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symbolic and strategic strike. ukraine hits what might be russia's most important naval base. >> and the uaw is expanding its strike today against, and here is the interesting bit, two of the three big three automakers. progress is said to be happening

in the negotiations with ford. what does this all mean for the drawn-out fight. >> we are standing by for a news conference laying out the federal indictment against the democratic senator bob menendez, and the indictment involves stacks of cash and get this, gold bars. i'm john berman with kate bolduan, and cnn news central starts now. all right. this is is the breaking news. any minute, we will hear from the federal prosecutors who just moments ago issued an indictment for new jersey democratic senator bob menendez on bribery charges. you can see the live picture, there and the news conference begins in any minute. >> we will learn a lot more, but what we know so far is that there a lot already, and menendez and his wife have been accused of accepting bribes from three business men, and the

indictment details bribes coming in the forms of cash, mortgage payments, and the luxury vehicle, and as john as pointed out, gold bars, and images of this throughout the indictment. and here is another thing to remember, this is the second time in the past decade that bob menendez has faced corruption-related charges. evan perez, and lauren fox and elliot williams are standing by to follow along with us once we hear from the press conference, but evan, what are you learning about this? what are you seeing in the indictment? >> well, this is some pretty stunning allegations by the prosecutors. we will hear more from the u.s. attorney damon williams in a few minutes, but as you laid out, this is, these charges began according to the prosecutors in 2018, and i should note that this is the year that bob menendez emerged from the last time he was indicted. the jury ended up with a mistrial in that case, and the charges were dismissed, and the

justice department chose not to retry bob menendez in this one, and according to prosecutors he began to have interactions back in 2018, and him and his wife, and these three new jersey businessmen according to prosecutors, menendez received hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and cash and gold bars and pictures shown in indictment, and he had home mortgage payments and a luxury vehicle, and this is all stuff that was found when the fbi did a 2022 search of menendez' home as well as safety deposit box. they found $480,000 in the home, and system of it was stuffed in jackets. you can see it depicted there with the senator's name. they also found 70,000 in a safety deposit box, and according to the prosecutors, there is a lot of things that me

nen dedz nendez was doing with the money, one of the businessmen had a certified products to egypt. they say that he was passing along information to egyptian government officials related to the effort for egyptian officials to get millions of dollars in military aid that is provided by the united states. again, menendez is a powerful person in the u.s. senate. he is chairman of the senate foreign relations committee, and according to the prosecutors what he was doing is parlaying and using that power in the senate to benefit the government of egypt who wanted information on the types of the aid that they were going to be able to get given the fact that there is a number of human rights concerns in egypt.

i will read one part that really sticks out. one part that prosecutors are alleging here, they are saying that menendez provided nonpublic information, and details about the number of americans and other local staff at the u.s. embassy in cairo, and stuff that according to prosecutors the egyptian intelligence agencies and government officials in egypt wanted from him. and so, we will hear more from damian williams and the other members of the fbi there momentarily at the u.s. attorney's office in manhattan. >> evan standby, and wred waiwa -- and we are waiting for this already remarkable indictment. i want to ik kwly go to capitol hill, and lauren fox of cnn is there, and lauren, explain how important bob menendez s and the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee, and at a time when the u.s. is deeply

committed to aiding ukraine and their war against russia. >> yes, at a time when they are tasked at meeting dignitaries and they have a ton of insight and the u.s. role of helping various operations around the world, and all of that is what kind of information bob menendez would have been privy to. under the senate rules, he is the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee, and if he is indicted, which he is here, he has to step aside in that position. back in 2014, when he was indicted on the corruption charges then, he did move aside on the committee. he was not the chairman then, but the ranking member, but ben cardin who is the next in line was the one to step up and be sort of the intermediary democratic leader on that committee while menendez was enduring his trial.

