Some Migrant Children Moved Back To Controversial U.S. Detention Center As Head Of Border Protection Steps Down; Observers At Detention Facility Report Lice, Flu Exposure; Trump Open To Talks, Threatens Obliteration; Iran: New Sanctions Close Door on Diplomacy; Trump Threatens "Obliteration" If Iran Attacks
JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Plus Iran to Trump, your mentally disabled. Come to Iran, I could obliterate you. A race to the bottom is raising the risk of confrontation. And later, call it Democrat survival. Two dozen candidates competing for the right to challenge Donald Trump for the presidency, but first, they have to face off against each other. All the images of heartbreak and chaos of human suffering at the U.S.- Mexico border, there is one which seems likely to become a symbol of a humanitarian crisis which seems to get worse by the day. His name according to the Salvadorian government is Oscar Alberto Martinez, that little girl lying next to him, her body tucked inside his shirt, her right arm around his neck is Angie Valeria, three years old, his daughter. They're found dead on Monday faced down on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. They tried to cross the river on Sunday and according to a Mexican newspaper, there were reports that Mr. Martinez had successfully crossed with his daughter but when he went back to get his wife his little girl followed him into the water, both were swept away by a strong current. Amid the recommendations over the death of Mr. Martinez and his little girl, there was another shake-up at the very top of the agency which enforces border security also confusion over where child detaining should be held. More than 100 children were returned to a Texas facility where just days ago conditions were described as deplorable. A team of outside observers reported children were exposed to lice and the flu and like the basic items to hygiene like soap, a toothbrush. The man in charge, the Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner announced his resignation. And later on Tuesday, the House of Representatives voted to approve $4.5 four billion in aid to ease this crisis on the border despite a threat from President Trump to veto any bill. CNN's Nick Valencia has more now.</s>NICK VALENCIA, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: As the drama plays out in Washington, here along the U.S.-Mexico border in Clint, Texas, Customs and Border Protection announcing on Tuesday that they would move 100 child migrants back into a facility that was described by independent monitors as having unconscionable conditions. Heartbreaking stories where children are left to sleep on the floor, some with no mattress. Some children going three weeks without a shower, a facility where children or left to fend for themselves. It was allegations that were addressed by Customs and Border Protection on a call with reporters. They push back on those allegations saying that not only were they reported to the Inspector General but also that things like water and soap were customarily and continually available for child migrants despite reporting otherwise. One thing is clear that politics is being played on both sides while the fate of hundreds if not thousands of child migrants hangs in the balance. Nick Valencia, CNN Clint, Texas.</s>VAUSE: While the image of Mr. Martinez and his daughter has brought words of shock and horror from U.S. lawmakers, not a whole lot much else.</s>REP. GERRY CONNOLLY (D-VA): The crisis that the border is a humanitarian crisis. It is the failure of our government to show any empathy or any concern for the thousands of people who are fleeing violence, gang activity, and dire poverty. This picture in many ways is emblematic of the failure of that policy. Where is your humanity? Why aren't we taking care of children and the parents were fleeing with them in a humanitarian way as opposed to turn them away, refusing asylum, insisting that they stay in Mexico, and the risks continue? And we just see that in this picture. That father risked all to come to another country where he thought he and his daughter would be safe and have a future.</s>SEN. JEFF MERKLEY (D-OR): This father of this child were victims of American metering where they attempted to cross at a port of entry, reportedly they were refused the ability, put back into Mexico and where they had no family, no friends, no resources. So they did what so many others try to do in that situation and say we've just got to try to get across the border.