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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Iranian Official: "No Choice But To Retaliate" If U.S. Strikes; Trump On Striking Iran: "I May Do It, I May Not Do It"; Hegseth: "We Have Plans For Everything" With Iran; Supreme Court Allows TN To Ban Hormone Therapy, Puberty Blockers For Transgender Minors; Fed Holds Interest Rates Steady Amid Tariff Uncertainty; Senate Republicans Propose Deeper Medicaid Cuts. Aired 5-6p ET
Aired June 18, 2025 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOEY JACKSON, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Responsibility with his death and believed the defense's narrative that he was in fact being protected by other police officers who wanted to frame her such that she could take responsibility for something she did not commit.
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Of course, they all wearing pink known to be her favorite color. Pretty remarkable all around.
Joey Jackson, thank you so much for being there for us, sir. I really appreciate your time.
JACKSON: Of course.
HUNT: All right. Thanks to all of you at home for being with us today. Thanks to our panel as well. But don't go anywhere, "The Lead" with Jake Tapper starts right now.
[17:00:37]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN BREAKING news.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to The Lead. I am Jake Tapper. Breaking news in our world lead, President Trump says he's about to meet with his top national security team at the White House. This as the president weighs whether the United States will take military action to try to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons program. This comes as both Israel and Iran traded additional strikes today and as Iran's foreign minister issued a warning to the United States telling CNN's Christiane Amanpour that his country would have, quote, "No choice but to retaliate if the U.S. joins Israeli offensive strikes."
We know that the U.S. military is stepping up its presence near the Middle East with sources telling CNN that a third aircraft carrier strike group is expected to be moving into the eastern Mediterranean Sea close to Israel. The U.S. State Department is now working on evacuation flights and cruise ship departures for Americans in Israel who want to leave. That's according to U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee. There is no decision more important for a commander in chief than whether to take the nation to war. That is now a decision for one man and one man only, President Trump was asked this morning where he stands.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You don't seriously think I'm going to answer that question. You don't know that I'm going to even do it. You don't know. I may do it, I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: There were surely millions, if not tens of millions of Americans who thought President Trump, for all his bellicose words on the campaign trail, was generally one who opposed U.S. foreign military intervention. He won the 2016 GOP presidential nomination in no small part by forcefully condemning the decision to go to war in Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: This came with a pledge to no longer spend so much blood and treasure in misadventures abroad.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We must declare our independence from a failed establishment that has squandered $6 trillion on foreign wars in the Middle East that never end, that we never win, and that have made us far less safe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Now, that pledge is, of course, butting right up against this president's other campaign pledge, that the leaders of Iran must never be able to get a nuclear weapon.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. You cannot let it happen, because bad things will happen if that happens.
Don't let Iran have nuclear weapons. That's my only thing -- I have to tell you today, don't let them have it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: So what is President Trump to do? It is a dilemma tearing at the MAGA base, perhaps not better illustrated than by an exchange between Republican Senator Ted Cruz and podcaster Tucker Carlson. Carlson, a skeptic of war whose critiques sometimes wander into the very same Pat Buchanan language he once derided as bigoted, took on Cruz, who has expressed support for the U.S. getting involved in offensive targeting of Iran.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TUCKER CARLSON, PODCASTER: How many people live in Iran, by the way?
TED CRUZ (R-TX): I don't know the population.
CARLSON: At all?
CRUZ: No, I don't know the population.
CARLSON: You don't know the population of the country you seek topple?
CRUZ: How many people living around?
CARLSON: Ninety-two million.
CRUZ: OK. Yes.
CARLSON: How could you not know that?
CRUZ: I don't sit around memorizing population tables.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Later on in the exchange, Senator Cruz went on to confront Carlson, and he accused Carlson of having an obsession with Israel.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CRUZ: You're not talking about Chinese, you're not talking about Japanese, you're not talking about the Brits, you're not talking about the French, the question, what about the Jews? What about the Jews?
CARLSON: Senator, oh, I'm an anti-Semite now. Senator, you just --
CRUZ: You're asking the questions, Tucker.
CARLSON: -- you just told me you're --
CRUZ: You're asking, why are the Jews controlling our foreign policy?
CARLSON: Senator, I --
CRUZ: That's what you just asked.
