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Trump and the Birther Controversy; U.S. Special Ops Assist Turkish Forces; Syrian Cease-Fire Holds but Aid Stalled; E.U. Leaders Agree on Road Map for Bloc's Future; Beatles' Documentary Premieres in London. Aired 2-2:30a ET
Aired September 17, 2016 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): After years of denial, Donald Trump finally admits Barack Obama was born in the U.S. But he still also blames Hillary Clinton for raising the question.
Bad news for the country's third party candidates. They are not invited to the national debates. We'll tell you why.
And European leaders say we may see talks for a full Brexit in 2017 but there could be complications.
All of these stories ahead here on CNN NEWSROOM. We're live in Atlanta. Thank you for tuning in. I'm Natalie Allen.
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ALLEN: 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 born in the U.S. But now Trump is falsely pinning the birther movement on Hillary Clinton.
How did that happen?
Here's senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta.
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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: 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 of the end of this?
VAN JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I don't know if we have 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 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. Turns out that there is 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: And 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 --
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ALLEN: -- 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: And Trump is accusing Clinton of being a hypocrite on gun rights. In Miami on Friday, Trump charged Hillary Clinton would destroy the constitutional right to bear arms if she's elected president.
Clinton has called for tighter gun control laws but not the end of the Second Amendment. Trump suggested Friday that guns should be taken away from Clinton's Secret Service detail, which protects her.
And he said, quote, "Let's see what happens to her."
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TRUMP: She goes around with armed bodyguards like you have never seen before. I think that her bodyguards should drop all weapons. They should disarm.
Right?
I think they should disarm.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ALLEN: The Clinton campaign says Trump's remarks should be out of bounds for a presidential candidate. Trump and Clinton will face off in their first debate against each other on September 26th but there will be no third party candidate on the stage.
Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein won't participate 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 United States says it has killed another top ISIS leader. The Pentagon says a drone strike September 7th killed ISIS information minister Wa'il Adil al-Salman in Raqqah, Syria. 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.
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 ops 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 still has not reached hundreds of thousands of desperate people. And as our Frederik Pleitgen reports from Aleppo, mistrust is growing on both sides.
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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.
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PLEITGEN (voice-over): 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.
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ALLEN: The U.N. says the U.K. has not done enough to stop hate crimes. We'll take you to a Polish community that is mourning one of the latest victims of attacks against migrants in England.
Plus a new movie about U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden hits theaters. A look at director Oliver Stone's latest film. It is all coming up here on CNN NEWSROOM.
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ALLEN: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM.
European Union leaders have agreed on a road map for the future priorities. They held a summit in the Slovakian capital of Bratislava without the United Kingdom.
European Council president Donald Tusk said 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 said the U.K. shouldn't rush.
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SADIQ KHAN, MAYOR OF LONDON: It's 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 could have access to a single market. You're right to remind me, we've got to make sure, even outside the E.U., we can possible threshold (ph) services.
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KHAN: And that's why it is important we don't rush in to negotiations with the E.U.
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ALLEN: And those complications don't even include the chance that Scotland could leave the U.K. to stay with the E.U. The United Nations says authorities in the U.K. need to do a better job of condemning and prosecuting hate crimes. The U.N. report says that the campaign for Britain to leave the E.U. incited dangerous anti-migrant and xenophobic rhetoric. Isa Soares visited an English town where immigrants from Poland feel targeted.
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ISA SOARES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nita (ph) comes here every day, in silence with a simple blessing. She pays her respects for life taken away.
Arkadiusz Jozwik was only an acquaintance to her. But his death had made many Poles here in Harlow feel like he was family. He was knocked unconscious and left for dead on this very spot by a group of six teenagers, an incident local police are treating as a hate crime, one of more than 30 against Poles since Britain voted to leave the European Union, according to the Polish embassy.
Nita (ph) has experienced the racism first-hand, both pre- and post- Brexit vote.
NITA (PH), POLISH NEIGHBOR: My neighbor told me to (INAUDIBLE) his country but since Brexit, it's worse, like beautiful balloon blow up. And many hates come on people. Many people are not political correct anymore. And they say what they think, what they always think but never then tell about that.
