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CNN Live Event/Special
Ukraine Retakes 6,000 Square Kilometers from Russians; King and Queen Consort Return to London from Northern Ireland. Aired 3:35-4p ET
Aired September 13, 2022 - 15:35 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[15:35:00]
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MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome. I'm Max Foster. I'm in London and we begin here at Buckingham Palace. A short while ago the body of Queen Elizabeth II made a poignant, final return to Buckingham Palace.
Her coffin will remain here until Wednesday when it will be moved to Westminster Hall to line state for four days. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to pay their respects. They're already doing what they can here, grabbing their moment with the late queen.
The arrival of the coffin was overseen by the king and queen consort, going back to London after spending much of the day in Northern Ireland in their national tour. And that is where the king met mourners, political leaders and attended the service of prayer and reflection with wife, Camilla.
He also reiterated his vow to dedicate himself to the U.K. and its people. King Charles also spoke of the queen's great affection for Northern Ireland and said his family felt its sorrows. Here's a closer look at another busy and historic day for the British monarchy.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twenty-one rounds to salute the new monarch. King Charles continues his tour of the United Kingdom, arriving in Northern Ireland to an upbeat crowd.
Expected to build upon the foundations of his late mother, the new king needs to be a source of healing, greeting the public in Belfast and meeting with leaders at the Hillsborough Castle royal residence, where Queen Elizabeth II played a part in cementing the peace following decades of deadly violence.
CHARLES III, KING OF ENGLAND: My mother felt deeply, I know, the significance of the role she herself played in bringing together those who history had separated and in extending a hand to make possible the healing of long-held hurts.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): In a sign of unity amid a fractured past, the king met with the Irish president and Northern Irish leaders and lawmakers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Queen Elizabeth showed that a small but significant gesture -- a visit, a handshake crossing the street or speaking a few words of Irish -- could make a huge difference in changing attitudes and building relationships.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Chants of "God Save the King" greeted the king and queen consort to St. Anne's Cathedral in a service of reflection that brought together politicians and community leaders.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be with you and remain with you always, amen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): In Edinburgh, mourners streamed by her coffin adorned with the Scottish crown, one last look before she is flown home.
The king now back in London to greet the arrival of his late mother's casket at Buckingham Palace. She will be moved to Westminster Hall on Wednesday, where the public is already queuing to say their final goodbye to a leader who united the kingdom.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: Let's bring in Matthew Chance, who has been out with the crowds.
[15:40:00]
FOSTER: Most appropriately the weather has turned very British. It is raining.
But it didn't dampen the effort to come here, did it?
What was the atmosphere like out there?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Very wet, first of all. But also, incredible because people were waiting there -- and I was there for six or seven hours. And the crowds were already there when I got there.
And it is just astonishing the way the people have turned out in this pretty horrific weather, quite frankly, with their brollies and their raincoats like mine, to witness history. And I think that was the overwhelming sense I got from people.
Yes, there were people there with the utmost respect for the queen. Almost all the people there were quite visibly in grief that she has passed on. And there was also a lot of young people there as well. I was surprised by that. Because I assumed that support for the monarchy was just older people and younger people less supportive. That's what opinion polls suggest.
But today we saw people from across the generational divide.
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FOSTER: This is important for the monarchy, or support for the queen specifically, as somebody who rose above monarchy and was this figure in her own right.
CHANCE: I think that's a really important point. The queen occupied an iconic status (INAUDIBLE) what your views are, even Republicans that I spoke to said actually quite like the queen, think she's doing a brilliant job.
It was a massive blow to the cause of Republicanism that she was the queen and was as good as she was at being the monarch.
It is a different matter for King Charles. And I think he is probably very conscious of that. He is not his mum, his mother. The accession was automatic. But the respect which, in the place that his mother had the in the hearts and minds of the people of Britain, that's not (INAUDIBLE) automatic. He has to earn that.
So I think he will be very warmed by the fact that the first few days of him being the monarch have been very positive. He's got a warm welcome --
(CROSSTALK)
FOSTER: -- from his mother or is that in his own right?
CHANCE: Partly I think out of respect for his mother. Also, Charles has been with, too, for a long time. Of course he had his ups and downs, to say the least, particularly around the divorce, the terrible relationship with Diana, Princess of Wales.
