Trump's Exhaust of Frustration Ends up in Twitter; Trump and U.S. Troops Not on the Same Page
ROSEMARY CHURCH, HOST, CNN: Fears of a trade war along with more tough talk from U.S. President Donald Trump send stocks plummeting. A check on the markets straight ahead. Plus, deal and then no deal. The Israeli prime minister gives the end of political pressure and reverses a decision that affects thousands of African asylum seekers. And we are live in South Africa where an anti-apartheid icon is being remembered for her life and work. The legacy of Winnie Madikizela- Mandela. Hello to our viewers joining us from all around the world. I'm Rosemary Church, and this is CNN Newsroom. Well, since Donald Trump started his latest round of attacks on Amazon last week, the retail giant has lost $60 billion in market value. Those losses are carrying over the financial markets in Asia with Tokyo, Shanghai, and Sydney are all in negative territory. Hong Kong is up slightly. But there hasn't been as severe as it was on Wall Street. The blue chip plunge 459 points with Amazon down more than 5 percent. Investors are also worried about a developing trade war between the U.S. and China. CNN's Anna Stewart joins me now from Tokyo with more on this. So, Anna, tech stocks and fears of a trade war triggered these losses on Wall Street. Talk to us about how these Asian markets are responding. It doesn't seem as bad as what many people thought and what can we expect to see across European markets as trading gets underway?</s>ANNA STEWART, PRODUCER, CNN: Sure. I mean, yesterday was a terrible day to start Q2 in the U.S. We had such huge trade losses, and today all of Asia was opening in the red. We had fairly, fairly heavy losses, more meters (Ph) than the USSA, but let's check in on them now. We have the Nikkei which is down under half a percent, that's a lot better than it was, it was down minus 1.4 percent earlier today, the Hang Seng is now up so that's turn into the green. We had all the S&P pretty flat, and the Shanghai Composite which is now minus now .8 percent. So it's actually that's free from when we last check an hour ago when it was down 1 percent. Now on the European markets, we were expecting more of a mixed story to be honest, but let's see whether they have updated. We can see that the FTSE 100 has opened down, as has the Paris CAC 40. We are seeing the Xetra DAX is also down nearly by a percent, and Europe at least down but that could be dated that haven't yet updated today. So we are seeing a bit of a spread here, Rosemary, in terms of fears of a trade war and that tech impact from the tweets.</s>CHURCH: All right. We will continue to watch those numbers across European markets. Of course, we're trading only just starting to get underway. And as you say some of those numbers may not have updated. Anna Stewart joining us from Tokyo, keeping an eye on the markets across the globe. I appreciate that. Well, in addition to his attacks on Amazon, President Trump has been busy going after Barack Obama, the Democrats, the FBI, immigrants, Mexico, Canada, and the news media of course, and it's been quite a Twitter feat for the commander in chief. CNN's Jim Acosta reports.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It was supposed to be very rainy and nasty and cold and windy, and look what we have. Perfect weather. Perfect weather. Beautiful weather.</s>JIM ACOSTA, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, CNN: Just before President Trump welcome guest to the White House for the annual Easter egg roll, he was hammering away on immigration.</s>ACOSTA: Blaming Democrats for failing to extend the program that protects young undocumented people from deportation known as DACA. "DACA is dead because the Democrats didn't care or act," the president tweeted, "and now everyone wants to get under the DACA bandwagon. No longer works. Must build wall and secure our borders with proper border legislation." When I pressed Mr. Trump on that at the Easter roll he neglected to mention one thing, he terminated the DACA program.</s>ACOSTA: Mr. President, what about the DACA kids, should they worry about what's going to happen to them, sir?</s>TRUMP: The Democrats have really let them down. They've really let them down. They had this great opportunity. The Democrats have really let them down. It's a shame. And now people are taking advantage of DACA, that's a shame. It should have never happened.</s>ACOSTA: Didn't you kill DACA, sir? Didn't you kill DACA?</s>ACOSTA: The president didn't respond. Mr. Trump launches these immigration tweets storm over the weekend shortly after a segment on the issue aired on Fox News. But the president's tweets weren't limited to immigration; he also defended the conservative Sinclair Broadcasting Company which has come under scrutiny for asking its local stations to air identical segments that appeared to have carried Mr. Trump's attacks on the media. The president tweeted, "So funny to watch fake news networks among the most dishonest group of people I have ever dealt with criticized Sinclair Broadcasting for being biased." Mr. Trump also continued to harass the Washington Post and its owner Jeff Bezos who also founded the online retailer Amazon. Claiming the Post Office, this is a portion, "shipping packages for the company." He even took a swipe at the Department of Justice putting justice in quotes, describing officials there as an embarrassment to our country. The president's hard line rhetoric comes just as aides confirm he's considering hosting meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin at the White House, a sit down he hinted at last month.