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Prince Harry Talks Fractured Family, His Mother, Drug Use; Harry: Mother Would Be "Heartbroken" By Rift With William; Harry Describes Camilla As "Villian" Who "Traded Information"; Police Investigate Shooting Of Virginia School Teacher By 6-Year-Old; Bills' Hamlin Continues To Make Progress, NFL & Fans Pay Tribute. Aired 2:30- 3p ET

Aired January 09, 2023 - 14:30   ET

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

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[14:32:40]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Prince Harry continues to spill the tea about revelations in his memoir "Spare." For a family famous for keeping personal matters private, Harry is sparing no details.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: He addressed his relationship with his brother, Prince William. He says they are no longer speaking.

And when asked what his mother would think of it, the current rift, he said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRINCE HARRY, DUKE OF SUSSEX: I think she'd be sad. I think she'd be looking at it long term to know that there are certain things we need to go through to be able to heal the relationship.

I think she would be heartbroken that it's ended up where it's ended up. I think she'd be heartbroken about the fact that William, his office were part of these stories.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Joining us now, CNN royal historian, Kate Williams, and Sharon Carpenter. She's a host for BBC America.

Thank you for being with us.

Kate, let me start with you.

And just what we heard from Prince Harry there. And you see the pictures of Diana with the boys and you know how dedicated she was to her sons and that she was the target of the media plants of the stories and how this would impact her.

It was just really deflating to hear him describe how his mother would feel.

KATE WILLIAMS, CNN ROYAL HISTORIAN: Yes. It's a heartbreaking book.

There are two things in this book I think, really. Portraits of a dysfunctional family and its relationship with the press.

But also a picture of a really heartbroken little boy who lost his mother when he was just so young and couldn't -- felt guilt, he was saying to Anderson Cooper on CBS, felt guilt that he couldn't cry like everyone else was crying, struggled with his feelings.

Also believed that maybe she was coming back in 10 years' time, she'd just gone for a break. It's absolutely heartbreaking.

And this is -- to hear her say that she would suffer at the thought of the rift, she always wanted her boys to be together, and yet here we are in a situation when as Harry puts it it's a full-scale rupture between him, William and Charles.

They aren't speaking. It's not very likely at this moment that Harry's going to come to the coronation.

He feels the relationship has been very damaged by all the briefing against him, the struggles that Meghan has had. And I think he feels that speaking out is his only recourse now.

CAMEROTA: Sharon, what has surprised you the most and/or the British people about all these revelations?

[14:35:03]

SHARON CARPENTER, HOST, BBC AMERICA: I have to say one of the biggest surprises actually came out during the Tom Bradley interview, the ITV interview that aired yesterday.

Of course, everyone remembers the bombshell Opray Winfrey interview where the takeaway from that was that there was somebody racist within the royal family who'd been asking -- who had questions and concerns and conversations about how dark Archie's skin complexion would be while Meghan Markle was pregnant.

And you remember Opray's reaction to that. Who would be having such conversations? Meghan said, well, I can't speak about this because this would be very damaging. And then Harry followed onto that saying he will never elaborate on that conversation.

Well, Tom Bradley asked Harry about those accusations and Harry is now saying he never said the royal family is racist or a member of the royal family is racist. He said Meghan didn't say that either. And in fact, it was the British pes who ran with that narrative.

Of course, the royals faced a racism crisis because of this. The queen put out a statement saying that these issues that have been spoken about in the Opray interview were very concerning, especially those around the matter of race.

And then Harry is saying that this is really unconscious bias, those comments about Archie, not racism. He says there's a difference between the two.

But the question here that has to be posed is, why didn't he speak out about this earlier because it's been almost two years since the Opray interview came out?

And remember when Prince William was asked directly, is your family racist by a reporter, he responded no.

So it's not like Prince Harry didn't know that that was the narrative out there.

It's interesting he didn't clear things up when he'd spoken so much about how he and Meghan would have loved the palace to step in and protect them.

BLACKWELL: Kate, listen to this exchange between Anderson and Prince Harry. And this is about queen consort, Camilla, in which he calls her dangerous. And then we'll talk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRINCE HARRY: She was the villain. She was the third person in the marriage. She needed to rehabilitate her image.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: You wrote that she started a campaign in the British press to pave the way for a marriage.

