Donald Trump's Dueling Immigration Stance; U.S. Policy Caught Between Syrian Kurds and Turkey, Free Syrian Army Factions. Aired 11:00a- 12:00p ET
DONALD TRUMP, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: ...pay for the wall, believe me.</s>BECKY ANDERSON, HOST: Donald Trump doubling down on that big border wall. But Mexico president says his country will not foot the bill. More on the Republican candidate's unveiling of his immigration policy is ahead this hour.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Also...</s>NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We're headed inside yet another new chapter in Syria's endless war.</s>ANDERSON: CNN goes inside a Syrian town that was under ISIS control just a week ago. More on what our team saw coming up. And...</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): In a democracy there should be levity. We should not ban things like this.</s>ANDESRON: One person's view on an age old debate. Just what should women wear? And it seems people the world over have an opinion. We'll discuss that later this hour. Hello. I'm Becky Anderson. Welcome to Connect the World. Live all this week from CNN Center. We are going to get all of those stories for you in just a moment. First up, though, there has been an powerful explosion on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral in Florida. It happened during the testing of a rocket built by SpaceX. Thick black smoke-filled the air as you can see, but SpaceX says no one was injured. Well, let's get some perspective now from former NASA astronaut Leroy Chow. He was a commander on the International Space Station and is CEO of the company he co-founded, One Orbit. Leroy joining me now via Skype from Houston, Texas. What do you understand to have happened, sir?</s>LEROY CHOW, FRM. NASA ASTRONAUT: Well, apparently, this happened during a routinely scheduled hot fire of the first stage engines. This is something that's done a few days before launch to make sure the engines are all performing, the plumbing, the fuel system, everything is working properly before launch. And so fortunately, as the reports are coming in, it appears that nobody was injured. Because they were going this live fire test, something obviously went very wrong. There was a big explosion. The rocket was lost. Also reports I've heard is that the payload was not integrated, so the satellite was not on top. And that's also good news. But obviously extensive damage to the launch pad and surrounding area. So, you know, not a good day for Space</s>X. ANDERSON: No. how damaging is news like this not just for SpaceX, but the private space industry as a whole?</s>CHOW: Right. And so, you know, there have been people criticizing the idea of commercializing the launch process, launch industry and supplies to the Interest Space Station. And so those critics will jump on this. But the fact is that there are actually more incentive for commercial companies to be safer and more reliable than government operations. And besides there is plenty of oversight from NASA and the Air Force and the FAA for that matter on all things that are being done by these commercial operators. So this unfortunately is part of what happens during a development program like this SpaceX actually has been very, very successful in launching payloads, both satellites and cargo to the ISS. So, unfortunately, this is what happens when you develop new aircraft, new spacecraft, anything with a lot of energy being put into it to accelerate it to those speeds.</s>ANDERSON: Leroy Chow on what is a developing story for you today, viewers. Thank you, Leroy.</s>CHOW: My pleasure.</s>ANDERSON: We will not apologize for America anymore, those words from Donald Trump, who is keeping up the tough talk today after a fiery speech on immigration. Now, the Republican presidential candidate addressed the American Legion just a short time ago. He reenergized his base last night by promising to stop illegal immigration in the U.S., saying this election is the last chance to secure the border. Now, this was one of the most dramatic moments when parents whose children were killed by undocumented immigrants took to the stage with him. Trump's message was clear, illegal immigrants pose a dangerous threat to innocent families in America. Sunlen Serfarty has more.</s>TRUMP: There will be no amnesty.</s>SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRSEPONDENT (voice-over): Donald Trump recommitting to a fired-up no- mercy stance on illegal immigration.</s>TRUMP: For those here illegally today who are seeking legal status, they will have one route and one route only: to return home and apply for re-entry like everybody else under the rules of the new legal immigration system.</s>SERFATY: The billionaire vowing to swiftly expel millions who have overstayed their visas and undocumented criminals.</s>TRUMP: I am going to create a new special deportation task force, focused on identifying and quickly removing the most dangerous criminal illegal immigrants in America who have evaded justice, just like Hillary Clinton has evaded justice, OK? Maybe they'll be able to deport her.</s>SERFATY: Insisting he will detain and remove anyone caught crossing the border.</s>TRUMP: We are going to end catch and release.</s>SERFATY: And force other countries to take back their citizens who have been ordered to leave the</s>U.S. TRUMP: There are at least 23 countries that refuse to take their people back after they've been ordered to leave the United States. Not going to happen with me, folks. Not going to happen with me.</s>SERFATY: And declaring he will block funding from the 300-plus so- called sanctuary cities across the country.</s>TRUMP: Cities that refuse to cooperate with federal authorities will not receive taxpayer dollars.</s>SERFATY: But Trump is not saying how he would deport all undocumented immigrants living in the</s>U.S. TRUMP: Only the out-of-touch media elites think the biggest problem facing America is that there are 11 million illegal immigrants who don't have legal status.</s>SERFATY: As for anyone who wants to live and work here...</s>TRUMP: To choose immigrants based on merit. Merit, skill, and proficiency.</s>SERFATY: Trump says they will be up against extreme vetting.</s>TRUMP: We are going to suspend the issuance of visas to any place where adequate screening cannot occur. Another reform involves new screening tests for all applicants that include an ideological certification to make sure that those we are admitting to our country share our values and love our people.</s>SERFATY: Trump also renewing his commitment to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.</s>TRUMP: And Mexico will pay for the wall. Hundred percent. They don't know it yet, but they're going to pay for the wall.</s>SERFATY: Hours earlier, a more measured and softer tone on display as Trump met with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.</s>TRUMP: We did discuss the wall. We didn't discuss payment of the wall.</s>SERFATY: But after Trump left the country, President Pena Nieto disputes that, tweeting, quote, "From the start of the conversation, I made it clear: Mexico will not pay for that wall."