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FBI Was Back at Laundrie Home in Florida Today; Poll: Only a Third of Parents Say They'll Vaccinate Their 5 to 11-Year-Olds; CDC Urges Pregnant Women to Get COVID-19 Vaccine Immediately; CDC: 65% of Eligible Americans Fully Vaccinated Against COVID-19; What Arizona Voters Think of Rep. Krystan Sinema Who Is Key to Biden's Agenda. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired September 30, 2021 - 14:30   ET

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

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[14:34:18]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: OK, this just into our NEWSROOM. The FBI was back at the Laundrie family home in North Port, Florida, this afternoon.

Brian Laundrie's family attorney tells CNN the FBI was there to collect items to assist in the search for Brian.

Let's bring in Athena Jones.

Do we know why they went, what they got?

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We know from Steven Bertolino, who's representing the Laundrie family, that they said it will assist the K-9s who are searching for Brian Laundrie.

They've spent several days, investigators have, searching this vast 25,000-acre nature reserve. We understand that the FBI is now entirely in charge of that search and they're doing it in a more targeted way.

We do also know that while those FBI agents were at the Laundrie family home, one of them climbed into a camper van that's parked in the driveway. It's out of our shot there. But they went into that camper van, the male agent, and then came back out.

[13:35:08]

And this could be important because, as we know, the Laundrie family went camping together, according to Pinellas County officials.

There's a registry where Roberta Laundrie, Brian Laundrie's mother, registered or reserved a camp site about 75 miles north of their home, a waterfront camp site, from September 6th to 8th.

CAMEROTA: After he game back without his fiancee.

JONES: That is what is key. This is all filling in the blanks between what happened when he came back alone in Gabby Petito's white van without her on September 1st and when her parents reported her missing on September 11th and when his parents reported him missing on September 14.

We also know the FBI has surveillance video of that camp site during the time they were there. So --

CAMEROTA: Do we have that?

JONES: We don't have the video but the FBI does. So just like this, we know that, of course, investigators have a lot more information than we are made aware of.

And I can tell you this. On Tuesday, when Gabby Petito's parents held that press conference, one thing they seemed to agree on and they said very strongly is that they very much support and have faith in the FBI to carry out this investigation.

Now we're beginning to learn more of the things that the FBI has learn.

CAMEROTA: How about this new cell phone? They've learned that Brian Laundrie got himself a new cell phone after he returned home?

JONES: Right. He bought this cell phone on September 4th. So he would arrive back in Florida at the home that he and Gabby were sharing with his family on September 1st.

Three days later, September 4th, he goes to an AT&T store in his hometown and buys a phone.

He then leaves that phone when he heads, on September 14th, or when he tells his parents he is going to this Carlton Nature Reserve that authorities have spent so much time searching.

So we know that phone is in the hands of the FBI. That is something that also has been confirmed by the Laundrie family lawyer.

Of course, there's so many questions. He could have -- why did he leave that phone? What happened to his previous phone? Couldn't he have bought another phone if he left that one?

So we're getting some more details. But we still don't know the main question here, which is, where is Brian Laundrie now?

But at least when it comes to this campground and some of these other things, maybe the FBI is getting a better sense of what was going on with his parents during that time.

CAMEROTA: Brian Laundrie has a lot of questions to answer.

JONES: Indeed.

CAMEROTA: Athena Jones, thank you.

OK, the CDC's urgent plea to pregnant women: Get vaccinated, it's safe, it could save your life. Their warning comes after August hit a pandemic record for COVID-related deaths in pregnant women. So we have the numbers for you.

And she's at the center of the negotiations over President Biden's agenda. But what do voters in Arizona now think of their Senator, Kyrsten Sinema? We'll take you there.

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[13:42:21]

CAMEROTA: A new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation reveals only a third of U.S. parents say they will vaccinate their 5 to 11-year-olds once a COVID vaccine is approved.

