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New Day Saturday
Founder of Golden Moon Distillery Says They'll Lose the Bulk of Export Revenue; Kentucky Governor: Tariffs Won't Hurt Whiskey Distillers; Europe Puts Tariffs on Motorcycles, Denim and Whiskey; U.S. Officially Cancels South Korea Military Exercises; President Trump Changes His Tune on North Korea Threat; North Korea to Send U.S. Troops' Remains Home; World Cup Results Reviewed; NYT: Bourdain's Mom to Remember Him with Son's Tattoo; Thousands Of Separated Families Left In Limbo; Trump To Rally In Vegas Amid Immigration Chaos; Lawyer: Reunification Could Take A Month; Protesters Take To Streets After Teen Killed By Police. Aired 6-7a
Aired June 23, 2018 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:00:15]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: More than 3,000 children still separated from their families and in legal limbo.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we saw was a lot of kids in cages. They're bewildered and scared.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They betrayed us, she said, they told us they weren't going to separate us from them and we never imagined it was going to be for so long.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The second straight day, they were no officials to explain how the children will be reunited with their families.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's absolute chaos on the field because there is no clear guidance being given to the field because there's no clear plan back in Washington.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, so grateful to have you with us here this morning. You know, we're sitting here watching fate of hundreds of immigrant children and the fate in question. There is chaos, confusion, conflicting messages that are surrounding the Trump border policies this morning.
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: It's been nearly three days now since President Trump signed an executive order stopping the family separations he started. Almost 1,800 children have not yet been reunited with their parents.
Now, to make things worse, one senior Republican aide tells CNN even members of Congress don't know what is next, saying simply that I'm not sure what the plan is at the White House.
PAUL: President Trump is heading to Las Vegas meanwhile to rally his base today. He'll likely continue trying to change the narrative after spending yesterday doubling down on some misleading rhetoric about immigrants and telling Republicans to stop work on immigration policy.
BLACKWELL: CNN's Boris Sanchez is live at the White House. Boris, any guidance on how these families will be reunited, anything coming from the White House yet?
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Victor and Christie. No specifics yet. Late last night, the Department of Health and Human Services put out a statement to CNN saying that they were trying to spearhead the process of reunification, but there isn't any indication as to how exactly they are carrying that out.
As you noted, we have heard reports that some of these families have been reunited, but we don't know how that took place specifically. They're still some 1,800 kids apparently that have not been reunited with their families.
And there isn't a clear indication as to how that process is going to play out. Where these families will be held, are they still in detention, what the administration plans to with families that are currently crossing the border days after that executive order by President Trump was signed.
The confusion really stems from right here at White House. Yesterday, sources told us that there were meetings here at the White House between different agencies and White House officials over several days to try to figure out how to implement this executive order from President Trump.
How to reconcile this order that ends family separations with that zero-tolerance policy that was enacted by the administration several weeks ago that ultimately separates families.
The confusion really comes from President Trump himself. He held an event yesterday taking the stage with families of people who have lost loved ones at the hands of undocumented immigrants.
And he used that opportunity to bash Democrats, the media, and then to draw comparison between the pain of those families and the separations that his administration's policies are causing. Listen to this --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: These are the American citizens permanently separated from their loved ones. The word "permanently" being the word that you have to think about, permanently. They're not separated for a day or two days. They are permanently separated because they were killed by criminal illegal aliens.
(END VIDEO CLIP) SANCHEZ: No clear indication from the White House what the strategy is moving forward. We should point out that for weeks President Trump has been saying that Congress needs to fix the immigration issue. Only Congress can fix the family separation issue.
Yet yesterday, he sent a tweet essentially telling Republicans to wait until after the midterms to try to come up with a solution to this issue after several weeks of Republicans in the House crafting different bills to try to bridge the gap and get something done on immigration.
Notably the president who has accused Democrats again and again of politicizing the administration. If you read the tweet closely, it is a call to action to his supporters to send a red wave to Congress during the midterm elections in November over the issue of immigration -- Victor and Christi.
PAUL: All right. Boris Sanchez, thank you so much.
BLACKWELL: And now despite the administration's claim that 500 families have been reunited at the border, the status of thousands of separated families is still unclear this morning. One immigration lawyer representing families inside a detention center tells CNN this reunification process could take a month.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EILEEN BLEETLINGER, VOLUNTEER ATTORNEY: My understanding is there's no process set yet. They're still in the process of figuring out the procedure for that.
