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Erin Burnett Outfront
Supreme Court Emboldens Trump, Limits Lower Courts' Power; Activity At Iran Nuke Site; GOP Scrambles On Massive Bill. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired June 27, 2025 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[19:00:28]
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next:
Trump's new sweeping powers and a major victory for the president. The Supreme Court limiting judges from blocking his agenda. What it means for other major policies?
And breaking news, Iran back at it. CNN obtaining new satellite images that reveal new activity taking place at Iran's mysterious Fordow nuclear facility. We'll take you to Tehran.
And a last-minute scramble. Senate Republicans just hours away from voting on Trump's so-called Big, Beautiful Bill. That's the formal name for it in Congress. But have they actually hammered out major differences?
Let's go OUTFRONT.
And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett.
OUTFRONT tonight, Trump emboldened. The president, taking a victory lap tonight. The reason, a major 6-3 win from the Supreme Court, which ruled that lower courts cannot stop Trump's executive orders and policies from applying nationwide.
But Trump immediately said that the victory was against radical left judges.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We've seen a handful of radical left judges effectively try to overrule the rightful powers of the president.
I think taking power away from these absolutely crazy radical left judges is a tremendous -- this is such a big day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Well, it was a big day because today's ruling means that at least 40 nationwide injunctions about Trump policies will most likely be rolled back, and Trump tonight is well aware. He knows that he just got a lot more powerful. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Thanks to this decision. We can now promptly file to proceed with these numerous policies and those that have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis, including birthright citizenship, ending sanctuary city funding, suspending refugee resettlement, freezing unnecessary funding, stopping federal taxpayers from paying for transgender surgeries, and numerous other priorities of the American people. We have so many of them. I have a whole list.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: He does have a whole list. Trump laying out a few of his policies. You heard there, that are on hold, thanks to nationwide injunctions. But the one at the heart of the ruling tonight is birthright citizenship. That was an order that Trump signed on his first day in office back in office, ending the right of a person to be American if they are born in America.
Now, the Supreme Court ruling was about power. It specifically limited the power of lower courts over the presidency. It was actually not about whether Trump's order ending birthright citizenship in and of itself, is constitutional. And that distinction between power and policy could make all the difference.
But the power right now of the president did just get a lot bigger. And Trump has Justice Amy Coney Barrett to thank for that, writing for the majority, a justice he nominated and is publicly attacked when she has not taken his side tonight, Justice Coney Barrett writes, when a court concludes that the executive branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too.
Now, in a forceful dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned that the court is giving the executive branch unchecked power. And Justice Sonia Sotomayor separately warned, quoting her no right is safe in the now legal regime. The court in the new legal regime, the court creates.
But the bottom line tonight is that in this ongoing battle between Trump and judges in America, which are supposed to be equal and separate branches of power, Trump's rhetoric and threats just scored a big win.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're having a lot of problems with the liberal judges and courts.
They're activist judges.
These are rogue judges. These are radical left, generally radical left, horrible judges.
Communists, radical left judges.
We have activist judges. We have judges that are out of control. We have bad judges. We have very bad judges.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Kristen Holmes is OUTFRONT live outside the White House.
And, Kristen, Trump clearly sees this as a as a major win. You know, if judges who were able to issue nationwide injunctions now can only issue very narrow ones, that's a win for him.
But, you know, he mentions transgender surgeries. You have other injunctions, right, on ending the funding for the Department of Education or firing federal workers. I mean, this could apply to so many major issues right now.
What is the White House thinking and what they do next?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erin, they're clearly doing a victory lap. And I think that that sound you played of President Trump listing out just some of the executive orders that were on hold because of these injunctions just goes to show you how carefully that they've thought this out.
[19:05:03]
He had them at the top of his head. And we know that the list goes on and on. He only named a few.
One of the things, just to keep in mind here is when President Trump was running for this term in particular, he was running on this idea of expanding the executive power. And I don't even think that he at that time, realized how much he would be expanding the executive power, particularly because this was a Supreme Court decision.
We've seen how he has done this in other ways by really taking over the Justice Department and having it operate as part of the executive branch, usually in the past, it has operated as an independent entity. Same with various other agencies. But with this ruling, he has really taken it to a whole another level of what the executive branch could possibly do.
And we know that his team is looking at what they will be able to do down the line, talking about what might be possible now to get out the door, because they were under the impression, they knew going into this term that there were going to be a lot of injunctions, a lot of stops to what they were doing in terms of executive orders, because they were going to get tied up in the courts.
