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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Bondi Deflects Questions, Attacks Democrats In Tense Hearing; Trump Compares Democrats To Insurrectionists; Former Federal Prosecutor Dave Bitkower Crossed The Globe To Deliver Justice And Prevent Another Tragedy; Air Traffic Control Staffing Shortages Cause Air Travel Delays At Major Airports; Rep. Taylor Greene: "Disgusted" That Health Insurance Premiums Will Double If ACA Subsidies Expire This Year. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired October 07, 2025 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper.

This hour, Attorney General Pam Bondi today facing questions from Senators on Capitol Hill about the Epstein files, the National Guard being sent to U.S. cities against the wishes of those cities, much, much more, it was all very cordial, very friendly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Oh, and you can tap all of us, including President Trump for your entire --

SEN. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): You can tap me later, and I know you've got plenty of canned attacks. We've heard them all day today.

BONDI: Canned attacks on you.

SCHGIFF: This is supposed to be --

BONDI: No one needs a canned attack on you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Okay, so not so cordial, not so friendly, no shortage of drama, but at times a shortage of real answers to the Senator's questions. We're going to dive into some of the questions that she punted.

And even though the Senate was up and running for that hearing, the government remained shut down, which means no pay for government workers. Some air traffic controllers are starting to call out of work. In about an hour, the control tower at Nashville's airport will completely shut down. What does the shutdown mean for air travel and safety?

Plus, President Trump hinting again today that he might invoke the Insurrection Act in order to send us troops into cities, despite the opposition from the governors, this with the Texas National Guard gathered just outside Chicago.

The Lead tonight, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi clashing with Democratic senators on a number of issues during a rather divisive hearing on Capitol Hill, Democratic senators blaming Bondi for weaponizing the Justice Department while Republicans pointed the blame at the Biden administration. Bondi avoided answering questions on the Epstein investigation and on National Guard deployments and on investigations into Trump's political enemies.

Bondi's strategy seemed to be to deflect and use personal attacks against the senators to push back against their questions. Two officials saying that the White House was pleased with Bondi's testimony. Attorney General Bondi also repeatedly skirted questions about reports about Trump Border Czar Tom Homan, who, in 2024, before the election, allegedly accepted $50,000 from undercover FBI agents over promises of government contracts in Trump's second term. The Trump administration dropped the investigation. Homan has said he did nothing wrong.

Democratic Senator Senator Peter Welsh of Vermont questioned Bondi earlier today. He joins us now. Senator, you also press Bondi about Tom Homan. Here's a little bit of the tense exchange after you asked if there's any audio or video of Homan allegedly accepting this money.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BONDI: I don't know the answer, Senator.

SEN. PETER WELCH (D-VT): Yes, you do know the answer to that.

BONDI: Don't call me a liar.

WELCH: I didn't call you a liar.

BONDI: You just said I know the answer. I said, I don't know the answer.

WELCH: Well, if you don't know, why don't you know whether there was a tape and video?

BONDI: Senator, I believe that was resolved prior to my confirmation as attorney general.

WELCH: There's $50,000. Homan has it, or somebody has it. Do you have no interest in knowing where it is?

BONDI: You're not going to sit here and slander Tom Homan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What was going through your mind during that exchange?

WELCH: Well, you know, it's a simple question. It's clear that $50,000 was given by the FBI to Tom Homan, and it was in a paper bag and it has all the earmarks of something suspicious. If you are the attorney general of the United States and there's some significant evidence that is damaging, you have got to want to get to the bottom of that.

So, the typical answers that she was given to questions was, number one, she doesn't know, it's not her problem. And you went through the recitation of all these other questions. So, I was pretty shocked that she was so blatant in her unwillingness to answer that question and showed no curiosity, no curiosity about trying to get to the bottom of it.

TAPPER: Senator Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, pressed Bondi on Trump's social media posts last month where he seemed to be urging Attorney General Bondi and the DOJ to prosecute his political enemies, Schiff, Leticia James and James Comey. Take a listen to an excerpt of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): Do you consider that a directive to the Justice Department?

BONDI: Senator Klobuchar, President Trump is the most transparent president in American history. And I don't think he said anything that he hasn't said for years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: You're a former attorney yourself. What did you make of Bondi's response there?

[18:05:01]

WELCH: Well, you know, you said it all. She had an audience of one, and that was President Trump, and the president was pleased. And he was pleased because she didn't answer any questions whatsoever. That was Senator Klobuchar asked a very straightforward question. And the consistent denial by her of having any knowledge or then turning it into an automated attack really is a statement of how the whole point of oversight hearings has been smashed.

