melanie zanona is there on capitol hill, and joining us. there is a number of paths, but hearing from the republicans, and if they are feeling that the moderates are taking, and it is a clown show, and what do you think that might just stop a shutdown from happening? >> well, first let me they the house gop plan would not stop a government shutdown, because it is dead on arrival, because it is consensus amongst republicans, and they are trying to find the level of negotiations, and that, and with a number of oppositions, there are a group of hard-liners who say they will oppose any short term spending bill under any circumstance. and i spoke up with one of those supporters matt gaetz. and of course, trump is going to be making kevin mccarthy's life more complicated, but there is a bipartisan plan to come which is hatched out with growing frustration from the gop and republican colleagues, and that plan would fund the government to january, and including ukrainian and disaster floor. they are looking to lead around time consumer. another dea

and melanie zanona is joining us from capitol hill this morning.here is also a bipartisan proposal considered. tell us about this, because this other proposal could go to heck in a hand basket, if you will. >> i think that is safe to say. these bipartisan talks have been picking up steam in the recent days as chaos and frustration has been growing inside of the gop. mccarthy's plan may not have the votes to pass the house, and even if it does, it is dead on arrival in the senate. the reality is that democratic votes are going to be needed to fund the government. this group called problem-solvers caucus made up of democrats and republicans hatched their own plan to fund the government, and funded the government to january and disaster aid and ukrainian aid which is not included in the kevin mccarthy plan, and some border security provision. so listen to don bacon who is representing a biden swing district, and he is a republican, and this is what he had to say about working across the aisle. >> failure is not an option. we will do everything that we

melanie zanona, thanks to you as well.ondent jamie gangel and our senior political analyst gloria borger. what mccarthy said about impeachment 11 days ago, let me read it to you what he said. "if we move forward with impeachment inquiry, it would occur through a vote on the floor of the people's house and not through a declaration by one person." what does that suggest to you, gloria? >> it suggests to me he knows that he didn't have the votes. and that he had to do this because he's being held hostage by the right-wing of his party. who are threatening to shut the government down. so it's all kind of related. he also probably wanted to save his moderate republicans from that kind of a vote, so he decided to do it unilaterally. i'm sure when he spoke 11 days ago about this, he fully intended to have a vote. but he knew he was going to lose. >> didn't have the votes. jamie, trump spoke with some of the members who actually support this impeachment inquiry, including the house gop conference chair alise dephonic. what does t

melanie zanona is here. guess it is summed up, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. >> reporter: as of right now, there's not a clear path to avoid a shutdown, speaker mccarthy's goal is to pass as many individual long-term bills as we speak, that's in the demand of the far right. and the hope is that will get enough conservative hard-liners on board with short-term will that will build goodwill with them and they need a little more time to pass the spending. and it's not clear that republicans have the support to pass either short-term or long-term funding bills. second of all, even if they did, those bills are dead on arrival in the senate. now it doesn't help that now you have former president trump openly calling for republicans to shut down the government if they don't get everything they want. this morning, we heard kevin mccarthy with he is own message trying to ramp up pressure on his own members to fall in line, take a listen. >> well, you have to keep the government open, if people want t

. >> melanie zanona is live for us on capitol hill. speaker mccarthy is huddling with republicans behind closed doors right now about what comes next. >> reporter: jake, kevin mccarthy is the only one who knows the answer to that question because even his own leadership team tells us that they are in the dark about what the next steps are here. but my colleague did catch up with kevin mccarthy a bit ago and he said that it is not the end yet, i have other ideas. so presumably kevin mccarthy will reveal the mystery ideas during the closed door meet which go is just getting under way. but the reality is he does not have a lot of options because he is still refusing to work with senate democrats. that is something that his hardliners have warned that if he reaches across the aisle, they will force a vote to remove him. and then we've also seen that his effort to work just among republicans has yielded little to no results. they defeated this bill on the house floor today with 21 republicans voting against it, that is a pretty sizable bloc

cnn's melanie zanona is live for us on capitol hill tonight. melanie, what's happening? is there any deal being formed? are we any closer than we were 24 hours ago to getting any kind of funding deal? >> no. house republicans are scrambling to come up with a plan to avoid a government shutdown, even after they huddled for nearly two hours tonight in the capitol to talk about their limited options. there is still no consensus on what, if anything, they are going to bring to the house floor tomorrow. speaker mccarthy signalled he could be open to a more simple stopgap spending bill, as long as it doesn't include money for ukraine. that is a bit of a different posture for kevin mccarthy who up until this point has said any bill to fund the government needs include border security. that failure to rally around a gop plan has created some tension in the ranks. let's take a listen. >> we're the governing majority. this is what we're supposed to do as a governing majority. we're supposed to lead. and it's kind of hard to lead when you've got a significant number of people that

