Return to Transcripts main page

CNN This Morning

Government Set To Shut Down At Midnight; Hardline Republicans Continue To Hold Out On Stopgap Bills; Government Shutdown Could Impact Wait Times At Airports; Downpour Drenches New York City, Breaks Records. Aired 7-8a ET

Aired September 30, 2023 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

CAROLYN MANNO, CNN REPORTER: Oregon State proving that one loss is not going to define their season. And these are the images, Omar and Amara, that college football fans have been waiting for. Weather is turning a little bit colder now and a really nice effort there from Bolden too.

AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: OK, pivot because you're glowing. You're glowing. Did you get a tan? I mean, I was going to say, did you get a tan, were you on vacation? Carolyn just got married, so we want to congratulate you.

MANNO: I did.

WALKER: Your dressed in beautiful.

MANNO: Thank you.

WALKER: And were, you're back from your honeymoon, right?

MANNO: Honeymoon's over, you know, literally not figuratively, but I am back with you guys and we had a really nice time. Thanks so much for saying that. Yes, it was great.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN ANCHOR: It's a honeymoon for us whenever you're on; it just feels like a vacation. It's easy. It's great.

WALKER: Congrats, Carolyn. You made a beautiful bride.

MANNO: Thank you guys.

WALKER: Carolyn Manno. All right the next hour of CNN THIS MORNING starts now.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to CNN THIS MORNING. It is Saturday, September 30th, the end of the month. I'm Amara Walker.

JIMENEZ: I mean, it officially means fall vibes at this point. We're almost at October. It's fall. I'm Omar Jimenez. Those are the first words I chose to say this morning for the show. I'm in for Victor Blackwell. Thanks for joining us. Here's what we're watching for you this morning. The clock is ticking and the U.S. is creeping closer to a government shutdown as lawmakers work on a last-ditch effort to hammer out a deal to fund the government. What we expect to happen today and the impacts a shutdown could have on everything from childcare to air travel.

WALKER: A deluge of rain sparks flash flooding across parts of New York, shutting down mass transit and flooding homes and vehicles as you see there. We're going to show you the damage left behind and where we're seeing more rain this morning.

JIMENEZ: Georgia prosecutors signal they could start handing out plea deals to some of the defendants in the 2020 election subversion cases. What that means for the other co-defendants in that case.

WALKER: And a pandemic era program that provided childcare credits to families is set to expire today. The immediate impact this could have on millions of families just ahead on CNN THIS MORNING.

The government is barreling towards a shutdown with no solution in sight this morning. Today is the last day for Congress to pass a funding bill to keep the government open. And less than 17 hours left until that crucial deadline. Today, both the House and the Senate will convene for a rare Saturday session to try to come to some kind of last-minute solution.

JIMENEZ: Try is the key word. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has failed once again to pass a stopgap bill in his chamber, and now he's warning that the Senate bill won't pass either, calling their bipartisan bill dead on arrival. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says there's only one path forward.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL: The choice facing Congress. Pretty straightforward. We could take the standard approach, and fund the government for six weeks at the current rate of operations. Or we can shut the government down in exchange for a zero meaningful progress on policy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: Now, if the government shuts down it'll be far and wide reaching but the biggest impact will be on federal workers. Millions of people could be forced to work without pay.

WALKER: We have live team coverage all morning long as a deadline is quickly approaching. CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is at the White House with how the president and his team are preparing.

JIMENEZ: But first, let's go to CNN's Annie Grayer, who is live on Capitol Hill. All right, Annie, weekend session here. What is Kevin McCarthy's plan with less than 24 hours left on the clock?

