that's a whole other story from "around the world." rubber duckies not just for the bathtub. >> thousands watched as a giant rubber ducky arrived. the latest stop in its own around the world tour. been in nine countries including hong kong, brazil, australia. there for a monthly display. >> why? >> we'll find out. thanks for watching "around the world." we've got to go. >> "cnn newsroom" starts right now. right now the clock is ticking as we head toward a political showdown in washington and a possible government shutdown. we'll tell you what's at stake, what it means for your finances. also -- right now stocks are taking a bit of a breather but coming off new all-time highs. this might be a good time for you to check your 401(k) statement. also right now, employees at the washington navy yard, they are back at work. building where monday's shooting

took place is still shutdown. we're learning more about the horror inside. hello, i'm wolf blitzer. we're now only 11 days away from a possible government shutdown. where republicans, fight over funding the government, comes down to one issue, the affordable care act or obama care, as it's known. they want to defund it or delay it as part of any deal. we heard this from the speaker of the house, john boehner. >> obama care's driving up the cost of health care, it's destroying millions of american jobs. it is a train wreck. it would have to go. we've done everything humanly possible to make our point and we'll continue to make our point. >> either my way or the highway approach carried the day. in this case, the highway leads over a cliff to a shutdown or a

default, either of which would be devastating for the economy. republican leadership has been dragged kicking and screaming into a fight that they know is bad for their party and bad for their country. and they should know, it's a fight they will not win. >> there's another fight brewing right now, a fight within the republican party itself. republican congressman tim griffin, for example, fired this shot over the bow of the senate republican counterparts, quote, so far, senate republicans are good at getting facebook likes in houn hatonight halls, do som. boehner will put the vote on the house of representatives tomorrow and then head to the senate where it will be a very, very different story. the democrat-controlled senate is expected to kick it back to the house without the obama care provision, that is the defunding of obama care. and that sets up another fight in the house of representatives.

not this weekend, but the following weekend, as boehner himself said. all of this has to play out within the next 11 days before the government shuts down. no more money for most of the federal government by october 1st. the start of the new fiscal year. that's where we stand in the legislation. but things are very complicated by the infighting now within the republican party. let's bring in our chief legal analyst, gloria borger. more from the house speaker john boehner throwing down the gauntlet to his senate counterparts. listen to this. >> guess what? we're having a fight here. we're going to win the fight here. it's time for them to pick up the mantel and get the job done. >> listen to this, from a few of the top democrats reacting to the republican back and forth. >> they're being guided by a few members over there who are of a certain political faith that i can't even describe who believe that chaos is the best thing.

>> i haven't said that he's lost control of his caucus. maybe he's in full control of his caucusing i don't know if he's a reflection of the caucus or they're a reflection of him. but let's just say, i wish the speaker well. >> would be good political theater to watch themself destruction, and that's what they are doing. >> all of this comes after house republicans openly criticized their senate counterparts for seemingly giving up on the obama care funding fight. so what's go on here, gloria? why are so many republicans on the house side so angry at their counterparts on the senate? >> first, wolf, it's complete chaos on the republican side. house republicans laid down the gauntlet and said, okay, we're going to be against obama care, we're going to tie it to everything, we want to defund it. by the way, that's not where the house speaker was. as you well know, but he acceded to the wishes of his caucus.

they feel like the rug has been pulled out from under them by the conservatives in the senate who said, by the way, we won't be able to pass that over here, so glad you guys are putting up a good fight. you know, in the meantime, wolf, there are a lot of republicans, karl rove among them, who say, you know what? this is a fruitless fight. we don't know where it goes. and, by the way, we're going to lose all of the independent voters who have started acting like republicans because we're acting foolish and in a self-destructive manner because you're never going to end up defunding obama care. you're going shut down the government, and people in the end are going to blame you. >> not just karl rove writing in the "wall street journal" saying these are foolish steps by house republicans. listen to jeb bush, former florida governor, possible 2016 republican presidential candidate. listen to what he says. >> if you control one half or one-third of the leverage in

