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North Carolina; Obama Defends U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy; Public
Service Ad Looks at Signs of Gun Violence. Aired 12-1a ET - Part 1>
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[00:00:09] JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN newsroom live from Los Angeles.
Ahead this hour, a deadly quake rattles Indonesia's Aceh Province. Buildings and mosques have collapsed with rescue crews searching now for survivors.
The Trump "thank you" tour 2016 rolls into North Carolina, the President-Elect replays his greatest hits and formally introduced his choice for secretary of Defense.
And almost four years since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, now a powerful new message to try and prevent the next school shooting.
Hello and welcome to our viewers all around the world. I'm John Vause. The first hour of NEWSROOM L.A. starts right now.
We begin with breaking news from Indonesia. At least 26 people have been killed in an earthquake in Aceh Province. The 6.5 magnitude quake struck Wednesday morning. The Red Cross says many homes and buildings have been damaged and panicked residents ran into the streets. As of now, there are no tsunami warnings.
CNN's Kathy Quiano joins us now on the phone from Jakarta with all the very latest details. What do we know about the extent of the damage and the number of people that have been killed and injured -- Kathy?
KATHY QUIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, John -- as you said, it was just confirmed that 26 people died in this quake. Dozens more were injured. And more people are believed to be still trapped under the rubble. Scores of homes, shops, houses, buildings and mosques were totally or partially damaged by the quake.
We're hearing reports from our affiliate, CNN Indonesia that at least one person was just pulled out of a collapsed building in the district of Pidie. That person did not survive, unfortunately.
The quake hit the districts of Pidie and Bireuen at just 5:00 a.m. as residents were preparing for early morning prayers. As you said they all panicked and fled from their homes.
The quake was very, very shallow. And that's why you didn't see a tsunami warning being issued. It was a depth of only 10 kilometers and it happened inland. So that's why we're seeing a lot of damage to infrastructure.
The areas hit are not highly urbanized. Most of the structures are low-rise homes and shop houses. Buildings are only a few stories high.
The local governments of Aceh and the central government have sent in help teams and heavy equipment for rescue efforts are all going in. The social welfare ministry is also sending basic supplies and medicine. And the President Joko Widodo himself has ordered immediate assistance and provisions to be brought to Aceh -- John.
VAUSE: Ok, Kathy -- thank you very much. Kathy Quiano there in Jakarta, on the line with the very latest on the quake.
A big "Thank you, North Carolina" from President-Elect Donald Trump -- the battleground state was crucial to his election victory. In a celebration rally just a few hours ago he formally introduced his choice for Defense secretary -- retired Marine General James "Mad Dog" Mattis. Trump also talked a lot about the greatness, the sheer greatness of his political movement.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: We do not know what the page tomorrow will read. But for the first time in a long time, what we do know is that the pages will be authored by each and everyone in this room and in our country by you. They're going to be authored by you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: I'm joined now by CNN's senior political analyst Ron Brownstein. Ron -- during that rally, Trump did say the script has not yet been written.
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.
VAUSE: And that's what is terrifying.
BROWNSTEIN: No. (inaudible) That's fascinating language. Because really, his election was a restoration of political power, right? I mean we had seen a democratic coalition that was urbanized, diverse, younger, white collar, secular that had won what five out of the six -- the popular vote of five out of the six previous presidential elections was defeated in this election by the portions of America that seemed politically past their peak. You know, blue collar, nonurban, religiously devout evangelical America.
And Trump was, you know, there was something literally true about what he said, that the people in that room have kind of regained control of the steering wheel -- demographic trends still in the long-term problematic. But for the moment, if you look at the unified control in Washington, the people in the room in fact, their agenda is going to be setting the national agenda even though Hillary Clinton may end up close to as big a lead in the popular vote as George W. Bush had in 2004.
VAUSE: Wow. And definitely we're heading into sort of everything old is new again --
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
VAUSE: -- n so many ways.
Donald Trump also seemed to be still campaigning. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're going to do a great job. We're going to create a safe country. We're going to create a prosperous country.
[00:05:00] We're going to have jobs again, great jobs; not bad jobs, real jobs. Together we will raise incomes and create millions and millions of new jobs. That's going to happen. It's already happening. You see what happened today.
