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Trump Meeting With GOP Senators on Capitol Hill; Trump Cancels Housing Bill Signing, Demands Action on Elections; Acting DNI Pulte Removes 45 Career Officials. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired June 24, 2026 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

DON RIDDELL, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR & CORRESPONDENT: -- spoken to reporters today saying that he's ready to play. We don't know if he will, but he certainly is optimistic that he can get some minutes. But this is a game of zero consequence. The USA have already won the group. They are already looking ahead to the knockout stage.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Don Riddell in Atlanta, thank you so much for that update. A new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": So much for breaking bread, President Trump sitting down for a meal with Senate Republicans, but there's a wide divide between what the president wants and what lawmakers can deliver. Jury deliberations underway in the trial of the man accused of setting the Palisades fire. Prosecutors arguing he was a vengeful arsonist. His defense team says he's a scapegoat.

And don't call it a skirt, kilt trip. The Tartan Army is taking over stadiums as they cheer on Scotland in the World Cup and our intrepid reporter tagged along as they took in another sport in between matches. We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

Happening now, President Trump is having lunch with Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill and the meal is coming as many were likely still digesting his abrupt refusal to sign a widely popular Housing Bill into law. The president instead demanding that Congress pass his controversial effort to overhaul federal elections first. Reporters pressing him about it last hour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is this election legislation more important to you than resolving the housing crisis?

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: It's just every election is important. We're doing very well. They want a lot of communists to come in. I'm saying it a little bit differently, but the people that they're pushing are communists and this country is not going to have communists.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent, Manu Raju is live on the Hill. I wonder if you saw these Senators going in there with their Pepto-Bismol or maybe their Pepsid, Manu.

(LAUGH)

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Some of them may have secretly packed that. In fact, no word yet out of this closed- door meeting. Trump has been meeting with these Republican Senators for just under an hour here. And going into this meeting, he completely blindsided the Republican leadership over this Housing Bill.

They wanted to tout this bill as a major victory in dealing with affordability which is, of course, issue number one, according to poll after poll for voters. This big Housing Bill passing with significant bipartisan majorities in the House and the Senate, the signing ceremony is set to take place at noon today. And I asked John Thune, the Senate Majority Leader, if the president made a mistake in canceling this.

He said that that's the president's decision to make. He said that I hope the president ultimately changes his mind and decides to sign this bill, touting it as an affordability measure that they can sell to voters. Now, that is undoubtedly one aspect of what they are talking about here behind closed doors.

The president also making remarks here to reporters on his way in about the Iran War. There are a lot of questions among Republican Senators, some of them critical of the memorandum of understanding the president's team reached with Iran, worried that it's too much like the Obama nuclear deal that they themselves had criticized relentlessly for years.

We'll see how Trump sells that behind closed doors. We'll see if any Republicans decide to push back, how the president responds and all of this. But no doubt about it, the (ph) so-called SAVE America Act completely derailing the legislative agenda of the Senate Majority Leader, John Thune, as they try to figure out how to proceed, given that they do not have the votes to pass that measure.

KEILAR: This is at least a second time, Manu, in recent weeks, Trump's upended Republican lawmakers' plans and demanded they instead pass the SAVE Act first. How close are they to having the votes they would even need to pass this?

RAJU: Not close, Brianna. In fact, we would require 60 votes in the United States Senate to overcome a Democratic filibuster here. And the version that Trump wants to pass has 48 votes when that one came up. So it doesn't even have a simple majority, let alone 60 votes. Trump has demanded that John Thune and Senate Republicans do away with the Senate filibuster rules and try to pass legislation along straight party lines.

John Thune has said that he doesn't favor that. He opposes getting rid of the filibuster. And he says the votes are not there to do that. Meantime, the House Speaker, Mike Johnson, said earlier today, they would try to roll in the SAVE America Act into the budget process, which would allow them to advance legislation along straight party lines in the Senate. But there's a problem. Doing that will run afoul of the Senate's very strict rules on budget procedures and doing policy in a measure like that, which means there simply is no path for him getting that bill into law.

In the meantime, not only is this Housing Bill stalled, but the president has upended efforts to renew spying powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. And that permanent director of national intelligence position is still not filled amid this dispute. So does any of that get resolved behind closed doors? That's a big question at this moment.

[14:05:00]

KEILAR: Yeah, this is some kind of meeting they're having there. Manu, thank you so much for that. Trump's refusal to sign the Housing Bill is unlikely to win him more leverage, and if he doesn't sign it, it automatically becomes law within 10 days. But if he vetoes it, he'd be rejecting a bill that passed with a two-thirds supermajority in both the House and the Senate.

