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Interview With Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) About January 6th Committee Investigation; Special Counsel Probe Into Steele Dossier Winds Down; Four Prisoners Killed In Tehran Prison Fire; Latest Poll Shows Americans Divided On Who Should Control Congress; Food Insecurity Rises Across U.S. As Inflation Climbs; The Case Of A Missing Girl Almost Brought Down The Murdoch Empire. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired October 16, 2022 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:01:15]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: There's been talk that the Secret Service had all of this information and it wasn't shared. That's not the Secret Service's job.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): It's really shocking when you see in vivid detail the information the Secret Service had.

REP. STEPHANIE MURPHY (D-FL): We are still going through tens of thousands of documents that the Secret Service have turned over recently. I look forward to us calling back in some of those Secret Service officials who have knowledge about what happened and putting them under oath.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The OPEC Plus decision to cut oil production by as much as two million barrels per day has rattled the White House.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's going to be some consequences for what they've done.

ADEL AL-JUBEIR, SAUDI MINISTER OF STATE OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS: Saudi Arabia is taking the side of trying to ensure the stability of the oil markets.

JAKE SULLIVAN, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: The president isn't going to act precipitously, he's going to act methodically, strategically, and he's going that take his time.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: My question is, will you accept the results of your election in November?

KARI LAKE (R), ARIZONA GUBERNATORIAL NOMINEE: I'm going to win that election and I will accept that result because the people will never -- the people of Arizona will never support and vote for a coward like Katie Hobbs.

KATIE HOBBS (D), ARIZONA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: This is disqualifying. She's only interested in creating the spectacle. (END VIDEO CLIP)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: I'm Pamela Brown in Washington, and you are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Tonight, CNN has obtained new footage of the January 6th U.S. Capitol insurrection not seen on television until today. It's from a British documentary filmmaker and it features new images of the violent chaos that descended on the Capitol that day. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now the people in the Capitol are sheltering in place. They have gone to one of these safe rooms or whatever, and they are sheltering in place. We have the Capitol.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: That angry crowd swarming onto the ground, smashing windows, fighting the officers trying to stop them and shouting we have the Capitol. This disturbing footage caps a week that saw the last public hearing of the J-6 Committee before the midterm elections. That hearing on Thursday ended with a dramatic flourish. A unanimous vote to subpoena former President Donald J. Trump.

Now the question is, will he or won't he comply? And earlier today, committee member, Congressman Adam Kinzinger, offered his thoughts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS HOST: You say he's obligated by law to respond to the subpoena. Do you believe that the Justice Department, if the president refuses, should hold him in criminal contempt?

REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): Look, that's a bridge we cross if we have to get there. You know, look, we well recognize the fact that because of the committee only being able to exist until the end of this congressional year because that was the mandate, we're at a bit of a time limit here. And as we're wrapping up the investigation, we're also pursuing new leads and facts and we want to speak to the president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Congresswoman and J-6 Committee member Zoe Lofgren joins us now with more.

Hi, Congresswoman. So, as we heard there, the clock is ticking loudly. Will the committee be able to wrap up its work by the end of the year?

REP. ZOE LOFGREN (D-CA): Of course. We've all always known all select committees including this one are created for the life of that Congress and this Congress ends at the end of December. We've always known that. And we will complete our work by that time.

BROWN: We saw new video on Thursday. There's this new video released to the public today including one man who said lawmakers should be exterminated like cockroaches. Have we seen the worst or is there more evidence your committee has not yet made public?

LOFGREN: Well, we just have volumes of video of the rioters and horrible things that they were doing, you know, in the context of -- about two-hour hearing, you can't play it all.

[18:05:11]

But certainly there's no doubt that this violent armed mob intended to kill people, to hang Mike Pence, to try and kill Nancy Pelosi, and the rest of us and to stop the count of the electoral count and stop the peaceful transfer of power. That's what they tried to do.

BROWN: The last hearing, there was a lot of focus about the Secret Service. I know the committee has been sifting through a lot of documents handed over by the Secret Service. Excuse me. Former Secret Service member who worked in the Trump administration, Tony Ornato, his lawyer told CNN that he has not been entered by the committee since March and there have been a lot of revelations that have happened since then, including from Cassidy Hutchinson. Why has he not been brought back yet to testify and testify under oath?

