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New Day Saturday

Comey To Testify On Thursday, Unless White House Stops Him; Mattis: North Korea "A Clear And Present Danger"; Despite Promise, Nunes Still Active In Russia Probe; Putin Hints "Patriotic" Hackers May Have Meddled; Dow Hits Record High After Unemployment Drops; Backlash Grows After Trump Pulls Out Of Climate Deal. Aired 6-7a ET

Aired June 03, 2017 - 06:00   ET

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

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[06:00:08]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is the White House going to revoke executive privilege to prevent James Comey from testifying?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think obviously it's got to be reviewed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The president can't use executive privilege as a shield in one context and as a sword in the other.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president can I think and would rightfully exert executive privilege.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Simply more cover-up and more obstruction.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The behavior of Nunes is beneath the dignity of being a chairman of the intelligence committee.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What does the president actually believe on climate change? Does he still believe it's a hoax?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Trump hasn't made it clear where he stands on climate change.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is one of the most cynical and frankly ignorant, and dangerous self-destructive steps that I've seen in my entire lifetime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you and welcome to Saturday. We're so grateful to have your company as always. I'm Christi Paul.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Victor Blackwell. Good morning to you.

The countdown to Thursday is on. Former FBI Director James Comey set to testify publicly inarguably the most anticipated event since election night. He's expected to reveal details of his private meetings with President Trump.

Information that could potentially be a game changer in this Russia probe. That is if the president does not prevent this testimony. Asserting executive privilege which gives him the right to withhold private White House deliberations and records from Congress.

PAUL: In the meantime, Press Secretary Sean Spicer says the president still has faith in his son-in-law despite different accounts on why Jared Kushner secretly met with the head of a Russian state-owned bank back in December.

Now we should also point out Russian President Vladimir Putin sending shockwaves with this claim, maybe patriotic Russian hackers hit the U.S. election.

First, though, Phil Mattingly explains what executive privilege is and how President Trump could use it to stop James Comey from testifying.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Victor and Christi, there's no question about it the big event, maybe the biggest event anybody has seen in Washington in a very long time happens on Thursday. FBI Director Jim Comey testifying in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

But the big question now, at least, over the course of last 48 hours has been, will the White House try and invoke executive privilege? Will the president try and block the former FBI director, the individual he fired from actually testifying.

Now there's some issues here if you want to go through it, but the question might not be whether he's going to do it but whether he could even if he wanted to do it.

First and foremost, James Comey is no longer a government employee which kind of limits what the White House can do. On top of that the president himself has actually mentioned both in tweets and in a letter conversations he had with James Comey.

Therefore seeming to limit the executive privilege that he may be able to invoke. The reality here is if the White House were going to move forward and do this they would essentially need to go to a federal court and try and bar James Comey from actually testifying.

Whether that's actually possible, legal experts I've spoken to over the last couple of hours don't believe that's actually going to be possible and it's actually interesting to note House Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee on Friday night sent a late letter to the White House counsel noting all of these things and saying essentially on the legal arguments, on the merits itself this effort should it occur would fail.

But perhaps more importantly they noted is the appearance of this, the political ramifications of it. It would very much at least according to these Democrats look like the president was trying to obstruct this testimony.

It was almost a warning, if you will. Now those Democrats have no power over that panel. They can't actually do anything to stop whatever the president wants to do, but it was a warning. It's one certainly the White House is going over.

Where does the White House stand on this? Well, they haven't weighed in yet. They say they are reviewing their options right now. But guys, a couple other things to kind of keep a very close eye on.

There's actually hearing in the same executive committee the day before the James Comey hearing that may just be as interesting. Who is testifying, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the acting FBI director, the director of National Intelligence, the director of NSA.

All of these individuals in one way or another have had very direct roles in this Russia investigation and in the White House's role in this investigation up to this point. Now it's a pretty fair bet based on what we've seen over the last couple of weeks that none of these individuals are going to weigh in.