ANNIE GRAYER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Omar, it's unclear if he has one. After the short stopgap bill failed on the floor yesterday, Republicans met behind closed doors for hours trying to come up with a plan on how they can fund the government. Just to give a sense of how wide the disagreement is right now, 21 House Republicans voted down the short-term measure yesterday. Only four can be in GEDSIT and have it still pass. Now, members left the meeting last night still without a clear plan of how to fund the government. This really is going to come down to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and how and if he can keep his members in line, keep his conference together. Listen to what Republican Congressman Ken Buck has to say about the situation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEN BUCK (R-CO): This was a vote where people didn't have faith that Kevin McCarthy was going to do the right thing. We passed a bill on the debt ceiling. He went and negotiated a significantly higher number with President Biden. People don't have faith that when it comes time to negotiate, he's going to do the right thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:05:01]

GRAYER: So, a big question here is can McCarthy keep his conference together. Some Republicans are furious at how he's been handling this. Members like Matt Gaetz are even threatening to oust him from the job depending on what decision he makes. So, on top of all that drama in the House, the Senate will also be meeting today to take a vote on a measure for their short-term spending bill, but that bill won't be done before the deadline runs out at midnight tonight. And the bigger issue with that bill is it has funding for the war in Ukraine, which Republicans in the House do not support. So, members from the House and Senate will be back in session today without a clear plan of how to keep the government open.

JIMENEZ: Days like this where I'm glad I am not a member of Congress. Annie Grayer, thank you. Meanwhile, President Biden is remaining in D.C. this weekend as the White House prepares for the potential shutdown.

WALKER: Yes, the administration has been rolling out new warnings all week about the effects of the shutdown, emphasizing that Republicans are to blame. Let's go now to Priscilla Alvarez at the White House. Tell us more about how the Biden administration is preparing for a shutdown, just in case.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, President Biden will be briefed on what is happening on the Hill over the course of the day and the days to come by his staff. But what he's also making clear in an interview with ProPublica is that it's House Speaker Kevin McCarthy who made "a terrible bargain" as he struggles to get his conference in line.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Speaker's made a terrible bargain. In order to keep his speakership, he's willing to do things that he, I think he knows are inconsistent with constitutional processes, number one. Number two, I think it says that there is a group of mega Republicans who genuinely want to have a fundamental change in the way the system works, and that's what worries me the most.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALVAREZ: And that's been the message from White House officials over the course of the last few days that the onus is on Republicans to avoid a government shutdown, but in the interim, the administration has to prepare. And what that means is that, as you mentioned, millions of federal workers may be furloughed. And some of those notices already went out this week to some or to a lot of the workforce, including personnel at the White House who also received instructions as to whether they're going to be furloughed, what that looks like, and who would be considered essential.

At a practical level, that looks like senior aides learning the jobs of junior aides to try to get by if they're furloughed. Now, in terms of the impact, there are several agencies who are preparing for change here, including, for example, the Small Business Administration would not be able to process new business loans, there would be delays in long-term disaster recovery efforts. There's a risk of millions of women and children going without food assistance, as well as federal workers and active duty troops not getting paid over the course of this shutdown.

So, the administration as a whole is bracing for this. The White House is bracing for this, hoping that there is a deal that can be struck to extend funding. But in the interim, there's certainly a lot of preparation underway.

WALKER: Yes and of course another impact is Congress's credibility as we see this play out. Priscilla Alvarez, thank you very much. Joining me now is Maya MacGuineas. She is the president for the Committee for a Responsible Budget. This organization regularly engages with federal lawmakers on fiscal responsibility. Maya, I appreciate your time this morning. What's your prediction? I mean, is a shutdown inevitable at this point? Is there anything that can be done to avoid a shutdown?

MAYA MACGUINEAS, PRESIDENT, COMMITTEE FOR A RESPONSIBLE BUDGET: It seems unlikely. Certainly, the conventional wisdom is that we are headed towards a shutdown and everybody's making plans accordingly. I actually do think there's still a tiny slimmer of hope that they just agree on a clean C.R. and a couple more weeks to negotiate on these actual funding bills. But I think most people would disagree with that prediction.

The real issue I think is, even once the government shuts down, there's the exact same problems of what they're going to do to open it as there is to keep it open. So, you're not resolving anything. You're not making this negotiation any easier. And the fall is going to be incredibly bumpy if we don't ultimately come to a decision about the funding levels and how we're going to actually fund the government for the new fiscal year, which starts tomorrow.

