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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) Moves Ahead With Tax Bill Vote After Trump Meeting; New Book Details Cover-Up of Biden's Declining Health; Trump Makes Unsubstantiated Claims of South Africa Genocide. CNN Hero On New Film About Her Humanitarian Work In Nepal; NFL Owners Decide Not To Ban "Tush Push" Play. Aired 6-7p ET
Aired May 21, 2025 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[18:00:00]
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to the Lead. I'm Jake Taper.
This hour, is President Trump's massive policy bill in peril. The Republican holdout summoned to the White House this afternoon as party leaders push for a vote. What we're learning about the closed door meetings and whether any minds are changed.
Plus, the other dramatic White House meeting today, a tense confrontation between President Trump and the president of South Africa. One of the journalists who was in the room joins us live in studio ahead.
Also, our small business series takes us to Maryland today where a veteran who started his company in his living room is now selling products in hundreds of other stores. Hear why he says the decision to make his products overseas is not about a lack of patriotism, it's about math.
And push on, the reactions after the NFL voted against the whiny babies and the Green Bay Packers who wanted to ban the tush-push, and the other decisions made ahead of the upcoming season.
[18:00:08]
All right, I apologize for the Green Bay Packers joke. Sometimes I get little excited.
The Lead Tonight, Speaker Mike Johnson is barreling ahead with a vote on Trump's big, beautiful bill as soon as he can, but the tax cut mega bill could still be in a little trouble.
We have with us CNN's Kristen Homes at the White House. We're going to start with Manu Raju on Capitol Hill. And, Manu, you just caught up with Speaker Johnson. What did he have to say? Is the bill going to pass tonight?
MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They are confident, Jake, that they'll get the votes to pass this massive bill by tonight or tomorrow morning. This despite major concerns raised particularly by members on the right flank of the House GOP, worried about the impacts that this would have on the federal deficit, worried that it does not cut spending enough and disagreeing with a deal cut that the speaker and more moderate members over how much the individual taxpayers and married couples can deduct from their state and local taxes. They believe that that gave -- it was going to raise the budget deficit too far, and they want to cut spending in exchange.
But in this meeting with the president of the United States, that president and the speaker made clear there would be very few modifications, according to the speaker, and that they plan to move ahead with this vote. And when the speaker came back from the White House, he made clear that they planned to move ahead and he believed that, ultimately, those hardliners would come on board.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Plan is to move forward, as we expected. That was a very productive meeting at the White House. I think we're in a very good place. I think that all of our colleagues here will really like this final product and I think we're going to move forward.
You'd all be surprised there's not much changing here because the underlying product he thought was so well done.
REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA): He talked about the political dynamics and the realities of the members in our conference who aren't for those things. And that ultimately we have kept this bill on a very delicate balance in a way that both sides can ultimately agree on all the things that are in it and add anything new. You got to get that same kind of agreement. So, we're keeping this process moving forward.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: And that last comment coming from House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who was also in that White House meeting.
But the question is, will they actually have enough support to get this across the finish line here in the United States House? Right now, at this moment, a group of conservative members are meeting in just a room right behind me where they are discussing whether they should get behind this bill, whether or not the president's assurances were enough to get them on board, given that they had demanded deeper cuts into Medicaid, had raised concerns about how this is handling green energy tax credits, that they want to get rolled back. But because they didn't get what they wanted, will they still vote, yes, even though the Congressional Budget Office does estimate that this bill could add roughly $3.8 trillion to federal deficits over the next several years, can they stomach that despite saying they would fight the deficit? That's a big question.
Also another thing, Jake, moderate members from swing districts right now are meeting with Mike Johnson in his office as the speaker's trying to make sure that he has them on board ahead of votes. That could happen as soon as tonight. TAPPER: All right. Manu Raju, fascinating stuff.
And, Kristen, what are you hearing from the White House about the meeting?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, they are saying that it moved the ball forward, but what I'd heard from officials is very similar to what we heard just heard from Steve Scalise there, was that there was a lot of conversations around the politics with these holdouts, saying essentially that the things that these holdouts wanted would not be able to get through the bill because they would cause another holdup, which would just stop the bill from coming through, why these things were not put in the bill and more of an explanation.
Now, I was told by multiple sources that there have not been any threats that have been levied at this time, but I was told that a lot of these negotiators, particularly on the White House side have focused on this idea, not necessarily of just what's in the bill but also what happens if the bill isn't passed. They say then the deficit would go up, the budget would -- the debt would go up. They also say that there would be increasingly larger tax hikes.
