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This Hour: Senate GOP Meets To Discuss Mega-Bill's Path Forward; Trump Rebukes Senators Who Oppose His Bill, But Silent On Must; CBO Analysis: Trump Bill Would Increase Deficits By $2.4T; Murkowski Lays Out Red Lines In House-Passed Trump Budget Bill; House Republicans Plan Multiple Probes Into Biden's Final Months; House GOP Revisits Investigations Into Biden With New Force; House GOP Advances Inquiries Into Biden's Age, Autopen Use; Biden Press Secy. Says She's Now A Registered Independent. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 04, 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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MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR, INSIDE POLITICS: Today on Inside Politics, a chorus of complaints, moderates, MAGA hard liners, even the first buddy, are attacking President Trump's sweeping domestic policy bill. As a brand-new congressional report on its price tag complicates the president's pitch.

Plus, autopens, pardons and Hunter Biden. We have new reporting on the House GOP push to launch new investigations into the Biden family. And throwing history overboard. It's pride month, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is erasing the name of a gay rights pioneer off a navy ship. Could it be the start of a fleet wide overhaul.

I'm Manu Raju in for Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines in Inside Politics.

First up, sticker shock. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office just released its highly anticipated analysis of the president's sweeping domestic policy bill. It projects the bill would increase the deficit by $2.4 trillion over the next decade, with nearly 11 million losing health insurance due to cuts in the plan.

Now, opposition inside the party is growing. And this hour, Senate Republicans will meet behind closed doors to debate their path forward, but even Senate Majority Leader John Thune admits it's all riding on the commander in chief.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD): President is the closer, and ultimately, it will be up to him to help bring some of these votes home. You got to start somewhere. And I think what this bill does is it makes an important down payment on ensuring that in the future, those deficits and those debt -- that's debt starts going downwards instead of continuing upwards like it is today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: CNN's Kristen Holmes is live for us at the White House. So, Kristen, how worried is the White House right now? But all this incoming fire the president is taking over his big bill?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, you got to remember one thing, Manu, this is Donald Trump's legacy. This is one of the most important things the White House thinks that it's going to do in the next four years. And so, they are all in on this. So yes, they are getting a lot of criticism, but they are working overtime to try and talk to and work with these senators to get this bill through.

Now, when you talk about how are they reacting to very specific pushback, we have seen what he's doing with Rand Paul. Donald Trump, taking the Truth Social, attacking him, saying he has no good ideas. His ideas are losers. He says no to everything. Now that might be because the administration officials I've talked to, there are a number of them who fundamentally believe they're never going to get a senator like Rand Paul on board.

So, it doesn't really matter how you approach someone like that. However, you're talking about pushback when it comes from, say, I don't know. One of Donald Trump's closest allies, Elon Musk, that might be a little bit of a different story. Now, this is what Musk posted yesterday, lashing out at the bill. He says, I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it. You know you did wrong. You know it.

Now, this, unfortunately for the White House, came out during Karoline Leavitt, briefing with reporters, she said that Donald Trump knew where Musk stood on this. Of course, she is still moving forward, but one person who hasn't hit back on this is Trump himself.

Now, I was told by one administration official that Trump doesn't want to make this a narrative, that there's some kind of rift between the two of them. He doesn't want to make this the storyline. But I'm also told that there are a number of White House officials who aren't really sure that Musk pushing back is going to move the needle at all for these senators. Is it going to actually change anyone's vote?

Of course, any of this could change at any time. Donald Trump could get fed up, lash back out at Elon Musk. But for now, we were told that he doesn't want this to be the storyline around this bill.

RAJU: Yeah. He doesn't want it to be, but it certainly is right now. Kristen Holmes, thank you so much for that. And I'm joined by an excellent group of reporters here at the table; CNN's David Chalian, Seung Min Kim of the Associated Press, Jackie Kucinich of the Boston Globe and CNN's Phil Mattingly. Nice to see you all.

OK, so Trump is usually one to fire back immediately. What do you make of the fact that he's been silent about this? He's going to have to say something eventually, but it's been almost 24 hours, and this has been the dominant story that his close pal here is just completely eviscerating his big agenda bill. DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yeah. Obviously, it's not a welcome development for the White House, for Thune, for Johnson. You see them scrambling up on Capitol Hill to push back on it. You see the White House trying to ascribe ulterior motives to Musk's thinking here. But it's not a welcome development.

