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Democrats Facing Dual Battles on Infrastructure and Debt Ceiling; Companies Across the U.S. Terminating Workers for Defying Vaccine Mandates; New Poll Suggests Parents Split Over Vaccinating Younger Kids. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired September 29, 2021 - 09:00   ET

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

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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Very good Wednesday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Erica Hill.

To say the next 48 hours are critical may be a gross understatement this morning. The clock is ticking for Congress to avoid a partial government shutdown. That deadline, midnight Thursday. Also tomorrow, Speaker Nancy Pelosi set to hold a vote on President Biden's infrastructure bill. The president working behind the scenes to salvage his economic agenda as his own party threatens to derail all of it, and really the only thing we know this morning is that no one seems to know how this will end.

SCIUTTO: At play here on both fronts, massive implications for the U.S. economy. Therefore for you and me. A shutdown would mean government services across the board would close millions of Americans already burdened with financial hardships on the pandemic would feel the impact if the U.S. runs out of money. Federal workers would not get paid. Payments to Medicaid recipients would be halted as well.

Social Security checks would not hit bank accounts and paychecks for our troops would stop. For those of you receiving the child tax credit, that would end as well. So can Democrats overcome the GOP blockade to avert the looming shutdown? Well, President Biden bridge the divides within his own party to push his agenda over the finish line?

CNN congressional correspondent Lauren Fox is on Capitol Hill, White House correspondent Jeremy Diamond also with us.

Lauren, to you first, to be clear, we have been here before. We have been here where Congress gets close to the brink, frankly when both parties have been in power, Republicans and Democrats, yet they pull back from that brink. How close are we to it now and what are you hearing from lawmakers as we get closer?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, I think it depends on which piece of legislation we're talking about. When it comes to funding the government, that deadline that is coming on Friday, no matter what, we have seen some progress. Last night there was a circulation among members of that government spending bill that would fund the government through early December. It was essentially a clean bill, that means it didn't include the increase to the country's borrowing limit, that had been the obstacle for getting Republicans on board.

So that may be moving positively on that front. But, when it comes to that bipartisan infrastructure bill, there is a lot of work left to do. You still have this massive divide between progressives and moderates in the House of Representatives with those progressives arguing they want some kind of promise from moderates like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. You saw both of those senators at the White House yesterday.

Kyrsten Sinema at the White House three different times. And that is because they are trying to work with her to satisfy some of her concerns. Can they get there in the next 24 hours before Pelosi had promised her moderates to put this bill on the floor? That remains to be seen. We also know, of course, that moderates in the House are going to be very frustrated if Pelosi pulls that vote.

Here's what one moderate, Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, said about his progressive colleagues who are holding up this infrastructure vote.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER (D-NJ): It just doesn't make any sense to me that you have a faction of folks in my party that would blow up the president's agenda, refuse to vote on infrastructure as some sort of way to hold up progress. I mean, so that's why I believe at the end of the day, we'll unify, we'll get it done.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: If it's not $3.5 trillion, what is your number?

GOTTHEIMER: I love you, but we're not going to negotiate on television here and --

BERMAN: But that's the problem.

GOTTHEIMER: We're going to work that out.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: And that, of course, has been part of the problem. A lot of members don't want to negotiate on television or in public or even with their own colleagues. That has been part of the frustration we've been hearing from Democrats over the last several days about Sinema and Manchin. Many of them just want to hear those members come out with a topline number, how much would you be willing to spend on that bigger $3.5 trillion project?

They just aren't saying it at this point and that's part of the reason that there is this holdup in the House of Representatives over whether or not progressives are going to get behind that infrastructure bill that is ready to go now -- Jim and Erica. SCIUTTO: Erica, I think every lawmaker bite should start with the

phrase, I love you, by the way. And I think, you know, that would solve all our problems.

HILL: You know, I guess, when they're talking to John Berman, they do that. Maybe not always to us.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HILL: But I'm going to see what we can do. Maybe Lauren can put in a good word for us.