We will reestablish the rule of law and defend the Constitution of the United States. We will protect the right of every American to live in safety and peace. We will restore and respect, and we will respect people's right. We will respect constitutional rights.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: And that wasn't the half of it. He knows he won the election.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Right, right.
VAUSE: He knows the time for promises is over and it's now time to deliver. It seems like this is still the campaign.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Well look, it is extraordinary what he is doing. But he is kind of speaking to his coalition. As I said, he won this election fair and square. He won in the Electoral College. He beat Hillary Clinton in most of the states that they both fully contested like Ohio and Florida and North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
But he is going to lose the popular vote by more than anyone who has ever become president ever. And you can feel him I think in this period, every time that kind of comes up, he kind of bristles. And you could feel him in this interregnum until he takes power kind of almost touching that electorate as a way of kind of restoring a sense of potency and power and direction.
VAUSE: Reaffirmation that he is the guy.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes. He is this guy. He is the man.
VAUSE: Yes. Ok.
He also took credit for the creation of 50,000 new jobs after a big investment from a Japanese telecom company. This is what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And one of the wealthiest men in the world -- you saw it today -- maybe didn't, anybody see it? Massa, right? Massa, great guy of Japan. He's pledged that he is going to put $50 billion into the United States because of our victory.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
V3: Not entirely true. I mean there is a lot of reporting out there that this deal was long in the works.
BROWNSTEIN: Sure. Hard to imagine it's kind of coming just out of nowhere. On the other hand, I think a big question of the Trump presidency is going to be how much he can affect corporate investment decisions by browbeating companies at home with what we have seen with Carrier and others and also with the threat of tariffs abroad.
In the 1980s, it is true that the push then in the House of Representatives for what was called domestic content legislation which said that a certain share of every car sold in the U.S., the parts had to come from the U.S. -- that did encourage the big surge of Japanese investment that has led to the assembly plants we see all across the South for Honda and Nissan and Toyota.
So Trump is going to be something of a mixed blessing for corporate America on the one hand as we give them a lot of what they want with lower taxes and less regulation. On the other hand, he has shown a lot more willingness to kind of call out by name and pressure individual investment decisions in a way that would be stoking an absolute uproar from congressional Republicans and the Chamber of Commerce if it was a Democratic president.
VAUSE: Yes, if it was Barack Obama or Bernie Sanders.
BROWNSTEIN: Right. Absolutely.
VAUSE: I just -- you know, do people care about the details that this is sort of in the works before he is claiming credit for it or you'll just hear Donald Trump, 50,000 jobs.
BROWNSTEIN: I think the latter. I think look, Trump, you know, look it is going to be very difficult for Trump to reverse decades of decline in the Youngstowns and the Gary, Indianas of America, the midsized manufacturing industrial towns that thrived in the decades after World War II that really, had been losing jobs and incomes since the 1970s. In a systematic way, it's going to be very hard to change that.
On the other hand, he may have some big symbolic wins that he can post on the board. And the question is how much will people look at those versus the underlying trends when the time comes to judge him.
VAUSE: The other thing which was kind of unusual tonight is that, you know, Donald Trump was very disciplined. He was on a prompter. And there was even this moment when the media sort of came under attack from the crowd. Listen to Donald Trump's reaction or non--reaction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The script to what we're doing is not yet written. Remember this has been a great, great movement the likes of which they've never seen before. The likes of which those folks back there that write the stories --
No, no, no -- I'll tell you. And they're saying it. They've never seen anything like this before. It's one of the great political phenomenons of all time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: I don't think we've seen anything like that before with Donald Trump telling the crowd not to.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Wait until tomorrow.
You know, I mean look, I mean he has been back and forth. I mean he has obviously criticized "Saturday Night Live" and he has criticized individual reporters. He attacked Jeff Zeleny of CNN as President- Elect. I mean it's very unclear where it's going.
But I would not bet on a consistent tone of moderation for Donald Trump in dealing with the press. I mean he seems to view a confrontational relationship with the mainstream media as a good way of kind of positioning himself vis-a-vis his base.
[00:09:57] VAUSE: Ok. On to the foreign policy questions here now. One of the big issues facing Donald Trump will be Iran, which actually let off a great big warning today to Donald Trump not to rip up that nuclear deal. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HASSAN ROUHANI, PRESIDENT OF IRAN (through translator): The U.S., as part of the 5 plus one is one of our enemies and wants to pressure us. There is no doubt about that. We have to resist, be steadfast, and find a way to counter it.
