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Trump Reacts to Elon Musk Criticizing GOP Policy Bill; Trump Compares Russian War in Ukraine to "Two Young Children Fighting Like Crazy In A Park"; Elon Hits Back on Trump: "Such Ingratitude" For Help on Campaign. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired June 05, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: -- 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, rather than the spending bill that the president has been working tirelessly with his team to try and muscle through Congress.

He said -- and this to me was maybe the most notable quote from the president. He said, "Look, Elon and I had" -- had being a very key word here -- "had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore." He said he was very disappointed in Musk.

He went on to add that he, Musk, knew about the, quote, "inner workings" of the bill very intimately and claimed that he only started to take issue with it and had a problem with it once he left the administration, but also once he learned of the breadth of the electric vehicle mandate, really the credits that are being revoked in this bill that, of course, could and will impact Tesla.

We also did see, as you mentioned, Dana, Musk respond to this just moments ago on X. He had really been posting throughout the entire time the president was speaking. But then he did post -- made this one post linking to a video of the president making these comments about him and said, "Keep the EV mandates in the bill, but get rid of the pork and the rest of it."

He said, "You could have an ugly big bill or a slim and beautiful bill". So clearly showing actually at the top of that post, he said, quote, "Whatever," really showing, you know, where he stands on this all to say.

I mean, if you just look at months ago, particularly leading up to him being in the White House and then ever since, the president, you know, would parade Musk around Mar-a-Lago and his different properties with him, always had him by his side at the dinner table.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Right.

TREENE: Continued to allow him to walk into the Oval, you know, unannounced whenever he wanted. This is very far from that. And it's very unclear now where this relationship is going to go.

BASH: Well, I think we're watching where it's going and it's going pretty downhill, pretty fast.

Alayna, thank you so much.

I am joined here by some really terrific reporters. CNN's Kristen Holmes, Josh Dawsey of The Wall Street Journal, Zolan Kanno-Youngs of The New York Times and CNN's Kylie Atwood.

Let's just start by recapping one of the comments that President Trump made about Elon Musk.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You saw a man who was very happy when he stood behind the Oval Desk. And even with the black guy, I said, do 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 we're well anymore. I was surprised because you were here. Everybody in this room practically was here as we had a wonderful sendoff. 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.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BASH: And that's what this is all about right now. And I just want to make that clear to our viewers. I'm sure you understand that this relationship basically exploded yesterday when Elon Musk started really aggressively putting on his social media platform that this bill that he is desperate to get through the Senate after it passed the House is bad.

He wrote kill the bill and many other things. And so you just saw the president say what we just heard. He said, "People leave my administration. They love us. And then at some point they miss it so badly. Some of them embrace it. Some of them become hostile. Trump derangement syndrome."

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: So this is really fascinating because as of yesterday at the exact same time, maybe a few hours later into the afternoon, I spoke to a number of Trump's top advisers who still were unsure of how he was going to respond to Elon Musk. There were still a lot of questions.

He was raising questions with them as to, do you think this is just a business decision? Do you think he's lashing out at this because of these electric vehicle mandates? It's probably something he has to do now that he's leaving the government and it's all about the business. Obviously, Donald Trump likes to make things about money and business, kind of his way of saying, OK, maybe that's what he's doing here.

He was angry when the first tweet came out two days ago during the briefing, but then he also had a lot of questions as to where this was coming from, because he did believe that Elon knew about the EV mandate. His team does believe that this is all about business, all about the EV mandate, that this is all about him -- these credits that Elon Musk believes are unfair which he actually just --

BASH: And it's not just that it's big and full of pork and --

HOLMES: Right, it's not pork, it's not what he's saying there. But I think the most telling thing about this is that clearly we've hit a new marker since then, which is we had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore. And I can tell you that members of Trump's team have reached out to Elon Musk. No response. Donald Trump and Elon Musk have not spoken.

JOSH DAWSEY, POLITICAL INVESTIGATIONS REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Yes, and this was bubbling, though, for several months. Trump has said publicly, repeatedly, that he and Elon are close and vice versa.

[12:35:02]

But there's been lots of frustrations that have happened between the two men over political endorsements, over Elon trying to get a briefing of the Department of Defense, over China, over some of the other staff fights inside the White House. And Trump's team was ready to see Elon go. There's no doubt about it.

