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At Least 31 Killed as Wildfires Scorch California; California's Camp Fire is Most Destructive in State History; One-on-One with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau; Election Night in America Continued; Congressman-Elect's Message of Reconciliation on SNL. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired November 12, 2018 - 10:30   ET

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


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[10:32:06]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: There is heartbreak, shock, exhaustion across the state of California right now. Massive wildfires are burning at both ends of the state. At least 31 people have died so far, almost all of those deaths, 29, in northern California from the so-called camp fire. It now has the distinction, the sad one, of being the most destructive fire California has ever endured.

Joining us now is the sheriff and coroner for Butte County, Kory Honea. Thanks so much for joining us. I know this is in the midst of so much there. I want to ask you this question, because the latest reports are of 100 people still missing. What are your concerns about their fate in light of these images that we're seeing now of just the utter devastation from these fires?

KORY HONEA, SHERIFF-CORONER, BUTTE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA (via telephone): Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

I'm very concerned about the number of people that we still have unaccounted for. I'm hopeful that through investigative work we'll be able to determine that they are alive and well and reunite them with their loved ones. But given what we have dealt with so far with casualties that resulted from this fire, I have concerns that that count will rise.

SCIUTTO: I don't want to get into politics. You've got bigger fish to fry now, but you heard the president you heard the president criticize the state authorities criticize the state authorities there, but also threaten federal funding. I'm just curious, in the midst of this crisis, are you getting the federal help you need to help federal help you need to help not just fight these fires but help recover?

HONEA: First off, and I appreciate that. I don't want to get into politics either because my job is to protect lives of the citizens of my community. And I have received help from both, my local partners as well as state officials and federal officials. And I have our local congressman has been keyed up on this and has been in contact with me the entire time. Surely, he'll work to help get anything we need. And I have already met with members of FEMA who are working to try to get their people on the ground so we can get the help we needed. So, notwithstanding what may have been said on social media, I feel most supported at this point by those entities.

SCIUTTO: Listen, Kory, we're with you. We know you have so much there. These images are just heartbreaking to see. So many people affected. We wish you the best, and we're just going to remind our viewers, go to CNN's Web site. There are a number of ways that you can reach out to help those affected there.

Still ahead on this program, how the Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau is continuing his historic push to achieve gender equality.

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JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: Women should be paid as much as men. If something were making more transparency around, more accountability on.

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[10:39:30] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Come January in this country, at least 102 women will represent the American people in the House of Representatives. At least 23 women will sit in the Senate, nearing a record. There will be at least nine female governors. Progress, yes. Still, not equal.

So, I sat down exclusively with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to ask him why did he mandate that half his cabinet be women when he took office and why he has just proposed federal legislation to insure men and women receive equal pay for equal work. Watch.

[10:40:04] (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW (on camera): I was at a dinner and heard you speaking about diversity, and heard you speaking about a cabinet that was equal men and women. Today, it is gender balance, 17 women, 17 men, it was clearly intentional. Why did you do it?

TRUDEAU: Why do it? It was fundamental to governing well. When you have a broader group of people with different perspectives, with different backgrounds, with different stories, with different life experiences, you're actually much better able to solve different problems and solve them in a way that is going to respond to the needs people have.

HARLOW: We have known that for so long and yet so many governments, including you know our government in the United States, falls behind on that. I mean, when you look and -- Prime Minister, at the underrepresentation of women in the U.S. Congress, what do you think?

TRUDEAU: We have a similar underrepresentation in Canada's underrepresentation in Canada's parliament. We are nowhere near 50 percent. We are nowhere near 40 percent.

HARLOW: Right.

TRUDEAU: We have to do a lot better. But I can't control the numbers in parliament. I can control the numbers in my cabinet.

HARLOW: Are you a feminist?

TRUDEAU: Yes, absolutely. I'm a feminist because a feminist is someone who believes men and women should be equal and who believes that there's a lot more work to do to get there.

HARLOW: Who or what made you a feminist?

