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THE BRIEF WITH BIANCA NOBILO

Top Diplomat Repeatedly Describes Quid Pro Quo in Testimony; Democrats Declare Victory in Two Key State Election; Pro-Beijing Lawmaker Attacked With Knife; Former MP Speaks to CNN on Upcoming General Election; Australia Women Football Team to Earn Equal Pay. Aired 5-5:30p ET

Aired November 6, 2019 - 17:00   ET

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


[17:00:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @JAKETAPPER. Our coverage on CNN continues right now.

BIANCA NOBILO, CNN INTERNATIONL HOST: Tonight on THE BRIEF, what the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine said about quid pro quo in the impeachment

inquiry. Exclusive video shows U.S. military equipment arriving in Yemen a controversial shipment in a war that's killed thousands. And the UK

election campaigns begin. We'll speak with the Former Conservative MP who may not vote conservative in December.

Live from London I'm Bianca Nobilo. Welcome to the show. A newly released transcript in the U.S. impeachment inquiry is revealing some of the most

damaging testimony yet about the Trump Administrations delays a vita aid to Ukraine in an apparent effort to extract political favors. The top U.S.

diplomat in Ukraine, Bill Taylor, repeatedly described a quid pro quo in his closed door testimony last month and said the effort became clear to

him as early as mid-July.

Taylor is one of three key witnesses set to testify publicly next week as congressional investigators begin the next phase of the inquiry. House

Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff explains the importance of open hearings.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SHCIFF, (D-CA): So those open hearings will be an opportunity for the American people to evaluate the witnesses for themselves and make their

own determinations about the credibility of the witnesses but also to learn firsthand about the facts of the Presidents' misconduct.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: Bill Taylor is a meticulous note taker and gave some very detailed statements about who said what about Ukraine and when. CNN's Alex Marquardt

takes a closer look at the transcript of his testimony.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR U.S. CORRESPONDENT: It's among the most explosive testimonies yet in the impeachment inquiry. Now the transcript of

the deposition of Ambassador Bill Taylor, the most Senior U.S. diplomat in Ukraine gives a damning on the ground perspective.

Taylor told lawmakers it was his clear understanding security assistance money would not come until the Ukrainian President Zelensky committed to

pursue the investigation meaning into the Bidens in the 2016 election. Taylor added it was also clear that this condition was driven by the

irregular policy channel I had come to understand was guided by Rudy Giuliani and it was also Giuliani according to Taylor who came up with the

idea of demanding the President Zelensky publicly declare you would investigate the Ukrainian company Burisma that Joe Biden's son Hunter had

been on the board of.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHIFF: I think you will see on the transcript what a dedicated public servant Ambassador Taylor is. Someone who graduated from West Point and

someone who served in Vietnam someone who is I think performing another vital service for the country in relating the facts that came to his

attention.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: Taylor testified that he was told about a meeting on September 1st between the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and a

top aide to President Zelensky in which Sondland told the aide the security assistance money would not come until President Zelensky committed to

pursue the Burisma investigation everything was dependent on such an announcement.

Days prior Taylor had written a rare so-called first person cable to his boss Secretary of State Mike Pompeo describing the folly I saw in

withholding military aid to Ukraine at a time when hostilities were still active in the East and when Russia was watching closely to engage the level

of American support for the Ukrainian government.

Taylor was embarrassed he couldn't tell the Ukrainians why the aid was being held up and he prepared to resign. Despite the concerns Taylor

admitted he never talked to the President.

Bianca, even though Taylor did not speak directly with the President he was speaking with those who were directly taking orders from the President as

you noted at the top taking meticulous notes. Bill Taylor offered extremely detailed testimony often referring to those notes. He put it in a bit of

contact saying that he has always been a careful note taker that he carries a notebook around with him jotting down notes after conversations or phone

calls which is why Bianca when you read this extraordinary testimony that was released today it often does read like a diary. Bianca

NOBILO: Alex Marquardt, thank you. Americans in a number of states went to the polls Tuesday and the results could set off alarms for the Republican

Party one year before the presidential race and upset appears to be in the worse in Kentucky where a Democrat is claiming victory in the Governor's

race.

This is the heart of coal country and a ruby red state. The incumbent who Donald Trump campaigned for but was deeply unpopular once the review of

votes. Turnouts extraordinary 12 percent over the last Governor's race in 2015 as voters seemed energized heading in to 2020.

