Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

At Least Two Dead after Possible Oklahoma Tornado; Trump Claims Progress in U.S.-Japan Trade Deal; Preliminary Magnitude 8.0 Earthquake Strikes Peru; North Korea's Hostile Message to the U.S.; Democrats Criticize Trump over Iran Tensions; Overcrowding on Everest Likely Caused Deaths; Trump and Abe Attend Sumo Championship. Aired 5- 6a ET

Aired May 26, 2019 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): A deadly storm strikes the U.S. state of Oklahoma, a possible tornado in the middle of the night. We hear from the mayor of the town that was hit.

GEORGE HOWELL, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Plus Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe (sic) courts President Trump with golf diplomacy. The president boasts he is still confident in North Korea's Kim Jong-un.

ALLEN (voice-over): And climbing the world's highest mountain comes at a price. A literal human traffic jam is making the trek more dangerous and now deadly.

HOWELL (voice-over): Welcome our viewers around the world. I'm George Howell.

ALLEN (voice-over): And I'm Natalie Allen. Thank you for joining us. CNN NEWSROOM starts right now.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

ALLEN: We begin with breaking news, the devastation in Oklahoma after a possible tornado slammed into a mobile home park overnight. Emergency officials say at least two people were killed and multiple people are injured in the town of El Reno, that is out outside Oklahoma City.

HOWELL: And you see how destructive the storm was. Rescue crews there searching for injured people in that field of debris. A nearby hotel was also hit hard but the owner says all the guests are accounted for. One survivor from the mobile home park described the terror as the storm approached. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I heard it coming. I felt the trailer 80, our trailer, I know trailer 80 flipped over on top of 81, which we were in. And after everything was over with and all the shaking and jarring and everybody laying on the floor, the sirens went off.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sirens off a little bit late.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After that all happened.

So you all were in one trailer --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- you heard -- did you hear it coming?

Did you -- what did you see --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I felt it. I don't know.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It just got real dark real fast and everything started shaking violently.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I told them to hit the floor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOWELL: So residents here in the coming hours will be waking up to a great deal of devastation. We spoke to the mayor, Matt White, here's what he had to say about it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATT WHITE, MAYOR OF EL RENO: I think nighttime tornadoes, people aren't used to them. Oklahoma in general, we all try to stay aware.

Our first responders in Reno are absolutely qualified and capable of handling what's going on here. We're very prepared. You know, we've been through a lot, like you said, the last month. Had several floods here in the last month. We've had so much rainfall. We just had some disaster, several areas flooding just the beginning of last week.

So you know, our first responders, along with the sheriff's department, public works, police department, fire department, all the county forces, all of our NSA (ph) units are all hands on deck. And we feel confident that we're going to get through this like we always have before.

El Reno's very resilient. Oklahoma is very resilient. And we're going to have a lot of needs. We just don't know what the needs are at this point in time. We're basically asking everybody to kind of stay away from the area right there, in that one area on 81 and I-40, which is a main thoroughfare.

We're basically trying to let us assess everything at that point in time and let the first responders do their job, finish our rescue mission.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HOWELL: And you will remember El Reno was hit in the 2013 tornado

outbreak on May 31st. The Moore, Oklahoma, hit May 20th.

(WEATHER REPORT)

[05:05:00]

ALLEN: Donald Trump on a state visit to Japan says the U.S. and Japan are getting closer to a bilateral trade deal.

HOWELL: The president and the prime minister Shinzo Abe (sic) attended a sumo wrestling tournament. Mr. Trump presented the champion with a large trophy there.

ALLEN: Mr. Trump claimed progress on trade after a round of golf Sunday morning with the prime minister. But the president cautioned no final agreement would come until Japanese upper house elections in July.

HOWELL: Earlier Mr. Trump created some diplomatic turbulence with a tweet that says "North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people and others, but not me."

ALLEN: That statement directly at odds with Japan's view of North Korea's actions. Still if the remark upset Japan's prime minister, he didn't show it on the golf course.

HOWELL: Mr. Abe was all smiles as he and President Trump played golf. The foreign ministry says the two leaders dipped deep into their friendship amid a cozy atmosphere on the golf course.

ALLEN: Ivan Watson has more highlights of Mr. Trump's first full day in Tokyo.

Hello, Ivan.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, there was some attention to these tweets having to do with bilateral relations here, with President Trump downplaying North Korea's short range missile launches earlier this month.

