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Government Nears Shutdown After McCarthy Dealt Another Defeat; Tuberville: "Our Military is Not An Equal Opportunity Employer"; Trailblazing Sen. Dianne Feinstein Dies at Age 90; Trump Courts GOP Voters in CA, Seeks Sweep of Delegates. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired September 29, 2023 - 15:00   ET

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

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[15:00:26]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: A shutdown is all but certain at this point. Republicans in the House failing to pass a short-term measure to fund the government, but the House Speaker says he has other ideas. A top official at the White House is going to join us on how the administration is bracing for a shutdown.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the longest- serving female senator in history, passing away at the age of 90, how her impact is being remembered from Congress to her home state of California.

And speaking of the Golden State, Donald Trump is in California this hour speaking at a Republican convention. His message, as one conservative group trying to keep the former president from becoming the GOP nominee, admits they are struggling to stop him.

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

KEILAR: The nation has just moved one step closer to a government shutdown. House Republicans are expected to meet here in the next hour after their leader just suffered his latest defeat on the House floor. Speaker Kevin McCarthy's short-term spending bill voted down. He did not get enough Republican support.

There is now less than 34 hours for a - for Congress to approve new funding. And while the Senate's short-term option is a bipartisan deal, it too is not likely to pass before the Saturday night deadline. A shutdown would freeze the pay for about 3.5 million federal workers and it would also impact air travel. It would impact tax return processing, food and workplace inspections, some child care and a whole lot more.

We have CNN's Manu Raju on Capitol Hill for us.

All right. Manu, you had been sort of bugging the Speaker about what his plan was after this 30-day short-term funding bill failed and it sounds like maybe you have some answers now. What's going on? MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, he is indicating that he may give more information to his conference behind closed doors when they are poised to meet at 4 PM, Eastern, just in a matter - just within an hour or so. The speaker will - I asked him, "Are you going to reveal your next steps today?" He said, "Well," and he said - he laughingly said, "No, I'm going to keep it a secret." So suggesting that perhaps we will finally get a sense on what he plans to do.

There have been a lot of ideas thrown up in the air, but it's pretty clear from talking to even his closest allies, they are in the dark about what the Speaker plans to do next. Now, this is all very significant, because depending on how the Speaker moves and where he - well, how he decides to go, it could either lead to a government shutdown, perhaps there could be an 11th hour deal to avert a government shutdown or perhaps there could be a challenge to his own speakership.

This just happening moments after the Speaker still pushed ahead to try to get a Republican-only plan through the House to keep the government open for about a month, but that failed. I mean, the opposition from 21 House Republicans, mostly on the far right, who believed it didn't go far enough and cut spending.

Democrats, on the other hand, voted against it because they believed it went too far in cutting spending and adding border security measures as well. Now that that is put to the side, what happens next means is the big question. The Senate is moving on its own track, though they are still slowly moving through the procedural hurdles to get to a final process, a final deal, potentially by Monday after the shutdown deadline.

The Speaker has already said he opposes that Senate bill because it has - doesn't include issues like border security, also doesn't cut spending the way he wants and includes $6 billion in aid to Ukraine. So those are major issues they have to reconcile with the Senate, let alone figure out what he wants to do with the House.

Now, if the speaker does move forward on a bipartisan deal, perhaps the only way out of this to get a bill out of the Senate through the House and signed into law by the president, if he goes that route, then he could face a challenge from the far right members who are threatening to oust him if he were to actually cut a deal with Democrats because one member could call for a vote seeking his ouster and that threat remains over the speaker, even as he has brushed that aside.

So much riding on the Speaker's next move here. We'll see what he decides to tell his own members when they meet behind closed doors in an hour, Brianna?

KEILAR: All right. We know that you will get some answers then.

Manu Raju, thank you for your latest reporting there.

A government shutdown would hit military families especially hard. We know this. If it happens, it would mean that more than two million active duty service members and reservists would be forced to report for duty and they wouldn't get paid.

[15:05:02]

I'm joined now by John Kirby. He's the National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the White House.

I first want to ask you about this. Of course, you are familiar with what military families go through when it comes to a shutdown. You retired as a rear admiral here.

Is the White House working with anyone on the Hill to make sure that the military will get paid in the event we do have a shutdown as it looks like we will?

JOHN KIRBY, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL COUNCIL COORDINATOR FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS: Well, to the degree that we can keep them paid, it's - that we need to get appropriations bill. So we're obviously urging members of Congress and folks in touch with members of Congress about what they can do to get the appropriate appropriations bill to the President's desk so he can sign it. So there's no reason that the troops would have to have a stopgap measure or some sort of temporary measure that they can continue to serve this country and get paid.

KEILAR: Sometimes there's a carve out, so it sounds like no carve out. It's all together in this one.

