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Names Of Some From Astroworld Stampede Revealed; Mob Overwhelmed Festival Security Hours Before Deadly Crush; Biden Gets Infrastructure Win, Shifts Focus To Safety Net Bill; Interview With Georgia Secretary Of State Brad Raffensperger; Interview With Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) About The Infrastructure Bill; Four Weeks Of Paid Family And Medical Leave Back In Spending Bill; Inflation Puts A Strain On Grocery Shopping For Americans. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired November 07, 2021 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:19]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILLY NASSER, ATTENDED ASTROWORLD FESTIVAL: People are getting trampled. They're losing their balance and then tripping over the people on the floor. And people were just dying left and right.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A death trap. That's one man's description of the deadly surge at a Houston music festival. Tonight new questions about crowd control at the venue.

SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA): We are going to get these bills done. They're great for every zip code in this country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A vast majority of Americans are not for the second bill.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: After passing the bipartisan infrastructure bill, Democrats move full steam ahead on their bold social spending plan. But Republicans aren't on board.

MUSTAFA AL-KADHIMI, IRAQI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): The cowardly missiles and drones do not build our countries nor our future.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Iraq's prime minister vowing to punish those responsible after he escaped an explosive laden drone attack inside the Green Zone.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Americans and Canadian citizens finally able to come into the United States for non-essential travel after more than 19 months of restrictions.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: I'm Pamela Brown in Washington. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM on this Sunday.

Houston, Texas. That is where we begin tonight, in the grounds of the enormous NRG Park. Right now the scene of a massive police and medical investigation trying to make sense of a shocking, and by all accounts, preventable tragedy.

Tonight we have confirmed the names of some of the eight people killed and new disturbing images of what happened in the hours leading up to the stampede.

This is just one shot of the chaos at that Houston music festival Friday night. The massive outdoor concert crowd surging out of control toward the stage, crushing and stumping hundreds of fans who had no way to escape. Eight people dead just -- two of them just teenagers, 14 and 16 years old, and tonight, we have some of their names. Houston officials confirming tonight that 14-year-old John Hilgert is among those killed. He is the youngest of the victims. John was a ninth grader at Memorial High School in Houston.

Also, we just learned that Brianna Rodriguez is the name of the other teenager, just 16 years old. She was a high school junior. Also killed Friday night 21-year-old Franco Patino, a student at the University of Dayton. And Danish Baig, 27 years old. His brother tells CNN Danish died trying to save his fiancee who was also caught up in the pushing and shoving mass of people.

CNN's Rosa Flores is in Houston right now. Rosa, just such a horrible thing and now we're putting names to the casualty figures. You have been talking to people who were there. What have they been telling you?

FLORES: You know, Pamela, I've been hearing a wide range of accounts. It's so tragic to hear the side of these concertgoers who say that all they wanted to do was take a breath. They describe how difficult it was for them to just breathe because the crowd was so tight. They describe being packed like sardines and their survival instincts kicking in because they just wanted to get out of there and take a breath.

Then I talked to another concertgoer today who said that the concert ended and he didn't realize that this was a tragedy. He thought it was weird that it ended early because he looked at his watch and it was 10:13, 10:14. Well, now investigators are going to want to talk to everybody that will talk to them to try to piece the puzzle as this turns into a criminal investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NASSER: It was a death trap, basically.

FLORES (voice-over): More witnesses are coming forward to share their experiences at Houston's Astroworld Friday night where eight people died and hundreds more were injured.

NASSER: I picked some kid up and his eyes went to the back of his head. So I checked his pulse, I knew he was dead, and then I checked the people around me, and I just had to leave him there. There was nothing I could do. I had to keep going. FLORES: Another concertgoer saying the mood noticeably shifted in the

audience just before internationally acclaimed rapper Travis Scott took the stage.

LESLIE HANS, WITNESS: I mean, as the time was winding down, you know, people became more rowdy and more antsy and just more standoffish, is the vibe that I got.

FLORES: Police also say that a security guard was pricked in the neck with a needle, prompting more questions about what was happening in the crowd.

CHIEF TROY FINNER, HOUSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT: He went unconscious. They administered Narcan.