That contradicting not only the Japanese position at the time, which was that this violated United Nations Security Council resolutions, but also contradicted his own national security adviser John Bolton, who told journalists on Saturday that he agreed with the Japanese, that this was a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Also in saying that trade talks would essentially be postponed, at least some kind of agreement being signed until after Japan holds elections for what is essentially its upper house of Parliament until July, that pushes back the White House's own schedule.

It had said the Trump administration, in the run-up to this meeting here in Tokyo, that it wanted a trade deal between the U.S. and Japan signed before Trump came out to Tokyo. Now he is pushing that back, a concession, if you will, to prime

minister Shinzo Abe (sic)'s own political cycle. And President Trump signaling that he is hoping for some breakthrough for U.S. agricultural products to come to Japanese markets. This as the trade --

[05:10:00]

WATSON: -- war rages between the U.S. and China and the U.S. has lost access to very lucrative markets for its agricultural exports in China.

ALLEN: This is also a cultural visit as well for President Trump. And we know that he is attending a sumo wrestling match. The question is, will he bow to tradition and sit on the floor?

Much to say about how Japan loves its sumo wrestling.

WATSON: That's right. I mean this has been a day of athletics for the two leaders. First they choppered out from Tokyo and back to play rounds of golf. They had lunch; evidently it was double cheeseburgers with U.S. beef.

And then they went to the stadium here in Tokyo for the finals of this sumo tournament. And the first of this new imperial era, you have to recall that part of the pomp and circumstance is around the newly enthroned emperor here in Japan.

And that is where they witnessed what was today's loss in the ring of Asanoyama, basically a rookie in Japanese professional sumo. I've been getting a crash course in this, thanks to some experts. He lost today but he won over overall in the tournament.

So President Trump awarded what is described as the president's cup to the champion. This is a 4.5-foot tall trophy cup, weighs about 60-70 pounds. So he got some assistance from a sumo official in actually picking the thing up.

Prime minister Shinzo Abe (sic) also awarded his own prime minister's cup to the champion. There were a lot of cheers when the two leaders entered the stadium in a nod to the centuries of tradition here.

The first ladies were not allowed onto the mound, that ring where these giant sumo athletes wrestle. They had to sit outside.

And there were warnings, there was extra security here; one of the popular traditions, if you will, not endorsed by the sumo association, is that when the crowd gets really wild, they throw the cushions that they sit on around the stadium. And they were warned not to do that and warned that if it hits anybody and hurts anybody, these cushions, they could be arrested.

But from what we saw, people were much busier taking cellphone photos of the two leaders rather than throwing cushions around the stadium.

ALLEN: That makes sense. All right. Ivan Watson covering it for us in Tokyo. Thank you.

HOWELL: One person not throwing cushions, let's bring in Inderjeet Parmar, professor of international politics at City University of London, joining us this hour.

Good to have you.

INDERJEET PARMAR, CITY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON: Very good to be here.

HOWELL: Let's start with the U.S. president notably at odds with his Japanese counterpart on the issue of North Korea.

Given the importance of this close relationship between Japan and the U.S. on issues of security, does this signal that there is daylight between the two nations on North Korea?

PARMAR: I think that there clearly is. Japan is right in the region and, therefore, more worried about the recent missile tests, which are short range missiles, than the United States as a mainland, although American forces are in the region.

I think basically there is a situation here where there is two forces at play. South Korea also have been quite softline on the new missile tests. And that is that the United States wants to keep pressure on North Korea as much as possible. So there will be some renewal of military exercises.

But at the same time they want to keep a window open for further dialogue, especially as President Trump wants to portray himself in electoral politics as having come to some kind of a deal, agreement with North Korea itself.

HOWELL: And also now to the issue of trade. President Trump indicating again that no final agreement would come until after the Japanese upper house elections that are set to happen in July.

So with this delay, does Shinzo Abe (sic) gain ground with President Trump on this front?

PARMAR: I think there is a micropolitics in which we can talk about the kind of jockeying for position and the gaining or losing of ground. And I think, on that front, President Trump is reliant on Japan in a bigger context, the kind of macro context, if you like, is China. The raging trade war with China has now, according to many analysts, is becoming a new high tech Cold War. And people are talking about a digital Iron Curtain. And the declaration by President Trump of a national emergency in regard to China's high tech development and sanctions on Huawei --

[05:15:00]

PARMAR: -- for example, it suggests that now the United States needs its allies to try to enforce that kind of sanction against Chinese high tech development. And that probably means that Japan has a little bit more leverage within the micropolitics of the relationship itself. HOWELL: And we talk about how important the relationship is geopolitically, we talk about how important it is to Japan.

