Trump Warns of Violence if Republicans Lose Midterms; Pope Calls on Bishops to Remedy the Failures of the Past; Huge Opposition to Hike in Russia's Retirement Age
LYNDA KINKADE, CNN HOST: Hello and welcome to CONNECT THE WORLD. I'm Lynda Kinkade at CNN's world headquarters, filling in for Becky Anderson. Good to have you with us. We begin with a dire warning from U.S. President Donald Trump as the midterm elections are fast approaching. Behind closed doors he warned a group of evangelical leaders that there will be violence from the left if Republicans lose in November. Mr. Trump urged the preachers to use their pulpit to push the Republican agenda. And he suggested Democrats will overturn his policies quickly and violently if he doesn't win. Just don't hear this kind of talk from an American President. Peaceful transition of power is a fundamental bedrock of U.S. democracy. Let's bring in White House reporter Jeremy Diamond. Jeremy, a lot to discuss today but before we get to that, we're just hearing that White House Counsel Don McGahn could be leaving pretty soon. What can you tell us?</s>JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right. Well, our sources have been telling us for some time now that the White House Counsel Don McGahn was likely to leave the White House after justice -- Judge Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed -- if he is confirmed as the next Supreme Court Justice of the United States. And now the President confirming that reporting saying on Twitter this morning, White House Counsel Don McGahn will be leaving his position in the fall shortly after the confirmation hopefully of Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the United States Supreme Court. I have worked with Don for a long time and truly appreciate his service. We know that the relationship between the President and his White House counsel has been strained for some months now. Don McGahn has stood up to the President on occasion, particularly as it comes to the President's attempts to interfere in the Mueller investigation. McGahn particularly stood up when the President moved to try and fire his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. And that has led to some significant strain between the two men. We also know that McGahn has been a witness in the Mueller investigation. He testified in an interview with the Mueller team for over 30 hours. And that was also something that the President was not fully aware of. He knew that McGahn was going to be testifying but McGahn and his attorneys did not offer a full debriefing to the President and his attorneys about everything that he discussed. And he's particularly testifying as it relates to these episodes concerning questions of obstruction of justice. But Don McGahn, the White House counsel, will be leaving the White House likely sometime later this fall after Brett Kavanaugh is expected to be confirmed.</s>KINKADE: Right. OK. Well, certainly, news just seems to get across. But I want to go back to that warning we heard from Donald Trump about violence. If the Republicans don't win in the midterm elections. Let's just listen to what the U.S. President and his personal attorney have said in the past.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'll tell you what. If I ever got impeached I think the market would crash. I think everybody would be very poor.</s>RUDY GIULIANI, DONALD TRUMP'S PERSONAL LAWYER: You'd only impeach him for political reasons and the American people would revolt against that.</s>KINKADE: So, Jeremy, certainly not a new thing to hear the President warn of dire consequences.</s>DIAMOND: Yes. That's right. We have heard the President kind of ramping up these questions of what will happen if Democrats take over. And he has been raising those fears amongst some Republicans that the President could be impeached if Democrats take back control of the House. And now it seems he's taking this a step further to warn of possible violence if Democrats are swept into power in November. Equating it seems the Democratic Party with Antifa, the far-left group that's been the cause of some violence during some protests. They are known as anti-fascists, the shorthand there is Antifa. But the President equating these two groups, the Antifa and the Democratic Party as if they're one. This raises a number of questions, of course, about how the President views Democrats coming into power. But really it does seem to be part of the tactics that the President is using overall to increase Republican enthusiasm and motivate Republican voters, his supporters, to get out to the polls in November and vote to prevent Democrats from taking back control of the House. Both those warnings of impeachment and also now also, these warnings -- although unsubstantiated - - of violence if Democrats take control of Congress.</s>KINKADE: And before we get to those midterms we certainly saw several primaries yesterday. Setting the stage for those midterms in November. In Florida, Tuesday, Democratic voters made history. Andrew Gillum, of course, winning this stunning upset. Could become the state's first black governor. He of course, represents the parties progressive wing. And he's going to face off with a Republican congressman closely allied with President Trump. And, Jeremy, when President Trump was talking about his wins, those that came through were certainly very nationalist in the way they style themselves after Trump.</s>DIAMOND: Yes. And what we've seen is several of these Republican candidates who've been successful in the primaries really tie themselves to this President. And the President has been fairly successful recently in terms of endorsing the candidate who ultimately goes on to win the primary. Ron DeSantis, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, he in particular, really tied himself to the President as much as possible. He released this ad in which he went through different parts of the life in which he was kind of modeling himself after the President, even reading "The Art of the Deal" to his infant child. And that strategy seems to have paid off here because Ron DeSantis defeated a pretty traditional establishment Republican, Adam Putnam, who has been in Florida politics for a long time. Long respected by the Republicans in the state there but when the President came through with his endorsement of Ron DeSantis that really seemed to have helped put him over the edge.