WALKER: Yes, you make a very important point, right? So, let's say they miraculously come to some agreement, let's say it's a clean continuing resolution or a stopgap bill, but that only solves the problem for 30 to 45 days, right? So, it's about what happens after. How can we avoid this, what seems to have become an annual drama that plays out to the very last minute?

MACGUINEAS: Well, exactly. We are at this point now where, especially in the world of budgeting, we just hop from one crisis to the next, never really resolving the underlying problems. And it's why everybody probably feels a bit of deja, and it's why everybody probably feels a bit of deja vu because it was just a few months ago that we were having countdowns to whether we were going to default or not, which was even a worse situation than this would have been. Both of them clearly bad and demonstrate a failure to govern not only to our citizens, but around the world.

[07:10:25]

I think the real problem starts with the fact that we no longer budget in this country. The whole way this is supposed to work is that in the fall, Congress, both the House and the Senate put out their budgets and then they work to reconcile those. It's worth noting that the House Budget Committee did put out a budget, but just recently, the Senate Budget Committee never even bothered to do that.

So, then we end up negotiating these deals like we did around the debt ceiling, and there hasn't been widespread buy-in to the funding levels. As a result, we have Senate bills that are above what was agreed to and a contingency in the House that wants to fund below what was agreed to. So, the old thought of a deal's a deal isn't really applying here.

Frankly, we're going to have to overhaul the overall way that we budget in this country to fix it, and we're going to have to get at the big underlying issue that the fight is about right now. What are we going to do about our national debt? It is a huge and growing problem, and none of these funding bills are addressing it.

WALKER: Is an overhaul even up for discussion? I ask because your Web site says that your organization regularly engages with federal lawmakers on fiscal responsibility. What we're seeing play out right now is not fiscally responsible by any means. When was the last time your organization spoke with members of Congress about this very issue?

MACGUINEAS: Oh, yesterday. Actually, there was a whole lot of discussion on Capitol Hill. One of the things that I really like about our organization is we're nonpartisan, and so we work with bipartisan groups.

So, for instance, yesterday, there was, I thought, a great step forward, which is a bipartisan group in the House, led by Bill Hezinga and Scott Peters, put forward the idea of a fiscal commission, attach it to one of these options to keep the government funded, and at the same time, appoint a group of experts and members of Congress who would spend over a year looking at all these issues, put everything on the table so we're not just negotiating on this tiny slice of the budget, which isn't going to fix the problem, and try to figure out what to do about our national debt that is about to reach record levels where our interest payments are already more than we spend on all children at the federal level.

So many warning signs. So, there are encouraging signs. We do talk to members on a bipartisan basis all the time. They understand the problems. But when you look at some of these things that are grabbing the headlines, the discussion about the government shutdown isn't making any progress on how you'd actually fix the overall problem unless they include something like a commission and start talking about the bigger real issues that are really hanging out there because we've been avoiding them for so many years now.

WALKER: Yes, I mean, there's so much at stake. You know, millions of federal workers will not get a paycheck. Many of them will be forced to work without collecting a paycheck and, of course, get back pay at some point when the government reopens. But, of course, that does not apply to contractors. We know there's a lot of contractors at the NSA and what have you. Let's talk about credibility, though, because I did mention this off the top.

I mean, I'm sure Americans at home are just, you know, rolling their eyes, saying, OK, here we go again. You know, our lawmakers are not lawmaking. They're not doing their jobs. But also, when it comes to credit worthiness, right? I mean, last month we were talking on air about Fitch downgrading the U.S. credit rating to double A plus.

Moody's is now issuing a warning. And by the way, when Fitch downgraded the U.S., they pointed to exactly this, the repeated debt limit political standoffs, eroding confidence and fiscal management. That's what, that's what Fitch said. Now, Moody's could, perhaps, at some point, make this move. Does that concern you?

