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Senate Passes Trump Mega Bill After 50-50 Vote, Vance Breaks Tie; Trump Visits Controversial Migrant Detention Facility In Everglades. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired July 01, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

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DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Welcome to Inside Politics. I'm Dana Bash. And we are following breaking news here in Washington. The U.S. Senate is now holding the final vote on President Trump's massive agenda bill. Republican Majority Leader John Thune just said, he hopes they will have the votes. They have been in the chamber for about 27 hours or more. They've been negotiating behind the scenes, on the Senate floor, voting on some amendments.

CNN's Lauren Fox has been tracking all of it late into the night, early this morning. Lauren, what's happening as we speak? What are we looking at?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Republican lawmakers now in the final stretch of this vote series. This is the final vote. This is the opportunity where we will see whether or not Republican leader John Thune has the votes that he needs in order to get Trump's agenda across the finish line.

Obviously, he has been working tirelessly to try to shore up support from both the conservative side of his party and the more moderate wing of his party, working closely with Senator Lisa Murkowski to ensure that she had what she needed in this bill to support it. But it's still not clear whether or not she is going to vote for this bill or not.

There are several provisions specifically for the state of Alaska that were carved out, some of them thrown out in the last moments by the Senate parliamentarian and others survived, but that just shows you the lengths that leadership is going to, to try and win over the votes.

Just as a reminder, John Thune can lose three Republicans. He can't lose four. We expect that J.D. Vance, the Vice President, is likely going to need to be a tie breaker here if this comes down to the wire. But that just gives you a sense that this is the final vote, a moment that they have been building toward after tireless negotiations for more than a day now. Dana?

BASH: Yeah. And even more than that, if you talk about the build-up that you and our great team had been reporting on. So, Lauren, don't go too far. Keep us posted as we see the key senators we're looking for, Senator Murkowski, Senator Collins and others, as they make their way to the Senate floor and vote yea or nay, as we see that happening.

As we continue to monitor that, we have some terrific reporters here at the table. CNN's Jeff Zeleny, Olivia Beavers of The Wall Street Journal, Ayesha Rascoe of NPR, and CNN's Priscilla Alvarez.

Jeff Zeleny, this is an important moment, a really important moment for President Trump's legislative agenda. So much of what he does. He does with the stroke of a pen and hopes that it gets through the courts. This is different. This is really it when it comes to what he wants. Congress to do -- actually, just hang on one second. Let's listen into the Senate.

Lauren, I'm going to go back to you. We see on the screen there, 50- 50. This is what you suspected. Looking at this, at the chair there, looks like it is the vice president. So, we do expect a tie breaking vote momentarily.

FOX: Yeah. Our team who is in the chamber, Dana, they are giving us some live updates. And I just want to preface this with the fact that until it's gavel, nothing is final. You can hear the vice president here. What we are learning from inside the chamber is that Senator Rand Paul has voted no. We know that Senator Susan Collins --

BASH: Lauren, hang on. Let's listen to the vice president.

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Senate will suspend for a prayer by the Senate chaplain.

BASH: Oh, never mind. Sorry, Lauren.

FOX: That's OK.

BASH: The prayer is important. It is part of the daily business of the Senate. But as we monitor that, please continue what you were telling us about the news.

FOX: Yeah. We know now that Senator Rand Paul voted no on this piece of legislation. Senator Thom Tillis voted no on this piece of legislation. Senator Susan Collins voted no on this piece of legislation. But our colleague, Sarah Ferris, who was in the chamber, said that Senator Lisa Murkowski gave a quiet but affirmative vote for this legislation. Obviously, that is a significant development, given the lengths that leadership went to, to try to win over her support.

[12:05:00]

She had several concerns in this bill from Medicaid to food stamps cuts in her state, and she was really successful in winning some major things for the state of Alaska, including the fact that a key provision that would have shifted some of the burden of covering the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program known as food stamps. Back in her state, she was carved out. Alaska was carved out, as was Hawaii. That just shows you how far leadership was working to try to win up and shore up her vote. Dana? BASH: And when you say -- when you say, carved out, just to be clear. It means that the cuts that are coming to most states will not come to the state of Alaska and Hawaii as well.

