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Tropical Storm Andrea Nears Florida; Landfall Expected Late Today; IRS Officials Face Grilling On Spending; Zimmerman Lawyers Fight To Ban Analysis; Holder To Testify To Senate; Report: U.S. Monitoring Verizon Calls; Jackson's Daughter Slit Her Wrist; Report: Mechanical Failure Caused Limo Fire; Woman Pulled Out Alive From Collapse; Chrysler Agrees To Two Other Recalls

Aired June 06, 2013 - 10:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, walls crumble, building collapses, several people trapped inside.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When we got there, all you could hear was "help" and maybe see a hand.

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PAUL: Rescue crews were able to, though, to save 14 people from the concrete and glass. We are waiting for a press conference. We will bring it to you as soon as it starts.

Also, why is the government snooping in your phone records? If you are a Verizon customer, you know they have access? How did this happen and can you stop it?

Plus, you are going to meet a woman who watched her friend die in a fiery car crash.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The whole thing had gone up in flames and we watched them -- those people burn to death.

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PAUL: Well, she is now leading an effort to get some Jeep Cherokees off the road. The company said, no, they're safe and the company is refusing to recall them.

Plus, finally, tears of joy in Boston. A young woman injured and the woman who helped her. They meet for the first time, nearly two months after the attack. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. We are glad to have you here.

I want to wish you a happy Friday eve. That's what I like to call Thursday. It just sounds a little better, doesn't it? I'm Christi Paul in for Carol Costello. So the center of Tropical Storm Andrea is what we're watching right now because it's heading for landfall in Florida a little bit later.

But, boy, they are already feeling the effects in Florida. At least two tornadoes, that's been upped in the last hour. It was just one. Now two tornadoes touched down in the Tampa Bay area this morning, take a look at what's left here. There was some scattered damage as well, downed power lines, thankfully, no reports of injuries at this point.

But Andrea has been pounding the coastline with some really heavy rain and CNN's George Howell has that story from Clearwater Beach, Florida, where he is. It looks like, is the rain getting worse? How have you seen it progress in the last say hour or so -- George?

GEORGE HOWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christi, you know the torrential rainfall comes and goes. Definitely, we're in it right now, a lot of rain coming down. The winds have picked up here substantially. We've seen the wind gusts pick up. They can go anywhere from 60 to sometimes 70 miles per hour as we are closer now to that centre of circulation.

You can see it out here in this inland bay. You can see the whitecaps out there the winds have definitely churned up the water. This will continue for several hours as the storm system remains over the Tampa area. Again, there was a real threat earlier. The threat remains of these tornadoes.

These are not nearly as strong tornadoes as we saw in Oklahoma a few days ago, but tornadoes associated with this system. Also, there is a threat of flooding. Keep in mind, they could see anywhere from three to six inches of rainfall from all the rain coming down.

We are seeing some minor flooding on the roads, Christie and also the storm surge. They're expecting that to be one to three feet higher than the average high tide, so some coastal flooding as well, just a storm that as long as it remains over this part of Florida, it's going to cause some flooding and some problems.

PAUL: All right, George, thank you so much. We certainly are wishing you and the crew back there. Do stay safe, to you and everybody else in that area. I want to get to you to Philadelphia in just a little bit here as we're waiting for a press release or a press conference, rather from the mayor there about this building collapse.

Fourteen people, remember, were saved, but we're waiting to hear from Mayor Michael Nutter who is going to address the media. These are some live pictures as they try desperately to get all of that cleaned up. Tropical Storm Andrea, though, I want to get back to that real quickly, is going to be affecting other states besides Florida.

Meteorologist Indra Petersons is looking at the projected path. So what do you find in this trajectory?

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, definitely looks like a lot of heavy rain for the eastern seaboard. Now remember a lot are saying where did Tropical Storm Andrea come from? Well, the hurricane season starts a little bit early in the Pacific. Originally, this was Hurricane Barbara that it dissipated and all that left that moisture reform. Now we have the first tropical storm of the Atlantic season and, of course, this is Andrea.

