Samsung Chief Found Guilty of Corruption; Trump Personal Touch in White House Renovations; State Department Science Envoy Resigns Over Trump Remarks.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: This is CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. Ahead this hour.</s>ISHA SESAY, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: Build that wall. It was a Trump campaign rallying cry, but will the president really shut down the government to get it done.</s>VAUSE: Judgment day in Seoul. The head of Samsung awaits a verdict in his corruption trial, a scandal which took down the company's president.</s>SESAY: And the White House renovations are done. We'll get a look at the Trump approved changes inside the West Wing. Hello and welcome to our viewers all around the world. I'm Isha Sesay.</s>VAUSE: I'm John Vause. This is the third hour of Newsroom</s>LA. SESAY: Well, we're waiting for verdict in what's being called South Korea's trial of the century.</s>VAUSE: A court is set to decide on a string of corruption charges against Jae Y. Lee, chief of the powerful Samsung Group.</s>SESAY: Well, for more, let's go live to Seoul and join CNN's Paul Hancocks. Paula, just explain to our viewers what's at stake here with this trial of Jae Y. Lee, one of South Korea's most powerful and influential men.</s>PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is certainly a very significant court case, the verdict being read out right now. We know there's three judges in there. They are going through each charge individually and assessing why they came to their decision, but we don't have a steer at this point as to which way it's going to go. But Jae Y. Lee is one of the most powerful men in South Korea. Samsung is the biggest company in South Korea. It drives the South Korean economy. It is, for some people, the face of South Korea to the rest of the world because it is such a well-known brand. So, the fact that the head of Samsung is on trial is certainly significant. It's not unprecedented, though. This has happened before. Many heads of these big family run conglomerates in South Korea over the years have been tried and convicted of different white collar crimes. In fact, Jae Y. Lee's father was tried and convicted twice, never actually spent a day in prison, though, and subsequently had a presidential pardon. But it's a different time in South Korea now. There is a real sense among many South Korean people that they are sick of corruption. They are fed up with what they see as this very cozy relationship between the government and businesses here in South Korea. So, there's certainly a lot of people in South Korea who are going to be watching this very closely. Isha?</s>SESAY: So, that being said, the level of interest and just the mood, if you will, in the country as a whole, how much pressure is there on prosecutors to get a guilty verdict here?</s>HANCOCKS: Well, certainly, the courts, the judges will say that they are following justice. They are not going to be pressured or swayed in any way by public opinion. But just on the other side of the building, right now, there are protests ongoing, not large protests, but protests of people who are supporting the Samsung chief because they are supporting the former president Park Geun-hye, who is linked to the same corruption scandal, who was also going through the court cases at this point. And certainly, there is a lot of interest because whatever happens today with Jae Y. Lee could well have an impact or give a little bit of guidance on how the eventual verdict will go for the former president as well. Now, just remember, a matter of months ago, there were hundreds of thousands, potentially millions of people coming on to the streets in these candlelight vigils in Seoul and around the country protesting what they saw as a corrupt system. Moon Jae-in, the current president of South Korea, campaigns on an anti-corruption ticket that he was going to clean up government, clean up business, and so, certainly, there is a lot of interest in this verdict to see what that means for the future. Isha?</s>SESAY: Paula Hancocks joining us there from Seoul, South Korea. Thank you, Paula.</s>VAUSE: Well, Donald Trump's relationship with Congressional Republicans appears to be getting worse just when he needs them the most. The president wants funding for his border wall. And if he doesn't get it, he is warning of a possible government shutdown.</s>SESAY: Mr. Trump seemed spoiling for a fight Thursday morning as he went after both the Senate majority leader and House speaker on Twitter. This is what he said, "I requested that Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan tie the debt ceiling legislation into the popular VA bill, which just passed, for easy approval. They didn't do it, so now we have a now big deal with Dems holding them up as usual on debt ceiling approval. Could have been so easy, now a mess.</s>VAUSE: Well, despite the angry tweets, the White House press secretary told reporters, everything's just fine.</s>SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Look, I think the relationships are fine. Certainly, there are going to be some policy differences, but there are also a lot of shared goals, and that's what we're focused on. We're disappointed that Obamacare, they failed to get it repealed and replaced. But at the same time, President Trump has worked with leader McConnell to reach out to other members and to work on those shared goals and we're going to continue to do that when the Senate comes back from recess.