The witness can come in. Pam Bondi did it. She was aggressive in denial, in placing personal blame on the questioner instead of answering the question. She's not credible.

TAPPER: I'm just trying to think of any Republican attorney general in history in living memory, from Ed Meese, to Mukasey, to Gonzales, to Ashcroft, to Bill Barr, to Jeff Sessions. I have a tough time imagining any of them answering questions the way Attorney General Bondi did. What do you think?

WELCH: Well, that's exactly right. And what I was saying, Jake, the whole concept here of an Oversight Committee hearing where there is a separate responsibility of the United States Senate to get to the bottom of some of these questions that affect the public interest, that has been smashed. And you saw a good display of how that has happened because Bondi comes in with no intention of answering questions. Something as elemental is where is the $50,000, or something is elemental is what's the legal authority for the president to be blowing up boats in the Caribbean. And what's the evidence by which you decided to prosecute a former director? And instead of doing that, it's just political theater and it appeals to the president. So, her audience is the president, but her loyalty to her role of equal justice under the law is really questionable.

TAPPER: Meanwhile, it's day seven of the government shutdown. President Trump says, quote, it depends who we're talking about when asked if furloughed federal workers will be able to get back pay when the shutdown ends. The Republican House speaker said that should, quote, turn up the pressure for Democrats to reopen the government. What's your view?

WELCH: That's illegal what they're talking about. We have clear statutory language that any of the employees who are furloughed and who do not get their pay during the shutdown get retroactive pay when the government opens up. But the president and Mr. Vought have also suggested is that they can fire people. They have no additional legal authority to do it.

Does that stop him? Not necessarily. But there's absolutely an ironclad, statutory requirement that folks who do not get their pay now will get it when the government reopens. And, by the way, I hope we get reopened, but we've got to negotiate to make certain that folks in my state who voted for Trump and who voted for Harris that are in jeopardy of losing their healthcare keep their healthcare. That is on us. And that drop dead date is November 1. So, there's a great urgency here.

TAPPER: Senator Peter Welch of Vermont, thank you, sir.

Let's get a Republican's point of view now. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin's with us also. Senator, what's your reaction to what your Democratic colleague said about how Attorney General Bondi didn't have answers to questions and just came performing to for an audience of one?

SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): Well, Jake, well -- and the abuses of the FBI and the Justice Department under President Biden, I mean, what he's complaining about in the Trump administration pale in comparison to the abuses of under President Obama and President Biden. So, again, we can go back and forth, tit-for-tat. I've got a long list. I think Josh Hawley did a pretty good job of how the FBI was weaponized against Catholic groups, pro-life individuals, U.S. senators, I'm one of them, multiple times. So, again, they don't have a really foot to stand on here.

The weaponization has primarily been occurring by the Biden administration, by the Obama administration, not the Trump administration. They're trying to restore law and order, the rule of law.

TAPPER: Well, let's -- you brought up the fact that yours were among the other Republican senators whom the FBI was obtained, the phone -- the call records. That doesn't mean the content. Just to explain to our viewers, that doesn't mean the content of the calls, but who called who, how long the call took place, the metadata. This was part of Special Counsel Jack Smith's January 6th investigation. Today, FBI Director Patel confirmed the firing of the agents involved and launched an investigation. Do you know that the phone records were obtained for political purposes?

JOHNSON: What else -- what other the reason would there be for that? I mean, the timeline is pretty clear. President Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence was raided in August of 2022, then they hired Jack Smith. Jack Smith indicted president -- or announcing indictments in, I think, August of 2023. A couple months later, all of a sudden, the FBI goes on a fishing expedition and gets access to our phone records from January 4th to January 7th in the end of September.

[18:10:01]

What is also interesting, Jake, is about a month after that, the deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco, changed the procedures of being -- of collecting information on members of Congress. My guess is probably response to that.

I don't have proof of that, but I think you can infer that. So, the question is who knew what, when. This is an outrageous violation of the separation of powers and, you know, what possible reason could there be. They'd already indicted President Trump as they promised they would do, Letitia James. I mean, all these prosecutions, these are political persecutions.

TAPPER: So the -- I mean, I think that the investigation, the Jack Smith investigation, as it pertained to your phone records and the other senators that was involved, that had to do with the insurrection, what happened on January 6th, the riot on Capitol Hill, et cetera, the attempt to stop the counting of electoral votes. I have no idea why they looked at you or Senator Hawley or the others.

