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Hala Gorani Tonight
Polls On Donald Trump's Impeachment Split 49 Percent To 47 Percent; Defense Strategy On Trump's Side; ISIS Claims Responsibility For Terrorist Attack Behind Their New Leader; 14,000 ISIS Fighters In Prison, Their Home Countries Refuse To Take Their Return; ISIS Prisoners Not Knowing Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's Death; Hassan Nasrallah Not In Favor Of Saad Hariri's Resignation; California Fires Continue; Trump Weigh's In On British Politics; Female MPs Told Not To Campaign Along Amid Increasing Abuse Claims; Impeachment Fight; Spain Rape Law; Mystery Health Crisis; White Supremacist Movement; Catching Up With Science Fiction. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired November 01, 2019 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN.
HALA GORANI, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: Hello, everyone. Live from CNN London, I'm Hala Gorani.
Tonight the U.S. president's surprising defense strategy after historic vote setting the rules for impeachment inquiry.
Also, CNN gets rare access to a prison inside Syria where ISIS fighters are being held. We have that report for you.
And California is still burning. Firefighters struggling to contain more than a dozen wild fires.
Republicans are closing ranks around Donald Trump. No dissent there. No rebellion there. They are defending him tooth and nail against what they
call an unfair process that will almost certainly lead to his impeachment.
But the Democrats leading the inquiry are urging Americans to consider the evidence that is about to go public, evidence from Mr. Trump's own staffers
that he may have abused his power. A landmark vote passed in the House, Thursday, almost entirely along party lines, is setting out the rules for
the inquiry going forward, so we know more or less what it's going to look like.
Congressman Adam Schiff said transcripts of witness testimony could be released as early as next week. Mr. Trump apparently decided, in the
meantime, that the best defense is a good offense. He's taking his fight against impeachment straight to his base, speaking to a rally in
Mississippi tonight.
Now he's even hoping to score some political points off what he is calling a witch hunt, casting himself as the victim. And there's a new campaign ad
that has just rolled out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Democrats would rather focus on impeachment and phony investigations, ignoring the real issues. But that's not stopping
Donald Trump. He's no Mr. Nice Guy but something it takes a Donald Trump to change Washington.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GORANI: A new poll released shows Americans essentially split over Mr. Trump should be impeached and removed from office or not, 49 percent to 47
percent. A lot to break down on a Friday afternoon in Washington. Let's bring in congressional correspondent, Sunlen Serfaty and White House
reporter, Sarah Westwood.
We're starting to see, Sarah Westwood, this defense strategy of the Trump administration and the White House kind of take shape. Tell us more about
what to expect from the president.
SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Hala. Right now, we are seeing the White House president, Trump, turn their focus a little bit
more to Senate Republicans. The president hosted more than a half dozen of them here at the White House yesterday and a meeting in the Roosevelt room,
the issue of impeachment did come up.
Now, sources tell CNN that during the lunch, President Trump focused a lot on those two Democratic house members who broke with the leadership to vote
with Republicans that something that the White House seized on almost immediately after the vote. The Trump campaign is well promoting that as
evidence it's the Democrats who have divisions. As you mentioned Hala, no Republicans defected there.
But this is coming after there have been many complaints from congressional conservatives and allies of the president that the White House did not have
to date an effective strategy to deal with impeachment.
Now, President Trump has resisted suggestions from his advisers to hire more lawyers, to hire more staff, perhaps create a war room even to help
him deal with the evolving impeachment inquiry, but President Trump has resisted that. His press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, even saying today
on "Fox News" that Trump himself is the war room.
So, now, the White House starting to formulate a little bit more of a coherent strategy focusing on Senate Republicans as it looks increasingly
inevitable, Hala, that the upper chamber will be holding a trial for the president at some point in the months ahead.
GORANI: Yes. And Sunlen Serfaty, we're expecting transcripts of the hearings behind closed doors potentially to be made public next week. But
also, public testimony to happen on Capitol Hill. What is the timeline for that?
SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, Halal, just this morning said that she expects that
very soon, potentially, in the next few weeks. Certainly, an indication that it will happen at some point this month.
And this phase, the closed door phase of this impeachment inquiry, really, you can sense is coming to a close. They have a few depositions scheduled
for Monday. A few other people they would like to talk to behind closed doors. But more or less they feel like what they've gotten from this phase
of the inquiry were really to propel and give momentum to the next phase of the inquiry, and that is when they will be holding public hearings and
releasing transcripts of the behind closed doors depositions that have been happening over the last weeks up here on Capitol Hill, so that they can
essentially -- Democrats can start building their case toward impeachment working toward potentially drawing up articles of impeachment.
So, momentum is going to go very quick in the months of November, public hearings, potentially a vote in the committee later this month and then all
-- potentially toward the end of a year vote in the House on impeachment.
