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No Progress to Report; Government Shutdown Fallout; Interview with Congressman Steve King of Iowa; NSA Tracked Cellphone Locations; Shutdown Putting Kids At Risk

Aired October 3, 2013 - 08:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: What you need to know --

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: All we're asking here for is a discussion and fairness for the American people under Obamacare.

ANNOUNCER: What you just have to see.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They came up with the idea to have a little ceremony where she could make promises to be faithful to the man that she would be married.

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan, and Michaela Pereira.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome back to NEW DAY. It is Thursday, October 3rd, 8:00 in the East, and that also means it is now 56 hours into the government shutdown.

A meeting between President Obama and congressional leaders seemed to go nowhere. Neither side willing to budge. All the while Americans are the ones dealing with the fallout, new concerns from flu shots to food safety. More on that ahead.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: We have a potential tropical storm brewing in the Caribbean. We're watching the gathering storm. Could we finally see what we do not want to see which is a big hurricane this season? We're going to get a sense of where it might be headed.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: And we're going to share a beautiful moment. It was her dying dad's final wish to see his daughter get married. The problem is this little girl's only 10. You're going to see their heartwarming solution and the bittersweet ceremony inspiring family around the nation. This is going to be a very moving piece.

CUOMO: Yes, it's powerful perspective that maybe we need right now. We'll get to that in a little bit.

But we want to start this hour with the shutdown. It seems the only thing both sides can agree on is that last night's meeting at the White House did nothing to break the deadlock. The House did approve a piecemeal measure to fund various programs but with no chance of passing the Senate. We're essentially back to where we started 56 hours later.

CNN's Brianna Keilar is live at the White House with what's going on.

What do we know, Brianna, if anything?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called this meeting unpredict -- I should say unproductive, and you said it, this may be sadly the one point where there is bipartisan agreement.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR (voice-over): For the first time since the government shutdown, congressional leaders met face-to-face with President Obama at the White House Wednesday night. Both sides emerging with no deal and no signs of progress to end the stalemate.

BOEHNER: The president reiterated one more time tonight that he will not negotiate.

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MAJORITY LEADER: We are through playing these little games.

KEILAR: Republicans still demanding President Obama accept a delay to his signature health care program.

BOEHNER: All we're asking for here is a discussion and fairness for the American people under Obamacare.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Am I exasperated? Absolutely, I'm exasperated.

KEILAR: In an interview with CNBC, the president reiterated he won't give in on Obama care but said he will negotiate on some budgetary issues, like taxes, spending, entitlement reform, if House Republicans first agree to reopen the government for several weeks.

OBAMA: We have a situation right now where if John Boehner, the speaker of the House, puts a bill on the floor to reopen the government at current funding levels so that we can then negotiate on a real budget that allows us to stop governing from crisis to crisis, it would pass.

KIELAR: The president is probably right. But that's not happening any time soon. Instead, House Republicans held votes again on funding the government in a piecemeal way that the Senate will surely reject.

Meanwhile, not far from the Capitol, the World War II Memorial operated by the largely shuttered national park service has become a proxy in this battle. To counter images of World War II Vets showing up to the barricaded memorial, the RNC offering to pay to keep it open. REINCE PRIEBUS, RNC CHAIRMAN: Our veterans deserve the freedom to see this memorial and we're willing to pay the bill. Now, it's up to the president just to let them in.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: And that is basically what happened. The National Park Service saying now that the World War II Memorial will be open just for veterans.

So, Kate, you have a rather outrageous image there now off the table.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. All right. Brianna, thanks so much for starting us off this hour.

Now to the fallout -- more fallout from government shutdown, it's creating uncertainty in every corner of the country, from our ability to combat terrorism, to the safety of the nation's food. Not to mention three days without pay and counting for hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

Rene Marsh is live in front of the Lincoln Memorial this morning in Washington.

Good morning, Rene.

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kate.

You know, you're waking up this morning and wondering what has changed. Short answer, nothing has changed. The monuments are still closed. Hundreds of thousands of furloughed workers still in limbo and some of them already started applying for unemployment benefits.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH (voice-over): Instead of starting their day at the office --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let us do our work.

MARSH: -- these furloughed workers are manning the picket lines.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are being placed in a furlough status.

MARSH: For the nearly 800,000 federal civil service workers, they're now nonessential status is a slap in the face.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You think? Yes, I'm upset.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I still have to put food on the table. I still got to pay my bills.

