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Soon, Queen's Casket Escorted from Buckingham to Westminster; Candidate Concedes to Election Denier in New Hampshire GOP Senate Primary; Ukraine's President Visits City Just Liberated from Putin's Troops. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired September 14, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:01]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to viewers here in the U.S. and around the world. It is Wednesday, September 14th, and I'm Brianna Keilar with John Berman.

Right now, you're looking at some live pictures at the mile in Central London, and soon the queen's casket will be escorted from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall, where the queen will lie in state until her funeral on Monday. King Charles, Prince William and Prince Harry will walk behind the casket during this 38-minute trip, this procession that it will take.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And first on CNN, a royal dinner after receiving the queen's casket last night at Buckingham Palace, the royals, they had dinner together. In attendance, the king, queen consort, and the children and grandchildren, including Prince William and Kate and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

I want to go to London now and bring in CNN's Anna Stewart and Scott McLean. Anna, first to you. What are you seeing where you are and what do you expect over the next several hours?

ANNA STEWART, CNN REPORTER: Well, John, we came again to the back of the line, this is for people that want to see the queen's coffin lying in state when that opens to the public later today. I say I was at the back of the line, because I'm not sure if you can see it behind me, but it has already stretched for quite some distance.

Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to do this. People have been warned that the queue could take 30 hours, it could go overnight. And once Westminster Hall is open, once people can filter through, it will move continuously, so, potentially, 30 hours, very little opportunity to sit down.

This isn't the only crowds we're seeing in London today, of course, plenty of people lining the procession route of the coffin. People want to see her majesty's coffin. They want to pay their last respects in person. In terms of the mood, there has been a lot of jubilation celebrating the queen's life but I also we'll see a lot of silence and people wanting to reflect on that life and the person that they have lost. Now, in terms of the procession, it will start in the next few hours. It will be a very pomp and ceremony type of procession. We will see the coffin brought on to a gun carriage by the Grenadier Guards, the bear party (ph). And it will be moving slowly down --

BERMAN: All right. We seem to have lost --

STEWART: -- before it arrives at Westminster Hall.

BERMAN: All right. Anna Stewart, our thanks to you.

We should make clear, people have a choice to make here. The crowds have a choice to make in London this morning whether they line the streets to catch a glimpse the procession as it moves from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall, or whether they line up to get ready to view the casket once the queen is lying in state inside Westminster.

And, Scott McLean, to you, because you're actually near the front of what could be a very, very long line for people who would like to walk past the casket over the next few days, Scott. What are you hearing?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. So, the folks around here are some of the most devoted to seeing the queen lying in state. Some have been camping out at least for one night. Almost everyone has been camping out for at least one night. The two women at the very front of the line have actually been outside for the last two nights. It's absolutely remarkable.

And people don't have a lot of stuff because they were told to bring only small bags. And so they've, by and large, been staying awake, huddling under umbrellas, it rained last night, it was pretty miserable, all things told.

I want to introduce you to one gentleman here. This is David Carlson. He's from London. He's 75 years old. And, David, you're a military veteran, and I just wonder, you know, you haven't slept in the last 24 hours. Why are you here? Why is this so important to you?

DAVID CARLSON, LONDON RESIDENT: Well, I need to pay my respects to her majesty, the longevity of service. And the least I can do after serving in the armed forces for her and pledging my allegiance to her is go and say goodbye.

MCLEAN: I can't help but have some empathy for you, of course, because you -- you know, it was miserable last night. It was raining. How was it? How are you still, you know, sitting here?

CARLSON: I must be made of good stuff. I was originally born in Liverpool and this (INAUDIBLE) is strong up here. I may not be the most physical, but --

MCLEAN: You're a tough guy. And just one last thing, and that's yesterday morning, we've been checking in with you over the last 24 hours, you had a bit of a fainting spell, and yet you decided to carry on and to keep waiting. And I just wonder if you ever considered for a moment just packing it in and going home? CARLSON: Not in the slightest. It was just a brief spell. That's all, nothing serious. And I just carry on.

