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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Senate Vote-a-Rama Underway On President Trump's Bill; Sen. Thom Tillis Opposes President Trump Bill; Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) Is Interviewed Regarding President Trump's Bill In The Senate And Re- election; House GOP Pressured Over Cuts In President Trump's Bill; North Carolina Possible Swing State In The 2026 Midterms; Police: Gunman Started Brush Fire To Attack Firefighters; Billionaires, Militias & Mineral Rights: Trump's New Peace Deal Between Rwanda & The Democratic Republic Of Congo; Judge Holds Emergency Hearing On Birthright Citizenship. Aired 5-6p ET
Aired June 30, 2025 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[17:00:00]
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Protect the Queen.
KASIE HUNT, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT & HOST: I mean --
ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I concur. To both. I mean, it is scary and --
WILLIAMS: Can we show Scott Jennings' face?
ALLISON: And also (inaudible) just to be clear.
HUNT: Wait.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The amount of pandering that you do --
ALLISON: Well, not all. Hold up.
HUNT: We need Scott's face.
ALLISON: Hold up. You're saying him pandering about being (inaudible).
JENNINGS: Just saying.
ALLISON: Get him internet. No, I think Scott Jennings thought he was breaking this news to me while sitting on set after it had happened all weekend was hilarious. But it is scary. I'm glad -- it's actually an adult thing to do to say stop.
HUNT: Jake Tapper, what do you think?
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: It's very -- very spinal tap. Very Derek Smalls getting stuck in that cocoon back in the day. Kasie, thanks so much.
HUBT: Have a great show. TAPPER: We'll see you back in "The Arena" tomorrow. Marathon voting underway in the U.S. Senate right now. "The Lead" starts right now. It's called a vote-a-rama session, and it's in progress as senators are adding amendments to President Trump's so called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but perhaps the biggest shock, a usually reliable Republican voice takes to the Senate floor and totally eviscerates the bill, accuses the White House of giving President Trump bad information about it that he then passes on to the public.
And we are standing by for new details in Idaho after an assassin started a brush fire then shot and killed firefighters who responded. What could the possible motive be? We expect to hear from authorities any minute.
Plus, a closer look at a major peace plan spearheaded by the Trump administration, President Trump, Secretary Rubio, how this could end conflict in one region after decades of violence and provide a financial windfall for the U.S.
Welcome to "The Lead." I'm Jake Tapper, our "Politics Lead." What sort of changes is the U.S. Senate making to President Trump's so called Big Beautiful Bill right now, and how might those changes impact you if it becomes law? The Senate has kicked off its marathon voting session called vote-a-rama, which probably sounds a lot more fun than it actually is.
It's an hours long series of votes on potential amendments to the House version of this legislation. One of the biggest areas we're watching is Medicaid, which more than 70 million Americans rely upon for health care. The Senate version of this bill would leave 11.8 million more people without health insurance or at least without Medicaid in 2034 according to the Congressional Budget Office, an analysis from the CBO released over the weekend.
That's more than the 10.9 million more than the House version of the same bill. Not only are Democrats railing against the legislation, these changes are providing a big hang up for some Republicans. At this hour, we do not know how this is all going to turn out. If Republicans lose only three Republican Senate votes, then Vice President J. D. Vance will have to cast a tie breaking vote. If they lose four, the bill dies.
But if J. D. Vance is the key vote and then the Senate version passes, it's still going to have to go back to the House where it will face new hurdles. Today, House Speaker Mike Johnson is confronting growing levels of concern from Republicans about the final product. A source saying that he's going to hold a call today with a group of Republicans and Dr. Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. President Trump now has just four days left to get the bill to his desk for his own self-imposed July 4th deadline.
Today, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the White House is confident that this is all going to happen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president is very well aware that this bill needs to not only pass out of the Senate, but it needs to go back to the House. And we need the full weight of the Republican conference to get behind this bill and we expect them to and we are confident that they will. The president has been working hand in hand with Senate Majority Leader Thune and also our House Republican leader, or the Speaker of the House, I'm sorry, Mike Johnson, both of whom will be at the White House today to meet with the president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: CNN's Lauren Fox joins us now from Capitol Hill. Lauren, where does this bill stand right now amid the vote-a-rama? Are any amendments actually making their way onto the bill? And what happens next?
LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. There's been more than a dozen amendment votes at this point. This has been going since around 9:00 a.m. this morning. Nothing that has been voted on the floor, however, has been ultimately added to this legislation. However, there have been some really interesting crossover votes because a number of Republicans, Senator Lisa Murkowski, Senator Susan Collins have voted a few times with Democrats on some of these amendments to shore up support for Medicaid back in their states. That has been a top issue for many moderate Republicans here in the Senate.
[17:05:01]
Obviously, it is the reason that Tom Tillis ultimately decided not to vote to advance this legislation on Saturday night. It is certainly still a major touchstone for people like Murkowski and Collins who are still working furiously behind the scenes to try to make some additional changes. Meanwhile, on the other side of this fight, you have conservatives like Senator Rick Scott who want to put forward an amendment we expect will happen at some point in the next several hours that would essentially drop how much the federal government is giving to states for their Medicaid expansion population.
That is a no go for many moderates in the Republican House Conference. That is part of the reason that Speaker Johnson is really trying to continue to impress upon his members that if they have concerns about this bill, they need to come and talk to him. They need to come and talk to their Senate colleagues not to basically tweet out all of their frustration, but that doesn't mean it's not brewing behind the scenes.
Meanwhile, I just spoke with Senator Markwayne Mullin who told me that he's confident Republicans are going to have the votes. Here he was.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FOX: Do you think you guys have the votes right now?
SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): Yes.
FOX: You're confident?
MULLIN: Yes.
FOX: You absolutely don't think that there's any question that you're going to have every Republican that you need --
MULLIN: I didn't say every Republican. I did not say --
FOX: That you need.
MULLIN: -- that we need. We will put 51 votes on the on the floor. There's obviously a lot of, you know, massaging that's going on. A lot of negotiating still happening, but we're going to make it happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOX: And, Jake, just to give you a sense of how up against the wire Republican leaders are right now, Senator Lisa Murkowski got included in this bill. Several provisions that helped her state of Alaska, the Senate parliamentarian, cut some of those out of this bill. I think that's why all eyes remain on her right now. Is she going to be willing to support this? Again, John Thune only can lose three Republican votes.
TAPPER: Alright. Lauren Fox on Capitol Hill. Thanks. Let's take a closer look at the Trump versus Thom Tillis tiff, which not only threatens to hurt Trump's so called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but also threatens the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate.
Tillis was one of a few Republicans left in Congress willing to voice any opposition to any of Trump's policies. On Saturday, Senator Tillis voted against advancing this sweeping bill to debate. He said he was worried that the Medicaid cuts would negatively impact his constituents back in North Carolina. Trump called what Tillis was doing a big mistake, and he threatened to back a primary challenger to his seat. Tillis is up for re-election next year.
Then yesterday, Tillis announced he would simply not seek re-election. He said in a statement, quote, "Too many elected officials are motivated by pure raw politics who really don't give a damn about the people they promise to represent on the campaign trail," unquote. President Trump reacted on Truth Social, calling senator Tillis' decision, great news.
Tillis then wrote back on Twitter, reposting a headline from September of last year when Trump was embracing North Carolina's then lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson, who was running for governor. He eventually lost. Tillis wrote, quote, "Thanks for the retirement wishes, Mr. president. Looking forward to working with you for a successful 2026. Word to the wise, let's avoid mini soldr."
Mini soldier, you ask? What is that? Mini soldier was the screen name that Robinson reportedly used on a porn forum where he made all sorts of odd and disturbing comments, including referring to himself as a black Nazi. This was all information that CNN's KFile uncovered last year. Robinson denied the posts. Ultimately, he lost the governor's race to the incumbent governor Josh Stein.
After invoking Robinson on Twitter, Senator Tillis then went on to deliver a very fiery floor speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate. He warned the president and Republicans that the Senate's version of Trump's bill will break a promise that President Trump made to not cut Medicaid.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): So what do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding's not there anymore (inaudible).
You supporting the Senate mark will hurt people who are eligible and qualified for Medicaid. I love the work requirement. I love the other reforms in this bill. They are necessary and I appreciate the leadership of the House for putting it in there.
