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False "Inbound Missile" Alert Terrifies People In Hawaii; From Paradise To Panic: False Alarm Creates Chaos; Trump Tweets About Fake News, Not False Alarm; Students Hide In Classrooms After False Missile Alert; North And South Korea To Hold Talks Tomorrow. Aired 6-7a ET
Aired January 14, 2018 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:00:14]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The U.S. Pacific Command has detected a missile threat to Hawaii. A missile may impact on land or sea within minutes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Students at the University of Hawaii running in panic.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Put the baby in the bathroom and didn't know what else to do and the stroller in case we have to run.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What happened to the totally unacceptable?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Someone pushed the wrong button and let everybody in Hawaii that there was this incoming ballistic missile. It took the government 38 minutes to be able to issue a correction.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, do you believe you're racist? He did not answer. His silence was deafening.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any comment from this president no matter how racially inflammatory is, quote/unquote, "not racist." To the Paul Ryan wing of this party they have traded in the dignity of this country for their tax cuts.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a bad remark and I would hope the president would retract it and move on from it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: We are so grateful to have you with us. This morning, Hawaiian officials say they are determined to make sure a false alarm that sent the entire state into a panic does not happen again.
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: So, for 38 minutes, yesterday, people on the islands, they thought they were about to be hit by a ballistic missile. The chaos and confusion and fear, was all caused by someone hitting the wrong button. Now this is the alert that started it all. A text from emergency officials yesterday warning seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.
PAUL: There were students who were terrified. They just -- look at them running for cover. This was at one University of Hawaii campus. We are going to show you another video. People lowering their kids into a manhole for protection.
I mean, can you imagine as a parent having to do that? There were some residents who called their loved ones for what they thought maybe final goodbyes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was afraid. Just looking around where do we go?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have no place to shelter. If the missile comes --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: First thing I did was call all of my children. I love you today and I told them what was happening because they are not on the island, but it was very scary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL: CNN Sara Sidner is in Hawaii. She's explaining how this could have happened and what's being done to make sure that it doesn't happen again.
SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Victor and Christi, you know, that emergency alert that said that there was an incoming ballistic missile to Hawaii to seek shelter and that it was not a drill, did send out a sense of panic to folks here.
People figuring out what exactly to do and where to go. Knowing that Emergency Management has been telling people in Hawaii that there is only a 20-minute span between the time a missile would be launched from North Korea to the time it would make it here and make impact here in Hawaii.
It's a very short time for people to figure out what to do and to take shelter. We were also able to speak with one of the state representatives here who was in tears talking about the fact that he had to explain this to his children and take shelter in his house while he was also trying to get information out to his constituents.
And what a difficult, difficult thing it was to have a conversation thinking that this could be their last conversation and we are seeing that across social media as well. People talking about their last conversations they thought they were having with their family members after they got this message.
All in all, though, we have heard from Emergency Management officials and the governor himself. I spoke to them on the phone. They told me that this was human error. They apologized for it. They said it will not happen again. They are looking at exactly how it happened.
But they said what eventually happened and what they determined is that someone accidentally pressed the wrong button during a shift change. They were testing the system and they have been testing the system here in Hawaii, but never anything like this.
The test is an actual emergency siren, an attack siren that goes off and they have told the population here what it's all about, but, indeed, in this time, it wasn't the attack system that went off. It was a message to television viewers. It was a message through the radio, and a text message on the cell phone.
As emergency managers try and figure out how to make sure this never happens again, they are apologizing saying this is human error, but it did create quite a bit of emotion here in Hawaii -- Victor, Christi.
PAUL: All right. Sara, thank you so much.
[06:05:03] CNN military analyst, Lieutenant General Mark Hertling with us now. Thank you so much, General Hertling, for being here. I want to bring up, if we could please, some numbers here.
We have -- and this is from Hawaii Emergency Management. What -- the protocol was in the pre-1980s and what the current protocol is now. It's something like this would happen and you read it you've got no federal funding, no relocation plans, no designated fallout shelters, no shelter supply caches. What do these 1.4 million people do in 20 minutes to protect themselves other than as they are told to remain inside and shelter in place until given the all-clear?
