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tv   Anderson Cooper 360  CNN  September 28, 2017 10:00pm-11:00pm PDT

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with steak and shrimp? more shrimp. and you know what goes great with that shrimp? you guessed it. more shrimp. steak and unlimited shrimp, starting at $15.99. only at outback. we begin the hour with a cnn exclusive. a twitter and facebook account both disguised to look like they were run by the same black activists were actually run by russians. the accounts are part of the material being handled over to
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congress. the accounts both called blacktivists posted videos of police brutality on african-americans. and wrote about injustice to african-americans. look at the page, it says watch another savage video of police brutality. police are directly letting us know how they feel and where we stand. joining us is a senior media on politics. these posts were all designed by the russians to amplify racial bias. >> that's right the posts coming from this social media campaign was made, our sources tell us, by an account linked back to the internet research agency which has ties to the kremlin. this campaign used both facebook and twitter to basically advance a message that would -- and posts and ads that would exploit the racial tensions that exist in this country effectively as part of the larger russian goal of undermining american
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democracy, sowing political discord, contributing to an atmosphere of partisanship and incivility. and they were doing this at a time during a campaign when race was sort of at the forefront -- or at least one of the major issues going on in america at that time. still is today. and if you couple this with the reporting we had last night, that one of the ads, a black lives matter ad, was targeted at the cities of ferguson, missouri, and baltimore, you begin to understand just how sophisticated the russians were in terms of understanding the pressure points for american politics and american culture. >> did this group have a big following online? >> in fact they did. if you look at the facebook account now suspended for blacktivits. what you find is they had over 360,000 likes. that is more than the 300,000 likes that the verified black lives matter facebook page has today.
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so, yes, so it's not just a question of the russians being able or intending to influence american politics, that level of following suggests they may have actually succeeded in doing so. >> were these accounts also promoting events? >> yes, they were, and that's another area where you can measure the influence that these accounts actually had. there are at least seven events we found that were promoted or broadcast by the blacktivists account. these events range from a 50th anniversary demonstration to the black panther party to the anniversary of the death of freddie gray. and real events. events that were actually attended by people, covered by some media organizations. so what we're learning tonight begins to sort of help us understand and certainly, i think, help congressional investigators understand how facebook -- how russia was able to use facebook and twitter to influence american politics.
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>> appreciate the reporting. thank you. fascinating. >> joining us now, steve hall. is this sort of classic kgb stuff from the cold war? back in the day, didn't they fund groups they felt would sow discord or have a certain political agenda? >> it's sort of classic russia soviet, kgb, russia intelligence service 2.0. the russians beginning in 2007 when they authored a significant cyber attack against estonia, really began to experiment and see, how far can we go, what exactly can we do, using the time honored traditions of influence operations of active measures, which they've done for decades inside of russia, inside the soviet union. and outside as well. now they've learned to leverage the social media atmosphere in which we all live, in which we all par take, at least here in the west we do. now we're really beginning to
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see the sophistication, the depth, the spread of what they're able to accomplish. and really the sort of deep understanding of our society. i mean, put yourself, if you reverse the situation, if i were the american intelligence officer, i was told, look, you have to somehow understand russian society to the point where you know what kind of people that live in each town and try to figure out a different message from those people, for those people. it's pretty complicated stuff. you still have to do a lot of research. the russians threw a lot of resources at this. >> do you think that requires presence in the united states? sort of understand that, or is it the kind of thing, you know, anyone who's reading anything online can know, ferguson missouri is a flashpoint or freddie gray. i mean, if you're following the news, you can learn an awful lot on that. >> in my experience, sort of the question that you're asking is, in intel gens parlance, the
