Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Government Shuts Down After Lawmakers Fail to Reach Funding Deal; Elon Musk Plans to Take on Wikipedia With Grokipedia; Vance Says, I'll Talk With Democrats About ACA Subsidies If They Reopen Government. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired October 01, 2025 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, with the government shutdown, there's a lot of finger pointing going on. Democrats want to include an extension of Obamacare subsidies that expire at the end of the year. Republicans have refused to negotiate on subsidies unless Democrats first agree to a short-term resolution that would fund the government for seven weeks.

In the middle of all of this Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who joins us now, Senator, thank you so much for being with us.

Every Republican who's gone on T.V. the last 12 hours or so has called this the Schumer shutdown. What do you say about that name?

Senator Schumer, can you hear me?

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): I can't hear --

BERMAN: Senator Schumer, can you hear me? I don't think Senator Schumer can hear me right now. Maybe the government shutdown included audio on Capitol Hill.

Let's go to Rene Marsh to get a rundown of who might be affected by the shutdown. Rene?

RENE MARSH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We are just hours into this shutdown, and this morning thousands of federal workers are now furloughed. I want to give you a snapshot on just how many at various government agencies. We have a full screen there, which has a breakdown of the, a variety of agencies, more than 11,000 at the FAA and several others are now furloughed. We know that the longer this will drag on, the more painful that this will be for Americans.

There are essential programs and services that will continue despite the shutdown, Social Security and Medicare benefits, unemployment jobless benefits, the National Weather Service forecast and warnings, that will continue, Veterans Medical Services, ICE immigration enforcement, Custom and Border Protection and TSA are all considered essential employees. So, they will have to continue to work without pay for the duration of this.

And the same goes for air traffic controllers. So, if you have a flight right now, you should be okay. But there's a caveat. The longer things drag out, circumstances may change. John, I covered the 2018 to 2019 shutdown, and that lasted 35 days and we saw TSA and the air traffic controllers call out sick after missing multiple paychecks. And that sparked delays at airports across the country. So, again, depends on how long this lasts.

Passports and visas will still be processed, but that may take longer. IRS operations will continue and so will mail delivery.

But here is what is compromised. Portions of National Parks and Services will shut down. At the FDA, no new drug applications. Some drug monitoring will be compromised. And the program that serves millions special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children, also known as WIC, we understand and are hearing from people this morning that that program has about a week's worth of money possibly too. After that, women, children, newly pregnant, women with infants may not have access to nutritious foods. So, lots at stake here, again, John, just depending on just how long this shutdown drags out.

BERMAN: So, that is what is at stake.

Rene Marsh, thank you so much for jumping in at a moment's notice.

We have the audio issues worked out, we think. Let's get back to the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, who joins us now from Capitol Hill.

Senator, I was saying that every Republican who's gone on T.V. the last, what, nine hours or so has called this the Schumer shutdown. What do you think about that name?

[08:35:00]

SCHUMER: Well, it's really the Trump shutdown. Let me say something to you, John, that Republicans thought that they could barrel us into a shutdown because they didn't want to protect the healthcare of the American people. Well, now, they've seen they can't bully us, they can't barrel us. They don't have the votes to push their partisan bill through that did nothing to protect American healthcare. So, the solution now is for both sides to sit down and come to an agreement that protects American healthcare.

The American people are struggling and helping (ph). And here's some news we just got it from the Kaiser Health Foundation that starting today, people will get notices that their healthcare premiums could go up as much as a thousand dollars, more than double. We thought it was $400 a month. It's more than that. When people get these bills, they're going to be outraged and they're going to say, how do we stop it? And the answer is simple, Democrats should get -- should sit down with Republicans, and Republicans should negotiate with us to deal with this healthcare crisis. It's really dissenting upon the American people in a very bad way, and they're going to be furious, and they're going to be furious at the people who refuse to do that, who refuse to help the American people with the healthcare crisis that they created in their so-called big, bad, beautiful bill, which they now want to change the name to, they know it's so bad, and we can solve this.

BERMAN: So, there are three Democrats or two Democrats and one independent who voted with Republicans on the clean bill to keep the government open, Senator Angus King, the independent from Maine, John Fetterman from Pennsylvania, and Catherine Cortez Masto from Nevada. She said, we should not be swapping harm to one group of Americans for another. What do you say to that?