LOFGREN: He will be. You know, we had a lot of questions, but we wanted to get through all the documentary evidence that we have now been provided, over a million documents. So it's -- it took a lot of time to go through that. We have successfully gone through it. And now we're in a position in the very near future to call the witnesses from the Secret Service back in for a few additional questions.

BROWN: Who specifically -- so you said Tony Ornato. Who else?

LOFGREN: Well, there was also Mr. Engle and there may be a few others. I don't want to mention all their names on television. But we want to make sure that we're getting the straight stories. Some of the testimony received doesn't seem to align with some of the documents. So we have a need to understand that better from them.

BROWN: In what way?

LOFGREN: Well, I'm not going to go through the interview on TV, but, for example --

BROWN: No -- go ahead.

LOFGREN: -- there was some representation made publicly as well as in the interviews that there was no monitoring of social media. That we know now was not correct. You know, certainly downplaying the knowledge of violence, that was -- they knew well in advance and certainly by the 5th of January what they were facing. Nevertheless, they sent the vice president up to the Capitol Hill with, you know, a fairly small group of people to protect him into what was -- should have obviously been foreseen as a potentially very dangerous situation.

BROWN: What about the situation that Cassidy Hutchinson has testified to about Trump lunging at the Secret Service officer in the vehicle? We know that there was testimony regarding -- at the hearing regarding potential obstruction on that allegation specifically. What more can you tell us about that? Is that one of the reasons you also want to bring back these other Secret Service members? Former, I should say.

LOFGREN: Well, she -- her testimony was that Mr. Ornato told her that he had lunged at it. But I think the real point is that the president intended -- then-president intended to go to the Capitol with the armed mob and we have corroborating evidence on that point. Certainly the Metropolitan police --

BROWN: Absolutely. But that wasn't -- sorry, just to clarify. That might have been my bad not being clear enough in my question. It's not about that, it's about the fact that Pete Aguilar who had said that there was an obstruction investigation involving that allegation in particular. Can you expand on that a little bit?

LOFGREN: I really can't at this point. It's not just about the incident, but the testimony, and I will say, we have broadly questions about the advice given to some witnesses and whether all the witnesses were completely candid with the committee and that's something that we're interested in and I think the Department of Justice will be very interested in.

BROWN: So it sounds like what you're saying is you have evidence of witness tampering?

LOFGREN: I can't go into it more than that.

BROWN: Last question. If the former president does not respond to this subpoena, do you think the committee should send a referral for criminal contempt to the DOJ?

LOFGREN: You know, we haven't decided that. You know, we expect him to come in because he has a legal obligation to come in. Of course, he also had a legal obligation to see that the laws were faithfully executed, which he completely ignored on January 6th. So we'll see. We would like him to come in. Whether or not DOJ would prosecute, that's really something they need to think about. I can't make that decision for them.

[18:10:07]

BROWN: All right. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, thank you for your time tonight. Thanks for coming on the show. We appreciate it.

LOFGREN: You bet. Any time.

BROWN: Thank you.

Well, tomorrow we expect closing arguments and special counsel in Special Counsel John Durham's trial about the infamous Trump-Russia dossier. It's a case that hasn't delivered the kind of Watergate level bombshells that former President Trump insisted would be revealed. On Friday, a federal judge threw out one of five charges against Igor Danchenko, the primary source for the dossier. That clearly is a major setback for Durham's investigation.

CNN's Marshall Cohen joins us now. So you've been in court all week. Where do things stand?

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Pam. As you said, pretty big development as we enter the weekend here with the judge throwing out one of the five charges against Igor Danchenko. He's pleaded not guilty to the other four. They are all about alleged false statements that he made to the FBI in 2018 while FBI agents were scrambling to try to corroborate that dossier. And they were interviewing him because he was someone who contributed to the bulk of that work.

So, you know, he's pleaded not guilty, closing arguments tomorrow. Special Counsel Durham has personally handled a lot of the proceedings and the witness questioning. So he very well tomorrow might handle closing arguments and try to convince the jury to give him his first victory because they might start their deliberations tomorrow.

BROWN: But let's take a step back here. John Durham was appointed special counsel to try to find wrongdoing back in 2016. This has been in the case -- this investigation has been in the public eye since then. Has he achieved any of his goals? Is this the biggest bit that's come from the investigation?

