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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Now: Trump Megabill Back In House After Close Senate Vote; Jury Says It Has Verdict Oon Some Counts In Sean "Diddy" Combs Trial. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired July 01, 2025 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:00]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: It's very difficult though. It seems like not very aerodynamic. You see some of the heads going back and --
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Look, the whole point of those sort of puffy dinosaur costumes is that when you move in them, you look hilarious.
SANCHEZ: Yes.
KEILAR: And that's why they're fun on Halloween. That's what they're fun on parachutes.
SANCHEZ: It doesn't look like they're wearing the heads while parachuting, which is probably for the best.
KEILAR: Safety first. Safety first even at the dinosaur races.
"THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT" starts right now.
KAISE HUNT, CNN HOST: It's the House versus the Senate.
Can the House speaker pull off another legislative miracle and fast?
Let's head into THE ARENA.
Right now, new reporting on where the newest version of the president's mega bill stands in Congress. House leaders are moving fast to get it on the floor and out the door, aiming for a final vote tomorrow after the legislation squeaks past the Senate.
Also this hour, the ceasing of the ceasefire. Donald Trump's new threat against Elon Musk after the billionaire's renewed criticism of his domestic agenda.
Plus, more questions from the jury in the high stakes trial of Sean "Diddy" Combs. What they're saying for now as they try to reach a verdict.
(MUSIC)
HUNT: Hi, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to the arena. It's wonderful to have you with us on this Tuesday. As we come on the air, I'm going to say something I have very rarely
said on television in the past -- Congress moving at warp speed. Right now, House members quite literally racing back to Washington and racing toward a vote on the presidents sprawling domestic policy agenda. The big question will they pass it or won't they?
By now, you know, the Senate barely passed its version of the bill just about noon today, Vice President Vance had to break the tie after three Republicans voted no.
Here's where we stand. The bill has been sent back to the House. The Rules Committee meeting right now. That process could go on for hours. If it passes there, the majority whip telling the full House to be back at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow to begin voting on procedural motions on the bill. Debate on it. Maybe change it. Hopefully vote on it.
But before they even get back to the Capitol, here's a vibe check from one powerful House Republican.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ANDY HARRIS (R-MD): The bottom line is now the House is going to have its say. This is not going to sail through the House. I believe that the rule vote will not pass tomorrow morning. And then the speaker is going to have to decide how he gets this back into the Senate framework, into the House framework, I should say.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Congressman Andy Harris there, chair of the Conservative Freedom Caucus.
The president just moments ago on Air Force One, sounded a bit more optimistic.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I felt the Senate was going to be tougher than the House. We got there. We got pretty much what we wanted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Pretty much what we wanted. So faced with another congressional clash, Republicans again, they face this existential question are they really prepared to disappoint this guy, Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I don't know what's going to happen in the House. They're going to take it up pretty soon. Do they have the votes to pass exactly what we did? I don't know, I just think we delivered for the president.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HUNT: All right. My panel will be here to weigh in. We're going to start on the hill with CNN's Lauren Fox. Also, Kristen Holmes on the White House North Lawn.
Lauren, let me go first to you.
This was a real nail-biter here in the Senate. And obviously, Vance had to break the tie. Tell us how we got here.
And let's take a look at what the hurdles are ahead in the House.
LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I mean, we got here in part after 27 hours of a vote-a-rama in which Republican leadership, namely the majority leader, John Thune, was working furiously to try to secure the votes that he needed in order to pass this legislation.
Obviously, Thom Tillis voting against the bill early on, made it clear he was off the vote counting map for the majority leader. You also had Rand Paul voting against advancing this bill. That meant that all of the focus really started to zero in on two Republican members, Senator Susan Collins, who was up for reelection in the state of Maine in this next cycle, and Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
And it became clear where leaderships focus was based off of the fact that we knew there were multiple iterations of provisions in this bill that were specifically targeted to winning over Murkowski's vote to really soften the blow of some of the cuts to Medicaid, some of the cuts to food stamps to her state of Alaska. That became the entirety of leaderships focus over the course of the last 24 hours.
And finally, they were able to pass this bill. Although we should note that even after she voted on this, Senator Lisa Murkowski said she hoped that the House would send something better back to the Senate.
That gives you some insight into the fact that this process may not be over. In fact, even some senators who voted for it may be hoping that this process is not over.
Meanwhile, GOP leadership in the House of Representatives, they are trying to send a message to their members right now that this is the best bill, that they're probably going to get, that they want to ensure that moving forward, they can coalesce around Donald Trump's agenda so that they can get this to his desk by 4th of July.
Obviously, that is a huge hurdle given the fact we are hearing voices on the right, like Andy Harris that you played there, making clear that they want changes to this bill. There's also people on the more moderate wing of the Republican Party in the House, like Representative David Valadao, who was warning over the weekend that some of the enhanced cuts to Medicaid that were part of the Senate bill could be enough to stop him from voting on advancing this legislation out of the House once again.
The speaker has a very narrow majority, had it carefully crafted coalition the last time they passed this bill. Can he do it again and can he do it in the next 48 hours? I think that remains to be seen.
HUNT: The question of the hour indeed.
And, Kristen Holmes, I mean, to that point, is the resident feeling confident that he can with Mike Johnson strong arm these House guys into line?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And, Kasie, we talked yesterday. Everyone was saying it was a nail-biter on the Senate. It was a nail-biter. But President Trump, his team was telling me that they liked their odds because as we have seen time and time again, when something goes through Capitol Hill, President Trump and his team, the people around him are able to push this through. If it is part of President Trump's agenda.
