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Impeachment Inquiry; Protests in Chile, Lebanon and Iraq; War in Syria; China Launches 5G. Aired 3-3:30a ET
Aired November 02, 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, coming to you live from Studio 7, I'm Michael Holmes. Ahead here on CNN NEWSROOM, all the president's men, three officials close to the president about being asked to cooperate with the impeachment probe, we'll get you up to speed on all the developments.
Turkey says it wants to establish a safe zone in Syria but they are not there yet. We'll hear from a man on the front lines.
And we are just hours away from the biggest match in rugby, neither team has been this close to the championship in years, we will be live from the stadium in Japan.
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HOLMES: Welcome, everyone. New details coming out in the Ukraine scandal which can strengthen the impeachment case against U.S. president Donald Trump. Ukraine expert Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was just one of the officials listening to last July's phone call between President Trump and the leader of Ukraine.
A source says Vindman told congressional investigators that he was instructed not to tell anybody about the call after he raised concerns about what went on in it. The person who told him to stay quiet was National Security Council lawyer John Eisenberg.
A source telling CNN Eisenberg himself has now been subpoenaed; he is scheduled to testify Monday. And on Friday the U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry declined a request to testify behind closed doors but said he might be willing to appear at a public hearing at a later date.
The president spends a lot of time complaining about the investigation. He has always insisted that he did nothing wrong, the call was perfect and his supporters seem to believe that.
At a rally in Friday night in Mississippi he said a vast deep state conspiracy was trying to force him from office.
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TRUMP: The word impeachment to me is dirty it is not a good word totally phony deal they know it everybody knows it.
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HOLMES: The impeachment investigation appears at least for now to be a bonanza for Mr. Trump's bottom line. CNN's Kaitlan Collins with that and all the rest of the details.
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REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE SPEAKER: Those in favor, please say aye.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On the heels of a House vote that could lead to his impeachment, President Trump is taking the defense strategy into his own hands.
STEPHANIE GRISHAM, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: He is the war room.
COLLINS: Telling "The Washington Examiner" he's considering reading the transcript of his call with the Ukrainian president as a fireside chat on live television.
His own aides have testified that they were alarmed by that call. Asked if he was being serious, press secretary Stephanie Grisham declined to offer any specifics.
GRISHAM: Sure. Absolutely.
QUESTION: When?
GRISHAM: I don't have any timing.
COLLINS: Trump believes reading the call aloud will show people he acted appropriately. And as Democrats move to the next phase of impeachment, his campaign is fund-raising off it, bringing in $3 million online as the House of Representatives voted Thursday.
Trump says he believes this will backfire on Democrats. But a new poll from ABC and "The Washington Post" reveals Americans are sharply divided; 49 percent say he should be impeached and removed from office, while 47 percent say he shouldn't.
Despite those numbers, the White House says impeachment appears inevitable.
GRISHAM: We are prepared for an impeachment to happen, yes.
COLLINS: Exasperating his Republican allies, the president says his one-man war room doesn't need any help, telling "The Examiner," "I already have good people."
He's hired no new communications aides since Democrats launched their probe. And it's been 235 days since the last press briefing.
GRISHAM: Whenever it's time. I think, right now, we're doing just fine. COLLINS: The stall in strategy is coming as House Democrats are preparing to take their investigation public and Speaker Pelosi is defending her decision to move forward.
PELOSI: We have no choice. We took an oath to protect and defend our democracy. And that is what he has made an assault on. And if the Republicans have a higher loyalty to the president than they do to their oath of office, that's their problem.
COLLINS: Pelosi said during that interview she wanted to stress that Democrats have not made a decision about whether or not they are going to impeach the president, something that officials back here at the White House say they believe is a foregone conclusion.
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COLLINS: But essentially right now they are figuring out what they are going to do once they see if Democrats are going to bring these hearings into the public and really, when? -- Kaitlan Collins, CNN, the White House.
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HOLMES: The Democratic field of candidates looking to challenge President Trump in 2020 is thinning out, as former congressman Beto O'Rourke of Texas ends his campaign. He began with some high expectations but never gained much traction and his funding was drying up. So he told supporters in Iowa his campaign was over.
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BETO O'ROURKE (D-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have to clearly see at this point it we do not have the means to pursue this campaign successfully. And my service will not be as a candidate nor as a nominee of this party for the presidency.
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HOLMES: Now Iowa is where many of the remaining candidates are campaigning and that is because that state is going to be the first of the nation to vote for a Democratic presidential nominee.
