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Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AR), Is Interviewed About Government Heading For Shutdown Amid House GOP Infighting; Menendez Delivers First Remarks Since Bribery Charges. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired September 25, 2023 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And with the clock ticking to zero on a government shutdown and maybe his own job, what are House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's latest plans.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Three writers in Hollywood react, reaching a tentative deal with major studios and potentially ending a months-long strike that force T.V. shows into hiatus and pause filming a movie sets, a look at what's next and how soon writers could return to work. You're following these major stories and more. I'm Sara Sidner with John Berman. Kate Bolduan is off. This is CNN News Central.

BERMAN: And very shortly, we will see New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez appear before cameras. His remarks in Union City, New Jersey will be his first since he was federally indicted on broad bribery charges late last week. Now it should be noted that as a defendant, Menendez has the right to remain silent, but minister now he won't. He's going to speak and we will bring you what he says live. CNN's Kara Scannell is live at the location where this press conference will take place. Kara, we can see the microphones set up behind you. What's the expectation here?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, we do expect the Senator to give his first remarks since he was indicted on those bribery charges on Friday. They will begin in about a half an hour from now. Now the Senator has been defiant since he was indicted. You know, after calls from some Democrats, including New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy saying he should resign. He said I am not going anywhere. We do not expect that tone to change today when he does give these remarks.

Now I'm told that he will speak for about 10 to 15 minutes. He'll give remarks in both English and Spanish, but he is not expected to take any questions today. You know the scene where we are, we're at Community College in Union City, New Jersey. This is where Senator Menendez grew up. And it's where he began his political career, the place he's choosing to make these first statements today.

Now, this is the beginning of what will be consequential week. On Wednesday he and his wife and the three New Jersey businessmen who are all co-defendants in this case will appear in federal court in Manhattan where they will likely be arraigned on these charges. It will be their first appearance. But we will hear more from the Senator shortly and see what kind of tone he's going to set coming into this big week. John?

BERMAN: Yes. It does seem as if he will be defined at least based on the paper statement he put out on Friday. Kara Scannell, this will take place right behind you. We will let you get in position for that. Keep us posted if you see or hear anything.

SIDNER: All right with us. Now Nick Ackerman, former Assistant Special Watergate prosecutor and CNN senior political analyst, John Avlon, is here with us as well. We've got politics and the law colliding yet again, this time, though, with a Democrat, Bob Menendez. I want to go to you first, Nick, when you look at what was spelled out in this indictment, is it far different from what we saw in 2015? He was indicted. He actually beat that case.

NICK AKERMAN, FORMER ASSISTANT SPECIAL WATERGATE PROSECUTOR: He did. And it was a completely different case. In that situation, it had to do with a friend of his somebody who had known for a long time, had given some benefits to along the way. And the government had a hard time connecting a quid pro quo with the benefits received with the favors that were extended. Here, it's not even a close question. You've got the government of Egypt involved. You can't say that's a close friend. You've got two situations where you have individuals that are under indictment by a federal grand jury, another one in a state case.

These are people that he just happened to meet through his wife after he met his wife and was dating her. So the arguments here are completely different. The government is going to be able to show that he performed official acts in return for very specific benefits, which were the gold bars, the Mercedes Benz, cash, payments on mortgages, a whole series of things. And it just seems to me he's got no place to go with this but to resign from office. And he's known about this since June of last year, when the government executed a search warrant on his home.

BERMAN: Yes. They know he went in and he knows that the government went in and he knows what they took. John Avlon, I want to bring you to this conversation. Kara Scannell said something very interesting in passing that I don't want to slip by. Senator Menendez is going to deliver this statement. We expect it to be five to 10 minutes or 10 to 15 depending on how you count in English and in Spanish.

And the reason that jumped out to me is because as part of his statement last week, when these charges were first brought, he said it's not lost on me that they're -- that a Latino is being targeted by law enforcement here. So what's your takeaway?

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think trying to say that he's the victim of persecution because of his Latino heritage doesn't hold any water at all. It sounds a bit desperate because the facts are so damning in this case, the pattern of the allegations are troubling over the course of his recent career. And there's apparently no learning curve. I mean, as Elijah (ph) said, the details in this are so damning and so clear, you know, well, he cannot be forced to resign, and he's apparently going to be defiant and double down on anything he can do to make himself look like a victim. That's what people sometimes do when they're guilty.

[11:05:32]

Everyone's entitled presumption of innocence. But I thought that tactic and that statement the other day, which I noticed as well, was a sign of things to come and was desperate and divisive, ultimately.

SIDNER: And we should also mention, because Nick, you mentioned that this, you know, his wife, his wife is also indicted in this case. And then you look at the details of this, what would you advise him not to say during this press conference?