Trump himself wanted to have an event on Friday and try to have an amicable breakup here, in part because Elon is such a wealthy donor. He's the richest man in the world. He filled hundreds of millions of dollars for this campaign.

He is a political force to a large degree. He controls one of the main ways that Republicans communicate. I mean this -- unlike some of the relationships Trump has had, a breakup here could go -- could hurt him, too.

BASH: Yes.

DAWSEY: I mean, there really is a lot of caution here. But I think his people are trying to navigate --

BASH: Yes.

DAWSEY: -- OK, where are we going from here? Because we're playing with live, you know, live rounds.

BASH: And this is what you were referring to, you see on the screen. This is a video of the two of them in the Oval Office, which, by the way, I don't want to let it go unmentioned that the president made fun of the black eye that Elon Musk had. I mean, that was very clear that he wanted to get that in there. But when it comes to the substance of what we're talking about here, I also want to underscore that they are kind of saying the quiet part out loud with regard to Elon Musk's business interests. And the fact that there was even a question inside the White House, maybe by the president himself because he just said it in the Oval Office, that Elon Musk doesn't like this bill because it's not good for his business. The E.V. mandate, electric vehicle mandate goes away.

I mean, it's -- they're not even pretending that there's no conflict of interest here. And that was one of the things that Musk responded to on X Real Time. He said, "False. This bill was never" -- well, first he said that's not about that.

And then he said, "False. This bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it". That was in response to Trump saying he was disappointed with Musk because he knew the inner workings of this bill better than anyone sitting here.

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: You had the president in the Oval Office essentially say that Elon Musk's criticism is a matter of personal grievance. It's a matter of the fact that he thinks that this will hurt his business. Elon, up until this point, when he has shared criticism for this bill, has said that it's about undermining really the effort he took to cut federal bureaucracy, reduce the deficit as well. And he said that it's about sort of fiscal responsibility.

Here you have the president completely saying that that is not true and that it's really actually about somebody trying to protect his business, which is interesting also because Elon was with the administration when the Trump administration was rolling back EV subsidies that the Biden administration put forward as well. So that's another detail I add here.

But it's remarkable to see here just the shift in the past couple days. I asked the president last Friday about reports of Elon Musk's drug use as well. And he went out of his way to say that that is not a concern, that it's not troubling to him, that he still stands by Elon Musk. All of that now to this point where now you have criticism against a signature part of Trump's domestic agenda. And now he's saying, well, this is someone who's just worried about their business essentially.

BASH: Yes. I mean, yes, it's remarkable.

Let me go to Manu Raju who is on Capitol Hill, of course. Manu, the big question is how this is going to affect the votes? How this is going to sway the Republican senators? Are they going to listen to Donald Trump? Or are they going to listen to the man who, Josh, reminds us, has spent a lot of money on getting Republicans elected and has a very powerful platform?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, some will listen to Trump, some will listen to Musk. And the real fear among Republican leaders is that there will be enough who will listen to Musk that actually could scuttle this bill, particularly amongst on the right flank of the Senate GOP and really the House GOP, because the Senate is going to make changes to the House plan.

And if they pass it out of the Senate, they'll have to send it back to the House. So those Conservative hardliners who had already been deeply concerned about the impacts on the debt and deficit by this bill, will they be swayed by Elon Musk when it comes back to them for a final vote, especially if senators make changes to the bill that did not cut federal spending as much as the House bill.

If they pare back some of those cuts in order to win over some of the more moderate members who are worried about the spending cuts, that could upset the calculus. And that is one big reason why the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, is keenly aware and very concerned about Elon Musk's comments.

In fact, he does plan, Dana, to speak with Elon Musk today. They've been playing phone tag today, but they plan to connect at some point today about this criticism. This is what he just told reporters moments ago about the message he wants to deliver to Musk.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: I just want to make sure he fully understands what the legislation is and that there is no correlation between the size of the bill and how beautiful it is.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

[12:40:16]

RAJU: So the hope among the Speaker is that he would -- that Musk will pull back his criticism. But after listening to Donald Trump here, it's hard to see how Musk may do that. But there is so much frustration, Dana, among some of the more Conservative members.

One of them yesterday, Eli Crane, he's a member of the House Freedom Caucus, on the right flank of that conference, said, why didn't Musk come out earlier? He could have helped us push for deeper spending cuts.

