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Dozens Killed In Russian Strike On Military Educational Facility In Central Ukraine; Hamas Leaders Charged For October 7 Attack By DOJ; Israeli Demonstrators Demand Ceasefire In Gaza After Six Hostages Found Dead; Maduro Decrees Christmas Will Start In October As Venezuela Cracks Down On Dissent; At least 129 Killed During Mass Prison Break Attempt In DR Congo; Pontiff on Marathon 12- Day Tour of Southeast Asia; Trump Pleads Not Guilty in Reworked January 6 Case; Ex-Aide to NY Governors Accused of Acting as Agent for China; Remembering Israeli-American Hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin; Wojtek Czyz's Path from Shattered Dreams to Paralympic Gold. Aired 1- 2a ET
Aired September 04, 2024 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[01:00:25]
JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. I'm John Vause, live from Atlanta. Coming up here on CNN Newsroom.
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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): The Russian scum will undoubtedly be held accountable for this strike.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Two missiles, 15 seconds apart, more than 50 Ukrainians dead. Those who survived the Russian airstrike say there was almost no time to get to safety.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MERRICK GARLAND, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL: The charges unsealed today are just one part of our effort to target every aspect of Hamas' operations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: U.S. Justice Department charges, six of us, leaders over the October 7 attack on Israel. Three are dead. The rest on the run.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The successful infiltration by a Chinese government agent to the highest levels of New York State government.
(END VIDEO CLIP) VAUSE: Paid in poultry. How a senior aide to New York state governors allegedly received solid Nanjing duck as well as cash payments to do the bidding of the communist regime in Beijing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from Atlanta. This is CNN Newsroom with John Vause.
VAUSE: One of the deadliest Russian airstrikes since the start of the war has left at least 51 people dead at a military academy in central Ukraine, more than 200 wounded, and has triggered desperate pleas from Ukrainian officials for an end to restrictions which prevent Western supplied weapons being used to strike targets deep inside Russia.
According to survivors, there is almost no time for each safety. Two ballistic missiles striking the academy within seconds of each other, putting much of the building damaged and destroyed. Rescue crews searching through debris. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Russian scum, in his words, would be held accountable. He also pleaded for more air defense systems from the US.
In a statement, President Biden did not directly answer that that request, but did say, make no mistake, Russia will not prevail in this war. The people of Ukraine will prevail, and on this tragic day and every day, the United States stands with them. Fred Pleitgen brings us very latest now from Kyiv.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNTIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Parts of the military educational facility almost completely destroyed. Dozens killed here. The Ukrainians say when two Russian ballistic missiles struck, leaving those on the ground with no time to get to bomb shelters.
More than 200 were also wounded and a nearby hospital damaged. Ukraine's President irate.
ZELENSKYY (through translator): The Russian scum will undoubtedly be held accountable for this strike, and once again, we urge everyone in the world who has the power to stop this terror. Air defense systems and missiles are needed in Ukraine, not in the warehouse somewhere. Long range strikes that can defend against Russian terror are needed now, not sometime later.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): Russia has been accelerating its aerial bombardment of Ukraine, cities and infrastructure, a massive barrage aiming for the capital Kyiv early Monday, just as children were gearing up for the first day of school after summer break. One of the places damaged a management college.
ANASTASIYA, STUDENT (through translator): I got up and it had already started to boom. We ran out into the yard near the dormitory. We heard something flying and something being shot down.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): On Sunday, more than 40 people injured after Russian air strikes on the northeastern city of Kharkiv, responders desperately trying to save the victims. There's an ambulance on the other side, the photographer says. We won't be able to carry him there, she answers.
While Ukraine's air defenses often take down Russian missiles, the consequences can be devastating when they don't. The strikes on Poltava were one of the deadliest single attacks since the start of the war. We were on hand when a ballistic missile annihilated a funeral wake in eastern Ukraine in October of last year, killing 59 people and 46 were killed in Dnipro in January 2023 when a heavy cruise missile blew a giant hole into an apartment block.
PLEITGEN: The Ukrainians say the reason why the damage here is so extensive is that this building was hit with a cruise missile called The KH22 that's designed to destroy aircraft carrier strike groups, and obviously, when it hit the building, it completely annihilated it, burying dozens of people underneath.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): Now yet another mass casualty strike, leaving Ukraine's leadership angry and vowing revenge. Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Kyiv.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Matthew Schmidt is an associate professor of National Security at the University of New Haven. He's also a former professor of Strategic and Operational Planning U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. He joins us this hour from Connecticut. Welcome back.
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MATTHEW SCHMIDT, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF NATIONAL SECURITY, UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAVEN: Good to be here, John.
VAUSE: OK, so back in June, the Biden administration announced that Ukraine was the number one priority to receive air defenses more important than any other country, saying it was a matter of Ukraine's survival. Ukraine Foreign Minister told CNN, so far that commitment has not been kept. Here he is.