</s>ANDERSON: Well, there is another sign that their remarks in public may not tell the true story of what happened behind closed doors. After Trump left, President Pena Nieto branded his policies a threat to Mexico and said he is prepared to confront that threat. John Vause, my colleague s in Mexico City for you with more.</s>JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: For many here in Mexico City, Donald Trump's fiery speech on immigration in Phoenix, Arizona is simply proof of what they suspected all along, that his diplomatic outreach here to the Mexican president was nothing more than a PR stunt all designed to polish his image, to make him look like a statesman, maybe to reassure some voters in the United States that a president Donald Trump could handle the international spotlight. For his part, the Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, well, he did a late night television interview here saying some of Donald Trump's policies were a threat to this country and that he would not sit by and let that happen. And that story is getting a lot of play today. This is one of the headlines in one of the morning newspapers. It reads, I will build the wall, says Trump. He is a threat, says Pena. There's also another morning newspaper here Pena tells Trump we deserve respect, Mexicans are aggrieved" reads the big bold print there. So, just consider this, it was only 24 hours ago when the two men stood at those lecterns in the same room at the presidential palace talking about friendship and respect. It didn't take long for the tone to dramatically shift. John Vause, CNN, Mexico City.</s>NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it is an extraordinary scene three particular ways. Firstly, we now have the Turkish military moving to clear 90 kilometers, they say, of the border, which ISIS has been using heavily in the past years to bring in new recruits and material. Secondly, they're using Syrian rebels on the ground as much as their ground force who will, it seems, if they haven't already, come into contact with America's key ally in the fight against</s>ISIS: Syrian Kurds, a group that Turkey considers terrorists. And finally, and perhaps most strikingly, it now means that there is a path to northern Syria, a continually growing, that it has a Turkish-backed Syrian moderate Sunni Arab rebel force controlling it, something Washington has sought to have happened for a number of years, and now appears to be occurring despite its enormous complications.</s>WALSH (voice-over): We're headed inside yet another new chapter in Syria's endless war. Turkish officials want us to see the Syrian-rebel control of the Syrian border town of Jarabulus, but their military-enabled. They kicked ISIS out of here a week ago and we are the first western TV they let in. ISIS had enough time here to remodel the town in their image, get into the minds of children, some of whom they try to recruit as soldiers. "My neighbor blew himself up in a car," says this boy. Tamza (ph) says he's 13 and carries water for the rebels. He says some of his friends became suicide bombers for ISIS. "They tortured and beat people, everything here. It was just down there," he says. He shows us the square where ISIS gruesomely filmed their murders. (on-camera): It's a strange game for these children to play with newcomers. They're showing us exactly where it was that ISIS would display the heads of those they decapitated in punishment. But yet again another Central Square in yet another town cleansed of ISIS' dark world. Yet there is another key building here, the recruitment center where they found a torn-up ledger of names in the basement jail. They are showing us further inside this building, which is the first point people who crossed in from Turkey to join ISIS would have sought to register with the group. (voice-over): No longer here can ISIS welcome outsiders of their twisted world. But other problems have risen as this men's fight isn't simply against ISIS, but is also against America's allies against ISIS, the Syrian Kurds that Turkey considers terrorists.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We don't want to find all the Kurds, just the Syrian-Kurdish PKK. Just those who want to break up Syria.</s>WALSH: There is optimism here. Early signs of a new project Turkey has undertaken to flood this area with moderate, sympathetic rebels who will then tackle the Kurds but also create a safe zone free of ISIS. Only the second half of that is what Washington has wanted. (on camera): To some degree, this is what American policy has yearned for for years. Moderate Sunni-Arab rebels here have been cleaning the town out of ISIS extremist, now controlling what many have thought a kind of buffer zone for Syrians fleeing the regime. Smiles, calm, busy streets. We have seen them before in Syria's intractable war and watch them turn sour again.</s>WALSH: Becky, it really is symptomatic of how complex and challenged U.S. policy has been in Syria they get what they have been asking for to some degree, the beginnings of it at least: an area held by moderate Sunni Syrian Arabs and backed by Turkey and NATO. But that comes with a huge complication of those people fighting their main allies on the ground against ISIS. are also fighting against their main ally in their fight against ISIS. No such thing as good news here in whole, Becky.</s>ANDERSON: Nick, what's next in all of this?</s>WALSH: We are seeing state media reports suggesting Turkish tanks are building up along the border. Not quite clear why that is happening, but the Syrian rebels in that town we spoke to said their objectives now are twofold. Firstly, off to the west, towards the town of al-Babb (ph), that is the last ISIS stronghold really in that particular area and it's also where their spokesman, main public voice Abu Mohammed al-Adnani was killed it seems by a Pentagon air strike in the last 72 hours or so. And the second objective takes them off to the east towards the Syrian Kurdish now still held of Manbij which they cleaned ISIS out of with some American help, but it still it seems in their control, despite Washington asking those Syrian Kurds to move back east across the Euphrates River. Two potential prongs here needing some cleaning up. Two prongs here. Turkey very clear I think from the message they are trying to send us by showing that town that they're seeing a positive success so far. The question really is what happens when they run up against the Syrian Kurds. What does that do for American policy here and most importantly the fight against ISIS, Becky?</s>ANDERSON: Nick Paton Walsh is on the border. Nick, thank you. Still to come at this hour, a bit more reaction for you to Donald Trump's immigration speech and his visit yesterday to Mexico. A studio discussion for you up next. Plus, from French beaches to Indian streets, politicians seem all too eager to tell women what we think we should be wearing. But what right do they have to do that? I'm going to discuss that up next.