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Taylor Swift Releases New Album; Interview With Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS); Government Shutdown Continues; Sean 'Diddy' Combs Faces Sentencing. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired October 03, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Sean "Diddy" Combs learns his fate. Could the judge sentence him to a decade or more behind bars, or will the hip-hop mogul walk out of court a free man? We go live to the courthouse.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus, the Senate set to vote soon on bills to reopen the federal government. The vote comes with a new sense of urgency, as the president appears poised to follow through on his threat of mass layoffs.

And conservatives are furious, as the FDA approves a generic version of the abortion pill mifepristone at the same time that abortion opponents want to see access to that drug restricted.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: We do start with breaking news.

The sentencing hearing for music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs is under way in a New York courtroom. And you will recall that Combs was acquitted back in July of the most serious charges in his racketeering and sex trafficking trial. But he was convicted on two prostitution-related counts.

Combs faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Prosecutors say he should get more than 11 years behind bars, but the defense is essentially asking for time served, about 14 months.

Earlier today, prosecutors said that Combs had no respect for the law, claiming he's already booked speaking engagements in Miami for next week.

CNN's Laura Coates is outside of the courthouse and is joining us live.

Laura, how did the judge react to the prosecution's claims and how could that impact Combs' ultimate sentence?

LAURA COATES, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Now, we have not independently confirmed the existence of speaking engagements next week in Miami that may have been booked.

Keep in mind the defense was arguing for 14 months, which is -- given what he's already served in terms of waiting for sentencing and waiting for trial, would put him at the end of this year of a release. So I'm wondering if the judge will give that much weight.

But, ultimately, it's the words of Sean "Diddy" Combs, it's the compilation of victim impact statements, and most importantly perhaps, the presentence report that outlines a sentencing guideline range between five and seven years that the judge has already said he doesn't believe there's a need to go up or below the guideline range.

And so this means that both the defense and the prosecution not happy with the potential ranges, given their extraordinary disparity as of right now.

KEILAR: And, Laura, the defense has repeatedly brought up the Mann Act today. What is that and how does this play into the judge's potential sentence?

COATES: Well, in the early 1900s, it was known as the White Fugitive Slave Act, also known for an Illinois congressperson who implemented this particular law. And it was intended to make sure you would punish somebody crossing state lines with what they then called an immoral purpose or debauchery.

It has since been amended and Supreme Court case law has come into play to make it about traveling for the purpose of a crime or that could have been crime and sex-related. It's also mostly used now for the trafficking of minors and beyond.

And so it has evolved from a discussion about a race-specific claim, which, of course, it was the one that gave a posthumous pardon to Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxer, who was convicted under the Mann Act for traveling across state lines with his then-white girlfriend, who was involved in sex work, and was then pardoned later by Trump in his first administration.

The issue of race here a very big one that the defense has tried to raise to suggest that this is a targeting of a successful black man and that he did not personally financially benefit, such that the Mann Act should apply.

KEILAR: All right, Laura Coates, thank you for the latest from court there -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Now to the government shutdown, where a lot is happening this hour.

At any moment, the White House is set to hold a briefing, as thousands of federal workers brace for mass layoffs. On Capitol Hill, the Senate is now just minutes away from holding yet another vote to potentially end the shutdown. It's a funding bill that is not expected to pass. Many federal workers, we should note, are not going to receive a full paycheck next week if the stalemate doesn't end.

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CNN's Kristen Holmes is live for us at the White House.

Kristen, obviously, layoff announcements are pending, but they could be imminent.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Boris.

And we were told they could start as soon as today. We know that the White House has a list of agencies and programs that it's looking at to use for these mass layoffs, as most of this was put together by the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought.

Some of the agencies did contribute to these programs, talking about which programs might not be aligned with President Trump. We know that some of the things the White House are saying is that they're being looked at for their diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. But, again, we heard from the White House directly saying that some of these programs just don't align with President Trump.

Now, when it comes to Russ Vought, we saw President Trump share this meme on TRUTH Social essentially with a picture or video of Vought that was A.I.-generated posing as the Grim Reaper. And Speaker Johnson was asked specifically about this, particularly because these are people's lives and livelihoods.

Here's what he said.

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REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): We support federal employees who do a great job in all these different areas. But what they're having -- trying to have fun with, trying to make light of is to point out the absurdity of the Democrats' position.

And they're using memes and all the tools of social media to do that. Some people find that entertaining. But at the end of the day, the decisions are hard ones. And I'm telling you, they're not taking any pleasure in that.