SCHUMER: Well, I'm saying that the healthcare crisis is so deep and so real, and these thousand dollars a month, $500, $600, $700 a month in increases. Imagine your American family sitting at the table this week and you see that your healthcare costs, your insurance is going to double, you're going to say, what the heck am I going to do? Somebody help me? Well, Democrats want to help. Republicans, thus far, don't. But now that I think they've seen that they can't bully us into just passing their bill, which does nothing, zero, for American healthcare. And has not had any Democratic input despite the fact that we've asked to sit down with them week after week and month after month, they will now see that.

And we're going to be out there fighting, John. Democrats are going to be all over the T.V. wires, all over the districts protesting, all over the social media and the American people are on our side. The polls show that something like 80 percent don't like the big, bad, beautiful -- the big, beautiful, bad, ugly bill that they have put forward.

BERMAN: So, again, as I said, you lost three votes. You may be able to lose at eight. The government will probably reopen, will give Republicans enough votes. How confident are you that you won't lose more Democrats?

SCHUMER: Our caucus is resolute that we have to solve this healthcare crisis. That's our job. When something really afflicts the American people so badly, it's the job of senators on both sides of the aisle to come together. And here's what we hope now that the Republicans have seen. They don't have the votes, they've done it twice. They will sit down and negotiate in good faith. Even when we talked to President Trump at the White House, he knew that the increases, these dramatic increases in people's healthcare insurance was going to hurt him. And he said that.

BERMAN: So, Vice President --

SCHUMER: So, I think there's an opening for them to sit down with us.

BERMAN: So, in terms of an opening, in terms of an off ramp, Vice President J.D. Vance, just like five minutes ago in one of his own T.V. interviews, said that he's willing to go to the Capitol to talk to Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats about premium support for the Affordable Healthcare Act, but only after the reopening of the government. So, what do you say to that, that he'll have the discussion, but after you vote yes?

SCHUMER: They've had since March to do this. We've asked them to vote on it three times, the Republican senators, and all three times they voted no. We need a real answer now. If they kick the can down the road, you know, as Martin Luther King once said, Senior, later means never. They know this is a crisis. They keep -- you know, they don't want to talk about it, so they keep putting up this false stuff that illegal undocumented immigrants will get this. No, the law, the law's clear that no Medicaid, no Medicare, no ACA, couldn't go to any undocumented immigrants, but they keep bringing that up because they're afraid to talk about the real issue. Talk about it now.

BERMAN: One of the things that Republicans are also doing, and they're doing in the White House press brief, it's a running sound of Democrats talking about shutdowns in the past, including sound of you. This is the type of thing you've said about shutdowns in the past. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHUMER: What if I persuaded my caucus to say, I'm going to shut the government down, I'm going to not pay our bills unless I get my way?

[08:40:05]

It's a politics of idiocy, of confrontation, of confrontation, of paralysis.

Shutting down government over a policy difference is self-defeating.

We can never hold American workers hostage again.

While the C.R. bill is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse.

Therefore, I will vote to keep the government open and not shut it down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That was you three times in the past. Go ahead. What's different this time?

SCHUMER: That was -- yes, that was in March, John, before they had done these horrible things to healthcare, before they had introduced these rescissions, which would allow them to ignore the budget process. And the bottom line is when I was majority leader, we had 13 times to vote on a budget. Do you know why there was no shutdown? We sat and negotiated with the Republicans every time. They got some things, we got some things. They did not negotiate at all. They refused, despite repeated entreaties by Hakeem and me to go to the White House to sit down with Thune and Johnson.

Look, if you want to know who wants to shut down, look at the House. Johnson had the House adjourn all this week. So, they couldn't -- even if the Senate had come up with a solution, they couldn't vote on it. But now that they've seen, they can't bludgeon us, they can't roll us, hopefully, they're going to sit down and negotiate now, not kick the can down the road, which they've done. It's been 45 days, 45 days, 45 days, and they've never done anything.

BERMAN: The senators, everyone in Congress right now on the Republican side, has really pointing the fingers squarely at you personally. And one of the things they're saying is this is about politics in New York, that you might face a primary from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And she was actually asked about this last night. Listen to what she says.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): And I saw some Republican members of Congress saying, oh, well, if we have this shutdown, it's because of AOC. Well, if that's the case, my office is open and you are free to walk in and negotiate with me directly. Because what I'm not going to do is tolerate 4 million uninsured Americans because Donald Trump decided one day that he wants to just make sure that kids are dying because they don't have access to insurance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: What about the politics on the left here, Senator?