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DMYTRO KULEBA, UKRAINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: I don't know how many more tragedies like this have to occur for all promises to be fulfilled and for all new commitments to be made.
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VAUSE: He would not add that only a patriot air defense system would have been able to enter been able to intercept these ballistic missiles. So, in the aftermath of this attack, is the U.S. capable logistically of supplying more patriots to Ukraine, and in the aftermath of this attack, is White House likely to do so?
SCHMIDT: To take the last part first, I think that they are. We've seen nothing but a continued commitment from Biden on this issue, and certainly the U.S. can continue to supply more air defense systems, but these Patriot systems are the most advanced and they're the most expensive and they're the slowest to get out there.
What exactly is causing the delay, whether or not this is an inventory issue or an issue in logistics, and actually getting things from places in, say, Germany or Poland in sight is something I don't know the answer to right now, but I think there's also the problem that Ukraine faces is, which is there's a target rich environment, and they're only going to have so many of these systems available, and they're going to have to make choices about where they put them.
And Poltava, you know, wasn't at the top of the list, and it might be now, but it wasn't. And every time they put one somewhere that leaves someplace else open, and the Russians can find those places.
VAUSE: Well, some of those who survived this attack say it happened just so incredibly quickly. One man told The Washington Post there was very little time between the start of the air raid sirens and the explosion. After 15 seconds, there was a second incoming missile.
Suggest, in practical terms, those missiles had been launched from further inside Russian territory, further away from Ukraine. The Ukrainians could use Western supplied long range missiles to force the Russians back away from the border. In this instance, would that have meant more time to reach safety and fewer people would have died?
SCHMIDT: You would think so, but I'll tell you, this is just a position on my part, but I would be looking to electronic warfare here, that there are ways in which the Russians are able to mask these missiles by jamming Ukrainian radar and early warning systems in order to deny that early warning.
VAUSE: Well, and this the target here was the Military Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technology under international law. Unlike previous targets hit by the Russians, was this one legitimate?
SCHMIDT: It's hard to say it is a military academy, but it's not like a West Point to an American audience. It's more like something like the, you know, Virginia Military Institute. So, you know, so I'd say it's open for debate, but it's -- these are not students that are wearing uniform and going to fight right away. These are teenagers that would commission if they wanted to after graduation.
VAUSE: Right now, one of the main reasons for the Ukrainian incursion into Russia is to try and create a buffer zone along the border. So far, Ukraine has taken about 500 square miles of Russian territory, and on that here's the Ukrainian president speaking to NBC News.
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ZELENSKYY (through translator): We don't need the Russian territory. Our operation is aimed to restore our territorial integrity. We don't need their land.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But conceptually, you have this territory now. You say you don't want to keep it long --
ZELENSKYY: Conceptually, we will hold it. Conceptually, we will hold it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Conceptually. Can they hold it? And at what cost?
SCHMIDT: I think they can, and at what cost is a question that depends on the kinds of mistakes that the Russians will make. So don't forget, the enemy gets to punch back, but the enemy also can screw up. And so if the Russians punch back and do a good job, they'll hold it for less, and if they screw up, there will be opportunities, and a decision will have to be made to hold it for longer, or even to take more territory in the future. You know, war is the realm of chance. It's the realm of chaos and luck. And we have to remember that.
One thing that is definitely going on here is holding this territory is getting information into the Russian public about the real nature of the war. It's forcing Russians into exile, back into, I love saying this, you know, unoccupied Russia, who are texting, you know, 10 or 20 friends and having conversations and getting around Putin's news buffer, and that's really important. It's probably not enough yet, but it's some of these real stories are getting out there to the Russian public now.
VAUSE: Good point to finish on. Matthew, thank you for with this us. Matthew Schmidt there. Associate Professor of National Security University of New Haven. Good to see you.
SCHMIDT: My pleasure.
[01:10:08]
VAUSE: With these details just into CNN, Russia has launched an airstrike on the western Ukraine city of Lviv. Officials say two people have been killed, at least 23 injured, that includes five children. The mayor of Lviv says residential buildings were damaged. Two schools will close for the day.
Six months leaders have been indicted by the U.S. Justice Department, not just for their role in the October 7 attack on Israel, but also for their decades of alleged atrocities. Notably, three of those charged, including Ismael Haniyeh dead, his replacement, Yahya Sinwar, the leader and the leader of the Hamas diaspora office Khaled Meshaal are on the run, which is why the indictment, which was filed back in February, has now been unsealed. Hopes and arrests have faded.
Charges included terrorism, conspiracy to murder, U.S. Nationals and U.S. weapons to use, rather weapons of mass destruction, resulting in death, as well as a promise by the U.S. president to hold Hamas accountable.
