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Gabby Petito Investigation; President Biden Lays Out Global Agenda; Debt Ceiling Fight. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired September 21, 2021 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:02]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Alisyn Camerota. Welcome to NEWSROOM.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: I'm Victor Blackwell. Good to be with you.

We are just a few hours away from the start of a congressional showdown. It could lead to economic catastrophe. Not my words. Those are from the Treasury secretary.

CAMEROTA: So, the House is going to vote on a continuing resolution to fund the government through the end of the year. That part of the vote involves raising the debt ceiling. That, of course, is a critical move needed so the U.S. does not default on its loans, but Republicans say they're not willing to help Democrats do that.

BLACKWELL: And that is not the only self-inflicted crisis on Capitol Hill today.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says President Biden's economic agenda is entering a critical 48 hours. She's trying to lock down two deals here, one on that bipartisan infrastructure bill, the other on the $3.5 trillion human infrastructure plan, as they call it.

CAMEROTA: But there's an impasse between progressives and moderate Democrats. Progressives say they will not sign off on the bipartisan infrastructure deal unless the bigger social safety net bill comes with it, and moderates don't like that.

So, CNN's Ryan Nobles and Lauren Fox are on Capitol Hill to explain all of this to all of us.

Ryan, let's start with you.

Are they going to vote to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling in the House today?

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, nothing is easy on Capitol Hill. I think we have learned that, Alisyn and Victor, and even this process has not been easy.

House Democrats were prepared and are now prepared to pass this continuing resolution and the language that would lift the debt limit for more than a year, but ran into a snag earlier today, because some House progressives were concerned that it included more than a billion dollars in funding for the Iron Dome security system for Israel.

Now, progressives told leadership that they would not vote for that bill if it included that language. They ended up removing it. And so now it looks like it is on a glide path to pass in the House. Now, the House is only part of the problem here. The Senate is where this is going to essentially probably die, and that's because the Democrats have decided to include the debt limit and the spending plan in the same package.

And it is the Republicans that are very much opposed to the idea of lifting the debt ceiling. Mitch McConnell has said that they would support this continuing resolution to continue to fund the government, includes a lot of funding for disaster relief for many of these states that were hit hard by the hurricane, including states that include two Republican senators.

But it's the debt limit that they have a problem with. And the fact that Democrats have decided to tie these two pieces of legislation together make it very unlikely that there will be the 10 Republican votes necessary to pass this bill in the Senate.

Now, Joe Manchin, who seems to be at the center of all of this, has said it's incumbent upon Republicans to do the right thing here. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): I don't think we're going to have a shutdown again. We can't have a shutdown, and I don't think we will.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) to the C.R.?

MANCHIN: Well, we have got to move. Got to keep government open, don't we?

QUESTION: But the Republicans are going to vote against it.

MANCHIN: Got to pay your bills too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBLES: So, Manchin not offering a ton of clarity there. He's, of course, a Democrat, but seems to be someone that talks to both Democrats and Republicans on an issue like this.

Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, has held firm. He said that his party will not vote to increase the debt limit. That could mean that the government will shut down. At this point, Victor and Alisyn, we are in a staring contest, which we often are here on Capitol Hill.

BLACKWELL: All right, so, that staring is happening across the figurative aisle. Let's talk now, Lauren, about the staring within the Democratic Party.

Speaker Pelosi is coming up on a deadline. She is running out of time. Explain the promise she made and how that's pretty troublesome now.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, Victor, she has less than a week now to put a bill on the floor, that bipartisan infrastructure bill, that already passed the U.S. Senate. But she's running into another problem, because again, the moderates and progressives within her caucus are really at war about how this should all be packaged and what order these votes should occur.

So she had already promised the moderates she would bring this bipartisan infrastructure bill to the floor, but now you have progressives arguing that they will vote en masse against that bipartisan infrastructure bill unless the speaker can also muscle through that $3.5 trillion social infrastructure package that you were referring to.

That's a bill that really expands health care, that also expands the child tax credit, as well as provides paid family leave for Americans, but to pay for it, it also comes with some tax increases that other moderate Democrats are uncomfortable with.

And that bill is not anywhere close to being finished, according to aides and lawmakers that we have been talking to over the last several hours.

Now, Elizabeth Warren, who is another progressive in the Senate, she said they all should move together. Here's what she said earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): I know that a lot of people would say, let's try to break this thing apart, take it in smaller bites, but the reality is, in the world of the filibuster, we get one bite at passing a lot of this through. And we cannot fail the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:05:03]

FOX: And Democrats just are finishing up their caucus lunch.

And before that lunch, I'm told Schumer, the majority leader, had a conversation for about an hour with some of his moderate lawmakers, trying to get everyone on the same page ahead of that lunch.

