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U.S.-China Prisoner Swap; Arizona Electoral Audit Backfires on Republicans; Fauci: Wait Six Months after Second Dose to Get Booster; False Positive COVID-19 Tests for Two "The View" Hosts; Del Rio Camp under Bridge in Mexico Cleared of Migrants; Some Haitians Wait in Mexico; Kabul Imam Says Afghans Who Worked with Foreigners are "Spies"; Biden Hosts Indo-Pacific Leaders amid China Concerns; Canary Islands Volcano Eruption Continues; Chelsea's Lukaku Says Online Hate Should Be Tackled. Aired 4-5a ET
Aired September 25, 2021 - 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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ROBYN CURNOW, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Welcome to viewers here in the United States and around the world.
Coming up on CNN, a surprising resolution. A top Chinese technology executive returning home, as two Canadians are released after three years in detention.
And results are in from controversial ballot audit in Arizona and what it found. A CDC head breaks, recommending for COVID boosters for those at risk in their jobs. Hear why in her own words.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Robyn Curnow.
CURNOW: Thanks for joining me this hour.
Two Canadian men detained in China are only a few hours from being back on Canadian soil. These two men Michael Kovrig on the left and businessmen Michael Spavor were suddenly taken from their Chinese prison cells and taken back to Canada.
At the same time, senior executive Meng Wanzhou, was flying out of China on a private jet, leaving her problems with the U.S. on hold. And yet Beijing continues to suggest they are not related.
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PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The sheer speed and choreography of everything that unfolded, caught many by surprise. Yet, there is relief, not just with the families of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig but also with Canadian officials.
It was untenable, that Meng Wanzhou could have orchestrated a deal with U.S. authorities, by which she would return to China, even though she was under detention, here in Canada, under fairly loose restrictions. She had ankle bracelets, she was living in a multimillion-dollar mansion, that she was able to be released and go back to China but that the two Michaels would be left in China, at times, under harsh conditions.
That has included solitary and severe interrogations. With that in mind, prime minister Justin Trudeau made the announcement. I want you to listen.
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JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: These two men have been through an unbelievably difficult situation. But it is inspiring, and it is good news for all of us that they are on their way home to their families.
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NEWTON: The two Michaels are expected to arrive in Canada sometime on Saturday. And no doubt, there will be a lot of time to parse, exactly, what happened here. China always denied this had anything to do with hostage diplomacy and that it was not retaliation.
Yet how could anyone think anything but, given what has transpired here?
This is a win, as well, for the Biden administration. Joe Biden had said, the two Michaels would be treated as if they were American citizens and this, definitely, does herald some type of new era between U.S. and China relations. Or, at least, for this issue, they can put it aside and continue what is a long list of continuing tensions -- Paula Newton, CNN, Ottawa.
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CURNOW: And we're expecting to see Meng Wanzhou back in China soon. Will Ripley is there.
We are hearing of plans of a hero's reception, almost.
WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We saw a post on the Chinese social media as she crossed the North Pole, with tears in her eyes with gushing praise for the motherland and the motherland's hard work to bring her back.
It has been quite an effort to get her back. Some would say they went as far as taking hostage two Canadians and putting them through an ordeal, kept in a cell with the lights on and denying them contact.
And Meng Wanzhou was under house arrest in her Vancouver mansion with private security that she paid for. She'll have more restrictive conditions when she lands around 8:00 pm local time because she'll have to go through a quarantine. She'll be in a hotel room.
[04:05:00] RIPLEY: Those conditions are more restrictive than what she had on house arrest. Chinese state media continuing to insist this was not a hostage situation. Everybody believed then, as they do now, that this was clearly a case of retaliation for the treatment of the daughter of Huawei's founder, one of China's darling companies.
Her rhetoric praising the country as she returns home, exactly on script for what she needs to say to remain in a successful position these days.
CURNOW: Let's just talk about the wider politics that these fits into.
What does this mean in terms of the changing relationship between the U.S., Canada and China?
