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tv   Wolf  CNN  September 29, 2016 10:00am-11:01am PDT

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the front car went airborne. plowing right through the train station. it stopped just short of another waiting area. we're also hearing desperate accounts from inside and outside the train. stories of people bracing for impact. simply crawling out of train windows. when it finally stopped, even walking over a body as they tried to help others. >> you just heard a boom. and you could hear it got quiet. the first thing you think is terrorist. i'm sorry, this is how it goeses in this country. then i heard water running in. so i ran out and looked to the right. just saw people laying down. and debris and metal all over the place. i saw the train in the wall. the hardest part that hurts me is when i went to run in i ended up stepping over a dead one's body. that bothered me. >> the first thing i heard was the explosion of him hitting the bumper block and that train just flying through the air.
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>> it was like someone was gone and he had one side and all the blood. there was a lady laying down that had like a video there and she was laying. she didn't breathe at that point. she was just sitting there for so long. everybody was, like, screaming, in total panic. >> cnn has learned that the lone fatality so far in the crash was a person who was actually standing on the platform. wasn't even on the train when it crashed. new jersey governor christie tells cnn he expected to be in hoboken at some point later this afternoon. he'll be there with the new york governor cuomo. cnn's jean casarez is joining us live from hoboken, new jersey. also with me in washington the former managing director for the national transportation safety board pete er golz. and mary sciavo, formerly with
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the transportation safety board. jean, what are you seeing right now? >> we're waiting for a press briefing. with the latest from the officials at the new jersey transit. we're now learning the governors of new york and new jersey are enroute. so there may be a bit of a time so those governors can get in place so they can be part of this too. that's what we're hearing, that the presser may be pushed back so the governors of new jersey and new york can be present. what we do know is it was 8:45 this morning. it was the height of rush hour. a new jersey transit train coming from spring valley, new york, to hoboken, which was the last stop. and a new jersey transit worker told cnn that it the train and the front car became airborne because of the fast rate of speed it was going and because it was airborne that it just plummeted into the passenger
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concourse. and that it decimated the ceiling. structurally, the train station came down at that point. now, it was the last stop of the new jersey transit train in hoboken. but if you were on your way to new york city, you would transfer a train. it was the height of rush hour. and the passenger concourse of anyone who knows train travel here on the east coast, you're waiting to get on that train because you have places to go. it is the work day. you're just huddled together waiting to get on. the train was just about to depart going back into new jersey. so it was the last stop, hoboken. but those i've talked to that take this train say that the train immediately would go back into new jersey. so at that point, emergency vehicles came on scene. when i arrived here early on, there were so many firefighting units. victims transported to the hospital. the governor chris christie said everyone from the train has now
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been transported to a hospital if they need that. so no one is left on the train at this point. as you said, 74 injured now. they're saying one fatality at this point. the saddest thing of all, the engineer of that train we do understand was unresponsive when they got to him and transported him to a local trauma center. >> there are some indications that the terminal -- that the building, the terminal building, might not necessarily be stable right now given the train crashing right into it. could it still collapse? >> well, i guess anything is possible. i will tell you i see so many firefighters that are just standing outside of the train station. they're just there. and i saw more fire trucks and fire personnel. and they help with structural issues, right, because they go and fight fires and have to go into structural damage areas. they have been position the outside the train station.
