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Soon, Royal Family To Gather at St. Giles' Cathedral For Vigil; New Book: Trump Vowed To Stay In White House After Election Loss; Soon, Biden To Announce "Cancer Moonshot" Details In Boston; King Charles III, Siblings Hold Vigil With Queen Elizabeth's Coffin; King Charles, Siblings Leave Cathedral After Vigil At Queen's Coffin. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired September 12, 2022 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[14:30:00]
RICHARD QUEST, CNN EDITOR-AT-LARGE: And now, of course, the number-one issue is to make it all go smoothly, which, when you look at the sheer number of people involved, to get them in place.
And just think about the logistics of this lying in rest here in Edinburgh and the complexity. But so far, everything is going according to plan.
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Very intricate plan over several days. We're looking at live pictures here.
Richard, we'll get back to you as you lead our special coverage from Edinburgh.
Let's turn to the claims in a new book that former President Donald Trump vowed to stay in the White House after losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: This is according to new reporting in an upcoming book by "New York Times" White House reporter, Maggie Haberman, called "Confidence Man, The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America."
CNN's Kristen Holmes joins us from Washington.
Kristen, yes, I had the impression that President Trump didn't want to leave the White House but now we hear it from his mouth?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right, Alisyn and Victor. We had this idea but these are brand-new details about the final days of Trump's presidency. And it just goes to show you how chaotic that post-election period was.
Now, according to Haberman's reporting, in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election, he seemed -- and that being former President Trump -- to recognize that he had lost the election. He was even asking advisers what went wrong.
But then, at some point, his mood shifted. And that is when he informed aides he would not be leaving the White House.
According to Haberman, he said -- he told one aide, "I'm just not going to leave." He told another, "We're never leaving, how can you leave when you won an election?"
And he was even overheard asking the head of the Republican National Committee, "Why would we leave? Why should I leave if they stole it from me?" Obviously, referring there to the election.
Now this all happening at the same time that he was publicly dismissing questions about whether or not he would leave the White House.
And according to Haberman, his behavior, his questioning, his intention on saying that he would not leave led to many aides wondering what he could do, what he might do next.
CAMEROTA: OK. Kristen Holmes, thank you very much for that reporting.
Looks like a book we're going to read.
BLACKWELL: Indeed.
President Biden will borrow from the late President Kennedy on the 60th anniversary of his famous "moonshot" speech. But Biden will announce new steps to expand his administration's initiative to cure cancer. We'll tell you what those are next.
CAMEROTA: And we're waiting for members of the royal family to arrive at St. Giles' Cathedral in Scotland where they hold a silent vigil beside the coffin of Queen Elizabeth.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:37:19]
CAMEROTA: President Biden is in Boston at this hour about to arrive at the JFK Library. It was on this day, 60 years ago, that John F. Kennedy gave his famous "moonshot" speech vowing to send Americans to the moon.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN F. KENNEDY, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We choose to go to the moon and do this thing and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: Well, today, President Biden is announcing new efforts of a moonshot of his own cutting the cancer death rate in half over the next 25 years.
Joining us now is Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel. He's a former Obama White House health policy adviser who helped craft the Affordable Care Act. He also served on the COVID Advisory Board for President Biden's transition. And he wrote the book, "Which Country Has the World's Best Health Care?"
Doctor, welcome back.
Let's start here with what we've learned from the American Cancer Society that overall cancer deaths have dropped by about a third from their peak in 1991 down to 2019.
So how far along this path are we already?
DR. EZEKIEL EMANUEL, ONCOLOGIST & FORMER WHITE HOUSE HEALTH POLICY ADVISER & AUTHOR: We're doing well. We are doing much better in terms of detecting cancer and treating people with cancer. I would say -- and we have a lot of new drugs in clinical trials.
I'd say we have two big hurdles that we have to overcome. One is getting rid of the disparities in our cancer treatment. The results for well-off white people are very good. But if you have Medicaid or you're in rural areas or you're a person of color, the results are not as good.
And the second thing is we just need more trials. We've got lots of drugs but it takes a long time to get patients on the trials. We need many, many more patients and faster completion of trials to know whether the new drugs work or don't work and to get onto the next.
That will be the biggest challenge.
CAMEROTA: Is that the biggest obstacle, Doctor, to curing cancer? Why is it so hard to cure cancer?
EMANUEL: Well, because cancer, in some ways, is a natural part. As the cells in your body divide, they get defects in the DNA. And when you get multiple defects in the DNA, it turns into cancer.