RIPLEY: This is certainly easy, if you could call what these Canadians went through, an easy ordeal but this is an easy resolution to make. This deal moves this issue off the table. But there's a lot more contentious issues, Biden hosting the Quad nations yesterday. The main topic of discussion was how to counter China's rising economic and military influence in the region.
China has been accused of bullying smaller places including Taiwan, where this past week at least three different incursions in Taiwan's self-declared air defense zone.
You also have the newly announced AUKUS partnership between the United Kingdom and Australia and U.S., where they'll be providing nuclear powered subs to Australia. Beijing has been blasting that.
CURNOW: Thank you for that live from Taipei, Will Ripley.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump's Big Lie is taking on a new life despite a setback in Arizona. For months state Republicans have backed an audit. The bogus procedure was based on Trump's false allegation that the election was stolen from him.
According to the final result, it showed that original result stands. The leader of the company hired said he even found more votes for President Biden.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we look at the presidential race, Trump actually loses 261 and Biden gains 99. And these are all very small numbers when we are talking about millions of ballots. So, we can say the ballots provided to us to count in the coliseum very accurately correlate with the official numbers that came through.
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CURNOW: But election experts in both parties never had much faith in the so-called audit that it would be credible. Natasha Chen has more.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The importance of our society having faith in the election process cannot be overstated.
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NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After five months of chasing conspiracy theories. A partisan review of ballots in Maricopa County, Arizona, confirms what we already knew nearly a year ago, Joe Biden won.
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DOUG LOGAN, CYBER NINJAS: The ballots that were provided to us to count in the coliseum very accurately correlate with the official canvas numbers.
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CHEN (voice-over): In fact, the hand recount by Cyber Ninjas, a group with no experience auditing elections showed Biden with 99 more votes and Trump with 261 fewer votes than the official Maricopa County canvass.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The reason we know Joe Biden won is because we had the right people counting the ballots in the first place and the second place and the third place.
People who knew what they were doing were totally objective, not these knuckleheads, Cyber Ninjas, who no one had ever heard of before, who have no idea what they're doing.
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CHEN (voice-over): Cyber Ninjas pointed to potential discrepancies in tens of thousands of ballots it could not fully vet, saying there were inconsistencies when Maricopa County's voter registrations were compared to a commercial data company's records. It includes heavy caveats around those doubts.
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CHEN (voice-over): Noting they do not necessarily mean votes were improperly cast and says the Arizona attorney general should follow up with Maricopa County officials.
Jack Sellers, the Republican chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, tweeted, "I hope those holding on to their anger for the past 10 months will see the truth and put their energy into supporting the democratic process instead of trying to tear it down."
This round of tearing down the democratic process started in the spring after the county already conducted two independent audits, Cyber Ninjas was hired by the Republican-led Arizona Senate whose president insisted ...
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is not about Trump. This is not about overturning the election. This has never been about anything other than election integrity.
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CHEN (voice-over): But emails obtained by watchdog group American Oversight show her writing to her constituents that she was repeatedly in touch with both Rudy Giuliani and Trump.
The CEO of Cyber Ninjas, Doug Logan, has spread misinformation about election conspiracies online. Their hand count involves changing methods at times, with ballots spinning on lazy Susans, workers using UV lights hunting for watermarks and bamboo fibers, while at one point a different kind of carnival was actually set up outside.
In Cyber Ninjas' final act, their draft report included a slew of legislative suggestions, teeing up conversations about more restrictive voter laws.
CHEN: Initially during the three-hour presentation, the people inside, Trump supporters, were hanging on to every word being said.
Now also during the presentation, election officials at Maricopa County were live tweeting, fact-checking point by point, explaining how election processes actually work.
Now the Arizona president has sent a letter to the state attorney general, a Republican also running for U.S. Senate, asking him to consider an investigation based on this final report -- back to you.
