia to the group.

TRUMP: I think it's much more appropriate to have Russia in.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): What is clear tonight, though, is that despite Trump's interest in building a bridge to Russia, Vladimir Putin says he is gearing up for a possible new confrontation -- Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Moscow.

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VANIER: To Hong Kong, now, where pro-democracy protesters are flooding the streets for the 12th consecutive weekend. As we speak, demonstrators are holding a large police-approved rally in the area of Kowloon. Parts of the city subway system have been shut down in anticipation of this march. It is just one of several rallies that have been planned this weekend.

Those are live pictures. It's almost 4:00 in the afternoon in Hong Kong.

For the first time, the U.S. government has allowed cameras into one of its family detention centers. The facility in Dealey, Texas, can hold up to 2,400 people. Immigration and Customs Enforcement showed off the center's cafeteria, hair salon, medical facilities.

Until now, the U.S. could only hold children for 20 days. But a new rule detains families together until their asylum court cases are settled. One Mississippi priest says he lost most of his congregation after a huge immigration raid earlier this month.

Hundreds were rounded up in the largest single-state immigration raid in U.S. history. Nick Valencia shows us the scars it left behind.

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NICK VALENCIA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's the start of Thursday mass in Forest, Mississippi, and Father Roberto Mena is trying hard not to show it but he is worried. Today, the pews are mostly empty.

Two weeks ago, ICE agents carried out one of the largest raids in American history and they took as many as 150 people in his congregation. Every one of those left have been impacted by what happened.

Father Mena tries to reassure his parishioners that they're going to be OK, though even he admits since most of the raids, most of his dreams have been nightmares.

As mass ends, parishioners are encouraged to pray to God out loud.

This woman pleads for parents to be reunited with their children. It's a desperate prayer but for many, faith is all that's left.

Gaspar Gomez Pablo says he needs help with an attorney. Along with his wife, the 33-year old was detained in the recent raids at Koch Foods. While he was released with an ankle monitor, his wife is still being held, though they have lived in the U.S. for more than ten years, both of their futures, he says, are uncertain.

He tells me his children are sad, that they don't eat much and ask about their mom. They want to know when she'll be back.

For his 10-year old, the pain of being without his mom is just too much.

(on camera): Do you know where your mom is?

You're sad?

It's hard, huh?

I'm sorry.

REV. ROBERTO MENA, SACRAMENTAL MINISTER, THE CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF JACKSON: I see now the Hispanics are leaving the same kind of discrimination and racism that other faiths in the past.

VALENCIA (voice-over): Father Mena tells me no one in the community seemed to be prepared for the possibility of a raid, or the chance that their family might be split up.

MENA: For me, separating families is the work of the evil one among us. This is something I don't understand why they want to divide families and they are families in this country. All of them, they pay taxes and they are collective to this culture.

VALENCIA: It's a hard thing for many to understand but especially the children.

(on camera): If you could tell your mom anything, what would you tell her?

UNIDENTIFIED BOY: I miss her.

VALENCIA: Of the 680 employees that were detained as a result of these raids, at least 70 have been charged with things that include illegal reentry into the United States as well as falsifying documents.

An ICE official I spoke to earlier said for those wondering whether or not the owners of these companies that were raided would be charged, as well, that --

[03:40:00]

VALENCIA: -- decision will ultimately be left up to the U.S. attorney's office -- Nick Valencia, CNN, Jackson, Mississippi.

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VANIER: U.S. Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has just finished treatment for pancreatic cancer. A court statement says there's no evidence of the disease in her body right now. The 86-year old leads the court's liberal wing, which is outnumbered by conservatives 5-4. This was her fourth bout with cancer.

As fires continue to rage in the Brazilian Amazon, ranchers are taking advantage of the dry season. Ahead, why that is impacting much more than just the land they are cultivating.

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VANIER: In Brazil, people are demanding their government do more to combat the flames raging in the Amazon. Protesters spelled out SOS on the streets of Sao Paulo. That's nearly 3,000 kilometers or 1,700 miles away from the flames. But earlier this week, Sao Paulo itself was plunged into darkness because of thick smoke.

Let's get more details on these Amazon fires.

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VANIER: A group of evangelical voters are speaking out about the U.S. president.

Will their strong support for Mr. Trump continue in 2020?

Or will they vote for someone else instead?

We'll hear from them next.

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VANIER: For years, U.S. president Donald Trump has enjoyed overwhelming approval from evangelical Christians. But now some are questioning their support for the president given his recent actions. Just this week, he quoted a conspiracy theorist who labeled him the

king of Israel and the second coming of God. Mr. Trump also compared himself to a messiah of sorts, saying, jokingly, he later claimed, that he was the chosen one in the trade war with China.

And "Politico" is reporting that the president has taken flak for recently using the Lord's name in vain.

So to find out if evangelicals will support the president in 2020, Randi Kaye spoke with a group of evangelical Christians. Take a look.

