EVENT/SPECIA-01
Need to Take Action" Against Russia; Langley: Trump Thinks Russia Hack
Used to Deligitimize Election; Trump to Be Deposed in Lawsuit Against
Celebrity Chef; Van Jones Talks to Trump Voters in OH; Aleppo
Evacuations Begin. Aired 9-10p ET - Part 2>
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JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: The latest dustup started when the famous chef, Jose Andres, who's from Spain, decided to pull the plug on a restaurant he was planning for Trump's new D.C. hotel after Trump slammed Mexicans in his campaign kickoff speech.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: They're bringing drugs, they're bricking crime, they're rapists.
JOHNS: The chef's lawyer said Trump's comments made it difficult to hire Hispanic employees to work in what had been planned as a Spanish restaurant. The conflict between the two picked up speed on the campaign trail when Andres stumped for Hillary Clinton.
JOSE ANDRES, CHEF: We are not supposed to mention him until he doesn't apologize to every Latino, to every Mexican, to every woman, to every veteran, and to any person that he has insulted.
JOHNS: His remarks coming the very same day that Donald Trump was in Washington, D.C., opening his new hotel.
TRUMP: I'm also honored to have a chance to thank the incredible team of people who brought our vision for Washington's historic old post office to life.
JOHNS: Trump was deposed in June in a similar lawsuit with Andres's business partner, restaurateur, Geoffrey Zakarian.
TRUMP: We got a lot of bad publicity because of the way they handled it. I think we were hurt by the way they did it.
JOHNS: Trump's lawyers tried unsuccessfully to limit questioning of Trump in this deposition to two hours, arguing in court filings that, "He's the President-elect. It is not an overstatement that he is extremely busy handling matters of very significant public importance." But Judge Jennifer Di Toro ruled that a limit on Trump's deposition could be unfair to the chef's legal team, as it prepares for trial.
Andres, for his part, has suggested that he would like to settle the fight out of court, tweeting this week, "Mr.@realDonaldTrump, can we end our lawsuits and we donate money to a Veterans NGO to celebrate? Why keep litigating. Let's both of us win."
TRUMP: I don't want to settle cases when we're right. I'd don't believe in it. And when you start settling cases, you know what happens? Everybody sues you.
JOHNS: Besides the Andres case, there are dozens of others pending lawsuits against Trump, from one involving a Republican consultant who claims tweets from Trump calling her a real dummy ruined her reputation. To one from protesters claiming a security team assaulted at Trump Tower last year. But the most discussed, Trump University.
TRUMP: The school had 98 percent approval rating, but you had an attorney that felt, oh, maybe I can sue Trump and get something.
JOHNS: Last month, Trump agreed to pay $25 million to settle a series of lawsuits out of court against his now-defunct real estate training program.
Joe Johns, CNN, Washington.
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COOPER: A lot to talk about tonight with our favorite legal scholar, CNN senior legal analyst and former Federal prosecutor, Jeffrey Toobin.
Jeff, how significant is this? A president-elect now required to go through what could be an hours-long deposition and a sworn deposition.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: It's going to happen and it's going to happen often during the Trump presidency. You know, he has multiple lawsuits pending against him. And the Supreme Court said in 1997 in the famous case of Clinton v. Jones, just because you're president you can't get out of testifying in a case where you're one of the parties. He's a party. He's going to be testifying a lot over the next four years.
COOPER: So a president doesn't have any special dispensation or, I mean, he gets treated the same as everybody else?
TOOBIN: Not exactly the same. I mean, certainly, judges are expected to accommodate, you know, how long the depositions are, where they take place. You know, reasonable limits on time. All of that, you know, it makes him different from an ordinary party to a case. But, bottom line, he will have to testify in these cases if he doesn't settle.
COOPER: And in terms of what lawyers can ask him during a deposition, how wide a berth do they have?
TOOBIN: You know, the rule usually is very broad. I mean, here in this case, I mean, it involves these restaurateurs' claims that Trump's statements about immigrants make it impossible for them to hire Hispanics, who are, of course, very important in the restaurant industry.
So, I would imagine very broad range of questions about his attitudes towards immigration, towards Hispanics, and the judge has allowed seven hours of time for this sort -- for this deposition. That's a long time. I wouldn't be surprised if that got shortened at least a little.
[21:35:04] COOPER: You mentioned the possibility of a settlement. You know, Donald Trump has often said he doesn't settle, he doesn't like settle, because if he do, then it sort of sends a message that you'll do it again. But the truth is, he's settled many times, including recently, obviously, in the Trump University case. He brought this case against the chef. Do you think he'll take up the chef's offer to settle?
