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Trump Nominee Under Fire; Interview With Portland, Oregon, City Councilmember Eric Zimmerman; White House Backtracks on Trump-Putin Meeting; Government Shutdown Continues. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired October 21, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

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[13:01:08]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: It is the cost of not doing business. Three weeks into a government shutdown, and lawmakers have not gotten past the blame game, with a growing number of Americans who rely on the government for a paycheck or on federal programs now paying the price.

Plus, Senate Majority Leader John Thune says that President Trump's nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel is not going to pass. Just ahead, we're going to show you the racist text messages allegedly sent by that nominee that have put his confirmation in peril.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And Florida's attorney general calls it a breeding ground for predators, why he just issued criminal subpoenas to one of the world's biggest gaming platforms, Roblox.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SANCHEZ: It feels a bit like Groundhog Day. Three weeks into the government shutdown, and nothing has changed, no talks, no compromises, really no dealmaking, just finger-pointing and an escalating number of Americans bearing the brunt.

Right now, Senate Republicans are putting on a united front at the White House, having lunch with President Trump. House Speaker Mike Johnson has been standing firm behind his decision to keep House Republicans out of Washington until Democrats get behind the Republican spending bill.

Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Now the calculus and the strategy on when I bring everybody back, people said, are you going to change your strategy? And I have said to you all very plainly in good faith, we're not -- we don't have a political strategy here. I don't have a strategy. We're just trying to do the right thing. (END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Let's go right to Capitol Hill and CNN's Manu Raju.

Manu, arguments about strategy aside, you actually just spoke with the Senate majority leader. What did he share with you?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, he made very clear that he is not changing his own tactics here, which have led to this stalemate as Democrats have blocked time and again that Republican bill that did pass the House last month to reopen the government until November 21.

In fact, 11 times, Senate Democrats have blocked that bill. So what happens now? Because Democrats are now budging. Three -- just three have voted for that plan. They need eight in order to break a Democratic-led filibuster, and they will not move because they are demanding a negotiation and an extension of these subsidies under the Affordable Care Act that are set to expire at year's end and threaten to increase people's health care costs.

John Thune told me very clearly he will not engage in any negotiations with Democrats until they agree to vote for their plan to reopen the government.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now that Democrats have blocked this bill 11 times, is it time to start thinking about a plan B for you guys?

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD): Plan B is open up the government.

RAJU: What about a compromise, a middle ground, a middle ground?

THUNE: We have had a bill passed in the House sitting at the desk of the Senate that can be picked up and passed. The middle ground, I think, is what we talk about after we open up the government.

But the majority of Americans, I think, realize this is just a political ploy, nothing more than their attempt to try and pick a fight with the president and hold the federal government and federal workers hostage to do it. It makes no sense. I don't get it.

RAJU: So there's no talks going to happen with Schumer before the shutdown ends?

THUNE: Yes. I mean, they're going to have to come forward with a proposal or something. We aren't seeing it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now, Thune also plans to tee up a vote for later this week to pay furloughed workers who are still working, so-called essential workers in the federal government.

But Democrats are resisting that plan too, because they say all federal furloughed workers should be paid. Republicans say, why pay all the furloughed workers when we can just vote for the bill to reopen the government? So expect those two plans to stall and lead to more stalemate.

[13:05:05]

All comes as there is some consternation among some swing district House Republicans over those expiring Obamacare subsidies; 13 of them wrote a letter to Mike Johnson today, saying they need to do something about those Affordable Care Act subsidies, warning about higher health care costs for their constituents.

But they too are siding with the strategy of their leadership. They say very clearly no negotiations until the government reopens, and Democrats are saying the opposite, negotiate now before we open the government, as this historically long shutdown now threatens to be the longest in history, which would be 35 days if they exceed that mark.

And, Boris, most people out here on Capitol Hill very well much believe it will exceed that mark.

SANCHEZ: Yes, not a good sign.

Manu Raju live on Capitol Hill, thank you so much -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Now to some breaking news. A Trump administration official now says there are no plans for a summit between President Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin in the immediate future, despite assurances from President Trump that they would soon be meeting to discuss the war in Ukraine.

Let's go to CNN's Kristen Holmes, who is at the White House.

Kristen, the president obviously has been talking up this potential meeting for several days. What happened?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna, that's our piecing together right now.

Now, we started getting a little bit of reporting last night that it seemed as though this meeting was in jeopardy because, as you will recall, President Trump had said that, this week, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, was going to meet with other high-level advisers from Russia and that they would be ironing out details ahead of a proposed meeting between Vladimir Putin and President Trump.

Yesterday, we reported that this meeting that was supposed to happen between Rubio and Sergey Lavrov, the foreign minister, had been tabled for now, despite the fact that the two had talked on the phone, which really called into question what exactly was going to happen with this meeting between Putin and Trump.

