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Jack Teixeira, 21-Year-Old Air National Guardsman, Arrested and Charged with Leaking Top-Secret Pentagon Documents; U.S. Supreme Court Puts Hold on Restriction of Abortion Drug Mifepristone while Considering Hearing Case; President Biden Criticizes Ruling by Texas Court Overturning FDA Approval of Abortion Drug Mifepristone. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired April 15, 2023 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:30]

AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. Good morning. It is Saturday, April 15th. I'm Amara Walker.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Victor Blackwell. You are in the CNN Newsroom.

A 21-year-old Air National Guardsman has been formerly charged now with leaking top-secret information. Jack Teixeira appeared in court yesterday and is charged under the espionage act. His arrest caps off a furious weeklong scramble to find the source of the leak.

WALKER: It also raises questions about who should be able to get access to classified documents. CNN senior national security correspondent Alex Marquardt joining us now from Washington. Hi Alex. What more are you learning about Jack Teixeira?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Amara and Victor. Well Airman First Class Jack Teixeira, as you say, 21 years old. He enlisted in the Air National Guard back in 2019, around four years ago. And for the past two years he has held top secret security clearance. Now, according to this unsealed affidavit that was unsealed in court yesterday, he has been posting classified information online since December. At first it was just texts that he was posting. But then a month later, in January, he started, according to the FBI, posting photographs of these classified documents that we have now seen.

So these hundreds of documents have been online for months before they really came to light. That was back on April 6th. That was the day the story broke. That was the day that the Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, got his first briefing, and it was against a week before Teixeira war arrested.

So how did Airman First Class Jack Teixeira get access, such classified access? He belongs to the 102nd intelligence operations wing. That is a military outfit that provides classified information and intelligence briefs for commanders around the world, and Teixeira was essentially an I.T. specialist whose main task was to maintain this classified network.

President Biden was asked about the access that Teixeira had to this classified information. Here's a little bit of what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've instructed the department to make sure that they get to the root of why he had access in the first place, number one. And number two, to focus extensively on the extent to which it all occurred. And that's going on right now. I have nothing to report beyond what's already been reported.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: So Teixeira's access really is not all that uncommon. But it does really shine a light on the fact that thousands of people in the U.S. military do have access to extremely sensitive information to share, and now faces years in prison for putting these secret and top- secret documents online. He will have a detention hearing in just a few days on Wednesday. That will be the next time that we see him, Victor and Amara.

WALKER: Alex Marquardt, good to see you. Thank you for that.

Our next guest says clearly too many people have access to too much top-secret information. Evelyn Farkas is a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia. Good morning and thank you so much for joining us. So you made that comment in a "New York Times" article, and I'm curious, because as an I.T. specialist, essentially, Teixeira had access to the network, as we heard from Alex, where highly classified intelligence lived. and as I understand it, he also had top-secret clearance not because he needed to access the information but because it was part of his job to protect that network. Should there have been away, or was there a way to limit his access?

EVELYN FARKAS, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR RUSSIA, UKRAINE, EURASIA: Yes, so thanks for having me on. I would say that there definitely needs to be a way to limit his access. You do have to give him top-secret clearance so that in the course of his work if he comes across some information that's top-secret that he knows that he's bound by law, and that he is also trustworthy, I guess, that's why you do as a clearance process, that he can hold those secrets.

In this case of the fact that he wasn't able to hold those secrets, it might have been mitigated if he wasn't able to actually go in and get the documents. What I mean by that is in the course of his business, maintaining these I.T. systems, you might have come across some intelligence. And if he was not worthy of his intelligence clearance, which we now know, willing to break the law and share this classified information, he might have only shared what he came across accidentally. But the problem is that, apparently, he was able to go and root around all over the system and grab whatever information he wanted and use it like a social studies class for this group of hackers, or this group of gamers.

[10:05:07]

So that's the real problem, that he had no need to know, which is another standard that has been used in the intelligence community, and unfortunately doesn't seem to have applied here.

WALKER: The fact that Teixeira was able to access these top-secret documents, print them out, right, and then take them home, you would think that there would be protocols in place when you have this kind of access that would have flagged that he was doing this, right, especially for someone who is at a lower-level position.

