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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Ex-Trump Adviser Peter Navarro Appears In Court After Indictment; NYT: Uvalde Student Urged 911 Dispatcher To "Send Help For My Teacher" 40 Mins Before Police Entered Classroom; Videos Shows Chinese Covid Workers Allegedly Harassing And Beating Residents; Platinum Jubilee Celebrates 70-Year Reign Of Queen Elizabeth II; "Missing: Madeleine McCann" Airs Tonight At 10 PM ET. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired June 03, 2022 - 20:00   ET

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

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ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Thanks for joining us.

AC 360 begins now.

[20:00:22]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: And good evening.

It has happened again, another one-time adviser of the former President is learning that a lawful subpoena to testify before Congress is not something to defy.

Peter Navarro today joined Steve Bannon in the dubious distinction of being indicted on criminal contempt of Congress charges in the January 6 investigation. He was arrested at a Washington area airport on his way to Nashville and made a Court appearance today.

This comes as the House January 6 Committee prepares to hold televised hearings next week, starting Thursday night in primetime, 8:00 Eastern.

CNN's Ryan Nobles is at the Capitol for us with the very latest. So what are the two contempt charges Navarro is facing?

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So Anderson, these are two felony charges that are both related to Peter Navarro's defiance of the subpoena that was sent to him by the January 6th Select Committee.

One has to do with his refusal to hand over documents that the committee is interested as part of their investigation. The other has to do with his refusal to sit for a deposition and interview with the Committee. Now, both are serious charges that could result in significant jail time and a hefty fine. So far, Navarro has been very defiant, just as he was prior to the

subpoena being issued. What's interesting about his situation is that he did not engage with the Committee at all. He claimed that he had an executive privilege protection that was extended to him by the former President Donald Trump. Obviously, the Committee felt differently, as did the Department of Justice, hence the reason that he is under indictment tonight.

COOPER: So what happened in Court and what's next?

NOBLES: Well, there was some theatrics.

Peter Navarro is no doubt a character, the former trade adviser to the former President Donald Trump, he complained about the way the FBI handled his situation, the way they knocked on his door for a subpoena at his apartment in Washington, D.C. The fact that he complained that they arrested him at the airport in Washington as opposed to just asking him to come in and surrender on his own recognizance.

But he was released from custody. They did not take his passport. They just told him that he was not able to travel anywhere outside the Intercontinental United States without a specific approval from the Judge.

He is now going to await a Court date and this could take some time, Anderson. Steve Bannon who was indicted several months ago by the Committee, his Court date, his hearing and his trial will not happen until late this summer.

What this means Anderson is that the information that the Committee is looking for from Peter Navarro likely won't happen before their investigation wraps up, which should happen sometime this fall. But it does send a message to these other individuals who have been subpoenaed by the committee that there is some power behind those subpoenas, there is an enforcement mechanism.

There are of course, some other outstanding criminal contempt referrals, one for the former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, the other for his deputy, Dan Scavino, that the Department of Justice has not acted on as of yet.

But at this point, the Department of Justice showing that if you defy Congress, there will be repercussions -- Anderson.

COOPER: Ryan Nobles, appreciate it.

Joining us now with new insight into January 6th, CNN political analyst and "New York Times" senior political reporter, Maggie Haberman.

The headline of her report in "The Times" tonight reads: "Before January 6, Aid Warned Secret Service of Security Risks to Pence." She uncovered the story for her upcoming book "Confidence Man," quoting now from the story's lead: "The day before mob of President Donald J. Trump's supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Vice President Mike Pence' Chief of Staff called Mr. Pence's lead Secret Service agent to his West Wing office."

"The Chief of Staff, Marc short had a message for the agent, Tim Giebels: The President was going to turn publicly against the Vice President, and there can be a security risk to Mr. Pence because of it."

Maggie is with us now.

So what more can you tell us about that warning and what you learned about the events surrounding it?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Sure, Anderson, and thanks for having me.

