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"You're Fired": Trump Pushes Aside Independent Experts; Can Americans Trust The CDC? Former Officials Weigh In. Are Democrats Building Any Momentum Heading into Midterms; Congress Heads to D.C., Faces Mounting Crises; Batter Up, Sports Stars Running for Office. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired August 31, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:47]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(MUSIC)

MANU RAJU. CNN HOST (voice-over): Barreling forward.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Freedom. Freedom. He's a dictator. I'm not a dictator.

RAJU: President Trump tells key officials "You're fired" and defies governors.

But is his signature policy about to backfire?

And under the knife.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR., HHS SECRETARY: The CDC is an agency that is very troubled.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that the trouble is emanating mainly from him.

RAJU: As RFK Jr. goes to war with the experts, will Americans need a second opinion?

A doctor who quit the CDC and the former director join me live.

Plus, bounce back? Big moves in Iowa give Democrats hope.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I heard frustration overwhelmingly.

RAJU: Former President Obama dives into the fight.

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Hey, everybody.

RAJU: But as Republicans push for more redistricting, can Democrats overcome the odds?

INSIDE POLITICS, the best reporting from inside the corridors of power, starts now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU (on camera): Good morning and welcome to INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. I'm Manu Raju.

It's been a summer full of paying back President Trump's political foes, eliminating any dissenting data or viewpoints, and employing brute force to enact his agenda. Whether it's a stunning campaign targeting key officials of the Federal Reserve, his purge of the CDC, or unprecedented use of the National Guard over the furious objections of Democratic governors, Trump is dramatically expanding the bounds of the presidency like no one before him has in modern times. As Democrats say, their fears of an unchecked executive are ringing truer by the day.

Yet there are signs that Trump's strategy is facing new limits. Like the major ruling from the appeals court late Friday that found his sweeping tariffs unlawful, putting the president's signature policy and the world's economic order at the doorstep of the Supreme Court.

While this morning China, asserting its strength on the world stage, meeting with U.S. adversaries like Russia and countries isolated by Trump's tariffs like India.

So where does this all leave Trump's agenda?

Well, I have an excellent panel to break that all down this morning. Molly Ball, author and "Wall Street Journal" reporter, Bloomberg's Mario Parker and CNN's Stephen Collinson.

Good morning to you all. Nice to see you on this Labor Day weekend. Thank you for being here.

Look, Trump has long fired people. Of course, he came to fame with "The Apprentice". "You're fired". He has long fired people. He did so in the first term. What's different this time are the people that he's targeting.

Here just a list of some of the people who have been fired or attempted to fire, Lisa Cook being one of them. Of course, the Federal Reserve sits on the Federal Reserve Board. She is fighting that effort to fire her.

But all along down the line, the CDC director, Surface Transportation Board, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner that puts out that monthly jobs report that Trump didn't like. It is an effort to go -- to target any sort of viewpoint, any sort of data that conflicts with his agenda, even if that data is true.

MOLLY BALL, WALL STREET JOURNAL SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Or even if these officials are supposed to be independent or nonpartisan or as you say mere referees of government data like the Bureau of Labor Statistics, even like the Federal Reserve, which is supposed to be independent, and which, of course -- and the independence of which is so important to the economy and to the markets.

So I think you're right that firing people has always been part of Trump's brand. And you remember during the debate with Biden, when Biden was still in the race, that was a big part of his critique was, look, even when people are incompetent, you're not willing to get rid of them. You're not willing to root out the incompetence, the waste, the problems in the government.

So I think there is a view that people like the idea that he's strong, that he's assertive, that he looks out for problems and takes care of them. On the other hand, it really -- at a time when people don't trust the government anyway, at a time when people don't trust expertise or official sources of information. This further erodes that, because this is an administration that doesn't believe there's any such thing as independent or nonpartisan information.

[08:05:00]

It believes that anything that conflicts with Trump's views is the deep state.

RAJU: Right.