MACGUINEAS: Absolutely. I mean, it should concern all of us. The fact that two of the three major rating agencies say that our creditworthiness is no longer the top of the bunch, and a third one is warning it could change, and they're pointing to two issues. We have an unsustainable fiscal situation, and we have a governance structure that isn't working.

So, it's hard to see how we maintain our role in the world, frankly, if this continues for too long. In the more immediate run, every time there's a downgrade, there's a risk that that pushes up the borrowing costs. We still need to borrow a lot of money. People are going to charge us more to do that.

And because our debt is already so high, every time interest rates go up just one percentage point above what they're already expected to be, that adds about $2.7 trillion in our borrowing costs over a decade. So, in just a few years, even if those rates don't go up, we'll be spending more on interest payments than we are on national defense.

The fact that that could continue to increase because of our bad credit worthiness, that is a real cost to all American families.

[07:15:06]] WALKER: Maya MacGuineas, appreciate you joining us this morning. Thank you.

JIMENEZ: Still ahead, with a possible government shutdown just hours away, we're going to take a much closer look at how it could affect air travel and flights. Plus, a state of emergency in New York City after torrential rains flood the city. Wow, look at those images. Plus, the expiration of a COVID-era program could force millions of American families to make some tough decisions when it comes to childcare. What it could mean for working parents. That's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALKER: We are less than 17 hours away from the United States' first government shutdown since 2019. And if that deadline comes and goes, the effects will be significant from national security to the military, child care, even air travel and flights could be impacted.

JIMENEZ: Yes, one of the biggest impacts the nation could see would be at our airports. So, get ready for longer wait times, potentially we will see. Former Department of Transportation Inspector General and CNN Aviation Analyst Mary Schiavo is here with us right now. Good morning to you. All right, so we've got a lot to talk about here.

One, you were the Inspector General, just to give people context, for the Department of Transportation during the country's longest shut down in history, 35 days. So, from a transportation standpoint, what kind of crisis do you see when a government shutdown happens and what do you expect some of the immediate ripples here to be?

[07:20:35]

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, you know, actually, there's what's supposed to happen and what actually does happen. I think my shutdown was 26 days. I was, it was during the Clinton administration and then the longest was during Trump. And what's supposed to happen is there are essential personnel, which would be all of air traffic control, air traffic control maintenance, licensing, hazmat, accident investigation, and all contractors that keep all the equipment running, they're supposed to be on the job.

Now granted, the federal employees are on the job without a paycheck until at the end of the furlough, then the government goes ahead and pays them, and that's how it's always happened in history. Now, that's what's supposed to happen. It's supposed to continue working for all essential employees. What really does happen is after a while, things start coming apart. It's a furlough time. The regular rules don't apply.

People call in sick. People get tired of working without pay. Things slow down. There's a high absentee rate. There's a high sickness rate. So, things start generally falling apart. But technically, that's not supposed to happen at all because if you're deemed essential, you're supposed to get to work, you're supposed to be the good air traffic controller you always are and you're supposed to function. And remember at the FAA, there will be 25,500 employees still at work.

So, that's a lot of people that will do their jobs. But -- and remember the TSA is not part of the FAA. All 55,000 of them are supposed to be on the job. But it's a lot of stress on families to go to work for potentially 35 days without a paycheck. It's a big stress.

JIMENEZ: Yes, well, and let's hope it doesn't get to that point. And yes, sorry, I gave you the wrong administration there. Of course, 35 days was during Trump administration just a few years ago.

Now, look, there are the immediate effects here, but also Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has talked about systems at the FAA like the NOTAM or Notice to Air Missions, in particular, long being in need of improvement and more investment not to mention a shortage in air traffic controllers we've seen as of late. Take a listen to what he told our Wolf Blitzer yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE BUTTIGIEG, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: We're racing to deal with these staffing shortages that have built up over many years. Each passing day, it is harder and harder to look these folks in the eye and say, we expect you to come in and do this job and we're not going to pay you for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: So, my question out of that is, how big of an impact does a shutdown have on developmental priorities and initiatives like that?

