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New Day

Deadly Tornadoes Devastate Communities in Eight States; California Vows to Copy Texas Abortion Tactics on Guns; Meadows Email Shows National Guard Ready to Protect Pro-Trump People. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 13, 2021 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: He's going to find Breshad Perriman, and Perriman is going to take it 58 yards for the game- winning touchdown, including the playoffs. That was the 700th T.D. pass for Brady in his career. And look how fast the Bucs equipment guy runs over to get that ball. I'm not going to lose that one. Brady's parents celebrating as Tampa won that one, 33-27.

Over the weekend, Alabama Sophomore Quarterback Bryce Young awarded the Heisman Trophy after a fantastic finish to the season. Young leading an incredible comeback to beat Auburn and then cemented his case with a dominant performance over Georgia in the SEC title game.

Young, 43 touchdowns, 4 interceptions this season, Alabama becoming the sixth school ever to win the award in back-to-back seasons. Wide Receiver DeVonta Smith, he won the award last year.

Kaitlan, as a Heisman voter, very happy that Young had an amazing performance against Georgia, because he made voting this year pretty easy.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN NEW DAY: I think I should be a Heisman voter. But what I love so much about this is that Bryce Young's first pass that ended in a touchdown as an Alabama quarterback was to DeVonta Smith. And I just think that is so cool.

SCHOLES: Pretty cool, right, yes.

COLLINS: He's always been so calm and cool and collected throughout the season. Young had some really tough moments. I mean, he just -- Bryce Young has been really impressive. His speech last night was, too.

We do have to give a shout-out there to Will Anderson. I think he is one of the best pass rushers and he needs some credit there.

SCHOLES: Yes. And a lot of people think he should have made it to New York as a finalist, but he just missed the cut.

COLLINS: I am one of those many people. Andy Scholes, thank you so much.

New Day special coverage continues right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAYS: Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. It is Monday, December 13th. I'm John Berman on the ground in Mayfield, Kentucky, Kaitlan Collins in New York this morning.

We do begin with the destruction from at least 50 tornados that ripped through eight states. I'm standing right by what used to be an auto glass company. And not far behind me, when the lights come up, you will be able to see a post office with the roof just gone. That's what it looks like across Mayfield. More than 1,000 homes and buildings across Kentucky have simply been flattened from these storms.

It all began Friday night into Saturday, touching down first in Arkansas, striking a nursing home. One person did die there. The swarm of twisters tore a path across 200 miles here in Kentucky. One tornado slammed into a family-run candle factory here in Mayfield. The building was leveled with about 110 people. They had been working there beforehand. It's unclear how many were in the building the moment the twister hit.

Rescuers crawled over the dead to get to the living. Eight people there have been confirmed dead at this point, another eight unaccounted for. That story is developing because those numbers have changed a lot over the last 24 hours.

Last hour, I spoke to a man whose pharmacy that's been in his family for generations now lays in ruins.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: You lost your father not long ago.

SAM BROWN, PHARMACY DESTROYED IN TORNADO: I did. I lost him to cancer in February and he was a great guy. He provided a life for me that I've benefited from that pharmacy and I just had dreams of doing the same for my kids.

BERMAN: Your son, Jonah, right, the beauty area inside was named after him. Your wife named it after him.

BROWN: That's right. So, my wife, my wife lost absolutely 100 percent of her income. She's a pharmacist at the store and then she also had the boutique. And when my son was born, we named it Shop Jonah Brown. And yesterday while we were picking up, he wanted to have his picture taken on top of the rubble where the boutique was. So, she's just -- she's heartbroken and it's hard waking up in the morning to your wife laying in bed crying.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: It's hard to listen to Sam Brown talk about what he lost. And, this morning search efforts are continuing for people who are believed to still be trapped in the rubble. Housing, power, water and fuel are all going to be a tremendous need going forward. It's a heartbreaking scene as the level of destruction still remains unclear on this Monday morning.

BERMAN: So, Brett Clark is the co-owner of Red's Donut Shop here in Mayfield. The storm did so much damage to his place that he didn't recognize parts of it. Brett walked me through the rubble.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Where are we standing?

