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Military Death Benefits to be Fixed; Rep. Buck McKeon Talks Death Benefits, Obamacare, Shutdown; GOP Signals Changing Tactics; Glitches Plague Obamacare Website; Father of Stowaway Boy Speaks Out.

Aired October 09, 2013 - 13:30   ET

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

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. You just heard the news here on CNN. Jay Carney announcing the president expects, expecting those death benefits to the families of fallen troops to be reinstated as early as today. The remains of four U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan were returned home today at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Their families have not received the $100,000 death benefit due to the partial shutdown here in Washington. It's just one of the many indignities that veterans are suffering under the furloughs.

Republican Congressman Buck McKeon, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is joining us.

Mr. Chairman, thanks very much for coming in.

REP. HOWARD "BUCK" MCKEON, (R-CA), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Let me get your quick reaction to what we heard from Jay Carney. The president was upset when he learned that the death benefits would not be provided to those families of military servicemembers killed in action. Have you been informed that this has already been resolved? Will it be resolved?

MCKEON: We never thought it was going to be a problem. We passed pay our military act over a week ago when there was talk of a possible shutdown. We thought that would cover any kind of contingency like this, that the military would be unaffected. When we found that this was not so, that they were interpreting it differently, then we brought a bill to the floor. It's already been debated. In a few minutes we'll vote on it and that, I'm sure, will pass overwhelmingly. I'm glad that the president is on the same page as us. If we can get the Senate to also conform, we should have this problem fixed tomorrow. It's just an unfortunate thing that ever happened.

BLITZER: The piecemeal legislation passed by the House, taken up by the Senate, one of the only things that did pass by the Senate was making sure that the U.S. military would be paid on time. So who screwed up?

MCKEON: Right.

BLITZER: Do you know where this failure to make sure that the spouses of military personnel killed in action, families of those killed in action would not be reimbursed immediately for funeral expenses, for going to Dover, do you know where that screw-up occurred?

MCKEON: No. I think it is just a misunderstanding. We thought it was covered. The think it was. We have a good relationship. I encouraged them to be very liberal in his interpretation of that law because our intent was to make sure that all of these expenses were covered. So it's just a sad thing that it happened. They should have had that $100,000 within 36 hours of the passing of their loved ones.

BLITZER: You know, there would be no problems whatsoever in terms of funding the military, funding everyone in the U.S. government if you and the House of Representatives, the Republican majority, passed a clean C.R., this continuing resolution that the Democrats support, which would allow the government to go back to business as usual at the funding level that the Republicans want. And there are at least 19 or 20 of your colleagues, Republican colleagues who say they are willing to vote for such a clean bill. What about you?

MCKEON: I really want to see the president sit down and visit with us on this. You know, I come from a business background. We had retail stores and my interpretation of what the president is asking is sign the lease and then we'll talk about what's in the lease. You know, that's not something that we practice as a good business practice and I don't think it's something that we should sign on to here. So I think that we're -- we're -- we're being open. We say what we're asking is just to sit down and talk to us. I don't think that's an unreasonable demand and I think that the president is kind of trying to move in that direction. He's bringing some of the Democratic Congressmen down to the White House to talk. We just think when he finally gets to the point where he'll include all of us, Republicans are in control in the House, we should be included in those negotiations.

BLITZER: Was it a blunder for the Republicans to demand some changes to Obamacare as a condition for avoiding a government shutdown, whether defunding or delaying various aspects of that? Bringing in Obamacare, was that a major mistake on the part of Republicans?

MCKEON: Well, we are all elected, each of us, 435 members of the House. We listen to our constituents. We listen to them and many of them thought that was a very, very important issue. I think as time goes on and we see some of the tremendous problems that this law is causing, that maybe it was a little overreached to ask for it to be defunded. I mean, the president is so committed to it. But I think it was very reasonable to ask for a year's delay, especially when he had given it to so many people already. Why not the people that are going to be the ones hit with penalties? I think that was very legitimate and I think as we see all of the people -- I heard that they've had over eight million hits, people that have tried to sign up and so far they have people in the single digits that have signed up. Now, obviously there is something very wrong there. And these are coming from -- these statements are coming from bipartisan people that are concerned about the implementation of a law.

BLITZER: When you say single digits, I'm not exactly clear what you mean by that.

(CROSSTALK)

MCKEON: Single digits would be less than 10.

