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CNN NEWSROOM

FBI not Recommending Charges vs. Clinton; Obama Campaigns with Clinton; Wave of Deadly Terror Attacks Mars Ramadan; Iraq's Political Future Uncertain after Bombing; Brazil Plagued by Problems Ahead of Olympic Games; Muslim Judge on Religion and the Law; UK PM Race Down to Three Candidates; Report into UK's Role in Iraq War to be Published. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired July 6, 2016 - 00:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:00:13] JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. Ahead this hour --

ISHA SESAY, CNN ANCHOR: Careless but not criminal -- the FBI not recommending charges against Hillary Clinton over her e-mail scandal.

VAUSE: And that is proof, says Donald Trump, the system is rigged. The Republican presumptive nominee even suggests the attorney general may have been bribed.

SESAY: Iraq's interior minister takes the blame for the weekend terror attack, but it is the prime minister who may now be facing renewed pressure to step down.

VAUSE: Hello, everybody. Great to have you with us. Like to welcome our viewers all around the world. Yes, we are back.

I'm John Vause.

SESAY: And I'm Isha Sesay. NEWSROOM L.A. starts right now.

The director of the FBI says he will not recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for using private e-mail servers while she was secretary of state.

VAUSE: But James Comey says Clinton and her aides were extremely careless with classified information.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: There is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information. 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SESAY: The FBI director says the point of the investigation was to determine whether Clinton or her aides had intentionally mishandled classified information.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COMEY: Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Hours after the FBI's announcement, President Barack Obama joined Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail for the first time.

SESAY: Our Senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny has all the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: It was a day Hillary Clinton had long been waiting for, arriving on Air Force one with President Obama, who she's counting on to fire up his old coalition for her. But their appearance today in North Carolina overshadowed by the FBI's decision to recommend no criminal charges for handling classified information as secretary of state.

The FBI announcement lifted one cloud hanging over her yet it hardly cleared the air. More than ever Clinton must now convince voters she has good judgment and can be trusted in the Oval Office. And she's turning to the President for help.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have had a front row seat to her judgment and her toughness and her commitment to diplomacy.

ZELENY: She's relying on his rising approval rating to help her own standing and defeat Donald Trump.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: After all, he knows a thing or two about winning elections. Take it from me.

ZELENY: Their debut on the campaign trail came in battleground North Carolina, a blue state in 2008 where Obama narrowly won, and a red state four years later where he barely lost. The Clinton campaign is fighting hard to turn it blue once again.

CLINTON: We're going to fight for every vote in this state. And with your help we're going to win it.

Obama and Clinton's relationship has come full circle. From rivals --

CLINTON: Shame on you, Barack Obama.

ZELENY: -- to allies.

OBAMA: Hillary. Hillary.

ZELENY: And now they need each other. Her election will help his legacy live on.

OBAMA: I couldn't be prouder of the things we've done together, but I'm ready to pass the baton. And I know that Hillary Clinton is going to take it.

There has never been any man or woman more qualified for this office than Hillary Clinton ever. And that's the truth.

ZELENY: Few sitting presidents are popular enough to be invited to the campaign trail. Ronald Reagan is the last.

RONALD REAGAN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Win one last one for the Gipper.

ZELENY: Obama plans to campaign far more aggressively. For him taking down Trump is personal.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Barack Obama should end this, and he should provide the public with a birth certificate.

OBAMA: Yes, in fact I was born in Hawaii August 4th, 1961.

ZELENY: Today in Charlotte Clinton raised that controversy to rally Democrats and remind them of the stakes.

CLINTON: Someone who has never forgotten where he came from. And Donald, if you're out there tweeting, it's Hawaii.

ZELENY: The President took his turn belittling Trump too.

[00:05:03] OBAMA: Everybody can tweet. But nobody actually knows what it takes to do the job until you sat behind the desk.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZELENY: It was the largest campaign rally yet for Hillary Clinton. But one thing hung over the rally more than anything else. That was the FBI recommendation not to press criminal charges, of course. This is going to be playing out in the political arena. That's why President Obama was trying to validate Secretary Clinton's judgment and experience.

Jeff Zeleny -- CNN charlotte, North Carolina.

VAUSE: Donald Trump blasted the FBI's decision on Clinton's e-mails, calling it a tragedy. At a rally in North Carolina a few hours ago the presumptive Republican nominee also praised Saddam Hussein for killing terrorists and said Iraq was like Harvard for terrorism.

