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Comedian and Actor Bob Saget Dies at 65; At Least 19 People Including Nine Children Die in New York City's Deadliest Fire in 30 Years. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired January 10, 2022 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

MAYOR WALT MADDOX, TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA: I think that would be a great thing for the charity of our choice and our two great cities.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Mayor Maddox, thank you for both being with us. It's on the record. It's on the record. We know where you'll be watching tonight. Good luck to you both.

MADDOX: Thanks. Roll Tide.

MAYOR KELLY GIRTZ, ATHENS GEORGIA: Thanks. Go Dogs.

BERMAN: NEW DAY continues right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to our viewers here in the U.S. and around the world. It is Monday, January 10th, and I'm Brianna Keilar with John Berman.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB SAGET, COMEDIAN: It's time to wake up San Francisco, I'm Danny Tanner.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: That is the beloved actor and comedian Bob Saget. He was found dead in his room at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando yesterday. Police say there was no sign of foul play or drug use. And he was just 65. He had tweeted on Saturday night after his final standup show in Jacksonville, he thanked the audience. He said, "I had no idea I did a two-hour set tonight. I'm happily addicted again to this." For years, Saget made America laugh, often at him, right, as the host of "America's Funniest Home Videos." He made America laugh at itself as well, but best known for being the wholesome single dad on "Full House."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Daddy, am I still your little princess?

BOB SAGET, COMEDIAN: Oh, you got it, dude.

(LAUGHTER) (END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: But the wholesome TV dad image was nothing like his standup, which was dirty with a capital "d," pretty raunchy stuff. It would make Danny Tanner blush. But it made his fellow comics laugh uncontrollably. And they loved him. They loved him dearly, Berman.

BERMAN: Yes, his "Full House" co-stars weighed in. Candace Cameron Bure calls Saget "one of the best humans I know." John Stamos lamented the fact he will never, ever have another friend like him. The Olsen twins and Dave Coulier say they're deeply saddened and heartbroken.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Saget helped raised money for comedians who had lost work at the time. He came on NEW DAY and he was delightful.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB SAGET, COMEDIAN: I made my own face mask out of my underwear.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGET: It's hard to find humor in these times. And it was a mistake, but you don't get it out of the hamper, people, that's all I'll say.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Joining us now, comedian and friend of Bob Saget, Gilbert Gottfried. And Gilbert, I know you spoke to Bob just a few days ago.

GILBERT GOTTFRIED, COMEDIAN, LONGTIME FRIEND OF BOB SAGET: He sounded great. And is it is funny, like you mentioned, everybody thought that was him, the guy from "Full House." He thought that he just this beloved, wholesome dad. And I found always talking to him, the minute anything seemed to become at all sincere or serious or heartfelt, it immediately we turn it to bad taste and outrageousness.

KEILAR: I guess one of the things, Gilbert, that it sounds like talking to you and all of his friends maybe in a different way than Danny Tanner, Bob Saget had such a good heart. You said he was beloved as this father. He was beloved as Bob Saget.

GOTTFRIED: Yes, everybody liked him. And I found out yesterday, last night Jeff Ross called me, and he said, sad news, Bob Saget has died. And I always enjoy a sick joke, and so I was waiting for the punch line. And then that didn't come. And now I feel like it's a day later, I'm still waiting for the punch line to happen, to say no, it was all a joke, because yes, everybody liked Bob.

BERMAN: He had 65 years of punch lines and laughs and joy together. Some, I would say at your expense, actually. I think we have a clip of Bob Saget roasting you. And this is sort of typical without the foul language of what his humor was like. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB SAGET, COMEDIAN: Gilbert Gottfried, Gilbert. Gilbert.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGET: Why are you always squinting? Seriously. It's like you're staring at an eclipse.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGET: I'm sorry, it's your career.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:05:01]

BERMAN: So tell us what it was like? What was the conversation between you and Bob Saget like?

GOTTFRIED: It would be, like I said, sometimes we got serious about something. If we got serious, we'd get poor taste and outrageous. I remember in particular, for a while we started sending emails to each other. And then we both had an idea, let's put all these emails together, and make it into a book. And then his manager read the emails and said, no, the public is not seeing this.

