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President Obama to Hold Press Conference Soon. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired September 05, 2016 - 07:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[07:00:32] CAMEROTA: Morning, everyone. Welcome back to your NEW DAY. Happy Labor Day. Chris is off this morning. John Berman joins me.

Great to spend the holiday with you, John.

We are following breaking news for you at this hour. We are waiting for President Obama to hold a press conference. This is following the G-20 summit in China. So we'll bring you there live in just moments.

But already President Obama met with Vladimir Putin this morning for 90 minutes about trying to end the violence in Syria. We're told they could not come to an agreement.

A 90-minute meeting is a long meeting between these two liters. Some say the lack of agreement could be seen as a failure. One U.S. official described that 90-minute meeting as constructive. The summit ending as North Korea tested three ballistic missiles as an action already condemned by the United States. Want to get the latest now from CNN's White House correspondent, Michelle Kosinski.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's been a lot going on, on this trip, to say the least. This is President Obama's last trip to Asia, the last chance he's going to get to sit down with some of these leaders.

He met for four hours with the Chinese president on this trip. But what everybody is talking about right now, of course, is the meeting that just ended between President Obama and Russia's president, Vladimir Putin. That doesn't happen very often. This was just a pull-aside meeting, but it lasted for an hour and a half.

Among the touchy subjects on the list, Ukraine, Syria, and Russia's suspected hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign. Russia suspected of possibly trying to influence the U.S. election. The goal of this meeting, where is there common ground, even though obviously, there are still some very big disagreements.

So President Obama is going to be asked about that in this upcoming press conference, likely a lot about that meeting and the relationship with Russia that Vladimir Putin just called frozen. But I think he'll also be asked about Turkey. That relationship has

been difficult, as well. And also, President Obama's legacy in Asia. Has it been working? You know, both U.S. presidential candidates oppose the TPP, the Transpacific Partnership, that big trade deal that is supposed to be the crowning achievement of President Obama's rebalance to Asia.

Back to you guys.

BERMAN: All right, Michelle Kosinski for us in China right now.

want to bring in our panel. CNN political commentator and political anchor of Time Warner Cable News, Errol Louis; CNN political analyst and Washington bureau chief for "The Daily Beast," Jackie Kucinich; and Ron Brownstein, CNN senior political analyst and senior editor of "The Atlantic."

Ron, Jackie was just talking about TPP...

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

BERMAN: ... what was supposed to be the signature trade deal of the Obama administration, a trade deal now which is opposed by the Republican nominee, opposed by the Democratic nominee, getting no help from the people in Congress who said they were behind it themselves. President Obama is overseas right now pushing someone -- something that no one else seems to want.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, you know, it's personal. It's a striking development. Every U.S. president since World War II has supported expanded trade. And now you have both presidential nominees actively opposing this deal, which is more than an economic deal in the minds of President Obama and its supporters. It is a counterweight to Chinese influence in the region and is seen as the centerpiece of his repositioning, you know, his rebalancing toward Asia.

At a panel I did in Philadelphia, Gene Sperling, who was the head of the NEC and President Obama, economic adviser to Hillary Clinton, he said TPP is, quote, "In the rearview mirror for her," that she would not be looking to even renegotiate it if she was president. It's going to be very hard to walk back those statements if -- if she does win.

The striking thing about this, though, John, is that there is a constituency for trade. It is now more in the Democratic Party. If you look, virtually every big-city mayor in the country, there's kind of an urban professional pro-trade constituency that right now is not being heard in either party.

CAMEROTA: So Jackie, let's talk about what we're expecting out of this news conference with President Obama from China. What do you -- I mean, he'll be asked about everything, obviously, from the press. What do you think that he will address?

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: That is definitely an open question, because there's certainly things that we want to hear about. Everything from the presidential election to what happened in that 90- meeting -- 90-minute meeting with Vladimir Putin.

Two, how hard he's going to keep pressing TPP. I mean, it is sort of a zombie bill right now, but he has -- he's said that he's still going to try to go for it. But it's certain -- since this is his last Asia trip of his presidency, there are certainly many, many questions that could be brought forth. But you're right: it does depend what he's actually going to address in this press conference.