[06:05:06] What I was told was it might take about a month just for that reunification to happen. The people inside the jail actually had no idea that would be a possibility. They were just -- they're getting information from the news. They had no idea.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL: In the meantime, Health and Human Services has more than 2,000 children in custody. CNN correspondent, Ed Lavandera, actually spoke to one detained mother who's desperately trying to find her son right now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The phone call came from inside the Port Isabelle Detention Center in South Texas. On the line is an undocumented immigrant, who asked that we not identify her by name. She's from Honduras and was separated from her 9-year-old son 11 days ago after crossing the Rio Grande illegally.
I asked how she's feeling. "Not good at all," she says, "it's a trauma we will never forget. All the mothers who are here as well as the kids. The truth is we never imagined this would happen."
I asked her how she was separated. "They betrayed us," she said. They told us they weren't going to separate us from them and we never imagined is was going to be for so long." The Department of Homeland Security officials have vehemently denied that immigrants have been misled in any way.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are things that you can do specifically to help with the children --
LAVANDERA: From inside her South Texas law office, Jodi Goodwin, is trying to find 22 children. She represents 25 undocumented immigrants who have all been separated from their children for about two weeks.
(on camera): Most of them don't even know where their kids are at this point?
JODI GOODWIN, ATTORNEY: None of them know where their kids are. I don't know where their kids are.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Goodwin says her clients have tried calling the numbers provided by the federal government to track where their children were sent, but that hasn't worked. Only three of her clients have even spoken to their children.
GOODWIN: It's not a system where you punch in a parent's name and it pops out the child's name. It just doesn't exist.
LAVANDERA (on camera): Highly frustrated for them?
GOODWIN: Very frustrating. Each time I see them, you know, they ask, do you have any news?
LAVANDERA (voice-over): While there have been a number of emotional reunions between separated families, there are still many families struggling to just connect over the phone. The Department of Homeland Security says there is not a publicly accessible data base to track the shelters where undocumented children are being kept.
DHS says the adult detention centers have phones where the parents can call their children. The Honduran immigrant on the phone tells me she is in a wing of the detention center with 70 other mothers who were also trying to communicate with their children.
I asked her what message she would like the world to hear. She says, "President Trump, for one second, put yourself in our place, the only thing we want is for them to give us our children back."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA: Government officials say the reason the children's database isn't widely accessible is because of security concerns. But the fact of the matter is there are hundreds of undocumented immigrants who have been detained for weeks, who still haven't been able to find out where their children are, much less talk to them.
I spoke with one Central American man who has been detained nearly three weeks, he told me his greatest concern is worrying about the anxiety and certainty and confusion that his daughter must be experiencing because of this separation. Ed Lavandera, CNN, Brownsville, Texas.
BLACKWELL: Here with me to discuss, CNN political commentator and political anchor for Spectrum News, Errol Louis. Errol, good morning to you.
ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning, Victor.
BLACKWELL: So, it seems even after the executive order and before any action from Congress, and it's still, you know, plausible that there will be no action from Congress, one of these pieces has to change, right?
The president says that zero tolerance is still the policy. Prosecutions for everyone who crosses the border illegally. He now wants to keep families together, but the family is detained as a unit. But there's this legal limit of 20 days for minors. How do all of those continue to be at play and the president gets what he wants?
LOUIS: Well, you know what you're describing, Victor, is exactly why we have what's called policy. Why people go to college in a university and get fancy degrees on how to make these things work.
Because just as you suggest there is one set of laws, and it is the laws, that you can't cross the border and you can be detained, fined, imprisoned, and deported. That's a whole set of bureaucracies involving the Justice Department, Customs Enforcement, and so forth. Even the State Department gets involved.
On the other hand, you have this law, and it is the law saying you can't detain a child for more than 20 days. So, how do you make these things work? Well, we have paid a whole lot of well-educated people who are skilled in trying to sort of make these things work.
But when we come in with a mood as we have with the 2016 election and the Trump administration says, you know, let's just sweep all of that aside, let's just -- move forward by executive order, by tweet, by fiat, the ensuing chaos could in fact be predicted.
