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Trump Publicly Pushes His DOJ To Go After Political Opponents; Trump Demands Prosecutions Of Rivals, Cancellation Of Critics; Congress Digs In With Shutdown & Days Away; Talks Stall, Clock Ticks: Eight Days Left To Avert A Shutdown. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired September 22, 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: Today on Inside Politics, out in the open. President Trump publicly tells his attorney general, she's not doing enough to target his self-declared political enemies, and that time is running out. Top Democrats say, it's yet one more step on the path towards dictatorship.

Plus, America's least favorite congressional rerun, negotiations really nonexistent. And only eight days left to avert a government shutdown. The crucial question will Democrats ultimately choose confrontation or capitulation.

And from heartbreak to resolve? Erika Kirk's powerful speech at her husband's memorial eclipsed, a roster of top government officials. We'll look at what it means for her role as a major MAGA power broker.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

Imagine this. Imagine if a whistleblower came forward and said the president of the United States told his attorney general in a private Oval Office meeting that she's not doing enough to target his political opponents. And that he listed by name the people he wanted her to go after and explicitly tied it to his desire for vengeance.

Well, whistleblowers need not apply right now, because this president did all of that out in the open. Here are the president's own words on his Truth Social platform over the weekend. Quote, Pam, I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that essentially same old story as last time, all talk, no action, nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam 'Shifty' Schiff, Leticia? They're all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.

He went on to say. We can't delay any longer, it's killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice and indicted me five times over nothing. Justice must be served now. Now that post on Saturday night came after the president fired the U.S. attorney in Virginia, whom he appointed after prosecutors there, did not believe they had enough evidence to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James. President Trump plans to install his former personal attorney with no experience as a prosecutor to oversee that office. Despite that step his own comments, President Trump did tell reporters he's not involved in Justice Department decisions.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: No, I just want people to act. They have to act. And we want to act fast. You know, they were ruthless and vicious. I was impeached twice. I was indicted five times, it turned out to be a fake deal. And we have to act fast, one way or the other, one way or the other. They're guilty, they're not guilty, we have to act fast. I think Pam Bondi is going to go down as one of the best attorney generals of the ages.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have you ever threatened DOJ leadership if they don't prosecute Letitia James or James Comey?

TRUMP: No, I don't do that. I don't do that. I mean, I look at the facts like everybody else. You read the facts, and to me, she looks terrible. She looks like she's very guilty, but that's going to be up to the DOJ.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters here at the table today, our own Stephen Collinson, Tia Mitchell of the Atlanta Journal- Constitution, CNN's Manu Raju and Evan Perez. Evan, you covered the Justice Department. What are you hearing from your sources who work there, whether they're appointed or civil servants?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Look, it feels like the chaos of Trump season one has now sort of bled into season two. And you know, part of the thing that we've kind of all observed in this administration is that there seemed to be a lot more discipline about how things were being done. Obviously, he has very loyal people inside the department who were doing exactly what he wants them to do.

And so, the fact that this, this sort of outburst that came from the president on Saturday, where, you know, some people were interpreting it to be, perhaps a DM that was intend -- it was an intended DM that actually went out--

BASH: Meaning, it was supposed to be private, but he actually didn't--

(CROSSTALK)

PEREZ: We don't know.

BASH: Wow.

PEREZ: Yeah. I think there's a -- there's a, yeah -- there's a difference of opinion on this, but the fact remains, it's very unusual for the president to do this. Any president to do this. And the problem with it is not so much that he is leaning on the department.

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The fact is that what he's done is he's damaged those cases. So even, obviously, the case again Letitia James, the investigation inside the Justice Department. They don't believe that there's enough evidence to support it, but there are other cases that are now ongoing in that office.

And by doing what he has done, it has now damaged those cases that may actually be ones that could go forward. And so, the problem for that is that, now the defense attorneys for those people, essentially, the president has written their briefs for malicious or for malicious prosecution because that's what is going to be the defense.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. I mean, look, there used to be some semblance independence with the Justice Department and the White House. Of course, there's all politics at play in the DOJ, but in this administration, that is -- there's absolutely no line, they Trump is trying to direct his attorney general to do exactly what he wants, which is so brazenly political.

