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World Leaders Consider Arming Libyan Military to Fight ISIS; Trump and Women; Trump VP Search; Human Trafficking Survivor Sets Records. Aired Midnight-1a ET
Aired May 17, 2016 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. Ahead this hour fighting back. Donald Trump blasts the New York Times article that alleges his behavior towards women has crossed the line for decades.
Defeating Isis in Libya world leaders now considering arming the government and training his troops. Plus, after a series of hackinh murderers in Bangladesh, CNN goes inside the country's gay community now living in fear.
Hello everybody great to have you with us we want to welcome our viewers all around the world. I'm John Vause. NEWSROOM LA starts now.
Been a tough few days for Donald Trump and now the presumptive Republican nominee for US president is on the offensive. Hitting back in the New York Times and its in-depth report detailing his past relationships with women. Trump has also been under fire from British leaders for his stance on Muslims. There were also claims that have resurfaced. That more than 20 years ago he would call reporters pretending to be someone else to plant favorable stories about himself. Jim Acosta has the latest
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ROWANNE BREWER LANE, FORMER MODEL & FORMER DONALD TRUMP GIRLFRIEND: He was very genuine he was very gentlemanly.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: She was a key suspect in what looked like a blockbuster New York Times article depicting Donald Trump as a playboy who object to find women. But, Rowanne Brewer Lane tells CNN her views on Trump were misrepresented.
LANE: I don't like anything about the story. I'm very upset with the New York Times' article because it was completely misleading. They misled me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: That was more than enough for Trump who routinely slams the media at his rallies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: World's most dishonest
people, see that, that's the press.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: To blast away the New York Times tweeting, "with the coming forward today of the woman central to the failing New York Times hit piece on me. We have exposed the article as a fraud."
Trump, who has been laying low since his trip to Washington last week, is now being subjected to the kind of scrutiny that comes with being a party nominee. Take the Washington Post story claiming Trump once pretended to be his own PR agent. Featuring bizarre 25-year-old audio recordings.
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TRUMP: Well, I'm sort of handling PR because he gets so much of it.
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ACOSTA: Top Trump aide Paul Manafort has his doubts.
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PAUL MANAFORT, TRUMP CONVENTION MANAGER: I could barely understand it. I couldn't tell who it is. Donald Trump says it's not him I believe it's not him.
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ACOSTA: Trump is also taking hits from British Prime Minister David Cameron who slammed the real estate tycoon's proposal for a temporary ban on Muslims coming in to the US as stupid.
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TRUMP: It's like were not going to have a very good relationship who knows. I hope to have a good relationship with him, but it sounds like he's not willing to address the problem either.
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ACOSTA: President Obama was piling on over the weekend in a commencement address at Rutgers.
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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's not cool to not know what you're talking about. That's not keeping it real. Or telling it like it is. That's just not knowing what you're talking about.
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ACOSTA: Much of which is why they still an effort inside the GOP to find somebody to run as a third-party candidate. CNN has confirmed Mitt Romney has asked Nebraska Senator and never Trump leader Ben Sasse to consider it. Also, fielding calls billionaire Mark Cuban.
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REINCE PRIEBUS, CHAIRMAN, RNC: It's a suicide mission because you're not only changing and throwing eight years of the White House but you're throwing also throwing out potential generations in the Supreme Court.
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ACOSTA: On the VP search Ben Carson was quoted as naming Chris Christie, as well as Sarah Palin, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and John Kasich as being on Trumps short list. Carson backed away from those comments on CNN. And top Trump campaign officials tell me that Carson was never speaking on behalf of the campaign. Jim Acosta at CNN Washington.
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VAUSE: Michael Hiltzik joins us now, he's a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and a columnist for The Los Angeles Times. Thanks for being with us. Rowanne Brewer Lane, the one who is pretty much in the center of the story - - One of them anyway. She has been on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC. She was on CNN again just an hour or so ago. She is telling everyone who will listen this story was a hit piece.