So, they are still feeling very confident when it comes to the House. We do know President Trump is not taking things for granted in the sense that he is calling House members right now. It's not just congressional leadership, but it's also a very specific House members. He's working the phones.
We heard from one White House official who said that it's an all hands on deck situation, but they do believe that the House is likely going to be easier than the Senate, because they say they've been courting the House already for months.
Now, here's what President Trump said when he was asked about this just now on Air Force One.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The bill has something for everybody by doing it this way. So, we're happy about it. We're happy with the result.
REPORTER: So, are you concerned they're going to go make further changes?
TRUMP: Well, they're going to ask for certain changes probably, I don't know. I mean, I guess what would happen if that happens, you then have to run it fast past the Senate. So, you know it never ends. I don't know if that's going to happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Saying there he doesn't know if that's going to happen. I will tell you again, White House officials are very confident right now, or at least optimistic that they can get this through. And I do just want to point to one thing that Lauren said, because it goes to what we've been talking about the last couple of days, and you hear her say that some of these Republican senators, it seems as though they're hoping that this doesn't pass in the House or the same version of it doesn't pass the House. And it comes back to the Senate.
But yet they voted for it. Many of these senators, who are apparently hoping potentially, that this comes back to them, and that gives the White House the confidence that they're going to get this through, when they see people saying, well, I don't really like this bill, but I voted for it anyway.
HUNT: All right. Lauren Fox, Kristen Holmes, thank you both very much for that.
Our panel is in the arena, national political reporter for "The Washington Post", Sabrina Rodriguez; CNN political commentator, Republican strategist and pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson; CNN political commentator Paul Begala; CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings.
Welcome to all of you. Thank you very much for being here.
So, interestingly, Scott, Lisa Murkowski, who voted yes on this bill, put out the whole statement like it's this long, right? It's like a whole page, which you can now put on X, explaining all of these things.
And she finishes it by saying, "My sincere hope is this is not the final product. The bill needs more work across chambers. It's not ready for the president's desk. We need to get to work. We need to work together to get this right."
And she says her goal through this process has been to make a bad bill better for Alaska.
Clearly, they got her to come on board. She didn't want to be the person to sink this bill. But there are some warning signs in here for Republicans.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, not to throw cold water on Senator Murkowski, but Speaker Johnson in the last few seconds said we knew the Senate would amend the House product. I encouraged them to amend it as lightly as possible. They went further than many of us would have preferred, but they are committed to passing this bill as is.
So, it looks like he's going to try to plow forward. And, you know, they got to get out of the rules committee and they're going to try to put it on the floor tomorrow. And we'll see -- we'll see if they can get the votes. This is ultimately -- you know, we've always said it's going to come down to the political muscle of Donald Trump.
I mean, when in doubt, magic Mike, the speaker, and Donald Trump working together have been able to pull rabbits out of hats.
HUNT: Magic Mike. You heard it here first.
JENNINGS: And they're going to do it tomorrow in time for the 4th of July.
HUNT: Well, that has been the goal. And to this point, we also, Steve Scalise, Congressman Scalise, was just on Fox talking about this.
[16:10:06] Of course, a big part of his role getting this over the finish line.
Let's watch what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARTHA MACCALLUM, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: It sounds like this is as good as this bill is going to get.
REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA): Well, as you've seen through this whole process, which has gone on for months, every change you make on one side of the bill to appease maybe one group of people can impact the group negatively. For 20 other members on the other side of the bill. So, it's not as easy as saying, hey, I just want one more change because one more change could end up being what collapses the entire thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So, some realism there, Paul Begala.
PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. And look, I think they'll probably get it because they have Trump and Republicans almost never cross him. Also, there's something in the Republican DNA.
Okay. If you're a Republican in congress, you lie awake at night, unable to sleep, worried that somewhere, someone who's a working person is getting health care, this would be the biggest cut in Medicaid in American history.
Medicaid is very popular. By the way. Republicans carried people on Medicaid. They won their votes.
And this is what gets me -- smart politicians reward people who vote for them. Great politicians reach out to people who didn't vote for them and bring them in. But stupid politicians punish their voters.
This bill is a political suicide note for the Republican Party. Last time they tried this, the Democrats won 41 House seats. After Trump's first midterm, they'll exceed that this time, 489 days. They'll do better than 41. This is absolute death knell for the House Republicans.
JENNINGS: Maybe I should have started my remarks by thanking you because it was President Bill Clinton in the '90s that thought of work requirements for Medicaid.
BEGALA: Which two thirds of people on Medicaid already work.
JENNINGS: Which is all were doing here.
BEGALA: They already do it. They already do it. We did it. We did it in the '90s.
JENNINGS: You want to get up and go to work, you're going to get your Medicaid. And if you're an illegal alien, you're not going to get Medicaid. Everybody else is going to be fine, generational welfare reform built on your all's ideas. So I thank you. I sincerely thank you.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: One third of the people in Kentucky, which I love. I'm a Kentucky colonel. You're a Kentucky citizen, but I'm a colonel.
JENNINGS: I'm also a colonel.
BEGALA: I love your comment. Love it.
One third of the people in that commonwealth are on Medicaid, 54 percent in eastern Kentucky, 54 percent. And they stand in line in the rain to vote for Donald Trump. And he's stabbing him in the back.
JENNINGS: I disagree.
BEGALA: It's a fact.
JENNINGS: The people -- the people --
BEGALA: Kaiser Family Foundation.