TOOBIN: You know, it certainly seems like it would be a smart decision for him to settle. I don't know what advantage he gets out of pursuing this. But remember, I mean, you know, one thing we know about Donald Trump is he can get very angry and he can be fixated on revenge. He's not, as you point out, the defendant in this case. He's the plaintiff. So he's angry, he wants vindication. So, I could see him driving a hard bargain here even though it makes all the sense in the world to settle.
COOPER: And is the deposition automatically sealed, or is that just up to the judge?
TOOBIN: That's up to the judge. It varies by case. Whether -- I mean, there can be a number of issues to be resolved. You know, is it videotape? If it's videotape, is the transcript public or the video to? All of that will wind up in front of the judge, and obviously those of us in the press were going to want to see as much as of it as we can.
COOPER: Yeah. Jeff Toobin. Jeff, thanks.
TOOBIN: OK.
COOPER: Just ahead, Van Jones takes us inside to a deep blue corner of Ohio that turned deep red this year. Hear what Trump voters told him, next.
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COOPER: Tonight we return to the industrial heartland to hear from voters who helped push Donald Trump across the finish line. Van Jones has been out in the field talking and listening to Trump voters, including longtime Democrats who crossed party lines in this election. One of his stops, a corner of Ohio, that until election day last month had been reliably blue. Here's what he found.
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JONES: For the first election in more than 40 years, Trumbull County, Ohio, has turned Republican red. Union Democrats ruled this blue collar hub of millions and manufacturing wealth, they did, until Donald Trump ran for president. So, how did it happen? How did Hillary Clinton, my candidate, lose these people? There's only one way to find out.
Oh, Lord.
First stop is the mocha house, where local political rivals often hash out their disagreements over breakfast.
[21:40:03] Hey, hey, how are you?
MARCY ANGELO, OHIO TRUMP VOTER: Hi. Good. How are you?
JONES: Thank you. My name is Van.
ANGELO: I'm Marcy.
LAURENCIA CANZONETTA, OHIO TRUMP VOTER: I'm Laurencia.
JONES: Hi. Good to meet you.
ANGELO: Nice to meet you.
JONES: It's where I meet up with two young Trump voters, Laurencia Canzonetta is the president of her college conservatives group, Marcy Angelo does outreach work for children's charity.
So you're both young women. There was a lot of controversy about that tape that came out, a lot of controversy about things that he said. That didn't impact you guys?
ANGELO: No.
CANZONETTA: No.
ANGELO: I guess for me, it's easy to portray that you're this perfect person and you've never had sex or sent a nude picture or said the p- word before, but more people than people think do those things on a daily basis. And for me, I look at it like a lot of those things wouldn't have come out if he wasn't running for president. And that's how I feel.
JONES: I said that a part of what was going on with the Trump phenomenon, it was a whitelash, that there was -- there's an element of the Trump phenomenon, not the whole thing, there's an element of it that that seems to be very animated by racial resentments against Mexicans, against Muslims, against black people, et cetera. Have you seen any of that?
CANZONETTA: I can't say I personally have. I think it just boiled down to, we've had a failed presidency for the last eight years. And, yes, some things good came out of it. But at the end of the day, you know, jobs were taken away, manufacturing was gutted. And I think, especially in county, you see that these people lose jobs, and I think a lot of people, you know, looked at that, and, you know, felt that emotion and Trump happened to speak about it. And that's where they connected at. That's personally.
JONES: Job loss, especially manufacturing jobs, is definitely an emotional topic in Trumbull.
RANDY LAW, GOP CHAIRMAN, TRUMBULL COUNTY: A large number of folks here feel very disenfranchised from both parties, frankly.
JONES: Randy Law is the GOP chairman in Trumbull County.
LAW: This is RG Steel. The former RG Steel plant.
JONES: But it's just a big vacant lot?
LAW: Yes, they raised this about between a year and 18 months ago.
JONES: It must have been heartbreaking to see?
LAW: It has been.
JONES: He shows me mills or factories that have shut down or scaled way back in just the last few years.
LAW: This is a hundred-plus-year-old motor company. And they've shut down in the last six months or so.
This is Delphi Electric. They used to employ 18,000 people in our community. They will be lucky to have 600 and we're going to have to fight to hold on to those jobs.
And this GE Plant, well over a hundred years.
JONES: Now gone?
LAW: Six months ago.
JONES: So what you're saying is that while the Democrats were running ads showing Donald Trump saying offensive things to women, arguably offensive things about women, people are looking out their window and they're seeing factories shut down in the middle of the campaign season?
LAW: Oh, yeah.