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LANE: They misquoted me. What they did was they put part of what I said together. Basically you could spin anyway you want I guess if your a spin doctor. I just didn't like the way they came out. I asked them several times if it was a negative piece they were writing on him in general. Because I didn't have anything negative to say with my experience with Donald.
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VAUSE: And Donald Trump, he is been on a twitter tirade all day. Posting this: "the failing New York Times is embarrassed by the totally inappropriate story. With my relationship with women." He also posted this: "no wonder the New York Times is failing to believe what they right after the false, malicious, and liable story they wrote on me." Given the comments coming from Rowanne Brewer Lane what Trump is saying, has the story been discredited?
MICHAEL HILTZIK, COLUMNIST, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": No, I don't think so. I think the problem with the story was that it was rather inartfully put together. When I read it I was struck by the fact that the anecdote about Rowanne Brewer Lane was the lead which would make.You think it was the most important anecdote that they had, but it was not the strongest story.
VAUSE: This is the one about the bikini and how he - -
HILTZIK: The one about the bikini he was playing reading is that she was okay with this whole episode. But if you drill down and read through the entire story you found much more distressing, much more demeaning behavior by Trump being documented has not been challenged none of it has. There's no sign that Rowanne Brewer Lane was misquoted. Her remarks may have been misinterpreted or to a certain extent shaded.
But, the fact of the matter is that trumps behavior toward women I think is well-documented throughout the entire story, it wasn't just her. But in writing it the way that it is, that gave Trump an opening. If we know anything about him is that if he sees an opening he will drive a truck through it. That's what he did, he didn't discredit the story but he did of course damage the Times' credibility to his own followers.
VAUSE: the reporters who wrote this piece, they deny that Brewer Lane was misquoted. The Times is standing by the piece. The reporters were also on CNN and they told us about their intentions behind the piece.
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MICHAEL BARBARO, REPORTER, "NEW YORK TIMES": The big picture here is that were talking about the pattern of behavior. The way Donald Trump interacts privately with women. The world knows how Donald Trump talks to a woman or about a woman from a stage or a podium or twitter or the Howard Stern show.
Our goal was to pull back and say how does he interact in the office with someone that he's dating or trying to date. That was the purpose of our story. That is why Megan and I spoke to a dozens of women who walked us through those interactions.
Frequently there was a power dynamic in play here. Which we think is worth understanding as well. This is a very wealthy man with a lot of connections and influence. That's something that I think hovered over a lot of the interactions.
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VAUSE: I see you're nodding your head in agreement here, but do you think that, given everything that happened over the past 24 hours or so. That has been completely lost and now it's all about the fact that this woman who's complaining she was misquoted.
HILTZIK: Absolutely. I think it's been lost. I think if you read the story you get a very clear picture of the way Donald Trump treats women he knows, women he encounters, women who work for him. That is that as long as they're in a position to give him what he wants. Whether it's companionship or make money for him as executives. He's fine with them but the moment they stop being in that position he demeans them, he criticizes their appearance. He criticizes their behavior he characterizes them.
Look this is a guy who the very day the story came out he was quoted calling Elizabeth Warren, who is one of the most of our respected and serious senators, Pocahontas. Now in that one word he managed to demean her as a woman. He managed to act crass and childish and he managed to demean an entire ethnic group but it's always one word. This is the Donald Trump who I think most of us know and should've come through much more strongly in that article.
VAUSE: Given now the controversy over the story and you made a good point that he saw an opening and drove a truck through it. In many ways is now turned the tables on the New York Times. This is playing to his strengths do you think? He's going out there he's saying, look it's the liberal media, they're out to get me, they all are just a bunch of liars.
