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US-Saudi Relations; ISIS Calling for Attacks on Saudi Security Forces; US Military Official Testifies in Senate on North Korea; Update on Ecuador Earthquake Aftermath; Australians Freed on Bail in Beirut Child Kidnapping Case; US Green Party Candidate; Queen Elizabeth Turns 90; Harriet Tubman to Appear on US $20 Bill. Aired Midnight-1a ET

Aired April 21, 2016 - 00:00   ET

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


[00:00:09] JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: This is "CNN Newsroom," live from Los Angeles. Ahead this hour:

ISHA SESAY, CNN ANCHOR: A frosty welcome for President Obama in Saudi Arabia, as debate rages over allowing families of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudis.

VAUSE: A crew from Australia's "60 Minutes" and an Australian mother freed from a Beirut prison after facing child kidnapping charges.

SESAY: And in Los Angeles, it's still April 20th Weedsday. We'll spark up a conversation with the U.S. Presidential Candidate pushing to legalize marijuana.

VAUSE: Hello, everybody; we'd like to welcome our viewers all around the world, I'm John Vause.

SESAY: And I'm Isha Sesay; "Newsroom" L.A. starts right now.

A low-key arrival and word of a recalibration in relations underscore tensions between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia; government officials instead of royal family members greeted President Barack Obama at his arrival in Riyadh Wednesday. U.S. officials insist it wasn't a snub.

VAUSE: Mr. Obama met with King Salman for two hours to discuss the role of Iran in the region, the conflict in Yemen and the fight against ISIS. Ties have been strained though by the Iran Nuclear Deal, reduced reliance on Saudi oil and a legislative push to allow 9/11 families to sue the kingdom for the terror attacks.

SESAY: Well, CNN Intelligence and Security Analyst, Bob Baer, joins us now. Bob, always good to have you with us. The White House playing down King Salman's no show at the airport when President Obama arrived, but it's hard to believe the move wasn't intended to send a signal to the U.S. What's their message here?

BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Well the Saudis are furious, Isha; they're furious about Iran. Iran has effectively taken four Arab capitals in the last couple years; it would be Sana'a and Beirut, Baghdad and Damascus. They look like they're being encircled and the United States is doing nothing about Iran and this really has them disturbed.

Also, you have the Russians still fighting in Syria, and so is Hezbollah and Iranian ground forces. They have every reason to complain about American -- what should I say, indifference to the Iranian expansion in the Middle East?

So yes, it was a cold welcome. I mean, the fact that the governor went out rather than -- even the crown prince didn't go out. So they can down play it all they want, that they came in late and the rest of it. I just don't believe it. The Saudis are angry.

SESAY: All right; they're angry. Clearly there's strains on the political/diplomatic front between the two countries. What about on the security/military and intelligence fronts of this relationship?

BAER: It's, you know, they haven't, the Saudis haven't done much about the Islamic state. They promised to fight it at all, -- at one point they were talking about going into Syria to fight the Islamic State; they never did. It's, it's almost as if the Saudis are, you know, happy that the Islamic State is sort of occupying part of Syria. It's better than falling to Iran. So there are grievances on both sides, and I've never seen our relations with Saudi Arabia this bad since maybe '73, during the oil embargo.

SESAY: Senior member of the Saudi royal family talking about a need for recalibration, just as you talk about how bad the relationship is. What would that recalibration look like in the eyes of the Saudis?

BAER: Well they may - you know, there's talk about them withdrawing their assets from the United States, maybe $750 billion. If there was a move against Saudi assets by the 9/11 families, any number of things, -- and you're going to see Saudi Arabia drawing closer to Egypt, allies it can trust, but at the end of the day, if we're not going to do anything about Russia and Iran fighting in Syria and Baghdad and the mess there, there's not much we can offer them, and there's not much they can do about it.

SESAY: So that be being said, is this just the state of affairs to come? Can this relationship get back on track?

BAER: I don't think it's going to get back on track. You look at the American press, very hostile to Saudi Arabia. Again, like I've never seen, even since '73, this hostile. This whole idea of resurrecting 9/11 and possible Saudi participation, at least at low level, has really strained relations. I just see -- we're heading more and more toward an implicit alliance with Iran because at the end of the day, the Iranians can beat the Islamic state with their local proxies.

