. >>> up next, we go the kate bolduan for the latest in the breaking news from congress tonight. make sure you stay with us. woman: day care can be expensive. so to save some money, i found one that uses robots instead of real people. 'cuz robots work for free. robot 1:good morning... robot 1:...female child. sfx: modem dial-up noise woman: flaws? yeah, um, maybe. anncr: there's an easier way to save. anncr: get online. go to geico.com. get a quote. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. handle more than 165 billion letters and packages a year. that's about 34 million pounds of mail every day. ever wonder what this costs you as a taxpayer? millions? tens of millions? hundreds of millions? not a single cent. the united states postal service doesn't run on your tax dollars. it's funded solely by stamps and postage. brought to you by the men and women of the american postal worker's union. if you think even the best bed can only lie there... ask me what it's like when my tempur-pedic moves. talk to someone who owns an adjustable version of the most highly recommende

kate bolduan, our congressional correspondent, is standing by up on capitol hill. the house has gone into recess until early in september. the senate expected to do the same thing pretty soon, kate? >> reporter: that's absolutely right. when they return, i'll tell you, we are hearing it on the senate floor this morning and heard it a little bit from the president, you can really see where in terms of this battle, this debate over deficit reduction, where the focus is going to shift. it will very quickly shift to this special committee, this committee of 12 that will be -- these are 12 congressional members of congress that will be picked by party leaders and they will be equally divided on this committee. they will be charged with really tackling the tough stuff, taking on entitlement reform and tax reform and really working towards more than $1 trillion in further deficit reduction that they'll need to report back to congress by thanksgiving. that might seem a far ways away now, but they are going to be tackling very meaty, controversial issues. some question if th

and erin burnett and kate bolduan as well through the dramatic night.et for you, the house of representatives have passed the debt ceiling compromise and now it goes to the united states senate, and that vote at noon tomorrow, and a lot of the pieces to analyze and discuss. we will see you tomorrow night after that dramatic vote. our coverage continues "in the our coverage continues "in the arena" which starts right now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com aanr and welcop and an. moments ago the house of representativrepresentative re historhistoric budget bill that nobody pit was a clebr leaders, the president of the united states barack obama and the speaker of the house john boehner, and two men who have staked their political careers and their future on the separate visions of how much this country should spend and on what. it has been a fierce battle of wills and tonight, it is very difficult to say who won if indeed anyone did. all day both of the parties have been venting their anger over an unhappy compromise, but during the vote, a rare momen

let's go to kate bolduan. standing by in providence with a little bit more of an assessment where you are. i know you mentioned before, you're standing in front of a floodgate which seems to be holding strong. >> reporter: which is very good news for everyone here in providence. that floodgate is called a hurricane barrier. you can see those massive steel gates. those were put down -- or this was built in the 1960s with this exact purpose of trying to protect the city of providence from storm surges. that's said to be able to hold back storm is surges of up to 20-some feet, and they've clearly reached nothing to that as it has passed through. as we said earlier, the story here, you can probably see in my face is the strong winds. we have been getting some rain but nothing like the downpours that we've seen in other parts of the northeast as the hurricane, then tropical storm irene has passed through. the strong winds they're dealing with here in providence and will continue to deal with. it sounds like at leas

kate bolduan, up on capitol hill, what are you seeing up there now, kate? >> hey, there, wolf.ell just a little bit of information on kind of the path forward. obviously members of both parties want their members to actually see the legislation, they need to discuss that. but on the path forward there's always this question of the procedure, is there enough time actually to get any piece of legislation, any prom economize through the house and through the senate, just procedurally in time. i've got a little reporting probably some good news for people watching this this evening from the top senate democratic aide. they say the senate is going to go first in this procedure. they're going to take up the compromise measure first and the goal would be if everything goes as planned, and as they hope, that they would begin debate on it, maybe between noon and 2:00 tomorrow, and then vote on it, hopefully late afternoon tomorrow, then send it over to the house and the goal, we're told by the speaker, according to a call participant he told members on their conference call today the go

kate bolduan in providence, rhode island. we're going to check in with all of our crews there giving us a different perspective of things. let's begin with kate bolduan in providence. >> kate, what are you seeing? >> reporter: hey there, brooke. similar to what we've been seeing throughout the day, kind of a general trend of the rain dissipating as well as we're still getting some pretty strong gusts. the wind does seem to be dying down quite a bit. it seems the focus now and the challenge now is to try to get people back online, get the power back online. we're hearing that about 50% of the state of rhode island is without power at this time. we know the company, national grid, are working very hard to get people out there to fix the problem and start getting people back online. some of the trouble they'll deal with is that there's a lot of debris in the roads. we've seen it ourselves. as well as some here in providence and neighboring cities. warwick, especially. trees down in the roads all throughout the state. power lines