[18:05:01]

He was revived and the medical staff did notice a prick that was similar to a prick that you would get if somebody is trying to inject.

FLORES: But Scott maintains he had no idea about the severity of what was happening in the crowd as he continued to rap, telling the fans in an Instagram video Saturday night that he is devastated by what happened.

TRAVIS SCOTT, RAPPER: Any time I can make out, you know, anything that's going on, you know, I'd stop the show and, you know, help them get the help they need.

FLORES: It isn't the first time crowd control issues have come up for Scott, who sells out concerts across the globe and is known for his high energy shows. In this 2019 Netflix documentary, a member of Travis' team tells security guards about the anticipated rowdy fans ahead of one of his shows.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The pressure becomes very great up against the barricade. You will see a lot of crowd surfers in general but also you'll see a lot of kids that are just trying to get out and get to safety because they can't breathe because it's so compact, like you won't know how bad it could be with the crowd until we turn on.

FLORES: In the past, Scott has faced legal trouble for egging on fans at his shows. In 2015, Scott pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in Arkansas according to the "Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette" after police say he encouraged people to rush the stage at one of his shows. Two other misdemeanor charges, including inciting a riot were dismissed.

And in 2015, Scott pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor reckless conduct charge after encouraging fans to rush the stage at Chicago's Lalapalooza Festival, according to the "Chicago Tribune." He was sentenced to a year of court supervision.

In Houston, a criminal investigation is now underway according to police who are urging concertgoers to contact them if they have information to share. The medical examiner's office also seeking help identifying this man, one of the victims in this tragedy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES: As for the latest in the investigation, at last check, police say that they were going to be scouring through video, looking for clues and also for any criminal activity -- Pamela.

BROWN: Rosa Flores, thank you for that on the ground in Houston.

And I want to show you now a very frightening part of that festival scene in Houston. It is not the deadly crush of the concert crowd but a few hours beforehand when people started to enter the park. Look at this. This is a mob of mostly young people shoving and crashing their way through the entrances. Destroying the metal detectors, destroying the barricades. Completely overwhelming the few security officers posted there.

Reporter (INAUDIBLE) saw it happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MYCAH HATFIELD, KTRK REPORTER: We were heading in through the VIP security area, and we saw the crowds running across the pedestrian bridge from the NRG Stadium parking lot to the other side of Kirby. The security guards who were checking our bags knew what was coming and pulled all of us to the side. Seconds later you see in this video what happened.

Hundreds of people rushed through the checkpoint, trampling one another. They tore down the metal detectors, they were falling and stomping on each other. It was chaos. A few people were handcuffed. One I heard telling the security officer that he just really wanted to be inside of this festival so bad, which led me to believe that many of those people did not have tickets.

Tickets to Astroworld sold out within an hour of going on sale several months ago, and that was before people even knew what the lineup was.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: One young person detained by security told reporters they, quote, "just really wanted to be inside the festival so bad."

I want to bring in Paul Wertheimer. He is a crowd safety expert and founder of the group Crowd Management Strategies.

Paul, you just watched that video with me, that mob of young people tearing down the entrance to the music festival, and then of course the horrible images of the concert itself where those eight people were crushed to death.

What is your reaction? Do you think that this was a red flag of what could come later in the evening?

PAUL WERTHEIMER, FOUNDER, CROWD MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES: They're two different incidents, of course, but yes, it does speak to the mood of a portion of the crowd. But what I wonder about when I see that was, where were the 500 or so police officers that the mayor said? And where were the hundreds and hundreds of security people that the promoters said were on the site?

BROWN: Right.

WERTHEIMER: They weren't at the stage. They weren't in front of the stage, on and around the stage, and at the entrances, so where were they?

BROWN: And that's really what I mean, too, by red flag that they're just pouring in, this mob of young people, and you don't see the security reinforcement there to keep them at bay, to keep them under control, so then that raises questions about the actual concert when we know this chaos ensued.

[18:10:08]

I mean, the panic went on for 70 minutes in which Travis Scott performed his set. 70 minutes. How could this have gone on for so long without coming to a stop to address the issue?

