Return to Transcripts main page

Inside Politics

Trump Gives Hamas Sunday Evening Deadline Or Face "All Hell"; Now: Sean ""Diddy"" Combs Sentencing Hearing Underway; Conservative Warns Trump Not To Replace DEI With Incompetence; French: GOP Is No Longer Conservative, It is "Anti-Left". Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired October 03, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:30:38]

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: We're following breaking news. Out of Manhattan, Sean "Diddy" Combs' defense team is appealing to the judge right now, laying out how people found guilty of the same crimes have faced shorter prison sentences. We are monitoring that hearing. We will bring you any updates and wait for the rat mogul himself to speak.

We're following other breaking news out of the White House today. President Trump calls it a last chance deadline for Hamas, setting a 6:00 p.m. Eastern Sunday deadline to be specific for the terror group to agree to his Gaza peace plan. If not, quote, "all hell, like no one has ever seen before."

CNN's Kristen Holmes is at the White House. Kristen, what's different about this deadline than others? What are you hearing from your sources about that --

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Hey, Dana, look --

BASH: -- post and what it means in practical terms? Go ahead.

HOLMES: I'll always say that it can always be down to President Donald Trump and anything can change. But this certainly appears as though it is his red line. And if he doesn't hold this red line, it's going to be embarrassing for President Trump.

I mean, remember back when we saw earlier in the week Netanyahu and President Trump, the Prime Minister of Israel, sitting there in the Oval Office announcing this peace agreement. One of the things that President Trump promised Netanyahu was that if Hamas does not agree, that he would support and put the weight of the United States behind whatever Israel decided to do.

And of course, as we know, Netanyahu saying they would, quote, unquote, "finish the job" if Hamas did not agree. So I do want to read you part of this post, because it is really striking. Again, it's going to be very hard for him to go back on this. He says, "More than 25,000 Hamas soldiers have already been killed. Most of the rest are surrounded and military trapped. Just waiting for me to give the word go for their lives to be quickly extinguished. As for the rest, we know who you are, where you are, and you will be hunted down and killed.

All innocent Palestinians immediately leave this area of potentially great future death for safer parts of Gaza. Everyone will be cared for by those that are waiting to help. Fortunately for Hamas, however, they will be given this one last chance."

So let's just go through quickly what is in the proposed Gaza peace plan. I've got a couple of bullet points here. Remember, it's 20 points. It goes to say that the war would end immediately, that Hamas releases all living and deceased Israeli hostages within 72 hours.

Israel releases 250 life sentence prisoners, 1,700 detained Gazans, eventual partial Israel withdrawal, which we don't know exactly what that would look like, and we don't know what that timeline would look like. And then you would have a Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energize Gaza.

So the clock is certainly ticking here. We'll obviously wait to see what Hamas is going to do and ultimately what the President decides to do.

BASH: All right, Kristen, thank you so much. Appreciate that.

Coming up, we'll take you back inside Sean "Diddy" Combs' sentencing hearing, where right now, his defense attorney is detailing the, quote, "help and inspiration" he's given others. We'll explain next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:38:16]

BASH: Back to the breaking news. Out of New York, Sean "Diddy" Combs is about to address the judge who will decide how much more time he will spend behind bars.

CNN Chief Legal Analyst Laura Coates is still there outside the courtroom. Laura, a second defense attorney is talking now. She's been talking about the contributions Combs has made to society.

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: She is. And this has been a tag team. The first one was about talking about what they thought was too high of a sentence, possibly for a prostitution- related charge, which they say that Diddy did not personally, financially benefit. And now they're painting him as a bit of a community role model, talking about him as a father, talking about him in Revolt TV, talking about his clothing line, the idea of a young entrepreneur, a black one at that, who had the audacity to believe that he should be everywhere and motivate others to do so.

This is all part of an overall strategy for the defense attorneys to suggest to this judge that this is a person who, if not remorseful for the specific crimes he still believes he's innocent of, he is a contributing member of society. Now, the judge will balance that against what he's learning from the victim impact statements of people like Cassie Ventura and, of course, the prosecution's scathing recitation of the facts in this case and calling all that he has said as lip service.

BASH: Laura, thank you so much. Keep us posted. Appreciate it.

And I now want to go to CNN's Lisa Respers France to talk about sort of the cultural moment that we are in. First, I do want to ask about the statement that Cassie Ventura wrote to the judge. She said, "If there is one thing I have learned from this experience, it is that victims and survivors will never be safe."

