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The Situation Room

Interview With Former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius; Interview With Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI); Partial Building Collapse in New York City; Government Shuts Down. Aired 11- 11:30a ET

Aired October 01, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Happening now, breaking news: partial building collapse. In moments, we expect the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, to provide an update, and we will bring that to you live.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Plus: deadlocked on demands. We are now 11 hours into the shutdown and still no closer to a deal, as lawmakers dig in.

And then later: the administration's efforts to revamp health care poised to have an oversized impact on women. We're examining what's changed, what's being proposed, and what it all means for women in both the short and long term.

BLITZER: Very important development indeed.

We want to welcome 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.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROWN: But, first, breaking news out of New York, where the fire department is investigating a partial high-rise building collapse. We expect Mayor Eric Adams to provide an update any moment, and we will bring that to you live. Right now, search-and-rescue crews are right there on the scene, along with dogs.

But, so far, we're being told no injuries have been reported. That is a good news, and we are now hearing from witnesses.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LLEDOR MOORE, WITNESS: Well, I was just coming in from cleaning the yard. I work across the street, and I was going to put my leaf blower up to get my hand cart to take out the trash. And I heard this loud boom, the rattle. I felt it. The first thing I said, what is that? Everybody is screaming, like,

what is that? The teacher ran outside, and he's like: Wow, the building, the building is falling. It's falling."

And I ran out. I saw it. I tried to get the footage, but I only got the aftermath.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: I want to go to CNN's Shimon Prokupecz. He's on the scene for us right now in the Bronx.

What are you hearing? What are you learning?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, SENIOR CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so quite a pretty heroic just sort of moments here, rescuers here rushing into this scene after reports of an explosion here in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx.

And when officials first arrive, what they could see were these bricks, just bricks all around this building after they fell when this shaft -- it's being described Wolf to us as a boiler shaft, sort of almost like a chimney where smoke would rise through this. This is an old building, 20 stories, and it's very common in many of these buildings here.

This is public housing here in the Bronx. They have these shafts. This is the boiler shaft. It was first thought to be the incinerator shaft, but you can clearly see there's no places for people to place garbage. So it's very clear now that this is the boiler shaft. And people here were reporting a smell of gas and then this explosion and then just the cascading bricks that fell down from the top of this 20-story building here.

It's pretty miraculous, this idea the fact that there have been no injuries here reported so far. Authorities were out here searching with dogs and by hand and luckily and thankfully they have not found any injured. But, really, at 8:00 this morning, as people were getting ready for work, as they were heading outside, they heard this loud boom followed by this collapse of bricks in this surrounding area.

And when you just think about where -- Wolf, if I want to show you where we're standing. We're standing just yards from a playground here. There's a basketball court here. So people would be out here. It's a beautiful morning here in the Bronx in New York City.

So people were on their way. And just thankfully, thankfully, really, Wolf, when you think about it, that nobody here was hurt. Officials here now trying to figure out the cause, what caused this collapse. I have been speaking to some of the people out here this morning, including a man who lives in this building.

Actually, he told me there was a fire here just last week. He's not been able to get back in the home. It was some kind of a electrical fire, but he describes that there are a lot of problems in this building. And so he is not surprised to see this happening this morning.

But, nonetheless, certainly for him, it's just another moment. He's been staying at a nearby hotel because he can't go back to his apartment. But he heard the boom.

BROWN: All right, Shimon, Mayor Eric Adams is speaking. We're going to listen in.

ERIC ADAMS (D), MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: A partial building infrastructure collapse due to what seems in preliminary investigations, there was some type of explosion.

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This happened at 8:10 this morning. We received reports of an incident involving the chimney to the boiler room here at NYCHA's Mitchel Houses. This resulted in a partial building's collapse. We are extremely fortunate. at this time we have no loss of life or no injuries.

Residents of the F and G lines in the building were evacuated and other tenants can reoccupy the building at this time once we ensure the safety of the structure. First responders quickly arrived on the scene. And an investigation is currently under way to determine the cause of the incident. We're still investigating to make that determination.

