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President Trump Comments on Memo Released by House Intelligence Committee Republicans on FBI Russia Investigation; Victims' Father Attacks Larry Nassar in Court; Flu Kills Over 50 Children in U.S.; North Korea Continues to Avoid International Sanctions. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired February 03, 2018 - 10:00   ET

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

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Saturday morning. We've been waiting for you. Good morning. I'm Christi Paul.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Victor Blackwell. CNN newsroom begins right now.

PAUL: And this morning, President Trump is claiming he's, quote, "totally vindicated" in the Russia investigation.

BLACKWELL: Just minutes ago the president said the controversial Republican memo which was released yesterday despite objections from the FBI shows there was no collusion and no obstruction during the 2016 campaign and since.

PAUL: But the FBI says that report is missing some key details. Democrats claim it's misleading and even some Republicans object to its content.

BLACKWELL: CNN's Abby Phillip is live in Washington. Abby, this is the first comment from the president himself since the release of the memo. He said something in the Oval Office soon after it was declassified and then sent over to Congress, but these are the first words since the release.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And it gives you a pretty clear indication of what the president thinks the memo is all about. In this tweet, he really goes against what a lot of other Republicans have been trying to say, which is that the memo is not intended to have anything to do with the Mueller probe. He wrote, "The memo totally vindicates Trump in probe, but the Russian witch hunt goes on and on. There was no collusion and there was no obstruction, the word now being used after one year of looking endlessly and finding nothing. Collusion is dead," the president writes. "This is an American disgrace."

So President Trump there very clearly still upset about this Russia probe and believing that this memo is somehow going to vindicate him in that. At the same time, the memo seems to have not been quite exactly what its advocates thought it was going to be, but even still, there's been still a lot of talk about one person who was implicated in some parts of the memo, and that's Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Now, Rosenstein is the supervisor, essentially, of this Russia probe, and he's named in the memo as being someone who approved a surveillance application for a person associated with the Trump campaign which later down the road eventually played into the Russia probe. And while some conservatives are saying they want Rosenstein to resign or to be fired, the White House is trying to push back on that, saying that there are no plans at the moment for that to happen. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Does the president have confidence in Rod Rosenstein?

HOGAN GIDLEY, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY: Look, we said many times, if the president doesn't have confidence in you, you won't be around any longer. We all serve at the pleasure of the president, and if he's pleased with you, you're still around.

BERMAN: Is that a yes?

GIDLEY: Absolutely. There have been no conversations. I'm telling you we haven't even considered this move. So Rod Rosenstein is in place. He's not going anywhere.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Despite what Hogan Gidley just said, we know from sources this week that the president is very much upset with Rosenstein and views him as being the head of this unfair witch hunt, as he called it just this morning. And also the president believed at some point in the process of deliberating over this memo that the memo might give him some reason to potentially move against Rosenstein. The White House, though, is saying that that is not on the table anymore, in part because a lot of Republicans and Democrats on the Hill have said that could be a catastrophic mistake for this White House if they were to make a move like that, Victor and Christi.

BLACKWELL: Abby Phillip, thanks so much.

PAUL: Some Republicans spent weeks claiming the memo showed abuses at the FBI and the DOJ, but its release has just raised more questions about its purpose. For one, it came from House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, but Nunes admitted last night, he never read all of the information that the memo's based on, so how could he fully understand what it claims?

Does the Republican memo present all the facts? It's three and a half pages long. A former national security adviser tells CNN Just one surveillance application could be up to 60 pages long. And what about the Democrats' memo which challenges allegations, why are Republicans blocking its release? Does the memo undermine itself? Republicans claim the FBI and Justice Department used a dossier originally paid for by Democrats to start surveilling former Trump campaign official Carter Page. They claim that surveillance is the base of the Russia investigation, but the document actually admits the Russia investigation started months earlier based off comments by George Papadopoulos. And does this memo show anti-Trump bias such as Republicans are

alleging? Well, remember, the FBI's currently led by a Trump appointee. The man supervising the Russia investigation is a Trump appointee. And why would James Comey reopen the Clinton investigation if he was so anti-Trump?

