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New Day Saturday

U.S. Government Report on Climate Change Contains Dire Warnings; Al Gore: Trump Admin Trying to Bury Dire Climate Report; Trump Refutes Man-Made Climate Change; Paris Protests Over Rising Fuel Costs Turn Violent; Roger Stone Associate in Plea Talks with Robert Mueller Team; Nation's Doctors Take on the NRA; Missionary John Chau's Last Letter Before Isolated Tribe Killed Him; Blast Rocks Minnesota Neighborhood. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired November 24, 2018 - 08:00   ET

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

[00:00:00] MALE: A U.S. government report on climate change contains dire warnings.

FEMALE: It is frightening and screams serious action has to be taken now.

FEMALE: Former Vice President and environmentalist Al Gore said the President may try to hide the truth, but his own scientists and experts have made it as stark and clear as possible.

MALE: Another controversial figure possibly ready to flip and help Robert Mueller investigate the Trump campaign.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGER STONE, AMERICAN POLITICAL CONSULTANT: This idea that Jerry Corsi could implicate me, there's simply no evidence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roger Stone's personal motto is admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattack.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He could end up providing a really critical missing link between Russian hackers and WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTI PAUL, CO-HOST, CNN NEW DAY WEEKEND: Well, good morning. Thank you so much for getting up with us here at 8 o' clock on a Saturday. I'm Christi Paul.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CORRESPONDENT: And I'm Martin Savidge, in for Victor Blackwell.

PAUL: So President Trump is spend long holiday weekend at his estate in South Florida. He's grappling with the reality that Democrats are going to soon be in control of the House of Representatives.

SAVIDGE: The President continues to push his legislative agenda, calling on Congress to strike a bipartisan deal on border security. PAUL: Democrats have set their own agenda though on their to-do list,

investigating Saudi Arabia and looking into the President's financial ties to the kingdom.

In the meantime, a new government report details devastating effects of unchecked climate change, warning of premature deaths, of extreme economic consequences, if global warming is not addressed.

SAVIDGE: Meanwhile, we're also monitoring the tense situation in Paris this morning, as protesters clashed with police. This is the second weekend of demonstrations and violence in France over rising fuel prices. We're live in Paris in just a moment.

PAUL: We want to begin though with this warning about the effects of climate change in America specifically. The President just this week openly mocked the idea of climate change, as Americans faced the coldest Thanksgiving in nearly a century.

But the scientists behind this study didn't just look at climate shifts over one day or even one year. CNN's Allison Chin Chow joins us now. And Allison, they actually looked at the long term, right?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, METEOROLOGIST AT CNN/HLN/CNN INTERNATIONAL: Yes, they do, and they're talking about the short term problems we are already starting to see now. But the long-term effects of where they will end up being decades and even hundreds of years from now.

And more importantly, they broke it down by region, and I think this really helps for folks here in the United States to understand, based off where you live, what your biggest impacts will be. Take for example Out West, we all hear about the fires in California and other states out there as well.

California is known for its fire season. But really in the past few years, we've started noticing it's no longer a season. These fires can now take place any month out of the year and they've started to take precautions about this and what do you do to fix this down the road.

Another thing, for areas of the Southern U.S., we're talking about an increase of extreme weather events, things like hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding events. Those may end up being more frequent than we're seeing right now or to an extreme level.

One thing to note, every single area of this map has the end -- is expected to have extreme temperature swings increase as well. Now, we're not just talking about heat waves. This also applies took cold snaps, like the one the Northeast experienced earlier this week around Thanksgiving. Those are expected to become more frequent in the next several years and even the decades after them.

But here's one thing to note, while this report really kind of breaks down the United States impacts, this is still on a global scale. This is the map of global temperature rise and you can really see how it's gone up exponentially since the Industrial Revolution.

But the report doesn't just talk just doom and gloom; here's all the bad things that are going to happen down the road. It also tries to come up with solutions to these problems. Especially because, so the three biggest industries that will be impacted are agriculture, real estate, and the healthcare industry.

For example, in the Southeastern United States, flooding events are expected to increase. So the Acadiana Planning Commission was created to help address that increased flood risk. For wildfires out in the West, federal forests have already started to develop adaptation strategies. And in the Midwest, one of the areas that is expected to be most impacted by climate change, the agriculture industry. Iowa state's use of prairie strips is expected to help reduce crop loss.