SCHIAVO: That's what gets shut down during the, you know, the government shutdown. Things like new rulemaking, writing and making new laws, analysis and assessment, long-range planning, and of course, training. And this training issue, remember, is not because the government shut down.

This training issue started way back during COVID when the FAA simply stopped hiring and training, not thinking about perhaps what was going to happen after COVID ended, or at least was manageable. So, this training issue and stacking up the FAA's air traffic control has been a long-range problem.

They will have over 13,000 air traffic controllers on the job, but they say they need approximately 15,000 or more. And so, they have those in the pipeline training, but in a shutdown, training has to stop.

JIMENEZ: Well, and there were definitely some growing pains coming out of COVID. Of course, the staffing levels that were decreased during that time and trying to ramp back up again. But beyond air travel, what other forms of travel could see a significant hit here?

SCHIAVO: Well, you know what's really interesting is other parts of the Department of Transportation, highway administration, for example, if the employee is funded by something other than the direct appropriation from government, for example, if they're funded by a trust fund or they have other funding, then they're not affected at all.

So, for example, the Federal Highway Administration, they keep going to work. They don't have a lot of people who will be furloughed. The flip side is Federal Rail, for example. Most of theirs are funded by Congress, by taxpayer dollars. So, most of Federal Rail probably will be on furlough.

So, it varies department by department within the DOT and for example my office, the Office of Inspector General, about three-fourths of those people because they're doing investigations and audit and long- term projects, long-term planning and evaluation, a lot of those will be furloughed.

So, it goes department by department within the department or agency by agency within the Department of Transportation. But by far, the Federal Aviation Administration will have the most people that stay on the job even without pay.

[07:25:23]

JIMENEZ: And look, before we go here, everybody knows about the potential government shutdown at this point, but there is another aviation-specific deadline that could also expire today, essentially looks at reauthorizing a number of FAA policy instructions. Just, just how important is that reauthorization, and what does it cover here?

SCHIAVO: Right, the FAA reauthorization, you know, really you need to think about it, is just giving the Federal Aviation Administration legal authority to do its job. Because remember, government has no authority except that given it by law. And so, the reauthorization has to occur. Now, it occurs about every five years. You know, back when I was in the department, we went through it a lot more because you didn't have the longer-term funding legal capability.

But it has to be reauthorized because otherwise many of the functions that the FAA performs, they would not be authorized by law to do so. Now, the FAA worries that if that lapses, they will not be able to collect. They will not be legally authorized to collect. A lot of the taxes and funds that airlines, or rather airline passengers, pay into the government to keep the airports and runways and navigation systems and air traffic controllers on the job.

So, they're worried that the lapsing of that reauthorization would lapse also the legal authority to do literally all that they do and collect the payments to do it from the traveling public.

JIMENEZ: A lot of factors that could play into what happens over the next 24 to 48 hours. So, we will see what happens. Mary Schiavo, thank you so much.

WALKER: Still ahead, record rainfall in New York City generates life- threatening flooding, overwhelming streets and subways. We'll have more next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:31:04]

WALKER: This morning, so many people in the Northeast are waking up to an overwhelming flooding situation. City streets have completely transformed into flowing rivers.

Yes, this is what it looks like in Brooklyn.

And some travelers at LaGuardia Airport, ended up using plastic bags to protect their feet while navigating, yes, through the airport, through those high waters.

JIMENEZ: Look, I don't -- I don't know if that's doing much protection based on the amount of water that's there.

WALKER: No --

JIMENEZ: I'm like shuttering looking at that water.

Well, CNN's Allison Chinchar joins us now from the CNN weather center, where there is not water on the ground. You're not wading through water, but you're talking about plenty of people who are.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. And there is more rain in this area. And that's the last thing these folks need. Here is a look at some of that video from yesterday.

Again, you can see these streets just covered in water. Some six or eight inches deep, which is not safe to drive in. We have more rain right now. Most of the heavy rain is really focused over portions of Rhode Island and Connecticut. But you've also got some heavy rain making its way across Massachusetts.

