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Army Equipment Arrives For Massive Military Parade; Trump Deploys National Guard Against Wishes Of Gov. Newsom, Mayor Bass; Trump On If Homan Should Arrest Gov. Newsom: "I Would"; NIH Staffers Sign Letter Accusing Admin. Of Politicizing Science; Trump Administration Proposing 40 Percent Cut In NIH Budget. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired June 09, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:34:07]

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, heavy-duty Abrams and Bradley tanks are rolling into nearby Maryland as the Defense Department prepares for President Trump's massive military parade this Saturday. The celebration is for the Army's 250th anniversary, and we're going to see that happening throughout the week.

Natasha Bertrand is at the Pentagon. Natasha, it also happens to be President Trump's birthday on Saturday. What are you hearing from your sources at the Pentagon about the preps?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Army has been planning for a birthday celebration to mark its 250th birthday for a couple years now, but only earlier this year was the idea raised by the White House of adding a parade to this celebration. And that is something, of course, that we have seen that President Trump has desired dating back to his first term, a big military parade in the heart of Washington, D.C. And they started planning for that.

[12:35:00]

Now, I was told last month, according to a defense official, that the White House has really taken the lead on planning this parade effort in terms of the all aspects of it. But the Army Corps of Engineers, of course, has been really at the heart of making sure that the parade doesn't damage the streets of Washington, D.C. Because, as you said, dozens of these very heavy Abrams tanks, these fighting vehicles, they are going to be rolling down the streets of Washington, D.C.

And that is one of the reasons why a parade of this magnitude was scrapped in Trump's first administration. They -- officials at the time said that it was going to cost way too much and that it could potentially cause catastrophic damage to D.C. roads and infrastructure.

Well, this time around, it's going to be a little bit scaled down. It's not going to be a parade celebrating all of the services across the military. It will just be one honoring the Army. So it's not going to be as big as it would have been last time around or as expensive.

But still, it is expected to cost as much as $45 million. The Army is undertaking roughly $3 million worth of mitigation efforts to try to make sure that the streets and the infrastructure don't get damaged here.

And importantly, you know, these big heavy tanks and the fighting vehicles, they're not going to be moving quickly. They're going to be metal plates placed down on the streets. So all told, the Army is anticipating that this is not going to be something that causes significant damage here in D.C. But, of course, it is something that President Trump is going to be very much involved in this coming weekend.

And one key aspect of it is going to be towards the end of the parade when the Golden Knights, which is the Army's parachute team, actually parachutes down at the end of the parade and presents President Trump with an American flag. Dana?

BASH: Natasha, thank you so much for that reporting. Appreciate it.

And right now, President Trump is taking questions at the White House after he just returned from Camp David. Stay with us. We'll go next to the White House.

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[12:41:27]

BASH: Welcome back to Inside Politics. We're waiting for the playback of President Trump's remarks as he returned to the White House just a short while ago. As we wait for that, Priscilla, we've been talking a lot during the breaks about what is going on there. What are you hearing from your sources about what's next? And forgive me in advance if I have to interrupt.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: So they are -- it's a big question, because now that they have deployed the National Guard and they're waiting for all of them to actually get there and mobilize, there's a question about, is this going to be grounds for the Insurrection Act? Up until this point, they have not gone there. The president himself --

BASH: Explain what that mean.

ALVAREZ: -- hasn't really gone there. Well, it would just give the troops far more authority under these federal powers than they have so far. So that is a huge question going into the next few hours and even days, depending on how long these protests go.

But up until this point, Dana, I think just to highlight some of everything we've talked about, sources who were on the phone constantly over the last few days, both within the Department of Homeland Security and with the White House, I mean, the way they were talking about this was a Portland-type incident. So that is another sort of moment to look back on how President Trump had dealt with that situation. You were just talking about it, Jasmine, in 2020 in front of the federal building in Portland. They are sending as many resources as they can from all parts of the federal government, and that is part of why they've also tapped the National Guard.

But the other part of this, Dana, is that I have been talking to sources who have said that there are Trump officials who have been wanting to engage the National Guard and immigration enforcement in a much more deeper way, and they just haven't figured out how to do it yet.

And one of the sources I talked to this morning said this could be the slippery slope. This could be where we start to see how they start to pair that together, because up until this point, there's obviously guardrails to that. But that is something that they have been talking about, have been wanting to do more of.

They had asked the Department of Homeland Security, or rather the other way around, the Department of Homeland Security had asked for National Guard to help with immigration enforcement. So this is all heading in a certain direction.

BASH: Right.

ALVAREZ: It's just about when they get there.

BASH: It's -- and that's such an important point. This is the direction that he wanted to go. Actually, let's listen to the president now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gavin Newsom?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Pit bull (ph)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you talk about Gavin Newsom?

TRUMP: Why? What about him?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gavin Newsom. He's daring Tom Homan to come and arrest him. Did he do it?

TRUMP: I would do it if I were Tom. I think it's great. Gavin Likes the publicity, but I think it would be a great thing. He's done a terrible job.

Look, he's -- I like Gavin Newsom. He's a nice guy, but he's grossly incompetent. Everybody knows that. All you have to do is look at the little railroad he's building. It's about 100 times over budget.

We're putting a flagpole over there under budget. I always do under budget.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is your intel tell you about these people causing all the problems in L.A.? Are they people ICE is trying to deport or are they professional agitators?

TRUMP: The people that are causing the problem are professional agitators. They're insurrectionist. They're bad people. They should be in jail.

Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr., President, will you invoke the Insurrection Act?

BASH: It's like you queued him up, Priscilla. That word he used, they're insurrectionists. I can't imagine that that was an accident, because it seems as though that is the place that the White House is trying to get. And for the president, it's icing on the cake that he can do it in the state of California. Because on a whole host of issues, he has had California, Gavin Newsom in particular, in his sights.

