New White House Communications Director Ready to Deliver President's Message; Tracking Down Emin Agalarov; Princes Remembering Their Mother, Princess Diana, Turkish President Erdogan Hopes to Ease Tensions Between Qatar and Neighbors
ROBYN KRIEL, CNN HOST: At this hour, American lawmakers wanting to make sure Donald Trump can't go easy on Russia. The American president is bringing a new face at the White House, but will it do anything for his image? We are all over that. Plus...</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I found eight people dead at the back of that trailer.</s>KRIEL: Eight dead and thirty injured, packed at the back of a trailer, parked in a Wal-Mart parking lot. We have details still ahead. Then...</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This the first time that the two of us have ever spoken about Harry's mother.</s>KRIEL: We all know them as princes, but they were -- they are two boys who lost their mother, Harry and William on their lost of Princess Diana just ahead. Hello and a warm welcome to Connect The World. I am Robyn Kriel in Atlanta sitting in for Becky Anderson on this Sunday. The new White House communications director says that he is ready to deliver what he calls President Trump very compelling message to the American people. Anthony Scaramucci, a financier with no political experience has officially joined the Trump team. Sean Spicer, the former press secretary is out. CNN's Jake Tapper spoke to Scaramucci about his new job.</s>ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: There is obviously a communications problem because there are a lot of things that we have done as it relates to executive orders, bills that have been signed, economic progress. I don't want to cite all the economic data, but the economy is super strong. Business optimism is way up. And over the next six months, we are going to have phenomenal achievements with the president. I still think we are going to have healthcare situation done. One of my closest friends is the secretary of treasury. I'm very confident on tax reform. If the president gets those two pillars done, which I predict he will over the next six months, you and I hopefully will sit down around Christmas time and will be having a different conversation about the presidency, the communication coming out of the White House, and our achievements. And so, these things, they could go up and down, Jake, as you know. The president is an experienced business person. He is a very effective politician. And I just think we need to deliver the message a little bit differently than we have been doing in the past. And my prediction is that this stuff is going to start to come to fruition quite quickly.</s>KRIEL: Also, on the White House agenda, dealing with a bill that congressional leaders have agreed to vote on that aims to further impose sanctions on Russia, to punish it for meddling in the election. The bill could land on the president's desk as soon as August. And Jake asked Scaramucci if Mr. Trump will sign it.</s>SCARAMUCCI: We got to ask President Trump that. You know, it is my second or third day on the job, but my guess is that he is going to make that decision shortly. But you know, there are a lot of questions out there, Jake. And in this is another thing that I don't like about the process. This man, our president, he has phenomenal instincts, a lot of the stuff that people are said in the mainstream media that was supposedly true, turned out that it was not true. I think it was three or four weeks ago, there were 17 intelligence agencies that were saying something. Then we realized that there are only four intelligence agencies. And I'm not saying four intelligence agencies is insignificant, I am just saying there is a lot of disinformation out there, you know. Somebody said to me yesterday, I won't tell you who, that if the Russians actually hack the situation and spilled out those of those e-mails, you would have never seen it. You would have never had any evidence of them. They are super confident in their deception skills and hacking. My point is all of the information isn't on the table yet...</s>SCARAMUCCI: Let me finish, let me finish.</s>JAKE TAPPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anthony, you are making assertions here. I don't know who this anonymous person who said that if the Russians have actually done it, we wouldn't be able to detect it...</s>SCARAMUCCI: He called me from Air Force One and he basically said to me, hey you know, this is -- maybe, they did it, maybe they didn't do it.</s>TAPPER: Hold on a second, this is exactly the issue here. We have experts, the U.S. intelligence agencies, unanimous, vote Obama appointees and prompt appointees, the director of national intelligence, the head of the national security agency, the head of the FBI, I mean, all of these intelligence experts saying Russia hacked the election. They try to interfere in the election. No votes were changed, but there was this disinformation and misinformation campaign. President Trump is contradicting it and you're siding with President Trump.</s>SCARAMUCCI: Well, I didn't say that I was siding with President Trump, he hasn't made the decision yet to sign that bill one way or the other. And so, when he makes that decision, I will 100 percent side with him because I am his communications director, and I'm his advocate on a show like this.