FOX: Exactly. Non-contiguous states in the United States will not be subject to that change. We'll see how that goes over among House conservatives once this gets back over to their chamber, of course.

BASH: OK. And Lauren, I just want to show our viewers as we wait to see the final gavel. As you said, we don't know for sure what happens until the final gavel. About this time, I think we have a pretty good sense. I just want to show our viewers the big picture of what we're talking about here, the substance of this, because the horse trading and the politics are fascinating, but the substance is really ultimately what matters.

We're talking about extending the 2017 tax cuts, overhaul eligibility for Medicaid and food stamps, no taxes on tips or overtime. That was a big campaign promise that President Trump was out there talking about, and then even Kamala Harris did as well. Phasing out green energy tax credits, money for the Pentagon, border security, detentions and deportations, a lot of money there, and it also lifts the debt ceiling.

Can we just talk a little bit about as we look at all of the components to this, the knows (Ph) weren't -- you know, weren't that many knows, considering the concerns that we heard from a lot of Republican senators about a lot of what's in this when it comes to the Medicaid reform or cuts, when it comes to the fact that the CBO says, it adds like $3 trillion to the deficit.

But at the end of the day, unless somebody changes their vote before it's finally gaveled. It was just as you said, Rand Paul and Thom Tillis who went out with a blaze of glory. He was so upset about this, he said, I'm not -- I'm not going to run for reelection.

FOX: Yeah. And Dana, I just want to interrupt to say, they have gaveled this vote.

BASH: OK.

FOX: Now, it happened very quickly. But I want to just point out, as you were saying, you have these three Republicans who voted against this bill, and one of them voting for against it for very different reasons, right than the other two. Senator Thom Tillis, Senator Susan Collins, they had concerns about those Medicaid cuts.

And we should note that in the very end of this bill, the negotiations led to a place where Susan Collins nearly doubled that rural hospital fund that she had been fighting for still it was not enough to win her vote. Meanwhile, Senator Rand Paul voted against this bill because there were -- there was too much spending, he argued.

And the fact that it increased the country's borrowing limit that was something he did not want to include in this legislation, and he was very clear with leadership from the jump that that was going to be a red line for him. Obviously, they decided that they didn't need his vote, that they could get votes elsewhere, but that is why those three members voted against this legislation.

We do expect that Senator Susan Collins will issue a more formal statement explaining her vote anytime. We should also note she is now of those three. The only Republican that we know of who is seeking reelection in the state of Maine that obviously could have been Thom Tillis as well, but he announced on Sunday that he was not going to seek reelection after he faced massive backlash from the president when he voted against advancing this piece of legislation.

BASH: Really, really interesting. Lauren, thank you so much for being there. Thank you for making clear that this has officially passed. We did miss that quiet gavel by the vice president, who is the president of the Senate, who made sure that it passed by one vote. Thanks to his tie breaking vote. Let us know if you see and hear anything that is noteworthy as we learn what else happened on the floor.

And my panel is back. Jeff Zeleny, I interrupted you as we got the news. The big picture here about the Trump agenda.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Look, it's an extraordinary piece of legislation, some 980 pages in the Senate. We should point out this is not done yet. However, it is getting to that point. There is momentum behind this bill. Now President Trump obviously wants it. So, House conservatives now have a decision to make. Are they going to be the fiscal hawks that they have long talked about or are they going to swallow hard and vote for this bill.

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My guess is that by the end of the week, there is a bill. Is it going to be a straight line to that point? No, it is not. But we cannot really underestimate how sweeping this legislation is. It reminds me of something as big as the Affordable Care Act that we all covered 15 years ago now, and the political consequences could also be similar.

I've spent some time out in the country, talking to voters and rural hospital providers and others, and they are really worried still about these Medicaid cuts. And here's just one reason why it, sort of sounds arcane, but someone with Medicaid now who relies on it for to take care of a child with disabilities has to now apply if this passes twice in a year for eligibility, as opposed to just once.