It is true that in 2022, we learned that one of your top aides, Sean Riley, allegedly tried to arrange a handoff of fake electors from Wisconsin and Michigan.

JOHNSON: No, Jake.

TAPPER: No?

JOHNSON: Alternate electors that was fully vetted. All those texts were made available to the January 6th committee. There's -- I did absolutely nothing wrong.

TAPPER: I'm not saying you did. But is it not possible they were looking into that?

JOHNSON: The point is what is the predicate for scooping up my phone records, as well as Cynthia Lummis, Tommy Tuberville, Lindsey Graham, then-chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Again, it's a very strange list. So, no, there's no justification for this. We need answers. We need to know who knew what, when, how far the information ran up the chain of the Biden administration. And that's something Kash Patel and Pam Bondi and Dan Bongino, that they've got to investigate that. And we may need to make that public to the American people.

TAPPER: But this was the first attempt in American history that there wasn't a peaceful transfer of power. And I assume that Jack Smith's -- I have no idea why he did anything, but I assume he was looking into attempts to not count the electoral votes.

JOHNSON: Well, you're giving him the benefit of the doubt. I'm not. I want to know exactly what the predicate was, that he violated the separation of powers here. Again, and he circumvented the normal, very rigorous process that you have to go through to collect records on Congress by saying, well, they're not a target, they're not a subject to investigation. So, they circumvented all that in a grand jury.

Again, there is something really fishy about this. Again, I'm not surprised. I've been investigating the FBI. Heck, I understand why they think I'm a thorn in their side, but these other senators, but, again, we need to get to the bottom of this. This is an outrageous violation of the separation of powers.

TAPPER: But the grand jury approved the request to get the phone records, right? Is it not possible that that what you call the alternate slate of electors, what others call fake electors, that might have from your aide, trying to give them to Pence's office?

JOHNSON: There's nothing -- that is exactly what somebody needs to do if they're challenging the results of the election. President Kennedy did that in Hawaii. Vice President Gore found out that by not having an alternate slate of electors, he had no leg to stand on in front of the Supreme Court. So, a good attorney is going to protect his client by having an alternate slate of electors. Even our Wisconsin attorney general said there was nothing improper about doing that until now. He is using lawfare to try and destroy the legal counsel for President Trump.

So, again, this is this lawfare, this assault on the judicial system, weaponizing it against Republicans. This is broad. This is what the Democrat Party is doing across the board. One of the reasons that Kash Patel and Pam Bondi are having a hard time staffing their agencies because people just don't want to have their lives destroyed by the legal -- the less legal lawfare.

TAPPER: Do you not understand why a lot of Americans thought that there should be an investigation into what happened on January 6th, 2021?

JOHNSON: I think there was all kinds of investigations, just not rigorous ones in terms of the FBI's involvement and their confidential human sources placed in the crowd. So, no, I actually wanted a rigorous investigation. We just haven't had one yet, and certainly not by Jack Smith, and certainly not by the January 6th committee in the House.

TAPPER: Republican Senator Ron Johnson of the great state of Wisconsin, thank you, sir. I appreciate it. JOHNSON: Have a good evening.

TAPPER: President Trump suggested some federal workers might not get back pay, and he announced which government programs he intends to permanently eliminate amid this government shutdown. How exactly is this supposed to work? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:15:00]

TAPPER: In our Politics Lead, President Trump clearly frustrated with Democrats as the government shutdown bleeds into its seventh day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Let's see if we can get it all done, because these Democrats are like insurrectionists, okay? They're so bad for our country.

Well, they're the ones that started it. They're the ones that have it. And it's almost like a kamikaze attack by them.

The Democrats have no leader. They remind me of Somalia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Okay. So, they are insurrectionist, Somali, kamikazes.

Kaitlan Collins is at the White House. Kaitlan, Trump was also asked to clarify whether federal workers are going to get a back pay when the shutdown's over.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, Jake. It was quite a back and forth inside the Oval Office earlier with reporters but a lot of this centered on what happens to these federal workers who are stuck in the middle of what's happening between Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill, two of whom you just spoke with as this shutdown is dragging on. And one question was about back pay, because there was a memo that was circulating here at the White House about whether or not all the federal workers who are furloughed basically required to stay home or to work without pay during this shutdown period if they would retroactively get their pay back once the government reopens. That is something that was thought to be settled law.

