Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Barr on Trump's Election Fraud Claims: It Was All BS; Nine Confirmed Dead and 152 Still Unaccounted For in Building Collapse in Surfside, Florida; Engineer Discusses Possible Causes of Building Deterioration that May Lead to Collapse. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired June 28, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: It's not like he's trying to lie about who uttered a historical quote. It's that he's not taking the time to research it. And I think you've seen similar stuff, like he tweeted, I believe, in May, I'm the first freshman Congress Congressman in this class to get a bill passed. People are like, no, you're not. Then he's, oh, sorry, tweeted too soon. And so we see him speak or tweet too soon before he or his team actually make an effort to confirm what he's saying is correct.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: But that's why we have you, Daniel Dale, right?

(LAUGHTER)

HILL: I case something is missed, you will not miss it, my friend. Appreciate it, thank you.

DALE: Thank you.

HILL: NEW DAY continues right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. It is Monday, June 28th. I'm John Berman in Surfside, Florida, this morning, along with Erica Hill in New York.

And this morning the search and rescue effort continues unabated here in Surfside. One fire marshal just told me, this is the largest non- hurricane disaster response that Florida has ever seen, ever. Family members and search teams are holding out hope for survivors even five days after the collapse of the condo building. As of now, nine people are confirmed dead, 152 still unaccounted for. Over the weekend, rescue crews were able to dig a deep trench to help in the search effort, and special equipment was brought in to try and detect signs of life in the concrete. A different fire official offered a grim assessment of the situation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALAN COMINSKY, MIAMI-DADE FIRE CHIEF: It's horrific. That can be one word that I'll say. Again, this one of the most difficult collapses to deal with, the operation of what we're seeing. It's just an extremely difficult situation. The type of debris, unfortunately, that we're coming across, it's tough to describe. We don't have things that we're hoping for, things that we're looking for. Not that they're -- we're still looking. That's what I mean by horrific. It's just a very difficult, difficult situation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: This morning, we are learning that a 2018 report detailed significant damage to the Champlain Towers south building including cracks and break in the concrete. And engineers who have looked at the video tell the "New York Times" that a possible failure point near the bottom of the tower could, could have triggered this structural avalanche. The husband of a woman who is still missing tells "The Miami Herald" that he got a frantic call from his wife who said the building was shaking, and she saw a hole open up near where the swimming pool was supposed to be before the phone lines just dropped.

We're about to speak to an engineer who surveyed the building just last year. First, though, I want to go to CNN's Tom Foreman for more on the type of collapse that we have seen here in Surfside because that, in and of itself, Tom, tells us something.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it does. We called it a pancake collapse over and over again. If it is not apparent what that means, what it means is that all these floors, and you can see them in some of these photographs, have just pancaked on top of each other, collapsing down into a very small space, what was in a very big space. Why is that particularly challenging? Some of it seems sort of obvious, but think about the difference here.

If you had what they refer to an a-frame collapse where some of the pillars had remained up upright, you have a better chance of things catching on the way, parts of walls being held, and you have more survivable voids in there. If you have a lean to collapse where one side might stay up, you again have a better chance that people might be in here.

Even if you have what's called a cantilever collapse, where, for example, one end is gone but the other ends holds and somehow you have a little structural support for floors, you have a better chance that people might have survivable spaces in there, and frankly, it's easier to search through.

But if you go back, to that original image there of the pancake collapse, the real issue here is that nothing went anywhere else. It all just went down. That means you have tremendous compression of a lot of things in a very small space. Can there still be some of those voids we're talking about? Can you still have some places where people might be? Yes, it is a possibility. It's not a probability in pancake collapses. That's why there's such a concern for rescuers, and even in the designs of these buildings people have raised concerns before, saying should there be more structural integrity in these walls themselves so you don't just have these pillars and the floors, so there might be something to hold a little bit more up? That has not been the case in most buildings at this point, John. That's one of the reasons why this is such grim work, and as much again as there is a possibility, not great probability for survival.

BERMAN: Tom Foreman, that is hugely helpful to see, to explain what we're talking about, when we talked about the pancake layers that rescue crews are seeing right now. Thank you so much for that, Tom.

FOREMAN: You're welcome.