It just really goes to show that he knows and the House speaker knows what they're up against. Whether they can find a way to resolve all of these legislative priorities for the president in the next several days, it remains to be seen.

BLACKWELL: This is the worst game of Jenga, where you pull one little piece, the whole tower falls down.

Lauren Fox, Ryan Nobles, thank you both. Now, this is just the start of the list of the agenda items the

president's trying to get through.

Let's go now to CNN chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny. He's joining us live now from the United Nations, where the president just wrapped up a meeting with Australia's prime minister.

We will get to that in a moment.

But, first, Jeff, how does this showdown over infrastructure affect the administration's other goals?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor, it affects it in every way, and President Biden will be making his way back to Washington really momentarily.

And this is all what he is waiting for. What Ryan and Lauren just laid out there are the top priorities all coming to a head at the same time, and it is an intermingled foreign policy and domestic policy agenda.

A president has more standing and more strength on the world stage the stronger they are on the home front. And that is clear, it was clear, it will be clear here at the United Nations. I mean, the president talked about infrastructure spending. He talked about climate spending here in his address to the United Nations General Assembly.

And if the U.S. wants to be a leader on climate change, they need to get this bill passed. So, this could have a tremendous effect on his standing on the world stage, what is happening on Capitol Hill right now, so all woven together.

He will be traveling back to Washington this evening for a one-on-one meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the White House. He will be leading a virtual summit tomorrow from the White House, leaving the United Nations behind, largely because it's a -- it was intended to be a smaller meeting this year because of COVID, but also because of all the challenges awaiting him there in Washington.

So these two separate buckets, it would seem, domestic and foreign policy, they're actually very much linked together about the strength and power of this president.

CAMEROTA: OK, so, Jeff, stick around with us, because, as we can see, you're at the United Nations. As you just said, President Biden has addressed the U.N. General Assembly this morning and hit this wide range of issues facing the U.S. and its allies, including the pandemic, climate change, women's rights, nuclear weapons.

And he also focused in on one central theme. He said shifting from relentless war to relentless diplomacy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As a global community, we're challenged by urgent and looming crises wherein lie enormous opportunities if -- if -- we can summon the will and resolve to seize these opportunities.

Planes carrying vaccines from the United States have already landed in 100 countries, bringing people all over the world a little dose of hope.

And the scientists and experts are telling us that we're fast approaching a point of no return, in the literal sense.

To keep within our reach the vital goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, every nation needs to bring their highest possible ambitions to the table.

The United States remains committed to preventing Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon. We are working with the P5+1 to engage Iran diplomatically and seek a return to the JCPOA. We're prepared to return to full compliance if Iran does the same.

We all must advocate for women, the rights of women and girls to use their full talents to contribute economically, politically, and socially and pursue their dreams free of violence and intimidation, from Central America, to the Middle East, to Africa, to Afghanistan, wherever it appears in the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK, let's bring Ivo Daalder. He's the president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and served as the U.S. ambassador to NATO from 2009 to 2013.

And Jeff Zeleny sticks around with us as well.

Ambassador, I know that allies have been described as skeptical of the U.S. after everything that they have watched happen here over the past four-plus years.

How do you think they received President Biden's message today?

IVO DAALDER, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO NATO: Well, clearly, I think this is a message they were hoping to hear of the United States that is on the one hand continues to be engaged in the world in order to deal, on the other hand, with all the major problems that we face together, and stressing the importance of diplomacy and working together with our partners and our allies to address these issues is important.

[14:10:11]

At the same time, they have heard that before from President Biden, most clearly in his speeches when he was in Europe back in June, and they're waiting to see whether the action here at home that Jeff talked about earlier is going to match the words that they heard at the U.N. General Assembly.

BLACKWELL: Yes, Jeff, the poetry, as Alisyn just read it, was the move from relentless war to relentless diplomacy, but how that practically works out in the room as he listed some priorities that are not well-received by some members there, how do you think that is going over from the White House?

ZELENY: There's no doubt that the turning of the page here between the Trump era and the Biden era, this was yet one more marking of that.

But we are nearly through our list of turning-of-the-page moments. Now, this is President Biden, his rhetoric vs. President Biden's action. He, of course, has been on the job for more than eight months now, so this is his rhetoric and his record that will be tested here.

And there's no question that the words were received very warmly. It was music to the leaders' ears here at the United Nations. That's what this mission is about. That's what the body here is about. President Trump, of course, came here and thumbed his nose at the U.N., as he often did, but, of course, that was not received well.

So, President Biden, yes, was received well, but it's the actions that will be judged, so, so many challenges on the plates of certainly the Biden administration, but indeed the world.

But I was struck by, at the very end of his remarks, yes, he talked about the long war in Afghanistan coming to a close, which ordinarily may have certainly been the big headline moment. He also talked about the fragility of democracies and did use the word insurrection. He talked about how American democracy is not perfect and he talked about that dark day on January 6, but said, democracy is still a beacon for the world and really the only way he sees any accomplishments being made.