But listen to what President Trump said earlier when he was asked about that memo that's been circulating here at the White House.

[18:20:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The Democrats have put a lot of people in great risk and jeopardy, but it really depends on who you're talking about. But for the most part, we're going to take care of our people. There are some people that really don't deserve to be taken care of, and we'll take care of them in a different way.

And a lot of those jobs will never come back, but you're going to have a lot closer to a balanced budget, actually.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: So, Jake, when the president was asked, to be clear there, whether or not everyone who is furloughed would get back pay, he basically said that some likely will and some potentially won't. He didn't really clarify who exactly he believes would qualify to get their back pay and who wouldn't.

And the reason this is causing so many questions, and I obviously heard what Chairman Comer was saying to you earlier, that he thinks everyone will get their back pay, is because after that longest shutdown that happened, the 35-day one in 2018 here at the White House, when Trump was in office the last time, Congress passed a law that basically would remove federal workers as being kind of the pawn at the middle of this, the people who bear the brunt of these government shutdowns, by guaranteeing that they would get their back pay for that government shutdown. But also, Jake, and most importantly, it said that they would get their back pay for future funding lapses of the federal government, that they wouldn't have to worry about that essentially.

And so that is a law that President Trump signed that a lot of Republicans that are right now on Capitol Hill arguing with Democrats about this, that they voted yes on. And now the White House is basically arguing that they're interpreting it differently.

So, obviously, we'll see what happens there, Jake, and if the White House actually follows through on this threat. So far, they haven't even followed through on that threat about mass firings. But I will say also, Jake, it's not just the law. There was a recent Q&A put out here at the White House as this shutdown was very much obviously going to happen here in Washington that did say federal workers who were furloughed would get their back pay during this period, despite what we heard from the president today.

TAPPER: Kaitlan Collins at the White House, thanks so much.

Tonight on her show, The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Kaitlan's going to speak with Republican Congressman Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Look for that tonight at 9:00 Eastern only on CNN.

Spin Ghul was the first and only foreign terrorist tried in a U.S. criminal court for killing American service members abroad in a war zone, but he would've gotten away with it if it weren't for a dedicated team of officials and investigators, and I'm going to talk to one of those officials next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:25:00] TAPPER: In our World Lead, an Encounter at a party led me to a remarkable story that led to this book. It was about three years ago this month, I was hosting a birthday party for my son in rural Virginia. It was a paintball party, he was 13, far from D.C., so I had food and drink for the grownups so they could just hang out for a couple hours instead of having to make the back and forth trip too many times. One of the dads approached me, he told me, he met somebody from my book about Afghanistan, the outpost. I said, that was a tough book to write because the military keeps such bad records and they're reluctant to share them. And he said, tell me about it.

And then he proceeded to share with me this incredible story about how when he was an assistant U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, he got a phone call from the FBI. The Italians during the Arab Spring picked up a man on a cruise ship. He claimed he was an Al-Qaeda. He said he had killed Americans in Afghanistan. He had tried to blow up the U.S. embassy in Nigeria. That dad that I met, a man named Dave Bitkower and his team had a choice to make at that time, either the Italians were going to essentially let this guy go, or the American judicial system, the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn, the FBI, could try to gather the evidence and prove that this Al-Qaeda operative was actually guilty of these offenses.

The dad spun this incredible tale of sleuthing and investigative prowess. It was fascinating to me, and it became this brand new book out today. It's called Race Against Terror. And that former assistant U.S. attorney, Dave Bitkower, joins me now to talk about this story.

So, first of all, the story of your sleuthing -- I mean, the book is basically a detective book and you're the detective and your fellow Assistant U.S. Attorney Shreve and other FBI agents, and the sleuthing was so fascinating. Is that typical for a prosecution, that kind of investigative work?

DAVID BITKOWER, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY, EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: Well, first of all, Jake, thanks for having me here. And I'm just so thrilled to see this book in print after the work we did and all the great work that everyone else did that you talked about.

So, it's typical in a certain kind of case, right? So, not necessarily a reactive case where there's been a murder or a shooting, but a historical investigation, which is the kind of investigation that my colleague and I had done as AUSAs or assistant U.S. attorneys in Brooklyn, where events took place sometimes five, ten years ago. And you have to gather the clues and talk to the witnesses and put together something that's persuasive to a jury all those years later as what actually happened.