BLITZER: Less than 10 people out of the millions that have experimented? Is that what you're saying?

MCKEON: I'm saying I read that in an article in "Forbes" today.

BLITZER: Less than 10 Americans have signed up for Obamacare? Nationwide? Is that nationwide?

MCKEON: That was -- that was one statement that I read. I heard on the paper -- or on the radio today, they said, in the state of Maryland, 565 people, something like that have signed up. In other words, it's a very small number and it's because it's a lot more difficult than what we were told it would be. And it's going to cause a lot of problems for people that -- one of the guys on the McAfee, who is a guru on Internet security, said that this is going to be -- and I quote him -- "a wet dream for hackers." They are going to take advantage of millions of people. They will set up a legitimate- looking website. The whole way they set this up, there's no control by the government. People can come in and set up a phony website and take advantage of people. And they will ask, you know, for their Social Security numbers, their birth date. They will be able to take all of their assets and they won't even know what is happening to them.

BLITZER: All right. Congressman McKeon, this is the last question, you will still require some modification to Obamacare in order to vote for legislation that would reopen the government?

MCKEON: No, I'm not laying out any conditions. I think the leadership is doing that. They are trying to just get in to where they can talk about it. I'm just saying that was -- there was reason why we did what we did. And I think time will show that people that held that position were justified in asking for those changes. And I'm, frankly, surprised that the president, who gave a year delay to business and union leaders, why didn't he give that to the people? We'll just see how that all plays out.

I think that what we really need to do is sit down, talk about it, get it worked out, get this problem solved, get the American people back to work, and those who haven't been working, get jobs for them. That's what is really crucial.

BLITZER: I think a lot of people will agree with you on that. Everyone will agree with you on that. And get the military operating full speed ahead as well without any setbacks and humiliations that have occurred over the last few days.

Buck McKeon, thanks for coming in.

MCKEON: Thank you. BLITZER: So have Republicans changed their message? In an opinion piece today, by Congressman Paul Ryan, omits one of the key demands, a key demand that it's been making over the past several weeks. Gloria Borger is standing by live. We'll discuss.

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BLITZER: Just want to update you object the information we're getting. I want to clarify how many people have so far signed up for Obamacare based on the interview I just did of Buck McKeon. Based on -- we're not getting numbers from the federal government so far. They say they will, once a month, release numbers but three states so far, Kentucky, Maryland, and Washington State. In those three states, they say 16,724 people so far have enrolled in Obamacare. That's more than single digits, obviously, 16,724. That's in those three states. At some point, the federal government will release numbers nationwide.

Meanwhile, it appears House Republicans have adopted new tactic has been adopted in the showdown with the White House. Wisconsin Congressman, former vice presidential nominee, Paul Ryan, wrote in the "Wall Street Journal" today, among other things, he said this: "The president is giving Congress the silent treatment. He's refusing to talk even though the federal government is about to hit the debt ceiling. To break the deadlock, both sides should agree to commonsense reforms of the country's entitlement programs and tax code."

You may have noticed something was missing in that message. But a staffer in Senator Ted Cruz's office spotted the omission right away. He's sending out a tweet, and let me quote that tweet: "There is one big word missing from this op-ed: It starts with an 'o' and ends with 'bamacare'."

Our chief political analyst, Gloria Borger, is here. She just wrote an excellent column on CNN.com on this thunderous silence, if you will.

Explain what you make of this. Why, for example, Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, vice presidential nominee, why didn't he mention something, among other things, you write -- and I'll let you read it.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: "So Speaker Boehner, no fool, carefully turned the page on all of this, moving to the terra firma he has always wanted to be in the first place: deficit reduction. Tie a package of spending cuts to raising the debt ceiling, he says, that's what has always been done."

So, Wolf, what we see here is the strategy that has been evolving. They understand that they stepped on their own message on Obamacare. You were talking about the glitches in the system with the Congressman. They would have had a great hook. They want to criticize Obamacare, talk about the problems with just getting on to these exchanges. They would have had the bully pulpit on that. We saw at the president's presser, not one question was raised about Obamacare, because what was everybody talking about? The government shutdown. So now, Speaker Boehner, starting over the weekend, has clearly turned a page to where he wanted to be in the first place, which is to talk about deficit reduction and tie that to the debt ceiling. But you still have Ted Cruz out there and he represents one wing of the Republican Party and Paul Ryan clearly represents another wing of the Republican Party. Paul Ryan is much more about getting those entitlement cuts and Ted Cruz is still talking Obamacare.

