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Poll: Majority of U.S. Voters Oppose Impeachment; Some Pennsylvania Voters Moving Away from Trump; Trump Appears to Revive Conspiracy Theory on DNC Hack; U.N. Report: Sea Levels Will Rise Faster Than Expected; U.S. University Receives Donation to Study Kindness; Baby Archie Makes First Official Appearance. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired September 26, 2019 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world. I am Rosemary Church.
Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, Donald Trump on defense, saying he never pressured Ukraine for dirt on Joe Biden. But a transcript of that conversation seems to say otherwise.
Boris Johnson unrepentant in the face of furious MPs after his humiliating Supreme Court loss.
And the moment many royal watchers have been eagerly waiting for, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex give us our best look yet at baby Archie.
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CHURCH: Good to have you with us.
A head-spinning day in U.S. politics with a number of potentially explosive developments which could, I say could, be stepping stones to only the third impeachment of a president in U.S. history.
Among them, the rough transcript of that phone call between President Trump and the Ukrainian president, which is now being released; a rambling news conference by President Trump, where he again defended his conversation with president Volodymyr Zelensky about Joe Biden and his son, saying there was no quid pro quo and no pressure on Ukraine to investigate the Bidens in exchange for military aid.
Members of Congress are also getting their first look at the whistleblower complaint, which started this investigation about Mr. Trump's actions, this has been declassified and may be released publicly in the coming hours.
All of this led up to Thursday, when acting Director of National Intelligence who has faced scrutiny over his handling of the complaint and the intel inspector general who deemed the complaint credible and urgent, are both to appear before Congress.
During that afternoon news conference that I just referred to, President Trump repeated his claim, that this whole thing is another witch hunt.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: When they look at the information it's a joke. Impeachment for that? When you have a wonderful meeting or you have a wonderful phone conversation?
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CHURCH: Earlier in the day, in his first formal meeting with President Trump, it was clear the Ukrainian president wanted no part of this political battle.
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QUESTION: Did you feel you were pressured by president to investigate Joe Biden?
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF UKRAINE: I think you read everything. I think you read text. I am sorry but I don't want to be involved to democratic, open, elections of USA. You read that nobody pushed me.
TRUMP: In other words, no pressure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: Now we should point out the rough transcript the White House released is not verbatim. A senior White House official says it was developed from notes and voice recognition software. Sara Murray walks us through it.
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SARA MURRAY, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Trump urged the Ukrainian president over and over to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son and he volunteered the help of the U.S. Justice Department to do it.
There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that. So whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great, Trump says in a July 25th call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky according to the rough transcript released Wednesday by the White House.
Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution. So if you can look into it, it sounds horrible to me, Trump says.
Zelensky responds, the next prosecutor general will be 100 percent my person. He or she will look into this situation, specifically to the company you mentioned. Trump insists there's nothing wrong with his request.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: That call was perfect. It couldn't have been nicer.
There was no pressure. The way you had that built up, that call, it was going to be the call from hell.
The phone call was perfect.
MURRAY: But the rough transcript provides the clearest evidence yet that Trump tried to use his position in the Oval Office and the weight of the Justice Department to go after his top political rival.
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MURRAY (voice-over): Trump's call with Zelensky came as he and Rudy Giuliani were fixated on Biden's push to have the Ukrainian prosecutor, who was widely seen as corrupt, ousted in 2016 when Biden was vice president.
Trump and Giuliani claimed Biden was protecting his son, Hunter, who served on the board of an energy company the Ukrainian prosecutor had previously investigated.
TRUMP: When Biden's son walks away with millions of dollars from Ukraine and he knows nothing and they're paying him millions of dollars, that's corruption.
MURRAY: There's no evidence though that Joe or Hunter Biden did anything wrong.
Roughly, a week before Trump's call with Zelensky, Trump ordered a hold on hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid to Ukraine.
On the call, Trump doesn't explicitly threaten to continue withholding the money in exchange for an investigation into the Bidens.
TRUMP: There was never any quid pro quo.
MURRAY: But the president does suggest the U.S. is getting a raw deal.
The United States has been very, very good to Ukraine, Trump says. I wouldn't say that it's reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good. But the United States has been very, very good to Ukraine.
Soon after Zelensky brings up America's great support in the area of defense, that's when Trump tells Zelensky, I would like you to do us a favor, saying, our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine.
Trump then references CrowdStrike, the cyber security firm the Democratic National Committee hired to investigate after it was hacked in 2016. CrowdStrike publicly blamed the Russian government, as was confirmed by Robert Mueller's investigation.
