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Secretary Of State Blinken To Visit China This Weekend; Olympic Medalist Tori Bowie Dies In Childbirth; "Final" Beatles Song Will Use A.I. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired June 14, 2023 - 14:30   ET

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

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[14:31:55]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: New today, Secretary of State Tony Blinken has spoken with China's foreign minister and now an in-person meeting is set.

The top U.S. diplomat will be traveling to Beijing this weekend in the hopes of tamping down a recent spike in tensions between the two countries.

The trip was originally scheduled for this past February but it was rescheduled because of that Chinese spy balloon incident.

And that's just one of the close encounters that has ratcheted up the friction here. In May, the Pentagon says a Chinese jet -- you see it here in this video -- made a, quote, "unnecessarily aggressive maneuver" of a U.S. spy plane over the South China Sea.

Earlier this month, two warships nearly collided in the Taiwan Strait. Pretty amazing. All of this captured on camera.

We have CNN's senior national security correspondent, Alex Marquardt, joining us now.

Too many things going on. I'm pointing all over the place here.

Alex, you are right there, though, so thank you for being with us.

How important is this trip now that it's finally happening?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: It's extremely important because of all that tension that you noted, because of all these recent incidents. Administration officials saying it's absolutely critical to keep these lines of communication open.

We did hear from administration officials earlier today previewing the trip, calling it a crucial series of engagements, in order for the countries to not accidentally, they say, veer into some kind of conflict.

This was a rescheduling, as you noted, of a trip that the U.S. canceled because of that spy balloon. And since then, the tension has only ratcheted up with one incident after the next.

That one in the air over the South China Sea between the ships, in the Taiwan Strait. The military-to-military relationship has -- is one that has really fallen apart. The heads of the militaries, of the defense ministries not speaking to each other for many months.

We know that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin tried to schedule a meeting with his Chinese counterpart at a recent summit in Singapore. The Chinese turned that down. All Secretary Austin got was a handshake.

There's been a flurry of recent reporting about Chinese spying on the United States from Cuba. So now we have Secretary Blinken going over there to Beijing.

In a call between him and his counterpart just yesterday, however, we really got a sense of the tone. His counterpart, the foreign minister, saying that the U.S. needs to stop interfering in internal affairs.

So there are a couple of major subjects of course that Blinken and the Chinese officials will be really going after. Taiwan, huge one. The Chinese support for Russia in the war in Ukraine, another big one because the U.S. would like to see them supporting Russia less.

Of course, there are a number of Americans who have been detained wrongfully, the U.S. says, three of them in Chinese prisons. And then the diplomats will try to encourage that conversation between the militaries as well.

Now, the State Department has been trying to lower expectations, saying in diplo-speak to not expect a long list of deliverables. Essentially, just don't expect a lot of outcomes from this trip. But the priority they say is really to get this communication going again.

[14:35:02]

KEILAR: I suppose it is good news, obviously, that they are talking, especially when you have some of these discussions breaking down in the military channel.

What is the expectation about making some progress on this issue of China spying from Cuba?

MARQUARDT: Probably not much. The fact of the matter is, Brianna, both countries spend an extraordinary amount of time, of focus, of money trying to spy on each other in all kinds of different ways, from satellites, from planes, human -- what they call human -- so human spies if they possibly can.

So this is really a spy versus spy. I mean, we have U.S. ships and planes off the coast of China all the time. That's what China is really getting so angry about. We do know that the Chinese have been spying on the U.S. from Cuba for years.

The Biden administration initially rejected or said that the reporting that we and others had last week was incorrect, that China is going to be putting a new facility -- wants to put a new facility in Cuba.

But then over the weekend, the administration kind of walked that back, saying, in fact, China has been spying on the U.S. for years from Cuba, but it was an issue that they inherited, they said.

It certainly appeared that the administration was not trying to build this up into a major issue before this visit by the secretary of state.

KEILAR: Really interesting.

Alex Marquardt, we will be keeping an eye on this with us. Thank you.

Boris?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Still to come on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, an Olympic gold medalist dies from complications of childbirth. We will break down what eclampsia as the maternal death rate rises in American and what expecting moms should look out for.

And new today, the Southern Baptist Church Convention just voted to expel two of its churches for allowing female pastors. We have details on that, just moments away.

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[14:41:14]

SANCHEZ: Now to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour.

America's largest protestant denomination is kicking out two of its churches for allowing female pastors to lead that congregation.

The Southern Baptist Convention voted to approval that just a few hours ago, saying their use of female pastors goes against the convention's, quote, "interpretation of Biblical scripture."