SOARES (voice-over): It's these experiences that have left the Polish community here on edge. So to ease tensions, Polish police have sent two officers to Harlow to patrol the streets for a week. We bumped into them in the center of town.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are here basically to help our colleagues from the Essex police. That's our main role. We want to speak with the Polish community, see what their concerns are.
SOARES: Sixty-eight percent of people here voted to leave the European Union. Whilst we can't say that the incidents here are related to Brexit vote, what there have exposed a huge fault line in a community that has one of the highest levels of Eastern European immigrants in the country.
SOARES (voice-over): The locals, many outraged by the death of Arkadiusz tell me this isn't a racist town. They say it's just anti- social behavior by a group of unruly youngsters.
But as we walk through the city center, the social divide is palpable.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've not come across any racism. People argue and get annoyed but we are getting a lot of Europeans coming into the town. And Harlow Council seem that they have given them (INAUDIBLE) housing, when people who've lived there all of their life are struggling to get on that council list.
SOARES (voice-over): Economics clearly play a part here. Harlow, once a vibrant town full of opportunities, with factories dotted around it, is now full of boarded-up properties with unemployment among the highest in the county. And those who have been here for years with little to do are looking for someone to blame.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This didn't happen before Brexit, put it that way. It's as simple as that. It didn't happen. Before Brexit, everything was going on all right. But they are blaming Eastern Europeans. You can't blame them. I can understand it. I mean, I'd go somewhere if I could get a better life, get everything paid for me. Of course I would.
SOARES (voice-over): For this 40-year-old night shift factory worker, nothing was for free. And in the pursuit of a better life, he was the one who paid the highest price -- Isa Soares, Harlow, Eastern England.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ALLEN: 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 has been holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012.
He says he is afraid Sweden would send him to the United States, where he could be charged for publishing government secrets. Ecuador said last month it would let Swedish investigators question him. And that is set for October 17th.
Speaking of those leaks and government secrets, director Oliver Stone's new movie about Edward Snowden has opened in theaters in about 1 dozen countries. Snowden fled to Russia three years ago after leaking a trove of highly classified national security documents.
They revealed a massive surveillance program. Now he is asking President Obama to pardon him, saying he helped bring about needed changes. The White House said Snowden should return to the U.S. and face espionage charges.
And for the rest of the story, you can check out the movie perhaps.
DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I will be there.
ALLEN: All right. Derek is here now to talk about Taiwan taking it again.
VAN DAM: Yes.
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ALLEN: From the typhoon gods.
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ALLEN: 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 next, some first-seen video, first-ever seen video of The Beatles back in the day. (MUSIC PLAYING)
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ALLEN: The two surviving Beatles reunited in London to catch a special movie. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr came together Thursday for the premiere of 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.
Here's a look at the film and its premiere.
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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.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Beatles (INAUDIBLE). And they have led the way from the cellars of Liverpool to the national limelight.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What about the reports that you guys are nothing but a bunch of British Elvis Presleys?
STARR: It's not true. It's not true.
(LAUGHTER)
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Going to get a hair cut at all?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
HARRISON: I had one yesterday.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I could not hear anything.
STARR: I would be watching John, Paul, tapping his head, nodding, to see where we were in the song.
(MUSIC PLAYING) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) Shea Stadium. After that, you know, you just sort of think to yourself, what more can you do?
ASPHALL (PH): I remember George bringing up the subject with Brian, "Hey, is this touring going to be an annual event?"
And I think he was the first one that brought up the idea (INAUDIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eric, here is the American fan of John.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're John?
MCCARTNEY: We started off just as these four mates from Liverpool. And we were just in a great little band. And we just kept playing and playing and playing. And all this stuff happened.
STARR: And we were blessed in many ways and we did love what we did and we carried on doing it. And look at where it ended up.
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ALLEN: "Eight Days a Week." We will have to see that one, too.
Thanks for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Natalie Allen "MAINSAIL" is next and our top stories for you.
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