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Congress Votes on Bannon Contempt Charges; Democrats Nearing Deal on Infrastructure Bill?; Items Belonging to Brian Laundrie Found. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired October 20, 2021 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: And that's going to do it for us today.

Thank you all for joining us at home. We will be back tomorrow at 1:00 Eastern.

But stay right there, because we have much more of this breaking news story straight ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM, the search for Brian Laundrie and a major break in the case right now in Florida.

Stay with us.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us on NEWSROOM. I'm Alisyn Camerota.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: I'm Victor Blackwell.

We begin with the breaking news in the search for Brian Laundrie. He's the missing fiance of Gabby Petito. Well, we now know that articles belonging to Laundrie were found at a park where he was known to frequent, according to the family's attorney.

CNN can also confirm that the Sarasota County medical examiner and a cadaver dog are there on the scene.

Joining us now, CNN's Randi Kaye is in North Port, Florida, Jean Casarez as well.

Randi, first to you.

What are you seeing there?

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Victor, we're at the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park.

Now, keep in mind this is where the Laundrie family's Mustang was spotted by North Port police and tagged as an abandoned vehicle back on September 14, and then the parents came and drove that vehicle home. So this is that very spot.

I also want to note that this spot just opened yesterday. And, today, all of a sudden, this massive search and the parents were involved. So if you just take a look here behind me, there's only one North Port police car, one North Port police officer inside. But we can tell you that they have found some articles, according to the family attorney, as you said, that do belong to Brian Laundrie.

From what we are told by the family attorney, Chris and Roberta Laundrie, his -- Brian's parents, called the FBI and North Port police last night and alerted them that they would be coming here to this park, which is just at the entrance to the Carlton Reserve, where they have been searching now for weeks, to search for their son.

So, after a brief search, according to the family attorney, the parents and law enforcement came upon some articles off a -- just off a trail that Brian Laundrie had apparently frequented, according to this attorney. We don't know what they found. We don't know how many items were found.

And we're also unclear if there was any sign of Brian Laundrie himself or possibly his remains. As you mentioned, there is a cadaver dog, a human remains detection dog that is here on scene from the Pasco County Sheriff's Office. They are here. That dog is here with two spotters. They work only to find decomposing bodies. They are not here to search for anyone who might be alive. It is not a tracking dog.

And also as you mentioned, we did confirm earlier that the coroner from Sarasota County has also been called to the scene. The cadaver dogs have been here before. But this is the first time, from what we understand, that the coroner has been called to the scene -- Victor, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK.

So, Jean, help us with the timeline and the geography here. Isn't this the same place they have been searching for a month?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Yes. And that timeline, the large timeline, is very interesting, because, if you remember, it was September 17 that Brian's family went to law enforcement. And they said: We can't find him. He didn't come home from the Carlton Reserve.

Sunday the 19th is when they found the remains of Gabby Petito. And then, on Monday, the 20th of September, that's when law enforcement and the FBI, led by the FBI, executed a very long all-day search warrant at the home of the Laundrie family.

And then shortly after that is when they began the search at the Carlton Reserve. And from the beginning, the family said, this is where we believe he is, and the resources that they have put into the search there. And about a week-and-a-half ago, they had the father of Brian Laundrie go out to the reserve to show law enforcement the trails that Brian liked to hike on.

And then they -- they have taken the dogs out before. This is not the first time that they took a cadaver dog out. They went on those trails. But we understand that where the family, along with law enforcement, found items of Brian's was on one of those trails that he liked to frequent, but we do not know what their items were.

And the timeline today is interesting, because it's step by step. Family and law enforcement find the items. Then, a little bit later, we hear the medical examiner has been called out. Now we understand there are even more agencies there. The Sarasota County Emergency Response Team is out on the scene and the Lee County Sheriff's Department.

So you have got a lot of law enforcement out there right now, along with one cadaver dog.

BLACKWELL: All right, Randi Kaye, Jean Casarez.

I want to bring in now former FBI special agents Mary Ellen O'Toole and Tim Gallagher.

Mary Ellen, to you first.

To now find items belonging to Brian Laundrie along a path, a trail that frequented, one would imagine that this would have been searched weeks ago. And what's your take now on them finding it so far into this hunt for him?