So, that, perhaps, was leaving this body on an optimistic note, but there are so many challenges with climate and other matters here, we don't know how this will end in terms of his record on the world stage.

CAMEROTA: On the right side of your screen, we are looking at President Biden, I believe, arriving at JFK to head back to the White House after having been at the United Nations General Assembly there.

Ambassador, what actions? I mean, we have talked a lot about how they're waiting for actions from President Biden. What are the allies and the rest of the world waiting for him to do?

DAALDER: Well, I think it's, first of all, actions here at home. It's addressing the climate crisis and providing and passing the kind of legislation that you were talking about earlier in your program to address climate, to find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and really tackle that kind of issue.

And, also, I think, the important point that President Biden keeps on making that, in order for democracies to compete effectively with authoritarian regimes like China, they have to prove that they can deliver for their people at home. And the kind of legislation that is in front of the Congress now, the package that is there, is very much designed to prove to the American people that the United States and the government can still deliver for them. And it's that that will give the United States the kind of standing in the world to tackle the climate crisis, which will happen later this year in Scotland, to really finally put a nail to the head on the question of COVID through vaccine distribution, and, in so many other ways, is trying to show that, as we rebuild ourselves at home, build back better at home, as the president likes to say, that we therefore can have the standing to deal with these big challenges abroad.

It's that kind of action that the people around the world and, in particular, our allies are looking for.

BLACKWELL: Again, we are seeing President Biden there boarding Air Force One, leaving New York after attending the U.N. General Assembly.

Mr. Ambassador, let me ask you about this rift between the U.S., the U.K., and France, of course, after the Australians abandoned their deal to buy submarines from the French. They have now purchased those. They got into a deal with the U.S. and the U.K. And it was just this bilat between the U.S. and the Australians that the president, that the administration just was involved in.

Is this something you expect will blow over soon? President Macron does not believe it will. Or this could cause some significant geopolitical challenges?

DAALDER: No, I think this is a big crisis.

In part, it is a crisis because President Macron has his own domestic political reasons to react in the way he has. He's being -- he's up for reelection in six months. This was a huge contract for the French defense industry that now seems to have been torpedoed by Australia to build 12 diesel-powered submarines for the Australian navy.

[14:15:22]

But it's also, I think, a sense in Paris that the United States just doesn't take an ally like France, the oldest ally that the United States has, seriously, that we never talk to them about this new direction that we're going in. And we never invited them to be part of it.

France has interests in the Indo-Pacific. It has two million citizens there. It has 7,000 troops there. It has territory in the Indo- Pacific, and, therefore, it feels that it has something to contribute, and it really was left out in the cold, and that, as I think the French are saying, is not how allies treat each other.

I think it was a mistake on the part of the administration. I think the actual decision to work with Australia and the U.K. was the right one. We have a major competition, military, economic, and political, that we need to engage in with the Chinese. This is the right military response to that competition.

But we would have been much better off if we could have done it in a way that didn't really upset such an important country as France in the way that we did. BLACKWELL: All right, Ambassador Ivo Daalder, Jeff Zeleny, thank you.

Well, this search is continuing now for Gabby Petito's fiance, and we're getting some new details about their final days together and a woman who claims she picked up Brian Laundrie hitchhiking.

CAMEROTA: And the homeland security secretary calls these images of Haitian refugees -- quote -- "horrifying."

The latest on what's being done on all this still ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:21:15]

BLACKWELL: An autopsy happening right now should confirm if the remains found in Wyoming are those of Gabby Petito. Also happening today, a search for her now missing fiance, Brian Laundrie, it continues at a Florida nature reserve.

CAMEROTA: Also, a TikTok user says she and her boyfriend picked up Brian Laundrie hitchhiking alone on August 29 near the spot where we now know those human remains were found in Wyoming.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He approached us, asking us for a ride because he needed to go to Jackson, which we were going to Jackson that night, so I said, hop in. He hopped in the back of my jeep.

Before he came in the car, he offered to pay us like $200 to give him a ride like 10 miles. So, that was kind of weird. He then told us he's been camping for multiple days without his fiance. He did say he had a fiance and that she was working on their social media page back at their van.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right, here with us now, CNN's Jean Casarez and criminologist Casey Jordan.

Jean, thanks so much. We know you have been covering this case for days now.

So you have new information about the search for Brian Laundrie?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they are out there again at the nature preserve, searching for, conceivably, Brian Laundrie.

Now, yesterday afternoon, we were told that it was called off because they had not found anything. They felt they weren't furthering the search for Brian. But early this morning, we heard that they were going back out there at another location, a targeted area, the Venice location of this nature preserve, and the decision was actually made late yesterday. Now, we also know that the private attorney for the Laundries was

going to give a press conference today. And he told our own Chris Cuomo last night that it was canceled because the FBI has asked him to cancel it.

