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CNN NEWSROOM

Potential Summit Between U.S and North Korea; Inside Look At Inside a Repatriation Center in El Salvador and the Reality Deportees Face; Top Diplomats From U.S. And North Korea Meet In New York; Roseanne Barr Blames Ambien For Twitter Rant; White House: No One's Defending What Barr Said; Trump: ABC Never Called To Apologize To Me; Study Estimate 4,645 Died In Puerto Rico Disaster. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired May 31, 2018 - 00:00   ET

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


[00:00:10]

JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. Ahead this hour, Kim Jong-un's right-hand man is in a New York state of mind. The latest sign the on again/off again U.S./North Korea summit might just be a go.

Plus, Donald Trump responds to the racist Roseanne tweet not by condemning bigotry and racism, but by making it all about him and attacking the media.

And, back from the dead, a critic of the kremlin fakes his own murder to fool those who are hunting him down.

Hello. Thanks for joining us, I'm John Vause. This is CNN NEWSROOM L.A.

Whether the U.S. and North Korea will soon make history is still being negotiated. A meeting though that ended in New York in the last few hours is a major step in that direction. The North's former spy chief, Kim Yong Chol, sat down for dinner with the U.S. secretary of state, Mike Pompeo.

It's all part of the on again, off again historic summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea Leader Kim Jong-un.

CNN's Paula Hancocks giving a close eye on this all the way over there in Seoul. Paula, good to see you. Kim Yong Chol has served all three leaders of North Korea, he's considered one of the most powerful figures within the regime.

He's taken only to Kim Jong-un's sister to simply travel to the United States. Sanctions had to be waved. So, what issue so important, pressing, crucial that it requires not only a meeting between Kim and Secretary Pompeo. But what would be now the third meeting in a fairly short period of time?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. John, what we're hearing from the administration and officials within is that, yes, it's the third time they're meeting, but they're still getting to know each other, building up trust.

And certainly, the fact that Kim Yong Chol has gone all that way shows that there is trust being built that Kim Jong-un feels that he can let one of his top officials go over to presumably what was until quite recently considered enemy territory.

The first high level delegation, an official to land in the U.S. for about 18 years. So, what they're trying to do according to U.S. officials is they are trying to decide on the content of these talks.

North Korea in the past has always said they want these nuclear weapons for security. The U.S. is trying to convince them that actually it makes them less secure. They would be more secure getting rid of the nuclear weapons and going a different way.

And also, we are hearing from administration officials that the U.S. is looking for something historic. They are looking for something that hasn't been done before. Now we don't know what that is. We don't know what kind of gesture they're looking for from the North Koreans.

There have been all sorts of reports, including posting and sending out the nuclear weapons to the United States from North Korea. We simply don't know what they're looking for at this point.

But from the U.S. point of view, they're trying to narrow this gap between what they want and what the North Korean wants.

VAUSE: Earlier this week, Donald Trump announced Kim's visit with a tweet and notably spelling his middle name incorrectly. Kim hasn't been invited to Washington for this meeting, stopping in New York apparently because of the sanctions issues. Given that Mike Pompeo was invited to Pyongyang twice now, does this potentially have the possibility of a diplomatic spat looming especially if the North Koreans were in fact looking for one?

HANCOCKS: It's unclear at this point. I think from a basic level, John, you could make the argument that Kim Jong-un wants to be the first North Korean official to meet the U.S. president, Donald Trump.

It would be the first time that a sitting U.S. president has met with a North Korean leader. It is something that his father and his grandfather wanted in the past. They had always been pushing for this historic summit.

And then you have Kim Jong-un, who is so close, and potentially yet so far still, from this historic summit. So, for one of his aides, even though it is a close right-hand man, to meet the U.S. president first, it's unclear how that would be taken in North Korea.

So, potentially, it's something as simple as Kim Jong-un wants to be the first to have that photo-op with the U.S. president. And of course, what this does as well is it shows that the U.S. is willing to waiver some sanctions.

The very fact that a man sanctioned as Kim Yong Chol is able to touchdown on U.S. soil shows that there is this willingness to waive these sanctions and that's something that wouldn't go unnoticed in North Korea as well -- John.

