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Trump Announces Sweeping Tariffs On China, Canada, Mexico; One- On-One With Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. Democrats Pick Minnesota's Ken Martin as New DNC Chair; Trump Nominees Clean Up Past Comments Before Senate; Can Democrats Retake the House Majority Next November? Aired 8-9a ET

Aired February 02, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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


[08:00:36]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(MUSIC)

MANU RAJU, CNN HOST (voice-over): Trade war.

Trump slaps sweeping new tariffs on American adversaries and friends.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The tariffs are going to make us very rich.

RAJU: Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers on what it means for you.

Plus, the political blowback and another dizzying week. Trump unveils a strict hiring freeze and FBI purge and a botched funding halt. My panel will break it down, and what to expect next.

Plus, Democrats' decision. The new leader elected to lead the party through the new Trump era.

KEN MARTIN, DNC CHAIR: This is a new Democratic Party. We're taking the gloves off.

RAJU: His game plan for how to take on Trump.

INSIDE POLITICS, the best reporting from inside the corridors of power, starts now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU (on camera): Good morning. And welcome to INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. I'm Manu Raju.

It's been a whirlwind second week for the 47th president. The Trump vision for his new term is becoming clearer. He's testing the limits of his power, pushing the boundaries of the Constitution, seeking a dramatic overhaul of the federal government that he now controls, and now sparking a trade war with America's largest trading partners, injecting fresh tension with the nation's neighbors, whose economies have become intertwined over the past several decades.

Now, this comes on top of the new administration push to dramatically overhaul the federal workforce. A purge at the FBI of anyone who participated in investigations against him, and a botched plan to halt all government grants.

But the decision to slap Canada and Mexico with 25 percent tariffs on nearly all imports and another 10 percent levy on goods from China fulfills a campaign vow made by Trump. But it could also break another central promise Trump made that he would end inflation and lower prices at the grocery store. And the White House justified Trump's move as necessary to force the Canadian and Mexican governments to do more to stop the flow of fentanyl into the United States and also prevent illegal migration.

But Canada and Mexico are now vowing in their own retaliation, with Canada poised to impose its own 25 percent tariff on U.S. goods.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: This is a choice that, yes, will harm Canadians. But beyond that, it will have real consequences for you, the American people.

If President Trump wants to usher in a new golden age for the United States, the better path is to partner with Canada, not to punish us.

I think Canadians are a little perplexed as to why our closest friends and neighbors are choosing to target us, instead of so many other challenging parts of the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: All right, we have a great panel to break this all down this morning. CNN's Jeff Zeleny, Jasmine Wright from "NOTUS", Jeff Mason from "Reuters" and "The Wall Street Journal's" Olivia Beavers.

Good morning to you all.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

RAJU: So this is all a busy last night about how this all came out. There's been obviously criticism and some support across the political aisle. We're going to break that all down.

But what about where this goes from here? You know, Trump they said in that White House statement that they could escalate, that they could retaliate if Canada respond, or Mexico or China respond in kind. Mexico says it will retaliate. China says it's going to take it to the WTO, the World Trade Organization. Canada said 25 percent tariffs on billions of dollars, tens of billions of dollars of U.S. goods.

Jeff, what do you expect? Where does this go? How does this end? Because the White House is saying we've got to curb illegal migration, stop the flow of fentanyl, but didn't really specify anything other than that in order to prevent this trade war from escalating.

JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, REUTERS: Yeah. And I think trade war is the right word or the right phrase. I mean, it's full on. And the White House didn't expect Canada and Mexico to retaliate than they weren't thinking. I mean, I'm sure that they did expect it, even though they warned that there would be further action.

So that's the right question. What else do they do? Do they raise the tariffs higher? Do they do more?

I think one thing that I would point out is the possibility of court challenges, the way that the White House did these tariffs is different from how they did them during Trump 1.0. They used an act called the Emergency Economic Powers Act so that they wouldn't have to go through a long process of studying the process that would be required to set these tariffs.