Look, this is an extraordinary moment to think that there is a Chief of Staff to a sitting Vice President, so concerned about the potential threat that is being created by a pressure campaign led and encouraged by the President who picked this Vice President. It is jarring, and it just takes a minute to absorb.

Marc Short had a conversation according to sources with Tim Giebels, the lead Secret Service agent saying exactly what you just said that the President was going to turn on Pence and that, you know, they might have a security risk.

Short, as I understand it, did not have a sense of what that threat could look like. I don't believe based on my reporting that he envisioned, you know, what we saw on January 6th, the way we saw it.

But what would he did realize is that the former President had supporters who were very reactive to him, who basically acted, you know, responded to things he would say, and he could see, you know, one person, two people, three people, you know, several people doing something that could be problematic safety-wise for the Vice President just based on this pressure that the former President was exerting.

[20:05:08]

COOPER: I mean, it is really extraordinary, a Secret Service official has disputed the exchange saying to CNN those with firsthand knowledge of the encounter insist, a concern about violence directed at Pence, or any risk posed by the former President's actions was never communicated.

What do you say to that?

HABERMAN: I stand by the reporting, and they're welcome to say that on the record.

COOPER: You also found other distinct examples of the breakdown in the relationship between Trump and Pence.

HABERMAN: I did. This was going on for some time, Anderson. There were several moments where, you know, Pence was coming, this pressure campaign was increasing for people around Trump, people connected to Trump, people who supported Trump, when the former Vice President went to Vail, Colorado on his vacation.

Marc Short, the Chief of Staff to Pence got a call from Kelli Ward, the Chairwoman of the Arizona GOP. She had just recently joined a suit that Congressman Louie Gohmert had filed trying to pressure Pence to, you know, exceed what Pence believed his authority was on January 6th.

When this call came in, she was allegedly relaying some kind of question about Pence possibly meeting with Sidney Powell, that lawyer who had been, you know, in Trump's favor at that point, who was advocating all kinds of wild conspiracy theories about the voting machines, and some question of whether Pence will be willing to meet with Powell, while he was in Vail.

When Short pointed out that Kelli Ward had joined this Gohmert suit and was suing the Vice President, she allegedly said that, you know, they wouldn't be doing this if Trump was not okay with it.

There were several other moments where, you know, the Pence team felt as if they were getting squeezed one was that transition funding for the post White House period for Pence's staff was not coming through, it was being delayed and they were under the impression this was definitely coming from Mark Meadows, the White House Chief of Staff. They were under the impression this might be coming from Trump. That pot of money got freed up after January 6th.

COOPER: And how does all this fold into the Select Committee's investigation?

HABERMAN: So the Select Committee as I understand it asked Marc Short questions about that conversation with Tim Giebels in his interview with them several -- some months ago, anyway. You know, I think that they are trying to portray that not just that there was, you know, this pressure campaign on Pence which we saw in real time, but that there was real concern among White House officials about what the fallout from that could look like.

And so in that respect, the fact that the Chief of Staff to the Vice President was so concerned remains very important.

COOPER: Maggie, when does your book come out? Because I definitely want to read this.

HABERMAN: It comes out in October, but I uncovered this during research for it and wanted to get it out now.

COOPER: Wow. It's fascinating. Maggie Haberman, appreciate it. Thank you.

With the House hearings set for next week, perspective now from three of the best today nearly 50 years ago when Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein brought so much to the Watergate scandal to light with the help of "Washington Post's" editor, Barry Sussman who died just this week.

Bob is himself associate editor at "The Post" and co-author of "Peril," a remarkable account of the days surrounding January 6th. Carl is just out with a great memoir, "Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom," his co-author of course with Bob of "All the President's Men," which is out next week in the 50th anniversary edition with a new foreword on the relevance of Watergate today, and John Dean is joining us, central figure in it as Richard Nixon's White House Counsel and star witness of the Watergate hearings. He's also the central voice in the new CNN Original Series, "Watergate: Blueprint for a Scandal" which premieres Sunday night, nine Eastern.