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they're not leaving. they're just still right there at attention if they're needed, wolf, i think. >> stand by. i want to get to some comments that were just made by the national transportation safety bureau here in washington, where they're getting ready to head over to the scene. listen to this. >> the question is will we be looking at the similarities between this crash and the crash that occurred in 2011. yes, we will. that was a crash that occurred at the same station on mother's day in 2011 and we always look at the past history and every other factor. >> all right, peter, used to work at the coincidence, same train station? >> well, there was also a crash there in the 1990s. so i mean this is, sadly, something we've seen before and they're going to be looking very carefully at human factors, at the survivability inside the
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rail cars. and at issues such as fatigue for the driver. what was his last 72 hours like. was he prepared for work. what kind of health issues did he have, if any. and this is going to be an investigation that the blueprint has been laid out before. >> they'll look for human error or mechanical error. >> that's right. >> those are the two causes presumably out there. >> that's right. they'll be able to eliminate mechanical relatively quickly. >> mary, what is the first thing investigators are going to be looking for once they reach the scene of this crash? >> well, the first thing they want to do is secure any train recordings. the black box version of the train. any information they can get concerning the condition of the cab, the engineer. because those are where the most positive pieces, most concrete piece of evidence are going to come from because those are unassailable. even eyewitness accounts can be
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unreliable but that black box and that information, condition of the controls and the cab and what was in the cab, was the cell phone out, did he have medication with him, all those things are really hard evidence and that's the first thing they want to secure. >> how crucial, peter, is the information they're going to get from the first responders who immediately showed up long before the ntsb investigators show up? >> in terms of survival factors, it's going to be important. one of the issues i know will be many of the passengers will, were probably standing as the train entered the station. were injuries exacerbated because they werened staing. should there be a safety announcement that says stay in your seats until we come to a complete stop. >> usually those trains are packed, especially during the morning rush hour. on the phone with us is jamie, a passenger on the plane that crashed. first of all, how are you doing? >> i'm a little shaken up. i'm still a little overwhelmed.
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surreal. but i'm much better than some people now. >> did you have to get medical treatment? did you have to get to the hospital? >> i'm going to be en route to the hospital shortly but i think i'm still stunned. so, like, that adrenaline is now starting to wear off. but, again, i'm so much better than some of the folks that were leaving the train at the time. >> all right, so just be careful over there, make sure you check yourself in and get a complete checkup, just a little recommendation. am i correct that you were on that first car, the one that simply went airborne in the crash, is that right? >> yes. >> tell us what that was like. >> super scary once we realized we were approaching the station and in the station actually in the train had not, you know, slowed down and it seemed like it was going at the same pace that it would be going from point a to point b and at that point once we realized we were already in the station, that's
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when we noticed -- we didn't known it was a collision at the time but the lights went out. everybody in the vestibule between the first and second cars were flying into the first car or as far as, you know, they could inside. and once we felt that initial -- i mean, i guess what we know now is a collision, you know, folks were toppled over one another. where i was standing at the doorway to exit the first car, so i guess in a way i was fortunate, but there was a gentleman right in front of me and two young ladies in front of me who immediately fell. the gentleman had a gash to his face and was bleeding but was trying to help other passengers remain calm. one of the ladies had her legs caught between the two cars but we managed to help her up safely and it looked like she might have just had some minor injuries but then we noted people started screaming because
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it was dark and i guess that's when the roof essentially probably started caving in and we were able to get off through that door near the vestibule -- where the vestibule we were standing. but the folks on the inside had to be rescued through the window. that's pretty much all we could see because they instructed us immediately to get back and go away from the structural damage i guess in hopes that nothing else would happen. and at that point everyone was just really, like, trying to remain calm. we were super scared because we didn't know what caused it until we were able to company oe out assess the damage a little bit. >> jamie, when you were coming into hoboken on this train, you were in the first car, i assume the train was moving rapidly. did it seem to be slowing down at all as you were getting closer to hoboken and the terminal? >> no, sir. and at no point did we realize
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it had taken on that usual slow pace where it goes 5 to 10 miles per hour once we come out of that -- once we come out of -- there's a tunnel leaving when you leave secaucus, it's kind of right before you approach hoboken train station and it seemed it never really slowed down. it's usually at that point where we usually creep into the station. and when you looked outside is when you noticed we were literally, like, in the station at full speed and that's when the lights cut out. so i don't really remember if we had time too look out and see. everyone that was standing in the vestibules between the first and second car flew over into the first car. many people were, like, thrown and there was a lot of blood and people were hurt. their ankles or knees from the fall. i was fortunate to not fall because there were so many people piled up in front of me, it kind of braced me where i was
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in the car. >> jamie, i assume you're a regular commuter -- you're a regular commuter on this train, is that right? >> yes, i take the 816 train every single day to come into hoboken to then take the ferry to world financial center. >> and then you go to work in manhattan. this is the first time -- the first time the train was really coming into hoboken and it didn't even slow down at all. whether you were going 40 or 50 miles an hour. it just continued to go at that speed as if no one applied the brakes to slow down that train. >> right, again, i don't know if maybe -- we didn't know if there was something that maybe he foresaw that probably distracted him from -- or it wasn't working but it was nothing that ever happened before and i take that train every single day and i imagine it's probably the same
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engineer. it was -- it's surreal because it was an impact that you couldn't even imagine. >> and that train, that first car you were on was pretty packed, jamie? were people sitting normally or are they standing as well even when the train is moving? >> over the last few weeks i would say throughout the summer they shortened the train so there's been less cars so there's more people standing. this particular day, there were a larger number of people in the vestibule between the train car because we couldn't actually get in the car. it was packed to capacity, every seat has likely filled and there were still people spilling out so a lot of people were standing. >> well, jamie, i'm glad you're okay, but as i said before, maybe get a little checkup just to make sure there's no problems. we'll stay in touch with you. thanks so much for sharing your story with our viewers here in the united states and around the world. thank you, jamie, for that.