But now with this, this has opened up a whole new avenue for them to pursue when it comes to those executive orders, knowing that if it is in fact to go to court, that it might stop just that one case, because that's what the ruling said.
But it wouldn't be nationwide. So this would really -- will really change the way you see President Trump and his entire team looking at those executive orders. And it will be really fascinating to watch how this unfolds. Again, a really insane amount of power now that has been brought underneath the executive umbrella.
BURNETT: Yeah, absolutely. And of course, then you even look at that list and say, well, what else do they want to add to it? That they would have thought just there's no way that would get passed.
Well, now, all of a sudden, it's a wide open horizon.
Kristen, thank you so much.
And OUTFRONT now, one of the nation's preeminent legal experts, the constitutional law professor at Harvard, Laurence Tribe.
Professor Tribe, I really appreciate your time tonight. You know, you look at this and say, okay, well, you know, it was transgender surgeries. The department of education, federal workers, birthright citizenship, and now, whoa, open runway. I mean, did Trump just get a lot more power?
LAURENCE TRIBE, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL: He certainly did. He did not get the theoretical power to erase part of the Constitution. A very important part of the Constitution that we fought a civil war to establish was that all persons born in the United States are automatically citizens by virtue of their birth. That's central to the nation we have become.
And no one on the Supreme Court suggested that that is not part of the Constitution. The dissenters pointed out that even judges across the ideological spectrum all agreed, all experts agree that what the president did by stripping birthright citizenship from people and basically restoring the world that ours looked like when Dred Scott was decided, what he did was unconstitutional, flagrantly unconstitutional.
But there's a catch -- catch me if you can. That's what Justice Sotomayor and Justice Jackson in an earlier set of cases, said, is this president's mantra. Basically, if you have the time and resources to sue the executive branch and get an order saying that what they are doing is illegal, they can still do it to anybody but you. One by one, we have to bring these lawsuits.
BURNETT: So. Right, so as opposed to these nationwide injunctions --
TRIBE: Class actions, though, are possible alternative.
BURNETT: Yeah. So I understand what you're saying is okay, they didn't rule on the constitutionality, but it sounds like what you're saying is in a sense, it's death by a thousand cuts. You're going to have to come every single time. I mean, transgender surgeries, you know, federal workers. I mean, this puts all of it, right? All of these injunctions on the table.
TRIBE: All of them are on the table. And the court basically put out a tease saying, well, maybe you could use the administrative procedure act, or maybe you could certify a nationwide class and have a class action. This is not a civil procedure exam on which Amy Coney Barrett would
not have done very well, even though she used to be a professor of civil procedure. This isn't just an abstraction. It's hard to get a class certified.
Some of the justices have made it clear that if this goes back to the Supreme Court, they again might duck the merits by saying, oh, this wasn't a proper class, or this wasn't a proper use of the Administrative Procedure Act.
[19:10:13]
And rather than thinking of this as a question of detailed, complicated procedure, I would ask people to take a step back and ask, what did we fight a civil war over? It wasn't only about slavery, though, that was the immediate cause. It was about forming a more perfect union and part of that -- part -- that had been the law until Dred Scott upset it was that everybody born here is a citizen of this country.
That's what makes us unique, in part, no other country or almost no other country does that. The people who are hurt by this decision, while the courts mull it over, are going to be, in many cases, stateless because not having been born in the country that their parents came from, they're not citizens of that country. They'll lose all kinds of benefits. They will be an underclass.
That is not America. That is not what we fought either a war of independence or the civil war to achieve.
BURNETT: So, I understand what you're saying there. I do have to put it out there that sometimes these things seem to be a matter of the perspective of the -- of the justice or the politics of the justice. So let me just ask you, the three liberals on the court, they obviously voted against it. Right? And they said that that they, you know, they didn't think this was right, that you would limit the ability of a district court judge to issue a nationwide injunction.
And in that context, it's only fair to play something that Justice Elena Kagan said just as recently as 2022.
Here she is, professor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JUSTICE ELENA KAGAN, U.S. SUPREME COURT: And it just can't be right that one district judge can stop a nationwide policy in its tracks and leave it stopped for the years that it takes to go through normal process. But --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Professor, is that hypocrisy?
TRIBE: Not at all. Justices and judges across the spectrum have agreed that there should be limits to when you can stop a policy in its tracks, but as Justice Jackson pointed out, in this case, if you look at it, not from the technical perspective of the reach of the injunction, but just look at it this way -- the executive says, I want to violate this constitutional provision. Nobody across the spectrum doubts that the Constitution says if you're born here, you're a citizen.
