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House GOP Scrambles For Votes As Trump's Bill Advances; Kohberger Expected In Court To Plead Guilty To Idaho Student Murders; Deadly Heat Wave Continues In Central Europe Today. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired July 02, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:30:27]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Breaking overnight House Speaker Mike Johnson says a floor vote on the sweeping tax and spending cuts bill could come today or tomorrow at the latest, weather permitting. Storms are causing flights to get cancelled and forcing some lawmakers to travel by car.

With full attendance the speaker could only stand to lose three votes. Some conservatives say the spending cuts don't go far enough. Some moderates are concerned about the 12 million Americans who could lose health care through Medicaid.

Here now in person former White House spokesman for President George W. Bush, Pete Seat, as well as Democratic strategist and former spokesperson for the Al Gore presidential campaign, Christy Setzer.

It feels like 2000 all over again.

Pete, I want to play to you -- for you some sound from Republican members of Congress. There are I think at least three people here and remember, the president can only afford to lose three votes here -- listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): So this whole thing is -- I don't know what to call it. It's a sh*t show."

REP. CHIP ROY (R-TX): My colleagues in the Senate failed us. My colleagues in the Senate failed us.

REP. RALPH NORMAN (R-SC): I think the founders and the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence would be astounded that we're adding debt to our children who -- and grandchildren who are defenseless.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So what do those statements tell you, and what's going to happen, Pete? PETE SEAT, FORMER WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN FOR PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER SPOKESPERSON, INDIANA REPUBLICAN PARTY, VICE PRESIDENT, BOSE PUBLIC AFFAIRS GROUP: Well, they tell me we were bound to be in this position with a bill this big and margins this narrow in both the Senate and the House.

Some of this is posturing. Some of it is messaging. Some of it is politicking. I think we all know members of Congress like attention and playing the role of indecisive gets them a lot of attention. It's gets them name drops on CNN. It gets them potentially phone calls from the President of the United States. And I'm going to get beat up for saying this but I'm going to compare a couple of them to John Kerry when he voted for it before he voted against it. I think that's what they're trying to play.

BERMAN: You're taking us back to the 2004 campaign right now. We're just walking through the aughts here.

Do you think ultimately all these people cave? There are two schools of thought here. One is that there's just no way when push comes to shove, particularly the conservatives in House, won't give President Trump what he wants. The other school of thought is that there are allegedly some 20 members of the Republican caucus right now who are against it.

SEAT: Well, it's not just giving President Trump what he wants, it's giving the American people what they want. They sent Donald Trump and Republicans to Washington with a to-do list and they're getting through that list.

BERMAN: The flip side of that -- counter, as we should say -- is that the polls show this bill is very unpopular.

Still, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, from Alaska, was the vote that it put it over the top in the Senate, Christy, and this is what she said about that vote. She called it "Agonizing. We do not have a perfect bill by any stretch of the imagination. My hope is that the House is going to look at this and recognize that we're not there yet."

What do you make of her agony?

CHRISTY SETZER, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST, PRESIDENT, NEW HEIGHTS COMMUNICATIONS, FORMER SPOKESPERSON, AL GORE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN (via Webex by Cisco): I think the agony is the arm-twisting that was happening behind the scenes.

Look, right now this thing is held together by duct tape and bobby pins and secret backroom deals that Lisa Murkowski can speak to, right?

Basically, all the things that were offered to her were things that were saying your state, Alaska, will be saved from all the danger and all the damage of this bill, or at least some of it. At least enough of it that you can sort of swallow it and hope it gets better back in the House. That is not exactly a ringing endorsement and it sure is not something that the American people voted for. I want to be really clear about what this bill does. It does a couple

of things.

One, it essentially hollows out a lot of the services that millions and millions and millions of Americans rely on, whether they are seniors, or low-income, or children, or people with disabilities that are relying on Medicaid and SNAP for health insurance and for basic food. So it does that. It cuts all those services so that it can do two things.

One, so that it can give a massive, massive tax break to billionaires who don't need it and probably wouldn't even notice it in their bank account. And so that we can create an even bigger ICE police force presence that has been going around the country -- you know, around the country essentially kidnapping people.

So, you know, look, if this is what the American people voted for then that's certainly not what I read in the papers.

BERMAN: Christy, just very quickly, I've heard some on the left complain that the elected Democrats aren't sharp enough in their criticism of this bill.

SETZER: Yeah.

BERMAN: How much different do you think the Democratic messaging should be?