so that is what has played out over the last ten years when this has happened before, so expect that someone else is going to step up. i have reached out to senator cardin's office to find out if it is senator cardin again who is going to be taking the gavel while it plays out, but it is a very important role that bob menendez had here on capitol hill. and we have talked to one senator because they are back home, and our colleague caught up with his colleague and asked what she felt about her colleague being indicted, but obviously, many of his colleagues are having questions about what it means and what are the facts of this indictment. >> yes, and lauren is going to be listening in as well, and while we wait for the press conference to begin, eliot, it is a 39-page indictment,ed on

the -- and on the face, what do you see here? >> as evan said, it is stunning the number of allegations here. big picture the problem for prosecutors here is to establish what was engaged in is not the chumminess and favors common in washington, and representative of the exchange of thingsf value for the taking of official action. a lot of it does not look good for the senator. case in point, we have talked about already the bars of gold, and the stacks of cash being held in a personal closet and so on, and text messages, and a series of them that are laid out in detail such as one from senator me nendezmenendez's wif time you need something, and we will make it happen. and they are not unlawful, but suspicious at best. and when laid out over a dozens

of pages of allegations, the best way to put it is that it is not looking great for the senator, and i am curious to see what the u.s. attorney says when he is weighing out perhaps further information about this. >> i do expect that a lot of the language that he will use is to explain how this gets past, elliot what is a high bar in what the supreme court has said about throwing out virginia governor bob mcdonald, because they have to be official acts that you commit here. in the quick scanning of the indictment, elliot, the officials acts, and seeing gold barse and literally wads of cash in bob menendez' jacket, and what do you see as the high bar for them to get the conviction in? >> number one, one instance and this is quickly right before we

went on, i was still reading, but outside of the presence of his staff with officials that are linked to or in the republic of egypt that's one. you know, there was questions about the appointment of the u.s. attorney in new jersey which is an official act of a senator, and senators weigh in on appointments and son. i believe we might be starting. and oh, no, sorry. >> one thing that you can see, as you continue, they have come in and turned around the posterboard, if you will, to show the evidence depicted in the indictment. that is a jacket that says senator menendez with cash, literally cash was in the pocket as they allege, and these, the gold bars that they allege were given as a bribe to the senator and his wife. i mean, that's -- i don't, there is something about the gold bar thing that is so out there,

elliot. >> look, it is not unlawful to possess blocks of gold, and not unlawful as the senator is alleged to have done to google how much money is a block of gold worth, and that said, it is inherently suspicious, and i don't have a block of gold on me, and most americans don't, and the facts when raised to a jury, suspicious and the high amounts of cash that is cash that is noted in the indictment has fingerprints and dna for some of the other defendants in it on them, and not per se evidence of a crime, but when mounted together paints a picture of a senator that is allegeded to have used his influence in order to engage in official acts. >> elliot, standby, and evan per

r perez and having enough evidence to convict a senator is very difficult and you know who knows that? bob menendez, because he was charged before, and there was not enough evidence, and it was thrown out, and all of this is playing out from the last time he was in a courtroom? >> yes, what sticks out to me is having gone through, and he has certainly described as being a very, very challenging and difficult time for him personally, that right about then, 2018, this is when the alleged corruption in this ca a prosecution, and what you are hearing from voters and the campaigns is that there sis a lt of corruption in washington, and there is not much done about it. part of issue for the justice department, and one of the struggles for the justice department has been trying to

nail some of the politicians who do things that are sometimes right on the border. right on the line. certainly some of the supreme court justices have given make it difficult for the justice department to go after some of the case, and one of the things that is alleged here, and i have to go through this again, but i think that prosecutors are going to have a bit of a time trying to explain the official acts, because again, that is the standard, and they have the show that they were official acts in exchange for the hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes. you can see that senator is doing, he is having the meeting, and discussing aid to egypt, and the question is, does by me nen dedz talking to the state department about the military aid to egypt, does that

constitute the official act? again, a jury is going to have to decide that. but these are very, very serious charges, and there is a lot of information as elliot pointed out, and they went so far as to dust the fingerprints of the cash to find the dna and fingerprints of the alleged defendants who were providing some of this money to the senator and his wife, guys. >> and lauren -- >> if i can -- >> go ahead, elliot. >> i wanted to make one point of the fingerprints and we in the world of csi and so on get wrapped up in the seeing whether or not fingerprints or dna is on something, and often you don't get the usable prints or usable dna on the evidence, but what it does to establish a chain of custody from one person to another, and it is clear when you do find prints on something, that maybe not iron clad evidence of guilt, but it did