[17:09:58]
In fact, I like the work of the House so much that I wouldn't be having to do this speech if we simply started with the House mark. How hard is it to sit down and ask the Medicaid office, ask the legislative staff, ask the independent hospital association what the impact is? If there's no negative impact, what's wrong with daylight?
We owe it to the American people, and I owe it to the people of North Carolina to withhold my affirmative vote until it's demonstrated to me that we've done our homework.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Now today, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, in response to Senator Tillis's speech said that the senator is simply wrong, that the bill protects Medicaid for those who, quote, "deserve the program," unquote. With us now to discuss, Republican Congressman Don Bacon of Nebraska, another moderate lawmaker, who has been willing to challenge Trump on key decisions in a second term.
Bacon also just announced he's not going to seek reelection as House Republican leaders need to hang on to every seat to maintain their razor thin majority in the midterms. Congressman, thanks for joining us. So Senator Tillis says --
REP. DON BACON (R-NE): Thank you, Jake.
TAPPER: -- that White House advisers are simply not telling president the truth, the effect -- that the effect of the Senate version of this bill is that it breaks the president's promise to not kick off Medicaid citizens who deserve -- who are worthy of the program, who qualify for the program. The White House says Tillis is wrong. Who's telling the truth here?
BACON: Well, I think Senator Tillis is telling the truth here. That doesn't mean that some folks at the White House are intentionally mislabeling this, but the House version I thought was clean. I could defend it every day. Work requirements are very popular, taking off ineligible or illegal people off the Medicaid rolls. People like that. It's a $500 billion savings.
But the Senate has added more fees that will lower the money that goes to the states that apply Medicaid and eventually will lower those -- the fees that go to hospitals to a level of about Medicaid. That's the goal. But Medicaid pays a lot less than med -- or Medicare pays a lot less than Medicaid, and that's where they're trying to take it. So there will be a cost to the hospitals with this bill.
And so I also would recommend to the Senate, by all means, improve the House bill. But I think on Medicaid, we got it very well. We worked two months -- and -- inside the House to find the right compromise and a compromise that we could defend every day.
And so there's a lot of us on the House side that are worried about with the Senate bill, and I think we'll have a hard time passing with some of the provisions that the Senate's put in there. So I think Senator Tillis is speaking truth here.
TAPPER: So would you have a -- would you not vote yes if this bill because, obviously, for anybody who doesn't remember "Schoolhouse Rock" from the -- our childhoods, like, this bill, because the Senate is changing the House bill, it's going to have to go back to the House for you guys to vote on it again. Would you vote no on this version?
BACON: Well, there's talk with a bunch of folks on the House side that we will modify this portion back to the House instead of back to the Senate. That's the view of many of us, but there's hundreds of amendments still to be voted on today. There are amendments on the floor to fix this.
So, I think a better course of action for me right now is I've been calling senators. I've called the White House. I've talked to the speaker. And not just me, a bunch of us on the House side encouraging, the Senate to move this bill closer to the Senate -- to the House side on Medicaid. By the way, I think there could be better improvements to the House bill on SNAP, the federal pensions that we worked on.
Also, I feel like our energy stuff policy that we had in there was not where I really wanted it. I got some of what I wanted, but not all of it. So I think there's grounds for the Senate to put their fingerprints all over this. But the Medicaid thing, we worked hard to get it right and I'm worried about where we're going, but the Senate has time to fix it.
TAPPER: So on your decision to not run for re-election, you said today that you think you could win your congressional district again, which for people who don't know, you represent a lot of the city of Omaha, in Nebraska. You're one of only three House Republicans that won a seat that Kamala Harris also won.
You've complained that divisions within your own party have made it difficult, however, for you to do your job. How? How have divisions in the GOP made it difficult for you to do your job? BACON: Well, it's much better when our party is unified. And you can
see it today when, you know, attacking Senator Tillis isn't helpful. And -- but we -- when you're trying when you're in a district that's a third Republican, a third Democrat, a third Independent, a unified base or unified -- your own team helps win those elections. [17:15:02]
And, but reason I think I feel like I could win this race if I decided to stay in, I've passed more legislation than any other member of Congress in the last two years. If you go back four years, I'm number two of 435. We're the most effective member of the House of legislation and we don't (inaudible) our district.
