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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

In New Brief, Trump Asks Supreme Court For Absolute Immunity In 2020 Election Case; High Court To Hear Oral Arguments April 25; Ex- Trump Aide Peter Navarro Begins Serving Prison Sentence After Historic Contempt Prosecution; Polls Now Closed In Ohio, Key Senate Race In The Balance; Biden Touts Crime Rate Drop, Says Still "More Work To Do"; Netanyahu Confidant, National Security Adviser Headed To U.S. For Talks About Potential Rafah Offensive; Out Of A Hospital And Into A Warzone; Princess Of Wales Seen In Public On Video For The First Time Since Surgery; Kate's Photo Of Late Queen Was Doctored, Agency Says; Is Time-Restricted Eating Healthy? Getting To The Heart Of The Matter. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired March 19, 2024 - 20:00   ET

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

[20:00:00]

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And, Erin, in that interview you just mentioned, Donald Trump's weighing in, he's on team Kate. He also said that Prince Harry might get deported for lying on his visa application should Donald Trump return to the White House.

Anyway, listen, the royal family has been essentially retouching for centuries. Henry VIII was undoubtedly uglier in real life than he was in those beautiful portraits. You just can't get away with it anymore.

Palace has said Kate's going to be out and about again at Easter, 10 days from now. Let's see if she comes out and does a little dance. Maybe everyone will stop getting their bloomers in a bunch about all this, but I doubt it.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Yes.

WATT: Erin?

BURNETT: You never know. It's hard to go back.

Thank you so much, Nick Watt. And thanks so much to all of you for being with us. AC360 starts now.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Tonight on 360, breaking news, in a stunning brief to the Supreme Court, the former president asked to be put beyond the reach of the law for January 6th and his actions leading up to it.

Also tonight, good news on crime. New data showing something you wouldn't know from the headlines, violent crime down across the country and murder down sharply.

Plus more twists in the royal photo flap. A new video appears and an old photo was likely doctored, more questions about what is going on with the Royals.

Good evening. Thanks for joining us today.

The former president of the United States asked the Supreme Court for absolute immunity from charges connected to his attempt to overturn the election he lost. Not granting him that he warned would be "the end of the presidency as we know it."

Continuing from his brief: "As the recent history of impeachment demonstrates, once our Nation crosses this Rubicon, every future president will face de facto blackmail and extortion while in office, and will be harassed by politically motivated prosecution after leaving office, over his most sensitive and controversial decisions."

Now we should point out here that this has never happened to a former president before this one and there's no evidence that's happening now to him. Yet that dubious idea, which a lower court unanimously rejected, is now central to a sweeping invitation for the court to set precedent for generations to come, a call for overturning the common sense notion that no president is beyond accountability. Something the founders certainly believed and two centuries later, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell gave as his reason for not holding the former president accountable after January 6th.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being accountable by either one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Unless of course this former president gets what he wants from the Supreme Court.

More on all this now from CNN's Evan Perez, who joins us now.

So what stands out in this filing, Evan?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, this is designed to appeal to the conservative justices who have this expansive view of the power of the presidency. I'll read you just a part of what the Trump lawyers say in this filing.

They say, "A former president enjoys absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for his official acts. Criminal immunity arises directly from the Executive Vesting Clause and the separation of powers." They go on to say that the Impeachment Judgment Clause reflects the Founders' understanding that only a President 'convicted' by the Senate after impeachment could be criminally prosecuted."

Of course, obviously, Anderson, that is referring directly to that episode that you just played from Mitch McConnell, which is during the impeachment proceeding, the Trump lawyers argued that you could leave it for the criminal justice system to take care of this issue that the president was being accused of. And of course, now they're arguing the opposite. They're saying that first you have to be impeached and convicted by the Senate before you can actually take any kind of criminal action against the former president.

This argument also, Anderson, is designed also to remind Brett Kavanaugh of some of his own writings. They point out that in the past he has pointed out that a president who was concerned with being criminally prosecuted is inevitably going to do a worse job. Designed, again, to appeal to that core conservative group on the Supreme Court.

COOPER: And is it clear when Special Counsel Jack Smith may respond to this?

PEREZ: Yes, the Supreme Court has already set those deadlines. April 8th is when the government is due to respond. Of course, there's going to be another set of filings after that. And then the oral arguments are set for April 25th. And we're anticipating that Jack Smith and his team are going to go back to the thing that you just opened with, which is that no president, no one under our system is supposed to be above the law, which is what President Trump and his - former President Trump and his legal team are arguing here.

COOPER: Evan Perez, appreciate it. Thank you.

Joining us now is former Republican congressman, Adam Kinzinger, who served on the House January 6th Committee. Also CNN legal analyst, Jennifer Rodgers and Maggie Haberman, Senior Political Correspondent for The New York Times.