BRETT CLARK, CO-OWNER, RED'S DONUT SHOP OF MAYFIELD: This used to be Red's Donut Shop in Mayfield. We started here back in '17. I bought it from my grandfather when he was getting out of the business all together. And we have been running here since. And this is what we have left.

[07:05:00]

BERMAN: It's got to be hard to see with all the work you put into it now.

CLARK: Very much so, yes.

Just watch all the broken glass.

BERMAN: So, this building is what right here?

CLARK: This used to be our storage area, restroom, my office originally, which I have an office in Paducah now. But this used to be kind of just storage and back area.

BERMAN: The storage and back area is fine. It's all this.

CLARK: Yes. That's the part when we bought the building. We actually redid all that back there. And somehow it withstood the damage. The block guys did an excellent good job.

BERMAN: What is this?

CLARK: I'm not 100 percent sure.

BERMAN: You don't even know. It's hard to tell.

CLARK: Well, the metal, I don't know where it was. I truly don't know where that came from.

BERMAN: And then --

CLARK: This is part of the roof because here is the -- part of the ceiling structure, like the drop panels.

BERMAN: And then how high was the ceiling here if you were in here?

CLARK: To where the white is painted, the brighter white. That was where like our drop ceiling came to, and then the rest was just open above that.

BERMAN: And then that's just gone.

CLARK: Yes, all gone, yes. All the duct work, all the electrical, hood, like I said, the hood is behind the building, just laid on the ground.

That back there is where our dish sink and all that stuff is. That's actually still intact too. But that was production back there. Where we're standing is where our employees would be, where the customers would come in, where they would see them standing back here to serve them. And then we'd have racks of donuts back here but that's --

BERMAN: Where is the counter?

CLARK: That was the cash register right there.

BERMAN: The cash register is right here?

CLARK: Yes, right underneath it.

BERMAN: Sorry, could you show me where the cash register is? Where?

CLARK: Yes, the cash register is right there.

BERMAN: That's the cash register. So, this is the counter. That's where people see the donuts right there?

CLARK: Yes, that was a display case. Yes, it's a mess, man.

BERMAN: This is the sign?

CLARK: This was originally our sign, yes. The only pieces I could find from it were in the rubble about, I don't know, half a block to a block that way. I really wanted to find some pieces of that. But --

BERMAN: What did it say?

CLARK: It was just our logo, Red's Donut Shop, Mayfield.

BERMAN: It is just completely bent over.

CLARK: It's amazing it bent that pipe like that, yes.

BERMAN: That is a metal pipe.

CLARK: Yes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: In the city of Mayfield, a tornado has claimed the lives of eight people while eight are still missing. The roof of a candle factory was torn off as a tornado ripped through the area. More than 90 people escaped and the company says it is still a rescue mission, not just a recovery effort. CNN's Brian Todd joins us live from Mayfield. Brian, of course, if you have ever lived in the south or the Midwest, you know this is your worst nightmare. What can you tell us about what you are seeing on the ground this morning?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kaitlan, we're not too far from that candle factory. We're at a police checkpoint here a few hundred yards from that candle factory. We cannot see exactly what's going on there now because the police have kind of pushed the media back a little bit. These are the kind of structures they will be searching, though. This warehouse had the sides of it ripped out. They are trying to go through all of this -- whatever standing structures are around here to find any signs of survives.

You mentioned we do have that information that eight people were killed in the candle factory. Eight people remain unaccounted for. And what we were told by officials is that about 90 people got out safely from the candle factory.

The mayor of Mayfield, Kathy O'Nan, spoke to CNN last night and talked about kind of how the recovery and rescue efforts are going and that every hour is really crucial.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR KATHY O'NAN, MAYFIELD, KENTUCKY: We're still searching and hoping to rescue. But you know as I do, every day that goes by, we lose a little bit of that hope.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: All right. That was the mayor, Kathy O'Nan, the mayor of Mayfield, Kentucky. Now, the governor and some other officials were asked about the safety of the candle factory and whether the workers there who were there on 24/7 shifts had a place to go for safety. He said he believes they did have a plan in place but that the nature of the destruction was such that it may not have been possible to get everyone to a safe place that night at all. There was maybe 20 minutes lead time that they had to get everyone to a safe place.

