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North Korea Announces Successful Test at Sohae; Johnson Vows to Deliver Brexit by January 31; U.S. House Sets Stage for Historic Vote Next Week; Verdict Expected against Sudan's Bashir; Police Try to ID Bodies from White Island. Aired 3-3:30a ET

Aired December 14, 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 to our viewers from all around the world. I am Michael Holmes here in Studio 7 of the CNN Center.

Ahead here on CNN NEWSROOM, North Korea says it conducted another crucial test from one of its launch sites. We will be live in Seoul with you for details.

After a resounding victory for the U.K.'s Conservatives, prime minister Boris Johnson vowing to get Brexit done by the end of January.

And next week, we could see the third presidential impeachment in U.S. history.

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HOLMES: Breaking story for you, North Korean state media announcing what they call another successful quote, "crucial test." It is said to have happened at the Sohae satellite launching ground on Saturday, the second test in a week at the same missile launch site.

Not clear what exactly was tested. Paula Hancocks joining us on the line live from Seoul.

What have you been able to learn, Paula?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Michael, at this point we have had a statement from the South Korean military defense (INAUDIBLE) said they are closely watching this. They said that the intelligence authorities in South Korea and also in the United States are trying to analyze exactly what happened but they do not have anything at this point. They said that they cannot confirm specifics.

So what we know from North Korea's point of view is through state-run media, KCNA. They have said that they have had another successful, quote, "crucial test." This is at the Sohae satellite launch site. It is the exact same site where they launched something a week ago. So this is the second test at this area in two consecutive weekends.

Now we did not get confirmation from Pyongyang on the previous test but it was believed by experts and the South Koreans that it was some kind of engine test, which could be used either in a long range missile launch or it could be used in a satellite launch.

The satellite launch, it is something that some experts have been pointing to as a potential Christmas gift that North Korea has promised to the United States. It would use effectively much of the same technology as a ballistic missile and intercontinental ballistic missile but will be seen as potentially less provocative.

The question is, what is the gift that North Korea has threatened?

They said that this end-of-year deadline, they said that they are going to choose a new path. It does not seem as though this particular test is that Christmas gift but it could be in preparation for it.

And, Michael, it all comes as well as the U.S. special envoy for North Korea is arriving in Seoul this weekend, Stephen Biegun. He is here for last-minute talks with the South Koreans. We see this potentially as a last-ditch attempt to try and get some kind of working level talks with North Korea but of course, on the eve of him arriving here, North Korea carries out another test -- Michael.

HOLMES: Indeed. All right, Paula, keeping an eye on that for us. Paula Hancocks there for us in Seoul, South Korea.

Boris Johnson right now is reshaping his cabinet in anticipation that the U.K. will finally leave the European Union by the end of January. The prime minister has secured a commanding majority in Parliament and sidelined the hardline Brexiteers. So he really should have no trouble getting his Brexit deal approved in theory.

Here is how the new Parliament will look. Conservatives now outnumber all the other parties combined. But keep an eye on the SNP, that is the Scottish National Party. The big boost that it got on Thursday could be a thorn in Mr. Johnson's side going forward. More from CNN's Nick Glass.

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NICK GLASS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, hey, guys, where was the main man?

Suddenly up he pops to a rock star reception. Unquestionably, this was Boris Johnson's night.

BORIS JOHNSON, U.K. PRIME MINISTER: We did it. We did it. We pulled it off, didn't we.

GLASS (voice-over): A very personal triumph and a mandate to govern for the next five years with...

JOHNSON: The biggest Conservative majority since the 1980s.

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GLASS (voice-over): His campaign was acutely, strategically managed. Lots of photo opportunities, some invasion of serious interrogation. But one clear promise repeated vigorously and monotonously.

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JOHNSON: With this mandate and this majority we will at last be able to do what?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get Brexit done.

JOHNSON: You've been paying attention.

GLASS (voice-over): As the BBC showed graphically on the night, here was a crucial historic change. The red band of Labour working class seats straddling the north of England began to shrink, some turning Conservative blue.

This election was fundamentally a leadership battle between two men, Boris Johnson and Labour's Jeremy Corbyn, one that Mr. Corbyn has manifestly lost.

JEREMY CORBYN, LEADER, U.K. LABOUR PARTY: This is obviously very disappointing night for the Labour Party. I want to also make it clear that I will not lead the party in any future general election campaign.

