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Shots at Morgan State University; Kaiser Permanente Strike; Biden Aims to Project Calm; House in Chaos After McCarthy Ouster. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired October 04, 2023 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:30:45]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: well, this morning, a manhunt is underway in Baltimore after another mass shooting on an American college campus. Police say five people, four of them students, are injured after last night's shooting at Morgan State University. It happened as students were attending events during homecoming week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Morgan State?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: we've got four shots, uh, right across from the (INAUDIBLE) exit at, uh Thurgood Marshall. Argonne.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shots fired. Gunshots heard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Let's get straight to CNN's Gabe Cohen, live on the campus of Morgan State.

Gabe, classes have been canceled today but so far no arrests have been made. What more do we know?

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Phil, the search for suspects continues this morning. Baltimore Police have not said at point if they have any idea who did this or what the motive would have been.

Now, fortunately, we can tell you that all five of the young people who were wounded in the shooting, including four Morgan State students, are all expected to survive. There were no life-threatening injuries.

But the scene here was frantic last night as this all unfolded around 9:30. Look, this is homecoming week. It is supposed to be a joyous time at Morgan State. Students were just coming out of a huge event that crowned Mr. And Miss Morgan State University. It was a big event that draws alum, families. And that is when shots rang out, outside of a campus building. Police on patrol in the area raced in, they found those wounded

students. And that is when the frantic search, the urgent search for a shooter unfolded. A SWAT team coming through buildings, going room to room searching as students were told to shelter in place for hours.

Although that search at this hour has turned up very little. And it is a quiet morning here on the campus. Classes are canceled. As an emergency meeting is taking place in the coming hours, they'll discuss how to proceed with homecoming week.

But, look, this is a somber day as well because it is the third straight homecoming here at Morgan State that has been marred by violence, by a shooting. The past two years, shootings at each -- injured one person. This one now injuring five people.

Here's what Baltimore's mayor told us last night as this was unfolding.

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MAYOR BRENDON SCOTT (D), BALTIMORE: We are dealing with, not just here in Baltimore, not just at Morgan State University, but across this country of the United States, an epidemic when it comes guns and gun violence.

We have to stop saying not one more. We need action now.

When is enough going to be enough?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: And, Phil, you hear sort of the national context there that we have seen so many high-profile shootings on college campuses. One at Michigan State earlier this year. Another at UNC Chapel Hill. There have been more than 500 mass shootings across the United States this year. They are devastating statistics. And now, for folks here in Baltimore, they are grieving, they are struggling, and they are on edge waiting to find out if and when those shooters or shooter will be taken into custody.

HARLOW: Yes, understandably so.

Gabe Cohen, please keep us posted. Thank you.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Also this morning, Kaiser Permanente employees beginning what is said to be the largest health care strike in U.S. history. More than 75,000 workers planning to join the picket lines for a three-day walkout at hundreds of locations across the country. They say this is about critical staffing shortages that is affecting patient care.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a crisis inside, a staffing crisis, that affects us and subsequently affects our patients. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some of the people out here on strike today are

optometrists and they're looking -- their patients are looking at three months to get an appointment because they are so short staffed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: CNN's Meg Tirrell joins us now with more.

I mean they were hoping they could get to the point where they averted this. But what's interesting about this strike, I think, is that, yes, they want pay increases and other things, but also they are saying, we're so short staffed it's not safe for patients.

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Poppy, that's something we've been hearing. And, you know, Kaiser even just telling us, just minutes ago that they worked through the night. They did come to some agreements but still, as you can see, the strikes have begun here in the East Coast, set to begin really shortly on the West Coast, where that will be the majority of where we see these workers striking.

[08:35:12]

You know, Kaiser Permanente serves almost 13 million people across the United States in eight states and Washington, D.C. The strikes are happening in five states and D.C. And you saw it there already with the optometrists in Virginia. This morning it's about 35 to 40 percent of the workforce, those 75,000 health care employees represent. So that means there still will be some employees working. And this does not include doctors.

But the list of professions that this affects could show that it's going to be really disruptive potentially to patient care. Now this is including folks like certain nurses, people who work if the emergency departments, people who do imaging, respiratory therapists, x-ray technicians, optometrists, behavioral health workers, people who work in pharmacies, phlebotomists, those are the folks taking blood, and housekeepers and people answering the phones. So you can just see how this could be potentially quite disruptive, guys.

