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Senators Scramble to Fund Government, Avert Shutdown; Judge Rules Anti-Israel Activist Will Remain in ICE Custody; President Trump Hosts Taoiseach of Ireland in Oval Office; European Union is Taking Advantage of U.S. Says Trump. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired March 12, 2025 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:32:30]
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': The final countdown, the federal government will shut down in two days if Senators fail to pass a funding bill. That legislation cleared the House yesterday. Now, Senate Democrats face an unenviable dilemma, help Republicans pass a spending bill they don't like or bring on a shutdown.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER (D-DE): It's basically a dirty deal. I'm not ready to talk yet on what direction we want to go in. This is serious. And I think, we understand the gravity of this moment as Democrats.
SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): I'm going to vote against what came over from the House Republicans to the Senate last night, because I don't want to give my vote to support what Trump and Musk are doing.
SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA): If you are concerned that our economy is teetering into a recession, well, if the Democrats vote to shut it down, then now who's going to own that? We can't shut the government down to claim to save it. That's untenable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Our panel is back. Bres, I'm going to do what I do sometimes around here, I'm going to quote you back to you.
(LAUGH)
JOHN BRESNAHAN, CO-FOUNDER, PUNCHBOWL NEWS: OK, great.
BASH: So here -- here's what you wrote in Punchbowl this morning. An angry Democratic base is demanding action and would roundly condemn anything other than total resistance to Trump. Yet, Democrats are also wary of being blamed for a shutdown. Schumer staying quiet here is a way to give cover to moderate and vulnerable Democrats to back the CR.
BRESNAHAN: Yeah, I think I have a hard time seeing Democrats allowing -- it wouldn't be their fault if there's a shutdown because again, we've waited until the last minute. But they would be blamed. They would -- because they would have to vote against continuing the funding. So it's a -- it's a bad situation. They're getting jammed by House Republicans. I do think they will -- enough of them will vote against -- a procedural vote to allow this funding bill to move forward.
In fact, we were just, as we were here, Angus King of Maine, independent from Maine, he just come out and said, vote for the CR.
BASH: Oh, OK.
BRESNAHAN: I think -- right. So I think there will be enough of them. You have Jon Ossoff in Georgia. He won't say it. Fetterman, there's others I think will do it. There's enough --
BASH: But you need eight.
BRESNAHAN: Well, you need eight because --
BASH: Eight or nine?
BRESNAHAN: Well, it's eight because Rand Paul --
BASH: Rand Paul, yeah.
BRESNAHAN: -- is going to be a no, so at least eight. I think there'll be enough on a procedural vote. The way they may set it up is on final passage, they could vote no and then they could say, well, we voted no. But it's a bad situation in there.
[12:35:00]
And I think in this one, Schumer is in a -- he's in a bind. He can't lean against something he wants to go out against, but he can't do it because he's got to protect his guys. And he's got -- his map keeps getting worse.
BASH: Yes.
BRESNAHAN: You have Jeanne Shaheen retirement today, so his map keeps getting worse for him. So it's a bad situation.
BASH: I mean, you mentioned Angus King. He, before he made this announcement, told our colleague Ted Barrett, this is a classic no win situation. So he's clearly going to hold his nose very tightly and vote. Yes. Let's look at what John Thune, the Republican leader, the Senate Majority Leader, has said in addition to the House Speaker Mike Johnson.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA) SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Chuck Schumer has a big decision to make. Is he going to cast a vote to keep the government open, or is he going to be blamed for shutting it down?
SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD): Here we are on the brink of a government shutdown, which will be entirely of the Democrats making. If it happens, I think the American people are going to be interested to see whether the Democrats are going to filibuster and by filibustering shut down the federal government. It is on them if this happens.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: And just a reminder, the House Republicans passed this yesterday. And then they left town.
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right.
BASH: So this is like the classic example of the House just stuffing the Senate --
BARRON-LOPEZ: Jamming the Senate.
BASH: -- jamming the Senate.
