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CNN International: Former Taiwanese President to Meet with China's Xi Jinping; House Speaker Under Pressure Amid Threats of Ouster; Whistleblower Raises Alarm About Flaws in Dreamliner Jets; Chester Trio Await Retrial After Convictions Overturned; Tiger Woods: I Think I Can Get One More Win. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired April 10, 2024 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. state of Missouri has executed Brian Dorsey for the 2006 murders of his cousin and her husband. That's after last-minute appeals for clemency to the governor and to the Supreme Court failed. The 52-year-old died by lethal injection on Tuesday night.

Taiwan's former president is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping today. The meeting comes amid tensions in the region as the self-governing democratic Taiwan prepares for a new administration to assume office in the coming weeks, an administration that's been opening -- that Beijing openly opposes.

Live now to Hong Kong and CNN's Kristie Lu Stout. What do you make of this meeting?

KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, it's all about optics at a critical time, Max, and we just learned that this meeting just took place. Chinese leader Xi Jinping held talks with Taiwan's former president in this rare encounter that recalls a past era of warmer relations.

This is not an official visit, but this is the first time that a Chinese leader has hosted a former leader of Taiwan, and it comes at a critical time, just weeks before Taiwan inaugurates a new president, a new president that Beijing openly loathes and detests.

Now, Ma Ying-jeou is the man who's in Beijing today. He's the ex- chairman of Taiwan's opposition, Kuomintang. He led Taiwan for eight years from 2008 to 2016. He arrived in China on April the 1st in what he calls a journey of peace and friendship. And Taiwan officials have told CNN that his meeting with Xi was moved to today to coincide with the Japanese prime minister's state visit to Washington.

Now, Ma last met with Xi Jinping back in 2015 in Singapore. It was the first such meeting since the two sides split in 1949. It was a landmark meeting, and it took place just before Taiwan's current president, Tsai Ing-wen, won election. And China, again, openly detests Tsai and her party, the DPP, which is independence-leaning.

China has ramped up recently some aggressive tactics, especially since the election in Taiwan earlier this year in January, which resulted in another presidential victory for the DPP. And analysts say that Beijing is using today's meeting to shape the hearts and minds of people abroad and also inside China.

We spoke earlier to Wen Ti-sung. He's a Taiwan-based fellow at the Atlantic Council's Global China Hub. And he tells CNN this, quote: Ma's visit gives Beijing proof that there is still a significant portion of Taiwanese society that values shared ties of Chinese tradition and culture between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.

He goes on to say: It is also a useful data point that Beijing can point to, to tell China's domestic audience that there is still reason to be patient with Taiwan, unquote.

We also heard from Amanda Hsiao of the International Crisis Group. And she adds this, quote: For Beijing, Ma's visit is a useful way of assuring its domestic audience we have not lost the hearts and minds of the Taiwanese people.

Now, China claims Taiwan as its own territory, Max, despite having never controlled it. Back to you, Max.

FOSTER: So tell us some more about the reaction within Taiwan itself to this meeting.

LU STOUT: Well, we can look at how the various players from Taiwan will likely react. And, you know, analysts I've been talking to say, for example, Ma Ying-jeou, this is a visit that keeps him relevant. You know, he is a former leader after all. And it's also a way to protect his legacy for him to be remembered as a Taiwan leader who managed to directly engage with Beijing.

As for his party, the Kuomintang, they may be a little bit torn about this, because on one hand, we want to celebrate this meeting, this milestone. But it doesn't want to undermine its current leadership, especially as they're catering to a population back home in Taiwan that is a little bit more cautious, more weary, definitely, of closer ties with China, especially compared to a generation ago.

As for Taiwan's ruling party and its supporters, they will likely play down this visit as just a private tour of China by Ma Ying-jeou, a man who is effectively a retired political figure. Back to you.

FOSTER: OK. Kristie Lou Stout in Hong Kong, thank you so much.

House Speaker Mike Johnson is under fire from some members of his own party. He faces a number of constraints as a result of the historically narrow House majority leaving him little room, really, to maneuver.

