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Trump To Attend Reception At Downing Street; Trump In London As Alliance Marks 70th Anniversary; Democrats Move Forward While Trump Attends NATO Meeting; Republicans Issue 123-Page Report Defending Trump; Typhoon Kammuri Slams Philippines; Opposition Voice Grows Louder Amid Violent Crackdown; London Terror Attacker's Attorney Shocked; U.S.-China Relations. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired December 03, 2019 - 01:00   ET

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

[01:00:00]

JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, I'm John Vause, you're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Studio Seven at CNN's World Headquarters in Atlanta. Ahead this hour, NATO prepares for a London meeting with an unpredictable U.S. President, short, brief, and informal, and agree to not agree on anything.

Just one typhoon on the planet right now but it's a monster making landfall in the Philippines. Tens of thousands seeking emergency shelter while heavy rains and winds have forced Manila's airport to close.

And China's warning of repercussions over U.S. support for pro- democracy protests turns out it's a bit like being hit with a wet piece of lettuce.

The U.S. President will begin his first full day in London with breakfast with NATO's Secretary-General. Donald Trump will be part of celebrations for the Alliance's 70th anniversary but tensions are higher at these once friendly get-togethers. It's not even called a summit, it's a meeting, which probably explains why there'll be no dinner with the Queen, just tea with Prince Charles, and receptions at Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street.

Just part of what seems old time low for the defense alliance. We begin our coverage with CNN's Max Foster.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MAX FOSTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As President Trump departed for the U.K. ahead of the meeting marking NATO's 70th anniversary, he didn't strike a celebratory tone.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Now, we're going to London, and it will be NATO, and we're meeting with a lot of countries. Then they're going to have to do a little more burden- sharing.

FOSTER: Trump's criticism of the Transatlantic Alliance which has overseen the longest stretch of peace in Europe in centuries is no secret. He's publicly accused other members of not paying their fair share, and on more than one occasion, suggested the U.S. withdraw altogether.

TRUMP: I see NATO and I'm going to tell NATO, you got to start paying your bills. The United States is going to take care of everything.

FOSTER: That waning commitment from the U.S. to the Alliance has left its brain dead according to French President Emmanuel Macron. The two leaders will meet for a no doubt testy bilateral meeting in London on Tuesday. No one to one yet confirmed though between Trump and his host, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Trump and other leaders arrive as the U.K. is gripped by election fever. The last time the President was here, he spoke favorably about Boris Johnson.

TRUMP: So I know Boris. I like him. I've liked him for a long time. He's -- I think he'll do a very good job.

FOSTER: This time, a senior administration official insists Trump is cognizant of not wading into other country's elections. And Johnson seems to be playing down his personal bond with his American counterpart too. A recent Pew survey found 70 percent of Brits had no confidence in Donald Trump.

BORIS JOHNSON, PRIME MINISTER, UNITED KINGDOM: Well, we have very close relationships and friendships with the United States at every level of government.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it's interesting.

JOHNSON: But what we don't do as a traditionally, as loving allies and friends, what we don't do traditionally is get involved in each other's election campaign.

FOSTER: A source tells CNN that NATO isn't calling this week's meeting a summit in order to avoid putting out to communique at the end which Trump may not sign like he did at the G7 meeting last year. Max Foster, CNN London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: CNN's Nic Robertson joins us once again live from outside Winfield House, that's the residence of the U.S. Ambassador in London. Nic's got early morning lifestyle duty which I'm sure will stretch well into the night.

You know, Nic, let's just talk about this fact that this is -- you know, it's not a summit, it's a leader's meeting. There'll be no, you know, dinner with the queen. There'll be a reception. And you know, there's total dodge on, you know, having a meeting so you didn't have an official joint communique because they're worried the U.S. President, you know, might have a temper tantrum and not sign it. You know, this is all part of the plan basically to minimize the potential damage Donald Trump could do. NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes. I mean, as

we were talking before the last hour about the fact that he insulted both the NATO Secretary-General rather has announced the increase in spending, defense spending of many of the NATO allies, $130 billion up since 2016. Nine now, not just three nations making that two percent of GDP spent on defense spending, that threshold that NATO agreed back in 2016 -- 2013, rather. All of this really to try to head off this -- the unpredictability of President Trump.