BALL: And, therefore, needs to be eliminated. And so there's a lot of potential consequences.

RAJU: It has a chilling effect.

MARIO PARKER, BLOOMBERG U.S. ECONOMY & GOVERNMENT MANAGING EDITOR: No. Absolutely. And so, you see some of that playing out, right, with the CDC ousting. You see with the surface transportation board this week as well. Lisa Cook, which you mentioned also.

The markets were muted, let me note that, first of all, with the Fed -- some of the moves with the Fed. He's lulled the markets in some ways into a kind of a hypnosis, right, going back to liberation day where you haven't seen this kind of parabolic reaction.

However, that being said, I mean, the long-term consequences of you know, a central bank not being independent, for example, CDC, health agency not being a department, not being independent, for example, it does erode the trust, and the politicization of it all.

RAJU: And look, and it's this blatant effort by this to use prosecutions, use investigations against his political foes. I mean, this is just another just a list of just the people who have been targeted or threatened for some investigations. John Bolton, of course, is House was raided. There's Letitia James, the Senator Adam Schiff, a Democrat Jack smith, all people who are perceived enemies.

You know, there's no real signs that he's going after any Republicans who may be in line with him, who could be doing the same thing. I mean, there's the effort to target Lisa Cook, Adam Schiff, Letitia James are about allegedly listing multiple homes for on their documents for mortgages and bank documents and the like, but there are reports of other people doing the same thing, like Republican, like Ken Paxton, attorney general of Texas, who's running for Senate. No investigation there that we know of.

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Right. The president says something very interesting in the cabinet meeting this week that went for three hours. In all that verbiage, he said, I'm the president of the United States, and I can do exactly what I want.

Now, that's true in the direct sense in which he's now weaponized the Justice Department to go after people who are perceived as his enemies. But in a constitutional sense, it's not true. The president can't do what he wants in a republic. And this is where we're going to get into a difficult situation. You had a CIA officer that was fired for briefing Trump, presumably something he didn't want to hear before he met Vladimir Putin, the Russian president.

You had this situation that the CDC, when the director didn't want to trash generations of science just because it suited the president's agenda. And the White House came out and said, well, if you don't share the president's agenda on health, we'll show you the door. That gets you into a difficult and potentially dangerous position when one person is deciding what reality is and everybody else has to shape their analysis to that reality. Sooner or later, whether it was in foreign affairs, health, vaccinations, for example, that's going to exact a price.

RAJU: And the question is going to be, can he get reined in in any such way? Can courts rein him in as well? There are some indications that some of the efforts that he has moved ahead with are going to get at least get pulled back for now. One of which, of course, is that big ruling that happened on Friday, the appeals court striking down many of Trump's tariffs, saying he overstepped his authority. There are several other things, immigration related, that he's been held back on.

Of course, that tariff policy can still go stay until the Supreme Court ultimately decides what to do here. But that is so significant that ruling on tariffs, because there's all this money going to the treasury right now.

BALL: Well --

RAJU: $107 billion or so. Like what happens if the Supreme Court says that Trump has been acting unlawfully on tariffs? Which is his signature policy.

BALL: Exactly. And this is the second court trade court that has found that these -- that most of these tariffs, not all of them, some of them are under a national security authority. But a lot of these sweeping tariffs do fall under the authority that that now two courts have said and this is now this ball is now in the Supreme Courts court, so to speak.

And I think that that is to Steven's point, that's where this is all headed, is a test of the checks and balances in the Constitution is when a president is this aggressive about testing the norms, rules and laws that are intended to rein in the executive are the other branches capable of exercising their authority to rein him in? We have seen that this is a congress that is very, very, very, very reluctant to push back against the Trump administration.

RAJU: They could assert its authority on tariffs, and they've decided not to.

BALL: Rand Paul actually put it on the floor, tried to get them to do it. And there were only a what, three Republicans went along with him on something that has been a tenet of the sort of backbone of conservative thinking for generations.