So, they're trying to paint a picture here of the lesser evil, that passing this bill is not only smart, which, of course, the White House will continue to push, but that are also saying that if you don't pass the bill, there will be repercussions. And we've seen them kind of use this approach before.
And one of the things I've heard before from Donald Trump's mouth about Speaker Johnson is dissimilar to this is what they're saying about this bill, which is he's voting for Speaker Johnson, pushing him for speaker because he is the only one that can actually get the votes. What they're saying here about the bill is very similar. This is the only bill they say can get the votes, so you better pass it now.
TAPPER: All right. Kristen Holmes and Manu Raju from abstinence of Pennsylvania Avenue, thanks so much.
As Manu noted, a report from the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan group, concluded that this bill in its current form would add a whopping $3.8 trillion to the federal deficit between the years 2026 and 2034.
[18:05:01]
That's a conclusion that is drawing ire from the bill's defenders, such as Congressman Andy Barr.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ANDY BARR (R-KY): Well, look, first of all, the CBO score is wrong. The CBO has been wrong repeatedly. It was wrong when they scored the first Trump tax cuts. They were wrong by over a trillion dollars. Why? Because the CBO doesn't do this scoring dynamically. (END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: CNN's Phil Mattingly is here with me now to walk us through it. Phil, give me a gut check on these numbers.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Let's start with the baseline, no pun actually intended there, that was a budget joke though, that the CBO and Republicans have a longstanding dispute. The Republicans have long believed that the CBO doesn't score tax cuts properly. They underestimate the effect of tax cuts on growth. They underplay the overall effect of government programs in terms of the ability of those to grow over a period of time. So, it's longstanding. They have really tried to front-run this report over the course of a series of months, saying they get this wrong, they don't understand how this works.
Congressman Barr was getting at the critical point there, which is dynamic scoring. They're not able to actually quantify how much growth will have an effect on the broader economy.
TAPPER: And just to -- I'm sorry to interrupt, but like they're not allowed to. It's not like a choice. They are right. I mean --
MATTINGLY: This is an important point. The CBO is not infallible. They get things wrong. They acknowledge that. They come around and oftentimes update their projections. They're on tight deadlines. They're asked to turn things around very quickly. We're watching a process right now where they're actually doing that. But there are limits to what they can do, and there are also limits to the baselines they use in terms of laws and how they actually operate statutory baselines.
The reality right now is this isn't just the CBO, the Joint Committee on Taxation says $3.8 trillion to the deficit over ten years. The Penn Wharton budget op operation, $3.3 trillion dollars over ten years, even if you account for dynamic effects. $4 trillion was cited by Moody's when they decided to downgrade the U.S. earlier this year. So, this isn't happening in isolation. This isn't just a CBO issue. This is a broader issue that Republicans are grappling with right now.
TAPPER: All right. Phil Mattingly, fascinating stuff, thank you so much.
Joining me now, Republican Congressman Mike Lawler from New York. And, Congressman, you were a holdout on this vote yesterday. You are a fierce advocate for lifting the SALT cap, that's the state and local tax deduction cap. It's something from individuals from high tax states, like New York or California, push for so people can do an added deduction on their taxes if they have high state and local taxes.
But then your group, SALT, whatever you want to call yourselves -- do you have a nickname? SALT --
REP. MIKE LAWLER (R-NY): SALT Caucus.
TAPPER: SALT Caucus. It needs work.
Anyway, then your group came to an agreement with Speaker Johnson. So, are you a yes on this bill?
LAWLER: Assuming everything else is static, yes. Look, as we have worked through this process over many months and going back to last Congress, as our committees did a lot of this work leading up to this, you know, my focus was on a few key areas. Number one, obviously, the tax bill. We want to extend many of the provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, including the doubling of the standard deduction, the enhanced child tax credit, business deductions for small businesses. But lifting the cap on SALT was paramount for me. And I said very clearly I would never support a bill that did not adequately lift that.
This is a 300 percent increase from the current $10,000 cap. We were able to additionally lift the income limit to $500,000 as part of this with a $40,000 cap put in place. So, this is providing real tax relief to middle class families, especially in districts like mine, where they have high property taxes and high state income taxes and being able to itemize on their deductions. Seven years ago, 50 percent of my district itemized their deductions. It's now at about 18 percent of residents because of the $10,000 cap on state and local taxes.
So, this is going to provide immediate tax relief to middle class families. And for my Democratic colleagues who say it's not enough and that we didn't fight hard enough, the reality is that when they had complete control in Washington just a few years ago, they got $0 of increase, nada, zilch, nothing. And that is despite Chuck Schumer and many of my New York Democratic colleagues, including Hakeem Jeffries saying that they would.
