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Trump: G7 Won't Be Held at Doral; New Brexit Deal Stymied by Letwin Amendment; Turkey and Kurds Trade Blame on Cease-Fire Violations; Huge Crowds March Unauthorized in Hong Kong Tourist District; Trudeau Facing List of Scandals ahead of Vote; Wales and France Facing Off in Rugby World Cup. Aired 3-3:30a ET

Aired October 20, 2019 - 03:00   ET

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

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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome everyone, live in CNN studio center in Atlanta I'm Michael Holmes and ahead here on CNN NEWSROOM, Donald Trump's about face. The U.S. president has made a new declaration about next year's G7.

Boris Johnson's mixed messages and what they might mean for Britain's future.

And new protests in Hong Kong. In just the last few, minutes demonstrators building barricades, blocking roads. We will have the latest in a live report.

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HOLMES: Welcome, everyone, starting with the U.S. president in a very rare instance of him changing his mind. This, time it has to do with where the G7 summit will be or will not be held. Jeremy Diamond explains what happened and how it came about.

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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Trump will not host next year's G7 at his resort near Miami, Florida, after all. Just two days after he trotted out his chief of staff to defend the decision to host the global gathering of world leaders at one of his own properties.

In the face of some blistering criticism from Democrats as well as some Republicans, the president reversed course. In a tweet late Saturday night, the president acknowledged the criticism, tweeting that while he thought he was, quote, "doing something very good for our country," Democrats and the media, quote, "went crazy."

The president tweeting, "Therefore, based on both media and Democrat crazed and irrational hostility, we will no longer consider Trump National Doral, Miami, as the host site for the G7 in 2020. We will begin the search for another site, including the possibility of Camp David, immediately. Thank you."

It was a rare reversal for the president who is known for his trademark defiance. And it all came after the president was accused of once again attempting to profit from his presidency.

But what went unsaid in the president's tweet was the criticism that he faced from members of his own party as well, who, at a minimum, worried about the appearance of impropriety of a president hosting a major world forum at his own for-profit property.

The president's reversal came after his chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Thursday defended the choice, insisting that the government officials had concluded that the Doral property, which is owned by the president, was somehow the best option in the entire country.

And while Mulvaney said during that briefing that Camp David that had previously been a, quote, "miserable place" to have the G7, the president on Saturday night indicating it was back on the table -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, the White House.

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HOLMES: European Union leaders in Brussels scratching their heads over Boris Johnson's latest gambit to leave the European Union at the end of the month. When the Brexit deal went nowhere in Parliament on Saturday, he was legally required to ask Brussels for a three-month extension, which he did, sort of.

An unsigned photocopy of the mandatory document was dispatched by email. But Mr. Johnson was not done. He then immediately fired off another letter, making it crystal clear he was not really asking for an extension and hoped he did not get one.

The E.U. says it will try to sort all of this out over the next couple of days., Meanwhile Parliament's Super Saturday, as it was, called had plenty of drama and was not just the kind we expected. CNN's Anna Stewart with our report.

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JOHN BERCOW, SPEAKER, BRITISH HOUSE OF COMMONS: Order, order.

The ayes to the right, 322; the nos to the left, 306.

ANNA STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A defeat for the government but not on a newly inked Brexit deal from Brussels. That never got voted on. Instead, Boris Johnson was frustrated by a new delay, an amendment to the Brexit deal, one by lawmaker Oliver Letwin, one of the former Tory rebels sacked by the prime minister.

OLIVER LETWIN, TORY MP: I'm moving this amendment, Mr. Speaker, to ensure that whichever way any future votes may go, today or next week or the week after, we can be secure in the knowledge that the U.K. will have requested an extension tonight.

STEWART (voice-over): An amendment forcing the prime minister to ask the E.U. for a Brexit extension to January 31st, even if his Brexit deal does get the approval of Parliament.

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BERCOW: So the ayes have it, the ayes have it.

STEWART (voice-over): It passed but it did not seem to have the intended effect.

BORIS JOHNSON, U.K. PRIME MINISTER: I will not negotiate a delay with the E.U. and neither -- and neither does the law compel me to do so.

I will tell our friends and colleagues in the E.U. exactly what I have told everyone in the last 88 days that I've served as prime minister, that further delay would be bad for this country and bad for our European Union and bad for democracy.

STEWART (voice-over): He will not negotiate a delay but he did not say that he would not ask for one.

BERCOW: Jeremy Corbyn.

STEWART (voice-over): Nevertheless, it raised fears on the opposition benches that Boris Johnson somehow may avoid extending the Brexit deadline.

JEREMY CORBYN, LEADER, U.K. LABOUR PARTY: I invite him to think very carefully about the remarks that he just made, about refusing, apparently, to apply for the extension, which the E.U. Number 2 act requires him to do.

