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Conflict Enters 2nd Week As Israel, Iran Launch More Strikes; Iranian Spokesperson: U.S. Can End Iran Conflict With One Call To Israel; Trump To Decide On Potential Strikes On Iran "In Two Weeks"; Trump Agenda Bill Faces Uphill Battle To Keep On Deadline; GOP Divided Over Medicaid, Debt Ceiling, Green Energy Incentives. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired June 20, 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]

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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR, ANDERSON COOPER 360: Welcome to Inside Politics. I'm Anderson Cooper in Tel Aviv.

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And I'm Manu Raju in Washington in for Dana Bash. United States is for a second week on the sidelines of a worsening conflict. This hour, President Trump is huddling with his national security team. He's choosing to give peace a chance, delaying a decision on striking Iran for another two weeks, as diplomats meet in Geneva and what feels like a last ditch bid for a cease fire.

COOPER: Back here in Tel Aviv, sirens are the new pulse for daily life inside Israel. Just hours ago, alarms sending Israelis scrambling for shelter as Iranian missiles and drones descended on the country. Now, you can track the damage by following the smoke, the crash of terror from the skies in Haifa, the major port city in the northern part of the country. Video from social media capturing the moment an Iranian missile made impact.

CNN cameras measuring the aftermath thick plumes, spiraling upwards and darkening the sunny afternoon sky. So far, health and emergency officials put the number of injured at 23, three people, including a 16-year-old boy have what we are told are serious injuries.

There's a lot to get to in the hour ahead. I want to bring in CNN's Nic Robertson, who is on the ground at the site of that strike in Haifa. What have you been seeing, Nic?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah. This building behind me, Anderson. I'm just going to step back, and Sanjeet (Ph) could give you a better look at it, but we've seen here. This is the building that took the main force of the blast. It's a disused building. There was no one in it. We're told when it was hit. The casualties were people out here on the street who hadn't gone to the shelters. And I can tell you a lot of people had gone to the shelters because we had raced off the streets with them earlier, when this was happening. But the situation with this building, you -- what you've had here is these recovery teams going in, specialist recovery, we've seen sniffer dogs going in.

They've been checking for the possibility of people being injured, trapped under rubble inside the building. They've pulled out now. The building is mostly clear, as far as we understand. What they're working on now, as you can see, is quite literally. Look at the road where I'm standing. It's clear. The diggers are coming in. They're doing a clearer and that's something officials here really feel is important in this city to clean it up as quickly as possible.

The foreign minister was down here just a couple of minutes ago. He'd come down to get his eyes on it and have an assessment himself. I asked him about the diplomacy that's going on underway right now in Geneva. The Iranian foreign minister, British, French, German foreign ministers all meeting there. He told me that he really didn't put any stock in Iran really taking a diplomatic opportunity. He said that they'll just try to play for time. That was his view.

I also caught up here with the city's mayor. He's been mayor here for more than 20 years. Here's the guy that's helped regenerate and rebuild this downtown area here. I asked him about the two-week pause that President Trump is putting in before he makes a decision. I asked him what he felt about that.

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ROBERTSON: As diplomacy going on in Geneva right now, with the Iranian foreign minister, some European foreign ministers, President Trump, right now has said, he's going to wait two weeks before he makes a decision what to happen next. What are you hoping for from these different diplomatic pieces?

MAYOR YONA YAHAV, HAIFA, ISRAEL: Peace, that the peace treaty will come out of it.

ROBERTSON: And President Trump waiting two weeks to make a decision. What do you think about that?

YAHAV: It's too much.

ROBERTSON: Why?

YAHAV: Because I have no time. You see what's going in the middle time.

ROBERTSON: Well, there's more destruction.

YAHAV: They have to sit now and negotiate and design a treaty. It's not a big deal and do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ROBERTSON: And that, I think, underscores what we heard from a lot of people in the city, Anderson, that they are worried, frankly, about what comes next. If there were two weeks of peace, that would be fine. But as they seen today, it isn't going to be two weeks of peace and there is going to be more strikes, and that's a concern going forward, Anderson?

