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Kim Jong-un Vows to Shutter Nuclear Test Site; President Snubs Reporters, White House Correspondents' Dinner; Holds Campaign Rally; Cracking the Golden State Killer Case. Aired 12m-12:30a ET

Aired April 29, 2018 - 00:00   ET

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


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CYRIL VANIER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Following the Korean summit, Pyongyang says it will carry out the shutdown of its nuclear test sites in May.

Plus Donald Trump versus the media. The U.S. president snubbed the White House Correspondents' Dinner again, preferring to address supporters instead.

And a string of rapes and murders, a case gone very cold and a DNA website, the breakthrough in the Golden State killer investigation explained.

Live from CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Cyril Vanier. It is great to have you with us.

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VANIER: We start with breaking news out of the Korean Peninsula. Kim Jong-un says the North's nuclear test site will be shut down next month. Also, foreign experts will be invited into the country.

And the North Korean leader reportedly says he is not the kind of person to fire nuclear weapons at South Korea or the United States. All of these potentially major developments.

All this is coming to us from the South Korean presidency; Kim Jong-un reportedly made these comments at a landmark summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Friday. You are seeing pictures of that meeting.

At the meeting the two leaders signed a declaration. The vowed denuclearization of the peninsula and a formal end to the Korean War. CNN's Paula Hancocks joins me now from Seoul with the very latest.

Paula, you were telling me yesterday that you were going to get this briefing; now you are just coming back to us from the South Korean presidency and you are finding out more details about what was promised at this summit.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Cyril, yes. The main headlines really to take away from this is that Kim Jong-un has said that he is going to shut down the nuclear facility in May. So we have a timeline now of exactly when that could be. That's next month, so obviously not very far away at all.

Also saying that he's going to invite experts and journalists from South Korea and the United States just to be open and transparent, he said, with the international community.

Now this is all coming to us secondhand from the Blue House, from the spokesperson. But this is what they say that Kim Jong-un said at this summit.

He also, according to the Blue House, said that there were two larger tunnels at this Punggye-ri nuclear test site in the northeast of the country that were in good condition. Kim Jong-un had apparently acknowledged the fact that there have been reports out there that this nuclear test site had apparently collapsed after previous tests so it was obsolete.

He said that's simply not the case and these two larger tunnels are in very good condition. So a more specific timeline. The two leaders we're being told by the Blue House, said that they would discuss the schedule when the North is ready. So we don't have the exact details.

A couple of other smaller issues: they've decided to standardize time on the Korean Peninsula. A few years ago, the North Koreans decided to bring their clock back half an hour so there was a half-hour difference between Pyongyang and Seoul.

That's not going to be standardized to the time that Seoul's on as well. And another interesting thing, just to mention, apparently Kim Jong-un did say, are you sure there will never be a use of military force, so insisting to the South Korean president there wouldn't be a second Korean War -- Cyril.

VANIER: Tell me a little bit more about this line that I'm reading. Kim Jong-un saying he is not the kind of person that would fire a nuclear weapon at the United States or at South Korea.

I mean, given what we saw over the past 12 months, that is just stunning.

HANCOCKS: Absolutely, well, 12 months and more. I mean, North Korea has consistently been threatening, at least rhetorically, the United States. Just a year ago they threatened to turn Seoul into a sea of flames, that's one that they've used a number of times.

Certainly when it comes to the rhetoric that we heard from North Korea, through state-run media, then that doesn't marry up with what we're hearing now from Kim Jong-un through the Blue House.

So (INAUDIBLE) to fire that nuclear weapon. So it's an interesting comment for sure and the fact that they have quoted him as saying as well that he thinks the U.S. has a kind of innate repulsion against North Korea. But saying once we speak to the United States, once I talk to them, I can build trust with the U.S. We can meet often and I can promise the ending of war and non-aggression.

So he's looking toward the meeting with Donald Trump there, which we're expecting next month, potentially early June, saying that he doesn't actually think that will be a one-off, that they could meet more often, that there could -- that there does have to be trust built between the U.S. and North Korea.

So yes, what we're hearing -- and certainly what we saw on Friday -- is a very different story to what we've been hearing over the past few years,

VANIER: All right, CNN's correspondent in Seoul, South Korea, Paula Hancocks, bringing us the very latest from the South Korean --

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VANIER: -- presidency. Thank you very much, Paula. We'll speak to you again next hour -- thanks.

