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North Korea's Top Diplomat Meets Counterpart in Washington; Well Done Stage Act; Bad Actors Just Too Many to be Monitored; Top U.S. And North Korea Officials Meet To Discuss Summit; Trump Complains Horrible Comments About Him; Murdered Russian Journalist Turns Up Alive; Deportees Become Gang Prey In El Salvador; Israel Launched 60 Airstrikes On Targets In Gaza; Reports Estimates Thousands Died In Puerto Rico; Trump's Pitch For Health. Aired 3-4a ET
Aired May 31, 2018 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[03:00:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROSEMARY CHURCH, HOST, CNN: The United States hosts North Korea's top diplomat as Washington tries to make sure President Trump and Kim Jong-un finally meet face-to-face.
Plus, everyone thought he was dead, even his own wife. But one Russian reporter shocks the world when he turns up alive.
And--
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They will come home here. It's about name tags humiliating roll calls, lacing your shoes again, and realizing as a grown man that you have to start from zero again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: After decades in the U.S., they were deported. Our CNN exclusive follows the nightmare many immigrants face when they return to El Salvador.
Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the word. I'm Rosemary Church, and this is CNN Newsroom.
Two powerful diplomats meeting over dinner Wednesday night in New York, charting what could soon be history. Kim Yong-chol is the highest ranking North Korean official to set foot in the United States in nearly 18 years. He met with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to hammer out details on the planned historic summit between U.S. President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Our Paula Hancocks is watching it all from Seoul, she joins us now live. Paula, good to see you. So what more are you learning about what came out of this third meeting between Kim Yong-chol and Mike Pompeo, this time of course in New York?
PAULA HANCOCKS, CORRESPONDENT, CNN: Well, Rosemary, we did hear from a State Department official he was talking about this meeting, saying that the reason it's necessary to have this face-to-face meeting is clearly half the process of diplomacy is getting to know the person that you are talking to.
Now clearly from the North Korean side the players have not changed much. Those that were negotiating with the U.S. years and years ago are still the same ones who are negotiating. But for the Trump administration, this is all fairly new.
So what we heard from a senior administration official is that they were laying out exactly what they wanted from this summit. And from the North Korean point of view, they're talking about how they need these nuclear weapons or did in the past for security to make them more secure.
So what the U.S. is trying to do is to convince them but actually it is the opposite. Having these nuclear weapons makes them less secure.
Now we understand that the U.S. is also looking for something big, they're looking for something historic, we're hearing from officials, something North Korea has not offered before. We don't have clarity on what exactly that is, but certainly there's something that they want from a headline. They want the U.S. President Donald Trump to go to Singapore, to this summit and have something dramatic that he can announce. Rosemary?
CHURCH: Right. And Paula, Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov has arrived in North Korea, he's calling for the lifting of sanctions to ensure progress is made. What all is he saying about this?
HANCOCKS: Yes, he's met earlier today with Ri Yong-ho, the North Korean foreign minister, and he was talking to reporters after. This coming to us from Sputnik, the Russian state agency, talking about how he believes that in order to have this process be successful you do need to lift some sanctions.
It is something that Russia has said all along. Their line has been that they wanted to see the U.S. and North Korea engaging with each other, negotiating with each other. They don't agree with the U.S. policy up until now of sanctions and pressure.
And in that respect, they really agreed with China. China and Russia are on the same side of this, favoring talks and less sanctions. He did, though, say that Russia welcomes the fact that the U.S. and the North Koreans are finally coming to the negotiating table, and that this is a positive step forward. Rosemary?
CHURCH: All right. Our Paula Hancocks joining us live from Seoul in South Korea where it is 4 or it just after 4 p.m. We thank you again.
Well, not even Hollywood could script a thriller as stunning as this. A Russian journalist and Kremlin critic thought to have been murdered in Ukraine shows up day alive at a news conference a day later.
Arkady Babchenko's colleagues were overjoyed, as you see, when they saw him on television. It turns out he faked his own death. An elaborate ruse to foil an assassination plot against him. More details now from CNN's Fred Pleitgen.
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, CNN: Outrage last night in Kiev, Ukraine. Officials saying prominent anti-Kremlin journalist Arkady Babchenko had been gunned down in front of his house.
[03:04:59] Ukraine's prime minister writing in a Facebook post, quote, "I'm sure that Russian totalarian machinee did not forgive him his honesty and his fidelity to principle."
Hours later, the twist. It was all staged. Babchenko alive. It was a special operation, he said, as a result of which the man was detained today. He's in custody right now.