JENNINGS: The people who work, the people who are trying, the people who need it, the people who are taking care of kids and other family members, those people are protected. We're protecting the safety net from those who are gaming the system, or shouldn't even be in the country legally at all.
HUNT: All right, well, let's turn to the ladies on this side of the table. As much as I'm enjoying this bromance you have going over here, and I take both of your points.
Kristen Soltis Anderson, you obviously are looking at the numbers here. I mean, how do you see the argument that Paul is making versus what Scott is saying? Is this something that voters are going to punish Republicans for doing?
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So that was a very robust and interesting debate about Medicaid. And here's the deal, this bill is a Medicaid bill. It's a tax bill. It's an EV bill. It's an everything bill.
And the thing is that if I go to voters today and I ask 1,000 voters, what do you think about this bill? Half of them are going to have no idea what's in it. And the other 500 people in my sample are going to give me 500 different answers about what this bill is, which could work out really well for Republicans or really bad for Republicans.
The best thing they have going for them is that for the most part, Democrats have also not really centered in on any one particular message about why it's bad. Republicans, for better or worse, have focused in on the message of this is preventing a tax increase. We're trying to make the economy hum.
Democrats could get in on this Medicaid message, and if people actually --
SABRINA RODRIGUEZ, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: They have.
ANDERSON: -- do feel what Paul is saying, if they actually feel it, then that will overcome any messaging. But that's an if.
HUNT: Sabrina, I mean, big picture here. It seems to me that what's driving Republicans in this instance is a very intense fear of not handing Donald Trump the win that he needs, right? And that voters may also see it as Trump versus not Trump. What's your take?
RODRIGUIEZ: Absolutely. I mean, I think the concern here is that Trump then can come out and say, well, I promised you all these things. And when I tried to get it passed in Congress, they blocked me.
Now, kind of looking at the numbers we have so far, I mean, the immediate perception people have of the bill, we see poll after poll, I was looking at the Fox News national poll that came out last week -- you know, people are opposed to this bill right now. Of course, that means there's going to be a huge messaging war, as you alluded to. Here is just the back and forth is going to be because there's so many different pieces to this.
If you piece together, you know, people don't want the Medicaid cuts as they perceive them. Right now, that's going to be an area that Republicans have to really fight out and explain. Then, you know, there's the no tax on tips. That was hugely popular on the campaign trail. We can definitely expect the President Trump is going to be talking a lot about that. And Republicans will be touting it.
But I think its going to come down to one part here for Republicans will be if you voted for it and you were talking about how you didn't like the bill, you can definitely expect to be hearing that in attack ads in the months and years to come.
HUNT: So, speaking of attack ads, we can show you some of what is coming from the left on the Medicaid message in terms of what this is going to sound like for -- I mean, you know, it's what?
[16:15:09]
Oh, it's July 1st, so it's the beginning of the second half of 2025. So, it's definitely midterm election season. Let's watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Republicans in Congress are getting ready to cut Medicaid. Senator Collins could be the deciding vote.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Hawley, keep your word.
SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): I'm not going to vote for Medicaid cuts.
SEN. JONI ERNST (R-IA): Well, we all are going to die.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's right. People here are going to die if that bill passes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: I have to say, Scott, him saying I'm not going to vote for Medicaid cuts. And then he voted for this bill, which, like very clearly does cut Medicaid.
JENNINGS: Yeah, but who does it cut Medicaid for? Illegal aliens. People who won't get off grandma's couch despite being able bodied adults.
HUNT: Right, but hang on.
JENNINGS: This is a --
(CROSSTALK)
HUNT: I actually know too much about this because I used to be a healthcare policy reporter on Capitol Hill. Okay, so putting that hat on for a second, the people that are really going to suffer and the reason this is a problem for Lisa Murkowski and Josh Hawley are the rural hospitals with emergency rooms into which people like that may walk.
And if they don't have Medicaid, they're not getting any -- that hospital is not getting any money from that person or from the federal government.
JENNINGS: Well, the Senate included a massive fund for rural hospitals, I think. Was it $50 billion or do they wind up? I forget where they wound up, but it a massive fund to cover just what you're talking about.
So, some care was put into thinking about how do you protect rural hospitals from downside outcomes? So I think that's one of the reasons they're ultimately going to get it over the line is because they actually work to fix little individual pieces that had people upset about it.
HUNT: What do you think, Paul?
BEGALA: It seems to me, if their strategy is to attack now, the people who voted for them. Medicaid recipients elected Donald Trump. Now they're all bums and horrible people.
Okay. The truth is, two thirds of the working age people on Medicaid already work. Now, the other third are looking for because consumer confidence is down and inflation is up and Trump's tariffs are driving them out of work.
So, the fact that they can't find jobs right now because of Mr. Trump's economy, they're going to be punished and lose their health care. I'm just telling you, nobody has ever prospered in American politics by cutting health care. And that's what the Republicans are doing. By the way --
HUNT: Do you think voters are actually going to blame? Are they going to blame Trump for it?
BEGALA: No. No, they're not. That's exactly right. They're in a convertible. The House Republicans and the Senate are in a convertible with Donald Trump going through a car wash, and he ain't going to get wet. They're going to get soaked. They're going to punish.
Look, as a partisan, it'll be great for my party as a citizen. I hate it because they're going to come -- they're going to hunt them down with dogs. I'm not kidding. I -- you heard it here first. Save this tape.
It's going to be a wipeout for your party, Scott, if you guys cut Medicaid for the people who voted for you.
JENNINGS: We're not cutting Medicaid for the people who voted for us. We're cutting Medicaid for the people who vote for Democrats.