All of this is an unfolding situation at this time. And we want to make sure that people stay away from the area to keep them safe. We are having traffic and pedestrian restrictions throughout the area. Gas to the entire complex is shut off right now and inspections of the building are ongoing.

And it's crucial that we ensure that the area is safe, so we're really calling for residents not to go anywhere near the area. I want to thank NYCHA, FDNY, NYPD, NYCEM, DOB, the deputy mayor public safety and Con Edison for their swift response.

And as the mayor, it's my obligation to ensure that the tenants and residents in this area are safe. I want to turn it over now to Commissioner Tucker. Then we will hear from NYCEM Commissioner Zach Iscol and finally the bureau president of the Bronx.

Commissioner.

BROWN: All right, we're just hearing from Mayor Adams. Fortunately, somehow, miraculously, Wolf, confirming no injuries there at that partial building collapsed.

BLITZER: Thank God, no deaths.

BROWN: Yes, no deaths.

BLITZER: I mean, it looks like that whole side of that building just collapsed like that.

BROWN: Yes, really -- yes.

BLITZER: That's hard to believe. They got to learn what happened to make sure other buildings are safe.

BROWN: Yes, for certain.

BLITZER: All right, there's other important news we're following this morning as well.

Americans are facing a new, yet familiar example of political dysfunction right here in Washington. A government shutdown is now in its 11th hour. Some 750,000 federal employees could now be furloughed.

BROWN: And most federal workers, including the military, will not receive their paycheck until the shutdown ends. So if you're flying, delays and cancellations are expected at airports, FDA inspections will be limited, and the Education Department will furlough most of its staff.

Before the midnight deadline, President Trump suggested he would use the shutdown to target programs favored by Democrats.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The last thing we want to do is shut it down.

But a lot of good can come down from shutdowns. We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn't want. And they'd be Democrat things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: CNN's Alayna Treene is at the White House for us.

So, Alayna, how serious is the Trump administration about using this as an opportunity to lay off most federal workers?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: They're very serious.

And I know from my conversations with people here at the White House, Pamela and Wolf, that it isn't just talk. They are looking at taking action, particularly this idea of layoffs and further slashing of the federal work force, and also cuts to benefits, as you mentioned, that Democrats care a lot about.

I want you to listen to how Russell Vought -- he is the White House budget chief -- put this yesterday, because he will really be the person who's going to be handling a lot of this.

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J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I think what's going to happen is that as the political pressure builds and as we continue to have these negotiations, you're going to see more and more Democrats come to the side of reason and reopen the government. You can't reward this exercise in hostage-taking, which is what we would be doing if we allowed government -- the government opening to be conditional on the Democrats' policy disagreements.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: OK, so that was actually the vice president, J.D. Vance, just talking about -- kind of seeing what we have seen a lot from Republicans, which is this idea of the blame game.

And I can tell you as well that they do believe, at least politically, in my conversations with people here at the White House, that they will be able to tell a good story blaming the Democrats for this. Of course, we will see if that actually happens. Polls show that really voters are blaming both parties right now.

But back to my point before about Russell Vought, I mean, he has said and he said yesterday that there are all manners of authorities to be able to keep this administration's policy agenda moving forward and being able to do so without congressional approval,this idea of trying to expand the president's executive power at a time when the government is shut down, so a lot of things to be watching for.

We do know that in just a couple hours, we're going to hear from the White House press secretary. I'm sure she will be asked questions just like this. So, stay tuned for that, Pamela and Wolf.

BROWN: Yes. And I should note, President Trump said he would lay off more federal workers, not most.

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Thank you so much, Alayna Treene. Appreciate it Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, joining us now to discuss all of this and more, the House Republican Conference chair, Lisa McClain of Michigan.

Congresswoman, as usual, thanks so much for joining us.

First of all, I want you to listen to what President Trump specifically said yesterday before the shutdown officially began. Listen to this.

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TRUMP: We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like.

And you know all -- you all know Russell Vought. He's become very popular recently, because he can trim the budget to a level that you couldn't do any other way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: So, let me ask you, why are the president and Republicans, for that matter, threatening to use the shutdown for mass layoffs and cutting benefits? REP. LISA MCCLAIN (R-MI): Well, I don't know that it's a threat, but

the president's not wrong in the powers that he has during a shutdown.

