Newt Gingrich on the Road to America's Next Golden Age

Sean Hannity (0:00)

A couple of quick stories I want to hit here. In a second, we'll get to our friend Paul Mauro.

I came on the air last night, and I saw the images of this building in Brooklyn that just collapsed. I mean, you have two kids among eight dead. The search and rescue continues now. The search efforts are still underway. I don't know if there's still many, how many missing people there might be. But, you know, again, in moments like this, you see the heroism of police officers, first responders and firefighters. They're on the scene, and there's nothing that is not dangerous about what it is that they're doing, but they put themselves in harm's way for other people. Paul Mauro is with us, formerly ran the counterterrorism operations for the NYPD intelligence, Fox News contributor.

Paul, I know that we've had incidents like this before, but I sit there and I scratch my head, and I'm like, how does a building collapse? I mean, this is, you know, they built the Empire State Building in what, 13, 14 months for crying out loud?

Paul Mauro (1:09)

Yeah, that's exactly right, in the Depression, no less.

Sean Hannity (1:11)

Yeah, I mean, so of course I want any possible survivor to be found and discovered, and I really appreciate the efforts of all the first responders, all the firemen, all the policemen that are there, but I'm wondering, like, how the hell does this happen, and what could be done to prevent it from happening?

Paul Mauro (1:29)

Yeah, it's really confounding, isn't it, Sean, especially since, as you said, it's not that unique. It does happen here in New York. There have been numerous incidents where buildings that are under construction or foundations that are being dug shake up the building next door. And you would think they'd be sensitive to that, particularly when, reportedly, the company that was doing the excavation of the building that was going to go up had, in fact, identified cracks in the masonry and other problems with the building that ultimately came down.

Now, it's not clear if those were mitigated or not, but very clearly, there were some violations there that they should have been cognizant of. And you better believe there is going to be a deep, deep dive into this. We had a gas explosion took down a building in Lower Manhattan a few years ago, and they had three manslaughter convictions that came out of it because of how the people ignored the threat that was very clearly there. So this, I think, will evolve into a criminal case.

And hopefully, something good comes out of it, because you're right. There's no reason that an excavation should take down not only an entire building, but then half of the building on the other side of that.

Sean Hannity (2:39)

That's scary. What do you know about this DC gym shooter, ID'd, his name is Dr. Matt Lambert, apparently went nuts at the HOA over some black mold in his $1.1 million apartment.

If you have a mold problem, why don't you bring in a mold mitigation company, because there are people that are in business that deal with that professionally every day.

Paul Mauro (3:06)

Yeah, his gripe seems to have been that he wasn't getting the kind of response from the Homeowners Association that he expected. But you and I both know, Sean, that when things like this happen, it's always in disha of deeper unresolved issues, right? So the fact that he had a mold issue that he was complaining about, that he wasn't getting the kind of response that he wanted, it's a very expensive building, he's working as a doctor, he has money. He already had filed a lawsuit apparently, that's what all of those mitigations are there for. You call a lawyer and you follow the lawyer's advice. I suspect as we go forward here, when people pop off like this, a doctor with this kind of weaponry and this kind of a reaction, we're going to find that there were some underlying things here.

I was only this morning about it and I just said, you know, something about the way this has occurred, the time of day, the gym, it felt to me like a neighborhood-y kind of thing and it looks like that's what has developed. But every time you see this kind of a thing, you find out that there were other underlying reasons behind it.

Sean Hannity (4:10)

Yeah, Paul, we really appreciate you being with us and updating us on both these stories. You do a great job for us at Fox. Thank you, my friend.

Paul Mauro (4:18)

Thank you, Sean.