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New Day

McCloskey Shows off New AR-15; New Book on Challenger Disaster; Headlines around the World; Alarming Trend of COVID Deaths in Children in Brazil; Rahm Wins U.S. Open. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired June 21, 2021 - 06:30   ET

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

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[06:31:16]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A St. Louis lawyer who just pleaded guilty, along with his wife, to pointing guns at protesters is showing off his new AR-15 weapon. He bought it just days after surrendering his old one as part of a plea deal with prosecutors.

CNN's Laura Jarrett is here with more.

Some deal.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN CO-ANCHOR, "EARLY START": Yes, a pretty sweet deal for him.

So he said he has no regrets. He says he would do it all over again. And now Mark McCloskey has got a new AR-15 to show for it.

Last week Mark and his wife Patricia plead guilty to misdemeanor charges, agreeing to pay fines and giving up those guns. We all remember them pointing at protesters out in front of their home. The couple got into that angry face-off at the height of protests for racial justice last summer and even though the protesters were actually on their way to the house of the Democratic mayor, the McCloskey's said that they felt threatened, aiming their weapons at the crowd.

Now, the pair didn't receive any jail time for the incident because they didn't have a previous criminal record and, thankfully, no one was hurt that day. But they also showed zero remorse after their guilty plea.

Watch this.

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MARK MCCLOSKEY, PLEADED GUILTY TO MISDEMEANOR CHARGES AFTER POINTING GUN AT PROTESTERS: The prosecutor dropped every charge except for alleging that I purposely placed other people in imminent risk of physical injury, right? And I sure as heck did. That's what the guns were there for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: Now, that guilty plea does not prohibit the McCloskeys from buying other firearms and Mark wasted no time, showing off his newest rifle, tweeting out a picture over the weekend saying this, checking out my new AR.

Now, the guilty plea also doesn't prohibit Mark McCloskey from holding public office. He's now using his claim to fame in conservative circles to campaign for U.S. Senate in Missouri.

BERMAN: So, this has a little bit of a whiff of a campaign stunt.

JARRETT: Yes. Yes. And he's using the picture from out in front of his home from last year in campaign ads.

BERMAN: One might infer that he's doing this for other reasons.

All right, Laura Jarrett, thank you very much.

JARRETT: Sure, John.

BERMAN: Still ahead, an American student's haunting final message to her mother before her body was found in Russia.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And 35 years later, a new book examines the final moments of the Challenges space shuttle disaster and whether the crew knew that they were doomed.

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[06:37:11]

BERMAN: A new book on the tragic 1986 Challenger space shuttle disaster explores the chilling final moments for the seven crew members on board. The book called "The Burning Blue" by journalist Kevin Cook.

And joining us now is Miles O'Brien, CNN aviation analyst, who knows so much about the space program.

Miles, thanks so much for being with us this morning.

BERMAN: One of the things this book discusses --

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: A pleasure to be with you.

BERMAN: One of the things this book discusses has always been one of the most, I think, upsetting and chilling things about this accident, which is the likelihood that the crew was alive for some period of time after the explosion itself.

O'BRIEN: Yes, it's -- it's --

BERMAN: What's the evidence of this and, you know, what new evidence does this book shine on that? O'BRIEN: Well, there isn't -- it's a well-written book, but the idea

that the crew portion of the space shuttle Challenger remained intact and the seven member crew was aware for at least some portions of the time after the explosion of what was going on, that's been out there for quite some time, really immediately after the accident we knew that because there was clear evidence that that portion, that forward portion of Challenger remained pretty much intact after the explosion. It happened at about 48,000 feet. It is separated out. And, remember, the shuttle, John, is designed to withstand the heat of reentry. And so the heat shield that covered that cockpit portion, the crew portion, protected the crew from the heat and the impact of the explosion.

And so we don't know exactly what their level of awareness was. But we do know this, there were four breathing apparatus recovered, three of them had been activated. And that required a human being to do that. So there was some knowledge there. And looking at the instrument panel in the wreckage, there were switches that had been thrown, which would have been thrown in such an emergency situations.

So there was a two-minute period of time from the explosion until that crew compartment hit the surface of the Atlanta Ocean intact at about 200 miles an hour.

KEILAR: Yes, and that is such an upsetting part of this as this book revisits it. But it also, you know, it also brings up just the bigger issue of safety when it comes to exploration of space.

And right now we're seeing this space race that's going on right now, not between, you know, super powers, not between countries, but between billionaires, right, who are trying to get to space with commercial travel.

[06:40:05]

Jeff Bezos, for instance, is going to be traveling soon on a ship that he has financed. And I just wonder what this kind of brings up for the safety issue of say a Jeff Bezos or an Elon Musk traveling to space commercially.