LT. GENERAL MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: I'm not familiar, Christi, with the processes within Hawaii for sheltering in place. If all of those things are true, then it's not a very good situation. This particular event yesterday was horrible and I'm sure very traumatic for anyone that lived on the island.
But because it was a test that went awry and started from the wrong direction. Usually, it is not the Emergency Management Association that starts the warning. They, in fact, receive information from military sources that understand that if a missile is coming in or not.
So, it would actually begin with the notification by Northern Command that they have cited a missile being launched or heading toward Hawaii. They then process that toward Pacific Command, a military organization that is actually headquartered in Hawaii.
And then they notify the Emergency Management Association that starts the process of notification. That is not the question you're asking. You're asking what happens when all of that occurs? Truthfully, not a whole lot.
Not a lot of shelters that would prevent a massive disaster, an injury for the people who live on the island or anywhere else where a nuclear missile is headed. BLACKWELL: So, what we saw yesterday with people running to find any shelter, as Christi mentioned, and hopefully, we can get the video soon of people putting their children into storm drains, this is the way that this was supposed to have worked if it had been an actual missile headed toward Hawaii that there would have been this chaos? There is no I guess dedicated places for these people to go?
HERTLING: Well, I think that is what the after-action review is going to comment on, Victor. You know, the fact that there is a warning system is one thing. That is all very well and good.
But the second issue is what do people do when the warning sounds? I mean, having lived through this in the '60s with the so-called duck and cover drills, those are not good prevention measures, putting your head under a desk and covering yourself.
That is not going to prevent the kind of effects that a nuclear blast could give which shows how dangerous and how traumatic something like this would be if it, in fact, did occur and why we have to prevent these kinds of things.
PAUL: So, let's talk about detection here. As I understand it, there are satellites that immediately detect that infrared signal or a signature of a missile. So, they would know, U.S. would know immediately if a missile had been launched, is that correct?
HERTLING: Well, not immediately but within seconds and minutes. Yes, the satellite will detect a launch and heat signature and perhaps calculate the trajectory within minutes and that is the job of U.S. Northern Command, which is stationed inside the United States or North American Air Defense Command.
They then transfer that information to the area and the military commanders and the government officials in the area where they detect and where they calculate the missile might be headed.
In this case, that would have been Pacific Command and that was part of what caused the confusion yesterday. Neither of those organizations had started the alert system. When the alert system came out over the sirens and texting and television channels, I'm sure the military commanders on watch looked at each other and said what is going on?
They had to confirm or deny the actual event. It was denied soon, but then it wasn't the responsibility of the military to say nothing has happened. They tell the government officials what the heck are you doing? Turn this thing off. This is not a correct event.
All of that transpired within minutes and, unfortunately, it took way too long to get word to the people that it was a false alarm.
BLACKWELL: General, I understand there is little precedent for something like this, but the president was golfing at his beach resort yesterday when the alert came out, made no comment. His latest tweet, tweets about many things, about Hillary Clinton and emails. Right decision to stay silent or would you have expected something from the president?
[06:10:06] HERTLING: Well, I'm not sure how much information he had immediately. I'm sure that they told him that there was a false alert in Hawaii, but I'm not sure he understood the dynamics of all this and what it caused the people of that state and the chaos that was occurring.
It's one thing to be told, hey, there was a false alert in Hawaii. It's another thing to have the rest of the story be told and say, what are you going to do? Whether or not the president called the governor of Hawaii, who was responsible for the messaging and said what is going on, how can I help, what can I do to help you? I don't know.
I'm not in the loop on that. It may have occurred or may not have occurred, and he probably said the governor of Hawaii has to handle messaging the people there. I'm sure all of this will be assessed after-action review, which will certainly take place.
You see the governor of Hawaii within an hour or two and the head of the Emergency Management Association take responsibility for the shortcomings and I think is the most important thing for the people in the state of Hawaii.