But he has rehabilitated from that. He's been rehabilitated in the public imagination for several years now. And even his wife, the queen consort, Camilla, she is very much now a sort of loved figure in the country --
(CROSSTALK)
CHANCE: -- come a long way of rehabilitating his image.
FOSTER: As we look the hearse come by, some new information about is that the queen oversaw the design. It was designed by the palace along with Jaguar. But she approved all of it and they emphasize the fact that the idea was it needs to be as visible as possible, the coffin. So it is quite an eerie idea that this is the hearse that the queen designed and we're seeing her plan play out here.
CHANCE: Even in death, the queen very conscious of her public image, conscious that she had to be seen to be the queen --
(CROSSTALK) CHANCE: And I think that's what we're seeing in this -- all these
very dramatic and meticulously planned events that have been taking place. They are a balance between the private mourning of a family, who have lost their mother, grandmother, great grandmother, and this need for there to be public mourning as well.
This is a state event but also an intensely personal family one as well.
FOSTER: People holding their phone lights up, because I haven't seen that before. It seemed to be some sort of spontaneous response.
Is that a tribute or them trying to get as much light on the coffin as possible?
I didn't see that because I was behind them but I saw people filming the hearse. So maybe it's just the light went on as they tried to film this hearse in the darkness.
On the other hand, it very well could have been a makeshift tribute, a sudden spontaneous tribute.
As soon as the coffin went past, they started to, applaud to cheer. There were three cheers for the queen that rang out spontaneously amongst the crowd. So it was a very, very, quite lively and celebratory atmosphere. It wasn't grief that we were witnessing, it wasn't tragedy. People were celebrating the queen.
FOSTER: Which is the difference with the most recent comparable situation, which was with Diana. People were literally crying, screaming and grieving in the street. But that's because she died before her time. I think there's something poetic that the queen died at Balmoral.
[15:45:00]
FOSTER: But also having her last audience with the prime minister. It felt like her work was complete and she was able to fulfill that promise of serving until the end and not having to go into some sort of regency which people have been starting to talk about.
CHANCE: Yes, they have been for some time. She did work right up until almost literally the last 24 hours, the last 48 hours. You are right, we talked about national grief. But we are not seeing grief in that intense sense. It is not Princess Diana.
This woman was 96 years old. She had a very long and full life. I mean, I hope we all live as long as she has done. People aren't upset in the same way. They are sad, she's past on. But mainly it's the celebration of her life, the esteem with which she was held in. And it's the respect from the seven decades that she worked as the head of the state and 14 other states she was the head of.
FOSTER: We saw mile long queues for the lying-in state in Scotland. It starts tomorrow here in London. Your being out and seeing people preparing. There are barriers everywhere. Paint a picture of how you think tomorrow will unfold visually.
CHANCE: Tomorrow, I think, if I'm not mistaken, it's 2:22 in the afternoon, on the minute, the queen's funeral procession will start from Buckingham Palace. She will come through those gates of Buckingham Palace for the last time and make her way slowly toward Westminster Hall in the Palace of Westminster.
That's when people, later on that evening, they will be able to file past, pay their respects. The expectation is -- and this matches what I've heard on the street -- there going to be hundreds of thousands. And it could go to more than 1 million.
I don't know how many people. It's going to be a lot of people. It's going to be one of the biggest, if not the biggest security operation the city's ever seen, with so many people, bringing the British capital to a standstill.
They've got to be checked as if they're going on to an airplane. There's a potential security risk as well. That will go on until Monday morning. 24 hours a day. That is an enormous amount of people, potentially to file past the queen and pay their respects.
FOSTER: We are looking at Princess Anne there. We don't know quite what happened on Thursday. But we are told the queen died in the afternoon. Our assumption is most of the siblings headed toward Balmoral. They did not see her before she died.
But we have learned that Princess Anne that she was fortunate enough to share the last 24 hours of her dearest mother's life. She has accompanied, of course, the body, from Balmoral to Edinburgh and now back to London. And she's described it as a true honor and a privilege.
Quite an extraordinary few days for her, a real privilege, as she says, but also very difficult. It's a big responsibility. She effectively took charge of the coffin.