And this is important because, in this particular report, they talk about two crops specifically. In the Midwest, less than 75% of today's corn yields will be expected, and that same region could lose more than 25% of the soybean yields in the future.

[00:05:00] SAVIDGE: Allison Chinchar, thank you very much for that report.

PAUL: So for more on the analysis here, we want to bring in Director of the Earth Science -- Earth System Science Center and Distinguished Professor at Penn State Michael Mann. He's also the author of The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, And Driving Us Crazy.

Michael, thank you so much - Professor Mann, I should say, thank you for being here, we appreciate it. You've heard this report. For people who are sitting at home and wondering what does this really mean to me, can you break it down for them?

MICHAEL MANN, DIRECTOR OF THE EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE CENTER AT PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY: Sure. In fact, we don't have to use our imagination anymore, because we saw this play out over the past several months; the extreme summer of 2018, the unprecedented wildfires which you alluded to, the floods, the droughts, the heat waves, the super storms.

The impacts of climate change are no longer subtle, we're seeing them play out in real time on our television screens, in our newspaper headlines, and this latest report simply makes official, simply documents in a quantitative and rigorous and robust manner what we're already seeing.

The effects of climate change are upon us, we are already seeing the danger posed by unchecked climate change.

PAUL: So Professor Mann, what's going to save us, is it the right government, the right Congress, the right President, the right technological advances, is it ourselves, I mean what is the solution here?

MANN: It's all of the above. I wish there were a magic bullet. But in fact we really have to focus as individuals on two different things. We have to make changes in our lifestyle that we're able to. There are lots of things that we can do that reduce our carbon emissions and they make us happier, healthier, they save us money.

Riding a bicycle when we can rather than driving, using public transportation, more energy-efficient vehicles and appliances, all these things that we can do that are low hanging fruit. They save us money and they help us reduce our carbon footprint.

But at the same time, if we're truly going to tackle this problem, we need incentives at the highest level in our economy. That means that we need politicians who will be willing to do what's best for us, rather than what's best for powerful special interests that they too often advocate for.

By passing bills, by passing a bill in Congress, by putting in place legislation that will put a price on carbon that will incentivize the shift away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy, that's already underway. We're already moving in the right direction, we just need to accelerate that transition.

PAUL: So Professor Mann, you know that this report from scientists, in the Trump administration essentially, contradicts what President Trump thinks about, what he believes about climate change.

He just said last week that it hasn't changed his mind, the fires that he saw in California. If you could sit down with the President, what would you say to him?

MANN: I'm not sure there's anything that I can say to him. There's a famous saying attributed to Upton Sinclair; it's very difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it.

In the case of Trump, look, he's appointed fossil fuel lobbyists and climate change deniers to the highest level in his cabinet. He has publicly tried to discredit the science of climate change, while his policies have sought to dismantle the environmental protections that were put in place by the Obama administration and other past Republican and Democratic administrations to tackle this problem.

So, we need to work around Donald Trump, which is to say, look we're already making a lot of progress, we might not get the sorts of policies we need from the President over the next two years. But we're seeing enough action at the state level, at the local level, and what our businesses are doing that we're on the path to meet our obligations under the Paris Treaty.

So, we're making progress here. In a couple of years, maybe we can elect a President who will actually be willing to help us in this transition.

PAUL: Professor Michael Mann and author Michael Mann, thank you so much.

MANN: Thank you.

SAVIDGE: Perhaps the biggest impediment, as you just heard, to enacting any kind of law impacting climate change will be President Trump. He has openly questioned whether it's even real. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord. I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.

I don't think it's a hoax, I think there's probably a difference, but I don't know that it's man-made. I will say this, I don't want to give trillions and trillions of dollars, I don't want to lose millions and millions of jobs, I don't want to be put at a disadvantage.

I have a strong opinion on what great climate--

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: Alright, so there is the science of climate change and then there is the politics.

[00:10:00] We want to bring in Amie Parnes, she's co-author of Shattered and Senior Political Correspondent for The Hill. Good morning.

AMIE PARNES, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT FOR THE HILL AND CO-AUTHOR OF SHATTERED: Good morning Martin.

