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Americans Feelings on Trump's Bill; Senate Begins Marathon Vote; Matthew Platkin and Phil Weiser are Interviewed about the Supreme Courts's Ruling; Michael Oren is Interviewed about Iran. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired June 30, 2025 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:31:18]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: In just moments, the Senate set to begin a marathon series of votes on President Trump's sweeping domestic agenda as Republicans race to push the bill across the president's desk by July 4th.

CNN's chief data analyst Harry Enten is with us now.

All right, we're going to be hearing about how senators feel. And there's some big feelings there. But how do Americans feel about this mega bill?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Yes, I'll give you some adjectives. How about awful, horrible, and to quote our dear friend Mr. Sir Charles Barkley, terrible, terrible, terrible.

What are we talking about here? Well, why don't we take a look at the big, beautiful bill. I got four -- five. Five. Not just four, five different polls across the

screen for you. This is the net favorable rating. The highest rating comes from "The Washington Post" at minus 19 points. How about Pew, minus 20 points. How about Fox, minus 21. Quinnipiac, minus 26. And KFF takes the cake at minus 29 points.

When you have a bill who's net favorable rating ranges from minus 19 points, which is already terrible, all the way to minus 29 points, the bottom line is, the American people don't see this as a big, beautiful bill. They see it as a big, bad bill. They hate it, hate it, hate it. They think it's awful, awful, awful.

SIDNER: All right, has it become less popular or more popular as Americans start learning about the details in this bill?

ENTEN: Yes, I think a lot of Republicans have been trying to argue, the more that Americans get to know about this bill, the more they'll like it. Ain't the case.

Let's take a look here. Quinnipiac University polled it in early June and late June. The big, beautiful bill, the net favorable rating. You look here, excuse me, should be at 26 -- minus 26 points in early June. How about in late June? Look at this, minus 26 points. So, the more they get to know about this bill, the less they, in fact, don't think it's a good idea. They think it's just as bad in early June as they think it was in late June.

So, the more they get to know this bill, they hate it just the same. And I'll point out, the favorable rating among independents, minus 45 points. Just terrible.

SIDNER: That's a huge number, minus 45.

What is it that makes it so unpopular?

ENTEN: What is it? What -- what is it that makes it so unpopular? Donald Trump got elected to a second term because people looked back at his first term and they said, you know what, we thought his first term agenda helped our family. You see this here, Trump's policies and your family. Trump's first term agenda, 44 percent said it helped their family, compared to 31 percent who said hurt.

But look at the big, beautiful bill. Look at this. Just 23 percent of Americans say that the big, beautiful bill helps their family, compared to 49 percent who says it hurts their family. No wonder they hate this bill. Folks elected Donald Trump to a second term because they wanted him and his policies to help their family, but they think the big, beautiful bill does the exact opposite of that. They think it hurts their family.

SIDNER: It is pretty clear what the polling is saying this morning, Harry.

ENTEN: Sometimes there's a lack of clarity.

SIDNER: Pretty clear.

ENTEN: Today, there's a lot of clarity.

SIDNER: All right, Harry Enten, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

ENTEN: Thank you.

SIDNER: John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, with us now is CNN's senior political commentator and former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger.

Congressman, thanks so much for being with us.

I want to talk about Senator Thom Tillis, the Republican from North Carolina, who announced he's not running for re-election, split from President Trump on this bill. Now, I know every situation is -- is unique, and your situation was not exactly the same as his, but you split from the president. You announced you weren't running for re- election at one point. You know, what do you think life is going to be like for Senator Thom Tillis now? ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I mean, it's

confusing because this is not just a few months after he basically personally ensured Kash Patel became the FBI director to, you know, impress Trump. So, I think somehow between that and this is when he made his decision not to run again,

[08:35:04]

I think, what's life for him now? I think the second after you announce it, it is like this massive burden lifted from your shoulders. And, you know, the thing you always fear in politics is like, I'm going to make the announcement I'm not running again, and the next second I'm going to regret it. And there's no going back.

So, I think he made the announcement. He clearly said in there that this was not a hard decision. I actually look forward and hope that he's going to now start, in essence, telling the truth about what's going on in the Senate and stuff like that. So, I'm sure today he's feeling a big smile on his face, to be honest with you.

BERMAN: Yes, talk to me more about what you would like to see from him now that he has announced he's not running for re-election.

