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Trump's Agenda Bill Hits Conservative Roadblock In The House; House Freedom Caucus Chair Says No Deal This Week; Speaker Johnson Aims For Floor Vote On Mega-Bill Tonight; Trump Hosts South Africa's President At White House; South African President Meets With Trump As Relations Sour. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired May 21, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Today on Inside Politics, this could get awkward. President Trump is welcoming the president of South Africa to the White House today after the U.S. president made unsubstantiated claims that the government in South Africa is committing genocide against white South Africans. Will he be getting the Zelenskyy treatment? We're going to find out any minute now.

Plus, House Speaker Mike Johnson says there will be a vote tonight on the president's mega MAGA bill, but hardline Republicans are threatening to torpedo it unless the speaker agrees to more spending cuts. And crypto cash. President Trump will have dinner tomorrow night with dozens of supporters who bought his meme coins. It's one of the Trump family crypto money-making ventures that some call legalized bribery. We talked to a top reporter who has been covering this beat ahead.

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

At this hour, the fate of President Trump's sprawling agenda bill is very much up in the air. House Speaker Mike Johnson and some key conservative Republican holdouts are going to go to the White House later today to meet with the president.

Now the speaker is still hoping to hold a floor vote later today, but conservative fiscal hawks, they say they want those spending cuts before they agree to vote yes. Johnson can only afford to lose two votes, and he said he wants this to pass before Memorial Day, which is this weekend.

Manu Raju is on Capitol Hill. Manu, we saw in the last hour that sort of impromptu press conference with some of the members of the Freedom Caucus, those conservative holdouts who want more spending cuts. Where do things stand right now before they head to the White House?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. The speaker wants to have a vote tonight on this massive bill, and there's been negotiations that have been going really around the clock over the last several days. The speaker trying to placate various factions within the House Republican conference who are making their own conflicting sets of demands. He had managed to alleviate concerns among the more moderate flank of his conference, particularly over the really key sticking point over state and local tax deductions. They wanted to increase the capital, the amount that people can deduct on those local taxes they pay.

He seems to have won over those members in the moderate flank, but then he caused new problems with the right flag, concerned about the price tag, concerned about that deal, raising the deficit even further under this proposal that deals with spending cuts, that deals with tax cuts, also has a wide range of new spending on defense programs and border programs as well. And now those conservative holdouts are warning that if Johnson moves ahead with this bill tonight that it would fail, they would not support this plan, saying they need more time to negotiate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. SCOTT PERRY (R-PA): This is an arbitrary deadline. If today comes and goes, it doesn't mean that this this possibility to make sure that taxes stay low and that we fix America's healthcare system and fix America's energy system. It doesn't mean that prospect is off the table. It just means it might not happen today, and it's important that everybody knows that because there's some kind of belief in Washington D.C. that once today comes and goes, that this cannot be fixed. This is a completely arbitrary deadline set by people here to force people into a corner to make bad decisions.

RAJU: As being very general. Can you be specific to tell the public what exactly you're asking? Are you asking for changes to FMAP? Do you want more energy? Yeah, but that's very, very general waste. Specifically, what are you asking for -- but I mean, you want --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And so that is the ultimate question. So, what exactly are they demanding? They do want to go further into Medicaid, change perhaps how much the federal government gives to states in running those state run Medicaid programs. They also want to more quickly phase out those green energy tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act.

They're also concerned about the deficit projections. There's a Congressional Budget Office analysis that came out last night, that's a non-partisan scorekeeper on these issues, said it would cost $3.8 trillion and increase the deficit between the years of 2026 and 2034. They want to go deeper into that.

But Dana, if they get further what they want, that's going to cause problems on the moderate wing of the Republican Conference, which is why Johnson has such a tricky balancing act, given that he could only afford to lose three Republican votes on a straight party line vote. And so that's the big question, can the president essentially work these members over this afternoon at the White House, force them to fall in line, or will they demand more? And what will that mean ultimately, for the balance that Mike Johnson is trying to keep here?