You've got some around Newport, Rhode; Island, Bridgeport, Connecticut starting to see a little bit of a pickup in that rain and even Oyster Bay in New York.

So, again, it's going to be often on the bulk of the rain today, I want to emphasize is going to be late.

We're not expecting the crazy five, six, seven-inch amounts that we had yesterday. But there are still some flood warnings in effect. Again, not necessarily for the new rain today. But it takes time to get rid of all of the rain that fell yesterday.

For example, JFK setting an all-time record yesterday, picking up over eight inches of rain. Valley Stream, New York, picking up over nine. And many other locations, not just in New York, but Connecticut, also picking up, five, six, even seven inches of rain as we went through the day yesterday.

So, again, still some rain expected as we go through the morning. The bulk of this rain really starts to push out to see once we get to lunchtime today. And then, finally, by tomorrow, a nice day from start to finish with some sunshine in store.

However, we are still expecting maybe an additional one inch of rain on top of what they've already had.

WALKER: All right. Allison Chinchar, thank you.

A judge has ruled that Trump-era justice department official Jeffrey Clark cannot move his Georgia election interference case to federal court. According to two congressional reports, Clark wanted to send letters to top officials in states where Trump lost in 2020, falsely claiming the DOJ had uncovered major voting irregularities and pressing them to consider intervening in election results.

Now, Clark's lawyers argued that he was acting in his federal capacity role under then-President Trump.

JIMENEZ: And prosecutors, say they could offer more plea deals to Donald Trump's co-defendants in the election interference case in Georgia. This comes after a bail bondsman Scott Hall agreed to testify in future proceedings in the Fulton County case.

Hall is one of 19 charged in the sweeping indictment. He'll get five years' probation for his guilty plea.

CNNs Katelyn Polantz has the latest.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Pieces are falling into place as the first trial related to January 6th and accusations against Donald Trump is set to go forward in a little less than a month. And the first piece that fell into place on Friday, is that a defendant in that 19-defendant case in Fulton County, Georgia has pleaded guilty.

His name is Scott Hall. He's a bail bondsman in Georgia. He is pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor charges, conspiracy counts related to interfering in elections.

And Scott Hall, you may not have heard his name before. He isn't a minor player, though, he is a person in Georgia that was very well connected after the 2020 election. He was in touch with a top official at Donald Trump's justice department named Jeffrey Clark, who is now also a co-defendant with him.

He was all so in touch with people who were leaders in the Republican Party who became fake electors for Donald Trump, additional co- defendants.

[07:35:08]

And he was part of that effort where people are accused of hacking into voting machines or systems in Coffee County, Georgia, a rural county, after the election.

And so, Scott Hall's plea deal, it does include him already being sent just getting five years of probation community service and a few $1,000 in fines.

But on top of that, he must testify at upcoming trials, if he's called by prosecutors on that trial that is set to go in October, when jury selection will begin in Fulton County, Georgia. That is currently against two of the 19 defendants in this case: Sidney Powell and Ken Chesebro, both attorneys who worked around Donald Trump after the election.

Donald Trump is not set to be a defendant at that trial. But both Powell and Chesebro, as they get ready for trial, they're also going to have to make decisions, just like other defendants in this case.

There were attorneys, prosecutors, in this case in Georgia, on Friday, who indicated that they are going to be offering plea deals to them and to potentially other people in this case. That's very expected, and there is very likely to be others that would be taking plea deals, just as Scott Hall did in this case.

But Ken Chesebro and Sidney Powell, they'll have to make their decisions first, since they are going to trial first. At the same time, there are other pieces coming into play here where the case is not being moved. It's not being split up further after several people who had affiliations with the federal government in some way, those fake electors, as well as Jeffrey Clark, that justice department official, they had all tried to move their case to federal court and a trial set -- trial judge said, no, that's not going to happen. It's all going to be staying together in state court.

So, right now, we have two sets of people going to trial, first in October, and then the rest later on, and we're going to be watching for more possible guilty pleas in the near future.

Katelyn Polantz, CNN, Washington.

