Return to Transcripts main page

CNN NEWSROOM

Trump and the Birther Controversy; U.S. Special Ops Assist Turkish Forces; Syrian Cease-Fire Holds but Aid Stalled; Duterte Ordered Killings as Mayor; Beatles' Documentary Premieres in London. Aired 12-12:30a ET

Aired September 17, 2016 - 00:00   ET

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


[00:00:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Donald Trump puts an end to the birther movement. The Republican presidential nominee finally admits Barack Obama was born in the United States but still he blames Hillary Clinton for starting it.

The U.S. steps up its fight in Syria but the cease-fire may just be shaky at best.

And it is the second typhoon in the last week to hit Taiwan. We'll get a report from Derek Van Dam in this half hour.

Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM. We're live in Atlanta. Thank you for joining us. I'm Natalie Allen.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

ALLEN: And we begin on the campaign trail, Donald Trump is finally reversing his long-held belief that U.S. President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Trump said for himself Friday that Mr. Obama was indeed born in the U.S. But now Trump is pinning the birther movement on his rival. Here's senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Nice hotel.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Today, Donald Trump, once the leader of this nation's birther movement, finally came out and said he accepted the truth that President Obama was born in the U.S. But in doing so he told more whoppers.

TRUMP: Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it. I finished it. You know what I mean. President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period.

ACOSTA (voice-over): Trump's claim that Hillary Clinton is responsible for one of the nation's worst political smears is false; same goes for the statement he ended the birther controversy. That's not remotely true. As Trump was considering a run for president five years ago, he brought it up.

TRUMP: Why doesn't he show his birth certificate?

ACOSTA (voice-over): Time and again.

TRUMP: I have been told very recently, Anderson, that the birth certificate is missing.

ACOSTA (voice-over): Even after President Obama released his birth certificate to the country in 2011...

TRUMP: A lot of people do not think it was an authentic certificate.

ACOSTA (voice-over): No surprise, when asked for his reaction to the news that Trump was acknowledging reality, the president was not impressed.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I was pretty confident about where I was born. I think most people were as well.

ACOSTA (voice-over): As for Clinton, she slammed Trump's attempts to blame her as a disgrace, saying in a series of tweets, "Trump has spent years peddling a racist conspiracy aimed at undermining the first African American president. He can't just take it back."

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Barack Obama was born in America, plain and simple, and Donald Trump owes him and the American people an apology.

ACOSTA (voice-over): Trump's birther reversal comes as he is trying to reach out to African American voters, a key voting bloc that overwhelmingly supports Clinton.

It was a surreal scene. Trump spent more time promoting his glitzy new D.C. hotel, where he staged the event and listened to military leaders supporting his campaign, including one retired general, who has also questioned Mr. Obama's citizenship, Thomas McInerney.

LT. GEN. THOMAS MCINERNEY, USAF (RET.): Thank you, Don. It's very simple. We are warriors here.

ACOSTA (voice-over): And Trump never addressed the question why he is changing his mind now, ducking out as reporters were shouting for answers.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: At her first solo campaign appearance for Hillary Clinton Friday, U.S. first lady Michelle Obama said the election is a make-or- break moment for the country. While Ms. Obama did not single out Trump by name, she indirectly accused him of being an erratic and threatening candidate who traffics in fears and lies and both she and President Obama addressed the birther controversy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY: There were those who questioned and continued to question for the past eight years up through this very day whether my husband was even born in this country.

Well, during his time in office, I think Barack has answered those questions with the examples he set by going high when they go low.

BARACK OBAMA: I was pretty confident about where I was born. I think most people were as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: Political commentator Van Jones joins me now from New York.

Van, thanks for being with us. Let's first talk about the birther issue. Donald Trump kept this going for some five years. It seemed like he was reluctant to end it but then he pointed the finger at Hillary Clinton for starting it. So, goodbye, birther movement, thank goodness.

But what do you make --

[00:05:00]

ALLEN: -- of the end of this?

VAN JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I don't know if we've gotten to the end. First of all, it's such a bizarre thing for him to say. Apparently some friend of hers or maybe some staffer at one point said something.

And so he's like, well, that is his excuse for five years?