BLACKWELL: Here now, CNN senior politics analyst Ron Brownstein and CNN political reporter Rebecca Berg. Good morning to both of you.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.

BLACKWELL: All right, so let's revisit the president's tweet, his first statement since the release of the Nunes memo. "This memo totally vindicates Trump in probe. But the Russian witch hunt goes on and on. Their," the president's spelling of "their," not ours, "was no conclusion and there was no obstruction, the word now used because after one year of looking endlessly and finding nothing, collusion is dead. This is an American disgrace."

Ron, first to you, the memo does not go specifically to the question of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. It doesn't go to specifically the investigation of potential obstruction of justice.

BROWNSTEIN: Right. It doesn't justify any of the claims in the tweet. And in fact, what the tweet does, I think, is underscore the real purpose and point of the memo and further kind of change the political dynamics around it.

I think the most significant aspect -- first of all, the memo I think is very unlikely to change any opinions about the validity of the Mueller investigation, which is running at roughly 60/40 positive in polling, largely because even if the allegations in the memo are true that the FISA application on Carter Page was obtained with insufficient or inadequate evidence, the memo itself, the most important point in the memo is to, as Christi said, is to underscore that was not the cause of the investigation. The investigation was opened, the memo acknowledges, the counterintelligence investigation because George Papadopoulos was bragging to an Australian diplomat we know from the "New York Times" that he had been informed that Russia had e-mails damaging to Hillary Clinton. That was the linked. That was what started it. With or without surveillance of Carter Page, this investigation would exist.

But I think what this does, what the president's tweet does is really undermine above all Paul Ryan because Paul Ryan put out, was the one who ultimately had to decide to allow this to go forward, and he said it was not designed to impugn the investigation, the DOJ, or the FBI. It's very clear from the president's own words and tweets in the last 24 hours it was designed to do exactly that. And what that's done is I think put the Republican House majority on the battlefield with the president in trying to derail this investigation.

BLACKWELL: And Rebecca, it's also important to share that Trey Gowdy, Republican chair of House Oversight tweeted soon after this came out that, and I have got it up on my screen here, "The contents of this memo do not in any way discredit Robert Mueller's investigation." He says he remains 100 percent confident in the special counsel, Robert Mueller.

REBECCA BERG, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Right, and so clearly a split in the Republican Party right now when it comes to this memo and what it says potentially about this Mueller investigation. You have had Republicans now including the president in the last 15 minutes coming out and saying this memo does show that the investigation is flawed, that it's compromised, that it was based on something inappropriate.

But what most Republicans are saying, and this is extremely significant, is exactly what Trey Gowdy is saying, exactly what Speaker Paul Ryan is saying, which is that this doesn't implicate the leadership of the FBI, this doesn't reflect on Bob Mueller's investigation.

And to go back for a second to what Ron was saying regarding the president's tweet, this is an extremely serious development because it does seem to suggest that the president released this formerly classified memo, decided to declassify this memo for fundamentally a political purpose, which is really a red line that would have been crossed. And it raises questions about what else will the president release in the future if he feels that it is going to help him politically or help make the case that this wasn't a legitimate investigation.

BLACKWELL: And the inconsistency, Ron, between what we heard from Raj Shah out of the communications department yesterday, last night here on CNN, saying the White House hopes Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, will continue in his job, continue doing his work there, versus what we heard from the president during the afternoon after he declassified the memo, saying you can figure that out in reference to a question about his confidence in Rod Rosenstein and if he's going to fire him. We saw this with the Comey firing several months ago when the White House said that this firing was based specifically on the memo from Rod Rosenstein, and the president came on and said fewer than 24 hours later, no, I was thinking about Russia. That difference between the White House and the president here specifically could be very important moving forward.

