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Trump Impeachment; Coronavirus Outbreak; "The Des Moines Register" Endorses Elizabeth Warren; Lebanon Protests; Living through a Puerto Rican Earthquake; Operation Liberty Rescues Big Cats. Aired 4-5a ET
Aired January 26, 2020 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Coming up here on CNN, we're hearing more about what President Trump had to say about Ukraine and Russia in a candid conversation. Details in how this could play into his impeachment trial.
Also, Mr. Trump's lawyers are making their case before the U.S. Senate. We look at their defense strategy.
Also ahead here, fighting the coronavirus: China takes a sweeping new approach to contain the deadly outbreak.
Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Natalie Allen from CNN Headquarters in Atlanta, where it's 4:00 in the morning. NEWSROOM starts right now.
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ALLEN: Thank you again for joining us.
Our top story: we're now getting a much more detailed version of a recording we brought you recently, featuring U.S. president Donald Trump. CNN has obtained nearly 90 minutes of audio, which capture a conversation at dinner in 2018 between the president and Lev Parnas.
Parnas is an indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani, who said he was part of the Ukraine pressure tactics. We played for you earlier the part where Mr. Trump calls for the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, to be removed. Now listen to this.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
LEV PARNAS, RUDY GIULIANI ASSOCIATE: They have everything there. They, just right now, are waiting for your support a little bit to make sure because obviously if they go on their own Russia won't let them do it. Because they'll cut off a lot of their revenue.
TRUMP: How long would they last in a fight with Russia?
(CROSSTALK) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not very long.
PARNAS: I don't think very long. Without us, not very long.
TRUMP: Without us.
PARNAS: Without us, yes. But Russia, also keep in mind, talks a big game, but they're not ready to - he's not - they're not ready to play.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
ALLEN: Parnas is someone who Mr. Trump has repeatedly claimed he doesn't know, though, acknowledges he may have been photographed with him, as you see here. This tape, though, suggests otherwise. The full recording was just released by Parnas attorney Joseph Bondy. He spoke earlier with Anderson Cooper about its significance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSEPH BONDY, PARNAS ATTORNEY: First off, we hear the president himself say get rid of the ambassador, we're going to fire her, get her out of there. And this is one of the first occasions in which he attempts to remove the ambassador.
Lev Parnas, as he has explained it to me, was shocked he might raise that of the chief ambassador and he would say get rid of her, fire her. He never thought it possible the president could literally take that step.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ALLEN: Bondy says he has shared the tape with the House Intelligence Committee. He also says Parnas has more recordings of the president.
This comes as Mr. Trump's defense team takes center stage in the president's impeachment trial in the Senate. With day one in the books, their strategy appears to be turn the tables on the Democrats. They say the real abuse of power has nothing to do with Ukraine but removing President Trump from office.
For more now here's Sara Murray from Washington.
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PAT CIPOLLONE, WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: The president did absolutely nothing wrong.
SARA MURRAY, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Trump's defense team took to the Senate floor, arguing that Democrats have failed to make their case that Trump should be removed from office for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
CIPOLLONE: Today we are going to confront them on the merits of their argument. Now they have the burden of proof and they have not come close to meeting it.
MURRAY (voice-over): They accused Democrats of trying to overturn the last election and preempt the next one.
CIPOLLONE: They're here to perpetrate the most massive interference in an election in American history and we can't allow that to happen.
MURRAY (voice-over): Trump's team aimed to poke holes in the arguments House impeachment managers presented, claiming the Democrats didn't provide context around witness testimony and using clips of witnesses from the House inquiry that bolstered Trump's defense.
CIPOLLONE: The fact that they came here for 24 hours and hid evidence from you is further evidence that they don't really believe in the facts of their case.
[04:05:00]
MURRAY (voice-over): They insisted Trump never made a White House meeting and security aid for Ukraine contingent on Ukraine opening investigations into Joe Biden and the 2016 election, noting Trump never explicitly asked for such a quid pro quo in the call with the Ukrainian president.
MIKE PURPURA, DEPUTY WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: The transcript shows that the president did not condition either security assistance or a meeting on anything. The paused security assistance funds aren't even mentioned on the call.
MURRAY (voice-over): And they raised testimony from some administration officials, who believed Trump's call for investigations was simply a request rather than a demand.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you believe in your opinion that the President of the United States demanded that President Zelensky undertake these investigations?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, sir.
