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Soccer, Sports World Mourns U.S. Journalist Who Died In Qatar; Migrant Workers At Qatar World Cup Speak Out About Abuse; Arizona Governor Builds Border Wall Of Crates In Final Days In Office. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired December 12, 2022 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, it was amazing.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: He was on with Dana yesterday and he talked about when he got on the plane with Brittney Griner -- you know, it's a 12-hour flight back -- and he kind of was like you can have your space. I know you've been through a lot. Let us know what you need.

And she was like no, no -- I want to talk. And he said she talked most of the flight home because she said she'd been around Russian for so long she wanted to talk and converse. And he said she was so gracious. She thanked the whole crew, introduced herself, got their names. And it was like a really lovely moment to hear what someone was like after being through 10 months --

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

COLLINS: -- in a Russian penal colony in detainment.

LEMON: I can't wait to see what she does now, but I also can't wait to see what she does for women's sports. And perhaps -- for the WNBA, perhaps it will be, hopefully, similar to something like Venus and Serena -- what they did for women's tennis.

But, I mean, it's going to be -- when we were sitting here and Vance says when she puts her hand on the basketball and whatever --

HARLOW: Oh, yes.

LEMON: We saw the practice there. But for an official game, that's going to -- I think it's going to be huge.

HARLOW: Yes.

LEMON: It's going to be huge.

HARLOW: All right.

LEMON: We'll see.

HARLOW: I'm so glad that we had them on. Thanks to our great team -- LEMON: Yes.

HARLOW: -- for booking them -- seriously.

OK, remembering Grant Wahl. We are --

LEMON: Our friend, yes.

HARLOW: Our friend. Looking back at the life of the sports journalist who died while covering the World Cup in Qatar. His former colleague at Sports Illustrated, Chris Stone, wrote this beautiful piece remembering him and he'll be with us next.

COLLINS: Also this morning, the environmental and financial concerns after the Keystone pipeline spills thousands of barrels of oil. We'll give you the latest.

HARLOW: Yikes.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:36:11]

HARLOW: Welcome back to CNN THIS MORNING.

Coming up on the program, why shipping containers -- actual shipping containers are now lining the U.S.-Mexico border. This is a move that one federal agency calls illegal.

Also, a New York college student who is currently studying abroad in France is now being reported missing. We'll tell you about that.

And a winter storm pummeling the west coast. How the south will be impacted, ahead.

COLLINS: But first this morning, we are remembering a pioneer of soccer journalism here in the United States and around the world, and also a friend of this show, Grant Wahl, who passed away at the World Cup in Qatar on Friday. He had just turned 49 years old. He covered eight men's World Cups as a reporter. He reported from Qatar for CNN THIS MORNING.

You might remember he talked to us in recent weeks after he was detained by officials there on the ground when he was trying to enter the stadium for wearing a rainbow shirt.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRANT WAHL, JOURNALIST: I was thinking the entire time -- like, if I'm being treated this way during the World Cup when the attention of the world is on Qatar and I'm an American who has a pretty prominent media following, imagine how gay people in Qatar outside of World Cups must feel or what they must endure.

And I've got family members who are gay. I've got friends who are gay. I've got journalist friends who are gay who are here in Qatar. But you don't need that to be supportive -- to be an ally.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Joining us now is Chris Stone, former editor-in-chief of Sports Illustrated where he worked with Grant for 23 years. He's now the deputy managing editor and vice president of L.A. Times Studios.

Chris, I know this is hard, so thank you for joining us this morning because you do know Grant so well and you worked with him for over two decades. And ever since news of his death broke everyone has been talking about the impact he had. What kind of reporter he was. Everyone remembers the LeBron James story that he had.

But what I was struck by that you wrote was less about how he was as a reporter and more how he was as a colleague. You said, "From the late spring day in 1996 that he walked into the Sports Illustrated headquarters, he relentlessly championed inclusion in his colleagues, especially younger ones and those further removed from the levers of corporate governance."

CHRIS STONE, DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR AND VICE PRESIDENT, L.A. TIMES STUDIOS, FORMER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (via Webex by Cisco): Yes. I mean, Grant and his wife, Dr. Celine Gounder, used to throw these dinner parties for Sports Illustrated once a month. And the idea behind these dinners was to bring people together who normally wouldn't come together and probably didn't know each other, even as much time as they might have spent in the workplace.