TRUDEAU: My father taught me about the importance of fundamental rights, of defending everyone's basic rights, inalienable rights. But I don't know that I would have ever called him a feminist because he was of a very different generation. My mom made me a feminist. My wife makes me a better feminist. I at one point said to Sophie, I at one point said to Sophie, my wife, that it was really important to me that we raise our daughter, Ella-Grace, to be a feminist.

And she said yes, and your sons -- because I have two sons as well. And I said, oh, oh yes. I guess I need to raise them to be feminists as well. Where you can have a world in which our daughters believe they can do anything, but in which sons also believe that our daughters can do and be anything and will be allies to them.

HARLOW: The Harvard political review just last month reported on some polling data, internally in Canada, that showed that you have lost a bit of male support since your election, and what the pollster inferred from that was that there is, quote, "a tacit assumption that they," meaning men, "are not a priority." That thinking that some have that sort of as women rise up, it's man down. What do you make of that?

TRUDEAU: I can understand worries that people have any time there's a status quo that is challenged. But what we have seen time and time again is when you have more fairness, more equality, you actually create better prosperity, more opportunity, for everyone.

HARLOW: It was just a week or so ago that equal pay legislation was tabled here in Canada. That you put forth. And that would close the pay gap between men and women in federal - in federal jobs. I know there's a commissioner who has a lot of power. You can audit, et cetera, but how do you make sure it really happens?

TRUDEAU: Women aren't being paid what their true value is as if they were men. -- But at the same time, we're not getting the full economic participation or success out of women, and that's lowering our outcomes as a society. So, to recognize that for jobs of equal worth, women should be paid as much as men is something we're making more transparency around, more accountability on. We're using modern data techniques to be able to actually analyze what groups of jobs which are more women dominated are paid less than jobs that are more male dominated. What you're talking about in pay equity is administrative assistants that are assistants that are predominantly women in some cases or some companies versus maintenance staff that might be more predominantly men. They might have the same value in their work, the same training to get there or the same abilities, but because they're men, the maintenance workers get paid more than women. So, it's bringing the average in different jobs that are dominated by women versus men up to the level of the average of those jobs.

HARLOW: Boards. The representation of women on boards, whether it's in the United States or here in Canada, you know, it's abysmal. Women make up 48 percent of the Canadian workforce. Only hold 14 percent of board seats. You have introduced a bill, C-25, to increase female representation on boards. And it doesn't mandate that there are a certain number of women like we have just seen passed in California.

[10:45:01] But it seems to me, Mr. Prime Minister, tell me if this is the goal to essentially sort of shame corporations into doing it. You nod.

TRUDEAU: That's exactly it. It's about highlighting what many more corporations are beginning to understand and many more shareholders and stakeholders across the economy are realizing that companies that have better diversity or more women on their boards tend to do better.

HARLOW: Sure.

TRUDEAU: So, by forcing a level of transparency and making people actually explicitly say what their plan is to bring more women on to boards, more diversity on their boards, we're going to spur people to actually act. And actually realize as more and more have done as you have said, it's in their best interests.

HARLOW: If they don't, are you supportive of quotas?

TRUDEAU: We're looking at different steps, but I think this is going to make a big step.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: So -

SCIUTTO: Clearly a big priority for him.

HARLOW: A big priority.

SCIUTTO: And you know, one that, well, you might see reverse traction here.

HARLOW: It's true. But he did say to me, he's like - what do you make of the U.S.? He said look, we're nowhere in parliament near where we need to be. They don't even have 40 percent women in parliament, but what he can control is his cabinet. But he said one of his biggest challenges, and this struck me, is getting women to run. He said, men, it's easy. You tell them they should run, you they say of course we should. Women he said is not telling -- SCIUTTO: Was not a problem in the U.S. election this term.

HARLOW: No, not at all.

SCIUTTO: Well, there's new evidence challenging the Trump administration's claims that North Korea is dismantling its nuclear weapons program, in fact, a lot of evidence to the contrary. Coming up the images of what may be 16 previously undisclosed ballistic missile testing sites.

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[10:51:04] HARLOW: All right. New images that we just got seem to contradict President Trump's claim that the negotiations with the North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un are working smoothly.