</s>KRIEL: To get more now, joining us from Charlottesville, Virginia, is Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, and from Moscow, our Clare Sebastian who is covering Russia's reaction to all of this. Thank you both so much for your time. Let's start with this. Sean Spicer's replacement as White House press secretary, as Sarah Huckabee Sanders, she says President Trump will support the new Russian sanctions bill. Let's take a listen.</s>SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We support where the legislation is now, we will continue working with the House and Senate to put those tough sanctions in place on Russia.</s>KRIEL: Larry, I would like to ask this of you. Huckabee Sanders says that the president will sign this, which she says no decision yet, mixed messages already in the communications department?</s>LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Yes, there is nothing new about that with the White House. And of course, in the end, President Trump will make his own decision, probably on the day up. So who knows what he will do. But if he does not sign it, assuming the bill actually makes it to his desk -- if he does not sign it, he will suffer a considerable political penalty. It will once again emphasize the very peculiar relationship that this president of the United States has with our chief international foe, Russia.</s>KRIEL: Well, let us go now to Russia. Clare, what is the reaction to this news of the sanctions, and of course, that President Trump, according to Huckabee-Sanders is going to sign this bill?</s>CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Robyn, we're off the ground yesterday how they viewed this new agreement in Congress, or that new bill on Russia's sanctions. And we go to very economical response, just two words, quite negatively from Kremlin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov. But those words perhaps deliberately understated, Robyn, because Russia has never meant its words on sanctions before in the past, and in the past few years when sanctions have been introduced from the U.S. and the European Union. They call them everything from politically motivated to a violation of international law, have repeatedly that they served no other purpose other than worsen relations. And they deserve the right to retaliate. This is really happening, this new bill, at a situation, where there is already kind of heightened mood over sanctions because there is a parallel dispute going there. Russia is fighting to get the return of its diplomatic compounds in the U.S. that was seized in December in the round of sanctions imposed by the Obama administration over election meddling. Those talks are ongoing. But Russia has said that packages of measures in retaliation for that is in the works, and it would be ready to retaliate if the new bill and sanctions comes in. So quite negatively, it is understated, but I think that you can read into that, that Russia is really in no mood to take this lying down.</s>KRIEL: Let's part sanctions for a moment. And, Larry, I want to return to you and back to the exchange between Jake Tapper and Scaramucci. First of all, what do you think is Scaramucci's performance thus far in your view as very new to the job, particularly in comparison to Sean Spicer, who is no longer holding that position? And what do you think is in his language, for example, using the words intelligence agencies and insignificant in a single sentence? Give us your thoughts on this thus far.</s>SABATO: I'm tempted to say meet the new boss same as the old boss, except that Scaramucci is much more polished. He is more than eloquent than Shawn Spicer ever was. He is better at delivering the Trump message, but his main message so far at least in that Jake Tapper interview was he was extraordinary. People should watch that. His main message so far is that President Trump is the greatest thing since sliced bread and cream cheese, and he loves the president of the United States. It is ironic because he was a major critic of President Trump. And just last night, purged his tweets, many, many tweets critical of President Trump, and also taking liberal positions on gun control, Hillary Clinton, and lots of other things. So this is fascinating. He shares a lot of characteristics with President Trump that is he is very bold and aggressive, but you have to look behind every word and check every word.</s>KRIEL: What about that sentence that he used? He said intelligence agency and in the same sentence, he used the way insignificant. I realized he was talking about foreign intelligence agencies and perhaps specific incident. But what is the danger of using words like this together for someone as powerful as his job?</s>SABATO: Well, he is mistaken about that, but that is another subject. Before, he was talking about the four big ones in the United States. The point though is that Scaramucci is making the same mistake that President Trump made during the campaign and the transition, and early in his presidency. He is dicing the American intelligence agencies. The president depends on the information they are able to produce especially when they all agree about something. When the intelligence agencies are opposed to you and your president or you're in a presidential administration, you have got a giant problem. You need them just as much as they need you.</s>KRIEL: Dicing the American intelligence agencies. We do appreciate both of your time. Clare Sebastian live for us in Moscow, Larry Sabato for us in Virginia. Thank you both.