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GOP Primary In Louisiana's Latest Test Of Trump's Party Power; Trump, Xi Wrap Summit Without Announcing Any Major Deals; Trump Allies Push To Come HHS Turmoil Before Midterms. Aired 12-12.30p ET

Aired May 15, 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 ANCHOR: President Trump's revenge tour is about to hit Cajun country. I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines and Inside Politics. It's a tale as old as time, or at least as old as the Trump era. If you're a Republican who crosses Donald J. Trump, the President makes it a priority to take you out. Senator Bill Cassidy is fighting to be an exception to the rule when Louisianans go to the polls tomorrow, on Saturday for the state's GOP primary.

Now Cassidy is facing Trump endorsed Congresswoman Julia Letlow and also State Treasurer John Fleming, who says he is the real MAGA candidate in the race. Cassidy's Original Sin is that he voted to convict the President in his 2021 impeachment trial after January 6, with -- which Trump has not forgiven or forgotten, even though Cassidy has spent the last 18 months or so since the president won re- election, trying to prove himself as a loyal foot soldier in the MAGA revolution, especially when he cast the pivotal vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr, to become the Health and Human Services Secretary.

My colleague, Pamela Brown, just spoke with Senator Cassidy about his 2021, impeachment vote.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Do you regret that at all? I know you're trying to move forward, but I imagine that's on your mind.

SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): First, I'm going to win, just to set that straight. And secondly, you do live life forward, not just some of the time, but all the time. And the people in my state want two things, someone who's delivered and someone who can work with President Trump.

I'm not claiming the President loves me. No, but you can work with people even if you don't love each other, if you got a common goal. And my goal is to make my country and my state and everybody who lives here better off.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: My panel is here with me. Aaron, the big question is whether Louisiana Republican voters are going to buy that message. AARON BLAKE, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: It looks unlikely at this point. This was always going to be an uphill battle, if you look at the members of Congress who voted for impeachment in the House and to convict in the Senate, the only ones who have gone through an election after that and managed to survive are people who have these unusual primary systems.

In California, it's a Top Two primary. In Alaska, it's a Top Four primary. If you have a partisan primary, nobody has been able to survive that. So I think ever since Bill Cassidy took that vote and then Donald Trump came back and was politically viable after that, it was always going to be a very difficult path through election for him.

BASH: And let's just sort of go back to 2021. I want to play for you what he said in February of 2021 explaining his vote to impeach President Trump after January 6, and then what he told me a couple of weeks later.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CASSIDY: Our Constitution and our country is more important than any one person. I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty.

BASH: Do you think Donald Trump is fit to be president again?

CASSIDY: I don't think Donald Trump, one he will be 78 years old, but -- but I don't think he'll be our nominee for the reasons I've said. Over the last four years, we've lost the House, the Senate and the presidency. Political campaigns are about winning. Our agenda does not move forward unless we win. We need a candidate who can not only win him -- himself or herself, but we also have to have someone who lifts all boats.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: That didn't age so well.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It did not. I mean, look President Trump, not even just him, but also all of the people around him, I'd remind you as well that you look at all the people are in the White House with him right now, in the West Wing. They're all of these politically minded people who were with him, many of them then and have stayed with him now, of course, until now.

And they all have long memories, and they all remember that time specifically, but, yeah, it's a very different message now. I mean, I spent a lot of time, I got to know Senator Cassidy when I was on the -- covering the hill, and it's so fascinating to see what he has done since then to try and help his image, even though, of course, it doesn't look as Aaron said --

BASH: His image with MAGA Republicans.

TREENE: -- with MAGA Republicans. I mean, I think that vote on RFK Jr. was a huge one, and really showed that he recognized he needed to do that in order to buy more goodwill with the party. But I think by and large, what Cassidy shows is that the party is still the party of Trump, even though, of course, I remind a lot of people as well, Cassidy wasn't the only Republican who was very vocal against what had happened at the Capitol on January 6 in the immediate aftermath of that.

I mean, you saw businesses, so many Republicans come out to condemn what had happened. It's different for him, I think, of course, because he was the one to make that vote, and it's still haunting him.

[12:05:00]

ADAM CANCRYN, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, I mean, one thing that's kind of remarkable, and to your point, is that it takes so much to cast yourself out permanently from the President's circle. So many people come in and out. I mean, look at Elon Musk. He's, you know, was out very vocally, and then is back in. And Cassidy has just never been able to, despite a couple years of trying now to get back into that circle.