But as President Trump returns to the United States, how important are the optics of this trip for him domestically, for him and his administration?

PARMAR: Well, they are very important because you will recall that President Obama and Secretary Clinton declared a kind of pivot to Asia, a rebalance to Asia. Asia is now the cockpit of the greatest geopolitical struggle.

What President Trump achieves there is going to be a very large part of what he takes to the 2020 elections as a set of achievements. So the alliances in that region, the fact that he is now cementing alliances in a large number of ways and increasingly coming to see that he needs those alliances to be unified against China, I think that will be his big thing.

Those $16 billion worth of farm subsidies to farmers in America, I think, is a key part of that, too. So he is going to try to return from Asia, trying to say that he is now unifying his alliances with China, he's keeping the door open to North Korea and that he is actually taking -- has reduced the tensions and he is a diplomat on the world stage. He's to be trusted with American power.

And to be quite frank, there is a broad bipartisan alliance which unifies people on the extreme right, like Steve Bannon and people who write for "The New York Times," like Thomas Friedman, who agree that President Trump is taking the right stance in regard to China.

And I think that that will play very strongly when he returns home and as he prepares for the big -- his possible re-election in 2020.

HOWELL: Inderjeet Parmar, stay with us here, because we're looking at these live images, if we can take them again, of the Trumps and Abes sitting together for dinner at 6:17 pm in Tokyo. If we're able to listen in, let's do so to see what they are saying.

TRUMP: Personally, I won't have anybody get me in trouble. So we brought that beautiful trophy, which they will have many for hundreds of years. And that will be their trophy for the championship, sumo championships. And I think it was very nice.

And we really enjoyed being there. That was something to see these great athletes, because they really are athletes. It is a very ancient sport. And I've always wanted to see sumo wrestling. So it was really great. Thank you very much.

SHINZO ABE, JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER: (Speaking Japanese).

HOWELL: So again, Inderjeet Parmar, still with us if you are, so the president saying that he enjoyed the sumo championship, always wanted to see that. So it does seem that that relationship and gesture was appreciated by President Trump.

PARMAR: Well, yes. I don't really have much to say about sumo wrestling, I'm afraid.

(LAUGHTER)

PARMAR: But, yes, clearly, this is an important struggle between two allies, which are now increasingly unified against a major strategic revisionist threat, as China is being seen.

And you will recall a couple weeks ago the head of the policy planning staff in the State Department said that this was a different kind of struggle between the United States and a major kind of revisionist threat compared with the Soviet Union.

This was a non-Caucasian power on the world stage, which is unprecedented. And I think that that relationship between the United States and Japan, I think, is now in a new context and I suspect it will get a little closer in a number of regards.

HOWELL: I was looking forward, though, to your thoughts on sumo wrestling but we'll leave it there.

Inderjeet Parmar, thank you so much.

PARMAR: I'll read up about it later.

(LAUGHTER)

PARMAR: Thank you.

ALLEN: There were all kinds of wild hats here at CNN on our program. We appreciate him.

Conservative heavyweights in the U.K. are throwing their hats in the ring to succeed prime minister Theresa May.

Will the winner, though, be able to strike a Brexit deal?

We'll have a live report from London next.

HOWELL: Plus the world's biggest multicountry elections almost over. What the results will mean for the European Union.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:20:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

HOWELL: We're following breaking news out of Peru, where an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 8.0 just struck.

ALLEN: It happened in the northern part of the country. The U.S. Geological Survey says that it had an approximate depth of 115 kilometers or 70 miles. CNN reporters in the area felt the earthquake as far away as Venezuela. We'll have more on the story as it develops.

HOWELL: Now to the United Kingdom, where Conservative Party candidates are lining up for a leadership contest to select the nation's next prime minister. Michael Gove is the latest to announce his bid.

ALLEN: He is among more than 1 dozen conservative MPs challenging Boris Johnson, the current frontrunner to replace Theresa May. Ms. May announcing on Friday that she will be stepping down as party leader on June 7th after failing to get her Brexit deal passed. CNN's Salma Abdelaziz is joining us with a closer look.