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CURNOW: Despite the loss in Arizona, some Republicans are taking Trump's election lie to a whole new level and pushing for something similar to the so-called audit in other states, including Texas, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Anderson Cooper discussed this with two experts, asking them, is that how Republicans will handle every future election they lose?
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JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: We have to really recognize how profoundly this is a departure from the American political tradition.
One of the out -- one of the rules of the game has been, when the votes are counted, that's the end. You can have a recount, which is an official process. But if that is the end, that is the end.
And the idea that Republicans are basically asserting that any election, any close election that Democrats win, is, by definition illegitimate, and they will find a way to discredit it. That's something new.
KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: This is to justify in their minds coming up with all of these onerous laws around elections to keep people from voting; specifically keeping people who vote for Democrats from voting.
And so I think that they are doing this in an effort to say, look, we can't really trust our elections, so we have to create all these new laws to make our elections, you know, functional, even though they are functional.
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CURNOW: President Joe Biden will likely not stop Trump era records being seen by the committee investigating. The January 6th committee has sent information requests to a number of federal agencies, asking for all documents from the day of the deadly riots. And according to the White House, Mr. Biden does not expect to stand in the way.
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JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We take this matter incredibly seriously and, certainly, we have been working closely with congressional committees and others, as they work to get to the bottom of what happened on January 6th, an incredibly dark day in our democracy.
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CURNOW: Just last month, Donald Trump threatened to invoke his own executive privilege to block the committee from obtaining those documents. Even if he tried, President Biden would have the ultimate say over whether the information can be shared.
Coming up, booster doses can now go into the arms of those who qualify in the U.S. Why the CDC director broke with her own advisors to allow millions of Americans to get the shot.
Plus two talk show hosts on live TV find out that they tested positive. Find out the details. That's next.
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CURNOW: Great to have you along.
Pharmacies around the U.S. are now scheduling Pfizer boosters for those who qualify. Drugstores like Walgreens and CVS are making those available. But the nation's top expert said Americans shouldn't be tempted to rush out and get the extra shot before they are due. Take a listen.
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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF COVID-19 MEDICAL ADVISER: There is an immunological reason why it is important to wait. You know if you allow the immune response to mature over a period of a few months, you get more of a bang out of the shot as it were and enhancement of your antibodies.
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CURNOW: The CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky broke with her own advisors, recommending shots for those working in settings with high risk to exposure. She's explaining the reasoning behind the decision.
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DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: I have this exceptional group of scientific advisors and there were four votes yesterday.
And there was real enthusiasm, in fact, unanimity for some of the votes to recommend boosters for people who are at high risk, people over the age of 65, people in long-term care facilities.
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WALENSKY: People at high risk of severe disease because of their comorbidities.
I listened intently two hours of deliberation, scientific deliberation and this last one was simply a close call.
Some people really voted for, the vote was 6-9, saying with enthusiasm to say our health care workers, our frontline workers, people who are vaccinated early, people who work in congregate settings, in correctional facilities, grocery workers, really do merit the vaccine.
And there were some people who gave reasons that they were thinking that we should wait.
So the question wasn't yes or no, the question was wait or do now. If I had been in the room, I would have voted yes. And that is where I absolutely took the advice of my advisors. But on this one, I voted to - I recommended that we make vaccines available for this group.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: You're basically saying to me that this is what you get when you get transparency and when the science is changing. So you could put it behind closed doors and you could have come out as the voice of god or we can see the sausage made and know the transparency and we got more confusion.
WALENSKY: Yes. And I would say that there was a lot of deliberation and a lot of attention watching between Friday and Thursday --
BURNETT: Yes. WALENSKY: -- Friday of last week and Thursday. And there's a lot of scientific discussion around this. This was, as you could see with some of these votes, not all of this was a slam dunk. The science is evolving in real time.
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CURNOW: United Airlines vaccine requirement for employees set to take effect on Monday but six employees asked for a temporary restraining order. They're accusing the airline of discrimination. Challenges to vaccine mandates haven't had much luck in federal courts except when it comes to religious exceptions.
