Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
CNN International: Republicans Attack Dr. Fauci at Hearing on Covid Response; Republican Lawmakers Support Trump Despite Conviction; Chinese Social Media Goes Wild After Trump Conviction; Weeks of Standing Water Frustrates Residents of Nairobi, Kenya; Vote Counting Underway in India's Election. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired June 04, 2024 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster. Here are today's top stories. Votes are being counted right now in India's general election. Early results show Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling BJP party is leading. But the main opposition, the Indian National Congress, is also making gains in a stronger than expected performance.
Brexiteer Nigel Farage of the U.K. says he'll run for Parliament as a candidate of the hard-right Reform U.K. party. That's despite failing in several previous attempts to become an MP. The U.K. general election is a month from today.
A Chinese lunar probe is on its way back to Earth after collecting soil and rock samples on the moon. This would make China the first country to return samples from the far side of the moon.
The renowned infectious disease expert, who many Americans saw as a guiding light during the confusion of COVID-19, was called to testify once again on Capitol Hill. This was perhaps Mr. -- or Dr. Anthony Fauci's final showdown with Republicans over mandates, vaccines and the origins of the pandemic. And even though he's retired, Dr Fauci says he and his family are still receiving death threats to this day.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After retiring in 2022, Dr. Anthony Fauci, once again defending his actions and recommendations during the coronavirus pandemic in his first public congressional testimony since he retired in 2022 --
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, FORMER NIAID DIRECTOR: We were having people for reasons that had nothing to do with public health and science refusing to adhere to public health intervention measures.
FOX (voice-over): -- as Republicans sought to undermine his credibility.
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): Do the American people deserve to be abused like that, Mr. Fauci? Because you're not doctor, you're Mr. Fauci in my few minutes. FOX (voice-over): Republicans accusing Fauci of trying to downplay a theory that the coronavirus may have originated in a lab, something Fauci adamantly denied.
FAUCI: I did not edit any paper as shown in my official testimony. So you said about four or five things, Congressman, that would just not true.
REP. DEBBIE LESKO (R-AZ): Well, we have emails, just prove it.
FAUCI: Well, you don't.
FOX (voice-over): Despite intense questioning from Republicans like Congressman Jim Jordan.
REP. JIM JORDON (R-OH): Did U.S. tax dollars flow through a grant recipient to the lab in China?
FAUCI: Yes, of course. It was a subaward to the Wuhan Institute.
JORDON: And who approved that award? What agency approved that award?
FAUCI: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
JORDON: Your agency approved that, right?
FAUCI: Yes, it did after --
JORDON: Does that have anything to do with this downplaying of the lab leak theory?
FAUCI: No.
JORDON: Nothing to do with it?
FAUCI: Nothing.
JORDON: Do you agree that there was a push to downplay the lab leak theory?
FAUCI: Not on my part.
JORDON: Really?
FAUCI: Really.
JORDON: Wow. I think most of the country would find that amazing. I still got 11 seconds.
FAUCI: But look at the facts. I've kept an open mind throughout the entire process.
FOX (voice-over): During the nearly four-hour hearing, Republicans seizing on a series of private emails suggesting some NIH aides may have attempted to bypass public disclosure requirements. FAUCI: The individuals at the NIH and NIAID are a very committed group of individuals. And this one instance that you point out is an aberrancy and an outlier.
FOX (voice-over): And Republicans questioning some of the key guidance government officials gave in the early days of the pandemic.
REP. BRAD WENSTRUP (R-OH): While policy decisions should have been based on scientific data, some frankly were not, the burdensome six- foot social distancing rule did not have sufficient scientific report. In your words, it just sort of appeared.
FOX (voice-over): Democrats sought to defend Fauci, applauding his leadership on the COVID vaccine and defending his right to be addressed as a doctor in the hearing room.
REP. ROBERT GARCIA (D-CA): Are we allowed to deny that a doctor is a doctor just because we don't want him to be a doctor?
GREENE: Yes, because in my time, that man does not deserve to have a license. As a matter of fact, it should be revoked and he belongs in prison.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The lady will suspend.
