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Jimmy Patronis is Interviewed on the Condo Collapse; McCarthy Threats over Select Committee; Jews are Target in U.S.; Historians Rank Trump Worst Living President. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired July 01, 2021 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

GLORIA ALLRED, REPRESENTED SEVERAL COSBY ACCUSERS: Because you won't be prosecuted again in Pennsylvania.

And one last thing, which is, I would like to say to all the brave victims, to all the survivors, to all the accusers, this is not over. And, remember, we're -- when it comes to Mr. Cosby's obituary, it's going to be in his obituary that he was convicted of three felonies, aggravated, indecent sexual assault against Andrea Constand. And even though his conviction was overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, that will always be part of his obituary. And that is due to the courage of all of the brave women who testified against him. And I did represent the majority of the prior bad act accusers in that case.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Gloria Allred, thank you for your time. Victoria Valentino, we appreciate you being with us this morning.

VICTORIA VALENTINO, ACCUSED BILL COSBY OF SEXUAL ASSAULT: Well, thank you for having me.

ALLRED: Thank you.

BERMAN: Just ahead, we have chilling, new video that has emerged of the moments right before the collapse of the Florida condo building.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: And the longtime Trump Organization executive who just turned himself in on a grand jury indictment. We're live outside the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:35:14]

BERMAN: President Biden and the first lady departed the White House just moments ago, bound for Surfside, Florida, to visit the site of the collapsed condo tower. Overnight, new video surfaced showing water leaking into the building's garage just moments before the condo came down.

The death toll now stands at 18, including two young children. And 145 people remain unaccounted for.

Joining us now is Jimmy Patronis, the Florida state fire marshal. Sir, always a pleasure to speak with you. Thank you so much for being with us.

This morning "The Miami Herald" is reporting that the search and rescue operations have been halted because of safety concerns. What can you tell us about this?

JIMMY PATRONIS, FLORIDA STATE FIRE MARSHAL: So, it -- to the naked eye, I think pretty much all your viewers -- you've all done an amazing job, by the way, of covering this. But your viewers can see that the building is -- is structurally compromised. It's not safe. So we take an extraordinary amount of precautions in order to make sure that the site is safe for those working on it and also those that are trapped in the rubble.

We use things like lasers in order to -- same like surveyors would -- to make sure that we are monitoring any type of tremors. So we take an abundance of caution to make sure all lives are safe at all times.

BERMAN: Just to be clear, have operations been halted?

PATRONIS: No, operations never stop on site. You know, whether it be the surveying work that's being taken place, anything that we can do to make sure that the work is still constantly progressing. But just like when last night's storms that came through, the amount of lightning that came from it, the site is a big lightning rod. Ultimately, when we have lightning strikes, we have to halt progress.

BERMAN: What are the concerns with the stability of the remaining part of the tower? As you just explained, I know there were lasers literally pointed at it to make sure it doesn't shift in any kind of dangerous way.

PATRONIS: Yes. So just the same type of lasers that a surveyor would use, incredible accuracy. I mean even the movement of a couple of millimeters. And it's not just the building, it's also the rubble itself. When you remove a 25,000-pound piece of concrete, like, saying, for example, a balcony, that creates a tremendous amount of holding in the pile. But when you move it, it's going to shift because 25,000 pounds doesn't move. And when it does move, everything moves with it. So the amount of engineering that goes into making that removal safe is extraordinary.

BERMAN: So, Jimmy, I've been speaking to the Israeli commander of their unit, who tells me --they're a week into this. This building collapsed now a week ago exactly. He does say that hope to find survivors is dimming, but he also does say that really over the last 24 hours more and more there have been voids in tunnels found underneath the debris. Can you speak to that?

PATRONIS: Yes, there's some technology that they were ability to bring that we were able -- so they actually started on it before there were boots on the ground where they took original blueprints of the building, overlaid it with floor pans, and then -- and then overlaid that with the actual debris. So where a lot of times or first responders, you know, the easiest way to start to find your way to the -- to the bedroom, nighttime, people typically are sleeping, they find maybe bathroom tile, Well, next to the bathroom is the bedroom. The next thing you know they have found carpet or they're in the kitchen, they see kitchen utensils or appliances. So those are the ways they track to get into it.

The Israelis, you know, with a collaboration of that, based on where they have seen the rubble collapse, they have been able to kind of help narrow the window of saying this area here is where a bedroom should be, and it's been very, very helpful and it's made the efforts more efficient.

BERMAN: Jimmy Patronis, Florida fire marshal, we do appreciate you being with us this morning and we're really glad and appreciative of all the works you've been doing. We look forward to speaking to you again soon.

PATRONIS: Thanks so much.

BERMAN: So just in this morning, sources tell CNN that House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy has threatened to strip Republican members of their committee assignments if they accept an offer from Nancy Pelosi to serve on the committee investigating the January 6th Capitol attack.