And a talk show in the U.S. is under scrutiny for its COVID-19 screening protocol after two hosts were abruptly pulled from the set for testing positive. You can see a lot of attention on the high- profile guest they were supposed to interview. Brian Todd has the whole story.
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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: On the popular ABC show, "The View," today, an awkward unscripted moment for co-hosts Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro after an exclusive interview with Vice President Kamala Harris had been promoted.
JOY BEHAR, CO-HOST, "THE VIEW": OK. We are back and there seems to be something happening here that I am not 100 percent aware of.
Can someone please apprise me of the situation?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I need the two of you to step off for a second.
BEHAR: OK. Ana and -- and -- and -- Sunny have to leave.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
BEHAR: And we will tell you why.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: More information later. It's a tease.
TODD: As Hostin and Navarro made their way off set, more awkwardness.
BEHAR: So shall I introduce the vice president?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
BEHAR: OK. So, vice president -- no.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
BEHAR: OK.
Shall we dance?
Let's do a tap dance. TODD: Another commercial break. Then, host Joy Behar returned with the news.
BEHAR: So since this is going to be a major news story any minute now. What happened is that Sunny and Ana both apparently tested positive for COVID-19.
No matter how hard we try, these things happen. They probably have a breakthrough case and they'll be OK, I'm sure, because they're both vaccinated.
TODD: The vice president didn't appear until a half-hour later in the very last segment of the show. She appeared remotely and she was on for less than eight minutes.
KAMALA HARRIS (D), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Sunny and Ana are strong women and I know they're fine.
TODD: CNN's Brian Stelter reports "The View's" hosts are usually tested for COVID twice a week but that they were tested an extra time this week because of the vice president's arrival.
A White House official says Vice President Harris, who's received two doses of the Moderna vaccine, did not interact with Sunny Hostin or Ana Navarro before the show.
But one medical expert says this could have been a close call for the vice president and speaks to the risks she and the president often face.
DR. SAJU MATHEW, PUBLIC HEALH SPECIALIST: Anytime you are surrounded by so many different people from so many parts of the country on a daily basis, you are potentially exposed to that virus every single time.
TODD: And Dr. Saju Mathew is critical of how the show handled this.
SAJU: I think the ball was dropped somewhere.
Why did these anchors not know about their tests before the show began?
Especially, on a day when you are interviewing Vice President Harris.
TODD: We posed it to "The View," when were the tests done and why did they not learn about this before they went live?
I did reach Ana, who is a CNN political commentator. She said she's shocked but feels great and is glad the vice president is safe.
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TODD: Two sources told us that both Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro have subsequently tested negative for COVID twice since Friday morning -- Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
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CURNOW: Norway is about to start moving on from the COVID-19 pandemic. Starting today, most coronavirus restrictions will no longer be in effect and the government says people can start returning to, quote, "a normal everyday life."
Officials believe there is little chance of the virus getting out of control now. People who do get infected still have to go into isolation.
Sweden are advising against all unnecessary travel to make it easier to travel abroad. The advisory was issued in March 2020 but they now say the situation has improved so it's lifting on October 1st. This applies only to those traveling from Sweden. An entry ban is still in effect from most E.U. countries, including the U.S.
For Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro's son tested positive after a trip New York. He was in the U.S. for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly. He's the second member of the delegation to test positive after that trip.
Throughout the pandemic, President Bolsonaro has publicly denounced many COVID-19 regulations, including health passports. On Friday, his son echoed that sentiment.
Coming up, the migrant camp that once held thousands at the U.S. border is now cleared. What a difference a week makes.
But what lies ahead for the Haitians who journeyed there seeking a better life?
And an election that will usher in a new political era in Germany is a day away. What Angela Merkel is doing to give her party a boost.
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CURNOW: No more migrants remain at the massive camp at the Del Rio border in Texas at Mexico. As you can see in these pictures, they have been removed to other facilities. The treatment they received has sparked an international outcry. President Biden had strong words for those responsible for this horseback wrangling.
