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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

Senate Debate On Trump's Policy Bill Stretches Into Third Day; U.S. Stocks Looking Strong As Q2 Comes To An End; Suspect Named In Idaho Firefighter Shooting; Bryan Kohberger Agrees To Plea Deal In Idaho Murders; Hamas Serious And Ready For Permanent Ceasefire With Israel; Obama, Bush Criticize Trump's Gutting Of USAID. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired July 01, 2025 - 04:00   ET

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

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[04:00:34]

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL ENTERPRISE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning and welcome to our viewers joining us from the United States and all around the world. I'm MJ Lee. It's Tuesday, July 1, 4:00 a.m. here in Washington, D.C. And straight ahead on Early Start.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Trump and his team say that they are still optimistic that this bill is going to get passed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What happens in the wee hours of the morning here determines whether President Donald Trump's domestic policy agenda sinks or swims.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Smoke rising from the forest in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A call prompting firefighters and then police to rush into action.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Active shooter zone. They're shot 83 down BC one down. Everybody shot up here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Essentially what's been happening is that Europe is experiencing a heat wave and temperatures that it normally expenses sort of later in the summer, end of July, Rosemary, August, except it's been having them in June.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Apocalyptic scenes in Izmir, Turkey, as wildfires forced residents to flee for their lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: It has been a long night here in the U.S. Capitol for senators who have been in a marathon 19 hour long session going back and forth over what could be including in President Donald Trump's so called big beautiful bill. The vote-a-rama allows any senator to propose any kind of amendment to the legislation. And at this hour, there is still no sign of a final vote in sight.

The bill is meant to fund the president's domestic agenda, but neither Congress nor the Republican Party have seen eye to eye on what's in it. President Trump spent part of Monday on the phone with congressional leaders pressuring them to get the bill to his desk by the 4th of July holiday on Friday. But there are still some hurdles.

If the Senate approves the latest version, it will go back to the House where there's no guarantee lawmakers in that chamber will agree to the changes. CNN's U.S. national politics correspondent Eva McKend is following the developments, including the First Amendment to the agenda bill adopted just moments ago in the Senate. Eva, good morning. What is the latest?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, MJ Senators are in agreement that people making more than a million dollars a year should not qualify for federal unemployment assistance. But they aren't in agreement on much else. And so that is why this is dragging on and on.

And Senate Democrats say that this is a good thing, that there seems to be so much disagreement among Senate Republicans. Their theory of the case is as this continues, they have an opportunity to continue making their case to voters that this bill is problematic and should not pass in its current form.

Meanwhile, there are ideological divides within the Republican Party. You have senators like Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski who are concerned about Medicaid cuts, who are concerned about restrictions to food assistance. And so that's why we've seen some jockeying on the Senate floor throughout the night. People huddled in different parts of the Senate floor as these furious negotiations continue.

Meanwhile, on the extreme other end of the Republican Party, you have some senators who believe that the cuts don't go far enough and that it is going to be especially problematic if Republicans blow up the deficit under a Republican president. So, at this hour, no indication as yet that this is going to end anytime soon. MJ.

LEE: All right. Eva McKend, thank you so much. Natasha Lindstaedt is a professor of government at the University of Essex. She joins me from Colchester, England. Linda, it's good to see you again. I know you've been paying close attention to all of the developments on the Senate floor.

We currently have two Republican senators, Thom Tillis and Rand Paul, who have come out against the bill, meaning Republicans can only afford one more Republican defection. Some of the last minute maneuvers I think here have been really telling, particularly related to Medicaid and food assistance programs.

[04:05:02]

NATASHA LINDSTAEDT, PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: No, exactly. I mean, I think what you're seeing with the Republicans in the Senate is they have different constituents, they have different needs.

So you have those like Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who's just trying to fight to ensure that her state doesn't see such aggressive cuts to Medicaid or to the nutritional assistance programs. And she was trying to get some kind of exemption for her state. And they originally got an exemption, though it was later struck down by the Senate parliamentarian.