Certainly people there are probably quite weary of the whole Brexit matter. And now they have got to find a new leader who can try to get it done.

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN PRODUCER: That is exactly right, Natalie. Actually I brought you the Sunday papers just to give you a sense of what has been talked about here.

"Stop Boris Johnson," here from "The Observer."

"Get Boris! Gove challenges his rival again."

"The Race Is On," from "The Sunday Telegraph."

And this one, "Race Turning Toxic Already."

So as you said, it's been three years of bitter political infighting. The Tory Party in particular has taken it hard, especially because they are the ones in power. And people are sick and tired of it. They really want people to just get on with the business of Brexit.

Instead, we're involved in a leadership campaign in the Conservative Party. Over the next few weeks, we'll see Prime Minister May hold her position until June 7th. After that, she will move into a caretaker role.

We're expecting to see 10 to 15 or more candidates come forward. Conservative MPs will whittle those down to just two names. And then, by paper ballot, Conservative members across the country, some 150,000 estimated people, will vote for one of those two candidates.

That prime minister will be in place by the end of July. The next critical date is October 31st. That is when the U.K. officially leaves the E.U., giving that prime minister just three months to sort out the crisis.

ALLEN: Whoever gets the job has to get to work, don't they? Salma Abdelaziz, thank you.

[05:25:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

HOWELL: And another important vote, the European elections: Sunday is the last day for voters to cast ballots in the world's biggest multicountry election.

ALLEN: More than 350 million people are eligible to choose representatives in the European Parliament. We will start seeing results from the election in the coming hours. Results will shape the European Union for the next five years.

HOWELL: And our international viewers can join CNN on Sunday night as the European election results start to take shape. Our special coverage on CNNi, hosted by Hala Gorani, kicks off at 8:00 pm in Brussels.

ALLEN: Relations between the U.S. and North Korea appear to be on shaky ground, ahead here, the new aggressive message from Kim Jong-un to Donald Trump as the U.S. president visits Asia.

HOWELL: Plus U.S. presidential candidates are spending the U.S. holiday weekend on the campaign trail, including this man, Bernie Sanders. Ahead, his latest pitch to Democratic primary voters.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

HOWELL: Welcome back to viewers here in the United States and all around the world. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm George Howell.

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

(HEADLINES)

[05:30:00]

HOWELL: In the meantime, U.S. lawmakers say they want to closely monitor the Trump administration's diplomatic efforts with North Korea. They have introduced bills that would give Congress oversight of those initiatives.

ALLEN: This all comes as North Korea has been sending more aggressive messages to the U.S. CNN's Brian Todd has more about it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As President Trump visits Japan, the ambitious young dictator next door is once again rattling his saber. In a new statement from his state news agency, North Korea's Kim Jong-un is issuing another brazen challenge to Trump, saying, the further America's so-called mistrust and hostility grow, quote, "the fiercer our reaction will be."

Analysts say there is one particular threat the dictator could be holding over Trump, a missile launch.

MICHAEL GREEN, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: He may start testing again. He needs to put pressure on Donald Trump and he also needs to show his internal audience that, even though he came away from Hanoi with nothing in his last summit with Trump, he is pressing hard to get results.

TODD (voice-over): Kim likes to make a splash and to keep the U.S. off balance. In the past, he's tested missiles around American holidays and presidential visits. Analysts are concerned that Kim Jong-un will take the opportunity to anger the Japanese, to grab headlines and grab the president's attention.

BRUCE KLINGNER, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION: The obvious thing would be that now that they have launched short range missiles and the U.S. didn't respond, that they could then go to a medium range missile, perhaps a static rocket engine test or a long range missile. It would indicate that the ICBM program is continuing.

TODD (voice-over): But why provoke President Trump now after two summits?

Veteran diplomats say that Kim Jong-un was much more surprised and embarrassed that Trump walked out on him in Hanoi in February than either side has let on. During that summit, Kim demanded a complete end to sanctions on North Korea in exchange for partially dismantling his nuclear facilities, something Trump refused to accept.

BILL RICHARDSON, FORMER U.S.-NORTH KOREAN NEGOTIATOR: Kim Jong-un is frustrated. The summit in Hanoi was a failure for him. With his own people, he had promised sanctions relief, American investment, possibly a nuclear deal. And it was a spectacular failure.