So, we are delivering on something that matters to our district, to New York. And that was a big part of the negotiation yesterday.
TAPPER: So, President Trump, Speaker Johnson, the House Freedom Caucus holdouts on this bill met this afternoon who settled more of the disputes that they have specifically about the deficit and the debt. I think they want more. It's not like they oppose the tax cuts, which would obviously decrease revenue, but they want more spending cuts. What are you hearing about the status of the vote?
[18:10:00]
Does Speaker Johnson have the votes to get this passed? Does he have the votes to get it passed today?
LAWLER: From, you know, what I heard thus far since that meeting concluded, I think things moved in a positive direction. Look, there's nobody that disagrees that we have to deal with our debt and deficits. The fact is we are $36 trillion in debt, up $30 trillion over the last two decades. Both parties bear responsibility for that. Joe Biden increased federal spending by $5 trillion in the first two years. We're now running $2 trillion deficits. We're paying a trillion in interest on our debt. So, we have to start to bend the curve. You're not going to fix this all in one setting. And there will be a requirement to have bipartisan consensus on other avenues to find savings as we move forward.
But in this bill, the fact is we're projected to spend $86 trillion over the next decade. We are talking about $1.5 trillion in savings, which is about 1.7 percent of the total spend. So, you know, we're making progress, but the fact is you still have a long ways to go. And that's not going to be done in just one bill. And I think most people recognize that.
TAPPER: All right. Republican Congressman Mike Lawler from the State of New York. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time, sir.
If this bill can get through the House of Representatives, does it have any chance of surviving the U.S. Senate, where some Republicans have already signaled grave concerns? That's next.
Plus, he was the first and the only Democratic senator to publicly call on President Biden to drop out of the 2024 race. That's right. No other Democratic senator publicly did so. I'm going to ask him what he saw that so many others didn't.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:15:00]
TAPPER: And we're continuing with our Politics Lead, Joe Biden's original sin, his decision to run for reelection in 2024 and hide his diminished cognitive state. In our new book, Alex Thompson of Axios and I show how this sealed the Democratic Party's fate in 2024.
The book which came out yesterday is based on more than 200 interviews, mostly with Democratic insiders, almost all of which occurred after the 2024 election was over.
U.S. Senator Peter Welch of Vermont joins me now. One of the reasons I wanted to talk to the senator about the book is because he was the first and only Democratic senator to call for President Biden to drop out of the race. And, Senator, you did that in early July after the debate, but what's interesting and you say you've read the book, there were lots of Democratic senators who felt the same way you did. In fact, there were probably only three to five who actually thought Biden should stay in the race in a 51-Democrat caucus. Why is it that you were the only one who did so publicly? And tell us about the decision.
SEN. PETER WELCH (D-VT): Well, my view after that debate is there was no way any of us could unsee what we saw. And my argument to my colleagues was we had to pick our poison. We had to take -- we had to make a decision. Do we want to risk sticking with the president at that point, very late to change our candidate despite what we saw or did we want to take the chance to plunge into the unknown, where if he was not the nominee, who would be, it was before Harris was the consensus candidate. So, I made the judgment that the better risk for us to take was to plunge into the unknown.
A lot of my colleagues, I think, shared my point of view and I think they found ways to express that privately to the administration. And some of those folks were people who had closer relationships with Biden in the Biden White House than I did. So, I think, in some ways, that was a practical way for them to proceed. But I thought that there was no way, what we saw on that debate stage was going to be unseen by America.
TAPPER: How much do you think the Democratic Party is suffering today in terms of your low poll numbers because of the anger of voters who thought that the Democratic Party was gaslighting the public about the president's ability to, A, do the job and, B, run a good campaign and, C, be president until January 2029? They were making the argument, your party, that Joe Biden can be president until January 2029.
WELCH: Well, I think the public didn't like that. They clearly showed that with the polling even before the president pulled out. But I think what was really bad for us, and we're still recovering from it, is that in that campaign, there was support for Biden because he beat Trump, it was because he did a good job on COVID, because he had a good economic record and he had support for that from Sanders to Manchin.
But as a candidate moving forward, he did not sense, and a lot of us didn't sense, I think, the simmering anxiety that people who were living paycheck to paycheck had. The fact that there was the Inflation Reduction Act and these other big bills wasn't dealing with grocery prices. It wasn't dealing with the economic insecurity people were having. So, by not having a primary, where you can identify that person who's got that ear, the Clinton, the Obama, we deprived ourselves of making that connection with the people we most want to help, and that's working class Americans, middle class Americans.