One mother I talked to said, she waited on the phone three months to get her daughter certified. Not on the phone for that long, but she was on the phone, and it took three months to get her certified. So, the question is, can these states administer what Congress is about to pass on to them. So, the Senate right now is going to basically jam this down the House's throat. We've seen that many times before.

But after that, red states and blue states are about to get a huge piece of legislation that they're going to have to deal with, and there are many Republican governors as well who are very concerned about how this will happen. BASH: So, let's just stay on the Medicaid portion of this, because when it comes to the policy, but also the politics, as you just described, it's perhaps the most potent part of this very, very, very big bill. Let's listen to what the president himself said when asked about his promise that it's quote, waste fraud and abuse only.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Medicaid is in big trouble with the Democrats.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, you can promise anyone who loses their healthcare coverage that is because of waste, fraud and abuse?

TRUMP: Waste, fraud -- only, waste, fraud and abuse, which is what everybody wants.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And Olivia, the Congressional Budget Office, which I know some conservatives' question. Dismiss it, but it is the best thing we've got in terms of a real look at the nuts and bolts of what these pieces of legislation will do. That's true for democratic, congresses and presidents and Republicans.

This -- they say that this bill, 11.8 million people will lose health insurance by 2034, and that is because when we say health insurance, those are the people who get their health insurance through Medicaid.

OLIVIA BEAVERS, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Yeah. And this issue has been so politically charged from the beginning. Trump and other Republicans can definitely use a wide description of what they consider under the umbrella of waste, fraud and abuse, but you heard centrists complaining about it. They think, OK, if we do work requirements, if we do a few of these other changes in what they call guardrails, we can argue back home that this will be OK.

But there is definitely some concern and it's growing. You're seeing the democratic ads that are building and attacking Republicans who even voted just get out of the House, get it out of the Senate. And this will be what we're seeing playing out in the midterms as one of the biggest issues that Democrats campaign on.

We will see if Republicans some centrist David Valadao and others vote to back it in the House, now that they're seeing, what they complain is steeper cuts to it in the Senate version. Johnson -- Speaker Johnson barely got it through by just one vote some weeks ago with Republicans by pulling together the two different factions.

BASH: But the pressure is quite different when it's just the bill, and then you're in between the bill and what the president wants more than anything legislatively becoming law. You're a Republican.

AYESHA RASCOE, NPR HOST, "WEEKEND EDITION SUNDAY" AND "UP FIRST": Well, you know, the waste, fraud and abuse line reminds me of, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, right? Like, if you like your -- if you like it, you can keep it. OK, well, when this -- when the rubber meets the road and people start losing their healthcare, are they all going to look like waste, fraud and abuse.

Like, that's what you -- to me, I'm thinking famous last words. Are you making a promise that you can live up to? And I think -- I do think it will get through the House, because as you said, I mean, the pressure is on. They have to deliver something. This is what they got. They're going to get something through, but the cost could be enormous.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's a part of this that we haven't talked about yet, and it is the massive amount of money for immigration enforcement. It is money that I have not seen before, and neither has Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This would go above and beyond where their funds have been in the past. And that had been one of the main logistical hurdles for the Trump administration when they came into office, the very limited resources and personnel that they had in the Department of Homeland Security.

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Well, this is $45 billion for immigration detention, in addition to billions more for hiring, for border barriers, et cetera. This is likely to super charge the administration's immigration crackdown at levels that we haven't seen before because we haven't seen these funds before, if again, this were to pass. And it is something that the vice president himself last night was highlighting as he was taking on these criticisms.

BASH: So, you say it there, it comes out here. Let's look at some of the specifics, because I'm really glad you brought up the unbelievable amount of money. And this was a huge talking point internally from the White House and from Republican leaders to the rank and file. You don't want to vote against all of this money for immigration, for border enforcement and in the interior.