That's where we are watching it strengthening now. It's not expected to strengthen into a hurricane. So that is the best news we have. Current winds about 16 miles per hour. Now what is it expected to do? Well, it's expected to bring large amounts of heavy rainfall then it is going to take a little bit of curve to the north east affecting southern portions of Georgia, going to the Carolinas, all the way up towards New York.

So a lot of heavy rain expected. Storm surge is also about 2 feet to 4 feet. Now the biggest concern in the morning hours has really been the isolated threat for tornadoes. We had some reports of tornados right around Palm Beach. They actually showed just recently a little of that damage.

It's that north easterly quadrant that does that, a typical hurricane tornado. Why are they going together? Well, the reason for that is the water is smoother than the land. So once those winds go over the land, you get the friction and that spawns up these minute tornadoes, but nothing as strongly like what you saw last week. But nonetheless, they're spawned very quickly.

Therefore, they're very dangerous. Again, we currently actually still have a tornado warning in the area right around the Tampa area so we are going to be monitoring that and of course, the heavier band is now starting to pull in so with that stronger winds as well.

Kind of projected rainfall, Florida, they have already had almost a foot of rain. The flooding concerns are high. This is the last thing they need. Four to six inches of rain projected. Heavier amounts, we could see about 8 inches.

Now, the as the storm continues to make its way all up the eastern seaboard, we are talking one to two inches, even two to four inches, all the way toward New York. So very, very heavy rainfall expected here over the next several days. It's really the last thing they need at this point in time.

PAUL: Thank you for the heads up, Indra. We appreciate it.

Two IRS employees are on administrative leave this morning for their involvement in a 2010 conference in Anaheim that cost millions of taxpayer dollars. This comes as the House hearing is under way on the agency spending. This hearing is titled collected and wasted. And we know Jay Russell of Georgia is going to be testifying. He's the Treasury Department inspector general whose eye opening report detailed $50 million in IRS spending on employee conferences from 2010 to 2012.

And I want to take you back to Florida here real quickly, to the courtroom though not the coastline. The judge in the George Zimmerman trial is holding this hearing on whether to allow voice analysis of the crucial 911 call. This hearing has been going on for over an hour at this point. The judge we know also has to rule on a proposed list of terms that the defense wants banned from the trial. We'll talk more about that in just a bit.

Attorney General Eric Holder is preparing to testify in front of a Senate Committee. That's supposed to start in about 30 minutes. The hearing was originally called to discuss budgets for next year, but Holder, you know, will likely have to answer questions about his role on the investigation of leaks involving reporters.

Well, this morning, the White House is reacting to the report that a U.S. spy agency is monitoring millions of your phone calls and they're defending it calling it, look, this is a counterterrorism tool, they say. We're talking about a secret court order obtained by a British newspaper that forces Verizon to hand over telephone records to the National Security Agency.

That includes domestic calls, international calls, telephone numbers and the location, time and duration of your calls. Some people are outraged now, though. They say, "This is the broadest under surveillance order ever issued," that's quote. So take a look at the reaction online.

I don't know if you have seen it yet, but the "Huffington Post" headline today, they're watching and then, of course, the "Drudge Report," well, it's not the angle, can you hear me now? Not everyone is so upset, though, you know, conservative Newt Gingrich told CNN's Piers Morgan he's OK with this.

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NEWT GINGRICH (R), FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER: Yes. If the cause, if the necessity for tracking down terrorists in the United States is that the National Security Agency limited only to counterterrorism is gathering information, then I would support it.

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PAUL: CNN's White House Correspondent Brianna Keilar is in Washington. I know this is the first time, Brianna, that we have seen a surveillance order that has been this large in scope from the Obama administration. What is the talk there this morning?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the reaction from the administration, Christi, as you mentioned, they are reacting to this without confirming that it's going on. The FBI is not commenting. Verizon is not commenting, but the White House or I should say a senior administration official put out a statement saying, information of the sort described in the guardian article has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States.