They will all do exactly what the deputy attorney general did behind closed doors on Capitol Hill just a couple of weeks ago, defer everything to the special counsel, Bob Mueller.

But why this hearing is going to be important? Keep a very close on eye on the members. These are the very same senators that will be questioning James Comey just 24 hours later.

How they set themselves up, how they lay the ground work for that big main event hearing that will be coming the next day will be a good effort to read the tea leaves about where things are going. How Jim Comey is going to be received and what questions he might be asked.

[06:05:04]All of these things will be worth watching certainly and I think everybody regardless of party, political affiliation, or whatever you do for a living will probably be paying pretty close attention to the Senate Intelligence Committee next week -- Victor and Christi.

BLACKWELL: All right, Phil, thanks. Let's bring in now Errol Louis, CNN political commentator and political anchor of Spectrum News, and Sarah Westwood, White House correspondent for the "Washington Examiner." Good morning to you.

So Errol, let's start here. The case for, the case against. Let's listen first to former Republican Congressman Pete Hoekstra and then to Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HOEKSTRA, FORMER HOUSE INTEL CHAIRMAN: Dangerous precedent that the president's conversations, private conversations can be revealed. It will be a "he said/he said" type of thing. It's one side of the story. I don't think that helps the process move forward. So in that case the president can, I think and would rightfully exert executive privilege.

SENATOR JEFF MERKLEY (D), FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: I don't think he will because it will be simply more cover up and more obstruction and I don't think he has the strong legal foundation to succeed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: All right, so Errol, this doesn't fall so neatly along party lines but what's the likelihood here that we'll see this assertion of executive privilege?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it could go either way. You can flip a coin on it, but legally speaking I don't think he has much of a chance of success. I mean, there are a couple of things I would add to what Phil Mattingly reported.

One is that there's no executive privilege for illegal conduct or conversations in furtherance of illegal conduct. So you know, the executive privilege is not absolute. We also found from the 1974 case that if there's evidence that's needed for a pending criminal investigation, the executive privilege has to yield to that need.

And to the extent that Bob Mueller or anybody else is looking for information, you know, you don't get to just hide it just because you want to. Then finally look he went on national television and talked about his conversations with James Comey.

So you throw away a lot of the privilege if you talk about it on national television. If, however, the White House does attempt this, it would be, I imagine, purely a stalling tactic and it would certainly focus a lot of attention on the question of what exactly is it that they are trying to hide.

BLACKWELL: So the question of the role of backlash here, Sara, there was backlash after the president initially fired James Comey, there was backlash after the travel ban, I mean, there's been backlash before. To what degree is that really a dominant factor in this decision?

SARAH WESTWOOD, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "WASHINGTON EXAMINER": Well, the White House's argument all along has been this is a witch- hunt, this is politically motivated controversy and that they have nothing to hide when it comes to contacts with Russia.

So if they were to exert executive privilege or this conversation with James Comey and they are really undermining (inaudible) that there's nothing to see here. That sort of have been (inaudible) --

BLACKWELL: All right, Sarah, we're some having difficulty with your microphone. Hopefully we can get that fixed. Errol, let me come back to you and this issue of the tweets not just the tweets but the interview during which he discussed firing James Comey and that he invoked the Russia investigation. Without those elements, would there be a clear case here?

LOUIS: Well, it would be much clearer if the president had consistently said, if he said from the first time any questions about James Comey came up I don't want to talk about it. I am the president. When I speak with my FBI director what we talk about is between us and nobody else. He didn't do any of that stuff.

This is why lawyers always tell their clients to be quiet and the expression is out there that you can't hook a fish until he opens his mouth. So there are some hooks that are out there dangling, some investigatory bodies that are looking into a lot of what the president has said and done.

And for whatever reason, he has been unable to stop himself from talking about it and that's not going to work very well for him in this case.

BLACKWELL: All right, Sarah, go ahead and finish your point.