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GORANI: All right. Thank you very much. Sunlen Serfaty on Capitol Hill. And Sarah Westwood at the White House.
All we're all dressed alike, by the way. November 1st, I guess. We are all wearing pretty much the same black top. Maybe we could come up we more
cheerful colors next week. Thank you very much to both of you.
Now, let's turn our attention to the Middle East and ISIS is claiming responsibility for its first terrorist attack since naming a new leader.
Iraq's joint operations command said says militants attacked an army check point Thursday night, killing a soldier and wounding five others. You can
see where it happened on the map. The attack happened about 60 kilometers north of Baghdad. This marks the terrorist group's first attack since it
acknowledged the death of the former leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and named a replacement.
Now, U.S. counterterrorism officials says there are at least 14,000 ISIS fighters within Iraq and Syria. Some of them are foreign fighters locked
up in prisons after the physical caliphate was taken back from their group. Their home countries, for many of them, are unwilling to accept their
return.
CNN got rare access to one particular prison where ISIS members are unaware that their former leader is, in fact, dead. Nick Paton Walsh reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This wasn't the ending they were promised even if it begins to feel eternal. ISIS foreign
fighters so as these bars in Syria hold, no longer a threat to the outside world and no longer aware of what's happening outside in it.
LIRIM SULEJMANI, PRISONER: We don't get much information of outside what's happening.
WALSH: This man says, he's name is Lirim Sulejmani and is a jewel American citizen, he has no idea that ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been
killed just 72 hours earlier when our cameraman visits. The guards explicitly forbid visitors from breaking the news. So, we can only ask
what if.
SULEJMANI: If he is killed, he's killed. For a lot of people, he's already -- think that he's already dead. You don't hear from him. He's --
you know, I don't know. For me, personally, I kind of -- I feel like I was betrayed, you know. So, there is no Islamic State anymore. It doesn't
exist.
WALSH: It is a common story in the sea of orange. He was just an engineer who was worried about his wife and three children in camps nearby. Their
fate is so uncertain, he says facing U.S. justice would be preferable to another day here.
SULEJMANI: I feel very unsafe and I -- you know, I want to go back to States. I -- one thing for sure, I don't want to be here.
WALSH: Nobody here has faced a trial nor been found guilty. And now, many yearn for the due process ISIS denied others in their barbaric rush for
blood. Pleading to the nations ISIS pledged to destroy.
SULEJMANI: We messaged the American people to Donald Trump, I mean, there is American citizens. They shouldn't be abandoned. They should be brought
to States. Face the law. And if they committed any crime or like, you know, they can be punished, not be left in some -- someplace like slow
death concentration camp.
WALSH: Emaciated, withering, leaderless ISIS here has not suddenly stopped being a threat. Imagine the rage incubating in these cells. So great, the
guards fear what may happen if they learn the news of their leader's death.
In anger, their home countries do not, for the most part, want to import back. But that lives on after Baghdadi's death in these cells.
Nick Payton Walsh. CNN. Erbil, Northern Iraq.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GORANI: Well, normalcy beginning to return to Lebanon. Banks have reopened for the first time in a couple of weeks after mass demonstrations.
They were closed for security concerns when some protests, sometimes violent, paralyzed the city. But overall these demonstrations were rather
peaceful.
Many people are furious over corruption and the demeriting economy. Ultimately, Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned during the protest.
Earlier today, we heard from the leader of Hezbollah, and he called for the country to form a new government in the coming days. Let's get more on all
of that. Ben Wedeman joins me now live from Beirut.
Before we get to Nasrallah, what happened when the banks reopened? There were some concerns that there would be a run on the banks after two weeks
of closure. What ended up happening?
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it wasn't, Hala, the Black Friday some feared. We were at an area on Hamra Street,
which you may know well, where there are lots of banks and there were more customers awaiting to go in than usual.
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But by and large, it was an orderly day.
The Central Bank didn't impose any currency controls, which was something that was being considered, but rather left it up to individual banks to set
limits on withdrawals and transfers.
So, it was a relatively orderly day despite the fact we spoke yesterday to one bank manager who was worried that is was too soon to reopen.
Apparently, several banks' staff were trained on how to deal with irate customers. But by and large, it seems that that wasn't largely a problem.
One economist I spoke with said that given the fact that they were cut close for two weeks and that the Lebanese economy despite this is in really
horrible shape, the banks, he said, handled it fairly well. Hala.
GORANI: Yes. So, it could have been a lot worse. That's a relief, I guess, for the country.
And Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, of course, spoke today. We know he was no in favor of the resignation of Hariri. What did he say?
WEDEMAN: Well, it was very -- it was uncharacteristically late. Usually, he's right on time, when they say he's going speak at 2:30, he speaks at
the 2:3. It wasn't for another 50 minutes after the scheduled time that he came on. And he talked about the two weeks of protests. He was clearly
unhappy over the fact that Lebanese television stations, most of them, essentially handed a mic to protesters, many of whom sort of cursed
everybody in rather nonfamily terms. And Hezbollah was one of the groups that was cursed. And he said that never should have happened.