kate bolduan is on capitol hill. kate, the house of representatives after they voted yesterday, they immediately announced they are going into recess and members don't have to come back until early september, after labor day. is that the senate's game plan as well? >> reporter: i assure you there are many senators that have their bags packed and are ready to head out at this moment. i believe we are going to be hearing from senator reid as well as the senator mitch mcconnell on their plans for them to come out to the cameras after this vote. we'll be looking to hear what they have to say. i can assure you through the hallways, i have been talking to a lot of them as you know throughout the past few weeks and many have said they're very much looking towards this august recess. i can assure you they probably have their plane tickets already in their pockets. >> yeah. they want that august recess. they will come back on september 7th or september 9th, at least in the house, that's when they're going to come back for the

we'll find kate bolduan in providence. like the wind died down significantly since we spoke to you about an hour ago. >> reporter: i'm going to say that then probably get a big gust of wind which seems to know as you know whenever we come on air, we get the big gusts. the wind has seemed to die down quit a bit. we have been getting rain off and on but nothing like people expected. much of what i heard from chris lawrence and many of my colleagues across the eastern seaboard, i can mir or that in saying many people here are relieved that what rhode island experienced was much less than they anticipated and that they had feared. i will tell you the challenge they face now is similar as other cities and states across the east is that they have a challenge now, a power problem really with the wind damage and wind gusts that we're still being told that we could be getting more wind gusts later this afternoon. there's a big concern and big challenge ahead of them in the cleanup as well as trying to get people back online, get po

kate bolduan is standing by live on capitol hill. issue? >> it is so interesting because just as we were reporting actually a couple hours ago that just as the president was actually coming out to speak, speaker boehner was actually on a conference call with members before we started getting this breaking news that the president was going to come out to announce this and we heard the senate -- top senate democrat -- top senate republican come out and say they'd reached this deal. house speaker john boehner has been on a conference call and my colleague says he's actually going through a power point presentation kind of walking through the contours of this deal with members right now. i'm actually working right now to see what house speaker john boehner has to say, but i assure you that they're not going to be coming forward with this deal, while there might be a couple details to be worked out. big announcement was not going to come without sign-off from all of the parties involved here. everyone has a stake in this. everyone needed

kate bolduan is usually on the hill. she's joining us out of washington today.from and not hearing from? first of all, what is the latest from your vantage point on who is coming occupy speaking strongly about libya? >> according to two top senators on military and foreign policy issues, the fall of moammar gadhafi is being called a victory for the libyan people. senators john mccain and lindsey graham, two republican senators, they released a statement applauding the efforts of the libyan people and international community for reaching this point, adding that gadhafi's fall should now send a message to other nations and other embattled leaders, namely in their tame, bashar al assad of syria saying we're confident his regime will soon join gadhafi's on the ash heap of history, but also listen to senator mccain. he was on cbs "face the nation." >> it's going to be a big challenge forming a new government, uniting a country that's never known democracy. we've seen the difficulty with other countries that have made this transition, but we'll be rid of a guide who h

the talks are delayed, we're hearing from kate bolduan, it's a bit of a frenzy there. get some more votes. maybe there's a little bit of talking, negotiating still under way. we expect to hear from him at 3:30. and who knows who will step to the podium? we have a lot of folks on the hill at the white house watching all of this play out. it's a bit dramatic, i must say. whoever does come to the podium, whoever wants to speak, wants to come to our microphone, we'll bring to it you here to talk about the debt ceiling as it happens. we won't let you miss a moment. >>> let's get to the white house where our dan lothian is standing by. what is the late tles at this hour? >> reporter: what's happening here at the white house behind the scenes is the hard sell job making sure they can get the democrats in the house to accept, to embrace this plan. as you know, liberal democrats are not happy about the spending cuts, they're not happy about the fact that there's no revenue, no tax increases, if you will, for wealthier americans. and so the white house has to tell them that this

afterwards, kate bolduan got a rare interview with house speaker john boehner about giffords emotionalat. >> reporter: what do you think of the vote thonk? this evening? >> a strong vote but many steps yet to go. >> reporter: what do you hope -- what do you think the message is for the american people tonight? >> the process works. may not be pretty, but it works. >> reporter: and your thoughts on the spriurprise of gabrielle giffords coming to the floor? >> it was very nice. >> reporter: did you say anything to her? >> i met her when she got off the elevator. >> reporter: what did you say to her, sir? >> i said welcome back. >> man of few words. he is not usually. i think it must be sheer exhaustion after this whole thing. i'm sure he is pleased that ceiling debate is done but he didn't look it. >> at least on his part, right? >> yeah. but everybody. what a change in the tone in the house of representatives with gabby giffords there. it has been anything but bipartisan and anything about compromising, although that bill was bipartisan. >> although somebody, i think it was john boehner