Great to have you on the program.

Who would have thought during Watergate that you would all be here together talking about this.

Bob, you hear this reporting from Maggie Haberman, even in the darkest days of Watergate, is there anything compares -- I mean, you have the Chief of Staff or the Vice President of the United States warning the lead Secret Service agent on the Vice President's detail?

BOB WOODWARD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, "THE WASHINGTON POST": What's very clear, the whole situation is potentially violent. Remember, there were "Hang Mike Pence" signs around. There were a thousand people storming the Capitol. And as we now know, Pence was literally one step or a hundred feet away from being captured or something by these insurrectionists.

So I think the point to make is Donald Trump, as President knows this is going on in many, many forms, and he never should have allowed this to happen, even if he is in combat with Pence as he was on this.

I remember in one of the interviews with Trump, I did -- I asked, what's the job of the President and he said, to protect the people. This is another case where Trump failed to protect the people and including his Vice President.

[20:10:09]

COOPER: And as you talk about in your book, Bob, the President did nothing while people around him were asking him to do something, and now we know a lot of people were texting Mark Meadows to try to get allies of the President to try to get the President to do something.

WOODWARD: And the President, according to our reporting in "Peril" was awful to Pence. He said, look, your career is over. I'm never -- I picked the wrong man. You are a weak person as Vice President.

He was in his face in a way that I think the Trump-Pence relationship really took a nosedive in those days before January 6th, then on January 6th. But again, where was Trump? Where does the responsibility lie?

He is sitting watching this on television. He knows what is taking place. It is an abrogation of that responsibility as President as he defines it.

COOPER: Yeah. John, based on, you know, what we just heard from Maggie, what more do you think the January 6 Committee would want to hear from Marc Short?

JOHN DEAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think they want to understand the atmosphere, the state of mind of people. We know, apparently Short was well aware of the scheme to get the Vice President to not authorize some of the votes from some of the states. He had the big picture.

And rightly, he warned the Secret Service, that there could be danger if this President goes out and provokes somebody, Trump -- excuse me, Pence would be the target. So I think it was a good move by Short.

COOPER: And Carl, how big of a deal do you think is this Navarro indictment?

CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think it's a big deal in that it indicates the defiance of all of the people around Donald Trump to tell the story of what happened, and especially the story of attempting to keep Joe Biden from succeeding to the presidency.

Everything that Bob and John have just been talking about goes to January 6th, goes to 1:00 PM January 6, which is the only time specified in the law, in which the President of the United States can be formally elected.

And everything that Trump did, everything that Steve Bannon advocated, everything that the lawyers around Trump tried to set up was to prevent that election from occurring on January 6 at 1:00 PM, and that includes trying to get Pence out of the picture, so Pence could not preside over the duly elected President of the United States to take office.

So what we have is really a seditious President of the United States, who is trying to foment insurrection to keep his successor from taking office, staging a coup, the President of the United States.

And what the January 6 Committee is doing from I think Bob's reporting, my reporting is establishing a timeline that will show definitively how Donald Trump, his lawyers, and those closest to him attempted to stage this coup, so there would be no real election of the President of the United States and Trump would continue to be in office.

COOPER: Bob, is it --

BERNSTEIN: It's extraordinary.

COOPER: Bob, is it clear to you how, what Peter Navarro's role was, if any, behind the scenes in the attempt to overturn the election?

BERNSTEIN: He is one of these Trump acolytes and whatever Trump wanted, as best I can tell, Navarro was willing to do. But I've got to step back and realize, and John Dean is the lawyer, knows this. It is a crime to subvert the lawful function of government.

It is not ambiguous. It goes back a hundred years. Chief Justice Taft, of all people saying that this is exactly the sort of trickery and deceit that is a crime, and the Section is 371 of the Criminal Code. We have in hand all the evidence, and the Justice Department realizes

this, as does the January 6 Committee to show that this was an organized conspiracy to subvert democracy.

