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Senate Republicans Unveil Plan for Cuts to Medicaid, Taxes; Trump Says He "Doesn't Want to Call" Minnesota Gov. Walz on Shootings; Court Resumes in Combs Trial; Ex-Assistant to Take the Stand; American Bar Association Sues Trump Administration Over Attacks on Law Firms. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired June 17, 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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[09:32:49]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, after a week's of debate, Senate Republicans finally revealed their version of President Trump's so-called Big, Beautiful Bill. The Finance Committee's framework makes significant changes to the measure that narrowly passed the House. One of the biggest points of contention stems from deeper cuts to Medicaid through the so-called provider tax, which is how states raise money to pay for their portion of Medicaid.

Senator Josh Hawley is expressing his concerns, saying that would effectively defund hospitals, particularly rural hospitals. CNN's Arlette Saenz is live on Capitol Hill with the very latest. Give us what you got. There has been a lot of back and forth on this.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There really has been, Sara. And top Senate Republicans are meeting some resistance from within their own party to Trump's economic agenda that they're trying to push through on the Hill, which could potentially complicate that July 4th goal that they have set to send this bill to President Trump's desk.

Now, in the hours after the Senate Finance Committee released this proposal, we heard from Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who said that he is currently a no because this does not do enough to cut spending. And he poured some cold water about that July 4th deadline.

Now, to run through a bit of what this proposal includes, it is keeping the state and local tax deduction cap at $10,000. That's going to be an issue with some Republicans in the House who had wanted this to be at $40,000.

There are also deeper cuts to Medicaid. And as you mentioned, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri is one of those who has taken issue with the changes to the provider tax. He has specifically warned about the impacts that this could have on rural hospitals in his and other states.

Now, even as there are some lawmakers expressing some concerns about this proposal, the Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said that there is still a lot more work to do, but he's optimistic about that July 4th deadline.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD), MAJORITY LEADER: This is a piece of legislation that we need to get across the finish line. It's harder in the Senate. We have different rules that we have to comply with than they do in the House, and we're in the process of working through it. But in the next couple of weeks, I expect to get it done.

[09:35:03]

There's a lot of work between now and the July 4th break, but that's absolutely right. We're going to get this done, and it'll be out of the Senate, and hopefully we'll get it on the President's desk before the 4th of July.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: Now, Thune can only lose support from three Senate Republicans, so there's a lot of questions about how this will move forward in the Senate, but they are hoping to potentially start holding votes late next week to try to send this over to the House, which then would still need to be approved if there are any changes.

SIDNER: Arlette Saenz, thank you so much for your reporting there on Capitol Hill for us.

John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, this morning in a kind of bipartisan show of force, a fairly rare one, Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna and Republican hardliner Thomas Massie, they plan to introduce a measure that would force President Trump to get approval from Congress to enter the conflict between Israel and Iran.

Massie went to social media. This is what he wrote. He wrote, "This is not our war. But if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our constitution. I'm introducing a bipartisan war powers resolution to tomorrow to prohibit our involvement. I invite all members of Congress to co-sponsor this resolution."

With us now, CNN Political Commentator Karen Finney and CNN Senior Political Commentator Ana Navarro.

And, Karen, it's interesting because we had Tim Kaine on here, I had Jeff Merkley on yesterday. These are Democratic senators who, over the years, obviously have been supportive of Israel, but this time have indicated, you know, they do not support further U.S. involvement here. What do you think the Democratic Party is on this?

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think the concern, John, is for the United States to get drawn into a conflict in the Middle East. I mean, we saw this during the Biden administration, not long after October 7th. There were a lot of questions about what kind of engagement would the United States be part of.

And certainly now that it's spreading, and let's remember, this is something that Donald Trump said he was going to fix within 24 hours. And now we not only see that the initial conflict hasn't ended again, it's now spreading. And so I suspect that members of Congress are also hearing from constituents who are saying, we do not want America being dragged into another foreign war.

BERMAN: You know, that's the Democratic side. The Republican side, in some ways, even more interesting politically, Ana, not only might lawmakers be hearing from constituents, they're hearing from the likes of Tucker Carlson, who's got a lot of support among Donald Trump supporters. And Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, they're against, like dead set against, more U.S. involvement here.

