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Sources: Iran's Response To Proposal Ending War Expected Today; Iran Spokesman: Iran Still Reviewing U.S. Ceasefire Plan; Rubio Meets With Pope Leo Amid Historic Tensions With Trump; Rubio's White House Briefing Reignites 2028 Buzz; MAHA-MAGA Rift Depends As Trump Edges Away From RFK Priorities. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired May 07, 2026 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

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DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Waiting game. The U.S. is expecting to hear any minute now whether Iran will agree to its latest ceasefire proposal.

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

Right now, at the White House, President Trump is meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Lula da Silva. Those talks will likely focus on trade, but we do expect President Trump to take questions from reporters on Iran. And one of the questions right now is whether the Iranian regime will accept his latest proposal to end the war.

A spokesman says, they are still reviewing the plan that's according to Iranian media. It seems like, we keep hearing from President Trump that Iran will agree to his plan and the war will end but then they don't, and it doesn't end.

As our Nic Robertson, who has been doing great reporting on this, wrote this morning. Quote, we have been here before. Deja Vu and optimism keep colliding, frothing, undelivered expectations around the region, but this time might be different. We're going to take you to the White House as soon as the president begins taking questions.

In the meantime, I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters. Seung Min, you cover the White House for the AP. I know that you're in touch with your sources about what the expectation is right now. What are you hearing?

SEUNG MIN KIM, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, AP & CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think we're all just kind of waiting for that response would be. But the president has projected all sorts of different, you know, outlooks for the last several weeks when it comes to the war, you know, often at odds with himself and what he's saying, and often at odds with his own advisors.

I'm thinking back to just Tuesday, a couple of days ago, when he had his top administration officials, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, go out in front of the press and talk about this new effort to guide ships to the Strait of Hormuz. And by, you know, eight hours later, four hours later, he had said that operation was off because something else had happened.

So, this, you know, seesawing back and forth of what were of the latest -- of the status of the war is something that's been going on for weeks. I will point out that he told another reporter that he expects this wrapped up in maybe about a week, that would put the war's end right before he goes to his trip to China later this month. But again, with every sort of prediction that the president has made, we really have to see what Iran says before, kind of making the final, you know, conclusion as to the status of the war.

BASH: And Phil, let's just listen a little bit to some of what the president has said just in the last few days, maybe even weeks, about the potential for a deal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: They want to make a deal badly, and we'll see if we get there. I think they want to make a deal very badly. They'd like to make a deal very badly, very badly. They want very much to make a deal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Phil?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: They want very much to make a deal. Is my assessment and observing, and also, just my brilliance as a reporter, president, right there. Look, I think the reality, like putting the jest and thing (Ph) and sarcasm aside. The reality is a couple of things. One, the deal points that the U.S. is pushing for on the nuclear side, are the types of deal points that every administration leading up to this one has pushed for. None of them have been able to get as far as this administration is pushing right now.

Obviously, it is very different moment, and perhaps leverage has shifted to some degree, but the idea very, very firm and clear red lines for Iran over the course of decades will all the sudden change right now isn't borne out by anything we've seen the Iranians do. And there surely hasn't been a shift in terms of the ideological or fundamentalist makeup of the leadership that currently exists. So, that's one element of this.

And I think the second element of this is as this back and forth is going on, and predictions of a potential deal, maybe it helps move markets on a day-to-day basis underneath the surface right now. And you can go all through any kind of data you want to. And I know you guys don't want me to do that, but I will.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTINGLY: Things are fracturing underneath the surface to a degree where the kind of triage system that's been put in place by countries, in large part driven by the United States and its exports on the oil and petroleum side, there's a durability issue that we're about to run up against. And so, the longer this back and forth goes on, the longer the Strait of Hormuz remains controlled and more or less in sovereign control of Iran, the bigger the global economic and domestic economic problems become.

[12:05:00]

BASH: And Dana Milbank, it's good to have you here. You are now with NOTUS. And I just want to read to our viewers something that relates to what the president is doing right now, which is meeting with the world leader. This one, the leader from Brazil, Lula, you wrote. If the president hasn't fundamentally evolved over the last 10 months, we have the biggest difference between now and then is that the country and the world are no longer cowering and no longer as susceptible to his flimflam. First of all, I'm definitely using the word flimflam any more often in my life.