[07:05:05] BERMAN: Errol Louis, 90 minutes in a room with Vladimir Putin. We know this is a contentious relationship. We also know the president says when he meets with Putin, they get along fine. They just have clear distinctions on where they stand. You get the sense that they just both lay down where they are, and they're like, OK.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, sure, sure. I mean, look, this is also a matter of Putin has, in some ways, the upper hand. He knows that this president is going to be leaving in a matter of months and he can kind of outwait him.

I'd be surprised if Crimea didn't come up, if the Ukraine didn't come up. But for -- for the part that they're supposed to be cooperating on in Syria, I'm personally hoping that they spent most of their 90 minutes trying to figure out what they can actually do something together on, because issues like e-mail hacking, issues like Crimea, you know, these are not going to change. The weakening of NATO that Putin clearly is trying to sort of exacerbate, I don't think that's something the president can do very much about at this point.

So hopefully, they made some progress on what they're going to do in Syria. Beyond that, I don't know how much they had to talk about.

CAMEROTA: I mean, the only things that are dribbling out is that no agreement was reached. I don't even know what that means, Ron, no agreement. Obviously, well, the U.S. certainly wants to stop the bloodshed there and the refugee and humanitarian crisis. So what were they trying to hammer out?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, you know, international gatherings like always seem to me to be designed to prove -- George Bundy, the national security advisor for President Kennedy back in the '60s was famous for saying, "The color of truth is gray," meaning that the world is not black and white.

And you just think about what we were just talking about, with Russia. All of the various conflicts that we have with Russia, and yet there is a need for the U.S. president inexorably to find the ability to work with them on the rare areas where our interests can overlap. And that certainly, you know, eroding the capacity of ISIS is one of those.

The same thing with China. We just talked about how TPP is designed, in some ways, to constrain the influence of China in Asia. There's certainly been lots of conflict with China on this trip. And yet, the president also was able to sign an historic agreement with China on moving forward jointly on climate change, moving forward the Paris agreement from 2015. So it's kind of an interesting, to me, counterpoint of a presidential

campaign that is almost always in the U.S. drawn in very kind of bright -- you know, bright primary colors when, in fact, the relations with these great powers around the world are always kind of modulated and executed in shades of gray, as George Bundy once said.

BERMAN: You know, it is interesting, Jackie, because whenever the press gets a chance to talk to the president over the last few months, they try to get him to weigh in on the presidential election. Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump.

Historically, a president overseas might be a bit loathe to get too political domestically, but you never know. I mean, the president has weighed in about Donald Trump when he's been overseas before, so that could happen here.

There are other issues where the president hasn't talked about them at length. Colin Kaepernick, which is something you could imagine the president being asked about and having an opinion on. I'd be very curious to see what he says about that.

KUCINICH: You're absolutely right. He has addressed issues of race in the past at press conferences. Maybe not abroad. But, you know, particularly because of the role of Russia in this race. You know, Donald Trump, one of his applause lines these days is that, you know, shouldn't we have a better relationship with Russia? Shouldn't they be our friends?

So I do wonder if that -- that will be addressed, just because Donald Trump has made it such -- such at the forefront of his presidential campaign. And Hillary Clinton being asked about the Russian -- I'm sorry, Tim Kaine being asked about the Russian reset just yesterday. So there are these other issues $, that are very -- that have to do with Russia that you can't -- you have to imagine people are going to want to know a little bit more about from the president, who's there right now in that role.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. Oh, to be a fly on the wall inside that 90- minute meeting.

Errol, I mean, to your point, wouldn't the president have said, since he had the chance in this face-to face-to-face meeting, "Stop trying to tamper with the U.S. elections. Stop hacking into the DNC"?

LOUIS: It would be a nice request to be made. And I'm sure Putin, a dictator, would give him some kind of an assurance. The assurance would not be worth anything, however. This is where dictators have an advantage over democracies. That again, you know, Putin is not going anywhere. We, by operation of law, will have the president step down.

And so, you know, he's -- he's going to do whatever he's going to do, secure in the knowledge that he's going to have a new president to deal with in fairly short order.

And this gets into something -- you know, we're batting it around as a political dispute during this campaign, but there's a real question about whether or not it is in Putin's and Russia's interest to have one candidate versus another sitting in the Oval Office.

CAMEROTA: Well, can't we answer that? I mean, isn't it in Putin's interest to have Donald Trump, who has praised Putin and been complimentary towards him as being a strong leader?