. >> i want to bring in kate bolduan to tell us what we just saw and what it means. kate, explain. >> reporter: rand what happened was the senate came and gavelled in and passed this short-term extension that there has been fighting so much over, and they can set the procedural rules aside, and if nobody objects, and there were two members, and they passed it. the house and senate have passed it and it's on the way to the president to sign. the short-term fight now has come to an end. it doesn't mean the issues that this was really all about are resolv resolved. they remain unrevolved. and they still have to deal with the major sticking point, which is the unionization of airline workers. they want to change a recent -- they want to reverse a recent change to federal rules that would make it easier for unions to organize in airlines. democrats are fighting them on that, and that's where this stands. they finally at least came to the senses, if you will, and passed a short-term bill to have that fight for another day. they do need to deal with the issue likely before t

. >> kate bolduan, thank you very much. gloria, let me turn to you.you think this is cause for celebration? >> no. it's cause for celebration because the debt ceiling has been raised, and i believe that that needed to happen. but i think, you know, now comes -- now comes the hard part, as kate was saying. it was clear watching the president today. he took an immediate turn. he wasn't overly exuberantet about this. he said this wasn't a compromise. then he took an immediate turn, laying out his priorities for this committee. you know, this is a president who said, we're going to have to make, yes, adjustments to things like medicare, entitlement programs, but he called for reforming the tax code, which as you know is a very big job and also he called for revenue increases, taking away oil and gas subsidies and tax cuts for, as he put it, billionaires. and so it's -- you know, this is a debate we have been having, we have had on other debt commissions, we're going have on this committee. they we've got to report in a very limited amount of time. the onl

kate bolduan is up on the hill watching. i assume a lot of people have been looking closely at the numbers. they have well over 60 votes that will support what mitch mcconnell and harry reid have now proposed. >> reporter: i have been talking to leadership aides this morning and on all sides they tell me it's safe to say they're confident this will pass. of course, we always warn that you can't call the vote until the last vote is cast but there seems to be a general understanding that the biggest obstacle as we were talking about yesterday was getting this bill through the house of representatives, not so much the senate. so they seem confident of course they're not going to call what their margin will be, but they seem confident they will pass the 60-vote threshold once this 15-minute vote comes up. but we have heard on the floor this morning as they were debating this, wolf, some of the similar criticisms and concerns of this compromise from both democratic and republican senators that we have been hearing really for the

joining us now congressional correspondent kate bolduan, democratic strategist paul begala and strategisto. kate, is this a fight over a couple of small town airports? >> reporter: yes, in part, at least ostensiblily. there are two things going on. it has to do with this union issue that you mentioned. republicans put a change to union rules and how the federal rules kind of apply to airlines and unionizing there. they want to change the rules. democrats clearly are balking at this and they're opposed to it. that's the long-term funding bill. then in the short-term extension, democrats are calling for a clean extension that would just extend it as they have in the past. republicans are opposing that. so they're pushing their own extension that has to do with these subsidies for rural airports that democrats are balking at again and opposing. and republicans then say that they're protecting wasteful spending that they see. but so it seems like the same finger pointing that we were seeing in the debt debate is just extending into this. and everyone says the other side is the one holding up

. >> cnn's kate bolduan is live in rhode island where water concerns have everyone on alert tonight.'ll join us in two minutes stay right here. ♪ been torn apart ♪ got so many scratches and scars ♪ ♪ maybe time can mend us together again ♪ ♪ it's not what we've done but how far we've come ♪ ♪ i know that we will recover [ male announcer ] here when you need us most. no, it's just for new people. hey ! chocolate, vanilla or strawberry ? chocolate ! chocolate it is ! yeah, but i'm new, too. umm... he's new... er... than you. even kids know it's wrong to treat new friends better than old friends. at ally bank, we treat all our customers fairly, with no teaser rates and no minimum deposit to open. it's just the right thing to do. any questions? no. you know... ♪ we're not magicians ♪ we can't read your mind ♪ ♪ read your mind ♪ we need your questions ♪ each and every kind ♪ every kind ♪ will this react with my other medicine? ♪ ♪ hey, what are all these tests even for? ♪ ♪ questions are the answer ♪ yeah ♪ oh >>> we're going to take you straight to new jersey now where governor chris chr