[20:05:07]

Maggie, let's start out with you.

I mean, first of all, what do you make of this latest filing? Not a surprise.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: No, it's a continuation of an argument that they've used several times, perhaps more emphatically right now. I think that the Brett Kavanaugh writing is very intentionally done. We know this is a former president who has talked repeatedly in private about being unhappy with the Supreme Court justices who he appointed because they haven't sided with him in his election lies previously.

Brett Kavanaugh is somebody who came under a lot of scrutiny and a lot of attack during his confirmation process. And I don't think that that's a coincidence that they're using this. But look, they are looking toward oral argument and they are looking toward how the justices are going to respond to it. And it is not especially concerning to them that, as Evan noted, they are taking contradictory positions.

In one filing they say, well, he wasn't impeached. And then in another they say, well, the criminal justice - during impeachment, they said the criminal justice system is where this should be dealt with. I just - I don't think we can underscore enough how consequential Mitch McConnell's speech was that day, not because he was so hard on Trump, but because of what he chose not to do, which was not to vote to convict and not to whip other Republicans to do the same.

COOPER: And, Jennifer, I mean, Trump's lawyers, I want to read what he said. Let's put it on the screen. He said if - their lawyers said, "If immunity is not recognized, every future president will be forced to grapple with the prospect of possibly being criminally prosecuted after leaving office every time he or she makes a politically controversial decision. That would be the end of the presidency as we know it and would irreparably damage our Republic."

What do you make of that? I mean, what do you expect the Supreme Court to do here?

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. Well, except that this has never happened before. No president has ever faced that that concern before because no other president has done this before. Listen, I think that the court is going to look at his argument for absolute immunity, which is the argument that he has to make here, right? He can't really make a more nuanced argument about, well, all of these things I did were part of my official duties as president and therefore I should be protected in the way that he could if he say ordered a drone strike and some DA somewhere tried to prosecute him or something.

What he did, he did as a candidate for his own personal benefit and his political benefit, not for his job as a president in the country. And that's why he has to go big on this argument for absolute immunity. And he has to raise the specter of, oh, if you do this, everyone's going to be prosecuted after this. Well, no one has been prosecuted before in the history of our country. No one who lives within the bounds of the law while their president will be prosecuted again. This is really about his actions and because those actions are outside of any reasonable scope of what the president is supposed to be doing, I think the court will have to set a standard that is below absolute immunity for sure.

COOPER: So - and Congressman, I mean, if former presidents can't be prosecuted, why did Gerald Ford pardon Richard Nixon? I mean, also by the Trump team's logic, every president could go on a crime spree the last morning of his term and Congress wouldn't have time to impeach convicts so he could never be prosecuted.

ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Oh, yes, that's right. That's - it's logical conclusion. You could do that. A president could form a militia. He could order the military to overthrow Congress like there's any number of horror stories that we can think of. A president could theoretically do with absolute immunity. And the only way he would ever be left out of power is if he failed at his illegal action. If he succeeded, of course, he'd just stay in power at that point.

So the logical conclusion of this is, I mean, I don't think there's a chance in the world the Supreme Court finds in favor of Trump. But the other thing I ask is like, let's do what I literally just thought of and created the Biden test, okay?

So if you - if Joe Biden could do what Donald Trump is saying he wants to do, would that side believe that immunity would exist. For instance, when they argued that a president could, in theory, have SEAL Team Six go after his political rival, they say Joe Biden could do that. Well, of course, they'd say no to that. And so everybody has to be held to the same standard.

If the Biden test doesn't pass and there's no way that the - that Trump should be able to get away with what he tried and did.

COOPER: And Maggie, Trump's lawyers, they invoked the drone strikes by President Obama, Middle East airstrikes launched by President Clinton around the time of the Monica Lewinsky scandal as examples of conduct they thought could be - could have been prosecuted. And then they write: "In all of these instances, the President's political opponents routinely accuse him, and currently accuse President Biden of 'criminal' behavior in his official acts. In each such case, those opponents later came to power with ample incentive to charge him." How do you interpret ...

HABERMAN: I think Biden example is really strange, considering that example about Biden is being made primarily by Trump and by people connected to Trump. What they're trying to say with the President Clinton and President Obama arguments is basically that there is no such thing as an official act that isn't political, that you can't divorce one from the other. And I expect you will hear them make a version of that before the Supreme Court. I don't know how compelling it'll be, because when they tried going down this road in the lower court, one of the questions that came up was what if there was a - ordering SEAL - a SEAL six team to go assassinate a political rival.

[20:10:05]

And that got into a cul de sac that I'm not sure the Trump lawyers wanted to be in.

So you can argue yourself in one direction or another here. But I don't think that any rational person thinks that drone strikes are the same. And they will try to suggest they were because he was talking to his vice president. But there is so much else that comprises what he's been indicted for in connection with January 6th.