SAVIDGE: Why is it that the President, despite all of the scientific evidence and now this latest report that specifically looks at the impact on Americans, why does he continue to maintain that he doesn't really believe it?

PARNES: I think because his interests aren't really aligned with it. He's pro-coal, he is anti kind of all these policies that Obama has put into place. I think a lot of it has to do with that, that he has rolled back a lot of policies in the Obama administration.

But I think it really doesn't serve him, it doesn't serve a lot of the people who elected him. So he's taking this -- despite the fact that another report came out last year at this time and said the same thing that he has seen that hurricanes, that these super storms, the fires now have all happened under his watch, and he keeps pretending that it's not -- it's not real.

SAVIDGE: Alright, so clearly this is not going to be an issue for the GOP, but we've seen progressive Democrats push to make climate change a priority next month, when they take control of the House.

How do you think that this report will fuel those ambitions?

PARNES: I think that it will. I mean you're already seeing people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez come in and say what they've done is not good enough, that it's one thing to say it's important, it's another thing to say that this is a priority.

And she hopes to -- I think she and others -- other progressives are coming in saying, look we have proof now that this needs to be a priority, that this should be a huge part of the platform going in - and right now but going into 2020.

And you're seeing candidates also 2020 -- potential 2020 candidates also talking more about it and you'll see people like Michael Bloomberg put a spotlight on it. Bernie Sanders came out yesterday and talked a little bit about it. So, you're seeing these issues kind of come into view right now.

SAVIDGE: It was -- of course this report was mandated by Congress, and the Trump administration was sort of -- it had to release it. But do you think that releasing it on a Black Friday, weeks ahead of schedule -- I mean it seems that they were really not wanting many people to pay attention.

PARNES: Yes, I mean it's the day that -- it's probably pretty much the slowest news day of the year. People aren't really focused on their televisions, on reports coming out from government agents. So, surely they tried to preempt that, they obviously didn't want it coming out during December and giving Democrats more fuel going into the new tenure for so many of these Congress -- people going into Congress.

So I think this was done intentionally and you can tell by the White House response yesterday that they think that this was an exaggerated thing, that this was something they called extreme, these were the extreme cases.

So, you can still see that they're really not buying into it, even though they've put out this report.

SAVIDGE: Yes. Amie Parnes, thank you very much, good to see you.

PARNES: Good to see you, Martin.

PAUL: All right, I want to take you to Paris right now. Measures taken to encourage more environmentally-friendly policies there, they haven't always been embraced, and right now we are seeing a big brunt of what is coming from the protesters there.

You see the people on the street, live pictures. We understand that at one point, someone estimated this yellow vest protest, protesting rising fuel costs and more, another tax increase on diesel is coming in 2019. They're saying there was about 5,000 people on the streets, that was one estimation.

Jim Bittermann is with us from the Paris Bureau right now. Just overhead, he can see over his shoulder, some of these protests. And Jim, I just saw you with a gas mask on, are you experiencing any of the effects of what's happening on the street below you?

JIM BITTERMANN, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, CNN: I certainly am, Christi. In fact, I have to apologize a little for my appearance, because in fact we've just got a huge blast of tear gas up here on the sixth floor.

In any case, let me just show you what's going on in the streets below, and some of the teargas is now clearing out. But basically you see the yellow vested protestors, who've been here all morning long since about 9 o'clock this morning Paris time. It's now after 2:00 in the afternoon.

And they've been basically building these barricades and then the police are breaking up the barricades, and then they're coming back again and rebuilding them elsewhere along the Champs-Elysees.

They were told that they could not protest on the Champs-Elysees, and as a consequence, the demonstrators are just encourage them to - excuse me just a second - just encourage them to come along and protest here.

[00:15:00] And so, all afternoon long, they have been continuing this battle up and down the avenue. The authorities did say that they should protest, and we are in an area near the Eiffel Tower, but the protestors refused that, as much as any organization with these protestors.

Because one of the problems for the government is that there is no real person in charge of these demonstrations. There are just a lot of small groups of people who are angry about rising fuel prices. But now, it's king of morphed into a movement that is against the government in general.

President Macron approval rating and popularity has dropped to 25%, according to the latest public opinion poll. And people are worried about high prices and all that sort of thing. And as a consequence, it's very easy for them to get a yellow vest, which all French motorists are supposed to have in their cars, take their yellow vest and become a part of this movement.