TAPPER: So why -- so why step down?
BACON: So, I think (inaudible) that?
TAPPER: I mean, you're making a good case for running.
BACON: Well, because it takes 14 hours a day, five days a week, and I work both Saturdays and many Sundays. And that's what it takes to win in this district, a district that went for Harris by five, it went for Biden by six. And I've been doing this for 10 years, and then I did 30 years in the Air Force before that.
I want to come home at night. Going to D.C. four days a week, and then coming back here, I look forward to doing more stuff with my wife. My wife of 41 years, Angie, and I have eight grandkids that live within 10 minutes of her house. So, I still want to serve. I'd like to be home more often, and I'd like to become maybe a better family, man.
TAPPER: Alright. Republican Congressman Don Bacon of Nebraska, retired Brigadier General, thank you so much. Always good to have you on the show, sir.
BACON: Thank you, sir.
TAPPER: Another live look on the Senate floor. Ahead, how debate over this One Big Beautiful Bill Act is playing back at home for some of these Republican senators.
Plus, how this single bill could set up a potential political earthquake in 2026.
And an emergency hearing late this afternoon on President Trump's attempt to end birthright citizenship. What a judge is demanding in the first hearing since Friday's U.S. Supreme Court decision limiting the power of lower courts.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:20:00]
TAPPER: We're back with our "Politics Lead." Republicans are already facing an aggressive pressure campaign over President Trump's so- called One Big Beautiful Bill Act with outside political groups spending at least $35 million on ads to sway lawmakers with Medicaid changes being one of the hottest topics on the airwaves. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: Republicans in Congress are getting ready to cut Medicaid. Senator Collins could be the deciding vote.
UNKNOWN: 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.
UNKNOWN: She's right. People here are going to die if that bill passes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Let's bring in my panel. Jeff Zeleny, let me start with you. So this bill, if Democrats have their say, will be a major sticking point in the 2026 election. As of right now and these things do change. It's not popular. Fifty-five percent 55 of the American people opposed it according to the latest Quinnipiac poll, but that's pretty much all the polling suggests that. How do Republicans rewrite this narrative assuming that this does pass?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: I think it's a challenge to rewrite the narrative. I mean, we've seen these similar movies before. It reminds me of the summer before the 2010 midterm elections, the Affordable Care Act. It was not viewed in a favorable light at the moment. Now it is, but back then it wasn't and it started the rise of the Tea Party movement.
We don't know if that will happen in this case, but we do know that the Democrats are hoping to use this not just the bill itself, the actual fallout from it.
TAPPER: Yeah.
ZELENY: On Medicaid cuts, on food assistance programs. And when you talk to a lot of Republicans, there's a lot of beholding, your nose and voting for it because the president priority -- has prioritize this. Look, I think, if the White House focuses on a few of the issues and the president, you know, can manage to tell a story about him, perhaps it could turn it around. But I can't recall something that has been rated this low that suddenly becomes popular.
TAPPER: Yeah.
ZELENY: Particularly because of what's in the bill. They can't change what's in the bill. But, again, rural hospitals, Medicaid cuts, other things are deeply worrisome in Trump country as well as, in blue states.
TAPPER: Yeah. And you hear -- I mean, a lot of the critics, Shermichael, the loudest critics are Republicans. They may not be a majority of the Republican Party --
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There are some.
TAPPER: -- but you have Senator Thom Tillis. And then you have your old friend, Elon Musk, jumping -- jumping back into the discussion. He posted on X this afternoon, it is obvious with the insane spending of this bill, which increases the debt ceiling by a record, $5 trillion -- that's in all caps. That's why I said it that way. That we live in a one party country, the porky pig party. Time for a new political party that actually cares about the people. That's, you know, that's -- that's Elon Musk, former first buddy.
SINGLETON: Yeah, I mean, Tillis is not running for re-election, number one. And as it pertains to Elon Musk, his argument is correct if you base the premise of the argument on the projections from the CBO, which is based upon static spending. Meaning, you're not taking into consideration how the consumer base may act with this new tax bill once it's passed. You're not thinking how businesses may react in real time to this.