I can't say it any more directly.

COOPER: John, somebody like Peter Navarro, do you think there's a chance he would end up cooperating? Or is it in his -- I mean, I don't know what his income stream is, I don't know if he makes money doing speaking engagements in Trump orbit.

[20:15:10]

And this helps him in some way, like it does with Bannon?

DEAN: Anderson, he has acted since the day he went in the White House, contrary to the norms, standard procedures, he has always played at the edge. He has leapt into areas of the White House that were not really his mandate.

And now with the Court looking at him and asking him to obey the rules of Congress, again, defiant, he files an action. It doesn't even comply with the rules of procedure. He won't hire a lawyer. He just doesn't seem to want to have a normal relationship with his government.

So it's a little bit, you know, I think they're going to throw the book at him starting with a contempt citation.

COOPER: Carl, the fact that the Justice Department hasn't indicted former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows despite a contempt referral from Congress. What does that say?

BERNSTEIN: I'm not sure what it says, whether or not the Justice Department is going to wait to issue a whole raft of indictments, I think the first thing we have to do is see what the January 6 Committee does in its report, and in its hearings, we still have hearings that are upcoming that are going to show the width and breadth of this conspiracy led by the President of the United States to undermine the most basic democratic function of our Republic, the free election of the President of the United States and his successor taking office as a result of that free election.

We are in a situation that we have never been in the United States, even under Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon got on a helicopter and agreed because he knew he had to resign, he resigned. He got on the helicopter and left town.

Donald Trump did something no President has ever done. He said, I'm going to stay here behind this desk. I am not going to admit that I lost the election. I am going to stay here and remain the President of the United States past the point where Joe Biden, the elected President of the United States, was supposed to take office.

This is a conspiracy led by a President of the United States such as we have never seen. That is why it is a seditious act. That is why Trump is a seditious President, in addition to what Bob is saying, being a criminal President.

So we are in territory here that we have never seen, and even more remarkable is that the Republican Party, unlike with Richard Nixon, which helped push Richard Nixon out of office and forced him to resign, this Republican party today is supporting Donald Trump, supporting his insurrection, trying to undermine the January 6 Committee.

So we now have instead of a real democratic lowercase system, in which the institutions of government try to come up with the truth about what happened as in Watergate, we now have one of the political parties dedicated to suppressing the truth.

COOPER: We're going to pick up this conversation after a short break, a lot more to talk about.

And later on the program, new reporting of what students at Robb Elementary School went through as they waited for police to storm that classroom, that and our continuing search for answers with officials trying now to avoid answering any questions altogether.

More ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:22:40]

COOPER: We are back talking with John Dean and Wood-Stein as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were known within "The Washington Post" when they were bringing so much of the Watergate scandal to light, often on a daily basis.

Just a short time ago, "The New York Times" posted a report. The headline reads: "Navarro Indicted as Justice Department Opts not to Charge Meadows and Scavino." It goes on to say and I quote: "The House had recommended contempt charges against all three Trump White House aides over their stonewalling of its January 6th inquiry."

John, what do you make the fact that the DOJ is declining to charge Meadows and Scavino?

DEAN: Well, my initial reaction was these people might be working on a deal. That's the reason that they wouldn't be indicted. It sounds like they have reviewed the evidence. They've reviewed the limited cooperation and feel it's sufficient to not bring charges.

COOPER: Because Meadows did turn over text messages.

DEAN: He did. He turned over a lot of information, actually, and I don't know about Scavino. I don't know what he did or did not do, but I think Justice realizes they don't have a really strong case, and it's not flagrant like it is with Bannon and Navarro.

COOPER: Yes. Bob, we're just learning this for the first time from "The Times," what's your reaction? WOODWARD: Well, first of all, you can't tell, but what we do know is

that the January 6 Committee and the Justice Department in their own way, which is much more cautious, they are relentlessly and aggressively, and I quite believe thoughtfully going about trying to get to the bottom of this.