KINZINGER: Just the truth. I mean, look, you know, look, I'm not saying he's lying. I'm not saying that. But, you know, when you're in politics, you're constantly negotiating with yourself, with your own set of morals, particularly of late, to say, OK, I guess I have to support this, quote/unquote, big, beautiful bill. Which, by the way, how the Democrats have not turned the name big, beautiful bill against the Republicans yet is beyond me. I mean we used to be actually against big, beautiful bills, just to be clear.

So, I'd like to see him just, you know, clearly stating things like, we cannot be cutting taxes right now on the wealthiest with a $40 trillion debt. You know, Medicare stuff -- or Medicaid, stuff like that. And then just telling the truth about what's going on in D.C. About how so many of these senators and congress people are constantly scared of -- of going against the president of the United States because they have to face a re-election back home because they have to face a primary. And it would be -- it would be nice to have more people talk about that so the American people understand.

BERMAN: I want to ask you some policy specifics here. Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri, he had been against many parts of this bill because of the cuts to Medicaid, but he changed his vote. He voted to -- to advance it. He seemed supportive of it now in general. And this is what he said on camera.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOSH H AWLEY (R-MO): I mean we can't -- we can't be cutting health care for working people and for poor people in order to constantly give special tax treatment to corporations and other entities. If we're going to be the working class party, we've got to protect

working people. And I just -- the Medicaid stuff in here I think is bad. And I think we've -- we delayed the worst of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: He thinks it's bad, but they've delayed it and he seems supportive of the bill. What do you say to that congressman?

KINZINGER: This is the best. I'm so glad you put this up because this is exactly what I'm talking about. What Thom Tillis needs to talk about. You always have this faux, this fake opposition to these things until the chips fall. You know, there's always, in the House of Representatives, a moderate contingent that is just opposed to this because of SALT. And then there's a conservative contingent that, gee, that -- it raises the national debt. And yet somehow at the end they always miraculously get it through with just enough people voting no that it passes. Same with the Senate.

You know, Josh Hawley spends a year with his -- trying to build up his blue collar, you know, credentials and say that he cares about the working class and he cares about Medicaid cuts. And even says it after he votes to advance the Medicaid cut bills. It's a whole game. He wants to maintain this idea of being a middle class fighter or a fighter for the working class. But of course he's not going to oppose President Trump. Of course he's going to do what they want. And that's exactly what you're seeing there.

And that's like, I think, the American people become so cynical about politics. And this is why. It's stuff like this. It's not because people are conservative or liberal ,it's because people say they're one thing and then always vote another way because, gosh, I can't go against the president or my party or whatever.

BERMAN: Former Congressman -- former Congressman, I should say, Adam Kinzinger, nice to see you this morning. Thank you very much.

KINZINGER: You bet.

BERMAN: Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: We're learning new details about the man that police say started a fire to lure in firefighters, only to open fire on them. Two firefighters now dead. The fire that they -- that was set still burning this morning as they now try to figure out how and why this ambush happened.

And a new warning today about Iran's nuclear program. The head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog says, even after the U.S. strikes, Iran could start enriching uranium again in a matter of months.

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BOLDUAN: So, the Supreme Court handed down a landmark ruling on Friday limiting a federal judge's authority to issue nationwide injunctions to curb executive power. The 6-3 decision, it was a big win for President Trump, and he definitely said -- said as much. But the decision also did not weigh in on the merits of the constitutional question of birthright citizenship as a main substance of this case. The high court's decision has Democrats furious, while Republicans celebrated it.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): It's really dangerous because it will incentivize the president to act in a lawless manner because now only the Supreme Court, who can only take a handful of cases a year, can ever stop him from violating the laws in the Constitution.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): One judge in Massachusetts or California doesn't have the power to bind all 330 million Americans. That's a real victory for democracy because you were getting rogue judges putting their own policy preferences in front of the agenda that President Trump was elected to implement, and to carry out the will of the people.

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BOLDUAN: A group of 22 Democratic-led states brought the case against the administration, and they now promise to fight on. Two of the attorneys general leading the effort join us now. The attorney general of New Jersey, Matthew Platkin, and the attorney general of Colorado, Phil Weiser.

[08:45:04]

Gentlemen, thank you both for being here.

Attorney General Platkin, what now?

MATTHEW PLATKIN, NEW JERSEY ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, look, I think it's important to remember what the Supreme Court did not do on Friday. First, as you noted, they didn't opine on the merits of birthright citizenship because everyone, for the last 157 years, has understood that babies born on U.S. soil since the Civil War have been treated as citizens. They also, and this is important for states, said very clearly, states still may need nationwide relief if, in fact, the harms that we experience as states, meaning if you're a state trying to parse through whether a child born for us in Philadelphia is somehow different than a child born in New Jersey for citizenship, and all of the benefits, education, health care that flow from that, the consequences to states are enormous. So, they asked lower courts to consider that question.