[08:05:04]

BERMAN: Joining me now is Jason Borden. He is a structural engineer who conducted an hour-long survey of Champlain Towers South last year. Jason, thanks so much for being with us. Let me just ask you straight out, when you looked at the building, what did you see?

JASON BORDEN, STRUCTURAL ENGINEER WHO EXAMINED CHAMPLAIN TOWERS SOUTH LAST YEAR: I saw things that I typically see when we're looking at buildings when we're preparing to do this type of investigation or study. I saw cracks in the stucco facade. I saw deterioration of the concrete balconies. I saw cracks and deterioration of the garage and plaza level. But those are things we're custom to seeing and it's why our job exists, to maintain and repair the buildings.

BERMAN: You're accustomed to seeing. Any cause for alarm in what you saw?

BORDEN: What I saw, no. Again, I only spent an hour at the property in advance of doing a proposal for the engineering investigation. However, what I did see while I was there did not alarm me at all.

BERMAN: You've had a chance to look at this 2018 report as well, which spent a little more time than you did looking at the building and taking pictures and whatnot. They talk about some structural damage, some cracks, possible spalling underneath the pool area and the parking garage. When you see that, what's your takeaway?

BORDEN: I thought it was a well put together report. They had done the full investigation that we were proposing to do, and they went through and detailed very thoroughly exactly what was wrong with the building. Again, very typical of what we see in buildings of this age and this condition.

BERMAN: Why does that happen to a building?

BORDEN: Because of the age, because of the proximity to the coast, because of the nature of reinforcing steel in concrete.

BERMAN: At what point do those issues become a danger?

BORDEN: When they're not maintained and repaired, when they are allowed to exacerbate over years and years and years.

BERMAN: And these were about to be repaired. This was reaching it's 40 year point. This was about to happen to this building. OK, so engineers, other engineers, not you, have been talking to "The New York Times," "The Miami Herald," and they've been looking at the video of the collapse itself, and they say they notice that the building is collapsing from the bottom, maybe from that pool deck area or underneath that poll deck area, where there were cracks and other things observed. I'm not asking you to necessarily agree or disagree with their assessment, but what I am asking you is to explain why it is you think they see that there. What is it that they see that leads them to think that?

BORDEN: I'm going to guess that what they see is they're watching very closely the video and seeing where the movement starts and how the structure moves as it starts to fall down. If it had started at the roof, there would have been suppositions that it had something to do with the roof repair that was going on. The appearance would have looked very differently. It would have started very suddenly from the top, and I believe that it would have looked very different. Also, combined with the information that was provided in that report in 2018 with the concentration of the deterioration near the planters on that garage level, it's a very strong possibility that that contributed to the deterioration, or to the collapse.

BERMAN: If it did start at the bottom, what might have caused that? What are the types of things that can cause a building to collapse from the bottom?

BORDEN: The most like likely or the most common would be the failure of a column. So, the columns are one of the most robust parts of the building. They're designed to hold up the entire building, so something would have had to have happened to a column, or probably happened to a column to compromise it, potentially even remove it entirely, which would have potentially led to the progressive collapse of the building.

BERMAN: What causes a problem to a column like that?

BORDEN: If the slab adjacent be to the column fails, they can either, as it's falling, damage the column, even knock the column over, depending on where it fails and how it fails, or if the slab is no longer there, the column is no longer braced where it was supposed to be braced and now is spanning twice the height that it was originally designed to do, which then can lead to structural deficiency, that column, which would be overloaded and could lead to its collapse.

BERMAN: There is an eye witness, there was a husband who says he was on the phone with his wife just before the collapse, and his wife was looking out the window and said she saw a hole where the pool was supposed to be on that pool deck there. What does that tell you?

BORDEN: If the pool was well away from the building itself, if there were an issue at the pool specifically, I don't believe it could have impacted the overall building.

BERMAN: But the deck closer to the building, if there was a hole in the deck, that might be something he underneath, yes? BORDEN: Right, that would be the structural slab supporting the deck.

If it happened to be compromised or failed near or adjacent to the building structure itself, it could have contributed to the end result.

BERMAN: And if, in fact, she did see a hole, would that contribute to the theory that maybe the collapse started at the bottom?

[08:10:00]

BORDEN: Definitely.

