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Soon: House GOP Meets To Discuss Latest Plan To Avert Shutdown; Johnson Will Need Democratic Votes To Pass Funding Bill; New GOP Plan Drops Trump's Demand To Raise Debt Ceiling; Bannon: Speaker Johnson "Not Up To The Task"; Emerging GOP Plan Would Split Spending Bill Into Multiple Parts. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired December 20, 2024 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Today on Inside Politics, the nightmare before Christmas. In exactly 12 hours, the federal government will shut down unless Congress acts fast. Speaker Mike Johnson claims, he now has a plan, but does he have the votes? CNN is live on Capitol Hill with the fast-breaking developments.

Plus, who is the boss? I will talk to a top Democratic senator about his party's negotiations behind the scenes, including why they think it is Elon Musk calling the shots in the GOP. And where is Joe? The current president is noticeably out of sight as the government he runs braces for a potential shutdown. We have new reporting on the waning days of Joe Biden's administration.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

We start, of course, on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are scrambling to figure out a way to keep the government lights on through the holidays. About 30 minutes from now, House Speaker Mike Johnson will try to sell his colleagues on what we are now told is a three-part plan to fund the government and do so through March.

Now, one notable aspect as of now is that it does not include what the president-elect Donald Trump had wanted in this -- in the first place, which is a plan to raise the debt ceiling now.

CNN's Manu Raju joins me from Capitol Hill. Tell us more about this plan, and the obvious question is, will he have enough votes to pass it?

MANU RAJU: YEAH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT. That is the big question. But we now know they are settling on a plan to essentially move these pieces of legislation separately. Remember, this is all tied together as one big package to keep the government open along a whole wide range of other issues, $100 billion in aid for natural disasters that have hit across the country.

A directly to farmers have been hit by bad conditions and the like. And Donald Trump injecting that last toxic effort to raise or suspend the national debt limit. He asked for that in the 11th hour that scuttled that bipartisan deal earlier this week.

But we are now learning, according to our sources inside a closed-door meeting with the speaker of the House, that they plan to separate out each of these bills and move them individually. That would include a three-month extension of government funding, $100 billion disaster relief package and a $10 billion farm package.

Now here's the other catch, that push by Donald Trump to spend the national debt limit will be set aside because they simply do not have the votes to move it ahead. That's because of opposition, not just from Democrats believe that they -- that would allow Donald Trump to move his agenda next year, if they were to agree to that now, but also conservative Republicans who don't want to raise the national debt limit.

So, now this is the big question. Will Democrats support this? Because Democratic support is necessary. I caught up with Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader, ahead of a closed-door meeting, and he indicated for the first time in recent days, the negotiations are ongoing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): Lines of communication have been reopened? We're going to do everything we can to avoid a catastrophic government (Ph).

RAJU: Do you think that it's of any appetite at give Republicans something on the debt limit?

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): On the debt limit? No, no.

RAJU: It's a total red line for you.

JAYAPAL: Yeah. Because here's the thing, the debt limit -- what the reason he's trying to do that is so that he can pass Trump tax scam 2.0 next year and not have to worry about the fact that it's going to drive up the debt by another several trillion dollars.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So, this would code for us, given the democratic opposition to the debt limit, and also conservative Republican opposition. Donald Trump will essentially have to concede on what he has been demanding for the last couple of days. The question is, how will Trump react to this?

I am told that there is going to be a Republican agreement to try to move on the debt limit next year, not deal with it this year. And Dana, where will the votes ultimately come down? The other discussion is, will they vote tonight on this, using a procedure that will require two thirds majority of the House to advance it.

Meaning a lot of Democrats are to support each of these individual bills in this separate vote strategy or wait to tomorrow and try to do it along party lines or during a separate procedure. That will be passed the shutdown deadline at midnight tonight. They plan to huddle behind closed doors at 12:30 eastern, Dana, to try to figure out their way forward.

BASH: This is a movie with way too many sequels. I think we're done with this -- with this kind of theme, this kind of film. Thank you so much. Manu, appreciate your reporting. Come back if you get any news, of course.

[12:05:00]

And I'm lucky to be surrounded by a talented group of reporters, CNN's Jeff Zeleny, CNN's Lauren Fox, who of course, was on Capitol Hill all morning, and Zolan Kanno-Youngs of The New York Times. Lauren, I'll start with you.

