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Kim and Moon Pledge to End Korean War; Lawyer at Trump Tower Meeting an Informant; NRA under Scrutiny; Judge Puts Temp Hold on Stormy Daniels' Lawsuit; Windrush Scandal; Ancient Man versus Giant Sloth. Aired 5-6a ET

Aired April 28, 2018 - 05:00   ET

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


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NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Vows of peace on the Korean Peninsula. Leaders of North and South Korea make a series of ambitious pledges. We'll have a live report on what's next.

GEORGE HOWELL, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Plus a Russian lawyer who was at a controversial Trump Tower meeting admits she had closer ties to the Kremlin than she let on.

ALLEN (voice-over): Later this hour, ancient battles between, guess what, humans and giant sloths. You're probably thinking, I really wanted to know that.

HOWELL (voice-over): We have more giant sloths ahead.

ALLEN (voice-over): We've got the story. It has to do with fossilized footprints that have been found. Stay with us for that.

HOWELL (voice-over): Live from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta, welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm George Howell.

ALLEN (voice-over): I'm Natalie Allen and this is CNN NEWSROOM.

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HOWELL: 5:01 on the U.S. East Coast.

North Korean state media describes the summit between North and South Korea as historic. The North Korean leader Kim Jong-un appeared relaxed and comfortable as he crossed into the South for a day-long summit with President Moon Jae-in.

The men did seem at ease together with each other. They planted a tree together and even took a long walk from their aides and from the press to talk.

ALLEN: At the conclusion Mr. Kim and Mr. Moon vowed to formally end the Korean War and to denuclearize the peninsula. The United States president tweeted his approval. He wrote, "Korean War to end. The United States and all of its great

people should be very proud of what is now taking place in Korea."

CNN's Paula Hancocks covered the summit and she is in Seoul, South Korea, with us.

Paula, thanks for being with us. The day after this historic meeting between the leaders, what is the overall sense among people who watched in Seoul about what they witnessed and perhaps where things go from here?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Natalie, there is a certain amount of optimism among some, having seen what happened yesterday. The fact that these two leaders did seem to be building some kind of rapport, some kind of relationship, both of them saying publicly that they were building trust and clearly going forward considering that declaration that they signed was fairly light on details to work out those details they are going to have to build trust between the two countries.

It was a day of optics and tremendous photo opportunities. There were certain things, though, we understand, that clearly were papered over. There was no mention of human rights. There was very little detail on what exactly this complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula could look like, what conditions, what concessions would Kim Jong-un ask for.

So there's certainly a lot of questions that have been unanswered. But I think, from the South Korean government's point of view, they could see this as going as well as could have been expected.

We are, though, today, seeing some protests, small protests against what happened yesterday, some anti-Moon protests, a group of a few hundred defectors from North Korea gathering as well, saying that yesterday was simply a show, no substance to it, and they don't believe that they could work -- they are calling for the U.S. to add more sanctions.

HOWELL: Paula, there is talk about credit to the U.S. President Donald Trump but what about credit to President Moon there in South Korea?

Clearly he staked his presidency on outreach to North Korea, even when people doubted him. Despite the criticism, it did happen.

How does all this add up for him politically?

HANCOCKS: Well, that's right. To be honest, President Moon, I think, is one of the only leaders that hasn't claimed credit for what is happening at the moment. He has been pushing for this since he took power back in May 2017. He's been bringing the U.S. President Donald Trump along with him, but grudgingly at first.

Mr. Trump even called Mr. Moon an appeaser at one point because he didn't believe that engagement with North Korea was the right way. But I think certainly there should be credit for President Moon to

have got to this point. When you consider what was happening about five or six months ago, when tensions on this peninsula were incredibly high.

Even amongst the missile, the nuclear tests, which were far more prolific than they have been in North Korea's history, Moon was still pushing for North Korea to be engaged in the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. He was pushing for this sporting diplomacy.

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HANCOCKS: And then at the beginning of the year, you had Kim Jong-un changing his public policy, saying that he was possibly going to send a delegation to the Olympics. And then it just accelerated from there to this point that we saw on Friday. So certainly I think President Moon deserves some credit for at least getting to go this point. But, of course, there is a long way to go.