TAPPER: Did you hear from President Biden after you called for him to drop out? Have you spoken to him at all?
WELCH: Well, he did at the White House party. He was incredibly gracious. You know, there was the Christmas party and he greeted me and my wife very, very warmly. So, you know, there's a lot, and that actually is something that I think was a reason why a lot of Democrats who work with him, and have over the years, they respect him, his family values, his friendliness. So, I think that was an inhibiting factor when, in fact, you had to make a profound decision, that was not about him, it was about the country and wellbeing.
TAPPER: Yes, sure. People thought he was a -- people loved him. Absolutely, they loved him on a personal level especially as a creature of the Senate.
A new precinct level analysis of the 2024 presidential vote by the group, Catalyst, concludes that Kamala Harris, the vice president, lost the most support among an interconnected set of groups, people of color, which they define as blacks, Latinos, Asian-Americans, and Pacific Islanders, young voters, men and irregular voters.
[18:20:09]
And in the message box, longtime political operative, Dan Pfeiffer, that's what he calls his Substack. The message box writes that catalyst finding show, quote, the Democratic Party brand is deeply damaged with the fastest growing segments of the electorate, unquote. That's Dan Pfeiffer. He was communications director for the Obama White House.
How do Democrats move on from 2024? How do you get back the House, the Senate, the White House?
WELCH: It's got to be about the economy. I mean, the reality is if you're a young person now trying to rent a place to buy a place that's out of sight, you start out with student loans. If you're starting a family, that question about childcare, all of these things that are really practical issues, we've got to deal with. And we've got to focus on that more than we are just answerable to the constituency groups and the advocacy groups that have had an outsized role in our party. It's the economy. It's treating people with respect and dignity.
TAPPER: All right. Democratic Senator Peter Welch of the great state of Vermont, thank you so much for your time, sir. I appreciate it.
WELCH: Thank you.
TAPPER: It was a tense and at times confrontational meeting in the Oval Office today as President Trump hosted the president of South Africa. One of the journalists who was in the room during this tense face off joins us live in studio, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:25:00]
TAPPER: Another tense Oval Office confrontation tops our World Lead. This time, President Trump welcomed South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. Ramaphosa says he came to D.C. to reset the relationship between the United States and South Africa. It's a relationship that soured after President Trump expedited refugees' status for 59 White South Africans earlier this month, claiming that South Africa is persecuting its white minority, particularly white farmers.
Joining us now is Tshidi Madia. She's an editor at Eyewitness News and was in today's Oval Office meeting. Eyewitness News is in Johannesburg.
TSHIDI MADIA, POLITICS EDITOR, EWN: Eyewitness News is the media house in Johannesburg, provides state news to at least four radio stations and an online platform.
TAPPER: Okay, great. So, President Trump had his aides queue up a video that he claimed showed that there is persecution against white South Africans. Let's just run a little clip of it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Turn the lights down and just put this on. It's right behind you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: So, for people who saying kill the boar, that's a reference to white South Africans basically or people of, what, Dutch ancestry. How would you describe it?
MADIA: I think it depends on who you're asking, what does it mean --
TAPPER: Yes. Well, tell me what it means, kill the boar, kill the farmer.
MADIA: Yes. I need to put it in historical context, to be fair.
TAPPER: Yes, please.
MADIA: It is a song stemming from their apartheid era, the boar, the farmer equated to the system that was in charge, an oppressive regime at that. So, that song, that chant was about killing that particular system. It's been a contentious song and we continue to go back and forth about its relevance in modern day South Africa because on non- Democratic South Africa. But you also have the constitutional courts and the laws saying that actually it is very much in line with freedom of speech in the political space that there is relevance for those kind of things about who and what we are.
Now, it's a question really about whether or not it's distasteful to continue chanting, kill the boar, the farmer, as opposed to actually an instruction to actually go out and target farmers.
TAPPER: But when there is actual violence against white farmers and black farmers too, of course, is it not questionable to be chanting that?
MADIA: I did say to you, there's a question on a back and forth around the question, whether it's tasteful or not.
TAPPER: But I'm asking you.
MADIA: Whether it's not relevant or not. That's what South Africans are trying to debate.
TAPPER: What do you think?
MADIA: I go back and forth about what that is. I'm a journalist. I'm an observer like you, right? So, I don't have a skin in the game to say what's wrong or right about this particular chant. I think that the Constitution and the democracy does allow for it.