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GARLAND: The charges unsealed today are just one part of our effort to target every aspect of Hamas' operations. These actions will not be our last. The Justice Department has a long memory. We will pursue the terrorists responsible for murdering Americans and those who illegally provide them with material support for the rest of their lives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: And on the streets of Israel, another day of anger and outrage from protesters demanding the Israeli government end a national nightmare and sign a deal for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages. CNN's Nic Robertson has details now reporting in from Tel Aviv.
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NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: It's the third day in the road. Protesters have been out in the center of Tel Aviv demanding the Prime Minister get the hostages home, saying, why are we still in Gaza? And at one point, the crowd were listening to the wife of one of the hostages, and she read out, and I have to say, her voice was hoarse from shouting, from being at so many protests, shouting so much to be heard.
She was shouting out the names of each of the hostages, and after each name, the crowd shouted back, now, meaning, now, get them back home. Now this was a level of anger, level of frustration in the crowd I know was asking people there what they thought about what the Prime Minister had said the previous day, Monday, that he wasn't going to negotiate with Hamas and he was getting even more hardline on his position on the Philadelphi Corridor and having troops on that border between Gaza and Egypt.
The people I talked to, they just don't trust the prime minister.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is a liar. That's it all fraud. I don't believe one word he says.
ROBERTSON: And how long will you keep protesting?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As long as it takes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As long as the hostages are in Gaza, normal life in this country and normal governing of this country will not be allowed to happen.
ROBERTSON: So I asked him what he meant by that, and asked other people as well, what did they mean? What else could they do? And he told me, and they told me that they would shake the country. And asked him specifically, well, how do you do that? And he wouldn't get into the details.
But clearly, what the unions have been trying to do to put pressure on the government, additionally, and they can't do it now. The unions can't go on strike, because there's been a court order saying that. But what the unions would be able to do, the big unions here, would be to shut down the airport, shut down the ports, shut down the train stations, shut down the busses, reduce services at hospitals, all of those things.
It appears the protesters, the organizers, believe could be part of the mechanism in the future, but they just believe this isn't going to be changed overnight. The Prime Minister isn't going to listen to them overnight, but if they keep coming out, keep showing other politicians that they have support. And they did hear tonight from Benny Gantz, who spoke on television, one of the main leaders of -- one of the main opposition parties, saying he too, doesn't believe the Prime Minister. Doesn't believe what the Prime Minister is saying about the Philadelphi Corridor is valid. Says it's not an existential threat to the country as the prime minister says it's a strategic issue.
But he says the prime minister knows full well there were other options, military, technical options to controlling that border, other than the ones the Prime Minister's proposing. The faith in the prime minister in this country is dwindling. He is not giving in however. Nic Robinson, CNN, Tel Aviv.
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VAUSE: Earlier, I spoke with Israel political analyst Ori Goldberg, who said, Israel has lost the war, and its government must now limit the damage. He said, Israel has become addicted to the righteous indignation of the war, and the future is more nuanced with areas of gray.
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ORI GOLDBERG, ISRAELI POLITICAL ANALYST: For Israel, only absolutes exists. We live in a black and white universe. It's basically us and everybody else. We're the only good real people around. This isn't just about the Palestinians. It's about the entire world.
[01:15:04]
We have to integrate ourselves into the notion that any quote, unquote resolution will involve multiple players, will not give us everything we want, and will not leave us the only right people in this entire scenario. And of course, we have to accept responsibility for the consequences of our actions. We have to realize that our absolute unity is gone. We have to start weighing the potential for our future actions against the prices we must pay. The illusion that we're not going to pay any price should be exactly that, just an illusion.
The indictments handed down by the Justice Department are a good example of a gesture meant to placate us, but to effectively say we're taking this out of your hands. We're no longer relying on Israel to go after the people who killed American citizens. I think that's a good approach. I hope it's the first step by many others coming.
VAUSE: How do you get the Israeli public to get to that point?
GOLBERG: It's very difficult to get the Israeli public there, but the suspicion and the anger now in the streets are quite important. I think what they're saying, what Israeli citizens now understand is that the two bills that signed for the war by the Israeli government, the destruction of Hamas and the return of the hostages, are mutually incompatible. Most Israelis have lived for the past year under the illusion that
they are at the very least commensurate, and to some extent complimentary the death of these six hostages, which was entirely preventable, the understanding that they died right there and then and not in some far away country, which is the way most of us think of Gaza.
I think that death has snapped the illusion that the strong Hamas brings the hostages home. So at the very least, there's distrust of the government. There's no profound sea change as far as what Israelis are thinking. They still think of war as the only possible option.
But there's major distrust of the government, a lot of anger, a lot of confusion. I think that should be leveraged towards gradually taking the Israeli government's executive authority away from it, stripping the Israeli government from any option of actually doing something obstructive, as it has done so far. I think that's the only way forward. A change of heart will come later.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Well, a month after Venezuela's disputed presidential election and human rights. Watch reports political violence is the deadliest there in years. More on that in a moment.
