billingsley and lapere in the lobby, talking and getting on an elevator together. police say they do not think they knew one another. that's it for us. the news continues. i'll see you tomorrow. "the source" with kaitlan "the source" with kaitlan collins starts now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com tonight straight from "the source," president biden rebuking republicans for their, quote, silence on threats to kmok si, calling out his predecessor by name. we'll be joined by kindi and -- plus the first biden impeachment inquiry not off to a strong start. one senior republican aide calling it, quote, an unmitigated disastor, as every republican witness agreed with democrats. all with nearly 48 hours left before the government is set to shut down and run out of funding and millions of americans are set to stop getting their paychecks, including members of the u.s. military. i'm kaitlan collins, and this is "the source." we're live from capitol hill tonight. the citadel of our democracy, where democracy is not exactly working as it should be. the government is on the brink of shutting down tonight, with house republicans voting in this hour on some of these stand alone spending bills. though, even if they can get these votes passed tonight. and that is still an open question, as we are speaking right now -- that alone would not prevent a government shutdown. a shutdown, of course, is not just a formality or something procedural. it would actually create a lot of pain for a lot of regular americans. tonight, house republicans are essentially at war with one another not just over funding the government, though. even with no agreement in sight on funding the government, house republicans held their first hearing in the impeachment inquiry into president biden today. but it did not quite go as they expected or at least had planned for it to go, as the hearing was deemed by even their own republican colleagues an unmitigated disaser, maybely because of things like this. >> we are going to present evidence. >> there's no evidence. >> just sit back and let the american people see the hearing. >> are you present anything first-hand witness account of crimes committed by the president of the united states? >> no, i'm not. >> i am not. >> i have not. >> i do not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment. >> i'm not here today to even suggest that there was corruption, fraud, or any wrong doing. >> this is an embarrassment. >> democrats like congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez were not the only ones who felt way. some inside the republican party on capitol hill also voiced their frustration to cnn in realtime, saying, it was, quote, mind blowing for republicans to pick witnesses. and several of those witnesses were republican witnesses, that they rebuked their own case. one senior republican aide, as i noted, called it an unmitigated disastor. president biden was laying out the stakes for democracy, focusing on his predecessor's grip on the republican party, and warning that democracies can die in silence. >> the day's republican party is driven and intimidated by maga republican extremists, more determined to shut down the government, to burn the place down, than to let the people's business be done. here's what you hear from maga extremists about the retiring patriot general honoring his oath to the constitution, quote, he's a traitor, end of quote. quote, times gone by, the punishment would have been death, end of quote. and although i don't believe even a majority of republicans think that, the silence is deafening. >> we'll have more on that speech in just a moment. but for the impeachment inquiry that we saw today, i want to get straight to "the source" tonight with the ranking member on the house oversight committee, maryland democratic congressman jamie raskin. thank you for being here. we saw you sitting there next to the chairman, james comer. do you think anything was accomplished in that courtroom today? >> i think it demonstrated to the whole country that there really is no evidence at all supporting the idea of impeaching president biden. they can't even really name what the purported high crime and misdemeanor is. they don't even have a low crime and misdemeanor. they have no crime at all. and today, for their very first impeachment hearing, they had no fact witnesses. they had no eyewitnesses. they put on several experts, who agreed with us that there's not remotely sufficient evidence to justify an impeachment. so, we saw a meltdown on the republican side of the aisle, where the republican members were fleeing the committee room in droves, embarrassed and humiliated by what was going on. but of course the democrats were there because we would like to put an end to this nonsense right now and get back to the work of america. the government is about to shut down in two days because of the chaos of this clown show -- i'm quoting republicans here on republicans -- because they can't develop any focus on what they want to do. so, you've got a small extremist maga faction, maybe 15 or 20 or 25 members, which is essentially driving the train. and kevin mccarthy has continually catered to them and appeased them, and we're all paying the bitter price of that. right now they're about to shut down the government of the united states, although the senate republicans, the senate democrats, the house democrats, and the president