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FBI Investigating Death of Gabby Petito; Big Week For Biden; Pfizer Says Vaccine Safe For Children 5-11. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired September 20, 2021 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:01]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: And the company says its vaccine is safe and triggered a robust antibody response in children ages 5 to 11.

Millions of parents have been waiting for this. Pediatricians say more than one in four cases are in children. And that's led to a rocky start to the school year in certain districts.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: According to a CNN analysis, if the FDA approves the Pfizer vaccine for kids, another 28 million Americans would become eligible.

Pfizer says it reached its conclusions after studying its vaccine in more than 2, 200 children, but those were small doses, roughly a third of what an adult gets.

So, CNN's Jason Carroll is here with us. He's covering all the developments.

So, Jason, the big question, obviously, the parents want to know is, when would it be available for 5-to-11-year-olds?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's a big question. And the short answer is it could be in about a month.

And that's really creating a split sort of reaction from parents, some of whom say, look, the time is now and others who say it should be waiting.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL (voice-over): The long wait for a COVID-19 vaccine for children is a step closer to reality, this after Pfizer announced today its vaccine is safe for 5-to-11-year olds and shows a robust antibody response.

DR. TANYA ALTMANN, AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS: I think this is really exciting. As a pediatrician and a parent of a 6-year-old, who is the only child in my household who is not yet vaccinated, I think this is going to make a huge difference in the fight against COVID-19.

And parents, teachers and teachers are waiting for this.

CARROLL: Pfizer plans to submit its data to the FDA for emergency use authorization as soon as possible. Medical experts say, if all goes well, for Pfizer, it could be available for 5-to-11-year-olds by Halloween.

DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: Depending on how long the FDA takes to review the application, whether it's a four-week review or a six-week review, you could have an vaccine available to children as early as probably by the end of October. Perhaps it slips a little bit into November.

ADM. BRETT GIROIR, FORMER U.S. ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: I'm sure that the FDA Advisory Committee will be weighing the risk/benefits. We know there are lots of cases in children, but the risk of dying is still very, very low.

CARROLL: In short order, the ball will be in the FDA's court for green light, this as just last week an FDA advisory panel rejected Pfizer's proposal to give booster shots to the general population. Instead, the committee endorsed boosters only for those 65 and older or those who are at high risk of disease.

The FDA is set to make a decision on the advisory panel's recommendation at any moment.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: I have no problem at all with their decision. The thing that I'm saying is that data will continue to come in, and I believe you're going to see an evolution of this process as we go on in the next several weeks to months.

CARROLL: The White House also announced today the United States will be relaxing some travel restrictions on fully vaccinated foreign visitors starting in November. The new rules will be more uniform, and will replace a patchwork of bans that cause confusion among foreign nationals.

Meanwhile, COVID cases in the hard-hit Southern region of the United States seem to be stabilizing, states such as Tennessee, West Virginia, and North Carolina now seeing surges in cases.

And San Francisco's mayor forced to weigh in on the debate over masks, this after critics say she violated her own mask mandate after being caught on camera not wearing one at a nightclub.

LONDON BREED (D), MAYOR OF SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA: And I was sitting with my friends and everyone who came in there was vaccinated. So the fact that we have turned this into a story about being maskless, no, I'm not going to sip and put my mask on, sip and put my mask on, sip and put my mask on, eat and put my mask on.

While I'm eating and I'm drinking, I'm going to keep my mask off.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: And her critics say that video there speaks for itself.

As -- and there's also this announcement coming from Washington, D.C. D.C.'s mayor says, beginning on November 1, all of the district's public charter, private school and day care staff will be required to be vaccinated. The mandate was expanded to include workers at charter private schools and day care facilities.

The mayor also announced that all D.C. student athletes aged 12 and older must be vaccinated also by November 1 in order to participate in school-based sports.

CAMEROTA: A lot of developments there.

CARROLL: Yes.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

BLACKWELL: Jason Carroll, thank you so much.

CAMEROTA: OK, let's bring in our medical experts.