MURRAY (voice-over): Trump's lawyers also made the claim that the president is legitimately invested in cracking down on corruption in Ukraine and taking a tough stance toward Russia.
CIPOLLONE: You will hear that President Trump has a strong record on confronting Russia. You will hear that President Trump has a strong record of support for Ukraine.
MURRAY (voice-over): But there's little evidence of Trump's interest in corruption, save for the call of an investigation into the Bidens, which also directly involves the president's personal interests.
And while the administration has taken steps to crack down on Russia, Trump's public statements have undermined those efforts. Over the course of their brief two-hour arguments, Trump's lawyers took shots at Democrats' lengthy and often repetitive presentations.
SEKULOW: We're not going to play the same clips seven times. He said it. You saw it.
MURRAY (voice-over): As well as House Intelligence chairman Adam Schiff.
CIPOLLONE: Do you know who didn't show up in the Judiciary Committee?
Chairman Schiff.
MURRAY (voice-over): They wrapped up just after noon, leaving senators enough time to escape for a bit of the weekend.
CIPOLLONE: I thank you for your attention and I look forward to seeing you on Monday.
MURRAY (voice-over): Afterward, House Democratic managers argued the president's team did not refute the claim that Trump solicited foreign interference in a U.S. election.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), CHAIR, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: What was most striking to me about the president's presentation today is they don't contest the basic architecture of the scheme. They do not contest that the president solicited a foreign nation to interfere in our election, to help him cheat.
MURRAY (voice-over): The president's team has 22 more hours to make its case but says it's not planning to use it all -- Sara Murray, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ALLEN: And they will continue making that case on Monday as you just heard. It will include presentations from members of the president's legal team that we haven't seem in action yet, like constitutional law professor Alan Dershowitz. He appeared on CNN a short time ago and gave this preview.
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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: The process we're witnessing, isn't this exactly what the framers intended?
That it's not about tearing the ballots or taking voters' decisions away?
In fact, impeachment is different than disqualification from running again. That's a separate thing.
ALAN DERSHOWITZ, TRUMP ATTORNEY: What I'm going to argue on Monday is that it's precisely what the framers did not intend; that is, to remove a duly elected president from office and prevent him from running again, based on vague, open-ended and entirely subjective criteria, like abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
The framers feared that those kinds of open-ended criteria would turn us into a British-type parliamentary democracy, where, in the words of Madison, the president serves at the pleasure of the legislature.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: When is Ken Starr going and how does his -- how do his -- what's his subject different from your subject?
DERSHOWITZ: We haven't discussed it. I don't know. I'll probably find that out sometime tomorrow.
But I know what I'm going to argue. I think they know what I'm going to argue. I'm going to argue some things that I haven't argued to you or on television. There will be some surprises.
But the general outlines of my argument are fairly clear and they don't focus so much on whether a crime is required. They focus much more on whether you can use the two criteria, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
And I'm going to argue very firmly that those are not appropriate criteria. If they had ever been put to the framers, the framers would have rejected those criteria as too open-ended.
In the terms of Madison, it would turn America into a parliamentary- type democracy, in which the president serves at the pleasure of the legislature, something that none of the framers really wanted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ALLEN: Alan Dershowitz there. He'll speak on Monday.
For more on what we'll hear and what happens next, I'm joined by Amy Pope from Chatham House in London.
Good morning, Amy.
AMY POPE, CHATHAM HOUSE: Good morning.
ALLEN: Let's start with the Parnas story.
How do you think this will be handled or perhaps not handled by the Trump defense team?
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POPE: It directly undercuts the president's own statements. The president says he doesn't remember Parnas, has no relationship with him. Obviously we have clear evidence that is inaccurate.
But this is sort of typical of the president. He denies what is already in evidence, what's in full view and his better tactic is to deflect and to distract. Instead we saw the president attacking the members of the House, going after Schiff, going after Pelosi because he knows this is damaging and he needs to find another way to distract the public.
ALLEN: And now all eyes are on the handful of Senate Republicans who could tip the balance and support witness testimony in the trial.
Do you think this Parnas revelation will have an impact with the senators when they try to make a decision on that? POPE: If I'm sitting in their seats, I would think it's in my best
interest to just have the evidence on the table. In the end, whether that evidence really sways anyone's point of view, you know, it's very likely that it won't.