Also, Pope Francis meets with Indonesia's president during his first full day in Jakarta. We'll have the latest on his tour of Southeast Asia when we return.
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VAUSE: The wake of ongoing anti-government protests and increasingly violent crackdown on protests and international combination of a presidential election widely seen is totally rigged. Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela has announced Christmas has come early, October 1st, to be exact. It's not the first time the embattled president has moved the holiday, but this is the earliest it's been.
It's widely seen as an effort to distract from anger over the July election, which Maduro claims he won, but most of the world believes he lost in a landslide. Religious leaders in Venezuela are not playing along, saying this is logistically propaganda, and Christmas will still be celebrated on the date Emperor Constantine chose, which was December 25.
Human Rights Watch has issued a scathing new report on the post- election violence in Venezuela, calling it the worst in years, with a wave of killings and detentions nationwide since the July vote. Stefano Pozzebon has details.
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STEFANO POZZEBON, JOURNALIST: Allegations of human rights abuse at the hands of security forces in Venezuela are not new, but Human Rights Watch is saying that members of the armed forces, including the National Guard, were involved in the killings of several protesters in a brutal crackdown on dissent that followed a controversial election on July 28.
Human Rights Watch says its team documented 11 killings during the protests, while authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro had previously said that more than 2,400 people have been detained, and independent groups have said that 24 people have been killed, including 23 civilians and one member of the military. CNN could not independently verify these allegations, and has reached out to Venezuelan authorities for comment.
But according to the report, which was published on Wednesday, pro- government militias known as Collectivos, sometimes collided with the security forces to curb the dissent. But that is not the only novelty that occurred this year.
JUANITA GOEBERTUS, AMERICAS DIRECTOR, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: So this is particular violence that is also different, because it's affecting not only underage, but people in neighborhoods that were usually closer to Chavismo, very popular, very poor neighborhoods where historically, the regime would not execute that kind of violence. Now they're doing so. They lost the legitimacy around the country, even in places where they used to have much more popular support, and that's also where they have concentrated this repression.
POZZEBON: Meanwhile, opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez remains on the run after Venezuelan authorities published an arrest mandate against the former candidate, who claims to have won the election with 67 percent of the vote and has since published tens of thousands of electoral tallies to support his claim.
The 75-year-old former diplomat is accused of crimes associated with terrorism, including conspiracy, and has not been seen in public. For weeks for CNN, this is Stefano Pozzebon, Bogota.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: The leader of the main opposition party in Uganda has been seriously injured during a confrontation with police. That's according to party officials who say Bobi Wine a shot in the leg Tuesday outside the capital of Kampala and what they claim was an attempt on his life.
Police, though, say Wine's group blocked a road without permission, leading to an obligation in which he sustained injuries after stumbling while getting into a vehicle. The pop star turned politician has emerged as the main opponent to President Yoweri Museveni in 2021. Wine did tell CNN he felt his life was invaded.
More than 120 people have been killed in an attempted mass breakout from the biggest prison in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The prison is also notorious for overcrowding and appalling conditions. Many were killed in a stampede, others shot dead. Some women were even raped. More details now from CNN's Larry Madowo.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: 129 people killed in this attempted Prison Break. Is no small number. The government now suspending sending any more inmates there as part of the measures to decongest and improve the conditions there, promising to open another prison in Kinshasa as part of the decongestion process.
This prison Makala was built for about 1,500 people, but Amnesty International says as many as 12,000 people could have been there, almost 10 times the capacity it was built for. This is not even the first jailbreak from Makala. In 2017 members of a religious sect broke in and freed some of their members, and they've been other prison breaks in other parts of the country, most notably in two notably in 2020 when a rebel group affiliated with ISIS broke into the prison in Beni, Northeastern DRC, and hundreds of people were freed.
A lot of questions about this tragedy so deadly, and there will be many people in the DRC hoping that the government can make sure. Something like this does not happen again. Larry Madowo, CNN, Nairobi.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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VAUSE: Still to come here on CNN, she was allegedly recruited to spy for China, a former aide to two New York governors, the accusations in the poultry payoff when we come back.
Also, an update on Donald Trump's legal woes, details on when the former U.S. president could find himself back in court. That's next.
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VAUSE: Wherever you are around the world, welcome back. I'm John Vause. You're watching CNN Newsroom.
In Indonesia, Pope Francis has urged political leaders to remain vigilant about the rise of religious extremism. His first address on a 12-day tour of Southeast Asia promoting interfaith dialog at the pope met with Indonesian President Joko Widodo and other officials earlier in the day, and we head live now to Jakarta. CNN Vatican correspondent Christopher Lamb has more on the Pope's trip. Christopher.
CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John today was important moment for the Pope on his trip to Southeast Asia, because it was the first time that he spoke in public. He was at the presidential palace in Jakarta for an address that he was giving to the political leaders and diplomatic corps here in the country, and he used that address to emphasize a key theme of this trip, which is inter religious dialog.
Francis is keen for this to be the major theme of his trip, because he believes that when religious leaders talk to each other, when people of faith come closer together in religion, they can build a more peaceful society. It can tackle religious extremism and violence.
Now, Francis praised Indonesia, which is the world's most populous Muslim country, saying it had a magnificent mosaic of religions and traditions. On Thursday, he's going to be going to the Istiqlal Mosque, the largest mosque in Southeast Asia, which is opposite the Catholic Church in Jakarta, another huge Church of Southeast Asia.
That will be another moment where he can emphasize this importance of interfaith harmony. He wants the Catholic Church in Indonesia to be a model of that, into Beethoven, to be pushing for more dialog, which he believes is key when addressing global conflicts, when dealing with extremism and violence. This is a big trip for Pope Francis. It's a 12-day tour, the longest he's ever embarked upon.
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So far, he seems to be in good spirits but there's still a long way to come. He's got Papua New guinea (AUDIO GAP) closely, John.
VAUSE: Christopher, thank you. We appreciate the report there live from Jakarta.
Well, the House Foreign Affairs Committee has subpoenaed Secretary of State Antony Blinken. They want him to testify next week on the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Republican chair of the committee has repeatedly called for accountability from the Biden administration on how the withdrawal played out.
Michael McCall is set to release the committee's report on the findings of a three-year long investigation into the withdrawal which began (INAUDIBLE).
It's only been about a week since special counsel Jack Smith filed an updated indictment against Donald Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election. But the former president's legal team has already issued their response.
CNN's Katelyn Polantz has details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Donald Trump is pleading not guilty to that new set of charges in federal court in Washington that the Justice Department, the special counsel's office, led by Jack Smith filed against him last week.
Now those charges went through a grand jury, but they're the same charges that Trump has faced for more than a year now related to the 2020 election, what he was doing leading up to and on January 6 to inspire violence among his supporters.
The Justice Department has rewritten the allegations though, and because they filed the new indictment, he has to have a new plea entered.
The way Trump is doing this, though, is different than the last time. Before he appeared in-person in court to tell the court he was pleading not guilty, but now he's doing it on paper. He doesn't want to have to appear in court. There is a hearing where his attorneys are going to be going before
Judge Tanya Chutkan in the district court in D.C. on Thursday of this week. And so they're hoping that this piece of paper where Donald Trump has signed with his name in big black bold letters saying he's pleading not guilty, that that would be sufficient. That it means that he doesn't have to show up.
But it still is quite notable for the former president still facing these charges and in this situation, this type of filing kicks off the trial proceedings again.
All of the things that will be leading up in the trial court to Donald Trump potentially going to trial before a jury of his peers.
Katelyn Polantz, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: A former aide to two New York state governors has been charged with acting as an agent for the Chinese government. Current Governor Kathy Hochul says she's furious and outraged what equals brazen behavior by her former deputy chief of staff Linda Sun.
The governor's office fired her in March 2023 after finding evidence of misconduct. Officials say Sun received tickets to special events, helped promote friends' businesses even received special delivery of Nanjing salted duck prepared by a Chinese official's personal chef.
Sun and husband were arrested Tuesday. They pleaded not guilty to charges which include violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, visa fraud, alien smuggling, money laundering, a whole bunch of other stuff including (ph) the duck.
Douglas London is a former senior CIA operations officer and an adjunct associate professor at Georgetown University, as well as author of "The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence".
Welcome to the show. It's good to see you.
DOUGLAS LONDON, FORMER SENIOR CIA OPERATIONS OFFICER: Great to be with you, John.
VAUSE: Ok. So among the accusations here is that Linda Sun used her position to block Taiwanese officials from having access to the governor's office, eliminated references to Taiwan from state communications and quash meetings between Taiwanese officials and state leaders including the governor, Ms. Hochul.
She also ensured that state officials did not publicly address the persecution of Uyghurs, a primarily Muslim ethnic group.
So just explain, you know, some of our viewers may not understand just how valuable, how important that sort of interference would be for the communist regime in Beijing. LONDON: Well, it's important enough, John that they paid her several million dollars over the course of at least about eight years from what we can see in a very robust 65-page indictment.
China's concern obviously is relative to Taiwan and the rest of the world's relationships. So getting influence (INAUDIBLE), political figures such as a governor of the state of New York, which is so key in politics and finance and economics is an amazing coup for them to do.
And they did with great effectiveness over the years.
VAUSE: Well, Sun was a senior aide to New York state Governor Kathy Hochul, who in a statement said that she was shocked and outraged by all of this and added, "This individual was hired by the executive chamber more than a decade ago. We terminated her employment in March of 2023 after discovering evidence of misconduct, immediately reported her actions to law enforcement." In other words she seems to be passing the buck to her predecessor, Governor Andrew Cuomo, whose administration initially hired her.