GLASS (voice-over): Mr. Corbyn is staying on as Labour leader to allow the party time for what it calls reflection. Expect some Labour infighting. After a toxic campaign, there is clearly some residual fury at the way things have turned out.

EMILY THORNBERRY, BRITISH LABOUR PARTY: This duplicitous, gutless, reckless prime minister has been elected on one issue alone: wrapping himself in the lie that he is the only person to get Brexit done.

GLASS (voice-over): Naturally the victorious prime minister raised his hands in triumph, going in and coming out of Conservative Party headquarters. The Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon was even more excited live on Sky News. She had just learned that a colleague had unseated the Liberal Democrat Party leader Jo Swinson.

The SNP swept to a landslide in Scotland. Britain's political paralysis may be over but now a constitutional crisis looms. Nicola Sturgeon is certain to press for another referendum on Scottish independence. With the Ulster Unionists losing seats in Northern Ireland, there are additional signs of fracture within the United Kingdom.

JOHNSON: We will get Brexit done on time by the 31st of January, no ifs, no buts, no maybes.

GLASS (voice-over): But after that, Boris Johnson faces the perhaps greater challenge of negotiating a trade deal with Europe. And then there is the broader Churchillian question, will he be able to lift what some observers perceive as widespread national despondency? Nick Glass, CNN, in London.

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HOLMES: Let us bring in Quentin Peel with the London based think tank Chatham House.

Thank you so much for your time. Boris Johnson has no argument. He has the mandate that he was after. The question I suppose is what is he going to do with it and how quickly.

He has always sold Brexit as a panacea.

What if it isn't?

QUENTIN PEEL, CHATHAM HOUSE: Absolutely, here he is, he has his mandate but none of the problems have gone away. This is one of the most ferociously complex exercises that any government has undertaken, to extricate itself from the most integrated trade market in the world and in a very short time scale.

He has got to try and do that with a country that is still deeply divided. So for all the really bluster that Boris Johnson is so good at, he really has got to get down to the detail now.

HOLMES: And bluster and Latin (ph) variously.

Trade is such a major issue -- you mentioned trade. And you got Donald Trump. And he had this to say on Twitter. Part of what he said is that, Britain and the United States will now be free to strike a massive new trade deal after Brexit, a far bigger and more lucrative than any deal that can be made with the E.U.

Is that true and realistic?

These deals take years.

How is it going to work out for the U.K.?

What would Donald Trump want?

PEEL: I think it is going to be a very uncomfortable exercise. The idea that there is some wonderful nirvana out there is simply not true. The European Union market is twice the size of the American market in toto. The British are very much integrated into the European market.

So first in a way, they have to extricate themselves from the rules and regulations of the European market, which will mean having new barriers and things like that. And then they have to negotiate a good deal with the U.S.

I am not sure that it is going to be anything that can be done quickly, because the U.S.' demands in a trade deal are very different from what the U.K. wants.

HOLMES: Exactly. There are really so many strands of Brexit and its impact or potential impacts.

What do you make of Northern Ireland?

Could the withdrawal agreement undermine the peace process?

How big a risk is that?

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PEEL: It is a real risk, I think. It is the Protestant community of Northern Ireland that is now feeling betrayed. The Democratic Unionist Party, they have lost two seats in the election. They were effectively thrown under the bus by Boris Johnson to get his withdrawal deal because it implies having a form of border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which is the absolute opposite that the Unionists stand for.

They are very angry about this deal that Boris Johnson is now proposing to rush through the British Parliament by the end of January and then Britain will be out. Northern Ireland, which has now elected more nationalist members of Parliament than unionists for the very first time, that I think, is really a sensitive situation, which Boris Johnson has blindly ignored up until now.

HOLMES: Then you have the SNP, the Scottish Nationalist Party. They did very, very well.

Can we expect lots of calls for another referendum on Scottish national independence?

Boris Johnson says it will not happen but the Scots are persistent, they say that he does not even have a mandate for Brexit in Scotland.

Where can that go?

PEEL: The formal demand for another Scottish referendum is going to be sent to London before Christmas according to Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the Scottish National Party. Boris Johnson is going to say no.

But the truth is that the Scots voted clearly in one direction, the English in another direction and somehow the two have got to be reconciled. The real danger for Boris Johnson is that, in pulling the United Kingdom out of the European Union, he is actually going to pull the United Kingdom itself apart.

