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House Passes Sprawling Trump Agenda Bill, 215-214; Next: Senate To Take Up, Likely Change Sprawling Agenda Bill; Two Israeli Embassy Staffers Killed In D.C. Shooting; Police: Suspect Yelled "Free Palestine" After Deadly D.C. Shooting. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired May 22, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

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DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Today on Inside Politics, Trump triumphs. It was a nail biter with a whole lot of cliffhangers, but House Republicans were ultimately able to eke out a win for the president, delivering a mega MAGA bill that will bring drastic changes to people's lives across the country.

Plus, guess who is coming to dinner? Well, it's a mystery. Why won't the White House reveal which deep pocketed crypto investors want a meal with the president tonight, we'll break down the lack of transparency with President Trump's new money-making venture.

And the FBI is investigating a targeted attack after two Israeli embassy staffers were shot and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum here in Washington by allegedly by a man who yelled, free Palestine. I'll speak to one of the country's top leaders in combating antisemitism.

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

They did it. President Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson managed to muscle through a massive bill that includes most of President Trump's biggest legislative priorities, new tax cuts, new money for the border wall, new limits on Biden era, green energy incentives, and much, much more. They did it by the skin of their teeth. The vote was 215 to 214, two Republicans voted against it.

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REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Today, the House has passed generational truly nation shaping legislation to reduce spending and permanently lower taxes for families and job creators, secure the border, unleash American energy dominance, restore peace through strength and make government work more efficiently and effectively for all Americans.

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BASH: It is a big win for President Trump, but there's still a long way to go. The Senate Republican conference has its own ideas and finding a bill that can pass muster with Republicans in both chambers won't be easy. Who better to talk about that than you guessed it.

Manu Raju, who is on Capitol Hill. Manu, how many hours straight have you been there?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Quite a few. It's been a long, long week. But Dana, there are long hours and weeks ahead in the United States Senate, because it is just going to get harder and harder in order to get this at President Trump's desk, in large part because Republican senators say they have their own demands.

They plan to change this bill and a whole variety of ways. Some of them want to go deeper in terms of cutting spending. This bill would add roughly $3.8 trillion to the national deficit over the next several years. According to the Congressional Budget Office, some of them want to cut spending deeper to try to offset some of the deficit increases. Others are concerned about how it deals with some of those cuts.

They believe that the Medicaid work requirements, the way that is being implemented under this proposal, may need to be changed in some way. Others believe that how it would phase out green energy tax breaks also need to be modified, and some have specific individual issues that they want to get changed here.

So, the question will be, if they are able to get that through the Senate, which is a narrow Republican majority, will this House Republicans ultimately accept it and send it to President Trump's desk? That is an issue for the weeks ahead.

Now, I caught up with some Senator this morning about some of the warnings that have been coming from the far right of the House Republican conference. The House Freedom conference warning has Senate Republicans not to deviate too much from the spending cuts they got into this legislation.

I asked Senator Lindsey Graham about that warning from the hardline House Republicans.

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RAJU: Some of the Freedom Caucus members are warning you guys not to water down any of their cuts. What do you say to them?

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): You had your chance that there's some of these cuts are not real. And we're talking about over a decade. You know, if you do a trading and a half, that's like a percent and a half. So, let's don't get high on a horse here that we've somehow made some major advancement of reducing spending because we did.

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RAJU: So, the Senate Majority Leader John Thune will have some major decisions to make in the days ahead. One of the things that they'll have to consider is how to deal with the increase of the national debt limit that is also part of this bill. There is a debt default that is looming as soon as this summer, potentially by the August recess, if they do not act on that now.

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But there are several members in the Senate Republican conference who are warning that they will vote against this plan if that debt limit increases included in there. One of them is Senator Rand Paul, who says that he's a no that's in there. One is Senator Ron Johnson, another one who's warning that he could vote against this.

And I caught up with Senator Rick Scott of Florida this morning to he indicated to me, Dana, that he is simply not there yet. He said that he does -- he believes there going to be deeper spending cuts, so they don't need to raise the national debt limit as part of this bill. So, therein lies some of the challenges that the leaders have to get this to the president's desk. But time will be ticking and the United States Senate, if they can actually get it done. Dana?