But it's better to have it out there, avoid a suggestion that you're trying to hide information that might be relevant than to just have it out there and argue the case on its merits.
And if I'm sitting in one of those vulnerable seats or I'm a moderate, I think that's the best way to move forward, to persuade the American people you're exercising your constitutional duty, which is to be a balance on the power of the president.
ALLEN: The president's defense team, as we've seen, took very little time making their opening case and they pointed out they went much shorter than the Democrats. Let's talk about that as a tactic.
And also about Schiff coming out afterward, saying that the Trump team did not refute the claim that the president solicited a foreign country to do some work for him politically.
POPE: There's not much that Trump's legal team can do to refute that. The transcript is there. We've heard from so many witnesses that that is, in fact, what happened.
So instead their tactic is, one, to distract people; two, to deflect attention; three, to cover up any evidence that isn't entirely in keeping with their claims.
And, you know, that's fair. They're defense attorneys. That is their role here. They want to focus the jurors in this case. They're really looking at those handful of Republicans who might be swayed on issues, like bringing in additional witnesses.
You know, they're working with what they have. And I think that their strategy makes sense, given the circumstances. But again, if I'm sitting in one of those more vulnerable seat as a Republican, I would want all the evidence to be put on the table so I can demonstrate I'm fairly considering it.
ALLEN: So coming up Monday, we will hear from Alan Dershowitz, a longtime lawyer who has, of course, been in the media for a long time. And also Kenneth Starr.
It's interesting that when Mr. Dershowitz was on with Anderson Cooper earlier, he asked what would Ken Starr bring that he wouldn't bring, he said he didn't know, that they weren't talking to each other. These are their superstar lawyers.
Perhaps they don't have to?
POPE: That is a strategy I would not recommend. Clearly you want to make sure their arguments are consistent with one another and that they're painting a picture for the Senate as well as the public that's coherent. If they're not working together, it would be hard to do that. But it
sounds like Dershowitz is going to focus on the legal angle, which is interesting. As we know, the legislature has already heard testimony about whether or not this is a valid basis for impeachment under the Constitution.
So why he's retreading that ground, it's not clear to me. It suggests that the facts in and of themselves are not something that he's going to be disputing.
ALLEN: We appreciate your insight. Amy Pope, thanks for joining us from London this morning.
POPE: Thank you.
ALLEN: As we continue to hear more about the Trump defense team and how it's striking back and making case for his acquittal, we'll tell you how the rest of the trial is expected to unfold next week.
Plus, China cracks down on the sale of wild animals. The suspected source of this deadly new disease, which continues to spread. More about it. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.
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ALLEN: Welcome back.
China's all out effort to stop the Wuhan coronavirus from spreading has led the government to ban now the sale of wild animals. A market in Wuhan that sold wild animals is the suspected source of the virus outbreak. More than 50 people have died.
Meantime the country's transportation lockdown has been transported to the city of Shantou in Guangdong province.
President Xi Jinping has ordered all infected people, approximately 2,000 patients, to be treated in centralized quarantine. Globally almost 40 cases have been confirmed in more than 1 dozen countries and territories. Now Canada also has a suspected case as well.
Our David Culver has been covering this story from the start. He's live in Beijing.
Many developments here, David. Where do you want to start?
DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Natalie, just in the past hour, we've got some significant developments, that coming from the National Health Commission. As you mentioned, President Xi Jinping has come out with this urgent
order toward local officials in particular to by all means stop the spread of this virus. Well, the health officials coming out with incredible numbers.
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CULVER: I'm going to walk you through some they announced in the past hour or so.
One, they're deployed 1,600 medical personnel to Hubei province to treat those infected. That's in addition to the 1,300 or so on the ground, both military and civilian medical personnel. Listen to these numbers.
We've been talking about the shortage of hazmat suits, protective goggles and masks. They're stepping up production. The health commission has announced they've brought people back from holiday and they're ordering them back into the factory to produce these hazmat suits. They need about 100,000 every day for Hubei province alone.
Currently production stands at 13,000 so they have to import a lot to make up for that number.
Meantime President Xi is moving forward to protect some medical staff. He wants that centralized quarantine.
What does it look like?
One imagines it will be the two hospitals they're slated to build and they've shown video of bulldozers and work going on in this open lot in Wuhan. We believe one of the hospitals to be built in about six days' time. The other, 15 days' time. In all, they'll hold 2,000 patients.