Jeremy, as we look at all of this, the role of the president can't be understated here. Who -- we know has always touted his 36 years in the Senate, touts what he's doing. What is happening at the White House? Because there is some criticism that maybe the president isn't doing enough right now especially as his agenda and frankly the possibility of, you know, maintaining a hold in Washington are literally in the balance.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, over the last week there's no question that President Biden has really deepened his involvement in these negotiations. We saw that playing out yesterday as Senators Manchin and Sinema shuttled to the White House, Senator Sinema several times, once to meet with the president, other times to meet with staff.

[09:05:04]

And we are expecting her to return to the White House at some point today to meet with the president. And it's important to recognize here today the president was supposed to be traveling to Chicago for an event focused on vaccine requirements. Instead, White House officials and the president deciding yesterday that the president should stay in town, canceling that trip. One source familiar with these discussions told me that they felt that progress was being made and they decided that they wanted to keep our, quote, "big gun in town."

That referring to the president and his ability to negotiate on these agreements. So the president's schedule today is actually quite blank in terms of his public schedule and that is by design, to give him the flexibility, to be on the phone with lawmakers, to have lawmakers come to the White House and meet in person. All we know so far is of Senator Sinema who is expected to come here at some point.

But there is this question of whether the president is staying in town because progress is being made as these White House officials are claiming or perhaps because negotiations are at such an incredibly precarious point. It is important to note that the president's meetings yesterday did not yield any firm commitment from Senator Sinema or Senator Manchin on what topline number they are willing to support, what priorities they want to make sure are funded, and others they want to leave behind.

And so there is still a big question mark around the president's ability to actually seal the deal here, but, again, these next 48 hours so, so critical, part of the reason why the president is staying in town.

SCIUTTO: We'll see if he moves the ball.

Lauren Fox, Jeremy Diamond, thanks very much to both of you.

So right now leaders in the Senate are working to expedite a bill to avoid a government shutdown. That so-called clean bill would fund the government through December 3rd, but it would not include a suspension of the debt limit. In effect solving one problem but not the other. This as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warns that flirting, even flirting with the default could be catastrophic for the U.S. economy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANET YELLEN, TREASURY SECRETARY: This would be a manufactured crisis we had imposed on this country, which has been going through a very difficult period, is on the road to recovery and it would be a self- inflicted wound of enormous proportions.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Self-inflicted wound of enormous proportions.

CNN chief business correspondent Christine Romans joining us now with more.

Look, we know some of the -- largest companies are preparing for the U.S. to default. What would that look like? What would this actually mean?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: So this is playing with fire. We know from the Treasury secretary that October 18th is the date. She can move money around in different accounts until then and then on October 18th there is not enough money to pay all the bills. So the U.S. would have to pick and choose which bills to pay, contractors, federal workers wouldn't get paid. That's terrible for consumer spending.

You have JPMorgan chief executive officer Jamie Dimond saying they're already gaming out. This will look like the last time that they had to game us out. It cost them something like $100 million. So that's according to Reuters. So this is a dangerous game to be playing really and going right up to the deadline is just a simple intelligence test for Washington. Even if the tax receipts are a little bit off, what is coming into the treasury and suddenly it's October 17th is that date when you can't pay the bills, that triggers an accidental default, which can trigger a downgrade of the U.S. credit rating and global financial crisis, right?

So among -- and what you're seeing there, the top concerns among CEOs are what you're seeing in Washington. But they're also -- the backdrop here is labor shortages, concern about higher corporate taxes down the line, and inflation that we've seen in the system. So there is a lot going on, this is not the time to be playing with fire as Washington is. I will make one final point, you guys. In the past 50 years, 78 times

the debt ceiling has been raised, 49 times under a Republican president, 29 times under a Democratic president. So these Republican lawmakers who are intransigent here today, they have raised the debt ceiling before in other administrations.

SCIUTTO: Yes. That kind of fights the definition of ceiling, right? It keeps getting raised. I mean, it's sort of mythical Washington thing weaponized now.

ROMANS: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Christine Romans, thanks very much.

Joining us now to discuss is Rachael Bade, CNN political analyst and co-author of the political playbook, and Errol Louis, CNN political commentator and political anchor of Spectrum News.

Thanks very much to both you. Rachael, you've been reporting this out hard. I mean, what's -- to be fair, we've been up against this brink before and they pulled back, right? Dangerous to get there, but they always seem to pull back. What's different about this one is Democrats control House, Senate, and the White House, right? I mean, closest we got before is when you had a split there.