AKERMAN: If I were his attorney, I would just tell him to keep his mouth shut, that he has the right to appear before a jury, he has a right to have a jury determine whether or not he's guilty or innocent, and leave it at that. I mean, the problem here is trying to make himself appear as a victim is really right out of the Donald Trump playbook. I mean, what we're looking at is really the mirror image, the Democratic side of the Donald Trump indictments.

And if anything this indictment proves is, is that the Department of Justice is an equal opportunity prosecutor. They prosecute Republicans and they prosecute Democrats equally if the facts and the law justify it.

SIDNER: Just -- I'm just going to jump in just one more thing. You mentioned the fact that he's using a Donald Trump playbook. But what is difference with the Democrats in this case, is that many of them have come out and said he needs to resign. We are not seeing the same thing happen to Donald Trump's so much.

AKERMAN: Correct.

BERMAN: Only one U.S. Senator though, up until this point, that is John Fetterman that could change based on what we hear today. You know, John Avlon, we're talking to John Bresnahan from Punchbowl News earlier today. The expectation we don't know for sure what Senator Menendez will say, you know, we do not expect him to say that he's stepping down. The question I think a lot of Democrats have is he might use this news conference to announce he is running for reelection to say my reelection campaign continues to not only say I'm not going anywhere, but I'm all in and he's up in 2024.

AVLON: He is and I think this is the opportunity for a clear contrast by the Democratic Party to the Republicans sort of tiptoeing around Donald Trump, after all these indictments who saw a clear course of condemnation from the governor of New Jersey for many of his congressional delegation. One of the members of the Congressional delegation from New Jersey, Andy Kim has announced his supported primary, Senator Menendez, which I think is significant, there may be more to come.

But the Senate does tend to operate sort of like a boys club. And they don't -- they want to preserve this idea of innocent until proven guilty as is appropriate and not be seen as sort of forcing one of their colleagues out, especially because they did just that, in effect, with Al Franken, I think too much regret down the line. But the core ideas should be clear. A Democratic crook is as bad as a Republican crook. And you got to hold equal standards and principles above partisanship.

And I think it was good to see Democrats in New Jersey come out and condemn him to keep that moral clarity in place that we seem to be losing in our politics too often.

SIDNER: I do want to quickly ask you, John, though. Will this be used by the Republicans as we are going into a 2024 presidential race where one of the candidates Donald Trump has been indicted, you know, I don't know how many times, right, I mean, four separate times. So will this be used against Democrats by Republicans, particularly Trump?

AVLON: Well, it does both ways. I mean, you know, that one of the reps has been this, you know, troubling, two tiered, double sided system of justice. The Justice Department under a Democratic president going after a Democratic senator shows that justice is actually ultimately about equal justice under law. It doesn't ignore facts, regardless of party. And so that removes one of the Republican talking points.

They'll try to muddy it and create moral equivalencies, but the moral equivalence between the senator whoever powerful, and the former president who tried to overturn an election is now the frontrunner to be re nominated. They're in two different ballparks, morally and practically. And so I think you got to keep in mind the difference in the responses. And hopefully it cuts away from this talking point that says that there's a two tiered system of justice, this is evidence that there is not.

BERMAN: All right, again, we're looking at live pictures right now the setup in Union City, New Jersey, where Democratic Senator Bob Menendez will make his first public statement since he was indicted on federal corruption charges last Friday, a lot of anticipation about what he might say. Nick, I do expect him while he's not taking your legal advice to say completely, so.

AKERMAN: Obviously not.

BERMAN: That he will not get into the detail I have the case or the charges here. However, I am curious based on discussions that we've been having. How viable of a defense might it be for him to say, it was my wife? This is her money. These are her gold bars.

[11:10:13]

AKERMAN: Oh, that's a great defense when he's got cash coming out of his pocket and his jacket.

BERMAN: You know, I was -- I went to high school, I was holding it for my wife.

AKERMAN: Holding it for his wife. That is absurd. He's using his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to help out Egypt providing them with information about people in the Embassy in Cairo, actually helping them get funding on armaments, when there was a real issue with Egypt as to whether or not they were abiding by equal rights and human rights in Egypt. I mean, there's no way he's got any argument here.

He is absolute toast on this indictment, and there is no reason whatsoever for him to continue in the sentence -- Senate or be a candidate for Senate going forward. I mean, the Democrats have to be extremely firm. This guy has got to go.

SIDNER: Nick Ackerman and John Avlon, both of you thank you very much for all of the insight this morning.

BERMAN: All right, so inside the Republican food fight as a government shutdown is just days away, can Kevin McCarthy save his job?

The Writers Guild and Hollywood Studios has a tentative agreement to end the strike. New reporting on when you might get your shows back.

