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USA's World Cup Dream Ends; NYC High-Rise Evacuated After Columns Buckle; Platner Support Collapses After Rape Allegations He Denies; Trump Arrives In Turkey For NATO Summit; Utah Prosecutors Preview Evidence In Charlie Kirk's Killing; Argentina Scores Three Straight Goals To Beat Egypt 3-2. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired July 07, 2026 - 14:00   ET

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

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": So we got them there.

(LAUGH)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": That's true. Joe, great to have you. Joe Lowery, really appreciate your insights there. And a new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

SANCHEZ: We're following a minute-by-minute crisis in New York City. There's a high-rise that's under construction, and right now, it has been evacuated after support columns buckled. People in nearby buildings also being told to leave.

And in unraveling campaign, Democratic Senate candidate, Graham Platner facing pressure to quit the race after a new allegation of sexual assault. One of his biggest backers in the Senate just said it was time for him to step aside.

KEILAR: And the president overseas, President Trump in Turkey for the NATO Summit with the war in Ukraine at the top of the agenda. We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

SANCHEZ: We are awaiting word from Graham Platner on the future of his campaign as Senator Bernie Sanders, one of his biggest supporters, says it is time for him to go. Just over an hour ago, Sanders releasing this statement, quote, "I spoke with Graham Platner about the best path forward for Maine. In light of these very serious allegations, I have recommended that he step aside."

All of this after a woman accused Platner of rape. Jenny Racicot telling CNN that Platner allegedly forced himself on her when she says they were casually dating about five years ago. Racicot saying that she repeatedly told him no after he showed up to her place uninvited.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENNY RACICOT, GRAHAM PLATNER ACCUSER: It got to the point where I was like, OK, I feel like I've said this enough times, like he's not listening to me or he's not hearing me. And I looked at him and I remember this very specific look in his eyes and I could smell alcohol. And I was like, this is different.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Platner denies the allegations, saying, quote, "Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false." We're joined now by Michael Shepherd. He is the Politics Editor of Bangor Daily News.

Mike, thanks so much for being with us. Have you heard any indication from his team that Platner is planning to drop out? When that announcement may come?

MICHAEL SHEPHERD, POLITICS EDITOR, BANGOR DAILY NEWS: Yeah, we're not expecting anything today. We think that it's something that's certainly under consideration.

I think that people, Democrats here in Maine are certainly thinking that this is coming. Of course, Bernie Sanders pulling his support today is a big blow for the campaign. On the ground, I'm not seeing much in the way of support or a path forward for this campaign.

So I think it's a matter of time whether he does it today, tomorrow, by the Monday deadline. Democrats are well on their way to plotting the way forward here.

SANCHEZ: That deadline on Monday, looming over all of this, because if he doesn't drop out before then his name ostensibly would appear on the ballot come November. In the case that he does drop out before that, let's walk through some of the potential replacements because Troy Jackson is out there and so is Nirav Shah.

SHEPHERD: Yeah, we have -- today, Troy Jackson filed with the FEC, so he is exploring a run officially. Nirav Shah out with a statement today, pretty much in. Haven't heard from Janet Mills yet. She was obviously the other big candidate in this race, at least early on, didn't get far, didn't get to -- her campaign did not make it to Election Day.

But it seems like Jackson, Shah, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who was also in a gubernatorial primary with those two, also someone who's in, and some other folks who have been on the horizon as well.

You know, as you see on the screen, Dan Kleban, who left that race after a short period of time. And in addition to the people on the screen, (inaudible) another congressional candidate with Joe Baldacci. So, again, these are almost all people who were on the ballot in June.

SANCHEZ: Talk to us about the climate in Maine that saw Platner just outrun a popular governor in Janet Mills. Mills obviously suspending her campaign, admitting that she couldn't keep up with Platner's fundraising. He grew a profile going back to last fall that seemed to supersede an establishment candidate that had the support of members of the Senate.

SHEPHERD: Yeah, I think it goes back a long way, right, she, Governor Mills kind of got into a tiff with the president early last year at the White House and gained a pretty high public profile. But then she kind of -- she kicked around the Senate race, but she didn't file. Right?

We went all summer and into the fall and she declares in October. And by that point, Platner had gone from, look, absolutely nowhere. Right? I mean, I think I heard his name for the first time about two weeks before he announced, to build a really powerful movement. Right?

[14:05:00]

He got he got crowds quick. It built. He survived a pretty, you know, what would have been, I think, a pretty fatal set of controversies in October and just kind of kept going and won the primary, going away after the New York Times, you know, detailed some toxic episodes, you know, some allegations of toxic behavior on the part of ex- girlfriends, including Jenny Racicot.

