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Freedom Caucus Voted To Oust Marjorie Taylor Greene; Trump Returns To Campaign Trail After Quiet Week; U.S. Expected To Send Cluster Munitions To Ukraine. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired July 07, 2023 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ELI STOKOLS, WEST WING PLAYBOOK CO-AUTHOR: I would say it feels like high school, but that's probably insulting to high school people. I mean, this is just so petty. And, you know, yet it's taking place in the context of a very divided and complicated House Caucus. And the backdrop of this Republican presidential primary, where you have the Speaker, who's under this pressure, it seems like to, obviously not alienate, can't alienate really anyone in his -- in his caucus, because he has such a small majority. You have the Freedom Caucus, who's frustrated about this Marjorie Taylor Greene alliance, you have people who are sort of doing Donald Trump's work on the House floor, trying to get the Speaker to be more outspoken, speaker's not endorsing President Trump, you've got this primary playing out.
I mean, the entire Republican Party right now, it seems like, you know, some of these fights that were a little below the surface are now just much more in plain view, not that they weren't before. But they're right. They're out in the open. I know at the White House, they're just sitting back kind of with their popcorn watching this because they love the contrast of a president who is trying to just go about his business and do his job like a grown up. And they love the contrast when this is the next story on the news.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: But, is the winner here really, Kevin McCarthy, who brought in one of his biggest potential antagonizers into his inner circle. I was reminded about this January of this year, this quote in the New York Times, it says Speaker McCarthy gushed to a friend about the ironclad bond he had developed with an unlikely ally in his battle for political survival, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, "I will never leave that woman. I will always take care of her." That bond has kind of allowed him to weathered some storms here and navigate this very narrow path of his speakership?
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Right. For now, and I think a message is being sent by the House Freedom Caucus about how valuable that relationship can and will be going forward. You know, fundamentally, while it looks kind of ugly on the House floor, men behave like that all the time. The real issue here is her closeness to McCarthy. His constituency, so to speak, I don't know where it goes beyond Bakersfield, but within the brighter party, I don't know sort of who really loves Kevin McCarthy. They just know that Republicans are in power and they want to get things done. The definition of getting things done shifts depending on where you are sitting in the House. And for now, Marjorie Taylor Greene thinks it's closest to McCarthy himself.
PHILLIP: Yeah. And McCarthy is -- what do you think he's thinking today as a result of all this?
MELANIE ZANONA, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: That is a great question. You know, he has forged this really close alliance, not with just Marjorie Taylor but also Jim Jordan, a co-founder of the Freedom Caucus. He has actually -- Jim Jordan managed to escape a lot of the same heat that Marjorie Taylor Greene has taken, in part because he's built more goodwill within the conference. He's this founding member. He also doesn't publicly attack his colleagues. But for them, they have benefits, as well, to sidling up to Kevin McCarthy because they've both gotten prominent committee assignments by playing the inside game.
Jim Jordan now the chair of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, Marjorie Taylor Greene got her desired committee assignments after being a real pariah when she first came to Congress. And so I think there is this broader debate inside the Freedom Caucus about whether you play the inside game, or whether you continue to try to throw roadblocks and try to just be antagonistic towards leadership.
PHILLIP: Oh, the challenges of being in the majority even if it's only by a few votes.
Coming up next for us, today Donald Trump gets answers to a timeless question from Iowa voters. Does absence makes the heart grow fonder? That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:38:05]
PHILLIP: Trump is back on the campaign trail and in the first in the nation caucus state of Iowa no less, while his top rival spent the holiday weekend pressing flesh in the early voting states, Trump was firing off social media posts attacking the prosecutors investigating him. CNN's Jeff Zeleny is in Council Bluffs, Iowa. So Jeff, what do you expect to see from Trump today?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Abby, we have a we do expect the former president to be arriving here within the next hour or so to have a discussion about agriculture. You can see there's a conversation going on behind me here a roundtable discussion about agricultural policy. The candidate is not here for that. He is still arriving and flying here to western Iowa. But he clearly is making the case, still trying to distinguish himself from his rivals. We're told that he will, in particular draw some distinctions today with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, over his wavering support for the ethanol industry. Of course, ethanol as part of the renewable fuels industry made of corn here, a central part of the Iowa economy.
So the former president has been taking aim at some votes that Governor DeSantis made when he was in Congress. That is part of it. But he's also just simply trying to rally Iowa Republicans to enthuse them and keep them excited about his candidacy. We saw former Vice President Mike Pence here in Iowa last night. He was imploring Republicans to look for a new kind of leadership. So this will be essentially a bookend to that speech last night. Donald Trump will be clearly trying to make the case to Iowa Republicans, as well as some Nebraska Republicans here just across the Missouri River that he is the candidate to beat.
So, Abby, it clearly is a sense of a busy caucus season, caucus summer of campaigning. There are many commercials on the airwaves here. Many candidates trying to break through the Donald Trump trying to make the case that he's still demand to beat here in Iowa. Abby?
