Return to Transcripts main page

The Lead with Jake Tapper

Soon, Senate Casts Final Vote To Avert Shutdown; Trump Lashes Out At Political Enemies In Partisan DOJ Speech; Passengers Evacuate Onto Wing Of Plane After Engine Catches Fire; Senate Votes To Avert Government Shutdown; Democrats Openly Disagree On Best Ways To Counter Trump. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired March 14, 2025 - 18:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:00:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper.

At this hour, any moment, we expect a final vote on Capitol Hill on whether or not a federal government shutdown will be averted. The vote exposing a major fracture among congressional Democrats who are unhappy with how party leaders are taking on Trump or refusing to.

Plus, President Trump visiting the Department of Justice today, delivering a rather norm-shattering speech, attacking his political foes, slamming the investigators who investigated him. One of the top Republicans in the House, Majority Whip Tom Emmer, joins me live in studio in just seconds.

Plus, dramatic video showing passengers standing on the wing of a plane to escape after an engine on that plane caught fire. Again, I'm going to ask again, what is going on with air travel in the United States?

And Countdown is on again. In just over an hour, SpaceX hopes to launch this rocket, the start of the mission to bring home the two astronauts who have unexpectedly spent ten months in space.

Our Lead Tonight, the major news on Capitol Hill. We are just moments away from the final vote to avert a government shutdown.

CNN's Lauren Fox is on Capitol Hill for us. Lauren, what's the latest?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jake. Already Democrats helped advance this bill. That was the key vote to watch because that was the one in which Democratic votes were actually needed. We had nine Democrats, one independent who caucuses with Democrats, voting to move forward with that in just a couple of minutes. Like you noted, we do expect a final vote that will avert a government shutdown here in Washington, D.C.

Of course, this has been a long week on Capitol Hill, in part because Democrats in the Senate were so divided over what they should be doing tonight in this moment. There were a lot of Democrats who believed that the House-passed bill was not adequate despite the fact that some of the numbers reflected largely Obama -- or excuse me, Biden administration numbers. There were some cuts to domestic priorities that were important to Democrats and therefore they wanted to vote against it. And they were hoping that Schumer would stand up against it.

Obviously, he made a decision last night that there was no good way out of a shutdown if Democrats voted against advancing this bill. That was his final calculation. Obviously a number of Democrats, many of them in leadership, voted with him, but a large majority of his caucus voted the other way.

This is obviously a huge departure for the way that Democrats typically operate. Many times, they're very, very united. We spent a long time talking about, you know, that one or two Democratic senators in the past who voted against the party, in this case, Leader Schumer on a very different side than some of his party members. Jake?

TAPPER: All right. Lauren Fox, thanks so much.

Now to the major breaking news in our Law and Justice Lead, after ferociously criticizing the Department of Justice for years, President Trump today did something no other president has done in at least a decade. He stood in the great hall of the Justice Department and laid out his vision for the department.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny is live outside the White House. And, Jeff, this was a notable change from how former presidents in recent memory have treated the department.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Jake, it definitely was. And we have heard most of these things from President Trump before many, many times on the campaign trail and since. But standing in the Hall of Justice in the Robert F. Kennedy Building where the Justice Department is housed, the president clearly taking his message there directly to send a point of retaliation and more.

[18:05:5]

But he really struck back at his rivals still clearly fresh on his mind.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Unfortunately, in recent years, a corrupt group of hacks and radicals within the ranks of the American government obliterated the trust and goodwill built up over generations. They weaponized the vast powers of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies to try and thwart the will of the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: So, Jake, there's no mention, of course, of the economic unrest that is going on, the high prices. Instead, the president chose to focus on visiting one of the agencies first, the Department of Justice, to make clear that this retribution is still on its mind.

And it's so clear, the audience he was addressing, of course, loyalists. This is probably the biggest example of the difference between the first Trump administration. Now the attorney general is a true believer, as are many of the people who now worked for him at DOJ, Jake.

TAPPER: All right. Jeff Zeleny at the White House, thank you so much.

