Mr. Bae, will ripley with cnn. Hi. Good to see you. Im going to pull up this a little closer to you. Okay. Have a seat. We have five minutes. Im sure there is a lot you want to say, so just try to keep your answers as concise as you can. Sure. Good to see you. Ready to get started . Okay. First of all, what do you know about the charges that you now do you believe youre guilty of the charges youve been convicted of here . Yes. And youre currently serving time. Can you tell me about your conditions . Yes, im serving 15 year sentence right now. And ive been going back and forth from hospital to the labor camp for the last year and a half. And right now im serving at labor camp right now. Can you tell me about the conditions at the labor camp . Condition at labor camp is im working eight hours a day, six days a week, and working agricultural work to other hard labor that is required to do every day. Do you think youre being treated humanely . Yes. And your message to your family . Well, im sure theyre very worried about my health at this time. And even though right now last month and a half my health has been failing. So right now what i can say to my family and friends is to continue to pray for me and also ask them to continue an effort in getting me released here. When you say your health is failing, do you have any specific details . I have sleep disorder and severe back pain and also condition not doing so well. I get numb and tingling and it has been very difficult sleeping at night. And i was working in the field every day. Your message for the American Government . For the American Government right now, ive been asking the American Government to act upon getting me released here, and i do believe that special envoy need to come in order to resolve this situation that i am in right now. So i do ask u. S. Government to send an envoy as soon as possible. I think thats the only hope i have right now, you know, for me to go home, be united with my family. When you acted the way you did, can you tell me what you did . Did you know at the time you were breaking the law here in north korea . Well, i did have some assumptions, but i did not quite agree with the charges until i got here. So and after being trial for, you know, that period of time, i realized that what i i violated the law. But at the time i wasnt quite sure it was quite serious as they were charging me now. What is the bottom line about the situation here and the message you want to put out . Right now is that im here, ive been here for almost two years now, and then i do believe im ive been treated humanely as possible, they have been doing that for me. But at the same time i realize that at this point that ive been here, i think i am the american here the longest since the korean war and i do believe that sooner this gets resolved, the better for not only for myself, for the rest of the other americans may come here in the future as well. Can you give me more insight about your daily life and do you have contact with any other americans . No. Or other people, koreans that are in prison . No. Im the only prisoner in the camp. Ive been only prisoner at the camp for last year and a half. I dont have anybody else in the camp other than guard and there is one doctor stationed in there as well. So how many Staff Members are overseeing you . 15 or 20 people daily basis. But there are about 30 or more people in the camp. Do you get to talk to people on a daily basis . What kind of communication do you have . Just talking with just with the guard and just small talk and thats all. Anything else important you want to say in your final seconds . Well, i do need help from the u. S. Government. And my health is failing. And ive been since the last time i transferred back from the hospital to the camp i lost already 15 pounds or more. And it has been very difficult to stay in the camp right now. So i do ask the u. S. Governments and the people out there to really put effort to send somebody to make it work. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Best of luck to you. Well get the word out. When did you move back to the prison camp . July 29th. All right. So lets talk a little bit more about this extraordinary interview in north korea. Joining me now about phone, former u. S. Ambassador bill richardson. Bill richardson, hes negotiated for the release of hostages in the past. Good morning, sir. Thank you so much for taking time out on labor day to talk to us about this. Of course, carol. What do you make of this. Will ripley in north korea to cover a completely different story and north korean officials show up and say were going to take you to a secret location so you can interview these three americans. What do you make of that . Well, the North Koreans are trying to send a message. One that theyre ready to deal with the United States on the three americans. Theyre obviously using them as bargaining chips. Secondly, the North Koreans pressure our prisoners to script them, to send messages to. One, theyre being properly treated, secondly, that they want the u. S. Government, not anybody else to send a special envoy, the North Koreans want to talk to us. But what were saying to the North Koreans is, First Release them on humanitarian grounds, and then talk to us. Though i had no inkling. I had not talked to the administration about this, but thats the back and forth. The good news here is i think that North Koreans are saying, okay, everybody is worried about isis, about russia, were still here, and we have these bargaining chips. And we want the u. S. To Pay Attention to us. I think thats the message that was being sent by, as you said, these extraordinary interviews. When you say bargaining chip, what do the North Koreans want, just for a popular powerful american figure