I mean, my question is, are Democrats really going to do this? Right? Not only get to that brink, but blow up Biden's legislative agenda. I mean, are the splits that severe?

RACHAEL BADE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I mean, clearly Democrats right now want to blame Republicans for sort of shifting the goal post when it comes to the debt ceiling. They want to say look, they've done this a million times.

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Now that we're in power they are changing the dynamic here and saying they're not going to help us. And that is true. But the problem with that is if this occurs, a default occurs and the economy starts reeling, this is going to happen on their own watch and we've already seen some polling showing that people would blame both parties but would actually blame Democrats who are in power more so than Republicans.

And so Democrats have to take that into consideration, think about the political consequences, but also what they want to get done in the next few weeks and how that would be affected if there was a default.

HILL: The way that all of this is coming to a head, you know, sort of feels like we have been building up to this moment over the last several days. Here we are at this point and the infighting is now seems to be -- or the disagreements, Errol, seem to be at the leadership level as well when we look at Democrats, specifically looking at the infrastructure bill.

What is amazing to me is we now have Bernie Sanders saying OK, we can kill this, as we couple that with reporting in "The New York Times" that Senators Portman and Romney are actually doing their best to shore up Republican votes. I mean, when you're looking at that as the table that is set before you, how much optimism is there that something actually does get done?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, this is brinksmanship. Whether it's coming from Senator Sanders or Representative Jayapal, the progressives have said that they want to go to the brink, that they want to push the leadership, they want to push Senator Schumer, they want to push Nancy Pelosi as far as they possibly can. And that includes making a threat. We'll see how serious that threat is.

Up until now, what we've seen, especially from Nancy Pelosi, is them sort of standing back, the leadership, and saying, yes, go ahead and do this, go ahead and risk our majority, risk the Biden presidency, risk Democratic control, risk everything you went into public life to try and achieve for the sake of one vote. Most politicians are not going to do that. And that's the brinksmanship that we see being played out.

And so, you know, what cooler -- have said and I think the president falls in this category, he said, look, I've been through a million of these during my decades in the Senate, it is going to come down to the wire, it is not going to be pretty, it is going to be a lot of tension, but in the end we'll get it done. And I think that judgment is probably correct.

SCIUTTO: Rachael Bade, you've done a lot of reporting on President Biden's role in this and he campaigned on, he's often touted his 36 years in the Senate, his ability to make deals even across the aisle. Where does his influence stand, where do negotiations stand with the two key Democrats in the Senate he has to get on board, Sinema and Manchin?

BADE: Look, it looks like he's really struggling. The reality is we are at the wire right now. This vote is less than 48 hours away, more like, you know, 36 or so. And he has not been able to land Sinema or Manchin, these two moderate Democrats in the Senate, who have refused time and time again to give him a topline number they would support for this larger social spending bill. He's put all his focus on that. He's staying in town to try to get them to some sort of framework.

And look, if they don't put something out, these progressives in the House are saying they're going to tank, you know, the bipartisan infrastructure bill. And I think there is a real question right now about whether they can have this. They do not have the votes in the House right now. And those votes are contingent on President Biden striking a deal with these two senators. And, of course, Manchin is on record, coming back from this meeting, saying he's not giving a number and so they're if a real pickle now.

I will say one more thing, and that is that the bipartisan infrastructure deal died many times in the Senate before it passed.

SCIUTTO: Yes. BADE: Could this be the first death in the House but not the last?

We'll see. But it's certainly -- they're getting down to the wire right now.

HILL: You know, adding all that up, we just heard from both of you in those last two answers, Errol, I wonder, yes there is the experience that Joe Biden has from his 36 years in the Senate, but this is a different Washington and frankly a different Democratic Party even. Now that he's in power, not because he's in power, but just because the representatives are different. So do the same rules still apply?

LOUIS: Oh, sure. Some of these are the very basic rules of politics. And by the way, when it comes to Senator Sinema, Senator Manchin, you've got to look at their donors, you've got to look at the industries that are supporting them. It's not about the topline number. It's about particular things that those special interests do not want in the bill. That's what's actually being negotiated here, not a big number. But that doesn't change. And I think the president is well aware of that.

Those are very sensitive negotiations that will have to happen behind closed doors, but that's what this is in end going to really all come down to.

