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U.S. Economy Hangs in the Balance as Lawmakers Clash; Autopsy Set for Today to Confirm if Remains Found are Gabby Petito's; Biden Delivers First Speech Before U.N. General Assembly. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired September 21, 2021 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

ANA CABRERA, CNN NEWSROOM: Hello. Thanks for joining us. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York.

Today, a bitter showdown in Congress, if dysfunction triumphs over bipartisanship, a dual catastrophe could hit the U.S. economy, sending shockwaves around the globe and into your wallet. It's this simple. Congress will vote on funding the federal government. If it fails, the government shuts down. And if Congress doesn't raise the limit on federal borrowing, America could run out of cash and default for the first time in U.S. history.

Lawmakers will have one chance to avert both disasters because Democrats tied the two measures together hoping to force the hand of at least ten Republican senators.

In just hours, the House side will vote. What happens in this fight could determine what happens with the infrastructure package and President Biden's $3.5 trillion budget package. The U.S. economy and the Biden agenda in the balance.

CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju joins us on the Hill. Manu, first, just walk us through the timeline for today.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, today, the House Democrats are going to move forward on that plan to keep the government open up until December, also extend the nation's borrowing limit through the November 22 midterms. But there's a problem. They do not have the votes to get that out of the Senate. Today, they plan to pass it. And then in the Senate, the Republicans say they have the votes to block it. They want the Democrats to move that debt limit increase, a very politically toxic vote, on their own through a separate process, and that is leading to major questions about how this gets resolved.

But, Ana, it's still uncertain whether the Democrats can get this out of the House at the moment because they are squabbling internally over $1 billion that they want to add to funding the Israel security system known as the iron dome. Some progressives are pushing back on that. So they're trying to resolve that issue behind the scenes. But once they do, they hope to get it out of the House and then it goes to the Senate, where we know what the fate is going to be. The Republicans will block it and they'll have figure out what plan B be is. CABRERA: The political stakes obviously could not be higher for either party. Which one has leverage?

RAJU: It remains to be seen how this ultimately plays out. The Democrats are unclear on how they will respond once Republicans do block this effort going forward. But you mentioned it, a number of major issues, roughly $5 trillion in new programs and spending, as well as taxes all hang in the balance as well. Next Monday, the Democratic leadership has set a deadline to have a House vote on September 27th on that $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan that passed the Senate last month.

But there's a problem. Progressives are threatening to sink that plan, if that larger Democratic-only approach to deal with the rest of the spending and expand the social safety net has not passed Congress by that point, and there's no chance it will pass Congress by that point. But multiple liberals told me over the last day or so that it makes sense to slow down, potentially thwart that bipartisan infrastructure bill if they don't get that larger package. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: The moderate Democrats think you're bluffing on this and you guys will fall in line ultimately when this vote happens.

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): They can take that bet if they want. I can -- I can say that they are bluffing on how many Republicans are going to go with us. But even if they had that number of Republicans to go on the bipartisan bill, we would still have enough votes to defeat it.

RAJU: Senator, progressives in the House are threatening to sink the infrastructure bill if the reconciliation bill is not passed in both chambers by next Monday. Is that the right approach?

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): Look, we had an agreement from the beginning and that was that there would be one package. It might take multiple votes but that one package would move forward.

Look, I know a lot of people would say let's try to break this thing apart, take it in smaller bites. But the reality is, in the world of the filibuster, we've got one bite at passing a lot of this through, and we cannot fail the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So, this is the real question here, whether or not the progressives ultimately fall in line, or whether they do, in fact, block that infrastructure package, and if they do, what does that mean for the rest of the Biden agenda? So many questions here, Ana, uncertain how they will get resolved. And, ultimately, will it all collapse? That remains to be seen. Ana?

CABRERA: Okay. Manu Raju, thank you so much.

Let's bring in CNN Economics and Political Commentator Catherine Rampell and CNN Senior Political Analyst and former adviser to four presidents David Gergen.

Catherine, let's try to simplify this all and why it matters for our viewers. Everyday Americans are worrying about going to work. They are worried about making rent, paying the bills and now they are supposed to worry about Congress paying its bills. What is at stake for viewers at home here?