But both Trump and Giuliani have floated another conspiracy theory, that Ukraine invented the idea that Russia was meddling in the 2016 election.
RUDY GIULIANI, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S ATTORNEY: Several people in Ukraine knew about a tremendous amount of collusion between Ukrainian officials and Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.
MURRAY: On the July call, Zelensky says the issue is an important one and Trump vows to have Barr and Giuliani follow up with Zelensky. The Justice Department says Trump never asked Barr to contact Ukraine and Barr has not communicated with Ukraine on this or any other subject. Giuliani, meanwhile, has already been in contact with Ukrainian officials.
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CHURCH: Sara Murray with that report.
The rough transcript of the phone call it's just one piece of the troubling puzzle, another is the whistleblower complaint itself. Some members of the Congress were able to read in secure rooms at the nation's capital.
This comes after the acting Director of National Intelligence had first refused to turn over the complains. Democrat Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is one of those that read it.
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REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), CHAIR, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: I found the allegations deeply disturbing.
I also found them to be very credible, the complaint was very well written and certainly provides insulation for the committee to follow up with other witnesses and documents I think, what this courageous individual has done, has exposed serious wrongdoing.
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CHURCH: Republican senator Ben Sasse also read the complaint. He told reporters,, quote, "There's obviously some very troubling things here."
But he also said Democrats jumped too soon to use the word impeach, arguing, lawmakers need to slow down.
As for the transcript of the phone call, longtime Trump supporter senator Lindsey Graham tweeted, "If you are underwhelmed by this transcript you are not alone or crazy. Those willing to impeach the president over this transcript have shown their hatred for @realDonaldTrump overrides reason."
Joining me now is Larry Sabato, he is the founder and director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
Good to have you with us.
LARRY SABATO, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Thank you, Rosemary.
We do want to start with that critical phrase in the release of the transcript of President Trump's July 25th phone call with Ukraine's president where Trump says, "I would like you to do us a favor."
Then he goes on to pressure an ally to investigate his political rival, Joe Biden, and his son.
What was your reaction, when you read that?
SABATO: It's shocking, it's stunning, it is absolutely outrageous. That's probably the best thing you can say about it.
I don't know how much people keep up with history but this is absolutely unprecedented to the extent that we know in the public or private record of all prior presidents.
No one has ever done anything like this, actually called a foreign leader and tried to enlist them into helping the president's reelection campaign. Even President Nixon never did anything like this. So it's just so fundamentally un-American, I just find it hard to believe, if there's anybody out there who is not disturbed by it.
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SABATO: And, yes, of course, they are.
CHURCH: Yes, that takes us to the Republican Party because by Wednesday evening we started to see some cracks in the Republican ranks. Senator Romney said he found the transcript deeply troubling, the same concerns also raised by senators John Thune and Ben Sasse.
Others avoided making any comments, Senator Lindsey Graham came out vehemently defending the president.
Why do you think only three Republicans are concerned about this?
Is it just politics or something else?
SABATO: It's pretty clear that Senator Romney has been at least privately a consistent critic of President Trump. You couldn't always tell it from what he said publicly. But I think genuinely he is disturbed by this, he's a traditionalist.
It's also true for Senator Sasse from Nebraska, there are a few others. But unfortunately, there are more like Lindsey Graham, who see their political futures tied up with Trump success. Lindsey Graham was on the ballot with Trump in 2020 in South Carolina, which Trump has guaranteed to carry.
So there are individual reasons for each senator. But one thing's for sure, anybody who lived through Watergate and the Nixon near- impeachment will remember that the impeachment process then was extremely bipartisan. There were so many Republicans who took chances, who stood on principle, who came out against Nixon because of what they discovered he had done.
There's almost none of that now. Everything is so polarized, even within Congress. It's not just the people of the United States, it's the Congress of the United States, none of them. None of them, really, will get out in front of this and say, enough is enough.
I suspect in the end that even people like Senator Romney will not vote to convict and oust President Trump.
CHURCH: Interesting. You know also Wednesday, the whistleblower complaint was made available for reviews to some lawmakers, including Democratic House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, who said it revealed serious wrongdoing.
We're also learning that the whistleblower has tentatively agreed to testify as long as the appropriate clearances to attend the hearing are obtained. We don't know the specifics of that complaint just yet, although we will talk a little later about the latest information we have.
But how significant do you think this is?
SABATO: All we can go on right now is what legislators who have seen the whistleblower complaint have to say. And they indicate that it goes well beyond the transcript of the call between Trump and Zelensky.