Ukrainian security services say they discovered a plot, ordered by Russia to kill Babchenko. To save him and catch the alleged assassin, they faked Babchenko's killing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARKADY BABCHENKO, RUSSIAN JOURNALIST (through translator): The people told me that a hit was already ordered on me and the money had already been transferred 40,000. Well, that's not a bad price for me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PLEITGEN: Ukraine says two suspects are in custody, the country's president calls it a brilliant operation by the security services.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BABCHENKO (through translator): I would like to apologize to my wife for the hell she has been through in these last two days. Olechka, I'm sorry that there were no other options.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PLEITGEN: This was the reaction from Arkady Babchenko's colleagues after he turned up alive on TV. Babchenko was critical of Russian actions in Ukraine and Syria and left Russia in 2017 because of threats to his life.
He wrote about his experience suffering what he called political harassment in Putin's Russia in an essay published by Britain's Guardian newspaper in 2017. Russian officials fuming after the Ukrainians revealed the staged assassination.
Kiev, in the situation with the alleged attempt to kill Babchenko committed a stupid provocation against Russia and is now disgraced in the eyes of the world, a Russian lawmaker said.
While Moscow is angry, Kiev is celebrating what they believe was a successful intelligence operation, and that journalist Arkady Babchenko is still alive.
Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Moscow.
CHURCH: Media watchdog groups, though, are dismayed about the use of a journalist in such an operation. Reporters Without Borders called a pathetic stunt. And the committee to protect journalists said this. "Ukrainian authorities must now disclose what necessitated the extreme measure of staging news of the Russian journalist's murder."
CNN's Christiane Amanpour pressed Ukraine's prosecutor general about the suspects in custody an whether there was really a need for such an operation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST, CNN: Was it worth it, the criticism that you're getting, the ridicule, that the operation has come under around the world? Was it worth it? Do you get a high target of these top rank assassins, who have you got in custody?
YURIY LUTSENKO, PROSECUTOR GENERAL OF UKRAINE: Yes. Yesterday when we declared about this murder we know that Arkady Babchenko is alive, but we need for customer not know that there is an imitation. We expected and we received new couple of evidence to know about possible New York victims and settle about customer in Moscow. For us it was very, very important.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Ukraine's prosecutor general went on to say the investigation surrounding the alleged murder plot is still ongoing.
Well, President Trump has been angry at his attorney general from the early days of his administration. With his complaints on the Russia investigation ramping up recently, it was inevitable that president would focus once again on Jeff Sessions.
Jeff Zeleny reports.
JEFF ZELENY, SENIOR White House CORRESPONDENT, CNN: President Trump venting new frustration at his own attorney general today. Saying he regrets every hiring Jeff Sessions to lead the Justice Department.
The president long furious at Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation, blasted him again today. He seized on this remark from Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TREY GOWDY, (R) UNITED STATES REPRESENTATIVE: If I were the president, and I picked someone to be the country's chief law enforcement officer and they told me later, by the way, I'm not going to able to participate in the most important case in the office, I would be frustrated too.
That's how I read that. Is Senator Sessions, why didn't you tell me this before I picked you? There are lots of really good lawyers in the country. He could have picked someone else. (END VIDEO CLIP)
ZELENY: On Twitter, the president adding five extraordinary words. "And I wish I did." At the White House today, press secretary Sarah Sanders did not defend the attorney general or discuss his fate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARAH HUCKABEE-SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president's made his viewpoint very clearly known and I don't have any personal announcements at this point.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZELENY: Yet, once again, the president's well-known fixation with Sessions stopped well short of firing him. The attorney general serves at the pleasure of the president, in this case, uncomfortably so. It's the latest turn in Trump's souring on Sessions who was the first Republican senator to support his candidacy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[03:10:03] SESSIONS: We need to make America great again.
(CROWD CHEERING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZELENY: But the president has been boiling mad for more than a year after Sessions said he should not oversee the Russia investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SESSIONS: I have recused myself in the matters that deal with the Trump campaign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZELENY: The president has repeatedly voiced his anger with Sessions and accused him of being disloyal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So he made what I consider to be a very terrible mistake for the country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZELENY: But the president has never said why he demands loyalty from the attorney general of the United States.
That has always been the central question, why loyalty would be needed to oversee the Russia investigation. As for why the president has not fired the attorney general, many Republicans on Capitol Hill like Jeff Sessions. They believed he is doing many good things, and they have no interest in confirming a new attorney general. Several Republican senators have told the president not to fire him
because they won't confirm a new one.
Jeff Zeleny, CNN, the White House.