A spaceship drops off some space rock from four and a half billion years ago. That is some old rock just in.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:16:20]

SIDNER: This morning, a government shutdown seems all but certain. House Republicans walk through the weekend -- worked through the weekend and still could not reach a funding deal. The government will run out of money in just five days unless there's an 11th hour deal from Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his divided caucus. That means millions of federal workers could be affected. Some may even be forced to work without pay. CNN's Lauren Fox joins us now from Capitol Hill this morning. Lauren, you caught up with Speaker McCarthy this morning. What did he tell you?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, right now the options are really limited for the Speaker of the House when it comes to averting this government shutdown. But he is still pushing his conference to unite behind some kind of short term spending bill that would at least give them more time to negotiate on a full year spending package with the U.S. Senate. Here's what he told me about members who are holding out against that idea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA), HOUSE SPEAKER: Well, you have to keep the government open. I mean, if people want to close the government only makes a weaker. Why would they want to stop paying the troops or stop paying the border agents or the Coast Guard? I don't understand how that makes you stronger. I don't ever stand what point you're trying to make. We've got a border that's wide open today. We say it's getting worse each month under Joe Biden. We've got now border agents. You saw this morning being bloodied. Why would you want to stop paying those individuals? I couldn't understand somebody that would want to do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP) FOX: Right now the plan from Republican leaders is to try to pass a series of individual one year long spending bills on the floor of the House that would fund agencies like the Department of Defense, State, Agriculture and Homeland Security. But those bills have no chance of passing in the United States Senate, which is why you have Republican leaders rallying their members to try to get behind a short term solution.

But let's say they can't get behind that solution and that there isn't time to negotiate with the Senate. The Senate right now is trying to work its way through a standalone short term spending measure negotiated between Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that they say could potentially avert a shutdown if McCarthy put it on the floor, but a lot has to play out, a lot has to happen.

The Senate has to find an agreement, pass it out of the Senate, send it to the House Speaker and then he has to decide to put it on the floor. And the tricky part about that equation, of course, Sarah, is that putting anything on the floor that has Democratic support could imperil McCarthy's future as Speaker. Sara?

SIDNER: Lauren Fox, thank you so much for that update.

All right, you heard Mike McCarthy talking about the military not being paid and the Coast Guard not being paid. If the government does shut down, there are many more people who will not get paid. Nearly 4 million federal employees would immediately feel the impact. Some are deemed essential and would have to keep working, others will be furloughed, but none will see a paycheck until a funding deal is made. The largest federal employee union with over 750,000 Americans includes health care professionals, law enforcement, park rangers, TSA agents and social security workers.

And they on average earn between 55 to $65,000 a year, some much less than that, which led the union's president to make this urgent message to lawmakers. He says most of our members live paycheck to paycheck and can't afford to miss one payday. That's why we're calling on Congress to do its job. As for Americans who don't work for the government, a shutdown can bring major travel disruptions. Public health risks the EPA rolls back inspections at hazard waste sites and drinking water facilities, low income Americans can see impacts to their food and housing aid and museums and national parks could close. John?

[11:20:14]

BERMAN: All right, thanks so much Sara.

With us now, Republican congressman from Arkansas Bruce Westerman. Congressman, thanks so much for being with us. As this Congress does seem to be headed toward a possible shutdown, you're colleague Chip Roy spoke of this group of five to six, seven, eight, maybe Republican holdouts on the rule. He said of them, I honestly don't know what to say to my fellow Republicans, other than you're going to eat a -- an S sandwich rhymes with rich, and you probably deserve to eat it. In this context, Congressman, what is the S sandwich?

REP. BRUCE WESTERMAN (R-AK): Well, John, good to be with you this morning. And, you know, that sandwich is getting a bill from the Senate that tries to jam us to do a clean continuing resolution, but it's not just going to be clean, it's going to have a lot of other funding, tagged along to it. And you know, a continuing resolution just says we keep spending at the same level we spent last year and I don't know anybody in the Republican conference that wants to spend at the same levels, the Democrats put in place last year.

Speaker McCarthy is the only one that's articulated a conservative path forward. And he's articulated many paths forward. We've got another one this week, where we've got these four big spending bills that should be on the floor. This would account for about 75 percent of the funding through the normal appropriation process. And another thing we can do is pass our own short term funding bill and focus on an issue that's a huge issue in our country right now and that's the southern border.

And whether we do that through the Homeland Security Bill, or whether we do it through short term funding resolution, this is something that has to be addressed. You know, the Biden administration right now is planning to build migrant shelters on park service land in New York City. And they're waiving environmental laws to do that. They're waiving the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act so they can build these migrant centers. And it's got people in an outrage.

