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House GOP Passes Stopgap Government Funding Bill; Trump Suggests Revoking Broadcast Licenses Over "Bad Publicity"; Intel Officials Are Split On Whether Russia Deliberately Flew Drones Into Poland. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired September 19, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the Situation Room.

There's breaking news to start this hour. The House has just passed a bill to keep the federal government funded beyond this month. This now sets up a showdown in the U.S. Senate as Congress scrambles to avoid a government shutdown. The Speaker, Mike Johnson, has just emerged. He's speaking to reporters. I want to listen in.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), HOUSE SPEAKER: Well, here we are again. Let me just say a couple of things this morning, and we'll take a couple of questions. As Speaker of the House, it is my responsibility to lead the House of Representatives and to do what is right by the American people, and that's what we did today in two very important votes. The first was a -- a common-sense, very reasonable, nonpartisan effort to keep the government open.

This is a -- a very short, seven-week holdover of -- of government funding. We are going to allow more time for the appropriations process to continue. We have been working very hard here to get appropriations back to some semblance of regular order, and I'm proud of the work that the House has done, having passed 12 separate appropriations bills, as the system is supposed to work, three off the House floor, three off the Senate floor.

We voted to go to a conference committee to resolve the differences between those bills and to keep this process going. So the responsible thing to do was to keep the government open to allow a little more time for that to happen. So we put a -- a short-term, very clean C.R. on the floor today that will allow just that.

We did it early enough to allow our Senate colleagues to process this. Unfortunately, we didn't have -- I think we only had one Democrat come along with us on that, and that's -- that's shameful, in -- in -- my -- in my opinion, because we could have turned this into a partisan measure, and we chose not to do that. We're trying to operate in good faith here.

Now, Chuck Schumer and the Democrats issued a counteroffer and the counteroffer is filled with poison pills and partisan demands that will break the system down, and Chuck Schumer knows that. He's trying to force, for example, and everybody at -- at home needs to understand what Chuck Schumer is trying to do, is force $1.4 trillion in additional spending on the American people, a spending hike on a very short-term continuing resolution to keep the government open.

He also wants to make sure, he wants to reinstate health care to be provided free by American taxpayers for illegal aliens. We're not going to do that either. He also wants to add $500 million to prop up left-leaning media organizations. We're not doing that either. Chuck Schumer chose to try to make this a partisan exercise, and -- and Hakeem Jeffries as well, and it's wrong to do that.

And so if they choose to vote against this clean, completely nonpartisan C.R., then they will be choosing to shut the government down, and they will owe the consequences of the -- of what happens following that. So I think it's a very shameful turn of events. I hope they do the right thing, and -- and Schumer and the Democrats in the Senate have an opportunity to do that. Everybody in America can see what happens with it.

The second vote we took here was also the right thing to do. We passed a resolution to honor the life and legacy of Charlie Kirk, my -- my late friend, the friend of so many in this chamber, and we called out political violence in America. In fact, I want to read with you the final line of this resolution because I think it's something that the American people are eager to hear. It says this, "the House of Representatives calls upon all Americans to reject political violence, recommit to respectful debate, uphold American values, and respect one another as fellow Americans."

Sadly, a number of Democrats could not bring themselves to vote for that. You know, we -- we have to let everybody make their own judgments about that. I -- I just think that the resolution and the clean short-term C.R. were the right things to do today. I think it does right by the American people, right by our system. And -- and I think everybody will recognize that.

I'll just say this. The ball is in Chuck Schumer's court. I hope he does the right thing. I hope he does not choose to shut the government down and inflict pain unnecessarily on the American people. I hope that they will vote on this clean short-term C.R. so that we can continue the work to get our appropriations done. I'll take a couple questions. Yes?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, will you consider meeting with Schumer and Jeffries before --

BLITZER: All right, we're going to continue to monitor this news conference with the House Speaker, and we'll get the headlines, if there are more headlines, for you. I want to bring in our correspondent, Arlette Saenz. She's up on Capitol Hill right now. This vote to keep the government open beyond the end of this month, that's when the -- the government potentially could shut down. Significant vote of the House of Representatives, a narrow vote, but it's looking unlikely that it's got enough support in the Senate. You just heard the speaker go after Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, for introducing all sorts of what he called partisan issues in the Senate version, which clearly the Republicans will reject.

