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Music Festival Didn't Have Contingency Plan for Surging Crowds; January 6 Committee Subpoenas Six Close Trump Allies; GOP's Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) Tweets Doctored Clip Depicting Him Killing AOC. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired November 09, 2021 - 10:00   ET

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

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ERICA HILL, CNN NEWSROOM: Good morning, top of the hour on a Tuesday. I'm Erica Hill.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

This morning, new details show that there was no new details show there was no plan to deal with a surging crowd at the deadly Astroworld concert in Houston. Investigators are still working to determine all possible causes of deaths and injuries to concertgoers. At least 18 lawsuits have been filed so far.

All of this as the Houston fire chief says that Travis Scott had a shared responsibility for the safety of the crowd at that festival.

HILL: Also this morning, we're waiting to see how six former Trump associates respond after being subpoenaed by the January 6th committee investigating the insurrection. Many of these people helped to spread the big lie, which, of course, fueled the Capitol insurrection.

So, now, a renewed focus on Attorney General Merrick Garland to see if and how the DOJ will enforce the request, how they'll deal with Steve Bannon at this point.

SCIUTTO: Let's begin though this morning in Houston. CNN Correspondent Rosa Flores following all the developments there.

So, Rosa, tell us where the investigation stands this morning because it seems we're learning so much about security failures. I mean, even the video we watched of the people rushing the gates early on, it just looked like a mess.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Jim, it was a mess. And I think that's one of the big questions is what went so wrong here that eight people are dead?

Now, we haven't gotten an update from the Houston Police Department about the investigation since Saturday. We continue to push for answers to see if there is any new development in this investigation. What we have been learning about the investigation is actually from the people around it, from the organizers who have issued statements saying that they're cooperating with authorities, that they are providing video, for example. That was the last statement we received from Live Nation. It includes that information.

Here's what they said. Quote, throughout the weekend, we have been working to provide local authorities with everything they need from us in order to complete their investigation. We have also provided them with all the footage from our CCTV cameras. And it goes on to say, we are working our ways to support attendees, the families of victims, from providing mental health counseling, to setting up a health fund, to help with costs for medical expenses.

When you talk about the mental health here, you're not just talk about the concertgoers, who I talked to many of them, who say they're traumatized by this event. It's also the family members of those victims, the people who were trampled over, and, of course, the individuals who died.

We have all of their names. Here they are. 23-year-old Rodolfo Pena, 21-year-old Franco Pateno, 20-year-old Jacob Jurinek, 16-year-old Brianna Rodriguez, 14-year-old John Hilgert, 27-year-old Mirza Baig, he goes by Danish, 23-year-old Madison Dubinsky, 21-year-old Axel Costa Avila.

And some people are still fighting for their lives, the Houston fire chief telling me this morning that three individuals are still in the hospital, two of them in critical condition. One of those individuals is a nine-year-old boy who is fighting for his life.

His grandfather telling CNN that this concert was supposed to be a moment for a dad and a son to have a good time together. At this concert, according to his grandfather, the little boy was on his father's shoulders. Well, I've heard it from so many concertgoers that at points in this concert it was difficult for people to control their bodies, to even breathe.

Erica and Jim, according to this grandfather, the dad passed out and the little boy was on his shoulders, fell onto the crowd, was transported to the hospital as a John Doe, later identified by his family.

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Now he's fighting for his life. Erica and Jim?

HILL: It is just awful. It is heartbreaking. Rosa, thank you.

Joining us now to talk more, Ruy Lozano, he is the assistant fire chief for the Houston Fire Department. Sir, good to have you with us this morning.

I know there are a lot of questions about how this happened. The fire chief telling my colleague, Jake Tapper, yesterday that why there was this, you know, 30 minutes that passed between when a mass casualty event was declared and when Travis Scott actually stopped performing was is the, quote, $64,000 question.

Help us understand though, what is the protocol in a moment like this? You have a major event. There's a mass casualty event that's declared. What happens next? Is there someone backstage who is in direct communication with the manager, the artist, someone who says now it's time to stop?

ASST. FIRE CHIEF RUY LOZANO, HOUSTON FIRE DEPARTMENT: Erica, can you hear me? I just lost the last two words you said.

HILL: I can hear you. I'm just wondering, what's the protocol? What happens as soon as a mass casualty event is declared? What should happen? What's the communication both backstage and with those performers on stage at that moment?

LOZANO: So, Erica, first, before we even get into those details, there's obviously an investigation. I do want to echo the fire chief's sentiments about thoughts and prayers with the family, because that's always what's most important, they have been impacted. As you said earlier, we have confirmed that eight have died, three in the hospital, two in extremely critical condition.

