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Biden Dismisses Calls For Him To Suspend Campaign; Interview With Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA); Beryl Set To Hit Texas, Mandatory Evacuations Underway, Jill Biden Tries To Contain Crisis: "Joe Is The Democratic Nominee"; Whistleblower Claims Boeing Knowingly Used Defective Plane Parts; "The Last Alzheimer's Patient," Tomorrow At 8P ET/PT. Aired 6-7p ET
Aired July 06, 2024 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[18:00:00]
PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM and I'm Pamela Brown in Washington. Great to have you with us on this Saturday night.
Well, President Biden is pushing forward with his re-election campaign despite growing calls for him to step aside.
Last night, more than a week after his shaky debate performance, the president sat down for this first televised interview with ABC News, where he once again dismissed the debate as a "bad night" and denied concerns from members of his own party.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Every one of them, they all said I should stay in the race, stay in the race. No one said -- none of the people said I should leave.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: But if they do?
BIDEN: It is like, they are not going to not do that.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You sure?
BIDEN: Yes, I'm sure.
Look I mean, if the Lord Almighty came down and said, Joe, get out of the race, I'd get out of the race, but the Lord Almighty is not coming down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And tonight, the Biden campaign is responding to a new controversy surrounding the pair of radio interviews he did on Thursday.
CNN's Arlette Saenz joins us live with the details.
So what's the latest, Arlette? ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, this controversy centers around some radio interviews President Biden did a little bit earlier in the week. The president on Wednesday had taped two radio interviews with Black radio show hosts set to air for the Fourth of July.
And today, one of those radio hosts revealed to our colleague, Victor Blackwell that the campaign had actually provided her with a list of recommended questions before the interview from which she chose four to ask the president.
Take a listen to that exchange a bit earlier today here on CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREA LAWFUL-SANDERS, "THE SOURCE" HOST: The questions were sent to me for approval. I approved of them.
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Okay. So the White House sent the questions to you ahead of the interview?
LAWFUL-SANDERS: Yes.
BLACKWELL: Okay.
LAWFUL-SANDERS: I got several questions, eight of them and the four that were chosen were the ones that I approved.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SAENZ: Now, the campaign in a statement did not deny providing these questions to that radio show host, but they did add that the interview was not conditioned on acceptance of those questions and added that any reporter can ask the questions they see fit.
Now, today the campaign is also saying that they are changing their practices going forward and that they will no longer be recommending questions ahead of interviews.
One source familiar with the Biden booking operation over at the campaign said, "While interview hosts have always been free to ask whatever questions as they please, moving forward, we will refrain from offering suggested questions." It all comes at a very interesting time as the Biden campaign has said that President Biden will engage in more off-the-cuff unscripted moments.
You saw some of that play out just yesterday in that 22-minute interview he did with ABC News where President Biden was quite defiant in insisting that he will remain in this race despite the pressure from within his own party for him to step aside at this moment.
The president really has doubled down on the fact that he wants to stay in this race in November, but it is unclear at this time while the campaign is expressing optimism about that interview, believing that it will help assuage some of voters' concerns, it doesn't appear that it has completely convinced all of the Democratic officials within his party.
So far, there have been five House Democratic lawmakers who have called for President Biden to step down. The most recent one being Congresswoman Angie Craig from a swing district in Minnesota. She said that after watching the debate and also what she viewed as a lack of a forceful response from Biden in the days after that she no longer feels he can run a winning campaign against Donald Trump in November.
But the president and his team, while the president acknowledges that these coming days are critical to the future of his candidacy, so far, they have not shown any signs of backing down from this 2024 race.
This morning, the president did speak with his national co-chairs on what I am told is more than an hour long call. One of the participants told me that President Biden sought honest input and advice from that team about the best path forward in his campaign.
The expectation, one of those participants told me is that they think Biden will start to do more unscripted, directly engaging type of events such as town halls or press conference to show voters that he is up for a second term.
