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CNN International: Nearly 200 Arrested Amid Deadly Anti- Government Protests in New Caledonia; Biden and Trump Agree to 2 Debates in June and September; Guns Pour into Haiti's Capital Despite International Isolation. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired May 16, 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: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster. Top stories today.
Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico is out of danger after being shot 5 times and undergoing surgery on Wednesday. The Deputy Prime Minister says Fico's condition remains serious.
No one else was injured in the attack and the alleged gunman is in custody. Local media reporting that the man is a 71-year-old from southern Slovakia, a writer and a poet.
Michael Cohen will be back on the stand today. Donald Trump's defense team says they'll continue the cross-examination of the president's former fixer. On Tuesday, they painted Cohen as a liar who hates Trump and wants to see him behind bars.
And lawyers for U.S. Senator Bob Menendez are trying to shift the blame for his alleged corruption to his wife. In opening statements of his bribery trial on Wednesday, the defense claimed Nadine Menendez kept her husband in the dark on financial matters.
Tensions high in the French territory of New Caledonia, where nearly 200 people have been arrested amid anti-government protests. Violence broke out on Monday after the French government proposed changes to New Caledonia's constitution, which would give more French residents living in the territory the right to vote. Pro-independence groups feel it's an attempt by France to consolidate power over the Pacific island chain.
At least four people have been killed in the protest violence. France has declared a state of emergency in that territory, sending an additional 500 police officers to assist the nearly 2,000 police and military officers already stationed there.
CNN's Ivan Watson has more on the history of the territory and the cause of this unrest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An island paradise in turmoil in the South Pacific, the French territory of New Caledonia, erupting in violence for the third straight day Wednesday. Pro-independence protesters clash with security forces, leaving shops, cars, homes burned. Mostly young demonstrators are protesting against a vote held over 10,000 miles away.
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In Paris on Tuesday, France's National Assembly passed changes to voting laws in New Caledonia. The aim of the legislation, to open up voter lists to French residents who've been in New Caledonia for 10 years. Local independence activists believe new voters want the Pacific archipelago to stay with France, which has ruled the islands since the 19th century.
DENISE FISHER, FORMER AUSTRALIAN CONSUL-GENERAL IN NOUMEA, NEW CALEDONIA: The current people are objecting to that, not just because it's being decided in Paris without them, but also they feel that they want it to be part of a negotiation, a whole negotiation, which would include another self-determination vote.
WATSON (voice-over): The French government wants more talks with the independence leaders before the voting rules are formally changed.
GABRIEL ATTAL, FRENCH PRIME MINISTER (through translator): Our priority is to find a global political agreement, the broadest possible political agreement with the separatists and the non- separatists, which will allow us to move forward and write the future of New Caledonia.
WATSON (voice-over): Leaders of the independence movement are calling for an end to the violence, which has turned deadly. For the first time, deaths reported by the president's office, as gunfire erupted between rioters and security forces.
FISHER: The last two days we've seen violence of a scale we haven't seen for 30 years in New Caledonia. It is kind of marking the end of 30 years of peace in New Caledonia.
WATSON (voice-over): New Caledonia has had the chance to vote for independence. Three recent referendums all resulted in the decision to remain with France. That's done little to defuse tension between some residents of New Caledonia and the government in Paris.
Ivan Watson, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: The European Union says Georgia will face extra hurdles in joining the bloc if lawmakers don't withdraw their controversial foreign agents bill. NATO also warns that the draft law is a mistake, saying it draws Georgia further away from Europe and closer to Moscow.
That's exactly why tens of thousands of protesters are rallying against the bill. They're gathered in Tbilisi, the latest in a weeks- long series of demonstrations. Parliament has approved the bill, but while Georgia's president can veto the legislation, lawmakers can just override that decision.
On Wednesday, protesters were joined by the foreign ministers of Estonia, Lithuania and Iceland. They explained why.
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GABRIELIUS LANDSBERGIS, LITHUANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: We're here supporting Georgia's people's aspirations to be part of EU, to be part of NATO. And it's important to send this message that we stand with them, that they are not alone, that their worries are heard and they are supported.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: Wall Street surged to record highs on Wednesday after a new report showed inflation may be cooling off. The Dow was up almost 350 points, closing near the key 40,000 level. The Nasdaq also set a new record. The S&P 500 finished above 5,300 for the first time.