FARKAS: I think we have the technology probably to be able to monitor who's taking what and who's printing which documents. The other thing is, of course, the question of whether you need to do these things in two people teams. Maybe this individual shouldn't be working individually. That, of course, costs more money, if you're putting more manpower on mundane tasks, but that might be the price we have to pay if we're going to give him access to that level of information.

WALKER: So I've been reading into this, and clearly we see how vast the military and intelligence bureaucracy is, right. And so there really is not going to be an easy fix, especially to prevent insider leaks from happening. But as you know, Alex was mentioning, thousands of American servicemembers have top-secret clearance. That's the highest-level clearance there is. Should officials start there and start weeding out the people who don't -- they don't think need this kind of access?

FARKAS: I do think that we need to really look closely and who has access and how they get access. Again, the other standard that needs to be applied is this need to know. Do you need to know this classified information in the course of your work. When I sat in the Pentagon, I had a terminal that was -- that could toggle between unclassified and then secret, but I didn't look at secret documents that didn't pertain to my work. Why would I look at documents -- if I was working on Europe, why would I look at documents necessarily relating to another region or something else that the Pentagon was doing, like building a new submarine? That should be a red flag for someone, if you're looking beyond the scope of your immediate duties.

And the other thing is, of course, this top-secret system that didn't even exist on my desk. That's a very, very sensitive system, and one would think that only the top decision makers should have access to the content on those servers.

WALKER: Given your work with Russia and Ukraine, and from what you know what's in these classified documents that were leaked on the social media site, what kind of damage do you think this leak has done thus far?

FARKAS: Well, I think it's clearly done damage in terms of trust that our allies have that we can maintain the secrecy, that we can maintain the information that they give us, which then becomes classified as intelligence that they provide us as classified intelligence, especially the allies in what's called the Five Eyes community, basically coming out of World War II, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand. These are countries that have worked with us very closely. And so I think it does cause them to wonder whether they we can share information with us and certainly in writing. That will damage our ability to have really good intelligence on things. So there is there is a danger there.

Maybe the silver lining is that this man will be prosecuted, and everyone will understand this is no laughing matter. This is no joke. We're talking about the national security of the United States.

WALKER: We are talking about the national security of the United States and potentially the lives of people who serve as well. Evelyn Farkas, appreciate it. Thank you very much.

BLACKWELL: Restrictions on a key abortion drug that were scheduled to go into effect this morning have been put on hold, but only for a few days. Justice Samuel Alito extended access to the abortion drug mifepristone while the full court considers an emergency appeal filed by the Biden administration and a drug manufacturer. CNN's Ariane de Vogue has the story for us. Ariane?

ARIANE DE VOGUE, CNN SUPREME COURT REPORTER: Victor and Amara, as things stand, restrictions to accessing this key abortion drug are on hold for now. Justice Samuel Alito stepping in and freezing a lower court opinion for now to give the justices more time to get read in. Samuel Alito said in an order that the justices will make their decision Wednesday by midnight. This does not at all forecast how the court will ultimately rule. It's just meant to give them some time to read the briefs, get caught up.

The Biden administration and the manufacturers of this drug argue that the lower court got it wrong in restricting access. They say if the lower court opinion is allowed to stand, labeling on the drug will change. For instance, women will only be able to access it up to seven weeks of pregnancy instead of 10 weeks. Women will also have to come in person to get it administered and not be able to receive it by mail.

[10:10:01]

This will make it more difficult for women to be able to access the drug, and they want the Supreme Court to either step in and freeze the lower court opinion while this appeals process plays out in the lower courts, or, alternatively, they want the Supreme Court to step in now, bypass the lower courts, take up the issue themselves and decide it by this spring. Abortion medication is the procedure that is most used by a majority of women today.

The Supreme Court is going to consider a couple of factors. Do the doctors here who oppose abortion had the legal right to be in court. They'll consider the scope of the FDA's authority here when it comes to authorizing a drug like this. This all comes less than a year after the Supreme Court reversed Roe v Wade, and now the justices could further restrict abortion in the states that allow it. Victor, Amara?

BLACKWELL: Ariane, thanks so much.

And President Biden is also weighing in on the Supreme Court's decision.