So, the federal district court says to the president, no, sir, you can't do that. And the U.S. Supreme Court now says that he can thumb his nose at that judge.
And it's not a matter of liberal versus conservative judges. Reagan judges, Trump judges, judges across the spectrum have said this is illegal. And when the executive says, but please let me do this illegal thing until I am sued by every last person whose rights I want to take aw -- you don't have to be a liberal to find that outrageous.
All you have to be is someone who believes that in this country, law is king. No individual person is king.
That's all. That's not a liberal or a radical position. It's the normal position.
BURNETT: Okay, well, professor, I appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Professor Laurence Tribe, as we said, from Harvard.
Here now, former Congressman Max Rose and Gretchen Carlson.
So, you know, look, Gretchen, there's really no other way to look at it than this is a -- this is a huge win for the executive branch, in this case led by Donald Trump, which means his policies, whether it's on transgender surgeries or birthright citizenship.
GRETCHEN CARLSON, JOURNALIST: Yeah. And to echo something the professor just said, the first thing that came to mind today, to me, was that we may now have a king. This is so different from how the separation of powers have worked in this nation for decades and decades. So, look, big picture. Yes, huge win for Trump.
But something I want to bring up tonight is that I believe this will change the way that politics works in America, because this won't just be for President Trump. I mean, rest assured, he's going to push through a ton of executive orders in the next --
BURNETT: Yeah. Now, I mean, you haven't seen nothing yet, right?
CARLSON: You haven't seen nothing yet. However, there's something called the midterm elections coming up that could change the power in Congress. And congress can pass legislation to override these executive orders and override this power that he has been given today. Whether or not that happens is up to the electorate, right?
BURNETT: Right.
CARLSON: But then you look at it even more big picture. And if a Democrat would become president in three and a half years, they would be given the same power. [19:15:03]
So, this will change the way in which we politic in America, I believe unless Congress steps in and supersedes this.
BURNETT: I mean -- so, I mean, Max, to the Gretchen's point. I mean, then you're going to have -- you can have policies all the way over here, and then it just swings over here. I mean, which frankly becomes ungovernable. And the rule of law gets weaker because if it's going to change so dramatically, it's hard to abide by it and count on it. But for him now, sky's the limit on new orders, isn't it?
MAX ROSE, FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN: Certainly. Well, we've always relied on not just a set of laws, but also a set of norms. So, here's to hoping that a future Democratic president and there will be one, one day would act in a more, in a manner more respectful of the Constitution and our shared values.
But let's put the Supreme Court ruling aside, because it's been a fully owned subsidiary of MAGA for quite some time now. And let's just look at the America that Donald Trump is creating in the lives of any American today. We have never seen what we see right now, which is there are babies in America today born after February 19th, which is the day when Trump issued his executive order on naturalization that do not know their family, does not know whether or not they are citizens of this country or not.
That's Trump's America, and the Democrats will be running on this because this is the next iteration of separating children from their parents in cages. I mean, this is -- this is utterly inhumane.
BURNETT: So, Gretchen, you know, we have heard Trump. I played some of it, right? He goes after judges all the time who don't agree with him, right. He has threatened judges.
However, when it comes to Amy Coney Barrett, she has not always voted with him. Okay, she did today. She has not. And I think that's important to say. Even though he did a pointer and because of that, some of his loyalists have done the direct dirty work, right. He's been critical, but they have done some direct, dirty work in just the past few months. When she ruled against him.
Here's some people that we all know talking about Coney Barrett.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: Coney Barrett, outrageous. She should immediately resign from the Supreme Court.
JULIE KELLY, CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: She's an absolute disgrace.
MIKE DAVIS, FOUNDER OF RIGHT-WING ADVOCACY GROUP: She's a rattled law professor with her head up, her (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
(END VIDEO CLIP) BURNETT: So --
CARLSON: Rest assured they're not saying that tonight.
BURNETT: They're not saying that. Oh, no. No. Oh, now, what do you mean, of course. Right.
But sources have told CNN that privately, Trump has railed against her.
CARLSON: Of course.
BURNETT: Right? But now she now -- now she delivers this. And so, you just forget all that.
CARLSON: I thought it was very interesting that the chief justice gave her this, you know, ability to be the person.
BURNETT: That she was the one that.
CARLSON: I thought that is fascinating to me today. But look, in Trump's world, you can be his friend and his enemy all in the same 24 hours. She's back to being his hero, right?