The latest Consumer Price Index showed prices rose at a slower pace in April than the two months previously. Investors believe the cooler inflation, along with weak retail sales last month, could lead to the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates this year.
U.S. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump don't agree on much. But on Wednesday, they suddenly agreed to set the presidential debate schedule ahead of the crucial election in November. They'll face each other for the first time -- for the first debate rather, in late June on CNN from our studios over in Atlanta.
The second debate will be on ABC in September. CNN's Jeff Zeleny has details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, make my day, pal. I'll even do it twice.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With those words today, President Biden formally challenged and Donald Trump quickly accepted two presidential debates, with their first face-to-face encounter now set for late next month on CNN. The June 27th showdown, followed by a second one on September 10th on ABC, would become the earliest presidential debates in memory, a sign that both rivals are eager to appear side-by-side to gain advantage in their historic rematch. After weeks of taunting from Trump, who often deploys an extra podium as a prop --
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That's for Joe Biden. I'm trying to get him to debate.
ZELENY (voice-over): -- the Biden campaign sought to gain the upper hand in the debate over debates in a video today.
BIDEN: Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. Since then, he hasn't shown up for debate. Now he's acting like he wants to debate me again.
So let's pick the dates, Donald. I hear you're free on Wednesdays.
ZELENY (voice-over): That message, a not-so-veiled reference to the former president's criminal trial now underway in New York. Court is not in session on Wednesdays. Even as he accepted two debates, Trump called for more.
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TRUMP: I really think he has to debate. He might as well get it over with. Probably should do it early so that he can, you know, he's not going to get any better.
ZELENY (voice-over): Televised debates have long been a storied part of presidential campaigns. With history-making moments for candidates.
RONALD REGAN, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience.
ZELENY (voice-over): But American history offers no modern-day guide for a sequel to this.
Because they want to give good health care.
CHRIS WALLACE, DEBATE HOST: If I may ask my question, sir.
TRUMP: (INAUDIBLE)
TRUMP: Would you shut up, man?
TRUMP: Did you use the word smart? So you said you went to Delaware State, but you forgot the name of your college.
BIDEN: He's racist. You're the worst president America has ever had. Come on.
ZELENY (voice-over): As their 2024 contest intensifies, Biden and Trump are both hoping to keep the debate stage free of third-party candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who blasted his rivals saying: They are trying to exclude me from their debate because they are afraid I would win.
Advisors to Biden and Trump have been working behind the scenes in an effort to bypass the Commission on Presidential Debates. The group has organized such forums since 1988 and had three presidential and one vice-presidential debate already set for this fall.
In a statement today, the Commission said: The American public deserves substantive debates. We will continue to be ready to execute this plan.
ZELENY: The Biden campaign is eager to have American voters focusing on this race in a side-by-side comparison with former President Donald Trump. They believe that that is a strong position for them because voters, they hope, will view this as a choice between the two candidates, not simply a referendum on the Biden administration. Of course, that is very much an open question, but one Biden advisor said that this race is, quote, stubbornly stable.
They are trying to shake this race up, and they hope a debate in June is the best way to do it.
Jeff Zeleny, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: A few things get into Haiti's capital these days because of the rampant gang violence there, but there's one clear exception, and that is guns. Still ahead, CNN investigates how weapons reach the city that little else can.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: An intense manhunt is ongoing in France for a fugitive known as "The Fly," 30-year-old Mohamed Amra, a known drug trafficker with more than a dozen convictions, escaped from a prison convoy on Tuesday after government ambushed the van that was transporting him, killing two guards and wounding three others. The French Interior Minister says no expense will be spared to catch the criminals.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GERALD DARMANIN, FRENCH INTERIOR MINISTER (through translator): We have put in a lot of resources to find not only the person that has escaped, who is a criminal, but also the gang that freed him in despicable conditions.
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I can tell you that the resources are unprecedented.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: The convoy attack has led to protests at prisons across France. Prison guards blocked the entrances to a number of prisons on Wednesday demanding better security and work conditions. One guard told our affiliate BFM TV he'd never seen a hijacking like this in his 35-year career.
Now Haiti's capital is largely cut off from the world because most of it's been overrun by gangs. But despite the isolation, guns and ammunition have no trouble getting into the city and feeding deadly violence. David Culver went to Port-au-Prince to investigate how the guns make their way there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Touching down in Haiti's gang controlled capital, we move quickly, armed guards holding the perimeter as a long line of anxious passengers hurry out the way we came in.