[01:34:44]
VAUSE: And in a statement, Cuomo's spokesperson said this, "While Ms. Sun was promoted to deputy chief of staff in the subsequent administration, during our time, she worked in a handful of agencies and was one of many community liaisons who had a little to no interaction with the governor."
So you get the picture here, but it seems Sun held a number of positions since 2009. She was rising through the ranks of government. So in all of this, who ultimately dropped the ball? How did she get away with it for so long?
LONDON: Well, it's a matter of perspective, right. Because you're talking about a governor's office. And when I think Americans think of espionage, they think it's secret documents. They think of people trying to figure out how our tanks work and our missiles work, but they don't really think about influence.
It's not something that we do that much ourselves. But China, Russia autocracies are very focused on influence and messaging. And for them to be able to get an inside player in the New York governor's office is key.
And probably an operation conducted by their civilian service, the Ministry of State Security, which this is, you know, part of their bread and butter in trying not just to steal our secrets, but to influence the way Americans think and our relations with other countries, and Taiwan would be at the very top.
VAUSE: Yes, among the payments she also received was a steady supply of salted Nanjing ducks prepared by a chef at the Chinese consulate in New York and "The "New York Times" headlines puts it this way. New York official charged with taking money, travel, and poultry to aid China." You mentioned there were millions of dollars paid here, so all of these perks are like giant footsteps left behind in the snow leading to someone who is not on the up and up.
LONDON: I think what's amazing here is the degree of what we would consider poor intelligence tradecraft.
This is a relationship that was very much in public in many aspects, even though they seem to believe they were communicating securely over WeChat which is a Chinese messaging system. Clearly it wasn't all that secure based on what we see in the indictment.
And for Americans to understand, the millions of dollars are key -- obviously that was a key part of her motivation.
But in an espionage relationship, there's got to be a personal side. And that's very much where the chicken -- the poultry came in. And the visits and as you mentioned, money even for her son to maintain that personal side of the relationship to help guide her and control her.
VAUSE: Do we how she was recruited in the first place?
LONDON: It's not clear, but the indictment suggests that there were cutouts. There were two individuals listed as one a naturalized U.S. citizen of Chinese birth, one a legal permanent resident.
The former was working for a nonprofit group. It seems to me that he was her first contact. He invited her back to China. He started giving her small gifts.
And my impression from the indictment, though they're not specific, is that the recruitment occurred when she traveled to China. And thereafter she maintained contacts not just with this cutout, but also with officials from the Chinese consulate.
There's four listed in the indictment including two in the political section, which for me is code for the Ministry of State Security.
VAUSE: Douglas London, your insights are invaluable. Thank you for being with us. We really appreciate your time.
LONDON: Thanks, John. I appreciate the opportunity.
VAUSE: You bet.
At least 12 people have died, mostly women and children after a migrant boat capsized off the coast of northern France Tuesday. More than 50 others were rescued, several in critical condition now.
Authorities believe most of the migrants were from Eritrea. The French interior minister blamed smugglers for unsafe conditions on the boat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GERALD DARMANIN, FRENCH INTERIOR MINISTER (through translator): You must understand that while there were 30 to 40 people on these boats in the past, today there are 70 to 80 people on these same boats.
So what probably happened is that this boat collapsed on itself very quickly which condemned a large number of people to certain death.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: This is the deadliest migrant incident this year, according to officials on the English Channel, where small boat crossings have soared in recent years.
In the end, it just wasn't enough. When we come back, the incredible efforts by the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin to bring their son home from Gaza.
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VAUSE: An update now on the death toll in Gaza, Hamas officials say Israeli operations have killed 33 people, wounded 67 others in the past 24 hours. More than 40,800 Palestinians have now been killed since Israel declared war on Hamas October 8th. CNN though unable to independently confirm those ministry numbers.
Also, the Palestinians in the West Bank say 33 Palestinians have been killed, about 130 injured since last Wednesday since the IDF has been conducting operations in the West Bank to eliminate what it calls terrorist cells.
The U.S. Justice Department says its investigation into the murders of all Americans murdered as acts of terrorism on October 7, including the killing of 23-year-old Israeli American Hersh Goldberg-Polin. He was one of the six hostages whose bodies were recovered over the weekend.
His story became one of the most well-known due in part to the tireless efforts of his parents to try and bring him home.
They've spoken to CNN's Anderson Cooper throughout the ordeal. A warning: some of the video and some of the details in this report are graphic.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Five days after the October 7th massacre at the Nova Music Festival site, an Israeli soldier showed me a disturbing video of a young Israeli man with his left hand blown off, being kidnapped, loaded into a pickup truck.