MCLEAN: Keep calm and carry on, very British of you.

[07:05:00]

We appreciate you talking to us and thank you for your service, your military service, of course, sir.

So, John and Brianna, these are just, again, a few of the people at the front of the line. David just got a wristband, by the way, it's number 12. So, he will be the 12th person inside of Westminster Hall to view the queen's body lying in state.

BERMAN: Number 12, that truly is extraordinary. And what could be more British than saying carry on? Scott McLean, our thanks to you, our thanks to Anna Stewart as well. We'll be back in London is just a bit.

KEILAR: This morning, Amtrak has canceled seven more long range routes ahead of a possible rail strike that involves 60,000 workers, the White House scrambling to reach an agreement by midnight this Friday. And if there is no deal, 30 percent of all U.S. freight shipments, mind you, could be halted and disrupt the already fragile supply chain.

Joining us now is CNN Correspondent Pete Muntean. We're talking about what could happen. I think people, if this does happen, are going to be jolted by the effects of this.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN TRANSPORTATION CORRESPONDENT: There's definitely an economic jolt here. Even I was a bit surprised by this. $2 billion a day in economic impact if the freight rail system comes to this grinding halt. And now these negotiations move to D.C. today with the labor secretary, Marty Walsh, meeting with two key unions. This is what he's good at, sealing the deal with the clock ticking towards this midnight deadline to avoid a rail worker strike.

You can see the new impacts here. These are the impacts right now, Amtrak preemptively canceling even more routes. It was already canceling routes between Chicago and Seattle, Chicago and San Francisco, Chicago and L.A. Now Chicago and New Orleans has been added to the list, also New York to Miami.

This is what freight rail carries. We're talking about bulk commodities here, food and agricultural products. That means grain, that means getting your bread, chemicals, chlorine, cleaning the water, car parts. There are already car part shortages. We have heard the horror stories of people stranded, essentially waiting for cars to get fixed.

We're talking about 60,000 rail workers, Brianna, could go on strike, which is a huge impact here. Amtrak says they're doing the preemptive scale-backs because they only really own about 3 percent of their own rails. That's mostly in the northeast corridor. It's probably not where we're going to see the impacts. But these are really the long range routes that's preemptively canceling just because those are freight rail routes that Amtrak essentially uses their trains on.

So, we're coming down to the wire here, the Biden administration really burning up the phones trying to avoid this, but we will see. We could end up with a strike at the end of this week, could take a bit of a trickledown effect until we see all of the impacts but it is dire. This is going to cause billions of dollars a day to the economy if this strike does ultimately happen.

KEILAR: It's a very big deal. Pete, thank you so much, or Peter Muntean, as it says in my script, which I rather enjoy, and you informed me no one calls you. But I'm going to call you that, Peter, thank you.

BERMAN: So, this morning, a concession in New Hampshire's Republican Senate primary. Retired Army Brigadier General and election denier Don Bolduc leads State Senate President Chuck Morse by about 1,800 votes. The votes are still being counted but Morse has now conceded though. He tweeted overnight, quote, it has been a long night and we've come up short. I want to thank my supporters for the blood, sweat and tears they poured into this team effort. I just called and wished my best to General Don Bolduc. The focus this fall needs to be on defeating Maggie Hassan.

Joining me now is CNN Political Director David Chalian. David, this race, along with a couple others in New Hampshire, a victory for the Trump wing of the Republican Party, and also, if you flip it around, makes some Democrats happy.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, that's certainly true, that Democrats believe when the Trump wing of the party emerges victorious in a primary process in a battleground state like New Hampshire, that that perhaps makes the Democrats' job a bit easier in November in this case to hang onto this seat with Senator Maggie Hassan.