Tomorrow, President Biden will be traveling to Pennsylvania to make two stops, one speaking out at church service in the morning and then traveling on to Harrisburg for a campaign event in the afternoon. But so many questions, even as President Biden is charging ahead with his campaign, so many questions still remain about the viability of his candidacy at a time when there is increasing pressure from within his own party for him to step aside at this moment.
BROWN: All right, Arlette Saenz, thank you so much.
Joining us now is Democratic Congressman John Garamendi of California.
Thank you for joining us.
So in an interview earlier this week, you said you wanted to wait and see how the president did in his interview with ABC. Was his performance sufficient enough to allay those concerns you had about what you called his very poor debate performance?
REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D-CA): Well, we have a feeding frenzy going on here. The media and politicians, Democrats and certainly Republicans are standing on the sidelines cheering all this on.
The fact of the matter is that the president --
BROWN: Hold on, the media is not cheering this on. We are doing our jobs as vehicles for the very real conversations --
GARAMENDI: Pamela --
BROWN: -- that are taking place about the president of the United States and whether he should continue in. I mean, we've had Democrats, one today who said he should step aside.
[18:05:14]
GARAMENDI: Pamela, perhaps you should have listened to what I said. I said the Republicans are on the sidelines cheering all of this on, and in fact, they are.
And my curiosity is where is Trump in all of this? The same questions that have been raised about Biden need to be raised about Trump. He skips lines, he changes subjects right in the middle of a sentence, that is also not being observed by the media.
However, the focus is on the president. The president had a bad night, no doubt about it. However, the next day, he was giving a very strong stump speech using a teleprompter, part of the time, also speaking adlib off the teleprompter and he followed that up yesterday in Minnesota and his interview, I thought was okay.
He does not do a strong interview. He is always soft-spoken under spoken, if you would, when he does an interview, but he hit the subjects.
I would refer you back to that debate. Trump did not answer one question, not one question. Biden did answer questions, some of them not well. However, going forward clearly, Trump has been ignored for exactly the same underlying concerns that are now present for Biden.
BROWN: And I understand, first of all, yes, Trump did lie more than 30 times in the debate.
GARAMENDI: Yes, he did.
BROWN: That is for certain.
The reality is, though and there has been a media attention on his meandering and not putting together coherent sentences, which is absolutely true, and absolutely a fair point.
But when it came to the debate performance, Donald Trump did not have the kind of performance that Joe Biden did, where there was genuine concern about Joe Biden and his health and mental fitness and mental acuity to run for another four years.
I mean, you're seeing that in the polls. You have 75 percent of the voters saying that someone else should be ahead of the ticket here and you have five House Democrats who are calling for Biden to step aside.
Now, the majority of party members have stayed silent publicly, though our reporting indicates there are others who believe the party should go a different direction. I am curious what you think?
I mean, is the president --
GARAMENDI: Well --
BROWN: Is the president in denial right now about this reality?
GARAMENDI: Well, first of all, five out of 212 -- five out of 212 -- BROWN: That is true.
GARAMENDI: -- Democratic members -- so going forward, the president not, only yesterday, did an interview, did a rally. He also spoke to two heads of state. He is carrying on his function as president of the United States, carrying on as he said in that interview, that he is tested every day, every moment of every day as to his mental capacity.
And I am, having watched it, having been in a few of those meetings over the years. Yes, indeed he is being tested and I would say that he is doing very, very well with it. Not -- he doesn't do a strong in- your-face interview. He doesn't do that. He is soft-spoken.
So when he was talking to Stephanopoulos, he didn't come forward and really charged back at the questions that had been asked of him, but he didn't answer every single one of them, not in a way that that George may have wanted.
And by the way, George was demanding a cognitive test, well, demand one of Trump, a real one, not the fake one he did those a kindergarten level one.
BROWN: Let's listen, actually we have that sound that you were just talking about from President Biden. Let's listen to it now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Did you ever watch the debate afterwards?
