Return to Transcripts main page
CNN This Morning
Parents Outraged After Kids Painted In "Blackface" At Florida Daycare; Today: Protest Against DeSantis Over African American Studies Course; Petito Family Attorney Says Laundrie's Mom Wrote Him Letter Offering To Bury A Body. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired February 15, 2023 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[07:30:00]
SEN. ANGUS KING (I-ME): So that's why Mike Gallagher in House, Marco Rubio, and I in the Senate have introduced a bill to either ban it, which isn't the preferred alternative, or for them to sell it to an American or a Western company so that this pipeline into the intelligence agencies in Beijing is cut off.
It's just -- it's an unacceptable risk. And we're talking about one big balloon. How about 62 million users of TikTok every day in the United States? That's where I think there is a serious risk.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Well, let's hope something can get done with both parties in the House and the Senate.
Thank you, gentlemen, for joining us this morning. We appreciate it.
REP. MIKE GALLAGHER (R-WI): Thank you.
KING: Thank you, Don.
LEMON: So it has been nine days since the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria and somehow rescuers are still finding people alive.
And this --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: He tells me that they've had some 5,000 patients that have come here over the last seven days. The orthopedic surgeons, the neurosurgeons have been operating for seven days straight basically.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: That was CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta getting access to the busiest hospital in Turkey's quake zone. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL)
[07:35:18] KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: It's hard to believe but the death toll from the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria has now surpassed 41,000 people. Somehow, though, rescuers are -- say that they are still hearing voices coming from the rubble. Those efforts are still underway.
Somehow people are still being pulled out alive, like this amazing moment here. It has been 209 hours after the earthquake when this couple was saved from a collapsed five-story apartment building in Turkey. You can see them being brought out by the crews there.
Also here a 77-year-old woman was saved after she had spent almost nine days under the rubble. Family members on the scene were just amazed. They hugged her after she emerged.
We're also getting word that a 45-year-old woman was rescued today after 222 hours.
The Turkish President Erdogan says that more than 13,000 people are still in the hospital.
CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta went to Turkey. He's on the ground looking at what those efforts for those 13,000 that are still in the hospital look like.
GUPTA: Guys, I've made my way to an airstrip here -- a Turkish military airstrip where so many of the donations from all over the world -- this is where they arrive. And then helicopters and planes and other vehicles come and take these supplies and try and get them to places where people really need them.
We talk about more than 41,000 people have tragically died but there are also a lot of people who are survivors who have been injured and are in need of some of these supplies.
In fact, we went to the largest trauma center in this area -- a trauma center that was not damaged by the quake -- and they've been taking care of patients -- thousands of patients -- 5,000 over the last several days.
I want to give you a look at what it takes to run a trauma center in the middle of an earthquake zone.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SULEYMAN CETINKUNAR, CHIEF OF STAFF, ADANA CITY TEACHING AND RESEARCH HOSPITAL: Operating room.
GUPTA (voice-over): Time is the great equalizer in hospitals all across Turkey and there isn't enough of it here in Adana City at the teaching and research hospital.
GUPTA (on camera): The patients come in with fractures -- with what sort of injuries?
CETINKUNAR: The patients are -- consist of limb loss, tissue crushes, tissue loss, and brain trauma.
GUPTA (voice-over): Dr. Suleyman Cetinkunar is chief of staff here. Within minutes his trauma team is paged again. Another helicopter is arriving.
GUPTA (on camera): We're now walking with the chief of staff of the hospital to the helipad. He tells me that they've had some 5,000 patients that have come here over the last seven days. The orthopedic surgeons, the neurosurgeons have been operating for seven days straight basically. This is the largest trauma hospital in the quake zone.
GUPTA (voice-over): The doctors move fast. The goal, to care for this 26-year-old woman. Her kidneys are failing from something known as crush syndrome. Too many toxins were released into her blood after her limb was finally freed. She will need emergent kidney dialysis.
Over and over again patients from the quake zone finally, thankfully making it here for help, and one with the most remarkable story I have heard. This beautiful family of five felt the earth shake and then watched the unthinkable happen.
NILAY FANSA, MOTHER OF MISSING BABY (through translator): A block of flats is seven stories high.
GUPTA (voice-over): They could do nothing but watch as 8-month-old baby Birce was somehow hurdled from the window five stories to the ground. And then look what happened to their building, just flattened.
Somehow Nilay survived after being trapped herself for almost 14 hours. And she began to dig and scrape through the rubble for any sign -- any sign at all that her baby girl was still alive.
FANSA (through translator): And at that point, the fifth day, we thought we would be seeing her lifeless body.
GUPTA (voice-over): But then something astonishing happened. Someone showed them this post on Twitter. At first, they weren't sure but this baby girl looked very much like her daughter.
FANSA (through translator): You see, we had no idea she had been saved.