COHEN: It's a mixed bag, you know. He's been at this for a few years now, 3 1/2 years. He's only got one conviction, which was a plea, a guilty plea from a very low-level FBI lawyer who avoided any jail time. So that's all Durham has got. He may get another victory with this trial of Igor Danchenko. We'll see what the jury decides, although it's been kind of a rookie go for the prosecution. But I will say that Durham has used this trial as a vehicle to air the dirty laundry of the FBI. He's been able to put on a show about some of the serious mistakes, sloppiness, errors that FBI agents made in their investigation of Donald Trump and the Trump campaign.

Things like using the Steele dossier to get a surveillance warrant of Carter Page, an American citizen and former Trump campaign adviser. They kept putting that Steele dossier material in their affidavits to get that warrant even as they were trying to corroborate it, coming up empty, falling flat, they kept putting it in there. That's a huge problem. Durham has put that on trial. But that's not really the defendant in this case.

So he's used this trial to put on a show. Whether that's going to work in terms of getting a conviction, it might not.

BROWN: Yes, that's a good point. It's not the defendant. And the inspector general had already put that into the spotlight.

COHEN: Years ago.

BROWN: Years ago. That's right. All right. Marshall Cohen, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Well, just ahead for you tonight in the NEWSROOM, Iran's president is accusing President Biden of inciting, quote, "chaos." This as protests continue in the streets of Tehran.

Plus he's one of the longest-serving Senate Republicans, and now after 42 years Chuck Grassley of Iowa finds himself in what could be his toughest re-election battle yet.

And then later, it was a major win for the Tennessee volunteers. So where did the goalpost end up, folks?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:17:53]

BROWN: Iranian authorities say at least four inmates are dead and more than 60 injured after a fire at the Evin Prison in northern Tehran. A large dark plume of smoke was seen billowing near the complex Saturday night. Tehran's governor said the situation is now under control. Iranian state media reported that officials claim thugs set fire to a warehouse containing prison clothing. Tehran's Evin Prison is considered a notoriously brutal facility where the regime incarcerates political dissidents.

Tehran's prosecutor says the prison fire is not related to the recent protests sweeping Iran but it does come at a time of heightened tensions within the authoritarian state. The unrest which sparks nearly a month ago by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. She was arrested by the so-called morality police for not abiding by Iran's conservative dress code and died in custody.

For more perspective now, Trita Parsi joins us. He is the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute and author of "Losing an Enemy" about the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal.

Thanks for coming on. We have seen protests in Iran in the past.

TRITA PARSI, AUTHOR, "LOSING AN ENEMY": Thank you.

BROWN: Tell us, what is different about that these protests?

PARSI: First of all, thank you so much for having me, for covering this story. There's so much that is different between what is going on now and, for instance, what happened in 2009 when Iran saw its largest protests in the 48-year history of the Islamic Republic when you had more than two million people on the streets of Tehran.

Those people that are out right now, the people leading this, particularly the young women, were no more than 8 to 9 years old when the 2009 protest. So this is an entire new generation coming out onto the streets. And what is so fascinating is that in many ways they appear to have completely given up on the idea that the system can be reformed.

They have seen what has happened in the last 25 years in which efforts at reform have been systematically undermined and instead of actually seeing greater openness in Iran after 25 years of attempts, we're actually seeing a much more closed political spectrum.

[18:20:03]

So they're immediately calling for a complete change of the regime. But they're doing so in different ways than what we've seen before, with very positive, forward-looking slogans such as life, woman and freedom. A very nonviolent approach that is not looking for any particular figures on the outside. Instead, they're clearly saying the leadership is coming from them themselves. The youth and the people out on the streets.

BROWN: I want to ask you, this all started, this latest round of protests, started after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini who was detained, died while in detention. There was a report that was published Friday by Iran's Forensic Medical Organization and that report said that Amini's death was caused by an underlying medical condition rather than head or only vital organ injuries. What do you say to that?

PARSI: I've seen plenty of people from within the regime itself, within the system who have ridiculed that report and the bottom line is this. At the end of the day the confidence in the Iranian government is now so low, no one really believes what they're saying about these things. Even if she had an underlying medical condition, she would not have died unless she had been mistreated by the so- called morality police.

So the responsibility nevertheless, still, lies on the morality police and their mishandling of this and the way that they're repressing young women regardless of any medical conditions she had or didn't have.

