Judge Puts Temp Hold on Stormy Daniels' Lawsuit
HOWELL: Live coast to coast this morning across the United States, from London to Sydney and all points in between. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. Thank you for being with us. I'm George Howell. And I'm Natalie Allen. Here are our top stories.</s>ALLEN: World leaders are now assessing the remarkable summit between the leaders of North and South Korea and whether it will lead to concrete changes.</s>HOWELL: The two leaders, Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in, concluded their meeting with a joint declaration to formally end the Korean War and denuclearize the peninsula. North Korea media called it "historic."</s>ALLEN: Making those goals a reality is a tall order after 70 years of mistrust and animosity. But the rapport between the two leaders and the symbolism they embraced sent a powerful message that change could be coming. Chung Min Lee is with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He's also a former South Korean ambassador for national security affairs. Thanks so much for joining us from Seoul to talk about this. And the devil's in the details. We'll talk about --</s>CHUNG MIN LEE, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE: It's my pleasure.</s>ALLEN: -- yes, the tough road ahead. But right now, this was summit number 1; this was the first time that the North and the South, the leaders have met and they came up with an agreement to end the war and to get rid of the nuclear program in North Korea. What do you make of it?</s>LEE: Well, Natalie, this was the first summit between President Moon and Chairman Kim of North Korea but the third overall since 2000. And the declaration which was seen by the world yesterday was very positive on many fronts, including North Korea's promise to denuclearize. But as always the devil is in the details. North Korea said on previous occasions, we will never pursue nuclear weapons and they did. They have done over six nuclear tests, including a hydrogen bomb test. And they promised the U.S. on many occasions they will totally dismantle their nuclear and missile sites and that has not happened. So while we are very hopeful over the next ensuing weeks and months, we've got to really see whether Kim Jong-un is willing to accept really harsh sanctions to make sure -- and inspections to make sure that North Korea no longer develops and rolls back on nuclear weapons.</s>ALLEN: Right. You wisely point out he's gone back on pledges before. We also know Kim Jong-un is a brutal ruler. He wants total control. He fiercely defends his family dynasty, enemies within and enemies outside of North Korea. So the question is, how does South Korea and the world work with him, moving forward, knowing these realities about him?</s>LEE: You know, Natalie, that's a great question, because South Korea has to deal with North Korea, its arch political foe in many respects. They have downed airplanes before; they have done terrible terrorist acts. And this is a regime that is one of the most, if not the most --</s>LEE: -- authoritarian in the world. North Korea has several gulags; there are thousands of political prisoners as we speak. Nonetheless, this is the leader that we have to deal with. Kim Jong-un is 34 years old, he's a lot more aware of the outside world than his dad or even his grandfather was. And he's very savvy in his own way and he wants to put his mark on the North Korean regime and to make sure he gains as much economic benefits as well as sanctions relief. But he will not get that from Donald Trump unless he makes critical deals with nuclear issues.</s>ALLEN: Right. Speaking of Mr. Trump, he has had his part, hurling insults at Kim Jong-un and making threats. Some question maybe that helped get us to this point, to Mr. Trump's way of doing things. But the pressure will now be on President Trump to maybe continue the momentum in their meeting.</s>LEE: You're absolutely right, because President Moon laid the framework. There are pluses and minuses in all summits but there is a road map now. President Moon is slated to visit Pyongyang in the fall of this year. And perhaps by the end of the year there will be a formal peace treaty that ends the Korean War, including the U.S. and China. For Donald Trump, the bar therefore is very, very high. He wants North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons but Pyongyang won't do that unless he gets something substantive in return. And that includes, for example, a pledge maybe to withdraw U.S. forces over time and to reduce the number of U.S.-Korean military exercises or to withdraw the U.S. nuclear umbrella from South Korea. So these are tough issues that Mr. Trump's got to deal with, not only face-to-face but on various levels before the expected summit in early June.</s>ALLEN: I was about to ask you about that and you just answered it so my last question will be this. Did you see or observe anything about Kim Jong-un during this fascinating meeting and the walkaround and the chitchat on the bridge? You had to wonder if there's any -- engaging in small talk as well. But are there any takeaways from what you observed about him, during this whole day, really, of being able to watch this play out?