BIDEN: I don't think I did, no.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: So in your view, is that answer passing the cognitive test where he says, I don't know. No, if I watched the debate? And did he pass the cognitive test on that debate stage?
GARAMENDI: He didn't want to say yes or no. The reality is, he didn't want to get that question expanded and he basically shut down the question. But in doing so, he raised the issue that you just brought forth once again.
So okay, let's go forward. Did he watch it? My guess is, he saw some pieces of it. I'm sure that he did. Well, how would I know?
I believe he probably saw some portions of it. Did he watch the whole thing? Probably not. An hour-and-a-half.
[18:10:10]
Does he does have an hour-and-a-half given all the other things he must do as president?
So in answering that question, he came down really on both sides of it. BROWN: So he did come down on both sides of it, but I think, in this moment where people are trying to assess what's going on here, that's a yes or no answer, right?
But let me just take a step back here because in this brief interview last night, he disputed the poll number showing him trailing. On Democratic leadership, he said, they all said, I should stay in the race and on the Democratic governors he met with at the White House, he said, all the governors want him to say on the race, yet, we know Governor Healey of Massachusetts expressed concerns after her meeting. Also, Nancy Pelosi, Democratic leadership said, is this an episode or a condition? That's not exactly coming out and saying, hey, stay in the race and fight on.
Do you think he grasps the reality of this situation right now and what is at stake?
GARAMENDI: He absolutely knows what is happening here. He is a seasoned elected official and he knows that he is faced with a very serious challenge and he is addressing that challenge.
He addressed that challenge by going with the interview with Stephanopoulos. He is doing that on the campaign trail. And I would, from what I understand from reports that he will be doing interviews, more of them and he will certainly be out there probably during press conferences, one or another.
He knows what the situation is. He understands the risk to this nation if Trump gets elected. He has been very, very clear about that.
As of now, it is clear in his mind and in mine that he can carry on and should carry on because he has been an extraordinary president in the first three-and-a-half years of his tenure, putting together a national industrial policy to rebuild the American economy, to rebuild our infrastructure, to address the issues of climate change -- all of those things he did.
And like all of us, he wants to finish the job and he can do it. He can do it.
Campaigning is a necessary part of this and he is in the campaign mode simultaneously he is in the president's job carrying out the tasks of being a president.
BROWN: There are some of Democrats who have come out to tell him to step aside though, note his record and thank him for his record and thank him for beating Trump in 2020, but they are gently telling him, look your time is up, right? Because I think the concern from them is the next four years and beating Trump. I mean, that is the end goal for Democrats, can he beat Trump?
Let me ask you, as the campaign puts him out more, there is going to be more opportunity as well for potential missteps or those moments that might feed into the narrative about whether he is mentally up for the job and are you concerned about that? Does that raise the stakes? What if come October another moment happens that fits into that narrative just before the election? Are these the kinds of things you're thinking about and discussing with your colleagues?
GARAMENDI: Well, I will tell you, those moments appear every single time Trump goes out publicly. Every time Trump is out on the stage, he has those moments. He starts a sentence and then suddenly a different subject halfway through the sentence.
BROWN: But I am asking about Biden --
GARAMENDI: And he does --
BROWN: -- because the concern among the voters --
GARAMENDI: Well, I understand perhaps the --
BROWN: -- it is the voters' concern about Biden, his age and his mental acuity. So that's the reality you are facing as a Democrat.
GARAMENDI: You -- you specifically raised this as a campaign issue. This is a campaign between two people. You have one who has been an extraordinarily successful president you have in Biden; you have another in Trump that said he had infrastructure week -- every week during his presidency and never did a thing for infrastructure.
BROWN: And we've covered that.
GARAMENDI: Biden came in and did it within his first year, so yes, you did, and the reality is, this is about two candidates.
Biden had a bad situation with the debate, no doubt about it. He has come on strong in the rallies and in the -- even in the interview.