GUPTA (voice-over): In the chaos, a Good Samaritan had rescued the girl and she was flown here broken and battered, left leg shattered, skull fractured. A small collection of blood on her brain. But yes, very much alive.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: Guys, just such a miraculous story. You think about that 8- month-old girl. I mean, she was thrown out the window, but had she not been thrown out the window she would have likely been crushed. You saw just how that building was so pancaked.
[07:40:10] People don't like to use the word miracle very often but that was pretty miraculous I think you'd have to agree.
Guys, this is an area -- a Turkish airstrip where so many of the donations that are coming in from all over the world. This is where they arrive. Then there's planes and helicopters and other vehicles that take these supplies and get them to the people who need them the most.
And keep in mind there are a lot of people that are still out there. They've survived but they may be injured and they're in tremendous need. And that's what these supplies are going to help serve.
COLLINS: Yes, the word miracle is right.
LEMON: Yes, and thank goodness for that. And also the sheer will to live sometimes, right? Most times it just carries people through. And I hope that there's a lot more of that and we see more.
Our thanks to Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
In the meantime, a Florida daycare under fire for how one teacher decided to celebrate Black History Month.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COURTNEY POLITIS, PULLED CHILDREN OUT OF DAYCARE: And she's like well they painted all the children's face blackface and sent messages out saying happy Black History Month. There's no words. Like is this -- is this even real?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL)
[07:45:30]
LEMON: A Miami daycare under fire this morning after a teacher had her children, some just two years old, wear blackface to celebrate Black History Month.
CNN's Athena Jones reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
POLITIS: And I'm appalled and flabbergasted. There's no words. Like, is this -- is this even real?
ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is how a daycare in Miami celebrated Black History Month -- a classroom full of 2-year-olds in blackface.
POLITIS: Where are the checks and balances, right, so nothing like this happens?
JONES (voice-over): Courtney Politis, whose 1-year-old daughter attended the daycare but was not in this particular class, says she was horrified when another parent at the school shared these photos originally posted on the daycare's app. They have since been removed.
POLITIS: And I get a phone call from a close mom friend whose child also goes to the school and she's like oh my gosh, you won't believe what they've done in our child's class. Like, it's -- I'm sickened right now. I'm completely -- I -- there's no words. And I'm like well, tell me. And she's like well they painted all the children's face blackface and sent messages out saying happy Black History Month.
JONES (voice-over): She reached out to daycare owner and director Patricia Vitale that same day.
POLITIS: I'm immediately sending the screenshot over to her and I let her know -- I'm like this is racist.
Her response, "I'm sorry? I don't understand. What are you saying? What is racist? Blackface. In our school we don't use this word neither. We have this kind of mind."
JONES (voice-over): As a mother of two young biracial children, Politis says it's hard to protect them.
POLITIS: I thought we would have more time before these sort of things or racism or microaggressions would have to be experienced by our children.
JONES (voice-over): Reached by CNN, Vitale declined to comment.
But in a message sent to parents the day of the incident Vitale wrote, "We have received a comment from one of our parents regarding the activity that was done in a teacher's class for the Black History Month. We have not intended to offend anyone, and we're very sorry about any inconvenience."
The following Monday Vitale sent another message about improving the training of daycare staff. "Following the Black History Month incident, we wanted to let all the parents know that we met Friday afternoon with all the teachers and staff. We went over several ethical and multicultural education points. I will teach them a class covering all the necessary topics regarding U.S. history and multicultural education. You may rest assured this will never happen again."
But that promise wasn't enough for Politis. She's pulled her two children out of two separate branches of the Studio Kids daycare and is looking for another childcare provider.
POLITIS: The bottom line is we can't trust them with our children.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JONES: And that's the thing that's most concerning to Courtney Politis that she can't trust these administrators to take care of and educate her children. And she said I understand that teachers are -- have the freedom to
create activities for the class but there are so many other ways you could have celebrated Black History Month.
She said another school -- they painted traffic signals. They learned about Garrett Morgan who was a Black inventor who got one of the first patents for a traffic signal in 1923. And so their activity was painting traffic signals.
She wonders why in this class the teacher decided to dress these kids as different professions and simply paint their faces black. But that is not a celebration of Black History and she just wonders how this could slip through the cracks. So we'll see what happens with that.
LEMON: This is why knowing history and teaching the correct history of the country is so important because then you don't do really ignorant things --
JONES: Exactly.
LEMON: -- like this.
JONES: Education is the (INAUDIBLE) to ignorance.
LEMON: Yes, and this is the beginning in preschool and daycare.
Thank you very much, Athena Jones.
So let's talk about what is happening in relation to this. Religious leaders and activists from around the country traveling to Florida today to protest, in part, Gov. Ron DeSantis' latest attempt to ban an AP African American studies course.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): Our Department of Education looked at that and said in Florida we do education, not indoctrination, and so that runs afoul of our standards. And, you know, many people agree with that in other states. We were just the only ones that had the backbone to stand up and do it because they call you names and they demagogue you when you do it.