Now, the Houston Fire Department in this particular case was not involved in the inside perimeter of that event. We had some foresight and staged assets outside the perimeter. We were monitoring closely. And it was not a 911 call but our own leadership that recognized that resources were getting overwhelmed, deployed a task force, only 11 ambulances, later escalating to a mass casualty incident and getting an additional 11 ambulances to that location. And at the highest point, we had over 62 assets at that location.

Now, when a mass casualty situation is declared, it's important that we notify as many people as possible and try to control the crowd. Unfortunately, you have to cater to your audience. This is a very young crowd. It's been COVID. People are finally getting out, trying to enjoy the presence of other people. It's very difficult to control. Many people want to shed blame, but it's really too early. It's important to let the investigative process take its toll, but for the fire department, what's important is that when we come in, we come in in force.

So, when we showed up and had over 20 units, we had a complete escort of HPD gaining this access. We were the ones that transported 12 very critical and in many cases CPR in progress. So, what's important for us is that when we show up and that declaration is known that the word spread across all agencies involved, including our third-party partners.

HILL: So, to that point, right, you showed up, but there must have been somewhere a drop, right, in the communication that would normally happen. Even if you're not in charge of that, you must be aware of what the protocol is and who is supposed to be talking to whom when that declaration happened. The chief says he feels if Travis Scott had stopped performing sooner, this could have had at least a slightly different outcome. I'm curious, based on what you just said about the crowd, is there something that you feel, because he has such sway over his fans, that Travis Scott could have said, should have said in that moment to perhaps further limit the chaos, the injuries, and even the deaths that we saw?

LOZANO: Well, I agree with the fire chief. Letting the artist know the situation and saying that he has the largest microphone in the venue may have helped. Could we definitely say it would have changed outcomes? I'm not prepared to make that statement, but I agree with the fire chief wholeheartedly.

Having the artist involved in that process, notifying those -- because the concert venue was huge, it was well within industry standards of holding 50,000 occupants. It was actually designed to hold close to 100,000, if not, more. But because the concentration was up against the stage, having that large microphone, explaining to the crowd and hopefully -- and this is hope -- that the crowd would listen, I'm not going to say that circumstances could have changed, but it certainly would have -- may have helped.

HILL: Based on -- let me just get your thoughts on this before we let you go, because I think anybody who's attended a concert that has, you know, this kind of open space where you can buy basically what accounts to, I think, for a lot of people G.A. ticket, where you're standing there, they understand that crowds can get tight. But the fact that it was able to become this dense and that then resulted in this chaos without there being a plan, so as we've learned that there was no contingency plan for any sort of crowd surge, and that though comes on the heels of we know three people being trampled and hospitalized at the same festival in 2019, was that a concern at all for the fire department that there was no contingency plan for some sort of a crowd surge?

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LOZANO: Well, the fire department always wants to be involved in the early planning phases of any target hazard where there's going to be a concentration of lives, because part of our mission is lifesaving. That's what we do.

The challenge is just because the venue is large enough doesn't mean you're going to be able to control the crowd in where they concentrate. That's why I spoke to many of our partners from the Fire Marshal's Office and just to kind of get an idea what could we do different.

And one of the things is when you know you're going to have this type of crowd that is large that can easily converge onto a stage, it's better to hold it in a traditional brick-and-mortar venue with compartmentalization going on, where you can kind of control the crowd movements. There's no ability for someone who has a ticket in the back of the venue that would be able to make their way to the front of the venue.

Those are luxuries that you don't have in an open-air performance. And, you know, this venue was large, well within industry standards. The concentration was the unpredictable -- the known unknown at that point.

HILL: Certainly a lot of people talking about, though, how that could have perhaps been split up a little bit more. Ruy Lozano, I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today. Thank you.

LOZANO: Thank you.

HILL: The January 6th committee accelerating its probe into who plotted and organized the effort to overturn the 2020 election. The panel issuing six new subpoenas targeting top Trump campaign associates.

SCIUTTO: Yes, or they complied with.

Joining us now, CNN Justice Correspondent Jessica Schneider. So, tell us who's being targeted in the latest batch and really what happens next here, year, in terms of enforcing them.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's the question. Will they comply with this? We know Steve Bannon hasn't. So, what will become of these six Trump allies subpoenaed? The committee says, what all of them have in common is that they were involved in promoting the big lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

So, first, to John Eastman. He's a conservative lawyer with Trump's legal team, and we had previously reported that he drafted that two- page memo outlining a scheme to try to persuade then-Vice President Mike Pence to throw out the 2020 election results on January 6th.

We've heard from Congressman Jamie Raskin on the committee. He says learning more Eastman's role is key. Eastman's deposition is set for December 8th. We'll see if that actually happens.

Then there's Bill Stepien. He was the manager of the Trump 2020 re- election campaign. And the committee says that makes him a key witness to Trump's efforts to overturn the election. The committee also says that a witness has hold them that Stepien was deeply involved in the messaging campaign around the Stop the Steal message.