Going forward, his performance, activities, his statements will be compared to Trump's. Trump stumbles, bumbles, and lies through every single time he is on the stage. He certainly did that during the during the debate, he stumbled along the way. He changed his subjects halfway through and he didn't finish his sentences and he certainly didn't answer one question.
[18:15:09]
So going forward, you're looking at a campaign in which you have Donald Trump certified serial liar, a person that could not measure up to one of the elements of the Boy Scout oath, Honor, you name it. He doesn't have any of those attributes. He is not a good person.
Biden is --
BROWN: Okay. But what if --
GARAMENDI: -- in his heart a good person and he has done a great job as president.
BROWN: There is a real risk, as you know, I imagine you've thought through this because I am certainly hearing it from talking to Democrats on Capitol Hill of that legacy of Biden that you've laid out throughout this interview, being incredibly tarnished to say the least if Trump beats him in November.
That is the concern as well that I am hearing, and Democrats the down- ballot democrats, the more than dozens of down-ballot democrats who have vulnerable races and what might happen to them?
What do you say to that?
GARAMENDI: Well, his legacy will not be tarnished should he lose. Should he lose, what happens here is that Trump comes in and takes apart each and every one of the elements. All of the effort to deal with climate change, Trump has promised, categorically promised that he will roll that back.
He has also brought into his campaign in a meeting, Trump assembled the barons of the petroleum industry and said, give me a billion dollar and I will give -- and I will end all of this green stuff. He will turn over this country to the petroleum industry.
We are talking about two candidates here. Yes, no doubt about it. Biden is old. Biden doesn't walk as well as he did when he was 50, nor does anybody at the age of 80. Is he capable of being a president? Absolutely. Is he going to stumble along the way? Certainly. You and I do.
In this interview you've not, but I have. It happens when you're --
BROWN: And you're what? Seventy-nine, is that right?
GARAMENDI: Pardon.
BROWN: You're 79, right?
GARAMENDI: Yes, I am.
BROWN: Okay.
GARAMENDI: Yes, I am.
BROWN: I wonder, does that give you more, perhaps compassion as well for Joe Biden in this moment? Given your only, a couple of years younger?
GARAMENDI: I think you, you and everybody that is not yet in their 70s hopes that they get to be 80 and that they are able to perform as at least as well as Biden is performing. And so that's the reality.
You do not walk the same way. You do not have perhaps the same voice. But the question here is, this man, Biden has 50-some years of experience in government, national, international understanding the issues, understanding the wins and the loss of the ups and the downs, and the wisdom, the wisdom that it took and the determination that it took, and the understanding of the policy issues that it took to put into law a massive infrastructure program, a real re-industrial program for the United States, so that we do not have to depend upon China for the basic elements of our economy.
And you take a look at the biggest, most powerful effort to deal with climate change by any government anywhere, Biden did that, and he did that when the Democrats had the majority, we had a two-person majority, and the Senate was either one person or was 50-50 Senate.
Extraordinary understanding of how to move the government. Did he lose that in the last month? Absolutely, he lost not. He did not. He still has that capability.
No, he is not out there running as he said, the hundred yard dash in 10.5, excuse me, meter dash in 10.5. He is in a situation where he is bringing to this campaign the experience of a lifetime at a moment when this nation and this world needs it.
Keep in mind that Trump in his four years basically attempted to destroy NATO and tore it apart, that encouraged Putin thinking that he had an open door to go into Ukraine. No, it didn't happen because Biden pulled NATO back together, added Finland and Sweden to NATO and built the alliance strong within the European Union to finance the war.
That's what he -- Biden was able to do in less than a year after Trump spent four years tearing NATO apart.
[18:20:10]
And let me remind you --
BROWN: Okay.
GARAMENDI: Here is what Trump said to NATO. He said, if you don't pay your two percent, then Russia, Putin go get them. That's an open door to Putin and this very, very dangerous international situation we have now often created.