So, notably, it was a rhetorically very strong opinion, but it actually was quite a middle of the road opinion for what the administration wanted.

BOLDUAN: So, do you think you could still get a universal injunction? PLATKIN: I do. I think we will very clearly be able to meet the

standard that even this Supreme Court set out for states to meet should we need nationwide relief.

BOLDUAN: It's kind of parsing through a little bit of what Justice Coney Barrett put in her majority opinion.

Let me ask you, Attorney General Weiser, you wrote this in response after the ruling, after the decision on Friday. "The new limits on universal injunctions will not stop us from challenging the president or his administration when they overstep their authority and take illegal and dangerous action."

But hasn't this opinion restricted your ability to do just that? I mean, is trying to make this into, as some have suggested or opined, into a class action lawsuit, an option you could consider now?

PHIL WEISER, COLORADO ATTORNEY GENERAL: I think what Attorney General Platkin said is important. Because of this decision, state attorneys general are now more important than ever. We have the ability and the unique ability in this case to get universal relief for what is a flagrantly unconstitutional action. And in her dissent, Justice Sotomayor really does a great job getting to the merits, which are relevant because when you offer preliminary relief in a preliminary injunction, one of the questions is, how likely are you to prevail on the merits and how much is it an imposition on the other side if you get the relief. Here, all the court was saying is, the status quo from over a century will remain in place. We need that to remain in place because, again, as Attorney General Platkin said, it would be chaotic, very difficult to administer for Colorado, if someone born, let's say, in Colorado is from Wyoming, are they a citizen or are they not? Or a Coloradan is traveling in Kansas, has a baby, comes back, how do you handle the system? It's -- it's going to be a mess. We don't want to see it. The states -- and -- and again, as Attorney General Platkin said, we can argue this universal injunction. We are going to. It is, to me, mind blowing if you end up not having it because you're allowing lawless behavior by the executive to prevail when there's no need for that.

BOLDUAN: I want to play for you, Mr. Platkin, what Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said yesterday about some of the impact of this decision.

Let me play this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): A single judge can't stop a program for the entire country. And that's a good thing because people were going judge shopping.

And -- and I'm here to say, judge shopping needs to stop. We need to have a -- a system where if you're going to enjoin policy for the nation, its done at a higher level than a single judge for the left or the right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Graham admitted that Republicans have -- Republicans judge shop as much as a Democrat judge shops. That it -- it happens. And the Biden administration actually opposed a nationwide universal injunction in a court battle back in December of 2024. So, if the Biden administration thought universal injunctions were bad, the Trump administration thinks universal injunctions are bad, was the Biden administration wrong then too?

PLATKIN: No, and we've been -- I think we've been the only ones who have been consistent on this. We've said very clearly, nationwide injunctions, meaning the court can stop something for the entire country, should be limited. It should be in very rare circumstances that that's required.

By the way, some major proponents of nationwide injunctions include, you played them before, Senator Ted Cruz, Attorney General Pam Bondi, when she was attorney general of Florida, a huge proponent of nationwide injunctions against the Barack Obama administration. So, this is something that both parties have sought, but it should be limited. And clearly, in this case, where you heard what --

BOLDUAN: And this is -- this is one of those limited --

PLATKIN: This is the prototypical case where it just does not make sense. For the first time since the Civil War to decide baby citizenship based on whether the attorney general of their state joined a lawsuit, it's absurd. It's ridiculous. And, frankly, would bring us back to a point in American history that I don't think people want to go back to.

BOLDUAN: Attorney General Weiser, there is a question of what does what came from the -- from the justices on Friday, what does it portend for kind of the merits of the case?

[08:50:01]

The former attorney general under Bush, Alberto Gonzalez, he speculated that the ruling actually was a compromise because the justices failed to reach consensus around the key question on birthright citizenship. I want to play for you what he told my colleague Fareed Zakaria about this.

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ALBERTO GONZALEZ, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: It is possible that the court took this case to decide the substantive issue. And as they negotiate what the opinion should read, they discover they don't have five votes either way. And so, as a result of that, they decide to punt the substantive issue and deal only with the -- with the nationwide injunction.

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN ANCHOR: That means you think the court is deadlocked as to whether the 14th Amendment grants birthright citizenship?

