Return to Transcripts main page

Inside Politics

Trump Deploys Natl. Guard Against Gov. Newsom, Mayor Bass; L.A. Mayor: Deploying National Guard Is A "Chaotic Escalation"; Newsom: Trump Sent Troops To "Manufacture Chaos And Violence"; Musk Deletes Posts About Epstein Files, Impeachment; Trump On Musk: "I Have No Intention Of Speaking To Him"; Sen. Johnson Warns GOP Bill Does Not Cut Enough Spending. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 09, 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]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Today on Inside Politics, send in the troops. That's President Trump's message to Los Angeles after three days of protests against his deportation policies. But are his militaristic moves exacerbating a tense situation. He started and now claims, he wants to solve.

Plus, backing down. Elon Musk deletes his harshest anti Trump posts and applauds the President's National Guard deployment. It sure looks like he's trying to get back into President Trump's good graces. And politicizing science. More than 300 NIH workers say, that's what President Trump and his administration is doing, and lives are hanging in the balance.

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

And we are standing by for President Trump's return to the White House. He spent last night at Camp David. He may take questions from reporters after he deployed 2000 National Guard members to Los Angeles against the wishes of the state's Democratic governor and the city's Democratic mayor.

It's the first time since 1965 that the National Guard was sent in without the request of the state's governor back then, the reason was because Lyndon Johnson was trying to protect the civil rights of demonstrators. Governor Gavin Newsom says, he'll file a lawsuit today challenging President Trump's decision. And this morning, the White House border czar had this to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM HOMAN, WHITE HOUSE BORDER CZAR: I support President Trump's decision on deploying the National Guard. They're there to protect property and life, not just some law enforcement officer you see being attacked the last couple of days, to protect citizens too. So, if they fail to control that city, and we're there, we're going to do everything we can, protect our buildings, protect our officers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: CNN's Julia Vargas Jones is in Los Angeles. What are you seeing now, Julia?

JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's a bit of a surreal scene here in L.A., Dana, because behind me, we have this heightened, LAPD presence. Behind them, we also have the National Guard. This is the federal building where a lot of the action happened last night. But just across the street, it's business as usual. There's traffic in L.A., the 101, the highway that was blocked temporarily by protesters last night is open and things are moving.

Last night, we did see so much anger from protesters who said that basically they thought this was an overreach by the federal government conducting these immigration raids across Los Angeles. But that that feeling of powerlessness that led so many people to protest peacefully also brought so many people to acts of violence and depredation.

We're seeing so much graffiti around downtown Los Angeles, but all of this is in response to those raids. Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles has condemned these acts of violence, but she did say that this was, quote, intentional chaos. Take a listen to what else she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR KAREN BASS (D-LOS ANGELES, CA): It is peaceful now, but we do not know where and when the next raids will be. That is the concern because people in the city have a rapid response network. If they see ICE, they go out and they protest, and so it's just a recipe for pandemonium. It's an escalation that didn't have to happen. Why were there raids? You know, we had been told that he was going to go after violent criminals. It wasn't a drug den, it was a Home Depot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VARGAS JONES: And Dana, her comments come after Homan also said that the city is, quote, burning and out of control. And that he blames Democratic leadership for that, where he calls failures, saying that he wouldn't even hesitate to arrest them or anyone who comes in the way of federal law enforcement as they are conducting these raids, which he says will continue, quote, every day. Now, we are expecting more protests here in Los Angeles in the next few hours, just steps from where we are now. And so those standoffs are set to continue.

[12:05:00]

BASH: Let me just do a little fact check with you. You're there, you're on the ground. I see that there's obviously police presence behind you, which is understandable. Does it seem like it's burning out of control on the ground in Los Angeles right now?

VARGAS JONES: No, no, it does not. No. We did see images of violence. We did see cars on fire yesterday and overnight. So, we do have to account for that. But this goes also to something that Mayor Bass said that law enforcement here -- local law enforcement, the Los Angeles Police Department is well equipped and perfectly capable of keeping those protesters in check.