PAUL: Yes. All right. Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, thank you.
HERTLING: Thank you.
PAUL: Just hours after people were scrambling and you saw them there trying to find some shelter, the president did tweet something out as Victor was saying.
BLACKWELL: Yes, "So much fake news is being reported. They don't even try to get it right or correct it when they are wrong. They promote the fake book of a mentally deranged author who knowingly writes false information. The mainstream media is crazed that we won the election." Now there was no mention of the false alarm and no statement for the people there in Hawaii.
PAUL: Kelly Jane Torrance, deputy managing editor of the "Weekly Standard" joining us now. Kelly Jane, to kind of jump off what General Hertling was saying there, do we know if the president called the governor of Hawaii shortly after this happened?
KELLY JANE TORRANCE, DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR, "WEEKLY STANDARD": We do not know, Christi. I find it kind of striking because you think he had done any action, wouldn't the White House be telling us that is in the general was very diplomatic, I think, in answering your questions.
My understanding is three people including General John Kelly, briefed the president on what happened. Of course, we don't know what exactly was said to him, but we think three people is telling him what is going on, they must be giving him a relatively complete picture of what was happening in Hawaii at that point.
BLACKWELL: Yes. The question is -- of course, we don't know what that picture was. Maybe they were trying to make sure the president didn't say something that possibly was not appropriate. This was a state alert system issuing citizens of that state. Was it appropriate for the president to say this was a state issue? Of course, hopefully, we will see some response as the general said in this review that is coming.
TORRANCE: Well, I have to say, Victor, to me, this highlights what President trump is interested, what is on his mind with his Twitter because direct connection we have to the mind of President Trump and perhaps he shouldn't have said anything at the time.
But afterwards, you have to think that the president of the United States is the leader of the country and Congress is the body that is supposed to make laws. The president is the leader and part of that role is to serve as a leader and to comfort the country in times of crisis.
And for the people of Hawaii, this certainly felt like a crisis. His tweets now, I think, have -- there is two different types of Trump tweets we are seeing. One good news he thinks he can take credit for and his tweets criticizing his enemies and everyone I knew in Washington, D.C. yesterday was talking about this Hawaii false alert.
We couldn't believe this had happened. I'm just trying to imagine what was going through the minds of these poor 1.5 million people in Hawaii and then the president tweets about them mentally deranged author as he calls Michael Wolff and we were wondering did something new happen that we missed?
Because that wasn't news and what was news was a whole state thinking they were under attack. It's quite shocking to me that he still hasn't said anything. Again, maybe he didn't need to say anything at the time, but you think if he is the leader of the country, he needs to comment on this.
It was a state issue, but guess what? The president could still offer some moral leadership and say something to make Americans think that he cares about all of them.
PAUL: It does make you wonder what he was told as well in that moment and when they say he was briefed, did they even have a real understanding of the chaos and what was going on in Hawaii. Kelly Jane Torrance, we appreciate it so much. Thank you.
TORRANCE: Thank you.
PAUL: So, we are also learning more about how local university students reacted.
BLACKWELL: So, our local affiliate, KHNL, reports from the University of Hawaii here. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I banged on their door. Guys, get up. Like, for real, we got to get out of here because we already know we have 15 minutes. ASHLEY NAGAOKA, KHNL REPORTER (voice-over): Austin Coleman, a junior at UH, Manoa says he saw on the alert on his cellphone and immediately ran to wake up his roommates.
AUSTIN COLEMAN, STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII, MANOA: We are getting water and just some food that we have. We are panicking. We are all calling our loved ones.
NAGAOKA: Coleman said they decided to leave their dorm room and recalled seeing the fear in people's eyes once outside.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are coming down and I see people running past us like there is a group of people like crying and, like, I saw people on the road just like running in middle of the road.
NAGAOKA (on camera): The roommates say they ran here to build your hall because they knew there was a fallout shelter but when they tried to get in, all of the doors were locked.
COLEMAN: Everyone was freaking out. Everyone was on their phones. They were like, what do we do? Where do we go?