[06:10:12] This is why when you say that the establishment is the enemy in Washington, the establishment is not always the enemy. The establishment is what makes it possible for you to avoid this kind of chaos.
BLACKWELL: You mentioned the word fiat and it leads me to this remarkable reporting by the "Washington Post" about the process leading up to the executive order the president eventually signed, "In private conversations with aides, Trump said he wanted to sign a full immigration bill as part of an executive order, which one administration official described as a pretty insane idea.
The president was told by government lawyers that he could not change immigration law by fiat." Now for all the president's talk about his predecessor and his executive orders, this really exposes a full-scale ignorance of the process or just separation of powers, on just a basic level? LOUIS: Look, every president and it really is true of every president, the modern presidency -- let's go back to, say, John F. Kennedy. They end up spending at least their first term if they're lucky enough to have two, learning about the limits of what they can do.
They are the most powerful person in the country and arguably the world, but there are these checks and balances. The framers of the Constitution put all kind of things in place. No, the president of the United States, not this one nor any other president, can make the law just by signing an executive order.
His whim in the morning does not become federal law in the afternoon. It just doesn't work that way.
BLACKWELL: Let me ask you about Congressional Republicans, we've heard a lot from them or at least we did before the executive order was signed about getting families back together, that that is not America. We've not heard as urgent rhetoric or language from them since the executive order. Do they see this as crisis averted, the crisis is over, or is there still that degree of urgency?
LOUIS: Well, there's a certain amount of urgency on the ground, I can tell you that. We know that hundreds of these separated families have kids that ended up in New York. New York, the governor, mayor, and others have been going crazy up here.
But for I think for Republicans in particular, keep in mind, Victor, there are over 20 states that still have to have Congressional primaries. They are very much looking for cover any which way they can.
The ability to sort of hide behind some of the casts in Washington, leave it there, and just campaign in their districts, I think, is what almost every member of Congress is going to be doing.
BLACKWELL: Looking ahead to those midterms as you mentioned, the primaries that are coming up. Conservative columnist, George Will, for the "Post" penned a piece and it's titled, "Vote against the GOP this November."
Here's a line, "To vote against this party's cowering Congressional caucus," speaking of the president, "is to affirm the nation's honor while quarantining him." John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign manager, Steve Schmidt is leaving the party, as well. Now, these are dramatic departures, right, but do Will and Schmidt really sway voters? What's the significance?
LOUIS: Yes, I'm thinking, well, that's two votes. You know, if they can get maybe 20 million more, they might actually get a head of steam together and maybe change the party. The reality is there's a deep split within the party. Some of the more prominent voices like the people that he cites are really not in power.
When they're leaving, what they're doing is showing that they really don't feel like they have a place and that the mainstream of the party has moved beyond them. Where that mainstream goes, you can look at the polls.
And every appalling act that we've seen over the last week, that CNN has documented, the chaos, confusion, some of the malice and the infighting in the White House, is really deeply supported by a vast majority of the Republican Party.
So, what the party is today and tomorrow is not what it was when George Will joined it and supported it over the years. There's an argument that he could have foreseen this and in fact helped make it happen. But, you know, once you get a revolution going, whether it's the Tea Party revolution, the Reagan revolution, it's kind of hard to put the brakes on it.
BLACKWELL: All right. Errol Louis, thanks so much.
LOUIS: Thank you.
PAUL: Well, up next, there is a car that drove into a crowd of protesters. Those protesters demanding justice for an unarmed teen who was shot and killed by police.
BLACKWELL: Plus, the European Union is hitting back at U.S. tariffs, putting their over tariffs on $3 billion of U.S. goods. Question, will you feel that impact?
PAUL: The drama at the World Cup continues, Andy Scholes.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. You know, imagine having the entire hopes and dreams of your entire country riding on your shoulders. That's a lot of pressure. We'll show you why this Brazilian star broke down on the field.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:19:08]
BLACKWELL: Right now, police in Pittsburgh are looking for a black sedan that drove through a group of protesters overnight. Now these protesters shut down the streets for the third night after an unarmed teenager was shot and killed by police.
PAUL: Antwon Rose was shot by an officer three times as he was running from a car that had been pulled over. It was the officer's very first day on the job.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL (voice-over): Protests in downtown Pittsburgh after the fatal police shooting of 17-year-old Antwon Rose. Four people were arrested Friday as demonstrators shut down a bridge and two highway entrances.