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different between an analyst and operations person. yeah, you can read newspapers, you can read the target language. you can read russian or in the russians case, you can read english and go through all of this stuff and try to figure it out. there's nothing like having somebody on the ground who understands what propaganda themes. what covert action measured themes are going to resound best in a particular town or in a particular community with the different groups. it's always better if you have somebody on the ground. that's one of the reasons you have a lot of russians in the united states. it's also why you need to get out and talk to the target audience that you're trying to get at. so it's better to have people on the ground. you can do some of it remotely. but it's best to have people right there in the middle of it. >> russian intelligence people have people living in the united states who aren't directly connected to the russian embassy or in d.c. or the consulate in new york. just to understand american society, am i wrong about that? >> no, there's lots of different ways to skin that cat. what you're referring to is
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what we talk about as russian illegals, who are basically russian intelligence officers who are not under official cover. whether or not you would use a person like that directly in support of this type of thing, that would depend on what other resources the russians have. that's certainly a way to do it. another way to do it is through the official presence. russian diplomats going about their business and talking to americans. and then, of course, it's also possible that there are americans who have agreed to work with the russians, perhaps in the immigrant community, people who are from russia, who speak the language and would be willing to talk to russian government officials. there's a lot of different ways to get at it, especially if you're in an open society like the united states or really anywhere in europe. >> thanks very much. new breaking news. health and human services secretary tom price's costly flights on private planes and air force jets. the tab to tax players now topping $1 million according to
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politico. that's $1 million of taxpayer money. that's not all. a spokesperson said secretary price would reimburse the treasury, he isn't really doing that. he plans to only reimburse taxpayers for the cost of his seat on many of the private plane flights he took. about $52,000. not the cost of the fuel or the plane or the crew, which is a lot more. as if the seats could fly themselves. renee marsh has more, she joins us now. so i'm clear, taxpayers are picking up a tab, if politico is correct, of roughly a million dollars for secretary price's travel since may, he only plans to reimburse $50,000. did he think that this would quiet the discussion about it ? >> i don't know. but you're right, he's paying nearly $52,000. he said he wrote that check today. all of the flights we're talking about here, includes domestic and international flights. he flew 13 domestic flights, which translates to more than 2
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dozen individual flights within the united states on private planes to conduct government business. and then today, as you mentioned, cnn learned that price also flew on two lengthy international trips on military jets with his wife. in mid may, he flew from andrews air force base to liberia, germany and switzerland before returning to the d.c. area. and then again in mid-august, he flew to alaska, china, vietnam, japan and seattle before returning to the d.c. area. i do want to point out, though, the use of military aircraft for a cabinet member is sometimes justified. especially if there is a need for secured communications when they are traveling. at this point it's unclear if that was the case for price on these trips. the agency did say, though, that price reimbursed the government for his wife's flight. >> and some of those flights were approved by the white house, correct?
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>> that is correct. the white house telling us this evening, our producer that they do review all of these requests, and that they limit this sort of travel to trips that are in line with the white house's greater mission. and clearly they believe these two trips, these two international trips we're talking about tonight fell in that category. >> some of these -- i mean, these flights were, flights were -- i think early on the excuse from price and his people was, well, he's so busy, he can't wait to take commercial flights, he's got to get there. some of these were places where commercial flights were readily available. i think politico reported there were two flights from d.c. to nashville. the day he flew that, and where he was going to have lunch with his son, in addition to attend one or two meetings. so there were commercial flights. and sometimes he went days earlier to a place that he needed to be for an official
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purpose. a lot more to look into. there's even more late reporting, what the president makes of all this, and we'll bring that to you next. we'll get the panels take, and ask them how they liked their flight up here, or train ride, whatever the case might be. later, reality check from our team of reporters on the grounds in puerto rico. blps blps we danced in a german dance group. i wore lederhosen.man. when i first got on ancestry i was really surprised that i wasn't finding all of these germans in my tree. i decided to have my dna tested through ancestry dna. the big surprise was we're not german at all. 52% of my dna comes from scotland and ireland. so, i traded in my lederhosen for a kilt. ancestry has many paths to discovering your story. get started for free at ancestry.com.