BROWN: I've tried to give you as much time as we possibly can stretch it, Congressman to make your case.
GARAMENDI: That's very kind and very candid, thank you.
BROWN: Because we want to make sure that your perspective gets out there.
GARAMENDI: Thank you.
BROWN: I think it is really important in this consequential moment to hear from Congress -- members of Congress like yourself and hear your points of view on this. Thank you so much. Have a great weekend.
GARAMENDI: Thanks. Thank you.
BROWN: Still ahead, extreme weather, more than 35 million people feeling temperatures over a hundred degrees as record-breaking heat hits the West Coast as a hurricane is expected to hit the Texas Gulf Coast, we are tracking it all. You're on the CNN NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:25:08]
BROWN: Breaking tonight. Mandatory evacuations are underway in Texas as Tropical Storm Beryl closes in on the coast. This, as tens of millions of Americans are sweltering under heat alerts and a dangerous new wildfire scorches California.
CNN's Natasha Chen is in Los Angeles for us, but first let's go to meteorologist, Chad Myers with latest on Tropical Storm Beryl.
Chad, what's the latest on that front?
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hurricane warnings have been posted now for the coast of Texas. We are expecting hurricane conditions. Even though it is a tropical storm right now, it is in very warm water, it will likely get stronger.
And if we lose a little bit of shear like we typically do overnight, it could get stronger yet. The airplanes are in it now finally, we kind of had a few hours, maybe four or five hours without a plane and we don't know what it is like, don't know what it has been like then, but I think 60 miles per hour is still a pretty good number. It will continue to get stronger as it gets closer to the coast.
We will see surge, four to six feet. That is actually higher than some of the land masses there. We are going to have to watch that and certainly, we have the hurricane threat there in all of those red areas.
But Death Valley yesterday was 127 degrees, Palm Springs had never, ever no matter what date, what year, what month had never been above 123. Yesterday, they were 124.
Here is what the temperatures look like for the rest of the week.
Pamela, its rough out there.
BROWN: It is rough going. You are right. Gosh. Thanks., Chad Myers.
Now to Natasha, how are temperatures right where you are? This is pretty dangerous for a lot of people.
NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is, Pamela.
We are very lucky right in the middle of the city right now, which is more temperate than some other parts. If you traveled just 20 to 30 miles from here, you'll hit the hundred degree temperatures that Chad was just talking about.
Even still, we are feeling the humidity and the high temps here. People trying to cool off the best way they can. We met a grandmother here who is trying to get some ice tea and she said she has lived in this part of Los Angeles for 54 years.
This is how she described this heatwave.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was much cooler here when I moved 54 years ago. It was beautiful Southern California weather. That's why I moved here.
Now, it is just miserable weather.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHEN: Trying to stay a little less miserable here with the cold drinks and the ice cream.
We did also see a map that the CDC and other federal agencies created looking out of every 100,000 emergency room visits, how many of them are a heat-related illnesses. And if you woke up and down the West Coast, those numbers are high.
They specifically point out this area of Nevada right along the California State Line, close to Death Valley, which Chad also mentioned as having a particularly high incidence of heat-related ER visits for that area.
So very dangerous for people, especially when you look at the duration of the heatwave going into next week, very dangerous, of course, where fire fighters as well, battling more than a dozen large wildfires up and down the West Coast just looking at the Lake Fire in Santa Barbara County, California that started yesterday and that acreage has really ballooned in the last few hours, thousands more acres burned to more than 12,000 now, that is an area that is actually quite close to Neverland Ranch.
So a lot of very precarious situations here because of the dryness and the high temperatures and the prolonged duration of this heatwave -- Pamela.
BROWN: All right, Natasha Chen, thanks so much.
And still ahead on this Saturday night, Jill Biden has been one of the president's most fierce defenders since his poor debate performance. Sources say the First Lady is all in on her husband staying in the race for the White House. More on her role as the campaign moves forward.