And 32 percent say they will wait and see how it's working. But nearly a quarter of parents say they do not plan to vaccinate their children.

Now for parents with kids under the age of 5, 23 percent say they will eventually vaccinate compared to 35 percent who say they will not.

This poll was conducted before Pfizer said its clinical trials showed that its vaccine was safe and generated a robust immune response in this age group.

Dr. Leana Wen is a CNN medical analyst and former Baltimore health commissioner. She's also the author of the book, "Lifelines: A Doctor's Journey in the Fight for Public Health."

Dr. Wen, great to have you here.

In terms of parents' comfort level, you know, parents, I mean, across the country, have to vaccinate their kids for, as we know, rubella, polio, smallpox, all that stuff before kids can go to public school. And so nobody -- not most people balk at that.

And so is this just a matter of time and people getting used to it, or is it that the mRNA new technology seems too new and experimental to some people?

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I think it's both. I do think that the category of people who are in the wait and see.

Once they do see that there are so many other kids around them who are getting vaccinated and are now going back to normal and are going on to family trips and maybe if they are exposed to COVID-19, they don't have to quarantine anymore.

Or if there's an entire class of vaccinated kids, they don't have to wear masks or kids can now do extracurriculars.

I think that once parents see the benefit of vaccination for their kids, a lot more are going to move from the wait and see to actually vaccinate their children.

But I also think that the parents who themselves have not gotten the vaccine are probably unlikely to consent to having their kids be vaccinated too. And so I do think that there's -- that this is going to be a problem for the foreseeable future because a lot of people, unfortunately, do not see the COVID-19 vaccine as they do the other childhood vaccinations.

CAMEROTA: And that leads us to pregnant women.

And so, as I'm sure you know, there's all sorts of online information or basically just anecdotal stories that have worried pregnant women, some pregnant women, into thinking that maybe there's a risk to the vaccine somehow, maybe it's somehow linked to miscarriage.

No study has ever shown that. And in fact, the numbers of births and pregnant women has never confirmed that there's any connection.

[14:45:00]

Now we have some actual stats about the risks to pregnant women, and it is the risk of dying from COVID.

So here are some stats. This is the CDC, 125,000 lab confirmed cases of positive COVID cases. Then 22,000 pregnant women were hospitalized, 161 deaths of pregnant women.

And just to put a finer and tragic point on all this, just at one hospital in Louisiana, here's what happened.

Louisiana state health officer, Dr. Joseph Canter, said since the beginning of the delta surge in his state, Louisiana, has had 14 severe COVID-19 cases related to pregnancy.

Of those, six have resulted in maternal deaths and 10 have resulted in fetal deaths. All 14 mothers were unvaccinated.

So, now we just know the stats of the risk to pregnant women.

WEN: That's right. And look, as someone who was pregnant and gave birth early in the pandemic, I definitely understand the stress and fear of pregnant women. I mean, just as is, but also during the pandemic.

And I think, you know, all pregnant women want to do the right thing for ourselves, for our health, for our babies.

And at this point, the evidence is so clear that the vaccines are safe and they are very effective in pregnancy.

We also know that pregnant women are at elevated risk from severe outcomes due to COVID-19. They're more likely to be hospitalized, more likely to die, tragically, but also more likely to have premature birth and consequences to the baby.

And on the other hand, getting the vaccine in all three trimesters, we know, is not linked to miscarriage or stillbirth or other adverse effects.

So doing the right thing for our babies also means getting vaccinated when you are pregnant or breast-feeding or thinking about conceiving.

CAMEROTA: Some hospitals, as you know, have just had to resort to mandates to get some of their employees vaccinated.

Here's some very compelling numbers in terms of how mandates have been working.

Here's the New York nursing staff vaccine mandate. In the space of one week, 82 percent had been vaccinated. One week later, 92 percent of the New York nursing home staff was vaccinated. That's after the mandate went into effect.

And then, in terms of the New York school staff, just last Friday and Saturday, more than 7,000 of the New York school staff was vaccinated.