He doesn't follow Hillary Clinton on her tax policy. He doesn't follow her on her defense policy but -- or her trade policy. But for some reason, some low-level staffer working for Hillary Clinton is the reason that, for five years, Donald Trump just could not let this go.

It's not credible. It turns out, yes, there's very thin factual basis. But the reality is that we have a nominee for a major party who seems to want to live in a fantasy land about a number of issues, including this one. That is not a good person to be in the White House.

ALLEN: What does it say about his thoughts on Barack Obama, how Barack Obama was put under this birther issue?

He was basically saying, wasn't he, the president is a fraud. And he did it -- he perpetuated it with a little wink and a dodge as he went along.

JONES: Well, let's not forget, President Obama, in an unprecedented move, all the way back in 2011, five years ago, produced himself, personally, in front of the world, the long form birth certificate because he had been so goaded by Donald Trump for months and months and months. It was actually starting to impact public opinion, this complete lunatic idea that, for somehow this baby was born overseas and then smuggled back and just totally nutso stuff.

So it really was undermining the full faith and confidence of the American people in the White House. And so Obama produced the certificate.

Then since then, Donald Trump has continued to, as you said, dodge and wink and nod. If Donald Trump's rumors had been believed by the whole country, you could have had military people saying we do not have a legitimate commander in chief.

He was playing fast and loose with the facts, very dangerous; glad it's coming to an end.

ALLEN: Yes, and finally, when he made a comment about it, he did so grudgingly, it seemed; he made it quick and he took no questions on it. So he kept this out there for years. But when it came time to sum it up, wouldn't take questions from the media.

JONES: Well, you know, that's not surprising, though. Donald Trump is so shy. You know, he is so retiring. He does not like to talk to reporters. He doesn't like to address issues.

No, this is the one issue that he wanted to dodge. He knew that with the debates beginning later this month, if he didn't do something to take it off the table or at least give the pretense that he was, this was going to be part of the first or second debate question.

And so he did the bare minimum of what he could do. First, he had his surrogates out there, trying to shoot it down. Finally, he came out with the bared, bare minimum.

But this is one of the more appalling parts of the Obama years, Donald Trump continuing to try to delegitimate (sic) and undermine the sitting commander in chief.

ALLEN: Van Jones, thank you for joining us. We appreciate it.

JONES: Thank you.

ALLEN: He mentioned the debates. Well, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will face off in their first debate against each other September 26th. But there will be no third-party candidate on the stage with them.

Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein won't be participating because they have not polled at 15 percent or higher in at least five national opinion polls. That's according to the Commission on Presidential Debates. It says it will review its criteria for the second and third debate.

The U.S. has announced the death of another high-ranking ISIS leader. The Pentagon says a drone strike in Raqqah, Syria, killed ISIS' information minister, Wa'il Adil al-Salman. The air raid was on September 7th. The Pentagon says Salman was in charge of propaganda videos showing torture and executions.

He had direct access to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Another ISIS leader, Mohammed al-Adnani, was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Syria August 30th.

The U.S. is helping Turkey fight ISIS. A contingent of U.S. special operations forces is now assisting Turkey in its offensive against ISIS in Northern Syria. Turkish troops entered Syria in August just days after a suicide bomber killed 54 people at a wedding in Turkey.

Some 40 special operations troops are now training and advising the Turks. The Pentagon calls the mission Operation Noble Lance. The U.S. was already providing air support to the Turkish offensive.

The cease-fire that began Monday in Syria is holding. But humanitarian aid has still not reached hundreds of --

[00:10:00]

ALLEN: -- thousands of desperate people. And as our Frederik Pleitgen reports from Aleppo, mistrust is growing on both sides.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): In Aleppo, this is what the cease-fire looks like, government forces moving around armored personnel carriers in a contested district. And oftentimes this is what the cease-fire sounds like.

Syrian army personnel acknowledging they don't trust the truce.

"We're sticking to the cease-fire," this pro-government fighter says, "but the other side is not. That's why I don't think the cease-fire will work."

For their part, rebels accuse government forces of breaching the cease-fire. Despite the transgressions, though, the U.N. says by and large the cessation of hostilities is working.