CHURCH: And the White House says Donald Trump is too focus on running the country to worry about Roseanne Barr and her controversial tweets. But that didn't stop the president from weighing in on Wednesday not to condemn the comedian's racist remark comparing an African-American woman to an ape, but to complain about the horrible things people say about him in the media.
Joining us now is Scott Lucas, he is a professor of international politics at the University of Birmingham in England, and the founder and editor of the web site E.A. World View. Good to have you with us.
SCOTT LUCAS, POLITICS PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM: Thank you, Rosemary.
CHURCH: All right. Let's start with President Trump again, railing against his own Attorney General Jeff Sessions, wishing he had never chosen him, and then tweeting this at 11.30 Wednesday night, quoting former U.S. attorney Joe DiGenova. "The recusal of Jeff Sessions was an unforced betrayal of the president of the United States."
Now we also learned from Mr. Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, that the president won't fire Sessions before the Russia probe is completed, suggesting Sessions future might be endowed after the investigation. Why does the president fail to grasp that Sessions had a legal obligation to recuse himself, and why wouldn't his lawyer explain that to him?
LUCAS: I suspect the lawyers did explain this to him. But remember, we're now in act 27 of long-running play. And that long-running play is that while the Trump Russia investigation goes on, Donald Trump and those around him will try to do anything to curb or undermine the investigation.
So, the immediate source for what is set off the latest diatribe against Sessions was the revelation yesterday that just after Sessions recused himself in March 2017, Trump almost summoned him down to Florida and said, you can't recuse yourself, you got to stay in place.
Well Sessions said no, I'm not going to do that, because it would have exposed him to legal trouble.
Now just by making that demand Donald Trump may have added to the possibility of obstruction of justice charges against him down the road but it is the start of 15 months which is not only Sessions, but Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, special counsel Robert Mueller, the FBI, the Justice Department, the media, anyone becomes a target if you can do this, to try to push back the investigation a try to win over the public on your sided that there's no collusion, it's all a witch-hunt.
CHURCH: Just finally, I do want to discuss the Roseanne issue before you go. Mr. Trump of course initially remaining silent about the cancellation of the show by the TV network ABC in response to that abhorrent racist remark made by the star of the show.
But by Wednesday, the president tweeted and made it all about himself. And we just want to listen to what Roseanne Barr's ex-husband Tom Arnold, had to say about all of this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM ARNOLD, ROSEANNE BARR'S EX-HUSBAND: They do it because we have a white trash racist president. That's a fact. That is -- Donald Trump -- Roseanne and I both know him 30 years. That's an absolute fact. And instead of saying, Donald Trump going, OK, everybody, hold on together. He says, my gosh, what about, me?
That's insane. That's he's like, what about people making fun of me? How about stopping?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: Now they have very strong words there. Why do you think President Trump failed to seize this opportunity to discuss race relations in America and show some moral leadership?
LUCAS: Well, the starting point is that in Donald Trump's battle with the media it all has to come back to him for reasons we've just discussed. But the background of this, remember, which is that in last summer after the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Donald Trump did not come out and clearly condemn that violence. He hesitated. He tried to blame all sides.
[03:15:01] He has made remarks such as the one you referred to in the lead-up to this, which have been insensitive about African-Americans. So for him to come out and take a spin on the race relations issue threatens to bring exposure to his own record, and that's something he doesn't want.
So why don't we just make it about the fact that he's supposedly the victim and not possibly one of those who's involved in the controversy.
CHURCH: All right. Scott Lucas, we thank you for your analysis. I appreciate it.
LUCAS: Thank you.
And coming up after this short break, we will go live to Paris where people are wondering why thousands of names are on France's terror watch list but terrorist attacks keep happening.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Many here have had a matter of hours' notice, no chance even to call ahead as they're forced back to a country some have not seen for years, maybe even decades.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: Deported from the U.S. back to a violent homeland. Gangs are out to get the terrified new arrivals in El Salvador. We'll have that for you in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHURCH: Welcome back, everyone. The political crisis in Italy could get a political solution instead of technocrats leading the country. There's now talk of caretaker government which could include ministers from the main anti-establishment parties until new elections are held.
Meantime, the leader of the populist five-star movement says his party has no intention of leaving the euro zone. Investors have been spooked by that possibility, causing a major sell-off in financial markets earlier in the week.
CNN's Barbie Nadeau is covering this for us from Rome. She joins us now live. So Barbie, how will this work exactly, and is this the solution Italy needs at this time?
BARBIE NADEAU, CONTRIBUTOR, CNN: Hi, Rosemary. I think that no one really knows how this is going to actually all play out. Right now these populist parties who won the most number of votes in that March 4th election campaigned on euro skeptic rhetoric.
