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Trump Admin. Promises To Fire Workers, Cut Blue-State Funding; No Signs Of Serious Talks On Capitol Hill To End Shutdown; Debate Devolves To Kittens And Sombreros; AP: Everyone In D.C. Hates A Shutdown Until It's A Useful Tool; Why Asks Colleges To Sign "Compact" In Exchange For Preferential Funding Access. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired October 02, 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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MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR, INSIDE POLITICS: Today on Inside Politics, who blinks first? Democrats say, it won't be them. They're not ready to give up on their demands on healthcare and claim voters are on their side. We have results from a brand-new poll, but which side is right?

Plus, the man behind the White House shutdown strategy. We have exclusive new CNN reporting on the president's point man on presidential power. And how he plans to use the shutdown to slash the size of government even further. And another top federal prosecutor loses his job, not because of anything he did wrong, but apparently because of a false accusation from a far-right activist.

I'm Manu Raju in for Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines in Inside Politics.

36 hours and counting. You see the clock right there on the screen. Today there are no signs of serious talks happening behind the scenes on Capitol Hill to end the shutdown. Republicans say they won't negotiate over reopening the government, but they'll need five more Senate Democrats to back them.

At the White House, the president isn't sounding like someone in any rush to end the standoff. Instead, the White House is promising to use the shutdown to further reshape the government and President Trump's image by firing thousands of workers and canceling billions in federal funding for projects in blue states.

Now, President Trump posted this morning that he'll meet today with his budget director, quote, to determine which of the many Democrat agencies, most of which are a political scam. He recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent. I can't believe the radical left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity.

Now here's Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt outside the White House just this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you give us an estimate on the amount of federal workers that the Trump administration wants to fire during the government shutdown? Are we talking hundreds, are we talking thousands?

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Look, it's likely going to be in the thousands. It's a very good question, and that's something that the Office of Management and Budget and the entire team at the White House here, again, is unfortunately having to work on today. These discussions and these conversations, these meetings, would not be happening if the Democrats had voted to keep the government open.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: All right, I am joined by a terrific group of reporters to break down this very significant week of news in this moment right now. Seung Min, you cover the White House for the Associated Press. This seems to be that old adage. I think it was Rahm Emanuel said it, never let a crisis go to waste. This is what the White House is doing right now. We're in a crisis and Trump is going to do, essentially, he thinks whatever he wants.

SEUNG MIN KIM, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, AP: Right. And Karoline was telling reporters this morning that if Democrats don't want their constituents to be heard, then vote to reopen the government. But we all know that this hasn't been a vision of many of his administration officials, particularly Russ Vought, who has had this big blueprint of slashing the federal government.

And this is exactly why Chuck Schumer, the March version of Chuck Schumer voted to re -- or voted to keep the government open, because they know very well the power and the keys to the power that this hands to the administration when we are in a government shutdown. They have extreme leeway here. There are arguments that perhaps what they are doing is not legal, but they are certainly going to seize the power that have.

RAJU: Yeah. And you already seen what Russ Vought said, the wise budget director. I'm going to talk a lot more about him later in the show. Phil has some excellent reporting on that, but this is what he said just yesterday on X. He said $8 billion in green new scam funding to fuel the left's climate agenda is being canceled.

And then he points, blue states, all blue states, but look, there are Republican and House members who are in some of those blue states. So, there's a -- there's a risk politically, but even the question legally, can they do it? They're still going to do it and then see what the courts say later.

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION: And the fact that they're still going to do it is part of the reason we're in the shutdown now, because what Chuck Schumer experienced in March was, he, in a small group of Democrats helped Republicans keep the government open. And then what happened? The White House turned around and still didn't abide by that March agreement.

They refused to spend billions of dollars in that agreement that Chuck Schumer backed. He was, you know, his Democrats, the base were not happy. House Democrats were not happy, and Chuck Schumer has even less incentive now to do what he did then because what's the payoff, if the White House is still going to do what it wants to do.

RAJU: And how far is the White House going to go?

