Hiker in Maui Rescued after Being Lost for Weeks; Tulsa, Oklahoma, Faces Flooding after Tornado; Trump Administration to Authorize Arms Sale to Saudi Arabia and UAE
BLACKWELL: More than two weeks ago, Amanda Eller went for a hike in the Maui forest reserve. But it wasn't until last night that her friends and family knew that she was alive.</s>DEAN: This is a picture of Amanda taken moments after a group of rescuers tracked her down. It turns out the 35-year-old yoga instructor had gotten lost while hiking through the forest. Here's how that rescue played out.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And there she goes. And there she goes. Yes. And now we can celebrate. Memorial Day weekend. We did it. Oh, my god.</s>DEAN: Just ecstatic to have their friend back. And as you can imagine, her friends and family are calling this all a miracle.</s>DEAN: Missing more than two weeks, Amanda Eller is found alive in Maui, Hawaii. Her rescue was announced on this post on a Facebook page set up by family and friends. "Urgent update, Amanda has been found. She got lost and was stuck and slightly injured in the forest way, way out, somewhere way far above Twin Falls between two waterfalls down a deep ravine in a creek bed."</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can cry now. It's awesome, man. That's like the best. You got a good Memorial Day now.</s>DEAN: A photo on the page showed Eller just before the air evacuation surrounded by members of a search team. She appeared to be only slightly injured. And this picture of the ravine where she was apparently found.</s>JULIA ELLER, AMANDA'S MOTHER: I was crying with tears of joy.</s>DEAN: Her mother, Julia Eller, told CNN affiliate KHON, Amanda used water sources and ate the berries she found, strawberries, guava, and other items to sustain her.</s>ELLER: I never gave up hope for a minute, and even though at times, I would have those moments of despair, I stayed strong for her because I knew that we would find her if he we just stayed with the program. Stayed persistent.</s>DEAN: Authorities said Eller, a 35-year-old yoga instructor, disappeared after going on a hike May 8th. Her car was found with her cellphone inside at a forest reserve parking lot. A last image of her was captured on surveillance video buying a Mother's Day gift the day before she was reported missing. A $50,000 reward was being offered for information regarding her disappearance and possible abduction. But now there's an ending that some are calling miraculous.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unbelievable. If you believe in prayer, folks, thank your Lord, because this is an answer.</s>DEAN: So great to see that happy ending. Now earlier this morning, we spoke with Javier Cantellops, the lead rescuer on the helicopter to find Amanda Eller. Listen to how he described finding they are.</s>JAVIER CANTELLOPS, LEAD RESCUER OF AMANDA ELLER: We're in an open air helicopter, no doors, and we're all hanging out, and we're going up this one particular gulch. We're right as the crow flies about seven miles east of where her car was found. But if you walked it, it would be more like 25 miles, just because of the up and down terrain. But we're flying up this gulf, we're flying up this ravine, and as we're looking down, man, we're passing waterfalls and going up and the river continues, and we're passing waterfalls and the river continues up, and we're all looking around. And at the same time, we all look to our right, and it's like a movie, man, like a double take. We all look to our right, and it's like, look at that hiker. What? And out of the woodwork, you see Amanda Eller, man, my friend, coming up, waving her hands. We're about 200 feet up, 250 feet off the canopy, so it was unbelievable, dude.</s>BLACKWELL: Now, we understand Amanda Eller spent the night in the hospital and is receiving treatment for her injuries. Good to know she is back home with her family and friends.</s>DEAN: Officials in Oklahoma say at least two people have died after a week of severe weather slammed that state and another round of severe storms are expected this holiday weekend. That means more than 40 million people are under severe weather threats. And that threat is extending all the way from the Central Plains to the Great Lakes.</s>BLACKWELL: So look at this video from earlier this week, two homes hanging over the water in Oklahoma, hanging over because the flood waters wiped out the ground underneath them. Officials say more than 10 inches of heavy rain has led to widespread flooding there and it's impacted at least 1,000 homes. Let's go now to CNN International Correspondent Omar Jimenez who joins us from Tulsa where you have been talking to people who say that they're really shocked by all of this flooding. Understandable.</s>OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Victor, Jessica, it's no secret that when you live alongside a river, there's always a risk of flooding, but for a lot of people along the Arkansas River here in Oklahoma, they knew that but felt they were far enough inland where they wouldn't be affected by major situations. But this is not the case. This is the scene that a lot of people across the Tulsa area are waking up to this Memorial Day weekend, and it's a scene they have grown accustomed to over the course of the week. This spot in particular, our crew was able to drive through here two days ago with no problem, and with no water. You can see it is a completely different story now. You can't even tell where the river begins and where the dry ground is supposed to begin. And you mentioned some of those residents we have been speaking to. One in particular said that she has been here for more than 30 years and has never seen anything like this.</s>ANA HALL, TULSA RESIDENT: This is the highest I've ever seen the water, and I have lived here over 30 years, with my husband, and I bought the house 31 to 32 years ago. I walked to the end of the street and then everything is under water, and I wasn't going to go wading through because I didn't know what I might step on.</s>JIMENEZ: And another person we spoke to, we actually caught him only moments after he learned for the first time that his home did not survive the flooding. He was pretty emotional, almost didn't even have words to spit out as we caught him in those moments there. And now moving forward, this isn't just a Tulsa problem. It's a statewide issue they are looking at right now. State emergency operations center still activated. State of emergency for all 77 counties across the state as well. The big question now is what is the outlook moving forward? Well, the good news is the sun is expected to be out over much of the state over the course of the day today. But that is a little deceptive because a lot of this flooding is coming from the fact that, no matter what happens upstream from where we are here in Tulsa, all of those rivers and tributaries flow into this one spot and funnel down, and that is what we are seeing happen here in Tulsa. Specifically, you look at the Keystone Dam which is what controls the waterflow here for the city. They're letting about 250,000 cubic feet per second of water through. That's the equivalent of 1,000 school buses per second of water letting through, just to keep up with how high the water is.