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HOLMES: Of course, it's hard to believe that when you see this meme of Russ Vought dressed as the Grim Reaper and shared as a video from the president's social media.

But that is how Mike Johnson answered that question. We do know, for a lot of the members of the House, members of the Senate, there's concerns about their constituents losing their jobs.

SANCHEZ: Yes, Kristen Holmes live for us at the White House, thank you so much, as we await the beginning of that press briefing. Still to come: Democratic lawmakers accuse the Trump administration

of using the government shutdown as an excuse to withhold the latest jobs report. We're going to take a look at that claim.

Plus, details on a Texas megachurch pastor pleading guilty to sexually abusing a child. Robert Morris will only serve six months behind bars. We will discuss.

And, later, "The Life of a Showgirl" officially here, Taylor Swift's new album getting rave reviews, including a perfect 100 percent from "Rolling Stone." We're going to look at the messages behind the music when we come back.

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KEILAR: Any minute now, senators are expected to vote on a Republican-backed short-term funding bill that's aimed at ending the government shutdown, as a critical number of Democrats appear to be poised to still vote no on the bill and stop it from moving forward.

As Democrats demand the extension of Obamacare subsidies set to expire at the end of the year, we are seeing how popular those subsidies are in a new poll from the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. An overwhelming majority of Americans want to see the subsidies extended, including more than half of Republicans and those who identify as MAGA.

If these subsidies expire, KFF says health care premiums for Obamacare enrollees will go up 114 percent on average, so they will more than double. And here's what that could look like for some people.

A single parent making $50,000 per year who has one child would see their rates jump to $331 a month in the new year, instead of the current $144 a month. A couple in their early 60s making $85,000 per year, so nearing retirement, but not quite eligible for Medicare, would go from paying just over $600 a month to paying more than $2,100 a month.

We're joined now by Kansas Republican Senator Roger Marshall.

Senator, thanks for being here.

SEN. ROGER MARSHALL (R-KS): Yes, good afternoon.

KEILAR: And you said, Senator, that you want to see those subsidies expire as planned, that that would be your first choice. What do you say to your supporters who want these subsidies?

MARSHALL: Yes, I think that people need to understand these were COVID era subsidies. And the challenge before them is, there's a lot of fraud. It's grown from $50 billion to $150 billion a year. Probably a third of that is fraud, waste and abuse.

And as you described what's going on there with the premiums, they need to realize that, regardless of what happens here, the insurance premiums are going up 20 percent. I want to lock it on the real problem here, take care of the fraud and then have legislation to help bring the cost of health care down.

That's what we need to be focused on, and we can work on that between now and the end of the year as well. But this needs to be an argument separate from keeping the government open right now. I'm happy to work on these. But people need to realize there's a lot of fraud, waste and abuse in them right now.

KEILAR: So I was a congressional correspondent about 15 years ago, and tackling that cost curve of health care was an objective then. It's a really tough problem, and I think everyone agrees that it needs to be done.

How is that something that you could realistically tackle here in the next few months to help these people who are going to see, as I explained, their premiums balloon without these subsidies?

MARSHALL: Yes, look the premiums are going to go up, and they're going to go up because of the ACA. The ACA has caused overregulation. It's led to consolidation of the industry.

So people need to realize, all we're doing is increasing the subsidy on these ACA bills. But we do have bills that we will go through Congress this month -- in the next two months to make a price tags bill. Could you imagine walking into a restaurant without knowing the cost of your meal?

We want to do that the same way with health care. We want to expand HSAs. We want to clip the wings of the pharmacy benefit managers. We want to go after MAHA, making America healthy again. All those things would help.

But you're right. It's going to take years for that to unwind. So if we can figure out a way to take care of the waste, fraud and abuse and make sure that we're helping those who really need the help with these subsidies, I'm willing to have that discussion, but not as a hostage to keeping the government open.

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KEILAR: OK. Yes, that's -- Republicans are saying this isn't the way to deal with subsidies, pass a clean funding bill. But Democrats have picked this issue, right, these ACA subsidies that are so popular.

And you see the "Washington Post" poll that was just out here showing more Americans are actually blaming President Trump and you guys, congressional Republicans, for the shutdown than Democrats. Is that giving you pause?

MARSHALL: Oh, I think that's a very false scenario right there.

I think everybody realizes this is a Schumer shutdown, that this is a politically driven shutdown driven by AOC and the Squad and the liberal Marxist portion of the Democrat Party. I think that's truly, truly what's going on here. That's because -- and then none of their arguments make sense, where they're trying to shut to shut it down. It just doesn't make any sense to anybody.

