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CNN NEWSROOM

House Votes Today On Budget Deal; Interpreter Says Getting Schizophrenia Help; FCC Considering In-Flight Calls; Texas Mom Speaks Out

Aired December 12, 2013 - 13:00   ET

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


WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. That budget deal, based on cooperation, compromise, about to be put to the test. The House voting this afternoon on the agreement. We're tracking developments minute by minute up on Capitol Hill. Lots at stake. The House speaker, John Boehner, calls the budget deal a giant step in the right direction. Just a little while ago, he again took direct aim at his conservative critics of the agreement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I came here to cut the size of government. That's exactly what this bill does and why conservatives wouldn't vote for this or criticize the bill is beyond any recognition I can come up with.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, isn't crazy about the deal. She predicts Democrats, though, will support the bill, even though it doesn't extend federal unemployment insurance which she refers to as U.I.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), MINORITY LEADER: What I also said was, if it's a stinking lousy budget even with U.I. in it, we may not vote for it. So, there was much improvement that had to take place in the bill for us vote for it and that improvement did take place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Dana Bash is following all of this as she always does up on Capitol Hill. So, is the bill likely to pass later this afternoon despite some differences, a rift among Republicans and some Democrats who aren't crazy about it either?

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It does look like it is heading towards passage. We'll see just how big the split is in both parties as we see the vote take place later today. But the most interesting drama that has been going on and really escalated today, Wolf, is within the Republican Party. And specifically, John Boehner lashing out at outside conservative groups, because they came out very strongly, and are continuing to do that as we speak, against the budget bill. But the problem is that they did it before the budget agreement was even announced. And so, I asked John Boehner about that and listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Mr. Speaker, you were pretty tough on outside conservative groups for their criticism of the budget deal. As you well know, I mean, just to be candida, they've had a lot of sway in a lot of the decisions that your members have made over the past couple of years. Does this budget mark a turning point and are your members at your behest going to be more focused on maybe compromise and less on what the outside groups are pressuring them to do?

BOEHNER: Well, listen now, I take my fair share of criticism from the right and from the left. You know, I came here to fight for a smaller, less costly, more accountable federal government. And this budget agreement takes giant steps in the right direction. It's not everything I wanted. But when groups come out and criticize an agreement that they've never seen, you begin to wonder how credible those actions are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Wolf, he also said that these groups are misleading their followers. Really, really strong stuff from the speaker. Clearly, a lot of pent-up frustration about this and about what the kind of tactics that they've used really for the past couple of years but probably most specifically with regard to the budget -- to the government shutdown, rather, earlier this year, where they pushed members to support defunding Obamacare and attaching that to a budget which, as the speaker said today, he knew was a strategy that was never going to work.

So, it's sort of all coming to the floor now, and the speaker really seems to have -- feel that he is able to voice some of the things that we know he has been saying in private, now in public perhaps because he built up a lot of political capital by allowing that government shutdown. And saying to conservatives, you know what? You want do this? OK. So, they feel that they have the confidence in him as a leader.

BLITZER: I suspect they -- in the end, they'll will get enough -- those 218 votes they need to pass the House. A lot of Democrats and Republicans might hold their nose voting yea but they'll probably get the votes. What about the Senate, what does it look like there?

BASH: Well, we don't expect the Senate vote to happen until next week. The House is going to leave for the holiday break this week but the Senate is in all next week. It does -- the Senate is, of course, run by Democrats. It, again, is you have a situation where nobody loves this deal but they like it enough. And it looks like Democratic leaders have enough confidence that they can pass this as well.

Again, one subplots is going to be how many Republican deflections there will be. And we expect the Republican leader himself, Mitch McConnell, who's got primary challenges in his own state of Kentucky, likely to vote against this. But probably there will be enough senators to vote for it for it to pass. BLITZER: They've been tweaking that filibuster issue nominees. What about on this issue? Will they need 60 votes to get it passed in the Senate or 51?

BASH: They will likely need 60 votes to get it passed because the change in rules dealing with the filibuster was just focused on the president's nominees.

BLITZER: All right, Dana, thanks very much. Dana watching what's going on.

Let's take a little closer look at this Republican family feud over the budget deal. At the center of it all, Representative Paul Ryan who helped broker the deal, and Senator Marco Rubio, two rising stars in the Republican Party, two possible rivals for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. On CNN's "THE LEAD," Paul Ryan defended the deal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PAUL RYAN (R), CHAIRMAN, BUDGET COMMITTEE: You can't get everything you want, but you can get things done if you focus on that common ground area. I'm not going to begrudge anybody for one reason or another chooses not vote for it. These aren't perfect but we think this is a step in the right direction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: In an op-ed article on the BrightBart.com Web site, Senator Rubio blasted the compromise. He writes, this budget deal fails to address the biggest obstacles that stand between our people and the American dream. It keeps us on the same road to ruin that Washington has placed us on. Ryan responded later on MSNBC this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE SCARBOROUGH, CO-HOST, "MORNING JOE", MSNBC: You have said that this budget deal, quote, "advances our principles." Marco Rubio said this, though, last night. Quote, "either your deal is going to make it harder for Americans to achieve the American dream." What would you say to Marco?