Now GOP Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is trying to build support for potentially ousting Johnson. Sinha's Manu Raju has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): It has not even been six months since Mike Johnson assumed the speakership after Kevin McCarthy's ouster. Now the question, how long can Johnson last?

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): Mike Johnson has completely betrayed our conference, and his leadership cannot be allowed to continue going forward.

RAJU (voice-over): Facing an escalating threat from a fellow Republican, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is warning she may call for a vote to remove him, in part over his deal to keep the government open.

[04:05:00]

GREENE: We are a conference in chaos right now because our Republican Speaker of the House is passing major bills without the majority of the majority's support.

RAJU (voice-over): And now issuing this warning is Johnson plans for a new Ukraine aid package.

GREENE: He's going to make my case for me, and he makes it even easier for what I'm trying to do.

RAJU (voice-over): Johnson is trying to navigate a sharply divided conference, all with little margin for error. And soon we'll see his razor-thin majority shrink again, after another Republican resigns amid the House turmoil, leaving him with just one vote to spare.

But as Ukraine critics warn Johnson not to move ahead, many in both parties say the House's decision to slow walk an aid package could lead to a Russian victory.

SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): If we don't rearm them, then the coalition supporting them will fall apart, and it'll be on the hands of people who stand in the way of the supplemental or a viable alternative if the House can produce it to us. Get us something, but inaction's unacceptable.

RAJU (voice-over): Two months ago, the Senate passed a $95 billion foreign aid package, with 22 Republicans voting for it, including Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), U.S. SENATE MINORITY LEADER: I hope that at some point here, the speaker will put the Senate-passed supplemental on the floor.

RAJU (voice-over): Johnson is trying to narrow the Senate's plan and add new border security provisions, all while looking to turn Ukraine aid into a loan, an idea backed by Trump, but one generating skepticism.

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): His positions are ever-shifting right on this, so it's a little bit hard to follow what it is day to day. RAJU (voice-over): It comes as Johnson is grappling with another major

dispute dividing his conference, renewing an expiring law that gives the FBI the power to conduct warrantless surveillance. Still, Johnson could hang on, given many are skeptical about Greene's effort.

REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): The last time I pulled the trigger on a motion to vacate, I could make a true promise to the country that we would not end up with a Democrat speaker of the House. And I fulfilled that promise, and I'm not certain that I could do it again.

RAJU: Now Marjorie Taylor Greene also told me that she declined to speak with Mike Johnson on Friday. They had actually planned to speak at that point, but she said she'd said no because she wanted to speak with her constituents first.

She did speak earlier in the day on Tuesday with Donald Trump. She would not say what their conversation was about, but she also suggested that he was not dissuading her from the effort.

Now, this all comes as there are still questions about how Democrats would handle any vote to oust Mike Johnson. Hakeem Jeffries saying it is too early to discuss any of this, as he's not saying how he would handle it, but some rank-and-file Democrats say they're prepared to save Johnson if he moves forward on Ukraine.

Manu Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Well, the Ukrainian military has taken delivery of thousands of machine guns, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition from the United States, but the weapons didn't come from America. They were seized from boats used by Iran to ship weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen.

U.S. Central Command says the weapons will equip one Ukrainian brigade of around 4,000 soldiers and help them fight the Russian invasion. This isn't the first time the U.S. has since seized Iranian military equipment to Ukraine. It transferred more than a million rounds of Iranian ammunition to Ukrainian forces back in October.

A Boeing engineer is accusing the company of taking dangerous shortcuts whilst constructing some Dreamliner wide-body jets. Boeing is already under federal investigation after a series of catastrophic incidents, including when a panel of the fuselage ripped off a plane midair. CNN's Gabe Cohen has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boeing is back under the microscope with this alarming FAA complaint filed by one of the company's engineers, a man named Sam Salehpour, alleging that Boeing has been cutting corners in its assembly of two of its planes, the 787 Dreamliner and the 777, a roughly 1,400 planes between them.