SESAY: One last question, this is something in reading that's been coming up, the house of Saud has been continually aggrieved with President Obama. I guess my question is, how much of this is about personal animus, how much of [00:05:02] the tensions come down to President Obama and how much of it will be alieved when he leaves office?

BAER: I don't think there's a personal animus. I don't - I've never heard of that before, but what's happened is that President Obama has essentially withdrawn from the Middle East in so many ways, left a vacuum, which the Iranians have filled, and they just hope the next President that comes along will do something to hold back Iran. Let's wait and see.

SESAY: All right, let's wait and see. Bob Baer, always so great to talk to you. Thanks so much.

VAUSE: Well, these meetings come as Saudi Arabia confronts a deadly campaign by ISIS to overthrow the monarchy.

SESAY: Nic Robertson reports the militants are calling on their supporters to target family members who work in security forces. We must warn you the images are disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: In the Saudi desert, something sinister. In this video posted by ISIS, a man is pulled from a vehicle by the people he trusts the most -- his family. They tell him, be quiet; stand still. As they pledge allegiance to ISIS; then, they shoot him. His name? Badr Hamdi al-Rashidi, a Saudi SWAT squad officer. His family tells us he was killed by his cousins. We've talked to his brothers. They're distraught, struggling to understand how, in Saudi Arabia, where family ties trump all else, ISIS is managing to break the bonds that bind this kingdom together, divide and conquer, separate the police from the people.

BRIGADIER GENERAL MANSOUR TURKI, SPOKESMAN, SAUDI ARABIA INTERIOR MINISTRY: ISIS's message, actually, is to take the police away from their way so they could approach innocent people and start committing these crimes, targeting civilians.

ROBERTSON: ISIS is hyping attacks like this one on a police inspector this month, demanding the overthrow of the royal family. The attackers

chase and shoot the officer; but recently the attacks have taken a frightening turn: ISIS calling for fratricide.

TURKI: -- so they shift and started calling for their supporters, you know, to attack their relatives, if they are working for the police.

ROBERTSON: This young Saudi did as ISIS demanded, according to the Saudi Interior Ministry, shot his policeman uncle seven times, point blank, before driving to a maximum security jail and blowing himself up. ISIS is intent on ripping apart the fabric of this close-knit, trusting society. The police rely on the public to turn the terrorists in. 2500 ISIS arrests in recent years.

TURKI: Well, without the public support, I could say this is very hard and very difficult, but we rely a lot on the public support.

ROBERTSON: As the battle brews, heart-wrenching moments like this are becoming more common. Mudawwas, a recently-graduated police cadet begs his cousin to let him live. [Gunshot] The Saudis say he is the third to die at the hands of a relative in recent months.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: We're following a dire new warning about North Korea from a top U.S. official. General Vincent Brookes told a U.S. Senate panel that America should not be fooled by Kim Jong-un's latest failed nuclear test because North Korea will be able to fire long-range nuclear armed missiles if they're not stopped.

SESAY: The General also warned that Kim Jong-un appears to be more risk tolerant, arrogant and impulsive than his father, the former leader of North Korea.

Meantime, we're hearing conflicting reports about the fate of a group of North Korean restaurant workers who Seoul claims defected to their country.

VAUSE: CNN's Will Ripley spoke with - has an interview, rather, an exclusive interview with their colleagues, who claim the group was actually tricked into fleeing to South Korea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's been a mostly sleepless night for these seven women. North Korean authorities brought them from their homes overnight for an early morning, last-minute interview in our Pyongyang hotel.

Behind their polite smiles, a heavy burden. Trying to explain how 12 of their friends were supposedly tricked into fleeing their homeland. North Korea calls it a mass abduction. South Korea calls it a mass defection. 13 North Koreans, 12 women, one man, lured by a life they saw on TV, movies and the internet.

[00:10:02] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We would never leave our parents, country and supreme leader Kim Jong-un.

RIPLEY: They worked at a state-owned restaurant in southern China, now closed. The women, all in their 20s, waitresses, the man, their manager.

UNIDENTIFED FEMALE: All of this was planned by our bastard manager and the South Koreans, she says.

RIPLEY: They say their manager lied, telling the women they were going to another North Korean restaurant in Southeast Asia.