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There is never a convenient time, I would say, to have a financial crisis and another recession, but probably now is the least convenient time precisely because of all of the other crises you just mentioned that America is going through.

[13:05:04]

If the United States government cannot pay its bills, and, again, these are bills that have already been committed to not new spending. This is about basically paying off your existing credit card bill. If the U.S. government runs out of cash, can't pay those bills, a few things happen. One is that social security checks can't get paid, military service members don't get their salaries, et cetera, all of the things basically that government pays for. Two is that we violate the Constitution. The Constitution explicitly says that the public debt shall not be questioned. And three is that we could potentially set off panic throughout financial markets around the world. That's the financial crisis piece of this that I was talking about.

Essentially, right now, U.S. debt, because we've never defaulted among other things, is considered the safest of safe assets. And if we prove that we're actually quite cavalier about paying back our creditors, then that not only freaks out people who buy U.S. treasuries, U.S. debt, that almost every other financial asset that is benchmarked against U.S. debt.

So you could have this potentially cascading set of panic, again, throughout financial markets around the world that could take us back into recession, so not a lot of good outcomes here.

CABRERA: Yes. And, David, just the politics of this, as Catherine pointed out, Republicans agreed to spend the money that is now, you know, coming due, but yet they are saying they are not going to vote for this. Democrats are squabbling over how much they are going to allow on the other side and the fact that these two measures are put together now. Are Republicans thinking they have leverage here to kind of sit back and do nothing because they see Democrats getting blamed for any shutdown or other consequences since they control Congress and the White House?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, as you said in the beginning, Ana, this is very complicated and it's worth simplifying. I have full confidence right now that the Congress and the president will come together and we will not default on our loans or on our spending. We owe these bills. We've always paid them, as you've said. In the past, on 80 different occasions, 8-0 occasions, the Congress and the president worked this how the. They have never failed to work it out. One thing that's -- I caution a note here that's really important. Ten years ago, we almost went over the cliff. You'll remember we came very close to defaulting. And it was worked out just at the last minute when we were on the edge of the cliff. At that very time, that cost us economically. We paid a big price for that. Our credit rating was downgraded. And if we went through another downgrading here in the midst of this pandemic, you know, all bets are off about what that does to the economy. So I think it will be done one way or the other. I think we'll get an agreement.

The question politically is does it shift the blame to one or the other parties. And who winds up is when they're putting a tail on the donkey, where does that tail wind up, and I don't think we know that yet. That's why both sides are being cautious. But I think the costs of failure, Catherine outlined those extremely well.

CABRERA: Let me come back to you on that, Catherine, because you both made this important, and it's an important point. Playing chicken with the nation's finances has become routine with the Congress but the U.S. has never failed to pay its bills, right? So, how realistic is an economic catastrophe, as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is warning about?

RAMPELL: Well, if it happened, for all the reasons I just explained, it would be very, very bad. I hope dearly that it does not happen.

Here's a reason why I'm a little more nervous this time around even though it seems likely we've been through this game before and it's always gotten resolved. The issue is that if Democrats are going to do this alone, that is through a special process called reconciliation, that has a lot of intermediate legislative steps that require floor time. It basically takes a fair amount of time for them to get that process going so that they could do it alone. And it seems like Democrats are waiting instead for Republicans to blink and decide to agree to suspend the debt ceiling all together through a bipartisan basis.

So if they are waiting a while before they begin this protracted basis and we also have a fair amount of uncertainty about when the government is going to run out of money, probably sometime in October, that's what Secretary Janet Yellen has said, but we don't really know. There's even more uncertainty this time around because of the pandemic and, you know, how frequently revenues are coming and that sort of thing, you could have a situation where we are about to run out of cash much more quickly than we had anticipated and Democrats don't have their ducks in a row.

So, that's what I'm worried about in this situation. That's a little different from previous ones, again, because there are all of those protracted steps Democrats would have to go through and that they seemed to be putting off because they are hoping, I think, naively that Republicans will do the right thing here.