SESAY: Joined by Tennessee Senator and potential running mate Bob Corker Trump, though, spent most of his time going after his opponent, who he calls Crooked Hillary.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: But I have to say something -- what's going on very big and big league is what you witnessed today and over the last week. From Bill Clinton going to the plane, just happened to be there, just happened to be there. I wonder how long he waited. But for Bill Clinton to go to the plane and then to have what happened today where essentially I thought, everybody thought based on what was being said, she was guilty. She was guilty. And it turned out that we're not going to press charges. It's really amazing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Joining us now in Los Angeles Democratic strategist Matthew Littman and conservative analyst and talk show host Larry Elder.

Ok. This report by the FBI, it's like the samples you get at Costco. There's plenty to go around, enough there for everybody. And as expected, Trump focused on the "extremely careless" part of the FBI report. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We now know that she lied to the country when she said she did not send classified information on her server. She lied. She sent vast amounts of classified information including information classified as top secret.

Like a criminal with a guilty conscience Clinton had her lawyers delete, destroy, and wipe away forever -- except I still say there are geniuses that can find them -- 30,000, think of this, 30,000 e-mails. This again disqualifies her from service.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Ok. Matt, this was not the get out of jail card free for Hillary Clinton, was it? I mean there's still the issue of trust and judgment. Or do you think people just focus on the headline, you know, no charges by the FBI?

MATTHEW LITTMAN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: First of all, could I just take a deep breath? Is this sort of behind us a little bit? I mean Paul Ryan is saying they won't waste their money and hold hearings again. But in a way, in a lot of ways yes, we were able to move on from it.

Will people forget it? No. I think the people who think there's more there will keep this at the top of their mind. But I think that for most of the people, for the more than 50 percent of the country that seems to support Hillary Clinton right now, this is already -- this is going to go behind them and now we're going to concentrate on the craziness of Donald Trump.

SESAY: So Larry, let me ask you this. He's exhaling but did you feel like Christmas was going to come early and you have all these gifts to unwrap for the next four months? There's a lot there for the GOP to take advantage of. LARRY ELDER, RADIO HOST: There is. I think the sword of Damocles has

been removed from her head. The dark cloud is still there. I will tell you, when I was listening to Comey rattle off all the things that Hillary had done I said to myself my God, I haven't seen this much evidence of guilt without a conviction since the O.J. Simpson case. And then he threw us a curve.

Donald Trump is right to focus on what he said about extreme careless because the statute requires proof of gross negligence. If someone could explain to me the difference between extreme careless and gross negligence I'd like to know what that is.

SESAY: Matt, would you like to try?

LITTMAN: Well listen. You know, one of the things is did Hillary purposely send confidential e-mails she wasn't supposed to send?

ELDER: Not relevant.

LITTMAN: It is relevant.

ELDER: Not for the statute.

LITTMAN: That would be against the law. And that's not what she did -- right? This has been going on for a long time. A lot of people knew that this was much ado over something that wasn't that major compared to everything that --

ELDER: Wow.

LITTMAN: Yes, wow. Compared to everything that goes on on the Donald Trump campaign with the new -- the latest is the anti-Semitic stuff on a daily basis. This is nothing.

VAUSE: Very quickly Trump has also -- sorry, Larry. Trump also made this incredible statement that the attorney general may have been bribed, paid off by Hillary Clinton. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: She said today that we may consider the attorney general to go forward. That's like a bribe, isn't it? Isn't it sort of a bribe? I think it's a bribe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Larry, even by Trump standards does that go too far?

[00:10:06] ELDER: I don't think it goes too far. What he was suggesting is Hillary implied that maybe if you rule it our way you can stay on as head of the FBI.

But again, we're talking about the wrong thing. What Matt just now did is change the statute. The statute does not require purposefulness. It doesn't require intent. It simply has to require carelessness. And for her to have a private server in the basement of her home, sending classified information that was stamped at the time even though she denied it, that was classified at the time even though she denied it, is putting the country at risk.

LITTMAN: So compared to what goes on on the Trump campaign, including ideas like let's say nuclear arming Saudi Arabia or saying that ISIS should fight in Syria for control of Syria and we should leave them alone. Where does this compare to that?