HARLOW: And do we have a sense from Kaiser Permanente in terms of what their idea of this - these disruptions could be if this continues to spread?

TIRRELL: Yes, Phil, so what we've been hearing is that as you heard from the folks there on the line in Virginia, they are asking for higher pay and to address the staffing crisis that they say has just been exacerbated by the Covid pandemic. Now, what we're hearing from Kaiser is that, as the strikes begin, they have contingency plans in place. They are keeping hospitals and medical offices open. They do say that some patients may have to reschedule non-urgent appointments. They will hear from Kaiser if that happens. They're also urging people to use mail order pharmacy because, as we saw, pharmacists are included on that list of striking workers. Doesn't include doctors, but experts tell us, of course, the other folks are crucial to keeping health care systems running. So, it could be disruptive. And it lasts through Saturday unless an agreement is reached. Guys.

MATTINGLY: All right, Meg Tirrell, keep us posted. This is a story we're going to follow. Thank you.

HARLOW: Absolutely.

All right, this just into CNN. It is new video of a deadly bus crash. This happened in Italy. The surveillance video has just been released. And it shows the bus plunging over an overpass yesterday. At least 21 people were killed, 18 more injured. A spokesperson for the Italian fire brigade tells CNN, the authorities have yet to find the cause of the crash. They are obviously looking into concerns that the electric powered bus' battery may have caused a fire onboard.

MATTINGLY: Well, as Republicans grapple with the unprecedented ouster of a House Speaker, how does President Biden play this moment? We're going to have a live report from the White House coming up next.

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[08:41:33]

MATTINGLY: Well, this morning, President Biden trying to strike a business as usual tone -- that's according to two officials to CNN -- amid the unprecedented chaos on Capitol Hill. Republicans, they are searching for a new House speaker following the historic ouster of Congressman Kevin McCarthy.

Let's go to Arlette Saenz at the White House.

This kind of chaos to governance contrast is something the White House has been pushing towards, the campaign for Biden has as well. This is a pretty good picture of it to some degree, right?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and the mantra here at the White House may very well be keep calm and carry on today. President Biden will be focusing on some of his agenda items. Today's focus being providing further student debt relief. About $9 billion of additional debt relief that's being approved today.

But the White House has walked a very fine line when it comes to commenting on the actual events relating to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and this future speaker's race. The White House, last night, released a statement saying that they urged the House to act quickly to elect a new speaker as there are many challenges that this country is still facing. But we will see if President Biden himself, when he's in front of reporters, might have any further thoughts to add.

If you think back to when the House was going round for round with votes back in January, he said that that was a moment that was embarrassing for the country. But it comes as allies to the president argue that this highlights, this sticking to the business as usual, trying to project this calm, it really highlights the contrast that the president has been trying to push during the campaign with some of the dysfunction that's occurring up on Capitol Hill. You've seen the White House trying to push that messaging amid the government funding fight as well.

But there are also some - a few challenges that are facing this White House with the election of a new speaker. They need to get the government funded in the next six weeks. There is also the issue of Ukraine aid. The White House has been stressing that they believe Ukraine aid can get the support up on Capitol Hill. But it's unclear who the next speaker will be and how they might try to decide to approach that matter.

But it will be an interesting task for the president as he will soon have to face the reality of working with a new speaker on the House. Of course, he had just built up a relationship with McCarthy since he came in office and now he's going to be confronting a new reality as the House Republicans are grappling with finding their speaker.

MATTINGLY: Yes, it's such an interesting point because it's not just the president and the speaker, it's also their teams. McCarthy himself giving shoutouts to Steve Rachetti (ph), the senior advisor, Shimonsa Goff (ph), who runs lunch (ph) affairs for the Whtie House, which was not something I had on my bingo card during the one plus hour press conference.

All right, Arlette Saenz, great reporting. Thank you.

Well, these are the pages of the papers, front pages, from across the country this morning as our nation enters - we're going to keep saying it because it's true -- unchartered territory. No leader in the House with just weeks left to prevent a government shutdown. Other than that, everything's going great.

Back with us is CNN anchor Audie Cornish and White House correspondent for "Bloomberg News," Akayla Gardner.