kate bolduan joins us now from capitol hill with some of the reasons why a simple extension has turned into a war. kate, what's going on? >> reporter: and it's not a simple explanation. i will tell you that, tom. but we'll try to break it down for you. it comes down to a couple of things. one of the reasons behind this battle comes down to a long-fought battle over unions. democrats generally support union efforts. republicans generally do not support union efforts. in this faa bill that's been trying to be worked out through congress, house republicans want to reverse a new -- a recently -- a recent change to federal rules that would make it easier for unions to organize in rlines. republicans want to reverse that, saying that it's unfair. democrats are opposing, saying that this faa funding bill is not the place to be taking up this matter. the other part of this has to do with federal subsidies for air travel to rural states. this happens for many states but they're targeting three states, which include a very important state, nevada, which is the state of the senate majority leader

let's get the latest from kate boldu bolduan. >> reporter: they just made it official and honestly ifnk, you might have actually missed it. it took less than a minute which we kind of expected because once this agreement in this breakthrough happened yesterday, once this agreement for a short term extension happened between democrats and republican, the senate through a procedure called unanimous consent, they gavelled in about 10:00 and less than a minute later, they gaveled out. unanimous consent sets aside the typical hurdles we see and if no one objected to that, which no one was even in the chamber to object, it's passed. so the short term extension is passed and that gets congress through september 16th which leaves them about a little more than a week once the full senate and house return to really kind of hammer out the differences that still remain. of course the short term extension puts people back to work which is very good, but this doesn't resolve the underlying issue, this labor dispute over how unions can organize within airlines, it still needs to be hammers out and w

kate bolduan is monitoring that and other top stories into "the situation room." >> drivers can expect a drop in gas prices soon, but unfortunately not by that much. gas usually costs less as the traditional summer driving season ends. also hurricane irene wasn't as bad as expected. experts say gasoline should only drop, though, by 30 or 40 contribucents a gallon. >>> the u.s. is warning of a possible extension of the h1n1 virus has appeared in vietnam and china, and might be spreading throughout asia. it appears this strain of the bird flu can bypass the effects of the vaccine. >>> and finally on wall street, stocks eked out gains after falling early in the day on a weak

. >>> kate bolduan is monitoring old stories in "the situation room." >> two weeks shy of the tenth anniversary, new york's examiner has identified the remains of ernest james. he worked in the world trade center's north tower. dna is still being tested from more than 6,400 samples of remains. >>> a u.s. satellite project finds evidence of mass graves in sudan. the satellite sentinel project says it spotted eight mass graves since june. the evidence is said to include witness accounts and body bags. sudan's president rejects the findings and yesterday he called for a two-week cease-fire in the area. >>> and on wall street, gold may be wearing off on investors. the price of the precious metal fell sharply by more than 5% today. gold futures for december delivery tumbled to $1,765 an ounce, that's still pretty high but that's the lowest level in a week. analysts say the drop is in reaction to a strong reported on durable goods. >>> and a rite of passage for many presidential candidates will never be the same. joey vento, owner of the the famous philadelphia cheesesteak shop geno's died. in 2006 h

kate bolduan is on capitol hill.ay lahood came out today with some pretty strong words. he wants members to get back to work pronto. is there any sign that that might actually happen? >> reporter: not quite yet. and we've been asking. but as you know, up here things can change very quickly. we'll keep tabs on that. but this is a fight that has been brewing but largely overshadowed recently by the debt ceiling debate but is now out in the public, this being a battle over funding for the faa. there seems to be the issues of this fight are twofold. a short-term extension in funding and a long-term funding package for the faa. it's but it's coming down to a ideological fight. democrats support union efforts. republicans very generally oppose union efforts. listen here to senate majority leader, the top democrat in the senate, harry reid, earlier today when i asked him about the short-term extension that's on the table. why not just accept this short-term and live to fight another day -- >> live to fight another day in se

for that let's check in with kate bolduan in washington, d.c. >> hey there, randi, this is the lateste. the scorekeeper for congress that we always cite. the economic outlook according to cpo seems to be improving, yet still gloomy. we're talking about eye popping numbers. the country is on track to see a $1.3 trillion budget deficit this year, which is a slight improvement from previous estimates. but it's still the third largest shortfall in the past 65 years according to the office. over the next decade, deficits are on track to total $3.5 trillion. a huge number, cbo says that's down more than 3 trillion from the projection put out in march. that improvement stems in part, they say, from the deficit reduction plan passed by congress this month as part of the deal to raise the debt ceiling. the numbers also assume that current policies remain in place which means bush era tax cuts that are allowed to expire as they're scheduled to do at the end of 2012, but that is a hotly debated issue and that can change, which would change these numbers. but finally, randi, it's also noteworthy,