this is melanie zanona. >>> if you're needing car repairs, you could soon be out of luck.he strike is extended to include -- the move the likely to hit dealerships hard and limit their ability to service vehicles. the union said it won't expand its strike at ford facilities noting improvements in negotiations with that company. president biden who has been criticized for not showing enough support for the union workers said he will go to michigan on tuesday and join the picket lines. >>> u.s. department of homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas will travel to the rio grande valley in texas. the state seeing a surge of migrants at the southern u.s. border. many have arrived at cities in el paso and eagle pass. governor greg abbott is sending buses to the two cities to help authorities on the influx, which he blames on president biden. here's more on the handling of the crisis. >> reporter: president biden is continuing -- u.s. mexico border. homeland security officials tell me over the course of the last few days border authorities arrested more than 8,000 migrants

cnn's melanie zanona and evan perez is standing by. lanie, what are the plans from the judiciary committee today? >> reporter: this is going to be a very crucial moment for the doj and merrick garland. this is the first time that garland is appearing before the committee since the doj special counsel brought to indictments against former president donald trump and since the plea deal involving hunter biden fell apart. and it also comes as republicans have made hunter biden a central part of their impeachment inquiry into president joe biden. so he is going to be facing a lot of his republican critics on this jude aer panel where impeachment articles would originate. some have called to impeach garland himself, have threatened to defund the agency and they want to grill garland over the hunter biden criminal case. there has been testimony from irs whistleblowers that claimed the doj has mishandled and politicized that case, something that garland and special counsel david weiss have denied. i expect they will focus on this meeting that o

let's go straight to melanie zanona over on capitol hill. >> a., abby.onight, these bills they are going to vote on in the house are not expected to pass the senate. they're expected to be dead on arrival. but they may not even have the votes to be able to pass them among house republicans. so, what is the plan going forward? kevin mccarthy has a few options here. tomorrow he can proceed with his initial plan which was to try to vote on a stopgap spending bill, this was another spending bill they were hoping that hard-line republicans would rally round tomorrow after they pass these bills tonight. but it is not clear that they are going to have the votes for that either. they can't even pass these party line spending bill votes tonight. i don't think they're gonna have the votes to. a number of hard-line conservatives are really digging in with their opposition. and so then there is another option that mccarthy has and that is to work with democrats to cut a deal with democrats or the senate. but the problem there, abby, is that that could force a vote t

melanie zanona, cnn, which i will. >> past shutdowns have been mets city affairs. earlier in the week we heard from republicans complaining about their hardliners who are blocking key votes to keep the government running. >> we're dysfunctional. just that simple. we are so dysfunctional. we have got nobody at the head, you know, i've said the train has left the station. >> it is frustrating because you will hurt our defense and this is absurd. >> i'm not going to be party to a shutdown. it does not serve a purpose. and you save no money. you end up costing the american people more money with a shutdown. so it is really illogical. at the end of the day, any final bill is going to be bipartisan. and if somebody doesn't realize that, they are truly clueless. >>> president volodymyr zelenskyy has wrapped up his u.s. visit with a heartfelt thank you. he spoke late thursday at the national archives in washington. the u.s. is sending an additional $325 million in military aid to kyiv and mr. zelenskyy says that is exactly what ukraine soldiers need. >> american investment

cnn's melanie zanona is on capitol hill with us.h at least 23 democratic senators now calling on menendez to resign, is this a tipping point? >> reporter: wolf, the dam has certainly broken. at first there was a trickle, mostly vulnerable democrats who were up for re-election calling on bob menendez to resign. then it became a flood, especially after keary booker, a fellow new jersey democrat who's a longtime ally of bob menendez's, called on him to step down. it's unclear whether that pressure is going to influence how menendez decides to proceed. in fact, he is digging in. take a listen to what he told reporters moments ago. >> will you run for re-election? will you run for re-election, sir? >> as i said, i'm here to do the work of the people of new jersey. >> why won't you resign, sir? >> i'm innocent. >> reporter: democratic leader chuck schumer previously said menendez has volunteered to step down temporarily from his post atop the senate foreign relations committee but would not comment on the floor today, and instead he used

cnn capitol hill reporter melanie zanona is joining us now from capitol hill. e threat of a shutdown becoming more real tonight? >> reporter: wolf, i would say it had been trending in that direction already but now more than ever the threat of a government shutdown is real. kevin mccarthy decided to send members home for the rest of the week after a tumultuous few days here in the house. initially gop leaders were planning to put a short-term funding bill on the floor on saturday. they had loaded it up with conservative priorities, trying to win over hard line conservative critics, but that was not enough. there were too many members who were just saying they would not support any short-term spending bill under any circumstances. and in a sign of the dysfunction, they couldn't even get the votes to pass a procedural vote on a defense bill today. afterwards, kevin mccarthy was visibly frustrated when that vote went down. let's take a listen. >> it's frustrating in the sense that i don't understand why anybody votes against bringing the idea up and having the deba