In this video, a car drives through the crowd. Now it was then hit and surrounded by some of the protesters as it passed by. Police say there were no injuries, and they're looking for that vehicle.
[06:20:01] In another incident, tense moments as a tow truck driver confronted the crowd. Video posted on Facebook shows Tuesday's fatal encounter. Police say 17-year-old Antwon Rose had been a passenger in a car that was stopped by police because it matched the description of a car that was involved in an earlier shooting.
Police say the officer ordered the driver out of the car and on the ground. Antwon and another passenger ran from the vehicle, an East Pittsburgh officer, Michael Rosfeld striking Antwon. Rose later died at the hospital.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There was no reason! He wasn't running -- we didn't have that video, we would be forced to believe the lies.
PAUL: Police say Antwon was unarmed but did have an empty gun magazine in his pocket. Authorities say they've recovered two semiautomatic weapons from the floor of the vehicle. Officer Rosfeld, who had just been sworn in on the East Pittsburgh police force a few hours before the shooting, has been placed on administrative leave.
DEBORAH JONES, WITNESS: You shot that young boy for running, I said -- is he alive? Yes, he's alive, but he's bleeding. I don't understand how anyone can shoot anybody for running.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL: And protesters do say they are planning to return again tonight.
BLACKWELL: All right. Let's list a few of the motorcycles, jeans, whiskey, all hit with tariffs from the European Union. Now this is not just financial. Next, we'll explain how the E.U. could be aiming for a political impact.
PAUL: Also, flood victims in Texas say the water started coming into their homes from every direction. Hear from one woman, in fact, right after emergency responders were able to get her by boat.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:26:25]
WHITFIELD: Welcome back. Glad to have you here. I'm Christi Paul.
BLACKWELL: I'm Victor Blackwell.
PAUL: So, let's listen to what a White House adviser said earlier this year. This was just as the administration started outlining tariffs that have grown into today's growing trade war.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETER NAVARRO, SENIOR POLICY ADVISER TO PRESIDENT TRUMP (via telephone): I don't believe any country in the world is going to retaliate for the simple reason that we are the most lucrative and biggest market in the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BLACKWELL: No retaliation. This is what's happening now. The European Union has retaliated, putting tariffs on more than $3 billion of American exports, motorcycles, denim, whiskey, possibly targeting certain states. Here's CNN's Alison Kosik.
ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christi and Victor. Europe is targeting things like motorcycles, bourbon, peanut butter, cigarettes, and denim. They are classic American goods but also strategic hitting industries in states governed by senior Republicans.
Here's an example, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, they're produced in Wisconsin, that's the home state of House Speaker Paul Ryan. Bourbon hits Kentucky, that's the home state of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. This move will make these products more expensive in Europe.
If demand slows, U.S. businesses will take a financial hit and that could force them to either raise prices or cut jobs. The E.U. tariffs are retaliation for President Trump's tariffs on imported aluminum and steel.
The goal is to help the U.S. steel industry, but it could also raise prices for consumers. That's because American companies pay the tariff to the U.S. government when they import the goods.
They can either absorb the higher cost or pass it along to you, and some already are. According to a recent fed report rounding up how local businesses are faring, a manufacturer in Chicago says it's raising prices thanks to higher steel costs. Another in Boston says the tariffs are killing high-paying American manufacturing jobs -- Christi, Victor.
BLACKWELL: Alison, thanks.
Let's talk whiskey now. I spoke with Steven Gould, the founder and distiller at the Golden Moon Distillery in Colorado. He says his bottom line is already being affected by these tariffs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: The big companies, makers of Jim Beam and makers, Mark and Woodford Reserve and Jack Daniels, I mean, nobody likes it, but the larger companies have contingencies in place. What does this mean for a smaller distillery like Golden Moon?
STEPHEN GOULD, PROPRIETOR/DISTILLER, GOLDEN MOON DISTILLERY: Well, you know, this trade war can do nothing but hurt us. We're already having our European customers, customers in China, our customers in Mexico cancel orders, cancel agreements. I've spent time within the last week in both England and Italy.