(LAUGHTER)
JENNINGS: That's who we're cutting Medicaid for. Look, we're cutting -- the only thing we're cutting here is taxes.
HUNT: Just to be clear, if you are undocumented in America, you cannot vote.
JENNINGS: Why are you fighting so hard to protect welfare benefits for --
BEGALA: For people who don't vote for me because I actually love my country more than my party.
JENNINGS: Why do you -- why would fight so hard to keep illegal aliens on welfare?
BEGALA: Well, first off, by the way, I think people who are sick should see a doctor because they can infect me. Also, my value suggests that I should care for the least, the last and the lost.
HUNT: This is the economic theory known as the public good.
BEGALA: But yeah, right. And so, as you point out, they're going to show up at the emergency room and they're going to cost the taxpayers far more money. But politically, simply, politically, this is like falling off a log.
If you tell voters, you leave Republicans alone in a room with lights off, they're going to take your health care. They go, oh, yeah, because they got 60 years of history on this.
This is a fight. The Republicans have picked, and they're going to lose so badly. I -- as again, as a citizen, I hope this bill fails. I'm quite sure its going to pass, I really do. I mean, these things always do.
But it's going to be a catastrophe for the Republican Party to cut taxes for the rich. We're going to hurt veterans who, by the way, Trump carried veterans. We're going to hurt working class people. Trump carried them.
It's amazing to me that he's punishing and betraying the people elected him.
HUNT: The very last word.
JENNINGS: In 2017, when Donald Trump passed the massive tax cuts, the word the apocalypse was used by Democrats. And what happened? The economy boomed. We had more money flowing into the federal coffers. Everything was fine.
BEGALA: I think 41 House --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: The credibility of Democrats on doom casting, not so good.
HUNT: I will also say that the ratio of our debt nationally to our GDP is higher than it has ever been, and that's mostly because -- some of it is, but a lot of it is these tax cuts.
All right. We have a lot more to talk about. Up next, inside the plan for Democrats. And what exactly they can do, if anything, to try to stand in the way of the president's massive bill in terms of whether it can pass the House.
Congressman Jamie Raskin will be here live.
Plus, what exactly did Donald Trump say today about the former first friend, Elon Musk?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We might have to put doge on Elon, you know? You know, DOGE is? DOGE is the monster that have -- that might have to go back and eat. Elon. Wouldn't that be terrible?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:24:18]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JIM MCGOVERN (D-MA): If this ugly bill passes, it's going to get a lot uglier when people realize what's in it. And not even Donald Trump's new $300 bottle of cologne will cover the stench.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Democrats making it clear that they don't plan to let Republicans forget how they voted after the Senate ultimately passed President Trump's domestic policy agenda with a tie vote that Vice President Vance broke. Joining us now to discuss the bill as it heads back to the House,
Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland. He's the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee.
Congressman, it's always great to have you. Thank you so much for being here.
My question to start for you, and you heard Congressman McGovern there, what -- do you -- are you confident that Democrats can convince Americans that the impacts of this bill are Republicans' fault? That is a messaging challenge.
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Well, look, it's a total party line vote. I accept that they can't even hang on to all the Republicans. So you've got Senator Thom Tillis from North Carolina who's essentially surrendering his political career because he can't go along with throwing hundreds of thousands of people in his state off of their health care plan. I mean, you've got Lisa Murkowski, who basically said, the only way ill vote for it is if you cut Alaska out and they deal her a special exemption from the effects of the bill.
So, it is a horrific bill that is targeted at taking health care away from 16 or 17 million Americans, 14 million in Medicaid and millions more in the Affordable Care Act, and in Medicare in different ways. And millions of people will be thrown off of the SNAP program and nutrition.
So, there's nothing to recommend this bill. I can't understand why anybody would vote for it. Elon Musk is out there campaigning against it everywhere, saying it's going to cost us millions of jobs and its adding $3.3 trillion to the debt.
So, what is it to recommend it other than a bunch of tax breaks for the richest people in the country?
HUNT: So, speaking of Elon Musk, this is a little bit of what he put out there today. He says every member of congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history, should hang their head in shame. They'll lose their primary next year. If it's the last thing I do on this earth.
And I also want to show you some sound that's just in to CNN. This is Congressman Ralph Norman, a longtime conservative, talking about this same issue in pretty stark terms. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. RALPH NORMAN (R-SC): The founders and the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence would be astounded that we're sitting here talking about something that we hadn't read fully. We hadn't got a copy of it. Now, Mr. McGovern, I do agree with you on that. The fact that we should have it in hand.
I think the founders and the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence would be astounded. They were adding debt to our children who -- and grandchildren who are defenseless. Debt is a -- is a curse.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: He says it's a curse. Now, Democrats historically have been more comfortable with deficit spending from a policy perspective.
Do you think this is going to add too much to the debt?
RASKIN: Well, it's astonishing, and I don't know that any of us would ever have voted on anything remotely like this before lifting the debt ceiling so that we can add $3.5 trillion, at least to the national debt. And this is by the party that's been talking so much about the debt.
I mean, none of them would ever be able to utter the word debt or deficit in public again if they vote for this legislation. So there's obviously a lot we need to do to turn things around. This just digs us much deeper into a ditch. And why? So we can throw millions of people off their health care. People who are suffering from chronic diseases, whether it's cystic fibrosis or multiple sclerosis or you name it, we can throw them off of medical care just so we can give big tax breaks to people who've gotten nothing but big tax breaks ever since the Trump administration came to town.
I mean, I think this is really a moment of truth for the Republican Party, which is why you've got Elon Musk talking about creating a new political party to replace them.