SCIUTTO: North Korea might in fact be expanding, making improvements to more than a dozen ballistic missile bases.

CNN Pentagon Correspondent, Barbara Starr joins us now. Barbara, you look at these photos here. They are not hopeful signs for ongoing U.S./North Korea nuclear talks.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning. This is commercial imagery that has been analyzed by a think tank here in town. And what they have come up with is this very interesting. It looks like this imagery is now showing that North Korea is continuing the activity at up to 16 continuing bases deep underground, holding potentially mobile ballistic missiles.

North Korea, very importantly, is continuing with its production cycle. We have seen, but the president right. They're not test firing missiles anymore. We haven't seen any of that. They're not doing underground testing, but U.S. officials say they assume, and this begins to show the evidence that they are continuing with production.

This imagery shows us how they use that mountainous terrain in North Korea. They have dug out shelters deep underground, and if they put mobile missile launchers in there, the U.S. has a very hard time seeing with satellites that those missiles could be moved out and fired very quickly. Poppy, Jim.

HARLOW: So, Barbara, before you go, I mean, we saw just last week the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, had this meeting with North Korean officials postponed and now you have these images that are indisputable. I mean, intelligence, well obviously, U.S. Intelligence talked to the president about them. What does that mean in terms of complicating future negotiations?

STARR: What the U.S. wants out of North Korea is what they're not willing to give up yet. A complete list and that would include the 16 sites, of where all their weapons are, what is at those sites and a commitment to irreversible denuclearization at all of them. That's what the president started out talking about. The fear, the concern is that North Korea only goes halfway. This is really the crown jewels. The fact that these sites are hidden, that the U.S. has a very hard time seeing if there is sudden military activity at these sites, that's what Kim Jong-un doesn't want to give up right away and may never want to give up. Pompeo's job is going be to get him to declare openly that he has these sites and that he will give them up.

HARLOW: All right.

SCIUTTO: Irreversible. That's one of those buzz words.

HARLOW: A key word.

SCIUTTO: Barbara Starr thanks very much.

HARLOW: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Well, this weekend, really just a moving show of grace on "Saturday Night Live." The congressman-elect whose war injuries were mocked, well, he got an apology and he turned up on the show. Then he had a heartfelt message to Americans that's worth listening to, coming up next.

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[10:58:21] SCIUTTO: If these two can find common ground, maybe there's some hope for the rest of us. You may remember "Saturday Night Live's" Pete Davidson caused a ruckus when he made fun of a Republican congressman-elect Dan Crenshaw's eye patch.

HARLOW: Of course, Dan Crenshaw is a decorated former Navy S.E.A.L. who was wounded while serving in Afghanistan. So, what happened? Crenshaw showed up on "SNL" this weekend, sitting side by side with Davidson. The comedian apologized calling himself an idiot. Crenshaw accepted the apology and then here was his message to all of us.

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DAN CRENSHAW (R), TEXAS CONGRESSMAN-ELECT: Americans can forgive one another. We can remember what brings us together as a country and still see the good in each other. This is Veterans Day weekend, which means that it's a good time for every American to connect with a veteran. Maybe say thanks for your service.

But I would actually encourage you to say something else. Tell a veteran, never forget. When you say never forget to a veteran, you are implying that as an American, you are in it with them, not separated by some imaginary barrier between civilians and veterans but connected together as grateful fellow Americans. We'll never forget the sacrifices made by veterans past and present. And never forget those we lost on 9/11. Heroes like Pete's father. So, I'll just say, Pete, never forget.

PETE DAVIDSON, HOST, "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE": Never forget.

And that is from both of us.

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SCIUTTO: It was --

HARLOW: Love that.

SCIUTTO: Enormously classy of the Congressman to mention that Pete, of course, has suffered the loss of his father during 9/11. They both lost something, and finding that common ground. I don't know if you watched it. I was up with my wife. We watched it. It was really - it was definitely -- it was touching.

HARLOW: I didn't see it, and I love it. I love that he did that. Thank you all for being with us today. We'll see you back here tomorrow morning. I'm Poppy Harlow.

SCIUTTO: And I'm Jim Sciutto.