KIRBY: I know of no specific carve out, Brianna? We want the troops to get paid, obviously. But what we really want is a proper appropriations bill for the spending for the government.

KEILAR: Okay. So should Democrats throw McCarthy a lifeline if he ultimately asked for one?

KIRBY: That's really for members of Congress to decide. That's not something that we're going to take a position on here at the White House. What needs to happen, the conversations that need to happen, the meetings that need to happen, the decisions that need to happen are between Speaker McCarthy and this very small minority of the extreme Republicans in the House of Representatives, in his own caucus.

That's where the negotiating trade space seems to be and that's where Speaker McCarthy needs to be putting his energy.

KEILAR: There is Republican opposition to funding Ukraine. You are well aware of this. It is growing in the House. That is, by the way, also a reflection of American public opinion. We are seeing that in our polls here at CNN. How long can you realistically keep up this level of funding that has been for the war in Ukraine?

KIRBY: Well, we have enough appropriated funds that have not been executed, have not been spent on aid to Ukraine to get us through coming weeks. I couldn't give you an exact date on the calendar of when it would run out because it would depend on how you parcel that out and what weapon systems that you're providing to Ukraine.

So we do have some unspent funds that we can continue to work on past this weekend. But we asked for $13 billion in the supplemental for defense related stuff for Ukraine just to get us through the first quarter of the fiscal year in the fall. And it's a critical time, Brianna, because this is when they're - they've got a few four, maybe six, eight weeks left of good weather before the counteroffensive is going to be much harder for them to fight. This is a critical time for them to have that funding and those capabilities.

So how long it's going to depend on what obviously Speaker McCarthy is able to do here. But any additional funding for Ukraine is going to be welcome. It's going to be used and we're going to appropriately apply it to getting them the capabilities that they need.

But if we don't get it, one thing is sure that they won't be able to get the kind of capabilities they need to fight this counteroffensive and it comes at a critical time and it could really result in leaving Ukrainian forces high and dry as they're trying to reclaim, reclaim territory from Russian forces all throughout the east and south.

KEILAR: So do they have a plan for when this may run out, this funding?

KIRBY: Well, I think you heard - I don't know if you heard, but the comptroller over at the Pentagon talked about this a day or so ago. We - again, we've got enough for coming weeks, how much ...

KEILAR: No, no, I mean, do you - Ukraine, an old - and this - and what I'm really speaking to is that ultimately it seems that there may not be an appetite long term for this funding.

KIRBY: Oh, okay. I'm sorry.

KEILAR: Do you feel confident that Ukraine has a plan ...

KIRBY: I see.

KEILAR: ... for - if they run out of this funding that they have been counting on?

KIRBY: Ukraine is very dependent on the support from international donors all around the world. The United States is the leading donor, the leading contributor to Ukraine's self-defense needs. So they very much need American support. And people look to us for an example, too. I mean, there's more than 50 nations doing this.

If the United States just pulls the plug on them, it might - it could affect the will power of other nations to continue to provide support for Ukraine. So Ukraine is very much dependent on all this international support. And again, it comes at a very critical time.

KEILAR: The Joint Chiefs Chairman, of course, Mark Milley, retiring today, General CQ Brown, who, as Air Force chief of staff, was the first African-American to head any service branch is taking the mantle here. And, of course, this was quite a fight, as you are well aware, to get him confirmed as Republican senator, Tommy Tuberville, held up his promotion and continues to hold up hundreds of promotions of general and flag officers over the DOD abortion travel policy.

Well, now Tuberville is getting attention for comments that he made about why he voted against Gen. Brown's confirmation.

[15:10:05]

I want to listen to these.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TOMMY TUBERVILLE (R-AL): I heard some things that he talked about, about race and things that he want to mix into the military. Let me tell you something, our military is not an equal opportunity employer. We're looking for the best of best to do whatever. We're not looking for different groups, social justice groups. We don't want to single handedly destroy our military from within. We all need to be one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: What is your reaction to that?

KIRBY: Let me tell you something, the United States Department of Defense, the military is and appropriately is an equal opportunity employer because - it's because of that diversity. It's because we provide equal opportunities for all Americans to serve their country and defend this country, that we are better at doing it.

I have been in many commands at sea and ashore where the diversity of the command itself made it better. It brings new perspective and fresh perspectives to the decision making process. You drive innovation that way and you do a better job of representing your nation to the rest of the world.

So I strongly push back on this idea that we're not - it is - the military is not an equal opportunity employer. It absolutely is. It should be. It makes you a better and stronger military. He's just flat out wrong.

KEILAR: John Kirby, thank you so much. We appreciate your time this afternoon.

KIRBY: Yes, ma'am.

KEILAR: Boris?

SANCHEZ: She was a trailblazer and an activist, a history maker and a champion legislator. California senator, Dianne Feinstein, has passed away at the age of 90. Flags are flying half-staff on Capitol Hill in her honor and in the Senate chamber where she diligently worked for more than 30 years as the longest serving female senator in history.

