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CNN NEWSROOM

Temporary Government Funding; The Fight Over Planned Parenthood Funding; Joaquin Strengthens to a Hurricane; The New Tesla SUV. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired September 30, 2015 - 09:30   ET

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


[09:33:22] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Just minutes from now, Congress inches closer to avoiding a government shutdown, at least for now. With the midnight deadline looming, the Senate takes up a temporary spending bill in the next hour and then sends it on to the House. Our CNN political reporter Manu Raju is on Capitol Hill to tell us more.

Good morning.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Good morning, Carol.

So, right now we're looking like the Senate is almost certainly going to pass this bill today very easily. Then it goes to the House just hours before the government would be set to shut down. Now, this just really punts a much larger fight into the fall session, into the fall and winter. This only extends government funding until December 11th.

And there are also major fiscal clashes that are -- that are waiting in the wings, particularly that very thorny issue of raising the national debt ceiling. It's a very difficult issue for conservatives. Last week, Mitch McConnell called the president to begin some of those discussions over a large scale budget battle, but he, we've been told, told the president that he did not want to negotiate with Hill Democrats. That's something the president rejected.

So already off to this kind of a shaky start. They're going to have to get into the details of coming up to a large -- for a large fiscal deal. But as we've seen time and again, that is not going to be easy. It's going to be a very interesting thing to watch and something that could have major implications for both parties heading into 2016.

COSTELLO: Oh, there's going to be new House leadership too. And I bet his life will be fun.

RAJU: Probably just as fun as John Boehner's. We're look at Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican and House majority leader, as the likely next speaker at this point and he's going to have the same issues that John Boehner had in running a very divided caucus. And the question is, how are they going to deal with a lot of these issues right -- of these fiscal issues and get his party in line? And there's no clear answer. He started to answer some of those questions yesterday. Let's take a listen to what he said.

[09:35:21] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R), HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: Why wouldn't we challenge him? To get it to the president's desk, would you first start with a select committee, to win the argument, then win the vote. There are so many things to do. But it's more bottom up. Have the committees do more of the work. Have everybody engaged in the process. Have more of the regular order. I think that's a healthier way for the House to work, but everybody has a say, everybody has a voice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: You know, it's kind of easier said than done. Really gets in -- we have not started talking about the policy details that Kevin McCarthy is going to have to deal with. Right now he's trying to sell himself to various pockets of the House Republican caucus to prevent more than 29 Republicans from defecting on the House floor. That is the magic number to prevent any sort of chaos that could either prevent him from taking the speaker's gavel. At this point we don't expect that to happen but anything can change. And as you know, Capitol Hill can be a very hard place to predict.

Carol.

COSTELLO: Oh, yes. Manu Raju, thank you so much.

Of course, this threat of a government shutdown was all over the funding of Planned Parenthood. And that certainly produced political drama at its finest. Too bad it wasn't well produced. It was meant to put an end to Planned Parenthood but it did not. It just confused everyone. And seemed more like a cross-examination with the president of Planned Parenthood in the hot seat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You created this slide (ph) and I have no idea what it is.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE), I'm trying to wrap it up.

Well, it's the reduction over the course of years in pink. That's the reduction in the breast exams. And the red is the increase in the abortions.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's what's going on in your organization.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This -- this -- this is a -- this is a slide that has never been shown to me before. I'm happy to look at it and -- but it absolutely does not reflect what's happening at Planned Parenthood.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're going to deny that we take those numbers out of your report --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm going to deny the slide that you just showed me that you -- no one has ever provided us before. We have provided you all the information about everything, all the services that Planned Parenthood provides and it doesn't feel like we're trying to get to the truth here. You just showed me this. I'm happy to look at it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I pulled those numbers directly out of your corporate report. My time --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, excuse me, my lawyers are informing me that the source of this is actually Americans United for Life, which is an anti-abortion group. So I would check your source.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: And, of course, the congressman said that he'll go back and check on it to see where exactly those numbers came from.

Now, this whole hearing was based on heavily edited videos secretly made by an anti-abortion group. If Republicans had hoped these videos would be Planned Parenthood's demise, take a look at this "Wall Street Journal"/NBC News poll. Sixty-one percent of Americans are against defunding Planned Parenthood. Cue the pro PP video brought to you by some of Hollywood's most famous women.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCARLETT JOHANSSEN, ACTRESS: Because Planned Parenthood stands up for me.

FELICITY HUFFMAN, ACTRESS: Because reproductive rights are human rights.

