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Trump Doesn't Sign COVID Relief Bill; Georgia's GOP Candidates in Tough Spot over Stimulus; Some Nations Start Vaccinations before E.U. Rollout; Japan Implements Travel Ban; Investigators Say Nashville Blast Likely a Suicide Bombing; California Medical Professionals Working to Exhaustion; Black Doctor Dies after Alleging Racist Treatment; German Ex-Royals Sue Government to Reclaim Riches. Aired 4- 5a ET

Aired December 27, 2020 - 04:00   ET

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

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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN HOST (voice-over): Donald Trump refuses to sign the coronavirus stimulus package and millions of Americans are about to feel the pain.

New developments in the Christmas Day bombing in Nashville and the theory now driving the investigation.

Plus a CNN exclusive: the direct heir to Germany's last kaiser speaks only to CNN about regaining seized treasures.

Live from CNN World Headquarters, to all of you watching in the United States, Canada and around the world, I'm Kim Brunhuber, this is CNN NEWSROOM.

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BRUNHUBER: Jobless benefits that 12 million Americans have come to rely on are now expiring, thanks to President Trump. The president has allowed the protections to lapse. He's rejecting the bill his own team helped to craft.

And among those urging President Trump to reverse course is the man who is weeks away from replacing him, President-Elect Joe Biden.

Funding to keep the government running is also tied up in the bill. To avert a shutdown, it needs to be signed by Monday. In less than a week, the nationwide moratorium on renter evictions ends. But the president continues his holiday vacation in Florida. Jeremy Diamond is traveling with the president.

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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Trump on Saturday, only digging his heels in further on the objections to the coronavirus relief bill. The president insisting once again, on Saturday, he wants to see those stimulus checks to Americans tripled from $600 to $2,000.

Tweeting, "I simply want to get our great people $2,000 rather than the measly $600 that is now in the bill. Also, stop the billions of dollars in pork."

President Trump is saying here, all he wants is to increase these stimulus checks but if that was really the goal, the president might have spoken up before the legislation was passed.

Remember, the president only called the bill a disgrace and suggested he may not sign it or, perhaps, veto it, after Congress passed this legislation by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, a veto proof majority at that.

President Trump in the four days since he made that threat, hasn't been on the phone with congressional leadership. He's hasn't been meeting with advisors to find a way to salvage this relief.

Instead, we see the president at his Mar-a-lago resort, palling around with his friends, going out golfing as he did on Thursday and Friday. The president is doing this at a time when not only are key deadlines are coming up for hi to sign this legislation but also when millions of Americans are in need of that financial relief.

More than 20 million Americans currently unemployed and 12 million Americans losing their benefits this weekend if the president doesn't immediately sign this legislation.

The unemployment benefits, supplemental, provided by the federal government during this coronavirus pandemic. There are other key dates, also looming on Tuesday. The government will shut down amid a global pandemic, if the president doesn't sign this legislation into law.

Then, at the end of the, month in the year, on December 31st, the eviction moratoriums also expires. So critically needed relief here for Americans, who are struggling right now.

And the president could just sign this piece of legislation and that relief would quickly get dispersed. There is also concerns of vaccine distribution, with lots of vaccine distribution funding in this legislation as well.

That was one of the messages we heard from President-Elect Joe Biden on Saturday, warning that if the president doesn't sign this legislation, not only would he be hurting small businesses and American families but also, potentially, these very complex plans to distribute a coronavirus vaccine -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, traveling with the president, West Palm Beach, Florida.

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BRUNHUBER: Let's take a closer look at this warning from President- Elect Joe Biden. He didn't mince words, urging President Trump to sign the relief bill. Jessica Dean has the details.

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JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President-Elect Joe Biden has spent his holiday weekend in Wilmington, Delaware, attending mass on Saturday afternoon.

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DEAN (voice-over): He also put out a statement on Saturday, imploring President Trump to sign the COVID relief bill, calling it an abdication of responsibility that could have dire consequences for millions of Americans.

Part of his statement read, quote, "It is the day after Christmas and millions of families don't know if they will be able to make ends meet because of President Donald Trump's refusal to sign an economic relief bill, approved by Congress, with an overwhelming and bipartisan majority."