Christi, Martin.

PAUL: We're getting word, Jim, that French Far-Right political leader Marion Le Pen is rejecting accusations that she fueled today's violence. What do you know about these protesters? I mean you just made the mention that there's no one person organizing it that you know of, who the government could speak to.

But what do we know about the people coming out here, and we're hearing that blast again, we've seen fire -- we've seen cars on fire, we see the water cannons going off there, Jim was being affected by the tear gas. Certainly, this has grown into something they did not expect.

BITTERMANN: Exactly. I think that while the police -- just Interior Minister a little while ago said that they were planning for this and they had a -- I was here this morning and I know that at about 9 o'clock this morning, the demonstrators started to infiltrate the avenue, the police were nowhere to be seen.

And as a consequence, they were able to take over the Champs-Elysees and stop traffic. So that part of it, I think, was a little bit of a fib as far as the government's concerned. But in any case, the protesters expect to continue this afternoon.

And the thing about Marion Le Pen, basically what happened was that the Interior Minister sort of blamed her for this -- for the action on the Champs-Elysees, because she said a couple of days ago that she didn't understand why the government was forbidding people to protest on the Champs-Elysees, because after all they come out and celebrate on Champs-Elysees when there's something positive to celebrate, so why should they be not allowed to protest.

And the government said from the very beginning they did not want people on the Champs-Elysees. This is a terrible thing for the image of France. It was only -- excuse me -- it was only about two weeks ago that the world's leaders were gathered here with President Macron, and they paraded up the avenue. So, it's a big change since then.

PAUL: Jim Bittermann, take good care of yourself, so we're going to come back to you in just a little bit as we continue to watch what's happening there. Thank you.

BITTERMANN: You bet.

SAVIDGE: Thank you Jim.

And still to come, more trouble looms for President Trump, after an associate of Roger Stone says that he is negotiating a plea deal with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office. We'll have more details of that just to come.

PAUL: And an American missionary's last words to his family. His family talking about how he hoped to spread the word of Jesus Christ to a remote tribe, even though he feared for his own life.

[00:20:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: There are new developments in the Russia investigation. Roger Stone's associate Jerome Corsi said that he is in plea negotiations with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team.

Of course, he could face a number of charges, ranging from perjury to obstruction of justice in regards to his relationship with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Roger Stone. Last week, of course he said that he expects to be indicted for giving false information to the Special Counsel or to one of the other grand jury.

Joining me now to discuss this is Criminal Defense Attorney, Page Pate. Good morning Page, good to see you.

PAGE PATE, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Good morning Martin, thank you.

SAVIDGE: So, I want you to listen first and foremost to Trump's ally Roger Stone, and hear how he sort of spins all of these developments. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGER STONE, AMERICAN POLITICAL CONSULTANT: This idea that Jerry Corsi could implicate me, there's simply no evidence whatsoever that would show that I knew about the source or the content of any allegedly stolen emails or any allegedly hacked emails that were published by WikiLeaks, just not so. (END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: There is of course, he sounds extremely confident, and I'm wondering Page whether you think he should sound so confident.

PATE: Martin, I don't think so. I mean we've already seen reporting that he had advance knowledge that something was going to happen in connection with John Podesta. He sent out a Tweet that's now been well publicized that indicated he knew something was going on.

He has also told other people that he had some connection, some back- channel to Julian Assange at WikiLeaks. So we know there's some meat on this bone. The question is, are his statements now going to be found inconsistent with what he said before, and can that open him up to additional charges like making a false statement, like perjury, and perhaps obstruction of justice.

SAVIDGE: And of course he sort of implies, well he said he believes that he's the victim of a perjury trap, and that would mean maybe another indictment as possible. What does this mean for the investigation moving forward?

And before actually I have you answer that, when we talk about a perjury trap, just so people understand, he's apparently saying what, at some point he told the truth or didn't tell the truth, how does that work?

PATE: Well Martin, we've heard a lot about perjury traps as this investigation has been ongoing. What's critical about perjury is it has to be a statement about a material fact.

[00:25:00] We've heard these examples. Well they asked me if my tie was blue, I said it was red, it turns out it was blue, so they've got me on perjury. That's not true at all. He would have had to have made a clear intentional false statement about some material fact of this investigation for there to ever be any consideration of perjury.