And my understanding is that it is that sense that if you try to tie President Trump down to specific words or specific agreements in a joint communique which will be traditional after a NATO summit or any summit, and then NATO has its summits every year for the leaders, this one is sort of being quietly called leaders meeting. Because if President Trump really disagrees with some element of what NATO is putting in the joint communicate, then it's going to look bad.

And I think this is really all an effort to keep those disagreements in house, to keep them quiet, or not to give sort of food for President Putin of Russia, who you know, who feels better when he sees division within NATO. He is -- he is worried about NATO. He's worried about their expansion along the eastern borders of, you know, the eastern reaches of NATO's allies.

So this is why, you know, Jens Stoltenberg who really sort of tries to corral these things, is trying to manage things as best he can in this way.

[01:05:59]

VAUSE: Yes. I wonder who gets -- should get the credit for the increase in defense spending, should it be President Trump will President Putin after the Crimea invasion. But just you know, when you just look at the logistics here, when you have a scaled-down gathering, you know, they hardly have meeting at all, it means less time to deal with some very significant issues. You know, this is not a happy NATO family right now. Turkey, in particular, has gone rogue.

ROBERTSON: Yes. And Turkey would say, look, we've been telling NATO all along that it's no longer sort of fit for modern day purpose. You know, Turkey is sort of attraction to joining NATO was that sort of threat of Soviet expansion. That's changed. Turkey now sees its threats as you know, the PKK, the Kurdish Workers Party that they call terrorists, who you know, who live within Turkish borders. They see the Kurdish fighters living in Syria as a threat over their border. And they say they say that they wanted NATO's help for that.

They've borrowed patriot missile systems from NATO in the past, but the United States won't sell themselves so they've gotten outside and bought them from Russia. So what we're hearing from the -- from the Turkish authorities is NATO no longer works from them. And that's the difficulty for the alliance to charge its way forward.

And NATO has -- rather, Turkey has been a very useful ally for NATO because they're the only Muslim member of NATO. And when it comes to missions, for example, in Afghanistan right after 9/11, when article five was triggered, you know, the United States called on all allies, when one is attacked, the others come to support them. That's what happened in 2001. And Turkey was one of the first countries to deploy in a significant way to Kabul in Afghanistan.

So Turkey is valued in that way. But these are the challenges now that NATO faces. And these will be the challenges inside the room when you have President Macron who sees President Trump really just being a harbinger of American foreign policy going forward, not an aberration.

And he says Macron sees the need for Europe to stand alone with its own defense arrangements. And that's not something that President Trump wants to see. So the future of NATO when we talk about it is in this context, and everyone has different views.

VAUSE: And with that in mind, you know, this will be a different meeting in another sense in that it's Emmanuel Macron who's sort of getting on everyone's nerves, you know, within the leadership there of NATO. And this time, Donald Trump will actually have a friend in that room.

They may not be, you know, talking a lot because of various reasons, but Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, there's no escaping that the two are allies, the two friends -- there aren't in very friendly terms. He has not had that kind of relationship with someone before in NATO.

ROBERTSON: Yes, and it's going to be interesting to see how the United States might use that. You know, we are in a period of change and the United States' relationship with Europe is going to change because Britain's relationship with Europe is going to change. It was the view U.S. diplomats for many years that Britain shouldn't leave the European Union because Britain was an excellent ally and partner to voice United States concerns within the European Union.

Britain will leave the European Union. Obviously, it remains within NATO, but Britain's voice and although people say it won't be diminished within Europe, there will be less leverage that Britain will have within the club of nations within Europe be it leaving the E.U. still being part of NATO. So that whole relationship is going to change.

