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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Search And Rescue Underway After Venezuela Quakes Kill At Least 188; Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), Is Interviewed About Trump Urges GOP To Drop Protests Over His Election Bill; Alito Fires Back At Sotomayor In Rare Bench Clash; Inside Trump's Expanded Use Of Executive Power In His Second Term; Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Is Interviewed About Democratic Socialists Rattle Establishment Ahead Of Midterms. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired June 25, 2026 - 17:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: All right. Thanks to my panel. Really appreciate it. Elliot, do you want one more?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It's a blank space.

HUNT: You missed "Welcome to New York."

WILLIAMS: It's a blank space in my head. I just can't. Boom.

HUNT: All right, don't forget, you can stream The Arena live. Catch up whenever you want in the CNN app. Scan the QR code below. You can also catch up by listening to The Arena's podcast. You can follow us on X and Instagram at thearenacnn.

Jake Tapper is standing by for "The Lead."

Hi, Jake.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Hey, Kasie. Great show. We'll look for more tomorrow in "The Arena."

HUNT: See you soon.

[17:00:30]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Venezuela was rocked by the strongest earthquake in more than a century. The Lead starts right now.

A nation in shock. Two strong earthquakes in Venezuela just seconds apart. The death toll regrettably rising as rescuers from around the world are now headed to the disaster zone. I'm going to talk with one of the world's most respected seismologists about the threat of a powerful aftershock coming next.

Plus, from immigration to guns, new decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court as Justice Samuel Alito accuses another justice of blindsiding him. And a growing divide in the Democratic Party. Is the agenda of the far left even willing to work with the Democratic establishment? Or is their plan to throw all of them out?

Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. We're going to begin with breaking news in our World Lead. At least 188 people are dead. More than 1,500 are injured.

And more than 200 people are currently trapped under the rubble of collapsed or damaged buildings after two back to back earthquakes devastated Venezuela nearly 24 hours ago. The first, a 7.2 magnitude 4 shock, followed by a larger 7.5 magnitude quake just 39 seconds later. Right now, intense search and rescue operations are going on. The death toll is expected to rise significantly because the quakes leveled entire buildings across the nation. In some areas, it looks as though entire streets are gone.

The word devastation does not even begin to cover this. Social media is full of desperate pleas from people inside and outside Venezuela looking for any information about their loved ones.

To give you a better sense of the scope of this, Venezuela is roughly one and a half times the size of Texas. About 30 to 34 million people call Venezuela home, with the vast majority living on the northern coastal regions of the country. And that northern coast was the epicenter of both earthquakes. Venezuela was already in the midst of a deep political and financial crisis. Part of that brought on by the country's former brutal leader, Nicolas Maduro, then complicated by the U.S. capture of Maduro earlier this year.

So the reality of what lies ahead in terms of recovery, well, it's difficult to fathom. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the United States has sent rescue teams and other resources to Venezuela, saying the deployment was made at the direction of President Trump. So many survivors are still in shock, frantically searching for loved ones missing. CNN's Isa Soares brings us their stories.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ISA SOARES, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One of hundreds of thousands of moments just like it. Two earthquakes 39 seconds apart, the most powerful Venezuela has seen in more than a century, striking on a public holiday evening across several states. A friend in Caracas sent me this voice message, Cleveland Cartaya had made it out, but are still waiting to hear from several others.

CLEVELAND CARTAYA, VENEZUELA RESIDENT (through translator): You run and you fall, you bounce off the walls and try to get out of the building quickly. You think you're going to die.

SOARES (voice-over): Families outside on the streets, in squares, just too frightened to go back inside. On social media images only now coming online, Luis Reyes and the elderly woman he cares for doing what thousands across Caracas did on Thursday, they slept on the street.

CARTAYA (through translator): A lot of people are in the street, in the squares, under the bridges. There are many homeless people, there are many people who have been left with nothing. Truly, this is horrible, horrible.

SOARES (voice-over): By daybreak, the damage is clear to see. This footage aired on state TV shows the utter devastation. And for the millions who fled violence and a crumbling economy in Venezuela in recent years, the night brought its own particular torment. Communications severed across the capital. The airport as you can see, effectively destroyed.

