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CNN International: Report: Boris Johnson Deliberately Misled Parliament; New Hampshire Voters Unfazed by Indictment; Grand Jury Indicts Marine Veteran Who Held Homeless Man in Fatal Chokehold; Demolition of Damaged Roadway to Wrap Up Today. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired June 15, 2023 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This to be true when he said, I have been repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged that there were no -- there was no party and no COVID rules were broken and that is what I have been repeatedly assured.
So this was December 2021. The committee found that, look, you ought to have known what the rules were and you ought to have known that there were serious questions about whether --
MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: There's a suggestion that he didn't receive that advice.
MCLEAN: So, yes. So, the report -- and again, I'm just going through it. From what I've seen so far, says that this was given by the sort of political media advice, not, you know, official civil servants who were in a position to know specifically what the rules actually were. And I just want to read you this passage from the report as well.
He said -- it says: We came to the view -- this is from the report again. We came to the view that some of Mr. Johnson's denials and explanations were so disingenuous that they were by their very nature deliberate attempts to mislead the committee and the House, while others demonstrated deliberation because of the frequency with which he closed his mind to the truth.
FOSTER: We've got some sound from Boris Johnson. I mean, whether or not he misled Parliament is one thing, what he saying is he deliberately --
MCLEAN: Deliberately.
FOSTER: So, he lied to Parliament, which is the most damning part of it. But let's hear what he had to say about all this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BORIS JOHNSON, THEN-BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: I have been repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged that there was no party and that no COVID rules were broken. And that is what I have been repeatedly assured.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: So that's what, as you say, we've got to read the report properly, but that's, you know, what we believed to be when he lied to Parliament. What's he said since then?
MCLEAN: Yes, so obviously he put out a very long more than 1,000-word statement on Friday denouncing the committee's work as biased from the get-go. And now he says this -- I'll read you a few lines from this.
He says: The committee now says that I deliberately misled the House and at the moment I spoke I was consciously concealing from the House my knowledge of illicit events. This is rubbish. It is a lie. In order to reach this deranged conclusion, the committee is obliged to say a series of things that are patently absurd or contradicted by the facts.
So Boris Johnson obviously not taking it lying down. And last week in his statement he very much hinted that, look, he was stepping back from politics for now. But hinting though that there may be a comeback story here. And surely the diehard Boris Johnson loyalists may also be sort of ginned up by all this and motivated by this as well. And what they view as --
FOSTER: Notable but not many of them -- I think I heard one on the British radio today. They're not all that piling out like they normally do.
MCLEAN: Yes, Boris Johnson may have plenty of support in the base of the Conservative Party in This Country, the rank-and-file membership. But what is clear and what was clear from the last leadership contest, is he does not have anywhere close to the support of his own colleagues and MPs in the House of Commons.
FOSTER: Scott, enjoy reading the rest of it.
MCLEAN: Thank you.
FOSTER: Coming up, reaction from Jordan Neely's family after the Marine veteran who held him in a fatal chokehold on a New York City subway is indicted.
Plus, support for Donald Trump remains rock solid in the granite state despite his arrest in the Mar-a-Lago documents case.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is your reaction to seeing that Trump allegedly did this?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, right there with Hunter Biden. That don't mean nothing because I don't trust the DOJ. I do not trust the FBI.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[04:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster. If you're just joining us, let me bring you up to date with our top stories this hour.
Breaking news just in. A long-awaited report has found that former Prime Minister Boris Johnson deliberately misled Parliament about his illegal parties during the COVID-19 lockdown.
And the Federal Reserve will not raise rates this month, but Fed Chair Jerome Powell says they are still committed to bring inflation down to their desired 2 percent. Which means future rate hikes are still likely.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump's indictment in the Mar-a-Lago documents case doesn't seem to be cutting short -- cutting into his support amongst Republican voters -- rather. CNN's Omar Jimenez traveled to the swing state of New Hampshire to get reaction.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LEE HAYNES, NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTER: It's not fair. I'm all about being fair.
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In this Republican part of New Hampshire, a 37-count indictment doesn't change much for some Trump supporters.
JIMENEZ: This is from the indictment.
HAYNES: Yup.
JIMENEZ: Trump told the individuals that the plan was highly confidential and secret. Trump also said, as president, I could have declassified it, and now I can't, but this is still a secret. What's your reaction to seeing that Trump allegedly did this?
HAYNES: Well, it's right there with Hunter Biden. But that don't mean nothing, because I don't trust the DOJ. I do not trust the FBI. I hate to say it. Y'all might come out with more info.
JIMENEZ: Anything that's in here at this point doesn't matter to you.
HAYNES: I will listen to it. I will not make a decision on any of it until I've heard a lot more.