ALLEN: Certainly. But we hope that Olympic diplomacy spreads across the globe and, heck, why not? K-pop diplomacy as well, let's not forget that effect. Paula Hancocks for us, thanks so much.

President Trump could meet with the North Korean leader in the coming weeks. He has gone from attacking Kim Jong-un as Little Rocket Man to calling him honorable.

HOWELL: A big change there, a 180 you could call it. Despite that change in tone, Mr. President Trump says that he is poised to accomplish what previous administrations could not. Listen.

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TRUMP: It's taken a long time, many decades to get here. Let's see what happens. Things have changed radically from a few months. You know the name calling and a lot of other things.

We get a kick every once in a while, either the fact that I'll be watching people that fail so badly over the last 25 years explaining to me how to make a deal with North Korea, I get a big, big kick out of that. But we are doing very well. I think that something very dramatic could happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: The president also took to Twitter to credit his Chinese counterpart, saying, "Please do not forget the great help that my good friend, President Xi of China, has given to the United States, particularly at the Border of North Korea. Without him it would have been a much longer, tougher, process!"

HOWELL: The president also says the list of possible sites where he would meet Kim Jong-un has narrowed but he did not reveal the locations; sources tell CNN the U.S. favors Singapore. The U.S. Secretary of Defense is expressing high hopes about dealing with North Korea. ALLEN: But General James Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon he does not want to assume anything.

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GEN. JAMES MATTIS, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I don't have a crystal ball. I can tell you we are optimistic right now there's opportunity here that we have never enjoy since 1950. That's going to take dip low mat working and I'm not going to calculate in advance anything.

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HOWELL: Let's get analysis now with Leslie Vinjamuri. Leslie teaches international relations at SOAS University of London, live for us in our London bureau.

Good to have you with us. We just heard from James Mattis just a moment ago. A bit of caution because we've been here before. North Korea promising to offer concessions and dialogue but then back to square one.

How do you see this as different?

LESLIE VINJAMURI, SOAS UNIVERSITY OF LONDON: Well, I think it's very much the same in that sense, that it puts much more pressure. Perhaps this is where it's different. The amount of pressure now on that summit, when President Trump meets the North Korean leader, to actually achieve results, a clear commitment to inspections of the North Korean nuclear program, to verification, to transparency and what will denuclearization actually come down to.

The details now are really what matters. And there's no room at this point for just having a summit that produces little more than a photo opportunity. So I think there's tremendous pressure on really making tangible what denuclearization will be and, if not, what action will the United States take.

HOWELL: The big question is around the progress between North and South Korea. The U.S. President is saying he is due the credit for the openness of Kim Jong-un with regard to talks. Here's his take on it.

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TRUMP: I don't think it's ever had this enthusiasm for somebody -- for them wanting to make a deal. And, yes, I agree the United States has been played beautifully like a fiddle because you had a different kind of leader. We're not going to be played. OK?

We're going to hopefully make a deal. If we don't, that's fine. United States in the past was played like a fiddle. Money going in and nobody knew what was happening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOWELL: If all goes as planned, this would be an achievement that none of his predecessors were able to realize.

What are your thoughts?

VINJAMURI: Well, there's no doubt that the North Korean nuclear threat has been one of the biggest if not the biggest security concerns. Everybody knew it would come to be the very significant problem for whoever the president was going to be at this stage.

So Trump is right, that this is very significant, that the North Koreans have played past other presidents, that they've continued to develop a nuclear weapons program and they've done that further --

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VINJAMURI: -- under the Trump presidency. Remember, there's now an ICBM program; there's been further nuclear testing. But when President Trump says if we don't reach a deal, that's fine, it's not clear what that means and I think that's one of the big questions right now.

If there aren't very clear details agreed on denuclearization, then what?

This is -- again, the summit has been pushed now to the brink. And the stakes are tremendously high. There's also the question of what the United States will be willing to offer in terms of sanctions relief, normalization, will this mean any altering towards the U.S. positioning of troops on the Korean Peninsula, all sorts of questions.

So really the planning will be very important and there's been a question mark about whether there's sufficient planning going into the summit. But this is really -- despite the photo opportunity and the optics yesterday, which were tremendous, the pressure is really very intense right now.

HOWELL: Friday's talks between North and South Korea now in the history books. We also saw a photo that was released, basically of the new secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, meeting with Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang.