</s>VAUSE: Well, as for Democratic presidential candidates, they put the blame on the Trump administration for the death of Oscar Alberto Martinez as well as his daughter. We have this from Senator Kamala Harris where she tweeted, these families seeking asylum are often fleeing extreme violence. And what happens when they arrive? Trump says, go back to where you came from. That is inhumane. Children are dying. She points out, this is a stain on our moral conscience. And there is a tweet from the former Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke saying simply Trump is responsible for these deaths. Hope Frye is the Executive Director of Project Lifeline. She organized the visits by the Human Rights Watch and others to the detention center in Texas. She's with us now from San Francisco. Hope, thank you for taking the time.</s>HOPE FRYE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PROJECT LIFELINE: Thank you, John.</s>VAUSE: OK, this is a crisis which seems to extend way beyond just one Detention Center and way beyond one man, the Acting Commissioner for Customs and Border Protection, the men who resigned on Tuesday, this is systemic and it is throughout the entire system, right?</s>FRYE: Absolutely. When we look at the Border Patrol sectors that we went to, we went to the Rio Grande Valley and to the El Paso sector, we find identical conditions. We find a depraved inhuman callous disregard for the welfare of children across the board.</s>VAUSE: This is the reaction on Tuesday from the President of the United States. This what is happening under his administration as the direct result of his policies. This is what he said.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I am very concerned. It's in much better shape than it ever was. A lot of these young children come from places that you don't even want to know about, the way they've lived, the way they've been -- the way -- the poverty that they grew up in. But with that, if we can get this bill signed, we'll be able to do it.</s>VAUSE: You know, in other words, these kids don't know any better. They've probably known poverty you know, so they don't deserve any better in many ways. It seems to be the impression that the president is trying to get across. So I'm wondering, how much of this is a shortage of resources and how much is the result of a deliberate mistreatment and neglect intended to send a message to the rest of the world.</s>FRYE: I think that they're so integrated that you can't really pull them apart. But I think to say that these children are -- come from such extreme circumstance, somehow or other that justifies the kind of inhumane treatment we're giving them is nonsensical.</s>VAUSE: I was just going to say, because with that in mind, the team of lawyers, I think you're with these guys last week, interviewed dozens of kids at the Clint facility, and here's part of their story from The New Yorker. And this deals with a lice outbreak among a small group of kids who are given to lice combs to share. They give these kids lice cones to share. Here's part of the report. One of the combs was lost and Border Patrol agents got so mad that they took away the children's blankets and mats. They weren't allowed to sleep on the beds and they had to sleep on the floor on Wednesday night as punishment for losing the comb. See, you had the whole cell for the kids who had beds and mats at one point not for everybody but for most of them who were forced to sleep on the cement. Haven't these kids been through enough with this kind of treatment?</s>FRYE: I encountered at the Ursula CBP station in McAllen, Texas, I encountered a 17-year-old Guatemalan girl who had had a botched C- section in Mexico and births a month premature baby. I found her in a wheelchair crippled up, bent over, doubled over in pain, holding this ragtag little bundle that when she lifted up, the flap was a teeny tiny premature baby. They had been there in Ursula for seven days. She hadn't had a shower. The baby was filthy. I took a Kleenex, put water on it, and clean dirt. Now, this is a premature baby. There isn't a fold of skin on this baby's body. I cleaned black dirt from around that baby's neck. I mean, this is one girl and one baby.</s>VAUSE: Yes, this is the United States, right?</s>FRYE: This is the United States of America. It took me over three days to get that child and her baby released into the custody of the Office of Refugee and Resettlement. We didn't -- I didn't ask that she be released into the United States, I asked that the baby and her baby mother be released to the custody of the group that is supposed to care for unaccompanied children. Customs and Border Patrol -- children are supposed to pass through there very quickly. It was never intended they would stay there. I met another mother, 16 who was holding an eight-month-old child. The child looked like it was made of wax. The child had the flu. They had been in there for 20 days inside a cage in a freezing cold place. She couldn't put the baby down on the floor on the concrete at all even if she'd wanted to because there were too many people lying there, there was no place to set the baby down. 20 days when I saw her on Saturday, she was still there, that was 25 days.