And you wrote, "I even wanted Camilla to be happy. Maybe she'd be less dangerous if she was happy."

How was she dangerous?

PRINCE HARRY: Because of the need for her to rehabilitate her image.

COOPER: That made her dangerous?

PRINCE HARRY: That made her dangerous because of the connections she was forging within the British press.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: And Anderson described this description from the book, exchanging stories maybe to protect her own child and handing up the prince to protect her family, to protect her image.

Explain what we're hearing here and how that's being received in the U.K.

WILLIAMS: Yes. We've seen allegations about William before, and there were quite a lot about the book about the rift between Charles, William and Charles and Harry and William.

But this is about Camilla. And Harry is here saying -- he actually uses the phrase she got in bed with the devil, that she is working with the press and she gave stories to the press about him to protect herself, to protect her family, to keep them out of the spotlight. When she was really seen as the bad guy in the aftermath of the exposure of the affair between Charles and Camilla, that they were trying to rehabilitate her image.

And he said she was on a long-term campaign to be queen. This is extremely severe allegations against the queen consort.

And we know before sources have told us that Charles felt this was a red line. Criticize him, OK. Criticize Camilla and that was a red line for him.

And certainly Harry says he loves his stepmother, he understands the position she was in, but this I think is extremely tough.

And it does seem to me a slight contradiction here. Because if Camilla was trying to rehabilitate her image, if she was doing this as a P.R. campaign, if that was happening, it would have had to have been with the assent of Charles. So he is also responsible if that is the case.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: I mean, that's one of the biggest I think revelations. All this gossip trading, all this planting from within the royal family. I didn't know that that's how it worked until Prince Harry's been talking about it.

BLACKWELL: Yes. We'll see if there's any response in front of or behind the curtain.

Kate Williams, Sharon Carpenter, thank you.

And do not miss Prince Harry's sit-down with CNN's Anderson Cooper. That is all tonight at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.

[14:39:33]

Police in Virginia say an elementary school teacher is in stable condition after she was shot by a 6-year-old student. How did that child get their hands on the gun? That's next.

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BLACKWELL: Police in Newport News, Virginia, say they are now in touch with the parents of a 6-year-old boy who shot a teacher in his classroom Friday. Abby Zwerner is in stable condition after a single gunshot wound.

CAMEROTA: Administrators say the school will be closed all week to give students time to heal.

CNN's Brian Todd is in Newport News.

So, Brian, police say this shooting was not accidental, meaning a 6- year-old targeted this teacher?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Alisyn and Victory. What we're told by police is that this student targeted the teacher after an altercation between the teacher and the 6-year-old boy. Not a whole lot of other details other than that.

We did report earlier today as you mentioned that police tell us that they have made contact with the parents of that young boy. They're not able to give any more details than that.

I asked police officials whether the parents will be charged, whether the parents are cooperating. Any other details they can give us. They are not able to give us those details just yet.

[14:45:05]

We hope to get more details in about an hour and a half when police and school officials hold a news conference in Newport News at 4:00 p.m. Eastern time.

Also, a short time ago, I spoke with a grandmother who was here to pick up her two grandsons at the school right at the time of the shooting.

Lawonda Sample-Rusk was in the school's main office at the time of the shooting, and the teacher staggered into the office, bleeding, telling them that she'd been shot. Lawonda Sample-Rusk administered CPR to the teacher.

Here's what Lawonda had to say to us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAWONDA SAMPLE-RUSK, RENDERED AID TO WOUNDED TEACHER: The teacher that was shot, she came into the office saying that she had been shot. She had blood on her hand and blood on her shirt. And she said that she had been shot.

She -- I don't know if she fainted but she had fallen to the floor, and I screamed at that point.

We were trying to locate where her wound was because we knew that she had been shot but we were trying to locate exactly where her wound was. So at that point, we started to apply pressure to her wounds.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: And Lawonda told us the wounds were to the teacher's chest area.

Lawonda also told us she has no training in CPR but she was able to help stabilize the teacher along with a couple of others in the office there in time for first responders to get there and lend their assistance.

One other quick thing on the security situation at the school, this school -- elementary schools here in Newport News do not have police officers at school, resource officers. Those school resource officers are assigned to middle schools and high schools. Elementary schools have what they call school security officers that

are not police. They are trained but they do not carry weapons. But the security officer at this school splits his or her time between this school and another elementary school during the course of a day.