WESTWOOD: You know, it just would look very bad for this White House obviously to try to exert executive privilege over this Comey testimony with a lot of these other developments, leaks, controversies that have popped up over the past month.

The White House communications team has been taken by surprise and they have been able to hide behind the fact that these were sprung on them. Now that they have more than a week to prepare for the Comey testimony the communication shop should be able to line up the surrogates needed, the op-ed.

The traditional lines of defense that you would expect from a communications team at this level and they have more of a buffer between this controversy and the criticism that has been lodged at them in the past few weeks.

They may not want to exert executive privilege over this controversy because they have so much time to prepare, it might not be as much of a disaster for them.

[06:00:00]BLACKWELL: Yes, that has been the question about the preparation that this administration has taken over the last several months and in several of these, I mentioned, the travel ban, firing of James Comey. It seems several different points that maybe they aren't as prepared as they would have liked to have been because some of these are surprises. This one is not. Sarah Westwood, Errol Louis, thanks so much.

LOUIS: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: All right, watch our special coverage of former FBI Director James Comey's testimony live Thursday, 9:00 a.m. right near on CNN.

PAUL: Up next, the chair of the House Intel Committee promised to stay out of the Russia investigation after a secret trip to the White House landed him under scrutiny with an ethics committee. Why is he sending out subpoenas now also?

BLACKWELL: Plus former Secretary of State John Kerry blasting President Trump. Hear why he says the president, quote, "Clearly does not know what he is doing."

PAUL: President Trump said he's withdrawing from the Paris climate deal to help the coal mining industry. But guess what, there are some workers in that industry who don't agree with that decision.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I wish he hadn't just because it makes it seem as if we're not in with the rest of the world in combatting climate change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[06:15:31]

PAUL: A clear and present danger, that's how Defense Secretary James Mattis described the growing threat from North Korea nuclear specifically.

BLACKWELL: Speaking at an Asian Security Conference, Secretary Mattis pledged to defend allies from any military threat in the region, but he said that other countries have to step up and pressure Pyongyang to stop developing nuclear weapons.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES MATTIS, DEFENSE SECRETARY: President Trump has made clear that the era of strategic patience is over. As a matter of U.S. national security, the United States regards the threat from North Korea as a clear and present danger. The regime's actions are manifestly illegal under international law. There's a strong international consensus that the current situation cannot continue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Secretary Mattis also told the crowd that the U.S. will do the right thing when it comes to standing by its allies.

All right, new drama surrounding the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the investigation into Russian meddling.

PAUL: You remember House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes recused himself when he came under scrutiny from the House Ethics Committee after a clandestine trip to the White House. Well, it turns out he's still in an active role. He hasn't given up his subpoena power and this week he issued three subpoenas.

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said she's met with House Speaker Paul Ryan multiple times to complain about it. Here's what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI (D), MINORITY LEADER: So if he recused himself on subjects Russia then he shouldn't be having access to documents relating to subject Russia and he shouldn't be issuing separate subpoenas attaching them to a bipartisan subpoenas that were issued this week.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: Ok, so now to those new comments from Russian President Vladimir Putin here because once again he denied his government had anything to do with the hacking of the U.S. elections. But he said it was possible that Russian patriots were behind it or even Americans trying to smear Russia.

CNN's Claire Sebastian is in Moscow for us this morning. So Claire, good to see you. We know Putin spoke at length about this at a forum yesterday. It seemed he was talking in circles at times. Help us understand what was going on.

CLAIRE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. Christi, I think it's a really good question, but if you look closely at all of this, really he hasn't strayed from the line that we've heard all along from the kremlin, which is frankly there is no proof and Russia had nothing to do with it.

His comments about patriots really I think was more a way of emphasizing the deniability factor here that, you know, he said hackers are like artists they might wake up in a good mood and paint something.

And some may act out of a patriotism, but the point is that even if hack can be traced back to Russian soil that doesn't necessarily mean the government is behind it even if it looks like it was done to serve Russia's national interest.