RYAN: Read the deal and get back to me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Our Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger is here watching what's going on. There is a real split among Republicans right now including some major players.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, major players, both of whom are looking towards the presidency. Look, Marco Rubio upset the Republican Party because he was for a compromise on immigration reform. So he upset the conservatives. Now Paul Ryan has upset the conservatives because he wants a compromise on the budget. So, Rubio, this time, is looking for his conservative credibility here. But, look, this is a party that right now is having a showdown over how pure they're going to be.

If you listen to John Boehner, the tape you played of John Boehner, what he's saying is, I'm not going to allow a hostile takeover by the Tea Party. We've already done it their way once, the shutdown. Our poll numbers are way low. People like Democrats more than they like us. I'm tired of losing elections because our guys get into primaries with people to their right and then they become the nominee and then they can't get elected.

Republicans in the Senate feel the same way. They're tired of losing these elections that are absolutely winnable. And he said, look, OK, you can't take over everything. I mean, it might have been better if he had done it in October when they actually had the government shutdown, but I think right now he's saying, OK, enough. We've got to get this done.

BLITZER: There's a division among Democrats --

BORGER: Yes.

BLITZER: -- especially because this deal does not include extended unemployment benefits for long-term unemployed people who have been unemployed for more than, what, 26 weeks.

BORGER: Right. It doesn't include that and Nancy Pelosi, as you showed, is very upset about that. There are also a lot of liberal Democrats who are upset about the fact that some of these automatic spending cuts actually remain in place as part of this compromise.

But, Wolf, their trying to avoid another shutdown. So, what would each of these sides have these two people do, Patty Murray and Paul Ryan do? This may be a moment, and I'm not sure it is, but it may be a moment when the leaders say, OK, we're going to have to leave the left wing out there and we're going to have to leave the right wing out there and we may have to get some stuff done with that larger group that's willing to compromise.

BLITZER: Yes, I suspect in the end, the House will pass it, the Senate will pass it, the president will sign it into law.

BORGER: Right.

BLITZER: So, does this a new era of bipartisan and cooperation and goodwill in Washington?

BORGER: Yes. You know, it's hard to say, at this point, Wolf, because on the one hand you can say, OK, they got this done. But this is incremental. Now, you're going to head into a fight over raising the debt ceiling. And conservatives may say, you know what? We gave in on this one, but we're not going to give in on the next one. We're going to want to do tax reform. We're going to want to do entitlement reform. We're not going to give in on the debt ceiling. We're going to make that our huge fight. And, you know, public opinion on the debt ceiling may be with them on that, with the Republicans. So, I would really be hesitant to say that all is going to be kumbaya for the next -- going into the new year.

BLITZER: I think that's a fair assessment. Thanks very much, Gloria, for that.

Just ahead here in the NEWSROOM, lost in translation. The South African interpreter slammed as he's a fake by experts. He is now firing back at his critics.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: The memorial for Nelson Mandela has taken one man from a very high-profile spot on the world stage to the center of a serious controversy and it's all because of this performance which sparked claims that the man's sign language interpretations were all a fake.

Brian Todd is following the story for us. He's been doing that for a while. So, I understand CNN has now spoken to this individual. What's he saying?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, he spoke to our David McKenzie in Johannesburg. The man's name is Thamsanqa Jantjie. He is the interpreter who is at the center of all of this. He said he stands by his work, that he's a fully qualified sign language interpreter, and that he's been trusted in the past with other big events. But he also said to David that he also suffers from a mental illness. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THAMSANQA JANTJIE, INTERPRETER: I am suffering from schizophrenia which is controllable and I'm under treatment positively (INAUDIBLE) South Africa.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: Now, separately, Mr. Jantjie told the newspaper, "The Star," in Johannesburg, that he was hearing voices during the ceremony and hallucinating during the event. He told the associated press that he saw angels coming into the stadium. He also told (INAUDIBLE) that he had violence in his past and that he had once been hospitalized in a mental health facility for more than a year. Now, the big question is, did anybody in the South African government catch any of this? A woman named Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, she is South Africa's deputy minister for Women, Children and People with Disabilities, addressed that to reporters. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HENDRIETTA BOGOPANE-ZULU, DEPUTY MINISTER, WOMEN, CHILDREN AND PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES: I don't think it will get us anywhere to begin to get into his health, his violence, his schizophrenia because I think users -- the South Africa users and survivors of psychiatric services would not allow us to begin to say he was going to be violent. And I don't think any of the people that provided the services on that day's health profiles were discussed. So, I mean, if that was the case, then I might have missed something. And he was a service provider. And I don't think any of the other service providers that were there or the journalists that were there not hat day's health profiles were discussed before they were granted by their organizations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So basically the South African minister there of the government saying that they did not catch this beforehand, had no indication of it. There's been some question about the African National Congress and their involvement in all of this. That group has said that they have hired this man in the past, but they did not hire him for this event. They said the government hired him.