</s>SABATO: Thank you.</s>KRIEL: We have tracked down one of the key figures associated with that now infamous Trump Tower meeting where Donald Trump's eldest son-in-law and the campaign chairman met with a Russian lawyer. That meeting was set up on behalf of Emin Agalarov on the left here, according to e-mails released by Donald Trump, Jr. And our Matthew Chance just caught up with them in Riga Latvia. Thank you so much for your time, Matthew. What did you find out?</s>MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We are in Riga Latvia, which is a short distance from the capital Riga. And it is where there is a festival that is underway involving mainly stars from the former Soviet Union and Emin Agalarov, who of course originally -- a big name in the music industry here in this regional of the former Soviet Union. And of course, he has come to the floor, as you were mentioning, because he was a key figure in apparently setting up a meeting between Donald Trump, Jr., Donald Trump's son that is, and a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya. She said she was there to discuss the options. But there has always been a suspicion bolstered by the fact that e-mails said this, that this was a pass, a way that the Russian authorities may have been sort of reaching our to see whether the Trump campaign, as it was, in June of last year, were you know kind of prepared to possibly work with the Russians to discredit that political position at that time with Hillary Clinton. And officially, he is not giving any comments on this. We have spoken to his lawyer extensively in the United States and they said he is not going to comment either. And so, we decided to approach him on the street literally here to try and get a response from Emin. Take a listen.</s>CHANCE: Did you arrange that meeting Donald Trump, Jr., and the Russian lawyer?</s>EMIN AGALAROV, SINGER: Come join me for the show tonight.</s>CHANCE: Yeah. We will do that. Any comments?</s>AGALAROV: Excellent, excellent.</s>CHANCE: The American wants to know whether the Trump administration...</s>AGALAROV: Can I have a drink first?</s>AGALAROV: See me after the show. Thank you very much. Guys, thank you very much.</s>CHANCE: I'm just going to go now.</s>AGALAROV: Thanks. Enjoy.</s>CHANCE: Thank you. Did your family...</s>AGALAROV: Talk to my lawyer.</s>CHANCE: Always taunting. You said you wouldn't comment.</s>AGALAROV: So I wouldn't comment.</s>CHANCE: All right. He said he wouldn't comment, the lawyer. And of course, as you saw there, Emin Agalarov, his father, Aras Agalarov, the former business partner of Donald Trump, Sr., the president of the United States. They staged the Ms. Universe competition together in the Russian capital of Moscow. He wouldn't comment on any of these reports either.</s>KRIEL: Well, an amazing exchange there, Matthew. It appears that perhaps partying over politics is what Agalarov is interested there. But what does the Kremlin said thus far about the allegation of collusion?</s>CHANCE: Well, yeah, as you saw there, Emin Agalarov is kind of laughing off the suggestion that he was involved in any way with collusion with the Trump campaign team. The Russians themselves who of course is alleged who were behind this. And I'm not laughing at all. They didn't think it was funny. They dismissed first of all out of hand, saying it was ludicrous that there is any kind of collusion between the Kremlin or the Russian authorities and Trump campaign, as it was then. They called it like -- they would like to call it political schizophrenia. They say that basically it is a madness affecting the political environment in the United States, what the Russian issue has of course become so toxic. And it is very frustrating for the Russians because they thought that Donald Trump was going to be the president who would turn around the relationship between Moscow and Washington. Remember, when he was campaigning he promised to make things better, wouldn't it be great, he said if we can go on with Moscow. But, of course, because of the blissful situation, he has been completely unable to do that. If anything, the relationship is worse now than it was before President Trump. And in the Kremlin and in the upper echelons of power in Russia, they are immensely frustrated.</s>KRIEL: Matthew, thank you so much, live for us there. British princes, William and Harry, say that they regret the last phone call that they have with their mother, Diana, Princess of Wales. In a new documentary for ITV and HBO, the duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry reveal that they were in a rush to end the conversation, so they could go and play. Their mother died in a car crash, August 31, 1997. Diana: Our Mother, Air, Life, And Legacy celebrates her life and work 20 years after her tragic death. Here is a look at some of their happier memory.</s>PRINCE HARRY, WALES KCVO: My mother was -- everybody says to me, you know, said she was fun, give us an example. All I can hear is her laugh in my head. And that sort of crazy laugh is just pure happiness shown on her face. One of the things she said to me was you can be as naughty as you want, just don't get caught. She was one of the naughtiest parents. She would come and watch us play football and smuggle sweets into our socks. And then, when she is walking back from a football match and having lots of funny packets of starburst and just the whole shirt was bulging with sweets. And I see her looking around and at the top box, all in, lock it up.