And as you say, he went even further on Friday and said again there was no proof in saying it's possible that hackers in the U.S. might have the skills to make it look like Russia was behind this.

And the second point that Putin has been making throughout the past few days is that really this is a ploy by those who lost the election in U.S. All these accusations of Russian meddling is just a way for them to avoid admitting responsibility for their loss. He took that even further in some comments on Friday. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): They voted for him and they made a mistake and they don't want to recognize this mistake right now. They don't want to say that they were not wise enough. It's easy to say it's not our fault. It's the Russians, they intervened. They interfered. It's like anti-Semitism, the Jews are to blame. You're an idiot because the Jews are to blame.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEBASTIAN: This is a real concern here in Russia, Christi, that anything Russia says could be used to hurt Trump. That's why he's saying very little in the past few weeks or months. The president is being a more vocal and defensive approach at the moment.

PAUL: All right, Claire Sebastian, appreciate it. Thank you.

BLACKWELL: The Dow closed at a record high on Friday after May's job report showed unemployment at its lowest rate, but the news is not all good. Some economists call the report disappointing. They say the job market is losing steam. CNN chief business correspondent, Christine Romans breaks down the numbers.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Let's start with the headline. The unemployment rate 16 year low, lowest since 2001, 4.3 percent. That is a level many economists consider full employment. It means companies are having a hard time finding the workers they need with so few people in the labor market out of work.

[06:20:00]That labor market shrank a little bit, 429,000 people left the labor market, one reason why that number went down. OK, so what about job creation? A 138,000 net new jobs in the month. This is why we're calling this report mixed.

Because 138,000 net new jobs is less than economists forecast and frankly it is a bit of a disappointment, slower job creation from February to May this year than we saw last year or the year before, downward revisions for March and April as well.

Job creation over the past three months has slowed a little bit from the prior years. Where is the action in the labor market? You can see manufacturing lost a thousand jobs. In mining, there were 7,000 jobs created. This includes the oil patch where we tease apart these numbers we see 400 coal mining jobs added and of course that is a focus of President Trump's job creation strategy.

So watching the coal mining and the mining section in particular but really watching health care, 24,000 net new jobs created in health care. You cannot overstate how important health care has been as a driver of the job market over the past few years.

In hospitals, ambulatory care offices, physician offices this is where we've seen steady and consistent job creation. That will be really critical to watch as we go forward with health care reform as well. Christine Romans, CNN, New York.

PAUL: Christine, thank you so much.

Coming up, how President Trump's decision to withdraw from the climate change agreement helped his popularity in coal mining country? He said he wants to create jobs there. That was one of his main reasons for rejecting it. We have reaction from folks in that community.

BLACKWELL: Also he's been in office for less than a month but the new president of France is taking on President Trump. How Emmanuel Macron is using the president's own words against him.

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[06:26:19] PAUL: Good morning. I'm Christi Paul.

BLACKWELL: I'm Victor Blackwell. Good morning to you. There's been growing backlash since President Trump announced he's pulling the U.S. out of landmark 2015 climate deal. The pact was the high point of former President Obama's environmental agenda. Nearly 200 nations planning to reducing emissions of planet warming greenhouses gases. The president said that the agreement imposed unfair environmental standards on American businesses.

PAUL: But what Americans still want to know is does the president believe climate change itself is a hoax as he suggested on the campaign trail. In yesterday's press briefing, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency Scott Pruitt and White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer both didn't really give a straight answer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does the president believe that climate change is real and a threat to the United States?