BROWNSTEIN: And also, you could cue up the compilation that you had only a couple weeks ago all of the White House officials and the president saying they never contemplated firing Robert Mueller until we had the reporting that in fact they not only contemplated it, but he ordered it, until the White House counsel dissuaded him by threatening to resign. So certainly we are in a similar position here.

And as I said, I mean, the Congressional Republicans, I think, have gone from the beginning of earlier in the administration sending a signal that was a red line that would trigger a severe political backlash to sending much more ambiguous and if not encouraging signals because even though it is the president who decided to declassify it, it was the House Republicans who set all of this in motion over the very clear objections of the FBI and DOJ. And I think it chronicles or memorializes their evolution from a position of independence to then kind of shelving significant oversight, the House intelligence process broke down in terms of Russia, to actively participating with the president in his efforts to weaken the investigation. And I think that is just an enormous gamble for Paul Ryan to be leading his troops into at a moment where the country is so divided over the president and many of these swing districts in Orange County, suburban Philadelphia, New Jersey, Miami. Do they want to be in a position of defending what Devin Nunes has done? I think they now are going to have to be in that position.

BLACKWELL: Rebecca, quickly to you, and I want to back up from just the immediacy of the release of the memo because we've been talking about it for days and it's out, but what the first six weeks of 2018 were supposed to be, the president said he wanted to work in a bipartisan manner with Democrats. They have got DACA to deal with and the entire immigration issue after the president ended DACA, setting the March 5th deadline. This is unrelated, but these things do not happen in relative vacuums. How does this and the release of this partisan memo impact the ability of the president to work with Democrats to get a deal on some of these things that he said he wanted to work in a bipartisan manner to solve?

BERG: Well, it just takes everything back, there's no doubt about it, in a partisan direction. I mean, remember the state of the union? It feels like it was a year ago now, but it was actually just a week ago. This is clearly off message for the president, off message for Republicans. They want to talk about passing a temporary spending measure by the end of this week. We could have another government shutdown this week if Republicans and Democrats aren't able to reach a deal by the end of this week on a spending measure or on immigration. It's unlikely they're going to reach an agreement on immigration by the end of this week so they're going to have to agree to pass another short-term spending measure. So clearly not helpful for the president's message, not helpful for Republicans. They have enough on their plate right now without this.

BLACKWELL: Rebecca Berg, Ron Brownstein, thank you both.

BERG: Thank you.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

PAUL: And in the face of the president releasing the memo against the advice of top law enforcement officials, FBI Director Christopher Wray is defiant. What he's telling his staff in the midst of all of this.

BLACKWELL: Plus, a deadly flu season is intensifying. Ahead, why the CDC says the worst of this is still to come.

PAUL: And this was a moment, a father in court restrained after he tried to attack former USA gymnastics Dr. Larry Nassar in court.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDALL MARGRAVES, THREE DAUGHTERS ABUSED BY LARRY NASSAR: He will be escorted to one of the deepest, darkest, hottest pits in hell.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BLACKWELL: Morale at the top law enforcement agencies could be suffering in the wake of President Trump's releasing of the Republican memo accusing the FBI and Justice Department of bias. FBI Director Christopher Wray is telling his staff not to be swayed by the political fallout. CNN justice correspondent Jessica Schneider is following this for us. Jessica, what did he say?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Victor, the FBI director standing up for the rank and file. He put out a video message to the 35,000 members of the FBI just after that memo was released. It was really Christopher Wray's way of showing support for the bureau that has come under constant attack from the president.

And Christopher Wray's words, they were largely symbolic. He even said at one point, actions speak louder than words. Of course that implying it's the actions of the FBI agents that matter more than the president's words or the president's tweets. Wray also continued in the video saying that he knows it's been a tough, unsettling time, but that he is inspired by the men and women of the FBI and all the work that they do.