And that was kind of like talking to bob, because I had spoken to him recently, and he's been on my podcast, and I've been on his, and we always turned to something deranged. But no, he was a caring person, and very quick. And yes, I remember one time recently talking on the phone with him, and we were discussing Norm MacDonald's passing, and now this. So it's been a bad couple of weeks.

KEILAR: Yes, it's been a lot. It's a big loss for the comedy world. We were watching Norm MacDonald's comments about Bob Saget earlier, and I think one of the things, Gilbert, that is difficult for people today is just 65 is young, and this was so sudden.

GOTTFRIED: Yes. I remember growing up, they would have like comedy sketches or sometimes more serious, and there would be a decrepit old man on a park bench with a long, white beard and his hands shaking and holding his cane. And he would go "I'm 60 years old." And back then, 60, that was, yes, that was as old as you could imagine. And now, him being 65, that's not an old age anymore. So I'm still in shock by it.

BERMAN: It's too young. Too young and too soon. Gilbert Gottfried, we thank you for your time this morning. We are sorry for your loss. I know the entire community which you're a key part of this morning misses Bob Saget dearly. He was a friend to all of you. Thank you.

GOTTFRIED: Thank you.

KEILAR: This morning, at least 19 people have died including nine children in the Bronx in New York City's deadliest fire in 30 years, 63 people were injured and 32 of those went to the hospital with life- threatening conditions. Firefighters arrived within minutes. They found victims on every floor of the building. and officials say that the death toll is likely to climb. In fact, we just heard that from New York City's mayor.

Shimon Prokupecz live for us in the Bronx with more. So many questions here, Shimon, about how this smoke, because it was really a smoke event, how the smoke spread so rapidly through the building and why there weren't precautions in place that were working to stop it.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right. And the key here, what we're hearing from fire officials, is the fact when they got here, they got here within minutes. There were flames shooting out of a third-floor apartment. And the smoke, it was the smoke that spread through this entire building, this 19-story building where smoke enveloped the entire building.

And the people inside that burning apartment running out, the fire was so hot, they ran out of the apartment. And the door, the door to the apartment remained open, which then allowed smoke to spread through the entire 19-story building, filling stairwells and every floor of the building. And people just panicked. The fire department started getting 911 calls of people saying they were trapped inside their apartments.

And as they tried to escape, they went through the stairwells and there was thick, black smoke, choking many of them, trapping them, fire officials finding many people unconscious, including kids, nine dead kids here inside the stairwells.

The mayor spoke this morning about the investigation, and what they are looking at is that door. There say there is a mechanism for it to close shut when people leave, and for some reason, that did not happen. The mayor talking about that this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[08:10:04]

MAYOR ERIC ADAMS, (D) NEW YORK CITY: We were told and instructed that there were self-closing doors. We just need to look at the door to that apartment to see if there was any form of malfunction. And we can't make that determination until the fire marshals conduct their thorough investigation, but the doors in the building did have a self- closing mechanism. We're just looking at that specific door.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PROKUPECZ: And fire and city officials say it was heroic efforts by the firefighters who themselves were running out of air as their oxygen tanks were depleted, as they were trying to rescue so many people out of this building, 19 people dead, nine of them children. There is video and photos of these firefighters carrying small kids out of the building, trying to save them. And as you said, Brianna, there is concern that more people who are in the hospital and still fighting for their lives, could possibly die.

And now as to the cause of this fire, it was a space heater. Fire marshals say they obviously are investigating how that caught fire, and that it may have extended to a mattress which then, obviously, caused all that thick, black smoke to spread through the building.

KEILAR: Just unimaginable loss. Shimon, thank you for the report.

BERMAN: Breaking overnight, a legal victory for tennis star Novak Djokovic, what we just learned about his COVID diagnosis and what he decided to do the day he tested positive.

And hundreds of thousands of children in Chicago home from school a fourth straight day. How long will this standoff last?

KEILAR: And the Golden Globes were last night. They were, perhaps you say. Yes, they were. Maybe you didn't see them. You were not alone. We have the big winners and the big surprises.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:15:29]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking overnight, a stunning court victory for Novak Djokovic, a Judge in Australia ordering the tennis star's release from immigration detention reversing the State's decision to cancel his visa, but his tenure in Australia and whether he'll be allowed to compete in the Australian Open are still open questions.

CNN's Paula Hancocks joining us live now from Melbourne, Australia with the very latest. Paula, this has caused quite the uproar in a country that has suffered through so many lockdowns.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Brianna. I think the way to say it at this point is he has won the battle, but there could still be a war. This may not be over.