of the united states are all united. we need a clean, continuing resolution to get through this, along with disaster aid and aid to people of ukraine fighting russian imperialism, violence against their society. but it is the pro-trump, pro-putin, maga wing of the republicans which is having their way over kevin mccarthy. so far he's not been willing to stand up to them, and the government of the united states might shut down. this is something that no enemy government has ever been able to do to us in america, and maga is about to do it to us right now. >> it seems that we are on the verge of that. even if republicans do get those bills passed tonight. in the hearing today, chairman comer said they will be subpoenaing hunter biden and president biden's brother, james biden. do you think he's going to take the step to subpoena the president himself here? >> i don't know. this has been going on for nine months. we've had 12,000 pages of bank records, 2,000 suspicious activity reports. we've had tons of witnesses coming in and testifying. and all of them say and all of the evidence shows that joe biden wasn't involved in any of this stuff. so, whatever you think about hunter biden and what he was up to, leave that to the special counsel, who's been appointed, who was the u.s. attorney in delaware, who was donald trump's appointment as u.s. attorney. and he's already charged hunter biden with several gun offenses, and it's clear that the system of justice and the rule of law is working for him. why use that to try to bring down the president of the united states, who's been in public life for 50 years and has no convictions and no indictments? and their leader, donald trump, who's calling the shots over there, now has 91 criminal charges outstanding all over the country on everything from trying to overthrow a presidential election to stealing government documents to obstructing justice and so on. and i don't even want to get into his civil litigation, where he's been deemed to be an abuser of women and so on. >> well, and the other trial that we'll see on monday in new york. but on this today, what you heard from republican witnesses there in the room today saying that they don't believe there's the evidence there to impeach president biden yet. but do you ultimately think that house republicans will move forward with impeachment articles even if nothing new emerges? do you really see them turning back from an impeachment inquiry? >> well, i don't see them moving forward right now because you've got something like 15 or 20 republicans at least who are not going along with it. now, ken buck, for example, is a member of the freedom caucus. >> we had him on last night. >> the former chief of the criminal divisions office in colorado. he's a smart lawyer. and he says, there's nothing there. it's ludicrous. he's saying it's ridiculous for them to proceed. i feel very good about him and other members who are saying, you don't impeach someone over nothing. we understand why donald trump wants to trivialize the meaning of impeachment and confuse everybody about what it is, but there's no reason anybody else should do it. it's an extraordinary remedy that is the people's last line of self-defense against a president who acts like a king and abuses the public trust. >> do you think there will be more impeachment hearings after what we saw today? >> i kind of doubt it after what we saw today or at least it will be a while. >> do you think they'll second guess it? >> i know there was a lot of consternation and alarm on the republican side to see how weak the case was? >> you heard that from republicans? >> directly on the floor. >> like what? >> several republicans were saying to me that the right wing is now saying that kevin mccarthy actually set it up to be a failure because he didn't want to proceed with impeachment. they couldn't believe that such a disaster would just happen by accident. i think that attributes a lot more organization and foresight -- what i mean is that it is now taken for granted over there that their impeachment inquiry is going nowhere and that they don't have any evidence after nine months of this. >> one thing that they have said, chairman comer, is they deemed the work of the impeachment inquiry team, these committees, to be essential. so, if there is a government shutdown come saturday night, they will continue with that work. do you think that's appropriate. >> i can't think of anything less essential than this sham impeachment that they are running against joe biden just because donald trump sent out some social media communications saying, well, they impeached me, so we've got to impeach joe biden. they did it to me, let's do it to him. that's not the constitutional standard, whether you're mad at the other team. the constitutional standard is whether there's treason, high crimes and misdemeanors. they haven't assembled one iota or morsel of evidence suggesting joe biden has created an impeachable event. >> one thing that is threaten second degreeed here is kevin mccarthy's job. if that comes to a vote, how will you vote? >> i haven't even thought about that. and of course, you know, i used the tip o'neill rule which is i don't vote for anybody unless they ask me to vote for them. i haven't heard from kevin mccarthy about it. we're together with kevin mccarthy if we abide by the agreement we made back in may. we foresaw that the extreme maga republicans