BASH: Julia, thank you so much for your terrific reporting. I really appreciate it. Well, obviously, beginning back to you throughout the day. Thank you. And I'm joined here by some incredible reporters, CNN's Stephen Collinson, Jasmine Wright of NOTUS, CNN's Many Raju and CNN's Priscilla Alvarez.

I just want to start kind of big picture. And Steven, you wrote in your piece this morning, the headline is, Trump seizes on Los Angeles protests and contentious use of military amid migrant crack down. This is the showdown the White House has been waiting for. I would go a step further than you did, and say, this is the showdown that the White House instigated. They didn't wait for it. They created it.

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: That's true. I was struck by something the president said yesterday. He said in one of his chats with reporters, we're going to have troops everywhere. It's a classic tool in the playbook of authoritarian leaders to create a crisis, exacerbate a crisis, and then to put forward the remedy of deploying the military on the domestic arena. That seems to be what the White House wants to do.

I think it's first of all because they believe that, you know, they need to be ruthless in this crackdown, in this deportation program. But there are also a myriad of political incentives for the White House to push this forward. They want to clash with Democrats. They want to warn other democratic states. Trump likes to look strong, and they want to, you know, act as strong men and deploy the military. So right now, politically and actually it seems like the White House has this exactly where it wants it.

BASH: Which is clearly what the Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom knows full well. He's trying to call the president out for what he is doing, but he still has to keep the people in his state safe. Here's the way that he described what's happening, and here's maybe a better way to say it, the way he tried to push back, he was on MSNBC last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): Your hands off four-year-old girls that are trying to get educated. Your hands off these poor people just trying to get live their lives, man, trying to live their lives, paying their taxes, been here 10 years. The fear, the horror, the hell is this guy. Come after me. Arrest me. Let's just get it over with. Tough guy. You know, I don't give a damn. But I care about my community. I care about this community. The hell are they doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And their come after me, arrest me, was in reaction to what it certainly seemed like was a threat from Tom Homan to potentially arrest Newsom and the Mayor Karen Bass, which Homan walked back today.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, the Democratic response to all this will be very instructive. We have not really seen much Democratic pushback from all the deportation that has happened. All the immigration enforcement in the Trump 2.0 in large part, of course, because this is an issue that they have struggled with in recent election cycles.

Trump polls well on this issue, but you hear news, and they're clearly someone who has got 2028 on his mind, but someone who's trying to amp- up the defense of his state and his policy pushing back, will other Democrats echo what Gavin Newsom is saying here. That's going to be what something I want to look out for.

BASH: What are you hearing?

JASMINE WRIGHT, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, NOTUS: I think we've already seen them do it. The DGA, the association that really governs Democratic governors, has already fully leaned in. We're going to hear from House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries. It'd be interesting to see how far he leans in.

But for the White House's perspective, when I talk to aides, they believe that this is a winning message, not just because of what you said. Trump wants to seem strong on the campaign trail. He promised to really shut down any of these issues.

I think what we saw in the first term is that President Trump does not really like protests about something that he doesn't care about, or he doesn't agree with. And so, he's going to shut those down that fulfills that promise, but it also fulfills the promise of them trying to get past this major bill now in the Senate that passed the House that has a lot of provisions and a lot of money to fund their deportation efforts.

When you talk to White House aides, they talk about the fact that President Trump is behind the scenes calling senators, trying to get them comfortable with the amount of money that would be required to pass this bill. And so, when you see these images of a man with the Mexican flag standing on a car, while burning cars are behind him. That could further the White House's narrative that this is an invasion, and that money needs to be given to this cause to fulfill what Trump wants to do.

[12:10:00]

BASH: So, such a good point about the bill, and that is part of what I talked about with Ron Johnson, the Senator from Wisconsin who's upset about the excess spending that he sees in this bill. And that was one of the questions, well, what about the money for the border? Because that's no question part of the strategy here from the White House.