HUNT: Congressman, do you think there's anything good in this massive bill?
RASKIN: Well, I wouldn't know because they haven't given it to us. As Congressman Norman for once points out, the only way the Republicans get their bills passed is not -- is by never allowing people to read them until they get to the floor. And then you've got 1,000 pages to try to go all the way through it.
So, I mean, I would hope there's something in there that I could support. I mean, I certainly support the things that have been taken out. They were trying to strip from federal courts the power to implement their injunctions against the government. Luckily, that was taken out by the Senate parliamentarian. They also took out an outrageous provision which even angered Marjorie Taylor Greene, which purported to preempt every state and local government in the country from legislating on artificial intelligence for the next 10 years.
So, every special interest cozy with the GOP was pasting their graffiti on that legislation. Some of it came out, but the heart of it is still there, which is this direct attack on people's ability to get Medicaid and the health coverage they need, as well as nutrition for poor people in the country.
[16:30:04]
HUNT: Take all of those at points. I'm curious what you think about removing taxes on tips. Do you think that's a good idea? RASKIN: Kasie, forgive me. I think the stormy weather here in the
Washington area is interfering. I missed what you said.
HUNT: Yes, we are having some remarkable thunderstorms that entirely may be interfering with our satellites. I was asking you about no taxes on tips, which is part of this bill for working people who work on a tipped wage. Do you support that?
RASKIN: You know, I haven't looked seriously at it because I haven't thought they were serious about it. You know, tips are income, and I would prefer just to have a much more progressive income tax. So, people who are making a lot of money are paying more, much more like happened under very conservative presidents like Nixon or Eisenhower, then to give people the kind of symbolic consolation prize of saying, we're not going to tax tips.
I mean, tips are income. I suppose it's difficult to record them and to keep track of them. So, I'm not necessarily opposed to it, but I think that's a major distraction from what's really going on, which is that the GOP has destroyed the idea of progressive income taxation in America, which is, the more money you make, the more you should pay, because you get to draw more resources from society.
HUNT: All right. Congressman Jamie Raskin, very grateful to have you here. Stay dry, sir, as you're going about things this afternoon. It's tough out there.
RASKIN: Thank you, Kasie.
HUNT: All right. See you soon.
All right. First, we're going to have breaking news in New York. A new note from the jury in the trial of Sean "Diddy" Combs. We're going to do a live report from federal court with the details, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:36:14]
HUNT: All right. Welcome back. We have some breaking news in the Sean "Diddy" Combs sex trafficking and racketeering trial. The jury has just sent another note to the court. Earlier today, jurors requested transcripts from some of the trials key testimonies.
CNN chief legal analyst anchor Laura Coates is live outside the federal courthouse in New York City.
Laura, I think we're learning about this in real time together. Do we know anything yet about this latest note from the jury?
LAURA COATES, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Kasie, we have a verdict. We have a verdict from the jury in the Sean "Diddy" Combs trial. We're told they sent a note just a few moments ago that the jury has reached a verdict on counts two, three, four and five. They are unable to reach a verdict on count one, as we have jurors with unpersuadable opinions on both sides. Now, to break that down, count one is RICO, the most complex charge
here that could come with up to life in prison. The remaining charges include two counts of sex trafficking, one for each victim, Cassie Ventura, and a pseudonym named Jane, and the last two in terms of transformation into the form of prostitution. So, we now know that on the RICO charge, it appears that the jury presently is hung.
We do not yet know what the verdict is in the remaining counts, but suffice to say, over the last seven weeks the prosecution has been trying to persuade a jury of now 12 people with the alternates out that Sean "Diddy" Combs should serve the rest of his life in prison based on five felony counts.
Now, the jurors are not to consider in any way, shape or form the potential sentence. But this is huge. We are now the second day of deliberations. It has been a little more than, what, 10, 12 hours of deliberation, including notes, lunch breaks and an overnight deliberative process.
And here we have right now all these notes in between. We are waiting for the verdict, but also the judge to make a decision on count one, and whether they should continue to deliberate. Given called what the Allen charge, meaning go back and deliberate until you are most assuredly and precisely and finally hung.
But according to these jurors, count one. The RICO charge appears to be the one where they do not have unanimity among the 12.
HUNT: Yeah, Laura, let me -- and thank you so much. This is huge breaking news here that this verdict is beginning to come in. And of course, I say beginning because as you've outlined, the major charge, charge one, you say they are essentially hung.
Can you explain a little bit more about just for those of us who don't do what you do every single day? I'm familiar with a hung jury, but you seem to be saying that the judge has some options here, and that this may not be the end of the story. Can you just explain that a little more precisely?
COATES: Of course, when you have a federal jury or you have a jury, you want to have a unanimous opinion and decision about guilty or not guilty. And we do not yet know what that is. But jurors can sometimes say we've reached an impasse. We haven't made up our minds. We are essentially stalled on this particular charge.
And the judge may say, have you done all that you can to ensure that you have considered all the elements, that you've weighed, all the considerations that everyone has reached their final conclusion at that point, which is called an Allen charge? The jury might say, you know what, Your Honor, we haven't actually thought of that. We can give it one more try, or they might very well say, Your Honor, we're coming to you about the rest of them, because this is the one that we are hopelessly deadlocked on. No additional time is necessary or will yield any alternate conclusion of unanimity or decision.
[16:40:06] So now the judge has to deal with that. If that's the case, if this jury says that we are officially hung on one charge and we have a verdict on the rest, well, the prosecution, who has the burden of proof and will always have a burden of proof in a trial, as they should, will have a discussion among themselves. Do they insist that they go back again and deliberate, or did they learn the verdict on the rest of the remaining charges?