BERMAN: What's your concern now for the surrounding buildings? There's another tower that was built at exactly the same time, Champlain Towers North. What would your concern be for Champlain Towers North?

BORDEN: I'm somewhat familiar with these buildings, but I just completed a two-year long restoration program at Champlain Towers East, and while we were completing that, they were doing work at Champlain Towers North. So they are maintaining their buildings. Personally I am confident in the stability of those buildings because I've been closely involved in Champlain Towers East.

BERMAN: Anyone who has been to the coast of Florida knows that one of the papers today described it as a necklace of condominiums. The entire southern part of the state, more or less, is surrounded by buildings like this one, these condos that are right up against the water, building after building after building after building. What are the unique challenges to building on these barrier islands, on this sandy region?

BORDEN: It starts with the foundations. We're dealing with the deep foundations, pile foundations, and it works up from there. Once the building is constructed -- at this point, the industry, as a whole, is very good at constructing in these environments, and we've got the codes, the experience, and the knowledge to be able to do that well, to do that safely. After the building is constructed, it becomes a question of maintaining or repairing your buildings, because they are exposed to an environment that it can accelerate deterioration and accelerated maintenance programs for these buildings.

BERMAN: What about the proximity to the water itself? Whether it be on the ground, the wetness and possible water deposits on the ground itself, or the salt that comes off the ocean., how much of a risk does that pose?

BORDEN: It's not a risk. It's something that needs to be accounted for. So concrete deteriorates because the steel encased within it becomes corroded and rusts. When steel rusts, it expands in its volume, which imposes tension into the concrete, and concrete is weakened tension. The chloride ions in salt accelerate the deterioration of steel.

BERMAN: That's the spalling. BORDEN: That's the spalling, yes. So by being the proximity to the

ocean, the increased concentration of chloride ions in the air can adversely affect the steel, which means that you have to do your proper maintenance and be aware of your building.

BERMAN: What do you think this is going to turn out of have been?

BORDEN: I hesitate to conjecture on that, but multiple experts weighed and said this doesn't happen because of one thing. It's an amalgamation or a concentration of many things going wrong. There could have been construction errors, construction defects, there could have been design errors or design defects. There was maintenance or repairs that needed to be performed. All of those things together likely contributed to what happened here.

BERMAN: As you go forward, how will this change how you do your work and what you tell your clients in maybe some of these buildings?

BORDEN: I would say that it's going to make us a little bit more forceful on making recommendations on what needs -- when people need to repair their buildings. We're specialize in building restoration and repair. We're constantly making these recommendations that we're telling building owners what they need to do. Now we need to tell them more forcefully when they need to do it.

BERMAN: To that point, so there was this 2018 engineering report which detailed some of the issues that were in the building, particularly underneath and underground there. NPR is reporting that there was a condo association meeting where a town official told them, NPR says, your building is OK. There's no reason to be alarmed. Do you think that was fair, based on what they had seen?

BORDEN: I didn't do the full investigation. I don't know everything that was seen. What I saw I would have -- after my report, I likely said something similar. I don't know. But what I saw, I didn't see anything for alarm at that point.

BERMAN: This may be what we learn from this, too, is that what everyone has seen and thought was OK in these buildings may not be as OK going forward, and they need to rethink how they repair and how they treat these things.

Jason Borden, I appreciate you helping us understand what we've seen here. Having an important engineering discussion, because all these families are looking for answers, and I know there are residents up and down the Florida coast who are trying to be reassured that they're safe going to safe, too.

BORDEN: I hope we can provide some reassurance.

BERMAN: Appreciate your time.

BORDEN: Coming up, here in Surfside, the concern about other buildings nearby after that sudden collapse.

HILL: And up next, former President Trump's attorney general admitting that election fraud claims are all B.S.

And what the U.S. just targeted, air strikes on the Iraq-Syria border.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:18:12]

HILL: New this morning, former Attorney General Bill Barr admitting that Trump's 2020 election fraud claims were baseless despite launching his own unofficial inquiry.

"My attitude was, it was put up or shut up time. If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it, but my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all BS. We realized from beginning it was just BS."

Well, joining me now is Jonathan Karl, he is chief Washington correspondent for ABC News. He spoke with Barr about the 2020 election and details his in depth conversations with the former Attorney General in his new book about the last days of the Trump presidency. "Betrayal" is out this fall, and there is this excerpt that was published in "The Atlantic."

