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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
GOP Funding Bill Fails in the House; Viral Video Shows Real Life Mad Max Nightmare; Jacksonville Airport Evacuated For Suspicious Packages
Aired October 01, 2013 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Erin, thanks.
Good evening, everyone.
Tonight, there is breaking news in the shutdown. The House voting tonight on a new offer. The White House is already saying no thanks. We're going to have full coverage tonight on the shutdown showdown.
And later, video of what appears to be a vicious attack. A driver in an SUV out with his wife and baby attacked by a pack of angry bikers. It happened in New York, all of it caught on tape. We'll show you the incredible chase that led up to this attack and tell you what happened next.
We begin with the breaking news and the broken government. The House tonight voting on GOP legislation to pay for bits and pieces of the government, something the president says he's going to veto. Whatever happens next, this is already hurting the country in ways large and small.
According to "Hill" and "The New York Times," the shutdown has furloughed 70 percent of the civilian employees at the nation's intelligence agencies. And not just support staff, we're talking about analysts as well. People responsible for keeping all of us safe. Seventy percent furloughed.
We also learned today that kids, children with incurable cancer who are trying to get into clinical trials at the National Institutes of Health will not be getting potentially life-saving drugs. There's no one to process their applications. Hundreds of NIH employees some of the 800,000 federal workers in all, they are not getting paychecks.
And it's not just government workers, national parks around the country, as you probably heard, are closed, even the Statue of Liberty. So are the small businesses that rely on tourist money. One down at the statue just laid off 110 employees. It's happening all across the country. The public sector shutting down, taking a bite out of the private sector, which will only get deeper because 800,000 furloughed workers have less and less money to spend. Estimates are that it's costing the economy $300 million a day.
Today at the Senate again rejected House legislation that funded the government but delays the already passed, already Supreme Court tested Affordable Health Care Act, also known as Obamacare. President Obama strategizing with his staff today. The White House all day threatening to veto the House GOP's latest counter offer, which lawmakers are voting on at this hour.
The public is not happy, not amused with Congress now polling barely just above single digits. The front page of today's "New York Daily News" sums it up and honestly the headline pretty much speaks for itself. Plenty of lawmakers also have a dim view of the place.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CLAIRE MCCASKILL (D), MISSOURI: It is very hard from a distance to figure out who has really lost their minds.
REP. JOHN LARSON (D), CONNECTICUT: Do you stand for your country? Or do you want to take it down?
REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE (D), TEXAS: I don't want a government shutdown.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The gentle lady's time has expired.
JACKSON LEE: I want a vote on a clean continuing resolution now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The gentle lady's time has expired.
MCCASKILL: Really lost their minds.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: My goodness, they won't even sit down and have a discussion.
REP. ANN WAGNER (R), MISSOURI: We've been dancing for a week. We just aren't being met in that tango anywhere.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), MINORITY LEADER: They'll say it was the mean old Republicans or the Tea Party or FOX News or maybe even George W. Bush.
MCCASKILL: Lost their minds.
REP. LOIS FRANKEL (D), FLORIDA: Oh, the places you'll go. There is fun to be done. There are points to be scored. There are games to be won.
REP. MARK POCAN (D), WISCONSIN: I feel like I'm serving in the nation's largest kindergarten.
MCCASKILL: Really lost their minds. One party, the other party, all of us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: So there's the question of sanity and the question of what to do next. Again, as we mentioned, House Republicans are busy tonight. Dana Bash is on -- is at the capitol with the breaking news.
What's the latest, what's happening, Dana?
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The latest is that the House just wrapped up three votes that they announced that they were going to do earlier today. Votes to fund three agencies. The National Park Service, veterans and also D.C. All of those failed. The reason they failed is because the way that it was put on the House floor was that it required two-thirds majority, which meant that it required significant Democratic support and they did not get Democratic support because Democrats, as you just heard in some of those clips, said that this is simply a -- in fact, Nancy Pelosi called it pathetic, a subterfuge she called it and a way around voting to fund the government as a whole but also some of the agencies that Republicans -- Democrats accuse Republicans of not wanting to fund, especially those that will help fund Obamacare.
And actually I'm lucky enough to have a guest that will help us understand exactly what happened, the House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
Thank you very much. You just walked off the floor, which is right over there, with some of these votes. You just lost these. Democrats didn't support it. Will you then go ahead tomorrow and do this and pass them with Republican support only?
REP. ERIC CANTOR (R), MAJORITY LEADER: Well, it's interesting. We've got significant Democrat support on some of these bills. I mean, we just had the bill to fund the Veterans Administration, a bill to help the District of Columbia take advantage of its own revenues, having nothing to do with the federal government, to help the people of Washington, D.C., and we also took up a bill to open up our national parks and memorials.
And what we're going to intend to do is continue to try and bring forward measures to help people -- and help them relieve the pain of this government shutdown. And you know, it's pretty unfathomable to me to see that the Democrats are voting against the veterans, they're voting against the residents of the District of Columbia. They're voting against the Honor Flight Veterans who came here today to see the World War II memorial, to say that they couldn't access those sites.
