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Today: House Set To Vote On Bill To Avert Government Shutdown; U.S.-Ukraine Resume Talks On Ending Russia's War On Ukraine Underway; Poll: 72 Percent Of Americans Say COVID Drove Country Apart. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired March 11, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: -- but that math may not math. Johnson can only afford to lose one Republican vote if every Democrat shows up and votes against the funding bill. Right now, four Republicans currently say they are a no. Even more are wavering.

Now, Vice President JD Vance met with House Republican members this morning. He warned his party that they would be blamed if the government shut down.

Joining me now is a top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut. Thank you for being here. It's nice to see you in person.

I want to start with something that Democratic Senator John Fetterman said over the weekend. He said, quote, "I'm never going to vote or withhold my vote as part of shutting the government down. That's chaos. I'll never vote for chaos. To burn the village down in order to save it is pretty -- that's one of our core responsibilities to keep the government running".

REP. ROSA DELAURO (D), CONNECTICUT: It is a responsibility to keep the government running, and that's why you have Republicans who have the House, the Senate, and the White House, and their unwillingness to really continue to negotiate but put forward a one-year continuing resolution, which is a blank check.

It's a blank check to Elon Musk and President Trump. And it only allows them to accelerate really the stealing of taxpayers' dollars that have been intended for American families and businesses. My hope is in the Senate, and I know my colleague Patty Murray is working with her colleagues to get to a no vote, and I'm hoping that Senator Fetterman can do that.

We can have an alternative. Senator Murray and I introduced an alternative CR with an April 11th date, it's four weeks, so that we can continue negotiating, package the bills, and pass them in one-year bills, which is the way the process works.

BASH: The way that -- right, I mean, the way the process is supposed to work, you know --

DELAURO: Is supposed to work. Yes.

BASH: -- far better than I, hasn't worked like that in far too long. But what you just described means a shutdown. Because it's -- what you just described sounds like a negotiation that there's no time for.

DELAURO: But there need not be a shutdown. We were very close in what is on the House side, with my Republican colleagues at chair, with my Senate colleagues, and we're very close to finishing a -- coming to a conclusion on a deal, on deciding what the top line for appropriations was, what we were going to provide for defense, what we're going to provide for non-defense, and moving forward.

That close. And then the Speaker of the House pulled the rug out from under the process and said, because the White House, Elon Musk, and the President, and Russ Vought, I might add, the OMP director, they want a one-year continuing resolution.

Why, Dana, why? Because that shifts the authority of spending and the intended spending from the Congress, which has the constitutional authority of the power of the person, that shifts it to the executive. They can then make all of the decisions, whether it's on Social Security, whether it's on veterans, whatever it is.

BASH: Well, they've already kind of taken that ball, and they've got to run with it.

DELAURO: Well -- yes, that's -- given the situation, it is imperative that we -- you know, they can't be -- we now have the ability, it's lawless what they are doing. And we have the ability to be able to sue and that would, in fact, weaken any legal opportunity to --

BASH: You have done this kind of thing a lot, meaning trying to negotiate avoiding a shutdown of the federal government. And you know the reality because Republicans do control the House and the Senate and the White House, but it would be the Democrats, including you, who vote against a bill that they are going to put forward.

And what will happen if the government does shut down is nearly 900,000 federal workers could be furloughed without pay, 1.4 million could be forced to keep working without pay. The Democrats have been talking so much about federal workers and the plight of federal workers.

So how do you square that plight with voting no on a bill that would keep the government running and keep them employed?

DELAURO: Well, let me just say that makes it -- if you watch what they are doing now, let's take Social Security and this bill, they would have the ability with this one year to dismiss thousands of workers.

BASH: But couldn't they do that anyway?

DELAURO: Well, they're -- no, they're just willy-nilly doing this. They want to move to 7,000 people being there. That means that we're going to shut down Social Security offices. That means that there's wait lines, backlogs. BASH: But if Democrats vote no, won't they be able to blame you for that?

[12:35:08]

DELAURO: No, they can't, because the reason why we would be in that situation is because they refuse to negotiate.

BASH: And you think people are going to understand that?

DELAURO: Oh, yes.