VAUSE: Everybody wants to be the first one. Paula, thank you.

Well, it was a deafening silence that did not last long. On Wednesday, Donald Trump finally weighed in on comedian, Roseanne Barr's, controversial tweets, which she now blames on a sleeping drugs like Ambien.

[00:05:09] The president did not condemn her racist remark comparing an African-American woman to an ape instead he played the victim tweeting this, "Bob Iger of ABC called Valerie Jarrett to let her know that ABC does not tolerate comments like those made by Roseanne Barr.

Gee, he never called President Donald J. Trump to apologize for the horrible statements made and said about me on ABC. Maybe I just didn't get the call." Here's how the White House explained the tweet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president is simply calling out the media bias. No one is defending what she said. The president is the president of all Americans and he's focused on doing what is best for our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: With me now here in Los Angeles, Democratic strategist, Robin Swanson, and CNN political commentator, Republican strategist, John Thomas. OK, John, just picking up on what there. Does this president really see himself as president of all Americans or just the ones who look like him and agree with him. Because at the very least, he could have given lip service the tweet was inappropriate, racist, and then made it all about himself.

JOHN THOMAS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, that's what he should have done, but he didn't. I think --

VAUSE: But it goes to a bigger picture, doesn't it?

THOMAS: Yes, it does. When in doubt, when you pick a fight with the media, and you're going to that's a winning battle for him. He makes a fair point in a sense that look, people have said some pretty horrendous things about Donald Trump comparing him to orangutans and other creatures. That's not fair either.

So, look, the problem with Trump is it's all about Trump. I mean, that's really it. It's not about a certain segment of the population. It's that he views it through his lens going, yes, this is a double standard. How come they are saying it's not OK for her but it's OK --

VAUSE: We'll get to the moral equivalency (inaudible) who said mean, nasty things to who and which was nastier. But Robin, I want to get to the point what we've seen in the past is when presidents are elected to lead this country they lead the country as a whole or at least they make that effort. It seems on a variety of issues, time after time after time, this president just wants to lead his base.

ROBIN SWANSON, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST, SWANSON COMMUNICATIONS: Yes, and he chooses not to lead the country. Give the man the world's smallest violin for not being able to handle a little bit of criticism here and there. He's the president of the United States.

He should be stepping up and in fact, he should be exhibiting some moral leadership and maybe, I don't know, leading by example. He could apologize perhaps to the Gold Star families he has offended and the racist remarks he's made in the past.

The family members of service people who have died in service. So, how about he starts there leading by example and bringing some healing, but you know, the man hasn't met a scandal he can't jump into, a divide he can't wedge further.

And that's what he's doing. I mean, he certainly subscribes to the P.T. Barnum (ph0 theory of press that, you know, just sell my name right and it's all good.

VAUSE: OK, well, to John's point here about, you know, turning this into an attack on the media. He was backed up by the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders during the briefing on Wednesday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDERS: Where was Bob Iger's apology to the White House staff for Jemele Hill calling the president and anyone associated with him a white supremacist. To Christians around the world for Joy Behar calling for sanity, a mental illness, where was the apology for Cathy Griffin going on a profane rant against the president on "The View" after a photo showed her holding President Trump's decapitated head. This is a double standard that the president is speaking about. No one is defending her comments. They are inappropriate, but that's what the point that he was making.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: So, John, just listening to Sarah Sanders, that's an appalling list. It's an indictment on the mainstream media, right?

THOMAS: Yes, it is. The double standard I know irks the president and a lot of his staff to no end and he was drawing just another example saying, look, this is the media that jumps down somebody that doesn't see ideologically with them and tries to destroy her career. Even though, obviously, the comments are terrible what she said, but he's saying where's the outrage on the other side?

VAUSE: Where's the apology? If you listen to this administration, the impression you would have is that this is a U.S. president who's essentially the whipping boy of a mean and nasty liberal progressive media out to basically get him and his administration.

Except what is often usually the case with Sarah Sanders, crucial details are left out. Like this statement issued by ESPN regarding Jemele Hill, "The comments on Twitter from Jemele Hill regarding the president do not represent the position of ESPN. We've addressed this with Jemele Hill, and she recognizes her actions were inappropriate."