SCHUMER: I agree with her. The politics is with the American people. The American people are getting clobbered by these bad healthcare decisions by the Republicans. And it is up to the Republicans and Trump to do it. Our motivation, my motivation is to do my job. When people are having a real crisis, when they're seeing their healthcare premiums go up close to a thousand dollars, when it's not only the people on ACA, but everyone else's premiums who will go up as well, our job is to protect them. That's what we're doing. The way out is bipartisan negotiations. We hope the Republicans will do that soon, and now.

BERMAN: Well, keep us posted --

SCHUMER: We don't know if they will, but we are resolute. We are resolute and we're fighting every step of the way.

BERMAN: Well, keep us posted if you get that call. We're talking to members on both sides. And I should note, Leader Schumer, that the House speaker, Mike Johnson, is going to be on Inside Politics with Dana at noon. So, thank you for being with us. We'll see what happens by the end of the day. Kate?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. As you just heard from the top Democrat in the Senate and part of his conversation with John, Chuck Schumer's saying that the American people are with Democrats when it comes to opposing Donald Trump's big, beautiful bill. But where are Americans in terms of how they feel about this shutdown right now?

CNN's Harry Enten is running the numbers on this. What are you seeing? HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA REPORTER: Yes, what are we seeing? This is an American public that more so than ever before, I've looked at the polling, is willing to go to a shutdown. What are we talking about here? Well, let's take a look. What Americans wanted pre-shutdown? Well, traditionally speaking, I got the 2013 numbers. The majority of Americans want compromise. No shutdown. If you go back to 2013, just 33 percent said, stand on principle, even if it means the shutdown. Come to this side of the screen, we see an even split, right? 50 percent of Americans say they want a compromised, no shutdown. But up like a rocket standing on principle, we see now 49 percent, basically an even split on Americans either wanting a shut down, or, in fact, saying they want their side to stand on principle. And I think we're hearing a lot of that from Chuck Schumer.

BOLDUAN: Which group has shifted the most in terms of compromise or not?

ENTEN: You know, it was so interesting to hear those clips of Chuck Schumer being played back from 2013, from all those past shutdowns.

BOLDUAN: Well -- and just, yes, and just from March, right?

ENTEN: Right, potential shutdowns. And what has changed significantly is Republicans have always been willing to basically say, you know, we should shut down the government and stand on principle. But now, Democrats, a significantly larger portion of Democrats say, you know what, let's stand on principle. What Democrats want to pre-shutdown, you go back to 2013, just 18 percent of Democrats that stand on principle, the vast majority, 76 percent, three in four Democrats said, compromise, no shutdown.

[08:45:04]

Look at this side of the screen. Look at this percentage that said, stand down principle back in 2013, it was 18 percent. Now, it's 47 percent, more than double. In fact, nearly triple the percentage of Democrats now say, stand on principle as compared to 2013, we see a much more even split among Democrats. The 52 percent who say compromise, no shutdown, the 47 percent who say stand on principle, within the margin of error of each other. What we're seeing is a Democratic Party that is much more so than ever before saying, you know what, let's shut down the government even if it means no compromise so that we can stand on principle.

BOLDUAN: A big question n now that we -- it is shut down is how long is this going to last? We keep making the comparison to the longest shutdown, which was in 2018. What's your reference point on how long you would say it is going to last?

ENTEN: Yes, I think that's exactly right. You, you look at these numbers, right? You see that 18 to 47 percent, you see this 33 percent to 49 percent stand on principle and you hit at it, Kate Bolduan. The longest shutdown on record was 35 days back in 2018 to 2019, and we're seeing now a Democratic Party that's much more likely to dig in and you have that Republican Party that has pretty much always been over the last decade very likely to dig in. I think this is a pretty good reference point. I wouldn't be surprised if we reached this record or go even further. Of course, time will tell.

BOLDUAN: Yes it will. Thank you so much, Harry. I really appreciate that.

ENTEN: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Sara?

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, thank you to both of you.

This morning, Elon Musk preparing to create his own version of Wikipedia after he has repeatedly accused the online encyclopedia of being too woke.

CNN Media Correspondent Hadas Gold joining me now. This could have big ramifications. When he took over Twitter, things got very, very dark with lots of racist and all sorts of homophobic and, you know, you name it, coming out on that particular platform. What are you expecting here?

HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Listen, Wikipedia, when you look on Wikipedia, it's first in Google searches. It's being used in a lot of A.I. models. If you are trying to control information, control a narrative, Wikipedia is a great place to start. Elon Musk, as you noted, has long had a history of bashing Wikipedia, called it woke, legacy media propaganda. But now, he's taking it a step further. At one point, he even offered to buy Wikipedia for a billion dollars if they changed their name to something inappropriate. Now, he is just building up his own version of Wikipedia.