China has said that your friends crossed the border legally into South Korea. At some point they had to know where they were going. Why did you think they still went?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They had absolutely no choice, they insist. We didn't even have our own passports on us. RIPLEY: South Korea's Unification Ministry tells CNN 13 defectors

voluntarily decided to leave and pushed ahead with the escape without any help from the outside. Following their voluntary request to defect our government accepted them from a humanitarian point of view.

North Korea is believed to make millions from its dozens of restaurants in other countries. I visited this one in Northeast China in 2014. Waitresses are allowed to speak with foreign customers, making them among the most-trusted citizens. A mass defection would be a humiliating blow to Pyongyang, especially one allowed by its strongest ally, China.

North Korea is facing growing isolation and sanctions over its nuclear and missile programs, and allegations of widespread human rights abuse.

UNIDENTIFED FEMALE: To our loving friends, our leader Kim Jong-un is waiting for you, she says. Parents and siblings are waiting for you. Please come back.

RIPLEY: These are the seven left behind; left to explain why their friends are gone; left to wonder how life suddenly became so complicated.

Will Ripley, CNN, Pyongyang North Korea.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Ecuador's President is imposing a temporary earthquake tax to help rebuild from the country's worst disaster in decades. In a primetime address, Rafael Correa said it will take millions of dollars to recover from Saturday's devastating quake.

SESAY: The numbers thus far are staggering. 570 people are now confirmed dead, more than 7,000 injured, 24,000 are in shelters. The President has sent thousands of soldiers and police to affected areas, and he's helping to deliver aid himself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAFAEL CORREA, PRESIDENT, ECUADOR via translator: they are units from the community police. We have hundreds scattered all over the country, and we saw that the best way to organize ourselves for water, supplies and food was with the UPC, the units from the community police. We're just starting to implement the system. That's why I've been here for two to three hours to start with this first UPC, but this will take place in the whole province, and then to other cities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SESAY: Well, supplies are pouring into Ecuador, but damaged roads and power outages are making it difficult to get it to those who need it. More than 500 aftershocks have been reported since the initial quake.

VAUSE: A short break here. When we come back, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are celebrating big wins in the New York primaries, but their opponents are saying the race is not over yet. We'll explain why in a moment.

SESAY: Plus, an Australian mother and "60 Minutes" TV crew are now free after facing kidnapping charges in Lebanon. We will bring you the details and how it all unfolded.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) (WEATHER HEADLINES)

[00:17:22] VAUSE: A mother and four TV journalists from Australia are now free on bail after facing child kidnapping charges. Sally Faulkner says her ex-husband took her two children to Lebanon last year on vacation and never brought them back. She was arrested last week in Beirut after allegedly hiring a so-called "child recovery agency" to grab the children off the street. The crew from the Nine Network's "60 Minutes" program was there to cover her story.

SESAY: The father says that he now has full custody of the kids and has dropped all charges against his ex-wife and the journalists. Channel Nine interviewed them on their way to the airport.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TARA BROWN, AUSTRALIAN NEWS REPORTER, THE NINE NETWORK: I had a chance to say hi to john. I was ordered to call home but not the kids, I can't wait to speak to them, obviously. They have no idea about any of this. It's great. It's great to talk to home; it's great to be going home.

SALLY FAULKNER, MOTHER: Just so glad to be out of there. I mean, they treated us well. We can't complain about that, but it's just the uncertainty that just kept me awake at night, not knowing if it was going to be a life-long sentence or what. It was no joke.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Australian media commentator, Peter Ford, joins us now live from Melbourne. Peter, good to speak with you again. What are the details now about how the mother and crew were released? What do you know about the compensation which I guess the network paid to the father?

PETER FORD, AUSTRALIAN NEWS COMMENTATOR, via satellite: You know, a lot of focus on that, all sorts of estimates of how much it was, as little as $500,000, as much as $5 million. The father at the center of this is saying publicly, he's given a lot of interviews, saying I'm not getting a cent out of it. Nobody's really buying that. There clearly was money that did change hands.

I think generally, it's being perceived by most people as something they had to do. There was a massive problem here, a corporate problem, a human problem. The father was the chance to make it all go away. To appease him, or to compensate him, to buy him off, bribe him, whatever you want to call it, he was the solution to fixing this. So he was in a very, very good bargaining position.

