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Inside Politics
Trump Plans To Cut 70,000 Plus Jobs At Veterans Affairs Department; Trump Says He's Suspending New Tariffs On Mexico; Republicans Meet With Musk, Push For Control Over DOGE Cuts; New Political Thriller Explores Cyber Warfare, Distrust In Government; 10 Dems Vote To Censure Rep. Al Green For Trump Speech Protest. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired March 06, 2025 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[12:33:02]
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: The Trump administration plans to cut more than 70,000 jobs at the Department of the Veterans Affairs. Now it is the latest in a string of efforts from President Trump and Elon Musk's DOGE to slash the size of government. But many of the DOGE's so-called savings aren't adding up. The New York Times reports the DOGE receipts website has deleted hundreds of claims wiping out $4 billion in alleged savings.
Joining me now is the House Republican Conference Chair Congresswoman Lisa McClain of Michigan. Thank you so much for being here. I do want to talk about those cuts in a second, but I do want to start with the news of the day. President Trump announced that Mexico would be exempt from the tariffs that he announced that will happen or at least they'll be exempt until April 2nd. There's been so much confusion about this, Congresswoman.
He announced the tariffs, he walked some back, he lifted these and we're seeing in real time that the markets are not responding well to this chaos. What do you say to your constituents on Main Street --
REP. LISA MCCLAIN, HOUSE REPUBLICAN CONFERENCE CHAIRWOMAN: Yes.
BASH: -- who are confused and worried both the people and the business owners?
MCCLAIN: Well, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate being on your show. And I've been in contact with my constituents. Obviously, you know, I'm from Macomb County. We -- Michigan is a heavily manufacturing state. They are optimistic more than anything.
We ran on and President Trump ran on reducing the size of government. He ran on an unconventional method to get this country back on track. And I don't know that I agree with the premise 100 percent. I think a lot of the people are giving him some grace. Yes, we -- he is moving at the speed of light. There is no question.
But the goal is to actually reduce the size of government so that government works better for the people.
BASH: Well, that secret (ph) tariff though. I want to get to the government in a second.
MCCLAIN: Yes.
[12:35:08]
BASH: Yes. And I want to get to the --
MCCLAIN: So as --
BASH: -- DOGE situation in a second.
MCCLAIN: Sure.
BASH: But the tariffs, I mean, you mentioned Macomb County. I was just talking to Peter Hamby --
MCCLAIN: Yes.
BASH: -- about a focus group that he did. I mean it's probably the most famous political county in the country I don't need to tell you.
MCCLAIN: Yes.
BASH: And there are concerns broadly but specifically -- I mean, I don't know if you can see but on the side of the screen as we're talking, it shows the Dow just today is down more than 500 points.
MCCLAIN: Yes.
BASH: That shows that --
MCCLAIN: And tomorrow it might be up 500 points.
BASH: -- business are very uncertain.
MCCLAIN: Yes, I mean, and tomorrow.
BASH: I understand, it's the uncertainty.
MCCLAIN: Well, and as you know, the Dow could be up tomorrow 500 points. So we have to take a look at the stock market in a period of time. You can look at any one day and be like, oh my gosh, the certainty is great because it's up 500 points. So I think --
BASH: Sure.
MCCLAIN: -- there's a difference between taking a look at short term --
BASH: But it's now down to where it was when the president got in.
MCCLAIN: I think it's the difference between taking a look at short term and long term. And I will share this. It is going to take some unconventional methods to get us out of the mess that we've been in the past four years with the EV mandates with unfair trades and this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.
And again, I've done meetings with people in my community with auto workers in my communities and they are absolutely giving the president and Republicans grace and are actually applauding us because we are actually trying to do exactly what we campaigned on which is different than the last administration. Which is trying to bring more investments back into the United States, which is exactly what's happening in the city of Detroit and the state of Michigan with the investments that Apple's just making.
So as much as we want to focus on and all the fear mongering, of all the negative, we also need to tell the other side of the story which is all the positive investment that is coming into great states like mine in Michigan. So I think it's going to take some unconventional wisdom to get us out of this mess that we've been in.
Remember, we have to have free trade agreements but we also have to have fair trade agreements and that's exactly what we're trying to do and the president's trying to do. And I would argue accomplishing, right? So as you said with the uncertainty, it's a negotiation tool.