Right now, though, they're stepping back a little bit from that, saying, no, we never said we wanted to leave the euro, no, we never said that we didn't like being part of the euro zone and things like that. And that's obviously a strategy that goes with some of these back-room dealings going on right now to try to allow them to be part of this caretaker government that the president of the country has insisted needs to happen.
[03:20:01] But I think we're just seeing -- it's looking like a chess game -- so much movement right now that we're not seeing going on in the background.
Meanwhile, you know, it looks like it's impossible to actually avoid going into early elections, whether they're in July, whether they're in September, or whether they're early next year. It seems clear that that ultimately is going to be the outcome, whatever happens in the short-term, Rosemary.
CHURCH: And as you mentioned, the populist five-star movement, trying to assure the world that it will not leave the euro zone despite its rhetoric during the campaign. Will that be enough to calm investors in the global markets?
NADEAU: Well, they're playing to two audiences. Obviously they're playing to their base and they're playing to the powers that be in this country, who need to hear that toned-down anti-euro rhetoric. But they also need to appease their base, if they're going to -- in the event of these elections, whenever they are. And I think you're going to see a lot of the contradiction. If you
look back through the social media postings and Facebook live and all these things that both of these populist parties ran on I think you really see the real picture emerging here.
That they are saying what needs to said right now, but their sentiment is still very much anti-euro skepticism, don't want a slave to Brussels. We need to take care of our own debts. We need to decide where the budget needs to be cut. And that's probably at the end of the line what we're going to see no matter how things work out in the short-term, Rosemary.
CHURCH: All right. Many thanks to Barbie Nadeau covering events there from Rome, where it is nearly 9.30 in the morning.
And France has witnessed attacks by 31 terrorists since 2012. Most were carried out by those identified as a potential threat. So why weren't they stopped? That is the central question being asked in the aftermath of the latest attack in central Paris by a man who was on the terror watch list.
And our Melissa Bell has been following this and joins us now live from Paris. So Melissa, why is this watch list failing to prevent attacks in France? What's gone wrong here?
MELISSA BELL, INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, CNN: Well, it appears to be a Europe-wide problem, Rosemary. We saw it again on Tuesday with this latest attack just across the border in Belgium, this difficulty that authorities have in keeping track of those that they identify as being radicalized.
It was the case of the man, the attacker in Belgium who had been watched for a couple of years, and then no longer watched, and you realize that the difficulty for authorities is the sheer number of people that they have to keep track of.
Now here in France the system is called Fiche S. The two attacks that have taken place this year on French soil involved attackers who were on that list.
France's last terror attack involved a French citizen born in Chechnya, wielding a knife in central Paris. Before that, a Franco Moroccan man armed with a gun killed four people in the south of the country. And the list goes on.
Since 2012, 31 terrorists have committed attacks in France, 20 of those have been on the so-called Fiche S watch list according to the French senator who led the parliamentary inquiry into terrorism in France.
So what exactly is the Fische S watch list?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEAN-CHARLES BRISARD, PRESIDENT, CENTER FOR THE ANALYSIS OF TERRORISM: It is essentially a way to track down people when they're trouble, but it's not really a watch list designed to follow people.
The intelligence services have been able to identify them and also we should not forget that many plots are foiled.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BELL: Of course not all. In all, 26,000 people are on the Fische S list because they've come across the intelligence services radar as presenting a threat. Of those, 10,500 are believed to be radicalized according to the interior ministry.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRISARD: We cannot do more at the national level. We've exhausted our resources. We cannot put everyone under surveillance. So it's impossible to follow them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BELL: Some politicians have suggested putting all of those on the list behind bars, to which France's interior minister has replied this. "Incarcerating 26,000 Fiche S, when being on the list is no proof of guilt."
Authorities say the point of the list is simply to keep track of the foreign movement and the rest of those people who have not yet acted.
On its web site, the French interior ministry explain that someone on the list cannot be arrested just for being on the list, that their movements can be tracked, but they cannot be watched all the time.
And crucially, the information can't be shared amongst services, which is why the government wants to change it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMMANUEL MACRON, PRESIDENT OF FRANCE (through translator): The system is not functioning in a satisfactory way. I therefore ask that we examine concrete ways and means to change it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BELL: Any changes cannot come soon enough for so many.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[03:24:56] BRISARD: We're in a threat which is massive. And this is something really new. In the past, in the '80s, '90s, terrorists were looking at iconic symbols of France. Now they're targeting almost everywhere and very suddenly. There's no logic in their action.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BELL: These are the pictures of a country grieving its dead that have become all too familiar. And with them, so often, that question of what more might have been done to prevent the latest atrocity. As you see, the problem, Rosemary, is really that the system is trying to deal with something both in terms of the sheer numbers of people that would need to be watched in an ideal world and in terms of the reach of the law that is simply beyond its capacity for the time being.