Driving deeper to Port-au-Prince, we pass those desperately trying to survive a crippling humanitarian crisis.
CULVER: Can you give us a sense how dire the situation is getting with each passing day?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look, were very worried right now, you've got 5 million people in Haiti who are acutely food insecure. That's the highest on record, the highest it's ever been, and we're going through the worst crisis in Haiti since the 2010 earthquake. It's that simple.
CULVER (voice-over): The WFP warns food supplies across the country are rapidly dwindling as hunger worsens.
CULVER: For folks who are getting this, how many of the meals a day are they going to get --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This will be their one meal.
CULVER (voice-over): And delivering that one daily meal to starving communities increasingly risky.
CULVER: The logistics alone are incredibly challenging. I mean, just every corner, you don't know what you're going to come across.
CULVER (voice-over): Not to mention the constantly shifting gang boundaries.
CULVER: Do you ever get scared delivering the food?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sometimes.
CULVER (voice-over): The U.N. estimates gangs control more than 80 percent of Port- au-Prince severing crucial supply lines for food, fuel, and medical supplies. And yet, while basic necessities are scarce, guns and ammo, seemingly plentiful and ravaging this country.
How are the weapons getting here and from where?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. We'll do one low pass. We'll make a hard right turn, will be back inbound.
CULVER: We're at the central plateau. This is an area that year it's been known for drug smuggling here in Haiti.
CULVER (voice-over): More recently, the U.N. says weapons also come in this way, arriving into Haiti's mountainous and hard to reach rural areas.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Likely it's going to be a light -- light airplane up. I've seen a lot of Cessnas. But it does look like that grass has been tampered with right there.
CULVER (voice-over): Often landing in the dark of night under the radar or smuggled across the land border or by sea. Law enforcement believes arms and ammo arrive at the dock of what once was a flour mill, taken over and now controlled by gangs. Haitians security sources, sharing with us these images of seized weapons from other locations. The U.N. says most guns are shipped illegally from the U.S. and end up in the hands of various gangs.
VITEL'HOMME INNOCENT, LEADER OF KRAZE BARYE (through translated text): There are always guns that come in. There are always bullets.
CULVER (voice-over): One of the most influential gang leaders, Vitel'homme Innocent, even explaining how easy it is to import guns and ammo compared with food or medicine, though not confirming where the weapons originate from.
CULVER: Are your weapons coming in from the U.S.?
INNOCENT (through translated text): No, I don't go to the U.S. I cannot accuse the U.S. to say weapons come from there.
CULVER (voice-over): To be sure, we had weapons experts review our footage with members of Vitel'homme's gang, examining images like these. They tell us that many of these firearms and accessories are in fact made in the U.S., smuggled directly or stolen from Haitian police. The end result here is often the same.
With the innocent caught in the crossfire, like eight-year-old Woodjina Cadot shot earlier this year while playing with friends. When we visited in February, her family was living in this makeshift encampment as she was recovering from surgery. Her little sister keeping watch.
But days later, gangs torched the whole neighborhood.
CULVER: Hi, Woodjina, how are you? Good to see you. You're walking.
CULVER (voice-over): We meet again as Woodjina heads to a doctor's appointment. We learn her family now sleeps on a church floor. Wujina's sister sent to live with other relatives. Her mom says it was too difficult to flee the gangs while carrying both kids.
LOVENCIA JULIEN, WOODJINA'S MOTHER (translated text): When we had to run, I could not have ran with both of them.
CULVER (voice-over): Back alongside the WFP, we arrive at our stop to distribute those meals. It's a school turned displacement camp. We step out to a crowd of several hundred. Recent gang violence forcing most here to become refugees in their own city.
CULVER: And did you see that firsthand, some of violence?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I see. I ran from it.
[04:50:00]
CULVER: You ran from it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I ran from it.
CULVER: What --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I ran from a lot of like a lot of shots, a lot of gangs.
CULVER: People shooting at you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People shooting and they're burning houses.
CULVER (voice-over): Folks here, grateful for the one meal they'll get today.
CULVER: What about tomorrow?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't know about tomorrow. We're just hoping for tomorrow.
CULVER (voice-over): Here, thinking about tomorrow, even that is a luxury.