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>> thank you so much, take care. >> all right, we will be in touch with you. pretty harrowing tale we just heard. we're going to speak with new jersey senator bob menendez. we're going to get more information. standing by for news conferences from hoboken officials. that's the city where this train crashed into this station. also from new jersey transit officials. much more on the breaking news right after a quick break. grilled, glazed korean bbq shrimp. and try as much as you want of flavors like new parmesan peppercorn shrimp. just come in before it ends. i have to tell you something. dad, one second i was driving and then the next... they just didn't stop and then... i'm really sorry. i wrecked the subaru. i wrecked it. you're ok.
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liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. gives you better taste and better nutrition in so many varieties. classic. cage free. and organic. only eggland's best. we're following the breaking news. a commuter train slammed into a train station, a terminal in hoboken, new jersey, it was packed with people. hospitals of people have been injured. one fatality as of now. one of those injured just emerged from a hospital in new
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jersey and spoke to reporters. >> you get this call, how did -- what was going through your mind? >> i'm just her cousin, that's her mom. i'm nerves of steel. i'm just happy she was okay. when we got the call, they were just screaming, the train crashed and alexis was on it. when i heard that -- >> you rushed right here? >> yeah, i was in brooklyn. it took like an hour. >> when you saw her in the hospital? >> i was relieved. relieved to hear she's alive. she was saying the people behind her, she didn't know if they made it because the train was collapsing. it was just a matter of timing. >> i'm sure you were thinking about your grandbaby. >> oh, yeah. >> mom, did you cry? >> when i was in the thing, i had to -- i was in getting' procedure done when it happened. so i had to take nerve pills and everything to stop, like, shaking because you don't know,
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you know, until i spoke to her but she's good, she's alive. >> what's your first name? >> jeannette. >> j-e-a-n-e-t-e. >> where do do you live? >> bakerfield, new jersey. >> yes. thank you. >> thank you so much. >> all right, let's get some analysis. the former managing director of the ntsb, the national transportation safety board, peter goelz is with us. rene marsh joins us. mary schiavo, former inspector general for the department of transportation. the eyewitness, the passenger in the first cabin, if you will, jamie weatherhead-sole, she said the train never slowed as it was coming into hoboken. she takes that commuter train she says every single morning. it was rush hour. about 8:45.
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a.m. and the train just was going at its regular speed as it came into that station and it then crashed. >> sure, and that will be documented in the engine -- the event recorder that's in the engine of the train. so we'll know exactly what the speed was and we'll know exactly what the speed should have been. >> what other possible causes why that train did not slow down, why the brakes were not applied. >> it would have been -- anything from the brakes could have failed. that's unusual. the brakes could have failed. it would have been the driver was distracted. we saw that in a recent amtrak accident where the driver was apparently distracted. it could be a health issue for the operator. there's any number of thingses. >> there's one engineer who's responsible, correct? >> that's correct. >> why aren't there two, in case an engineer falls asleep or passes out or has a heart attack? shouldn't there be two people, two engineers up front in case there's a problem with one?