So while Donald Trump has, you know, maybe a strong partner in Boris Johnson, they're seen as sort of being quite similar in some ways, the idea that Britain can be as advantageous to U.S. foreign policy within Europe as it used to be, I think that's going to change. The United States' relationship with Europe with the United Kingdom will change in the future. Gradually, maybe, but it isn't a period of change. There's absolutely no doubt about that.

[01:10:04]

VAUSE: Yes. Change everywhere, it seems, Nic. Nine past six in the morning, thanks for being with us. I appreciate it. Well, the White House is trying to portray President Trump's NATO trip as a world leader addressing serious international concerns while Democrats are obsessed with trying to force him from office and moving on with their impeachment inquiry.

But however you spin it, the impeachment process is moving forward with the House Intelligence Committee sending its report to the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. It will also be released publicly. Republicans have issued their own 123-page prebuttal preemptive defense of the President.

The Judiciary Committee will hold its first hearing on Wednesday without the president or his lawyers in attendance. But four constitutional law experts will appear to explain the grounds for removing a U.S. president from office. Donald Trump again attack the process on Twitter. "The do-nothing Democrats get three constitutional lawyers for their impeachment hoax. They will need them. The Republicans get one. That sounds fair, exclamation point."

To Los Angeles now with political analyst Michael Genovese. He joins us this hour. Michael, good to see you.

MICHAEL GENOVESE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good to be here.

VAUSE: OK, let's put all this together. This is almost surreal. You have the U.S. president attending a native gathering after admitting to withholding military aid from Ukraine, a country on the front lines of Russia's Putin's attempt to rebuild an empire and destabilize Western democracy.

Whether Trump did that because of his overall never before mentioned concern about corruption, or if this was an attempt to extort Ukraine in bring up dirt on Joe Biden, whatever the motive was, it's at the heart of the impeachment inquiry and Russia benefited.

GENOVESE: Yes. And the President's defenders in the house who wrote a rebuttal to the report they hadn't even seen yet said that there's no -- there's no problem here, there's nothing wrong. But think of this way. The President they say was concerned with the excessive amount of corruption in the Ukraine. And so he asked the Ukraine to do an investigation that he knows will be corrupt. This makes no sense. Donald Trump is not stupid, but he is corrupt.

VAUSE: You know, Ukraine's President told Time, well, he never considered the conversation with Trump about military a from the position of quid pro quo, but he did actually kind of chastise the president. Here's part of the interview.

"I don't want us to look like beggars, but you have to understand, we're at war. If our strategic partner, then you can't go blocking anything for us. I think that's just about fairness. It's not about a quid pro quo." So keep that in mind because somehow this is what Donald Trump heard.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The Ukrainian president came out and said very strongly that President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong. That should be case over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: So if the President has done nothing wrong, then why is there the need to constantly cherry pick and twist statements so far out of context that they're practically meaningless?

GENOVESE: Well, President Zelensky said, I don't want to appear to be a beggar but in effect, that's what he is. He's a very weak power facing Russia, a very strong power, and he needs the other strong power of the United States. So he's in a position of great weakness. He has to kowtow to the president. He has no choice in the matter. He's defending his country, and he'll do pretty much anything he can to stop Russia, even if it's bound to Donald Trump.

But if you wanted to know how the language of the -- of the phone conversation between the President and Zelensky went, I saw the movie The Irishman over the weekend, the mafia was talking about, I paint houses, which was another way to say I kill people, or they always use vague references. Well, so when Donald Trump says I want you to do me a favor, Zelensky knew what that meant. Trump knew what it meant. You and I know what it means.

VAUSE: Mafia done perhaps. You know, Republicans have also decided to defend Trump. You mentioned this. They will ignore any of the wrongdoing. They're calling it all democrat partisan attack or discrediting those who public testified. In that prebuttal, they described those witnesses who went public as unelected bureaucrats who shaped Trump's unusual approach to diplomacy.