MARSH: People living on this military base in Hawaii stocking up before their commissary closes down.

CHERI COPELAND, STOCKING UP BEFORE COMMISSARY CLOSES: I came just to grab a couple things, but then I started getting a little panicked by when I saw how empty all the shelves were.

MARSH: The shutdown could also affect food safety.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here at FDA Headquarters in Maryland, they've been hit hard by the shutdown, several hundred food safety inspectors have been furloughed. That means people who watch out for the safety of our eggs, produce and seafood, several hundred of them furloughed. It does increase the risk of food-borne illness and some kind of an outbreak.

MARSH: Empty hallways at the Centers for Disease Control as well.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're out of the office on furlough and unable to take your call.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm very concern for the experts that we have here. What is it that might be happening that we're just not going to catch it as soon as we normally would?

MARSH: Even more painful, Reynolds says, because of the shutdown, the CDC can't support its annual flu program just as the season is arriving. And the impact is being felt beyond the CDC's walls.

ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here at this sandwich shop in Atlanta, the manager tells us sales are down. They've even had to cut back on employee hours. He says most of the people who typically fill up these tables during the busy lunch hour actually work across the street at the CDC.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've cut back my staff significantly. A lot of my staff have young children as well. So it's making an immediate impact.

MARSH: The shutdown also complicating the search for a missing woman in Idaho.

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here at this Idaho National Monument, which as you can see is very rugged terrain, park rangers even in the face of this government shutdown are continuing their search for a missing woman, that's whether they get paid or not. The National Park Service gave them a green light to continue their search for a missing 63-year-old doctor. The expectation is they'll eventually get paid for their hours, but there's no guarantee.

MARSH: Meanwhile, the majority of national parks and monuments remain closed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH: Well, there was a question whether the shutdown would affect a couple of football games set to happen this weekend. We now know this morning that the Army's football game at Boston will go on as scheduled, as well as the Navy versus the Air Force -- Chris.

CUOMO: Thank you for the reporting. Now, we know that shutdowns happen. Couple of things make this unusual, one it's being done to dispute a law already passed and that it's being driven -- we're told -- by a minority faction of a political party, a small group of House conservatives who are unwavering in their efforts to repeal Obamacare.

Representative Steve King from Iowa is one of the House's most conservative members. He's joining us now from Capitol Hill.

Representative, thank you for joining us.

REP. STEVE KING (R), IOWA: Good morning. Thanks for having me on this morning.

CUOMO: I have a quote from you here that, you know, when the shutdown first happened, you said, "We passed the witching hour at midnight last night, the sky didn't fall, the roof didn't cave in."

At this point, do you still feel that this shutdown isn't hurting anybody?

KING: Of course, it does. There are certainly individuals across the country that are furloughed today, that would like to be working and making money, that's true. But I was talking about the fear near Congress that there would be a tremendous calamity if we got passed what I called the witching hour at midnight when we went into this partial shutdown. It's not a full shutdown by any means.

And I think that now that -- sometimes, you get into a decision that you just cannot make by anticipating all the contingencies. You have to be there in the moment in order to make the decisions. And now, I think the members of Congress have a clearer head, they can see what's really unfolding here, they can see the monuments being shut down in the middle of the time -- they're spending money to shut our monuments down. They're seeing some spiteful acts take place out there. We're seeing some things that we're sorry to see.

And there will be a small snowball effect from each side that will roll here. And at some point, one mass will get greater than the other -- one size of that snowball will get greater than the other. And one side or the other is going to have to move.

Now, we put four proposals on the table and the president and Harry Reid have brought nothing back. You can't negotiate with people that refused to negotiate. It's just that simple right now.

CUOMO: You think it's fair to use people and services as pawns in a political battle? Shouldn't this just be about the two parties and how you figure it out and not using the rest of us as leverage?

KING: What I refuse to allow any of my staff to use the word "fair" because no two people that disagree could agree on the definition of it. But if I were going to use the word, I would say, do you think it's fair to lock World War II veterans out of the World War II Memorial? That was the first act that took place that had to be ordered directly out of the Oval Office and it was a spiteful act. If you saw those veterans come up yesterday and the day before, hadn't seen that memorial in their lifetime, it was built for them and they were shut out. I think that's the image that Americans have in their minds right today.

I want to see people come back to work, but I want to see -- I want to see the end of Obamacare. The public has rejected Obamacare in every single month since it was passed. It was passed on a partisan agenda.