[07:35:00]

SETZER: So I think there was a couple of things that are happening.

One, I think that obviously you need to go in front of the cameras and talk about all the damage that this bill is going to do to the American people. And then there's also some behind-the-scenes maneuvering, and I would say that the behind-the-scenes maneuvering has actually been pretty good given the hands that Democrats have to play, right?

If you look in the Senate, Chuck Schumer was able to peel off three Republican senators. He almost got that fourth in Lisa Murkowski, so he came very close to actually being able to kill the bill. They also were able to take a lot of some of the most damaging stuff out of the bill. They were able to kill Mike Lee's amendment to sell of our public lands -- pieces like that.

So I think they kind of did what they could do --

BERMAN: Um-hum.

SETZER: -- when you're talking about behind the scenes.

Where I would have some criticism is the fact that we haven't necessarily raised this to 11 in front of the cameras.

BERMAN: Um, Politico -- I'm going to give Politico full credit here because they pointed out I think one of the most interesting aspects of the aftermath of the Senate vote, which is posturing for 2028. They noted that some potential Democrats put out statements criticizing J.D. Vance for being the tiebreaking vote here. And I don't believe in coincidences --

SETZER: Yeah.

BERMAN: -- in politics here.

You have Gavin Newsom, the governor of California. He wrote on Twitter, "Bookmark this. J.D. Vance is the ultimate reason why 17 million Americans will lose their health care."

Pete Buttigieg from the great state of --

SEAT: Indiana.

BERMAN: -- although now living in Michigan. He wrote on Twitter, "Vice President Vance has cast the deciding vote in the Senate to cut Medicaid, take away food assistance, blow up the deficit, and add tax breaks for the wealthiest."

How about that? These potential Democratic candidates focusing on a potential Republican candidate for president, Pete?

SEAT: Well, I think what's going to happen is the same thing that happened with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act when it was passed in 2017. It was completely unpopular with Americans because Democrats run to the television cameras, and they lie about what's in the bill. They scare the public about what's in the bill. Then once the bill passes, we have an opportunity to see the positive consequences. And now the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is very popular and by a 2-1 margin Americans want these tax cuts extended.

BERMAN: You worked for a vice president running for president once, Christy. What's -- does J.D. Vance want to own this or not going forward?

SETZER: Well look, I think it's politically smart of the Democrats who have turned their fire on J.D. Vance, recognizing, as you're saying, that Donald Trump is probably going to be pretty irrelevant in 2028. So the real person that they need to turn their anger to right now is J.D. Vance as well, and you need to weaken him, right? There's also a real possibility that Donald Trump is not our president before that for any variety of reasons.

So I don't -- you know, I don't blame them for doing that.

I do think that J.D. Vance is in a dangerous position here in the same way that most Republican senators are in a dangerous position, which is to say they are going to have to go back to their constituents and -- which for J.D. Vance, is all of the American people -- and say, yes, we believe this is what you voted for or even if it's not you're going to have to suck it up. And that's not a great position and not one that I'd want to be in.

BERMAN: Well, I think -- I think President Trump expects to serve out the remainder of this term, at least.

Pete Seat, Christy Setzer, thank you both very much for being here.

SETZER: OK.

BERMAN: Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. New this morning, data out just moments ago show job cuts saw a big drop last month. Officials at the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said while they saw some activity related to DOGE cuts and tariffs it was "a quiet June."

CNN's Matt Egan joins me now. Give us some context here on what this report tells us about the economy and what you're seeing.

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Sara, this report paints the picture of a jobs market that is holding up better than feared. Layoff announcements skyrocketed earlier this year but thankfully, they are coming back to Earth.

So Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that in June there were about 48,000 layoff announcements. That is down sharply by 49 percent from May, and it is even a little bit lower -- two percent lower than last June.

And when we look at the trend for layoff announcements, they were trending higher and higher earlier this year. This looks back to the beginning of 2024 and you can see they were really low last year.

SIDNER: Yeah.

EGAN: Skyrocketed around February and March. In fact, March was about five times higher than June. And this, of course, was driven in large part by DOGE, right -- the government efficiency effort previously led by Elon Musk that was really slashing government payrolls.

SIDNER: Um-hum.

EGAN: But thankfully, these layoff announcements have really come down and a lot of that stress in the labor market, at least based on this report, does seem to have eased in the last month or two. I mean, when you do zoom out though and you look at layoff announcements so far this year --

[07:40:08]

SIDNER: Yeah.