BASH: Yeah, no question. Thank you so much for that, Manu. I hope you can catch a cat nap somewhere on the marble floor. Now, President Trump, of course, calls it a big, beautiful bill. You could also describe it as gargantuan, sweeping, sprawling. Here's just some of what's actually in the bill, cuts to Medicaid, cuts to Biden-era green energy credits, cuts to snap, also known as food stamps, billions of new dollars for the defense department, ICE and border patrol.

It also renews the 2017 Trump tax cuts. It eliminates taxes on tips and overtime, adds a tax cut for senior citizens and increases the Child Tax Credit, creates $1,000 savings accounts for newborns, officially labeled as Trump accounts. It restricts access to student loans, raises the debt ceiling by two -- excuse me, by $4 trillion and the list keeps going.

I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters here. CNN's Jeff Zeleny, Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report, Laura Barron-Lope of PBS NewsHour, and Josh Dawsey of The Wall Street Journal. As I catch my breath after reading that.

Jeff Zeleny, I know you've been doing some reporting on. Let's just start with what happened in the House overnight, how that actually came to pass.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Look, that meeting at the White House yesterday at three o'clock was key. President Trump, in no uncertain terms, said the time is now to pass the bill. I'm told there were no overt threats made, but none were necessarily needed. But did make the point that, you know, if you vote no, if you vote against this, you'll be going against the mandate that the American people, the voters have given the president.

So, you know, the idea, the implicit comment there was that if they voted no, they could be primary challenged. They would face a rough road in 2026, and also, I'm told, made the acknowledgement that, look, a lot of the people complaining the loudest have the easiest races in 2026. The ones who were sort of going along have tough races, so basically, shut up and vote yes. But the bottom line here, I think what's going to be so fascinating. Now, this is the going to be the soundtrack for the next year and five months until November of 2026. And we've seen this before in some respects, but it's different than the 2017, 2018 the Trump first midterm is because that whole fight about the midterms was about getting rid of Obamacare, but that didn't happen because it failed, but it was still an issue in the campaigns.

Now this passed the House. Some version will pass the Senate. We don't know what the version will be, but some version will pass the Senate under reconciliation. So, now there's a true laboratory here that can democrats seize on this. We shall see. But it's the cuts to food stamps and Medicaid that are going to ring the loudest to voters on both sides of the aisle, regardless of this, but the work requirements of things are -- were added to be right after the midterm elections.

BASH: Yeah. I mean, it's such an interesting point, because back in 2018 we know every Democrat says that the reason they won the House back in 2018 was because they campaigned not just like, look who's in the White House, because it was Donald Trump, it was on the issue of healthcare. And that was, as you were just so smartly saying, that was a threat of repealing Obamacare.

This, if the president gets leaving some of what he wants, will have actual real life cuts to a lot of programs, including Medicaid, which is a big issue for a lot of people, especially and even in Trump districts.

AMY WALTER, PUBLISHER & EDITOR IN CHIEF, THE COOK POLITICAL REPORT: Yeah. And in rural states, if you have a rural hospital, that is going to be a major issue for you. And look, this is -- as you said, in 2017, 2018 the fight was about healthcare. Democrats like fighting on healthcare because they -- it's one of the few issues in which voters still give them the benefit of the doubt.

At the same time, you know, what Republicans are hoping is this, this passes, the tariff tumult kind of comes into view. The president makes some great, beautiful deals. All the worries about a recession go away. Consumers start to feel a little more confident, the tax cuts come in, and so Republicans get a little bit of the wind at their back going into a midterm election with an economy that's kind of on all cylinders. Democrats are still going to make the case that they got there by what you -- as you pointed out by hurting other folks.

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BASH: Right. And we're going to talk a lot about sort of the politics for Democrats a little bit later. But I do want to just kind of take a beat to talk about Republicans here, because look, Mike Johnson, the House Speaker, hand in glove with the White House, made a determination that the only way to get all of these things done is to put it in that one bill and that he could do it before Memorial Day. And he did it.

LAURA BARRON-LOPE, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, PBS NEWSHOUR: He did it.

BASH: That's not nothing. He did it with the politics and the pressure from the president, but it still got done.

BARRON-LOPE: It got done his self-imposed deadline, which he didn't have to make it this early, he met it. Now the question though, is, what does the Senate do?

BASH: Right.