DANA MILBANK, COLUMNIST, NOTUS: I used it often enough.

BASH: I'm going to adopt it more often right now. But your overall point?

MILBANK: Yeah. I mean, I think that is the predominant thing that's changed domestically as well as overseas. I mean, domestically, you see it in the polling, you see it in the institutions pressing back against him, whether that's the legal community, the academic journalistic community. But overseas, I mean, you've seen defeats in various elections for far-right populist parties in France, in Italy, most notably in Hungary right after poor J.D. Vance was there tying himself to Viktor Orban.

And then you've seen other parties, Le Pen in France and the far-right in Germany, you know, talking about distance themselves and tip toeing away from Trump. So, it really feels like, to a large extent, they've got his number. You saw the German chancellor? Yeah, he backed away from it a little bit, talking about the humiliation. But I think they're all seeing much more to be gained, and because I've seen in the past, if you just kiss up to Trump, it does you no good. He just comes back for more.

BASH: Well, yeah. In Brazil, I think it might be a good example of this, because you remember at the beginning of the second term, the president put in place a 50 percent tariff on Brazil and had nothing to do with the trade imbalance that the president said existed. It's because he was mad that his favorite Brazilian President Bolsonaro was treated unfairly after he tried to take back power in an aggressive, even violent way, at least his supporters did interesting parallels there.

MATTINGLY: Yeah. No, the parallels were really, really blatant.

BASH: By the way, those tariffs are now gone or at least come back.

MATTINGLY: Right. It is fascinating that, by the way, that 50 percent tariff, which again, had no basis on anything, and in large part, was the most egregious, egregious example of the tariff authority that was used and then eventually struck down by the Supreme Court, and now they're trying to circumvent was not based on emergencies. It was purely based on what the president was feeling.

And that underscored that he was using tariffs as a very important leverage point, one of which he has less power to deploy at this point than anything else. But it's wild that, like out of the blue, the president put 50 percent tariffs on a Western Hemisphere country and presumable ally that we actually really need right now, from an export perspective, just because he was pissed like the political enemy of the current president was going to jail for citing a coup.

BASH: And now that current president is sitting in the Oval Office. Right now, we're waiting to see what the president says, if anything, if the pool is allowed in there, and we will definitely keep you up to speed on that. We're going to sneak in a break.

Coming up. Vice President J.D. Vance, heath this week made his first trip to the very important state of Iowa as V.P. So, why is Marco Rubio the one making headlines this week about 2028. Plus, how a newsroom that couldn't afford coffee cups and rationed toilet paper became a global powerhouse. One of CNN's original producers shares her memories of the legendary CNN founder, Ted Turner.

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[12:10:00]

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BASH: At the Vatican, a not so subtle peace offer from Pope Leo to the Trump administration. After weeks of extraordinary criticism from President Trump. The pontiff met this morning with Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and topping the agenda, of course, is the war in Iran, which has really strained relations between Washington and the Vatican. But today's exchange of gifts included a literal olive branch from Leo.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: Had the seal of the State Department on it. What to get someone who has everything?

POPE LEO XIV: Olive being of course the plant of peace. This is the coat of arms on --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: You couldn't hear it, that was Pope Leo giving Marco Rubio pen made of olive wood, noting that it is the plant of peace. Dana Milbank?

MILBANK: Doesn't this look great for Marco Rubio? I mean, the man is having his moment here, because, as we were saying earlier, J.D. Vance, has, you know, been kind of embarrassed about the Trump's, Trump's war with the Pope, with Orban, with the failed negotiations he led in Iran, and his chief rival just seems to be.

I mean, he had a terrific session with reporters in the White House this week, and he seems kind of to be the last man standing now. You know there's, you know, it is true that everything Trump touches dies. So, he is an exception. I'm not sure that this lasts forever, but if you're looking at it right now, it's like, here's this traditional, classic Tea Party, conservative, limited government, conservative, internationalist, and he's getting popularity somewhat within the MAGA movement. So, I see that as a hopeful sign.