ELDER: Well, when the FBI head says that the likelihood is that her server was hacked, if her server was not hacked the server of the people to whom she sent classified information certainly was --

LITTMAN: So you think this is --

ELDER: -- secrets, methods, individuals, agents could have been exposed. Why is it amusing to you?

LITTMAN: You think that that's bigger than Donald Trump's regular foreign policy?

ELDER: It's not a matter --

LITTMAN: Not allowing Muslims in the United States --

ELDER: -- it's not a matter of which one is bigger, which one is smaller. It's a matter of whether this violates the law.

LITTMAN: No, actually -- it is a matter of. Because the two people running against each other for president, Donald Trump campaigns on anti-Semitism. He campaigns on racism --

ELDER: Oh, for crying out loud.

LITTMAN: He campaigns on saying that Mexicans shouldn't be judges -- right. These are the things that Donald Trump campaigns on. He talks about sexism as a regular part of his campaign. Does that not bother you?

SESAY: To that point of what Matt is raising, this anti-Semitic claim, this charge against Donald Trump, I mean you guys -- the Trump campaign wants to focus on what happened with Hillary Clinton today and the Comey statements but that is a charge that you will have to respond to.

ELDER: Ok. Then if you want to go down that road let's go down that road. Hillary Clinton said --

LITTMAN: Are you going to answer that question?

ELDER: I'm answering it this way. Hillary Clinton said about her husband's failed campaign manager back in the 80s when he ran her campaign for congress and he lost, an f-ing Jew bastard. His name was Paul Frye. His wife was there and a campaign aide heard it through the door. There were three people that witnessed it.

Hillary denied it. Her husband denied it and we know that they have a reputation for veracity. You want to play that game about anti- Semitism?

LITTMAN: It's not a game.

ELDER: I mentioned it to Dick Morris when I had him on my show just a few days ago.

LITTMAN: Morris is a very credible public figure.

ELDER: Good. And he said --

LITTMAN: I'm kidding.

ELDER: -- and he said when I was working for the Clintons I wanted more money. And Hillary said that's all you people care for. And he said I'm assuming you people meaning campaign aides, not Jews.

LITTMAN: So you didn't answer the Donald Trump thing --

ELDER: You want to play that game --

LITTMAN: It's not a game. The idea that Donald Trump is speaking to racist anti-Semites, to this white nationalist movement is obviously -- he's doing it. We all know that he's doing it. Like when he says he hasn't heard of David Duke and that's --

ELDER: He's retweeting these --

LITTMAN: You're not answering. I understand.

ELDER: Harry Reid's not running for --

LITTMAN: Referred to Obama as the light-skinned --

ELDER: Donald Trump -- is Harry Reid running for president?

SESAY: Next hour -- we'll call time for this.

ELDER: Looking forward to President Harry Reid.

VAUSE: We'll get back --

ELDER: And Joe Biden said he was clean and articulate like we haven't seen him before. We can play that game.

SESAY: Larry Elder, Matt Littman -- as always, good to have you here. We will take round two in the next hour.

VAUSE: Next hour. Separate corners. Ding. Thanks -- guys.

SESAY: All right. Now, moving on. U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan says Republicans will hold hearings on the Clinton e-mail probe and will call FBI director James Comey to testify.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), HOUSE SPEAKER: It seemed to me as he was going through his case that he was going to recommend prosecution. Only then he recommended against prosecution.

People have been convicted for far less. And the point is yes, this certainly does underscore the belief that the Clintons live above the law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Ryan also says Secretary Clinton should be punished by having her access to classified information blocked.

Iraq's interior minister is stepping down just days after the deadliest single terror attack since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. 250 people were killed when a suicide truck bomb blew up in a crowded Baghdad shopping area on Saturday.

SESAY: People had gathered to celebrate Ramadan. But as Becky Anderson reports, ISIS made sure this year the holy month was anything but peaceful.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A month of calamity for non- believers. That is what ISIS wanted Ramadan to be. Just days before the start of the holy month of Ramadan a chilling warning and then -- terror struck across the Muslim world.

The first major attack, Jordan. A suicide car bombing killed at least six local security officers.

Just a week later, terrorists stormed Turkey's main airport, killing dozens. The agony raw -- everything pointing to ISIS.

Thousands of kilometers away, more grief. Gunmen killed 22 in the Bangladeshi capital.