This three-part strategy to do it in bills that are separate in order to give Democrats and Republicans the ability to vote on different things. Can you explain why that matters, particularly when it comes to the bottom line at this point, which is keeping the government running.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There are probably some conservatives who hail from areas that were affected by the hurricane, who want to make sure that they have an opportunity to vote for legislation to help their states and their districts. I think that is part of the strategy here.

I also think part of it is just getting as many votes as you can on the items that people agree on and breaking this down. There was also some entertainment of whether or not they would add the debt ceiling as a separate vote as part of this. Clearly, that's not the strategy that they're contending with, but that was another way to sort of try to satisfy Donald Trump.

So right now, I think this is one of those sort of -- it's all the same bill, but it just looks a little different than it was before operations. Sometimes that works on Capitol.

BASH: But some of the -- correct me, if I wrong, and maybe we don't know this yet. Some of the funding for programs like kids with cancer and so forth. Is that going to stay in here, or we just don't know yet?

FOX: I think the early reports are this is the slim down version of what that Tuesday plan was. That is the early indication. And I do think that for some Democrats, that could be a reason to vote, no.

BASH: Let's just talk about the politics of this because there's so many different facets to what happened and what is happening as we speak, and what it portends for in January, when there truly is full across the board Republican control. What is your read on it? What's your analysis of that?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Look the analysis of it, clearly, the first to share of the blame arrest with Speaker Johnson by not having this sort of locked up early in the week. There were signs that this was going to be a problem over the weekend. And not just from -- there's been, I think, kind of a mis narrative that you know that the Democratic goodies are in here, which is true.

But there was also, as you reported, a lot of a farm state Republicans who were wanting farm aid in there and hurricane assistance. So, there was a lot of grumbling. I started hearing it Sunday and Monday from Republicans about Speaker Johnson and his staff, that they simply did not sort of get this going.

But I'm still struck by the image last Saturday at the army navy football game when the president elect the vice president-elect Elon Musk, Speaker Johnson and Senator Thune were in the same space. I mean, watching this football game in a suite at Northwest stadium here, just, you know, miles from the Capitol.

And this was not a part of this, of the discussion. They were already looking beyond this. So then, why did Donald Trump get involved in this at all? He could have kept his hands clean from this. Was he sort of dragged in by Elon Musk? Was he following him? Was Elon Musk sort of the canary in the coal mine here?

I think my biggest question going out of this is, A, does speaker Johnson survive in January? But B, what does this do to the long-term Trump-Musk relationship? I'm not sure we know that yet.

BASH: Do you mean with each other?

ZELENY: With each other, because I think there's been a lot of, you know, conversation about this is president-elect Musk leading the way here. And we know that that could, at some point get under Donald Trump's skin. He could be a good foil for this in the moment. But that's my biggest question going forward into next year, what does the Trump-Musk relationship do from here? We'll see.

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: And is it also a test, an early test, of Trump's grip on Republicans in Congress too? Yes, he has. He's going to have Republicans will have unified control here. But, I mean, I remember a time where he issues a threat, like he did, an electoral threat of anyone who doesn't vote on this bill that I'm supporting last night will be primaried. And most of the time, you might have people fall in line. And for some Republicans, that wasn't the case.

ZELENY: Sort of 38.

KANNO-YOUNGS: Right. Right, that's --

FOX: And conservative number, yeah.

KANNO-YOUNGS: That is our number, like especially, when you look at the past year, we often talk about how Trump has this grip, you know, on the party and on Congress. And to see that opposition, yes, it involves something like raising the debt ceiling, which is obviously something that many of those Republicans care about that.

BASH: And what we're seeing on the screen are the faces of the 38 republicans who voted no last night on a Trump backed package after he and Elon Musk scuttled the bipartisan package, and the package that they all voted no on included increasing the debt ceiling.

[12:10:00]

And this is -- what you just mentioned, is the core of what I'm frankly kind of obsessed with when it comes to the politics of all of this, which is, if you talked before, two days ago, three days ago, if you talk to people in and around the speaker, in and around John Thune, the Republican leaders in the Congress.

