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Prince Charles Ducks Question About Meghan & Harry Interview; Buckingham Palace Silent On Explosive Allegations From Meghan & Harry; GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger Risks Career To Take On Trump; Sources: Biden's Dogs Sent Back To Delaware Home After "Biting Incident"; New Book: U.S. Diplomats Warned Of Coronavirus Danger In Wuhan In 2017. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired March 09, 2021 - 07:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PIERS MORGAN, HOST, GOOD MORNING BRITAIN: This is a two-hour trashathon of our Royal Family, of the monarchy, of everything the Queen has worked so hard for. And it's all been done as Prince Philip lies in hospital.

They trashed everybody. They basically make out the entire Royal Family a bunch of white supremacists.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Your thoughts?

TRISHA GODDARD, JOURNALIST: It is so over the top with that's kind of peers. There's an audience to be played to here. And I think what people maybe don't know in America and people definitely forget in Britain that I believe one of the biggest catalysts to this acrimony, if you like, between the media and the Sussexes is when they decided to sue a newspaper, The Daily Mail, now recently the judgment has been handed down against The Daily Mail.

And it may be a coincident, but things seem to ramp up. And one of the things that Prince Harry actually talked about was this weird symbiotic relationship between tabloid media and the Royals. He seemed to suggest what he said that the Royals lived in fear of what the tabloids might say about them. You keep your head down. You do your job. You turn up. You smile and we'll be nice to you or else.

Well, it's very clear that Harry and Meghan did not want to play by those rules and that's when things got extra difficult for them as far as 'journalism', because it's not, it's not journalism. Most of this is opinions. Things are stated as fact when we genuinely don't really know what goes on behind closed doors.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Richard, you say that I and we to an extent are playing by a different set of rules here and I would submit at least as far as I'm concerned I'm playing by human rule, like with emotional like actual genuine human feelings rules and that's not a bad thing. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. And there have been those who've asked is this an existential crisis

for the palace at this point. And it does beg the question, are people now asking what's the point of this.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR-AT-LARGE: They may want to ask the question what's the point of it, they asked the question in the abdication in the 1930s. They asked the question in Diana in the 1990s.

OK. John, here me out here. Seen from the Palace's point of view, I can certainly, I'm not defending it, but I can see a way in which somebody asks about the color or the dark skin of the baby on the grounds that, well, we may have to answer questions about this in the future. We may have an issue that we have to talk about.

And suddenly some say they ask about this and what is racist and is clearly inappropriate in any other vehicle or environment within the confines of the Royal Family becomes something that they are believing that they are preparing themselves for the future. This is how they think. They think about ensuring they've dotted every I, crossed every T, considered every contingency.

And they've been doing it that way for a thousand years. And in the process, they managed to trip over themselves royally so to speak.

CAMEROTA: Trisha, how do you interpret that?

GODDARD: I'd absolutely agree with that. The whole idea of Britain's monarchy is built on, going back in history, taking over nations, especially African nations and what have you. And one of the things that have cropped up, it's been very interesting because I've been talking about this with U.S. networks, as well as U.K. networks and soon Australian networks.

The biggest difference is slavery in America happened on your soil. In Britain, we didn't have that on our soil. We did it in other countries. So I've spent a lot - for instance, I wouldn't use the term systemic racism in Britain. People wouldn't understand what it means, but I can use it in the States.

So when I talk about them monarchy, it's built on systemic racism, that doesn't mean they've gone out and beaten up people of different color. But I absolutely agree that they wouldn't know how to deal with any of this.

They think in terms of exotic and how would you deal with this and what have you and someone like Meghan Markle, coming from the states where you can open the boxes for systemic racism would go, "You what?"

QUEST: Yes.

GODDARD: So what shocked people in America, the British are shocked that the Americans are shocked at that.

[07:35:00] CAMEROTA: That's really interesting. That is such helpful perspective.

Because Oprah did express shocked, but it's helpful to see it through the British lens. Thank you both very much.

BERMAN: I actually loved this transition I'm about to make in about a million different ways.

CAMEROTA: I look forward to it.

BERMAN: I'm just going to make it and then revel in it during the break.

Coming up, President Biden's dogs have been sent home, away from the White House. What happened to Major and Champ, next.

CAMEROTA: Well done. Did you enjoy that?

BERMAN: Yes, they're much electoral cloud. That's the key (inaudible) ...

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:39:10]

BERMAN: Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger becoming increasingly unwelcome in his own party, but he's on a mission to get the Republicans to leave the former president behind and he's willing to risk his own career to do so. CNN's Jeff Zeleny with an inside look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): Yes. It could be a kamikaze mission. It also could be the thing that saves the Republican Party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORREPONDENT(voice over): Congressman Adam Kinzinger believes the first step to saving the Republican Party is extracting it from the grips of Donald Trump.