HILTZIK: Look, I think the nation can be divided into three groups. There are the people who follow Donald Trump and admire him. Their view of him isn't changed by this. There are the people who detest him. Their view of him isn't changed by this, maybe it's even reinforced. And then there are the independents who are the people in the middle who are going to be swayed over time. Not by this sort of article but by Trump's behavior on the stump and in public. We've seen over and over again that it's distasteful, it's demeaning, it's demeaning to women and men. But, when he's talking to or about women it's particular demeaning. I think that's going to hurt him with the electorate very very strongly.
VAUSE: I guess we'll wait -- find out fairly soon because the Clinton campaign. They are hoping to make Donald Trump's comments about women, not just the recent ones but also the ones from the past. They're making that an issue heading forward. The Clinton super pack has just made a massive ad by about hundred $130 million. One of those first ads is about to be released this is it.
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TRUMP: You know you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever. Does she have a good body no. Does she have a fat ass absolutely. You like girls that 5 foot 1, they come up to you know where? If Ivanka wasn't my daughter perhaps had been dating her. I view a person whose flat chested is very hard to be a ten. You can tell them to go (BEEP) themselves.
ANOUNCER: Does Donald Trump really speak for you? Priority USA action is responsible for the content of this advertising.
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VAUSE: OK, so take your theory that there are three groups of people. That's obviously aimed at that middle group. How effective was something like that be?
HILTZIK: I think it will be very effective. Look, Trump's - - His record with women voters. He's got sky-high - -
VAUSE: Negative.
HILTZIK: Negatives - - They are only going to get stronger as this continues. The fact of the matter is that. I think that ad and I think if you read through the New York Times piece and everything else all of his performances in public. It's clear that basically his behavior is childish, it's juvenile, it's school boyish, it's very much the opposite of I think what most Americans probably want to see in a presidential candidate for president.
VAUSE: Let's get to the other side of this race. Hillary Clinton, she's campaigning in Kentucky. During her stump speech she actually took to mocking Donald Trump.
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HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Let's suppose, here is the question so what is your plan to create jobs? His answer is, I'm going to create em. They're gonna be great. I know how to do it, but I'm not telling you what it is I'm going to do.
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VAUSE: Is this a good strategy for her now? Simply for her to ridicule Donald Trump?
HILTZIK: I think that ridiculing Donald Trump is the strategy that will really get under his skin. I think that part of what she had to say was that the tact she has to take. Which is to point out that he actually has no policy prescriptions at all. Nothing that will hold water. Nothing that's serious.
Now to do in his voice, I think, is probably a little bit over the top. That's probably not what you want to do because that's undignified and if you are ridiculing somebody for being undignified you should do it from a position of dignity. I think she'll come around to that or her advisors really should bring her around to that.
VAUSE: OK Mike, good to speak with you.
HILTZIK: It's good to be here.
VAUSE: Appreciate it. Well, Donald Trump he's defending his relationships with women. In France some leading women there say the elite men in that country need to clean up their acts. The women have also heard in the French government saying they're sick and tired of sexual harassment. Jim Bittermann has more now from Paris.
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JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The 17 former ministers made their declaration against sexual harassment in an open letter in a newspaper on Sunday. Which appeared with their pictures on the cover and says, the headline says, 'we're not going to keep quiet anymore'.
Basically, a number of these women from both sides of the political aisle said that they had been sexually harassed over the course of their careers at various times. Some of them went back as far as the Valery Giscard d'Estaing administration 37 years ago. The woman, that particular administrator involved said she didn't want to come forward because she was just kind of ashamed of what happened. Now she said is time to speak out.
Other people came forward, Christine Lagarde for example. The former minister of finance in this country. Now the director of the International Monetary Fund. She's been campaigning for a long time for women's rights. Breaking the glass ceiling.
She went to the United States in fact after she was told here in France by a law firm that she was working at, that she would never become a partner because she was a woman.
This is a rather strong message being sent particular in the light of what happened last week here. Two leading politicians here - - The finance minister and the deputy president of the national assembly, were both accused, in separate incidences of sexual harassment.
