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Inside Politics

Trump Says He is Highly Unlikely to Fire Fed Chair Powell; Republicans Got Duped on Jeffrey Epstein, as Per Trump; GOP Representative Introduces Bill to Give Undocumented Workers Legal Status. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired July 16, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR: None of those individuals were pushing for a rate cut in the last meeting. Maybe a few will this time. If Powell gets bounced and markets go haywire and treasury yields skyrocket, you are less likely to get an interest rate cut, not just in July, but also in September, and then moving forward, regardless of who the Chair is. So, there is a reason why there is a reluctance to do this on a legal basis, on a market basis, but there is clearly an effort to keep this bubbling in the hopes that the pressure will have an impact.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': I love -- first of all, yes, yes and yes to all of those reporting nuggets and analyses. But I love that you told the timeline of all of us before the show started scrambling to try to figure out if he really was going to fire a Powell. And the fact that we were watching the markets go down, and by the time, the cameras got into the Oval Office, he knew the markets were going down. I am sure. And then he said, oh no, I'm not going to fire him, knowing how the markets react to what he says, just.

MATTINGLY: Yeah, you have the -- you have the, like the, wee as you're like riding a rollercoaster.

(LAUGH)

BASH: Yeah.

MATTINGLY: It kind of pops into your head a little bit there.

BASH: Yeah. Yeah. A lot. If only we were at an amusement park right now, Phil Mattingly.

(LAUGH)

BASH: Thank you so much. Appreciate it. And we have a lot more on what President Trump said across the board, especially about these really stunning, I don't know if I would call them threats, but really tough language for the people who put him in office. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:35:54] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I lost a lot of faith in certain people. Yeah, I lost, because they got duped by the Democrats. The Democrats are good for nothing. They've done a terrible job. They almost destroyed our country. If I didn't get elected, all these numbers you're hearing about, they found $25 billion and another $25 billion is coming in, and hundreds of billions of dollars is pouring into our country. And we just got the biggest tax cut in history. We just got the biggest regulation cuts in history.

There'll be no tax on tips. There'll be no tax on Social Security. There'll be no tax on overtime. There'll be no tax on so many other things. You're allowed to deduct your interest from a car payment. That's never happened before. You borrow interest -- you borrow money to buy a car. If the car is made in America -- and by the way, factories are being built all over America, car factories, A.I. factories, but you get a deduction on your interest. Nobody ever thought of that before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: That was President Trump moments ago, blasting some of his fellow Republicans who are demanding answers in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. And it comes shortly after he called supporters who were upset about this, weaklings, and said he doesn't need their support. Let's talk more about this with a terrific group of reporters here, CNN's Priscilla Alvarez, Marc Caputo of Axios, Tia Mitchell of The Atlanta Journal Constitution, and CNN's Aaron Blake. Marc?

MARC CAPUTO, SENIOR POLITICS REPORTER, AXIOS: Yes. There's so much there to react to. I think the most interesting thing for me as someone who covers Trump, is he reacts to these crises, a crisis that's been fueled by conspiracy theories, by adding more conspiracy theories instead of just saying, I knew Jeffrey Epstein. There's no credible evidence against me. Let's move on. He says, this is a Jim Comey, Barack Obama, Joe Biden plot, and it's the Jeffrey Epstein hoax. And so, if anyone thinks that the conventional way of dealing with a crisis is to not talk about things you don't want to talk to, Donald Trump is here to prove them wrong.

BASH: Or is he? I mean, this, to me, this is such a fascinating test case in the power of Donald Trump's persuasion/the power that he has over the base. Because now, I mean, he's sort of gone through the almost the stages of grief and now he's in the anger phase, and the fact -- the way that he's lashing out and making it really personal, he's not naming names, but we'll show you some of the names that he's talking about when he says he's lost faith in people who are asking questions about that.

Not only Marjorie Taylor Greene and some of his biggest supporters on the Hill, some of his biggest supporters with the loudest MAGA megaphones in the -- on the internet, in the podcast space, sort of all over, saying we don't believe that there's nothing there. And again, there is no evidence that their doubt or their questions were borne out of Democrats. This is all coming from Republicans who have been pushing this for a very long time.

