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Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) is Interviewed about Musk Comment son Trump's Bill; Democrats Grill Trump's VA Nominee; Will Leitch is Interviewed about Political and Cultural Fights. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired June 05, 2025 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:30:16]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, new this morning, House Speaker Mike Johnson trying to downplay Elon Musk's attacks of President Trump's prized spending bill. This is what he just said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Elon's a good friend. We texted late last night. We're going to talk this morning.

He seems pretty dug in right now. And I -- I can't quite understand the motivation behind it. But I will tell you that what we're delivering in this bill is not only historic tax cuts, but historic savings as well. He seems to miss that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So, Musk launched a barrage of tweets, railing against the domestic policy spill, the tax and spending bill, calling on Congress to draft a new one that would not, quote, "massively grow the deficit and increase the debt ceiling by $5 trillion."

In another post, he urged the public to, quote, "call your senator. Call your congressman. Bankrupting America is not OK. Kill the bill."

With us now is Congressman Pete Sessions of Texas. He sits on the Financial Services and Oversight Committee.

Congressman, always great to see you.

You know, Elon Musk has got 220 million followers on Twitter. He told people to call their congressman. What have you been hearing on the phone lines.

REP. PETE SESSIONS (R-TX): Well, in fact, what Elon Musk is saying is, as one of the largest entrepreneurs in the world, he does not want to see America, just like I don't, and I don't think Donald Trump does, want to see us be in deficit spending. We recognize that deficit spending is how you get inflation. So, what Elon Musk is doing is using his tactical skill set that he has learned in the marketplace. Members of Congress, senators, members of Congress need to recognize

that it is our responsibility to lower the deficit, and that is by changing or making less the amount of money that we spend or the amount of money that we allow to be in tax cuts.

But the tax cuts are there to move the economy. They're there to bring back all over this nation, whether it be in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, or wherever, bring back business. And that is what our bill is designed to do.

We are comparing the money against where it was set with Barack Obama in 2009. And that is a tough structure. And we're going to make it. And I think the American people will have confidence we're going to make this America not only great again, but we'll be in the golden age.

And this is what Donald Trump is trying to impress upon people.

BERMAN: Well, so -- so, Congressman, you -- you just talked about your opposition to deficit spending.

SESSIONS: I do.

BERMAN: The CBO, Congressional Budget Office, just put out figures that this will add $2.4 trillion to the national debt.

SESSIONS: And that is after they then took into account something which I also struggle with, and that is tariffs.

But the bottom line is, is that this has to come together as a piece of legislation. You see, John, if we do not pass our one Big Beautiful Bill, then we negotiate with Democrats, essentially nine Democrats, that simply raise the spending to get us to where we get the tax cuts, that we save them where they ought to be.

So, it is no question about it, not a perfect battle for us. Not for Republicans.

BERMAN: But I don't -- I don't understand -- I'm -- I'm sorry to interrupt you, Congressman, but I don't understand. You talk about the bottom line. The CBO says the bottom line is literally 200 -- you know, $2.4 trillion additional debt. This is a bill that you support, but you're also against adding to the debt. How can that be?

SESSIONS: Well, it's going to go through the Senate. And we're going to find out what the Senate wants to do. And then we're going to make the final vote. I don't want to do -- have any deficit spending. But what I'm trying to suggest to you is, is that we are stuck in a -- in a paradigm where we have to pass this ourselves. And as you know, there are lots of arguments about raising state and local taxes to where we had members that are in what might be called blue states.

So, it's a balance there. That is maybe a -- almost $1 trillion. And so, what we're trying to do is balance out where the American people get jobs and job creation. We really don't want to see people just leave these blue states because of taxes that they can't afford their property.

BERMAN: Is this -- is it --

SESSIONS: So, it is not a perfect world, John.

BERMAN: Is Elon Musk right?

[09:35:00]

Is this putting the United States in debt slavery?

SESSIONS: Well, if we actually go to $2.4 trillion after what the Senate does, then I think we're going to have to look at how we're going to come in and do something about that.

But remember, what we did is we compromised. People like myself compromised. I'm also against raising state and local taxes. But we don't want everybody to move to Texas or Florida or Georgia. We want them to have a home, too. And so, we're trying to accommodate a lot of people. That is a big price.

BERMAN: Do you think this will increase the debt by $2.4 trillion?

SESSIONS: I -- I think that if we fail to keep business here, if we fail to help communities that are in trouble, the federal government will spend more money. I see the federal government spending less money if people become employed. If we do the things that we're trying to do with health care, to encourage people to stay healthy as opposed to expensive surgeries and being sick, yes, I think there are a whole lot of ways for us to do this, John. It's a scorecard you look at, and I do too.

And while I'm not happy with it, I did compromise my vote on state and local taxes, and I did it for my colleagues and for people who live in these high tax states. I used to live in New Jersey when I was up at Bell Labs a couple, you know, 19 -- in the middle '80s. And those are good people. And they have decided that they were going to raise their taxes. And we need to help keep business and people there.

BERMAN: All right.

SESSIONS: So, I compromise myself. Isn't that kind of what we want us to do also? Yes. But do we want to have a debt? No, we don't.