Right now, we do not know but we're told from Kara Scannell, who has been inside of this courtroom, that the tension is thick, that the lawyers were surrounding Sean "Diddy" Combs, that he had his hands clasped in his lap. Remember, his family has been here, his mother here today, just earlier today, Kara even overheard Sean "Diddy" Combs saying to his mother, "Just relax, it's going to be all right."
Well, now we're waiting to see what that verdict will be and whether the judge will have the jurors go back and try to deliberate further on that charge.
I want to bring in -- if you see Elizabeth Wagmeister who's here, and we have, of course, been covering this trial. And this is stunning to think that there is now some semblance of a verdict. I was telling Kasie, we don't know about count one. Thats the most serious one.
ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: It is the most serious one. And I have an update for you from our colleagues inside the courtroom right now, Laura.
COATES: Yeah.
WAGMEISTER: So, Kasie, I want to update you live right now. Both sides want the judge to push the jury to continue deliberating. Combs' defense attorney, Marc Agnifilo, said that the defense would like the judge to bring out the jury, to instruct them to continue deliberating rather than to send them a note. Both sides agree that they would like this instruction. They want the jury to continue deliberating.
So, as Laura said, this is up to the judge's discretion. Does he say continue and reach a verdict on count one or okay, we can be hung on this, but both sides have the same agreement that they want them to continue.
COATES: Yeah.
HUNT: yeah. No. Really interesting. So, Laura, and, Elizabeth, please weigh in here as well.
But, Laura, can you kind of run down if we have verdicts in the other counts? How do you compare the potential implications of a sentence in those counts compared to count one? Like how much more serious or significant is count one compared to the other charges?
COATES: Great question. Count one is by far the most serious. RICO carries up to life in prison, with sometimes mandatory minimums. It's a very serious charge. Now the verdict form required this jury to find either guilty or not
guilty on that charge. And if they found that they had to go down the line for so-called predicate crimes, that's a fancy way of saying, well, did the government prove or not prove bribery, kidnaping, arson? The idea of this went down the line of other things, including drug distribution and even prostitution. Then there was a second part that talked about did you conclude that there was sex trafficking proven with respect to Cassie or Jane?
Now, why that's important here is because for each of those different types of crimes, the jury was asked whether the government had proven or not proven their case. Now, you see some overlaps here, right? Because you've got a RICO charge. Youve got two sex trafficking charges and two prostitution related charges.
And so, if the jurors have made a decision with respect to any of those predicate crimes that were already listed, then they might very well have known what they want to do in the other charges as well. But make no mistake about it, the most complex case, Elizabeth, has been the RICO charge. It required them to prove that there was an enterprise of people around him that engaged in these type of crimes, within a ten-year period, and established a pattern.
HUNT: Well, and, Elizabeth, you obviously updated us on that reporting that both Sean "Diddy" Combs defense team as well as prosecutors want the judge to tell the jury, go back, try again, figure this out. Do you have an understanding about why it is that the Combs side, in particular, would really want that to happen?
WAGMEISTER: You know, we don't know. But I would imagine that they could be thinking and I would want to hear Laura's thoughts here as a former prosecutor, a school of thought is typically that the quicker that a verdict is reached, that the better it could be for the defense. So perhaps that they think that things are going their way. They want them to keep going.
But I actually want to go back to the question that you asked Laura before this, about which crime or which charge is the most serious. And as Laura said, that it is absolutely that first charge of racketeering conspiracy because it holds a maximum sentence of life in prison.
But these other charges are still incredibly serious. Counts two and counts three, which are sex trafficking of Cassie Ventura and sex trafficking of the woman who testified under the pseudonym Jane. Those are two separate counts. The judge instructed the jury to deliberate separately on them.
Each of those carries a minimum, a minimum sentence of 15 years.
[16:45:03]
So, these are all incredibly serious charges here. The final two counts four and five, transportation to engage in prostitution each carry a maximum of ten years. COATES: And the idea of the defense wanting to possibly have this is
about finality. You know, listen, they know that there is double jeopardy that could attach the second essentially, this trial began, but they also want to -- meaning he could not be tried twice for the same matter. And yet they still want finality. They want unanimity and they want finality. They do not want to figure out whether the prosecution, if it's a hung jury, wants to go back and try to retry this case.
Can you imagine 34 witnesses, seven weeks, overwhelmingly focused on the charge of RICO. If it's a hung jury, that is the option of the prosecution to go back and try the case again without a double jury being implicated. Double jeopardy being implicated. Excuse me.
HUNT: All right. Let's reset for a second. We're also joined now by Elie Honig, our legal analyst here. And of course, Laura and Elizabeth are going to stick with us through.
Now, our continuing breaking coverage because the jury in the Sean "Diddy" Combs trial has reached a verdict on some counts. The jury just sending a note saying that they reached a verdict on counts two, three, four and five, but that they are unable to reach a verdict on count one, racketeering conspiracy. We do know that both sides want the judge to push the jury to continue deliberating.
Marc Agnifilo, the defense counsel, said that they want the judge to bring out the jury and to instruct them on deliberating, and both parties are going to work on the wording of that instruction. And just to remind you, there are five counts here against Sean "Diddy" Combs, one on that racketeering charge, RICO. Two, each of sex trafficking and two of transportation to engage in prostitution as our Laura Coates just noticed -- just noted. The most serious of these is the one that the jury still has not reached a unanimous decision on. That is the racketeering charge that carries potentially up to life in prison.