SCOTT PRUITT, EPA ADMINISTRATOR: What's interesting about all the discussions we had through the last several weeks have been focused on one singular issue, is Paris good or not for this country? That's the discussions I've had with this president. Whether they were good environmental objectives that were achieved as a result of Paris. His decision was no and that was the extent of our discussions. Yes, ma'am.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible) yes or no.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does the president believe today that climate change is a hoax that's something of course he said in his campaign. When the pool was in the oval office with him a couple of days he refused to answer. So I'm wondering if you can speak --

PRUITT: I did answer the question because I said the discussions the president and I had over the last several weeks have been focused on one key issue, is Paris good or bad for this country?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Shouldn't you be able to tell the American people whether or not the president still believes that climate change is a hoax. Where does he stand?

PRUITT: As I indicated several times in the process, there's enough to deal with, with respect to the Paris agreement and making an informed decision about this important issue. That's what our focus has been the last several weeks. I've answered the question a couple of times.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does the president share the EPA's administrator's thoughts on this topic and why is the administration sort of backed away from using the words climate change?

SEAN SPICER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I don't -- I have had not as I mentioned, I have had an opportunity to specifically talk to the president about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: Now former Secretary of State John Kerry did not hold back his thoughts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: I mean, I would ask Donald Trump, does he think that President Xi, President Macron, the prime minister of Great Britain, the chancellor of Germany don't know what they are talking about? Are they stupid? Is he accusing them of somehow buying into a hoax? This is one of the most cynical and frankly ignorant and dangerous self-destructive steps that I've seen in my entire lifetime in public life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Well, in the past, the president blasted climate change as a hoax created by the Chinese to harm U.S. manufacturing. CNN's national correspondent, Gary Tuchman, has more of that for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Trump hasn't made it clear where stands on climate change, but as Candidate Trump and Citizen Trump, he certainly did. In December 2015, he had this to say.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: While the world is in turmoil and falling apart in so many different ways especially with ISIS, our president is worried about global warming. What a ridiculous situation?

TUCHMAN: And then there was this in September 2015.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you believe that the temperature of the earth is increasing and what would you do if you do believe that vis-a-vis global climate change?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, first of all, I'm not a believer in global warming, I'm not a believer in manmade global warming.

TUCHMAN: He said this about President Obama in April, 2016.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: He said global warming is our biggest problem, OK. We have some big problems. We may have a global warming problem, but it will be of the nuclear variety if we don't have smart people in office and serve.

TUCHMAN: And then this moment during the campaign.

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER U.S PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I think it's real.

TRUMP: I did not say that.

TUCHMAN: But all you have to do is look at President Trump's Twitter feed to see he did say that in 2012, the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive. In fact his Twitter feed with scores of tweets on the topic gives a pretty clear window to where he stands on the issue.

There's this in January of 2015. "Its record cold all over the country and world, where the hell is global warming? We need some fast." And this in February 2014, "It's not climate change, its global warming, don't let the dollar sucking wise guys change names midstream because the first name didn't work." In November 2012 let's continue to destroy the competitiveness of our factories and manufacturing so we can fight mythical global warming, China is so happy.

Interestingly back in 2009 Donald Trump did sign a letter along with dozens of other business leaders calling for meaningful and effective measures to control climate change. And there have been occasions where he sounded a bit like he was on defense.

TRUMP: I'm still open minded. Nobody really knows -- look, I'm somebody that gets it and nobody really knows. It's not something that's so hard and fast.

TUCHMAN: But overall his blizzard of tweets and almost all of his televised comments on the topic have revealed an overwhelming sentiment.

TRUMP: I'm not a believer in climate change.

TUCHMAN: Donald Trump has never been shy expressing that at least until now.

Gary Tuchman, CNN Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: For at least 10 mostly Democratic states are defying the president's decision to pull out of the Paris Accord.

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, California's governor Jerry Brown says states have the right themselves to pursue their own policies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JERRY BROWN, (D) CALIFORNIA: America is a big place, we have 50 states. We have a federal government but we have a federal system. And within the confines of our national identity and constitution, California and other states can pursue their own policies.