And now you have this stunning admission from an administration official, saying that essentially this meeting is not happening any time soon. And just to give you a little bit of the broader picture here, let's talk about what we know. We know that last Sunday, a week ago, President Trump said, flirted with the idea publicly of giving Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine.

Then, on Thursday he had a 2.5 hour-long phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. We know that Tomahawk missiles came up in that conversation. Putin did not want the United States giving these long-range missiles that could go deep into Russia to Ukraine.

Then, President Trump comes out of this phone call saying that they had a great talk, they're going to meet together, they said, within two weeks or so, pretty quick, and then they would talk about these high-level advisers meeting this week.

The next day, President Zelenskyy has a meeting here at the White House with President Trump, in which Trump informs him that he will not be giving him those Tomahawk missiles. And it gets pretty tense. They talk about what land Ukraine is going to have to give up. And they both leave in a way that seemed to be uncomfortable. At least that's how it was described to me by at least one -- administration officials.

Now we get to this week. As you noted, he's been talking about this meeting coming up. And now we hear that the meeting is not going to happen, at least any time in the immediate future. Now, President Trump himself did seem to say that he was still working on the end of the Ukraine-Russia war just now in the Rose Garden, saying that he was working on his ninth war to end.

But I do want to tell you what President Zelenskyy of Ukraine said, because I think this is fairly interesting. This is how he is reading the situation. He says that Russia became less interested in diplomacy after the United States declined to provide Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles, at least for now.

KEILAR: Very interesting connection he drew there.

Kristen Holmes, thank you, live for us at the White House.

Still to come: An appeals court says President Trump can send National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon. How soon could they arrive?

Plus, President Trump's pick for a top ethics office is in jeopardy after some racist messages surface. We're getting reaction from Republican lawmakers who would vote on his confirmation. They have many concerns.

And later: Pilots make an emergency landing after crew members begin banging on the cockpit door. What we're learning about this midair scare.

We will have that and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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KEILAR: Portland, Oregon is bracing for the possibility of National Guard troops on its streets after the Ninth Circuit court of Appeals ruled President Trump can in fact federalize and deploy the Oregon National Guard to the city.

The ruling overturns only one of two lower court decisions to block the troop deployment. And because the second decision is still in force, troops can't immediately be mobilized. Last night's protesters against Trump's immigration policies gathered once again outside of Portland's ICE facility, some wearing costumes and demonstrators did appear to remain peaceful.

Administration officials have tried to characterize the city as war- ravaged and uncontrollably violent, a depiction vehemently disputed by city and state leaders, including my next guest, Eric Zimmerman. He is a Portland city councilmember and also a member of the Oregon National Guard.

So thanks for being with us.

We're kind of in this wait-and-see period. Have you seen or heard any indication that the Guard is preparing to make any moves in Portland if this second legal hurdle is cleared by the Trump administration?

ERIC ZIMMERMAN, PORTLAND, OREGON, CITY COUNCILMEMBER: I haven't.

And I think, from a legal perspective, the city of Portland and the state of Oregon, we're continuing to challenge these rulings. This Ninth Circuit was just a three-panel judge. We have asked for an en banc, where we will have a much larger panel to make our case.

[13:15:10]

We also are going to trial in front of the local judge here as well next week. And that's incredibly important. The situation on the ground remains, like we have seen for weeks, mostly people in fraud costumes and chicken costumes and a few dedicated First Amendment right protesters.

There is nothing about that is rebellious. There's nothing about that the city of Portland can't control on our own, which is the foundation of our argument for the courts, which is that local control, states' rights, the Oregon State Police, the Portland Police Bureau, the Multnomah County sheriff, we have full control of anything that is stepping out of line here.

We have seen that with a couple of people, but a couple of people should not have the federal government coming in with large numbers of federal agents and certainly not a military mobilization on American streets.

So we're still feeling confident in our pace and in our trial. What we have seen so far is two court orders to temporarily restrain. We have seen the Ninth Circuit have a three-panel judge, two appointed by the Trump administration, who have said that they're going to go ahead and stay those restraining orders.

But, currently, we still have one restraining order in place and we have trial next week, and we think will be successful there. There is no reason for federal troops on the grounds of Portland. KEILAR: We have spoken before and you have been clear that you speak

in your capacity as an official, not as a member of the Guard, because there are some limitations certainly on political speech when it comes to being a member of the military.

But can you just give us a sense of if you, as a member of the Guard, have received any communication about being activated?

ZIMMERMAN: The only communication I have received is that I have not been.