Now, he makes several claims in this complaint, including that crews have been forcing together parts of the fuselage, the main body of the plane, that are misaligned, basically jamming those parts together. Here's how he described one incident.

SAM SALEHPOUR, BOEING WHISTLEBLOWER: I literally saw people jumping on the pieces of the airplane to get them to align. Basically, by jumping up and down, that's not how you build an airplane.

COHEN: And he says the shimming process, which is how they fill all the tiny gaps when they put pieces of the plane together, has not been done properly, which could put a lot of added stress on those parts and dramatically reduce the lifespan of the plane.

To quote a dire warning from the complaint, they say these defects could ultimately cause a premature fatigue failure without any warning, thus creating unsafe conditions for the aircraft with potentially catastrophic accidents and passenger fatalities.

[04:10:00]

Now, Boeing, for their part, is vehemently denying these claims, saying that they are inaccurate and do not represent the work that Boeing has done to ensure safety, and that the issues raised here have been subject to, as they put it, rigorous engineering examination under FAA oversight.

To be clear, these allegations are not entirely new. The FAA halted temporarily deliveries of the Dreamliner back in 2021 because of similar issues with those gaps in between parts of the plane. Boeing at that point said it had made changes to fix the problem, but the allegation here is that they never really fixed it.

So the FAA is now investigating this, but not saying much about the complaint in the meantime. And we have also learned that Sam Salehpour, this whistleblower, is going to testify in front of a Senate subcommittee next week for a hearing focused on Boeing's safety.

Gabe Cohen, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Well, a really stunning video out of France, where a powerful storm is lashing Normandy and Brittany. The storm pushed huge waves over the seawall in northwestern France, turning the streets into rivers. People walking on the streets had to take care to avoid all that water, of course.

More than 100,000 people have been forced from their homes along the Russia-Kazakhstan border after a burst dam led to major flooding in that region. As CNN's Isa Soares reports, anger is mounting over the government's response.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ISA SOARES, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Catastrophic flooding and thousands of lives upended across several regions in Russia, forcing many to evacuate with just their pets and a handful of belongings.

At least three people are reported to have died so far. Authorities declared a state of emergency in the Orenburg region near Kazakhstan after the Ural, Europe's third longest river swelled several meters and burst through a dam embankment in Orsk, a city of more than 200,000 residents.

The anger there was palpable on Monday, with protesters chanting shame on you at local officials and Putin help over the government's response.

No one is helping us here, a man in his crowd shouts. The state is doing nothing, he says.

The city mayor said the flood has now peaked according to Russian State News Agency TASS. And the Kremlin spokesperson described the deluge in these regions as inevitable due to an abnormal increase in water levels.

Dmitry Peskov also said that President Vladimir Putin is currently not planning on visiting the affected areas.

Across the border, in Kazakhstan, the country's president said the floods were his country's worst natural disaster in decades.

In Russia, the country's emergency situations minister flew over somewhat the flooded zones on Tuesday to inspect the damage. And over in the Kurgan region, melting ice and torrential rains caused another river to overflow.

This is not a joke, the regional governor says bluntly. Leave, take your papers, valuables, children, elderly relatives with limited mobility. You need to do this now, he says.

Floodwaters in Kurgan are expected to rise even higher over the next 48 hours, putting thousands more lives at risk and wreaking even more havoc.

Isa Soares, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: On Thursday, Colombia will begin rationing water for around 9 million people in the capital city and surrounding areas, according to Bogota's mayor.

Reservoirs that supply 70 percent of the city's water have reached historically low levels. El Nino weather patterns since last June have made heat levels worse and have contributed to droughts and forest fires in Colombia. The mayor of Bogota says hospitals and schools will have contingency plans in place to make sure they don't run out of water. But he's calling on residents to be vigilant and not to waste a drop.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CARLOS GAIAN, BOGOTA, COLOMBIA MAYOR (through translator): The Chingaza system is below all the projections that were expected for this year and the next one. This forces us to take measures to reduce water consumption.

We will do and sustain this. We will do this through changes in behavior and restrictions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: In a landmark ruling, the European Court of Human Rights has found Switzerland violated human rights by failing to adequately address climate change. It's the first time the court has ruled on climate matters.