to show up and negotiate so they can say, see, we got the americans here . What they want is to talk to us and we have said to the North Koreans, were not going to talk to you unless you make a gesture, do something about your nuclear weapons. Dont detonate another nuclear bomb. Do something about acting responsibly in the international community. Then the North Koreans come back to us and say, well, maybe well do that in talks, but send somebody to talk to us. And i think the administration is doing the right thing. I think the North Koreans want a freebie here. They want a platform to express their views with the u. S. Government and the six party countries, china, japan, russia, south korea. And so what we also have, carol, is a new north Korean Leader that has its own way of negotiating. We dont know much about him. In the past, i would say other envoys are were able to go with his father and, you know, you set some parameters. Okay, in exchange for this, we send humanitarian aid, we do this. But we dont know much about this guy, so hes testing us. But the fact that they had this interview and the good news, the only other good news is that they were apparently being treated properly, humanely, though kenneth bae is in a labor camp, the poor guy has been there over two years, his health is failing. Hes got a family that wants him out. All three of them. So i think this will spark within the administration some kind of a policy analysis on what we do next. So in a way it is a good sign. Well, you know, if i were kenneth baes family or Family Member of the other two americans being held hostage in north korea i would think about the ling sisters, they were held hostage for 140 days, but an envoy did go to rescue them, that would be bill clinton. So perhaps the families are wondering why cant the same thing happen for kenneth bae and the others . Well, because the North Koreans, i think, have changed their tune. In the past they said we want a bill clinton, we want a nongovernment person, we want a lot of publicity from that visit. What the North Koreans are now saying, if you say, hear kenneth bae what he said, send a u. S. Government envoy, in other words, they want somebody from the state department, an official person that can lead to the North Koreans to some kind of negotiation, an official discussion. So i think thats the the North Koreans have changed their tune. They want a u. S. Government person. The u. S. Government is saying, release these people and then well talk or maybe the u. S. Government is also saying, take some responsible gestures on Nuclear Proliferation and the North Koreans dont want to do it. It is a little cat and mouse game. Ambassador bill richardson, thank you so much for your insight this morning. We appreciate it. Thank you, carol. We managed to get will ripley on the phone. Hes still inside north korea. So thats no easy task. Will ripley, tell our viewers how these extraordinary interviews came to be. Well, carol, we were in the middle our daily scheduled tour. And we were two hours north of the capital city, having lunch, getting ready to go to a temple when our government minors pulled us out of lunch and said we need to get a van right now and they didnt tell us where we were going or who we were speaking with. We put in a request to speak to the detained americans as soon as we arrived. And we were told we were going to be speaking with somebody within the north korean government, but didnt know who, didnt know exactly where we were going. As we drove, towards the city of pyongyang, our government minors were getting a number of phone calls and speaking very quickly in the phone. At one point we pulled over, one stepped away from the vehicle, made another phone call, wrote down some notes. We kept driving to this hotel in pyongyang, and we got out of the van, and at the front door, we were told that plans had changed again and we would be speaking with kenneth bae, Matthew Miller and Jeffrey Fowle. We had very specific conditions that we had to agree to ahead of time. Five minutes with each american, no more. And we could only talk about the conditions surrounding their arrests, the charges theyre facing, the conditions in which theyre being held, are they being treated humanely and any message they have for their families and perhaps more importantly to the American Government. We were told if we veered beyond those topics or went over our time, there could be serious consequences. We agreed to the guidelines. We went and spoke with each man. They were held in separate rooms inside this hotel and conference center. And they had no contact with each other. They have never seen each other. Never spoken. But one by one we went in there, they set the clock and we started talking. All right, will ripley, thanks for the great reporting. We appreciate it. Later this hour, youll get to hear the full exclusive interview with another one of those detand americanined ameri Jeffrey Fowle, hes been detained since may for leaving a bible in a hotel and now hes getting desperate for help. When folks think about what they get from alaska, they think salmon and energy. But the energy bp produces up here creates Something Else as well jobs all over america. Engineering and innovation jobs. Advanced Safety Systems technology. Shipping and manufacturing. Across the United States, bp supports more than a quarter million jobs. When we set up operation in one part of the country, people in other parts go to work. Thats not a coincidence. Its one more part of our commitment to america. Help keep teeth clean and breath fresh. With beneful healthy smile snacks. With soft meaty centers and teeth cleaning texture,its dental that tastes so good. Beneful healthy smile food and snacks. But youre not done. Capella university can help take your career even further, with the most direct path to your point c. Capella university. Start your journey at capella. Edu. It is labor day as you know, three day weekend to celebrate summers last hoorah. I want to share some statistics with you that Forbes Magazine generated. In 1965, the average ceo earned about 20 times more than the people he or she employed. By 2012, that same ceo took home nearly 273 times as much as the average worker. And then theres this. In 2012, the average ceo at one of the top 350 publicly traded companies earned just over 14 million. That was an increase of about 875 since 1978. Jaw dropping, right . During the same 24year period, the average workers wages grew at an anemic 5. 