And if you go back to Watergate, and you look, Carl and I were able to do some of the stories and piece together the outlines, quite frankly, thanks to Carl, who found the bookkeeper.

So we got on the trail of the money, which was the path ultimately to Nixon, the so they're proceeding in their way and I've been impressed with the people involved in the seriousness, but you learn things, too, sometimes months, sometimes years later.

[20:25:02]

In Watergate, if you'll indulge me for a moment, it was two years after Watergate or after Nixon resigned that the Senate Watergate established that part of the espionage and sabotage campaign that Nixon was running.

They had hired Senator Muskie's chauffeur as a spy, $1,000.00 a month. This is the guy who is carrying documents from Muskie's Senate office to his presidential headquarters, and there was so much to give John Mitchell and the Nixon people, he rented an apartment and a Xerox machine and gave the Nixon campaign that kind of visibility, almost unheard of.

It is the kind of situation that the CIA, if they had a close aide or somebody on the household staff of Putin, they would die for to get this kind of incredible visibility. So we learn that many years later.

There are things about January 6th and Trump that we are -- this is peeling the onion, and it's just going to take time and people think, oh, there's going to be a flash of insight. There may be many flashes, but I think this is going to go on for a long time.

COOPER: Carl, what's your expectations for the first hearings starting next week from the January 6 Committee?

BERNSTEIN: Well, already from what I've been told that the Committee has shown and has acquired enough information from both documents and witnesses to show a real conspiracy going into the Oval Office to subvert the Constitution and the electoral process in which Joe Biden would take office.

And it goes from the White House to the insurrection at the Capitol itself. There are many, many elements of this. But what this committee has done, from what I can see so far, is to establish both a timeline of the President's conduct, the timeline of what happened, involving the demonstrators trying to get to Pence, all these pieces are starting to fit together, and the committee has an awful lot of the evidence.

And instead of cooperating with that Committee, the other political party unlike what happened in Watergate, the Watergate Committee came about because there was a 77 to zero vote to create the Watergate investigation.

What do we have today? No Republicans to speak of beside, Liz Cheney, supporting the most important investigation of the presidency, perhaps in our lifetimes, and the Republican Party is trying to suppress it.

And in suppressing it, in part, because they know many of the Republicans in the Senate and the House know that this Committee has the goods and is on the way to establishing a record of something we have never seen in the history of the United States in terms of the seditious conduct of the President.

COOPER: Yes. I also want to mention Adam Kinzinger who has been very brave on this.

John, you were obviously the star witness in the Watergate hearings, I want to play a clip from your testimony in 1973. You explain that conversation you had with President Nixon? Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: I began by telling the President that there was a cancer growing on the presidency and if the cancer was not removed, the President himself would be killed by it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: How much is at stake for the Select Committee in these upcoming hearings?

DEAN: I think it's true. I think that observation that metaphor, still applies to the presidency, but actually with multiples. I think we're in much more serious condition, and much more threat in -- our democracy is more threatened.

COOPER: You're saying there would be multiple cancers in the Presidency.

DEAN: There would be -- I'm not sure I'd use the same metaphor, but there's certainly a cancerous atmosphere that is surrounding the Presidency and our democracy, it's reached out.

My hope is this Committee does a good job in educating and alerting people to the seriousness of the situation, and I think that's why the fact that they are using pretty high level people, unlike Watergate, as Bob and Carl, remember, they started with very, very minor players at the outset, and the network has almost pulled their coverage, it was so dull and boring.

Here, they're going to start with people who know and have some real Knowledge and has some gravitas that will tell people this is important.

COOPER: John Dean, appreciate it. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, always. Thank you so much. Again, the first two episodes of John Dean's new CNN Series,

"Watergate: Blueprint for a Scandal" debuts Sunday night at 9:00 Eastern. Its' fascinating.