NAGAOKA (voice-over): Coleman said someone in the group had a key to the classroom in the Marine Sciences Building so everyone ran there.
COLEMAN: People were screaming like you got to shut the doors. Time is running out. There at least was 200 plus people in there. It was getting hard to breathe. If you had to go to the bathroom, you couldn't go. It was just a recipe for disaster if the missile hit.
NAGAOKA: Eventually, the all-clear was given. UH officials say the fallout shelter signage on campus is old from the cold war era and is scheduled to be removed. The university says it is working to identify new shelter locations on campus for its students. The school wants to remind students there are counselors on campus 24/7 and counselors will be checking in. Reporting from Manoa, Ashley Nagaoka, Hawaii News Now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL: We'll keep you informed as we learn more obviously hopefully today. Still to come here, you're going to hear this 911 call of a hostage crisis as an armed man held a bus load of people at gun point.
BLACKWELL: And ransacked stores off racial insensitive ad forces H&M to shut their doors in South Africa. What were the marketing folks thinking when they branded a little boy as the coolest monkey in the jungle?
PAUL: What will be a diplomatic moment, North and South Korea discussing whether the North will go to the Winter Olympics. Could the U.S. really boycott the games if they do wind up going? If not, what kind of reception is Vice President Mike Pence going to get after his boss branded many competing countries as shitholes?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [06:21:48]
PAUL: It's 21 minutes past the hour right now. A Chicago man is facing felony terror charges this morning after threatening to kill passengers on a Greyhound bus that was headed to Chicago from Wisconsin. This actually happened late Friday night.
BLACKWELL: This morning, we are hearing the 911 call the passengers on that bus made while this was happening.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED 911 OPERATOR: The bus driver is unaware that the situation is taking place. Can you just confirm it is a Greyhound bus?
UNIDENTIFIED CALLER: It is a Greyhound bus.
UNIDENTIFIED 911 OPERATOR: Copy we are trying to get a hold of Greyhound, thank you. He made statements he was going to kill everybody on the bus when they got to Chicago.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: The police chased down the bus and arrested 33-year-old Margarito Vargas Rojas. He said he had a weapon, but police say they did not find one when they searched him. The suspect is reportedly an undocumented immigrant and previously been deported. Passengers say the threats were made after an argument between two passengers on the bus.
PAUL: So, the question today, could North Korea be going to the Winter Olympics? The North and South are holding talks tomorrow as to whether to allow the North to send a delegation to next month's Winter games there in South Korea.
Live from Washington, Christine Brennan, CNN sports analyst and sports columnist for "USA Today." Christine, good to see you. So, let's talk about the logistics for this, first of all, if it happens. South Korea -- I mean, Seoul is in a tough place they have to honor sanctions imposed on North Korea, and yet they have to host this delegation. How do they monitor or accommodate that if it happens?
CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: It's an unknown at this point because there are so many things, Christi, that still need to be worked out. The goal is get North Korean athletes, a figure skating pair that actually qualified and to get them to compete.
The idea being if North Korean athletes are actually at the games, then the theory they would be safer because you would not have any -- a leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un or the leader of the United States, President Trump, or anyone else wanting to cause trouble when you actually have your own athletes on-site on the ground there.
So, already there is a cheering squad that is supposed to be coming. That is not an Olympic event. I don't know if they just cheer at the opening or closing ceremonies, whatever. Any North Korean athletes that can get to South Korea and be part of a delegation at the Olympic games, that is considered a good thing by the IOC and pretty much by everyone around the world.
PAUL: I read in addition to the cheerleading squad, the athletes and officials, perhaps there are people there watching for defections.
BRENNAN: We've seen that before the Pan-American games in 1987 in Indianapolis. Fidel Castro very concerned about because some Cuban athletes wanted to defect and if you did defect to the United States in 1987, big posters saying you can come here, safe house that kind of thing.
That has certainly happened. One of the great coaches, a gymnastics coach, they defected to the United States. There are many sports often is that avenue and is that doorway to defection.