would try to shut down the government, and we set up an actual budget agreement. and now kevin mccarthy has stepped away from it because the maga republicans are threatening to vacate the chair, which means overthrow the speaker of the house. so, i hope that he can get it together to organize his caucus. if not, we've got a great leader in hakeem jeffries, and we've been making real progress for america with the infrastructure act, with inflation reduction act. the democrats are ready to lead. >> but is there a chance that you would potentially vote for speaker mccarthy if his job was on the line? >> you know, it never occurred to me to vote for kevin mccarthy. but i have heard conversations among some of my democratic colleagues who come from states where there are cross-party coalitions to form to try to isolate the extreme right. and that happens. and they say they share 50% of the committees go to republicans, 50% of the committees go to democrats. they alternate weeks in which there's a republican speaker, a democratic speaker. i suppose anything is possible in the land of hypotheticals. but the real point is, what are we going to do to continue to make progress for america? and the first thing we've got to do is keep the government open. that's massive pain and a hardship that they're threatening for millions of people in the wic program, the s.n.a.p. program, federal workers across the country. >> i'm going to mark you down as a maybe for that. >> i don't even know what i said maybe for. i want to make progress for america. that's why i'm a progressive. >> thank you for joining us tonight. coming up, president biden is warning that democracy is in danger. he is invoking the late republican senator john mccain to make his point in arizona today. i spoke with his wife kincey and his wife jack. plus a surprise move by donald trump's legal team just in in the state of georgia. that's next. within a matter of minutes, the house is scheduled to vote in an attempt to find a way to keep the government open past saturday night. lawmakers have been scrambling to find their way out of this. meshes are facing basic questions tonight like how they could pay rent or credit card debt they'll incur, or what bills they can skip. a shutdown means if you are about to buy a home, getting a mortgage is going to be tougher. if you have travel plans, there could be longer security lines and longer delays at the airport. and of the 33 million small businesses in this country, 93% of them say that a shutdown will cost them more money. as we speak, though, tonight there are big questions about whether this latest plan, what is happening, can even pass the house. for answers on that, hopefully, i am joined by pennsylvania republican congressman brian fitzpatrick. thank you, congressman, for being here. there are these appropriations bills that republicans are voting on tonight. are those going to pass? >> some might. it's hard to predict what's going on on the floor these days. sometimes roles are taken down and the vote count hasn't gone as expected. at least one, possible two, definitely not four. the ag appropriations bill is not going to pass, way too many problems with it. a lot of people are approaching this the same as the debt negotiations, knowing that what comes out of the house is never going to become law. it's necessarily a mechanism to get two people to sit down. that was the case with the debt ceiling and the outcome was good. speaker mccarthy, president biden sat down, they came up with a two-party solution, it got signed into law, and america is better for it. the volleys shouldn't be judged as the final product, but we're coming close to the deadline. >> is there an overall plan? i think that's what people are curious about tonight. >> we have a plan. i lead the bipartisan problem solvers, as you know. we're 64 members, 32 democrats, 32 republicans, and we believe in two-party solutions. what we do, like we do with debt ceiling, infrastructure, chips and science act, we do our work in the background. we prep a remedy, and if things collapse at the last minute amongst talks with the other four corners, as they call them, the republican and democrat leaders of the house and senate, then we step forward with our solution. that was certainly the case with infrastructure. we provided the votes to get that across the finish line. we also drafted it. last friday we introduced a way to keep the government open, a two-party solution. nobody got everything they wanted, but that's, kind of, how government operates. >> but this short-term plan that speaker mccarthy says will be put on the floor for a vote tomorrow, even though there are not votes to pass it, why vote on it if they know it's not going to pass? >> i think they at least need to give it a try, right? i am a plan of putting everybody's bill on the floor and letting democracy take hold. what i don't like is not putting bills on the floor because some member threatens to take a bill down. that's democracy. let the individual members cast their vote, go back home and explain their vote to -- >> should speaker mccarthy cut a deal with democrats to get that pass snd. >> it's not cutting a deal with democrats. we believe in two-party solutions. that's what our caucus is about. it's not cutting a deal with anybody. it's coming up with a two-party solution that's good policy and good for our country. we know that's where this