[00:14:59] But the deadliest of all, Baghdad -- a deadly blaze from a massive suicide bomb. More than 200 were massacred in a busy shopping area -- men, women, children preparing for Eid.

Even one of Islam's holiest sites wasn't spared. Four killed in Medina in Saudi Arabia. Each a scene of bloody carnage on the global stage in what was one of the most deadly Ramadans in living memory. And the majority of those killed were Muslims themselves.

What is meant to be a month of peace and reflection turns into anger and grief across continents and the Muslim world. A suicide bomber targets a police station in Indonesia. Malaysia says it's witnessed its first ISIS attack. And with Lebanon and Kuwait both reporting foiled major terror plots it could have been a whole lot worse.

Becky Anderson -- CNN, Abu Dhabi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Less than two weeks ago the Iraqis were celebrating a significant win over ISIS by retaking the city of Fallujah. It was seen almost as a turning point for a government which was under pressure to unite the country and bring some kind of stability.

But when the Iraqi prime minister went to the site of the bombing over the weekend, he was greeted by an angry crowd. Many booed. Others chanted to get out.

Once again, Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi is expected to face renewed calls for him to go.

Michael Pregent is a former intelligence adviser to U.S. Gen. David Petraeus who was commander of coalition forces in Iraq. Michael joins us now from Washington.

Michael -- so far protests have been muted to say the least. But that's I guess because many Iraqis are still in shock after this bombing. How long, though, could it be before there's a return to maybe the street demonstrations which we saw just a few months ago?

MICHAEL PREGENT, FORMER INTELLIGENCE ADVISER TO GEN. PETRAEUS: Well, there are actually planned demonstrations that are supposed to take place at the end of Ramadan to protest exactly what happened in Karrada, protest Prime Minister Abadi's inability to protect the people and also to provide services.

Remember, 90 days ago there were car bombs in Baghdad that prompted putting Fallujah ahead of Mosul as a way of stopping ISIS capability in Baghdad. So any political capital that Prime Minister Abadi gained after the Fallujah operation was lost this weekend when he was run out of town, run out of that area in Karrada where the bombing took place.

VAUSE: And waiting in the wings politically it seems Nuri al Maliki, the former Shiite prime minister who many blame for the alienation and the anger felt by the Sunni minority.

PREGENT: Yes, I mean one of the conditions for U.S. air strikes in Iraq was that Prime Minister Maliki had to go. Prime Minister Abadi simply inherited Maliki's security and intelligence apparatus and is left with the sectarian military that Maliki actually built.

And there were reports today that Maliki's people were actually paying off journalists in Baghdad to paint Maliki in a positive light and criticize Abadi. So Maliki's definitely waiting in the wings to do something.

VAUSE: Yes. The Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said today there would be no change in the U.S. strategy when it comes to dealing with ISIS. This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER COOK, PENTAGON SPOKESMAN: This was clearly a devastating attack and a painful reminder of the lethal capabilities of ISIL. But it does not alter the strategy here and that is to go after ISIL in Iraq, in Syria at an accelerated pace as aggressively as possible to try and limit their capabilities, their ability to carry out those kinds of attacks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: So Michael, do you think there should be some kind of rethink by the U.S. here?

PREGENT: Well, there needs to be. I mean if you look at Ramadi and Fallujah, both cities were rubbled, were punished. The populations were punished to rid them of 600 to 1,000 ISIS fighters. This isn't a strategy that will permanently hold these two cities.

Both Fallujah and Ramadi still have remnants of ISIS in them, and these victories are hollow unless there is true reconciliation with the Sunni population and true outreach by this Baghdad government, a government that Prime Minister Abadi's not really in charge of. He's a compromised, weak candidate beholden to the Shia political parties and a good thing is Iraqis are getting tired of it. So hopefully, there will be some change.

VAUSE: Ok. Michael -- good to speak with you. Michael Pregent there joining us from Washington. Thank you.

PREGENT: Thanks for having me -- John.

SESAY: Time for a quick break now.

And violence in Brazil is growing. Why Rio's police say they won't be able to protect tourists.

VAUSE: Also, with just under a month to go, are the Olympic venues ready? We'll find out.

You're watching CNN.

[00:20:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SESAY: Hello, everyone.

The Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro begin in less than a month. And police say they won't be able to protect tourists.

