MARIA-00
Trailing Hillary Clinton by More than $30 Million; Investors Keep a Close
Eye on Fed Chair Janet Yellen; Deadly Heat Wave Sweeps through Southwestern
United States; Ten Years after U.S. Housing Peaked, U.S. is More of a
Renter Nation; Netflix Takes an Unconventional Approach with a New App
Logo; VP Pick Searches Continue; Boeing Deal with Iran Air; LeBron James
and the Cleveland Cavs Return Home to a Rousing Welcome;; Trump Fundraising
Falling Short; Clinton Buying Ad Space in Swing States - Part 6>
Jared Max, Stuart Varney>
Aviation; Donald Trump; Advertising; Donald Trump; Hillary Clinton; Fed;
Janet Yellen; Britain; EU; Wildfire; U.S.; U.S. Housing Market; Netflix;
Apple; Facebook; Peter Thiel; LeBron James; Cleveland Cavaliers; Boeing;
Iran >
MCDOWELL: I don't. Super Runner store down the street -- reporting local business.
ORTAGUS: One quick thing to watch that Cheryl mentioned on the Iranian and Boeing deal that still has to be approved by the Treasury Department. So before the Iranian negotiation there was a license for spare parts or aviation, but this has to be approved by Treasury.
I can see this being a deal at the U.S. Congress. Iranian banks still cannot clear the U.S. dollar so that could potentially proof trouble for financing the deal so this story isn't over. And I would suspect in a political year that we might hear something from Congress.
SMITH: Boeing, one of the stocks we are watching this morning. Go ahead.
JONES: Boeing is also just signed a huge deal with Russia and so, you know, this is the second kind of semi controversial deal with someone that is not exactly aligned with the United States although it's huge revenue for the organization and obviously a lot of jobs for the U.S. So that will probably help get it through Congress for approval.
SMITH: All right, up next, a freak accident may not be such a freak accident after all. Why Chrysler may have a big controversy on its hands after the death of young "Star Trek" star, Anton Yelchin.
Don't forget to check out MORNINGS WITH MARIA on social media, we are tweeting away, please join us @morningsmaria, @sandrasmithfox. We are on there right now. Wake up with us, keep an eye out for daily polls, upcoming guests, highlights from today's show. It's all on there. Please join us. We will be right back.
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SMITH: The vehicle that reportedly crushed 27-year-old "Star Trek" star, Anton Yelchin to death was under a widespread recall for rollaway risk. The 2015 Jeep Cherokee along with the Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger were experiencing issues with their so-called E-shifter.
It's not clear at this time if Yelchin had bought his car -- brought it in for necessary repairs when he get the recall notice, but failure to securely put these vehicles in park was one of the main reasons that the recall was issued in the first place.
Fiat Chrysler put out a statement saying "FCA, U.S. extends its most sincere condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Yelchin. The company is in contact with the authorities and is conducting a thorough investigation. It is premature to speculate on the cause of this tragedy."
Joining me now is foxnews.com's auto editor, Gary Gastelu. Gary, what is exactly is the E-shifter? Start us out with that.
GARY GASTELU, FOXNEWS.COM AUTO EDITOR: This isn't a problem with the transmission, just the shift lever that changes the gears in the transmission. This one uses an odd one. It's more of a toggle switch.
You press it comes back to center so if want you go through the gear, you have to tap it a couple times or hold it there and it sort of jumps through the gears.
The issue is that if you leave it in neutral or drive and you open the door, it doesn't automatically shift into park. This is what the recall is going to address with other vehicles with this shifter will do that for you.
Now this is a problem that has been out there for a couple years. People have been complaining about it. The recall was noted in April. The actual recall notices were sent out in May.
SMITH: And that included 1.1 million models that were manufactured between July 16th 2012 and December 22nd 2015. I mean, that's a wide timespan. Yes, we are talking about the Jeep Grand Cherokee. We are talking about the Dodge Charger and the Chrysler 300, a couple model years there.
Again, this isn't a mechanical failure. It does exactly what it was designed to do, but it was poorly designed. It's very confusing. I actually went back and looked at some of my reviews of these cars.
I said it was fiddly. When you are doing a parallel parking, it is difficult to find reverse sometimes. It's sort of jumps to the next position. Not a good design. They've redesigned it since the new models don't have it. They have more of a traditional shift lever with notches for (inaudible) positions.
ORTAGUS: Does the Jeep have the parking assist that could have helped in the situation?
GASTELU: I'm not sure if this particular model did, but in any case the issue here appears to be and they haven't confirmed that yet, that he probably left it in neutral or drive although it actually went backwards. So it's probably in neutral instead of putting it in park and opened the door and got out.
SMITH: I mean, as far as speculation, nobody want to speculate yet, but there is something that they are going to be able to rule out right away like whether or not this car was never worked on after the recall was issued.
GASTELU: That should be able to sort of that soon. It seems like it wasn't though. Apparently, the notices went out in May, not all the dealers even have the equipment needed to perform the recall work. We don't know yet if he even read his recall notice personally.
MCDOWELL: This was the first fatality that might be related to this problem.
GASTELU: Reported 41 injuries prior to this, about 120 accidents of different types, but the issue is in the recall notice it explains to you the problem. It tells you exactly what you should be doing until you get these safety features put in. We don't know what he knew really and that's really what's going to have to come out in this investigation.
SMITH: It's a horrible accident. So we will keep following the story.
JONES: Do you see any chance that this becomes like an Audi sudden acceleration thing where there is nothing mechanically wrong, but it becomes a huge legal obligation that spirals?
GASTELU: Well, I think we got to see how many of these incidents there are before they can fix all these vehicles. The thing with the Audi situation was that was a mystery. No one ever really figured that out.
And it turns out it was people putting their foot on the wrong pedal. Here we know exactly what's wrong. If I tell you what is wrong, you always pay attention to it and make sure you don't do that. He may not have done that, but that is what we will find out.
SMITH: All right, Gary Gastelu, thank you for joining us on that.
Next hour, Donald Trump wasting no time getting back on the campaign trail, gearing up for his big meeting with nearly a thousand Evangelical voters behind his push for the Christian vote next.
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SMITH: Good morning. I'm Sandra Smith in for Maria Bartiromo this morning. Maria will be back tomorrow. It is Tuesday, June 21st. Your top stories at 7 a.m. Eastern.
It is all about money. Investors keeping a close eye on Janet Yellen. The Federal Reserve chairwoman will be testifying before Congress on monetary policy this morning. Markets will be watching.
And across the pond, British voters will be heading to the polls Thursday to decide whether to remain part of the European Union.
In the race for the White House, how can Donald Trump win undecided Evangelicals? The presumptive presidential nominee will meet with hundreds of Christian leaders today to do just that as Vice President Joe Biden slams Trump over religion.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If we make the religion the enemy, where the hell you think we are going to get to cooperation?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
END
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