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10 Confirmed Dead In Condo Collapse, 151 Still Unaccounted For; Biden's About-Face Puts Infrastructure Deal Back On Track; Supreme Court Victory For Trans Student Over Bathroom Restrictions. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired June 28, 2021 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

ANDREW HYATT, SURFSIDE TOWN MANAGER: There's hope. You know, we're all, you know, like to think that we're cup half full kind of people. And I think that attitude is helping the individuals that are here to help do this, the search and rescue.

And I and again, you can't, we cannot emphasize enough that it's a rescue. It's a search and rescue. We are -- they are passionate about what they do. They're the best in the world, also brought an Israeli team yesterday morning. They flew straight in from Tel Aviv and their own site assisting. This is around the clock, 24 hours. We want it to go faster. We really, all of us do to a person. We want this to go so fast.

But also, at the sake of time, we're taking their time, they're taking the time because you don't want something to happen to a survivor, and then, you know, more collapse or something that can be a little more devastating and not get a survivor out of there. So there's a lot of hope here. There's a lot of hope, a lot of support. And the families are distraught, obviously, for obvious reasons.

And I think, you know, most of them, the unknown, the unknown is what they're dealing with. We have a problem. We have the building that is collapsed. We don't know why. And we don't know when we're going to get everybody out. So all of that is being pushed together and pieced together as we go forward.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: That's right. Andrew Hyatt, thank you for joining us. I know you have a lot to do. So we'll let you get back to that. And joining our conversation now is Michael Chajes, a Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Delaware. He is a structural forensics expert. Professor Chajes, you know, we've been discussing some of the information that we've been able to collect so far. And in the footage that you've watched, and reports that you've read, what are your initial thoughts on what could have happened here? What could have caused this building to collapse, seemingly out of the blue?

MICHAEL CHAJES, PROFESSOR CIVIL & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING, UNIV. OF DELAWARE: Certainly. And thank you for having me on. I just want to start by saying that, as we've heard, this is really a human story right now. And that comes first, but it quickly does become an engineering story. So I'm happy to share some of my thoughts.

You know, as we've been talking about a little bit, the engineering report called out some issues with the pool deck. Concrete does crack over time, that's not unexpected. But whenever it does crack, it allows moisture to get into the concrete. And that gets to the reinforcing steel and starts to corrode it, so that's what the engineer had indicated was happening. And certainly, you know, I believe that if it was initiated by the pool deck failure, that goes down to the parking garage, which contains columns that supports the entire structure. So that certainly could be could be a culprit.

PHILLIP: I do want you to take a listen to Jason Borden, who is an inspector. He inspected this building back in 2020. And he recounted a little bit of what he took away from that inspection.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JASON BORDEN, SURVEYED SURFSIDE CONDO BUILDING IN 2020: 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 in plaza level. But those are all things that we're accustomed to seeing. And that's why our job exists to maintain and repair the buildings. What I did see while I was there did not alarmed me at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So what do you make of that assessment? I mean, should we take the reports of cracks that he even saw himself seriously or are they somewhat, you know, routine or unremarkable in some way?

CHAJES: Right. And I think a lot of what he's talking about if you read the report, many of the things are, you know, routine for a 40- year-old building that exists very close to the ocean where there's salt spray, and very corrosive environment. So I don't think those were things that cause the building to fail. You know, if you go through a procedure as a forensic person, you will first look at the design to make sure there weren't any mistakes made. And then you will look to see that the building was constructed based on the design and the materials were appropriate. So people will take samplings of the materials that were used to make sure they were the strength that they needed to be. And then you look to see whether there's any unexpected loads that might have happened or some sudden damage.

And then the last thing is just deterioration over time, which I think is a little bit of what we're seeing in addition to the information about subsidence under the building. I will say that almost all failures of structures and this one is tragic and hugely unexpected. The building stood for 40 years. So I don't think there's really a major deficiency. But typically failures come from several things not being correct. So we build a lot of factors and safety indoor designs. And therefore if there's, you know, some load that's a little bigger than we think there's a big factor of safety. So it usually takes two or three things that maybe are not perfectly correct to cause a structure to fail. So I think we need to see what those culprits are. [12:35:27]

PHILLIP: Yes, we have a long way to go in finding answers to this incredible tragedy. Michael Chajes, thank you for being with us this morning and for explaining some of what you know about what might be happening here.