[08:05:01]

Usually that act is used to impose sanctions. So that would be a way for companies, potentially others, to challenge these tariffs. That's something else that the administration is going to have to deal with.

RAJU: And you were at the White House on Friday where they were talking about this or being asked about this, and they didn't really specify what they would deal with if this would increase prices at the grocery store. Just look at what could increase as a result of this trade war.

A number of goods. There are many, many goods. Remember, this is really across the spectrum, but this is just among the items cars, gas, steel, lumber, corona, extra avocados, Nike football, soccer balls, baseballs. And the reason why is that this -- the three countries account for 42 percent of the nearly $3 trillion worth of goods the U.S. imports worldwide. At least that was from last year, just a staggering amount of imports.

So how is the White House going to respond? Look, if the prices of goods do in fact increase.

ZELENY: That's a central question here. And I think the president had a very interesting sentence in, a kind of a long oval office session Friday afternoon before he went to Mar-a-Lago for the weekend. And he said there could be some temporary, short term disruption but people will understand that.

We'll see. We will see if people will understand if prices go up on those things that you mentioned and many more.

The thing is, I mean, the supply chain is one thing that I hear from so many economists, what they are concerned about because as you said, I mean, the economies are so connected, they're interconnected. It's not just a U.S. manufacturing, its North America manufacturing.

RAJU: So for decades, it's becoming increasingly more. ZELENY: For sure, even much more so than in the first Trump

administration. But look, this is something that the president has long believed in. He has long believed in this as an economic tool. We shall see.

"The Wall Street Journal" not surprisingly, the editorial page called it the dumbest trade war ever. A lot --

RAJU: There's the headline on your screen there to see.

ZELENY: Right. I mean, so this is going to be its also somewhat controversial inside the administration, the treasury secretary, the new treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, was calling for much lower percentage of tariffs. But on inflation, when you ask White House advisers, they still say, well, Biden inflation is what to raise it. So they're still going to try and point the finger to President Biden.

But the days are quickly numbered when President Trump can blame everything on his predecessors. He will try, of course, but this is his government. He owns this economy.

RAJU: I remember Trump saying on the campaign trail he would end inflation. I think he even said on day one.

JASMINE WRIGHT, POLITICS REPORTER, NOTUS: Yeah, he did say on day one. He said he would bring down prices on day one, and I don't think that most Americans have seen prices go down. I mean, look, I think that when you talk to his advisers, they go back to term one and they say, well, when he put 10 percent tariffs across the board affecting, you know, some millions and billions of dollars, that didn't raise inflation. We were able to have tariffs and have low inflation.

And so that's kind of what they point back to. But this is just such a larger number, not just a higher percentage but a larger number of the amount of goods that it touches both in all three countries. And so I think that, you know, their -- their conclusion is going to really be judged here.

I think one thing that we can really look at over the course of the week, particularly after that federal funds and kind of federal -- federal funds freezing debacle, is that public sentiment works with this White House. They projected a little bit too far. There was too much confusion about what was actually being frozen, what funds people weren't able to get back from the government. And so they had to rescind the memo, not necessarily the order.

And so I think that if they do see really high prices and people kind of paying out of pocket, which most economists expect to happen, at least in the initial stages, then potentially they'll have to pull back. But really they've been doubling down in all the conversations that I've had, saying that basically they're -- they're killing two birds with one stone.

RAJU: It's an interesting point. Like how will they impact if people feel the price at the pump? I mean, this actually has a 10 percent levy. It puts on Canadian energy, and that could have an impact on particularly in the Midwest, where that that crude oil is refined and goes to a lot of consumers in the Midwest.

But how does that affect the price of the pump? Does that change how the administration deals with this if people start to complain about that? It's a great point.

And then how does the political world responding as well? You saw Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader, blaming both the administration and congressional Republicans. Of course, Trump doesn't have to run again. House Republicans have to run in two years, and House Democrats and a third of the United States Senate. So that was clearly trying to tie this to House Republicans.