Now, flowers rest on her empty floor seat. In a moving and emotional tribute, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called Feinstein one of the most amazing people who ever graced the Senate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): So today we grieve. We look at that desk and we know what we have lost. Dianne Feinstein was all of this and more: friend, a hero for so many, a leader who changed the nation - sorry, a leader who changed the nature of the Senate and who changed the fabric of the nation, America, for the better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Joining us now is former California congresswoman, Jackie Speier. Congresswoman, thank you so much for being with us.

You've described Dianne Feinstein's life as a lifetime of firsts. She broke through so many glass ceilings. What are you going to remember her most for?

JACKIE SPEIER, (D) FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA: Well, certainly for being the first, the first woman elected mayor in San Francisco, the first U.S. senator from California, the first Intelligence Committee chair, the first ranking member on judiciary.

But what I remember about her most is her grit, her gravitas and her gumption. She never shrunk from a fight. And she was just a baby senator when she took on the NRA and got an assault weapon ban passed for the United States for a period of 10 years.

So just a remarkable life. She was a personal friend and a mentor. We shared many experiences together, both in tragedy and in happiness and she's just a great loss for all of us.

SANCHEZ: Yes, there are some interesting parallels in both your lives facing violence, specifically gun violence. And you mentioned her work on that 1994 assault weapons ban. She tried to get it passed again after the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012. It didn't really go anywhere. There wasn't an appetite for that kind of legislation.

I'm wondering, from your perspective, which issue will she be remembered for championing most? Is it gun control legislation?

SPEIER: Well, I think it's a number of issues. I think it will be the assault weapon ban. I think the torture report really laid bare the egregious activities of the CIA and the military with POWs. And I think her work on conservation, her work with Lake Tahoe, her work creating the largest national monument of desert lands, some 7 million acres. But there's a list that goes on and on.

SANCHEZ: And something that stood out to me about the reaction that we've seen on Capitol Hill is the bipartisan nature of the praise for Sen. Feinstein. It's especially - maybe I'm cynical - but it's especially stunning giving - given the acrimonious nature of the debate right now, the backdrop being a potential government shutdown. [15:15:04]

What does it tell you that so many people from both sides of the aisle spoke so highly of her?

SPEIER: Well, because she really was someone who was not afraid to cross the aisle to get legislation passed. She was not afraid to negotiate and was not a purist. She would work with the other side to get measures passed. So, in some respects, it appears almost like a bygone era, but we really can't afford to make it a bygone era. So hopefully part of her legacy will be a return to bipartisanship.

SANCHEZ: Congresswoman, she also leaves behind a very big vacancy and Gov. Gavin Newsom is now tasked with filling that vacancy. There's been some debate about who it should be. What qualifications do you think are most important to now fill her enormous shoes?

SPEIER: Well, there's an active campaign going on to replace her in California. He's already mentioned that he would like to have a caretaker in that post. He's also mentioned that he would like it to be an African-American woman. It has to be someone who can hit the ground running, who knows the system to be able to provide the kind of leadership we need for the next 14 months.

SANCHEZ: Former congresswoman, Jackie Speier, we appreciate you sharing your personal connection to the senator. Thanks so much.

SPEIER: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Of course. And still ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, a conservative group that spent millions of dollars on ads testing which issue could keep former President Trump from winning the Republican nomination reveals in a new memo that donors are being told the ads are not working. What this means for 2024?

Plus, an arrest made after the killing of iconic rapper Tupac Shakur decades ago. We're expecting an update from police soon. We're going to bring that to you live. So stay with us.

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[15:21:19]

SANCHEZ: Sharpening the elbows and raising the stakes. Former president, Donald Trump, is about to deliver the keynote speech at a critical Republican convention. He's addressing California Republicans at this hour's luncheon in Anaheim, one of several candidates there this weekend. Notably, the state's executive committee has adopted a plan that will award all the state's delegates to a candidate who captures more than 50 percent of the primary vote.

CNN National Correspondent Kristen Holmes is here, along with Political Director, David Chalian.

David, you actually just got back from California, the second Republican presidential debate where Donald Trump was not, could this be a potential self-fulfilling prophecy for some of these candidates if they decide not to invest in California? It's further down in the list of states that are doing primary voting.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes. I mean, if you're a candidate not named Donald Trump, you aren't probably very focused on California just yet because the path to actually take on Donald Trump is going to come first in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. But what I do think that, Trump and his team have done something really savvy here in the sense that they're showing us, I think, Kristen, tell me if you disagree, you covered this day in and day out, they're a bit more organized - more of an organized operation than they were back in 2015 and 2016.