Republicans are predicating the argument upon growth. The argument is we extend these tax cuts for middle class workers and businesses. People are going to spend more. They're going to have more disposable income. I think based on what we have seen thus far despite what your views may be on tariffs that there is a very logical argument and through line to point to, to say that the argument coming from Trump and his supporters is correct that we likely will see continued growth.
Consumers will potentially have more disposable income, and we will likely see businesses continue to hire and also increase wages, which all the data we've seen so far from the past two quarters indicate that that's likely.
TAPPER: So meanwhile, can I just say one of the -- just as a political junkie, this idea that there's going to be all of a sudden, there's going to be a competitive Senate race --
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: An open Senate race.
TAPPER: -- in North Carolina.
HINOJOSA: Yeah. We never get that.
TAPPER: It's very, exciting to cover. Who do you think -- who are you looking at in terms -- we've already heard Republicans talking about, first of all, the mister -- who's the head of the RNC, Whatley? What's his name?
ZELENY: Michael Whatley.
TAPPER: Michael Whatley.
ZELENY: I'm looking for Laura Trump.
HINOJOSA: Laura Trump. TAPPER: Laura Trump. Laura Lea Trump, Eric Trump's wife. You know,
that could be very competitive. What about the Democratic side?
HINOJOSA: Well, I think Roy Cooper is obviously the biggest Democratic star. He was considering it before, but now this is an open seat. This is --
TAPPER: Former governor.
HINOJOSA: Former governor. This is an open seat. And so, yes, if you're looking -- if you were him right now, you're feeling good about this.
[17:25:02]
Republicans are raising costs all across the country, and the fact that Tillis came in and he was either asked to walk the plank or to go against MAGA. Either way, that meant that he was going to lose that seat or likely lose that seat. So if you're a Republican potentially considering a run for Senate in North Carolina, you have to figure out whether you're speaking out against the president or you are in line with the president and in a primary, you likely have to be in line with the MAGA movement.
And so if you're Roy Cooper right now, you're looking at the numbers, you're looking at what has happened in previous midterm elections, and the dynamics of the state, large African-American population, and other places, and especially if they're cutting funding for hospitals and making other cuts and raising costs with tariffs and this bill, then if you're Roy Cooper, you're looking at it and you're saying, you know what? I have a shot here. And so I think he's very likely, but there's obviously a deep bench in North Carolina, so we'll see what happens.
TAPPER: I also want to bring up the fact that the New York -- likely the nominee for mayor, Zohran Mamdani, appeared on NBC. Let me just play a little bit of what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KRISTEN WLEKER, NBC MEET THE PRESS HOST: You are a self-described Democratic socialist. Do you think that billionaires have a right to exist?
ZOHRAN MAMDANI, NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL CANDIDATE: I don't think that we should have billionaires because frankly, it is so much money in a moment of such inequality, and ultimately, what we need more of is equality across our city and across our state and across our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SINGLETON: This is the current Democratic Party. It's a party that wants to redistribute wealth. It's a party that wants to guarantee outcomes, and that doesn't work. It didn't work in Venezuela. It didn't work in the old Soviet Union. There isn't anywhere in the world where this has ever worked. And here you have a guy wanting to become mayor of the most important city, I would argue, in the country, potentially the globe, advocating for socialist, cultural, Marxist ideals, not to get philosophical here. That stuff has never worked.
You look at capitalism. You've seen the greatest number of people, Jake, ascertain wealth move up from poverty to the middle class than any other economic theory known to man. I hope New Yorkers don't vote for this guy.
TAPPER: My thanks to the panel. Right now in Idaho, authorities are giving new details about that horrible deadly ambush that killed two firefighters. What we're learning about the 20-year-old suspect and why he fired on first responders. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:31:41]
TAPPER: In our National Lead. Investigators are searching for a motive today and after. They say a man started a brush fire just so -- so that he could ambush firefighters that came to fight the fire in Idaho. And two of those firefighters were killed. The sheriff says another is fighting for his life in the hospital.
CNN's Julia Vargas Jones is on the ground in Idaho for us right now where that brush fire is still burning.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Smoke rising from the forest in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. A call prompting firefighters and then police to rush into action.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Send law enforcement right now, there's an active shooter zone. They're shot. BC three is down. BC one is down. Everybody's shot.