One denied it. The other said the version of facts wasn't quite accurate. But, in any case there is something going on here that has not been turned around by the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case for example. Any number of cases that have come up over the years in France. Now these former ministers are taking a stand against sexual harassment saying it has to stop.
Jim Bitterman, CNN in Paris.
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VAUSE: To Bangladesh now where the underground gay community has living in fear after a series of brutal murders. CNN's. Alexandra Field was in the capital. Spoke with leaders of the LGBT community. Alexandra joins us live now from Hong Kong. Alexandra, for many gay people there they say it feels like they're being hunted.
ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely John. It's chilling to speak with them and to hear them say these words you know. They will tell you they've always been forced to an extent to live in the margins in Bangladesh. Fearful of arrest but now they're fearful of something different. Attacks even death. They tell us in pretty candid terms that they are not sure if they can continue to fight for gay rights without paying with their lives.
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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: They're not on Facebook. They're not in phones. I'm not able to contact with anyone.
FIELD: Your friends disappeared?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes. The big shots. They have disappeared.
FIELD: Because they're afraid?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: That's normal. They should be afraid. I don't know if they should be, but this is what the situation is right now.
FIELD: In Bangladesh, a country 160 million people LGBT activists are living in the shadows.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Before it was just not accepting people. Now it's killing people. FIELD: How many of your friends just left? Left the country?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I know what girl she left the country. And another girl she left the country, and they are not going to come back. Why they should come back actually? To die?
FIELD: Bangladeshis' LGBT community and their supporters say they've been forced into hiding. In fear for their lives following the murder of two LGBT leaders. Killings claimed by Isis militants who call homosexuality un-Islamic.
This is where Xulhaz Mannan and Tanay Mojumdar died right inside this building. Both men were gay rights activists and they had been threatened before. Police say that a group of five or six men, posing as couriers, burst into the building armed with machetes and hacked the men to death. Mannan's mom and another woman were both inside.
Gay sex is outlawed in Bangladesh where Mannan was pushing boundaries by publishing the countries first LGBT magazine called Roopbaan. People connected to the publication say it was risky from the start. Even the printers received threats. But, it was bringing hope to people that had little.
MALE: We LGBT people are treated like animals here. We are treated like we are born in the wrong way. We have no rights to stay in this world. We have the right to love someone.
FIELD: We're protecting the identity of two secular bloggers and this University student who said he's routinely teased and taunted for his sexuality. Now the threat is getting worse.
When you started posting and writing in support of marriage equality, did you realize you're putting yourself in danger?
MALE: I was just feeling like I'm writing for the truth, I'm writing for my rights. When I have written this, I have started feeling that I am in grave danger. And now I'm feeling like this, I'm really in danger and I can be murdered at anywhere and at any time.
Field: Mannan's staff believe the future of the magazine is unclear. That symbol of hope people are now even more desperate for.
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FIELD: Police have now made one arrest connected to the death Tanay Mojumdar and Xulhaz Mannan. They say they took a 37-year-old man into custody, who they say is part of a home-grown Islamist militant group. But, certainly John a single arrest in this case does not give any of the comfort that this community is looking for. It certainly doesn't provide them with the protection they say they are not getting.
VAUSE: A a lot of criticism for what the government done or more importantly has not done. Alexandra, thank you.
Short break here. When we come back militant groups have been gaining ground in Libya bringing a new willingness from the US and its allies. Provide training and weapons to the Libyan government, but it has to be done very carefully.
Plus, the distrust that's tearing Syria apart. Rebels and the government can't seem to agree on anything. Everyday people are in dire need aid.
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VAUSE: The United States and other world powers say they are open to arming Libyan troops to fight Isis. The Libyan government is asking for an exemption to a UN arms embargo. Saying weapons are needed to battle militant groups, but the US Secretary of State said this would require a delicate balance.
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JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: We will measure whatever requests there are for their legitimate arms requests. With our call to all states to improve the enforcement of the arms embargo itself. In order to prevent arms transfers from taking place to people outside of the GNAs authority.