So the question to you, Leslie, is this the groundwork really, is this setting the stage for this possible meeting between Kim Jong-un and President Trump?

What are some of the issues that could derail that possible meeting?

VINJAMURI: Well, I think it does look like that meeting will go forward. I think that President Trump would like to have that meeting. Certainly the North Korean leader would like to have that meeting.

Remember, this is a tremendous thing for him, for Kim, because it gives him legitimacy and makes him a very significant player on the international stage. He's wanted that meeting. It's a real opportunity. So I think that will go forward. But, again, it's a question of how much planning goes into that and

whether there's a clear strategy, an articulated set of goals of what the United States is willing to accept and what it's willing to offer.

And I think this is really critical and undoubtedly Mattis will be working on that. We have a very different set of leaders now that are critical to the preparation. So it looks very different with Bolton and Pompeo in place, who, one would expect to take a much harder line if those details for denuclearization aren't very critical.

Remember the backdrop to this is that the Trump administration has been tremendously critical of the Iran deal and thinking that there isn't compliance, that it doesn't go far enough on the question of the missile program in Iran.

So then to turn to North Korea and not get very tangible results out of the summit would be quite a walk back, I think, for the U.S. administration.

HOWELL: We'll have to wait and see. A lot of credit being taken but, again, the game is not done yet. Leslie Vinjamuri, live for us in London, thank you for your time.

VINJAMURI: Thank you.

ALLEN: Well, President Trump and the German chancellor say their friendship is strong even if it doesn't always look that way. The two leaders met in Washington Friday, discussing a range of issues, including trade, Syria and the Iran nuclear deal, which Mr. Trump insists is bad for the U.S.

HOWELL: Chancellor Merkel admits the agreement is anything but perfect but that it's important, an important first step toward curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions. Listen.

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ANGELA MERKEL, CHANCELLOR OF GERMANY (through translator): The whole of the region, obviously, is of prime importance to us, because it's not 1,000 kilometers away, as it is the case, for example, between the USA and Syria.

But Syria and Iran are countries that are right on our doorstep. So that is of prime importance for us, and we will continue to be in very close talks on this.

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HOWELL: Mr. Trump refused to rule out military action should Tehran resume its nuclear program.

In the meantime, there are two key developments in investigations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. On Capitol Hill Friday, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee issued their report, saying there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. ALLEN: President Trump hailed the report on Twitter, repeating his claim the investigation is a big hoax for Democrats and calling it a witch hunt. And he also said this in the Oval Office.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We were honored. It was a great report. No collusion, which I knew anyway. No coordination, no nothing. It's a witch hunt. That's all it is. As I've said many times before, I've always said there was no collusion but I've also said there has been nobody tougher on Russia than me.

I was very honored by the report. It was very totally conclusive, strong and powerful. Many things said that nobody knew about and said it very strongly. They were very forceful in saying that the Clinton campaign actually did contribute to Russia. So maybe somebody ought to look at that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOWELL: All right. There is new information to share with you on that Russian attorney, who was at the now infamous Trump Tower meeting with Trump campaign officials. Our Manu Raju has details for us.

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MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: The Russian lawyer who attended a 2016 meeting with Donald Trump Jr. now acknowledging she's an informant of the Russian government.

In newly released e-mails from 2013, reported by "The New York Times," Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya is shown coordinating closely with the office of a senior Russian official, the prosecutor general.

"I am a lawyer and I am an informant," she told NBC News.

"Since 2013 I have been actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general."

The disclosure shines a new light on a June 2016 meeting she attended with the president's eldest son and senior campaign officials, when Trump Jr. initially was promised dirt on the Clinton campaign, that never materialized.

The Republican who ran the House's Russia investigation acknowledging he was unaware that she was an informant of the Russian government.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's new information.

RAJU (voice-over): This on the same day that the House Intelligence Committee released its report from the Russia probe. The Republicans' conclusion: they found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. RUBIO: Is it troubling to you in any way that she was a Russian

informant and had a meeting with senior level Trump campaign officials in 2016?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. Because that's how she presented herself and there's no evidence that she acted on that.

RAJU (voice-over): The House GOP report does fault the Trump campaign's periodic praise and communication with WikiLeaks as, quote, "highly objectionable" and demonstrating "poor judgment."