John, I don't think the Democrats will be able to celebrate anything until we see the results in November to see if they're right that indeed the more MAGA-identified nominees prove that they are not able to win in a general election context. But, clearly, Democrats around the country and in New Hampshire last night as well, have actually been investing money to try and get what they believe to be the easier Republican to defeat.

I think, worth noting here and watching here also, you know, the governor of the state, Chris Sununu, as you know, referred to the now Republican nominee for Senate as a conspiracy theorist-type. It'll be very interesting to see, given Chuck Morse made that concession phone call, does the entire Republican establishment, including the governor, many members of that establishment were with Morse, rallying around Bolduc here in an attempt to defeat Hassan, and how he squares his previous language, the governor, with potentially his new support for this candidate.

[07:10:16] BERMAN: Look, many Republicans wanted Sununu to be the Senate candidate against Maggie Hassan, who they thought or think could be beatable in November. That didn't happen. Sununu endorsed Morse. That wasn't enough. And I think you're right, look, we won't know until November whether or not this is something the Democrats will be happy about in the end but this is who they wanted to face. Don Bolduc is who they wanted to face.

Just quickly, David, what does it say about the strength of the Trump wing of the Republican Party?

CHALIAN: Well, listen, it is the dominant force inside Republican primary electorates. I mean, I think that's been proven throughout the last six months of primary season, John. That is the life force inside the Republican primary voting electorate right now is that Trump wing, that Trump identification, even that Trump approach to politics, in terms of personality.

So, I think that is sort of the coin of the realm inside GOP politics now we're turning the page to the general election season. How that plays in November is something that we'll have to wait and see for the next eight weeks.

BERMAN: And in terms of the general election, one of the reasons that Democrats had been feeling slightly better heading into November, gas prices have been falling, they still are falling, and they felt that maybe the inflation numbers were easing up a little bit. Not so fast, inflation persistent, these new numbers out yesterday. How much of a concern will they be for Democrats and how could this shape the race for the next several weeks?

CHALIAN: It's a real concern, John, as it should be, obviously. Americans are experiencing the cost of their lives at a higher level than they were a year ago. Even with gas falling, it's still higher than it was a year ago. Food prices are higher. That is -- any concern for an incumbent party in power about to go before the voters asking for sort of a re-up on their contract. So, that is, no doubt, a concern.

And, by the way, it is what Republicans, if you talk to Mitch McConnell and other strategists who are running these Republican campaigns, they want to be talking about inflation every day. Some polls have shown it coming down a little bit in terms of importance to a voters' decision but most of the polling shows inflation and the economy sits atop the heap of all the other issues.

BERMAN: Mitch McConnell wants to be talking about inflation. What he doesn't want to be talking about apparently is a national ban on abortion, which is what Senator Lindsey Graham proposed yesterday, a ban after 15 weeks. What's Lindsey Graham doing here, David, and what's the potential impact?

CHALIAN: Well, Lindsey Graham says, you know, he's looking to give something to the Republican base here, the pro-life movement, to rally around. Listen, Republicans just achieved a 50-year quest, right, I mean, a goal here of getting Roe versus Wade overturned. And now, they're scrambling in a really remarkable fashion to figure out sort of what then do we present as a message on this issue to voters?

So, what Graham is doing here is taking a 15-week abortion ban, which polling shows is not wildly unpopular with the American public and saying, hey, this is something our pro-life base can rally around. The problem is one of the arguments Republicans made in the aftermath of Dobbs is this is all now returned to the states and should not be dealt with at the federal level. And so you have all these Republican candidates in battleground districts saying, what are you doing, Lindsey Graham? Why do I now need to be answering questions all day about a national abortion ban at 15 weeks when we just spent the summer saying this now returns to the states where it should be handled?

So, you see a discordant messaging operation throughout the Republican ranks on this issue that had been a fortifying issue for the party for 50 years.

BERMAN: David Chalian, any morning I get to see you is a better morning. Thanks so much for being with us.

CHALIAN: Thanks, John, right back at you.

