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Senate Rejects House Request For Conference; Government Shutdown, Outside The Beltway; Obamacare Open Enrolment Starts Today; Interview with Sen. Johnny Isakson; Shutdown Blame Game Continues; Biker Arrested In NYC Road Rage Incident

Aired October 01, 2013 - 10:00   ET

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

ERIN MCPIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So he came out and said he's going to walk five blocks down that way to march right into the capitol and talk to his congressman because he's so angry about it. Now, contractors for the FAA said that they don't know what's going to happen. They said it's very disorganized.

They said they have been planning for this for a couple of weeks but haven't gotten their stop work orders yet. Now, some people say because they don't know what's going to happen with their paychecks, there are things they can't pay for. Listen to what one person said to me about that this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARRINGTON GOLDSTON, FAA EMPLOYEE: Child support, you know what I mean, all the garnishments on your pay and stuff, it is going to be an impact. So I'm really -- I'm really annoyed at it and very disappointed and they can't come to an agreement. I don't see why we the people should really suffer because of their disagreement. Whatever personal conflicts they have, they need to set that aside, suspend their ego and basically the right thing for the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCPIKE: Now, I spoke to another woman for the National Parks Service yesterday who said she was working during 1995, during that shutdown. And after that, many of those federal employees were paid retroactively, but a lot of federal workers are worried that won't happen this time -- Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Erin Mcpike reporting live from Washington. I want to take you back to the Senate because Harry Reid, the man who leads the Senate is now speaking. Let's listen.

SENATOR HARRY REID (D), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: Let's do this again. I ask unanimous consent for pre-morning business for debate until only 10:30 p.m., one half hour after lunchtime, with the time controlled between the two senators or their designees and permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there objection? Without objection, so ordered.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved.

COSTELLO: OK. We're going to step away from that. I'm not quite sure what just went on, but I assume that Senator Reid was doing some parliamentary procedure and allowing senators to have their say a little later this afternoon. Here is Mitch McConnell, the Republican. Let's listen.

SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL (R), MINORITY LEADER: Can we have order in the chamber?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The senator is correct. The Senate will be in order. The Republican leader is recognized.

MCCONNELL: House Republicans worked late into the night this weekend to keep the government open and Senate Democrats dragged their feet literally for days. They refused to pass anything, news reports suggest that majority leader was even working behind the scenes to block any bipartisan negotiations from taking place, and after doing essentially all weekend but obstruct, with just hours left to go, Democrats voted again and again to reject reasonable legislation. Every piece of legislation the house sent over would have kept the government from shutting down.

Every single one of them, each one represented more of a compromise than the last. And get this, last night Senate Democrats went so far as to reject legislation that would have kept the government running under just two conditions, just two. Families get the same one year relief as employers and Congress has to follow the same rules on Obamacare exchanges as their constituents. That's how extreme the Democratic position is.

They won't even accept basic fairness as a principle under Obamacare. And now today, today they have gone even further, they have now said they won't even agree to sit down and work out differences. They won't even talk about it. They literally just voted against working out a compromise. They seem completely opposed to negotiation or compromise on a law that is killing jobs, driving up premiums and driving people out of the health care plans they already have, and like.

COSTELLO: All right, let's jump out of this. That's Senator Mitch McConnell and he's talking about the continuing argument between Republicans and Democrats. The Senate just rejected the latest House bill because it included in some way defunding Obamacare and the Democrats said they would have none of that. By the way, the president is expected to make a statement in the Rose Garden at 12:25 Eastern. That will happen, of course, this afternoon, and, of course, we'll take the president's comments live as well.

Now, inside the beltway, as you hear, the bickering and jockeying, they hit a new gear today. Outside the deafening roar of politics, how is America feeling this latest insult to millions of Americans, I'm talking about the partial shutdown of our government. CNN's Ted Rowlands is in Chicago with that side of the story. Good morning, Ted. TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. You know, there is not a lot of love for Washington on a good day here this morning. People are downright angry. They're upset with the pathetic inability for Congress to do anything and now with the government shutdown, it is just pure disgust. Take a listen to what a few folks said this morning here in Chicago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Totally, totally can't believe it. They're all freaking nuts all of them. I have to get to work. They're all freaking nuts. We work in a law firm. We have a lot of cases in federal court. What are we going to do now?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it is awful. I think it is awful. It is terrible. It should not have been done. It should not have gone this far. Do your job or get out. That's what I want to tell them. Do your job or get out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it is sad we can't come to an agreement. I think every year this happens, the market is downturned, people react, it is expected and people play on it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROWLANDS: Carol, a lot of people just absolutely disgusted. Surprisingly about 30 percent of the people we talked to have no idea the government was shutting down and as one person said, he was blissfully unaware and was not concerned at all. But the real theme here is that people are just -- they think what is happening in Washington is pathetic.