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president trump's thinking tonight say that this partial repayment is not helping his case. sources say that president trump wants this matter resolved, and that price's decision to pay only part of the fee is sparking more fuel. i want to bring in the panel now. i don't understand from a public relations standpoint, if they're sitting around in tom price's office and saying you know what, we'll offer to pay a tiny fraction of these flights that's going to put this story to bed. that seems to defy logic. >> it's an insult. >> the bill is a million dollars, he's paying 52,000. who's picking up the rest. we are, the taxpayers are. price is aiming for frequent liar miles. he's completely dishonest. >> how long were you thinking that one? >> during your train ride up, right? >> that's right. when i was taking the train. >> it is consistent with the president's own style. this is a present when he
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visited a site where he wanted to build a golf course in scotland, decided he would barter a photo of himself for dinner for his entourage. so he's a guy who understands doing as much as you can for as little as you can pay. in this case, it makes it look bad for the president. he's not going to tolerate someone else doing it, he understands the motivation. as i said earlier. it's flying over the swamp in a jet. >> a lot of republicans railed against this behavior. a lot of people who i'm sure voted for donald trump. >> tom priced railed against it. >> to be clear, though, there are legitimate reasons why a cabinet official may fly military. some of his travel was legit. he was going to things you would expect the hhs secretary to go to. that being said, i think you can go to the fridge and get the butter and jelly, tom price is toast. he's not going to survive this.
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>> he's not going to survive this? >> no. this has taken on a life of its own. what do we know about the president? he hates bad press. he doesn't like it when his people are giving him bad press. he's motivated by this, as well he should be. somebody in the white house approved these trips, they're going to have to answer for it too. my suspicion is, price won't survive it. this is one of those things, i would fast forward to the future. if democrats control either chamber of the congress, these kinds of issues right here, lead to investigations, which lead to more investigations and more documents and more stuff. the administration has to be very careful with these kinds of things. >> i want to play what tom price said when he was in the congress about fancy flights and nancy pelosi. >> i want to say to the speaker. don't you fly over our country in your luxury jet and lecture us on what it means to be an american. >> the video tape never goes away. >> the hypocrisy is the biggest problem here. to scott's point, yes, there are
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legitimate times where you need to take these kinds of jets, he would take military flights. he was sub committee chairman of the foreign affairs committee, those things had a budget, they had to be approved by the full committee chairman. sometimes he was denied because of the costs. in this case, though, it's not only tom price, now there's a report out that the interior secretary was taking private jets to his home in montana, and coupling that with work, and to the caribbean islands. you're going to see a can of worms now opened up, seeing how many people have done this, from the treasurer secretary taking the military flights to see the eclipse, he was checking on the gold in fort knox, this is a problem. >> the epa. >> the epa, that's right. when you're supposed to be, and as a conservative, we were always champion being stewarts of the taxpayer's money. the congressman i worked for, used to give back to the treasury every year. if you didn't use money for the budget money in the congressional office. how tom price after railing against this, and then the whole
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drain the swamp thing survives this, i don't know. also what has tom price done as hhs secretary? it's been a failure with health care. which was his primary responsibility up to this point. he doesn't have any wins to point to. why would donald trump keep him at this point? >> i think that's right, he's not going to. donald trump knows that his supporters will let him do anything. which is why he made the comment about shooting someone on 5th avenue. he and his daughter have gotten three trademarks each from from the chinese government. he has not separated from his businesses. he is now paying for his legal fees, while his staffers go bankrupt paying their own legal fees. out of republican national committee donations. he doesn't like people embarrassing him with this stuff. he knows this will resonate with the people who put him in office. he can do no wrong. but all these names we're talking about and this kind of maybe some trips were legitimate, but a million
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dollars since may, it's not going to fly. >> it's interesting to see people caught up in something like this. initially, it's -- i'm so busy, i have to take these flights. lo and behold, i go to st. simeon island two days early with my wife, because i happen to have land there. and the conference is two days later, so the idea that i couldn't get a commercial flight there, you have two extra days, you could probably find a commercial flight. >> and there's government negotiated rates. when i was a government employee and i travelled for official business, you can get the government rate. they're set for certain flights in certain areas, so often times it's not exorbitant prices you would have to pay if you flew commercial. not for nothing, but the vice president of the united states, joe biden used to take the train to delaware. if the vice president can do it and his entourage and everything that goes along with him, i think the secretary of hhs can take amtrak from d.c. to philadelphia. >> right, he flew from d.c. to philadelphia. >> which is insane. >> just getting to the airport, getting on the plane -- >> it's about an hour and 20 minutes to take the train to philadelphia.