Good to have you with us this morning.

JONATHAN KARL, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, ABC NEWS: Great to be here, Erica.

HILL: So, just lay out for folks -- so when you spoke with him, what specifically to Bill Barr say about Donald Trump's claims?

KARL: I had a series of conversations with Barr, remarkably candid discussions about his experiences as Trump's Attorney General, and he outlined in detail what he has not talked about before, which is that he did in fact launch an informal inquiry into many of the major allegations that Trump was making at the time last fall after the election.

Allegations of secret ballots stuck underneath, you know, brought out from under a table in Georgia, of dead voters of voting, of ballot dumps in the middle of the night in Wisconsin and Michigan. All this stuff that Trump was saying over and over again, all these false allegations, Barr actually looked into.

He talked to U.S. attorneys in the key states. He brought in the F.B.I. and cybersecurity experts at Homeland Security to ask about the allegations of rigged voting machines, and he told me he went through in some detail each and every one of these and what he found and the bottom line was just what you read in his overall conclusion was that it was all BS, and there was absolutely nothing to this stuff, but it is significant that he took the time as the U.S. Attorney General to actually conduct his own informal investigation.

[08:20:14]

HILL: And he says to you, basically to appease the President. What's interesting is he says in this quote, "From the beginning, it was all BS." And yet, we can't ignore the fact that Bill Barr was pushing a lot of this BS, certainly leading up to the election.

I just want to play a moment that happened in September right here on CNN.

KARL: Yes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BARR, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Elections that have been held with mail have found substantial fraud and coercion.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: As far as widespread fraud, we haven't seen that since --

BARR: We haven't -- we haven't had the kind of widespread use of mail-in ballots that is being proposed.

BLITZER: You've said you were worried that a foreign country could send thousands of fake ballots, thousands of fake ballots to people that it might be impossible to detect. What are you basing that on?

BARR: I am basing that, as I've said repeatedly, I am basing that on logic.

BLITZER: Pardon?

BARR: Logic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Logic, not facts or evidence.

KARL: Yes.

HILL: So, was he clear with you when he says, you know, from the beginning, I knew it was all BS. Is that beginning for him did that start after the election? Did it start before the election?

KARL: That was one heck of an interview, that interview with Wolf Blitzer back in September, and Barr did acknowledge to me that he had had significant concerns about mail-in voting, not the kind of concerns that Trump was saying is that it mail-in voting in itself is prone to fraud, but the fact that the state -- so many states had gone massively in the direction of mail-in voting because of the pandemic, putting in systems rapidly that were not tested.

He acknowledged that he had those concerns. But what he told me is that he believed from the start -- obviously, he didn't say this publicly -- but he believed throughout 2020 that Donald Trump was headed towards defeat, so he never expected Donald Trump to win is what he told me.

And when he, you know, when the election happens, Trump loses, his default position is, well, you know, he lost because he alienated independent and moderate voters. But, you know, after he -- you know, these allegations are being made by the President, Barr, at first says nothing publicly about those allegations. And he is skeptical of them. He knows that Trump at some point is going to confront him about these allegations.

He is facing criticism from some of the right-wing media, saying, "Where is the Justice Department? How come the Justice Department isn't prosecuting this fraud?" And that's, you know, when he belatedly, but while Trump was still making these allegations came out on December 1st with that bombshell conclusion that there was no widespread fraud.

HILL: Mitch McConnell, who wasn't saying it publicly at the time, either, but, you know, as I understand from this account, Mitch McConnell was also pushing him behind the scenes for very specific reasons, right? All related to Georgia.

KARL: Yes, this is really something and Barr candidly, you know, Barr told me this. He told me that McConnell had been pleading with him to come out publicly to bat down the President's false allegations, and in making this plea to Barr in November, in advance of his coming out on December 1st, that McConnell was totally upfront as to why he wanted him to do it.

He said, look, I can't do it, because I need him -- meaning Donald Trump -- I need him in Georgia for those two runoff elections. McConnell didn't want to infuriate the President, as he was trying to get the President to campaign for those Senate candidates in that runoff in Georgia. So, he was basically begging Barr to come out and to do it.