JIMENEZ (voice over): Lee Haynes isn't alone either. Many of Trump supporters we spoke to pointing to a lengthy investigation into Hunter Biden's finances, which remains ongoing. To Hillary Clinton being cleared of acting with criminal intent back in 2016 in what was described as a careless handling of classified information on a private e-mail server. To these Trump backers, it is all evidence of a double standard being applied now.
DUANE WHITE, NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTER: They give us look here, but don't look over here. I wish they would stop, like it's just too much. JIMENEZ: And even in this, there are pictures of the boxes, you know, stacked up and even spilled on the ground. That doesn't bother you.
WHITE: Everything you see -- you can't believe everything you see. I don't know. I'm skeptical.
They told us Russia collusion was real for how many years and it proved through the Mueller report that it wasn't, so how can I believe that at face value, too?
JIMENEZ (voice over): Even as Trump faces legal jeopardy, he remains the clear frontrunner in the GOP primary. The former president's rivals so far offering a range of reaction to the indictment.
CHRIS CHRISTIE, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He is saying, I'm more important than the country. These are my papers.
NIKKI HALEY, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If what it says is actually the case, President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security.
MIKE PENCE, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This indictment contains its serious charges, and I cannot defend what is alleged.
[04:40:02]
JIMENEZ (voice over): In Seabrook, New Hampshire, another red part of the state, some Republicans believe the allegations will help Trump politically.
SRINIVASAN "RAVI" RAVIKUMAR, NEW HAMPSHIRE REPUBLICAN VOTER: This is uniting people. People are saying wait a second here, it's not -- it's not D versus R. It's us against them.
JIMENEZ (voice over): He too doesn't believe what's in the indictment.
RAVIKUMAR: For you to know, what is really the charge, you have to believe the charger.
JIMENEZ: So the contents of this indictment to you are essentially disqualified.
RAVIKUMAR: Completely disqualified because it's all done by a completely tilted Justice Department.
JIMENEZ (voice over): And despite the latest allegations, he doesn't plan to change his vote.
JIMENEZ: You voted for Trump in 2016.
RAVIKUMAR: I voted for Trump in 2016.
JIMENEZ: And in 2020?
RAVIKUMAR: I voted for Trump in 2020.
JIMENEZ: And you plan to vote for him this cycle coming up.
RAVIKUMAR: If Trump is on the Republican ticket for 2024, I would gladly vote for him again.
WHITE: He was the first person to get me to vote, 56 years old, and I did vote for Trump in 2016, I voted for him again in 2020. At this point, you know, I'll vote for Trump.
JIMENEZ: You haven't seen anything at this point to change your vote from Trump?
HAYNES: Not really, but I do wait until the end before I do make a decision. You know, if Biden comes through with something stellar, who knows?
JIMENEZ: Now one woman we spoke to who didn't want to appear on camera told us that she is not voting for him anymore. And she says that it's not just what happened over the past week or so, that since the last time she voted for him in her words she's just done too many things wrong. But the key thing here is that especially in an early primary state like New Hampshire, this is the dynamic that some of these contenders are going to be dealing with. That if some of the Trump supporters' waiver, it won't simply be because of an indictment from the Department of Justice.
Omar Jimenez, CNN, Seabrook, New Hampshire.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: A Manhattan grand jury has indicted a Marine veteran who held a homeless man in a fatal chokehold on the New York City subway. Daniel Penny was indicted on second degree manslaughter charges in the death of Jordan Neely last month. He surrendered to police but is out on bond. The incident was caught on cellphone video. Here's some of it. Penny held Neely in a chokehold after witnesses say Neely shouted, he was thirsty, hungry and didn't care if he died. Neely's death has led to protests calling for justice.
The law firm representing his family says Penny should have let Neely go before he died and, quote, did not have the right to be the judge, the jury and the executioner.
CNN analyst and former NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and counterterrorism John Miller has more on the legal process.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, the process has been a bit of a flash point in this case. The family of Jordan Neely wanted to know, why wasn't he arrested that night. The answer came from prosecutors, who told police to hold off because they said we need more information. They wanted to hear the 911 calls. They wanted to see if there was any other video. They wanted to talk to the passengers on the train. Ask them if they felt threatened. And finally on May 12th they ordered his arrest. Began that grand jury presentation and obtained this indictment. The video is the thing that you always wish you had as a prosecutor.
If we had this on tape, we could prove exactly what happened. But the tape starts halfway through the incident. What it does not capture was the pacing around by Mr. Neely that witnesses described of him, balling his fists up, throwing his jacket down, talking about not being afraid to go back to jail or go away for life. They are wondering, what he is about to do that he could go away for life for. It suggests that he was about to hurt somebody in the mind of Daniel Penny.