SANCHEZ: And just yesterday, the White House was touting the signing ceremony, reposting this from Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, quote, "Tomorrow, President Trump will sign into law one of the most significant pieces of housing affordability legislation in American history. The historic bill signing is another promise made, promise kept."

With us now is CNN Political Director, David Chalian. David, we went from promises made, promises kept, to an empty podium and lawmakers getting there only to find out that the event was canceled.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR & WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Yeah, you know why the White House was touting it and saying tune in for this? Because it's a huge political win for both parties. It's a huge win for the president and the Republican-controlled Congress that they delivered massive bipartisan support for an issue that hits voters where they are and what they care most about, affordability and housing being a key part of that, something to sell on the campaign trail, and the president just pulled the rug out from underneath his fellow Republicans.

KEILAR: Yeah, and also, he's got this unpopular war going on, one of the big reasons being that people are paying so much for gas. So that's hitting people on affordability for something that they are looking at and saying this is yours, man, and we're paying the price for it. So considering that we're looking at this Housing Bill, which is so popular, when it comes to the Election Bill, it's not like that's a shoo-in for Republicans.

CHALIAN: Well, certainly by the -- as you just heard Manu say, in terms of the voting math --

KEILAR: Yeah.

CHALIAN: -- it's not a shoo-in at all. The votes aren't there. They're not there to change the rules of the Senate to get rid of the filibuster in order to get this through on a more limited majority, and they're certainly not there for the 60 votes you need with the filibuster in place. You know, there are pieces of the SAVE America Act that test really well with people.

I mean, it is a very popular notion in America that you would show a photo ID when you go vote. That's not the only component of this bill. There are some parts of this bill that are not so popular. And there are some parts of this bill that Republicans are a little sketchy about. Like, they don't -- not all of the president's party believes eradicating mail-in voting is the way to go. Like, that's how their voters vote and how they get their jobs.

And so, not all pieces of this are widely popular. Certain pieces are, but it is a complete Trumpian move here to try and create an alternate reality, but it currently doesn't exist.

SANCHEZ: It's notable also that the room he's walking into today is less friendly than it was a year ago because he's primaried several of the Senators in that room, successfully forcing them out of Congress.

CHALIAN: It's a really good point, Boris. It's why I think this relationship between the Majority Leader, John Thune, and Donald Trump, we are watching it evolve in real time. Part of it is, yes, there were a couple of members like John Cornyn and Bill Cassidy who lost their primaries, backed by opponents that Donald Trump had gotten behind.

Senator Tillis just retired, you see there. He avoided the primary that was going to come his way that Donald Trump was promising. So you do have some of those, what they call, the YOLO caucus, right? And they're not sort of going to do all of Donald Trump's bidding all the time.

But John Thune, the Leader, who is trying to keep it all together and on course, is the one that's stuck trying to explain to the president that these votes don't exist. And he is -- you have to remember, the moment Donald Trump finds himself in there, not just the primary thing, he's at a low point in overall approval rating. He's losing some ground with some key core constituents that were part of his success in 2024.

So it's not like this is Donald Trump coming in at majority approval, trying to get the party to do what he wants. He's at 38 percent approval, which is a different task.

KEILAR: It's hard to see how he gets what he wants here, how they can actually deliver that. So I mean, what's he -- what's he trying to do? And where does this -- where does this go?

CHALIAN: You know, I think he's trying to show the base that he is fighting for this thing that he has said is a priority, and I think the most loyal and faithful are with him. But does it advance their cause in actually maintaining their House and Senate majorities? I think it complicates that path, as you're heading into an election season where the electoral environment, guys, is pretty much set.

SANCHEZ: Do you read this as a bit of desperation from the White House as well, that Trump realizes that if Democrats win, I mean, impeachment likely, if not inevitable?

CHALIAN: I mean, he says it all the time, right? He says -- first of all, he is always in amazement of just the way the pendulum of American politics works, and midterms are tough for incumbent presidents. But he also says, they're going to impeach me right away.

Now, that also rallies the base and the faithful on the Republican side to perhaps try to turn out and prevent that. But is that going to be enough to overcome all of these economic and affordability concerns? You mentioned the price of gas, Brianna. I think that's a tall order, given where voters are and what they tell us their top priorities are.

[14:10:00]

KEILAR: Does this, even if it fails, pave the way for him to possibly make an argument on Election Day that it's rigged?

CHALIAN: Well, there's the argument that it's rigged, which I think he doesn't need this to fail to make that. He shows that he's willing to call every election rigged that doesn't come out of his way.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Does this help though?