WALKER: CNN White House reporter Jasmine Wright joining us now from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where the president is spending the weekend. Hi, Jasmine. We know the White House had opposed the enforcement of the Texas ruling. Is the Biden administration seeing this pause as a victory?

JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, President Biden was actually asked about this early this morning when he touched down in Delaware after spending a week in Ireland. And while he did not talk specifically about the Supreme Court's latest action, he did talk about the Texas ruling really broadly. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it's outrageous what the court has done relative to concluding that. They're going to overrule the FDA whether the drug is safe or not. I think it's out of their lane. But we'll see what happens. We'll see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WRIGHT: So President Biden's comment there, I think they're out of their lane, is very key because it hits out one of the Department of Justice and the drug manufacturer's key arguments that they put toward the Supreme Court, basically saying that they did not find that the antiabortion doctors that brought the suit actually had the legal standing to do so because they do not prescribe the medication, abortion drug, and therefore they could not intervene on behalf of patients that have seen complications.

Now, while we did not hear the president talk specifically about the Supreme Court pause, we did hear from the administration earlier on Friday. In the White House specifically they put out a statement. I want to read you a part of it. They said, for now, mifepristone remains available and approved for safe and effective use. The president and his administration continue to stand by the FDA's evidence-based approval of mifepristone, and we will continue to support the FDA's independent, expert authority to review, approve, and regulate a wide range of prescription drugs."

Now, the White House continued in that statement that right now in this moment, the stakes could not be higher and therefore they pledged to continue to fight to try to reverse this Texas abortion ruling. Of course, this has been a motivating thing for Democrats to focus on since, obviously, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade last summer. Now, of course, folks are going to be continuing to look at the White House for them to lay out what steps are next that they can take to try to safeguard access to abortion, living up to that promise, especially in this really heightened and really unpredictable time right now. Victor, Amara?

BLACKWELL: Jasmine Wright near the president there in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Thanks so much.

We're following a developing story in Sudan. Reports of violent clashes around the presidential palace and army headquarters. The U.N. and European Union are urging everyone to be calm. The latest in a live report just ahead.

WALKER: The Biden administration attempting to crack down on illegal fentanyl coming into the U.S. More on its efforts to target the Mexican cartels believed to be responsible.

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BLACKWELL: Ukrainian officials are searching through rubble after Russian forces launched strikes in eastern Ukraine.

WALKER: At least 11 people are confirmed dead in more than 20 people have been injured. Those numbers are almost certain to go up as the search continues. CNN's Ben Wedeman has more.

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BEN WEDEMAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Friday afternoon, a Russian S-300 missile slammed into this building here in Slovyansk in eastern Ukraine. This was one of eight separate missile strikes that happened within minutes of one another here, the biggest strike on this city yet here in this building they have recovered nine bodies, including the body of a two-year-old child. He actually was pulled from the rubble still alive, but he died shortly afterwards in the ambulance. His father, according to the rescue workers here, they believe is still under the rubble.

They were with a family that had left Slovyansk earlier in the war, but it had returned because they thought it was safer. Now, the mayor's office tells us that at least 30 apartment buildings were damaged in this strike and more than 30 houses were also damaged. The rescue operation continues. They believe they're still more bodies underneath the rubble. They continue to dig.

I'm Ben Wedeman, CNN, reporting from Slovyansk in eastern Ukraine.

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WALKER: This morning, world leaders are calling for an end to the violence in Sudan after fierce fighting erupted overnight in the country's capital. The clashes are between Sudan's military and a group known as the Rapid Support Forces that claims to have taken over the presidential palace.

BLACKWELL: So far, the U.S. embassy in Khartoum says there are no plans to evacuate, but embassy staff are sheltering in place. CNN's Larry Madowo is following this situation for us. What's the latest there?

[10:20:08] LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Victor, Amara, what we're seeing is an escalation in a long running conflict in Sudan between the Sudanese armed forces and the very powerful paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces. There's been reports of gunfire and shelling. And right now, we're hearing of fighter jets patrolling the skies in Khartoum. This has been going on for hours. It's just after 4:00 p.m. in Khartoum. And we speak to people who tell CNN they are in bunkers or hiding, afraid to go out because of this street fights, in some cases, fights between the Rapid Support Forces and the military.