[12:05:00]

COOPER: Nic Robertson, thanks very much. CNN's Fred Pleitgen and Claudia Otto are the first western journalists who have been able to enter Tehran since the conflict began. Moments ago, Fred interviewed a spokesperson for the Iranian presidency. Here is that.

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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: President Trump says he wants to give diplomacy a chance. What diplomacy do you think can happen now?

MAJID FARAHANI, IRANIAN PRESIDENCY SPOKESMAN: United States, President Trump can easily stop the war by only one telephone to Israel. But I don't know why he didn't do that. We believe to all parts of diplomacy. So, I think if Mr. Trump ordered to Netanyahu to stop the attack, the diplomacy can be start again easily.

PLEITGEN: Do you think Iran is willing to speak directly to the Trump administration now?

FARAHANI: Directly or un-directly is not important. The important is that Iran believe to civilian dialog.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: He also said that Iran would not accept a deal that requires it to stop all nuclear enrichment. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: Do you think that Iran would be willing to give up enrichment and, for instance, join a consortium?

FARAHANI: No, no, no. Iran announced that so many times the enrichment and we will do the enrichment, and we don't accept the stop meant of enrichment. Maybe the enrichment can be lower, but we don't stop it anymore.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Joining me now from Jerusalem, Avi Mayer. He is the founder of the Jerusalem Journal and former editor of the Jerusalem Post. Avi, thanks so much for being with us. I'm wondering what you are hearing from Israelis, from Israeli officials, publicly or privately about this two-weeks or within two-week deadline that President Trump announced yesterday. AVI MAYER, FOUNDER, JERUSALEM JOURNAL: Well, Anderson, good to see you again. I think that Israelis are taking this two-week period with a grain of salt. Two weeks is a phrase that the president has used many times with regard to many different issues. He's fairly flexible in his time frames. I would anticipate that something could happen much sooner, although, again, of course, President Trump is a rather unpredictable guy. It's certainly possible that he will take his time, but it seems like the impetus to do something is now.

We see that there are truth movements that they move quite a lot of military hardware to the middle east in order to prepare for some kind of participation in this military campaign against Iran's nuclear program. I would guess that there's something that will probably happen much sooner than two weeks from now.

COOPER: Do you believe, as the Iranian spokesperson just said to our Fred Pleitgen that the President Trump could get Prime Minister Netanyahu to actually stop the strike?

MAYER: Look, at the end of the day, this is an existential issue for Israel. The government of Iran, as represented by the deputy foreign minister who just spoke to you, has had genocidal aims for this country. They say so very openly. They want to wipe Israel off the map, but we know that they've been developing the means, to do exactly that.

So, I don't know that Israel would have just sort of sat by the wayside and said, no, it's fine. We'll let someone else take care of it. It was very clear, I think, to the prime minister, they had to take action now, and I don't think that we're in a position to stop this at this time. We understand from Israeli officials there are still quite a few war aims that have not been achieved as of yet.

Most notably, of course, that site at Fordo that fortified underground site that many have said can only be breached by use of these bunker busters that only the U.S. has. Israeli officials are now saying that they could do something there, if they must. So, I don't know if it's necessarily true that the United States or anyone else could stop Israel from doing what it feels is necessary to keep its people safe.

COOPER: I would imagine and I'm wondering, if you've heard this at all behind the scenes from Israeli officials, that they must have had a plan or at least war gamed out. What a strike against Fordo would look like if the U.S. was not involved. I mean, I know there have been other strikes that Israel special forces have done in Syria, for instance, against, I believe it was a chemical weapons facility that was using special forces. There must be some sort of a plan that they have at least considered.

MAYER: We understand from Israeli officials that there is a plan. That if Israel needs to go it alone, it absolutely can. We don't know exactly what that looks like. They're not sharing those details with members of the press. But we understand that it could be something perhaps unconventional that hasn't been seen before.

This, I think, is Israel asserting that if it needs to stand up for its own defense, it certainly can do that, while, of course, it would appreciate the assistance of the United States, we could do it, I think, much more easily using those bunker busters that only the U.S. has.

COOPER: If there is, in fact, two weeks here that the U.S. chooses to delay before making decision. Is this sustainable for two more weeks from, you know, from the IDF, from the Israeli air force? Are there any enough targets that are reachable?