</s>VAUSE: You know, lastly, this is incredible. I mean, the humanity here was just beyond belief. And last week the federal government tried to argue before a judge that toothpaste and soap are not necessary for safe and sanitary conditions. To that, Michael Scott who is a journalist kidnapped by Somali pirates, he tweeted, "Somali pirates gave me toothpaste and soap." Plus a CNN Global Affairs Analyst and Editor of The New Yorker Web site David Rhode kidnapped by the Taliban and held for eight months. He replied with this tweet. The Taliban gave me toothpaste and soap. At this point, what do you say?</s>FRYE: You can't say anything. You say it's cruel and inhuman and it's sadistic. The treatment of these children is so wantonly, intentionally cruel that it's hard to imagine that it's being done by adults in the United States of America. It's really hard to imagine. And when you have a child, a six-year-old child sitting three feet in front of you, and you're looking into the eyes of that child so traumatized, so scared, so isolated, so cold, so lonely, and afraid of the adults who are supposed to be in charge of her, it's a tragedy, it's a heartbreak. These children's pain are tattooed on my soul. It's an incredible --</s>VAUSE: I just don't know how you do it. I don't know how you go there. The humanity is just so -- you know, I'd love to break down and cry at times because the images, the people you see and that the stories are horrendous. One thing which --</s>FRYE: Well, I went --</s>VAUSE: Sorry, go ahead.</s>FRYE: Let me just tell you something that they have a lot of diseases and inside these centers that you brought up hand-washing. The WHO says that if you want to prevent outbreaks of disease particularly in areas where you have congregate care, wash your hands with soap and water. That's in the WHO guidelines. So all of these children we see, they're all sick. They have some version or some point mostly of Influenza A. After three days in the detention center, I got Influenza A. These children, if they see any kind of medical person at all are given some acetaminophen, maybe some Tamiflu, then they're sent back to lay down on the concrete in the cold room with the lights on 24 hours, in the cage, with the lights on 24 hours a day.</s>I -- VAUSE: To get sick again.</s>FRYE: Well, no. At day two, I was admitted to the hospital where I stayed for three and a half days receiving intravenous fluid, receiving respiratory therapy every three hours including a half hour before I left the hospital. I had exactly what they had. I presented with the same symptoms with this same horrendous cough. I saw a mom, a 16-year-old mom from Honduras with her eight-month-old baby, the baby was coughing, this cough it sounds inhuman, that baby's nose was running, the baby was covered in vomit, and the mother said you know, she held the baby up at the cage for the guard and said my baby is sick and the -- and the guard said your baby doesn't look sick. And so she didn't get any medical care. When we saw the baby, the baby was burning up with fever. I mean who does this to children? This little baby, Baby Kay, the baby, the premature baby, I -- when I was dealing with this situation and I not get the government to release her, I was just -- it was an incredible thing to me. I just said you know, babies don't wait to die while the adults figure out what to do.</s>VAUSE: These kids have done -- these kids have done nothing wrong. They're just most innocent of victims here. You know, this image of the father next to his daughter found you know, facedown in the Rio Grande, it's very reminiscent of the photo of three-year-old Alan Kurdi who was washed up on a beach in Turkey back in 2015. You know, and that caused a wave of sadness and shock and disbelief around the world especially here in this country. You know, how could this happen. It was a wake-up call at least for a brief moment. You know, saying the world had ignored. But that was over there. You know, and there was also this of distance between the United States and what happens here in this country and what happens there over in Turkey and Syria. Now it's happening here. Do you think people have you know, have the same reaction to what happened to Mr. Martinez and his daughter as to what happened with that little boy you know, washed up on the beach in Turkey?</s>FRYE: I don't know. I mean, I despair. I've been in this -- in around this area of detained children for a long time and people are very apathetic to it. When we have children who are separated from their parents, briefly there's a public outcry and then it goes away. You know, I don't know how people think. I don't know how they feel. I don't understand it. I don't understand why our voices aren't raised and there's a huge clamor because this is on our watch, it's not in Turkey. But I can't explain how people feel or why they don't take more action.