You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:33:23]
BROWN: Well, tomorrow, the First Lady will accompany her husband to a campaign event in Pennsylvania amid questions over whether Biden should step aside following his disastrous first debate performance. But the President's fiercest defender says she is, quote, "All-in on her husband's candidacy," telling a roomful of campaign volunteers in the battleground state of Michigan this week, quote, "Joe is the Democratic nominee and he is going to beat Donald Trump just like he did in 2020."
So could the First Lady save Biden's shot at a second term? CNN's Sunlen Serfaty has the report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JILL BIDEN, U.S. FIRST LADY: Joe, you did such a great job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT (voice over): At the most critical moment of President Joe Biden's political career, it is Jill Biden who is assuming the mantle to save him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J BIDEN: You answered every question. You knew all the facts.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SERFATY (voice over): "The First Lady is all-in," a source tells CNN, saying that she's still committed to her husband remaining in the 2024 race.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J BIDEN: I love him from the start. I saw him then the same character that I see in him today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SERFATY (voice over): Since the debate, her flurry of campaign events and out front public statements has signaled that resolved.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J BIDEN: There is no one that I would rather have sitting in the Oval Office right now than my husband.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SERFATY (voice over): Waging a public display of damage control, telling fundraisers that her husband said of the debate, I don't know what happened. I didn't feel that great.
In attempts at narrative setting telling Vogue they "will not let those 90 minutes to find the four years he's been president. We will continue to fight."
[18:35:02] This is a role Jill Biden has had for nearly five decades.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My name is Joe Biden and I'm Jill Biden's husband.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SERFATY (voice over): As the President's chief confidant, staunchest advocate and fiercest defender.
After nearly 50 years of marriage, all in the political arena where they have been battle tested together.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KATE ANDERSON BROWER, AUTHOR, "FIRST WOMEN": She does not want to give up this position and she doesn't want her husband to give it up and I think it says a lot about her belief in him, that she was the first person we heard from.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SERFATY (voice over): But that outsized influence in this crisis is being scrutinized as questions over President Biden's fitness for office are mounting, some are pointing a finger at the first lady.
A Texas Republican musing, "Who is the Commander in Chief?" with a video of the Bidens hand in hand after the debate.
Another Republican member of Congress accusing Jill Biden and the campaign of elder abuse.
And a "Wall Street Journal" opinion article says Jill Biden should "ask herself whether her admirable loyalty to her husband will serve the best interests of our country," adding that fate has given Mrs. Biden the power to shape history. May she use it wisely.
Presidential historians drawing comparisons to past first ladies, protecting the legacy of their husbands around sensitive issues.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANITA MCBRIDE, AUTHOR, "REMEMBER THE FIRST LADIES": There were allegations or rumors of, you know, President Reagan's condition or some signs of cognitive difficulty or perhaps, you know, early dementia. She dismissed that. And again, was focused on his legacy, what he could contribute in his presidency.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SERFATY (voice over): The White House says that is not what is happening here.
Asked if the first lady is covering up a medical condition of the President's, the First Lady's communications director tells CNN: "No. An emphatic no."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SERFATY: Sunlen Serfaty, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And still ahead, a CNN exclusive new allegations from a Boeing whistleblower. What the 30-year-old veteran of the company is telling CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:41:16]
BROWN: A CNN exclusive report revealing damning documents and speaking to a key whistleblower for the first time on TV, and it centers on Boeing. At a critical time for the aviation giant, highlighting concerns over the safety of airplane parts. Pete Muntean reports the whistleblower claims billion employees pulled plane parts from the scrap heap, potentially endangering people's safety on board just to meet their production schedules and make more money.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN TRANSPORTATION CORRESPONDENT (voice over): If Everett, Washington is a Boeing company town, then Merle Meyers was a company man. A 30-year veteran of Boeing, Meyers says his job as a quality control manager put his kids through college. It's a family tradition. His late mother was a Boeing inspector, able to unilaterally decide if a new airplane just off the factory line was fit to fly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MUNTEAN: What would she think about what is happening at Boeing?