WERTHEIMER: Well, first of all, let's not call it a panic. That tends to indict the victims. Victims didn't panic. They were trying to save their lives or the lives of loved ones or other people around them. They were caught in a crowd craze, a common occurrence in front of a stage when people move forward to something of perceived value. It's the opposite of a stampede. This happened over time.

The question is who was monitoring and looking after the crowd? And I'm not sure anyone was because there were many opportunities to stop this disaster from unfolding.

BROWN: And that's what I want to dive a little bit more into. And I used the word panic because that is the words of those who have -- were there at the concert. They said that is how they felt. They felt panicked. They were trying to flag down help. This was ongoing for 70 minutes.

What do you do, though, in this case? Because you have performers who say, look, people pass out all the time at concerts, so how do you decipher between just typical passing out at a concert and really see that this is a horrible situation that's taking place and we need to stop the music and take care of these folks?

WERTHEIMER: You nailed it right on the head when you said, they say people pass out at concerts all the time. They pass out in festival seating, crowd-crushing environments which I have been in for nearly two decades. They pass out because they're getting crushed. And yet that seems to be acceptable. It seems to be that fans should accept this. That's the warning sign right there that problems -- that there are problems with the crowd.

But it's Russian roulette often for the artists and the promoter and the operators of the event. They take the chance. They groom the fans to accept this kind of dangerous and deadly crowd environment of standing room festival seating overcrowding with no management and people pass out. That's the canary in the coal mine right there. That should not occur, literally, at any event if it's run properly.

BROWN: Right. And it sounds like from your experience and everything you have researched, it was essentially a matter of time until something like this happened. And it is just so tragic, and a lot to be learned from what happened here.

Paul Wertheimer, thank you.

WERTHEIMER: My pleasure. Thank you.

BROWN: Well, for President Biden and Democrats, no rest for the weary. After months of delays and dysfunction, the president's party finally passed his infrastructure bill. And now those lawmakers can devote their focus to the other half of his economic agenda, his massive Build Back Better package. The plan to vote for both bills in tandem failed when House moderates demanded concrete numbers on its costs.

CNN's Arlette Saenz is at the White House. Arlette, that number crunching could take up -- that number crunching could take up to a couple of weeks? How will the White House capitalize on that time?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, the White House is hoping to build off the momentum of passing that bipartisan infrastructure proposal to get that larger social safety net spending bill across the finish line. One of the issues at hand is that upcoming CBO report that moderate Democrats have demanded. They want to see this nonpartisan analysis of the pay-fors for that larger spending package before they have a vote.

Now they have agreed to have a vote no later than the week of November 15th. Once it does pass the House, if it passes the House, it still needs to move on to the Senate where Senator Joe Manchin and others have said that they want to see changes made to the bill. One thing in the House bill that he takes issue with is paid family leave. So these are all issues that will need to be ironed out over the course of the next few weeks.

And the White House of course Manchin has been a key holdout senator that they have been courting this entire time, so expect them to continue that outreach and try to persuade him to move this bill forward.

Now, as for that bipartisan infrastructure bill, the president is expected to sign it into law at some point soon. He's going to host a signing ceremony here at the White House with both the Republicans and Democrats who work together on this bill to get it passed. And on Wednesday he will be traveling up to Baltimore to promote this bill that Congress passed on Friday, visiting some ports while he is in the area.

[18:15:05]

But certainly, while the White House is taking a victory lap on the infrastructure plan, they still have a long road ahead in the coming weeks on that larger spending bill they're hoping to get passed -- Pamela.

BROWN: All right. Arlette Saenz from the White House for us tonight, thank you very much.

Paid family leave back in President Biden's Build Back Better bill for now, at least. Kindergarten teacher Christina Townsend who spent her life savings caring for her newborn baby and her sick mother says it's time Congress did right by American workers. Christina joins me live in the studio, coming up.

Also ahead, we have a "Reality Check" on critical race theory and why it's become so politically loaded after Glenn Youngkin's win in Virginia. And well before that, too.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CECILY STRONG, "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE": What is critical race theory?

ALEX MOFFAT, "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE": Simple. It's what got me elected.

STRONG: Right. But what is it?