CHAJES: Certainly. Thank you.

PHILLIP: And coming up next for us, the White House this weekend clean up puts the bipartisan infrastructure deal back on track, at least for now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:40:33]

PHILLIP: Today it appears White House is in damage control and they worked over the weekend to save a fragile deal on infrastructure. President Biden and Senior Advisor spent the entire weekend working the phones assuring moderates and Democrats -- moderate Democrats and Republicans that the bipartisan deal that they had worked to broker is still on track and not dependent on the fate of his American families plan. On Thursday, Biden said he would only sign a bipartisan deal if Democrats only multitrillion dollar bill was sent to his desk as well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): I am totally confident the President will sign up if it comes to his desk.

SEN. ROB PORTMAN (R-OH): I was very glad to see the President clarify his remarks.

SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): We were assured that the two would not be linked. I hope it's enough. We'll see going forward but I'll continue to work for the bill.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And here with me at the table is Jackie Kucinich, the Washington Bureau Chief for The Daily Beast. Margaret Talev, Managing Editor of Axios, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, the White House Correspondent for The New York Times, and our own Manu Raju, the Congressional Correspondent. So Manu, I'll start with you.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

PHILLIP: How is this going over? We saw three of the Republicans who are part of this 11 person deal, loving Republican deal, saying OK, we're fine with it. But then there's the question of Mitch McConnell, he has said this morning that unless Leader Schumer and Speaker Pelosi walk back through threats, then President Biden's walk back of his veto threat would be a hollow gesture. I think a lot of people are wondering this morning, whether there's anything that will get Mitch McConnell to support this bill. RAJU: Yes. And look, I don't know about that. Because what McConnell is saying is that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have to back off what they said last week, Pelosi said that this House would not move on this bipartisan deal and less the Senate were to move on to larger package of Democratic priorities to the budget reconciliation process. McConnell says back off that move.

There's no way Nancy Pelosi is going to back off that move. Because she needs to do that to keep her progressives in line and get the bill through, both bills really through the House. So they're not going to move on that. So then what does Mitch McConnell do? It appears that he is signaling that he's going to try to kill this and because of his concerns that by moving forward on this, it could lead to a Democratic victory and this larger package.

It also could potentially deny Biden a bipartisan victory. Now, he didn't say it out right. There are three Republicans that you showed who are fine, say let's move forward. Are there 10 Republicans? That is the key question. And yes, 11 signed on to this larger framework, but I can assure you more will drop off if they continue down this road. The Democrats do it. And McConnell says to his members don't go down this road, most will listen to him.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, on the one hand, the White House made a major misstep. They were very much interested in getting a bipartisan deal. And then, at the very same time, Biden goes way further than I think anyone in the White House wanted him to go. Three Republicans are OK with that. But at the same time, I mean, is this still a viable deal considering that you have the likes of Lindsey Graham saying, just the existence of the prospect of a reconciliation bill is enough for me to say no way.

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, and that's why what Biden said was so damaging because while it is remarkable that a deal was done in Washington and actually held enough for a press conference to end, now is not only going to have to whether what's happening inside Washington it has to whether what happens outside Washington. Now they're home. Now they're going to get hit by conservative groups. There are lots of incentives, particularly for the Mitch McConnell's of the world for this to fall apart. 2022 is right around the corner. And that's the test and nuance, as we've all come to know, for a long time doesn't really matter at this point.

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, look, I think there are a couple of reasons why it is likely to hold together. And one reason is that if it falls apart, Democrats have to pass their own thing, right? If it sticks together, Manchin, Sinema, maybe a couple other moderate Democrats, they can hold back and tight against the sort of project that Bernie Sanders would like to move through.

But if Republicans back them into a corner, they have to, it's done. So I think there's some kind of calculus, that's a little bit more complicated than the messaging to the base. And the other is what happened in Surfside Florida. It is not part and parcel of the infrastructure plan, but you're talking about a 40-year-old building that wasn't properly maintained. We don't know the details yet, but it collapse. There are roads and bridges that are 40 years old. This is a concern in every state in every city in America.