For reaction, let's turn to CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst and Assistant Director of the FBI John Miller. And, John, you listened to the speech from the President. What's your main takeaway? How do you think it was received by the rank and file?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, I think what they were expecting, Jake, was, you know, with piles of fake fentanyl and DEA logos on the stage, that they were going to hear about law enforcement priorities and initiatives involving common Trump themes, migrants involved in crime and gangs, fentanyl over the border from Mexico and Canada, and what they were doing about it, but that's not what they got.

By and large, what they got, as Jeff pointed out, was a speech saying that the Justice Department was corrupt, that it was, quote, weaponized, that it was used to bring cases against innocent people. He called the January 6th attackers of the Capitol hostages again, those he pardoned. And the main theme was that he was going to go after those Justice Department employees who were involved in that, so a lot about retribution.

So, if you want to know what the rank and file thought, they weren't the people in the room. Those were the supporters. The rank and file as they sat at their desks and listened to this had to be worried and frightened, as they have been since this kind of talk started.

TAPPER: All right. John Miller, thanks so much.

Joining us now is Republican Majority Whip Congressman Tom Emmer of the great state of Minnesota. Congressman, thanks so much for being here.

So, you were with the president at the Justice Department. I want to play something he said in his speech about criticizing judges and the courts. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: A lot of the judges that I had, if you look at them, they take tremendous abuse in the -- and it's truly interference, in my opinion, and it should be illegal, and it probably is illegal in some form.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Do you think it should be illegal to criticize a judge? And also I recall President Trump being pretty critical of the couple of judges in New York. I mean, wouldn't it apply to him? REP. TOM EMMER (R-MN): Well, Jake, I was at the I was at his speech today and I thought your -- the reporting you're hearing is not at all what I heard. I heard a president who said, we're going to get the Department of Justice back to the business of apprehending, prosecuting and making sure that we have a rule of law in this country.

I introduced Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, and I even saw Leo Terrell was there. And Leo, of course, is doing some great work for the Justice Department, investigating anti-Semitism on college campuses, including my own University of Minnesota.

But as far as the judges, he was talking about intimidation of judges by others outside, or the lawyers are intimidating judges. I think that's the point he was making, and it was well received by most of the people there.

TAPPER: Let me ask you, because you just brought it up the investigation of anti-Semitism on college campuses. Obviously, all forms of bigotry are horrible and shouldn't be tolerated. But where does free speech end and bigotry that could be illegal begin? Because obviously that has been an age old dilemma and debate in the United States.

EMMER: It's not that age old when someone is calling for violence on someone else. At the University of Minnesota, more than a year ago, there was a protesting group that they have the right to protest until they start calling for violence on Jewish students at the University of Minnesota campus. We even had a representative from Minnesota go and support the group that was advocating --

TAPPER: Ilhan Omar?

EMMER: Yes. She was supporting the group that was advocating for this action.

TAPPER: How did they call for violence? Was it from the river to the sea chant?

EMMER: No. It was more than that. It was very confrontational. It was -- you got to deal with these Jewish students. It was the Jewish issue. Basically, they support what Hamas did to the state of Israel and those innocent people. That's not appropriate anywhere, and that's not free speech, Jake, when you're calling for violence on someone else.

[18:10:01]

TAPPER: Well, again, I mean, look, I'm Jewish. I don't like hearing calls for violence against Jews anywhere, but if you are saying Hamas is a liberation group, is a resistance group is, and you're trying to argue that October 7th is justified, now that offends me personally. Should it be illegal?

EMMER: That's not what we're talking about. It's when you're advocating for violence against students based on their faith. That's what's been done and that's what's being investigated. That should never be tolerated. That's not free speech. That's just wrong.

TAPPER: Calls for violence, obviously, should not be legal.

House Republicans notched a big victory this week when it came to the funding bill. Your party still faces a big hurdle passing the president's legislative agenda writ large. The House and Senate still haven't reached a consensus on how to do it, House Republicans and Senate Republicans. Politico quotes Speaker Johnson saying, quote, this is going to be the heavy lift. And Senate Republican Josh Hawley says, quote, I am worried about it.