KEILAR: Ukraine's president just a short time ago paid a personal visit to this territory that was just recaptured from Russian forces. This is the brand new video here showing President Zelenskyy meeting with Ukrainian troops, shaking their hands. This is in the newly liberated city of Izium, which is in the Kharkiv region. Ukrainian forces entered the city there just five days ago and Ukraine now says its troops have taken back more than 3,000 square miles of land since the start of the month. Those, of course, are Ukrainian numbers. The pentagon says it has seen a number of Russian forces crossing back across the border into Russia.

Joining us now to talk more about this is CNN National Security Analyst Beth Sanner, she is a former senior official at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Beth, thank you so much for being with us this morning.

All right, let's talk a little bit about Izium here, where we see President Zelenskyy and the significance of this to the region as well as this city here, Kupiansk, which they have retaken.

[07:15:06]

BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, these are huge in a couple of ways. First, it's just militarily. These are logistic hubs. These are the places where the supply lines are centered for Russia and where they abandoned a lot of equipment as the men fled. And so, you know, these are important not just for this region but also as Ukraine is trying to push south and into Donbas and extend this into the eastern area. So, these are really important.

The other part of it I think is just psychologically. I mean, just seeing Zelenskyy in Izium and raising this flag, it's a important for the Ukrainians, it's important for the west because it shows that what we're giving them is working and it's really important because, in Russia, it's impossible to deny what's happening.

KEILAR: Yes. And he makes a show of going. He knows that, right --

SANNER: He's good at this.

KEILAR: -- for the psychological part of this.

SANNER: Yes.

KEILAR: The offensive now has slowed, which is important to note, but part of that is because there is this focus here on Lyman. Tell us about Lyman.

SANNER: Well, in terms of what is going on here, more -- we're looking at the Donbas, right --

KEILAR: In the east.

SANNER: -- in the east. And there's also a Russian, you know, working here in Bakhmut. There's a lot of fighting going on there. And so they're, of course, going to be slowing because after six days of fighting, the Ukrainian forces are tired and they have got to regroup themselves. And so we should expect, and the Ukrainian defense minister came out today and said, we should expect things to be a little bit slower. But this is going to be a key focus here because it's the gateway to the Donbas.

KEILAR: The gateway to the Luhansk region, right?

SANNER: Yes. And remember, this is where Putin has said they were going to take all of the Donbas, Luhansk and Donetsk, and they haven't been able to do that. And what is happening now with this depletion of Russian forces, most military analysts say, they're not going to be -- the Russians are not going to be able to take this territory that's here in the stripes. They're not going to be able to achieve their aims in taking all of the Donbas. And, in fact, they're probably going to lose some ground.

KEILAR: This is an embarrassment for Vladimir Putin, what he has lost in the Kharkiv region. What worries do you have about how he might react here?

SANNER: Well, we are seeing in Moscow, you know, trying to shift the narrative. They have had to admit this, but it's not Putin's fault, right? It's somebody else's fault. It's the military's fault, it's bad intelligence. Those things are true. But Putin also has been in charge of this war and taken command. He's making command decisions but he's distancing himself.

So now what I'm worried about is a lot of the discussion that is picking up in the social media is about carpet bombing Ukrainian cities, about really taking it out on the civilians in Ukraine. For a while, the Kremlin was really pulling back from that and now we're seeing them pick up on state T.V. this mantra.

And so I am expecting that the Russians are going to try to change somehow the tenor of the war and they can't do it because they don't have the men on the battlefield. So, what's left? They have to indiscriminately bomb human beings.

KEILAR: That will be horrific if that is what comes to bear.

Beth, always great to have you and to walk us through this. We appreciate it. Thank you so much.

SANNER: Thank you.

KEILAR: Hundreds of troops are getting ready right now to escort the queen's casket from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall. We have special live coverage ahead here on CNN.

BERMAN: And just in to CNN, new research on multivitamins, how they help keep you sharp as you get older.

