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North Korea Announces Satellite Launch Plans; Russia Launches Daytime Attack on Kyiv; Holiday Travel Rush; Iowa Apartment Building Collapses; Debt Ceiling Deal. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired May 29, 2023 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

MANU RAJU, CNN HOST: Today, President Biden honoring our fallen heroes, the commander in chief taking part in Memorial Day ceremonies at Arlington National cemetery.

You see him there laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Vice President Kamala Harris and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin were also participating, the president later paying tribute to Gold Star families, calling on the memory of his late son, Beau, who served in the military before dying of cancer. Tomorrow marks the anniversary of his death.

Thanks for joining INSIDE POLITICS.

CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: So, they have a deal, but do they have the votes? Right now, the race to get party holdouts on board with the debt ceiling agreement, that potentially catastrophic default just days away. We will have the latest.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus, what caused part of an apartment building to collapse? Rescue dogs are now scanning for any sign of survivors in Davenport, as the city's fire chief says, the building is structurally unsound, posing a threat to his teams.

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SCIUTTO: So, some good news over the weekend. President Biden and Speaker McCarthy, though, face another heavy lift after hammering out a deal in principle to raise the nation's debt ceiling.

They now have to get their parties to support it. Based on early reaction, it may not be entirely easy. The House vote is expected on Wednesday, and hard-liners from both sides are signaling they at least will not support the agreement.

So here's part of what's in it. It suspends the debt ceiling through all of next year. That allows lawmakers to avoid a similar game of chicken during the 2024 election cycle. The deal also caps 2024 spending, broadens work requirements for food stamp recipients, and claws back tens of billions of dollars in unspent COVID relief funds. What it does not do is touch top-line items such as Social Security

and defense spending or the tax code.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond. He's at the White House.

Jeremy, President Biden once again achieved a compromise here with Republicans, to the chagrin of some members of his own party. Tell us what the White House view is of this now, and do they believe they could get the votes to get this over the finish line?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

Well, look, Jim, they certainly understand that they have a difficult task ahead, and that's because, now that they have a deal, both the president and the speaker of the House have to sell this deal to their respective caucuses.

And on the White House side, there has been an acknowledgment throughout this entire process that this was going to be a bipartisan deal, that this was -- part of what they communicated to the speaker during these negotiations was, look, this has to be a compromise, because we're going to have to sell some of the members of our caucus.

The president yesterday, as he announced the deal, acknowledging that notion that this is a compromise and not everyone is going to be happy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The agreement also represents a compromise, which means no one got everything they want. But that's the responsibility of governing.

And the -- this is a deal that's good news for, I believe you'll see, for the American people.

The agreement prevents the worst possible crisis, a default for the first time in our nation's history, an economic recession, retirement accounts devastated, millions of jobs lost.

It also protects key priorities and accomplishments and values that congressional Democrats and I have fought long for, long and hard for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: And that is one of the key messages that the White House has been emphasizing in a series of briefings and calls to Democratic lawmakers, focusing not on what is in this deal, but focusing really on what is not in this deal, the things that the president was able to protect, in terms of the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, for example, his student loan forgiveness programs, and the threat of even stiffer work requirements that House Republicans were pushing for.

Now, it's already clear that a slew of progressive Democrats just are not going to vote for this bill. But there are some glimmers of hope for the White House in getting this passed, as you see some centrist Democrats, including the New Democrat Coalition, who have suggested that they are interested in voting for this bill, so still some more work to do here for the White House, but they do believe that they can get this passed, ultimately -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Jeremy Diamond, thanks so much.

So let's go to the Hill, Lauren Fox.

And you and I were talking just days ago about the possibility McCarthy and Biden didn't get to agreement. They have over the weekend. So the question is, can both of them get the votes necessary to get this over the top? And what are Democrats telling you, what are Republicans tell you about their head-counting?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kevin McCarthy has argued that he is going to have the votes, that he believes he might even have a majority of his conference supporting this package.

He is going to lose some members in his right flank. That is absolutely clear, a number of them already coming out against this bill. But the reality is, this was always going to be a coalition of Republicans and Democrats who were in the middle of their respective caucuses.

[13:05:14]

And one thing that is taking place right now is, lawmakers are really understanding that this is the only option, this is the only game in town when it comes to preventing a catastrophic default. And that is really moving a lot of members to the yes category.