JONES (voice-over): Ultimately, about 300 members of law enforcement responded to a sniper-style ambush.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm pinned down behind battalion one's rig. It's clear to me that this fire was set intentionally to draw us in.
JONES (voice-over): For 90 minutes long fire saying it seemed like bullets were coming from multiple directions. But in the end, a single suspect now identified as 20-year-old Wess Roley was found dead with a firearm near his body.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have not been able to find any manifesto. We don't show any criminal history for Roley.
JONES (voice-over): Two firefighters died in the attack, and at least one more was seriously injured. Firefighter Ben Hector got an all- hands page to come in after the shootings. Like many here, he knows the victims well.
KASSI ALLEN, COEUR D'ALENE RESIDENT: These were your guys? BEN HECTOR, FIREFIGHTER, COEUR D'ALENE, IDAHO: The chief was my chief. We know each other well. My friend in the hospital, you know, he owns a really cool Christmas tree farm. My sons have gone to work for him were -- were friends.
JONES (voice-over): This close-knit community now coming together to support their first responders.
ALLEN: We have seen the heartache of losing an officer in the line of duty, and your hope this happened with fire is awful.
HECTOR: It's shocking, for sure.
JONES: Does it change the way that you see your community or the work that you do?
HECTOR: No, no that's an outlier. That's not the people here. Doesn't change anything. There's still just work to do. You don't get time off because it was a bad day.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JONES: And Jake, we just heard now from law enforcement officials here updating on more details on this attacker that was really did not have a criminal record, but that he himself wanted to be a firefighter.
CNN also spoke to his grandfather here in Idaho, who said that as far as he knew, he was still working towards that goal. Although authorities here say they did not find any applications from Roley for any firefighting roles here. He was believed to be living out of his car.
I mentioned that car was pushed out of a cliff, authorities say, to make sure that he could not get away during that exchange of fire. And Jake, in the coming hours, what we're looking for is more details on those victims and who they were.
TAPPER: Yes. All right. Julia Vargas Jones, thanks so much.
Let's discuss this with Jason Pack. He's a former FBI supervisory special agent. He's now in E -- he's now an EMT and he's a firefighter as well. Jason, how will investigators determine a motive given that the suspect's dead? Obviously, they can't interview him.
[17:35:10]
JASON PACK, FORMER FBI SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT: No, Jake, and this is every first responder's worst nightmare. Just to set back just a little bit, you're on duty on Sunday afternoon. You get a call for a brush fire, run that call a hundred times. You put your bunker gear on, your wildfire gear, you hop on the rig, and then you show up and you're greeted by gunfire instead of a wildfire.
It's just unimaginable. But law enforcement has a huge job now. As you mentioned, they can't interview the suspect. So now they'll have to do the digital footprint. So you'll see the forensic investigation going on, on the scene once they get the fire out. That's another whole separate category that's kind of giving them some difficulty there.
But they'll put the fire out and they'll go in and search that scene. But they're also behind the scenes quietly looking for associates, looking for the digital footprint of social media. The sheriff, Norris, mentioned they didn't find a manifesto yet, but they're going to interview everybody they can to see just why this happened.
TAPPER: I want to get your reaction to something that the sheriff said during a news conference. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHERIFF BOB NORRIS, KOOTENAI COUNTY: You know, you anticipate or expect some of these things to occur in a urban setting. You -- you can't. I've seen it myself. However, in a rural setting, this is very, very, very rare in a rural setting. I mean, I just -- I've never seen it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Is this something that first responders prepare for?
PACK: Jake, Sheriff Norris is 100 percent correct. It's such an outlier. And you heard the firefighter and Julius Peace say the same thing. It's an outlier. They do train. They train for active shooters. They train for school shootings in public places. But their role usually is to help treat the injured. And they're not usually considered the injured themselves.
And so to have them be attacked like that to every firefighter sitting in fire stations across the country, we see your sacrifice and we certainly appreciate it. And these things should never happen to people. And it's just unfathomable than it could happen.
TAPPER: And then, of course, the fire is still burning, which is horrific in itself. And then there's the added complication that that could potentially destroy evidence.