WALKER: Katelyn, thank you.

Still ahead, Ukraine says Russia launched at least 50 drones in a new wave of attacks overnight. How Ukraine is fighting back?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:41:31]

WALKER: Ukraine says Russia launch at least 50 drones in a new wave of attacks overnight. Military officials say 30 drones were shot down, but others hit an infrastructure facility, causing a massive fire.

Ukraine's military is using the resources it has on hand to fight back, including vampire attack drones. CNN's Frederik Pleitgen has this exclusive with the Ukrainian drone unit.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Rolling into battle as night falls, Ukraine's army attacking in the east around Bakhmut.

PLEITGEN: For the Ukrainians, this is an extremely important. But also, very complicated and potentially very dangerous mission, and we're going to be located very close to where the Russians are. PLEITGEN (voice over): We're with a frontline drone unit called Code 9.2. Their drone, the Ukrainian-made Vampire. The crew attaching the bombs as artillery whistles over our heads.

The Vampire is fully night vision capable and plays a soundtrack showing it means business.

The team leaders' callsign is Groove, and he confirms because Ukraine doesn't have a modern Air Force, tonight, they are the Air Force.

The drones see in the night like in daylight, he says. We see the infantry. We hit the vehicles, cannons, everything we need to destroy.

Groove also says Russians from the Wagner private military company have returned to the battlefield around Bakhmut.

Yes, there is Wagner here too. They swiftly changed their commanders and have returned here, he says. We're breaking through their line of defense and hitting them well.

As the drone takes off, the battle is already well underway. The Ukrainians using Western extended range artillery shells and cluster munitions to attack Russian ground forces. Groove is already busy targeting the Russians.

Oh, something is burning, he says. His unit also managing to take out a Russian main battle tank by dropping several bombs on it.

The Ukrainian army now starting to push forward. Our photo journalist Dan Hodge films powerful explosions, as armored vehicles advanced in the moonlit night.

PLEITGEN: We're now hearing a lot of fire, a lot of outgoing fire, a lot of incoming fire actually also as well as the Ukrainians are trying to move forward. And they say they want to take a key road away from the Russians.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): But the Russians are fighting back, firing flares to unmask the Ukrainians advance and hit Kyiv's forces.

Groove (ph) remains unfazed, hunting a Russian tactical vehicle before destroying it.

The Code 9.2 drone team often hunts Russian armor here, recently even destroying a modern T-90 tank in a highly complex operation. After more than a half dozen missions, the drone returns the final time.

But as we tried to get away from the battlefield, a tire burst on our Humvee. No time for spare, we push off.

[07:45:04]

PLEITGEN: We just witnessed an extremely tough battle between the Russians and the Ukrainian, both sides going at it for hours with very heavy weapons. And the area where we were shells landed close to there on various occasions. Now we're heading back to base. PLEITGEN (voice-over): Hobbled but rolling after a long night on one of Ukraine's most dangerous frontlines.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Bakhmut, Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JIMENEZ: Incredible reporting for Fred Pleitgen there.

Still ahead, the expiration of a COVID-era program could force millions of American families to make some tough decisions when it comes to childcare. What it could mean for working parents? That's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:50:08]

WALKER: The expiration of a pandemic era program could force millions of American families to make really tough decisions, a federal program that provided children -- child care credits, I should say to families across the U.S. will expire today.

And an effort to extend the multibillion-dollar program faces an uphill fight on Capitol Hill, as you know.

According to progressive think-tank, The Century Foundation, more than 70,000 child care programs could close across the U.S. without those funds, and by their estimates, that will leave more than 3.2 million children without a place in a child care program.

Joining me now to discuss what they call a child care cliff is Julie Kashen. She is a senior fellow and director for Women's Economic Justice at The Century Foundation. Really appreciate you joining us this morning.

First off, give us those numbers again, because it is really astounding to know how many people will be hurt when this pandemic era program will expire. Let's talk about the number of families and childcare centers, and of course, those people who work at these childcare centers.

