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Partial Building Collapse in New York City; Private Sector Employment Falls; Government Shuts Down. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired October 01, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: No deal, no government. We're 13 hours into the shutdown after Congress fails to reach an agreement to keep it funded. We will look at what's next and what's impacted across the country.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus: Part of a building in the Bronx collapses. No injuries reported yet, but a search-and-rescue operation is under way right now. We're going to hear from witnesses on the ground.

And meet Hollywood's newest rising star, Lilly (sic) Norwood. She could be coming soon to a theater near you, even though she's not actually real. Why many in the movie business see her as a major threat.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all come in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: Moments from now, the White House will hold its first briefing with the government now shut down. There are, of course, big questions to ask and there is no clear off-ramp in sight. And hanging over it all is President Trump's threat less than 24 hours ago to fire -- quote -- "vast numbers of people."

So what now? Here's what we know. The government is now out of money and Democrats and Republicans are blaming each other for the deadlock. A funding bill passed in the GOP-led House, but in the Senate, Republicans need at least seven Democrats on board. Democrats are fighting to get an extension of Obamacare tax credits attached to the plan.

It's something Republicans say should be discussed after the government reopens, but Minority Leader Chuck Schumer isn't budging.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Our guarantee is to the American people that we're going to fight as hard as we can for their health care, plain and simple. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: While we wait, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 750,000 federal employees could be furloughed each day, meaning they won't get paid until this is over. Lawmakers will, although we should note some have decided to forgo their paychecks.

Let's dig deeper into the impacts with CNN's Brian Todd, who is live for us at Reagan National Airport.

One of the big questions today, Brian, is how Americans could feel this. And travel could be one way.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Brianna.

This is going to be one of the areas that we're going to be watching very, very closely in the days ahead to see if airport delays are going to materialize. This is the North Terminal Checkpoint at Reagan National Airport, the TSA checkpoint. You see a long line here.

Now, we're told by one of the airport employees who monitors these lines that this is kind of normal for this time of day to have a backup like this. So this is not necessarily due to the shutdown. But what I can show you is the TSA screeners that you see over to your right and my left.

They are the ones who came in this morning, starting this morning not getting paid for their work, as did the air traffic controllers. Now, as for the possibility of that causing airport delays, that may take some days or even weeks to play out. It doesn't happen necessarily right away.

When TSA screeners don't go with paychecks for maybe a couple of weeks, it takes a while because sometimes, when paychecks aren't there, it takes them -- then they start to not be able to afford gas to get to work or public transportation or childcare. It takes a while for that to kind of materialize. Then, days later, you might see some of the disruptions as TSA screeners and others call in sick.

Air traffic controllers are another part of this equation. They're also not being paid. Will they call in sick? They did this once before and ended a shutdown by doing it, but we're told that the air traffic controllers union has told them not to do sick-outs during this shutdown, to do their jobs and protect the airspace.

Here's a rundown, though, of the government employees that are being furloughed, and, already, it's a pretty staggering amount, Brianna. Here's what we have got as far as the numbers, an amazing 325 -- excuse me -- 335,000 from the Defense Department alone, 32,000-plus from the Department of Health and Human Services, 17,000 roughly from the State Department, about 14,000 from the Department of Homeland Security, 11,000-plus Department of Transportation workers.

And we're told just about all of them are from the FAA. That is about one-quarter of the work force of the Federal Aviation Administration. As for the services that are already being impacted -- already -- excuse me -- already being impacted on the shutdown, well the FDA, that's a crucial government agency that protects our food and our drugs.

[13:05:05]

They are apparently going to be limited in the inspections that they can do of food and of drug manufacturing sites, things like that. That's going to really be felt probably as far as the functionality of that agency.

Travel delays, we just told you about the possibility of those as this shutdown progresses. Are there going to be disruptions here and elsewhere possibly there? National parks also, we should say, we are told that the Department of the Interior has come up with a contingency plan where they will remain partially open, but some park advocates say that's pretty dangerous to do that without adequate staffing, that that could pose risks to visitors -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes, certainly.

And President Trump, Brian, and OMB Director Russell Vought are threatening to fire federal workers, instead of furloughing them. Our Dana Bash asked the House speaker about that earlier, and here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: So you think that the people who are maybe furloughed right now or even working without pay should be on the chopping block for permanent dismissal?