And also Susan Collins of Maine, as was mentioned, similarly, really worried about support for rural hospitals, which is going to affect some of her constituents. Josh Hawley had echoed concerns about this as well.

But then you've got the other fiscal hawks in the Senate that are really worried about the national debt, the deficit, and how much this is going to add to it, that it's upwards of 3, 4 trillion, and they just think that it's immoral to carry on this way.

So, both of these different sides, they can't really square with one another because they are opposing. And that's what's making this process so laborious.

LEE: Yes, I mean, exactly. As you just said, the question of how much this bill would add to the deficit has been a huge issue. One vocal critic on that very issue, of course, has been Elon Musk. Talk to us about that. I mean, he of course, has sort of parted ways from Donald Trump, the president. Do you think that he has still been an influential voice in this entire exercise?

LINDSTAEDT: So it seemed like Elon Musk had disappeared and he had apologized and was backing down on some of the threats that he was making. But really, in the last few days, he's ramped up his criticism of this big, beautiful bill. He's called it insane. He's been really clear that this is going to be incredibly detrimental to the U.S. economy. And he's even threatened to bankroll a third party if the bill passes.

And he has hundreds of millions in his war chest that he can provide candidates that are in opposition to Trump and in opposition to this bill. Now, whether or not he's actually going to follow through on that remains to be seen. Trump recently threatened to cut his subsidies that must receive from the federal government.

But Musk seems determined torpedo the bill and to try to convince senators and other members of the House, of course, to not go along with it just because it will be so disastrous for the economy.

LEE: And, Natasha, how are you seeing Democrats messaging this bill so far? You know, we've already gotten a pretty good sense of how they plan to use this bill as sort of a political weapon against Republicans in next year's midterm election.

LINDSTAEDT: So what they need to do, and they've done it a little bit, but I think they could do a better job of it, is trying to frame this as the most regressive piece of legislation in history. And it has to be up there because you have the richest 20 percent are going to benefit. Those that make over 200,000 are going to gain 6,000 a year.

Meanwhile, the rest, 80 percent, are not going to see positive ramifications from this. And particularly those that are in the bottom 10 percent, are really going to struggle. And the 1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid over the next decade are really going to see a big impact on some 12 million Americans that are in danger of losing their Medicaid support. You also have children who live in rural areas. 40 percent of those depend on Medicaid.

So the messaging from the Democrats needs to really strike this home to the American public that this bill doesn't benefit anybody except really corporations and those that are in the richest income groups.

LEE: And as you know, the deadline that President Trump has set for this bill is July 4th. He wants this legislation on his desk by Friday. Does that seem realistic to you? As an important reminder, this bill needs to go back to the House for further approval.

LINDSTAEDT: So I don't see this as realistic at all, just let alone the divisions that are taking place in the Senate that seem almost irreconcilable. And I know that the Senate often just goes along with what Trump wants to do at the very end, sort of by this razor thin margin.

But you have also divisions between the Republicans in the House and Republicans in the Senate. The ones in the House are probably upset about the fact that they've added an additional trillion. The Senate version of the bill has, and their divisions on Medicaid. How aggressive the cuts to Medicaid to be, should be.

The Senate actually wants to phase out clean energy incentives much more gradually than Republicans in the House.

[04:10:00]

So they have a lot of disagreements that they would have to iron out beforehand and I don't see how they can do that in just a few days.

LEE: All right, Natasha Lindstaedt, thank you so much as always.

LINDSTAEDT: Thanks for having me.

LEE: U.S. investors are cheering a second quarter comeback on Wall Street as volatility prompted by Donald Trump's tariff policy has subsided. On Monday, the last day of the quarter, stocks cut climbed with the S and P 500 and the NASDAQ both closing at record highs.