Biden has called this COVID-19 relief bill a down payment and plans on going back to Congress and asking for an even bigger package when he assumes office on January 20th. He wants more unemployment benefits, direct payments to individuals, also payments to state and local governments, giving them some aid.

Again, calling this a down payment and asking the president to sign it as soon as possible. On Sunday, we are told President-Elect Biden will be meeting with his transition advisers -- Jessica Dean, CNN, Wilmington, Delaware.

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BRUNHUBER: Natasha Lindstaedt is a professor of government at the University of Essex. She joins us now from Colchester, England, to talk about all these issues.

Thank you so much for being here. So the easy way, of course, is for the president to just sign this.

The hard way, let's say, is there a chance the president can move enough Republicans to increase the check to $2,000?

Democrats are on board.

NATASHA LINDSTAEDT, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: That's what the House Democrats had tried to do, which the Republicans in the House have rejected, to get the package up to $2,000 per person.

But the Republicans have rejected this, so this is why this is somewhat confusing. I don't understand what Trump's endgame is here, because he's definitely hurting the Republicans, because even his own spokesperson has said that they're going to be providing this, relief.

The secretary of treasury Stephen Mnuchin said this as well, this type of aid would be coming later in the week. Now he's thrown everything into disarray for the Republicans.

But it's not just the Republicans who are affected. It's very much something that hurts all Americans. And as you indicated, there are millions of Americans who were affected by this decision to not support this aid package.

So there is a possibility that the House will vote on this again. And they can get it up to $2,000 as Trump was hoping. But the other indication is that it was not just $2,000 that was needed but also that some of the aid was going to foreign aid and to "pork" as the report indicated. And these are some of the things that he had disagreed with.

BRUNHUBER: All of those things were things that his aides had negotiated with congressional Republicans and Democrats. So the fact that President Trump is only making these demands now, after the bill was passed and Congress left town, what does that suggest about where the president's attention was during the time his aides were working with Congress to craft this?

LINDSTAEDT: That's a great question I think this demonstrates that he is still focused on the fact that he has lost the election and he is trying to just get into some sort of scorched Earth policy. It's really difficult to understand his mindset.

But he is trying to destroy any kind of potential aid package by just not doing anything, you are right. The Republicans and the Democrats had finally come to agreement on something. All he needed to do was just sign it. This was a win-win situation.

But he is distracted. Maybe he is focused on other things, on trying to project this narrative that everything in Congress is corrupt and that the elections were corrupt. Maybe he doesn't want to take any part of it.

I think it's actually very detrimental to his own party, as I mentioned before. This will not help Republicans. And with the really important Senate race coming up in Georgia in January, I don't see how this is going to help those senators that are trying to beat a very close race the two Democratic challengers.

BRUNHUBER: Let's delve into that then. We have both of the Republican senators here, Perdue and Loeffler voted for the bill. Perdue had ads running yesterday that he delivered these billions of dollars in COVID relief, which, of course, hasn't happened yet.

Yesterday, Loeffler said she would be open to the idea of bigger checks but other things would have to be cut.

So now where does that leave them?

Will there be a cost to them in these races do you think?

LINDSTAEDT: That's the big question. Whether or not voters in Georgia will punish Loeffler and Perdue because of Trump.

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LINDSTAEDT: Because they are Republicans or whether or not they're just going to vote with their party or with the candidate they feel is best able to serve in the Senate. It's really difficult to tell.

Now in the big election in 2020, we saw that Republicans actually did better than Trump, even though Trump did win 74 million votes. The question that Republicans have to ask themselves is how much of a help Trump is to their party.

We're seeing rumblings of, should Republicans, who disagree with Trump, those who were part of The Lincoln Project, should there be a break away from Trumpism?

Which I find to be incredibly dangerous, because Trump is so unpredictable and self-centered. You just don't know what is going to do from one moment to the next.

So on paper, you have these aides saying we're going to agree this, we're going to support this thing, he does a 180 and he changes his mind. This is really damaging to Republicans.

As I already mentioned, in this Georgia Senate race, because they had come out and supported it, now they're really put into a corner as to what they're supposed to do.