MOFFAT: It's not important.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:20:07]

BROWN: Remember when the former president called Georgia's secretary of state after losing to Joe Biden? He urged Brad Raffensperger to find just enough votes to flip the election in his favor. Now the district attorney for Georgia's Fulton County is reportedly moving towards convening a special grand jury in her ongoing criminal investigation into election interference.

Joining me now the man who had that memorable showdown with the ex- president, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. He is also the author of "Integrity Counts."

Thank you so much for joining us.

BRAD RAFFENSPERGER (R), GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE: Good evening.

BROWN: The former president, Brad, has spent the past year continuing to undermine confidence in the electoral process and pushing the lie about the election. In a recent NPR-Marist poll, just 33 percent of Republicans say they'll trust the results of the 2024 election if their candidate loses. What does that say to you?

RAFFENSPERGER: Well, that's why I wrote the book, "Integrity Counts," to set the record straight, let people know that in Georgia we had a fair and honest election and President Trump came up short. So I went through -- there's a lot of facts in it, a lot of numbers, that I really just showed point by point and respond to every single allegation that was made.

BROWN: At this point it seems like it's not only baked in among a majority of Republicans. But even more and more Republicans are saying, according to the polling, that they believe the election was stolen. In your book you talk about election integrity being crucial to democracy. You talk about Trump, that episode where he deliberately tried to overturn results in Georgia with his pressure campaign.

If he became the 2024 Republican nominee for president, would you support him?

RAFFENSPERGER: Well, that's so far out in the future. There'll be a lot of people that run. It will be an open primary system. Right now we're focused on the mayoral race. We have a run-off in a few weeks and then obviously 2022 elections.

But I think that you've said it -- you've read it correctly, integrity counts. And that's really the foundational stone for trust. And if you don't have integrity, you can't have trust and then nothing happens.

BROWN: Well --

RAFFENSPERGER: And so I give my Republican friends three data points. The 28,000 Georgians skipped the presidential ballot. They didn't vote for anyone. And David Perdue, our U.S. senator, former U.S. senator, he received 20,000 more votes in Atlanta and Athens than President Trump. And in Republican congressional areas, a Republican congressman received 33,000 more votes than President Trump. Those three data points really tell you the whole story.

BROWN: If the election was held today -- I know you said you don't want to go out so far out with this. Held today and he was the Republican nominee, would you vote for him?

RAFFENSPERGER: Well, that's so far out in the future and it's really conjecture.

BROWN: Well, I said if it was today. But I think -- I guess what I'm getting at here is you have said you were a Trump supporter in the past.

RAFFENSPERGER: I was. Yes.

BROWN: You were a Trump supporter. You voted for Trump.

RAFFENSPERGER: I'm a conservative. Yes.

BROWN: You are a conservative. You are a conservative. But Trump was undermining election integrity before the election. I mean, he was saying before the election the only way he'd lose is if the election was rigged. So as someone who cares so much about integrity, as you say, why did you vote for him? Why did you support him?

RAFFENSPERGER: Well, at the end of the day, that was all, after I supported him, this is post-election. But when we took office in 2019, I had nine lawsuits from Stacey Abrams, Fair Fight, Fair Count, all her ally groups, and she talked about voter suppression.

And she undermined the legitimacy of our elections here in Georgia and we pushed back on that. Likewise in 2020 President Trump talked about voter fraud and we pushed back on that. And we have won every single case.

What we've done is with both cases we have pushed back with facts. And that's what you needed when you get to a court of law. And so that's why my book is very fact-based. Exactly the history of Stacey Abrams with her myth of voter suppression and Trump's allegations of voter fraud. Neither one of them are supported by truth and both parties need to knock it off because it undermines voter confidence.

BROWN: OK. And I don't -- the question was about Trump, so I don't want to get into everything with Stacey Abrams. She has said that she did lose and she has talked about the voter suppression there. But just, you know, you supported Trump but he was touting all of these lies about what would happen in the election if he lost. Like, beforehand, he was putting it out there into the bloodstream, into the mainstream.

So did that concern you then before the election? Because he basically did what he said he was going to do.