We strongly support zero emission cars. We have almost 30 percent renewable electricity. We're going for 50 percent in the next few years and ultimately beyond that to 100 percent. We're going to do whatever it takes. (END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: And the governor also said California does plan to generate half of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. And remember President Trump says he's withdrawing the U.S. to protect American businesses and to put coal miners back to work.

Well, CNN's Martin Savage did speak with a group of women who work in that industry and they say they are already seeing more jobs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In most of America coal used to be king, in Wyoming it still is. Wyoming accounts for 40 percent of America's coal production. And a significant number of coal miners here are women.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We start for the obvious reasons, that the money and benefits and security and it turns into something that you eventually you don't know anything else, you just -- you start to love it.

SAVIDGE: They work in an industry that's demanding, deadly and dominated by men.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It gives you a feeling of strength when you know you can go out there and competes and do whatever everyone else does like she said as good if not better than they do.

SAVIDGE: Strength isn't the only thing they have in common.

Who voted for President Trump?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had a little bit of reservations of him as a person and the way he is, but voting wise no.

SAVIDGE: Do you think he's being treated fairly?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. I think it's awful.

SAVIDGE: What about all those campaign promises Trump made to bring coal mining jobs back.

Have you seen that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. There has been more jobs in the base opened up. There has been -- they are hiring now.

SAVIDGE: Thousands of jobs?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I wouldn't say thousands.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know, 250 have been rehired within the base and within 10 or 12 mines we have here.

SAVIDGE: That's not the numbers he promised. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well I think it's a process.

SAVIDGE: And part of that process they say is easing environmental restrictions on coal, something Trump did by taking America out of the Paris Climate Agreement. But it's here these coal miners split.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I wish he hadn't just because it makes us seem as though we're not in with the rest of the world in combatting climate change.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're coal miners but we care about this planet. I mean that's also our -- it's our responsibility to take care.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was in favor of him pulling out. I think the United States itself is responsible for the United States.

[06:35:10] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think that we need to focus on the United States and first and foremost making us great again.

SAVIDGE: Do you believe climate change is a real thing?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. Not really.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am not a climate change denier. But I do believe that we certainly have an impact but I think we can lessen that in a responsible way that doesn't -- that doesn't put entire groups of people out of work.

SAVIDGE: For many of these miners there were only two issues that mattered last November, jobs and energy. Nothing has changed.

Show of hands who would vote the same?

Martin Savidge, Gillette, Wyoming.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL: And now Al gore is a very strong voice on this subject opinion he's going to be a guest on State of the Union with Jake Tapper talking climate change. Senator Mark Warner and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley also guests on the show. That's "State of the Union" with Jake Tapper, tomorrow 9:00 a.m. right here on CNN

BLACKWELL: Up next Macron versus Trump, the new President of France seizes the spotlight on climate change. How Emmanuel Macron is standing up to world leaders including President Trump.

PAUL: And take a look at this less than two weeks after a terror attack at her concert there's Ariana Grande back Manchester. She's visiting victims and she's getting ready to hold a huge fundraiser for those people.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:40:43] BLACKWELL: While he's young he is been on the job only three weeks and he's new to the world of global politics. PAUL: Well, French President Emmanuel Macron is flexing his political muscle standing up to world leaders, world leaders including President Trump.

BLACKWELL: CNN Paris correspondent Melissa Bell joins us live. So, Melissa gives us an idea since how President Macron is confronting these world leaders.

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, here in France he's known for being an extremely lucky man. This is the man who won the French presidency a few weeks ago. Victor, with no political party with that behind him and never having been elected to anything before, no one believed he could win that particular gambling.

And now, of course, he's going even further. Now, he's been tremendously helped by the calendar, and nature summit, the G7 summit but, of course, also by the particular brand of nationalism that Donald Trump demonstrated so clearly on Thursday in the Rose Garden. All of these things have really allowed Emmanuel Macron to shine.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BELL: It's hard to believe that it was less than a month ago on May 7th Emmanuel Macron became the youngest man ever to be elected to France's presidency.