But the House Republicans, the speaker at the moment is very much in line with Donald Trump on this. The speaker putting out a statement yesterday saying that President Trump is positioning America to be safe and successful again. He's called on them to stop the flow of illegal aliens and illicit drugs across the borders. He said, quickly stop the madness.

How long do you think the Republicans will be in line with Trump? Even though this goes against fundamental GOP orthodoxy?

[08:10:03]

OLIVIA BEAVERS, CONGRESS REPORTER, WALL STREET JOURNAL: I mean, I think when Republicans go back home and they start hearing about how the cost of living is impacting them, it could be 2,000, 4,000, sort of average cost for an average family in the U.S. but I asked Speaker Johnson when we were in the Florida GOP retreat just a few days ago, and I said, there are all of these threats about tariffs and trade wars. What is your message if the cost of living goes up? Because that is what Republicans ran on, the Biden economy, we're going to take it down.

So with Republicans already vowing to be aggressive and on the offense trying to go into the midterms in two years, it puts them in maybe a difficult position that they will want to rectify before they have to go back to these voters and ask them to support them again.

RAJU: You know, I've noticed that John Thune, the Senate majority leader at the moment, has not responded, has not said anything about this. A lot of Republicans are quiet because it could impact their own constituents back home in ways that Trump may not want to hear about right off the bat.

ZELENY: Without a doubt, especially in farm states, especially in red states, we all remember the impact of the trade agreements and the tariffs from the first time around. And at the end of the day, a lot of economic assistance was given to farmers because of this.

So, I mean, never mind all that. There's no doubt in the short term, Senator Thune will support this. All Republicans have to support this. The bigger question --

RAJU: Not say much about it.

ZELENY: That's true.

The bigger question is going forward, how does this impact the president's legislative agenda? If he's going to be a successful president, if his presidency is going to be successful, he will need to get a budget through all his programs, through how does it affect all those narrow majority, those narrow votes that he has to get a lot of been done over the first couple of weeks. That is making some Republicans kind of exhausted by this.

RAJU: I do want to take a quick step back and just talk about Trump actions from this past week, because there's been a lot that's been going on. He's, you know, called for the removal of FBI workers in the Trump related investigation. He went as far as saying signing an executive order calling for 30,000 migrants to be sent to Guantanamo Bay, going after diversity initiatives throughout the government, and just this dramatic overhaul of the federal government.

Jeff, you cover the White House. It is very clear what he's trying to do here. Pull back on the U.S. role in presence around the world, reshape how the federal government works, and push the limits of his power. Doing it all throughout the doing it all very quickly within the first couple of weeks.

MASON: Absolutely. And grasp power. I mean, I was speaking to a Democrat last night who said he couldn't think of a more powerful president in modern history in terms of somebody who is taking every single lever he can and testing it, which is the right way to say that, because clearly some of this is going to be challenged in the courts.

But everything from aid to the DEI and then using that sort of worldview to apply to everything from his own government and personnel and people to plane crashes. So it's -- it's extraordinary. And it's, you know, the response so far, quiet from some Republicans, certainly outrage from Democrats.

But Jasmine sort of picked up on polling. Reuters had a poll this week that said that his approval ratings have ticked down a little bit in the first two weeks of his administration. That's something that we'll be watching closely, too, because a lot of these things, though, they are things that he said he would do, are unpopular.

RAJU: No question about it.

All right. Something to watch. When we come back, he predicted the inflation crisis.

So what does he think about Trump's new tariffs? Former Treasury Secretary Larry summers joins me live in moments to break down what they mean for you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:18:02]

RAJU: So just how bad can Trump's trade war with Mexico, China and Canada actually get? And how quickly will you feel the pain of it? Or might it not be as painful as some forecasters seem to think?

Well, just to break it down, products coming to the United States from these three countries will now face these new taxes. American companies buying those products will have to pay the cost of those tariffs to the U.S. government.

But where will the money come from? The company can either eat the cost of the tariffs itself or pass along some, if not all, of that cost to the consumer.

Joining me now to talk about how the impact of this sweeping decision may unfold, former treasury secretary under Bill Clinton and top economic adviser under Barack Obama, Larry Summers.