And yes, Joy Behar made these comments about Christianity but then later publicly apologized, and here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOY BEHAR, CO-HOST, "THE VIEW": I was raised to respect everyone's religious faith and I fell short of that. I sincerely apologize for what I said.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: As to Kathy Griffin, she lost her job as the co-host of CNN's New Year's Eve party, which she had done for many, many years alongside Anderson Cooper, who, by the way, called her out for the photoshoot with the president's head and all that kind of stuff.

[00:10:02] So, you know, what we have here is that, you know, there is accountability and there are apologies on one side and Robin, the only person who I have not heard apologize for anything is the president.

SWANSON: That's right. It's Donald Trump and frankly, we haven't seen Roseanne Barr truly apologize either. I mean, you saw today in her tweet storm, she kept bringing it back to, well, maybe I should, you know, defend myself more.

And it just all over the map. The fact that he can't take a very clear incident of racism whether it's this Charlottesville or you know, the way he has treated Muslims or Mexicans in this country and call it for what it is, that's moral leadership, and that is part of what's being president of the United States, what used to be the leader of the free world, and that's just not happening with this president.

VAUSE: And john, to the point I'm making here is that, you know, this is a White House, which gets up there and complains about the media and fake news, and lying and all the rest of it, what Sarah Sanders did just then and that's the first title she's done it. It's probably the first time she did (inaudible). I mean, it twists the reality and narrative, which is favorable of the White House, and that's more than spin, I mean, it's dishonest.

THOMAS: Well, there are countless other examples that she could have used -- there are commentators on this network like Ana Navarro that have referred to Trump as an animal and other things, and she's still employed by this network. There are Keith Olberman said terrible things about Donald Trump just got renewed his tv contract. There are other examples she should have used.

SWANSON: But I feel like conservatives used to care about moral leadership and moral leadership from the president. They certainly cared when Bill Clinton was president.

THOMAS: And they do. I mean, you don't see conservatives standing up for Roseanne.

SWANSON: You're not holding the president accountable for exhibiting moral leadership.

VAUSE: Exactly. And this is a president who is a self-described counter puncher, the insulter-in-chief for whom no line is left uncrossed. This is the things he says.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crimes. They're rapists. Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.

You also had people that were very fine people on both side. You had people in that group, excuse me. Excuse me, I saw the same pictures as you did.

Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners when somebody disrespects our flag to say get that (inaudible) off the field right now, out, he's fired. He's fired.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: So, John, you know, this is the thing. If you're the president and you make this choice to get down in the mud and get dirty and mix it up, sure you have to expect to get some mud back and you can't complain. You can't.

THOMAS: Well, you can say you can't complain but the president complains all the time about it. You're right. He should have a thicker skin than that, but he doesn't. And he uses any opportunity to point out the hypocrisy in the media where -- and look, in fairness to the president. The media does take his quotes out of context all the time when he was calling MS-13 members animals. They said, you're calling immigrants animals. He --

SWANSON: But he chooses to tweet, and he tweets without context and I think that's because he often doesn't have the facts to back it up because his facts are actually wrong. I would like to jump in and say he doesn't counter punch, he proactively punches. He's not waiting for somebody to hit him. He's proactively inserting himself in these situations.

THOMAS: He ends up winning when he picks these fights. NFL and others, he ends up hitting the media against everybody else and he prevails.

VAUSE: He also makes these statements that seemed to be so generally vague and not entirely clear what he means. So, there's always a sort of wiggle room that he can get out of, you know, what would be an egregious slander at least on the surface.

SWANSON: I think maybe sometimes he doesn't even really know what he means. He just wants to insert himself.

VAUSE: We'll finish with some wise words from the strangest of places. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a picture of Donald Trump and I, we went to this Elton John thing, there's a moment leans over to me and says my wife at the timed, oh, my God you have married up. And then he says for no reason, Roseanne is disgusting.