Tucker Carlson wrote on Twitter, "The real divide isn't between people who support Israel and people who support Iran or the Palestinians. It's between those who casually encourage violence and those who seek to prevent it, warmongers and peacemakers." And he wanted to list people he considers to be warmongers, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Rupert Murdoch here. And the president was actually asked to respond to Tucker Carlson. Listen to what he said.

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DONALD TRUMP (R), U.S. PRESIDENT: I don't know what Tucker Carlson is saying. Let him go get a television network and say it so that people listen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Now, the dig there in entertainment circles is that Tucker's not on TV, he's on social media.

ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And a lot of the people you just named are people who, you know, either fired him at Fox or are still at Fox where he got fired from.

BERMAN: But look, this is a divide in between some of the most, you know, loud supporters of Donald Trump here. I wonder where this is going.

NAVARRO: Well, there's a real divide in the Republican Party, right? Between the neocons who have been much maligned by MAGA and Trump and the folks who are more isolationist. And I think you are seeing that play out.

I will tell you -- you know, anything that's a bipartisan action in Congress, I applaud. I don't think it means much to Donald Trump what Ro Khanna and Massie are doing. If he doesn't pay attention to judicial orders from the Supreme Court, I'm not sure he's going to care much about resolutions passed by the House, which, you know, assuming that they pass. I think a lot of people voted for Donald Trump because he kept saying in the campaign trail that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were going to delve us into World War III. We're going to bring about World War III and that he was going to get us out of foreign wars. He promised to end Ukraine, Russia on day one. He promised to end the Middle East conflicts. He said they would have never happened under his watch, and this is happening under his watch. The escalation, it's getting much worse. It's now involving Iran. So, Donald Trump's got some explaining to do.

BERMAN: Look, it's interesting. I wonder if he'll listen more to Tucker Carlson, though, than Congress. I mean, those are two different voices there, and one may have more sway with him than the other.

NAVARRO: I think Donald Trump listens to Donald Trump.

BERMAN: I wanted to ask both of you, because earlier this morning President Trump was asked if he was going to call Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota to express sympathy or, you know, his thoughts for the murder of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband, and he said, no, I'm not going to call Tim Walz.

I'm not going to play that sound. Instead, what I want to play is an interview that Sara just did with the Minnesota Secretary of State, who had a really interesting answer to this question about how members of each party are talking about this.

[09:40:07]

Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE SIMON, MINNESOTA SECRETARY OF STATE: So, I think one possible solution here is we've just got to be better about policing our own. Those on the left, police your own. Those on the right, police your own, even and especially behind the scenes. It doesn't have to be a press release. It doesn't have to be a social media post. It could be quiet, and no one has to see it. But that's how we're going to get at this problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Yeah, you know, and before that, he said there's this sort of, he called it like a six-score card about, you know, whose politicians are getting targeted more. Karen, it was just interesting to hear him say, like, let's just worry about ourselves here and look inward.

FINNEY: Look, I mean, John, I think with what we saw over the weekend, it was just heinous. And the things that we've learned since about how much worse it could have been, there is too much harsh rhetoric coming from both sides. I'm not going to play both sides-ism.

I do think it was inappropriate, though. It was, as I think this gentleman also had said, it was a missed opportunity for the president. But we don't have a president who is interested in being the kind of peacemaker where you would have heard, yes, I called the governor, and yes, you know, we've said we'll do whatever we can to help.

But I agree with the idea that let's just all cut it out. Let's stop, you know, who did what to whom and keeping the scorecard. And what if we could all just stop with the violent rhetoric? Because as we now know, you can't say you don't know it's not going to have an impact, because we're seeing increasingly that it is having an impact. And some of these individuals are citing things that they heard, you know, so-and-so say, well, these people are evil or these people are that. So, let's just stop.

NAVARRO: Listen, this is not a level playing field. Nobody has a bigger bully pulpit in this country, in this world, than the president of the United States. And I would have thought that Donald Trump had had an assassination attempt on himself, would have reflected and learned something from the experience.

Just compare what Joe Biden, who was running against him at that time, did in comparison to what he's doing now. Joe Biden called Donald Trump and wished him well and called on the country's better angels. Instead, Donald Trump, on TV, basically calls Tim Walz a wacko and says, "No, I don't need to call him."

The reason you call a governor and the highest elected official of that state is because they're representative of a state that's in crisis or a tragedy just happened, a state that is in mourning, because they are the representative. In the same way that when there's a tragedy in the United States, foreign leaders call Donald Trump.