VAUSE: There's also increased tension between residents and police. And you hear screams in this video. Apparently, the images show police with a teenager who they shot outside a favela. He died on the way to hospital.

Earlier this week Rio's mayor told CNN the state is failing at policing and taking care of people. Meanwhile, officers are not being paid and telling tourists not to come. They held up banners at the airport reading welcome to hell and visitors will not be safe.

David Wallechinsky the President of the International Society of Olympic Historians. He joins me now, live from the south of France via Skype. David -- always good to speak to you.

I mean listen, the issues confronting the Brazilian authorities seem to be multiplying. And now front and center these concerns about violence. I've got to ask you about, you know, your concerns for the safety of visitors and athletes during these games.

DAVID WALLECHINSKY, INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF OLYMPIC HISTORIANS: You mean visitors like me since I'll be going.

SESAY: Yes indeed.

WALLECHINSKY: I'm concerned. Yes, definitely. I mean people warned me before the world cup, which was two years ago, that there would be crime problems and for me personally there weren't.

[00:25:02] But this seems to be much more severe because the economy's taken such a downturn the last couple of years that it just seems to me worst that crime is going up. So I'm concerned.

I'm also concerned about the infrastructure, about the completion of projects and the quality of the venues and the transportation projects.

SESAY: Yes. There's a piece in the "New York Times" a couple days ago where a journalist details her visits to the Olympic venues saying most are incomplete. It's befuddling, for want of a better word, because we'd heard from the local Olympic committee in April saying everything was great, everything was on track and, you know, they were good to go. And then this. I mean it really does raise questions about the handling of this entire enterprise.

WALLECHINSKY: It is disturbing. Keep in mind that when a city or a country is awarded the Olympics you have seven years to get ready. That's plenty of time normally. And yet because of the corruption in the government there, the economy, and the downturn in the Brazilian economy they just don't seem to have gotten it done.

For example, one thing that worried me was a couple of months ago there was a bike path that collapsed killing two people and the bike path was destroyed because it was hit by a wave. You would think that anticipating a wave would be something that wouldn't be that hard to figure out.

SESAY: Yes.

WALLECHINSKY: I think that happened because they didn't -- they tried to meet an unrealistic deadline. They waited too long. And what I worry is that there's other construction projects like that just waiting for us to get down them.

SESAY: David, we've got these concerns about infrastructure, concerns about security and fears of violence. Throw in fears of a Zika outbreak, the discovery of a super bug in Rio's waters, local apathy, economic meltdown, political turmoil. I mean what do these games have going for them?

WALLECHINSKY: Well, the one thing that they really have going -- well, there's two things they have going for them. One is the Brazilian people in general, who are great hosts --

SESAY: But they don't seem particularly excited. I mean the ticket sales domestically have been poor.

WALLECHINSKY: Yes, that's true because the tickets are too expensive. But they do enjoy sports.

And the other thing they have going for them which people seem to forget is the 10,000 athletes who will be going down there, most of whom are not wealthy athletes, and have been waiting four years for their great moment to shine.

And also, I think you have to keep in mind that the way most people will -- and this is a little cynical, I hope you'll excuse me -- but the way most people will perceive the Olympics will be the way they see it on TV no matter what country they're in. And so each network that's carrying the Olympics by country will decide what we see. So if there's demonstrations, if bad things happen, you may not see them.

SESAY: Well, David Wallechinsky, we shall see if you're right. Less than 50 days to go.

Always a pleasure having you on, whether you're being cynical or not. You're always welcome. Thank you.

WALLECHINSKY: Ok. Thank you.

VAUSE: David's not a cynic.

SESAY: Not by your standards.

VAUSE: A short break. More Donald Trump scandals, still facing a lot of criticism -- when we come back. This time for a tweet which many say was anti-Semitic. We'll tell you how his campaign is responding.

SESAY: Plus we hear from one man who says he recognizes bigotry all too well as one of the only Muslim judges here in the United States.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:31:02] VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause.

SESAY: And I'm Isha Sesay. The headlines this hour.

The death toll in the suicide truck bombing in Baghdad has risen to 250. 200 others are wounded. Iraq's interior minister resigned Tuesday. There's growing anger that terror attacks have continued despite government assurances it would end when ISIS was forced from Fallujah.