GARCIA: So, that's completely unacceptable to be able to deny Dr, Fauci, who's here, a respected member of the medical community, his title, and that's actually a personal attack on his character.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I have instructed her --
GREENE: He's not respected
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I've instructed her to address him as a doctor.
[04:35:00]
GREENE: I'm not addressing him as a doctor.
GARCIA: Dr. Fauci. I am so sorry you just had to sit through that that was completely irresponsible. Quite frankly, some -- we are hearing, this might be the most insane hearing I've actually attended. I've only been in Congress for a year-and-a-half, but I am so sorry that you are subjected to those level of attacks and insanity.
FOX (voice-over): Lauren Fox, CNN, Capitol Hill.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: Opening statements begin in Hunter Biden's trial in the coming hours. U.S. President Joe Biden's son facing felony charges for allegedly purchasing a handgun whilst he was addicted to drugs.
Jury selection happened on Monday in Wilmington, Delaware. Six men, six women sworn in, including a woman who says she's lost many friends to drug addiction and a gun owner who believes people who smoke marijuana should still be allowed to own firearms.
Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to the charges, although he's been open about his struggles with alcohol and crack cocaine addiction. This is the first time in history that the child of a sitting U.S. president has gone on trial.
President Biden himself sharpening his attacks on Donald Trump on the campaign trail. Meanwhile, Biden says Trump snapped after losing the 2020 election, and he's warning that things will be even worse if his political rival wins in November. But Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill don't seem to share his concerns.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It doesn't hurt having a convicted felon in a district like yours hurt Republicans.
REP. JOHN DUARTE (R-CA): My district's full of very smart people from grasp reality. They can smell (BLEEP).
RAJU: No issues nominating a convicted felon.
REP. ANTHONY D'ESPOSITO (R-NY): I have no issues in supporting Donald Trump for president United States.
RAJU: You're running with the convicted felon at the top of your ticket.
REP. NICK LALOTA (R-NY): Take the process. Not the same. And a lot of my constituents are focused on the fact of the trial not being fair, the process not being fair, and they're upset and they're angry.
RAJU: Are you having a convicted felon at the top?
REP. MIKE GARCIA (R-CA): I think the American people saw what happened in New York. They saw two what were typically misdemeanors being elevated to 34 felonies.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: As a convicted felon, Donald Trump is now banned from entering dozens of countries, including U.S. allies, the U.K., Canada and Australia. They all refuse entry to felons, and the list also includes China, where the former president is being mocked mercilessly on social media. Will Ripley has more on that.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On China's tightly controlled Internet, AI-generated images of Donald Trump in an orange prison jumpsuit. Posts about the former president's felony convictions trending on Chinese social media, racking up hundreds of millions of views, untouched by Beijing's heavy-handed censors.
This user asks, can he be put behind bars? Will this lead to civil war?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nineteen states have seceded.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The United States Army ramps up activity.
RIPLEY (voice-over): As the movie "Civil War" hits theaters in China this week, one of just 34 foreign films allowed all year.
This comment says: Trump supporters, hurry up and mobilize, storm the Capitol.
Another uses Trump's popular Chinese nickname, Comrade Nation Builder Trump should not be fighting alone.
Chinese social media users often call Trump the Chinese nation builder, a play on his isolationist policies, dividing the U.S. and its allies, building up Beijing and weakening Washington on the world stage.
Trump's legal troubles fueling Chinese state media's ongoing narrative of American democracy in decline. A stance summed up by this Chinese academic.
The attitudes of both parties reflect the rottenness of American politics and the law now seems to be used as a political weapon.
Alex from Beijing says, in the United States, you can still run for president, even if you have a felony or have committed a crime. This kind of thing is unimaginable in China.
Wen, a student, says, if Trump can still become president after being convicted, I think he may try to use his power to quash the charges.
Its politics, says Xiao Ye, the multi-party system will have such problems. China does not have such problems because of the one party system.