AISHA TYLER, ACTRESS: Because every woman deserves the right to be the architect of her own destiny.

KRISTEN BELL, ACTRESS: Because I want my girls to have access to birth control behind my back someday.

JENNY SLATE, ACTRESS: Because I believe that I have the right to decide what's right for me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK, so let's talk about all this. I want to bring in CNN political commentators Marc Lamont Hill and S.E. Cupp.

Welcome to both of you.

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good to be here.

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hello.

COSTELLO: Nice to have you here.

So, S.E., this hearing was supposed to assure voters that Planned Parenthood was not profiting from selling fetal tissue, but that wasn't what this hearing was about. Why not just be honest about it? CUPP: I think Republicans are -- have been honest. They want to expose

the goals of Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood wants to be primarily in the abortion-providing business. If they didn't, they would quit doing abortions.

COSTELLO: What -- what are you basing that on? What are you basing that on?

CUPP: Well, because it would -- it would be a much better business model -- I read about this in today's "Daily News," by the way. It would be a much better business model and much better for women if Planned Parenthood would quit doing abortions, continue to take federal funding, regain access to the state funding that has been cut off from them and expand their services outside of the mostly urban areas where they provide healthcare services. They also don't provide mammograms and a number of other services that they simply refer women to --

COSTELLO: OK, let's stop there. Let's stop there with the mammogram thing. Let's stop there. Let's stop there.

CUPP: Well, let me -- let me just finish --

COSTELLO: No, no, let's stop there. When you go to your gynecologist, S.E. Cupp, they do a breast exam, right?

CUPP: Right.

COSTELLO: And do you get your mammograms there at the doctor's office? Or do you go to a separate facility? Because that's what I do.

CUPP: Right. But so the 9,000 community health centers that widely out number the Planned Parenthoods that are only about 700 and mostly in urban neighborhoods do perform mammograms right in their offices and they're in a lot more rural areas where -- where more women have access to them. So what my party is doing, what Republicans are doing in trying to defund Planned Parenthood is to reallocate those resources to community health centers that can provide so many more opportunities and services to women in so many more places.

[09:40:37] COSTELLO: OK.

CUPP: I don't know why anyone would choose to put providing an abortion to a woman in Chicago over providing a cancer screening to a woman in Duluth, but that's what Planned Parenthood does.

COSTELLO: Marc -- Marc, is that -- is that what's happening?

HILL: No. And just take a -- just one quick step back. You asked the question, why aren't they honest. S.E. said that they are being honest. I don't see that. When you look at a four hour hearing, which was much more about the stakes of abortion and the politics of abortion and whether or not Planned Parenthood is essentially an appropriately funded organization suggests to me and to most Americans based on polls that the right, at this moment, is more concerned with ending women's access to reproductive freedom than it is trying to manage fiscal responsibility of Planned Parenthood.

And that's what was so troublesome about this hearing that we saw. We saw woman attacked over her salary. We saw people -- a woman talked over and yelled over. We didn't get to the stakes of the debate, which are incredibly important. And to end Planned Parenthood isn't simply to be fiscally responsible, it's to cutoff women's access in many -- as S.E. said, many urban areas, many poor rural areas. People who only have one game in town will now have no game in town, which essentially denies them choice, and that's a fundamental right of female and male freedom in America is choice, and in this case it's for women. We have to deal with this properly.

COSTELLO: OK. OK. And on the subject of seeming anti-woman in this Republican health committee, I just want to lay something buy you, S.E. Republicans were so freaked out about appearing anti-woman during that hearing, "The Washington Post" reports the chairman admitted three Republican women to participate because only one GOP woman is on the committee. Why was that necessary?

CUPP: Why -- what do you mean, why was it necessary to allow more women to come in on --

COSTELLO: Yes, why -- why invite more women on the panel, right.

CUPP: Into a hearing about women's issues? I think that was entirely appropriate.

HILL: Well --

COSTELLO: Really?

CUPP: If he didn't, we'd be having a different debate, right? Why didn't they let more women into this hearing?

HILL: No, S.E., I think you're right, S.E., I don't think the -- I think they were right to let women in. I think the more fundamental question is, why aren't they on the committee in the first place? Often times they do things under the guise --

CUPP: I can't answer that question. I don't know why they're not on that committee. I mean I -- the -- you want to read, you know, sexism into this, go right ahead. I have no idea why those women aren't on the committee.