Even New York Democrats have joined a lawsuit to stop the Biden administration for doing it. So I think we should be focusing on keeping the government open but closing the border, and we've got a pathway forward to make that happen.

BERMAN: You're articulating some of the types of arguments that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy himself has, in the face of that you have these Republican holdouts who don't seem concerned about the possibility of a shutdown, Congressman Andy Biggs, your colleagues said, quote, don't let the D.C. UNA Party scare you into thinking that a government shutdown is the end of the world seeming to diminish what a shutdown would mean, do you agree with that?

WESTERMAN: Well, I think the point that he's trying to make and others are making is that when we have a shutdown, eventually, when the government opens up, people get back pay, but it creates a huge inconvenience and a huge chaos that doesn't need to happen. We can keep the government operating, we can keep border patrol agents, working parks open, and we can work towards solving this funding crisis. But if we don't keep working, if we don't address these issues, and we're going to lead opportunities, like closing the southern border, like addressing some of these outrageous spending tickets that the Democrats put in the spending bills last year, we're going to let that continue on.

And I don't see how it helps a conservative cause. I'm all for being fiscally responsible for cutting the budget. But you've got to have a plan. And the plan can't just be we're going to shut down the government. It's got to be something that's proactive that gets results. And that's what we're all working for. And that's why Speaker McCarthy just keeps putting things forward trying to find a path to get to a good solution.

BERMAN: One plan that some of your colleagues have some of the more quote unquote, moderate Republicans has to work with Democrats. But I did hear Republican Tim Burchett of Tennessee said that if Speaker McCarthy does end up going to Democrats with votes to get this through that he would consider voting against McCarthy for speaker. How do you feel about that?

WESTERMAN: I don't think that would be Speaker McCarthy working with Democrats. I think it would be some moderate Republicans and tough districts that if they saw the bill come over from the Senate, they may choose to join with Democrats on a discharge petition to put that bill on the floor. I don't think anybody in the Republican conference wants to see that happen. And that's another reason why we should work towards getting a real solution that doesn't involve shutting the government down. That doesn't involve some Republicans switching over and voting with Democrats but pushes conservative policies forward lock Speaker McCarthy has articulated.

[11:25:03]

Again, he's the one that's putting the solutions out and its solutions that are coming from talking to a vast majority of the members in the Republican Conference.

BERMAN: Congressman, you're going to forgive me for this. But the only person I'm talking to today who's got experience playing high level football, you were Arkansas Razorback. And so I want your opinion on what happened albeit in a pro game yesterday, the Kansas City Chiefs Travis Kelce on the field and Taylor Swift up in the box was watching him. I mean, you've got experience in the game. How would you feel if you're on the field, you know, and Taylor Swift is up in the box watching?

WESTERMAN: Well, the Chiefs were pretty dominant yesterday, so maybe it was the little extra motivation that he and his teammates needed to have her up in the stands. But, you know, from my perspective, it was a bad college and professional football weekend. Razorbacks got beaten a heartbreaker down against LSU. The Cowboys that look so dominant, and then they got beat and even back to my old high school team. I think every team I ever played for cheered for got beat this weekend.

BERMAN: I'm sorry for your loss. Maybe Taylor Swift gets you up next week to one of your games. Congressman Bruce Westerman, thanks so much for being a great support. Great to see you.

WESTERMAN: Thank you, John.

BERMAN: Sara?

SIDNER: All right, any moment now Senator Menendez is going to speak for the first time since his indictment on bribery charges. You see the live look there from Union City, New Jersey we're expecting to hear from him in just a bit now. We will bring all of it to you when it happens live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: This happening right now, Bob Menendez stepping up to cameras about to make his statement. Let's listen in.

SEN. BOB MENENDEZ (D-NY): Thank you to all of you who are here today especially the New Jerseyans who have joined me as I addressed the events of the last few days.

On Friday, the Southern District of New York Board charges against me. I understand how deeply concerning this can be. However, the allegations leveled against me are just that allegations. For anyone who has known me throughout my 50 years of public service, they know I have always fought for what is right. My advocacy has always been grounded in what I learned from growing up as a son of Cuban refugees, especially my mom, my hero of Angelina Menendez.

Everything I've accomplished I've worked for despite the naysayers, and everyone who has underestimated me. I recognize this will be the biggest fight yet. But as I have stated throughout this whole process, I firmly believe that when all the facts are presented, not only will I be exonerated, but I still will be the New Jersey's senior senator.

[11:29:35]

For now I want to address four things. First, a cornerstone of the foundation of American democracy and our justice system is the principle that all people are presumed innocent until proven guilty. All people, I asked for nothing more and deserve nothing less. The Court of Public Opinion is no substitute for our revered justice system.