And so the second thing is detection. You can have cancer in your body, some of which will never develop into anything life threatening, and it can be very hard to detect.
Our best detection methods now require tens of millions of cells and that is a big challenge.
BLACKWELL: There was a White House official previewing what we'll hear from the president at the JFK Library today, who said that there needs to be societal and scientific advances that need to be made.
[14:40:03]
You know the intersection of politics and science. Is there a commitment to the funding, the political support to move forward, this unity agenda that the president has to fight cancer to reach this goal?
EMANUEL: So I do think cancer and biomedical research more generally is one of the few areas where there's extensive bipartisan support. If we're not going to waste the money, we have to focus it in the right way. And we should remember that a lot of what we do and a lot of things in
the environment affect our risk for cancer. So what you eat, exercise, smoking, and other habits dramatically affect whether you're going to get cancer or not get cancer.
Nothing protects you 100 percent. But if you eat a good diet, Mediterranean Diet, you exercise, you don't smoke, you can dramatically reduce your risk of cancer.
Getting more people to do that is critical to cutting not just the cancer death rate but also to cut the number of cancers in society.
And as I said, we really need to focus a lot of effort on the clinical research, getting patients to enroll in the trials to find out if the new drugs work better than the old drugs.
CAMEROTA: And, Dr. Emanuel, is there enough collaboration among cancer researchers? I know, in the past, Joe Biden, I think as vice president, talked about how there was too much sort of cutthroat competitiveness.
Are different centers collaborating with each other?
EMANUEL: Well, look, people have to get grants. They want to establish a name for themselves and for their insights and developments and that does create competition.
And I think we need, as a country, to explore other ways of fostering research. For example, instead of funding grant proposals, we might identify brilliant researchers and give them long-term grants to let them explore new ways.
That will be much more collaborative because they won't be fighting every minute for the next grant to fund their lab.
And I think more creative ways of disbursing funds to foster collaboration is very important.
If you have a limited pot of money and only, say, one in six, one in eight grants gets funded, you do create competition, cutthroat competition and kill collaboration.
BLACKWELL: All right. We'll look ahead to this speech, this "moonshot" speech from the president coming later this afternoon.
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, always good to have you. Thank you.
EMANUEL: Thank you.
CAMEROTA: Thank you.
Let's take a look at some live pictures here. This is the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland. And King Charles, as we understand it, is on his way to St. Giles' Cathedral, as are the queen's other adult children, and they will each take a corner of her casket and stand a silent vigil. And we will be there for that. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:47:11]
QUEST: Welcome back to Scotland, to Edinburgh, and the vigil of the four children of Queen Elizabeth II.
(SILENCE)
QUEST: You're watching the children, the adult children of Queen Elizabeth II standing vigil around the catafalque holding the coffin, and upon the coffin, the crown of Scotland.
The princess royal, Princess Anne, stands on one corner wearing a naval uniform. Also there, of course, the king, King Charles III, the duke of York, Prince Edward, count of Wessex.
And there is the queen consort and the Countess of Wessex. Behind him, Commander Sir Timothy Lawrence, the princess royal's husband. And there's King Charles and Prince Edward.
[14:50:12]
Isa Soares is with me, as is Bianca Nobilo and Sally Bedell Smith.
I'm going to start with you, Isa.
The mood outside the cathedral, now this is under way?
ISA SOARES, CNN ANCHOR & CORRESPONDENT: Well, we are, Richard, just around the corner, in fact, from the cathedral.
I'm standing alongside what I can describe is a very, very long line of people waiting to do just that, pay their respects, a farewell, to a queen, that as one lady told me here, has served the country so dutifully.
It's not moving as fast, obviously, because, as the vigil is under way, that line will be stopped.
I have spoken to people, Richard, who said they had to make the decision between seeing the solemn procession you and I saw earlier or waiting in line and they decided to wait in line for this very moment.
QUEST: Isa Soares, thank you.
Interestingly -- Sally Bedell Smith is with me, CNN contributor.
Sally, first of all, I thought they were going to stop the general public coming through, but it doesn't look like, or at least the last ones are still filing through while this is under way.
The decision to have this vigil in this way in Scotland, by the queen's children, the significance of that, Sally?
SALLY BEDELL SMITH, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it's very significant. Everything we've seen today is unprecedented in that it's in Scotland.
This is called the Vigil of the Princes. And it first happened in January of 1936 with the death of King George V.