Plus, it says both the Trump and Clinton campaigns took ill-considered actions, including the Trump campaign's decision to meet with Veselnitskaya in Trump Tower. In one interaction described in the report, Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, met in December 2015, before he joined the Trump campaign, at the Russian embassy with then ambassador Sergey Kislyak before Flynn traveled to Moscow.

The report cite emails exchanged between Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, and business associate Felix Sadr, over a proposed Trump Tower Moscow project and an effort to set up a Trump-Putin meeting.

Sadr told Cohen, that if Putin gets on at stage with Donald for a ribbon cutting in Moscow, Donald owns the Republican nomination.

The efforts to set up a Trump-Putin meeting didn't end there. In one brief interaction, the report says Trump Jr. met briefly with a Russian government official during the National Rifle Association's annual meeting.

The GOP report concludes that the brief meeting centered on shooting and hunting and not the campaign. Democrats say that misses the point.

REP. JOAQUIN CASTRO (D-TEXAS), MEMBER, HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE: The sad part of this is that this was not a real investigation. This was basically a kindergarten investigation.

RAJU: And Democrats also released their own findings that disputed a lot of assertions made by the Republicans in their own report. In the Democrats' report, it actually discusses that NRA meeting that occurred at a convention, in which Donald Trump Jr. had that brief interaction with that Russian official.

So now they said that in the run-up to that convention, actually there were emails that showed there was an effort at that meeting was never by the Russian government to create a, quote, "first contact" with the Trump campaign because Moscow was very insistent on having good relationships between Putin and then candidate Trump.

Now on top of that, that same report shows that Emin Agalarov, who's the Russian oligarch, who orchestrated that June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, he actually sent a gift to then candidate Trump the day after that meeting, a birthday gift.

It was, quote, "an expensive painting," in the words of this report and Trump apparently responded afterwards, saying in an e-mail, "There are few things better than receiving a sensational gift from someone you admire and that's what I received from you" -- Manu Raju, CNN. Capitol Hill.

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ALLEN: Democrats say Republicans refused to fully investigate the allegations, that it failed to call more than 30 key witnesses, including that Russian lawyer.

HOWELL: The committee's top Democrat also points to unanswered questions surrounding that Trump Tower meeting in particular, a curious phone call.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CALIF.), MEMBER, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Don Jr., prior to the meeting, when this is being discussed by e-mail, because it's of the sensitive nature and don't want to do it by e- mail, arranges to call Emin Agalarov. This is the son of this oligarch close to Putin.

And we have these two calls to Amin. And the significant thing is they're separated by a third call to a blocked number. Now we sought to find out, is that blocked number Donald Trump's blocked number?

Because we found out during the investigation that Donald Trump used a blocked number during the campaign. We asked to subpoena the phone records so we could match up, did Donald Trump receive a phone call at the same time Donald Jr. was making that call, to find out, did the president's son seek the president's permission, the go-ahead to go forward with this meeting?

The Republicans refused.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: There's another Russia connection that's being investigated. It has to do with a Russian banker and the NRA --

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ALLEN: -- the biggest gun rights group appears to be bracing for an investigation over its ties to a Russian banker. We have an exclusive report about that -- next.

HOWELL: Plus the porn star, Stormy Daniels, and the fixer, Michael Cohen, won't be facing off in court anytime soon. What's next for the case against Michael Cohen?

Stay with us.

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ALLEN: Now a CNN exclusive. The biggest gun rights organization in the U.S. is apparently bracing for an investigation.

HOWELL: The National Rifle Association, the NRA, as it's called, faces scrutiny about its finances and ties to a Russian banker and possibly ties to the Trump campaign. Our Sara Murray reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA MURRAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The National Rifle Association is setting aside years of documents related to its interactions with Kremlin-linked banker Aleksandr Torshin and his protege, Maria Butina. And it appears to be bracing for a possible investigation, sources say.

The gun rights group is facing congressional scrutiny over its finances and ties to Torshin, a lifetime member of the NRA and one of the prominent Russian government officials the U.S. recently slapped with sanctions. The NRA is also battling allegations that Torshin may have illegally funneled money through the NRA to bolster the Trump campaign.

SCHIFF: There have been allegations the Russians were going to funnel money through the NRA. And we sought to investigate that. There were witnesses with direct knowledge regarding those allegations that we sought to bring in. The Republicans refused.