They would argue that because Donald Trump is so popular in the party, because he has a lot of political capital, that it would be hard to see enough Republicans, rank and file Republicans defying him. They were talking about like in the next year, in 2025, and it just happened already before he's even president.

And the reason is because of the battle that Donald Trump picked on the debt ceiling, on something that is fundamental to where this movement started, which is in the tea party, you know, anti-big government spending and those kind of Republicans sort of were subsumed by MAGA and Trumpism, but they still very much have a North Star of, I'm not going to mess around with the debt and the deficit.

FOX: Yeah. I mean, I talked to one of those House Republicans last night when they were getting off the floor, and they said it was a tough vote, but at the end of the day, they got to vote with what they came to Congress to do, which is cut and flash and burn debt.

The other thing that is starting to seep through a little bit is Republicans don't know if Donald Trump is going to have their back. And so, if it is fundamentally not something they want to do, the pressure from Donald Trump and knowing that he might change his mind in a week and a half.

That is starting to eat away at his power over some of these Republicans. Dan Crenshaw made this point to me yesterday. He said we would be willing to eat a crap sandwich, and yet we are. You know, there're not sure if Donald Trump is going to stick with us at the end of the day, and so we can't.

BASH: They're not sure if Donald Trump will give them a glass of water afterwards. Just going back to what we were talking about with regard to why these Republicans, who clearly come from magnet districts, who are you know, tried and true Republicans defied -- effectively defied, their president elect. One is Chip Roy, Republican of Texas, listen to what he said on the House floor about why he was voting no on that package?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. CHIP ROY ((R-TX): I made my promise to my kids that I would do everything I can to save this country. And what we're doing right now is to continue to double down on the things that are destroying the Republic. The fact to the matter is $330 billion, congratulations. You've added to the debt since you were given the majority again on November 5. It's embarrassing. It's shameful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So, he's exactly the kind of person I was referring to when I said that the debt and the deficit is kind of a North Star. The president-elect saw that. Here's what he said on his social media platform. The very unpopular Congressman not sure why. That's in quotes. From Texas Chip Roy is getting in the way as usual, of having another -- yet another great Republican victory, all for the sake of some cheap publicity for himself. Republican obstructionists have to be done away with.

We should also mention that Chip Roy, of course, endorsed Ron DeSantis in the primary. So, he's not a long time only Trumper, but he certainly -- we've all listened to somebody like Chip Roy. He is not, yes, maybe he likes publicity, but this is a core philosophy for him.

ZELENY: He is a long-time fiscal conservative. That is why -- I mean, to Lauren's point, that is why he came to Washington. So, it is going to be fascinating. Already, the presidency of Donald Trump, the second term hasn't started, but the clock is running. I mean, we know he has four years, technically, to get stuff done, much less than that, probably half, and maybe even less.

So, his barked is -- so far, people aren't afraid of it. That could change next year, when he is president on policy matters. I'm not sure that we -- I think there are limits to what we can read into by this messy episode right now, however it ends, what next year will forte. But I do think that those 38 Republicans defying him, they're not afraid of him like they used to be. So, we'll see. And someone said, they can't primary all of us.

BASH: They can.

ZELENY: We'll see, though. I mean, it would be hard to successfully --

BASH: Sure.

KANNO-YOUNGS: Trump voters, the base, I mean, there's -- and this question of will -- with the base even care about this. The base may be asked for a shake-up a government, a shutdown is different. You know, that has a trickle-down effect. And, you know, will people actually blame Biden if that happens now? Or do they actually connect this to, you know, the person who's been more visible lately, which is Trump.

BASH: Yeah. We're going to actually talk a lot more about that. And pick up on the question of, OK, if Donald Trump won't get hurt politically from what is happening right now, who will -- could it be House Speaker Mike Johnson. We're going to talk about that next.

[12:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Welcome back to Inside Politics. One of the questions with this potential looming shutdown. Certainly, the fight in and around it is, what does it mean for House Speaker Mike Johnson? And will he be able to keep his gavel? Well, one of president-elect Trump's big allies, somebody who helps to get the MAGA movement really fired up, is Steve Bannon. Here's what he said at a conference in Arizona yesterday.