So I would just discount that poll altogether. And that's not what I'm hearing from back home.

KEILAR: Why do you discount that?

MARSHALL: Well, I just think there's so much other polls to say just the opposite.

KEILAR: Which ones?

MARSHALL: I think that the arguments out there -- well, I don't have them at my fingertips right now. I can tell you that that's a very biased poll. I'm absolutely convinced that this is a political shutdown. And more and more...

KEILAR: Why is it biased? Can you explain?

MARSHALL: I don't even know which -- who was it from? I don't even know.

KEILAR: "The Washington Post" I mean, if it's biased, you should know which one it is. It's the "Washington Post" poll.

MARSHALL: Yes. Yes, I don't know. I don't think you can take a snapshot like that.

What I'm hearing back home is that people think that this is a Schumer shutdown, this is a political shutdown, that AOC has hijacked the party, and this is the direction that they want to go, that they have taken this prisoner, these COVID subsidies, regardless -- if these COVID subsidies go away, the federal government is still going to be paying at least 80 percent of that premium.

Maybe the government's paying 90 percent of it right now. So some people are going to go from zero dollars to maybe $3 a week what they will have to contribute to it. But do we need to be paying huge amounts of subsidies to people making $200,000 a year? Is that the right way to spend this money?

And, again, I go back to the waste, fraud and abuse in this.

KEILAR: OK.

MARSHALL: Maybe a third of the money is fraudulent.

KEILAR: Can I ask -- I want to ask you, because we're hearing from the president this plan to cut a lot of jobs, right?

Obviously, you're from Kansas, huge ag state. You're on the Agriculture Committee. And I wonder if you have gotten any assurances that USDA jobs will not be cut.

MARSHALL: Yes, so it's interesting. I talked to a lot of the USDA folks back home that were doing their jobs. They're caught up. They're in a great spot right now.

We're still at way higher than pre-COVID levels for the number of jobs in the federal government, including USDA. Think about this. When Joe Biden started off, we WERE at 2.8...

KEILAR: No, no, I know, but can I just ask? Because this is really important. Because this is important for Kansans and so many people in these flyover states...

MARSHALL: Yes. Yes.

KEILAR: ... which, I will agree with you, they don't get enough attention sometimes. So let's talk to them about this.

Have you gotten assurances that ag jobs, that USDA jobs are not going to be on the chopping block as Russ Vought is looking at these firings?

MARSHALL: Yes. Let me try to finish my statement here.

We're still AT higher than pre-COVID levels for these ag jobs that you're talking about. We went from 2.8 million federal jobs to three million federal jobs under Joe Biden. We're AT about 2.9 right now. We had plenty of people in the federal government doing their jobs before COVID.

Everybody that I know were caught up on work. We're getting work done at record times. There's new technology. We don't need all those -- these extra people. We need people to move from the federal government into the real work force, where they're being productive and adding to the GDP.

So, no, I'm not worried at all. We probably still have to slim down this federal government some.

KEILAR: So, I ask because the president has said they will be targeting Democrat agencies. And, I mean, I wonder if you think part of that is the USDA.

And I ask because a USDA agency like, let's say Natural Resources Conservation Services, maybe it's something that sounds like a liberal cause to the uninitiated, but you're well aware, being on the Ag Committee, being from Kansas, it's essential, right, for farmers who don't want another Dust Bowl.

And during the DOGE cuts, I was speaking with a veteran in your state, among other folks working similar jobs at USDA, who got fired from that job working directly with farmers in your state, someone who voted for Trump. He's not unique in your state, as you're well aware.

What do you say to people like him in those jobs or farmers who are depending on people like that in those jobs who do not want to see those jobs cut?

[13:20:00] MARSHALL: Under Joe Biden, those jobs grew by 20 to 30 percent, probably 30 percent in this conservation group that you're talking about.

It became too bloated. We want to help that person find another job, a job...

KEILAR: You're saying they definitely grew 30 percent in the Resources Conservation Services?

MARSHALL: In the offices back in Kansas, yes, that's exactly what happened.

So I -- look, the job is being done. Every -- the farmers, everything that they're needing is getting done right now, that they're staying caught up. And, yes, government people need to come to the office. They need to work more efficiently. They need to embrace technology, all those types of things.

We don't need people sitting around just trading e-mails. So I'm very happy with where we are. And we think we're probably still a little bit fat in all the federal agencies.