At that time, there was a vigil in Westminster Hall where the queen's body is going to go next. And it was King Edward VIII, the new king, Prince Albert, the future King George VI, Prince Henry, his brother, and Prince George, the youngest brother.
It had never been done before. It was incredibly moving and dramatic. There was something similar done for the queen mother back in 2002.
But the origin of it, the Vigil of the Princes, was in 1936. Who could have foretold that, 11 months later, one Prince Albert would be King George VI.
So that was a moment that was created with great drama. And this is a moment that is created with sorrow.
It's -- to me, having watched all this for the last few days, having written a book about the queen, having written a book about King Charles III, this is, to me, by far, the most moving element of everything that we have seen.
And I think it's going to be even more dramatic and sorrowful in the days ahead.
And I would think that this very tableau we're witnessing right now will surely be repeated in Westminster Hall in the same kind of circumstance with -- probably the purple catafalque, which is what they use there.
QUEST: Sally, stay with me, please.
Bianca is in London.
Bianca, as we watch, it is remarkable that they have not stopped the general public coming through. But I'm guessing that is a reflection, A, of the sheer numbers and why would you stop them and, B, to show that it's all part of one big community.
BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR & CORRESPONDENT: Precisely, Richard. Those were my two thoughts.
First of all, we spoke about the security operation just moments before. There are thousands more policemen on the streets involved with this operation to ensure people's safety.
But also, again, a nod to the modernization of the monarchy and playing a part in the public grief of Queen Elizabeth II. Clearly, the royal family wants to evoke that they are all part of this mourning, the British public and the family, too.
I think it's also just a remarkable demonstration of the deeply peculiar, but one that has longevity, social contract between the royal family and the British public in that, yes, the family has access to this privilege and this influence and hereditary rights.
[14:55:08]
But they are sharing their most private pain and some of the darkest times of their own life, losing such an important figure to them, with the public, broadcast all around the world, standing there, being stoic, and holding themselves together.
It is a very singular experience to be one of these people. It is one of those deep quirks of British public life that this is what we have access to of the royal family.
QUEST: Right.
Sally Bedell Smith, the way forward, in a sense, the way Charles now rules and reigns, is going to be very different. But he has been there at the top table all his life. It's not like he's a novice or an amateur.
BEDELL SMITH: Not in the least. I'm sure many -- for example, in the scenes we saw earlier in the Scottish parliament, there were probably very few strangers in that room to him.
He knows so many of the great and good in the world in British politics, in all aspects of British society and British life from the top to the bottom, through his extraordinary apprenticeship as prince of Wales.
There's never been a prince of Wales like him. You know, they tended to be fairly dissolute characters.
And he has been a prince of Wales with a purpose. In the process, he's come to know every corner of Great Britain. He can apply all that knowledge to the way he conducts himself.
And as far as I can see, as king, he has moved absolutely seamlessly to that role.
QUEST: Sally? Let's watch as they leave the cathedral.
The vigil for their mother, who the vigil for their mother, who we, of course, know as the queen.
It is always interesting when you hear any of the children, any of the royal family talk about the -- their mother, they would always call her "Her Majesty" and "the queen." And then Charles would go on to say, "My dear or beloved mother." My mama.
The duke of York just leaving there as the cathedral now returns.
(APPLAUSE)
QUEST: Isa Soares, you're around the corner but you are close by to where the royal family is now.
SOARES: Richard, I'm just on the side road of St. Giles' Cathedral where you're seeing, right now, King Charles and the queen consort exit.
It's hard to imagine, Richard, isn't it, a more kind of moving image that -- than what we've just been seeing in the last few minutes. Truly, a remarkable moment.
King Charles III with his head bowed, alongside his siblings paying tribute to his mother. Incredibly moving, incredibly powerful. And as we see them leave now.
Richard, I would say, now that vigil has ended, the line of people wanting to pay tribute to the queen, I've been told by the police, can reopen. So people, took, can say their final farewell --
QUEST: Right.
SOARES: -- to the queen that has done incredible work and service for them.
Back to you, Richard.
QUEST: Thank you, Isa.
Sally, what we've seen here in Scotland, is really -- it's a precursor to what will take place in London. It's been much more intimate in many ways because of the relationship that you spoke of earlier.
[14:59:52]
But if you will, the entire procession of events from leaving Balmoral to final resting at Windsor is now well under way.
BEDELL SMITH: Yes, it is. This is stage one. And the next one, obviously, will be in London.