So, I guess the question is, President Trump wants one big, beautiful bill, there's also a question about splitting up some of the legislation into two bills. What do you think? Where is this going to go?

EMMER: Well, I think we're going to be writing one bill. I think the fact that the House passed the budget resolution made that very clear. And what you're talking about is now, in the next couple of weeks, there needs to be an agreement between the House and the Senate on what an identical budget resolution looks like. Then we're going to go pass the darn bill.

And the way I look at it is, everybody said we weren't going to be able to do the budget resolution. Everybody said we weren't going to be able to do the C.R. You know what, Jake? We just keep doing the things that everybody says we can't do, and we're going to continue to do that. We will enact Donald Trump's agenda.

TAPPER: So, let me ask you a question. The New York Times wrote a story about Republicans, quote, enthusiastically turning over Congressional powers, Article I powers, to the White House. Massachusetts Congressman Richard Neal, a top Democrat on Ways and Means, says, quote, they, meaning you, House Republicans, are abdicating their most important constitutional obligation, oversight over the executive branch on trade. Republicans have unequivocally showed us who they are, cowards who count out to the president on everything, including the economy, unquote. What is your response to Congressman Richard Neal?

EMMER: Well, I disagree with Representative Neal's analysis of constitutional powers when it comes to the executive branch and ours. And his very strong rhetoric about cowardice, I would ask the representative, what have you done in the last 30 years to help our producers? Whether they are our farm families, whether it's our manufacturers, what have you done for the working men and women of this country to actually gain access to other markets around the world with our friends?

Very interesting, I come from an ag state. It's ag and manufacturing in Minnesota. Look, Donald Trump's the only one that is fighting for our farmers to have access to places like Canada, where they charge a 270 percent tariff on eggs, Jake. This is not about what Rich Neal wants it to be about, the rhetoric that he's spewing. This is about standing up for Americans and having fair -- we want free trade, but President Trump wants it to be fair. Our people should be treated exactly the way we treat others.

TAPPER: But how rocky is this for the good people of Minnesota given the fact that you export a great deal to Canada and also the --

EMMER: And Mexico.

TAPPER: And Mexico, and the premier of Ontario was threatening to cut off electricity to three states, and I can't help but notice one of them is Minnesota. I mean, you guys are really in the middle of this.

EMMERG: Well, that would be a mistake by the premier. I understand that it's getting a little emotional and we should probably dial that back on both sides. But the problem with that is this is what Donald Trump campaigned on. We've had 30-plus years of others, our friends, trading partners that are supposed to be our allies, taking advantage of Americans by making sure they have full and fair access to American U.S. markets but they're not providing that to our producers. Donald Trump said this is what he was going to do. And if the Canadians do something like that, they're literally just playing into what he said. In other words, they don't care about you. I'm the only one fighting for you.

And what happens? I think this is a tough time for all of us. There's a lot of change going on, and there's a lot of change that America wants. Nobody said it was going to be easy, but I'm a true believer that once we get through this, it's going to be better for everybody.

TAPPER: Majority Whip Tom Emmer from the Great Lakes State, thanks so much for being here. I really appreciate it, the land of 10, 000 lakes, Minnesota.

Breaking news, the final vote in the Senate to avoid a government shutdown is underway. We're going to go back to Capitol Hill in moments.

Plus, an engine fire sending passengers scrambling onto the wing of a plane to escape. What is going on when it comes to planes and air travel in the United States?

[18:15:00]

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: We have some breaking news. The final vote in the U.S. Senate to avoid a government shutdown is underway.

Let's get right into it with my political panel. So, Karen, big controversy, we've had Democrats on the show, just in the Today Show, talking about whether it was the right move to vote to fund the government or not. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, says this is the best they could do. Former Speaker Pelosi called it a false choice between a shutdown or the Trump agenda that Democrats are opposing. He said Democrats are buying instead of fighting. What's your opinion, and how does the Democratic Party come back together to fight Trump if that's what Democratic voters want them to do?

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You've heard me say this before, Jake. I feel like Democrats are playing hopscotch while the Republicans are playing Grand Theft Auto 4.