The lockdown zone is massive, 63 million impacted by this, roughly the population of the U.K. I spoke to one American woman who is in the midst of those lockdown zones and she explained what she's going through.
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DIANA ADAMA, U.S. CITIZEN LIVING IN WUHAN: I woke up feeling quite desperate, sad, angry. Most of this is because of lack of information and lack of knowing what's going on. My mother's worried about me. I love her. She's 88 years old. My sister let her know the things I'm doing here. And I don't want her to worry anymore. And I'd like to see her.
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CULVER: For her, it's frustration and heartbreak you can hear in her voice.
Meantime U.S. officials tell us about 1,000 citizens are within the city of Wuhan. We learned they're setting up a flight. We learned this is at the U.S. embassy in China. It's set to depart Tuesday from Wuhan. There's a limited number of seats but they're allowing folks to apply for them. They'll fly into San Francisco International Airport.
ALLEN: We know airports are closely monitoring around the world those who are arriving. All of the numbers you gave and this massive undertaking is just staggering, David. Thank you so much. We'll see you again.
For all the attention that this coronavirus is getting, there is still so much we don't know about it. Meanwhile China's health care system, as David just noted, is especially at ground zero in Wuhan is struggling to cope.
For more on, that let's speak with Dr. John Nicholls. He's joining us now. He's a clinical professor in pathology at the University of Hong Kong.
We appreciate your time, Dr. Nicholls.
Thank you for joining us.
DR. JOHN NICHOLLS, UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG: Thank you.
ALLEN: First step, how does the Chinese health care system they keep up?
We heard David talk about two new hospitals. We've seen lines of people trying to get into hospital and we've seen the caretakers, the nurses, the doctors exhausted.
What is the risk to the health system in China and those who are caring for people with this virus?
NICHOLLS: Well, having personally been through the SARS outbreak in 2003, there was a big -- one of the big problems was infection in the health care workers. And the risk factors that we've seen in Wuhan are virtually identical to what happened in 2003.
There's a patient overload, health care burnout, a decrease in protective equipment, crowded wards, staff fatigue. You can bring in staff but what we found in 2003 is staff basically were performing their procedures outside their expertise.
In Hong Kong, we had a buddy system so basically everyone had someone to watch their back. We made sure even the cleaners or health care assistants, they're all part of the plan of helping to stop the infections within the hospitals.
The other thing which we're now doing work on is just see how long this virus can survive in the environment.
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NICHOLLS: With SARS, the published study shows SARS can remain on stainless steel for about 36 hours. With MERS coronavirus, there's no amount of time. And after basically three days, you can still culture the virus. And that's about 50 percent relative humidity.
Things get worse when you have a low temperature. I think it's not just actually the staff but there has to be a very big effort, which is made on keeping the whole environment clean. That's both in the hospitals as well as in the community.
ALLEN: And, you know, if someone has the virus, what are the symptoms and how long does it take for those symptoms to show up?
NICHOLLS: Yes. This is also a big problem is that the study, which was published in "The Lancet" yesterday or the day before, show that within the first seven days is that they may be relatively asymptomatic or have mild symptoms, which means it can be very difficult to distinguish this new coronavirus.
Remember in the Northern Hemisphere we have the influenza going on. It can be quite difficult to distinguish this new virus from others, which is going to lead to also another problem.
Also as has been indicated, there are a few who are asymptomatic. Even though the health care screening can pick those up in five or six days, you're going to get a large number of people slipping through the net because, after the first three or four days, the virus will be growing and the patients will be asymptomatic.
That's why we're trying to work out exactly in which tissues this virus will grow.
Is it confined to the respiratory tract or in the gastrointestinal tract?
"The Lancet" study said the patients with the new coronavirus, not as many had diarrhea compared to SARS but we have to look at where it could be coming from, where it's going to be persisting and do our best to inactivate it.
ALLEN: As you've been speaking we just learned there's now been a sixth case confirmed in Hong Kong, which that begs the question as they try to figure out this virus. We know that they're selling out of masks, that they're checking people's temperatures at airports to try to assess whether they're bringing something in.
How important are these steps?
And how much are they able to assess if it takes a while for this virus to show up, for people passing through airports?
