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Biden's Ireland Trip A Mix Of Diplomacy, Politics, & Homecoming; Prince Harry To Attend King Charles' Coronation Without Meghan; New Federal Analysis Of Colorado River Paints Dire Picture. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired April 12, 2023 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

GLENN GERSTELL, FORMER GENERAL COUNSEL FOR NSA: Third, the United States Government still hasn't confirmed that they're legitimate. But let's assume for a moment that either some of them are or all of them are. So, it looks like the documents were printed out. Presumably, you could only do that in a secure facility. You can't print out classified documents outside of a secure facility because the computer networks only work inside an official government building that is authorized to receive those documents.

So, someone printed this out in a -- in a -- on a government printer, which is probably logged and tracked as to what time a particular page was printed out, maybe folded these documents up because they all seem to have paper creases in them, maybe stuffed it in his or her pocket and spirited it out of a building somehow. Although that's a little unusual because it seems like there's about a hundred pages, so that's a lot of documents to take out over, apparently an extended period of time. And we don't even know if the leak has been plugged, maybe it's still ongoing for all we know.

And then the documents appear to have been photographed in a rather amateur way, sort of haphazard, the documents weren't really flattened. There's some evidence of background materials in the pictures. And if you were a professional, you would never do that. And then most bizarrely, the documents wind up seemingly weeks or days later on a private internet chat server somewhere.

And so, it's not necessarily clear that the same person who took the documents out of a secure facility in the first place was also the same one who posted it on a -- on a Discord server. Maybe the person who stole the documents left it somewhere in a coffee shop where maybe their son or daughter saw a picture of it and thought it would be cool to take a picture and posted on the internet. Who knows?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: It raising -- also raises huge questions and interesting ones of who will ultimately be held liable, depending on the chain of command here and the intent of it all. Glenn Gerstell, it's great to meet you. Thanks for coming in.

GERSTELL: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Sara. SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. President Biden lands in Dublin, the capital of Ireland after speaking at a University in Belfast marking the Good Friday Agreements, his message of peace. We'll take you there live.

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[11:35:13]

SIDNER: At this hour, President Biden is in Ireland. He's at the beginning of a three-day visit to his ancestral homeland. Before landing in Dublin, the president had a full day of activities in Northern Ireland. While there, Biden had bilateral talks with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Afterwards, he gave a speech to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which mostly ended sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, which killed thousands.

Upon arriving in Dublin, the president met with first responders and schoolchildren with whom he shared some anecdotes about his past and talked about his Irish roots. His first extended stop in County Louth on Ireland's northeastern coast. The county was home to his maternal ancestors.

Then he'll visit a cemetery where some of his family members are buried. He will also tour, yes, a castle before taking part in a community gathering in the town of Dundalk. He then heads back to Dublin where he will spend the rest of the evening, John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It sounds like a fun day, right?

SIDNER: It does.

BERMAN: All right, with us now is journalist Lynne Kelleher. She is the author of The Green and White House: Ireland and the U.S. Presidents. You can see the book positioned artfully above her shoulder right now. Lynne, so great to see you. Look, President Biden, you've heard some people tout him as the most Irish U.S. president but surely that would have to be John F. Kennedy, right with what like eight grandparents from Ireland -- great-grandparents?

LYNNE KELLEHER, IRISH JOURNALIST: Eight great-grandparents, yes. He -- so, he probably is the most Irish. His eight great-grandparents are from Limerick, Wexford, and Cork. But that Joe Biden would have -- would be five-eighths Irish. So, he -- completely on his maternal side, he's Irish with the Blewitts and the Finnegans and the Kearneys. And then there's a Hanafee relation in Galway as well. And then as he alluded to, actually, in his speech this morning, and he has -- he has that English line switch and he thought one of them was French, but he's since found out it was -- it was English.

