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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Miami Herald: Pool Contractor Saw Water And Cracks Below Pool Deck; House Votes Tomorrow On Select Committee To Probe Capitol Riot; Juul To Pay $40 Million In North Carolina Lawsuit Settlement. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired June 29, 2021 - 05:30   ET

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

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[05:30:45]

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone, this is EARLY START. I'm Laura Jarrett.

WHITNEY WILD, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Whitney Wild. It's 30 minutes past the hour.

JARRETT: New information this morning about all of the warning signs at Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida just before it collapsed last week. A pool contractor telling "The Miami Herald" about the nightmare he found in the basement's building.

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AARON LIEBOWITZ, REPORTER, THE MIAMI HERALD: Initially, walked through the lobby, walked through the pool area, and didn't notice anything particularly alarming. He was being escorted by a building employee who then walked him downstairs to the north part of the building in the garage below. And that's where he told us that he saw deep standing water in the parking garage that he found odd and concerning.

Then he was led over to the south side underneath the pool area, still in the garage, to where the pool equipment room. And inside that room, he saw major concrete spalling, exposed rebar in one of the beams there. He found it alarming enough that he snapped photos and actually sent them to his boss at the time to say this project might actually cost a little bit more than we initially thought.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILD: One hundred fifty people are still missing, 11 now confirmed dead as we enter day six of the rescue efforts.

CNN's Rosa Flores is live this morning in Surfside. Rosa, so this pool contractor found serious damage in the basement. Yet, at the same time, condo builders were being asked to pay $50 million worth of repairs. Some of those payments were supposed to start in a matter of days. So, can you give us the -- just sort of the way things are playing out in the days and weeks leading up to this horrific accident?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: These reports really paint a clearer picture of the condition of the building before it collapsed. Now, this reporting is -- this excellent reporting, I should say, is from "Miami Herald" reporter Sarah Blaskey. She's the one who obtained these photographs.

And if you take a look at these photographs, clearly, you'll see that there are deteriorating conditions. There's cracked concrete, there's exposed rebar. There's also ponding on the ground. And these are concerns that were talked about in the 2018 report.

The caveat here is that those photographs were taken on the south side of the building and the collapse happened on the north side of the building.

But now imagine you being some of the family members who were at the reunification center hoping to hear good news about your loved one and these are the pictures that are crossing the news.

Pablo Rodriguez spoke to Erin Burnett last night. His mom and his grandmother are still missing. He speaks about a phone call that he received from his mom the night before the collapse. She was complaining about the building making creaking noises. So that call so much more significant now for him -- that phone call with his mother.

And he reacts to some of these new findings -- these new nuggets of information that we're hearing about the condition of the building. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PABLO RODRIGUEZ, MOTHER AND GRANDMOTHER MISSING IN CONDO COLLAPSE: This just confirms the maintenance was not done over the many years. The board collects over $1 million of maintenance fees from the unit owners every single year. Where was that money going because it wasn't going to maintenance?

You see these pictures. How did they not tell people that it was in this horrible of a condition? The rebar was exposed. The contractor confirms that the maintenance doesn't happen overnight like that. It's shocking that they allowed it to get into this. It's just -- it's negligence and their negligence caused a lot of death here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: The town of Surfside has hired an engineer -- a structural engineer to investigate. This, as we learned more from a letter that was sent to residents about a $15 million assessment that they were going to begin paying just days after the collapse. And if you read that letter carefully it speaks about repairing some of the things from that 2018 report that spoke about the deteriorating condition of the foundation -- of the base of that building.

[05:35:09]

A very quick quote that I want to read to you. It says, "Concrete deterioration is accelerating." And that's why the assessment had increased, according to his document, from $9 million in 2018 to $15 million in 2021.

So, Whitney, this, of course, is causing alarm around South Florida with cities, municipalities, and the county of Miami-Dade going out and sending their inspectors to buildings across South Florida to make sure that they inspect these buildings. They want to make sure that they're safe for obvious reasons. Because here we are, like you said, in day six. Eleven people are dead and 150 people are unaccounted for -- Whitney.

WILD: Well, that's always the question, Rosa. If it could happen there, where else can it happen and how close is it from occurring again. That's always the fear.

Rose Flores live in Florida. Thank you.

All right, moving on to Washington. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi going ahead with the commission to investigate the Capitol riot -- potentially with some Republican help. A vote is set to happen tomorrow on a House select committee after the Senate failed to pass an independent commission.

Pelosi will choose eight committee members, including a chair. And an aide says that she may include a Republican, which is leading to some speculation about who that's going to be. There are only 10 GOP members who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump. House minority leader Kevin McCarthy will have a say on five of those additional members of the panel.