COSTELLO: I'm not -- I'm not reading sexism, but if they -- if it was -- was it just about concern about the unborn and concern that Planned Parenthood was selling fetal tissue and making profit, what difference does it make how many women were on that panel asking questions?

HILL: Well, I --

CUPP: I think it -- it is about the concern for the unborn and defunding Planned Parenthood. I don't think anyone's saying otherwise. And I think women were invited into the hearing ostensibly and presumably because they care deeply about that issue. HILL: Yes, but sometimes women are used as the proxies for male

patriarchy. In other words, they go out -- they -- you know, they -- they wage wars on women and they get women to be the facial front of it so that it doesn't look as such. And that's what's troublesome to me about this whole thing. They're feigning, you know, indignation and outrage about female bodies and all this stuff and really what they're trying to do is cut off choice and access for the most vulnerable women in this nation.

CUPP: Let me tell you that the outrage -- Marc, let me tell you, you know, because -- because I live in this -- in this arena. The outrage is not feigned. The outrage is real. The outrage over abortion and Planned Parenthood's over 300,000 abortions provided a year is real. And, frankly, the Republican Party and its position on abortion is far more in touch with the majority position in this country. I don't think even pro-choice women --

COSTELLO: No. No, no, no.

HILL: Well, not according to polls.

COSTELLO: No, no, no, no, no. You're not looking at the polls.

CUPP: Let me finish. I don't think -- I love doing your show because I know I'll get to debate two liberals, but I --

HILL: Well played.

CUPP: You know --

COSTELLO: I'm just into facts. I just want facts.

CUPP: Well, no, honestly --

COSTELLO: And we're all talking like several dollars go to fund --

CUPP: Well, the fact (INAUDIBLE) --

COSTELLO: Go to abortions, and it doesn't. They --

CUPP: The fact that the majority of people want abortions after twenty weeks to be illegal. That is a -- that is a fact. And the celebratory nature of the pro-abortion wing of the Democratic Party is totally out of line with where even pro-choice women are on this issue. They don't want to hashtag shout their abortion. They're not proud. It's a difficult decision. They're -- they take a lot of time contemplating it. It's not something they want to throw a party around. And yet there is a part of the Democratic Party and of the far left that is celebrating this lamentable, you know, procedure --

HILL: Yes.

CUPP: In a way that I think is really alienating a lot of people in the center of the country.

COSTELLO: But the only thing, S.E. -- HILL: But, S.E. -- but, S.E., that --

COSTELLO: Let me say this. Let me say this. The only thing, S.E., is abortion is still legal in this country.

CUPP: Right.

COSTELLO: And until it's not --

CUPP: Right.

COSTELLO: Planned Parenthood could go ahead and perform abortion, right?

CUPP: Yes, without taxpayer funding. Absolutely.

COSTELLO: Federal dollars do not go -- taxpayer funding does not fund abortion with Planned Parenthood.

[09:45:03] CUPP: You know, there's actually no way to tell, Carol.

COSTELLO: That's not true.

CUPP: There's actually no way to tell. They haven't been able to provide an account accounting. And the government offices will admit to this. They have not been able to provide an accounting of which monies go to which procedures. So you just don't know that. And because it's such an emotional issue, it would really easy to just take federal funding out and Planned Parenthood can continue to go on and provide all of the wonderful health services that you and I agree that they perform without wading into this controversy that more than half of the country finds morally offensive.

COSTELLO: OK, last word, Marc.

HILL: Couple of things. They didn't wait for a controversy. They produced one. They manufactured one. Two, S.E., earlier you said the outrage about abortion isn't feigned. I don't disagree. I think there are people among -- in the Republican Party and some in the Democratic Party who legitimately oppose abortion. Many people do. I don't dispute that.

What's feigned though is this outrage over what was on that doctored videotape and trying to link that. In other words, we're making an issue about the videotape, we're making about supposedly illegal activity which actually isn't illegal. We're making all this stuff the issue when in fact Republicans just don't want abortions to be legal when in fact they are.

And lastly, you took the most extreme ring of the Republican -- of the Democratic Party, excuse me, and made it the middle. No one in the Democratic Party is celebrating abortion.

CUPP: No, I said it's running off the middle. I said it's running off the middle. HILL: No, no, but you began by saying that most Americans don't support this position. I'm saying most Americans don't have that position; I agree with you. Most Americans want women to have access to reproductive freedom, reproductive choice, and they don't want it cut off. And right now based on polls what I just say is true and also based on polls Planned Parenthood is a lot more popular than the GOP.