[12:40:07]

Is Hollywood taking abuse more seriously as a result of this case or has sort of that form of culture changed along with everything else in society right now?

LISA RESPERS FRANCE, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: Dana, I think that we're always going to have victim shaming when it comes to cases like this, but what made it more difficult was the video that we broke here at CNN. It was really hard to look away from the ugliness because it was no longer a he said, she said.

And even when people said, well, if it was so bad for her, why didn't she leave? We literally saw what happened when she attempted to leave. We saw the violence.

And so what his defense is trying to do right now is to kind of, you know, paint him in a different light because they're fully aware that that video has been seen around the world and it paints a really horrible picture of him. And so they want to present him as more than what you saw in that video and more than what the people who testified against him said. And more than what Cassie has said, which is that she is fearful that he is going to seek retribution if he is allowed to get out anytime soon.

And so, you know, when it comes to Hollywood, Dana, I think what we see is that when you have something like this video, which gives us actual visual evidence to back up some of the claims that she made in her lawsuit, it's really hard to get away from that, Dana.

BASH: Yes. And we are looking at that horrible video that was reported on and unearthed by Elizabeth Wagmeister, our colleague. I do want to note that today is the 30th anniversary of the O.J. Simpson acquittal. Very, very different cases, really different cases. But I know you've talked in the past about cultural parallels.

FRANCE: Yes, I actually was a young reporter. It was my first job. I helped to cover the O.J. Simpson trial in Los Angeles. And what we see here is, especially in what Diddy's defense team just said, they just said, you know, Mr. Combs starting his own record label as a black young male back then was almost kind of jokable, but he had the audacity to do it anyway. This changed the industry and it changed the culture, you know, for countless people. And so they're leaning into his blackness. And it's interesting because that was something that happened with the O.J. trial as well.

And O.J. Simpson was a man who spent almost his entire life and career trying not to be defined as a black man. But then when he was charged with a crime, his defense team leaned into that blackness to say, you know, look, this black man can't get a fair trial in America. And we want you to keep that in mind when you're thinking about this.

And when it comes to Diddy, they are, you know, presenting him as someone who has been very important to the culture when it comes to African-American culture. And they're not wrong about that, but they want you to focus on that and less so what he was accused of doing, Dana.

BASH: That's so interesting.

Lisa, thank you so much. Appreciate you being here.

FRANCE: Thank you.

BASH: And we're going to keep monitoring the Combs sentencing hearing.

Up next, we're going to talk to a Conservative who is arguing the Pentagon is replacing DEI with, quote, "incompetence." He'll explain what he means after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:47:46]

BASH: This week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took an unprecedented step. He called top generals and admirals from around the world together in Virginia to hear a speech with his vision for a new Pentagon.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: This administration has done a great deal from day one to remove the social justice, politically correct, and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department. To rip out the politics.

If women can make it, excellent. If not, it is what it is. If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it. We all serve at the pleasure of the President every single day.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BASH: At New Vision rang some alarm bells for Conservative columnist, veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, David French. He wrote about those concerns -- about those concerns in his latest column in New York Times. "Incompetence isn't an upgrade over DEI." And he joins me now. David, thank you so much for being here. I want to read our viewers part of that column. Quote, "When Americans watched a strutting, arrogant, underqualified Pete Hegseth lecture men and women with far more combat and leadership experience than he'll ever possess about transforming the American military, they weren't watching meritocracy at work. Instead, they were watching something much worse than DEI -- a political commissar who conceals his rank incompetence behind posturing and peacocking."

First, what did you really feel? Pretty stark there. But I do want to --

DAVID FRENCH, OPINION COLUMNIST, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yes.

BASH: -- underscore that you're coming at this as a self-described Conservative.

FRENCH: Yes. Yes. And somebody who served in the military, as you noted. And one thing that just really stood out to me while I was watching this speech and while I was watching him posturing very aggressively like he was the warrior's warrior was that this is a man who not just a few months ago had put war plans on a civilian messaging app that included as part of the group the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic.

It's one of the biggest blunders, security blunders I've ever seen. It's the kind of thing that when I was in the military, people would be prosecuted for. I've seen careers ruined for far less than that.

[12:50:07]

And so the image of this man lecturing people who had far more experience than him, far more leadership experience than him about standards and toughness, when he'd already failed dramatically on just maintaining basic standards, it was almost too much to take.

BASH: Well, the Trump administration's biggest target in their anti- DEI campaign, I think it's fair to say has been at the Department of Defense, at the Pentagon.

