difficult keeping him and everyone together. okay. well, he very passionately, as you know, told cnn s kw a s chro all of you left your families over the holidays saying it was a sacrifice for you to go to this country. i ll play it quickly. you got ten guys here ten guys here that left their families, left their damn families to help this country as a sports venture. there are ten guys. all these guys here. do anyone understand that? so, i m just wondering, how was this trip presented to you and who asked you to go? did dennis ask you to go? did who asked you to go and what did they tell you about your duties beforehand? well, this was an amazing
sport. we ve used the term diplomacy but this trip and the things that we do are a lot more than that. it is more about cross cultural ambassadors. we go out and we get engaged with other cultures. we get engaged from the standpoint of really getting into their customs and their beliefs for the purpose of understanding from a compassion standpoint and being able to represent them. we ve been doing this all over the world so my relationship with dennis and the things that we ve been doing have been just phenomenal. i think this trip had because this is dennis first time doing an event on his own there was a lot of pressure added to him, the extent of the event and the things that transpired were, from my experience with him,
trip and how it came together was pretty amazing. but my involvement in it was a phone call from dennis. it was a phone call from a friend that needed some assistance and he mentioned what he wanted to do and where he wanted to go, and i went to my advisors and my wife, lisa, is probably my biggest advisor. initially she said, no, i don t think that s a good idea. but i went through a lot of my advisors and we talked about it and we had some concerns, but when it came down to it, as i mentioned at the start of the show, we re cross-cultural ambassadors and this was going to be a great event from the beginning to the end and it was. i had no regrets in making the decision from the time i start
documentary film crew, paid for the expenses and gave guys honorarium to continue to do the trip. when i say it wasn t about money and it was about the trip, it was about the trip. i had an opportunity to go somewhere, to a recluse country that no one goes to. we were assured by the north koreans that they d assure our passage in and out and they did. the information that we gathered and what we saw? it was an experience. do you, looking back at that now and knowing everything we know, do you have regrets about anything? any part of this? no, i have no regrets at all. i think i spent most of my time with a gentleman by the name of ri jungmu who is the sports minister there in north korea. we shared a lot of stories about he played sock tler cer there i
theater near you with a heavy roster of biblical films this year. hollywood is betting it could pack the seats. could they anger the faithful though? your new day starts now. we are so glad to have you company, as always. i m christi paul. i m victor plaqblackwell. it is 8:00 on the east coast. former nba star charles smith wants to set the record straight. he is talking exclusively to us right here on new day sunday about the very controversial trip he made with dennis rodman to one of the most reclusive nations in the world north korea. i mean this trip and rodman s comments in particular about the man he calls his friend, north korean leader kim jong-un, and about american kenneth bey who is being held prisoner in north korea. all of that just sparked this firestorm amongst conversations. this is what smith had to say when he arrived in beijing friday. we set out on a mission to