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>> well, that's an issue that's being debated. >> why is it even being debated? >> well, because the evidence -- >> -- people at risk on a train like that and there should be more than one. >> the evidence doesn't show a second person in the cab really gives you increased safety. >> but i don't understand -- we don't know the cause but what if that engineer passed out or fell asleep? >> well, there are redundant systems -- >> if there's a second person, somebody could do something. >> that's right, but there's also, you know, a dead man's stick where if he becomes incapacitated and is not responding, the engine, the train comes to a halt. >> rene, what are you hearing? >> we know the ntsb, they are on their way there. really, their priority, two things, the event recorder that peter talked about, because we're going to get hard information about what was happening in those final minutes before the train crashed. they'll be looking to get that.
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that will be brought back to washington, d.c. also, the engineer's going to have critical information as well. we don't know exactly what condition he is in healthwise. but these investigators will want to get to him because in those first few hours that is the critical time. you don't want a situation where he's hearing other scenarios. you want to get to that engineer as soon as you get to the scene and he is able to talk because his wreck lesirecollection is g the clearest. so that's their objective. of course the teams will fan out, they'll be looking at various things. they'll look at the track, the train, how was it performing. they're going to look at this engineer's work hours. what was his schedule before this actual incident? did he get enough sleep? what was he doing before he reported to the ship? of course, they're also going to want to do toxicology reports, tests, i should say, to check,
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you know, is there any alcohol or any other substances involved. so the ntsb has a lot of work ahead of them. not even on the ground yet. so i do expect some time before we start getting definitive answers. i guarantee you once they get that recorder, we're going to know exactly how fast that train was going from the moment it left the left train station to the moment it crashed. >> yes, there have been train crashes because of the engineer fell asleep or got sick and obviously there's no backup, if there's only one engineer responsible, not two. >> also in 2001, excuse me, 2011, interestingly enough, at this very same train station, there was also a crash. the ntsb investigated that one. very similar. >> what did they determine? >> the cause was the engineer of that train did not control the speed. the ntsb also said a contributing factor was lack of ptc which is essentially a
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technology that would automatically slow the train. >> senator bob menendez of new jersey joining us on the phone. he's a ranking member on the subcommittee on housing, community development. what are you hearing, senator? what are the possible causes for this crash? >> well, we don't know the causes yet. you know, i spoke to sara fineburg who's the administrator, federal railroad administration, whose team from region one is already there. she's on her way there, as well as you reported, the national transportation safety board should be there this afternoon. but, you know, they're going to be looking at everything. obviously, the possibility of mechanical malfunction, human error, distract, illness, anything else, why it was going at the speed it was. and, you know, we have significant structural damage at the terminal including specific
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track that this was over. is over the path tunnel and so the integrity of the path tunnel is a critical question here. as riders go through that daily into new york city and commutes into new jersey. so we'll have a difficult transit issue think for the next several days. until the structural issues are resolved. >> you heard rene marsh, our government regulation correspondent, reported a train crash occurred here in 2011, the result of the engineer not slowing down that train for whatever reason. and i've covered a lot of these kinds of train crashes where there is a human error, if you will. the engineer might fall asleep or pass out or get sick or whatever. shouldn't there be two engineers responsible when so many hundreds of people potentially are at risk? >> well, that's a question of
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debate. i'm a believer it should be. i also know there are technological advances that have been made. some in the cabin itself. one of the ones i'm a huge advocate of is positive train control status which can technologically slow the speed of the train down when it is out of the zone it should be in. i think that's critically important. unfortunately, my understanding is new jersey transit, based on the most recent report they've given to the federal railroad administration which covered the first half of 2016 says they have zero locomotives equipped with positive train control, zero track equipment equipped and zero radio towers installed. that's in essence not having made any progress on positive train control. that's an issue that clearly has to be addressed. >> another issue that comes up every time there's a train crash
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like this is the cameras up front. the cameras usually show where the train is heading and p an outside view, but it doesn't show what's happening inside where the engineer is. certainly doesn't show the face, the engineer himself or herself. and there's been a lot of suggestions over the years you need cameras in that cabin as well for review if there is a crash to see what the engineer is doing. but apparently the unions have resisted that. where do you stand, senator menendez, on that issue? >> i believe that safety is job one. and anything that promotes the ability to promote that safety and to understand the consequences of the crash when it takes place so it doesn't happen again. it's critically important. whether it be positive train control, you know, auxiliary opportunities to have another engineer in the cabin or the ability to review the operation
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of that engineer is critically important. every week back and forth from new jersey to my job in washington, d.c. and i think that's critically important. >> i agree with you completely. it's so important that the frustration i have is every time i cover one of these train crashes, we always talk about the cameras. we always talk about a second person up front to help out and unfortunately, it never seems to change. you guys have a lot of work to do. senator menendez, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. coming up, we're waiting for a press conference from hoboken. top officials there getting ready to brief us on the deadly train crash. turning to politics, a no vote is a vote for donald trump. that's the message coming from top democrats. the big question, will president obama's coalition cast their vote for hillary clinton? she's scheduled to hold a rally just moments from now. we'll have a live report on how she's trying to woo millennials.