IAIN BLACKFORD, SNP: Any failure of a prime minister who thinks he is above the law, well, Prime Minister, you will find yourself in court.

STEVENS (voice-over): Meanwhile, the actual vote billed for Saturday, that meaningful votes on Boris Johnson's new Brexit deal, that did not happen. The prime minister's MPs got up and walked away. But it could be back on the agenda Monday.

JACOB REES-MOOG, HOUSE OF COMMONS LEADER: In light of today's decision, I should like to inform the House that Monday's business will now be a debate on a motion relating to section 13 (1)(b) of the European Union Withdrawal Act, 2018.

STEWART (voice-over): In layman's terms, a vote on the new Brexit deal, which faces huge opposition inside Parliament and outside it, with Remain protesters not ready to admit defeat, calling for a second referendum three years and four months after the U.K. voted to leave the E.U. -- Anna Stewart, CNN, London.

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HOLMES: The ongoing stalemate has energized calls for a second referendum. That is what attracted an enormous crowd into central London on Saturday. Organizers believe it was up to 1 million people but for some Conservative members of Parliament, leaving Westminster was like running a gantlet. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES (voice-over): Jacob Rees-Moog, Michael Gove, Andrea Leadsom, all getting an earful. CNN's Hadas Gold on what the protesters say they want.

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HADAS GOLD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This started up near Hyde Park, worked its way through central London, down Whitehall, past 10 Downing Street, to end here in Parliament Square, just outside Westminster Palace, where members of Parliament were meeting and voting on what would happen with Brexit in that extraordinary Saturday sitting.

Now organizers say they think about 1 million people came out to march. Now the police have not confirmed those numbers. They don't give crowd estimates anymore. But the streets of London were completely packed.

It was a generally happy, crowd, lots of can (ph), lots of dogs (ph), lots of silly signs with some serious messages. The people here want a people's vote, they want a second referendum, they want what they say would be a final say on Brexit, whether in or, out with a deal, without a, deal they say it is time to bring it up once again.

Now the weather started out nicely and then the rain came in but it did not deter the crowds here, who came to hear speakers like Sir Patrick Stewart, like Mayor Sadiq Khan, to hear what they say about Brexit and, at one point, they were even airing what was happening inside Parliament on the large screens on the square.

And when (INAUDIBLE) passed that potentially would delay Brexit that got huge cheers here. But even if the Brexit deal were to pass and even if the U.K. were to leave on October 31st, the protesters I spoke to say it would not be the end, they say this is just the beginning of a new campaign.

They say that their, kids, that their grandkids will continue to campaign for the United Kingdom to be part of the E.U. -- Hadas Gold, CNN, London.

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HOLMES: Turkey says one of their soldiers has been killed and another wounded when their vehicle was attacked by Kurdish forces in Syria. That is despite U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper saying a cease-fire general seems to be holding.

Turkey blames Kurdish fighters for violating the deal. Equally, Kurds blame Turkey for violating it. And at least one U.S. official says Turkish-backed forces are the ones who broke the agreement.

Now Turkey was warned by the U.S. not to launch the offensive but the cease-fire essentially gives it everything it wanted, a so-called safe zone in northern Syria and an opportunity to attack the Kurds. The Kurds say the Turks are blocking their withdrawal, meanwhile, and Turkey's president warning of severe consequences if the Kurds not pull back.

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HOLMES: He said Saturday Turkey will, in his, words, "crush their heads" if they don't leave. CNN's Jomana Karadsheh with more from the Turkish-Syrian border.

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JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Both sides are accusing each other of cease-fire violations, especially in and around that border town of Ras al-Ayn. Now the Syrian Democratic Forces, that fighting force that is made up mostly of the Syrian Kurdish YPG, they say that Turkey was the one that violated the cease-fire.

And they are calling on the United States to push Turkey to abide by the agreement. We have heard from Turkish officials, including President Erdogan, who have called these claims disinformation and they have also accused the Syrian Democratic Forces of not abiding by the agreement.

They described attacks as harassment. Now this cease-fire was always going to be fragile. Under the agreement, both sides are allowed to respond in self-defense. But that is not really well-defined in that agreement.

And as we have seen historically, cease-fires in Syria are always fragile and problematic, because there is no neutral force on the ground to observe and to enforce the cease-fires.

But when it comes to this agreement, the pause in fighting is not the only crucial part of it. For Turkey, they're pausing the fighting because they want the Syrian Kurdish fighters to withdraw from that designated safe zone by the end of the five days, the 120 hours.

And if they do not withdraw by, then we have heard again from President Erdogan on Saturday, repeating what he had said a day, earlier that they are ready to move and to resume this operation moments after the 120 hours elapse and it will be even more aggressive than before -- Jomana Karadsheh, CNN, near the Turkish-Syrian border.

