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NYC Mayor Says Evacuated High-rise in Manhattan Remains Unstable; Graham Platner Under Pressure and Sinking Support; USA's World Cup Dream Ends. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired July 07, 2026 - 13:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:31:57]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL":Back now to our Breaking News. A Manhattan high-rise building is in danger of collapse. You can see here, these are columns on the 21st floor that have started to buckle. This happened as of this morning, just a few hours ago. And this prompted officials to evacuate nearby buildings as a precaution.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": At a press conference a short time ago, a New York Fire Department official said the building still shows signs that it is moving.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN ESPOSITO, CHIEF OF DEPARTMENT, FDNY: The way this building is constructed, it's a steel-framed building. So it would not be a total collapse, it would be more of a localized collapse. But that remains our concern, that it's moving.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Let's get some perspective now with structural engineer, Matthew Roblez. Matthew, thank you so much for being with us. From what you see of the images that we've shown inside the building of that bent steel, what stands out most to you?

MATTHEW ROBLEZ, STRUCTURAL ENGINEER: That the column has been completely compromised. If you look there, you can see the flange or the bottom piece is completely torn. And so that column is no longer serving its structural function, which is the definition of failure.

KEILAR: OK, so as you're seeing the failure of that column and we see other smaller columns buckling, what are you expecting when we're talking about the possibility of a localized collapse here? What could this look like?

ROBLEZ: Yeah, it could be a topple over. The problem that you're having is not just at those columns, but the other columns on the inside are now having to make up for the load that that's no longer carrying. So the danger isn't just on the outside where the buckling is visible, it's on the inside where you have columns taking additional load to make up for that one.

SANCHEZ: In cases like this where you see that kind of buckling, what factors contribute to that happening

ROBLEZ: Well, you know, during a renovation, buildings see more load than they're ever going to see because the way that the loads are distributed at the foundation are temporarily altered while beams and columns and bracings are being modified. And so when a building is going through a renovation like this, which is the largest in the history of the United States, loads are being distributed all over.

KEILAR: OK, so as we're looking at this and it's incredibly alarming, what's also alarming is that they're saying obviously they want to shore it up, but they can't do that --

ROBLEZ: Yes.

KEILAR: -- until it's stabilized. It's not stable right now. So it seems that they're kind of waiting to see what happens before they can shore it up. Take us through that process. What does stabilization look like? Are they going to get to that point before this topples? And then how do they shore it up?

ROBLEZ: Well, right now, the correct engineering response is exactly what's -- evacuation, establish an exclusion zone, remote monitoring, you know, survey points, see where the building's moving.

[13:35:00]

And then as soon as you see that movement stop, you start beginning to shore. And that's going to be like heavy steel pipes with big plates, structural H piles, and eventually modular steel shoring towers. And so, I'm sure -- Dan Eschenasy is the Chief Structural Engineer of the New York Department of Buildings, and I'm sure he's out on site.

Super experienced guy, you couldn't get a better guy on the job, and he's right there waiting to see that movement to stop so you can go in and it's safe to shore things up.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, I imagine folks feel lucky to have someone of that caliber on hand. I wonder what the risks are associated with going into a building like this to stabilize it. It may sound like a silly question, but how do you know that that movement has stopped?

ROBLEZ: Well, through the survey points, I'm sure they have a LiDAR set up watching the building. And like I said, hopefully, the redundancy of the interior columns will allow the building to stop moving. And once the building stops moving or moves to an acceptable point, then you can go in. But there's always a risk. There's always going to be a risk, and that's why God bless the firefighters and the police for doing the job that they do.

KEILAR: Yeah, indeed. Let's hope those interior columns can bear this load as they're trying to get to the point where they can shore it up. Matthew, we will stay in touch with you, obviously, as we're watching this really dynamic situation there in Midtown Manhattan. Thank you. And under pressure and with sinking support, one of Senate candidate, Graham Platner's most important endorsers is now calling on him to resign after an allegation of rape. We'll have the latest right after this.