[18:20:01]

And I think this was another example of that. And I got a laugh out of David, how about that? The lack of coordination and messaging, they could have been in a very different place if they'd started last week, and if both House and Senate were on the same page, certainly once all the House members had voted against the measure.

Schumer had more, I think, of a responsibility, particularly to those members who put, you know, on -- it was a tough vote to at least be in a little bit better communication, from what I'm hearing. The other thing I'm hearing is that within the caucus, I think we've had some reporting on this as well, there are real concerns about whether or not he's the right person to lead the Democratic caucus.

TAPPER: Schumer?

FINNEY: Schumer, in this moment. Because, again, Trump doesn't play by any set of rules and, you know, we're talking about decorum and they're talking about the rules when the truth is the government is already shut down, basically. And, in effect, this gives more power to Musk and Trump, a lot of folks skeptical with Schumer's argument, to be perfectly honest.

TAPPER: David, you heard Leader Schumer earlier on the show, he called his vote an act of strength. Will Democratic voters see it that way? Is his job at risk at all?

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Listen, Karen's better to deal with that than I am. But, look, I think Leader Schumer was dealt a very bad hand, and he played it poorly. I was on the Hill yesterday. I was talking to John Thune about this. And when I asked majority leader what he thought, how he thought a path forward, he said, look, I don't see, you know, what Chuck Schumer's going to do to get out of it. So, I think he did a bad job, as Karen said, he let a lot of people hang out and twist in the wind when he should have just capitulated early.

You know, in these instances, the party that shuts down the government always loses, unless you have a clear path forward. So, maybe the Democratic Party could have eeked out some more pain someplace, but right now the Trump White House controls all the cards. They would have kept certain agencies open, closed certain agencies.

So, I think what Schumer did was smart. He'll take a lot of beating for it, but it'll inure to the Democrats benefit in the long run.

TAPPER: Everyone stick around. I do want to go get an update because we have some breaking news now. Lauren Fox on Capitol Hill. Lauren, what's going on?

FOX: The vote now has been gaveled to avoid a government shutdown. They have been able to avert that shutdown ahead of this midnight deadline. We should know that there were a couple interesting votes here because many of the Democrats who had voted to advance this bill on the procedural measure just a couple of hours ago voted ultimately against this bill.

Again, it didn't matter that they did so because at the end of the day, they could carry this with just a simple majority, Jake, but obviously that just shows the tension here, right, that many of these Democrats who knew that they needed to advance this bill ultimately wanted to be on the record voting against this House-passed short-term spending bill that's going to keep funding going until the end of September.

What transpires over the next couple of months to avert that next deadline is going to be really interesting to see here because Democrats, a lot of them, especially in the House, arguing that Democrats have ultimately lost significant leverage now with the Trump administration.

TAPPER: All right. Lauren, thanks so much with the breaking news.

Elliot, let me ask you because there's some other big breaking news today at the Justice Department. President Trump gave a big speech he did talk about a lot of things, including fentanyl and the border, but he also talked about going after people who criticize judges, he talked about going after the news media. Here's a little, you know, relatively uncontroversial part of the speech.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We will expel the rogue actors and corrupt forces from our government. We will expose and very much expose their egregious crimes and severe misconduct.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Obviously, nobody has a problem. Nobody reasonably has a problem going after anybody who commits egregious crimes and severe misconduct. But it does sometimes feel as though he's talking about people who make decisions that he disagrees with.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Right, yes. If the speech were about fencing on the border, it would have been wonderful and we should have all been for it and it would have been perfectly in line with what former past attorneys general have done at the Justice Department. It's only happened, I think about four times since 2000 that a president has even stepped foot in the building, and they were for a building dedication, swearing in an attorney general, saying goodbye to Eric Holder on his final day, Obama did, and a speech about FISA. That's what presidents do.

This idea of stepping into that building in front of not many career employees, Jake, it was really a room of invited guests, which is also remarkable, is just a stunning breach of the norms of the Justice Department.

TAPPER: All right, thanks all for being here. I appreciate it.

So, let's turn to the other story that I want to talk about. What in the flying heck is going on with air travel in the United States? An American Airlines flight from Colorado to Texas ended early with passengers needing to evacuate on the plane's wing.