Sudan has been under military rule since October 2021, when the military took over. It is governed by this organization called the Sovereign Council. It is led by General al-Burhan who is the de facto leader of Sudan. But his number two is the leader of the Rapid Support Forces, that is General Hemeti, who is supported by Russia. The Rapid Support Forces are believed to number in about 100,000, and there's a big conflict between the two of them over how they merge into one body, and that's what we see playing out here.

I want to read this tweet for you from the U.S. ambassador to Khartoum. who only arrived last night. He said in a tweet and said, "I woke up to the deeply disturbing sounds of gunfire and fighting. I am currently sheltering in place with the embassy team as Sudanese throughout Khartoum and elsewhere are doing. Escalation of tensions within the military component to direct fighting is extremely dangerous. I urgently call on senior military leaders to stop the fighting."

And the ambassador picks himself up on something that a lot of the other bodies condemning this, including Russia, the African Union and other regional countries pick up on, the fact that Sudan is very close to a deal to return to civilian rule. Here's U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

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ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Major parties in in Khartoum some weeks ago reached a very important framework agreement on how to proceed with a transition to civilian government, and there's been real progress in trying to move that forward. But I think there's a real opportunity to move forward on the agreed framework. And certainly, that's what we're strongly supporting. It's a fragile situation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADOWO: A fragile situation that we've received a statement even from the foreign minister of Russia that says it's causing concern in Moscow and calling on all the parties involved to show political will and restraint and take urgent steps to a ceasefire. The Rapid Support Forces were supported by Russia. The leader, General Hemeti, used to be Putin's man in Sudan. But with the war in Ukraine, and especially CNN's investigation of the use of Sudanese gold to fund Russia's war in Ukraine, this big pressure for Sudan to disavow its ties with Russia. So this now appears to be hurtling very dangerously toward a full blown civil war in Sudan. BLACKWELL: All right, Larry Madowo reporting for us. Larry, thank you

for that.

The Biden administration is taking on those they say are responsible for the influx of fentanyl coming into the U.S. On Friday, the DOJ announced federal charges against more than two dozen members of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel.

WALKER: The sprawling indictment targeted people allegedly involved in all stages of the illicit drug trade from production to distribution. CNN's Polo Sandoval is following the story for us. Polo, some of the people charged include high level members of the cartel.

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Amara, Victor, good morning. You've no doubt heard of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, but perhaps not so much about his Chapitos, or little Chapos. According to the Department of Justice, they are the sons of the imprisoned Sinaloa cartel leader that quickly took at least partial control of Chapo's drug organization after he was sentenced to prison for the rest of his life in 2019.

I looked over the indictments that were unsealed yesterday. It mentions at least four of his sons. At least three of them believed to be essentially the tip of the spear when it comes to the most prolific fentanyl trafficking organization in the world, according to the federal government. We know that at least 23 defendants are named in this series of indictments, but also at least seven of them already behind bars, either here in the U.S. or around the world with extradition proceedings pending.

It's also a massive global organization, according to federal authorities. The Drug Enforcement Administration using this visual to try to really drive that that point home of just how this massive fentanyl operation would work. Cartel associate brokers, they would procure the precursor chemicals in China and then send them to clandestine labs in Mexico. From there, the cartels would move fentanyl into the U.S. where it was sold wholesale. And then it was criminal organizations in the United States, according to federal authorities, that would then basically mixed this fentanyl into cocaine, heroin, perform resale, in some cases even selling the fentanyl pills as counterfeit prescription pain medication here in the U.S.

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And then those profits would then be laundered, eventually making its way back into Mexico, basically funding this vicious cycle that has been ongoing for years, killing tens of thousands of Americans at least.

I want you to hear directly from the attorney general of the United States as he explains why this case that was unveiled yesterday is so significant.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MERRICK GARLAND, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: The thing that makes this case particularly important is that we're going after the entire network from precursors to importation into Mexico to the manufacturer to the weapons to the money launderers to the distribution in the United States. But we -- this is just one of the most important cases we've brought.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: Important but also extremely disturbing. Attorney General Garland also setting examples in which the Chapitos would reportedly feed some of their rivals to some of their tigers, that are alive. We've heard this before from authorities, however, not often that you hear this from the states -- from the government's top prosecutor. It really does underscore just the viciousness of this organization. Amara, Victor?