They may break the nuclear agreement. They have already done so by extending the Di Matteau (ph) law. If this measure is actually implemented then it will be a clear breach of the nuclear agreement and will cause us to react very harshly and severely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Hassan Rouhani there, using some very strong language calling America the enemy. This is a very clear shot across the bow.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Look and you have, you know, Donald Trump has sent mixed signals at various points in the campaign. Originally he said he was not going to tear up the agreement on day one. And you have General Mattis who is his choice as Defense secretary who has also been critical of the idea of walking away, partially because of the reality that if we walked away, it's not clear that anybody else would come with us.
And the idea of unilateral sanctions, if Donald Trump felt that the sanctions that we had imposed earlier in a multilateral way were not effective enough, the idea of doing it on our own with everybody else refusing to participate would make it even less.
He has -- though later in the campaign, the indications were yes, I'm going to tear this up. But I think that's a debate yet to entirely unfold.
VAUSE: Just on the issue of foreign policy, we had a dust-up earlier this week with China over Taiwan. It's now being reported by the "New York Times" that Senator Bob Dole, the former presidential nominee, was actually lobbying on behalf of the Taiwanese. He got paid about $140,000 to arrange that phone call.
Is this shaping up to be the first pretty big scandal of the Trump administration?
BROWNSTEIN: It's a big story. I mean first of all, Bob Dole is the only living Republican presidential nominee who endorsed and supported Donald Trump. If this contract with Taiwan began before that embrace that would be something that would really call into question the whole relationship here.
I doubt that this was the only reason why Donald Trump accepted that phone call. But if it is part of it, it is something we are going to be discussing quite a bit in the days ahead.
VAUSE: Ok. Donald Trump introduced his pick tonight for Defense secretary. He also laid out what looks to be like a noninterventionist military policy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We build up our military, not as an act of aggression, but as an act of prevention. We pursue and build up arms not in order to seek conflict, but in order to avoid conflict. We want to be strong. In short, we seek peace through strength.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Ronald Reagan.
BROWNSTEIN: Echoing Ronald Reagan. I mean look, no one has felt that the U.S. military is a pushover under Barack Obama. You know, Donald Trump is talking about reducing intervention in some ways, you know, as President Obama talked about reducing intervention.
The difference is that President Obama wanted the U.S. to be a less kind of aggressive power within the context of heightened international alliance. And Donald Trump by and large has talked about kind of unwinding some of those international alliances. So it's a real, you know, I think there is a lot of uncertainty around the world about ultimately how he envisions the U.S. operating. For example, you know, on the one hand, very confrontational with China by taking the call from the president of Taiwan. On the other hand, leaving China a big gift-wrapped Christmas present under the tree by walking away from the Transpacific Partnership that was President Obama's principle way of constraining Chinese economic power in Asia and now allowing China to fill that gap. So I think a lot of -- and there are a lot of embassies around the world wondering exactly what they're going to get from the Trump presidency.
VAUSE: You mentioned President Obama especially on the issue of national security. It seems he gave his exit interview on national security on Tuesday. This is some of what the President had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For eight years that I've been in office, there has not been a day when a terrorist organization or some radicalized individual was not plotting to kill Americans. We did not choose this fight. But once it came to us, the world saw the measure of our resolve.
ISIL has lost more than half its territory. ISIL has lost control of major population centers. Its morale is plummeting. Its recruitment is drying up. Its commanders and external plotters are being taken out. And local populations are turning against it.
To say that we made progress is not to say that the job is done. We know that a deadly threat persists. We know that in some form, this violent extremism will be with us for years to come.
The whole objective of these terrorists is to scare us into changing the nature of who we are and our democracy. And the fact is people and nations do not make good decisions when they are driven by fear.
[00:15:03] These terrorists can never directly destroy our way of life. But we can do it for them if we lose track of who we are and the values that this nation was founded upon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWNSTEIN: Classic Obama trying to put the threat within kind of boundaries and arguing that we should not overreact, but also insisting that we will be relentless in pursuing the individuals and institutions that mean us harm.
VAUSE: So laying down marker for his eight years as president and moving on.
BROWNSTEIN: Right.