And in fact, you talk to folks at the White House now, and they are laser focused on this race. I mean, it's a Republican primary, safe seat, and they are so focused on getting him out of the Senate.

BASH: Right, because a vote on impeachment is in the eyes of the President, I guess one would think, understandably, next level, and it doesn't allow you to get back on that sort of circle and come back into his inner circle. Let's listen to some voters from the focus group podcast and what they are saying about Bill Cassidy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's slimy, in my opinion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He reminds me a lot of -- a lot of the 80s politicians, or he's very two faced.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anybody trying to impeach my man Trump doesn't have my vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: That's what he's up against.

BLAKE: Yeah, I mean, and you know, we talked about how he gave a very significant vote for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as the HHS Secretary, but he's also since then, had a lot of kind of back and forth with Kennedy about, you know, what's HHS doing with vaccines? I think it's -- it's kind of the story of the Trump era, where you can't have it both ways. You can't kind of straddle a line. You need to be totally on board with the program, and if you're not, you're going to have these votes that are going to come back to haunt you, and that Trump isn't going to let you live down.

So he's tried to do certain things that are important to him personally, that includes on vaccine -- vaccines, but that hasn't always meshed well with serving President Trump. BASH: Do you think that Senator slash Dr. Cassidy has any regrets on the Kennedy vote? RFK vote? Now I know I've tried. Other people have tried. He won't say so publicly, but privately?

TREENE: I wouldn't be surprised to be honest and look, it's been a time since I've been on the hill, but having gotten to know him, I mean, he is a different Republican, in the sense that he is not someone, as Aaron just laid out, who always just parroted the Trump line. And he cares so deeply, if you've listened to him about the health issues.

BASH: I do want to play for our viewers some of the messaging that we're hearing from his opponents. Again, he has two. One is a Congresswoman Julia Letlow. She is endorsed by the President. Let's start with her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: It wasn't something you had thought about until President Trump had a conversation with you. Is that what I'm understanding?

REP. JULIA LETLOW (R-LA): Right. He encouraged me to jump in the race, and then was so honored to receive his full and total endorsement in this Senate race. So yes, definitely that encouragement from President Trump to continue working together. He knows he needs a fighter in the Senate, someone he can depend on, who will not forget that she represents the people, not the other way around.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: But it's not a two-way race. It's not just Julia Letlow and the incumbent Republican Bill Cassidy. It's also John Fleming. Here's what he is saying.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Republican John Fleming, MAGA before MAGA was cool, only candidate for Senate graded eight plus for his votes to stop illegal immigration, protect the border, only military veteran for Senate, only Fleming opposes carbon capture.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So the question Adam, is whether John Fleming is going to be a cog in the President's wheel in trying to immediately get rid of Bill Cassidy in this primary tomorrow.

CANCRYN: Well, I mean, certainly he is in the mix. I think more than a lot of the folks in the White House expected. You know, look, if you remember back, it took Julia Letlow a long time to get into that race, and John Fleming has the Trump background. He was campaigning hard, and has continued to campaign hard, resisting all these kinds of efforts to get him out of the race. It certainly is an added variable.

Now, does that mean if this goes to a runoff that Cassidy has any kind of a chance? Likely not, if you look at some of the polling, but it's certainly complicated, this idea of just elevating Julia Letlow and making this an easy runaway for him.

BASH: Yeah and I'm glad you said that. I don't know if any of us said it out loud, but it is possible that, because there are three people in the race, it could go to a runoff at the end of the day tomorrow. All right, everybody stand by. Coming up, plenty of pomp, but what else? We have the inside scoop of what really went down during the President's trip to China, and later, I'll speak to a Democrat running for Senate who thinks he can turn the red state of Iowa, blue again.

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[12:10:00]

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BASH: The Trump-Xi Summit has officially concluded. Our friend Jeff Mason at Bloomberg nailed the main takeaway from the President's visit. He wrote, Donald Trump got the pageantry he craved during his trip to China, but the U.S. President concluded the summit largely where he began, receiving little help from the self-described friend, Xi Jinping in dealing with a messy war in Iran and a challenging political climate at home.