Up next, chilling details of a 9-1-1 call made by a student, a child, who survived the shooting at Robb Elementary and the latest in the investigation of the failures of the response.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:30:27]

COOPER: We're learning some new details tonight about what was going on inside Robb Elementary School. Police officers in Uvalde, Texas were gathering outside and some standing in the hallway. According to a transcript reviewed by the New York Times, a 10-year-old student called 911 pleading for help saying and I quote, there's a lot of bodies I don't want to die, my teacher is dead, my teacher is dead, please send help, send help from my teacher she is shot but still alive.

Now the New York Times reports that call was made 37 minutes after the shooting began in the classrooms, 37 minutes after with police waiting outside 15 of them as many as 15 at times in the hallway, listening to gunshots going off. Twenty three minutes -- about 11 minutes into that call because the call lasted for a long time. The sound of gunfire could be heard. Twenty three minutes after the call ended the gunman was shot and killed by a border patrol tactical unit for the ones who finally went in the.

[20:35:07]

The report comes after much criticism obviously the police response by families who waited outside as well as by Texas law enforcement officials and others. Here with me now is CNN crime and justice correspondent, Shimon Prokupecz who has been digging into this story extensively, trying to get answers.

So Texas officials say 19 police officers waiting outside the hallways. Did they have access to the information coming from the 911 calls?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME & JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: So yes, it's believed that some of them did if they were the local police, or at least what we've been told is that the local police officers had access to the 911 calls. You can hear the dispatchers, there's video out there where you can hear a dispatcher relaying about students being in the classroom. So officers, they had to know that people were inside that classroom alive.

COOPER: Did the incident commander, the person who now some Texas, law enforcement officials have said made the wrong decision. That was the person who decided not to go into the classroom. Did that person have their radio doing it?

PROKUPECZ: So, the New York Times is reporting that that they did not have their radio and we've heard that out there. The significance of that is, I don't know, it's really hard to tell because there were other officers there with radios. He was on his cell phone calling and requesting more units to come and more tactical gear. So really, you can't blame this on a radio. You can't blame this on not hearing 911 calls. You know, this is just a really terrible, terrible decision, catastrophic decision that he made.

Right now everyone is saying he was the person that was in charge, it's Chief Arredondo and it was his decision not to go into that room.

COOPER: There's been such, you know, ossification, lies, misdirection. You know, all the talks about well, this guy was barricaded in the classroom as if he had some sort of, you know, barricading system, the door was locked. That's now what we know, all that that talk of like, well was barricaded. All the talk, they contained him in the classroom, he contained himself in the classroom, they were standing on the halls while he was, you know, shooting children and teachers over the course of an hour.

I cannot believe that Texas officials from the governor on down are just now silent.

PROKUPECZ: Yes.

COOPER: No, there's no new information coming out.

PROKUPECZ: Right. When it was convenient for them. And when they were wanting to put out their own stories, you couldn't get them to stop talking. And when we had DPS, folks, people coming to us every day talking to us, their story wasn't making any sense.

COOPER: Right, they wanted to tell stories about the other police officers who broke windows to help other students get out.

PROKUPECZ: Or even the story about the resource officer, the school officer having some kind of encounter with a gunman, which totally turned out not to be true at all. So when it was convenient for them, they were talking, now when there are all these holes in their story. And it's come to light that they were basically telling us, given us bad information, everyone now is hiding behind the idea that there is now an investigation. And so, we can't talk anymore. And that's a problem because there's been so much bad information. And now they've just completely shut up.

COOPER: Right. And Arredondo, the incident commander tells you, you finally you know, corner him as he's, you know, or get him as he's going into work one day. Who is he suddenly now he's remained silent. He says, well, we're not talking because out of, you know, it's disrespectful to families. And once they stop grieving, as if that's ever going to happen. We're -- you know, we'll give out information. I mean, that makes no sense.