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melanie zanona, cnn, capitol hill. in the meantime, u.s. biden went on the economic offensive as america marks a labor day and he was courting blue collar union members in philadelphia. mr. biden touted his administration's economic achievements and also took swipes at his potential 2024 election opponent, donald trump. often referring to him as the last guy. >> the great real estate builder, the last guy, here he didn't build a thing. when the last guy was here you are shipping jobs to china. now we are bringing jobs home from china. >> union members and leaders are an important voting bloc for mr. biden and they have largely supported him. the democrats are concerned that donald trump may have drawn away some blue collar union votes. still to come for us, organizers of the burning man festival lift a driving ban. they imposed after all of those muddy conditions. thousands who are stranded at this moment have begun a mass exodus, while others stuck around for the finale. [announcer] carvana has hundreds of thousands of five star reviews an

here with us now is melanie zanona, who was outside that spirited meet ing. speaker change his plans? >> reporter: you know when they pull a vote, that means they don't have the votes. they are struggling to reach consensus on a gop plan to fund the government. so kevin mccarthy decided to postpone this vote and has directed all members who have issued to go work out their concerns in the office. which is happening as we speak. it is clear they are going to have a lot of work to do. there's a lot of disagreement on display today during that closed-door meeting. hard liners stoogd up and said they the more spendsing cuts. others said they need to pass something to fund the government so they don't get jammed by the senate. it's clear tensions are running high as they barrel towards a government shutdown. let's take a listen. >> my full effort is assembling a coalition to defeat the donald's resolution. we're certainly heading in that direction. >> the clown show of colleagues that refuse to actually govern does not want to pass the cr, i will do everything we

melanie zanona explains. >> reporter: kevin mccarthy facing a major challenge to his leadership. perhaps the biggest test of his leadership since he secured the speaker's gavel back this january. not only is he facing down a potential government shutdown at the end of this month, but he is also facing growing calls from his right flank to begin impeachment proceedings in to president biden. on the topic of spending, kevin mccarthy wants to move a short term government spending bill that would keep the government's lights on until sometime in november. and he also wants to keep additional ukraine money which is what the white house has requested out of that bill in an effort to appease conservatives who don't want to see anymore money flowing to ukraine. but it is clear that that is not going to be enough to convince many conservatives to get on board with a short term spending bill. congressman chip roy is one of those can i haves conservatives who wants a number of demands.i who wants a number of demands.h who wants a number of demands. >> objective is to save a country currentl

melanie zanona is joining with us the latest. >> yes, and this is because congress is not completingk on the spending bills and a short term patch is needed, and yet they have yet to decide whether to attach the white house request for disaster aid and ukraine funding and a request of $40 billion and the problem is that conservatives said they want to de-link the two, and support the disaster aid, but not with the ukraine money attached and this is one of the several demands that the conservatives are laying out in the spending fight. they want to start a biden impeachment inquiry. they want to boost border security, and they also want to defund the key parts of the department of justice, a none of those things, of course, likely to happen, but it is presenting a challenge for speaker mccarthy. i think that mike simpson who is one of the conservatives who serves on one of the spending panels, and said that if he, mccarthy, obviously, democrats are not going to do it for free, the democrats want to have a compromise, and find a solution to vacate the chair which is to have a way to fo

we were hearing, ana, from melanie zanona about mitch mcconnell and the freezing episodes, and enteringesidential race, and we know very well that nikki haley has been trying her level best to make age a front and center issue in the race, and she has been focusing on joe biden's age, but it is a broader political question of what we are seeing with mitch mcconnell with this freezing episode. i wanted to play with you what nikki haley a republican presidential candidate said with regard to mitch mcconnell last night. >> what i will say is that right now the senate is the most privileged nursing home in the country. i mean, you know, mitch mcconnell has done some great things, and he deserves credit, but you have to know when to leave. >> the broader issue of age in politics. how big of a deal do you see this? >> it is a big deal. it is becoming a bigger deal as we are all living to be longer, but it has also been going on for as long as i can remember. terry will remember people like robert byrd being wheeled around in a wheelchair holding on to his two little puppies, and, you know, so

cnn's melanie zanona is joining us from capitol hill. she's got details. s rather bitter feud playing out right now? >> reporter: the tensions have been simmering since last week when kevin mccarthy in a closed door meeting used the f word in response to some of his critics' threats to oust him. now it feels like the house gop is an open warfare. congresswoman victoria sparks put out a fray saying kevin mccarthy is a weak speaker, and they need leadership that's going to fight for the country and not just fight for power and a picture on the wall. mccarthy in response told reporters that she is the one who is essentially giving up the fight because she has decided to not seek reelection. a lot of this drama has really centered on the house gop plan to fund the government, and a number of conservatives who helped to broker that deal are now openly pushing back on some of their colleagues who plan to oppose the proposal. congressman byron donald went on social media and said marjorie taylor greene is wrong, and matt gaetz needs more than tweets to s solve the