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KINZINGER: Anytime in the history of the party, there have been competing visions, except for now. It's just been Donald Trump's vision and nobody else has said anything else. We have a right and a responsibility to offer competing visions to Republican.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY (voice over): The Republican Party is at a crossroads. Yet it's still Trump country in this stretch of Illinois, where flags wave for the former president and the science make clear not all Republicans are searching for a new vision.

[07:40:07]

Elected to Congress a decade ago with the rise of the Tea Party.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KINZINGER: It is time to grow up to be adults here ...

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ZELENY (voice over): Kinzinger is now one of the most outspoken Republican Trump critics. A lonely mission fraught with political risk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KINZINGER: And I mean even if I don't survive long in this job, the reality is I will have been part of history. I hope to be a good part of history.

ZELENY (on camera): You said even if I don't survive, that's a very real possibility.

KINZINGER: It is. It is. And I think until you're willing to put your job on the line, like in warfare, until you're willing to put your life on the line, when you're willing to put your job on the line, then you're free.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY (voice over): Kinzinger joined the Air Force after 9/11 and still flies as a national guard pilot. His escalating battle with Trump offers an early test for whether more Republicans will join his confrontation or retreat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KINZINGER: I probably been the most outspoken member of Congress. It's not saying a ton because people weren't speaking out a lot.

ZELENY (on camera): But you voted for Donald Trump in November.

KINZINGER: Yes. I think there were two defining areas in this. Number one was the night of the election saying that it was stolen and, of course, January 6th was the other huge thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY (voice over): That day was a turning point.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KINZINGER: Shouldn't we be willing to give up our jobs to uphold that constitution?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY (voice over): Of the 17 Republicans who supported impeachment, Kinzinger stands alone as trying to use it as a rallying cry to turn the page and promote himself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KINZINGER: Join the movement at country1st.com.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY (voice over): Kinzinger outperformed Trump by eight points in Illinois' 16th congressional district, which stretches from the Wisconsin border beyond the far western Chicago suburbs and back toward the Indiana line.

It includes the town of Dixon, the boyhood home of Ronald Reagan who inspired a young Kinzinger.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KINZINGER: The kind of optimistic powerful moral clarity that he had, it's that kind of stuff that I think Americans are desperate for.

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ZELENY (voice over): Across his district, the Congressman is making a name for himself in ways good and bad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK TYLER, ILLINOIS VOTER: I'm glad there's somebody like an Adam Kinzinger that's got the courage to speak out.

ZELENY (on camera): But some people are angry at what he did. I mean, you probably hear ...

TYLER: No question. No question.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY (voice over): Jeff and Angie Phelps (ph) are among them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF PHELPS, ILLINOIS VOTER: I was a little surprised with Kinzinger and in the future, I probably will not vote for him.

ANGIE PHELPS, ILLINOIS VOTER: He's looking out for himself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY (voice over): Yet Trump loyalties here and in red states across America run deep and many Republicans don't believe their party is broken at all.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY (on camera): What if it doesn't need saving or what if it doesn't want to be saved? KINZINGER: And that I think is the question, if it doesn't want to be

changed, that's a decision the Republicans get to make. If that's the case long-term, I think we will lose elections.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZELENY (on camera): Now, Kinzinger says he would like to restore conservatism to the Republican Party rather than, what he says, is fear and divisiveness that is it's become consumed with during the Trump era. Now, we talked to so many voters in his district, some called what he's doing brave, others found it politically calculating. But his efforts and the extent to which other republicans join him or not will help answer the question if the GOP remains the party of Trump, John, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: I'll take it, Jeff. Just really interesting to take that closer look at Kinzinger. Thank you very much.

ZELENY: Sure.

CAMEROTA: So this morning, President Biden's two German Shepherds are back in Delaware. Sources tell CNN the dogs were removed from the White House yesterday after a biting incident involving a member of the security team. This is not the first time in the doghouse for the President's rescue pup named Major. And CNN's Kate Bennett has this reporting. She's Live in Washington with more, so what happened, Kate?

KATE BENNETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: So Alisyn, Major is a younger dog. He's about three years old and I want to say that I am a dog person, this is a new environment for dogs. We know that dogs behave - it can be scary, I'm sure, to be in the White House with new people, new faces, security, all sorts of things.

But there was an incident with Major biting a member of the security team. I've spoken to a few people who said that Major is a bit on the wild side that he barks, that he's been known to charge, that he feels a bit unruly between the two dogs, Champ, who was much older at almost 13 years old and has problems with his mobility at this point.

But Major is the one that has been a bit of an issue at the White House since they moved in at the end of January. The First Lady, Dr. Biden, has said herself that getting the dog settled has been a number one priority, making sure everyone is calm and not jumping all over the furniture. She said to Kelly Clarkson on her talk show.