Also, major progress taking place in Philadelphia. Governor Josh Shapiro says the demolition of the collapsed portion of Interstate 95 will be finished tomorrow.

This is going to allow travelers to drive over parts of both the north and southbound lanes. All officials want to build a permanent bridge. The secretary said the bridge was structurally sound Sunday morning before a fiery crash led to the collapse.

And a California school superintendent is now fired, according to CNN affiliate, KABC, following outrage from teachers and parents over the school board's decision to block a Social Studies lesson that mentions gay rights leader, Harvey Milk.

Board officials voted against the curriculum claiming sexually inappropriate content. The board's president even making a controversial claim calling Harvey Milk a, quote, "pedophile."

Brianna? KEILAR: An Olympic medalist, a world champion sprinter, Tori Bowie,

was a force of nature on the track field. But at the age of 32 and while eight months pregnant, she went into childbirth at home and died alone.

Bowie's death was ruled natural. And the report stated there had been possible complications, including respiratory distress and eclampsia.

Sadly, her story is not unique. A 2022 study found women in the U.S. face the highest rates of preventable maternal mortality when compared with women in 10 other wealthy nations, 198 deaths per 100,000 patients.

That same study found that it's much worse for black women in America. Their maternal death rates are nearly three times as high as those of white women.

Joining us with more on this, we have Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz, who is an OB/GYN in Los Angeles.

Doctor, thank you so much for joining us.

I do want to start with pre-eclampsia. And I want to add because I know people will be curious that the baby did not survive as well in this. This is a tragic story when we are talking about this woman and this athlete.

Can you explain why this condition is so dangerous to the mother and clearly here the child as well?

DR. SUZANNE GILBERG-LENZ, OB-GYN: Well, I mean, anything that's going to be dangerous to the mother is going to be dangerous to a fetus.

KEILAR: Yes.

GILBERG-LENZ: I mean, that is where the fetus is residing. So that goes without saying.

And it sort of highlights yet again why we need to be centering women's health and reproductive care of all kinds during this time.

Preeclampsia is one of the more common complications we see in pregnancy and one of the reasons that we see our patients toward the end of pregnancies more frequently.

That's why we start seeing people every week, because blood pressure is the main issue here.

We don't understand completely but it has something to do with the way the placenta has implanted and the way our blood vessels are functioning during the pregnancy.

We make a lot of changes to the volume of blood in our body for obvious reasons and the blood pressure itself needs to maintain itself to a certain extent to be getting blood profusion to all of the organs of mom, brain, heart, all the organs, and to the fetus. We get some instability and we can start having very severe problems

with the blood pressure rising to a degree that becomes dangerous. It can, if untreated, result in things like pulmonary edema, blood leaking and fluid leaking into the lungs so that you cannot breathe.

[14:45:00]

And that is also related to something called eclampsia, which causes seizures and can cause death in people who are untreated.

So it is shocking, horrific, tragic that, in this day and age, anybody would get that sick and not be getting care.

We don't know the details. I don't know what happened. But, I mean, to remove the context, as you already have provided of the insane disparity in maternal outcomes in this country would be wrong.

Because it's impossible for me to understand that they're not related, that her being black is not related to this. It's concerning.

KEILAR: Speak to that. Speak to that about preeclampsia, why we're seeing the racial disparities there. And why we are, overall -- the other factors that are contributing to the racial disparities in these maternal mortality rates.

GILBERG-LENZ: Well, there's two -- there's the science, OK? There's the science, right? So we know -- first of all, like I said, preeclampsia about 5 percent to 8 percent of pregnancies can result in preeclampsia and we know very well how to treat that.

When people are getting proper care and they have access to care and they are taken seriously, they shouldn't get eclampsia. They should get preeclampsia and be delivered basically, OK? So there is the science.

We do know that black women have 60 percent higher rates of preeclampsia, but, again, this is treatable. This should be treatable.

So what is the issue? This is a great question. And we are struggling with this question and we are struggling more importantly with solutions.

But if you look at the data on just how the disparities that black people and black women specifically are subjected to, even in emergency room care, it takes longer for them to get seen.

They have fewer rates of admission from the emergency room. Their complaints of pain are not taken as seriously.

And consequently, a normal human reaction would be, well, I'm not taken seriously, I'm not going to go get care.

There are so many levels of problem here. I wish I had the solution. I don't have the solution.

I will say that having doctors that look like their patients is super important. We do not have enough people of color. We do not have enough black doctors. And that makes a difference.