is going to land. we knew that was where it was going to land with the debt ceiling. we knew with infrastructure. there's a 60-vote threshold in the senate. by definition, everything that emerges from the senate will be a two-party solution. our view is, why don't we start there? why do we have to go through this rigmarole and come out the in a predictable way on the other side. >> they're totally dismissing what the senate's plan is. speaker mccarthy is dismissing that. >> i can tell you, they have not dismissed our plan. speaker mccarthy hasn't. hakeem jeffries hasn't. colleagues on both sides of the aisle, they're very appreciative. people come up all the time saying, thank you, you may be the ones that get us out of this. there is a group of us that are prepared to do what it takes to get our bill on the floor. >> can you convince hard liners who are saying -- >> we only need 218 votes. we don't need 435. if you can't get 218 in your conference, you go for 218 in the congress. we focus on 218 in the congress. there's a lot of ways to get to 218. >> how much does a government shutdown hurt your party? >> it hurts america. forget which party it hurts. it hurts america. i lived through a government shutdown. my last assignment was out in the l.a. division. we had to pull people off wiretaps, physical surveillance routes, which decimates cases. when you have a gap of evidence for 30 days, that's very, very devastating to an investigation. that's just the fbi perspective, not to mention what it does to faa, for flight safety, what it does to cvp and the border patrol ask apprond the border. every agency will be impacted. government shutdowns are stupid and they should never happen. >> do you believe speaker mccarthy can emerge from this with his job intact? >> yes, i do. >> congressman brian fitzpatrick, we know you have to go vote. we'll see if those bills pass. thank you for joining us tonight. elsewhere in politics, tonight we turn to the family of the late republican senator john mccain for their take on the state of the republican party and what is happening next. as president biden today warned americans of what he sees as a, quote, extremist movement within the republican party, he harkened back to his long-time friend, across the aisle, john mccain, a war hero who stood firm against former president donald trump in his final years. >> great few of us will ever be asked to endure what john mccain endured, but all of us are being asked right now, what will we do to maintain our democracy? will we, as john wrote, never quit? will we put partisanship aside and put country first? i say we must and we will. we will. >> the president was speaking in arizona today, as he honored senator mccain, announcing the construction of a new library there in his home state in his name. the late senator, of course, made the fight for democracy at home and abroad, a signature issue of his during his 35 years here on capitol hill, before he died in brain cancer in 2018. i spoke earlier to his wife and son, ambassador cindy mccain, who is the executive director of the u.n. world food program, and jack mccain, a veteran of the war in afghanistan, and of course has been here on "the source" before. thank you both for being with me. ambassador, i know how personal this is for you. you could hear it in your voice today as the bidens introduced you. do you believe president biden's message about democracy today resonated? >> i do believe it did. i think his message was important. and i know many people feel that there's a lack of civility and a lack of debate and democracy that's not personal anymore. i think it's a message that not only resonates, but it's a very important message through the coming years. >> and jack, what do you think your father would say about this state of your democracy right now, that the president feels the need to come out -- this is the fourth time he's made a speech to this effect about democracy and how he believes it's at stake. >> i'm always loathed to put words in my father's mouth, but i will say that he was an eternal optimist. and whatever the circumstances were, he always believed in the strength of the american democracy and the courage of those behind it. he would offer, i think, that we always need civility, we always need leaders who are willing to serve a cause greater than their own self-interests, but that the american experiment is truly the greatest one in the history of mankind. and you would still continue to be as hard behind it now as he was then. >> it's an issue that we have so many guests come on and say, you know, they think the democracy could not survive potentially a second trump term. obviously that is part of what's driving president biden's speech today, given he is the current republican front runner. ambassador, do you agree with that, that it may not be able to survive a second term of a trump presidency? >> i have great faith in the american people, and i truly believe that we all believe in democracy, freedom, and the right to vote and right to be orderly participants in discussions and debates. i think that that -- of course that message starts at the top. and i'm just hoping that this coming election is one that is civil, that has -- that uses courage and not intimidation and something that encourages people to vote and not abstain because they're afraid of the system. >> jack, one of the president biden's main points today was