The comment echoes China's larger narrative that the U.S. is a superpower in decline, a democracy marred by dysfunction, division, chaos that ultimately benefits Beijing.
RIPLEY: All of it perhaps a welcome distraction from Tuesday's 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Experts say China is not just watching what's happening in the U.S. from the sidelines. The U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that influence operations are in full swing ahead of the November election, aiming to sow discord and amplify divisions within the U.S., whether it's social media campaigns or Chinese state media portraying the United States as this democracy that's falling apart.
[04:40:02]
It's clear, some say, that Beijing's goal is to weaken America's standing on the global stage.
Will Ripley, CNN, Taipei.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: As Will mentioned, today marks the 35th anniversary of the massacre China would like the world to forget, the deadly crackdown on students and pro-democracy demonstrators at Beijing's Tiananmen Square. China still censors any mention of it on the mainland and now in Hong Kong. Taiwan is the only place in the region where the bloodbath can be publicly commemorated. A vigil will be held in Taipei later today, and Taiwan's president is vowing to keep the memory alive.
Tiananmen was the site of the infamous standoff between the Chinese military and an unidentified protester known as Tank Man. His refusal to step away became the defining image of the tragedy. No official death toll of the incident has ever been released.
Ukrainian forces say they have used Western weapons to successfully strike a Russian missile system inside Russia. It comes just days after U.S. President Joe Biden gave Ukraine permission to use U.S. weapons for limited strikes in Russian territory near Kharkiv. Ukraine claims the target they hit was a Russian S-300, a long-range surface- to-air defense system.
It comes as Russia continues its bombardment of northeastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian military released this video of some of the destruction in one town in the Kharkiv region.
Now, parts of Kenya remain underwater weeks after devastating flooding killed hundreds of people and left more than 200,000 homeless. Not even Nairobi's richest neighborhoods were spared, and some residents say the government is either unable or unwilling to properly address the crisis. CNN's Larry Madowo reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is not a river. This is a family's courtyard in Runda, one of Nairobi's wealthiest suburbs. More than a month after record rains and floods hit Kenya, their home is still submerged.
Jonathan Dass says they haven't even started quantifying how much his family has lost. Nothing is left untouched after two meters of floodwaters moved in.
MADOWO: These are really cars.
JONATHAN DASS, RUNDA NEIGHBORHOOD RESIDENT: A lot of people are moving into the city. We've got people coming from abroad who want to live in these, you know, luxurious, leafy areas. And there's a lot of demand for that. At the same time, we're not moving fast enough to be able to plan properly and understand what needs to be done to accommodate all these people coming in.
MADOWO: Runda has a reputation for being very well planned because it's a diplomatic quarter. The U.N. is here. The U.S. Embassy is here. DASS: I don't know what to say, Larry. It's not. It's not well planned. If it was well planned, we wouldn't be sitting here in a boat.
MADOWO (voice-over): All this water in Runda has nowhere to go because the drainage of this water pan is blocked. The residents blame it on corruption and impunity.
DANIELA BLATTLER, RUNDA NEIGHBORHOOD RESIDENT: There is someone who is backfilling slowly but surely, so the dam is becoming smaller and smaller, and there is not an outlet to send the water that arrives to somewhere else.
MADOWO (voice-over): Sean Blaschke can only navigate his backyard with a paddleboard, a far cry from the playground and garden it was before the rains.
SEAN BLASCHKE, RUNDA NEIGHBORHOOD RESIDENT: Is there fish here? There is actually quite a bit. This is practically a fish farm at the moment.
MADOWO: Did you always have catfish before?
BLASCHKE: Nope, nope. This is a fairly new perk of living on Lake Runda.
MADOWO (voice-over): Some of the Runda residents whose homes remain underwater have lived here for decades without drainage issues until now.
MADOWO: Do you believe this is a man-made disaster?
DASS: We've had a lot of rain, but the magnitude of the disaster is created by greedy grabbing.
MADOWO (voice-over): Across town from Runda, in Nairobi's oldest slum, Mathare, bulldozers have brought down everything standing within 30 meters of a river. Many had just 24 hours' notice.