What that means precisely, we don't know. But we have been told by several sources that the whistleblower complaint lists several people in the White House who can corroborate what the whistleblower is claiming.
So that would be very significant assuming they don't change their stories. But I don't think they will. This has gotten too hot on the griddle and impeachment is probably coming. But the House Democrats are very likely to pass it.
One network now has 218, a majority in the House ready to vote for impeachment. I know CNN is more cautious on the count.
Whatever it is now, it's very likely that we will see a majority of the House since Democrats have 235 seats. They will be able to get 218 plus the independent congressman, Justin Amash of Michigan.
CHURCH: You mentioned "The New York Times" report that the whistleblower identified multiple White House officials as witnesses to potential presidential misconduct who could corroborate this complaint.
What is your response to that and how far does that take this particular part of the equation?
SABATO: It's important because we can already see the outlines of what President Trump is going to insist, that this whistleblower was nothing but a partisan, a Democrat, trying to sabotage his reelection campaign.
Other motives beyond partisanship undoubtedly would imply and already has suggested. So if you have Trump staffers, maybe even people who are relatively high up in the Trump White House, confirming what the whistleblower said, it adds a lot of credibility to that complaint.
CHURCH: Right and another part to this story, because it just keeps growing, is acting intelligence director Joseph Maguire will testify before Congress in just a few hours about the whistleblower complaint.
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CHURCH: But earlier he was denying a "Washington Post" report that said he was threatening to resign if the White House stopped him from testifying freely, what did you make of that?
Where do you see that going?
SABATO: What I make of it is this, there is a lot of turmoil right now in the White House, among the Trump staff, regardless of the public face they're projecting. There would have to be. This is actually a more serious challenge to Trump than the Mueller report turned out to be.
With this, you actually have the second example of a foreign country being invited in to participate in an American election campaign, to favor one Donald Trump, first Russia, now Ukraine.
Who knows how many more there will be potentially by the time the campaign finishes?
This is serious stuff, it certainly is true, that the Trump base will never leave him, for any reason, we get it. We have been watching for three years. They will never leave.
But they are not the majority. They're not a majority of the country. If the rest of the country realizes there is a serious threat here to American democracy, I think it's a very dim future for President Trump.
CHURCH: We have also seen how Trump is able to deflect. You have to ask how damaging this might be for him if he convinced people with his explanation, this is a manufactured crisis that media and the
Democrats are in partnership here, it's a nothing burger, we have seen before he was able to turn things around and deflect the story and the cycle on.
SABATO: It is wearing thin. It's getting old and I'm not saying his base will split with him. And his base could be defined as much as 40 percent of the electorate. He got 46 percent of the vote but he got some extra percentage points from people who just didn't want to vote for Hillary Clinton.
But 40 percent it's certainly a big group and you can call on the support of millions of people but 60 percent of the country is much larger, not to say they will all vote for a Democratic candidate, but what they might do is turn on Donald Trump.
The most remarkable statistics I've seen, in any survey recently, in the NBC/"Wall Street Journal" poll, almost 70 percent of Americans don't like President Trump personally. That included millions of people who give him favorable marks for his actual presidency.
When you're disliked by 70 percent of the country, you're on thin ice.
CHURCH: It's difficult to trust those polls though, because a lot of time, people who do support Trump, don't say they do. That's the sources of many surprises we have seen in the past. But we should watch this very carefully, Larry Sabato, always a pleasure to get your analysis, many thanks.
SABATO: Thank you so much, Rosemary.
CHURCH: And we turn to Britain now and the fight over Brexit, returning to Parliament after a stunning rebuke from the Supreme Court. Prime minister Boris Johnson doubled down in a raucous appearance at the House of Commons.
He challenged lawmakers to hold a no confidence vote or get on with Brexit, Cyril Vanier will explain why the deadlock still holds.
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CYRIL VANIER, CNN CORREPONDENT: The Parliament is back in session with a vengeance. The prime minister had a target on his back the moment he stepped in the House of Commons where, remember, he doesn't have a majority. Far from it. The majority of lawmakers in fact are fiercely opposed to him and they're extremely vocal about it. Watch this. Just a sample of what the prime minister faced in the House of Commons on Wednesday.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- adhering his opinion, he should be absolutely ashamed of himself.
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VANIER (voice-over): But if the prime minister was contrite, if he was browbeaten after the Supreme Court ruled that his suspension of Parliament was unlawful, handing him another humiliating defeat, he didn't show it. In fact, Boris Johnson was defiant.
He even dared the opposition to call a vote of no confidence on him and the minority government that he leads.
