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Inside Politics

Trump: "Very Surprised" At Elon Musk's Criticism Of Policy Bill; Trump: Travel Ban About Getting "Bad" People Out Of Country; Trump: "Elon And I Had A Great Relationship"; Trump: "Some Additional Fighting" Will Go On In Ukraine; Trump Meeting With Germany's New Chancellor At White House. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 05, 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]

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: It's the biggest cut in the history of our country. We've never cut. It's about 1.6 trillion in cuts. It's the biggest tax cut. Tax, you would say people -- peoples' taxes will go way down. But it's the biggest tax cut in history. We are doing things in that bill that are unbelievable. And when you look at why we are doing for small businesses, for people, for middle income people, all of the things that we're doing, nobody has ever seen anything like it.

And you know, Elon is upset because we took the EV mandate, and you know, which was a lot of money for electric vehicles. And you know, they're having a hard time the electric vehicles, and they want us to pay billions of dollars in subsidy. And, you know, I -- Elon knew this from the beginning. He knew it for a long time ago. That's been in there. That's been.

I would say, J.D., that hasn't changed. That's been right from the beginning. I think Mr. Secretary, that hasn't changed at all right from the beginning. But I know that disturbed him. He wanted, and rightfully, you know, he recommended somebody from that he, I guess, knew very well. I'm sure he respected him, but to run NASA, and I didn't think it was appropriate, and he happened to be a Democrat, like totally Democrat.

And I say, you know, look, we won. We get certain privileges. And one of the privileges we have to appoint a Democrat. NASA is very important. We have great people. General Caine is going to be picking somebody with our -- will be -- will be checking them out, seeing but he wanted that person, a certain person, and we said no.

And, you know, I can understand why he's upset. Remember, he was here for a long time. You saw a man who was very happy when he stood behind the oval desk, and even with the black eye, I said, you want a little makeup? We'll get you a little makeup. But he said, no, I don't think so, which is interesting and very nice. He wants to be who he is. So, you could make that statement too, I guess.

Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if it went well anymore. I was surprised because you were here. Everybody in this room practically was here as we had a wonderful send off. He said wonderful things about me. You couldn't have nicer. Said the best thing. He's worn the hat. Trump was right about everything, and I am right about the great big, beautiful bill. We call it a great big, beautiful bill because that's what it is.

And again, biggest tax cuts in history, biggest economic development moves anywhere. We've never done anything like it. Business is spurred. And I don't know if you've seen the numbers, but the numbers came out even the CBO, which is run by Democrats, said that we're going to be doing, you know, I'd like you to discuss it. The 2.8 trillion, that CBO. This is some, a group of people that are Democrats. They're very hostile to us. They just came out with phenomenal numbers. What it does? You want to mention that, Scott?

SCOTT BESSENT, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY: Yes, sir. So, what we've seen is we keep hearing from the CBO that there's going to be a large deficit from the bill, which we disagree with. But using the CBO scoring, they came out and scored the tariff revenue. We think it will be the minimum of 2.8 trillion over the 10-year window, which actually puts the bill in surplus. If you include the tariff revenue, which they won't do.

TRUMP: It gives you a tremendous surplus. But we're not allowed to use that for some reason. They say scoring. Nobody knows what scoring means. Maybe a couple of people, but nobody. Somebody sits in the background. They say, well, we're not going to allow that. They're not allowing other things that we have that are tremendously profitable for our country.

But if you saw the other day CNBC, they came out with numbers, and the people on the show, very good people. I've watched them for a long time. They couldn't believe the numbers. How good they are. The numbers were incredible. And that was personal income, and also very low inflation. We have very low inflation. We're down to 2 percent now, and maybe even lower than that.

And when I took it over, was a mess. Remember, we had the worst inflation, probably in the history of our country. They say 48 years. But let's say that's, I think it's worse than that. So, we had the worst inflation in the history of our country under the Biden administration.