There's a moment, a picture that they show, and I'm shocked. Not that I'm shocked, but I'm like why would he -- you know, you don't want to hear bad -- just a weird thing for a g to say to another guy to add that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Hoping for what we were going to talk about was Geraldo Rivera on Fox saying the president missed a golden opportunity. Let's go to Tom Arnold for a moment because he did speak with Roseanne Barr's ex- husband a while ago.

He did speak to this praise that Trump had for Roseanne Barr and whether or not it was genuine, and you know, really whether or not this is part of a strategy that Trump has.

SWANSON: Well, it's all about him, right? So, he was praising Roseanne Barr when it mattered -- because it was about him and his administration and they are talking about his politics. So, when this is about him, it's interesting and good.

VAUSE: And to that point, he's calling Roseanne disgusting, I mean, this was back in 2005, I think, before he was president and the reboot of her tv program. John, what does that say about a man who embraced the woman because she had huge rings?

THOMAS: I mean, he loves ratings. You know, I don't know what else to say. But I think the president continually when he's interjecting himself into things that to us seemed very clear cut to denounce it and move on.

The president has reminded the American public that it is him against the establishment that the American public so loves, the double standards out of the media, the rich elitists NFL owners, that are anti-American.

And that strategy has proved very useful and it's not just to his base -- it's the fact that Washington is unpopular. The establishment --

(CROSSTALK)

SWANSON: I give you that it works, but it's really bad for our country. It's really bad for our moral fabric. It's really bad for kids to see this man as a thought leader, as an influencer, as somebody that should be, you know, leading by example.

VAUSE: John, just because it's good for Donald Trump doesn't make it good for the United States -- does it?

SWANSON: That's right.

THOMAS: Well, some would argue that Trump's agenda is good for the United States.

VAUSE: (Inaudible), you know, to keep his phone numbers up and --

THOMAS: Yes, and if he gets re-elected and holds the House, that's good for the United States.

VAUSE: All right. Define good but we're out of time. John and Robin, thank you so much.

Still to come, sounds like it's ripped from pages of a murder mystery novel. A Russian journalist thought to being gunned down turned up alive. We'll tell you how this bizarre plot unfolded.

Also, we are laying more about the devastation Hurricane Maria delivered in Puerto Rico. Now with another hurricane season about to start, there's growing concern the island may not be ready for the next big storm.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: The White House has defended its disaster response in Puerto Rico following a study which puts a dramatically higher death toll there. According to a report from Harvard University more than 4,600 people died in Hurricane Maria and its aftermath.

[00:20:06] Puerto Rico's official death toll is 64. The authors of the report say their estimate underscores the intention of the U.S. government as well as the frail infrastructure on the island.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDERS: The president takes the situation in Puerto Rico extremely seriously and the administration has been monitoring that from the beginning. We've been supportive of Governor (inaudible) efforts to ensure full accounting and transparency. Those who suffered from this tragedy deserved nothing less than that.

The two Category 4 hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico were historic and we responded with the largest FEMA operation in history. We're going to continue to work with the people of Puerto Rico and do everything we can to be helpful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: For more now, CNN's national security analyst, Juliette Kayyem is with us from Cambridge, Massachusetts. She's a professor at Harvard University, former assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, and a friend of the show.

It's been a while, thank you for coming back. Juliette, I heard blah, blah from Sarah Sanders. Why did it take so long to get something close to an accurate death toll? Why was it left to a bunch of researchers at Harvard? And at a minimum the city's profound lack of respect to not even officially count the dead.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Exactly. It's called death in dignity, right. That it was bad enough that they died from a disaster that happens, but to take an official accounting of them doesn't have seemed to be have been of much interest to the Trump administration.

So, the discrepancy in the numbers basically is this, there is an official number, which essentially comes from coroners in Puerto Rico. We know that Puerto Rico was completely eviscerated.

There was no electricity. People weren't showing up to work. What the Harvard study did was they essentially did a community-based study, which is they went from house to house to find out who has lost whom and what happened to that body.

That accounting -- that's the way methodology works, and it gave a number that far exceeds anything. It's more than double Hurricane Katrina. So, the extent of the devastation in Puerto Rico were just beginning to understand at this stage.