4 . Ouch. I want to bring in cnn chief Business Correspondent christine romans. We talk about this a lot. It is always so depressing. But lets focus open the bright side. The economy is improving. It is improving. The labor market is getting better. That will bring more people along. What we have seen, it is not just the recession, but what we have seen back to the 70s is youre seeing wages stag assistant, absolutely stagnant or falling even in some categories. Since the recession, carol this is when so many people it maybes people crazy. Since the recession, you have seen corporate profits explode. Companies bottom lines are improving, theyre doing so well. Some industries seeing record profits, but the worker is not sharing in that. At what point will the workers share in the corporate profit explosion or does it take government raising a moninimum wage to make that happen. Hopefully we have a man with answers. I want to bring in tom perez. Good morning, sir. Happy labor day. Happy labor day to you and all your listeners. Thank you so much for being with us. I appreciate it. Always a pleasure. Lets talk about the wage gap and how it is still very, very wide and may be getting wider. The president s first call for a raise of the National Minimum wage during his state of the Union Address in 2013 and as you know it has gone nowhere. Lets look at that graphic again that shows what is happening with ceo raises over the past 24 years. The president mentioned raising the minimum wage again in his recent weekly address. This is going to require, i dont know, require what of politicians to get this done . If it is even going to happen. Well, i here is where i disagree with you. The notion that it has gone nowhere ignores what is happening at state and local levels. Were playing a very, very active role. Today, mayor garcetti in los angeles is going to be announcing an initiative to raise the minimum wage to 1325. I applaud his efforts. Since the president put the pedal to the metal on the minimum wage, 13 states and the district of columbia raised their minimum wage. You have action in seattle. I think America Works best when we feel the full team and getting people back to work. And America Works best when we have shared prosperity. And the statistics you point out are the reasons why so many people are doing what the employees at Market Basket did, in boston. They rallied around arthur t as they call him because hes an employer who understands that it is not the either or thing. This notion that you either take care of your shareholders or you take care of your workers, people like arthur t reject that. People like the president at Kentucky State University i think thats terrific, but as christine pointed out, profits the profits of big companies, theyre doing just fine, but theyre not increasing workers wages at all. In some cases, theyre trying hard not to have to add workers, mr. Secretary, if they dont have to. It brings me to the question, i look at Something Like employment of the millennials, theyre going to college, they have student loan debt, they get out and dont have the opportunities they once had in the economy. What do you tell somebody to be when they grow up in a place where wages are flat and were not creating as many jobs as we would like to. As someone who just dropped his daughter off at college this weekend, education continues to be the great equalizer. You look at Unemployment Rates. You have a college degree, Unemployment Rate is somewhere in the 3 range. If you have less than a high school degree, your Unemployment Rate is much higher. Education continues to be the great equalizer. We added almost 10 million jobs over the last 53 months. The economy is clearly moving in the right direction. We need to pick up the pace of this growth and need to make sure that everybody shares in that prosperity. And thats one of the fundamental challenges moving ahead is making sure that the wage growth that we need to see across america actually occurs. Thats why, again, people like arthur t, people like can i just ask you one more question, before we let you go, because christine brought this up in the break, is there any if companies refuse to share the profits, with their employees, which theyre not doing because frankly they dont have to, right . Because the economy is still hurting, they dont have to do that. Is there anything the government should do to force the issue . Well, again, were fighting to raise the minimum wage. Were fighting like heck to pass immigration reform. A longterm transportation bill. Investments in skills. These are the things. The more we pick up the pace of growth, the more we put money in peoples problem epockets, once up the pace of growth further, thats what puts upward pressure on wages. That helps lift wages to better levels. I think there are so Many Employers out there who understand you have to think longterm. I spoke to fortune 50 ceo who said we need to be thinking longterm. I have too many renegade shareholders who tell me, this is a quote, i would rather be rich than