He's going after Democrats, his political opponents on allegations that may or may not actually support any sort of case, and there are allegations of mortgage fraud involving Republicans. We don't hear about that at all that doesn't seem to concern Trump. Whether it's about Ken Paxton in Texas, the Texas attorney general, or there's been reports about people in his administration as well, is so clear what he's trying to do here. But Evan makes a great point. If they do move forward, what was actually -- will any jury actually think that this is legitimate?

BASH: And Tia, this post on Saturday night came after at the end of the week, last week, on Friday night. The president, as he said in that post, firing a U.S. attorney, by the way, who he put in place who is pretty open about being a Republican and a Trump supporter.

RAJU: A Trump supporter, correct.

BASH: Fired him because he didn't bring charges against Letitia James. I just want to read what the president said about Erik Siebert. Today, I withdrew the nomination of Erik Siebert as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. When I was informed that he received the unusually strong support of two absolutely terrible sleaze bag Democratic senators from the great state of Virginia.

So, just to put a finer point on this. The reason that he is saying, the stated reason he is given, isn't because this guy didn't go after Trump's opponents, it's because they had support from two Democrats.

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION: But also, I mean, just for the viewers at home, you need the support of your senators for nominations to go to the floor.

BASH: That's the way it works.

MITCHELL: So, that's the way it works. In Virginia just happens to have two Democratic senators. So, you know, you have to get those senators on board, no matter what or they have the -- you know, was it the blue slips that they can stop the nominations from going forward--

RAJU: And what's a stock get rid of that now, so you have more power to put in these attorneys.

MITCHELL: Right. But, quite frankly, there's bipartisan support for the -- for that Senate kind of practice, if you will. The other thing I wanted to bring up is just what Trump likes to do is put the pressure on others. And then they get put in the weird position of deciding, are they going to choose their loyalty to the president, or perhaps their loyalty to their codes of ethics and the standards and practices in the constitution.

And I think it's really interesting in that Truth Social post, putting all the pressure now on Attorney General Pam Bondi, who again, I covered her in Florida. She's a former prosecutor. She's a former state attorney general. She's one of the few -- she's -- not all of Trump's top cabinet officials came qualified.

She actually does, whether you agree with her politics or not. But now she is now having to make these tough decisions, not just about the merits of the case, but things that could influence her career way after the Trump is out of office.

BASH: What are you hearing about that, the pressure on her?

PEREZ: Well, I mean, the pressure is definitely on her publicly, we don't think that she's in any danger. Obviously, when this first came out, the first question was, oh my god, is she in trouble, right? And people inside the Justice Department really wondered whether the president was threatening to fire her.

And you saw him quickly follow that up, and he said this morning that he believes she's doing a great job. So, the pressure is absolutely on her and on Todd Blanche, who is his -- who is her deputy, who, of course, was the president's former personal lawyer.

BASH: Well, then sometimes, when he says she's doing a great job, that's even more pressure.

PEREZ: That's even more.

BASH: I want to take a step back, Stephen, as you are so brilliant at. And just show because we say this, almost every week, there's so much coming at us. We're drinking from a news fire hose. But just recently, on this particular topic of what the president has done. I just want to look at it in its entirety. He was -- not in his entirety, actually just some of the actions.

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He urged the attorney general to criminally charged political opponents, which we've been talking about. The Pentagon just demanded that the press reporters sign a pledge restricting their reporting.

The prosecutor, as I mentioned, was fired for not indicting Letitia James and replaced with the president's former personal attorney. Speaking of the media and sort of having more control, TikTok is a hugely powerful and influential media platform in this country, and they're trying to get it away from the Chinese and looking at some of his allies, like the Murdochs and Ellison's to buy it.

We all, of course, talked about the FCC chair publicly, pressuring ABC to fire Kimmel. The president's attempt to sue the New York Times for defamation, and the president wanting the Supreme Court to allow him to fire a member of the Federal Reserve, this is like in the past week.

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yeah. This is a president who increasingly looks like is in a hurry to impose maximum power as quickly as possible, at a moment when in the first year of his administration, he traditionally has maximum power. So, I think that is very notable. The question to your point about Bondi and some of these other government officials, even for the Trump loyalists.