That doesn't mean that the whip teams on both sides are not working furiously to try to drive up the number of votes that they could get in the House of Representatives on Wednesday. We're going to see an early test tomorrow, when the House Rules Committee votes. There are a number of conservatives who McCarthy put on that committee as part of his concession to win the speakership.

They could become troublemakers on that committee. But the key thing to remember here is, this vote in the House is going to look very different than a lot of party-line votes that we have seen in the House of Representatives up to this point. Kevin McCarthy was asked by our colleague Morgan Rimmer earlier today if he was worried about potential backlash from conservatives if he puts this bill on the floor.

He said he didn't want to get into hypotheticals. He said he is not worried about that.

SCIUTTO: So, on the Democratic side, I mean, is it possible the Democrats embarrass the president here and don't give him the votes he needs to get this across the finish line?

FOX: It's important to keep in mind, Jim, that this New Dems Coalition, it's dozens of House Democrats. And the key number that is needed right now is 218 votes.

It's true that House Democrats have been voicing concerns, but the White House is furiously trying to inform members, brief them, get them comfortable, hold one-on-one phone calls with administration officials and members to try to drive up the numbers on their side as well.

Of course, both sides want to make sure that they have dozens of members behind them. That's what they're going to need to pass this. But, Jim, I think that the reality is, Democrats are going to have a number of members backing this proposal.

SCIUTTO: Lauren Fox on the Hill, we know you will be counting votes as well.

Thanks so much -- Boris, over to you.

SANCHEZ: So much riding on this bill.

Let's dig deeper into the economic impact of it with CNN economics and political commentator Catherine Rampell.

Catherine, thanks for spending part of your Memorial Day with us.

You wrote that all of this drama -- quote -- "creates minimal changes to fiscal policies that probably would have happened anyway." That's from "The Washington Post."

So, in your view, all of this was unnecessary?

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it was unnecessary. Worse than that, I think it was destructive.

Look, Congress would have had to negotiate a budget at some point this year. That's supposed to happen every year. Sometimes, it happens in a more orderly process than otherwise. But with divided government, there was going to be some sort of compromise, probably something along the lines of what we ultimately got, so basically flat spending, flat domestic spending, a little bump to defense spending, and some tweaks around the edges to a bunch of domestic programs.

I think that's probably where we would have been absent this brinksmanship. With the brinksmanship, of course, we ended up in the same place, but caused a lot of damage along the way to our global reputation. There was a fair amount of economic turmoil.

Clearly, it could have been worse if we had actually defaulted. But Biden had to cut short his trip to Asia to deal with this temper tantrum. And I just don't think the process that went on here was helpful either for our long-term fiscal outlook or, for that matter, for our geopolitical influence.

SANCHEZ: And this sort of fiasco plays out every few years, right? I mean, I'm wondering if you think it might be time to get rid of the debt ceiling altogether. Neither party really honors it. They just keep raising it. RAMPELL: Yes, I have been arguing for years that there is no purpose,

no legitimate purpose, that the debt ceiling serves.

It's sort of this vestigial part of legislation that was created about 100 years ago, actually, to make it easier for Treasury to borrow. And now it has certainly outlived its purpose and only exists to be held as a hostage.

Congress every year decides spending and tax decisions, and that should be the end of the discussion. If they want to control deficits -- and, in fact, I think that they should do things to get our long- term deficits under control -- that's the realm in which they should be making these kinds of decisions, not after the fact threatening not to pay our bills.

I just think the debt limit is extraneous. It -- most other countries, almost every other country in the world does not do it this way. They say, once we pass our appropriations and tax decisions, that's it. We don't potentially renege on them.

So, yes, I don't understand what purpose this serves, and I think it's disappointing, in fact, that more lawmakers, including more Democrats, have not come out in favor of eliminating the debt limit, so that we don't have these crises periodically.

[13:10:02]

SANCHEZ: Right.

Catherine, one way to address those deficits you mentioned is to create and collect more revenue. And yet Republicans got a concession that the bill slashes some of the new IRS funding that was just passed. That takes away money that could have represented more revenue, doesn't it?

RAMPELL: Yes.

So, IRS money has a very high return on investment. They're -- the estimates vary, but it's like, for every dollar that the IRS spends, for example, on enforcement, they bring several dollars back in, in return because they're going out and they're collecting bills that are owed to Uncle Sam, essentially.

So, if you look at how the Congressional Budget Office scores these things, how lots of other independent institutions score these kinds of funding measures, funding for the IRS, they always show that it more than pays for itself.