NICHOLLS: I think the temperature will at least screen out those who have got the fever so they can at least be put into isolation. I know there's some controversy about the filling out of the forms. We did that during SARS.
If you do get someone who turns out to be positive, you know which flight they've been on and which seat and that makes the contact tracing easier. As well as the temperature screening, it's painless. It doesn't hold up passengers. And so if it picks up those symptomatic patients, I think it's a good idea.
ALLEN: We appreciate your expertise. Thank you so much, Dr. John Nicholls, clinical professor in pathology at the University of Hong Kong. Thank you, sir.
NICHOLLS: Thank you. Have a good evening.
ALLEN: You, too.
The stories about the coronavirus are among the top stories, that the World Health Organization need to sound the alarm at the international level. So far, WHO is only declaring the outbreak an emergency in China. You can read the story on cnn.com.
Donald Trump's defense attorneys are keeping their arguments brief and to the point.
But is that the strategy the president wants?
His reaction to the Senate trial straight ahead.
Plus it is often said, timing is everything. And the timing of the expected unveiling of Mr. Trump's Middle East peace plan is sparking some questions. We'll go live to Jerusalem to talk about that coming up here.
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ALLEN: Welcome back to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. This is CNN NEWSROOM live in Atlanta. I'm Natalie Allen with your CNN news headlines.
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ALLEN: Mr. Trump's attorneys are so far keeping their defense brief and to the point. With day one in the books, CNN's Kaitlan Collins looks at what we can expect as the rest of the Senate trial unfolds.
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KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: There are sources who say the president is pleased with how their performance went today.
Of course, it was pretty brief, only two hours. And that was the first time we've heard from the president's attorneys formally since this inquiry got kicked off with Nancy Pelosi back in September when this whistleblower came forward with this complaint.
Now there are other people who believe that they could have been more aggressive and it's been essentially this kind of weighing debate here at the White House over how aggressive they should be because some people, including the president, want them to come out, have this full-throated defense while others say, no, you've got to know your audience here, it's 100 senators.
[04:35:00]
COLLINS: And if you come out and you're essentially -- you know, this boisterous performance, it's not going to be something that they are really receptive to.
So that's the question going forward. And, essentially, their ultimate goal is to poke holes, sow doubt and it's a Democrat narrative.
And as you heard from Pat Cipollone today, they believe the burden of proof is on the Democrats and they told the senators in the room that they do not think that the Democrats met that during those nearly 24 hours of their presentations laying out the evidence against the president talking about this pressure campaign.
The question is going to be and a lot of it has to be with the president's ultimate decision over how something went, it has to do with the coverage of it itself and a lot of it could come tomorrow during those political Sunday talk shows that sources say the president watches incredibly closely.
So he'll be watching to see and, of course, they are going to have sound from the Democrats' presentations, so that really could be a better sense of how the president sees all of this.
And, of course, we still have at least one more day of a White House defense where you are going to see not only Pat Cipollone and Jay Sekulow and those other attorneys that we watched today, you are also going to see Ken Starr and Alan Dershowitz -- Kaitlan Collins, CNN, the White House.
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ALLEN: Other news we're following is Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and main opposition leader Benny Gantz are expected to meet with President Trump on Monday. That's ahead of the unveiling of Trump's Middle East peace plan. But the timing is raising some interesting questions.
Let's go to CNN's Oren Liebermann, who's covering the story for us from Jerusalem.
Good morning, Oren.
OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Natalie. It's exactly that timing that analysts say is designed to help Benjamin Netanyahu in his reelection campaign.
Look at that timing. First of all, President Trump is facing impeachment hearings but, on this side, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has, first of all, the difficult re-election campaign, then he has immunity hearings and indictments.
So it looks like the timing has benefitted him to change the topic of conversation and the headlines. In fact, the labor opposition party wrote a letter, saying the timing is suspicious.
What will happen over the course of this week?
First opposition leader Benny Gantz, head of the Blue and White Party, is on his way to Washington. He'll meet Trump tomorrow and then will head back. Then after that, Netanyahu also heading out. He, in fact, flies out in just a few hours to also meet Trump.
He'll meet with him on Monday and another one on Tuesday as we await the rolling out of this peace plan from the Trump administration. We'll also look at what happens in terms of timing and election polls and how this changes the picture of the election.