[12:05:00] BASH: Yeah. I mean, there are meetings and then there are meetings. Today will be a pretty consequential one when it comes to the president's major agenda. Thank you so much, Manu. Let us know if you hear anything more.

I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters here, CNN's David Chalian, Seung Min Kim of the Associated Press, CNN and Bloomberg's Nia-Malika Henderson and Tyler Pager of The New York Times. I kind of want to start on the theme that I was just ending with Manu on, David, which is, this is the time. This is the -- not that President Trump is afraid to use his political capital, but if he's saving any behind glass, this is the time he takes the axe, he breaks that glass, and he says, come on, guys, you got to make this happen.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Right. We should note, this is the time for this part of the process because he's going to need that again when he deals with the Senate, when they have to hammer out their differences.

(CROSSTALK)

CHALIAN: But this has to get done, frustrating. So, he's going to need stages of this. There's no doubt. And the congressman not wrongly, you just heard in that clip. I mean, this is a self-imposed deadline, because Johnson is of the mind. And you know this, this is back to the whole debate over whether it was going to be two bills or one big, beautiful bill, or what have you that, like momentum has a reality in the thinking and performance of votes on the floor.

And so, by moving this quickly, he thinks that is the best shot he has to keep this very narrow majority together on a party line vote. I do think it is intriguing, though, that this meeting with the Freedom Caucus is happening immediately on the heels of the larger conference yesterday, because now, just one day later, Trump feels the need to isolate the very members that are holding it up, not just talking to the broad agenda.

BASH: No, no question about it. And you're right that the president is -- he's going to have to keep doing this over and over again. But it is also interesting as they try to figure out all of the pieces here. If you go back to the whole discussion, I'm going to get into process, but it's politics, because the process is politics here, of why the president and the House Speaker wanted to put all of this together, it's because you don't see the art of legislating very much. And yes, they're legislating within their own party.

But his belief was that if you put all of this together and give a little bit to each of these factions of the party, then it's going to be harder for them to say, no. And whether or not that is going to work is being borne out literally today.

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST & WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, AP: Right. And that's actually the philosophy of why, or the reason why we have these massive funding bills every year, because you just give a little piece to every lawmaker, hope they come on board. But that's also why you're seeing a lot of these problems, because all along, putting this bill together has been a game of whack-a-mole.

You make one party happy over here, then another problem pops up here. You make them happy over here, you cause another problem that popup. And you're also seeing a lot of push back from the lawmakers, because this is really the first time this year that they are getting to legislate. They are legislators. They're having their imprint on policy.

The story of the Donald Trump presidency has very much been about executive power and Republicans going along, but this is where they can have their imprint on something that will last, which is why they're taking this opportunity to really push back.

BASH: And on that note, Chip Roy, who is one of the leaders on being a deficit hawk, one of those who doesn't feel a lot of pressure traditionally from others, because, first of all, he's one of those from a very conservative district, and there's not a lot of political vulnerability for him, generally speaking. But also, because he actually believes he is a true believer on the policy here. Listen to what he said in the last hour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. CHIP ROY (R-TX): President yesterday laid out some real clear terms, and we're working to achieve those. We're going to work with the president today. We're going to work with our colleagues to deliver, but there's a long way to go. I want to be very clear. We've got to deliver on what we're talking about, or we're not going to be able to get the bill done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And what they're talking about are more cuts.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, BLOOMBERG POLITICAL & POLICY COLUMNIST AND CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALSYST: Yeah, a long way to go. I think until Trump lays down the hammer. I mean, we've seen this before with sort of recalcitrant folks who then are isolated. You talked about this. I think you especially saw with the confirmation hearings. He isolates people. They get blowback from MAGA world, whether it's, you know, the conservative chattering class, or on the internet, and then they buckle.

And it seems like as much as we are hearing a lot of, you know, uproar at this point, that when Trump enters the picture, he is able to say, I want this done. I was elected on a mandate, and you have to fall in line, because these are the priorities that Americans voted for. We'll see if that happens. I mean, I feel like we've seen this movie before where there is a lot of uproar, and then there's a fold and a cave to Donald Trump.