BASH: But you -- you know the reason they voted against it because this is a game of chess and they think that that was a checkmate because they're trying to stop you from -- from their perspective -- doing this piecemeal and then funding everything except for the agencies that will fund Obamacare.
CANTOR: And so what we want to do is really change the way that business is done here. We should be focusing on what brings us together. No one disagrees with funding the Veterans Administration. So how could a Democrat vote against that? No one disagrees with funding the District of Columbia and allowing it to access its own revenues, not federal taxpayer revenues. No one disagrees with opening up the World War II memorial. So why is it that you can say, well, we're just not going to support those things. Those are terrible. That's a terrible message to send to people who are hurting right now.
BASH: So you'll go back at it tomorrow in a different way?
CANTOR: Yes. We're going to -- see, the president talked about, you know, NIH not being available there for sick kids. You better believe we Republicans are going to bring to the floor a bill that will address that issue tomorrow. And again, for the Democrats to say we're going to play a political game and we're not going to help those kids, we're really tired of playing games. These are solutions here. We're working on things that all of us can agree on.
BASH: Now one of your Republican colleagues, Congressman Nunes, said that your whole strategy, the Republican strategy is that when Democrats complain, you'll say, OK, fine, we'll bring a bill to the floor funding it and that is the case with NIH and so forth. Is that -- is that the strategy here?
CANTOR: Well --
BASH: To just vote on whatever Democrats complain about except for Obamacare?
CANTOR: If the president has mentioned that there are problems out there, that people are suffering from the shutdown, we get it, we understand that. We have employees that are furloughed just as the other hundreds of thousands of government employees that are having to suffer.
We want to address the problems that American people are facing. So that's -- that's why we have an answer on the floor. All of us can agree on this, so why would it be that it's unacceptable for us to do the things we agree on. Of course we should help these people.
BASH: Can I just ask you one very quick question? Because I -- then we go back to Anderson.
The next important fight is defaulting, whether or not the U.S. will default on its loans. Will you guarantee that whatever the toing and froing will be that you will make sure that the U.S. does not default on its -- on its loans?
CANTOR: I don't think anybody believes that the country should default. I don't think anybody, and I certainly don't --
BASH: Do you guarantee it won't happen?
CANTOR: I certainly don't believe -- I would like to guarantee all of this. I'd like to guarantee that the people who are suffering, not getting treatment at the NIH, could be answered tomorrow. We should have the ability to guarantee that. But yet you see the president and his party standing in the way. We're going to keep trying to talk. We're going to keep trying to solve problems. And I believe at some point the president and his party here on Capitol Hill will say, you know what, we're tired of shutting down the funding for these agencies. We're going to go ahead and work finally together, all of us. And that's what I think reasonable people would expect.
BASH: Mr. Leader, thank you very much for joining us. I know you're a busy man. I appreciate it.
Anderson, back to you.
COOPER: Dana, it just never seems like he answers the questions, just directly answers questions on Capitol Hill. I'm talking about folks on both sides of the aisle. It is incredibly frustrating, and I can't imagine what it's like for you.
We're going to continue to hear from congressmen on both sides of the political divide, try to get some answers tonight.
Next up, Democratic Congressman John Larson of Connecticut who had this to say on the floor last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARSON: Do you stand with your country? Do you stand for your country? Or do you want to take it down this evening?
Stand up for your country. Stand up for America. Stand with us this evening and keep this government going, in the name of fairness.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Congressman Larson joins me now.
Congressman, thanks for joining us. I know emotions are running high, they certainly were last night, but do you really believe Republicans are against America, that they're -- that they are standing with the American people -- they say they're standing with the American people who don't like Obamacare.
LARSON: You have to remember in the context of this, Anderson, and it is, you know, a passionate time, but to talk about fairness and at the same time have a bill on the floor that could avoid all of this and instead pursue the worst of our angels instead of the better of our angels and shut down the government when we know we could have proceeded by keeping government open and then proceed in conference, as we should.
COOPER: Well, tonight Republicans are saying look, they just tried and failed to fund the government in a piecemeal fashion. We just heard from Eric Cantor saying that this is the White House's fault.
Why is that not an acceptable approach for you and for Democrats? Republicans say it would relieve pain and you're voting against veterans and national parks. That's what Cantor just said. LARSON: Forgive the schizophrenic approach and what we've been through over an entire weekend of a myopic goal to defund Obamacare. And then if you can't do it completely, do it by cuts and slashes and continue with a thousand slashes to try to end the signature program that starts today, that's there to help out people.
Anderson, we should be sitting down together. The irony of all ironies is this is a Heritage Foundation idea piloted by a Republican governor with a Democratic-controlled general assembly that in it contains the opportunity for us to take the best of the private sector and the best of the public sector and then bring everything that science, technology and innovation can bear towards solving our problems.