Secretary Summers, thank you so much for joining me this morning. Really appreciate your time.

As you know, Canada and Mexico now plan to retaliate in kind with tariffs. So a lot of people are wondering how it may impact them.

How quickly do you think Americans will see the impact on prices and on what goods?

LARRY SUMMERS, FORMER CLINTON TREASURY SECRETARY: This is a -- what economists would call a self inflicted supply shock. It means less supply because we're taxing foreign suppliers. And that will mean higher prices and lower quantities.

This is a self-inflicted wound to the American economy. I'd expect inflation over the next three or four months to be higher as a consequence, because the price level has to go up when you put a levy on goods that people are buying.

And of course, everybody who competes with a Canadian or Mexican supplier is getting a good deal. And so, they'll raise their margins as well. And everybody who uses an input from Canada or Mexico in their production is going to have a cost shock, and they're going to pass it on to consumers.

[08:20:007]

When consumers are paying those higher prices for the imported goods, they're going to have less money to spend on other things, and that's going to tend to push the economy downwards as well. So the idea usually in policy is to make there be lower prices and higher quantity. That's what, for example, the Keystone Pipeline would have done for oil. And I thought President Trump was right to criticize President Biden for not allowing that Keystone pipeline.

But this is exactly the opposite.

RAJU: And --

SUMMERS: Less coming in and higher prices, inflation might go up over the next nine months by as much as a year -- by as much as 1 percent, just at a moment when we were trying to bring it down, to target. So I can't see anything good as policy about this.

RAJU: Secretary Summers, the White House says the president is taking this action to halt illegal immigration and stop the flow of drugs like fentanyl into the country.

Now, he did threaten tariffs on Colombia after the country turned back some military planes carrying deported migrants. The country ultimately listened. They reached a deal.

So I guess the question is, could these tariffs actually work in helping Trump achieve the policy objective that he's seeking?

SUMMERS: The Colombia assertion you just made, respectfully, is just wrong. In the Biden administration, there were hundreds of flights where Colombians were repatriated, and Colombia accepted that.

The president engaged in a lot of theater with military planes, then had a big conflict, and then got us back to right where we were before. No victory of any significant kind. No more people being repatriated -- able to be repatriated to Colombia as a consequence.

RAJU: But the question is, is the policy objective --

SUMMERS: It is more likely --

(CROSSTALK)

RAJUJ: Is the policy objective? Can it be achieved, is to deal with immigration and fentanyl to stop the flow of that? They believe it can.

SUMMERS: I don't think so. I don't think these other countries are likely to accept meaningful changes in policy.

Think about what giving in to a bully does. It invites more bullying.

And any other country that was thinking of moving in our direction is now surely not going to do that when they think we'll just pocket the concession and make more threats, and other countries might even move in the wrong direction, so they have something to give up if they're subject to this kind of attack.

Look, on the playground or in international relations, bullying is not an enduringly winning strategy. And that's what this is.

I'll tell you who the winner here is. The winner here is Xi Jinping. We've given him an excuse for his own economic failures. We've moved to drive some of our closest allies into his arms. We've weakened our own economy.

And at a time when were calling him out for ignoring international norms, we're legitimating everything he's doing by violating all the international norms that we set up.

So, this is a wound to our own economy that's also doing a big favor to Xi Jinping. RAJU: All right. Secretary Larry Summers, thank you so much for

joining me this morning and sharing your perspective. Really appreciate your time.

SUMMERS: Thank you.

RAJU: And up next for us, the Democratic Party just picked a brand new leader. But what's his strategy to bring the party out of chaos?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEN MARTIN, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE CHAIR: If we're not willing to start the fight right now against Donald Trump, when he's already failing the American people, no one's going to believe that we're going to fight for them when they put us in power.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:28:46]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTIN: Clearly, we have a branding issue. We have a messaging issue that we have to fix.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: That was Minnesota Democratic Party Leader Ken Martin here on INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY back in December, when he was running at the time to become the next chair of the Democratic National Committee. Well, this weekend, his party elected him to that role. And as he addressed during our interview, he's got some daunting tasks ahead, most urgently helping the party rebuild, figuring out how to take on Trump and ultimately win again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTIN: We're coming. This is a new Democratic Party. We're taking the gloves off. We have to get into this fight. People are relying on this, two weeks of chaos right now. The Democratic Party, we've been engaged in this internal fight. Now we need to take our fight to Donald Trump and the Republicans.