[07:10:03] LOUIS: Well, I mean, that's one reading of it. Trump's people, of course, will say that, you know, he's tough, and he's strong. And he's a worthy adversary. And he'll push back against Putin in ways that Obama wouldn't and Hillary couldn't.

I'm not so sure about that. I mean, there's another narrative that doesn't get a lot of attention about the adversaries of the United States seeing a Trump candidacy and a possible Trump victory as part of something that will really help them, that a story of American decline -- withdrawing from NATO or tampering with the alliances that have kept the peace for so long -- is something that America's adversaries want to see. This is an important kind of diplomatic discussion that hopefully will come up in the presidential debates and beyond.

BERMAN: All right. What we're going to do here is take a quick break. President Obama due to walk up to that lectern any minute now and deliver a news conference, talk about a number of issues. We'll get that when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right. Our breaking news. You are looking there at that the lectern in China. Any minute now, President Obama will walk up there. He will hold a press conference talking about the G-20 summit that's been taking place the last few days there. Issues about Syria, which have been negotiated to no avail over the last two days there.

[07:15:07] Also a 90-minute meeting that the president just had with Vladimir Putin of Russia, where they discussed a range of issues. He will talk about that no doubt, as well, and perhaps also U.S. politics.

Want to bring back our panel: Jackie Kucinich, the Washington bureau chief of "The Daily Beast," and Ron Brownstein, CNN senior political analyst.

And Ron, let's talk right now about where President Obama is in his tenure and his popularity. Because historically speaking, his popularity is quite high.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, and it's also quite significant for -- for the 2016 election. I mean, you go back and you look, the -- the popularity of the job approval, particularly in the outgoing president, is -- is extremely significant. And it is one of the assets for Hillary Clinton that President Obama is ending his presidency, by and large, on a high note. Not vastly high, but his approval rating is right at 50 percent or above, which is a thumb on the scale in her direction.

And he -- and again, he's particularly popular among what have been the key elements of this modern Democratic coalition, what I've called the coalition of the ascendant minorities, millennial voters, college- educated white, especially women. Those -- that is the core group that -- that elected him twice, and it is certainly the core group that Hillary Clinton is relying on.

It is why states, like when John King was doing the piece a little while ago, why you see Virginia and Colorado moving away from battleground status toward clearly leaning toward the Democrats. It is the cornerstone of why she is ahead in all of the states in what I've called the blue wall, the 18 states that have voted Democratic since at least 1992.

So Obama's strength among his core coalition is part of the problem Donald Trump faces in breaking into that coalition as it mobilizes for Hillary Clinton.

CAMEROTA: And yet, Jackie, it does not sound as though Hillary Clinton has the black vote locked up or the -- even particularly the young millennial black vote tied up.

There's this new reporting in "The New York Times" this morning, showing that when you ask a -- you have a focus group, and you ask a lot of black millennials, they don't trust Hillary Clinton. And it's not about e-mail scandals. It's about the establishment and how the establishment has dealt with criminal justice issues.

KUCINICH: Well, I mean, it was the crime bill. It was her -- her comment all those years ago about predators. And she's apologized for that over and over again, but that hasn't been enough. And the more she goes into the -- into these areas and talks to -- to black millennials and explains exactly, you know, what she meant and why she doesn't mean it now and what she's going to do to make their lives better, I mean, that's what we she needs to do in order to, you know, make inroads. It's by reaching out directly to that demographic. Because otherwise, she's going to be talking past them instead of to them.

BERMAN: Which isn't to say, Ron, that there's any evidence that Donald Trump is making inroads with the African-American community. In fact, if you look at the crosstabs of some of the polls that have been taken over the last month or so, I mean, there are almost impossibly low numbers for Donald Trump in some swing states.

BROWNSTEIN: They are 91-1 in the African-American community, 92-2 sometimes.

Hillary Clinton's difficulties with African-American millennials I think really has to be understood more horizontally as a challenge with millennials in general. That is the piece of the Obama coalition where she is most notably underperforming with.

And it is not because they are especially attuned to Donald Trump. He's facing overwhelming negatives. Over 75 percent, roughly, of millennials say they have an unfavorable view of him. In one poll, over 70 percent said he appeals to bigotry.