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BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: So if in fact the party opposite does not have confidence in the government they will have a chance to prove it. They have until the house rises -- listen -- listen. Listen. I think they should listen to this, Mr. Speaker. They have until the House rises today to table a motion of no confidence in the government. Come on. Come on. Go on then. And we can have that vote tomorrow.
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VANIER (voice-over): But that is a no-go for opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn.
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VANIER (voice-over): He kindly declined the offer and stuck to his guns. That is yes to an election, to reshuffling the political deck and putting it to voters, but only after an extension to the Brexit deadline has been secured.
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JEREMY CORBYN, BRITISH LABOUR PARTY LEADER: He says he wants a general election. I want a general election. It's very simple. If you want an election, if he wants an election get an extension and let's have an election.
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VANIER: So here we are in London once again stuck. The Prime Minister wants an election, but can't make it happen. The opposition says it wants one, too, but not now and in a sign that the prime minister isn't done tussling with lawmakers, we're learning the government intends to try once again to adjourn Parliament.
This time, though, just for a few days during the Conservative Party conference that begins Sunday. This with less than five weeks before the current Brexit deadline of October 31st. In the words of my esteemed colleagues, Richard Quest and Bianca Nobilo, it would take a chess master to know what happens next -- Cyril Vanier, CNN, London.
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CHURCH: Just ahead, an exclusive report on migrants hoping to leave violence behind as they head to Europe. But the journey to get there can be just as traumatic as their experience. We are back with that.
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CHURCH: Four years after the height of Europe's migrant crisis, efforts to clamp down on the flow of migrants seem to be working. The International Organization for Migration says more than 43,000 migrants entered Europe by sea from January to August.
That is down 31 percent from last year. And deaths on the main three Mediterranean routes have dropped by about 55 percent. But while migrants are being stopped from getting into Europe, they say they would rather die than go back to their home country. CNN's Ben Wedeman explains in this exclusive report.
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BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sailors with the Libyan Coast Guard throw a lifeline to a boat full of migrants, who throw it back into the water.
"We don't want it," this man shouts.
Since the beginning of 2014, more than 33,000 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean, according to the International Organization for Migration, yet these people do not want to be rescued, because rescue means returning to Libya.
Eventually one of the sailors jumps overboard and swims to the boat and attaches the rope. Reluctantly, the migrants climb onto the Coast Guard ship.
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WEDEMAN (voice-over): "Death is better," says one of the women. There is little love between rescuers and rescued.
"You are all cursing Libya, you animals," shouted a sailor; 28 people were on the rickety boat, 22 from Somalia, five from Bangladesh, one from Yemen, fleeing the conflict, chaos and poverty that is the new world disorder.
Omda Somad (ph) from Somalia explains why he tried to make this dangerous crossing.
OMDA SOMAD (PH), SOMALI REFUGEE: The reason that I entered the sea is that our situation which is going on in our country. Our country is the worst.
WEDEMAN (voice-over): The European Union has paid the Libyan government in Tripoli more than $250 million to stop the world's tired, poor and huddled masses yearning to breathe free from arriving on its blessed shores.
The E.U. money funds the Libyan Coast Guard and indirectly supports detention centers for those caught trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. Nearly 6,000 people are stuck in centers like Tripoli's Triq al-Sika detention center. Eventually they might be sent back to their home countries -- or what is left of them.
Human rights organizations have criticized the conditions at these detention centers but the E.U., riven by differences between member states, has not changed its policy regarding migrants in Libya, despite its glaring shortcomings.
The migrants may leave Libya someday but the trauma they experienced on their journey will stay, particularly with many of the women, for the rest of their lives. Eighteen-year-old Dinit (ph) from Eritrea says traffickers sexually
assaulted her.
"They beat us with a belt," she recalls, "then they raped us, then they fed us, then they raped us."
She is now pregnant, soon to give birth in a detention center with little in the way of medical attention.
Laki (ph), also 18 years, old is from Somalia. She says smugglers raped her repeatedly and she subsequently gave birth.
"Praise God who blessed me with this baby. I can't throw it away, the baby is a part of my body. But please," she begs, "take me from here."
Of the eight women freelance cameraman Gabriel Chaim interviewed at the center, seven said they were raped.
Nearby, on the outskirts of Tripoli, the war between Libya's competing factions rages on. The West was eager to help bring down the regime of Moammar Gadhafi but since then has turned its back on Libya.
The country has become an arena for local and regional rivalries. The madness here tolerated by the world as long as the madness stays here -- Ben Wedeman, CNN, Beirut.