[12:10:00]

BASH: So, there is, of course, the whole intra Republican fight, and then there are the Democrats who are not so quietly sitting on the sidelines, doing this, waiting for this the two to get through, just on the politics of it. Manu mentioned the CBO score. This is a non- partisan group that is the gold standard for figuring out how much things cost.

And you see there that national debt, it would increase the national debt. That is not a good thing for the Chip Roy's of the world. When it comes to funding for Medicaid, it says that it would cut Medicaid almost $700 billion that is what I was referring to with regard to a political gift for Democrats. And then same goes for funding for SNAP. If you kind of put all of the other things that we have been reporting on in Trump 2.0, the Democrats still firmly and fundamentally believe that it is those issues that could win them back the House.

TYLER PAGER, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Absolutely. And we see these sort of cycles every two to four years when there's a new president in power. We saw this when Joe Biden took office, and Republicans sort of just waited as Democrats made policy and then eagerly tried to use that in the midterms.

So, this is the same sort of pattern that we've seen over and over again in Washington, and Democrats do believe that it is on some of these issues, particularly as it relates to Medicare and other sort of economic issues that they could hammer the Republicans on. But I think this is also sort of the status quo in Washington, when you have these thin margins, as the country gets more divided, as we see more gerrymandering and really Democrats and Republicans taking control by just a few seats, everyone becomes more powerful in Washington.

We talked about this when Joe Manchin was the senator who controlled all the power in Biden's administration. We're seeing those same sorts of figure emerge as Republicans try to push this across the line because the margins are just so thin.

CHALIAN: I would just say, I would love to put truth serum in Democrats right now and ask them, would you rather defeat this bill because you're so opposed to the policy, or would you rather take this, have them pass it and take it out on the campaign trail and run against it because it may not be popular and the Republicans may have a tough time selling it to the country. I don't know what their answer would be. I think you'd get different from different answers. I'm not being naive, but I do think different people have different answers to that question.

BASH: Yeah. That's a good point. OK, everybody standby. It is a very busy day. On Inside Politics, the president of South Africa just arrived at the White House to meet with President Trump. A particularly bad time for relations between the two countries. Stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: We're now waiting for the Oval Office meeting to begin between President Trump and the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa. Moments ago, we saw the two presidents greet one another ahead of what South Africa hopes is a reset for relations. They're at a pretty low point right now, and particularly since President Trump has been in there. And the question right now is President Trump's claim about genocide against white South African farmers frozen aid to the country and threatening a boycott in the upcoming G20 summit there.

Kristen Holmes is at the White House with more. We should say that that genocide claim is unsubstantiated. But when it comes to this discussion that they're going to begin to have, maybe they're having it as we speak. What are you hearing from White House officials about what President Trump's goal is?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, there are two events. So first they're going to have lunch together, and then there's going to be this bilateral meeting. When I'm told by officials, one person calling it a make it or break it meeting, because of the fact that these tensions have really come to the surface here.

As we know U.S. officials have said that South Africa's goal is to sort of reset here. We'll see what Donald Trump's goal is coming out of this, because this is just days after Donald Trump has continued to repeat this claim, not only just about genocide, but also particularly saying that white African farmers are being -- South African farmers are being brought off their land, that they are being killed. And right after a flight of 50 white South African pears were brought into the U.S. with refugee status.

So, what is they're going to talk about? How we're going to see this play out? Obviously, remains to be seen. One thing to note, this is being billed currently as a trade engagement we see again --

BASH: Kristen, I'm told that the presidents are now meeting. With the cameras there, let's listen now.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We told them really a great golfer, too, aren't he, right? You two guys are fantastic. And we could add Gary to the group. Gary Player. What a group of golfers South Africa's had.

CYRIL RAMAPHOSA, PRESIDENT OF SOUTH AFRICA: Yes, yes.

TRUMP: There must be something in the water, right? Something good. These two guys are in the water.