AARON BLAKE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yeah. And I think the question right now is whether he can get people off of this hobby horse that they've been talking about for a very long time here. And he's certainly shown an ability to do that. We had recently, when he decided to strike Iran, that was initially something that MAGA was very skeptical of. They were very non-interventionist. He got them on board with that very quickly.

I think this is a different thing though. This is something that has been building not just since Jeffrey Epstein's suicide in 2019, but going back further than that, we had the whole QAnon thing where the idea there was that -- there's this big ring of pedophiles that Donald Trump is going to come into office and reveal. That was much more extreme. I think Jeffrey Epstein is something that people who are more in the mainstream can get their arms around. We've seen polling that shows --

[12:40:00]

BASH: But it's connected to that QAnon ideal (ph).

BLAKE: It's very much, I mean, the ethos of both of these conspiracy theories is very similar, but Epstein is more accessible for people. And we've seen polling that shows a plurality of people, most of the people who have an opinion on this don't believe that he actually killed him himself. We have a new CNN poll this week that shows only 3 percent of Americans are satisfied with the answers they've been getting from the government. So, this is a very live issue and this is something that people have really lined up behind for a very long time. That makes it much harder to get them off of that issue.

BASH: Go ahead.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: To your point too about the base, part of Donald Trump's appeal has been that he has been an outsider and that he is going to go after the establishment and the parts of government that are concealing, and that has given way for these conspiracy theories. And I think what's really interesting about this week is that, is his base going to see him as now aligned with that establishment? Is he now part of that deep state that they have been railing against? And that is why this in particular, just strikes at the core of the base. It goes beyond this particular issue and who he's aligning himself with in this moment.

BASH: It's exactly -- it's so interesting that you say that because, in the break, I got a text from somebody saying, who is he trying to protect? Yeah. I mean, it totally speaks to that. Before you come in, I do want to play for our viewers some of what I was referring to earlier, which everybody has seen, but I think it is appropriate to remind them now, some of the examples of the president, now president again, and some of the people who are in his administration now pushing this idea. We'll start with the president on "Fox & Friends" in June of 2024.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY, FOX CO-HOST OF "FOX & FRIENDS": Would you declassify the Epstein files?

TRUMP: Yeah, yeah, I would.

CAMPOS-DUFFY: All right.

TRUMP: I guess, I would. I think that -- less so because you don't know it, you don't want to affect people's lives if it's phony stuff in there because there's a lot of phony stuff with that whole world. But I think I would, or at least I'd --

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Do you think that would restore trust, help restore trust?

TRUMP: Yeah. I don't know about Epstein so much as I do the others, certainly about the way he died. It'd be interesting to find out what happened there because that was a weird situation and the cameras didn't happen to be working, et cetera, et cetera. But yeah, I'd go a long way toward that one.

J.D. VANCE, (R) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list. That is an important thing.

KASH PATEL, DIRECTOR OF THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION: Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are.

ALINA HABBA, INTERIM U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY: We have flight logs, we have information, names, that will come out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now, I will say it is interesting, given the prism through which we're looking at this now, to hear the president saying, well, just to be a little careful --

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION: Yeah.

BASH: -- about phony stuff. Like, there was something going on in his brain. I don't know if it's something that he knows because he knew Jeffrey Epstein very well.

MITCHELL: Yeah.

BASH: Or another factor.

MITCHELL: He always spoke about it with nuance, right? But he also leaned into the conspiracy theories and definitely has elevated and given jobs to people who were way more bought into the conspiracy theory. And that's, to me, the biggest break. I've been talking to people like Marjorie Taylor Greene. I've seen her reaction. She's not backing down so far into not just saying release the files, but saying, I'm not going to cater to a king. I'm not going to bow down to someone just because of her personality. And Marjorie Taylor Greene and the people like her are focusing on consistency because they bought into the conspiracy theories, and they're not willing to back down just because Trump is now saying, well, now, it's a hoax, you know? She and many others are saying, we've long said that we think that Democrats are evil in protecting child abusers. That's a conspiracy theory they've peddled for years and they thought that Trump was with them and would help them bear that out. And now that he's kind of backtracking, they're saying, well, wait a second, we're still there. We haven't moved.