Priscilla, I'm always glad that you're around this, but especially today, because I want you to help people understand why it's happening this way in Los Angeles in particular, because the way it is supposed to work when there is a raid or they're going in. Is that it's supposed to be hand in glove with the federal government, with ICE and local law enforcement.

And what you heard from Karen Bass this morning on with Wolf and Pam, was we don't -- we can't -- it's hard for us to keep the peace because we don't know where they're going to show up. We don't know what the next place is that they're going to be. That's not the way it is supposed to work. But perhaps in a place like Los Angeles, it's -- there's already a sort of, structurally a clap, a clash in place.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. There's certainly cities that limit their cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, but this has been

(CROSSTALK)

ALVAREZ: Right. This has been a theme for multiple administrations, including under the Biden Administration. Now, what happened in L.A., you really have to pull back a little bit to start to see the build up here. So, this on its own, when you look at it and the way the White House border talks about it was a worksite enforcement. That's not new. We have seen worksite enforcement happen before.

But before then, there were also families who were being detained in a federal building. The federal building where people were protesting in front of where they were doing their routine check ins, only to find themselves being held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is a new tactic that they are using more of.

Then you go back a little bit further, you have Stephen Miller, the top hard line immigration architect, who is telling immigration enforcement officials, you need to meet a certain quota every single day, 3000 and up.

So, there has been -- as if you look at this like a ladder, they have been going up the run. And it eventually culminated in this -- in this protest in Los Angeles, where people are being held in the federal building. People are upset about the immigration policies, not just going after public safety national security threats, but also many other undocumented immigrants --

BASH: But the fact is that is happening in blue states. I mean, we saw, you know, they were aggressive in Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard in blue Massachusetts. I mean, that was workplace.

ALVAREZ: It's workplace. It's also where there are immigrants. That's another part of this too. Of course, Republicans have always been nervous about going after farm workers, who also rely on this population, but there was a build up here that led to -- I just want to get to Jasmine's point real quick on the reconciliation. The administration knows, and I hear this from my sources all the time. They don't have enough resources to do what they want to do.

This may serve as a data point, because part of the reason that they needed the guard is they legitimately do not have enough people to do this work, and that they're going to want to do --

BASH: To do the ICE work, not to keep the peace on the streets.

ALVAREZ: Right, exactly. BASH: One second, Jasmine, because I want to kind of help make one of the points that you were making earlier about President Trump. And the fact that you just had to listen to him on the campaign trail. How specific he got in saying this is the kind of thing that's going to happen. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: You look at these great cities, Los Angeles, San Francisco, you look at what's happening to our country. We cannot let it happen any longer. And one of the other things I'll do, because you know, you're supposed to not be involved in that just have to be asked by the governor or the mayor to come in. The next time, I'm not waiting.

We have some sick people, radical left lunatics, and I think they're the -- and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can't let that happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WRIGHT: Yeah. I mean, this is what Trump has been talking about for so long. I think that when you look at 2020, what happened during the George Floyd protests. That was not something that was a standalone, that was a build up to this moment. Donald Trump does not like protests for things that he does not agree with. Let's take it -- let's put aside January six, right?

He doesn't like this idea that you can threaten law enforcement, even if that's not exactly what was happening. He wants to -- he wants to claim that that is happening so that he can really stand up and be kind of that strong man against it. And so, I think that this is just not, you know, we can't tell the future, but this is maybe not the first time that we're going to see this. This is going to go for every single protest for an issue that Donald Trump doesn't like.

BASH: Real quick.

RAJU: Just, you know, go ahead.

BASH: No, go ahead, Manu.

RAJU: I'll say, just to get the point of how much Donald Trump wants this fight. I mean, he just -- he's been posting and talking about it pretty much nonstop over the weekend, including just moments ago, saying that, if we had not done so, send the National Guard and Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated.