transfer hands likely from that first personal ledged to the defendant. >> good point. lauren, we were, i was trying to remind myself when it came to bob menendez of where he is in the term, and he isis up in '24 he won election after the mistrial, and a hung jury and mistrial in the first round of corruption charges, and now he is up in '24. >> yes, there is obviously political implications to the fact that you are indicted as a sitting u.s. senator. i wanted to read you something, kate. we are getting a new statement from the spokeswoman for jim risch, and jim risch is the top republican who serves alongside bob melendez who tells me that democratic leadership is responsible for the democratic leadership in the committee and there is a precedence, and senator risch is hoping to hear

from the democratic leader as soon as possible so that the committee's important work can go on uninterrupted, because this is a very important job in the senate, and being a chairman of any committee is important and essential to the senate, but being the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee at a time when we had president zelenskyy on the hill yesterday asking for more funding for ukraine, you can see why that is an important position, and timely position, and so the spokeswoman for jim risch saying that it is going to be very important to have a seamless transition, and quickly so we can move on with the work of the committee. >> lauren, to that point, john, you were in the middle of an interview with chrissy houlihan so we could see inside of the meeting with the senators, and as they were walking out, and you saw it as well, lauren, bob melendez was standing there and shaking hands with zelenskyy,

and not showing how important every senator is, but especially the chairman of the senator of the foreign relations committee and that responsibility. >> but he has been doing the work right up to this point. and he had to have known that this indictment was coming, and yet he still let himself yesterday be front and center publicly when zelenskyy was there. yes, actually we go to new york for this news conference. >> we won't take any questions today, and we will start in a minute, thanks. >> all right. we have one minute left here. elliot, counselor, what more detail could the prosecutors of the southern district provide? >> for better or worse, the prosecutors are tight-lipped when it comes to the press conference and as he said, they will not take any questions, so we have to unpack the indictment, and i have a hard

time to believing that they will provide any information here. perhaps they could lean into the nexus, and this is what we are talking about, nexus between the official acts as alleged, and sort of the statements that were made or the promises made by senator menendez, and also, it is not just the bribery, but there is an extortion charge here involving by the statute the use of threats to gain things ovalue from others. so the mere influence peddling, and the threats portion. so, we will listen in here, the southern district of new york u.s. attorney. >> my name is damian williams and i'm the united states attorney here in the southern district of new york. today i am announcing that my office has obtained a indictment

for robert menendez and his wife nadine, and threebusinessmen. while this is run out of the southern district of new york, the indictment alleges between 2018 and 2022, senator menendez, the senior u.s. senator from new jersey and the chairman of the u.s. foreign relations committee and his wife nadine menendez engaged in a corruption relationship with hanna, and other two businessmen to use his power and to enrich, and influence those businessmen to enrich egypt. they say that the two

businessmen used bribes of gold, cash, mortgage payments and no-show business cash and a mercedes-benz. now business meetings are part of any senator's job, and there are things that the senator can do for his constituents and things that he cannot do. and he put it on the website. for instance, he cannot compel an agency to act in someone's favor. it says he cannot influence matters involving a private business. it says he cannot get involved in criminal matters or cases, period. but we allege that behind the scenes, senator menendez was doing those things for certain people. the people who were bribing him and his wife. let me say little bit more about the conduct that is alleged in

the indictment. the indictment alleges that senator menendez took several actions as part of the corrupt relationship. it says that senator menendez used the power and influence including his leadership role on the senate relations committee to benefit egypt in various ways. among the actions, senator menendez provided nonpublic information to egyptian officials and took steps to aid the government of egypt. we also allege that senator menendez improperly pressured a senior official at the u.s. department of agriculture to protect a lucrative monopoly that the government of egypt had delivered to hanna. and he also tried to disrupt a