BERMAN: I was reading from the National Museum of Ireland's website this morning. It said six million people emigrated or have to the U.S. from Ireland since 1820. And a full 43 million Americans claim Ireland as their ancestral home. Does that explain sort of the love affair that goes on here? KELLEHER: Yes, I think so. I mean, it -- in the research for the book, you know, in terms of presidents, there's 23 of the 46. So, exactly half would have relations in Ireland. Now, of his closest parents and grandparents, and then you get the great-great-great-great -- you know, the five times out.

I think the reason as well that there's such a strong connection is that a lot of them left around the time of the famine or afterwards and it was kind of a forced migration. So, there was this very strong attachment back to the -- to the homelands, which maybe wouldn't be as much in other countries when the migration -- you know that there was a lot of loss associated with it. And there certainly seems to be a kind of a paternal attitude back towards Ireland, you know. You see it in some of the diplomatic papers you know, in the 70s and 80s, from British diplomats, which I looked at.

And then it was kind of an irritated tone of voice that the U.S. politicians were so invested in Irish affairs. But one of the diplomats had said, you know, that the U.S. is a nation of immigrants. And you know, the -- whether it be the Greeks or the Irish, they'll keep an eye on affairs back in that what they see as the homeland.

And it just so happens, as you say, there's so many millions and millions of Irish that -- they also went hugely into politics because I suppose they didn't have the vote here. And they literally landed off the votes in America. They were signed off by the Democratic Party. And you know, that -- there was this huge political machine, you know.

[11:40:04]

That -- there was -- there was the -- that's where they -- that's where they wanted to be. They want to be in the power. They wanted to be in the police service. So, that's why you see all these very prominent Irish-American politicians like Ted Kennedy and Tip O'Neill and you know, Nancy Pelosi knows -- nowadays, even beyond the presidents.

BERMAN: 23 out of 46 U.S. presidents is just an astounding number. We only have about 20 seconds left. It's not just Democrats do, Reagan and Nixon, both got in the game here.

KELLEHER: They did. And Reagan was quite close. He was a great- grandfather. And he didn't realize -- sometimes there's -- you know, nowadays, it's much easier, you'll have these DNA sites and you can just show in your DNA and that everything will pop up. But back then, the records were a bit more sketchy and they weren't online.

So, I think there was a bit of a mix-up at Reagan because his ancestor emigrated from Ballyporeen (INAUDIBLE) but then went to the UK and got a vote from the UK. So, there was a bit of a mixed up that he thought he was English. But he found out two months before he was due to be elected, he was told by a U.S. ambassador, Sean Donlon, that he was -- he had Irish roots. And he actually didn't want to cash in on them or --

BERMAN: Yes.

KELLEHER: -- you know, look as if you've taken advantage of them. But he said, as soon as he got into office, he was going to celebrate his Irish roots. And he did, very much so and you know went onto the embassy on St. Patrick's Day and then came over for that famous visit in 1984 to Ballyporeen.

BERMAN: Yes. If you've got it, flaunt it, as they say. You know, thank you so much, Lynne Kelleher, for being with us and explaining this rich history in this fruitful connection. Thank you. Kate?

BOLDUAN: So, it has been one major question about the coronation of King Charles, what about Prince Harry and Meghan? Well, we just learned who is and who is not going to be attending the big event. That is next.

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[11:45:39]

SIDNER: All right. For those of you who follow the Royals, we just learned that Prince Harry will attend his father's coronation next month, but his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, will not join him. CNN's Max Foster is joining us now on the phone. Hello, me, Doc. Why is Prince Harry attending alone?

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR & ROYAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Well, it's interesting, isn't it? We know that Meghan and Harry were invited. It's not clear whether or not Lilibet and Archie were also invited, their children. And it is Archie's birthday on the same day as the coronation, so it could be that Megan wants to stay back to be with Archie on his birthday. And it could be that there's still a huge amount of tension between Meghan and the rest of the family and she doesn't want to come for that reason. But having pointed out to me that it is Archie's birthday. So I'm sure that it does play into the decision of it as well.