[11:05:02]

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the House passed this short stopgap funding bill, but there are major questions about how this will all play out over in the Senate. We're expecting a little later this afternoon that the Senate will actually be voting on competing proposals, not just this one plan that came out of the House that would extend government funding until November 21st.

Democrats have also offered their own counterproposal, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said that they will be voting on both of those measures. So a lot of questions, as both of those measures are likely to fail, and it's unclear how exactly they will resolve these differences relating to government funding, which is set to expire at the end of September.

But here in the House, House Speaker Mike Johnson really held together his GOP coalition. There were only two Republicans who voted no, Thomas Massie and Victoria Spartz, and one Democrat who joined Republicans in passing this measure, that was Jared Golden out of Maine, a more moderate Democrat. But I caught up with Massie shortly after the vote to hear exactly why he voted no. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: So you voted no?

REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): Yes, I voted no.

SAENZ: And why so?

MASSIE: I mean, when Mike Johnson took the speakership, he said we were done with short-term C.R.s, we were done with omnibus bills, and now he wants to do a short-term C.R. to get to an omnibus bill. It's Biden's budget. We are renewing Biden's budget without cutting any of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: So now the action will head over to the Senate, where they're expected to vote on this House stopgap funding bill, but Democrats have said that they will be opposed to it. They have floated this counterproposal that aims to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year. They also want to make sure that President Trump can't send up more rescissions package to claw back already approved funding or spending for various programs across the federal government.

So lots of questions about where things will head in the Senate as they are working on a very short time frame. Lawmakers are supposed to be out for the Jewish holiday at the beginning of next week. There's a possibility that the Senate could be called back a bit earlier, and House Republican leadership has told us that they are not planning to come back until October 1st, which means they could be jamming the Senate with these bills as this shut -- shutdown is inching ever closer.

BLITZER: And, Arlette, I just want to make sure that all of our viewers understand, in order to keep the government operating longer than the end of this month because the fiscal year ends at the end of this month, they have to pass what's called a C.R., a continuing resolution, which has just passed the House, but it's got to pass in the Senate as well. Then the President of the United States has to sign it into law. And it looks like the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, is toughening his stance, working together with Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House, and potentially they're going to oppose what's in this Republican-led version that has just passed the House.

SAENZ: Yes, Democrats really are working to try to stay unified around this stopgap funding bill that they are proposing. They want to make sure that they can have some type of negotiation. So far, that hasn't played out. Now, one big fear among some Democrats is thinking back to what happened in March when Senate Major -- Minority Leader Chuck Schumer voted with Republicans to keep the government open.

There has been various signs of anxiety within the Democratic caucus if Schumer will actually hold the line and stick with the plan that came out of the House Democratic leadership. I tried to ask several Democratic members about that today. They said that one of them, Ro Khanna from California, told me that he believes Schumer saw the consequences, the backlash that came when he had voted to keep the government funded with Republicans. Last time around, he thinks that he will hold the line this time as they are trying to figure out how to avert this shutdown.

BLITZER: On the second vote that the speaker was talking about, I don't know if you have the numbers, but it passed honoring Charlie Kirk. Tell us a little bit about that vote. There were some Democrats who voted against it?

SAENZ: Yes, so there was a resolution to honor Charlie Kirk's life. This is something that lawmakers had been working towards over the past week. I don't have the exact number right in front of me, but I believe roughly 95 Democrats voted with it, not the entire Democratic caucus. But this was something that House Speaker Mike Johnson had wanted to make sure that they could get across the finish line.

I'll also note that many lawmakers are planning to attend the funeral service for Charlie Kirk that is taking place this Sunday in Arizona. And so these House members wanted to make sure that they had this resolution in place to try to honor his life.

[11:10:03]

BLITZER: All right, Arlette Saenz, thanks very, very much for that update. Appreciate it very much.