TODD (voice-over): North Korea's new statement places the blame for the failed summit in Hanoi on the, quote, "dishonest position taken by the United States," and says if the Trump team doesn't change its approach, "dialogue will never be resumed."

SOO KIM, FORMER CIA ANALYST: It is pressuring the United States to come back to the table, not on U.S.' terms obviously but according to Pyongyang's timeline, according to Pyongyang's conditions and demands.

TODD: Responding to North Korea's latest message of blame and threats, a State Department spokesperson tells CNN that President Trump remains committed to building a lasting peace with Kim's regime and the president believes Kim will stick to his promise to denuclearization.

Analysts say it is important for the U.S. to temper its response right now but say if North Korea tests a long-range missile or a nuclear bomb in the coming days, that could kill off the entire diplomatic process -- Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOWELL: As the U.S. and Iran wage a war of words, Iraq finds itself caught in the middle of it all. Iran's foreign minister was in Baghdad Saturday as the U.S. pledges to send even more troops to the region, citing an Iranian threat. ALLEN: The foreign minister met with Iraq's president and prime minister. Officials say they discussed sanctions and avoiding the, quote, "dangers of war."

Meanwhile Democrats running for U.S. president are slamming the way Mr. Trump has handled the situation in the Middle East.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BETO O'ROURKE (D-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: President Trump is escalating tensions, is provoking yet another war in the Middle East. So we don't need another war. We need to find a way to work with allies and partners and, in some cases, with our enemies.

PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), MAYOR OF SOUTH BEND, IND., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No, it does not make us more secure to enter into an escalation that could lead to a confrontation with Iran --

[05:35:00]

BUTTIGIEG: -- as though we had learned nothing from the confrontation with Iraq.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOWELL: Several other Democratic candidates have spent the weekend rallying across the country, many of them in the key battleground state of Iowa. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders was among those candidates on the campaign trail.

ALLEN: On Saturday, he held a rally in his home state, Vermont. CNN's Ryan Nobles was there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Senator Bernie Sanders back here in Vermont, a homecoming rally, where he talked about the reasons that he is running for President of the United States.

And he did it here in Montpelier because he harkened back to the political career that started here in the Green Mountain State, where Sanders talking about some of the big issues that's championed for many years, fighting against economic inequality, raising the federal minimum wage, talking about breaking up the big banks and, of course, his big signature issue of providing health care to all Americans.

And the reason that he did it here in Vermont is that's because where he believes his political revolution began. Sanders ran for office here as an independent candidate for more than 10 years before finally being elected the mayor of Burlington, a race he won by only 10 votes.

And what he is selling to Democratic primary voters is a message of consistency. The positions that he held back then in Vermont are the same positions he holds now as a candidate for president.

And Sanders also talked about the efforts he is making on behalf of workers across the country. In fact in the coming weeks, he will head to Arkansas to represent Walmart workers as they participate in a shareholders' meeting, Sanders saying that he is hoping to send a message to the Walton family.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The Walton family of Walmart, this is a family that is worth $175 billion. They are doing well.

Meanwhile, this very same family that owns Walmart pays its workers wages that are so low that many of those employees are forced to go on government programs like Medicaid, food stamps and public housing.

In other words, working families, you here in Vermont and throughout this country, are paying extra taxes to subsidize the wealthiest family in this country.

How insane is that?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBLES: This is a trend for Sanders where he is serving as a representative for the workers of some of these big corporations. He did this during a video conference call with McDonald's recently. What he would like to see is improved working conditions, not just more pay. He would like to see Walmart raise their lowest pay structure to $15 an hour.

But he is also asking for improved conditions. He also wants better opportunities for them when it comes to reporting sexual harassment claims. This is one of the bedrocks of the Sanders campaign, that is why he made it a big part of the speech, which got plenty of attention here in Vermont.

Sanders hoping that this message of his political rise in this relatively small state is something that can transfer to the highest office in the land -- Ryan Nobles, CNN, Montpelier, Vermont.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOWELL: It is always risky to climb Mt. Everest but as the crowds of people wanting to scale that tall mountain grow larger, so too does the danger.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:40:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

ALLEN: It has been a deadlier than usual climbing season on Mt. Everest. Since Friday, three people have died trying to reach the summit of the world's tallest mountain and that brings the number of dead or presumed dead this year to nine.

The latest casualty, a British mountaineer, who died Saturday. This is his last post to social media. In it, he warned that overcrowding at the summit, in his words, could prove fatal.