RAMAPHOSA: The water's said.

TRUMP: Yeah. Gary -- Gary's Gary. And David Frost also, another one that I know is such a great one. Was he -- was he as good a putter as they say, David? He's a putter. He's a putting machine, right? But he's another one says something very good about South African golf, and golf is still doing great in South Africa, and they have young players.

I hear coming up that are going to be very good. But it's an honor to have you here. And my friend, it's an honor to have you one of the greatest businessmen in South Africa, and long and long beyond. Thank you for being here. It's very, very great honor. Appreciate it.

[12:20:00]

So, we're going to be discussing certain things. As you know we have the G20 is going to South Africa. What is that going to be?

RAMAPHOSA: In November?

TRUMP: In November.

RAMAPHOSA: Thereafter, I hand it over to you.

TRUMP: Yes, we have it now.

RAMAPHOSA: You originated the G20, so I hand it over baited to you, and then you read the G20.

TRUMP: We're going to have it the following year.

RAMAPHOSA: Yeah.

TRUMP: So, we'll be discussing many things, and some of the things you've been reading about in the papers and the media. And I would say that, look, the president is a truly respected man in many, many circles, and in some circles he's considered a little controversial. But we're going to be discussing some of the things that are taking place in South Africa, and see if we can help, and we want to help, and we've had a long relationship with South Africa.

I have because, indirectly, I have so many friends that live there. I have a lot of friends. I mean, these are famous guys, but I have a lot of friends that live there that are tremendous people. And we'll be discussing that. We'll have a nice conversation. And I really appreciate that you guys came along. It's really -- it really helps us in our thought process.

But it is a great honor to have you, and I appreciate you call it. He called. I don't know where he got my number, but I picked up. He said, I want to come over and see you. That was my honor. And thank you very much for being here.

RAMAPHOSA: You're most welcome.

TRUMP: Thank you.

RAMAPHOSA: Well, thank you very much for welcoming us to this reformed White House. I've been here before, and it looks really fantastic. I must congratulate you.

TRUMP: Thank you.

RAMAPHOSA: But I also thank you for allowing our delegation. This is a very mixed delegation that you've got. We've got people from government, by ministers. I've got someone from the trade union movement who you really collaborate with and from business as well, and our sporting legends. When I spoke to you, you said, yes, come along and bring Gary Player, bring Ernie Els and Retief Goosen. I've brought the two of them. Not, Gary Player --

(CROSSTALK)

RAMAPHOSA: I spoke to him, and he said, look, I'm getting rather on in my years. But wishes us luck in this discussion with you. So, it's a real joy. And I'd also like to thank you for allowing your people to start discussions with us at the trade level. I mean, we are essentially here to reset the relationship between the United States and South Africa. We are long, long standing partners in many, many ways.

We've collaborated in many fields, in space issues, in energy and in trade, and we therefore need to reset that particularly in the light of some of the announcements that you made on trade and investment. So, we want to advance more trade between the two of us, you know, two countries and our people now have been empowered, by yourself and by myself to start engaging, and we hope that we will be able to fuel that engagement during our talks.

And we also want to discuss issues that have to do with how we promote further investments in both countries. We've got about 22 companies from South Africa that have invested in the U.S. that's creating a number of jobs. And similarly, you've got almost 600 companies that have invested in South Africa, and some of them have been in South Africa for more than 100 years.

TRUMP: That's true.

RAMAPHOSA: So, our links are really long lasting, and we would like to recalibrate those relations between our two countries and discuss a whole range of issues, geopolitical, the work that you're doing to bring peace around the world, Ukraine and the Middle East. So, we value that, and we are also a great contributor to peace processes that are going on around the world.

And of course, we want to discuss how we can support each other. You are a much bigger economy than we are. We're just a tiny economy, but we rely on each other on a number of issues. We've got critical minerals that you want to fuel the growth of your own economy and reindustrialize. So, we have that on offer, including rare earth minerals.