criminal investigation and prosecution undertaken by the new jersey attorney general's office related to an associate and relative of uribe. and then third, he used the power an influence to try to disrupt a federal prosecution of dabies in new jersey by trying to install a united states attorney who he thought could be influenced with respect to daybies. and second by trying to influence that office to act favorably in daybies' case. as we allege in the indictment, the senator agreed to do that in ways because hanna was paying bribes and uribe was paying bribes and daybies was paying bribes, but fortunately the public officials who were sought to be paid bribes did not bend to the pressure. as part of the special counsel's

investigation they executed a search warrant and discovered over $500,000 worth of cash stuffed into envelopes and into the senator's jackets, and some of the envelopes contained daybies dna and fingerprints. that is not all. agents discovered a lot of gold. gold that was provided by daybies and hanna. and the fbi of course found the mercedes-benz that uribe had provided them. of the items that the fbi uncovered are discussed in indictment, which i encourage all of you to read carefully. let's take a look at some of the items. so, as you can see here, this is the mercedes-benz that we allege

that uribe provided as part of the scheme. these are three kilograms of gold, and these are worth together $150,000. of course, here, you can see that just a fraction of the cash that was uncovered as part of the scheme. now, i want to make a couple of things very clear. first, my office remains firmly committed to rooting out public corruption without fear or favor to public politic, and this is in our dna, and always has been and always will be. and second, this investigation is very much ongoing. we are not done. i want to encourage anyone who has information to come forward and to come forward quickly, and they can do that by reaching out the the fbi's tip line at 1-800-call-fbi. now, a case of this magnitude

requires tremendous partnership. i want to thank our partners at the fbi who have been with us since day one and have been incredible every step along the way. i also want to thank the partners at the irs for their assistance in this investigation. i want to thank the our colleagues from around the department of justice who are far too many here to thank and to thank specifically, and they have been unvaluable, and of course, i want to thank the career prosecutors from my office who are handling this investigation. they have done tremendous work. eli mark, laura pomerantz, dan rich richenthal, and their supervisors and the chiefs of the public corruptions unit. i want to invite up to the podium fbi assistant director in charge, james smith. jim.

>> good morning. so i won't go any further into the case as the u.s. attorney damian williams explained, but what i want to talk about more or less is that the fbi's public corruption, but investigating public corruption is one of the top prior ity, and we will continue to investigate public corruption. i want to thank the agents and the team from the fbi, the irs, for their hard work into this investigation. they have spent many hours and days and weeks and months working this investigation. i would also like to thank all of the prosecutors from the southern district of new york. i'd like to thank damian williams for his support in this particular case. i'd like to thank the irs for all of their investigators who worked tirelessly along with the team here to investigate this case, and i would like to finally thank the doj's public

integrity section. so thank you for all of your support in this. >> all right. thank you, everyone. all right. you were listening to the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, damian williams lay out the three-count indictment against bob menendez of new jersey and his wife nadine. he accused menendez of using his power and influence to benefit the government of egypt with providing sensitive nonpublic information to public officials. he said that he used his job to try to influence someone at the department of agriculture to protect a monopoly here. >> the time period is also, and this is, he said between 2018, and 2022, and this is a long time period when this is going on, and really after, after the last, his last go around with the law had been puts a side, and when his last, the last

charges that menendez was facing ended with a hung jury in the last case. they listed out conduct that menendez took several actions to use his power, influence and leadership in order to pull this off, all with the motivation of he was being paid by these three businessmen who he said they were benefiting. and talking more about this. elliott williams, your reaction t to this and specifically the sitting u.s. senator who is the chair of the u.s. senate foreign relations committee, and you are talking about, and you just heard a u.s. attorney say that he was working to benefit the government of egypt. >> not good. and what is interesting is the manner of the exchange of favors if you want to talk about it is often through his wife. the way that the indictment is

structured, there are a number of statements and communications made between senator menendez and his wife and allegedly between senator menendez's wife and the those charges that are leading to the actions that the prosecutors are saying that senator menendez engaged in. but it is incredibly serious when you are speaking of nonpublic information being provided to foreign actors and a point that i noted in our earlier segment is that at least one of the conversations that they recount is a phone call that happens to, you know, two officials, and maybe egyptian officials outside of the presence of senator menendez's staff. as a former staffer, you can't control what the boss is doing, and he will pick up the phone and place calls and so on, but this is beyond that when you are talking about number one, the seriousness of it, and two, the allegation that he was being directed to do so or at least being compensated or reimbursed

