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Government Shutdown Looms at House Republicans Unable to Pass Continuing Resolution to Fund Federal Government; Rep. Mike Lawler (R- NY) Interviewed on His Efforts to Avoid Government Shutdown; New York Government: Shutdown would Delay Migrant Work Permits, NYT: Anti-Trump GOP Group says Attack Ads aren't Working. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired September 29, 2023 - 08:00   ET

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

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REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY, (R-CA) HOUSE SPEAKER: We have a five-seat majority. So it's not one side is going to get more than the other. It's the entire conference is going to have to learn how to work together. So it's better that we go through this process right now so we can achieve the things we want to achieve for the American public, what our commitment is. So if this takes a little longer and doesn't meet your deadline, that's OK, because it's not -- it's not how you start. It's how you finish. If we finish well, we will be very successful.

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PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: That was Speaker Kevin McCarthy back in January trying to make the case as he worked to become speaker of the House that even with his slim majority, his majority would come together, learn from that moment, and be able to succeed. At the moment the United States federal government is on the brink of a government shutdown with less than 40 hours left on the clock.

HARLOW: And right now Speaker McCarthy is throwing a last-ditch Hail Mary as he struggles to overcome a rebellion in the House GOP. As we speak, the House Rules Committee set to meet to try to clear the way for a vote later today on stopgap bill.

MATTINGLY: That bill would keep the government funded temporarily for 30 days. But at this point, despite conservative additions into the legislation, McCarthy doesn't appear to have enough Republican votes to pass it. He is refusing to say if he will cut a deal with Democrats if it fails.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you actually gamed out a plan b if this falls apart tomorrow.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY, (R-CA) HOUSE SPEAKER: Yes, but why would I tell you? What do you mean? In this job, you've got to have a, b, c, d, e, f, g.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What letter are you on now?

(LAUGHTER)

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HARLOW: Again, that was McCarthy back in January. The question this morning -- that was yesterday. Here is why a shutdown matters for you. More than 2 million federal workers will stop being paid. More than 1 million active duty troops will also stop receiving paychecks. The White House is warning that we could see huge travel delays and training for desperately needed air traffic controllers. As for the IRS, they stop processing most tax refunds. It will be a lot harder for you to get in touch with the agency.

MATTINGLY: It's worth noting, Manu is walking and talking with Kevin McCarthy so often over the course of the last nine months dealing with these issues that there is no shortage of sound. But there's also no shortage of issues and potential impacts here. Food stamps and housing assistance for millions of poor, disabled, and elderly Americans who rely on federal help could be in danger. The FDA could be forced to delay food safety inspections across the nation. Federal student loans and financial aid programs could be disrupted. And a majority of national parks are expected to close down.

HARLOW: Needless to say, a lot happening on the Hill. Lauren Fox is tracking all of it. How is this Hail Mary going to play out today?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, 40 hours until a government shutdown, and that is time for things to play out. But to this point, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has used every opportunity that he could to cajole, to try and get his conservatives to rally around a short-term spending bill, trying at times to pressure them, trying to make this about the border.

He has tried everything he can, and yet going into this vote today, he is still short of the members he needs to pass this on the House floor. That means it's very likely that House Republicans could go into the weekend without their own plan to avert a government shutdown. Last night they voted out a series of appropriations bills. The passed three. One of them failed with major Republican defections. None of those bills, though, would stop a government shutdown, which is why there is now a lot of focus on what will happen in the United States Senate. They are working on a bipartisan basis in that chamber. But they may not have time to pass their own government funding bill before time runs out because of opposition and slow walking with Senator Rand Paul over his concerns about the fact Ukraine aid is in the bill.

So both chambers struggling right now, but House Republicans struggling even more as they don't have their own plan to avert a shutdown. This is something that McCarthy for months has been warning his conference would be a death knell to the Republican majority, arguing it could really hurt them in 2024 if they are the ones blamed for this shutdown. Poppy, Phil? HARLOW: Lauren Fox, thank you. As always, we will keep checking with you as the day progresses. Phil?