So, you know, has enough happened that Congress is now starting to get cold feet and be willing to push back? We shall see when they come back. And then there's the courts. Weve seen this conservative court also be quite reluctant to push back on an aggressive executive, and in fact, has expanded the executive's powers in all kinds of ways in their recent rulings on Trump initiatives.

[08:10:06]

So, where does that go when, when you have either something like the Fed firing, which I think is also headed for the Supreme Court, which previously sort of carved out the Fed from its ruling that Trump could dismiss heads. You know, members of independent agencies. And then on this tariff, ruling, where does the court go? So, these are both very, very significant.

RAJU: Yeah. I mean, what happens if they lose on tariffs in the -- in the Supreme Court?

PARKER: Well, one of the people we talked to, talked to said that trading partners have to be dazed and confused right now, right? And note that Scott Bessent filed, comments on Friday as well, saying that this undermines this potentially undermines the U.S. on a global stage as well, right? So, in these negotiations with China that are ongoing, Japan, some of these other countries also, what are they thinking when they're at the negotiating table with Scott Bessent, Jamieson Greer and Howard Lutnick when they're looking at the courts? And it's one of the things that that Bessent said was that it could be embarrassing as well.

RAJU: Yeah. And, Steve, I want to get you to weigh in on this meeting that's happening today in China. There's Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, and Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, Russian President Vladimir Putin.

There is also other world leaders who are not so friendly with the United States, all coming at a time when India is battling with the United States over tariffs and the like. What do you make of this effort for the Chinese, a show of strength of sorts that they're trying to make on the world stage here?

COLLINSON: Well, I think it shows us that this is a world of strongmen now. There is no liberal power superpower. The United States, normally, an old fashioned liberal country, but Donald Trump is trying to rule as a superpower. He's turning against American allies. So that's the big picture. The interesting one, as you mentioned, is India, Narendra Modi. Twenty

years of U.S. policy on nuclear issues and everything else has been designed to make sure that India and China stay antagonistic, that India moves into the U.S. orbit rather than the Chinese orbit. This tariff situation, some of the president's interventions on Kashmir in the recent clashes with Pakistan that's antagonized Modi, with whom he had a very good relationship. He had two massive stadium rallies with him in his first term. And that is a significant geopolitical development.

RAJU: Yeah, no question about it. And India and China, the fact that their meeting is so, so significant for well see where it ultimately leads to.

All right. Coming up next, as RFK, Jr. thrusts the CDC into turmoil, the nation's top public health agency survived. And what does it mean for you? One of the officials who resigned this week and a former CDC director joined me live after the break.

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[08:17:07]

RAJU: A chaotic week at the CDC, raising questions this weekend about whether it can survive after Trump's pick to lead the agency was ousted just a month into her tenure after she clashed over vaccine policy with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long harbored anti-vax views. Four other top officials resigned in protest.

Joining me now is one of those officials, former CDC chief medical officer, Debra Houry. I'm also joined by Tom Frieden, who led the CDC for eight years under President Obama. He's the author of a new book coming out next month titled "The Formula For Better Health How To Save Millions Of Lives, Including Your Own".

Doctors, thank you so much for joining me this morning. Really appreciate your time.

DR. TOM FRIEDEN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, RESOLVE TO SAVE LIVES: Great to speak with you.

RAJU: Absolutely.

Dr. Houry, the CDC has long been the gold standard when it comes to medical and health information, but this latest news has prompted new fears about whether the information now coming out of the CDC can be trusted.

So, Dr. Houry, can Americans trust what the CDC will be telling them about vaccines?

DR. DEBRA HOURY, FORMER CDC CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER: So, I think it's going to be very difficult to. We have a vaccine committee that's scheduled in a few weeks, and that was one of the reasons why I resigned. That committee is going to be staffed with people that don't have expertise in vaccine science and other types of scientific methodologies, and they've been known to be against vaccines.

I am all about talking about data and exploring, but we need to do it scientifically, follow the data and make -- not make decisions before we actually know what the science shows.