And he was really all about connection and I think that's how he viewed soccer in a big way. People have used the word he lifted soccer, he popularized it, he pioneered its coverage.

But I think above everything, what Grant did both in his coverage of soccer and in the way he related to colleagues is he believed in sharing. He shared soccer much in the same way that Anthony Bourdain shared food and used it as a vehicle to bring people together. That's what Grant saw, among other things, as being the purpose of soccer.

LEMON: I thought it was -- you know, when we had him on the show and we talked to him about the moment when he had an issue getting into the game because he was wearing that shirt, he didn't actually think it was a big deal. Like, it was just sort of second nature to him to stand up for people and marginalize people really to -- for everyone. And that was just who he was. It wasn't -- it wasn't like he was trying. That was just Grant being Grant.

[07:40:00]

STONE: Yeah. I heard him in that earlier clip say that he was an ally, and that's what he really was. He was an ally, especially to his friends, to strangers. And he had this big platform that he really created from scratch.

And from the day he launched this soccer standalone vertical at Sports Illustrated right through this World Cup in Qatar, he recognized the power of that platform. But by nature, he was a person who was an ally -- the friends, the colleagues -- getting back to Kaitlan's earlier question. I mean, that's who Grant was.

HARLOW: I'm so sorry. Reading your piece just tugged at sort of every single heartstring because you clearly loved him and admired him so much. And you wrote -- you talked about Bourdain earlier -- our former colleague, Anthony Bourdain -- and you write, "Like Bourdain, he had the gift of converting the incurious or at least getting them to sit up and take respectful notice."

He helped us see things that we were missing.

STONE: Yeah. I think he viewed it as kind of his obligation -- almost as a sort of benign penance for this great adventurous life he had. How could he not share it? Everybody wanted --

You know, he would come back from these trips across the ocean and different hemispheres in the farthest most remote corners of the world, and we wanted to hear about the experiences. And he was all too eager to share that not only with us but with his readers. I think it was really important to him to acknowledge I have this big, wonderful life but I want to share this big, wonderful life with you.

COLLINS: He's going to be so missed.

LEMON: Yes.

COLLINS: Chris, I know this is difficult, but thank you for joining us to talk about him because it's important to talk about him.

LEMON: There's a -- Chris, thank you. And I think it's a --

STONE: Thanks.

LEMON: -- little detail that's important before we go here. Flowers were left at the desk that would have been Grant's --

HARLOW: Oh.

LEMON: -- as the England and France game was played on Saturday.

So, thank you. We appreciate you joining us for that this morning, Chris. It's amazing.

And listen, just -- there are those flowers. We just have to be transparent because we just had Grant on. We love Chris and that he's sharing about his friend.

We also -- we know Celine. She's a member of our family. She helped us get through COVID -- Dr. Celine Gounder --

HARLOW: His wife.

LEMON: -- his wife. And I have been texting with her. His body is coming home soon. She's got to deal with that. Eventually, she'll come out and speak. And I would love for her to come and speak on this show just to honor her husband and -- because he was an extraordinary man, as she is an extraordinary woman. And we are all thinking about you, Doctor Gounder. So --

HARLOW: We are.

LEMON: -- we're with you and we love you.

OK. So, as -- this morning, migrant workers who built the stadiums that we were just talking about, right, in Qatar, leading up to the World Cup -- they are sharing their stories of abuse and mistreatment now.

So, CNN's Larry Madowo is hearing some of these first-person accounts and he joins us now live from Nairobi, Kenya. Hello to you. Good morning, or good afternoon to you there. Larry, what have you been learning about this?

LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Don, we've heard harrowing stories, so painful that several migrant workers have told us it is similar to modern-day slavery. Let me just walk you through some of these accusations.

They spent years building the World Cup that the world is now seeing during the FIFA World Cup, and they said they worked long hours, sometimes 14-16-hour days with very few breaks. They were not paid overtime. And whenever FIFA inspectors came to look around they were told to behave -- to say they were being treated well.

They endured verbal and physical abuse. They endured long hours. They were not paid. It's just a litany of accusations.

And I want you to listen to this one worker who just returned to Kenya after three years in Qatar.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BONIFACE BARASA, FORMER MIGRANT WORKER IN QATAR: I saw the supervisor call another Kenyan a lacy Black monkey. Then when the Kenyan countered back he asked him, "Why are you calling me a black monkey?" Then he slapped -- the supervisor slapped the Kenyan.

Another one died and that we knew -- harsh weather conditions. My college died. Another was beaten and was -- and he went missing.