As it allows counterterrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists had been in contact with other persons who may have been edge gauged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States, inside the United States, Christi, because this is sort of the unprecedented domestic under surveillance.

We definitely heard under the Bush administration a lot about phone calls and certainly information of phone calls being monitored when one party was in a foreign country. But in this case are you talking about a phone call originating and ending in the United States. So here the administration is also trying to emphasize, this isn't eavesdropping. This is metadata gathering.

So not let listening to the content of the phone calls, but getting information about what the phone number is and the length of the call, maybe being able to group some of these calls that could be suspicious -- Christi.

PAUL: You know, when you look at the dates here as I understand it, the order started April 25th. A lot of people say, wait a minute, that was quite near to the Boston bombing, which was on April 15th. Is there any relation here?

KEILAR: You know, we don't know at this point. There are many outstanding questions. We don't know if this is perhaps somewhat regular and we're see this one order, maybe there are other orders. We don't know if it extends beyond Verizon, but in this case, certainly it is large in scope just involving Verizon. You are talking about millions of customers. So because of that, millions upon millions of phone calls, the information of which would be monitored by the NSA in this FBI requested top secret order.

PAUL: You know, some people might look at this and say if the surveillance is allowed under the patriot act, why is it top secret? I'm assuming it's because it's possibly terrorist related, yes?

KEILAR: Well, the law has provided for this FISA Court, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court. It's a top secret process that was establish and reviewed under the Bush administration because there were privacy concerns. What it does is it allows there to be some judicial oversight of exactly these requests, wiretaps that kind of thing, but it allows for there to be a judge that can have input in it.

But also keep it quiet because it is a matter of national security. So, yes, this is top secret. It is something that at least we're trying to figure out whether this is legal. Whether it's legal or not, though, Christi, this is something that's upsetting a lot of people and creating a lot of privacy issues.

PAUL: All right, Brianna, thanks for walking us through it. Good to see you this morning.

Next in the NEWSROOM, Michael Jackson's only daughter rushed to the hospital after an apparent suicide attempt. Now, see the video where Paris Jackson herself says she's crazy and needs help.

Also want to take a look at Wall Street right now. The Dow is up, slightly, but it's up, 14 points. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PAUL: I want to show what's going on right now in Florida, bring you some live pictures as you see the first moments of the tropical storm of the season making landfall later today. This is in Clearwater Beach. You can see visibility is certainly down a bit, but it looks like some cars are on the road there.

We do know that this tropical storm called Andrea could drench Florida with up to six inches of rain. Forecasters don't expect it to become a hurricane. That's the good news, of course, but it's packing winds of about 60 miles an hour as it moves up the eastern coastline and further inland. So we'll keep you posted on that.

Michael Jackson's only daughter is recovering this morning after an apparent suicide attempt. Sources say Paris Jackson slit her own wrists. Her attorney says, physically, she's fine, which is certainly good news. One source described it though as a cry for help. A week ago, she released this video.

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PARIS JACKSON, MICHAEL JACKSON'S DAUGHTER: I need serious help. I am crazy. I am crazy. Anyways --

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PAUL: The Jackson family is in the midst of a civil lawsuit against concert promoter AEG Live. Of course, there are pictures there posing with her father. She has been interviewed several times for that lawsuit that's going on right now so just wondering if that took a toll on her. Let's hope she recovers.

Investigators believe a mechanical failure is what sparked a deadly fire on a San Francisco area bridge last month, which is according to KGO TV. But officials say air springs in the back of that limo ruptured and that's what set in motion a chain reaction that led to the fire. Remember, five women died in that car. They were headed to a bridal shower.