[12:15:00]

BASH: Well, it's interesting. Yes, he was a Tea Party. I was talking to the team about this. He was a Tea Party Republican when he ran in 2010, before that, he was Jeb Bush's protege back in Florida. So, he's definitely had a lot of iterations as the Republican Party has changed. So, has he -- you mentioned this briefing that he did at the White House? Seung Min, you were there. I want to play a little bit of it. And this actually clip that we're playing came from the State Department press office.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT: If you're a foreign country dumping that garbage into our country, if you're trying to undercut the wages of Iowa workers, if you're --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(PLAYING VIDEO)

KIM: I mean, first of all, that press conference was the most chaotic situation. I've been in that room, and I've been in that --

BASH: That says a lot.

KIM: I know. I've been in that room when President Trump has brief reporters. There was something about it with all the reporters, kind of lined up in the aisles just clamoring to get a question. But certainly, I mean that, I don't think that was a planet question. You get a lot of variety of questions in that briefing room. But certainly, the State Department and Secretary Rubio really like the answer that he gave, and he was able to take sort of any question that he -- that he was -- he was given, kind of really bat around kind of efficiently and comfortably with reporters.

And I found the decision by the White House and the administration really curious, because we had known that Vice President Vance was going to Iowa. This was going to be as big kind of coming out moment on the potential 2028 stage. And then right on Monday night, the day before -- the day before the Tuesday briefing, we're told that Marco Rubio will brief in the White House briefing room. I don't think that was a coincidence. I will point out that Secretary Rubio has said if J.D. Vance runs in 2028, he's not going to run, but I think we all kind of poo, poo at that.

MATTINGLY: I understand that our SMK was uncomfortable in her front row seat, right, in front --

KIM: Front row center.

MATTINGLY: And also, the fact that it was very clear, as Marco Rubio was going around, trying to figure out who everybody was, like, he's known Seung Min for a very long time, and that identification was interesting and helpful. But I also think -- I mentioned that because, as somebody who like SMK, covered him on the Hill for many years. You did as well. Covered chunks of his campaign back in 2016. One, the answer that turned into a sizzle reel was very reminiscent of some of the answers. I mean, he had a great stump speech during the campaign.

BASH: What sort of fact that they turned it into a sizzle reel? I mean, just kind of glossy note with this.

MATTINGLY: It answered on some level.

BASH: I know, but just the fact that they turned it into a sizzle reel, instead of just letting it speak for itself. It was already going viral, and now it's, you know, going viral --

MATTINGLY: I mean, you know, if you're a good press person, you're saying, how can I enhance the virality? I think the broader point is, is, I've heard a lot from foreign policy folks outside the administration saying, why haven't we heard more from Rubio? Because every time he talks about this stuff and we all know this well from covering him, he can talk about this stuff off the cuff without breaking from kind of Trumpian policy lanes.

He did it in Munich, kind of the softer touch version of what J.D. Vance did with a sledgehammer the year prior. And he's able to do it and kind of walk through the thought process of their strategic goals and what they're trying to do in a way that I think is a little bit more coherent sometimes, but certainly more fluent than other people have in the administration.

BASH: Yeah. And the points that you were making, Dana, about the challenges that J.D. Vance has had because of the circumstances of being vice president and being put in positions that didn't exactly work out so well. I think one of the biggest positions that he's in is having to support a war, the war in Iran, that he clearly did not want to have in the first place. I know that that's also a narrative that they're getting out there.

He was speaking in Iowa around the same time that Marco Rubio was speaking in the briefing room. Let's listen to a little bit of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: If you're a foreign country dumping that garbage into our country, if you're trying to undercut the wages of Iowa workers, if you're trying to steal the jobs from Iowa farmers and Iowa manufacturers, you know, what you're going to do. You're going to pay a big fat tariff before you bring anything into our country because we're protecting the jobs of our workers and our people for a change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So, J.D. Vance in Iowa as populist.

[12:20:00]

MILBANK: What a terrific juxtaposition. I mean, J.D. Vance, man just looks angry, and Marco Rubio, the statesman. I mean, and that -- and that was, you know, quite uplifting. And I think something that could -- that could unify people. You know, I think J.D. Vance's in a way, lost his lane, you know, because he can't be the antiwar guy, because he's got to be the pro-war guy. He's trying to be the angry populous, but you can see he doesn't play it quite so well.