let's bring in cnn capitol hill reporter melanie zanona.eeting comes as the capitol's attending physician clarified that there is no evidence that he had some sort of a stroke or a seizure. what more can you tell us about what we might hear or some members of the gop might hear today. >> reporter: that health update was part of a letter that mcconnell's office released as part of this bid to tamp down speculation about his health and political future. most republicans we talked to yesterday said they are satisfied with that assessment and that they have no concerns about his fitness to serve, but there were several republicans who are openly expressing concern about his ability to lead. they say they're not sure if they can support him again for leader the next time he runs and they're also casting doubt on what the capitol physician said. let's take a listen. >> but since he fell now he has struggled and i hope he can continue. >> i think it's an inadequate explanation to say this is dehydration. >> the reality is that we may expect that m

let's take you live to capitol hill with cnn's melanie zanona.speed with what's happening. >> reporter: well, boris, the house is paralyzed right now. this latest defeat was a huge embarrassment for kevin mccarthy and his leadership team. it is the second time that a procedural vote on a defense bill has failed on the floor, and this one today stung even more for leadership because they were not expecting it after they spent hours yesterday behind closed doors with their members trying to work out their differences. so, it is back to the drawing board. now, i am told by multiple sources including with my colleague lauren fox, she helped me report this story that, gop leaders are weighing cutting ukraine assistance from their defense bill in order to win over hard-line conservatives. now, in this bill it has $300 million for a ukraine security assistance initiative. but this is money that has been appropriated to ukraine since 2014. it is not the same thing as the 24 billion that the white house is requesting for additional aid in ukraine. but eve

cnn capitol hill reporter melanie zanona is joining us right now. she has new information about the meeting. what are you learning, melanie? >> reporter: yeah, wolf, another day, another contentious meeting inside the house gop, and this one comes as house republicans have been struggling to coalesce around their own plan to fund the government. leadership was forced to cancel a planned vote yesterday. it was back to the drawing board. they spent the last two days in and out of meetings, trying to come up with a compromise that will get the support of their entire gop conference, including hard liners that would oppose the plan. wolf, it might all be for nothing. in today's meeting, matt gaetz stood up and said he knows of seven republican colleagues who would not vote for any short-term spending bill under any circumstances. it's unclear if that number is true. after that, another member, randy weber stood up and said all of those seven people please stand up and identify yourself. one of them did, corey mills of florida. it really speaks to the cha

let's bring in melanie zanona.ense pose ttentially couple weeks. >> reporter: with weeks to go until the government funding deadline there are a number of key decisions to be made. the first one is how long a short-term funding patch could last. we're hearing it could go into november, possibly december. the second big decision is whether the disaster aid ukraine funding request from the white house which is around $40 billion is going to be attached to the funding bill. now, conservatives in the house say that they would support disaster aid but they would not support it if it is attached to ukraine funding, but this is just one of several demands that conservatives are laying out. they also want to start a biden impeachment inquiry, they also want to boost border security and defund parts of the doj in order to get their vote for a short-term funding bill, which none of those things are likely to happen. you get a real sense of the challenge that speaker kevin mccarthy is facing. i think republican mike simpson h

let's go to cnn capitol hill reporter melanie zanona. >> i'm standing in a fairly empty capitol, lawmakerston without a clear plan to avoid a government shutdown after conservative hardliners once again scuttled kevin mccarthy's plans, initially they were planning to vote on a stopgap bill to fund the government tomorrow including a number of conservative priorities but mccarthy has to reverse course once it became clear he did not have the votes. i left a meeting with top allies and they outlined what their new strategy is going to be going forward, the plan of as of kriegt now is they're going to pass as many long-term individual spending bills, and the hope is that they could get the conservative hardliners in line with the short-term plan. all of those bills, the short-term and long-term bills are dead on arrival in the senate. it doesn't do much to solve the shutdown problem and kevin mccarthy is clearly frustrated. take a listen to what he had to say earlier this morning. >> i just believe if you're not funding the kroop troops and you're not funding the border it's pretty difficult

melanie zanona joins you now from capitol hill. speaker meaccarthy has 26 days fund the government.rategy has been trying to convince hardline conservatives to back down. held a conference call, and he argued they should save the funding fights for later in the year and said now is not the time or place to make these demands e demands about the border, department of justice and other things. kevin mccarthy will have to make a decision soon here about what to do with supplemental funding and whether and how that's going to hitch a ride on a short-term spending bill. the white house requested $40 billion for ukraine aid and disaster relief, but hardliners want to see those issues delinked because they don't want to support any more money for ukraine. that really sets up a potential shutdown with both senate democrats and senate republicans who mostly do support more money for ukraine. i think republican congressman mike simpson who serveson the appropriations panel summed it up, i tell people to buckle up. it's going to be crazy for september, october, november, december. the next fou

we get more now from cnn's melanie dan zanona. >> kevin mccarthy facing threats to his speakership, giving the green light into an inquiry into joe biden. >> today i am directing our house committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into president joe biden. >> reporter: a dramatic escalation of the house gop's investigations into the president. >> house republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into president biden's conduct. taken together, these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption. >> reporter: mccarthy today repeated several allegations made by some of his gop colleagues, including that as vice president, biden joined meetings with hunter biden's business partners, that the treasury department has flagged suspicious financial activity by the biden family, and that the president has lied about his knowledge of his family's business deals. but house republicans have so far not provided evidence that biden directly profited off his son's business deals or made any decisions as vice president because of them. >> there is zero evidence of any malfeasa