COOPER: And Jennifer, the Trump team also floated this idea that if the Supreme Court refused to grant him full immunity, the case could be sent back to the lower courts. How much would that delay things?

RODGERS: Yes. Well, if they did what he wants them to do, it would delay things substantially, which is go back for some sort of factual finding and application of the new test of this case and then come back up on appeal inevitably. But they don't need to do that here. We're not at a stage where there's factual findings to be had except for the trial itself.

They have the indictment at this stage of the game. The indictment is taken as these are the facts we're working with and they have the law, the Constitution as they're going to evaluate this immunity argument up against the Constitution. So the lower courts can't do anything more than they can do, in other words. So there's no need to send it back for anything other than the trial itself and that's what his argument is missing. He wants another spring back and forth to delay things a number of months again, really till next term in the Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court won't fall for that. There's no fact finding to be done.

COOPER: And Congressman, I mean, it's important to point out that there is a lot at stake here in this ruling.

KINZINGER: Oh, there's a lot at stake. I mean, not just in terms of what it means for this election. Obviously, if the Supreme Court comes back with what they expect - we expect and say you don't have absolute immunity, then potentially this trial will proceed. But it has a huge deal at stake if they come back and say there is such thing as unlimited immunity. I don't see how the presidency and frankly how democracy can continue if you have a bad actor in place that literally can get away with anything so long as he or she has the title of president in front of their name.

And so this is a very important thing for the Supreme Court to take up. It may be why they decided to take this up after the after the appellate court, but they're going to have to make their stamp and hopefully it comes out 9-0, potentially 8-1. But it's going to be a resounding defeat for Trump, I think.

COOPER: Adam Kinzinger, thank you. Jennifer Rodgers, Maggie Haberman as well.

As the former president was arguing for immunity, one of his former top advisers, Peter Navarro, faced accountability, the first of four months worth in federal prison for defying a congressional subpoena. In his last moments of freedom, the men who once spoke from the North Lawn of the White House in the White House briefing room railed at reporters from a strip mall parking lot. Details now from Randi Kaye.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER NAVARRO, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE ADVISER: Every person who has taken me on this road to that prison is a frigging Democrat and a Trump hater.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): That's former Trump White House adviser, Peter Navarro, minutes before he turned himself in to federal prison in Miami as the first former White House official to be imprisoned for a contempt of Congress conviction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAVARRO: When I walk in that prison today, the justice system such as it is will have done a crippling blow to the constitutional separation of powers and executive privilege.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KAYE (voice over): Navarro was convicted in September after refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House Select Committee, which investigated the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. Liz Cheney, who was vice chair of the panel, said Navarro would have been a witness.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIZ CHENEY, FORMER REPUBLICAN CONGRESSWOMAN: In America, no one is above the law. Every citizen has a duty to comply with a subpoena.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE (voice over): Navarro argues he was bound by executive privilege, a defense that's been rejected in court.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE (off camera): Do you wish you had shown up for testimony and asserted privilege in person?

NAVARRO: If I had gone to Congress and played the piecemeal game with them, I would have done damage to the separation of powers and I would not have been doing my duty. I would not have been obeying my oath of office.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE (voice over): In his final minutes as a free man, Navarro continued to paint himself as a victim.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAVARRO: I'm pissed. That's what I'm feeling right now. All I have done is my duty to this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE (voice over): Just last week, Navarro asked the Supreme Court to intervene and allow him to remain free while he challenged his conviction. The high court rejected his last-minute bid on Monday. Navarro has never been able to show that executive privilege would have applied in his case.

The prison where Navarro will serve his time is one of the oldest prison camps in the country. While Navarro has complained about financial problems, the prison consultant he hired to make his time more comfortable inside told CNN that the 74-year-old will be housed in an air-conditioned dormitory for elderly male inmates. The consultant said Navarro will have access to television, e-mail and be able to make phone calls. And he'll be expected to take classes and get a job. He'll likely also be able to hear the roar of the lions from the zoo next door.

[20:15:00]

As Peter Navarro headed off to officially turn himself in, he left us with this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAVAROO: God bless you all. I'll see you on the other side.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Randi joins me now from outside the prison.

Did he say whether he had talked to Donald Trump before heading to prison?

KAYE: Anderson, he was asked about that at the news conference. And once again, he claimed executive privilege. He would not say whether or not he had any conversations recently with the former president, though he did say he believes he has former President Trump's full support. He also said that while in prison, he believes that one of the things that will keep him going and give him strength is knowing that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee.

But it is worth noting, Anderson, that according to this prison consultant who has been working with Peter Navarro, he told CNN that it's very unlikely he will serve his full four-month sentence. He said it's more likely he'll serve about 90 days because there are laws in place that allow for early release for federal inmates, Anderson.