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HOLMES: We will take a short break. When we come back, Hong Kong protesters on the move again, this time with illegal masks and without permission. A live report from the thick of it coming up next.

And then later, the latest action from the pitch as World Cup rugby heats up. We will have a live report from Christina Macfarlane in Tokyo when we come back.

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HOLMES: Welcome, back. Hong Kong witnessing its 20th straight weekend of pro-democracy demonstrations. Huge crowds marching right now in one of the city's biggest tourist districts. It is an unauthorized march and earlier some protesters were building barricades in the street. Anna Coren is in the middle of it. She joins me now.

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HOLMES: Must be a familiar scene for you.

How is it unfolding so far?

ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Michael, the 20th weekend, 20th consecutive weekend of protests here and tens of thousands, if not more than 100,000 people, have defied police orders.

They have taken to the streets here on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong, marched through the streets, demanding freedom, demanding an investigation into police brutality and, of course, demanding that the police force here in Hong Kong be disbanded.

These are some of the demands of Hong Kong protesters and we have heard numerous times, Michael, that they are going to keep on taking to the streets, despite the fact that this is an unlawful assembly, this has been authorized. Police rejected it. It went to the, courts the courts rejected. It so all of the people marching here, Michael, are marching so illegally.

They could be arrested, the majority of them are wearing face masks. Obviously that face mask ban came into play a couple of weeks ago as well, so they could be arrested for wearing face masks.

We are seeing a cross-section of society here, as we do at all these massive marches. Older people, younger people, families with young children; it really is quite extraordinary that they are continuing this. This momentum does not seem to die.

Now behind us, Michael there are protesters who have been erecting barricades. We understand that a water cannon is in this direction; some protesters have seen it. But you can see they have created this barrier, obviously in the hope of slowing down the police.

We have not seen the police where we are at the moment. There are reports of vandalism, of MTR stations being smashed up, of shops seen to be supporting the Hong Kong government. They have also been vandalized along the way. The march was supposed to end here, that is what the organizers of this march have said, the march ends here but as you can see, Michael, they are continuing to carry, on carry on perhaps all the way to Prince Edward.

And we are hearing of police coming out at certain police stations -- excuse me -- and obviously the warning signs, the signs they could use force, have not heard any reports at this stage of the use of tear gas, however, it is 3 o'clock in the afternoon and Michael, this could be a long night ahead.

HOLMES: You've been out, there you and the team in Hong Kong there have been out there for 20 weeks now, covering this.

What is your sense of the momentum and how the protest has changed in terms of its character?

COREN: It ebbs and flows, Michael., absolutely every weekend there is always a gathering of people, whether it be in the thousands or the tens of thousands. This is a much bigger rally, the Civil Human Rights Front, they had intended to organize this rally. They were the ones who organized the 2 million people rally back in June.

Obviously their requests to hold this march was denied. But as you can see, Michael, people are still taking to the streets. It's amazing. We thought the crowds ended. You can see on the overpass, they are still coming, making the 2-kilometer march down here.

But from what we understand, protesters are still marching towards Prince Edward police station. That is many kilometers away.

And I was talking to some protesters a little bit earlier and I said, why are you here?

They, said we have lost complete faith in the government. They're not listening to our demands. We are going to keep on protesting, keep on marching, this is part of our civil liberties, our right to demonstrate.

And then I spoke to a 65-yea-rold man who said, it is my job to protect the next generation. And that is why he takes the streets every single week.

We are smelling some sort of gas, I don't know if it is pepper spray but there is some sort of gas, I'm not sure where it is coming from, Michael.

But as we know, unfortunately when there are this many people involved, there is that hardline element of the protest movement and things do turn ugly. And that is obviously what we have been anticipating this evening.

HOLMES: All, right take care. Good to see you, Anna, thank you so much. Anna Coren on the spot for us there in Hong Kong.

All right, well, the Canadian prime minister's majority government will be on the line Monday as voters head to the polls. Justin Trudeau facing some stiff competition. He was trying to rally support in Manitoba on Saturday. Have a listen.

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JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: And together, let's choose forward. (INAUDIBLE).

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HOLMES: For more on the election, I spoke earlier to global affairs analyst Michael Bociurkiw.

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MICHAEL BOCIURKIW, GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Trudeau's liberals won 184 seats, it's almost a historic, majority and right now, they are lucky if they get past 130 seats. What all the polls are saying right, now Michael, is that we are looking at a minority coalition government.

What caused the all?

Well, it was really a number of things. I can go through the whole catalog but I don't know if we have time. But the top of the list is really the disastrous handling of the SNC-Lavalin affair, where the prime minister's office interfered with the justice minister and then there was kind of an investigation and then Trudeau got an ethics violation.