Now we're down to a beautiful number, 2 percent. You'd actually like to keep it there. Better than zero is 2 percent. It's going down maybe to one and 1 percent is like perfect. That's perfect. You don't want to have zero for certain reasons that are -- that nobody is very interested to listen to. But we have almost perfect inflation.

Grocery prices are down, everything. Remember, eggs, eggs, we weren't going to buy another egg for the next 20 years. It was so expensive, right? Remember, you guys all hit me about eggs. Eggs have come down 400 percent. Everybody has eggs now. They have an eggs for breakfast again.

But if you look at gasoline, very important. I think always the most important because it's the energy is a big -- the biggest factor. That's what happened. He screwed up our energy policy, and everything went up because energy went up. But now energy is way down. And they have states where at $1.98 a gallon for gasoline.

[12:05:00]

So, the costs of way -- have come way down. And one of the things I ran on was that I ran on the border. We have the best border in the history of our country. 99.99 percent, it was -- last week, three people came in, two of them for medical reasons. We let them in because one of them had a heart attack. I think it was a nice thing to do, and one of them had something else.

So, we've never had -- I had very good numbers for four years, but we really topped it. And I want to thank Kristi and Tom Homan. They've done a fantastic job, but nobody mentions that anymore.

Remember, a few months ago, the border was a total disaster. People were coming in by the hundreds of thousands of people a day, a week, a month. I mean, we had a month, 2 million people came in in one month. The border was being overrun and a lot of bad people, criminals, murderers, drug dealers. We had some of the worst people in the world coming in from all over the world. It's totally closed. And you know what? People are coming into our country, but they're coming in legally.

So, we've done a great job. Elon knew that. Elon endorsed me very strongly. He actually went up and campaigned for me. I think I would have won. Susie would say, I would have won Pennsylvania easily anyway, even if the governor ran, the real governor, not the governor from Minnesota, who's -- I mean, he's a sick puppy, that guy, that poor guy, feels sorry for him, but they made a bad choice with him.

But if you pick Shapiro, or anybody else, I spoke to him recently about his, you know, his house being set on fire, which was terrible. But if they picked him, I would have won Pennsylvania. I want to buy a lot, but I'm very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here, better than you people. He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it.

All of a sudden, he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out that we're going to have to cut the EV mandate, because that's billions and billions of dollars, and it really is unfair. We want to have cars of all types, electric. We want to have electric, but we want to have a gasoline combustion. We want to have different. We want to have hybrids. We want to have all. We want to be able to sell everything.

And when that was cut, and Congress wanted to cut it. He became a little bit different, and I can understand that, but he knew every aspect of this bill. He knew it better than almost anybody, and he never had a problem until right after he left. And if you saw the statements he made about me, which I'm sure you can get very easily, it's very fresh on tape. He said the most beautiful things about me, and he hasn't said bad about me personally, but I'm sure that'll be next. But I'm very disappointed in Elon. I've helped Elon a lot.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I just want to clarify. Did he raise any of these concerns with you privately before he raised them publicly? And this is the guy you put in charge of cutting spending. Should people not take him seriously about spending? Now are you saying this is all sour grapes?

TRUMP: No, he worked hard, and he did a good job. And I'll be honest, I think he misses the place. I think he got out there and all of a sudden, he wasn't in this beautiful Oval Office, and he was -- and he's got nice offices too. But there's something about this. When I was telling the chancellor, this is where it is.

People come in here, even from Germany. They come in and they walk into the Oval Office, and it's just a special place. It's World War I. It started and it ended here in. World War II and so many other things. Everything big comes right from this, this beautiful space. It's now much more beautiful than it was six months ago.

A lot of good things are happening in this room. And I'll tell you, it's not -- he's not the first. People leave my administration, and they love us, and then at some point they miss it so badly, and some of them embrace it, and some of them actually become hostile. I don't know what it is. It's sort of Trump derangement syndrome, I guess they call it.

But we have it with others too. They leave and they wake up in the morning, and the glamor is gone. The whole world is different, and they become hostile. I don't know what it is, someday you'll write a book about, and you'll let us know. Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: The Ukraine (Ph) president speaking of ending wars in this room. You were very critical of Vladimir Putin a couple of days ago. What kind of play is he playing from your perspective?