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lots of news coming into cnn. but most of the time you feel like you're trying to wrangle a hurricane. the rest of the time, they're asleep. then one day, hr schedules a meeting with you out of the blue. and it's the worst 19 minutes of your career. but you don't sweat it because you and your advisor have prepared for this. and when the best offer means you're moving to the middle of nowhere, the boys say they hate the idea. but you pretend it's not so bad. and years later at thanksgiving, when one of them says what he's thankful for most, is this house, you realize you didn't plan for any of this you wouldn't have done it any other way. with the right financial partner, progress is possible.
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we're following the breaking news. we're keeping a very close eye on hoboken, new jersey, a cross the hudson river from new york city, as investigator also try to put the pieces together after a deadly train crash there. here's what we know right now. at least one person is dead. 74 others are hurt. some of them on the train. some of them simply standing at the train station. at least two of those injuries are considered critical. several others serious. a witness says he saw the engineer of the crashed train slumped over in the front of the train. we now know the engineer survived the crash. he is, he of course will be questioned. the train never, never slowed down at all as it approached the
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train station in hoboken, new jersey, jumped the emergency bumper, went airborne into the building. there are fears the station, that building, could still collapse. we're going to bring you updates on this. we're standing by for news con ens froms from new jersey transit officials as well as hoboken officials. that's coming up shortly. we'll get back to the breaking news in a moment. i quickly want to turn to politics right now. we're less than 40 days until the presidential election here in the united states. but while election day is november 8th, early voting is already under way in a number of states. and that includes iowa, where hillary clinton is expected to take the stage for a campaign event any moment. she's being introduced by some fellow democrats. our senior political correspondent brianna keilar is on the scene for us. she appeared with senator sanders. brianna, iowa, it's a critically important state and millennial voters very much on hillary
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clinton's mind. >> it certainly is, wolf, and millennials are so important to hillary clinton, not just in iowa but all over. you can look at the polls and see how she is underperforming compared to how president obama did in '08 and 2012. a new bloomberg poll out really putting this in perspective. she's beating donald trump but only by a -- about four points, so compare that to 2008 when president obama did so well with millennials, wolf. he had a 34-point advantage over john mccain. of course, that tightened up in 2012, but the spread then was only about 23 points. so you see how much ground she really has to make up. millennials account for a -- sort of a bigger chunk of the votership. they're a larger generation during this cycle. so it's so key for her. this is why we're seeing bernie
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sanders getting out there for her yesterday. he's going to continue to campaign for her in the coming days. it's why he says she needs to emphasis a few things. her plan for free tuition for public universities and colleges for families that are making $125,000 or less. and also that she needs to emphasize her message about cloimt change which is obviously so different than donald trump's, and that's why she's going to be talking about that here in iowa, wolf, and other places as well. >> brianna is in des moines. stand by, brianna. donald trump, he's getting ready to take the stage in new hampshire. he wants you to know he believes he won monday's presidential debate no matter what all the polls or pundits are saying. listen. >> we had the debate the other night and every single online poll had me winning by sometimes a landslide. i'm winning by mass av margins.