CHANCE: It's a big responsibility because this is the queen. It also must've been a very traumatic for her, as anybody who's lost a parent will be able to tell you. When you lose a parent, it can be very, very upsetting indeed.
I think that's what we need to remember about this moment. It is an important national day, a national moment but it is also a moment where a family is grieving the loss of a loved one.
I think Princess Anne, the daughter of the queen, has done an incredible job keeping it together, taking control of the official aspects of the casket's transfer down to London. And also organizing the funeral on behalf of the family.
FOSTER: She said, we may have been reminded how much of her presence, her contribution to our national identity, we took for granted.
I think there's some truth to that, the idea we took it for granted. She was always there. Most of us cannot imagine life without her, because she's always been there and we have taken her for granted. We aren't going to really feel that for some time when she doesn't appear when we expect her to.
CHANCE: No, I think every postage stamp, every letterbox, whatever else you see her face on, on every coin, every bank note, passports, they all inculcate us with this image of the monarch in this country. And that's been Elizabeth II.
[15:50:00]
CHANCE: That has been true all of my life, all of my parents' lives as well; most of them, anyway. Yes, that fact it now does come to an end is enormously -- an enormous break with the past.
FOSTER: So the queen is back in Buckingham Palace. She will leave Buckingham Palace for the last time tomorrow to lie in state at Westminster Hall.
Much more of the key moments of today as the United Kingdom mourns Queen Elizabeth II from Belfast to Buckingham Palace. Do stay with CNN live.
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FOSTER: The arrival of the queen's coffin was overseen by the king and the queen consort after spending much of the day in Northern Ireland. That's where the king met mourners, religious leaders and attended a service of prayer and reflection. Nic Robertson was there.
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NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: You could hear King Charles' motorcade arrive even before it pulled up here outside St. Anne's Cathedral. The crowds shouting "God save the King," as he pulled up. He really wanted to connect with the public here.
After the service, King Charles had come up and thanked the people for their singing. They've been singing the national anthem. He thanked them for their singing and spent time going along all the well-wishers here, speaking to them one at a time.
But perhaps it was the service of reflection inside the cathedral that summed up the day and the message that he had come here to help remember his mother. And the eulogy all about reconciliation and the important role in reconciliation in Northern Ireland that the queen had brought.
The eulogy, very powerful in reverence to everything Queen Elizabeth had achieved here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ALEX MASKEY, SPEAKER, NORTHERN IRELAND ASSEMBLY: Elizabeth was not a distant observer in the transformation and progress of relationships in and between these islands. She personally damaged (ph) through the -- her individual acts of party (ph) leadership can help break down barriers and encourage reconciliation. Queen Elizabeth showed that a small but significant gesture, a visit, a handshake.
[15:55:00]
MASKEY: Crossing the street, speaking a few words of Irish, can make a huge difference in changing attitudes and building relationships.
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ROBERTSON: And earlier in the day, King Charles had met with the principal political leaders here in Northern Ireland, deep political divisions.
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CHARLES III, KING OF ENGLAND: Through all those years she never ceased to pray for the best of times for this place and its people whose stories she knew, whose sorrows our family had felt and for whom she had a great affection and regard.
My mother felt deeply, I know, the significance of the role she herself played in bringing together those who history had separated and in extending a hand to make possible the healing of long-held hurts.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTSON: Of course, all this messaging so important. King Charles inherits the title king from his mother, passes automatically to him.
But by trying to connect with the crowds here, waving at them, coming up to greet them, getting the messaging, the political messaging in a neutral way, so important for King Charles to maintain that support his mother had and shore up his monarchy going forward -- Nic Robertson, CNN, Belfast, Northern Ireland.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: That's it for the special hour of coverage of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II and her return to Buckingham Palace. "THE LEAD" is next. We will leave you with some of the pictures on this day of mourning in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
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JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST (voice-over): The Dow down today more than 1,000 points. What's going on? THE LEAD starts right now.
Stocks tumble as Americans lose money in their investments.
Should you really just ignore today's drop or is something more serious going on?
Plus Russians on the run. Only CNN makes it inside a city that Putin's army controlled just days ago. See what they left behind after the Ukrainians pushed them out.
Plus, a Twitter whistleblower at it again, warning of security threats within the social media network and that Twitter employed a Chinese government spy.
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