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by the time you get on the flight, fly there -- it just does not pass the smell test. >> does anyone think this has blow back? you talked about others, pruitt, others, do you think it raises then that issue. pruitt's building that sound proof booth? >> yeah, he's maxwell smart. he's built a sound proof booth for himself at taxpayers' expense. and i do this this is a sort of -- i i don't know donald trump. i think this is the thing that's going to shock him, anger him, i'll tell you what he knows, he knows his brand. and this is completely contrary to the brand that got limb elected. >> brand, but not the person, to michael. >> that may be, i think price is gone, and i think there needs to be -- if i were advising, i'd say, you have to protect that brand. get a top to bottom review of all this wasteful spending your people have been doing and get rid of them all. we have to take a quick break, when we come back -- a family from puerto rico who returned home for the first time since maria hit. we'll show you what they found.
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they save us from gettingones? lost, getting hungry, and getting tired of places like this. phones changed everything - shouldn't the way pay for them change too?
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introducing xfinity mobile. where you can pay for data by the gig, and share it across all of your lines. no one else lets you do that. see how much you can save when you pay by the gig. xfinity mobile. it's a new kind of network designed to save you money. call, visit, or go to xfinitymobile.com. the trump administration had words about hurricane relief in puerto rico. >> i am very satisfied. i know it's a hard storm to recover from. the amount of progress that's been made -- and i really would appreciate any support that we get. i know it is really a good news story in terms of our ability to reach people. and the limited number of deaths that have taken place in such a devastating hurricane. >> the pentagon named a three-star general to coordinate efforts on the ground.
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he took heed today for waiting so long, eight days, and the entire relief effort is taking heat from puerto rico where the relief is so necessary. dr. sanjay gupta joins us from san juan. >> you reported on a clinic that was running out of fuel. what happened to them? >> reporter: they were able to get fuel with just a couple of hours left from a local municipality. they weren't sure if they were going to get it. the truck pulled up and was able to give them some fuel. but then they have a new problem, which we found out about today, and that is they're not sure how long their water supply is going to last. they're rationing it and not accepting new patients. that has an impact as we saw when we visited some of the shelters outside of san juan. >> this is josephine in a alvarez' reality. look at what happened to us, she pleads. nobody is taking care us.
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for two weeks she's been here in a shelter, an hour outside of san juan. but may as well be on a different island altogether. like thousands of others, she's become really sick. >> we have no hospital to get her, because all the emergency are closed. because they have no electricity and we have no place to get her. she's getting more complicated. >> reporter: dr. mow moralez has tried everything to get alvarez to a hospital. >> the ambulance we saw just left. >> they have no authorization from their bosses to get -- >> reporter: that seems ridiculous. >> tell me about it. >> reporter: we're in the middle of a disaster, in the middle of a crisis and you're waiting for paperwork? >> yeah. >> this is a very treatable
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problem under any other circumstance. >> yeah, sure. >> get her to the hospital, put in an iv. >> what happens if she doesn't get this? >> she may get infection to the blood and complicated with sepsis, and even death. >> reporter: there's no communication anywhere here. so we give her our satellite phone to try and call for help. puerto rico's secretary of health finds a hospital for alvarez, but then the same problem, how do get her there. >> we can take the patient. i'm a doctor, we can take the patient ourselves. i know time is of the essence here. the health secretary is there. >> he already accept the patient, so she -- >> reporter: we can do that. you can't even believe what's happening here, i mean, she's -- there's no power, there's no water. she's a diabetic, she doesn't have insulin. she has an infection that could threaten her life. no ambulance will take her to the hospital. that's what's happening here.