[12:10:00]

MAYER: Well, the Israeli military has said that it needs roughly five to 10 days, perhaps two weeks to go through what it calls its bank of targets, the list of targets that it has across Iran that it believes are tied to the nuclear program, the missile program and other things that are sensitive to the regime. So, we certainly have no shortage of things to bomb between now and then.

I think it's the question of whether United States will step in and decide to do something on its own or in concert with Israel during that time. I certainly don't think that Israel will have any lack of things to target. We know that there have been quite a few sites spread throughout the country of Iran, that have been hit by Israel in recent days, military targets, targets tied to the regime. I don't think that's likely to stop anytime soon.

COOPER: Avi Mayer, thank you. Good to talk to as always. Thank you. Manu, back to you.

RAJU: Thanks, Anderson. I'm now joined by an excellent group of reporters here in Washington, CNN's Kristen Holmes, John Bresnahan of Punchbowl News, and Nia-Malika Henderson of CNN and Bloomberg. Nice to see you all.

Kristen, you cover the White House every single day. You're up there. What does the White House actually want? What does Trump actually want with this two-week delay or two-week decision-making process? What do they expect will actually happen between now and then?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: They are really hoping that Iran will come to the table and strike some kind of deal. I mean, that is what we have heard from Donald Trump, from the people around him, really for weeks, even before this actually escalated to the point it is now.

The president was hoping for some kind of deal. And now you're seeing he's actually giving Iran an extension. He's saying it's not, it's two weeks. You know that 60 days, Israel started bombing Iran, but they really want to not get fully involved.

We have heard the president has asked every which way, how can we do this without it being us embroiled in a long-term war in the middle east. He even to the point where can we release one strike or two strikes and then get out? And some of the advisors tell him, sure we can do that. Others, no. So, they're trying to get to anything that they can possibly do before it gets that way. RAJU: I mean, two weeks is not much time, and two weeks is Trump's typical timeframe. I mean, just look at the number of times he said two weeks, whether it's a resolution in Ukraine, whether it's farmer tariffs that are coming out, whether it's decision about the minimum -- statement on the minimum wage, among the other headlines, healthcare, deportation, and one by one.

John Bresnahan from POLITICO in 2018 about his infrastructure plan that was going to come out in two weeks. But this seems this is what Trump leans into. But the difference here is, this is a major foreign policy decision and that could break out into a massive war.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, BLOOMBERG POLITICAL & POLICY COLUMNIST & CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I mean, there is war going on now, of course, between Israel and Iran. So, two weeks for them, if you're in Israel. If you're in Iran, two weeks is a long time. If you've got missiles raining down on you and the prospect of bunker bombs coming and destroying your nuclear facilities. If you're in Iran.

What's unclear is what this two-weeks actually means. Is two weeks, you know, three weeks? Is it four weeks? Is it really two days? Because, I mean, if you look at the way Trump uses these -- this sort of two-week timeframe, it's kind of meaningless. Does it mean anything real in this instance, we'll have to wait and see.

RAJU: How do you think you talking to Republicans on the Hill. I mean, the leadership is behind him at the moment, the rank and file, they're coming all over the place.

JOHN BRESNAHAN, CO-FOUNDER, PUNCHBOWL NEWS: All over the place. I think if you talk to them privately, no one wants the United States to be involved in a military campaign against Iran. On the Hill, there's very little support for it. And as we were watching that your package before, Hakeem Jeffries, the House Minority Leader, came out saying -- and a Democrat, the top Democrat in the House, saying that Trump would need support from Congress to do anything. He need approval from Congress.

I think that Republicans would fall in line, like you said on it. But there's -- there are a number of Iran hawks, you know, Tom Cotton, Lindsey Graham, very strong hawks on Iran. But I do think there's a lot of Americans who think about Iraq, who think about Afghanistan. I mean, where are we going? What's the end game? Do we want Iran? I mean, they're talking about new enrichment program. No nuclear program at all. I don't know if you could get there and --

RAJU: In two weeks.

HOLMES: Yeah.