[18:25:07]

We'll have the details on that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

In our National Lead, no, that's not fog you're seeing on your screen. It is smoke billowing from an American Airlines jet in Denver last night. Dozens of passengers were rushed out of the plane. Some were forced to stand on the plane's wing after one of the engines caught fire. One passenger told CNN affiliate KTVT everyone was, quote, screaming and she got separated from her family.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

INGRID HIBBITS, PASSENGER: There's flames out of the window where I was looking out, started bubbling, like melting.

I got out on the wing, and there wasn't even like a slide or anything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[18:30:03]

TAPPER: The airline says all passengers are safe, thankfully, and those with minor injuries have all been discharged from the hospital.

CNN's Pete Muntean is with us now. So, Pete, let's start with a specific question. The pilot told air traffic controllers in Denver there were some engine vibrations, but it was not an emergency, then moments later, mayday, mayday. How did this escalate?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's really the big question for investigators now. They're trying to figure out how this fire started, one, and how this evacuation really took place, because the video really sort of details a very chaotic scene on this flight, American Airlines Flight 1006, with the fire on the right side of the airplane on the number two engine of the plane, as people are streaming out of the emergency exits and onto the wing, essentially waiting there helplessly.

Let's reset here because this started relatively normally. This flight took off from Colorado Springs around 5:15 Mountain Time yesterday. When about 20 minutes into the flight, passengers tell us that the pilots came on over the intercom and said, we've got this mysterious engine vibration and we need to divert to Denver. So, the flight landed in Denver, the landing was uneventful. The FAA tells us that this fire started as the plane was taxiing into the gate. The big question now is why this plane was able to get so close to the gate and why passengers were evacuated. Did they do that themselves under their own volition or were they ordered to do that by the crew? Because, essentially, when they got out onto the wing, they were waiting there without any real means to get down onto the ramp and get to safety.

So, as the airport rescue and firefighting crews were swooping in to put out this fire, ground crews were also at the same time rolling up ladders and baggage conveyor belts to try and get people onto the ground and onto safety.

A lot of big questions here and, of course, a lot of folks will look at the evacuation here, it's success and nobody got hurt or killed, but also the failures here too.

TAPPER: So, there were big changes announced today about the helicopter routes near D.C.'s Reagan National Airport after that horrific crash earlier this year between a commercial flight and a helicopter. Tell us about that.

MUNTEAN: Well, the big thing that came out from the NTSB preliminary report on Tuesday is that the helicopter route that was being used by this Blackhawk helicopter during the midair collision on January 29th was only separated by 75 feet of altitude clearance. We're talking like the length of a school or city bus from the landing path into Runway 33 there at Reagan National Airport. The NTSB essentially laid out that this was an accident waiting to happen.

And so now the NTSB has put out these urgent recommendations to move and close that route and the FAA --

TAPPER: For helicopters?

MUNTEAN: For helicopters. And the FAA is following through here. They have essentially closed that route with permanence. It was temporarily closed for a time. Now, they're going to have to sort of make it so that when the president moves, when President Trump moves on Marine One, that doesn't end up causing major delays and cancelations at Reagan National Airport. That has been a cascading problem. And so there're still some things to iron out and fix here. But the bottom line is that the FAA is acting with almost near immediacy on the FAA's recommendation.

TAPPER: Is it less safe to fly now than it was a year ago, or is it just that we had that horrible fatal crash between the helicopter and the plane, and then since then, we're just maybe paying more attention to it, and maybe there were just a couple incidents, no fatalities, but with striking images?

MUNTEAN: I'm so primed for this answer because everyone asked me that's like on the street and in the office here. You have a statistically much higher likelihood to die in an auto accident in the United States. We're talking like --

TAPPER: That's what plane people always say.

MUNTEAN: But, seriously, like when you think about the stats here, the last time we saw a major fatality in the United States involving a commercial airliner was the Colgan air crash back in 2009. The stats say you have a 1 in 11 million chance of dying on a commercial flight in the U.S. I've actually done some back of the napkin calculations. I think it's closer to 1 in 65 million. You have a much higher chance of getting struck by lightning.