Now, he did say that a new government should be formed. He didn't rule out the possibility that it could be led by the current caretaker prime
minister. Saad Hariri, he stressed that whatever government is formed that it should regain the trust of the people, which will be a difficult task to
do. Regain, and he said, with transparency and accountability.
Now, we do know that there are already unofficial consultations between Lebanon's normally squabbling politicians about cobbling together a new
government. However, nobody is predicting when that might actually happen. Hala.
GORANI: We know it tends to take a bit of time in Lebanon. Thank you very much. Ben Wedeman live in Beirut.
AMANPOUR: While political heat may be cooling in Lebanon, more new wild fires are popping up in California, destroying homes and forcing more
people. And there are thousands, in fact, to flee.
You're looking at a new blaze that broke just out last night about 80 kilometers northwest of Los Angeles. It had scorched the hills just above
the City of Santa Paula forcing 7,500 people to clear out. That's on top of 13 other fires and counting that are currently burning. Combined, they
have scorched an area larger than Glasgow or Dublin with their suburbs. If you like an element of comparison there geographically.
Omar Jimenez is standing by near the site of that new fire in Santa Paula with more. And I guess -- I wonder because there is so many, do -- are
there enough firefighters? Do they have the manpower to fight all these fires at the same time, Omar?
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Those are the questions that the fire officials were wrestling with leading up to this week and that's because
they looked at the conditions that were coming and they saw that they were going to be extremely likely for -- to produce fires, I should say.
So, because of that, they strategically they tried to place units throughout Southern California for places that are typically prone for wild
fires so that if they popped up around there, they would have the manpower to deploy it. And we've actually seen that come into play multiple times
over the course of this week.
Just yesterday, we were in a city called San Bernardino which is east of Los Angeles, and there, the hillside fire, as it was known, was -- broke
out. You may be able to hear some of the jets dropping fire retardant in the hills in the distance. But the hillside fire broke out and some of
those prepositioned crews were able to respond within minutes to support the local staff there, and they credit that with saving lives and
potentially, saving the town from being even more devastated than just a few homes that ended up being destroyed.
And there is that one. there's the Getty fire, which started the week that happened in the more populated area of Los Angeles.
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And again, I go back to the conditions because wind has been at the center. It has been the common denominator throughout the week. It has sparked
many of the blazes. It has carried embers to places where there were not blazes to begin with. It has taken, in some cases, tree branches and
thrown them into electrical lines that has started fires as well. So, it has been this chaos factor.
Ironically, as I'm speaking to you now, it is a little windy. But today is the day that firefighters were supposed to get a little bit of that
reprieve from the wind to make some real progress. And, again, some of the more than 13 blazes continuing to burn across the state right now, this
Maria fire is among the latest, it happened on Halloween night. Kids were out trick or treating throughout their neighborhoods and had to come in
early because there were fires on the horizon.
So, the urgency still there. They're hoping to take advantage of the conditions and wind down some of these fires that have been burning, for
cases, weeks.
GORANI: All right. Thanks very much, Oman Jimenez.
Still ahead, the U.S. president proposes a partnership within the U.K. Find out what Donald Trump thinks would be a great solution to Britain's
political crisis as he weighs in to U.K. politics and casting a dark and troubling aspect over this upcoming British election, why MPs are being
told not campaign alone for their own safety. We'll be right back.
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GORANI: You think that with an impeachment inquiry at home, Donald Trump might have enough to keep himself occupied. Instead, he is weighing into
British politics, calling the leader of the Brexit Party live on air to criticize Boris Johnson's Brexit deal and suggests an interesting new
political alliance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But -- and I would like to see you and Boris get together because you would really have some numbers
because you did fantastically in the election, the last election. And he respects you a lot. I can tell you that. He respects you a lot. I don't
know if you know that or not but -- because I have no idea. You know, I have enough to do over here without having to worry about the psychology of
two brilliant people over there, frankly.
But he has a lot of respect and like for you. I just -- I wish you two guys could get together. I think it would be a great thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GORANI: Nigel Farage is kicking off the Brexit Party's campaign before the U.K's election next month, and he says he's prepared to put country before
party and delivering a "genuine" Brexit.
CNN's Phil Black joins me now.
Phil, this is remarkable. The president of the United States really interfering in a foreign election by suggesting that Nigel Farage, the
leader of the Brexit Party, who wants a hard Brexit, cooperate and form an alliance with Boris Johnson, the prime minister, the Conservative prime
minister of the U.K. Will it happen?
PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Probably not. No. And it extraordinary, you're right. And the question is why, why would he do this? But I think
that kind of became clear today as Nigel Farage launched his campaign because they seemed to be talking from the same script.