PHILLIP: And you know things are getting real on the campaign trail when Jeff Zeleny is back in his old stomping grounds of Iowa. Thank you, Jeff.
[12:40:05]
And our panel is back here. So, Trump actually has been kind of absent. Where has he been? And I guess maybe the answer is, he doesn't --
CORNISH: Court?
PHILLIP: Well, he's been in court. But he also doesn't -- maybe he feels like he doesn't have to be out quite as much because of where he is in the polls?
CORNISH: I do think you're under estimating just how much these legal troubles involve somebody's time. This is an advantage that the other candidates have over him. At the same time, he has always relied on the rally on social media, on earned media, right, these big moments where he shows up, and then we show up. So it'll be interesting to see in the coming months, whether that old system still works, even though everybody else is different, and has a different way of thinking about Trump himself, social media has changed, the media has changed. It'll be interesting to see how we approach it now.
PHILLIP: And even that event that Jeff is at, I mean, it might not be apparent to folks at home. But that is a small event for Trump, he does not often do events of that size. And it's a little bit of a return to kind of retail politics. But I do want to kind of bring DeSantis into this, Eli, because he was on Fox last night, really defending himself and defending where he is in the polls, which is somewhere in the 20s, maybe early 30s in some polls, despite all the legal troubles that Audie was just talking about.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. RON DESANTIS, (R) FLORIDA: The corporate media, who are they going after? Who do they not want to be the nominee? They're going after me. Who's the president of Mexico attacking because he knows we'll be strong on the border and hold him accountable and the cartels. He's going after me. We'll be making that case over the next six or seven months. I'm running to win in January and February. I'm not running to juice polling now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STOKOLS: You know, it doesn't sound like what -- that's not where you want to be when you're running out the gate defending your current position in the polls, and having to, you know, tell people that you're a serious candidate, because the president of Mexico is attacking you. That's not great. And part of the reason why Trump has been -- has had such a different trail presence and media presence so far as because he doesn't feel much of a threat. He's got a lock, a tighter grip on the GOP base now than he had when he ran in 2016 -- 2015.
And, you know, part of that is just the DeSantis for all the hype has not really lived up to his not really caught people's hearts and minds at this point. And I think that, you know, that has a lot to do with sort of where DeSantis is. You're going to see them try to run contrast around each other. But, you know, the Trump campaign and DeSantis' pack are going back and forth on Twitter. They're mocking DeSantis for being just a few points ahead of Vivek Ramaswamy in the polling, and 10 or 20 or 30 points behind Donald Trump.
So there's already this kind of, you know, sophomore, back and forth that you're seeing on social media. But Donald Trump hasn't really engaged himself and you can kind of see DeSantis clamoring to be treated like one of the big boys.
CORNISH: He actually engaged less. I haven't heard as much DeSanctimonious, et cetera.
STOKOLS: Yeah.
CORNISH: Maybe we will.
STOKOLS: Yeah.
CORNISH: But that's usually the sign that Trump feels like he should say something --
STOKOLS: Right.
CORNISH: -- startling a few insults.
PHILLIP: Yeah, it is an interesting argument to make that he is the one who's the most under attack when, as Audie pointed out, Trump is the one facing two indictments and possibly several more as well. But here are some other factors here, the numbers came out fundraising numbers, specifically from DeSantis, in about six weeks since announcing his campaign raised $20 million, which is a very impressive number. Also, with the Super PAC that has raised 130 million, some of that is transfers, but the Super PAC has already said we're going to be doing the ground game, we're going to be the ones kind of doing the boots on the ground paying people to do that. So that's that. But will that money be enough?
ZANONA: Yeah, that's a great question. Money can't buy you love. But it certainly helps in some cases. And this is why there is still a lot of optimism in the DeSantis camp, despite the sagging poll numbers is that he is a behemoth fundraiser, that is one area where none of the other candidates besides Trump can really compete. They're not even in the ballpark.
CORNISH: Just a few days ago, this reporting that someone in the pack told the donor, look, it's not unwinnable.
PHILLIP: I mean, that was -- that was just a couple days ago.
CORNISH: That was just a couple of days ago that they're seeding this doubt with someone who said, you're trying to get them, to give you money. And it's -- it's wild, sort of seeing what they're saying in public, right, versus what they're saying to people.
STOKOLS: There's a lot of Jeb Bush 2016 vibes where let's build this huge engine with a Super PAC, you know, let's be around for a long time. And you just -- that only gets you so far. And you have donors starting to get edgy, and you start to hear from them. And it just -- it's very --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: And the Super PAC sending a warning signal to the campaign that things are not going quite that well. I do want to get this in, from Casey DeSantis, Ron DeSantis' wife, who has launched her own PAC for moms, for DeSantis and she's out on the campaign trail on her own.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CASEY DESANTIS, FIRST LADY OF FLORIDA: We're mobilizing millions and millions of moms and grandmothers across the United States of America in defense of the innocence of our children and protecting the rights of parents.