SCIUTTO: Errol, you seem to be suggesting that donations might move legislation in Capitol Hill. I can't imagine.

HILL: What?

LOUIS: I don't know why Senator Sinema, with all of that pharmaceutical money, might be trying to sort of kill this expansion of the Medicare benefits.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

LOUIS: We'll find out why eventually, I think.

SCIUTTO: Outlandish. Errol Louis, Rachael Bade, thanks very much to both of you.

BADE: Thank you.

[09:15:03]

SCIUTTO: Coming up next, United Airlines has started the process to fire nearly 600 employees who are still refusing to get vaccinated. Some hospital systems doing the same.

HILL: Plus, new polling shows just how divided parents are on whether to vaccinate younger children once they're eligible. We're going to speak with the head of a National Teachers Union just ahead.

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HILL: Nearly 300 employees of a New York state healthcare system are now on a 30-day unpaid leave for refusing to get vaccinated. Erie County Medical Center is just the latest place we're learning of where folks are at risk of losing their jobs if they don't get the shots. United Airlines says it has now started the separation process for nearly 600 employees after they too refused to comply with the company's vaccination policy.

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SCIUTTO: We're joined now by CNN chief business correspondent Christine Romans, also CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

Christine, let me begin with you because there are legal actions beginning around some of these mandates, but the fact is for a very small percentage. I mean, look at United Airlines. I mean, that 600 people, but I think they're up above 98 percent vaccination rates. I guess, big picture question is, are the vaccine mandates working right in terms of driving vaccinations for these companies?

ROMANS: Yes, they are pushing people, and even some of these companies they have vaccine requirements with heavy duty testing, it's working. It's nudging people to get those vaccines. Of exactly 593 people that United Airline has begun the separation process for, the hope is that number will go down because maybe some of these people didn't upload their first vaccine shot into the system yet or maybe now this week or this weekend they will get the first shot now that they see that the company is really serious here.

So they're hoping potentially that that number could go down. There are about 2,000 people, we're told, who have filed for this medical or religious exemption and so United is going to have to consider each and every one of those and there is really a lawsuit that has been filed by six employees who have said that they feel it is discrimination to have them get the vaccine. So that will have to play out as well.

But this is among the toughest vaccine mandates for the airlines for sure. And that overall goal here, the CEO Scott Kirby said, he said this is about keeping our people safe.

HILL: So as we look at that, Elizabeth, hospital systems obviously dealing with these mandates. Dealing with them with their employees. Now we look at schools as well. San Diego schools now the latest to pass the vaccine mandate for school staff and I believe also for eligible students at this point. Younger kids could see Emergency Use Authorization fairly soon. All of this is adding up and parents are weighing in on how they feel about vaccinating their younger kids. And I think some people may be a little surprised by these numbers, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I was surprised by them because parents are accustomed to vaccinating their children. And so it would -- it was surprising that this actually happened. So you have 42 percent and 44 percent and what -- I'm sorry, to break that down a little bit better, 44 percent of parents in a recent Axios poll said we are likely to get our child ages 5 to 11 vaccinated, but only -- and 42 percent said they're unlikely. So it's a pretty even split there. It kind of is surprising.

I think what might be going on here, Erica, is the parents are saying, well, children usually don't have terrible complications from COVID- 19, I don't want to get my child vaccinated. That's a really unfortunate attitude to take because, first of all, some children do get very sick from COVID and why would you want to roll the dice with your own child? And secondly, children can bring an infection home to their, say, grandparents or to their, you know, parent who is immune compromised or to anybody, and so it's so important that children get vaccinated, and, you know, the Department of Health and Human Services is going to have to do some really serious work, thinking about what can they do to do better sort of marketing for want of a better word around the vaccine for children, for adults.

There is just this large sector of the United States that doesn't want the vaccine and they need to think about a better way to communicate the -- you know, how dangerous COVID is and the benefits of the vaccine.

SCIUTTO: And the sad fact is they're fighting a disinformation campaign, right? Because kids need half a dozen vaccines to get to school already, very little objection to that. This is the one that's been the target, frankly, of disinformation and it works, it seems.

Christine Romans, Elizabeth Cohen, thanks very much to both of you.