David Culver, CNN, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: Still to come, the tortured poet sets her sights on the U.K. We'll break down how much Taylor Swift fans could spend on the next leg of her tour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: The excitement over the Caitlin Clark era in the WNBA has reached a fever pitch. Clark's debut in Tuesday's season opener between the Indiana Fever and the Connecticut Sun drew the league's biggest audience since 2001. An average of 2.1 million viewers tuned into the game. It got more viewers than an NHL playoff game. Airing at the same time, according to ESPN. Clarke's Indiana Fever played the New York Liberty tonight.
Pro Golf's second major of the season, the PGA Championship, set to get underway in just a few hours at the Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky.
Rory McIlroy looking to break a decade-long major title drought. In fact, the last time he won a major it was the same tournament at the very same course in 2014. So, he's feeling lucky, I'm sure.
He's expected to face tough competition from world number one Scotty Scheffler and defending champ Brooks Koepka. McIlroy says he hopes to build on his win last week at the Wells Fargo Championship.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RORY MACILROY, TWO-TIME PGA CHAMPIONSHIP WINNER: I think it's all about confidence and momentum, and I have a lot of confidence and quite a bit of momentum coming into this week. So as I said at the start, it's just about trying to keep that going. I think this is a golf course that allows you to play with freedom, because it's a big golf course, the corridors are wide, not too dissimilar to last week at Quail Hollow, so you can open your shoulders up a little bit off the tee, and then, you know, try to take your chances from there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: Now to a competition for all couch potatoes out there. No running, jumping, or physical activity of any kind required. You simply sit and space out. But contestants say, doing nothing for a while actually does your body good. CNN's Hanako Montgomery explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A crowd gathering, media jostling for the best spot to catch sight of a fierce competition among more than a hundred people in South Korea recently.
They are rivaling each other in Seoul's annual Space Out competition, where contestants have to zone out for 90 minutes, without falling asleep or checking their phones. The winner gets determined based on audience votes and competitors' heart rate.
This year, more than 4,000 people applied to participate in the competition, the city government says. From an Olympic athlete to bakers, contestants came dressed in clothes that reflect their different professions.
KWAK YOON-GY, SHORT TRACK SPEED SKATER (through translator): I tried out for the Olympics five times, and have never taken a proper rest while training for 30 years. I heard this place is where I can clear my mind and rest at least during this time. So I came here thinking, wow, this is what I needed so much.
[04:55:03]
GU GA-HYEON, BAKER (through translator): While we stare at the oven, we see customers outside our window going out after buying bread while we work in the hot heat. We're so tired and exhausted, so we wanted to relax our mind.
MONTGOMERY (voice-over): This year marks the 10th anniversary of the competition, that was founded by visual artist, Woopsyang.
WOOPSYANG, VISUAL ARTIST (through translator): The Space Out competition overturns this social convention that spacing out is a waste of time in today's busy society and turns it into a valuable activity. This contest tells you that spacing out is no longer a waste of time, but a time that you really need.
MONTGOMERY (voice-over): Since its first competition in Seoul in 2014, the contest has expanded internationally taking places in cities like Beijing and Tokyo. For this year's competition in Seoul the winning trophy went to a freelance broadcaster, Kwon So-a who works multiple jobs.
KWON SO-A, FREELANCE BROADCASTER: I think, especially here in Korea, it's such a competitive country where people think that if they do nothing, that they are a little behind so I think everyone has to have their own pace and sometimes just slow down.
MONTGOMERY (voice-over): Hanako Montgomery, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: We are ready. The U.K. economy could get a boost of nearly a billion dollars thanks to Taylor Swift. The British bank Barclays estimates nearly 1.2 million Swifties will attend the singer's 15 concerts in the U.K. leg of her Eras Tour and each of those attendees is expected to spend lots of cash in the process.
Based on Barclays numbers, the average fan will shell out on accommodation, travel food, tickets and more to the tune of more than $1,000 -- would you believe -- each. That's more than 12 times what people spend on an average night out here in the U.K. It adds up to more than $950 million that could be pumped into the U.K. economy.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are people born wicked? Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?
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FOSTER: Fans of the stage will recognize the many beloved characters in the newest trailer for Universal Pictures' "Wicked" coming up -- coming into theatres rather. Later this year, the film is based on the hit musical, based on the novel about the Wicked Witch of the West from L. Frank Baum's Oz series.
Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande portray the lead characters who become part of something bad brewing in the famed Emerald City. The trailer teases the first part of the story with a second film set to follow in 2025. Just like CNN "THIS MORNING" is going to follow this one.
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