EGAN: -- they are very high, right. We're talking about 744,000 layoff announcements. That is the highest since 2020.

But again, a lot of it does seem to be frontloaded in the beginning part of the year, and so the trend has really improved.

And Sara, all of this sets the stage for tomorrow's much more closely watched government jobs report. SIDNER: What are you expecting, sort of, economists -- what are you and what are economists expecting for that big jobs report -- June jobs report?

EGAN: Sure. So we are expecting this to show that the jobs market continued to cool but that it's not collapsing.

SIDNER: OK.

EGAN: So the consensus is for 115,000 jobs to have been added in June. That is slower than May -- 139,000 in May. So this would represent a deceleration but not a really dramatic one. The unemployment rate is expected to tick higher. But again, only a little bit.

But look, economists, investors -- everyone's on high alert for any significant weakening in the jobs market. And I do just think that again and again the jobs market has proven to be so much more resilient than people expect, right? Every single time people really expect a big spike --

SIDNER: Right.

EGAN: -- in layoffs and a big increase in the unemployment rate, it hasn't happened. But we'll see what tomorrow's numbers say.

SIDNER: Well, it's good for the economy and good to keep jobs --

EGAN: Right.

SIDNER: -- in place.

Matt Egan, thank you so much.

EGAN: Thanks, Sara.

SIDNER: Appreciate it -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Today, Bryan Kohberger will be in court where he is expected to plead guilty to the murder of four Idaho college students in 2022. And we could hear more from the families of his victims as well today now divided over the decision by the prosecution to strike this plea deal.

The family of one of the students, Kaylee Goncalves, is furious over the deal. I want to play for you what her father told CNN's Jim Sciutto yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE GONCALVES, FATHER OF KAYLEE GONCALVES: This isn't what we should be doing. You don't deal with terrorists, and you don't deal with people who kill your kids in their sleep. So we'll never -- we'll never see this as justice.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BOLDUAN: The father of another victim, Madison Mogen -- she's saying -- has said the agreement would let his family -- their family avoid a trial and "put this behind us."

There is a lot going on here and this will be a very emotional day.

CNN's Marybel Gonzalez is outside the courthouse in Boise where this hearing will be taking place this -- today at some point. What are you expected to hear today?

MARYEL GONZALEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Kate, exactly what you just said -- an emotional hearing, indeed, and one that has garnered national attention. We've already seen people lining up outside of the courthouse to be able to get a seat and hear what happens inside that courtroom firsthand.

Now, we know that -- we are expecting to hear Kohberger plead guilty to four counts of murder and one count of burglary in connection to this case. It is a plea deal that no doubt has divided the victims' families.

And we heard directly from one of those victims, as you just mentioned -- the Goncalves family -- who say this is no justice for them. And one of the reasons for that is that although this plea deal today would end this yearslong legal battle that has been marked by multiple delays, it certainly will not -- will leave a lot of answers lingering.

For example, like how -- what was the connection between the victims and Kohberger? Why were some of the victims spared? Some of those -- two of those roommates that were inside that off-campus house back in 2022. How was this crime carried out? How did it unfold inside that home?

Those are just some of the details that could have possibly come up if this case had gone to trial, which we know was just over a month -- a month from now, and that the families were on the brink of getting those details answered for themselves.

BOLDUAN: A lot to happen today.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Concerns of rural hospitals at risk. How cuts to Medicaid funding could leave millions without health care.

And there are intentional fireworks and unintentional fireworks. A warehouse packed with pyrotechnics -- yeah -- well, you see what happened there.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:48:35]

BOLDUAN: So the political conversation around the cuts to Medicaid in this big so-called big, beautiful bill -- the conversations often are around eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.

Just listen to the president yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: And just to be clear on the Medicaid cuts, you've promised not to cut Medicaid and said this is all just targeting waste, fraud, and abuse. Are you saying that the estimated 11.8 million people who could lose their health coverage -- that is all waste, fraud, and abuse?

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying it's going to be a very much smaller number than that, and that number will be waste, fraud, and abuse. Thank you.

REPORTER: What number is that? What analysis are you -- are you seeing?

TRUMP: I'm not seeing a number, but I know it's much less than the number you gave.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: That slice of it not the whole story. One of the biggest concerns around all of this is what the Medicaid cuts mean for rural communities -- rural hospitals all over the country. One hospital CEO that we're going to speak to later in the show says that the changes coming will be devastating for their rural hospital. One reason is hospitals in rural communities work on much tighter margins than bigger hospitals in bigger cities, so they're much more impacted by small changes to Medicaid policy.