Still, President Trump took a victory lap talking to reporters on Air Force One on his way home this morning, saying President Xi praised his leadership as reversing American decline.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: He said it very publicly, he said the U.S. was declining. But for the last four years, and he said what President Trump has done in the last 15-16 months has been virtually a miracle. He said we have the hottest -- he said we have the hottest country anywhere in the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:15:00]

BASH: My panel is back now. Alayna, is that -- is that what you think is going on behind the scenes?

TREENE: I mean, it's funny to me how every foreign leader, from the Saudi Crown Prince to the Chinese President, they all use the exact same language. The hottest country in the world. The President is obsessed with that.

BASH: Can we just like stop for a second. I just want to be -- I wish there was a recording of the Chinese President being like, you're the hottest country in the world.

TREENE: You're the hottest President there's ever been.

BASH: Yeah.

TREENE: Look, this was such an interesting trip, because I would -- I would note that there was actually very low expectations heading into it, which was surprising. I think, when this was first announced, and mind you, and all of our viewers, this was supposed to happen six weeks ago.

They actually postponed it because they didn't want the Iran war hanging over this big summit. That scrambled everything. And I think to your point, Jeff Mason did hit the nail on the head with this is that he's leaving with really not that much to kind of show for. I think obviously they talked about their strong ties.

It was a good visit in the sense that there was no real animosity or tense rhetoric that took place, maybe other than the Taiwan issue, but, yeah, I mean, it was a huge question of what this could mean for Iran, and we still don't really know if that's going to change.

BASH: Well, OK, so let's drill down on the Iran part of this all. I want to play for you a little bit more of what the President said on Air Force One, this morning, coming home. And it's going to start with the exchange he had with the reporter about Strait of Hormuz, which, of course, is key on Iran, followed by an interesting exchange he had about Taiwan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Is your instinct that he will put pressure? That he will try and get them to evolve?

TRUMP: Yeah, he's going to put (ph) pressure because yeah, I don't -- I don't need favors. I think he will. I think automatically he'd like to see it opened up. On Taiwan, he feels very strongly. I made no commitment either way. We'll see what happens.

REPORTER: What about the arms sales to Taiwan?

TRUMP: I'll make a determination over the next fairly short period.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And just so, you know, we all understand. But just to kind of put a finer point on it, the language that U.S. presidents in modern times have used on Taiwan is very precise and very careful. President Biden learned that when he stepped in it and they had to clean it up.

The question right now that a lot of people are looking at is, we talked about it on the show yesterday, is whether or not there is any consideration by President Trump to give anything to President Xi and the Chinese that they want on the Taiwan matter in exchange for Chinese help with the Strait of Hormuz and this language, I'll make the determination over the next fairly short period of time in answer to a question about arms sales to Taiwan, raised some eyebrows.

CANCRYN: Yeah. I mean, that's if you're Taiwan, that's certainly none of the answers that you want to hear. That's not going to make anybody there comfortable. It does raise questions as to, again, what the potential outcomes are on the table, how far, you know, Trump could go in kind of shifting this kind of long standing policy toward Taiwan. That's something I expect we'll kind of see play out over the next few

weeks. You know, this is something that Trump has kind of hinted at before. I remember in the first term, there was similar questions about, would this policy change. Didn't really ultimately, but you know, given the war in Iran, given his really eagerness to bring that to a quick end, you have to kind of, you know, assume that any kind of options that he can see forward are something he'd consider.

BASH: And the President is returning to the same problem that existed here in the U.S., both in policy and in politics, which is the economy, and in some ways, he's got a couple of indicators that we've seen this week that suggest that the economy and how people feel about it, and it's affecting people is even worse. Listen to what the President told Sean Hannity, who was on the trip with him, about high prices.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: When they talk about high prices, I inherited the high prices. I'm getting them down. I've got them down incredibly. People are finding other places to buy oil, like Texas, like -- so I don't want to say we're making a fortune. You understand that? Because if I say they're going to say, oh, he forgets about the little man, you know --

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: That's not what he told me though.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Just by way of sort of fact checking here. The Consumer Price Index is now 3.3 percent. It was 3.0 when he took office. Gas price is, of course, $3.40 average gallon of gas when he took office. It's now $4.50 now and Aaron, your take was the following in a great piece this morning.

There is a plausible explanation for his dismissiveness toward the financial impacts of the war that he'd simply like to pretend they don't exist.