COSTELLO: I think that I word describes it quite well. Ted Rowlands reporting live from Chicago this morning. So of course, the argument is all about Obamacare. Guess what, the Obamacare portal healthcare.gov is up and running and that will allow millions of uninsured Americans to get health care coverage.

So is it working? CNN's chief medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta is live in South Carolina where 20 percent of that state is uninsured. Sanjay, how's it going?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you said up and running, Carol. Maybe half of that is true for sure. It is up. It has been up since 8:00 this morning. But there have been some significant glitches, if you will, with actually getting registered on the sites. I checked out a bunch of different sites, states all over the country.

The way it works, Carol, you go to healthcare.gov, you pick your state and register in that particular state. It has been challenging for a lot of people across the country. There are about 36 of these exchanges that are run by the federal government themselves. But what we're hearing is two-thirds of them are having trouble.

What you'll see on the screen is that there are too many visitors, so it seems to be a bandwidth problem, but it has been a bit of a challenge. It could be that a lot of people are trying to do this, maybe more than they expected, but hasn't been going perfectly, I would say, Carol.

COSTELLO: Well, you know, last hour I talked to a man whose company, you know, kind of like set up the software for some of these exchanges and he said expect glitches today because so many people will be checking it out, and he said, you know, all systems of this magnitude will suffer glitches. We should expect that.

GUPTA: Yes, you know, look, I think that's fair and, you know, you've been through open enrolment periods before, Carol. I have as well, an open enrolment for this, for this -- for the Obama care plan is now October 1st through the end of March. Usually people wait until March 29th to start doing this. So it is a little surprising there has been this traffic for them, but I think that's right.

As the traffic slows down a little bit, I think people are going to have better luck sort of signing on, but it has been frustrating. We're talking to some of the folks around here who -- that's the first thing they're saying are those error messages when they're trying to do this for the first time.

COSTELLO: Yes. I'm getting one in my e-mail box. This is the -- from the one that is up and running, up and running in Georgia. It says we have a lot of visitors on our site now, we're working to make your experience here better. Please wait until we send you the logon page. Thanks for your patience. Pack your patience today if you're going online to check out these health exchanges.

Let's get down to the bottom line and talk about what you might get from these health care exchanges. A lot of people are concerned that they won't be able to pick their own doctor. A lot of people concerned that their insurance costs will still be high. Can you answer those questions for us?

GUPTA: I think first of all there say couple of important things, you fill out a three-page application and in that application, it is most notable for what it doesn't have, which are questions about your health. That's important, Carol, as you know, because they're not asking question about your health because they can't charge you a higher premium if you have some sort of existing health condition.

That's the crux of this whole thing. After that, you pick a particular plan. It can be a different tier of plans between bronze and platinum, that have higher co-pays, higher deductibles or premiums. Look at those numbers and sort of figure out what you need, just like a lot of people do now. And as far as your own doctor goes, if you have a doctor right now, you should find out if that doctor is going to accept that plan.

But, Carol, you know, this exchange in so many ways, these marketplaces, the people who are going to be probably using them are people who don't have insurance, they don't have doctors of their own, this is brand-new to them, a lot of the concerns don't apply to them. This is a whole new experience. So those are legitimate questions, there is about 45 million people out there who may be taking a look at this today, who are trying something for the first time.

COSTELLO: All right, Sanjay, I know you keep following this story. You're in Kentucky tomorrow to find out what questions people have about Obamacare and also you can check out "SANJAY GUPTA, MD" every Saturday right here on CNN. Sanjay, many thanks.

If you're young, healthy and think you don't need health insurance because it is too expensive, you may have some new options under Obamacare. Later this hour, we'll talk with Jen Mishery. She is the deputy director for the "Young Invincible." She will explain why some of the plans new options could mean you don't have to pay out of pocket. We'll delve into that after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Closed for business and on Capitol Hill, the finger pointing continues. The senate rejecting a House request for a formal meeting to work out their differences on government spending and Obamacare. The Senate is also voting down a House proposal to end the government's shutdown. Republican Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia, he joins me now. Good morning, Senator.