Then Jason Miller, he's long been with Trump, a longtime adviser, senior adviser for the 2020 re-election campaign. He was present at the Willard Hotel in that meeting to try to overturn the election, January 5th. And the committee claims that Miller used his platform as senior adviser to peddle lies about election fraud. He actually coordinated news conferences with Trump and Rudy Giuliani to claim the election was rigged.

Then there's someone we really haven't heard much about, Angela McCallum. She was the national executive assistant for the re-election campaign. And she allegedly left this voicemail pressuring a Michigan state lawmaker to support overturning the results in that state.

Now we get to Michael Flynn, of course, the short-lived national security adviser left just a few months into Trump's term. The committee says he attended a June 18th meeting -- sorry, December 18th meeting inside the Oval Office where people were talking about ways to push election fraud.

And, finally, among the subpoenas we have Bernie Kerik. Kerik was the former New York City police commissioner, now a close Trump ally. The committee says he was also in that Willard Hotel war room on January 5th. He also allegedly worked with Rudy Giuliani to promote baseless allegations of voter fraud.

Now, Kerik is the first one we're hearing about issuing a public statement about these subpoenas. He is saying this to CNN, I will not be threatened, intimidated, forced into bankruptcy or silenced at the hands of this committee who are not looking for the truth but targeting patriots and members of the president's legal team that wanted nothing more than to investigate and expose those irregularities. So, Kerik already airing his defiance.

But, Jim and Erica, as you talked about at the top, the question remains here, will any of these latest six subpoenaed Trump allies comply or will they follow Steve Bannon's lead and defy these subpoenas, especially given the fact the Justice Department, 2 1/2 weeks in now, still has not decided whether to prosecute Bannon for that criminal contempt referral.

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So, interestingly, Erica and Jim, none of these six, just like Steve Bannon, none were government employees, and that could make any claims they might make about executive privilege a step like we've seen with Steve Bannon. Guys?

SCIUTTO: We'll see if the Justice Department prosecutes. We'll see how enforceable the subpoenas really are. Jessica Schneider, thanks so much for following.

Still to come this hour, what would happen if you or I tweeted a video depicting yourself or myself violently attacking a co-worker? Well, one Republican congressman is about to find out. That post is causing a stir, understandably. That's next.

Plus, in Brunswick, Georgia, prosecutors are calling another police officer who responded at the scene were Ahmaud Arbery's being shot and killed. The latest from inside the courtroom later this hour.

HILL: And a warning in Vermont after a spike in COVID-19 cases, why one college is blaming Halloween parties for an increase in the spread, that's ahead.

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HILL: This morning, Twitter and Instagram facing pressure to suspend the account of Republican Congressman Paul Gosar following his latest display of toxic politics. On Monday, Gosar sharing an altered anime video which shows him killing Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden. Now, these are screenshots of that video. Given its disturbing nature, CNN is not showing it in its entirety.

SCIUTTO: But it's still up on Twitter, the whole video still up. According to The Washington Post, Gosar's staff responded by saying, everyone needs to relax.

Let's bring in Jackie Kucinich, she's Washington Bureau Chief at The Daily Beast, CNN Senior Political Analyst John Avlon. Good to have both of you on.

And, Jackie, you know this well. Look back to Representative Steve King, right? He was pushed out of his committee positions by Republican leadership for racist comments. I mean, I wonder what the red line is now, because the bottom seems to have fallen so far. Is there a comment, including a violent one, that gets a punishment within the party at this point?

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, clearly not. It's pretty clear that Kevin McCarthy is fine kind of letting his caucus become feral. There's no punishment in this Republican leadership structure. And I'll tell you what, based on when Republicans took the majority or any party takes the majority, it doesn't get easier to control some of these members once they are in the majority.

But he's clearly made the calculation that it's not worth punishing these people, maybe it's because of backlash from their followers, maybe it's backlash from the president. I don't know. I haven't talked to him about it. However, there has been a -- it's clear that he's not policing some of these members, perhaps like he should, because that's what leadership is.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HILL: I mean, yes, I would say there's zero policing. There hasn't been much of a reaction as we know either. It's not just Democrats though who were targeted, the 13 Republicans who voted for the infrastructure bill. We should point out this really disturbing voicemail which was shared with CNN by Congress Fred Upton. So, we don't play it, I will just say, the caller says, I hope you die. I hope everybody in your bleeping family dies. He did respond. I just want to play what he had to say.

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REP. FRED UPTON (R-MI): It's a real step back. Thank goodness it wasn't a constituent. But I have a colleague, as you know, that put out the phone numbers of the 13 of us who voted that way. I'm glad to defend that vote.

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HILL: Now, he did point out -- he's referring there to Marjorie Taylor Greene, who shared the phone numbers of all 13 Republican who voted for the infrastructure bill.