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CHURCH: And in an effort to curb migration into the United States an asylum deal with Honduras has been signed. It allows the U.S. to send asylum seekers back to Honduras if they did not first claim asylum when passing through the country.
The U.S. already has similar deals with Guatemala, El Salvador and Canada. Advocacy groups warn that sending migrants back to Honduras puts them in harm's way.
Get a short break here. Still to come a surge of Democratic lawmakers now supported the impeachment inquiry of President Trump, what about U.S. voters?
We will have the latest results on that critical issue.
Plus President Trump appeared to revive an old conspiracy theory during his call with Ukraine's leader. We'll have the details for you just ahead.
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CHURCH: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Rosemary Church. Ant to check the headlines for you this hour.
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A defiant Boris Johnson has challenged U.K. lawmakers to either call a no-confidence vote or get on with Brexit. The House of Commons was back in session Wednesday off the U.K. Supreme Court ruled the prime minister's suspension of Parliament unlawful.
Mr. Johnson's opponents don't want to call a no-confidence vote until the Brexit deadline of October 31 is delayed.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now has 28 days to try to form a coalition government. Israel's president chose him for the task after power-sharing talks with Mr. Netanyahu's main rival, Benny Gantz, failed.
Neither Mr. Netanyahu's Likud Party, nor Gantz's Blue and White Party won a majority of seats.
In the Trump Ukraine investigation, two of the key players -- the U.S. acting director of national intelligence, and the intel inspector general -- are set to testify before lawmakers Thursday. At issue: the whistleblower complaint regarding President Trump's July phone call with the president of Ukraine. A rough transcript shows President Trump pushing Ukraine to investigate one of Mr. Trump's political opponents, Joe Biden, and his son.
Well, the vast majority of Democrats in the U.S. House, at least 215 in all, now say they support an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, but when it comes to American voters, it's a different story.
The latest polling by Quinnipiac University found a majority of Americans, 57 percent, oppose impeaching the president. Only 37 percent are in favor. You see a stark contrast, as well, between Republicans and Democrats on the issue.
Of course, voter attitudes could change dramatically between now and election day next year. The shift is already evident in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Joe Biden's home state. We get more now from CNN's Miguel Marquez.
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MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Quakertown borough, PA, voted for the president in 2016. Today some of his supporters aren't so sure.
TODD CHIARADIA, WAVERING TRUMP VOTER: I think he's crossed the line, but that's the way he is.
MARQUEZ: Todd Chiaradia voted for Obama twice, liked Bernie Sanders in 2016, then voted for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.
(on camera): Voted for the president in 2016, and in 2020 it's an open question for you?
CHIARADIA: Only because I didn't see another -- a better opportunity there.
MARQUEZ (voice-over): A chef at Quakertown's Carlton Cafe, Chiaradia says, with impeachment, Democrats may be going a step too far.
(on camera): Do you feel like it's overreaching right now?
CHIARADIA: I think so. I think they are. I think they're -- They want him out, I'm pretty sure.
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MARQUEZ (voice-over): Third-generation shoe store owner Ralph Morey became a Democrat in 2008 so he could vote for Barack Obama in the primary. He voted for Obama again in 2012.
In 2016, he voted for Donald Trump. In 2020, he says, no way.
(on camera): What is it about the president?
RALPH MOREY, FORMER TRUMP SUPPORTER: The way he manages himself. And then that reflects on what our country is all about, and our country is better than what -- the way we're being perceived as.
MARQUEZ (voice-over): But he thinks impeachment will further divide an already hyper-partisan country.
MOREY: I think it is ugly now, and I think we should focus on not being ugly.
MARQUEZ: Hard-core Trump supporter Rocky Bixel says Democrats will only harm themselves in going after the president.
ROCKY BIXEL, TRUMP SUPPORTER: In this town, there's a lot of people are turning, because it's -- they say it's just stupid.
MARQUEZ: Quakertown is part of Bucks County in the vote-rich Philly suburbs. It narrowly supported Clinton in 2016.
In New Hope, a Democratic stronghold, many voters here say, impeachment? About time.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To show people that the president can't do these things and just get away with it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think that Democrats need to show some spine, but I think that it's a good way of showing power and -- and what's right, and doing everything by a law.
MARQUEZ (on camera): So over the years, I've done a lot of stories here in the Pennsylvania, the Midwest, those states that flipped from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016. I have never heard the president's supporters in 2016 as open and as candid about why they cannot support him in 2020.
At the same time, the president's supporters have only become more resolute in their belief in him. It is going to be a long, hard, polarizing year.