for his doing so. that is really what jumped out to me. it is in itself, prosecutors would hammer in front of the jury as very suspicious conduct from someone as you said, kate has an official position with people around him attempting to protect him from engaging in conduct like this. >> and the mercedes and $500,000 of cash inside of a jacket that says senator bob menendez and gold bars there that the prosecutor laid out there for the world to see. what do you see there, evan? >> part of what stood out there as part of the indictment and what stands out of previous bob menendez allegations is that he was so involved in trying to help the government of egypt, and trying to get past their issues of human rights issues which was preventing some of the

military aid, and hundreds of millions of dollars hung up because of the human rights issues there in egypt, and this is the part of the prosecutors that encapsulates what they are going after here, and they say that at one point, nadine, his wife, she passes on a request for the senator to edit a letter that was going to be sent to the other senators to lobby them and unstick some of the hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid that the egyptian government wanted from the u.s. government, and according to prosecutors he did this. now, stepping back, menendez is a senator who looms large in new jersey politic obviously, but also in the relationship with the justice department. he has been under some kind of doj investigation for almost the entire time he has been in the u.s. senate.

as a matter of fact, when he ran in 2005, and when he took office first in 2006, it was under cloud of an investigation later closed in 2011 just before the re-election, and so this is not the first time that the senator has been under the scrutiny of the justice department. as a matter of fact, it is something that he has been complaining about, and he says they are after him, and the fbi is after him, and yet, according to the prosecutors, he is undaunted that he is under scrutiny from the fbi for various alleged schemes. again, he was elected under this cloud back in 2006 when he first took office. and he has continued almost continuously where in 2018, he had a hung jury in the last investigation, and according to the last prosecution, it

involved the new jersey businessmen with corruption and bribes and passed through his wives. >> evan miller, and john is pointing out how long this man has been under investigation and now we have details and the images of what he accepted in the bribes. what you see here? >> well, so many things. it is a stunning case with stunning allegations, but, you know, keying off of evan, i was assistant director of the fbi when we had the open public corruption case of menendez when he was in the house, and sent it across the street to the department of justice. at this time, it was a republican administration under attorney general alberto gonzalez. and it went to the public corruption section, and they passed on the case, but it is an investigation that we, as the fbi thought was ready to go to trial. there were issues about how it

would look of a republican administration indicting a key member of the house, and so on, and they thought that better of going forward with it. from there he went right into another investigation which, of course, was the 2015 case, the alleged bribes and the trips and the free trips from the doctors and some of the laws changed about theft of services and not just enough to do favors and get favors back or more than that. it had to be a quid pro quo, and this is why this new case must have such meaning, because the quid pro quo requires prosecutors be able to prove that you said i will do this for you, and you will give me this in return, and that has to be clearly established. i think that pockets full of cash and boxes full of gold is a key, but there is more to this which is that it is not just a straight up bribery case. that is where you get paid off, and you do something, and by the

way, the things that he did could have been legal, if he had not accepted money for it allegedly. the complicating factor is the classified end of this which is that we are crossing over between regular public corruption, and a public official takes money for favors and entering the international realm of espionage where somewhere in back of the case we will find our way to what egyptian official made the intelligence to recruit a key u.s. official who they thought would be corruptible perhaps based on the history to do these favors and to use businessmen on the ground here as cutouts to hide government officials. that is going to be the back end of this story, and we are not there yet. >> two things, which is the southern district of new york,

and they made the case here that they pursue public corruption anywhere it is, and now they did not talk in partisan terms, but for anyone who wants to pluck it out, there is a democratic senator and democratic body, but the pictures that they threw out there, the gold bars and the hundreds of thousands of cash, there and they see that, and wait a second, there is everything. the gold barse and the hundreds of thousands of cash, and this must prove something. why still, even with the presence of these remarkable images might it be hard to pr prove? >> and because i have made the point here, it is not illegal to