And that, I think, is something that he is going to spent his entire premiership struggling with.

HOLMES: Be careful what you wish for, I suppose, when it comes to Brexit. Quentin Peel with Chatham House, I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

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HOLMES: A historic vote looms in the U.S. House of Representatives as divided lawmakers decide whether to make Donald Trump the third U.S. president ever to be impeached. We will bring that to you when we come back.

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HOLMES: Welcome back.

In less than a week Donald J. Trump could become the third U.S. president to ever be impeached. History is being made. The House Judiciary Committee set a full House vote into motion when it approved two articles of impeachment against Mr. Trump in a bitter partisan debate that went on and on.

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HOLMES: Alex Marquardt with the details from Washington.

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ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): History in the making.

REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: The Judiciary Committee will come to order.

MARQUARDT: For only the fourth time in U.S. history, a vote by the House to approve articles of impeachment against a sitting president.

NADLER: The question now is on article one of the resolution, impeaching President Donald J. Trump for abusing his powers.

MARQUARDT: In an otherwise quiet and methodical process, Republicans make their anger known.

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REP. LOUIE GOHMERT (R-TX): May I ask how I am recorded?

NADLER: How is the gentleman recorded?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Gohmert, you are recorded as no.

GOHMERT: I want to make sure.

MARQUARDT: In just minutes, the two of articles impeachment, obstruction of Congress and abuse of power, approved in the House Judiciary Committee along party lines.

NADLER: The article is agreed to. The resolution is amended as ordered, reported favorably to the House.

MARQUARDT: No rejoicing among Democrats, who emphasized it was a solemn and sad day.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): We're defending the Constitution and we are defending the integrity of the 2020 presidential election.

MARQUARDT: Republicans, knowing their efforts would fail, argued that for Democrats it's only ever been about impeaching a president who they don't like.

REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): Impeachment is their drug. It is their obsession. It is their total focus.

MARQUARDT: Next up, the full House vote set for Wednesday, meaning that, by Christmas, President Trump will almost certainly be impeached.

Then, early in the new year, this Senate trial, where it's Republican turf. Leader Mitch McConnell insists, that's where impeachment stops.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): There's no chance the president is going to be removed from office.

MARQUARDT: Even though Democrats agree they were outraged after McConnell told FOX News he is in lockstep with the White House, despite being on the jury.

MCCONNELL: Everything I do during this, I'm coordinating with the White House counsel.

MARQUARDT: One House Democrat telling CNN McConnell should recuse himself, another calling it outrageous.

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): The foreman of the jury, Mitch McConnell, the guy that decides all the rules, is actually going to coordinate with the defendant. That makes no sense whatsoever. It is an outrage.

MARQUARDT: Mitch McConnell and the White House legal team are pushing for a short, fast trial that will almost certainly result in the president's acquittal.

The president, sources say, had wanted a bigger spectacle, a full- throated defense. Now, the details of the Senate trial are still being hashed out, including how it's actually going to work, as well as a potential start date.

But we do know it will start early in the new year -- Alex Marquardt, CNN, Washington.

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HOLMES: America's highest court meanwhile has set the stage for a blockbuster ruling on the powers of the president to resist demands for information from prosecutors and Congress while in office. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether the president Trump can block the release of his tax records. Observers say the case will test the independence of the high court

and could produce a once in a generation statement on presidential accountability. The ruling from the high court is to be expected by June.

Take a short break; when we come back Sudan's former dictator waits to hear the verdict in his corruption trial. The court's decision expected soon. We will have the details next.

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HOLMES: In this hour we could find out if former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir will be convicted of corruption and money laundering charges. Al-Bashir was ousted from office and arrested back in April following months of mass protest against his authoritarian rule. A Sudanese court is set to deliver its verdict.

CNN's Farai Sevenzo joins me now on the line from Nairobi.

I guess, Farai, these are corruption charges. The question is whether it is going to be enough for those who took to the streets, who want human rights charges, not just corruption.

FARAI SEVENZO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Michael. The usually important day of a verdict for a man running the country for 30 years, he was absolutely at the hub of everything that happened, despite the fact that International Criminal Court wanted him to be tried at The Hague, the current Sudanese authority, which is made up of civilian and military leaders, had offered to try him Sudan.