School officials not able to tell us whether the security officer assigned to the school was at this school at the time of the shooting or whether they were at the other elementary school that they were assigned to -- Alisyn, Victor?

BLACKWELL: Brian, is there any indication of where or how this 6-year- old got that gun?

TODD: We've been asking those questions for a couple of days now, Victor. Police not able to tell us that.

We're really trying to drill down on what the parents have been telling police.

As we've been saying, the parents have been in contact with the police but they're not able to answer those questions as to how the child got this gun. We knew about the gun -- how they were able to get the gun into the school.

Hopefully, some of those gaps will be filled in later this afternoon.

CAMEROTA: OK. Please keep us posted.

Brian Todd, thank you very much.

BLACKWELL: The White House is defending the president's decision to not meet with migrants during his first trip to the southern border. We'll discuss with a member of the administration, next.

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[14:52:13]

BLACKWELL: Buffalo Bills player, Damar Hamlin -- this is fantastic -- could be released from the hospital in the coming days just a week after he suffered cardiac arrest and collapsed on the field.

Yesterday, Hamlin posted this picture to Instagram. He also tweeted more than a dozen times as he watched his teammates defeat the New England Patriots during their last game of the regular season.

CAMEROTA: NFL teams and fans across the nation showed their support for Hamlin yesterday with signs and clothing featuring his name and number.

Joining us now is our own former Buffalo Bills player, CNN sports anchor, Coy Wire.

Coy, it's been great to have you there, obviously for a multitude of reasons. And I know you spoke to one of Hamlin's teammates. What did he tell you, and this is just miraculous to hear about Hamlin's condition.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: It is absolutely remarkable. I have been told that in the coming days, if not, very soon, Damar Hamlin could be leaving that hospital in Cincinnati.

It was just a week ago that he nearly lost his life on the football field after having a cardiac arrest.

There's a press conference with doctors in Cincinnati scheduled just minutes from now. Then a press conference about an hour later with head coach, Sean McDermott, and other coaches as well.

This journey has been an emotional roller coaster for the players.

And I caught up on the field moments after the game with one of the stars of the team, pro-Bowl lineman, Dion Dawkins, and he talked about an emotional turning point at one point this week. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DION HAWKINS, BUFFALO BILLS OFFENSIVE LINEMAN: His father, like, speaking to us and that giving us just a huge shot of energy. And McDermott bringing in the Facetime call on and hearing his voice and seeing his face and seeing him put his arms up and his heart up.

Those were all huge energy sources that just hit us, you know, like, but almost like whatever. Like a cannon. Just boom, dropped right on us.

And now to this moment now of happy tears. And these happy tears are real tears as well as the sad tears. And just to see that when a group comes together, we put our mind to it and we got it done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: Victor and Alisyn, you could write a Hollywood script about perseverance, the power of faith, how people can rise up and rally together when someone is down.

This story turned from being about Hamlin to being about humanity. His GoFundMe that initially set out to raise $2,500 shot up to over $8.5 million.

The world rallying for one man, but really just sending a powerful message to everyone through it.

CAMEROTA: It's great to see that generosity. That is absolutely the silver lining here. But of course, that will be a lot of questions as we go forward about the game about what changes if any should be made.

[14:55:06]

BLACKWELL: As there should be.

That return for kickoff for a touchdown, and right after the tribute, it was fantastic. The timing could not be better. When you say a Hollywood script, that is just -- it's just perfect.

WIRE: Victor, you're a great writer. And if you handed me a script and said that that's what happened, that number three Damar Hamlin, on the first play back, the Buffalo Bills step on the field and they run it for a touchdown?

That never happens. The last time they did it was three years, three months ago. Are you kidding me?

I would have handed that script back, Victor, and said, this is absurd. No one would believe this.

BLACKWELL: It's just no believable.

(CROSSTALK)

WIRE: Something special happening here in Buffalo.

BLACKWELL: It is amazing. It's amazing.

Coy, it's good to have you there. Thank you.

So the Georgia grand jury investigating former President Trump, his allies, and potential illegal interference in the 2020 election, they have now completed their report. They're done with their work. How soon we could learn about any indictment recommendations? That's next.

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