Dr. Leana Wen is a CNN medical analyst, former Baltimore health commissioner and the author of the new book "Lifelines." She was also a volunteer in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine trial. And Dr. Ofer Levy is the director of the Precision Vaccines Program at Boston Children's Hospital. He is also a member of the FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee that just voted on Friday to recommend those booster shots for anyone 65 and older or those at high risk.

So it's great to have both of you on the front lines here to talk to us.

[14:05:02]

So, Dr. Wen, I want to start with you. This is welcome news for lots of parents who have been waiting to find out if their 5-to-11-year- olds can get vaccinated. And they have been worried, of course, about their kids catching coronavirus in the meantime.

However, there will be many parents who feel apprehensive still about getting their kids vaccinated. So, what should they all know today?

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, I think all of us should see this as very good news, and we could soon have a vaccine on the horizon for younger children.

This is something that so many of us parents have been waiting for. A lot of parents who have young unvaccinated kids are living as if we are still at high risk, because we don't want to transmit COVID to our children. And, of course, we also know that this is a very dangerous time for kids in the pandemic, when we have surging numbers, and, unfortunately, many schools that don't even require masks indoors.

And so I think there have been a lot of parents who are really eager for this news. I actually think it's OK that there are some parents who are not yet ready, even when the vaccine is first -- when it first becomes authorized. I understand that some of them may not want to go first, because, actually, there's another segment of parents who are really eager, who will do anything to have their kids be vaccinated.

Let them go first. I think it's OK that there are some parents who opt for the wait-and-see approach. And that's when pediatricians, clinicians on the front lines will have to do our jobs to help to answer these questions for parents.

BLACKWELL: And we know there are a significant percentage of parents, according to the latest polling, who are part of that wait-and-see group.

Dr. Levy, let me come to you. This is essentially a press release from Pfizer saying that there is this robust antibody response in the trials with children 5 to 11. What are the questions you have to determine, can this go to the next step of a recommendation?

DR. OFER LEVY, FDA VACCINES ADVISORY COMMITTEE: Thank you for that, Victor. And I think Alisyn frame this very well, as did Dr. Wen.

This is welcome news. But it's not yet a done deal, right? We have a very good process in this country. The sponsor, in this case, Pfizer, will submit the data to FDA. FDA will make the determination if and when they want our committee to meet and review that data and make a judgment about safety and efficacy.

Those are always the two points we review based on the data. So I don't want to prejudge that. It sounds good. It sounds optimistic. We welcome the news for the reasons Dr. Wen highlighted. We need vaccines for kids. And this could be a huge win. Let's let the process take its path.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Levy, I have a more specific question for you because you're a member of that FDA Advisory Panel.

You know, 11-year-olds, as we know, they can run the gamut in terms of size and development. Some are still children. Some are full blown adolescents. They can be tall. They can weigh more. So the idea that a 11-year-olds are going to get this third of a dose that adults got, for people who have parents -- who have a bigger 11-year-old, should they wait until they turn 12 and get the adult dose?

I mean, how do you decide what to do with an 11-year-old?

LEVY: Well, thank you for that.

Implicit in your question is, people differ from one another in how they react to vaccines and how they react to medications. That's the whole concept of precision medicine. And we're bringing those concepts to vaccines in the Precision Vaccines Program here at Boston Children's.

But you see from the trial results that are described in the media that it appears Pfizer is reporting that they find a lower dose is more appropriate for children 5-to-11-year-old than adults. In other words, children are not just small adults. Now, thankfully, Alisyn, we don't dose vaccines by weight, because

they are not a drug that we want to have go all over the body. So it's a little bit of a different calculus for vaccines than it would be for a different kind of medication.

But the principle still stands that we change with age. And it's really important to take a precision approach.

BLACKWELL: Dr. Wen, we learned just last week that 60 percent of the new cases in Georgia were in schools K-12. So we know how quickly this is spreading in schools.

Lay out for us the role that potential approval, potential authorization for 5-to-11-year-olds will have in the larger strategy of fighting the pandemic.

WEN: Well, certainly, when it comes to helping to keep our schools open safely, vaccines are going to be really important for doing that.