MATTINGLY: So McCarthy's warnings that Lauren was just laying out are really important, because the question is, how did we get here? And the answer is it didn't just happen overnight. It wasn't because of the last couple of weeks. In fact, you have to track back to January where this all started where Speaker Kevin McCarthy was just desperately trying to become Speaker of the House.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The honorable Kevin McCarthy of the state of California has received 203

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MATTINGLY: Now, to be clear, there is no point in replaying that to try and take a shot at the speaker of the House. What it really demonstrates is the work that McCarthy has had to do not just from day one but also throughout the course of these nine months with his very slim majority, a very slim majority where conservative hardliners don't have juice inside the majority, but they are utilizing it, which has created serious problems. That was the longest speaker contest in 164 years. And if you want to understand how you got from there to here, it's worth noting that that's the place you have to start.

Of course, McCarthy became Speaker of the House. There he is with the gavel there. But the process to getting there included a number of concessions to those conservative hardliners to get over the top with that 15th vote, including that one member can call for a motion to oust the speaker. Any debt ceiling increase would have to be paired with spending cuts, moving all of the 12 appropriations bills individually. The Freedom Caucus has more representation on committees, and cap discretionary spending at fiscal 2022 level.

Every element of that is playing a role in where we are right now. Most importantly, though, that started things, the debt ceiling deal that happened back May really accelerated where we are now. And if you look at that deal, it was a major bipartisan victory for McCarthy. There were real potential dangers to the country if the U.S. defaulted on its debt. He struck a deal with President Biden, two year spending cap, rescind COVID relief funds, rescind new IRS funding. These are critical things that McCarthy called historic, Republicans had pushed for, Republican moderates certainly got behind and wanted.

But within days the backlash from conservatives mainly because they set a spending level was supposed to make a government shutdown less likely was fierce. In fact, you saw it repeatedly over and over again. Polling spending bills, failing on procedural motions, failing again on procedural motions, failing again on procedural motions. That is what has driven to this, trying to find some pathway forward not just on individual spending bills but on a stopgap spending bill that at this point in time, McCarthy clearly heading into this day does not have enough Republican support to pass on its own.

And here's how everything connects together. If you look at where our Capitol Hill team, which has done great reporting on this, has the hard no votes right now as they enter this day, something is worth noting for all of them. Matt Gaetz, Matt Rosendale, Eli Crane, and if you want to go over here, Lauren Boebert as well. Why am I circling all of them? All of them refuse to vote for McCarthy not just for the first 14 votes for speaker, they also all voted present on the 15th vote. That just underscored what was going to happen nine months later. Poppy?

HARLOW: Thank you. Joining us now, Republican Congressman from New York Mike Lawler. Congressman, so appreciate you being with us on a day like today. I just want to step back for a moment and let you and everyone listen to real folks from across the country, this is 2019 as the shutdown was going on and on. Here is how it impacted them.

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LYNN STRATTON, FEDERAL WORKER: I have enough for one more mortgage payment and I got to go to Car Max tomorrow and sell my car.

ANGIE ACKLIN, FEDERAL PRISON WORKER: When we hear things like this shutdown could go on for months or years, we don't have months or years. We have creditors. We have medical bills. We have mortgages. We have rent.

WENDY SNITCHLER, FEDERAL WORKER: I don't think that we should be held captive, like our paychecks should be held captive just because of something that they need to, like, brawl out.

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HARLOW: Can you guarantee that those people and your constituents, again, Congressman, that won't happen to them this time?

REP. MIKE LAWLER, (R-NY): I am going to do everything I can to ensure that it doesn't. I don't think there is any question the only people who get hurt here are the American people. I respect some of the differences that some of my colleagues have with respect to spending, with respect to process. But in some cases, like with Matt Gaetz, it's a difference of personality. He has made it very clear that his objective is to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker.

And so this has become a situation where the American people are going to be harmed because of one person, Matt Gaetz. And as far as I'm concerned, I am not going to stand by and let that happen. We've tried to give the speaker as much runway as possible here to get a conservative C.R. onto the floor, a continuing resolution, so we can keep the government funded, and be in a position to negotiate with the Senate.

If it fails today, there are a number of us that will move ahead without them, because the bottom line is people's lives, people's economic livelihood is at stake, the stock market, 401(k)s. It's totally unacceptable to be playing politics, as Matt Gaetz has been throughout the entire three-week period. And I am not going to let it happen.

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HARLOW: Explain to the American people how you will do that, how you will move forward without them and what that will result in.