It falls to the acting president Delcy Rodriguez to lead the response. A government still finding its footing after Nicolas Maduro's capture by the United States in January, now facing the worst natural disaster in Venezuela in over a century. Her government announcing a $200 million emergency fund. The death toll already in the hundreds and rising. [17:05:09]

DIOSDADO CABELLO, VENEZUELAN INTERIOR MINISTER (through translator): We have ordered by instructions from the president the cut off so that everyone is aware of the direct gas service to buildings because we have some damaged structures. We do not want any kind of accident with the gas to occur.

SOARES (voice-over): Venezuela has already lived through political rupture, economic collapse and the loss of millions of its people to immigration. For a country that already given so much, now this.

Isa Soares, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: And our thanks to Isa Soares for that report.

Let's talk about this now with Dr. Lucy Jones. She's a renowned seismologist and founder of the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society.

Dr. Jones, thank you so much for joining us. Venezuelan authorities say 138 aftershocks have already occurred. Are Venezuelans still facing the threat of more aftershocks? And if so, what should they do to stay safe right now?

DR. LUCY JONES, SEISMOLOGIST AND FOUNDER, DR. LUCY JONES CENER FOR SCIENCE & SOCIETY: The aftershocks will be continuing for years on an earthquake of this size to say 138. That's only the very largest of them. There are many more smaller that are happening and damaging aftershocks coming later are also pretty common. So it just has to be kept in mind. You can't compromise and oh, I've got to get back in.

You've got to recognize that the capacity for more damage is coming. Also, this earthquake was not in Caracas. It was to the west. The way the rupture propagated, it would have focused some energy to Caracas. But you could now have an aftershock at the eastern end of the fault that would actually be in Caracas and potentially do even more damage.

So it's a very dangerous time for the next while.

TAPPER: How rare is it for two major earthquakes to strike right next to one another within less than a minute?

JONES: It's actually part of a continuum. Most of these really big earthquakes, we would say have sub events so that you would be actually seeing another -- the rupture starts at one place and ruptures down the fault, releasing a lot of energy here and then a bit of a break and then more energy here and close enough together we call it one earthquake. There's enough of a delay in here, probably 10 or 20 seconds between the end of the first one and the beginning of the second one. So they decided to call them two earthquakes. But this is just a continuum of how these things happen.

TAPPER: So this thing called an earthquake gate. And a recent study says that the earthquake gate stopping a disastrous earthquake along the San Andreas Fault in Central California is under its highest stress in 1,000 years. Now, you sent us a computer model video that illustrates how quickly and severely the Los Angeles area could be impacted if a major earthquake happens there. The graph on the left for those watching, shows the strength of a possible quake slowly felt in L.A.'s metro area. How concerned are you, Dr. Jones, that this could actually happen, or that it definitively will?

JONES: This earthquake is inevitable. Just give us enough time. The problem is we don't know when. So we've tried to focus on telling people what will happen. And what you're seeing here is a computer model of where we expect the shaking to be.

And this is a situation really very similar to what just happened at Caracas, that the fault is a bit away from the city, but then you get a focusing of energy towards where the high population density is. And something like this is absolutely inevitable in the San Andreas. But that's on geologic time. It might be 100 years from now, it might be today, and that's the hard part to plan for. But we will have similar situations.

I mean, we have worked hard on strong building codes, but building codes aren't retroactive. And we have lots of older buildings that we know are very dangerous, especially in the area nearer the fault, in what's called the Inland Empire, San Bernardino, Riverside. Many of those buildings are older, have not been retrofitted, and have potential for plenty of collapse.

TAPPER: On Venezuela, beyond the fact that these earthquakes were 7.2 magnitude and higher, what other factors do you think are contributing to the extreme devastation we're seeing across the country?

JONES: The proximity of people. You know, so when these big fault boundary earthquakes happen, they happen over a surface and the energy travels out and dies off with distance. So if the people are very near where the fault is, you're going to have a lot more damage. And with Venezuela, with the population concentrated along the coast, they're concentrated along this fault.