We can see the way that we can keep schools open is to have this layered protection approach. Having vaccines for teachers, staff, family members right now is a lot, and it's certainly something that we should be doing. For kids 12 and older, they really should be getting vaccinated.

And when we have vaccines available for younger children, that's also going to be important and may in time to help to replace the need for other measures, including masking, if there are low enough levels of community transmission in those areas.

But I think, to your point, too, we know that kids, even if they don't get that sick themselves -- and, of course, some you children do become very sick.

[14:10:01]

But, in addition, they could be reservoirs for disease and spread it to other family members, to people in the community as well. And so it's going to be key. If we are ever to reach something approaching herd immunity in this country, we also need to make sure that our kids get vaccinated as well and, in the meantime, really critically, that all those people around our young children are vaccinated, so that they can help to protect those who cannot yet get the vaccine.

CAMEROTA: OK, Dr. Wen, Dr. Levy, thank you both very much.

BLACKWELL: Well, President Biden will travel to New York in the next few hours for his first U.N. General Assembly as president, foreign policy shift.

But this trip comes at a pivotal and perilous moment for his domestic economic agenda. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is facing a divided Democratic Party and a looming deadline to move the president's agenda forward.

Both the House and the Senate are back in session today. CAMEROTA: So, President Biden's big $3.5 trillion budget bill and

that $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill face critical tests this week;.

CNN's Ryan Nobles is on Capitol Hill and Phil Mattingly is at the White House.

So, Phil, the president, as we know, has faced a series of sort of unexpected setbacks, I would say, recently. What is the White House's plan to recapture some momentum?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You know, I think try and separate what you have seen over the course really of the entire month of August from what is at stake right now and I think the moment that Democrats are in right now.

The reality is the negotiations over specific policy matters are indeed feverish and very ongoing, Democrats on both sides of the Capitol, as well as White House officials. But what you have heard from the president and what you hear from White House officials is a little bit more 30,000 foot, don't miss the forest for the trees here, in terms of the opportunity that Democrats have.

They have the slimmest majorities that you have pretty much ever seen. They have a legislative pileup right now that is as complicated or fraught as I have seen in my 13 or 14 years in Washington. And yet the opportunity is what you're hearing from White House officials and what you have heard from the president is something that Democrats must not miss, the opportunity particularly in that $3.5 trillion expansion of the social safety net, economic and climate package, to do things that Democrats have laid out as priorities for the better part years, if not longer than that.

Now is the moment to actually get those signed into law. That is the message you're hearing more and more from White House officials, trying to turn this into more of a binary choice than a let's get super deep in the weeds and fight about a specific tax policy or climate policy choice, guys.

BLACKWELL: Ryan, let's talk about the timing, because there are deadlines stacked up, as Phil referenced there, one just a few days away.

With the House and Senate back in session now, what's the timing look like for votes?

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. To Phil's point, there is a huge priority here by Democrats in Congress to get the Biden agenda passed.

But it comes at the same time as a number of other key agenda items need to be solved as well, kind of a confluence of events between the things they want to do, which is those big infrastructure and budget plans. At the same time, they also need to make sure the government doesn't run out of money and raise the debt ceiling. And take a look at this timeline right now to show how all these things are kind of colliding at the same time on the calendar. September 22 -- that's this week -- that's when the Democrats have to have their package draft done and ready to go. They want a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure plan by as soon as September 27.

That's what Nancy Pelosi has promised the House moderates. Now, at the same time, there's a whole other debate over things like funding the government. They run the risk of a government shutdown, and you see the deadline there. And then you get into October, and that is when people like Janet Yellen, the Treasury secretary, are warning that the credit card bills are going to come due and that the debt ceiling needs to be raised.

So what this does is, it complicates these negotiations that Phil is talking about. And even though the White House is really emphasizing the bigger picture and the broader goals at stake here, the fact that you have these thin margins, it allows rank-and-file members to hold firm on specific pet projects that they want.

Could be immigration reform. It could be climate change policies. It could be something like lifting the tax on state and local government. So that complicates this whole process. And that's part of why you see everyone appear very concerned.