And the consumers there -- I'm in the bars, giving classes -- really are not happy with even buying American products. That's probably the worst effect of this. That not only do we as small producers who live and die on the revenue we get from our special report. Not only -- from our exports. Not only are we worried about losing margin, we're losing consumer demand. This is bad marketing as well as bad business.
BLACKWELL: So, what percentage of your sales is export, goes to Europe, Canada, Mexico?
GOULD: In my distillery, 15 percent last year. We thought this year would grow to as much as 25 percent. Instead, we'll be losing the bulk of that revenue. What people tend to not understand is that when the president and the administration threatens trade wars, it doesn't matter if the tariff's been enacted or not.
People are going to stop buying because, A, they don't want to risk goods being caught en route when the tariffs hit, and B, because the way we are handing things is angering our current customer base in Europe and elsewhere.
[06:30:00]
And as a result, you know, we're looking to shift priorities in marketing back to the domestic market, but you know, this is costing me jobs, it's costing me revenue and it's costing me profit.
BLACKWELL: All right, listen to someone who disagrees with you. This is Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin, who of course his state knows a little something about Whiskey. Watch this and then I'll let you respond.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. MATT BEVIN (R), KENTUCKY: Certainly to any state including Kentucky, there is the potential for disruption in the marketplace. But this is the nature of business. It just is.
Europeans are still going to drink more Bourbon this year than they did last year. They're just going to pay more because their government is going to take some of it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: What's your response to that?
GOULD: I totally disagree with that. I mean, I spent a lot of time in Europe, I've spent my entire adult life mixed between the distilling world and doing international business and international trade.
I've worked for several major corporations in the automotive and electronics world as well. Consumers are not going to continue spending additional money to drink Bourbon given the way that our government has handled things.
It's what I'm hearing from people in the market, it's what I'm hearing from the people we do business with. And if you look at the big producers, many of whom have large production facilities in Kentucky, what's going to end up happening is the stocks they cannot sell in Europe will end up being redirected into America and released on the U.S. market at lower costs which will further harm the small and medium businesses, most of which are family owned, that are selling distilled spirits here in the United States.
BLACKWELL: So does that then mean, and this takes us right to our audience here. Look, we've got mostly a domestic audience here, probably a lot of Bourbon and Whiskey drinkers out there.
Does this increase the cost of a bottle of that Golden Moon Single Malt? I mean, will you have to pass this on to the U.S. buyer at all?
GOULD: I can't afford to pass it on to the U.S. buyer. I'm losing margin, I'm losing revenue in Europe. But you know, if I raise my prices for my goods here in the U.S., consumers will go to another crack or premium Whiskey that's cheaper.
I mean, the reality is that the price actually does matter even in the premium and ultra premium category. And as the market tightens, as the effects of this trade war began affecting other people, we're going to see shifts in people's buying trends in the spirit world as a result of people's tightening pocketbooks.
You know, these trade -- these tariffs, this trade war is going to affect cars, luxury goods, consumer goods, and 6, 12, 24 months from now, the people that support this now are going to be looking at what they're paying for things and they're going to be scratching their heads and going why the prices of these common goods going up?
Because we've gotten into a trade war, and nobody wins in a trade war.
BLACKWELL: And the president is already tweeting about more potential auto tariffs coming down the pike. Stephen Gould; founder of Golden Moon Distillery, we've got to wrap it there, thanks so much for being with us.
PAUL: And speaking of Whiskey, sad sight for Bourbon lovers in Kentucky.
BLACKWELL: So sad --
PAUL: So sad. Victor, you can tell, it's very broken up right there --
BLACKWELL: My --
PAUL: Yes, a storage building partially collapsed at the Barton 1792 Distillery, that's 9,000 barrels you're looking out there that crashed to the ground. No one was hurt in the accident which is the most important news, of course.
But it apparently looks worse than it is. Many of those barrels apparently can be salvaged, Victor.
BLACKWELL: The barrels are almost as important as anything in the process. Just pointing that out, but it can be salvaged. OK, a few days ago, you know, President Trump said North Korea is no
longer a nuclear threat, well, now he says North Korea is very much still a nuclear threat.
PAUL: And apparently he's doing something about it. Our own Ivan Watson is with us next to talk about that.