BROWN: Iranian state media reports the Iranian president has accused President Biden of inciting chaos, terror and destruction. He criticized remarks Biden made yesterday showing solidarity with the protesters. Is this a typical response, blaming the U.S. for what's happening inside Iran?

PARSI: It is a typical response. And at the same time we have to be very frank. During the Trump administration, there actually was an active effort by the Trump administration to destabilize the country. Destabilize Iran. However, in this specific case, I have not seen any convincing signs that this is coming from the outside. On the contrary, this seems to clearly be coming from the inside.

Many of the slogans are very different and not political in that sense, further indicating that this is a genuine indigenous protest against the repression of the regime that has nothing to do with the very sad state and the very sad history of U.S.-Iran relations.

BROWN: All right, Trita Parsi, thank you so much for coming on and offering perspective and analysis on this unfolding situation there in Iran. We appreciate it.

PARSI: Thank you so much for having me.

BROWN: And you are in the CNN NEWSROOM on this Sunday. The Republican nominee for governor of Arizona today would not commit to accepting the results of the election if she loses. But if she wins, she will accept them. Well, that is the kind of talk that led to the Capitol riots. So what might it mean for Arizona? I'll put that question to our political panel Alice Stewart and Maria Cardona.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:27:36]

BROWN: Here we are, just over three weeks to go until midterm election day. About a million Americans have already voted with early voting opening up in several more states tomorrow and then later this week. As for which direction U.S. voters are leaning, which party they want to see in control of Congress, a new CNN polling analysis finds Americans are just about evenly divided.

Joining us now, Republican strategist Alice Stewart and Democratic strategist Maria Cardona.

I want to start in Arizona and that remarkable moment that I mentioned a moment ago. The Republican nominee for governor, Kari Lake, on CNN earlier today repeatedly refusing to say definitively that she would accept the results of the election if she lost when she was asked by Dana Bash, our colleague. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: My question is, will you accept the results of your election in November?

LAKE: I'm going to win the election and I will accept that result.

BASH: If you lose, will you accept that?

LAKE: I'm going to win the election and I will accept that result.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: All right, so, Alice, Kari Lake's opponent for governor Katie Hobbs says Lake's comments are disqualifying. Is she right?

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, look, she's optimistic, she does expect to win. I think she will win and she will certainly accept those results. Look, let's just give it to Dana Bash. She was very aggressive in interviewing both candidates and really we got a lot of substance out of them. But as she continued to press Republican on this, she said ultimately when she's elected governor, she plans to make sure that elections are fair and accurate for Republicans and Democrats across the board.

And if I'm voting in Arizona, that's what I want to hear. I want to hear someone commit what they're going to do in the future, not what happened in the past. What they're going to do to make sure that the election integrity is safe and secure for elections in the future in Arizona.

I think the big takeaway from the interviews this morning was the Democratic candidate who failed to put any kind of restrictions on abortions. That's a travesty. And if I was in Arizona, that's the takeaway I would have from the morning show.

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: What I heard from Kari Lake should send shudders down the backs of every Arizona voter because essentially she said that she would not accept the results of the election if she lost. That echoes exactly what Donald Trump said before the election in 2020 and exactly how he has acted since then.

[18:30:01]

So what should we expect? If she loses, is there going to be an insurrection in the capitol of Arizona? This is something that Arizona voters really need to pay attention to. And it should underscore the reason why not just Democrats but independents and the majority of Americans have said that one of the key issues that they are looking for in the midterm elections is this issue of threats to democracy.

Kari Lake was the picture, the image, the definition of a threat to our democracy because she is saying not only does she continue to deny that Joe Biden won the election, but she essentially said on national television that she wouldn't accept the results if she lost. And I think, again, that is jaw-dropping and it should underscore exactly what Democrats have been saying about how dangerous these election deniers are if they're to win office in November.

BROWN: Yes. I mean, she pinned her whole campaign on the past and the lie that the election was stolen which we know it wasn't. So it is notable and Dana did an excellent job of pressing her trying to get her to answer. Clearly she didn't want to go there.

I want to talk about President Biden. He has been at his home in Delaware today. That is after a four-day trip out west which included fundraisers in Colorado, California, and Oregon. Notably, his trip did not include stops in the critical battleground states of Arizona or Nevada.

Maria, do you think the president missed an opportunity here and also missed an opportunity to court Hispanic voters?