So I think that he had a campaign that looked very inevitable. And this was, I don't -- I don't think it's an unpredictable outcome, where we are just given the history around Graham Platner. But he certainly ran what was a very tactical campaign, did things that we've never seen in Maine, where we generally have boring politics, right?

And he certainly flipped it on its head. So he certainly outran, out hustled Governor Janet Mills. And that's in part why we are where we are today.

SANCHEZ: Before we go, Michael, just quickly, is there a mechanism for Maine Democrats to pick his successor now?

SHEPHERD: Yeah, they have -- they have time. They have until the 27th. He needs to get out of the race by Monday. He needs to do that on his own volition. They can't kick him out. He's got the spot on the ballot until he doesn't want it. After that, they have two weeks to replace him. And they're figuring out right now, how exactly they're going to do that.

I think it could be a convention. It could be a series of caucuses across our 16 counties. I think they're -- it sounds to me like they are trying to include as many Maine Democrats as possible. So I think there's a lot of sensitivity here toward -- to, you know, seeing a -- they do not want to be seen as having a central committee of people deciding this process.

Now, obviously, the more you open up this process, the harder it gets to manage, right? And we have 20 days to get it done here in Maine, right? So --

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

SHEPHERD: -- it's a really, really difficult unprecedented situation up here for sure.

SANCHEZ: Michael Shepherd, thank you so much for being with us.

Still to come this afternoon, the evacuation in Midtown Manhattan. Workers spot cracks and buckled columns in a high-rise under construction. Officials evacuating several nearby buildings over fears of a collapse.

KEILAR: Plus, there are some new concerns on Capitol Hill about Senator Mitch McConnell's health. Lawmakers and voters are wondering about his condition. We'll have that and much more coming up on "CNN News Central."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:12:04]

SANCHEZ: Now to Breaking News in New York. These are live images of a high-rise in Midtown Manhattan at risk of what authorities fear could be a partial collapse. This is a 33-storey tower just blocks from Grand Central Station and the Chrysler Building. Structural columns on its 21st floor, as you can see in these images, are buckling, according to the fire department, causing bricks to fall to the street below.

Multiple blocks have been evacuated and a collapse zone has been created in that area.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI, NEW YORK CITY: This is an extremely serious situation and I am thankful to our first responders for quickly arriving at the site.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: A union official described it like this, quote, "eye beams are bending like cigarettes in there." That is obviously a very dire picture being painted. Gloria Pazmino is on the ground near the high- rise for us. Gloria, what is the very latest? This building still appears to be moving?

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Brianna and Boris. And you know, from where I'm standing here on the street, the building appears to be almost leaning, but accounting for the lack of perspective that I have here on the ground, we actually have some brand new images that the fire department has put out where you can see that the building is in fact leaning and you can also see those bent beams that the union official described as bent like cigarettes.

You know, it's kind of a remarkable image to see a beam made of steel folded almost like, you know, as if it were made of rubber. And that is what is causing so much concern here. Now, the streets around this building have been closed off to traffic and to pedestrians, and I just want to kind of give you an idea of where we are in Manhattan. We have United Nations to our east and Grand Central Station to our west. We're on 42nd Street.

This is a very busy part of Manhattan. There are several buildings in the vicinity of the building that is at risk of a partial collapse, which have been evacuated. There are schools in this area, hotels, businesses. People live and work here and all of those people right now are being told to stay away. This started all after 8:30 this morning when people reported falling bricks from inside the site and I spoke to construction workers who were evacuated shortly after 8 o'clock. They told me they saw those bent beams themselves.

Important information about this building, this is the former site of Pfizer Pharmaceutical headquarters here in Manhattan and the building was actually under construction. It's a building that was being turned from office space to apartment space. And as part of that project, there were floors that were being added to the top of this 30- something floor structure.

[14:15:00]

Now, what we do not know yet is whether that construction had anything to do with this beam failure that we are seeing. That is part of what officials are investigating.

What's happening on the ground right now is that they have officials from the Department of Buildings, the Fire Department, trying to assess the building to figure out how to shore it up. That means this is going to go on for a while here. We heard from Mayor Zohran Mamdani just a short while ago, telling New Yorkers this is still a very dangerous situation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAMDANI: Every few minutes we are looking at a new assessment of the structure and of the possibilities and the options that we have in front of us. When it comes to the New Yorkers who call these streets their home, we are going to be in touch with them as soon as we have any updates.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAZMINO: Now as the officials described it, since the activity was reported this morning, the building has actually continued to move. That's what the fire officials said just a short while ago. And they did say that there continues to be a risk for a partial collapse. That means that a collapse that is limited to a specific area of the building could still happen.