[12:45:07]

PHILLIP: There's a lot of incentive for people to get to the table. This weekend, though, Joe Manchin weighed in on this idea of what you were just talking about that reconciliation bill. And here's what he said about the prospect of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): I'm willing to meet everybody halfway. If Republicans don't want to make adjustments to a tax code, which I think is weighted and unfair, then I'm willing to go to reconciliation. But if they think in reconciliation, I'm going to throw caution to the wind and go to 5 or $6 trillion when we can only afford 1 or 1.5 or maybe 2, in what we can pay for, then I can't be there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: In this political environment, that's kind of a big deal. He's saying I am actually OK with a reconciliation bill. So, obviously, not a $6 trillion one or a $5 trillion one but how does that affect where we are?

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right, obviously making his position known as well, when it comes to what Bernie Sanders is proposing as well saying, look, I'm not going to be in favor of a package if it's as large as 6 trillion, but if it's something smaller, I mean, his comments there, if you're the White House, you have to be -- you have to have some confidence based off of those comments by Joe Manchin.

PHILLIP: What about what about progressives, though?

MANU: Yeah, I mean, look, I was this is going to be an important week to figuring out what the price tag is going to be. I talked to Senator Tim Kaine this morning. He sits on the Senate Budget Committee. He said that they are going to negotiate this week to figure out what the overall price tag is the Democrats in the Senate can get behind. He's proposing about $4 trillion for that reconciliation package. That's twice as much as what we heard Manchin said he's willing to go, less than the 6 trillion for Bernie Sanders.

But the progressives want to go where Bernie Sanders is particularly in the House, and that is going to be the real challenge getting everybody on board, because you can't lose a single vote, you lose one vote in the Senate, even on the first process was to pass a budget resolution that could pave the way for the larger reconciliation package, you still got to have your caucus completely in line. And they're just not there yet.

PHILLIP: If it feels like whiplash to folks at home, I would say buckle up. It's going to be a long, few months here in Washington as this goes through. But coming up next for us, we will go back to Surfside Florida, where families and friends of the 151 missing in that condo collapse. They're waiting desperately for signs of life.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:51:48]

PHILLIP: We are back with our top story this hour, more heartbreak out of Surfside Florida. Officials announcing a 10th person has been confirmed dead in the condo collapse. They also say that 151 are still missing. Joining us now is Fortuna Smukler. Her friends are still missing right now. And she is also a North Miami Beach City Commissioner. Fortuna, thank you for being with us today.

First of all, we want to ask, how are you doing? And have you heard any news at all about your friends, Myriam and Arnie Notkin who are missing and were in that building?

FORTUNA SMUKLER, COMMISSIONER, CITY OF NORTH MIAMI BEACH, FL: Well, first of all, thank you for having me here. I have not heard anything yet about Myriam and Arnie. We're still praying for a miracle. You know, we hear stories of people being found up to 15 days later. So we're still holding out.

PHILLIP: A lot of families right now and friends are holding out hope it has been now five days. And we also heard this is going to be a very, very long process. But a lot of family members are frustrated. What else are you hearing, you know, from the community as you are down there on the ground?

SMUKLER: I have a lot of people who have reached out to me concerned about the fall of the building, concerned of is this going to be happening to the other buildings? Is this something that we can fix in the future for it not to happen again? Can we do some more soil testing? Can we do a moratorium? There's so many questions out there from residents that have reached out to me.

PHILLIP: I cannot imagine the anxiety of people in that community and probably all over the country who are wondering exactly the same thing. How could this have happened, but particularly in that part of Florida and along the coast, there are a lot of high rise buildings that are just like this. You know, as a City Commissioner in North Miami Beach, are you concerned about the high rises there? And how big of a priority is it for you all to get these North Miami condo buildings inspected in the wake of this tragedy?