The other question we're wondering as well about is whether or not Harry will appear on the balcony after the coronation. And the palace says they aren't commenting on that at this point. That I think that that's just a debate about how big the family group will be on the balcony after coronation. It was a big group and Harry will be included. But if it's just working walls, he won't be.

SIDNER: There was one thing that's guaranteed that people will speculate for eternity as to what happened here. We may actually hear from Harry and his wife. I do want to ask you, who are some of the other notable names that will be at this coronation, something we haven't seen in many, many, many decades, King?

FOSTER: Yes. And it's very, very tight numbers. I know that there's some frustration in the government, for example, that only the Prime Minister is able to bring a plus-one and other ministers won't be able to bring plus-ones. It's that tight. I was in Poland with Prince William recently, and we were told the president of Poland would be attending. So, we know that allies of key nations have all been invited and they can send representatives and in the case of the United States, of course, Jill Biden will be coming rather than President Biden. But they're allowing each guest to announce whether or not they've been invited. We're not getting a full list from the palace.

SIDNER: Max Foster, there for us on the phone. And, John, Max is telling me that your invitation might be in the mail.

BERMAN: I wonder, you know, as they say about King Charles. It's his coronation. He can cry if he wants to, right?

A new drastic and controversial plan to save water for tens of millions of people out west. This could lead to major, major changes, and soon.

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[11:52:50]

BOLDUAN: The Colorado River crisis has been years in the making, of course. Consistent drought has pushed this key water source just to the brink. But now, a new analysis shows that even with the record- breaking snow and rain levels that we've seen this winter out west, the crisis is not over, and then paint -- it's painting a pretty grim picture of what a collapse of the river system could mean for many cities.

CNN's Lucy Kafanov is looking at this and the analysis and what this all means from Colorado for us right at the river. Lucy, what are you learning?

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): That's right, Kate. Look, the Colorado River literally powers the American West that quenches the thirst of some 40 million people. It waters farms that provide most of the nation's winter greens. And also provides hydroelectric power.

And even though, as you pointed out, we have seen record snow. You can even see some of the snow still on the banks of the water body behind me, it's not enough to stop the Colorado River crisis, which is why the federal government came up with this report, which sort of portrays three unpleasant options that the federal government may have to decide between if states don't come together and voluntarily make cuts.

So, option one. It prioritizes the needs of thirsty farming regions in California at the expense of cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas, which get 90 percent of its water from the Colorado River as well as Los Angeles. Remember that farming regions in California, as well as native tribes, are a higher priority use. So, they are able to use more water if they want to.

The other option spreads the pain evenly all around, which means everyone is going to have to make those painful cuts. That's probably going to get mired in lawsuits. And option number three is literally to do nothing. That's not sustainable. No one's actually taking that option seriously because the water levels are continuing to lower, to alarmingly low levels.

Now, we spoke to some residents in -- we spoke to some residents in Colorado -- pardon me in Arizona who have already lost access to drinking water as well as farmers who have had to follow their land because of the drought. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAREN NABITY, RIO VERDE FOOTHILLS RESIDENT: I think everybody thinks the government or somebody's going to take care of it. And unfortunately, I think that's what most of the U.S. is thinking. And they need to wake up. And people need to start conserving water now before it's too late.

WILL THELANDER, FARMER: No one can produce it like the Colorado River can for food. It's just nowhere on Earth is it done like that. So, yes, I'm really worried. 50 years down the road unless we come up with solutions, farming won't be here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[11:55:28]

KAFANOV: For them, the drought is already a reality. And that's in store for the rest of us if we don't figure out how to use less of this water, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Lucy, thank you so much. I mean, it's kind of remarkable that it's wild, though unsurprising that it's actually gotten to this point. So much -- so much more to see on this.

SIDNER: The West people are so afraid. Fourth largest economy -- it's becoming the fourth largest economy in California alone, so.

BOLDUAN: Thank you all so much for joining us. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL. "INSIDE POLITICS" is up next.

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