What I know about having been 18 years of military service, I know that, when orders like this come up -- and I have been really appreciative of Portlanders, of the Portland delegation of officials, is that we are focused on the fact that, when young people who have joined the Guard for school, for a little bit of extra money, these are usually part-timers who live in our community.

They were activated the same week that community college classes were starting. So I'm sure there are members who have had some interruptions while for the last few weeks they have sat on a camp somewhere. There is really no reason for a military mobilization on any American street.

You would have to say that the police force is inept. And if that's the case they're making, then we challenge them in court to make that case. The Portland police have full control of the situation. The governor of Oregon, the State Police have full control across the jurisdictions outside of the city that I represent.

And so I think we have to keep that in perspective. This idea -- and one of the judges in their most recent ruling said, propaganda are not facts. And I think we have to take that very seriously. When the secretary -- excuse me -- when the press secretary for the present uses propaganda as a facts base, that's a pure propaganda line.

When the secretary of homeland security stands on a roof and doesn't show you really the situation on the ground, which was a few people staring back up at her from a fence line, that's propaganda. When the administration brings in social media influencers, and not members of the press, that's propaganda.

That's what we're dealing with right now in the city of Portland. That's what we're dealing with from our federal government. And every single American should be ashamed at seeing our federal government use words and use propaganda to make a city of our own country an enemy.

That doesn't make sense. And that is a call to everybody across all states. All governors should have joined our lawsuit in this, because, if it is happening here, it can happen anywhere in America.

KEILAR: Portland City Councilmember Eric Zimmerman, thank you for being with us.

ZIMMERMAN: Thank you, Brianna. I appreciate you covering this. KEILAR: Next: the Senate majority leader telling CNN he hopes the

president withdraws his nominee for the Office of Special Counsel after alleged text messages reveal vile and racist remarks.

And Florida's attorney general is issuing criminal subpoenas against one of the most popular kids gaming platforms. What parents need to know.

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[13:24:22]

SANCHEZ: Vile, pro-Nazi and racist text messages allegedly sent by President Trump's handpicked nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel now coming to light.

Politico reporting that Paul Ingrassia wrote the messages in a group chat alongside fellow Republicans. One text attributed to him reads -- quote -- "Martin Luther King Jr. was the 1960s George Floyd and his holiday should be ended and tossed into the seventh circle of hell, where it belongs."

In another exchange, a person in the chat says that Paul belongs in the Hitler Youth with Steve Bannon. Ingrassia allegedly responds -- quote -- "I do have a Nazi streak in me from time to time, I will admit it."

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Elsewhere, Ingrassia allegedly writes; "Never trust a Chinaman or Indian, never."

CNN's KFILE has written about Ingrassia's history of racist comments, but these new revelations from Politico may hit differently just days before his confirmation hearing.

CNN reporter Annie Grayer is on Capitol Hill for us.

And, Annie, what are lawmakers saying about this situation?

ANNIE GRAYER, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Boris, Senate Majority Leader John Thune was clear there are not the votes here for this nomination, and he hopes that the White House actually pulls this nomination.

And that is a very clear warning shot from the Senate majority leader, who has stood behind the president and his administration in almost all of his other nominees. And Thune is not the only Republican who's coming out with serious concerns about Ingrassia. Republican Senator Rick Scott told me last night he doesn't support Ingrassia's nomination.

Scott is actually on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, where Ingrassia is expected to appear later this week. If Scott votes down Ingrassia's nomination, we are expecting that his nomination will be over. So there are a lot of Republicans we are still tracking on this. Republicans Senator Rand Paul and Josh Hawley, when we presented them with the information of the alleged text messages from Ingrassia, said that they were still looking at the totality of his nomination.

But what Trump nominated Ingrassia for here to run the Office of the Special Counsel, which oversees federal whistle-blowers and civil servants laws, was going to have a major impact here. And this nomination has been clouded with controversies from the beginning. As you mentioned, CNN has reported in its history of racist statements, and these alleged text messages from Politico have really caused a firestorm on Capitol Hill.

I want to read for you some of the statement from Ingrassia's attorney responding to the text messages, saying -- quote -- "In this age of A.I., authentication of allegedly leaked messages which could be outright falsehoods, doctored or manipulated or lacking critical context is extremely difficult. We do not concede the authenticity of any of these purported messages."

But with Senate Majority Leader Thune coming out very clearly saying that there are not the votes here, we are waiting to see the White House respond to see if they are going to pull this nomination. Senate Republicans had lunch at the White House today, and we're waiting to see senators come back, if the topic of this nomination came up.

SANCHEZ: Annie Grayer live for us on Capitol Hill.

Thank you so much, Annie.

Still to come: Investigators believe they figured out what struck a United flight some 30,000 feet in the air, cracking the cockpit window and injuring a pilot. What was up there?

We will discuss next.

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