BARRON-LOPE: And there are a lot of senators that aren't necessarily happy with what's inside of that bill. Republican senators, ones who themselves are not OK with some of the changes in cuts to Medicaid, and who -- and some of Donald Trump's closest allies are not necessarily happy with those cuts to Medicaid, saying that it is going to impact our voters. It impacts low-income people, people in red states, especially states that have expanded Medicaid access.

And so, you know, the Republican argument is that, well, it's work requirement changes, and people will still have access to Medicaid. But the issue is that their voters got used to a certain level of Medicaid coverage. Some of those states voted for it themselves, and then to take that away could be very harmful, even if it doesn't necessarily take effect until after the midterms.

BASH: Which goes back to Obamacare and the -- I mean, you know, you covered -- you covered it and you covered him, President Obama. And I'll set it here, but I'll say it again. And his then Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, the whole argument was, if you give people a benefit and a right, it's almost impossible to take it away. Well, they're going to try, on Medicaid.

JOSH DAWSEY, POLITICAL INVESTIGATIONS REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: President Trump, unlike some Republicans has campaigned against not cutting some of the entitlement programs. He said that repeatedly, over and over and over, frankly, to trepidation of other Republicans who've said, to actually make the kind of cuts, we wanted to make, we would have to touch some of that. And Trump has said, he would not do that, as you all saw repeatedly on the trail.

I mean, for him, it will be interesting how this test plagues out, because he is, you know, a lame duck president. He can't serve past 2028, but the midterms matter very much to him, and I think you're going to see him have a very involved role. He's got his pack is going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars, or lots of money, I'm told, on the races, you're going to see him out there.

Because right now, he has unified control of the entire government. He has a Senate, he has a House, he has a presidency, he has no scrutiny, and whatever. Does he want to spend the last two years of his presidency getting subpoenas under investigations? His people talk about, you know, they would probably try to impeach him again, or they might try to impeach him again.

I mean, his legacy, and sort of the last two years of his presidency, these midterms matter a lot. So, I think you're going to see him take a more involved role, then you might see another president in the midterms. BASH: And just to kind of give a little bit more meat to these bones, the hardliners, the conservatives. What did they get? The concessions they got, phase out Biden-era green tax credits within 60 days, the Medicaid work requirements, which were in the original bill. They moved up two years to 2026, incentivizes states that don't expand Medicaid and hikes premiums for the affordable healthcare act on health insurance, and yet you still had a couple of conservatives who said no.

I mean Tom Massie, who votes no on pretty much every spending bill or anything that even smells of spending, said that we are not rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic tonight. We're putting coal in the boiler and setting a course for the iceberg.

ZELENY: I mean, no one quite says it like Congressman Massie. But look, and he, up until now, has not paid a political price for it any, you know, likely won't in this case, but he does raise the point. He was talking about the debt, and just said it's an irresponsible vote, and basically that Republicans and the White House were lying to you, if you don't think that this is going to saddle future generations with a huge debt. But in the list there, I think raising the insurance premiums that could be a real, real challenge.

BASH: And not to be total Debbie Downer, but I was just told that mortgage rates just hit a three year high -- three-year high, three- month high. So, we've got that going for us, everyone. Don't go anywhere. Up next, we're going to do a totally different subject, a horrifying shooting here in the nation's capital. Two young people gunned down outside a Jewish Museum. The alleged shooter dragged away while yelling, quote, free Palestine.

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BASH: We're getting new information about an antisemitic attack here in Washington D.C. Sources tell CNN that the gunman who fatally shot two Israeli embassy staff members outside the Capital Jewish Museum is expected to be charged with a hate crime, as well as other federal charges.

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These are the victims of that heinous crime. Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, a couple who was about to get engaged in Jerusalem. Here's what the suspect said, moments after he killed them allegedly.

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BASH: The couple was killed while they were leaving an American Jewish Committee event that was actually meant to aid people in Gaza.

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TED DEUTCH, CEO, AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE: Last night's session was on humanitarian diplomacy. Humanitarian diplomacy, the idea of how to work together to bring about peace and a better world. That's what had just ended when this -- when this murder came and gunned down, Sarah and Yaron. Last night's event should have sent people home feeling hopeful, feeling that there is a brighter future ahead for all of us, and instead, we're reminded again of the awful reality that we live in still.

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BASH: Deborah Lipstadt joins me now. She is the former U.S. Special Envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism, and, of course, one of the world's foremost experts on the topic. Thank you so much for being here.