MADOWO: This used to be somebody's house. In fact, I stood on top of this exact same house in late April after some of the worst flooding Kenya has seen claimed some lives in this informal settlement. The government then ordered them out, forcefully evicted thousands of families from this area and demolished their homes.
MADOWO (voice-over): Nairobi's poorest have suffered the most from the flooding and the evictions that have left so many homeless.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What we have seen is that the rich are enjoying their rights, but us, the poor, we are fighting to enjoy the rights that is supposed to be our rights, which is not fair.
MADOWO (voice-over): The Kenyan government maintains that the mandatory evacuations were for the sake of public safety after flooding killed more than 300 people.
Larry Madowo, CNN, Nairobi.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: Still ahead, a massive undertaking in India as votes are counted following the general election. We'll take a look at what preliminary results reveal.
[04:45:00]
Plus, the title of the second most popular soda in America has changed hands. We'll tell you more about which drink has the -- has that spot, just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: Our new details on our top story this hour. Ballot counting is underway in India following six weeks of voting in the world's largest democracy. Early results show Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling BJP alliance has won two seats and is leading in nearly 240 constituencies.
But so far, the numbers are well short of the landslide predicted in exit polls. India's stock market plunged based on these preliminary results. But experts say it's still too early to get a firm idea of voting trends since a majority of ballots are yet to be counted there are so many of them.
Joining me now from New Delhi is Sreenivasan Jain, journalist and adjunct faculty at O.P. Jindal Global University. He's also co-author of the book "Love Jihad and Other Fictions." Thank you so much for joining us.
The stock market was the thing that everyone's picking up on because it seems pretty negative for the ruling party. But surely it is too early to know.
SREENIVASAN JAIN, JOURNALIST: Well, thanks very much indeed, Max, for having me. It's turned out to be a fascinating election, which started off at the start of the election cycle looking very much like it was going to be a slam dunk for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling party, the BJP, who are going to come back for a historic third term and pass something which no prime minister has achieved in close to seven decades. The exit polls which you referred to also seem to bear that out, that it was going to be a landslide.
What we're actually seeing now is a far more nuanced verdict that while the ruling coalition which Mr. Modi heads is about 30 seats over the halfway mark and at the moment at least, and I say this with all the caveats, that counting is still very much going on. It's about two in the afternoon here in India. It's about six hours into counting, but as you can imagine, close to a billion voters, 543 constituencies, so it's quite a long drawn-out process.
At this time, it does appear that the ruling coalition is in a position to return to power, but Mr. Modi's own party, the BJP, has dropped close to 60 seats from what it had last time, which is about a fifth of the number of seats.
Which indicates an interesting, nuanced verdict that the Indian people seem to be putting out. That on one hand, they seem to be saying that, look, they're not averse to giving Mr. Modi and his ruling coalition a third successive shot at power, but at the same time, they are signaling that many of the things that all of us, those of us who went out on the campaign, were picking up on, that there were nagging concerns of unemployment, economic distress, and so on and so forth, were genuine concerns.
[04:50:00]
And for all of Mr. Modi's powerful personality, for all of the extraordinarily flattering media coverage he's received and also given the weakened opposition, for all of those factors, it appears that it may not be that kind of thumping majority, and it's almost as if the Indian voter is saying, we might be bringing you back for a third time, but we are, in a sense, putting you on notice.
FOSTER: So, from the people you spoke to voting in the election, do you feel this is a rejection him but still support for right-wing politics?
JAIN: Well, the BJP, Mr. Modi's own party, is still the single largest party at the moment, so I think it would be too early to say that it's an outright rejection of him. It's more of a diminishing, as if to say that they do subscribe to the fact that Mr. Modi has managed to notch up a considerable number of achievements, whether it's to do with distributing free food grains to the poor, or even playing the religious card, the card of majoritarianism. Mr. Modi, as we know, has been very much at the center of a Hindu-centric politics, a Hindu- centric shift in the Indian political discourse.
