Good saturday morning to you. Welcome to cnn this morning. It is saturday, september 23rd. Im victor blackwell. Victor, its good to be with you. Im omar jimenez in for amara walker. Thank you for spending part of your morning with us. So, i dont know if ive seen two men anchor a Network Cable network broadcast. Thats huge. At least the last 35 year. And then two brothers, anchoring the show. It is good to have you this morning. Come on. Come on. This is history right now. Its history. Good to have you, omar. Lets have a good show. Thousands of homes are without power as Tropical Storm ophelia lashes the east coast with strong winds and heavy rain. We have a look at the cities in the storms path and the impact well see throughout the day. Plus the country is quickly hurtling towards a shutdown talks among the republicans in the house have broken down over a deal to fund the government. How federal agencies are preparing and the talks to keep a shutdown from happening. The uaw is turning up the heat. Escalating its strikes against automakers as it works to hammer out a deal with the companies. How consumers will soon feel the effects of these expanding strikes. In a Common Antibiotic used to treat respiratory illnesses is in short supply for a second year. Cause concerns for doctors and parent. Why were seeing the shortage and whats being done to fix it. Lets talk about this storm this morning parts of the east coast are waking up under a hurricane watch. Tropical storm ophelia is nearing land fall in North Carolina. Its almost at Hurricane Strength with winds close to 70 Miles Per Hour. Ophelia is expected to bring lifethreaten storm surge and flash flooding and damaging winds. I mean, were already, as you mentioned, victor, seeing Power Outages and coastal flooding. The majority of those in the dark in North Carolina. Today, even more are expected to lose power as ophelia moves on shore. Crews prepare to work all day to pre restore power. The impacts are expected to reach up to d. C. And maryland. Lets get right to cnn meet o ologist Allison Chinchar. Its very close to making lan landfall, victor and omar. Sustained winds right now 70 Miles Per Hour. Keep in mind hurricane is 75. Were only 5 Miles Per Hour off hour from what would be considered Hurricane Strength. The forward move slowed at just 9 Miles Per Hour. All of those outer bands are stretching pretty far north. Its raining in new jersey and in philadelphia as well. And those are some of those far northern bands of ophelia. But here is a look at the core of the storm. Again, that eye wall is getting ever so close to land right there. So were going to be seeing that landfall here very quickly. But some heavier bands starting to push into jacksonville, North Carolina, as well as kingston and raleigh Off And On Rain Bands throughout the day today. Keep in mind the potential for strong to severe thunderstorms is possible, tornadoes and damaging winds and large hail. That storm will start to veer back to the northeast as we go over the next 24 to 48 hours and it will also weaken. So by the time we see those main impacts across delaware, new jersey and maryland, it will be a little weaker system than it is right now. But its still going to take all of that heavy rain with it. So even though the system itself will be weaker especially in terms of winds, youre still going to have the potential for flooding extend up into states like new jersey, new york and pennsylvania. Its just going to be the focus of two days. Moderate risk of flooding is over North Carolina and virginia. The Flooding Potential does extend as far north as massachusetts, gentlemen, tomorrow. Allison chinchar, thank you so much. Now to the chaos on capitol hill. Were one week away from the government shutting down if congress does not do its job and pass a funding bill. Its a big deal. The initial plan would let House SpeakerKevin Mccarthy strike first, get the votes to pass a bill, then send it to the senate for changes before heading back to the house for a final round of votes and negotiations. Theres a lot to go here. But now with infighting in the house, Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer is ready to step in and take over. Leader mcconnell and i are talking. And we have great deal of agreement on many parts of this. Its never easy to get a big bill, a cr bill done, but i am very, very optimistic that mcconnell and i can find a way and get a large number of votes both democratic and republican in the senate. Cnns Jasmine Wright is joining us now from the white house. So what is the administration doing to prepare for a shutdown . Reporter yeah, well the white house is directing federal agencies basically to get ready for a potential shutdown. Now that comes as we saw a lot of House Republicans leave washington, d. C. With no clear path forward. So, the white house is doing what they call mandatory but standard guidance issuing it to federal agencies, basically telling them to come up with their plans and procedures if there were a shutdown. That is mandatory to happen. That guidance being sent out about seven days before the deadline. We know that deadline at the government will no longer be able to fund itself is september 30th. Now its important because every agency has different plans and procedures, things like what employees would be furloughed, what employees would be deemed essential and have to work through a shutdown. Now of course at risk if the government would shut down would be essential things that are very key to this biden administration, like pay for military and military families. Food aid programs, travel processing, those essential things. So the white house yesterday was up here at the podium talking to republicans, saying they should not risk those issues not being paid for. Take a listen. Reporter republican shutdown does not have to happen. They can do their job and keep these vital programs continuing, keeping the government open. Our message is this should not be happening. We should not be putting american familys lives in turmoil. Reporter now, as we were hearing that from the white house on the House Republican side in congress, they were talking about passing and really preparing to get four bills passed in the house. They were sent to the senate. Those are longterm Funding Bills to touch things like defense and other areas that need to be covered. But the problem is that those would be dead on arrival in the senate. Take a listen to House SpeakerKevin Mccarthy talk about his plan just yesterday. I think we made some progress to those who have been holding up passing the rule to get on to these bills. We have members working. And hopefully well get to move forward on tuesday to pass these bills. Reporter so even though we have that plan from Kevin Mccarthy, we dont know exactly what will work and schumer has his plan working on the other side, what would happen this saturday morning is the fact that even though there are plans under way, were still no closer to avoiding a potential shutdown, that comes to the house side, senate side and of course the white house side. Omar, victor . A lot to figure out, jasmine. And per common fashion, look like it will come down to the fire. So we will see. Thank you. Im joined by Cnn Political Commentator and political anchor at spectrum news, ere roll lewis. Good to see you. Mccarthy is facing an uphill battle when it comes to getting anything done here based on the dynamics in the Republican