</s>KINKADE: It certainly has helped. All right, Jeremy, a lot to stay up on at the White House. Thank you so much. U.S. Senator John McCain is being honored today in the home state of Arizona on what would have been his 82nd birthday. The ceremony in the state capital will begin in just about two hours from now. First private with speeches by prominent state politicians and then the public will be invited to pay their respects to the longtime Republican who passed away on Saturday. On Friday his body will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol in Washington ahead of his funeral this coming weekend. Well, Pope Francis, who is facing calls to resign from a prominent former Vatican official, who used his weekly address to the Vatican to address Ireland child sex abuse scandal. He called on the church to remedy failures of the past. It comes after meeting with eight survivors whom he said left a profound mark on him. Adding that on many occasions I begged the Lord for forgiveness for these sins, the scandal and this sense of betrayal. Let's bring in CNN's senior Vatican analyst, John Allen, for more on this, joining us from Rome. John, certainly, the Pope calling for forgiveness, begging for forgiveness, but what is -- what is the Vatican doing about this problem, not just in Ireland but right across the world? What solutions are being offered?</s>JOHN ALLEN, CNN SENIOR VATICAN ANALYST: Hi there, Lynda. Well, first of all let's talk about what the Vatican is not doing. Which is engaging the charge leveled by Italian archbishop, Carlo Maria Vigano, the Pope's former ambassador in the United States from 2011 to 2016. That Pope Francis was briefed about misconduct allegations against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick in 2013 and didn't take action. They're basically trying to ride out the storm. We'll see if that works. Because just yesterday the seventh American bishop came forward saying that he's finds Archbishop Vigano to be a credible figure and calling for a thorough investigation of the affair. The broader question you ask is what is the Vatican doing to try to get the hands around the abuse crisis? And to this point, the answer would be they have not yet unveiled a new plan of action. There are a lot of critics out there who would suggest what that plan of action ought to be. Which are strong accountability measures, not just for clergy who sexually abused children, but also, for bishops and other superiors who cover up that abuse. That was a central bone of contention when Pope Francis was in Ireland over the weekend. It remains something that many critics say is a serious piece of unfinished business -- Lynda.</s>KINKADE: And so, do you think we need to see reform in the church? Critics, you know -- as you point out -- critics seem to suggest that the church has this culture of -- where priests and bishops protect each other and some accused of going on to serve penance rather than jail time.</s>ALLEN: Yes. Well, I mean, in fairness, over the last decade or so since the scandals erupted in full public view, I mean, the Catholic Church has taken significant steps. They've adopted a fairly robust system of abuse prevention, detection and response, reporting, that many secular experts, people who have no investment in the church admire as a kind of pace setting policy. The difficulty is that that accountability system is not matched for -- with similar accountability for the cover-up. And I think many critics would say exactly what you just did, that this is about bishops and senior officials in the church part of an old boy's club taking care of themselves and having one another's backs. And until that piece of the puzzle falls into place I think many people would say it is going to be very difficult for Pope Francis or anybody else in power in the church to really sell the case that the church has gotten its hands around this crisis -- Lynda.</s>KINKADE: All right. John Allen, we'll leave it there for now joining us from Rome. Good to have you with us. Now to Russia where the President who usually boasts popularity ratings most Western leaders can only dream of has been forced to defend some very unpopular pension reforms that he is personally pushing through. Vladimir Putin made his plea to the nation on live TV asking Russians to accept him raising the age of retirement. Warning that it was the only way to stave off economic collapse. But of course, there's been widespread opposition in part because many fear they won't see their pensions. Men will now retire at 65 in a country where the average life expectancy is just 66. Frederik Pleitgen is in Moscow. Fred, this is extremely important for Russia and Putin. Just explain why it's so controversial and why we have seen a little bit of back pedaling from Putin when it comes to the female retirement age.</s>FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. One of the reasons, one of the things you mentioned, Lynda, it's because many Russians feel that they won't have much of their retirement if the retirement age goes up. As you mentioned, especially for men in the country, the life expectancy about 66, for women it is a little bit higher. And according to this pension reform for men at least, it was going to be raised by five years and originally for women, it was going to be raised by eight years. Now, the main big concession that Vladimir Putin made today when he addressed the nation -- which in itself is something that rarely happens. It really shows how important this is to Vladimir Putin, to the Russian government but then also to the Russian people. There were many Russians who of course were watching this on TV. It's very important for them. But one of the things that he toned down is he said, look, women's retirement age shouldn't be raised by eight years in one go. So, he shaved three years off of that and said they should be able to retire at 60. Still, of course, this is something that is a big concession to a lot of Russian people. One of the reasons we have just mentioned is the life expectancy. So, people very unhappy about that. But then we also have to keep in mind that the pensions here in this country are really a mainstay of Russia and of the Soviet Union before that, as well. The law on pensions, the retirement age, it's something that's been basically untouched since the 1930s