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Horrific Car Crash Kills 9 Children And 1 Adult on Alabama Highway; Bernie Sanders Floats Sweeping $6 Trillion Infrastructure Plan; UN Warns Against Violence in Ethiopian Elections. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired June 21, 2021 - 05:00   ET

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

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CHRISTINE ROMANS, CO-ANCHOR, EARLY START: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world, this is EARLY START, I'm Christine Romans.

LAURA JARRETT, CO-ANCHOR, EARLY START: I'm Laura Jarrett, it's Monday, June 21st, it's 5:00 a.m. here in New York. And we begin with this terrible story, a horrifying crash on a rain-soaked Alabama highway. Ten people killed including a father and his infant daughter. The other eight fatalities, all children aged 4 to 17 years old. Seventeen vehicles were involved in this fiery wreck. Federal investigators now on the scene trying to figure out how it all happened. CNN's Martin Savidge has the latest.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Christine, good morning Laura. Four of the victims from Saturday's crash attended Reeltown High School here. Federal investigators will now try to figure out exactly what happened on an Alabama highway. This tragedy is horrific on a number of levels, not just the numbers of those lost, ten people died, but then on top of that, the fact that almost all of them were children between the ages of 9 months and 17 years, and that many of those children had already gone through very difficult circumstances in their lives only to die tragically.

This is what we know, Saturday afternoon, it was around mid afternoon when this multi-car pile-up took place on I-65 northbound just south of Montgomery. There were at least 15 vehicles involved including semi-tractor trailer trucks. The largest number of people who died were in a 15-passenger van that was from the Tallapoosa County Girl's Ranch. They were headed back after spending most of the week down at Gulf Shores. Again, what triggered this crash, we don't know. But the weather was very bad at the time, we also know that out of that van, there was only one survivor that was the ranch director who was pulled from the wreckage.

And that if you've seen the images, it is just shocking to look at. She was unconscious, she was pulled out by passersby, and she lost two of her own children in that crash. Two other victims, a father and daughter, aged 29 and 9 months died in another vehicle. Again, weather is suspected of being the culprit. Michael Smith is the head of the organization that oversees that girls' ranch and the loss for them is devastating.

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MICHAEL SMITH, HEAD OF ORGANIZATION THAT OVERSEES GIRLS' RANCH: We lost eight young people that can make a difference in our world. We lost eight young people that didn't have a chance to have their own children. We lost eight young people that can't break the cycle of where they've been and change it for their children. We had two vans of children coming back from the beach and also a chase car, but they were several miles apart. And the first van was the one that had the accident. We had -- we had nine people in that van, we had eight fatalities and one survivor in that van yesterday. That's the tragedy that we're faced with.

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SAVIDGE: Many of the children who died in that van had come from homes where they had parents who were caught up in drug addiction or the children themselves had been abused. And now, this organization, which is run primarily through charitable donations, must bury eight children and handle eight funerals. How they will get through it with their grief, they're not sure, and how they will pay for it? Well, as they say, God only knows. Christine and Laura.

ROMANS: Just unimaginable grief there. All right, to Washington now. Bernie Sanders wants a bigger infrastructure deal. The Vermont senator tells CNN any package needs to include funding to combat climate change and he won't support a measure that raises the gas tax or imposes a fee on electric vehicles. Twenty one senators including 11 Republicans are working on a bipartisan proposal that will cost $1.2 trillion over eight years. More now from CNN's Suzanne Malveaux on Capitol Hill for us.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Christine and Laura. Of course, this week is going to be a critical week in negotiations here on Capitol Hill regarding infrastructure. Senator Bernie Sanders is the powerful chair of the Senate Budget Committee, he is in charge really of working with the White House to try to make a deal that is satisfactory to progressives as well as the moderates. He is putting forward a $6 trillion reconciliation package that is Democrats only, not only dealing with the physical infrastructure, roads and bridges and Broadband, but things that they call human infrastructure; Medicare, elderly care, immigration, dealing with climate change.