Are they supposed to support Trump, is that going to alienate the pro Trump people in Georgia, or are they supposed to disagree with this?

So it makes it very difficult for the senators in the Georgia race.

BRUNHUBER: Very small tightrope to walk there. Natasha Lindstaedt, thank you so much for being on with us. Appreciate it.

LINDSTAEDT: Thanks for having me.

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BRUNHUBER: The Christmas morning explosion in downtown Nashville appears to be a lone suicide bomber.

Earlier photos showed a white recreational vehicle at that address that may have been the same one used. At least three people were hurt. Dozens of nearby businesses were badly damaged and digital communications in the region were disrupted for a time.

For the latest, here's CNN's Shimon Prokupecz.

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SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE PRODUCER: Authorities here in Nashville, continuing to try to figure out the motive behind the Christmas morning attack. One belief from authorities is that this was a suicide bombing.

But they don't know what led up to the events. They are exploring every theory at this moment, every motive, as they work back and identify the person and also trying to find out the motive.

What caused this person to come here and cause such a massive explosion?

For the last 48 hours, authorities have been going through every piece of evidence, collecting debris from a lot of the destruction. Authorities say some 40 buildings were damaged here. As we know, three people were injured.

But for now, for people here in Nashville, the one thing authorities say is that they should feel safe. Police are not looking for anyone in connection with this bombing and, at this point, they are just trying to get the streets reopened and, hopefully, continue to work this investigation to try and learn a motive -- Shimon Prokupecz, CNN, Nashville, Tennessee.

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BRUNHUBER: As Shimon said, investigators are still searching for a motive. I spoke about that with CNN law enforcement contributor Steve Moore.

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STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: We are going to have to, again, dig in. As we talked yesterday, when someone is crazy enough to blow themselves up with a bomb of that size in a populated area of a city, then they are going to be just as unpredictable and crazy about the reasons for doing it, for doing it there, in fact.

You may find something as trivial as a cell phone disruption or a dispute over a cell phone may have caused a problem. I am hypothesizing here, obviously. Maybe one of the restaurants nearby, he was thrown out or has a problem with someone there.

You are going to have to all but write a biography on this guy if you are the case agent to try and find out what possibly motivated the location of the bomb and why he actually did it.

Unfortunately, as we learned in Las Vegas, sometimes, you just never have a concrete reason.

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BRUNHUBER: European nations are starting their vaccination campaigns, some have already started and more get underway today.

And a Black doctor has died from coronavirus after she said hospital staffers ignored her pleas because of the color of her skin.

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BRUNHUBER: Dr. Susan Moore's story is coming up later this hour. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: There have now been more than 80 million coronavirus infections worldwide with 1.7 million deaths and the virus continues to spread. Japan implements a strict travel ban Monday with no foreign nationals allowed into the country after Tokyo officials confirm several cases of the new U.K. variant.

European nations roll out their vaccination programs. Slovakia and Hungary got a head start on Saturday. Campaigns begin Sunday in multiple nations. Italy is among the nations rolling out its vaccination plans. CNN contributor Barbie Nadeau is in Rome now.

I can imagine it is poignant in Italy after the suffering the country went through in the spring.

BARBIE NADEAU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It does bring things full circle here. This was the first epicenter after China. They went through this draconian lockdown in March. [04:20:00]

NADEAU: Here we are again, entire country's a red zone, nobody's allowed to leave their home. These five people, two nurses, two doctors and a researcher will be part of the team that vaccinates others as they roll out the massive program.

They've assumed they can do this by September but it'll be a long road. They've only started with 9,750 doses. But there are expected tonight to get about 450,000 doses this week and then just continue to scale that up. They plan to roll out first to medical operators and then those in nursing homes and then trying to vaccinate every Italian who wants the vaccine.

BRUNHUBER: Thanks so much, CNN contributor Barbie Nadeau in Rome.

To France now, another E.U. nation launching a vaccination campaign today. CNN correspondent Cyril Vanier is in Paris.

The vaccine rolling out there, the government refusing to roll out yet another lockdown.

CYRIL VANIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What will spread faster in France, the vaccine or the virus. For the moment, the virus is winning. The vaccine being about to be administered to a dozen people in a geriatric ward outside of Paris, in an area that was one of the hardest hit by the coronavirus.

