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Trump Takes Questions Amid Deployment Of Troops To L.A.; Trump Deploys Marines, National Guard In Response To L.A. Protests; RFK Jr. Removes All CDC Vaccine Advisory Committee Members; Trump: Protests To Military Parade Will Face "Very Big Force". Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired June 10, 2025 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:32:18]
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Back now to our top story, the unrest in Los Angeles and the Trump administration's heavy-handed response. President Trump is in the Oval Office taking questions about what's happening. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President, what do you think about the Insurrection Act to deal with the situation in California?
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If there's an insurrection, I would certainly invoke it. We'll see. But I can tell you last night was terrible. The night before that was terrible.
We have, as you've seen, it was on most of your networks, people with big heavy hammers pounding the concrete and pounding curbs, pounding and breaking up and handing these big chunks of concrete to people. And they were taking that concrete, going up in bridges and dropping it into the roof of a car.
They were throwing it at our police. They were throwing it at our soldiers that are there. And we got it stopped and we have them in custody right now.
Look, if we didn't get involved, right now, Los Angeles would be burning just like it was burning a number of months ago with all the houses that were lost. Los Angeles right now would be on fire. And we have it in great shape. They're not playing around.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How will you determine whether or not there is an insurrection? And also --
TRUMP: Well, you'll take a look at what's happening. I mean, I could tell you there were certain areas of that -- of Los Angeles, that you could have called it an insurrection. It was terrible. But these are paid insurrectionists. These are paid troublemakers. They get money. And when you take a look at where they show up and everyone say, what's he doing? He's pounding the curbs. This one guy is pounding the curb, breaking the curb and handing big pieces of granite. In some cases, it's granite, granite and concrete to other people. And they're running out with it.
And then we watch the other people and they try and throw it into the face of the soldiers, throw it into the face of the police. And they hurt some people very badly. They go up on bridges, they drop it down on the cars as the cars are moving.
They're not breaking the curb because they're doing a demolition service. They're breaking it to hand out to people as a weapon. That's bad. It's bad stuff. I've never seen that before.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, how soon do you want to see FEMA eliminated? And what's your message to the governors about how much more of an expense is going to fall to states?
TRUMP: Yes. Well, it's not going to be so much the states. We're going to give out less money. We're going to give it out directly. It'll be from the president's office. We'll have somebody here could be Homeland Security. But we're going to give it out through a method where it's given out.
As an example, I just gave out $71 million to a certain state. They were looking to do about $120 million. They were very happy with the $71 million. We did a little cutting.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
[12:35:03]
BASH: OK, you just heard President Trump before he was asked about FEMA making some pretty grand pronouncements about the situation in Los Angeles and what he claims is the federal response.
So I have Democratic Congresswoman, Laura Friedman of California, here with me. Her district includes parts of Los Angeles and its suburbs. Thank you so much for being here. What's your response to what the president said?
REP. LAURA FRIEDMAN (D), CALIFORNIA: I thought the president's response was shocking. You know, we've had a very large local law enforcement response to the troublemakers that have infiltrated into some of these protests. We have about 650 California Highway Patrol officers on scene as well.
And to say that it was Trump and other outside forces that have come in and gotten the situation under control is very disrespectful to local law enforcement who are out there trying to defend the public and doing a great job in the streets of Los Angeles.
The governor has told members of Congress in a briefing that law local law enforcement in Los Angeles and in the state of California are perfectly capable of dealing with this problem. And there certainly are people that are creating a problem right now, and I don't want to minimize that.
But to send in the Marines, to threaten to bring in, to take over the National Guard in California, which the governor is perfectly capable of calling on himself if he needs it, is a manufactured crisis that Trump now wants to claim that he solved when there's very, very few of the National Guard actually deployed in these crowds right now.
BASH: Well, let me let me just sort of double -- underscore something that the president said specifically. He said we got it stopped, quote, "got it stopped", meaning the National Guard.
FRIEDMAN: I would say that it was local law enforcement that's been on the ground for the last few days controlling the situation. And by the way, protecting the thousands of peaceful protesters that are out on the streets that we're not talking about.
But I want to make sure that we do focus for a minute on the fact that we have thousands of people that have come out to voice their displeasure with this administration's policies. And I did bring a photo that my staff took yesterday of several thousand people who march very peacefully through the streets of Los Angeles.
And we also need to recognize them and see them, I think, as a nation, that they have something to say. And we can't let this distract from that. And I want to say that what the Trump administration is doing and Donald Trump himself right now is trying to create a distraction.
Number one, from the fact that thousands of Americans are marching in opposition to his policies all across the country and particularly in Los Angeles right now. And also from the fact that while he's trying to get everyone to look over it, 100 people that are causing a disturbance in Los Angeles, a local problem.
We are here in Washington watching them try to give the top 5 percent wealthiest people in this country a $1.6 trillion with a T tax break. A money that's -- an amount of money that's inconceivable to most people while they cut over $1 trillion in benefits that go to health care, that go to veterans, that go to child care. And we cannot get distracted in this moment.
