Olympic Torch Near Korean Demilitarized Zone; North Korea Defines Relationship Between Trump And Xi
HOWELL: Welcome back to our viewers around the world. You're waiting "CNN newsroom." it is good to have you with us. I am George Howell.</s>ALLEN: I am Natalie Allen. We're live in Atlanta. Thank you for watching. Here are our top stories. A U.S. Government shutdown is now less than 21 hours away. The house of representative adopted a stop-gap funding measure on Thursday. It is now before the senate, which may vote on it on Friday ahead of a midnight deadline, but passage is far from certain. The White House says it is confident congress will approve it and accept President Trump to sign the bill before he leaves for a weekend this Florida resort.</s>HOWELL: The parents of 13 children in the U.S. State of California, they pleaded not guilty to torturing and starving 12 of those children. Bail was set for David and Louise Turpin at $12 million each. The prosecutor says the children were harshly punished for years with beatings and strangulations and near starvation.</s>ALLEN: The Olympic plane has crossed the unification bridge in South Korean near the demilitarized zone. The two Koreas have agreed the North will send athletes to the games and March together under a unified flag at the opening ceremony. Officials say nearly 70 percent of the tickets for the games have been sold.</s>HOWELL: The U.S. President and his Chinese counterpart are enjoying a relatively cozy working relationship, though it hinges on one volatile problem, reining in a nuclear North Korea. Let's go live to Matt Rivers who's following his story in Dandong. There on the border between North Korean and China, is there a difference now in trade, the trucks going back and forth?</s>MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean compared to the last couple of times we've been here, George absolutely. Really the first year of the Trump presidency, when it comes to the U.S. relationship with China, has centered on North Korea. Talk about trade, talk about environmental policy. Really North Korea has pushed all of those aside and the battle over how far to go with sanctions against North Korea has really played out locally here in Dandong. That is North Korea across the river behind me. With a combination of American pressure towards putting more sanctions on and the Chinese government increasingly becoming wary of what the North Koreans are doing on that side of the border, there has been absolutely an effect on the amount of trade between both countries.</s>RIVERS: There are fewer trucks these days. The bridge quieter than months and years past. If bridge traffic is this light, it means trade between China and North Korea is slowing down. That is the word on the ground in Dandong, a key trading hub on the Chinese/North Korean border. The main reason comes from 7,000 miles away in New York City.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The draft resolution has been adopted unanimously --</s>RIVERS: A series of increasingly tough sanctions approved by the U.N. Security Council in 2017 has put the squeeze on North Korea. And as a result its largest trading partner, China. These sanctions more than anything else have come to define U.S./China cooperation under President Donald Trump. And yet few expected both sides to work together after Trump's divisive 2016 campaign.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whether it's China with our agreements, no matter what it is, it seems that we don't seem to have it.</s>RIVERS: China was a favorite target of the Republican candidate who accused China of "raping" the U.S. economically and for failing to solve the North Korea problem. But in an April meeting at Mar-a-Lago in Florida change the President's tune. He got on well with Chinese President Xi Jinping and a calculation was made. The administration would back off on trade issues in the hopes of Chinese help on pressuring the Kim Jong-un regime to stop developing nuclear weapons. The result, three rounds of sanctions, all approved by the Chinese after different North Korean nuclear and missile tests. They targeted everything from oil shipments to joint business ventures with North Korean companies. And Dandong is one of the places where you come to see if they're being enforced. Popular businesses here like these restaurants, staffed and run by North Koreans, have recently shuttered. We've been to Dandong four times in the last two years. And I can tell you that these streets used to be filled with North Koreans buying items in these stores to sell back home. But today it's basically empty. We spoke to six different business owners in this area who told us that since the sanctions went into effect, business has plummeted. Though none would talk on camera for fear of wading into a sensitive issue. To be clear, trade is still happening. We still see trucks loaded down with goods arriving from North Korea. The President recently told Reuters China could still be doing more to curve Pyongyang's ambitions. One example, tackle smuggling, still rampant all along the border. Back in September, we saw illegal North Korean seafood being sold openly on Chinese streets. But back at the bridge, the effects of American lobbying for tougher sanctions is clear. According to Chinese customs data, total trade between China and North Korea fell by 50 percent in December 2017.</s>RIVERS: So now as we move into 2018, the North Korean issue isn't going to go anywhere. So the question is if the United States wants China to keep doing more, put more sanctions against North Korea in place, assuming Pyongyang continues with missile and nuclear tests as we move through this year, how far is China willing to go? Are they willing to go further with sanctions? Every time we pose that question to the Chinese government we get the same response, which is, we do not answer hypothetical questions.</s>HOWELL: Matt Rivers following the story live there at the border between China and North Korea, thank you for the report. Stay in touch.</s>ALLEN: In the United States, Democrats are trying to move ahead with the resolution to censure President Trump for using a vulgar slur to describe African nation.</s>HOWELL: With Republicans in control of congress that measure has very little chance of being brought up for a vote. Still, the chairman of the congressional black caucus wants the President to admit that he was wrong for using the word he had used.</s>CEDRIC RICHMOND, LOUISIANA CONGRESSMAN: The last part of the resolution is to ask that the president retract his words and issue an apology. We are all adult. We've all made mistakes before in our life. But the real test of leadership is to acknowledge when you make a mistake.</s>HOWELL: The President has said that he didn't say the word. A Republican Senator, Lindsey Graham, was one of the lawmakers in the room when the President allegedly used that word to describe African nations. Graham said that he expressed his displeasure with Mr. Trump at that time.</s>ALLEN: But on the larger issue of whether President Trump is a racist, listen to what the Senator told our Dana Bash.