concern. >> reporter: dr. anthony fouchi from thel itut transmissions could be isolated incidents, but -- >> when you get sustained transmissibility from one person to another to another to another, then you have a more serious problem because then that would allow for a much broader type of an outbreak. >> reporter: the world health organization says it will assemble an emergency committee of experts. they will meet wednesday to decide whether this epidemic constitutes a global emergency and how best to contain it. >> the government of the u.s. virgin islands has brought a lawsuit against the estate of the disgraced late financier jeffrey epstein. the government claims epstein ran a criminal enterprise on his private islands where young women and children were held captive, raped and sexually assaulted. this morning we are hearing a firsthand account from one of the alleged victims. mola lenghi is on a boat near epstein's private island of little saint james. >> reporter: you know, there are only two ways to get out to this

island. either by helicopter or private boat. and that seclusion appears to have been by design, making it difficult for government officials to monitor jeffrey epstein's behavior here on the island, and even harder for the alleged victims who wrote brought here to escape. little saint james may look like a tropical get away, but authorities say jeffrey epstein used the private island to hide his criminal activity. >> he can basically be protected. >> reporter: he can get away with things. >> get away with it. >> reporter: denise george u.s. virgin islands just months before epstein's death by suicide last year. her office is now suing epstein's estate. why pursue these sort of charges now? >> well, all i'll have to say is why not now? i cannot speak for what happened in the past at all. what i do know is that because of epstein's wealth and power, he was able to conceal a lot of this. >> reporter: epstein acquired little saint james in 1998 and

nearby great saint james 18 years later. the lawsuit seeks to confiscate epstein's property including the islands valued at $86 million. the convicted pedophile registered as a sex offender in the virgin islands in 2010 after serving time in florida for procuring an under age girl for prostitution. but george says monitoring epstein on his island came with unique challenges for authorities checking up on him. >> they were stopped at the dock and they were told, no, this is as far as you can go because this is my private property and i will not allow you to go in any further. >> reporter: court documents allege epstein flew into the airport, the only airport on st. thomas, and the same one we flew into earlier this week. >> the area that the private jets fly in, separate and apart from -- >> reporter: the commercial, okay. >> commercial flights. that also helps with the concealment. >> reporter: from there epstein allegedly shuttled under age girls to the island using two helicopters. according to the complaint, air traffic controllers and other

airport personnel reported seeing epstein with girls who appeared to be as young as 11. the attorney general tells us epstein controlled all communication and transportation on little saint james, and that his alleged victims were essentially trapped. >> remember, he owns the whole island, so it wasn't a situation where a child or a young woman would be able to just break away and run down the street to the nearest police station. >> reporter: epstein's island here is about two miles from st. thomas. according to the lawsuit, one ever his 15-year-old alleged victims was so desperate to escape, she actually tried to swim away. another of epstein's alleged victims who spoke to cbs news on condition we conceal her face and voice tells us what she said happened to her. >> he raped me. he brought me off the island actually to his office in st. thomas, and he actually raped me in his office. he also trapped me in his room on the island where he had a gun strapped to the bed post. i couldn't leave.

the only means of getting off the island was either helicopter or boat. >> reporter: attorney jordan mercen represents several alleged estate. he's encouraged others to come forward and file complaints against the estate before the legal window closes. >> for those people who think they have more time than march 12, 2020, they may be wrong and they may never get their chance at justice if they do not come forward now. >> reporter: well, jeffrey epstein's estate is disputing claims that it would use a victim's compensation fund to somehow conceal alleged criminal activity. in a statement to cbs news, the estate says potential victims would be under no obligation to keep their claims confidential. >> the "cbs overnight news" will be right back. frustrated that clean clothes you want to wear always seem to need an iron? next time try bounce wrinkle guard dryer sheets.