WALKER: Yes, brutal tactics there. Polo Sandoval, appreciate it. Thanks.

BLACKWELL: Coming up, the Biden administration is proposing sweeping new car emissions standards, and it could dramatically change the auto industry. We'll discuss next.

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BLACKWELL: Stories now, the first ever Rutgers University strike and one of the largest higher education walkouts is over. The administration and unions reached a tentative agreement this morning with what they say is a framework for new contracts. About 9,000 faculty, researchers, and education staff walked off the job on Monday, demanding better pay. They canceled classes at all three campuses for five days just weeks before the end of the spring semester. Now classes will resume on Monday.

WALKER: Officials are meeting today to decide whether thousands of Indiana residents can return to their homes days after a massive fire at an Indiana plastics recycling plant triggered evacuation orders. Today, officials will look at air and water samples for contamination before making a decision. The state fire marshal said the large blaze that sparked Tuesday was, quote, definitely toxic. The EPA reported dangerous chemicals and asbestos were found at the fire center, but not outside the evacuation zone.

BLACKWELL: David's Bridal, the latest retailer now to lay off thousands of workers. They're the wedding gown retailer. They're eliminating more than 9,000 positions through August. It only employs about 11,000 workers total, according to "The Wall Street Journal." "The New York Times" is reporting the company is filing for bankruptcy for the second time in five years.

President Biden is continuing his push to get more electric cars on the road. His administration is now proposing strict rules on federal emission standards. If implemented, they could change the car market so that by the year 2032 electric vehicles would make up nearly two- thirds of new cars sold. But polling from the Associated Press shows that 47 percent, nearly half of U.S. adults, say they're not likely to go and buy an electric vehicle.

To discuss now, let's bring in Margo Oge. She is the chair of the International Council on Clean Transportation. Margo, good morning to you. It doesn't appear, even though these are these new standards are coming, that Americans are ready to make the move to E.V. How will the administration, how will the market get them there?

MARGO OGE, BOARD CHAIR, INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL ON CLEAN TRANSPORTATION: First of all, good morning, Victor. The truth of the matter is that the consumer demand for electric cars has grown by like 360 percent since 2020. So I would say that it's numbers of about 50 percent of people willing to buy an electric car, it's big. That was not the case back in 2020, two years ago.

So we have seen an extraordinary growth when it comes to introducing electric cars in the U.S., investment. And obviously, President Biden with the Inflation Reduction Act and the infrastructure bill has provided all these incentives, am I right. Like the last since President Biden came to the office, we have $120 billion are being invested as we're speaking now to build electric cars, to build batteries, to build components.

So I think things are changing very fast. And don't forget that the industry, the car companies are going to have to meet those requirements that the president and EPA announced on Wednesday. Globally, they're global companies, and they have to invest, they have made a commitment to invest $1.3 billion from now to 2030. So I think all the pieces are working together, and this is going to -- and this is a very, very big deal for the country and the planet.

BLACKWELL: Margo, when you say that electric vehicle sales have grown by 360 percent since 2020, we're still talking about relatively small numbers. This is, according to Kelley Blue Book, 5.8 percent of all new vehicles were EVs sold in 2022. Now that's up from 3.2 percent in 2021. So yes, a significant growth in a year, but we're still talking relatively small numbers of EVs being sold.

There's also the question of the charging stations, the electric grid being prepared for an influx. Will there be the charging stations available so that people can drive long distances with these new EVs?

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OGE: Victor, what happened before President Biden, there was an administration that basically was not willing to invest anything on the electric power grid. Not only that, they really relaxed and kill President Obama's programs that put in place when I was working for President Obama. So we're behind. Right now, China has something like 30 percent of cars are electric, Europe 22 percent. We are at about, include the plug-in hybrids, about eight percent.

So there is no reason why we as a country cannot be ahead of China and ahead of Europe. And we're getting there. The combination of the infrastructure bill, the massive investments that are coming from the Inflation Reduction Act, and the specific regulatory programs that are put in place by President Biden, industry support because they're investing, many of them, like GM, has made the commitment they will phase out the sales of new gasoline and diesel cars by 2035. And don't forget, California 16 others states that make up 40 percent of all the car sales in the U.S. are going there.