[14:05:10]

MARY ELLEN O'TOOLE, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Well, the fact that they found something and they found it so quickly this morning, when there has been such a major search, obviously, that creates a lot of questions for me, and I'm sure they will be able to resolve those questions.

And it could be because the environment has changed and several weeks ago, it didn't look the way it looks now because of the water and so forth. But that certainly does beg a number of questions. If there was such an intense search, why were these items just found now?

And the critical thing is going to be, what's the condition of these items? Do they appear to have been out there for a long time? Are they weather? So all that becomes really important.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

Tim, just to put a finer point on what the reporting from Randi and Jean has been, you don't call in cadaver dogs and I guess you don't call in the medical examiner if you have just found belongings.

TIM GALLAGHER, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: No. Yes. And that's a great point.

Yes, I was on the evidence response team at the FBI. And we called out cadaver dogs -- you call out cadaver dogs when you have something specific that you need them to focus on. You don't turn them a cadaver dog loose on a long trail or in a field. You put them in a specific area where you're expecting to find decomposing human remains.

BLACKWELL: Let's go back out to Randi Kaye, who's there near where this search is happening.

And tell us more, Randi, about the utilization of these cadaver dogs, what they can tell beyond just finding remains, potentially, that the investigators can use them for.

KAYE: Yes, it's really fascinating, Victor.

Not only will they tell you if there are human remains here, but if they don't alert, their handlers say that they can also tell you that there aren't any human remains here. So they can rule that out as well. It's not just to find them. But it's also to rule them out.

I spoke with someone who trains these dogs for years now. And she told me that these dogs can alert and find a decomposing body that might have been here a day, a week, a month, even a year. I mean, they go back years even and find skeletal remains. And if this -- these human remains were possibly dragged away, if they'd been here a while, if there are human remains here, if they were possibly moved by an animal -- we know there are bobcats in this reserve. We know there are Florida panthers, alligators, you name it.

If those remains were removed, these dogs can smell the -- any type of human tissue or blood or anything like that would still be in the soil. So they would still be able to tell their handlers that there had been some form of human remains here as well. So it's just really an important note how these dogs work.

And there is just the one dog here. And they are, as I said, specifically trained to find the decomposing body. They do not search for humans that are alive, and they will not find a decomposing animal. They only alert on a decomposing human, Victor.

CAMEROTA: That is fascinating.

And as we're looking here, Jean, we're watching the aerial shot of a local news chopper. And it's impossible to tell what the dog -- I mean, the dog is just running sort of on the periphery of some of this, these trees. It's hard to know what's up.

CASAREZ: But they are so important.

And to go along with what Randi is saying, I have covered so many trials, especially in Florida, because this evidence is allowed in a courtroom. And the trainer of the dogs does testify if it gets to a courtroom.

And cadaver dogs are specifically trained to smell the scent of decomposition. That's what they hit on. They don't hit on the scent of DNA of someone. That is a scent dog. That is another type of dog.

So they are so highly specialized. And their training is extensive. And they are very, very accurate. So to call a dog out like this, they are focused on that small area from where their -- the belongings are and they're waiting to see if they can find a hit.

BLACKWELL: Jean, let me stay with you because I know, initially, when Brian Laundrie's parents said, go to this reserve, this is a place that he possibly could be, there were a lot of people who thought that was a distraction, that was a, that they were trying to give him a head-start to get as far away from Florida as possible.

CASAREZ: Well, law enforcement must have taken them seriously, because when you look at the agencies that have been involved, the dive team was out at one point.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

CASAREZ: The various agencies around Florida have been out there. And the parents have said, he's nowhere else. He's got to be there. They obviously thought that was credible. And that has been their focus this whole time.

CAMEROTA: Mary Ellen, you, of course, are a criminal profiler and a former FBI profiler. And so there were so many different scenarios that people were imagining of, where was Brian Laundrie? Was he on the run? Was he hiding? Was he a survivalist? Was he going to surrender? Or did he take his own life?

And I don't know if you can tell from the videos that you have seen and everything that's been in the public about Brian Laundrie, but what is your conclusion about his personality profile now?