COOPER: But you've seen -- you've seen polls. There's a lot of people who are concerned about it, who don't like it.
LARSON: Sure. Sure.
COOPER: And a lot of people who say, look, there are problems that need to be addressed in it and worked on.
LARSON: And there are.
COOPER: And they say the White House isn't willing to negotiate, isn't willing to look at those problems.
LARSON: You know, the White House isn't willing to negotiate. They're willing to sit down, as the president has said, on any aspect of Obamacare. What they're not willing to do is shut down the government and have a gun pointed to their head and say, look, get rid of Obamacare or we're going to shut down the government. That's what they're not willing to negotiate on.
But the president is more than willing to sit down and has on numerous occasions. Let's be honest, this is a negotiation that the Republican Party is having with itself. Washington warned against this, as when you have excessive party spirit, but most importantly when you have a party within a party whose intent is to be at war with its own government and to take down the government itself.
COOPER: Let me --
LARSON: That's unfortunately what's happening.
COOPER: Let me ask you, I get a lot of tweets.
LARSON: Sure.
COOPER: I just was asking people about what annoys them about this on Twitter. A lot of people, what annoys them is that you all are still getting paid. That there's more than 843,000 federal workers who may be furloughed. They make an average, you know, annual salary of like $78,500. Folks in the House and Senate make more than twice that amount, more than half the folks on the Capitol Hill are worth more than a million dollars. Yet it's these workers out of work while you and your colleagues get a paycheck. Is that fair?
LARSON: No, it's not fair, it's not fair at all, and it shouldn't be.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Should members donate their salaries until the government reopens?
LARSON: We should have voted -- we should -- this is another one of those gotcha things that the Republicans bring up, et cetera.
Listen, you know, this should have never come to be. We had the opportunity last night on the floor to keep government open so that nobody would have been -- and furthermore, not only are people operating under this, but they're operating under the sequester. I neither voted for the sequester nor do I believe that we're on the right process here.
We need to come together and sit down. These issues are imminently solvable. And ironically, Anderson, within the Affordable Health Care Act -- I'm from Hartford, Connecticut. The insurance industry there is very strong. They have got solutions to this problem. They know that if we take 18 percent of GDP and reduce it to under 14 percent, we don't have a debt problem. And we change the paradigm in terms of what happens with the patient with regard to healthy outcomes.
This is doable. This is a Republican idea that Democrats have capitalized on, so now let's sit down together and work this through and we can solve both the deficit, put people back to -- put people back to work and also have a paradigm shift with respect to the outcome as it relates to patients and their wellness.
COOPER: Talking about patients --
LARSON: It's entirely doable.
COOPER: Talking about patients, as you know, about 30 kids, cancer patients --
LARSON: Exactly.
COOPER: -- weren't able to get treatment at the NIH today.
LARSON: That's a shame.
COOPER: I mean that's -- that is a shame.
LARSON: It is an absolute shame. And I -- while I appreciate what the -- I just heard the other segment with Dana and I appreciate what Eric Cantor has to say.
Listen, Eric Cantor, John Boehner and McCarthy have been trying to do the right thing. Unfortunately, they're not in control. Ted Cruz is in control. A virulent strain of populism of LaRouche and independents and Tea Partyism has taken over in this place. That is the real shame. That's what had me so angry last night. And that's why -- and I think that's what America feels. They want to see us sitting down together and solving these problems. It's not that difficult.
COOPER: Congressman --
LARSON: We should be separating ideological issues from what is essential and is our responsibility and duty to keep government open and running.
COOPER: Congressman Larson, I appreciate your time. Thank you very much.
LARSON: Thank you, Anderson.
COOPER: Now for the other side of the House, Republican Steve King of Iowa joins us tonight.
Congressman King, thanks so much for being with us.
REP. STEVE KING (R), IOWA: Thanks for having me, Anderson.
COOPER: This piecemeal approach of your leadership that they tried tonight and failed. Your reaction to the failure?
KING: Well, I wouldn't have put them up on suspension, so it's a majority position of the House to fund this piecemeal in this fashion. We put three offers on the table over in the Senate and each one of them were rejected. And Harry Reid wouldn't wait for us to even debate the last one. He simply announced we're going to table it in the morning. All you senators can go to bed and at 9:30 this morning, I believe it was then, they went ahead and tabled it.
I have been in a lot of negotiations in my business life and whenever you put an offer on the table, the other side needs to bring a counteroffer. We've never seen one from the United States Senate.
COOPER: I mean, President Obama won. And why should the president of the United States negotiate on a law that he ran twice on, was elected on, his opponent ran against, American people didn't vote for his opponent, and it's been signed off by the Supreme Court.
So why should he now leave that up to negotiation?
KING: Well, he was an adjunct constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago. And I say to him, the answer to that question is Article I of the Constitution. The legislative branch. It's a paramount branch of government. It's set up to be the responsive branch from the people. There was a wave election --
COOPER: But didn't the people speak in presidential elections twice and elected him?