[12:20:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE BANNON, PODCASTER & FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: Clearly, Johnson is not up to the task. He's got to go, right? He's got to go. Should Johnson be speaker of the House? President Trump, these are your people. He doesn't have that -- he doesn't have what we call the right stuff, right, that combination of guts and Moxie and savvy and toughness.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Lauren?

FOX: Who does have the 218 votes? That's what I want to know. When people are standing up there, trying to, you know, rev up the crowd. I think that you really do pose the danger of not having any speaker at all. Am I saying that Republicans won't doubt Johnson? Am I saying that he may not have a tough time on the floor?

No, but I do wonder how long it would take them to find someone else. And if, you know, Donald Trump starts to really think about the fact that I have an agenda, and how long do I want this to be the focus of the beginning of my administration because it took them three weeks last time.

BASH: And I just want to give a reality check. You just gave an important one about the numbers. Yeah. And last time, the Republicans had a slightly bigger majority, even though it was narrow. Now it's going to be almost nothing.

FOX: Yeah.

BASH: But the reality of what Mike Johnson or anybody who would be in his job right now has to deal with. And that is, yes, he made a bipartisan deal, and he did that knowing full well that a lot of his fellow Republicans are not going to vote to keep the government running no matter what. So, he needed to bring on some Democratic priorities and Democratic votes. That's like governing, legislating. 101, usually.

What was really interesting is what he did last night. We were talking in the last segment about those 38 Republicans voting no on Donald Trump's approved package, which included raising the debt ceiling. It used to be somebody like Nancy Pelosi would say, I'm not going to bring anything to the floor that I know won't pass. He knew it wouldn't pass. That is something that he clearly needed to do to show Donald Trump, this is where your Republican Party is right now. So, it's not me, it's them.

ZELENY: Without a doubt. And that was one of the rare instances you bring something to floor knowing it's going to pass or a fail, but also the clock is running. You know, the old adage about the jet fumes here, but I think they had to get past that hurdle if they want to get past whatever hurdles coming up this afternoon. And that's still an open question.

But last night's failure was absolutely essential to this. And looking back on this, at your point of finding 218 people, I'm a little skeptical that after the McCarthy really public relations, a disaster that happened with the search for a speaker, that they'll be that willing to sort of throw a speaker overboard.

It could happen, certainly. But Matt Gaetz is not in the picture anymore. And I think some of the rabble rousers will sort of keep their powder dry. But the question is, for Speaker Johnson's future is, what does Donald Trump think about it and that is sort of like the central thing.

BASH: We're going to get to some of your new reporting later in the hour. We're going to have to take a break. I just also want to say that got a note from the House speaker's office during the break, reminding us that the part of the big bill that was killed by Donald Trump that had money for pediatric cancer passed individually the House, and it's still sitting in the Senate, which is why they put it in the bill. That's a larger conversation, but important context there.

Coming up. Will Democrats get on board with House Republicans new plan to avoid a shutdown? I'll talk to Democratic Senator Chris Murphy about that and why he sees Trump's plan to cripple democracy, and what that means for all of us. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: House Republicans are meeting as we speak on a potential new strategy to try to keep the government open. The plan taking shape would split the government funding bill into separate parts and drop Donald Trump's demand to raise the debt limit altogether.

The question at this point is, is that going to work? Joining me now is Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. Thank you so much for being here. So, let me just give you the top line of what we believe is happening. Three-month funding bill, three separate packages, 100 billion for disaster relief, 10 billion for farm aid, and then, of course, the rest for funding the government. Will Democrats support these three bills? Will you?

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): I mean, listen, I'm literally hearing about this in real time, so I can't give you an answer until I actually see what's in the legislation. And of course, this may not pass the House, because all it takes is one tweet from a billionaire 15 minutes from now and House Republicans will go running for the hills.

Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, they're in charge of our government right now, it seems. And so, we have to wait to see what the billionaires think before we know whether this or any other package can pass the House of Representatives. Obviously, what happened in the last 48 hours is clear. Musk and Trump decided that they wanted to get some help passing their billionaire tax cut.

And so, they threatened to shut down the government unless we raise the debt ceiling, the amount of money that the government can borrow. So, that it would be easier for them to pass a billionaire corporate tax cut next year. That was their position yesterday. If it remains their position today.