Does there come a point when people have to make a choice between, as you were saying, the oath of the constitution, their future political careers. We saw in the Charlie Kirk memorial this weekend, certainly a movement towards the future by the MAGA movement. At one point, Trump isn't going to be the defining force of the MAGA

movement.

So does the politics shift on this. We had a story this weekend that grocery prices keep going up. Is that what the American people care about more than the president consolidating his own personal power? Was that really the reason why his voters sent him back to Washington? Were they angry at the choices they had, but they didn't want this? So, I think all this is going to play out, but it's very unusual. It's very irregular, but it's exactly what you'd expect from Trump.

BASH: Well, in the short-term, the answer to your first question about whether Trump loyalists are going to say enough is enough? The answer is no. One example is Senator Markwayne Mullin, who is from Oklahoma, very close ally of President Trump. I asked him about the President's post about Pam Bondi on state of the Union. Here's what he said.

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BASH: He's asking his attorney general, in a public way, to go after his political enemies. Very open about it. You're okay with that?

SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): Well, I think what we know is President Trump is very open and transparent with the American people, and he speaks his mind. And that's what -- that's what his supporters love about him and that's what America loves about him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: I mean, it's pretty remarkable. I can't imagine what Senator Mullin reaction would be if it was Joe Biden telling Merrick Garland to go after individual Republican senator X, Y and Z, but that's the way that things have been the Trump era.

BASH: All right. Well, coming up. Will Democrats fold or fight and to what end? Those are the questions dominating Washington. This week, we will have the latest reporting on shutdown negotiations or lack thereof. After a break.

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BASH: Cue the congressional deja vu. With just eight days to go, the U.S. government is inching closer to a shutdown. Again, President Trump says he'll meet with Democratic leaders, but adds quote, I don't think it's going to have any impact. I asked the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer about that on State of the Union.

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SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): I hope and pray that Trump will sit down with us and negotiate a bipartisan bill. That's how it's always been done in the past. That's how shutdowns have been avoided in the past.

BASH: And if he doesn't, I'm just confirming here, you will vote no. Is that correct?

SCHUMER: We are hoping, Dana, we are hoping that he will negotiate with us.

BASH: And if he doesn't?

SCHUMER: So far, he hasn't. And we've had two bills in the House and Senate, and neither of them have passed. Our Democrats are firm. We need to get something done to relieve the distress the American people are in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: My panel is back, including the one and only Manu Raju, who can tell us everything that's going on and what will happen on Capitol Hill.

RAJU: I mean, I think we're in a pretty dangerous moment here. I mean, we are headed into a shutdown. Congress is not in session this week. They come back next week. And there's going to be a day or so before they have to actually pass a bill, which means you need to get a deal that needs to move quickly through both chambers.

And Democrats are demanding things that they simply are just not going to get. They're demanding reversing healthcare cuts. They're in Trump's big law, his domestic policy achievement. He's not going to reverse those healthcare cuts. We want to extend these expiring Obamacare subsidies for people paying health insurance.

That is not going to happen, certainly not before September 30, among a host of other issues, including constraining Trump's authority to cut spending on his own, that's something, of course, legally, there's a dispute about that. But will Trump agree to put something into the bill to restrict his own authority? That's not going to happen.

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So, what are they going to get? And they have to make that decision because Republicans have very simple offer on the table. They want to give essentially a straight extension of government funding for seven weeks with really no controversial riders attached to it. So, at the end of the day, it's going to be a really tough call for Democrats, because otherwise the shutdown could be really bad. It could be long and very painful.

BASH: And it's about the fight, right? And it's about these Democratic lawmakers getting an earful from their base about, OK, we know you're not in power but just try to do so.

MITCHELL: Do something. And I think, you know, the last continuing resolution, because that's how we fund the government in America. You know--

BASH: Which by the way, boys and girls at home, and that ain't the way it's supposed to work. Go ahead.

MITCHELL: Exactly. You know, Chuck Schumer took a lot of heat for leading Senate Democrats to embracing kind of the proposal to keep government funded, while House Democrats took this high ground of saying, no, we wish there was a fight. And that was easy, easy to say when they knew the Senate wasn't going to go for the fight.