TRUMP: Well, look, he's he got hit. He's been doing hitting, so I understand it, but he got hit hard and I don't think he's playing games. I think he -- I've always said he wanted the whole thing. I thought he wanted the entire -- everything having to do with Ukraine. That's something that would have never happened if I were president.

[12:10:00]

The election was rigged. I didn't get to be president, but I got to be president now. And I think it's a much more important presidency, other than a couple of things like that. The war would have never -- would have never happened. The war with Ukraine, with Putin would have never happened, ever. Not even a chance. And it didn't happen for four years, and it wasn't thought of.

I used to talk to him about Ukraine a lot. It was the apple of his eye, but he would have never done what he did. And I think mistakes were made by him, but I think mistakes were made by other people. The president should have never allowed that war. Biden should have never allowed that war to happen.

If you had the right guy in here, that war would have never happened. Israel would have never happened with Hamas. That would have never happened. The attack on Israel would have never happened because Iran was broke. They had no money. They had no money to give to Hamas or Hezbollah or anybody else. And all of that would have never happened. Inflation wouldn't have happened. It was caused mostly by energy.

And the Biden administration messed up my great energy policy. We were down into the 190 a gallon, and it would have never happened. It was caused by energy and their bad spending on the green new scam and other things that they spent on.

But all of those things would have never happened. But maybe most importantly, the war chancellor with Russia, would never have happened with Ukraine. It was something that would have, you know, I dealt with Putin a lot. There was no chance, zero. And, you know, a lot of people say, how do you know. For four years it didn't happen. There was never a chance of it happening. And he understood the consequences.

Now, it's a shame. And when you see all of those people, they came out with a report today that millions of people -- millions of people have died much more than people thought. And I've been saying that for a long time. The amount of death in that war is far greater than the news has been reporting, or that, frankly, that either side has been reported. It's a very sad thing. And I can tell you just speaking for the chancellor, because we speak about it. He feels the same way he wants to see it ended. Would you like to say, chancellor?

FRIEDRICH MERZ, GERMAN CHANCELLOR: Absolutely. I'm here, Mr. President, to talk with you later on, on how we could contribute to that goal. And we all are looking for measures and for instruments to bring this terrible war to an end. And may I remind you that we are having June 6 tomorrow. This is D-Day anniversary when the Americans once ended a war in Europe. And I think this is in your hand, in specific in ours.

TRUMP: That was not a pleasant day for you?

MERZ: No. That was not a pleasant well in the long run. Mr. President, this was the liberation of my country from Nazi dictatorship.

TRUMP: That's true.

MERZ: And we know what we owe you, but this is the reason why I'm saying that America is again in a very strong position to do something on this war and ending this war. So, let's talk about what we can do jointly, and we are ready to do what we can. And you know that we gave support to Ukraine and that we are looking for more pressure on Russia. The European Union did, and we should talk about that.

TRUMP: We will talk about it. You know, it's good timing. The numbers for our country are through the roof. The economic numbers because of the election and because of tariffs and other things, a lot of things, but we've had some of the best numbers we've ever had. They were reported yesterday, the day before, and even today, country is doing really well.

I think that one of the things you'd be most interested in is that, six months ago, we were having a hard time getting anybody to join our military. I mean, they just couldn't do it. The numbers were record low. We couldn't get people to join the military. It wasn't me, is before I got there, the past administration. But six months ago, a year ago, the numbers were record low. You couldn't get them to join, that included the police, and he couldn't get them to join.

Now, we just hit the highest number in the history of our country, we think, but very close, but the highest in the history of our country, recruitment, joining the army, navy, air force, marines, coast guard, police forces all over the world.