COOPER: All right. Randi Kaye, thanks very much.

Coming up next, polls close a short time again in Ohio. I'll tell you what exit polling shows about the key U.S. Senate race there and how that might bear on the presidential race in November.

Also, some good news on crime. Former NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller on new FBI numbers, showing crime is down sharply even as some candidates paint the opposite picture.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:20:10]

COOPER: More breaking news tonight. Polls closed a short time ago in Ohio, and though the presidential outcome there is now academic, who wins the Republican Senate primary could play a key part in who controls the Senate next year.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny is in Columbus, Ohio, for us, and our political director, David Chalian, is in Washington with new exit polling.

So, David, first of all, the exit polling, what's it saying?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes, Anderson, I mean, these exit polls give us insight into sort of how this Republican primary electorate in Ohio sort of sorts itself. One of the key questions we've been tracking all primary season is asking Republican primary voters, do you believe that Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election? We know the answer to that is yes.

But if you look here, among Republican primary voters in that key Senate primary, Anderson, only a third say yes. Thirty-two percent here say yes. Sixty-three percent wrongly say no, he did not legitimately win.

That larger group, take a look at how they split in this Republican Senate primary. They overwhelmingly, if you look here, go for Bernie Moreno, the Trump-backed candidate, over Matt Dolan. So, Moreno wins 58 percent of the so-called election deniers, the bigger group of voters here, to Matt Dolan's 24 percent, Frank LaRose, at 18 percent with these voters.

If you look at the reverse, those that do believe correctly that Joe Biden was legitimately elected, remember, a smaller group, just a third, and you see that Matt Dolan does much better with those voters. Again, he's the establishment-backed candidate. He gets 63 percent of those who say Biden was legitimately elected. Trump's candidate, Bernie Moreno, only gets 20 percent of those voters, Anderson.

COOPER: And, Jeff, where's - I mean, what's the sense of where this Senate primary is headed tonight?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORREPONDENT: Well, that certainly is the divide that David laid out there. There is a sense this is an establishment versus MAGA primary. And, of course, we've seen these play out through the era of Trump for year after year. We will see what the Ohio result is tonight.

But Matt Dolan, the state senator, he is backed by Ohio governor, Mike DeWine, and former senator, Rob Portman. Moreno, for his part, is backed by Donald Trump and Senator J.D. Vance and others.

But, Anderson, beyond this establishment-MAGA divide in politics, there's a stark policy difference as well. And this is something that really has emerged in the final days of this race. Gov. DeWine has been urging, in fact, imploring Republicans to look at the policy differences specifically on things like Ukraine, on funding for Ukraine. Ohio has a very large Ukrainian population and this was once a central issue.

Now, in this MAGA movement, if you will, the funding for Ukraine is very much uncertain. So the policy differences here also are so stark. Is Ohio going to completely change in the way of the Trump-era like J.D. Vance or will the establishment wing, if you will, hold on a bit in the vein of Sen. Rob Portman or Gov. DeWine. So, yes, there are political differences, but the policy differences here also are significant.

COOPER: Yes. David, how do you see it? I mean, if the Trump-backed candidate wins in Ohio, what does that mean for the more establishment Republicans there?

CHALIAN: That their time being the dominant force in the Republican Party is over, Anderson. I mean, it's just - it's not reflective of the party anymore. You're looking there at the vote totals in this current race. We've got about roughly 19 percent of the estimated vote in. And you see it's a pretty close race there, 38.9 percent to 38.3 percent.

I just want to note here, Anderson, the vast majority of this vote that is already in is pre-election vote. It's early absentee vote. So as we know, sort of Trump-aligned forces tend to show up on Election Day itself. So if Bernie Moreno is benefiting from Trump's backing here, it would make sense that as more Election Day vote comes in, he may see his numbers grow.

Right now you're looking at all early absentee vote. But to your point, that establishment wing of the party, if indeed they come up short here yet again, as they did throughout the presidential primary season, as they have in so many primaries, it will just be yet another sign this is Donald Trump's Republican primary and his supporters are the dominant force inside of it.

COOPER: Jeff, I mean, there are some Democrats who think that a candidate aligned with the former president would be easier to beat in November. That strategy worked for them in 2022. What are the chances it works in Ohio this time around?

ZELENY: We'll certainly see. I mean, that's where the three- dimensional chess comes in, if you will. In the final days of this race, a super PAC that's aligned with senator - the Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer weighed in on this race with some $3 million in ads or so supporting, promoting Bernie Moreno, tying him to Donald Trump, trying to elevate him. They believe he will be the easier candidate to win in the fall. That's very much an open question in this presidential election year.

Sherrod Brown has been on the ballot as a senator three times.