It will ramp up gradually, two establishments this week, 2 dozen next week and then be hundreds, if not thousands, so that 1 million people will be vaccinated by the end of February. All the residents of nursing homes and then to people in retirement age and to the wider population the summer of 2021.

For all of this to work, the French government is relying on more vaccines coming online. The Pfizer BioNTech one is hard to roll out because of the cold chain. So the French government expects vaccines such as the AstraZeneca one will come online.

BRUNHUBER: The other problem, even fewer French people are willing to get the vaccine down to 40 percent. So yet another challenge there in France. Thank you, Cyril Vanier in Paris.

Now to Atika Shubert in Spain.

Vaccinations set to begin there just as the U.K. variant was discovered there.

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Just in the last hour, the ministry of health has confirmed the first people have been vaccinated. A 96 year old woman, born in 1924, was the first to be vaccinated.

The second was a nursing care technician at the same nursing home. Very much in line with what we are seeing in Italy and France. The focus is really on the elderly and nursing homes and the front line medical health and sanitation workers. Then the vaccines will roll out to other members of the community.

We expect to see several thousands vaccinated but it should ramp up pretty dramatically. Spain says it will receive 350,000 doses every week and in the next 12 works hopes to get up to more than 4.5 million doses.

The goal is to vaccinate at least 2.2 million people. That is a staggering logistical effort. In the meantime, it is trying to keep track of the U.K. variant. Madrid did detect four cases in Madrid. None of them are severe cases of COVID-19.

However, the government is concerned about suspected cases yet to be confirmed. That's why authorities have to keep a close eye on it.

BRUNHUBER: Thank you so much, Atika Shubert in Valencia.

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BRUNHUBER: To Asia now, where, as we mentioned, Japan is implementing a strict travel ban. Both Japan and South Korea had early successes in combating the coronavirus. Now they're reporting record infections from Monday through the end of January.

Japan is banning foreign nationals from entering the country. CNN's Selina Wang has more from Tokyo.

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SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has urged Japan to have a silent and social distant New Year's holiday. Japan is reporting more than 3,000 new coronavirus cases for three days in a row and recently confirmed its first cases of the new variant, potential more contagious, that came from five people from the U.K. Japan has now restricted travel from the U.K. Hospitals are under

strain and it's clear that the outbreak is gaining momentum.

It took Japan over 9 months to reach 100,000 infections. But in less than two months, the number has doubled to over 200,000. The country has refrained from declaring a state of emergency, although the prime minister has temporarily suspended the domestic travel program.

In South Korea, cases continue to linger around 1,000 cases a day. Once considered a model nation for how countries should combat COVID- 19, South Korea is now considering a potential state of emergency.

South Korea has already banned large group gatherings as well as ordering tourist attractions to shut down. Previous waves of infection were easier to track because they came from larger clusters such as churches and nightclubs but new infections are coming from places that are harder to trace.

New infections in Japan and South Korea pale in comparison to the massive infections in much of Europe and United States. But what this new wave in Asia does show is just how hard it is to combat this virus during the holiday season when the cold weather is driving people indoors and the world is dealing with COVID-19 fatigue -- Selina Wang, CNN, Tokyo.

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BRUNHUBER: Israel faces another lockdown beginning on Sunday. Most schools will remain open and people can move about freely but only within a kilometer of their home. This is the third lockdown and will last two weeks.

Even as two vaccines are rolling out in the U.S., coronavirus cases are soaring during the holidays. Ahead, we'll find out how December has become the deadliest month so far.

And ahead, German's former royals want their fortune back. One problem: a troubling link to the Nazis. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM.

Investigators now suspect the blast that ripped through historic downtown Nashville on Christmas morning was set by a suicide bomber. Government agents spent much of Saturday searching a house for possible evidence. CNN's Natasha Chen has the latest information.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Federal investigators have been at this property for most of Saturday and left in the early evening after hours of work. The FBI tell us that this was court authorized activity.

First, we saw a bomb technician team come and clear the property, making sure it was safety enter. Then, we saw an evidence team come in and spend hours going in and out of the house. This fence line behind, me surrounding a yard and we did see them go into the yard at a side door.