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one was 80% to 20%. but i'm winning all of these polls. hundreds of thousands of votes. i have to sit back and you have to sit back and hear how those polls don't mean anything but when they poll 300 people, that means a lot, right? >> those online polls, as he calls them, they're not scientific because people can vote as many times as they want for the same candidate. the trump campaign is now telling its surrogates stop saying he did not do well, start talking about monica lewinsky. let's bring in our politics editor. cnn has learned the trump team held a conference call with surrogates to let them know how upset donald trump was that anyone felt he didn't nail it, that he didn't win that first debate. what more can you tell us? >> well, it seems like from our sources and our reporting at cnn that donald trump believes that he won. he doesn't like the idea that people who are supposedly on his team are going out and conceding
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even under the cloak of a anonymity he didn't do well. saying there's no truth, that that reporting is untrue. that's not what our sources tell us. this is a typical pattern from donald trump. he keeps people around him that kind of boost him up. i don't think he likes being told that he's wrong. i'm watching to see just how well donald trump does at this next debate october 9th in st. louis. will he change course in his tactics or will we see the same trip of approach in that debate as well. >> juana, the talking points include talking about monica l lewinsky, bill clinton's in infideli infidelities. what's the thinking about that? >> i think there's concern among republicans if he does go there he could alienate voters. a recent poll found hillary clinton and tim kaine have a wide lead among women.
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polls show that women are more likely to see donald trump's attacks on the other groups as unfair as compared to how men say they prioritize that. i think there's concern he could do more damage, rather than build the brand up. >> the "l.a. times," as you know, juana, citing a 2012 lawsuit claiming trump wanted to fire employees he didn't find attractive and replace them with better-looking women at one of his golf courses. what impact could that have out there on female voters? >> it's certainly a striking he line to hear and read about. the issue here, it's not just this one instance. there's the comments he has made about female pageant contestants. about the looks of celebrity women such as rosie o'donnell. there's this evidence that i think many women are looking at concluding there's sexist rhetoric going on and they can't support a candidate that would do that. if you look at the polls now, this is a very tight race and all the national polls we've seen. donald trump needs to be able to bring more people in, rather than push them out. >> one of hillary clinton's most
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prominent is up porpt supporter claire mccaskill of missouri, he tweet the out this message of trump's feud with a former miss universe. she says he weight shamed her. here's the tweet. the d women senators have talked and we're concerned about donald's weight. campaign stress, question mark. we think a public daily weigh-in is called for. so they're really going after him on this issue. >> democrats certainly hope to make that stick. mccaskill is an apt twitter user. it's one of those things most of us at home, you don't talk about people's weight and things like that. i think some people might see this as a fair attack. certainly given the gender denad dynamics in this race, i would expect democrats to continue to highlight these comments as they have and continue to bring that up. i do think we will likely hear hillary clinton campaign surrogates continue to push this message. >> during an interview last
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night, trump defended a comment he made during the debate with hillary clinton that not paying federal taxes makes him smart. listen to this. >> hillary clinton in the next debate, i say to you what she said yesterday in north carolina, hey, if he's not going to pay any taxes and he thinks that's smart, what does that make us, we pay taxes, are we stupid? how are you going to answer that? >> first of all, i never said i didn't pay taxes. she said maybe you didn't pay taxes. and i said, well, that would make me smart. because tax is a big payment. i think a lot of people say that's the kind of thinking i want running this nation. >> okay. >> does he need to do a better job addressing this sensitive issue ahead of the next debate? >> i think the issue here is donald trump has now left it as an open question. did he manage to not pay federal taxes because donald trump has not released his tax returns? we don't know the answer. i think that will mean this is an open line for democrats
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hillary clinton and tim kaine to push back at him aggressively. we've seen cnn polls, it's something that voters care deeply about. i think he needs a better answer. >> juana summer, senior politics editor, thank you. we're going to get back to the breaking news we're following. we were waiting for a news conference in hoboken, new jersey. officials are getting ready to update us on the train crash at the hoboken train station that killed one person, injured 74 others. the latest information coming in right after this. ave moderate te ulcerative colitis or crohn's, and your symptoms have left you with the same view, it may be time for a different perspective. if other treatments haven't worked well enough, ask your doctor about entyvio, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohn's. entyvio works by focusing right in the gi-tract to help control damaging inflammation and is clinically proven to begin helping many patients achieve both symptom relief as well as remission. infusion and serious allergic reactions