But tomorrow, she could be back to being his enemy, right? But right now, he's going to like her.
I thought it was very interesting, though, to hear the retired Supreme Court justice, Anthony Kennedy, yesterday, because he rarely gives interviews and he actually said something yesterday that was profound, which was that he believes that the attack on judges that we have seen from this administration puts our nation in peril, he said. Democracy is at risk. Freedom is at risk.
How prescient was that for him to say that yesterday and then today we have this ruling giving immense power to President Trump not only to attack judges, but to completely overrule them.
BURNETT: Yeah. And, Max, I'll give you the final word. You know, it is an important -- it is a moment, though. We're at a moment, right? And when you -- when you listen to -- listen to Kagan say that obviously it was about a different policy, right? But this has been a frustration of the executive power before. But it is only now, only now that this has changed.
ROSE: Sure. We're absolutely in a moment and reaffirms the importance of the midterms and every election going forward, but just one last point here. The fact that Amy Coney Barrett switched speaks to the power that Donald Trump truly wants to have, which is threatening what ultimately is threatening the lives of these people with independent power. I'm thinking of the chairman of the federal reserve now as well, and all the ways in which he is coming out vilifying him. This is his goal to control people who he can't legally control.
BURNETT: Right, saying he wants interest rates at 1 percent, he should resign. He's stupid. He's dumb. It's nonstop against that independent position who is --
ROSE: Basically, his online militia in the process.
BURNETT: Of course, a person who is a human being and has to deal with the impact of that.
Thank you both so much.
Next, the breaking news, we have obtained new satellite images that show activity taking place at Iran's Fordow enrichment plant that was bombed by the United States. That's one with the deep bunker. So, what is happening there? We have an expert looking at those pictures to give you some very surprising answers.
Plus, Trump taking on Canada tonight, vowing to end trade talks, threatening to hit Canada with more tariffs and RFK Jr. suddenly seeing his power over America's health agencies talking about power growing, RFK Jr. is getting more powerful.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:24:22]
BURNETT: Breaking news, CNN obtaining new satellite images showing new activity at Fordow, the underground nuclear facility bombed by the United States. Excavators and other vehicles are visible in the pictures, which obviously makes it clear they're cleaning up, trying to repair. Who knows? They're doing something. It got bombed.
It comes as President Trump confidently stated that Iran didn't move any enriched uranium before the U.S. strikes, and will not try to resurrect its nuclear program again.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I don't believe that they're going to go back into nuclear any time soon, and nothing was moved from the site, by the way, to do that is very dangerous. It's very, very heavy material.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Fred Pleitgen is OUTFRONT.
[19:25:01]
He is in Tehran, where Iranians tonight are defiant and angry.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Here at Friday prayers, the prayer leader has been ripping into the United States and ripping into Israel as well. The Iranians are saying they believe that they imposed the ceasefire on the U.S. and Israel because their military was so strong. Many of the folks here chanting, "Death to America and death to Israel." "The great nation of Iran showed resistance in these 12 days," he says, "bringing the enemy to its knees. God willing, the weak enemy will be defeated even more."
And he says, "We will roll you out of this region with the permission of God."
The concept of martyrdom is hugely important here in the Islamic Republic of Iran. We're currently at an event where hundreds of mothers hold their babies into the air to show that they're willing to offer them as martyrs for God and for Imam Hussein. And this goes back to the early days of Shiite Islam, where Imam Hussein, when he was besieged in Karbala, he held up his newborn baby and asked the enemy that was besieging Karbala to give the baby water and instead the enemy killed the baby.
It's a very important story here in Iran. And of course, all of this takes on an even greater importance now that Iran is involved in that standoff with Israel and the United States.
This is an annual event that takes place every year. But folks that we've been speaking to say that for them this year, it's even more important.
"We want to show them we are not scared of anything," she says, "and will support our state until they are destroyed."
And she says, "They need to know that Imam Hussein is our everything and we should sacrifice our lives for Imam Hussein."
"This is a symbol saluting Imam Hussein," she says, "who's the leader of all the oppressed who stand against oppressors and don't submit."
And just to show how big this is in Iran right now, the crowd here was chanting, "Death to America, death to Israel," and there was even a children's choir that was singing songs as videos were shown of Iran's missile program in action against Israel. And of course, also when the Trump administration carried out those strikes against Iranian nuclear installations.
In total, right now, as this conflict is taking place, all of this extremely important to the folks here.
Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Tehran.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: Those images are absolutely incredible, just to see that. And obviously to think that they were, you know, Iranian regime said, okay, you know, Fred can show that they wanted people to see their willingness to sacrifice their babies.