BERMAN: Congressman Pete Sessions, it's going to be an interesting summer if -- if Republicans and members of Congress continue to fight against debt.

SESSIONS: Yes, it will be.

BERMAN: But continue to support a bill that could very well add trillions to it.

But appreciate your time. Appreciate your admission as a Texan that you once lived in New Jersey as well.

SESSIONS: Yes, sir.

BERMAN: Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, still ahead, Trump's nominee to be the VA's watchdog grilled on Capitol Hill. One Democratic senator asking point blank, what have you done? And saying, quote, "you haven't been earning your pay."

That story ahead.

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[09:41:53]

SIDNER: President Trump's pick for Veteran Affairs inspector general on the hot seat being grilled by Democratic senators on Capitol Hill over whether she can serve in the role objectively. Nominee Cheryl Mason is currently senior adviser to Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins.

CNN's Brian Todd is joining us now.

Brian, it seems that the Democrats line of attack here is a concern about loyalty to Trump basically.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thats right, Sara. That's exactly it. They say that she is too loyal to Donald Trump. Too loyal to his VA secretary, Doug Collins, because Donald Trump appointed her earlier this year to be a senior advisor to Collins. That is a political appointment. It also came on the heels of Donald Trump, as you remember, firing more than a dozen inspectors general in one fell swoop earlier this year.

Now, the Democrats say that because she's a political appointee and was an advisor to Doug Collins, she's way too political to be an effective inspector general. They also accuse Cheryl Mason of taking part in the planning of the anticipated mass layoffs at the VA. They say that she has also forced some VA employees to sign nondisclosure agreements. She has denied both of those things.

But yesterday it got heated when Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat from Connecticut, on the Veteran -- Veterans Affairs Committee, pressed Cheryl Mason on what involvement she had in planning the mass layoffs.

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CHERYL MASON, NOMINEE FOR VA INSPECTOR GENERAL: Senator Blumenthal, I have no -- had no involvement in that activity.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): What have you done?

MASON: Well, again, my information -- my -- my role as senior advisor is to gather information. When you look at how --

BLUMENTHAL: It's like you haven't been earning your pay. MASON: Well, I have, because the -- the department is quite siloed, as

you know. And VBA is -- is very siloed in its actions.

BLUMENTHAL: But what have you done?

MASON: So, I've -- I've been investigating and -- and looking at VBA and providing advice to the VBA leadership, as well as other careerists at the board and at National Cemetery Administration. So, I've been earning my pay, 12 hour days almost every day.

BLUMENTHAL: You have been earning your pay as a loyal advisor, a member of the Collins team, an employee at his behest, a political appointee, not as a career civil servant. You are a political appointee as inspector general. And that is why I will object to your nomination.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: We reached out to the VA for response to the criticism of Cheryl Mason. They pointed us to a comment made last month at a House hearing by Democratic Representative Maxine Dexter of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, who said that, quote, "without question" that Mason is a good candidate.

But of course, Sara, this comes amid a lot of tension at the VA because there are planned layoffs, maybe to the degree of about 80,000 people, which would be about 17 percent of their workforce. And there is just a lot of tension in the VA surrounding that.

SIDNER: Yes, none of this happening, of course, in a vacuum.

Thank you so much, Brian Todd, for your reporting on that this morning.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to have more on our breaking news this hour. President Trump and Chinese President Xi on the phone together amid the ongoing trade war and stalled trade talks. We're waiting on a readout on that call.

And 2,000 gallons of diesel fuel spilling into Baltimore's harbor.

[09:45:00]

New details about what caused it and how long it's now going to take to clean up the mess.

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BOLDUAN: So, right now, crews are working to clean up a mess in Baltimore's inner harbor after 2,000 gallons of diesel fuel spilled into the water there. I want to play for you what -- what Maryland's governor, Wes Moore, said just earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GOV. WES MOORE (D-MD): And the Coast Guard and their contract. The Coast Guard and the contractor are using oil absorbent materials and skimmers that feed into a 4,000 gallon pump truck.

[09:50:04]

That also includes, in addition to the over 100 personnel who have worked over -- through the night.

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BOLDUAN: The governor and Baltimore's mayor say the spill originated at a Johns Hopkins Hospital facility yesterday, but they're still looking into exactly what happened. They say there is no impact to the drinking water but also unclear what the environmental impact is going to be of this spill.

Also this morning, Procter and Gamble have announced that it is cutting 6 percent of its workforce over the next two years. That's about 7,000 jobs. The company also announced it's going to be stopping selling some products and brands in certain markets. This is -- we're talking about as the world's largest consumer goods company. I mean it makes everything. We're talking Dawn dish soap, Pampers diapers. Look in your cabinet. Something from Procter and Gamble. The company says these moves are intended to try to offset uneven demand and tariff uncertainty. The company previously announced it would raise prices on some of its products because of the tariffs.

And who doesn't like to dress up at work? We clearly do. And really, taking your job to another level. Caretakers at the San Diego Humane Society, they are doing just that for one black bear cub. The cub was found alone in Los Padres National Forest earlier this year, and the caretakers are now dressing in full bear costumes. Did I miss it, because I'd like to see it. Rerack that. Full bear costumes to try to -- oh, there -- there we go -- to keep the young cub from bonding with humans and also care for it. They plan to return the cub to the wild next year.