Now specialists and analysts say that the trouble as you just hears is that that threat has become so diffused, we're talking about people acting alone often with whatever weapons they can find around them, be it cars or knives and it's very difficult to keep an eye on those.
And then add to that, the idea that we could be facing a resurgence of another kind of threat, that is the external threat that we saw a couple of years ago here in France, those large scale attacks experts say that they believe that the Islamic state is regrouping in countries like Yemen, Libya and the Sahel region and that Europe will once again be facing the sort of large-scale threat that was visited on it just a few years ago. Rosemary?
CHURCH: So, Melissa, are French authorities admitting in essence that there is no solution to this problem?
BELL: Well, admitting certainly the limits of the system as it stands. And the problem is that the threat is ever evolving. Take just the case of France over the last few years. Those large-scale attacks, 2015, 2016, and really, since then, very small-scale attacks, all over the country. Not simply in France.
It is very difficult to keep an eye on these people. And of course, every time we learn that someone who was on that Fiche S acted, the same questions are asked, why can we not do more. But it is that tricky balancing of human rights and the law, the nature crackdown but also to respect people's freedom, but also simply a question of resources. We are simply not equipped from the time being to deal with the threat as it has evolved, Rosemary.
CHURCH: Yes. Indeed. Our Melissa Bell bringing us up to date on this situation from Paris, where it's nearly 9.30 in the morning. Thanks you so much.
Up next, a CNN exclusive. Sent home to a nightmare. Deportees return to El Salvador after years in the United States. Brutal gangs wait to recruit them as new members.
[03:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHURCH: And very warm welcome back to our viewers joining us from all around the world. I'm Rosemary Church.
Let's update you now on the main stories we've been following this hour. North Korea's former spy Chief Kim Yong-chol met over dinner with U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, Wednesday night in New York. They are laying the ground work for next month's potential summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un. The U.S. State department says North Korea must do thing they haven't done before for this summit to happen. Donald Trump is reacting to ABC's decision to cancel "Roseanne" after
a racist tweet from the show star Roseanne Barr. The president says no one ever apologized for the horrible things people said about him on the network. Barr blames to a Twitter rant on the sleep drug ambient.
A Russian journalist thought to have been murdered in Ukraine is actually alive. Arkady Babchenko, an outspoken critic of the Kremlin, appeared on television a day after reports of his death. The Ukraine security service said his death was faked to foil a Russian assassination plot against him.
Now we turn to a CNN exclusive, a terrifying new reality for deportees kicked out of the United States and sent back to El Salvador. They fear they may never see their families again and brutal gang including MS-13 see an opportunity to recruit them. Ina exclusive report on the gangs in El Salvador, our senior international correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh met some of these young men and is telling their stories. He joins us now live from London. So, Nick, how inevitable is it that these young deportees will get caught up in these gangs, is there any other option for them?
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They hope to find work. They hope to get some of much lower paid compared to their job back in El Salvador, but many of them return to it almost as a foreign country, because lots of people we spoke have spent over a decade in the United States. There was an immigration crackdown that began under the Obama administration, 20,000 deported in 26 states, 18,000 last year. But that is just going to get faster and harder for El Salvador to embrace, because TPS, which was allowing a number of Salvadorians to stay in the United States has been ended by Donald Trump, potentially, sending 200,000 Salvadoran back before September of next year. Here's what we found.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PATON WALSH: Someone is murdered here every two hours. 1 in 10 people ensnared by gangs. Streets plagued by machete killings, rape, and police abuses. Welcome to El Salvador, the cruelest of homelands. And the toughest of places to be forced back to. These are the first moments of men deported from the United States back to a land they can't really call home anymore. Blinking, sleepless, and now homeless, they're some of the 200,000 Salvadorans deported from their long-term homes in the United States under President Trump's immigration crackdown.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We cannot let people enter our country. We have no idea who they are, what they do, where they came from. We don't know if they're murders, if they're killers, if they're MS-13. We're throwing them out by the hundreds.
PATON WALSH: Many here had a matter of hours' noticed no change even to call ahead as they're forced back to a country some have not seen for years, maybe even decades.
Welcome home here is about name tags isolating roll calls, lacing your shoes again, and realizing as a grown man, that you have to start from zero again, empty handed.