JARRETT: Well, the holiday weekend is fast approaching and if you're planning to fill up the tank for a family trip you should know that gas stations are starting to run dry, but not for the reason you might think.

It's time for three questions in three minutes. Let's bring in CNN's business lead writer, Matt Egan. Matt, great to see you on set.

MATT EGAN, CNN BUSINESS LEAD WRITER: Good morning.

JARRETT: So we know that there is this shortage of tanker fuel drivers. I can't imagine that's good news for prices at the pump. Tell us what's happening.

EGAN: Yes, Laura, this could definitely create some headaches for some people this holiday weekend.

Now, it's no secret that gasoline prices are up from a year ago -- about $3.11 a gallon right now. That's up from about $2.18 a year ago. That's not a big surprise. People are driving more because COVID restrictions have gone away.

But the issue is that supply simply can't meet demand. And it's not because there's not enough gasoline out there -- there is -- it's just that there's not enough drivers.

And what's interesting here is there's a national shortage of truck drivers --

JARRETT: Right.

EGAN: -- but it's a bigger issue with tanker trucks because you actually need special qualifications in order to drive those trucks. And so, that's why about a quarter of the national trucks that usually carry gasoline are actually idled right now.

So we have seen some scattered outages in parts of the west -- Colorado as well -- but I want to emphasize that these are just scattered outages. And experts are warning Americans not to overreact here. Don't just go and top off your tank because that can actually make the situation worse.

JARRETT: Make it worse.

WILD: Yes, absolutely. The panic buying is like the worst thing you can do.

EGAN: We don't want that.

WILD: Yes, absolutely. Nobody wants that.

So yesterday, Facebook got a couple of wins. So the first was from a federal judge who dismissed an FTC case against Facebook. I think that's really -- that's really the main one. The other was a win that they got from investors.

So -- but let's talk about the court case because that has a big ripple effect in Silicon Valley. What happened and what's next?

EGAN: Yes, this is a huge victory for Facebook. A federal judge threw out this complaint from the FTC saying that the agency didn't provide enough evidence for its claim that Facebook has a monopoly power in the social networking space. We should note, though, that the judge didn't rule out the case entirely. The government can actually file an amended complaint and come back with this case.

Still, Wall Street reacted with the equivalent of like a standing ovation. Within minutes, Facebook's stock went up four percent. It hit the $1 trillion market value for the first time ever for this company. It joins a very exclusive club right now. Just Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet (the company that owns Google) are worth a trillion dollars or more among U.S. public companies.

It's a -- it's an amazing fete for this company, especially considering that back in 2006 Yahoo tried to buy Facebook for just a billion dollars and it's now worth a thousand times that.

But listen, the fact that this is a trillion-dollar company is obviously not going to quiet the criticism from people who feel like Facebook is just too powerful. Not surprisingly, we saw bipartisan calls yesterday for new legislation to rewrite the nation's antitrust laws.

JARRETT: Yes. It will be very interesting to see where that goes.

So, Matt, you write a lot about just how much companies are grappling with this post-pandemic or -- I really can't even say post because we're still in it.

[05:40:00]

WILD: Yes, exactly.

JARRETT: But the new normal that we find ourselves in. You've covered, obviously, companies who are changing the amount of days that you have to work -- to go maybe from five to four. We also see Disney just delayed a test cruise from Florida. So many different challenges. We have supply shortages.

What do you think the biggest challenge is that companies are facing right now?

EGAN: Well, I think companies are still trying to grapple with this situation -- likely, all are.

JARRETT: Right.

EGAN: Listen, the cruise industry crushed by the pandemic, of course. It's not going to be easy to rebound.

Disney told me -- the outlets -- that they had to postpone this test cruise that was supposed to leave today because there were inconsistent COVID-19 test results. That is something that we're going to have to keep watching.

You mentioned companies going back to work. So we've seen some Wall Street firms -- Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley -- really try to get their employees back to the office.

JARRETT: Yes.

EGAN: Other firms are taking a completely different stance. UBS says that two-thirds of their workforce is going to be able to do hybrid work permanently.

And then we have Synchrony Financial -- that's the credit card company. They've actually told their employees that they can't come back five days a week even if they wanted to. And that is not only going to save the company money but it could actually win it some points with employees who want that flexibility to be able to work from home.

JARRETT: Save the company money because they don't have to pay for air conditioning and heat.

WILD: Yes.

EGAN: And office space. Yes, they don't need as many desks if people just aren't all in the office.

JARRETT: It's fascinating.

WILD: I think that was what people thought was going to happen.

JARRETT: Yes.

WILD: That all these companies were going to say look what we can do --

JARRETT: Yes.

WILD: -- from home. And I think in some ways, it might have been, like, some wishful thinking because --

JARRETT: Yes, yes.