So, all that combination of opportunity and the products that we buy from you, as well as what we sell to you. I believe it makes up a really good and powerful relationship, which we need to strengthen, which we need to engender, and that is really what has brought us here, and we are really privileged to have, you know, great South Africans in the mix. As you said, you'd like to see them as well.

[12:25:00]

Now, we brought you a really fantastic golf book, weighs 14 kilograms, and it show cases the golf courses in our country. Johann Rupert wrote preface, so did any else. And I want to showcase our golf courses. You might remember when I spoke to you and we spoke about golf, you said I should start practicing and I've started practicing, President. So, I'm ready.

But let me end just the introductory remarks by thanking you. You may not recall that five years ago, I spoke to you during the COVID period, right? And it was at a time when the whole world was going through a really cathartic moment

TRUMP: Right.

RAMAPHOSA: And we asked for assistance, and you were able to assist us with respirators and you kept to your word, and you delivered respirators to us. We didn't have as many in our country. It really helped to deal, to help us deal with COVID. So, I'm here also to say thank you, and to thank the people of America for having helped us during a really difficult time, being the small economy that we are. We needed help from around the world, and you were there to provide that. So, thank you very much.

TRUMP: I remember the call.

RAMAPHOSA: Yeah.

TRUMP: He said, 150 respirators. He became the respirator king. He started making them and nobody had them. We had very few of them.

RAMAPHOSA: That's right.

TRUMP: But they were very helpful. But we said 150.

RAMAPHOSA: Yeah.

TRUMP: And I appreciated the letter you wrote me.

RAMAPHOSA: That's right.

TRUMP: Thank you. I appreciate that.

RAMAPHOSA: Thank you very much for that. You really touched my heart after I spoke, spoke to you, and you delivered. Thank you very much.

TRUMP: Any questions?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Mr. President, welcome white Afrikaners refugees here. Can you explain to Americans why it's appropriate to welcome white Afrikaners here when other refugees, like Afghans, Venezuelans, Haitians have all had their protective status revoked?

TRUMP: Well, this is a group, NBC, that is truly fake news. They ask a lot of questions in a very pointed way. They're not questions, they're statements. We've had tremendous complaints about Africa, about other countries, too, from people. They say there's a lot of bad things going on in Africa, and that's what we're going to be discussing today. When you say we don't take others, all you have to do is take a look at the southern border. We let 21 million people come through our border, totally unchecked, totally unvetted. They came from all over the world. In many cases, they're criminals. They come from prisons, they come from mental institutions, they come from street gangs. They're drug dealers.

So, don't say that we didn't take them. We take them. We're trying to get them out as fast as we can. And we're doing record business on that. And we just won a big case. We're allowed to send back hundreds of criminals to Venezuela. Just won that today on the Supreme Court. I'm happy to hear.

But we do have a lot of a -- lot of people are very concerned with regard to South Africa, and that's really the purpose of the meeting, and we'll see how that turns out. But we have many people that feel they're being persecuted and they're coming to the United States.

So, we take from many, many locations, if we feel there's persecution or genocide going on, and we had a lot of people. I must tell you, Mr. President, we have had a tremendous number of people, especially since they've seen this. Generally, they're white farmers and they're fleeing South Africa, and it's a very sad thing to see.

But I hope we can have an explanation of that because I know you don't want that, and it's, you know, it's a kind of a different meeting. Normally, we have meetings, we talk about trade, and we'll be talking about trade and other things, but that certainly will be a subject that comes up. Yeah.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: One, please.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Cyril, thank you very much. Let me get your thoughts on Letitia James. Director Pulte, according to him, Letitia James says that the alleged mortgage fraud was simply a mistake. I want to get your thoughts on that. She put down that her father was her husband in word, and this is very similar to, I guess, the false attacks.

TRUMP: Well, I don't know what it is currently, but Letitia James, who's the Attorney General of New York State. It seemed -- I'm not involved in that at all. I know there, it's being handled by various groups, I guess. But it's, it's major fraud mortgage documents and the fraudulent, everything. I think she said the father was her husband, which she had to have a husband, or she chose her father, and she put it down.