OUTFRONT now, Robert Kelley, he served as the chief nuclear inspector in Iraq for the International Atomic Energy Agency, has also studied and worked on Iran's nuclear program for over 20 years. So, Robert, you know more about what we're seeing on these images than
anyone. Trump tonight saying that no enriched uranium was moved by the Iranians before the U.S. strikes. Now, that's not something we've heard from anyone else in the administration. But he's saying they didn't move it. They didn't move it because it's too hard to do it and its too heavy to do it.
But you sent us an image today from what's going on in Iran that you say undercuts Trump's claims. Can you tell us exactly what we're looking at here?
ROBERT KELLEY, STUDIED IRAN'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM AT INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY: Yes. What you're looking at there is a 5B container which is used for collecting UF6 highly enriched UF6. You can't put very much material into one of those containers, or you'll have a criticality accident. That's the whole basis of a nuclear bomb is putting enough together. You get an explosion. So those containers will hold at a maximum of 25 kilograms. They're not very heavy. You'll notice that the container has two handles on it, and one person can pick it up. If they're not very strong, you'll have two people, and the handles are there for two people to carry it away, and carried away in a car carried away on a motorbike. It's not that big.
So I don't understand quite why this is being portrayed as too heavy.
If I can give you an analogy, if I had a faucet that was dripping water, which is what's going on at the tail of the cascade at Fordow, you wouldn't put a huge tank underneath it. You'd put one of the small container, a bucket, and when the bucket was full, you'd move the bucket out of the way and put another bucket in there.
And so, they're not very heavy, and you carry them away. They've been doing this for six years now -- four years, excuse me. And so they're taking the buckets away all the time.
BURNETT: And also I guess I mean I'm just doing the math and what we understand of 440 kilograms that they have, if you divide that by 25 kilograms, you said would fit in one of those. If I -- if I have my math right, then you only need 18 of them just to move the amount that --
KELLEY: Yeah.
BURNETT: Right. Right. Okay, so to make your point there.
[19:30:00]
Okay. That obviously raises the whole issue of whether they moved it somewhere else, which is obviously crucial for rebuilding a program.
And now these new satellite images that we have here at CNN tonight, Robert, that show excavators and other vehicles at Fordow, that is the heavily fortified facility where we know that nuclear material was kept in bunkers deep underneath the mountain, right?
You see a lot of significance in these images, specifically, we can look here at a long white building that appears to be untouched. And obviously, the U.S. picked its targets very carefully. This one was untouched.
Why does it stand out to you? And what do you see with these excavators and other vehicles?
KELLEY: Which are the long white buildings, one of the long white buildings next to a burned out building, that's a parking cover for people to park their cover or their cars in the hot summer sun.
The other big building is the building that will contain the air handling the cooling water and the things that must be pumped downstairs. You have 3,000 centrifuges running down there. They consume megawatts of power. Youve got to get that heat out somehow. So, you'll have cooling water, air conditioning, special electric, electrical machines to make sure the electricity coming down is clean. That's what that building is for.
So, when you mention that there's a lot going on there, what surprises me is what is not going on there, that that building remains intact. That's the key support building. And by the way, there's one building has been blown up since the Americans were there. So, if it's been blown up since the U.S. was there, I assume Israel blew it up.
BURNETT: Right, I mean, can I just ask you a question that that long building, is there any reason why they would have left it on purpose? I mean, that they wouldn't have wanted some sort of a -- I don't know, a Chernobyl nuclear disaster. So you'd leave that cooling or do you think that they're going to go in and follow up on it, or Israel will follow up on it and destroy it?
KELLEY: I would expect it to get destroyed at some point. If you go back over to Natanz, they left the same building untouched. So, I think there was somewhere someone made the decision. Let's get rid of the centrifuges and we don't have to worry about cooling water and air conditioning for them. If we get rid of the centrifuges themselves, that must be the logic.
But if you're going to take out the whole program, that building is very, very essential. And it just startles me that it's still there. There's one just like it over at Natanz. And then, by the way, there are more centrifuges at Natanz than there were at Fordow.
BURNETT: Wow. All right. Robert -- well, as always, I appreciate your time. Thank you so much.
KELLEY: Nice talking to you. Good night.
BURNETT: You, too. Good night.
Next, the breaking news. Trump canceling his weekend plans as were learning a crucial Republican senator is now threatening what Trump has formally called the Big, Beautiful Bill with a vote scheduled in just hours.