I'm not sure where all the information is coming from so far. I have only seen reports from Caracas, and yet it's the communities to the west that have received much stronger shaking. And it may be in such bad shape they haven't been able to communicate out. So I would really expect that we're going to see a lot more damage coming in as we get into the areas that are literally on top of the earthquake.

[17:10:03]

TAPPER: Dr. Lucy Jones, thank you so much for your expertise and your time today. We appreciate it.

JONES: Thank you.

TAPPER: Later, an earthquake survivor. I'm going to talk to a man who was at a birthday party when the earthquake started. His experience coming up. Plus a House Republican who says her colleagues in the Senate need to, quote, "get off their butts." The threat she and other Republican hardliners are making to help President Trump push his agenda for election security in Congress.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our Politics Lead, President Trump is openly begging Republicans to drop their protests over his election security bill, which he calls the SAVE America Act. This just after meeting with Speaker Mike Johnson at the White House. Trump wrote, quote, "House Republicans should unify and stop voting down rules or threatening to do so." He continued, "No more grandstanding, please. They are the Dumocrats and we can't let them win," unquote.

The SAVE Act, Trump's legislation would require proof of citizenship to vote and severely restrict mail-in voting and early voting. Remember, President Trump has said that he thinks these restrictions will help Republicans. Here he is in February.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'll tell you what, Republicans have to win this one. We'll never lose a race for 50 years. We won't lose a race. We want voter ID.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[17:15:01]

TAPPER: Joining us now, Republican congresswoman from Florida, Anna Paulina Luna. Thanks for joining us.

I want to ask you about the need for this bill because the right leaning think tank, the Heritage Foundation, they have a database of confirmed election fraud cases and it lists fewer than 100 examples of non-citizens voting between 2002 and 2022, amid more than 1 billion lawfully cast ballots. Election fraud, especially election fraud that would change the outcome of a race. It's extremely rare. Yet Congress is at a standstill for this bill that just factually would make it harder for people to vote, people who have the right to vote. Why is this bill so important?

REP. ANNA PAULINA LUNA (R-FL), OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: Well, hey Jake, thank you so much for having me on. And according to CNN's own polling, this is overwhelmingly supported proof of citizenship plus voter ID by the American people. Black, white, Hispanic, Democrat, Republican, Independent, female and male, all support it. And what I will tell you is President Trump is correct.

And look, even if it's only 100 cases, it's still 100 cases too many. If you're talking about wanting people to fully engage and trust their election process and get rid of this whole idea and notion that people can't trust their vote, which I think is incredibly important to the American people, we have to get this done. What's even more crazy though, Jake, is that we've passed this multiple times out of the House. The Senate says that they don't have time to debate one of the most popular issues in the country and yet they've had time to go on, you know, on vacation. They've had time to literally host dog shows.

And they've had time to put into legislation that we've had to vote on in the House that would give them guaranteed wins for lawsuits. Not to mention they've been shilling for Monsanto. So, no, I'm not inclined to be bullied by the Senate, but what I am inclined to do is stand up for residents in Pinellas County and other people across the country that wants to see this done. And so I actually last week just filed an amendment to support this by attaching it to the National Defense Authorization Act that is currently sitting in the Rules Committee. And we will see what happens.

TAPPER: So the polling that you cite, it depends on how the question is asked, as you know. And another example would be a CBS News poll from March. It shows that 80 percent of the American people support showing an ID to vote. But Trump's bill goes farther than just that. It requires an in person ID check for mail in voting, additional steps to prove citizenship if a person's name is different on their birth certificate than on their current id, which is obviously the case for lots of people, many of them women who took their partner's last name.

It severely curtails early voting. It severely curtails mail-in voting. I guess the question is, why not work with Democrats to actually make it something that can pass, that is less restrictive and doesn't make it harder for people who are American citizens to vote?

LUNA: Look, because I would tell you right now, I actually probably check all those boxes. I'm a female Hispanic veteran. I have changed my name, and I had no issues finding proof of citizenship or obtaining that to actually go vote. So I think that those arguments are actually disingenuous when you have people like Chuck Schumer saying, which, by the way, I don't think many Americans agree with giving mass amnesty and citizenship to illegal immigrants. And what I will say is, if you look at what's happening right now in this country, a lot of people on both sides don't trust the election process.