CAMEROTA: And then, Phil, also President Biden will be at the U.N. this week. What is he hoping to accomplish there?

MATTINGLY: You know, look, you mentioned kind of the last several weeks.

And those several weeks, particularly with the Afghanistan decision, but also kind of the blowup with one of our closest allies in France over a submarine deal, you have seen a president kind of take a lot of blowback, which is interesting for a president that ran on reestablishing global alliances.

And I think those alliances are what you're going to hear the president talk a lot about, according to senior administration officials, in his remarks to the U.N. General Assembly tomorrow morning. And it's the idea that, yes, they may disagree on specific decisions or specific issues, but, overall, for the betterment of kind of democratic society in general, they need to unify.

[14:15:00]

One interesting element, when you talk to senior administration officials, they say he will absolutely bring up the Afghanistan decision, the decision to withdraw, and use that as almost a point, a pivot point, right now for the kind of global alliances to some degree, which is now starts a moment of intensive diplomacy.

One that I think the president will underscore with a series of bilateral meetings over the course of this week, a meeting with the Quad leaders on Friday as well, trying to kind of move past a war footing, where the United States has been for or had been for two decades, into this new moment in time to try and address new challenges or the challenges of COVID-19, the challenges of climate change and certainly the challenges that the president has laid out repeatedly about a rising China.

That will be a key focus tomorrow, and, obviously a lot of work to do, particularly with France -- guys.

CAMEROTA: OK, busy week. Thank you both for explaining all of that, Phil Mattingly, Ryan Nobles.

Meanwhile, this story: Authorities are searching the home of Gabby Petito's fiance. But he is still missing. We have the latest on the search for Brian Laundrie and what we know now about Gabby's death.

BLACKWELL: Plus, the homeland security chief is in Del Rio, Texas, which is overwhelmed by migrants. We're live at the border with the latest plan to ease this crisis.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:20:35]

BLACKWELL: In Florida, the FBI is executing a search warrant at the home of Brian Laundrie's family and has been questioning his parents.

Now, Laundrie is the fiance of Gabby Petito. The police believe they found her remains yesterday in Wyoming. The 22-year-old woman was -- has been missing for weeks, since Laundrie returned home to Florida earlier this month from their cross-country trip without her.

CAMEROTA: An autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow. And the FBI says the cause of death has not yet been determined.

Joining us now is CNN's seen as Jean Casarez and Steve Moore. He is a retired FBI supervisory special agent.

Great to have both of you.

So, Jean, we just watched the FBI. They are searching Brian Laundrie's family's home. Do we know what items they collected or what they're looking for?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, but they have been at it for a long time.

You see, they executed a search warrant in this home. So they had to go before a judge and say, Your Honor, we believe a crime has been committed. We have probable cause there's a crime here. The judge allows them to go into the home. Usually, it's specified what they can collect. My guess is a lot of items, notably electronics, right, because Brian is missing.

That's one aspect of this case. And they want to find him. I'm sure his parents want to find him, want to find him alive. So that's one aspect. Also, yesterday, they found what is believed to be the body of Gabby. You know they have done a preliminary examination of that just looking at her to see if there is blunt force trauma or to see if there is manual strangulation or anything outwardly that could show a crime was committed.

And that would also give them probable cause to go in and collect evidence.

BLACKWELL: Steve, pull that thread for us that Jean just brought up, that a judge had to approve this search warrant.

This isn't something that's approved simply because we want to speak with Brian Laundrie and he's not speaking with us or we don't know where he is or there's a hunch. Talk about the threshold that must be met to get to this point.

STEVE MOORE, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Well, you have to get a probable cause that there's been a crime and the individual whose home you want to search was involved in the crime.

I think there was probable cause likely before the body was found. I think that she was missing. And you could have gotten a search warrant based on her safety, trying to locate her. But that wouldn't have brought her back, I'm afraid.

So what I believe people in the law enforcement are doing right now are making sure that they have all the T's crossed and I's dotted, because I think they believe and I believe they know who did this, and they want to make sure their case is perfect at this point.