Also, the governor talked about just how difficult the rescue operation is at this hour and throughout the weekend, how difficult that's been. He said that basically you've got 15 feet of metal with cars on top of it inside that factory, plus corrosive chemicals all around. So, it is just really a tough slog to find anyone who could still be alive inside the rubble of that factory, Kaitlan.

[07:10:00]

COLLINS: Yes. And when these storms hit at night, it just makes it that much more difficult for people to respond to it in the moment. Brian Todd, we will check back in with you as the sun is coming up there.

BERMAN: So, just happy to be alive, that's how one sheriff's sergeant put it. He and a deputy were on patrol near Mayfield when the tornado hit and the big wall of debris, wind and hail came at them. They survived and then helped rescue a young girl who was badly injured.

Sergeant Richard Edwards and Deputy Chandler Sirls join me now to talk about this remarkable story. Gentlemen, thank you so much for being with us. I'm glad you are both well and made it through you this.

Deputy, if I could just start with you, because your car tells something of a story here. You guys were in separate cars out driving kind of right in the middle of this. What happened?

DEPUTY CHANDLER SIRLS, GRAVES COUNTY, KENTUCKY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: Right. We were trying to stage near where we expected the storm to come through. And before we knew it, it was right on top of us. And debris started flying and hitting our cars. We basically just got down and just hoped and prayed that we were going to make it through you it.

BERMAN: I saw some pictures of your car afterwards. It took a beating.

SIRLS: It did. It did. The light bar is gone off the top of it. There was some fiber glass that went through my passenger side window that hit me. And there was about an eight-foot piece of wood that came through the back of the car and pierced it.

BERMAN: So, Sheriff, that moment when you realized the storm is right on top of you, what was that like?

SGT. RICHARD EDWARDS, GRAVES COUNTY, KENTUCKY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: Honestly, we didn't have time to think. I mean, it was just, like is said, a wall of just everything just came at us. I was in the lead. I was in front. I took the initial hit. When I pulled in the driveway -- we were in Amish community. When I pulled in the driveway, I had my mic in my hand, and just out of instinct to let everybody know it was on us. I yelled on the radio, I'm hit. Everybody heard that and I was telling Deputy Chandler to back up. But it was too late.

So, we had units coming but as the wind picked up, and it picked my vehicle up and turned it sideways, I was trying to back up. He was behind me. And we couldn't do anything. We just sat there. We tried to duck down and hold on.

BERMAN: Let me make sure I heard that correctly. The wind picked your car up and turned it sideways?

EDWARDS: I drive a Dodge Durango SUV and it lifted the front end and tilted it, and I had in reverse. And I just tried my best to get out of that situation. I got tangled up in barbed wire. He was behind me and I couldn't hear him, he didn't respond. So, as soon as we finished that so-called ride, we jumped out, both of us had flashlights, we're checking each other out. He had -- it caught him on the side of the neck, so he had -- I was making that he was okay.

Then we just looked for the nearest place we could go to. We saw two houses and w saw flashlights right about 200 yards up the road or up in the field. So, we ran to it. And then faintly in the background, we could hear a young female yelling, some people yelling for help. So, we ran back to his vehicle, which we carry go-bags with tourniquets in it. We grabbed his and we just took off. Transformers, the lines were on the road, so we had to run to the field to get to them.

In the faint distance, with he saw blue lights coming. So, our chief deputy, Jeremy Prince, arrived first on scene to help us. We went to the house. That's when we saw the female. She was injured very profusely, bleeding. She was going into shock. We applied the tourniquet. We called for medics. There was no way they could get to us. So, we went outside and found an old interior panel door and we used that as a backboard. We loaded her up.

BERMAN: You carried her on the door?

EDWARDS: Yes. We put her on the door and we made the decision we had to get her out. So, we got her out of the house with that door and we packed her all the way down to the road where the Chief Deputy Prince was in his Durango. We loaded her in the back and he took her to the nearest hospital, I believe it was Jackson Purchase.