TAPPER: So, to this day, Spin Ghul is the only foreign terrorist tried in a U.S. criminal court and convicted for killing American service members on a battlefield. Why do you think that is?

BITKOWER: So, it was a really unique moment in time. There had been obviously a lot of fighting on the battlefield in Afghanistan and in Iraq. And, of course, the approach of the Bush administration was to take most of those folks and put them in military custody of one kind or another. But when this came on our radar, this was a different administration. Gitmo was not an option for someone like Spin Ghul, who was in custody in Europe, in Italy. And the only option was either Italian prosecution, which, as you say in the book, would've kept him in prison for a couple of months, maybe a year.

TAPPER: Yes.

BITKOWER: Or a trial in American civilian court. So, that was the mission that we faced.

TAPPER: Trump is now trying to prosecute the second foreign terrorist in a U.S. criminal court, in this case, Virginia, for killing service members in a war zone, in this case, the 13 service members killed during the Abbey Gate suicide bombing. His name is Jafar. What advice would you give those prosecutors?

BITKOWER: So, the approach we took here, which is the advice I would give to anyone building a case like this, is you treat it like what it is. This was murder, right? It happened to be murder by a terrorist. It happened to be murder on a battlefield.

[18:30:00]

It happened to be halfway across the world, but it was murder, which meant there were witnesses. It meant there was physical evidence. It meant there were other facts that we could bring together and prove with the help of all those FBI agents that you mentioned to try to put together a compelling case for the jury.

And this case, we also not only had -- obviously, we have a murder, we have -- that means there's victims. And when you can tell the story of victims to a jury, they obviously pay close attention and they pay close attention to the evidence. And so we were able to bring together that kind of case.

TAPPER: So, one of the -- this was not intended as a tribute to government employees, to assistant U.S. attorneys and FBI agents and NCIS investigators and the like, but it kind of is like a tribute to a government that works efficiently. One of the people who I never met, because he never returned my calls or emails, but is a legendary guy at the Justice Department named George Toscas, and he was like a big hurdle for you guys. You guys had to get him to approve your cases. He's basically been sidelined at the Justice Department because he signed off on the Mar-a-Lago warrant.

But regardless of that, tell me about Toscas. How important was he to that case and other cases like it?

BITKOWER: So, I'll say in the years that I worked counterterrorism cases as a prosecutor, there are very few American lawyers that I've met who have worked as hard as George Toscas has over the years in pursuing the counterterrorism mission. I can't count the number of cases I worked on with him, but it didn't matter if it was a weekend, late at night, to get a case over the line where it could be charged, to get a search warrant approved in a terrorism case, he worked as hard as he could. In this particular case, as you say, this was an unusual case and we knew that to get this case approved, this was going to have to go up to the highest levels, to the White House.

TAPPER: Yes.

BITKOWER: And George's job was really to flyspeck and bulletproof it and make it fit to survive that process, and he got it done.

TAPPER: He did indeed. And so did you and so did Shreve, and so did Rashana (ph), and so did Susanna (ph), and so did all the others that I write have done in this book.

The book's Race Against Terror, it's out today. Dave Bitkower, thank you so much for telling me that story on that October afternoon. Who knew it would end up in print? Thanks so much.

It's been exactly two years. Since the terrorist group, Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis and took more than 250 innocent people hostage as negotiators work to secure the release of the remaining hostages. I'm going to talk to the family of one of those hostages next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:35:00]

TAPPER: In our World Lead, Israeli President Isaac Herzog thanked President Trump today for his, quote, incredible efforts to end the war in Gaza and to secure the release of the remaining hostages. Right now, negotiators are in Egypt, working at the details of Trump's 20- point ceasefire plan. A source with knowledge of the talks tells us that progress has been made.

Joining us now in studio is Lishay Miran-Lavi. She's wife of Israeli hostage Omri Miran. Two years ago, Hamas terrorists held you and your daughters hostage in your home in the kibbutz, and they kidnapped your husband. How are you doing today? How are you holding up in this horrible anniversary?

LISHAY MIRAN-LAVI, WIFE OF ISRAELI HOSTAGE OMRI MIRAN: It's difficult. And I decide to come here this year. Last year, I was in Israel and I go to our kibbutz, to our home, because it's the most place that I feel close to Omri and can talk to him.

But this year, I decided to come here because I know that here, there is a lot of people in the administration and President Trump really hear us.

TAPPER: And you think that President Trump hears you more than Netanyahu does?

