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Rollout of Obamacare; Interview With Congressman Steve Israel

Aired October 02, 2013 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hour two, I'm Brooke Baldwin, as we continue our coverage here, special live coverage of day two of this government shutdown. Here you have the president. He's scheduled to be part of this meeting, called this meeting in just about two and a half hours from now with congressional leaders on both sides, boat chambers, including John Boehner, and Boehner, we should point out, we have learned, has spoken today with the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Speaker Boehner has insisted any bill would have to provide a provision to defund or delay Obamacare, but the showdown will not be the only topic at the White House. Another crisis, as we have been reporting, expected to come in two weeks, whether or not to raise the debt ceiling. That will also be on this meeting's agenda.

We all remember 2011 and that debacle, the stalemate, whatever you want to call it here, over the debt ceiling. That cost the U.S. its top-level credit rating. So this afternoon, the White House press secretary gave a preview of this meeting, saying the president is making, quote, "zero demands."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: He's making no demands. He's attaching no partisan strings to his request that Congress fulfill its responsibility to insure that the United States does not default on its obligations for the first time in our long history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Joining me now, our chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash.

Dana, you're talking to a lot of people on the Hill. What are you hearing about this upcoming meeting at the White House?

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, actually, I will just put that question right to a member of the House Democratic leadership.

Steve Israel of New York is here with me.

You have been in meetings with Nancy Pelosi, who is going to attend the meeting at the White House. Are expectations even remotely high that anything can get accomplished? REP. STEVE ISRAEL (D), NEW YORK: Well, I think everybody in that room in the White House knows what everybody else knows, that the votes are there right now on floor of the House to pass a budget, reopen government, at the level the Republicans want, the lower level, without defunding Obamacare.

BASH: But that has been on the table, that's been the state of reality for a long time. And Republicans won't budge. Is the president prepared to give him something, to negotiate on anything to try to end this stalemate?

ISRAEL: Well, the president is going to say to Speaker Boehner, what is it going to take to open up this government? Speaker Boehner then has a choice. He can continue to pander to his -- the Tea Party elements in his caucus and say, you're not going to get anything, it's our way or the highway, or Speaker Boehner can start presenting an exit strategy that makes sense.

We want to reopen the government. We have a way of doing it. We can do it within the next few minutes. It's not about 10, 20, 30, 40 Republicans. It's about one. Will Speaker Boehner release the 16 Republicans who already said they will vote with us to take this vote and reopen the government?

BASH: Now, as we speak, you and your fellow colleagues are beginning a series of votes on the House floor to fund five parts of the government, veterans, the National Park Service, and also among those is the NIH, which of course, funds research, cancer research for everybody, including children.

You -- Democrats are in a tough spot, right? That's the whole point. That's the Republican strategy, to put you in a tough spot.

ISRAEL: That is the Republican strategy, to put us in a tough spot, but what they're doing is they're putting America in a tough spot. They're saying to the American people, we only want to fund certain things. We're going to decide what gets funded and what doesn't.

This is a democracy. The American people want us to fund government, keep it open, and then negotiate the levels of funding.

BASH: Now, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was saying you can't pick and choose one over the other, but Congress, both houses, just earlier this week passed a bill to keep the salaries going for men and women of the military. You have already picked and chosen. So why not at least if this is on the table, if it's in front of you as an option, vote to fund the NIH so that at least these trials can keep going while other parts of the government are closed?

ISRAEL: Because this is not a restaurant menu. This is government. And when we did support continued funding for our troops, that was before the government shut down.

I don't believe that anybody really believed that John Boehner would dig in to the extent that he did and double down and keep this government shut down for as long as it has been shut down. There was a hope that he would come to the table and negotiate a compromise. That hope has evaporated. But, still, Dana, I think we can get this. In fact, I know it. There are 225 votes ready to go right now to fund a clean budget, no defunding of Obamacare, at the low level that the Republicans want.

Our message to Speaker Boehner is take yes for an answer.

BASH: OK. Thank you, Congressman Steve Israel.

And we will see what happens, Brooke, at the White House, but with all due respect, what Congressman Israel is saying is what the White House has been saying and what John Boehner and his Republican leadership so far has said. That's not a negotiating position from their perspective.

BALDWIN: Right. Dana Bash, thank you.

Congressman Israel, thanks. Thank you.

The congressman was talking specifically about Speaker Boehner. But even Republicans admit that this partial shutdown of the government shows that the minority can rule.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MICHAEL GRIMM (R), NEW YORK: Within my own conference, obviously, everyone knows we have a far-right faction that we have to deal with and we have to unify.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That faction that Congressman Grimm was talking about, this minority, was first rallied by this freshman congressman from western North Carolina. He is Mark Meadows.