washington, d.c., your act to influence things are also relative to the fact that you have one half of one third of the government. that's a reality. it's not, you know, this isn't a hypothetical. soer as we get closer to deadlines there needs to be an understanding of that or politically, it's quite dicey for the republican party. >> how dicey is it for the republicans, house republicans, particularly, gloria? >> i think it's extraordinarily a dicey, even dangerous. because, look, everybody knows they have been trying to repeal obama care since it was enacted. it's not going to happen. it's not going to happen in the senate. so they're laying down this gauntlet here, but it isn't going to go anywhere and everybody knows it. in the meantime what are you playing around with? you're playing around with shutting down the government. what does that mean? that means, for example, that

military families will not get paid. air traffic controllers will not get paid. in the end, the american public, i would argue, would react negatively against that because these are services that matter to them. >> hundreds of thousands of federal workers would immediately be furloughed without pay. >> right. >> we'll continue this conversation. thank you, as politicians fight, many americans understandably are worried, worrying about what a government shutdown could be for them. cnn's christine romans is here with some of the answers. >> wolf, you know many of the congress members threatening a government shutdown, hoping to delay or defund obama's affordable care act. a report finds that even if the government shuts down, obama care implementation would go ahead. here's how you would be affected by a shutdown. hundreds of thousands of federal workers sent home without pay.

many, if not most, federal offices of government programs shut down. during last shutdown 200,000 passport politics unprocessed, nah stopped accepting patients for clinical research, national parks and museums closed. and contractors could see their projects delayed. now, parts of government that provide critical services would stay open, think air traffic control, food inspections, national security, border proter, maintenance of the power grid, also open anything considered essential to the banking system, the government would issue bonds and, yes, you would still need to do your taxes. but postal service would continue to deliver the mail. the government will pay out benefits, medicare, medicaid, social security, those are considered mandatory. the government workers who process them could be affected though this unlikely. now the president, his appointees, members of congress would get their paychecks but staff members would not. furloughed workers have gotten

backpay after the government straightens everything out, starts back up again, but that's not guaranteed either. wolf? >> lots of unanswered questions. nothing certainly is guaranteed on wall street either. and after seeing some record numbers yesterday, stocks are a bit sluggish today. right now, take a look. dow jones industrials down about 40 points. stocks jumped to record highs yesterday after the federal reserve announced it will not, not, cut back the amount of cash it's pumping into mortgage and bond markets. the move is expected to keep mortgage rates low, at least for now. senator mccain says the russian people deserve better than vladimir putin. mccain is slamming the russian leader in a new op-ed article. he has just written in a russian publication. excerpts from his scathing criticism. that's coming up. (vo) you are a business pro.

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op-ed article. on the news website pravda.ru, mccain is firing right back. he tells russians, their leadership has no regard for their rights. and i'm quoting now, they don't respect your dignity or accept your authority over them. they punish dissent and imprison opponents. they rig your elections. they control your media. mccain tries to tap into the protests in russia, including the demonstrations over recent anti-gay legislation. he says, and i'm quoting, they write laws to cod fi bigotry against people whose sexual orientation they condemn. they throw members of a punk rock band in jail for the crime of being provocative and vulgar and for having the audacity. he calls it example of the flaws of democracy.

senator mccain also is criticizing russia's close ties with syria. let's bring in jane harmer, director president ceo of the woodrow wilson center in washington. what you think of the blunt, if not totally very, shall we say from a russian perspective, brutal article that mccain wrote condemning vladimir putin? >> kudos to john mccain, well deserved on ptuin's part. i wonder if the editor of pravda.ru which printed it is out of jail. the mccain slam was well deserved on russia. on russia and syria, i think president obama, forget the process, is in a place where he has 79% of the americans behind him according to a recent poll, and david ignatius has got it right, four reasons why this

policy is finally centered. first of all, the russians own it. if chemical weapons are not dismantled they're going to be blamed and, by the way, if chemical weapons get in the hands of the islamists, which are a part of the rebel force, they're aim at russia. two the u.n. is taking ownership and some form of resolution will pass with the support of russia and china. certainly stronger than we've had. three, phase ii starting in geneva, what we need to get to which is a transitional government. this is what we need in syria. and hopefully it also will mean that in the election in 2014, scheduled in 2014, bashar will not be a candidate. number four, we are engaged in a covert action, i think it could be overt, to train the good rebel forces in syria. all of that is a credit, i think, finally to the obama administration.