CARLSON: -- hardly saying that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: President Trump this afternoon was asked by CNN's Kaitlan Collins about the schism in the MAGA movement. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Tucker's a nice guy. He called and apologized the other day because he thought he said things that were a little bit too strong, and I appreciated that. And Ted Cruz is a nice guy. If they think that it's OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, then they should oppose me. But nobody thinks it's OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[17:05:14]
TAPPER: Taking a step back, part of Trump's critique of the war in Iraq, though the critique, we should note, came rather late was that of the intelligence used to justify the war or the twisting of the intelligence. Or as Trump put it starkly, Bush administration lies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They lied.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
TRUMP: They said there were weapons of mass destruction, there were none and they knew there were none.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: This is interesting because Trump's director of National Intelligence, a soldier and former Democratic congresswoman named Tulsi Gabbard, whose opposition to so called forever wars is no small part of how she landed in the MAGA coalition. Director of National Intelligence Gabbard said this, testifying before Congress in March.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TULSI GABBARD, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: That is in fact the current assessment of the IC, the U.S. Intelligence Community. But when asked about Gabbard's testimony yesterday, President Trump literally said he didn't care what she had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Tulsi Gabbard testified in March that the Intelligence Community said Iran wasn't building a nuclear weapon.
TRUMP: I don't care what she said. I think they were very close to having one. (END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: I don't care what she said. I think they're very close to having one. An interesting and rather harsh dismissal of what his own director of National Intelligence says about the intelligence. The Israeli government has, of course, been warning that Iran has been close to getting a nuclear weapon for more than a decade now. Here's Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2015.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Iran could soon be armed with intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear bombs. Iran's breakout time would be very short, about a year by U.S. assessment, even shorter by Israel's.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Now, that does not mean that Netanyahu is wrong this time, just that viewers can be forgiven for any skepticism about the urgency of this moment. Nor does that mean that DNI Gabbard is wrong, although it has been reported that President Trump was miffed and confused by this video that Gabbard posted on her personal Twitter page eight days ago, warning of nefarious forces trying to pressure him into war.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GABBARD: Political elite and warmongers are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers. Perhaps it's because they are confident that they will have access to nuclear shelters for themselves and for their families.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: This is of a piece there has been an unfortunate lack of seriousness about so much of this unworthy of the decision at hand, whether it's President Trump's Truth Social post glibly telling the 10 million people of Tehran to flee their city or Vice President J.D. Vance getting into Twitter spats about who leaked what. This is a time for gravity and purpose. And we, here at The Lead, we do not pretend to have the answers as to what President Trump should do. We were not elected to do so. We just hope that the same skepticism that President Trump brought to these questions of war and peace as a candidate, the same willingness to challenge conventional thinking in D.C., we hope that is brought to bear.
Now let's go to CNN's Fred Pleitgen, he just arrived in Tehran, the only Western journalist in Iran right now. Fred joins us on the phone.
Fred, what are you witnessing? What is the mood in Iran at this very tense time?
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi Jake. Well, there is actually a lot of air activity that we've been witnessing since we got here on the ground into Tehran. There's a bunch of anti-aircraft gunfire that we've been seeing. The relative lot of thuds that we've been hearing as well. It's unclear whether or not those are Israeli airstrikes or maybe some sort of interceptions or something or possible anti-aircraft missiles being fired out by the Iranians.
However, when we were driving into Tehran, we also saw more of that anti-aircraft fire and what seemed to be either some sort of larger missile launched or possibly a larger anti-aircraft missile being -- and as far as the mood here on the ground is concerned, we are seeing that there's very few people actually here in Tehran. There's a lot of people who appear to have left. There was a good amount of traffic going out of the city. And really all the stores that went past as were coming into the city were all closed.
[17:10:01]
It's a different picture though when you go through the rest of the country. We actually drove through about half of Iran to get here to Tehran, and the border itself was pretty calm. There weren't many people who were trying to leave. And as were driving through, there were so many sort of trucks bringing cargo on the road. There were still so many factories that seemed to be working, at least judging by the smoke coming out of the chimneys there.
So as far as the rest of the country is concerned, it seems as though the mood there is still fairly calm, not one of panic. But here in Tehran, especially after the last couple of nights that a lot of people here have witnessed where of course, there were pretty heavy airstrikes, a lot of people seem to have left this place even as the Iranians say they are going to fight on. And of course, the supreme leaders, they said that they would never surrender, Jake.
TAPPER: All right, Fred Pleitgen, thank you so much. Please stay safe.
CNN's Jeremy Diamond is on the ground for us in Tel Aviv, Israel.
And Jeremy, you just received warnings about Israel and Iran trading strikes again today. What are you hearing from Israeli officials as President Trump makes his decision as to whether or not the U.S. should militarily strike Iran's nuclear program?