So let me take you back to August. Congressman Meadows sent a letter to his leader in the House, Speaker John Boehner, asking to -- quote -- "affirmatively defund the implementation and enforcement of Obamacare in any relevant appropriations bills brought to the House."

Fast forward to these 80 members signing their names to this, earning them the new name as a group, dubbed the suicide caucus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARK MEADOWS (R), NORTH CAROLINA: Ronald Reagan used to have the greatest line. He says, if you can't make them see the light, make sure they feel the heat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Joining me now is CNN political commentator Ryan Lizza, who wrote this article in "The New Yorker" about this suicide caucus.

Ryan Lizza, nice to see you.

RYAN LIZZA, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Good to see you.

BALDWIN: I want to talk about your piece in just a second, but first just to the headline of the day, this meeting at the White House, right? You have Boehner, Pelosi, Reid, McConnell, the president, we're hearing Jack Lew as well, talking about possible default, the debt ceiling.

I mean, if Republicans are calling for negotiating, but the president says, listen, when it comes to Obamacare, there is nothing to discuss, what are they talking about?

LIZZA: That's a good question. I think that they will probably talk about Harry Reid's proposal. He sent a letter to Boehner today saying, look, if you pass a clean, continuing resolution, which in the Democrats' view, the overall funding of that resolution is already a concession, if you pass that, then Harry Reid is saying, we will all get together in this conference committee and we will work through all of the big fiscal issues, everything can be on the table. You just can't keep the government shut as a price to get your way.

So that's probably what Obama's position is right now as well. For Boehner, you know, he's got to bring something back. The conventional wisdom among Republicans is Boehner has to have, to get out of this, to pass something, you have got to give him some small victory, and a clean C.R. won't be enough.

Now, as this plays out, maybe Obama finds a way to give Boehner some small victory where he can start funding the government and they can move on to debate the debt ceiling. Not looking good right now.

BALDWIN: I don't know what this victory may look like for specifically this group, the suicide caucus, that you wrote in "The New Yorker" about, because you have these House members, these 80 members, this is 18 percent of the House, a third of the 233 House Republicans here, and we have this map from your piece, Ryan Lizza.

Talk to me about this specific group and the districts that these folks come from.

LIZZA: Well, it's sort of explains a lot, right? These 80 members won their races by an average of 34 points. Right? So they live in supermajority districts where they don't have to worry about the Democrat.

Obama, who won nationally, of course, in the 2012 election by four points, he lost in these districts by an average of 23 points. Right? If you're one of these 80 members, you won by some 30 points, Obama lost by some 20 points, all you care about is a Republican primary challenge from your right.

Look, it's not unusual in American history where you have a faction in one party or another that pushes from the far right or the far left. What's unusual is that they got their way, right, that they wrote this letter, that Senator Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Mike Lee supported them, and you had these outside interest groups that spent a lot of money on this over the summer when a lot of us weren't even paying attention, and Boehner publicly opposed to what they were doing with the letter finally said -- threw his arms up and said, all right, I have to try it your way because you guys kind of call the shots around here.

Why is that? That means Boehner is not as strong a speaker as previous speakers have been. Previous speakers could tell their guys what to do. There are a few reasons for that, Brooke. He doesn't have the pork barrel spending that they used to have where you could buy votes. And he doesn't have the campaign cash that he can throw around to help these guys get elected. These guys have their own independent sources of campaign cash.

So the system, it has really changed a lot, and a small, very, very ideological faction has been successful here in setting us on a course of this government shutdown.

BALDWIN: It's incredible to think of the gerrymandering the districts, which then begat this faction, which then begat this stalemate to a degree. Ryan Lizza, we shall see what comes out of this 5:30 Eastern time White House meeting. Thank you, my friend. I appreciate it.

As the federal government sends home about 800,000 employees without pay, shutters government offices, national parks, museums, the question remains, what about the less obvious costs of the shutdown?

CNN's Tom Foreman is in Washington with a closer look at the real-life impact -- Tom.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, hey, Brooke.

That's really what everybody is doing here. They're trying to measure the real impact. And you're right, we knew up front about the big red zone impact here, the 800,000 or so people who would lose their jobs right away with the federal government. All the businesses that deal directly with the federal government, day by day by day, they're being hit by it.

We also knew before this started that there would be something of a green zone back here. By that, I mean agencies that are considered essential so they're not cut back as much, airports and Customs and Border Patrol, the Postal Service, the federal courts, things like that.

The real area of concern right now that you're hearing so much talk about is this, the yellow zone here, where there are cuts that people maybe weren't thinking of or didn't expect so much. For example, the National Security Agency, the CIA and other intelligence forces, in some areas we're hearing now that there are 70 percent reductions, 70 percent in terms of civilian staff. That has a potential impact on diplomatic missions, on military missions overseas.

