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Bannon Surrenders in New York; Queen's Doctors Concerned for Her Health; Remembering Bernard Shaw. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired September 08, 2022 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:30:34]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Well, this just in to CNN, long time Trump ally and adviser Steve Bannon has surrendered to authorities in New York. He is expected to plead not guilty today on state charges related to his alleged border wall funding scheme.

Our Kara Scannell is outside of the courthouse.

Kara, good morning to you.

So, this is different than the federal charges, what he was pardoned for. This is a state charge and he's in court now?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, good morning.

Yes, Steve Bannon, we saw arrive at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office to surrender himself just a little after 9:00 a.m. this morning. As he was leaving his SUV, he shook his lawyer's hands, and then he turned to the crowd of cameras there saying, among other things, this is all about 60 days to the day, referencing the midterm elections, suggesting that this prosecution is politically motivated.

So, now that Bannon is in custody, he will be arrested and go through the motions. He will then appear in court this afternoon, around 2:15, to be arraigned on these state charges.

We're expecting the Manhattan district attorney and the New York attorney general to hold a joint press conference around 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Likely then we will see what these actual charges are. The indictment will be unsealed.

But this conduct all relates to their efforts, Bannon and others, to raise money for a -- to build a wall along the southern U.S. border. Bannon had previously been prosecuted by the federal prosecutors here in Manhattan, but then was pardoned by former President Donald Trump. Of course, a presidential pardon does not impact state charges. But the conduct is the same. Prosecutors had alleged -- the federal prosecutors had alleged that Bannon had raised more than $25 million, but he and others secretly diverted more than $1 million to cover their personal expenses. Now, Bannon's attorney tells me that he is expected to plead not

guilty today when he is arraigned on these charges. And then we're likely to hear from Bannon this afternoon when he's leaving the courthouse.

Poppy.

SCIUTTO: Kara Scannell, lots to cover there. Thanks so much.

Another story we're following this morning, Memphis police have arrested a suspect in a shooting spree that has left at least four people dead, three others wounded. The rampage lasted nearly 24 hours, happened across multiple crime scenes in that city. Partially, if you can believe it, live streamed on Facebook.

HARLOW: Our national correspondent Gary Tuchman is in Memphis with the latest.

Gary, officials say the 19-year-old suspect was arrested after a high- speed chase. What more can you tell us this morning?

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy and Jim, for people who live here in the Memphis, Tennessee, metropolitan area, who pay attention to the news and/or listen to some of the hundreds of police cars and their sirens last night, it was a terrifying evening.

Behind me is the Shelby County Jail here in downtown Memphis. Ezekiel Kelly, 19 years old, is behind bars right now. And he is accused of terrorizing and holding this city hostage. Basically, four people were killed, three people were hurt, three cars were stolen, one car was carjacked. He crashed two cars, according to police.

And what we are learning about this is just chilling. He was basically streaming some of his shootings on Facebook Live. His mug shot, he has a big smile on his face. The motive, we have absolutely no idea.

This all began shortly after midnight yesterday. We certainly didn't know at that point this was going to be a crime spree. But there was a man who was murdered. They were looking for the murderer.

And then after 4:00 local time, this is when it all began. This is when he allegedly started driving around the Memphis area and started shooting at people. Carjacking cars. We are actually here covering this horrible story of Eliza Fletcher, the woman who was kidnapped on Friday. Her body was found on Monday. We're standing on the street in downtown Memphis and we see all these police cars whizzing by really fast. And then we immediately found out what was going on. They were looking for somebody who's randomly killing people.

So, businesses closed. People just were told to stay in their homes. There's a minor league baseball stadium near here. Something just dropped next to me. There's a minor league - everybody's a little jittery here, even today. There's a minor league baseball stadium right nearby, the Memphis Red Birds. They're a AAA farm club (ph) for the St. Louis Cardinals. They were having a game. The game was canceled. The fans were asked to stay into place. Either way, this man is in custody right now. And he's been in trouble

before. He was charged with attempted murder last year. He pleaded guilty to an aggravated assault charge. He was sentenced to three years in prison, but he got out after 11 months. He was supposed to still be in prison if he wasn't paroled. The mayor of this city is very angry about that and so are a lot of Memphis citizens.

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He was captured after he stole a car. That car's description was called in. Police saw it and then he was arrested and tomorrow he will have a hearing here in court right next to the jail.

Jim and Poppy, back to you.

SCIUTTO: Lord. And that smile in the mug shot. Gary Tuchman, good to have you there.

We continue to follow the breaking news in the United Kingdom as the queen's children and grandchildren travel to Balmoral Castle to be by her side. The latest we are learning from London. We're going to be joined as well by CNN chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour, next.

