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Speaker Johnson Racing To Finish Trump Bill This Week; Deep Divisions In House GOP Over How To Pay For Tax Cuts; CBS News President Abruptly Resigns Amid Fight With Trump; White House: Trump- Putin Call Has Ended. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired May 19, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:31:08]

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: The bill that includes all of President Trump's key campaign promises economically is back on track for now. House Speaker Mike Johnson is racing to get his entire conference on board with the mega bill by the end of this week. The potential for another derailment is still very much there.

So what are the key sticking points? Among them, state and local tax deductions, very important to blue state Republicans. Eliminating Biden-era green energy credits, a key priority for deficit hawks and climate skeptics. How much to cut Medicaid and when those cuts should take effect. And more generally speaking, how big of a spike in the deficit the Republican Party is willing to tolerate.

My smart reporters are back here, including two people who know the Hill, maybe better than most of the members who are going to have votes there, Manu and Leigh Ann. Manu, I'm going to start with you. I know that you're, of course, getting texts on your phone with updates about the fate of this bill.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and I was speaking to House GOP leadership aides this morning. It's very clear that those sticking points you laid out have not been resolved. And once you go too far in one direction to resolve one aspect of the conference, you get other problems in other aspects of the conference, whether it's how to deal with Medicaid work requirements and speeding up the time frame for implementing these first-time requirements.

That's what the hardliners want, but that's going to cause angst among the more moderate members. There's also discussion about how to phase out these green energy tax credits that are part of the Democrats' Inflation Reduction Act. The hardliners want that done rather quickly under this bill, but that's causing major concern among a lot of the more moderate members.

One of them is Congressman Don Bacon, who's in a swing district in Nebraska, who told me that he said the Midwest needs the biofuels energy to thrive or we're facing an ag recession. He is very concerned about the direction of these talks. And of course, Johnson has virtually no margin for error, can only lose three Republican votes in a straight party line vote, and that issue of state and local tax deductions.

BASH: Yes.

RAJU: The New Yorkers are pushing very hard to increase the amount people can deduct, but that's going to increase the price tag, and the hardliners are upset about that. So how does he resolve all these major issues? That's a big question.

BASH: And just to sort of reiterate what I know that the viewers of Inside Politics know inherently, but it's worth saying, the reason why every one of these members matters is because the majority is so incredibly slim. And so each one of these issues and each one of the members in the Republican conference, who is raising their hand about it, has tremendous leverage.

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL, CO-AUTHOR, THE WASHINGTON POST "EARLY BRIEF" NEWSLETTER: Yes, that's absolutely right. And I was talking to a source today who said part of the problem, which you outlined, is that there's nothing that's closed. All of these different fronts are still open, which is making it so complicated. You know, they passed this key milestone in the budget committee last night, I'm told, because the Trump White House got heavily involved.

But there's a lot of frustration that these members who had held it up previously had changed their vote from no to present, a sign that they're not on board yet. I'm also told that the message that Johnson is going to push on his members this week is that it will be a huge embarrassment if Trump's agenda is stalled beyond their self-imposed deadline of Memorial Day --

BASH: Which is this coming weekend.

CALDWELL: -- which is this weekend.

BASH: Right.

CALDWELL: And so that is a way he's trying to push these members forward. But ultimately, it's going to come down to Donald Trump having to get involved, which is how Speaker Johnson has won so many of these fights.

BASH: The word that he always uses, the president, is with the grandstanders --

CALDWELL: Yes.

BASH: -- to suggest that the people who are using their leverage are doing so to get on CNN and elsewhere. In fairness, most of them have legitimate policy concerns, one of which is something small like the deficit, the budget deficit, which is huge.

[12:35:08] Take a look at this from The Wall Street Journal. If you just look at the red, that indicates how much the deficit would go up if and when this -- whatever the current situation is in this bill would get implemented.

JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, REUTERS: So, a couple things. First, the White House is absolute -- Leigh Ann is 100 percent right, is getting involved. They held a briefing this morning, Karoline Leavitt did, in which they put a lot of pressure on Republicans to pass this bill. And also, to your point just now, Dana, sort of dismissed concerns about the deficit writ large, saying that the bill is not going to have the impact that economists and Moody's and others are clearly saying it will.

Also, by the way, dismissed Moody's downgrade and said that the president disagreed with that. So, you are also, certainly all of us, all of you, Hill experts, are right that each of these members of the -- of Congress have a lot of power. But so does the president.

And his power is not just in the fact that it's something he wants, but it's in the pressure that he puts on and the speed and rapidity with which he will turn on his own party members and his own allies if they don't do what he wants.