BARRON-LOPEZ: Yeah. I mean, what you're seeing there though is a bit of narrative spinning, which is something that President Trump loves to do. I mean, everybody loves to do.
(CROSSTALK)
But Republicans, but they are more effective at it than Democrats. Right. Which is that Trump, Republicans control all of government. So, if this were -- Republicans are usually typically very good at saying, we're not going to help you Democrats, you control government. We're not going to help you, we're not going to vote for any Continuing Resolution.
BASH: Yeah.
BARRON-LOPEZ: Democrats time and time and again, are not ever really willing to take that hard line the way Republicans are, even when their base is pleading with them to do it. And so, I am not sure that necessarily, I know that history says that Democrats or whoever doesn't vote for funding -- the funding the government bill would take the blame. We're in different uncharted territory now.
BASH: Yes.
BARRON-LOPEZ: And I have to wonder what would happen with the American public and with the base, would they actually blame Democrats if they decided to use the leverage that they have? Because it's one of the only pieces of leverage that they have. After this, it's almost gone. And they're deciding that they're not going to listen to the base and not use it at all.
MICHAEL WARREN, SENIOR EDITOR, THE DISPATCH: I'm a little skeptical that Democrats taking this would work out for them. I mean, Democrats are the party of government and I think that is something that, if you ask Americans like, who is the party of government? Yes, Republicans are in power, but Democrats I think bear the brunt of that.
The problem for Democrats is they haven't figured out how to effectively resist in the Trump Administration -- the second Trump Administration, they're looking for some I think big moment that they can stand up to him, but they do -- they just simply don't have the power to do that right now. They're probably better off just staying out of their own way and letting the Republican government do what it's going to do. And --
BASH: And the focus be on tariffs and the other things that are happening in the Executive --
WARREN: Tariffs, the government, social security being a mess.
BASH: Yeah.
WARREN: That's where they need to go and reap the benefits of what they think will happen, which is Republicans will make a mess of them.
BASH: Right. I mean, it's the classic, if your opponent is shooting himself in the foot --
WARREN: Don't stop him.
BASH: Get out the way. Yeah.
BRESNAHAN: There's -- there'll be more funding bills coming up in the fall. This is where I think there will be a --
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: Can I just -- can I just give -- I'm glad you mentioned that because, well, maybe this isn't what you saying, but I'm going to take you in this direction, so stay with me. Mike Johnson, it's not nothing that House Republicans passed a spending bill. We know lots of House Republicans who are a part of the Freedom Caucus who never vote for spending bills, but did in this case. Mike Johnson is one of the reasons; Donald Trump is a big reason because they're --
BRESNAHAN: -- and Trump is the --
BASH: -- is the, is --
BRESNAHAN: -- as much Johnson is the Speaker. Trump is the reason.
BASH: -- is the reason. But Mike Johnson is the one who's kind of got to herd the cats. And I want you to listen to what he said at Georgetown University last night, sort of illustrating the way he tries to do this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNSON: I have this giant sort of control panel and it's got 219 dials on it, and I got to make sure everybody is OK, this one's, oh, (inaudible) and then I got the President Trump dial, and now I have -- now I have the Elon dial. OK?
(LAUGH) JOHNSON: Because Elon has the largest platform in the world literally and if he goes on and says something that -- that's misunderstood or misinterpreted about something we're doing, he can blow the whole thing up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: And has done that. He talks to Elon Musk daily, he says.
BRESNAHAN: Yeah. And Musk was against the funding bill in December, which would've been a problem for Johnson, and so Johnson punted into March. Listen, I think Johnson has, for all along, he has made his decision that he was going to stick rock solid with Trump and that's where he's going.
[12:40:00]
And then Trump has saved him on the speaker vote in January, saved him on the budget resolution vote in February, now March, saves him on the CR vote.
BASH: Yeah.
BRESNAHAN: OK? I mean, look, this is where the speaker -- speakers follow the presidents of their own party.
BASH: Yeah.
BRESNAHAN: You know, this is -- but this is not Nancy Pelosi. She is who could dictate some things to a president.