[06:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLACKWELL: Well, it is official. America's military exercises with South Korea had been put on hold at least. The U.S. Secretary of Defense says that it's suspending the freedom guardian drill that was set for August as well as two other marine exchange programs.
PAUL: Yes, so President Trump is keeping his end of the bargain following the Singapore talks. What about North Korea? Senior international correspondent Ivan Watson in studio with us, always glad to have you here --
IVAN WATSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning --
PAUL: In person again.
WATSON: So what about that? Is there any indication that North Korea has held up any -- end of its bargain to denuclearize or its agreement since they've met with President Trump?
WATSON: Well, the Secretary of Defense Mattis has said he -- we're at the early stages, there hasn't been any concrete movement just yet. But there are signs of kind of goodwill gestures going on.
We've just had the U.S. military in South Korea announcing that they're moving, you know, hundreds of coffins and containers toward the demilitarized zone to receive what they anticipate would be the remains of missing service people from the Korean war from 1950 to 1953.
And we hear that there might be up to 200 people that could be -- remains that could be returned. And that was one of the kind of four things that President Trump and Kim Jong-un agreed to about a week and a half ago in Singapore.
[06:40:00] So there are signs of movements in other areas, but that doesn't get to the nuclear weapons, that's --
BLACKWELL: Yes --
PAUL: Right.
BLACKWELL: So just a couple of days ago, it might have been yesterday, they all just -- so long. In a cabinet meeting, the president suggested that the nuclear threat from North Korea is over.
Now there's this letter to Congress in which the president says that there's still an extraordinary threat, obviously that those two don't correspond. Is this just the president trying to sell optimism? Decipher that for us.
WATSON: Well, President Trump is always a little loose with his terminology and he goes into salesman mode, but yes, we've got a letter from the president to Congress, extending the, quote, "national emergency" due to North Korea's nuclear weapons.
And now this is something that's been in place since 2008 since the Bush administration and continued, it involves economic sanctions on North Korea that had been expanded over the years.
I think what it indicates is you know, President Trump starts a diplomatic process, but that doesn't mean that the machinery of government is immediately caught up. When he said that military exercises would be suspended, we started calling all the kind of military contacts we had and none of them knew --
PAUL: They didn't know --
WATSON: That this was happening just --
BLACKWELL: Yes --
WATSON: Yet. And that is one of the other developments that we've gotten in the last 24 hours. The Pentagon announcing, yes, we are suspending a series of military exercises in Korea. One of them is called -- it's got a good name, Freedom Guardian.
BLACKWELL: Yes --
WATSON: So last year in the Freedom Guardian drills, there were about 18,000 U.S. service people that were about 50,000 South Korean troops that's been suspended as part of this goodwill gesture and providing security guarantees and a couple of other drills with South Korea had been suspended.
BLACKWELL: Can we --
PAUL: I'm sorry --
BLACKWELL: Can we talk about how extraordinary that alone is? Because the administration said there would be no freeze for freeze, we will not stop these drills --
WATSON: Which was the Chinese proposal.
BLACKWELL: Yes, which was their proposal, we will not stop these drills in exchange for -- and then the president comes out and says, yes, sure, we'll do that.
WATSON: Yes, and he went one step further by calling these drills, these joint exercises war game --
BLACKWELL: Provocative --
WATSON: And saying that they were very provocative.
BLACKWELL: Yes.
WATSON: I've covered a lot of these drills, and North Korea hates them, and so the U.S. military is always saying, hey, these are defensive in nature, they're an annual exercise, they're not preparation for an invasion into North Korea.
So it was pretty striking to hear the commander-in-chief using language that the military has always been very careful to avoid.
PAUL: You say North Korea hates it, but South Korea does not.
WATSON: No, I mean --
PAUL: What is the reaction from South Korea to pulling back on these exercises?
WATSON: Probably mixed. I mean, there is a lot of support for this diplomatic kind of initiative right now. And one of these things is really good for South Korea by the way. They've just gotten an announcement that, you know, in August, they'll be able to start doing these reunifications.
So there are hundreds of thousands of people who are separated by the Korean war who registered -- more than 150,000 from South Korea alone, to try to see their loved ones that they haven't been able to see since 1953, since 1950.
Unfortunately, in the years since they've registered, more than half of these people have died. And when the ties were bad in the past couple of years, they stopped these reunions, North and South Korea say they'll do them again in August for about a 100 people on both sides.