Thomas Jefferson said large initiatives should not be advanced on slender majorities, and he never considered the idea that there would be a large initiative passed on a purely partisan agenda.

And then you hear the discussion about the Supreme Court found it constitutional. That was before Barack Obama just unilaterally and unconstitutionally changed Obamacare at least twice. So, we don't know what we have for a law today and that's part of this discussion, too.

CUOMO: Will you carry this momentum about Obamacare right into the debt ceiling and through the deadline? Are you willing to collapse the credit of the United States in order to make your point?

KING: I don't think the credit of the United States is going to be collapsed. I think that all this talk about a default has been a lot of demagoguery, a lot of false demagoguery.

We have plenty of money coming in to service the debt. When we stop servicing the debt, that would be default. We're a long, long ways from that.

I think we need to have cooler heads and get to a solution. That means the president needs to come to the table, Harry Reid needs to come to the table.

We're looking for solutions. We're having meetings discussing that but if the other side refuses to negotiate, then there's really nothing that can be done except to continue to offer to negotiate and we'll be in this town until this is resolved. I don't think anybody's going home here in Congress.

CUOMO: Just to be clear, though, Congressmen -- when we get to October 16, 17, economists are just about unanimous on the effect it will have on markets, what it will do to interest rates, something Washington can't fix, the way you can just restart the government. Are you saying you don't agree with any of that? You think it will be OK if we blow through the debt ceiling deadline?

KING: I remember the last time we came up to the debt ceiling deadline and there was all of this talk that the Tea Party was going to collapse the economy, and even though -- even though the people that were opposed to increasing the debt ceiling essentially gave in or the debt ceiling was increased, they were still blamed for the effect on the markets.

So, you know, sometimes if you have political opposition, they're never going to agree with you. That's -- a lot of this is just the clash of ideals, and everyone's got an argument on both sides of this.

But we need to get down to the clear part of this. The American people rejected Obamacare. The president is willing to put all of that on the line to save his namesake piece of legislation, which I think it'd go down in history as the largest political tantrum ever.

CUOMO: Why is it the president putting his reputation, or whatever you want to call it, on the line when it is you and your faction that made the shutdown a condition of funding the government and dealing with Obamacare? You did that. Not the president. Shouldn't it be on you?

KING: I think you have to ask the Founding Fathers why they granted the authority to Congress then. It's all in Article I. In the House of Representatives, we have to start all revenue bills by the Origination Clause, all spending starts here. They gave that authority to the House of Representatives because we're the closest to the people and we're the most accountable to the people.

And in 2010, 87 new freshmen Republicans were elected to repeal Obamacare, every one of them ran on that and that's also the case for the 2012 class. The presidential election is the next thing to come up and they will say Barack Obama was reelected. Yes, he was.

The election really wasn't about repealing Obamacare. It was about jobs and the economy -- both sides beat that drum to the point where people forgot about everything else and yet we're at this point now where if we allow Obamacare to be implemented, then we can never recover from it.

If there is a bump in the economic road, if there is a political panel to be paid, we can recover from those things, but we can never recover if Obamacare is implemented on the American people, and it will diminish the trajectory of the American destiny by turning us into a dependency society. That's what's wrong with this, and I will hold my stand here as long as anybody will in this Congress, Chris.

CUOMO: All right. But, hopefully, you are able to balance what you believe about Obamacare with what you're told about what may happen to the economy, because there are a lot of families on the line.

But, Representative, we appreciate you taking the time to come on NEW DAY this morning. Good luck going forward. I hope you find a solution quickly.

KING: I hope so, too. Thanks for having me on, Chris.

CUOMO: All right. Now, let's head over to Michaela because we do have more news for you this morning -- Mick.

PEREIRA: All right. We'll start with breaking news, Chris.

Women and children among the nearly 100 people killed when a boat capsized and went up in flames off the coast of Southern Italy. Italian officials say they expect the number of dead to rise. So far more than 150 people have been rescued. The boat may have been carrying up to 500 African migrants trying to make their way to Europe.

All lanes of Interstate 40 and Tennessee reopened following an horrific crash that killed eight people. A church bus carrying senior citizens blew a tire, crossed the highway immediate median, it then collided with an SUV and a tractor trailer before it flipped over. Six passengers on the church bus died, along with two other people from the other vehicles. More than a dozen other people were injured.