This is Copperweld Steel. This was just a vital facility to us here for years employing tens of thousands of people. I believe they poured steel here last about 18 months ago. They are in the process of gutting this plant out and tearing some of it down. JONES: Do you feel like people here feel abandoned?
LAW: Yes. I think that was a big factor in this entire election. People feel disenfranchised, abandoned, a little bit of everything. And it's a lot of disaffected Democrats who came into the primary headquarters and said, we're switching over.
This is the first guy I've ever heard that speaks what I'm thinking. At the end of the day, it's economics, it's jobs, it's trade. We voted big for hope and change with President Obama. It didn't get delivered here. And people we're willing to look for that other change. Give another guy a chance. And I think a lot of votes were driven that way.
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COOPER: I mean, I think these reports are so important and just so valuable, just to listen to people and not, you know, demonize people, not make them into caricatures, just listen to them. And I mean, there was such a play by the Clinton campaign to make it about character, to make it about Donald Trump's character, the idea being, some of the things he said were going to be so abhorrent to people, that's going to overwhelm everything.
JONES: You know, people in the liberal blue bubbles were fanning themselves and fainting over everything they said. But, you know, other people, you know, they've heard tough speech before. You know, it's interesting, manufacturing jobs have actually gone up under Obama. He had the big auto bailout, et cetera. That didn't translate, though, to the people who were in these patchworks of counties, where the devastation was still happening.
[21:45:00] And there was not a strong response that they heard from the Democrats. What they heard was Trump somehow had a radar for their pain showed up, he went to that county, Trumbull County, and they changed the sign to say Trumpbull County. Blue union Democrats, Trumpbull County, and nobody in the Democratic Party got that or responded.
COOPER: And I mean, you've talked about this before. It's very easy to demonize and say, well, you know, racial, you know, dog whistles and things. And while, as you said, there was certainly an element of that for the people that you met, I mean, it was about --
JONES: They didn't like that stuff. But they didn't like it -- but they didn't hate it enough to vote against for jobs.
COOPER: Van Jones, thanks so much. Great reporting.
Just ahead, some rare welcome news for the people of Aleppo, Syria. Evacuations begin with a cease-fire in effect. I'll talk with a Syrian activist who's been in and out of the country with much-needed supplies. An activist who we've had on this program for years, who's risked his own life for years to speak the truth about what's happening in Syria.
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COOPER: A new cease-fire seems to be holding in Syria and that is giving civilians a badly needed way out. A long line of ambulances and buses moved about 3,000 people out of Aleppo today. Those still trapped in parts of the devastated city, begging the world to help them. Begging the Syrian government to stop the civil war, stop the bloodshed.
Joining me again tonight, Syrian activist, Zaidoun al-Zoabi he's been in Syria and out of Syria helping with medical supplies. He's also been on this program dozens of times over the years, risking his life repeatedly to talk about what's happening in Syria.
Zaidoun, you have been in and out of Aleppo, you're in contact with a lot of people there. Just, overall, when you see what has happened to Aleppo, when you see what the city has become, what has happened to the people there, when you see the people evacuating, what do you think?
ZAIDOUN AL-ZOABI, SYRIAN ACTIVIST: Yes, the city is destroyed, such as our dreams, hopes. But what matters right now is that people are alive, nothing like today. We are all happy. We could see these people again. We thought we have lost them. Thank God we have them.
[21:50:13] I know everyone is expecting me to be now devastated, but what matters to me right now, Anderson, is that these people are alive now. If you just see their faces, horrified, like coming out of grave, but this is just like people being reborn and face death, and now they are alive.
COOPER: And in terms of these evacuations, I mean, they are -- there's a lot of people, I mean, there are tens of thousands of people. This seems like it's going to take a long time.
AL-ZOABI: This is ninth time. And now we've got them. Finally. However, tens of thousands are still left inside. And we are getting some information that we have only tonight and tomorrow. This is impossible. We need some more time. We need four or five days before we evacuate them all or they will lose their lives again. So we hope we can evacuate all of these people. These people have nothing to do with this war. They are just civilians, children, and women. They just need to be rescued. They deserve to live. They are -- they made no mistake. They don't have anything to do with this war. They just want to live. Civilians, for God's sake, children
I saw the first child to be evacuated, Anderson. I looked at his face. I mean, he was just like coming out of grave. He was almost dead. He was so horrified, so scared, angry. What can I say? It's too much.