The Iowa caucuses are scheduled for February and the new poll from "The New York Times" says likely voters in the state shows a tight race among leading candidates. Elizabeth Warren leads the pack but the next three, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden, just a few points behind, well within striking distance.
It's almost time for a new Rugby World Cup champion. In less than two hours England and South Africa will be fighting it out in Yokohama, Japan. England trying for the second title after they robbed the All Blacks of a chance to win a third consecutive World Cup.
Meanwhile the Springboks hoping to upset the favorites and have their third title in their first since 2007. This match has all the makings of a thriller. Christina Macfarlane is in Yokohama. How is it shaping up?
I know where your money is.
But what is the conventional wisdom?
CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The excitement is certainly building. Pound for pound two of the biggest and strongest teams in world rugby about to go head to head here in Yokohama Stadium in a couple of hours for the ultimate prize.
It is giving me goose bumps just thinking about it. Tickets have been going in excess of $15,000. Fans are flooding in from South Africa especially for this game. A couple of honored guests will be in attendance tonight. You won't be meeting them; His Royal Highness Duke of Sussex, Prince Harry, has flown in here. He is of course patron of the government body and he was in the stadium in 2007, when these two teams last met an South Africa ran out the winners.
The royals hoping to change that result here tonight. Take a look at the scene outside Buckingham Palace yesterday as the queen's Welsh Guards belted out the Rugby World Cup anthem in support of their team.
And elsewhere South Africa's president Cyril Ramaphosa arrived yesterday in his retro Springboks jersey. He's been sending messages to his team all weekend. We've seen a flood of messages coming from South Africa. One of the best has been from the Springboks' captain's old school in Port Elizabeth.
Listen to them singing his name here. It's giving us all goose bumps.
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MACFARLANE: -- could make history here tonight so becoming the first black captain to lift the trophy. So much to play for.
Having a listen to it there now. Great stuff. We will check in with you. Thank you so much, we appreciate it, Christina Macfarlane in Yokohama, Japan.
Turkey says it is establishing a safe zone in Syria. But one aid worker says something else is happening there. We will hear his account of the fighting and his efforts to save civilians.
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HOLMES: Welcome back.
In Chile anti-government protesters remain defiant showing no signs of letting up. Police firing water cannons and tear gas -- you can see it there -- at the crowd on Friday, this is in the capital of Santiago.
The mass protests against income inequality have gone on for two weeks; 20 people have been killed. Spain is now going to be hosting the U.N. climate talks in December after this unrest forced Chile to drop out.
Mass protests also raging across Iraq, the unrest there growing in both size and frequency. In Baghdad demonstrators held the largest rally since they began a month ago. Thousands of people pouring onto the streets, as you can see, protesting corruption and unemployment.
Clashes between the demonstrators and security forces erupted again. There was more bloodshed as well. Since October in fact at least 264 people have been killed, some 12,000 wounded. CNN's Jomana Karadsheh with more.
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JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: These unprecedented mass protests have entered their second month. And despite the attempts by the government to quell these protests, whether by the promise of change and reform or the alleged use of excessive force by the security forces and a mounting casualty toll, this has not deterred these demonstrators.
They are still defiant. They are determined to stay out on the streets until they get what they want. Tens of thousands of protesters still out protesting in Baghdad and other cities in the south on Friday.
People say that they have had enough of what they described as empty promises by their governments, by their politicians, promise of a better life that they say they have been waiting for since the overthrow of the Saddam regime in 2003.
People are simply fed up. This is years of anger and frustration that has been building. They really don't understand how a country like Iraq, one of the world's richest countries when it comes to oil reserves, can't give its people better life, better opportunities.
They are suffering from high youth unemployment, shortages in basic services and people are also complaining about widespread corruption, official corruption. They want to see an end to this and they say that their governments and their politicians and their parliaments over the years have failed them.
They blame this on the political elite. They blame this on a political system that they want gone and changed right now. And the promise of change is no longer enough -- Jomana Karadsheh, CNN, Istanbul.
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HOLMES: Lebanon's banks have reopened for the first time in weeks after mass protests there forced them to close. The country's banking association says a move was made to meet, quote, "urgent needs," such as salary payments.
It comes as Lebanon struggles to emerge from a declining economy. CNN's Ben Wedeman with more from Beirut.
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BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Lebanon's banks reopened for the first time Friday after being closed for two weeks. There were more customers than usual but there was no apparent panic, no run on the banks.