LAWLER: There's a number of ways forward. Number one, I and 31 other Republicans are part of the Problem Solvers. We signed on to a bill that would be a bipartisan stopgap measure for about three months to allow us to complete the appropriations process work. Nobody in the Republican conference disagrees about the need to cut spending. Nobody in the conference disagrees about the need to do single subject appropriations bills. We all agreed to that. But the bottom line is, it's going to take more than tomorrow's deadline of September 30th to pass these bills and get them signed into law.

HARLOW: Do you --

LAWLER: And so in the interim, in the interim, we need to keep the government funded and open. And so the bill that the Problem Solvers put forward deals with border security, it would deal with Ukraine, it would deal with disaster relief, and it would keep the government funded. The Senate, obviously, is working on a bill right now in a bipartisan way. We will see what they come back with. I do believe we need to deal with border security. This administration has failed miserably when it comes to border security. We are dealing with the consequences of that in my home state of New York. I saw leader Jeffries on the floor yesterday and talked to him, and said, look, we need border security. Well, we'll see what the Senate --

HARLOW: Congressman, I am going to get to immigration in just -- I actually do want to ask you specifically about immigration in New York in just a minute. But just to stay on this topic for a moment, do you believe Speaker McCarthy should negotiate with Democrats to reach a deal? Are we at that point?

LAWLER: Listen, we are going to see what happens this morning. The Rules Committee is meeting right now on a conservative C.R. to get through House. If it fails, look, we have an obligation to govern.

HARLOW: OK.

LAWLER: And so the bottom line is, any final -- any final continuing resolution is going to be bipartisan. It has to be, given the fact that we are a divided government. The Senate is controlled by Democrats and the president is a Democrat.

HARLOW: Congressman, last -- yesterday there was the vote on this Ag bill, and you did not vote to pass it despite consistently working, as you said, to avoid a shutdown, saying, you know, you have been supportive of McCarthy. Can you explain to people why you didn't support that? I believe it was because of one provision in it having to do with mifepristone. Is that correct?

LAWLER: That is correct. And I had stated that going back to July when this bill was first under consideration. But the failure of the Ag bill yesterday has nothing to do with the shutdown. The shutdown is a result of the fact that there is a September 30th deadline for the fiscal year, and we are not complete with all of our appropriations work. Even if that bill passed yesterday, that would have been the fifth of 12 appropriations bills to pass the House.

HARLOW: That's right.

LAWLER: And by the way, I would remind you, the Senate has not passed one single appropriations bill to date. So there is -- there is, obviously, a timeframe here where Congress has not completed its work. And so the only way forward at the moment to keep the government open and funded is to pass a continuing resolution.

HARLOW: Right.

LAWLER: Now, some of my colleagues object to that because they say, oh, this is the way Washington has been working for 30 years. Yes. And when you are trying to break the habit, it does take time. Our appropriations committees have been going through line by line, budget bill by budget bill, to come up with a better product. That takes time. And so there is no reason, in my opinion, to hold the American people hostage while going through this process.

HARLOW: Congressman? LAWLER: It's important work, but it takes time to do it.

HARLOW: And I want to end on immigration, because it's critical. And we are all seeing what's happening in New York and in the district that you represent. I will say that on the Senate side, they did successfully pass 12 budget bills out of appropriations in July. Not the full Senate, but moving --

LAWLER: Poppy, Poppy , Poppy --

HARLOW: I won't have time to ask you about immigration --

LAWLER: We passed 10 of the 12, we passed 12 out of committee. They passed nothing on the Senate floor --

HARLOW: Yes, that's clear. Yes. I just wanted to clarify they got them out of the appropriations committee.

On immigration, we heard Governor Hochul of New York say yesterday what one more impact of a shutdown would be on work visas for migrants, especially from Venezuela, now that the Biden administration has given them this temporary protected status. Here's what the governor said.

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GOV. KATHY HOCHUL, (D) NEW YORK: It's going to stop our ability to get the people out of the shelters, which is exactly what President Biden was trying to do when he granted TPS, temporary protected status, for Venezuelans.

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HARLOW: -- said repeatedly the time for action is now. Do you support those temporary work permits for them?

LAWLER: With all due respect to the governor, her handling of this crisis has been a disaster. You have 85,000 people in the New York City shelter system. It was down to 50 prior to this crisis.

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So, the 10,000 or so people who are going to get TPS status and work authorization, yes, it's important. Venezuela obviously dealing with significant challenges.

Most of the migrants are coming from Venezuela, but this is a crisis across the country just about New York. You have 6 million migrants who have crossed our southern border since Joe Biden became President, many of them illegally.