BASH: Go ahead.

RAJU: Yes, I mean, there's still not an official cost estimate either from the Congressional Budget Office, which analyses the impact this will have on the deficit. So when the White House says this is not going to raise the deficit, we have not actually seen the projections.

There are outside analyses that do suggest this would have a huge impact on deficit. They want to permanently extend the Trump tax cuts and add to it. And the big question that I have is that some of these hardliners, like Chip Roy of Texas, who have said that if we permanently extend the tax cuts, that means we have to have spending cuts that equal those tax cuts.

That means $5 trillion of spending cuts. That is way beyond anywhere near that they're talking right now, which is more like $1.6 trillion. So that's a big question. Will the Chip Roys of the world dig in and demand that, or will they ultimately cave under pressure from Trump?

BASH: And this is the -- what we were talking about in the break, sort of the whack-a-mole nature of the challenge for House Speaker Mike Johnson. Because on the one hand, you have that, the Conservatives saying, OK, it's too much spending. And then you have the majority makers, including Don Bacon, who you were talking about from a swing district, and the New York Republicans, who allowed Republicans to hold the gavels and to have the speakership, saying salt, which is the state and local tax deduction, which their constituents got, you know, whetted in the last Trump --

CALDWELL: Yes. Yes.

BASH: -- bill, when he was president the last time, saying, we're not giving up on this. Nick LaLota said, my party's $30K cap proposal only makes four in five households whole. That's not enough. And then he goes on to say, "I'm fighting for a higher cap. Wish me luck. I'm holding the line on SALT".

This is make or break --

CALDWELL: Yes.

BASH: -- for these members.

CALDWELL: So what's interesting is usually in these negotiations in years past, as Manu knows quite well, it's usually the moderates that fold. But this time, Don Bacon is in a district that Trump lost by 6.5 points. He has no incentive to fold at this point.

The New Yorkers, who some of them are in these swing districts as well. And also a huge incentive for the New Yorkers is if this bill expires, because they're extending a bill that already exists. If this expires at the end of the year, the SALT cap goes away. And so they have very little incentive to underplay their hand here.

BASH: And so just for people who might not be familiar with SALT, effectively what it means is that taxpayers in these blue states, their effective tax bill was higher because --

CALDWELL: Yes.

BASH: -- the deduction went away for them.

All right, coming up, a shocking resignation at CBS News. It could tell us about a potential settlement between that network and President Trump. We have new reporting after the break.

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[12:43:40]

BASH: The head of CBS News, Wendy McMahon, announced this morning that she would leave the network. In a statement, McMahon said, quote, "It's become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward. It's time for me to move on and for this organization to move forward with new leadership".

Now, this move comes one day after the season finale of 60 Minutes, the network's marquee program. It's at the center of a $20 billion lawsuit filed by President Trump over an interview with Kamala Harris last fall. CBS's parent company, Paramount, has been in talks to settle the suit ahead of a potential acquisition. You got a little sneak preview there. Let's put them back on the screen.

Brian Stelter is here with me. Brian, I know you've been doing reporting, first and foremost, on Wendy McMahon's departure, which is the news today. But what it means, as I mentioned, for the larger question of the real fight that CBS and the people that are having with the Trump administration, which has consequential ramifications for everybody in the news. BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Yes, CBS is like Harvard. It's like these big law firms. It's like other institutions that are under tremendous pressure from Trump and his administration. Will CBS fight or will CBS fold? Well, the answer has actually been both. We've seen journalists at CBS doing the work every day, every week, putting on the news.

[12:45:03]

We've seen the parent company executives try to fold, try to settle with Trump. We know settlement talks are underway. And this news today about McMahon suddenly resigning suggests that maybe a settlement is imminent. As one CBS correspondent said to me earlier today, it feels like a purge is underway. That's because last month, 60 Minutes boss Bill Owens stepped down, citing a loss of independence, and now today McMahon also stepping down.

Now, there could be perfectly innocent reasons for this unrelated to political pressure, but the pressure is the big story inside CBS right now. Wendy McMahon had said to colleagues for a number of months that she would not apologize as a part of any settlement. You'll recall that ABC did apologize to Trump when they settled a lawsuit Trump had filed back in December.

McMahon and Owens said they would not apologize. McMahon said, that's a red line I will not cross. That's what she told people internally. Today, she's stepping down, which maybe indicates that a settlement is imminent. Of course, CBS' parent company, Paramount Global, they're trying to get a merger approved by the administration. So, this has all the appearances of a payoff by the parent company to get Trump administration approval.