VAUSE: Peter, on the Channel Nine Instagram page, there is this photo of the TV crew celebrating, they're about to head home, but not in that photo the men from the so-called child recovery unit. What is their fate right now?

FORD: Well they are still in jail and in fact, Sally Faulkner, the mother at the center of the story, she is still in Lebanon. She's not in prison anymore, but she will say good-bye to the children, for the immediate future, in a few hours' time.

Those two men who were, if you like, the centerpiece of the operation to [00:20:01] kidnap those kids, they still have to stay and face the music. Now I might add the criminal charges for the "60 Minutes" team, they still stand. Those charges will be heard in absentia, so they don't have to go there. The worst-case scenario is probably that they will never be allowed to go to Lebanon again; but, in effect, they are free go about their lives.

VAUSE: And chances are they never want to go back to Lebanon at this point. What about the kids at the center of this story?

FORD: Well, they still remain with dad. The suggestion is that part of the deal will be that the mother will still be able to have some access to them, whether that will be in Lebanon or a mutually agreed country. They certainly won't be coming back to Australia again, but yes, it's going to be a

tough one for that mother.

I would suspect, like all the people who have been through this over the last two weeks, they all have to be debriefed. They all have to go through medical assessments, site counseling, all of that, and I suspect that Mother, Sally, may be the one in the next few days' time to think, well, what have I been left with? This mission has left me with nothing. I've had to sign away access to my two kids. She does have a 3-month old baby at home.

VAUSE: It's sad, isn't it, really, for her, in so many ways. But, you know, paying and bankrolling for stories is pretty common with Australian television news. Will this incident change that in any way? Will Channel Nine at least be reviewing how all this happened in some of their practices?

FORD: Well, they have announced today that they are setting up a commission, or a panel of people, experienced hands in the news game, to actually look at what happened: who knew what; who signed off on this; et cetera. That may be for show. They clearly know who did sign off and what the process was and where it went wrong.

I suppose there's always been, you know, John, a bit of a gung ho element to Australian journalism. We like getting in there and we like playing hard, but this has been a wakeup call for everybody in the game; that you cannot become a facilitator in anything. This is not reality TV. This is current affairs TV, and you can never actually manipulate it.

VAUSE: Yes; it will be interesting to see how things progress from this point on, especially for the mom and also, I guess, for journalists there in Australia.

Peter, as always, good to speak with you; thank you. FORD: Thanks, John.

VAUSE: Ted Cruz is throwing some cold water on Donald Trump's landslide win in the New York primary, saying the Republicans are headed for a contested convention. Cruz says Trump is no more likely than he is to earn the 1237 delegates needed to clinch the party's nomination on the first ballot.

SESAY: CNN estimates Trump would have to win 58-percent of the remaining delegates to make that happen; Cruz needs to win 100- percent; Kasich, 162.

VAUSE: That should be easy.

SESAY: Trump is calling it a crooked system.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R) REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I mean, we have a situation in Pennsylvania where I'm doing great and if you win Pennsylvania you get 17 delegates, and the rest of them are up for grabs. What does that mean? And then they can take the delegates, they can put them in airplanes and fly them to resorts, they can have dinners with them, they can put them in hotels. Essentially, what they're saying is, they can buy the election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[Laughter]

SESAY: Let's talk about the democrats, shall we? Bernie Sanders has spent months criticizing the Democratic Party super delegate system. Now his campaign manager says Sanders strategy will be to try to win over those super delegates.

VAUSE: Hillary Clinton has a commanding lead in the delegate count after her big win in New York state, and she's looking to add to it. A new Monmouth University poll shows her leading Senator Sanders 52- percent to 39-percent in Pennsylvania. That state and four others hold primaries this Tuesday.

SESAY: Joining me now is Democratic Strategist and Bernie Sanders supporter, Nomiki Konst. Nomiki, welcome to the show.

New York was a must-win for Bernie Sanders. That didn't happen; which, by all accounts means it is virtually mathematically impossible for Senator Sanders to reach that magic number of 2383 before the convention. So, does this mean that the Sanders campaign is placing all its hopes on flipping super delegates at that convention? What's the strategy here?