</s>DEAN: All right, sending our best to all of those people and hoping that those waters recede soon. Omar Jimenez, thank you so much.</s>BLACKWELL: President Trump has approved selling arms to Saudi Arabia, and he's deploying troops to deter Iran. CNN National Security Analyst Samantha Vinograd will join us next to tell us how this could end up. Plus, 2020 candidate Pete Buttigieg's message to fellow veterans on President Trump possibly preparing to pardon U.S. troops accused of war crimes.</s>MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG, (D-IN) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He is eroding the integrity of the military and insulting the Constitution.</s>DEAN: President Trump is approving the sale of billions of dollars worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Jordan. But to push through the $8.1 billion sale, the president is using a rarely used federal law that allows him to bypass Congress. His actions come on the same day he approved sending 1,500 troops to the Middle East to deter Iran. Joining me now, CNN National Security Analyst Samantha Vinograd. Sam, thanks for being with us.</s>SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Good morning.</s>DEAN: So the president is using a loophole for this arms sale, and he clearly wants to get this thing done. Do we know what these weapons are going to be used for, what his reasoning is here?</s>VINOGRAD: I think that's a great question, because aside from the fact that the president is really creating an emergency to bypass having to uphold something called the Arms Control Export Act, these weapons are going to be used by Saudi Arabia and potentially the UAE as part of a war that both Republicans and Democrats have expressed opposition to. That is the coalition led by Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen. There are a few things that have bipartisan support in Washington these days, but Republicans and Democrats have called for an end to U.S. support for the war in Yemen. President Trump unfortunately vetoed a resolution that would have halted our support for that war. If these arms sales go through, which includes things like munitions that are being used if for this effort in Yemen, our weapons will continue to be used by Saudi Arabia and the UAE to do things like kill civilians. So Secretary of State Pompeo, who notified Congress about this emergency yesterday, needs to own the fact that the United States is going to be selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and the Emirates and others that are going to be used to continue to target civilians in Yemen.</s>DEAN: And I want to take a moment to talk about the troops in the Middle East as well. President Trump saying that we need additional troops there because Iran is such a threat. Has the threat from Iran actually increased? What is driving that decision, do you think?</s>VINOGRAD: I think it's very likely that the threat has increased. I think that it would be unlikely that the State Department would withdraw such a significant amount of people from Iraq if the threat hadn't increased. I think it's unlikely that the Pentagon would recommend the reallocation of assets to the Middle East theater if the threat hadn't increased. But the question, Jessica is why has the threat increased. Iran has always been a threat. They were a threat in 2007 when I lived in Iraq and they used to lob rockets at us, but they're more of a threat today, not only because President Trump has made himself really the escalator in chief. He has chosen to take a series of steps that increase rather than decrease the threat from Iran. He has withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal. He has engaged in a war of words with the Iranians unnecessarily that have escalated tensions, and his administration has done things like designate the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization, which the military reportedly warned would increase the risk to U.S. assets. So the threat has increased, but that is partially because the administration has taken steps that have increased it.</s>DEAN: And do you think there's anything they could do to deescalate at this point, or is this just a train that's going to continue down the tracks?</s>VINOGRAD: I think we don't really know whether the administration has given any kind of diplomatic opening to Iran. President Trump engaged in a PR stunt when he invited the swiss to Washington. The swiss have represented our interest with the Iranians. That's a public play. We don't know if there is any backchannel diplomacy underway. My sincere hope is that there is and that the Iranians are in some way engaging with the United States privately about how we can deescalate that situation. That would not be something that would be playing out in front of the cameras, and my hope is that that is occurring.</s>DEAN: And before we go, we also know that the National Security Adviser, John Bolton, told reporters today North Korea tested ballistic missiles earlier this month, and that the nation is, quote, "violating Security Council resolutions, there's no doubt about that," referring to the U.N. Is he getting ahead of President Trump here? And also what about him talking about these tests that he said happened?</s>VINOGRAD: He said the b-word, ballistic missiles, which is something that President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo have not said. When he said that they violated U.N. Security Council resolutions, that includes a resolution in 1965 which condemns the use of ballistic missiles no matter what the range is, short range, intermediate range, or otherwise. And Bolton has gotten ahead of the president in the past. So it is very unclear to me whether he's in fact really talking about an administration decision here or he's just adlibbing and saying what he thinks. We do know that President Trump is in Japan, Prime Minister Abe of Japan has previously said these tests violated U.N. Security Council resolutions. And the question, Jessica, now is what are we going to do about it? President Trump is more focused on the fact that Kim has upheld his supposed promise to not test intermediate range missiles or nuclear weapons, but the fact is that Kim continues to break international law. And for the time being, we're sitting back and taking it.</s>DEAN: More to come on that. Samantha Vinograd, I have to let you go. But thanks so much for being with us.</s>VINOGRAD: Thanks, Jessica.</s>BLACKWELL: The president is in Japan for a mostly ceremonial visit. He's meeting the emperor, he's hitting the links with the prime minister, watching a little sumo wrestling. Where are trade, North Korea, China on the itinerary? Or is this the art of the deal? I'll be asking our political regulators Maria Cardona and Alice Stewart, next.</s>DEAN: And Sunday on the new CNN original series "The Redemption Project" with Van Jones, see what happens when victims and offenders of violent crimes meet face-to-face. "The Redemption Project" airs tomorrow night at 9:00 eastern followed by "The United Shades of America" with W. Kamau Bell at 10:00 right here on CNN.