So, Elie Honig, can you help us understand the likelihood in a situation like this where a jury initially says that they can't agree, they can't come to a verdict, how often they go back and ultimately do figure it out.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So, Kasie, we are at a crucial juncture right here. I've been in this exact situation where a jury sends a note saying, we have a verdict as to some counts but not others. And right now, the judge and the parties have two options.
One is they can send the jury back and say, do not deliver the verdict that you have on counts two, three, four and five. Go back. Keep deliberating on count one and tell me if and when you do reach a verdict on count one. So, if that happens, we may not learn what the verdict is today.
Option two, however, if the judge does so, decides and the parties want, the judge can say, okay, you're going to come out jury now and you're going to tell us, you're going to announce your verdicts on counts two, three, four and five. Guilty and not guilty. You cannot take those back once you announce them in court. That's it. And then you can go back and continue deliberating only on count one.
So those are the options --
(CROSSTALK)
HUNT: Elie, hold on one second. Let me just --
HONIG: -- right now.
HUNT: Let me just pause you for one second. That's fascinating and very helpful. Actually clears up some questions that that I had. I'm going to come back to you in just one second.
But Laura Coates does have some breaking news for us.
Laura, what have you learned?
COATES: Yeah, look behind us right now. Elizabeth and I are standing this familiar black van is containing the family of Sean "Diddy" Combs, who has left the courthouse for the day but has now returned. Hearing now that there is, in fact, a verdict on several of these counts.
Remember, his 19-year-old daughters have been there. Three of his sons. He has a younger daughter as well, who is, I believe, an infant still.
They have been in this courtroom day in and day out. You have a crowd of people who are beginning to gather. Remember, this has been quite in some ways, the circus of people who have come to watch, to stream, to report. But all of this focus on Elizabeth.
The fact that they're here right now. Youve been talking with people who know the family quite well throughout the entire trial, and here we are. They must be going through all the range of emotions, as would, of course, be the named victims and the pseudonym victims here.
WAGMEISTER: Absolutely. And as Laura said, the family, the six adult kids have been here for closings. They were here for openings, and they have been here really for the past week. As Laura said, they left the courthouse.
I did see his mom here. She was in here all day at the lunch break. She was in the cafeteria. She has been sticking around. She has not left one moment.
But now the kids are back. So, they know that for them. Remember, no matter how famous Sean Combs is, no matter how egregious the allegations are against him, which of course he denies, he has pleaded not guilty to all of these charges, this is still their father.
[16:50:05]
So you can imagine that right now for these kids, they are wondering, this is literally their father's life that is in the hands of 12 strangers. HUNT: Yeah. Elie Honig, let me -- let me bring you back in because I
do want to get sort of you to conclude that thought you were you were explaining kind of what could happen next here. The options. The judge could say, okay, come read your verdicts in these other ones, what you were about to kind of explain next what some of the other options might be.
HONIG: Right. So two options just to recap. So again, the jury has told the judge they have a verdict as to counts two through five but not count one. This is a potential split verdict.
Option one, the judge can tell the jury don't tell me. Don't tell us what those verdicts are. Get back in the jury room. When you're done on count one.
When you have a verdict on count one, then you'll have a verdict on all five. Then you come out and you give us all five at once. That's one option.
Theres a different option, though, option two, where the judge says, okay, you can give me your verdicts. Now, today, on counts two, three, four and five, the ones you've reached. Once you announce those verdicts in court, they're final. You can't take them back. And you can then go back and continue deliberating on count one.
So, we should learn, I would guess, within the next few minutes, half hour or so, which of those options are the parties and the judge and the jury are going to go for? Sometimes the judge just tells the jury, I want you to do it one way or the other.
Sometimes the judge asks the jury which of those two options do you want? Do you want to tell me your verdicts on two through five now, or do you want to keep working until you get to a verdict on all five?
HUNT: Really interesting. Laura Coates, how would you anticipate or what -- what may -- what factors may the judge be weighing as the judge makes the decision that Elie just laid out?
COATES: They're going to be weighing to what extent these jurors have hit a true impasse or not, whether these jurors have deliberated fulsomely, comprehensively in a way that has laid out and gone through every single scenario of those elements. Remember the very first day, in fact, within the first hour, Kasie, there was a note from the foreperson of the jury indicating they had concerns about a particular juror not following the instructions.
I suspect that is probably looming very large in the judge's mind. Is this the charge for which there was an issue? We do not know. We're not flies on the wall, although I would love to be in that particular jury deliberation room.
We do know, however, he has to weigh this because, remember, if the prosecution were to somehow fail in their charge of getting a full conviction, they can't appeal. But the defense, if they were to fail in their defense of Sean "Diddy" Combs, the world is their appellate oyster and they have gone throughout the course of trial to preserve their appellate arguments. And so he's weighing who to be deferential to and how much longer to have him deliberate.
HUNT: Yeah, Elizabeth Wagmeister, can I ask you, we've obviously seen in some of these high profile trials lately that how public opinion is breaking on things is, you know, becomes a story. Can you talk a little bit about how there are some people, obviously out there who are been supportive of Sean "Diddy" Combs throughout this?
Of course, Cassie Ventura took the stand and she has had so many supporters and backers. How do you think the public is going to begin to react to this?
WAGMEISTER: Absolutely. This is a case and really a saga that has played out in the public eye. Remember, it's not just this trial pertaining to Combs. Combs has been the subject of dozens. We're talking nearly 70 civil suits against him.