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, first, just to explain why we are where we are, we're currently in a stairwell because we just got those air raid sirens of an incoming barrage of Iranian ballistic missiles was just shown video of at least a few intercepts happening in the skies over Tel Aviv. This is the second firing of missiles by Iran today.
Earlier today, just one single ballistic missile was fired by Iran. This seems to certainly be at least multiple missiles. We will see once this barrage is over how significant it actually was whether or not there were any strikes. But it certainly comes, as we have seen in recent days, that Iran's ability to fire large barrages of missiles has been significantly degraded by the Israeli military strikes in Iran, particularly those strikes on those ballistic missile launchers, about 40 percent of which have now been destroyed according to the Israeli military. Now, in terms of the waiting game that is currently happening here in Israel, indeed, the Israeli prime minister today made clear that he is grateful for President Trump's support and backing as -- at a moment when President Trump is indeed considering the possibility of a U.S. strike on that Fordo nuclear facility which is buried deep beneath the mountain, can likely only be destroyed really by using those heavy 30,000 pound U.S. bunker buster bombs. And so Israeli officials are waiting like the rest of the world to see which way President Trump will go.
Speaking from some -- with some officials today, I can tell you that they are feeling quite optimistic, quite confident about the possibility of the United States joining in on those strikes. But of course, we heard from President Trump himself saying that he wants to wait until the last possible minute to make a final decision on that front. Jake.
TAPPER: All right, Jeremy Diamond in Tel Aviv, thank you so much.
Let's go to CNN's Kristen Holmes at the White House for us.
And Kristen, President Trump this afternoon in the Oval Office saying he has not yet made a decision on whether to strike. He says he's meeting today with top officials to discuss it. What more are you learning?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Jake. And they're having that meeting right now in the Situation Room. We've seen some of his top aides and advisers coming in and out of the White House. We saw the joint -- chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Razin Caine, Dan Razin Caine, as well as the vice president. So we'll if he has any more clarity coming out of that.
But he was asked today about this kind of transition we've seen him make from this acting for diplomacy, asking for diplomacy to more of an aggressive stance, which we saw earlier today. He said that it's because of the death and destruction. But we also know behind the scenes he's been asking a lot of questions about the United States getting involved. What would it look like? What would a timeline look like?
Is there any way to get involved in a very short amount of time? Because the one thing Donald Trump cares about is not having a long drawn out war that the United States is involved with in the Middle East. Now one other thing that he was asked about were some of his supporters who say they don't want to get him to go, they don't want the United States to go into this war, here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Well, I don't want to get involved either. But I've been saying for 20 years, maybe longer, that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. I've been saying it for a long time. And I think they were a few weeks away from having one and they had to sign a document. I think they wish they signed it now. It was a fair deal. And now it's a harder thing to sign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: And Trump even today has vacillated back and forth between talking about diplomacy and talking about a more aggressive act. He at one point said the door wasn't closed to having diplomatic talks with Iran and suggesting at one point that they might even want to come to the White House, which Iranian officials have pushed back on. But then at the same time, earlier when he was asked about this response from Iran's supreme leader, saying that they weren't going to back down, he said, good luck. So clearly as he's making this decision, he's actually publicly giving the indication of going back and forth between diplomacy and a more aggressive stance.
[17:15:03]
TAPPER: All right, Kristen Holmes at the White House, thanks.
Here to discuss retired U.S. Army General David Petraeus.
General, the Iranian deputy foreign minister spoke to CNN's Christiane Amanpour earlier today. Take a listen as to what he said about how Iran will respond if the U.S. does join Israel in attacking Iran.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAJID TAKHT RAVANCHI, IRAN DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER: If the Americans decide to get involved militarily, we have no choice but to retaliate wherever we find the targets necessary to be acted upon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: What level of retaliation is Iran capable of and what do you think they might actually attempt should the U.S. get involved?
GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Well, I think they're an increasingly desperate position. Certainly there are actions they can take, everything from just going after individual American citizens around the world, bringing up sleeper cells or something like that have been in place, or even trying to attack U.S. bases in the region, and not just those in the Gulf states, but perhaps in Iraq, Syria, even that base in Jordan that was hit some time back. But again, I think their options are getting fewer and fewer. They might still be able to disrupt the flow of gas and oil and distillates from the Gulf, that could have a significant. But the more air power and maritime power that we get in there, once this second aircraft carrier task force is in there, they're going to be much more challenged even to take that kind of activity.