[06:25:11] PAUL: Talk to me about the challenge to Vice President Pence in terms of the diplomacy issue if North Korea is there and just, in general, with everything that has happened in the last 48 hours and his dealing with other leaders?
BRENNAN: Absolutely. Also dealing with his own athletes. A skier just made the team in figure skating and both said they don't want to go to the White House to celebrate if they are invited after the fact.
The role of Mike Pence and the delegation, when they go to the Olympics, is more of one of greeting and meeting the U.S. team and spending time with them and being head cheerleader, so to speak.
So, my sense would be that Mike Pence could run into some frosty relations, whatever, with some of the U.S. athletes. In terms of going there and being a part of the delegation, I think, yes.
Anything that has happened the last couple of days and Donald Trump's comments are not helpful in terms of having a gathering of the world and a peaceful gathering of the world, but I do think when the U.S. delegation comes, they are often just part of the U.S. athletes and they stay in that area, go and cheer them on and then leave and I'm guessing we will see the same thing in this case.
PAUL: All right. Christine Brennan, I always learn from you. Thank you for being here.
BRENNAN: Christi, thank you. Take care.
PAUL: You too.
BLACKWELL: H&M have shut down more than a dozen stores in South Africa. There were some really violent protests. People were angry and ransacked the store and knocked over the racks and security sensors were ripped.
PAUL: Yes. They are protesting an ad that some are calling racist. This young boy was wearing a hoodie that says coolest monkey in the jungle. H&M is apologizing for the jacket saying it was poorly judged product. The company has not said when the stores will reopen at this point.
So, heading to the airport and ready to take a flight? Look away now. This incredible video just came in to us in the last hour. See that plane there? Right there. Just a few feet away from the Black Sea, I believe, as it skidded off the runway in Turkey and it ended up halfway down a steep slope and nobody on board were hurt, thankfully.
The airline says the plane had a, quote, "runway excursion incident," whatever that means. I'm looking at that thinking how did they get everybody out of that plane? It looks as though it could slide into the ocean.
BLACKWELL: I had not thought about that. My question why is the runway at the edge of a cliff? Did no one think of that when they designed this thing?
PAUL: I can't answer that question.
BLACKWELL: That was my Seinfeld emotion coming out! Sorry about that! Runway is on a cliff!
PAUL: What is up with!
BLACKWELL: This hasn't happened since Andrew Jackson was president. Now the Democrats went to censure President Trump. Will it work? Will Republicans allow it to happen? We'll ask former Democratic (inaudible) and former Republican Congressman Jack Kingston.
PAUL: Self-driving cars could make you a permanent back seat driver. We will explain why you may not need a car in the future, actually.
[06:32:36]
BLACKWELL: All right. Thirty-two minutes after the hour now.
This week the president is going after Democrats on Twitter. He tweeted last night -- "I don't believe the Democrats really want to see a deal on DACA. They are all talk and no action. This is the time but, day by day, they are blowing the one great opportunity they have. Too bad."
Is this the negotiation strategy here? Joining me now Brent Budowsky, opinion columnist at "The Hill" and former Democratic aide. And, Jack Kingston, CNN political commentator and former Republican congressman.
Gentlemen, good morning to you.
JACK KINGSTON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning, Victor.
BRENT BUDOWSKY, COLUMNIST, THE HILL: Good morning.
BLACKWELL: All right. So, Jack, let me start here with you.
You heard the tweet there from the president. I'm sure you saw it before I read it. Help me understand the position of negotiation here. The president has said that he and top Republicans want DACA, they want the protections for the DACA recipients and Democrats too. But he is saying as relation to the wall, I want to do this DACA thing, you want to do this DACA thing but I'll only do it if you do something you don't want to do, which is pay for the wall.
Is that where Republicans are starting?
KINGSTON: I think somewhat and that's the way all negotiations are in Washington, one party does something that they don't really want to do but they do it in exchange. That, for example, is how we pass every minimum wage bill, it's (ph) like (ph) the (ph) spending (ph) bill.