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report. president trump is holding a news conference at the world economic forum in davos, switzerland, and he's just started talking about the senate impeachment trial. so let's listen in. >> mr. president -- >> go ahead. >> mr. president, do you want to hear from witnesses in the impeachment trial? your team has little inconsistent. >> i'll tell you the way i look at it, it's a total hoax. it's a disgrace. they talk about their tremendous case and it's all done, their tremendous case. it's a con job like schiff. he's a corrupt politician. now i'll leave that to the senate. the senate will have to answer that. i have great respect to the senate as a body and many of the individuals. i have great respect. i'll leave that to the senate but this is the greatest witch-hunt -- this started from the day i came down with the future first lady, the day we came down the escalator, this

started. and i watched the -- they've been driven crazy. you know what's driven them crazy? all of these record numbers of unemployment. you take a look, hispanic american numbers that nobody is even believing. they're looking at all of this, this try success the likes of which they've never seen before. and it's driven the democrats crazy. as congressman green said, al green, he's a beauty. as he said, we've got to beat him by impeachment because we can't beat him in the election. and i hope that's true because honestly they can't beat me in the election. i don't think they can. i know what i'll be running against, one way or the other. it's one of them. and i think we're going to do very well. i think we're going to do well because nobody's done in the first three years, less than three years because a lot of these numbers were taken from two months ago, they ended two months ago, in less than three

years nobody has done the kind of numbers we've done, so i'm going to head back and i'll be watching it. but it's really going to be up to the senate. we'll have them make that determination. please? >> yes, mr. president, you were the keynote speaker here, but you shared some of the spotlight with a scandinavian teenager, greta thunberg who you said needs to work on her anger. she had some very harsh words -- >> i didn't say anger, anger management. >> yes, sir. she had some very strong words here that the united states and other industrialized countries need to do more. do you still feel that you're doing enough? >> how old is she? >> she's -- >> 17. >> yes. >> that's good. >> what is your response -- >> she beat me out in "time" magazine. >> do you hear from other world leaders and business leaders who said that they think she has a message? >> no, i didn't, actually, but i

would have loved to have seen her speak. i did not. >> do you think it's a hoax? >> no, but i think some people think it is. they put it at a level that is unrealistic that you can't live your lives. we want to have the cleanest air and water on earth. we had record numbers come out recently. our numbers are good. our water numbers are on air are tremendous. we have to do something about other continents and countries. when we're clean and beautiful and everything is good but you have another confident where the fumes are rising at levels you won't believe, greta ought to focus on those places. we are doing better in terms of cleanliness and numbers. we have a beautiful ocean called the pacific ocean with thousands

and thousands of tons of garbage flows towards us put there by other countries. greta has to start working on those other countries. by the way, congratulations on your show. >> thank you very much. >> they made a very wise decision. >> thank you very much and we invite you for an interview whenever you're available. can i ask you, just to be clear and for future presidents, is abuse of power an impeachable offense? >> well, you'll have to talk to the lawyers about it. i will tell you there's nothing here -- i had a very innocent conversation with a very fine gentleman from the ukraine, and it was based on that. people don't even want to talk about the conversation. i got to watch glimpse in between all of these meetings i just told you about. i got to watch glimpses of what is taking place, wasting time in washington, and i watched -- they don't talk about my conversation. they don't talk about my transcripts. remember this, when schiff made up the phony story and he repeated it to congress and the

world and it was a totally phony story, then i released the transcript, there was supposed to be a second whistle-blower. what happened to him? there was, wait, wait -- otherwise i won't do your show. wait. there was supposed to be an informer. what happened to the informer? all of these people disappeared and when they saw the transcript they said we have problems but they went ahead because they were already there because they had a phony, concocted story made up. here is the story. i did nothing wrong. it was a perfect conversation. it was totally appropriate. the best lawyers in the world have looked at it. the department of justice have looked at it given it a signoff. they never thought i would release the conversation. they probably didn't think we had transcribers who transcribed the tape but they never thought we would release it. when we released that conversation, all hell broke out

with the democrats because they say, wait a minute this is much different than shifty schiff told us, so we're doing very well. i got to watch enough. i thought our team did a very good job. we have all the material. they don't have the material. >> alan dershowitz said the framers did not perfemit impeachment on grounds of abuse of power. for future presidents is abuse of power an impeachable offense? >> it depends. from what everybody tells me, all i do, i'm honest, i make great deals. i've made great deals for our country. we're working with the wto. there's been a long-term abusive situation to the u.s. i make great deals and they're honest deals. when you read that transcription and, by the way, it wasn't one call, it was two calls. nobody likes to talk about that.