We are using tariffs and any other tool that we have in our bag to make sure that America is respected again and that we get back to fair trade agreements that incentivize business and manufacturing in America. And tariffs are only one tool in the bag to do that.
BASH: I do want to quickly ask about some of the cuts. I know you met --
MCCLAIN: Yes.
BASH: -- you and other Republicans in the House met with Elon Musk yesterday and he admitted that he has made some mistakes.
MCCLAIN: Yes.
BASH: Have you said to him, asked him or others point blank, can you be a little bit more aware of the human cost here? I mean you have a significant number of federal workers --
MCCLAIN: Yes.
BASH: -- in your district and you're nowhere near Washington D.C.
MCCLAIN: Yes. That was one of the topics of conversation last night. And what I can say is, I am impressed and proud with the level of transparency that DOGE and the Republicans and President Trump is doing. We're not hiding anything. And you know what? I don't think the Americans want perfection.
I do think they expect progress and transparency. So we actually had those conversations last night, right? Because we want to make sure if we are limiting the size and reducing the size of the bloated bureaucracy, that we are doing that in an effective manner, right? We don't want to touch the doctors and the nurse --
BASH: But it's pretty messy. Are you OK with that?
MCCLAIN: We don't want to touch the doctors and nurses. We want to make sure that we reduce the size and scope of government. You know what? Democracy is messy and I wish it was perfect. Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world, but it is going to take unconventional wisdom.
We're $36 trillion in debt.
BASH: Yes.
MCCLAIN: We don't have time to make sure that we get everything absolutely perfect. But what I can say is when we do make a mistake, we don't try and hide behind it. We actually try and fix it.
BASH: OK.
MCCLAIN: And that's what the American people want and respect.
BASH: Lisa McClain, the chair of the House Republican Conference.
MCCLAIN: Thank you.
BASH: Thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it.
MCCLAIN: Thank you. Thank you.
BASH: And we'll be right back.
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[12:44:33]
BASH: Picture this. A catastrophic cyber-attack blindsides the nation. The attackers promised to strike again. The highly respected former president is tapped to figure out who is responsible and he's got six episodes to do it.
I spoke with the creators of Netflix's new hit series "Zero Day" earlier this week. Take a look.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why with victory almost certain you inexplicably chose not to run for re-election?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Inexplicably? You know the answer. Everybody does.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are those who say there were other reasons.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you one of them?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. But nowadays gossip not refuted becomes fact.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well maybe we were just too busy burying our son to bother reading the tabloids.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
[12:45:16]
BASH: The co-creators and executive producers of Netflix's limited series "Zero Day", Michael Schmidt, Noah Oppenheim, and Eric Newman are here and join me now.
Hello. Such a good show. This is going to be a challenge to ask you questions without spoiler alerts but I'll try it. It's so good.
Michael, our audience knows you as a New York Times writer, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. But I know that part of what excited about -- excited you about doing a fictional project is you can use a lot of what you learn in journalism but not have to stick to the facts.
MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT, CO-CREATOR & EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, "ZERO DAY": Yes. I mean, you kind of realize once you get outside of being a print journalist the ways that scripted television allows you to tell these stories that you -- that are hard to tell in a newspaper article. In this case, we're able to show you what a catastrophic cyberattack on the country would look like and perhaps even more importantly how the country would respond to it.
And something that we often talked about is that if something like 9/11 happened today, would the country have a uniformed response the way that it did at that time, or would it be instantaneously divided. And this show allowed us to do that to show you what that potentially could look like.
BASH: Yes. And this is -- I don't think a spoiler. The country is not united after this --
NOAH OPPENHEIM, CO-CREATOR & EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, "ZERO DAY": No.
BASH: -- particular attack in your fictional series. And no, you've straddled news and entertainment for a while but this is a baby. I know that you two figured out on the golf course.
One of the first conversations we had about it was playing golf in my case very poorly. And then, you know, I've known Eric for a long time. Eric's created some of the greatest series in the last 20 years. "Narcos", for instance.
And we were talking about what are the scariest dynamics that we see unfolding in the world today. And at the top of all of our lists was this fractured relationship we all have with the truth. The fact that people can now retreat into their filter bubble, live in their own curated reality, consume only those news sources that make them feel good or that reinforce their pre-existing biases.