So, here, by taking some of that money away from the Internal Revenue Service, that will actually cost the United States more in the long run that will ultimately have to be made up for either in higher tax rates or spending cuts of some kind, right? If we're not collecting the taxes that are already legally owed, you have to make up for that shortfall somewhere else.

So, this is not the -- this is -- you know, defunding the IRS, defunding the tax police is not where you would start if you were really interested in controlling the United States' long-term fiscal challenges.

SANCHEZ: Catherine Rampell, we got to leave the conversation there. Always appreciate your perspective. Thanks for joining us.

RAMPELL: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Of course -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: You might have noticed the holiday weekend coming to an end, sadly, but its record-setting travel rush still going, lots of folks out there.

The number of people flying this Memorial Day weekend was the highest in more than three years, the roads also pretty packed.

CNN's Pete Muntean, he's at Reagan National Airport outside Washington.

Pete, we were talking end of last week there's going to be a big rush, TSA, FAA, everybody doing what they can to handle -- handle it. How have they done?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: They have done pretty well, Jim.

The numbers are huge, thanks in part to the people still traveling right now. We have been through the first wave of folks leaving town. Now we're in the second wave of folks coming back. The numbers so far have been really big, 2.72 million people screened by the TSA at airports nationwide on Friday. That is the highest number we have seen since the depths of the pandemic, day after day, actually bigger than the same day back in 2019, before the pandemic.

TSA anticipates 2.6 million people at airports nationwide today. So, it seems like they will bump up, if not exceed the 10 million passenger forecast between Thursday and today put out by the TSA last week, the FAA handling about 42,000 flights today, not as big as what we saw last week, although still a very big number.

A lot of issues still out there, Jim. We're seeing ground stops right now being put into place by the FAA in San Francisco due to low cloud ceilings. We will see as the day goes on. The good news, though, is that the cancellations and delays remain relatively low.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MUNTEAN: In fact, today, it's only been about 70 cancellations nationwide, a few hundred delays.

Over the weekend, things were pretty small, about one in five cancellations when you compare it to the same period last year, when, really, it kicked off -- Memorial Day weekend kicked off that summer of cancellations. There were 2,700 last Memorial Day weekend, 55,000 between Memorial Day and Labor Day. So, airlines may have done a pretty good job here of staffing up to

try and avoid these problems. We looked at the numbers. Airlines have added about 48,000 workers in the same -- in the last year.

SCIUTTO: Wow.

MUNTEAN: So, it seems like things are going pretty well, although never say never. We're not totally out of the rush just yet.

SCIUTTO: Yes. That's -- that's a good trend line, though, when I look at those numbers there. And adding 48,000 workers, that's another good measure of where the job market is, right?

Pete Muntean at Reagan National, we know you will check in --

MUNTEAN: Yes.

SCIUTTO: -- if things turn -- turn for the worst -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Russia launching a rare daytime attack on Ukraine, explosions heard over Kyiv, as children scramble in the streets for cover. We're going to take you there live.

Plus, it is one of the catchiest slogans in business: "Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there" -- that is, unless you live in California. We're going to tell you why the company's eliminating new home insurance sales in the state.

And, later, the president of Microsoft is becoming the latest tech figure to call for regulation on A.I. We have his warning just moments away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:18:42]

SANCHEZ: We have new dramatic video to share with you from Ukraine of kids running for cover.

This is in Kyiv, as air raid sirens are blaring, with Russia launching a rare daytime attack on the capital. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(EXPLOSIONS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: You can hear the explosions overhead across the city following a massive barrage of drone strikes this weekend, officials describing it as the biggest attack of this kind to date.

Most of the incoming missiles and drones were shot down, according to Ukraine's military. But this is now the 16th time this month the city has been the target of attack.

Let's take you now live to Eastern Ukraine with CNN's Sam Kiley.

So, Sam, is Russia simply trying to deplete Ukraine's air defenses?

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think they're doing -- trying to do two things. One of that is exactly that, Boris, to constantly try to overwhelm and deplete Ukraine's air defenses, now, particularly, as Ukraine keeps continuing to flag its plans to have a summer counterattack, counteroffensive against Russia.

In the case of Kyiv, I think they're also trying to break through those air defenses and rattle the command-and-control structures, starting at the top with President Zelenskyy.

[13:20:03]

And then these daytime attempts to fire the Iskander missiles, which are very potent surface-to-surface and cruise-type missiles, is clearly an effort to go after the civilian population, in the same way that we have seen relentlessly going on in the south in Kherson and we saw at the beginning of this war in Kharkiv and in Kyiv and right across the nation.