But she, going back to the primaries, when Bernie Sanders, you know, a socialist septuagenarian who is a dead ringer for Larry David, beat her among millennials by a bigger margin than President Obama did in 2008.

And she has struggled to generate, in most polls, the numbers she needs with them. That is where you are seeing, as we have said, the biggest bleed off toward Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. And it is an area for concern. I mean, one reason the polls are relatively closer is because she is not getting the numbers that she needs among younger voters in general, including African-American and white millennials.

CAMEROTA: Jackie, you know, we talk about how Donald Trump hasn't resonated with black voters yet. This weekend he tried to turn that around. He went to Detroit, and he was there at that African-American church. And he spoke for 10 minutes -- at first it was a question about whether or not he'd be able to address the crowd. He ended up doing so.

And at least people in the room felt it. I mean, they felt that he was present. They felt that he spoke to them. When reporters talked to them afterwards, it resonated with them.

KUCINICH: This was a good move for Donald Trump to do this. It's unclear why it took him so long to do it. I mean, we're in the last months of the campaign. He could have done this, you know, at any time.

There was kind of a funny moment after that speech where they went to -- on a walk to Ben Carson's -- house where Ben Carson grew up. And it turns out the person inside actually was supporting Hillary Clinton. That said...

CAMEROTA: Awkward.

KUCINICH: A little awkward. But this was definitely a good move for Donald Trump, because if you don't ask the question, these people are -- the black voters aren't going to vote for him. He needs to -- he needs to just show up.

[07:20:11] But I will say something about millennials. Let's not forget, a lot of the millennials that voted for President Obama in the last election are in their 30s now.

Some of these folks haven't even voted before. They're not part of the Obama coalition, because they weren't old enough to vote. So that's another kind of segment of this population that's coming up and needs to be spoken to.

BERMAN: And Ron, do we know how millennials consume political advertising? Because one of the things that the Clinton campaign has tried to do the last month as they run these millions of dollars' worth of relentlessly...

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

BERMAN: ... negative ads on Donald Trump in these key swing states, trying to make him unacceptable to college-educated whites and also minorities. But if millennials aren't watching TV, they're not going to see these ads.

BROWNSTEIN: Well, you know, certainly in 2012, the Obama campaign concluded that the most effective way to reach millennials was through peer-to-peer communication. Basically, people transmitting -- retransmitting the campaign's messages to their own social networks. And that is an area where, you know, the Democrats have invested a lot of money.

And it's an important -- I mean, this is an important test. Millennials in this election, for the first time ever, will equal Baby Boomers as a share of eligible voters. They won't equal them as a share of actual voters this time, but by 2020, they will be the largest voting generation in the electorate, passing the Baby Boomers, who have been the largest voting group since the early 1980s. And the long-term stakes here are significant.

Jeff Flake yesterday, you know, on "Face the Nation" made the important point about, whatever happens in this election, Republicans have to face the challenge of what Donald Trump's messaging may mean for their position with both millennials and minority voters. Both of them are growing as a share of the vote.

Donald Trump may be able to squeeze out a victory by maximizing his support among blue collar, nonurban, and older whites. But if you do that in a way that alienates the groups that are growing in the electorate, that is a long-term challenge for the party, win or lose in November.

CAMEROTA: All right. We want to add a couple voices to our panel here. We want to bring in CNN political commentator and former Trump campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski. And executive director of the New York state Democratic Party, Basil Smikle.

Gentlemen, thanks very much for being here. Happy Labor Day.

BASIL SMIKLE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NEW YORK STATE DEMOCRATIC PARTY: Good to be here. Happy Labor Day.

CAMEROTA: Thanks for spending your holiday with us.

Basil, let's talk about what happened over the weekend with Donald Trump going to that African-American church and attempting to do some outreach to black voters.

As we were saying with Jackie, the people who were interviewed in the church really appreciated it and felt his presence there. You know, he sang. He talked to them. How do you think it went over?

SMIKLE: Well, it went down exactly the way I thought it would. He would have a very scripted speech, remarks to an audience, a congregation that was largely respectful that a candidate came and talked to them.

But the reality is this happened -- this is happening just over two months away from election day. This could have happened a year ago, and it did not. My sense is that this is an attempt to soften his edges with his core voters but not real engagement of African-American voters.