KING: Yes. And the president's job is not to pass legislation, his job is to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. And instead, he has actually amended this law a number of times unconstitutionally in my opinion, Anderson.
COOPER: The Supreme Court says the -- it passed constitutional muster.
KING: The Supreme Court did. No one predicted that decision, by the way, and that's something that's a long discussion on where that settles. But --
COOPER: What do you mean? The Supreme Court passed it. So I mean, that's the -- it's the law of the land. I don't get it.
KING: What I'm talking about is the president unconstitutionally delayed the employer mandate. He has no authority to do that. The clear letter of the law is it shall be implemented in each month following December of 2013. He has no authority. He did it anyway. He's done the same thing with his delay here on the carve-out for Hill employees.
So the president hasn't followed nor respected the law. A number of other topics, too, but that's just within Obamacare. And the people have elected the House of Representatives to shut off all funding to implement or enforce Obamacare. That's our stand.
COOPER: The people have elected a small number of you and a small number of conservative Republicans who want this who are able to do this. But you can't say that the vast majority of people have voted on this and you really believe you are executing the will of the majority of American people?
KING: Absolutely I do. And I can look at the polls every single month since Obamacare passed and in every single month the public has been in opposition to Obamacare.
COOPER: So why did the president win? Why didn't your candidate win?
KING: Well, I think the last three months we didn't hear from Mitt Romney that the number one goal of the Romney administration was to repeal Obamacare. He said that all the way up until the end of the summer, but then the balance of his campaign was jobs and the economy, jobs and the economy. And he beat that drum relentlessly.
COOPER: Right, but the president beat --
KING: (INAUDIBLE) sleep with that.
COOPER: But the president beat the drum of Obamacare relentlessly in two elections and he won. So doesn't -- does that not matter?
KING: I don't remember the president beating it the last three months of the campaign in any intensive way. He won an election. House Republicans won an election. Every Republican in the United States Congress has voted to repeal Obamacare and to shut off all funding to Obamacare. COOPER: But no offense, but the number of people who voted for you and the other House Republicans is tiny compared to the number of people who voted for the president of the United States. No?
KING: Well, that's always going to be the case since we don't get to run nationwide, but there's a reason that we have the United States Congress.
COOPER: You can run nationwide.
KING: The president has -- what's that?
COOPER: You could run nationwide.
KING: A person could run nationwide. But we nominated Mitt Romney. He came in second in that race. I think that there are a lot of people that overanalyzed that. In the end we have a constitutional obligation to use our prudential judgment and we owe our constituents our best effort and our best judgment. And that is to shut off the funding to implement or enforce Obamacare.
We want this government to keep running. We have voted over and over again to provide all the resources necessary to keep all the functions of government running with the exception of Obamacare.
COOPER: Well, it seems like this --
(CROSSTALK)
KING: And the president -- they insist on setting -- shutting our government down, it's the equivalent of a political tantrum to save his -- namesake piece of legislation.
COOPER: One of the casualties of the shutdown, which I was surprised about, is the intelligence community. A surprising number are going to be furloughed. I read today about 72 percent on the "Hill" and "The New York Times" of the civilian workforce.
Does that concern you? I mean, is the national security of the United States being compromised because of this shutdown?
KING: You know, I can't say whether it's being compromised but it's a presidential decision on that high level of furlough or a decision made with one -- by one of his departments in the intelligence community. But the national security of the United States is a high priority and there are statutes in place that require our national security to stay in place. So if he's furloughing 72 percent, he surely had to conclude that they weren't essential and I think they are.
COOPER: Congressman King, I appreciate your time as well.
KING: Thanks for having me on.
COOPER: I want to bring -- I want to bring in Democratic strategist Paul Begala, former Newt Gingrich spokesman, Rich Galen, and Alice Stewart, spokeswoman for the 2012 Santorum and Bachmann presidential campaigns.
Paul, let me start with you. What do you make of what Congressman King just said?
PAUL BEGALA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: It was a fascinating conversation. But he seems to not get the fundamental point. And that is, he and his colleagues, no matter how much they want to defund or delay Obamacare, they don't have the votes. And when you're in a democracy, even with the American people with you -- by the way they're not, he's wrong about the polling.
The American people, very interesting, they say they don't like Obamacare but they don't want to eliminate it. They want to amend it, not end it. But the American people really want the president's gun control bill. They really want it. It's overwhelmingly popular. Like 80 percent popular. Guess what, my side doesn't have the votes. So you don't shut the government down over that, you work harder to try to win a few more elections and get the votes in the Congress.
That's what Congressman King needs to do.
This is a disgrace that he's shutting down the government, he and his colleagues, because they're not getting their way and they won't get their way. Obamacare is the law of the land, it's here to stay. And so we go on from here and govern. It's humiliating for the Republicans, it's hurting them desperately in the polls.