That's a really emotional thing for people on the Korean Peninsula.
BLACKWELL: Kim just had his third meeting with Xi of China. Is there any talk which on its own is remarkable. There's so many after this story --
WATSON: Yes --
PAUL: Yes --
BLACKWELL: Are there any talks of potentially another meeting with the U.S. president? Are there any requests or any suggestion from either the North or South that there should be --
WATSON: Well, President Trump himself said that Kim would be --
BLACKWELL: Would come to the White House.
WATSON: In the White House --
PAUL: Right.
WATSON: Which -- BLACKWELL: Yes --
WATSON: Is kind of mind-boggling, but he's had basically North Korea's spy master in the White House in the last month or so --
BLACKWELL: Yes --
WATSON: So all of this is pretty remarkable -- but yes, I mean, I think -- we can't understate -- we can't overstate enough Kim Jong-un traveling --
PAUL: Right.
WATSON: Just crossing borders --
BLACKWELL: Period, end the sentence there, yes --
WATSON: You know, not just in an armor train, but getting on a borrowed Chinese plane to fly to Singapore to meet President Trump. All of these trips, meeting Xi Jinping three times, I mean, this is incredible.
I've covered Kim Jong-un and for six years since he assumed the throne so to speak --
BLACKWELL: Yes --
WATSON: In Pyongyang, he never set foot outside of the country --
PAUL: Yes --
WATSON: As far as we know of, and now he's kind of you know, flighting around, he's on a world tour --
BLACKWELL: Meeting world leaders.
WATSON: Incredible.
(LAUGHTER)
PAUL: It's clearly got --
(CROSSTALK)
What is happening?
WATSON: I could not have predicted any of what has happened over the past six months, I kid you not --
PAUL: Yes --
WATSON: And I don't know where it's going.
BLACKWELL: We have said that about so many different story lines from this very desk over the last year and a half, two years --
WATSON: It's true.
BLACKWELL: So this is another one --
PAUL: It's been interesting.
BLACKWELL: Thanks so much --
WATSON: Good to see you guys --
PAUL: Thank you, Ivan so much.
[06:45:00] BLACKWELL: So all of Iceland, a wonderful place came to a stop yesterday to watch the World Cup.
PAUL: Andy Scholes!?
SCHOLES: Yes, guys, you know, there's a little more than 300,000 people in all of Iceland, and I'll tell you what, they're loving their first World Cup experience. Coming up, we'll show you how the team fared against Nigeria.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLACKWELL: The drama of the World Cup continuing yesterday with a big win in the final minutes for Brazil.
PAUL: Yes, Andy Scholes has more in this morning's "BLEACHER REPORT", my kids are so tuned to the TV right now --
SCHOLES: Oh, there's been such an incredible drama, exciting games in the World Cup so far. And you know, Brazil one of the favorites to win it this year, I'll tell you what, the pressure was on for them after drawing in their first game they really needed to get a win against Costa Rica, and there were some questions about how healthy their star Neymar was going into this game.
[06:50:00] He missed three and a half months prior to the World Cup with a broken foot. Now listen, very heated much up, tied at zero in the 91st minute when Brazil finally broke through with a goal, then moments later, Neymar adding another one to put this game away.
And after the final whistle, Neymar who you know, had the hopes and dreams of the entire country on his shoulders, he just broke down, falling to his knees, crying tears of joy right there on the field.
He said he was so happy because not everyone knows what it took for him to get to this point. And Brazil fans everywhere going crazy with those final two goals including Mrs. Tom Brady, Gisele.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GISELE BUNDCHEN, WIFE OF TOM BRADY: Goal! Let's go! Let's go! Goal!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: Yes, she's pretty pumped about the win, Brazil now in control of their group, they play Serbia on Wednesday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CROWD: Goal!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: And Nigerian fans had plenty to celebrate as well yesterday despite being underdogs against Iceland, they would win 2-0, Nigeria are the youngest team in the World Cup and they now have a chance to advance out of the group stage.
Their win also giving a lifeline to Messi and Argentina. With the Nigerian win, Argentina now can get out on the group stage if they beat Nigeria and end up with a better goal differential than Iceland.