</s>SESAY: Well, joining us now Democratic strategist Matthew Littman and CNN political commentator and Trump supporter John Phillips.</s>VAUSE: Also, with us here in Los Angeles, CNN senior reporter for media and politics Dylan Byers. Dylan, first you, a government shutdown over a popular issue, that's one thing. But poll after poll after poll has shown that American voters in an increasing number and in a majority don't want this wall.</s>DYLAN BYERS, CNN SENIOR REPORTER FOR MEDIA AND POLITICS: No, that's absolutely right. And, look, like you said, even when you try and force the government shutdown over a popular issue, that is still an extraordinarily controversial move to make. To do it over an issue that the majority of Americans oppose, to do it while you are sort of insulting or at least worsening your relationship with Congress, and then on top of that to have all of this come in the wake of an election in which you promised time and again that you would get Mexico to pay for that wall, and now you're threatening a government shutdown to get funding from the government for that wall, none of this looks terribly good for the president. And I would just say you go back to those tweets you showed against the House speaker and the Senate majority leader, it really speaks to how isolated Donald Trump has become in Washington. Why he is trying to antagonize the people who might be able to help him in this process, it seems to sort of pass the buck of responsibility. I think there are probably a lot of people in that White House tonight who are wishing that Trump hadn't written those tweets.</s>SESAY: Matt, to bring you in here, are you taking him seriously here? There are those who say this is just bluff, there are those who say he's crazy like a fox. Where are you with the -?</s>MATHEW LITTMAN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, Dylan said that there are a lot of people in the White House wishing he wouldn't send out those tweets, we could have said that every day for the last eight months, right?</s>LITTMAN: The problem is that a lot of Trump supporters don't care if he gets any legislation passed. They like the professional wrestling aspect of this. They just want to see Donald Trump pick a fight. That Donald Trump is now down to, in his support, the base of the base. That's where - he's somewhere like 33 percent support and that's really who he is trying to appeal to at this point. The chances of him - tax reform, he was supposed to be doing that, right? They have no tax reform plan. They're not putting out a tax reform plan. They said that they would. How are we even going to do tax reform, which is the biggest thing that they said they would do this year.</s>VAUSE: Dylan brought up the fact that, this was raised over and over again during the campaign. Let's remind ourselves, before we come to John, about exactly</s>DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are going to build a great border wall. We will build a great, great wall. We're going to build a wall, don't worry about it. Oh, we'll build a wall. We will build the wall 100 percent. I promise we will build the wall. And who's going to pay for the wall?</s>CROWD: Mexico.</s>TRUMP: And who's going to pay for the wall?</s>CROWD: Mexico.</s>TRUMP: Who?</s>CROWD: Mexico.</s>TRUMP: It'll be a great wall. Mexico is going to pay for the Wall. Mexico is going to pay for the wall. Mexico will pay for the wall. And Mexico is going to pay for the wall and they understand it. Mexico is going to pay for the wall, believe me, 100 percent.</s>VAUSE: John, I had some audio troubles. I didn't hear the last bit. What was that? Who was going to pay for the wall?</s>LITTMAN: The only thing bigger than his promise to build the wall are his hands.</s>VAUSE: Seriously,</s>JOHN PHILLIPS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND TRUMP SUPPORTER: We'll end up taxing remittances or something. I have to pay for all kinds of crap I hate from the government. I have to pay for this bullet train to nowhere that Jerry Brown is obsessed with. At least with the wall, that's something tangible that I want. And illegal immigration has fallen off the cliff since he's been elected. The 20 years from now when Skippy Bush III gets elected and decides to open up all the borders, we need something there. And last week was a bad week for Trump. You look at polling numbers in swing states, it was not good.</s>LITTMAN: Another statement that could have been repeated -</s>PHILLIPS: However, there was something that happened that was very important that everyone in the country should pay attention to. And that is, if you look at The Cook Political Report, which tracks all of the US Senate races, they move five different races one way or the other. Four of the five moved in the direction of the Republicans, all of them happened in red states, all of them happened in places where they want the wall. They want the wall with great vigor, and I'm absolutely in favor of him tying this to a government shutdown, force Claire McCaskill to vote against the wall, force Heidi Heitkamp vote against the wall, forced Joe Manchin to do it. I think it's good politics.</s>SESAY: All right. Dylan, to bring you in here, before you respond to whether or not it is good politics, listen to what Sarah Huckabee Sanders said during the White House press briefing when she was asked about Mexico paying for the wall.