You had establishment Democrats just recently state that President Trump was trying to steal the midterms. And then you have, you know, people in California that don't like what Governor Newsom did and not allowing for an investigation to take place in Riverside County specifically pertaining to the alleged fraudulent ballot efforts over there. And so what I will say is that this is a very important piece of legislation. When we look at the polling nationally, it's on the same level as banning insider trading, which is also something that I'm trying to champion. But again, when you have one side that is not even listening to their own base, you have literally very well-known establishment Democrats that are saying that they don't want even voter id.

I mean, that's crazy talk. And it also is insulting as a minority to say that, oh, if you're a minority or if you're a woman, you can't figure this out. So I don't buy it.

But look, I'm even willing to say voter ID and proof of citizenship, but you don't even want to hear the -- not you, but they don't even want to entertain that either. And so this is part of the push and pull and pressure that exists in Washington.

TAPPER: Yes.

LUNA: We get it done. Maybe the process is a little bit messy, but I'm just being transparent about everything happening up here.

TAPPER: It's just, it's a partisan bill and it's not just a question of voter ID. But even, just forgetting that the substantive arguments for the bill just in terms of the math in the Senate, the last time a similar vote -- similar bill was voted on the Senate floor, not only did it not get 60 votes, it didn't even get 50 votes. And you too --

LUNA: That's why --

TAPPER: Hold on.

LUNA: That's why we want to put it on less past piece of legislation.

TAPPER: Yes, hold on. But you tweeted, quote, "John Thune," that's the Senate Republican leader, the majority leader, "is running and hiding because he doesn't want to get voter ID across the finish line." And you also said you would not vote to reopen the floor of the House until the Senate gets back. Speaker Johnson sent members home early. I guess my question here is, have you heard anything about Speaker Johnson's meeting with President Trump today at the White House about whether or not Republicans and the president are still going to push for this?

[17:20:15]

LUNA: Well, that meeting I think just ended about maybe 20 minutes ago. So I haven't talked to the speaker yet. But what I will tell you is that we didn't have to go home. They chose to send people home.

And by the way, John Thune made that decision to send Republican -- or the entire Senate home again last night at midnight on their umpteenth vacation this entire time. And so what I will say is that the Senate could stay. They could keep voting on it. As you stated, John Thune is claiming that the math ain't mathing. Meanwhile, they're absolutely attacking people like Senator Scott and Mike Lee behind the scenes because they're saying that you guys are basically pushing something that can't be done. And what I'm saying is that how the legislative process works is you have to stick it onto a vehicle. The vehicle that I believe that currently exists for voter id, inclusive proof of citizenship, which I would like to remind people that the American people overwhelmingly support.

TAPPER: Right.

LUNA: Maybe not establishment people here, but the American people support it. And that's what I'm concerned about. That I believe can be placed on the NDA and then let the Senate explain to people why they vote down the entire defense spending for the entire country because they don't want voter ID. Again, look, I'm not trying to do this for the next 20 years, but what I will tell you is this entire institution, specifically in the Senate is so far corrupt that people are frustrated. And that's why Congress has a 14 percent approval rate.

And I'm not going to sit here and have the Senate say we're going to go on vacation, eat it and stick it. And that's not just how it's going to work anymore.

TAPPER: All right. Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna from --

LUNA: Thanks, Jake.

TAPPER: -- great state of Florida, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Ahead, why U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito accused one of his more liberal colleagues of blindsiding him as the highest court in the land handed down a series of opinions today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:26:11]

TAPPER: And we are waiting on more major decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court. But we did get a series of significant rulings earlier, many of them in favor of the conservative point of view. These include two immigration decisions. One will allow President Trump to end what's called TPS, or temporary protective status for Haitians and Syrians who are in the United States. It could more broadly end up impacting more than 1 million foreign nationals.