A lot of concern over that on Capitol Hill. If you need to hire somebody, you need to check on their immigration status, so you may use the E-Verify. The E-Verify system is not working now, so you can't check on that that way. Meat inspections by the Department of Agriculture are going on now as they normally would, but there are other agencies that have other inspectors who check out other food sources for health and safety. Those people have been furloughed.

So that's not happening. New clinical trials at the National Institutes for Health, there are people out there who want to get into the trials to try potentially lifesaving treatments, up to 200 people a week are being told now they can't do that. There's no money for that.

And Head Start, about 19,000 families in the country have been told there's no place for their children to go now because of Head Start. Now, you may look at all this and say that's savings in taxes. Some people do see it that way, but it's also money that's not going into the economy.

So IHS Global Insight added it up, and their tally here is about $300 million per day not going into the economy right now. And maybe that doesn't matter, even though it's a big number, for a few days, but the longer it goes on, the more it adds up, and it is adding up hour by hour by hour -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Wow. That is a large number behind you, Tom Foreman. Tom, thank you.

Coming up, we will keep you in Washington. We will take you to the beautiful World War II Memorial, where dozens of veterans showed up today, hoping they could get in. We will show you what happened. We will show you those protest signs.

Plus, the Obama administration needs young people to sign up for Obamacare. So celebrities are helping out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks for coming.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No problem.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's my mistress. She's pregnant.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins me on how today, day two, how the sign-up process is going.

Also, new twists in the biker gang attack on a family's car. Find out why one of the suspects has been released and I will speak live with a biker who has seen this kind of intimidation before.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: Got some breaking news I need to pass along to you as we're efforting some pictures for you. There's been a fatal accident on Highway I-40 in specifically Jefferson County, Tennessee, mile marker 423. This, according to police, involved a tour bus. This involved a tractor trailer, and a passenger vehicle.

So from what we're getting here at CNN, this bus was traveling eastbound on this highway and for some reason crossed the median and hit this tractor trailer and the passenger car, and again, confirming multiple, multiple fatalities here, and still awaiting the report as far as how many people were injured, types of injuries. We're making phone calls right now on this fatal accident on I-40 in Tennessee. As soon as we get more information for you, we will pass it along.

Let me move on, though, to our special coverage, day two of this government shutdown. Obamacare needs young people, lots and lots of young people -- 2.7 million healthy Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 have to sign up to balance out the number of sick people expected to join this program.

But that could be tough because young Americans are not as easy to reach as you think. That's where this comedy Web site Funny or Die come in. Millions of people follow it, and it's now using serious star power and parody to help sell Obamacare.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks for coming.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No problem.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's my mistress. She's pregnant.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Finally, an actual scandal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She doesn't have health insurance.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ACA takes about 15 minutes to sign up for. I need you to go to healthcare.gov.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let's check in with chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, CNN Express there, rolling along in Lexington, Kentucky, today.

Not only does Obamacare, they need these youngsters to sign up. How is it going here today, Sanjay, day two?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think better than yesterday. Obviously, there was a lot of glitches, the operative word that you heard so much yesterday, all across the country.

Kentucky probably fared better than most. I spoke to people, including the governor earlier today, who say there has been no evidence of glitches today. To give you a little bit of context, they had about 4,700 people who applied online, 1,800 people who have registered in the state of Kentucky. There's more than 600,000 people who are uninsured. This is the first couple days, Brooke. You have six months, until the end of March. My guess is if human psychology plays any role here, toward the end of March, March 29 upward, that's when you will see a big uptick. Again, people like to wait until the last minute and it will probably be no different here.

BALDWIN: We have been talking about sign-ups, maybe some last-minute sign-ups, but we're also hearing a lot of warnings. Sanjay, will people who have insurance lose it? I know that's a real concern among a lot of Americans.

GUPTA: Yes, and the mantra seems to have been for a long time from President Obama and others, look, if you have insurance, don't worry about it. Nothing is going to change. And I think as a result of that, a lot of people haven't been focused on this, haven't been talking it or even thinking about it now you're starting to hear some of the things that you're talking about.

We're here in Kentucky. One of the big distribution centers for UPS, for example, is also here. And UPS is going to tell about 15,000 spouses of non-union employees at UPS if you can get your health care insurance from your own job, not as part of the spousal coverage from UPS, you should do that, about 15,000 people. Is this a sign of things to come? Are more companies going to do things like that? We don't know.

But, again, to be clear, those people will still be able to have health care insurance, just now through their own employers as opposed to UPS.

BALDWIN: And, Sanjay, this varies from state to state, correct, the experience here?

GUPTA: Yes. It varies from state to state for lots of different reasons. We were in South Carolina yesterday. That's a state that basically said the federal government will be allowed to set up their marketplace, their exchange.