MERLE MEYERS, BOEING WHISTLEBLOWER: She'd be absolutely livid.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MUNTEAN (voice over): Meyers' new allegations detail an elaborate off- the-books practice centering on parts deemed not safe to put in new airplanes. He is the latest whistleblower to come forward with claims of quality control lapses at Boeing. This is his first TV interview inspired by the January 5th door plug blowout on an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9.
Spray-painted red, bad parts deemed not up to Boeing standards are taken from Boeing's Everett plant and sent to its scrap facility in Auburn. But then one day in 2015, Meyers says a crate of bad parts were improperly sent back from Auburn to Boeing's Everett factory. Meyers alleges the practice continued for years. Telling that more than 50,000 parts escaped Boeing's quality control. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MUNTEAN: Fifty-thousand parts?
MEYERS: That's what we counted at the time.
MUNTEAN: It seems like a heck of a lot.
MEYERS: It's a heck of a lot indeed.
MUNTEAN: What does that say to you?
MEYERS: Well, that says it puts people's lives at risk. Not just passengers but flight crews. And a lot of these are flight-critical parts that made it back into the production system.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MUNTEAN (voice over): Company emails show Meyers repeatedly flagged the issue to Boeing's corporate investigations team pointing out what he says were repeat violations of Boeing safety rules. But Meyers insists investigators routinely failed to enforce those rules. In a 2022 email, he wrote that Boeing investigators ignored eyewitness observations and the hard work done to ensure the safety of future passengers and crew.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MUNTEAN: Why would they do this?
MEYERS: The schedule. The schedule.
MUNTEAN: To get points out the door?
MEYERS: Mm-hmm.
MUNTEAN: To make money?
MEYERS: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MUNTEAN (voice over): Meyers believes he was forced out of Boeing last year and is concerned there are still problems at the company.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MEYERS: Well, I think they need to punish. They need to fire people that blatantly violate the process and endanger the flying public. It's a huge problem. And a core requirement of a quality system is to keep bad parts and good parts apart.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MUNTEAN (voice over): In a statement, Boeing says it encourages employees to speak up. And that to ensure the safety, quality and conformance of our products, we investigate all allegations of improper behavior such as unauthorized movement of parts or mishandling of documents. We then work diligently to address them and make improvements.
Meyers says he is coming forward now because of the pride he has in Boeing. He goes so far as to call it a wonderful company. One, he says has been going astray and is in desperate need of change.
[18:45:03]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MEYERS: But you have to care. Leadership has to care to do that. But if you can't even keep parts segregated from good parts, what else aren't you doing right?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MUNTEAN: The mystery here is that we do not have an exact accounting of where these parts are. They range from the superficial, like fasteners, to the critical wing flaps used for landing. If these parts weren't returned to the scrapyard, our whistleblower's worry that they ended up on new planes, delivered to airlines and other customers in the last decade or so. How big a deal is that? Also hard to know, since we don't know exactly how or where they were used. But there is no question that these scrap parts should not have been put on planes. Pete Muntean, CNN, Washington.
BROWN: All right. Joining us now is a former safety inspector at the FAA and now our CNN Safety Analyst, David Soucie.
So David, first, how serious are these new whistleblower accusations of allegedly using parts from the scrap heap to build the planes that we're all flying on?
DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: I'll tell you, these allegations are extremely serious. What I'm concerned about is some of the terminology that's used when we talk about a scrap heap and where these parts are going. There's a critical process, and that's called serviceable or not.