I think South Africa also needs to be understood as an incredibly robust and loud democracy. We are that. We thrive ourselves as a nation on how free we are, we relish that freedom, have a ton of problems, Jake. There are no questions that South Africa is shrouded in problems. But part and parcel of that is that.
So, the question becomes, should you continue singing the song? Is it tasteful at a time like this when regulations are starting to intensify again? And it's fringe groups that are spreading this on. (INAUDIBLE) are fringe groups that didn't find an audience today, didn't find a space in Trump's performance today. I was in the Oval Office. It paid no mind. But there is a question about whether or not this is what you need to continue doing.
And that's one that Julius Malema has been asked quite often by even black leaders, political leaders and commentators have said, is this what you should be doing at this point in time? But there are those who agree that actually it is harmless, that it is -- it's got its place in history and that it can still exist. Again, that's an argument that still goes back and forth in the country.
TAPPER: So, do you think President Ramaphosa was prepared for President Trump to press him on this?
MADIA: I have interesting views about whether I felt that South Africa's delegation was prepared, or at least prepared enough. I do think that they knew that they were walking into a trap.
TAPPER: Oh, they did, yes. Okay.
MADIA: I don't think that they were clueless. They were confident at times. I'd even say to them, it sometimes feels like a little bit too confident. We've seen what Donald Trump does. The one thing that's a marker of the U.S. president right now is uncertain, unpredictable, and we tend to know that he relies on tricks to prove a point.
And so I do think that they did understand. Did they expect to see a screen come up and a visual reference to what he's claiming is happening in South Africa? I don't think so. I also just very quickly, Jake, if you let me want to speak about the visuals. You cannot for a second claim that there's genocide and that's what you produce. South Africa claims that there's genocide happening in Palestine, that Israel is guilty, goes to the ICJ, is asked to provide evidence of this.
[18:30:03]
And what do they do? They provide words and words of evidence.
Donald Trump claims that there is supposedly a genocide in South Africa. What does he do to prove it? To put up chance of Julius Malema. Surely, surely that devastation exists. In that particular room, you heard South Africans saying, we have a problem. Crime is rampant in the country. You've heard Zingiswa Losi, who's head of COSATU, which is the Labor Federation, they're the largest one, saying, describing the atrocities being visited upon the elderly women's in Africa.
Everybody recognizes there's a problem. It isn't targeted to particular people. For me, for the life of me, a president of the U.S., with everything he's got access to, to try and prove a point about what's happening, that's all you could produce today? I found that interesting.
TAPPER: Yes. We should just note that obviously the government of Israel and the government of the United States deny that there's a genocide in Gaza right now, but I take your point, as to evidence --
MADIA: But you should have shown something different.
TAPPER: Evidence versus words.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate your being here. Thank you for joining us, Tshidi Madia.
Also in our World Lead, speaking of Israel, Israel's under pressure from the United Kingdom, France, Canada, the United Nations, Pope Leo XIV, and Spain's foreign minister who all say that Israel's aim in its devastating new ground operation, quote, makes no sense except to turn Gaza into a graveyard, unquote. Israel's military says the operation is meant to dial up the pressure on Hamas, which the U.S. and Israel considered to be a terrorist group, to accept the ceasefire on Israel's terms and return the remaining hostages who were taken during Hamas' October 7th, 2023 attack on Israel.
CNN's Jeremy Diamond is in Tel Aviv. Jeremy, what is the situation in Gaza right now?
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, tonight, trucks loaded with humanitarian aid are finally being distributed inside the Gaza Strip. More than 90 trucks carrying flour, baby food, nutritional supplements began heading to distribution sites inside of Gaza, including bakeries, where we saw at least one video in Central Gaza of flour being offloaded.
This is the first time that we have seen any kind of aid being distributed inside of Gaza in more than 11 weeks following this very long Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip. This followed about 48 hours during which the United Nations pressed Israeli authorities to provide them with a safe route to be able to distribute this aid because of the threat of looting, given how dire this situation is in Gaza.
Now, humanitarian aid officials are still warning that this is a drop in the ocean of the enormous need that exists in Gaza. And in order to fully alleviate the hunger crisis that is already roiling the strip, aid officials say that much more aid is needed. An additional 100 trucks of humanitarian aid were brought in through the Kerem Shalom crossing. Hopefully, those will be picked up tomorrow. But, ultimately, Israeli officials have made clear that they will only allow the bare minimum of aid to enter Gaza at this point until this new Israeli and U.S.-approved aid mechanism is actually up and running.
The Israeli prime minister tonight, though, making clear that the only way he's going to get to a ceasefire is something on Israel's terms. He's ready for a temporary ceasefire. But in order to end the war, he says that Hamas will have to disarm and that Gaza will have to be demilitarized.