The central bank did not place any currency limits but left it up to individual banks to set limits on withdrawals and transfers. It wasn't the Black Friday that some feared; the Lebanese lira did not fall dramatically against the dollar.
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WEDEMAN: Yet the fundamentals of the Lebanese economy remain very shaky. It has the world's third highest debt to GDP ratio, half of government revenues go to pay interest on loans and the country is heavily dependent on imports.
Speaking for the first time since the resignation of prime minister Saad Hariri, Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah said that the new government should regain the trust of the people through accountability and transparency.
So Hezbollah supporters were accused of attacking protesters; now Lebanon's squabbling politicians are in talks on the formation of a new government. There is no clear idea, however, when that might actually happen -- Ben Wedeman, CNN, Beirut.
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HOLMES: Turning now to the conflict in Syria, Russian and Turkish forces have begun joint patrols in northern Syria along the border. That is coming after Kurdish forces were moved 30 kilometers south after the U.S. pulled out.
This is where forces on the ground are located. Turkey says the goal is to create what they call a safe zone along the border. But some say no part of that region can be called safe. Here's Dave Eubank of the humanitarian group known as Free Burma Rangers.
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DAVE EUBANK, FREE BURMA RANGERS: This is 26 October, 2019, north of Tal Tamr, south of soda, which was just hit by the Free Syrian Army and with Turkish support, drone airstrikes, artillery. I saw three Turkish armored vehicles with machine gun light cannon that came in.
We have a CCP, casualty collection point, out there, they hit. We are almost caught there. We had to get out, get the wounded out. This is the blood of Kurds right here on my shoulders. The attack has not stopped. They are coming. (END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Dave Eubank, the man you just saw in that video, joins me now from Tal Tamr in Syria via Skype.
Hoping that shot holds. And Dave, I interviewed you just outside of Mosul during the battle to get rid of ISIS three years ago. You are still on the front lines, helping the wounded and displaced.
It is good to see you are well. Let's start with this. Donald Trump at a rally today said he had broken a successful cease-fire in northern Syria near the Turkish border. You have been on the grounds throughout, up the front lines the entire time.
Has it been a cease-fire, Dave?
EUBANK: No, Mike, good to see you again. There has not been any cease-fire any day we've been here, the last almost three weeks; nonstop fighting Turkish terror strikes from drones and machine guns, Turkish support as well as the Free Syrian Army attacking every single day.
We've had casualties. Mostly it's the local militias, Arabs, Kurds, SDF, but also civilian casualties that we evacuated.
HOLMES: One of the most unsavoury aspects of what has been going on has been Turkey's use of Syrian militias, really, some of them accused of things like summary executions, even war crimes.
I mean what have you seen in terms of that?
What have Kurdish fighters told you about those elements and their behavior on the battlefield?
EUBANK: Well, we were down trying to get back to our people out at the site (INAUDIBLE) Ras al-Ain hospital. I could see them lined up. It looked just like the Daish fighters we faced before.
In fact I remember seeing black like (ph) devices and then it came to the Free Syrian Army, same group, absolutely brutal. We have seen women and men with whips on them. We've seen -- I didn't see it with my eyes but videos of Kurdish lady fighters being mutilated and the people who've fled, over 300,000, 160,000 hostile alone and 140,000- plus in other areas, have all kinds of authorities, families killed.
There is a family down the street the last night that their brother is still missing. So the Kurds and especially the Christians, they cannot stay there because of the constant attack. There is no way.
Many of them are jihadists and terrorists, working under current supervision, to wipe out this area and making a new caliphate.
HOLMES: Yes, some of them linked to ISIS, Al Qaeda and so on. It's a very disturbing situation. You mentioned the civilians, and you guys do a heck of a lot of work with the displaced, the United Nations saying 160,000 and I've seen a lot of the videos that you have been sending me about where they are.
Tell us about where they are going, how they see their future, what their needs are.
EUBANK: Right. There are 160,000 in Hasakah but the local NGOs here and the Kurdish (INAUDIBLE) who are our partners say there is more than even double that all in communities, many staying with families, from here all the way to the Iraqi border. So I think 300,000 is probably a good number.
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EUBANK: And that maybe low. Right now, they are staying in churches, in houses and schools with very little help. And the appeal is for more help. We are asking that right now for food and water and blankets. Yesterday we did a distribution. Today we are taking up the kids.
It's not yet a large organized help because most NGOs left and so our appeal is that the U.S. government and other NGOs please come back and help us with this big problem. We're trying to start a new camp right now.