SENATOR JOHNNY ISAKSON (R), GEORGIA: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: So let's get right down to it and talk about the people who are most affected because of the shutdown. More than 800,000 federal workers are going to be furloughed. They're not getting paid. What do you say to them this morning?

ISAKSON: We need to get our job done in the House and the Senate and at the White House. You got a situation right now where you have the irresistible force in the House Republicans, the unmovable object with the president with a veto pen and Harry Reid with the majority in the Senate, something's got to give. We don't need a protracted shutdown.

COSTELLO: Well, I'm sure if I'm sitting around and not collecting a paycheck and wondering when I'm going to get back to work, those words will not be of great comfort to me.

ISAKSON: The best I can say right now, Carol, is this, historically, in this country, of all the shutdowns we have had, the shortest was one day, the longest was 21 days, this one will fall somewhere probably in between.

COSTELLO: So that's your prediction, about 10, 12 days?

ISAKSON: History is usually a pretty good teacher so something between 1 and 21.

COSTELLO: OK. So the same federal workers and actually a lot of other Americans are pretty angry that much of Congress is going to be paid and these federal workers are not. Why not --

ISAKSON: I don't blame them for that. There is a reason the constitution says Congress gets paid, that's because that's a provision to keep it working while everybody else isn't. I completely side with the American worker and the American government worker, who have mortgages to pay, college loans to pay back, food to put on the table. We need to get our job done in Washington, fight for what we believe in and fight hard, but not protract the shutdown.

COSTELLO: Will you forgo your paycheck?

ISAKSON: I've done that before. I forego it when we get raises during midterms. That's not the issue. The issue is getting the government back so everybody is getting a paycheck.

COSTELLO: Congressman Peter King, a Republican from New York said he did his best to beat the Ted Cruz Republicans and he failed. And he had this to say to CNN's Dana Bash. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPRESENTATIVE PETER KING (R), NEW YORK: There's no doubt that the Ted Cruz wing of the party is the one who is right now controlling the strategy. They have been doing it for the last two weeks. People in the conference, I believe, were just as happy to have the government shutdown. They live in narrow echo chambers where they listen to themselves and their Tea Party friends and that keeps them going forgetting the rest of the country thinks we're crazy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Is Ted Cruz and the Tea Party controlling what is happening today?

ISAKSON: The last thing I'm going to do is pick a fight within my own party. It is time my party came together. We need a victory. We need to work together no matter what state we represent, no matter what our name might be, or what our propensity might be. It is time we unified as a Republican Party and fought the good fight for our states and the people we represent.

COSTELLO: But don't you have to work with the Democrats too?

ISAKSON: Absolutely you do. But you got to have your team together first, or else you're in total disarray.

COSTELLO: You know, I just think people are so frustrated because they keep hearing the same things from both sides of the aisle, not just the Republicans, but the Democrats too. And there seems to be no middle ground and yet here we all sit, the economy could be affected adversely. We have the debt ceiling fight coming up. People have lost trust in government and they're really angry and frustrated. They think you're all pathetic, if I may be blunt.

ISAKSON: I don't think that's blunt at all. I think that's practically true. There are a lot of fights up here worth fighting. The Obamacare fight is worth fighting. The debt ceiling issue that is coming up is worth fighting --

COSTELLO: Is Obamacare worth fighting at this particular time? Even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said please do not shut down the government because it could adversely affect the economy. It could affect, you know, those employers who are thinking about hiring because Washington can't come up with one economic plan that everybody can agree on.

ISAKSON: I didn't mention shutting up the government or shutting down the government. I mentioned the Obamacare issue, which is an issue and the debt ceiling is an issue. Sometimes these issues get leveraged to come to a solution. It is not pretty, but it is the American political system.

COSTELLO: It is not pretty, but it is affecting a whole lot of people, 800,000 federal workers who are not getting paid right at the moment, and, you know, I just talked to the CEO of Target who says I don't know what's going on in Washington. I can't make decisions on hiring people, because there is no clear economic plan and nobody can come to any sort of agreement.