We can't just spend all of our time in this space of -- of pushing back and also defining Donald Trump. We also have to define ourselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: My panel is back. You know, it's interesting what happened yesterday because the party leadership actually was not behind him. They were behind Ben Wikler, the Wisconsin Democratic Party leader. I mean, Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, endorsed Wikler. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, then the House Democratic leader, also, Hakeem Jeffries, late push. But here, Ken Martin wins. What happened yesterday? And what does it

say about the direction the party wants to take?

ZELENY: Or, I mean, its a reminder that this is an inside game. The only people allowed to vote on this are members of the Democratic National Committee.

So despite what Senator Schumer and former Speaker Pelosi and others say, it is largely from the beginning, Ken Martin had a very big lead among party chairs.

Look, it certainly matters in terms of building the nuts and bolts of the party. There's no doubt about it. He calls for an investigation and review of what happened, not an autopsy. He claims the party is not dead.

We shall see. But look, the Democratic Party is not going to rise from the ashes from the headquarters of the DNC. It's going to take some specific leader out there.

I think back to '04, after President Bush was reelected, Democrats were really just in their doldrums.

What happened? Barack Obama also elected that year. He ultimately rose up after a long primary fight.

So the party will be rebuilt if it is from young rising stars and talent. He certainly is necessary to build the nuts and bolts of this.

But there is a big fight inside the party about the direction of how liberal it should be, what language it should use. I'm not sure he'll have much influence on that.

RAJU: And you wrote about this for NOTUS this week, Jasmine, the headline of your story, "The Next DNC Chair Will Walk into a Firestorm". There's a lot of internal problems he has to deal with as well.

JASMINE WRIGHT, NOTUS POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, it's not only that this new DNC leader is going to have to basically assume a major role in a party that is kind of headless right now. It doesn't have a major leader kind of marching to the beat there.

But also internally, they're really kind of -- there is a -- there is a real feeling of a deteriorating morale. There are multiple complaints from the union, one about just the massive amount of firing, laying off that they had after the election.

Normally these kind of committees lay off people after election, but they felt that it was way more widespread than was believed to be, about 500 people that they laid off.

And then they felt that the leadership at the DNC didn't actually want to come to the table and talk about these layoffs with the staff. Still, to this day, they haven't had an all-staff meeting. But then on the second, on the second side, they felt that the DNC

sent around ADAs after the layoffs happened and people felt because it was in the height of that online conversation about what was going wrong with the party, that they were being silenced.

Now, the DNC, when I talked to them for this piece, kind of denied all these points, but there are so many things happening inside the building and across the country that not only is Ken going to have to deal with just the messaging, but also with its own people.

RAJU: Yes. And let's talk about the messaging and the perception among voters. This is what the new Quinnipiac poll out from this past week just brutal for the Democrats. Favorability ratings, 31 percent. That is the lowest number. And 57 percent of the voters think they have an unfavorable rating of Democrats. Republicans are about 43 percent favorable to 45 percent unfavorable.

But among the Democrats, it's the lowest number they've had since Quinnipiac started asking this question in 2008. And that tracks with CNN polling dating back to 1992, which has the lowest numbers for Democrats since 1992.

JEFF MASON, REUTERS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You know, it comes to my mind, as you say, that is pardon me, what a gift this is for Republicans. It's just -- it's such a hugely impractical time for the party, for the Democratic Party not to have a leader.

Now they have a DNC leader. But does it really matter? I mean, Jeff and Jasmine are both touching on this.

What they need and where they're going to find that rudder is once the presidential election and the primary starts heating up. And that doesn't happen for two years.

