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Part of New York City High-Rise Collapses; Congressional GOP Leaders Comment on Government Shutdown; Nation's Health Could Be Impacted By Government Shutdown. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 01, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, breaking news, no end in sight. We are now 10 hours into a government shutdown and Congress seems to be no closer to a funding deal. Blame game, Democrats and Republicans are pointing fingers at each other for this shutdown. And in just moments, House Speaker Mike Johnson will be speaking on Capitol Hill. We will, of course, bring that to you live.

And these pictures, school collapse. Right now, rescuers are desperately digging for more than 90 people missing, trapped under rubble.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And grabbed and shoved new video just coming in showing masked ICE agents pushing journalists to the ground at the immigration court. What Homeland Security officials are now saying about the clash.

Plus, protesting federal presence, Memphis residents are criticizing the Trump administration's move to surge law enforcement, U.S. military troops, to their city.

And later an actress, an A.I. actress specifically, outrage moving very quickly over Tilly Norwood, the A.I. actress, and a major Hollywood name now saying, and I'm quoting now, we're screwed.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown, and you're in The Situation Room.

BROWN: And we are following this breaking news out of the Bronx. Search and rescue is underway after a high-rise building partially collapsed. The entire incinerator shaft fell in a 17-storey public housing building. This is live footage from our affiliate, WABC, there reporting that a gas explosion caused this collapse.

The building is located on Alexander Avenue right near East 138th Street. The New York Fire Department is now responding. It's not clear in these early hours if there are any injuries. Dogs are on the scene sniffing through the debris there.

BLITZER: A horrible situation indeed.

BROWN: Congressman Ritchie Torres joins us now on the phone. Congressman, you represent this area. What are you learning?

REP. RITCHIE TORRES (D-NY): Well, I'm profoundly shaken because I was just at Mitchell Houses just a few weekends ago for a summer barbecue. But it appears that a gas explosion led to a partial building collapse. There could be a full vacate of the building, which could lead to up to 174 families displaced from their homes. It's a 17 story building.

The Mitchell Houses is a public housing development. It's one of over 300 public housing developments in New York City. It's actually a federal housing development. And so my view is that HUD, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, needs to do everything it can to assist the city of New York in restoring the building and in relocating these families who have been displaced to permanent housing. This is an emergency situation that requires urgent action at every level of government, the federal level, the local level.

You know, thankfully, so far, my understanding is there are no fatalities, no injuries, but the images of the building collapse are nothing short of shocking to our community here in the Bronx. I'm here in D.C. because of the government shutdown, but I'm heading back to the Bronx to see the situation firsthand.

BLITZER: Yes. Congressman, it's Wolf Blitzer here in Washington as well. I know the Bronx. I know the Bronx well. There are a lot of buildings like this in your district, in the Bronx. How worried are you that what has happened in this building, God forbid, could happen in other buildings as well?

TORRES: Well, look, an investigation is still ongoing. But, you know, it's worth noting that the public housing stock has been aging rapidly. Public housing in New York City has been so savagely starved of funding by the federal government, that it has a capital need of $80 billion and counting. It would cost $80 billion to bring New York City public housing into a state of good repair.

And so, as far as I'm concerned, the federal government is the worst slumlord in the United States.

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And then I worry that situations like these could happen elsewhere.

BROWN: Wow. Well, amazing, as you say, no fatalities, no injuries. We hope that that holds. Congressman Ritchie Torres, thank you so much.

BLITZER: Good luck to all the folks over there in the Bronx. Congressman, thank you from me as well.

The House speaker, Mike Johnson, is now speaking to reporters up on Capitol Hill about this government shutdown. I want to listen in.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): -- of our civilian workforce is being sent home. These are hardworking Americans who work for our federal government. Our troops and our Border Patrol agents will have to go to work, but they'll be working without pay. Food assistance, veterans' benefits and vital support for women and children are all coming to a halt.

Now, thankfully, President Trump is trying to mitigate the damage as much as possible. His administration is working to limit the harm to the American people. But the longer this goes on, the more pain will be inflicted because it is inevitable when the government shuts down.

The sad thing about it is that every single bit of this was entirely avoidable. Democrats could have worked with us in a bipartisan manner to avert this unnecessary and very harmful shutdown. But instead, they did something that is rather shocking to us. They prioritized taxpayer funded benefits for illegal aliens over keeping the government open for American citizens.