So this is -- we're behind absolutely the game. We have to catch up. It's not going to be simple, but it's doable.

BLACKWELL: Make some progress, as you say, but as we know that the top reason that many people say that they do not buy EVs is because the cost, they cost too much. We expect that if there is more competition, that those costs over the next eight or nine years will come down. Margo Oge, thank you so much for being with us.

And we will be right back.

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WALKER: OK, so tomorrow night, CNN launches an exciting new weekly program called "The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper" where each week he will explore one major story in depth for the entire hour.

BLACKWELL: For the premiere episode, CNN's Nick Paton Walsh and his team trek alongside thousands of migrants as they make the dangerous journey on foot from South America to the United States in search a second chance at life. Here is part of that story.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: At dawn, the first thing that strikes you is how few of them seem to grasp what's coming, gently packing crackers and tying sneakers, like waving a Kleenex at a storm.

The second thing that strikes you is how organized the cartel want it to seem. They only walk when they're told to. The stories here are many, but there is only one goal -- America. And the dream is just that, a reverie of hope, of conviction that they will be the ones to make it over danger, disease, dehydration, deportation. About this number, every day, every year, almost doubling.

The Darien Gap is the only land corridor from South America where entry is easier, to its north, where it's not. There were no roads, only 66 miles of treacherous jungle from Colombia to Panama and onwards north 3,000 miles to the U.S. border. We walked the entire route of the Darien Gap over five days in February to document the suffering endured by people, milked for cash by cartels, unwanted by any country.

What's startling is the sheer number of children on this trek as it begins on a route. Sometimes adults don't even survive.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

BLACKWELL: CNN's Nick Paton Walsh joins us now. Nick, I've watched a few small clips of this program, "The Whole Story," this first installment, and it is unbelievable. I don't think that I have ever seen the migration from South America to the U.S. this way. What did you see? What are people going to see tomorrow night?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: You'll see at times, we hope, an intimate portrait of families, of real humans dealing with an incredible physical ordeal, physical torture to some degree, extraordinary risk, dehydration, lack of food, even criminals targeting migrants along the way, the huge risks that people put themselves through, often with their young children.

Now, you may choose to judge about exposing your family to those risks, but what we felt and learned from that trip was that these are people who don't feel they have a choice, who feel that they're putting themselves and those they love through this because the places they're leaving are just intolerable, are unbearable. And this year so far, the top four nations that made up migrants on the gap where Haiti, Venezuela, Ecuador, and China, a real sign, I think -- we know that Haiti and Venezuela are intolerable, Ecuador clearly experiencing severe issues, and the Chinese a new group to emerge on this particular route.

But these are people coming from places where life is exceptionally hard, and so you observe the depressing fact that they've decided to take this risk, the fact that they are really being exploited by a cartel that runs this voluntary but organized trafficking route. It's big. It's large on the Colombian side. It's very structured and organized. People even have armbands telling them which route they can walk on and what day they're supposed to go.

But within all that sort of cynical exploitation. There are extraordinary moments of hope that we see of people giving up what they can do, putting themselves at risk, slowing down their own journey -- each day you spend puts you at greater risk -- in order to help complete strangers.

[10:45:05]

That's what's been edifying in all the darkness of this journey, to see how there's this extraordinary generosity of spirit amongst migrants who are mothers, daughters, sons themselves. And you get to observe that strength of human emotion and the good things about us as a species.

WALKER: I'm so glad you make that note that there is a humanity to this, right, and just to see those images, it's remarkable the wave of humanity just making, what did you say, a 66-mile journey. And I saw some children in the video. They also take this journey, and some are unaccompanied and alone?

WALSH: Yes, that happens sometimes. The U.N. have pointed out, they came across hundreds of unaccompanied children over the whole of last year. We came across one, a young guy, a little kid, five-years-old, Wilson from Haiti. He was separated from his parents because they'd given him to a porter to help them carry him up one of the harder climbs. They were reunited two days later. We saw them back together again. But some children do not have that, and it's hard to get to the bottom of exactly how some of these children end up unaccompanied at the end. Parents, some of them don't make it. That's true, certainly.