Now they're in this position where they have to figure out what to do, especially if the Senate sends back a bill that's weaker when it comes to cutting spending.

BASH: That's a very good question. It's a really good point. Thank you so much.

And as we go to break, I don't want to harp on the black eye too much, but I just want to say that a colleague just texted me to remind me that he -- at the time he said he didn't notice Musk's black eye, and now he said -- there it is -- and now he said, oh, I offered to give him makeup.

So he very much noticed the black eye. He wants that to be in the zeitgeist along with other things. Just wow. Wow, wow, wow. There are lots of other points of news that we just heard that we're going to digest and we're going to put in context, particularly about the war between Russia and Ukraine and the fact that President Trump is now suggesting he's just going to let them go and compared it to a fight between two children. We'll discuss after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:46:18]

BASH: Moments ago, President Trump shared fresh details from his two- hour call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. That call happened yesterday. And the president's hope for a quick end to Russia's war in Ukraine seems to have faded.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

TRUMP: 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.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BASH: My panel is back, and I just want to say, Kylie, what happened after that. He said, you see it as hockey -- you see it in hockey. Maybe that's a negative, because we're saying, go.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: He is effectively saying here that it's OK for them to keep fighting, that he expects that that's going to be the case. We're so far away from the early days of the administration, where he was continually promising that this conflict was going to come to a resolution, and it was all because of him.

And one of the other things that he went on to say in the Oval Office was that there's going to be additional fighting after that Ukrainian strike deep inside Russia over the weekend, that drone strike that took out some really key military targets on Russia's behalf. He effectively said that he told Russia not to do it, but he didn't say that there would be any implications for Russia, any cost that would be associated with them fighting back.

So we're really at a different place in this conflict right now, and it's clear that the White House is getting further and further away from any idea that a ceasefire is in the near term.

KANNO-YOUNGS: He didn't even indicate in that statement yesterday whether he pushed back on Putin when he said that he would retaliate for Ukraine's attacks. Increasingly, there seems to be a pattern here where the president talks about the war in Ukraine as if he's a neutral observer and stepped away, almost a commentator of these things, and not somebody who argued that he could use his, quote, "very, very good relationship" with Vladimir Putin to convince him to actually come to the table to ensure peace, right?

The U.S. is a player here. The Trump administration has a role here in these negotiations. But increasingly, you have the president acting as if he has some distance from it.

HOLMES: Not even neutral party. I think he's actively distancing himself. I mean, he's saying this has nothing to do with me. This is --

KANNO-YOUNGS: Right.

HOLMES: -- Zelenskyy's war. This is Putin's war. This is Joe Biden's war. At one point, he said that. I mean, he is making it clear he doesn't want to be there.

I mean, they didn't send a representative from the United States to the talks between Russia and Ukraine on purpose because he wants to say they're dealing with this directly. I'm done here.

BASH: But is it because --

DAWSEY: That was the astute point that you made. That is a deliberate effort, right? I mean, he comes in on the campaign trail. He says we're going to do this day one. That obviously doesn't happen.

No one really thought it was going to happen on day one. But that's what he said. Those were his words, right? And then he realizes, OK, we're not going to be able to do this.

His piece, Steve Witkoff, goes over, has all these meetings, and realizes they're really far apart. He talks to donors, Trump does at his club, and he says Putin wants all the land. I don't know what's happened to this guy, right?

He has this blowup with Zelenskyy. Then he realizes, OK, Putin's maybe a bigger problem here than Zelenskyy is. But he sends Witkoff back over. It's not going anywhere.

So what does he say? OK, now it's you guys to solve it. I'm stepping back on this because he realized this was not going anywhere quickly, right? And so he had to extract himself.

[12:50:01]

And now his administration frames it as a win privately when the two sides are just sitting down at the table --

BASH: Yes.

DAWSEY: -- and the U.S. isn't there. We got them to talk. That's all we really needed to do. I mean, this was a moving of the goalposts. It was strategic, deliberate, and over time, because the president realized he was getting increasingly frustrated in this war and realized he was not going to be able to do what he said he was going to do on the campaign trail.

BASH: And what happened to Vladimir Putin is nothing. Vladimir Putin is the same today that he was all of those times that President Trump made the promise he was going to end the war on day one because he's been the same guy for decades since he came back into power, you know, however many, I guess, what, two decades ago, effectively saying, I want to restore mother Russia. And that includes, first and foremost, taking over Ukraine. It's his goal. It always has been.