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>> it's okay. >> she wants to sit on this side. >> because of the ulceration, yeah. >> move the wheelchair up, please. there's nothing about this that makes sense. look what we're doing here, we're transporting a patient -- this is not an ambulance, but it's the only thing we really have right now to get her to the care she needs. there are probably thousands of patients who are in similar shelters, no power, no water, no medications, no way out, there are probably thousands more who are in their homes. they haven't been able to get to a shelter. she's just one example of what's happening here. she's been desating a bit. we're trying to get her into the triage here. >> one more. >> watch out.
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>> jason, i need lift truck, please. >> sanjay, how is she doing now, do you know? >> reporter: yeah. well, she's in this tent that's just behind me over here, it's one of the disaster management assistance team tents. she's going to need surgery, we're told. she has an infection. to adequately clear that infection, she's going to need an operation. she's getting good care, but this is likely something that could have been prevented. going back to something you and i have talked about a bit. these are preventable problems, if they are treated with simple medications, which she didn't have access to at the time, anderson. >> there's been a discrepancy in the number of hospitals that are open and run i'm wondering why that is. >> i think the discrepancy is
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that if you give a hospital fuel for the next six hours, are they really considered up and running? yeah, technically they are, they have power. the problem is, imagine trying to run a hospital like that? would you take new patients knowing you may not have power to adequately treat them? by the time evening comes around? that's the real issue, if you're running out of fuel, water, hospitals are buildings that cannot function at all without power. you can't put in a suture. electronic medical record, you need power for everything. if there's not a consistent source of that, it's not really a hospital, that's up and running. it may meet the criteria, but it's not doing the service for the people who need it. >> in some of these towns who are cut off, there are people who need medication that they have to take every day, whether it's hiv medication or medication for other illnesses they were dealing with before this storm. what does somebody do in a remote area, if the pharmacy is
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closed down, hospitals are shut down, and the roads are impassable? >> reporter: it's just really tough, anderson, they have not -- in that area you just saw, they had not seen any kind of help. i didn't see any help there i asked people, what have you seen they haven't seen help. there's a lot of suffering going on right now. people are trying to get out of their neighborhoods, getting into these shelters. many of them having gone to the hospitals. you'd be surprised when you look at some of the hospitals in the further our areas, there's no lines there. and i thought, well, maybe that means there's not that many people that need care. what we're finding out, they haven't shown up to the hospitals yet. they're still in the shelters, they're still in their homes. they need those medications absolutely. and we hear that many of those medications are on the island. now they have to get to the people who need them. >> distribution a big problem. i appreciate you being there. i'll continue to check in with you. the administration calls the response to puerto rico good news story. something else entirely to
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millions of those from puerto rico some have gotten back in touch with family members. they're the lucky ones. brynn jingrass travelled to san juan with a family. she joins us now. this family was returning to make contact with their other family members. what happened when they landed in san juan? >> yeah, anderson, not only make contact with their family members, but also see their home. they were stuck on the mainland for the last week, three times their flights were cancelled. and finally, they got on a flight from philadelphia to san juan. and we are on that flight with them. carmen delgado and her husband eduardo, i have to tell you. at times, carmen was looking out the window of the plane, she was crying. when the plane landed she cheered. there was huge cheering going on on that plane. and then when we got off, it was really just chaos, the airport was chaos, the couple was frantically looking for their two children who were meant to pick them up at the airport, but there's no cell phone communication here on the
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island, so they really could not contact. what happened was, they hopped in a car with us, we drove them about an hour outside of san juan to their hometown. as we're driving, carmen was looking out the window, and she described it like this, anderson, she just basically said, this whole island looks like a fire went through it. there is just nothing around. everything just seems bare. and then, when we actually got to her house, it was just her, her husband and some family members, not her two children, it was even worse. she was gasping for air going up the steps to her house. there's no roof on her house, barely any walls. at one point she turned to me and said, oh, my gosh, i have to sit down. and watch how she took this all in. >> this is the living room. that's the kitchen. we used to have three bedrooms. i'm shocked.