They themselves position that as a binary choice, and it's patently absurd. Listen to what the Democrats are demanding. They demanded in exchange for our simple, clean 24-page bipartisan continuing resolution, the same one that Chuck Schumer and the Democrats voted for just a few months back in March. In exchange for that, they rejected it and they demanded something else. They wanted us to add over $1.5 trillion in new federal spending, paid for, of course, by hardworking American taxpayers simply for funding the government a current by current Biden level -- spending levels. We are not going to do that. We can't do that. We won't do it.

Almost two weeks ago, the House did our job. In the House, we passed a common sense, nonpartisan bill to keep the government open. Republicans did our job. We had one Democrat join us there, so it was bipartisan. But every other Democrat in the House voted to shut the government down. And last night, 44 Democrats in the Senate did the same thing.

This is a clean resolution. It would simply by Congress a few more weeks, seven weeks, to finish the job. Why do we need that time? So, that appropriators and both parties can finish their work. They've been restoring regular order. They've passed 12 separate bills out of committee in the House and the Senate has done its work as well. 3 bills of the 12 passed in each chamber. They don't line up exactly. So, there's a conference committee constituted the first time in years that that's happened. We just need more time because we ran out of clock at the end of the fiscal year, September 30th.

This is very important to note. Democrats themselves have voted to pass a clean bipartisan C.R. just like this 13 times in the last few years, during the four years of the Biden administration, 13 times this happened. Republicans did the responsible thing, even when we were in the minority, to keep the government open. And today should be no different. There is nothing new in this legislation. There's no poison pill, there's no partisan tricks, there's no gimmicks whatsoever. The only difference today is the man who is sitting in the Oval Office.

Rather than work with President Trump and Republicans to get this job done, as our party has done repeatedly in the same situation over the years, Democrats want to play political games with the lives and the livelihoods of Americans. The simple truth is Democrats in Congress have dragged our country into another reckless shutdown to satisfy their far left base. That is the truth. Whether or not the government remains open or reopens is entirely up to them.

There's still time for Democrats to pass this clean bipartisan bill that's sitting before them. And we encourage our Democrat colleagues to do that. I certainly pray they'll come to their senses soon and do the right and responsible thing.

The reason they will have one more opportunity today is because of the sound leadership is being provided in the U.S. Senate by our colleagues who are standing here with us. This is a joint press conference, as you know, between leadership, Republican leadership in the House and the Senate, and I'm delighted to yield to my good friend and an extraordinary leader in the Senate, Leader John Thune.

BLITZER: All right. We're going to continue to monitor these Republican leaders as they continue to work to see if they can avoid this government shutdown, which is now underway.

Our Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju is up on Capitol Hill. Manu, I've covered, and you have as well, a lot of these government shutdowns. Normally, what they do is they eventually pass what's called a clean C.R., continuing resolution, which continues the funding as previously approved.

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The Republicans say they're for this right now, the Democrats are opposed to this C.R. proposal. Tell us why.

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And that's the real rub here, right, Wolf, the Republican leadership has been putting forward this bill. It is a, yes, in Congressional speak, a clean C.R., which means it's a straight extension of existing funding from the previous fiscal year. They've actually proposed that for the path to continue until November 21st for seven weeks, but Democrats have blocked that repeatedly in the United States Senate because they are demanding a series of concessions from Republicans, namely on issues related to healthcare. They want to reverse the Medicaid cuts that are included --

BLITZER: All right. Manu, I'm going to interrupt for a moment because I want to hear the Senate Republican leader, John Thune, what he's saying.

SEN. JOHN THUNE (D-SD): 13 times in the past Senate Democrats have done when they were in the majority and Joe Biden was in the White House. This is a very straightforward issue. It's not complicated. They want it to end vote with us to open up the government by voting this out of the Senate today, putting it on President Trump's desk, and he will sign into the law.

The president, House Republican, Senate Republicans, we're all united on this. And what's interesting now is some of the Democrats are joining us. Our vote last night was a bipartisan vote. There were three Democrats that came over and voted with us because they know this strategy is a losing one and it hurts the American people. It's not about who wins or who loses or who gets blamed in all this. It's about the American people. And they have taken the American people hostage in a way that they think benefits them politically, but at the consequence of the cost of what's going to happen to the American families if this government shutdown continues.