The case was brought by more than 2,000 Swiss women, most in their 70s, who claimed heat waves were harming their health and their quality of life.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[04:15:00]

ANNE MAHRER, CO-PRESIDENT, KLIMASENIORINNEN (through translator): We can be very proud, we the elderly, to have brought to the court for the first time the issue of climate and fundamental rights. And the court has recognized us and our fundamental right to a healthy climate. And that our country should do what it has not done until now, meaning to take ambitious measures to protect our health and protect the future for all of us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Well, there's no right of appeal in the court and judgment is legally binding, meaning Switzerland may have to address its fossil fuel usage more quickly than planned. The ruling could also set a precedent for similar claims in other international courts.

Three men known as the Chester Trio have maintained their innocence in a murder case for more than two decades. Now they are one step closer to gaining their freedom from prison. We'll have a report from Philadelphia for you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: Almost two weeks after a judge overturned their convictions, three men in Pennsylvania are still in prison and waiting to learn if prosecutors will retry them for murder they say they didn't commit. Attorneys from the Innocence Project say there is no DNA evidence connecting the men to the murder of a 70-year-old woman. CNN's Danny Freeman has more on the defendants known as the Chester Trio.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VANESSA POTKIN, DIRECTOR OF SPECIAL LITIGATION, THE INNOCENCE PROJECT: We are inundated with requests for assistance, but his just screamed out as a wrongful conviction.

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These attorneys felt it immediately.

NILAM SANGHVI, LEGAL DIRECTOR, PENNSYLVANIA INNOCENCE PROJECT: This one had the red flags.

PAUL CASTELEIRO, LEGAL DIRECTOR, CENTURION: I actually jumped at the opportunity to take it.

FREEMAN (voice-over): But still when they took the case, these lawyers and their exoneration teams knew this would be a hard fight.

POTKIN: It's a nightmare, and it's so insane.

FREEMAN: More than 20 years ago, three Pennsylvanians, Derrick Chappell, Morton Johnson, and Sam Grasty were all sentenced to life in prison for a gruesome murder that happened here in the city of Chester just outside of Philadelphia.

FREEMAN (voice-over): The victim was 70 year-old Henrietta Nickens. She was beaten to death and semen had been found inside of her. All along the three convicted men dubbed the Chester Trio, maintained their innocence.

SANGHVI: When you're offered to get out of jail and, you know, just a few years versus facing a potential life without parole sentence to have that moral strength to push forward, I think is so impressive.

FREEMAN (voice-over): The prosecution's key witness was a 15-year-old who claimed he was the lookout and traded his testimony for a plea deal.

SANGHVI: He was young. He was cognitively impaired. He was under pressure from police with other charges.

FREEMAN (voice-over): Also, DNA from the semen found at the scene did not match any of the three men, according to court filings.

CASTELEIRO: None of their DNA was found, none of their DNA was there. They never ever were -- they weren't in the apartment as alleged by the state.

FREEMAN (voice-over): So when 2021, the attorneys tried to new tactic, using modern DNA testing techniques to tell this jacket left behind at the crime scene, which prosecutors tried to link to the men.

[04:20:02]

Once again, the attorney say the DNA did not match the Chester Trio.

POTKIN: All of the DNA comes back to a genetic profile that has been labeled unknown male number one. Law enforcement should be dedicating their resources to finding who unknown male number one is and bringing true justice to the victim in this case. FREEMAN (voice-over): The prosecution argued they never tried to connect the semen to the defendants in the original trials. So the new evidence was moot.

Writing in recent court filings: The totality of the evidence, including the post-conviction DNA evidence is just as consistent, if not more consistent with Ms. Nickens having consensual intercourse prior to the assault as it is with an unknown perpetrator committing both a rape and an assault.

CASTELEIRO: Their explanation did not hold water.

FREEMAN: But last month, a Pennsylvania judge vacated each of their convictions and order new trial. Vanessa Potkin of the Innocence Project described the moment Chappell and Johnson found out.