BRESNAHAN: But it's not a -- it's not a terrible play for Trump here. Keep the pressure on the Iranians. You have -- they're losing. Why not keep the pressure on them? So, it's a smart play for him to, if they -- if the Americans said, right now, we're not going to strike, that would be a problem for Israel because that would leave alone one-on- one with Iran. And I think that's where people on Hill -- HOLMES: Well and just one thing to note here. We do know that right now, the Iranian foreign minister is sitting down with the foreign ministers from the U.K., Germany, France, also the foreign minister from the U.K. met with Steve Wyckoff yesterday at the White House.

[12:15:00]

They are now taking a break. They met for 90 minutes of taking a break, and they're all talking in separate rooms. I can almost guarantee you that Steve Wyckoff is on the line there with what was discussed in that 90 minutes. I mean, they are very much -- the United States is very much a part of these discussions, even if they're not in the room.

RAJU: And the question is going to be, if they don't decide to abandon their nuclear ambitions. What will trump decide to do? Will this be his red line moment, the way that Obama had his red line with Syria? A lot to see in the next several days.

All right, coming up. We'll have more live from Israel, but first, a big, beautiful bill or a big, beautiful mess. Senate Republicans are struggling to wrangle the votes to pass President Trump's massive domestic policy bill. Can they meet the White House's July 4 deadline?

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[12:20:00]

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RAJU: President Trump's sweeping domestic agenda is about to face its most critical moment, with Senate GOP leaders pressing for a vote next week. The problem for Trump, not everyone in his party agrees that his so called big, beautiful bill is all that beautiful, meaning that it's still uncertain whether he'll get the votes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): It's early days. Right now, I think a fair- minded person could see that the bill in the Senate is pretty much held together with spit. That will change. How quickly will change, I don't know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: My excellent reporters are back. John, you walk the halls with me every single day. You guys write for Punchbowl, that the Republican leaders believe that failure can't be an option because the consequences are simply too dire. That is a message that Republican leaders are trying to put on their members, saying you have to ultimately fall in line. What are you hearing about the actual likelihood that this passes the Senate next week, as John Thune wants.

BRESNAHAN: Look, Thune is pressing very hard on it. The White House is pressing very hard on it. Susie Wiles came down and gave this message. White House chief of staff gave this message to Senate Republicans the other day. They want it. They want to keep the pressure on them. Do they get it next week? I don't know. There's a lot of procedural hurdles they have to go through there. There's a very technical review process they're undergoing right now --

RAJU: -- and significant?

BRESNAHAN: Yeah. And it's knocked out some pieces already. It knocked out some banking pieces today or yesterday that we actually protected the Consumer Financial Protection Board. So, they're going to have some -- the Democrats are going to use these technical challenges to try to knock out more of this bill. As you know, as we've written about, you've talked about extensively, there are a number of Republican senators and this is only Republican votes, you know, who don't like the bill.

Rand Paul will not vote for this bill. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is a problem. You have a bunch of members concerned about Medicaid. Susan Collins of Maine, Josh Hawley of Missouri. You have the West Virginia senators. They're looking for something to protect rural hospitals on Medicaid cuts. So, they have a lot of problems.

And then, if they go too far changing this, they lose votes in the House. The SALT is a huge issue. This state and local tax issue is a huge issue. You have a couple of House Republicans who have voted for the bill in the House. Senate wants to get rid of the language voted for in the House. These guys, it's an existential fight for them.

So, they have to vote now. I think, you know, listen, I say 50-50, they get it done this week. I think more likely than not, Trump will have to spend a lot of time himself. Trump will have to be the closure.

RAJU: Yeah. Especially, when he's dealing with Iran, which is lets focused now, he's going to focus on this. You mentioned Rand Paul. He's one of those holdouts. He's someone who is raising concerns about the debt limit increase in this bill. We actually call for a debt limit increase about $5 trillion in the Senate bill, and he's warning Republicans about that vote.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): At the point, Republicans vote unanimously or virtually unanimously for the debt ceiling. They own the debt. They already own spending, In March they used to call, remember, they call them the Biden spending levels. They're now the GOP spending levels. Minus me. I didn't vote for him in March, but the spending levels are now Republican. The debt ceiling is Republican.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: How could the politics of this, you know, the Republican leaders are saying, vote for this, because the consequence will be too bad. But if you vote for it, you also own it.