A secret pilot program at the NSA designed to track the location of Americans' cell phones. "The New York Times" reports it worked by tapping into data from cell phone towers. The intent, to test how the NSA might obtain and process the data in bulk. That pilot program was operational in 2010 and 2011. The director of National Intelligence telling the Senate the NSA decided not to move forward with the operation after that.

Someone will soon be watching nearly every move Arizona sheriff, Joe Arpaio, makes. A federal judge ordering an independent monitor inside the Maricopa County sheriff's office and saying the monitoring would continue until the sheriff's office had achieved full and effective compliance for at least three years. This move comes after the judge found the sheriff's office and sheriff Arpaio, himself, racially profiled Latinos.

I just want to you feast your eyes on this for a second. This is a couple choosing the non-traditional, oh boy howdy, the non-traditional route, to celebrate their engagement with a photo shoot recreating Beyonce's "single ladies" music video. Yes, Kate, your eyes do not deceive you. They've been dating for nine years now.

The real test of their marriage may be just how long she can force him to wear a clinging leotard, because that's the part that, perhaps --

(LAUGHTER)

PEREIRA: -- shocking. He said, yes, dear, I'll wear a leotard. Although, Justin Timberlake did it.

BOLDUAN: Excellent point, and he's pretty manly.

PEREIRA: He sure is. And then the dog like, I want nothing to do with this.

(LAUGHTER)

BOLDUAN: I'm not associated with these two. Sorry.

PEREIRA: Is there some sort of violation going on?

CUOMO: Moving on.

PEREIRA: OK.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much, Michaela.

PEREIRA: You know very well. BOLDUAN: We do have to move on because we have breaking news this morning. Tropical storm Karen is just officially formed just moments ago. So, let's get straight to Indra for that. What do you have, Indra?

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. So, the hurricane hunters just flew over this and they did see some strong winds there. So, the National Hurricane Center will officially put this out within the hour. So, there's a little bit of a difference there, 100 percent probability as they are currently working on that official advisory.

So, what are we looking at here? Let's look at all the models and show you where they think this guy could go. That's what we call the spaghetti plot. Each one individually drawn out and notice the consensus here in comparison to yesterday. Some of the outliers are bringing it into Texas, some were bringing it into Florida, some just as the Yucatan Peninsula. But now, it looks like they're really starting to agree on making its way right around New Orleans.

So, let's take a look at one of these models. This is a European model, just one of those, of all the ones we just plotted, and this kind of brings it in late Saturday night, early Sunday morning. New Orleans and Biloxi, that's what we're looking at here. The biggest concerns, of course, are going to be strong winds, although likely still to just stay a depression and then also of course we're talking about storm surge and then high rainfall amounts and the threat of flooding.

So, looking about maybe about four inches of rain especially in New Orleans, Biloxi, and then as it makes its way inland we'll see that taper off most likely about one to two inches of rain kind of in through Arkansas. So, that's something we're going to be watching as we go in through the weekend. The other story, of course, beautiful conditions into the northeast.

Temperatures still another 10, 15 degrees above normal today and going to stay warm, but we're also going to be adding some rain into the mix, unfortunately, right as we go through the overnight tonight in through tomorrow. All of that, thanks to a system currently making its way through the Midwest. They look about one to two inches of rain, but, there is a threat for severe weather today.

So, if you're in Nebraska or Iowa, even isolated tornadoes are not being ruled out of the equation for the system. Now, that same system will continue to weaken as it makes its way farther east and that will be the system as it makes its way tonight and through tomorrow again into the northeast bringing just probably some light rain, about one to two inches over the next several days. But definitely all eyes on the gulf this weekend. We'll see how that develops.

BOLDUAN: All right. Got to keep an eye on now tropical storm Karen breaking news this morning. Thanks so much, Indra.

Next up on NEW DAY, one of the ripple effects of the government shutdown, blocking people who need medical treatment from taking part in the clinical trials that they need. How the shutdown affects this potentially lifesaving treatment? That's coming up.

CUOMO: And all this fight in the shutdown is over Obamacare, but guess what, it is in effect. So, we have Dr. Sanjay Gupta making his way around the country to get your take on the new law and find out what people are saying and how they're finding getting their enrollment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: It is 22 minutes after the hour. Welcome back to NEW DAY. The cascading effects of this government shutdown certainly can be felt across the country. It is even putting lives at risk. 230 people, 30 of them children, are unable to start clinical trials for the crucial medical treatment they desperately need at the National Institutes of Health.