MADOWO: You saw somebody die in front of you?

BARASA: Yea. Someone collapsed and died, and I think that was because of the harsh weather conditions.

MADOWO: Because of the heat.

BARASA: Because of the heat, the limited drinking water breaks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADOWO: That man is a football fan, as you can see, but he says he's too traumatized to watch the World Cup. He doesn't even want to watch Qatar on television. And there are stories all around Africa and South Asia, the bulk of

who formed the migrant workers that built this World Cup.

COLLINS: And Larry, what I was struck by was how the World Cup officials were responding -- one saying that death is a natural part of life. You know, there are going to be questions about accountability and what people want to see there.

HARLOW: Yes.

[07:45:02]

MADOWO: Absolutely. Because -- until very recently, organizers insisted that only three people died during the building of the entire World Cup and it was only until a few weeks ago that the World Cup chief for Qatar admitted that between 400 to 500 migrants could have died on projects connected to the World Cup.

But that sort of flippant attitude has been criticized for saying that is a natural part of life because these -- any one death is an outrage, but so many and so many who are uncounted is truly an outrage of many people. And the organizers and FIFA are sort of in lockstep here and they say the media has focused too much negativity and false stories about migrant workers instead of just focusing on the soccer.

LEMON: Larry, thank you. We appreciate it. Larry, live from Nairobi this morning.

And we have new images of shipping containers filling in the gaps at the U.S.-Mexico border wall. Look at this. It's up on your screen. We're going to hear reaction from how officials are preparing for a surge in migrants. That's next.

COLLINS: And a Los Angeles City Council member who was already embroiled in controversy was caught on camera fighting an activist. We have details for you and what you are seeing here. That's next.

LEMON: That is a bad look. A bad look.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:50:33]

LEMON: So, right now, Arizona's outgoing Republican governor, Doug Ducey, is pushing ahead with his efforts to do what he thinks will secure the southern border. He's stacking shipping containers topped with razor wire to fill gaps in border fencing built under the Trump administration.

Now, this comes as officials brace for an influx of migrants when the hold on the ruling strike down on Title 42 lifts just days before Christmas. So the pandemic order restriction has been used nearly 2.5 million times to expel migrants without allowing them to apply for asylum while in the U.S.

Arizona's newly-Independent Sen. Krysten Sinema wants the policy extended. She addressed the southern border crisis in an interview with our Jake Tapper. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KRYSTEN SINEMA (I-AZ): Well, as a native Arizonan who was born and raised near the southern border, I can tell you unequivocally that the federal government has failed its duty in the last 40 years.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Not just Democrats?

SINEMA: Not -- it's just everyone. The federal government has failed here. And places like Arizona -- front lines of this crisis -- have been paying the price every single day since then.

So, for us, this isn't just a talking point of team A versus team B. This is our life every day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So -- and listen, there is the very detailed story. So we want to bring in now Maria Santana. She's an anchor and a correspondent for CNN EN ESPANOL. And, Raul Reyes is an attorney and a CNN opinion columnist. We're so glad to have both of you on. Good morning and welcome to the program.

RAUL REYES, CNN OPINION WRITER, ATTORNEY: Good morning.

HARLOW: Good morning. Thank you.

LEMON: It's good to see you this early in the morning.

Maria, can you please break down this border situation because it's complicated? People at home may not know all the nuance and all the details, and the politics, particularly, surrounding this.

MARIA SANTANA, CNN ESPANOL ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So, Title 42 is a Trump-era policy, which was enacted early on in the pandemic to send migrants crossing the southern border back either to Mexico or to their home countries without allowing them to apply for asylum as our laws indicate.

And part of the reasoning behind that, the Trump administration said, was to stop the spread of COVID-19 in the detention centers -- in immigration detention centers, even though the CDC had said at the time that migrants weren't a huge cause of spread of COVID-19.

So it was seen as a political move by critics just to use immigration again as this divisive issue and expeditiously expel immigrants from the country.

Now, when Biden came in, he said that he was going to end the policy right away. And what we have seen is that the Biden administration has sent mixed messages about it. They have come to rely on it more and more, especially as we got closer to the midterm elections when immigration became, again a very polarizing hot topic and they wanted to change the conversation. Because what DHS officials are projecting is that once Title 42 is

lifted, anywhere between 9,000 and 14,000 migrants would try to cross the border, with a worst-case scenario of about 18,000 a day. And that's more than double --

LEMON: And that's the rub right now.