BASH: No, this is -- this is -- this is (inaudible) to the president.
BRESNAHAN: Exactly.
BASH: No, I agree.
BRESNAHAN: With the one vote margin, right?
BASH: Yep.
BRESNAHAN: This is the guy and they can't ever lose more than one vote. So, in a -- in a completely different Republican Party than it is.
BASH: Their constituents are Trump supporters and they don't want to be primaried. Everyone standby. We'll be right back.
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[12:45:11]
BASH: A Columbia University graduate student, an anti-Israel activist will remain in ICE custody for now, but a federal judge just ruled that he must have more access to his lawyers. Mahmoud Khalil was arrested and detained by federal agents after his lawyers said his green card was revoked by the Trump Administration. He was an instrumental leader of the protest that rocked Columbia's campus after the deadly Hamas terror attack on Israel.
The Department of Homeland Security is accusing him of leading "activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization." His lawyer insists there's no evidence of that. And many see Khalil's detention as an attack on free speech and fear crackdown more broadly on student protests. But others, including obviously the Department of Homeland Security and others in the Trump Administration say that does not apply for him. They say he's a supporter of Hamas and a perpetrator of anti-Semitism.
I want to go to CNN's Gloria Pazmino, who is outside a court in New York. Gloria, what more did the judge say?
GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well then, it was a packed courtroom just a little while ago. A lot of supporters that were there to hear what this judge had to say. And we knew that it could sort of take a procedural route today and that's exactly what happened. Judge Furman essentially told both parties, go ahead and work on your motions. I'm giving you a schedule to submit them to me, and we will go from there.
So for now, Mahmoud Khalil will remain in the detention center in Louisiana in the custody of immigration authorities. Now, his lawyers had hoped that the judge would order Mahmoud to be brought back to New York. That did not happen here today. And during today's proceedings, we heard from his attorney, Ramzi Kassem talking about how his client was "identified, targeted, and detained for his activism."
Also brought up to the court today, the fact that his lawyers have had a very hard time having access to him ever since immigration authorities removed him from here in New York City first to a facility in New Jersey and now to a facility in Louisiana. They said that they have only been able to speak to him on the phone once, but that call is not privileged and that is of very serious concerns to him. They said, "We literally have not been able to confer with our client once since he was taken off the streets of New York City."
Now, the lawyer for the Department of Justice that was in the courtroom, Waterman said that he was willing to look into the questions about access to Khalil and his lawyers. But he also made it clear that Khalil at this point in time is not going to be deported sort of imminently. He said that there will be a process. That's been a big question in all of this, whether or not the government is going to have to present its case in a courtroom.
Now, the next thing that's going to happen here today, Dana, is that the lawyers for the government are going to try and argue that New York does not have jurisdiction over this case. They're going to say that it should be either New Jersey or Louisiana. They also are giving us a little bit of a clue at least, Secretary Marco Rubio is, about how they don't believe this is a question of free speech. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MARCO RUBIO, (R) UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF STATE: This is not about free speech. This is about people that don't have a right to be in the United States to begin with. No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card, by the way. So when you apply for student visa or any visa to enter the United States, we have a right to deny you for virtually any reason.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Thank you to Gloria. I want to go right now to the White House, President Donald Trump is hosting the Taoiseach from Ireland. Let's listen to some Q&A.
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: And if he was nervous, he wouldn't show it. Now, I -- we do have a massive deficit with Ireland because Ireland was very smart. They took our pharmaceutical companies away from presidents that didn't know what they were doing, and it's too bad that happened. It's a tremendous job. I give -- look, the Irish is smart. You are smart people. And you took our pharmaceutical companies and other companies, but through taxation and proper taxation, they made it very, very good for companies to move over there.
And we had presidents and people that were involved in this that had no idea what they were doing. And they lost big segments of our economy. The European Union treats us very badly. They have for years. I saw that. I had it out with them in my first term. Did well, but we had to solve other problems and we did.