VAUSE: The FBI recommends no criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of private email servers while secretary of state. But the bureau's director called Clinton and her aide extremely careless with classified information. His announcement comes just weeks before the Democratic National Convention.

SESAY: Data from the cockpit voice recorder on EgyptAir Flight 804 shows there was a fire on the plane before it went down and an attempt to put it out. Investigators are trying to figure out what caused the fire. The plane crashed in the Mediterranean Sea in May killing 66 people.

VAUSE: Paralympian Oscar Pistorius will be sentenced in the coming hours for the 2013 murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. The murder carries a minimum 15 years sentence in South Africa, but the defense says Pistorius should serve less time because of his physical disability and mental stress.

Donald Trump's campaign is in damage control over a tweet which many considered anti-Semitic. It showed "Hillary Clinton, a six-pointed star, piles of cash and the words "most corrupt candidate ever."

The graphic also appeared on a white supremacist message board days earlier.

SESAY: Trump's camp altered the tweet replacing the star with a circle and a social media director took responsibility saying it was a sheriff's star, not the Star of David and that it came from an anti- Clinton Twitter feed, not a racist Web site. The Republican house speaker hopes to put this issue to rest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL RYAN, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Look, anti-Semitic images, they've got no place in the presidential campaign. Candidates should know that. The tweet has been deleted. I don't know who put this up there. They've obviously got to fix that. We've got to get back to the issues that matter to the public.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Donald Trump, though, is not apologizing. He blames the dishonest media for the controversy.

SESAY: It is not the first time Trump has been criticized for his comments on race and religion. In particular, a judge overseeing a federal lawsuit against Trump University, an American born in Indiana, who Trump called out for his Mexican heritage, saying it could be a conflict of interest.

VAUSE: Now here in California, the state's only Muslim judge is not legally permitted to discuss politics, but as Kyung Lah reports, he says his religious beliefs do not affect how he applies the law.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John and Isha, the Trump campaign is still dealing with the fallout from that tweet, but critics say that this is part of a pattern for the presidential candidate regarding race and religion, especially when it comes to the Muslim faith.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning, please rise.

LAH (voice-over): Donald Trump welcome to exhibit A. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you understand those rights?

LAH: Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Halim Dhanidina, California's first and only Muslim judge. One of the only Muslim judges in the U.S., a fact he's reminded of all the time, especially this election year.

JUDGE HALIM DHANIDINA, LOS ANGELES COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT: I feel like there's a lot of misinformation and a lot of misunderstanding. But ignorance is a choice in the end.

LAH: As a judge, Dhanidina cannot talk about politics, including Trump. But he certainly can talk about what he views as bigotry.

DHANIDINA: You have a right to have a trial by court or jury.

LAH: Today in his courtroom, people from all walks of life leaning on the law. The judge doesn't rely on religion, unlike what Trump implied in this interview about Muslim judges.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If it were a Muslim judge, would you also feel like they wouldn't be able to treat you fairly because of that policy of yours?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's possibly yes. Yes, that would be possible. Absolutely.

LAH: Even though Trump has walked back from his one central campaign issue --

TRUMP: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.

LAH: His comments on the campaign continue to show a person's religion should define policy, responding to a rally attendee questioning Muslim TSA workers.

[00:35:00] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get rid of all these heeby-jobbies you say wear at TSA. I've seen them myself. We need the veterans back in there to ticket.

TRUMP: You know, and we are looking at that. And we are looking at that.

LAH: The Chicago-born UCLA-educated Dhanidina married to a Roman Catholic, father of two has heard all this before, living in a post- 9/11 America.

His appointment to the bench in 2012 by California's governor reminded him of that. Hate mail arrived in the governor's office. Right-wing and anti-Muslim social media called him the Jihadist judge and Sharia judge.

DHANIDINA: When it crosses the line into, you know, that type of bigotry, people judging me negatively, without ever actually seeing what I do in court, it's hurtful. LAH: The judge hopes to change the narrative by serving as an example.

DHANIDINA: I've devoted my whole life to public service and to the justice system, and it's very meaningful to me. So the idea that I would somehow be against my own country, my country of birth, because of my religious beliefs, I think is -- it is hurtful.

If we have a legal system that most people believe is corrupt, then the whole thing falls apart. It's a house of cards.

LAH: Dhanidina looks forward to a day when he doesn't feel compelled to do these types of interviews. When people see him first, not as a Muslim, but a judge.