And for sure, it has been a turbulent time for the bureau amid the president's fiery words. And in fact, just earlier this week, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, he abruptly stepped down. It was a month before he was set to retire.

And then of course you have the Department of Justice and how they have been handling a lot of that criticism as well. And just as this memo was coming out, it was very interesting to see the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, he referenced the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, who has been under a lot of fire as well, and did seem to come to his defense. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF SESSIONS, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Rod's had 27 years in the department. Rachel's had a number of years in the department previously. And so they both represent the kind of quality and leadership that we want in the department.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHNEIDER: So the attorney general there standing by his deputy, Rod Rosenstein. Of course the president has been a bit wishy-washy as to his support of the deputy attorney general, but two of his White House spokespeople coming out last night to say that for now the deputy attorney general's job is safe. Victor and Christi?

BLACKWELL: Jessica Schneider for us in Washington. Jessica, thank you.

PAUL: So the Nunes memo is now at the center of this fight consuming Washington. It is based on a series of documents and says they paved the way for a politically motivated Russia investigation. Did Devin Nunes, who wrote the memo, read those source documents? Here's what he said last night. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS HOST: Did you read the actual FISA applications?

REP. DEVIN NUNES, (R) HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: No, I didn't. And this has been one of these bogus news stories that have been put out. So the agreement we made with the Department of Justice was to create a reading room, and allow one member, two investigators to go over and review the documents. I thought the best person on our committee would be the chairman of the oversight committee, Trey Gowdy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: So Robert Baer, CNN intelligence and security analyst and former CIA operative with us now, along with Michael Zeldin, CNN legal analyst and former special assistant for Robert Mueller. Thank you both, gentlemen, for being here. Robert, to you first. How confident are you that Representative Nunes has a full grasp of what this is if he did not read through it personally? Does it matter?

ROBERT BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: It matters a lot. These FISA applications are very complex. They include a lot of detail. You have to know why the FISA was put on Carter Page. There are intercepts involved, metadata, the Steele report. And you're basically relying on the judgment of the FBI officers involved. And that's what the courts do, and that's what happened here. And if Nunes doesn't understand this, there's no way he can make the case that the FBI tried to frame Trump. It's just preposterous.

PAUL: Michael, there is another case being made by Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, and House Judiciary Democrats, they released this statement I want to read to you here. They say "President Trump's decision to allow the release of Chairman Nunes' Republican talking points is part of a coordinated propaganda effort to discredit, disable, and defeat the Russia investigation. House Republicans are now accomplices to a shocking campaign to obstruct the work of the special counsel, to undermine the credibility and legitimacy of the Justice Department and the FBI, and to bury the fact that a foreign adversary interfered with our last election." From a legal standpoint, could there be some Republicans who would be seen as accomplices to obstruction?

MICHAEL ZELDIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: No, I think not. I think that's political rhetoric. From a legal standpoint, I don't believe any of them are accomplices.

What is interesting, though, from a legal standpoint is it has been reported that the president has been phoning folks before the release of the Nunes memo to say that his intention in releasing it was because he thinks it would damage the Mueller investigation. So if that's true, that in some sense is an admission by the president that his intention here is to impede the Mueller investigation. That may be a factor that Mueller takes into account when he analyzes all of the activities of the president to determine whether in composition with one another, all these little facts add up to an obstruction of justice or an abuse of office case.

So the president hasn't been helping himself legally from the outset of this investigation and he continues on that same not help myself, shoot myself in the foot sort of legal strategy.

PAUL: Robert, being a former CIA operative, I want to get your thoughts on what this memo does to the relationship, the trust factor between the intel community and Congress, since they chose to release it.

BAER: I know exactly what it is. I mean, the FBI agents, field agents, when the boss, the president of the United States, comes down and says I don't trust your leadership, the implicit message is I don't trust you. And any FBI agent who cares about his career is going to run from Russian investigations. I have heard it from the FBI, I have heard it from the CIA. This just hurts you. And if they don't want to hear the message you simply move to another job or get out of the FBI. This is completely demoralizing for the rank and file.