COSTELLO: OK, I gotta --

HILL: So I think the Americans right. I'm sorry. I'm just trying to catch up.

COSTELLO: I know, I know! I got to end it there though. Thanks for a great debate, both of you. S.E. Cupp, Marc Lamont Hill, I appreciate it.

Coming up in the NEWSROOM, tropical storm no more. Joaquin intensifies to a hurricane. But will it hit the United States and where?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:51:26] COSTELLO: New this morning, Joaquin has strengthened into a hurricane and could pose a serious threat for flooding along the East Coast. Meteorologist Chad Myers is in the CNN Weather Center. Hit it, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Here we go. Joaquin, yesterday a 40- mile-per-hour tropical storm. This morning, very, very strong winds from the hurricane hunter aircraft. They're finding, as they fly along, at flight level, 85 miles per hour. Well, no one lives up there, so they kind of reduced that down to the ground, 75 miles per hour.

There it is making a run at Bermuda and the Turks and Caicos. And of course, right now the Bahamas. But what will it do to America? Whether it hits it or not, what will happen? There's so much tropical moisture. We will get ten inches of rainfall in the mid-Atlantic. And that's with a miss.

If we get a hit, and I don't know that we will because the models are in significant disagreement yet because we're still talking 72 to 96 hours away. If we get a hit, that number may double. We could see 20 inches of rain in some spots. Right now mid-Atlantic, that's where the bulk of the models are, but there's one. There's one that we talked about with Sandy that got Sandy right. That is the European model. It takes it almost to Nassau and then turns it back and misses North America altogether. Wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't that be great? Hey, I don't even care if the European model's better than ours for a couple more years, whatever. If that is the scenario.

I don't think so. You've got all of these models going one way, and then one outlier going this way. It's called the European model. So our models are doing this. Their model's doing that. Back out there. Why? Why and how could that even be possible that it's 1,000 miles

different? Well, here's the problem. There's the low right now. There's the hurricane. And it's going to move on up toward the northeast. Does it hit New York? Does it hit the Carolinas? Or somewhere even farther south? We don't know that because of how big of a difference in the atmosphere we've got. This jet stream on Saturday is going to go all the way down to Florida. Then it's going to turn all the way up and go back up to North America again. And we don't know if the model is going to send this low out to the ocean or take this low and drag it back to America.

That's why the difference is so great, Carol. I mean, we're talking thousands of miles in difference. And that's a big difference when it comes to the amount of damage we could get, too.

COSTELLO: OK, we'll have to keep our ear on you, Chad Myers. Thanks so much.

MYERS: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: Tesla's new SUV rolling off the line, and buyers, oh, they're lining up, ready to shell out more than $100,000 for this all- electric vehicle. So is it worth it? CNN's Peter Valdes-Dapena got behind the wheel.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETER VALDES-DAPENA, CNNMONEY DIGITAL CORRESPONDENET (voice-over): This is the Model X. It's the latest crossover SUV to hit a market that's already packed with them. But this is Tesla's all-electric crossover. And Tesla is the only car company that can inspire rock concert-like madness over an air filter.

ELON MUSK, CEO, TESLA: This is the primary air filter of the Model X.

(CHEERS)

VALDES-DAPENA: I was in Fremont, California, to see the first of Tesla's new SUVs being shipped off to customers. Customers who, by the way, have waited for as long as three years for their Model X.

I'm betting the wait was worth it. The Model X is groundbreaking in a lot of ways. Like ludicrous mode, in an SUV. This switch sends you shooting from 0 to 60 in just a touch over 3 seconds.

(on camera): That is, like, absurd. I mean, you just don't expect that in a crossover SUV with three rows of seats.

[09:55:06] (voice-over): According to Tesla, this thing is basically impossible to flip over thanks to a battery pack that rides in the floor, lowering the center of gravity.

(on camera): That probably would have felt like crap in pretty much any other SUV I can think of.

(voice-over): But here's the main event. The Model X has falcon wing doors. These doors hinge in the middle of the roof so you can open them without dinging the car next to you. Sensors detect how much space there is and bend the doors to fit. Oh, and about that air filter, the Model X has something called bioweapon defense mode.

MUSK: This is a real button.

VALDES-DAPENA: It filters out viruses and germs.

A well-equipped Model X is going to cost you about $130,000. But for a Ferrari-fast, super-safe, biodefense pod, it ain't bad. And you get wings.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Oh my gosh. $130,000. That's insane! Peter Valdes-Dapena, thank you though for allowing us to live vicariously through you.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)