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): No, I wouldn't say that, because the people that are furloughed right now are hardworking American federal workers.

BASH: So, who should be fired during the shutdown?

JOHNSON: I don't know. You would have to show me a proposal of what is being presented.

BASH: I don't have a proposal. I'm asking you.

JOHNSON: I don't have it either. But I have a conference call with Russ Vought at OMB in about two hours, and we're going to ask him about the details of that.

But I will tell you right now...

BASH: So this is happening? So...

JOHNSON: It's -- well, I don't know. I'm going to find out what his plans are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Brian, is it clear which workers could be targeted for layoffs?

TODD: It's not really that clear, Brianna.

OMB Director Russell Vought has threatened to fire, permanently fire, thousands of workers as a result of this shutdown. What we understand is those workers could be from departments whose funding has either lapsed or partially lapsed and whose departments don't necessarily conform to the Trump administration's agenda.

Specifics are not really there, but if you take a look at some of those departments that maybe their functions don't conform with the Trump administration's agenda, maybe look toward those departments for possible targeting.

KEILAR: All right, we will look there.

Brian Todd, thank you so much -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: As thousands of workers face getting by without their paychecks, new data out today finds the U.S. jobs market getting worse.

New ADP numbers show the economy lost 32,000 private sector jobs in September, and the government shutdown may only make things more complicated.

CNN's Matt Egan is with us now.

So, Matt, walk us through this new data.

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, Boris, look, this data paints the picture of a job market that is sputtering right now and of companies that are very reluctant to hire in this environment.

I mean, this was just an ugly report. Not only did it show that private sector payrolls unexpectedly fell in September. It showed also that the prior month of August was revised lower, going from a solid gain of 54,000 jobs to a loss of 3,000 jobs.

Now, if we look at this by company size, you can see that really only the biggest companies are growing payroll and growing head count right now. Small and medium-sized companies, they are shrinking. In fact, they have been shrinking every single month since May, and that was just after the president's historically high tariffs started to really kick in.

Now, I think this just underscores the fact that, while previous government shutdowns didn't do major, lasting damage to the economy, the economy's in a different place right now. It does appear to be more vulnerable. The stakes are higher during this shutdown.

And that's also because of what you were just talking about with Brian Todd, which is this threat from the Trump administration to carry out mass layoffs of federal workers. It's possible that this is just a threat that doesn't actually kick in, but, if it did, it could cause some problems for the economy, because it would just contribute to an already rising unemployment rate.

Not only that, but the federal work force is already shrinking rapidly, down by 97,000 jobs just since January, and that doesn't even take into account the thousands of federal workers who've taken buyouts, but were still being counted on the federal payroll until the end of September.

The other thing here is, I think the good news when you look at the job market is that firing is relatively low. The bad news, though, is that hiring is low too. Across the economy, there's 7.2 million job openings as of the end of August. That is below the 7.4 million people who are looking for work.

So, look, bottom line, history shows that government shutdowns are usually not game changers for the economy, but it's hard to see how adding a lot more chaos and a lot more uncertainty to an environment that already has plenty of both is going to help matters.

SANCHEZ: Given that, though, Matt, it's interesting to see the stock market non-reaction, mini-reaction. It's not really moved a whole lot.

EGAN: Yes, let's go with non-reaction, right? You look at U.S. stocks barely moving on the day. The Dow is down all of 22 points, so no real reaction right there. Investors are unfazed. U.S. stock futures did start the morning in the red, but really those losses were shaken off pretty quickly.

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And I'm not shocked by that because investors have been trained to basically see government shutdowns as nonevents for the stock market. If you look at the last shutdown, the record long shutdown in late 2018 or early 2019, the S&P 500 actually gained 10 percent during that shutdown.

Now, there's no reason to -- we don't know that the same thing is going to happen this time, but it just shows that investors can kind of shake off some of this political dysfunction.

One thing I would note, Boris, though, that does matter to investors and policymakers is that this shutdown has created an information vacuum, because we're not going to be getting that government jobs report on Friday or a number of other major economic reports -- back to you.

SANCHEZ: Yes, it makes it harder for businesses to plan and think ahead.

Matt Egan, thanks so much for the update.

Still ahead: an explosion blowing off a floor-to-roof chunk of a New York City high-rise. We have some new video to show you. We will tell you the latest that we have got on the partial collapse in just moments.