But many Aleppo residents are still suffering from the clashes that took place before it went into effect.

At the Ramouseh hospital, Ahmed Jabr and his 7-year-old son, Mahmud, lay side by side, both wounded by rebel shelling that killed three of Mahmud's brothers.

"When the bombshell fell, I went to the ground," the boy says, "and I was bleeding. I felt the shrapnel in my body."

It happened last Friday, the day the cease-fire was announced, crushing Ahmed Jabr's faith that the cessation of hostilities might work.

"Even after the cease-fire, I was here in the hospital," he says, "and I saw wounded people still being brought here." And the calm remains strained. Damascus saw heavy clashes on Friday

around the rebel-held districts of Jobar. And in the early morning hours of Friday, opposition and government forces exchanged fire right here on the outskirts of Aleppo, another sign of just how fragile the current cease-fire is -- Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Aleppo.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: A Swedish court has upheld an arrest warrant for Julian Assange. What that means for the WikiLeaks founder. We'll have that coming up here.

Also: the U.S. is reacting to shocking allegations against the Philippine president, including a claim that a death squad he controlled fed a body to a crocodile. We'll have that story coming up.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

ALLEN: Derek Van Dam here with us now and, as usual, he has got his eye on the other part of the world from Georgia because there is yet another storm --

(CROSSTALK)

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: No rest for the weary, to say the least, Natalie. We're talking about Taiwan. They had typhoon Meranti earlier this week. Now it's typhoon Malakas.

(WEATHER REPORT)

[00:15:00]

ALLEN: The U.S. says it will look into shocking allegations against the Philippine president. A self-described hitman has testified that Rodrigo Duterte ordered a death squad to kill criminal suspects and personal enemies while Duterte was the mayor of Davos City.

Now some Philippine lawmakers are calling for an independent investigation. Our Ivan Watson reports from Hong Kong.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In a Senate inquiry, an eyewitness gave astounding accusations implicating the current president of the Philippines in the killings of a death squad when Rodrigo Duterte was mayor of the city of Davao.

Edgar Matobato claims that he was a hitman; he claims that he killed at least 50 people and that he was under the direct orders of Rodrigo Duterte during the quarter century that Duterte was mayor of Davao City. In one case, he described feeding a victim to a crocodile.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language)

WATSON: A presidential spokesman denied that Rodrigo Duterte ordered killings.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To think the president is capable of giving such direct --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do I think he is capable?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I don't -- no, I don't think he's capable of giving a directive like that.

WATSON: CNN cannot independently verify the allegations made in this eyewitness testimony. But the human rights organization, Human Rights Watch, is now calling for an independent inquiry into the allegations, arguing that President Duterte cannot be expected to investigate himself.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I do think this was a big day in the Philippines. This was testimony in the Philippines senate under oath by a man who said that he personally was involved in 50 killings, that he heard Duterte and saw Duterte give orders to kill people.

He saw Duterte kill people with his own eyes. And he came across as credible. Now it has to be said these are just allegations. But they need to be investigated.

WATSON: The reason that the Senate inquiry is underway is because of the enormous number of police killings that have taken place during Rodrigo Duterte's first less than three months in office. He launched a war on drugs and has repeatedly ordered the police to shoot to kill if any suspected drug criminal --

[00:20:00]

WATSON: -- resists arrest. According to official police statistics more than 1,000 suspects have been killed in less than three months -- Ivan Watson, CNN, Hong Kong.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: European Union leaders have agreed on a road map for the bloc's future priorities. They held a summit in the Slovakian capital of Bratislava without the United Kingdom there.

European Council president Donald Tusk says talks about the U.K.'s split from the E.U. cannot begin without a formal notice from Britain, possibly next year. London mayor Sadiq Khan says that the U.K. shouldn't rush.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SADIQ KHAN, MAYOR OF LONDON: It is crucial London has a seat around the table. Why?

Because London is a powerhouse for our country. We need to make sure, for example, even outside the E.U., we can have access to a single market. You're right to remind me, we got to make sure, even outside the E.U., we can possible financial services. And that's why it's really important we don't rush into negotiations with the E.U.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: And those complications don't even include the chance that Scotland could leave the U.K. to stay with the E.U.