[12:50:00]
But, European Union has been very tough. And it's our turn too, you know, we get a turn at that also. But they have not been fair. They sue our companies and win massive amounts of money. They sued Apple, won $17 billion, and they use that for other reasons, I guess, or to run the European Union. So I'm not knocking it. They're doing what they should be doing perhaps for the European Union, but it does create ill will. And as you know, we're going to be doing reciprocal tariffs. So whatever they charge us, we're charging them. Nobody can complain about that.
Whatever it is, it doesn't even matter what it is, if they charge us -- if they charge us 25 percent or 20 percent or 10 percent or 2 percent, or 200 percent, then that's what we're charging them. And so, I don't know why people get upset about that because there's nothing more fair than that. And we had a problem with Ontario and they dropped that -- when I let them know what we were going to be doing, they dropped it immediately. So I'm glad because electricity -- shouldn't be playing with electricity.
It affects people's lives there. They're -- actually their life, I mean, it can affect, depending on weather, it can affect their life. So we can't do that. And it doesn't make sense that our country allows electricity to be made in another country and sold into us. Who did that deal for the United States, OK? I looked at that long ago and I said, that's not something that's very smart. So we've had a lot of bad trade policies and yet, we're doing very well right now, but we're doing well because I won the election. If I didn't win the election, you would've had a very bad period.
I think a lot of the stock market going down was because of a really bad four years that we had. When you look at inflation and all of the other problems that were, I mean, wars and inflation and so many other problems, but we're going to have very good years. We're going to have -- we had -- I don't know if you saw a little thing like the cost of eggs, little to you, but big to people out there, down almost 30 percent in the last few days. We got it down. We did a lot of things. We have a great Secretary of Agriculture and we did a lot of things that got the cost of eggs down very substantially.
And so many other things, a very big thing that I'm very happy with is oil is down to $65 a barrel. And that's faster than I would've (inaudible). We put on the gas, we stepped on the gas in order to get oil and that's what's happening. So we're getting that down. And when energy comes down, prices are going to be coming down with it. So in a very short period of time, we've done a very good job.
And I think that the tariffs that we're talking about, and again, reciprocal, I think that the tariffs, there are some cases where they're a little beyond reciprocal because we've been abused for a long time as a country. We have been abused really for a long time. And we will be abused no longer. OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you going to retaliate to the E.U. tariffs (ph)?
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- education, sir, would you describe for us as this meeting your vision by cutting about half the workforce, and what responsibility do you feel to the civil servants who have now lost their jobs? Many of them worked at the Department of Education during your first term.
TRUMP: Sure, I do. I feel very badly. And -- but many of them don't work at all. Many of them never showed up to work. Many of them -- many of them never showed up to work, Kelly (ph). And unfortunately, and that's not good. And when we cut, we go -- and that's what I had a number of meetings with a lot of people over the last couple of months. When we cut, we want to cut, but we want to cut the people that aren't working or do -- not doing a good job. We're keeping the best people.
And Linda McMahon is a real professional, very -- actually a very sophisticated business person. And she cut a large number, but she kept the best people. And we'll see how it all works out. But our country was run very badly. I mean, whether it was that or contracts that were signed, that was so bad, so obviously bad and I go through them in speeches. I could go through them all day long. I could read for billions and hundreds of billions of dollars and all of that fat and waste and fraud and abuse is being taken out. But it's incredible what has happened. Now, Department of Education is maybe more so than any -- any other place has a lot of people that can be cut. They're number one, not showing up to work. Number two, they're not doing a good job. And if you take a look at -- take a look at our education process, and if you look at the charts, because they have numerous charts where they do the top 40. We're at number 37, 38, 39, and 40. And recently, they hit -- during Biden's last few days, they hit last. So they were number 40.