PROKUPECZ: Makes no sense at all. And it's just not the way you do these investigations or how you give information. They should have given us a full briefing from the beginning. You know, that's how they do things in these shootings (INAUDIBLE) -- COOPER: Right. And it's not just reporters, it's the grieving families

who want to know why their children dead.

PROKUPECZ: I'm not sure they have ever told the families exactly what happened here. You know, and those families are going to want to know once I'm sure, the funerals are over, and it'll be interesting to see if they do. If they tell them because the families certainly are owed some explanation for what went wrong here.

COOPER: Yes. And you can talk about school safety but unless you know what happened and what went wrong, we have to learn from this. I mean, that's you know, every -- Shimon, appreciate your reporting. It has been outstanding.

PROKUPECZ: Thank you.

COOPER: As tensions remain high in China due to country's strict COVID policy viral videos of some of China's so called "Big Whites", that's where they're calling armies of these COVID workers in full bodied white protective gear, showing them beating people in some cases, dragging them from their homes, kicking down doors. CNN can't independently verify of the authenticity of all these videos.

CNN's Selina Wang has details, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:43:27]

COOPER: For weeks, tens of millions of people in China had been forced to quarantine in their homes, compounding that rough handling by some COVID workers have been caught on tape.

More from CNN's Selina Wang and first, a warning the video is graphic.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SELINA WANG, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is a common sight in China, armies of COVID workers and full bodied white protective gear. Shanghai may be exiting its harsh lockdown, but China's COVID war is not over. Since lockdowns began in cities across China, hazmat suit workers have become symbols to many of brutality and authoritarian excess. In this Shanghai community, a COVID worker repeatedly beats a man with a stick. This COVID worker forcefully shoves a woman to the ground. She hits the pavement that clutches her head in pain. In another video, a COVID worker kicks and slaps a man to the ground. And a brigade of COVID enforcers drag this woman out of her apartment in Shanghai. She screams that she will go with them if she can just get her shoes. She tries to resist with all her strength, but in vain.

CNN was not able to verify the identities of the people involved or the circumstances in these videos, or even if they all related to COVID control and authorities did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Most of the "Big Whites" are health care workers, volunteers and police officers genuinely trying to help their communities. While extreme violence from these COVID enforcers is rare, these viral videos have sparked outrage underscoring people's growing frustrations with Chinese zero COVID policy.

[20:45:00]

This video in particular horrified Shanghai residents earlier when they were locked down. It shows nine police officers in hazmat suits surrounding a man in a Shanghai community with some relentlessly beating and kicking him. He tries to run away, but they catch him and continue to throw their punches. CNN geo located where this meeting happened. I called the local police station.

(on-camera): And so she seems to have seen the video. She knows that the video exists she says she's going to call over her colleague who's going to give me a call back.

(voice-over): But I never got the call back, so I tried again.

(FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(on-camera): He told me that this never happened. And then he just hung up.

(voice-over): This isn't the image of COVID control that China wants. This is more desirable. Government propaganda has called COVID enforcers "Big Whites". A nod to the cute and inflatable robot from Big Hero Six.

BAYMAX: Hello, I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion.

WANG (voice-over): Like Baymax, the "Big Whites" in state media videos are lifting people spirits, they're leading dances and quarantine centers, helping the elderly even climbing ladders to deliver COVID tests. But the innocent image of the "Big Whites" solely by the horrific behavior of some were possibly empowered by the anonymity under their white suits.

Numerous videos showed them beating residents, barricading them in their homes, breaking doors to take people to quarantine, climbing into houses through windows to disinfect, even beating pets to death. Chinese social media have even started calling the COVID enforcers white guards, referring to the Red Guards of the Cultural Revolution through savagely beat, tortured and killed. But most of these videos of brutality from the "Big Whites" are gone, censored from Chinese social media.

In their place are fluffy heroes, but the "Big Whites" cruelty already seared in just so many minds, shaking people's faith in the Chinese government.

(FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: I mean, Selina, these, the videos are so sickening, those behavior of some of these officers. You say these examples are rare, but do we know if any of these workers have been punished?