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totally shocked. totally shocked. i think what goes through my mind is how much time it's going to take us to put this back together. >> reporter: anderson, this is a home that she and her husband built. they lived there for 20 years. all wiped out by this one storm. >> the family was eventually reunited, right? >> reporter: yeah. absolutely, anderson. they waited three weeks to just get back on to the island, and then they waited an hour at that house. i can tell you they felt like that hour was much longer than the three weeks. carmen sat there looking at the road, waiting for the car to come down. finally when they spotted it, this was the reunion we witnessed. what she told us was, i may not have a house, but i have a home. what she meant by that was, i have my family. that was what was most important to her, seeing her two children,
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having her husband there. she told me what's next is three things be, we pray, we wait and we hope. i thought that was poignant, anderson, they're hoping resources come to them. they're hoping they can rebuild, and they're hoping it happens sooner than later, of course. >> a lot of families looking for reunions just like that. appreciate that. >> the acting homeland security secretary also said she's very satisfied with disaster relief efforts from puerto rico. what bill weir found does not back that up. we'll give you his report next, and also, mark anthony joins us ahead. >> picked up by maria. and thrown here. look at these over on this side. >> broken planes are just the first signs of maria's strength. the entire island is ravaged from the swanky w hotel to the boats of mosquito bay. >> that is the cabin. it's all pop-culture trivia, but it gets pretty intense.
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the president and other government officials are saying about relief efforts in puerto rico, stand in contrast to what cnn reporters are finding on the ground in many places. people running out of food and water, desperate for a way to communicate with their loved ones, just to let them know they're alive. bill weir found that when he travelled east of the main island. even getting there had its own set of challenges. and what he found -- well, take
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a look. >> reporter: we lift off from san juan, a route steven has flown hundreds of times. but this is the scariest sky traffic he's ever seen. >> he said, you could sense the tension in the air traffic controller's voice. >> absolutely. >> reporter: the airports have no work ing radar, so every slow cessna and every fast jet is flying by sight in a dust filled sky. >> the airspace is so crazy. it's actually dangerous right now. >> reporter: we cross over resorts, neighborhoods, all shattered by maria. and eight miles later, touchdown amid shattered airplanes, some of the first outsiders to reach this area since the storm. >> reporter: just picked up by maria and thrown here. look at these over on this side. broken planes are just the first signs of maria's strength. the entire island is ravaged from the swanky w hotel to the boats of mosquito bay.
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that is the cabin of a ka ta ma ran for tourists called, the naughty mermaid. if it looks a little odd, it's because it's flipped upside down by what the locals say were 200 mile an hour winds. >> 3, 2, 1. >> reporter: in happier times, the glow in the dark plankton that lives in this bay, helps lure the tourists that drive the economy. there's no sl vaguing the upcoming season, but that is for later. right now, it's about survival. >> we're out of food. we're running out of food and water. >> reporter: that is the kind of heartbreaking, soul draining scene that's getting played out again and again, as people look at her cry. she gets on a sat phone for the first time. it crushes your soul to watch that. this is the line.