I joke because I'm not really sure what else to do at this point because, for one, this institution often seems to be a mess. But also we were talking during the break, it just feels like every week something can be described as unprecedented -

HARLOW: I said we need a new segment called unprecedented.

MATTINGLY: Or it just is unprecedented.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Unprecedented. Here we go again.

MATTINGLY: And it's not even hyperbolic in this case -

CORNISH: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Because historically it's never happened before. Is this a reflection of something important? You're so good at big picturing things. Or is this just a - man, this is where we're at?

CORNISH: I mean I think there's a lot of things that can be said overall about polarization in this country. And, obviously, the House is a reflection of that between gerrymandered districts and people's sort of new incentive. [08:45:02]

But I think what's really fascinating is watching the nature of power shift. So, you have someone like Kevin McCarthy, who was a big fundraiser, right, who theoretically should be able to call in a lot of favors to maintain power. You have someone like Matt Gaetz, who is not a great fundraiser. He's a fundraiser for himself, but he doesn't take much in the way of PACs, et cetera. But he gets a lot of TV hits.

Right now the power is with the guy -- the king maker is the guy who can get the attention. And the attention economy that makes sense, but that's not so great for governing.

And I think that Arlette also forecast a really fascinating fissure that's going to happen over the next few weeks over funding to Ukraine.

HARLOW: Yes.

CORNISH: That thing has been the undercurrent to a lot of this. And the former president is not supportive of funding for Ukraine. And there's a lot of people in the House who are going to fight to that end and it's going to really mess up that conversation in the fall.

AKAYLA GARDNER, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "BLOOMBERG NEWS": And I think speaking to the historic nature of this moment, I think Kevin McCarthy really thought the Democrats were going to save him because of that alone, that they didn't want this contrast, at least on the world stage, to have an empty speakership. That, obviously, is not what happened. Democrats did not step in and save him.

And I think it ultimately came down to a question of character and trust. They felt like he kept going back on his word. And something that really stood out was his comments on "FACE THE NATION" over the weekend.

HARLOW: Yes.

GARDNER: Democrats, obviously, voted in larger numbers than Republicans to avert a government shutdown, and yet he criticized them -

HARLOW: He did.

GARDNER: And said they were the ones that tried to push (ph) the shutdown (ph). That really bothered them.

MATTINGLY: They played them at the closed door caucus meeting yesterday, the Democrats did, House Democratic leadership did.

HARLOW: Yes.

CORNISH: And those relationships matter, right? And I think that what was revealed is that relationships within his party weren't so great. You have Burchett on this morning talking about what he perceived a very kind of ugly conversation ahead of that vote. If you can't win over a Tennessee Republican in your conference, what are you here for? You know, this is what it's about, is building and maintaining these relationships for the ultimate goal of governance. And I don't know what you do if you start to have folks who are actually not that interested in the governance process.

HARLOW: Here's McCarthy, what he said about not having regrets.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): I don't regret standing up for choosing governing (ph) over grievance. It is my responsibility. It is my job. I do not regret negotiating. Our government is designed to find compromise.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Now it is in -- the question that we've had the Democrats on - they're not answering is the alternative. The question of the alternative, right? You just heard Katherine Clark, the number two in the House, saying Hakeem Jeffries. We heard that from Pat Ryan earlier today. That's not the reality. They don't have the five Republican votes to get that.

Can you answer the question that they are not answering right now, which is, are any of these other names being floated more palatable for some reason than Kevin McCarthy was to them?

GARDNER: Yes, I think the biggest name right now is Steve Scalise. He's number two to McCarthy. He's naturally the person that would take over.

We're also hearing Jim Jordan, who is a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus. He's also leading the charge to impeach President Biden.

HARLOW: Biden, yes.

GARDNER: Even though the White House does not have a say, I can tell you for sure they do not want him to be that person.

HARLOW: To them that's worse than McCarthy?

GARDNER: Especially because of Ukraine.

HARLOW: Yes.

GARDNER: Jim Jordan does not want Ukraine funding to continue. The one thing they had security with, with Kevin McCarthy -

HARLOW: Yes.

GARDNER: Was that he publicly supported -

HARLOW: He did.

GARDNER: Continuing funding, continuing to send -- HARLOW: What about Scalise?