And our hope is that the shutdown doesn't last long, like we talked about earlier, that the Democrats come to their senses and vote yes on a clean C.R., 24-page C.R. that doesn't have any partisan provisions in it, which is the exact same C.R. that they voted on 13 times and they voted for it in March.

So, at the end of the day, I think what the president is doing is preparing for the worst-case scenario. Hopefully, it doesn't last long, but at $37 trillion of debt, yes, there's going to be some pain felt, unfortunately. It doesn't have to be that way, but that's the situation that we're in right now.

BLITZER: And in the midst of all of this, as you know, Congresswoman, Democrats say they're trying to prevent millions of Americans, including in your state, from losing their health insurance or paying much higher health care premiums.

Why would Republicans be against that?

MCCLAIN: We are absolutely not against that. And if the Democrats really care, then ask yourself this, why did they cut $50 billion? Why did their proposal cut $50 billion from the rural health care funds?

What I would say to the Democrats is, this is a funding fight. This is not the time to take the American people hostage. The ACA credits don't run out until December. The best way to take care of that, which needs reform, no question -- there's 1.6 billion -- excuse me -- million people that are receiving Medicaid fraudulently that we tried to clean up through the working families tax cuts.

They want to put those back on the rolls. But the best way to do that is to open the government and let's get back to this thing called regular order, so we can have those debates, we can have those committee hearings, we can have those negotiations. But those aren't going to happen with the government shut down.

BLITZER: I understand that you and a lot of Republicans are understandably blaming the Democrats for this impasse right now, but what do you say to American voters who see that the fact that Republicans control the House of Representatives, they control the Senate, they control the White House, and will blame your party if this shutdown continues and there's enormous pain around the country?

MCCLAIN: Well, listen, I would say that they're wrong.

And I would say that they're wrong is because the Republicans, with only one Democrat in the House, we did our job. We voted to keep the government open. Republicans in the Senate, along now with, I think, four Democrats voted to keep the government open.

It's the Democrats that are standing in the way of this. They're the ones that are voting no. And we put forth a C.R. that's clean. There's nothing in there to negotiate, right? We didn't put a bunch of Republican policies in there to say, OK, well, we will take them out.

We put a clean C.R. that all the Democrats voted for in March, the same thing. So there's really nothing to take out to negotiate.

BLITZER: On another sensitive political issue, I just want to quickly get your reaction, Congresswoman. President Trump posted a second A.I.-altered video on social media depicting the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, wearing a sombrero with a mustache.

Jeffries has slammed the post, in his word, calling it racist. Is this an appropriate thing to do, for the president of the United States to be issuing a post like this? Should he take the videos down and formally apologize to the minority leader?

MCCLAIN: Well, so the president sure can get a laugh and get a rise out of the Democrats with his social media. I don't think that's anything new to anybody.

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What is sad in this situation is what the Democrats are doing, though. And where the Democrats need to apologize, quite frankly, is that they're holding the American people hostage. That's what we need to focus on. We need to focus on the American people and what is best to continue to move our country forward for the American people.

That's what we all need to be focused on right now.

BLITZER: On another sensitive subject, as you know, Congresswoman, President Trump yesterday floated the idea of using American cities as -- quote -- "training grounds" for the U.S. military. We're talking about American cities, big cities around the country.

Do you support that?

MCCLAIN: Listen, I wish we didn't even have to talk about this, right? I wish we had law and order in all of our cities.

I wish there weren't criminals that committed crimes 34 times and still continued to get let out to cause drastic damage. Unfortunately, that's the situation that we're in, and we're looking at all options to make our cities safer.

Just take a look at what happened in D.C. when President Trump deployed the National Guard to D.C. I mean, my daughter, who's 22, actually could ride the Metro for the first time since she's been here in D.C. I don't want to be talking about this, Wolf.

We need to get back to law and order. Law and order should be a bipartisan issue and to put the safety and security of Americans first. That's truly where the conversation needs to go.

BLITZER: Republican Congresswoman Lisa McClain of Michigan, thanks so much for joining us.