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[13:41:32]

SANCHEZ: The calls are growing louder for Graham Platner to drop out of the Maine Senate race after a woman accused the Democratic nominee of raping her in 2021. Senator Bernie Sanders, who endorsed Platner early on, now says that he should step aside.

In an exclusive interview with CNN Monday, Jenny Racicot said Platner, who she was casually dating at the time, entered her home without permission while he was heavily intoxicated and raped her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: I know that you have been very reluctant to tell this story.

JENNY RACICOT, GRAHAM PLATNER ACCUSER: Yeah.

TAPPER: Very reluctant. Why did you ultimately decide to do it? Why come forward?

RACICOT: A few reasons. One of the biggest ones is that I think that there are a lot of men in this world relying on the silence of women to be where they are. And I don't want to contribute to that. I also want to just get my life back.

TAPPER: There are going to be people, maybe even his campaign, certainly his supporters, who say this is politically motivated. What would you say to that?

RACICOT: I couldn't disagree more. That was actually one of the reasons that I didn't come out.

TAPPER: Because you agree with his politics.

(CROSSTALK)

RACICOT: I do. I really agree with his politics. I think we need somebody with those political stances and who are willing to do the work. And I see his political videos. They get me fired up as well. I understand why people want someone like him in office.

I felt like me coming forward would potentially take that away. I felt really uncomfortable with the responsibility and the weight of my story and what that might do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Platner denies any accusations of non-consensual behavior and says he is taking time to reflect on the best path forward. If Platner withdraws from the race by a July 13th deadline, Democrats would then have two weeks to put forward a replacement.

We're joined now by Axios Political Reporter, Hans Nichols and former DNC Communications Director, Xochitl Hinojosa. I just wonder how you are seeing this moment. This is clearly the final straw, but there have been a lot of them leading up to this. It definitely has us looking back on how Democrats have sort of reacted to this along the way.

XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND FORMER DNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Yeah. The Democratic Party is handling of this has not been great. There have been two factions of the Democratic Party. We have seen it not only in the New York primaries. We are seeing it play out in Maine, where you have some people in the Democratic Party who have defended Platner.

He is an outsider. He is someone who, if we're going to have authentic candidates, that sometimes they might have some things that they have done in the past that we're happy to turn our heads the other way because it is more important to win. And I think this is an important moment for the Democratic Party and for politics in general for both parties because we need to make a decision about whether or not it is worth it to look the other way, to hold onto power, or is it important to speak out early so that you have the trust of voters.

And I think that if we're going to move forward as not only a Democratic Party, but in our country, we have to be the party. Democrats have to be the party. We're going to be the party of integrity and accountability to speak out sooner rather than later.

And so, I'm glad now pretty much everybody, as of probably an hour ago, with Bernie Sanders, has now called on him to step aside, but it took some time, and that shouldn't happen again.

[13:45:00]

It actually is a big contrast compared to the Republican Party who refuses to speak out against Donald Trump and others.

SANCHEZ: Hans, how did you see the reaction from Democrats initially when that New York Times reporting came out just four days before the primary, including allegations of physically threatening behavior from multiple women including Lyndsey Fifield, who was accused of being a conservative operative?

HANS NICHOLS, POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: Yeah that's a really interesting question and I think part of us in the media that were following this so closely, we'd heard a lot of build-up about the New York Times story about what it would have and what it didn't have. And ultimately, I think the view and a consensus view, obviously their voices they dissented, but the consensus view was it wasn't the devastating story that the Platner and some Democrats were expecting and feared.

Now, we can go back and litigate that we can look at that story in a different light now and I think many of us have. To me the most important sort of blast radius of that story was that the second accuser comes out and says my story wasn't told there. This story, this -- the New York Times story basically whitewashed my story, I don't feel heard well enough. And that's what according to the POLITICO account and I don't know if she got in this with Jake as well, forced her or encouraged her to go forward and be public and make this accusation public.

So yes, the reactions have been very different. You know, I don't tend to wear a media criticism hat here. I think that in general, the biggest change was the Democrats, the party establishment moved pretty quickly to distance themselves from Platner after the POLITICO-CNN story.

