World Leaders Condemn Jerusalem Decision; West Bank Protests
HARLOW: You're looking at images out of Ramallah in the West Bank. Today, 49 people have been injured so far, just one day after President Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital.</s>BERMAN: Let's get right to the ground right now. CNN's Ian Lee live from Ramallah. Ian, give us a sense of what's happening.</s>IAN LEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now, John, you can see behind me that you have these fires. These are tire fires that people have set in the middle of the road. You know, these are made to stop the Israeli army from advancing. They push them and then they set these fires, hoping that the army doesn't move forward. You can actually see the Israeli army -- you can probably see their lights in the distance. That's where they're positioned right now. And we've had these pitched battles for quite a few hours now. You know, you can see just the debris that's been strewn out on the ground, different rocks. They're breaking these rocks, creating them to put them in the sling shots, to toss them. You know, Israeli forces have responded with tear-gas, with rubber bullets. And this kind of ongoing back and forth between the two has been happening for hours. And we've seen a number of people injured. You can see the ambulances, you can probably hear them, fairing people away, people with injuries we've seen to the face, to the arms. You know, this has been a cross section of Palestinian society. You know, it's not just young men out here. We've seen old, young. We've seen men, women, out here voicing their frustrations, their anger at President Trump moving the -- or declaring he's going to move the embassy, also declaring that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. You know, and this is a typical flash point area, but we've just seen an intensity that hasn't happened really in years with the number of people coming out here. And, John, this is a Thursday. In the Middle East, in the Arab world, typically Fridays are days of protest, of rage when they have a cause. So if this is happening on a Thursday, we're expecting more of this kind of protest, clashes to happen tomorrow.</s>HARLOW: Ian Lee joining us from Ramallah in the West Bank. Thank you for the reporting as this is unfolding live, as everybody can see on your screen. Joining us now is Republican Congressman Francis Rooney of Florida. He sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Congressman, thank you very much for being here. Given the president's move, officially recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, planning to move the U.S. embassy there, something no other country has right now, is the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians better off today than it was yesterday before the president's announcement?</s>REP. FRANCIS ROONEY (R), FLORIDA, FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE: Well, you're asking me?</s>HARLOW: I am.</s>ROONEY: Yes. I'm not sure. I think that ultimately this responding to what makes radical Islamists mad is an appeasement that's not going to work. Maybe the silver lining here will show the world one more time how important it is that we get these people to come to terms with the modern world. They can't throw a temper tantrum just because Israel's doing something on its sovereign territory, just like Pakistan can't throw a temper tantrum over the blasphemy law.</s>BERMAN: You're saying it's a silver lining that violence has begun to erupt? Is that what you're saying?</s>ROONEY: Well, I think that it's very sad. You hate to see people hurt. But I think it's unreasonable to cower and make a decision based upon what other people are going to do like that. I think you can have a substantive discussion about cost, proximity to airport, whether it's worth having the embassy move or not, but just to say, oh, we don't want to do it because the radical Islamists are going to riot is not something I'm for.</s>HARLOW: Well, OK, to be fair here, they're not protesting -- they're protesting because the belief among many Palestinians is that this is not a way to lead to a true two-state solution. You have President Mahmoud Abbas, his chief negotiator, both saying that what the president did by making this declaration and this move disqualifies the United States from mediating the peace process, from reaching what the president calls the ultimate deal. This is about a lot more than proximity to the airport or costs.</s>ROONEY: Well, I think -- yes, I think that's distractive nonsense. President Trump did reaffirm his interest in a two-state solution and I think it's incumbent on the Palestinians to be ready to come to the table.</s>BERMAN: Well, to be fair, what the president said is he said he supports a two-state solution if the Palestinians and Israelis both do, which is actually a subtle shift from past administrations where he said the position of the United States is to support a two-state solution there. And, again, and we want to move on to other subjects here, but do you think this helps get to the ultimate goal here, which is peace in the region?</s>ROONEY: Well, let me give you an analogy. When I was serving in Rome, was the first of the "Charlie Hebdo" cartoons and we had a whole lot of riots all over Europe because of the cartoon of the rockets coming out of Mohammad's head and everybody coward and said, oh, my, they're throwing a temper tantrum. We have to talk about appeasement. And lo and behold, we've had three more instances of that which culminated with killing a lot of people in Paris. So I would say, let the world take note of these people that refuse to live in the modern world, if you will.</s>HARLOW: It sounds like you're saying all Palestinians right now that are reacting in this way, not all of them violently but protesting --</s>BERMAN: Right.</s>HARLOW: There's this three days of rage. It sounds like you're saying they are all radical extremists? Is that what you're saying?</s>ROONEY: No. I'm saying the people that are reacting violently, committing crimes, hurting people over this are exhibiting an extreme behavior.</s>HARLOW: OK.</s>BERMAN: Congressman, I want to ask you about Russia right now. Look, you've called Russia one of America's greatest geo political threats. There is reporting that a whistleblower came forward and said that during the inauguration Michael Flynn was texting people saying, you know what, we are going to drop -- the U.S. is going to drop the sanctions against Russia immediately. I wonder if I can get your response to that?</s>ROONEY: Well, look, the news about General Flynn continues to get worse. I mean we hear it -- we haven't heard anything good about him, and he's a problem. And I think that the reporting on all the different activities that he did or did not do, signing up under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, et cetera, has added a lot of light to this. The difference is that the investigation into whether Russia manipulated the election is a totally separate matter.</s>HARLOW: Don Jr., as you know, the president's son, testified yesterday in front of your colleagues who sit on the House Intelligence Committee and he apparently refused to answer their questions about the conversation he had with his father, the president, after that news report surfaced about the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with the Russian lawyer. Now, you do have the Republican leader of that -- the Russia investigation, Mike Conaway, saying he answered all our questions. But Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat, feels very differently. The president's son is asserting attorney-client privilege because there was a lawyer in the room as to why he wouldn't answer those questions. Are you comfortable with that?</s>ROONEY: I really don't know all the details of what happened there. I would rather have time to find out why he did that and what would be the circumstances of why he took the fifth.</s>HARLOW: But those are the details. He said, I can't answer your questions about the conversation with my father because there was a lawyer in the room. Is that correct use do, you believe, of attorney-client privilege?</s>ROONEY: Well, it might be technically correct. I assume that they've done their legal work. But I think the most important thing here is that we conduct a -- Mueller continues to show the integrity that he's generally shown in the past, he has a great reputation, and keep the investigation focused on what it was hired to do. What I fear is a lot of his subordinates that have been in the papers lately and on the media in the FBI are kind of taking sides.</s>BERMAN: Well, in that we can talk about another time. Just to be clear, what he was charged to do was to look into the Russia matter and any other things that may arise in the investigation. It's right there in the actual letters from Rod Rosenstein, you know, to -- appointing Bob Mueller. So he -- most people believe is well within the bounds of his initial charge. But, again, thank you for being with us. We are waiting for hearings with Christopher Wray, the current FBI director, on Capitol Hill. It may be another cause to discuss this going forward. Congressman Francis Rooney, thanks so much.</s>HARLOW: Thank you.</s>ROONEY: Thanks for having me on.</s>BERMAN: All right, this morning, big news coming out of the Senate. We are waiting to hear from Senator Al Franken. He will speak in just a short while and announce his plans for his future. Will he step down after so many Democrats have come forward calling for him to resign after more allegations of sexual misconduct?