melanie zanona, thank you so much. >>> joining us now, congressman ryan zinke of montana, secretary of the interior under then president trump. congressman, thanks for your time. the bills tonight voted on are dead on arrival in the senate. why is speaker mccarthy going through these motions? what's the point? >> i'm not sure they would be dead on arrival because what we're talking about is our border and our defense. i can't think of two more important issues right now to make sure we have defense to defend our country. ukraine is set aside and secondly, the border. a lot of people may not see ukraine every day, but everyone sees the border and this bill addresses the problem, puts the wall in place and gives the border patrol and i.c.e. the authority to do their job. >> what about the senate's plan that is advancing, is that dead on arrival? that includes funding for ukraine. >> it's interesting because the senate has yet to pass any appropriations and we're passing them grudgingly so one by one, but at the end of the day the senate is a different body than the house. our position is

let's go right to cnn's melanie zanona on capitol hill tonight. so melanie, bring us up to speed, house republicans are in turmoil. what is happening on the floor right now? >> yes so house republicans right now as we speak are voting on a package of four different long term spending bills. it passed two of them, they are on the third. we are expecting the fourth want to fail however by a large margin. will be pretty embarrassing for kevin mccarthy's leadership team. now, all of these bills will be dead on arrival in the senate anyway, but it was an important part of kevin mccarthy's strategy to keep the government open, because he was hoping that tonight the caucus would rally conservative hard-liners around a stopgap bill tomorrow. a stopgap bill that was loaded up with conservative priorities including boosting the border and cutting spending. however, there are no signs that hard-liners who are opposed that measure are backing down. in fact, they are digging in and threatening kevin mccarthy in the process. so we will see how kevin mccarthy dec

. >> cnn's melanie zanona is on capitol hill, following the latest shutdown threat. i feel like i've asked you this question, not just in the last three days, but in previous cycles, are they getting any closer to the point where they have the votes? >> reporter: jim, they are nowhere closer to avoiding a government shutdown but closer to that looming deadline on september 30th. right now s, speaker mccarthy h been passed as many bills, and the hope is that will build goodwill with republicans and they'll rally around a short-term conservative plan to keep the government open. but there are a couple of hurdles with that plan. first of all, it's unclear whether the republicans either have the support to pass either long-term or short-term spending bills. second of all, if they do, those bills are dead on arrival in the senate. and you no you have former president trump calling on ultimately the federal government to shut down if they don't get everything they want. and now kevin mccarthy trying to ramp up pressure on his own members to fall in line. take a listen. >>

melanie zanona, cnn, capitol hill. >>> mcconnell is one of many older politicians on capitol hill. to the pew research center the average age is nearly 58 in the house and over 65 in the senate. ten senators are 79 years old or older, five republicans, three democrats, and two independents who caucus on the democratic side. a poll found that 77% say president biden is too old. even though he's three years younger, only 51% think that of former president donald trump. nikki haley who is 51 had this to say about older senators. >> right now the senate is the most privileged nursing home in the country. i mean, you know, mitch mcconnell has done some great things, and he deserves credit, but you have to know when to leave. >> and joining me now is nancy john kellier, and adjunct professor at the washington school of medicine. thank you for being here with us. so nikki haley's words there, the tone is obviously harsh, but it expresses a sentiment i think many people share in this country. it's one of the few things most americans agree on, polls show that almost three in four americans

. >> here's melanie zanona. >> reporter: republicans are scrambling to come up with a plan to avoid a government shutdown, even after they huddled for two hours on friday evening to discuss their limited options. at this point, there's still no clear consensus about what, if anything, they are going to bring to the house floor on saturday. but kevin mccarthy did emerge from that meeting with a slightly new message. he said he could be open to a stopgap spend ing bill, as long as it doesn't have money for ukraine. that's a slightly different position for the speaker because he's said any bill to fund the government needs to include board security provisions. clearly, a last-minute shift in strategy after his efforts to work with republicans have come up short. and that failure to rally around a republican plan has created some tensions in the ranks. let's take a listen. >> this is what we're supposed to do as a governing majority. we're supposed to lead. it's kind of hard to lead when you have a significant number of people that are on the wrong snap count when you call the play. >> th

cnn's melanie zanona is live on capitol hill.reates a lot of interest on the right and a lot of dismay on the left. >> reporter: yeah, brianna, this is going to be the first public-facing step that house republicans take since they launched their impeachment inquiry one week ago. we know that the hearing is held by the house oversight committee on september 28th. and we also know it's supposed to focus on allegations of corruption and abuse of public office. that is how they're framing it. as you mentioned, the witness list is not yet finalized but chairman james comer said he wants to bring in two different with thes, one, a finance expert to speak to the bank records pertaining to the biden family business deals that's been a big focus so far. and, two, they want to bring in a constitutionalert to try to make the case why they think impeachment inquiry is warranted. one aimed at the public but perhaps their own members as well who still do not support the impeachment inquiry going forward. the committee is taking steps to influ