In the meantime, the supreme leader is going to be sitting in a bunker watching his country be destroyed around him, starting, of course, with the leaders that have already been taken out and even the successor in one case already, the scientists, and then the critical infrastructure not just of the security forces but of their internal energy. We saw that already with a refinery, a storage location in the Pars gas field, and then even other regime infrastructure such as the T.V. tower and station that was taken out yesterday.
TAPPER: President Trump has been changing his messaging on Iran. He went from promoting diplomacy on Sunday. On Monday, he told the 10 million people in Tehran to evacuate. Now he's weighing whether to strike, saying, quote, "I may do it, I may not do it," unquote. How do you think President Trump's public messaging is impacting Iran and their own calculations on what to do?
PETRAEUS: I have -- I have to think that they're very, very worried. They're trying to prevent us, to threaten us, to prevent us from taking out that deeply buried site within the mountain at Fordo, which, as you're earlier reported, noted, only we have the munition. By the way, that's not just a bunker buster, that's a Mountain Buster, 30,000, massive ordinance penetrator quite precise and we only have the aircraft and the crews trained to actually carry out that mission.
And again, I think they have to be more and more aware of the increasingly desperate situation they're in. Israel now has arguably air supremacy. They could even fly during the day as long as they don't descend to an altitude where the heavy machine guns, about the only real air defense that's left, could take them out. They're just picking off targets one by one. And the missile math is now running very much against them.
And that's essentially how many more interceptors does Israel have relative to the number of launchers and missiles that Iran has left. And as more U.S. assets get in to help out destroyers and so forth to complement those in the eastern Med, that will shift even more decisively to Israel's favor.
TAPPER: So, General, today on Capitol Hill, the Senate Armed Services Committee had a hearing and senators questioned Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth about plans for Iran and specifically for what would happen the day after taking out the -- with the -- the mountain buster, taking out the nuclear enrichment program. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ELISSA SLOTKIN (D-MI): Have you commissioned any day after planning so any force protection, any use of ground troops in Iran, any cost assessments have you authorized day after planning?
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: As I've said, we have plans for everything, Senator.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: What do you -- what do you think some of those plans might be specifically?
PETRAEUS: Well, there's going to be a range of plans here, although I tend to think that while there might be some four boots on the ground, that that would not be an option that the president would approve. He is very clear on that. I also don't think that any kind of conventional military presence from Israel would feature large in that. The real question going forward is if the supreme leader rejects, denies as defiantly as he did today the president's offer. And by the way, the president now this should be an ultimatum.
You are going to agree, no negotiations, to give up all of your nuclear infrastructure and allow the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, to have free rein in inspecting and overseeing the dismantlement of your nuclear infrastructure. If you don't do that, then that's your last chance. And that would be where he would take the decision, I think, to augment the Israeli effort by taking out the Fordo nuclear enrichment facility and also a storage site for the highly enriched uranium.
[17:20:19]
And by the way, coming back to your start, the DNI was right. They are not making a nuclear weapon. But the president was also right, they have dramatically reduced the amount of time that would be required to make a nuclear weapon by going all the way to highly enriched uranium, 60 percent. And it's only a turn of the enrichment process to go to weapons grade, which is 90 percent. So in a sense, I think they were a little bit perhaps talking past or perhaps we're making more of that issue than really should be the case.
TAPPER: General David Petraeus, thanks so much. Appreciate it as always.
We're staying on top of the breaking news. President Trump set to meet with his top national security team over whether the U.S. should join Israel in targeting Iran's nuclear facilities in Iran.
Coming up next, what if Iran had nuclear weapons? How much damage would such weapons theoretically cause in 2025? What is this all about, all this fear? Plus, Dr. Oz is coming to The Lead. He's the administrator of Medicare and Medicaid.
I'll ask him about proposed cuts to and a predicted lack of funding for those crucial safety net services.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:25:18]
TAPPER: And we're back with the breaking news in our world lead. The world is watching the skies over Tel Aviv as Israel warns of a fresh wave of incoming missiles from Iran. Let's go to Tel Aviv now where we find CNN's Anderson Cooper and Oren Liebermann in a shelter. Anderson?
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR, "ANDERSON COOPER 360": Yes, we got the warning about probably 10 minutes or so ago, maybe 14 minutes or so ago. This is the second time today. What do we know about what is actually incoming?