Does this sound familiar? Yes, it should. You'll recall another costume story that we covered, caretakers in the Bronx, they used a lifelike vulture puppet to care for a baby bird there literally just one month ago, John. How time flies.

BERMAN: Yes, I'm not sure they're doing it just for the bears. I think we're taking a leap there.

BOLDUAN: What?

BERMAN: Breaking overnight, a barrage of executive action by President Trump, including a travel ban resurrected from his first administration, and a renewed discussion of former President Biden's, quote, cognitive decline.

So, if these political and cultural fights feel familiar, it's because they are. As Will Leitch, contributing editor of "New York Magazine" so aptly points out, we're seeing a pattern of debates that felt settled being recycled and relitigated in a new piece titled "I can't believe we're still arguing about this." He unpacks the recycling of disputes, a practice led by the president or, as Will calls him, the, quote, "re-litigator in chief." In his "New York Times" op-ed he writes, "the aggrieved pseudo-nostalgia that fuels the make America great again movement means no old argument can truly be settled."

And Will Leitch joins us now.

Great to see you.

This was a piece sort of pegged to Pete Rose, written a week ago. What does it tell you that since the time you wrote it all these new examples proving your point have come up?

WILL LEITCH, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, "NEW YORK MAGAZINE": I mean, just wait, there will be more next week and there will be more the week after. I think it was probably another cats news cycle that we're going to be able to get into at some point.

I was kind of inspired to do this piece because of Pete Rose. You know, I write primarily in sports professionally. It was funny to think I started the website -- the late website Deadspin 20 years ago. And what a -- 20 years ago in June. And my big thing at the time was, you know what, I know you're all tired of talking about Pete Rose. We're not going to talk about Pete Rose for the site. That was 20 years ago. It's truly remarkable to me.

And it comes, of course, across sports and culture, right. There are so many things that we felt maybe had been at least mostly settled, or at least we've moved on to something a little bit more interesting to argue about. It's remarkable. We're discussing Bruce Springsteen's politics. Is "SNL" still funny? Like all of these conversations that we were having 20 years ago, they seem like they just keep coming up really every 20 minutes.

BERMAN: And there is something, you know, quintessentially Trumpy about that, too, you argue.

LEITCH: Yes. I mean this is really, again, in a lot of ways is a little bit stuck in like the mid-80s and tabloid culture and "The New York Post" and -- and all that sort of thing. I joked in the piece that, like, I wouldn't -- no one would be really shocked if he posthumously put Robin Leach as like the ambassador to Monaco or something. Like, it feels like in a lot of ways he's stuck in this time. Though I also think -- and it goes beyond just Trump, right? Like in an age where, you know, we are -- there was a time where people talk about cable news. You need all of these new things to talk about and all these new things to repeat. Now we live in a social media world where eventually we're going to run out of like new things to fight with each other about, so we've got to bring up old stuff to get back fighting about. It's funny to be writing about this, all this stuff for 20, 25 years and have like the young kids be like, you know what, I'm really mad about Barry Bonds and steroids. I'm like, oh, my gosh, I've been writing about this for so long. But it's true because I -- every -- the more information, the more kind of constant input that we need, we end up relitigating all these old fights because we need something to fight with each other about.

BERMAN: And we need something new. And you have this beautiful part of your piece where you talk about your experience with your own son, discovering Hall and Oates, like they just stepped foot on earth for the first time.

[09:55:02]

LEITCH: Yes. There's a -- there's a -- there's an ongoing cultural theory about the idea there's like this slow elimination of the future. Which is to say, we're not really creating a lot of new culture right now because really on Spotify, as far as my kid knows, Hall and Oates is as new as Chappell Roan or Benson Boone or Kendrick Lamar, right? Like the idea, if I hear this song, you go on Spotify, there's no like local top radio there -- where they're learning stuff from. All of this kind of gets flattened and so it becomes all the same conversation.

So, as much as I appreciated shocking my son that I knew this cool new song that he knew, it turned out the song was older than I was. And I think that spoke to kind of the moment a little bit.

BERMAN: I had that experience. My son discovered Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street and my son, who may be watching right now, my apologies, but he actually thought it was cool.

Will Leitch, love your writing. Been a big fan for a long time. Great to see you here on CNN NEWS CENTRAL. People should check out this piece in "The New York Times" because it's really, really telling.

SIDNER: It's not new, as my mother says, it's new to you.

BERMAN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: I like that so much. But also, could there be anything more true than we all just need to find more -- new things to fight about? So, if we can't come up with new ones, let's go back to some old ones.

SIDNER: I've got plenty of things I want to relitigate with this guy. Big time.

BOLDUAN: Oh, (inaudible).

SIDNER: I know you do.

BOLDUAN: Our grievance fest is --

SIDNER: It's huge.

BOLDUAN: Let's go. Festivus (ph).

SIDNER: Thank you so much for joining us. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL. "THE SITUATION ROOM," up next.

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