about being silent and how that's essentially being complicit, not speaking out after donald trump says things like that -- baselessly that general milley committed treason or that news networks should be investigated. what do you say to other republican leaders who don't speak out about comments like that from someone who is so prominent in today's republican party? >> so, i always have to be very careful in speaking in a partisan manner just because of the nature of my work and the fact i'm still serving. but what i will say is that -- i would say the definition of character n my own mind, is doing the right thing by the virtue of the fact that it's the right thing to do. sometimes that's hardest to do when everybody's watching. and that you never lose through acting in good faith and with good character. >> ambassador, when you see president biden give this speech today, speak the way that he did at the end about that and then you see a prominent figure in your state, kari lake, who is going to be announcing she is running for the u.s. senate there. she called the speech disgusting and said, we will not be lectured on democracy by someone who is trying to jail his political opponents, obviously a reference to donald trump's indictments that are happening, which the white house says president biden is note involved in. what is your response to that? >> we need to keep the rhetoric to a slow role. what we need, again, is what my son just said is stability, duty, honor, country. when we start talking about our leaders and those who want to be lead ners our country. and most of all remembering who we are. we're americans and we believe in democracy and the rule of the constitution. these things are all important. i'm hoping that the voter of arizona -- >> jack with respect to what you just said, of course, which is very important here and your constraints on that, your father is always famous for saying country before party. do you think that's an ethos that's reflected today that a lot of people still believe? >> i do. i think that the ideal that we all want to strive for for country over party or for service over self-interest is one that is strong in the united states. i think in every corner of the country, you find examples of this when you seek them out. that doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to try to foster those ideals, we should try to make them accessible to all americans, which is thankfully one of the things we're lucky enough to have had president biden announce the mccain library being built here. and that's one of the things we really hope to do through that project. >> ambassador, what about you? >> well, you know, what i look to is what -- not only what my husband stood for, but the ideals that we can replicate within the library, as jack mentioned. and what's important to me is that we keep this legacy alive and more importantly, we teach our young people about serving our country and being able to be good participants within government and respectful of each other with using stability. and those are the kinds of things that we intend to honor here at the library and make sure that we continue to pursue. >> yeah. a significant announcement, of course frrks president biden, who clearly had such respect for the late senators. ambassadors cindy mccain, jack mccain, thank you so much for joining me tonight. >> thank you. and ahead, we are keeping a close eye on what is happening here on capitol hill, as house republicans and of course democrats as well, they are voting. it is a question of whether or not those bills tonight will pass. all of this, as a government shutdown is looming. cnn's very own manu raju has a scoop about bob menendez as well, another development we are following closely here on capitol hill right after the break. back here on capitol hill tonight, as the house is voting, as they continue to try and find some way to keep the government open, a reminder that it runs out of money saturday at midnight. for the latest on where things stand, i'm joined by cnn's manu raju. even if they pass these bills tonight -- which congressman fitzpatrick said there's no way they're passing all of them -- it will still not keep the government funded. they have to figure that problem out. you just talked to speaker mccarthy. >> he is still trying to do something that won't actually avoid a government shutdown, which is to pass a short-term spending bill to keep the government open for a few weeks with republican votes alone. it includes spending cuts, border security measures. democrats don't want to do any of that. not all those republicans want to do it either. a number of conservative hard liner say they will never vote for a conservative resolution. mccarthy doesn't have the votes, but he is still pressing ahead with the effort. the vote is going to happen tomorrow in the house. that is going to fail. then what? there seems to be one way on this, which is to cut a deal with democrats, get it out of the house, get it out of the senate, on the president's desk. but mccarthy doesn't want to do that. when i asked the speaker about this earlier tonight about whether he's willing to cut a deal with democrats, he didn't rule it out. but he also side stepped the question. >> clear that you know it better than we do. your members. >> i've got time to do other things. in this job, you've got to have a, b, c, d, e, f, and g. >> what letter are