[Velshi:] Twenty-nine minutes after the hour. Good morning. It's Friday, July 29th. This is your
[A.m:] WAKE-UP CALL. I'm Ali Velshi, joining you live this morning from New York. No vote but plenty of white knuckles on Capitol Hill as time ticks down to the debt ceiling deadline. August 2nd now just a few days away and House Speaker John Boehner is trying to coax GOP holdouts, calling them into his office, ordering pizza. Some just won't budge.
[Rep. Jason Chaffetz , Utah:] I simply cannot raise the debt ceiling if we another going to fundamentally change the way we do business. I just I just kept vote for it the way it is.
[Sen. Charles Schumer , New York:] Our Republican colleagues in the House are playing a game here. Speaker Boehner has to keep throwing piece after piece after piece of red meat to the hard right lion that seems to be dominating his caucus. It's about time he tame the lion, not just continue to throw red meat to him, which isn't going to accomplish anything.
[Velshi:] Now, Speaker Boehner must have ordered meat lovers pizza if all of the available House members are present and voting. Boehner's got to get 216 votes. White House correspondent Dan Lothian is on the phone from Washington right now. Dan, what is going on at the White House? They kept saying that vote was going to be last night. They were going to get the votes do it, and then, late last night, they pulled the plug.
[Dan Lothian, Cnn White House Correspondent:] Well, you know, first of all, I think that there is still this level of frustration at the White House because they see yesterday as another lost opportunity because yet another day that has passed without there being any progress. Having said that, you know, what the White House has been saying now is that they believe there's still some compromise possible, that the Boehner bill and the re-bill are not that far apart. And so, you know,
[Velshi:] All right. Dan, We'll continue to follow it with you. Dan Lothian. It's going to be a business day and weekend for him at the White House. Joe Johns is also joining us on the line from Washington. he's been covering this very closely. Let's just look at pick up where Dan left off. How does Boehner get to that magic number of 216 votes, and when are we are we likely to see this vote today?
[Joe Johns, Cnn Correspondent:] It's everybody's guess, Ali. Your guess is as good as mine. What we do know is that he's going to meet with the House Republicans again and try to drag this thing over the finish line sometime today. From what I've been able to discern, he threw in some sweeteners to try to get the votes close, and one of those was to have more votes on the balanced budget amendment and send them over to the Senate in the hopes that that would get some of the people off the fence that he needed actually to vote on his side. So, it may be that they're looking for a few more tweaks just to get the very few votes they apparently need to try to finish this up. The thing that is a little strange obviously to anybody who just sitting there watching this is that the Senate Democrats have said it's dead-on-arrival. They're going to shoot it down. Nonetheless, the way things have always worked up there on the hill is that you have a bill like this, and it sort of serves as a template for something else. And that something else would be an arrangement worked out between Reid and McConnell, and then, they take bits and pieces of whatever they can stand from Boehner, and hopefully, do it quickly over the weekend so everybody can go home, but we're a long way from the finish line right now.
[Velshi:] It's going to be a long weekend. We'll all be working together this weekend. Joe, thanks very much. We'll catching you later on "AMERICAN MORNING." Hey, attention, all you "Lord of the Rings" fans, Stephen Colbert goes to middle of Earth to explain what's up in Washington, and he begins with Senator John McCain.
[Sen. John Mccain,  Arizona:] Default crisis or gradual government shutdown will ensue, and the public will turn en masse against Barack Obama, and the tea party hobbits could return to middle Earth having defeated Mordor.
[Stephen Colbert, Host, The Colbert Report:] Gandalf is the tea party right here, OK? You shall not pass legislation raising the debt ceiling!
[Velshi:] Let's go to Christine Romans live here in New York. Good Morning, Christine. You know, here's the weird thing about the markets this week. They are not just paying attention to the debt ceiling. We have had earnings. We have had economic reports, and those things are having some influence on the market. I think if investors were only paying attention to the debt ceiling, we'd have had worse markets than we've seen so far.
[Christine Romans, Cnn Business Correspondent:] I think you're right, but you know, we've got futures lower this morning because of what's happening in the House, the failure to vote on the deal late yesterday. We've had five days in a row of stocks down. So, I mean, it does tell you that the overriding concern continues to be what in God's name is going on in Washington and that's one of the things that's the big concern here for stocks, but we're also watching bonds, currencies, all these other markets as well. Again, futures are lower this morning, and I wanted to quickly tell you about a report from Credit Suisse that says, Ali, that U.S. stocks could fall 30 percent, 30 percent over six months to a year if the U.S. were to default. So, worst case scenario, according to Credit Suisse, a 30 percent decline in the stock market. That means anybody in Congress who's like holding onto their ideology to try to make a point will be making a point, of course, with your 401 [k].
[Velshi:] It is ridiculous. That is exactly, exactly right. Make your point where it doesn't cost you money, but it's going to cost America money. All right. Let's say there isn't a deal. How much money does the treasury department actually have heading into August?
[Romans:] Well, you know, treasury gets money, gets billions of dollar from tax receipts. Money is coming in all the time. Of course, more money is going out all the time, and now, trying to assess how much cash is on hand. The Bipartisan Policy Center says there's probably enough cash on hand coming into this period, and there's a lot of checks that go out, of course, in the first week of August, that you could stretch it until August 10th to pay off all of our obligations, but there is money coming in don't forget, Ali, we are the biggest economy in the world. The U.S. economy accounts for 26 percent of all the global output. So, we have a lot of money coming in. We have a lot of money going out, too. So, all of this is a day-by-day kind of thing, but according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, we have enough money in theory probably to pay bills in full until August 10th. And, of course, as you know, the treasury department continues to say, no, August 2nd is our hard deadline here. I mean, we know that there's enough for August 2nd for sure. That's the only certainty.
[Velshi:] We shouldn't have been be talking about this. This should have been settled a long time ago, but
[Romans:] Yes. Yes.
[Velshi:] It's nice to see you everyday.
[Romans:] Hey, this doesn't repel me. Whatever Stephen Colbert says, this kind of talk doesn't repel me.
[Velshi:] That's right. Yes. Yes. Christine, I'll see you on "American Morning" very shortly. All right. Now, back to today's businessman special. Tylenol, be careful how much you take today. The vision of Johnson & Johnson now recommends that you only take a maximum of six pills as day instead of eight pills. You can do some major live damage if you take too much of that a day. Just so you know, the drug inside it is in more than 600 over-the-counter in prescription drugs, and be sure to double and triple check everything before taking it. Here's today "Get Smart" question, if there is no debt ceiling deal, who gets paid first? A. Social Security Beneficiaries, B. investors, C. defense vendors. We're going to ask you after this quick break. It is 38 minutes after the hour.