MCCLAIN: Thank you. Have a great day, Wolf. BLITZER: You too. Thank you -- Pamela.

BROWN: All right, still ahead, former Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius joins us to talk about how this government shutdown could impact everything from public health to food safety inspections.

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BROWN: Well, the effects of the shutdown are being felt across the federal work force.

The Department of Health and Human Services says more than 40 percent of its employees will be furloughed until Congress and the White House figure out a deal. And a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation -- that's a nonpartisan health policy research group -- shows that that should -- that the enhanced Obamacare subsidies expire at the end of the year. Premiums are expected to skyrocket by 70 percent on average.

Let's discuss this with the former Health and Human Services Secretary under President Obama Kathleen Sebelius.

Secretary Sebelius, thank you for coming on.

So, first of all, you led HHS during the 2013 shutdown. Help us better understand how this shutdown could impact the work HHS does.

KATHLEEN SEBELIUS, FORMER U.S. HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: Well, thanks for having me.

I think this all is a familiar theme. The Republicans have been trying to block health care from average Americans for decades. They 60 years ago tried to stop Medicare and Medicaid. They -- fast-forward to the Affordable Care Act. The government was shut down in 2013 because the Republicans did not want the Affordable Care Act to kick in.

October 1 was the critical date, and this was the date that the government was shut down for 16 days because the Republicans did not want Americans to have access to affordable health care. So we're in exactly the same position today, where there is no Republican plan to replace health care, but about 20 million people may lose health care benefits either through the Medicaid blockades that were put in place by the huge ugly bill passed by the Republicans or the tax credits.

And what happens can be pretty devastating to Americans across the board. Medicare checks will continue, payments will continue to be made, but no new patients will be admitted in the National Institutes of Health program. So, if you were on deck for a clinical trial, that will stop.

Day care centers, which are funded often through the Office of Children and Families, may have to shut down. They don't carry much excess cash, and if those payments stop being made, they will shut down. We have services to seniors across the country which are threatened. Food inspections will stop.

Mental health payments that go to states and pay for people's ongoing health care will stop. So there are critical services throughout HHS affecting people from the time they're born to the time they die, and those will be ground to a halt.

BROWN: And just to follow up with you, Republicans say that they don't want to take away health care from average Americans, they want to deal with the subsidies later on, that it shouldn't be part of the C.R.

Obviously, Democrats have a different point of view, and they are fighting back, which is why they did not get on board in the Senate with the C.R. or the House.

I want to get a little bit more granular with the shutdown's impact here. I want to look at SNAP. This is a program that may begin to run out of reserves to deliver nutrition support to women, infants and children as soon as a few weeks. How soon do you expect that could happen? What would the actual impact be on women and children?

SEBELIUS: Well, losing SNAP benefits, which is food and milk products and essential nutrients for moms and new babies, could be huge for both new moms and their infants.

It's really unclear what this administration is going to do. They're threatening mass firings and they're threatening laying off lots of people beyond anything we have ever seen. So I'm a little unclear what exactly will happen.

[11:25:09]

I can tell you it won't be good. But going back to your earlier point, these enhanced tax credits helping people buy their own insurance coverage in the marketplace expire at the end of this year. Democrats have tried over and over and over again to get the Republicans to extend them, and they have refused.

So we're at a point where Democrats are being asked to fund a government that refuses to help the 20 million people or so who are involved in the marketplace and could see both premiums skyrocket, but also could have to drop out of the marketplace altogether because they can't afford the coverage.

And that is disastrous. So saying they will deal with it later is just not very genuine. They haven't dealt with it all year long. They haven't passed budgets all year long. The Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the presidency. They're not doing their job. And Americans' health care is very much at risk.

Democrats are saying, we're not going to do that. We're not going to fund a government unless you take care of people's health care, which we consider a right.

BROWN: All right, we will see how that plays out.

Former Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, thank you -- Wolf.

SEBELIUS: Thank you so much.

BLITZER: All right, Pamela.

Up next: President Trump is already moving to dismantle the Department of Education, and a shutdown could accelerate it. We're talking with someone who once ran that agency about the potential impact.

Lots going on. We will be right back.

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