BLACKWELL: But then what's the thing that Republicans don't want to do as part of this? What's the pill they have to take?
KINGSTON: Well, the amnesty part. Republicans -- I'd say probably 99 percent of Republicans have run against amnesty and this is perceived as a form of amnesty and people aren't really (INAUDIBLE) about it.
The other thing is issues related to immigration such as ending (ph) chain migration or birth right citizenship are -- requiring E-Verify, those are all good bargaining tools which I think the Democrats in terms of good faith negotiation should consider some of those things.
BLACKWELL: So, we haven't heard DACA referred to as amnesty by the leadership here who all supports it and the president in some time now. He was against it during the campaign and then kind of shifted as he became president.
So, Brent, let me come to you. Are Democrats blowing the great opportunity they have as the president says?
BUDOWSKY: Well, first of all, when the president tweets that Democrats do not want a DACA deal, the president is lying through his teeth and he knows it. And he would be well-advised, if he is watching this show that he doesn't help himself with this kind of thing.
[06:35:00]
I personally believe there will be a DACA agreement. I believe it will include, in the end, funding for border security. Not for the wall, that will be decided, I predict, later on.
I'm not a big fan of the wall. Russia built a wall in Berlin. It didn't work out that well for them.
Walls don't work out. And it is the private view of many prominent Republicans they just don't want to say it for understandable reasons.
But what's really happening as we sit here tonight, today, this morning, now, Sunday.
BLACKWELL: It's still dark (INAUDIBLE).
(LAUGHTER)
KINGSTON: We are up bright and early.
BUDOWSKY: As we sit -- as we sit here right now, there are dreamers watching this show and they are genuinely afraid and worried that this president, by his callousness will send them, deport them back to their countries. They have only known American. They are what the Statue of Liberty is all about.
BLACKWELL: Yes.
BUDOWSKY: They are the American dream. They are the heart --
KINGSTON: But, Brent --
(CROSSTALK)
BUDOWSKY: -- of what this country stands for and for the president to put them through this, he had a famous dinner and meeting with Chuck and Nancy.
BLACKWELL: Yes. And which they said there was a deal that was made.
BUDOWSKY: All the president need to do is to his word of honor that he gave at that meeting.
BLACKWELL: All right. So we will see if there --
(CROSSTALK)
BLACKWELL: -- there is a deal that comes through. Brent, I hate to cut you off here but I want to move to something else. This censure motion that is coming.
Two Democratic congressmen say they will introduce this motion to censure the president for his comment about African countries and also El Salvador and Haiti.
Jack, to you. Appropriate for Congress to formally say -- to reprimand the president here?
KINGSTON: I think when censureship has been used in the past, for example, James Polk over the Mexican war or John Tyler over some financial stuff, there have been more serious matters at stake than just something offensive that the president said in a privately meeting in which he may or may not have wanted repeated but it was a statement of position.
I was there when Charlie Rangel was censured and it had to do with some ethics issues that -- I was also there when -- I think the (INAUDIBLE) group MoveOn.org came up with a slogan called "censure and move on," wanting us to censure Bill Clinton rather than impeach him.
BLACKWELL: Yes.
KINGSTON: And -- I think it's a long, long shot for the minority to be able to get it through the majority --
BLACKWELL: Yes --
(CROSSTALK)
BLACKWELL: -- but do you think it's appropriately? Quickly because I have another question for Brent.
KINGSTON: Well, censureship means, you know, you disapprove of somebody's actions or statements. So I think that it is appropriate for somebody who is so offended to try to make that move. But I don't think the case is there for it.
BLACKWELL: All right.
Brent, let me go to something from a congressman from Texas, Al Green. He plans to introduce a resolution again to impeach the president.
He just did this last month. He's going to do it again. Got 58 Democratic votes in support last time.
I mean, holding an impeachment vote month after month, doesn't this eventually just become white noise?