[12:45:03]
As long as I have breath in my body I will go out and I will fight for Ron DeSantis. Not because he's my husband, that is a part of it. But it's because I believe in him in every ounce of my being. And if I have to crisscross this country, I'll do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The wives are all often seen as the secret weapon. But if you read the reporting, she is a powerful force behind the DeSantis campaign.
CORNISH: Also, she's an avatar for the kind of voter that they're interested in. I'd encourage people to go online and see the reporting by Elle Reeve here at CNN, looking into the moms for liberty group, which is one of these groups that super into school choice. It's very much fighting all of these things, whether they be gender ideology or history in schools. And while most of them are conservative, her reporting found that there were people who said, you know, but I don't love his abortion stance. You know, I don't love -- like there were these little things here and there. And if you want to capture that, women swing voters suburban, like, this is what Casey is out there doing.
PHILLIP: It's very interesting. It's a doubling down on the culture wars, when you typically see spouses sort of like being the ones --
CORNISH: Yeah.
PHILLIP: -- kind of a family, kitchen table issues. It's very specific with the DeSantis campaign.
But stick with us, be sure to tune in for an all-new episode of The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper featuring our very own Audie Cornish's reporting on the families taking on social media giants. That airs this Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern and Pacific only right here on CNN.
And coming up next for us, why President Biden is bending on what his administration wants called potentially a war crime. We go live to the Pentagon ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:51:24]
PHILLIP: For the first time, the United States is expected to send cluster munitions to Ukraine. The controversial weapons were banned by 123 countries and are set to be included in this new round of military aid announced later today. But the move is already being condemned by key Democrats. Politico reported last week, the 14 Senate Democrats wrote to National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, protesting the transfer. And we should know that both the Ukrainians and the Russians have used cluster bombs since Putin's forces invaded last year.
Let's go live to CNN's Natasha Bertrand who's over at the Pentagon. So Natasha, you were the first to report that the Biden administration was strongly considering this transfer. Why are they doing it right now?
NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Well, Abby, it really has to do with the conditions on the ground in Ukraine and the status of that ongoing counter offensive. U.S. officials and Western officials believed that by this point, Ukraine would be much further along in this counter offensive, but instead, they are moving more slowly. And then their day-to-day grind against Russian forces and defensive positions. They are expending a tremendous amount of artillery ammunition, so much that the U.S. is not sure that it will be able to sustain its supply of such ammunition to Ukraine, just given the sheer amount that they're using day to day.
Now, there are also questions about whether this munition could turn things around on the battlefield for Ukraine, not necessarily as a game changer, but something that could help the Ukrainians break through the Russian defensive lines here because just to give our viewers a sense of what these cluster munitions are, they are bombs that when they go off, they scatter bomblets across a very large area up to around seven and a half acres. And they scattered the sub munitions. And the reason why they're banned by over 100 countries is not only because of the threat that they could pose in the near term, of course, to civilians who are anywhere inside that radius, but also because of the long-term threat they could pose to civilians who might encounter duds, essentially bomblets that have exploded as part of this costume munition that have not actually detonated. And so similar to land mines, they could pose that long term risk to anyone who encounters them. But the Biden administration is now saying, look, we have cluster munitions in our stockpile, that don't have a very high dud rate, less than 2.35%, they say of those munitions, the little bomblets will actually fail to explode. So they say this is a safer option. This could help Ukraine really turn things around in the counter offensive. And importantly, it could solve the problem of that ammunition shortage, Abby.
PHILLIP: Yeah, that's right. And the United States has quite a lot of them in its stockpiles, so makes it pretty easy to give them over to Ukraine. Natasha Bertrand, thanks for that excellent reporting.
And the Secret Service delivers some bad news about the White House cocaine mystery. That's ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:58:58]
PHILLIP: Topping our Political Radar, the investigation into who left that baggie of cocaine in the West Wing is expected to wrap up next week. Visitor logs and security camera footage are under scrutiny. DNA and fingerprint analysis is pending. But even though the White House says it's confident, investigators will get to the bottom of the mystery. A federal law enforcement official tells CNN that they may never be able to identify the culprit because of how many people walk through that area.
And today marks 100 days since Wall Street Journal Reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested in Russia on espionage charges. His family released a statement saying, every day that Evan isn't home is another day to many. In their own statement, the Journal CEO and Editor-in- Chief said, journalism is not a crime, and we continue to call on the Russian government to release him immediately. We will not rest until he is free.
And finally, today our best wishes go out to the former President Jimmy Carter and his beloved wife, Rosalynn, who got married on this day in 1946. Making today their 77th anniversary, the longtime sweethearts remain in their home in Plains Georgia, 77, best anniversary to those two.
And thank you for joining us on INSIDE POLITICS. "CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.