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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's outrageous. I promise you, those people will pay. They will be an investigation underway now and there will be consequences. There will be consequences. It's an embarrassment.
But beyond an embarrassment, it's dangerous, it's wrong. It sends the wrong message around the world. It sends the wrong message at home. It's simply not who we are.
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CURNOW: Even though the encampment is gone, some are still camping out at the border and have no plans to return to Haiti, either.
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MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We know the migrant encampment, on the U.S. side of the U.S.-Mexico border, in Del Rio Texas, is empty. No more Haitian migrants, according to U.S. government and, to CNN's own reporting teams on the ground there.
Here, on the Mexico side, in Ciudad Acuna, you can see, there still remains dozens of Haitian migrants, who made the choice, previously, to stay here in Mexico after making the same journey so many others have made up from South America here, to the U.S.-Mexico border.
These people chose to stay, here in Mexico predominantly, they felt that if they went to the United States, after all of these deportations, they have a better chance of not being deported, if they stay, here in Mexico.
We know Mexican immigration officials have come to this camp, telling people, if they move to a shelter instead of sleeping out in the open, not far from the border, they will be given the chance at the immigration process and they won't be immediately deported.
Some people here said, they don't believe immigration officials and so they're going to stay here. And we can see a little bit more of what this camp looks like. Obviously, dozens of people remain here.
And the threat of deportation is something people are, extremely, concerned about here. It really struck our team when we heard the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, giving a press conference.
And he talks about all the deportations the United States has done, sending Haitians back to Haiti. He said that they studied Haiti and the government believes that Haiti can, actually, absorb those thousands of Haitian deportees that they are sending to that country.
That struck us, just because my team and I have spent nearly all of July and, August reporting in Haiti, in Port-au-Prince and other rural areas around the country, both after the presidential assassination, when the president was killed on July 7th and then, also, after the devastating earthquake that struck there, on August 14th.
Our takeaway, after being there federal, state and local, was that poverty remains an incredibly difficult issue. The gang violence, remaining as bad, as it's ever been. The country, currently, doesn't have an elected head of state.
After the president was killed the prime minister, who's currently charge in Haiti is not an elected leader. The political turmoil, remaining extremely high. And so when the U.S. government said Haiti is in a position to accept thousands of Haitians, who have migrated and are now being sent back, that struck us as a claim that, was frankly, difficult to accept.
It's not just our thought on that; this is thought of many Haitian people, who are here. We spoke to one man, who is here in Mexico and is worried about being sent back. Here's what he had to, say when we asked him, is the time right for people to be going back to Haiti?
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): No, there is no conditions to return to Haiti. If you watch the news, things are bad. There are a lot of criminals.
How can a man live where there are so many guns and so much crime?
So now there are no conditions to return to.
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RIVERS: You can hear there, that person certainly doesn't think that, given all what's going on in Haiti, that now is a good time to be sending thousands people back to the country. But it is, in fact, what's happening, not only in the United States but the deportation risk for all of these migrants remains in Mexico as well.
Still, there are people being sent back to Haiti; that's a reality that won't change --
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RIVERS: Matt Rivers, CNN, Ciudad Acuna, Mexico.
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CURNOW: We are one day away from Germany's federal election that will determine who succeeds Angela Merkel in Germany. The final days of campaigning have produced some light-hearted moments.
Colorful parrots swooping around her and she got a bit shocked as some pecked at her fingers. But she and the birds seem to have taken it in stride.
The chancellor is stepping down after 16 years in power. As she says farewell, she's giving a political boost to the party's candidate, who is hoping to fill her shoes. But his campaign is struggling to gain traction.
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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): It seemed almost fitting that one of Armin Laschet's final major rallies, happened in severe rain. The center right Christian Democratic candidate's campaign has been marred by difficulties. Angela Merkel, even stepping off the sidelines to try to help him win votes.
"The (INAUDIBLE) of this parliamentarian, this chancellor," he said at the rally in Germany's north, "we will do everything to continue on this, work in the coming years. We ask for your trust, this coming Sunday."