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You heard Trump there criticizing Boris Johnson's E.U. deal. And in addition to that, suggesting that Farage and Johnson should team up and
work together because he said they'd be an unstoppable force.
Fast forward to today, when Nigel Farage launches his campaign, he really laid into Johnson's exit deal. And on top of that, came up with an offer,
in which he said, team up with us former leave alliance. And in return, we will not contest seats that you want to and need to win in order to get
your big Brexit majority. But you to abandon your deal first. If you don't do that, we're going to contest every single seat in the country.
GORANI: And potentially take votes away from the Conservatives.
BLACK: And split the pro Brexit vote.
GORANI: Right.
BLACK: Exactly. And make it that much harder for Boris Johnson to get that BIG majority that he needs and wants and what all of this is about.
GORANI: What do the polls suggest that Farage would take votes away from the Conservatives or from Labour voters?
BLACK. So, the two conflicting theories here, I think what it shows is that it will have an impact because everything is so volatile, no one can
quite be sure. But yes. And it think it -- but I think it depends upon the individual constituency and that also determines to what degree it
matters.
There is a belief that it could hurt the Conservatives in seats that they are trying to win from, say, the liberal Democrats, perhaps and perhaps
some Labour seats as well. But it could also hurt the Labour Party, as well among the Labour voters who voted to leave but who simply cannot also
for all sorts of cultural reasons ever begin to brings themselves to vote for the Conservative Party.
So, in that case, they could pact their votes with the Brexit Party and Labour could lose seats as a result of that as well.
GORANI: We could end up, and this is not at all an unlikely possibility, with another hung arliament, where there's no clear majority for anything
in this country. And where this Parliament continues to try to vote on deals and agree on what Brexit to should look like and fail time and time
again.
BLACK: Indeed. It is.
GORANI: What would break the deadlock?
BLACK: Well, what would break the deadlock is what Boris Johnson wants, either a big -- well, a big majority would do it for the Conservatives.
Winner takes all type situation, that's what Johnson and his team are after. Then you're into the realm of hypothetical situations that have
been suggested but don't really have a lot of support like Nigel Farage's idea today, they leave alliance, team up with us, you'll get, in his words,
a stonking majority. We'll make Brexit happen but you got to give up on that deal that you fought so hard to get in the first place.
There's also been talk on the other side of a Remainer lines, but nothing really has come of that, because, again, there's no sign from the major
opposition party, the Labour Party, that they want to pursue that. They're trying to go for an outright win as well.
So, it means that anything is possible including that much feared scenario that you've described, which is another hung parliament.
GORANI: Right. Well, this is a perfect illustration of how Brexit has consumed this country. It's all anyone is talking about. It's all anyone
is campaigning on, fundamentally. Even if they talk about police numbers and NHS and everything. This is really the issue that's going to dominate
all others, it seems.
Thank you so much, Phil Black.
GORANI: And ahead of this election, there is growing alarm over the number of female MPs standing down after saying they've been abused or harassed in
public office. MPs are now being warned not to campaign alone. Nina dos Santos has that story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: At this foundry in East London, workers are putting the final touches to the statue of the U.K.'s first
female member of the Parliament.
Nancy Astor took up her seat in December 1919 where women were still fighting for the vote. 100 years on and five miles down the road, her
legacy is beginning to fade, as one by one, female MPs resign, some citing increasing hostility in Westminster.
NIKI MORGAN, BRITISH CULTURE SECRETARY: Death threats. I mean, it is continuously abusive e-mails and every morning, obviously, you know, you
turn the e-mails on and there's more stuff that is rude, offensive. And I think, actually, a couple of weeks ago, my office referred something to me
and I said, oh, I don't think this one is too bad. We won't go to the police. And I thought, Clark, you wouldn't have said that three years ago.
DOS SANTOS: The culture secretary, Niki Morgan, this week became the latest senior female minister to step down, abandoning her career amid a
purge of moderates since Boris Johnson entered Downing Street.
All in all, at least 12 female MPs have either left the Conservatives or abandoned politics altogether recently. That's not a good look for a party
which provided the country's only two women prime ministers. It also comes at a time when Johnson can't afford to alienate either gender.
Abuse is rife on both sides of the House, but the PM has been accused of dismissing MPs concerns and encouraging an increasingly ugly debate over
Brexit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Order.
PAULA SHERRIF, BRITISH LABOUR MP: And let me tell the prime minister that he often quotes his words surrender up, betrayal, traitor, (INAUDIBLE).
I'm sick of it.
BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: I think, Mr. Speaker -- I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker -- I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker --
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-- I have to say, Mr. Speaker, I've never heard such humbugging all my life.
DOS SANTOS: Former Conservative MP, Heidi Allen is among those seeking reelection Brexit despite defecting to the Liberal Democrats and installing
panic alarms at her home.