WANG: No, Anderson, we do not. And you heard part of my call there with a local Shanghai police where the beating actually happened. He denied it ever happened and hung up on me. For the other cases, authorities did not respond to our multiple requests for comment. And in fact, our conversation right now Anderson is being censored in lifetime in China, the TV screen of CNN channel right next to me, it just shows color bars, that there's no signal. But the scars of this lockdown in Shanghai, they are going to be permanent. Many see this brutality as examples of how some COVID enforcers in China have lost all sense of humanity where they're pursuing zero COVID at all costs. Because this policy in China has become militarized ideological to criticize the policy is to criticize the man all the way at the top. Anderson.

COOPER: And you can even see it in their faces so there's no way to identify who they are from these videos even to discipline them if anybody was so inclined, which the government doesn't seem to be.

Selina Wang, appreciate the reporting. Thank you. It's really just It's horrific to watch.

Coming up next, something completely different, and hopefully make you feel better. Well maybe the biggest celebration in the world right now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:52:32]

COOPER: Right now the United Kingdom is in the middle of a massive celebration of Queen Elizabeth 70-year reign. Already there's been no shortage of pomp to match the circumstances. It is tempered some by concerns over her health and occasional political protest.

Max Foster has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MAX FOSTER, CNN ROYAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The bells toll for the Queen, as guests arrive at St. Paul's Cathedral in London for the Thanksgiving service, including former PMs, the Mayor of London and ministers. Prime Minister Boris Johnson also in attendance receiving boos from the crowd. Perhaps the most notorious guests were Prince Harry and Meghan, welcomed with cheers in what was their first public appearance as a couple at a royal events in two years since a very public break from royal life. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge make their way to the cathedral next, closely followed by the Duchess of Cornwall and Prince Charles. He was there to represent the queen in this celebration after the monarch felt discomfort after Thursday's events.

As the Queen watched from Windsor Castle, Charles took her seat, one that he's ordained to one day take himself as king. But even in her absence, the Queen's public service, her life and even her love for horse racing were at the heart of this event. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your Majesty, we are sorry that you're not here with us this morning. But we are so glad that you are still in the saddle.

FOSTER (voice-over): A touching service enchanted by the cathedral and Royal and military choirs and prayers.

BORIS JOHNSON, PRIME MINISTER OF UK: Keep on doing --

FOSTER (voice-over): And even a reading from the Prime Minister himself.

For the ceremony wasn't without his hiccups, including a last minute change of Archbishop after the Archbishop of Canterbury contracted COVID-19. It was a beautiful and cheerful ceremony honoring the longest serving monarch of Great Britain and in the first royal event in St Paul's Cathedral without the Queen in 70 years.

Max Foster, CNN, St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Still to come tonight, a reporting the 15-year disappearance of Madeleine McCann. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:58:59]

COOPER: Tonight at 10:00 Eastern, Randi Kaye has a new special report about Madeleine McCann's disappearance from a resort in Portugal back in 2007. It details major developments that have led to a suspect.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDI KAYE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on-camera): in June 2020 a major breakthrough in the case, but this time in Germany, more than 1,500 miles away from the crime scene. Prosecutors name the first formal suspect in the case since the McCanns were clear.

A German national named Christian Brueckner due to German privacy laws, officials here refer to him as Christian B. A convicted rapist and known child abuser who lived and worked around the Ocean Club.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Prosecutors say the suspect lived in this house in Praia da Luz, Portugal. They also say a cell phone listed under his name has been located to have been in the area at the time of Maddie's disappearance. Authorities also released pictures of these two vehicles he used at the time, another clue British police say he tried to reregister one of them after Maddie vanished.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[21:00:04]

COOPER: Again "MISSING MADELEINE MCCANN" airs tonight at 10:00 p.m. Eastern here on CNN.

The news continues. Let's hand it over Laura Coates in "CNN TONIGHT." Laura.