NOMIKI KONST, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST AND BERNIE SANDERS SUPPORTER: Well, let's also be clear that it's also pretty much mathematically impossible, based on the margins of the last several states, for Hillary Clinton to reach that magic number of 2383. New York wasn't must-win, the margins just needed to stay close. Now obviously, she won it by a larger margin and she got about 40 delegates, pledged delegates, but that's about the largest number of pledged delegates she's going to get out of all the remaining states.

She stayed consistently under about 240 for the past two months. We're getting into the weeds here, but what that means is that she's stalled. The momentum is building for Bernie, and I know that sounds like rhetoric, but the state was tailor made for her, and she didn't do as well as she did in [00:25:02] 2008. So neither of them are going to reach the magic number before the convention, and it's definitely going to come down to super delegates.

SESAY: Let me ask you this as you talk about the party, and you put it front and center, many saying that with the math as it stands now, Nomiki, pointing to Hillary Clinton being the party nominee, the attacks coming from the Sanders campaign in recent days are hurting her. They are hurting her as a general election candidate. They are hurting the party fabric, the unity of the party. Is this something that --

KONST: Hmm; I have to disagree on that.

SESAY: -- someone like -- do you again, I mean, what's your view on - you've already said you disagree; why do you disagree?

KONST: Well, part of that is by design. So Bernie Sanders' campaign is a very scrappy campaign. They're responding to rhetoric attacks and really just comparing records. The reality here, and this is a little insider baseball but Hillary has four Super PACS. She has an organization called "Correct The Record" that is being run by David Brock, who called Anita Hill a little bit something and a little bit nutty. This is somebody

who is a republican, and he just put $1 million into attacking Bernie Sanders supporters online and surrogates, like me and other surrogates.

So they're on - so for the people who are saying that they want to try to recruit the Bernie Sanders supporters and bring them into the party, especially since so many are independents and first-time voters, they're being very --

SESAY: But we're talking about the tone, coming from the Sanders campaign.

KONST: What tone? What tone is that?

SESAY: The tone coming from your side of things.

KONST: Give me an example because -

SESAY: The tone - the tone - the tone that the Hillary Clinton campaign and others say is destructive.

KONST: Right.

SESAY: The tone that points to --

KONST: That's coming out of the message machine; yes.

SESAY: But the point that is being made here, that I'm just asking to you consider, is do you fear that you are ultimately ripping apart the Democratic Party; and at what point will you start to consider that, in terms of how you conduct things going forward? That's the question here.

KONST: So I think that the Democratic Party has been blind, and I've talked to a lot of party leaders across the country, state party leaders, local party leaders, and we've all had internal conversations about how the DNC has been too ignorant of census reporting and PEW Studies about trends in the country. They've been more focused on electing leaders who can raise money.

The Party is 70-percent more progressive now. So the ripping apart of the party is really by the leadership who is ignoring, -- we lost 10- percent of our voters last election cycle. We have more Independents. We have young people. I mean, if anything, Bernie Sanders is building the party by recruiting all these new members that Hillary Clinton really isn't going to get.

SESAY: All right.

KONST: She's not getting blue-collar voters, either; Trump is going to getting them.

SESAY: All right, Nomiki Konst -

KONST: So you have to keep this in mind.

SESAY: Great to have you on the show. It's great to have you on the show. Really great to get that insight. Thank you so much.

KONST: Thank you.

VAUSE: Woo, getting a little hot there. Okay; take a short break --

SESAY: Just asking the questions.

VAUSE: Just asking the questions. When we come back, thousands did something illegal on Wednesday in the name of celebration. They smoked pot in public parks as part of National Weed Day.

SESAY: And we'll talk to U.S. Presidential Candidate who wants marijuana legal in all 50 states. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:31:35] JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everybody; you're watching "CNN Newsroom" live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause.

ISHA SESAY, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Isha Sesay; the headlines for this hour: U.S. President Barack Obama met with Saudi Arabia's King Salman Wednesday amid strained relations between the two countries. Officials say they discussed the conflict in Yemen, Iran's role in the region and the fight against ISIS. Mr. Obama will attend the summit with Gulf leaders Thursday.