PAUL: I wanted to ask you, Michael, too, about this Democratic memo that we know, Democrat memo in the House Intel Committee that is to be released at some point. Representative Adam Schiff said they could have voted to release theirs at the same time, the Democratic memo as well as the Republican memo. It is common practice, as I understand it, that the House Intel Committee would release both of them in concert, concurrently. Had they released both of those memos, however, do you think we would have any greater clarity this morning on exactly what happened and what intentions are in this case?

ZELDIN: So one step back. My personal view is I would prefer that neither memo be released. I don't think it's in the interests of national intelligence to have these memos, whether they're released at the same time or in succession, I think that's disadvantageous to our national interests.

However, that said, if they release the Democratic memorandum, then you still will have an incomplete picture. You'll have a response to the Nunes memo, but it will still be an incomplete picture of what happened before the FISA court because that information is classified. So the Democrats can't release it as the Republican couldn't release it. So we get these two incomplete versions of what happened, and I think all that does is create confusion in the minds of the American public. That's not helpful in any way, shape, or form, unless what you're trying to do is just muddy the waters so that people don't understand the significance of what Mueller is doing and why it's important that he be allowed in an un-interfered way to complete his investigation and tell the America people what exactly happened in 2016.

PAUL: Robert Baer, Michael Zeldin, so appreciate your insights here. Thank you, gentlemen.

BLACKWELL: So, distraught father of three who lunged at disgraced doctor, Larry Nassar, is now talking about what happened in court. You'll see this moment and hear his description of what he was thinking, why he lunged.

PAUL: And listen, I know this is disturbing to so many people that more than 50 children have died from the flu this season. The CDC says this is not going away anytime soon. We're going to talk about what's behind this deadly outbreak, what can be done. Stay close.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: It's 10:30 on the dot on this Saturday. Welcome. I'm Christi Paul.

BLACKWELL: I'm Victor Blackwell. Good morning to you.

That distraught father of three whose daughters were abused by former USA gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar tried to attack him in court. This happened after we saw from these young women who really shared the accounts in detail for two weeks of the sexual abuse they suffered by Nassar for the past two decades.

PAUL: Yes, the father was restrained before he could get to Nassar. He apologized for his behavior, but what a message he had for this doctor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDALL MARGRAVES, THREE DAUGHTERS ABUSED BY LARRY NASSAR: I believe in God almighty. I believe in heaven and hell. And I can only hope when the day comes that Larry Nassar has ended his days on this earth that he will be escorted to one of the deepest, darkest, hottest pits in hell.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: CNN correspondent Kaylee Hartung with us now. This was -- this was a moment watching this yesterday in court when he lunged at him.

KAYLEE HARTUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was. And Randall Margraves has been called by a hero by many for his attempted attack on Larry Nassar, but he disagrees with that characterization. He said he's not a hero, his three daughters are as are the many victims and survivors of Larry Nassar's abuse.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDALL MARGRAVES, THREE DAUGHTERS ABUSED BY LARRY NASSAR: You son of a --

HARTUNG: This father's anger.

MARGRAVES: As part of the sentencing, to grant me five minutes in a locked room with this demon.

HARTUNG: Aimed squarely at the man who abused his three daughters.

MARGRAVES: Would you give me one minute? I'm going to have to -- HARTUNG: From this angle, you can see the court bailiff quickly get

Larry Nassar out of the room. More than 200 survivors in two different courtrooms over the past two weeks have provided victim impact statements in the case against Nassar, enraging and disgusting the country. On Friday, Randall Margraves listened to two of his daughters publicly share details of their abuse.

MADISON MARGRAVES, LARRY NASSAR VICTIM: He said that this meant because I had back pain, he would need to put needles on my vagina with no coverage, no gloves, underwear and pants down to my thighs. My entire vagina was completely exposed to him.