But in the course of all of that, he had to fire two senior cabinet ministers, including Canada's first indigenous justice minister. Then, as everyone may remember, there was the disastrous trip to India. Trudeau liberals also bought a pipeline to carry oil from Alberta where I am right now to British Columbia.

That doesn't seem to be very economically feasible and then the latest scandal, of, course is the so-called brownface or blackface, scandal where Trudeau, pictures emerged of Trudeau dressed in blackface.

And that kind of topped everything off, Michael and caused a lot of Canadians, I think, to ask themselves, who is this man, do we really know our prime minister and is he really fit to lead the country into a second term?

HOLMES: So when it comes to the campaign itself, the key issues. You touched on a couple of them, the pipeline, for example. One problem is that in each province in Canada views issues like pipelines and environmental issues quite differently, depending on their priorities. It is a difficult plank to walk if you want broadbased support.

BOCIURKIW: Absolutely, right now I am in Alberta, kind of the Texas of Canada, if I said I am anti-pipeline, I would probably get thrown out. But you are, right there are different issues according to the different regions.

But climate seems to have really climbed up the agenda, Michael, and it is a cross-country concern. And then the big one here also is health, care, especially the cost of pharmaceuticals. And the other one, especially in cities like Toronto, Vancouver, is the cost of housing.

Homeownership is out of the reach of a lot of Canadians in those cities. And also, rising costs of gasoline and groceries, so at the end of the day, a lot of Canadians do not feel they have money in their pockets, hence the campaigns have been promoting a lot of middle class sweeteners, if you will, lower taxes, that sort of thing.

HOLMES: Right. It will be interesting to see how it unfolds. Michael Bociurkiw, you'll be following it for us. We appreciate that. Thank you so much.

BOCIURKIW: My pleasure.

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HOLMES: Well, the World Cup rugby quarterfinals underway in Tokyo. Coming, up we have Christina Macfarlane with the most enviable assignment in the world in Tokyo. We will discuss the upcoming matches.

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HOLMES: The Rugby World Cup heating up in Japan right now. Wales taking on France in the quarterfinal match and there is another big game on later. There Japan hoping for a repeat after their shock upset against South Africa four years ago. Let's turn to CNN's Christina Macfarlane who is in Tokyo.

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HOLMES: Good to see, you my friend. Tell me what is happening in the other game. I haven't been watching.

What is going on?

CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we just had kickoff, Michael, in the France-Wales game the last few, minutes. National anthems were sung and France have actually drawn early blood here. They have put a first try down on the scoreboard but we are, as I, say in the opening minutes of that game.

It is actually Wales who on paper are the favorites here. They have had a fantastic tournament, qualified top of their group and they've had a fantastic year. They are the grand slam, winners and they have been unbeaten four wins in a row. They briefly peaked as world number 1. They defeated France seven out of the eight times that they have played them.

And I think for many of the Welsh players, the memory of that stinging loss to France in the 2011 World Cup in the semifinal where they lost by just a point it's certainly what is motivating them out there today.

But as I, say France ahead at the moment, the thing with this French side is you never know what you're going to get. They have moments of brilliance but then, similarly, they can throw a game away within minutes and be scraping to get across the line, as we saw them during the group stages, here.

So if they play to their full potential, they're going to give Wales problems, that is for sure.

HOLMES: I've got to ask, I, mean that will be a great game. But Japan, the home, the host nation, what a dream run they have had. They must be hoping for a miracle as well.

MACFARLANE: They absolutely are. I am actually standing outside the Tokyo stadium, where they are about to play South Africa in the next few hours. We have seen hundreds of fans flooding in here. Many of them adopted Japan fans as, well, Irish in all black shirts walking past us.

The game last week against Scotland, we saw 54 million people in Japan tune in to watch that, that will be excited because the biggest game Japan's history and it just so happens they are playing the same team four years ago they defeated in the World Cup for what is now become known as the Miracle of Brighton, one of the biggest upsets in Rugby World Cup history, defeating the Springboks.

Can they do it again?

There's a lot more at stake this time, they are playing for a semifinal spot and, of course, in front of a home crowd, it is no understatement to say that Japan have been the standout team of this competition. They are now up to number 6 in the world after yesterday's games.

They've defeated Ireland, defeated Scotland. If they can cause an upset here tonight, the roof of that stadium is going to blow off behind me. I can tell you that.

HOLMES: I just think it is remarkable. Good for them. What great energy, it is going to be a blast being in there. Have, fun good to see, you. Thank you for that. Go, Japan. Christina Macfarlane there.

Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Michael Holmes. I will have your headlines in a moment. Thank you for being with us.