Vice Presidential Candidates Prepare for Debate; Senate Votes on Bailout Bill
CAMPBELL BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there, everybody. Tonight, breaking news, a big story we're tracking for you. At this very moment, we're closely watching the U.S. Senate, where, in a few minutes, senators will vote on their own version of the massive $700 billion financial bailout. We're going to join the high-stakes roll call vote as soon as it begins. Right now, we want to show you a picture. This is live the Senate floor, a lot of arm-twisting down there today. This is what it is, an in-your-face power play hurriedly put together by senators after the bailout failed in the House of Representatives on Monday. If the bailout passes tonight, it will put incredible pressure on House members to change their minds to get on board. Tonight's vote is such a big deal, the presidential candidates, John McCain, Barack Obama, came back to Washington. McCain will cast his first Senate vote since April. Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, who is also there, haven't voted since July. So, we're going to watch this play out live during our hour. We will have the latest for you from our correspondents and they're on Capitol Hill. All that coming up in a moment. But before we get to that, I have got to mention the other big event on the horizon, debate night, Sarah Palin vs. Joe Biden. It happens tomorrow night. We have of course seen Joe Biden debate national and international issues numerous times. By comparison, we still know relatively little about Sarah Palin's positions. You have all heard me urge the McCain campaign to free Sarah Palin, so that all of us could get to know the vice presidential candidate better and be equipped to make an informed decision about her qualifications. Well, we have learned more over the last week by virtue of an interview she gave to CBS's Katie Couric. We're going to share a new and equally fascinating exchange from that interview tonight involving the Supreme Court. It may leave you wondering just how informed Palin needs to be to do the job she's campaigning for. A lot of people are going to be talking about this. And there's obviously enormous interest in tomorrow night's debate. I will not lie to you. I cannot wait. We are going to be talking it through with our panel over the next hour. But we do begin tonight with that breaking news. The Senate roll call just minutes away, the roll call about to start. Congressional correspondent Jessica Yellin on Capitol Hill watching the debate for us. Jessica, what's going on right now? Give us the latest.</s>JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Campbell, senators have been making statements as part of the debate on the floor, almost all of them in support of this bill. Very few senators oppose it. It's expected to pass easily tonight. Now, I will tell you there's a real sense of excitement for this evening's vote, a full house, lots of reporters outside the chamber there, and senators telling us they're getting more calls from constituents about this bill than they even got about their Iraq war vote. So, they know voters really care. The actual vote is expected to happen about 30 to 40 minutes from now. But you know, with Senate time, you can never predict.</s>BROWN: All right. We should mention our two presidential candidates back in Washington to vote on the bill. McCain discussed the bailout at an event earlier today. Obama also talked about the Senate -- or addressed, rather, the Senate this evening. Let's take a listen.</s>SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: This is a moment of great testing. At such moments, there are those on both sides of this debate who will act on principle. Of course, there are always some who think first of their own interests, who calculate their own advantage, instead of rushing to the aid of their country. But, in the case of this bill, I'm confident there are enough people of goodwill in both parties to see America through this crisis.</s>SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I do not think this is going to be easy. It's not going to come without cost. We're all going to need to sacrifice. We're all going to need to pull our weight, because now, more than ever, we're all in this together. That's part of what this crisis has taught us, that, at the end of the day, there's no real separation between Wall Street and Main Street.</s>BROWN: And, Jessica, both of these candidates here trying to express their leadership cred. Who has got the bigger burden?</s>YELLIN: Well, you know, Campbell, they both have a different kind of burden here. For Barack Obama, he has made the economy such a prominent part of his campaign all along that he really needs to show that, with a Congress run by Democrats, he can help get things done. And he himself has sort of rolled up his sleeves, been making calls today to Democratic House members to make sure that they're on board this effort. But John McCain in a sense has higher stakes here, because he threw his lot in with those House Republicans. Two-thirds of them voted against this bill. Fingers really were pointed at the Republicans for its failure in the House on Monday. Those guys have to get on this train in order for John McCain to come out of this smelling good.