MIRAN-LAVI: I say, unfortunately, but, yes. Unfortunately, yes.

TAPPER: So, we should tell our viewers that your husband is among the 20 hostages believed to still be alive.

MIRAN-LAVI: Yes.

TAPPER: I just want to make sure people know that.

MIRAN-LAVI: Yes. He's the most oldest over there. He is 48 years old already. He's a father and he is still there. We know that he is alive. The last sign of life that we have from him, it was in April this year with a propaganda video. But we really don't know. We really don't know if he -- what is it, if it's a fear. We know that they are torturing over there.

We didn't speak with him two years. We really didn't see him two years. And I'm really worried because, you know, there is a lot of talk around that this week, but until it's not over, it's not really over. And we're really waiting for them, all of them, all the 48.

TAPPER: Yes.

MIRAN-LAVI: And I'm waiting for Omri and Roni and Alma waiting for their daddy.

TAPPER: So, your daughters are four and two. You said the oldest daughter remembers two years ago. How is she doing? You talked to her today. How is she doing?

MIRAN-LAVI: You know, she's okay. I'm try to give her and Alma, to both of them, a regular childhood, but the fact that their father is still in captivity in Gaza, it's over there always.

TAPPER: Yes.

MIRAN-LAVI: Roni in the last week, she is start to remember the hug that Omri gave her before he went with the terrorists. Roni was on his arms all the time that we hold together as a family. She had the memory of his hug and she really want -- she told me this week, mommy, I can feel the hug.

[18:40:04]

And I start to think to myself, it's crazy. After two years, she's always tried to remember more things and she's really miss him, even after two years.

TAPPER: I hope that she's getting that hug that for real very soon hope. I hope the ceasefire deal happens.

MIRAN-LAVI: I hope also.

TAPPER: And God bless your daughters. God bless you. God bless your family. I hope this horrible situation ends as quickly as possible.

MIRAN-LAVI: Thank you very much.

TAPPER: Thanks for being here.

The air traffic control facility for a major airport is going to close for five hours tonight due to a short staffing problem. How your travel's being impacted by the government shutdown, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our National Lead, as the U.S. federal government shutdown stretches onto seven days, we're seeing an air traffic issue taking a hit. In just about 15 minutes, the air traffic control tower responsible for flights in and out of Nashville's airport, it's going to close for five hours doing due to a staffing shortage. Towers for other major airports, including Chicago's O'Hare, one of the busiest in the nation, are also dealing with staffing issues.

[18:45:03]

Let's bring in Nick Daniels. He's president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. So, Nick, last night, the control tower at the Burbank airport in California also went completely dark. Right before the tower shut down, they told pilots this.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, BURBANK AIRPORT AUDIO)

PILOT: Just getting a heads up, you said everything's closed for like our clearances.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Clearance is closed. Ground is closed. Local is closed. The tower is closed due to staffing. Please contact SoCal and the 800 number in the green book for your clearance.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

TAPPER: So, pilots were told to call a number than to navigate to a page in the green book. It seems like a lot for a pilot, trying to take off or land a plane. Is that also what's going to happen in Nashville tonight? And is it safe?

NICK DANIELS, NATIONAL AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT: Good evening, Jake. I appreciate you having me, and the ability to communicate this to the American flying public.

A, it's absolutely safe. There's been over a thousand occurrences this year alone of having to declare what we call ATC Zero out a facility. Whether that's due to staffing, whether it's due to equipment is where we go to alternate procedures, where you heard them talk about Southern California TRACON, those amazing. Individuals work through the situation, ensure the safe landing of every aircraft going in and out of there, so much so that Southwest Airlines thanked them for the amazing service they got.

Unfortunately, this is the system that we have critically understaffed with unreliable equipment. We're unfortunately used to having to deal with issues just like this.

TAPPER: But it's getting worse because of the shutdown, right?

DANIELS: No, it's not getting worse because of the shutdown. It's finally getting highlighted and it's now a center of attention. It's the front page news of what the amazing air traffic controllers deal with day in and day out. They deal with going to a shift that is critically short, and one or two people, they may lose their medical clearance because they had to take a prescription medication, or somebody got sick.

We have to do things just like this, combine up airspace and put more of a burden on the air traffic controllers that already exist today.

TAPPER: So if the shutdown stretches into next week, air traffic controllers will receive their last partial paycheck next Tuesday. That does mean that thousands of controllers will be working without pay. You know, the job requires money to put gas into your car to get to work or to hire a sitter to watch your kid. If people can't afford to get to work, they might call out sick.