You mentioned $45 billion for detention facilities, $30 billion to hire, train, retain ICE personnel, $47 billion for construction, installation or border barriers. And I just want to show our viewers what you were talking about with regard to the vice president, who we just saw issue the tie breaking vote. He said, everything else, the CBO score, the proper baseline, the minutia of the Medicaid policy -- minutia of Medicaid policy is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions.

ALVAREZ: That's priority number one. And over the last several weeks, we've seen White House borders are, Tom Homan talk about this extensively whenever he had the chance. Stephen Miller has also talked about this. I mean, this has been the drum that they have been banging to get where they want to go.

There are very high ambitions that this president has when it comes to mass deportation. And to get there, you need the resources. There are still a lot of logistical hurdles they will have to meet. But pair this with what we saw from the Supreme Court last week, and if they were to get these funds, they could do what they have set out to do in a way that perhaps was unexpected just a few months ago.

RASCOE: And I do think that we should be clear that if this money comes through, this will touch Americans lives in a way that they probably are not prepared for.

BASH: Let's just listen in to the Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who was talking about this bill passage in the Senate.

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD): The Capitol police and the pages who stayed past the end of their session to help out. I am very, very grateful to all of you. With that, Mr. President, I hope everyone manages to get some sleep. I look forward to the House, taking up and passing this historic legislation and getting it to the president's desk. Mr. President, I yield the floor. The absence of a quorum.

BASH: OK, so that was a big thank you to the people who work for the senators work in the Senate. It is very hard to be there for so many hours and days straight. And also, that last thing about I look forward to the House passing this. This is what Jeff was referring to. They really want to kind of push the House to do it as quickly as possible.

I want to go back to some of the analogies that you made, and you also made Ayesha and Jeff to Obamacare. Obviously, the policy could not be more different, but in terms of the process and the size and the politics and the horse trading getting there.

Some of the things that were removed or sort of changed in the Senate, I'll just put up on the screen. There was a removal of a five-year ban on state AI regulation, which was put into the bill in the House. And a lot of people who voted for it, including Marjorie Taylor Greene admitted. She didn't know it was in there. She wanted it out.

Moves up Medicaid eligibility verification requirement by one year. Olivia, you were talking about the fact that it makes the bill with regard to Medicaid even tougher, bars federal unemployment for people who make over $1 million. So, those are just some of the changes.

But then there are the changes that Lauren was reporting on, that Lisa Murkowski was able to squeeze out. Again, this is politics. This is the art of legislating. This is horse trading, whatever you want to call it. But it reminds me of back during Obamacare, there was so much of an uproar over the Cornhusker Kickback, remember --

ZELENY: A former senator, Ben Nelson --

BASH: Ben Nelson. I will just Ben Nelson.

ZELENY: -- and he lost his race because of that.

BASH: Ben Nelson, and then there was Mary Landrieu, who got some things for Louisiana, which is what she wanted to do. They called it the Louisiana Purchase. So, Lisa Murkowski is doing exactly that, which is when you have leverage, why not use it.

ZELENY: Sure. BASH: I'm not sure that we're going to see the same backlash.

ZELENY: The politics are entirely different because the Senate map is entirely different. What a different time a decade and a half on is because there really are not many blue Democratic senators in red states like that. It's almost a -- an extinct creature in Washington, someone from the House or Senate being from a state that goes different from the statewide vote of the party.

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However, a few other things buried in this bill, and this is one of the things that they really wanted to get done, was the debt ceiling increase.

BASH: Yeah.

ZELENY: That is always such a huge lift. Most Republicans are against it. So that is also included there. I think it's $4 trillion you would know better, Olivia, I think it's $4 trillion. And also, so that is something they wanted to get through. But the amount that this is adding to the national debt is something that, you know, the White House is not that concerned about it, but some House conservatives are. So, there's going to be a little hand wringing, but again, choices point, it's hard to imagine the House not passing.

BASH: Well, you mentioned the debt again the CBO that this is about the deficit. It said that it would add $3.26 trillion with a T to the deficit, and there are a lot of deficit hawks. There were deficit hawks in the United States Senate who were very upset about this and they just voted yes, which brings me to another element to this political debate going forward as the House gets this, and that is Elon Musk.