PACK: True, although it's not like -- there's not likely to be a prosecution here, considering the sheriff says that this suspect seems to be a lone actor. So that gives investigators time to go back and look. Was there a grievance? There was a year reporting mentioned that he liked firefighters.
Why would he call them to a scene to attack them? Did something happen? Was he having relationship issues? Usually when we look at these types of case from an FBI perspective, we see that there's not one single thing that does it, but a combination of mental health, a combination of grievances, anti-government. We just don't know at this time.
So there's not usually a one size fits all solution to this, but it's certainly important to get to the why to see if there's anything that can help protect firefighters in the future from this.
TAPPER: All right, Jason Pack, thanks so much to you. [17:38:12]
Next, a closer look at that major peace deal brokered by the Trump administration. The billionaire player involved who has ties to the President's daughter, Tiffany, plus how this plan could end up also being a huge moneymaker for the U.S. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That's great. That's beautiful.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: We're back with our Buried Lead. That's what we call stories we think deserve to get more attention than they have gotten. We want to take a moment to dive in a bit to that peace deal that President Trump celebrated at the White House on Friday. It's a deal between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda.
Before that Oval Office show and tell, the foreign -- the foreign ministers actually signed documents earlier in the day at the U.S. State Department with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The goal was to end more than 30 years of conflict that dates back to the 1994 Rwandan genocide when hundreds of thousands were killed in the span of just 100 days.
Now, in 2025, since January alone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo reports the conflict between the two nations has killed more than 7,000 people and displaced 1 million others. Again, that's just since January. Friday's peace deal calls for the two nations to do things such as respect each other's territories, refrain from any acts of aggression against the other, facilitate the free movement of civilians and humanitarians, to try to stop armed groups from engaging in hostile acts, and to stop any state support to non-state armed groups.
Those last two points are worth -- worth underlying because militia groups battle for power in the region and they control large swaths of land. The group M23 is one of the region's most prominent militias. It's battling to control mining, one of the most critical minerals in the world right now, which is cobalt, a major component in lithium-ion batteries and in almost every rechargeable electronic device that you own.
The Democratic Republican -- Republic of the Congo is said to produce two-thirds of the world's cobalt. Now, notably, you did not see militias in the room when the foreign ministers signed Friday's peace deal. Someone that you did see, Massad Boulos. Massad Boulos is the father-in-law of Tiffany Trump, President Trump's youngest daughter. Boulos is a billionaire.
He serves as senior advisor on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs to President Trump. The President credits him for brokering this peace deal, which apparently will come with a huge money-making opportunity for the United States.
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TRUMP: Not only that, we're getting for the United States a lot of the mineral rights from the Congo as part of the deal.
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TAPPER: Mineral rights for the U.S.? Let's talk about this with CNN's Larry Madowo, who's in Nairobi, who covers this region extensively. Larry, thanks for joining us.
So, mineral rights for the U.S. was not specifically mentioned in the peace deal signed Friday. So, do we know how Trump's announcement about that came to be?
LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's not clear exactly how this came to be. President Trump did say that because Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, and the two foreign ministers did not mention it at all. I've scrutinized the peace agreement signed, and it mentioned the word minerals four times.
Under the section titled Regional Economic Integration Framework, which is part of this deal, it says this, the parties shall use -- shall use this framework to expand foreign trade and investment derived from regional critical mineral supply chains and introduce greater transparency.
So, what President Trump is alluding to here is that the U.S. will get to benefit from the rich mineral deposits in the DRC. And this has already received a lot of criticism in the Congo and on the wider African continent. For many people who see this as another example of a Western nation exploiting the resources of an African country without actually getting involved or profiting, benefiting the people that are down there.
So, a lot of questions that the Rwandans and the Democrat -- and the Congolese have not so far answered, Jake.
TAPPER: So, give us a sense of how popular Congolese cobalt is. What -- what other nations or companies, for that matter, rely on this region and its resources?
MADOWO: It's a shorter list, Jake, to say which country or which company does not rely on the minerals from this part of the country. So, one of the root causes of this conflict is about those minerals.