Let's bring you back to the U.S. U.S. President Donald Trump spoke before a crowd of supporters in Washington Saturday night, not Washington, D.C., though. This was Washington Township, Michigan, near Detroit.

This was not just any other night. He held a rally at the same time as the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner, which he snubbed for the second year in a row. During his rally, the president took aim at his favorite targets and that includes the media, that includes Democrats.

He also touted his role in North Korean diplomacy and blasted the Russia investigation, saying that the Russian lawyer at that Trump Tower meeting with his campaign officials is now changing her story and saying that she was a Russian government informant in order to cause chaos in the U.S.

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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Have you heard about the lawyer?

For a year, a woman lawyer, she was like, oh, I know nothing, know -- now all of a sudden, she supposedly is involved with government.

You know why?

If she did that, because Putin and the group said, you know, this Trump is killing us.

Why don't you say that you are involved with government so that we can go and make their life in the United States even more chaotic?

Look at what's happened. Look at how these politicians have fallen for this junk, Russian collusion. Give me a break.

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VANIER: Boris Sanchez travels with the president. He filed this report from the rally.

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The president kicked off his event here in Washington Township, Michigan, by noting that he was invited to another event in Washington, D.C., alluding to the White House Correspondents' Dinner, but saying that he would rather be here among his supporters.

The president calling that event "phony" and saying that he did not want to sit there and smile as he was being insulted.

The president also took aim at a number of his favorite targets, including the media and certain Democrats, like Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and the governor of California, Jerry Brown, before targeting Montana senator Jon Tester.

Of course, Tester is the ranking Democrat on the Veterans Affairs Committee and he had some role in sinking the president's nominee, Ronny Jackson, for the Secretary of Veterans Affairs. The president at one point seemed to threaten Tester. Listen to what he said during his speech.

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TRUMP: Senator Jon Tester of a really great place, Montana, who voted by the way in favor of sanctuary cities, who's weak on the border, didn't vote for tax cuts.

He took a gentleman, who is a truly high-quality human being, and what they said about him, what they said about this great American doctor, Ronny Jackson, an admiral in the Navy and Tester started throwing out things that he's heard.

Well, I know things about Tester that I could say, too. And if I said them, he would never be elected again.

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SANCHEZ: The president calling what Jon Tester did "a disgrace."

One other noteworthy moment, President Trump accusing Vladimir Putin of planting Natalia Veselnitskaya, that attorney that was in a meeting at Trump Tower in June of 2016 with Paul Manafort, Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner among others, saying that Putin intentionally had her declare that she was an informant to the Kremlin this week in order to sow chaos within the United States.

One of a number of claims by President Trump during his speech here. He also talked about immigration and trade, a number of his favorite topics. And the crowd ate it all up to different chants of "Build the wall" and at one point also chanting, "Nobel, Nobel," suggesting that the president should win the Nobel Peace Prize for the ongoing talks between North and South Korea, moving toward denuclearization. The president also saying that he looks forward to the potential meeting between him and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un -- Boris Sanchez, CNN, traveling with the president in Washington Township, Michigan.

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VANIER: Back to the White House Correspondents' Dinner, which President Trump skipped again this year. All eyes were on host and comedian Michelle Wolf. Her remarks ranged from humorous to raw and, frankly, disparaging.

One Republican, in fact, called it a disgrace. Among her targets, Mr. Trump's net worth. Her jokes were met with laughs, grunts and sometimes awkward silence. Beyond the punchlines, the so-called Nerd Prom -- that the White House Correspondents -- supports student journalists. They honor the best of the White House press corps and they defend a free press.

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MARGARET TALEV, PRESIDENT, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS' DINNER: We reject efforts by anyone, especially our elected leaders, to paint journalism as un-American or to cast doubt on the relevance of facts and truth in the modern age.

An attack on any journalist is an attack on us all.

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TALEV: This really isn't about the business of protecting journalism as a business. In fact, our business has all done pretty well in the --

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TALEV: -- last couple of years.

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TALEV: It is about protecting a pillar of American democracy.

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VANIER: Some are now mentioning President Trump's name in the same sentence as Nobel Peace Prize. Coming up, we'll have more details from the president's rally in Michigan.