CHALIAN: I mean, it might, but I think it also allows him to say, you know, I tried and you guys didn't do this, so whose fault is it that we lost this election? But I'm not sure that that -- I think he really likes this bill. He really believes it will help his party keep its majority. I'm not even sure that the facts would bear that out. But that is what the president believes, and he's trying to put as much muscle into it as he can.

KEILAR: Really interesting. David, thank you so much.

CHALIAN: Yeah, sure.

KEILAR: Still to come, we now know who is out at the nation's top spy office as President Trump's controversial pick for acting DNI purges personnel.

Plus, Israel's defense minister says the military will not withdraw from Lebanon even if the U.S. demands it. Could that hamper peace talks with Iran?

SANCHEZ: And later, we're standing by for a verdict in the Palisades arson trial. Jurors right now are deliberating. That and much more coming your way, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:15:54]

SANCHEZ: We're learning new details about the ongoing purge at the agency whose main mission to stop another 9/11 from happenings. Sources tell CNN that President Trump's acting director of national intelligence has been cleaning house at the office formerly led by Tulsi Gabbard.

CNN's Zach Cohen has been digging into exactly who has been laid off. Zach, the reporting indicated that Bill Pulte was going to do this. So what have you learned about who he has let go?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yeah. Boris, this is really the first move by Pulte to carry out that mandate he's been given by President Trump to dramatically reduce the size of ODNI. And ironically, this was an agency that was already pretty significantly slimmed down by Pulte's predecessor, Tulsi Gabbard.

Now, Pulte, some of his first firings though were political appointees that were brought in by Gabbard. Six in total on the political appointee front have already been fired by Pulte, we're told by multiple sources. Now, an additional 45 career intelligence officials were also moved back to their home agencies. They were operating under a joint agency-type assignment. That means that they're not technically fired, but they will have to return to whichever agency that technically employs them. That's a distinction that is worth noting.

And just as important as who has been let go to this point is who has not. Pulte indicated previously that NCTC, the National Counterterrorism Center, was going to be one of the agencies that he was really going to target in these firings. But apparently, according to a tweet that he put up yesterday, he visited that agency and has since changed his mind. That agency has not been impacted by cuts as of now, we are told.

Still, there could be dozens more firings in the offing here, but ultimately, that is expected to really be it. And initial reporting indicated Pulte was looking at making hundreds of firings in this acting capacity here. But he's learning more about the intelligence community, it seems, even just days on the job and while consulting with intelligence officials, realizing maybe that's a little bit harder to carry out than he originally thought.

SANCHEZ: interesting. There was bipartisan backlash to his nomination. After all, he doesn't have extensive experience when it comes to intelligence or national security. He comes from the housing world. But you're learning that some Republicans seemingly have warmed up to him.

COHEN: Yeah, that's right. I think some have been impressed now in the last few days with Pulte's plan that he's put together for how he is going to carry out these layoffs that ODNI and, you know, top Republicans in the Senate, in particular, Tom Cotton, the Chairman of the Senate Intel Committee, supports reducing the size of ODNI. But I think his concerns about Pulte, originally when he was appointed, was that lack of national security experience.

But after working and talking with Pulte in the days since he's assumed the acting job, several Republicans now appear to be willing to work with him and try to carry out that downsizing, but in a responsible way. Now, Democrats do not feel similarly. Jim Himes and Mark Warner, the two top Democrats on both Intel Committees, wrote a very strongly-worded letter to Pulte, reminding him that he is going to be under a microscope while he is in this job.

They said, quote, "We are concerned by reports that you intend to fire or place on leave hundreds of office of director of national intelligence officer as soon as this week. While there is room to consider responsible reductions to ODNI's workforce, any large cuts would follow on a substantial downsizing that has already occurred in 2025 and risk jeopardizing the mission of an organization explicitly created after 9/11 to prevent any future such terrorist attack."

And I think that is the prevailing concern here. A lot of ODNI officials are actively working on monitoring threats around the World Cup, for example, or related to the conflict in Iran. And I think Democrats have really been vocal about wanting to prevent any sort of mass firings that might hurt the ability of the intel community to really pick up on those threats and counter them.

Now, we'll have to see, ultimately, does Donald Trump pick a permanent replacement for Tulsi Gabbard? But it is important to note that the first cuts were people that Gabbard brought in herself, while these other people were being reassigned.

SANCHEZ: Jay Clayton's nomination seemingly stalled. Zach Cohen, thank you so much for that reporting.