But the numbers of children are devastating, a record over 10,000 so far this year. That's just unimaginably large. And last year set a record for the volume of people doing this trek. But that record is looking like it's going to be destroyed this year by the massive number who are already undertaking it. In the first quarter of this year, seven times as many people have already done the journey compared to the same period last year. Now, that puts potentially, if the same rate of increase continues, over a million people could do this trek in this year alone.

Now, the U.S., Panama, Colombia got together last week, put out a statement saying they were going to do something in the next two months to shut this down. But we felt ourselves the sheer volume of people in this jungle occasionally meant they were traffic jams of migrants trying to get through chokepoints. It's extraordinary to behold, and I would hope to think a rare insight into one of the most pressing issue, possibly, of our times.

WALKER: So glad you did this report, that you walked this treacherous road as well. And I think it's something we need to see to see why they are doing this, risking their lives for a chance at a better life. Nick Paton Walsh, thank you very much.

So the first installment of the highly anticipated program, "The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper" premieres tomorrow night at 8:00 on CNN.

BLACKWELL: Still ahead, more than 50 million people are under threat of severe weather. We'll show you which areas were watching.

WALKER: And Eva Longoria is in northeast Mexico experiencing the flood of her -- the food, I should say, of her childhood. Make sure you catch a new episode of "Searching for Mexico" tomorrow at 9:00 p.m. eastern on CNN.

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BLACKWELL: More than 50 million people across the Mississippi River Valley are under severe storm threats this morning and danger of potential tornadoes and powerful winds, large hail.

WALKER: Allison Chinchar is in the Weather Center with more. Allison, when are these storms expected to hit?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, so we have some areas that are already experiencing the showers and thunderstorms as of now. We still have that original cluster that was in the Midwest this morning. That's continuing to make its way off to the east. But we've really started to see a lot of showers and thunderstorms fire up along the southern tier of this same front, lot of lightning with that particular cluster there across areas of Louisiana now starting to shift into Mississippi, and even a couple of severe thunderstorm warnings, too, along that same line.

But this is the same system as a whole that's going to continue to make its way towards the east in the next 24 hours. The main concerns here for these areas are going to be large hail, the potential for damaging winds. And yes, maybe even an isolated tornado or two in the mix. Hail is certainly going to be the biggest concern and most widespread, and we're not talking small hail, say, like dimes or quarters. At this point we're talking golf ball, maybe even as large as tennis ball sized hail.

Another concern, too, is going to be the flooding because a lot of this area is very saturated and has more of those storms go over the same areas. It could end up triggering some flooding.

WALKER: All right, Allison Chinchar, thank you.

And thank you for watching.

BLACKWELL: There's much more ahead in the next hour of CNN Newsroom. Fredricka Whitfield is up next.

But first, the EPA this week proposed that within a decade two-thirds of all new cars sold in the U.S. will be zero emissions or plug in hybrids. We discussed it a little earlier. One company in California hopes to get ahead of that curve. I don't know what that word is supposed to be.

(LAUGHTER)

BLACKWELL: There's a mix in the prompter. Packs of solar boost, here's a look at the prototype in today's "Innovate."

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Transportation as a whole should move towards efficiency. I think of Aptera as the future of transportation. We use advanced aerodynamics, lightweight components, a very efficient drive train to make a vehicle that can go 1,000 miles on a charge. And then we add solar to it so you can get up to 40 miles a day of free solar range.

[10:55:03]

The Aptera looks like no vehicle you've ever seen before. It has three wheels and has a very organic shape. So we have wheels that sit outside the body and one center wheel in the rear so air can flow very nicely and easily around it.

We're going to be building the battery packs from a battery cell and then building the solar panels from the individual solar cells to strings of solar cells.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is our solar panel manufacturing validation line. We need them to be light, strong for high impact, and we need them to be curved in multiple axes, which is pretty abnormal for solar panels. We're kind of straddling the space between solar panel manufacturing and automotive manufacturing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We hope to have Aptera in full production in about a year. Its' really exciting, less air pollution, less raw materials out of the ground. And with solar charging capability, you can have something that you may never have to plug in. It's like nothing the world has ever seen.

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