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an update to the breaking news we're following. that deadly passenger train
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crash in hoboken, new jersey. at least one death, 74 others hurt. lone fatality was a person who happened to be standing on the platform. the train never slowed at all as it approached. it jumped the emergency bumper, went airborne into the building. another train engineer on the scene estimated the speed at around 30 miles an hour. a witness says he saw the engineer of the crashed train slummed ov slumped over in front of the train. he certainly will be questioned. as investigators look for the cause of the crash. a transportation worker at the train station told reporters he believed the tracks were in perfect working order. we're going to bring you more updates. right now, congressman maloney from new york. he serb serves on the transpor and infrastructure committee. have you been briefed, first of all, on this crash? because rail safety is a top
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priority for you. what have you heard? >> well, you know, look, we got on this issue the hard way. i lost a friend of mine on a crash in 2013, a guy from my hometown. his wife actually works for me. what we found is there is a really embarrassing and disgraceful history of noncompliance with existing federal law on this. and going back ten years, to 2000, 2006, the crash in california. congress passed a bill in 2008 that required these technologies that can stop trains, positive train control it's called, be installed in all class 1 rail systems by 2015. what we found out is there wasn't, you know, except for amtrak which has done a good job on this, most railroads weren't anywhere near complying -- >> why, why is that? because thousands of people are taking these commuter trains every day. >> that's right, and
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we're losing lives, in amtrak, on today's crash. and we don't need to be burying our neighbors when we can do what makes sense. here's the deal, i passed legislation in 2015 that opens up $35 billion of federal financing to install these. metro-north, to governor cuomo's credit, is using $1 billion that they secured from that program called the rift program, the railroad rehabilitation and improvement program. new jersey transit, i'm sorry to say, issued a plan if 2011 that said 22% of its system would have positive train control by the end of 2014 and yet now two years later 0% has positive train control. it as a fill your of new jersey transit and you can look at metro-north in new york as an example of a state getting its act together but there is
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federal financing available and there are ways for these state authorities to fund this technology. we can do more on the federal level, too, that's why i've passed legislation to make sure there's federal grants. there's now $220 million in federal grants available to these railroad systems and there's other things we can do, wolf, that are common sense. we can identify all high-hazard curves, i passed a second piece of legislation that does that so they have to have two engineers in the cab when you're going around a tight curve. there are common-sense things we can do, dead man switches and redundant systems but we need positive train control because we're losing too many people on these preventable crashes. >> it's a very frustrating situation. you cover these train crashes, you look over what could have easily been done. it wasn't done, then you go through it once again. you're working to fix it, representative sean patrick maloney, thanks for joining us. >> thank you, wolf. >> joining us on the phone is jerry bernstein, the director of
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communications for care point health which operates hoboken university medical center which treated 22 of the less-severe injuries. what can you tell us about the types of injuries you saw at the hospital today? >> hi, wolf, the injuries we saw today were fractures, laceration, bumps and bruises. a fair number of walking wounded who showed up at the hospital about seven blocks away from the crash site. so we were able to treat and release a number of those folks. a number of them still are in the hospital and we actually saw one patient at our sister hospital, part of the care point system at care point health christ hospital in jersey city. >> when you have a mass casualty incident like the one in hoboken today with this train crash, how do the hospitals in the area coordinate their response? >> that's a great question. we plan and train for this
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everyday. whether it's 2:00 in the afternoon or 2:00 in the morning we have a plan to spread out casualties other the regional hospitals to make sure no one hospital emergency room is overwhelmed so that plan was put into operation today and so far it seems to be working. >> jarrod burn and seen the, go -- bernstein, thank you so much. i want to bring in peter and renee. these are problems that can be fixed, have two engineers not just one in case there is a human error, the engineer falls asleep, they can live stream that we would know if the engineer fell asleep. >> the bottom line is money. >> you just heard the congressman say they got the money. >> well, they haven't had the money and the cost of putting positive train control, the railroads themselves have spent