And I want you to listen to a statement. Here's a statement from a senior lawmaker from the House District committee. "There are clearly some members of the majority who have never accepted the results of the elections. We have no right to overturn the considered judgment of the American people."

That last quote, though, came from Democrat Jerry Nadler during the Clinton impeachment, only he refers to the Republican majority, you know, the 1992, 1996 elections. You know, this is a strategy which has clearly work before. Clinton was impeached, but he was not removed from office. So could it work again?

GENOVESE: Well, you know, it all depends on whose ox is being gored. When your side is being attacked, you defend them no matter what with whatever you have that's available to you. But I think what you're seeing here is that the Republicans are trying very hard to kind of use the fantasy defense, the 1984 defense saying up is down, down is up.

[01:15:07]

Their prebuttal contained all kinds of material that was counter to the evidence that we all know to be true. And so, yes, you don't want to overturn an election. But the constitution gives us a procedure to do just that, in certain circumstances. We've passed that bar. Donald Trump has engaged in activity that one might argue, is impeachable. And so we need to play out the constitutional role. We still have a rule of law system. VAUSE: And, you know, it usually goes ahead if Trump is removed. The election results still stand because Pence then becomes president. But, you know, finally, you may recall that very bizarre moment for a Trump rally in October. That was when the President mocked Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the two FBI agents were having an affair there at the center, the conspiracy theory that the deep state was out to get Donald Trump from the very beginning.

You know, they were -- they were investigated, they were cleared of any wrongdoing but as part of the investigation, their personal text messages were collected. They're released to Congress by the acting FBI director and then leaked. And then you have this from the President of the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I love you, Peter. I love you too, Lisa. Lisa, I love you. Lisa, Lisa. Oh God, I love you, Lisa. And if she doesn't win, Lisa, we've got an insurance policy, Lisa.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Well, Lisa, Lisa Page is now speaking out, she told the Daily Beast. It's like being punched in the gut. My heart drops my stomach when I realized he has tweeted about me again. The President of the United States is calling me names to the entire world. He's demeaning me and my career. It's sickening. And he did it again. The President attacked her again on Monday on Twitter. This beggar's belief.

GENOVESE: The President's words at the rally were despicable. To take a citizen even though it's someone who worked in government, worked in the FBI and did things that are objectionable to you, you don't single out a citizen of no great importance and make her the focus of mockery the way he did. He was also referred to her committing treason. You know, that's just beneath the president. He's playing well beneath his pay scale.

And why do you bother to do that? Because the President can let no insult go unanswered. He just he doesn't have the capacity to move on. He keeps on going back to old slights, old insults, and he can't get past it.

VAUSE: Yes. And I guess we can expect more of that sort of stuff for the next year or so. Michael, thank you so much. Good to see.

GENOVESE: Thank you, John. Still to come. Tens of thousands on the move in the Philippines. Seeking safety as a powerful typhoon may landfall. A live report with the very latest in the moment. Also, the voice of the opposition grows louder in Iran as new images merged of the alleged brutality by government forces against protesters.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:21:35] VAUSE: As Typhoon Kammuri makes landfall in the Philippines. Tens of thousands have enforced from their homes in search of safer shelter. The powerful storms land into the zone, the most populous island, Wednesday, 215 kilometers per hour. Northeast heavy rain could lead to dangerous flooding as well as mud flies. All of this as the Philippines is hosting the 2019 Southeast Asia Games. Some of us have already been scheduled.

Let's go to meteorologist Pedram Javaheri with the latest now on what we can expect and what's happening at this moment and what we can expect in the days ahead, Pedram?

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN INTERNATIONAL METEOROLOGIST: Yes, John. You know, this is the -- this is the peak period of this particular storm for areas around middle. As you mentioned, and that's the biggest concern, of course, when you're talking about it, a very densely populated region. So the perspective is as such, when you dive in towards this particular area, we do have a category for equivalent storm that made landfall in the last couple of hours and enough interaction with land that we've seen the storm kind of weakened down to a category three here in the past hour or so.