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Now to Kristen's point, obviously, obviously Donald Trump doesn't want this to be the thing like Trump versus Musk. We've seen this coming for months, right? We all remember the Time magazine cover when it was Musk at the rest of the desk and not Trump. It was like, whoa, this is going to upset him, but he didn't want to take that on either.

He is a huge, huge political donor. He's the richest man in the world. He has been a stalwart of an ally to Donald Trump. I'm sure he's not looking to mess with any of that, and he'd rather deal with Musk on the side, rather than make him the center ring of the circus.

RAJU: And as the NOTUS headline put it, it's like mommy and daddy are fighting.

SEUNG MIN KIM: EXACTLY, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, AP. I'll be interesting to see how much influence Elon Musk's opposition actually has on Republican lawmakers, because in terms of politics, he was really influential, mostly because of his allegiance and closeness to Donald Trump. And now that he's officially out of government, and he has also claimed that he's kind of out of political spending for now, after what happened in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race.

I'm not sure yet at this point how much that moves Republican senators. I mean, obviously people like Rand Paul will use what he said to bolster their position about this bill's impact on the national debt. But -- and a lot of people who have -- who raised the similar concerns that Elon had -- Elon Musk has about the tax credits for the green products. I mean, they had those anyway for their own kind of parochial concerns.

RAJU: Sure.

KIM: But it'll be really interesting to see if that, you know, if it really does move the needle at all.

RAJU: And just these are where the concerns are right now. This hour, the Senate Republicans are meeting behind closed doors to try to figure out how to move ahead on this bill. They're still ways away from getting to an agreement, but they got to make those decisions quickly if they want this on the floor of the Senate. By the end of the month, there's a big meeting in the White House this afternoon with the key Senate Finance Committee Republicans with Donald Trump.

But this is where the concerns are among Republicans. Many of them are concerned about the Medicaid cuts that are coming. That new CBO analysis says roughly 11 million people could lose their health insurance, a large part because those Medicaid cuts that are in there, but also other healthcare cuts as well. And there's people worried about how this is grow the national deficit. This is, you know, roughly $2.5 trillion or so deficits over the next decade. You see those members there. Others are worried about how this would impact the green energy tax credit. So, even though Elon Musk --

JACKIE KUCINICH, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE BOSTON GLOBE: Elon Musk is one of those.

RAJU: Elon Musk is one of those, exactly, as the Speaker of the House pointed out yesterday. But clear, there are a lot of issues that are, you know, regardless of Musk, there are problems with getting this bill, getting these members on the same side. So how is Trump going to be able to get these members on his side?

KUCINICH: We know he's spoken. He's been on the phone, right? He's been talking to someone like Howley, who's one of the ones that is concerned about Medicaid and he's saying that they're not going to cut Medicaid. Does that mean that it -- but does that functionally mean it comes out of the bill? We'll have to see. I mean that -- and that's where, you know, what is actually taken out. Will they --

RAJU: But they go too far?

(CROSSTALK)

KUCINICH: -- so we the freedom caucus, exactly. But I will say, really quick, going back to Musk and the -- you're not seeing -- sometimes Trump doesn't have to attack his detractors, because the chorus around him goes after them. You're not seeing people really go after Musk, particularly among members of Congress who might want to back the president.

And I think that's because he could speak with his wallet, right? Because he did say in one of those tweets that the -- something about like the midterms or next November we'll see who will go after the members who betray America or something. I'm paraphrasing greatly here. But that's where he could have influence, and even if he loses, he could still make things very expensive for Republicans that get that are in his crosshairs.

RAJU: Have you seen it?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: I think that the downstream impact of what his bank account represents, is a legitimate political concern as it pertains to him personally. I think the broader issue right now that what happened yesterday with Musk and his like social media missile, if you will, or missiles. And I'm not even going to try to paraphrase because --

(CROSSTALK)

MATTINGLY: Lot of credit is due there is what it says about the broader view that the White House position is an outlier when it comes to the bill's effect to deficits annually and debt over 10 years. Once again, the CBO comes out saying, 2.3 -- $2.4 trillion I think on net over 10 years. There's not a single nonpartisan analysis, even if you take into account dynamic growth, which is always kind of the Republican beef with the CBO.