TAPPER: But today versus a year ago.

MUNTEAN: Well, and I think that people are really paying attention to aviation more now, and this incident had incredible video. We'd be covering regardless. We'd be covering the crash on landing in Toronto regardless just because that was so miraculous that everyone got out okay. And it was all really sort of kicked off by the collision over the Potomac River that was an extreme outlier tragedy that is not the norm in the U.S. or really anywhere.

TAPPER: All right. Pete Muntean, thanks so much.

In just minutes, SpaceX is going to try again to launch a new crew to the International Space Station. It's part of a mission to bring home those two astronauts who have unexpectedly spent ten months in space waiting for their replacements.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:35:00]

TAPPER: In our Out of This World Lead, SpaceX 10, the mission that was originally planned for Wednesday, is set to launch in just a few minutes. The rocket will send a new crew of astronauts to the International Space Station, a crew that will allow Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to return home after their rather extended stay in space.

Former NASA Astronaut and International Space Station Commander Leroy Chiao joins me now. Leroy, do you have any concern that tonight's launch might be delayed?

LEROY CHIAO, FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT: No, everything looks like it's going very smoothly. The count is proceeding. They fixed the hydraulic problem they had on the ground equipment from the other night. And the weather looks good. I think we're going.

TAPPER: While this mission will ultimately result in the return of Butch and Suni to Earth, that is not actually its main purpose. Tell us the goal.

CHIAO: Sure. This is another rotation mission. This is the next crew that's scheduled to go to the ISS. So, they're going to launch and they will spend a few days with Butch and Suni doing what's called a handover, just kind of an informal, hey, you know, here's where we have the fire extinguishers, here's this, here's that. And then Butch and Suni will join the other two crewmates of theirs get into their Dragon spacecraft, which is a separate one, and then they will return to Earth. So, they're coming back down. just a few weeks earlier than was planned originally because the original Dragon that was going to take Crew 10 up was a new one and it hasn't finished testing yet. And so because they want to get them up there earlier and get Butch and Suni back a little bit earlier, they switched to using one that already exists.

[18:40:07]

TAPPER: So, SpaceX is bringing Butch and Suni home but only because their Boeing craft had so many problems, propulsion issues, helium tank leaks. How important is it for the future of space travel to have as many reliable options for space travel as possible?

CHIAO: Well, in aviation and spaceflight, you'd like to have redundancy. So, you want to have more than one solution or one thing to do. Right now, america is pretty much dependent on SpaceX, although we are flying some crew members on still on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. For example, astronaut Johnny Kim will fly very soon with two Russian crew mates on the next Soyuz. But, you know, in an ideal world, NASA would love to have Starliner come online, be certified, be operational. So, we'll kind of have to see and wait and see how that goes.

TAPPER: So, I have to ask you, you were commander of the ISS, the International Space Station, and you lived up there. What's it like up there? I mean, they don't seem in any hurry, kind of surprisingly, to come home, Butch and Suni. Is it --

CHIAO: Yes. Well, they've both flown long duration missions before, but most long duration missions are kind of in that six-month range. This has been a little over nine months, I believe, so it's 50 percent longer and because they were only expecting to stay around eight days back in last summer. This has obviously been a huge personal impact to their personal plans and perhaps even their professional plans. And so I think they're ready to come home.

TAPPER: All right. CNN is going to have -- thank you so much. CNN is going to have live coverage of this launch in minutes. Leroy Chiao, thank you so much.

Congress has officially avoided the federal government shutdown with just hours to spare. It's also caused a major fracture inside the Democratic Party. So, how do they move forward? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:46:03]

TAPPER: In our politics lead, just moments ago, the Senate passed a bill averting a government shutdown this as tensions are deepening within the Democratic Party right now over the party's lack of clear and effective strategies in fighting the Trump administration. Joining us now is Democratic strategist and author, Alencia Johnson. You know her from the show and she has a book her very first. It's out now. It's called "Flip the Tables: The Everyday Disruptor's Guide to Finding Courage and Making Change".