Also, there's other news this morning. No laughing matter. New fallout over the indefinite removal of Jimmy Kimmel's Late Night Show. "ABC" yanked it off the air after the FCC chair suggested revoking affiliate licenses because of Kimmel's comments in reference to the killing of Charlie Kirk.

And that FCC chair, Brendan Carr, says more team work is needed to make sure could face similar scrutiny. Last night, Kimmel's fellow Late Night hosts pushed back against what some are calling an attack on free speech here in the United States. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From Comedy Central, it's the all-new government- approved daily show with your patriotically obedient host, Jon Stewart.

STEPHEN COLBERT, CBS "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT" HOST: After threats from Trump's FCC chair, "ABC" yanked Kimmel off the air indefinitely. That is blatant censorship. Jimmy, just let me say, I stand with you and your staff 100 percent.

SETH MEYERS, NBC "LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS": It is a privilege and an honor to call Jimmy Kimmel my friend in the same way that it's a privilege and honor to do this show every night. I wake up every day, I count my blessings that I live in a country that at least purports to value freedom of speech, and we're going to keep doing our show the way we've always done it, with enthusiasm and integrity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, let's go live right now to our senior White House correspondent, Kristen Holmes. Kristen, what are you hearing from Trump administration officials this morning?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, they're doubling down on this, and it's not just the officials. It's coming from the top. President Trump taking it a step further last night when talking to reporters, saying essentially that he believed that networks' licenses could be revoked if they aired mostly negative coverage of him and added that at one point he thought that maybe these networks should have to reapply periodically for those licenses. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They said the networks were 97 percent against me. I get 97 percent negative, and yet I won easily. I won all seven swing states popularly. I won everything. I mean, they're getting a license. I -- I would think maybe their license should be taken away. And that would be up to Brendan Carr.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: And you heard him there saying he would leave that up to Brendan Carr. Who is Brendan Carr? Now, we've just heard from him yesterday saying he was also maybe speculating that "ABC's" "The View" should go under scrutiny of the FCC. Brendan Carr is the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

He wrote the FCC chapter in Conservative Blueprint Project '25 -- 2025, and he has promised to hold T.V., radio stations and dismantle the "censorship cartel." And just very quickly here, when he talks about this agency review, he's talking specifically about the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates communications within the U.S. It covers radio, T.V., satellite, cable. There are three commissioners appointed by the President, one of which serves as the chairman. That chairman, of course, as we know, is Brendan Carr.

BLITZER: All right, Kristen Holmes reporting from the White House. Kristen, thank you very much.

I want to get some analysis right now. I want to bring in the former FCC chairman under President Obama, Tom Wheeler. Tom, thanks very much for joining us. I know you've been troubled by Disney and "ABC's" move to pull Jimmy Kimmel off the air, at least temporarily. The current FCC chair, Brendan Carr, is accusing Kimmel of, "the sickest conduct possible." But who do you hold responsible for that decision? Would it be the government or the companies?

TOM WHEELER, FORMER FCC CHAIR UNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, I think the important thing to focus on is what Brendan Carr said, right? When -- when he went on a podcast and said he didn't like what Jimmy Kimmel was saying and that the affiliates carrying Jimmy Kimmel ought to do something about that. And they did. They stepped up and they wiped him off. And then "ABC" responded to that.

This is not a role for the federal government or the chairman of the FCC to be playing. And the danger here, Wolf, is what we just heard in that segment that the President has been now talking about, which is that maybe we ought to remove the licenses from anybody who doesn't agree with me. And that's authoritarian control of the media.

What the FCC has been doing for the last 90 years, since 1934 when it was created, is it has had a consistent policy of trying to promote diversity of ideas and diversity of views. And now what we're seeing is that the Trump-Carr FCC is coming in and saying, I'll be the judge of what those views should be. And that's getting on a slippery slope.

[11:15:05]

BLITZER: Have you ever seen anything like this before?