Now, is there a risk of that happening when you're being interviewed for 40 hours, as he said that he was? Absolutely. If you're not straight on the facts and you start making up things or trying to just please the Special Counsel's office or cover-up for somebody else like Roger Stone, there's certainly the possibility that you can make critical false statements and it sounds like that's exactly what the Special Counsel's office is seizing on and focusing on at this point.

SAVIDGE: All right. Page Pate, good to see you, thank you very much and Happy Thanksgiving, belated.

PATE: Thank you Martin, appreciate it.

PAUL: Well, the NRA has a strong message for doctors in our country. The NRA says stay in your lane. How the medical community is taking a stand against gun violence.

[00:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: All right. I want to show you some live pictures out of Paris right now as we continue to follow the developments there.

SAVIDGE: Demonstrators are take thing to the streets over rising fuel costs. Police have been using teargas and water cannons against some of the 8,000 protestors. They have gathered in the French capital to express frustration with President Macron after tax hikes on diesel and gas.

Macron is also pushing incentives to purchase electric vehicles. And many of the protesters take issue with the encouragement to move towards environmentally friendly policies, primarily because of the cost.

Government officials blame Far-Right extremists for inflaming the tensions here. This is all occurring on the Champs-Elysees, you see the Arc de Triomphe in the background there. So one of the most famous streets in all the world and certainly one known to many Americans.

PAUL: And just to clarify what you're looking at there, I know a lot of times we see something like this and we see people in yellow vest, and we think that those are authorities, they're police officers. They are not.

The people in the yellow vests are the protesters. It's called the yellow vest protest, because there in Paris, everyone has a yellow vest in their car. And it seems like this may have taken - the scope of it may have taken authorities by surprise. You see there is something burning. It looks like it may have been a vehicle at one point.

But as Martin said, tear gas has been used, water cannons have been used to try to get everybody under some sort of control, and that just doesn't seem to be happening today. So, we'll keep you posted on what's happening there.

Let's talk about the gun debate. Gun debate here in America, two big groups now seeming to go head to head, the NRA versus the nation's doctors. Earlier this month, a medical journal suggested new ways for doctors to reduce gun violence, such as asking patients if they have guns in their homes, counseling them about gun safety.

Well, the NRA, not so happy about that. They went to Twitter and said basically someone needs to tell these doctors to stay in their lane. So doctors decided to share some photos, showing the damage that gun shots can do.

Please let me forewarn you here, I do not want you to be taken off- guard, these are graphic photos and they're hard to look at. But this is from Dr. Kathrine Holte, here we go. She tweeted this photo saying, I am a trauma surgeon, this is what it looks like. #StayInMyLane #ThisisMyLane.

And there were thousands of others doing the same thing. That picture isn't actually loading properly, but it is a bloody scene of them in an emergency room treating a gunshot victim.

Dr. Joseph Sakran, who is a survivor of gun violence himself is with us now, as well as Dr. Brendan Campbell who is also a member of the NRA. I appreciate both of you for being here, thank you. I wanted to ask you Dr. Campbell, first and foremost, you own guns. You must in some way be -- feel like you are caught in the middle here.

What is your perspective as a gun owner?

DR. BRENDAN CAMPBELL, PEDIATRIC SURGEON: Well, first and foremost, I'm not a member of National Rifle Association, but I am a gun owner. I'm a hunter, I've owned guns for a long time.

But it's not really about being caught in the middle, it's about finding ways to find common ground, gun owners, non-gun owners alike and to use a public health approach to try and make some meaningful progress on this issue.

I think the one downside to this, this is my lane, this is not my lane argument is we are all in this together, and if we polarize the debate, we're not going to make progress on it. So, it's very important that we work collaboratively together on this to make some meaningful progress.

PAUL: So, Dr. Sakran, I know that you're somebody who sees this violence all the time, you've experienced it yourself.

[00:35:00] You were hit with a bullet, I believe when you were 17. What would you like to say to the NRA?

DR. JOSEPH SAKRAN, EMERGENCY GENERAL SURGERY DIRECTOR, JOHNS HOPKINS: Well good morning. I think that type of rhetoric that we heard, to me, is just a clear demonstration of the lack of understanding of how complex a health problem this is.