Miguel Marquez, CNN, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. (END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: And another revelation from the transcript of President Trump's conversation with the Ukraine leader. In his call, Mr. Trump appeared to revive an old conspiracy theory, asking Volodymyr Zelensky to possibly look into the U.S. cyber security firm CrowdStrike and find an allegedly missing server.
CNN's Brian Todd explains.
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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's one of the more bizarre comments made by President Trump in his phone call with Ukraine's president, the suggestion that somehow a computer server tied to the 2016 election is now mysteriously in Ukraine.
According to the rough transcript of the July call, Trump says he'd likes his Ukrainian counterpart to, quote, "do us a favor," and alludes to the Mueller investigation before saying, "I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine. They say CrowdStrike, I guess you have one of your healthy people the silver they say, Ukraine has it. I would like to have the attorney general call you or your people, and I would like you to get to the bottom of it."
The only problem? Experts say there's no evidence of any of this.
ELIE HONIG, FORMER FEDERAL AND STATE STATE PROSECUTOR: This is really a deep-state conspiracy theory. It's not supported by the facts.
TODD: The server Trump refers to appears to be the Democratic National Committee's server, which federal indictments filed by Robert Mueller say was hacked by the Russians during their 2016 election interference campaign as part of the Kremlin's effort to help get Trump elected.
Crowd Strike, which the president mentions, is the cyber security firm hired by the Democratic Committee to investigate the Russian hacks. Trump, in more than 20 interviews, tweets, and other public comments, has harped on the debunked idea that the DNC'S server somehow contains unrevealed evidence and might be in mysterious hands.
TRUMP: I want to know, where is the server, and what is the server saying?
TODD: Trump regularly points out that the FBI never had access to the original DNC servers. That's in part because of the FBI's practice of working with copies.
But the DNC says none of its original servers were ever missing. The DNC and CrowdStrike say they ultimately gave the FBI copies of the DNC servers, once they determined there was a Russian hack, something then-FBI Director James Comey didn't object to.
JAMES COMEY, FORMER FBI DIRECTOR: Best practice always to get access to the machines themselves. But this, my folks tell me was a appropriate substitute.
TODD: So why would the president think someone in Ukraine has the DNC server? We got no response from the White House. CrowdStrike did previously do work for the Ukrainian government, but that was totally unrelated to the DNC or the 2016 presidential election, and Trump once once mistakenly asserted that CrowdStrike was owned and run by Ukrainians, a comment apparently driven by online conspiracy theories.
Analysts say Trump is either just repeating these false online myths or he's trying to misdirect and muddy the waters.
HONIG: I think he is looking continually for a counter narrative to the Mueller report, constantly trying to shift the blame.
TODD (on camera): Then there's the matter of Trump telling the Ukrainian president that he wanted Attorney General Bill Barr to contact the Ukrainians to get to the bottom of the server question.
Legal analysts say it would be inappropriate for the attorney general to become involved in any of that. A Justice Department spokeswoman tells CNN the president didn't ask Barr to contact the Ukrainians on that, or any other matter, and that Barr never communicated with the Ukrainians on his own.
Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
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CHURCH: Just ahead, no place on earth remains untouched by humans. A new report from the U.N. warns of a dim future.
Plus, unsettling news for tea lovers. Synthetic pouches could add a lot more to hot water than just tea. Back with that in a moment.
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CHURCH: A new U.N. report paints a grim picture for the future of our planet. It lays out ways climate change is affecting the oceans, frozen lands and water.
It found polar ice sheets are melting dramatically faster than expected, causing sea levels to rise. The oceans have absorbed more than 90 percent of the planet's excess heat from global warming, making marine heat waves twice as likely and more intense.
The report also warns by 2050, flooding in coastal areas will happen every year, instead of once per century.
Emily Pidgeon is the vice president of Ocean Science and Innovation at Conservation International, and she joins us now from Half Moon Bay in California. Thank you so much for being with us.
EMILY PIDGEON, VICE PRESIDENT OF OCEAN SCIENCE AND INNOVATION, CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL: Thank you for having me.
CHURCH: So how significant are these findings in this new U.N. report, and just how concerned should we all be?
PIDGEON: I think that this report brings together the latest science that we have on our oceans -- oceans and climate change, and to me when we bring it all together in the one place, it really says to us that climate change is ocean change, and this, it's already dramatically fundamentally changing the very substance of the ocean around us. Quite astounding.
CHURCH: Right. OK. And the report found that polar ice sheets, melting dramatically faster than originally thought, which means causing sea levels to rise faster than expected.
So what will be the impact of that?