</s>TRUMP: We had a very good call and I suspect that we'll probably be meeting in the not-too-distant future.</s>ACOSTA: Another sign of the chaotic atmosphere at the White House, the back and forth over whether the president actually fired his Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin. Shulkin says he was fired.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you receive a phone call from chief of staff John Kelly who fired you?</s>DAVID SHULKIN, FORMER UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF VETERANS AFFAIRS: General Kelly gave me a heads up that the president would most likely be tweeting out a message in the very near future and I appreciated having that heads up from General Kelly.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So the tweet fired you.</s>SHULKIN: Yes.</s>ACOSTA: While the White House has offered a base of statements insisting Shulkin resigned.</s>MERCEDES SCHLAPP, WHITE HOUSE ADVISER FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS: General Kelly calls Secretary Shulkin and gave him the opportunity to resign. Obviously, the key here is that the president has made a decision.</s>ACOSTA: As for DACA, the president apparently does not have his facts straight he keeps saying people are flowing into the U.S. to take advantage of DACA, but new comers would not be eligible for the program because, in part, the president ended it himself. As to the president blaming the Democrats for DACA, that's also false, as Democrats and Republicans are both offered proposals to save the DREAMers from deportation, the president has rejected those claims. Jim Acosta, CNN, the White House.</s>CHURCH: And another target of the president's tweet of fury is Mexico. Mr. Trump again threatens to scrap NAFTA accusing Mexican leaders of doing, quote, "very little, if not nothing, to stop migrants from entering the U.S." But the president's attack on Mexico is factually inaccurate. With the help of USAID Mexico is not only doing something on border security, it sometimes more than the U.S. is doing. Non-partisan researchers found that Mexico deported roughly twice as many Central American immigrants as the U.S. did in 2015 and 2016. Experts also found that Mexico has apprehended tens of thousands more Central Americans than the U.S. did at the border in 2015. Well, President Trump is also citing a march of migrants crossing Mexico right now to fuel his twitter attacks. Meanwhile, Mexican leaders are defending their country's immigration laws. Our Leyla Santiago has more now from Mexico City.</s>LEYLA SANTIAGO, CORRESPONDENT, CNN: Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto is now responding to a series of really aggressive tweets from President Trump. The Mexican president says that Mexico is taking the negotiation seriously, he wants mutual respect and he also wants to finds points of interest to help further develop the three countries negotiating in NAFTA. So Canada, Mexico, as well as the U.S., and those are the things that were brought up in those tweets from President Trump. Also mentioned President Trump talks about dangerous caravan making their way north. And typically, when people talk about caravans during Holy Week here in Mexico they're talking about what's called Via Crucis. Those are sort of pilgrimages, religious marches that they become such symbolic annual tradition that now people are using it to make a statement. In particular, there is one group of more than thousand people collaborating with an organization that is San Diego called Pueblo Sin Fronteras which means that people without border. And they are getting a lot of attention because the group is so big and they're making statements about immigration, as well as the conditions in Central America. We're talking about Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. The group right now is in Oaxaca, so they're about 2,000 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border. And the plan is for some of them to make it all the way to the U.S.-Mexico border and seek asylum. But it is still not clear exactly when they will arrive. Leyla Santiago, CNN, Mexico City.</s>CHURCH: Well, the U.S. Justice Department special counsel will mark a milestone in the coming hours as we get first sentencing in the Russia probe. Dutch attorney Alex van der Zwaan pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators and likely faces up to six months in prison. Court filing show van der Zwaan knows key details about the ongoing investigation and the special counsel is trying to keep those secret. Prosecutor say that van der Zwaan was aware of communication between former Trump aide Rick Gates and a man tied to Russian intelligence. We'll take a short break here, but coming up next, the Israeli prime minister backtracking on a migrant deal hours after saying it was the proper solution for thousands of African asylum seekers. So what changed his mind, we'll take a look. Plus, the U.S. president wants to pull troops out of Syria while his military says the opposite. Does he know something they don't? We'll take a look at that as well. We're back in just a moment.