you on now? >> i haven't spelled my name out completely. >> plan b, plan b yet. he said he's got multiple plans. so, we'll see what he has in mind. again, if we cuts a deal with democrats, these members on the right say they're going to vote to oust him from the speakership and that can come to a head in the next couple of days here. >> of course it is pure chaos in the house. but the senate is also facing interesting moments today. senator bob menendez, we saw plead not guilty to bribery charges, made his case to the senate lunch today. what's your report about what he's planning to do if he answers those calls to resign. >> he is making it very clear he is not resigning. he said behind closed doors to colleagues, i am not resigning. he said he was innocent. i've learned that actually he seems to be taking steps to continue his re-election bid. and that is what's causing eight lot of fears among democrats right now. they believe if he runs, he could jeopardize a safe seat for senate democrats. i got a copy of an invitation that his pac sent out to donors urging them to come to an event that he was planning to have next month in puerto rico at a luxury hotel, beachside hotel with golf with the senator, dining with the senator and his chief of staff, saying that the event is still on despite the latest events. so, making clear that he is taking steps to run and to continue to run, despite the fears he could jeopardize a very safe seat. >> obviously innocent until proven guilty, but he's still going to host a donor retreat in puerto rico despite the fact he's mounting a defense to these criminal charges. >> that's what the invitation says. if you want to pay a price, you can have access to the senator. >> i can't even imagine those conversations. thank you. >> thanks. up next, a surprise move late today from donald trump's legal team. this is not what reporters who have been talking to his lawyers were expecting. it's an unexpected decision. some legal experts are also wonder what's up. we'll talk to one of them next. tonight, the latest move from donald trump's legal team is to stay put. it's a very unexpected decision, at least for those of us who are following this closely. but trump's attorneys now say that they are not going to attempt to move his georgia criminal case to a federal court, even though if they had, he could have potentially had a better argument to dismiss the charges, maybe even a more favorable jury pool. this comes after his former chief of staff, mark meadows, was denied in his attempt to move his case from a state court to a federal court, saying that he was just doing his job as a federal employee. his legal team is trying to appeal that decision tonight. but for more on trump's move, i want to bring in former federal process cue shan wu, who is here with me. we have been talking to people in trump's team, if they were going to do this, it seemed clear cut that they were. but do you think because mark meadows was denied initially by this judge that that played a factor in the decision here? >> i think it plays a factor. meadows took the unusual step of waiving his fifth amendment and testifying. that's a concern for trump and his team. he will get some of the benefits anyway. he may be taking a look at the pace now of the case and deciding that it's not going to be that much of a rushed pace anyway, and he can sit back and watch what happens with the other defendants who may go first. there's also a theoretical chance that if meadows were to win on appeal that trump's case might still get removed because of the legal connection. i think some of them wouldn't get moved but there's a bunch that might get moved if they were to weigh in on the federal officials, federal type of action. >> are you surprised by this overall, though, given what we seemed to think trump's legal team was going to do? >> i am a little surprised by it. it seems a little bit more strategic and less reactive than what he normally does. one thing that occurred to me, too, it perhaps costs a little bit of money because they are spending an enormous amount on fees now. >> if this does go forward in a state trial, that means there will be cameras. it's going to look a lot different than if he had been successful in moving it. >> that's a great point. that's a happy idea he had that nobody would be watching this on tv, even though he likes to be the showman. absolutely. i think it'll be really important for the broadcast. >> the other legal thing that he is facing, the foremost this week, is what's happening in new york. of course that judge finding that trump massively overvalued his assets, overinflated. trump has said that trial is starting despite that decision on monday. and now we read today the judge has -- essentially the office, the list of witnesses includes trump, includes ivanka trump, includes donald trump jr. and eric trump as well. do you think we could actually see trump himself testify? >> i think it would be a really bad idea for him to testify. so, i think he probably will stay off the stand. i think the arguments they want to make, they can put forth without him having to put himself on the stand that way. but the -- it's a very complex unraveling that's going to happen. it's still a little bit unclear to me just how some of the judge's rulings are going to get implemented. but no question, the judge has really eviscerated the heart of his defense, which is these