And this is what he posted on X. He says we are building Grokipedia. It will be a massive improvement over Wikipedia. Frankly, it is a necessary step towards the XAI goal of understanding the universe. He re-tweeted one of his engineers at XAI who said that it'd be the world's most comprehensive knowledge base formed with rich multimodal sources, image, audio, and video.

Now, Elon Musk is obviously not the only one who's had a thing against Wikipedia. Conservatives have long bashed Wikipedia. Part of that reason is because Wikipedia doesn't necessarily want you to cite certain sources. A lot of them, including well-known conservative news sites like Breitbart. It does the same thing with some left-wing sites, but conservatives say that this means that it is just inherently biased. There's been other attempts to create Wikipedia alternatives. There was a Conservepedia that was launched in 2006, obviously didn't get nearly as possible.

As for Grokipedia, there's a lot of big questions about how is it going to be created. Wikipedia is crowdsourced. Anybody, you and I, can publicly edit. Will this be based off of Grok A.I., which we've seen has had lots of problems spewing out anti-Semitism and the like, not clear yet, Elon Musk posted a post trying to recruit people to join him. But now the takeaway is very clear, if you agree with Elon Musk's worldview, you can now have your own -- you can be on his social media site. You can have your A.I. chat bot, you're now going to be able to have Grokipedia all while driving your Tesla. He's creating his own world, his own bubble that you can now live in.

SIDNER: Yes. It is fascinating to see where this will go and how it will affect society as a whole.

Hadas Gold, it is always a pleasure. Thank you, great reporting.

All right ahead, clean up in the honey aisle. A bear caught on camera, look at this, making, you know, a little visit to the grocery store while folks are in there trying to do the same. There he goes. That story and more ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:50:00]

SIDNER: On our radar for you this morning, right now, there is a frantic search underway in Indonesia for students after a deadly school collapse. It happened two days ago and 91 people are still missing. At least three have died. A hundred more have been injured.

And at the moment, authorities have been able to locate six children who are alive and they're running food, water, and oxygen to those that are still trapped.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got some major breakage. There it goes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Also seen there, dramatic videos showing a house on North Carolina's outer banks collapsing into the ocean as Hurricanes Humberto and Imelda were passing offshore. A total of five homes ended up falling into the water from those big swells. Imelda is expected to strike Bermuda as a Category 2 storm today.

And take a look at this, this guy, very hungry, shoppers spotting a bear running through an Arizona grocery store. Everyone's fine, including the bear who eventually found his way out. Employees evacuated the store and called the police just to be safe. I just sort of wonder if he was able to get a snack after all that. I don't know.

Anyway, overnight a late night talent swap, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert appeared on each other's shows. They traded stories about being pulled off the air.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST, JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE: No. I never imagined that we'd ever have a president like this. And I hope we don't ever have another president like this again. I mean, I never imagined -- I never even imagined there would ever be a situation in which the president of our country was celebrating hundreds of Americans losing their jobs, somebody who took pleasure in that.

[08:55:04] That to me is the absolute opposite of what a leader of this country is supposed to be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: There were serious conversations. There were also jokes. Kimmel saying, of the dual appearances, we thought it might be a fun way to drive the president nuts. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Let's go back to the breaking news. We knew it was coming. It could have been avoided, but now it is here. The federal government is shut down amid a total deadlock between the president and Democrats in Congress. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are furloughed. Those deemed essential and still on the job aren't getting paid until this is over. And so far, there is no deal in sight at all.

Joining me right now is the Democratic senator, Chris Coons of Delaware, for more on this. Senator, thanks for being here.

I want to play for you right out of the gate what the vice president, J.D. Vance, said just this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: I'd offer right now to the Senate Democrats, I'm happy, I will go to the Capitol right now to talk to Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats about premium support for the Affordable Care Act, but only after they've reopened the government. You can't reward this exercise in hostage taking, which is what we would be doing if we allowed the government opening to be conditional on the Democrats' policy disagreements.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Do you see, Senator, this as an opening at all that he says he'll come to the Capitol today?

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): Kate, yes. We should be willing to talk with the Trump administration, with Republicans in Congress. I am. I know Chuck Schumer is. But let's be clear about what this shutdown is about. It's about your family and healthcare costs. President Trump ran on reducing costs and making America healthy again, and instead he's raising costs and making Americans sicker. Today, President Trump is imposing massive tariffs on drugs and pharmaceuticals imported from overseas. Today, many states are announcing the new health insurance costs, in my state, going up by between 25 and 35 percent for some of our larger health insurance companies for lots of Delawareans.