RAJU: Basically, the economy will grow --

MATTINGLY: Yes, and that will drive up -- that economic activity will drive up tax receipts. Will start filling in the gap there. There will be kind of a dynamic effect that comes from that. By the way, CBO director is a Republican who served in a Republican administration, who was picked by a Republican chairman --

RAJU: Despite what Trump said.

MATTINGLY: Sort of put that out there.

RAJU: Yeah.

MATTINGLY: But not just the CBO, every scorekeeper, nonpartisan, some that lean right, some that lean left, coming up with the same, it's going to have a significant effect. Musk undercuts what has been a very clear, concerted and aggressive effort over the course of the last several days by the White House to push back on this. And not just push back, but just unequivocally say, this isn't going to add anything to the debt, not at all. And we can prove it based on our first term and based on these 15 different factors.

[12:10:00]

It's difficult to continue making that claim when four Republicans in the Senate are saying, we don't believe you. House Freedom Caucus members were saying, told you several times, and it was fascinating to watch every time. We don't believe you. And Elon Musk is saying, I don't believe you.

RAJU: That's such a good point. And look at the end of the day, where are the votes, right? There's -- how do -- who they negotiate with? Did the White House decide to cut a deal with those members on the far-right, try to cut spending even more, or do they try to go after some of the more moderate members and say, try to get the far-right to roll essentially, give the moderate members what they want.

One of the people to watch here is Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. She is someone who is always a swing vote, and she is uncertain where she ultimately will come down on this bill. I had a chance to talk to her yesterday about her concerns, about whether she could get behind this bill and if she's comfortable with the cuts are now being proposed as part of this plan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI (R-AK): What we've been hearing mostly from Alaskans, is on the Medicaid side, concerns that there may be significant cuts to Medicaid that would further deny access to the healthcare. That's probably the biggest -- hearing a little bit on the energy tax credits. As you know, obviously a great deal of focus on an oil and natural gas in the state, but also on the clean energy side as well. And so, those are probably the two top tier issues.

RAJU: Well, that will -- those need to be changed the Medicaid, I assume it's the work requirements and the phase out of the energy tax credits, so that maybe changed for doing your support?

MURKOWSKI: Well, I think what we're doing now is going through this process. We're just kind of beginning that now in the -- in the Senate, and I've made clear that I think these investments that we have made as a country in some of these clean energy technologies, we're seeing that play forward in a lot of states. And so, let's be smart about these. Let's make sure that if you're going to do phase outs of this, that they're reasonable phase outs.

So, I'm going to be advocating for that, and again, I'm going to be advocating when it comes to access to healthcare, to make sure that Alaskans and people around the country are not impacted in a negative way. I do think it's important that as we're looking at this. We not lose sight of the fact that what we're trying to do is ensure that with extension of the tax cuts from the 2017 bill that we do not impose on people from Alaska to Maine, a level of increased taxation.

RAJU: And you need a fair amount of work, in your opinion, to get your support.

MURKOWSKI: Well, right now, we've got some work to do to make sure that Alaskans are not going to be negatively impacted when it comes particularly things like Medicaid, and also some other priorities that we've been honing-in on.

RAJU: And then July 4, is that a reasonable timeframe to get this passed or?

MURKOWSKI: Ask me on July 3.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU: Yeah. That's the big question, July 3. But look, this is also a big question, right? At the beginning of this year, there was a big debate in the Senate GOP versus House GOP. She can split it up into two bills, get a quick legislative victory on immigration, and now push the tax issues, push the spending cuts until later. They decided to put this all-in-one big boat, and now they're dealing with issues in both wings of the Republican conference.

KIM: Right. I mean, on the one hand, it is true that if you want to kill a bill, the way to do it is slow it down. So that's why the Republican leadership ultimately wanted to do one big, beautiful bill and try to cram everyone's priorities into this one piece of legislation and have it effectively be the -- like the one and only train leaving the station and to kind of get everyone on board.