Plus the man believed to be the Golden State killer eluded police for decades. But a public DNA database led them right to his door. Stay with us.

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VANIER: President Trump snubbing the White House Correspondents' Dinner, choosing to hold a campaign-style rally in Michigan. There he targeted the media, Democrats, James Comey, Montana Senator Jon Tester and many others.

Let's talk about this. Peter Matthews is with me, political analyst and professor of political science at Cypress College.

First of all, the president, so snubbing Washington, D.C., for Washington, Michigan.

What do you make just of the messaging there?

PETER MATTHEWS, CYPRESS COLLEGE: Well, he's trying to say that he's for the regular common people and not for the elites in Washington, D.C., and that is one reason he skipped the dinner is what he's done. I'm not going to associate with these folks.

But on the other hand, he's got a long way to go to get the vote once again in that Macomb County, where he was located, voted for him by 48,000 votes over Hillary Clinton. But statewide he only won Michigan by 11,000 votes. Cyril, that's not a lot.

But he's trying to say, look, the economy is stronger and the numbers don't -- they belie that. Actually the number, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said that this year, 2017, only 2.06 million jobs were created; in 2016, the year before, when President Obama was in office, it was 2.3 million jobs.

So it's not been that great a job creation record, either. It's actually a little bit lower than normal. So I don't know what Trump is talking about. He's trying to give his voters from Michigan to come back to him once again for the 2020 election and maybe 2018 election.

VANIER: As part of his best hits, obviously, he mentioned Russia and, as he is wont to do in these rallies, he says there is no collusion. Do not talk to me about collusion. One of the interesting things here and one of the new things is he manages to use the example of the Russian lawyer who met with his campaign team in Trump Tower in 2016 and who now, as of a few days ago, says she is a Russian government informant.

He manages to use that and turn it on its head as a suggestion that Vladimir Putin is actually concerned with the amount of pressure he is putting on the Russian president.

MATTHEWS: That was a revelation that most people didn't expect. And we know that she is an informant because she said it herself. And I think President Trump (INAUDIBLE) on its head in the sense.

And I think it's a very unstable situation we're in right now, Cyril, as you know. And it needs -- I hope the president can come down and really calm down and start acting presidential and being more bipartisan, expand his support more rather than just (INAUDIBLE) a few people and always denying so strongly any kind of Russian involvement in the U.S. election.

It is absolutely important that we get to the bottom of this.

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MATTHEWS: And we know the intelligence services said that the Russians were involved in some way or the other and they've even mentioned a couple of ways, whether it be Facebook or what have you. And Trump keeps on protesting and denying that way too strongly. I think that is quite telling in itself.

I think he should leave Bob Mueller alone, let the Southern District of New York investigate Cohen by itself and not interfere, not go on talking about these things, which is not very good at all for a democratic process.

VANIER: There was not a whole lot of bipartisan vibe coming out of that rally. Donald Trump went once again hard after Jon Tester, the Democratic senator, who was one of the people really responsible perhaps for sinking the nomination of Ronny Jackson, the man that the president wanted to see lead the Veterans Affairs agency.

MATTHEWS: Ronny Jackson was the president's personal physician, never run a large bureaucracy before, let alone a government bureaucracy. Totally unqualified and Tester was just pointing out the facts. He had evidence that he had -- Jackson was not qualified.

And why is the president so angry about that if the facts weren't true?

And they are true because other people have corroborated it as well. And that the president needs to ask himself, who does he want to put in charge of the different vast bureaucracies of the government that are so important in addressing the American people's needs?

He's putting incompetent people in there most of the time and they keep resigning on him and -- or he fires them. This is not good at all and is much a major weakness of this president. And I really would urge him to please change directions and start being more presidential, more measured, more careful.

You know, well, let's talk about that. I mean, what he doesn't do this, what's going to continue to happen to America is people will start losing confidence in our government. As it is, only about 35 percent are supporting him for reelection and that's not a very good number for him, leave alone his approval ratings, which aren't that high. They may be below 40 percent right now.

VANIER: Donald Trump also mentioned North Korea taking credit for what is going on right now on the Korean Peninsula. Particularly timely, since we're getting this information that the North Korean leader says he is going to take down or dismantle, shut down, I should say, his nuclear test site next month.