Plus, Trump threatening new tariffs tonight as Nike warns that his tariffs and his trade war is costing Nike, the shoe company alone, $1 billion. Well, who's paying all that extra cost?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:37:28]
BURNETT: Breaking news, the fate of President Trump's Big, Beautiful Bill because that's the actual name of it in Congress is now hanging by a thread hours before senators hold a crucial vote because a key GOP senator, Thom Tillis, just warned he plans to vote against the bill unless there are major changes made. It is filled with massive tax and spending cuts, as Trump himself again demanded lawmakers fall in line before his self-imposed deadline.
He wrote in part, "The House of Representatives must be ready to send it to my desk before July 4th. We can get it done."
Manu Raju is OUTFRONT on Capitol Hill.
Manu, a pretty incredible moment to see a senator willing to do this. Well see where it goes. But at least in a moment like this, to defy the president and do this, to see Thom Tillis do it. How big of a moment is it? And will it last?
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Thom Tillis was just on the Senate floor. He was being lobbied hard by Senate Republican leaders, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
They are still trying to work to win his vote, because they can only afford to lose three Republican votes tomorrow. And that critical initial vote to open up debate on this massive policy bill that deals with a multitrillion dollar overhaul of the tax code, deep spending cuts, including to Medicaid, as well as hundreds of billions of dollars to defense and border security programs.
But it is that issue of Medicaid that is concerning Thom Tillis, cuts to that program, he told reporters tonight that he would vote for it. He would not vote for it unless it, quote, transforms radically overnight, saying he would vote against it, citing the fundamentals of this bill.
And I caught up with a number of Republicans tonight about this. Some of them echoed those concerns. They said they could not commit to voting for this bill until they see the final language -- final text of this bill pertaining to Medicaid that is still not been released at this moment. And that is what's causing a lot of concerns.
I caught up with Senator Markwayne Mullin about the concerns from Republican senators and their -- that this bill has not been released in its full form.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: You've changed it so much behind closed doors.
SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): I would -- that's being real generous with saying that we've negotiated this all the way through in a conference. We've had over 50 meetings on this, and we have not changed this behind closed doors.
RAJU: I mean, there's like a big change on Medicaid that could affect so many people that no one knows what you guys have in the bill.
MULLIN: All the way through. And we haven't made that final change yet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: And remember, Erin, John Thune can only afford to lose three Republican votes tomorrow. And already Rand Paul, and if Thom Tillis holds, that's two votes.
[19:40:04]
Several others, including Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Ron Johnson, Jerry Moran, all tonight, Josh Hawley all told me tonight that they were not certain whether they would vote to advance this bill tomorrow.
BURNETT: All right. Well, this is going to be -- I mean, we'll see up to the line of what happens. Thank you so much, Manu.
Well, so Trump running into this roadblock in the form of Thom Tillis, which obviously is hugely significant to get his agenda through Congress. But it also comes as he says he is ending trade talks with Canada and going to go ahead and place more punitive tariffs on them.
OUTFRONT now, Dan Ives.
So, Dan, Trump's lashing out at Canada, which is of course the biggest buyer of American goods, and announcing a new digital services tax of something like that that's going to affect American tech companies. You cover those.
So, what does all this mean?
DAN IVES, GLOBAL HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH, WEDBUSH SECURITIES: I mean, you know, investors don't want to see this because ultimately, I mean, walking away from Canada, it's also canary in the coal mine for E.U. and other trade deals because, you know, you walk away. And now ultimately, you know, talks about what the tariff will be next week. And you saw the market sell off. And because investors they want clarity.
And obviously, we've talked about for months. This is not what you want to see going into. It's going to be very important few months when it comes to deal negotiations and trade deals to get these deals actually done.
BURNETT: So, all right, you've got these tariffs going. And I know now they're, you know, Secretary Bessent has said -- well, okay we're not going to be done this, you know, in two weeks, which is what they had said. Right. The 90 days, it's going to be Labor Day. So that --that's all moved. And obviously, there's been only one trade deal announced thus far. So, you've got a company like Nike coming out. Nike says $1 billion
because of the tariffs just for Nike. Now obviously shoes are something that are made almost 100 percent outside the United States, right. So that -- that's a company that's going to be hit hard.
But $1 billion, and they say they're going to have to pass a lot of that on to people who buy Nikes. So where are we in the price increase part of this?
IVES: I mean, the price increase, like, we're starting -- you're starting to see price increase and, you know, obviously, pals talked about from a fed perspective what we're seeing from tariffs.