John, as we look at this, I think it's clear there's no real acknowledgement of the danger here, right, that we've seen this growing for some time. But the fact that this has become in some circles acceptable, and we keep looking at it and we keep -- as Jim says, keep wondering where is the bottom, it's gotten so low. What is it going to take? I mean, is it going to take someone acting on these horrific threats?

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. This is all happening ten months after the attack on our Capitol by a violent mob trying to overturn the election on the back of the big lie. That wasn't enough. An attack on our Capitol to overturn our election was not enough to serve as a wakeup call about the dangers of these kind of incitement politics that are becoming mainstream within the GOP.

Gosar and Greene are outliers, but that rhetoric being accepted changes the temperature. If threatening one of your co-workers with killing isn't worthy of a censure, what the hell is? And so this is just a symptom of the sickness in our politics and it's growing louder by the day because Republicans have failed to stand up and confront and clearly condemn Donald Trump and his big lie. Instead, they've tried to incubate it because they believe it will help them regain power. It will ultimately do the exact opposite while undermining our republic in the process.

SCIUTTO: Listen, you make the point. We know these kinds of statements, this sort of rhetoric leads to violence. We saw it on January 6th.

AVLON: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Remember the images of the policemen -- I just always think of the one with his head in the door being crushed by those folks.

Jackie, law enforcement says that.

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Law enforcement, the FBI, policing domestic extremism says that this kind of rhetoric is dangerous and can be deadly. Is there no one within Republican leadership right now who is aware of that and doing something about it?

KUCINICH: Well, no one that they're listening to. I mean, listen, you had rules change that members can pay for private security out of their membership funds now. So, that has changed. You have several members who have Capitol police protection. Leadership knows about this. This isn't a secret. But the fact that they're letting it happen, again, there just seems to be this hands-off way of handling it at this point and it defies logic as to why it's happening. Maybe they think it's too much trouble.

But there's seems to be a lot more outrage at someone like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for joining the January 6th committee than there is for threatening other members of Congress' and perhaps even putting their phone numbers out for the world to see.

AVLON: Jackie just makes such a key point there. There's more moral outrage at Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney for trying to work with Democrats to get to the bottom of an attack on our Capitol and an attempt to overturn an election than there is for members of their own caucus threatening other members of Congress. And that says everything.

And let's be honest of what it's about. It's about fear of the mob. It's about fear of ex-President Donald Trump. It's about fear of confronting a big lie. It's the most cowardly thing you can imagine. That's what's happening.

KUCINICH: Well, it's also about power, John. I mean, it's about retaking the majority.

AVLON: Of course, no. Yes, that's the deal they think they're making.

HILL: It's rolled into the fear of losing a vote because you put that above all else, not the safety of other members, not what, you know, the good is, certainly not example setting. It's fear of the extremists who are now leading that charge. Jackie Kucinich, John Avlon, I appreciate it, thank you both.

KUCINICH: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Well, to that point, it has been one full week since Election Day in New Jersey, and the Republican candidate for governor has still not conceded the race. The Democratic incumbent, Phil Murphy, is ahead by 67,555 votes, or about 2.6 percent, and there are fewer than 100,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted.

In New Jersey, candidates have a right to request a recount if they believe an error was made but the number of outstanding votes makes it a virtual mathematical impossibility to change the outcome.

Ciattarelli's own legal counsel said in a statement last night, quote, we do not expect the provisional vote count to end with Jack Ciattarelli in the lead, however that count may reduce the margin for Governor Murphy enough to warrant a full recount. The statement also says, they've seen no credible evidence of fraud.

Last Thurday, Ciattarelli himself said in a Twitter video that he does not want people to fall victim to wild conspiracies. However, listen closely to the language he uses in that same video.

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JACK CIATTARELLI (R), CANDIDATE FOR NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: No one should be declaring victory or conceding the election until every legal vote is counted.

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SCIUTTO: Every legal vote. Does that sound familiar? It insinuates that maybe some of the counted votes are not legitimate, wording similar to that other republicans used, and still used after the 2020 election, and feeding the big lie that former President Trump started and a big lie that is still alive and well in the party.

The race in Virginia is a very different story. Democrat Terry McAuliffe lost the governor's race to Republican Youngkin by 64,594 votes, or 2 percent, a smaller margin, percentage-wise, we should note, than that in New Jersey. Yet the next day, he conceded that race. Note the pattern here. Despite losing by a smaller margin, Democrats in Virginia accepted the results, conceded and began cooperating with the transition all within days. One week later, Republicans in New Jersey have not done any of those things, just as Trump has not done one year after 2020.

HILL: Just the facts.

Still ahead, prosecutors questioning what is expected to be their last witness in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse. We're going to take you live to Kenosha, next.

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