Here's what the Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy had to say about that. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN DUFFY, SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION: Have we had a slight hiccup in sick calls? Yes, but our priorities are safety. And so, if we have additional sick calls, we will reduce the flow consistent with a rate that's safe for the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: It was this very issue that ended the 35-day government shutdown back in 2019. Do you think -- do you think the outcome might be the same this time around?

DANIELS: Well, that's one of the things that I want to make sure is clear to the American people. Air traffic controllers don't start a shutdown and we don't end a shutdown. Politicians are the ones that start the shutdown, and they're the only ones that have the ability to end the shutdown.

Air traffic controllers are going to do everything they can to show up to duty, save people's lives, and do the job that we do day in and day out. Now, when we're in a situation and as this continues on and people have to start making human choices of do I put food on the table? Do I take care of my kids? Do I -- am I a single parent? We all work shifts and having to pay for that as well.

The bills don't stop, and just because we're going to get paid back eventually doesn't mean that it makes it easier on them.

So, air traffic controllers are going to go to their primary job, but then they'll start having to take up a second job to ensure they have a steady stream of income. And we know the American people don't want to see that. And that's why the shutdown has to end today before it becomes to measures just like that.

TAPPER: All right. Nick Daniels, thank you so much. Appreciate your time, sir.

DANIELS: Absolutely. Thank you. TAPPER: Here's now is the panel.

So, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is stepping on the shutdown message from Republican leader.

She posted, quote, "I'm going to go against everyone on this issue because when the tax credits, meaning the Obamacare tax credits that the Democrats are fighting for, when the tax credits expire this year, my own adult children's insurance premiums for 2026 are going to double, along with all the wonderful families and hard working people in my district.

No, I'm not toeing the party line on this or playing loyalty games. I'm a Republican. I won't vote for illegals to have any taxpayer funded health care benefits. It's absolutely shameful, disgusting and traitorous that our laws and policies screw the American people so much that the government is shut down right now fighting over basic is like this."

David Urban --

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Man --

TAPPER: What do you think?

URBAN: That's a lot to unpack. I don't even know where to go with that.

TAPPER: Well, let's just talk --

URBAN: I'm still processing the air traffic control situation.

TAPPER: So, let's just talk about the fact that we have now heard from a few Republicans on this issue of what the Democrats I think that even though they put forward this alternate legislation that has a lot of spending, it seems like Democrats are focused primarily on the Obamacare subsidies.

Is that an issue where the Republicans should give?

URBAN: Yeah. Listen, I think you saw the president in the Oval the other day talking about it, saying like it seemed to me he was trying to provide some space for negotiations to land the plane, not to mix metaphors here, but to, you know, to come to some resolution on this issue and say, you know, not to take the Marjorie Taylor Greene position, but to say, look, I'm a Republican. I'm for health care, too.

There's got to be a way forward on this, right? We can't have -- at some point in the not too distant future, members of the military are going to get their paychecks, right?

[18:50:05]

So you have air traffic controllers, members of the military, people in America to start paying attention. And someone's going to pay a political price. And that's the point when the folks on Capitol Hill get serious about this and really kind of have to negotiate. So I think there's going to be a resolution the Democrats are trying to force it. Republicans still, I think, have a little bit of leverage in terms of being able to cut some fat from the federal bureaucracy, but we'll have to wait and see in the next few weeks.

XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, and also, if you're a federal employee, you're probably done with this administration, with government overall. And I mean, it's -- you're working a thankless job.

The way that this ends is it ends with a narrative on health care. And so, either President Trump comes to the table and there is a deal on ACA subsidies or a few Democratic senators in purple states, potentially vote with Republicans to end this shutdown. If that is the case, you will have Democrats saying, listen, we tried to come to an agreement here, but Republicans failed. And the only reason that your health care is going up is because Republicans failed to come to the table, and that will be the issue that Democrats try to run on ahead of the midterm elections.

And the last time that Democrats tried to do this, we ended up winning the midterm election. So, I think that regardless of what happens in either scenario, we end with talking about health care and whether or not we can bring down premiums.

TAPPER: So, listen to the Democratic leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer. He read the first part of the Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene post that I just read. And then he said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MINORITY LEADER: So hold on to your hats. I think this is the first time I said this. But on this issue, Representative Greene said it perfectly. Representative Greene is absolutely right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: I mean --

URBAN: I'm not sure which part of her tweet he's talking about.