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this is a two-hour line of folks waiting to give proof of life to a wife or a husband or a father. it's rough. >> i love you. >> reporter: how does that feel? can i see your eyes? can you remove your sunglasses for me? >> we're doing all right. it's tough, we need help. go back and tell them. >> that's why i'm here, brother. >> we need help, tell the president, senators, everybody needs help here. >> i lost everything. >> reporter: after the storm blew through, you flew down here with a bag of satellite phones? >> we had a lot of folks in the u.s. that were stepping up and contributing. the most important thing was to establish communication because we weren't hearing from anybody. >> reporter: is help coming? there are a lot of people who promised to bring supplies but
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it hasn't arrived yet, the deputy mayor tells me. red tape seems to be their biggest enemy. >> relief efforts and the aid may be coming. we're here and trying to get those coordinations, those clearances issued so we can get them, because the island is feeling this type of pressure and tensions are running high. >> reporter: do you feel like americans at moments like this? do you feel neglected in moments like this? somewhere in between. >> we all need to take a deep breath and say, we are u.s. citizens. it should mean something. right now, we are -- we are a forgotten island and that shouldn't be. >> reporter: for years, the u.s. navy used this island for target practice. until the locals got fed up. what better way to make it up to them. by storming the beaches with aid instead of bombs. >> this is something that needs and requires someone who knows how to distribute goods in the middle of almost a war zone. >> reporter: so you're making a
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plea for martial law? >> i am making a plea for martial law. i'm making a plea for three, four, five days where we can distribute water, food. it's been six days after the hurricane, and it's just a horrible scenario in puerto rico. >> i need you to tell my mom i'm okay. do you have her number? >> brittany moved here from brooklyn four years ago. she's helpless, she has no cash in a cash only society. >> thank you. i love you. >> ready? >> it's going to be all right, okay? >> i have no [ bleep ] money. they won't let us get money, i can't use my debit card. so we're all screwed. i don't know what to do. >> here's a few bucks. >> this is so stressful. we're okay. we're not going to die, but like there's no help. this is the only help. robert becker saved everybody here. i don't know what else to say, private citizens have come through for us, and no one else really has.
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>> that's the situation in vieques. eight days and counting. amid the cries for help, some dlebts are trying to answer the call. i spoke with mark anthony about how he is helping out. ♪ if you have moderate to severe ulcerative colitis or crohn's, and your symptoms have left you with the same view, it may be time for a different perspective. if other treatments haven't worked well enough, ask your doctor about entyvio, the only biologic developed and approved
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it shouldn't surprise anyone that even basic needs are beyond the reach of so many puerto ricans tonight. truly basic needs as cnn's ivan watson discovered at a river crossing where a bridge had been swept away. >> reporter: the wire that they're hanging on to has been set up by residents of the town. this is their improvised method for trying to reach the outside world. we just spoke with a couple who had crossed this way and then walked two hours to the nearest supermarket to try to get bread and food and rice for their children and then had to walk two hours back. >> getting even the barest essentials, things we all take for granted, are a struggle. fortunately, help is coming from private citizens, public figures, obviously federal officials as well. singers marc anthony and jennifer lopez have created an alliance of artists working together for puerto rico. i spoke with marc anthony earlier.
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>> marc, the organization you founded, somos uno voz, just explain what it is and what kind of help you hope to provide to people in puerto rico. >> well, jennifer and i, i think it was minutes after we learned that it was imminent that the hurricane was going to hit puerto rico, we got in contact with each other and we formed this alliance called somos uno voz, which means we are one voice. you know, the first thing was getting sprint down to puerto rico with 10,000 hot spots and 100 generators. they flew down on a 747. we opened up distribution channels for all the goods. we negotiated with norwegian cruise line so that they can ship down there.
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that's how it started. and so now subsequently we formed an alliance with all these artists and between us we have close to 1.4 billion followers. and that's our way of ensuring that we keep this, you know, present. >> earlier this week you tweeted saying "mr. president, shut the f up about the nfl. do something about our people in need in puerto rico. we are american citizens too." i mean, at this point, several days later, are you satisfied at all with the response from fema, from the department of homeland security, from the president or -- the needs are so great, obviously. >> i have to say that the dialogue -- i have to say that the dialogue that i've heard in the past couple of days is much more palatable. and they say that help is on the way, and i believe it. and if it's not true, you'll hear from me again. but yes, i'm glad that this is back on the news. it's being covered the way it should be because this is an absolute catastrophe.