>> so you're with the president when it comes to a strategy on syria. let's talk about iran for a moment. there's a new president, ahmadinejad is out. rouhani gave an interview. let me play this clip. >> translator: we have never sought a nuclear bomb and we are not going to do so. we are solely seeking peaceful nuclear technology. >> you say that iran will not build a nuclear weapon under any circumstances whatsoever? >> translator: the answer to this question is quite obvious. we have time and again said that under no circumstances would we seek any weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, nor will we ever. >> all right. jane, do you believe him? >> well, the question is whether he speaks for iran. we've long known that presidents of iran are not the leading

cleric in iran and we'll have to see. he, too, is a cleric and allegedly has a close relationship. next week is going to be fascinating. he's speaking at u.n. on the same day that president obama is. no formal meeting set. i bet there will be informal conversations. this is interesting, not just in terms of what iran may do about pursuing a nuclear weapon, but there's also blowback on syria. iran, after all, was the victim of chemical attacks from iraq in 1982 to 1986, 1 million iranians exposed, 100,000 got sick and 10,000 to 20,000 died. they know what chemical weapons do, i hear informally through wilson center contacts they're appalled by the acts of assad. maybe he will help push to a better solution, hopefully this second track solution, this

government in syria want syria as a patron state but it seems to me they don't want syria's chemical weapons eking out of syria, maybe harming them, or destabilizing their role in the region. >> president obama will be speaking at u.n. general assembly next tuesday. he'll be in new york, the news new president of iran will be in new york. let's see if they get together, exchange a few words. jane harman, as usual, thanks for joining us. should be a fascinating week. i'll be anchoring coverage next week where the united nations general assembly glynns. jake tapper speaks with senator john mccain about his op-ed slamming, really slamming the russian president vladimir putin. senator mccain. jake's guest on "the lead" 4:00 p.m. eastern on cnn. pope francis opens up on a host of controversial issues

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pope francis is giving a candid interview, an account where he stands on a whole range of sensitive issues and his hope for the future of the catholic church. in this wide-ranging interview with a jesuit magazine the pope addresses several hot button issues including homosexuality. i'm quoting, a person once asked me if i approved of homosexuality. i replied with another question, tell me when god looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person or reject and condemn this person? we must always consider the person. joining us now from washington, cnn senior producer, he's the coeder to of cnn's belief blog. how do you interpret the comments on homosexuality? people thinks he's becoming more

inclusive. >> he absolutely is becoming more inclusive. the church's teachings is not going to change. sex should be reserved between a married man and woman. he's saying homosexuality, orientation, things like that, they're becoming much more open on this, becoming much more putting much more of the emphasis on loving people, bringing people in, walking alongside them. this was a follow-up on the blockbuster comments he made on the plane coming back from brazil in july, the wide-ranging press conference in the plane where he said who am i to judge. question he was responding to in the journal published in 16 countries aren't world was following up on comments where he expounded on the who am i to judge, putting at issue to rest they're becoming include inclusive and putting emphasis on loving people as opposed to judging people. that's coming through clearly in the article. >> he spoke about the role of women in the catholic church and he said, he said the door is