But with such small, narrow majorities in both the House and the Senate, just the difficulty of getting everyone to agree on when it comes to immigration spending, when it comes to tax credits, when it comes to, you know, what it does to Medicaid. It is just a near impossible task. And how John Thune threads the needle. How Trump -- what Trump's influence will be on senators? Because, obviously, senators are not House members that are a little less likely to be kind of, you know, have their arms twisted by the president United States. Well, that will be the big key question for the next several weeks.

RAJU: And then let's go back to the House. But the question is going to be, is going to be too big to fail? That's the argument the White House is going to make. You have to approve it because you're going to get nothing if you kill it.

All right, coming up. Stuck in rewind. We have new reporting on the House Republican push to put a former president in the spotlight with new investigations. Stay with us.

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RAJU: More than five months into President Trump's second term, Republicans on Capitol Hill are aggressively pursuing investigations into allegations of corruption and cover ups. Nope, not about Donald Trump.

[12:20:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): We can look at the folks who were supposedly making the decision. One thing we know for sure, wasn't Joe Biden.

REP. JAMES COMER (R-KY): We're going to bring in everybody that we think had anything to do with the decision-making process as to how these executive orders and pardons were signed using the autopen.

REP. RONNY JACKSON (R-TX): I have a question. Did Hunter Biden sign his own pardon? I mean, you know, who was signing all this, this legislation and this kind of stuff?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: We have new reporting on their next steps, investigating the former president. Annie Grayer reports these probes are picking up steam. This week, members of the House Judiciary Committee will interview the former Hunter Biden special counsel.

Annie joins us live from the Capitol. So, Annie, what are they hoping to accomplish with his interview of David Weiss and with all these investigations?

ANNIE GRAYER, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Manu, Republicans have a lot of questions for Weiss, and that's because they have long claimed. The criminal investigation into Hunter Biden was riddled with political interference and special treatment of the former president's son. And a lot has happened since Republicans last spoke to Weiss two years ago. Former President Biden pardoned his son, and the criminal charges against Hunter have been dropped.

So just the fact that this interview has been scheduled for this Friday, shows that there is new momentum on Capitol Hill to revisit these investigations now that we are in a Republican led Washington. Now separately, House Oversight Chair James Comer is renewing his investigation into former President Biden's decline and the alleged cover up. He tried to interview Biden's doctor and former key aides right after Biden's disastrous debate performance in 2024, but those interview requests went nowhere.

And now Comer tells me all of those witnesses have been in touch with the committee and are in the process of getting those interviews scheduled for as soon as this month. And beyond those interviews, Comer wants to look at the executive orders that Biden signed at the end of his term, as well as the use of the autopen.

Now, Manu, you remember this very well last Congress, Republicans led by Comer and Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, tried to lead an impeachment -- led an impeachment inquiry into former President Biden. And they did not find any evidence of an impeachable offense, and they did not have the votes for impeachment.

Now, as I was reporting this story, I spoke with Comer, who reflected on some of the challenges of investigating Biden's family business dealings. I want to read for you some of that quote. Now he said, quote, the money laundering and the shell companies, the average American couldn't understand that. I mean, that was hard to understand. You know, I did not do a good job explaining that. But Manu, Comer tells me now, he thinks there's a lot of momentum around this investigation into Biden's decline, and at this time, it's going to be different.

RAJU: A very interesting acknowledgement from the Republican chairman of the committee as they were leading that impeachment probe that did not lead to an impeachment vote in the House. Annie Grayer, excellent reporting. Thank you so much.

And my panel is back. So just to look at the investigation so far, so you see on your screen into Biden allegations of political interference alleged into the Hunter Biden case, the cover up of Biden's mental fitness, the alleged cover up, that's what they're looking at, the use of the autopen, particularly on executive orders. What do you make of this effort?

CHALIAN: Well, the other key difference from when Comer was trying to rally votes around impeachment now is that Joe Biden is no longer a president United States.

RAJU: Yeah.

CHALIAN: So, it's a very backward-looking exercise. One that will do wonders to enthuse their base and drive-up online donations and get President Trump very engaged and excited on Truth Social about the autopen. No doubt about it. There's political value in base politics here. But what exactly are Republicans going to sell to the public more broadly, come November 2026 when they're trying to defend their majority about this effort? I think that remains to be seen.