RAJU: And, Dr. Houry --

FRIEDEN: Yes.

RAJU: -- Dr. Frieden, we got you back. We lost you for a second, but it looks like we are back.

Dr. Frieden, the secretary, has promised there will be revelations next month about the causes of autism. And as doctor harry mentioned, this vaccine advisory panel is meeting in September after Kennedy fired 17 of those vaccine advisers.

So, should Americans believe this information that's going to come out?

FRIEDEN: What we're seeing is unprecedented. There has never been a firing of a CDC director. Public health is under assault. As Dr. Houry says, it's no longer possible to have any confidence in what's coming out of HHS or CDC.

What we see is a pattern -- deny, distract, destroy. They deny simple truths and plain facts. They distract from the damage they're doing by the performative stuff that they're doing. And there's a lot of damage from dismantling tobacco control to not going forward with getting our water safer, to undermining our vaccine infrastructure. And they're destroying our health protections. We are less safe.

RAJU: Dr. Houry, RFK, Jr. insisted in testimony to the Senate that he was not anti-vax.

[08:20:03]

This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR., HHS SECRETARY: I support vaccines. I support the childhood schedule. I will do that. The only thing I want is good science and that's it. I have always been a science person, a pro- science person. I believe in evidence-based medicine and gold standard science.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: But, Dr. Houry, given the steps the secretary has taken to curtail vaccines, was he truthful in his testimony when he said, quote, the only thing I want is good science?

HOURY: Well, I would disagree when, you know, in the middle of a measles outbreak, he's promoting vitamins over vaccines. When we know that vaccines are lifesaving. And he also talked about changing our CDC guidance around COVID vaccines.

I learned about it by watching Twitter. He had not worked directly with CDC on that guidance, and that was restricting vaccines. So I don't believe he was truthful, or at least if he thought he was, he hasn't been working with CDC or listening to our scientists.

None of our scientists have ever briefed the secretary about vaccines.

RAJU: None of the scientists at CDC have ever briefed him. Is that what you're saying? Not a single one?

HOURY: On vaccines. Yeah, on vaccines, on measles, on H5N1. And I can tell you, in the prior Trump administration, I regularly briefed HHS.

RAJU: And what's your reaction to that, Dr. Frieden, that there have been no briefings.

FRIEDEN: I'm stunned actually. I'm stunned. This is really, really unheard of.

Look, this isn't about Democratic or Republican. This is about fact versus fiction. This is about protecting our health versus endangering our health.

To have the health secretary not talking to people who've spent their lives studying vaccines and listening to what they're saying is really problematic. And it's one of the reasons we're already seeing damage.

We're seeing, for example, as you said earlier, it's going to be much harder in the next few months for healthy people who want to get a COVID shot to get one.

RAJU: And, Dr. Houry, I want to ask you about any personal interactions you may have had with -- with RFK, Jr.

Did you actually have any interactions with him or his aides, and was there anything that was that they were pushing you to do that you did not agree with?

HOURY: So, the only in-person interaction I had with him was when he came to visit our campus after the violent attack on it with the shooting. He came to see the extensive damage. I had had interactions with his leadership team when they asked to take a document down prior to the first committee meeting on vaccines that was on thimerosal. That was so the American public could see the transparent data on this additive, and we were instructed to take it down.

RAJU: So, what would alarm you, Dr. Houry, the most about what his he or his team were telling you to do?

HOURY: I believe in data and science, and people can make decisions based on that. If you don't have the data and science for the public to see, how can they make their own decisions? How can you have those conversations?

RAJU: Dr. Frieden, you had just mentioned this about the COVID vaccine. There's been news that the Trump administration would limit the COVID vaccine to people who are 65 or older, who have medical condition that puts them at risk.

So, what are the implications of limiting access to the COVID vaccine to just those people?

