hello there and a big welcome to viewers joining us from the united states and a very warm welcome back to our viewers watching around the world. this is "cnn newsroom." i'm errol barnett. let's update you on our top stories right now. the european union says greece has "neglected its obligations when dealing with the flood of migrants arriving on its shores" and that greece must step up border patrols. some eu states are suggesting greece should be suspended from

europe's passport-free schengen zone. greece calls accusations non-constructive. in just a few hours iranian president hassan rouhani will meet his french counterpart francois hollande. mr. rouhani is on his first trip abroad since the nuclear deal took effect. he's attempting to re-establish iran's reputation and look for business investors. china's financial markets closed at their lowest point in more than a year on wednesdy. take a look at all the red there. the shanghai composite fell nearly 3%, while the tech-heavy shenzhen composite fell just over 4%. u.s. presidential candidate donald trump plans to hold a fund-raiser for military veterans thursday night instead of going to the fox news debate. i want to show you here an invitation for his event. the debate is just days before the critical iowa caucuses. trump is feuding with fox news and host megyn kelly, who he's

been calling biased. trump spoke with her colleague bill o'reilly, who told him skipping the debate is not good for america. watch. >> the terrorists are going to come at you. and it's going to be personal. they're going to do everything they can to diminish you and to -- and as president you have to rise above that. all right? and do what's best for the country. and this exposition that we're talking about today, people are going to say, you know, trump, he's just too self-absorbed to be president. >> there's got to be something because you set the all-time record in cable history and so did cnn and -- >> they want to know you. they want to know you. >> that's fine -- >> by walking -- you're not giving them the opportunity -- >> i'm not walking away. i was pushed away. i'm not walking away. >> there you have it. this isn't the first time trump has tangled with megyn kelly. our brooke baldwin takes a look. >> reporter: august 6th, 2015,

megyn kelly's very first question to donald trump the question that started it all. >> one of the things people love about you is you speak your mind and you don't use a politician's filter. however, that is not without its down sides. in particular, when it comes to women. you've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals. your twitter account -- >> only rosie o'donnell. >> reporter: august 7th. fueled by what trump calls unfair questions from the moderator, trump tells cnn's don lemon -- >> she gets out and she starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions. and you know, you can see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever. >> reporter: trump later said those comments were misunderstood. nevertheless, that did not sit well with women viewers, especially megyn kelly herself. >> apparently, mr. trump thought the question i asked was unfair and felt i was attacking him. i felt he was asked a tough but

fair question. mr. trump did interviews over the weekend that attacked me personally. i've decided not to respond. trump, who is the front-runner, will not apologize. and i certainly will not apologize for doing good journalism. >> reporter: after a deluge of insulting tweets against megyn kelly and fox news, trump announces a boycott of the network, tweeting on september 23rd, "fox news has been treating me very unfairly and i have therefore decided that i won't be doing any more fox shows for the foreseeable future." that boycott lasted all of six days, when he appeared on "the o'reilly factor." >> so you're back. >> reporter: october 7th. megyn kelly opens up to charlie rose about this ongoing feud. >> neither one of us wanted any sort of a war with donald trump. you know, and we didn't think that benefited the channel. we didn't think it benefited me. and we don't think it benefited donald trump. >> reporter: after another round of twitter insults against kelly trump follows up the december 15th republican debate on cnn by

again airing his fox grievances with bill o'reilly. >> honestly, i think i get better press from cnn than i do fox, bill. >> reporter: which brings us to this week. megyn kelly and donald trump were set to come face to face again in a primary debate just ahead of the iowa caucuses. but it seems there will be no burying of the hatchet, so to speak. here's what he said to wolf blitzer on cnn monday. >> but i'm not a fan of megyn kelly. i don't like her. she probably doesn't like me. and that's okay. but she better be fair. i'd like to go to the debate. i enjoy the debates. i've done well in the debates. every single poll has said i've won every debate. but we're going to see what happens. going to be exciting. >> when you say probably, you haven't 100% decided you will -- >> no. nothing's 100%. >> joining me now to talk about all of this is democratic strategist joe listingi and jeffrey lord, former reagan white house political director and donald trump supporter. he's on the right of your screen. welcome to you both.