We know outcomes are different when we look like our doctors. This happens with women across the board also, by the way.

I'm not here to disparage white male doctors. I have partners that are wonderful humans and doctors that are white men.

However, we know that data shows us, demonstrates -- and I do have to say as a white female physician, if we don't take personal accountability, if every person who is a health care provider doesn't take accountability and say, what is my unconscious bias here?

Let me overdo it. Let me over-attend to my patients that I know have worse outcomes. And let me look at what I can be doing differently. This is not going to get better.

The organizations are trying to address it. But my experience in medicine over 26 years has been that the gross-roots demands are always what makes us change.

I'm so personally and professionally upset about this. So I can spit the science at you and tell you my philosophy and my experience. It's converging in the most horrific of ways in this loss.

Two human beings. Terrible.

KEILAR: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: It really is. And it's getting a lot of attention. And these are very important issues that we are discussing and that need to be addressed.

Doctor Gilberg-Lenz, thank you for your time today. We do appreciate it.

GILBERG-LENZ: Thanks for having me.

KEILAR: Boris?

[14:48:46]

SANCHEZ: They couldn't just let it be. Decades after the deaths of John Lennon and George Harrison, Paul McCartney says there is a new Beatles song on the way. Details on how they were able to resurrect those voices when we come back.

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[14:53:26]

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(SINGING)

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SANCHEZ: The Beatles are back. Paul McCartney says there's a new Beatles song coming out this year and it gets by with a little help from A.I.

McCartney told the BBC the records is being made from a John Lennon demo track. And they used artificial intelligence to create the voices of deceased Beatles, John Lennon and George Harrison.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL MCCARTNEY, SINGER/SONGWRITER & FORMER BEATLES MEMBER: We were able to take John's voice and get it pure through this A.I. So then we could mix the record as you would normally do. You know, if gives you -- it gives you some sort of leeway.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: McCartney went on to say that A.I. has a good side but also a scary side.

We want to bring in Jem Aswad, the executive music editor at "Variety."

So, Jem, what do you make of the news that there's a new Beatles song on the way helped along by A.I.?

JEM ASWAD, EXECUTIVE MUSIC EDITOR, "VARIETY": The way it got reported is a little overblown. It's not like they cloned John Lennon or anything like that. They just took his vocal track on the demo, cleaned it up and mixed it into a more professional recording.

Whether or not this is a Beatles song -- this is a demo recorded in the late '70s, long after the Beatles broke up. It's probably more in line with the one they did in the mid '90s with Jeff Lynn for their Anthology series. They cleaned up two songs in a similar way.

[14:55:01]

SANCHEZ: So, Jem, when you say cleaned up, how well do you think his voice is going to sound? Could it pass for a Beatles song that was recorded before his death?

ASWAD: Probably to the extent that the ones on the Anthology series were. One was called "Real Love," and the other was called "Free as a Bird." They were OK, quite honestly. You know, not classic Beatles stuff.

Apparently, the process is the same one or similar one to the one they used in the "Get Back" film where voices that were muddled together or obscured by noises or stuff like that, they were able to extract basically in terms of audio and isolate them so you can hear them.

So it's probably just a muffled demo recording that they've improved quite a bit.

As for the song, none of us know, except for Paul himself and whoever else is involved.

SANCHEZ: I've seen some fans online that are extremely enthusiastic about this, and some that are not quite as pumped that they're using A.I. to do this.

As you said, it's not making up John Lennon's voice. It's cleaning it up. Nonetheless, how do you feel about them sort of resurrecting his vocals?

ASWAD: I mean, it can be a great thing. Hearing some of the things that were said in the "Get Back" film was absolutely fascinating.

There are a lot of recordings, bad bootleg recordings, audience recordings from over the years that presumably could benefit from this a whole lot. It's -- it doesn't sound real, I suppose, in a certain sense.

How much do we really care about that? So many recordings now are drastically treated and don't sound real already.

So I mean, it does feel a bit like messing with sort of sacred territory, a sort of false reconstruction of something. But I'll take it over nothing. That's cool.

SANCHEZ: I'm with you on that. There is something a bit eerie about listening to a person who has been dead for so many years.

Jem Aswad, thank you so much for your time.

ASWAD: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Of course. Appreciate it.

Brianna?

KEILAR: Former President Donald Trump will continue to travel and work with his co-defendant, Walt Nauta, even after a federal judge ordered them not to talk about the classified documents case. We'll have details on that and the Trump team strategy, next.

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