[20:25:00]

The only time in a presidential year was 2012 when he was running with Barack Obama, who won the state of Ohio. There is no doubt for Sen. Brown to win, he has to win many Trump voters. So that is the obstacle course here. But Democrats believe that Moreno will be the weaker candidate in November. That's why they tried to prop him up at the end.

So one of the many dynamics going on here is we've seen Democrats be successful in meddling in these Republican primaries. We'll see if they are again tonight and in November.

COOPER: David, how concerned do you think the Trump campaign should be about where Nikki Haley's support level is tonight, even though she suspended her campaign two weeks ago?

CHALIAN: Yes, Anderson, we're not very focused on the presidential primary because it's over. But if you look at the vote board right now, and you noted Nikki Haley's been out of this race for two weeks now, she's pulling roughly, the last time I checked, with 20 percent of the vote. There you go, 21.9 percent of the vote, 22 percent of the estimated vote in. Nikki Haley sitting there at 22 percent of the vote.

She's not even campaigning. She hasn't had any ads. She's not a candidate. So it represents that there is still this faction, a small faction, inside the Republican electorate that is just consistently resistant to Donald Trump. So as he, as the nominee now, the presumptive nominee of his party, heads into this general election season, part of his mission is to get a big swath of those Haley voters back on board with his campaign so that he has a unified Republican Party taking on Joe Biden this fall.

COOPER: Yes. David Chalian, Jeff Zeleny, thanks.

Now, significant progress and a problem that voters are hearing plenty about from candidates this year, especially the former president, crime. New FBI data showing it fell significantly last year, almost across the board. Property crime mostly down, violent crime also down, murder down sharply.

Today, President Biden touted the new numbers, took a jab at the former president over his record in office, and promised to keep fighting for police funding and a ban on assault weapons. Here now to talk more about this, CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst, John Miller.

So, John, I mean, the Biden administration is certainly celebrating these numbers. How substantial of a drop in crime is this?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, it's pretty substantial. I mean, you've got like a 13 percent decrease in murder, shootings going down. We are not yet back to pre-pandemic numbers, but we're on the way. And that's important because pre- pandemic numbers, particularly in violent crime, were some of the lowest ever. That doesn't mean, and we check the FBI stats against the major city chiefs, that there aren't certain cities that are still having big challenges, particularly with shootings.

COOPER: But why - I mean, is there a sense of why violent crime is down?

MILLER: Yes. So, I mean, if you look at kind of the graphics of the whole thing, you have 2018, 2019 crime is very low in the United States. Lowest it's been in many, many years.

But then in 2020, you've got the pandemic. You've got courts being shut down. You've got Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. You've got demonstrations and disorder. You have police stopping - making arrests in certain cases. You've got defund the police. You have a lot of things coming together, and almost a perfect storm that we saw a surge in crime in those two years.

Then when you look at 2022, 2023, you see some of those cities have refunded police, rehired officers. The court backlogs are now kind of back to normal. You see some of the laws that were sweeping have been adjusted and fixed so that the criminal justice system works smoother. And you see that crime goes flat, and now we see it starting to go down again. COOPER: Why do you think there is such a discrepancy between the way people feel or the way it's being portrayed and, I mean, these numbers? Because there's plenty of people - I mean, I look around New York and think, wow, it seem - things seem to be not great.

MILLER: It's a real discrepancy. If you look at the surveys that have done either by Pew Research and the Gallup polls, they'll tell you consistently that if you ask people, is gun crime, gun violence, violent crime better now or worse than it was 20 years ago, they'll say, no, it's gotten much worse 30 years ago.

We know 30 years ago, there were 24,000 murders across the United States. Now that's down between 15 and 18, depending on what year you're looking at. But the perception is it's worse, partly because of us. Now we have almost instantaneous access to very dramatic video from people's cell phones.

COOPER: So people see it more, even though it may not be as ...

MILLER: We talk about the act of shooters.

COOPER: Right.

MILLER: And of course, the politics of it as some politicians and we were just talking about that, reinforce the idea as ever rising crime when, in fact, it's way down from what it used to be. And it's starting to get back to where it was at its lowest.

COOPER: But I - that's so fascinating to me that because we have more information and cameras are more ubiquitous, we see it more and it makes us feel ...

MILLER: Well, it has a psychological effect.

COOPER: Yeah, it's interesting.

MILLER: And, it's not just us. It's social media, too.

[20:30:02]

COOPER: Yes.

MILLER: People are getting that feed from the Citizen app and all those other things. It's a lot of input and it affects people.

Coming up, possibly another doctored royal photo, and it comes as Princess Catherine and Prince William were spotted together in public. You see the video there, smiling, happy. Details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: With concern building over a major Israeli offensive into Rafah, a city in southern Gaza, one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's closest confidants, plus his national security adviser, will soon head to Washington to meet with U.S. officials. The White House expects the meeting early next week. This comes a day after President Biden and Netanyahu spoke by phone about the offensive.