joe, i want to begin with you. we have this spectacle now of donald trump holding his counter event to the gop debate. it is adding a sense of drama to what are usually dry events. would you at least admit that trump has once again found a way to dominate the political conversation, unlike any candidate before? >> absolutely. donald trump has taken presidential politics to a whole other level. only the don could do. and he's actually proved one adage that we always talk about in politics, which is there's no such thing as bad press. we thought that went away a long time ago with scandals after scandals. but when his poll numbers lag or they start to drop or plateau he comes out with something that gets everybody talking about him again which then he sees a corresponding bump in his poll. and that's what he needs to do. he's out there running his wind sprints to keep his numbers floating and it's working. no other candidate could do it like this, though. >> i know jeffrey would agree with you on that. but jeffrey, would you at least admit this is a huge gamble for donald trum. and could in fact diminish this image he's built up of being a

strong, successful deal maker? i mean, this kind of flies in the face of that. >> well, is it a risk that he's taking? sure. to some extent it is. but will it fly in the face of his image as being a strong, determined leader? no. absolutely not. this is exactly -- to take off on joe's point, this is exactly why so many millions of people love the guy. they look -- rush limbaugh did an excellent analysis of this today. on american radio and what he was saying in essence is that donald trump breaks all the conventional political formulas for how you run a campaign. and in the doing of that what he does is makes the other guys look all too conventional. and this is exactly the problem so many people see with washington, that they will pass a huge budget-busting bill and then say well, there's a victory or they'll say you can't discuss

the illegal immigration problem because it's not politically correct. and here is donald trump being politically incorrect. so it's a sign of strength at this point he is immutably identified with strength. so i don't think anybody is going to -- except his political opponents are going to try to make some hay out of it and say he's weak here. >> most republicans watch fox news and he picked a fight with them. that could be a bad thing for him in the fall especially when we're going out against democrats because he's got to look back at everything he's done and democrats can hold his feet to the fire with one united voice. >> but there are some issues among democrats. while senator bernie sanders enjoys a boost from his meeting with the top democrat, president obama, he is getting resistance from the most powerful democrat in the house, minority leader nancy pelosi. here she is responding to bernie's admission his policies would raise taxes to pay for his health care plan. watch? >> what bernie said was i'm going to reduce the cost of health care and it may involve

some people paying -- we're not rung on any platform of raising taxes. and he's talking about a single payer. and that's not going to happen. does anybody in this room think we're going to be discussing a single payer? >> joe, how big of an era was it for sanders to so bluntly say he's going to raise taxes? >> that's his play. that's one of the few plays he's got left. this is appealing to the far left-wing side of our party because that's what they always wanted, was a single payer system like we've seen around the globe be fairly successful. so he -- don't forget, not only did he talk about single payer health care but he's also talked about free college. these are things that the liberal base really likes it's open to the public as a whole, right? no matter what your income level is you can go to college. it opens up doors that may have never been opened before. but financially we've got to pay for it. and the reality is in this country we don't like higher taxes. >> jeffrey, how much would you use this tax-raising admission against sanders should he become the nominee? it seems to fit right into the republican playbook.

>> every day along with the ad that features the hammer and sickle. bernie sanders is a socialist. you can almost hear the terror in nancy pelosi's voice as she's trying to say no, no, no, no, really, not us, not us, please don't say that. yeah. this is great, and we want to thank him. >> democratic strategist joe lestangi joining us from d.c. and cnn political commentator jeffrey lord in harrisburg, pennsylvania. thanks to you both for speaking with us. something both sides can enjoy. >> thanks, joe. >> thanks. now to some other stories we're following for you. the fbi has arrested three more people who had been occupying a wildlife refuge in oregon. officials say they turned themselves in at a police checkpoint near the refuge. they join eight other protesters who were arrested tuesday. and all face felony charges.

the group has been protesting u.s. federal land policies which they claim are unfair. cnn's dan simon has more. >> reporter: errol, things remain very tense here as you still have some armed occupiers at that refuge and it's anyone's guess how this will come to an end. but we should point out that through his lawyer the leader of the occupation ammon bundy is now telling everyone who is still there to go home. in his words, they should go home and hug their families. obviously no, one wants to see a repeat of bloodshed after you had one of the occupiers who was killed during that traffic stop. more than three weeks after armed militia took over a federal wildlife refuge in oregon, a deadly shootout between militia members and the police. >> yesterday the fbi, with our partners, took the first steps to bring this occupation to a conclusion. >> reporter: group leader ammon bundy and seven others were arrested tuesday night after the fbi and oregon state police pulled them over on their way to