SMUKLER: It's a big priority for me. I'm going to be meeting with our city manager soon about it and I'm going to be bringing it up at our next commission meeting. This is something that needs to be done in my city. It needs to be done in Miami Dade County and our neighboring county, Broward. We need to make sure this does not happen again. We don't know how it happened yet. There's different theories, all the theories do lead to the fact that we need to maybe not wait the 40 years for the reinspection, maybe we need to do it earlier. We need to maybe change our building code, even though that was changing 1991. I believe it was after Hurricane Andrew came through here. So we just, we need to do something. I don't know the answer to that. I think as a city, as a county, we need to all come together and figure it out.

[12:55:24]

PHILLIP: You know, you heard some talk of whether there needs to be more regulation. Do you think there needs to be more at the state level or even at the federal level to address making sure that there are standards for these buildings, especially those that might have been built prior to a certain point in time? Do you believe that there might need to be more than just local efforts to fix these problems?

SMUKLER: You know, so many things start at home. If we go too high in the chain of government, things can get lost. I think we need to do it from within the county -- from within our city, so that more attention is paid to it. I'm hoping other counties would do it. I'm hoping other cities will do it. And hoping the whole state will do it. But I think it needs to start at home. And wait -- make it work its way up.

PHILLIP: Fortuna Smukler, thank you so much for being with us. We are, you know, hoping just along with you that you hear word about your friends who are still unaccounted for. But thank you for joining us.

SMUKLER: And thank you for having me. Thank you to the first responders. Thank you to all the community. Thank you to Duffy's, who today said that they were going to help. Just thank you to everyone that is here with love. Thank you.

PHILLIP: Absolutely.

And turning to the Supreme Court today a major victory on LGBTQ rights and for a transgender man who took on bathroom restrictions at his high school when he was a student, CNN's Ariane de Vogue has been following this. Ariane, another big decision from the Supreme Court, how did they rule in this case?

ARIANE DE VOGUE, CNN SUPREME COURT CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is what's interesting. What the court did today is it left in place a lower court opinion that led this transgender male student use the bathroom that he said corresponded to his gender identity. So that's a big win for Gavin Grimm. We interviewed him a few years ago, he brought this case back in 2015. He said he went with his mother to his school because he had decided to transition and he said he wanted to use the boy's bathroom.

And at first the school said that he could, but after some parents complained, then the school reversed course. And he brought suit. And it's been bouncing around a little bit in the lower courts, in part because the Obama administration and the Trump administration put out conflicting policies. But finally, Gavin Grimm, he one below of the lower court said that the school district had violated Title IX that says schools can't discriminate based on sex.

The school district here went to the Supreme Court asked the justices to take up this case, and the Supreme Court declined to do so. So that's a win for Gavin Grimm. He sent out this statement today to explain his thinking. He said, I'm glad that my years long fight to have my school see me for who I am is over. Being forced to use the nurse's room, a private bathroom, and the girl's room was humiliating for me, and having to go out of the way to bathrooms severely interfered with my education. Trans youth deserve to use the bathroom in peace without being humiliated and stigmatized by their own school boards and elected officials.

So today, the Supreme Court delivering him a big victory and many other students within that district have the court ruling.

PHILLIP: What does this mean Ariane for, you know, a transgender students broadly across the country? I mean, there this is a big question that is not necessarily addressed in this case, but clearly is something that's going to be dealt with down the road.

DE VOGUE: Well, here, this was a lower court opinion that had jurisdiction over several Mid-Atlantic states and a couple of other appeals courts have ruled in favor of transgender kids in similar disputes, but it's unsettled in some other states. So another dispute could make its way to the Supreme Court. But today the court was clear. They didn't want to take up this case over the dissent of Justice Thomas and Justice Alito. So for now, the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Gavin Grimm by staying out of the dispute.

PHILLIP: Kicking the can down the road a little bit longer. Ariane de Vogue, thanks for that.

And a quick programming reminder, this July 4th, America is open and it is time to celebrate. So join Don Lemon, Dana Bash, Victor Blackwell, and Ana Cabrera for a star studded evening of music and fireworks. The fun all begins on July 4th at 7:00 p.m. only here on CNN.

[13:00:16]

And thanks for joining Inside Politics. Erica Hill and Wolf Blitzer pick their coverage right now.