Other like Anna Soubry will fight on. But she has required a police escort since scenes like this.
(INAUDIBLE), the threats turned deadly three ago, after its MP, Jo Cox, was murdered by a right-wing extremist just days before the E.U. referendum.
Her colleague, Rushanara Ali, is getting ready to fight for her East London seat for the fourth time in a decade. Today, she says the campaign trail
is a scary place.
RUSHANARA ALI, BRITISH LABOUR MP: I am genuinely concerned for the safety of my colleagues. There's a lot of anger about social issues, there's a
lot of anger about Brexit, of course, and there's a growing level of intolerance in society.
DOS SANTOS: Astor's statue will be unveiled two weeks before the U.K. goes to the polls. But with fewer women willing to fill her shoes, she makes
out a lonelier figure than she would have done just a few months ago.
Nina dos Santos, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GORANI: Meanwhile, police on two continents are making some new arrests in connection with the grizzly truck death in Britain. 39 bodies were found
in the back of this truck in Essex last month. We can put up that image there for you, you'll remember.
Vietnam says it has arrested two suspects in the case. And Irish police say they apprehended another suspect, Eamon Harrison, in Dublin. He
appeared in court Friday on 39 counts of manslaughter. It's unclear where the victims came from. But multiple Vietnamese families said their loved
ones may be among them.
So, some arrests there. But still -- and by way, that image that we showed you, there's a couple of brothers that have not turned themselves in that
are sought in connection with these deaths.
Still to come, if you thought impeachment would get Donald Trump down, think again. A conversation about the president's plans for a
counterattack when we come back.
Plus, health officials in the U.S. say the number of vaping-related illnesses is surging and they still don't know what is causing the
outbreak. We'll hear from one family looking for answers.
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GORANI: Back to our top story. The impeachment's investigation in Washington. It may seem hard to believe, but it appears Donald Trump has
been energized by Thursday's vote to set out rules for the inquiry going forward.
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He's been attacking Democrats on Twitter and seems eager to meet with his base at a rally later today. Now, every single Republican in the House
voted against the impeachment resolution showing the president still has tremendous support within his party.
Let's get some perspective on all of this from CNN Political Commentator S.E. Cupp, the host of S.E. Cupp Unfiltered. And if you needed anymore or
any better illustration that the Republican Party has become the party of Trump, it was that vote yesterday in the House of Representatives. There
was not a single decenter, S.E.
S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right. And Hala, it's important to distinguish, you know, the House from the Senate. The House vote, as you
know, showed that the House is largely behind the president. He even actually got two Democrats to vote against the inquiry.
But in the Senate, we'll have to see. The implications, the stakes are higher. For senators, there are fewer of them and they represent the whole
state and not just districts.
So we'll have to see as this progresses if he gets any -- if any, you know, Republican Senators manage to peel away from backing the president. But as
of right now, absolutely, you know, the House Republicans are standing behind President Trump when it comes to this.
GORANI: And his strategy -- he released a new campaign ad. He's speaking to supporters in Mississippi.
His strategy is really to double down on the idea that I'm the rule breaker. I'm the guy who doesn't follow the script. Vote for me again for
that reason.
Almost using this whole thing as sort of illustration for his non- Washington style, to try to appeal even more to his base. Will it work?
CUPP: Yes. I mean it's an interesting tactic to dress this all up as sort of rule breaking and convention breaking. But pressuring a foreign head of
state to investigate a United States citizen who have his political rally and a rival and withholding military aid isn't a convention.
A lot of people think it's a real abuse of power. And so that's where this impeachment inquiry is going.
Now, listen, it's certainly rallying his base. But I think it's also important to note that Republican voters support for Trump has dropped 13
percent just over the past month.
And Republican support among voters for impeachment is at 18 percent. That has ticked up over the course of this inquiry. So we'll have to see if the
spin works beyond his rally room, beyond the (inaudible).
GORANI: Yes, certainly. And, by the way, Donald Trump told a newspaper he was considering reading the transcript of that now infamous call with
President Zelensky of Ukraine in a sort of fire side chat format.
I mean, what is this? Is this just kind of empty rhetoric or is it because -- I mean because we've learned to expect the unexpected but that would be
something else, even by the standards of Trump.
CUPP: I know. I feel for you, Hala. Even trying to come up with a good question for what is happening. I get it.
I mean, nothing surprises me. Now, I've been covering this guy for multiple years. Long before he was in the White House.
Nothing would surprise me. What would not surprise me is his doubling down on his belief that his call was perfect. He called the call beautiful.
And so if he believes that, then I could see him absolutely leaning into it. Performing it on stage for his base and the base eating it up.