[17:05:00]

NOBILO: Republicans saw another big setback in Virginia where both state houses flipped from red to blue. The democratic governor hailed the

results.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RALPH NORTHAM, VIRGINIA GOVERNOR: This is an exciting day for the commonwealth of Virginia. After 26 years we are officially blue. This way

it started after the election in 2016. I think Virginians woke up saying it would never happen again. People came out yesterday I think they are

pleased with the progress that we as Democrats have made over the last couple of years and they really want us to continue working on that

progress.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: An interesting pattern emerged from both states where voters in the suburbs want reliably Republican went for the Democrats. The bright spot

for the Republicans was Mississippi where they held on to the Governor's office. Mr. Trump tweeted his congratulations and to credit saying that

their rally last Friday night moved the number from the tie to a big win.

And campaigning is officially underway for the UK General Election on December 12th and parliament has now dissolved. Prime Minister Boris

Johnson says it is an election that no one wants even though he tried to get it one, two, three, four times. But it is the only way to deliver

Brexit.

And in about ten minutes we will hear from Justine, a Former Conservative MP who Boris Johnson removed the whip from essentially out from the party.

She served at both Theresa May and David's governments but he is not standing for reelection. We spoke about the campaign, the start it got off

to and why parliament has become so toxic?

Mexico is scrambling to find answers as to why nine members of a family were ambushed near the U.S.-Mexico border three women, four children and

two infants who were killed on Monday. They were members of a Mormon off shoot community and some had long-standing reputation as being anti-crime

fighters meaning there was a possibility that they were specifically targeted.

The family's cars were shot at and then set on fire as they travelled to visit other family members. Now police say a man they previously arrested

is not connected to this attack. While Mexico is forming a commission to investigate what happened here family members tell CNN that they are

piecing together what happened for themselves.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAFE LONGFORD, FAMILY MEMBER: What Devin told us is that one of the three vehicles was shot up and then set ablaze and the two vehicles that went

further on ahead, Christina was driving in front. When our aunt Donna and her nine children came up to Christina's vehicle she was already lying on

the ground, lifeless and these children witnessed this.

As soon as Aunt Donna saw Christina she turned around and yelled at all of her children to duck down immediately. They started to grab the babies and

put them under the dash and tried to hide them. All of a sudden bullets just rained from above on top of a hill down on top of them. What they went

through and experienced?

We don't have the capacity to imagine what these children went through. Once the firing stopped these men came off of the mountain and pulled all

of these kids that were alive, pulled them out of the vehicle. They understood some of what they said but they basically told them to get out

of here.

They immediately started walking towards home. Taking turns, these precious children, taking turns carries their brother, Cody. They had gun wounds,

bullets, just on all parts of their bodies. They made about 1,000 feet away from the vehicles. The older sister, I believe her name was Kylie. She said

to Devin, she said Devin; we are not going to make it. We have to stop.

So they immediately ran off of the road and down into an area where Devin was able to hide they and then Kylie said that Kylie and Devin decided that

he needed to go on home and try to get help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: Because of that bravery, the surviving children were taken to a hospital in Arizona and all of them are expected to survive. Now a

controversial Pro-Beijing lawmaker was stabbed while campaigning in Hong Kong. The Chinese news paper "The Global Times" released video of him being

attacked. We must warn you it is graphic. So if won't show you - is okay and you'll see in this video a man dressed in blue hands Ho bouquet of

flowers, he then reaches in to his back what appears to be knife and stabs it in to the lawmaker's chest.

[17:10:00]

NOBILO: The attacker has been arrested. And the Ho says that the knife was blocked by his ribs and did not cause serious damage. U.S. lawmakers want

answers from the Trump Administration about the continuing flow of American made weapons into Yemen. CNN has learned that arms manufactured in the U.S.

are turning up at a Yemeni port despite congressional opposition to this. The flow of weapons in to Yemen has helped fueled a war that has killed

more than 100,000 people. Here is CNN's Nima Elbagir on an exclusive report.

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Bianca, weaponry arriving under the cover of dark. This footage filmed that CNN was able to

obtain and verified shows U.S. weaponry arriving in the Southern Yemen Port. This is not illegal, this delivery of weaponry is not illegal but

what it is incredibly controversial.

You can see that in the way that this delivery came about. The ship delivering this weaponry did not have its tracking device on in spite of it

being the norm under International Maritime Regulations and it was only through CNN's work of looking through port documents and speaking to

whistleblowers that we were able to ask at the time that it left the port Jeddah and arrived in Yemen on October 29th.

This latest delivery will come as a blow for U.S. lawmakers who have been trying for months to stem that tide of heavy U.S. weaponry to the chaos in

Yemen. If it hadn't been for President Trump's multiple vetoes they would have succeeded so far. Our understanding is that lawmakers after this

recent report are seeking answers from the Trump Administration. Already the House Foreign Affairs Committee has demanded an urgent briefing from

Secretary Pompeo.