But seriously, this is an issue. When you have a dog, you have multiple people, staff members, Secret Service, maintenance workers and just the general public, the press, these are dogs that are used to a certain kind of life and moving them to the White House has definitely been a change in their environment. Going back to Delaware, I don't think anyone should see as a punishment, but it's certainly helping right now mitigate the issue with Major.

[07:45:04] CAMEROTA: Well, it sure looks like President Biden is going to miss

the dogs.

BENNETT: I mean, the dogs are definitely part of the Biden family. He's referenced he got champ right before he became vice president under President Obama. Major was a rescue dog from a Delaware shelter. He's the first shelter dog to be living in the White House in White House's history. So certainly, we hope to see them back soon, but right now no sign that they will be returning to the White House.

CAMEROTA: Kate, thank you very much for all of that reporting.

BERMAN: Look, I don't say part of (inaudible) was at play here, but Barney, the Bush dog bit a reporter and was not sent home.

CAMEROTA: Interesting.

BERMAN: Albeit it was at the end of his administration, so there wasn't much time left.

CAMEROTA: Important context.

BERMAN: I don't know. This is a different treatment.

CAMEROTA: Thank you very much. All right. So it's official, one side is passing COVID relief while the other is talking Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head. This is a reality check you need to see next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:49:37]

CAMEROTA: Senate Democrats just passed President Biden's COVID relief bill while many Republicans are still talking about Dr. Seuss.

John Avlon here with the reality check. Hi, John.

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hey, Ali. OK. Because a week is a long time in politics, I want to take you back to Trump's second impeachment trial. When the ex-president's lawyers argue that Congress should really be focusing on more important things.

[07:50:03]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will not take most of our time today in the hopes that you will take back these hours and use them to get COVID relief to the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: I've got good news for them. The Senate did just pass a massive COVID relief bill and it got precisely no Republican votes. Now, that's despite broad bipartisan support and this is a big bill beyond its $1.9 trillion price tag. Biden's American rescue plan could cut poverty by a third and childhood poverty by nearly 60 percent, according to Columbia University.

That could change people's lives, especially after decades in which income inequality has gotten worse. The bill contains not just $1,400 tax and stimulus for Americans making less than $75,000. It expands child tax credits, lose small businesses, offer subsidies for unemployment, rent, food and health insurance.

And this matters because this bill is actually reversing the Reagan equation, making the case that government can be the solution, not the problem. Now, Republicans say it's too expensive but the fiscal conservative card doesn't carry the weight it did before Donald Trump balloon the deficit and the debt and Republicans didn't say boo.

Now we got something like a controlled experiment as well, because Trump's signature tax cuts also totaled around $1.9 trillion. And it also passed along partisan lines and reconciliation, but the bulk of its benefits went to the wealthiest Americans and corporations.

The Biden bill takes a more bottom-up approach. And as the chief economist at Morgan Stanley told The Washington Post, giving money to low-income households is much more stimulative in a downturn because those families are more likely to spend it quickly.

We'll soon see who's right. The laws of economic gravity do suggest the deficits and debt can't be ignored forever, less government spending spurs broad based growth without sparking inflation. That's a big if, but you could tell a lot from political wins.

Now, maybe it's because this bill is so popular or maybe it's because Biden has much higher approval ratings than Trump ever did. But the response on the right has been to deploy culture war distractions. Get this, all right, over the past week, according to LexisNexis, Fox News mentioned canceled culture more than twice as many times as COVID relief bill.

And when Republicans have gone after it, their attacks have backfired like Sen. Tom Cotton slamming it for making inmates eligible for relief checks. But Trump's COVID relief bills did as well and Cotton voted for them.

Bottom line, Biden bonds American rescue plan promises to be a very big deal for working families who've been getting squeezed for decades and have bore the brunt of this pandemic and that shouldn't be a partisan issue and that's a reality check.

BERMAN: Thank you so much for that, John. Really appreciate it.

So as we mark one year of the coronavirus pandemic in this country, questions remain over the origin of the virus. A new book reveals warnings from U.S. diplomats of risky experiments at Wuhan lab in 2018. Joining me now CNN Political Analyst Josh Rogin. He is the author of the new book, Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi, and the Battle for the Twenty-First Century.

I'm holding the book right here, Josh. I read it this weekend. It's a terrific read. Congratulations, a wonderful work and it deals with the now I think as well. And insofar as the now goes, the WHO is investigating now the origins of the virus. They visited a Wuhan lab and they put out a statement saying it's highly unlikely that the virus originated here.

Your groundbreaking reporting from over the last year, which you expand on the book, it really cast doubts on what the WHO was saying, how and why?

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, that's right, John. I mean, even the Biden administration has said that they have deep concerns about the WHO investigation that went to Wuhan, because of some conflicts of interest among the staff, but also because the Chinese government refused to put forth the data that they would really need to figure it out.