MERZ: What you do for that? What was the --

TRUMP: Spirit, they love our country. Again, you're going to do the same thing, spirit. We have great spirit is back in our country. And it's very simple. You know, it was only Susie six months ago, right? That you got reports. You're the one that released them, that you couldn't get anybody to join the military, and now we're stopped. Every service now is packed, and we have waiting lists of people trying to get in as good as we've ever had in the history of our country. So that's an honor. That's a great honor.

[12:15:00]

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: You've asked. You've had enough.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Mr. President, so would you consider to put more sanctions on Russia? Because this discussion is going on now for weeks and months, and you tweeted about it once, but then nothing happens.

TRUMP: When I see the moment, we're not going to make a deal, when this thing won't stop. That moment -- yeah, it's in my brain, the deadline. When I see the moment, where it's not going to stop. And I'm sure you're going to do the same thing. Will be very, very, very tough. And it could be on both countries to be honest, you know, it takes two to tango. But there'll be -- we're going to be very tough, whether it's Russia or anybody else. We're going to be very tough.

That's a bloodbath that's going on over there. And when I see the moment where, I say, well, they're going to just keep fighting. You know, I gave the analogy yesterday when I spoke to President Putin. I had a two hour and 15-minute call with him.

Sometimes -- and this is me speaking, maybe in a negative sense, but sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy. They hate each other, and they're fighting in a park, and you try and pull them apart. They don't want to be pulled. Sometimes you're better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart.

And I gave that analogy to Putin yesterday. I said, president, maybe you're going to have to keep fighting and suffering a lot, because both sides are suffering, before you pull them apart, before they're able to be pulled apart. But it's a pretty known analogy. You have two kids, they fight, fight, fight. Sometimes you let them fight for a little while. You see it in hockey. You see it in sports. The referees let him go for a couple of seconds, let him go for a little while before you pull him apart.

And maybe, maybe -- and I said it, and maybe that's a negative because we're saying go. But a lot of bad blood. There's some bad blood between the two. I have to deal with it, and the chancellor has to deal with it. It's incredible. The level of -- there's a great hatred between those two -- between those two men, but between the warring parties, great hatred.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: When you say and believe, apparently, that there's no immediate peace.

TRUMP: What?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: That there's no immediate peace? There were no --

TRUMP: I can't. I'd love to have immediate if I could. If I could, but we don't -- we don't have immediate. You know, it's like -- I'd love to have that. I'd like it to start right now. We would leave a room, if we knew the work of Edwards, would say, forget about you guys, forget about trade, right? We'd say, let's go settle it.

There's some additional fighting that's going to go on. You know, he was -- he attacked. And they attacked pretty harshly. They went deep into Russia, and he actually told me, I mean, I made it very clear. He said, we have no choice but to attack based on that, and it's probably not going to be pretty. I don't like it. I said, don't do it. You shouldn't do it. You should stop it.

But again, there's a lot of hatred. And you know, I'm very proud of the fact that with India and Pakistan, I was able to stop that. And those are nuclear powers, and that would have really -- that was getting close to being out of hand.

And I spoke to some very talented people on both sides, very good people on both sides. And I said, you know, we're dealing with you on trade, Pakistan and India right now. I said, we're not going to deal with you on trade if you're going to go shooting each other and whipping out nuclear weapons, that maybe even affect us, because you know that nuclear dust blows across oceans very quickly. It affects us.

And I said, if you're going to do that, we're not going to do any trade deals. And you know what, I got that war stopped. Now I hope we don't go back, and we find out that they started, but I don't think they will. They were both good. They were well represented. I want to congratulate both countries, because as you know, the leader of India, who's a great guy, was here a few weeks ago. He had some great talks. We're doing a trade deal.

And Pakistan, likewise, they have very, very strong leadership. Some people won't like when I say that, but you know, it is what it is, and they stopped that war. Now, am I going to get credit? I'll never get credit for anything. They don't give me credit for anything. But nobody else could have done it. I stopped it. I was very proud of that.

I wish we could do the same thing with Ukraine and Russia. And at some point, it will happen. I believe that. And if it doesn't happen, or if I see somebody is out of line, if Russia is out of line, we'll be -- you'll be amazed how tough.