CNN's Jessica Dean is live on Capitol Hill.

Jessica, I just want to put this in perspective, Kevin McCarthy tried to keep the House from stripping Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments after she made those claims about Jewish space lasers and other things. So he wanted to protect Marjorie Taylor Greene's assignments. But now he's threatening to strip members, potentially Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, of their assignments if they serve on this committee?

[08:40:02]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, if they participate in this at all, John. And there had been questions about where did the minority leader stand on this? Would he appoint any Republicans to the committee? Would he participate? Well, this is our answer, making this blanket threat to Republicans, to House Republicans, that if they agree to serve on this committee, that they will be stripped of their committee assignments, which, of course, is how you get bills introduced and how do you work on the House side and really participate as a House member. So quite a threat. It means if he follows through with that, anyone that says yes will be bounced from any of the committees on which they serve.

Now, ultimately, to your point, Marjorie Taylor Greene was stripped of her committees. So she currently is not serving on a committee. But this is directed at Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, two Republicans who voted for this House select committee. They're the only two Republicans. They both said they had preferred a bipartisan commission that failed in the Senate. That meant that Nancy Pelosi moved forward with this House select committee. So it remains to be seen what Cheney and Kinzinger will do. And the question also remains, will Speaker Pelosi appoint a

Republican? These are questions we have to find out the answers to as time unfolds. We'll see what the House speaker determines will be her path forward. But, again, underscoring the news here, the takeaway is that the House minority leader has told all Republicans that if they agree to serve on this commission -- or to serve on this committee, rather, looking into what happened here, what transpired during a deadly insurrection on January 6th, that they will be removed from their committees. John, that's quite a statement. We will see what happens and if he follows through on this.

But, again, the House minority leaders coming down very hard on where he stands on this committee. He clearly does not want any Republican participation.

BERMAN: Very notable in Kevin McCarthy world what he thinking should get people punished and what he doesn't.

DEAN: Yes.

BERMAN: Jessica Dean, thank you for that report.

Erica.

HILL: Well, back with me now, CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.

And to pick up where Berman left off there, it is fascinating to look at what Kevin McCarthy acts on or potentially acts on and what he doesn't. So there were these comments from Marjorie Taylor Greene, right, spreading conspiracy theories, liking posts about violence against Democrats. He took a long time to come out and say, you know, those comments were wrong, but wouldn't strip her of my committee assignments. Ultimately that was done by House Democrats. But to threaten members now who are potentially going to serve on a committee that is looking to find facts to understand what happened, it begs the question, what is Kevin McCarthy afraid of?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it -- and it is also only the beginning of the obstruction that this committee is going to face.

Remember, the core issue about the -- that this committee is charged with is the origin of this insurrection. You know, who knew this was coming? Who directed it? Who approved it? Who supported it as it was unfolding? Obviously a lot of those questions will be directed at the Trump White House.

One of the lessons that the White House learned -- the Trump White House learned is that you can obstruct Congress with impunity. You can say, we're not cooperating, we're not testifying, we're not turning over documents. And what happens then? Well, Congress has to go to court. And though cases go on a slow boat to nowhere. They take months to be resolved, if they're resolved at all, and that is likely what this -- this committee is going to face. So it's not just that the Republicans will refuse to participate in the organization of the committee, they will be -- the committee itself will be faced with no cooperation from anyone who served in the Trump administration.

HILL: Right. And also there is this threat to members, right, if you participate in this committee, I strip you of your -- of your -- of your committees, this threat, which could potentially keep Republicans off of that, also just plays into the, look how partisan this is, after it was Senate Republicans who struck down the other option that had been agreed to and negotiated.

We're out of time, but it is something. Not the last time we'll talk about this today, that is for sure.

TOOBIN: Not the last time.

HILL: Jeffrey, thank you.

Breaking news this morning, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization turning himself in. We have much more coverage just ahead.

But first, the disturbing rise of anti-Semitism in America.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're motivated by a very strong feeling of hate, of obviously ignorance as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:48:16]

BERMAN: We've seen an alarming increase in hate crimes across the United States. Anti-Semitic incidents, according to the Anti- Defamation League have reached near historic levels. This morning, in the first of a two-part investigation, we look at not only what has been happening but the reasons behind it.

Here's CNN's Nick Watt.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The man who was stopped at a door of a south Florida synagogue recently, then police say he left feces outside, spat at a menorah.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We live in a world where hate is easy.

WATT: And Jews are the most targeted religious group in America, says the FBI, and it's getting worse.

CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: We've seen an alarming increase in hate crimes across the country, many targeting members of the Asian- American Pacific Islander and Jewish communities.