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[07:20:00]

BERMAN: So, just into CNN, the Alzheimer's Association released a study that suggests taking a daily multivitamin may slow cognitive decline in older adults.

CNN Medical Correspondent Dr. Tara Narula joins us right now. So, Doctor, I love this study because I take a multivitamin every day. Explain what it says.

DR. TARA NARULA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So, this was a study of 2,200 older Americans over the age of 65, min (ph) age about 72. And the researchers looked to see if giving them a daily supplement, either a cocoa extract supplement or a multivitamin could have benefit in terms of protecting cognitive function. They follow them over three years. They give them a cognitive tested baseline and then at the end of every year for those three years.

And, interestingly, they found no real significant benefit in the cocoa group, unfortunately, for those of us who eat dark chocolate, but they did find a benefit for people like you who take a vitamin every day. They actually saw about a 60 percent kind of slowing of cognitive aging or about 1.8 years. And also they noticed there was an enhanced benefit for those who had underlying cardiovascular disease. Why? Possibly because those individuals are micronutrient-deficient, they don't absorb it in some cases because of the disease they have or the medications they're on.

BERMAN: This explains why I'm so razor sharp every morning.

NARULA: Exactly.

BERMAN: What was interesting about this, one of the things that was interesting, is they actually thought the cocoa was going to turn up some results here.

NARULA: It did. BERMAN: But, man, the results on the multivitamin were pretty extreme.

NARULA: Yes. I mean, it's definitely interesting when you think about the fact that a third of Americans take a multivitamin since they came onto market in the 1940s. And, essentially, we haven't really shown with reviews before, that there is sufficient data to recommend this. However, this really is the first large, randomized control high quality study to show a possible benefit.

As of now, there's no FDA approved intervention to basically give to older asymptomatic Americans to protect their cognitive function. And when you look at kind of the impact that this could have, 6.5 million Americans with Alzheimer's disease, 46 million worldwide with Alzheimer's or some form of dementia, finding something that is safe, affordable, accessible and effective could have a real public health impact.

[07:25:02]

BERMAN: Is that one of the most important takeaways here, is it gives older or aging Americans something you can do, hey, do this and this will help?

NARULA: I think for so many people, when you talk to them, what they fear when they get older, in some cases, it's not a heart attack or even other diseases, it is really the loss of their cognitive function, the loss of the essence of themselves. But I think the real takeaway, and I think this is important to point out, is that this is not practice changing yet, this is really a study that needs to be replicated with more research, larger studies, more diverse population.

So, at this point, really, the recommendation is to really try to get your nutrients through diet. That's the best way. Other strategies, exercise, looking at your cardiovascular risk factors, you can control stress, quit smoking, control your alcohol consumption, do mental stimulation exercises. There are other things yo8u can do, social interaction.

BERMAN: You say I have to talk to people.

NARULA: You do.

BERMAN: What about possible risks with multivitamins?

NARULA: So, I think it's really a great question, just the supplement industry, in general. But we usually say that multivitamins tend to be safe. That being said, it's always a good idea to talk to your health care provider because in some individuals, depending on your underlying conditions, what other medical conditions you may have or what other medications you take, there may be a risk. So, it's always good to talk about it.

And the supplement industry, in general, is not really regulated by the FDA, right? It's considered a food. So, these products are put out on the market, they don't have to be tested for safety, the labels don't have to be looked at for accuracy, and there are millions of Americans who take supplements. It's a billion dollar industry. And many of them can have compounds, chemicals, other drugs in them that can land you in the emergency room or hospitalized. So, really important to talk to your doctor about what supplements you're taking.

BERMAN: And be aware of what you're taking, to be sure.

Dr. Tara Narula, great to see you, thank you so much.

NARULA: Thank you.

BERMAN: So, King Charles about to lead a procession through the streets of London behind the casket carrying Queen Elizabeth. We have special live coverage ahead.

KEILAR: And coming up, the rambling note left inside an exploding package on a college campus.

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