The S and P posted its best quarter since December 2023, and for the NASDAQ, it was the best quarter in five years. This all marked a major rebound after markets saw a dismal first quarter and we're now just hours away from the opening bell. Here's a look at where U.S. stock futures stand at this hour. In contrast to yesterday, we're seeing expected drops across the board for the Dow, S and P 500 and the NASDAQ. The White House says it rejects the notion that it's using tariffs as,

a, quote, instrument of blackmail. On Monday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt fired back at comments made by Emmanuel Macron. The French president suggested that tariffs levied by powerful countries were often used to blackmail rather than rebalance trade.

Levitt called tariffs a, quote, effective use of presidential power to bring back the middle class. Meanwhile, President Trump complained about Japan closing its market to U.S. rice, warning he'll send Tokyo a letter implying higher tariffs on the nation. Except this claim isn't true. According to census data, Japan bought close to $300 million worth of American rice last year.

Authorities in Idaho have identified the suspect in the deadly ambush on firefighters who were responding to a brush fire in the city of Coeur d'Alene on Sunday. 20 year Wess Roley is believed to have opened fire before turning the gun on himself.

CNN's Nick Watt has more details about the shooting and firefighters who were killed in the attack.

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UNIDENIFIED MALE: There's an active shooter zone. There's shot BC3s down, BC1 is down. Everybody's shot up here.

NICK WATT, CNN REPORTER (voice-over): On a routine brush fire call on a sunny afternoon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got two unresponsive battalion chiefs, gunshot wounds, multiple gunshot wounds. It's clear to me that this fire was set intentionally to draw us in.

WATT (voice-over): Lit, authorities say by 20 year old Wess Roley, who we're told talked to firefighters when they first arrived on scene.

SHERIFF BOB NORRIS, KOOTENAI COUNTY, IDAHO: Here's some of his social media postings that were recently removed.

WATT (voice-over): An Instagram story of the suspect apparently armed and camouflaged, set to a song called Hunter.

NORRIS: This was a total ambush. These firefighters did not have a chance. We did have reports that he was shooting at first responders via a tree.

WATT (voice-over): Two firefighters killed, a third injured fighting for his life.

BEN HECTOR, FIREFIGTHER: We're friends and coworkers. He's a great guy. We haven't lost a member of the line of duty for a very long time.

WATT (voice-over): For hours, around 300 law enforcement personnel hunted the gunman or gunmen. They didn't know which shots were fired. NORRIS: We had a cell phone activation. We honed in on that cell phone

and we saw that there was a male, appeared to be deceased with a weapon nearby. We believe that there was only the one shooter.

WATT (voice-over): Authorities now believe the suspect died by suicide. His grandfather told CNN he wanted to be a fireman. He was doing tree work and he wanted to be a fireman in the forest.

NORRIS: We don't know if there's a nexus to that desire. And what happened.

WATT (voice-over): Coeur d'Alene now in mourning, paying tribute to two of their own killed in what city leaders are calling a senseless tragedy.

WATT: And we now have the names of the men killed. Frank Harwood, 42 years old, married with a couple of kids. He was the foreign rescue chief for Kootenai County. Also killed John Morrison, who was a battalion chief with the Coeur d'Alene Fire Department. Injured an engineer with that same department, Dave Tisdale. Tisdale has undergone two surgeries and we're told is still in critical condition.

Now, the suspect's family is now cooperating with officials. They send their heartfelt condolences to all impacted and say, quote, we do not understand why this happened. Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.

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LEE: The man accused of fatally stabbing four University of Idaho students in their apartment in 2022 has accepted a plea deal to avoid trial. With that deal, 30-year-old Bryan Kohberger, who previously pleaded not guilty, will now plead guilty to four counts of murder, bringing an end to the years long legal proceedings against him.

[04:15:07]

In exchange, prosecutors will not pursue the death penalty. In a Facebook post, one of the victim's families said they were furious at the state of Idaho and described the announcement of the plea deal as very unexpected. A hearing is now scheduled for Wednesday.