OREN LIEBERMANN, JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF: So we know it's ballistic missiles. We got the heads up from the Israeli military a short time ago. It is several ballistic missiles. The last time we came down here, which was just a few hours ago, it was a single missile. So smaller barrages than we've seen, certainly much smaller than we Ford saw 48, 72 hours ago, but they are still incoming. And what at first was sort of a chaotic rush to get down to these bomb shelters is now part of the process. And you saw everyone head on down just as we did, and a few minutes later, clearing out.
COOPER: There's literally people here in their bathrobes just -- and slippers just kind of wandered out of the shower and just waiting to go back up and finish. It should be done pretty soon. We expect an all clear soon.
LIEBERMANN: Exactly. And this has been the pattern. You get a heads up 15 minutes out or so that missiles are incoming. Everyone sort of starts to get ready now that this is part of a pattern, part of a -- part of frankly every day here and then you'll get the heads up a minute or two out, everyone rushes on down. And then as the barrages have gotten smaller, it's just a few minutes later that everyone's checking their phones, see what was intercepted and heads back on up. And we're pretty much at that point.
We expect the announcement here shortly.
COOPER: Oren, thanks very much. Jake, back to you.
TAPPER: All right, Anderson Cooper, Oren Liebermann, thanks to both you. Stay safe.
We're continuing with our world lead and the Israel, Iran conflict and a what if question probably lurking in the back of anyone's mind, what if Iran actually gets a nuclear weapon and what if it were to use it or if anybody were to use it in this very high stakes confrontation? We asked CNN's Tom Foreman to go looking for answers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Amid showers of missiles and thundering exchanges, the claims are growing louder, Israel and its allies insist the already sweeping attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities need to be decisive.
PRES. ISAAC HERZOG, ISRAEL: If you want this war to deescalate, get the nukes out of Tehran's hands.
TRUMP: It's very simple, not complicated. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
FOREMAN (voice-over): For decades, Iranian leaders have been building a nuclear program which they say is for research and to generate electricity. Indeed, just days ago, Iranian leadership reiterated they have no intention of building a nuke. But intelligence and military analysts say Iran has long been stockpiling refined uranium, developing more powerful missiles, and mining the technical knowledge of allies, including Russia, with hopes of someday becoming the world's tenth nuclear armed nation.
COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: The Iranians are definitely much closer than they were five or 10 years ago. And it is certainly true that they've gotten a lot closer to deploying a weapon of this type than they were even a year or two ago.
FOREMAN (voice-over): How big would an Iranian nuke be? Some analysts suspect it would pack about two thirds of the explosive power of some bombs developed by the U.S. in the 1940s and 50s. U.S. intelligence predicts a viable weapon could still be years away. But the Israelis argue it might come much quicker.
NETANYAHU: We decided to act because we had to. We saw enough uranium, enriched uranium for nine bombs, and all they had to do was weaponize them.
FOREMAN (voice-over): Netanyahu did not offer specific evidence. The Israelis have made such claims before right here. And the complete equation is more complicated. Any Iranian nuke would have to be miniaturized enough to be carried by a missile, plane or other delivery mechanism. It would need to evade Israel's robust detection and defense systems.
And it would have to work. But if just one made it through --
LEIGHTON: It could obliterate a large portion of a major city. It could make a port unusable.
FOREMAN (voice-over): -- it could cripple communications, shut down electricity, and poison the land with radioactive fallout. And so far, plenty of analysts note a lot of Iran's nuclear infrastructure is deep in the ground where Israeli bombs can't reach it.
REP. JIM HIMES (D-CT), RANKING MEMBER, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Right now. Iran, if they were left alone, could reconstitute their program very quickly.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOREMAN (on camera): But again, Iran insists that it has no immediate plans to develop any sort of weapon, even as Israel insists it cannot take their word for it. And it cannot afford to be wrong about its longtime foes nuclear aspirations. Can't afford to be wrong even once. So weeks, months, years till they could have a bomb? We don't really know. But we do know it's a complicated equation and the stakes are enormously high.
[17:30:07]
TAPPER: All right, Tom Foreman, thanks so much.
As we watch events in the Middle East, there is some other major news. Back here in the United States, the Supreme Court upheld a ban in a state on hormone therapy and puberty blockers for transgender minors. What this could mean for other states, ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TAPPER: In our National Lead today, the United States Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision by the conservative majority, upheld the state of Tennessee's ban on hormone therapy and puberty blockers for transgender minors in that state. Tennessee is one of 27 states in the last four years that restricted or banned such care for transgender youth.