Some stats for you. Nearly 12 million Americans are expected to lose health insurance with his bill. You heard that. That includes almost two million people in rural communities. One estimate puts the Medicaid spending losses in those areas at $119 billion over the next 10 years.

[07:50:05]

The American Hospital Association said that this will lead to "irreparable harm that could ultimately lead to facility closures, especially in rural and underserved areas."

And because of this very concern, senators added a rural hospital fund to their bill -- $50 billion it turned out to be in the end -- over the next five years to try and help.

But Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who voted against the Senate's bill, said, "I am pleased that the bill contains a special fund that I proposed to provide some assistance to our rural hospitals, but it is not sufficient to offset the other changes in the Medicaid system."

Someone who has done a lot of reporting on all of this is Sarah Jane Tribble. She is the chief rural correspondent for KFF Health News. Thank you so much for being here. SARAH JANE TRIBBLE, CHIEF RURAL CORRESPONDENT, KFF HEALTH NEWS: Thank you for having me.

BOLDUAN: You've been speaking to rural hospitals and administrators across the country as well as patients. But focusing first on the hospitals themselves, what are they telling you in the face of this?

TRIBBLE: Oh, it's not good. I've been on the phone with hospital CEOs the last couple of days. The National Association of -- National Association of Rural Health Centers and so forth. They all are saying that it's just not good.

You know, a couple of weeks ago when the bill was working its way through the House and on to the Senate, I was sitting next to a rural hospital CEO who is in Colorado. He runs a 25-bed critical access hospital. It is the only hospital along the I-70 corridor between Kansas and Denver, so you get an idea of how remote that is.

BOLDUAN: Wow, yeah.

TRIBBLE: And he leaned over to me when he heard about the bill -- the proposal -- the $50 billion fund. At that point it was $15 billion to help rural hospitals. He leaned over and said, "It's just -- it's just not enough. It's just not going to be enough to make up for the Medicaid cuts." I called Kevin yesterday and he said $50 billion still just not enough to make up for the cuts.

BOLDUAN: And that's -- I mean, some are calling it a slush fund, right? I have heard some -- what is it -- some people I've spoken to are kind of rolling their eyes at it because of that very reason that you just explained.

What can this $50 billion rural fund do, and why are so many saying that it's going to fall so short?

TRIBBLE: Right. So I talked with Carrie, the lead lobbyist with the National Rural Health Association, about this fund. And, you know, the idea of a transformation fund for rural America -- it's a great idea. Rural America needs to have a new look at how it's paying its providers.

Congress has actually acknowledged that, passing a Rural Emergency Hospital Act a couple of years ago to help shore up the finances of these hospitals.

So it's great that there's attention on the transformation that's needed for health care delivery in rural America, but not at the cost of Medicaid. This is not the right place to have that discussion is what they were saying.

BOLDUAN: I see.

I've seen something like 150 rural hospitals have closed their doors in the last 20-ish years, if you will, and I'm wondering how real the threat is when you're speaking to these CEOs and providers that more hospitals will have to shut down from these changes, and why. And what you're hearing from patients about that because you've done an extensive amount of reporting around that.

TRIBBLE: Right. So there are some estimates that about 300 more rural hospitals will shut down because of the changes that are being proposed in Congress right now. And that's important because rural hospitals are often the hubs of communities. I don't want to leave out rural health clinics. They also depend heavily on these Medicaid revenues.

And to give you sort of an idea -- you've got it on the screen right there -- one in four adults in rural America are enrolled in Medicaid. So when you cut Medicaid, it affects that. Nearly 50 percent of the babies born in rural America are born under Medicaid.

And so when you think about just the basic economics of how hospitals and clinics get the money that they have to operate and serve those communities, they're already operating on a shoestring budget. And when you start cutting out patients who can pay, that really has a very quick and lasting impact.

BOLDUAN: And when these, which can often be the only hospital in a very expansive area, shut down that impacts much more than just the hospital. It impacts the entire community, and that's what the big fear is, right, Sarah?

TRIBBLE: Right. Well, you know, when I go out to do my reporting I talk to mothers who are worried about having their babies on the side of the road because their local hospital closed. I talk to cancer patients who drive to the local casino to make a phone call to their doctor because they don't have high-speed internet or phone access.

I visit rural hospitals and walk the hallways after they've closed and then talk to patients in the community who are scared that the air ambulance won't get there fast enough when their kid has an asthma attack -- a severe asthma attack.