He has been trailing in the polls and struggling to mobilize Germany's conservative base.
PLEITGEN: It certainly is an uphill battle to try and decide this election in his favor. Over the past couple of weeks, he has mobilized German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who is still vastly popular in this country, trying to drum up extra support.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): The center left social Democratic candidate, Olaf Scholz, who was also Germany's finance minister, currently, is ahead in the polls. He is portraying himself as being serious and diligent, just like Angela Merkel.
Some felt Laschet was punching above his weight, trying to become popular as chancellor but he also made what many Germans perceived to be, some unforced errors, like getting caught, on camera, laughing, while visiting victims of massive floods in western Germany.
JULIAN REICHELT, EIC, "BILD": Armin Laschet made it easy for the people who somewhat disliked him to explain why they disliked him and why they wouldn't vote for him. That, I think, could become the fatal effect in this campaign.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): Laschet's been trying to get his campaign on track by saying, only the conservatives can ensure a strong German economy and promising strong foreign and defense policies.
"We saw in Afghanistan, that once the Americans leave, we can't even secure Kabul airport. That is why I want to install a National Security Council, within the chancellery," Laschet said.
So while he hasn't managed to close the gap with Olaf Scholz, most polls have the race too close to call, giving hope to Germany's conservatives that they may, yet, retain the chancellery, even after Angela Merkel steps down -- Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Berlin.
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CURNOW: A troubling message from an imam in Kabul and why he said some should be targeted for revenge. That story next.
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CURNOW: Hundreds of Afghans took to the streets demanding the United States release the nation's frozen assets. Saying ordinary Afghans should not pay a price for U.S. defeat. Millions frozen days after the Taliban took control of the capital city.
Meanwhile, an imam had a disturbing message, calling for retributions against Afghans that helped the U.S., saying they were spies and nonbelievers.
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NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: It really feels like a day of mixed messages at the principal press service Friday. At the main mosque in the center of Kabul the message was very clear. Anyone that worked and assisted with U.S. and other international governments is a spy.
Indeed, the imam saying they were outside of Islam, they were not Muslims, that there should be revenge through the religious education, meaning the judiciary. Going on to say that the United States and other countries were just in Afghanistan to exploit it for their own gain.
On the other hand, it seems contrary to this message of sort of, turning on Afghans who may be considered spies, you have a message from the defense minister, Mullah Yaqoob, the son of a Taliban founder, Mullah Omar, saying that there needs to be better discipline within the military forces and within the Taliban military ranks.
Anyone involved in killing and thieving will be investigated and will be held to account, making it clear that the Taliban fighters must be more disciplined. So these two apparently conflicting messages from the mosque, very clearly, to the Afghan people, from the defense chief to his fighters but perhaps some essence of the message in there for the international community that they are going to double down on holding to their principles of not taking vengeance out on former government and military members -- Nic Robertson, Kabul, CNN, Afghanistan.
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CURNOW: Leaders from the U.S. have solidified the commitment to safeguarding a free and open Indo-Pacific. Even though China was not mentioned by name, the Australian prime minister emphasized how they must stand together to overcome the region's challenges.
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SCOTT MORRISON, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: There is no part of the world that is more dynamic than the Indo-Pacific at this time, a region that has extraordinary opportunity, wide diversity, great wealth but many challenges that must be overcome.
And we see the role of our nations, we see our home in the Indo- Pacific as the place that we wish to focus on to ensure that our peoples can realize everything they want for themselves.
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CURNOW: The group said they are making progress on progress on climate change and emerging technology.
Tensions seem to be cooling between the Biden administration and France after the AUKUS security deal led to a week-long diplomatic spat. The two leaders have spoken but France's foreign ministers said it will take time to repair the wounds.
We are learning that Biden was caught off guard and unprepared for the fury that erupted when France learned it lost the contract to provide diesel powered submarines to Australia.
We have other stories coming up. One of England's best known football stars is calling on tech companies to help fight racism.