That traffic jam earlier may have contributed to two deaths. Nepal's tourism director calls that claim baseless and blamed altitude sickness. But the crowd of people you see there, lined up, waiting to reach the summit, they are all in what is known as the death zone, the part of the mountain where oxygen is dangerously low.

HOWELL: Joining us now to talk more about what is happening here is Alan Arnette, a mountaineer who has climbed Mt. Everest four times.

Good to have you with us.

ALAN ARNETTE, MOUNTAIN CLIMBER: Thanks, George.

HOWELL: So again, you've climbed this month several times. Tell us about your experience and the dangers of these traffic jams.

ARNETTE: You know, so first off, Mt. Everest is a difficult mountain. It often has a reputation of being a walk up that anybody can do it but the reality is that any mountain over 26,000 feet, it is truly going to the death zone and you have to be prepared to do that.

I tried three times without success and made it on my fourth time. And it was much sweeter on my fourth time because I realized how difficult it was.

HOWELL: And again, you've described this as the death zone. Help our viewers to understand what that means, because part of the climb really comes down to being susceptible to altitude related illness.

ARNETTE: That is exactly right. When you get above 26,000 feet, the human body just simply was not designed to survive at that altitude. And what happens is if you don't metabolize food, your body is slowly dying and really all you want to do is lay down and go to sleep.

But you are also trying to move from the high camp, around 26,000 feet, up to 29,000 feet. You're trying to do it as quickly as possible and then you get back down as quickly as possible.

HOWELL: And it comes down to the amount of oxygen, right?

So you are able to take a certain amount up and, coming down, time really matters.

ARNETTE: It does. You're carrying supplemental oxygen but that only makes a difference of about 3,000 feet. So if are you at 27,000 feet, your body feels like it is at 24,000 feet. And there is a limited amount of oxygen that you can carry in your backpack or other people can carry on your behalf.

So if you go too slowly -- and that is what happened this year with a few people, that they have gone too slowly, they have run out of oxygen -- and when you run out of oxygen above 26,000 feet, it is a deadly consequence.

HOWELL: And again the fact that climbers have to contend with a human traffic jam, that again just adds to the factor, the time factor, of this climb with literally hundreds of --

[05:45:00]

HOWELL: -- people who have been permitted to make the climb. And weather permitting, there is a narrow window for the climbers to summit.

ARNETTE: That's right. And in 2019, it was a combination of several factors that created just an imperfect storm, if you will.

First off, the jet stream, the high winds aloft were over 120 miles an hour, they typically move off the summit of Everest in the middle of May, allowing for a few days of winds below 30 miles an hour.

Last year in 2018, there were 11 straight days of acceptable winds. This year, 2019, there has been about five.

The second factor this year is that Nepal issued a record 381 permits to foreigners. Plus they required that every foreigner hire a Sherpa guide. So you have close to 800 people trying to climb the mountain this year. So you take a record number of people in a limited number of days, you know, that needle becomes very difficult to thread.

HOWELL: And I'd like to again show our viewers -- we've been looking at these images while you explain what it is like to climb this mountain. But if we could take full these images of all of the climbers in this traffic jam. It is not really something that many people think about when it comes to people climbing Mt. Everest.

What is it like to have summitted the mountain and then you're coming down and it is the slow, slow descent with so many people in line?

ARNETTE: You know, this photo is shocking to anybody associated with Everest. It is unacceptable, full stop. What we're seeing here is the consequence of having too many people in too short of a time trying to attempt the mountain.

You know, like I said earlier, that there is a limited amount of days that are available and people go up and down the mountain in April and early May to acclimatize their body, get used to the altitude.

So when you're in that line, all sorts of things are going through your head. First off, you are using up the valuable supplemental oxygen that you have. Also every minute that you are there, your body is getting weaker and weaker.

You're also worried that you can take another step hire but can you take another step lower? And in many of these cases, because the lines are so clogged, it is almost impossible to turn around. This year was the worst possible scenario that you could possibly imagine.

HOWELL: Alan Arnette, we appreciate your time. Thank you. ARNETTE: Thank you.

ALLEN: Coming up here, President Trump's state visit to Japan has included a chance to watch a sumo wrestling tournament with President Abe and their wives. We talk with a sumo expert straight ahead.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WORLD SPORTS)

[05:50:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

HOWELL: We're following the U.S. president Donald Trump in Japan, alongside the prime minister, Shinzo Abe (sic) of that nation. Wrapping up their first full day together, filled with golf and the sumo tournament.