BUDOWSKY: No, I'm not advocating an impeachment vote right and Democratic leaders and most Democrats in the House are not. What I'm advocating is a censure vote of the president for what he did in the recent days, a word I will not use on television. And what he has done repeatedly playing what I called in a "Hill" column on Friday, I called it the politics of racism.
I won't take the time to give the examples. Here is the bottom line of what they should censure.
America, Victor, is a country of blacks, whites, Asians, Hispanic and Native Americans. American is a family. America is a community of people who come together like a family comes together.
BLACKWELL: Yes.
BUDOWSKY: America is a country of different religions and different faiths. President Trump, to his timeless and historic discredit, has not honored that tradition. He has violated it and attacked it and, frankly, that makes me madder than hell and a lot of Americans madder than hell. ] The way to stand up to the values of our --
BLACKWELL: Yes.
BUDOWSKY: -- country is to censure the behavior that violates it.
BLACKWELL: Well, we will see how far this censure motion goes. Again, two Democratic congressmen say they plan to introduce it very soon.
Brent Budowsky, Jack Kingston, thank you so much for being with us this morning.
BUDOWSKY: Thank you.
KINGSTON: Thank you.
PAUL: All right. Up next, a car that takes you out of the driver's seat and does so for good. The latest technology that will change how you get from point A to point B.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:43:51]
BLACKWELL: Driverless cars not for me but they're a thing for some people. Can you imagine a future with no driving at all?
PAUL: However, people do say, you know, the people that drive behind the wheel sometimes are scary. (INAUDIBLE) there's nobody -- nobody behind the wheel.
CNN spent more than a year traveling the country talking to technology and transportation experts who say driving could be a thing of the past. Senior digital correspondent Chris Moody has more here.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS MOODY, CNN SENIOR DIGITAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): I've spent the past year traveling the country talking to entrepreneurs, engineers and test drivers who are building the cars of tomorrow. And when they imagine the future driving the car isn't part of it.
I asked them all the same thing -- what will the future look like? And what will it take to get there?
What I found was really exciting. But, also, a bit shocking.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're (ph) going to change to self-driving mode?
Technical, we don't need a driver in a car.
MOODY (on camera): So you and I are basically, in way, just passengers now?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes.
[06:45:00]
MOODY (voice-over): We are test driving a car powered by autonomous vehicle start-up Drive.ai on the streets of northern California. This test car could be the protype of an automobile that not only takes you out of the driver's seat but creates a future where you might not need to own a car at all. At least that's what the people building them think.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ownership will probably be abandoned. You mostly have cars that will be summoned on our phone area car come empty to us and pick us up, and we get inside in (ph) front (ph) of an office or a house, and it drives us straight to the restaurant and there's no time (ph) wasted (ph) over (ph) parking.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will look back and say, wow, people own cars to get from this point to that point?
MOODY: Eliminating car ownership would drastically change the way we shape our cities.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We could literally close 30 -- 40 percent of our streets to automobiles. You don't need cars on neighborhood streets any more. You just need them on the perimeter of your neighborhood.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of the parking facilities today get turned into residential space or parks or offices or restaurants. And we can kind of give back the city to the people that live in it and take it away from the automobiles. The quality of life and the opportunity to kind of reuse that space is going to be pretty magical.
MOODY: The rise of car sharing services has already made people accustomed to the idea of not owning a car. Today, human drivers pick us up when we use Uber or Lyft but that is not going to last.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Autonomous ride sharing is absolutely coming. It is right around the corner. And you'll see it in pockets at first and slowly and surely you'll start to see these vehicles all over the place.
There is an opportunity on a long enough timeline where we may have a fleet that is fully autonomous. As you start to see people adapt to transportation as a service the hope here is that cars will -- car ownership will slowly decline.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PAUL: I don't know how automobile manufacturers feel about the decline of people owning cars. So, Chris Moody, help us understand the pros and cons here.
MOODY: Well, these are the big questions that we explore in this series.
Let's start with the pros. Look. We're starting at a place where 1.25 million a year worldwide die in auto accidents and that's something that we just kind of accept.