But as we get into late summer and you get into fall, that's where it's almost, you know, really a tidal wave of price increases that are going to come. Look, Nike is just the beginning, especially on the e- commerce side. Where are these shoes made? They're in Vietnam.
You know, overseas. You look at the trade deals that continues to be the issue here. And that's -- look, that's on right now. The market wants to see clarity, but the companies have to deal with the reality.
BURNETT: All right, Dan, thank you very much on this Friday. Thanks so much.
IVES: Thank you.
And next, the Supreme Court tonight. Well, it wasn't just Trump who was a winner. RFK Jr. was a winner. He got a lot more power today.
Plus, a special report tonight on one community not afraid to take on the supreme leader of Iran.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You are in some senses, the ayatollah's worst nightmare.
RABBI TARLAN RABIZADEH, AMERICAN JEWISH UNIVERSITY: Maybe I don't have enough followers for that, but yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:47:23]
BURNETT: New tonight, the Supreme Court giving even more power to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. essentially giving him final say on a key panel that recommends the types of preventative health care that insurers must provide at no cost to patients.
Justice Kavanaugh, writing in part, quote, the task force members are removable at will by the secretary of HHS and their recommendations are reviewable by the secretary before they take effect. It comes just days after Kennedy used his power as HHS secretary to fire all 17 members of a vaccine panel and replace them with eight people of his own selection, many of whom have stated objections to vaccines.
OUTFRONT, now, the Democratic governor of Hawaii, Josh Green, a doctor who dealt with the effect of Senator Kennedy's beliefs about vaccines on the ground that American Samoa.
And, Governor, I appreciate your time. Of course, you could look at any chart in the world and realize vaccines are one of the greatest goods that have ever come to humankind in terms of extending human lifespan and preventing children from dying. But I want to ask you about them in a moment.
But, first, I want to ask you about this ruling that happened. And because, you know, you know, Kennedy, what do you think this ruling means for preventative health care? And you know what? What's going to be considered preventative health care that people can actually get covered by their insurer now that Kennedy has the power to make that choice?
GOV. JOSH GREEN (D-HI): Right. So, Kennedy's been on a mission to gut the public health system, especially vaccination programs, and he's getting his way right now, as we've been saying since his hearing, if he can rule against vaccination approval, then it won't get covered by insurers and millions and millions of families will not be able to afford the vaccinations for their children.
So, we'll fall off a cliff as far as vaccinations go. But he doesn't want people to be vaccinated. He's on a mission to, for example, not allow any vaccinations with thimerosal, even though they've been shown to have no connection to what he says is autism connected.
He just doesn't have any health care background, and he truly does not want these vaccinations to be a part of our public health system.
BURNETT: Right. Of course. Vaccines, as I -- as I stated, have, you know, perhaps singlehandedly been responsible for the fact that that families could have a few children instead of having to have, you know, six or more children just to hope that a couple of them would live.
So, people suddenly turning away from them would -- could really, you know, change, change the world. So, this panel of vaccine advisers that Kennedy is now in charge of, right. They have voted to rescind recommendations for flu vaccines that contain the preservative thimerosal.
[19:50:00]
The anti-vaccine movement, as you noted, has falsely linked that compound to autism.
And Kennedy has raised doubts about it for years. He even wrote a book about it. And he said this to Dr. Oz.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR., HHS SECRETARY: We found 500 peer-reviewed studies, virtually every one of them said that thimerosal is a potent neurotoxin that should not be in vaccines. We couldn't find a single scientific, valid plausible scientific study that said that thimerosal was safe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: You point out that the studies have shown no link between thimerosal and autism, but you know, where does his fight against vaccines end, do you think.
GREEN: It ends with a steep decline in families getting vaccinated because of the vaccine misinformation and the fear that he spreads. And when vaccination rates drop below 95 percent, you see spread of disease. You see measles already spreading in our country. You're going to see mumps, rubella.
Ultimately, you're going to see meningitis and polio spread. And when you don't have proper abilities to preserve these vaccinations, they're going to spoil or not be available in rural communities. And then you're going to see even deeper outbreaks and more, more serious outbreaks with deaths that are completely preventable.
So I don't know why he's on a mission to allow children to die, but he is. And I think it's self-interested because of the economics of his law. His legal practice over the last many decades. But it's deeply cynical and it's very harmful.
BURNETT: So, President Trump is staying in Washington, as I mentioned about the bill, right. The Big, Beautiful Bill, that's what it's technically called. We're talking about health care. So, it does include cuts to Medicaid. Nearly 1 in 3 people in your state are enrolled in Medicaid.