And to think that health professionals are not part of the solution is unacceptable and I think this kind of goes along with the false narrative that is an attempt to polarize this debate. Like you heard from Dr. Campbell, I think it's very clear, when I've talked to hundreds if not thousands of gun owners, we have a lot more in common than divides us on this issue.

I want to real quickly just give another heads-up to our audience here. We do have that picture for you, and I just think it's appropriate to show it now, because Dr. Sakran, you were talking about how you are on the frontlines of this because you are the ones treating people for gunshot wounds and emergency rooms.

Is there a space do you think Dr. Campbell, is there a space for gun right advocates and the medical community to craft solutions together, or is it too inflamed?

CAMPBELL: Well, there's absolutely an opportunity. I mean we have a common purpose here, right, it's to reduce firearm injury and to make firearm ownership as safe as possible. And I think the American College of Surgeons Firearms Strategy Team, which I'm a part of, just published 13 recommendations for how we can make the United States safer. And we're not the first ones to do this, but we're the first group of gun-owning physicians to support these types of recommendations. There are things as simple as universal background checks and providing federal funding for research on this issue.

We have to start treating this problem the same way we're treating our patients. We identify what the best treatments are for -- it doesn't matter whether it's a tumor or whether it's trauma, what are the best solutions and we need to implement them.

Dr. Sakran, was there ever a moment, when Dr. Campbell talks about some of these recommendations, and again some of them are counseling patients on gun safety, asking parents if they have guns in the home.

Is there ever a moment where you look and think I am a doctor, I did not think these were the conversations I was going to have to have as part of my career?

SAKRAN: Well, I think the fact is that, this is a public health crisis that we're facing. We just saw the CDC and FDA put out a warning to Americans that we should throw away all our lettuce, and that was because 32 individuals were infected with E. coli and 13 were hospitalized.

When you look at that same time period, 240 children were shot and 78 died. So we must have the same type of proportional response that mirrors the burden of disease that we're facing. And I think us working together with other individuals is the only way we're going to come up with common-sense solutions to reduce firearm injury and death in this country.

PAUL: Dr. Campbell, your final thoughts here.

CAMPBELL: Well I think Dr. Sakran is right on target. This is an issue that we've known about for a long time and it hasn't gotten the same amount of attention in terms of federally funded research and discussion by -- that it deserves.

And I think, if we're going to make meaningful progress on this issue, gun owners and non-gun owners, we're going to have to find ways to collaborate and work together.

PAUL: All right, Dr. Joseph Sakran and Dr. Brendan Campbell, thank you both so much for making time for us today.

SAKRAN: Thanks for having us.

CAMPBELL: Thanks for having us this morning.

PAUL: Absolutely.

SAVIDGE: An American missionary's last letter detailed his desire to evangelize the people who ended up killing him. We'll tell you what else we've learned, next.

[00:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK) PAUL: We have new details this morning for you regarding a letter an American missionary wrote before he was killed on a remote island near India.

John Chau gave the letter to fisherman before he left their boat for the last time.

SAVIDGE: And it shows that he knew the isolated tribes people on that island were dangerous.

Chau wrote, you guys might thing I'm crazy in all this, but I think it's worth it to declare Jesus to these people. Please do not be angry at them or at God if I get killed. It's believed that Chau was killed by the tribe during his mission trip to that island.

CNN's Polo Sandoval has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POLO SANDOVAL, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, CNN: This is one of the oldest and most isolated tribes in the world and authorities say they're responsible for last week's killing of American missionary John Allen Chau.

This archive footage from Survival International provides some of the few existing images of the tribe known as the Sentinelese that live in complete isolation on the tiny island of North Sentinel. According to Indian officials, Chau illegally paid fishermen to take him to the isolated island, hoping to convert the tribe to Christianity.

Authorities believe he first canoed to shore on November 16, deliberately disregarding an established perimeter around the island. According to journal entries left with the fishermen and shared with The Washington Post, the 26 year old wrote, I hollered my name is John, I love you and Jesus loves you.

[00:45:00] He was then reported shot at by a member of the tribe with an arrow piercing his Bible. The next day, Chau made a second attempt, but never returned.

The fisherman he hired later reported seeing the young man's body buried on the beach by tribe members. Chau's last entry in his journal reads, you guys might think I'm crazy in all this, but I think it's worthwhile to declare Jesus to these people. God, I don't want to die.