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[09:40:14]

HARLOW: We are continuing our coverage of the breaking news out of the United Kingdom. Buckingham Palace saying that the queen's doctors are concerned for her health. They are recommending that she remain under medical supervision.

SCIUTTO: Her family, her children, her grandchildren now traveling to Balmoral Castle, where the queen is, to be at her side.

We're joined now by CNN chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour, who spent so many years in London covering so many moments of history in her life and the life of the U.K. under her reign.

And it strikes me, Christiane, that really most of the, well, vast majority of people in the U.K. have only known her, Queen Elizabeth, as the head of state, as the monarch, the longest serving. Describe the moment.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Yes, well, that is exactly right. She's not just the longest serving British monarch, overtaking the previous longest serving, which was her ancestor, Queen Victoria. You know, she celebrated, as you said, 70 years, her platinum jubilee, this summer, this June. But she's the longest reigning monarch in the world, if you put aside King Louis of France, who was four when he was put on the throne. She's been an active monarch for longer than anybody else in history.

And, you know, you can say, yes, but, et cetera, what, but really it's been an incredible life of hard work, dedication, service and duty. Those are all the words that sum up how she has conducted herself during this reign.

And I honestly think it also spans the most dramatic moments of the 20th century and the 21st century. You know, it spans from the, you know, the war. She became queen just after, you know, the end of World War II, but it had gone through her father's reign during the war and having to really, you know, get out there and rally a nation.

And, remember, I sort of call her an accidental queen because had it not been for her uncle, King Edward VIII, who abdicated for the love of an American woman, you remember, a divorcee. He was not allowed to stay king. But he insisted on marrying Wallis Simpson and had to abdicate, well, her father, King George IV was then - V, rather, was then, you know, made king. And he really had to gather every bit of grit that he had because he was a shy man, he was somebody who had a speech impediment, had to work on that for public speeches, but he then became a very beloved king because he was considered to have been with the people during the worst of World War II. And, you remember, there was the London Blitz, there was, you know, it was just awful in Great Britain during the war.

And so her -- the love for her, the respect for her, stems from then. And she and her sister put on their uniforms and went out. Remember she was fixing cars and military trucks and she always said this is something I learned and it was incredibly useful, getting her head under the bonnet, as we say here, the hood of these military vehicles.

All the way through Y2K, the turn of the century, through the entire media revolution, through the collapse of an empire and a reassertion of what actually it meant to be British in the world. And through the whole social media. She has had - there's been down times. It was -- she was very unpopular in the immediate aftermath of Princess Diana's death, when Princess Diana's brother basically said in front of the queen, during that funeral, that it was the family who hounded her to her death. You know, it's been very, very difficult.

You're looking at - well, there are pictures of her, of course, with all the American presidents. I think one of the most, you know, fun moment was when President Obama and Michelle Obama, first lady, came to the U.K. And Michelle Obama did what she does naturally, which is reach out and touch people. She has such a charisma. And the British press went into parixisms (ph).

SCIUTTO: Yes.

AMANPOUR: You don't touch the royal body. But the queen let it be known via the statements that she was not offended in the slightest, and that she actually really liked Michelle Obama and enjoyed that visit.

HARLOW: Yes.

AMANPOUR: You know, then there was the Trump years, and the Trump visit, which was somewhat different. But she's had an amazing, amazing time as the rallier of this nation.

HARLOW: Christiane, you had something that most people, of course, almost no one gets. You had time with her actually in person, in 2007. You were awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. This was at Buckingham Palace. I just wonder, as you reflect on this remarkable life she has lived and continues to live, what we didn't see that you felt or saw.

AMANPOUR: Yes, I was in her orbit a couple of times. Once then, and once when she had one of her jubilees, she had a series of cocktails, including one for the great unwatched (ph) masses of the press.

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And we were all were invited up to Windsor Castle. And, you know, there was a big hall. And it was just crowded. But the minute she entered that hall, it was as if, you know, you could hear a pin drop. Everybody suddenly got silent. And then she went in her way through us, through the crowd. And she is remarkable. She was literally the queen of small talk. She could say anything to anybody. And no matter how banal (ph) it might have sounded, you were nonetheless thrilled that the royal gaze had been, you know, turned towards you. And felt the same way when I received the honor for her -- from her and was, frankly, tongue tied.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Some of that royal charm as well.

Christiane Amanpour, so good to have you.

HARLOW: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Remember, share so many of these memories, and we appreciate it.

Of course, we continue to cover the news out of the U.K., but we also have some sad news to report this morning here at the CNN family about a true CNN original. We have just confirmed that Bernard Shaw, Bernie Shaw, this network's first anchor, has passed away at the age of 82. We're going to have a remembrance of him, his personality, his life, and his incredible work. That's coming up next.