FRIEDEN: Well, this is, I'm afraid, just the start. But what it means is that for kids, for pregnant women, for healthy young adults who have a benefit from COVID vaccination, if they want to get a vaccine, it's going to be much harder. Pharmacies may have a hard time stocking it or giving it. Doctors may be reluctant. Insurers may not pay for it.

This is in six months, Secretary Kennedy has undermined 60 years of progress, preventing vaccine preventable diseases in this country.

RAJU: Is the C -- Dr. Houry, is the CDC ready for another potential outbreak?

HOURY: We were. We had learned a lot from COVID and we were prepared. Unfortunately, having lost over 2,000 staff and not having our scientific leadership, almost all of the scientific leaders at CDC, myself included, are now no longer at CDC. So we're losing that bench.

And with a projected budget cuts, we will not be ready for the next pandemic. I'm concerned. I love CDC and leaving it this week was heartbreaking, but I had to do it with my colleagues so that we could have these conversations and bring this to light.

RAJU: Dr. Houry, the president did tap a new acting CDC director, Jim O'Neill. Do you have confidence in him?

HOURY: I hope that he can do it.

[08:25:00]

Unfortunately, he is focused solely on operations, so we have to have that scientific bench around him. He'll be the first acting CDC director who's not a scientist or a doctor. So, if there is that outbreak or that new bug or pathogen, he's got to have the advice of experts to help him so he knows what to do. And right now, that doesn't exist.

RAJU: And very quickly, Dr. Frieden, should Americans trust Director O'Neill?

FRIEDEN: Well, he has no medical training. He will do what the secretary says.

I think we have to look past the immediate actions and understand what's going on more broadly, what you're seeing is a dismantling of the vaccine infrastructure in this country and an opening of the floodgates for lawsuits, frankly, that Secretary Kennedy and his friends can continue to pursue for years to come that may deny vaccines and vaccine access to more and more Americans. RAJU: All right. Dr. Thomas Frieden, Tom Frieden, and Dr. Debra

Houry, thank you so much, both for coming on and joining me this morning and sharing your expertise and your viewpoints. Really appreciate your time.

And coming up next --

HOURY: Thank you.

RAJU: -- a big GOP retirement gives Democrats brand-new hopes to win back the Senate. But will Trump's power play in another red state give Republicans an edge in the House? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:52]

MANU RAJU, CNN HOST: Is the tide turning for Democrats? Well, since election day, poll after poll continues to show their party at historic lows. Yet there is some sign -- there are some signs of some good news.

Just last week, Democrats pulled off another surprising special election win. They've managed to attract top recruits that give them an outside chance of winning control of the Senate.

And now, news that GOP Senator Joni Ernst will not run for reelection in Iowa, giving the party some hope in a state the GOP has dominated in recent years.

But amid all of this, is the state by state, seat by seat battle led by President Trump to redraw district lines in the House to give his party an edge in the race for the majority of that chamber. Trump's latest target in his unprecedented power play, Missouri.

My panel is back. I mean, this just shows you how much of a slog this is for the majority. The fact that they're going after Missouri.

Just look at the breakdown in Missouri. There are seven Republicans. There's one Democrat in Missouri. That's Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, who represents the Kansas City area, has done so for about two decades.

But the fact that they're doing this pretty unprecedented effort, doing this mid-decade -- typically, you redraw lines at the beginning of a decade based on a census based on the population. But this is for pure politics to win a one seat that could determine potentially the majority.

MARIO PARKER, BLOOMBERG U.S. ECONOMY AND GOVERNMENT MANAGING EDITOR: Yes. So, I mean, the Trump administration is looking ahead to the midterms and thinking about what happened during his first term in office, when he had to face two impeachments right.

They're trying to hedge against that, this flurry of executive orders that we've seen, this expansion of executive power that we've seen. All that becomes nil if Democrats are able to flip the House.

History is on their side, right? But Trump is leaving none of that to chance by pressuring some of these Republicans to go ahead and redistrict and possibly gain more seats.