Saudi Arabia hosted successful peace talks between southern separatists and the Saudi backed the Yemeni government but it doesn't seem to very clear on

details so far many of those that we speak to believe that really has done has pushed the issue the cause of southern secession further down the line

while Saudi Arabia and its allies seek to resolve the border conflict with the Iranian backed Houthis. Many of those in Washington though are

concerned that weaponry that armory is only further inflaming the chaos in Yemen.

Turkey says it has captured a wife of the Former ISIS Leader Abu Bakr Al- Baghdadi. She is now in the custody of Turkish security forces but few other details of her capture or identity have been released. ISIS Baghdadi

blew up himself up when U.S. Special Forces stormed his compound in Syria where he was hiding. He is of his wife's detention comes just one day after

Turkey said it has captured his sister and brother-in-law in Northern Syria.

Coming up next on the program, the campaign season has officially kicked off in the UK for the country's first December election since the 1920s. At

that heart of it all, you guessed it, Brexit.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:15:00]

NOBILO: A vitally important election campaign is officially underway now in the UK. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the opposition leader

Jeremy Corbyn are both making that opening pitches to voters. The Prime Minister launched his campaign with an op-ed in the Daily Telegraph

accusing his rival of bearing hatred against wealth and aspiration and comparing Jeremy Corbyn to Joseph Stalin.

But Jeremy Corbyn brushed that off as nonsense from the superrich who avoid paying taxes. The hope being expressed on the both sides of this election

is that it will break the dead lock. So yesterday I wrestled this up to take a look at the stake of play. So Britain is heading back to the polls

on December 12th for the third time in four years. They will vote in a general election and one thing will dominate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: To get Brexit done and there is only one way to get Brexit done.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the deal because it's not Brexit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Labor will get Brexit sorted within six months.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Catastrophic cliff edge of a no deal Brexit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: Britain was supposed to leave the EU in March and in April and again in October but it is in the midst of another extension and political

parties are hoping a majority will unlock the parliamentary paralysis. Here is why, there are 650 constituencies in the United Kingdom. To get the

majority in parliament you need 326 seats and that is where the problem has been for Theresa May and Boris Johnson since 2017.

Neither have had a majority on that own, meaning getting anything done was a problem. Theresa May relied on the support of the Northern Irish

Democratic Unionist Party while Boris Johnson had even less of the majority after taking the whip of MPs who rebelled over Brexit. Here is where the

big party stand?

Boris Johnson's Conservative Party has a simple message to get Brexit done. They were the biggest policy in 2017. They will be hoping for a clear

majority this time to push the Prime Minister's Brexit deal through. In 2017 labor did unexpectedly well but they still ended up the minority

party. Their Brexit policy is less clear-cut than others they now support a second referendum and they are trying to thread the needle with the support

base some of whom are Romainers and others who are levers.

The Scottish National Party currently has 35 seats. That could rise because of Boris Johnson's relative unpopularity and Scotland's votes to remain in

2016 and that is precisely what the S&P will campaign for Romaine and Scottish Independence.

The Liberal Democrats had to - political decade. They were coalition partners from 2010 to 2015 and that definite that political support now

their standing on a clear platform of remaining in the EU and polling in double digits. Now one party not even in parliament but who could play a

huge role in the election is the Brexit Party. It did not exist in 2017 but they won the most votes in major European elections.

Led by Nigel Farage their Brexit policy is clear. They want out. They want a clean break from Europe. Britain is going through one of the most

volatile political moments in history and the last few votes have shown that elections are just that. In short nobody knows how parliament will

vote on December 30th.

Earlier I spoke with Justine Greening. She was a Conservative MP until parliament was dissolved on Wednesday. But the Conservative Party had

kicked her out earlier this year removing the whip from her because she would not vote in line with the government's Brexit policy and she

announced that she wouldn't stand in the next election. So she has finished out this parliamentary session as an independent. And in today's debrief I

asked her if she knows who she will be voting for on December 12th.

JUSTINE GREENING, FORMER BRITISH CONSERVATIVE MP: I want to see what they are offering our country I care passionately about. I want to see what they

are going to talk about in terms of how they plan to have a government that can transform such mobility so yes, I am certainly not going to be

finalizing my decision until we get towards the end of this election and I actually see how these parties have performed.

NOBILO: How surprised are you by that? You've been a conservative member of parliament for past - since 2005 I think and to be in this situation now

where you are not sure who you are going to vote for? Is that not very strange to you?

GREENING: Well, it is in a way but because of Brexit nothing feels quite the same in British politics.