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SPENCE SHELTON, UNDECIDED VOTER: I don't think any of us are looking for a pastor in chief, you know? I think we are looking for a commander in chief.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Evangelical Christians in Charlotte, North Carolina, weighing in on campaign 2020 and President Donald Trump.

(on camera) How many of you at this point do plan to vote for Donald Trump? One, two, three, four.

(voice-over) Four support Trump, four are still undecided and one will absolutely not vote for Trump.

BERRY: This man is not morally sound as a leader, as a Christian.

KAYE: Trump's recent comments calling Jewish people disloyal if they vote Democratic is a turnout to some in our group.

(on camera) What do you make of that statement?

LITTLE: As a Trump supporter, I think he was out of line.

KAYE: Does it offend any of you that the president seems to be treating this vast religious group, the Jewish people in this case, as a monolithic voting bloc?

SHELTON: What bothers me is anytime a religious group is lumped together so that they can then be lobbied as if they are all going to vote one way.

ANGELA AMBROISE, UNDECIDED VOTER: We're not monolithic and that's part of what Trump's problem is. Even when he refers to immigration or whatever, he'll go, you know, Hispanics. We -- they're not monolithic.

KAYE: Is this rhetoric danger us?

PEARL BURRIS-FLOYD, (R) FORMER STATE REPRESENTATIVE: This is not new rhetoric. It's just that we have a president now who speaks plainly. It does not make him a racist.

KAYE: When critics of Donald Trump call him white supremacist, call him a racist, you disagree?

BURRIS-FLOYD: I disagree.

KAYE (voice-over): This evangelical voter isn't sold on Trump, but she's happy he's calling attention to issue she says Democrats are ignoring, like undocumented workers taking housing from African- Americans who need it.

AMBROISE: He talks about that. Nobody wants to talk about the elephant in the room, illegal immigration, immigration, nobody wants to talk about it. There is not a city in America that is black folks are not on these streets. Go see Charlotte. People who look like me are on the middle of the streets.

KAYE (on camera): Why are you OK with supporting Donald Trump?

LITTLE: We are imperfect. We are going to offend one another. He is not the pastor at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church. He is my President.

KAYE (voice-over): Trump has been married three times. Has said he's never asked for forgiveness from God and was once pro-choice. But none of that seems to sway his evangelical supporters.

KAYE: Why are you able to look past Donald Trump's flaws and support him?

DARCI HORNE, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Because it's not my place to judge his heart.

KAYE (voice-over): And this week when the president referred to himself as the chosen one, echoing what some evangelical leaders have said about him, that certainly caught this group's attention.

CASEY CRIMMINS, UNDECIDED VOTER: When we ask the question, is he the chosen one? Well, for what? To help our trade agreements with China? Maybe. Is he the guy that's going to help us, you know, solve racism in America? Heck, no.

KAYE (on camera): Part of your faith includes forgiveness. So can you forgive the president for some of the things that he said?

BERRY: Oh, absolutely. I'll forgive him absolutely, but I still have to stand the gap for those who are brutalized on a regular basis and who are left behind.

KAYE: Can you forgive the president?

DAVID DOCUSEN, UNDECIDED VOTER: I have said central --

[03:55:00]

DOCUSEN: -- tenet of our faith.

BERRY: Oh, yes.

DOCUSEN: So, I'm -- yes, I can forgive. I don't have to agree, but I can certainly forgive.

AMBROISE: There is nothing that cannot get under God's umbrella. God is a God of forgiveness.

KAYE (voice-over): Randi Kaye, CNN, Charlotte, North Carolina.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VANIER: The 2020 Democratic presidential field just got a little smaller. Massachusetts congressman Seth Moulton is out. He says it's already a three-way race.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. SETH MOULTON (D-MA): Well, I mean, just look at the polling. You've got Warren and Sanders at about 15 percent, Biden at about twice that but no one else really even close. And I'm not saying that that's a good thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VANIER: Moulton says he will run for re-election to Congress and campaign for whoever gets the Democratic nomination.

One of other Democratic candidates is slamming his own party for its debate rules. Colorado senator Michael Bennet says the rules will likely keep half the field out of the next debate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D-CO), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The DNC process is stifling debate at a time when we need it most. We're rewarding celebrity candidates with millions of Twitter followers, billionaires who buy their way onto the debate stage and candidates who have been running for president for years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VANIER: To qualify, candidates must get at least 2 percent in at least four qualifying polls and have 130,000 unique donors. Bennet has not yet qualified for the debate.

At this hour, independence day celebrations are underway in Ukraine. Saturday marks 28 years since Ukraine was re-established as an independent state. Instead of the usual military parade, the president ordered the nearly $12 million for that event to be given to soldiers as a bonus.

Thank you so much for watching CNN NEWSROOM this hour. I'm Cyril Vanier. Up next, great news, George Howell will be with you. Have a fantastic day.

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