Congratulations, it's very exciting.

ALENCIA JOHNSON, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Thank you. Super exciting, yeah.

TAPPER: So let me just read this little passage here. I woke up the morning after Election Day 2024, disoriented and drained. The night before, I'd stood on Howard University's campus waiting to hear from Vice President Kamala Harris. After midnight, I took a quiet heavy trip home knowing we had lost the election. For two days, I couldn't get out of bed even as I'm writing these words, I'm not okay.

And I have to say, looking at your party out there in Capitol Hill, there are a lot of them aren't okay and are still not sure what to do. So what's your message?

JOHNSON: Listen, I think part of this and it's actually kind of divine that this book is coming out in this moment is that we have to figure out a way to navigate ourselves to keep going in the fight, because what we're facing -- yes, it's unprecedented, but a lot of people that I particularly advocate for are facing constant oppression regardless of who was in the White House. And so how do you create this atmosphere where you can be an everyday disrupt -- disruptor and also have the courage to do the things that might not be popular or it might not be what you feel as though you should do.

I mean, I'm looking and thinking about Chuck Schumer, right? A little bit of courage to be disruptive for a long-term goal and so --

TAPPER: So you think he's not courageous for the position he took he would argue and he did actually on the show earlier to -- today -- today --

JOHNSON: I think so.

TAPPER: That what he did was actually the courageous thing because it went against what so many Democrats wanted him to do.

JOHNSON: Look, I think what he did is actually the old trope that Democrats won't get into, what -- that's what President Biden did as well, which is we want to be about decorum, right, and precedence, and we want to try to work with Republicans. But the Republicans have told us exactly who they are and so, right now, the courageous thing to do is to actually speak for your base and the majority of people who actually don't want anyone to negotiate anything with Donald Trump.

TAPPER: So your book is so personal. You share so much about yourself. You challenge readers to be vulnerable and accountable.

When talking about trailblazers, you write, quote, too often, we blame other people for boxing us in when it is actually us overstaying our welcome, boxing ourselves in. The quicker we realize this, the quicker we can build a new roadmap.

Who are some trailblazers you see out there?

JOHNSON: Yeah, you know, I write about a lot of them in the book and one of which was able to endorse the book, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley. But I also talk about people like Shannon Watts who started Everytown for Gun Safety who was a mom who was fed up after Sandy Hook and said I have to do something and it turned into this movement.

These are trailblazers. But I also talk about my grandmother who is someone, Ozella Bennett (ph), God rest her soul but she's someone that history books may not know her name but she was a part of the civil rights movement. And those people are who I want readers to be inspired by, that all of us can actually make a difference and blaze trails.

TAPPER: We only have 30 seconds left. What do you want people to take away from this book? It's -- it's a -- it's an inspirational book. It's about in -- about inspiring people. That every single thing -- every single tool we looking for to disrupt and change what is happening in our lives, and the world right around us is literally within us. We just have to have the courage to participate and try.

The book is flip the tables. Alencia Johnson, thank you so much. Congratulations on the book. Great to have you here.

"Flip the Tables: The Everyday Disruptor's Guide to Finding Courage and Making Change".

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:54:14]

TAPPER: You're looking at live images from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as SpaceX prepares for a launch in just a few minutes. The mission is part of the process to bring astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams home after their extended stay in space. We're going to bring it to you live on CNN.

Sunday night, "UNITED STATES OF SCANDAL" is back with an episode you don't want to miss. This Sunday, we're digging into the story of the fraudsters at Enron, the company that was once referred to as the darling of Wall Street, considered one of the most successful Wall Street corporations in the 1990s, that is until 2001 when large-scale fraud was revealed, shocking investors and the public alike.

Here's a little preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What was he doing that was so alarming and such a no-no?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In effect, if I just bought a company for $10 million from you and one month later, I'm saying, it's really worth 15.

[18:55:06]

We're going to write it up to 15 and put 5 million on the income statement.

That 5 million is just bogus. You just made it up.

TAPPER: And that's what Jeff Skilling did.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's what they did. Yes.