JULIE KASHEN, SENIOR FELLOW, AND DIRECTOR, WOMEN'S ECONOMIC JUSTICE, THE CENTURY FOUNDATION: That's right, so what we expect is that 3.2 million children across the country could be impacted by the loss of this funding.

That will impact their parents, who will be forced to make really tough choices about leaving work, cutting down their work hours, shifting their shifts around, and it will impact the entire economy. And we've estimated that it could impact the economy to the tune of about $10.6 billion.

I think what's important to know that -- is that, even before anyone had heard of the COVID-19 pandemic, parents were already breaking the bank to afford child care or stuck on long waitlist, because there just wasn't enough child care.

So, this pandemic era funding made a huge difference in stabilizing a sector that had long been precarious before. When this money goes away, we expect that the impacts will be serious, although, they won't happen all at once.

WALKER: Yes.

KASHEN: Tomorrow, we're not going to see a huge closure of childcare programs. But this will happen over time.

WALKER: Any parent knows just how expensive childcare is and can be. $24 billion was allocated to the childcare industry when President Biden signed this American Rescue Plan Act, or this pandemic era stimulus plan.

Give us a sense of how these emergency funds were being used to prop up and help the childcare industry.

KASHEN: So, childcare providers were struggling to make the math work before the pandemic kind of having their charge parents a lot of money and still not being able to afford to pay early educators, higher prices -- higher wages for their valuable work.

So, when the pandemic came, their expenses increased, their revenue decrease because children were pulled out of the programs. So, that made things even worse for them.

What they were able to do with this money was paid for their operating costs that net rent and utilities, pay for safety and health equipment. And the biggest part was paying higher wages for early educators.

They created bonuses and stipends so that the wages could go above what was previously about $14 an hour.

This made a huge difference for recruiting and retaining a great workforce to care for our kids.

WALKER: So, the -- what kinds of impacts do you expect to see over the next several days and weeks as these emergency funds expire?

You said that it's not going to happen overnight that these child care centers are going to close, but I would imagine, slowly by slowly, there is going to be layoffs and, of course, price is being raised for parents to, you know, substitute or fill in those gaps.

KASHEN: That's exactly right. Childcare providers do this work because they love children. They want to support the parents in their communities. They're doing everything they can. But what they are going to have to do is raise prices first to make up for the lack of this funding.

We already know childcare jobs are down 40,000 before the -- since before the pandemic. That means that there is already a staffing shortage in childcare. So, in order to get more people into the sector, they're going to have to raise wages, which means raising prices. That's what we're going to see first. Then, we'll likely see them serving fewer children or shutting some classrooms. And then, a last resort hopefully will be actual closures.

However, we've already seen in Wisconsin 40 -- week. So, the impacts are already starting to be felt.

WALKER: Yes. And, of course, with this shutdown looming very likely, we know that of course a lot of these head start programs, WIC, especially the Women, and Infants and Children Program will obviously suffer as well, very likely.

[07:55:02]

We know that, of course, a lot of these head start programs, WIC, especially the Women and Infants and Children program will obviously suffer as well, which provides health to low-income families.

We really appreciate your time, Julie Kashen, thank you.

JIMENEZ: Chef Jose Andres and family discover the roots of Spanish cuisine in Andalusia, or Andalucia. "JOSE ANDRES AND FAMILY IN SPAIN" airs tomorrow night. Here is a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Inez and I are getting ready for the festival. A week-long celebration of Andalusian food, drink, and culture. And yes, of course, we need to look the part.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And as you look stunning.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Than you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stunning I know it's my first time as a grown up in flamenco dress.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You look beautiful.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They'd love your colors. I like it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is and all of Andalucia is famous for flamenco music and dance.

It's a whole culture that first came to Spain as early as the Ninth Century, performed originally by the Roma people, known as Gitanos, here in Andalusia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JIMENEZ: That's a trip I'd love to be a part of. "JOSE ANDREAS AND FAMILY IN SPAIN" airs tomorrow night at 9:00, right here on CNN. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)