BASH: I just want to go back to the original post from this morning, that was so remarkable and how he told off his supporters. He said, my past supporters have bought into this bullshit hook, line and sinker. They haven't learned their lesson. They probably never will, even after being conned by the lunatic left. And then he said, let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats' work. And then he said, I don't want their support anymore. Marc, you mentioned this, but I'll just underscore, you have covered Donald Trump for a while. You've covered his base intensely. What are we not thinking about here?

CAPUTO: When you talk to his aides and you talk to his advisers, what they'll say when you ask them, look, this is what a guilty guy sounds like. They say no, what Trump doesn't like is his name is going to be in the files. And he knows that when a story comes out about the files that are going to be released, he's going to get that headline.

[12:45:00]

He just doesn't want to deal with it. He also identifies, he has repeatedly, I should say, defended men who have been accused of sexual impropriety. And he has a tendency to sort of project onto those people who are attacked, his own experience and automatically rise up and defend them, and then promulgate, again, his own sort of conspiracy theories. With the way he is reacting to this is similar to the way he reacted to COVID. It was something beyond his control. And that rather than handle it in sort of a more rational and predictable and reasonable way, he just sort of lashed out and went a little crazy and started saying things that were wild. And that's what he's doing again.

But again, when you talk to his aides, you talk to his advisers, you talk to people who know him, they say, we don't think that there's any there there, but his reaction is just sort of his immune system response to these sorts of allegations. And this is what you get.

BLAKE: I will say, the idea that he's going at his base on this issue, there was another finding from the CNN poll this morning, I think is really applicable here. And it found that 21 percent of Americans strongly approve of Donald Trump. That is the lowest that number has been in any CNN poll in his first or second terms. We often think of Donald Trump having 40 to 45 percent of this country locked down. But there is an issue of motivation. There is an issue of how strongly people support him. And right now, he's at a low ebb on that measure.

BASH: Really -- real quick.

ALVAREZ: I'll just say it's not -- and it's not just this because it's also the farm worker issue and immigration and also the wars. This stuff is piling up.

BASH: Yeah, now, that's a good point. Coming up, one GOP Congresswoman says it's the perfect time for comprehensive immigration reform. What does that look like in the age of Donald Trump? Florida Congresswoman Maria Salazar will be here to talk about it when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:51:32]

BASH: President Trump says, it is "highly unlikely" he will fire the Fed Chair Jerome Powell, this after a source tells CNN, he floated firing him during a meeting with Congressional Republicans yesterday. My next guest is a member of the House Financial Services Committee, Republican Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar. Thank you so much for joining me. You came here to talk about immigration reform. We're going to talk about that, but first I have to ask you, about the Fed Chair. He said he is not doing it right now, but he has said multiple times he's considering it. You saw the way the markets reacted to it. Do you have a message for him?'

REP. MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, (R-FL): Well, the message is the president is the leader of the country and he's watching the markets, he is watching how the economy behaves. And I'm sure that he's going to do the best for the American people. And that's why maybe he thought about it and it's -- Trump is --

BASH: Would it be appropriate to fire the Fed Chair?

SALAZAR: It -- he is the one who really has to make that decision because he will be the one reaping the benefits or paying for the consequences.

BASH: Got it.

SALAZAR: Like you said, he won the popular vote. He won the seven swing districts, swing states and he's in charge. He is in charge.

BASH: Let's talk about immigration.

SALAZAR: Yes.

BASH: You are taking a new stab at a very, very old challenge. I covered Congress for a very long time. I lost count of how many hours I stood in hallways during various negotiations over years and years and years. Good people trying to come together from both sides of the aisle.

SALAZAR: Yeah.

BASH: -- for immigration reform. And you are trying again to pass a bill. You have a Democrat on this bill, lots of Democrats and Republicans as well. But how do you -- well, first of all, describe your bill and tell me how you think you're going to get something that allows people who are illegal to stay legally over the, maybe the you know what of people in the White House like Stephen Miller.