And so they're playing a bit of the inside game as well. And one of the things that they've done in California is to try and alter the way delegates get allocated there so that if somebody gets more than 50 percent of the vote, they win all the delegates. That's a savvy move. It has caused the DeSantis operation maybe to pump the brakes on going that far down the map.

Now, the other thing that may be causing the DeSantis operation to bump the brakes on anything beyond Iowa and New Hampshire right now is they're all in on Iowa and then a little bit in New Hampshire. That's where they see their best chance at stopping Trump from steamrolling to the nomination.

SANCHEZ: Speaking of chances to potentially stop Trump from steamrolling the nomination, Kristen, there is this new reporting about a conservative anti-Trump group, Win It Back. They spent $6 million in Iowa and South Carolina. They tested all these different ads attacking Trump on a variety of issues and none of it seemed to work. In fact, some of these ads actually boosted Trump.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So it really goes to show you why this race has been so difficult for his opponents because they cannot figure out how to attack Donald Trump and neither could this group. So this is the PAC that was started by David McIntosh. He runs Club for Growth, which is a fiscal group of conservatives who used to side with Donald Trump. David McIntosh used to be friends with him, and now they are mortal enemies.

And actually, Club for Growth ran a bunch of campaigns against some of Donald Trump's endorsed candidates for the Senate in 2022, which really sparked a lot of this off. But what you're saying is correct. Almost nothing that they tried was actually effective. And it goes to show you again, when you look at these candidates trying different things, they hit him head on, they say nice things and then they say it's time to move on. Nothing really seems to be working and working and, in fact, his polls go up.

So I want to show you one example of the ad in Iowa that they ran that - and I'll tell you what happened with it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would have to say that Donald Trump did a great job, I always supported him, I supported him in the '16 and I supported him in the '20 Election, but I didn't like his response to COVID. I thought he probably got led a little bit by the bureaucrat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Okay. I want to read to you what they said about this ad.

"This ad was our best creative on the pandemic and vaccines that we tested in focus group settings, but it still produced a backlash in our online randomized control experiment, improving President Trump's ballot support by four points and net favorability by 11 points."

That was an attack ad that then they did a focus group on and it improved his likability or his net favorability by 11 points.

[15:25:05]

Now, they do say that there are some things that these candidates can do to try and get through the centrally support for Donald Trump and this is one of the things they say. They say that essentially to disarm the viewer, you have to have this opening of the ad establishing that the person did support Trump, they do think that they did a really - he did a really good job when he was in office, but it's time to move on.

But even in that ad, that ad he says it at the top ...

CHALIAN: Exactly.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

HOLMES: ... that he likes Donald Trump.

CHALIAN: That's a permission structure at the top for a Trump voter.

SANCHEZ: Right, yes.

HOLMES: And yet still it had the complete opposite effect. Again, it just goes to show you how hard this is, what an uphill battle this is for some of these candidates.

SANCHEZ: Sure.

CHALIAN: But we should also note the timing of these ads. I just - something when you talk to strategists in all these campaigns about Trump's dominant stature in the race, he has dominated the information flow. There's been no - there's no other - little information about these other candidates breakthrough because of the indictment.

So not only is he dominating the headlines, but he's been indicted and so his supporters are rallying around him for that cause. One thing to watch, one thing that the other campaigns are watching now as all the sort of trials are getting set and he's not under indictment on a monthly basis now as a new thing. If he starts receding a bit in terms of that constant information domination and there isn't that rallying effect anymore, and is that - does that provide an opening as we head into the voting season for some of the others to gain some traction, we don't know the answer to that, but that's ...

HOLMES: But here's one other part of that that's so confusing about this is that even though he is taking over so much of the airwaves and so much of the media attention, sucking the oxygen out of the race, absolutely. They do say that one of the things that works is if you essentially gently talk about Trump fatigue and people kind of receiving that is okay. But yet again, it's also helping him get at people's attention and having his supporters rally around him with all this coverage.

So it's very unclear how exactly this ends up working and what works.

SANCHEZ: Quickly, David, have you ever seen an attack ad benefit a politician?

CHALIAN: Sometimes an attack ad benefits like a third politician, right? Like the attack ads work, right?

SANCHEZ: Yes.

CHALIAN: Voters do actually respond to them.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

CHALIAN: But like it usually - there's some backlash on the person launching the attack. It hurts the person that it is attacking. But sometimes somebody on the sideline benefits from it.

SANCHEZ: This time, Trump adding 11 percent favorability points to his already huge lead.

David Chalian, Kristen Holmes, thank you both so much.

HOLMES: Sure.

SANCHEZ: Hey, still had decades after iconic rapper Tupac Shakur was murdered, there's a break in the case. There's now been an arrest in Las Vegas. What we're learning about that.

Plus, parts of New York just got a full month's worth of rain in just three hours. Now, New Jersey's governor has declared a state of emergency because of the severe weather. Details on this flooding event when we come back.

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