TAPPER: They would just assess what they thought it was worth.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. But just a month ago, we had just bought the asset.

TAPPER: There actually is a hard number.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's a hard number.

TAPPER: But they would not do that. They'd say, well, we think we can get five times this on the market, and so we're going to say this is worth $50 million.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, it was all legal, but you just can't write things up like that. I mean, that was the beginning of, of the seeds of the -- of the fraud that killed Enron.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Don't miss a brand new episode, "United States of scandal", this Sunday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on CNN. Coming up Sunday morning on "STATE OF THE UNION", Republican Senator Mike Rounds, Democratic Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett and more, at Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m. Eastern and again at noon only here on CNN.

I have two books coming out. One in May, it's called "Original Sin," about President Biden's decision to run for re-election and the cover up of his decline. And in October, "Race Against Terror" about the hunt to prosecute an al-Qaeda terrorist who killed Americans and was out to kill more. You can check them out and pre-order at jaketapper.com.

If you ever miss an episode of THE LEAD, you can listen to the show once you get your podcasts.

We're going to turn it over to "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" now, a little bit early, so she can cover the SpaceX launch, which starts now.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next, the breaking news, countdown to liftoff. We are right now just minutes away from the SpaceX crewed launch, the mission to bring home two astronauts stuck in space for nearly a year. It was an eight-day mission. They have been up there now for 282 days and as we said, there are four astronauts on that capsule going up in just minutes. Also breaking, furious Senate Democrats helping Republicans avoid a government shutdown, making many Dems livid. One lawmaker tonight calling it all a, quote, f-ing disaster.

And new reporting tonight that the operatives from DOGE who are right now inside the Social Security Administration got more on them as Musk rails against the agency that affect 73 million Americans.

Let's go OUTFRONT.

And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett.

And OUTFRONT tonight, we do begin with the breaking news. You see it on your screen, that pristine weather. We are just moments away from liftoff.

These are live pictures of Kennedy Space Center right now, and in just a few minutes here, less than seven, we are going to see this takeoff. You see that -- that -- it appears to be smoke, that's the cooling of the engine.

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is set to blast off with a full crew of people, human beings on board. A high stakes mission that will allow the two American astronauts who have been stuck in space for nearly a year to finally come home.

Now, remember they were only supposed to be up there for eight days. So in incredible tension, waiting for them at this moment, the four astronauts who are on board the top of that capsule there, the tip you see them. The SpaceX Dragon capsule, are about to begin their final pre-launch checks and there are two Americans on board there, also an astronaut from Japan and one from Russia.

They are strapped in. They are ready to go. They have been up there for hours. They are ready, and they are in these final moments now, ready to make their way to the International Space Station where Americans Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams would then be able to come home.

There they are, their 8-day trip to the ISS turned into 282 days.

All right. So right now, here's where we are because we're looking here at second after second, everything is accounted for, that SpaceX launch director is going to verify that all systems are a go for launch and you can see all of that steam coming out, cooling of the engine, part of the process.

I want to go straight to our reporter on the ground from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Nick Valencia is there.

And, Nick, you are there. You can see in the distance the rocket that we are now moments away from launching. All of that -- that steam coming off. What is happening right now?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what a picturesque evening for a launch tonight, it's almost perfect weather here, 95 percent chance of good weather, only because meteorologists can't predict 100 percent chance of good weather.

But in these final moments before the launch, the computers are in charge of the processes and the ground system, so much of what must happen has to be precise because of that precision, it's this ground launch sequencer that's in control. Some of these processes, according to NASA, happen one on top of the other so they need those computers controlling this processes.

The astronauts, of course, they have their own responsibilities and they've been on this vessel for well over an hour now. They're going to be active as well during the stage in these final minutes, making sure monitoring systems checks. They've also gone through their own checks uh including the integrity of their suits. Even the temperature inside the vessel, making sure that it's good before they take off.

Each of those four astronauts on board this rocket will have their own responsibilities but it's going to be the commander and the pilot that are going to be the most active, relaying those communications if they see anything wrong, there's also an escape hatch that's available for them in case they need to evacuate and, you know, get off of this vessel immediately.