Now, of course, those civil suits have nothing to do with these charges that the jury has now come back with a verdict on four of those charges. But still, I only say that because the public has been weighing in on Combs for a year and a half, really, ever since Cassie Ventura came forward with her lawsuit. That bombshell lawsuit back in November 2023.
And even though this trial has nothing to do with those civil cases, this trial wouldn't be happening. There would have not been an investigation without Cassie filing that civil suit.
So, in the court of public opinion, in the world of memes and the world of TikTok, people certainly have their opinion on Combs. And I have to tell you, it has not been good. But when this trial began, you started to see the tides shift a little bit.
A lot of people saying online, Combs doesn't sound like a good guy. He does not sound like he has done good things, but these charges, do they quite line up? And that's exactly what the defense said.
You remember day one during their opening statements, the defense said, our client has done terrible things. The domestic violence is indefensible. You may not like some of his decisions. You may be freaked out by his sex life, but he is not a sex trafficker. He is not a racketeer.
So, this trial has actually changed the court of public opinion in a way, because people are wondering, does -- do the allegations fit the charges here?
[16:55:08]
And that has been interesting to see, especially because this trial has become such a pop culture phenomenon.
HUNT: Laura, can you talk a little bit? And, Elie, I'm going to bring you in on this kind of same question. But we really did see the defense kind of change their strategy or correct me if, if my understanding of that's wrong. But the defense seemed to change their approach at the very end to how they were kind of closing things out here. How do you think that may have impacted what we may be about to see here? In learning more about what the verdict is?
COATES: Well, both sides were trying to be nimble as the evidence was coming in. The prosecution, of course, you think about how people lay out their cases. It's I'm going to tell you what I'm going to tell you. I'm going to tell you, and I'll tell you what I told you, right?
Well, it doesn't always come in in a linear fashion. And I suspect that when the prosecution was unable to access or actually call at least one of the named victims, their strategy had to change. As is the fact that these are not robots who are testifying. And so, what you would like to come in as perfect information doesn't always happen that way.
Now the defense, meanwhile, have to be reactive. It's never their burden to prove their innocence, always the burden for the prosecution to prove their guilt. But they're both going to be nimble. Now, towards the end of trial, we've all been wondering, would Sean "Diddy" Combs take the stand in his own defense, they opted no, not just him, but they didn't call any witnesses at all.
People wondered whether they were overly confident or were they strategic and cunning. Well, it remains to be seen right now, but either way, remember what happened in the closing arguments, Kasie, after seven weeks of trial, the prosecution says, remember, jury, you only need to know or identify one instance of sex trafficking per particular person to find the person guilty.
That was a bit of a game changer. It was probably always known the prosecution, of course, who believes in their case. But two jurors who heard testimony, they may have thought to themselves, well, had I known that, perhaps I would have been attentive differently.
In any event, right now, we are all waiting on pins and needles. Nothing compared to what a defendant is or a prosecution team who believes wholeheartedly in their case, and a defense team who was wondering, was their strategy appropriate? Should Diddy have taken the stand? What will this mean to the jurors?
HUNT: Indeed, and I know you and Elizabeth are both going to be continuing to report here as we stay in live, breaking coverage while we wait to learn what the jury has decided.
And to that point, Elie Honig, I mean, we know that the racketeering charge, the RICO charge, the most significant, the one that carries the life in prison potential sentence, can you walk us through what the potential sentences are on these other counts? What is Diddy facing?
HONIG: So, first of all, let me say this. If you are the prosecutor right now, you don't know what the verdict is. None of us know what the verdict is, but you are breathing a bit of a sigh of relief because, you know, the jury will not hang on counts two through five, and you're always worried about a hung jury as a prosecutor. Now, that possibility is off the table. And so, there's a bit of relief, I guess, for the prosecution here. Now to your question about the potential sentences, the big ones to
watch are the two sex trafficking counts because those carry a mandatory minimum 15 years in prison and in the federal system, if you get convicted of 15 years on a crime like this, you will do 85 percent of that time.
In some state systems, you can get 15 years, but be out in 4 or 5 years. In the federal system, 15 years means almost 15 years.
So, the two forcible or coercive sex trafficking counts carry a minimum 15 years max of life. It's up to the judge where to go within that range.
And then the two interstate prostitution charges are much lighter charges. Theres no minimum on those. The max is ten years. Those are likely a few year type charges.
So there's a lot of variance here, depending, of course, on what the verdict is. But even if there are convictions, it matters a lot whether there are convictions on the sex trafficking, the forcible sex trafficking counts or the interstate prostitution counts. There's a huge difference between the charges here.
HUNT: Yeah, Elie, and forgive this layman's question, but if he were to be convicted on both of the sex trafficking counts, does that 15- year mandatory minimum, do you add that together? Is that a minimum of 30 years? Is it served concurrently? How does it work?
HONIG: Great question. Those would not be added together. It would not be 30. Theoretically, the judge could do that. There's no way a judge would do that. There's no way an appeals court would do that. They would merge essentially.
And by the way, on your question about racketeering conspiracy, that too could carry a 15-year minimum if the jury finds that forcible sex trafficking was part of it and a life max.
And let me say, it's not surprising, by the way, that there's a potential hang or there's some issue on the RICO conspiracy, because that's the most complicated charge. You have to show there's an ongoing criminal organization or enterprise here, and you have to show that they agreed with Sean Combs to commit two or more underlying crimes. It's the most complicated charge. It's not surprising that's the one that's given the jury the most trouble.
HUNT: Yeah. For sure. All right, Elie, thank you. I'm sure you're going to stick around with us.
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