[12:45:10]

The question he was asked was about Newsom daring Tom Homan to come and arrest him -- arrest Newsom. And the president responded, "I would do it." And then he said, "Gavin wants the publicity."

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS SENIOR REPORTER: This is a very serious word that's being thrown around now, insurrection. That's a rebellion of the states or people in the states against the federal government. That is not something to be trifled with.

If, for example, to your point, the president were to invoke the Insurrection Act, I think we would have yet another legal morass. It would be another instance of the way that the White House is trying to declare emergencies or insurrections in order to unlock vast powers, which most presidents don't have access to. More broadly, the immigration issue, that is the track that we're going down with this administration.

ALVAREZ: It has been the track. I'm sorry, real quick, Manu. I would say the Alien Enemies Act, which is the sweeping wartime authority that they use, it's only been used three times in major conflicts, was part of what you're describing. They are unlocking powers where they can find them on immigration.

COLLINSON: That it seems tariffs as well, yes.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I don't want to lose sight of the fact that the president of the United States just called --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

RAJU: -- the arrest of the sitting governor --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

RAJU: -- of California. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

RAJU: I mean, Trump, you tend to brush things off when he said it, but he did say, I would arrest the governor of California. We'll see ultimately where this comes down to. But this fight between California and the White House has been escalating, whether it's just been on this. But there's so much at stake for California.

There's billions of dollars of federal money that goes to California. You have reconstruction that needs to happen because of all the devastating wildfires that happened last year. That money still has not been even requested by the White House. So many big questions remain. But that was pretty remarkable mark (ph).

BASH: No, I'm glad you underscored that. No, it is a very, very important point. It's hard to figure out what to sort of dig in on, the use of the word insurrection or the fact that he said, sure, my orders are should maybe go and arrest --

JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes.

BASH: -- the governor of California.

WRIGHT: Yes. And I mean, to his point, it is kind of what Gavin Newsom wants. Obviously, nobody wants to be --

BASH: Well, he doesn't want to be arrested.

WRIGHT: Nobody want to be arrested. But I think if we are looking -- I mean, this is a very serious issue and we should not, you know, minimize the fact that these are people's lives, these are people's lives who are caught up in the system.

But if you look to 2028, as political journalists do, Gavin Newsom is one of the Democrats who are looming --

BASH: Yes.

WRIGHT: -- large over the issue of who is going to run to take on who else runs for the Republican side of the race. And so Gavin Newsom is making himself available to TV networks as serious things are happening in his state. And the White House is not going to let that go. They're going to continue to drill this issue.

And so I assume we're going to hear Gavin Newsom respond, not just to Tom Homan, but now to Trump over saying that he should be arrested.

BASH: And let's, again, just underscore, we're going to have to take a quick break, the fact that this is a policy that President Trump promised to pursue during the campaign. He has a cabinet around him and a kitchen cabinet around him that wants him to pursue it. There's no one like the first term that wants to stop him.

And he wants to have this be the discussion that we're all having, not his fight with Elon Musk, and not the question of the legislative agenda that he has hanging in the balance, because he thinks with immigration he wins politically.

We're going to have to take a very quick break. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.

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[12:53:10]

BASH: Hundreds of NIH staffers are accusing the Trump administration of politicizing science and targeting researchers for ideological reasons. In a letter to the new NIH director, they say the Trump health team is censoring research into race-related health disparities, long COVID and COVID vaccines, the health impact of climate change, and issues around LGBTQ identity.

CNN's Meg Tirrell joins me now. So, Meg, these are leaders who work inside the building who are just, obviously, they're throwing up flares, trying to get people's attention.

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Dana, and this comes after some of these staffers staged a walkout at the NIH last -- in the last few weeks, really, over frustrations, some of which they're detailing here.

And they're calling this the Bethesda Declaration after the headquarters of the NIH in Maryland, but they're modeling it after something called the Great Barrington Declaration, which was really a piece of writing that brought the current NIH director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, to national prominence in October of 2020. It really espoused a sort of contrarian view to approaching the pandemic.

And after he put it out, he said he was censored by a lot of the people in scientific leadership in the United States because those views differed from how they thought the pandemic should be approached. So, the staffers I've talked with behind this letter say they're modeling it after that in terms of trying to show respectful dissent in the scientific community.

And they say in the letter, quote, "This administration has forced NIH under Bhattacharya's watch to politicize research by halting high- quality peer-reviewed grants and contracts. Academic freedom," they say, "should not be applied selectively based on political ideology."

They say "NIH has targeted multiple universities with indiscriminate grant terminations, payment freezes for ongoing research, and blanket holds on awards regardless of the quality, progress, or impact of the science."

[12:55:01]

And, Dana, they are joined by members of the public in signing a letter of support that also includes signees that are more than a dozen Nobel laureates as well. Now, the NIH is responding to this this morning, saying in a statement that the Bethesda Declaration has some fundamental misconceptions about the policy directions the NIH has taken. However, they do say that respectful dissent in science is productive. We all want the NIH to succeed. Dana?

BASH: And, Meg, real quick, the NIH director will be on Capitol Hill to defend the president's budget cuts this week?

TIRRELL: That's right, tomorrow. The president has proposed a 40 percent budget cut from $45 billion to $27 billion. And, of course, that is raising a lot of alarms both within the NIH and outside in all of the science that the NIH supports. So these employees are hoping to hear him ask a lot about that tomorrow as well.

BASH: I have a feeling he will be.

Meg, thank you so much for reporting. Really important reporting.

And thank you for joining Inside Politics today. CNN News Central starts after the break.

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