closed on women priests, but then he went on to say this, let's me read. the feminine genius is need wherever we make important decisions. the church cannot be herself without the woman and her role. all right. what do you think, what you think of the answer? did it deviate from previous statements about the role of women in the catholic church? >> yeah. in a sense, it did. i mean what the pope is -- remember in the prior papacy under benedict catholic women felt under attack particularly when the vatican went after a group of american nuns for the doctrinal assessment, that did not sit well with american catholic women. you're seeing a reaching out to women, the women priest issue still is off the table for the church and the pope used the term female machismo, he wored about that becoming an issue which is an interesting turn of a phrase. this is welcome by women again,

elevating their role in the church, saying they need to be more of the big decisions and more a part of how things work. that's another huge change coming out of the interview. >> also spoke about abortion, other issues. we'll have more on this story later today including in "the situation room." thanks very much for coming in. >> you got it, wolf. 11 days and count, government workers preparing for the worst even while congress spars over obama care. it's not just democrats versus republicans. there's also some serious infighting inside the gop. we'll talk to members of congress about that fight, more, whether we can avoid another government shutdown with all of the ramifications. ♪ norfolk southern what's your function? ♪

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now only 11 days way from a possible federal government shutdown. republicans have threatened to let the deadline come and go if they can't get the president to put obama care on the table and defund it or at least delay its implementation for a year. it seems odd that all republicans on this issue are not on the same page. >> let me just say that you know, i've heard so much concern about obama care and i've supported repealing it, one of the reasons i ran for the united states senate. as you know in 2010. but i don't think that shutting down the government is going to be productive. >> the only effective way to

truly stop obama care -- i think we ought to do it, to stop it -- would be totally reverse it. we don't have the votes to do that. >> someone asked me earlier on a radio show, they said, are you voting to shut the government down? i say, no, absolutely not. >> we're going to have enough adhesiveness among ourselves to stick together and, you know, ted cruz and mike lee have been asking for this fight. the conservative base have been asking for this fight, we're going to give them the fight. >> nobody's talking about killing each other or doing those things, talking about fully funding the government. nobody is talking, nobody is talking about a government shutdown. what we're talking about is not funding obama care. >> we've got a lot of divergent opinions in the caucus. the key to any leadership job is to listen. i was here during the gingrich era, he had a little plaque that was in his office, and it was a

management model, listen, learn, help, and leave. >> so, as you heard, the budget fight in washington isn't just pitting democrats against republicans, republicans against the president. it's also pitting republicans against republicans, this time in a public fight. joining us now, texas republican congressman blake fairen feld. are you with those who say, you know what? you don't have votes to defeat obama care but you've got to keep the government open, or are you willing to see the government shutdown in order to kill obama care? >> litten, i haven't give up hope yet. we haven't passed a bill out of the house to go to the senate and you have gloom and doom senators saying they can't do. i've heard cruz, if he can't convince democrats to do the right thing and defund obama care i'm going to be disappointed. >> they don't have the votes in the senate, as you well know. democrats have a majority.

you control the house of representatives. but you need the senate and apparently these republicans in the senate, they see that they simply doesn't have votes. you passed these resolutions, bills in the house many times to kill obama care. it goes nowhere in the senate. >> let's get the senate to act. let's get the. >> reporter: do something. send it back. go to conference. lots of ways to go. we're not anywhere near shutting down the government. it's not the intent of anybody to shut down the government. the bill we're going to pass out of the house saturday funds all of the government but obama care. i tried to get the leadership name it everything but obama care. >> did you read karl rove's article in the "wall street journal" today? >> i have not read carl's article yet. >> he says it wul would be a huge blunder on the republicans part to link funding to the government shutdown. going down that road would strengthen the president while alienating independents, it's an ill conreceived tactic and

republicans should reject it. do you want to respond? >> i don't want to shut down the government. i don't think many of my republican colleagues do. we want to give the senate, ted cruz, lee, these guys have been asking for a bill, attached to the cr, that would defund obama care. they asked for it, we gave it to them. let's see them deliver. >> if they don't, what are you going to do? what if they send you back legislation a continuing resolution that will fund the government, they send it back to the house of representatives, but it doesn't defund obama care? what do you do then in. >> i think we go to conference. listen, this is one of the leverage points we have in a divided government. as the house we control the purse string. use the leverage to get something. i think the american people want obama care defunded, that's what eheard at town hall meetings, surveys are showing it. the president's giving exemptions to corporate friends, labor unions saying, bad idea. maybe there's compromise.