Another ruling by the court will let the Trump administration reinstate a controversial policy restricting asylum claims for people trying to get across the southern border. The justices also struck down a law in Hawaii that previously had banned guns on private property open to the public, such as stores or restaurants, without the property owner's permission. We're going to have much more on these rulings coming up.

Behind the scenes, however, there was an unusual public glimpse of tension inside the court. Justice Sonia Sotomayor took the unusual step of reading her dissent aloud, taking the moment to deliver a critique of the court's conservative majority. And then Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion, fiercely responded directly to her. Let's bring in CNN's Chief Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic.

So, Joan, you were in the court this morning. This kind of exchange to me seems pretty rare. Is it?

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN CHIEF SUPREME COURT ANALYST: It is. It is. You know, this is the time of year when everyone is very tense. They're up against deadlines. They have -- they have -- next Monday they're going to give us some rulings, but we're down to the last, you know, seven or so decisions to go, and everybody's watching to see what they're going to do with various Trump policies.

You mentioned the two immigration ones that went the way of the administration. We've seen deeper and deeper, six to three splits, with the conservatives taking control and the Liberals dissenting.

Now, it wasn't unusual that Justice Sotomayor decided to dissent from the bench. They do that. It's rare, but they do that toward the end of the term when, you know, somebody really wants to protest what the majority has done. But Sam Alito got so mad, he acted as if -- he suggested to spectators that he had been blindsided. After she finished reading her dissent, he said, if I had known about it, I would have said more in his opening.

Now, I've asked the court, did it mean that he didn't know she was going to dissent at all, or did he not know what she was going to say in it? Because I'll tell you, Jake, she opened this dissent involving, you know, border policies, refugee policies at our southern border by recalling what happened in 1939 when a ship carrying 900 Jewish refugees during -- fleeing Nazi Germany during the Holocaust were turned away from Cuba.

TAPPER: The ship of the damned, I think it was called.

BISKUPIC: Turned away from Cuba, turned away from Canada, and turned away from the U.S. So she's being very dramatic. I don't know if as they were approaching the bench, she said, yes, Sam, I'm going to read a dissent. But he was really mad. And it was unusual for him to tell all of us that he was unexpecting -- was not expecting it, that he was caught off guard, and then he went on to give us the temporary protected status case.

The drama of an oral dissent --

TAPPER: Yes.

BISKUPIC: -- is good enough, but then to have him react that way was even better.

TAPPER: Yes. Yes. All right, Joan Biskupic, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

[17:29:30]

The headlines from the second Trump administration can feel chaotic, but collectively, we're wondering whether they should be a warning sign about something to come, something having to do with upcoming elections. We're tracing potential clues of that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our Politics Lead today, new warnings about possible threats to American democracy. President Trump has never backed away from his baseless claim that the 2020 election was rigged. Here he is just this month.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They rigged the election, the second election, as you probably hear and probably know. Most of you know that happened and now it's been proven. And it will be proven as time goes by even more so. We have things that you won't believe. When we release the full files, you're not going to believe how crooked the second 2020 election was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: It has never been proven, of course. Court after court after court. Election board after election board. Secretary of State after Secretary of State. His own Attorney General, never proven. But remember what those lies wrought. A violent attack on the Capitol that resulted in five dead on January 6th, more than 140 law enforcement wounded or maimed several dead. And remember the President was looking to have the will of the American people obstructed that day to stop the counting of actual electors and have fake electors make him the president.

[17:35:16]

It's a plot that failed, but not for lack of trying. And more than five years later, not only has President Trump never produced this long-promised evidence, there are currently questions about what might happen in 2026 or 2028.

Now, today, as we learn in Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's new book, "Regime Change," a key former foreign leader sought to use Trump's obsession with the 2020 election to save himself. As tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela heated up in 2025, President Trump sought to use Tucker Carlson, a conservative commentator, as a go- between between himself and then-president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro. From the book "Regime Change," "As bait, Maduro had claimed to Carlson that he could furnish proof U.S. voting machines were tampered with in 2020, a transparently calculated appeal to Trump's unfounded stolen election grievances. And Maduro had told Carlson he wanted warmer relations with Washington."