O'BRIEN: Yes, you know, Briana, it's worth reminding everybody that the space shuttle did not have a crew escape system. There was really no practical way the crew to get out. As a matter of fact, the Challenger crew, they weren't even wearing pressure suits because NASA, at the time, was trying to demonstrate that the shuttle was as safe as an airliner. So there was no way for them to break away from an exploding rocket.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin aircraft or his spacecraft, I should say, does, in fact, have a crew escape capability to separate the capsule from the rock as it is firing. So that does add a measure of safety. Suborbital is not as energy requirement -- the energy requirements aren't as great for suborbital. You travel to speeds in excess of 3,000 miles an hour instead of upwards of 17,500 miles an hour. So there's a lot less energy involved. When you look at Virgin Galactic, there is no crew escape system on

the Virgin Galactic system. So, you know -- you know, it -- the safety levels have been described to as akin to airline flying in the 1920s. Well, that wasn't very safe. So anybody who goes on board one of these aircraft, it definitely is buyer beware.

KEILAR: That's a very good point. This is what we're going to be watching here ahead in the very near term.

Miles O'Brien, always great to speak with you. Thanks.

O'BRIEN: You're welcome.

KEILAR: A horrifying trend in Brazil. Thousands of young children dying from COVID. Why experts say every country should be paying attention.

BERMAN: Plus, he lost his job but did anyone tell former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he actually has to leave?

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[06:46:02]

BERMAN: This morning, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to be getting the message slowly that it's time to go. And a warning from the U.N. to voters in Ethiopia about possible violence as they head to the polls.

CNN, around the world.

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LARRY MADOWO, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Larry Madowo in Addis Ababa as Ethiopia holds a free and fair election, there are people in this que who have been here for three, four hours. They say they will be here for as long as it takes because, for them, this is an important process in midwifing a democratic transition.

We're expecting results within five days. It's been called a flawed process, but many people still see it as an important step in trying to have a popular mandate and the legitimacy that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed needs to bring in more reforms in the country.

HADAS GOLD, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: I'm Hadas Gold in Jerusalem, where now former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that he will move out of the prime minister's residence by July 10th, nearly one month after the new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, was sworn in.

Netanyahu has been criticized by some for not moving out sooner and even more so for holding meetings with dignitaries, such as a meeting with former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, who tweeted a photo of the two together from the prime minister's residence.

Naftali Bennett said that no official meetings will take place in the residence before Prime Minister Bennett moves in.

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KEILAR: The COVID crisis in Brazil has yielded a troubling trend, which is an alarming number of deaths in kids and adolescents. Brazil recently reached half a million COVID deaths, which is second only to the U.S. Experts are warning that number is quickly rising. And one research group says close to 3,000 of those deaths were children under the age of 10.

CNN's Isa Soares is joining us live on this.

Isa, tell us what doctors are saying about this high death rate of children in Brazil.

ISA SOARES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They -- good morning, Brianna.

Doctors are incredibly worrying about what they are seeing. They're trying to understand why more children are dying in Brazil than anywhere else in the world. It is an alarming trend they are seeing.

They don't believe it to be the P-1 variant, which is the variant from Brazil, the Manaus variant, because children were dying prior to this variant -- prior to any other increase that we've seen on other variants.

But the concern, of course, is that if doctors don't test soon enough, that this number will keep on rising, Brianna.

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SOARES (voice over): Little Sarah Gois was born this January in Brazil in the midst of a ravishing pandemic. Her 22-year-old mother naturally besotted with her precious princess. But even an abundance of love wasn't enough to stop her daughter contracting COVID-19.

SAMEQUE GOIS, MOTHER OF CHILD WHO DIED OF COVID-19 (through translator): I thought it was something I had done. Maybe I passed on the virus. I didn't know what was happening around me. I knew that the only thing I could do was to get on my knees and pray.

SOARES: Despite all her pleas, little Sarah died. He was only five months old.

GOIS: When she died, when they gave us the news, I was able to hold her. I was able to feel her one last time.

SOARES: It's a loss that is felt much more often in Brazil than many other countries. While the Brazilian Health Ministry says 1,122 children under the age of ten have died since the start of the pandemic, one research group argues the death toll is actually closer to 3,000. This year alone, more than a thousand have lost their lives. And doctors tell us the gama (ph), or P-1 variant, first identified in Brazil, may not be to blame.

DR. ANA LUIZA BIERRENBACK, EPIDEMIOLOGIST AT VITAL STRATEGIES: Is that kids have been dying more in Brazil since the original variant was here.

[06:50:00]

So it was not the addition of the P-1 variable that makes kids die even more than in other countries.

SOARES: Despite the rising numbers, baby Sarah was only tested for COVID-19 12 days after she developed the first symptoms. Her mother tells me doctors assumed she had something else, a common misconception in Brazil, tells me pediatrician Andre Laranjeira.