And then a quote that I put in there, he says, "I look around, you're the only one who can do it."

Now, what's interesting here, Erica, is first of all, Barr was the one who told me about this first, but I went back to McConnell. McConnell does not dispute any of this. He acknowledges. And remember, McConnell eventually came out and said that Joe Biden was the legitimate President-elect, but it wasn't for another couple of weeks.

McConnell stood on the sideline throughout the month of November and didn't come out until December 15th. That's when the Electoral College results were certified. But he privately was pleading with Barr to come out and do it.

HILL: It's interesting, too, that you know, in the exchange, Barr says he'll do it at the appropriate time. But he also tells you -- and I'm quoting here, one of the reasons he wants to tell his version of the story, because he feels he has been widely seen as a Trump lackey who politicized the D.O.J. saying they're going to wait to speak out until it is advantageous to one particular party.

You know, that may be part of the reason why.

I do also want to talk to you about -- there were a number of moments with the fact that they were talking about the clown show of the attorneys who were running point for this, for Donald Trump, a clown show?

[08:25:11]

KARL: I extensively reported this -- what happened around this event where Barr came out. It was really, as you recall, this was like an explosive event when Barr came out and said, basically, the President was full of it last December 1st, and said there was no widespread fraud.

Immediately after Barr came out and said that publicly, he had a meeting with Trump in the White House in that dining room adjacent to the Oval Office. And I have talked to several people that were there that witnessed the President's response, then President Trump's response, it was explosive, and he demanded of Barr, "Why did you say it?" And Barr said, "I said it because it's the truth." And Trump said, "You must hate Trump, you must hate Trump."

And Barr went on in that meeting, according to multiple people who witnessed this to tell Trump that his legal team led by Rudy Giuliani was a clown show. And that if he ever had any hope, of, you know, challenging election results, he needed to have what he called a crackerjack team. He needed to get right with it. You needed to do all the -- you know, if you had any chance at all, and Barr frankly, didn't think he had a chance, but you can't have this -- you have a clown show legal team and nobody wants to be any part of this. No legitimate lawyer wants to be any part of this.

And the amazing thing is, Trump actually breaks from his rage for a moment and says, "You know, you may be right about that." You know, keep in mind this is after Rudy Giuliani had that press conference at the R.N.C. with hair dye running down, you know, the sides of his face. Sidney Powell was out there talking about how somehow Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelans were behind hacking the election machines.

I mean, it was, you know, I mean, Barr's words, "a clown show."

HILL: A bit of a clown show. Listen, I know you've heard it, and there's certainly a lot of talk about it, that this is for Bill Barr, you know, the first stop on his rehabilitation tour, that this is like a number of other former officials in the Trump administration an effort to change the narrative, and to put themselves out there and ideally in a different light.

Did you ask him specifically, if this is part of his rehab tour? Is this what he is trying to do, is change how people feel about him in his time at the Justice Department?

KARL: We discussed that. Barr says that his views -- this is not a rehabilitation tour. And you know, frankly, I think what the story is about is not really about Bill Barr. People can debate his tenure as Attorney General all they want.

I think this is about Donald Trump. This is about Donald Trump, who is -- and this is by the way -- my book is not coming out until November, I felt it was important to get this out now, because Trump is ramping up these, you know, repeated lies and misinformation about election fraud. And here you have somebody who was perhaps the most popular member of his Cabinet among the Trump base, among those people who now believe that the election was stolen, and he, even Bill Barr, even Bill Barr, who stood behind him on all of this stuff, even Bill Barr, who, you know, attacked the Mueller investigation, even Bill Barr has come out and said this was all BS, and I think that's significant.

So whatever you think of Bill Barr and his reputation, I mean, that's just the way -- I frankly have -- you know, I mean, it's not a debate for me to have. I think what this is about, this is about Donald Trump and it's about the allegations, the false and unfounded allegations that he has made since well, frankly, before the election, and he continues to make today.

HILL: Jonathan Karl, good to have you with us this morning. Thank you.

KARL: Thank you.

HILL: Up next, we go back to Surfside, Florida where the sudden collapse at a condo complex has residents worried about the safety of other buildings.

And just what message did President Biden send with airstrikes on Iran-backed militia?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:00]