Now, since then, of course, Maduro was captured by U.S. forces, and Maduro currently sits in a New York detention center. Given that he was all ready to make false claims of evidence about Venezuela helping to rig the 2020 election in order to ingratiate himself with Trump, what might Maduro be willing to say now? To get out of jail, perhaps. To no longer have to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

For that matter, what might the U.S.-backed replacement for Maduro, Delcy Rodriguez, what might she be willing to say or do? And what is President Trump willing to do with those possibly pending false claims? Well, the book "Regime Change" also details the Trump White House discussing President Trump's suspending habeas corpus. That's the fundamental legal concept which prevents the government from indefinitely detaining people without evidence.

It's an extreme measure that Trump has openly discussed on several occasions, including when he wanted to bypass courts on immigration enforcement and deportation matters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: There's one way that's been used by three very highly respected presidents, but we hope we don't have to go that route. But there is one way that has been used very successfully by three presidents, all highly respected.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: That was a reference to possibly suspending habeas corpus. In "Regime Change," we learn how, "deeply alarmed" some White House officials were about these discussions. "Many inside and outside the White House agreed with some calling the push to suspend habeas corpus insane, believing it would roil the country and cripple the Trump presidency. But the president was interested."

The book also talks about the possibility that the Trump administration was thinking about invoking the Insurrection Act, which allows the President to use U.S. troops for domestic law enforcement, something that is generally prohibited. "Regime Change" notes that after the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good at the hands of immigration enforcement agents in Minnesota five months ago, after that, Vice President J.D. Vance, "Got right to the point. He wanted to talk about the situation in Minnesota. In his view, they needed to swiftly invoke the Insurrection Act to crush the unrest. It would be painful in the short term, he said, but in the long term, it was the right thing to do."

President Trump also expressed how he viewed the act as a tool that can be used to fight against judicial rulings constraining his power.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Everybody agrees you're allowed to use that. And there's no more court cases. There's no more anything. We're trying to do it in a nicer manner, but we can always use the Insurrection Act.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Now, President Trump is currently and constantly trying to push the boundaries of his power with very little, if any, pushback from those surrounding him in the White House or the administration or from Republicans in Congress.

Currently, the postmaster general is threatening to not deliver mail- in ballots to states that don't turn over their voting rolls. We have a new unqualified acting director of national intelligence who, as housing chair for the federal government, used government documents to pursue Trump's political opponents. We have seen the seizure of Dominion voting machines in Puerto Rico in 2025 and in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2026.

And now we have these latest data points, Maduro's false election hacking claims, habeas corpus being possibly suspended, the Insurrection Act being possibly invoked. What might this all be leading up to? Well, we're going to continue to follow it all.

[17:39:57]

Coming up next, the internal battle playing out among establishment Democrats and the more far left wing of the Democratic Party. Is it time for the two sides to part ways and do their own thing?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our Politics Lead, there seems to be a growing split within the Democratic Party as the DSA, or the Democratic Socialists of America, take on the establishment wing of the party and look to expand on their wins in New York.

An upcoming primary race is in Colorado next Tuesday at battleground States of Michigan and Wisconsin later this summer. We're about to hear two different perspectives on what this split might mean for the party, the Democratic Party, ahead of November's midterms. First, we're going to talk to Ashik Siddique. He's co-chair of the DSA. Ashik, thanks so much for joining us and congratulations on the victories.

[17:45:05]

Here is how New York City DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo sees the relationship with the Democratic Party. He said, "We run as Democrats. We're on the Democratic Party line, and we contest the primaries. And when they're in the legislature, they're part of the Democratic caucus. But we don't agree with the way the Democratic Party establishment organizes." He goes on to say, "In terms of the agenda, there's a problem in the Democrat Party where they are funded by billionaire donors, and at the same time, they're trying to represent the working class. And in our opinion, you have to choose."

Now, those remarks have been interpreted as him saying, we're using the Democratic Party in order to get elected. We'll work with them when we can. But ultimately, the Democratic Party is our host in order to us to get to power. And in a lot of ways, they're an obstacle to be maneuvered around. Is that an unfair characterization?