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HARLOW: We do have more breaking news this morning that hits home for us here at CNN.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: The network's first chief anchor, Bernard Shaw, has died. His family says that he passed away Wednesday of pneumonia unrelated to Covid-19.

SCIUTTO: Shaw, Bernie to many of us here, was 82 years old. He helped launch this network on June 1, 1980, with the network for more than 20 years. Wolf Blitzer, who knew him very well, worked with him for many of those years, has a look back at his incredible life and career.

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BERNARD SHAW, CNN ANCHOR: The skies over Baghdad have been illuminated. We're seeing bright flashes going off all over the sky.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): It was a night that would make TV history. CNN anchor and veteran journalist Bernard Shaw reporting live from Baghdad. It was the start of the 1991 Gulf War.

SHAW: Clearly I've never been there, but this feels like we're in the center of hell.

BLITZER: Shaw, with colleagues John Holloman (ph) and Peter Arnett (ph) broadcast the first war coverage in real time. The "Boys of Baghdad," as they became known, reported from the floor of their hotel room as bombs fell around them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Baghdad (INAUDIBLE).

BLITZER (on camera): You really were scared for your life.

SHAW: Yes, very much so. In war, one moment you're alive, the next moment you're dead.

BLITZER (voice over): Dire moments shared by one billion viewers around the globe, and credited with turning CNN into the news leader it is today.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It reminded everybody of what journalism can be and what television can be. And it truly put CNN on the map. And Bernie was right at the heart of that story.

BLITZER: Shaw's remarkable career began in Hawaii. He was a Marine, determined to become a journalist and sought out a meeting with TV news legend Walter Cronkite there on assignment.

WALTER CRONKITE: Right away he said, Mr. Cronkite, I have to talk to you. I have to be a journalist and I have to find out how I do that.

BLITZER: Shaw returned to his native Chicago and got a job in radio. That led to an assignment covering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

SHAW: The one memorable thing he said to me was, one day you're going to make it, just do some good.

BLITZER: Eager to follow King's advice, Shaw once again turned to Cronkite, who helped him land a job at CBS. As a D.C. reporter, he covered the Watergate scandal before moving to ABC in 1977. He was one of the first journalists to capture the harrowing scene of the Jonestown massacre.

Two years later, CNN came calling.

SHAW: I'm Bernard Shaw. That's the latest from our cable news network bureau here in Washington. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean we started off -- all the other guys had

white males as their lead anchors and our lead anchor was a team of a woman and a black man. So, I thought it was real good.

SHAW: I did too.

BLITZER: Less than a year on air, Shaw led the network's coverage of the assassination attempt on President Reagan.

SHAW: Approximately four shots were fired at the president.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bernie was Mr. Calm, Mr. Steady. He was never trying to get ahead of the story. He was not trying to say more than he knew. And, frankly, that's what you want in a journalist.

BLITZER: Six years later, Shaw's brand of journalism won CNN the kind of White House access previously reserved for the big three networks.

SHAW: Five of the Republican presidential candidates have deserted you. The conservatives, the right wing of your party, are after your scalp.

BLITZER: Shaw's reputation for hard interviews became legendary after a question to Michael Dukakis during a 1988 presidential debate.

SHAW: Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was classic Bernie Shaw. It certainly was a moment when people took another look at Michael Dukakis and made a decision about him that no doubt had an impact ultimately on their vote.

[09:55:01]

BLITZER: A year later, Tiananmen Square. The Chinese government cracked down on news coverage, forcing Shaw off the air.

SHAW: For all of the hard-working men and women of CNN, good-bye from Beijing.

I'm a child democracy. And when we were shut down, my temples just froze with anger. I remember that night I went back to my hotel room and I actually cried.

BLITZER: For more than 20 years, Shaw was the face of CNN and trusted news around the world.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Always steady. Always solid. Always trusted. And that, to me, is going to be his legacy. It was the "you can count on him" brand.

BLITZER: But that public trust came with a personal cost. Shaw said he sacrificed precious time away from his wife and two children and suffered PTSD from his time in Baghdad.

SHAW: You pay a price. I happen to believe it's a worthwhile price to pay. But you're going to pay a price.

BLITZER: It was the price of being a witness to history and the privilege of being trusted to report it.

SHAW: You can depend on us being here all the time. And, please, pass the word.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Wow.

HARLOW: What a remarkable life, Jim, and what an example of what CNN was and is and may we all continue to learn from him.

SCIUTTO: No question. What a life, what a career, what a man. Always a gentleman. That's how we knew him here. Our thoughts with his family today.

And we'll be right back.

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