GONZALEZ: I -- well, I --

ZAKARIA: It seems pretty obvious in (INAUDIBLE).

GONZALEZ: Well, it seems obvious to me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Attorney General Weiser, if -- do you think that's actually what -- what happened here? I mean if that's the case and they couldn't reach consensus or they're deadlocked on this key question, what does that mean?

WEISER: I don't think that's the case. Let me offer two reasons why. One of the judges who ruled on this issue, a district court judge, said this was the most unconstitutional action he had seen in 40 years on the bench. He is an appointee of Ronald Reagan.

This is not a hard issue. And the Trump administration is really out on a limb with very extreme views. I'm really sorry that we're even indulging the possibility that we would end birthright citizenship. That's an affront to the basic text of the Constitution and what has been understood.

What I do think happened here is, there's been a longstanding discomfort with certain abuses of nationwide injunctions. I'll give you an example. I'm leading a case to protect AmeriCorps, which is being dismantled illegally by this administration, usurping separation of powers. It's for Congress to decide the future of AmeriCorps, not for the executive branch.

Our case only governs the states who are in our coalition. We're not asking relief to protect the AmeriCorps programs for states who are not suing. That is us being restrained in this.

This court wants to restrain, wants to restrict nationwide injunctions. They just happen to pick the worst case to do that, because this is a case. that is exactly what universal injunctions are for. It is so wrong to allow this, again, flagrant abuse of power. An unconstitutional action that is widely seen as a strong overreach. That is the prototypical case, as General Platkin put it, for universal injunction. I'm really sorry they're trying to restrict the practice in a case that actually makes the case for why we should have universal injunctions.

BOLDUAN: General Weiser, General Platkin, thank you both very much. Clearly, your fight continues on. Really appreciate your time.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, ahead, are you one of the millions of Americans hitting the road or traveling for the 4th of July holiday? Well, your trip to the pump might make you a little happier this year. We will tell you how much you might be paying for gas, ahead.

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[08:56:47]

SIDNER: Despite the U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear sites, the country could again start enriching uranium within months. That is the warning this morning from the head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA. It comes as new satellite images taken yesterday show ongoing activity at Iran's Fordow nuclear site.

Joining me now is Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the United States.

Thank you for being here with us this morning.

Let me let you hear what the director of the IAEA said. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAFAEL GROSSI, DIRECTOR GENERAL, INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY: Frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there. It is clear that there has been severe damage, but it is not total damage, first of all. And secondly, Iran has the capacities there, industrial and technological capacities. So, if they so wish, they will be able to start doing this again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: All right, so, in hearing that, what do you think of the assessment? And if that assessment seems to -- to -- to be clear to you, what do you expect Israel's next move might be?

MICHAEL OREN, FORMER ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S.: That's a great question. So, I think that the question of the degree of the damage inflicted, both by the Israeli strikes and ultimately by the American strikes, it's kind of irrelevant at the end because Iran could rebuild. Even if -- even if the sites were obliterated, they could sit back tomorrow and start rebuilding them.

And there's the question of underground sites that we may not have known about. There's a question of the location of the about 1,000 pounds of enriched uranium which has gone unaccounted for. And if, you know, Israel and the United States can't account for that, the Iranians could put that in a missile and use it and become a nuclear power overnight. So, there's -- that -- it's almost irrelevant.

The two issues that are relevant are, what are Iran's motivations at this time? Have the Iranian leaders internalized that making a nuclear weapon is not going to be a very viable option for them? It's going to be too costly, and they're not in a position to take on the United States and Israel and the international community right now.

The second question is, to what degree is the United States willing to enforce that motivation, or the lack of motivation? Is there still a credible American military option on the table, either for American action or a green light for Israeli action should the Iranians start to rebuild Fordow, Isfahan or any of these other sites? And that's the big issue right now. And it's not just an issue for the -- for the -- for the nuclear

future of Iran, but also for the future of the Middle East, whether we can actually get peace between Israel and Lebanon, peace with Israel and Syria, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

SIDNER: The Iranian parliament voted this week to end cooperation with the IAEA, the very group saying that they have the possibility within months of -- of going forward with enriching uranium. How significant is that to you when you have this outstanding question of where this enriched uranium is and if it was moved?

OREN: Well, practically speaking, the IAEA hasn't been able to locate this uranium enrichment stockpile either.

And Iran has violated all of its commitments under the nonproliferation treaty and the IAEA. So, it's almost irrelevant that it's going to -- it's going to stop cooperation. It has not cooperated with these organizations for a long time.

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