TAPPER: And, Jeremy, Israel's military, the IDF, fired warning shots at a large delegation of European and Arab diplomats who are on an official visit to the West Bank today. What are Israeli officials saying about that? DIAMOND: Yes. The Israeli troops indeed opened fire on a delegate, a diplomatic delegation that was touring around the Jenin refugee camp to see the situation on the ground. Videos from the scene show that at least seven shots were fired into the air by Israeli troops in the direction of these diplomats from about 20 European and Arab countries.
The Israeli military acknowledges that these warning shots were fired. They say they were fired to distance this delegation from an area that they were not authorized to go to. The question, of course, is why did they have to use live ammunition to convey that point? The military did say, however, that it regrets the inconvenience, but European countries have summoned Israeli ambassadors and are calling for an investigation. Jake?
TAPPER: All right. CNN's Jeremy Diamond in Tel Aviv, thanks so much.
We're heading to Maryland for our Business Leaders series next. You're going to meet a veteran who says he would like to make his products in the United States, but it's simply not feasible. How have tariffs affected his company? We're going to find out next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:35:00]
TAPPER: It is time for our series, Business Leaders. It's a series where we talk to small business owners from coast-to-coast about President Trump's tariffs. Some have been happy about them, many are feeling uncertain.
Joining us now from Stevensville, Maryland or from Annapolis, Maryland, but his businesses in Stevensville, Maryland, is Bart O'Brien. He's the founder of BAYDOG, a canine adventure gear brand, and he is a Navy veteran.
Bart, your brand is committed to selling in brick and mortar small businesses, no Amazon, no chewy, but you make your products overseas. Obviously, I don't need to tell our audience that you're a patriot. You served in the Navy honorably. Can you tell us about your business and the impact of the tariffs on your products?
BARTON O'BRIEN, FOUNDER AND CEO, BAYDOG: Yes, sure. Jake. First of all, thanks for having me and I want to thank people like you, the National Retail Federation, the Main Street Alliance for continuing to highlight this issue and giving voices to small businesses. It means a lot.
So, yes, I founded BAYDOG seven years ago in my living room with three products, and you hit the nail on the head. We have a singular principle that if you carry our brand in your store, no one's ever going to walk in, pull out their phone and buy a product for three bucks less on Amazon because we never undercut our retail partners and we're carrying about 2,000 locations around the country and over 90 percent of our revenue comes from independent, brick and mortar, small town America, mom and pop pet stores. So, yes, about the tariffs, you know, we get asked two basic questions that everybody gets asked. Do you have to raise prices? And is all this uncertainty affecting your ability to plan?
[18:40:01]
TAPPER: Yes, those are my two questions.
O'BRIEN: To answer them both quickly, yes, yes and yes.
So, in terms of raising prices, we have -- as you can see behind me, we have a lot of pre-tariff inventory we brought in. But once we sell through that, the current tariff rate is actually higher than my operating margin. So, if I don't raise prices, I'm just going to go out of business.
And when we do raise prices, we're not doing that in a vacuum. We're going to be raising prices in an environment where prices are going up for everybody. And so we're going to be offering a more expensive product to consumers that have less money. So, we're expecting to take a pretty big hit when that happens.
In terms of our ability to plan going forward, I'll give you a concrete example. So, this is our bestselling summer product. It's our Monterey BAY life jacket. We sell a ton of these in the summer, but people don't buy these in January and February. They buy coats and they buy sweaters. We spent a lot of time, effort, and money this spring developing a fall line. We have new sweaters we're going to bring out, but, unfortunately, they're knitted in India and there's a 26 percent tariff on them that we just cannot absorb.
Now, that tariff is currently, you know, delayed 90 days, but I don't know if at the end of that 90-day suspension, if that tariff's just going to go away or if we're going to have to pay it. So, I can't afford to roll the dice and gamble. So, we just -- you know, best case, maybe we'll launch it fall of 2026.
TAPPER: So, my wife checked out some of your products and you have fleeces for dogs, for University of Michigan where my daughter's going to go in the fall. So, we have three orders of dog fleeces, Michigan fleeces. How much do they normally cost and how much will these tariffs add? Just do an individual extra large.
O'BRIEN: Yes, sure. Okay. I'll tell you what, I'm going to sidestep you a little bit, Jake because I happen to have our, my bestselling product right here.
TAPPER: Okay, do that.
O'BRIEN: This is my Chesapeake harness.
TAPPER: Even better.
O'BRIEN: Yes, because this is my best seller and it's our most basic product, right?