So, there's quite a lot going on there in terms of what the Russian tactic may be with the -- with these mass attacks. But it is very clear that the focus at the moment, they're trying to put it all almost on Kyiv, whereas, in the past, they went after, if you will recall back in a few months ago, they were going after the energy structures here, particularly in summer, again, to try to break the will of the Ukrainian people.

But every -- everybody here in this country is now on tenterhooks waiting for the signal as to when this counteroffensive is going to begin, because it is going to be a brutal and bloody offensive, whatever happens. Of course, the Ukrainians are desperate for a breakthrough against the Russians -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Sam Kiley for us in Eastern Ukraine.

Thanks so much, Sam -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Also overseas, Japan is on high alert after North Korea announced plans to launch a satellite some time between the end of May and June 11.

That prompted a strong reaction from both Japan and South Korea.

CNN's Will Ripley following developments.

And, Will, you know from covering this for a long time a satellite test is really an ICBM test, in terms of the rocket involved here. Is that the concern we're hearing from South Korean and Japanese leaders, and do they believe that this is a North Korean advancement?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Jim.

This is basically the same technology that you use to launch a satellite that you would also use to launch a nuclear warhead that could potentially reach anywhere in the world, including the mainland U.S. And that is why you have Japan now saying that they're going to prepare what they call destructive measures.

They're saying they will shoot this thing down if it enters into Japanese airspace. And it wouldn't be unprecedented for a North Korean projectile to enter into Japan's airspace. It was a missile that flew over Hokkaido that caused a nationwide emergency alert to go off. The air raid sirens went off.

And this has happened before. It happened in 2017. It happened again last year. But we haven't seen a satellite launch like this since 2016. They did it first in 2012, and then four years later in 2016.

I went to North Korea and actually met with the scientists that are charged with developing this technology. And they insisted to me that this is for peaceful purposes. And yet Kim Jong-un himself has said that this latest satellite launch is going to be a military reconnaissance satellite.

You have South Korea calling this action provocation, illegal. They say it threatens peace. They had an emergency National Security Council meeting to discuss all of this. And so, in this region, people are bracing themselves for really anything that could start from Wednesday through, as you mentioned, June 11, potentially a major provocation, a major escalation from North Korea, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes, it's remarkable how much their missile and nuclear program has advanced in recent years. It was something that multiple U.S. presidents had said they would never allow, and here we are.

Will Ripley in Taipei, Taiwan, thanks very much -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Search-and-rescue operations are under way right now in Iowa after part of an apartment building collapses. We will show you the rescues so far and why officials say there is still cause for concern.

Plus: rats in cages, a padlocked fridge, feces, and bugs. Police arresting two parents after finding seven kids living in deplorable conditions.

What else police have learned was going on in that home -- when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:28:26]

SANCHEZ: Right now, search dogs are scanning the rubble of this partially collapsed apartment building in Davenport, Iowa, searching for more survivors.

You can see the smoke that blanketed the area when six floors suddenly dropped yesterday. Davenport's mayor said that teams have saved eight people so far, and they have taken more than a dozen others to safety. One survivor said that he was visiting a friend, when, suddenly, everything went dark. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL STEPHENSON, APARTMENT COLLAPSE SURVIVOR: I just thank God that I was able to make it out of there. You know, it was like a big explosion, like a bomb.

QUESTION: Yes.

STEPHENSON: And it -- the bomb pushed me to the side. When it pushed me to the side, I just ran in there and grabbed him --

QUESTION: Yes.

STEPHENSON: -- and got him out of there, got him to safety.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: CNN's Adrienne Broaddus is covering this story for us.

Adrienne, city officials say they are lucky that no one was killed in this incident. But have they given any reason for the building's partial collapse?

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Boris, authorities say it's too early to tell why this building collapsed.

We do know there were permits in place to perform repairs to the exterior walls. But the fire chief says, determining exactly what happened here will be -- quote -- "a lengthy process."

Meanwhile, as you mentioned, at least eight people were rescued. The most recent rescue happened overnight, and that man is in the hospital. Now, those canine dogs you mentioned, Boris, are looking for signs of life. But, again, it's important to underscore, the fire chief said, to their knowledge, no one is trapped inside of that building. If anyone is missing a loved one, they have been encouraged to call 911.

Meanwhile, officials say