[14:10:08]

O'TOOLE: Well, the two characteristics that really come through on a case like this is that it's a long shot between being a weekend camper, somebody that can hike a trail, and someone that's truly a person that can live off the grid.

And he never really was, for me, portrayed as someone that could live off the grid forever and not depend on other people. And then, secondly, it's very difficult to survive, especially for someone that's so young. He's 23 years of age. When he got in trouble, he went home to his mother.

So this is somebody that was being searched for by every law enforcement agency certainly in Florida and around the country. That's a lot of pressure on him, especially since he's not a hardened criminal. And so those two things together really suggested to me that he's not out walking the Shenandoah Trail, but more than likely he's hunkered down.

And all that pressure and all that fear could have resulted in him wanting to take his own life, as opposed to someone coming out to that park and finding him and then just killing him in the park if they find human remains. That scenario doesn't make sense to me either.

BLACKWELL: Tim, what do you make of the chronology of this discovery?

What we're learning from North Port Police Department is that, last night, Chris and Roberta Laundrie, Brian Laundrie's parents, told them, also and the FBI, that they're going out to search and they're going to this area that they think there might be something. And after what they describe as just a brief search, they found some articles that belong to him. This has been going on for a very long time. When you think of just how short that window is, do you have -- what are your questions then for the parents?

GALLAGHER: Yes, just like you have been hearing from the other guests, you started looking, what did they find? Where did they find it? When did they find it? And what does it look like?

And then you consider the source of who told law enforcement to go to go look there. And, obviously, law enforcement is going to look as hard as they can. They're going to collect whatever is on the scene and evaluate that and compare it for DNA purposes and potentially use that for leads to recover a body, if there's a body close to it.

However, whoever provided that information, you're going to drill down on their story. They said they're going to do this. Where have they been? And, obviously, I don't have any insight into the case itself.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

GALLAGHER: But just knowing from my experience in the FBI, that's what we'd be doing. OK, they told us this. Where have they been the last few days? What kind of physical evidence and what kind of video evidence can we pick up to show where they been?

And you take a good hard look at their story.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

Jean, we have watched Gabby Petito's family. This has been wrenching obviously for them every step of the way, first not knowing where she was, then her being found and murdered, then being -- it being -- the matter of death being homicide, et cetera.

So they went on "60 Minutes Australia" this past weekend, so let's play a portion of them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICOLE SCHMIDT, MOTHER OF GABBY PETITO: I just -- I hope that she didn't suffer and that she wasn't in any pain.

JIM SCHMIDT, STEPFATHER OF GABBY PETITO: Just hoping that, at that...

N. SCHMIDT: That she was in a place that she wanted to be, looking at the beautiful mountains.

I think silence speaks volumes. This -- I believe they know, probably, if not everything, they know most of the information. I would love to just face to face ask, why are you doing this? Just tell me the truth.

I just want to get him in a cell for the rest of his life.

J. SCHMIDT: We want vengeance and...

N. SCHMIDT: And justice.

J. SCHMIDT: And justice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Your thoughts as you hear that?

CASAREZ: Just the emotion. It's so raw. And it's so real.

Last week, the family over was in Wyoming. And they were there to talk with law enforcement and to visit where Gabby had been. We do understand that they received the remains of Gabby.

I was at a benefit reporting on it this weekend. It was the first for the foundation in the Long Island community area. And her parents had just gotten back that night before, Saturday night, from Wyoming. But the people there just support Gabby. They want justice. So many of them told me, we want justice.

And they just empathized with her. Many related with her. They had been in situations similar to what we have seen on the Moab video. And it was just a very emotional event. And they're raising money for scholarships, missing people all over the country, and to do some good from what happened to Gabby.

[14:15:05]

CAMEROTA: I mean, it's hard to know if what we're watching in this reserve right now will be justice for them.

But, obviously, this is a breaking news situation.

BLACKWELL: There may be a degree of closure of this chapter, but justice in this case, we will see if the family believes that's exactly what's coming next.

Mary Ellen O'Toole, Tim Gallagher, Jean Casarez, of course, and Randi Kaye out there, thank you so much. We will continue to follow the breaking news there from Sarasota County, Florida.