And the problem is, you know, if he's -- if he's going -- if he wants to, you know, if the -- if the MAGA movement is going to say even Trump has been too, you know, not strong enough in that direction. And we've got to have an even more outspoken warrior out there. I'm not sure it's J.D. Vance. I mean, then you're going in like a Tucker Carlson direction. So, it's just a little less clear to me that Vance is such an obvious for --

BASH: Yeah. I mean, it's going to be one of the big questions heading into 2028 is, which way does this movement go and these two their besties.

MATTINGLY: I mean, they said it on the record.

BASH: I know, I know I've heard it.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: MAHA versus MAGA. We have new CNN reporting on a split in the Trump coalition, different from the one we're talking about now on the war. This is about healthcare and suburban moms, will it cost Republicans this November. We'll explain after the break.

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[12:25:00]

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BASH: A new rift in the Trump administration. This one between two movements, MAHA and MAGA. CNN's Adam Cancryn and Sarah Owermohle have new reporting today about a deepening divide. What is the latest flash point? It's President Trump's new pick for Surgeon General, Dr. Nicole Saphier replaced MAHA favorite Casey Means. Saphier has a history of criticizing HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. It's one more example of President Trump putting the brakes on some of Kennedy's priorities.

MAHA leader Vani Hari, also known as the Food Babe, has a warning for the White House. Quote, this is a fast growing, highly energized coalition of parents, farmers and health advocates, and we're organizing in ways Washington isn't used to, ignoring that heading into the midterms is not just wrong, it's politically short sighted. But one Trump advisor told CNN quote, I hate to say it, but I think they're a little bit overrated to some extent, MAHA has always been a paper tiger.

Phil Mattingly, this is one of the more fascinating coalitions and sort of demographics that evolved and really came to be leading up to the 2024 election. And there was definitely a shift among people who had traditionally voted for Democrats. It was obviously post-COVID. There were a lot of things that were happening.

But one of the things is people, especially moms, getting wise to what is in the cereal boxes and other food that they're feeding their kids, and they didn't think that Democrats who were in charge were listening, and they found a home, at least at the time with Donald Trump who invited them in.

MATTINGLY: The thing I most blatantly missed in 2024 and probably discounted in a way that I definitely shouldn't have in hindsight is the degree to which RFK joining Trump and the addition of that coalition was real tangible and had an effect. I'm not saying it decided who won or lost, but it was real tangible and had an effect.

And the ability of that part of the coalition to drive across media platforms, not traditional media platforms, but across platforms, and resonate with people who are often either low info voters or not regular voters, was real at the time. It's very surprising to see the Trump advisor saying that they're paper tigers. Like there's a reason RFK Jr. became health secretary. There's a reason that the chairman of that committee had to vote for him even though he disagreed with everything RFK stood for.

BASH: It's someone for ringing off the --

MATTINGLY: And So, whether or not that has fallen off since, I have no idea, but I would think if you're a political person in Trump's orbit, you would certainly want those individuals close by heading into a midterm election.

BASH: My takeaway from the first part of your comment is you need to listen to Chelsey Mattingly more.

MATTINGLY: She was -- the moms knew. The moms knew.

BASH: That's your smart wife. Seung Min, the idea of moving away from MAHA, I think, is maybe simplifying a very complicated movement because there are the people who are just want clean food and so on and so forth. And then there's next level, which is vaccines. And that is where the Trump administration seems to be moving away from the RFK wing of it, if you will, by who he's appointing Erica Schwartz to be CDC, and then also Saphier now to be surgeon general, which is, I think, his third pick so far.

KIM: Right, right. And I was actually just going to point that out that if you look at some of this health picks, he's really kind of tried to carefully nudge away from some of these, you know, MAHA friendly picks that the movement really wanted. What's -- with health officials who are sort of more traditional picks, and I assume would likely not have trouble getting through confirmation in the Senate. Because I do think the president is aware of kind of the political unpopularity of the vaccine positions that a lot of his top advisor, or a lot of his health officials are taking.

And I do find it interesting is what Casey Means, the former surgeon general pick. He really didn't take ownership of her nomination.

BASH: He said it was --

KIM: Yes. He said over and over that this is Bobby's choice, like Bobby recommended her to me.