I didn't know who he was. But four days later, by coincidence, I interviewed Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg for the first time on CNN.
RACHEL GOLDBERG, MOTHER OF HERSH GOLDBERG-POLIN: When I turned on my phone, which I don't normally use on the Jewish sabbath, that's when I saw two texts pop up at 8:10, 8:11 in the morning. The first one said "I love you". And the second one said, "I'm sorry".
And immediately I knew something must have been happening or was about to happen.
COOPER: I didn't know they were the parents of the young man I'd seen in that video until John said this during our interview.
JON POLIN, FATHER OF HERSH GOLDBERG-POLIN: And we know from three eyewitness accounts of survivors that basically there were at least 11 grenades thrown into the bomb shelter.
Our son, by all accounts of the witnesses, had his left arm blown off at some point during the attack.
COOPER: That's when I realized I'd seen their son and they had no idea that video of him being taken hostage existed. I waited until the interview was over and called them, and then sent them the video I had. I met with them a week later.
POLIN: First of all, it's a crazy sequence of events that we talked to you through a computer screen and then get a phone call from you saying, I have a video of your son.
COOPER: I didn't want to say on live television --
POLIN: Of course.
GOLDBERG: Which we so appreciated.
POLIN: Of course.
GOLDBERG: The way everything has unfolded, the gentleness that you used, because at the end of the day you're a journalist and journalists want a story.
And that could have been dealt with in many other ways that were not kind and gentle.
POLIN: Seeing that video in general gave us a dose of optimism.
COOPER: How are you able to get through each day?
GOLDBERG: I personally feel like we have to keep running to the end of the earth to save him. And we have to try to go believing that somehow he got treatment and he's there.
COOPER: They showed me Hersh's room, which Rachel would visit to feel close to him.
GOLDBERG: We have a porch that's facing south and I went out Friday night screaming to him. Because Friday night, you know, we bless our children traditionally in Jewish homes. You bless your children on Friday night.
I was screaming -- it's a traditional blessing from the Bible.
COOPER: What does the blessing say?
GOLDBERG: It says may God bless you and keep you. May God -- may God's face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May God's countenance be lifted up -- lifted up toward you and give you peace.
[01:44:51]
COOPER: In the weeks after, Rachel and Jon worked tirelessly to raise awareness about Hersh and the other hostages.
Rachel, you're wearing a tag that says 26. You want to tell people what that is.
GOLDBERG: Well, this morning, I realized, you know what, it's day 26 and I don't know if anyone is really counting. I don't know how many people really care.
Every single day until these people come home, I'm going to be wearing what day it is. So this is my new fashion statement.
COOPER: The weeks turned into months. This was them in April.
GOLDBERG: We're living on another planet, so I don't know that we comprehend time the way that you do or normal people. We feel that everybody has failed. Our leaders, all of them had failed to make this suffering on all sides stop.
We feel that we as parents have failed because as a parent your job is to keep your children safe.
COOPER: Then suddenly a few weeks later, Hamas released this hostage video of Hersh. It was the first proof his parents had he was alive.
GOLDBERG: We were sobbing, tears and emotional, overwhelmed feelings were just abounding.
We weren't even listening to what he was saying, just hearing his voice and seeing him moving and that he was alive.
COOPER: Then in late June, another video was released by the hostages and missing families forum. For this one taken on October 7, moments after the first video I'd sent them ended.
You had so much concern about, you know, whether Hersh had made it out just from his injury alone. You see a tourniquet being put on later on in the video. That I mean, do you think that probably saved his life?
GOLDBERG: Well, I'm happy that for whatever reasons that he was obviously treated because as we all know, on day 201 we had a video released that shows Hersh with a stump where that jagged bone had been. But we know from day 201 thank God that he is alive.
COOPER: 129 days later that hope became heartbreak. On day 330, Hersh Goldberg-Polin's body was found with five other hostages: Alexander Lobanov, Carmel Gat, Almog Sarusi, Eden Yerushalmi, and Ori Danino.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Thanks to Anderson Cooper for that report.
And we'll be right back. You're watching CNN.
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VAUSE: The Trump campaign, no stranger to cease-and-desist notices from singers and performers. But now comes the first one from a court saying stop playing this altogether. Here's the song.
(MUSIC)
[01:49:53]
VAUSE: That's "Hold on, I'm coming" sung by duo Sam and Dave. The estate of Isaac Hayes, one of the song's late co-writers claims Trump's team doesn't have approval to play it at his events, he never does.
A federal judge ruled the song cannot be used again without a proper licensing agreement. The Hayes estate also won a previous recording used by -- other songs used by the Trump campaign to be taken down. The judge though denied that motion.
A lot of artists have publicly complained about Trump's use of their songs at his campaign events, but the Hayes estate is the first to take their complaints to court and win.