Turning now to Washington. The president is making some big concessions in order to get his ambitious agenda across the finish line. We're going to tell you about what's been cut, what is still in the legislation and how close Democrats are to a deal.

CAMEROTA: And Congresswoman Liz Cheney with an urgent plea to her Republican colleagues, urging them to be on the right side of history when it comes to Steve Bannon.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:20:10]

BLACKWELL: Let's turn now to the negotiations in the president's social safety net package. CNN has learned that President Biden is now floating a $1.75 trillion

to $1.9 trillion price tag. It was closer to what some moderate Democrats want.

CAMEROTA: Democrats seem optimistic about a deal on a scaled-back, but still sweeping plan.

So with us now is CNN chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins, who is in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where the president is headed next hour. Also with us CNN, congressional correspondent Lauren Fox.

So, Lauren, here's what we believe is being scaled back or cut, OK, out of the -- let's put that up. Two years of free community college, paid family leave being reduced from 12 weeks that Democrats had wanted to now just four weeks. The child tax credit would be subject to means testing and only extended for one year.

And then that funding for home care would be reduced by $150 billion. But, of course, there's still a lot in the bill. So give us the status report of what's still in and where it stands.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is all part of the decisions Democrats have to make when it comes to what is going to be included in a scaled-back package.

Remember, the initial price tag was going to be around $3.5 trillion. Now they're talking about a number closer to $2 trillion and just a little below that. That is a major cut. And that's what Democrats are really grappling with right now. And that is what the president laid out in some of these private meetings with his Democratic colleagues on the Hill yesterday about what was going to have to be cut.

Now, some of the items that are still included, like you mentioned, are the child tax credit. But the issue with that, of course, is that it's been reduced to just one year. That really struck some Democrats on Capitol Hill, we should note, people who have worked their entire career on this child tax credit issue, as odd and something that they're going to keep fighting behind the scenes.

All of this comes with a heavy dose of everything is still a moving piece at this point. Nothing is set in stone. Another piece that is still, we expect, to be included is a boost to Obamacare subsidies to try to shore up that program. But, again, it is not as long as Democrats had hoped.

And, of course, there is an effort still under way to include vision, as well as hearing benefits for Medicare. But, again, that is not the entire program that people like Bernie Sanders had hoped for.

So this is all part of a larger discussion about how Democrats scale back this initial proposal, again, because moderates in the Senate had argued that $3.5 trillion price tag was just far too large.

These are the tough discussions that Democrats are having right now. There was a discussion in the Senate Democratic lunch yesterday that they wanted to have a framework and a top-line number finalized by the end of this week. It's still a huge outstanding question, however, whether or not they're going to be able to come and finish that proposal in the next 48 hours.

It is a critical 48 hours up here on Capitol Hill.

BLACKWELL: All right, let's take that to Kaitlan now in the president's hometown of Scranton, PA.

He's there to sell the policy. But how much work does he still have to do to get buy-in from either faction the price tag, this $1.75 trillion to $1.9 trillion?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's the tough spot that the president is going to be at, because he's coming here to sell a bill that, as Lauren just laid out, is not finished yet.

And that has been what he's been doing for the last several days. The White House is trying to step that up by having the president come here today. He's doing that CNN town hall tomorrow, because they're seeing polling that shows that a lot of people feel like they don't really see the difference that these bills would make in their lives if they're both passed.

And, of course, that is what Democrats have been fighting over and fighting for on Capitol Hill. So, they're trying to change that. But the issue with it is that they don't know exactly what's going to be in here.

And one example is this two free years of community college. That had been a really big priority of President Biden's and one that he has been touting for several months, including several times in July, when he was on the road, selling what this proposal could look like. And that is now something that he has told Democrats during that marathon of meetings yesterday is likely not going to be included in this.

And so that is the balance and the struggle for the White House. But, yes, they do still have a lot of those major Democratic priorities that they do still believe will be in here, including that Medicare expansion, universal pre-K, several other top priorities that they have.

But they have to watch exactly how they sell this bill, given, of course, they're not totally sure what is going to be in it. We should note the timeline here, of course. They are hoping to have a framework by the end of the week. They definitely want to have a solid framework before the president leaves on a foreign trip at the end of next week.