BERMAN: So, you had just survived being hit by a tornado. You hear a girl crying for help. You go and you carry her out of her house on a door?

EDWARDS: Yes, sir.

BERMAN: Do you have any idea how she's doing today?

EDWARDS: I don't have that update. Last I heard that she made it, she was okay, that she was going to survive. It was very life threatening. She had lost a lot of blood and she was going into shock. So, we made that decision. That's not normal for us to do. But I think that decision was the best at that time.

BERMAN: How much time passed between when you stepped out of your car and you ran toward that house?

SIRLS: It was instantaneous. As soon as we got out of our cars, we knew somebody needed help, and so we went to them.

BERMAN: No thought for your own well-being at that point? Did you know you were okay? Were you convinced you were okay?

EDWARDS: Not really. But you've got so much adrenalin, you don't feel anything. You don't hear anything.

[07:15:00]

Our focus was each other because we're no good to anybody if we're down, so to speak. And then once we saw flashlights, we went right to them. That was the next place we needed to go. We needed to find shelter, help the people. And then as soon as we got there, I do recall asking the people in the house, are you okay, they said yes, and then we heard the yell, and then we said, well, we've got to go. So, we didn't need to go inside the house. We just took off running

BERMAN: And this was Friday night? So, both your houses, homes okay? EDWARDS: Yes.

SIRLS: Yes.

BERMAN: What have you been doing since the last 48 hours?

EDWARDS: We've been working shifts. We've been out. We went home for a little bit to rest and come right back out. We've been basically patrolling the area, making sure everybody is secure, rescue. The National Guard has come in. We have escorted them around, securing the buildings in the city, just helping everybody, making sure everybody has a place to stay, shelters. It's chaos but we'll get through it.

BERMAN: It doesn't stop either.

EDWARDS: It doesn't.

BERMAN: DEPUTY, SERGEANT, thank you for being with us. Job well done, to say the least.

EDWARDS: Thank you.

SIRLS: Thank you.

BERMAN: So, anything you can do I can do better. Why California's Governor Gavin Newsom is now planning to mimic the strict Texas abortion law as a model for suing some gun manufacturers.

COLLINS: And we have new details about Mark Meadows' actions during the insurrection. Who he wanted on standby to protect the pro-Trump people just one day before the pro-Trump people attacked the Capitol.

Plus, new video showing Michigan coaches from the school shooting, surprising a survivor right outside her hospital window. The heartwarming moment ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:00]

COLLINS: California's Governor Gavin Newsom is promising that he will implement gun control measures in his state by copying the legal tactics used by Texas to enact what is essentially on the ban on abortion. The Supreme Court has let Texas forward with a law that allows private citizens across the state to sue anyone who helps someone more than six weeks pregnant get an abortion.

In a statement, Newsom said in part, California will use that authority to protect people's lives where Texas used it to put women in harm's way.

Joining us now to discuss is CNN Chief Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin, he's a former prosecutor as well, and Journalist Mara Schiavocampo, she is the host of Run, Tell This podcast.

Mara, just look at the bigger picture of this and the argument that he's making, is essentially that if Texas can do this and use the law with this legal wording this way, we're going to use it in a different measure.

MARA SCHIAVOCAMPO, JOURNALIST: Yes. So, this is a smart political move for him. He is getting applauded for being someone who is taking the fight to the enemy, so to speak. He may get gun reform out if it. And it's raising his national profile. And for someone who reportedly is eyeing a future presidential run, that's important.

But if you zoom out a little bit and you look at the bigger picture, the idea that states would apply the legal mechanism that was used in Texas to then go against other rights is something that frankly is quite terrifying. Because let's look at what's happening in Texas right now. You have a constitutionally protected right, abortion, which women in Texas for the last three months have been stripped up. And the abortion providers essentially have no one to sue over it basically because enforcement has been outsourced to private citizens as bounty hunters. So if this mechanism is then applied across the board, what other rights are potentially on the chopping block.