And look, I don't begrudge anyone going to communities, or my community, and saying what they're going to do as a leader, as an executive to support their -- their lives and their families. But to me, this sort of rang hollow.

BERMAN: Corey, does President -- does Donald Trump still question whether President Obama was born in the United States?

COREY LEWANDOWSKI, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't think he does. And I think he said he doesn't want to talk about it.

BERMAN: He says he doesn't want to talk about it. He hasn't said -- he hasn't said that President Obama was born in Hawaii.

LEWANDOWSKI: I don't think he does question it, but what I do think is that he went to Detroit, and "The Detroit Free Press" raved about him going there. They said it was the right thing to do, and it was very well-received; and he was very humble in that particular setting.

He went, and he asked for African-American support, and he asked for their votes. And I think that's what you do as a presidential candidate. You go there; and you try and listen. And that's what he did. And there's been a lot of criticism of Donald Trump making speeches not inside an African-American community, talking to African- Americans but not doing it in the environment where many of the mainstream media said would be fair. Because talking to all-white audiences.

That's not the case in Detroit. And so what he did specifically is he went there specifically, and he listened and he talked and he said, "I want your vote, and I can do things for you that the Democratic Party has taken advantage of the African-Americans for the last 30 years." So what -- absolutely.

SMIKLE: But I also think it's not about what the mainstream media is saying what he should do. It's what the community thinks he should do.

Look, you can't ask for the vote of the community on your terms. You have to go to them and talk to them. And granted, he did go, but it's taken him so long to do that.

Look, his luxury condominiums are less than three miles from Harlem, and he has not been to Harlem. And there's a question as to why.

And with respect to the birther comment, what -- what African- Americans read that as is that you believe that the first African- American president of the United States is not qualified to govern. That's a stinging statement or a sentiment coming from a nominee of a major -- major U.S. party.

CAMEROTA: Let's unpack that a little bit. Why didn't Mr. Trump go sooner into a black community and talk directly to them?

LEWANDOWSKI: Look, you know, the unofficial start of the election is today. Right? There's nine weeks and one day until election day.

CAMEROTA: But we have been enduring it for a year.

[07:25:06] LEWANDOWSKI: But what no one is reporting on is last October, when he had his first meeting with the African-American community in Trump Tower. And then they went down to Atlanta, and he met with the African-American leaders down there. No one is talking about that. This has been a systemic and consistent issue with Donald Trump, which is talking to the African-American community...

BERMAN: Well, hang on, Corey. I think there's talking about it, because I don't know that it's been systemic. I don't know that this has been part of his campaign.

LEWANDOWSKI: He's consistently done it. How many times...

BERMAN: Because he did it once last fall and he did it this weekend...

LEWANDOWSKI: When was the last time you had Clinton talking to the African-American community? You tell me.

SMIKLE: I mean, she does it consistently. Plus the fact -- plus the fact...

LEWANDOWSKI: No, no. No, no, she doesn't meet with anybody. When -- you guys tell me...

SMIKLE: Of course she does.

LEWANDOWSKI: You tell me exactly...

SMIKLE: She's been -- I've been with her to African-American churches.

LEWANDOWSKI: When?

SMIKLE: I've been with her to communities of color.

LEWANDOWSKI: When?

BERMAN: Didn't she just speak to the journalists -- she spoke to the minority journalist conference, which was two weeks ago, which was two weeks ago, I believe. Before that, didn't she speak to...

SMIKLE: Urban League, NAACP. Where has Donald Trump been in those big events? There's the African-American community there. He does it on his terms, not on our terms.

LEWANDOWSKI: He's talked to the African-American community in smaller settings where he's listening...

SMIKLE: On his terms.

LEWANDOWSKI: No, he's listening to these individuals, because he wants to be able to have a give and take. There is no give and take at the NAACP. She gets up; she makes a speech; and she leaves.

SMIKLE: She took questions at the Association of Black Journalists. I mean, there is give and take. You can -- you can have smaller rooms and smaller conversations, but it seems to me what's systemic is that he wants to dictate the engagement on his terms, and that is something that I think is obvious to everyone.

LEWANDOWSKI: Here's the problem. Twenty-six percent of the African- American community lives in poverty. That's not my statistic. It's a fact. There are 4 million more African-Americans today on Food Stamps than there were when President Obama took office. That's a fact. These aren't my facts. These are the facts of the country.