PIDGEON: Well, as you already have pointed out, that sea levels had been rising, and we -- the report points out that sea levels are going to be accelerating, and that this has dire impacts for the coastal areas. And we know that, in the next 30 years, that we will see up to a billion people living in the low-lying coastal areas, and they will be increasingly vulnerable to flooding and erosion, other impacts that we are already seeing increasingly in many low-lying areas around the world.
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And yes, many island areas are already being impacted.
CHURCH: Yes. I mean, it is -- it is a very grim picture that's being painted, isn't it? And we've also learned that oceans are absorbing more than 90 percent of the planet's excessive heat, making marine waves twice as likely. What's that going to mean for marine life?
PIDGEON: So the impasse of this ocean change that is climate change on marine life are profound. Difference species are going to respond in different ways. Some are going to move deeper. Some are going to move toward the polls. And then some like corals are really left high and dry, or in those heat waves. And are going to be impacted and are already being impacted.
And so climate change is going to rip apart these ecosystems that we and many people around the world depend upon, every day.
CHURCH: And the report also warns, as we explained, that by 2050, extreme flooding will occur every year, instead of every 100 years in those coastal areas, and what will that mean for coastlines?
PIDGEON: So it means that we are going to see, as you say, flooding, increased erosion of coastlines. It means that people around the world are going to have to prepare and adapt.
And that means different places, in different things, in different places. Obviously, large cities are going to have to find ways to prevent that flooding. But we're also -- some of the most vulnerable people in the world are the ones that don't have necessary the resources to build infrastructure, to protect themselves.
And so they're going to have to find alternative ways to -- to cope with this increased flooding, increased erosion, that we're already seeing in many parts of the world.
CHURCH: Hopefully, leaders throughout the world will start looking at this and taking measures to maybe delay this, because it apparently is all too late, or we're getting close to that point, aren't we?
Emily Pidgeon, thank you so much for joining us.
PIDGEON: Thanks very much for having me.
CHURCH: Well, tea drinkers take notes, especially if you favor the fancy varieties. Some high-end tea companies have been replacing traditional paper pouches with plastic.
Scientists in Canada recently discovered that steeping these synthetic tea bags in hot water releases microscopic pieces of plastic into the beverages. A single cup of brewed tea might contain billions of plastic particles. Researchers don't yet know if it's harmful. But take note.
Well, seeking an antidote to turbulent times, an America university has a new institute that hopes to teach a subject to make just about everyone feel better. We will tell you all about it when we come back.
And an early start on royal duties. Archie's in Africa. Britain's popular baby makes his first official appearance.
Back in a moment with that and more.
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CHURCH: Welcome back, everyone.
Well, a U.S. university is studying something we could all use a little more of: kindness. The University of California, Los Angeles, got a $20 million donation from philanthropists Jennifer and Matthew C. Harris to establish a kindness institute. It's main goal: to empower citizens and inspire leaders to build more humane societies.
And joining me now, Daniel Fessler, the director of the institute. Good to have you with us.
DANIEL FESSLER, DIRECTOR OF KINDNESS INSTITUTE, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA: Thank you Rosemary. It's a pleasure to be here.
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CHURCH: So this surely has to be the first one, right? How -- how does your institute plan to teach kindness and build more humane societies? How will they go about that?
FESSLER: Right. So this is like any other aspect of human behavior. There is a science behind this, and researchers at UCLA already have been engaging in a variety of path-breaking investigations into what makes people kind, the circumstances in which kindness is impaired, what the personal benefits of kindness are, and how kindness spreads from person to person and group to group.
And thanks to this remarkably generous donation from Jennifer and Matthew Harris and the Bedari Foundation, we're going to be able to scale this up, conduct a lot more research, and really start educating the public and influencing policy makers about how to build a more humane world for all of us.
CHURCH: So how's this going to work? What subjects will be offered? And what degree will graduates walk away with at the end of four years of study?
FESSLER: So this will be an interdisciplinary institute. It spans the entire UCLA campus, although it is housed in the division of social sciences. As such, we'll be teaching classes that students from a wide variety of majors can pursue. We'll be teaching about the basic science of kindness and also ways to practice kindness in individuals' own lives. We'll be working with people in the policy field, about barriers to kindness in public policy, urban design, working in the medical field, the ways that kindness impacts depression and anxiety, how it changes blood pressure, cancer risk, gene activation.
So this remarkable institute will span the entire university and we think really, really leverage work that's already being done to build a very sound scientific foundation for kindness.
CHURCH: Right. So what was it that inspired Jennifer and Matthew --
FESSLER: I'm sorry, Rosemary. I lost your audio there.
CHURCH: Can you hear me now?