Plus: Hundreds of law enforcement officials descend on Memphis as part of President Trump's crime crackdown. We have new reaction from residents there.

And, later, Hollywood's newest actress has many people in the industry fuming. We will tell you why starlet Tilly Norwood is getting so much backlash.

These important stories and more are coming your way in just a few minutes.

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[13:15:59]

KEILAR: Just terrifying moments today when a huge explosion rocked a New York City high-rise building, causing part of it to collapse.

There's video that shows this gaping hole along an entire corner of the 20-story public housing building in the Bronx. Search crews and investigators are on site. Incredibly, Mayor Eric Adams says that no deaths or injuries have been reported in this.

CNN's Shimon Prokupecz is on scene there.

Shimon, what are people there telling you? Amazing no one was caught up in this.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, SENIOR CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna, it's just truly remarkable, right? When you when you see what happened here, when you hear people describe the explosion and what they saw and what they felt, really, they thought the entire building was coming down as they were trying to escape.

This happened so early in the morning, 8:00, people going to work, people going to school, people sitting at their kitchen counters having coffee, when all of a sudden they could feel the building shaking. They could feel the explosion, and the bricks just started coming down. And that's what we have here behind us now.

I'm going to have Steve here try to show you a little bit of that. All of these bricks are remaining here, and you could just see just this one specific part of this building that, whatever it is, something there exploded and caused this collapse. Luckily, it just seems like this area of this building is fortified, because this is the boiler shaft, sort of serves like a chimney for this building.

And, luckily, from everything we can tell and at this point from everything we know that everything around it, there is some damage, but it's not as bad as it could have been. And like you said, people -- no one was injured. And we heard from a woman who was on the 18th floor of this building as this was happening, grabbing her child and running for her life.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAYLA, RESIDENT OF PARTIALLY COLLAPSED BUILDING: We heard two booms. Then I had to get up. I saw smoke out the window. I had to grab my child. And then I saw bricks coming down. And that's when we had to run. We had to run down from the 18th floor -- 18 -- we was on the G line, so our window was right next to the explosion, where it happened.

It was scary. I didn't really know what to do. I didn't know what was happening. I thought the whole building was going to come down like...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PROKUPECZ: And many of the residents here, they don't know when they're going to be allowed back in.

Building inspectors are on scene, making sure that hopefully at some point they could let the residents back in. But I can tell you there's a lot of frustration out here because they feel this is a city -- city public housing. Many of the residents feel that the building has been run down, that the city has not been doing enough to take care of it.

We have been hearing a lot of the frustration out here, but for now I think, for most of these people, they just want to know that they're going to have a place to sleep tonight. That's still unknown as the city and the building inspectors try to figure out exactly the next steps here.

KEILAR: Yes, certainly, really a scene there.

Shimon, thank you so much for that reporting from the Bronx.

And we do want to note we are keeping our eye on the White House briefing, as this government shutdown enters I think it's its 14th hour here. And just note that seal on the podium there. That -- we're told that's the vice presidential seal, so a sign that we are expecting to hear from the vice president, of course, a former senator. He's going to have, no doubt, a message for the Senate.

We will be right back.

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SANCHEZ: Breaking news to CNN, we are monitoring the White House press briefing, where Karoline Leavitt has just begun speaking to reporters.

Standing near her, you might notice that there's a seal on the podium. Is Vice President J.D. Vance, a last-minute guest at the briefing, we just learned.

KEILAR: That's right. And he's a former senator, right?

SANCHEZ: Yes.

KEILAR: So that is not a coincidence, I think, because right now you have -- the ball is in the court of the Senate. And Republicans need Senate votes from Democrats.

So, no doubt he's going to have a message, I think, right to some of his former compadres on this.

SANCHEZ: Absolutely.

We have Ron Brownstein standing by watching this as we await the vice president's remarks.

Something we have already heard from Karoline Leavitt, Ron, is the refrain from the White House and Republicans that Democrats -- and it looks like he's about to step to the podium.

So, Ron, please stand by.

Let's listen into the vice president.

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(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... watching at home. It's a tough act to follow, but let me just say a few things and then I will take a few questions.

Number one, Democrats say that they care a lot about lowering health care costs. And yet, when the president took historic action to work with the drug companies to lower prescription drug prices, the Democrats did nothing to help us. In fact, we would have loved to have the Democrats helping us, but they didn't.