a meeting with community residents. bundy's brother ryan was shot and suffered minor wounds. but a spokesman for the armed occupiers, lavoy finnecumb, was killed. >> it's time for everybody in this illegal occupation to move on. there doesn't have to be bloodshed in our community. >> reporter: bundy's father says his son called him from the back of a police cruiser moments after the shootout. >> my son ryan had been shot in the arm. lavoy finicum, they cold-blooded killed him. he said he had his hands in the air, said he wasn't armed. he wasn't any threat. and they cold-blooded killed him. >> authorities say ryan bundy and finicum did not obey orders to surrender and shots were fired. the armed group took over the refuge on january 2nd, in part to protest the sentencing of two ranchers and to make a stand against what they called government overreach when it comes to federal lands. >> they continue to ignore us and pushed us to the point where we felt we had to make a stand

to defend our rights. >> reporter: finicum previously told reporters he was willing to give his life for the cause. >> there are things more important than your life, and freedom is one of them. >> reporter: the sheriff says he'd been trying to work with the group to find a peaceful solution but in the end he just couldn't meet their ultimatums. >> we don't arm up and rebel. we work through the appropriate channels. this can't happen anymore. this can't happen in america and it can't happen in harney county. >> reporter: well, as things remained fragile here, one particular note is that the federal complaint which was unsealed today mentions that authorities had reason to believe that the occupiers had explosives and nightvision goggles. that's the first time we've heard that. but we should point out we don't know if officials were actually able to verify the presence of explosives. errol? >> all right. thanks for that. dan reporting there from burns, oregon. now, a group of organizations is filing suit demanding flint, michigan do more water testing and replace all lead pipes.

michigan switched the city's water source to save money about two years ago. residents complained and high levels of lead were found in the supply. well, investigators want to know when michigan officials knew that this water was poisoned. governor rick snyder told cnn's poppy harlow he's released the relevant e-mails for the last two years. >> we're complying with every investigation in terms of being open. we'll follow the appropriate legal processes for subpoenas and other legal matters. with respect to releasing my e-mails, i did that. this is an extraordinary case. this is not a normal case. and the reason i did 14 and 15 is the press in particular, everybody wanted to know when did i find something out. so i released the relevant e-mails, my e-mails that address that issue for the relevant time period. >> some of them were redacted. and i'm wondering if you'll release all of them having to do with flint water back to 2011. have you made that decision yet? >> again, i released the ones that were most relevant. when you say redacted, essentially these -- there were a couple that got redacted in

terms of there were legal matters that didn't relate directly to water at all in flint. >> so just so i'm clear, it hasn't been decided yet if you'll release them back to 2011? >> no, i'm -- i'm confident we did 14 and 15, we answered the question that was asked, and now we're complying with all the lawsuits and investigations fully. >> now, filmmaker and flint native michael moore says snyder should be arrested. here he is speaking with cnn's jake tapper. >> they could have fixed this at any point in time. but once they saw they'd made the mistake, i think like a lot of politicians they figured these people are poor, they didn't vote for us, they don't have any political power, and so you know, we'll see what we can do. because his first statements when this first got revealed, he said, you know, lead is seasonal. that was one of his first lines. nobody knew what that meant. then he said you get lead from paint-u get lead from this or that or whatever. he tried to cover it up, changed the subject. again, here we are sitting still

talking about this. flint doesn't need bottled water sent to it. all right? we need those pipes replaced. and not a single pipe has been replaced since they discovered lead in the water. >> snyder says he will remain in office despite increasing calls for his resignation. now we want to discuss a virus linked to terrible birth defects because it is causing alarm. it's something we've been following for weeks now. two u.s.-based scientists believe the zika virus has explosive potential to become a pandemic, which is a widespread outbreak. and they're calling on the world health organization to meet and address this. the virus is active in at least 24 countries. currently, there is no vaccine for zika, nor is there any medicine to treat an infection from it. cnn's shasta darlington is in reseva, brazil, considered ground zero of the outbreak. >> reporter: she was so excited. but the birth of her second child left rafaela olvera more alone than she could have