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VAUSE: Isis has released new photos claiming to show the destruction of an ancient site in Iraq. The pictures supposedly show bulldozers demolishing Nineveh and the city's historic wall which dates back to 700 BC. CNN cannot confirm the authenticity of the photos for when they were taken.
Iraqi forces are fighting to retake key towns held by Isis particularly Mosul. But, US officials say that may take longer than first thought. Chief UN security Jim shoot out reports
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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: ISIS strikes again inside Iraq. The latest target, a natural gas plant in the capitol, Baghdad, killing 10. A string of deadly attacks by the terror group in the last seven days has left more than 100 dead and 200 wounded. The U.S. special envoy, Brett McGurk, visiting Jordan, says ISIS is resorting to terror to take up for a series of losses on the battlefield.
BRETT MCGURK, U.S. SPECIAL ENVOY: It relies on suicide attacks for getting spectacular headlines.
SCIUTTO: The U.S. is trying to add to ISIS's battlefield defeats, working with security forces and tribes to take the strategically important town of Al-Rutbah. But the bigger prize is Mosul
SCIUTTO: The U.S. is trying to add to ISIS's battlefield defeats, working with security forces and tribes to take the strategically important town of Al-Rutbah. Halfway between Jordan's capital Amman and Baghdad. But the far bigger prize is Mosul. Under ISIS control for nearly two years, Iraq's second largest city is a target of repeated coalition air strikes and intelligence operations.
MCGURK: We've already begun the process of isolating Daesh in Mosul. We're doing precision air strikes in Mosul almost every day. We have a lot of information from working with the people inside of Mosul about what Daesh is doing inside the city.
SCIUTTO: President Obama has vowed to retake Mosul before he leaves office.
OBAMA: My expectation is that, by the end of the year, we will have created the conditions whereby Mosul will eventually fall.
SCIUTTO: Now, the timeline appears to be sliding once again. The nation's top intelligence chief telling "The Washington Post," quote, "We will retake Mosul, but it will take a long time and be very messy. I don't see that happening in this administration." In Syria, the U.S. may soon be fighting on two fronts, with Osama bin Laden's successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, warning that al Qaeda will soon establish its own caliphate in the region.
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VAUSE: Thanks to Jim Sciutto for that report, reporting from Washington.
To Syria now where there is a push to get humanitarian aid in the cities where rebel forces are in control. The country's top reconciliation minister met with representatives with a number of the sieged areas on Monday.
They say government forces are taking supplies meant for civilians to prevent them for reaching rebel fighters. Local leaders say all sites need to work together to end these rebel sieges.
A Syrian regime claims reconciliation is working on a local level but the UN does not have a lot of faith in that it once nationwide reconciliation and to end the distrust throughout the country CNN's Fred Pleitgen reports from Damascus.
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FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Like so many places in Syria, the Kadum neighborhood in Damascus is scarred by five years of war. But now, some civilians are returning. "I was forced out a few years ago. This is the first time I'm able to go back," this woman says. The Syrian army says a local reconciliation project helped silence the guns here. Enticing some rebels, like this man, to lay down their arms. "I think reconciliation like this is the only way forward," he says, "even though it might take some time for many rebels to latch on to the idea." The Syrian military claims between 150 to 200 have deflected, leading to a drop in violence.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PLEITGEN: As you can see, there's widespread destruction in this neighborhood. But the military commander for this district says it could have been even worse. They wouldn't have had the reconciliation program if the fighting would have gone on even longer.