cnn's melanie zanona, are the hardliners call the shots here? >> that's the reality of the razor thin majority that speaker mccarthy has been working on all year and that is why we've seen a consistent pattern from the speaker where he consistently caves to his right flank and gives them nearly every concession and this time it might not be enough. kevin mccarthy has been trying to rally his members over the short-term spending bill that is loaded up with conservative priorities and he has argued that they need to strengthen their hand in the negotiations with the senate in order not to get jammed with something they're not going to like from chuck schumer, but hard liners are digging in and they're also using donald trump to justify -- he is jumping on the fray calling for a government shutdown. because kevin mckarthy is trying to deploy his message and he's trying to ramp up pressure on his members to fall in line. let's take a listen. >> well, you have to keep the government open. if people want to close the government it only makes them weak

. >> melanie zanona, thank you. much more now, joining us tonight, washington democratic congresswoman pernilla jayapal. what's your understanding of where things stand at this hour? >> anderson, it's a sad situation that we're in because we have a gop majority with a speaker that cannot get his own party to do the simple work of funding a continuing resolution. and the thing is, anderson, we have plenty of votes to avert a shutdown with a clean continuing resolution that keeps the government funded until the republicans can get their act together on appropriations bills. so, this is not a situation that has to happen. if it happens that we have a shutdown, it looks increasely likely, it is a republican shutdown. and it has tremendous consequences for people across the country, from people not being able to get the assistance they need to make sure that the social security is working properly, cafeteria workers not being able to get their paychecks. it has tremendous consequences, and it's all because, anderson, the

there were f-bombs thrown, not by either of these men in this meet being yesterday according to melanie zanona. but is this at the point where this is more personal than political? take us behind the scenes. >> i think that it is a little bit of both. and i think that it is worth noting that this animosity between xwats gaither gaetz and not new. in general matt gaetz never gave his support to mccarthy and that acrimony has continued throughout the congress. and in recent weeks we've seen the tensions be heightened as matt gates otgaetz. and this is of course on the backdrop of the really fierce spending fight that we're seeing play out on clilg. and we are less than two days now away from the looming government shutdown. so when you talk about the battle between gaetz and mccarthy, partially matt gaetz is saying that it is because mccarthy is not following an agreement that the speaker enter fl democraticed into in january. but when you talk about the acrimony any, matt gaetz tried to deny mccarthy the speaker ship back in january and i call that personal. >> agreed, very, sprern al. personal

cnn's melanie zanona is on capitol hill with brand-new reporting. melanie, what are you learning? try to win in suburban swing districts next year. they have put a heavy emphasis on recruiting and elevating candidates from those camps, and they have had major recruiting successes. nine veterans, nine candidates of color, and nine women who have officially announced bids in key suburban and biden-won swing districts. the reason republicans see those types of candidates as so crucial is because they tend to outrun the top of the ticket. that is backed by data from the last presidential election where you had four different republican women, all of them who flipped democratic-held house seats, all of them outran donald trump by several points. and of course that type of performance might be necessary again, especially if donald trump is the republican presidential nominee. but even more broadly, dana, republicans recognize they need to do a better job of electing candidates that look like and represent the type of voters they are seeking to serve in congress. while they have made som

melanie zanona joins us from capitol hill. what have you found? >> so, anderson, these documents shed some light on the interactions and disagreemts between irs agents that were investigating hunter biden and the prosecutors at the doj. how that case has been handled has become one of the central pillars to the house impeachment inquiry into joe biden. in this latest document which includes emails, handwritten notes, memoranda, these irs agents address encountering road blocks every time joe biden's name came up. prosecutors say there are reasons they were steering clclear of the senior biden. in a initial draft of the search warrant, a justice department official instructed her colleagues the in an email to remove that reference saying there was no reason to be referencing joe biden's name. now, we did see a copy of that email as part of that trove, but the search warrant itself was very heavily redacted. but republicans have said, this is example of the way the doj was trying to protect joe biden. now, important to point out here that this is in

cnn's melanie zanona is following the latest on capitol hill. clock is ticking we can hear it from capitol hill down the street to where we are. and speaker mccarthy once again is facing a big test isn't he? >> yes. perhaps the biggest since securing the speakers gavel. kevin mccarthy wants to move a short term bill to keep the lights on until november he does not want to include ukraine money. but dana, it's becoming clear that that is not going to be enough to get members of his right on board with a short term spending bill. they want a number of demands that mccarthy is unlikely or able to give them from defunding the doj, impeaching biden, tightening border security and they're warning mccarthy against working with democrats. chip roy is one member digging in for a fight. listen to what he told reporters. >> i can't sit here and rubber stamp the status quo. it's game time. we have to get something done. >> senate republicans need to understand we have an obligation to do what we campaign on. >> heading for a shutdown in october if you don't