ALLEN: This is a huge cultural event in Japan, dating back centuries. Mr. Trump said it was one of the reasons he decided to come to Japan. At the end of the tournament, the U.S. president gave the winner a special trophy called the president's cup.

HOWELL: After the sumo experience, the Trumps and Abes met for dinner at a Tokyo restaurant. Mr. Trump used that occasion to reflect on what he saw that day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The prime minister and I talked a lot today about trade and military and various other things. I think we had a very productive day. And tomorrow, likewise, will be a very productive day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: They golfed and went to see a sumo wrestling match. We want to talk about that with Mark Buckton, a sumo expert and a former commentator and columnist with the "Japan Times."

Mark, thanks for joining us.

MARK BUCKTON, SUMO EXPERT: Thank you for having me.

ALLEN: We know that the president is a fan of professional wrestling in the U.S. OK, that has nothing to do with sumo wrestling, we know that, in Japan altogether, completely different. But it's even sacred in the Japanese culture.

We hear that the president really wanted to see a wrestling match and he did.

What did he get to witness there? BUCKTON: Well, he was a day late, basically. The tournament was won yesterday. So today's bouts, today's matches were all just to finish off the tournament. They were of no real importance.

The champion, Asanoyama is his name, determined that he was going to be the winner yesterday. He got the emperor's cup and then the prime minister's cup. And he's receiving what is being called the Japan Trump cup, rather than the president's cup.

ALLEN: And Mr. Trump was able to give the Trump cup. And there were some people, because of the deep traditions and culture surrounding sumo wrestling, didn't want that to happen. Tell us about that.

BUCKTON: There were a lot of people that essentially boycotted today and didn't bother going. These are long-term fans, some who never miss a day, didn't go. And they were just unhappy that Mr. Trump was there, not politically or who he is or controversy in the U.S. but because he was sat on a chair.

And his wife and the prime minister of Japan, they were sat on a row of chairs, which blocks off about 25 or 30 seats from normal people. And other guests, from heads of state, they've always sat on the floor Japanese style. Nobody has ever sat on a chair watching sumo.

(CROSSTALK)

ALLEN: Princess Diana came to watch.

BUCKTON: Diana was there with Charles, when they were still together. But they were on the second floor in the imperial box. So that looks down on the rink.

Right. We see them sitting in the chairs. There's Melania Trump and the Abes and President Trump. So that's part of an important tradition which is the culture of Japan that's celebrated with sumo wrestling. Talk to us about that.

BUCKTON: Sumo has roots going back at least 1,500 years.

[05:55:00]

BUCKTON: Some say 2,000 years. Only about 260 years ago, it became an organized sport. It's not the national sport of Japan, even though many people claim it to be. But it is a major event. There's six tournaments a year and three in Tokyo.

This is called the summer tournament. (INAUDIBLE) a bit early. This is called the summer tournament. And the day, every day, 15 days about, they are at sellout, with 11,000 people in the stadium every single day. It's a huge sport, it's live on TV.

The top sumo wrestlers, they are the top baseball players, top soccer players of Japan. And they're all household names, except the guy that Mr. Trump gave the trophy to. He's the lowest ranked wrestler for many decades to be a winner. ALLEN: Oh, well. Well, it's interesting, understanding what people say, they don't like that the president chose to sit in a chair. It's hard to read the president's face there to see if he was enjoying it because he has his usual expression on, which is not much of an expression.

Well, Mark, we appreciate you joining us and helping us understand, Mark Buckton for us. Thank you for your time.

BUCKTON: Thank you very much.

HOWELL: The Toronto Raptors clinch their first trip to the National Basketball Association finals in their 24-year history.

ALLEN: The Canadian-based team eliminated the Milwaukee Bucks 100-94 in a wild game six of the Eastern Conference finals. Toronto's Kawhi Leonard had a spectacular night, with 27 points and 17 rebounds.

HOWELL: But it was Kyle Lowry's steal in the fourth quarter that led to the game's singular highlight. His assist to Leonard had the crowd on their feet. The Raptors play the Golden State Warriors in game one of the NBA finals, starting Thursday.

ALLEN: That will do it for us. Thanks for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Natalie Allen.

HOWELL: I'm George Howell. The news continues here on CNN after the break.

[06:00:00]