CAMEROTA: OK, Kaitlan Collins, Lauren Fox, thank you for helping us follow all the ins and outs of this hour-by-hour negotiation.

So, President Biden will discuss his ambitious legislation agenda and take questions from the American people during this CNN town hall with Anderson Cooper. It airs tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.

[14:25:10] BLACKWELL: Minutes ago, there was a key vote. It passed the House, a committee there, to pave the way for the full House to vote tomorrow on whether to recommend charging Steve Bannon with criminal contempt.

Now, you know the ex-chief strategist of former President Trump is refusing to even show up to respond to a subpoena. This is from the House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack.

CAMEROTA: So, in a hearing today, Congresswoman Liz Cheney, one of just two Republicans on that January 6 panel, urged her GOP colleagues to put country over party and vote to refer the charge against Bannon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): Let me address my Republican colleagues specifically.

I have heard from a number of my colleagues in the last several days who say they -- quote -- "just don't want this target on their back." They're just trying to keep their heads down. They don't want to anger Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, who has been especially active in attempting to block the investigation of events of January 6, despite the fact that he clearly called for such a commission the week after the attack.

I ask each one of you to step back from the brink. I urge you to do what is right, to think of the long arc of history. We are told that it bends towards justice. But it does so only because of the actions of men and women in positions of public trust.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: What a remarkable moment there on so many levels.

CNN's Ryan Nobles is on Capitol Hill.

So, Ryan, what's going to happen tomorrow? And what happens after the full House votes on this?

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, Alisyn, what happens tomorrow is that, after this was voted out of the Rules Committee today, we should say along partisan lines, 9-4, Liz Cheney's plea to her Republican colleagues falling on deaf ears -- it will go to the full House tomorrow.

And what's interesting, in that rule that they passed out today is the way that this debate is going to play out. There's going to be time set aside for Liz Cheney, as the vice chair of the committee, to make her arguments, also time for the chairman Bennie Thompson to make his arguments.

But there's also time set aside for what they're describing as an opponent of the bill, because this doesn't specifically fall along Republican and Democrat lines with Cheney and Kinzinger serving on the select committee. And in her remarks today, Cheney made it very clear that it was time

for her Republican colleagues to step up and recognize the issues and the fallout from the January 6 attacks, and particularly the role that the former President Donald Trump played.

And that is one of the reasons that they need to hear from Steve Bannon. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHENEY: The people who attacked this building told us, continue to tell us on video, on social media, and now before the federal courts exactly what motivated them.

They believed what Donald Trump said, that the election was stolen, and that they needed to take action. And I think it's critically important for us to recognize and understand how the language that the president, President Trump, continues to use to this day sparked what we saw happen on the 6th.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBLES: And even though this vote passed overwhelmingly in both the select committee and in the Rules Committee today, it's expected to go along partisan lines tomorrow.

In fact, Republican leadership in a meeting today telling their members that they should vote no on the criminal contempt referral of Steve Bannon tomorrow. So we will have to see, Victor and Alisyn, if there are any Republicans that break away from the desires of their leadership and their party and, of course, the former President Donald Trump.

BLACKWELL: All right, Ryan Nobles for us there on Capitol Hill.

Ryan, thank you.

Let's bring in now Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor.

Renato, good to see you.

I want to start here with something we heard from Congresswoman Cheney during this vote last night, in which she cited something that Steve Bannon said on the eve of the insurrection. They can decide if this was hyperbole or a forecast, but this is what was on his podcast on January 5. Let's listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. Just understand this. All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. It's not going to happen like you think it's going to happen, OK? It's going to be quite extraordinarily different.

And all I can say is, strap in. The "War Room" posse, you have made this happen. And, tomorrow, it's game day. So, strap in. (END AUDIO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: I mean, now, considering what we watched on the 6th, that sounds like a man who's telling you what he knows is going to happen.

CAMEROTA: Yes. He knows something.

BLACKWELL: As a prosecutor, what do you hear there and how far does it get you in building a case or a narrative?

RENATO MARIOTTI, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Wow.

Well, it's very powerful evidence. It's the sort of thing that is going to potentially move a jury. I think the other interesting thing