But what we do know tonight is that Novak Djokovic is a free man. We've just been hearing from a press conference from his family back in Serbia, saying that he has already gone on to a tennis court to practice, so clearly, he is trying to get his mind towards the Australian Open now.

What we heard from the Judge today was that he ordered him to be released, ordered that the government pay for all his legal costs and said that there was procedural issues with him being refused or canceling that visa, saying that he was not allowed to speak to his lawyer or to Tennis Australia organizers and that was incorrect.

So now he is a free man. But we've already heard from the Immigration Ministry saying that they reserve the right for the Minister himself to actually turn this over once again and say that he personally will cancel the visa.

We do not know if he will do that. We know that the Ministry is currently looking at this. But what we have heard today has really risen some questions. There was an affidavit saying that Djokovic admitted he did test positive for COVID-19 on December 16th, that is the same day as he went to a public event without a mask. We also saw in the next day, he went to public events maskless as well. He was surrounded at one point by a number of young people. So certainly there are questions as to why he would have been in that situation knowing that he had tested positive for COVID 19.

And when it comes to the sentiment in Australia itself, there are still some Serbian supporters of Djokovic here in Federation Square in Melbourne, they certainly support him, but in the wider Australian public, there is little sympathy for him, as you say, Brianna, there has been some tough decisions made in this country during COVID. They've had some of the most strict border controls in the world. And there have been some heartbreaking stories of Australians not being able to leave, to attend funerals of loved ones, not being able to come into the country for two years to see loved ones, even those that are sick.

And so amongst many Australians, there is a sentiment that there is a celebrity who has been subjected to different rules than they were -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes, and we'll see if that stands as you mentioned. Paula Hancocks, thank you so much.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So our next guest says Djokovic is another whiny sports superstar with screwy ideas, and an exaggerated sense of entitlement.

Joining us now, "Washington Post" columnist, Max Boot.

Max, how do you really feel?

MAX BOOT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, this is just so nauseating, this whole spectacle, John, of having Novak Djokovic try to flout the rules to game the system and then to have his father to compare him to Spartacus as a victim, as a representative of the poor of the world. I mean, please, give me a break.

I mean, this is just absurd.

KEILAR: So this may not be the end of it. As you just heard in Paula's report. The Ministry that has jurisdiction here, Max, could still pull this. Do you think they should?

BOOT: Absolutely. Kick him out of the country, and I think the U.S. should not let them in to play the U.S. Open unless he gets vaccinated.

I mean, at the end of the day, Novak Djokovic refuses to get vaccinated. He thinks he knows better than the medical establishment in every country in the world, which is saying you have to get vaccinated to keep yourself safe and to keep other people safe. He refuses to do it.

In 2020, the height of the pandemic, he even held a tennis tournament in the Balkans where people were partying indoors. He and his wife got sick. He seems to have learned nothing from that experience.

And let me just point out, Brianna that he is claiming that he should be allowed into Australia based on having gotten an infection supposedly on December 16th, even though he was seen in public without a mask in the days that followed.

But what was he planning to do if he wasn't infected on December 16th? That was his whole plan to get into the U.S. Open was to catch a deadly disease? It doesn't add up.

[08:20:04]

BERMAN: So you're questioning whether or not he even has the COVID he said he has or had, which is what grants him the technical exemption under the rules. How did the nation or the -- I don't even know what you call this really -- a Kingdom? What do you call it, Brianna Keilar, Australia, the country of Australia --

KEILAR: Don't embarrass me. Pop quiz, I should know.

BERMAN: No, but it is not -- the country has one set of rules that would not let him in, but the State of Victoria where the tournament is has another set which would apparently let him in with the tournament's okay if he had this previous case in December, but you're questioning, Max, whether he even had it.

BOOT: I do question that. I think some skepticism is in order. I mean, why would this number one world tennis player rely on getting sick with this disease in order to be able to play this Grand Slam tournament? It doesn't make a lot of sense.

All I know is that Djokovic is admitting that he refuses to get vaccinated, and Australia is a country that has had some of the strictest lockdowns in the world. They're dealing with another surge of the disease. This is the kind of behavior that no ordinary person could possibly get away with, you know, if somebody is showing up in Australia who is not a famous multi-gillionaire tennis superstar, they're not going to be able to get in the way Djokovic able to get in.