If the part is not serviceable, it needs to be segregated. Now, there is a form 8130 that you can use to recertify a part when it's in non- serviceable condition. So I don't know enough about what's happening here. I'm not aware that the service or that the whistleblower has provided a list of these parts or where they went, where they came from, or even how he knows the transport of it. I assume that in his position with Boeing, he would have known that. So I'm not discounting his claims. I'm just - I'd like to have more information about this scrap heap because I'm not aware of Boeing having a scrap heap for parts.
BROWN: So based on this whistleblower allegation, these whistleblower allegations, though, Boeing was using these parts for these airplanes. How critical could one individual part be, right? I mean, try to help us understand the significance of this. If a part from a scrap heap, as he says, does make its way on an airplane, one part.
SOUCIE: Well, it depends on what part. Again, he said that some of these are safety critical parts. That's all - that's as vague as it was. It would have to be much more detailed to say that. So I really can't comment on it. It depends on any part. If any part is bad or non-serviceable and fails because of that, then it could cause an aircraft crash or who knows what, but I'm not going there right now because I don't know what parts they are. So I don't really want to leap into that faith, yes.
BROWN: That's fair. You don't want to speculate. And I get that completely without more information to help inform your opinion.
SOUCIE: Yes, sure.
BROWN: So the critical issue Boeing is facing this weekend is will it take the government's deal to plead guilty to criminal fraud? This is, of course, in connection with the MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people. Do you think it will take the deal or take the chances and go to trial?
SOUCIE: Well, I think we need to clarify something real quickly.
BROWN: Sure.
SOUCIE: Boeing already admitted to fraud. They already said ...
BROWN: Right.
SOUCIE: ... that there was fraud that went on with two pilots that had hidden information about the MCAS system prior to the two tragic accidents that occurred. So Boeing already admitted to that. What they're facing now is they had an agreement, a deferred prosecution agreement in which they were supposed to come up with processes that would prevent any additional breaking of the anti-fraud laws.
And to my knowledge, I don't think they should take the deal because to my knowledge right now, I see that they did put those things in place just as was asked in this kind of vague agreement that they had. They did put those things into place and we haven't seen actual fraud after that. We've seen mistakes. We've seen the door plug that came out. We've seen things that happened.
But have they actually hidden information intentionally with the intent of doing something else? That's the definition of fraud and I'm not sure they've done that. So I think they may be in a good position to defend themselves here. So I'm not sure if I was Boeing, I would take this deal.
BROWN: All right. David Soucie, thanks so much and we'll be right back.
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[18:53:32] BROWN: Right now, nearly 7 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's. For decades, researchers have tried and failed to come up with ways to treat Alzheimer's, leaving patients and their loved ones with few options. But now there are new signs of hope, from hard science on lifestyle interventions to earlier detection and intervention. New tools are emerging to battle this disease. CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta spent five years investigating the breakthroughs in a documentary called "The Last Alzheimer's Patient," and here's a preview.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looks like a lot, but it's not that much.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: (INAUDIBLE) looks like a lot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay, it's a very ...
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GUPTA (voice over): You're not going to find many places like this around the country. A place that practices preventative neurology, highly personalized. And most importantly for me, predictive.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GUPTA (on camera): So Holly (ph) here has graciously stuck me with a needle and is now drawing my blood for all sorts of different things. For basic cardiac metabolic sort of risk factors, but also, many of these purple tubes here, as part of a research study to see what some of these biomarkers for Alzheimer's are for me and what they might mean.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Try to concentrate as you look at them now.
That's correct.
That wasn't quite right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUPTA (voice over): There is a lengthy cognitive test.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Place your heels on the ...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're looking at body composition, your muscle mass, your body fat, where the body fat is.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Starting your inbody test.
(END VIDEO CLIP) [18:55:04]
GUPTA: And an exhaustive intake of my medical, personal and family history.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GUPTA (on camera): My grandmother, his mom, and my dad both had diabetes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUPTA (voice over): Now, my test results are going to take a couple of weeks to come back.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports "The Last Alzheimer's Patient" airs tomorrow night at 8 PM Eastern only on CNN. We'll be right back.
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