Now, there's been some latency and I think you're talking about the latency for like took Elizabeth Warren a little bit like -- well, this wasn't like a 30-minute response. This is like Ruben Gallego goes one of the first, right? And then eventually, close to 24 hours, Bernie Sanders comes out.

That latency we can all try to get into what caused it, but you know one of the issues here is that people want to preserve their ability to influence the party. And Chuck Schumer wants to preserve his ability to influence the party. The big challenge for Chuck Schumer here is that if he does weigh in, that candidate could potentially be just as poisoned as anyone else. And so Schumer's in a real pickle here. They've got some time but it is a mess and the blast radius is significant.

KEILAR: I think there's some different things to consider here and one is, OK, what is the alleged offense, right? And we've seen that change over time. But also asking the question of how does the political leanings of an alleged victim factor into this, right? And Lyndsey Fifield having conservative -- a sort of conservative pedigree, you then saw Platner basically say like, oh, it's just a political hatchet job.

It's very clear here, she's saying no these are actually my politics. It was one of the -- this is one of the problems for me. How are you looking at that?

HINOJOSA: Well I think that this happens a lot when it comes to men and allegations, and just trying to discredit the victim as much as possible and trying to find anything that you can to discredit the victim. We saw a little bit with Eric Swalwell, now you didn't have the same political leanings with the victim there, but he was trying to say, you know what, these are just my opponents trying to come after me. T his is what happens when you are at the top of the ticket and leading in the polling.

And my worry is that you're going to continue to see this and whether or not the Democratic Party sort of falls for it, I think is another thing. Here Graham Platner, I thought it was very interesting in his statement, he talked about how the allegations were serious, but yet he came out to say that they were not true. Obviously, you do not think that they're serious enough if you are coming out and trying to discredit her, right?

And so I think that, that to me really stood out and that should have been a red flag -- I mean, from the beginning, I think the Nazi tattoo, all those things should have been red flags, but I do think that this is just the way that people try to discredit you know allegations in politics.

SANCHEZ: There was an interview that I kept going back to and it came out amid several of the red flags, but before the New York Times story came out, certainly before Jenny Racicot shared her story. That was a conversation between the Wall Street Journal's Aaron Zitner and Daniel Moraff, who was a strategist that helped elevate Platner and it was specifically a question about vetting and how well Graham Platner was vetted. And here was his response when he was asked about some of what were perceived to be red flags at the time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANIEL MORAFF, SENIOR STRATEGIST, PLATNER CAMPAIGN: I think if what the voters wanted were people who were grown in vats and had never done or said anything that they might regret their entire lives, we'd have a very different country. Part of our thesis here is that people do not want their candidates grown in vats, they want people who are real human beings.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: The difficulty with that thesis though is that when you're looking for these anti-establishment candidates, when there's a fervor for that, you wind up with candidates that have colorful histories on social media.

NICHOLS: Or darker, right, in this case, right?

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

NICHOLS: I mean alleged, right, let's put alleged in there. Look, authenticity -- the authenticity argument I think is going to stay with us. It is going to stay with us. It is going to stay with us in the media.

[13:50:00]

It's going to stay with political figures. It's going to stay with everyone, right? No one, especially in the age of A.I. and videos, I think authenticity is really the argument that Daniel is trying to make there, right?

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

NICHOLS: Obviously, I think he'd want those words back if he knew the details of all the allegations, but let's not delve too far into that. I get back to the fundamental challenge that's going to happen, probably take place in the 2028 primaries with the Democratic Party, is that this is authenticity versus electability, versus centrism, versus moderates, all going to be overlaid with all the cultural issues that we're talking about, even the big political issues on the war in Gaza, the Hamas issue, sort of distance yourself. We're just at the beginning of a very difficult conversation on authenticity.

KEILAR: Yeah.

SANCHEZ: We'll see where it goes in Maine. Hans and Xochitl, thank you both so much for the conversation.

Still to come, Team USA's World Cup dream ending in embarrassing fashion, a 4-1 loss against Belgium. We'll talk about what went wrong after a quick break.