COOPER: So, Rich, when Republicans -- you hear Republicans like Congressman King there say it's the White House's fault, it's President Obama who's choosing to -- somebody who works for him, choosing the furlough, 70 percent of the civilian employees in the intelligence community. Is it the White House's fault here?
RICH GALEN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: You know, I think it's everybody's fault. Yes. It is the White House's fault and it is the -- the House's fault and it is the Senate's fault. I mean, to go back to something that we talked about earlier in the week, there have been zero appropriations bills adopted in -- for next year. Zero. The House has passed only four. The Senate has passed zero. So if we want to go back to first principles, the fact is the Congress, both the Republican controlled House and the Democrat controlled Senate have not done their fundamental duty to pass legislation by the experts in those areas that would have funded the government, we would not be in this.
So to your question, yes, I do blame the White House and I blame the Congress on both sides. Absolutely.
COOPER: Alice, I still don't understand if this president has won two elections and clearly he didn't keep his support of Obamacare a secret during any of these elections and the Supreme Court has passed, you know, supported the constitutionality of it, where's the leg that these folks are standing on to oppose it?
I understand they don't like it. I understand their supporters don't like it and plenty of people have a right not to like it, but isn't this what people voted for when they voted him in the office twice?
GALEN: Well, I'm old enough to have --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: I'm sorry. That was for Alice.
GALEN: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
COOPER: No, that's all right.
ALICE STEWART, FORMER SPOKESPERSON FOR BACHMANN 2012 CAMPAIGN: No, you're right, Anderson. Elections do have consequences. President Obama was re-elected and also House Republicans were elected in the House. And in terms of the president campaigned on Obamacare but since that time he has decided to delay the employer mandate of that. And what rationale can he come and delay the employer mandate and not do the same for the individual mandate, for the middle class people that he has vowed to protect and stand up for?
When House Republicans campaigned on limiting the size of government and fighting against Obamacare, which is exactly what they're doing.
And let me just say this, your show is a perfect microcosm of what we've seen in Washington. We have Republican congressmen, Cantor and King coming up with sound, sensible solutions to keep the government open, and then we have Congressman Larson, all he's doing is crossing his arms and calling names and saying, he's not going to budge.
COOPER: But he --
STEWART: We need to have some kind of compromise in order to move the ball down the field.
COOPER: But you can't honestly be saying that it's only Republicans -- I mean, this is what I think people get annoyed about when we have people from different, you know, sides of the aisle just kind of spewing talking points. You can't honestly say that only the Republicans are being sensible in all of this and only the -- and all the Democrats are not being sensible. Really, Alice? Do you really believe that?
STEWART: Absolutely -- no, I'm not saying that, Anderson. What I'm saying is that those that are serving elected officials there in Washington, they're representing the will of the people. And what we need here is leadership. And I'll acknowledge this, there's a share of responsibility amongst leaders in the House and the Senate, but the man at the top, President Obama, really should have rolled up his sleeves a long time ago and had these conversations much sooner than we had five hours before the shutdown.
And there is shared responsibility, I will acknowledge that. But look what happened with Clinton and Newt Gingrich back in '96.
COOPER: Right. They met a lot more all throughout.
STEWART: Certainly, right up to the final minute. We're not seeing that here.
COOPER: Well, let me ask --
STEWART: It's up to the president to start those conversations.
COOPER: Paul, let me ask you about that. You obviously worked with President Clinton. I mean, a lot of Republicans, just like Alice, are saying, look, President Obama has no relationships with people on Capitol Hill, with Republicans, and he should have been entering into talks and working on things a long time ago.
BEGALA: It would be better for him politically if he had, there's no doubt about it. It's the kind of optics people like, they love that stuff.
Here's the difference. The problem here is not the Republicans, certainly not the Democrats. It's the Tea Party. It is a faction within the Republican Party that has hijacked this party. It's not John Boehner. John Larson was exactly right when he said that.
So if you want to move the Tea Party, do you bring Barack Obama in? I've seen the data on this, by the way. The polling data. The Tea Party, they hate Barack Obama like the devil hates holy water so the notion that Barack Obama showing up is going to help with Michele Bachmann and Steve King and these Tea Party extremists is nuts.
So he had to, for prudential reasons, hurt himself politically but disengage from this so that Speaker Boehner, who's the one person who actually might be able to bring these lunatics to heel can come in and try to do it. But more Obama actually would make things worse.
COOPER: So, Rich, where does this go? What happens?
GALEN: Well, let me go back to one other thing.
COOPER: Yes.
GALEN: The other -- the other thing that was different in '95- 96, Paul, is that Republicans controlled the House and the Senate. There was nobody else to negotiate except for the president.
BEGALA: It's a good point.
GALEN: Here, here the House can negotiate with the Senate because they're of opposite parties. So I think that's a significant difference. Where I think it goes, I -- yesterday I thought this would end about Thursday. Now I think it may stretch on through the weekend. But I'll tell you, downtown at my office is smack downtown this afternoon about midday it looked like Mardi Gras downtown because all the federal workers had to come in and turn in their BlackBerrys and what have you.