CARDONA: Well, you know, I would have loved to see him go to Nevada and Arizona, but, look, this is something that we see every election cycle in terms of the presidents who are in power both Democrats and Republicans, and the campaigns and the candidates who are running in very tight races, whether they want them to campaign or not. We saw in -- when Barack Obama was president, they didn't want to send him to swing districts because of, you know, they thought that perhaps he wasn't going to appeal to white voters.

This is something that we see in every single election. I don't think it's necessarily a lost opportunity because I think Joe Biden is continuing to talk to voters both nationally as well as in all of the events that he is going to, and the campaigns themselves I think are running very strong campaigns on issues, on the messages that Democrats are really putting front and center. Not just a threat to democracy, but the issue of women's rights, of abortion rights, which I think are also front and center.

The issue of the economy and how much Democrats have really focused on finding solutions while Republicans are completely devoid of them. And so again I think the president will be sent to and will be going to states that I think will be other opportunities, continued opportunities, for him to underscore those messages.

STEWART: Look, I appreciate my friend Maria's optimism here, but the reality is, in a key battleground state, you want your heavy hitters to go here. And the fact that the president of the United States is not being called to go to Georgia and Pennsylvania and these key states, that says a lot. He's got poll numbers in the low 40s. He is completely underwater with approval ratings. He certainly is in no position to issue a lifeline to many of these candidates in these key battleground states. So he's going out west where these races should be slam dunks for Democrats, and they're still needing help to get their campaigns across the line. But --

BROWN: But there are races that should be a slam dunk for Republicans that are tight, too. I mean, there's one out of Iowa, right, for the longest-serving Republican senator. He could be in danger of losing his seat. There's a new poll out of Iowa that has Senator Chuck Grassley nearly even with Democratic challenger Mike Franken. Franken is getting a boost from independents who now favor him by 11 points.

Alice, should Republicans be worried about losing this long-held seat?

STEWART: You know, they're not for several reasons. Chuck Grassley has been leading and representing the people of Iowa for decades. And, look, I've been there many times on presidential campaigns. You allow him to take you around the state. I've done the full Grassley around the state of Iowa where you go to every county. He is a very responsive senator. He has been very accountable to his constituents.

And, look, this poll, look, I've been in many campaigns in Iowa where the second to last poll is generally not a good barometer of the final stretch of GOP support. This is a great pollster. But the next poll will be the one to watch where things will tighten up. The Republican Party of Iowa issued a statement today that said specifically Chuck Grassley represents what the people of Iowa want and Franken does not.

He is a rubber stamp for Biden's policies and what he has done with the economy, what he's done at the border, what he's done with agriculture and energy independence, that is not what the people of Iowa want and Franken represents that. He's not going to win.

CARDONA: So why do independents now are favoring Franken? I think this underscores, Pam, the whole optimism as to why Democrats are looking at these midterm elections much more positively than we did eight months ago because this has not turned out to be a referendum on Joe Biden and Joe Biden's approval ratings are going up.

[18:35:02]

It's in the right direction. They're still under water but he's doing much better. BROWN: 43 percent I think at last check.

CARDONA: Exactly. And Chuck Grassley should be running away with this. Republicans should be running away with this. The poll that you showed at the very beginning, the head-to-head Democrats versus Republicans, the fact that Democrats are ahead by two points is just jaw-dropping and should scare Republicans because this has become a referendum on all of the issues that show that Republicans not just would be a danger to democracy but would be a danger to women's rights, Americans' rights, and frankly would be a danger to the future of this country if they were to gain control of the House and the Senate in November.

BROWN: Very quickly, we're running out of time. I want to ask you about this new reporting about Pete Buttigieg, the Transportation secretary, being the most requested person on the campaign trail. Even over the vice president, Kamala Harris. What do you think about that?

CARDONA: I love it. And it doesn't surprise me. I've known Pete Buttigieg for a long time, ever since he put his name in to be DNC chair. He ran a fantastic campaign then. It doesn't surprise me that he is somebody who people want to see. He's very dynamic. He's incredibly smart. He's really able to put all of these economic issues in very relatable terms and he really lays out exactly everything that Democrats have done and this administration have done for the economy, for voters.