But 185 kilometer per hour winds. The strongest point of this storm on approach to the closest point I should say to Manila is this particular hour. So across this region of the Calamian Islands, the Verde Island Passage, that's the area of concern. And in fact, when you take a look at where it's headed, another 12 to 24 hours before it finally reemerges over the South China Sea drops farther towards the south.

And really the steering environment finally becomes favorable as well. In fact, when you take a look at what has happened in recent days, the storm kind of meandered across Guam and then pushed in as a category four. And of course, when you take a look at where it's located closest proximity right there to Manila. Rainfall amounts as much as a quarter of a meter. That's the highest amounts we expect with this particular feature.

Flooding going to be a major concern. And of course, we know the airport across the Manila International, there have a shut down operations at least, as the storm has approached. There are some 500 flights canceled, as a result as well but southern tier of Luzon into the Calamian Islands, that's a signal three that is issued across this region that indicates winds of up to 170 kilometers per hour could be expected across that region.

So essentially telling folks to seek shelter in a strong building evacuated low lying areas, staying away from riverbanks. Those are essentially what we try to do when we get to the signal three strength. And climatologically, this is not peak season in the Philippines, that is around the months of June, July, August and September. And then we see a pretty significant drop in activity as we go in towards the month of December.

But of course when you think about a category for coming ashore, this region, it really isn't aligned with the time of year that it is but in recent years, we've had Hagupit and Washi, storms that have taken over 1000 lives both as well. A very deadly storm system that moved across this region. These are all December storms. So you kind of begin to see a late season, almost a cool weather pattern where storms are still maintaining intensity into the month of December and January, as opposed to just June, July and August, John.

VAUSE: Yes. This seem to come out of nowhere, as I often do, Pedram, thank you.

JAVAHERI: Very rapidly. Yes.

VAUSE: Well, new images have a emerge of Iran's allegedly violent crackdown on protesters, they've been demonstrating for weeks now initially overseen increase in the price of fuel. Iran's leaders have been accused of trying to prevent any word of the unrest from spreading beyond its borders. But the opposition seems to have some prominent supporters. As CNN's Sam Kiley reports.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Iranian parliamentarians grab and throttle back dissent from one of their own. Mohammed (INAUDIBLE) who comes from Iran south has sought to publicize allegations of the mass killing of demonstrators there. He was silenced in Iran's National Assembly by politicians anxious to suppress news about what may be the worst violence and demonstrations in decades.

[11:25:12]

KILEY: The internet has been cut for most of the last two weeks. But images of alleged brutality by the security forces have begun to emerge. Here a demonstrator chases a plainclothes officer who shoots him in the leg. Human rights groups have said that there have been hundreds of deaths across Iran since demonstrations began against a sudden 50 percent fuel price hike last month.

The government has said the demonstrators who it calls vandals and thugs, that burn 70 gas stations, more than 700 banks and even dozens of ambulances as Iran's crisis has deepened. Sanctions imposed by the U.S. have hobbled Iran. The IMF saying this year its economy will shrink by almost 10 percent. 10 years ago, a reform movement was violently crushed. Today there's more of a revolutionary drive with opposition leaders saying that Iran's supreme leader is worse than the Shah that the Islamic Revolution deposed in 1979.

Opposition politician Mir-Hossein Mousavi who's under house arrest, issued a statement that said the killers in 1978 represented a non- religious regime. The agents and snipers of November 2019 are the representatives of the religious government. At that time, the commander-in-chief was the Shah. Today is the supreme leader with absolute authority. The language to is shifting from demands for reform to an end to the regime altogether.

But with no leadership or plan, reaching that goal is a desperate prospect. And perhaps a dangerous dream. (END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Thanks to Sam Kiley for that report. Still ahead here on CNN NEWSROOM. He's spent eight years in jail. A convicted terrorist. He was there for plotting terrorist attacks. After he was released he went on a killing spree again. More on London's latest terrorist attack.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:30:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

VAUSE (voice-over): Welcome back. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM and I'm John Vause with headlines this hour.