Next, back to our top story. President Trump refusing to sign a bipartisan bill aimed at making housing more affordable. We'll take a closer look at exactly what this bill would have done.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:24:32]

KEILAR: Just moments ago, President Trump left the Senate Republican lunch up on the Hill where they're having this fundamental disagreement about this Housing Bill and the SAVE America Act. Here's what the president said moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: So, I think we had a really great meeting. And we're very proud of the party. We like our leader, we like everybody really in the room. I don't like a few people, but that's OK, I think you know who they are, but we -- I'll give you -- I'll give you that information someday.

[14:25:00]

But for the most part, we have a really well unified party and I said it very strongly. We have the hottest country anywhere in the world. We're the most powerful. We're the smartest. We're the most respected.

Two years ago, we were a laughingstock all over the world. We had a terrible group of people representing us. Every leader, I just left G7 -- every leader, and we had a lot of people in addition to G7, as you know, came. Everyone said, what we've done in a year and a half is a miracle.

We have the hottest country in the world, and we want to keep it that way. We have more factories being built right now than we have at any point at any time in the history of our country. And all of those factories are opening up soon. It's all jobs. And our job numbers are incredible anyway.

I see that oil just broke the $70 number. Who would have thought that was going to happen? And that's during a war. And Iran is being very nice. They're agreeing to everything that I want and they have to. Otherwise, we just go back and do what we have to do. Thank you very much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: All right. You see some members of the Senate leadership there presenting a united front with President Trump after a big disagreement as there is this argument over the SAVE America Act, this election act, and this Housing Bill that has passed Congress with overwhelming support. The president there had held it up.

So, we're going to dig into more of what was said inside that room here in just a moment. But despite the White House describing the bill, the Housing Bill is historic. Just yesterday, the president now dismissing the measure as of minor importance, the bipartisan legislation aiming to make housing more affordable at a critical time -- we all know that -- by making it easier and cheaper for developers to build more homes.

Trump's decision coming as new data shows the housing market slowing down sharply. New home sales fell more than seven percent in May. It was a steeper drop than economists had even expected. Elevated mortgage rates keeping many buyers on the sidelines.

We're joined now by Henrietta Treyz, Director of Economic Policy at Veda Partners. Thank you so much for being with us.

This is so important to people. This is a buzzword of this election year, affordability and housing is just so important to people as they're struggling to get in on it. How much do housing costs factor into these concerns for Americans?

HENRIETTA TREYZ, DIRECTOR OF ECONOMIC POLICY, VEDA PARTNERS: It's huge. I mean, as anybody with a home knows, it's expensive. Just to get into the market is almost impossible when you've got mortgage rates at 6.6 percent. And that's what this bill was really all about. It was about the future.

It's about trying to build more homes. Get rid of the red tape. You know, make it so that we can actually build homes for people to buy, increase the supply. And that is exactly what the Republicans were so excited to support. It had bipartisan support in the House and the Senate. And for the president to come in here and say, actually, I'm not going to sign this, is a huge slap in the face to every Republican on the ballot this year.

KEILAR: One of his stated issues with the bill, according to his social media post, is that it is of minor importance compared to lower interest rates. What do you think about that?

TREYZ: You know, it's fascinating. Think about what goes into inflation and what the Fed can even do about interest rates. Your housing is about a third of the entire apportionment of what is inflation. The more expensive housing is, the worse inflation is, the more aggressive the Fed has to be on interest rates.

So for the president to do anything here that would hurt inflation, hurt the ability of the Fed to cut interest rates, just goes against his own agenda. I mean, this is really just taking your ball and going home. He threw a fit for all intents and purposes.

KEILAR: Everything just is so expensive. I mean, people are looking at their household budgets and they're looking at their groceries. They're looking at their gas bills, right? And they really, most Americans cannot change their behavior when it comes to that. Some might be trying, but really they can't.

How much has the president's war with Iran played into those higher prices, the price of oil affecting the price of gas?

TREYZ: You know, he just mentioned that gas prices had come down. And that is, of course true except they're still $1 more expensive than they were before the war started. And that's going to persist as we see a slow trickle of increase through the Strait of Hormuz.

And the problem for the American public is that gas is only one component. A much heavier part is what it costs to have your home. And so to take this Housing Bill and not sign it into law is an even worse affront, if you can imagine, than the war with Iran.

KEILAR: But these are also related, right? I mean, if you're looking for housing affordability, people tend to go farther afield from, say, a metropolitan center. They're going to travel farther so that they can get the value in the house that they can afford. And then they run into the gas problem. So it's really hitting those folks, too.

TREYZ: I see what you did there. That's an excellent example. I mean, if you've got to drive further to get to work, first of all, you've got to go to work in order to make your mortgage payment.

KEILAR: Sure.

TREYZ: So you've got to go fill up your gas tank --