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CABRERA: David, the president's party, traditionally, we know, struggles to hold seats in midterm elections. Does this feel like the last chance for Democrats to turn President Biden's agenda into reality through legislation?

GERGEN: I think Democrats have a real risk in looking towards the elections. Right now, if the election were held today, I think the Republicans would probably get the House back. So the Democrats really have to focus on this.

But I do think Janet Yellen has -- I think Catherine's point about whether we have so little time, we do have very little time. And I think that's why Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary, has already moved this into the center of the conversation because the country, you know, for a lot of people around the country this all comes out of the blue. What are you talking about? Why are with own the edge of a crisis on paying our bills? And I think she's going to get people stirred up.

The real issue politically is, again though, who winds up taking the blame for all of these deficits and there's the rewards that comes from passing a major Democratic bill, do the rewards outweigh the costs of driving up the deficits more in the future? That is what is at stake.

And I don't think we have the answers yet, but, again, I think we should be reasonably confident that the debt ceiling question will be worked out but what effect it has upon the rest of the Biden agenda is very unclear.

CABRERA: David Gergen and Catherine Rampell, I really appreciate you both. Thank you so much for joining us.

GERGEN: Thank you.

CABRERA: Coming up, for the first time in two decades, a peacetime president on the world stage. We head live to the United Nations as President Biden makes his case that America is ready to lead. But are other world leaders ready to welcome the U.S. back to the table?

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[13:15:00]

CABRERA: We turn now to the new developments in the disappearance of Gabby Petito. Today, an autopsy is expected to confirm if the remains found in Wyoming over the weekend are her. This as a search for her now missing fiance, Brian Laundrie, resumes at a Florida nature reserve. The FBI yesterday carting away evidence after raiding his home, and CNN's Leyla Santiago joins us in Venice, Florida.

Leyla, Laundrie has now been missing for a week. What more are you learning about this search that has since resumed?

LEYLA SANTIAGO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we are back at what they call the Carlton Reserve, 25,000 acres of a wildlife reserve where right now I can hear a chopper circling over. We've seen ATVs come and going as the search continues very active. They are still very much searching for Brian Laundrie.

Now, this comes after just yesterday police told us that they had exhausted every avenue possible here but what else happened yesterday? You said it, Ana. The FBI also questioned the parents and now they are back here. We learned from one of the search teams inside that they were requested for assistance to help with this search yesterday afternoon. So, clearly, they are after something that changed in the last 24 hours.

Now, you mentioned that autopsy for the human remains found in the Grand Teton National Park. We expect that that might be able to give us at least some more insight on confirmation of the identity. But, remember, FBI agents did say that the remains found were consistent with the description of Gabby Petito and her family has been notified.

And here's something else. We've obtained a 911 call that paints a picture as to how this road trip that the two went on, Gabby Petito and her fiance, Brian Laundrie, was going at that time. At some point somebody called 911 indicating a domestic dispute between the two in Moab, Utah. Listen to the 911 call.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We drove by and the gentleman was slapping the girl.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was slapping her?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, and then we stopped. They ran up and down the sidewalk. He proceeded to hit her, hopped in the car and they drove off.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANTIAGO: Do I have time to get into this?

And so these are little pieces of the puzzle that are coming together as investigators try to find out where is Brian Laundrie.

We've also learned that police have spoken to a woman who claims that on August 29th, she and her boyfriend picked up Brian Laundrie at he was hitchhiking in that -- very close to that area of where the human remains were found, Ana.

CABRERA: And, Leyla, quickly, if you will, an autopsy of the remains matching Petito's description was set for today. When will we know the results?

SANTIAGO: Well, we don't know. That's something that we can maybe get part of early on with a preliminary report, with some preliminary finding, if they can match that DNA quickly, but it could also be a while, if not, everything is in place to help the medical examiner move forward with the findings and confirmation.

CABRERA: It seems like obviously a key piece of the puzzle right now. Leyla Santiago, thank you for that update. Joining us now, Anthony Barksdale, former Baltimore City Deputy Police Commissioner.