They talk about doing something. They don't actually do the hard work of making it happen. What they have done instead is to shut down the government because we won't give billions of dollars to health care funding for illegal aliens. That is what has actually happened.

To the American people who are watching, the reason your government is shut down at this very minute is because, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of congressional Republicans and even a few moderate Democrats supported opening the government, the Chuck Schumer-AOC wing of the Democratic Party shut down the government because they said to us, we will open the government, but only if you give billions of dollars of funding for health care for illegal aliens.

That's a ridiculous proposition. Let me say two other quick things, and then, again, I will take some questions.

Number one, we all understand that Democrats and Republicans have policy disagreements. Democrats want to do things. Look, when Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries were in here a couple of days ago, they made some suggestions that the president was more than happy to say, yes, let's sit down and talk about how we can solve the health care crisis that we inherited from the Biden administration.

But it's one thing to say that we should solve the health care crisis for Americans. It's another thing to say that we're going to shut down the government unless we give the Democrats every single thing that they want, which, as Karoline says, includes giving billions of dollars of taxpayer funding for health care for illegal migrants.

That's ridiculous. You don't have policy disagreements that serve as the basis for a government shutdown. Let's have the conversation about how to fix American health care, about how to make health care more accessible. As the president showed, he's more than willing to act on behalf of the American people for this very reason.

What you don't do is say, unless you do exactly what we want to do as congressional Democrats, we're taking a hostage. And the hostage, it turns out, is critical, essential services that the American people need. Karoline talked about some of it.

Let me talk about some more. Our troops are not getting paid starting today because of the Chuck Schumer wing of the Democratic Party. We have people who require food assistance, low-income Americans who require food assistance who will not get it unless we reopen the government thanks to Chuck Schumer and his wing of the Democratic Party.

We have flood insurance as we start hurricane season in the Southeastern part of our country. That flood insurance is going to disappear because of Chuck Schumer and the far left of the Democratic Party. We need to reopen the government. Let's fix America's problems. Let's work together to solve them.

But let's reopen the government before we have our negotiation about health care policy. That's what the American people demand, and that's certainly what the president of the United States wants.

Let me make one final point. I think a lot of Americans are asking themselves, why did this happen? Why did the Democrats shut down the government, despite, as Karoline said, voting on the exact same piece of legislation six months ago?

And there are a lot of different spins that we can put on it, a lot of different answers that we could give, all of them true. One answer I already gave is that they want to give health care benefits to illegal aliens. That is true. They gave us legislative text that would have undone us cutting off health care benefits for illegal aliens.

That's one of the things that they asked for. But the reality here, and let's be honest about the politics, is that Chuck Schumer is terrified she's (sic) going to get a primary challenge from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The reason why the American people's government is shut down is because Chuck Schumer is listening to the far left radicals in his own party because he's terrified of a primary challenge. So I'd invite Chuck Schumer to join the moderate Democrats and 52 Senate Republicans, do the right thing, open up the people's government, and then let's fix health care policy for the American people.

Questions?

QUESTION: Mr. Vice President...

VANCE: That's a lot. Matt Boyle.

QUESTION: OK.

Mr. Vice President, there's two key Democrat lies I would like to get your take on and see if you can address. The first is, is that you're seeing a number of top Democrat leaders, from Kamala Harris to Chuck Schumer to Hakeem Jeffries, claim that it is a Republican shutdown caused by Trump.

The second is, is that they're out there now claiming that they don't want to give health care to illegal aliens. Can you address both of those lies from the Democrat Party?

VANCE: Yes, so on the point that it's a Republican shutdown, look, it's obviously a Democratic shutdown. Just look at the vote totals in the House, look at the vote totals in the Senate, and look at the president of the United States' own action and conduct throughout this crisis.

Nearly every single House Republican voted to open the government, Matt. Nearly every single Senate Republican voted to open the government last night, and, even to their credit, a few moderate Democrats voted to open the government. That's not a Republican shutdown when nearly every single Senate Democrat votes to shut it down and every Republican voted to open it up.

It's just obviously not true. Now, you can disagree about a number of things, but you can't disagree about the obvious fact that Republicans voted to open the government. The president stands ready to sign that opening of the government. We just need a few more Democrats to join us.