RAFFENSPERGER: And that's why before the election, I talk about it in my book "Integrity Counts," I stood up in absentee ballot fraud task force. One of the people that were on that task force was the U.S. attorney from the Southern District, Bobby Christine, who ended up becoming the Northern U.S. attorney for Atlanta when BJ Pak resigned because I understood that absentee ballot is an area that has concern, where you signature match and -- but we have been sued both by the Republican Party and the Democrat Party over signature match saying it was subjective.

[18:25:06]

And I agree. And that's why three years ago I said when I ran, that we need to move to a driver's license number and photo I.D. They've been using it in Minnesota for 10 years. It's an objective measure and objectivity is always much better than subjectivity.

BROWN: Right. And --

RAFFENSPERGER: And so I understood that. That's why I stood up in front of the absentee ballot fraud task force course just to make sure that we would be prepared for any possible contingency with voting in a pandemic.

BROWN: Right. I just -- I see what you're saying there and that you were trying to push back on the misinformation and the flat-out lies beforehand, but just given your book being about integrity, you said if you don't have integrity, you don't have trust, that is why I raise the question about, you know, Trump clearly demonstrating he didn't care about election integrity before the election.

But I do want to ask you, because you have been on the receiving end of threats. Fulton County elections chief Richard Barron just resigned, one of many election officials quitting because of the stress in the wake of the last election. Like you, he was getting death threats. Your wife has been threatened. It's just horrible. Are you still dealing with that? Is your family still going through that?

RAFFENSPERGER: Not like it was post-election. There we were getting threats, multiple threats per hour. The last major one was in our book that I put in there that Tricia received about two weeks after Easter, but it has tapered off. Every once in a while, you write a book and you start getting a few, you know, nasty-grams and things like that. But we put our head down and we do the work of the people and that's what's really important.

But it is concerning that when poll workers, we have low-level poll workers who were threatened last year. Just imagine if you showed up to vote in person and there's no one there because all the poll workers have quit. And that's why we really need to understand the people that are working these polls are your neighbors. They're the people you see at the grocery store, you see them at rotary, you see them at your church. They're your neighbors.

And if you trust your neighbors, and I do, then you'd really know that you can trust the system because we have lots of checks and balances. We check, check and double check to make sure the results are accurate.

BROWN: Absolutely. And the results were accurate. There were several audits in Georgia, and you make such an important point. These election workers are nonpartisan workers that could be your neighbor that are working long hours, maybe not sleeping around the election, and now they are receiving death threats, and you have your own personal story in that regard.

Brad Raffensperger, thank you so much for coming on the show and talking about your book as well. We appreciate it.

RAFFENSPERGER: Thank you, Pamela.

BROWN: Well, now that infrastructure is heading into the president's desk, Democrats are shifting their focus to the spending bill. And it's a standoff within the Democratic Party between moderates and progressives.

Congressman Ritchie Torres is part of that progressive caucus, and he joins me up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:31:37]

BROWN: With a stroke of a pen, President Biden will sign into law his infrastructure plan. Now the White House and congressional Democrats can focus on a heavier lift. Passing his larger social spending and climate bill.

And joining me now a member of the Progressive Caucus, Democratic Congressman Ritchie Torres of New York.

Congressman Torres, thanks for joining the show. So look, the president's win on infrastructure came after intense infighting between the party's progressives and moderate wings. I mean, the passage is a big win for Democrats, that is for certain.

But it was the longest House vote in recent history, and there was a lot of friction and dysfunction leading up to its passage. As a progressive Democrat, are you concerned that could hurt Democrats in the midterms?

REP. RITCHIE TORRES (D-NY): Look, what matters is delivering for the American people. There is a long line of presidents who have spoken about infrastructure, but President Biden has succeeded where others have failed. He has actually delivered historic investments in infrastructure for the 21st century for American people. And in my view the best politics is effective governance and we're governing effectively.

BROWN: So you feel like what's going to come from this bill will overshadow any of the friction that led to the passage, is what you're saying basically?

TORRES: Look, we've made history, and we're on the verge of making even more history. And in the grand scheme of history, people are not going to remember the messiness of the process, people are going to remember the magnitude of what we've accomplished. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes historic investments in public transit, the largest investments in roads and bridges since the creation of the interstate highway system.

The largest investment in passenger rails since the creation of Amtrak, historic investments in clean energy and electrification which are critical to combatting catastrophic climate change. Historic investments in clean water and lead safety. This bill will do an enormous amount of good for an enormous number of Americans.