</s>BROWN: And, Jessica, we all know that the real battle is ultimately going to be in the House. That's where the opposition really lies. So talk us through the kind of arm-twisting going on behind the scenes tonight.</s>YELLIN: I will tell you, I told you that, on the Senate side, there was a sense of comfort. It's the exact opposite on the House side, people are calling each other, asking, what do you know? What are you hearing? Republicans are trying to call their members, trying to get some of those two-third no votes into the yes column. We have heard some signs of progress because many of the measures in the Senate bill are actually more appealing to Republicans than to Democrats, but a real sense of frustration among Democrats in the House that they don't know which way the vote will go. They don't even know if they can schedule it. They're very uncertain at this hour.</s>BROWN: All right, Jessica, we're going to be checking back in with you throughout the evening as this progresses. And we should mention, if tonight's vote is a big deal in Washington, well, it's an bigger one on Wall Street, where after days of stomach-churning ups and downs, it was relatively flat today. With us now is our senior business correspondent, Ali Velshi, to give us guideposts on where the financial markets are now, what that means to us. And, Ali, first, break it down for us, how this Senate bailout package is different from what failed to pass the House.</s>ALI VELSHI, CNN SENIOR BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: There are three major differences that you need to think about between this bill and the one that failed the House. The first one is, we have talked about this for a couple nights, the increase in the limit that your deposits are insured in banks from $100,000 to $250,000, raising the FDIC insurance cap to $250,000, designed largely to help small businesses who need to keep more money in banks, but also psychologically let people know your money is safe in a bank. Also, this FDIC money comes out of an insurance fund. This bill has a provision to allow the FDIC an unlimited amount of money from the U.S. Treasury to insure those bills. Second thing -- that's the same sort of related point. The second thing are tax cuts for individuals, including an extension of the alternative minimum tax exclusions. This is stuff that was typically going to happen. So, a lot of the stuff that is being cut here -- and this is why this is more pleasing to some Republicans than Democrats -- were things that were already going to happen with a few extra sweeteners to convince Congress members to come over and vote for this. The third thing is some taxes for businesses, some tax cuts for businesses, including tax cuts that encourage spending on alternative energy. These are also things that were being talked about. But they have been added to this bill to convince people that there's a reason to vote for this. Now, we're unsure as to what the added value of some of these additions are. They may be up somewhere above $100 billion. But the $700 billion bailout package is essentially the same bailout package that failed on Monday.</s>BROWN: And, Ali, markets pretty flat today, I know, but a lot of members of Congress obviously hoping we're going to see a spike, or certainly Wall Street responding well after tonight.</s>VELSHI: Well, as you and I have talked about, Wall Street is almost a sideshow to the credit markets that are frozen up. We know that they are freezing further. Overnight lending rates between banks have shot up again. AT&T; today reporting that it is finding it impossible to raise money for longer than overnight. They need the short-term money for 30 days or 60 days. They have not been able to raise it. So, we understand these credit markets are tightening up. And even though the Dow was largely flat today, it was actually down a lot, and came back at the end of the day on the anticipation that we might have a deal.</s>BROWN: If they pass the Senate version tonight, does that do anything to the credit...</s>VELSHI: No.</s>BROWN: They want to see the whole deal done.</s>VELSHI: The question that you asked Jessica is exactly the question Wall Street wants to know. Will this get through the House?</s>BROWN: All right, Ali Velshi for us. Ali, I know you're sticking around.</s>VELSHI: Yes.</s>BROWN: We have got a lot more to talk about later on. Once again, we're going to bring you tonight's Senate vote live as it happens. But some other big political stories are also developing tonight. On the eve of the biggest debate of her life, this background -- this is not Sarah Palin's first high-pressure debate. In fact, she won the last one. We will also look at Joe Biden's debating style for clues to see to what we may see coming up tomorrow. Also, our latest poling from five key battleground states, and the bottom line, Obama has to be happy with some of the new numbers. We're going to take a look at those as we go into break. And, also, take a look at this. Running for president or vice president makes your Senate attendance record look pretty bad. I guess, out of 209 roll call votes so far this year, John McCain has only voted 36 times. Barack Obama voted 72 times, Biden 176.