let's get to melanie zanona. what went wrong for the speaker? >> reporter: this was an embarrassing defeat for kevin mccarthy and the leadership team. this is the second time that a preej yurl vote on a defense bill has failed on the house floor this week alone. that's something you rarely see in congress. now it's twice for this conference. but leadership was confident they had the leadership meeting last night with all of the rest of the conference. it was two hours long. they worked out their differences. they thought they finally had a path on these spending bills. it was a huge surprise on the floor. there was two members. who the voted yes on the vote earlier this week that ended up voting no today. is so the math problems are only growing. but i think the big picture here is that the house is paralyzed. there's no path forward on spending let aloempb trying to solve the government shutdown problem. they are trying to put a bill on the floor that would be a republican-only bill, but it doesn't look like they have the votes for that either.

. >> melanie zanona, thank you so much. >>> let's cue the special election music. yes, yes!ential debate is two weeks away. looking to repeat his standout performance from the first one, at least that's what many critics said is candidate vivek ramaswamy. today, ramaswamy speaking at a conservative think tank here in d.c. about gutting the fbi, the department of education and other federal agencies. effectively promising to lay off thousands of federal workers. cnn's evan mccann has more for us on ramaswamy's speech and his efforts to differentiate himself with donald trump. >> we're going to get a lot of pushback on this speech. >> reporter: republican candidate vivek ramaswamy, vowing to go further than donald trump in reducing the size of the federal government. >> this vision is not an original vision. excellent presidents from reagan to trump, have spoken to the same ideal. i give credit to donald trump for taking more steps than have been taken in a generation. >> reporter: during his 2016 campaign for the white house, trump made a rallying cry out of cutting the feder

our coverage of this issue starts with melanie zanona who has been on the hill capturing the white house reaction to the controversial move. >> reporter: kevin mccarthy facing threats to his speakership giving the green light to an impeachment inquiry into joe biden. >> today, i am directing our house committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into president joe biden. >> reporter: a dramatic escalation of the house gop investigations into the president. >> house republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into president biden's conduct. taken together, these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption. >> reporter: mccarthy today repeated several allegations made by some of the gop colleagues including that as vice president biden joined meetings with hunter biden's business departments and the treasury department has tagged suspicious activity and the president has lied about the knowledge of his family business deals. but house republicans have not provided evidence that biden directly profited off his son's business deals or made any decisions as vice p

melanie zanona on capitol hill, you heard president zelenskyy discuss his visit to washington.rsday, day after tomorrow, he'll meet with lawmakers. he's going to have a frostier reception, we believe, in the house of representatives than in the u.s. senate. what can you tell us about what's going on out there? >> reporter: as one republican put it to me, they might be in the same galaxy, but they are on different planets when it comes to the issue. based on your interview, wolf, with zelenskyy, it sounds like he knows he's going to have some convincing to do. you heard him making an appeal to lawmakers to think about the gravity of the war zone. it's different when you're in war. but despite that, he is likely to receive a cool reception in the house, and some of those members into it might not even hear what he has to say. kevin mccarthy himself said he's going to be meeting with zelenskyy, but he has decided to not hold an all conference meeting with president zelenskyy, and he's also not committing to putting ukraine funding on the house floor. take a listen. >> is zelenskyy

done bacon told melanie zanona, this theory that you have 100% of you want, if you don't get 100, you'llnot the way it work and it is not good for the country. and john you follow this closer than anybody. and this is the dilemma all congress for kevin mccarthy and his majority. now we're getting into a complicated senate decisions an the first prospects of a shutdown. >> think there is very likely to bea shutdown if not october 1st, we could see it later. chip roy tweeting this morning about this, the freedom kaurk member, think mccarthy's argument is, look, if we don't do something, if we don't try to pass more appropriations bills, they have 12 annual bills, if they don't try to pass them or get some stuff tdone, that they'll end up running up against the wall and the senate and the white house will leverage that against them and they'll lose this. the hardliners are saying, we're going to lose any way, we may as well fight on principle. mccarthy could go to the freedom kaur caucus and say what is your end game. we saw this going back to 2013, in the trump administration. the conserva

. >> yeah, melanie zanona, thanks so much. >>> let's get white house reaction to this.la tausche, the white house had some expectation it was coming, perhaps not today. so how are they responding and what's their plan to deal with this going forward? >> reporter: jim, the white house sees this as a stark about face by speaker mccarthy, whose own declaration just two weeks ago that he would seek that formal floor-wide vote to move forward with in impeachment inquiry piqued their interest into whether or not he could generate votes. now the change in position is seen by the administration as an admission by mccarthy that he doesn't have the votes or the evidence yet to get them. ian sams is the spokesman for the white house on oversight and investigations, and earlier today, he posted this on social media. writing, house republicans have been investigating the president for nine months and they have turned up no evidence of wrongdoing. his own republican members have said so, he vowed to hold a vote to open impeachment, now he flip-flopped because he doesn't have support.