CAMEROTA: Steve, I have another law enforcement question for you.

And, by the way, we're just getting word that tow trucks have now just shown up at Brian Laundrie's family's home, and that they will be preparing to take away some vehicles or maybe that white van. So the local media is telling us...

MOORE: Yes. You don't want to do an extensive search on that van in the garage or in the driveway or something. It's much easier just to bring it to your facility and spend all the time you need on it.

CAMEROTA: That's interesting.

So, my question was, Brian Laundrie hasn't been seen since last Tuesday, according to his family. So that's almost a week, OK? They say that he was gone, that he left with a backpack to go to a nature reserve last Tuesday. And then we saw people fanning out across that nature reserve, which is, I think, hundreds or thousands of acres.

How seriously does law enforcement take a tip like that from a family member? I mean, couldn't that just be diversionary tactics, saying go search all of these acres of a nature preserve?

MOORE: Sure, it could be.

And according to some sources, the family received a text from Gabby that she was -- that there was no service in Yosemite. So that would indicate to me that Brian is -- already has engaged in trying to throw police off.

So telling his family, oh, I'm going here and then heading off probably isn't a huge lead that I would -- you have to follow it. But it's not something that I would rest my world on. I think, likely, the police and the FBI know now.

I mean, you're going to find out whether his phone's been used, whether it's been moved, whether any of his cards have been used. I think they probably have an idea whether they're looking for Brian as a fugitive or looking for Brian as somebody who took their own life.

[14:25:03]

BLACKWELL: Jean, investigators believe the remains are those of Gabby Petito, because there's not been an autopsy. That's scheduled for tomorrow.

Manner of death still on the table, cause of death, and you pointed out when she died is crucially important here.

CASAREZ: It's true, because -- and it'll be very difficult.

You know, if we look at the timeline, the last time she spoke with her mother was August 25, right? He returned home to Florida in the van September 1. So, if we go September 25 onward, we're looking at 25, 26 days, and that's a long time.

But they have got to look at everything in this autopsy. They most likely will be bringing in experts, because, if she died, after he left, once he got back even to Florida, then he may not have criminal responsibility in this.

So they have got to look at accident. They have got to look at natural causes. They have got to look at suicide and homicide, death at the hands of another. They're all important.

CAMEROTA: These are live pictures right now of these tow trucks arriving at Brian Laundrie's family's home, and, as we just heard Steve say, they will want to search this more meticulously at their -- back at the station, rather than having to do it in the family's driveway.

And we know that the white van is certainly part of the evidence that they will be looking at.

And, Steve, I mean, that does kind of lead me to a grisly question, but I really do want to know the answer. You know, she was last -- as far as the family knows, they last heard from Gabby August 27.

She was found -- well, the body they believe is hers was found roughly three weeks later. Will they be able to determine a cause of death? I mean, she was -- let Jean -- hold on, Steve.

Jean, she was out in the elements.

CASAREZ: Yes. August 25, she talked to her mother. August 27, some travel vloggers actually saw the van as they were driving down the road. Police have not confirmed this. But it is almost by -- you look at it, an identical van. So the question is what was the state of her body after all of these days, right?

This is this is the Grand Tetons. There are wild animals here. And when I covered the Casey Anthony case, as you remember out of Florida, Caylee Anthony, she was in the forest for six months. However, they wanted to try to determine how long she had been there. They brought in forensic botanists, forensic entomologists, because when you're looking at the atmosphere, weeds can grow very quickly.

And they can grow through a T-shirt or onto the body. And then the forensic botanist looks at what the species is at this time of the year. How fast do they grow? It's amazing what forensic evidence and experts can do.

And as far as the -- as we called them in Casey Anthony, the bug experts, came in, because bugs and markings they can make in clothing can also show duration of time that the body has been there.

BLACKWELL: Wow. So a lot still to learn from this discovery there Sunday.

Steve Moore, Jean Casarez, thank you both.

All right, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is in Del Rio, Texas, where thousands of migrants are huddled underneath that bridge. You see them here.

What the U.S. government plans to do to help these thousands of people.

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