Our senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, joins us from the CNN center in Atlanta. She's actually -- you've had a chance to speak to one family who has a very, very sick child.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Her name is Mckenna Smith and she's 12 years old and her last hope at life is an experimental drug from the National Institutes of Health, but the government shutdown has put that hope in danger.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN (voice-over): Mckenna Smith spends most of her time in this wheelchair. Because of a rare genetic disease, doctors say she probably won't see her 20th birthday.

MCKENNA SMITH, SUFFERS FROM RARE GENETIC DISORDER: Sometimes, I don't even feel like I want to get up because my back is aching so bad.

COHEN: The pain she feels is caused by tumors that wrap their way around her nerves and compress her organs. There's no cure, but there is hope. On Monday, Mckenna and her dad, Justin, arrived here at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, so Mckenna could start taking an experimental drug that might shrink the tumors. But with the government shutdown, including most of the NIH, the family was told there was a chance Mckenna might not get the medicine.

M. SMITH: I hope it doesn't affect me or anybody else who needs this drug.

COHEN: Her father waited and worried tweeting Tuesday morning "Government shutdown needs to end now, hurting sick people. Have the house come here to apologize to my young daughter and others."

JUSTIN SMITH, FATHER: I'm very angry. Finally, we're here and you know, our government can't get its act together.

COHEN: They thought they might have to go home to Florida without getting the medicine. But late Wednesday, a turnaround, the family was informed Mckenna's treatment could go forward. Mckenna's fortunate. About 200 other new patients, including some 30 children aren't so lucky. They won't get to join NIH studies just yet.

These patients are being put on hold until the government is back in business. Mckenna's dad says this just isn't right, and he has a message for leaders in Washington.

J. SMITH: Get your act together. This is not a game. You can't play politics over children's and other patients' lives.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN (on-camera): Now, if this goes on into next week, another 200 patients won't be able to join the studies at NIH -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: So, Elizabeth, you're showing us here and illustrating so beautifully the impact that the shutdown is having, these people's lives hanging in the balance. I want to talk to you about another aspect that's being affected. Let's talk about the CDC. We know we're going into flu season.

Talk about how that's going to affect the supply, the implementation, how do we look going into flu season given the shutdown?

COHEN: Right. Well, most of the CDC's activities are shut down. Now, thank goodness, flu shots have, you know, already -- they started to distribute them, you know, a while back. So, I know. I just got mine and my kids just got theirs. So, they're out there. But here's the concern. You know, the CDC, they can't, you know, do surveillance on this flu season.

That's a big problem. We won't know where it is. We won't be able to address problems. They can't keep track at avian flu, which has begun to be a problem. If a state calls them and says we have a terrible outbreak of some disease, they can't help them out. I mean, they really have their hands tied behind their back.

PEREIRA: Well, another group that has their hands tied behind their back, the FDA. They were the ones charged -- they're the ones charged with tracking food borne illnesses. We've already had a bad year of some of these illness outbreaks. What happens there? This is a pretty serious danger?

COHEN: It is serious. So, the food that we all buy at the grocery store or eat in restaurants, that's inspected. There are inspections by the FDA for the produce. And so, now, the FDA can't do much of that inspection work. And so, that's a huge problem and they can't do most of their laboratory work. So again, all these things that we sort of take for granted just can't happen now.

PEREIRA: And this is what we're trying to do, show people what the impact of this government shutdown is having on various aspects of our lives. Elizabeth Cohen reporting from Atlanta, thank you so much for that.

And tweet us, because we want to hear other stories anecdotally of how this is affecting you. Use the #NEWDAY and we'll watch you on Twitter. CUOMO: There are two very different takes on what the shutdown means. One is really nothing. It's limited. This is about memorials and parks, furloughs. They'll probably get paid later. Not a big deal. The other side is what we're hearing from Elizabeth Cohen and other families about their -- how they're worried about sensitive services that they actually need right now.

So, please, get involved in the discussion, because it's about your life experience. So, use the #NEWDAY and let us know what's going on with you because of the shutdown.

BOLDUAN: Coming up next on NEW DAY, the new health care law debuted with glitches and error pages. Is it getting any easier to enroll now? Chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, is going to be joining us from a call center in Maryland to show us and also see how the rollout is going.

CUOMO: You've seen the video between the bikers and the family in the SUV. We know bikers were hit. We know that one is paralyzed. There are new images, though, to help us piece together what happened when and why. We'll show you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)