ASHIK SIDDIQUE, CO-CHAIR, DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS OF AMERICA: Well, we're organizing to represent millions of working people in the United States who are feeling totally left out of the political system when they're having to work longer hours or multiple jobs to make ends meet. There are so many people who can't pay rent, who can't afford groceries. And they see the billionaire class getting richer and richer. They see Elon Musk becoming the world's first trillionaire. And they're seeing such a huge discrepancy. So that's who we're organizing. And many of these people are part of the Democratic Party voting base. But feeling increasingly left out. So we think there is a clear choice. There's a choice between the ruling class and the working class. And it's up to the leadership of the Democratic Party if they want to stand with very popular policies that represent millions of people in this country who are looking for something to be motivated by, who are looking for something credible, that that's going to change our society for the better, to represent everybody's needs.

So there is a choice if Democrats in power want to win and to serve the interests of working people, then we're showing the way forward. If they want to continue to cater to tech oligarchs, to fossil fuel executives, and to the 1 percent of the 1 percent, then they can make their choice. But this is what most voters want. We're showing in New York City, in Philadelphia, in Georgia, in Kentucky, in so many parts of the country, these are politics that resonate. And this is how we expand the electorate.

There are so many people in the Democratic Party who want what we're talking about, and there are so many non-voters who haven't been voting for many years. So if we want to expand the electorate and represent so many Americans who are feeling totally checked out of this political system, this is how we do it.

TAPPER: So I totally hear you on all the policies that you're talking about. One of the concerns we hear from Democrats in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere is that some of the candidates who have won will be used against all of, not just the DSA, but all Democrats. Let me just give you one example. One of the three New York City congressional candidates endorsed by Mayor Mamdani, who won on Tuesday, is Darializa Avila Chevalier.

Earlier this month, CNN's K-File uncovered some now-deleted social media posts from her. One post from September 2021 said, "A world without borders, just like a world without prisons or police, is possible, necessary, and the only moral way forward." That same month, she also reposted, "Yes, literally, abolish the border," and "all deportation is wrong."

In August 2020, she reposted a tweet responding to a post that said, Israel suddenly disappears, your third emoji is your reaction. She replied, "Trick question, Israel doesn't exist." So what about the concern that some people have that it's not about, you know, universal daycare, which is one of Mamdani's big positions and policies in New York. It's their fear of individuals saying, no borders, no prisons, no police.

SIDDIQUE: Well, I think Darializa has spoken for herself. Those are things that she tweeted when she was a normal person who was not running for office. And I think when we prepare people to run for office to represent our movements and to represent millions of people, we're very serious about governing. So for us, it is absolutely about universal childcare. It's about expanding public transit to be fast and free. It's about controlling the cost of housing. And we want to deliver on these things. And it's when we think about, there are so many visions for how an ideal society would work. And I think for people on the left who've been not used to having power, we think about just the role you want to see in a very long term. There are all sorts of visions for that, but we're very concerned about how we deliver in our cities, in government, if we win federal power. We want to solve the problems that people have right now.

So whatever the long term vision that we're thinking about is, and there are all sorts of ideas about that. We want to run on credible platforms of expanding public services. We want to redirect from the trillions of dollars that are now being spent.

TAPPER: Right.

[17:50:00]

SIDDIQUE: We have a trillion dollar military budget. We have trillions of dollars in tax cuts to the already wealthiest. So there's such a huge disparity between how our system currently works, how our society is currently working, for the interests of the already most powerful and wealthy people in the world. And we need to flip that in a fundamental way. So we're not going to apologize about that.

And what it looks like in the long term is something we can, you know, lots of people have debated about for a long time, but we want to govern in the interests of people. And that's what -- we're talking about expanding the quality of life for people right now. And that's something that we can do right now in cities all over the country.

TAPPER: All right. Co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, Ashik Siddique. Thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Let us know if you're in D.C. We'll have you in person.

Let's turn now to Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey. Congressman, what's your overall response to what we just heard from Ashik Siddique?

REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER (D-NJ): Well, it seems pretty clear. First thing, you asked, are you part of the Democratic Party? It sounds like he was doing everything he could to avoid answering that question. And to the point that some have made, I think the socialists are just using the Democrats as a vehicle right now.