BASH: Well, it is a very clear, very overt policy that Donald Trump has and has had. He was very open in the campaign that he wanted to do exactly what he is doing in Los Angeles. Now, I'm not talking about the National Guard or the Marines, but I'm talking about deporting undocumented immigrants, not just those who have criminal records, but undocumented immigrants.
So just on the policy of it all, can you speak to that? Is -- because they believe that putting you and other Democrats in the position of saying, no, we don't want to deport these people is good policy for them and good politics.
FRIEDMAN: Right. But it's also a really -- it's an oversimplification that's backfired, even in Republican areas, where we've seen when they've tried to deport people in red states who were community members, who were undocumented, but that people knew in the community that people have said, hey, this isn't -- aren't the people that we were talking about.
So when you start to parse through the numbers that that are sometimes trotted out about people's feelings about deportations, it's a little more complicated. And so Donald Trump has spent the last few years trying to demonize our entire migrant community, even people that are here legally, even people who are citizens and trying to say that there are sort of a cancer from within. They're not real Americans.
And he's lumped actual criminals in with the migrant population. And so people will say, well, sure, we don't want those people here. But even recently, Donald Trump himself has said, oh, no, we're not going to focus on farmhands.
We're not going to focus on people that are bringing you food in a restaurant. We're going to focus on criminals. And that, of course, is more popular. I would say if someone's a criminal, whether they have a visa or not, I don't want them in the country either.
BASH: But not -- but like, I don't know, a couple of days after he was inaugurated, Tom Homan said to me and others point blank, it's everybody who's here illegally, not just the criminals.
[12:40:03]
FRIEDMAN: Right. And it's -- and we only have a certain amount of resources and ICE. We cannot focus on everyone. And I think if you asked many people, they would say, let's focus on kind of the worst people --
BASH: Yes.
FRIEDMAN: -- the people who are causing problems. But the reason that people started protesting in Los Angeles is that they were angry that people were being taken, sometimes without a warrant. They didn't want to see kids separated from their families.
ICE showing up at elementary schools and trying to get in to take kids into custody. When it becomes real in people's communities, that's when you start seeing these kinds of backlashes.
BASH: I just want to quickly get you to respond to something --
FRIEDMAN: Sure.
BASH: -- that your fellow Democrat senator from Pennsylvania, John Fetterman, said. He said on social media, "I unapologetically stand for free speech, peaceful demonstrations and immigration, but this is not that. This is anarchy and true chaos. My party loses the moral high ground when we refuse to condemn setting cars on fire, destroying buildings and assaulting law enforcement."
FRIEDMAN: So today we did a press conference with a bunch of legislators from California. We have a bunch of members of Congress, all Democrats, and every single one of them condemned any violence in these protests.
Let's be clear. Those people that I showed you, those thousands of protesters, they're put in danger by these chaos agents who come in, who throw rocks and try to agitate the police and set things on fire. Those people should be arrested. I have said that.
Other Democratic members of Congress from Los Angeles have said we have zero tolerance policy towards people that are endangering law enforcement and endangering other protesters. So I don't believe that -- Democrats have been speaking up and condemning those hundred or so people --
BASH: Yes.
FRIEDMAN: -- that are causing these problems.
BASH: Yes, no, I've heard you say it and Governor Newsom and the mayor and pretty much everybody.
FRIEDMAN: Right. But let me say for immigration, we need a real immigration policy. We had a bipartisan immigration bill last year that if the Republicans want to bring forward, I would vote for it tomorrow. And we could help shore up the border and we could bring sense to immigration and stop this chaos.
BASH: You're a freshman. You're new to Washington. You know, I like your optimism about immigration reform. They've tried it for decades that I've been covering. So, you know, maybe it's just a new voice that they need.
Thank you, Congresswoman.
FRIEDMAN: Thanks, Dana. Thanks for having me.
BASH: Appreciate it. Thank you.
We'll be right back.
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[12:46:49]
BASH: HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.'s road to confirmation was paved in promises.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R), CHAIR, HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR AND PENSIONS COMMITTEE: Mr. Kennedy and the administration committed that he and I would have an unprecedentedly close, collaborative working relationship. He had worked within current vaccine approval and safety monitoring systems and not established parallel systems. He will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommendations without changes. (END VIDEOCLIP)
BASH: That, of course, is Republican Senator and medical doctor Bill Cassidy explaining his decisive vote to confirm Kennedy. Well, yesterday, quote, "without changes became totally reconstituting as Kennedy fired all 17 independent advisory committee members. Now the Trump administration can remake the committee as Kennedy wants.
Senator Kennedy's reaction, quote, "The fear is that the ACIP will be filled up with the people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion. I've just spoken with Secretary Kennedy and I'll continue to talk with him to ensure this is not the case."
My smart reporters are back. And Burgess, you caught up with Senator Cassidy this morning.
BURGESS EVERETT, CONGRESSIONAL BUREAU CHIEF, SEMAFOR: Briefly, of course, not something necessarily wanted to talk about in detail. But I asked him if Kennedy had reassured him and he said he would just call it a conversation. And I asked if he was still comfortable with his vote to confirm RFK Jr. to that position and he said he'd rather not comment, which is somewhat telling.