maybe don't defund it maybe postpone it for a year until we get it sorted out and do something else. we just need the senate to act. >> that would be fine if you had votes in the senate. but the democrats have that majority in the senate. so it looks like the democrats are not go doing it. say they actually were to do it and it came back to the house and became passed by the house and the senate. you know the president would then veto that legislation and then you would need a two-thirds override in both the house and the senate to get it enacted. you don't even have that two-thirds override vote in the house of representatives. certainly not in the senate. so isn't this an uphill struggle for you? >> of course it's an uphill struggle. all good things require work. but if that happens, if it does pass the house, pass the senate, president vetoes it, clear who is shutting down the government, it's the president, not the house and senate. >> you're willing to take that chance. all right. blake farentalt he says

republicans need to stand up as he is. we'll see if they do, including ted cruz from texas. appreciate it, congressman, for your coming in. >> anytime, wolf. >> thank you. our justice reporter evan perez joining us on a different story, fbi, he was at a briefing with fbi sources on the washington navy yard shooting. what are you learning, evan? >> reporter: that's right, wolf. the fbi director did a briefing with reporters, his first since the shooting and he's telling us new details of what went down in building 197. the suspect entered around 8:00 as we have heard before. the remmington .870 shotgun sawed off, a new detail we didn't know before. we previously had been told by sources and the fbi believed that he was standing on the fourth floor and shooting down

at the atrium where many people were killed. it turns out, they've now determined, that when he came out of the bathroom with the the gun he immediately starting shooting randomly with no discernible pattern, nobody he was trying to hit per se. he shot people on the fourth floor. went down to the third floor, down to the lobby, came back up and continued shooting. this lasted 30 minutes. at some point he shot a guard and took his baretta pistol, handgun. and when he ran out of shotgun bullets, shells, he started using the pistol to kill more people. all of this went down like we said in 30 minutes, when the first officers arrived and started shooting at him and he tried to hide and they had this running gun battle for a little while. >> evan perez with the latest from the fbi. i'm sure we'll be getting more of it. thank you for that initial report. more details including a sawed

off shotgun that resulted in the deaths of so many people at the washington navy yard. so we just heard a little while ago one republican congressman, his take on what needs to be done. what about the democrats in the house of representatives? what are they preparing to do? i'll ask one of the leading democrats in the house, the congressman, chris van hollen, he's standing by live. he joins me next. across america people are taking charge of their type 2 diabetes with non-insulin victoza®. for a while, i took a pill to lower my blood sugar,

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fight that's under way. only 11 days left before the government might shut down, running out of money. democrats say they've been left out of the house negotiations on a possible shutdown. they are in the minority. chris van hollen of maryland joining us from capitol hill, the ranking democrat on the house budget committee. walk us through what you suspect is going to happen over the next 11 days. will there be a government shutdown? >> well, wolf, i certainly hope not. but even by washington, d.c., standardser by congressional standards what you're seeing here in the house of representatives really is outrageous. what the republicans are doing, and what you're seeing is the tea party faction has taken over, speaker of the house has given the gavel over to the tea party faction, and they've said that they will shut down the government if they can't totally shut down the affordable care act. by the way, if they don't succeed in those round, they'll

shut down the full faith and credit of the united states if they can't shut down the affordable care act a little later. these are outrageous demands. they're not going to be successful. the problem is that in the meantime, it's creating a lot of crisis in confidence and certainly it's going to hurt the economy if we ever got to a situation where on the debt ceiling they really brought us to the brink of default. >> in order to keep the government operating full funding for another year, some republicans are offering this ace compromise, since the president says he's going to delay implementation of certain parts of obama care for a year. why not delay the whole thing for a year and at least allow the government to operate fully funded? >> well, wolf, a couple of things. first of all, much of obama care, the affordable care act, is already in progress. it's in motion. millions of americans are already benefiting from it. you have seniors on medicare who don't have to pay as much for