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[13:56:00]

KEILAR: Well, it was good while it lasted. But Team USA's dream of advancing to the World Cup came to a full stop last night in a just crushing loss against Belgium.

SANCHEZ: Crushing. The Stars and Stripes routed 4-1 by their European counterparts in an ugly match clouded in controversy. Belgium now advancing to the quarterfinals to play Spain later this week. Also happening right now, Argentina and Egypt battling it out for a spot in the quarterfinals. They are now tied, Argentina ratcheting things up with two late goals.

Let's talk about this with Joe Lowery. He's a Writer for Backheeled, the host of the "Total Soccer Show" podcast. Thanks so much for being with us, Joe. As the saying goes when it comes to the U.S., the ball don't lie. What went wrong?

(LAUGH)

JOE LOWERY, HOST, "TOTAL SOCCER SHOW" PODCAST: Yeah, this was the worst performance for the United States since 2017 and that loss to Trinidad and Tobago that saw the U.S. miss the World Cup the following year. Nearly every U.S. player on the field last night had a bad day.

That goes for Christian Pulisic. That goes for Weston McKennie, Sergino Dest. You can run through the list from front to back. This was a nightmarish quicksand-like performance from the U.S. where one mistake seemed to lead to another. Defensively, there were obvious technical lapses that just cannot happen at this level. In the attack, there was not nearly enough precision.

This was a no good, very bad day with the nation watching in prime time on home soil, crushing, absolutely crushing.

KEILAR: Yeah, and obviously, some controversy over the team for President Trump kind of getting involved, imploring the head of FIFA to kind of make an exception here when it comes to a very important player who got a one-game ban. Did Balogun end up making a difference on the field?

LOWERY: Balogun was effective. He was maybe the only U.S. player that could sort of count himself above all of the mess for this U.S. team. But it did seem like whatever advantage the U.S. gained from having their striker on the field, Belgium gained something too. We saw Belgium doing President Trump's dance after one of their goals.

There's a video that surfaced of them doing it in the locker room as well. Players have talked about, from that Belgian side, about how this gave them fuel, that FIFA did decide to suspend star striker Folarin Balogun's suspension, basically punting it down the road so that he could play in this game.

Now, I don't think it's uncommon for political officials to discuss these sorts of matters with FIFA, but the fact is that President Trump and FIFA President, Gianni Infantino, had a relationship. President of FIFA, Gianni Infantino seems to be wanting to cultivate that relationship further, and FIFA did ultimately give the U.S. a player back in this game in an unprecedented decision.

It was a wild day leading into the U.S.' game, and you would be forgiven, if you're a U.S. player, for imagining that some of the controversy that surrounded this whole game bled into the actual match itself.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, Joe, it feels like, on the whole, for USA soccer, it was two steps forward, maybe three steps back, 2.5 steps back. What is next for U.S. men's soccer?

LOWERY: Yeah, it continues to be about building a better player pool. Simply put, the player pool was tested last night and was yet again found wanting. These Round of 16 exits have become commonplace.

The U.S. is still not a team that can reliably expect to make a run to the quarterfinals or beyond at this World Cup. They do not have enough talent. They do not have enough true difference makers, and we saw that last night.

The best players in the world, the true stars, show up in the biggest moments, and the U.S.' players did not do that. They didn't have enough depth, enough talent coming off the bench to save the first- choice players from their quicksand performance. So this continues to be about creating a culture, not just a moment, but a culture of soccer in the United States on the men's side that generates and helps generate top-level players.

Children aren't touching the ball enough at a young age. They don't have enough access to high-quality coaching. Soccer is still not part of the culture in so many pockets around the U.S., and until that changes, we're not likely to see meaningful change and meaningful progress at the senior national team level every four years.

KEILAR: Thoughts -- Boris, do you have thoughts?

SANCHEZ: Belgium has never won a Super Bowl. They've never won a World Series --

(LAUGH)

SANCHEZ: So we got them there.

(LAUGH)

KEILAR: That's true. Joe, great to have you. Joe Lowery, really appreciate your insights there. And a new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.