What we understand they were meticulously going through documenting and photographing, things inside of the house and we did see them take out bags of evidence. Neighbors were very perplexed to see this all going on.

They did tell me that they have seen an RV parked at this property. When we showed them images from Google Street View of this property in years past, where an RV was parked there, they did recognize that one. One neighbor said they saw it here over the summer.

Another neighbor saying, it has been parked here as recently as the last few weeks. The marking of that RV, similar to the one that was involved in the explosion downtown. A law enforcement source tells us, however, they can't be entirely sure because, of course, the one in the explosion was destroyed in the blast -- Natasha Chen, CNN, Antioch, Tennessee.

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DR. SEEMA YASMIN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Modelers looking at what could happen over Christmas are telling us that January could be even more grim. Some are saying by the end of January 2021, we could be seeing upwards of 400,000 new cases a day and in some worst-case models, maybe even 1 million infections every single day.

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BRUNHUBER: Health experts in the U.S. are bracing for yet another surge in coronavirus cases similar to the spikes after other holidays. That's the last thing the country needs right now.

COVID-19 has claimed the lives of one out of every 1,000 Americans. With four days left in December, the month is the deadliest in the U.S. since the pandemic began. More than 63,000 people have died this month, bringing the total number of lives lost in the nation to nearly 332,000.

The vaccines are gradually getting into the arms of Americans. About 2 million doses have been administered across the country.

But in California, health care workers have been pushed to the brink. CNN's Paul Vercammen is at a testing site, where workers are battling not only the virus but stress and loss as well.

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PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The war against COVID-19 in California, being waged on two fronts. One in the hospital, with almost 19,000 people hospitalized, 4,000 of those patients, in intensive care units.

That means staffing ramped up, doctors and nurses being called in on their days off, working longer shifts and, literally, expanding the intensive care units, as well as the emergency rooms to accommodate the flood of COVID-19 patients.

Look behind, me testing, extremely important. They tell me here, you can talk all you want about vaccines but you have to keep testing. A daughters dating it had days (ph) where they have tested 11,000 people.

Unsung heroes of the pandemic, the people conducting the testing, on their feet, for lengthy hours, speaking to people in cars who may not have talked to someone for months, crawling those children sometimes, who break out in tears and, of course, comforting each other.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not just about that one person, but it's families that are struggling and mourning and the pain it brings. We definitely have known people who have passed from this pandemic and it's heartbreaking.

We had a coworker who just lost her grandmother last week. A day to mourn and then, right back to work. We have a big task in front of us and we know we just got to keep on going strong right now.

VERCAMMEN: Daniel Lu (ph) and many of his coworkers, also fan out and go to other parts of Los Angeles County, underserved parts, where people may not be getting tested regularly like they should. Sometimes, it's as simple as they don't have transportation to get to a testing site -- reporting from Dodger Stadium, I'm Paul Vercammen, now back to you.

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BRUNHUBER: When Dr. Susan Moore contracted the coronavirus, her family said the hospital staff dismissed her complaints because she was Black. Coming up next, why experts say Dr. Moore's death speaks to a broader issue of implicit racial bias in health care.

Plus a legal battle royale, a descendant of Germany's last kaiser is suing the government to reclaim family riches seized after World War II. An exclusive CNN interview is ahead Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: An African American doctor in Indiana died from coronavirus weeks after accusing hospital staff of racist treatment. Dr. Susan Moore said hospital staff ignored her complaints of pain, difficulty breathing and requests for medication because she was Black, even though she was both a patient and a doctor herself.

Dr. Moore recorded this message from her hospital bed before her death last week, explaining that her doctor brushed off her concerns, claiming she wasn't even short of breath.

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DR. SUSAN MOORE, COVID-19 VICTIM: I put forward and I maintain, if I was white, I wouldn't have to go through that. I was in so much pain from my neck. My neck hurt so bad. I was crushed. They made me feel like I was a drug addict. And they knew I was a physician.