TAPPER: Okay.
O'BRIEN: So this currently retails for $33.50, which is a very average price for a product like this.
Now, when I launched the business, I've tried to make it in America. And let me just say on behalf of all business owners in America, if we could make our stuff here, we absolutely would. My business would be so much easier if I could just make stuff here, right. But it's about math, Jake. And it's not about patriotism or loving your country. Like you said, I was actually a Marine, I served three combat tours overseas. I love my country. It's not about patriotism, it's about math. And the math doesn't add up.
So, if you try to make this product in the United States, it implies a breakeven price for me an MSRP of $114.29. And so what I want your viewers to understand is it's not a question of, hey, make it America and charge a couple bucks more. The difference between $33.50 and $114.29 is huge.
And it also highlights a fundamental truth that doesn't get talked about enough, and that's why tariffs don't work when it comes to at least re-shoring jobs. You can take this product that's made overseas and slap tax on it and raise the price and make it more expensive. But what a tariff doesn't do is bring down the domestic cost of production. As long as the domestic cost of production still implies a price of $114, I'm not going to sell any dog harnesses and I'm going to go out of business.
TAPPER: All right, the company is BAYDOG. You can find their products online or in independent pet stores near you.
Bart O'Brien, thank you for your time today. Thank you for your services as a Marine. We appreciate it.
O'BRIEN: Yes, thanks for having me, Jake.
TAPPER: And look out for that order, three Michigan fleeces for dogs.
My next guest used her babysitting money to open an orphanage halfway around the world. Her inspiring story is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:47:37]
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: In our world lead, 20 years ago, Maggie Doyne graduated from high school in New Jersey and decided to spend a gap year in South Asia working with refugees. And that gap year transformed her life and the fate of dozens of orphan children in Nepal.
Between the mountain and the sky is the name of a new documentary detailing her journey when she met Tope, a now grown Nepalese orphan who also wanted to make a difference, and together they pooled resources to establish the Kopila Valley Children's Home. It's a workshop for women to make local goods and a school. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOPE MALLA, CO-FOUNDER, KOPILA VALLEY CHILDREN'S HOME: She's working with me two years, taking care of orphan kids. I'm also an orphan. I know that life.
MAGGIE DOYNE, CO-FOUNDER, KOPILA VALLEY CHILDREN'S HOME: I wasn't trying to be a mom and adopt kids. I was trying to create a safe home. But I completely fell in love with them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Now, you might remember Maggie. She was CNN's Hero of the Year back in 2015. And it's my honor to welcome Maggie to the program now.
Maggie, thanks so much for joining us. And I mean, I'm just so humbled to have you here because of the work you do, the amazing, selfless work you do, and the difference you make with the lives of these -- of these kids.
Your husband, the director, Jeremy Power Regimbal filmed a lot of these challenging and emotional moments. So, it's a very personal film. Tell us about it.
DOYNE: Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me.
The film is hitting hearts across the world, where we can't believe how much it's resonating. It's about having hope in the darkest of times. It's about uniting in our world for our children. Something I hope we can all agree on.
And it's a little bit rom-com. It's a love story on so many levels, and it's about redefining what family is and what it can look like.
TAPPER: Days after the CNN Heroes ceremony, one of the children, a child named Ravi, tragically drowned. And that emotionally that plunged you and all the children into a spiral of loss and grief. This is in the film.
You're very raw in your struggle to recover completely. Understandably, grief is -- grief is tough.
Tell us what you learned and how others watching right now can learn from finding that inner strength from what you went through.
[18:50:02]
DOYNE: I learned that you don't get over it. You don't get through it. You don't necessarily heal from it, but you find light again and you find joy again. You find love again, and you wait for other miracles to appear and find purpose and meaning.
And I think that's the message for our world right now. Somehow find hope and somehow find meaning and do good things for others, because our world really needs us all, joining hands right now. TAPPER: Just its inspiring, but also just so sad.
You used $5,000 from -- from babysitting as a teenager to start this orphanage. There are a lot of people out there who think they don't have enough money. They don't have enough time. They can't make a difference.
What do you tell people?
DOYNE: I say what I always say, if you have your hands, your heart. If you're educated, if you're free, if you're empowered and if you're safe. We all have the abilities within us to do one small thing, one small act. It doesn't matter where you are or what community you're a part of. We all have something to give and something to offer.
And there's so much joy and incredible things that come from a life of service and giving and sharing.