And it's so alarming that in his opinion last week, Chief Justice Roberts, who, to remind everyone, is himself a conservative, begged his colleagues not to make the decision they made because of the precedent that this would set, undermining the course on authority.

COLLINS: And so according to this, how Newsom is framing this, plaintiffs who would be able to sue firearm manufacturers potentially be awarded $10,000 plus attorney's fees, does this really have legal muster?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it depends how cynical you are about the Supreme Court. Because it is very much parallel to what the Texas legislature did in passing that law. And the idea behind all of law is that you are supposed to treat similarly situated people in similar ways. But -- so in that respect you would think, well, if the Supreme Court is consistent, they would uphold this effort.

However, if you are cynical about the Supreme Court, you will think they don't like abortion but they do like gun rights. So, they would figure out a way to uphold the Texas restriction on abortion but reject Newsom's effort to restrict gun rights. Personally, I am pretty cynical about the court, and I think they would find a way to strike this down.

COLLINS: And this does reflect anger though that Democrats have over what's been happening with the Texas law and how the Supreme Court Has been handling that. And we have seen other states try to take measures to enact similar laws. Do you expect more of that, or what do you think from a bigger picture of what kind of precedent it sets?

SCHIAVOCAMPO: Well, I think that's the , is the precedent. And when you see right now what's happening with Newsom is he's getting applause for this move, that people are saying, finally, someone who is using the tactics of the right, and it's turning against them. But from a principled perspective it, really does present a problem because you have to ask what other constitutional rights can a state decide that they simply don't like.

And you see how this insanity kind of insanity is playing out because this amicus brief that was filed by pro-gun group against the Texas ruling, saying we want to make sure that we're protecting gun rights in the context of what's happening on the larger scale.

[07:25:03]

So, you have these odd bedfellows where you have a pro-gun group filing the brief that is aligning them abortion advocates.

TOOBIN: Let's remember who created this mess. It is the Supreme Court. If you remember your American history before the civil war, there was John C. Calhoun and nullification. And the whole idea was that states could nullify federal laws and the federal Constitution. Now, we fought a civil war to reject that idea.

However, what Texas has done is manage to take away a right that women have had in Texas for 50 years, and twice now the Supreme Court has said, that's okay. Texas could nullify this federal constitutional right. That's a very scary idea. But that's the idea that is now out. And we'll see who gets to use it. I mean, Newsom is just trying to use it in a progressive way, but once that genie is out of the bottle, it is a very scary prospect to see where it may go.

COLLINS: Which is exactly what people were worried about when this happened.

And I do want to ask you about something else that's in the news today, because we now have this new resolution for -- they want to do a contempt of Congress against former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who is no longer cooperating with the January 6th probe. And you saw overnight that there were messages where he said that they were setting up for the National Guard to protect the pro-Trump people on January 6th. Of course, those were the people who were the ones attacking the Capitol.

And so what stood out to you from this in what we learned about just how intertwined Mark Meadows was in helping the former president with these efforts?

TOOBIN: And he was receiving an email, this extraordinary PowerPoint describing how to, you know, essentially conduct a coup.

The thing about Mark Meadows that I find some outrageous is that here's a guy who is writing a book about the events of January 6th, among other things, yet refusing to testify to Congress about the identical issues. Again, I think his legal position is weak but the legal system moves slowly.

And even if they pursue him for contempt, the odds that they will be able to use the legal system to force him to testify in any meaningful time period for this investigation because, you know, time is passing, I think, is very low.

COLLINS: And when you talk to these officials and their associates on background and privately, they make that point. They say the longer this takes, the better it works out for us.

TOOBIN: By the time you get to a district court, circuit court of appeals, possible Supreme Court, you can see with the Bannon case, which is on a slow boat to nowhere, they're all going to be on that boat.

COLLINS: Yes. Jeffrey and Mara, thank you so much joining me this morning.

Up next, the homeland security secretary is going to join us with an update on the federal effort to rescue and rebuild after those tornados ripped through eight states over the weekend.

Plus, more of the utter devastation that has been seen here in Kentucky as the sun is coming up, including the destruction to a century-old courthouse.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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