BROWN: And I believe we actually have a graphic. Hopefully we have it, we can put it up on the screen because we have been telling our viewers what exactly is in this bill, and much of it is what you mentioned. But your party just suffered a blow in Virginia. There is the graphic on the screen. A state that Joe Biden won by 10 percentage points elected a Republican governor Tuesday.

A longtime Democratic strategist says he knows why your party lost. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES CARVILLE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Look, it was just stupid wokeness. I mean, this defund the police lunacy, this take Abraham Lincoln's name off the schools. Some of these people need to go to a woke detox center or something. I mean, they're expressing a language that people just don't use. And there's a backlash and a frustration at that.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Do you think the party has moved too far to the left or are you concerned there is the perception of that on issues like what James Carville just laid out, like on police and government funding? What do you think?

TORRES: Look, each election has its own dynamics. My impression is that the gubernatorial election in Virginia was driven more by local concerns about education specific to Virginia rather than national concerns. So I would argue that the election in Virginia was localized rather than nationalized.

BROWN: So I talked to some of the voters in Virginia. Suburban white women, who were key to Donald Trump's victory, and four years later his defeat.

[18:35:06]

But those same, you know, white suburban women, generally they helped elect a Republican governor on Tuesday. And I sat down with some of them in suburban Virginia and asked what made the difference for them, and this is what they told me. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAUNDRA DAVIS, VIRGINIA VOTER: I like Manchin. I like the middle. And there's a lot of Democrats who do. And the progressives don't represent all of us.

DANA JACKSON, VIRGINIA VOTER: That's what I was saying, unless they change, I think the progressive wing has taken over so much. It's a turnoff for a lot of people, especially people that are independents.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And to be clear, their big issue and why they voted for Youngkin, they told me, was because of school closures. They feel like they're not doing enough, the Democrats aren't, to address learning laws. But does it worry you hearing that, that Democrats with centrist or moderate views may feel that progressives have become a driving force of the party?

TORRES: Well, keep in mind that the president's agenda which includes both a bipartisan infrastructure investment and the Build Back Better Act has the support of nearly every Democrat across the ideological spectrum. There is a small subset of Democrats who has concerns and we're in the process of addressing those concerns.

But instead of becoming obsessed with labels like moderate or progressive, we should focus on the policies and the impact that those policies would have in improving people's lives. We should ask ourselves, should we lift children out of poverty?

Should we create a safety net of homecare for senior citizens and the disabled? Should we create pre-K for every 3-year-old and 4-year-old in America? Should we remove lead pipes and lead service lines so that everyone has access to clean drinking water? I suspect those concerns would command broad agreement from the American people. And probably the most popular policy --

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Some of your progressive colleagues didn't vote for the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

TORRES: Almost all of the progressive caucus voted for the infrastructure bill.

BROWN: That is true. But several did not.

TORRES: You know, all the members are entitled to make what they believe were the best judgments for their district. I would not begrudge their right to do what they think is best, but I was proud to vote for that package because it was historic in more ways than one, and it's a bona fide breakthrough in the fight against catastrophic climate change. It's going to create the first ever national network of electric vehicle charging stations.

We're establishing a grid deployment authority so that we can create a national energy grid. We're investing in passenger rail and public transit. We're electrifying school buses and transit buses. So that we not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions but lower the rate of air pollution and asthma hospitalizations in America. I think those are achievements that appeal to a wide range of Americans from across the ideological spectrum.

BROWN: All right. Congressman Ritchie Torres, wish we had more time to chat. Thank you so much for sharing your perspective on this.

TORRES: An honor to be here.

BROWN: Well, among the big sticking points for Democrats, paid family leave. When we come back, I'm going to speak to a kindergarten teacher, Christina Townsend. She had to spend her entire savings to stay home and care for her newborn. That story ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:42:10]

BROWN: Congress pass President Biden's infrastructure package on Friday, but his $1.85 trillion Build Back Better Act still hangs in the balance and it will be a fight. Speaker Nancy Pelosi added back four weeks of paid family and medical leave into the bill Wednesday, but moderate senator Joe Manchin promptly dug in his heels and said there is no way he'd vote yes if it stays because he doesn't believe it belongs in this bill.