(HEADLINES)

VAUSE: The victims of Friday's fatal knife attack near the London Bridge were remembered at a vigil on Monday not far from the scene of the crime. The prime minister stood alongside London's mayor and Labour Party leader to mourn the deaths of two young people.

Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones were stabbed by Usman Khan before he was killed by passersby. CNN's Nina dos Santos talked to Khan's attorney.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

USMAN KHAN, TERRORIST: One day, 10 Downing Street and the White House (INAUDIBLE) --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Allahu Akbar!

NINA DOS SANTOS, CNNMONEY EUROPE EDITOR (voice-over): This is Usman Khan, aged just 18, and about to be arrested for plotting Islamic terror.

And this is the same man a decade later, gunned down after a deadly knife rampage, wearing a suicide vest that turned out to be fake.

Understanding the 10 years and between these events, eight of which he spent in prison, will be a key part of the investigation into Friday's London Bridge attack.

For those who have known khan all that time, the turn the events remains a mystery.

VAJAHAT SHARIF, LONDON BRIDGE ATTACKER'S LAWYER: The last time I spoke to him face to face was around November or October 2018, about a month or a few weeks before his release.

DOS SANTOS: What frame of mind did he seem in?

SHARIF: He presented himself as very positive. He was doing well in the prison regime, he was compliant and appeared to be a successful prisoner. So in that sense, there was nothing that stood out to indicate that he could be a problem when he was released.

DOS SANTOS: What do you think happened between now and then?

SHARIF: I don't know what happened.

DOS SANTOS (voice-over): Khan's killing spree has prompted calls for longer sentences for serious criminals but his lawyer says vast justice isn't the answer. Instead, his client should have been offered deradicalization whilst in custody and in fact asked for such services.

DOS SANTOS: (INAUDIBLE) a letter that he wrote upon your suggestion, I believe, to your legal practice, trying to get access to some kind of rehabilitation program while He was still in jail and I'll read you a quote.

It says, "I would be grateful if you could arrange some kind of course that I could do where I can properly learn about Islam and its teachings and I can prove I don't carry the extreme views which I might have carried before."

That letter is October 2012.

He never got access to types of those services, did he?

SHARIF: He never got access to the specialist deradicalization services while he was in custody. Ideological deconstruction, the deradicalization proceed, doesn't take place during a custodial term. There is some provision by the probation services but the real intervention by the deradicalizer happens during the licensing part of the sentence, when the offender is released back into the community.

The point to learn from this is that the system could benefit by reviewing its position on something like this.

DOS SANTOS: What went through your mind when you saw your former client shot dead by police?

SHARIF: I was shocked that an incident had taken place again on London Bridge. Something clearly has gone very wrong here.

[01:35:00]

SHARIF: It may be that he was fine during the custodial part of his sentence; something may have happened on license that triggered this. But the reality is I can't offer any explanation. DOS SANTOS: Is it possible to blame anyone?

SHARIF: No, it is impossible to blame anyone because at the end of the day, if someone wants to take a knife and stab someone, it can just literally take a minute to do.

DOS SANTOS (voice-over): It took Khan five minutes to kill two people. It'll take authorities a long time to figure out why -- Nina dos Santos, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Next up on CNN NEWSROOM, Beijing strikes back, banning the U.S. Navy from Hong Kong in retaliation for American support for pro democracy protests in Hong Kong. But actually sounds a whole lot more serious than it really is.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

VAUSE: China warned of serious retaliation for U.S. support of Hong Kong's pro-democracy protesters and it has banned the U.S. Navy from docking in Hong Kong. China has also sanctioned U.S. non-profit groups monitoring the unrest in the financial hub.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUA CHUNYING, CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESPERSON (through translator): In response to the U.S.' unreasonable actions, the Chinese government has decided to suspend the review of U.S. military maritime vessels and planes visiting Hong Kong with immediate effect.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: To Washington now and CNN political analyst and "The Washington Post" columnist Josh Rogin.