So, you look at the timeline here. It's a targeted area. Why go back? Why go there? They have had the electronics now for at least some preliminary searches or a tip or a spotting.

But as our own correspondent out there, it's ATVs on the ground, helicopters by the air, so it's a dual search right there, and they communicate with each other on any sightings whatsoever for anything. And, remember, there's potential evidence, too, that they're trying to locate in this search, I'm sure.

BLACKWELL: Yes, Casey, what do you make of this return to this area after saying they have exhausted that search in that part of the reserve?

CASEY JORDAN, CRIMINOLOGIST: You have to always keep in mind that the police have more information that they are letting us know about.

And there have been a lot of potential sightings (AUDIO GAP) that look like Brian. They have to follow up every lead. But I think that they had basically called off the search because they thought it was a red herring, the whole idea that he said he was going there was just what we would call a contraindicator, something he told the parents to tell the police that would throw them off his trail while he went somewhere else.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

JORDAN: They need to look at every possible lead.

But with the magic of social media, we are hearing a lot of different sightings. Guaranteed the police are following all of those up to find out if Brian Laundrie is in the area or could be somewhere else.

I guarantee that it is the so-called -- the public involvement in this, the cyber sleuths who are going to find him or sight him if he is indeed on the lam.

CAMEROTA: Agreed. Agreed.

The eyeballs, the amount of eyeballs that are now looking for him and have been will be, I think, really helpful to the police.

But, Jean, you have more information about this police affidavit of the last known texts that the mom, Gabby's mom, got. And we will put some up on the screen here.

So, on August 27, the mom got a text saying: "Can you help Stan? I just keep getting his voice-mails and missed calls."

[14:25:01] That was allegedly from Gabby, but the mother thought that one was suspicious. And you will tell us why. And then, August 30, "No service in Yosemite." The mom also found that one suspicious.

CASAREZ: Right.

Well, CNN was able to get this affidavit of a search warrant that actually was filed last week, but it just became public, and it had to do with the external hard drive that they retrieved from the van. And they wanted to be able to do some exploration in that.

And so there's really -- the affidavit are the reasons why they believe a search warrant is appropriate. So they give facts here. And some of them, we knew. Some of them, we didn't. And they talk about, on the 24th, that they checked out of the Fairfield Inn in Salt Lake City, that she FaceTimed with her mother on August 25.

There were multiple texts with her mother. On August 27, there were more texts with her mother, but the final texts, according to the affidavit, is, just as you said: "Can you help Stan? I just keep getting his voice-mails and missed calls."

Stan was her grandfather, and her family says she never said Stan when she was talking about her grandfather. And they also say there was no sighting of her at all after August 27.

BLACKWELL: Yes, certainly suspicious she would call a grandfather by his first name, if the family says that's not something that happened.

Let me ask you about this 911 call, Casey, that happened. We have now seen the bodycam video that resulted in separating Petito and Laundrie that day.

But according to the 911 call, someone saw a man slap a woman, the two that we're talking about. However, once the report came out, it was a mental and emotional break more than a domestic incident and no one reported that a male struck a female.

Those two obviously are in conflict. What do you make of that contradiction?

JORDAN: I am so glad that they have released that 911 call from the male caller, who reports in very clear language exactly where they are and that he is seeing this male slap the female, in other words, Brian Laundrie slapping Gabby.

And this is critical, because I think the way it started with us seeing the police chest cam footage first, we thought maybe this is just a classic emotionally high-strung screaming match between people.

But I'm looking at this in a whole new way because I trust the 911 caller more than what we hear from Gabby on that police dash-cam footage, where she's taking the blame. Don't forget, her boyfriend is standing right outside the van, listening to what she's saying.

She says she slapped him. She says: "It's my fault. I'm OCD." And we don't have any proof, I have never heard that she has a medical diagnosis of OCD. I think that this could be part of Brian Laundrie's control, where he is gaslighting her, telling her she's the crazy one.

And the last thing the 911 phone caller said was that he was trying to take her phone -- or we have had that reported -- and that he was trying to drive away without her and leave her on the sidewalk. This shows incredibly controlling behavior.

And it sheds a whole new light on the relationship. And if you thought it was her who was the instigator, her, Gabby, who was slapping him, Gabby who was OCD and mentally ill, we now have a whole new perspective on who the controlling person was.

CAMEROTA: All right, there's so many questions still about what happened.

Jean Casarez, Casey Jordan, thank you both.

JORDAN: Great to be here.

CAMEROTA: All right, there's also disturbing new warnings from the FBI director today about racially motivated extremism and its persistent global threat.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)