SMIKLE: Actually, they're...

LEWANDOWSKI: The question is -- the question is, it was 7.3 million. Now it's 11.4 million.

Twenty-six point two million African-Americans live on or below the poverty line in our country. We have more people killed in the city of Chicago in the last five years than soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

SMIKLE: But those are wrong -- but those are incorrect facts. Why not talk about -- why not -- why not talk about the fact that the African-Americans making over $75,000 have doubled over the last 40 years...

LEWANDOWSKI: I hope they've quadrupled.

SMIKLE: ... over 100,000, quadrupled over the last 40 years. You don't talk about those stats.

LEWANDOWSKI: I'm talking about the last eight years.

SMIKLE: You also don't talk about the fact that no one, certainly not Donald Trump, is taking his Republican colleagues to task for the ways in which they have restricted the gains that African-Americans can make.

LEWANDOWSKI: Of both parties.

SMIKLE: Restrictions on -- restrictions on unionization, which have -- has been typically the way that African-Americans move into the middle class. He hasn't talked about that. He hasn't talked about restrictions on voting, restrictions on voting rights so that African- Americans can be enfranchised. You're not talking about that.

LEWANDOWSKI: Both parties are accountable, but the difference is, in the last eight years, the African-American community is not better off today than they were eight years ago.

SMIKLE: Absolutely wrong.

LEWANDOWSKI: And the question is -- the question, does the Democratic Party continue...

CAMEROTA: Unemployment rate dropped in half...

SMIKLE: Absolutely.

CAMEROTA: ... for the youngest African-American...

LEWANDOWSKI: Is it OK to say that 26 percent of the African-American community lives in poverty in our country? Absolutely not.

SMIKLE: What's the percentage of white Americans that live in poverty?

LEWANDOWSKI: But is it...

SMIKLE: That's an important stat.

LEWANDOWSKI: ... is it OK to say that we've had 4 million more people on assistance than when Barack Obama took office. Absolutely not.

So what Donald Trump is saying is, look, you can continue down the same path if you want to. That's your prerogative. Or you can try and make a change. And what he's doing is asking for the opportunity to try and do something better for everybody. That's what -- that's what you do as a candidate. You ask to lay out a vision and say, "Do you want to join me?"

BERMAN: Has Donald Trump changed in his perception of race? Again, talking about what he was talking about with the president's birth back then, talking about the housing issues in New York in the 1970s, talking about the Central Park Five. Has he reflected at all on any of the stances he took in those circumstances?

LEWANDOWSKI: Look, what happened when, you know, the Reverend Jesse Jackson needed a place to have? Donald Trump offered him that opportunity down on Wall Street, because no one else would give him a spot.

What happened at Mar-a-Lago when Donald Trump said, "I'm going to open my club up to African-Americans and Jews," because there were no clubs that were open? This was in the early '90s. Right?

No one wants to talk about those things.

SMIKLE: Well...

LEWANDOWSKI: All the employees that Donald Trump has and continues to employ across all those properties, tens of thousands of people that are African-Americans and Hispanics. How many private-sector employees has Hillary Clinton employed?

CAMEROTA: OK.

LEWANDOWSKI: Very, very few.

CAMEROTA: What's your response, Basil?

SMIKLE: Well, renting an office space is not real engagement of the African-American community. I would -- I would offer this. He needs to -- it's about substance. It's about what you're going to do as the leader of the free world, how you're going to maneuver the labors of political power and the bureaucracy to support the African-American community. That's what we have not heard.

CAMEROTA: OK. Gentlemen, we have to leave it there, because we do have breaking news. We do want to get to the president at his news conference. Thank you very much.

So to our viewers in the United States and around the world, President Obama is holding a press conference after the G-20 summit in China. Let's check in and see if the president is yet at the podium.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CAMEROTA: OK. We're moments away from the president taking that podium there in China. And as we've discussed, the traveling press corps is with him. So we don't know what will come up. But we can bet that a lot of things that have been in the news, certainly, the 90-minute sideline meeting that he had with Vladimir Putin. They were supposed to be discussing how to resolve the crisis in Syria, but we're banking that other issues came up. That will obviously be questioned.

BERMAN: That's Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, just sitting down right now. So the president probably just seconds away here. But again, Alisyn saying a 90-minute meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. We know no deal reached on Syria yet.