That could still be extremely dangerous and it would mean that it would delay the process of going in, assessing how to shore up the building to make sure that the surrounding area is safe and that it can be eventually open to pedestrians. Boris? Brianna?

SANCHEZ: A potentially volatile situation. Gloria Pazmino, thank you so much for keeping an eye on it for us.

Still to come, prosecutors in the Charlie Kirk murder trial reveal new video evidence they will use against the accused killer, Tyler Robinson. The details straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [14:21:27]

KEILAR: Right now, prosecutors are in their second day previewing evidence in the shooting death of conservative activist, Charlie Kirk. Today, they showed surveillance video that they say shows murder suspect, Tyler Robinson, on the day of and the day after Kirk's killing last September at Utah Valley University. The hearing, which is expected to last the week, will determine if there's enough probable cause in the case for this to go to trial.

Kirk's widow, Erika Kirk, has been in the courtroom the last two days.

Let's go to CNN's Nick Watt, who's outside court in Provo, Utah. Nick, get us up to speed on where the hearing is right now.

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, yeah, you mentioned Erika Kirk is in there. We've seen her emotional. We've seen her chatting to Charlie Kirk's mom. Right now, what has been going on is an absolutely deep in the weeds discussion about whether parts of a statement made by somebody from Turning Point can or should be read out loud in open court, deep in the weeds.

Anyway, the big news from this morning has been the surveillance video. We have seen for the first time, some images captured on surveillance camera on the campus where Charlie Kirk was killed that prosecutors claim show Tyler Robinson making four visits to that campus on the day that Charlie Kirk was killed. We had an agent from the State Bureau of Investigation who's gathered a lot of that video.

He talked the court through some of those images. So let's take a quick look at that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID HULL, FORMER INVESTIGATOR, UTAH STATE BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION: That's the vehicle, is believed to belong to Mr. Robinson, arriving in the parking garage on campus.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At what time in the morning is -- what time of the day?

HULL: It's approximately 8:30 in the morning on September 10th, 2025.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what leads you to believe this particular vehicle belongs to Mr. Robinson?

HULL: Information that was provided regards to driver's license and department motor vehicle records.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATT: Now, we are also told and we also see in that video the person that we're told is Tyler Robinson arriving, wearing shorts to start with, then changing into long pants a little bit later. We see him coming back onto campus, 11:53. We apparently see him lying prone on the roof with a line of sight to Charlie Kirk at 12:22. The shot was fired at 12:23. And then this video shows a figure running across the roof, jumping off the roof, fleeing north out of the campus. Also, very interestingly, apparently Tyler Robinson returned just after midnight early the following morning and had an interaction with a law enforcement officer who was securing the scene.

That officer, apparently down to cop intuition, thought the interaction was strange, wrote down the license plate and later that turned out, they say, to be Tyler Robinson's car. Guys?

KEILAR: Nick Watt, thank you very much. And just into CNN, Lionel Messi's World Cup dreams, they live on. And Argentina's hope of winning back-to-back tournaments lives with it. After trailing by two goals in stoppage time, Argentina just beat Egypt in a stunning 3-2 come back.

SANCHEZ: Stunning. The shock of the tournament happening in the 55th minute when Egypt broke away down the field barely (ph), it would appear to be a second goal. But the video assistant referee or the VAR flagged a foul and waved off the goal. I had suspicions that something strange had happened when I heard yelling in the hallway. I think our floor manager was very disappointed in this.

Then in the 67th minute, Egypt finally scored one that could not be taken away to make it 2-0.

[14:25:00]

But then what happened next stunned the soccer world, three straight goals by Argentina, one by the sensational Lionel Messi in the 83rd minute, giving Argentina the 3-2 victory.

KEILAR: So that set off celebrations in Argentina, though not in the halls of CNN, where our Floor Director Pablo, again, this is a tough one for him, but fans can look forward to another game in the next round of the World Cup.

This actually is probably one of the more difficult stories we've had to report on today, Boris, because I can feel just the boring stare --

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

KEILAR: The glare, if you will.

SANCHEZ: The anger, yeah.

KEILAR: Coming from right over there.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, especially after Cristiano Ronaldo played his final game yesterday for Portugal. Pablo has been taking the day that Portugal plays off so he can go watch them. He's literally shedding a tear right now as we speak. We do appreciate you, Pablo, and your energy and enthusiasm for the game.

(LAUGH) SANCHEZ: Nevertheless, plenty more news to come this afternoon, including CNN asking Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, why settler violence in the West Bank has not yet ended. Dana Bash's interview with the prime minister is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)