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Moderate Democrats have spoken out. They say they will not support this, they have made that clear. Sanders says he will be meeting with his fellow Democrats, but Democrats like Joe Manchin as well as Jeanne Shaheen, Jon Tester all saying that price tag is way too big. It seems as if Sanders is now indicating that at least this $6 trillion plan is aspirational.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT): You know, I sometimes think we get boggle

down in numbers, and that's important. But we've got to look at what the needs are of the American people, what's going on right now? And what is going on right now -- so, all that the president is doing, all I am doing is taking a look at reality for working families, understand their needs have been ignored for decades. Now, it is time to create good-paying jobs, millions of good-paying jobs, addressing healthcare, housing, infrastructure.

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MALVEAUX: What is more likely to pass is a bipartisan proposal that is being worked on now through the Senate. It is much more modest in scope, but does have some new spending for traditional infrastructure, just some of the items $110 billion in new spending for bridges and roads, $73 billion to expand power infrastructure, $66 billion on passenger and freight rail, $65 billion to expand access to Broadband and more than $48 billion for public transit. One of the ways that they are proposing to pay for this, and that is also a controversial up for debate proposal is using unused relief money, that COVID relief money to move forward on infrastructure. Christine, Laura?

JARRETT: All right, Suzanne Malveaux, thank you so much for that. We're learning new details this morning about the Trump Justice Department's secret record sweep of those two democratic lawmakers and the former president's White House counsel. We get more on all of this from CNN's Evan Perez.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Laura, the Justice Department's subpoena that swept up the records of two prominent Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee appears to have been part of a broad leak -- that for a time was scrutinizing a former Democratic aide on that committee. Investigators sent the subpoena to Apple in 2018 in an effort to identify people connected with the former high-level staffer. Apple provided names connected to the accounts including Democratic Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, two vocal critics of former President Donald Trump.

Now, this was potentially the first time that federal investigators realized that they had the records of the two California Democrats according to sources. A similar subpoena in a separate investigation collected records belonging to former White House counsel Don McGahn and his wife, and sources tell us that investigators initially didn't know that the accounts belonged to McGahn. Now, the circumstances surrounding the subpoenas are now the subject of an Inspector General investigation and multiple congressional probes as lawmakers demand answers about why their records were secretly obtained and Justice Department officials seek to determine why senior department leaders say they didn't know what was happening.

Schiff said on Sunday that he wants Attorney General Merrick Garland to provide more answers.

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REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): The Inspector General is doing an investigation. I talked with the attorney general about going beyond that. I think he really needs to do a wholesale review of all of the politicization of the department over the last four years. What happened to our committee, what happened to members of the press, that's just a subset.

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PEREZ: Now, the subpoenas came amid a series of leak investigations that the Justice Department launched in 2017 and 2018, trying to find sources for news reports related to the Trump-Russia investigations. The Justice Department now says that it is reviewing procedures for handling politically-sensitive investigations, and that changes could be in the works to make sure that top officials are made aware of investigations that could involve Congress. Christine, Laura?

ROMANS: All right, Evan, thank you so much for that. Summer travel is roaring back, but American Airlines is cancelling hundreds of flights through mid-July, partly because of labor shortages at some of its vendors. American says it had 120 cancellations Saturday, it's estimating up to 80 cancellations a day going forward. This is just another example of an industry struggling to find employees as the economy recovers very quickly. American said the cancellations will be spread throughout its system, but there will be a bigger effect in Dallas Fort Worth, one of the Airlines biggest hubs. American says customers who have booked trips through mid-July will be notified or have already heard if their flight has been cancelled.

JARRETT: So, expect delays, expect long lines --

ROMANS: Yes --

JARRETT: And expect --

ROMANS: You know, it's --

JARRETT: Trouble at the airports.