And, of course, the question is, is it really just about corruption?

He was found to have over $113 million worth of cash in three different currencies in his house, back after he was deposed on the 11th of April this year. But there is much more to the heart of this.

If you can point to whether or not these military figures who were (INAUDIBLE) at the call and behest of Bashir when he was in power, have the time (ph) to put him away and it may afford another charge (INAUDIBLE), which is, of course, the idea that he was responsible for the deaths of (INAUDIBLE) protesters in the leadup to this now new (INAUDIBLE) in the country.

(INAUDIBLE) that people are worried about, (INAUDIBLE) back in September 2018, al-Bashir promoted hundreds of judges so the supreme court (INAUDIBLE) went from (INAUDIBLE) they are wondering, if these people now have (INAUDIBLE) in the court, if any of this (INAUDIBLE) on this corruption trial. But of course, there's bigger things to worry about.

People from Darfur saying what about us?

What about all the human rights abuses?

What about the war crimes that the International Criminal Court (INAUDIBLE) on this man?

And we wait to see, Michael, what will happen as we have had massive implications for the future of Sudan, of course, we are hearing (INAUDIBLE) Omar al-Bashir protesting in town (ph), in Khartoum. We are hearing other protesters are really clued in (ph) to Sudanese TV right now to see what will happen to the man who ran their lives for the last 30 years.

HOLMES: Ironically, things spending time in the prison where he used to send prisoners, the protesters and political prisoners. Farai Sevenzo, thank you so much. We will check in with you when we get a verdict.

And we will bring it to you as well, everyone watching. Now we will turn our attention to Hong Kong. The leader there, Carrie Lam, she is headed to Beijing. She is expected to meet with the Chinese president on Monday.

This comes as pressure mounts for her government to find a solution to address the increased demands for democracy. For months now, pro- democracy activists have flooded the city streets and pro establishment candidates suffered devastating losses, of course, in those local elections several weeks ago.

Families of those who died in the New Zealand volcanic eruption are beginning to get some closure, if we can call it that. What are authorities are doing now at what is a very sensitive time with the victims' loved ones. That is coming up next.

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HOLMES: New Zealand authorities are working to identify the six bodies recovered Friday from the volcano on White Island. The crucial but emotional task for the families of the victims comes as divers searched on Saturday for the bodies of two people who were still unaccounted for. Will Ripley with the latest.

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WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sending prayers for the dead.

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RIPLEY (voice-over): The Maori community of Whakatane, New Zealand, give a traditional blessing as boats return to shore with six victims from the White Island volcano eruption. The operation to retrieve them was launched at first light on Friday using helicopters, small boats and a naval vessel.

A dangerous mission carried out by eight military officers, working in soaring temperatures, wearing sealed protective clothing and breathing masks to protect them from the toxic gases still flowing from the volcano.

The team spent four hours on the island, bringing off the remains. They are still searching for two more bodies, one believed to be in the water. The prime minister today thanking the team for their heroism.

JACINDA ARDERN, NEW ZEALAND PRIME MINISTER: They carried out their role with dignity and respect for those who have been lost. There was, of course, a huge amount of courage still required to do what they did today.

RIPLEY (voice-over): The retrieval operation comes after five days after the volcano erupted on the island, causing plumes of steam, ash and rocks to pour out onto the crater, where dozens of tourist were enjoying a day trip.

At least 16 people are dead or presumed dead and dozens more are being treated for life-changing burns. Frustrations have been mounting that the remaining bodies left on the island had not been brought home sooner. The families of those brought back, now at least, will have some relief, that they can begin to say goodbye.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These families are just so appreciative, so ecstatic, so overwhelmed and overjoyed to know that they have got their ones with them.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Will Ripley, CNN, Whakatane, New Zealand.

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HOLMES: And just before we leave you, everyone knows the story of "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" but what about the Grinch who stole Christmas trees?

Authorities in the U.S. state of Washington are looking for the person or people who cut down and stole 78 firs from an evergreen farm. The trees were reportedly worth more than $6,000.

No description of the suspects at the moment but authorities say that their heart is an empty hole, their brain is full of spiders and they have garlic in their soul, as Dr. Seuss might have said -- or did say.

Thank you for watching everyone. This has been CNN NEWSROOM, I am Michael Holmes. I am not done with you yet. I will have your headlines at in a moment.