Lawyers for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange say they will appeal a ruling by a Swedish court to uphold his arrest warrant. He is wanted in connection with rape allegations from 2010. Assange been holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012. He says he is afraid Sweden would send him to the U.S., where he could be charged for publishing government secrets.

Ecuador said last month it would let Swedish investigators question him. That is set for October 17th.

Edward Albee is being remembered as one of the greatest playwrights of our time and a titan of theater. His personal assistant says Albee died on Friday at his home in New York after a short illness. His masterpiece, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe," epitomizes his provocative and often dark style.

The three-time Pulitzer winner was 88 years old, Edward Albee.

A fire has destroyed a 17th century church in Peru. State media reports the fire destroyed 80 percent of the San Sebastian Church in Cuzco. We're seeing video as firefighters try to control the flames. Many works of art were lost as well. The church underwent a $1.5 million restoration just three years ago.

The surviving Beatles came together in London on Thursday. A look at a new film documenting their rise to stardom. We'll have that for you coming up here.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

ALLEN: Running a half marathon is hard enough, one would assume -- I haven't done it -- especially when you've just had a baby five months ago, like the woman you see there in the blue shirt. This multitasking mom is bringing it to another level.

Anna Young (ph) from the U.S. state of Utah pumped breast milk during her race last Saturday. Afterwards, she found that a race photographer had captured the moment so she decided to share it on Facebook. She hoped it would help other moms struggling with breastfeeding in public. And 10,000 likes later, it seems like it has.

She is supermom for sure.

The two surviving Beatles reunited in London to catch a special movie. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr came together Thursday for the premiere of --

[00:25:00]

ALLEN: -- The Beatles' "Eight Days A Week: The Touring Years." It's directed by Oscar winner Ron Howard and follows the Fab Four's early rise to stardom.

Our Paul Vercammen has this inside look at the film.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ron Howard recruited Mark Monroe, Academy Award nominee for "The Cove," to write the documentary, "Eight Days a Week," to tell the story of The Beatles' early years and touring fury.

PAUL HANKS, ACTOR, "JIM LOVELL": Houston, we have a problem.

VERCAMMEN (voice-over): It recalled a movie saga directed by Howard.

MARK MONROE, WRITER: We openly referred to "Apollo 13," since that you had guys bound together in a bubble and no one else could know that experience but them.

PAUL MCCARTNEY, THE BEATLES: Hello, my name is Paul McCartney.

RINGO STARR, THE BEATLES: This is Ringo Starr.

JOHN LENNON, THE BEATLES: This is John Lennon.

GEORGE HARRISON, THE BEATLES: I'm George Harrison.

MONROE: And the pressure from the outside, from external forces and not just the press and the fans, the globetrotting that was involved that forced them only to have really each other.

MCCARTNEY: Four votes had to be carried for any idea to go through.

STARR: You know, the proof's in the pudding. It worked really well.

VERCAMMEN (voice-over): The documentary focuses on The Beatles' hectic touring years, five, six events every day; press conferences, photo shoots, concerts. Ringo revealed during those stadium shows on stage without monitors, he never clearly heard his bandmates over shrieking fans and crackly P.A. speakers. Ringo watched their feet to help keep time and somehow the Fab Four stayed in perfect mesmerizing harmony.

MONROE: They played these songs two or three times over and over again every day all the time it and it became rote, it became more a show, a spectacle, than a musical event and I think, obviously, from what they told us, that began to bother them, as you can imagine.

VERCAMMEN (voice-over): The Beatles cut down all that tension with humor.

MONROE: I think they were just funny guys. I mean, I think they told jokes for each other.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What about the reports that you guys are nothing but a British Elvis Presleys?

STARR: It's not true. It's not true.

MONROE: They weren't writing material for the press. They were trying to make each other laugh as a way to deal with the pressure.

VERCAMMEN (voice-over): The cheeky Beatles dealt so well, their touring years rocked the world, aftershocks still being felt -- Paul Vercammen, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: We predict the film will be a huge hit, never-seen footage.

Thanks for watching. I'm Natalie Allen. Your top stories are right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)