HENDERSON: I think that's right. And Democrats have been pretty masterful in trying to message this bill. And you see some of the polling that suggests, you know, the Republicans in the House and Senate might want some version of this, but not many Americans do. I think it was something like only 67 percent of Republicans want it, and you know, the majority of Americans don't want it.

And I think you're going to see if this passes real effects on MAGA world. And that's something that Steve Bannon has been talking about for weeks and weeks and weeks. This idea, if you try to get at Medicaid, Medicaid is MAGA, which is what Steve Bannon said, and some of the concerns that Josh Hawley has raised as well, and some of the moderates too, so it's a problem. But listen, you've got Trump, who has huge sway over everybody in the Senate and House as well who are Republicans, and it's likely that he'll get his way.

RAJU: Yeah. And it's interesting, because you mentioned Trump. When I talked to Senator Hawley this week. He told me that he was surprised, or that Trump was surprised. He can -- the Trump told him that he was surprised about some of the Medicaid cuts that were in the Senate bill, because he said that Trump is focused on -- been focused on Iran. So, he wasn't aware of some of the details in here. What are you hearing about Trump's level of involvement here that close this out in the Senate next week?

[12:25:00]

HOLMES: So, we know that this is incredibly important to the president. This is his legacy bill. He believes that this is what's going to cement his presidency. So, he is going to be all in, but it's not just him. I mean, you hear Josh Hawley talking about how much he's talking to Donald Trump, but it's not just Donald Trump that's doing the work. We're hearing that his staff is having dinner with senators. They are having meetings. They are having lunches.

And with someone like Rand Paul. You see President Trump attacking him online. Well, I'm told that partly, that's because they don't think they're ever going to get Rand Paul. Rand Paul is not a sway of old. So, why even waste their time? They don't care.

But with everybody else that you mentioned, with Ron Johnson, with Josh Hawley, with Susan Collins, you are seeing extraordinary amount of outreach from the White House. J.D. Vance is involved. All of the policy people are involved. And this is consistently because they want to get this across the finish line.

I think what you're going to see is the president stepping it up. But I also think that we're missing a little bit of what's happening behind the scenes, which is these constant meetings, calls, background conversations, it is a full court press by the White House right now.

RAJU: No question about it. And that's what about the voters' view of all this. This is what a KFF poll, Kaiser Family Foundation poll said, just 35 percent view this bill favorably, 64 unfavorable, 64 percent.

And then you look at, are you concerned that more adults and children will become uninsured? That's because the healthcare cuts that are in this plan. 72 percent are very or somewhat concerned. I mean, Republican leaders, they have to be aware of that that we head to the midterms.

BRESNAHAN: -- this week is -- are they going in the same path the Democrats say, with Obamacare or build back better because they --

RAJU: Again, they fight about the process and don't explain the message.

BRESNAHAN: And they're so busy fighting, and they let the other side define the bill, and what -- this is what's happened. You talked about it. This is what's happened. Medicaid is a huge issue, and it affects red states. There are red states that have enormous Medicaid populations in rural areas. That's why West Virginia senators are so concerned.

I do think this has been a huge problem. You already see outside groups, Republican outside groups dumping millions of dollars into TV ads in some of these swing districts in the House, because the House is really where this fight will be in 2026. The Senate is much harder for Democrats to take the House is ripe for taking for Democrats.

So, they're already spending tens of millions of dollars now. It's -- and we're 18 months out from an election. I mean, it's going to get crazy. I do think they have a huge problem in that there's no enthusiasm in the base for this, and they don't know how to message it and that's --

RAJU: Yeah. Just calling it big, beautiful is not enough. You got to explain the policy.

BRESNAHAN: But they got -- Trump has a lot of money in a lot of time.

RAJU: Yeah, there's a lot of time. All right, coming up next. Well, President Trump eventually give the green light for a strike on Iran. Well, a former NATO supreme commander puts those odds at 70 percent. He'll be here after the break.

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