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BRUNHUBER: Dr. Moore leaves her elderly parents and her 19-year-old son, Henry Muhammed, who told "The New York Times," quote, "Nearly every time she went to the hospital, she had to advocate for herself, fight for something in some way, shape or form, just to get baseline, proper care."

In a statement, the president of the hospital called for an external review of the case. He defended the technical aspects of the treatment were received but conceded, quote, "that we may not have shown the level of compassion and respect we strive for in understanding what matters most to patients."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: Joining me now is Dr. Brittany James, family medicine physician in Chicago and cofounder of the Institute for Anti-Racism in Medicine.

Thank you so much for joining us, Doctor. Before we get to the case of Dr. Moore, I want to put this in the context of what you see every day as a practitioner. You're a family physician on Chicago's South Side.

And you've written that, "Modern medicine, if unchallenged, will let Black people die. In fact it is perfectly designed to do so."

What did you mean by that?

DR. BRITTANY JAMES, FAMILY MEDICINE PHYSICIAN: When we talk about racism in medicine, it's easy to think about it as something historical, something that's not going on right now.

But as somebody who is trained in the medical system, who practices in it professionally and also a Black woman who has been a patient many times, I believe and many of us believe that racism is alive and well. And there is many ways we see that today.

BRUNHUBER: But the word "designed" implies more than just neglect or casual racism.

So what do you mean by that specifically?

JAMES: So we have to understand, since early days, medicine was segregated and not designed to benefit everyone equally. The reality is, medicine has a long history of racial segregation and with preferential treatment toward white Americans over Black and Brown Americans.

We have two different systems, really. One is geared toward straight white males and everyone else, women, children, and especially Black and Brown people were an afterthought in giving the quality of care that is given to white Americans. And we have to reckon with that.

BRUNHUBER: Some people are using the case of Dr. Moore, the doctor who complained she wasn't given medicine for her pain or drugs that might have helped save her life.

She said that treatment was because she was Black before she passed.

What was your reaction when you heard her story?

JAMES: My reaction was just devastation. She is -- we have so many similarities, both obviously Black women physicians. We trained at the same medical school, University of Michigan Medical School.

To know, even having an MD and these sort of credentials and privileges that come with the class of being a physician, even that wasn't enough to protect her from racism in the system. That's really jarring.

BRUNHUBER: Studies have shown Black patients, their pain isn't given the same attention as white patients.

JAMES: A 2016 study of medical students documented these pervasive understandings about Black bodies and Brown bodies being biologically different than white bodies. So things that Black people do experience less pain and things of that nature.

[04:45:00]

JAMES: We see that in our trainees and in our physicians that practice today, those sorts of racist belief systems lead to the outcomes we saw with Dr. Moore.

BRUNHUBER: This COVID-19 crisis seems to have revealed many of those tensions. You've written, for many of your patients, things like social distancing and working from home are privileges out of reach.

How has this exacerbated those existing race problems in the American health care system?

JAMES: We have to understand that, going into pandemic, Black and Brown communities were disproportionately poorer, structurally disadvantaged, having barriers to access to health care. Those things existed before the pandemic.

Now COVID-19 has hurt these communities even more so they are starting out behind and getting hit again. So the temptation is to say this is new and divorce this from the historical reality we knew existed before COVID.

But it is really important to understand those people already the most vulnerable are bearing the brunt of this pandemic more than others who have money to protect their health.

BRUNHUBER: Some are hoping the vaccine can counter some of that racial inequality. But access for communities of color, people in wealthy neighborhoods perhaps getting perhaps preferential treatment.

What should we do to make sure that vaccines are administered equitably?

JAMES: That's a great question. I think the big thing that we have to understand. We are talking about racism, not just a belief system but a structure of privilege that goes to people of lighter skin tones and a disadvantage to those with Black or darker skin tones.

If we are not addressing those structural forces that try to keep the Black and Brown communities most vulnerable, I don't think we can be successful. If it's a matter of changing attitudes and not changing policy, we can't make the changes we need to make.

BRUNHUBER: Such an important topic, really appreciate you coming on, Dr. Brittany James, really appreciate it.

JAMES: Of course.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: We'll be right back.