WATT (on camera): I mean I notice you're wearing a (INAUDIBLE). BLAKE FLAYTON, STUDENT ACTIVIST, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: I'm terrified to wear this outside.

WATT: But do you?

FLAYTON: No.

WATT (voice over): Twelve percent of Americans told pollsters that Jews in this country have too much power.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're dealing with tens of millions of people in the United States that have anti-Semitic tendencies.

WATT: And it's not an aging racist rump.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anti-Semitic attitudes, including in our own data measured in the fall of 2020, not very long ago, consistently show higher levels among young people. So that point is worth emphasizing because most forms of prejudice that we study are higher among older people and lower among younger people.

WATT: Jews eating sushi in Los Angeles last month sought out a young pro-Palestinian men.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get inside.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Men in the cars got out, started running toward the cables and asking indiscriminately who's Jewish.

WATT: A Jew brutally beaten by a young man in Times Square, New York. He was surrounded by a group that began to --

[08:50:03]

JOSEPH BORGEN, VICTIM OF ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACK: Kick me and punch me, assault me with weapons and also pepper spray or mace me. I don't even know which one, for good measure at the end.

I'm trying to be, you know, macho and, you know, not let it affect me, but it does affect you. I mean when you're alone and your -- your mind -- there's nothing on your mind.

WATT: Some Jewish college kids, after a barrage of hate this spring during the war between Israel and Hamas, now scared to go back to campus.

WATT (on camera): Are you scared?

JULIA JASSEY, FOUNDER, JEWISH ON CAMPUS: Yes. I mean, yes. And I try not to be.

WATT (voice over): Julia Jassey founded an Instagram forum and gathers tales like this.

JASSEY: Somebody drove by slowly, rolled down her window and, while filming me with her phone, started yelling out f the Jews -- WATT (on camera): F Jews.

JASSEY: About 17 times. And that was actually someone I know at school.

WATT (voice over): Anti-Semitism is now spread far and wide like never before thanks to social media.

FLAYTON: If Adolf Hitler had an Instagram account, the Holocaust would have happened a lot quicker because the public would have been convinced a lot sooner.

JASSEY: So I saw a post yesterday saying that 40 percent of Palestinian children are sexually assaulted by Israelis, which is a crazy number that has no source, but it's all over the Internet and there are definitely ways to critique the Israeli government without being anti-Semitic but it's not what people are doing.

WATT: Some calling out posts they see as anti-Semitic.

CROWD: Palestine will be free.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: From the river to the sea.

WATT: So where did the Jews go? That's Fella Hadid (ph), model of Palestinian decent, more than 43 million followers. She also posed this, charged language. Hadid says it's not about hate and the history actually dates back over 2,000 years.

BILL MAHER, "REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER": You can't learn history from Instagram.

WATT: Some also call out members of the squad for the likes of this and this. Last month Representative Cori Bush of Missouri tweeted, the black and Palestinians struggles for liberation are interconnected and she said this about U.S. military aid to Israel.

REP. CORI BUSH (D-MO): Instead of funding a military that polices and kills Palestinians, I have some communities in St. Louis City and in St. Louis County that they -- where that money could go, where we desperately need investment, where we are hurting.

WATT: Those congresswomen say they stand against all forms of hate, that they are legitimately criticizing the Israeli government. Others see it differently, that Israel and Jews are used as scapegoats.

FLAYTON: You make the Jews, as a collective, Israel, the face of all that you don't like, of all that's standing in the way between you and a brighter, more progressive future. That is how anti-Semitism and atrocities against my people have always begun.

WATT: Synagogues are now being defaced from Alaska to Arizona.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sadly, it's a new reality we're living and we're seeing these -- this rise across America. WATT: Yes, incidents spiked around the war in May but --

FLAYTON: It's never been about the conflict.

WATT: OK. What does the data say?

EITAN HERSH, ASSOCIATE PROF. OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, TUFTS UNIVERSITY: Folks across the ideological spectrum and different racial groups, they didn't point to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, they pointed to Jews have too much power in the media, Jews have too much power in finance and the classic tropes of anti-Semitism.

WATT: American Jews are now suffering hate from many sides.

HERSH: Jewish Americans I think can feel, how do I say this right, they can feel squeezed.

WATT: Stones were thrown through synagogue windows in New York in April. A young black man was arrested. Some see this man as fueling anti-Semitism in the black community.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I'm here to separate the good Jews from the satanic Jews. Yes, yes, yes.

WATT: But, say the social scientists --

CROWD: Jews will not replace us.

WATT: One group is still the biggest issue.

HERSH: We see really high rates of anti-Semitic attitudes on the far right.

WATT: And like on the left, it's largely the young, the man accused of shooting up a synagogue near San Diego in 2019 was just 19 at the time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Standing there, his feet spread apart, in the aiming position right at me.