So, you know, already, across rural America there are residents who are really scared about their health care. They're really trying hard to cope with the fact they have to drive two hours for cancer care or to see grandma in the hospital when she has pneumonia. They are missing health care right now.

[07:55:00]

And so to hear the conversation about cuts coming from D.C., I think that it's really hard to digest for these patients in rural America because they're already looking at what's already a very severe situation.

BOLDUAN: They're already facing a crisis. They're already scared, and they now don't even really know what's about to come.

Sarah Jane Tribble --

TRIBBLE: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: -- thank you for your reporting. I really appreciate it -- Sara.

TRIBBLE: Thank you.

SIDNER: Kate, that was a great segment. Thank you so much.

Happening now the scorching heat wave is killing people in central Europe. Two people in France and a woman in Italy have now died due to the heat. The unusually hot temperatures forcing the Eiffel Tower to partially close for the second day in a row.

Let's get right to CNN senior international correspondent Melissa Bell. Europe is not used to this kind of heat, but I see you're in a place that could actually cool you off.

MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Sara, images like these are being repeated all over the European continent. Europeans just looking for a little bit of relief. It is another scorching day here in Paris and you can see people are jumping into fountains that are simply not meant to be swam in just looking for a little bit of relief.

You're quite right. These are cities that were not built for this kind of weather. And what we've seen over the last few years is summer after summer new records being broken with heat waves every year. What we've seen this year is this particular heat wave, Sara, worryingly, is just coming so early on in the season. It is, in fact, Germany's second wave already this year. And that, of course, doesn't bode well for the rest of the summer.

As you say, these cities not designed for it. There have been train outages. The Eiffel Tower closed for the second day in a row.

And to those temperature peaks, what we saw yesterday was the real peak of this heat wave and records were broken across the continent. We saw 114 degrees reached in one Spanish town; 115 Fahrenheit in a Portuguese town.

And what's happening is that climate change is driving these new summers -- this new normal for Europe -- even after the European cities can change their organization. You don't have much air conditioning. People are not used to dealing with this day-to-day in their workplaces or outdoors. And it's just going faster than European cities can cope with all of the effects and consequences, by the way, also of wildfires that have started remarkably earlier this year across southern Europe, Sara.

SIDNER: Yeah, it is extremely dangerous heat. But it is hard not to be jealous of you right now because you're in cool water with that beautiful view behind you. I must say that people need to -- yes -- and you're trying to get any kind -- I can see there is now wind there as well.

Melissa Bell, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

It's nice to hear a lovely laugh even in that terrible, terrible heat, John. BERMAN: It is, although I will say there's a lot of flesh behind her for a morning show. We have to run that through standards here this morning.

All right --

BOLDUAN: (INAUDIBLE).

SIDNER: Kate's enjoying it.

BERMAN: Development overnight Paramount has agreed to pay a $16 million settlement in the lawsuit brought by President Trump over a "60 MINUTES" interview last year. The president accused the company of editing a question during the interview with former presidential candidate Kamala Harris and editing the answer.

As part of the settlement, Paramount agrees to release interview transcripts of all eligible presidential candidates going forward. The money will be used for the president's future presidential library. Notably, the settlement does not include an apology.

So a beachgoer in Florida's Panhandle stumbled upon 55 pounds of cocaine. The Walton County Sheriff's Office said the drugs, worth nearly half a million dollars, were marked with the images of Yosemite Sam from Looney Tunes, in case you didn't know. Authorities have urged vacationers not to touch any suspicious packages. They may contain pounds of cocaine, I guess.

New video of explosions at a fireworks warehouse outside Sacramento. Officials ordered evacuations in the area there. Firefighters had to hold back as these explosions went off for hours and hours. This is what it sounded like.

(Fireworks)

That is loud and scary.

Officials are investigating how it all started. As of now it's still not clear if anyone was injured -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: This morning we are counting down for you CNN's list of "America's Best Towns to Visit."

Number three. From breweries to scenic mountain drives, Asheville, North Carolina has something for everyone.

Here is CNN's Coy Wire.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR (voiceover): Welcome to Asheville, North Carolina.

Months after Hurricane Helene's devastation this mountain town is on the rebound. From breweries to the Biltmore Estate there's something for everyone. WIRE: And I feel the best way to explore it is on two wheels. Let's go.

WIRE (voiceover): The 8,000-acre Biltmore Estate is the largest privately owned home in the country.