VAUSE: As many as 500 migrants are feared dead after a ship sank in the Mediterranean between Libya and Italy. 41 survivors, all from Africa, were taken to Greece. They told the U.N. Refugee agency smugglers were moving passengers to an already overcrowded bigger ship when it capsized last week.

SESAY: Norwegian mass-murder Anders Breivik has won part of his lawsuit against the state over his solitary confinement. The rightwing extremist killed 77 people in 2011. The Oslo District Court ruled Breivik's treatment in a high security prison violated his human rights. The court also ordered the government to pay his legal costs.

VAUSE: A Belgian official says the FBI's facial recognition technology played a key role in identifying Brussels' airport bomber, Mohammed Abrini. He was arrested earlier this month. Meanwhile, police are urgently looking for another unnamed person connected to Paris terror suspect Salah Abdeslam.

Well, in the United States, thousands have been celebrating an unofficial holiday. It's called 4/20 day or Weed Day.

SESAY: Yes; hundreds of people gathered in a Denver, Colorado Civic Center Park on Wednesday. Colorado is one of the few states where recreational marijuana use is legal, but it is not legal to smoke pot in public anywhere.

VAUSE: Well the country's largest gathering was in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Thousands of pot users showed up there. Only medical marijuana is legal in California, but police did not plan to make any arrests.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: In the U.S., the Green Party wants to legalize marijuana, just like alcohol and cigarettes. It also wants emergency action on climate change and is focusing on income inequality, student debt and an end to big money in politics. Those are the types of issues which have been driving so many young voters to support Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist from Vermont.

But what happens to all those energized voters now that Hillary Clinton is likely to win the democrat nomination for president? Well, Jill Stein is seeking the Green Party presidential nomination and she joins us from Boston.

Dr. Stein, I hope you had a good 4/20 Day. On the issue of legalizing marijuana, the Canadian government plans to legalize cannabis next year. It's on the ballot in California. The Mexican government says it's open to the idea. So would you say right now the debate is pretty much over?

DR. JILL STEIN, GREEN PARTY PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE, via satellite: Yes, indeed; and I think this is another case where the, shall we say, -- what shall we say? Where the political establishment lags far behind where the American people are, where the economy needs to go, where our criminal justice system needs to go. It's another case in point of where the political establishment is dragging their heels on what we need for everyday people.

VAUSE: Okay; now, to the U.S. politics now. You tweeted this out after the New York state primary, "Yes, I want to talk with Senator Sanders about collaborating to keep the grassroots movement. The revolution going strong."

[00:35:01] Record numbers have turned out for Senator Sanders. Do you have any idea now how many of those voters might actually opt, say, to you over Hillary Clinton, if she ends up as the democratic nominee?

STEIN: What I've heard is that polls show somewhere between 25 and 30-percent are saying, at this point, that there's no way they would vote for Hillary Clinton. You know, I think that could change a lot as people begin to hear about our campaign, because, you know, third- parties are kept off the ballot. The corporate press generally doesn't cover us. We're locked out of the debates, and generally, I think it's fair to say that the political establishment is a little worried, because when we get heard, people tend to support it a lot.

VAUSE: Many Democrats still haven't forgiven the Green Party and Ralph Nader for that 2000 campaign. They say Nader took votes away from Al Gore, in Florida especially, handing that election to George W. Bush. Are you concerned that maybe this time around, you know, the Green Party could put a President Donald Trump into the White House?

STEIN: We have this propaganda campaign that says you have to vote your fears instead of your beliefs. But that politics of fear has actually delivered everything we were afraid of. All the reasons people are told to vote for the lesser evil, we've gotten by the droves: the expanding war, the attack on immigrants, the offshoring of our jobs, the depression of our wages, we've gotten all of this by the droves because we, as a people, allowed ourselves to be silenced; but, in fact, the lesser evil actually paves the way for the greater evil.

VAUSE: You're talking about the lesser evil being the Democrats, but a lot of people have been saying that Bernie Sanders, from a left wing liberal point of view, has been able to take the Democrats closer to the left, closer to your position on many issues.

STEIN: And I want to affirm that Bernie Sanders had done, I think, the movement, the justice movement, a great service; but what we see over and over again is that the Democratic Party, while it has some great candidates, Sanders, Dennis Kucinich, Jesse Jackson, there's a long list, but the Democratic Party itself, (inaudible). It takes down the candidates and then it goes right.