WHEELER: No. I mean, this is, you know, people frequently ask me, would you have done something like this? No, there's a basic thing here called the First Amendment, which says government does not get involved in this. And if that isn't enough, the statute of the FCC says in Section 236 that you won't do these kinds of things.

It's -- it's unprecedented. And the concern, I think, that we all ought to have is what happens next. You know, the -- the leverage that the chairman of the FCC has is immense. And Brendan Carr has been using it to bludgeon his regulated companies. For instance, the largest "ABC" affiliate, a company called Nexstar, has a merger pending before the FCC that Brendan Carr will have to rule on.

And beyond that, it is a merger that changes the FCC rules and will give this one company 80 percent of the households in America, which is twice what the FCC rules say they should have now. Carr has to change those, and Carr has to approve the merger. And so when he turns and says you ought to do something, what do you think they do?

BLITZER: They listen, obviously. And back in 2019, I don't know if you know this, on Twitter, now called X, Carr posted this, and I'm quoting now. Should the government censor speech it doesn't like? Of course not. The FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the, "public interest." Do you suspect he has changed his position now?

WHEELER: Yes, he might call it a flip-flop. You know, Brendan Carr was very explicit early on about saying that he stood for free speech. So he wrote the infamous Project 2025 chapter on the FCC. The first seven words are the FCC should promote free speech.

My favorite quote, and I'll quote here is, he said in 2023, censorship is an authoritarian's dream. I thought at the time that he was standing up for free speech. It begins to sound like it was a playbook.

BLITZER: What does that mean?

WHEELER: This is what were -- this is what authoritarians could do, come in and say. He said -- he said on --on -- on CNBC that we can do that. I'm sorry. Yes, CNBC, he said we can do this because of the permission, "the permission structure that President Trump's election has provided." I just said a minute ago, Wolf, 90 years of standing up for diversity of ideas, and now the chairman says the permission structure created by Donald Trump says, I alone can decide what's the right idea, and I alone will determine what's in the public interest. That's not his job.

BLITZER: You spent, what, four years as the chairman of the FCC. Tom Wheeler, thanks very much for your expertise. Thanks very much for your service. Appreciate it --

WHEELER: Thank you.

BLITZER: -- very, very much. Tom Wheeler joining us.

And still ahead, the search for answers, why U.S. intelligence officials are still having a rather tough time agreeing on why Russian drones entered Poland last week, or if the move was even intentional.

[11:18:55]

Plus, new reporting about the Trump administration's quiet efforts to retake a military base in Afghanistan, currently held by the Taliban. Will U.S. troops go back into Afghanistan? Stay with us. You're in The Situation Room.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: All right, there's more breaking news we're following. Three Russian fighter jets have just entered into Estonia's airspace without permission. Earlier this morning, that according to Estonia's foreign ministry. Officials say the jets stayed in their airspace for some 12 minutes. Estonia borders Russia and is a key member of NATO. Its foreign minister called the move by Moscow unprecedentedly brazen. That's a direct quote.

All this comes as U.S. and Western intelligence officials are still trying to determine whether Russia intentionally flew drones over Polish airspace earlier this month. Joining us here in The Situation with CNN's Katie Bo Lillis. Walk us through, Katie Bo, this new reporting on what's going on.

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Wolf, we're just over a week from 19 Russian drones entering Polish airspace. And --

BLITZER: Poland, a key NATO ally -- NATO ally as well.

BO LILLIS: Precisely so. And U.S. and Western intelligence officials are still deeply divided over whether that incursion was accidental or whether it was intentional. Perhaps an effort to probe Western air defenses, right? And part of what makes this so difficult for them to -- to reach an assessment on this is they're really reliant on looking at sort of the technical specifications of the drones that they were able to shoot down in Poland, as well as the flight pattern of these drones while they're in Polish airspace. How were they flying, right? What can they learn from that?

[11:25:09]

And the problem is that most of that information could really be interpreted either way. We heard from some Ukrainian officials who say, look, we've never seen a deviation of this size. Nineteen drones knocked off target, right. We have also heard from some Western intelligence officials who spoke to us who say, look, these drones are programmed en masse. If you have hundreds of drones in the air at a time, as was the case with this attack, 20 of them run into Ukrainian electronic warfare defenses, a jamming, essentially. It's perfectly plausible that 20 of them could have been knocked off their pathway.