He's the Transportation secretary. So the whole Infrastructure Bill is something that he knows like the back of his hand, and can talk about in every single district and state that he goes to. This bridge, these jobs are given to you because Democrats focused on this and because Democrats were able to bring this to you. Those are very powerful messages.

STEWART: I'll agree with a lot of what she said. Pete Buttigieg is great with retail politics, one-on-one with voters and really encouraging people and getting people out to vote, and a good politician also in his position as Transportation secretary. He's able to hand out a lot of money for bridges and roads in many states.

The problem is, if he was as good at handling a supply chain as he is with gripping and grinning, we'd be in a lot better position.

CARDONA: Well, the supply chain, it's global as you know very well, Alice, though.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: OK. That's a whole another conversation about the supply chain that we do not have time for.

Alice Stewart, Maria Cardona, thank you so much.

CARDONA: Thanks so much, Pam.

BROWN: Well, rising inflation has some families flocking to food pantries. What some communities are doing to help the surge of people in need up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:41:30]

BROWN: Well, another issue facing so many Americans right now is food insecurity and it's become a more severe problem as inflation climbs.

CNN's Nadia Romero spent the day at a church that operates a food pantry right outside of Atlanta and they're now seeing thousands more people in need than they used to.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NADIA ROMERO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Hundreds of families lined up for help, some of them, four hours before this drive-thru food pantry started at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in a suburb of Atlanta over the weekend.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've got to take care.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

DR. JAMALA BRYANT, SENIOR PASTOR, NEW BIRTH MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH: You have absolutely no idea how many people are suffering in silence, having no clue as to how they're going to feed and take care of their families.

ROMERO: Every Saturday since January 2020, back then, just 30 cars per week, but now, up to 3,000 cars a week.

The pandemic and rising inflation providing a one-two punch on people's wallets.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is the pandemic and everything is going up.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Double and triple. I paid 85 cents a dozen legal for eggs. And now they're $3. It's crazy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really ridiculous. You know, you go in the supermarket and things get expensive.

ROMERO: food prices more than alarming, especially for families living paycheck to paycheck. Last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing just how much staple goods will cost you this year compared to 2021. Bread jumped 16 percent, milk up 17 percent, flour 23 percent more expensive, and egg prices with the most dramatic increase, up nearly 40 percent. Inflation a big talking point on the campaign trail as we near the midterm elections.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How to budget in a way that doesn't create runaway inflation.

SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): The out of control inflation.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): Inflation is a global problem. ROMERO: Off the campaign trail and back to the food line. Priscilla

Ward and her sister, Brenda Billings getting the surprise of a lifetime. The sisters are the one-millionth family who came through the drive-thru pantry at this church since January 2020. Ward and her sister will take home healthy produce, small appliances and a $1,000 cash prize for helping the church hit this mark. Ward says she has several growing grandchildren she helps feed.

PRISCILLA WARD, FOOD PANTRY RECIPIENT: And they walk in the door, grandma, I'm hungry. So, I said, well, let me see what grandma might get. They always say, grandma, you always have something.

ROMERO: For her sister, it's been a rough last few years.

BRENDA BILLINGS, FOOD PANTRY RECIPIENT: I had cancer twice, colon cancer, breast cancer. I'm a cancer survivor. And right now, God brought me through a whole lot.

ROMERO: Tears and cheers as these two special recipients and others in line get the help they need from this church and partners like World Vision.

BRYANT: My grandmother taught me a principle that when it's family, it's not charity.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMERO: On the campaign trail when it comes to inflation, it's very clear for Republicans, they say the rising inflation problem is the blame of President Biden and Democrats. Many Democrats will say on the trail that it's because of supply chain issues and corporate greed.

We know from a CNN poll that it is a very important issue for voters. Some 84 percent believing that it's very important or extremely important in deciding their vote -- Pamela.

BROWN: All right. Thanks so much, Nadia.

[18:45:00]

And you are in the CNN NEWSROOM on this Sunday. A phone hacking scandal nearly destroyed Rupert Murdoch's media empire and it might have affected his decision on which one of his children would eventually take over the company.

One of the producers of "THE MURDOCHS: EMPIRE OF INFLUENCE" joins us next to explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Media titan Rupert Murdoch has built one of the largest media empires in history over the last several decades. Well, this week, the new CNN Original Series "THE MURDOCHS: EMPIRE OF INFLUENCE" reveals through exclusive reporting how a phone-hacking scandal in Britain threatened to take down the entire Murdoch empire.