</s>VAUSE: Hope, thank you so much.</s>FRYE: You're welcome. You're welcome.</s>VAUSE: I don't know how you do what you do but thank you.</s>FRYE: Thank you.</s>VAUSE: Well, on the one hand, the U.S. President insists he's ready and willing to talk with Iran's leaders over the nuclear program, but at the same time he's warning any attack on anything America will be met with obliteration. The latest threat comes a day after the president announced new sanctions on Iran's supreme leader as well as his inner circle. Although denounced by Tehran, but unfazed Donald Trump and he says when if it comes to a military confrontation, he's not worried and he won't need an exit strategy.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have exit strategy for Iran if war does break out?</s>TRUMP: You're not going to need an exit strategy. I don't need exit strategies.</s>VAUSE: Iran is going one-on-one with President Trump when it comes to the tough talk and the rhetoric. The President there Rouhani weighed in on the effectiveness on the latest stations and the impact on diplomacy. We get details now for our man in Tehran Fred Pleitgen.</s>FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Some extremely strong language coming from Tehran on Tuesday with the country's President Hassan Rouhani reacting to the sanctioning of Iran's supreme leader and other key figures within the Iranian power structure. Hassan Rouhani coming out and saying he doesn't believe that the new sanctions are going to have a real effect on Iran's economy. He also doesn't believe that the sanctions are going to have an effect on the people who are actually sanctioned like the supreme leader, like key military figures as well. But, Hassan Rouhani and others, in Iran's power structure have said that these new sanctions essentially close the door for any, sort of, negotiations or any, sort of, notion of diplomacy in the future, Hassan Rouhani then lashing out at the Trump administration and even questioning the sanity of those in the White House.</s>HASSAN ROUHANI, PRESIDENT OF IRAN: They have become frustrated and confused. They do not know what to do. They do strange things that no sane person in the history of world politics has done, or at least, I don't remember. This is because of their total confusion. They have become mentally disabled. The White House is suffering from mental disability.</s>PLEITGEN: Now, those remarks from Hassan Rouhani appeared to be what set off President Trump later in his tweet, where he even threatened obliteration for Iran, if there was any, sort of, military standoff between these two nations. But one of the key things on the part of the Iranians, is they say the Americans are trying to get them to the negotiating table, trying to get them back to diplomacy, but at the same, the U.S. administration has announced that it would sanction Iran's top diplomat, Javad Zarif, and the Iranians say those two things just simply don't mesh. Meanwhile, Javad Zarif himself came out with another tweet as well, this time, attacking U.S. National Security Adviser, John Bolton, essentially saying John Bolton and some of those allied with him, which he calls the B-Team, are essentially thirsty for war. Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Tehran.</s>VAUSE: For more, CNN Global Affairs Analyst and Executive Editor for the New Yorker Website, David Rohde, joins us now from New York. So, David, it seems proportional, it's so last week. Back then, it was enough to call off a U.S. military strike, with just minutes to spare. As a reminder, he's part of the President's tweet when he described the estimated death toll of 150 people, not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone. A couple days later, on Tuesday, the tweets were all about overwhelming force and obliteration, and the red line, this is important, for military action, was withdrawn. Before, it was the death of one American, now it's an attack on anything American, like the U.S. drone. Has there been any significant development, though, between then and now, apart from the Iranian leader saying he believes that President Trump suffers from intellectual disability?</s>DAVID ROHDE, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: That's a very good question. I think there has been. Look, I think it's wrong to not, you know, be concerned about this rhetoric. You know, as we pointed out, we went from, you know, not proportional to obliteration, in a matter of days. The president of Iran is saying that the president of the United States is mentally handicapped. And when Trump says now, you know, any attack on anything American, will be carried out. He's going to -- he's under pressure to respond militarily. So, you know, again, the President can change his mind, President Trump, but he has, sort of, backed himself into the corner with this rhetoric.