Now it looks like the Senate is not willing to kind of be put out there as the scapegoats. And I think a lot of Democratic lawmakers believe that their voters back home are ready for a fight, even if it's painful. The question is, or well, my caveat is, we don't know what a government shutdown looks like under Trump 2.0. It could be way more painful than even the shutdowns under his first term. It could be longer.

There could be agencies that he would like to see shuttered, that he takes the opportunity with government, you know, with government not functioning to kind of make some unilateral decisions. So, there are just a lot of unknowns about what a government shutdown looks like. So, we'll see if Democrats follow through with wanting a shutdown. And B, if their base stays with them, if it ends up being more painful than perhaps a lot of people imagined.

COLLINSON: Yeah, it's true in politics. Sometimes you can still win by having a fight, you know, you're going to lose, and that's the logical position that the Democrats go into this. The issue here, though, is they're fighting asymmetric warfare. They are fighting against a president who is exceedingly ruthless.

To your point, the general thought going into a shutdown is the president doesn't want the shutdown to carry on because it completely obstructs the work of, you know, running the government. Trump would like, as you say, parts of the government to shut down. He may not ever open those parts of the government. So, if this is a situation where the government is the hostage, Trump would be quite happy if the government doesn't get out of this alive. And that's why it's so dangerous.

BASH: Yeah. And that's the point that John Fetterman, the Democratic senator from Pennsylvania made with me yesterday on the State of the Union. Well, among the points that he made, which is, OK, so you have all of these Democrats saying he's authoritarian. He's a dictator. So now you're just giving him the keys and just -- and just giving up. He also said this about the idea of the policy proposals that Democrats want being fine, but the tactic, not so much.

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SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA): I'm not sure we have the appropriate kinds of leverage. Now to be clear, I hope -- I hope they decide to restore a lot of those healthcare things. But for me, I don't think -- like I said, it's the right outcome, but it's the wrong tactic at this time always, always to shut our government down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Manu, he's won.

RAJU: Yeah.

BASH: The Democrats, if they decide to go this route -- excuse me, yes, the Democrats, if they decide to go this route, the Republicans need seven total to vote, like Fetterman, with Republicans to keep the government open. I mean, do you see that happening?

RAJU: It's up to Chuck Schumer.

BASH: Yeah.

RAJU: It really is. Because the Democrats -- he'll get them -- get the votes. If he wants to get the votes, he will get seven Democrats. That happened back in March. He had to convince other Democrats to come along with him--

BASH: But now it sounds like he doesn't want that.

RAJU: How he sounds he doesn't want that? So that's the question. And, you know, and having been through a lot of these now, it's always harder to reopen the government that needed (Ph) to shut it down.

BASH: Exactly.

RAJU: It's harder to get a cut a deal, and the deal is usually not in your favorable terms, if you're the ones who is instigating.

BASH: I'm glad you said that because that's the point that I wanted to get back to, which is what you were alluding to, Steven, which is, it's one thing. And this is what Fetterman was also saying. It's one thing to have a fight, just for fight's sake. It's another thing to get back on the highway. Like, where do you exit, but where's the entrance? And the barriers to getting back on the highway are potentially much higher because Trump is going to feel like he has the political upper hand. COLLINSON: Yeah. And their ask seems to me a little bit nebulous. They're talking about restoring a lot of these health benefits. It was perhaps a discreet one thing that they wanted, and they could get. That would make the fight much easier to message. But a lot of these health benefits as well, they haven't necessarily been taken away yet under the big, beautiful bill because they come in for the midterm elections.

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BASH: Yeah. So, I just -- before we go to break, I just do want to put a little bit of substance out there for people on what these asks are. Manu mentioned that there are a few of them, but the most important that you hear Democrats talking a lot about is extending subsidies for people who are getting health insurance through Obamacare.

And we're talking about 22 million people who will see premiums increase, nearly 4 million people losing insurance. And just look at the way the public views this. When it comes to supporting Obamacare assistance, Democrats 91 percent, independents 80 percent, Republicans 63 percent. These are the numbers, and this is the reality of something that is very popular that Democrats are relying on. And so, this is what we're going to hear them pushing over and over again.

All right, coming up. The toll of trolling with California Governor Gavin Newsom's office posted on social media that has some Republicans calling for an investigation.

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