LAUREN MARGRAVES, LARRY NASSAR VICTIM: When I was 13, just a kid, laying on a table at MSU, and you put your ungloved hands all over my rear and slipped your thumb into the most private area of my body.

To my parents, thank you for all your love and support through all of this. You have done everything that a parent could ever do.

MADISON MARGRAVES: I really feel that my entire family has gone through hell and back this last few months because of what Larry Nassar did to my sisters and I years ago.

LAUREN MARGRAVES: My parents are heartbroken and so filled with regret. The guilt they have will never go away.

HARTUNG: Margraves' outburst prompted praise on Twitter, calling him a hero, parents saying they would have done the same thing. Compassion and understanding, too, from the judge, who oversaw Margraves civil contempt hearing a couple hours later in the same courtroom.

JUDGE JANICE CUNNINGHAM, EATON COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT: I cannot tolerate or condone vigilantism, but as for the direct contempt of court, there is no way this court is going to issue any type of punishment given the circumstances of this case. And I do -- my heart does go out to you and your family because of what you have gone through.

MARGRAVES: I appreciate it. I would like to apologize to you and the courtroom. I'm embarrassed. I'm not here to upstage my daughters. I'm here to help them heal.

HARTUNG: In a family press conference later in the day, an apologetic Margraves tried to explain his emotional reaction, saying it was the first time he had heard many details of Nassar's assaults on his daughters.

MARGRAVES: When I had to hear what was said in those statements and I have to look over at Larry Nassar shaking his head, that's when I lost control.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARTUNG: Larry Nassar has already been sentenced up to 175 years said in prison in one Michigan courtroom. The sentencing in this hearing is expected on Monday. But the work is far from done to uncover the depths of this abuse scandal. The U.S. Olympic Committee has hired outside counsel to conduct an independent investigation. The questions to be answered are, at what point did the USOC or USA Gymnastics have any evidence of Nassar's abuse of athletes? What was that evidence, and what did they do with it? A statement from USOC representative Whitney Ping says once the investigation is complete and the report has been published we will work diligently to ensure that appropriate action is taken based on the facts that emerge. We must ensure that a tragedy of this magnitude can never happen again.

PAUL: All right, Kaylee, thank you so much. Kaylee Hartung.

So 16 more children have died across the country in this deadly flu season. The worst may be to come. We're hearing too of shortages possibly of vaccines, shortages of Tamiflu. Is that true? We're going to break it all down and find out the truth for you in a moment. Stay close.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: Sixteen more children have died from the flu, bringing the total number of fatal cases this season to 53. And the CDC says the outbreak still has not even peaked. I want to introduce you to six- year-old Emily Grace. She died just a few days after being diagnosed. And just hours before paramedics told her mother that she could remain at home. She never had the flu shot. Eight-year-old Tyler Dannaway did have the flu shot. His parents say they're still in shock that he's not with them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE DANNAWAY, LOST EIGHT-YEAR-OLD SON TO FLU: It's just mind boggling. And you can't -- there's no way to wrap your hands around it. Just from to be here happy, giggling, laughing his head off, and then two days later be gone is -- there's --

TERESA DANNAWAY, LOST EIGHT-YEAR-OLD SON TO FLU: No words.

STEVE DANNAWAY: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: And it's not just kids. Tandy Harmon was diagnosed with the flu. She was sent home, her health improved for a short time, and then just days later she was placed on a ventilator and she died. Dr. Thomas Friedan, former director of the CDC with us now. So Dr. Frieden, first of all, help us understand why it is so deadly this year.

DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN, FORMER DIRECTOR, CDC: Well, first off, flu is deadly every year. It just doesn't get the attention sometimes that it gets this year. But in an average year, it sends several hundred- thousand Americans to the hospital overnight at least and kills tens of thousands of Americans. And this year is shaping up to be the worst flu season in a decade. PAUL: So I want to get to a couple of things that are floating around

out there and get the truth from you, if we can. In North Carolina, there was a reporting that there are some pharmacies who are running out of the vaccines. Is there a shortage we should know about?