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PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: One thing I think it's important to consider remember here is that it's entirely dependent on Trump. The kind of idea that there are individual advisors who are operating unilaterally, purely off their own ideological designs. Deeply misunderstands the degree to which Trump directs them to do these things, they don't break from him, and they're only kind of being utilized to enforce or implement his will, right?

The alignment ideologically, the alignment for kind of the long-term goals between Trump as it pertains to the federal government and Russ Vought is just that, he's still the president. And so, I think what you saw yesterday when J.D. Vance was talking to reporters saying, well, we haven't really made any decisions yet.

At the same time, Russ Vought is on a private call with House Republicans, making clear the next couple of days, these rifts, these job cuts are going to play out. It's not because they're in different places. It's because they are in the moment right now, kind of putting options in front of the president with Vought putting, I think the most expansive options in front of him. And then the president will decide as the negotiations, or standoff in general moves along, how he wants to take things.

RAJU: And this is perhaps why they're targeting red states right now instead of blue states. But it could hit some blue district members as well. Look what Mike Lawler said. He is a swing district Republican from New York. And this comes after Trump vote. Vought (Ph) has said that, if the Hudson tunnel project in New York and the Second Avenue subway would be slashed, essentially. Here he's raising some serious concerns about this. He said, we should not be cutting this crucial counterterrorism infrastructure funding.

And then there's just the concern among Republicans too about the federal firings. I asked Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota about the impact of this and just really how he felt about the White House's plans here.

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RAJU: What about these mass firings the White House is promising? Are you OK with that?

SEN. KEVIN CRAMER (R-ND): Well, I'm not nuts for it. Manu, this is certainly the most moral high ground Republicans have had in a moment like this that I can recall. And I just don't like squandering that political capital. When you have that kind of high ground. It makes it much easier for us to just push forward, insist on the clean CR and then get to the negotiating table with some leverage.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KIM: Really interesting and candid comments from Senator Cramer, and I think another point to emphasize too is that federal workers obviously are concentrated in the Washington area for obvious reasons, but they are dispersed throughout the country. So even if you are a red state senator or red state representative, you could be representing federal workers. I don't know how loud those voices are going to be, especially as a shutdown continues, but it is an element to keep in mind.

RAJU: What happens when these -- we've seen these shutdowns. We've all covered several shutdowns now. And what has happened every time is that one side starts to feel the political pressure. One side blinks. Is it going to be Republicans this time. It's going to be Democrats. We will see, but it depends on public opinion and what they're hearing back home.

It's still early to get a real sense on how the public feels about this, of course, is just day two. But this is what the Washington Post just about a fresh poll about the latest, who's mainly responsible for the shutdown? Just 30 percent blame Democrats. 47 percent in this poll blame Trump, and the congressional Republicans about a quarter are not so sure.

We'll see how it looks in a couple of weeks here. But the fact that Democrats are not seeing it in the polls yet may suggest to them, well, we should keep fighting. And we shouldn't buckle to the demands to just pass a straight, clean extension and reopen the government.

MITCHELL: Again, their constituents told them to fight. This poll is reflecting that Democrats are doing what is -- what they're being told to do people. So, it's not like they're being blamed for the shutdown. They're getting credit for finally standing up to Trump. And again, standing up to the Trump.

The White House's layoffs, cuts and things that aren't very popular. I do think the pain is going to start when federal employees who are currently on furlough or currently working without pay, that next paycheck in two weeks, that's really going to be the first pressure point as programs. You know, we saw announcements that WIC may run out of money as programs start cutting off benefits.

The question will be, will the base still be telling Democrats keep fighting? Or will they say, well, this isn't what we envision?

RAJU: But this is, I mean, for the Democrats to think that Trump is just going to turn on and cut a deal. I mean, this is not Trump's DNA, to just listen to his political adversary rather than dig in and fight.

MATTINGLY: And take their advice. RAJU: Yes.

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MATTINGLY: I wouldn't necessarily describe his approach to the Oval Office in that way. What's -- like, what's so fascinating about this moment is the complete inversion of the dynamics that we have seen in those past shutdowns that you were referencing, Democrats are in the position of the 2013 Republicans, of the 2019 Republicans, where Democrats at that time were saying, hey man, we're not, no policy change, we're clean. Just extend, just reopen.