Fans in Iceland, you know, win or lose, they're still doing their thunder-clap before and after every game. You know, this is their first-ever World Cup, and they're the smallest nation to ever play in this tournament with a population of just over 300,000 people, and they all might have been in that stadium right there.
All right, the action continues today after one of their biggest wins in history against Germany. Mexico returns to the pitch to take on South Korea at 11:00 Eastern. Defending champs Germany look to rebound from that Mexico loss, they play Sweden too.
At the early game this morning, they got Belgium taking on Tunisia, that's at 8:00 Eastern. All right, finally, one sporting goods store not had much confidence that LeBron is going to be staying in Cleveland. Dick's Sporting Goods has slashed the prices on all LeBron James -- half the apparel online.
Jersey, shirts, socks, anything with LeBron caps on it. Now 50 percent off on their website. The odds makers have the Lakers as the overwhelming favorite to land LeBron right now.
And LeBron, he has to notify the Cavs if he's going to opt out of his final year of his contract by Friday. And Christi, you know, I know you're from Ohio, you've got a lot of family there, embrace everyone there that this is happening --
PAUL: We're anticipate anticipating it.
SCHOLES: I think it's more accepting this, I don't think it's going to be the big outcry for any jerseys --
BLACKWELL: You're right --
SCHOLES: There's no --
PAUL: I got it --
SCHOLES: But even, you know, Dick's Sporting Goods, they're on top of it.
PAUL: Oh, my God --
SCHOLES: I'm sorry --
BLACKWELL: I know it's a moment.
PAUL: All right, it's a moment --
SCHOLES: Right --
PAUL: But it's all right, I will not have my moment on TV.
(LAUGHTER)
Thanks Andy.
BLACKWELL: All right, all right, thank you so much.
PAUL: Thanks.
BLACKWELL: All right, well, in the days since Anthony Bourdain's death, people have searched for the right way to honor him. Well, now the chef's mother reveals how she plans to pay tribute to her son.
[06:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAUL: Now, Omaha, Nebraska is home to the largest South Sudanese refugee population outside Africa.
BLACKWELL: And Cnn's "GREAT BIG STORY" goes there with refugees -- or where refugees rather are fostering a community with none other than some of the top-rated basketball players.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KOANG DOLUONY, FOUNDER, OMAHA TALONS ACADEMY: We want Nebraska to be recognized as a basketball state. Within the next few years, South Sudanese players are going to infiltrate the game massively. My name is Koang Doluony, I am the founder and executive director of Omaha Talons Academy.
We are a basketball program dedicated toward serving the South Sudanese population. Omaha is the largest population of South Sudanese outside of Africa. This is where it all started.
A few kids wanted to get some basketball lessons, and right here, you know, right here on this concrete is where we would work on our stuff. We started this program in 2012, four years later, these guys are incredible players.
Greg has been probably one of the best players in the state since seventh grade, the community has wrapped its arms around him and we want to see Greg do well.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I started with the Omaha Talons when I was in middle school, I was geared to play in the year for the state of Nebraska in 2016. I was born in South Sudan and I came over to the United States when I was 4.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We come from a journey that's really painful. A lot of us were born at refugee camps, it almost felt like the world is not designed for us. We've been on the run for as long as I can remember, trying to find a home one country after another.
I grew up in the South Omaha projects, I came here at 9 years old, most people look at this thing here, you know, and they see a clothes hanger. This was actually our first basket. I remember being a year high, you know, and grabbing a ball and trying to dunk on each other.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Basketball has created a really special brotherhood.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It (INAUDIBLE) my heart to see all these other Sudanese players to really making something out of nothing. Because when we first came here, we really didn't have anything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm really excited, I think Omaha should be excited, and I think the basketball world should be really excited about what's going to be coming. We can see it very clearly, you know, it's just a matter of time and working.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PAUL: Well, you know, Anthony Bourdain's mom is revealing her plans for a lasting memorial to her son. Gladys Bourdain told the "New York Times" that she will have "tony" tattooed in small letters on the inside of her wrist.
The chef and celebrated host of Cnn's "PARTS UNKNOWN" took his own life while filming in France earlier this month. Well, his mom says she wasn't a fan of her son's many tattoos that recorded his culinary ventures, but now she's going to use his tattoo artist to get her very first.
A touching tribute there from mother to son.