TAPPER: Yeah, one person can make a difference. I know this just from your example, my moment of personal privilege, my father right now, my father who helped get an innocent man out of prison, is up at his alma mater today, Dartmouth College, getting an award for the Dartmouth is proud of him and what he did. Lifetime in pediatrics in a poor section of Philly, but also helping to get this this kid CJ Rice, out of prison. One person can make a difference.
I mean, is that -- is that the message that you want us to leave with?
DOYNE: Yes. That is exactly the message. One person united, but all of us coming together and that it is so unnecessary to live in a world with orphan crisis and where there's hunger and children are cold. So, I just believe that we can create a place where children are educated and safe and nurtured, and that's our work at BlinkNow. And that's so much about the theme of this, of this movie. So, I can't wait for you all to see it.
TAPPER: And if people want to support what you're doing, where should they go? What website?
DOYNE: Oh, please follow along at blinknow.org.
TAPPER: Okay. The movie is currently in theaters around the country, and in July, Maggie is going to host the online release so you all can watch it at home. And the website between the mountain.com, and her foundation, as she mentioned, blink as in blinking with your eyes. Blink Now.
Maggie Doyne, what a -- what a -- Doyne. It's such an honor to have you. Thank you so much.
DOYNE: Thank you so much. Thank you.
TAPPER: Coming up in sports, it doesn't matter what you call it. The tush push, the brotherly shove. It's not going anywhere. Green Bay. Just how close was the Philadelphia Eagles legendary play to getting banned today by the NFL owners? That's next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:57:09]
TAPPER: In our sports lead, the brotherly shove, is here to stay. NFL owners voted today against banning the tush push, the short yardage sneak play used by the world champion Philadelphia Eagles.
Let's bring in Elizabeth Olivia Reiner from "The Philadelphia Inquirer".
Olivia, "The Athletic" reports that ten teams voted against the ban, which means 22 voted for it. They needed just more. Two more votes to get rid of the tush push. Do you think the effort to ban the tush push is going to come back on the table soon?
OLIVIA REINER, EAGLES BEAT REPORTER, THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER: The competition committee is going to continue to discuss it as the season gets underway in 2025. So once things start to play out, yes, I think that the league and the competition committee, they will continue to monitor this play, see what comes of it, not only just this play, but also some of the downfield pushing that they want to get rid of as well. That kind of got baked in to this Green Bay Packers proposal since the last league meeting last month.
So, I would expect that they will continue to discuss it and that there's always a chance that they could open up another vote on it in the future. However, for now, the tush push is safe.
TAPPER: So, Olivia as you know, retired Eagles center Jason Kelce went to the meeting today. Let me play a little bit of what he said before the trip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JASON KELCE, FORMER PHILADELPHIA EAGLES PLAYER: If they vote to ban the tush push, the Eagles are still going to run quarterback sneak at a very high percentage. I'll tell you this right now, I'll come out of retirement today if you tell me all I got to do is run 80 tush pushes to play in the NFL, I'll do that gladly.
(LAUGHTER)
KELCE: It'll be the easiest job in the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: So that's Jason Kelce's podcast that he does with Taylor Swift's boyfriend.
His point is, even with a ban, the Eagles would still do some type of quarterback sneak play. Did the Eagles ever prepare for a workaround if the tush push were banned?
REINER: Well, the Eagles have run quarterback sneaks without the push in the past, and that was sort of the plan in discussions coming out of it was that if the play were to get banned, that. Yeah. Jordan Mailata acknowledged this yesterday when we spoke to him that the Eagles would have to just run the play without the push, which is the traditional quarterback sneak.
Even back at the last owners meeting back in April, Nick Sirianni, Eagles head coach, was also asked about this, and he also spoke about the fact that he has a lot of confidence in this play. Without the play, a lot of the work that is done on the play, with or without the push, is done by the Eagles offensive line up front of Jalen Hurts, getting his legs going and propelling himself across the line to gain. So, I think that regardless of what had happened, the Eagles would have had a workaround.
That said, this year, they don't have to worry about it.
TAPPER: So, we only have 10 seconds left, Olivia. Did you get to go to the Super Bowl? Were you there?
REINER: I was there, yeah, that was quite the week in New Orleans. It was my second super bowl experience because I went to the one in Phoenix a couple of years ago. Obviously a very different outcome for the Eagles.
TAPPER: So, I've only been to two. The one in Minneapolis and this one, two of the best days of my life.
Olivia Reiner, thanks so much. Say hi to everybody at "The Philadelphia Inquirer" for me.
If you ever miss an episode of THE LEAD, you can listen to the show whence you get your podcasts.
"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts now, and I'll see you later tonight on Kaitlan Collins show "THE SOURCE".