We need a path forward to address this and to reverse the big cuts that President Trump and Congressional Republicans already have underway for health research, for organizations like the National Institutes of Health and the Center for Disease Control that help fund things like research into fighting Alzheimer's and children's cancer. This should be bipartisan. We should be able to move forward in a way to reduce American's cost and makes Americans healthier. Instead, the actions of Congressional Republicans are doing the opposite. That's why we're standing up.

BOLDUAN: The reason Republicans say that Democrats are to blame for this shutdown, and you heard a little bit from J.D. Vance, but Senator John Hoeven put it a very specific way last night because Democrats are looking for policy changes as part of this. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN HOEVEN (R-ND): They can't vote for a clean C.R.? I mean, what's going on with that, right? And, you know, Senator Schumer says, oh, well, because there's no Democrat priorities in it. Well, there's no Republican priorities in it. It's a clean C.R.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: In March, I, you said on this show, I remember, that -- March of this year when funding almost lapsed, that you were voting no then because it was not a clean C.R. That was in March. You called it a dirty C.R. The policy director of the Committee for Responsible Federal Budget just said this about this piece of legislation that is being proposed. The House C.R. is just about as clean of a C.R. as you can get. So, what do you do?

COONS: Let me be clear about what I was saying in March and what I'm saying now. Yes, I agree with Senator Hoeven, there's no Democratic policy priorities in this continuing resolution in the direction of this government, because one of our core priorities is protecting Americans' healthcare. President Trump in his first term tried and tried and tried again to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Now, Republicans are trying to repeal what makes that affordable, which is the insurance subsidies that expire at the end of this year.

Insurance companies have to come out with new rates this month, and folks need to sign up for them next month. If you go check on your home state website for your insurance commissioner, like Delaware, your health insurance rates are going up somewhere between 30 and 50 percent. If J.D. Vance wants to come over and negotiate in good faith, how we will reform and extend, sustain these investments in Americans healthcare, we should be open to talking about that.

BOLDUAN: But, Senator --

[09:00:00]

COONS: But to continue in the direction -- to continue in the direction that President Trump and Congressional Republicans are taking our country is to mean to turn our backs on the healthcare of tens of millions of Americans.

BOLDUAN: but it is extending funding as funding stands. That is by the definition of what a clean C.R. is, as I've covered you and Congress for so many wonderful years, that is the definition of a clean C.R. of what is coming over from the House though.

And three Democrats last night in the Senate, they voted to support it and their reasoning was this. Senator Cortez Masto, this administration doesn't care about Nevadans, but I do. And that is why I cannot support a costly shutdown that would hurt Nevada families and hand even more power to a reckless administration. Angus King, the irony, the paradox is by shutting the government down, we're actually giving Trump more power. And that was why I voted yes.

What say you? How are they wrong?

COONS: Kate, I respect my -- Kate, I respect my colleagues back in March led by Senator Schumer and last night who voted against a government shutdown because they're afraid, they're concerned about what President Trump and reckless Republicans might do with the additional power and because of the costs on the millions of families --

BOLDUAN: But you are not?

COONS: -- of those who are in our Armed Forces. I am concerned, absolutely. I don't want our government to be shut down.

But I'm more concerned about the cost to Americans' healthcare of continuing in the direction Republicans have put us on. When they passed the big beautiful bill months ago, they imposed big changes in Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. And those are the backbone of what makes possible health insurance for tens of millions of Americans.

Kate, this will affect all Americans. If there's more folks who can't afford health insurance, they'll show up in the emergency room sicker and the emergency room wait times will get longer. The wait times for ambulances and paramedics will get longer. The cost burdens on hospitals will get higher. Later this morning, a meeting with the representatives of all the hospitals in Delaware, when we spoke several months ago, they said, without a change in direction, they're facing huge losses, hundreds of millions of dollars. It's time for us to change direction and to protect Americans healthcare, and, yes, while moving ahead with the government on the direction the Republicans have set fits the definition of a clean C.R.

I'm fighting for us to change direction and to restore some of these deep cuts to Americans' healthcare, so Americans get healthier, not sicker.

BOLDUAN: Senator Chris Coons, tough choices ahead, thanks for your time.

A new hour of CNN News Central starts right now.

[09:00:00]