And saying that we don't make good decisions when we're operating under fear -- I think that was a little bit of a shot across the bow to the incoming president.
VAUSE: Yes. He never mentioned Trump by name but certainly a lot of under the tone there.
BROWNSTEIN: Right.
VAUSE: Ron -- come back next hour --
BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.
VAUSE: -- because we have more to get to. Thank you.
And CNN's Van Jones looks back at what happened in the 2016 election in a CNN special "THE MESSY TRUTH". You can watch the town hall with guests Michael Moore, Rick Santorum and Ana Navarro. That's "THE MESSY TRUTH WITH VAN JONES" at 6:00 p.m. in Hong Kong and again 8:00 p.m. in London.
We will take a break.
When we come back, a somber anniversary -- four years since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in the U.S. We'll speak to a mother who lost her child. She is still feeling the pain from her loss. And she is also behind a new public service announcement which has had a profound impact on so many.
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VAUSE: Ok. So this is something we haven't done here before on NEWSROOM L.A. We're about to play a public service announcement in its entirety -- just over two minutes. Please stay with us. Please watch to the very end. You just have to trust me on this.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Got some news today from the radio man, spoke the words somber and as softly as he can, the world stood still and the sky opened up. I made my way to fill up my coffee cup.
Then it occurred to me as the daylights gone blue, today is the day that Johnny met June. He waited a while, he knew that it would, he was going to hang around here for as long as he could. The days went by, and I was (inaudible). He was never sure just how long he would last. But there's not much love in a lonely room, today is the day that Johnny met June.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have a good summer.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You too.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey, you must be bored.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No way.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the guy that I was writing to in the library.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Guilty. So you like to write on desks?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's what I do.
"While you were watching Evan, another student was showing signs of planning a shooting. But no one noticed."
(inaudible)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How I still love to hear you sing.
And everything we ever heard about heaven is true, today's the day that Johnny met June.
"Gun violence is preventable when you know the signs. Learn them now at Sandyhookpromise.org."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Bet you didn't see that coming. And that's the point.
he people behind the ad have seen the horror of gun violence firsthand. They're a nonprofit, nonpartisan group called Sandy Hook Promise named after the elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut where a gunman murdered 20 children, aged between six and seven, as well as six staff members.
Nicole Hockley is the founder and managing director of Sand Hook Promise. Her son Dylan was killed on that horrible day four years ago this month. Nicole joins us now from Newtown. Nicole -- thank you so much for being with us. So hard to believe it's been four years.
NICOLE HOCKLEY, SANDY HOOK PROMISE: It feels like only yesterday and yet a whole lifetime ago, to be honest -- John. Thank you.
VAUSE: Yes. Everyone I know who has seen this ad has been left with a knot in their stomach, almost speechless. I assume that's been pretty much the same for everyone out there who has had a chance to watch it.
HOCKLEY: Yes, we've had a very positive response in terms of it has really opened people's eyes to something that they hadn't considered before. And that's exactly the point of doing this PSA.
VAUSE: Gun reform in this country, it's such a divisive issue. But this ad focuses on mental health which I guess is the one -- no matter where you stand, there is an agreement, mental health has to be dealt with.
HOCKLEY: Well, this actually -- this focuses on prevention; what happens in those days, week, months, or sometimes even years before someone picks up a firearm or a weapon to hurt someone else or to hurt themselves. So this is about mental health and wellness. It's also about access to guns. And both of those warning signs come through the PSA. VAUSE: You know, schools, they have lockdown drills. They teach kids how to deal with an active shooter situation. Police, you know, they receive special training. Why has there not been this focus on prevention, on being able to spot those warning signs before something terrible happens?
HOCKLEY: You know, that's the great question. And that's the question that we wanted to answer. And that's why we created this PSA.
We have a lot of training at the moment. And we've certainly seen an uptick in school shooter trainer, active shooter drills, in terms of how to deal with imminent danger. That's increased a lot since the Sandy Hook tragedy.
[00:24:58] But what we haven't seen is a focus on prevention. How do we stop this violence before it starts in the first place? And all of our education says, why don't we start there? Why don't we start the conversation there? Why don't we start the education there? Because there is so much that we can do so that it never gets to that point.
VAUSE: You know, my 12-year-old daughter, she found this ad. She sent it to me. She said you've got to watch this. She said her friends in Atlanta were actually showing the ad in class. So the message is getting out. Do you think that conversation is now being had?