WATT: Our previous president trivialized anti-Semitism.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: You're not going to support me because I don't want your money. Isn't it crazy?

JASSEY: It makes it acceptable. You saw the president say it on the news, it's not a problem.

WATT: He said this out loud.

TRUMP: Very fine people on both sides.

WATT: After this.

CROWD: Jews will not replace us.

WATT: They won't. Roughly 7.5 million Jews in America. Roughly 175 million white Christians.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's education.

WATT: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think education is so critical.

WATT: But, for example, just 19 states require the Holocaust be taught in secondary school. So, 31 states do not.

HERSH: There were a few generations of Americans who may have interacted with a Holocaust survivor, may have been a World War II veteran.

[08:55:01]

And that's gone away.

WATT: Security now stepped up around many Jewish institutions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want to empower or Jewish community to protect themselves.

WATT: Volunteers being trained to protect their own community.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People that do such things, they're motivated by a very strong feeling of hate, of obviously ignorance as well. My question is, what happens next?

BORGEN: I've never met these people in my entire life. I don't understand why they hate me so much. I wasn't wearing any Israeli flags. I didn't have any Israeli -- I'm not Israeli-American.

FLAYTON: There are many Jews my age who are ready to move to Israel because they see the writing on wall here.

JASSEY: College anti-Semitism seems like a small thing until those people grow up.

WATT: Let's end where we started. Florida. Hitler was right, a sickening sentiment gaining traction in America now in 2021.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT: Now, a lot of Jewish people we spoke to here in the United States say it's beginning to feel a little bit like Europe, and that is not a good thing. Anti-Semitic incidents and attacks have been rising in Europe for a couple of decades now. 2020 in parts of Germany, we're told, incidents were up 30 percent.

John.

BERMAN: A sobering report.

Nick Watt, thank you very much for that.

So, former President Donald Trump has been ranked as the worst president in office during the last 150 years and the fourth worst overall. That's according to a C-SPAN survey that includes the assessment of about 142 historians and professional observers of the presidency.

Joining me now is one of the historians consulted, Tim Naftali, CNN presidential historian and former director of the Nixon Presidential Library.

Look, I guess the good news, Tim, for Trump is that he was ranked above Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson. You know, three racist, two of whom their indifference led to the Civil War. So I guess Trump's got that going for him?

TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, to debut in the basement of American presidents is just awful. He is the first to debut in one of these surveys at that level since Warren G. Harding, when the rankings of American presidents began by Arthur Schlesinger's father early in the 20th century.

Donald Trump, who loves superlatives, should not be happy with this outcome. And, by the way, the historians represent scholars of many backgrounds and many political persuasions. So Donald Trump managed to strike out with conservatives as well as liberals.

BERMAN: What does it mean exactly? I mean how is this judged? What does it mean that Donald Trump is nearly the worst president ever according to historians?

NAFTALI: Well, we were given a list of ten characteristics of presidencies and were asked to rate each president according to a standard of one to ten on each of the characteristics, moral authority, foreign affairs, administrative capabilities. And when everything was tallied, Abraham Lincoln was number one, George Washington was number two and Donald Trump was tied with Franklin Pierce for 41, 42.

BERMAN: It really is astounding to see that. Does Donald Trump have any modern competition in terms of being ranked so poorly?

NAFTALI: Richard Nixon is ten rankings above him. So I guess he's the only modern competition that Donald Trump really has. And Richard Nixon did not mishandle a pandemic, the worst public health crisis in a century in our country.

BERMAN: Is that -- now you -- I think you had Trump ranked even lower, which is hard to believe. I mean Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson were just retched presidents in U.S. history. You had Trump ranked even lower than some of them.

NAFTALI: Yes.

BERMAN: What was it, the combination of the pandemic and the insurrection? NAFTALI: It was the insurrection. The pandemic, the fact that Donald

Trump's subordinated our national interest with personal interest, those were bad enough. But January 6th changed it all. He's the first president not to have accepted the outcome of an election and he's the first president not to have supported a peaceful transfer of power. Those are so dangerous. Those are precedents that are so dangerous that I thought he deserved to be considered the worst president in our history.

BERMAN: Where do you have him ranked?

NAFTALI: The worst. Absolutely. I wrote a piece for "The Atlantic."

BERMAN: Worst ever.

NAFTALI: Worst ever.

BERMAN: And just -- just to be clear --

NAFTALI: And that's saying a lot because Buchanan was terrible.

BERMAN: We've got about ten seconds left. Just to be clear, presidents have moved up occasionally after their initial ranking?

NAFTALI: Yes. He might move up two or three spots as people forget. But I doubt we're going to discover there was a hidden hand that made him a better president.

[09:00:04]

BERMAN: Tim Naftali, we appreciate you being with us this morning. Thank you much for your historical perspective.

NAFTALI: Thank you, John.