Josh, thanks for being with us.

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Great to be with you.

VAUSE: On the one hand, this ban sounds like big stuff, there have been suspensions before but never has there been an blanket ban like this one.

On the other, hand when you actually get down and think about, it the real world impact is that the U.S. Navy has to strike Hong Kong off the list of ports of call for R&R. That is about it, right?

So there's some tricky theater going on, for lack of a better term?

ROGIN: I think that's right. The Chinese response to President Trump signing the Hong Kong Freedom and Human Rights Act was muted and the actual steps they took will have very little impact on U.S.-China relations and very little impact on the United States, whether the ships and NGOs are sanctioned by the Chinese were already prevented from operating in China.

So it begs the question, why didn't they do what they said they were going to do, which is to tank the trade talks they are in, in retaliation?

There's only one answer. They really want to the trade talks to continue. VAUSE: They quarantined the trade negotiations from the ongoing situation with Hong Kong and the U.S. president was asked about that on Monday, whether or not this pro democracy bill, which he signed into law, what impact it will have on those talks.

[01:40:00]

VAUSE: He dodged the question and this was his answer. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The Chinese are always negotiating. I'm very happy with where we are. And frankly I could be other places that I could do all by myself and be even happier.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

He talked about China continuing to negotiate. This is a standard Trump answer about China wanting more than the U.S. That does seem to be the case, Trump has the upper hand because Beijing is hurting more than the U.S.

If you're Beijing, why wouldn't you just run out the clock here, wait to see what happens with the impeachment inquiry wait, to see what Donald Trump's chances are with reelection, just wait it out?

ROGIN: I think that's what they are doing of course, if President Trump is willing to sign a trade deal that they really like, they will sign it. They're also happy to just delay, delay, delay.

That speaks to why they did not retaliate from the Hong Kong bill. They know that President Trump is not really supportive of Hong Kong freedom and democracy. They know that Congress is pushing this against Trump instincts.

And they know that, in the end, both Trump and the Chinese government have a political domestic interest in keeping these trade talks alive, whether or not they get a deal right away or whether or not it takes a lot longer.

The bottom line is that this whole idea of linking human rights to trade, which is what the Chinese are threatening to do, it did not pan out that way. It looks like they were bluffing.

VAUSE: From Beijing's point of view, looking at the words of the foreign ministry spokeswoman, this pro democracy bill, it seems nothing short of a threat to China's independence and sovereignty. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUA (through translator): China urges the U.S. to correct their mistakes, stop words and deeds interfering in Hong Kong's affairs and other Chinese internal affairs.

China will take further necessary moves in accordance with the development of the situation and will firmly protect the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong, as well as China's sovereignty, security and development interests.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: It's the last part of that statement, talking about firmly protecting China's sovereignty, security and development interests. In other words, a threat to China's sovereignty anywhere is a threat to China sovereignty everywhere.

That's a much bigger deal if you talk about the bigger picture here, beyond the need for a trade deal. That seems to be indicative of a relationship between the world's only superpower and the world's only emerging superpower, which continues to go from bad to worse at a rate of knots.

ROGIN: You have a China government getting increasingly aggressive and repressive internally and increasingly sensitive to any criticism. This is what they say anytime the United States or any other country criticizes the Chinese government on human rights against Uyghurs, Hong Kong, aggression against Taiwan.

And we see China expanding its ability to resist international pressure, to do better on human rights. The United States is leading the response and whether or not they succumb to the threats will be a huge indicator of where the relationship will go from here.

In other words, China has threatened severe retaliation, and we have two choices. We can shut up and succumb to the threats or we can stand up for our values' interests and leave it to China to deal with the criticism, whichever way they see fit.

VAUSE: Josh, it's always good to see you, thank you.

ROGIN: Thanks, John.

VAUSE: Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM, I'm John Vause. "WORLD SPORT" starts right after the break.

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