And he has been very, very aggressive in the last 24 hours, saying that he thinks that this is terrible for lots of reasons, but the most recent was about the fact that everybody also agreed to raise the debt ceiling. And he's not -- he's not backing down. He's kind of in it and he's threatening to potentially start a third party. And the president is now seeing himself pushing back again publicly against Elon Musk, which we haven't seen for a few weeks.

BEAVERS: No. And I mean, I think it's getting dirtier and dirtier between the president and Elon Musk. And what I think is also interesting is how Elon Musk is starting to fracture off and say, he'll support the Republicans who vote to oppose it. Now it's going to be a test. I think from my reporting on Capitol Hill, a lot more Republicans who are willing to dismiss Elon Musk after he had his split with President Trump.

So, I don't know that you're really going to be seeing him compelling that many people, but for this brief moment, I did a ton of reporting, covering the House Freedom Caucus, fiscal hawks who got caught in this moment where Elon Musk was still in the MAGA world, and he was saying, he had concerns about the bill, the spending bill a couple weeks ago. And you saw an immediate reaction of conservatives saying, yes, we need to fight harder. This bill isn't perfect. We need to do more. It needs to be better than what came from the Senate. So, you are really going to test the people who ran their entire careers, cutting the U.S. deficit down, going after spending and then voting for this bill, especially if the price tag is looking like the Senate version, which is $1 trillion more than the House version that passed.

BASH: So, this is what the House Freedom Caucus put on social media last night, and it's not fiscal responsibility, it's not what we agreed to. The Senate must make major changes and should at least be in the ballpark of compliance with agreed upon House budget framework. That didn't happen.

BEAVERS: No.

BASH: So, what we will see?

ZELENY: Surprising no one. The Senate always jams the House --

BASH: Exactly.

ZELENY: -- how it works.

BASH: Exactly. And you know, who knows that? Everybody in the House. Stand by everybody. Thanks for rocking and rolling. It is a very busy day here in Inside Politics. President Trump is about to take questions during his visit to the controversial migrant detention facility in the middle of the Florida, Everglades. We're live on the ground there, after a quick break.

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BASH: Welcome back. I want to get straight to President Trump, who is taking reporters' questions while he is in Florida, touring a controversial new migrant detention facility. Let's listen.

TRUMP: It might be as good as the real Alcatraz. Well, that's a spooky one too, isn't it? That's a tough sight. But -- so I really, I think it could last as long as they want to have it. I mean, you may morph this into, you know, your prison system, frankly, which I know you always need. Unfortunately, I'd like to say, you know, a little controversial, but I couldn't care less.

We have a lot of bad criminals that came into the -- into this country, and they came in stupidly. It was an unforced error. It was a incompetent president that allowed it to happen. It was an auto pen maybe that allowed it to happen, and it did happen. But we also have a lot of bad people that have been here for a long time, people that whack people over the head with a baseball bat from behind when they're not looking and kill them. People that knife you when you're walking down the street. They're not -- they're not new to our country. They're old to our country. Many of them were born in our country. I think we ought to get them the hell out of here too. You want to know the truth, so maybe that'll be the next job that we'll work on together.

But I think getting them out, you know, we forget about them. We have some very bad, we had some bad accidents in New York, and they're not accidents. They were done very much in purpose. People being pushed into a subway just before it arrives, going 40 miles an hour.

BASH: OK, we're going to continue to monitor President Trump to see if he says anything new on this facility that he is touring in Florida. We do have Isabel Rosales, who is outside that facility to tell us more. Isabel?

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Dana, Alligator Alcatraz, as this makes -- makeshift detention facility is being called, was constructed in just a week and one day, and sits here in the Everglades, just 50 miles away from Trump's resort in Miami. Now his visit to this facility comes as questions grow about the conditions that detainees undocumented immigrants are facing at these sorts of facilities across the nation and internationally.