So it's not as if there's been an outright rejection of that, but it almost seems to suggest that, at the same time, it's not as if all those things are enough to trump these genuine concerns that Indians have felt. It's been a tough year for India these past five years, particularly with the pandemic. We've seen rising unemployment figures.
India is at the bottom when it comes to human development indices, whether it's to do with health or education, and I think those real concerns are manifesting themselves.
I'd just like to add one more point. There's been a growing sense that, under Mr. Modi's watch, India has taken on an authoritarian turn. There have been concerns about the nature in which opposition parties have targeted. Freedom of speech has been stifled. This is something that even global democracy watchdogs have pointed out, saying that India is one of the fastest growing autocratisers in the world.
Now, when we went out onto the ground, what we thought of this as somewhat of an elite preoccupation in living rooms and cities and so on had actually started to filter down. Ordinary voters were talking about how, even those who admired Mr. Modi, they sensed creeping signs of authoritarianism. They used the Hindi word for dictator, saying they didn't like it.
And I suspect that it's all these factors combined which has seen this attrition in the BJP's vote, this attrition in the BJP's majority, at the same time with the possibility of Mr. Modi still coming back. That still can't be ruled out.
FOSTER: So he may well still lead the country. As you say, he may be diminished in power slightly. How might he respond to that? Will he change policies, or will he become more hardline, do you think? What does it mean for the people of India and people around the world who are affected by India?
JAIN: Well, I think it will be very interesting to see how this plays out because if the BJP on its own, Mr. Modi's party, falls short of numbers, they will require the support of their coalition partners. Now, many of these partners represent India's very diverse regional fabric where there are all kinds of varying pulls and pressures, not all of whom subscribe to Mr. Modi and his party's hardline Hindu nationalist ideology. So it doesn't seem at the moment, and again, I say this with a lot of ifs and buts, whether they'll be able to -- whether Mr. Modi will be able to continue to govern as he has, dependent as he is on his allies, which are likely to put brakes on some of the more hardline or some of the more extreme impulses that we've seen of this government.
Now, how successfully they're able to do that or not is a question we'll have to wait and see, and how Mr. Modi himself, because he's known to be someone who is largely a one-man show. He's not really someone who's been very comfortable doing business with others, and he's managed to get away with that because so far he's been able to win overwhelming majorities.
But now he'll have to work within a coalition. Now they'll have to be give and take. And whether that leads to a certain softening of the manner in which this government has functioned is something that everyone here in India and around the world is watching very closely because India is, of course, as we know, the world's biggest democracy. And the backsliding that has been picked up, not just here in India but around the world, of India's democratic temperature is something that has been a matter of concern.
And if a coalition government, if a BJP with a reduced majority will have to perhaps be more mindful of those anxieties and concerns is something that broadly should be seen as a positive.
FOSTER: Yes, absolutely. And it's going to be a fascinating couple of days as those results come in. Sreenivasan Jain, thank you so much for joining us today with your analysis.
We'll be back in just a moment.
[04:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CYNDI LAUPER: GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN, SONG BY CYNDI LAUPER: Girls just wanna have fun now And the boys they wanna have fun And the girls they wanna have fun ...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: Cindy Lauper announcing her first tour in more than a decade, but it'll also be her last. She'll headline concerts in 23 countries, or cities rather, across North America on the Girls Just Want to Have Fun farewell tour. Lately this year, celebrating more than 40 years in the music industry.
Now, when it comes to sodas, Coca-Cola is king of the market, now the runner-up has just been dethroned. Dr. Pepper has become the second biggest soda brand in the U.S., a spot long held by Pepsi, according to trade publication Beverage Digest. Despite the rankings, Dr. Pepper seems to be having a moment on TikTok. The peppery drink has 8.3 million likes, fast passing the number of likes for Pepsi and Coke.
Thanks for joining me here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster in London. CNN "THIS MORNING" is up next after a quick break.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAUPER: I come home in the morning light My mother says, "When you gonna live your life right?" Oh, mamma, dear, we're not the fortunate ones And girls -- they wanna have fun Oh ...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[05:00:00]