PRES. EMMANUEL MACRON, FRANCE: Let me say a few words to our American friends.

BELL: Also the first-ever to make speeches in English publicly which was to come in handy very quickly.

MACRON: Where is that we live, where is that we are, we all share the same responsibility. Make our planet great again.

TRUMP: So we're getting out the United States will seize --

BELL: It was a stinging rebuke to what Donald Trump had a just announced in the Rose Garden.

TRUMP: I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.

BELL: Within hours Macron's call was the most widely shared tweet ever from a French account. Meeting the French press who asked whether the French President was now the new leader of the free world. For newly elected 39-year-old Emmanuel Macron's first steps on the world stage were remarkably sure.

TRUMP: Congratulations, great job.

BELL: As was his handshake with the American president, a handshake that was said Macron later far from innocent.

MACRON: Thank you very much. BELL: He wanted to show his strength, days later Emmanuel Macron welcomed welcome to Versailles another leader with who he shares little in terms of outlook. Vladimir Putin also got a firm handshake and the challenge that few had had the courage to deliver so directly before.

MACRON (through translator): I precisely indicated to President Putin the intention of France concerning LGBT people in Chechnya. We seem to the agreement to follow this matter closely together. President Putin indicated he would take up measures to investigate the actions of local authorities in Chechnya on this issue and I will be staying on top of this and following up.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BELL: You see it isn't just Victor, that Emmanuel Macron, unlike most previous presidents speak English so fluently and is prepared to use it in public. It is also that he already to speak to a vision that had seemed broader to fall out of fashion, a vision of the world being based on the idea here of common values rather than individual interests and that appears to be a vision that's found a new champion.

PAUL: All right, Melissa Bell in Paris for it, thank you Melissa.

BLACKWELL: Well, the French government is also using the White House's own video to go after President Trump on climate change. Look at this, the French version adds phrases to the challenge of administration's claims. The opening frame changes the phrase -- the Paris Accord is a bad deal for America.

The revise version says that leaving the Paris Accord is a bad deal for America and the world. French president also challenges the Trump administration's claim that the deal hurts U.S. jobs pointing out that many U.S. companies disagree.

PAUL: We know, just a couple of weeks ago, all of our eyes were on Manchester and the terror attack that happened there. Well, Ariana Grande is back there this morning less than two weeks after the terror attack at her concert. She visited with the victims while other music stars are arriving for this huge benefit concert. The Black Eyed Peas are there and they are talking to us, next.

BLACKWELL: But first in this weeks up starts, we take a look at a website and mobile app known as middleeastbooking.com.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:45:15] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We wanted to create a place where we wanted to work because we all wanted to live in Palestine. But there wasn't a single place where we can be employees and be happy.

And set that is the online booking service, we have to book hotels and apartments all over the world. We are very, very good at it, particularly in the Middle East. We've taken the model and tailored it to better suits the Middle Eastern traveler.

If there wasn't like a light bulb moment, we decided we want to do this because the market opportunity was attractive largely underserved

(Foreign Language)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With proven business models, it's more about how quickly the team can execute and how well they can execute within a particular setting. And the dominant player in the market is booking looking that come. They bring in a lot of learning from other markets. But we sort of have the hyper local angle and we've innovated a later on payments so you can book without a credit card, the Middle East has largely on the bank.

And we've done a lot of innovation around mobile products. And, you know, the Middle East has the highest penetration rate of smartphones. Finally, we'll bring a lot of hotels in line for the first time and also working on the content of these properties to make it available in Arabic.

We look at the entire journey from, you know, when you start planning your trip to when you enter your room and when you check out of it. There's still a lot of friction you standard the reception that's to do a batch of thing. As we're trying to remove a lot of that and I think by the time that we do, we are going to be able to build the model that's potentially competitive outside of the region.