GORANI: Yes. Let's talk about the Democrats. Just in the sense that the Republicans are I'm sure, obviously, very carefully following what is going
on. And there's an interesting Iowa poll that places Elizabeth Warren on top and where Joe Biden who is the frontrunner overall still is in fourth
position.
How would Republicans change their strategy if Elizabeth Warren is now seeing more and more consistently as the strongest candidate?
CUPP: I think that's good news for Republicans. Donald Trump admitted both in private meetings and publicly over the past couple of years that
Joe Biden was his biggest threat. He really did feel as though Joe Biden would give him a run for his money.
And I think Republicans would like to face Elizabeth Warren. She's far more divisive than Joe Biden is. Her low approvals or disapprovals are
worse than Joe Biden's disapprovals.
[13:35:00]
And she's got some very far left progressive policies that she's supporting that are deeply unpopular among Republicans, and even among some
Independents. So I think Republicans are very happy to see that poll.
We'll have to see if that carries nationally beyond Iowa for her. But good news for Elizabeth Warren. Probably also good news for Republicans.
GORANI: And a quick last one on Donald Trump relocating his main residence to Florida from New York. Why is he doing that?
CUPP: One has to imagine for tax reasons. Florida is a kinder state than New York is for tax --
GORANI: Has no income tax.
CUPP: Exactly. Right. And so he might see this as something of a shelter. But I have to be honest, as a New Yorker, he's not well liked
here.
And he might want, you know, for his home state in 2020 to be a viable win for him. That would never be the case if he stayed in New York. Maybe
Florida would be a state he could pick up and then say, look, I even won my home state.
GORANI: S.E. Cupp, thanks very much, host of S.E. Cupp Unfiltered.
CUPP: Thanks, Hala.
GORANI: We'll see you on the air over the weekend.
Outrage across Spain after five men were cleared of rape charges because the unconscious teenage victim did not fight back. Well, she was
unconscious.
The case sparked angry protests back in July. The Barcelona Court ruled on Thursday that the men were guilty of a lesser crime because they didn't
need to use violence or intimidation. Again, she was unconscious.
It's similar to a ruling in 2017 that also resulted in massive demonstrations where five men dubbed the wolf pack were initially cleared
of rape charges and convicted only of abuse.
CNN en Espanol Pau Mosquera joins me now from Madrid with more. What has been the reaction to this latest ruling, Pau?
PAU MOSQUERA, CNN EN ESPANOL REPORTER: Hala, the verdict actually has certainly sparked outrage here in Spain. Some women's rights organizations
are calling for demonstrations over this weekend. As well some social media users are furiously commenting on that case using hashtags like
#thisisnotabusethisisrape.
Even some politicians are commenting on that. Barcelona's Mayor Ada Colau who on Twitter criticized it as an outrageous sentence.
The controversy started yesterday, Thursday after Barcelona High Court ruled and sentenced these five men to between 10 to 12 years in prison
after finding them guilty for sexual abuse, instead of sexual assault which would have carried prison sentences up to 20 years. But the court
considered this assault because as the victim was unconscious, the accused had not used violence or intimidation.
But to understand a little bit more about this case, it happened in 2016 in Manresa which is a town in the northwest of Barcelona where both the accuse
and the victim were partying. But in this case, the victim consumed alcohol and drugs and so she became unconscious. And she became
unconscious, she couldn't fight back when the attack was produced.
This is something, Hala, that actually has renewed pressure on the government over reforming the law as to say that any sexual actual that is
not consented is a sexual assault. Something that the justice is reviewing nowadays, Hala.
GORANI: All right. Pau Mosquera, thank you very much.
The U.S. Center for Disease Control is working to solve a mystery health crisis in America. The agency has confirmed at least 37people have now
died from illnesses associated with e-cigarettes or vaping.
One family want answers about how their mother died after she developed a vaping habit. CNN Sanjay Gupta has their story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A 52-year-old healthy lady, that doesn't happen.
SANJAY GUPTA: Kevin Davis, a doctor himself had no idea why his wife, Mary Kerrie had suddenly become ill in early September.
KEVIN DAVIS, MARY KERRIE DAVIS' HUSBAND: I can't believe it. I feel so bad and feel so guilty that I'm a physician, I can't take care of the
people at my own house.
GUPTA: A flu swab came back negative. Mary Kerrie's bloodwork was initially unremarkable. But her family had a suspicion, vaping.
No idea of the amount of vaping she was doing. And according to her phone messages, the amount of things she was purchasing to Vape.
GUPTA: But proving that vaping was the cause was going to be much more difficult than they could have imagined.
MAGGIE DAVIS, MARY KERRIE DAVIS' DAUGHTER: She sent me a picture of her in the E.R. She said I'm on an IV. I have pneumonia.
GUPTA: Just as Mary Kerrie was admitted to the hospital, her daughter, Maggie, began hearing about an outbreak of mysterious illness.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Reporting an uptick in the cases of severe lung disease which they say could be caused by vaping.