RAJU: And the Republicans have an advantage clearly here, if you look at the map on the states that allow them to move ahead on redistricting. Democrats are moving ahead in kind in California, responding to what happened in Texas.

They're trying to pass a ballot initiative in California that potentially could add five Democratic seats after Texas moved to add five Republican seats.

But then you look at the other states that, you know, that don't have restrictions, like constitutional amendments or other things in blue states that prevent Democrats from doing so.

And Republicans could gain a handful of more seats, one in Florida, potentially South Carolina, maybe in Indiana, Ohio, and the like. This could be a huge advantage for the GOP.

MOLLY BALL, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, WALL STREET JOURNAL: It could. And I think one of the things I'm curious about is whether Republicans really believe that there is no political price to be paid for this, that the partisanship is baked in. All they're doing is putting more Republican voters in the places where they can be most useful.

That there is basically nobody who would have voted for a Republican for Congress, who's now not going to do that because they're annoyed about all of this gamesmanship and redrawing of maps.

You know, I was in Texas for the redistricting fight. And Texas Democrats, who, of course, have had many years of getting their hopes up and having them dashed. But they really think that they have seen an outpouring of enthusiasm, not just among the Democratic base, but in Texas.

You know, there are people coming out and protesting at the state capitol, people calling their representatives, saying, we don't like what's going on here.

So I think the real question for Democrats is, given that we see evidence like that special election, like other special elections, that Democratic partisans are disproportionately fired up. Do they actually get any kind of juice from this backlash to what Republicans are doing?

Because you're right, in terms of the map, in terms of the places where Republicans have an opportunity to draw the maps, they clearly come out ahead in this whole national game.

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yes. One of the premises of the redistricting in Texas is a lot of those Hispanic voters who voted for President Trump in what they see as historic numbers last time, are going to stay with the GOP.

[08:34:49]

COLLINSON: If they decide not for redistricting reasons, but because they're angry about the state of the economy or they're worried about the president's deportation push, that could change the political situation down there in Texas.

So potentially, who knows, maybe the Republicans don't get the turnout they want, though.

RAJU: I mean, look, let's talk about the Senate, because that's, you know, Democrats have a difficult map, there's no question about it, to retake the Senate. They need to pick up four seats.

They have to defend a lot of some difficult states, like in Georgia. They have an open seat in Michigan and New Hampshire and the like.

But there are signs that potentially there is a pathway here. There's this bitter Republican primary playing out in Texas. We just -- maybe that gives them an opening in Texas. They have North Carolina. They got a -- they got the former governor Roy Cooper as their candidate in North Carolina.

There's Maine, it's possible that's flippable with Susan Collins. Always difficult to beat, but will she run for reelection? There's a potential Democratic primary playing out there. We'll see.

And then news of -- we've got Sherrod Brown in Ohio. They got Sherrod Brown of Ohio. And news that we got this past week, Iowa. Joni Ernst saying that she is not going to run for -- she has not said, but there's reports that she is not going to run for reelection -- potentially giving them an opportunity in a red state.

How -- what do you think about the Democrats chances right now of taking back the Senate?

BALL: It's still a long shot. This is still just a tough, tough, tough, tough map for the Democrats. And that's true for this foreseeable future, frankly, just because there are so many more red states than blue states.

But look, I don't necessarily think that this is an easier race for the Democrats without Joni Ernst in it. She was someone who had not raised a lot of money, had a lot of -- had gotten a lot of flak from the MAGA base. Wasn't necessarily --

RAJU: She had a lot of liability.

BALL: She had gone up against the base of her party and against Trump many times, and that had the potential to divide Republicans. And she had that killer soundbite against her, literally from the town hall where she said, well, we're all going to die. And Democrats were very eager to put that in a gazillion ads, and they now won't have that opportunity. So someone like, you know, Congresswoman Ashley Hinson, who has more

money in the bank than Joni Ernst did, is potentially just as formidable.