So suffice to say the WHO investigation, at least according to the Biden administration, will not be the end all and be all, which means that we still don't know how the virus originated. And that's not just an issue of blame. That's an issue of tracing the origin in order to prevent the next pandemic, which will surely come.

And what I'm adding in this book is a lot of warnings that were ignored, frankly, at the beginning of the Trump administration, by diplomats who visited some labs and it doesn't prove that the labs were involved. It doesn't disprove it. It just points to the need for more investigation. And that's exactly what the Biden administration is calling for.

And I'm going to break some news on your show right now, I'm going to have an article later today in The Washington Post that will report that the Biden administration is actually not disputing some of the Trump administration's claims about this very lab. Namely that the researchers there got sick in November 2017 with COVID like symptoms and that they were involved in some undisclosed research with the Chinese government and the Chinese military.

[07:55:04]

These are some of the claims that the Trump administration made and while the Biden administration is not endorsing any theory about the origin. They don't know, you don't know, I don't know how this thing started. They are saying that some of the information about the lab that the Trump administration put forward is accurate from U.S. intelligence community sources and we need more information, we need more investigation.

BERMAN: Let's just talk then a little bit more about the undisputed facts then, the Biden administration not disputing there was a lab in Wuhan where the Trump administration said there was an accident there. You reported extensively on diplomatic warnings from U.S. officials who were concerned about the possibility of an accident in a lab where a virus, a SARS-like virus specifically could end up getting out and being a threat. What more are the undisputed facts?

ROGIN: Well, that's right. Right. And we have to be very precise here because we want to be absolutely accurate. The Biden administration is not saying that there was an accident there. They're saying that there's some evidence from the intelligence sources that there were some sick researchers and some undisclosed research.

All that means is that we need to look at that theory more and that they want us to look at that theory more. Now, what I reported is that four years ago a bunch of diplomats who went there warned of safety concerns, they warned of the risky research that this lab was doing about corona viruses and they called actually for the U.S. government to give them more support and to give them more help to get their lab up to snuff.

Now, when I first reported these cables in April 2020, the issue of the origin was very highly politicized, not at least because the Trump administration politicized it, OK. They went beyond the facts and they went beyond what we know to make allegations and I'm not making those allegations. I'm saying we don't know how the virus originated.

But what I'm saying is that these warnings when you take out the Trump administration, you take out their unsupported allegations, leave a big question mark that even people inside the Biden administration want to solve. And that's as far as we should go and that's as far as we can go and what we need is investigation of all the possible theories, full stop.

BERMAN: And it may be as far as we ever get, frankly, because as you note there may never be a smoking gun because the Chinese worked so hard, it seems, to hide any evidence of anything. I want to flip this all on its head because you talked about the beginnings of the virus in the United States.

And there was a statement and you write about this in your book when President Trump in the early days of when he was finding out about this talked about what he thought would happen with the virus in the coming weeks and months, listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Now the virus that we're talking about having to do - a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat, as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April. We're in great shape though.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Now, who did he mean by a lot of people at that point? He actually meant someone very specific.

ROGIN: Chinese President Xi Jinping told the President of the United States Donald Trump in two specific phone calls in February and March that the virus would go away when it got warmer, that they had it under control, that herbal medicine worked to heal it and lots of other lies, OK. And we don't know if President Trump believed that or just wanted to believe in or it was repeating it because he felt at that moment it was in his interest.

But these lies became part of what was going on inside the President's head and therefore what came out of his mouth. And it was mixed with a lot of other things that he was getting from a lot of other conflicting sources, like his own health experts and his own national security experts.

And can you imagine what it must have been like for them as they're hearing that the President of China is giving the United States bad information. And that garble is why we saw such a garbled response by our government, which exacerbated the suffering, delayed the response and inevitably cause much more sickness and death than otherwise would have been necessary.

BERMAN: We just got about 20 seconds left, Josh, but what was the reaction when people in the administration heard the President parroting the Chinese leader?

ROGIN: They worked very hard to convince him that wasn't the case and in some cases they succeeded and in some cases, they failed and not all of them agreed to. His political advisors wanted Trump to play down the virus because they wanted the economy to stay good, because they were hoping it would all work out and you would get reelected. The National Security and health officials were like, no, this is serious and this is more important.

And they largely failed to convince him until the end and by then it was too late. And what's ironic about it is that his failed response actually probably cost him the election. So if he had listened to the experts and not the Chinese president, he would have been much better off and so (inaudible) ...

BERMAN: The book is chaos under heaven. Josh, it's terrific. It really gets into the real challenge, the now more or less agreed upon challenge that China poses to the United States and what needs to be done going forward. So thank you so much for being with us. Terrific work.

ROGIN: Thank you.

BERMAN: NEW DAY continues right now.

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