TAPPER: Well, I think it's the part about when the tax credits expire this year, my own adult children's insurance premiums for 2026 are going to double.

URBAN: Yeah, they'll go up. And that's the part where Republicans are going to have to find a Solomonic solution, right? Because, you know, you're right. You're going to have these midterms are coming up. People don't want their premiums to increase right before the midterms. It's a -- it's a box. They got to figure their way out of. But yet, there's this narrative that's out there that somehow that illegal immigrants are somehow benefiting from the ACA.

And I think Republicans need to find a way to dispel the myth, that myth, that's the way they're going to get out. If they're going to put the facts on the table, dispel that, and they're going to have to come across with the come to address the cost of the ACA.

TAPPER: It's like $35 billion for these extensions a year, $35 billion, 350 over ten.

HINOJOSA: Yeah.

TAPPER: That's a lot of money.

URBAN: Yeah.

HINOJOSA: It is a lot of money. I think that with a Donald Trump won on costs. And if the American people don't see a big shift in terms of what they're paying every day, then that is bad news for Republicans, not only in the midterms, but whenever J.D. Vance wants to run for president next time around.

TAPPER: I don't sense a lot of Republican desire to extend these Obamacare extensions -- tax credits. Whenever I bring it up.

HINOJOSA: I agree.

TAPPER: Generally speaking, with the one exception of Don Bacon, who's like more moderate-ish, Republicans are like, if the Democrats wanted that, they shouldn't have built in the end, the end date of this, this is COVID era. They don't seem to want to extend these subsidies.

HINOJOSA: They also believe that they won the midterm election -- or they won the last presidential election on immigration. And they believe that talking about undocumented immigrants potentially getting health care, which is a lie, they believe that is a winning message for them. The only way they're going to sort of change their mind on health care and costs is if the voters, they're -- they're seeing something from the voters.

URBAN: Yeah. But, you know, I just saw Harry, our own Harry Enten doing -- put some numbers out yesterday. Trump's numbers are still great. Still throughout the shutdown, through all these messaging, through all this, he's still at 44, 43 percent. Latest CBS poll.

HINOJOSA: Not all the time.

URBAN: But this recent poll.

HINOJOSA: He's been going down.

URBAN: Recent polling.

TAPPER: On the topic of social media. I'm sure you saw this over your feeds.

For the second time now, LeBron James teased a big announcement. Spoiler alert, it was not about his retirement. It was an ad promoting Hennessy. And you can imagine fans are not pleased.

On Twitter, one user posted: The boy who cried wolf. Everyone going to think your real retirement is an ad come time.

Another user posted: LeBron, never, ever, ever, ever pull this stunt. Now I have to delete my draft.

Did you fall for it?

URBAN: Listen, I didn't know LeBron -- I didn't know LeBron James posted anything. I'm more concerned about my Steelers, you know, Jake, that's -- you know, we got to -- we got to -- we got to beat the Brownies coming up.

HINOJOSA: I thought it was -- I thought it was a good PR move. Everybody paid attention and were all talking about it. So kudos to them.

URBAN: Hennessy, come on.

TAPPER: All right. Thanks to both of you. Appreciate it.

A new study shows that drinking even one can of a popular type of drink may raise the risk of common liver disease by up to 60 percent. And I'm not talking about anything alcoholic. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:59:02]

TAPPER: Starting in our last leads in our world lead, a hydropower dam in northern Vietnam burst, unleashing torrents of water to nearby villages. Footage shows the rising streams from Typhoon Matmo overflowing and pushing through the dam, causing flooding to a nearby hospital. Thankfully, officials say no human casualties have been reported.

And our health lead, diet sodas may not be the healthy alternative that some think they are. A new study found that both regular sugary drinks and diet drinks can significantly increase risk of liver diseases. Specifically, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Just one can of diet soda per day could raise that risk by 60 percent. That's more than one can of a regular non-diet sugary drink, which raises the risk up to 50 percent. This condition is doubled in the U.S. in the last three decades, and is one of the leading causes of liver cancer.

Coming up, tomorrow on THE LEAD, we're going to have House Speaker Mike Johnson. What will it take to get federal workers back on the job? Johnson's key to those negotiations. Well talk to him about that. Look for that tomorrow on THE LEAD, which starts at 5:00 Eastern every weekday.

If you ever miss an episode of THE LEAD, you can listen to the show whence you get your podcast.

"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts now.