In these asylum cases, when they are finally heard, two to three years after the fact, 70% of them are rejected. So, we need to secure our border. We need to stop this massive influx. We need to deal with asylum cases expeditiously at the border, at the points of entry, and at the countries of origin. Just giving work authorization is not solving the problem. Eric Adams has said that it's going to cost New York City $12 billion over three years and that it is destroying the city.

Kathy Hoekle just the other day said there's no more room at the inn. So, this isn't a function of work authorization, this is a function of stopping the massive influx and ultimately reforming our immigration system.

HARLOW: Democrats have a job for Congress.

LAWLER: Democrats have refused to act. Hold on, Poppy. Democrats have refused to act. In the house, they opposed HR two. In the Senate, Chuck Schumer, the Senate Majority Leader from New York has refused to do anything on border security. It's a disgrace, and he needs to take responsibility. And NECR should include provisions to secure our border. It's that simple.

HARLOW: Congressman Lawler, we are not only out of time, over time, but you're always welcome back. We'll keep having these discussions. I thank you this morning.

LAWLER: Thanks, Poppy.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: President Biden issuing a blunt warning about the effect Donald Trump is having on democracy in America, how this message will be used in the 2024 campaign.

HARLOW: And new this morning, more details have been revealed about the tragic death of that young Tech CEO in Baltimore.

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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is an extremist movement does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy. The MAGA movement, there's no question today's Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA Republican extremists. Trump says the Constitution gave him, quote, the right to do whatever he wants as president, end of quote. I've never heard a President say that in jest.

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MATTINGLY: That was President Biden yesterday issuing a stark warning about the existential threat he sees facing American democracy. His biggest concern wasn't subtle about it. Former President Donald Trump, Biden laying out detailed concerns during a speech in Arizona, one of the states at the center of Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The speech marked Biden's fourth and strongest attempt to call out the former president and current GOP frontrunner on his antidemocratic behavior. Biden's speech comes as new reporting from The New York Times shows the uphill battle facing anyone challenging Donald Trump, at least in the Republican primary.

The Times obtaining a memo from a conservative Anti-Trump political action committee showing more than 40 Anti-Trump television ads failed to make a dent in Trump's support among Republican voters.

And in some cases, it even helped the former president. Joining us now to discuss former New York Congressman Max Rose and CNN Political Commentator and Former Trump White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah Griffin. I want to get to the Biden speech in a sec, but I want to start with this Club for Growth and Jonathan Swan of The New York Times with the scoop on known to pull something from the memos themselves.

It says, quote, every traditional post production ad attacking President Trump either backfired or produced no impact on his ballot support and favorability. This includes ads that primarily feature video of him saying liberal or stupid comments from his own mouth.

The distinction here is this is for Republicans in a primary setting, and this tracks with where Republicans are based on polling, and Biden is going to be a general election candidate that he would have to face.

Do you think that the same applies in a general election setting?

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, but I'm not surprised that the club for growth ads did not break through. So, the problem that I think Republican candidates running against Donald Trump and some of these outside groups have made is you're not going to beat him on kind of the minor policy issues.

He didn't finish the wall you know he raised spending. He spent too much when he was in office. You need to litigate the case of his unfitness, because voters who liked Trump are going to say, yeah, but I had more money in my 401K when he was president.

Energy prices were lower. They can vote based on what they felt. So, I don't know that I think that kind of thing breaks through, but a general election Biden needed to be doing this six months ago, as far as I'm concerned, is litigating.

The case of this is an antidemocratic President. We all know what we saw on January 6. He's an existential threat. I'm fine with a normal Republican, but this is not a normal Republican that I do think breakthrough with independent swing voters and moderates.

HARLOW: The fact that they have spent $4 million so far on this and this internal memo says nothing broke through. Your voice is interesting on this because you represented a lot of Trump voters in your district. What breaks through?

MAX ROSE, FORMER DEMOCRATIC NEW YOUR CONGRESSMAN: Look, this is a cult of personality. And so the one point where I saw Trump voters really move away from Donald Trump, albeit momentarily, was the Lafayette Square when they saw Donald Trump walk out and literally inflict violence with General Millie, inflict violence on peaceful American citizens.

And because at that moment, what that was, was an assault on their values that they hold and still hold so sacred. This is and will never be about policy. And anyone that tries to make it that way in a Republican primary or in a general election is really playing with fire. What I've been amazed by in this Republican primary is why they have not led with one word and one word only, which is "loser".