one call was perfect and then there was a second call a couple months later which was perfect. the president of ukraine said it was perfect. the foreign minister of ukraine said it was perfect. so if we have a transcript, we have the person on the other side of the call saying it was good. they got their money long before schedule, they got all their money. what nobody says is very important to me, why isn't germany paying? why isn't the uk paying, why isn't france paying? why aren't the european nations paying? why is it always the sucker united states? and the other thing i wanted to check carefully and it's very important is corruption. this was a perfect call and i think we're doing very well. >> mr. president -- >> thank you, mr. president.

the china trade deal, do you expect human rights in hong kong to be part of the discussion? >> we are discussing that already, yes. we would like to see if we can do something. again, we're doing a trade deal and it's a very big deal. phase one is done. phase two is being discussed. we're discussing aspects of your question, yes. >> the call is perfect -- >> mr. president, thank you. just to clarify on the question, we know the senate will set the rules for witnesses but what do you want? you demanded -- >> i can live either way. i'll tell you what i think, it's such a hoax, so bad for our country when we have the head of the world trade organization here and he has to listen to this nonsense about a call that was perfect, that nobody talks about, i've never seen them talking about the transcription. i never see them talking about the call because there's nothing to say. you read it. somebody should sit there and read it. and everybody is going to say,

you mean, that's an impeachable event? if that were impeachable, lyndon johnson would have had to leave office his first day. kennedy would have had to leave office his first day. it's a hoax and you understand it's a hoax better than anybody. it's a hoax and that's the way it is. >> initially you said repeatedly to americans that after iran retaliated for the soleimani strike, no americans were injured. we now know at least 11 u.s. servicemen were airlifted from iraq. can you explain the discrepancy? >> no. i heard they had headaches and a couple other things but i would say, and i can report it is not very serious. >> you don't consider potential brain injuries serious? >> you would have to ask the department of defense. no, i don't consider them serious injuries relative to other injuries i've seen. i've seen what iran has done

with their roadside bombs to our troops. i've seen people with no legs and no arms. i've seen people that were horribly, horribly injured in that area, that wore. in many cases the bombs put there by soleimani, who is no longer with us. i consider them to be really bad injuries. no, i do not consider that to be a bad injury, no. >> the trade deal, any time line for that and if you don't hit that time line, are you automatically -- is there another avenue? >> great question. i don't have a time line but maybe i do in my own mind. they have to move relatively quickly, but they have to treat us fairly. the european union was formed pretty much for this reason, i suspect, if you really think about it. why was it formed? they formed their airplane company which does nicely and now is doing better than ever because boeing has not had a good time of it.

they'd better start recovering fast. i hope they do. they have some goo people in ere now. they have great people in t country but good people are leading it now. hopefully that will be taken care of. i have a date in my mind and it's a fairly quick date. and if we're unable to make a deal, then we'll do even better. we'll do even better. >> we've been listening to president trump in davos, switzerland, speaking to reporters before he returns to the white house later today. our coverage continues on our 24-hour streaming network cbsn. can yo watch it at at cbsnews.c or our cbs newsapp. there will be more to come on your local news on this cbs station, and we'll have much more ahead on "cbs this morning" at 7:00, less than 30 seconds. >> this has been a cbs news special report. >> reporter: rana saberi,

bedford, england. it's wednesday, january 22, 2020.t's wednesday, january 22, this is the "cbs morning news". late night debate. senators battle past midnight to decide on the rules for president trump's impeachment trial as they prepare to deliver opening arguments this afternoon. coronavirus in the u.s. america's first case of the potentially deadly disease that originated in china has now been diagnosed in washington state. the effort to stop the spread. oh, my god. and cut in two. a tractor-trailer is smashed by a train packed with commuters. it happened during rush hour. commuters. commuters. it happened during captioning funded by cbs ioning funded by cbs