have big stacks of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and it is suspicious in front of the juries and in drug cases you see it all of the time in narcotics where somebody has a big brick of cash, and it is not per se illegal, but it is something that trigers questions in the jury, and to your point, john, talking about the letter that senator menendez wrote that evan was referring to a moment ago, and another fact is that he is using his personal email account to transact information about this letter. he has official channels by which he can engage with staff and engage with people outside of congress, but for whatever reason he chose to use personal email addresses for this back and forth which is again another instance of at least questions of a guilty conscious or guilty mind and probably could help to establish that there was some unlawful exchange happening. but to the broader point, and this is how the conspiracies are

built, and circumstantial evidence, and cases of circumstantial evidence is built, and single things not guilty, but putting them together. so as sausage itself is not tasting great, but put it in a pot with other things, and it is gumbo, and it is much better together. so as a chain together, it is going to be looking bad for the senator, and no other way to put it. >> and lauren, everybody will be waiting for reaction from the senator, and have you heard anything from the office? >> we are not hearing anything at this point, and obviously, this is a serious matter, and a lot of questions of what is going to be happening with the senate foreign relations committee. as i noted earlier, there is a feeling to know sooner rather than later who is going to be taking the helm of this

committee by the republican side, because under the senate rules, he can continue to serve on the committee, but not under his role as chairman. so there is questions of who will succeed him in the line, and in the past, it was ben cardin who took over in 2019 when menendez was facing charges, and he was the leading democrat. but it is going to be a key question. republican and democratic senators are not here in washington today, but back home, because of the weekend, and the senate typically leaves thursday at 2:00, but it is important to note that senator tammy baldwin who our colleague morgan remmer talked to said that these are serious accusation, and the senators are going to be having some thoughts weighing in here next week when they return. >> lauren fox, keep us posted if you hear anything.

elliot williams, john miller, and all of you, thank you. there is obviously a lot of reaction and information coming in, and a lot of other news out there. so we will be right back. ♪ there it is. that feeling you get... it srts with dupixent. dupixent is not for sudden breathing problems. it's an add-on treatment for spific types of moderate-to-severe asthma and can help impve lung function for better breathing in as little as two weeks. dupixent helps prevent asthma attacks...

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notably not ford. vanessa yurkevich is all over this. vanessa? >> yes, 38 vafacilities hitting the picket lines in moments, and this is an escalation, but ford is not involved in this portion of the targeted strike. this is going to be essentially 5,625 additional folks heading out the the picket lines joining about 12,700 who are already on the picket lines. >> that is interesting. so it is a ton more places, but fewer workers who are already out. >> yes, yes. so these facilities have fewer folks working at them, but they are all of the parts plants in terms of gm and stellantis. so you are adding to the folks on the picket line, but not the huge escalation that we saw in the beginning in terms of how

many folks were on the picket line. so we know that from shawn fain who spoke moments ago, they are in a good place with ford. they feel like there has been substantial progress, and that is why you are not seeing the additional plants from ford added to the targeted strike. but in terms of what ford is offering, they are reinstating cola, cost of living adjustments, taken away in 2009, and many thought they could not get it back, but they are getting it back from ford. and right to strike for plant closures, and if there are layoffs, folks can receive up to two years income and health care. and also, we are seeing the profit sharing increase across the company, and the transition from temporary employees the full time employees that is hopefully going to get the temporary workers wages up which is what the union is asking for, and notably we did not hear at all about wages today, and remember, that we were reporting

that all of the companies had offered 20% in wage increases and the union was asking for 40%, and this is left out of the announcement today by shawn fain, and we heard from fain and ford that there is a large gap of the economic issues and despite the important things that the union would get from ford, the economic issues and the wages are not quite yet there. >> and this is the question, far enough along with ford to expand the strike, but not the end the strike. >> no deal. >> and so in terms of gm and stellantis, a expansion and targeted expansion. >> yes. >> and how did fain sound in general the attitude toward gm and stellantis? >> he said off of the top that he believes they can reach a deal with all three, but gm and stellantis are particularly going to need a lot of pushing. they are essentially behind the offer that ford has put on the table.