And so one U.S. military official that I spoke to really put the odds at 50-50 either way. The problem now, of course, is how do you respond if you are NATO, if you don't know whether this was intentional or not? What we did hear from senior officials, both here in the United States and in Europe, is either way, whether it was intentional, whether it was accidental, it suggests a really worrying increase in the tolerance for risk that Russia is willing to take.

BLITZER: If it were accidental, I think this second incident now with Estonia, another NATO ally and Russian jets flying over and entering that airspace, that would seem to confirm it wasn't accidental.

BO LILLIS: That's certainly going to be brought to bear on the analysis. And I think you're going to see a lot of certainly European nations who already believed that this was intentional saying, look, this is just further evidence.

BLITZER: It's happened now twice, so we'll see what happens. Katie Bo Lillis, thanks very, very much. I want to bring in CNN military analyst, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton. Colonel, thanks very much for joining us. So what's your analysis on Poland, now Estonia, two NATO allies? And as we all know, if Russia is involved in engaging militarily against NATO allies, this isn't -- this isn't just against Poland and Estonia, but all NATO allies potentially could be involved.

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, absolutely. And that's where the Article 5-like provisions come into play, Wolf. So when you look at the Polish example with those 19 drones, as Katie Bo was just talking about, I would put the odds actually at more 70-30 or 60-40 that the Russians did this intentionally.

Now, it is absolutely possible that there was jamming involved. And the way to determine that is whether or not Ukrainian jamming efforts were underway at that particular moment in time or even Polish jamming efforts. So if there was nothing like that going on at that time, then you can pretty much determine that this was an intentional effort.

When it comes to the Estonian situation with three fighter jets, that is an obvious offensive play by the Russians. What they're doing is they're testing the air defenses of the Estonians. They're looking at the way in which the Estonians would respond to an incursion and the fact that they stayed in Estonian airspace for 12 minutes. That's a very long time, relatively speaking. A small country doesn't take long to fly from one end to the other in a fighter jet. They would be doing this intentionally to determine what the Estonians have and how they would deploy it.

BLITZER: Is there a point at which you think NATO allies should respond more forcefully to these kinds of Russian incursions?

LEIGHTON: Well, it depends on what exactly the Russian incursions are -- are doing. If -- if the Russian incursions involve just intelligence-gathering assets, that's one thing. But in this particular case, at least with the Estonian situation, where you have fighter jets involved, that's an obvious offensive weapon. Some of the drones that were used in Poland also have offensive capabilities.

So when you look at how those drones were employed, did they have a type of warhead in -- on their -- in their platform? Did they have only electronic gear in their platform? That would then determine what kind of response NATO should have. But generally speaking, NATO should be prepared to shoot these drones down if necessary.

Fighter jets, different story, because you're talking about a manned aircraft. That involves something completely different. The best thing to do in that case, at the moment at least, would be to intercept those jets and force them back into Russian airspace.

BLITZER: Good point. On another very sensitive military-related issue, you heard yesterday President Trump say the Trump administration is now working to regain control of the huge Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, which the U.S. withdrew from at the end of the Biden administration. What would that look like for the U.S. to attempt to take that air base? It's a huge airbase back. LEIGHTON: Yeah, that's -- that is a huge air base, Wolf. And of course, it was the node for a lot of our operations during our -- the time of our presence in Afghanistan. It would be very interesting because now Bagram Air Base, if we took it over again, would be in the middle of Taliban territory. So there would have to be a lot of arrangements with the Taliban. And in essence, we would become de facto, if not de jure, allies with the Taliban, at least for the purposes of protecting that airbase.

[11:29:47]

So it would be a very interesting development. The President mentioned yesterday that this was basically going in discussions in order to have a way to watch China, especially China's nuclear developments. That is something that Bagram could be used for, but it is actually pretty far away from the Chinese facilities at Lop Nur and other space related --