So, mandates work. I mean, people might not like them, but they're effective.

WEN: They are, indeed, very effective. And when it comes to health care workers, we take an oath to protect our patients, and the -- their well-being.

This is something that I think is actually kind of a no-brainer for individuals who are around children or teachers and these kids are not yet able to be vaccinated themselves or people around nursing home residents who are particularly vulnerable to severe outcomes.

There really should be no choice but for them to be vaccinated so as to not spread this potentially deadly disease to these other incredibly medically frail people.

And so, we know that vaccine mandates work.

I know that there's some concern by health care systems about their workforce, but they also should consider the consequences if they do not vaccinate their workforce.

Do they also care about keeping their workforce safe and keeping the people they serve safe as well?

CAMEROTA: I have to let you go. We're out of time. But I want to end on a positive note and that is that cases are down across the country by 27 percent since last month.

Dr. Leana Wen, thank you.

OK, now to this. Progressives are looking for a candidate to challenge Senator Kyrsten Sinema's seat as she remains a holdout in key legislative negotiations on Capitol Hill.

So we'll take you to Arizona to see what voters there think about their Senator.

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[14:53:16] CAMEROTA: Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema is pushing back on the claim that she's kept her priorities secret on the reconciliation bill.

In a new statement, her office says, quote, "Claims that the Senator has not detailed her views to President Biden and Senator Schumer are false."

Sinema is a key holdout in moving forward on that $3.5 trillion social safety net bill.

She's met with the president and his team multiple times over the past few days but no word on if they've gotten closer to agreement.

Let's go to CNN's Ed Lavandera who is in Senator Sinema's home state of Arizona.

Ed, first, how did this freshman Senator become such a pivotal player?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, she's one of two centrists in a U.S. Senate that is just closely divided, so Democrats cannot lose any support to get their agenda passed through.

And that is giving Senators like Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin a great deal of influence.

But this has really been a fascinating look in Kyrsten Sinema's rise to power here in Arizona as many progressives here in Arizona are trying to figure out exactly what she is up to.

Her career here at Arizona politically started almost 20 years ago in the early 2000s. Believe it or not, she started out here as a Green Party activist.

And that catapulted her into the state legislature in 2004 where she was fighting for issues that were near and dear to progressives' hearts here in Arizona, including LGBT issues, as well as fighting against a highly controversial immigration bill.

She then used that to move into the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012, served three terms there. And that's really where you start change in Kyrsten Sinema.

[14:55:01]

And in 2018, Alisyn, she won the seat if Jeff Flake, who was a Republican, who held that seat. So she was able to flip a Republican Senate seat into the hands of Democrats.

But there's definitely a much more centrist approach here that is frustrating a lot of progressives here in Arizona.

CAMEROTA: So what are you hearing, Ed, from actual voters on the ground there in Arizona?

LAVANDERA: Well, you know, there's a great deal of anger brewing. And it's not just with what we're seeing happening this week. This has been going on for several months.

Back in March, Senator Sinema voted against the bill that would increase the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour.

So there are a number of issues that have been kind of beginning to rise to the surface.

So much so that you are now seeing a number of progressive groups here in Arizona openly looking for a challenger to go up against her in the Democratic primary, when she's up for re-election in 2024.

Of course, three years in politics is a long time.

But the other flip side of this is we've had a chance over the last couple of days and speaking with voters here in Arizona. We've spoken with a lot of Republicans.

Remember, she only won the Senate seat here by a little over two percentage points back in 2018.

A lot of Republicans here are delighted to see what Senator Sinema is doing to Democrats on the national stage.

CAMEROTA: Ed Lavandera, thank you.

Well, the chair of the Progressive Caucus says that a majority of her caucus will vote down the bipartisan infrastructure bill until that broader reconciliation bill passes. So where do things stand at this hour? That's next.

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[15:00:09]

CAMEROTA: Top of the hour. I'm Alisyn Camerota.