[18:50:03]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At that moment by sheer chance, I got a phone call as I was walking through the middle of London one day, and I was told that the "News of the World" had hacked the phone of this schoolgirl, Milly Dowler.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Milly Dowler was a 13-year-old child and she went missing on her way home from school in March 2002. There was an intense police investigation and it took six months to find her remains.

The "News of the World" hacked into Milly Dowler's phone within days of her disappearance. They did this not because they wanted to find her. They did this because they wanted to sell stories.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Wow. Yes, I remember that. Joining us now is Jonathan Mahler, staff writer for the "New York Times" magazine. He's also a consulting producer for the "THE MURDOCHS: EMPIRE OF INFLUENCE" which features his exclusive reporting.

All right, so we just saw in that clip, it came out that Murdoch's "News of the World" newspaper hacked the phone of a murdered schoolgirl. This had a really wide-ranging impact on the Murdoch empire. What happened exactly?

JONATHAN MAHLER, STAFF WRITER, NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: Yes. I mean, it was an enormous scandal. It ended -- nearly really brought down the whole company. I mean, Rupert at the time James, his son James was in charge of things in the U.K. and so it all sort of fell into his lap, you know, Rupert had to hustle over from New York and the two of them testified before parliament.

And they had to make some dramatic moves inside the company and it seemed for a moment that like the whole thing might come crashing down. It was a scandal in the U.K. but it really was a scandal all over the world because, you know, the Rupert empire is -- the Murdoch empire is so vast and it was such an enormous scandal. It was just such a kind of unethical and frankly kind of sleazy behavior that it suggested some real, you know, real kind of moral corruption, moral rot inside the company.

BROWN: Yes, I think sleazy is the right word. But even before the hacking scandal broke. Rupert Murdoch's son James, he was seen as the favorite to take over. How did the scandal upend the succession battle?

MAHLER: Yes, it completely upended everything because, you know, Rupert had sort of entrusted James, as I said, to run the company in the U.K. and had, James had just come off of this triumphant tour of duty in Asia, building the company up in Asia, and he really seemed to be in line to take over and the -- after the phone hacking scandal as I said really just fell into his lap, and in many ways, you know, Rupert probably could have taken the bullet for his son and instead, he -- you know, he didn't really make any effort to say, you know, this is on me, not on James.

And so James really became sort of the fall guy and his elder son Lachlan who had been off in Australia kind of doing his own thing, sort of swept in to help pick up the pieces and Rupert, you know, basically, you know, kind of flicked the two and Lachlan then became the heir apparent and, you know, now Lachlan is effectively running the company and James is out.

BROWN: Yes. All right, look forward to watching the latest episode. Jonathan Mahler, thanks so much.

The all-new episode of "THE MURDOCHS: EMPIRE OF INFLUENCE" airs tonight at 10:00 Eastern only on CNN.

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BROWN: Investigators in central Texas say a grass fire that destroyed cars and sent people running for safety may have been started by a cigarette thrown on the ground. The fire started yesterday at a fall festival held on a family farm. No one was hurt but the fire destroyed 70 vehicles. A drought in the area prompted a burn ban.

A surreal sight had drivers doing trouble takes along a Dallas highway this weekend. A small plane had to make an emergency landing right there on the city's south side.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's not supposed to be there.

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BROWN: I would say. The plane was in route to a nearby airport from west Texas when it ran into engine trouble. Officials say a husband and wife were on board but they were both OK. Good to hear.

Well, epic upsets have a way of making football fans do pretty crazy things. Consider what happened last night in Knoxville, Tennessee. Volunteer fans storming the field in celebration after seeing their team knock off third ranked Alabama. Huge deal. Well, they then took it to another level by tearing down one of the goalposts and carrying it to the Tennessee River.

But like every big party, the day after came with a hangover and volunteer fans got theirs in the form of a big fine from the Southeastern Conference. Well, they hit the school with $100,000 penalty for the on-field melee and now the team is asking fans to help fix the damage tweeting this out earlier today. "Y'all remember how we tore down the goalpost down?

How we tore the goalpost down, hauled them out of Neyland and dumped them in the Tennessee River? Yes, that was awesome. Any who, turns out that in order to play in next week's game, we need goalposts on our field. Could you all help us out?"