In Kentucky, this state took on that responsibility themselves. There are states that have not accepted Medicaid dollars to expand their Medicaid programs. Kentucky is a state that did. Look, Kentucky is an interesting place because it is a state divided in many ways. You have a governor who is very supportive of this, he's a Democrat. And you have two very high-profile senators, Senator Paul and Senator McConnell. It's no secret how they feel about this.

It's no secret that they're still in Washington trying to get our government restarted as well. But I talked to the governor about this specifically. Take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. STEVE BESHEAR (D), KENTUCKY: This is not a Democrat or Republican issue. This is an issue for me that's about Kentucky families and about how we can for the first time get decent, affordable health coverage for these families so that they're not just one diagnosis away from bankruptcy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: He went on to say, Brooke, I will tell you, that he sort of sees this as a bunch of 9-year-olds in the middle of a food fight. He was pretty forceful in how he spoke about this and he's not happy, as a lot of people have become quite passionate about this issue.

But, again, Kentucky is unique, I think, in that particular regard.

BALDWIN: It's nice to see you out there talking to the people, talking to the governors of these states. Sanjay, we will check back in with you. You have been in South Carolina. You're in Kentucky. We will see you in Maryland tomorrow talking to people, answering their questions when it comes to Obamacare.

And I should mention Sanjay will have much more on a special "SANJAY GUPTA M.D." this weekend right here on CNN.

Coming up, with regards to this whole shutdown, voices from the left voices from the right, they will join me live to debate what should happen inside the president's meeting with party leaders in just about two hours from now. What if anything can the president give up to Republicans? Anything?

Plus, more on this frightening video we have been watching, this mob of bikers pulling this man who is with his family out of his SUV, beating him, and he ran over several of them as well. We're learning charges have been dropped against one of those bikers. I will talk live with a man who has seen this kind of intimidation on the road before.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We have got some new information for you today in this video that has been around, this graphic biking-SUV incident involving some of these motorcyclists and the driver of an SUV. This happened last Sunday in New York.

We now know that charges were dropped today against one of the suspects arrested in that incident. Allen Edwards had turned himself in to authorities Tuesday. He was initially facing charges including reckless endangerment and criminal mischief, but prosecutors are now saying they're no longer investigating him specifically.

And we just got word from a law enforcement official that Edwards may have been trying to help and protect the driver of that SUV who was badly beaten. That's according to a witness who came forward to police.

Let's talk about how this can happen, how things can unfold on the road. This is C.J. Petties. He's the former president of the Cocky Ridaz Motorcycle Club.

So, C.J., welcome to you. First of all, let me just get your perspective. When you watch this video on the West Side Highway and into the streets of Manhattan, what are your thoughts?

C.J. PETTIES, FORMER PRESIDENT, COCKY RIDAZ MOTORCYCLE CLUB: My thoughts are, I mean, I couldn't believe it. It was hard to watch.

I couldn't understand what was going on. I couldn't understand why the driver would run over a motorcycle and a person, at that.

BALDWIN: We know that the driver so far of the SUV isn't charged. We're looking at video now where this goes into the streets of Manhattan. As we were reporting, one of these motorcyclists is bashing in the side of his SUV. You, C.J., have been in a similar incident. I read you were out on the road. What, seven or eight other bikers and an SUV comes 70 miles per hour. What happened?

PETTIES: Pretty much, you know, we were riding, having a good time, enjoying our day, and some guy just kind of split us, ran through us, at about 70 miles per hour.

And the initial reaction was, you know, my fellow riders, they wanted to reach out to him and find out what was going on.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: But when you say reach out to him, what does that mean?

PETTIES: Pretty much, you know, questioning, pull up to the car and find out what was going on, probably the same thing we see here in this video.

But I saw that he was -- he must have -- his wife must have been pregnant or something was going on to where, to me, he wasn't rational. So, I just let it go. And I signaled to the people who I was with just to let him go and he continued on driving crazy about 70 miles per hour. I figured he had something important going on.

BALDWIN: There seems, though, to be a fine line between out riding on the road, following the laws of the road, and, ultimately -- and, listen, I wasn't there. I don't know exactly what predicated what, but then for this biker that you see on the video to start bashing in this man's SUV window and hitting him.

PETTIES: You know, I feel like, you know, we have families to get to. You know, we're trying to get home, see our loved ones.

And when someone does something like that, it causes anger. And a lot of times, you know, when we will address the vehicle, all we want is an, oh, I'm sorry, or something that says I messed up, I made a mistake. And if a driver doesn't exert that, then, you know, aggression just goes from there.

BALDWIN: C.J. Petties, I appreciate you coming on and at least trying to explain the perspective from a biker. C.J., thank you. Coming up, we know the meeting is now set. President Obama will be sitting down with leaders of the House and the Senate on both sides of the aisle in two hours. But will that be the key to ending this impasse, ending this government shutdown? What will each side give up, if anything?

The right, the left will debate what should happen behind those closed doors with me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)