But the United States and the U.N. are skeptical of programs like this one. Instead of local projects, they want to spread a nationwide cease-fire in Syria and jump-start the political reconciliation process for the whole country. Many rebel factions don't trust the Syrian government, believing they will be locked up or worse if they lay down their guns. But this member of the reconciliation council shows me lists of names he claims proves that many rebels are taking up the government's offer. "The names in green have been accepted in national reconciliation," he says. "They are now free to go anywhere without fearing punishment." While this project may have yielded results in this neighborhood of Syria's capital, the U.S. believes only nationwide reconciliation, backed and supervised by powerful nations like the U.S. and Russia, can overcome the distrust between the warring factions and move the effort to end Syria's civil war forward. Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Damascus.(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Thousands of protesters in Afghanistan said the government is leading them now to the multimillion dollar power line project.
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VAUSE: Members of the minority Hizada (ph) group marched in Kabul Monday. They are demanding that a new power line be routed through a province where many of them live.
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VAUSE: A short break and when we come back and urgent morning for US citizen to avoid North Korea. Then new preparations to defend against a possible missile attack from Kim Jong Un's military.
Mexico's most famous inmate is one step closer to moving into the cell in the US. That story also had
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[00:31:03] VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody. You are watching "CNN NEWSROOM" live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause with the headlines this hour.
Hillary Clinton is campaigning for votes in Kentucky ahead of Tuesday's primary. She's battling democratic rival, Bernie Sanders, there -- also in Oregon. And the only Republican left, the presumptive nominee, Donald Trump; he will probably get all of the delegates in Oregon. Kentucky's Republican caucuses were held back in March.
The United States and other world powers say they will support arming Libyan troops to fight ISIS. The Libyan government is asking for an exemption from a U.N. arms embargo, saying weapons are needed to battle militant groups which are gaining strength. There's an estimated 6,000 ISIS fighters in Libya.
Firefighters in Alberta, Canada are focused on protecting major oil- sands facilities as a massive wildfire quickly moves north. About 4,000 people have been evacuated from work camps outside Fort McMurray. Officials say the fire burned 704,000 acres, or 285,000 hectares.
A second federal judge in Mexico has ruled the drug kingpin, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman can be extradited to the U.S. Federal courts in Texas and California requested the move. The decision now rests with Mexico's foreign ministry.
North Korea has been ramping up its military operations over the last few months. The U.S. and its allies are trying to bolster their defenses, in case the North Koreans decide to attack. Here is Brian Todd.
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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: America and its allies gearing up to defend against Kim Jong-Un's aggressive missile threat. U.S. and South Korean officials tell CNN American Aegis warships war ships will join South Korea and Japan to conduct anti-missile drills off the coast of Hawaii next month. South Korea's defense ministry says the war ships, designed to shoot down longer range missiles, won't actually be targeting a missile that's fired. According to South Korean media reports, they will be tracking a plane standing in for a missile, sharing intelligence on its direction and trajectory, perfecting their capability if Kim attacks.
UNKNOWN MALE: If one of them detects a missile launch, they can pass it off to the other country if it's -- if it's headed their way.
TODD: Analysts say this is a clear response to Kim's aggressive nuclear and missile tests. He detonated a nuclear bomb in January; test launched a long range rocket a few weeks later; and then, last month, he fired a ballistic missile from a submarine and blasted a medium-range missile off a mobile launcher -- a test that has experts worried.
UNKNOWN MALE: With this Chinese made truck, this missile has mobility. North Korea can take it to multiple locations and launch practically undetected.
TODD: A key question now, if Kim launches multiple missiles simultaneously, could the U.S. and its allies shoot them down?
UNKNOWN MALE: With one, or two, or three, we would have greater confidence. But with a greater number -- a greater saturation -- it becomes, obviously, more difficult.
TODD: And that's just the threat from longer range missiles. The most immediate threat to South Korea and the 28,500 American troops there is Kim Jong-Un's artillery and short range missiles, which wouldn't be detected in advance. UNKNOWN MALE: There is a no warning scenario that keeps everybody
awake at night. There's very little you can do about it other than to maintain a really strong intelligence picture.
TODD: As the military standoff simmers with North Korea, diplomatic tensions escalate. The State Department issues a pointed warning to Americans: don't travel to North Korea.