To recap, 186 countries offer paid leave for new mothers. 186. But the U.S. offers no guaranteed paid leave, the only industrialized nation that offers nothing. This

Christian Townsend is a kindergarten teacher who had a baby boy in August. She's here to further discuss what it's like to have a baby with no paid leave.

You have just been through so much the last few months. Shortly before Dillon was born, your non-smoker mother was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. We're looking at a photo of her right now. You had no paid leave from your employer to help you be with Dillon or your mom. You spent your whole savings to be able to stay home and care for them. What was that like?

CHRISTINA TOWNSEND, ADVOCATE FOR PAID FAMILY LEAVE: I mean, as you can imagine, it was tremendously difficult. We had a planned pregnancy so I, you know, started saving from the get-go. I had to save money from every single paycheck and put it away to make sure we could have this time, and now that, you know, my 12 weeks is about over, so is my savings. It's about gone because I used it to spend, you know, 12 weeks at home with my son.

BROWN: So you're having to deal with recovering from the birth of a child, which, I know, is a lot. It's not just physical, it's emotional, it's mental. There is a lot that goes into that. And here's a picture of you with your sweet baby, but also finding out about your mom, too. What was that like when you found out about your mom who, sadly, just passed away, right?

TOWNSEND: Yes. It was extremely difficult. I was actually nine months pregnant when we found out that my mom had stage 4 lung cancer. She has said she never smoked. And the diagnosis itself was so shocking and crushing because it's something you never imagine happening, and yet it did. And so I suddenly had to go into the mindset of being able to recover from birth so that I could go see my mom and, you know, take my son with me to see her.

BROWN: And also you don't have the layer during all this of comfort of, you know, I don't have to worry about going through my savings. That's all taken care of. Because you were having to go through your savings. How frustrating is it to hear Congress squabbling over paid family leave because to you it's personal?

[18:45:02]

TOWNSEND: Yes, it's very frustrating. Obviously with what I went through, and from the caregiving side as well, I had family members who wanted to visit my mom, who wanted to care for her, and they also very much struggled to get out to see her. And I have friends, I have coworkers who really struggled to stay home with their children because they had no paid leave.

I actually had a supervisor in a former job who returned to work three weeks after giving birth and she had been with the company for 10 years. So we need paid family leave and we can't wait another day. Americans are really struggling.

BROWN: That is three weeks, wow. I recently shared that after I gave birth to my second child, I was diagnosed with postpartum anxiety, which just means I had all consuming fear and worry every second of the day, but I had paid leave, I had, you know, the 12 weeks through my work to recover. I mean, three weeks is just such a little amount of time, and what Nancy Pelosi put in the bill is four weeks. Joe Manchin in the Senate has said he wants it out of the bill before he signs on to it.

But I think you make a good point because I had this personal experience and I also had to care for my mom who died shortly after I gave birth. I gave birth in February, she died in May, and during the maternity leave, you know, I was caring for her and she sadly passed away.

But I think that that's an important point. Because it's not just for new moms, it's beyond that. And did you feel -- were you worried throughout your experience that you may have to cut it short because you wouldn't be able to afford paying for the time you needed to care for your loved ones?

TOWNSEND: Yes, it was really scary trying to, you know, balance my savings every month. I was like, how much do I have, how much for rent, how much for bills, how much for this new baby and everything else? It was a big challenge, yes.

BROWN: Yes. And again, with a family member, you don't know how long it's going to take, too, which is another aspect of it. Again, I understand and I sympathize with you. I went through it personally as well, and I'm sorry you had to go through that, but thank you for coming on to share your story about this important topic.

TOWNSEND: Thank you so much for having me.

BROWN: Christina Townsend.

Well, critical race theory was among the big issues voters in Virginia were focused on. Incoming Glenn Youngkin used it as part of his campaign, but what is critical race theory and what is it not? We're going to tell you the breakdown of fact versus fiction coming up right after this break. Stay with us.

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[18:52:00]

BROWN: As the U.S. struggles with rising inflation and supply chain shortages, American families are feeling the consequences in their everyday lives.