Party on the house side. Last night abby phillip talked to congressman matt gaetz. This is what he said if Speaker Mccarthy putting a continues resolution to the floor. If Speaker Mccarthy embraces a clean, continuing resolution to continue the spending policies of nancy pelosi and joe biden that would most likely trigger a motion to vacate. That seems so representative of the dynamic. Are mccarthys hands tied here . Is there anything he can do . Reporter good morning, omar. No. Theres not much he can do. He agreed on condition of becoming speaker to have this really unworkable situation where any one member for any reason could introduce a motion to have him removed as speaker, what he did was empower all of the matt gaetz in the house, all the extremistists, all of those not interested in governing but interested in their own political future. He opened the door to them doing exactly what theyre doing. They get on network television. They get to raise money. They get to posture. And in this case they get to threaten to shut down the government, which almost everybody in washington im sure youre hearing the same thing, omar, everybody down there is expecting that the government will be shut down for no particular reason. And you know, we are wondering how some of those concessions that were made around Speaker Mccarthys confirmation, the marathon confirmation. That said, mccarthy is not giving up yet. Trying to pass a series of yearlong Funding Bills he hopes to take to the floor on tuesday. Does that feel more like an attempt to maintain control over the situation . Or more something that can actually work in time to avoid a shutdown . Its a form of capitulation. What gaetz is talking about, this radical faction is talk about, is the idea of not passing one big bill, what they call the continuing resolution but to take them one at a time. Over on the senate side, we already heard from Senator Schumer the majority on the senate side they said they dont want to do that. They dont intend to do that. For this not particularly procedural dispute what were going to have is these individual bills. They may or may not pass. There will be a lot of discussion along the way. But, if mccarthy wants to regain control, hes got to stop these folks from controlling the process. And so, he can put this off for a little bit of time, but in the end, hes going to have to face down against that faction and see if theyre going to allow him to govern. One clue as to whats likely to happen, omar, they send everybody home for the weekend. So even as the clock is ticking, even as they need to be negotiating, he sent everyone home. Its really kind of a quiet acknowledgment he doesnt have the votes. He doesnt have control. And i think we should expect more chaos in the days to come. Well, sets us up for potentially chaotic week leading up to another financial deadline here. Now, its partly because of this dynamic. We have parallel efforts on the house side and on the senate side now starting. You touched on it a little bit. Senate Leader Schumer and mcconnell theyre working together to get a funding bill passed in the senate to put pressure on the house, of course. Even if they get a bill approved in the senate what are the chances it can get through the house . Are we running into some of the same issues here . Oh, yeah. No, exactly the same issues. This is the situation that were in. Everyone who watched, if anyone was paying attention during that chaotic series of votes to make mccarthy the speaker of the house, we basically are in the same position. And i think were going to see a lot of junk thrown into the process in the sense that to pick up votes one at a time, two at a time, to get members of this radical faction to come along, mccarthy is going to offer all kinds of things that have nothing to do with running the government. And, you know, a lot of that will happen Behind Closed Doors. A lot will be posturing. And a lot of us will be waiting behind microphones, hoping theyll come from Behind Closed Doors and tell us whats going to happen to our government and our country. Its really about the worst possible way you can govern in a situation like this. Well, and we saw something similar leading them to the Debt Ceiling Negotiations and, of course, here we are in this situation as well. Is this a dynamic that we just now have to get used to based on the Power Structure in the republican side on the house side of things right now . Well, i mean, thats the real question. I mean, this is going to be the first, maybe not the last, test of whether or not this really dubious arrangement is going to actually let the government function. Here again, were not talking about any new policy initiatives. Were not talking about anything controversial. Were just talking about keeping the lights on, making sure the courts are functioning, making sure, you know, the fda is doing Drug Approvals and that the scientists at the National Weather service are providing the forecast that we need. I mean, thats how bad this is. Yeah. Yeah. Well , the citys mayor says they feel abandoned and theyre pleading for help. Well, now, texas governor, republican greg abbott, says hes sending additional buses to eagle pass and el paso to assist those border communities. Cnns Priscilla Alvarez has more on the challenges at the southern border. Reporter the white house concludes the week with more than 8,000 daily encounters on the u. S. Mexico Border each day this week. That is a marked increase from late may when there were about 3,500 daily ebb counters. Those are numbers that held for much of the summer. This latest surge is causing strain on federal resources and fueling concern within the administration. Now Homeland Security officials are monitoring the situation. They cant quite say what exactly led to the surge, but they do cite Economic Conditions in Latin America as well as the Climate Crisis as drivers of migration. Now, the administration took steps this week to try to alleviate some of the burden along the u. S. Mexico Border and in communities, including, for example, sending 800 new active duty Military Personnel to serve in a supporting role. That is something that they have done before. As well as adding capacity to border facilitfacilities. Those are illequipped to care for people longterm. But this is to build out capacity so they can at least accommodate those arriving to process them through. And officials also said that they are continuing to conduct deportation flights. But all of this really underscored and the images underscored the immense humanitarian, political and logistical challenge for the administration as they face unprecedented Mass Migration across the western hemisphere. Now Homeland Security secretary will be visiting the border today where he will be joining the president of honduras. The two will be in the rio grande valley. Another area of the border that has been seeing an increase in border crossings. And theyre expected to talk about cooperating, to try to stem the flow of a regular migration. And how the two can Work Together along with partners to address what is an immense challenge across the western hemi hemisphere. Omar, victor. Thank you so much. Still to come, new jersey senator bob menendez are accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of bribes in exchange for his power and influence. Now he refusing calls to resign after the indictment. 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