their prescription drugs, they don't fall into the doughnut hole. you have kids with preexisting conditions like diabetes or asthma who no longer can be discriminated against based on those conditions by insurance companies. so, all of those millions of americans who are currently benefiting would no longer get the benefit. secondly, the exchanges, supermarket where americans can buy affordable health insurance are to start up october 1st, and it's important to remember this was originally a conservative republican idea. that's why governor romney used this approach in massachusetts. it helped provide affordable care to people in massachusetts and it's just very unfortunate that our colleagues wanted to deny that kind of affordable health insurance to millions of americans and to threaten to shut down the government if they don't get their way. >> the president says repeatedly he's willing to negotiate with the republicans in the house and the senate over the full funding of the government making sure there's no government shutdown

by the end of the month. but he says he's not willing to negotiate them with all on raising the debt ceiling. they have to raise the debt ceiling. he's not willing to make new concessions on that front. you heard the house speaker, john boehner, say reagan made concessions to raise the debt ceiling, bush made concessions, bill clinton did and even president obama did a couple years ago. should he negotiate at least with republicans on raising the debt ceiling by mid-october when the treasury says the u.s. must do that? >> no, and here's the reason why, wolf. people think you raise the debt ceiling so you can start a bunch of new programs, new spending. that's not the case. we don't want to do that. what we want to do is make sure that the u.s. government pays its existing obligations on time. you can't get up one morning, i can't get up, the american people can't get up and say we're not going to pay our mortgage or our credit card

bills. if the united states wakes up one morning, like october 15th of this year, and says, it's no longer going to pay its bills, whether to our soldiers fighting, whether it's on social security, whether it's to people who have u.s. treasury bonds, that would be catastrophic. so what the president is saying is that he is not going to somehow give republicans some -- into their radical demands in exchange for making sure we pay our bills on time. in those other cases you mentioned, almost all of them, the debt ceiling was a vehicle for something else but it wasn't used as a bargaining chip. it wasn't taken as a hostage in order to get those other things done with the exception of 2011, when the republicans in the house did this and it did hurt the economy. we don't want that to happen again. the president did in 2011 been but you're saying that's the last time, never negotiate over raising the debt ceiling, even if there are reasonable demands? say the republicans come forward

with some relatively modest spending cuts to go ahead and raise the debt ceiling? you say no negotiations whatsoever? >> no, wolf, we've said this, we're happy to discuss spending cuts. we're happy to discuss shutting down some tax loopholes like the ones for big oil companies. in fact, just last night i asked for the eighth time to have a vote in the house on a proposal to replace the sequester with a proposal that would get the same amount of deficit reduction, even more deficit reduction, without the deep, immediate cuts caused by the sequester, which we know are dragging down the economy. republicans wouldn't allow us a vote on that proposal. so, let's be really clear the president is more than happy to negotiate with republicans on budget issues, where to cut, whether to cut tax loopholes. where he will not negotiate is whether or not the united states

pays its bills on time, whether or not we live up to the full faith and credit of the united states. and we all know that if the united states ever did default, it would send our economy into a big downward spiral, very quickly. >> we've got to end it, unfortunately. you heard boehner say, the president's willing negotiate with vladimir putin but not willing to negotiate with republicans. those were stinging words from john boehner speaker of the house. >> but what the president got was everything we asked for and more. we got the destruction of syria's chemical weapon stockpile. here what the republicans are calling for is to shut down the government or get rid of a law that's protecting millions of americans. what if they said we're going to shut down the government unless you get rid of medicare or the clean air act? that's the demand they're making, it's just unreasonable. >> chris van hollen, democratic congressman from maryland, thanks for joining us. more news after this. ♪

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