MURRAY (voice-over): The NRA has publicly denied any contact from the FBI or accepting any illegal donations. But sources say they are anxiously preparing, collecting documents as due diligence and dealing with congressional scrutiny.

The renewed attention highlights the uneasy alliance between top NRA officials and Torshin, a relationship that eventually ensnared members of Trump's campaign team, inviting congressional scrutiny into advisers, including Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Jeff Sessions.

The NRA went all in for Trump in 2016.

TRUMP: I've been a member for a long time and my boys are members so to get the endorsement, believe me, is a fantastic honor.

MURRAY (voice-over): It spent $30 million backing Trump's candidacy, more than it shelled out for 2008 and 2012 political races combined, according to the Center for Responsible Politics.

[05:20:00]

MURRAY (voice-over): Behind the scenes, Torshin was using NRA ties to try to arrange a meeting with Trump at the NRA's annual meeting in Louisville. In an e-mail to the Trump campaign, a Torshin associate says he is cultivating a back channel to President Putin's Kremlin, adding, "Putin is deadly serious about building a good relationship with Mr. Trump."

SCHIFF: Here you have, in black and white, evidence that there was an effort by the Russians to use the NRA as their channel, one of their channels to the Trump campaign.

MURRAY (voice-over): Torshin didn't meet Trump at the NRA meeting but he had an impromptu encounter with Donald Trump Jr. and even some NRA officials wondered if it was a setup by the Russians. Trump Jr. told investigators that he doesn't recall discussing the upcoming election with Torshin.

Torshin's relationship with the NRA began years ago through David Keen (ph), now an NRA board member. In 2015, Keen took NRA backers to Moscow, hosted by Maria Butina. She had attracted attention for starting a gun rights group in Russia, a country known for its strict firearms laws.

The NRA group went sight-seeing and toured a gun manufacturer. By 2016, sources say Torshin and Butina had become fixtures at the NRA's high-dollar donor events. NRA has said Torshin hasn't made any donations aside from membership dues and said it hasn't found any foreign donations related to the U.S. election.

But Russia experts say Torshin's close ties to Putin and division around guns in America mean his coziness with the NRA looks like a classic Russian influence operation.

STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Vladimir Putin is using these issues to divide us, to split and make weaker the United States. And that's something that I believe all of Americans ought to be concerned about.

MURPHY: Now the White House, the Trump campaign and the NRA did not comment for this story. When I spoke with David Keen, he said he did not want to talk about his 2015 trip to Moscow but said he was not aware of any donations from Aleksandr Torshin -- Sara Murray, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: The leaders of North and South Korea ended their historic summit with a declaration of lofty goals.

Will they stick by their words?

We'll discuss their realistic path ahead when we come back.

HOWELL: Plus the U.S. President's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, gets a reprieve in a civil case against him. But he still faces a criminal investigation in New York. We'll explain. NEWSROOM pushes on after the break.

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HOWELL: Live coast to coast this morning across the United States, from London to Sydney and all points in between. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. Thank you for being with us. I'm George Howell.

And I'm Natalie Allen. Here are our top stories.

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ALLEN: World leaders are now assessing the remarkable summit between the leaders of North and South Korea and whether it will lead to concrete changes.

HOWELL: The two leaders, Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in, concluded their meeting with a joint declaration to formally end the Korean War and denuclearize the peninsula. North Korea media called it "historic."

ALLEN: Making those goals a reality is a tall order after 70 years of mistrust and animosity. But the rapport between the two leaders and the symbolism they embraced sent a powerful message that change could be coming.

Chung Min Lee is with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He's also a former South Korean ambassador for national security affairs.

Thanks so much for joining us from Seoul to talk about this. And the devil's in the details. We'll talk about --

CHUNG MIN LEE, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE: It's my pleasure.

ALLEN: -- yes, the tough road ahead. But right now, this was summit number 1; this was the first time that the North and the South, the leaders have met and they came up with an agreement to end the war and to get rid of the nuclear program in North Korea.

What do you make of it?

LEE: Well, Natalie, this was the first summit between President Moon and Chairman Kim of North Korea but the third overall since 2000. And the declaration which was seen by the world yesterday was very positive on many fronts, including North Korea's promise to denuclearize.

But as always the devil is in the details. North Korea said on previous occasions, we will never pursue nuclear weapons and they did. They have done over six nuclear tests, including a hydrogen bomb test.