Anyway, my question to you was going to be did you hear the public, chanting, "Nobel, Nobel," Peace Prize for Donald Trump?

MATTHEWS: I certainly did and I could not believe my ears. But look, Donald Trump -- it's a good thing he accepted the meeting with North Korean leader. If it goes well, we don't know how it's going to go. It's President Moon of South Korea who should be given the greatest amount of credit for doing this.

He worked all his life to better the relationship between North and South and he was willing to take a chance in going to the North and working with Kim Jong-un. President Trump, if he would -- I hope he doesn't mess things up in his meeting, when he does meet with Kim Jong-un because things, the way between North and South negotiating (INAUDIBLE) quite well, actually, between those two sides.

Now I hope the president doesn't go in there and jumble things up by getting all of a sudden angry about something and walking out of the meeting, for example. I would say that it's President Moon that should be given a Nobel Prize if anyone at all if this thing works out. And President Trump should just basically try to be calmer and cooler about the whole thing.

VANIER: All right, we're still a long way away from anybody earning or even deserving a Nobel Peace Prize. We will see how that develops. But who knows. That's a conversation to be continued. There is an argument there.

Peter Matthews, thank you very much for joining us on the show. As always, appreciate it.

MATTHEWS: Thank you, Cyril.

VANIER: Coming up, tracking a serial rapist and murderer known as the Golden State killer. How a DNA match helped police crack a decades- old cold case. Stay with us.

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VANIER: Welcome back.

We're learning more about how police finally caught the man that they believe is the Golden State killer. California authorities say he killed at least 12 people and sexually assaulted dozens of women in a terrifying crime spree during the 1970s and 1980s.

One investigator tells CNN place used a public DNA database to help find their suspect. More now from Stephanie Elam.

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STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Entering the court while handcuffed to a wheelchair, Joseph DeAngelo spoke softly while addressing the judge. He did not enter a plea to murder charges stemming from a case from 40 years ago, where he allegedly killed a young married couple.

An attorney for DeAngelo says the 72-year old is depressed and fragile. Investigators allege he is the Golden State killer, a brutal rapist and murderer, who terrorized Californians during the 1970s and '80s.

ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT, SACRAMENTO COUNTY DA: We all knew as part of this team that we were looking for a needle in a haystack. We found the needle in the haystack. And it was right here in Sacramento.

ELAM (voice-over): Investigators were able to unlock the cold case with a DNA sample left by the killer in one of the attacks.

PAUL HOLES, CONTRA COSTA COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY INVESTIGATOR: We ended up generating a DNA profile from the Golden State killer evidence and then were able to take that profile and upload it into an open source public genealogy database called GEDmatch.

GEDmatch then is able to search that profile against the other public profiles that individuals have placed in there. Once we got the initial DNA match results and found very distant relatives, it took us four months.

ELAM (voice-over): DeAngelo is a Navy veteran, who served aboard a missile cruiser during the Vietnam War. He was also a police officer in the towns of Exeter and Auburn, where officials say he was fired in 1979 for stealing a can of dog repellent and a hammer from a drug store.

For 27 years, he worked as a mechanic at a Save Mart distribution center in nearby Roseville. He retired last year. The 72-year old was taken into custody in Citrus Heights, a Sacramento suburb.

SCOTT JONES, SACRAMENTO COUNTY SHERIFF: When he came out of his residence, we had a team in place that was able to take him into custody. He was very surprised by that.

ELAM (voice-over): For those who survived the Golden State killer's attacks, like Jane Carson Sandler, relief mixed with shock as new details emerge.

JANE CARSON SANDLER, GOLDEN STATE KILLER VICTIM: I also lived in Citrus Heights at this time. So he very well could have been my neighbor, which is just -- I can't imagine. I often wonder how long he had stalked me where he had first seen me.

ELAM (voice-over): Carson Sandler clearly remembers the moment a masked man broke into her home.

CARSON SANDLER: When he ran down the hall and had that flashlight in my eyes and that big butcher knife facing my chest, he immediately said, with clenched teeth, "Shut up or I'll kill you." ELAM (voice-over): Law enforcement officials believe DeAngelo is responsible for 12 murders and more than 50 rapes in at least 10 counties. They say he also terrorized some of his victims by phone.