I do think to Cassidy's credit, RFK Jr., the secretary is still responding to him. He's not just ignoring Cassidy. That tweet came out very quickly after RFK Jr. made that decision to fire those 17 members. But this is clearly a really tricky issue for Senator Cassidy, who's also running for re-election.
And if you do a little bit of a throwback, he voted to convict the president of -- in his impeachment trial four years ago. So he's trying to juggle a lot. He's trying not to criticize the president. He's trying not to criticize Secretary Kennedy as much as he can, but he clearly has issues with this decision.
BASH: And just to sort of put a finer point on it, he says that they spoke afterwards. But the promise, in addition to just not doing what he did, which is maybe the most important, was that he would consult with Senator Kennedy before. That did not happen.
EVERETT: Correct. And it's a little bit of a problem, perhaps, with the confirmation process, which is that you can -- it's kind of like a job interview where once you get the job, you cannot be fired by these people who've confirmed you. And so there's really not a lot of retribution that the senator can or will enact, given the political diciness of this for him.
PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: But he is the chair of a key committee. So if he wanted to interrogate the secretary, if he wanted to press him and have sort of a level of accountability of his decisions, he does have the venue to do exactly that. The question is, does he do it? And it appears that he doesn't particularly seem interested in doing so right now.
BASH: Or feel like he can because of the political --
ALVAREZ: Right.
BASH: -- situation that he's in, because he wants to be senator again. And he is --
EVERETT (?): Right.
BASH: -- a Republican in Trump's Republican Party in a red state.
[12:50:02]
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: But that's what you sort of get for going along. So we shall see at the end of this midterm process, all of the Republican senators who voted yes to confirm. Some were very skeptical of a variety of people. We will see how it works out for all of them --
BASHH: Yes.
ZELENY: -- because it's no guarantee you win your primary.
BASH: And again, we're talking about the politics of this. This is --
ZELENY: But the substance is --
BASH: Well beyond. I mean, this is a very important public health question about vaccines. Just to give some examples, the medical community, they released a lot of criticism yesterday about the change and the importance of this advisory committee.
Dr. Sean O'Leary, chair of the Infectious Disease Committee at the American Academy of Pediatrics. "This is an unmitigated public health disaster." Ben from the Infectious Diseases Society, president, "Reckless, short-sighted and severely harmful." American Medical Association president. It upends a transparent process that has saved countless lives.
ALVAREZ: I feel like a broken record. I think there is a lot of moves that the administration is making, has made that you don't quite see the consequences or the implications of it until weeks or months down the line. And this seems to be a glaring example of that just by the way the public health experts have responded to it and the work that they have done in the past already.
And so, you know, I think not to sound redundant, but it is a we'll see situation and one where there are, again, senators --
BASH: Yes.
ALVAREZ: -- that could hold them accountable for these decisions.
BASH: Dr. Sean O'Leary Yes, you could probably insert that in any Mad Lib --
ALVAREZ: Yes.
BASH: -- about Trump's Washington right now. ZELENY: Right.
BASH: Don't go anywhere. Thank you so much. Thanks for bringing us that new reporting, Burgess.
EVERETT: Of course.
BASH: Coming up, President Trump has a new message to anyone thinking about protesting his military parade. We'll tell you what it is after the break.
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[12:56:15]
BASH: President Trump just had a message for anyone planning to protest the multi-million dollar military parade taking place here in Washington, D.C. this Saturday. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
TRUMP: And we're going to be celebrating big on Saturday. We're going to have a lot of -- and if there's any protest that wants to come out, they will be met with very big force. By the way, for those people that want to protest, they're going to be met with very big force. And I haven't even heard about a protest. But, you know, this is people that hate our country.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
BASH: Hate our country or maybe just want to go protest?
ZELENY: Look, protests, peaceful protests are part of our country's fabric, of course, the First Amendment. But look, the president loves the law and order tough on crime image. He is of the era of military veterans but did not serve himself as we well know. But has so sought to use the image of the military really to bolster himself.
And of course he supports the military, but it's very interesting this parade. It's been in his mind for so long since he went to France actually eight years ago for that military --
BASH: That's right.
ZELENY: -- for that military parade. I remember it well being there and he came home, wanted to do it eight years, was stopped by a defense secretary at the time, Jim Mattis. Now there's no one to stop him. So I have not seen or heard any sign of protests this week, and we shall see. But it's again, its part of his image that he is eager to put forward.
BASH: OK, so he's throwing himself a parade for his birthday. What are you doing for your birthday?
ZELENY: I don't know. We'll see. And yours is the next day. BASH: Yes, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right. In all seriousness, back to this -- oh, never mind. We're out of time, so hold that thought. We'll talk about it in the green room.
Thanks you, guys. Appreciate it. And happy birthday, Jeff.
ALVAREZ: Thank you.
ZELENY: You bet. Thank you, Dana.
BASH: Thank you.
Thank you for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts after the break.
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