And they promised the U.S. on many occasions they will totally dismantle their nuclear and missile sites and that has not happened. So while we are very hopeful over the next ensuing weeks and months, we've got to really see whether Kim Jong-un is willing to accept really harsh sanctions to make sure -- and inspections to make sure that North Korea no longer develops and rolls back on nuclear weapons.

ALLEN: Right. You wisely point out he's gone back on pledges before. We also know Kim Jong-un is a brutal ruler. He wants total control. He fiercely defends his family dynasty, enemies within and enemies outside of North Korea.

So the question is, how does South Korea and the world work with him, moving forward, knowing these realities about him?

LEE: You know, Natalie, that's a great question, because South Korea has to deal with North Korea, its arch political foe in many respects. They have downed airplanes before; they have done terrible terrorist acts. And this is a regime that is one of the most, if not the most --

[05:35:00]

LEE: -- authoritarian in the world. North Korea has several gulags; there are thousands of political prisoners as we speak. Nonetheless, this is the leader that we have to deal with.

Kim Jong-un is 34 years old, he's a lot more aware of the outside world than his dad or even his grandfather was. And he's very savvy in his own way and he wants to put his mark on the North Korean regime and to make sure he gains as much economic benefits as well as sanctions relief.

But he will not get that from Donald Trump unless he makes critical deals with nuclear issues.

ALLEN: Right. Speaking of Mr. Trump, he has had his part, hurling insults at Kim Jong-un and making threats. Some question maybe that helped get us to this point, to Mr. Trump's way of doing things. But the pressure will now be on President Trump to maybe continue the momentum in their meeting.

LEE: You're absolutely right, because President Moon laid the framework. There are pluses and minuses in all summits but there is a road map now. President Moon is slated to visit Pyongyang in the fall of this year. And perhaps by the end of the year there will be a formal peace treaty that ends the Korean War, including the U.S. and China.

For Donald Trump, the bar therefore is very, very high. He wants North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons but Pyongyang won't do that unless he gets something substantive in return. And that includes, for example, a pledge maybe to withdraw U.S. forces over time and to reduce the number of U.S.-Korean military exercises or to withdraw the U.S. nuclear umbrella from South Korea.

So these are tough issues that Mr. Trump's got to deal with, not only face-to-face but on various levels before the expected summit in early June.

ALLEN: I was about to ask you about that and you just answered it so my last question will be this. Did you see or observe anything about Kim Jong-un during this

fascinating meeting and the walkaround and the chitchat on the bridge?

You had to wonder if there's any -- engaging in small talk as well.

But are there any takeaways from what you observed about him, during this whole day, really, of being able to watch this play out?

LEE: Well, I think there were two very important images that were spread all across the world. Everybody knew Kim Jong-un or expected him to be very cold, not very talkative. And yet he was very boisterous, he was pointing to various paintings. His suggestion to President Moon to cross over to the North Korean side and then shook hands again.

So he was a very jovial, normal, a very vivacious leader, as it were. But at home he is a brutal dictator running a one-party family dynasty. But that's the image that he wants to portray in North Korea, but outside he wants to be the guy who is actually the -- who can make deals with South Koreans and others.

The second point is that many thought that he would not be as open to suggestions. But, again, he surprised the world because he listed a number of initiatives that have yet to be panned out. So on those two points, we were surprised by North Korea but it was all planned on the part of Kim Jong-un and his critical aides, including his sister.

ALLEN: Very interesting. Well, you never know. Maybe the world, the outside world, will affect how he treats his fellow citizens in North Korea one of these days.

Who knows?

But it's a hopeful time, isn't it?

Chung Min Lee, we thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate your thoughts.

LEE: Yes, it is.

ALLEN: Thank you.

LEE: Thank you.

ALLEN: All right. Let's talk Stormy Daniels. Her civil case against President Trump and his personal attorney, Michael Cohen. is on hold, at least temporarily. This coming as the criminal investigation into Cohen continues in New York.

HOWELL: A California judge cited that criminal investigation as the reason to grant Cohen's request to halt the case. Sara Sidner reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is certainly a win for Michael Cohen and his attorneys in this civil case against him and the President of the United States by Stephanie Clifford or Stormy Daniels, as we all know her.