DAVIS: And I texted her back. I said I hope it's not the vaping disease. Two days later, she had died.
GUPTA: Two days?
DAVIS: Yes, two days.
GUPTA: Dr. Tom Karisny showed us her x-rays which tell the story.
[13:40:00]
TOM KARISNY, GENERAL PRACTITIONER: The thing that was out of the ordinary was how rapidly she deteriorated over the next 48 hours.
GUPTA: Just take a look at how much they changed. The one on the right is normal, clear. But the picture on the left shows lungs that are totally
obliterated.
KARISNY: We call that wide out. It's a bad sign. It basically means that air is not moving in the lungs at all.
GUPTA: In the current outbreak, more than three dozen patients have died of vaping-related disease and Mary Kerrie he may be counted among them.
But nearly two months after she died, the family still doesn't know for sure. It shows just how challenging it is to investigate a disease that we
are seeing for the first time.
Are you hearing from the public health officials?
DAVIS: Yes, we're hearing some from them but it's just, you know, everybody in -- the different department seems to have a different answer
to these questions that we're asking.
DAVIS: It was so frustrating. And I'm empowered. I can -- I have a status in the community. I know how to speak the language and I couldn't
get to anybody. Imagine how people who don't have any of those things, how would they ever make it known?
GUPTA: And in Mary Kerrie's case, it's a complicated picture. Because like so many of the people with vaping-related disease, she wasn't just
using nicotine but also THC, illegal in her home state of Georgia.
DAVIS: I think it was to a point where she was vaping more than she smoked cigarettes. And then last year, she started smoking THC products very
heavily. More so than nicotine.
ANNE SHUCHAT, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY DIRECTOR, CDC: I hope that we'll get to answers quickly. But I think we need to be very attentive to this issue
over the long haul.
GUPTA: A long haul that could deny the Davis family and countless others closure and possibly a chance to save others.
DAVIS: I just want people to know that they're not invincible to falling victim to the same thing my mom did.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GORANI: And that was Dr. Sanjay Gupta reporting.
Still to come tonight. It's all very old, very antiquated ideology, just packaged in khakis and loafers.
GORANI: Lured in but able to get out. One woman's journey into the heart of America's white supremacist movement. That's coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GORANI: Whether it's political ads on social media or analyzing parts of the president's base, it often isn't long before the term alt-right comes
up when discussing American politics. The White Nationalist Movement might seem like something on the fringes of society.
But as we found out, it took just months for a general liberal non-voter to become part of its inner circle of book burnings and Nazi salutes at the
United States. CNN's Elle Reeve got a rare look at one woman's journey.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELLE REEVE, CORRESPONDENT: The face of America's white power movement is screaming young white men. But there are a very small number of women who
join. Samantha was one of them.
SAMANTHA, LEFT ALT-RIGHT CULT: This I wore to the last alt-right party that I ever went to.
REEVE: The 29-year-old tells new friends she spent a year in a cult, a cult of racism. After she left, she feared being exposed for what she had
done.
Now, she wants to come forward on her own terms and warn others about the power of online radicalization. She welcomes us into her home. We agreed
not to show its surrounding or share her last name due to safety concerns.
How important do you think that sense of alienation is in attracting people?
SAMANTHA: One hundred percent. I think alienation is like the number one reason that people join.
I was seeing this guy and I was going through a lot of turbulent like emotional and just personal mental things where my sense of self was pretty
damaged. It was just this emersion into the culture of it with someone that I so badly wanted the affection of and the approval of.
It didn't take much. It's not as if this person was like strapping me down. Like I was hungry to learn. I was hungry to figure this out.
REEVE: On January 1, 2017, you became a member of Identity Evropa. Can you explain what that is?
SAMANTHA: It was a white civil rights group or a white advocacy group, I believe, was the term. Identity Evropa was trying to project this image of
being clean-cut, law abiding, non-racial slur using, polite, kind, handing out water bottles to old ladies on the street. Just like a nice group of
people.
REEVE: They didn't want to look like the skinheads?
SAMANTHA: No, absolutely not. The language that was used was always pro- white. It was never anti anything else. And so it made it really easy to ignore the parts that you don't want to see.
REEVE: Like violence?
SAMANTHA: Yes, violence or just blatant racism.
REEVE: Today known as the American Identity Movement, Identity Evropa was created in 2016 as a kind of fraternity to promote white power with a more
clean cut face.
SAMANTHA: It's all very old, very antiquated ideology, just packaged in khakis and loafers.
REEVE: The alt-right is far more hostile to women than previous iterations of the white supremacist movement. It emerged from an Internet culture
that cross pollinated with men's rights in in-cel forums. An online subculture of men who are involuntarily celibate and blame women for it.