So in the meantime, the messaging that he talked about has been so damaging to the Democrats that it's having this kind of an impact on polls and it's allowing President Trump to just kind of own the -- own the political airwaves, which he's done very successfully.

RAJU: And sometimes Democrats may want him to overreach. Before you jump in, Olivia, this is all going to be about the midterms. Of course, that's the next big prize here.

Next year, the House seats that are up in 2026. There are a number of swing districts. And actually, I should say there are a small number of swing districts. 13 Democratic seats in Trump-won districts. Three in Republican in seats in Kamala Harris won districts. There are some others that are closer, more swing districts that don't quite fit into that category.

In the Senate -- probably not -- it's 53-47 GOP to Democrat, but two Democratic seats in Trump-won states. One Republican in Harris-won state. That's Susan Collins of Maine. There are some other purplish states, like in North Carolina and New Hampshire as well.

But the point is that Democrats yes, midterms tend to favor the party out of power, but there just is not much in the playing field for them, given the narrowness of the map.

[08:34:44]

OLIVIA BEAVERS, WALL STREET JOURNAL CONGRESS REPORTER: Yes. And I think also what I found was really interesting about the DNC election was that neither of the top two contenders with Ben Wikler, Ken Martin, they weren't talking about this massive overhaul of what they wanted to see the party change in, unlike some of the other candidates who are running.

And there were so many worrying signs that came out of the election, they lost traction with young voters, black voters, Hispanic voters. And now you don't have a national face leading the party.

So while they are going in, in a time where historically the party might shift, especially in the House, towards the opposite of whoever is in power, they have a ton of things to iron out.

And even if it's not -- it's not a spot that the party has not been in before. If you go back to the 1980s, Democrats were in a similar position where they needed to start talking to the working-class voters and figuring out how to reach them, which is what Ken Martin's promising to do.

That's sometimes easier said than done, and they need to really look at what were the issues that pulled them away from these voters.

RAJU: And sometimes just being in the opposition just watch -- stepping back and watching what the party in power does, see if they overreach, and then see if voters punish them at the polls.

I'm suspicious that's going to be a lot of the Democratic midterm strategy.

WRIGHT: Yes.

RAJU: All right. Coming up next, the fate of Trump's most endangered cabinet picks could rest on just a few key GOP senators. What are they saying now?

And later, what the House GOP's campaign chief told me about his plans for the midterms (ph).

[08:36:09]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: President Trump's nominations of Tulsi Gabbard as director of National Intelligence and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the nation's health agencies are the most in danger of collapsing in the Senate.

And that's because of stiff Democratic opposition and some skeptical Republicans who sit on the key committees considering the nominations.

Now, to get the votes, the nominees have had to address their past controversies and at times, reversing themselves from their past statements or simply refusing to restate them.

And it wasn't just Gabbard or RFK Jr., but also Kash Patel, whose nomination to FBI director actually seems on much firmer ground with Republicans falling in line. But he also had to play a little cleanup last week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAASH PATEL, NOMINEE FOR FBI DIRECTOR: We're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We're going to come after you, whether its criminally or civilly.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You said that you would be going after the media that's -- so I want to know whether you plan to do that. Go after the free media.

PATEL: I can't go after the media for other people.

JOE ROGAN, RADIO HOST: What would you do about Edward Snowden?

TULSI GABBARD, NOMINEE FOR DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: As far as --

ROGAN: What would you do?

GABBARD: -- undoing, dropping the charges.

(CROSSTALKING)

ROGAN: -- president of the world right now. What are you doing?

GABBARD: Yes. Dropping the charges.

Edward Snowden broke the law. I do not agree with or support with all of the information and intelligence that he released. Nor the way in which he did it.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: I do believe that autism does come from vaccines.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will you reassure mothers unequivocally and without qualification, that the measles and Hepatitis B vaccines do not cause autism?

KENNEDY JR.: If the data is there, I will absolutely do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: All right. My panel is back.