It's a sign of hope for rescue workers at the site of a building collapse in Philadelphia. Overnight, a 61-year-old woman was found alive after spending more than 12 hours trapped in the rubble. A building being demolished came crumbling down Wednesday morning. We do know six people were killed.

I want to show you what's going on there right now as we wait for the mayor of Philadelphia to address the media again.

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DON LEMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A giant brick wall, more than 100-feet long, four stories high, came down with a boom on to a busy Salvation Army thrift store.

CLAUDE DAVIS, WITNESS: I heard this great big crack.

LEMON: Claude Davis was just across the street watching from his apartment.

DAVIS: I looked and I've seen the building crumble. It was painful, my goodness, and I thought about all the people in there that couldn't get out of there and I screamed and hollered.

LEMON: Those people who couldn't get out include those who died and at least a dozen customers and workers at the thrift store in Philadelphia Centre City. Jordan McLaughlin saw it happened and rushed in to help.

JORDAN MCLAUGHLIN, SAW BUILDING COLLAPSE: People actually fell over. People were screaming. They ran across the street. There were people inside the building, you heard them scream.

LEMON: Another rescuer, Hail Corbin seen in this video standing on the rubble helped pull four people out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were on top of the roof pulling them out. When we got there, all you called hear is help and maybe see a hand or something through the rubble.

LEMON: Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter says they don't know how many were in the thrift store at the time. So to prevent any further collapse, he ordered all traffic and trains stopped for blocks, news helicopters grounded, sent in dogs to sniff human scent under the rubble and ordered a full investigation.

MAYOR MICHAEL NUTTER (D), PHILADELPHIA: This was an active demolition site, no violations. No complaints that we are aware of and all permits were valid.

LEMON: Also searching for answers, those who saw the tragedy up close who describe independent as a war zone.

HAROLD CORBIN, PULLED VICTIMS FROM RUBBLE: You had tar, you had sheet rock. I mean, you name it, a bunch of dust. You heard a bunch of cries, help, help, help, help.

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LEMON: You can see back in full force here the rescuers and the people who are trying to clean up the debris here. You also see city officials gathering. We are awaiting the mayor. We are told the mayor will be here shortly to update people. The latest, Christi, a 61- year-old woman removed from this debris 12 hours after the collapse. She is being treated at the hospital at the University of Pennsylvania.

So far, we know 14 people were taken out of here. We know six people have died. They believe at this point, at least they hope everyone is accounted for, but they're being very careful to make sure that they look for everyone. The basement in this building was not compromised. They were able to get into the basement. That's why they believe that most of the people or all of the people are account for.

As I look to my left the mayor is making his way down here and there are several city officials who are still on the scene here who will be joining mayor for his press conference -- Christi.

PAUL: OK, good to know. We've been waiting to hear from him. Are we expecting to hear from him anything about a cause? I think that's the biggest question people have right now.

LEMON: Well, yes, the investigation is ongoing and overnight, we learned some very interesting things about the construction site, manager, the owner, and also the person who is driving the crane. But again, we're waiting to get more information on that. They're looking into everything, city permits, were there inspectors on the scene. Was it inspected on time enough to get the right permits?

So far the mayor said there were no violations. There were no permits at last check, but they were digging into more about the construction site owner, the building owner. When we spoke to a young man who was here, just happened to be on the corner, if you can pan over here, he happened to be to my right.

About to pick up the phone to call his mom when he saw the wall wobbling back and forth and he said what he thought was it looked like the wall was going to fall back into the demolition site, which would be to the left of your screen, but then it wobbled back and forth and then it fell to the right on top of the thrift store, a huge cloud of smoke.

He said people were just running out of there and those who weren't running away the people who saw it started running in to help the people who were trapped inside -- Christi.

PAUL: Isn't that something? Just like we saw at the Boston bombings, we were talking about people who run towards it as opposed to running away. Obviously, they were running away to get away from it. You think about what these people saw the emotions. What are people telling you, Don, about -- I mean, we heard from the one person, she looked like she was broken up talking about what she witnessed.