We'll have those debates about the wall or about Obamacare afterwards. And that position was deeply effective and always ended up breaking the Republicans in the minority. It seems like those dynamics are similar here. I think the question that -- and the biggest question I have is, in what world would the White House look at the dynamics and say, yes, we should come to the table. And right now, I think they would be very explicit in saying, we don't see one.

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RAJU: And those positions that have flipped and flopped over the air. Seung Min has some great reporting on that, which we're going to talk about actually next. And coming up, kittens and sombreros. How the shutdown messaging wars are playing out on social media. That's also next.

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[12:15:00]

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RAJU: Government shutdown day two has a debate already devolved to kittens and sombreros. Well after President Trump posted an eyebrow raising AI generated video of Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero. Republican Senator Ted Cruz added a, hey Macarena, Wednesday of his own version of it. Superimposing the image of, on 44 Democratic senators who voted with Senator Chuck Schumer. On the Democratic side, they're letting kittens explain the shutdown.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voiceover): Democrat kiddies want you to have healthcare. Republican kitties do not. Republican kitties control the Senate House and the White House, so they're using that to cut your healthcare and give money to billionaires.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Both sides are getting roasted for very different reasons. So, Republicans, of course, responded with this, a kitten wearing a sombrero. I'm back with my panel. I don't think these means are necessarily targeted to people like me, but maybe to you and the younger demographic here-- MITCHELL: During the break, my role as our foremost expert and pop culture, cultural issues, the virality of specific moments is well known, at least within CNN. Externally, I'm still working to label that as my brand. Honestly, your point is the one that's most salient in my brain as you kind of watch that play out or follow it over the course of the last couple of days of like, I'm not the intended audience for this.

And I do think that there is an intended audience, and the ability to reach that audience for which the Trump team has shown a level of skill and capability over the course of the last several years that Democrats are even in their kind of the most diehard version, acknowledging they need to catch up to creates kitten memes or videos. What was -- is it technically, I mean?

RAJU: Yeah, right, exactly.

MITCHELL: And so, I think -- but like, it underscores that this is -- as these platforms have become so dominant and so central to everything in the communication. So, this is where the messaging war is happening right now, not the one we followed in 2013.

RAJU: I mean, in regards to the big, bigger picture. This is a furious messaging war, silliness aside, but it's a furious messaging war to determine who is to blame here.

MITCHELL: Which the old lady and me is like, this is our best and brightest in the top of our government, and they're sending kiddie memes, and, quite frankly, playing in racist tropes about Mexican people and immigrants. There are people at home who are watching this and want better from our leaders on both sides of the aisle.

I also think we just -- you get down past the foolishness, the absurdity of it, and the core message from Republicans in some of these memes is based in some misinformation about what Democrats are fighting for and falsely accusing them of trying to, you know, get healthcare to undocumented immigrants, which is not the core of their message.

Yes, undocumented immigrants can go to the hospital, but that happened when Trump was president. Before that has just been the long-standing U.S. policy that if you show up to the hospital and you're sick, they don't ask you your immigration status before they treat you.

So, but that gets lost, I think, in and as we look at just kind of again, the absurdity of it. But I do think there are a lot of people at home, and who aren't on TikTok and social media, but who -- as this trickles down goes, is this really what our leaders are doing when we want them to talk about the serious matters that opening our government.

RAJU: Yeah. Seung Min, you had a good story about how the shutdown, it depends on which side of the aisle you're sitting on and the position you're taking depends on which side of the aisle you're taking on at that particular moment. Everybody in Washington hates a shutdown until it becomes a useful tool, was the headline there, perhaps even Donald Trump, before he was in politics back in 2013. He explained on CNN how he viewed that such shutdown that happened at that time.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: They really have to learn to get along. I mean, you just have a president that is not leading and not getting people into a room. You have to just make deals for the good of the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Of course, Barack Obama was president at that--

KIM: Exactly, and that was 2013 Donald Trump. Now, he wasn't the president then. And we actually found another example of Trump when he back in 2023 when he was out of office, when we were going through a similar crisis. And he just says, like, Republicans should stand firm, and no one is going to be blamed, except for the president. Well, who is the president now?