were valid valuations i was making, and that's completely gone. >> his own attorneys were asking, what's the exppoint of going to trial? further penalties facing trial. >> it's become a damages question at this point, what kind of penalty there's going to be. as we are back here live on capitol hill tonight. of course there is a lot of late night drama going on about how to keep the government funded. nearly 2 million military troops and personnel will stop getting their pay checks if the government does shut down as it looks like it is going to this weekend. it is a terrifying prospect for many people who live paycheck to paycheck or rely on government services to help feed their families. my next guest knows what it is like to face the uncertainty head on, the ceo of the nonprofit national military family association. her husband is also a veteran of the marine corps whose next paycheck is now in doubt as a civilian employee for the air force. thank you for being here. when you look at this reality and we talk to the lawmakers about this, you think of the real life consequences. how many military families are living paycheck to paycheck? >> i can tell you about 25% of military families have told us they're food insecure. so living paycheck to paycheck has unfortunately become such a huge part of military life. military families it used to be you could survive on their income. now you need two incomes to survive and things like this just make it hard. if the government does shut down like we are expecting and if our service members do get paid, let's say best case scenario, even in that situation there are 16,000 military spouses who are employed by the federal government, child care centers that won't be able to take care of kids so the other military spouses are able to go to work with offices on basins constellations closed and -- bases closed and people are wondering what is going to happen next week, how are they going to pay for groceries? >> you mentioned the women, infant, and children program. we were looking at the numbers here of some 7 million people that rely on that, that could be denied that assistance if the shutdown goes through on saturday night. do you think lawmakers here understand the consequences of that? >> it doesn't feel that way. i can tell you that much. for military families we know if you just look at a service member's income hundreds of thousands of military families are eligible for wic. like i said, they are on installations so they are really important for the health and nutrition of military kids and for moms. when i am sitting here right now just imagining that there is a military mom probably several pregnant, wondering how she'll feed her kids next week. also wondering if she'll be able to go to her prenatal appointment and how long this is going to go on. >> we've been trying when we talked to lawmakers almost every day this week talking about real life consequences, living without a paycheck. one republican congressman of tennessee had this to say about what the consequences could be. >> we have a shutdown, every two to three days. the average lasts eight days. social security checks will continue and government employees receive back pay. no veteran will lose his house t is against the law. >> they keep talking about back pay. is that enough for people who live paycheck to paycheck who can't afford to go that long without getting that paycheck immediately? >> we asked military families to face uncertainty every single day. this is just another level of that. what i just heard sounds like a very comfortable response. he is obviously not a person living paycheck to paycheck. if you really were thinking about that maybe they'll get paid in two weeks but like i said, it is beyond just the pay. it is everything every day. will my kid be able to go to daycare on monday? will i be able to take my child to their doctor's appointment? it is every single part of their lives. these are people who volunteer to serve. they stand up for this country every single day. this is how we respect them. we hear, thank you for your service and this is the opposite of a thank you. >> i think about this. joint chiefs chairman general milley is officially leaving his post tomorrow. his replacement is concerned. there are so many others, hundreds of others, between what's happening here with the prospect of a shutdown, between what is happening in the senate with the hold, are military families caught in the middle of politics in a way you've never seen before? >> absolutely. military families are being used as pawns. you know, military kids are watching. there are kids all around this country who are dreaming of being in our military. they want to serve. they are patriotic. they have this desire to serve. they are sitting at home and watching the news and seeing they may not get paid. their kids may not be cared for. we are talking about a crisis in recruiting and a retention and this is not the way to solve that problem, either. >> thank you so much for coming and explaining the real consequences of what very much seems like it is going to happen on saturday night. >> thanks for having me. >> thank you. tonight as i mentioned there was a standing ovation to general mark milley as he exited the pentagon for the final time as chairman of the joint chiefs. at midnight on saturday general brown will officially replace him as the nation's top military officer.