Basically the judge has said there's going to be a 90-day stay. That means that the case is put on hold for 90 days. That means that Michael Avenatti will not be able to depose the president. He will not be able to depose Michael Cohen or anyone else involved in the case at this point because a judge has put a hold on it.

Why did the judge do it?

Well, the judge gave examples and reasons for why he did it. First of all, he said, look, there's a lack of significant prejudice to the plaintiff. So basically it's not going to hurt Stormy Daniels if he holds off on this case for 90 days.

[05:40:00]

SIDNER: But one of the really big reasons why this is happening and why Michael Cohen's attorneys asked for this is because of the potential significant impact to the criminal investigation against Michael Cohen right now, realizing that his properties had been raided by the FBI; they were looking for information that had something to do, according to our sources, with the $130,000 that he paid to Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet just before the presidential election.

And also mentioned in the judge's reasoning, it says, "Mr. Cohen's significant interest in the preservation of his Fifth Amendment rights," that is the right against self-incrimination, that playing a big role in this.

One more thing to mention, that we should point out, the judge also said in his ruling that, judging from what has happened in the criminal investigation, that court believes that there will be an indictment.

Considering that, this is no ordinary investigation, because it involves the personal attorney for the President of the United States -- Sara Sidner, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOWELL: Sara, thanks.

Stormy Daniels' attorney says they plan to appeal the decision. He spoke earlier to CNN's Jim Acosta and shared his concerns about the judge's ruling.

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MICHAEL AVENATTI, STORMY DANIELS' ATTORNEY: If this was only about 90 days, I don't think we'd be taking it up on appeal. We might. But we're concerned about it being delayed beyond that.

My client continues to fall under this NDA, according to the defendants. They continue to threaten her with additional millions of dollars of damages. She wants to be clear of this and she wants the defamation claim against Michael Cohen fully adjudicated.

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ALLEN: Again, that's Michael Avenatti speaking there. He also raised the possibility of bringing a defamation claim against President Trump for tweets suggesting Stormy Daniels lied to the American people.

How about we end this with "stay tuned"?

HOWELL: More to come, right?

Still ahead...

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BARBARA ISAACS, WINDRUSH IMMIGRANT: How can you have lived somewhere all of your life and, 50 years later, you're sleeping on the streets, begging people for certain things?

ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You're homeless.

ISAACS: Yes, totally. I was homeless, destitute.

HOWELL (voice-over): A wave of Caribbean migrants were invited to come and live in England during the late 1940s. Now they're fighting for the right to stay. We'll have the details on that story ahead.

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ALLEN (voice-over): Also ahead here, travel back with us, like way, way back. How newly discovered fossilized footprints show how ancient humans stalked giant sloths.

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HOWELL: Welcome back.

Britain's home secretary is facing calls to resign. This after a scandal deepens over how her office treated immigrants from the so- called Windrush generation.

ALLEN: A day after Amber Rudd said her office never deported people to meet a quota, "The Guardian" reported on a leaked memo suggesting otherwise. CNN's Erin McLaughlin reports on how the scandal over numbers and paperwork stripped one woman of her humanity.

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ISAACS: We're not wanted here. That's the way they made me feel. I'm not wanted. I'm not valued. I'm not nobody. I have no identity. As far as they're concerned I'm an alien.

MCLAUGHLIN (voice-over): Barbara Isaacs says in 2008, her life forever changed. A mother of six, struggling with mental health issues and living on benefits, she applied to the British government to renew her welfare, something she had received for decades, only to suddenly be told there was no record she existed.

ISAACS: How can you throw away a whole generation of people that you invited to come here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is the arrival of more than 400 happy Jamaicans.

MCLAUGHLIN: Barbara is part of what's known as the Windrush generation, a wave of migrants from the Caribbean, encouraged to come rebuild the U.K. after World War II. They were told they could stay for the rest of their lives. Many lived in the U.K. without paperwork.

Decades later, the government would begin to demand documentation to prove their right to stay, documentation many say they don't have. To make matters worse, the British government acknowledges it destroyed thousands of landing cards. As a result, some were threatened with deportation and deprived of badly needed benefits.

AMBER RUDD, BRITISH HOME SECRETARY: I bitterly, deeply regret that I didn't see it as more than individual cases that had gone wrong that needed addressing. I didn't see it as a systemic issue until very recently.