VAUSER: Well there have been a lot of unexpected twists and turns so far in this election cycle, so who knows, you may have a shot. Dr. Stein, thanks for being with us.

STEIN: Great talking with you; thanks so much.

VAUSE: You should know that Ralph Nader got 2.8 million votes in 2000 and a lot of people say it was decisive in Florida, took votes away from Al Gore.

SESAY: Yes, a lot of people say that.

VAUSE: It could be influential this time around.

SESAY: We'll see. Time for a quick break; Queen Elizabeth reaches a new milestone. Up next, how the British monarch is celebrating her 90th birthday.

VAUSE: Happy birthday. Big changes also ahead for the U.S. $20 bill. We'll tell you what the U.S. Treasury Department is planning for Andrew Jackson.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:40:01] SESAY: Well, Britain's Queen Elizabeth is celebrating her 90th birthday. Last year she became the longest-serving monarch and is now the first to reach nine decades. The Queen plans to mark her special day with one of her famous walkabouts near Windsor Castle.

VAUSE: On Wednesday the Royal Mail debuted an official photograph and stamp set of the Queen and Britain's three future kings. Later this summer she will have a national service at St. Paul's Cathedral in London, a giant picnic at Buckingham Palace. The Queen is known for getting out and about among her subjects.

SESAY: Her walkabouts are nothing new for British royals, but as London Correspondent Max Foster explains, Queen Elizabeth has put her own spin on them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAX FOSTER, CNN LONDON CORRESPONDENT: She's often quoted as having said that she needs to be seen to be believed and it's a philosophy that's certainly defined the Queen's public role. Getting out has allowed her to get close to her public, but also crucially to be seen to be close to the public.

She wasn't the first royal to go upon a walkabout, but she was the one who popularize them. Fitting then that she's marking her ninth decade with a walkabout outside what's become her main residence in Windsor.

DICKIE ARBITER, FORMER ROYAL PRESS SECRETARY: Maybe she's to be credited with inventing the modern walkabout, because that came about in 1977 with the Silver Jubilee, where she visited so many centers, in the U.K. and abroad, that people wanted to see her, and the walkabout happened.

FOSTER: It started for her during World War II, here she is with her parents, and since then, she's walked the planet during a lifetime of royal tours.

As the Queen scales back, the younger royals have picked up their share of royal duties; and here's a moment I captured in New Zealand in 2014.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Princess Kathryn!

PRINCESS CATHERINE, DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE: Thank you very much.

FOSTER: She was desperately calling out and had a bunch of flowers that nobody could beat, but would it be enough? Thank goodness for Royal Protection Officers. A brief moment with a future queen, etched onto the young mind of someone living on the other side of the planet.

Max Foster, CNN, London.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SESAY: Do you now the queen actually celebrates her birthday twice a year?

VAUSE: I do; I grew up in Australia.

SESAY: Yes; yes, I thought you did.

VAUSE: Although she was actually born on April 21st, the anniversary is additionally celebrated nationally June, usually on the second Saturday of the month. This year it is June 11th.

SESAY: One feature of the event is the Queen's birthday parade, known as Trooping the Colour. It's been a part of the official birthday of the British sovereign ever since 1748.

VAUSE: Do you know why they have two dates?

SESAY: I do not; no.

VAUSE: Because the weather is better in June than in April. It's because of the weather, because London it always rains.

Okay, the U.S. $20 bill is getting a makeover.

SESAY: Treasure Secretary Jack Lew announced that abolitionist Harriet Tubman will be the new face of the bank note. Tubman escaped slavery in the U.S. South herself and led hundreds like her to freedom in the 1800's on what was called the Underground Railroad. She'll be the first black woman to front paper U.S. money. A design for the bill is expected to be announced in 2020.

VAUSE: Tubman replaces Andrew Jackson, a U.S. president, slave owner, not a good president. Jackson's image will move to the back of the note. A lot of people aren't particularly happy about that.

SESAY: No; alright, well, thank you for watching "CNN Newsroom," live from Los Angeles. I'm Isha Sesay.

VAUSE: I'm John Vause. Stay with us; "World Sport" is up next and then we'll be back with another hour of news from all around the world. You're watching CNN.

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