Clearly, what we're seeing is that there is one rule for elite athletes and another rule for everybody else. And I think that rankles a lot of ordinary Australians, which is a very egalitarian country.

BERMAN: Max Boot, "Washington Post" columnist and apparently a new Rafael Nadal fan, thank you for being with us this morning.

BOOT: I love Federer and Nadal. Those guys are classy. Djokovic is a great player, but no class.

BERMAN: Thanks, Max.

Three hundred and forty thousand students in Chicago waking up this morning and not going to school. We're going to speak to a parent who is taking action against the teachers union there.

KEILAR: And I mean really just stunning video of a cliff collapsing onto tourist boats in Brazil. What caused this?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:26:00]

BERMAN: A four alarm fire in a Bronx apartment complex left 19 people dead including nine children. Officials say it appears the blaze was sparked by a malfunctioning space heater. More the 60 people were injured and officials do expect the death toll to climb.

Joining us now is Dr. Ernest Patti, the senior emergency medicine physician at St. Barnabas Hospital in New York who treated patients brought in from the fire all day yesterday.

Dr. Patti, I know the entire city of the Bronx, grateful to you and the work that you did. But I also know it just must have been horrible yesterday.

DR. ERNEST PATTI, SENIOR EMERGENCY MEDICINE PHYSICIAN, ST. BARNABAS HOSPITAL IN NEW YORK: Thank you, John, for having me. Yes, it was horrible. And you have to remember we had a tremendous team yesterday at St. Barnabas Hospital, I am just a small piece of it.

You know, we're Bronx strong and St. Barnabas always rises to the challenge. But I have to say, all of us being parents and having family members and loved ones, it was a really tragic day for us.

BERMAN: You say being parents, is that because many of the people you were seeing were children?

PATTI: Yes.

BERMAN: And the patients that you were treating, what were they there with?

PATTI: The vast majority of patients that came in, you have to remember this was considered a mass casualty incident where we got over 20 patients actually closer to 30 within a very short span of time.

They came in with smoke inhalation and many came in in cardiopulmonary arrest, requiring immediate care, immediate that including, you know, CPR and airway secure and a lot of critical conditions came in at one time.

BERMAN: Yes, smoke inhalation, cardiac care, of course, well, it speaks to the issue there. It wasn't necessarily the fire itself, it was the smoke that took so many lives there.

You say it was a mass casualty event 20 to 30 patients coming in at once. What's that like when you're in the ER?

PATTI: It is a period where we have to mobilize all of our resources rapidly. We got a quick phone call on our red phone by EMS alerting us that there was a fire in the Bronx close by. And then what we do is we activate our alarms and we get staff from the other areas of the hospital, our critical care unit, our internal medicine unit, surgery, nursing departments, everybody converges on the emergency department to help in the resuscitation effort of all these people.

We break into teams, and each team then gets assigned to a patient. And basically, all of this happens simultaneously, which is -- it is challenging, John.

BERMAN: it's challenging, especially when you know there are more people still coming in smoke inhalation, how do you treat that?

PATTI: Basically, we have to be very careful. It requires oxygen administration. Many times it requires intubating people and putting them on a ventilator or a respirator Because don't forget, not only is it the smoke that sort of clog your lungs, it's also the heat that can injure your airways, causing them to swell and preventing you from actually breathing and being able to exchange oxygen for carbon dioxide.

It's a very challenging situation. So many of the folks went on ventilators and respirators and then you send them to hyperbaric chambers. So we actually transferred out a number of those folks for hyperbaric medicine, where you give them higher concentrations of oxygen.

So our surrounding hospitals that have hyperbaric chambers helped us out in that venture.

BERMAN: And it's all the more challenging, I know, and taxing when it is children you're dealing with.

Dr. Patti, thank you so much again for being with us this morning. And thank you to your entire team for everything you continue to do.

PATTI: My pleasure. I just want to remember, it is the compassion and the human condition. You know, everybody rose to the challenge yesterday to try to help our community. Thank you, John.

BERMAN: And the community is grateful. Thanks, doc.

KEILAR: This morning classes at Chicago Public Schools are canceled again. We're not talking remote, just flat out canceled and this is for the fourth day in a row as the standoff between the city and the Chicago Teachers Union drags on amid a COVID-19 surge.

[08:30:06]