Samantha says there are only a handful of women in IE when she joined. She kept her day job as a manager at a cocktail bar, even as she interviewed up
to 20 people a week to be new members of IE.
SAMANTHA: That wasn't the only interview where --
REEVE: Part of her job was to screen out Jews. She was named women's coordinator and she says she helped membership grow to about 50 women in a
group of roughly a thousand people.
Why did you do it?
SAMANTHA: Because it felt good to help. It felt good to be productive and to feel like I was a part of something bigger than myself.
REEVE: Samantha's rise in the alt-right paralleled the rise of the alt- right in America. In the spring of 2017, members of the movement were feeling emboldened.
Donald Trump had been sworn into office. Steve Bannon was the White House aide. And protests like this one referred to as Charlottesville 1.0, which
Samantha helped coordinate were popping up across the country.
Then she started a new relationship with a rising leader within Identity Evropa and was welcomed into the movement's inner circle.
SAMANTHA: We took a weekend and went to a bunch of parties in New York.
REEVE: What kind of parties?
SAMANTHA: Nazi parties.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And this is the type of awful tool --
SAMANTHA: I went to a book burning. That was pretty scandalous.
It's all so surreal. Like you are standing there going, I'm at a book burning in someone's house. There are families that live next door.
There's probably a nice person who lives across the street. And I'm burning books about Jewish people. It was so -- I don't know. It just
feels -- it doesn't feel like it's wrong or right. It just feels unreal.
REEVE: Did you guys present yourselves as a white power power couple?
SAMANTHA: Yes, kind of. I think that's how people looked at us, that we would be the next generation of a power couple within the white movement.
REEVE: So in public, you were a couple. But behind the scenes?
[13:50:00]
SAMANTHA: The misery was growing exponentially like every day. I tried to break up with him several times. I had told him I couldn't do it anymore.
I tried to do all these things but I was so afraid.
REEVE: A meme among the Internet Nazis was White Sharia. It's a racist interpretation of Islam that portrays women as subhuman.
SAMANTHA: As a woman, you are secretary, mother, babysitter, but never an equal.
REEVE: Private messages to Samantha show that while the women might have played along in public, in private, they found it disturbing. But at the
same time, Samantha says they felt trapped, afraid that they would be doxed.
That means your identity and penal personal information is released online. Samantha says she and her boyfriend broke up privately but he wouldn't move
out. There were shouting matches, financial struggles.
She realized the only way to leave the relationship was to also leave the movement. The reaction was more degradation.
SAMANTHA: I was told a lot that I would be really good, that I could probably hold a lot of Nazi semen and birth a lot of Nazi babies, whether I
liked it or not. They would break my legs so I couldn't run away. And then I would just be killed afterwards.
REEVE: The threats scared her, that they were clarifying. In October 2017, she quit IE. She eventually stopped making excuses and realized she
had actively promoted racism.
SAMANTHA: All of that, the weird propaganda that I was buying into, all of the ideology and rhetoric, it just immediately hit me that it was all
[bleep]. It just all hit me how much of an idiot I was.
REEVE: The American Identity Movement tells CNN it is unaware of anyone being coerced to stay in the organization. Today, Samantha has joined a
different kind of organization. One that helps people leave hate groups. She hopes coming forward with her story can make a difference.
SAMANTHA: For a lot of people, I don't think it's about politics. I don't think anyone wakes up and says like I really want to make a poster about
being racist. And I think that the alt-right really knew how to play on this like weird new form of nihilism that people are feeling.
reporter: Samantha says she joined a fraternity based on hate because it gave her a new sense of meaning. She didn't realize how fast they could
turn that hate on her.
Elle Reeve, CNN New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GORANI: You are watching CNN. Stay with us for more, including catching up with science fiction.
We're now living in the time period imagined by the movie "Blade Runner." How does reality compare? We'll explore that question next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GORANI: We want to make a correction to a story we brought you earlier this hour while describing the latest arrest in the Essex truck deaths
case. We showed photos of two brothers whom police are appealing to hand themselves in in that case. They have not been arrested or charged.
Do androids dream of electric sheep? That was the question posed in this story that what would eventually become the sci-fi classic "Blade Runner."
[13:55:00]
And if there was ever a time to answer it, it is now. November 2019 is the month in which the movie is set. It's hard to imagine when you see
Harrison Ford zooming around, battling robots.
But is there a case to be made for life imitating art in this case? After all, we might not have cars in the same way but the technology is certainly
being developed.
And while they might not have the emotional depth of Roy Batty, humanoid robots like Sophia here do exist. CNN even interviewed her.
And, of course, many of our homes and workplaces are already equipped with artificial intelligence, smart technology. Alexa, cue our last commercial
break, over the week.
And just like that, thank you for watching tonight. I'm Hala Gorani. Do stay with CNN. There's a lot more ahead.
After a quick break, it's "AMANPOUR."
END