[12:55:00]
And yet, we're number one in cost per pupil. So it's pretty bad. But --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For a number --
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: We have a -- we have a dream. And you know what the dream is? We're going to move the Department of Education. We're going to move education into the states, so that the states, instead of bureaucrats working in Washington, so that the states can run education. And you have Norway, you have Denmark, you have Sweden, you have various -- Finland, you have various countries that do very well. You also have China that does very well in education, which is a pretty big tribute to China, I must say. 1.4 billion and they're in the top 10, and it's pretty amazing.
So we can't blame size anymore. Normally you'd blame size. It's too big. How can you do it? But China does it. So, we think when you move it back to Iowa and Indiana and all the states that run so well, there's so many. I could name 30, maybe almost 40. Those will be as good as Denmark. Those will be as good as Norway. And they'll be as good as any of these. I believe they'll be as good as any.
Now then, you're going to have 10 that won't be so great. You're going to have five that will not be good at all. But we'll work with them and we'll get them to be good. But what we want to do is always school choice, but we're going to do school choice and we're doing it, but we want education to be moved back where the states run education, where the parents of the children will be running education, where governors that are doing a very good job will be running education -- not run -- I drive through the city and I see like so many buildings, Department of Education, Department of -- big buildings, the depart -- and by the way, they're empty. Nobody shows up to work. So I think Linda did a very good job.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, do you have a meeting with Vladimir Putin scheduled for a conversation? What would be (inaudible).
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: I won't -- I won't comment on that, but we had a great success yesterday. We have a full ceasefire when it -- if it kicks in, we have to see. It's up to Russia now. But we've had a good relationship with both parties actually, and we'll see. We'll be knowing -- people are going to Russia right now as we speak and hopefully, we can get a ceasefire from Russia. And if we do, I think that would be 80 percent of the way to getting this horrible blood bath finished. It's a blood bath, is taking place over there. On average, 2,000 to 3,000 young people a week are being killed in that stupid war that would've never happened if I were president. So, we have people going over there. Mr. VP, do you have anything to say about it? Because you're very much involved. What's going to happen?
J.D. VANCE, (R) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Yes, sir. Well, we've got some conversations that are happening on the phone and in person with some of our representatives over the next couple of days. As the president said, we think that we're in a very good place where the Ukrainians have agreed to a ceasefire, and we're now going to see whether we can get the Russians to agree to a ceasefire too. And we'll certainly have news on that when we -- when we find out that news.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- Putin will keep the ceasefire considering that he has broken them in the past?
TRUMP: I haven't -- we haven't spoken to him yet with substance, because we just found out and we just were able to get Ukraine to agree. So we're going to know very soon, I've gotten some positive messages, but a positive message means nothing. This is a very serious situation. This is a situation that could lead to World War III, and Biden should have never let it happen. Incompetence allowed this to happen. This shouldn't have happened.
October 7th in the Middle East should have never happened with Israel. The horrible, leaving -- the way they left Afghanistan should have never happened. Inflation should have never happened. We have great inflation numbers, by the way, just got released. Inflation is way down, and it's based on what we've done. And we've done it in a very short period of time. We had virtually no inflation. For four years, we had almost no inflation. And when these characters took over, we went from no inflation to the worst inflation probably in the history of our country. So, it's very interesting. Go ahead.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: And by the way, I have to speak of inflation. I love these songs. What's with these stuff?
(LAUGH)
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: I'm trying to stay focused, but I'm very impressed with the VP's.
(LAUGH)
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible) to you that the United States is recognized as having such an important role in the case process. And yet, half the parties from the (inaudible).
TRUMP: They haven't what?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They haven't come over. They're boycotting (inaudible).
TRUMP: What are they boycotting?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They are talking about your position on Gaza as (inaudible).
TRUMP: Oh, I haven't heard that. I really haven't heard that. Look --
MICHAEL MARTIN, IRISH TAOISEACH: Can I just say, they attribute to the president on the peace initiatives. The one thing we've learned in Ireland about the peace process that you've just spoken about, and I recall it back in the early '90s, when the first tentative steps to get peace in Ireland, people criticized -- people like John Hume or people like Albert Reynolds, the then Taoiseach, but they kept going.
[13:00:00]