POTKIN: They just went inside and they hugged and they cried and just, you know, this has been the moment that they've been fighting for.

SANGHVI: I'm looking forward to going to see him in a couple of days and giving them that big hug because this is just a huge step forward.

FREEMAN (voice-over): The three men are still behind bars today waiting now to see if the district attorneys office decides to appeal or retry the case.

CASTELEIRO: To take it all of that 20s away from them, and their 30s, and now, they're on in their 40s. And the idea that you would continue it its just such an injustice and it has -- it has to stop. It has to stop.

FREEMAN: Now, the Delaware County District Attorney's Office did not comment on these convictions being thrown out, but they did say that they have until April 27th to make a decision, and there have been no planned announcements at this time.

But I just want to say, this moment is bittersweet. On the one hand, you have these attorneys who are incredibly optimistic for their clients to get their freedom from this crime they say they did not commit.

But the family of the victim here, Henrietta Nickens, they thought that they had closure, and now that's very much been uprooted. So we'll see what the District Attorney ultimately decides to do, but the story not quite over yet.

Danny Freeman, CNN, Philadelphia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Just ahead, Paris is on alert as fans gather for the Champions League quarterfinals. We'll explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: Security has been ramped up for this week's Champions League matches after threats from the terror group ISIS. More than 1,200 security personnel are expected to be deployed in Paris today when Paris Saint-Germain plays Barcelona.

Tuesday's match between Arsenal and Bayern Munich in London went off as scheduled despite the threat. London's Metropolitan Police said the U.K. terrorism threat level remains at substantial, meaning an attack is likely. And in Madrid, Spanish security forces reinforced security measures ahead of Real Madrid's match with Man City.

Now, Tiger Woods is getting ready for this week's Masters, even though he's been feeling some flare-ups. Tiger told reporters that his body aches every day, but the five-time Masters champ says this particular tournament has meant so much to him and his family. And Woods thinks he may have one more green jacket heading his way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIGER WOODS, GOLFER: I love golf. I do. I've always loved it. I played other sports growing up, but I just have always loved the sport.

[04:25:03]

And I'd love to compete and be able to have the love I have for the game and the love for competition be intertwined.

If everything comes together, I think I can get one more. Describe that any more than are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Now, for the stories in the spotlight, this hour, the new trailer for the Joker movie sequel teases a bad romance for its star.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LADY GAGA, ACTOR, HARLEY QUINN IN "JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX": I haven't done anything with my life like you have.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What the world needs now is the only thing that there's just too little of.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Well, that's Lady Gaga there as Harley Quinn seemingly capturing the heart of Joaquin Phoenix's Joker. The first Joker movie and more than a billion dollars at the box office. It also won two Oscars, including Best Actor for Phoenix. The sequel will be released in October by Warner Brothers Pictures, which shares a parent company with CNN.

Now, fans will get a chance to lose themselves once again in the trials and tribulations of Bridget Jones.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RENEE ZELLWEGER, ACTOR, "BRIDGET JONES": Maybe this was the mysterious Mr. Wright I've been waiting my whole life to meet.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You remember Bridget?

ZELLWEGER: Maybe not.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She used to run around your lawn with no clothes on, remember?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Now, Renee Zellweger is set to return to the title role in "Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy." It's the fourth installment of franchise and picks up 14 years after Bridget landed Mark Darcy, played by Colin Firth. Hugh Grant will reprise his role as Daniel Cleaver, her former boss.

"Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy" is expected to come out on Valentine's Day, of course, next year.

Scrabble is one of the most beloved board games on the market. But it is too challenging and competitive for a younger generation, some people say. Mattel is releasing a new version of the game called "Scrabble Together" for sale in Europe. One side of the board is the original game. The other side is a, quote, less intimidating version.

Instead of competing, players collaborate on words. There are also helper cards if players get stuck. Mattel says its research shows younger players just aren't as ruthless as they used to be. And that's the story.

Thanks for joining me here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster in London. CNN "THIS MORNING" is up next after a quick break.

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