GARDNER: Scalise also supports it. He has a b rating according to one report that rates Republicans on how much they support Ukraine. So, they would feel comfortable with him. But I don't think they have a dog in this fight. They know that Republicans do not care what President Biden thinks of who should be the next speaker. This is a decision that they have to make as a caucus. But definitely not Jim Jordan and some of these other high liners, like Byron Donalds, other folks that are really closely tied to Donald Trump. They would not be comfortable with those names.

MATTINGLY: Audie - and this is not the biggest issue, and I'm the first to acknowledge that -- but one of the first things that Patrick McHenry, the speaker pro-tem, not totally sure what we describe him at this point other than a place holder -

CORNISH: Just to like beat the gavel and do submission into full meme status.

MATTINGLY: I mean he was aggressive with the gavel. I respect - I respect the gavel strike game.

CORNISH: Yes, I appreciated that.

MATTINGLY: No doubt about it.

Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House, Steny Hoyer, the former majority leader of the House, who have left leadership, both of them apparently have lost their offices inside the Capitol complex. Were told basically to take their stuff out.

CORNISH: Right, what they're called, their hideaways.

MATTINGLY: Their hideaways.

CORNISH: So, this is basically a kind of a courtesy space you get as somebody who had been an important leader.

MATTINGLY: Right.

CORNISH: And, yes, I do think it's interesting that the very first thing they did -

HARLOW: First thing.

CORNISH: Was lash out at her, and she wasn't even there. So just like living rent-free in their heads. But I don't know if that is going to help them get to the next step.

The question is, is Matt Gaetz in charge of figuring out who the next speaker is? Because if he is, this is a very different ballgame.

[08:50:03]

MATTINGLY: Why? CORNISH: Because I don't know where his power really lies. I have not

heard many lawmakers say a single nice thing about him, right? He's not exactly beloved. And it's not clear what he wants. What is his set -- beyond these conversations about order and committees, et cetera, where is he on these bigger issues? And I think that is something that the country will have to reckon with if we're seeing a shift in power in that conference.

MATTINGLY: Yes, that's a great point.

It's also worth noting, Gaetz was able to whip eight people. That's his power.

HARLOW: That's all he needed.

MATTINGLY: That's all he needed.

GARDNER: (INAUDIBLE).

MATTINGLY: That's true. That's true. Akayla, great to see you, Audie, thanks for coming on. Appreciate it.

Well, as Congress' historic vote to remove Kevin McCarthy as House speaker continues, or at least process to try and get to that point, more reactions from a House Republican just ahead.

Plus, former President Trump is back in court in an hour. We'll take you there.

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[08:55:00]

SETH MEYERS, HOST, "LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS": After Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz filed a resolution that would remove Kevin McCarthy from the speakership, McCarthy tweeted, "bring it on." And Gaetz replied, quote, "just did." You know, a lot of people think Joe Biden is too old to govern, but it sounds like these guys aren't old enough.

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": Back in January Congress had to vote a record 15 times for McCarthy to get the speaker's job. But to remove him? Just one. That's progress (INAUDIBLE).

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HARLOW: That's one way of defining progress.

So, does all this make you want to come back here, Mattingly?

MATTINGLY: This seems like a trick question where I'm going to get myself in trouble one way or another?

HARLOW: Yes. No, it's just -

MATTINGLY: Look, here's -

HARLOW: I can't believe we're here at this point as a country.

MATTINGLY: Also, a beautiful day. Thank you for setting that up.

I think the difficulty for me is that building behind you I hold in, like, the highest regard.

HARLOW: Everyone should.

MATTINGLY: And absolutely revere it. And every day I walk into it or walked into it, all I could think about was how lucky I was to be in the coolest building in the world. And I think this isn't great for the institution.

HARLOW: That's right.

MATTINGLY: IT's not great for the country. And I hope they figure something out.

But, damn, as a reporter, it's good to cover. It is really, really fascinating to cover. We don't know the end game here.

HARLOW: We don't?

MATTINGLY: That is very, very rare.

HARLOW: Manu has his running shoes on today, as does Lauren Fox.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Yes.

HARLOW: But in all seriousness, this is a first for the country. It's a sad day. And we'll see where it goes from here.

And we appreciate all of you joining us from our special coverage from Washington, D.C.

Stay with CNN.

"NEWS CENTRAL" is after this.

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