KEILAR: I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about people out in fields with farmers stopping erosion, so that they have better crop yields.

MARSHALL: Yes. So I can remember the first terraces my grandfather's built for soil erosion. I'm telling you we have plenty of NRCS officers back home. The job is getting done. The farmers are being taken care of.

And actually both of the Ag Departments out there have told me that, in record amounts of time, they're ahead of schedule this year and getting all their work done. So we're in a great place. I think you're making -- I think you're -- again, you're deflecting from the real issue here, that this is a political shutdown to appease Chuck Schumer's left.

This is a Schumer shutdown. These are all smokescreens that you're talking about.

KEILAR: And I have asked Democrats about that, Senator, but I also want to ask you certainly about farmers in your state.

Senator Roger Marshall, thank you so much for being with us.

MARSHALL: Thank you.

KEILAR: And, ahead, we're following the latest on a large fire burning at a Chevron refinery just south of Los Angeles.

Plus, Taylor Swift's new album, I don't even need to tell you this, right, it's out, and it's meant for mature audiences. We're getting some reaction from critics right after this.

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KEILAR: It's October 3, and you know what that means. All right, Taylor Swift's 12th album is out. You just heard one of the new tracks.

SANCHEZ: Trying to get into it. Yes, it's so good.

KEILAR: "Father Figure." Maybe it sounds familiar because it samples George Michael's 1987 hit of the same name.

SANCHEZ: Yes, the tune is just a mere buzzy bite of the superstar's latest creation. "The Life of a Showgirl" sent throngs of fans to stores nationwide at midnight, when it was released.

Let's talk about the whole Swift sensation with Bryan West. He is the Taylor Swift reporter for "USA Today."

Bryan, just right off the top, your impressions of "Life of a Showgirl."

BRYAN WEST, TAYLOR SWIFT REPORTER, "USA TODAY": "Life of a Showgirl," first impression was that she's returned to the vein of pop, dance, banger music that we saw during "1989" and "Reputation."

I feel like a lot of Swifties resonated with that. Of course, now, there are a couple of those tracks that are big talkers today that everybody is discussing.

KEILAR: Yes, OK, let's talk about one of those, "Father Figure," where, as we just mentioned she samples George Michael.

Michael's song was about love and protection. Hers is about betrayal, and you write it's likely about her embattled history with music executive Scott Borchetta. Give us the -- give us the tea on that.

WEST: So, a little background about this saga is, Taylor was discovered at the Bluebird Cafe by Scott Borchetta. He was kind of her mentor. She was the protege.

And so in this song, it's almost as if she turns this George Michael song about devotion on its head to a message of betrayal in the sense that she wanted to buy back the masters for her first six albums. Instead, those were sold to Ithaca Holdings, who sold them to Shamrock Capital. And for more than a decade, she fought to get those masters back.

We thought that might be a theme on this album because, when Taylor Swift does interviews, especially near an announcement, she kind of leads you in that direction. And when she was on the "New Heights" podcast, she talked at length about her masters and how it still made her emotional.

SANCHEZ: Bryan, I got to come clean. My enthusiasm for this album and for Taylor Swift is largely played up for TV, but even I heard... KEILAR: It's osmosis.

SANCHEZ: Yes, even I heard about this diss, this apparent diss to Charli XCX. What is that about?

WEST: OK, so the other big talker of the album is "Actually Romantic." It is track seven. And at first glance, you might think that this was a love song maybe to Travis Kelce. That's what I thought.

But when you hear it, it's actually kind of a love letter to your hater, somebody who has just as much passion for you, but negatively. This person called her boring Barbie. So a lot of fans online are speculating that this might be about Charli XCX, who opened for Taylor on the "Reputation" stadium tour in 2018.

They were friends. Taylor did compliment her last year to a publication, calling her genius. But where this kind of got interesting is Charli XCX has a song called "Sympathy is a Knife." And in that song, she talks about how she doesn't want one of her friends who's in the band 1975 to kind of bring this girl around.

And Taylor was dating the front man, Matty Healy. Charli XCX is married to the drummer. So that's where fans are starting to think. Plus, Charli XCX has a song that's called "Everything Is Romantic." And this is "Actually Romantic."

SANCHEZ: Man.

KEILAR: Dram, big dram, big dram.

SANCHEZ: I thought the East Coast-West Coast beef back in the day in rap was bad. This is...

KEILAR: Yes, I mean, this is out of control.

OK, so what would you say about the era she's in?