And when you have -- when you live in a world like that, it becomes impossible to confront any other challenge whether it be a terror attack like 9/11 or a cyberattack because we can't seem to all agree on what's real. So how do you deal with anything else. BASH: And there was a moment in Episode 1 where Robert De Niro former President Mullen, tries to like quite literally confront that, the misinformation being spread on the streets of New York. Watch this.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don't trust the government. I get that. It hasn't always come true for everybody. But this isn't about the government or the 1 percent or whatever the hell you want to call it. It's about somebody out there that hates us.
That stands against everything that we stand for. Everything that makes us who we are. And they found a way to hurt us. It's that simple. And right now these people need to get back to work and get those people out. And you need to let them.
You want to stand by and offer your support and your prayers. That's great. But please just do it from behind the barricade.
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BASH: Eric?
ERIC NEWMAN, CO-CREATOR & EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, "ZERO DAY": It was one of those moments that fairly early in the shoot. You know, we got this footage back and if it didn't work, we would have been in real trouble because it's kind of the inciting incident of, you know, outside of the cyberattack.
It's sort of the thing that America says, oh wait, this guy, we still like, we still trust. And, you know, he's recruited by the president largely because of the reaction that this crowd has. When we shot it, it was picked up as a story briefly that he was actually having an argument with some protesters.
BASH: That he, Robert De Niro, not get carried there.
OPPENHEIM: Yes.
NEWMAN: And it was one of these like, you know, we had a number of these sort of weird Meta moments because as we, you know, Noah and I wrote this in 2002. Obviously Mike, Noah and I were talking about this in late 2001. And a lot of the things that have come to pass hadn't happened.
And so we were watching these -- watching the country change and people react to things like Bob arguing with protesters on our set all of a sudden becomes, you know, a story. So it was kind of very on theme --
BASH: Yes.
NEWMAN: -- as the reaction of the show has been sort of on theme. BASH: And the other theme beyond just the information silos that we're all in is civil liberties. And after a huge attack that happens, how much government is willing to or should take over American civil liberties in the name of national security?
[12:50:00]
SCHMIDT: It's one of these issues that in the Trump era, I think has been lost. Post 9/11, the issue of civil liberties was like at the forefront. It was often discussed. There were congressional hearings about it. It was an issue embraced, you know, by the left and the right about questions about how far the Patriot Act went and such.
That question has been lost in the moment of Trump in the past, you know, however many years Trump has gone on now. And because of that, this was an opportunity to say, hey, this is a fundamental American question. This is a question that cuts to the heart of the rights that we all take so seriously. It was a way to raise it again, to say, what would all powerful government look like in the fractured world that we're in today? And that's what I think we're trying to show.
OPPENHEIM: I think one of the issues that's not -- that has re-emerged is this question of the extent to which just norms and people's self- restraint has been what has, you know, prevented the government from crossing certain lines. And it turns out there are no hard walls necessarily. And I don't think, you know, many people realize the extent to which there were just soft boundaries to some of those things.
BASH: Well, Michael, Noah, Eric, I -- thank you for being here. And I encourage people, you've got to go to the end because you're going to be surprised. No spoilers.
Thank you.
NEWMAN: Thank you very much.
OPPENHEIM: Thank you.
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BASH: And coming up, we will tell you how Democrats --
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REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: The House would come to order. The House would come to order.
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BASH: We will tell you how Democrats take (ph) those high notes on the House floor just a short while ago. Stay with us.
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(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP) (SINGING)
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[12:56:13]
BASH: Today, Texas Congressman Al Green led a group of Democrats singing "We Shall Overcome", that was after the House voted to censure him for heckling during President Trump's address to Congress on Tuesday night.
10 Democrats joined Republicans in a 224 to 198 vote to officially reprimand Green. Here's how Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who boycotted the speech, summed it up.
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REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D), NEW YORK: It's really because Republicans just -- they're very thin-skinned and they're very sensitive and their feelings are very easily hurt. And so they have to vote on censure resolutions.
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Should your leadership encourage more of this kind of protest to show you the way you feel about Trump?
OCASIO-CORTEZ: I think that the Democratic coalition is really diverse, you know, and Al Green, I trust Al Green's discernment in representing his own constituents.
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BASH: Thank you so much for joining Inside Politics today. CNN News Central starts after the break.