VAUSE: I think it's almost three times, Katrina was about 1,800, (inaudible) 4,600, so the numbers are staggering. You and I were talking about the U.S. president's trip to Puerto Rico when he finally got there two weeks after the storm. You know, you remember Trump was quick to claim credit for what at the time was a low death toll. Here's a reminder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Every death is a horror. If you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina and the hundreds and hundreds of people that died and you look at what happened here with really a storm that was just overpowering, nobody has ever seen anything like this. What is your death count as of this moment, 17?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sixteen, sir.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Sixteen people certified versus in the thousands. You can be very proud of all of your people, all of our people working together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Makes you wonder how proud the president is right now, and if this is now a real catastrophe. You know, if you take the credit for the low death toll, it obviously seems to follow that you get blamed when that number goes up especially when the Harvard study points out about a third of death were due to delayed or prevented access to medical care. A faster emergency response may have prevented or at least in part mitigated.

KAYYEM: That's exactly right. So, these are known as avoidable deaths, right? These are ones caused by the hurricane but are not - could have been avoided if services had been delivered. And so why -- I mean, this matters, obviously, for moral reasons and humanitarian reasons and for respect for the dead.

But it also matters from a disaster management perspective because there will be more hurricanes. The United States failure to assess realistically what happened in Puerto Rico, how did people die, right?

Did they die from starvation, lack of medicine, water, and what could we have done better to prevent those avoidable deaths will make us better for the next hurricane whether it happens on Puerto Rico, Guam, or in Florida.

And so, it's not only that the U.S. didn't seem to care for a proper accounting of these numbers, it's also putting us in a worse position and making us more vulnerable for the next hurricane. It's Thursday now, hurricane season begins on Friday.

VAUSE: We'll get to that in a moment. The other thing about this report is we have an idea of how incredibly difficult the past few months have been for Puerto Ricans there. The study found that after the storm, this is the average household, the average.

You know, they went 41 days without cell phone service, 68 days without water, 84 days without electricity.

[00:25:08] What sort of outrage would there have been on the U.S. mainland if this is not Puerto Rico, but you know, Rhode Island or Hawaii or you know, major state like Texas?

KAYYEM: You don't go two days without everyone complaining that there's been a total melt down. This is -- you know -- I guess I would say, it helps to have senators, right? I mean, in the sense you get noisy senators from Texas, California or whatever state is facing the catastrophe.

And they demand resources and money and the government helps them, and they complain loudly when they don't. What happened in Puerto Rico is because the voices in Puerto Rico weren't being amplified by people in D.C.

That its territorial status made it a sort of neglected afterthought in many ways even though these are U.S. citizens. It's just shameful across the board. I view it as sort of a political shame because they just didn't have people in D.C. being able to sort of, you know, pound the pavement for you as you might have a Ted Cruz in Texas or Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts or Diane Feinstein in California.

VAUSE: Let's talk about the hurricane season which is Friday. Obvious concerns for Puerto Rico if they're prepared, especially the power system, which took that huge hit during Maria.

Here's part of a report in the "Washington Post," crews are working against the clock to shore up a dilapidated system that took way longer to repair than anyone expected. And their work is largely returning the grid to its prior state, which everyone knows couldn't handle a big. If that's the best-case scenario they are looking at, then this seems to be, you know, a pretty sign of things are not good. KAYYEM: Yes, that's not the resilient system. I mean, the idea you're going to build it as it was, knowing that there will be more and more hurricanes and given climate change that they're going to be more intense and longer and more frequent, it's basically throwing, you know, good money away.

It shows the sort of lack of planning, the sort of piecemeal response that we saw from the federal government. And look, Puerto Rico, had a lot of inefficiencies a lot of challenges to its infrastructure before the hurricane.

The idea that he would built it back to where it was before is like, you know, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. It's ridiculous from resiliency perspective knowing what Puerto Rico is going to face.

VAUSE: Yes. And of course, our prayers are with them. We hope for the best, but obviously let's see what happens. Juliette, thank you as always. Thank you so much.