BASH: That that's a message that's understandable?

DELAURO: I think it is. I think people are understanding what this bill does. And it would makes us complicit in what they're doing now, which is wholesale dismantling the federal government.

BASH: And they're --

DELAURO: This bill really reneges on funding for veterans' health care. No disaster relief is in this bill. I mentioned Social Security. Housing, 32,000 people being evicted around the country. It's chapter and verse.

And interestingly enough, then, on the Social Security shutdown, and that the reality of that office is shutting down, the chairman of the committee tweeted that he negotiated with the administration and with DOGE to keep his Social Security office open.

There are 47 that are scheduled to close. What happens to the other 46? You know, that's where they're going.

BASH: So your challenge is who's going to win the message war if this government does shut down. I just -- I want to show our viewers something that I thought was really interesting, which is that you have taken to TikTok.

DELAURO: Yes.

BASH: And you were trying to communicate such things on TikTok. I want to play a little bit of one of your posts.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

(MUSIC)

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BASH: You were dancing in your chair along that.

DELAURO: Yes, right. Right.

BASH: I mean, how important is it for someone like you? I'm sure TikTok, you're not exactly native to that. I'm certainly not.

DELAURO: Yes.

BASH: Just in order to get in the game for Democrats, particularly when you're approaching such a tough time, which is the potential shutdown.

DELAURO: You have to communicate where people are and what they're listening to and what they're reading, et cetera. You know, you change. Your environment changes. You know that, you know? There's old school and now you have to move.

You know, you can either move with the times or you can be left behind. My choice is to move with the times.

BASH: Well, I enjoyed that.

DELAURO: Yes.

BASH: Thank you. Please come back. You know, it's going to be a very busy week.

DELAURO: It is.

BASH: And hopefully, we will not get to the point where we're going to be talking about an actual shutdown. Thank you.

DELAURO: Thank you.

BASH: Appreciate it.

And America's first face-to-face meeting since the explosive day in the Oval Office with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is underway right now. The National Security Adviser told CNN they're, quote, "getting there". What does that mean? We will go to Saudi Arabia when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Secretary Rubio, how was the meeting?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, how was the meeting?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did it go well, Mr. Waltz?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll get there.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

[12:42:45]

BASH: That was CNN's Alex Marquardt catching Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz as the U.S.-Ukrainian delegations took a break from critical negotiations, which are still underway. Those are negotiations that Rubio said are all riding on Ukraine's willingness for concessions. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's top adviser, what was his line going into the meeting? We are, quote, "very, very open".

CNN International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson joins us now. Nic, very different feel from that epic Oval Office meeting. What does it tell you and what are you hearing from your sources about the things that the U.S. is actually looking for from Ukraine?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, so more than six hours in. So not the bombastic meeting of 40 minutes only in the White House Oval Office two weeks ago. So that's already positive territory right there.

What it tends to indicate is that there is ground that's being covered. The Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff to President Zelenskyy, who came out of the meeting also for a break, said that things were going constructively.

I was struck by what he said going into the meeting as well, when he said, it's very important that we start this process, which really gives you that understanding that nothing is going to happen quickly here.

And, of course, the key deliverable at this moment, in this moment for the Ukrainians, is to do enough to convince Waltz and Rubio that they want to make concessions of whatever type are required, whether it's for land. We know that the Ukrainians, since this invasion, they'd already lost 7 percent of territory to Russia. They've lost 20 percent of it now.

Are they willing to give all of that up? Are they willing -- or what is it they're willing to do? The key that the Ukrainians will want to get out of whatever they put on the table as concessions is they will want to get the military aid, the intelligence sharing restored to where it was a couple of weeks ago, because they need that in the fight right now.

They're losing territory in the Kursk region of Russia, where they'd had a successful attack many months ago. They don't want to lose that territory. That's a key bargaining chip for them.

[12:45:05]

But the other thing that I think the Ukrainians will be trying to project in this meeting is they have plenty of go power in this -- in the game, if you will. And the Russians say that last night, Ukraine fired 343 drones, several of them hit in Moscow.

The Russians say they shot down 343. Three people were killed, by the way, in that strike. So Ukraine is going into this saying it's good to start, but they're trying to project strength here. And that's perceived on the other side in Moscow as perhaps not going positively, of course, for getting progress in the talks.