And so I'm not going to let him off the hook on this. And I think you don't hold him accountable just quietly. You also do it on TV. You also do it on social media, because we need to demand better from the commander-in-chief and the president of the United States.

There are things that should be above politics. And because Donald Trump is saying the things he does, and he's being a jerk, which is what he's being to Tim Walz and the people of Minnesota, is the reason that the senior U.S. senator from Utah, Mike Lee, can go on Twitter and crack lame jokes about the tragedy in Minnesota and not even apologize or take them down.

So, no, I don't think it's a level playing field. I think we have to hold our elected officials far more accountable than we do some French conspiracy theorists on Twitter, and they are letting us down, particularly on the Republican side.

BERMAN: Ana Navarro, Karen Finney, thanks to both of you.

A former assistant for Sean Combs set to take the stand this morning as explosive new details emerged in the federal sex trafficking trial.

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[09:48:07] BERMAN: All right, happening now, jurors in the sex trafficking and racketeering trial of Sean Combs hearing new testimony from a summary witness. Let's get right to lower Manhattan. CNN's Kara Scannell outside the courthouse for the latest. Tell us what's happening, Kara.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. Yeah, the special agent is still testifying on the stand. She is trying to help the government piece together all of the travel records that they have as they try to prove these charges of transportation to engage in prostitution.

So, the jury is seeing records of flights being booked in the name of some of these male escorts, traveling them across state lines, New York to L.A., and back, and also hotel records showing they stayed there. The jury is also seeing American Express bills in Sean Combs' names covering the expenses for these tabs. So, trying to piece that together to solidify their evidence for one of those charges.

Now, after this witness is off the stand, we will then hear from Brendan Paul, who is Combs' former personal assistant. Paul is testifying under a grant of immunity. That was given this morning by the judge. And when he testifies, he's expected to tell the jury what it was like working for Combs, setting up some of these hotel rooms for the events where Prosecutor City alleged sex trafficking took place, and also describe his involvement in getting drugs for Combs. That is another big part of this case, and that fits into the racketeering charge.

Brendan Paul was with Combs when prosecutors and federal agents initiated those searches of Combs' homes and also stopped Combs himself. And Paul was arrested that day because drugs were found on him. So, there will be testimony kind of tying some of these elements together as the prosecution nears the end of their case.

John?

BERMAN: Getting to these key moments. Kara Scannell, great to have you down there. Thank you very much.

All right, the American Bar Association taking on President Trump. New reporting as the nation's largest organization of lawyers is suing the Trump administration.

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[09:54:27]

SIDNER: This morning, the American Bar Association had taken the Trump administration to court. The group suing over the president's executive orders targeting major law firms, and they're saying they're doing it to halt what it calls government intimidation of lawyers and law firms.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz joining us now with more on this. What are you learning about the suit? KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sara, this is a lawsuit about the cultural change that Donald Trump is trying to bring across the legal industry. This is the American Bar Association, the largest voluntary group of lawyers in the United States versus the Trump administration, and it is the latest lawsuit that we're seeing in a series of lawsuits against what Donald Trump has done with law firms by policy out of the White House.

[09:55:13]

This is an attack of -- the ABA is trying to mount against Trump's political ideals, his personal vendettas that he's trying to impose on law firms. What he has done is issued several executive orders of law firms restricting their access to the federal government. Those firms individually, they have sued -- and Sara, they have largely won those cases, but there are other firms, too, that are now in the legal industry called capitulating firms, firms that have made deals or firms that are changing their practices to not be on the bad side of the White House.

And so, the American Bar Association, they're suing over all of this, claiming that, quote, "The President's attacks on law firms through the law firm orders are thus not isolated events, but one component of a broader, deliberate policy designed to intimidate and coerce law firms and lawyers to refrain from challenging the president or his administration in court."

We'll see where this lawsuit goes, but it is quite an effort by the ABA to try and maintain their ability to practice law across any firms in the United States.

SIDNER: And quite unusual to sue the president, that they are suing the president. Thank you so much, Katelyn Polantz, and thank you for joining us.

BERMAN: Yeah, a lot going on today. The President is going to head to the Situation Room in the White House to talk about the Middle East. In the meantime, our Situation Room up next.

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