DHANIDINA: The reason why all judges wear the same black robe is that it shouldn't matter whose courtroom you're in.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAH: Judge Dhanidina says he has received no threats in the wake of the Trump comments. He has received, though, a phone call from a fellow judge offering support.

John?

Isha?

VAUSE: Kyung Lah, thank you so much for that.

SESAY: Indeed.

Now a quick break. Britain's conservative party is one step closer to replacing outgoing Prime Minister David Cameron.

Next, who's still up for consideration following a critical vote on Tuesday.

VAUSE: I'd say those three.

Also ahead, a long-awaited report into Britain's involvement in the Iraq war expected to be released within hours. What it could mean for Britain's already troubled politics.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: We get to keep the music for a little longer because of the fallout of UK. It's like "Pirates of the Caribbean."

This is the fallout from the UK's vote to quit the European Union. The race to replace outgoing British Prime Minister David Cameron down to five candidates, down from five candidates to now three.

Home Secretary Theresa May, we've seen here on the left, won the support of most conservative members of parliament on Tuesday. She's now likely to be one of two candidates the Tories will put forward for a final vote by party members in September.

Andrea Leadsom and Michael Gove are also advancing to the next round of voting.

[00:40:00] Meantime, Liam Fox here on the right finished last on Tuesday, and was eliminated and Stephen Crabb pulled out of the race. He's now supporting Theresa May.

VAUSE: Brexit continues to be a divisive topic among European leaders.

SESAY: During an EU parliament meeting Tuesday, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker accused Brexit leaders of failing to plan for a victory.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

I could understand that the Remain camp needs weeks to reflect. But I don't understand that the Brexit camp needs months before knowing what to do. I would have thought that they would have had a plan. Instead of developing a plan, they are leaving the boat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SESAY: Meantime, the EU says a reform plan in the wake of Brexit is in the works and will be unveiled in the coming months.

Well, another political bombshell may fall on Britain just hours from now when an official report will be made public into the UK's involvement in the Iraq War. The inquiry was commissioned seven years ago.

VAUSE: The report is expected to examine the role of then British Prime Minister Tony Blair who led the country into the conflict.

Here's Phil Black.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In September 2005, Major Matthew Bacon was killed in action by a roadside bomb in southern Iraq.

(on-camera): We're still waiting.

ROGER BACON, FATHER OF FALLEN SOLDIER: But we're still waiting. And it hurts. It really does.

BLACK: He's waiting for answers, information, a conclusion that will explain why his son went to war and why he didn't come home.

BACON: It's when you don't know and when you're just left there hanging. But it becomes really, really difficult. So, Sir John's got to get on with it.

BLACK: He's talking about Sir John Chilcot. SIR JOHN CHILCOT, BRITISH PRIVY COUNSELLOR AND FORMER CIVIL SERVANT: This committee will not shy away from making criticisms.

BLACK: The man in charge of Britain's independent inquiry into the Iraq war.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody get back in the wagon now.

BLACK: Chilcot has a huge job, examining every aspect of Britain's involvement in the conflict. The political decisions, intelligence, military planning and conduct. What went wrong? What lesson should be learned?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are not a court of law.

BLACK: The inquiry started back in 2009, and held regular public hearings questioning key decision makers including the former prime minister, who had championed the case for war.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have no regrets? Responsibility but not a regret for removing Saddam Hussein.

BLACK: Those hearings wrapped up in 2011. And the inquiry was expected to present its final report soon after. It was initially delayed by a debate with the public service over secret documents the inquiry wants to publish including personal notes between Tony Blair and U.S. President George Bush. That was resolved.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Facing a genuine difficulty regarding the maximization process.

BLACK: That's local bureaucratic jargon for allowing a right of reply to those who will be criticized in the final report before it's published. It's supposed to ensure fairness.

BACON: It's a running sore, and we can't get on with the rest of our lives without having this concluded and out of the way.

BLACK: The expectation on Chilcot's inquiry has always been great because the war has always been deeply unpopular here.

Phil Black, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SESAY: Well, join us later for live coverage of the release of the Chilcot Report. It starts at 10:30 this morning in London. That's 11:30 if you're in Berlin. It is only here on CNN.

And thanks for watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm Isha Sesay.

VAUSE: I'm John Vause. "World Sport" is up next. You're watching CNN.

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