In fact, one of the accusations the DRC places against Rwanda is that the minerals are smuggled from DRC through to Rwanda and exported as Rwandan minerals. I asked President Kagame that he denied it. But the DRC has also, in the last few years, been suing major tech companies for using children in the mining process and for exploiting conflict minerals. In fact, the DRC has sued major tech companies in French and Belgian and even American courts. They've gone after Apple, after Tesla, after Google company, Alphabet, after Dell and after Microsoft. Unsuccessfully so far, they've not been able to get any judge to agree with them that these companies are involved and should be liable for that.
But they're trying. The argument here being these companies say they use other suppliers. They're not directly involved. So, these are not their employees.
TAPPER: We saw the -- the foreign ministers of these countries in Washington, D.C. last week. What do we expect when the presidents of both countries visit the White House, which is scheduled to happen next month?
MADOWO: It will be a major moment to see President Felix Tshisekedi of the DRC and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda sitting there at the White House with President Trump.
It should be noted that it's a major win for President Trump. There's been mediation efforts here in Africa, Nairobi and in Angola that did not succeed. The African Union did not succeed. If the U.S. succeeds, if this ends the war, it will be a significant moment.
TAPPER: All right, Larry Madowo, Nairobi, thank you so much. Good to see you again.
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CNN's justice team is monitoring the fallout from an emergency hearing just hours ago, challenging President Trump's attempt to end birthright citizenship. What a judge is demanding that the Trump administration needs to explain. That's coming up.
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TAPPER: In our Law and Justice Lead just hours ago, a federal judge in Maryland heard an emergency challenge to President Trump's effort to outright end birthright citizenship. The hearing just days after the U.S. Supreme Court limited the power of lower courts to issue injunctions that would affect the entire nation. The judge in today's hearing previously blocked Trump's birthright citizenship order through a nationwide injunction.
With me here, CNN chief legal affairs correspondent, Paula Reid. So Paula, this is the first time we're seeing how judges are doing their jobs approaching the Supreme Court's ruling.
PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's what makes this so significant. This is the first time we've watched judges try to grapple with this historic decision, which was in many ways a lawyer full employment act, because it left so many open questions like, all right, now what happens to President Trump's executive order limiting birthright citizenship? Who can challenge it? Because the Supreme Court said you can try to challenge this through a class action lawsuit. But today in court, the Justice Department said it is going to try to block those kinds of legal maneuvers. Then we heard another group of lawyers in Maryland trying to establish a class, trying to make their clients sort of qualify for a class action lawsuit.
And they describe the impact that all of this has had on their clients, the kind of harm that they need to establish. They describe one pregnant client as, quote, being afraid of bringing more life into this world, and describe the, quote, incredible stress, anxiety, and fear that their clients are experiencing. Now, the Supreme Court put this executive order, Trump's executive order, on hold for 30 days. That's till the end of this month.
And one thing one of the judges, the judge in Maryland, was really focused on is, OK, at the end of the month, is the administration going to start deporting babies? And the Justice Department couldn't really give a clear answer. A lawyer for the Justice Department responded saying, my understanding is the executive order will not be operative for 30 days.
That's not a response. She's saying, is that your understanding or the position of the United States? The lawyer said, it's my understanding. I can confirm that, but I have a high degree of confidence in that understanding. This is a big question, because remember, the executive order had to deal with babies who were born here to parents who are not citizens after February 19th.
So the judge is seeking clarification. Are -- are you going to start deporting babies who were born here after February 19th? They can't answer. So she has demanded an answer to that question in writing. But it's just another example of how much has to be worked out after Friday's decision. And this is all the kind of chaos and confusion the Supreme Court invited with their decision. But they are content to sort of let the district courts fight this out.
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TAPPER: Interesting. Paula Reid, thank you so much.
At a court office in New York, the first day of jury deliberations in the Sean "Diddy" Combs trial, we're hearing jurors have now sent a third note to the judge. What did it say?
Also right now on the Hill, the so-called vote-a-rama session, as Senate Republicans race to pass Trump's so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Stay with us.
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TAPPER: Welcome to the Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. This hour we are closely watching the drama unfolding on Capitol Hill where Senate Republicans are trying to make various deals in order to get President Trump's so called One Big Beautiful Bill Act across the finish line. Do they have the votes? We don't know at this hour. We're going to go live to the Hill to find out.
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Plus, the jury has just been dismissed for the day after their first hours of deliberation in the trial of Sean "Diddy" Combs.