CNN's Evan McMorris-Santoro spoke with one family about how this new economic reality is even affecting how they feed their kids.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KRISTA STOTLER, PARENT: All right, let's go tackle this.

EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): What does inflation mean for American families? This is the story of the Stotlers' weekly shop.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good to see you guys. K. STOTLER: Good to see you.

LARRY STOTLER, PARENT: We have two biological kids and then my wife and I have a big heart for adoption, so we adopted a sibling group of two, then three, then one and then we have a kid living with us right now who's kind of in a foster situation.

MCMORRIS-SANTORO: It feels like money isn't going as far as it used to.

K. STOTLER: OK, let's see what we can do.

I think probably in June, it was about a dollar's worth a dollar, so now that dollar is worth about 70 cents.

All right, now we're moving on to dairy, which is right there.

We started seeing everything going up. Grocery prices went up. Gallon of milk was $1.99, now it's $2.79, well, when you buy 12 gallons a week, times four weeks, you know, that's a lot of money.

That's what I'm talking about. Thanks, brother.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your welcome.

MCMORRIS-SANTORO: Again, this is what they buy every week.

K. STOTLER: If you want to get any of these that are a $1.79, you can pick five boxes' worth.

MCMORRIS-SANTORO: Grocery shopping means tough choices right now.

L. STOTLER: We're not buying the most healthy stuff because prices have gone way up. But I feel kind of guilty sometimes we can't afford the really good things that would be healthier also.

K. STOTLER: OK, so PF Chang's is like the elite. So, let's --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You mean elite price or elite quality?

K. STOTLER: Like both.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, so both. That's what we're saying.

K. STOTLER: So where the family-size meals?

MCMORRIS-SANTORO: The Stotlers keep a close eye on their budget and they shop deals.

K. STOTLER: This is 20 ounces. How many ounces is that? 24, so get that one.

MCMORRIS-SANTORO: Krista loves a coupon.

K. STOTLER: Buy this and get Rotel and chips free. It's what it's supposed to be. MCMORRIS-SANTORO: But these days the family grocery list and the money

they carefully plan to spend sometimes don't match.

K. STOTLER: We're at $90 already and we've got a basket and a half left. But God is good and always provides, so let's see where we'll go.

MCMORRIS-SANTORO: The math at the grocery store worked out.

K. STOTLER: OK, so I don't need this, we're going to take that off, and then we're going to add these items. Awesome, guys, you all did great.

MCMORRIS-SANTORO: Then they had to add in the rest of the week's shopping, that gets delivered.

K. STOTLER: Oh, look, the Walmart stuff came.

MCMORRIS-SANTORO: The grand total? $310.

(On-camera): How much would you have spent maybe back in March so you could do the same thing?

K. STOTLER: So probably we would have only spent probably about $150, $200 something like that in March because it was quite a bit less.

MCMORRIS-SANTORO (voice over): The Stotlers are feeling the inflation squeeze to the tune of an extra $100 a week they say. That's just for groceries. This family may be larger than many.

K. STOTLER: Let's go through the line by birthdays. Whoever has October birthdays gets to go first.

MCMORRIS-SANTORO: But they live the same middle-class life as their neighbors.

[18:55:01]

The squeeze is getting tighter and that means that middle class life could be changing.

(On-camera): If the prices keep rising the way they've been rising through the next six months, what's going to happen to, you know, life in this house?

K. STOTLER: If it continues, we're just going to have to get more creative and maybe pick up an extra job if we have to, you know, doing food delivery or, you know, something like that to help make up the difference.

L. STOTLER: You can go down to, you know, beans and rice and still sustain pretty economically. We don't want to have to do that. You want to enjoy what you're purchasing, but there is another level you can get to just to make sure you make it through.

MCMORRIS-SANTORO (voice over): Evan McMorris-Santoro, CNN, Cannondale, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Heavy hearts in Houston tonight with a criminal investigation now under way into the concert tragedy there. Up next, I'll speak to the city's mayor on the search for answers. And a concertgoer who describes no room to move and people screaming to stop the show.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NASSER: People are getting trampled. They're losing their balance and then tripping over the people on the floor. And people were just dying left and right.

FLORES: A death trap.