HOLES: The fact that he would call his victims years, in some cases, afterwards, just to continuously torment them, underscores the type of person he is.

ELAM: He was the type to not leave fingerprints. Police were unable to identify their suspect until recently. DeAngelo is expected next in court on May 14th -- Stephanie Elam, CNN, Sacramento, California.

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VANIER: I've got a very special guest right now, somebody who been working this case, so to speak, for years. Paul Haynes. Paul was the lead researcher on a best-selling book about the Golden State killer that came out just in February. The book is called, "I'll Be Gone in the Dark," and there is a very interesting story about the book itself, in fact, because it was started by acclaimed crime author, Michelle McNamara, who died before finishing it. And Paul Haynes helped complete the book, along with Michelle's husband.

Paul, this was years of work for you.

So what went through your mind when you found out that this killer you had been researching had finally been caught?

PAUL HAYNES, GOLDEN STATE KILLER RESEARCHER: Well, it was exciting. It was surreal. This is someone who I have been thinking about for the better part of seven years. So to finally put a name and a face and a history to this previously unidentified monster was -- I don't know that I have words to describe it.

VANIER: Did you expect that he would ever be caught?

HAYNES: Oh, I felt that he would be caught. I didn't know that he would be caught in April off 2018 --

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VANIER: -- what made you think he would be caught 40 years after the beginning of the crimes that he committed?

HAYNES: DNA. We've had his DNA profile on file since the mid-'90s, so it seemed to me like it was only a matter of time.

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VANIER: So why is it happening just now, then?

HAYNES: Why is it happening just now?

So the latest development was that the culminating development, as it were, was Paul Holes, who is a criminalist in Contra Costa, who has worked this case since the late '90s, went to an open source genealogy website called GEDmatch. He plugged the offender's DNA markers into that site and he found some potential distant relatives of this person.

And he narrowed down the list of potential suspects until DeAngelo emerged as the front-runner. And ultimately they found a discarded piece of material containing his DNA; they ran it. It matched that of the offender.

VANIER: Why wasn't this done a few years ago?

HAYNES: DeAngelo was on nobody's radar at that point.

VANIER: Do you think perhaps the publication of your book had anything to do with it?

Did it spark anything new?

HAYNES: I know Michelle's work on this case certainly invigorated the investigation; it brought a spotlight in this case that previously somehow it escaped it. This case hasn't really been in the public consciousness to any broad degree.

And Michelle's mission really was to make more people aware of it. And certainly she accomplished that. And when there's sustained interest in a case like this there is funding and when there is funding, you have talented investigators like Paul Holes, you know, investing their time and resources full-time.

And so the case is resolved, which it just was fortunately.

VANIER: So are you trying to speak to the suspect who was arrested?

HAYNES: You know, at some point, I would like to. I have a hundred questions I'd like to ask that person. But I have no immediate plans to and I do not think that he is talking to anybody so don't know.

VANIER: Usually in true crime books, the big question that gets answered is why?

Why did the killer commit the crimes?

You weren't really able to answer that, of course, because the person had been identified.

Do you think you're going to get some answers on that now?

HAYNES: Well, I think that these people committed these crimes because they are they're sexually motivated. They're motivated by sadism. They're psychopaths. And these are things that most people -- to which most people can't relate.

But I don't think there's any greater scheme or reasoning. This is something that he enjoyed doing.

VANIER: How did he evade the law and the various investigations for so long, 40 years almost 40 years, right?

HAYNES: Yes, well he was the law. He was a police officer from 1973 to 1979 and certainly his awareness of investigative techniques and procedures helped him cover his tracks and misdirect authorities.

And also he was not living in Sacramento County as far as I know, during the periods offending.

VANIER: And you've been comparing notes since his arrest to see what you got right in your book and perhaps what you got anything wrong?

HAYNES: You know, we're still learning a lot about this offender at this point so certainly there are things that I got wrong and there are things that I got right. And there are things where the verdict is still out.

VANIER: All right, Paul Haynes, thank you so much for speaking to us today, really interesting to see how your book ties into the real-life investigation, that your book is doing very well, you and Michelle McNamara, the book obviously published posthumously.

Paul, thank you for joining us.

HAYNES: Thanks for having me.

VANIER: That's it from us for now. Thanks for watching. We'll have the headlines right after the break.