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CURNOW: Several flights to and from the Canary Islands have been canceled as a volcano erupts for a seventh straight day. Officials ordering more evacuations in La Palma.
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CURNOW: Lava has destroyed or damaged hundreds of homes and businesses, along with banana crops. So far there are no injuries or deaths reported.
The first day of competition is complete in the pro golf Ryder Cup. Team USA has a lead over Europe, thanks in part to tens of thousands of fans cheering on the home team in Wisconsin, led by a Olympic gold medalist. Team USA leads 6-2, the largest lead Team USA has had after one day of competition in 46 years.
Sticking with sports news, Chelsea and Manchester City go head-to-head in a Premier League match. But before the game, we want to tell you how one of Chelsea's biggest stars is taking on discrimination in football. "WORLD SPORT's" Amanda Davies sat down with Romelu Lukaku ahead of the team's "No to Hate" photography competition.
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ROMELU LUKAKU, CHELSEA STRIKER: The other day, I posted something about the perception of people. You cannot judge who you are as a person. So I really feel like -- it is really like for the younger generation that I want to say, don't really go too deep into that.
At the end of the day, this stuff really can harm you. We see a lot of people harming themselves because of social media abuse. AMANDA DAVIES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You said to my colleague not very
long ago, you feel racism in football is at an all-time high.
LUKAKO: Definitely.
DAVIES: Why do you think it is so bad?
LUKAKO: I think personally because a lot of these companies, really, if you want to stop something you can do it. But they don't because I think it is like -- it is a vicious circle. There's a lot of stuff involved -- you can stop the super league in one day but you can't stop racism or track somebody who did the insult also in half an hour. You can't do that.
There is no logic to me. That's why it is like, we, as players, we can say, we can boycott social media but those companies that have to come and talk to the teams or to governments or players themselves and find a way to stop it. I believe they can.
DAVIES: How important is it for you that a club like Chelsea is launching this competition in the name of the No to Hate campaign?
LUKAKO: I feel it is very important. Very important that we as a club can make a statement and take a position as well. A lot of people look at us. And I think us as a club, you have to take a very strong position against discrimination of all forms.
DAVIES: In the past, hasn't necessarily had the best history in terms of issues of discrimination, of racism among the fans.
LUKAKO: Of course.
DAVIES: How do you reflect on that?
LUKAKO: As a player, I was focused on what I had to do for the team. I was not looking at the stuff outside. I think by now, I think from the owner to us, the players, we as a club, we are really putting out a statement and saying, stuff like that should not be tolerated.
As a team, a lot of players represent the club from different nationalities, different skin colors and religion. The women's team is the same thing. We as a club should be an example for other teams.
DAVIES: What does it feel like when you take a knee in the stadium and there are boos?
LUKAKO: To be honest, in the first few games I've been here, it didn't happen. I haven't been through it like that. Us as players, we are taking the statement. But I think we can take a stronger statement than taking a knee.
DAVIES: What would you like to see done?
[04:55:00]
LUKAKU: I think basically, the captains of every team and four or five players should have a meeting with the CEOs of Instagram and governments, FA, PFA. We should have a big meeting of how to attack it straight away.
Not only for the men's game but also for the women's game. I think all of us together have a big meeting and conference and talk about stuff that needs to be addressed to protect the players but also to protect fans and younger players that want to become professional footballers.
DAVIES: Do you ever get tired of the fight of the responsibility?
LUKAKU: No. No because I have to fight because I'm not fighting only for myself. I'm fighting for my son, for my future kids, for my brother, all the other players and their kids. At the end of the day, football should be an enjoyable game. You should not kill the game by discrimination.
Football is joy and happiness. That should be it. It shouldn't be a place you feel unsafe because of the opinion from some uneducated people.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CURNOW: Important interview. Thank you, Amanda, for that.
I'm Robyn Curnow, you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram @Robyn Curnow CNN. I will be back with more on CNN. Join me for that.