</s>DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Can you tell me what happened in that meeting? In your own words.</s>SEN LINDSEY GRAHAM, (R) SOUTH CAROLINA: No. I can tell you this --</s>BASH: Why not? Why can't you?</s>GRAHAM: Because I want to make sure that I can keep talking to the President. I told him what I thought. And that is more important to me than anything else.</s>BASH: But he did call those countries shithole countries?</s>GRAHAM: You can keep asking me all day long and I'm going to tell you the same thing. Why don't you ask me, is he a racist?</s>BASH: That was my next question.</s>GRAHAM: Why don't you ask me?</s>BASH: Do you think he is a racist?</s>GRAHAM: Absolutely not. Let me tell you why. You could be dark as charcoal and lily white, it doesn't matter, as long as you're nice to him. You could be the pope and criticize him, it doesn't matter, and he'd go after the pope. You could be Putin and say nice things and he'll like you. Here's what I found. He is a street fighter. It's not the color of our skin that matters, it's not the content of your character. It's whether or not you show him respect and like him. And if he feels like you're all script, you don't like him, he punches back. And as President of the United States, the only advice I can have you is that the street fight's over. We need a leader. And you got here by being a street fighter, you beat me, you beat everybody else. Mr. President, you have the ability to bring this country together.</s>ALLEN: Lindsey Graham being outspoken there. Of course across the U.S. in big cities, small towns, the debate over President Trump goes on. We visit a town in Monticello, Iowa.</s>HOWELL: And there you'll find die-hard followers of the President and die-hard opponents, and some with a growing sense of buyers' remorse as Bill Weir reports for us.</s>BILL WEIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In Monticello they still wind the clock tower by hand. And still mix politics into their coffee. Down at Darrel's. It is so great to sit at the table of knowledge in Monticello, Iowa. It's a tradition that goes back to Truman. But no President has ever tested the limits of Midwestern politeness like number 45. This county went for Obama, then swung over to Trump. Why?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump pulled the wool over their eyes. And they have most -- and his base has not recognized it yet.</s>WEIR: You think Virgil's been coned? You think Jerry's has been bamboozled?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're so ingrained with the crotch-grabbing liar.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump wasn't my first choice either. However, he is doing a hell of a good job. And he is playing three-level chess versus everybody else playing checkers.</s>WEIR: The ones that support him are either greedy or bigots or they just don't see it yet. If the vote were taken today, I think it would be different.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If it wouldn't be for the Electoral College, he wouldn't have won.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. La, la, la, la, la, la.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you sing too?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We run 800 acres of corn and beans. Then we do bale some hay. Our kids actually buy their own 4H animals. They do the chores for them.</s>WEIR: That will teach you, right?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That teaches you, yeah.</s>WEIR: At the Adams farm, did you all vote for President Trump?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.</s>WEIR: The family Republican shows little voters remorse.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think he is doing a decent job. I think we need to give him a chance.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He went to the American farm bureau federation meeting. I haven't seen that from other Presidents.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Throughout our history, farmers have always, always, always led the way.</s>WEIR: Those words played really well around here. But his actions could end up hurting these folks. His nominee for chief scientist at the department of agriculture wasn't a scientist. And then got tangled in the Mueller investigation. He scrapped an Obama rule that would have protected small family farms against big corporate meat packers. He is threatening to tear up the trade agreement that keeps a lot of these farms alive.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's NAFTA that is another story. That does scare us. Pretty bad.</s>WEIR: You guys would go bankrupt?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We would go bankrupt, yes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am sure he has a plan. If he does pull out. I don't know what that plan is.</s>WEIR: Somebody has telling me this town used to be called the Pittsburgh of the prairie, because there are so many factories.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.</s>WEIR: And there are worries that oak street manufacturing, a mom and pop make of restaurant furnishings.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're hopeful as far as the tax reform. We're positive about that. We have grave concerns about his actions verbally.</s>WEIR: Like what?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some of the -- some of the statements that he makes. There's just -- there's just a lot of disrespect for a large number of people.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As a Republican, he was worried about his grandchildren paying the national debt. It doesn't seem to make a damn bit of difference anymore.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll have to have another Obama come and clean it up.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Then we can double our debt again.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He got you into the prosperity you're having now.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, give him all the credit for the stock market going up, yeah, you bet yah. Out of your butt, man.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whoops!</s>WEIR: Is there a safe word when things get too heated?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's a good time to cut your rose bushes?</s>WEIR: That is the safe word?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've got to do it one day real hard. I was worried.</s>WEIR: One year into Trump, a state he won by almost 10 points, is producing a bumper crop of worry. Even among those who love him most. Bill Weir, CNN, Monticello, Iowa.</s>HOWELL: The U.S. President says that he called Apple' CEO, Tim Cook, to thank him for promising to bring home hundreds of billions of dollars from overseas and to build new U.S. Facilities creating some 20,000 U.S. Jobs.</s>ALLEN: Cook says Apple would have done some of that even without the recent U.S. Tax cut. He has been outspoken critic of the Trump administration.</s>HOWELL: Still ahead, water everywhere but not a drop to drink. Why the taps in Cape Town, South Africa, could soon run dry.