CNN chief legal affairs correspondent, Paula Reid, and CNN senior legal analyst, Elie Honig, joining us now to break down the court's ruling. And -- and Paula, was this at all a surprise from this court?
[17:35:06]
PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: No, this was really foreshadowed during the oral arguments back in December. We knew once this arrived at the Supreme Court, the deciding votes here would come from Justice Kavanaugh and Chief Justice Roberts. They both appeared skeptical during those arguments of overriding the will of state lawmakers.
But there's also this part of this case that's about parental rights. So we weren't exactly sure which way this was going to go. But today we saw Kavanaugh joining the conservative majority. The opinion was written by the Chief Justice and he wrote, quote, this case carries with it the weight of fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efficacy and propriety of medical treatments in an evolving field.
Now, also foreshadowed during oral arguments was the fact that the liberal justices were definitely going to oppose the Tennessee law and the three liberal justices in their dissent. Sonia Sotomayor wrote, quote, the majority abandons transgender children and their families to political whims.
TAPPER: Elie, how much of an impact will this have on other states, do you think?
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Jake, Tennessee is one of 27 states that has similar laws banning this type of medical care for transgender youth. So that means today's ruling means that all of those state level laws are going to be found valid and constitutional if they're challenged.
Now, the key finding today from the majority is that this type of law does not impermissibly discriminate on the basis of sex. And so what that could mean, if we look out to the next level, is that other laws impacting transgender youth involving sports or access to bathrooms, those two are more likely now, I think, to withstand legal challenges.
TAPPER: So I'm thinking about the Obergefell decision. This is for you, Elie. The legalizing same-sex marriage that came during the Obama years, 2015, I believe. And it's impossible to think that the evolving politics on that issue didn't play a role. I know we all like to believe the U.S. Supreme Court lives in its own little bubble, doesn't read the paper.
But this case landed at the court the week after President Trump was reelected. Are there politics in this decision as well?
HONIG: Of course, there's always politics. I don't buy this notion that the Supreme Court operates in a vacuum. In fact, to your point, Jake, there's evolving politics here. Just in 2020, the Supreme Court came down with a decision that protected gay and transgender people against workplace discrimination. So this seems to be a step in the opposite direction.
And it's also worth noting, we're back to the old 6-3 split here. Over the last few weeks, we'd actually seen a surprising number of opinions from the Supreme Court where there was unanimity or where the liberals joined decisions in favor of Trump or vice versa. But today, we're back to the 6-3, and I do think politics absolutely play into all of this.
TAPPER: All right, Paula Reid, Elie Honig, thanks to both of you.
Coming up, the administrator -- administrator of Medicare and Medicaid, Dr. Mehmet Oz, will join The Lead. I'm going to ask him about proposed cuts to Medicaid in the Senate mega bill. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:42:12]
TAPPER: Our Money Lead now, the Federal Reserve will hold interest rates steady despite increasing pressure from the White House to cut them. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell cites the global trade market uncertainty stemming from President Trump's sweeping tariffs as a factor in today's decision, and CNN's Matt Egan joins us now.
Matt, Chairman Powell talked about some of the things we're seeing impacted by inflation right now. What did he have to say?
MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, well, look, Jake, the Fed is facing intensifying pressure from the White House, with President Trump even calling Fed Chair Jerome Powell today a stupid person, despite the fact that, of course, that it was Trump himself who hired Powell back in 2017. And look, the Fed is not budging despite all of this pressure, right? They're keeping interest rates steady.
And I think what's important is the Fed is speaking with one voice here, right? They voted unanimously to keep interest rates unchanged. And that is, of course, because there's so much uncertainty right now over the trade war. And it's true, there's been some better-than- expected inflation readings, but Fed Chair Jerome Powell, he made clear he is bracing for inflation to get worse before it gets better.
And he did note that, yes, some things are getting more expensive, likely because of tariffs. He called out a few items, including personal computers, audiovisual equipment, and other electronics. And again and again, Powell, he stressed that basically every forecaster he talks to is expecting inflation will get worse.
Now, the Fed did put out some new economic projections for 2025. All of them moved in the wrong direction relative to the last time they put out projections in May. The Fed downgraded its GDP forecast. They do expect slightly higher unemployment and significantly higher inflation. Though what I think is important is the Fed does not see inflation being persistently high.
They do expect it to come down in 2026. And I think that's why Fed officials are still penciling in two interest rate cuts later this year. But look, in addition to trying to navigate through the fog of the trade war, they're also bracing for potential trouble caused by an actual war in the Middle East, right?