RAJU: Yeah.

KIM: But it's because shutdowns are -- it's a tactic. It's a negotiating tool. And traditionally, very often, it has been the Republicans taking this, really, you know, aggressive tactic and using the weight of the federal government to get what they want. You saw that in 2013 with Obamacare, obviously President Trump, as president, wanted money for the border wall in 2018 that Congress would not give him.

[12:20:00]

Not really is Democrats taking this really aggressive position and using that to force the fight that they may not win on policy at the end of day, but clearly, as Tia mentioned earlier, is what their base demand.

RAJU: And in 2013 of course, it was Republicans who had initiated that fight. They wanted to defund Obamacare as they were trying to fund the federal government. Democrats said no. It led to shut down more than two weeks long. Republicans ultimately capitulated, and the government reopened.

Chuck Schumer, you may have heard him. His name. He is now leading the charge on the Democratic side. He's Senate Democratic leader. He was not the top Senate Democrat then, but he had a lot of influence, and he also had a lot of views about how Republicans were pushing this issue back then.

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SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): What if I persuaded my caucus to say, I'm going to shut the government down? I'm going to not pay our bills unless I get my weight, it's a politics of idiocy of confront of paralysis.

(END VIDEO CLIP) RAJU: All right. The politics of idiocy of confrontation of paralysis, as he said. Now and of course, Dem -- Republicans are very quick to point out Schumer's own words right now, amid all this very, very significant fight. All right, more to talk about there. And next. Do you run a top university? Do you want preferred access to federal funding? Well, the Trump administration has an offer for you, but you need to agree to their terms. Look at the White House's terms. That's next.

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[12:25:00]

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RAJU: The Trump administration has a new offer for some of America's top universities. It's just the latest move as President Trump tries to seize control of higher education. The White House sent a letter to nine schools offering them easier access to federal grants and funding if they agree to several terms set by the White House in exchange for preferential access to federal funding.

CNN's Betsy Klein is here to join us live. So, Betsy, you've been going through this. What are the terms laid out by the administration? And what do the schools need to do to get what they're offering here?

BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Manu, this really marks an unprecedented effort by the Trump administration to use those levers of the federal government to enact some sweeping changes in alignment with the president's agenda to higher education institutions. So, this letter that was sent to nine top schools and universities, public and private, is what they're describing as, quote, a compact for academic excellence in higher education.

And these top Trump officials, including Education Secretary Linda McMahon, other top officials from the White House, are calling on these schools to implement a series of policies, that includes removing factors like sex and ethnicity from admissions consideration, freezing tuition costs for five years, a 15 percent cap on international students, a strict definition of gender, commitment to grading integrity and then to reform or close any quote, institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.

Now there is going to be an anonymous poll of students, faculty and staff every year to ensure compliance with this. That is going to be reviewed by the Department of Justice, and in return, a White House official tells me that these schools will receive a competitive advantage and expanded access to federal grant funding.

RAJU: So how are the universities responding? I know I saw some positive comments coming from Texas, but some of the other ones have not commented. And what happens if these schools don't sign on?

KLEIN: Well, there's something in this compact that really stood out to me. It says, quote, institutions of higher education are free to develop models and values other than those below, if the institution elects to forego federal benefits. But a White House official clarified to me that those benefits are the expanded federal grants that they are talking about. It's really unclear at this point if there's going to be any punishment for existing federal funding if they don't sign on to this.

But we have heard, I reached out to all nine schools. Board of Regents, chairman for the University of Texas says, they are honored and enthusiastically look forward to reviewing it. We also heard from the University of Virginia that they have received it and are reviewing it as well as MIT, Manu.

RAJU: Yeah. I mean that the concern here is that if you give them an inch, they may take a mile. The implications are significant for all this.

KLEIN: Certainly, and it really shows how the Trump administration is seeking to put their mark on higher education. It's really a broader fight over academic freedom and federal funding and campus oversight.

RAJU: Yeah, which is why there's a lot of concern about this as well. Thanks for that report. Betsy Klein, for us here. And coming up for us next. President Trump's crime crackdown lands in Memphis with Stephen Miller rallying the officers.

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