Christian Lara lived in the USA for 20 years and was deported coming out to his Florida, construction job. He had only committed immigration offenses. The best choice now is a $5 a day farm job.
He doesn't know when or if he'll see his family again.
What are your daughters' names? Sorry?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jennifer.
PATON WALSH: How old?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 12. Another one of three years.
PATON WALSH: Three years. Her name?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She is my little baby, Angela.
PATON WALSH: I'm sorry, my friend.
[03:35:00] Oscar is more complicated, he is 20 went to America age 10, and served four months for assault and bodily harm in Houston. Yet back here he trembles.
Are you scared of the gangs here now?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
PATON WALSH: Are you scared you may end up involve and caught up in that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I was in the USA, I see news, I see people killed every day. It is scaring me man.
PATON WALSH: He is already counting the money in his account to see if he has enough for the $8,000 smuggling fee back to the U.S. Christian meets his mother after four years, and recently deported brother Hosway (ph). Only two weeks later, Hosway messages me on his way to Guatemala to pay to be smuggled back to the United States. 48 hours pass since we meet Christian and Oscar, in which there are two beheadings, over 20 murders, and a policeman is killed.
It's no accident that the elite police come here in large number heavily armed. This is a gang-controlled area, and literally streets away from where Oscar is beginning his new life back in El Salvador. Oscar agrees to meet us again. He's had two nights in his new home, but it took just four hours for the gang to approach him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: MS-13, they take my shirt down. And I tell them, what you doing, man? I want to check if you got tattoos on your body. OK. I don't have any tattoo on my body.
PATON WALSH: He is looking to see if you're Barrio 18 or the other gang?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
PATON WALSH: This is your first few hours back home? Right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
PATON WALSH: What are you thinking?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Man, don't want to be living here.
PATON WALSH: His dad didn't want to know him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He looked like I'm a (BEEP) man. Why you come to my house, man?
PATON WALSH: And this is what falling down here looks like. In the crammed prisons for the gang playgrounds where Oscar, his family, and the U.S. frankly, hope he doesn't end up. Where gang culture brews and hardens and tattoos and no opportunities unavoidably lead. Petty theft in California led to deportation for Edwin and now jail.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're in this country just because you have tattoos, the gang automatically think that you are a member of some gang or you have been part of a gang. So here it's different. I mean, a little kid could take your life away. If you don't talk to them, you're their enemy. And then if you talk to them, then they want you to be part of them.
PATON WALSH: Some deportees from the United States have committed crimes, others none by being in the U.S. illegally. Come back to a world where their desperation and vulnerability and the risk for gangs have on their new world deepens further still. El Salvador is chaos.
Now this sort of organized push to get people deported from the U.S. has two impacts. As you saw there, there are families now in the United States whose main breadwinner is now missing. Many of the people we saw deported were men. True, many of them committed immigration offenses. One of them in fact, you saw there committed another separate crime of physical violence, but still the impact of these tens of thousands of men coming back jobless is pretty substantial in, El Salvador, because some about 10 percent of country's economy actually came from remittances, from the money which people in the United States and elsewhere abroad were sending back to their families in El Salvador.
That is gone, and instead there are people desperately in need of jobs in a country which is desperately lacking in those kind of opportunities, yet also with a troublingly thriving gang culture. It does preys upon these people, because they perceive them to be naive, oddly, to be richer for most who live in El Salvador, because they come back potentially with money in their bank accounts somewhere else, and also desperate in need in some sort of opportunity or welcome back into society there.
It's a recipe frankly for disaster. And as you saw there too, mostly everybody we spoke too, talked about getting back to United States pretty much the minute they got out of that repatriation center in El Salvador's so for understandable human reasons, this is not a long- term solution. Rosemary.
CHURCH: Not at all. Nick Paton Walsh showing us some very heartbreaking stories and incredibly overwhelming in fact. Many thanks to you Nick.
[03:40:05] And in the bloodshed from El Salvador's gang violence, a crime wave focused on women is creating more victims. In Friday's report, Nick Paton Walsh, gets rare access to a women's prison where the one-time targets of gangs can end up as murderers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PATON WALSH: A jail is so rarely a place for sympathy, but women are so often dragged in to barbaric gang culture, and often find themselves on the receiving end of a violent society. She remembers her initiation into the gang Barrio 18.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (TRANSLATOR): I got kicked and hit. That was necessary to be a part of it.
