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BECKY QUICK: .... Almost 20% of (Certified Professional Controllers) are eligible to retire today. There are no options to keep these professionals at work without a paycheck when they can no longer afford to support their families. When they elect to retire, the national airspace will be crippled. The situation is changing at a rapid pace in an air safety system that is deteriorating by the day." That's incredibly concerning to hear. Do you worry about safety at this point?.

WILBUR ROSS: Well, I do worry about safety. And it's kind of disappointing that the air traffic controllers are calling in sick in pretty large numbers. Depending on the week –

BECKY QUICK: Many of them can't afford to support their families, though.

WILBUR ROSS: Well, remember this, they are eventually going to be paid. The president signed that into law—

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Mr. Secretary, but they're – but many of these people need -- Mr. Secretary, many of these workers clearly need the paycheck on a week-by-week basis. They're not, frankly, in my shoes, nor in yours. Nor in yours.

WILBUR ROSS: Sure.

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: So the question is, is this battle and fight at this point in the ball game worth it? Meaning, is the debate over everything else that the administration is fighting for worth more than the risk that's being taken on at the moment and the affect it's having on families of federal workers?

WILBUR ROSS: Well first of all, the banks and credit unions should be making credit available to them. When you think about it, these are basically government-guaranteed loans because the government has committed these folks will get back pay once this whole thing gets settled down. So there really is not a good excuse why there should be a liquidity crisis. Now, true, the people might have to pay a little bit of interest. But the idea that it's paycheck or zero is not a really valid idea. There's no reason why some institution wouldn't be willing to lend. And indeed we've heard tales of some of the –

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: So it should be put on the private sector? The private sector needs to step up where the public sector can't?

WILBUR ROSS: No. What I'm saying is there have been ads run by a number of the public-sector credit unions, which are member organizations of the people who work in the departments. Those have announced very, very low interest rate loans to bridge people over the gap. That's the kind of cooperation between financial community and employee that really is warranted. It's a totally safe loan because at the end of the day it's 100% government guarantee.

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ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Mr. Secretary, I wanted to come back for just a moment to the U.S. government shutdown. While here in Davos, I interviewed Alex Karp, he's the CEO of Palantir, a major contractor in the United States working on behalf of the pentagon and the Defense Department. He said that the government shutdown, he believed, was terribly damaging to the brand of our country. Do you believe that?

WILBUR ROSS: I think that's a great deal of hyperbole. We've had shutdowns before, albeit for not such a long period as we've been thus far, but put in the perspective. You're talking about 800,000 workers and while I feel sorry for the individuals that have hardship cases, 800,000 workers. If they never got their pay -- which is not the case, they will eventually get it, but if they never got it, you're talking about a third of a percent on our GDP. So it's not like it's a gigantic number overall.

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Mr. Secretary, but -- Mr. Secretary, there are reports there are some federal workers who are going to homeless shelters to get food.

WILBUR ROSS: Well, I know they are and I don't really quite understand why. Because, as I mentioned before, the obligations that they would undertake, say borrowing from a bank or a credit union are in effect federally guaranteed. So the 30 days of pay that some people will be out, there's no real reason why they shouldn't be able to get a loan against it and we've seen a number of ads from financial institutions doing that.

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The Commerce Department’s federal credit union is charging furloughed employees almost 9 percent interest on emergency loans to cover their missing paychecks, despite Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross saying Thursday that financial institutions were offering “very, very low-interest-rate loans to bridge people over the gap.”

“During the Government Shutdown we’re here to help our members and non-member employees of the Department of Commerce & NOAA and its affiliates, the Executive Office of the President and the White House Management and Administration Offices,” the credit union’s website says.

Emergency loans of up to $5,000 are available for furloughed employees with repayment terms of up to two years, the site says. Two loan officers reached at the credit union’s telephone number confirmed the terms, which include interest rates “as low as 8.99 percent.”