</s>LEE: Well, I think there were two very important images that were spread all across the world. Everybody knew Kim Jong-un or expected him to be very cold, not very talkative. And yet he was very boisterous, he was pointing to various paintings. His suggestion to President Moon to cross over to the North Korean side and then shook hands again. So he was a very jovial, normal, a very vivacious leader, as it were. But at home he is a brutal dictator running a one-party family dynasty. But that's the image that he wants to portray in North Korea, but outside he wants to be the guy who is actually the -- who can make deals with South Koreans and others. The second point is that many thought that he would not be as open to suggestions. But, again, he surprised the world because he listed a number of initiatives that have yet to be panned out. So on those two points, we were surprised by North Korea but it was all planned on the part of Kim Jong-un and his critical aides, including his sister.</s>ALLEN: Very interesting. Well, you never know. Maybe the world, the outside world, will affect how he treats his fellow citizens in North Korea one of these days. Who knows? But it's a hopeful time, isn't it? Chung Min Lee, we thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate your thoughts.</s>LEE: Yes, it is.</s>ALLEN: Thank you.</s>LEE: Thank you.</s>ALLEN: All right. Let's talk Stormy Daniels. Her civil case against President Trump and his personal attorney, Michael Cohen. is on hold, at least temporarily. This coming as the criminal investigation into Cohen continues in New York.</s>HOWELL: A California judge cited that criminal investigation as the reason to grant Cohen's request to halt the case. Sara Sidner reports.</s>SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is certainly a win for Michael Cohen and his attorneys in this civil case against him and the President of the United States by Stephanie Clifford or Stormy Daniels, as we all know her. Basically the judge has said there's going to be a 90-day stay. That means that the case is put on hold for 90 days. That means that Michael Avenatti will not be able to depose the president. He will not be able to depose Michael Cohen or anyone else involved in the case at this point because a judge has put a hold on it. Why did the judge do it? Well, the judge gave examples and reasons for why he did it. First of all, he said, look, there's a lack of significant prejudice to the plaintiff. So basically it's not going to hurt Stormy Daniels if he holds off on this case for 90 days.</s>SIDNER: But one of the really big reasons why this is happening and why Michael Cohen's attorneys asked for this is because of the potential significant impact to the criminal investigation against Michael Cohen right now, realizing that his properties had been raided by the FBI; they were looking for information that had something to do, according to our sources, with the $130,000 that he paid to Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet just before the presidential election. And also mentioned in the judge's reasoning, it says, "Mr. Cohen's significant interest in the preservation of his Fifth Amendment rights," that is the right against self-incrimination, that playing a big role in this. One more thing to mention, that we should point out, the judge also said in his ruling that, judging from what has happened in the criminal investigation, that court believes that there will be an indictment. Considering that, this is no ordinary investigation, because it involves the personal attorney for the President of the United States -- Sara Sidner, CNN, Los Angeles.</s>HOWELL: Sara, thanks. Stormy Daniels' attorney says they plan to appeal the decision. He spoke earlier to CNN's Jim Acosta and shared his concerns about the judge's ruling.</s>MICHAEL AVENATTI, STORMY DANIELS' ATTORNEY: If this was only about 90 days, I don't think we'd be taking it up on appeal. We might. But we're concerned about it being delayed beyond that. My client continues to fall under this NDA, according to the defendants. They continue to threaten her with additional millions of dollars of damages. She wants to be clear of this and she wants the defamation claim against Michael Cohen fully adjudicated.</s>ALLEN: Again, that's Michael Avenatti speaking there. He also raised the possibility of bringing a defamation claim against President Trump for tweets suggesting Stormy Daniels lied to the American people. How about we end this with "stay tuned"?</s>HOWELL: More to come, right? Still ahead...</s>BARBARA ISAACS, WINDRUSH IMMIGRANT: How can you have lived somewhere all of your life and, 50 years later, you're sleeping on the streets, begging people for certain things?</s>ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You're homeless.</s>ISAACS: Yes, totally. I was homeless, destitute.</s>HOWELL (voice-over): A wave of Caribbean migrants were invited to come and live in England during the late 1940s. Now they're fighting for the right to stay. We'll have the details on that story ahead.</s>ALLEN (voice-over): Also ahead here, travel back with us, like way, way back. How newly discovered fossilized footprints show how ancient humans stalked giant sloths.