[12:20:00]

Remember this, they like to say that I'm friends with -- I'm not friends with anybody. I'm friends with you. I'm not friends with that. I want the right thing to happen for our country, for everybody, for humanity, but I'm the one that stopped the pipeline. It's called Nord Stream 2. Until I came along, nobody ever heard. Not one person in this room ever heard of Nord Stream 2. You probably did, because it went to German. He is the only one --

MERZ: No, this was a mistake.

TRUMP: But I stopped him. I stopped it. Yeah, and you've said that openly. It was a mistake because, and I used to go with Angela. I'd say, well, wait a minute. We're spending all this money to defend you against Russia, and then you're giving Russia billions of dollars a month. What kind of a deal is that?

You know, which was -- but you said it better than anybody else. I appreciate it. But I'm the one that stopped it. And that was the biggest economic development job, if you want to call it that, in the history, think of it, in the history of Russia. That was a massive -- it's the biggest pipeline in the world, going to go all over Europe, not only to Germany.

You know, they're Germany, but then they were branching off all over the Europe. Nobody ever heard of, not one person of you heard of it. And I stopped. It was dead. And then they say, I'm friends with Putin. I got along with him. He respected me. I respected him. It would have never happened, but I stopped Nord Stream 2.

When Biden came in almost the first week, he approved it, he let it be built. And then they say that I wasn't tough on Russia. Putin said to me, you know, you're not tough on Russia. You stop the biggest, most important job we've ever done. You stopped it. And Biden came in and he let it be built. And I'll tell you what, I will never forget the day. I had it totally stopped. They weren't building. They gave up on it. They weren't able to. And then Biden came in and he let it build. I couldn't believe it.

OK, one or two questions more, please. Any questions, any question for the chancellor? Go ahead, for the chancellor. I like his answers much better.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Would you continue to support Ukraine?

TRUMP: Yeah, I'm with Ukraine. We just signed a big deal on rare earth with Ukraine. And we wanted -- I want to, you know, what 'm for stopping, killing. Really, that's what I'm for. Again, a war that would have never started, should have never started. I want to see the killing step.

We spent $350 billion much more than Europe, but Europe spent a lot also, and they spent way over 100 billion.

MERZ: Yeah.

TRUMP: So, you're talking about close to $500 billion went into that whole thing. And it's not even the money, and I know with you too, it's a lot of money, but it's the death that's because we went to the Middle East. I went last week to the Middle East. We took in $5.1 trillion that's many, many times. That's 30, 40 times, 50 times more than what we're talking about. It's five-point. Think of that $5.1 trillion of investment with one trip that lasted four days.

So, it's not the money, it's a little bit money, but not the money. The big thing, the big thing is the death. The death of -- and really the decimation, you've lost a whole culture. You know, Ukraine had the most beautiful terrorists. They call them terrorists, little towers, beautiful towers, the most beautiful in the world.

They're all now laying on their side, blown to smithereens. It will never happen again. They've taken away the culture of a country. They've taken away the heritage of a country. It's a terrible thing, but most importantly again, is the death. 5000 plus people a week, soldiers are being killed. He doesn't want that, and I don't want that.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: One more.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Mr. President, do you support the Graham bill on putting high tariffs on China?

TRUMP: I haven't looked at it, but they'll be guided by me. That's the way it's supposed to be. They're going to be guided by me. No, I haven't looked at it. It's a bill on sanctions, et cetera. When it -- I'm a very quick study, at the right time, I'll do what I want to do, but it could very well be OK. I have to see. But they're waiting for me to decide on what to do, and I'll know maybe very soon. It's a harsh bill. Yeah, very harsh.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I would like to have a question to the chancellor as well, because do you agree with the analogy the president have made on the war between Russia and Ukraine as being a fight between two kids? Is that how you view that as well? And how do you -- what do you actually want the U.S. president to do in this?