FRIEDEN: What we see with both vaccine and the antiviral Tamiflu is that there's enough overall, but in some areas it may be difficult to get. Unfortunately, frustrating as it is, that's why we say try and try again. Call around and see where you can find the medicine or vaccine if you don't have the vaccine yet.

PAUL: What about Tamiflu? There are reporting shortages of that as well, which of course, treats flu for most people.

FRIEDEN: Tamiflu is really important, especially this year where the vaccine isn't working nearly as well as we'd like. It's better than nothing, but not a lot better than nothing. If you're sick, very sick, if you have got an underlying condition, older people who are sick, if you have a heart disease or a lung disease, very important that you consider getting Tamiflu, and the sooner you get it after you get sick, the more likely it is to help you.

PAUL: If somebody hasn't gotten the flu shot, should they still get it?

FRIEDEN: Absolutely. Unfortunately in an average year the flu vaccine is only about 60 percent effective. Most of our vaccines are 90, 95 percent effective. This year, it looks like it may be as little as 10 percent or 20 percent or 30 percent effective. So again, it's better than nothing, but not a lot better than nothing. This year, it's not protecting you. Still worth getting. Still not too late, but if you get sick, see your doctor quickly. Supportive care makes a big difference. Tamiflu can reduce your level of illness. And flu does kill. It's not just a minor illness, a cold. As you heard from the tragic stories you showed, flu can be fatal.

PAUL: I wanted to asks you about another issue here. A coalition of health groups wrote a letter this week to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar because there has been a lot of funding cut for the CDC, and they wanted to try to turn that around. They said that the U.S. is actually going to be hurt by these cuts, even though these cuts have to do with other countries. How detrimental are these cuts to the CDC and the work they're doing?

FRIEDEN: The centers for disease control and prevention is essential to the safety of Americans. And unless the administration and Congress get their act together and fund ongoing programs that protect Americans, we will be less safe.

What's happening is that a program that Congress authorized five years ago will come to an end over the next year. That program stops dangerous organisms overseas so we don't have to fight them here. It's been very successful, but it's far from over. Really, it's getting its stride, and this would pull the rug out from programs helping to insure we have a safer world, where new disease threats, whether it's flu or SARS or MERS or some other Ebola-like illness emerges anywhere in the world, we're more likely to realize it's there and stop it there, helping local communities stop it rather than having to fight it here on our shores.

PAUL: All right, Dr. Thomas Friedan, thank you so much. We appreciate all the information.

FRIEDEN: Thank you.

PAUL: Victor?

BLACKWELL: The United States, or the United Nations, rather, says North Korea is thumbing its nose at sanctions and ignoring those limitations, taking in tens of millions of dollars in the process.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: The United Nations says North Korea racked up nearly $200 million last year by ignoring sanctions and exporting banned goods. Pyongyang allegedly sent coal to China, Malaysia, Russia, Vietnam, by falsifying documents, supplied weapons to Syria and Myanmar. And according to an exclusive CNN investigation reported by David McKenzie, they're busting sanctions in military and fishing industry deals in Mozambique. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Tracking the illicit funding of a rogue nuclear state, a months-long investigation leads us to a fishing boat in Maputo, Mozambique.

Hello. Can we talk to someone?

We uncover sanctions busting. Caught in the act.

So there's two North Korean fishermen here in the boat. They don't want us to talk to them. And they have stuck this boat between two others. It's pretty well hidden.

The captain locks himself away, with good reason. Illegal fishing operations generate significant cash for Pyongyang's nuclear missile program, say U.S. officials. Yes, the crew are all Korean, this Mozambican crewman tells us.

Can we come up?

So the captain of the ship is on the phone with someone. I think it's wise we get out of here, actually.