in this country. But of course, one of the things that Russia is suffering from on top of a difficult economic situation is demographics. The population of this country is getting older and it's getting smaller. So, it's getting more and more difficult for the working population here in Russia to pay the pensions of the increasing number of people who are going into retirement. And that's something where Vladimir Putin in his address basically asked for sympathy from the Russian electorate from and said this is something that is simply unavoidable. Very interesting to see how all of this has been playing out, Lynda. The pension reform was announced at the beginning of the World Cup. Where some people thought it might be a ploy to try to get people not to pay too much attention to it. But that's not what has happened. It's one of the few cases -- well, first of all, most of the vast majority of Russians, I would even say, is against it. And it's also something where President Vladimir Putin has not been able to isolate himself from an unpopular policy which is something he has been able to do in the past. So, very important for him, the government and the Russian people, of course, as well.</s>KINKADE: Of course. And there's no doubt one of the reasons they're running out of money is because they spend so much on military and their military role in Syria. There are reports, of course, Russia is building up its forces in the Mediterranean for a looming assault on rebel-held Idlib province in Syria. You, of course, Fred, have reported extensively on Russia's involvement in that war. You're even on one of the warships reported to be part of that build-up. Just explain the sort of fire power that Russia has when it comes to the Syrian government taking back Idlib.</s>PLEITGEN: Well it certainly has a great deal of fire power. And you're absolutely right, one of the things that appears to have been happening over the past ten days, maybe two weeks or so, is that more and more Russian warships have been going into the Mediterranean. The Russians have said that this is something that's happening in almost all the ships that are there now, which is apparently about 13 warships and two submarines. Almost all of them are able to launch cruise missiles. And if you're talking about a looming offensive, for instance, in Idlib, which is of course, the last place in Syria that is essentially held by opposition forces, then that is something that could be very significant. Now, at the same time, the Russians are saying, look, this is also a hot bed of what they call terrorism. They saying that there is a lot of Islamist groups that are out there that needs to be eliminated. So, it's a very interesting thing. Because they've come to a standoff between the Russians and Americans. Where the Americans have warned the Russians to take care of civilians in the area. And the Russians accusing the U.S. of trying to protect Islamists groups. I want to listen into one thing that Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, said earlier today in a press conference with the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia. Let's listen in.</s>SERGEI LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): It is the last major hot bed of terrorists who are trying to speculate on the status of the design of de-escalation. Who are trying to keep the civilian population hostage, use them as human shields and who are trying to trample down the armed groups that are ready for negotiations with the government. So, from all points of view, this hot bed must be eliminated.</s>PLEITGEN: Of course, some very strong language there, Lynda, saying what he calls that hotbed needs to be eliminated. Again, this comes against the warnings of the United States forces -- of other nations, as well, who are saying, look, if there is going to be an offensive there -- first of all, it's something that many nations want to prevent -- but if there is going to be an offensive there the civilian population really needs to be protected. Of course, that's something that the Russians in the past have been accused of not really doing -- Lynda.</s>KINKADE: Yes, absolutely. And Fred, just finally, on the horizon, major Russian war games. The biggest since the end of the cold war. That's according to Russia's defense minister. Moscow, of course, frequently flexes its military muscles for PR purposes. It's not alone doing that but the beefed-up games happening in a very particular political context right now. What is the message from Moscow to the world here, Fred?</s>PLEITGEN: Well, you're right. I mean, they happen at a deteriorating situation between Russia and West, particularly Russia and the United States. One of the reasons why the Russians are saying these games are justified, Lynda, is they say that there's a hostile situation between themselves and foreign countries. A hostile feeling toward Russia. That was one of the things that the spokesman for the Kremlin has said. These games, of course, very, very important. They happen in the east and center of the country. Because they're so big around 300,000 troops to take part. The Russians are saying 36,000 tanks, armed vehicles and other military vehicles involved, as well. But one of the things that the Russians are trying to showcase is not just the size but also the cooperation in these military exercises. The Chinese and the Mongolians, also taking part, but the Chinese, of course, the very important ones there. The Russians trying to demonstrate that they have very good relations with China as the U.S.'s relations both with China and with Russia appear to be deteriorating at the moment. One of the things that the Russians said before the games kicked off is that they show participation of the Chinese in these games show that there's good relations between Russia and China in all fields, not just, of course, in the field of economic cooperation. But clearly sending a message to the U.S. and to Western allies about how Russia is but also that it has this cooperation that's strengthening between themselves and the Chinese, as well.</s>KINKADE: Certainly, a lot of news to stay across from Moscow. Frederik Pleitgen Good do have you with us. Thank you. Well, up next, the French call them coquille and the English calls them scallops. But they're both calling them ours, and they are ready the fight about it. We'll explain next.