So this case may boil down in large part to that video. But also in large part to the decision that his lawyers will make about do you put Daniel Penny on the stand because they are going to have to have some show of proof of what was in his mind when he decided to use that level of force that he can articulate he thought was about to happen that justified it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: Now ahead, a medical breakthrough, scientists say they created the very start of an embryo in a test tube without any of the normal ingredients, would you believe.
[04:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: Harvard Medical School, one of the most prestigious in the world, is at the center of a bizarre and macabre scandal. The former head of the school's morgue is now facing federal charges of trafficking in stolen human body parts allegedly taken from the cadavers donated to the school. Apparently, no body parts were off- limits and were even sent through the U.S. mail system over the past five years. The indictment names Cedric Lodge, who was fired by Harvard last month, along with his wife and several other people. The reaction at Harvard has been outrage. The deans of the medical school said the reported incidents are a betrayal and HMS and most importantly, each of the individuals who altruistically chose to willed their bodies to HMS through the Anatomical Gift Program to advance medical education and research.
Researchers in the U.S. and U.K. says they've created the first world's first synthetic human embryo like structures. They did it using stem cells and without not using any actual eggs or sperm. What it created doesn't have a beating heart or even a brain and raises legal and ethical questions. But scientists say these embryo models could some day improve our understanding of the genetic diseases or what causes miscarriages. The embryo-like structures are confined to test tubes and planting them in a womb would be illegal.
Police in New Zealand has ceased a record amount of methamphetamine. It was hidden in maple syrup containers in arriving from Canada. Officials say they intercepted almost 1,600 pounds, more than 700 kilograms of meth worth more than $150 million. The seizure was made in January as part of an operation that also involved police in Australia and Canada. Officials say six people have been arrested. Pennsylvania's governor says demolition of the damaged section of
Interstate 95 in Philadelphia will be completed today. It collapsed on Sunday after a tanker caught fire -- or truck rather -- a tanker truck caught fire underneath it. CNN's Pete Muntean has more from Washington.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Officials in Philadelphia say the work of demolishing the bridge on I-95 in northeast Philadelphia will finish up on Thursday, but it's only the start of the process of getting traffic moving again which will take place in two parts. According to Governor Josh Shapiro, first, fill in the gap created by the downed bridge and then pave over it. And then build a completely new bridge.
[04:50:00]
The bad news is, there's really no time line just yet on how long it will take to build a new bridge. But the good news is that temporary fill will allow all six lanes of I-95 north and south to open to traffic again. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro says this is the best and quickest way to get the critical spot of I-95 open.
GOV. JOSH SHAPIRO (D-PA): The most efficient way to reopen I-95 is to backfill the gap in the roadway behind me and then pave over it. This approach will allow us to avoid delays due to shipment and supply chain issues and pursue a simple quicker path.
MUNTEAN: Shapiro also says the work will take place around the clock. Also, they'll stream it 24/7 on a web cam to show folks just how quickly this work is getting done. It just shows how important this spot is to the area and beyond.
We are also finding out more about the truck driver who was killed in this incident. 53-year-old Nathaniel Moody, he was a life long trucker. He worked for a company called Penn Tank Lines which National Transportation Safety Board says was in good safety standing with the federal government.
Pete Muntean, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: America's top selling beer is no longer an American beer. Bud Light has been dethroned after decades on top. The new number one beer, we'll tell you next.
[04:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: New to the stories in the spotlight.
NASA's Curiosity Rover has sent back a stunning picture of the surface of Mars. The rover took this photo of the Marker Band Valley in black and white. NASA added in color to show the difference between light in the morning shown in blue and afternoon light showing yellow. Beyond the rover's track seen near the bottom of the screen is the site of an ancient lake previously discovered on the Red Planet.
Golfer Berry Henson will tee off today at the U.S. Open in Los Angeles. He's ranked 444th in the world, but his rating as an Uber driver is almost perfect. The 43-year-old has been shuttling people around Southern California for the past seven years. All whilst pursuing his passion for golf. Now he's finally got his big break. Henson qualified for the U.S. Open after a dominant performance at the Canoe Brook Country Club in New Jersey this month. Amazing.
Bud Light is being dethroned. It had been the most popular beer in America for more than two decades. But the Mexican Lager Modelo Especial became the top selling beer in May. It captured more than 8 percent of the U.S. retail beer sales with Bud Light falling to second place in just over 7 percent of the market share. Analysts say a number of factors contributed to Bud Light's drop in sales. Among them a barrage of negative headlines from right wing media over the company's partnership with a transgender influencer. Then the brand's tepid response angered many LGBTQ+ advocates.
Thanks for joining me here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster in London. "EARLY START" with Christine Romans is up next here on CNN.
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