PATON WALSH: How long did that last for, I ask.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (TRANSLATOR): 18 seconds. Yes, there are women that go through worse. Sometimes they are raped, beaten up. When she was young when she joined. There wasn't a choice.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (TRANSLATOR): My father died and my mother was an alcoholic and left us. I looked after five brothers and that is how I ended up on the streets.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: You can tune in Friday to watch the rest of Nick Paton Walsh's report starting at 5:00 a.m. in London and noon in Hong Kong. We are back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHURCH: Welcome back everyone. Well, it is relatively calm in Gaza and the nearby Israeli communities now that one of the most intense days of fighting in years appears to be over. Militants in Gaza and Israel's military launched dozens of strikes at one another from Tuesday into early Wednesday. A Hamas official says militant groups have agreed to a ceasefire if Israel does the same. But that seems unlikely at this point. Our Ian Lee joins us now from Gaza. Ian, calm has returned, but there appears to be this confusion as to whether there is a ceasefire or not. What are you hearing about that?
IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're hearing from different militant factions here in Gaza, Rosemary, saying essentially that they agreed to a ceasefire through extensive mediation. We're hearing reports that Egypt actually played a crucial role in bringing this about.
[03:45:02] Khalil Al Hayya (ph) is a member of Hamas's political bureau, he said that there is this ceasefire that is now in effect. But we talked to the Israelis. They haven't acknowledged that they've agreed to any sort of ceasefire. But we did hear from the IDF spokesman, Jonathan Conricus saying that quiet will be met with quiet. He added, saying that terror would be met with violence. And so far I can tell you, it's been about 36 hours since the most rockets and missiles fired since 2014, the most violence that we've seen here in Gaza in a long time. But since then, it has been quiet, Rosemary.
So, Ian, of course, the big question, how long will it remain calm? So what needs to happen next? Is anyone saying that is it just this situation that Israel is pretty much saying, if you fire on us, we'll fire back?
LEE: Yes. Essentially for Israel's standpoint that seems to be the motive of operation. But here's the thing, Rosemary, what we're witnessing right now are upticks of events. You had the protests that lasted for a number of weeks along the Gaza border we saw over a hundred Palestinians killed. And then last Tuesday, you had over a hundred rockets and missiles fired into Israel, and some of these rockets and missiles they were intercepted by Israel's iron dome system others were not and they landed in residential areas. One landed in a kindergarten. If it landed in any other time, there could have been dead children. There were three Israeli soldiers who were injured in this bally of rockets and missiles, two of them lightly, one of them moderately.
But these sort of incidents, whether they are happening on the border, whether their missiles, air strike, they could all escalate and ramp up the tensions. We saw this in the lead-up to the 2014 war, where there were a series of events that led up to that war. No one said, we're going to go to war. We're ready for a war. But it's the events that led up to something like that.
And right now we're seeing just these tensions. And you know of that kindergarten, if there are children on the playground and a rocket did hit it, and there were children that were either killed or injured, you could expect a stronger response from Israel. So really, there is this tension that is remaining. Friday, Hamas has called for more protests along the border. Also next week or actually later -- next week, yes, that there will be more protests along the border. And these incidents just keep that tension, keep that pressure up here in Gaza and in Israel.
CHURCH: Well, let's just hope the calm remains. Our Ian Lee reporting there from Gaza, where it's just after 10:45 in the morning.
Well, the 2018 hurricane season in the Atlantic officially begins Friday and it comes as Puerto Rico is still trying to rebuild from the devastation of last year's hurricane Maria. At a new study says the death toll is far worse than originally thought. Leyla Santiago has the details.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
LEYLA SANTIAGO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're here with messages of preparedness and what we can do better. Secretary of homeland security Kirstjen Nielsen visited the national
hurricane center today reassuring Americans the administration is better prepared for this.
The same reassurance Americans were glen last year, before hurricanes devastated Houston, Florida, and the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico.
KIRSTJEN NIELSEN, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: I think what we've learned are some valuable lessons and valuable reminders.
SANTIAGO: Nielsen's visit comes after a new study finds the death toll from hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico alone was more than double that of hurricane Katrina. The official tally released by Puerto Rican authorities has for months remained at 64. The new total from Harvard researchers, 4,645. Less than two weeks after the storm made landfall, President Trump visited the U.S. territory and was quick to signal success.
TRUMP: I'm just very, very proud of the fact that, you know, if you look at just one statistic, 16 deaths, that is a lot of this, total many deaths. But 16. If you look at Katrina, they had in the thousands.
SANTIAGO: Just hours after this interview, the death toll doubled and continued to rise as power, food, water, and shelter remained scarce. Even now thousands like Carmen Dalila Cruz are still living in the dark.
She wakes up in the mornings, she says, will the power come back today?