Next here on NEWSROOM L.A., sent home to a nightmare, deportees brought back to El Salvador after years in the United States. Brutal gangs lying in wait to recruit them as members.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: Welcome back. You're watching CNN Newsroom, live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause. We'll check the headlines this hour. North Korea's former spy chief, Kim Yong-chol met over dinner with the U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, Wednesday night in New York.

They're laying the groundwork for next month's potential summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jung-un. The U.S. State Department says, North Korea must do things they haven't done before, for this summit to happen.

And Donald Trump is complaining about ABC's decision to cancel Roseanne after a racist tweet, (inaudible) Roseanne Barr. The president says, "No one ever apologized for the horrible things people have said about him on that network." Barr blamed her twitter rant on the sleep drug Ambien.

A Russian journalist, thought to be murdered in Ukraine, is actually alive and well. Arkady Babchenko, an outspoken critic of the Kremlin appeared on the television, a day after the reports of his death. Ukraine's Security Service says his death was faked to foil a Russian assassination plot.

Now, to a CNN exclusive, inside a repatriation center in El Salvador. Deportees kicked out the United States, facing a terrifying new reality. They may never see their families again in Salvador (ph), and gangs are ready and waiting to bring them into the fold (ph). Here's the exclusive report Nick Paton Walsh.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Someone is murdered here every two hours. One in 10 people ensnared by gangs. Streets plagued by machete killings, rape, and police abuses. Welcome to El Salvador, the cruelest of homelands and the toughest of places to be forced back to.

These are the first moments of men deported from the United States back to a land they can't really call home anymore. Blinking (ph), sleepless, and now homeless, there's some, in the 200,000 (ph) Salvadorans deported from their long term homes in the United States, under President Trump's immigration crackdown.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We cannot let people enter our country. We have no idea who they are, what they do, where they came from. We don't know if they're murderers, if they're killers, if they're MS-13. We're throwing them out by the hundreds.

WALSH: Many here, at a matter of hours noticed no chance even to call ahead, as they're forced back to a country some of not seen for years, maybe even decades. Welcome home here, is about nametags (ph), humiliating world calls (ph), lacing your shoes again, and realizing, as a grown man, you have to start from zero again, empty handed.

Christian Lara lived in the USA for 20 years and was deported coming out of his Florida construction job. He had only committed immigration offenses. The best choice now is a $5 a day farm job.

CHRISTIAN LARA PINEDA, DEPORTEE (ph): I have to work a lot to earn $5, but how can I support my family with only $5

WALSH (voice over): He doesn't know when or if he'll see his family again.

WALSH: And so, what are your daughter's names?

PINEDA (ph): Jennifer.

WALSH: I'm sorry?

PINEDA (ph): Jennifer.

WALSH: Jennifer. How old?

PINEDA (ph): 12. And another one of three years.

WALSH: Three years? Her name?

PINEDA (ph): She's my little baby, Angela.

WALSH: I'm sorry, my friend.

WALSH (voice over): Oscar is more complicated. He's 20, went to America, age 10 and served four months for assault and bodily harm in Houston, yet back here, he trembles.

WALSH: Are you scared of the gangs here now? OSCAR, DEPORTEE: No (ph).

WALSH: Are you scared you may end up involved or caught up in that?

OSCAR: Well, when I was down in the USA, I see the news lady saying some people killed everyday. It's scaring me man.

WALSH (voice over): He's already counting the money in his account, to see if he has enough for the $8,000 smuggling fee back to the U.S. Christian meets his mother after four years and recently deported brother, Husway (ph). Only two weeks later, Husway (ph) messages me on his way to Guatemala, to pay, to be smuggled back to the United States.

48 hours pass since we meet Christian and Oscar, in which, there are two beheadings, over 20 murders, and a policeman is killed.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:35:00]

WALSH: 48 hours have passed since we meet Christian and Oscar in which there were two beheadings, over 20 murders and the police man is killed. No accident that these elite police come here in large number heavily armed. This is a gang controlled area and literally streets away from where Oscar is beginning his new life back in El Salvador. Oscar agrees to meet us again. He's asked two nights in his new home but it took just four hours for the gang to approach him.

OSCAR: MS-13, they take my shirt down and I tell him what you doing man? I want to check if you've got tattoos on your body. OK, I don't have any tattoos on my body alright.