And here is a quote from a statement from the ANC spokesman, Jackson Mthembu. Quote, "up until yesterday, the African National Congress had not been aware of any complaints regarding the quality of services, qualifications or reported illnesses of Mr. Jantjie." Wolf, so that's what the ANC is saying. However, some members of the deaf community in South Africa have told news organizations, they have raised this in the past with this individual, that there have been problems with him.

BLITZER: Now, what does the company that he supposedly works for have to say about all of this?

TODD: That would be a good question if we could reach them. That company is S.A. Interpreters. We have tried to contact that company. Our people in South Africa have gone to the dress. The people who were there said - who he said he worked for were not there. The South African deputy minister, whose sound we heard a short time ago, says the owners, quote, seem to have vanished. So they may have gone underground, or at least are maybe in hiding somewhere and not wanting to answer these questions.

BLITZER: Oh, yes. What a strange, very strange story.

TODD: Yes.

BLITZER: All right, thanks very much, Brian, for that.

The ban on in-flight cell phone calls may be on the way out (ph), but if the plan gets the go-ahead, will airlines really allow you to talk on a plane? Stand by.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: You may or may not be able to use your cell phone above 10,000 feet. The FCC voting on whether to consider lifting the cell phone ban later this afternoon. But check out this Associated Press poll. Forty-eight percent of the people questioned oppose allowing in flight calls. That opposition jumping to 78 percent for frequent flyers.

Rene Marsh is watching this story for us.

A huge meeting underway with the FAA right now and even as we're speaking, Rene, new information coming in. RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. Absolutely. New information. You know, this is slightly different because we're focusing mostly on cell phones here, allowing passengers to text and talk while flying to your destination. And today the FCC is moving forward with its proposal, but, and this is a big but, we just got word minutes ago the Department of Transportation secretary, Anthony Foxx, is beginning a process that will look at the possibility of banning phone calls in- flight.

So what does that mean? It means you won't get to make calls mid- flight after all, possibly. Ultimately, it is the DOT that decides aviation rules.

Now this morning, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, defended the proposal at an oversight hearing on Capitol Hill. The FCC says technology is very advanced. It's advanced enough to allow people to text and talk on cell phones above 10,000 feet without interfering on -- interfering with cell towers on the ground. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM WHEELER, CHAIRMAN, FCC: But where there is new on-board technology that eliminates that potential for interference, then there is no need for an interference rule. This is the responsible thing to do. Where the rational for a rule doesn't exist, the rule shouldn't exist.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARSH: Well, in just over an hour, all five FCC commissioners, they will vote on whether to consider lifting the ban. After the FCC vote, the issue will be up for public comment. But, of course, this is a lengthy process.

BLITZER: Very lengthy. What about the airlines? How are they responding to this? The airlines do want us to have access to Internet service and wi-fi, if you will, but talking on phones, that could be irritating.

MARSH: It can be irritating. You know, so here's the thing. Some airlines, they're saying that they would not allow voice calls on their flights, Delta, for example. They just think it's a bad idea and they say the reason why they are going that route is because many of their customers say they don't want to hear someone talking on the phone next to them during an entire flight, Wolf. So some airlines already saying this is a no go.

BLITZER: I'll speak for myself. If somebody's sitting next to me yakking away, I don't want to hear that conversation.

MARSH: You're not going to call into "The Situation Room" -

BLITZER: No.

MARSH: Or midflight, breaking news? No?

BLITZER: I'll type it. MARSH: Got it.

BLITZER: We got -- that's why we've got wi-fi and stuff like that.

MARSH: You're right.

BLITZER: Thank you. We'll see what happens. You'll fill us in later in "The Situation Room," right?

MARSH: Yes.

BLITZER: You promise?

MARSH: I promise.

BLITZER: OK. Good.

MARSH: You have my word.

BLITZER: Thanks (ph).

You can only imagine the terror a parent must feel when their child is diagnosed with a severe mental illness. Up next, I'll speak to a brave mother who's speaking out about her son's struggle with a devastating psychiatric disorder. She's delivering a special message she thinks the world needs to hear.

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