Paralympian Wojtek Czyz is no stranger to defying the odds. After an accident derailed promising European football career earlier in life, he came back to become a four-time paralympic champion.
He also made history as the first para-badminton (ph) player to represent New Zealand at the Paris summer games.
CNN's World Sport Patrick Snell spoke with the 44-year-old about his career change.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WOJTEK CZYZ, PARALYMPIC CHAMPION: imagine on the 11th September 2001, on this day, I was invited to perform in a training or whether professional team. I had the best day of my life and I made it.
I got my contract. I signed my contract and I had only one game left for my non-professional team when a goal keeper jumped -- jumped in my leg and injured me pretty hard in my knee.
And unfortunately the support, the medical support came too late. So everything below my knee was bad and they had to amputee.
PATRICK SNELL, CNN WORLD SPORT: So you go through that whole experience. Just I can't even begin to imagine what that was like for any -- you're a young man. You've got stars in your eyes. You're dreaming of a professional football career. You've just outlined the medical situation there, which appears to be very, very significant indeed.
But what are you thinking at the time? What are you going through at that point?
CZYZ: You know, I was a paramedic. I am a paramedic. So when I was alone in the room, I played on my big injectors to put the meds in me and it has been my final day. But luckily, a nurse came in the room and just removed me everything -- every connection in the body.
And with this set I could put all my passion again into the right direction. And this is how I recover from this dark time.
And just when you know, when all this happens, Jurgen (ph) was there as well already because he just became a coach for FS Mainz 05.
And he heard about my story and he directly decided to try to support me so that I can, you know, get a good prosthetic for the future.
SNELL: You describe when you are at rock bottom and my heart goes out to you.
Is there anything from back then that someone said to you whether it be Jurgen, whether it be the nurse you referenced, anyone at the time that you now reflect back on and how do you reflect back on it?
CZYZ: You know, there was one very special person to me. He asked me about why did you want to play football? What was the thing about being a pro?
I said, look to enter the stadium full 80,000 people shouting your name after you score a goal, it is simply this, this feeling which gave me the drive to go for it.
He said, ok Wojtek, look, I will give it you this DVD. Have a look, and I will come back in 30 minutes.
And this DVD was a documentary about the Paralympics in Barcelona from 1992 with a full stadium and people cheering. And this is where I said, oh wow, I want to be there. And this was the door which was opened for me.
Two years after my amputation, I entered the stadium. And this was basically for me, the fulfilling of my dream. You know, I was not there to win gold medal. I was unbeaten for I think 11 years in long jump.
And to be a professional, one of the first professional disabled athletes in the world simply made me very proud and I, you know, have a lot to push the movement and to push the passport and the position that we set a statement.
We are professionals. We are giving it all.
SNELL: So Jurgen was right there in Paris supporting you. He says he's so proud of you. He's told your story hundreds of times, he says to try and inspire others. What did his being there in support of you, what does that mean to you?
CZYZ: He loves the fact that I try to, you know, be the door opener now. And this is why he came and for sure also to enjoy the Paralympics because he's saying, look, look. They are the best stories.
[01:54:51]
CZYZ: Jurgen and my wife, these are the two always, always saying Wojtek, go for it. We believe in you. You will make it. And, you know, this is why the story is so emotional for him and for me.
When we arrived to Paris and we met before my competition is at Wojtek, look let's be realistic. We know why you're here. It's not about winning medals, it's really about having said that you made it. You made it to Paris.
You know, I was always on the other side of the chain fighting for gold medals in athletics. And this time, it was not about medals. It was about getting there and you're not affected. We made it. Made him incredibly, incredibly happy and proud of what we achieved.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Well, the field is narrowing at the U.S. Open tennis tournament as it approaches the weekend finals and a pair of Americans are making their mark. 13 seed Emma Navarro is through to her first career Grand Slam semifinal. She beat Spain's Paula Badosa, 6-2, 7-5 on Tuesday.
And on the men's side American Taylor Fritz was also appearing in his first Grand Slam semifinal. The 12 seed outlasted Germany's Alexander Zverev in four sets.
The last American man to win a Grand Slam singles title was Andy Roddick at the U.S. Open in 2003, more than 20 years ago.
It's been a big week for director Tim Burton. His "Beetlejuice" sequel is about to hit theaters. Tuesday, he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The filmmaker unveiled his star outside one of Hollywood's go-to Halloween stores, which Burton says he's been visiting since he was a child.
And finally, this just into CNN, Ukraine's foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has tendered his resignation. That's according to Ukraine's parliament speaker, as reported by the Reuters News Agency.
This is part of a very big shakeup by the Ukrainian government, which has also seen the head of the air force tendered his resignation and a number of senior ministers within Volodymyr Zelenskyy's cabinet. We have more on that story next hour.
Meantime, I'm John Vause.
Stay with us. CNN NEWSROOM continues with my friend and colleague, Rosemary Church in just a moment.
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