HOLMES: We are nearly out of time but I wanted to ask you what they have been told about their sense of betrayal by America after fighting ISIS alongside American forces.
What do they tell you about how they feel about that?
EUBANK: Everybody is heartbroken. They said they trusted America. You said take down the barriers; we'll protect the border. And then we took them down and n you stepped aside and took them back.
So it's a huge betrayal and, Mike, I have cried almost every day. I don't know, deep in my own heart, as an American, we have let people down and it has been deadly. This is a zone of death. It is not a safe zone. So displacement, death, ethnic cleansing. They call it a zone of genocide. So these people are stunned that we did this to them. But I think it's not too late. We can say we are sorry. We betrayed you. We made a mistake. And get back in here with our forces and negotiate with the Turks and Russians and Syrians and, most importantly, with the Kurds, Christians, Arabs, Muslims who actually live here, think we can share this together.
But without our help, it is not going to happen.
HOLMES: That is probably a long shot but I admire your optimism to even ask for it. Dave Eubank with Free Burma Rangers, I've seen you work up close and personal. You do great work and it's great that you are there helping out when others are . Not thank you, Dave.
EUBANK: God bless you CNN, Mike. Thank you.
HOLMES: Good to see you, Dave.
Important work being done there. All right. 5G arrives in a big way in China, the 5th generation wireless rollout coming out as Beijing and Washington are locked in a power struggle over trade and technology. Coming up, the story from China's capital.
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HOLMES: Welcome back, everyone, live pictures coming to you from Hong Kong, where it is about 3:30 in the afternoon. Protesters in Hong Kong say they are planning to hold an emergency demonstration. That is their description of it.
The democracy activist Joshua Wong calling for 100,000 people to march in the heart of the city to demand greater autonomy from Mainland China. There have, as you know, been five straight months of unrest in the Asian financial hub and a lot of violent clashes with police. We are keeping an eye on that scene there as you look at that live.
Meanwhile, China has now switched on the world's largest 5G network and with it, wireless customers are expecting to get service so lightning fast it will be leave current 4G service in its dust.
The U.S., South Korea and other countries already have 5G in certain places. But China is trying to get the edge, as CNN's David Culver reports from Beijing.
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DAVID CULVER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: China debuting the world's largest 5G cell phone network. This much anticipated 5th generation rollout started in South Korea and Australia and parts of the U.S.
But with China, it is all about scale. This is expected to be the biggest commercial network. State media here says its 5G has now come online in 50 cities, including right here in Beijing, Shanghai, Gwangju and Shenzhen.
They estimate some 850 million people here use their smartphones to surf the Internet. That is more than any other country. This latest generation of mobile technology will allow for more speed and it is set to get up to 100 times faster than existing 4G cell sites.
But to use it, customers have to purchase 5G equipped phones. So that is where Huawei comes in. It's the largest telecommunications equipment maker and a leading smartphone brand.
Market data shows most smartphone users here rely heavily on Huawei products, roughly 42 percent. That's compared to 5 percent of consumers using Apple phones, which are not yet 5G equipped. China's three major telecoms companies awarded Huawei a large chunk of the 5G mobile contracts. That's a hopeful boost for the company that has faced financial challenges amid the U.S.-China trade war.
Washington has blacklisted Huawei and has been urging other countries to ban its use, alleging it is a national security risk that could make nations vulnerable to Chinese spying.
That is a claim they have repeatedly denied. Making a 5G upgrade more accessible is its relative affordability. Prices range from $18 U.S. to $85 a month, depending on speeds and data.
Many users are warned that while they will be able to stream and watch videos quicker, the full advantages of 5G may not be realized until a couple of years to come. That's when tech companies will likely be designing their apps to fully utilize the enhanced 5G capabilities -- David Culver, CNN, Beijing.
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HOLMES: A mystery dating back to World War II has been solved. The missing British submarine HMS Urge has been found just off the coast of Malta. Researchers at the University of Malta say the boat was sunk by a mine with 44 people on board when it left the Mediterranean island in 1942, bound for Egypt.
Researchers had been mapping the sea floor and that was happening coincidentally near the wreckage. They've been doing it for years. But it wasn't until the grandson of the sub's commander contacted the school cheese ago (ph) that the team shifted their search a little bit and found the sub.
Good for them.
Thanks everyone, for tuning in with your day here with us on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Michael Holmes. Natalie Allen will be back with more at the top of the hour. My day is done but stay tuned. "INSIDE AFRICA" is coming up.