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$6 billion to $8 billion and they're not done. they're enormously complex system and my guess is positive train control in the yard -- positive train control would slow down a train if the engineer fell asleep, for example? >> on a normal track but in the yard it may not be operable because the train is running below 30 miles an hour. >> it does come down to the bottom line being money and i do want to flesh that out we are talking about technology and no one will dispute that that technology, positive train control, without a doubt can save lives and prevent accidents. we don't know it would have prevented this accident, though, because positive train control is really meant to stop a very fast going train, a train that's going maybe 60 miles per hour, even faster. once it's in the terminal, it's going really slow, it's not intended for those circumstances so it may not have made a difference there. >> why aren't there two engineers up front? >> that's been a debated issue
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for the last 20 years part of it is cost, the railroads don't want to pay for redundancy of human beings in the cabin and there's studies that say it doesn't help. there are other studies that say yes, it would help and common sense might tell you that but it is not an issue there's agreement on. >> renee, we're showing live pictures, the hoboken officials, new jersey state official, representatives from new york among others, the governors are getting ready to brief reporters, we, of course, will have live coverage of that, governor cuomo of new york is going to be there, we're told, governor christie i think will be there as well. the mayor of hoboken, representatives from new jersey transit authority. we'll have live coverage of that coming in. what about the live streaming of what's going on. that should continue b that expensive. >> certainly what they should have is inward-facing cameras
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that are recording everything going on in the cabin. that's simple. >> and if unions have fought that for quite some time. >> you see governor christie, you see governor cuomo, they're going to speak right now. governor chris christie will beg begin. >> good afternoon, pleased to be joined here by the lieutenant governor, my partner in new york, governor cuomo. governor cuomo and i have just taken a tour of the damage insi inside. we pay for the family of the one fatality we have confirmed, for her and for her family. we now have a revised total of injured. we had 108 injured in this accident and all of those have been evacuated to local hospitals where they're receiving the care they need. we pray for their recovery. the engineer who was operating
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the train was also critically injured. he is at a local hospital and cooperating with law enforcement officials in the investigation. what we know is that the train came in at a high rate of speed and crashed through the barriers bringing it into the interior wall of the hoboken terminal. extraordinary reaction from local law enforcement and ems along with civilian passengers who assisted ems and local police and state police in evacuating the trains as quickly as possible and helping wi with triage of passengers who were injured and getting them immediately to local hospitals for them to receive health care. there will be others who will speak today about some of the specifics commissioner hammer, mr. prendergast from the mta
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about the specifics of commuting, both this afternoon and tomorrow. we won't address that specifically. both governor cuomo and i come a law enforcement background as does the lieutenant governor. my admonition when i was u.s. attorney all the time to my prosecutors and agents was don't jump to conclusions, let the facts lead you to the proper conclusions so we're not going to speculate about the cause of the accident. the fact is that we're in the midst of an investigation. i was called by the white house today as well. they have not only dispatched t ti the ntsb to deal with the victims. we were pleased to get that call. as i said, from the time the incident happened this morning governor cuomo and i have been
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in communication since the train began its journey in the state of new york and we have a number of new york citizens on this that train as welcoming here to new jersey. so we're going to work together to make sure the investigation is seamless and coordinated, that we come to a conclusion as quickly as possible and if there are steps that need to be taken thereafter to provide for greater assurance and safety for the people of our states. we'll work together through the port authority of new york and new jersey, mta and new jersey transit to make sure that that occurs. and so we pray for the victims and their families. we are on the scene. we're going to continue to monitor what's going on. we have engineers that are examining the structural integrity of the building now. we have no estimate as to when the terminal will be able to be reopened except to say that it appears that the p.a.t.h. terminal, the structural integrity is fine and so p.a.t.h. trains will use the term not.
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i'm going to turn this over to governor cuomo, then the mta director and governor cuomo will take on-topic questions. governor cuomo? >> thank you very much. first i'd like to thank governor christie and his entire team for their outstanding response to this tragedy thank the lieutenant governor for being here and all the first responders. we know what happened, we don't know why it happened. as governor christie said the train obviously came in at too high a rate of speed, it didn't stop, it went through the barriers. when you see the destruction up clo lyose, the silver lining is that