[12:15:00]

Now I'm not quite sure if that's exactly the case of what people are saying on the ground here, but I mean. Look, sending in the National Guard is just an extraordinary step for the federal government to do so. He can't -- he can't discount.

BASH: You know, it's like --

RAJU: He's trying to -- he can defend this --

BASH: Hou know, I know -- I know that he's -- this is, like I said, this is a promise that he gave on the campaign trail to do whatever he could to deport illegal immigrants. But what you just posted is, is basically an arsonist saying, you better -- I better call the fire department because they got to come in fast to get the flames out. I mean, that seems like what's going on.

Real quick before we go to break. I do want to get a quote in from Jonathan V. Last who is a writer for the Bulwark, not exactly a place where they're fans of Donald Trump. But what he said really crystallizes where we are. It is terrifying to realize how much of American political life was governed by the fact that when someone said, you can't do that, the people stopped wanting to do whatever that was.

OK. When we come back, President Trump gives Elon Musk the silent treatment as Musk tries to get back in his good graces. The latest on their epic fallout, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:20:00]

BASH: A fragile truce appears to be in place between President Trump and Elon Musk after their explosive falling out last week. Musk deleted his most inflammatory attacks linking the president to the Epstein files, for example, calling for his impeachment. Both men have stopped feuding online, but don't expect any sleep overs in the Lincoln Bedroom anytime soon.

President Trump told NBC over the weekend, quote, I have no intention of speaking to him. I think Elon, really, I think it's a shame that he's so depressed and so heartbroken. Plus, he warned Musk would, quote, pay very serious consequences if he funded challenges to Republicans opposing the GOP spending package.

My panel is back now. Can I just put up a little bit of what we were -- what I was just referring to? And it is, I think, very instructive of where Elon Musk's head is right now, not just deleting but also putting up supportive posts. He reposted a Truth -- Trump Truth Social about the president's response to L.A. He reposted with the American flag emoji, something from J.D. Vance. He posted, this is not OK, with an image of in damage -- of a demonstrator.

Manu, it's pretty transparent, what he's trying to do.

RAJU: Absolutely. I mean, it's also -- let's not forget, he has an enormous amount of business interest before the federal government. Trump floated the idea of canceling all federal government contracts. There's a report in The Washington Post over the weekend about how NASA was looking at alternatives to Space X. I mean, those are all have to be driving his decision. The question for me is, what will he do in terms of attacking this bill that was already hanging by a thread in Congress. Will he stay silent as they try to get this bill out of the Senate, back through the House? Will he amp up his criticism and speak to the concerns that some on the right have about this, the deficit projections in the bill? That's going to be a big question. Funding Democrats seems to be a long shot. But will he ultimately decides to spend any money to help Republicans in the midterms. That's for down the line.

BASH: And Steven, just to kind of put this in perspective of the way we were talking about these two men last week when everything blew up, is what's the most important thing to have? Is it to have power as President Trump has, and the undying love of so many people who have supported him for, now almost 10 years. Or money, and have a personality that, you know, people could take or leave. And it looks like right now the answer is, power and Donald Trump.

COLLINSON: Right. And there was a lot of talk last week about how Musk could damage Trump. How he was the richest man in the world that the president has never faced, even in his turbulent presidential career, this kind of domestic adversary. Those posts show exactly the power dynamic and who has the power and who doesn't have the power.

There are peripheral things that Musk can do with his wealth, with his influence, but the Republican Party is Donald Trump's party. His relationship with the Republican base is much deeper and longer than that of Elon Musk.

Even though, you know, he's going to be important for someone like the Vice President J.D. Vance, if he decides to run for president and he's a an avenue to that kind of tech bro, young American, male Republican voter. But right now, the power is with Trump, and even though he's a lame duck, he's still the most powerful American politician we've seen in years.