According to 112 funeral homes CNN contacted in November, storm- related deaths are significantly higher than the government account. For example, the governments tally does not include cases like Natalia Rodriguez.
[03:50:00] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I couldn't do nothing to help him.
SANTIAGO: His wife said, he died when the machine he used to breathe at night lost power after the storm. The President has faced harsh criticism for his response to Puerto Rico. And much like President Bush who congratulated then female Director Michael Brown just days after Katrina.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And Brown, you're doing a heck of a job.
SANTIAGO: President Trump congratulatory pat on the back proved premature.
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, DEPUTY WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The President takes the situation on Puerto Rico extremely seriously and we're going to continue to work with people of Puerto Rico and do everything we can to be helpful.
SANTIAGO: But Cruz tells me more help is needed.
She says there's no quality of life still. Eight months after Maria.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: Nicaragua business lobby is urging President Daniel Ortega to call early elections to end weeks of violent protest. Demonstrators across the country marched Wednesday in support of the protesters who have been killed. The organization of American states is launching an investigation into those deaths. Proposed changes to the country's social security system, triggered the protests last month. But anger over the government crackdown led to demonstrators calling for Mr. Ortega's ousting.
And we will take a quick break here and then President Trump takes a swing at selling the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. But is anybody buying it?
Plus, a good reason to think twice before letting the valet park your luxury car. Oops.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHURCH: Welcome back everyone. Well, a new warning for those living near Hawaii's Kilauea volcano. If you ignore evacuation orders, you are on your own. Authorities say that after the mandatory evacuation order is announced, they will no longer go door to door checking on people who stay in their homes. Lava from several volcanic fissures continues to advance. Authorities are warning people living there that the lava could cut off their access to roads and they could be trapped.
Well, there was a Trump-Kim meeting on Wednesday, just not the one most people are expecting. Reality TV star and entrepreneur Kim Kardashian-West visited the White House, she met with President Trump, his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, and other officials. Kardashian wants the President to grant clemency to a woman named Alice Marie Johnson, who has served more than 20 years in prison for low-level drug offense.
And then there's this from the White House. The theme was physical fitness, but the subject was irony. President Trump who loves fast food and has some bizarre theories about exercise, telling Americans they need to stay healthy. Here is Jeanne Moos.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The only thing on the President that got a real work-out, his hands. The event was organized by the President's council on sports, fitness, and nutrition. Three things not instantly associated with the President.
Though he did start a race and swing a golf club as he mingled with sports stars like pitcher, Mariano Rivera.
TRUMP: Does winning get boring to you, Mario?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. TRUMP: Never, right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Never.
[03:55:00] MOOS: But the President may think his diet has gotten boring. Five months ago, Dr. Ronny Jackson proclaimed --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think a reasonable goal over the next year or so is to lose 10 or 15 pounds.
MOOS: And now we're hearing the President is occasionally trading in a steak for a Dover sole and leaving off the top bun when he eats a burger. The chefs in the White House kitchen have been told to reduce calories and fat. Keep in mind that this is a guy who has expressed the view that exercise is bad for you. Some call it the energizer bunny theory.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Still going.
MOOS: Trump's apparent belief cited in Trump revealed, the human body is like a battery with a finite amount of energy which exercise only depleted. He once suggested to Dr. Oz that rallies are a work-out.
TRUMP: I'm up there using a lot of motion, and I guess that is a form of exercise.
MOOS: From the kiddie lift to the fist pump, to the half toss, we've seen no indication President Trump is hitting the White House gym. As he once told Reuters, I get exercise, I mean, I walk, I this, I that. Not to mention --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has incredible genes.
MOOS: That keep him running like the energizer bunny.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Keep going and going and going.
MOOS: Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And going and going, and going.
(END VIDEO)
CHURCH: And we all this, all that, don't we? Just a little word of caution before you hand the valet, the keys to your luxury car if you have one. Make sure they can handle it. Someone's Porsche round up under another vehicle. The hotel in Sydney Australia, a witness say the valet probably panic knowing just how quickly a Porsche can accelerate. The valet is fine, by the way, not sure how the Porsche owner is feeling right now.
And something beautiful on the horizon for people who live in New York City, it is called Manhattanhenge. The evenings every spring and summer, when the setting sun lines up perfectly with the city's street grid. As the sun goes down, every street that runs east to west is lit up, and it's not just tourists taking pictures. The name you probably realized is a play on Stonehenge the monument in England. Great pictures there.
And thanks for your company this hour. I'm Rosemary Church. Remember to connect with me anytime on Twitter. The news continues now with our Max Foster in London. You're watching CNN. Have a great day.
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