EGAN: Yes, and they're all --

WILD: Like I said, a lot of companies said no way, you're coming back.

EGAN: They're all trying to feel out exactly how to handle this and it's going to keep changing.

JARRETT: All right. Thanks so much, Matt. Appreciate it. Always good to have you.

EGAN: Thank you.

WILD: All right.

More business news for you this morning. E-cigarette maker Juul will pay $40 million and change its business practices to settle the first state lawsuit that accused the company of marketing its product to teens. The settlement follows a lawsuit filed in 2019 by North Carolina's attorney general, claiming Juul misled the public about the risks associated with those products.

The order issued Monday will restrict the company's sales and advertising in the state, and provide funds to help people who are addicted to vaping.

JARRETT: We'll be right back.

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[05:46:00]

JARRETT: Welcome back.

The tragedy in Florida has so many families watching and waiting for news on their loved ones. But mass casualty events are not unique to the United States, of course. The question is are lessons being learned to prevent the next one from happening?

CNN's Salma Abdelaziz is live for us this morning in London. Salma, good morning to you.

You know, you think back to that devastating fire at the Grenfell Tower right behind you. You're there. It happened four years ago and yet, the consequences are still so raw.

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN REPORTER: That building behind me, Laura, is quite literally a scar in the middle of this neighborhood, in the middle of this city. You can see it when you take off on a plane to Heathrow. That is how prominent it is.

And it is almost impossible to forget what happened that night. I lived just down the street -- I was the first on the scene for CNN -- and I saw some of the most horrific scenes that I have seen in my career, and I have been on the frontlines of wars.

This building was completely on fire. Bits of it were falling off, crackling. You could see people still trapped inside. And this neighborhood, quite literally, watched families inside that building lose their lives while the London fire brigade was unable to stop that fire that burned for hours.

And after the anger and the anguish and the acceptance that this is happening in a developed country, as will happen in Miami, what comes next is the demand for justice -- the cry for accountability. And I can tell you that the families of the victims of that building feel that justice and accountability has yet to be served. The investigation as to what happened is ongoing.

And a crucial part as to why this building became so divisive across the U.K. is gentrification. For a very long time, residents in that building complained that their building did not have the structural requirements that were -- that were needed. That there were safety issues in that building and they were ignored.

There was a sense that this neighborhood around me here -- Kensington and Chelsea -- one of the most expensive neighborhoods in London -- continued to grow and flourish while some of its original residents, like those in Grenfell, did not reap the benefits of that.

And ultimately, it came down -- there are several reasons for the fire but ultimately, that fire spread because of cladding. So there was an exterior structure added to the building that was highly flammable, highly toxic. Residents told us at the time they felt that was added for aesthetic reasons. Essentially, the building burned to make it look good in a fancier neighborhood.

You can only imagine how that has divided the community here and how it continues to be an issue for social justice campaigners. I walked around and there's still graffiti all over here.

And I think that's what you're going to see in Miami as well -- that demand for accountability, that demand for justice, that demand for change, once people begin to accept that anguish and grief, Laura.

JARRETT: You are so right. You already see it. The family members telling us all the time -- all the reporters and correspondents we have down there -- they're telling us every day that that's what they want for their loved ones.

Thank you so much for that perspective. I really appreciate it, Salma.

All right, some major news for student-athletes. The NCAA division council -- one council, I should say, is recommending waiving limits on college athletes from profiting from their name, image, and likeness. Now, the policy would still ban pay-for-play and improper incentives and has to be approved by the NCAA's board of governors, which meets tomorrow.

But just last week, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled the NCAA could not prohibit students from receiving modest education-related perks.

The new rules are set to take effect in eight states on Thursday and in other states in the coming years.

WILD: California taking a major stand for LGBTQ rights, banning state-funded travel to five more states that have adopted, quote, "discriminatory laws." State-funded travel is now banned to 17 states total. The new rule does not apply to personal travel, of course. It just means that California's not paying for employees to travel to those places.

California's attorney general says that these states are working to stop transgender women and girls from playing on sports teams and calls their new laws dangerous.

[05:50:05]

A coronavirus outbreak linked to an Illinois summer camp. Eighty-five teens and adult staffers tested positive. State health officials say the camp did not check the vaccination status of campers or staff. Masks were not required indoors.

All across the country, the vast majority of COVID cases and hospitalizations over the last few months have been among people who are not vaccinated.

JARRETT: Yikes.

Well, MGM Resorts unveiling a massive solar array that will provide up to 90 percent of daytime power to the company's 13 Las Vegas properties. The solar farm has 323,000 panels across 640 acres. It's the largest direct source of renewable electricity in the hospitality industry.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This plant was built and this facility was built in under two years -- and again, through a pandemic. And so it's the right thing to do not only for the community but for the planet. So we hope it sets the way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: MGM plans to accelerate the company's goal of reducing emissions by 45 percent per square foot by 2025.