</s>PRINCE WILLIAM, DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE: There are a couple of memories I have. She organized when I came home from school to have Cindy Crawford, Christy Tellington, and Naomi Campbell. I was probably 12 or 13-year-old boy. I was red. I fumbled. I was completely sort of lost track.</s>KRIEL: Nina dos Santos is in London with more. Nina, I have to admit, as a mother, I did tear up watching that amazing exchange. I have never seen the British princes speak so candidly. Is this a sign of things to come that they are losing that upper left.</s>NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Robyn, they have been clear that these conversations are really a part of this documentary that will be airing on ITV tomorrow evening, but the main public will of course -- BBC will also air its own documentary with some very candid comments of the princes later. As obviously, the whole of the country marks the 20th anniversary since her passing in August 19, 1997. You could just hear there them talking very fondly about their late mother, saying that she was a joker, that she was fun, she encouraged them to be naughty as long as they didn't get caught. She sometimes like embarrassing them a little bit, in a pleasant way, as you could hear there with a series of supermodels that Prince William had posted on his bedroom wall, but also dressing them up in fun little outfits, she had a real sense of humor. What was also obvious in this documentary is some footage that we haven't seen before of the princess, their mother. You saw in the opening shot there of Prince William holding a picture of Diana, holding him as a two-year-old on her head. And he says, at one point, in this documentary, Harry, you were in the picture, too, because she was expecting already Prince Harry at that point. So there are some shots of life behind the walls in Kensington Palace that we have not seen before. It is very heartwarming, but there is also very poignant message that I think has grabbed everybody's eyes and ears this weekend, which is they really regret having cut short their last conversation with their mother because they wanted to go and play. And Prince Harry says in this documentary, I just wish I had spoken more to her. I don't remember what my last words were, but I just remember they were just too short.</s>KRIEL: Nina dos Santos, of course, most little boys don't want to be on the phone talking to their parents at that age. I know that Harry has spoken, Nina, about being traumatized and feeling a tremendous amount of guilt, which is what he has referred to there, traumatized by having to walk behind Diana's casket when she was buried. And he is trying to send a message, isn't he, of opening up really and talking about his psychological issues?</s>DOS SANTOS: That's right. And about two months ago, he opened up to a mental health charity. In fact, both he and Prince William, as well as the Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William's wife, Catherine Middleton, she is also part of this initiative where they tried to bring together a charity to make people more aware of mental health issues, and basically to say it is OK to say that you have mental health issues, even one of the biggest heirs to the thrown, Prince Harry has said that he admits he had counseling for a while, about 10 years, not all that long ago, to cope with the aftermath of his mother's passing, even though it had happened so many years before he buckled it all up. And in fact, it was Prince William, who urged his younger brother to seek help. So this is all part, yes, it is a slightly more open younger generation of royals who are very keen to make sure that they can embrace causes that people can relate to, that they themselves can relate to. So painfully there with the passing of their mother 20 years ago, that obviously is still fresh in their minds, fresh in the collective memories, this country prepares to remember the late Diana, Princess of Wales. But also, when you look at a documentary like this, it is also hot warming to hear from Prince William who talks about what kind of grandmother Princess Diana would have been. He says some very, very heartwarming things such as she would have been a great-grandmother. She would have loved the children, but on the other hand, she was naughty, she would have been a nightmare of a grandmother. She does come along, bath time, there would be water and bubbles everywhere and she would have left us to clear up the mess. But she always had being somebody who is fun and somebody you would remember. And that is what all of this about, this particular documentary. And the next one that will be airing soon on BBC, it is about remembering their mother and sharing their collective memories of their, but the rest of the country, and of course, the rest of the world. Robyn.</s>KRIEL: Yes, she is the kind of grandmother who feeds her grandchildren sweets right before bed. Thank you so much, Nina dos Santos. And again, Diana: Our Mother, Her Life and Legacy, celebrates Princess Diana. That is a documentary coming up. There is a whole lot more ahead of this hour. Up next, a grim discovery in a Wal-Mart parking lot, what police are calling a deadly case of human trafficking. Plus, violence between Israelis and Palestinians, world leaders weigh in. We have a live report from Jerusalem.