And all the experts and the engineers building these cars tell me that the plan or the hope is to reduce those auto accidents and if they have fully self-driving cars they want to drop that number down to zero.
Now, the cons, the troubling questions.
What about jobs? There are millions of people with lives tied to driving. What about them?
This is going to take time and these are questions we are going to explore in this series.
BLACKWELL: All right. Looking forward to it. Christi and I while your story was running there, we're asking questions hopefully --
PAUL: Yes.
BLACKWELL: -- we get some answers from it. Chris Moody, thank you so much.
MOODY: Thank you.
PAUL: So a brand new CNN film is airing tonight and it's looking at how conservationists are trying to save some of the most vulnerable animals in the world. Why some people say hunting this big game is the best way to help them.
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[06:52:14]
PAUL: So the new CNN film "TROPHY" explores the world of big game hunting and the fight to save the most vulnerable species from extinction.
BLACKWELL: So ahead of tonight's premier CNN's Brianna Keilar take a look at the Trump administration's changing policies on big game hunting and what could happen next.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nearly four years after the Obama administration banned elephant trophies from coming into the U.S., from Zambia and Zimbabwe, hunters and animal rights groups alike are waiting to see if President Trump will reverse the order. Zimbabwe game preservation or lack of it became infamous around the world in 2015 when a Minnesota dentist on a guided hunt lured a famed lion named Cecil out of a protected sanctuary and killed him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then they severed the head as a trophy.
KEILAR: The hunt was decried as illegal. But a year later, a Zimbabwean court throw out charges against the dentist and his hunting guide. So, when word leaked out in November that the Trump administration was preparing to reverse the Obama ban on the import of elephant trophies, conservationists sounded alarm.
WAYNE PACELLE, HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES: It's just thrill killing, bragging rights, trophies for a threatened species, the largest land animal in the world. I mean, shooting an elephant is like shooting a parked car. I mean, there's no sport in it either.
KEILAR: From 2007 to 2014, elephant populations in the African Savannah plummeted 30 percent, according to the great elephant census. In some places, it has dropped more than 75 percent, due to ivory poaching. Only about 350,000 remain, down from the estimated 20 million that roam the region before Africa was colonized by European countries.
But the rational from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was that allowing the import of elephant trophies would actually help elephants. Its statement in part read: Legal, well-regulated sport hunting as part of a sound management program can benefit the conservation of certain species by providing incentives to local communities to conserve the species and by putting much-needed revenue back into conservation.
Fish and Wildlife is overseen by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, whose appointment was championed by Donald Trump Jr., an avid big game hunter. These pictures from a 2012 trip to Zimbabwe show Donald Jr. and his brother Eric Trump, posing with their kills, including an elephant, Trump Jr. holding its severed tail.
Even then, an early sign that father and son might differ on the issue.
TRUMP: Everybody tells me what they did in the world of hunting is fine, but I'm not a fan.
KEILAR: President Trump stepped in personally in November, squashing the lifting of the elephant trophy ban, at least for now. The administration still has not made its final decision.
[06:55:02]
Though Trump tweeted -- he -- "will be very hard pressed to change my mind that this horror show, in any way, helps conservation of elephants or any other animal."
KEILAR (on camera): One wrinkle that the administration may have to deal with is a federal case that may decide the issue before the president weighs in.
In a split decision, the D.C. circuit Court of Appeals just rule that the ban should stay in place while the case goes back to a lower court and attorneys tell us the ruling may make it harder for the administration to put in new restrictions or to repeal protections already in place.
Brianna Keilar, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLACKWELL: Brianna, thank you. And be sure to watch "TROPHY" tonight at 9:00 right here on CNN.
PAUL: Thirty-eight minutes of panic in Hawaii.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: The U.S. Pacific Command has detected a missile threat to Hawaii. A missile may impact on land or sea within minutes.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PAUL: Can you imagine? What would you do in that moment?
Well, there were people being told that missiles heading towards the islands. How officials are working to prevent another false alarm (INAUDIBLE) and how did it even happen?
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