ROMANS: And they don't want a repeat of what they saw --

JARRETT: Yes --

ROMANS: What the industry saw in the Summer of 2019 when you had some bad weather and you had just a really overstressed system. They just had a lot of cancellations --

JARRETT: Yes --

ROMANS: They don't want to get ahead of that.

JARRETT: Yes. All right, still ahead for you, Ethiopians in crisis as they head to the polls today. Nationwide unrest, famine, a spiraling humanitarian crisis there, and now a dire warning from the U.N.

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[05:10:00] JARRETT: Welcome back. The U.N. is sending out a warning about

today's elections in Ethiopia, asking participants to resist violence. The Secretary General's spokesman calling on Ethiopians to reject hate speech, rising levels of violence in Ethiopia along with economic disparity are raising concerns about the safety and integrity of the voting. Larry Madowo is live in Ethiopia for us this morning. Larry, good morning. What is the prime minister's response to all these concerns about today's elections?

LARRY MADOWO, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They are. The U.S. has said it's gravely concerned about the environment of this election that's taking place. The European Union is not observing the election, the African Union is. Ethiopia hopes this will be the first free and fair elections, though, there's an asterisk there. A big one because 20 percent of the country is not participating. There's no election in the north of the country where there's a civil war ongoing, and there's been accusations of a genocide there. However, some within the country see this as a necessary first step in midwifing a democratic transition because Ethiopia is a country that's deeply fractured along ethnic lines.

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It's almost nowhere where there's no ethnic violence. I spoke to the chair of Ethiopia's Human Rights Commission who still thinks -- let -- don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

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DANIEL BEKELE, HEAD, ETHIOPIA HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION: Organizing the election was a necessary step to have an elected government in a credible process. We have a credible elections commission to lead the process, and there's a credible political space for a competitive elections, so this was a necessary step to add this dialogue and to add this long-term solutions for Ethiopia.

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MADOWO: Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's party, the Prosperity Party is widely expected to win. He needs that legitimacy of facing the voters -- now in 2018 and the euphoric time. He instituted some reforms and even won a Nobel Peace Prize because of that. However, the path is really long to try to bring this country together, to get all those opposing voices to fix the crisis and to die, and there are people who do not believe that he's done enough of that. Laura and Christine?

JARRETT: All right, Larry Madowo in Ethiopia for us this morning, thank you, Larry.

ROMANS: All right, to Italy now where COVID restrictions are easing, every region in the country except for one is entering a low-risk category this morning. Mask-wearing and social-distancing rules, they remain in place, house parties, large gatherings, those are still forbidden. Nina dos Santos is tracking the latest developments for us. And Nina, what are the infection rates right now in Italy, and how close are they to a full reopening?

NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN EUROPE EDITOR: Good morning to you, Christine. Well, the infection rate has come right down to 16 per 100,000 cases, from 25 to 100,000 cases just last week. So you can see the trajectory is that it's slowing and it's also much lower rate of infection per 100,000 people than in other parts of the world, that's giving epidemiologists in Italy some cause for comfort. But also, the hour rate, the reproduction rate of the virus is also at 0.69, which is well below that level of one that really starts to signal warning signs for governments.

And it's for these reasons that the Italian government has largely lifted these coronavirus restrictions for almost all of the country except for one region where infections are above 50 per 100,000. That's in the northwest skiing region. In the border parts of Italy, between France and also Switzerland. What will this mean? Well, this is crucial for trying to save the Summer tourist season, yet, Italy is a huge tourist destination for American tourists, also European tourists as well. They want to save some vestiges of this important time and also make sure that people can have a good time and can go see various parts of Italy when they go and travel, so to see Florence and then Rome, combine that into one trip.