DEBORAH LIPSTADT, FORMER SPECIAL ENVOY FOR MONITORING & COMBATTING ANTISEMITISM: Thank you for having me.

BASH: First just my general question, is your reaction when you heard it?

LIPSTADT: I was not surprised. I was shocked, but I wasn't surprised. There is no Jewish institution, virtually in the world, but certainly in the United States, that doesn't have security. If you're a Jewish young person, your normal. When you're going to synagogue, you're going to JCC, you're going to a film festival, that you don't have to go through security, that you have to be taken care of. And it doesn't matter what your sentiments are about Israel. What your connection to Israel? If you're Jewish, you're a target.

BASH: And obviously this was a Jewish event, and it's Jewish Heritage Month. And so that sort of begs one of the key questions I have for you, Ambassador, which is, you just heard the alleged killer saying free Palestine. We hear that on the streets. We hear that on college campuses. And there are a lot of people who feel, who have been worried, that that has been turned into a call to arms and a call to action and violence.

LIPSTADT: Yes.

BASH: Others claim that it's not. What do you think now that we have seen this?

LIPSTADT: I think there's no question, whatever its initial intent and whatever people were saying initially or meant it, it has become a call for violence, and not violence against Israelis, which is wrong, but violence against Jews.

And anybody who tries to separate the two and try to say, oh, I'm just against Pales. I'm just, you know, against Israel's policies in Palestine or in Gaza. And I'm not antisemitic. This is -- this was antisemitism pure and simple that he happened to have killed two Israeli staff members, didn't matter. It was a Jewish event, they were targets.

BASH: This, as you know, better than most, hardly happened in a vacuum. You know, things are happening so often that we often -- sometimes we become numb to it. LIPSTADT: We normalize.

BASH: It normalize, exactly. So, let's not participate in that and let's just give some of the examples. In just the past few months, we have seen -- we saw a man arrested for allegedly planning a mass shooting at a New York Jewish Center, Tel Aviv restaurant stabbing, the perpetrator arrived from the U.S., then this is just -- again the past several months, a man arrested for making terrorist threats to a Manhattan synagogue, the Berlin Holocaust Memorial.

There was a stabbing there, and then, of course, an arson attack at Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro's home. Your whole life is been dedicated to education, but education seems to not even be close to enough.

LIPSTADT: Education, you can be a PhD and an SOP at the same time. You can be well educated. Look, the first people to support Hitler in Nazi Germany with the universe, amongst the first were the university professors. They got on board right away. So, education, of course, I believe in education. I wouldn't be doing education and working in that and trying to educate people if I didn't believe, but it's not a magic bullet.

We also have to inculcate whether you're educated, whether you have years of postgraduate education or none at all. This is wrong. There is no but when it comes to killing people because of their ethnic religious heritage. There is no but when it comes to raping women in God, in on -- in the area next to -- next to Gaza on October 7.

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There is no but about kidnapping children because they happen to be Jews. There is no but this is unacceptable. Irrespective of how you feel about Israeli policies, irrespective of how you feel about the Israeli government, this is wrong, and there should be a universal outcry against you.

BASH: You came here wearing your Jewish star, which you wear, I think every day.

LIPSTADT: All the time. It's too hard to take off and put.

BASH: OK. Well that aside, you obviously are comfortable wearing that. What is your message to Jews around the country, around the world right now? I mean, look -- like, you know, we're and for now, you are a D.C. resident. I didn't know these two individuals, but we know a whole bunch of people who knew them, and what I keep hearing is it could have been any of us.

LIPSTADT: I could have been -- I happened to have had a conflict last night. I was at a synagogue event. If I hadn't, I would have been there probably. We're all vulnerable, but I'm not going to go underground. But my message to Jews and to any group, religious, ethnic that feels itself under attack, you've got to draw on the positive of your heritage. You can't just let your identity be built on what they want to do to you. It has to be built on despite, despite the antisemitism, despite the threats. I revel in my Jewish identity. I revel in my American identity. It's a dangerous time, but we got to go on living.

BASH: Wise words as always. Ambassador Lipstadt, thank you so much.

LIPSTADT: Thank you for having me.

BASH: Thank you. And again, a very different topic. Another thing that is happening here in Washington, dinner with President Trump. It's going to happen tonight. The question is, how much is it worth? A few million dollars of his crypto coin. We're going to try to break that down, next.

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