</s>SANDERS: We're committed to making sure the American people are protected and we're going to continue to push forward and make sure that the wall gets built.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why is he threatening a shut down over paying for it? Again, he said over and over - he talked about in the campaign, over and over again, he said Mexico is going to pay for the wall. He asked people - his crowds chanted back, Mexico is going to pay for it. And now, he is pushing - threatening a shutdown</s>SANDERS: No. Once again, the president is committed to making sure this happens, and we're going to push forward.</s>SESAY: Dylan, is the estimation on the part of the president and this administration that they are in a stronger position with Republicans and those in Congress, so they can push this issue of shutting down the government because ultimately the president is going to come out looking better than them?</s>BYERS: Well, I think that's part of it. And I think the other part of it goes back to what Mathew, which is he's appealing to the base of the base. What's curious to me, and it's the same question that we ask so many times on this show and that everyone in the media I think has been asking for so many months, is at what point does that base start to care that the narrative has consistently changed, at what point do the promises that were made during the campaign not seem to matter so much, now that he's president of the United States. And then, again, just to return to this issue, how is it in the interest of the American people to force a government shutdown, to do something that the majority of them don't want? Remind me how that is good for the American people because I don't know.</s>VAUSE: Look, I just want to do a quick fact check on something that Huckabee Sanders said in the briefing about the Democrats who supported this. Budget Director Mick Mulvaney first brought up that claim saying Democrats had voted for a border wall. PolitiFact says that's a half-truth because the wall they voted for was 700 miles long, nothing like the one the president wants. That was about 10 years ago. And Donald Trump actually said that was not a wall. But, Matt, as far as the Democrats are concerned, Donald Trump seems to have let them off the hook completely by putting all the blame on the Senate. Littman: Yes. By the way, this is a winning issue for the Democrats because if Donald Trump shuts down the government over a wall that nobody wants, that he said that Mexico was going to pay for, then Democrats, in that case, win. I'm not sure exactly what polling is in some of those states, but the Democrats in some of these swing states actually seem to be doing pretty well. But to shut down the government - Donald Trump was supposed to be talking about - where's infrastructure, right? Where is tax reform? They don't even have any plans for these things. They're not - Donald Trump doesn't go out. He gives these big speeches in Phoenix and all these other places. He doesn't push for anything for the government to do, except to list his own grievances toward newspapers and toward Mitch McConnell and toward Senator Jeff Flake from Arizona. None of it is about actual legislation and getting anything done.</s>SESAY: And, John, what about that point that this just comes off to many as just about his ego, what about those other elements that were a part of his agenda?</s>PHILLIPS: No, this is issue number one, two, and three for Donald Trump.</s>SESAY: It was an issue that Mexico was going to pay for.</s>PHILLIPS: The reason that Donald Trump won the Republican nomination and the reason that Donald Trump won the general election and won so many of those Rust Belt states that Mitt Romney and John McCain lost is because he took on the elite consensus in Washington DC on any number of subjects, immigration being the first one, but also foreign trade and foreign wars. And those are the three issues - with what he's doing right now in Afghanistan, the jury is still out as to which direction he's going to go, and now that Steven Bannon isn't at the White House anymore. But he's got to come through with his position on trade. He's got to come through with his position on immigration. If he doesn't, he's toast. This is my read-my-lips moment or his read-my-lips moment. He can't go back on this. He's got to put the wall up.</s>VAUSE: Dylan, if we take John's point, this is good politics, that this is about Donald Trump appealing to the base of the base of the base of the base, he's done this as well when it comes to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia appealing to the white nationalist violence on both sides. Not very good for the country, but it may be good politics. Shutting down the government would cause economic turmoil around the globe and a whole bunch of problems, but it may be good politics.