Kim Jong-un's ultimate aim is to develop a viable nuclear tipped missile threatening to strike cities across the United States. But the sanctions are biting and the Trump administration is taking a tougher stance. They're scouring the globe to generate cash. Seven- and-a-half thousand miles away from Pyongyang, they found a willing partner, one of 11 African countries United Nations is investigating for sanctions violations. From the channel we can easily spot the rusting boats. That's the Susan One and that's the Susan Two. Our investigations

show that these shrimping trawlers are part of a lucrative joint venture between the Mozambicans and the North Koreans.

Illegal as of last August, and there are more sinister links than just a few fishing boats. Investigators are tracking it all.

Surface to air missiles, man portable surface to air missiles, military radar, air defense systems, the refurbishment of tanks. It's a long list.

Pyongyang exporting its deadly expertise for hard cash, even to Mozambique's remote exterior. Fostering military installations like this, the U.N. says, training elite forces for at least two years military sources tell us. All of it under sanctions for more than a decade. So how do they keep the operation secret? The trail leads us to one of Maputo's busiest avenues.

So according to documents, this is the headquarters of the North Korean trade emissary here in Maputo.

Reviewed by CNN, the document's name a shadowing front company. In 2017, the U.N. revealed that it helped funnel at least $6 million in military contracts to Pyongyang.

Hi, how are you, sir? "Some Asians were living here. They left three or four months ago" says the property agent. Nobody could tell us where they went.

Are there still North Koreans in Mozambique?

"Yes, we have some here cooperating in social and technical fields," he says, "which is not against sanctions that were declared by the United Nations." He says they are implementing sanctions, we saw clear violations.

Defense Ministry officials refused to be interviewed by CNN or answer our questions.

Has Mozambique been complying with U.N. sanctions?

"I cannot say at this moment," he says. "I don't have detailed information on the question you're asking."

The U.N. is waiting for answers from Mozambique, a country risking hundreds of millions in U.S. aid to help Kim Jong-un find ways to fund his nuclear ambitions.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCKENZIE: Well, despite those strong words from President Trump over these months to say they're going to punish any country that is seen to do illegal business with North Korea, you still have countries across the world that seem willing to do it. It's a very risky business of course because Mozambique in 2016 got more than $500 million in U.S. aid, and that's certainly something that I think the Americans will be looking at very closely. Christi, Victor.

BLACKWELL: David McKenzie, David, thank you so much.

PAUL: Italian police say a 28-year-old man with a gun was shooting at a group of African immigrants. What officers say the suspect did as they arrested him.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Italian police say at least four people have been hurt in a drive-by shooting that targeted African immigrants. Authorities say the 28-year-old suspect had an Italian flag around his neck and made a fascist salute as he was being arrested. The attack happened in the same area where the body of an 18-year-old girl was found dismembered and hidden in suitcases. A 29-year-old Nigerian man has been detained in that case.

PAUL: Do you remember the man who sent off the false missile alert in Hawaii last month, launched a panic? He is talking this morning. He says he was 100 percent sure that alert was genuine. According to the official account, the call that initiated the drill began with a person saying "exercise, exercise." However, the worker says he didn't hear that part.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was supposed to be on speaker phone, but someone picked up the receiver, and the first part of the message "exercise, exercise, exercise," was not heard. The message I heard was that this is not a drill. And I did not hear "exercise" in the message at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: According to his lawyer, he's considering a defamation lawsuit against the state for making false statements about what led to that incident.

You know, we are always so grateful to spend the morning with you. Thank you for being here. We hope you make some good memories today.

BLACKWELL: There is much more ahead in the next hour of CNN newsroom. We turn it over now to our colleague Fredricka Whitfield.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello to you both. You seem very anxious to hand that over. You had a very busy morning.

(LAUGHTER)

WHITFIELD: All right, now you can decompress.

BLACKWELL: Thank you very much.

WHITFIELD: Good to see you guys. It's 11:00 eastern hour. Hello, everyone, I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Newsroom starts right now.