[12:20:00]

BLAKE: Yeah, and this is part of the reason that the leverage has been different between him and Iran right now. Iran does not have to worry about as much about the economic impact on their people, and Trump is talking like somebody who would prefer that he didn't also have to worry about that.

You know, this is the biggest thing right now that is pushing for a conclusion to the war, because we don't have troops on the ground. We're not taking massive casualties. It's a relatively limited war in a lot of ways, but the economic impact is a very big thing for him. And so earlier this week, he had that kind of gaffe where he came out and he was asked, you know, how much are you thinking about Americans' economics when you're trying to bring this war to an end and cut a peace deal?

And he said, oh, I'm not thinking about that at all, which is, I think that's the way he'd like things to be, but that's not really the reality, and that's clearly weighing very heavily on how long he can continue to hold out for the kind of terms that he wants from Iran.

BASH: And on the President's mind continues to be the ballroom that he's building, which is, you know, not exactly a happy thing for his fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill who are now having to deal with a vote on security for the ballroom. Listen to what the President said in a Truth Social post also this morning on his way back from China.

"China has a ballroom, and so should the USA. It's under construction, ahead of schedule, and will be the finest facility of its kind anywhere in the USA. Thank you for all the support I've been given in getting this project going. Scheduled opening will be around September of 2028. The man I am walking with is President Xi of China, one of the world's great leaders. President Donald J. Trump."

TREENE: Yeah, look, I mean, obviously he goes to China, and he sees the pomp and the ceremony, and he thinks I want that back home. I think there's actually a lot -- a point I want to make, I think, is that when it comes to the ballroom and his obsession with that, but also everything else he is doing in D.C., with the arch that he is trying to build, with the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial, he is so focused, particularly now in his second term, and at this point, on his legacy.

And he does see that, it's not just his real estate background, which, of course, plays a massive role into his obsession with this and his fixation. It has to do with legacy. It's the same reason I think he's so fixated on these foreign wars. He thinks that is something that will do more for his legacy. And what's been fascinating is, of course, he ran his campaign on domestic issues that his voters specifically care so much about, but his attention has been on what he thinks is going to outlast him once he leaves office.

BASH: All right, up next we have new CNN reporting on the White House scramble to stabilize a bleeding HHS. We're going to talk about Adam's reporting and the question about whether or not this has anything to do with the midterms and Republican liability. Stay with us.

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[12:25:00]

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BASH: Surgeon General, CDC Director, FDA Commissioner, three of the nation's most powerful public health positions are vacant or operating under temporary leadership. Now we're going to talk about some new reporting from Adam Cancryn here revealing the Trump administration knows this is a major political problem, and now they're rushing to address turmoil at RFK Jr.'s HHS before the midterm elections in just under six months. Adam?

CANCRYN: Yeah, well, this is a project that's been going on at the White House level and HHS for a couple months now. Look the President when he made RFK Jr. the Health Secretary. He basically said, like, look, you can do what you want there. You have an agenda, carry it out. And they let him do that for about a year. And the result was pretty tumultuous.

You had all these controversial vaccine changes that ended up being very unpopular with the public. And at some point earlier this year, the White House looked at polling and said, we got to fix a whole bunch of things. Among them, personnel changes and making sure they can get people in there who actually can kind of stabilize the place and carry out an agenda. So that's what we're seeing now.

Attempts to fill a long vacant position at the CDC, which is trying to respond to this Hantavirus outbreak. Surgeon General has been vacant for essentially the entire administration so far, and we just saw recently the resignation under pressure of the FDA Commissioner Marty Makary.

BASH: It was this week.

CANCRYN: There was this -- earlier this week. The timeline that I'm told there is next few weeks they want to have a permanent nominee recommended to the President. So a very accelerated timeline, but one of these things they want to try to get in place well before the midterms.

BASH: Seems like some of this was kind of predictable, but --

CANCRYN: Depending on who you ask, yeah.

BASH: -- depending on who you ask which is where I'm going to go next? Which is the MAHA community? It's a very diverse community. Different people in the MAHA community have different goals and ideals, but generally speaking, they're not happy about what the White House is trying to do and try to steer the ship back to more traditional officials.

CANCRYN: No. I mean, this has been alarming for those MAHA voters, which kind of came with RFK to the Trump campaign and ended up. Trump always gave them credit for pushing him over 50 percent in the -- in the general. They believed it when Trump said, I'm going to let Robert F. Kennedy Jr. go wild on how --