MCLAUGHLIN (voice-over): Barbara is one of the lucky ones. She kept her old passport, which shows she arrived when she was 6. Even so, she had to prove she had the right to remain in the United Kingdom.

ISAACS: They wanted 42 years' worth of information. They didn't even save their paperwork for 42 years --

MCLAUGHLIN (voice-over): It took Isaacs three years to come up with the money and the paperwork necessary to apply. In the meantime, she says, she lost all government support.

ISAACS: How can you have lived somewhere all of your life and, 50 years later, you're sleeping on the streets, begging people for certain things.

MCLAUGHLIN: You were homeless.

ISAACS: Yes, totally. I was homeless, destitute. It's so degrading, so degrading.

MCLAUGHLIN (voice-over): Isaacs was granted residency in 2011, the same year she applied, something the home office points to in a statement responding to CNN's request for comment, adding that it's looking into her case, quote, "as a matter of urgency."

Even though she once again receives government support, for Isaacs and so many others from the Windrush generation, the damage is deep and permanent.

ISAACS: I've cried me a river and I've almost drowned in. It. A part of me has died, completely dead.

MCLAUGHLIN (voice-over): Erin McLaughlin, CNN, London.

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ALLEN: We'll continue to follow that story.

Coming up here, this is when we go back in time for you. Sloths may seem like slow-moving, docile creatures but thousands of years ago it was a much different story and we'll have the story when we come back.

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ALLEN: Well, NASA is sending a new mission to Mars, the spaceship is called InSight and it's set to launch next week. The U.S. space agency is hoping it will help provide a detailed map of Mars' interior.

HOWELL: InSight doesn't have wheels like other Mars rovers. So when it lands on the Red Planet in six months, it will stay put there. But it does have a robotic arm and equipment to detect Marsquakes -- that'll be interesting.

Now to Peru, scientists there have uncovered a dark secret dating back 550 years. "National Geographic" reports the skeletal remains of more than 140 children and 200 baby llamas were found on the country's northern coast.

ALLEN: The remains may be evidence of the largest child sacrifice in history. The discovery was made at a site that has been under excavation since 2011.

All right. Now as promised.

HOWELL: Sloths.

(LAUGHTER)

ALLEN: Ancient humans battling giant beasts, it sounds like an adventure movie.

HOWELL: Doesn't it?

But there's new evidence, new fossilized evidence that shows ancient humans may have actually hunted these giant sloths. Our Robyn Kriel has the story.

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ROBYN KRIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This could have been a scene thousands of years ago, a heated battle between ancient humans and a formidable prey, giant sloths. The dramatic rendering is a peek into the remarkable lives of our ancestors unearthed in recently discovered fossilized footprints.

MATTHEW BENNETT, BOURNEMOUTH UNIVERSITY: What this evidence does is it first time shows us how they --

[05:55:00]

BENNETT: -- might have tackled one of these big beasts and the fact that they were almost certainly doing it routinely, and that's important in that story.

KRIEL (voice-over): Matthew Bennett, a professor at Bournemouth University in the U.K., and his team found perfectly preserved, in a white salt flat in New Mexico, outlines of an ancient sloth's massive foot. And perfectly nestled inside it, a human footprint. Nearby, other fossilized imprints told the story of a dramatic encounter.

BENNETT: What seems to have happened or what's the story that we can read from the tracks is that the humans were stalking, following in the footsteps, precisely in the footsteps of the sloth. And that's what we have here.

And distracting it, and while he was being distracted, turning and getting cross and somebody else would come across and try and deliver the killer blow. It's an interesting story and it's all written in the footprints.

KRIEL (voice-over): These were not the same sleepy sloths of present day. Standing 7-8 feet tall with very long arms and wolverine-like claws, they were significant beasts.

It's believed they existed up to 11,000 years ago until scientists think their demise came from overhunting by humans, some of which has now been captured and studied by Bennett and his team, providing a glimpse of the prehistoric pursuits of our ancestors -- Robyn Kriel, CNN.

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ALLEN: Fascinating stuff there. Thanks for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Natalie Allen.

HOWELL: And I'm George Howell. For viewers in the United States, "NEW DAY" is next. For viewers around the world, "AMANPOUR" is ahead. Thanks for being with us. ALLEN: See you later.