SANTANA: -- what it is -- yes.

LEMON: That's where we are -- yes.

REYES: Yes. One of the major problems with this idea of stacking these containers is that the governor is doing it on what is federal land and tribal Native American land. So he really does not have, number one, legal authority to just erect these containers there. And he admits that because he filed a lawsuit with the government to say that he recognizes that but he feels that he has to take the situation into his own hands. So that's a problem.

And --

LEMON: Just to clarify --

REYES: Yes.

LEMON: -- they're putting these shipping containers --

REYES: Yes.

LEMON: -- and they're putting barbed wire to -- right -- to --

REYES: Right. They're just kind of lining them up along -- I think it's about a 10-mile stretch.

The other thing is that even looking at the pictures, they are wildly ineffective because people can climb up on them. If people want to climb up on them and go over them it's very easily done. It's a dangerous construction effort because, in August, Univision reported that two of them toppled over. And so, it can -- it holds a potential to harm border patrol agents and firefighters there. It's completely ineffective.

And then the -- to me, what is, in a sense, a conservative argument against these containers -- the state of Arizona -- the taxpayers are paying up to $95 million for this, and that's the governor's estimate. And in about three weeks when there's a new governor, the taxpayers of Arizona are going to be paying millions more just to undo all these containers and get rid of them with the new governor.

[07:55:00]

And so, it hasn't -- it doesn't solve anything. It doesn't reform our immigration system or increase the effectiveness of our asylum system. It is just sort of a stunt -- like a border publicity-type of effort.

COLLINS: But the thing that -- and maybe it's not the solution. I mean, there obviously is debate over whether or not it's legal and the environmental issues as well.

REYES: Right, right, right.

COLLINS: But it is talking about a real issue, which is the border. And that is something that Republicans and Democrats alike, in Arizona, agree on. You heard Sen. Sinema there. Katie Hobbs told us that she thinks that the federal government, including Democrats, have not addressed it --

HARLOW: Mark Kelly.

COLLINS: -- in a real way. They are now bracing if Title 42 does end, as it's scheduled -- I believe December 21 -- there is going to be an influx of apprehensions at the border. We've already seen record numbers.

REYES: For sure, for sure -- yes.

Well, the -- what will happen with -- when Title 42 ends -- I mean, no one disputes, as you mentioned, that we're going to see a very high influx of migrants at the border. I think what gets lost in this picture is that ending Title 42 will basically amount to a restoration of law. That's U.S. law that migrants have the right to apply for asylum pursuant to U.S. law and also our international treaties.

Whether or not there's more than we can handle -- that's the responsibility of the U.S. government, which has never set limits on asylum seekers.

For example, legal immigration -- there are caps and limits for each country. The diversity visa of refugees -- Congress has set limits. With asylum seekers, our country -- Congress -- has not. So where there's really no productive way to say x number of thousand or this number of asylum seekers is too many.

HARLOW: Well --

REYES: It's on the government to make an effective and humane asylum system.

HARLOW: Let's see if this sort of framework that's being worked on by Kyrsten Sinema, now an Independent, and Thom Tillis, a Republican, can --

SANTANA: Yes, Democrats and --

HARLOW: -- come true.

SANTANA: Democrats in swing states. Moderates Democrats who are more in danger politically -- they tend to side a little more with the Republican side, which is why you see Arizona, and New Hampshire, and Montana --

HARLOW: To see people from different parties coming together.

SANTANA: Right. HARLOW: But can they actually do it this time? How many times have

they tried and failed? Let's hope so.

SANTANA: And that's created a humanitarian crisis as well -- Title 42 -- with kids, families in Mexico maybe persecuted, and dangerous conditions living in tents for like two years when our laws specifically say that they can come in and ask for it. So --

HARLOW: Yes. I'm glad you guys pointed it to be a reversion back to the law --

REYES: Right, right, absolutely.

HARLOW: -- because you can go before a judge and seek asylum.

Thank you both for coming on.

LEMON: Come back early and often. We love having you guys.

SANTANA: Thank you.

LEMON: Thank you so much.

HARLOW: Thank you, Raul.

All right. New this morning, scientists are set to announce a major breakthrough in the so-called holy grail of clean energy.

LEMON: What is that?

HARLOW: It's fusion.

COLLINS: Do you think it's actually going to end, though?

(COMMERCIAL)

[08:00:00]