FRENCH: Right.

BASH: You did serve in the Armed Forces for eight years. And you talk in this column and elsewhere about the fact that your experience was very different than the one that he described in that speech as one driven by DEI.

FRENCH: Yes, absolutely. You know, look, nobody will say the military is perfect. Nobody should say that any American institution has got it all right. So there were problems when I served.

But by and large, when I'm talking about my service in the military, it was actually both the most meritocratic institution I've been a part of, and it was also the most diverse institution that I've been a part of. When I served and when we deployed to Iraq, our unit was absolutely a reflection of the United States of America. And also that unit performed magnificently in the field.

So this sort of idea that we have a hollowed out military because of wokeness or whatever is just completely wrong. Again, nobody would say the military is perfect, that it doesn't need some degree of reform. But this wrecking ball and then replacing, you sweep out an old regime, what comes in after?

What is coming in afterwards is really a politicized military. And if there's one thing that we know about politicized militaries, they are less effective.

BASH: Just more broadly than the military and certainly that speech, you talk about what you see as the Republicans' drift towards being more against liberals --

FRENCH: Yes.

BASH: -- than for conservative principles. Explain that.

FRENCH: Yes. So this is really the fundamental unifying theme of the GOP, in addition, of course, to absolute support for Donald Trump, is that they're anti-left. They're very much against the left. So they're going to look at it as a win if they defeat a leftist policy, if they defeat a leftist candidate.

But that's not governing. That's just rank opposition. If you're going to actually run the most powerful nation in the world, if you're going to govern the most powerful nation in the world, just being an opponent to one side isn't sufficient.

You can't replace something with nothing. And so you have to look and see what are they replacing this DEI program with? What are they replacing more liberal ideas with? And a lot of times what you're seeing is they're replacing it with something that really goes back in American history, not our greatest moments, rank nepotism, politicization of the civil service, of the military.

All of these things are things we initiated legal reforms to remove ourselves from, but it's all coming back, where it's not a meritocracy when the number one qualification for a job is loyalty to Donald Trump. That's not what a meritocracy looks like.

BASH: On the cultural issues, the -- you talk to any Republican, and I'm sure you do as well, they argue, and I think the data bears this out, that one of the reasons why President Trump was able to get more Independents and even more Democrats, more Hispanic voters, maybe even more young voters than he did the first time, and certainly the second time he ran, is because of these cultural issues. That many Democrats --

FRENCH: Yes.

BASH: -- think that their own party is too woke. And perhaps that's why they are still seizing on this. Could that be part of it, or do you think it's just because this is what they actually believe, or both? FRENCH: Well, I definitely think that the Democrats moved to the far left, especially in the years before the 2024 election, have had a major political and cultural ramifications. This is -- lot of people did, in fact, vote for Trump, largely because they were voting against what they saw as left-wing extremism.

But that might have been a necessary for Trump's victory. It is not sufficient to form a mandate for governing, because governing requires more than just opposition to what came before. You've got to have a program that replaces it, that's better than what you've replaced.

And this is where the Trump administration, by veering into its incredible cruelty, by veering into nonsense economics around the tariffs, with a foreign policy that just goes back and forth, for example, between Russia and Ukraine, with no coherent strategy behind it, you're beginning to see that it is not necessarily an upgrade when you're just in opposition. You have to have a program. And right now, on many fronts, that Trumpist program is failing.

[12:55:13]

BASH: Yes, and you -- in another recent column, actually two of your most recent columns, you deal with what you call the Trump administration's lawlessness, Make No Mistake About Where We Are, discusses the implications of the Trump administration's prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey. And for my friends, everything looks at efforts by President Trump to bring TikTok to friendly hands.

FRENCH: Right. I mean, what we're watching is really -- you can really see in the second term where Trump's heart is, as sort of what kind of leader does he imagine himself to be. And the best way to describe it is he is being as authoritarian as the system is allowing him to be right now. So where he pushes against Congress, Congress is completely yielding.

So, for example --

BASH: Yes.

FRENCH: -- Venezuelan boat strikes. Congress isn't raising a peep about that. He's pushing on every front to be as authoritarian as he can possibly be. And that is putting immense strains on the system.

So even though he's getting his will time and time again, available indications are that he's only really holding onto his base while he does that. A majority of Americans are not liking what they're seeing.

BASH: David French, unfortunately, we're out of time. It's so great to talk to you. Please come back. A lot more to discuss.

FRENCH: Thank you.

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)