HILL: Joining us now is Randi Weingarten, she's president of the American Federation of Teachers.

Randi, good to have you back with us today.

RANDI WEINGARTEN, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS: Thank you.

HILL: You know, I just want to -- I want to pick up there where Elizabeth left off with this new polling that we have. Now again, the vaccine not yet authorized for kids 5 to 11. And, you know, understanding that it is a lot harder sometimes to say we need you to get an authorized versus a fully FDA approved vaccine.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HILL: That being said, when children 5 to 11 are eligible for the vaccine, how important is that from the perspective of a teacher and their safety in the classroom? What would that mean?

WEINGARTEN: Well, let me -- and, you know, I'm sitting here on this street in Chicago, because we have been really kind of going across the country about back to school and about trying to create and deal with the same kind of trust issue that I think you're seeing in that poll. There is a lot of misinformation, there's a lot of distrust in this country, there's a lot of tribalism in this country. And I think that's what you're seeing in terms of the polling.

So from the perspective of our communities, just like the other vaccinations, it's going to be a game changer once the FDA approves the vaccination for kids between 5 and 12, and frankly once people see after the approval that, you know, kids are not going to get hurt.

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The testing has been done beforehand for such a long period of time. I am sure that the FDA and others are not going to do emergency approval until they are confident, 100 percent or 99 percent confident that the vaccines are safe. So I think you're going to see different numbers, like, eight weeks after, 10 weeks after the first shots go into arms, just like I think we saw different numbers for older kids, you know, we saw the same 40 percent initially.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

WEINGARTEN: We saw different numbers for older kids when it became you're going to school, you're going to be in congregant settings, you want to do sports, you want to do all this other stuff, but the most important piece here is we have to get through the disinformation.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

WEINGARTEN: And we have to get through the distrust. That's the most important piece and that is why adults actually this time we have to work together as much as possible and not have the games that are going on, for example, in Chicago right now.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

WEINGARTEN: Where we're supposed to be in a school and then we're on the street. We've got to work together on safety. That is going to be what helps deal with the distrust and the misinformation.

SCIUTTO: OK. Big picture, I wonder, here we are a month into the school year in some districts, right, depending on where they started, how have things been going? Right? Because a lot of the worst prognostications have not born out, right? You certainly you've had some outbreaks, you've had some places that don't police those outbreaks very well frankly, but kids are largely staying in school and I wonder if you see that as something of a success.

WEINGARTEN: Yes. I mean, look, we have done -- so let me do the three things, I've been in 20 states, I've been in 20 states, I've been in, you know, 35 different places, and let me give you my three kind of off-the-cuff observations. Number one that there is still some trepidation and I think the trepidation is part of the reason why you see a lot of people, a lot of kids wearing masks and frankly you see -- a lot of teachers obviously, and frankly you see over 90 percent of the adults we represent getting vaccinated.

In places where there's been the other layered mitigation, you're also not seeing a whole lot of outbreaks. You're seeing some exposures, but not a lot of outbreaks. In places that didn't do the layered mitigation or didn't do masking or things like that, that's where you saw the outbreaks. So there is trepidation. But that is balanced by everybody wants to be back in school. Kids are joyful about it. Everybody wants to be back in school. It's kind of the normal rhythm, and so the layered mitigation has

really helped make it safe in everywhere it's been used. And last thing is, when people are working together, that's been the glue. And places where people are working together, like those brave superintendents in Florida and in Texas, it has been pretty awesome.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Yes, I think there was a CDC study that showed that schools that don't have mitigation were 3.5 times more likely to have outbreaks. So the data backs the policy.

Randi Weingarten, we appreciate the work you're doing. Thanks very much for joining us.

WEINGARTEN: Thanks so much.

SCIUTTO: Well, just minutes from now, the president's top military advisers will face a second day of tough questions from lawmakers about what went wrong with the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. This time before a House committee. We're going to break down how they contradicted President Biden in their first day of testimony.

HILL: We are also just moments away now from the Opening Bell on Wall Street. Stock futures are up despite some sharp declines yesterday. The Nasdaq had its worst day since March, partly fueled by the Fed chair's testimony that inflation was larger than anticipated. And again investors really keeping a close eye on Capitol Hill as they wait to see whether Democrats can avoid a government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling.

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