There was a question here as to whether Gantz would actually go to Washington to meet Trump, which many say was a trap laid by both Trump and Netanyahu to make Gantz look like a third wheel, an unnecessary spoke in all of this, to cast aside, all to benefit Netanyahu.
Gantz decided he was going anyway. He said he received a personal invitation from Trump and he would meet with him and come back and be back in time for Tuesday.
Why is Tuesday such a big deal?
That's exactly when the hearings for the immunity panel begin on the indictment cases -- in the corruption cases that Netanyahu faces, so that, too, will be a big day here in Israeli politics. But all of this playing at a crucial time, with just over a month to go until the elections, Natalie.
ALLEN: Oren Liebermann for us. Thank you.
From impeachment to Iowa, Democratic senators are back on the campaign trail. And Elizabeth Warren secures a major endorsement.
Plus what it was like on the streets of Beirut as protesters tried to storm the prime minister's office.
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ALLEN: OK. America's choice news for you. With a little more than a week to go till the Iowa caucuses, Elizabeth Warren has secured the coveted endorsement of Iowa's top newspaper. "The Des Moines Register's" editorial board endorsed the Democrat on Saturday.
It said this about Warren, that she will, quote, "push an unequal America in the right direction."
Warren said she was delighted to hear about the support.
It comes just days after "The New York Times" endorsed both Warren and Senator Amy Klobuchar. The "Sioux City Journal" endorsed Joe Biden on Saturday.
They said Biden is, quote, "The candidate best positioned to give Americans a competitive head to head matchup with President Trump."
And it spoke of Amy Klobuchar positively and urged Biden to consider her as a running mate.
Klobuchar is keeping her eye on the prize, hoping to secure the nomination herself. After spending Saturday morning in Washington for President Trump's impeachment trial, she flew to Iowa to meet with voters. CNN's Kyung Lah sat down with her.
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KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR U.S. CORRESPONDENT: Exceed expectations: that is the mantra with just a little more than a week to go for senator Amy Klobuchar. She's been juggling two jobs, spending days in Washington, D.C., and still trying to campaign here.
Klobuchar flew out of Washington after the morning in the Senate impeachment trial and landed here in Eastern Iowa. We caught up with her as she was exiting the airport and boarding her bus. She told us she is a realist. She knows the challenge of having this very important day job while campaigning for a future one.
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SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Did I ever think the last two weeks I wouldn't be able to be here on the road?
And I'm not a competitive person at all -- just kidding. You read about your opponents out there doing what you want to be doing but then you have to step back and think two things. One, it's our constitutional duty and it's the right thing to do and, secondly, the people are going to get it.
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LAH: Taking the optimistic viewpoint there, Klobuchar says she doesn't view it as an obstacle in her path, that this is simply her path. Now whether or not she might be able to break the 15 percent viability mark in the caucus state, she declined to answer that -- Kyung Lah, CNN, Iowa.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ALLEN: The idea of a night terrors took on a whole new meaning for a family in this month's earthquake this week in Puerto Rico.
[04:45:00] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the recording there's a moment where we can clearly hear a woman screaming. That's your mother.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, that's my mother.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was extremely upset.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes. She was very nervous.
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ALLEN: Hear more about what they went through ahead here.
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ALLEN: Beirut, Lebanon: as you can see, security forces using water cannons to keep protesters from storming the prime minister's office Saturday. This happened amid continued protests from people over the economic conditions there.
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ALLEN: Senior CNN national correspondent Ben Wedeman was on the streets as the clashes heated up. He tells us why people say the recent government changes aren't enough.
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BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's another night of clashes here in Beirut. They began in front of the prime ministry, where Friday new steel barriers and concrete barriers were set up but the protesters managed to rip the steel gate open.
The security forces responded with barrages of water cannons, followed by tear gas.
[04:50:00]
WEDEMAN: Here we are further away from that area. We see the army is moving in and we've heard some of the protesters chanting their support for the army, which until now, has largely stood on the sidelines in these protests.
Now the protests are over the formation of the new government of the prime minister, Hassan Diab, who formed his government on Tuesday. Many people feel that the government in its nature did not meet their demands, that they're technically technocrats. But all are affiliated in one way or another, most of them, with the
political parties and fueling all of this, of course, is anger over the deteriorating economy of Lebanon.
So you have a combination of political anger and, more importantly, anger over the falling standards of living of almost every person in this country -- I'm Ben Wedeman, CNN, reporting from Beirut.