But look, I'm so sick of people not doing what's right because they're worried that people are going to call them names. We're doing what's right here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: All right. There's a whole lot to discuss when it comes to this. Joining us now is senior pastor at Bethel Church in Jacksonville, Florida, Bishop Rudolph McKissick. He will be at the protest today. Thank you so much for joining us, Bishop.
I want your response to this but I want to hear what you think about this whole blackface incident. Is it -- do you think that this is sort of proof that we should be learning more about the true history of the country as it relates to -- even starting as young as preschool?
[07:50:17]
BISHOP RUDOLPH MCKISSICK, SENIOR PASTOR, BETHEL CHURCH, JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA (via Webex by Cisco): Good morning, Don.
Absolutely. I think it is insulting and offensive and evidence that we do need greater education about Black history and about our contribution to this country so that persons can adequately display and portray who we are during this month.
COLLINS: And Bishop, you're going to this protest today. What is -- what is the biggest message -- the clearest line that you want to get across by going and attending?
MCKISSICK: Well, we wanted to be very clear that we are not here just to make a statement but we're here to affect a change. Governor DeSantis says they want education and not indoctrination. And we want to be very clear to not miss the forest because of the trees. This is not just about an AP course. This is also about his attempt to dilute colleges and schools to teach diversity, equity, and inclusion.
And it is our attempt to say we will not allow you to redact our history, whitewash our history because in doing that you are left with nothing but a conservative consciousness and thought about Black history, which in effect, is indoctrination. So we're not the ones doing the indoctrinating. He is the one that's doing it.
LEMON: That's what I don't understand. You know, the whole idea that history that many of us were taught growing up and -- you know, Christopher Columbus discovered America, which sort of leaves out puts Native Americans being here to the side, right. It is sort of a history --
MCKISSICK: Right.
LEMON: -- that makes certain people look good.
His office says that it is both dishonest and incorrect to claim that Florida is banning Black history and says that Florida has a Black history requirement in state statute.
What is your response to that?
MCKISSICK: I think that's a great talking point but it's disingenuous because we're not saying that they don't teach Black history. What we're saying is you want to redact Black history to teach it the way you want it so that this generation is not uncomfortable. Well, perhaps they need to be uncomfortable so they can join us in the fight for equity and equality.
They do have Black history but it's not really being taught as it should be across our state, and we're not saying you don't teach it. So we're not the ones who are dishonest. They are because they know that's not what we're after. We're after you not whitewashing our history. LEMON: You're saying he's dishonest. Do you think he's dishonest? Do you think he's --
MCKISSICK: I'm saying he's (INAUDIBLE).
LEMON: Do you think he's like that teacher who just doesn't get it because they haven't been taught, or do you just think he's flat-out lying and being dishonest about it?
MCKISSICK: No, I think he gets it. I think he is using our state as the test lab to see how the nation responds because he wants to run for president. And what we want to show the nation, Don, is if you allow him to run for president what you're seeing in a microcosmic way in Florida is what you will see in a macrocosmic way in the nation.
LEMON: Bishop McKissick, thank you very much. We appreciate you coming on CNN THIS MORNING.
MCKISSICK: Thank you, my friend.
COLLINS: And as we follow those conversations and what's happening in Florida -- that protest -- we'll continue to monitor it -- monitor it today.
We're also learning this morning more about Gabby Petito's family. Their attorney telling a Florida court they believe Brian Laundrie's mother wrote him a letter that had references to getting a shovel and burying a body. We have more on that ahead.
(COMMERCIAL)
[07:58:15]
COLLINS: We have new developments in the wrongful death civil case that has been filed against Brian Laundrie's parents. An attorney for Gabby Petito's family is now demanding to see a letter that they say allegedly was written by Laundrie's mother that referenced getting a shovel and burying a body.
CNN's Jean Casarez is live here with the latest. Jean, so this was a letter that they say was found in his backpack, right?
JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this was -- yes. This was a civil hearing yesterday. It was a status hearing. It was about discovery going back and forth.
And suddenly, Patrick Reilly stands up -- who is representing the Petitos because this is the Petitos versus the Laundries -- and he said your honor, we are aware of a letter that Roberta Laundrie wrote to her son Brian, and that letter is in the possession of the defense.
And that letter says -- and here's a quote from Patrick Reilly in court -- "Things were expressed, including helping getting him out of prison, getting a shovel, and some other things. And we want that letter, your honor." The defense stood up -- Matthew Luka, representing the Laundries -- and said your honor, this isn't relevant. This letter was written a long time before they ever went on their trip. And then Patrick Reilly stood up and said your honor, the letter is not dated. And furthermore, on the front of the envelope it says "burn after reading."
Now -- so, it went back and forth but the judge says I believe it is relevant. And this case is proceeding to trial, all right, in Florida. And so the plaintiffs -- the Petitos -- will have a request to get that letter but there will still be a battle.
And I want to tell you about this case. This is an intentional infliction of emotional distress case and it has to do with that time period when Gabby was missing and the Petitos were calling over and over and over again -- the Laundries texting them -- do you know anything? They did not respond and they blocked them on Facebook.
[08:00:00]