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[04:50:00]

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BRUNHUBER: The direct heir to the last German kaiser is suing the government for many of the family's riches seized after World War II. The prince of Prussia speaking exclusively to CNN about the ongoing legal battle as our Scott McLean tells us. The issue hinges on an ancestor's links to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

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SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If Germany still had a monarchy, this man would be the kaiser and this would be his castle, the Hohenzollern castle, perched on a southern German hilltop still is.

Today, Georg Friedrich is a private citizen with an unusual last name, prince of Prussia. It's a title that comes with considerable wealth and a considerable burden as the heir to his family's famous legacy, he's the public face of a legal battle started by his grandfather decades ago to reclaim a lost fortune of more than 10,000 historic items, from a simple coffee spoon to the orb and scepter of the first Prussian king and queen.

MCLEAN: Is this about the items themselves or would you be just as happy to take a check?

(LAUGHTER)

GEORG FRIEDRICH, PRINZ VON PREUBEN, HOUSE OF HOHENZOLLERN: No, if it was that easy, I think we would have sold our art collection, which we lent to Berlin and to Brandenburg and to other places in Germany.

MCLEAN (voice-over): After World War I, Germany's royal family lost its power but kept most of the fortune that came with it. But after World War II, when the Soviets occupied Eastern Germany, Communist government seized the private property of ordinary people and of exiled royals, too.

In the '90s, five years after the fall of the Berlin wall, Germany passed a law allowing them to reclaim property expropriated by the former Communist government, with a very specific exception: anyone who gave substantial support to the Nazis.

MCLEAN: I wonder, are you familiar with this picture?

FRIEDRICH: Yes, I've seen this picture before.

MCLEAN (voice-over): Taken in 1933, it shows Prince Georg's great- grandfather, Crown Prince Wilhelm, at a Nazi rally. There's video, too, from a similar event the same year. By then, the son of the last kaiser had no position in government, only a place in high society.

FRIEDRICH: I think these kinds of pictures are making it so difficult for historians to assess his role because these pictures are very strong, especially as you see the swastika on his arm. I think it always makes your breath stopping and you ask yourself, why is he wearing that?

MCLEAN: This is where it all gets complicated. Both Prince Georg and the history books point out that the crown prince had an ulterior motive, to restore the monarchy. Hitler could make that happen.

FRIEDRICH: By this time, the crown prince left all the political influence in order to substantially contribute to the rise of the Nazi regime.

CHRIS CLARK, HISTORIAN: He was sympathetic with the Nazi party but he did not actually become a card-carrying Nazi.

MCLEAN: Did he substantially contribute to the Nazi party? CLARK: This is a very interesting question.

When is a contribution substantial?

MCLEAN (voice-over): It's that question that Chris Clark and three other historians were asked to answer almost a decade ago, to help determine if the family deserves compensation.

Clark's original report commissioned by the family concluded that the crown prince supported the Nazis but lacked the public standing to give them a substantial boost.

[04:55:00]

MCLEAN (voice-over): But since then, Clark has seen new evidence that showed the crown prince was more influential than he originally thought.

CLARK: That's what happens in history. We find out new stuff; we change our mind.

MCLEAN: You wouldn't write the same paper today?

CLARK: No, no.

MCLEAN (voice-over): Much of what the ex-royals do still own is already on display in public museums, crowns, swords and ornate tobacco boxes. And Prince Georg insists they will stay there. And so will the paintings and sculptures he wants back, even if they change hands.

But the case has struck a nerve with the German public; perhaps because there is also a moral question, how to judge the sins of our ancestors.

FRIEDRICH: It's very hard to look at. I think it's, as it is for every other German who sees their ancestors and we Germans are questioning ourselves.

MCLEAN: If your great-grandfather contributed even in a small way to the rise of Hitler, isn't part of your family's fortune a pretty small price to pay?

FRIEDRICH: This is an issue all of us Germans have because that is what the discussion is all about. We are not the reason for the discussion, so our claims and everything. I think we are kind of a symptom for the whole discussion or the discussion that needs to take place.

MCLEAN (voice-over): The national discussion may not be over but with the case headed toward a likely settlement, the legal one may soon be -- Scott McLean, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: Fascinating story. That wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber. I'll be back

with more news in just a moment. Please stay with us.