MERZ: Well, I think we both agree on this war and how terrible this war is going on, and we are both looking for ways to stop it very soon. And I told the president before we came in that he is the key person in the world who can really do that now by putting pressure on Russia. And we will have this debate later on again, how we can proceed jointly between the Europeans and the Americans.

[12:25:00] And I think we are all in and we are having the duty to do something on that now, to stop it after three and a half years, which is really terrible. Look at the kids. The kids which were kidnapped from Ukraine to Russia. This is -- this is all terrible. And so, we are talking about instruments, measures, what we can do, and my personal view is clear on that. We are on the side of Ukraine, and we are trying to get them stronger and stronger just to make Putin stop this war. And this is our approach.

TRUMP: We get satellite pictures of the war field, and you don't even like to look at them, right?

MERZ: It's terrible.

TRUMP: So, there were bodies, arms, heads, legs, all over the place. And you've never seen anything like it. It's so ridiculous.

MERZ: And this is only by Russian weapons against Ukraine. This had never happened with Ukraine weapons against Russia. Never. Ukraine is only targeting military targets, not civilians, not private, not institute, not energy infrastructure. So, this is the difference and that's the reason why we are trying to do more on Russia, how to stop this war.

TRUMP: Well, in this case, I'm talking about the battlefield. You know, their soldiers on soldiers. But you could also say that too with the city, the cities are being hit also. So, it's a terrible, terrible thing. One -- somebody said --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No, I am just curious --

TRUMP: Because I think it's the biggest scandal, maybe in the last 100 years in this country. So, when I hear that word, I think it has to be discussed, because the fake news will try and, you know, hide it, and we can't do that, but go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Mr. President, you haven't covered any evidence that anything specific was signed without President Biden's knowledge, or by other people the administration acting illegally.

TRUMP: Well, I don't think Biden would know whether or not he signed it.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I'm asking if you've uncovered any information.

TRUMP: No. But I've uncovered, you know, the human mind. I was in a debate with the human mind, and I didn't think he knew what the hell he was doing. So, you know, it's just one of those things, one of those problems. We can't -- we can't ever allow that to happen to our country, the danger our country was in.

And I know some of the people that worked with him, radical left, horrible people. And I could give you the name of some of the people that use the autopen, because I'm here, and I ask questions about people that were here also. There are a lot of people that were here when that happened, and they're here right now. And they'll answer your question very accurately.

But I know some of the people that use that autopen, and those are not the people that had the same ideology. Is Joe Biden. These were radical left lunatics that used that, and they didn't get elected. He didn't get elected either, actually. Thank you very much, everybody.

(CROSSTALK)

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: We've been watching President Trump in the Oval Office with the German chancellor and a lot to get to here. But the most interesting and perhaps important issue, political issue and policy issue, is what President Trump said about his now former friend, at least, it seems, Elon Musk.

And I want to go to Alayna Treene at the White House. Alayna, it seems as though we saw kind of the unraveling of a bromance real time. And what our viewers saw was what it turned out to be one side of a fight. The other side was Elon Musk real time, using his platform X to respond and kind of push back on many of the things that President Trump said.

We're going to show our viewers what happened, but I want you to kind of give a sense of what brought us to this extraordinary moment just a few days after he gave a big, glowing goodbye to Elon Musk from the White House.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, it's not even a week, Dana, since we saw them both praise each other from the Oval Office. Days later now, and actually the first-time reporters are actually having the opportunity to ask the president about this.

Since that moment, we're now seeing this completely fraying relationship on full display. It's very remarkable given just how close I know, you know, my colleagues here at the White House and I know that for the president and Musk have been for months now, really him being one of the president's favorite people on this White House complex.

I want to give you a sense just of some of the key things I took away from the president's comments. Overall, though, I would note as well that his tone was strikingly somber when discussing this. And really, you could see that it saddened him almost. You could see kind of the emotion in his tone and on his face as he was discussing this.

He said, quote, I've always liked Elon. He said, he -- I was very surprised. He said he would have rather had him criticize him directly, that rather than the spending bill that the president has been working tirelessly with his team to try and muscle through Congress.