And so I'm glad to be here with our Democrat or our Republican colleagues. Our Democrat colleagues in the House have been around here the last few days, I guess, flailing around, celebrating, celebrating the fact that they voted to shut down the government. How ironic. Well, this can all end today, folks. It needs to end today. We will continue to work together with our House counterparts, with the president of the United States to get this government open again on behalf of the American people.

Next up is -- there he is, the leader.

REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA): Thank you, Leader Thune.

Today marks day one of the Schumer shutdown. As Speaker Johnson pointed out, this didn't need to happen. House Republicans came together weeks ago to prevent a government shutdown. We brought a straightforward of a bill as you can have to say, let's allow government to be funded for another two months while we negotiate our differences.

Clearly, we have differences with Democrats right now. One of the Democrat leaders confirmed yesterday that Democrats shut the government down to fund healthcare for illegal aliens. That is no way to hold the American people hostage over some far left demand.

You know, we had an election in November where the country came together and said, let's send to Washington leaders who want to solve problems and get our country back on track. And we've been working feverishly to do that, to get this country back on track, to get the economy moving, to lower inflation, to lower interest rates. And Democrats, just to appease their far left radical base, have been voting no every step of the way.

Well, today, it has consequences because when Hakeem Jefferies whipped every Democrat to vote no and shut the government down, luckily in the House we only needed a majority vote and we were able to come together and do the right thing and get that bill over to the Senate. But as everybody knows in the Senate, you also need Democrats to come together with Republicans to get 60 votes. And so when Chuck Schumer made such a fatally flawed decision to shut the government down, ultimately, the American people, I think, are going to get involved and demand that Chuck Schumer reverse course.

BLITZER: All right. We're going to continue to monitor this Republican news conference up on Capitol Hill.

I quickly want to go back to Manu Raju and fact check something we just heard. We keep hearing from these Republicans, Manu, that the Democrats want to spend billions of dollars to fund healthcare opportunities for illegal aliens here in the United States. The Democrats are denying that, but give us the sense, what's the truth? RAJU: Yes. You know, this is all goes back to President Trump's one big, beautiful bill act. That includes a series of Medicaid cuts. And as part of this new law, it limits the eligibility of people who can actually get those Medicaid benefits. Republicans in particular try to make sure that undocumented immigrants could not get those Medicaid benefits. In the Democratic proposal, they're looking to reverse a number of the Medicaid cuts.

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But the Democrats say this has nothing to do with undocumented immigrants because they already are prohibited under federal law from getting those Medicaid benefits. So, that's been part of the debate and the fight that's been going on here.

The Democrats have larger demands too, beyond just changing the Medicaid cuts. They also want to extend subsidies under Obamacare to help people pay for their health insurance, enhanced subsidies that were provided during the COVID pandemic. Those subsidies are set to expire at year's end. Democrats contend that they need to be dealt with now because of concerns over open enrollment and people's premiums increasing.

And there's also a separate issue that Democrats are pushing as well. They are concerned about how Trump has moved to cut federal spending without the consent of Congress, something they argue is blatantly unconstitutional. But the Republicans say none of this belongs in a debate over keeping the government open, that they should just simply keep the government open now, negotiate some of those issues later, and that's where the fight is going to be. Democrats are demanding a negotiation. Republicans say no negotiation.

And look for today, Wolf, this morning on the Senate floor, the Republicans have put that bill back on the floor to extend government funding for the next seven weeks to dare Democrats to vote against it. And that's going to happen time and time again until Republicans believe enough Democrats could come to their side.

The question is, can Democrats remain unified and deny Republicans those 60 votes? They need to advance it. They need eight Democrats to break ranks. Yesterday, they just got three. Can they get five more? That's going to be the big question for Republicans to try to pressure Democrats to get on their side.

BLITZER: We'll see how that unfolds. All right, Manu, you're going to be busy. We'll stay in very close touch with you. Thank you very much.

And we're going to have much more on this federal government shutdown and its enormous impact. A former FDA commissioner will join us live after the break.

Stay with us. You're in The Situation Room.

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[10:20:00] BLITZER: This federal government shutdown potentially could put the oversight of the nation's healthcare system in jeopardy. The Department of Health and Human Services says the FDA's ability to protect and promote public health and safety would be significantly impacted with many activities delayed or paused, end quote.

I want to discuss this and more with the former FDA commissioner under Presidents Obama and Biden, Robert Califf. Robert, thanks very much for joining us. Thanks for all your service over the years.