And there was -- they weren't going back to work and it was a lot of fun. Was a lot of fun. I understand that they're going to suffer and it's not funny, and I'm not making fun of them. But I think at some point here in the next probably five days they'll come to their senses.
COOPER: All right. Rich Galen, thank you. Alice Stewart, great to have you on, Paul Begala as well.
Let us know what you think. Let's talk about this on Twitter during the commercial break. @Andersoncooper is my Twitter handle.
Just ahead why lawmakers and combat veterans invaded the World War II Memorial today. It was amazing, the images here.
Later I want to show you that terrifying chase caught on motorcycle helmet cam. Half of how scary this thing ultimately. A family attacked by basically a pack of motorcyclists. We'll see the whole thing when we continue.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REV. BARRY BLACK, SENATE CHAPLAIN: In these days that try our souls, strengthen our weakness, replacing cynicism with faith, and cowardice with courage. We pray in your holy name. Amen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Replace cynicism, he says, with faith and cowardice with courage, the Senate chaplain this morning. No sign of that today. But less than a year ago Washington seemed to be striving for it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOEHNER: If there's a mandate in yesterday's results, it's a mandate for us to find a way to work together on the solutions to the challenges that we all face as a nation.
REP. CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS (R), WASHINGTON: This is our moment where we can come together.
REP. PAUL RYAN (R), WISCONSIN: It's up to us to make this divided government work.
SEN. HARRY REID (D), MAJORITY LEADER: It's better to dance than to fight. It's better to work together.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are not as divided as our politics suggest.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: And yet here we are. And so is chief national correspondent John King and political analyst Gloria Borger and David Gergen.
John, you listen to these members of Congress in the month after the 2012 election and you wonder who are these people, where are they?
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Taken hostage by space aliens? Look, we've been through this every few months since that election, since all that talk of working together. Why? Part of it is what you were just discussing with the House members. There are 30 to 40 members of John Boehner's Republican conference who just simply don't want to get along, who simply -- if the president wanted a resolution to say sunrise is a good thing, they would oppose it.
Not all of it traces to President Obama. The Tea Party started with the bank bailouts. They not only don't like the president, they don't like and trust their own Republican establishment and that's small core has taken us off the track. For Republicans listening, yes, there are plenty of reasons where the Democrats haven't reached out.
I think that Rich Galen was right in the last segment when he said where's the president? The president should be doing this all the time so when you get to the crisis point, you can have a trustful relationship, but that all sounded great after the election. We've seen almost none of it. Through the first year of the second term and nothing has happened.
COOPER: David, the rhetoric on both sides of the aisle, I mean, I read a top Democratic official say, quote, "It's time to punch the bully in its nose." Is that any way to run a country? It wasn't like this, was it?
DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It certainly wasn't. If you go back over the 17 shutdowns in the past, more than half have ended through negotiations and each side has given -- made compromises, made concessions and that's ended it. The "Wall Street Journal" today had a photograph from January of 1996, the last shutdown with Democratic President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore shaking hands with Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich, the Republican leaders.
That was part of their negotiation. That's the way it ended. You know what was interesting. I thought President Obama might do that very thing. I thought he might call the leaders to the White House today and lock them in a room like Lyndon Johnson used to do, but it became very apparent that he's not interested in a settlement. He wants to surrender.
COOPER: And is that for political reasons? Is that because he feels he's in the right and he won the elections and the Supreme Court backs him up?
GERGEN: Well, I think part of it is they're fed up, like a lot of Americans who are fed up with all of this and they want to punch them in the nose. You know, I think that caught exactly that. But there's also something else. I'd be curious whether Gloria and John see that. Back in the early days of this presidential term there was a lot of term about whether the president and Harry Reid weren't working to see if they couldn't take the House back in 2014, have the House and Senate and run everything. I'm wondering whether that is not an underlying strategy here.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, I do think that's part of their strategy, particularly as you kind of look at the polls. And I've looked at these polls over the last few days and moderate Republicans are supporting the Democrats in this fight. Republican popularity is at an all-time low at 17 percent.
When you ask people who would you vote for today, the generic Democrat or the generic Republican, they would vote now for the generic Democrat, up nine points. I talked to some people who said that's enough for the Democrats to win back control of the House. Now, I think that may be motivating this partially.
But I also believe that the president knows what can he do, if he calls up John Boehner and says to John Boehner, can I help you out with that problem in your own Republican caucus? I don't think there's much the president can do to help John Boehner at this point.
COOPER: It's an interesting point, John. Where is the wiggle room? Where is the negotiating room?
KING: Well, you could sit down and cut a deal. The president could try to cut a deal where he gave up that tax on medical devices in his health care plan. Here's the frustration in the White House. We should try to understand and respect the Republican position. You have the understand the president's position is he's negotiated in the past, he angered his own base twice or three times allowing the Bush tax cuts to be extended even though he ran against that.