DR. ANDRE LARANJEIRA, PEDIATRICIAN (through translator): A lot of pediatricians had a certain resistance when it came to requesting COVID-19 tests for children when they were exhibiting those typical symptoms on the respiratory track, runny nose, cough, fever. Practically all children having those symptoms this time of the year.

SOARES: But Dr. Laranjeira says this alone doesn't explain the higher death rates across Brazil.

Outside (INAUDIBLE) Hospital on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, one family is counting their blessings.

CAROLINA BASTO, MANUELA'S MOTHER (through translator): I'm overcome with emotion. I'm so happy.

SOARES: Her nine-year-old daughter Manuela is finally out of ICU after some five days on a ventilator having contracted COVID-19.

Back at home, her parents revealed their ordeal.

BASTO: Her kidney was no longer functioning, her heart was beating irregularity. It was the end of the line for me.

KLEBER DE OLIVEIRA, MANUELA'S FATHER: We were desperate. Our world had collapsed.

SOARES: They say it took four doctors to diagnose Manuela. But, in the end, she was admitted to an ICU and got the best possible treatment.

But not all in Brazil can have access to this type of health care.

LARANJEIRA: When you take the fatalities within the pediatric age group, more than 60 percent are from venerable socioeconomic groups. It's impossible to turn a blind eye to that.

SOARES: Here, this disparity can be the difference between life and death, between a family that gets to celebrate and one that's forced to mourn.

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SOARES: And, Brianna, there is no single reason as why we are seeing this alarming rise in death in such young children. One is the low testing rates we're seeing across Brazil, the lack of contact tracing, but also that misconception that you heard Dr. Laranjeira mention there, which it's simply many doctors, the parents and doctors believe that children, they don't contract COVID-19 and those that do have very mild symptoms.

But the main reason, this is really important to point out this here, is socioeconomic. That is the different between those who can test their children various times, as was the case with Manuela who got tested twice, and those that don't. And that is a difference been that -- those that have a chance to live, unfortunately, but little Sarah, who died.

KEILAR: Yes, beautiful baby. It's just heartbreaking.

Isa Soares, thank you.

BERMAN: Joining us now is CNN's senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

Elizabeth, the people you're talking to, what do they say accounts for this devastating death toll among children there?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: John, they point to many of the factors that Isa pointed to, that when you have these socioeconomic difficulties, when you don't have enough testing, when you don't have enough treatment, sally children will die.

Now, I asked these experts, is there something about these new variants that makes them more of a threat to children is, of course, throughout the pandemic we've heard that this virus is not as much of a threat to children as it is to adults. And what they told me was, no, we don't have any reasons to think that these variants either spread quicker among children than among adults or that these variants are more dangerous for children than for adults, that it makes them sicker.

The issue is, is that in countries like Brazil that are seeing these enormous numbers of COVID cases, as that number grows, so will the number of sick children grow. It is just sort of a statistical fact that as you get more cases, you're also going to get more children who are sick. As more children become sick, more children will become severely ill. So that is the reality of what they're facing, unfortunately, in countries like Brazil and India. As the virus spread, that means more children will become severely ill, or as we saw with that -- with that beautiful baby, unfortunately, pass away as well.

BERMAN: Elizabeth Cohen, thank you very much.

In moments, the New York mayoral candidate whose campaign volunteer was stabled joins me.

KEILAR: Plus, a massive increase in travel demand is good news for the airline industry. So why is American Airlines cancelling hundreds of flights?

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[06:58:52]

BERMAN: So two weeks after being forced out of a tournament he was leading because of a positive COVID test, golfer Jon Rahm won the U.S. Open.

Andy Scholes has this morning's "Bleacher Report."

The drama writes itself, Andy.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Right. Good morning, John.

So, Jon Rahm, he called it karma. Two weeks ago, as you mentioned, he was on his way to winning the Memorial when he was told on the 18th green after round three that he tested positive for COVID. Well, Rahm never got down about the whole situation and now he's celebrating his first major victory at the U.S. Open.

And Rahm coming through big-time in the clutch yesterday. Pulled even with Louis Oosthuizen on 17 with an incredible birdie from 25 feet out. Then on the 18 he sank another incredible birdie putt to give him the lead. He was certainly pumped up about it. and that lead would hold, making Rahm the first Spaniard to ever win the U.S. Open.

And the 26-year-old recently became a father, got to celebrate his first major win with his son and wife on Father's Day.

All right, to the NBA and a winner take all game seven between the Hawks and the 76ers in Philadelphia. And the struggle for Ben Simmons would continue. Late in the fourth, down two, Simmons passes up a wide open dunk.

[07:00:00]

Instead, passes it. Then under a minute to go, Sixers were down four. Danilo Gallinari puts the game away with a steal and a dunk on the other end. Hawks shocking the 6ers.