Now, that being said, if Democrats are ever going to be a nationally viable party in the Senate overall, they have to be able to win states like Iowa. They have to be able to win some of these other, you know, not just the upper Midwest, but the rest of the heartland.

And so they need to be able to field the kinds of candidates who can appeal to these electorates. And so I think the Democratic primary in this race is going to be really important to see if Democrats have anyone on their bench who can potentially appeal to some of those soft (ph) Republicans and Independents who could potentially swing a state like Iowa.

RAJU: And you mentioned -- we talk about Iowa, there's a special election. It was a state race. It was -- it was a district, a state senate district where a Democrat won last week by ten points after Trump won that same district by 11 points last cycle.

Now, this is a special election in an off year, and it's easy to overread these things. But does it mean anything?

PARKER: I think it does. The people that I spoke to, what I was surprised by, is that they didn't rule out -- Republicans, didn't rule out that Democrats have a chance in Iowa. I was -- I tried several times. I'm like, there's no way it's red, right? Its strident red. And they were like, well, I don't want to count anything out, right?

So one of the lessons from Catelin Drey, the candidate that you're mentioning, was affordability. What you're saying, whether its Mamdani or other races as well, is that affordability is coming to the forefront for Democrats.

It's about a year too late, but it is a message that's resonating with the electorate, and it's one that they're taking up and running. She talked about affordability in housing, health care and child care as well. And that may be a template for the party.

The other part of this, right, with the caveat that this was a low turnout election, the thing that we can take from it going forward is, presumably and legally, this is the last -- we just saw the last time Donald Trump was going to be on the ballot. How do Republicans stoke that turnout when Donald Trump isn't on the ballot? And that's an existential crisis for the party.

RAJU: All right. From one crisis to the next, vacation is over for Congress and Democrats have a second chance to try to block President Trump's agenda. Will they take it?

[08:39:15]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: These people, the MAGA extremists, have complete control of government. If a shutdown takes place, it's because Republicans have shut the government down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Democrats have been mostly powerless in President Trump's Washington, but they are about to once again have some serious leverage. Congress has just one month to pass legislation to keep the government open. That means Senate Democrats can hold their votes as leverage over Republicans to get something they want.

So the question now confronting Democrats, will they play their hand or will they fold like they did last time this happened in March?

My excellent reporters are back.

Now, this is why this is key because the Democrats have to give seven votes in the United States Senate to break a filibuster in order to advance a bill to keep the government open.

[08:44:47]

RAJU: Meaning Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, has some leverage. How will he play this? Remember what happened in March. We were facing a possible government shutdown. He initially said they were going to fight this. Align himself with House Democrats and ultimately realizing a shutdown was going to happen, voted yes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR. Our caucus is unified.

As bad as the CR is, I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And that was about two days separating those two comments. CR referring to this continuing resolution, a stopgap measure to keep the government open. But it's Chuck Schumer who is in this dilemma once again.

COLLINSON: Right. Since the last time the outside dynamics have shifted a little bit for Democrats. They are showing some fight. The governors in California, in Illinois, and Democrats are responding to that.

But it's easy for those governors to show some fight because they have power. Chuck Schumer doesn't have any power. As Hakeem Jeffries was saying, the Democrats don't have any actual power to do anything. So the problem is they're going to make it -- it's going to look once again, when you take away the flowery, difficult-to-understand language about CRs and everything else that they caved to Trump. And that's a problem. But if they don't cave to Trump, then they're

going to get the blame for shutting down the government. So it's a really difficult situation.

BALL: Yes, it's a lose-lose for Democrats because as Stephen said, if they if they if they're responsible for shutting down the government, they're going to get blamed for shutting down the government.

And Republicans know that they don't want to be in that situation. So even though they do have the leverage of Republicans needing their votes, they don't have a lot of leverage because Republicans know they don't want to be blamed for shutting down the government.