Anthony, yesterday, officials said they had exhausted all avenues searching the grounds of this local nature reserve looking for Laundrie. But, today, investigators are back out there. What do you make of this reversal?

ANTHONY BARKSDALE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, sometimes you have to go back to a crime scene. Maybe you got some new information that you didn't have before that you need to focus on a specific area looking for specific evidence.

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So, you go back. And as long as the crime scene is protected, it's maintained and held, it's a good thing. It happens when you have a case like this. So it's, to me, good law enforcement work.

CABRERA: This nature preserve is large, 25,000 acres, extremely wooded as we can see, it's swampy, likely full of gators because, after all, this is Florida. How difficult is it to conduct a search like this?

BARKSDALE: I'm sure it is difficult but we do have technology now. They can put drones up in the air. They can use aviation with thermal vision to see if there's movement, heat signatures, et cetera. So, I mean, this is something I think that we have enough technology in law enforcement now to assist those on the ground with whatever it is they are looking for.

CABRERA: Anthony Barksdale, thank you, as always, for giving us your insights and expertise.

BARKSDALE: No problem.

CABRERA: President Biden's first major address to the United Nations General Assembly outlining his world view, that's next.

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[13:25:00]

CABRERA: President Biden says this is a decisive decade for the world and the decisions made today will have consequences for generations to come.

The president just wrapped up his first speech before the United Nations General Assembly. In his debut on the world stage, he called for strengthening alliances, addressing global warming and unity to defeat COVID.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: As a global community, we're challenged by urgent and looming crises wherein lie enormous opportunities if, if we can summon the will and resolve to seize these opportunities. Will we work together to save lives, defeat COVID-19 everywhere and take the necessary steps to prepare ourselves for the next pandemic?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: CNN Chief National Affairs Correspondent Jeff Zeleny joins us from the U.N. And, Jeff, besides his speech, the president also met with the Australian prime minister in the midst of tensions with France. What can you tell us about that meeting?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Ana, well, we are learning that President Biden's meeting with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison in his -- on the verge of wrapping up, and that's been a little more than an hour-long meeting. Normally, not as much attention would be shining on a meeting between two longtime allies, the U.S. and Australia, but it certainly has because of the submarine deal we've been talking about since last week, of course, a trilateral new approach to essentially confront China between Australia, the U.K. and the U.S.

So, President Biden has been talking with the Australian prime minister right now. He'll be leaving New York shortly flying back to Washington to meet this evening at the White House with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. So, certainly, focusing on those allies, but, of course, it has left France out, a longtime U.S. ally, President Emmanuel Macron of France not even coming to the United Nations. He's furious at the U.S. over this submarine deal.

But a bigger point here of President Biden's speech to the United Nations General Assembly, his first such address, was trying to move America and the world beyond what he called it an era of relentless war to an era of relentless diplomacy. He laid out all of the challenges, from COVID-19, of course, to cyber threats, to other types of terror threats. And he said it is incumbent on the world to simply work together. So it's certainly testing his resolve. He's long talked about the mantra, America is back. Now, he'll be judged on his own record here.

And, frankly, there was some skepticism in the room among leaders at his remarks. There's some anger still resituating over the Afghanistan pullout but he did defend the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and he said it simply is time to move on beyond that. He said this is not 2001. There are new, more modern day threats.

So, the president's first address here to the U.N. certainly laying out his position, turning the page from the Trump administration, no question, difference in tone and style, but the question is for some allies, how much difference is there in the substance? Ana?

CABRERA: Yes, the action. Jeff Zeleny, I appreciate it. Thank you.

The president's speech before the U.N. comes at a potentially pivotal moment. We talk about all these challenges, the dispute with France, the tragic drone strike that killed African civilians, the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. So what impact might this speech have? Joining us to discuss CNN Global Affairs Analyst Kimberly Dozier and CNN Military Analyst retired Army Major General James Spider Marks. It's always great to have you both with us.

Kim, a president not at war for the first time in 20 years, and he certainly sought to shift America's global focus and to make clear that America is back to claim its leadership position on the world stage. Was this a successful reset?