I know you've been in a position of trying to help the agency prepare for a potential government shutdown. You certainly helped before. How does this impact the FDA's role right now in safeguarding the nation's food and drug supplies?

ROBERT CALIFF, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: Well, thanks for having me on, Wolf. And, yes, I've been through this a couple of times. Never actually had to shut down on my watch, but preparing is a huge effort. And it really is a time thing. If it's only for a couple of days not much will change for the public. Things will go okay. Of course, it's very disruptive for employees and I think very disrespectful of employees that they have to come to work without getting paid and some get furloughed. A few thousand actually will get furloughed. But if it goes on for long, then there will be a real slowdown in the ability to process applications for new products. Food safety is one of the biggest things to get impacted.

And during this time, you can't take applications for products which are covered by user fees, which is a real problem, for example, for people with rare diseases who are hopeful for a treatment or a cure for a previously untreatable disease. So, a lot of bad things can happen during a shutdown. It's just not good.

BLITZER: What concerns you the most?

CALIFF: Well, I think what concerns me the most is, if this goes on for a couple weeks, that there could be food safety outbreaks that couldn't be coped with, significant problems could occur in the supply chains, which are a real problem right now, and were during my watch. You need a lot of people to deal. It's still a human effort to keep all these things going.

In the longer run, I worry about the morale of the employees at all of the federal agencies. They're not being treated well. They're already depleted in forces due to the DOGE cutbacks and these threats that I'm hearing from OMB and even the president seemed very strange and bizarre to me that you would use this to fire people permanently.

Now, that's not proven to happen. They've just been talking about it, as I understand it.

BLITZER: And President Trump says that potentially could be a good thing, that if he uses the shutdown as an opportunity to fire thousands of federal workers. What sort of impact would that have specifically on the Food and Drug Administration and the safety of the nation's food and drug supply? CALIFF: Well, this is so frustrating to me because the vilification of federal employees that are helping us keep our food safe, dealing with safety issues with medical products make -- you know, remember that nine out of ten new drugs that are put in clinical trials don't make it to market because the risks outweigh the benefits and it's the FDA that oversees that whole process of picking the ones that really are beneficial.

I think it's a fool's play to cut back this workforce, which is so critical to our safety. People will be harmed and they will die if this goes on for too long and those safeguards are not in place.

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BLITZER: And let's not forget that the FDA has already endured thousands and thousands of layoffs this year alone under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. What's your understanding of the impact that this is already having, the thousands of FDA officials who've been laid off and lost their jobs, others who are about to be furloughed and they're not going to be paid, they might get back pay after the shutdown, but that they could use this shutdown potentially to fire completely a lot of FDA officials?

CALIFF: Well, remember that already we've got teams of people who are fully dedicated to the public health working overtime and concentrating their efforts to plug holes where there're not enough people to go around to do all the work. So, they're having to pick and choose where to focus on the most important things. And if you deplete the workforce further, it simply will be impossible to get the work done.

And, you know, then in addition to that, just what this says to people trying to work at the FDA, imagine, Wolf, if your boss stood up in front of you on his first day, or like RFK did, to their faces, said, you are sock puppets of industry, how would you feel about coming to work? Or if your boss said, I don't really believe in vaccines and I'm going to do all I can to emphasize the risks and not the benefits, when the federal workforce is very focused on weighing the benefits and risks together at the same time?

So, this is very troublesome and worrying to someone like me who is concerned about our country. We're already in last place in longevity compared to other high income countries, dead last place. And it's not because, you know, of food dyes, it's because of the fundamentals of prevention and good healthcare that need to be delivered. We're not doing it, especially for people of low income.

BLITZER: Yes.

CALIFF: And these contracts are going to particularly hurt people who are not in the wealthy class. We have a system that works great for people who have a lot of money and power, but not so great for people who are disadvantaged.

And last thing I'll say about that, particularly in the -- BLITZER: A lot of young people right now are having second thoughts and third thoughts about becoming federal employees given what's going on right now.

Robert Califf, I appreciate your service over the years. Thanks very much for joining us.

CALIFF: Thanks, Wolf. Take care.

BLITZER: All right, thank you. Pamela?

BROWN: And coming up right here in The Situation Room, we're following some breaking news out of the Bronx. Search and Rescue is underway after a high-rise building partially collapsed. The New York City mayor will speak to the media at the top of the hour and we will bring that to you live.

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