Well, Paul George leads the Clippers back from the brink of elimination against the Suns. Andy Scholes has more in this morning's Bleacher Report. Hey, Andy.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Laura.

It's the one thing we've learned about the L.A. Clippers is you can't ever count them out. They've come back from 0-2 in the previous two series and now they're trying to rally from down 3-1 to the Suns.

And Phoenix took a small lead in the third quarter, but Paul George just taking over from there. He scored 20 points in the third quarter alone. George missing just five shots as he had a playoff career-high 41 points.

The Clippers send the series back to the L.A. for game six with a 116- 102 win.

The Stanley Cup Final getting underway with game one between the defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning and the Montreal Canadiens. This is the first time they've played each other all season due to temporary realignment because of the pandemic.

The Lightning domination the game. Nikita Kucherov had two goals and an assist as they take game one five to one.

And things were getting chippy in the third period. Montreal's Brendan Gallagher and Tampa Bay's Mikhail Sergachev getting into it. Gallagher ended up getting slammed into the ice face first.

Game two of that series tomorrow night in Tampa.

All right, one week after Raiders' defensive lineman Carl Nassib came out as the NFL's first active player to announce that he's gay, the league releases a new video supporting the LGBTQ community. The 30- second spot for Pride Month begins with the line "Football is gay." It finishes with a message of support for The Trevor Project, which is a non-profit organization that works to prevent suicide in LBGTQ youth.

All right. Finally, 60 years after being turned down by the team, Gwen Goldman finally had the chance to live out her childhood dream of being a batgirl for the New York Yankees.

So back in 1961 when she was just 10, Goldman wrote a letter asking to be a batgirl. Well, the general manager at the time denied her request saying girls would feel out of place in a dugout. Well, Goldman kept that letter to this day.

Well, six decades later, Goldman's daughter wrote her own letter to the Yankees and current G.M. Brian Cashman surprised the 70-year-old with an invitation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN CASHMAN, GENERAL MANAGER, NEW YORK YANKEES: And, Gwen, we also have become aware of obviously when back in 1961 when you were 10 years old you penned a letter to the previous general manager. And so, that letter we were made aware of by your daughter. So I know you received a response back from the general manager back then.

So in the capacity I have now as general manager, I've sent a new letter on behalf of the entire organization that I think you have in your possession now, and I'd like you to read that if you can. And if not, I'll read it for you.

GWEN GOLDMAN, BATGIRL, NEW YORK YANKEES: This is going to be fun. Oh my gosh.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Yes. So she ended up getting to go be a batgirl at Yankee Stadium. It's just so awesome. And in addition to that, Whitney, Goldman also had the honor of throwing out the first pitch at last night's game. So the lesson here, never too old to realize your dreams.

WILD: Absolutely. She held on to that for a long time. That was a fresh wound.

SCHOLES: Right. Well, you know what -- and I'm sure she never thought she was going to get the chance to do it, but it was an awesome night for her at Yankee Stadium.

WILD: And look how honored she was and how -- I mean, that's just wonderful. That's -- you know, it's good to have a long memory.

Andy Scholes, thank you.

SCHOLES: All right.

JARRETT: She kept the receipts.

WILD: Yes.

JARRETT: All right. Finally this morning, when Richard Hutchinson was born he was given a zero percent chance of survival. Now the world's most premature baby is thriving and just celebrated his first birthday. Look at that.

Richard was born at just 20 weeks. He weighed about 11 ounces. And doctors prepared his parents for the worst.

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RICHARD HUTCHINSON, BABY RICHARD'S FATHER: And they asked us if we wanted to hold him before he passed away. But after consulting with the neonatologist department there -- I mean, they were -- they agreed to give him a chance -- and then look.

[05:55:08]

BETH HUTCHINSON, BABY RICHARD'S MOTHER: It still amazes me how strong and resilient he's been through this whole process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: Richard is not only a little miracle, he's also recognized by Guinness as a world record holder, beating the previous survival record for preemies that stood for almost four decades.

Can you imagine 20 weeks?

WILD: No, I can't.

JARRETT: You have three of them --

WILD: Yes.

JARRETT: -- so you know how hard it is.

WILD: And my first one was born like at the 37-week checkup.

JARRETT: Oh, wow.

WILD: They said she's got to be born and I thought that was scary.

So, anyway, that gives so much hope to people --

JARRETT: Yes.

WILD: -- who are having it tough right now.

JARRETT: Absolutely -- all right. Well, happy birthday to Richard.

WILD: Well, thank you so much for joining us. I'm Whitney Wild.

JARRETT: I'm Laura Jarrett. "NEW DAY" is next.

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