. >> on the question of lindsey graham let's take you live to capitol hill with melanie zanona.hat's senator graham saying. >> reporter: we are hearing from senator lindsey graham. first, i want to provide some context. it boils down to this conflicting account between brad raffensperger, the georgia secretary of state and senator lindsey graham and this phone call that they had. now, raffensperger has suggested that graham was pressuring him to throw out legal mail-in ballots and it made him very uncomfortable, but graham has flat out denied that. he said he was just inquiring about the mail-in ballot system, the signature verification system, trying to figure out how it worked. he said he wasn't even talking about the 2020 presidential election, that he was talking about the pair of critical senate runoff race that is occurred in january 2021. let's take a listen to what he said moments ago in south carolina. >> i called around different states, including georgia, as a sitting united states senator, chairman of the judiciary committee. i eventually certified the election in al

melanie zanona is at the capitol right now. what do we know about where things stand in the house tonight including the threats to speaker mccarthy's job? >> reporter: house republicans just moved to advance a package of long-term spending bills. this was a routine procedural vote and normally possibly wouldn't talk about it but it is important because last week a similar vote failed twice on the house floor, so speaker kevin mccarthy was under a lot of pressure to show he can govern with his house republicans, but we should note that none of those spending bills that i mentioned are going to pass the senate. speaker mccarthy is still hoping this process can build some good will with the hard-liner conservatives who are opposed to some of their spending bills and will eventually rally around the stopgap plan to keep the government open that includes some conservative priorities like spending cuts and border security but so far, none of those members are showing that they're willing to give in. i caught up with a number of them

melanie zanona is working the story on capitol hill.publicans are threatening to make this more complicated. what do they want? >> reporter: conservative hardliners have a whole host of demands. they see this as an opportunity to try to get some of their key priorities enacted. they said they will not vote for a short-term spending bill unless some of the following is included. a major boost for border security, defunding parts of the department of justice, including some of the probes into frrp, start an impeachment inquiry into joe biden. and no more money for ukraine. speaker kevin mccarthy has tried to get conservatives to back down. in fact, he held a conference call last week with his members. sources tell me and my colleague, manu raju, and in that call he argued they should be saving these funding fights for later in the year when they do long-term funding bills and argued that now is not the time or place to be having these fights. jim, it is complicated for mccarthy. he doesn't want to risk enraging those members on the far ri

. >>> let's go to cnn's melanie zanona. some lawmakers have been supportive of his quest for aid.thers, though, he's really running into a brick wall with. >> reporter: that divide right there is why there is just so much uncertainty in washington right now. about whether congress will approve additional aid for ukraine and that is despite president zelenskyy coming up to capitol hill today and making a direct plea to members for more aid. our manu raju reports during a closed door meeting zelenskyy said, you give us money, and we save lives. he also warned that if the united states was to back away from its commitment to ukraine, that ukraine could fall to russia. but there still is a block of hard-line conservatives who are still fiercely opposed to ukraine aid, especially over here in the house and that dynamic was really on full display in a pretty striking way today. over in the senate you saw chuck schumer and mitch mcconnell walking together flanking on each side of zelenskyy as they walked into the senate for their meeting but over in the house, kevin mccarthy did not acco

cnn's melanie zanona and evan perez is here as we wait for the hearing to begin.ve been utsch whatting it. a lot of members was congress are there and garland not there yet and give us awe sense of h the temperature is going to be. it's going to be hot. >> it's safe to say temperatures will be boiling. this will be a crucial moment for garland and the doj and it will be a crucial moment for republicans who are under pressure to convince the public and even some of their own members that they need to convince them that this impeachment inquiry into president joe biden is warranted. you see garland has just entered the hearing room and he is sitting down, getting ready for this crucial meeting. hunter biden and the criminal case surrounding him is expected to be a crucial part of that impeachment inquiry. so republicans are really preparing for battle here. they are going to ask a lot of questions about the hunter biden criminal case, and they want to have a lot of questions about testimony from some irs whistle blowers who have claimed that the u.s. attorney in the

cnn's melanie zanona has more from capitol hill.xt in this discussion about mcconnell and his leadership role? >> well next week is going to be critical for mitch mcconnell. to assuage concerns about his health and tamp down speculation about his political future. an that is because the senate is returning after a month long recess next week. and mcconnell is going to face reporters and cameras at his weekly press conference, where his performance no doubt will be heavily watched an scrutinized. but he's also going to face his own members for the first time. they have the weekly party lunches and there is also been some chatter among the rank and file republicans about forcing a special conference meeting to specifically talk about his leadership. it would only take five republicans to force such a meeting to happen. but there is no formal mechanism to formally remove mitch mcconnell. so really this is a conversation and a question about whether mitch mcconnell intends to serve beyond 2024. which is when his current term as leader i