ATWOOD: And Trump is consistently asked about new sanctions on Russia, and he consistently flip-flops. You know, one day he'll say maybe. The other day he'll say not right now. Today he effectively said it was some, you know, elusive marker in his mind over when those sanctions would go into place.

So there really is no cost on Russia right now. And the backdrop being that the conversations that the administration has had with Russia have focused on doing business deals between the United States and Russia.

KANNO-YOUNGS: Right.

BASH: I do want to talk about this travel ban because so much happened with the Elon Musk of it all, and this bill, and now his legislative agenda truly hanging in the balance, thanks to this war with his now former friend. The fact is that the president in the span of 30 minutes did, last night, did some extraordinary things with his pen.

And one of them is banning travel from 12 countries. This, in effect, was an immediate response to what we saw over the weekend in Boulder, where there was an alleged terrorist who was throwing fire, trying to hurt Jews, peacefully marching there. He's asking for the release of hostages in Gaza.

That individual is from Egypt, ended up here, or stayed here, became an undocumented immigrant. He was here illegally. So he was asked that question. What about Egypt? Why isn't Egypt on that list? Let's watch what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

TRUMP: Egypt has been a country that we deal with very closely. They have things under control. The countries that we have don't have things under control. And why now? I can say that it can't come soon enough, frankly. We want to keep bad people out of our country.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BASH: Kylie?

ATWOOD: It's very clear that this travel ban is not only about the markers that the administration is laying out. It's a much bigger picture here. It is dictating their foreign policy with these countries. If they believe that they can get something done with a country, then they haven't put them on the list. He said that the U.S. and Egypt have a good relationship. They're doing a lot together. So, therefore, indicating that that's why Egypt isn't on the list. When you look at the numbers that they put out for the visa overstay rates from each of these countries, these aren't the countries with the highest visa overstay rates globally.

And so I think there are questions about how they picked these countries and how this travel ban is potentially being used in their conversations with these countries on things beyond what they have actually said in this travel ban.

BASH: I want to go back to the conversation we were having about Elon Musk, specifically the point that you made, one of you made, about just the politics. I think it was you, Josh, and about how influential Elon Musk was with his bank account in helping get Republicans elected.

Well, you know who else thinks that? Elon Musk. And there's a warning he just put out on his social media platform, X. "Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House, and Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate." And he said, "Such ingratitude," right below that.

First of all, wow. But also, let's just talk quickly about the implication for how this vote is going to go down when every Senate Republican who is looking at this is going to be reminded that when they're on the ballot, it could matter.

DAWSEY: But here's the thing on that, right? Elon has already said recently he's scaling back his political spending.

BASH: But don't think if you believe that.

DAWSEY: I don't know if it's true or not. We don't know --

BASH: Yes.

DAWSEY: -- if it's true or not. But he also told Trump, even before he left the White House, he would give $100 million to a Super PAC to help with the midterms. The money never showed up. The checks never came.

BASH: There you go.

DAWSEY: The Trump folks kept, where's the money? Where's the money? Not coming. And so I think if you're a Republican senator or you're a Republican congressman right now, I don't know, based on what we're seeing, that I would be waiting with my hand out, waiting for Elon's money and all that.

BASH: So maybe it's not the money --

HOLMES: Are you more scared of Elon Musk or are you scared of President Trump?

BASH: Maybe it's not the money, it's the influence. DAWSEY: Yes.

[12:55:07]

HOLMES: Right. And I think that -- look, I think the money is always an issue. Obviously, people are running for office. But the more immediate issue for them to get anything done is going to be Donald Trump right now.

And anything they want for the next time, however, you know, if we're talking about next cycle, cycle after that, like they're going to need the president.

BASH: Ten seconds.

KANNO-YOUNGS: Elon still invested $20 million in the House races in the last election. He did have a footprint on the makeup of Congress right now. And he's already indicated that he would try to push Republicans who support this bill out of office and support primary challenges. Both of these figures are on the minds of members of Congress.

BASH: We are definitely seeing real time the devolving of one of the most storied political relationships that we've seen in a very long time and the therapy session happening between the two of them for the whole world to see. It's really remarkable.

Thank you so much for joining Inside Politics on this very busy day. CNN News Central starts after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)