There's an abundance of Palestinians into the (inaudible) of our doing very interesting things. In fact, we're bringing a lot of people back. That I think just creates wonders.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:51:56] BLACKWELL: That was the "Black Eyed Peas." And the group will be joining Ariana Grande other big acts as well on Sunday to raise money for the Manchester attack victims.

They spoke with CNN Correspondent Hala Gorani about what this concert means to them?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM JAMES ADAMS, BLACK EYED PEACE: In 2001, 9/11 happened and on September the 12th, "Black Eyed Peas" we went on tour. And at the end of that tour, we wrote a song called "Where is The Love." So like I said, when God calls you to do the job of spreading love you answer that call and go and you'll be protected when you're doing that. And, you know, doubt is always going to come in to play but you cannot let doubt destroy your efforts on creating bonds of love.

Ariana Grande and team reached out to us and asked us if we could lend ourselves to help raise awareness and funds for the families of the victims. So, you know, they didn't have to complete the sentence.

So, we're going to be there to spread love and remind people that we should not let hate and fear destroy our connection with music. Music, with all for so many years we bonded around music and melodies and harmonies and messages of love and peace. So we cannot let that like break our bond.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: (Inaudible) universal healing in music certainly. Ariana Grande as you can see here, sweet picture already in Manchester. She's at the hospital here where victims like 8-year-old Lily Harrison are recovering. And Lily's mom said Ariana sat on the hospital bed that she told Lily she was proud of her and that mom says Ariana's visit truly helped the victims focus on the kindness of people rather than the hate.

Big question in the sports world this morning. Are NFL teams not signing Colin Kaepernick because of the social activism, Andy Scholes.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: Yes, Christi, you know, Kaepernick had this one meeting with a team this entire off season and what that team's coach had to say about passing on Kaepernick. We'll have that for you next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:58:22] PAUL: Well, Colin Kaepernick still didn't have a job in the NFL. The Seattle Seahawks said they're passing on the former 49ers quarterback.

BLACKWELL: Andy Scholes is here with this morning (inaudible) to report.

SCHOLES,: Hey, good morning guys. Seahawks that goes pickers (ph) as Colin Kaepernick hand down should be a starter in the NFL. But for now his team, there's that quarterback with Russell Wilson. I mean, I believe Kaepernick has not been signed by a team in the NFL because he's being black balled due to his protest of kneeling during the national anthem last season.

Now Carroll telling ESPN that he can't imagine that someone won't give Kaepernick a chance to play and when asked if Kaepernick social activism has been a factor, Carroll said, "I don't know that, let's wait and see." According to reports Kaepernick does plans on standing for the anthem next season.

All right, Super Bowl of International Soccer kicks off this afternoon in Wales. Cristiano Ronaldo and defending champion Real Madrid taking on the Juventus, and the champion's league final and estimating 200 million people around the globe are expected to watch this game and the fun fact, did you know Ronaldo had the most Facebook followers of more than 121 million, kick-off for that ones at 2:45 Eastern.

Game 2 of the NBA finals tomorrow night the Cavs spending the two days off trying to figure out what went wrong in the blow-out it had in Game 1. And one thing Cavs coach Tyronn Lue said they have to fix, stopping Kevin Durant from just running down the lane and dunking with ease.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TYRON LUE, CLEVELAND CAVALIERS HEAD COACH: Kevin dynamically have, you know, Kevin Durant pushing the ball in transition. And, you know, we have Stephen (ph) clear on the wing run the wing, so let's go do a better job of getting floor balance. You know, we can't turn the basketball over. So, it's a lot of things that we can correct. And we will correct before going into Game 2.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: And the reason for the Cavs of getting dissed (ph) those three finals Lebron has won his last Game 1 each and every time.

[07:00:01] Be sure to join as this afternoon, 2:30 Eastern see it on CNN all access at the NBA finals at CNN bleacher report special. Get you ready for the Game 2 action.

PAUL: All right.

SCHOLES: Hoping this serious turns around and we get in go with the good one.

PAUL: A good one, yes.