Trump says, though, that it is simply not going to be cut, that this is a false narrative. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're cutting $1.7 trillion in this bill, and you're not going to feel any of it. And your Medicaid is left alone. It's left the same. Your Medicare and your social security are strengthened. We're not cutting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: As I mentioned, nearly 1 in 3 in your state enrolled in Medicaid. Is it true that none of them will -- your Medicaid is left alone?
GREEN: Well, we're going to see what the Senate passes, but they've proposed over $1 trillion in cuts. If they do that, we're going to see up to 16 million people across the country get dropped from Medicaid.
There's reasons that that's a disaster. It's a disaster for the individuals that lose Medicaid coverage. Five million people will go deeply into debt because they're going to see enormous bills without insurance. Forty-one percent of all women who deliver babies are on Medicaid. So, they're going to be threatened.
And, Erin, just so people understand, the worst part of this is that when you cut resources out of the public health system, the, you know, the rural hospitals which depend on Medicaid and Medicare to stay open will begin to crumble. So, the health care system across the country, middle America, all of our rural communities will start seeing closures of these hospitals.
So, it won't even just be Medicaid recipients that can't get healthcare. It'll be all of their neighbors who are on private healthcare and other. So, you're going to see over 10,000 additional people die. And it is tragic that the Senate is even considering this.
They should walk away from this proposal to cut Medicaid and health care resources. It should never have been a part of the tax breaks for the rich.
BURNETT: Governor Green, thank you so much. I appreciate your time tonight.
And after this, we're going to go to a California community that is taking on Iran's supreme leader, the ayatollah.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:57:13]
BURNETT: Tonight, one California community being torn apart by what's happening in Iran and Israel. Nick Watt is there OUTFRONT.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RABBI TARLAN RABIZADEH, AMERICAN JEWISH UNIVERSITY: Now that all of my countries are involved in this war, all of them. Israel, Iran, and now the USA, it is just all-consuming and terrifying. I want to say that first and foremost, people dying is the last thing that I want.
NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Rabbi Tarlan Rabizadeh is among the 20,000 or so Persian Jews living here in L.A. so is the mayor of Beverly Hills.
DR. SHARONA R. NAZARIAN, MAYOR OF BEVERLY HILLS: There are a lot of people that are very concerned. They have family members in Iran. They have family members in Israel, and they are all being impacted by this.
WATT: News from the old country plays in a grocery store in a neighborhood known as Tehrangeles.
RABIZADEH: We care about Israel surviving because it's our homeland, but so is Iran. And I wish people would understand that.
Iranian Jews have lived in Iran for 2,500 years, since the time of Queen Esther.
WATT: The biblical Jewish queen of a Persian king. RABIZADEH: The country was originally Zoroastrian. People were forced
to convert to Islam, and Jews thrived.
WATT: Their religions had coexisted for maybe 2,000 years. Then most Jews fled around the time of the Islamic revolution in 1979. Mayor Nazarian was just a little kid.
Have you ever been back?
NAZARIAN: No. We were persecuted for our religion, that we were exiled.
WATT: This week, Persian Americans in L.A. demonstrated their desire for the end of the ayatollah's regime.
I mean, you are in some senses the ayatollah's worst nightmare.
RABIZADEH: Maybe I don't have enough followers for that, but yes.
WATT: You would like an Iran free of the current regime.
RABIZADEH: Absolutely. And I would say that the majority of the Iranian people would feel the same way.
I am not going to apologize that I would love to be able to go back to a free Iran and see where my ancestors came from.
NAZARIAN: My community is very hopeful that they're going to be able to see peace in their time and be able to visit.
RABIZADEH: I remember when we invaded Iraq and my family kept shaking their heads at the television and saying, wrong country, man. We wasted a lot of lives there, though, and Americans are really scared about putting our soldiers at risk again. And I don't blame them.
NAZARIAN: This is going to be something that. Is going to have to happen at the hands of the Iranian people themselves, with their own courage, their own strength to be able to see freedom.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WATT (on camera): Now, the rabbis fear now that there's a ceasefire in place, is that the U.S. and Israel have left this job half done, that the regime is still in place and is now taking it out on its citizens. You know, human rights groups say hundreds have been arrested inside Iran in this past week.
The rabbi says yes, if there's going to be regime change needs to be from the people, but they might need some help from outside or the Iranian army -- Erin.
BURNETT: Nick, thank you very much.
And thanks so much to all of you for being with us.
"AC360" starts now.