BASH: That's -- payoff is a big term. And I know that you don't use it lightly, Brian, and we're waiting to see what exactly happens. It does feel like we're on the cusp of something. And I mentioned --

STELTER: Yes.

BASH: -- coming into that this isn't just about CBS News. This is about --

STELTER: Right, that's right.

BASH: -- journalism writ large right now in this time. Talk about that.

STELTER: Yes. Pressure under billionaire owners like Shari Redstone, who controls Paramount, pressure on other media companies as well. I mentioned that framing of fighting versus folding. I said we're seeing it happen in real time at CBS. We're seeing it at other places as well.

And I think it's notable that when some outlets fold, when some institutions fold, others stand up stronger and start to fight. In fact, we've seen startup news outlets start to be born out of this tumultuous time in the industry. So it'll be very interesting to see what CBS ultimately does in this case.

Shari Redstone might decide she has a lot of money at stake with this deal. She has a lot of money to gain by getting her merger approved. She also has a lot of money she might lose if it's not approved. She might find it corporate -- from a corporate point of view to be the right thing to do to settle with Trump, to make this lawsuit go away.

But I remember, we interviewed experts back on the day Trump sued CBS last October. They called the lawsuit frivolous. They called it ridiculous. They called it junk. And those assessments still stand to be true today, even if the settlement does happen at Paramount, Dana.

BASH: Yes. And we do all now see the full transcript, which probably feeds into the statements that you were getting calling it frivolous and junk.

STELTER: Yes.

BASH: Thanks so much, Brian.

STELTER: That's right.

BASH: Thanks for that reporting. Always good to see you.

STELTER: Thank you.

BASH: And we'll be right back.

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[12:52:10]

BASH: We are told that the phone call between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin has ended, that's according to a White House official. I'm going to get straight to our Chief International Security Correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh. Nick, what are you learning?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is according to Russian state news agency TASS, who are giving us the first readout based on comments made by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who emerged from this phone call that he took at a music school in the southern resort town of Sochi, to say that it lasted for two hours. He described it as frank and substantive.

He noted -- he said that Trump noted that Russia stands for a peaceful settlement of the crisis in Ukraine. He said Russia is in favor of stopping the fighting, but it's necessary to develop the most effective paths to peace. He also said that a ceasefire is possible upon reaching the corresponding agreements, and that indeed a memorandum between Russia and Ukraine may address that particular point.

He said also that the meeting in Istanbul we saw last week on Friday, low level, Russia sent there, suggests that, quote, "They're generally on the right track". And he said he was very appreciative of a conversation with Trump, and indeed that Russia is ready to work on a memorandum of a future peace agreement, and that Russia and Ukraine must find compromises that suit both sides.

I only caught the opening few moments of Putin, but he seemed quite self-assured, relatively calm. But I should note, in the readout that we're getting this early stage from TASS, a Russian state news agency, quoting Putin, this does not appear as though any significant concessions have been made at this point, from what we know right now, by the Kremlin.

Yes, we knew that they were potentially willing to discuss the modalities, as they referred to it in Istanbul, of a ceasefire. We know, indeed, that there might, at some point down the line, be discussions about further contacts and peace agreements.

And indeed, of course, Putin's going to emerge from this key telephone call with President Trump, saying that it had been a constructive conversation. But he did not grant a ceasefire, like Trump had suggested might be possible in his Saturday post. And indeed, there's no suggestion here of a meeting of the two men face-to-face, in terms of what Vladimir Putin's saying come from that call, Dana.

BASH: Really important reporting and context. Thank you so much for that, Nick.

I want to get straight to the White House. And Jeff Zeleny is there. As soon as the call ended, Jeff, the race to see who would get out first with the readout and the spin was starting. And Vladimir Putin seems to have won. I assume we will hear from President Trump momentarily.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: We are expecting a fuller readout from the White House and the U.S. president shortly. But you are right, the Kremlin beat the White House to the punch in terms of framing this conversation, which is often the case. But just amplifying what Nick was saying there, at least at this moment, and we, of course, shall see, there does not seem to be any major development in terms of an immediate development.

[12:55:04]

And that, of course, has been one of the central questions. If the Kremlin and the state news media agency is correct in saying that a ceasefire could come after settlement talks, that is not what the U.S. was hoping for. They were hoping for a 30-day ceasefire. So, again, we should see.

But there has always been the question, Dana, really for several months now, is Vladimir Putin, is Moscow simply moving the goalposts? So, there is no sense of immediacy here. But, again, we will await a full readout from the president and the White House. Dana?

BASH: There is no question we will get that momentarily. Jeff, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Do not go anywhere. Inside Politics is over, but CNN News Central will pick it up after the break with the latest developments on this. Thank you.