The State Department's been so frustrated with Americans going to North Korea and getting in trouble that this new warning comes with a list -- details of things that Americans can do in Pyongyang that will get them arrested: Showing disrespect to Kim Jong-Un, or his father or grandfather; any religious activities; taking pictures where you shouldn't; going shopping where you shouldn't; and, in a clear reference to the case of a detained American Otto Warmbier, the State Department warns that you can be arrested in Pyongyang for tampering with or removing political signs.
Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: A break now. And when we come back, a woman who survived human trafficking is urging others to be relentless. We will tell you about the unique and record breaking running route she's created to raise awareness.
Also, a symphonic flash mob takes over a German mall, giving shoppers a musical treat. That story is next.
(BREAK)
VAUSE: An ultra-marathon runner says she wanted to break the world record for the longest triathlon to empower human trafficking survivors. Norma Basitidas survived trafficking twice. The running route that she chose was specific; her message to survivors clear: be relentless.
CNN's Kyung Lah has more on her journey in this CNN Freedom Project report.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN MALE: You don't know what's going to make the final cuts here.
KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hollywood would have a tough time matching the drama of Norma Bastidas' life.
BASTIDAS: We were trying to interweave the triathlon with what's happening in human trafficking.
LAH: The first woman to run seven of the planet's most unforgiving ultra-marathons on all seven continents, received plenty of recognition for the accomplishment. But the world record holder didn't feel complete until she came forward about her own violent past.
BASTIDAS: I remember being drugged and beat up and almost murdered when I was 24.
LAH: Bastidas was actually trafficked twice. Once, kidnapped and abused in Mexico City; and several years later lured to Japan by a fake modeling agency.
BASTIDAS: What I didn't know is just that I was being sold to the highest bidder. And I got bought by a prominent person and I become his property. It was hell. It was hell.
LAH: The abuses suffered in her younger years might have broken most people, but it lit a fire inside Bastidas to do things others might think impossible.
UNKNOWN MALE: The next thing I know, she's on the phone with me going "I want to do something big for human trafficking and to face this in my own life and to make it an anthem for other survivors."
LAH: In 2014, Basitidas set out to break the Guiness record for world's longest triathlon. Over the course of several months, she ran, biked and swam more than 3700 miles, traveling from Cancun, Mexico to Washington, D.C., following a known route of human trafficking victims.
UNKNOWN MALE: Norma is one of the fiercest women I have ever met.
LAH: Together with the anti-trafficking organization, iEmpathize, Norma's story is now the subject of a documentary called "Be Relentless."
UNKNOWN MALE: After all of this -- from Cancun and Mexico City to D.C., she did her final leg all through the night, 24 hours straight, almost 100 miles. And I think what she was trying to tell everyone was, sometimes you have to face new challenges even when you've conquered old ones.
BASTIDAS: Human trafficking is what happened to you; it's not who you are. Every single time we doubt that a victim has potential, we are saying "Because of what happened, it's your fault." And that's so wrong. We can prove that we can overcome anything. We're here. We're standing.
LAH: And that may be the greatest ending of all.
Jyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Finally, the Berlin wall is usually a shopper's paradise in Germany, but it became more than that on Monday.
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VAUSE: 1,000 musicians gathered at the mall to play in a symphonic flash mob; many from the Germany -- German Symphonic Orchestra, but many other amateur musicians joined in as well. Sheet music was available for download ahead of the event. All ages and all levels of talent were encouraged to take part.
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UNKNOWN FEMALE: When I look at the people that came, it's nice that children come, and older people come, and there are many generations together. And I think it's a nice opportunity to make many generations work together on something.
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VAUSE: They performed in front of 1,500 people in what the orchestra spokesman described it as an "overwhelming success".
Thank you for watching "CNN NEWSROOM" live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause. "WORLD SPORT" is up next and I'll be back with another hour of news from around the world. You are watching CNN.
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