BLITZER: And I read the op-ed that Eric Cantor, the majority leader, wrote in "The Washington Post." A little mention of Obamacare but he certainly didn't make that the central issue.

BORGER: No. Because now, they have done this pivot and we saw the speaker go on the House floor this morning talking about Obamacare, talking about the glitches because they also have to get to that message, because they haven't been doing that very effectively. So in all of this I think they kind of understand that they -- that their message has been muddled, it's been unpopular. And in many ways, they have promised conservatives something that they can't deliver, which is the repeal or defunding Obamacare.

BLITZER: Yeah.

BORGER: They knew all along, Wolf, that could never happen.

BLITZER: The president is not going to go along with that.

BORGER: Of course.

BLITZER: You'll be with me at 3:00 p.m. We're going to be covering the president's historical announcement of the first woman potentially to head the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen, if she's confirmed by the Senate. She has a good chance of being confirmed. We'll see what happens in that fight.

BORGER:

BLITZER: Stand by for that.

Frustration grows over the Obamacare website. Glitches and serious problems have bogged down the site since it was launched last week. The Obama administration blames high traffic. Republicans argue it was not ready for primetime. We have more when we come back.

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BLITZER: More than a week after its launch, the federal health care website is still plagued by major problems. Long wait times, error messages, crashes, other issues are preventing many people from signing up for insurance.

Brian Todd has been taking a closer look at this story.

What are we seeing right now well into a week into this new program.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A week into it, Wolf, still a lot of glitches. People not able to create accounts just to get information to possibly enroll, much less not being able to enroll in the plan. Still a lot of problems.

I was with a data base company owner named Lu Chung (ph). He's out of Vienna, Virginia. He's tried to enroll in this since the roll-out on October 1st. He, as a database company owner, he knows this stuff. He says is really is just poorly designed. It's not user friendly. He's still not able to enroll, much less navigate and get information. Just when I was with him, he got an error message saying he wouldn't be able to go further. He went into a chat room trying to get information and was told there were others ahead of him. Even trying to chat with someone on the website, people are having problems.

But we're also hearing now, Wolf, is that the administration was warned about these potential problems months in advance.

We spoke to Robert Lushevsky (ph), a health care consultant who has clients who are insurers. He said his insurers who dealt with the administration in the months ahead of time -- he said the insurers he dealt with had contentious meetings with people at HHS and other people in charge of this. Contentious meetings in the months before this rollout, warning them, this isn't working. It's not going to be smooth. Don't do it. He says those warning were ignored them, they went full speed ahead, and said we'll work the problems out. There has been a bit of pushback from the White House. We'll hope to get more from them. We are running this --

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BLITZER: If they had three years to get this ready, if they weren't fully ready, they should accept the advice a lot of Republicans are giving them, delay it for a year, get it ready and make sure it works. There are other government health care-related websites that work great, socialseurity.gov, a whole bunch of others. They know how to do it. If they didn't get it ready in time, make sure to get it right.

TODD: Right.

BLITZER: Thanks very much. Brian, you'll have more in "The Situation Room." Thank you.

A lot of people are wondering how a 9-year-old boy managed to hop a flight to Las Vegas, including his own dad. His dad gave a news conference, hiding his face, but revealing information about how he tried to help his troubled son. We'll have a report when we come back.

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BLITZER: New developments today on that 9-year-old boy who hopped a flight from Minneapolis to Las Vegas with no adult present and no ticket. Today, his father appeared before cameras, his face hidden, because he wants to remain anonymous. He says he tried to get his son some help but couldn't. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FATHER OF STOWAWAY BOY: He's not what you call an honest dude. OK? He had his ups, he had his downs. And you know, the principal gives me a phone call saying my son's doing this, doing that. I go up to the school and sit down with the principal, we talked. OK? We put in a plan for the services he needed. But I'm just hoping it's not too late for somebody to please help me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: What a story that is.

That's it for me this hour. I'll be back in one hour, 3:00 p.m. eastern, for special coverage of Janet Yellen's nomination as chair of the Federal Reserve, then again, back at 5:00 p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room."

NEWSROOM will continue right after this with Brooke Baldwin.

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