A confirmation conversion is really nothing new. It's happened time and time again. But it has been pretty remarkable this time around. We saw Pete Hegseth do the same thing in his confirmation hearings about women in combat. He was very clear. A month before he was nominated he thought it was a

bad idea for women to be in combat. But then changed his tune before the Senate -- before the Senate during his testimony.

How do we -- but it's very clear. Two people are in trouble right now RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard. Can they get the votes to be confirmed?

BEAVERS: I think both of those nominees are in the toughest spot in terms of getting through. We did have questions about Hegseth. He was able to eke it out, but he also had this different media and MAGA backing that was pushing him through and sort of bullying some of the Senators who had questions and pause to get him through.

What I thought was really interesting about Tulsi and RFK Jr. was that they both refused to pull back on two key points.

Tulsi was -- Gabbard was asked repeatedly whether she thought Edward Snowden was a traitor and she refused to say it. She tried to distance herself.

RAJU: She said he broke the law, but didn't say go that far.

BEAVERS: And she would -- but she did not make a clean cut and was repeatedly asked. And when Republican senators walked out, you had Todd Young expressing concern. You had Senator Lankford expressing concern.

And so if she loses one, she's in trouble getting out of committee.

But then on the other side, you have RFK Jr. who really kind of would not say that he would accept the information that vaccines cause autism. And he was asked repeatedly, there is a ton of literature peer-reviewed --

RAJU: For decades.

BEAVERS: -- articles -- for decades -- that show that they do not. But he said, if you show me proof, I'd be willing to accept it, even though that proof is already out there.

RAJU: Yes, and that hedging really raised some concerns.

Listen to what Bill Cassidy said after the hearing and also Susan Collins, who sits on the key committee, the Intelligence Committee considering Tulsi Gabbard's nomination.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): My concern is that if there's any false note, any undermining of a mamas trust in vaccines, another person will die from a vaccine preventable disease. And that is why I've been struggling with your nomination.

RAJU: Do you want to weigh in on Tulsi?

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): I need to review the entire hearing. RAJU: The jury's out.

COLLINS: That's -- that's correct. I want to make a careful decision.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: The challenge is both of these two are up in 2026.

ZELENY: Without a doubt. Cassidy has a primary already which likely means that, look, the president gets a lot of leeway on his nominations.

[08:44:52]

ZELENY: But one thing is very clear. Vice President Vance will be waiting in the wings because he is likely needed to be the final vote here on both of these as he was with Hegseth.

RAJU: If it gets to 50-50.

ZELENY: If it does, but I'd be -- the White House hasn't put a ton of public pressure on. I expect that to happen this week.

RAJU: And speaking of public pressure, before you jump in, Clay Higgins, the congressman from Louisiana, put out a tweet about this, saying that we will be watching, essentially saying there. As you can see at the bottom of your screen there. Saying that they're watching Bill Cassidy.

WRIGHT: Yes, they're watching. I mean, a lot of these people Collins, Bill Cassidy, Todd Young, they're on notice right now.

I was talking to one outside -- one outside adviser who is helping coordinate the pushback from MAGA allies really trying to kind of threaten these senators with primaries if they did not vote yes.

And they told me that one, they're concerned about Tulsi, because it's one thing to be able to rally people on the outside to protect someone when they feel that the attacks are personal, when they're about their personal home, when they're about past behaviors that they feel like aren't necessarily connected to the job.

It's another when they have to try to rally people around someone who may not understand what their job is. And I think that that is what the concern is around Tulsi specifically. She may not actually be prepared enough in these hearings to know what's DNI or what she's supposed to do as DNI.

And so I think that they're going to have a little bit of trouble getting people in the same way that they were for Pete Hegseth and some of the other nominees.

MASON: I was just going to say, I think it's interesting to see what the line is for Republicans. So far, they have fallen into line for nearly everything that President Trump wants. But it looks like some may draw a line on vaccines causing autism.

Some may draw a line on saying it's ok that Tulsi Gabbard went and had this trip and met with Bashar al-Assad.

There's not a very clear line, but there may be at least a sort of unclear one with a few people with regard to these two nominations.