We've already seen oil prices, gasoline prices go higher because of this Israel-Iran conflict. I asked Jerome Powell what he thinks about this conflict and how it could impact the economy. Take a listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEROME POWELL, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN: What's tended to happen is when there's turmoil in the Middle East, you may see a spike in energy prices, but tends to come down. Those things don't generally tend to have lasting effects on inflation. Although, of course, in the 1970s, they famously did because you had a series of very, very large shocks. But we haven't seen anything like that -- that -- like that now. The U.S. economy is far less dependent on foreign oil.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[17:44:57]
EGAN: Of course, you don't need to go back to the 1970s. It was just three years ago when Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent oil prices, gasoline prices skyrocketing, lifted inflation here in the U.S. So I think bottom line here, Jake, the Fed is still open to possibly cutting interest rates later this year, but it all depends on inflation and that's going to be dictated by the trade war and the situation in the Middle East.
TAPPER: Fascinating stuff. Matt Egan, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
Cuts to Medicaid are a huge sticking point in President Trump's so- called one big beautiful bill. There are fears that millions of Americans could lose coverage, especially in red states. Dr. Oz, the administrator of Medicare and Medicaid, will join us next.
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TAPPER: And we're back with our Politics Lead. Senate Republicans released their version of President Trump's spending and tax cut bill this week. And Republicans are divided right now over the proposal's cuts to Medicaid. The Senate Finance Committee's version of the bill has tougher Medicaid work requirements.
[17:50:02]
It also wants to lower the limit that states can tax hospitals from 6 percent to 3.5 percent. They want to do this by 2031. Some worry that that could deprive hospitals of funding, especially in rural areas. Let's bring in Dr. Mehmet Oz. He's the administrator of the Center -- Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Thanks so much for being here. We really appreciate it.
So Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, Republican, he's one of the many Republicans, not many. He's one of the Republicans expressing concern over whether you want to call them cuts or reductions in growth, whatever, to Medicaid. Take a listen to what he had to tell Manu Raju yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): I'm surprised that the Senate has decided to completely depart from the House framework when it comes to Medicaid and the provider taxes.
I was told we've got a fix on the provider tax issue. We're going to help rural hospitals. There's nothing in here for rural hospitals. In fact, what they're doing is lowering the provider tax to make it even worse. So it's like we're defunding rural hospitals in order to pay for extensions of the Green New Deal. Like I -- I just -- I don't get it at all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: So the Congressional Budget Office estimated that more than 10 million recipients would lose their Medicaid benefits from the House bill. The Senate bill, at least the one that just came out of committee, would go farther than that. How can you be sure that the vulnerable enrollees who depend upon Medicaid will continue to get it? You say that you want to protect them. How can you make sure that they will be protected?
DR. MEHMET OZ, ADMINISTRATOR, CENTERS FOR MEDICARE & MEDICAID SERVICES: I took this job to do just that, protect our most vulnerable. And yet, the plans that I've been asked to preside over, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act exchanges in particular, are not stable programs. Medicaid spending has increased 50 percent in the last five years.
And a major driver of that are the able-bodied individuals who joined the program, and half of which of these individuals don't work, and many of them could work. I actually think work is a good thing in general. The economy needs more people to work. We've got twice as many jobs as our people seeking them.
But in particular for Medicaid, the problem we run into is if we allow able-bodied individuals on Medicaid to get a 90 percent match from the federal government, states game the system. So let's go over the several accusations that I heard in those several packages.
First off, we already know what happens when you take people off Medicaid. We just did it for the last two years. Under the Biden administration, 15 million people were disenrolled for Medicaid, 15 million. The unemployment -- the uninsured rate went up about 10 percent, went up 1.5 million people.
So the vast majority of Americans, and I have confidence the American people, if you give people a chance to work or volunteer, participate in your community, go get an education, or lose your insurance, they take the job over that.
TAPPER: Right.
OZ: And so the estimates that we're seeing are made by economists, but it's a behavioral analysis. It's a psychology analysis. Will you take the deal? Getting back to Senator Hawley's comments about the provider tax and the state-directed payments, these are basically legalized money laundering.
TAPPER: Why -- why do you say that? Because the states say they need to be able to tax providers or hospitals so that they can help pay for Medicaid.
OZ: Well, what's going on effectively is by providing taxes and these opportunities to hospitals and states, you're changing the percentage of the reimbursement that comes from the federal government and becomes much more heavily weighted on the government supporting this.