But you remember how the base responded last time to the fact that they didn't shut down the government after all of that bluster. And, you know, there was some -- there were some serious anger, not just in the Democratic base, but among Democratic senators at Chuck Schumer for how he led them into that situation last time. So I have to think at least he's going to be communicating a lot more with his caucus.

RAJU: Yes.

And there are things that are -- that the Democrats are indicating they want to reverse the health care cuts that were part of this big, beautiful bill that was signed into law -- Trump's big signature policy initiative. Republicans are not going to do that.

And then there's this other issue that is also going to drive a lot of the discussions here. Trump on Friday rescinded $4.9 billion of foreign aid. Legally -- that's a legally dubious move to say the very least.

But Democrats are already furious about this. That could intensify concerns about Trump's authority. This is what a White House official told our colleagues Sarah Ferris and Adam Kantor, an on -- over a news story that just came out this morning.

Said, "We are not going to accept any limitations on the president's authority or attempt to reverse President Trump's policies. The president is not going to be constrained."

That was a warning to Democrats not to try to do anything in the spending fight, to pull back Trump's authority.

PARKER: No, absolutely. My reporting shows that just speaking with some of my sources within the White House, this is a fight they've been itching for and eyeing for the second half of this term.

The pocket rescission is what Russell Vought has called it, right, which is a legally dubious move, as you mentioned. But on the campaign trail in last year, Trump has been saying that the Impoundment Control Act, the thing that controls a lot of this, this spending was unlawful. And he planned to attack it.

He planned to go attack the deep state with these measures as well. So the White House is -- I mean, they're resolute on this one.

RAJU: Yes. I mean, they're digging in. They're saying they're not going to bend. They're not going to listen to Democratic demands here. So what do the Democrats do?

COLLINSON: Well, this whole attempt to pull back spending is Trump wants to have the fight on that issue, because a lot of that spending is for foreign aid and the State Department. So he wants the Democrats out there as this shutdown fight goes on, defending politically unpopular spending to different countries. And they can say, well, we Republicans are looking after the American people.

It's a trap. We'll see whether the Democrats walk into it.

RAJU: Yes, that's a big, big month ahead.

All right. Coming up from the World Series to the rank and file, do Americans want to see a bunch of pro athletes take the halls of Congress? Well, we'll explain next.

[08:49:13]

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RAJU: Republicans may now have a major advantage in the annual congressional baseball game against their Democratic foes. And that's if former Yankees first baseman, Mark Teixeira, who hit more than 400 home runs, won five gold gloves and was a three-time all-star wins a seat in Congress.

last week, Teixeira announced he's running for a U.S. House seat in Texas, seeking to fill the solidly Republican seat soon to be vacated by conservative Congressman Chip Roy, who is running to be the state's next attorney general.

Now, Teixeira called himself a lifelong conservative. And he pledged to, quote, "defend" President Trump's America first agenda.

Now, the one-time World Series winner is the latest in a string of former athletes making the jump to politics. Another Texan, former Democratic Congressman Colin Allred, was a linebacker for the Titans before serving in the House for six years and is now running for a second time for the U.S. Senate in Texas.

[08:54:47]

RAJU: While in Georgia, Derek Dooley, who was the head football coach at the University of Tennessee, is in the trenches of a crowded Republican primary hoping to advance and face off against Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff.

And in Alabama there will be a turnover as Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville, Auburn's former football coach, who actually likes to be referred to as quote, "Coach" in the Senate, is rushing to leave the chamber and be the state's next governor.

Another Auburn coach could replace him. That's the head basketball coach, Bruce Pearl, who is debating whether to take a shot.

That's it for INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. You can follow me on X @mkraju. Follow the show @INSIDE POLITICS and follow me on Instagram or on TikTok.

If you ever missed an episode, catch up wherever you get your podcasts and search for INSIDE POLITICS.

Up next, "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER AND DANA BASH". Today's guests include White House counterterrorism senior director Sebastian Gorka, Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and Ambassador Cindy McCain.

Thanks again for sharing your Sunday morning with us. We'll see you next time.

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