He angered his own base by the sequester deal in the 2011 debt ceiling shutdown. The president's position is I've negotiated in the past, where's my grand bargain, where's Medicare, where's Social Security, where's the tax reform believes would help economic growth. If he could get a big deal, he would sit down. But trying to get a big deal now seems I think off the table impossible.
BORGER: Their position is that this really isn't about the budget. I mean, the president said the other day, he said, you know, remember back to 2010, the debt ceiling debate, which seemed now like the good ole days when we actually were talking about the budget in terms of raising the debt ceiling. Their feeling over there is now, look, we're not talking about the budget here. We're talking about a piece of legislation that has been passed, that has been vetted constitutionally by the Supreme Court, that is about to become law.
We are not talking about the budget deficit, which is normally what you talk about when you talk about shutting down the government, funding the government or even the upcoming debt ceiling fight. So they kind of feel like it's an apple and an orange here and there's no reason for them to deal at this point. I believe it will be different if all of this gets delayed to the debt ceiling, because they understand that would be kind of Armageddon.
COOPER: And, David, is the economic impact of this, the national security impact of 70 percent of intelligence workers, analysts included, being furloughed, is it real? There are some people who don't really believe -- they don't necessarily see it in their own lives. They're not fur load workers, not losing a paycheck. They don't see the government shutting down. Is there a real economic impact on this?
GERGEN: There's definitely a national security impact. The Pentagon is sort of largely emptied out of civilians. There's definitely going to be economic impact. But the point, Anderson, it's not impact in one day, it's a cumulative process. So the longer it goes on, the worse the impact. And the closer you get to the default issue, and then you really get worried and Wall Street will get extremely worried, if this goes on 10, 14 days, up to the edge of a default, because that's what's really scaring the dickens out of them.
COOPER: David Gergen, Gloria Borger, John King, appreciate you being on. For more on the story, go can go to cnn.com, of course, anytime.
Just ahead tonight, the World War II Memorial was closed because of the shutdown. That didn't stop these veterans from getting in and breaking in. Wait until you hear how some lawmakers tried to score political points with their story.
Also ahead, the driver of an SUV is attacked by a pack of bikers after a terrifying high-speed chase. All of it caught on video. We'll show you ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Welcome back. The World War II Memorial, which was closed due to the government shutdown. The shutdown did not stop bus loads of veterans, many in wheelchairs, veterans from World War II from visiting the memorial honoring their service. They sailed past the barriers and given the medal they are known for it should not be surprised.
Here's what really some of the same lawmakers whose votes shutdown the monument tried to make political hay of the veterans' plight today. Here's CNN's Chris Lawrence.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Wheelchair bound veterans came just to see the World War II Memorial, only to be greeted by barricades.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't get it. I don't get it. I'm furious.
LAWRENCE: Members of Congress seem surprised, but when they vote to shutdown the federal government, monuments do too.
SENATOR TOM HARKIN (D), IOWA: If I can walk around here, why can't I walk down there? It makes no sense.
LAWRENCE: That's exactly what some are saying about negotiations on Capitol Hill. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel like our government is wasting our taxpayer money.
LAWRENCE: Onlookers applauded as the veterans broke past the barricade.
JAMES BROWN, WORLD WAR II VETERAN: Well, it fills you with pride and makes you proud.
LAWRENCE: Lawmakers who came to greet the vets also laid blame for those barricades.
REPRESENTATIVE STEVE KING (R), IOWA: This is a spiteful decision that was ordered from the White House.
LAWRENCE: The politicians made no mention of their own role.
REPRESENTATIVE MICHELE BACHMANN (R), MINNESOTA: We're trying to protect the lives and the health care of these wonderful veterans who did for us.
LAWRENCE: But as they postured within a mile of the memorial, thousands of federal workers were being furloughed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone is angry. I mean angry.
LAWRENCE: Sent home without pay, they're scared for themselves and their co-workers.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just bought a house. I need to make the mortgage payment.
LAWRENCE: Angry, worried and incredibly frustrated.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because I don't see why we, the people, should really suffer because of this disagreement.
LAWRENCE: Despite it all, the shutdown won't stop one woman's 93-year-old father, who will get to see the memorial that honors him.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're just glad he got on the plane this morning.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you're still going to enjoy this day?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. It's going to be great.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAWRENCE: Flights and hotels are already booked for a dozen more veterans' trips during the next week. Park officials say they are looking for guidance on how to handle those. Translation, we can't believe the folks in charge left us here to block elderly veterans from entering an open concrete space. Chris Lawrence, CNN, Washington. COOPER: Up next, a horrifying attack against the driver of an SUV by a group of bikers. We'll tell you what caused the bloody confrontation and what happened, a full report ahead.