And he seemed to confirm that. This is my bigger concern. I think the point here that socialists aren't Democrats. I think they're not interested in actually seeing the success of the Democratic Party. And they've attacked our leadership. And as you just quoted, Jake, right, I mean, some of the positions, many of the positions are nowhere near what we believe, right? I mean, no police, no borders, no prisons. It's that kind of rhetoric which obviously belongs. And again, that's OK. That's their views. But it's in the socialist party, not in the Democratic Party.

TAPPER: But what's your response to the other point that he made, which was that they are trying to argue for more popular policies than have been delivered by the Democratic Party, universal childcare in New York, for example, increasing the minimum wage, and that they just don't think that one can take money from multimillionaires and corporations and billionaires and such and also represent the working class? I mean, that is --

GOTTHEIMER: I think if you look at the Democratic Party, again, and if you look at what Leader Jeffries is pushing along with so many of us here in Congress is exactly issues related to affordability, about childcare costs, you're getting your utility bills down, getting your taxes down, making life more affordable for you, the cost of food, going after the Trump taxes and tariffs that he's put on people, which are working class people, which are brutal, and fighting back against those and health care costs, which we worked so hard to get down, which of course got rejected by the administration.

So obviously the Trump administration is in charge, and we've got a very clear agenda. But what's very clear also is we're Democrats. We're proud of being a common-sense Democrat. And I'm not interested in bomb-throwing and those who don't want to solve problems but want to sow chaos. And part of my concern with the socialist agenda is just sowing chaos and bomb-throwing, not actually solving problems and getting things done.

TAPPER: Are you worried about this impacting the midterms? I mean, I just listed off some provocative, now-deleted posts by Darializa Avila Chevalier, who's likely to be a congresswoman, I mean, in New York City, in that district. Like, winning the primary is basically it.

She called for those things you just talked about, abolishing the police, the border, et cetera, et cetera. Do you think that's going to be held against, not you per se, but Democrats in really tough battleground districts?

GOTTHEIMER: Well, listen, I think if you look at the majority of my colleagues, what they talk about is what I was just talking about, common-sense ideas to get things done for people and to get costs down for folks. They're not talking about the things that, you know, were just being pushed in New York City, and that's not necessarily representative of a lot of the districts around the country.

These are splinter views and loud views, and by the way, you always have some of those, but it's not broadly representative of our party. It's certainly not representative of what Leader Jeffries has been pushing all over the country as part of our broad Democratic agenda, which is all about getting things done and solving problems for people, and standing up to, right, to extremism.

And let me just say, like, those views that you just heard from those tweets that were posts are extremist views, and, you know, it's really a declaration of war out of there on common-sense instead of getting things done for people, and, you know, OK, those are those views, but I'll tell you where the majority of us are, and that's not there.

TAPPER: Congressman Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, thanks so much, appreciate it. [17:54:26]

Coming up next, from a gun ban overturn to big wins for the Trump administration in immigration, we're going to break down the big decisions today from the U.S. Supreme Court. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. This hour, the U.S. Supreme Court handing President Trump two major wins today on immigration cases. But with just a few days left to go, there are still multiple blockbuster cases to be decided. Our legal experts are breaking down what happened today and what's to come.

Plus, a massive search and rescue operation is underway tonight after back to back earthquakes crumbled buildings and homes. Nearly 200 people reported dead with hundreds of others injured or missing. I'm going to be joined by someone on the ground in Venezuela who experienced the quakes and is now trying to help with relief efforts.

Also, new numbers show just how many Americans continue to struggle under the weight of the current economy. But is anyone in the White House listening? I'll ask a Republican member of Congress what his party is doing to lower your costs considering they have total control of Washington, D.C.

And Team USA takes the pitch tonight for its final match of this round of the World Cup. But will superstar Christian Pulisic be healthy enough to play? We're live outside the stadium in L.A. ahead.

[18:00:01]

Late tonight, the U.S. supreme Court handing President Trump major victories on two key immigration cases. The court clearing the way for immigration officials to be able to turn away --