You can do that now. You can also stay out later. Previously, there were curfews, but there are, as you pointed out, going to be the last vestiges of the pandemic that will be on display. The fact that people have to wear masks outdoors and also large gatherings are not currently permitted. Hospitality industry is still waiting for word as to whether or not nightclubs can reopen. They're still worried about the Delta variant though, that was first identified in India and it's starting to get a foothold here in the U.K. where I am. And for that reason, British tourists, too, Italy will have to quarantine upon their arrival now. Christine?

ROMANS: All right, Nina for us, thank you so much for that. All right, two weeks ago, he was forced to withdraw from the tour because of a positive COVID test. This morning, he's celebrating his first major victory, Andy Scholes has the "BLEACHER REPORT" next.

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ROMANS: All right, two weeks after he couldn't play in a tournament because of a positive COVID test, golfer Jon Rahm wins the U.S. Open, Andy Scholes has this morning's "BLEACHER REPORT". Hey, Andy.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Christine. Jon Rahm called it karma. So, two weeks ago, he was on his way to winning the memorial when he was told in the 18th green after round three that he had tested positive for COVID. Well, Rahm stayed positive and now he's celebrating his first major victory at the U.S. Open. Rahm coming through big time in the clutch yesterday as well. He pulled even with Louis Oosthuizen on 17 with this birdie putt from 25 feet out. Then on 18, he sank this one for a birdie to take the lead and he was certainly pumped up after that went in. The lead would hold, making Rahm the first Spaniard to ever win the

U.S. Open. The 26-year-old recently became a father, got to celebrate his first major win with his son and wife on Father's Day. And later, he spoke with CNN's Don Riddell about his emotions after the biggest win of his career.

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JON RAHM, U.S. OPEN CHAMPION FOR 2021: From the biggest setbacks, you can get some of the biggest breakthroughs. And I think a lot of people believed or thought I was angry at the situation, that I really was. I never blamed anybody. I was never resentful for anything. These are things I can't control, and we're in the middle of a pandemic. I believe in karma. Good things happen to good people and everything, you know, turned out to be the best possible scenario today.

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SCHOLES: All right, to the NBA, the winner take all game seven between the Hawks and the 76ers in Philadelphia and the struggles for Ben Simmons would continue. Late in the fourth, down two, Simmons passes up a wide open dunk and instead passes Matisse Thybulle and would only make one of two free throws after the foul.

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And under a minute to go, Sixers down, forward Danilo Gallinari -- all right, putting the game away, steals it from Joel Embiid, gets the dunk on the other end. Hawks shocks the Sixers 103-96 to make their second Eastern Conference finals in 50 years. They're going to take on the Bucs game one of that series on Wednesday. Los Angeles Clippers meanwhile opening up the Western Conference finals yesterday. This was the Devin Booker show. The 24-year-old pouring in 40 points and a triple double, leading Phoenix to a 121-114 win. Now, Chris Paul not playing for the Suns in this one due to COVID protocol.

They've not announced whether Paul has COVID, but the NBA did say in the latest testing results that one player did test positive. Now, when Paul returns still unknown, but he immediately called Booker to FaceTime with him as he was leaving the court after the win. All right, finally, American sprinter Allyson Felix is headed to her fifth Olympic games after a dramatic second place in the 400 meters yesterday at the trials in Oregon. The 35-year-old already has nine medals and now has the chance to pass Carl Lewis as the most decorated U.S. track and field athlete ever.

Felix is going to be going into the Olympics as a mother for the first time. She happened to have emergency C-section back in 2018. Her daughter Cameron was there to celebrate with her, and she shared an awesome hug with Quanera Hayes' son. Hayes won the race, and is going to be going to Tokyo as well. So, Laura, as you can see, team USA going to be well represented by super moms in Tokyo.

JARRETT: So cute. I love having the kids there for just a little extra motivation.

SCHOLES: Right --

JARRETT: It's great, Andy, thanks so much --

SCHOLES: All right --

JARRETT: Appreciate it. All right, new sanctions against Russia on the heels of President Biden's summit with Vladimir Putin. We have all the details for you, that's next.

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