BASH: Very, very tricky all around. Nic, thank you so much for that report. Appreciate it. And coming up five years ago today, COVID-19 transformed the world. We're going to look at how the pandemic changed this country's politics.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:50:19]

BASH: March 11th, 2020, five years ago, that was the day everything changed.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

DR. TEDROS GHEBREYESUS, DIRECTOR-GENERAL, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic. Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BASH: When COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, no one could have fathomed what followed. Here are some of the enduring headlines from that infamous day. U.S. to suspend most travel from Europe as world scrambles to fight pandemic. The NBA made history announcing it would suspend the remainder of the season. Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, revealed they tested positive.

The stock market plunged, ending an 11-year bull run. And as CNN asked a simple and gut-wrenching question, the coronavirus pandemic is closing schools. How will kids eat? And this morning, coronavirus forecasts are grim. It's going to get worse.

Now, that evening in the Oval Office, President Trump addressed the nation.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history. This is not a financial crisis. This is just a temporary moment of time that we will overcome together. The virus will not have a chance against us.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BASH: Well, that temporary moment lasted years, the cost upwards of a million American lives. My panel is back here.

Sabrina, you covered the Trump campaign redux to get him back in the office this time. And it really is remarkable to remember what he said then and what got him back into the White House, a lot of issues. But one of them were people who were just really angry at institutions across the board for upending society and business because of COVID.

SABRINA RODRIGUEZ, NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: 100 percent. I mean, one of the things that was a constant thread talking to voters on the campaign trail and on both sides, frankly, you hear some of that frustration, I think, across American society across. But in those four years since COVID started, the frustration around the economic anxiety, the frustration around how long schools were closed, that I think is one that maybe doesn't even get talked about enough and it still gets talked about.

But really the impact that it had on kids, on, you know, people that missed graduations, college graduations, high school graduations, these huge moments, as well as just specifically like learning in school what that meant for parents at home. And I think so much of that frustration was pent up.

And I think Donald Trump sort of used that and kind of made himself the outlet for folks who were frustrated and weren't necessarily thinking about the fact that he was president when COVID started and they squarely blamed the fallout from the pandemic on former President Biden.

BASH: Yes. And just look at this poll from Pew, David. COVID-19 divided or united the country. 72 percent say it divided.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: I mean, we all lived through it, right? I mean, we saw the division take place almost, if not immediately, within weeks of society shutting down. I remember even Memorial Day weekend that year, you started seeing the politicization of who was out and about and how they were reacting to some of the closures. And you saw politicians come right into that space and look to exploit advantage, as politicians do.

And so we ended up, I think, with a forever rift in our society. I don't know that there's a repair to this. I think COVID permanently altered American politics. It will shift and change, obviously. But I think we can always look back at that moment as a permanent shift, a fork in the road, if you will, on American politics will be that COVID.

BASH: Yes. I mean, there's so many examples. You talked about schools. Just think about suburban moms, about parents, about people who consider themselves more liberal and then shifted in their political sort of allegiances because they saw that MAGA world was more aligned with how they were feeling, their frustrations.

And then there's the young people, which I know that you have been really focused on, Jeff. Just one example, the exit poll from 2024 about young people. Well, let's go back to 2020. Biden won young people 65 percent. Harris only got 54 percent. Trump went from 31 to 43 percent among young people.

[12:55:02]

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: It is absolutely one of the fallout effects, the young voters who lived through this in their high school lives, in their college lives, and had, you know, government impose so many restrictions on them. And there's no question the Trump campaign and podcasts and things sort of tapped into all that. But that did -- it's one of the examples that David was talking about, things that absolutely changed our alignment in politics. But I think back to all the voters we talked about really over those two presidential campaigns, to a voter in Tampa, Florida. She had grandchildren in both Florida and California.

She was a liberal Democrat. She liked Ron DeSantis' approach better because her grandkids went to school. California, they did not. So it realigned what we think about traditional politics.

BASH: Yes, that's so true. We could talk for hours about this, but we're out of time. Thank you so much, all of you.

Thank you for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts after the break.