COOPER: For those who are still there, I mean, what is the greatest challenge facing them right now? Obviously, supplies are low, food is scarce, it's difficult to come by, and there's no telling how long, exactly, this will take. I mean, as we said, there are thousands of people, and they can't -- I mean, they can't just do this in a day or two, as you said. AL-ZOABI: Again, I repeat, now this is ninth time we've prepared for evacuation. And now no one was able to think, is it true this time happening or not or whether we were all, I mean, ready to that -- for that. We need every support from everyone in this world. This is a huge, huge disaster. No one can imagine what they're facing. We don't have the capacity to face such a disaster. No one has this capacity. We need every help from everybody, from every organization, from every individual.
COOPER: Zaidoun, I appreciate you talking to us. Thank you very much.
AL-ZOABI: Thank you.
COOPER: Up next, I'm going to make you smile. We'll be right back.
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[21:56:43] COOPER: Time now for "The RidicuList". It is, as they say, the most wonderful time of the year, but it can also be stressful around the holidays, all the running around and shopping can make people do things they might otherwise not.
One example, in Maryland, the sheriff's office in St. Mary's County recently got a call about property destruction at the store. I think we have a photo of the suspect. And of course it is a beaver. What else could it possibly be?
So a beaver got into the store somehow and he checked out the Christmas trees for a while but let's be real, what's a beaver going to do with an artificial Christmas tree? He didn't see anything he like there so he got busy checking out the Christmas themed placemats. There's a little pause on them right there.
Now, see, there's a pretty sweet-looking puppy Santa on the shelf above that but the beaver cannot reach that shelf which may be why he started trashing the place. He was probably whipping his tail up there to try to knock the damn Santa down. He's a beaver so he wants a damn Santa. Thank you very much.
Wait for it. I got it. I apologize. I kept saying he but I have no idea it could be a she beaver. I don't know how to tell the difference -- I'm sorry. A joke in there somewhere. I don't know what it is. Yeah. No one accused me of being an expert on that animal.
What I do know is that it's a magical time of the year. There's just joy in the air. It's the only time of the year that the abominable Snow Monster -- actually -- is it the Snow Monster or snowman? Anyway, the abominable Snow Monster starts walking his poodle. This is a time honored holiday tradition in Wisconsin. (Inaudible) we know of and I like to think it continues. The Snow Monster and the poodle spread cheer to all who encounter them.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bring joy, happiness, love all, care about all beyond holidays.
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COOPER: All right. OK. That is terrifying. Was that person trying to be terrifying or was that -- was there some problem with the costume? Some people are just more into Christmas than others. This is one of many yuletide lessons that we've learned from "Saturday Night Live".
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is Santa coming soon?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tell you what, bud. I'm going to go up there in a couple of minutes and see if he's ready to come down and talk to the kids.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's upstairs? He's here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know what you think is going on here tonight, but you're not going to meet the real Santa.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can't do that, David. I'm sorry.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to meet Rudolph.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rudolph isn't here, Gina.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Then how the [ bleep ] did Santa get here, David?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just relax.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: It can all be a little overwhelming. But when Christmas starts, it seem like a contest. You could always do what these people in Pennsylvania did knowing they could not compete with their neighbor's display. They just -- they threw up a "Ditto." Nicely done people, nicely done.
So to all creatures, great and small, to each poodle and Snow Monster and beaver, we eagerly wish you the happiest of holidays on "The RidicuList".
That does it for us. Thanks for watching.
[21:59:59] CNN TONIGHT with Don Lemon starts now.
(Byline: Anderson Cooper, Jim Sciutto, Jim Acosta, Monica Langley, Mark Hertling, Van Jones, Kayleigh McEnany, Paul Begala, Joe Johns, Jeffrey Toobin)
(Guest: Zaidoun al-Zoabi)
(High: The U.S. will take action against Russia over its election hacking, President Barack Obama told National Public Radio's Steve Inskeep. The CIA confirmed it's quite clear that Russia interfered to ensure now President-elect Donald Trump's win. Further intelligence has reportedly found that Russian President Vladimir Putin was directly involved in hacking efforts. A Washington, D.C. judge rules that President-elect Donald Trump must be deposed in the first week of January, just days before his inauguration, in the billionaire's lawsuit against celebrity chef Jose Andres. At least 3,000 civilians were evacuated from Aleppo under a deal allowing Syria's regime to take full control of the city after years of fighting. A revived agreement on a cease-fire and the evacuations were announced today after an initial plan for civilians and fighters to leave rebel-held parts of the city collapsed the previous day amid renewed clashes.)
(Spec: Barack Obama; Russia; Election; Kremlin; Vladimir Putin; Europe; Josh Earnest; Policies; Hillary Clinton; Donald Trump, Jr.; Eric Trump; Republican Party; Ivanka Trump; Jared Kushner; Government; Lawsuit; Jose Andres; Trump University; Democratic Party; Aleppo; Syria; War; Terrorism)