ISAKSON: And uncertainty breeds instability in the markets, which slows down what has been a very protracted recovery anyway. And, Carol, I've got three children and nine grandchildren. They're being affected right now. This is not something I'm talking about that I don't understand. This is something I understand.

COSTELLO: Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia, thanks so much for joining me.

ISAKSON: Thanks, Carol.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the bicyclists, he got off his bike, he started attacking the person in the range rover with his helmet, breaking the windows and after they got him out of his car, they beat him up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: A violent chain of events unfolds on a New York highway leading to a driver being dragged from his car and slashed in the face.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: A road rage incident captured on helmet cam video and posted on YouTube has generated a whole lot of buzz in the last 24 hours. It is horrible, frankly. This morning, New York police have announced at rest of one of the bikers in this case. The violence rose to a climax with the beating of a driver while his wife and young baby looked on. More from WCBS reporter Jessica Schneider.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, WCBS REPORTER (voice-over): A gang of motorcycles speeding up the Henry Hudson Parkway near 96th Street, boxing in a Range Rover SUV. It is all captured on tape by one of the bikers, you can see one of the bikes slowed down in front of the Range Rover, the Range Rover runs into the bike and suddenly there is a complete stand still on the Henry Hudson with dozens of angry bikers surrounding the SUV Inside, police say was 33-year-old Alexa Lien with his wife and infant daughter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They take their helmets and dent his car and apparently his tires are slashed there.

SCHNEIBER: Desperate to escape the volatile and violent scene, he takes off in his Range Rover, plowing over three motorcyclists, breaking one of their legs. But doesn't end there, the bikers continue their chase and a few miles up the road, surround the SUV again. One biker runs up to the car, opens the door and attempts to pull him out.

Minutes later, off the highway in Washington Heights, bikers start striking the vehicle and just after the video stops, police say he is pulled out and slashed in the face, all in front of his terrified family. This picture shows the wife holding the baby girl.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the bicyclists, he got off his bike, and he started attacking the guy, breaking the windows. And after they got him out of the car, they beat him up.

COSTELLO: While police are trying to track these bikers, people seeing the video on YouTube are appalled.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To me, they assaulted this gentleman. That's criminal.

COSTELLO: They should be punished for it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure, absolutely.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: That was reporter Jessica Schneider from WCBS in New York. Police say the investigation does continue and they're looking to make many more arrests. We'll keep you posted. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, they sacrificed for this country. Now they risk getting hurt even more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you are holding veterans hostage for the sake of political gain or trying to balance the budget on the backs of the men and women who have served and sacrificed this country, you are going to pay a political price.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Up next, what a prolonged shutdown could mean for disabled veterans.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COSTELLO: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you for joining me. We're watching three things for you. We just logged on to healthcare.gov and now the system is moving very, very slowly. This is the day when you can sign up for the health care exchanges for the uninsured to sign up for insurance.

We tried to logon to the Georgia system healthcare.gov and the system is down at the moment. We don't know if that's because lots and lots of people are trying to get online all at the same time or a major glitch in the system. We'll keep you posted.

We're also watching the Senate floor. You see Senator Barbara Boxer there. She is making statements. Many senators, both Republicans and Democrats, have been making statements after the Senate voted down the latest House bill to keep the government up and running so the stalemate does continue. The government remains shut down and, by the way, President Obama will make a statement in the Rose Garden at 12:25 Eastern.

COSTELLO: We're also keeping an eye on the House of Representatives. And here, House members are also speaking. They're making statements about Obamacare, and trying to come up with a new plan to delay the law. We'll keep you posted on all of that.

All right, moving on now, this morning in Washington, truly a sign of the times, federal tourist attractions are closing as some of the more visible victims of the government shutdown. Elsewhere, officers are dark and employees are booted out on unpaid leave, and Democrats and Republicans are blaming each other for yet another failure to compromise. Here's Rand Paul, Senator Rand Paul, Republican, who spoke to CNN today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SENATOR RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: Our first position really wasn't so much a compromise. We don't want Obamacare. We think it is a bad idea and going to hurt people. We offered to get rid of it completely. That didn't pass, so we offered a compromise to say, look, you've been delaying other parts of it, why don't we delay the whole thing for a year?

That I think is a compromise position. That was rejected. We then offered to delay only the individual mandate, and the president has done it with the employer mandate, another compromise rejected.