he wants them to catch up, and of course, he wants ford to go further on the wages. so he is seeming like he is making progress with ford, and this is why they are left out, and gm and stellantis has a long ways to go. >> this is going to be a business school case study on this negotiation here for years to come as the uaw splitting the big three and playing them against each other. the vanessa yurkevich, thank you. great reporting. kate? >> all week, we have been bringing you the series "champions for change" and spotlighting people making a change in the community and far beyond. i want to highlight for you, our colleague boris sanchez and his champion with a deeply personal connection that boris has to the story and one woman who is working hard >> i was 3 years old when my family came to the united states from cuba. we listened miami on my birthday. what brought my family to the

united states was a desire for freedom. >> there's something very basic, very important that the human being needs. that is freedom. >> my grandfather watched many of his friends. incarcerated or disappeared. simply for wanting to bring democracy to cuba. so he took up armings and went into the the mountains and became a gorilla fire. >> soon after the couban revolution, he realized that it wasn't headed in that direction. >> it was a complete opposite. a very impressive government. it is something very painful. >> he decided that had he would speak out against it. for that, he was punished. it led him to being sentenced to 20 years in prison. >> many were put to death for the same. >> just mic like my grandfather,

there are to this day so many people around the world that are seeking refuge, that are being persecuted and they are helping those folks. >> i have become a texan. when i left nicaragua, i was 14 and was adopted into this co country. it's been a very good life here. >> until april of 2018? >> yes, april of 2018 changed my life completely. >> 2018 the government in nick rag away made a series of decisions that led to protests and demonstrations in the streets. hundreds were killed. >> i did lead through the revolution in 1979. i was ten years old. it was very scary. i have to go to therapy. the therapy wasn't helping me. so i started helping other people and i got very active on

twitter. people have been tortured or shot and people asking me for help. >> quit her job as an occupational therapist to focus on this full-time. >> i helped them fill out their application. when i take down their testimonies and the reasons why they fled, it's very hard on them. and having for them to say how they were attacked or realized. >> it was call after call after call. all sitting there in front of her within the span of ten minutes. >> lawyers are really expensive. and these people have fled their countries with the clothes they have on. they have no money, so that's where i come in. translating their documents and then later on helping them with the work permit. >> she tells them where food pantries are, where they can find medical services and their kids can get school supplies

she's given assistance to over a thousand asylum seekers. >> never in my life, never have i thought of leaving nicaragua and living in another country. with went out to protest and there were kilometers of people and we thought by protesting, we were going to be able to solve it. they ambushed me, shot the at me, stoned me. i made 60, 70 calls every day looking for an organization to help me. they gave me the contact number and they helped me. i'm here, i have been here for years. i have a work permit. she did everything i needed to take my case to immigration. >> i can make it a little better and have that pain not be there, i want to be part of that. >> it's a champion for change because she is changing lives.

she's opening a door for people that are incredibly decesperate for freedom and giving them an opportunity. >> it's amazing. she actually has gone back to school now to get certified to be a court representative to represent asylum seekers in court and facilitate that process for them. she's never met many of the thousand people that she's helped, so we made it easy for her to meet there. the thing that stands up to me is between that story and my own family story, pst really just one story uniquely american one that's been told since the inception of the country. and i hope it's one we never stop tell ing. >> she's amazing. but i think you are too. and seeing this and learning about you more, it's stuff -- >> he's not joking. spr what you do as a journalist

is so important and it's all that much more meaningful because of where you come from. and how hard they and you had to fight to be at this place. >> absolutely. it's not a mission i take lightly. when i was named a white house correspondent for cnn, the first person i thought of crossing those gates was my grandfather. so it's not something i take lightly. and democracy, this american dream, it's a beautiful thing. and you think we have to defend it. >> as messy as it can be, thank you for sharing this story. it's good to see you. >> of course. >> be sure to tune in saturday at 8:00 p.m. eastern for the champions for change. one hour essential. "inside politics" is up next.

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