In 2006, the same tribe killed two poachers who had been illegally fishing near their island. Survival International, a group advocating for tribal people, believes the natives' decision to remain isolated should be respected.

SOPHIE GRIG, SENIOR RESEARCHER, SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL: They've made it very clear they don't want contact. Somebody comes, they have no idea what he's coming for and why. I think it's far more self-defense than it is murder.

SANDOVAL: On social media, Chau's family wrote, their son loved God, life, helping those in need and had nothing but love for the Sentinelese people. We forgive those reportedly responsible for his death, they wrote. All they can do is wait to find out when or if their son's body will be recovered.

Polo Sandoval, CNN New York.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: Joining us now, Mary Ho, All Nations' International Executive Leader, the missionary organization John Chou was affiliated with. She says he was a gracious sensitive ambassador of Jesus Christ she wanted others to know of God's great love for them.

SAVIDGE: Mary, thank you for joining us. We're very sorry for the loss that you have suffered. Tell us more about John. He obviously was a remarkable person and certainly very strong in his faith.

MARY HO, INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE LEADER, ALL NATIONS: Yes thank you Martin. Good morning and first of all, I just want to say here in All Nations, we are so grieved and saddened and shocked by this news.

And we love John and we are mourning his death, and praying for his family, his friends and the people that he loved on the North Sentinel island.

PAUL: I know that you're in touch with his family. Did this surprise anybody that he would go to these lengths to try to get to this restricted island, which we do need to point out? I mean it was illegal to do so.

HO: Well, John has -- since his high school days, he found out about the North Sentinelese I think through Googling and looking at Joshua Project. And since then, he's developed a great love for them and has spent the last 10 years in every decision he made to plan to reach out to them with the love of God.

So even the major he chose, he chose to major in sports science, in exercise science and health. He got trained as an EMT, he worked as a wilderness EMT, all to prepare him for -- to share the love of God with the North Sentinelese. He took classes in linguistics and cultural anthropology.

So, as far as we know, he very well prepared for this moment. And before he left, he sent his last newsletter to friends and supporters and champions, and he was very aware that the Indian government just lifted a travel ban on those islands.

In August, the Indian government lifted a travel ban to 29 islands, and one of those islands was the North Sentinel island. So, he went in knowing that the travel ban was lifted.

SAVIDGE: Mary, we have to ask, did your organization in any way support or have advanced knowledge or know he was doing this, and did you want him to go?

HO: Yes, so John Chau is a member and a missionary of All Nations. We knew his calling to share the love of Jesus Christ with the North Sentinelese and we knew he was going and we sent him.

PAUL: So, you supported this mission that he took on independently?

HO: Well, he has been preparing his whole life for this. We knew he was very well prepared. When I met John, because I had talked to him for a couple of years before I finally met him, and I was just so impressed. I was so impressed what a calm, consistent and humble young man he was.

[00:50:00] PAUL: I'm just curious, and we only have a couple seconds left, but knowing the danger that he was walking into, was there ever any conversation about if he was so determined to do it, about making sure he didn't go alone?

HO: Yes, and there were several people who would have been happy to go with him, but this is typical of John. I think he did not want to endanger other people's lives and so finally he went alone, and that was his decision. But there were others who were willing to go with him.

SAVIDGE: That is a very sad tale. Mary Ho, thank you very much for joining us and clarifying the issues. Thank you.

PAUL: Mary, thank you.

HO: Thank you very much.

PAUL: All right. We have some video to show you here. It is amazing, a home explosion rocks a small neighborhood in Minnesota. This is the aftermath, but we do have the video of the moment it exploded; you'll see that in a moment.

[00:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: An 80-year-old man is in the hospital with critical injuries this morning after a powerful explosion ripped his home to pieces. It happened Friday morning in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The explosion also damaged multiple homes and buildings in the area. Neighbors say they were shaken by the blast.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was just watching TV, playing video games and it was a loud explosion. I mean like shook the house, like somebody came and kicked the house.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Next thing, the whole house started shaking. Her brother was still sleeping and it actually woke him out of bed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: Authorities believe a natural gas leak may be to blame for that explosion.

Meanwhile, more news with Smerconish straight ahead.

PAUL: Yes, we are going to see you again in just one hour.