The White House has continually pressed Israel on its plans for how to safeguard the more than 1 million displaced Palestinians now living in the south of Gaza. Today, the World Health Organization says it's seeing a growing number of infants on the brink of death.

Jeremy Diamond has more on some children who've been in an Israeli hospital who are now actually being sent back to Gaza.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[20:35:05]

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Little Sarah is barely six months old. Born in East Jerusalem, all she knows is the safety of this hospital room. This week, that will be torn away. War will become her new reality.

I might go back and they invade Rafah, her mother Nima says. I'll be the one responsible for anything that harms them.

NIMA ABU GARRARA, PALESTINIAN MOTHER (through translator): If I go back with the twins, where do I go with them? Where would I get diapers and milk? Gaza is not the same anymore.

DIAMOND (voice-over): For nearly six months, these three mothers have been living, sleeping, and nursing their five babies in this hospital room together. Before the war, their high-risk pregnancies made them eligible to leave Gaza and give birth in Jerusalem hospitals.

But now, they've packed their bags after learning that the Israeli government is sending them back to Gaza, where Israel's brutal military campaign has made survival a daily struggle.

Hannan, the mother of twins, says she's scared of going back to Gaza without a ceasefire. There are diseases spreading, infections, she says, it's not a normal life.

They will be among the 22 Palestinians set to be bussed on Wednesday to the Kerem Shalom crossing in the south. But her husband is in the north. And Hannan is still trying to find a place to live.

Despite that uncertainty, Asmaa wants to return to Gaza. My daughter is there. She needs me, Asmaa says. Every time she speaks to me, she asks when I'm coming back. Every time there's an airstrike, children go to hug their mothers. Mine has no one to hug.

At nearby Augusta Victoria Hospital, nearly 50 Gazan cancer patients have been receiving treatment since before October 7th. Watching from afar as their families endure the horrors of war.

For Mohammed, one of the 10 who are in remission and being sent back to Gaza, being far away from his son Hamza, who is blind, has been the hardest to bear. But going back is also terrifying. I'm torn, he says. The only wish I have in life is to go back home. I regret even coming here for treatment. I wish I could be with them, because I know how they need me.

In a statement, the Israeli agency in charge of their returns said patients who have received medical treatment and who are not in need of further medical care are returned to the Gaza Strip.

After more than two months of pushing back on Israeli demands, Dr. Fadi Atrash says he was ordered to compile a list of patients to be sent back to Gaza this week.

DR. FADI ATRASH, CEO, AUGUSTA VICTORIA HOSPITAL: We don't want to send them back. It's not our call at the end of the day.

DIAMOND (voice-over): Now he fears for his patients.

ATRASH: All the support, all the efforts that we have been putting to try to cure them or to put them in a good condition or to improve their quality of life will be lost because there is no care in Gaza. There is no hospitals. There is no health care. The system is totally destroyed.

DIAMOND (voice-over): The mothers are preparing for their journey. They've bought sweets and toys for the children who are waiting for them.

ASMAA AL DABJE, PALESTINIAN MOTHER (through translator): If they want to throw away all my belongings, they can, but not this bag for my daughter.

DIAMOND (voice-over): It is all they can bring for the children who have endured so much in six months, and the babies who will soon learn the reality of war, far too young.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: And Jeremy, what is the Israeli government's reason for sending the patients back to Gaza or their stated reason?

DIAMOND: Well, Anderson, Israeli officials say that these patients were brought to Jerusalem in order to receive treatment and they say that now that that treatment has been completed, they must go back to Gaza despite the fact that the war is still very much ongoing.

Red Cross officials, I'm told, visited the hospital today, but there is still no clear plan for who or if anyone will actually meet these patients and these mothers and their babies on the other side of the border once they cross into Gaza. Instead, what awaits them is uncertainty and potentially a 3-mile walk all the way to Rafah that it's key southern city in Gaza.

All of this walking with their babies, with their luggages and everything that they have brought with them. All of this, of course, as there is major uncertainty about what will happen in Rafah with the Israeli prime minister vowing that he is determined to send Israeli troops there. Anderson?

[20:40:03]

COOPER: Jeremy Diamond, thanks.

Coming up next, Catherine, Princess of Wales, seen on a video for the first time since her surgery. The footage was not released by the royal family, even as another older photo is found to have allegedly been manipulated. Details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: New video, a surface of Catherine, Princess of Wales and Prince William out for a stroll. It's the first video since her surgery in January. It arrives with her and the royal family embroiled in controversy, obviously, over the manipulated family photo that recently came out.

More tonight from CNN's Royal Correspondent, Max Foster.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MAX FOSTER, CNN ROYAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Smiling, happy, and seemingly healthy. New video, not sanctioned by the palace, but reassuring royalists that the couple are well. British tabloids also celebrating Kate's re-emergence and apparent recovery from surgery.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's good to see that she's back and hopefully she's doing well.