BASH: And one of the sort of back-and-forth posts that really stuck with me was Elon Musk saying, Trump is only going to be in power for three and a half years. I'm going to be around for 40 years. So, maybe he's playing the long game, but in the short term, Trump is the one who has the levers of power, including, like you were saying, the NASA contract that keeps Elon Musk's most important business asset going Space X. You know, there was pressure on the president to look into Musk's immigration status and how he came to the United States. How he became a U.S. citizen.

[12:25:00]

WRIGHT: Yeah. I mean, Trump holds all the cards. And that is true for a different amount of scenarios, but certainly this one. I mean, let's say that Elon Musk does go that branch of the next year and fund Democrats. What does Trump really care, right? He's not up for reelection. I mean, they're already planning. They're already thinking that Trump has basically until February, March, maybe April, to get real movement done in Congress before it turns into midterm season and maybe they lose the House. But I would also say that when you really look at -- I was asking one White House official, you know, is this it for Trump now? I asked that before the Epstein tweet came out, but I said, is this it for Trump and Elon? And they said, look, Trump is a forgiving person. You never know. So, I mean, I think it's going to take a couple of months to really see what happens in Washington --

(CROSSTALK)

WRIGHT: And obviously, money is a motivating thing, not just for the president, but for the Republican Party. But right now, obviously Trump says, no.

ALVAREZ: Well, there's that -- we've obviously seen other members of Trump's orbit sort of leave and come back. And the way that Trump talks about him is almost like a son, like he talks about the mental health and Elon's wellbeing, and he's obviously had him very close during the campaign.

But to Steven's point, he does have the power of social media. He has X, which is where so much of what was happening in L.A. If you were on it yesterday or the day before, was playing out, it's where he was retweeting both the president and the vice president. And that matters in these moments of social unrest -- social media play a massive role.

BASH: Yeah. Such a good point. You mentioned the bill, which I don't want to lose sight of. It's a very, very big deal. I don't need to tell you that, Manu. I first want to listen to what Senator Ron Johnson told me on State of the Union yesterday. He is one of the holdouts. He thinks that it's much too detrimental to the debt and the deficit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And you're feeling like you're in a better situation with it now, based on the talks that you've had at the White House and elsewhere?

SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): No, nothing has really changed. I'll be sitting down with the White House economic team. We have to address spending. We don't have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem, and this bill just doesn't go far enough to address that problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So, he's coming at it from a too much spending point of view, and then you have some of the moderates who still are going to get a vote when it goes back to the House, because that's how it works. Manu, you spoke with Mike Lawler, one of those -- one of those Republicans yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE LAWLER (R-NY): I've been very clear with leadership all this past week that if the Senate changes the SALT deduction in any way, I will be a no. And I'm not going to buckle on that. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And just a reminder, this is how the Musk-Trump feud started because Musk was sending out social media posts that he thought that this was a terrible bill.

RAJU: Yeah, this is -- that's exactly it. This is going to be such a complicated dance to get this over the finish line, because that deal that Mike Lawler was just talking about to raise the amount that people can deduct for their state and local tax payments that got them over the finish line in the House. If it were not for the deal that Johnson cut with those New York Republicans, they would not have gotten the bill.

And what dollar said yesterday is that, if you change it by $1, if you pair that back at all, those New York Republicans are going to walk, which means in the House, they will not get the votes. Here's the problem, though. Senate Republicans do plan to change it. They hate that that deal. They think it's too expensive, does not benefit their constituents. They believe it's a blue state hand out.

And the question is going to be, who's going to blink first? Will they be able to jam this through the House? Well, the people like Mike Lawler buckle, or the Senate Republicans buckle, and there's not much time left, Dana, because they want to give this to President Trump's test by July 4. But that's just one of a litany of issues, and not to mention, cutting federal spending like Ron Johnson said.

BASH: Yeah, no question. All right, everybody standby. Up next. President Trump wants to slash spending, as we've been discussing. That includes on scientific research. A group of NIH workers are begging the president and their new director to stop.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:30:00]