LEMON: Well, people are, obviously, they can't believe it. There is a senior home just over my left shoulder, an apartment building where many of the people who witnessed it live, some of them in wheelchairs. We spoke to some of them. They were about their day trying to get sunshine, the weather was fairly good yesterday and they heard the boom him when they heard, they looked towards this thrift store and then they saw the wall collapse.

It's horrifying and the family, imagine being a family member of the people who died and that 61-year-old woman not knowing, you know, if your family member is in that rubble or not. Again, we are awaiting the press conference for the mayor. As soon as it happens, Christi, we will get back to you.

PAUL: All right, I know you said you saw him coming down the street. We will, obviously, await you to give us the green light on that, Don. Thank you so much. We appreciate it.

Right now, though, I want to tell you, we're hearing that Chrysler is going to be recalling some of its jeeps. But, apparently, it's not the ones that we have been hearing about so much over the past couple of days. Alison Kosik is at the New York Stock Exchange right now. So all right, fill us in on this, Alison. What is going on?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: OK, this can be a little confusing after what we reported yesterday, but let me kind of lay it out here. So after Chrysler refused to recall some of the older vehicles that we talked about yesterday that it had been encouraged to or requested to recall from the government, actually, Chrysler is coming out today and saying it will voluntarily recall 630,000 different vehicles in two separate recalls.

The first is for newer model jeep SUVs, the Jeep Compass and Jeep Patriot from model years 2010 and 2012. These vehicles are being recalled because there is a delay with the side airbag, that there is a rollover, also there's a problem with the seatbelts. Now the second recall is for the Jeep Wrangler, SUVs for the transmission line. This is for model years 2012 and 2013.

Now, Chrysler is not aware of any injuries, it says, or accidents that are caused by these issues. Both of these recalls and both of these cases, Chrysler said the customers will be notified and repairs will be done at no cost. Once again, this is coming after Chrysler refused a request by U.S. regulators to recall another 2.7 million older model Jeep SUVs, different from the ones that we just talked about.

This is after the Center for Auto Safety said hundreds of fires and deaths occurred in these Cherokees and Libertys. Chrysler said about that is that those numbers were overstated. Those vehicles in question were the following, the 1993 through 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokees and the 2002, 2007 Libertys. Now, Chrysler says conclusions by U.S. regulators are based on incomplete analysis of the data, which is why they refused to recall those millions of vehicles.

PAUL: Thank you again for clarifying, just for everybody watching since this has been such a story, these recalls have nothing to do with gas tanks. That is still something that, you know, some people say is up in the air. Alison, thank you for the clarification.

And stay with us. We just showed you some of the latest pictures, live pictures from Philadelphia as crews are there cleaning up a very delicate situation hoping that they've gotten everybody out. Six people are dead, but 14 were rescued after that building collapse there. We are waiting to hear from Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, who is going to talk to us more. Hopefully about the cause, the response, the victims, we are back in just a moment.

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PAUL: All right, let's take you out to Philadelphia. That is Mayor Nutter walking up to the mic, hopefully, giving us some answers about that building collapse yesterday in Philadelphia.

(BEGIN LIVE FEED)

MAYOR MICHAEL NUTTER, PHILADELPHIA: Sorry, we are running a little behind. What I'd like to do is I'm going to give you every possible piece of information that I have right now about a number of different things. I will preface that by staying we are still in an active search and rescue mode, so unfortunately there may be something that I can't either comment on or literally just don't have information about.

So, obviously, I can't tell you what I don't know. Having said that, let me give you a little bit of a recap of where we are, as you all well know, the first report about the incident at 2136 Market Street came in at 10:43 a.m. yesterday morning. Firefighters and first responders were on the scene at 10:45 a.m. yesterday morning.

We are now nearly 24 hours into this tragic event. Search and rescue operations continued overnight. There was some apparently concerned that efforts had been suspended.