Also a deadly rock slide in Colorado, five members of one family killed but a 13-year-old girl survived. Who she credits with saving her life when we continue.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Welcome back. Tonight a video that's gone viral online and will be a key piece of evidence as New York police investigate a bloody attack by a pack of bikers that chased down an SUV after it hit one of the bikers accidentally, according to police. The SUV's driver was with his wife and toddler. What happened next looks like something out of the movie "Mad Max." Here's Randi Kaye.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RANDI KAYE, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You are watching video from a motorcycle helmet cam unfolding in real- time. It was posted on YouTube. What you're about to see will change lives forever. The driver of the SUV, out for a drive with his wife and 2-year-old daughter, bumps the back tire of one of the motorcycles that slowed down in front of him. See it there?
In response, dozens of motorcyclists circle the Range Rover, police say, denting it, and then slashing the tires. Police say the motorcyclists may all be members of a group known as the Hollywood Stuntz. Then this chase takes a dangerous turn. Watch as the SUV's driver barrels through the mob, hitting three more motorcycle riders.
Now watch it again. Police say the driver feared for his life. The conflict now escalates. The motorcycles chase the SUV. When they catch up to it, one biker opens the door of the SUV, but the driver quickly floors it, this time he gets away. Eventually he's forced off the west side highway and onto the streets of Manhattan.
Stuck in traffic, the Range Rover has nowhere to go, and the motorcyclists know it. First one rider rips off his helmet and uses it to bash in the driver's window. Then two more quickly join him. All of them enraged. Just before they pull the driver out of the car, the videotape ends.
RAY KELLY, COMMISSIONER, NYPD: He's taken out of the car. He is assaulted. He received some stitches at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.
KAYE: Police say the driver's face was slashed, but his wife and young daughter were not injured. The driver was treated and released, but not this man, seen here in this Facebook photo. His name is Edwin Mieses and his family says the SUV driver hit him on his motorcycle. Now they say he's paralyzed from the waist down. He's from Lawrence, Massachusetts. Dayana Mieses is his wife.
DAYANA MIESES, EDWIN MIESES' WIFE: My husband got off his bike to help the guy. And whatever he did, he went and peeled off and paralyzed my husband on the way.
KAYE: Mieses is in the music business. His friends call him Jay Miese and they set up this Facebook page for him. The couple has two children, ages 15 and 9. Yolanda Santiago is his mother.
YOLANDA SANTIAGO, EDWIN MIESES' MOTHER: I'm devastated. All his ribs fractured. His lungs are so badly bruised that he's still on the ventilator.
KAYE (on camera): The SUV driver hasn't been charged with anything, but police have charged 28-year-old Christopher Cruz with reckless endangerment, reckless menacing and endangering the welfare of a child. Police believe Cruz was struck by the vehicle then assaulted it along with two other bikers. One of those men also turned himself in to police late Tuesday afternoon.
(voice-over): Police are looking at video footage to try to determine if any other charges will be filed in this case. Randi Kaye, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Scary stuff.
Coming up, a rockslide in Colorado kills five members of a family, the only survivor, a 13-year-old girl. We'll tell you how she survived and how search teams pulled bodies from under boulders the size of cars, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Let's get caught up on some of the other stories we're following. Susan Hendricks is here with the 360 Bulletin -- Susan.
SUSAN HENDRICKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, breaking news in Florida, the Jacksonville International Airport has been completely evacuated and a bomb squad is on the scene there. Authorities said two suspicious packages were found, one in a garage, the other in a terminal. Now, the situation is still ongoing. Travelers who were stuck on airplanes are now being moved to area hotels. Two people have been taken into custody.
A devastating incident in Colorado where a rockslide at a scenic overlook near a waterfall killed five members of one family about 120 miles southwest of Denver, 13-year-old Gracie Johnson was the only survivor, escaping with a broken leg. She reportedly told authorities that her father saved her life by jumping on her when the rocks were coming down.
A Colorado teenager has pleaded guilty to murdering his 10-year- old neighbor. Austin Ripstig was 17 at the time and was charged as an adult. He was accused of strangling and dismembering Jessica Ridgway and placing some of her remains in a crawl space under his family's home.
Jurors in California got back to deliberating today as they try to decide whether a concert promoter is liable in the death of Michael Jackson. The lead lawyer for the Jackson family suggested between $1 billion and $2 billion in damages if the jury finds AEG Live liable.
Take a look at this woman. She worked as an animation company. She shows how to resign in style. She made a video of herself dancing around the office in the middle of the night to Kanye West's song "Dawn" and ends with "I quit." She said the boss didn't care about the quality or the content of the videos, just how many views it got. This one, Anderson, got six million.
COOPER: Wow. All right, I don't quite see the point, but I wish her well. Susan, thanks very much. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Due to breaking news on Capitol Hill, we ran out of time for the "Ridiculist" tonight. We hope you join us one hour from now at 10:00 p.m. for our new panel discussion show "AC 360 LATER." We've got a lot of great guests and a lot to talk about tonight. "PIERS MORGAN LIVE" starts now.