[17:20:00]

GREENING: So I want to see how profound differences with my party on the root for a non-Brexit. I'm someone who campaign for Romaine and wants to

see a referendum. I recognize that it has gone off on a different direction, one I do not agree with.

But this is a election is a general election it is not a referendum so there is a domestic policy my politics have broadly probably where because

- remains on domestic policy and that's why I think like millions of factors around Britain I have to weigh it all out because there will be

lose of this. You are looking at all of the parties and thinking well, I'm not sure quite any of those particularly marry up with where they lie on

their politics.

NOBILO: This last parliament that's been dissolved now has been referred to as many things. Jeffrey Cox the Attorney General's called it the dead

parliament. Then Speaker Lindsey said that it a tarnished parliament in the eyes of the British public. What was it about these last couple of years

that has led to that toxicity and to the even more polarized nature?

GREENING: I think first of all is this issue about the fact that people voted for Brexit but the Brexiteers then argued about what Brexit meant?

You saw Boris Johnson of course leaving campaign against Theresa May deal as a back bencher and then of course still now Nigel Farage going into a

general election saying he does not think Boris is delivering the real Brexit.

So that was part of the problem. But I also think it is how we've had that debate and the steady reduction of respect in a way within parliament for

people of different views. My community is in London. Kit was 70 odd percent Romaine. There is - I think genuinely being not enough tolerance

and listening to that 48 percent of the country that clearly felt we were better off staying in the EU.

I think the big mistake that perhaps the governments have made is to try and air brush those concerns out of the picture instead of trying to build

a collations to understand what they were right from the word go and then genuinely trying to find an approach from Brexit that could bring the

maximum amount of people with it. I think in a sense that is where parliament got stuck in a way because it became a polarizing discussion in

parliament not then miss entrenched those divisions that were there from the beginning.

NOBILO: Well, some of your female colleagues who have made the decision to stand down have cited as their reasons for doing so? The intimidation and

the abuse that they received. Can you describe for our viewers what it is actually like to experience?

GREENING: Well, I think I have less of that to deal with than other MPs but in terms of what I had to deal with, absolutely. I've had death threats.

You know, the kind of e-mails you get in your office and the kind of tweets that people put out at you are really aggressive. What concerned me about

parliament in a sense is the public have kind of taken their cue from the way the debate has been handled in parliament and that aggression that

we've seen in parliament has come back to us.

And I think it has really been focused often at female MPs and I know that many of my colleagues will know that this is not all while I am moving out

of parliament. For many female MPs it has become something that they become really concerned about, and certainly when they think about what they want

to do over the next five years I am sure that has factored in their decision making in some cases.

NOBILO: Why do you think female MPs in particular have become a lightning rod for those frustrations?

GREENING: It's hard to say other than perhaps people may tend to pick on the MPs that they feel may be look almost more vulnerable as a woman in

politics. And of course some of the people who've had the maximum abuse are some of the toughest cookies I know like Phillips. They are amazing

advocates.

I think there are some blokes probably who feel that I want to hear a woman talking tough and being strident and maybe that makes them feel threatened.

I don't know. It is something that we genuinely need to address. But that leadership on the debate needs to come from the top including the Prime

Minister.

NOBILO: What stood out to me most in that interview is that when I asked her about intimidation and Justine Greening said that she didn't have it as

bad as others but she had received death threats. When THE BRIEF returns a big change in the fight for equal pay in sport. Had an agreement with the

Australian Women's Team removed the goal posts?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:25:00]

NOBILO: We finish tonight with a big change for women's football. Australia's top women soccer players will now earn the same as their male

counterparts. It comes after a landmark deal aimed at closing the gender pay gap in sports. The women will share an equal split of the commercial

revenue and will also be allowed to travel business class the same as men do.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELISE KELLOND-KNIGHT, AUSTRALIAN MIDFIELDER: This new deal is enormous. As a female footballer it is kind of what we always dreamed of. We always

wanted to be treated equally. We want to - step out on that pitch with equal opportunity and equal facilities the men have been exposed to. So I

think as a player when you see it, it shows signs of respect. Now we are going to be completely included and also opportunity. I think having these

facilities the men have been exposed to is now going to set us up for success.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBILO: The gender pay gap in sports has been a burning issue in 2019 and this could be the reason why? In 2018 the total prize pool at the men's

world cup was $400 million the women's this year just $30 million. In March, the U.S. women's soccer team filed a gender discrimination lawsuit

arguing that U.S. soccer's payment practices amount to federal discrimination. They went on to prove that point winning this summer's

World Cup. That's THE BRIEF. I am Bianca Nobilo. "WORLD SPORT" is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

END