imagined. at three months luis felipe has a big appetite just like her first baby, but he was born with a small head and brain damage, microcephaly. "people here react like he's got some contagious disease," she says. "people look at him when we're in the street." there was no warning. doctors only detected the disorder after luis felipe was born. "what gives me strength is the love i feel for him," she says. luis felipe will need to be cared for his entire life. so she's doing this three times a week right now, taking her son to physical therapy, and yet she goes back to work in march. it's not clear how she's going to do this. and she's the only person in her family who has a job. here in the state of pernambuco we've seen the heartache and financial burden this is putting on families. more than 4,000 cases of newborn microcephaly have been reported

in brazil since zika was detected less than a year ago. a third of them are here, where babies and moms face endless jabs and tests. dr. angela hocha one of the first to make the link between zika and microcephaly. these babies have brain damage to differing degrees, which means inserting this generation into society is going to be very complicated, she says. research continues to establish a cause and effect with the zika virus. spread by the same mosquitos that transmit yellow fever and dengue. there's no vaccine, no cure. which means the egyptian mosquito is public enemy number one. >> all the effort has been put on having -- on prevention by having the population of mosquitos under control. >> reporter: 200,000 troops now going door to door, eliminating the stagnant water that serves as the mosquitos' breeding

ground and educating families. the health ministry admits it's been losing the war against the mosquito. and mothers-to-be across brazil see their moment of hope turned into a moment of unbelievable anguish. shasta darlington, cnn, recife, brazil. now, some in italy's capital are calling font government to wake up and recognize same-sex unions. how the government is responding on the other side of this break. how do robots work? ♪ you need a team... ...working together... ♪ ...doing all kinds of jobs. and the best place to find the job that's right for you is on the world's number-one job site. indeed. how the world works.

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some italians think it's time for the government to wake up. even holding up alarm clocks at a rally supporting same-sex unions. you see, italy is the only major western european nation that hasn't legally recognized these unions. but in the coming hour parliament will begin to debate this issue. and as cnn's bobby nadeau reports, this cannot come soon enough for some couples. >> reporter: andrea rubetter and dario de gregorio are a happy family. but they want more. >> in canada we are married, and we are -- we had our children. our children were born through

surrogacy in canada legally. and we are both parents of a 3-year-old. nine hours of flight we jump into italy and we become two single fathers living together occasionally, sharing the same flat. >> reporter: same-sex couples like andrea and dario want italy to now respect their marriage. they and tens of thousands of others have taken to the streets across italy to demand equality and basic rights like tax breaks and inheritance rights. the italian parliament is now dablting a bill that would recognize those rights for same-sex couples. under pressure from the european court of human rights that deemed that italy was in breach of human rights by denying them. it's an issue highly influenced in italy by the vatican. the most contentious aspect of the law is what to do with the kids. >> they say that children have no choice. >> reporter: massimo franco is a political analyst. >> the very sensitive issue is

stepchild option. this is the problem. i can't see just a division between catholics and non-catholics. there are catholics who tend to agree and non-catholics who don't agree on this law. >> reporter: italians are divided. >> we believe that no one of whatever sexual orientation has the right to have children. on the other hand, children have rights. and the first and fundamental right is the right to have a father and a mother. >> reporter: the italian bishops and many associations that stand against this bill are organizing a family day march this weekend to make their point. they expect as big a turnout as the demonstration they held last june when tens of thousands of people participated. the parliament debate would take weeks before a vote, and even if the law passes it could eventually end in a referendum. in the meantime families like andrea and dario represent the

reality of same-sex couples in italy. divided and treated differently while trying to stay the same. barbie nadeau for cnn in rome. >> and barbie joins us live next hour. we have covered a lost ground this hour. of course it is "cnn newsroom" and i'm errol barnett. connect with me on twitter anytime. it's always good to have your company. next hour live reports from tehran, nairobi, and news as it breaks. grab some tea and stay with me. these are the hands, the hands that drive commerce, that build business across borders. these are the hands of pitney bowes, the craftsmen of commerce. these are the hands that sew the seeds of business growth, that weave the data, and find the perfect spot to thrive. these are the hands of pitney bowes, the craftsmen of commerce.

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a dire warning. u.s. scientists call for urgent action on the zika virus, saying it could become an explosive pandemic. what you need to know, coming up. also, go home. protest leader ammon bundy tells his remaining supporters to quit the armed siege of a u.s. wildlife refuge. also ahead, trapped in norway. syrian migrants share their fears of deportation to russia. a very big welcome to our viewers in the u.s. and those of you watching all around the world. i'm errol barnett. thanks for joining me as i kick off the second hour of "cnn newsroom."