SALAZAR: Listen, everything in life is timing.

BASH: OK.

SALAZAR: Everything in politics is timing. We have Trump at the White House. Trump will dare to do things that other presidents did not. Look what he did with Iran. Look what he did with China. He did with Venezuela. Trump will be for immigration. What Lincoln was for slavery and what Reagan was for communism.

BASH: So what specifically would this do?

SALAZAR: This is Sulaimanic (ph). You break it into two. If you have been here for more than five years and you do not have a criminal record, and you're an illegal or undocumented, you don't have papers and you've been working and paying taxes, you can come out of the shadows and join the dignity status. You pay $7,000 over seven years. You pay 1 percent of your income or salary, and then you can go back home for Christmas, to bury your mother. You can come back, work, buy a home, and live a dignified life in the Promise Land. That's it.

No government, assistance. They don't have -- the illegals don't have any federal programs right now. And the economy will benefit, these people are here already and it is very hard to deport 10 million people.

BASH: So, what you're talking about is something that maybe old school Republicans have pushed pre-Trump.

SALAZAR: OK?

BASH: But it's so anti-thetical to the actual actions we're seeing right now by the Trump Administration. Just for example, I talked to the Border Czar Tom Homan over the weekend about the ICE operations going on, and it's far beyond people who are criminals.

[12:55:00]

It includes trying to find the very people you are now saying should get what people like Tom Homan would call amnesty. Just listen to what -- part of what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM HOMAN, TRUMP'S BORDER CZAR: We're still prioritizing public safety threats and national security threats. That's the priority. But like I said, we do have collateral arrests in many areas because we're out looking for those public safety threats. But we're going to enforce immigration law too. I mean, it's not OK to be in this country illegally, it is not OK to enter this country illegally. It's a crime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Before you even get your legislation through, in the short term, he's talking about collateral arrests.

SALAZAR: Yes.

BASH: Part of that is even people who are in the United States legally who might have brown skin or speak with an accent. Does the administration's deportation policy need to change?

SALAZAR: I think that they need -- DIGNITY addresses exactly what you're saying because those people are needed (ph) and because when you -- when people ask me the same thing you just did, there's only one boss, one elected official in the White House, the president and J.D. Vance. He will be the one making the decision. And why do I think he will be for immigration what Lincoln was for slavery because he is practical. He's the construction guy.

He has golf courses in Florida. He understands, and he said it in one of his tweets, that construction, hospitality and agriculture, there are very good people working in those sectors. The economy will demand for those hands. National Manufacturer of America has 400,000 jobs (inaudible).

BASH: Right. When you all just passed millions and millions of new dollars --

SALAZAR: For border security.

BASH: Not just that, to hire ICE agents for interior enforcements, which means kicking out the very people you're trying to keep here legally.

SALAZAR: Not really. Yes, I agree. You give money to ICE to look for the illegals who are criminals. I don't have --

BASH: They're doing way more than that.

SALAZAR: I know, I understand right now. But what I'm saying then ICE can hone in on those people and look for them while the rest, with no criminal record more than five years, come out of the shadows. They pay, they help with -- to the Social Security pot or fund. And then, we will just concentrate on the bad ombres like the president said. Hey, it's in the hands of Donald Trump and I'm sure he will do. It is not amnesty; it is dignity.

BASH: If you convince him to do this, you got to promise me that you're going to come right back here and announce it here.

SALAZAR: I give you exclusive?

BASH: Absolutely

(LAUGH)

BASH: I'm not -- listen, I'm not -- I'm not doubting your tenacity. SALAZAR: Hey, it has nothing to do with me.

BASH: Yeah.

SALAZAR: It has to do with him and he gets it. Just -- I mean it's -- he will be the one making the decision, so you'll be the one talking to him. I'm just facilitating as a good legislator.

BASH: OK. Well, thank you for coming and sharing what you're trying to do.

SALAZAR: Oh, of course.

BASH: I appreciate it, Congresswoman.

SALAZAR: It is the right thing to do.

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

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