[20:45:03]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm sure that it'll be quite nice for her to walk around, do some shopping with her husband.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't really have any doubts. She's a bit of a weird one in it.

FOSTER (voice-over): Weird because of the conspiracy theories that have swamped social media in recent weeks, filling a void of information from the palace. And the video did nothing to quell them as it was accused of being fake. Trust in any royal imagery undermined in part by Kensington Palace itself, after it sent out not one but two doctored photos to the news media, both taken by the princess.

Kate's edited Mother's Day photo, manipulated in several places, and now this one, released last year, which Getty Images has now labeled, digitally enhanced.

CNN found inconsistencies in several spots, such as a misalignment on the Queen's skirt and blanket, strands of Princess Charlotte's hair appear to have been cloned, and Prince Louis shoulder is blurred, overlapping the background.

Getty told CNN in a statement it's reviewing all so called royal handout images and placing where relevant an editor's note saying it could have been digitally enhanced.

KATE WILLIAMS, CNN ROYAL HISTORIAN: William and Kate Kensington Palace was so trusted at Christmas. And now three months later, we have a situation in which whatever photo is put out, people don't believe it.

FOSTER (voice-over): The lack of information coming from the palace about the princess has created conspiracy theories, often wild ones, which get worse when the palace has been found to be manipulating images.

WILLIAMS: Either they should have said nothing and kept with that, just as they said they were not going to say anything until there were significant updates, or they should have put out a few little statements, perhaps a little statement from Kate saying thank you for the lovely cards, and kept people updated to a degree.

FOSTER (voice-over): Seemingly unfazed and in good spirits, royals refusing to be distracted in public. Prince William making a long planned visit to a homelessness project in Sheffield.

No lack of support there, or from the papers, as the rumors continue online.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: And Max Foster joins us now along with Kate Williams, who was just in Max's report. She's CNN's Royal Historian. So Kate, I mean, if the prince and princess are out shopping at their local farm shop, why wouldn't the palace, given all this intrigue, have made some sort of a video of them, or why wouldn't she have made some sort of a statement? I -- does it make sense?

WILLIAMS: Yes, this is what people are saying. They're saying if the -- if she's OK to go out walking at the farm shop, which is great to see, then why can't we have a little statement from her? So far, the only thing we've heard from Kate is her saying about the editing of that infamous Mother's Day photo that she liked to play with Photoshop.

I think most of us didn't believe that it was her who edited the photo. So people are raising these questions. And you know, Anderson, the Queen said, you have to be seen to be believed. That's what Queen Elizabeth said. But now people don't really seem to believe any photo.

In fact, I was looking at a newspaper article about the farm shop photo, and there were 9,000 comments, and the majority were saying they don't believe this photo either. So I really do think that the royals do have to -- Kate does have to, I think, put out a photo, or perhaps a little video, just like the king did in February, saying thank you so much for all these get well soon cards, because the conspiracy theories are still going on.

COOPER: Max, I mean, does this video at this market make sense to you?

FOSTER: It does make sense. I mean, they do go there and it was taken by another shopper. And it's definitely them. It's certainly helped the palace. I mean, they're not sanctioning it being released, but it certainly helped them because it reinforces their message that she is well.

They have a long, you know, tradition of communications. It pretty much goes back centuries. They don't respond to speculation and they're sticking to it. They've got a plan. They're only going to update people when there is an update to come. And they are now caught in this storm, which is pretty unprecedented for royal reporting and in many ways, all reporting because it's blown up in such an extraordinary way, and we've seen how it continues and gets even bigger when they don't respond.

So it is an issue for the palace, but they do. There is some strategy here, despite the fact many people are completely bemused by what they're not doing, as it were.

COOPER: So Kate, how -- I mean, how common would you say it is for photos released by the royal family to be changed or digitally enhanced? I mean the idea that I mean, you know, in public these days, so many photos have some sort of touch up.

WILLIAMS: Yes, so many photos do, but there is a big difference, isn't there, Anderson, between photos one puts on one's own Instagram and photos ones give to official agencies such as AFP and Getty.

[20:50:02]

And it's really quite stunning to hear that Getty's now going to go through all royal handout photos, wondering whether they've been doctored because, you know, the royals have doctored since the beginning of time. Henry VIII didn't look anything like his portraits.

All Elizabeth I, and they all doctored them in as a great one of Henry VIII with his son and the wife who died in childbirth, but she's looking great and the son is 10. So they've always done this through art history. And William and Kate have also doctored quite a lot of photos in the past. We saw the Christmas photo with a missing finger for Louis, and no one minded before.