</s>BYERS: Right. And again, it goes back to this appeal to the base of the base strategy. And John is absolutely right that this is a moment where the president has to follow through on this promise, otherwise what does he have left. I guess what I question are two things. First, how much is he following through on his promise, if he's not actually going to have Mexico pay for the wall, how much is he setting himself up to look like a failure if he can't push this through even with government funding and is passing the buck of responsibility to Congress. And then secondly, again, like when does that moment happen that the president of the United States thinks maybe it would behoove me to act on behalf of the interests of the American people, maybe it would even behoove my own reelection prospects if he even does want to run for reelection at this point. So much of what he's doing, it's not just that it's driven by ego because ego would suggest that he sort of wants to cement his place in history as perhaps a halfway decent president. A lot of it seems to be driven by this sort of narcissistic petty grievances that he can't go more than a day or an hour without sending a nasty tweet in someone's direction to sort of offload responsibility for his own ineptitude and pass it on to someone else. And it's pretty staggering to watch that happen even on the principal issue, like John said, that he ran on which was the border wall.</s>SESAY: So, Matt, what do Democrats do? Obviously, the blame has been shifted to Republicans, in the way the game is set up right now with the president? But what do they do? Do they just get back chairs and cigars just watch this play out?</s>LITTMAN: It does sound good. I'd like to refer to it as Trump's Alzheimer's. Forgotten everything but the grievances. Listen, they need Democrats to get this debt ceiling - the budget fight that's about to happen. They need the debt ceiling to go through. They need eight Democrats on their side.</s>VAUSE: And those things have sort of been intertwined here, which is why there's such -</s>LITTMAN: Exactly right. And then tax reform has to come out of the budget process. And right now, none of it looks like it's going to happen. And Donald Trump isn't trying to appeal to the Democrats or trying to work with the Democrats. I would just say this, though, about Donald Trump and his poor relationship with Mitch McConnell. I think if it were up to - like, if Donald Trump really wanted to, he gets along with Chuck Schumer much better than he does Mitch McConnell. I don't think - I really don't think he likes Mitch McConnell at all. He is forced to work with McConnell. In a sense, he's right in terms of the fact that McConnell did promise for seven years to get healthcare reform through and he was not able to, but let's remember that Donald Trump didn't fight for healthcare reform. He is not fighting for infrastructure reform - for infrastructure. He is not fighting for tax reform. He is not fighting for many of the issues that people elected him on, especially one that John left out, jobs, wage growth is not high. It's lower than it was under Obama. Job growth not high, lower than it was under Obama.</s>VAUSE: We're almost out of time, but let's get to the tweet of the day. The tweet de jure. It was the retweet.</s>SESAY: Yes. It was a retweet. President Trump on Thursday retweeting the meme of the best eclipse ever. Let's put it up. It features a montage of four photos that show Trump, as you see there, blocking former President Obama, as you see, the best eclipse ever. But did I mention that this was a meme that was shared by YouTube personality Jerry Travone, who previously shared an extremely anti- Semitic tweet on Sunday, John.</s>PHILLIPS: I think that photo is hilarious. However, my favorite of the memes is the one where Chris Christie is sitting in the beach chair and just comes in right over the sun and that's what I call a total eclipse.</s>LITTMAN: The guy who tweeted this, he also said to tweet out saying he wants to get rid of all the Jewish drivers.</s>VAUSE: He's an anti-Semite, he's a misogynist, he's a total freak.</s>LITTMAN: Here is the question, how do you know that the drivers are Jewish? How does he know? Are we gesticulating? Are we saying</s>VAUSE: Dylan, what is the responsibility of the president here because this happens a lot? Should he be aware of the background of the person that he's retweeting here?</s>BYERS: Yes. But, well, look, what I'm reminded of is when, very early on in the presidency, people were accusing the president of doing all manner of things that were "unpresidential" and she said well he's the president, so it is presidential. He is the president of the United States. He sets the tone now and going forward of what is acceptable behavior by the president of the United States. The problem is that it's embarrassing frankly for America on the world stage. It's embarrassing, I think, for many of the citizens how the president of the United States is retweeting a sort of dumb meme from a guy who clearly has anti-Semitic tendencies. And it goes back for me about the character of Donald Trump and this question of how do you take on the greatest office in the land, how do you assume the responsibility of commander-in-chief and leader of the free world, and how does that not impress itself upon you and force you to sort of rise to the occasion and be better than re-tweeting an anti-Semite's dumb meme? I think it's embarrassing. So, look, it's presidential because he is the president, but it's a sad day for the office of the American presidency.</s>VAUSE: We are out of time. But the other thing too is that when those retweets are put out there, it emboldens those hate groups. They think it's great that they're being retweeted by the president. But we'll leave it at that. Dylan, John and Matt, thank you so much.</s>SESAY: Thank you. Thank you. All right. Time for a quick break now. And if you have a dream of sticking it to your boss after quitting your job, take note how one scientist really spelled it out for President Trump in his resignation letter. Next.