RAJU: And the question is going to be, if this does not get through, what does Trump do? Does he decide to push for a recess appointment? What does John Thune do? Allow him to move forward with that? Will he block that? Will it be a point of tension? Will Trump simply drop it?

We know Trump doesn't like to drop things, but he may have to if he doesn't have the votes.

All right. This is going to be a consequential few days coming up.

And coming up for us, midterm elections are usually painful for the party in power. So what do the Republican leaders in charge of keeping the House in GOP control tell me about next year? My new reporting is next.

[08:47:22]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: Republicans could be in a world of hurt next November. Well, that's if history is any guide. Indeed, in modern history, the party in power tends to lose an average of 26 House seats in the midterms.

And that's why House Republicans devoted time in its policy retreat last week at Trump's Doral Golf Club to talk about their midterm strategy.

It's particularly complicated because Republicans barely have the majority right now, with only 218 seats to 215 for Democrats at the moment.

And what happens in 2026 will likely come down to a small number of swing districts. Democrats will have to defend 13 seats in districts Trump carried in 2024. Meanwhile, Republicans will have to defend three seats in districts that Kamala Harris won.

The discussion (ph) among Republicans is also urgent because Republicans want to begin moving the Trump agenda through Congress as soon as this week.

So I traveled down to Florida this past week, and I caught up with the man responsible for trying to help his party defy the odds. That's Congressman Richard Hudson. And this message was echoed by many Republicans in Doral.

Pass the agenda of their house of cards could collapse next year.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

You just presented this morning to the House GOP about how things look for your party as you head into 2026. What did you tell them?

REP. RICHARD HUDSON (R-NC): Well, I'm very optimistic about 2026. We're going to be on offense.

If you Look at The political map out there, it's very favorable to Republicans.

You know, we've got 13 Democrat House members and seats carried by Donald Trump. Only three Republicans in seats carried by Kamala Harris.

RAJU: So I mean, you say you feel pretty good. But you know, midterm, new president historically the party in power loses 26 seats on average. That's pretty daunting when you look at it. How are you going to defy that trend?

HUDSON: Well, I think we're in a unique time in history where you had a president who served four years, another president was elected, served four years and then the two ran against each other. And they had very different policies.

So I think if we do what we said we were going to do, we deliver on that mandate that Donald Trump won on, then I think the voters will reward us. And so I think it's different than a new president's first midterm.

RAJU: But you guys tend to do better when he's on the top of the ticket. He is not going to be on the top of the ticket. That's going to make it harder.

HUDSON: That's true. We've got to communicate with those voters. Weve got to make that Trump coalition a Republican coalition.

RAJU: So the bigger question is, is there a risk of overreaching?

HUDSON: Sure there is. But, you know, President Trump was very clear on what he was campaigning on and the policies that he wanted to put forth. So as long as he does what he says he's going to do, and as long as we in Congress back him up, I think the voters are going to reward us for it.

RAJU: If you don't.

HUDSON: Well, we'll do it.

RAJU: Have you talked to Trump yet about the map? The house map?

HUDSON: Yes.

RAJU: What has he said?

[08:54:45]

HUDSON: Well, he understands that holding the House majority is in his best interest. And you know, like I say, he's been a great partner for us. We wouldn't have a majority if it weren't for Donald Trump. (END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU: But Democrats are banking that Trump and the GOP are already overreaching. At least that's the message from the House Democrats' campaign leader Suzan DelBene.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. SUZAN DELBENE (D-WA): Folks want to see governance work. They want to see us finding solutions to the problems they see across the country.

And Republicans have the White House, the Senate and the House. So we're going to hold them accountable for their ability to fulfill that mission or not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Midterm elections are only 639 days away.

That's it for INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY.

You can follow me on X @mkraju. Follow the show Inside Politics and follow me on Instagram @manu_raju.

If you ever miss an episode, you can catch up wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for Inside Politics.

Up next, "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER AND DANA BASH". Jake talks with brand new Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Democratic Senator Tim Kaine.

Thanks again for sharing your Sunday morning with us. We'll see you next time.

[08:55:52]

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