And still ahead, the latest developments in Israel's war in Gaza, what the IDF claims it's doing after being scrutinized for opening fire and killing Palestinians at Gaza aid sites.

Plus, two former U.S. presidents give a rare rebuke to Trump after this independent agency's six decade legacy comes to an end.

And cooling off in any way they can will show you how people across Europe are coping with an extreme heat wave.

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[04:20:17]

LEE: New satellite images show ongoing work at Iran's Fordow nuclear enrichment site. Just over a the U.S. bombed the facility with so called bunker busters. The images from Maxar appear to show vehicles, cranes and personnel working near the ventilation shafts which were struck by the bombs. And meanwhile, Iranian officials say Israeli strikes in early June killed 935 people including 38 children.

Officials did not clarify how many of those fatalities were military personnel or nuclear scientists. The Israeli prime minister's office says Iran's retaliatory attacks during the 12-day conflict killed 28 people.

New developments in the war in Gaza. The IDF says it's reorganizing access to Gaza at aid sites to minimize friction with the population. The Palestinian Health Ministry says more than 500 people have been killed as they approached aid sites or trucks in the past month.

On Friday, the U.N. Secretary General demanded that the killings stop, saying the search for food must never be a death sentence.

Meanwhile, a Hamas official has told CNN that the militant group is quote, serious and ready for a ceasefire agreement to permanently end the war in Gaza.

Let's go now to Paula Hancocks in Abu Dhabi. Paula, what is the latest on a possible ceasefire deal that's been elusive for a while.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, MJ, we are seeing some movement this week, certainly more from the Israeli side. We've heard from the Israeli prime minister that he is making the hostage release a priority now rather than what we have heard before, which is destroying Hamas.

We know that the U.S. President Donald Trump has been putting pressure on Netanyahu to secure this ceasefire deal. Just last Friday, Trump had said that he believed there would be a deal within a week. So, putting a time crunch on the Israeli prime minister there. He also said on social media on the weekend, make the deal in Gaza, get the hostages back.

So we know that over the past two days, Sunday and Monday, there have been a meeting in Israel with all the top security officials or the top advisers I should say to the prime minister and ministers, but they haven't. According to a source familiar with these talks, they haven't yet decided whether or not they would go ahead with a ceasefire deal.

This source does tell us that Netanyahu favors the deal, obviously with that pressure from the U.S. President as well. And Netanyahu is expected later this week or into next week to go to Washington for his third meeting with the U.S. President. We're hearing reports of July 7th and he would like to have a deal done by that time. But there are far right elements within his coalition which do not want to see a ceasefire.

They want to see the war continue in Gaza. And we have also seen just in recent hours how desperately the people of Gaza need that ceasefire. More than 40 people were killed at a cafe near the port in Gaza City.

Now, this is apparently a cafe that was very popular with journalists, with students because it was offering Internet just along the Mediterranean coast. Now, the Israeli airstrike did kill more than 40. The IDF said that it is looking into the incident, but had been targeting Hamas terrorists in northern Gaza. MJ.

LEE: Paula Hancocks in Abu Dhabi, thank you so much.

It is the end of an era for U.S. soft power after six decades, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, as it's commonly known, marked its final day as an independent agency on Monday. USAID was one of the first casualties of President Trump and billionaire Elon Musk's government cutting initiatives.

In a video farewell to the thousands affected, USAID staffers, former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush voice rare public criticism of Donald Trump. Obama calling the agency's gutting a travesty and a tragedy.

U.S. senators are still debating, negotiating and proposing amendments to Donald Trump's massive domestic policy bill. The latest on that controversial legislation just ahead.

[04:25:03]

Plus, why the judge in the Sean "Diddy" Combs trial had to remind jurors of their duties as their deliberations got underway.

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LEE: We are watching the U.S. Senate as it continues its vote-a-rama with Republicans and Democrats proposing new amendments to Donald Trump's sweeping domestic policy bill.

[04:30:05]