FESSLER: Yes, I can. Thank you.
CHURCH: So what was it that inspired Jennifer and Matthew C. Harris to donate $20 million to establish this kindness institute?
FESSLER: Well, I think that the Harris's have recognized that, well, through their own experiences and their observations of the world around them, that kindness benefits everyone. And generosity benefits the generous individual, and it benefits the recipient.
And I think they right recognize that we live in an unkind era right now. Racism and xenophobia, intolerance of others on the basis of religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity, are -- are resurgent the world over.
Increasingly, people are viewing politics, and even everyday relationships has us versus them. And this is a downward spiral in which everybody loses.
And the solution to that, I think the Harris's have recognized, as I said, through their own experiences and through their astute observations of the world around them. The solution is to start with individuals, start with groups, and show people how they can be kinder to one another.
CHURCH: Yes, I mean, it's so inspiring. How will you attract students to study at your institute? And how much interest have you received so far?
FESSLER: I would say the interest has been overwhelming. So the official launch was only today. And basically, I've stopped looking at my email in order to talk to you, because it's just overflowing with people around the world.
Students, scholars interested in contributing to this, wanting to collaborate. Mayor Garcetti was with us this evening, the mayor of the city of Los Angeles, very interesting in ways that -- that we can use this basic science research to really change lives.
And we'll be teaching students, everyone from the freshman all the way to the postdoctoral students, ways that they can practice kindness, the biology, underlying kindness, and the social dynamics of kindness.
CHURCH: And have you had to deal with any negative reactions to your ideas here in the institute?
FESSLER: Thus far not, but it's early days yet, and I wouldn't be surprised if we do. In my own research, which is on the way that people respond to others' kind acts and the emotions that they experience when they see people engage in generous behavior, we know that people who walk into a situation, expecting others to be cooperative, are much more moved by generous and kind actions.
And people who are more cynical and expect others to either be exploiting people or be exploited themselves. Those people are basically cold when they witness acts of kindness. And our goal is to move the needle on all that, to try and change people's expectations and thus change their experiences and their own behavior.
CHURCH: Yes. Make kindness contagious, right?
FESSLER: Exactly.
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CHURCH: Daniel Fessler, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.
FESSLER: Thank you so much for your interest. Have a good evening.
CHURCH: You, too.
Well, the moment fans of the British royal family were waiting for, finally arrived in South Africa. As Max Foster reports, Prince Harry and Meghan's son Archie made his first official appearance, with a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
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MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Royal watchers have been holding out for these images of baby Archie, and they got them on day three of this ten-day royal tour to southern Africa.
He came out with a big smile on his face. He was on good form. He was there for this first official engagement, effectively, which was a meeting with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. And he had this big smile on his face. He had lots of energy, came across really well.
His mother described him as an old soul, referring to all the commotion around him and implying that, actually, he handled it pretty well, which is lucky, because he has a lifetime of these engagements ahead of him.
Really interesting, as well, to see the archbishop there. He doesn't appear much in public himself these days. He was on very strong form, as well. He's an absolute icon of the anti-Apartheid movement here. And he was well. And I think people here in South Africa enjoyed seeing him there and the baby, as well, adding to this spirit.
After that even, the duchess went onto a couple of solo engagements, all around her key cause, which is women's empowerment. So meeting a group of young female entrepreneurs, a group of woman who had HIV/AIDS involved in a project, trying to get them into work in thee health service. They face a lot of discrimination here as they do elsewhere around the world.
Harry, meanwhile, has headed off to other countries, picking up on causes he cares a lot about, like environment, like HIV/AIDS awareness, as well, and also the clearance of land mines, which was his mother's very famous cause.
He's going to pick up directly in the area, actually, where she worked, in the year that she died, in Angola.
The family will meet up again here in South Africa, at the end of the tour. In the meantime, the duchess will be here. She'll be carrying out some private engagements, but we're not sure how much access we'll have to them. We know that she doesn't want to take attention away of the other projects her husband wants to highlight at the same time.
Max Foster, CNN, Cape Town, South Africa.
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CHURCH: Great stuff.
Well, almost every parent with small children is familiar with the sippy cup. Well, now there is evidence these unique drinking vessels were developed thousands of years ago.
They look like tiny teapots and were found in prehistoric children's graves in Bavaria. The oldest dated back more than 3,000 years to the Bronze Age. Scientific analysis of the contents revealed residue consistent with animal milk, giving researchers, of course, valuable clues about the diets of small children in prehistoric times. Fascinating.
And thank you so much for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Rosemary Church. I'll be back with more news in just a moment.
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