Donald Trump lost in 2018.The House and the Senate very obviously lost in 2020, and then the Republicans had a subpar performance in 2022. It has been a string of losses, and that is a message that I'm no expert on Republican primary voters, but I think that that would resonate.

GRIFFIN: Well and I think that we've seen, too, there's kind of this reporting of this wish casting that suddenly Glenn Youngkin or someone else is going to get in, and that's going to be what finally breaks through. The candidates aren't losing to Trump in the primary for a lack of political talent. Nikki Haley is an excellent political candidate. It's because they've not litigated the true case against Donald Trump.

Policy, to your point, will not break through. This is a cult of personality. People genuinely love and believe in the former president. I'd go further to say the electability issue and he's a loser is big, but it's not enough. It's we saw what happened on January 6. We saw what happened at Lafayette Square. Do you want that chaos?

Do you want to explain to your kids that the commander in chief is this person who said these detestable things, but no one wants to touch it because they're afraid of losing his supporters.

[08:25:00]

And that's why, combined, all seven candidates on the debate stage last week, still trailed Donald Trump by 20 points.

MATTINGLY: Why do you got to puncture the dreams of donors in their five-star hotel dinners and big plans and thoughts? Can I ask you to both of your points on this? What you're describing is kind of the theory of the case of Biden's campaign team, right? It was how they launched the campaign with the video that they had.

It's obviously a driving force behind yesterday's speech, the fourth on this issue. And that's the contrast. Yes, on abortion policy, yes, on several policy issues, but on the broader, bigger pictures, the contrast which they believe will work.

And yet members of your party, a lot of them, are convinced that everything's going terribly wrong. How do you kind of navigate those two differences?

ROSE: Well, Democrats are bedwetters by their very nature, so let's not I've never seen a conversation with a series of Democratic leaders where they didn't think the world was about to end. But politically speaking, it's about discipline and repetition. And when we look at what the Biden campaign is doing now and will

continue to do in the coming months, constantly speaking to what you talked about, our values, patriotism, our constitution, the fact that this ex-President is literally calling for the execution of our leading military official, there is no place for that in America.

And it's no coincidence that Joe Biden is sending this message while also wrapping his arms around John McCain's legacy. It's not about Democrats versus Republicans. This is about pro America versus those who don't believe in our shared values.

GRIFFIN: Well, Biden's strongest messages don't compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative, because the reality is his favorability is tracking with Jimmy Carter's during the Malaise era. Right now, 73% of Americans think he's too old to be president.

But if he can just say this is a binary choice between me and Donald Trump, a historically unfit president, that's where his strength lies.

HARLOW: What did you make of what Trump said to the Daily Caller about the debates being fruitless? He said, quote, "The Republican debates, they have to stop the debates because it's just bad for the Republican Party. They're not going anywhere." Meaning those candidates on to there's not going to be a breakout candidate. He's saying that about them, but they won't break from him fully.

Except for Chris Christie.

GRIFFIN: I don't know that I think he's wrong. Okay, he should debate if you're running to get elected, you need to show up and debate with the voters' hands down. But I don't know that. I think that after two debates that did anything to boost the party and our image and our policy viewpoints.

It was a lot of arguing amongst ourselves and not dealing with the elephant that wasn't in the room of Donald Trump.

HARLOW: Interesting. Okay, thank you. Have a good weekend, guys.

GRIFFIN: You, too.

MATTINGLY: Well, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Max, just referenced him departing the Pentagon to a round of applause as General Mark Milley and his wife descending the stairs of the Pentagon in a tradition known as clap out. Millie shook hands and shared hugs with colleagues, including his successor.

You see him there on the screen. General CQ. Brown. Just heard from Milley. Just heard Millie call Brown his, quote, new

best friend. Millie will officially pass the baton to Brown in a ceremony later this morning at Joint Base Meyer Henderson Hall in Virginia.

HARLOW: We all thank him for his decades of service. Less than 40 hours until the government runs out of money to pay its bills, and there does not seem to be a plan forward from lawmakers to avoid to shut down. A look at who America thinks is to blame, that's ahead.

MATTINGLY: And six months ago today, Russia wrongfully detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on espionage charges. His family is speaking out exclusively to CNN. Hear their message, next.

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