For example, just generally speaking, if the average state was getting, let's say, 60 percent match from the federal government, which means they pay 40 percent, we, the federal government, pay 60 percent, using provider taxes, you can change that number to 70 percent match.
And I would disagree that that money goes to rural hospitals. The -- the reality is that money, the extra money that's left over, goes to hospitals who are better connected. The hospitals with the biggest lobbyists and the best ability to influence what happens in the state capitals, which are generally urban hospitals, they get more of the money. The rural hospitals still get left behind.
So we need to fix the rural hospital system in America. This is something I'm passionate about and we are going to do. This is not the way to do it. We have to be transparent on where the money is going in Medicaid.
TAPPER: Let -- let's talk about the -- the work requirements for people on Medicaid. So the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that 92 percent of Medicaid recipients are working full-time jobs or part-time jobs or they're not working because they have disabilities or child care responsibilities or school.
The other 8 percent of Medicaid recipients say they're not able to find jobs. How do you guarantee that they are going to be able to find work?
OZ: Jake, this is a major focus of CMS right now. We actually have pilots already ongoing in states to assess whether or not we can figure out if people are working or not working. Are they getting an education? Are they volunteering? Are they engaged in life? Do they believe they have agency over their future?
And so the major, you know, I.T. modernization that we're going through, which we have to do anyway to really deal with the bigger problems of the health care budget in America, is going to include us being able to help you quantitate whether you're working. And if you are, God bless you, we want you to have a job.
[17:55:03]
But Jake, we should not base our decisions on Medicaid and something as pivotal and important as a work requirement, which SNAP has, food stamps has it, TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, that was the big Clinton welfare bill --
TAPPER: Right.
OZ: -- was basically bringing work requirements into American life. And he agreed, so did President Obama, so did President Biden, that work is a good thing and is necessary as a foundation of any social welfare program.
TAPPER: So the bill that we're talking about here will also make many changes to the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. It would shorten the enrollment periods. It would make it harder to sign up or re-enroll. And Republican states, we should note, have seen the greatest growth in Obamacare enrollment.
A recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey found a larger share of Obamacare enrollees identifying as Republican than as Democrat. And there is a concern now I hear being voiced among Republicans and others that these changes are going to actually hurt Republicans more than they're going to hurt Democrats. It's being called a self- inflicted wound.
OZ: President Trump is laser focused on aligning what's good for the federal government with what's good for the states. By doing that, we can take care of the American people. We can cherry pick individual statistics, but the bigger story the president has been focused on is do what's right for the American people and we'll all benefit.
In this instance, we've got to be serious about the reality that 20 percent, one in five of the people who are on an Affordable Care Act exchanges are inappropriately on that program, one in five.
TAPPER: What do you mean inappropriately?
OZ: Well, as I give you an example, there's no real adjudication of how much money you're making. So you can pick whatever plan you want to be in. The amount of reimbursement you get from the program is based on your income level. We also have about 230,000 people, we believe, who are mistakenly on, for example, Medicaid in multiple states. But there's a much bigger number of people who are on Medicaid and the exchanges in the same state.
Jake, we think there's $14 billion in those two categories alone. So if we're buying insurance for people and the American taxpayers, people watching the show, are paying extra money to appropriately get Americans who are needing to get the right insurance, but they're not supposed to have insurance.
If they don't even know they have insurance because some broker made up a, hey, free health care here sign, which literally happens, and then gets these folks enrolled in a program they don't know they're on, they never take advantage of it, we still pay the bill. So we're paying fraudsters.
And this is one big message I want to leave you with. We are responsible for adjudicating about $1.7 trillion to CMS. That's twice the size of the defense budget. It's massive. Puts a big target on our back. There are massive efforts by foreign governments and, you know, domestic thieves to steal money from the programs.
We have got to clean up the fraud, waste, and abuse. The changes that the House bill has, and they're very wise ones, are the ones that are going to allow us to use these programs to protect our vulnerable. Because when they steal money from these programs, they're stealing from our most vulnerable.
This is the most ambitious health reform bill ever in American history. It's imperative that it passes so people like me can actually keep CMS running smoothly.
TAPPER: Dr. Oz, thanks so much for joining us. Please come back. We have lots more questions we didn't get to.
Breaking news from the White House. The meeting of President Trump and his national security team in the Situation Room is over. Is President Trump any closer to a decision on the U.S. joining Israel in targeting Iran's nuclear program in Iran? Stay with us.
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