They just thought it would sort of spot the difference. But in the middle of all these conspiracy theories, it just set everyone off. And now I think it's very concerning for Kensington Palace because you have AFP saying that there is same levels of trustworthiness as the agencies of North Korea and Iran. And that means there's a long way of trust to get back.

COOPER: Max, was there a difference in how the palace handled King Charles's medical issues versus Princess Kate's?

FOSTER: Yes. He is the monarch and we have a greater right to information about him. So they are deliberately issuing lots of images without the details around his actual health. I just think that Kensington Palace feels and Prince William in particular feels that Kate isn't on the throne yet. So she does have a bigger right to privacy. COOPER: And Kate, I mean, at this point, is there anything the royal family can do to regain some of the public trust that may have been lost?

WILLIAMS: I think that they can do a lot. I think that what William is doing now, going out and about doing engagements which he wasn't doing before, mentioning his wife. He said, my wife should be here to hear this today at his engagement about young person's homelessness. That's very important. And I think we probably will see some kind of picture or statement of Kate quite soon.

COOPER: Well, I hope so. Kate Williams, Max Foster, thanks so much.

Just ahead, you may have seen the headlines about intermittent fasting and a new study that suggests a type of intermittent fasting may be dangerous for your health. We'll talk to a cardiologist about it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:56:11]

COOPER: Time-restricted eating, a kind of intermittent fasting, is said to help a person lose weight and improve cardiovascular health. But now a study presented at a meeting of the American Heart Association says the opposite. That an 8-hour window for eating and 16 hours not eating is not just bad, that it could actually increase risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 91 percent.

And if you already have cardiovascular disease, your risk of dying from heart disease and stroke increases by 66 percent. The question is, is that actually true?

Joining me now is CNN Medical Analyst, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, director of the Cardiac Catheterization Lab at George Washington University Hospital. Dr. Reiner, good to have you on. So there's a lot of headlines about this study today. I've done intermittent fasting over the last couple of years off and on. What do we know and what do we not know at this point?

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Yes. Hi, Anderson. This study is very provocative but really not that convincing. So this is what we know about intermittent fasting or time restricted eating. There are basically three forms of that. Sometimes people will fast two days out of the week. Some people alternate eating one day and fasting another day.

And the particular kind of time restricted eating in this study is a form where people basically restrict their eating to a certain number of consecutive hours in a given day. And in this particular study, they used eight hours as the separation point to compare the effects of this strategy.

And they looked at a large national database called NHANES, which is the National Health and Nutrition Examination Study. They looked at 20,000 patients who self-reported their eating habits. Now, importantly, not all of the people who described limiting their eating to a certain number of consecutive hours in a day, we're doing that as part of a diet.

And they, importantly, they follow these people longitudinally for on average, about eight years. And unlike early studies, which were largely short term, that things like blood pressure and cholesterol and wait, this study looked at mortality, looked at cardiovascular mortality.

And in this study, the people who restricted their eating to only eight hours out of 24 hours, eight hours eating, 16 hours fasting seem to have almost a double risk of cardiovascular mortality out through eight years. And this runs counter to everything, you know, we've sort of expected and learned about this eating strategy over the last several years when many studies have this.

COOPER: So you're saying more studies need to be done essentially because there's not enough known about this cohort group that maybe it was people who weren't eating because of job or socioeconomic reasons and that this study is not conclusive about whether or not, you know, not eating for 16 hours a day and only eating an eight-hour window is beneficial?

REINER: Right. There's so many, you know, potential confounders. You know, perhaps the people only eat in those eight-hour blocks have three jobs and they're, you know, they're stopping at McDonald's, you know, between jobs and grabbing something quick. They don't have time to eat.

Perhaps the people who are time restricted, you know, have higher blood pressure or higher cholesterol or substantial, you know, cardiac histories or family histories. And --

COOPER: It seem but part --

REINER: -- it's not possible to adjust for all these confounders. Yes.

COOPER: But part of the argument that was being made about restrictive eating is that people lose muscle mass and that as you age, losing muscle mass can cause cardiac issues. Is that -- I mean, is losing muscle mass as you age, that's a bad thing?

REINER: Yes. That's a potential explanation for why it might have a negative effect. I think the take home message from from this file is what we've learned early on from this strategy is that if you fast in any of these strategies, you'll lose some weight on average between --

COOPER: Right.

REINER: -- you know, 3 percent and 7 percent. And if you lose weight, you'll lower your blood pressure, you'll lower your cholesterol and you'll lower your weight. And we know from decades of research that those effects result in good outcomes.

The bottom line is this, you know, this kind of --

COOPER: More needs to be studied.

REINER: -- study needs to be repeated, but in a prospective, randomized trial.

COOPER: Dr. Jonathan Reiner, I appreciate it. Thank you.

The news continues. The Source with Kaitlan Collins starts now.