RAJU: It's a very good point.

MATTINGLY: The quote that any read is actually really great, because he's like -- actually, like, we sucked when we tried to do, but now, we've got it, for what?

RAJU: Right, right.

MATTINGLY: To what end and what outcome. And I think Dave makes about the most salient point here, which is the incentives very much aligned with doing this in politics today, particularly as a member of the House, particularly on that committee. Yeah, that's probably as simple as that.

RAJU: And as you guys were saying, this is energizing. Donald Trump, shall we say, 2:28 am, this morning. I'm sure you were all avidly checking your Truth Social accounts because of notification came up from Donald Trump saying, with the exception of the rigged presidential election of 2020, of course, there's no evidence to support that part. He said the autopen is the biggest political scandal in American history.

So, the autopen, just so folks know, there's no law prohibiting the use of an autopen for pardons. DOJ -- the 2005 DOJ memo that authorizes the use of the autopens to sign bills into law that's been used by presidents, even including Trump and Obama and Biden have used the autopen as well, but Trump has something to keep him animated.

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KIM: I'm so glad I turned off my notifications while I was trying to sleep.

RAJU: Silence, keep on silent.

KIM: Right, right. Put him on silent. Just so we can all get a good night's sleep. But I think part of the reason why Republicans feel this renewed momentum for these Biden investigations is because Trump himself is keeping that momentum alive. I mean, if you listen to the president speak as much as, you know, I do and other White House reporters do. There barely goes a public appearance where he doesn't reference the former president in some sort of negative fashion.

You know, he blames him for, you know, all issues of the day, whether it's blaming him with no evidence for the war in Ukraine, or, you know, somewhat rightly blaming him for, you know, inflation and other matters. So, the president -- the current president is continued to be fixated on Joe Biden. And that's, again, what's giving momentum and giving fuel to the House Republicans and thinking, yes, we do have the momentum now into continuing these investigations.

RAJU: As I was looking at that, there are also now looking into perhaps other things. Is what Democrats are calling for to do investigations and well, there's a $400 million super luxury jet from Qatar. There was Trump's private dinner for buyers of his crypto meme coin, among a whole host of other issues, like the signal chat as well, the leak of that. But this was also similar to the first two years of Trump, when there were a whole host of controversies that Republicans. I guess, it's not surprising that they did not --

KUCINICH: In this particular committee, this is why they exist, right? If they -- if the president in the White House is the, you know, not the president of their party. They will look into something with Democrats. I mean, name it. And Democrats do the same thing when they control the House with the Oversight Committee. This is very -- this is airplane to type. This is what -- this is kind of the feature of this committee, you know, going back years and years and years.

RAJU: Meantime, the former Biden White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre just announced that she has a new book coming out. It's going to be called A look inside a broken White House, which is part of the title. There you can see that on your screen. She also apparently is telling people that she's not going to be a Democrat anymore. She's an independent. What do you make of this?

MATTINGLY: Honestly, I think one of the interesting elements, given that just the sheer amount and volume of news related to that White House where she was the top spokesperson over the course of the entirety of the period that is being reported on at a high volume right now, is you just haven't heard her name, read her name, heard about her at all. And by the way, I'm not trying to like, imply anything in that in terms of like what she is. I have no idea.

What I do think it underscores and what I think is very well known is that there was a very close circle of advisors around President Biden. She was not one of them. She was a senior advisor. She had a very public facing role, and an important one at that. What she saw and what she wants to put in this book related to that, or the broader political system or the Democratic Party, I have no idea. But I do think it's notable that you just haven't seen her involved in the conversations or any of the stuff that's been reported in the last couple months.

RAJU: Yeah. We'll see how much dirt she decides to lay out here.

(CROSSTALK)

CHALIAN: The publisher says in its description that she is writing about the betrayal of the Democratic Party during the three-week period when Biden had to make the decision to get out of the race. That, to me, indicates she's going to remain pretty loyal to Joe Biden. This book, when I read that and pretty questioning of the Democratic Party establishment.

RAJU: Just show you the divide that still lingers after Joe Biden is handling of his final months in office. All right, coming up. A major reversal. The Trump administration ends the requirement for hospitals to provide emergency abortion care. That's coming up.

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