WALSH: Because he's looking if your barrio 18 on the gang, right?

OSCAR: Yes.

WALSH: And this all at your first few hours back at home right?

OSCAR: Mmhmm.

WALSH: What are you thinking alright (ph)?

(LAUGHTER)

WALSH: It's alright, it's alright.

OSCAR: Man, I don't want to leave here. I'll be leaving here man.

WALSH: His dad didn't want to know him.

OSCAR: He looked like I'm the shit man. He looked like why you come into my house man?

WALSH: And this is what falling down here looks like in the crammed prisons that are gang playgrounds. Where Oscar, his family, and the U.S frankly hope he doesn't end up. Were gang culture bruise and hardens and tattoos and no opportunities unavoidable lead. Petty thief in California led to deportation for Edwin and now jail.

EDWIN: Here in this country if you have tattoos, you come from gang and automatically think that you are a member of some gang or you have been part of a gang. So here it's different, I mean a little kick could take your life away. If you talk to them you're their enemy and if you talk then they want you to be part of them.

WALSH: So deportees from the United States have committed crimes others none but being in the U.S illegally. Walls come back to a world were their desperation and vulnerability and the risk for gangs have on there new their new world deep in suburb still El Salvador's chaos. Nick Paton Walsh, CNN San Salvador.

VAUSE: In the bloodshed from El Salvador's gang violence a crime wave focused on women is claiming more victims. In Friday's report Nick Paton Walsh gets very access to a women's prison were the one time targets of gangs can end up as murders.

WALSH: A jail is so rarely a place for sympathy but women are so often dragged in to barbaric gang culture and often find themselves on the receiving ends of a violent society. She remembers her initiation into the gang barrio 18.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I got kicked and hit. It was necessary to be apart of it.

WALSH: How long did that last for may I ask?

UNIDENIFIED FEMALE (through translator): 18 seconds. Yes there are women that go through wars. Sometimes they are raped, beaten up, mistreated.

WALSH: She was young when she joined, there wasn't a choice.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): My father died and my mother was an alcoholic who left us. I looked after five brothers and that's how I ended out on the streets.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

VAUSE: And on Friday evening see the rest of Nick's report starting at 5 a.m in London, noon in Hong Kong. And we will be back fright after this.

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VAUSE: Reports of his death were greatly exaggerated and deliberately so. Russian journalist, Arkady Babchenko appeared at a news conference alive and well one day after he was believed to have died. All part of an elaborate plan to foil an assassination plot. Fred Pleitgen explains how it all unfolded. FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A bazaar twist of events in the alleged killing of a prominent Russian journalist, who was critical of the Kremlin and who had fled to Ukraine in 2017. But after it was reported that our Arkady Babchenko was killed outside his home in Kiev hours later it turns out that he is actually alive.

Now this Mr. Babchenko turned up at a press conference in Kiev together with members of all the Ukrainian security services and he said all of it had been staged because the security services had gotten wind of a plot that they claimed was directed from Russia to kill Mr. Babchenko.

He said that he went along with the plot, and even his wife did not know about it. He apologized to her saying that he know that she must have gone through hell in hours that she thought that the was dead.

Now the Ukrainian security services said that this operation that they had involving the faking of the killing of Mr. Babchenko was a success that they said they captured a person that they believe was behind the attempted murder, and that $40,000 had been paid - again they say that they believe all of this was directed by Russia.

Now of course, all of this is leading to increased tension between Russia and the Ukrainian - the Ukrainians are hailing this as a big success. But the Russians are very angry because in the meantime they've been accused by the Ukrainians of allegedly killing Mr. Babchenko when it still seemed that he was dead.

Now, a member of Russia's Parliament came out and gave a statement, part of it reads, "Kiev in the situation with the alleged attempted to kill Babchenko committed a stupid provocation against Russia and is now disgraced in the eyes of the world."

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko obviously sees that very difficult, he praised his intelligence services for conducting this operation. Fred Pleitgen, Moscow, Russia.

VAUSE: Thank you for watching CNN Newsroom Live from Los Angeles, I'm John Vause. World Sports starts after the break.

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