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>> when you see the images that are coming out of puerto rico, and there's areas that, you know, are incredibly difficult to get to. it's not even easy to travel outside san juan. there's people, you know, a lot of people without electricity, obviously without cell service. there's people who need medication, just basic, you know, insulin, the kind of medication people, you know, take for granted because they're able to get to a pharmacy. that's no longer possible in some areas. when you see those images, what goes through your mind? >> it's just absolutely devastating. and we're here to sort of funnel all efforts. instead of every artist being an island, we all got together and on somos una voz.com it's just all efforts can be focused, you know. i just got a text from bruno mars and said how can i get water down there? i said let me help you with that. i'm really proud that all these artists got together.
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and we're more powerful unified. and we can keep it on the news. we can really make a difference in telling people that there's still a need. >> marc, i appreciate all you're doing, you and everybody else in the community. thank you so much. >> thank you so much, anderson. >> well, if you'd like to help marc anthony in his efforts, you can go to the website you've been seeing on the screen. somosunavoz.com. you can also check out cnn.com/impact for other ways you can impact your world. coming up, something to make you smile at the end of this very "the ridiculist" is next.
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all in the service of entertaining fans, all ages at sporting events. good clean fun for the whole family. that is, until you pit them against a bunch of kids in a football game and that's when the claws come out. during halftime at a vikings game a bunch of mascots took on a bunch of kids and wouldn't you know the university of minnesota mascot goldie the gopher just hauled off and took out a seventh-grader on the 5 yard line. let's see that again from a different angle. yikes. ouch. ouch. that's right.
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the gopher just knocks the seventh-grader right over. meanwhile that demonic penguin or crow or whatever is just along for the ride apparently. and yes, we also have this in slow motion. the coach of the seventh-grader who got gophered says the player was not hurt thankfully and that the kids actually got a kick out of this going somewhat viral. and it's a good thing the kids are good sports about it because goldie the gopher is even talking trash about this on twitter for the university of minnesota coach and all to see. "put me in, coach fleck. i think i still have some eligibility left." two things. how does he tweet with those paws? and what exactly is up with mascots? if you do even an extremely low impact google search you can find clip after clip of mascots just pummeling kids on football fields across this great land. unicorns and -- was that spongebob squarepants? wait, is that -- that looks like spongebob. what are some of these mascots, after all? i guess -- is that a horse? there's some giant baseball
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heads in there. i'm not going to pretend i can even do play by play of a football game. it's just a bunch of mascots tackling kids and then seeming pretty proud of themselves about. that's the odd thing. let's see the slow motion of the gopher again, shall we? see, this actually proves a theory i've had for about a year now that wherever someone is dressed up like a gopher someone around him is going to fall down. granted, unusual theory i know but hear me out. i developed it immediately upon seeing the unforgettable outtakes for an ad for the white bear mitsubishi car dealership in minnesota. it's one of my favorites. >> i wore the wrong socks. >> take 4. >> i wore the wrong socks. >> have you tried the hot dogs here? >> i didn't get my -- >> i didn't get my deposit back. >> white bear mitsubishi is a proud sponsor of golden gopher hockey.
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>> i'm going to be honest with you. i could spend the whole night watching that polar bear fall on his ice. let's face it. being a mascot is a sometimes dangerous, somewhat thankless anonymous mute fuzzy job but it seems they found a way to get their aggression out and in the end every mascot has his day on the "riduculist." thanks for watching. time to hand things over to don lemon. "cnn tonight starts now." >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. breaking news. it is not good news for the white house. this is "cnn tonight." i am don lemon. it turns out that private plane problem was just the tip of the iceberg. we're learning tonight that health and human services secretary tom price took two long international flights to africa and asia on government planes. that's in addition to dozens of private flights when he could have flown commercial. price said today he'll cut a check to cover the costs of his seat on those private flights,