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ALLEN: Well, time is running out for search and rescue teams trying to find more than 1 dozen missing people after a powerful earthquake rocked Eastern Turkey. On Saturday, Turkish President Erdogan visited the hardhit area. He said the government is doing everything possible to find survivors.
This comes as the death toll climbs. At least 31 people are dead. More than 1,500 others injured.
Well, going through an earthquake can be absolutely terrifying. Puerto Rico has been trying to recover since a deadly quake shook the island earlier this month. It caused dozens of homes on the southern coast to crumble. CNN's Rafael Romo spoke with someone who was recording on the phone when it hit.
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RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SR. LATIN AFFAIRS EDITOR (voice-over): This is what it sounds like inside a house that gets forcefully shaken by a powerful earthquake in the night.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was a moment I don't want to go through again.
ROMO (voice-over): It was the morning of January 7th, just before sunrise. A magnitude 6.4 earthquake rattled Puerto Rico's southern coast. Ernes Soto Rivera was sleeping with his family in his parents' house in southern Puerto Rico.
ERNES SOTO RIVERA, EARTHQUAKE SURVIVOR: That night I had a feeling something was going to happen. That's why I left my phone on recording all night.
ROMO (voice-over): His feeling became reality. At exactly 4:24 am, the powerful earthquake started to rattle the house.
ROMO: You were sleeping in this bed by yourself.
RIVERA: I was sleeping in this bed by myself.
ROMO: What happened next?
RIVERA: I jumped up and I seen everything moving.
ROMO: Who was here in the bedroom.
RIVERA: Here was my wife and my oldest daughter.
ROMO (voice-over): Once he made sure his wife and daughter were safe, he kept on walking in the dark house with one goal in mind: he had to rescue his elderly parents.
ROMO: So they were here.
RIVERA: Yes. They were here. Once I got here inside the room, my mother was here standing with my dad. She was screaming. She was very nervous.
ROMO: In the recording we can hear a woman screaming.
RIVERA: That was my mother.
ROMO: She was upset.
RIVERA: Very nervous.
ROMO (voice-over): There are cracks in the wall in the house and they plan to have it looked at by a structural engineer in case there is danger of a collapse. Even though they haven't recovered, the most important thing is that no one was hurt.
RIVERA: For just a little moment you think everything is going to end. So I don't know. It's like a nightmare.
ROMO (voice-over): As long as there's life, this earthquake survivor says, there's hope the family can rebuild and repair what the earthquake destroyed -- Rafael Romo, CNN, Puerto Rico.
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ALLEN: Finally this hour, more than 1 dozen lions and tigers are now living their best lives out of captivity. They were saved from circuses in Guatemala in an 18-month rescue mission called Operation Liberty. Now these big cats are spending their days at a sanctuary in South Africa. CNN's David McKenzie was there.
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DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The first scent of a new home. And for these rescued circus tigers and lions, their last moments confined like this.
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MCKENZIE: This tiger has been stuck in this cage for more than 36 hours. And it's lived in cages like this its entire life, brutalized for the entertainment of humans.
MCKENZIE (voice-over): For Animal Defenders International, it was one of their most complicated rescues: 12 tigers, five lions, in total 18 months of struggle in Guatemala, in a 30-year fight to ban animal circuses globally. So far, 45 countries, including Guatemala, have. JAN CREAMER, FOUNDER, ANIMAL DEFENDERS INTERNATIONAL: You imagine, because of the performance, that the animal is enjoying themselves. And behind the curtain, we are able to show that that couldn't be more untrue.
MCKENZIE (on camera): So what is behind the curtain?
CREAMER: Brutality, cruelty, abuse, deprivation.
MCKENZIE (voice-over): But rescued cats are costly, and ADI hope that this new dedicated facility in South Africa will be an incentive for more governments to follow suit.
The handlers carefully unload the first family of tigers. Most had their claws ripped out as cubs. Some had their canines sawed down by circus trainers. But they're still tigers. Exactly why, they say, they should have never been cage to begin with. Now taking its first, tentative steps, to a new life -- David McKenzie, CNN, Free State, South Africa.
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ALLEN: Thank goodness for that.
That is the first hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Natalie Allen. For U.S. viewers, "NEW DAY" is just ahead. For others, I'll be right back.