</s>VAUSE: That doesn't -- I guess, the point here is that all, you know -- there's obviously things that we do not know behind the scenes, but at least publicly, it seems that this, you know, ratcheting up of American policy, which is a major change in the last couple of days. Publicly, again, it seems it's because Donald Trump was made fun of.</s>ROHDE: Yes. And look, you know, all politics is local. You know, he is made fun up. He doesn't want to look, you know, weak to Americans, and to his political base, in the United States. So, that's -- you know, it could be his personality he wants to fight back, but it's always about politics. The flipside is that all this, sort of, you know, demeaning talk about Iran, makes it hard for the Iranian government to agree to peace talks. They are basically being humiliated and, you know, pressured to just capitulate, publicly, in front of their own people and, you know, they're not going to do that for their own domestic political reasons.</s>VAUSE: And for, at least, part of two states, it seems the administration, at least, some officials were still working from Friday's play sheet, which focused on negotiations without preconditions and public decorations of not wanting a war. Here's National Security Adviser, John Bolton.</s>JOHN BOLTON, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER, UNITED STATES: The President has held the door open to real negotiations, to completely and verifiably eliminate Iran's nuclear weapons program. All that Iran needs to do, is to walk through that open door.</s>VAUSE: As you say, pretty hard to walk through that door in the current environment, but is the best case scenario, a repeat of the failed nuclear diplomacy with the North Koreans, we went from fire and fury and</s>ROHDE: I think so, yes. I mean, we'd be lucky to get another round of negotiations, at least, that would reduce the chances of, you know, some, sort of, accidental conflict. And it's -- you know, the broad Trump playbook is not working. The</s>VAUSE: How much do we make of the fact that, you know, the most steamed public criticism of the U.S. president is coming from a leader who is considered a moderate, especially when compared to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which actually controls the nuclear program?</s>ROHDE: I think it's a sign. I think the level of Iranian provocation of the statement from Rouhani, and then that the tankers were damaged, which I believe is the Iranians, that they shot down the drone. That shows, you know, that the Revolutionary Guard is in control, they are trying to provoke Trump, they're trying to isolate Trump, you know, from Europe, and they're succeeding in that and to a certain extent. And I think they will continue provoking Trump. This rhetoric, sort of, just strengthens the hard-liners on both sides. It's not conducive for negotiations. And I would, again, I'd say overall, Trump chose to pull out of the, you know, 2015 nuclear deal, and he has not been able to deliver any kind of, you know, new deal, let alone a better one.</s>VAUSE: OK. So, you mentioned this, the isolation of the United States, because long-time ally, Britain, has said, you know, it was unlikely to sign up for any war with Iran. Listen to this.</s>JEREMY HUNT, BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: Well, the U.S. is our closest ally. We talk to them the whole time. We consider any requests that they say carefully, but I can't envision any situation where they request or we agree to any move to go to war.</s>VAUSE: Well, on the other side, you know, Russia is, sort of, making it known that Iran is an ally, and also, you know, the Russians believe that Iran had every right to shoot down the U.S. drone. So, the Iranian strategy was to drive a wedge between the U.S. and its allies, also to leave Donald Trump, isolated. Would you say it's been effective and will continue like this if there's no change in U.S. policy?</s>ROHDE: I think it's been, you know, effective in the short term, and I think it is very unusual for Britain to split from the U.S. That doesn't really worry, again, Donald Trump, you know, in terms of politics inside the United States, but it is a concern, and it's back to the thing of you can't, you know, belittle your European allies, you can't mock NATO and then expect to be backed by an international coalition in a moment like this. So, again, a big moment, a test for Trump's foreign policy all around the world, again, from, sort of, North Korea, to Syria, to Iran, and, you know, the beginnings of a Middle East peace proposal, and I don't see any concrete achievements.</s>VAUSE: David, appreciate you being with us. Thank you.</s>ROHDE: Thank you.</s>VAUSE: Next up here on CNN NEWSROOM, protesters in Hong Kong, up the ante in their battle with Beijing. We are live with the very latest, in just over two minutes.