HOCKLEY: I certainly hope so. I mean I've been reading some of the Facebook comments and some of the comments on people that have embedded the video and shown it on their sites and there is a lot of conversation. A lot of wows, a lot of I didn't see that coming. But then a lot of this is something that I haven't thought about before.
And that's the whole point of this. There is so much that we can do in our own schools, in our families, and our own communities to prevent violence before it happens. And we think about any PSA -- drowning or heart attacks or strokes or domestic violence, they've all taught us how to recognize the signs of someone who needs help. This is doing the exact same thing, just on a completely different issue.
VAUSE: December 14 is the anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook. How are you and everyone else coping? I imagine this time of year is incredibly difficult.
HOCKLEY: From when schools go back to session through to the end of the holiday season, it's kind of a never-ending spiral downwards from me. Everyone deals with grief very differently. So I can only speak to myself and for my family.
We don't want to remember 12/14 as the day Dylan died. We prefer to focus on the days that he lived and celebrate that. But that being said, December 14th is going to be a hard day to know that it's yet another full year since I've been able to hold my boy.
VAUSE: Well, we'll all be thinking of you and wishing you all the very best and congratulations on this commercial. It's powerful. And let's hope it makes something change.
HOCKLEY: Absolutely. Thank you very much for the opportunity. I appreciate it.
VAUSE: Investigators in Oakland, California say there is no evidence the deadly warehouse fire was deliberately set. The blaze killed 36 people during a dance party there over the weekend. All, but one of the victims, have been identified.
The warehouse manager is under scrutiny after past tenants and visitors reported unsafe conditions. It's not clear if he'll face criminal charges.
Still to come, one intense battle in Syria may be nearing an end.
Up next, we'll take a look at what is left of one neighborhood in eastern Aleppo.
[00:27:47] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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[0:31:14] JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everybody. You're watching CNN Newsroom live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause, with the headlines this hour. A 6.5 magnitude earthquake has killed at least 26 people in northwestern Indonesia. The Red Cross says the damaged homes and buildings in Aceh province forcing many residents into the streets and temporary shelters. No tsunami warnings have been issued so far.
The U.S. President-elect Donald Trump took his "Thank you" tours in North Carolina on Tuesday. A key battleground state in Trump's election win. At the rally he formally announced his pick to run the pentagon, General James "Mad Dog" Mattis.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says he won't let Donald Trump destroy his country's nuclear deal with the United States. Trump has called it one of the worst agreements ever, and promised to re negotiate the terms.
And in the coming hours, the U.S. will commemorate the 75th anniversary of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Only 2000 Americans were killed and 20 naval vessels were destroyed, including eight battleships. The next day the U.S. declared war on Japan.
The battle for eastern Aleppo may be coming to an end. The Syrian army says it has taken more neighborhoods from rebel control. And this is a firsthand look at the El Assad neighborhood. They are conflicting reports on who is in control. Activists say, it was taken, but rebel officials deny it. The diplomatic picture is unclear as well. Russia's foreign minister says talks with the U.S. on a rebel withdrawal will begin this week in Geneva. There has been no confirmation on that from Washington. The fighting is fierce. An activist says 15 people were killed in two separate air strikes on Tuesday. Fred Pleitgen reports, the Syrian forces are using massive firepower as the rebel stronghold nears collapse.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is Aleppo 24/7. Shelling and air strikes raining down mostly on rebel-held areas. Near the front line, it's not just Syrian troops, Russians and Iranians battling on the government's side. We meet these Syrian- Palestinian fighters who show us what they claim, was a former Jabhat al-Nusra field hospital they found when they advanced into this area.
Every injured rebel would be taken here, he says. You see the medicine and blankets. This is one of their instruments they used. Syrian pro- government forces have brought heavy weapons to the front line as they continue to push the opposition back. They showed us these homemade mortars and accused rebels of lacing them with chemicals, the army says it discovered in this room close by.
This alleged weapons facility is inside what used to be an elementary school in this former rebel-held district. And the Syrian army says it found this place when it was sweeping the area as rebels were retreating. The battles show no sign of letting up as Syrian forces continue to pound rebel-held district. Killing 100s in the past days and leaving thousands of civilians trapped and at risk.