Massie Casualty Event

Okay, today in the group chat how voters rejected another Trump critic in Congress. But what will those ousted lawmakers do now that they have nothing to lose? I got seven months left in Congress. And Cuba's Raul Castro could be indicted in the coming hours. Does the next move from the White House involve military action? Thank you. We anticipate increased fire behavior and increased wind. Thank you. So we don't want to get complacent.

Dangerous winds fueling the flames in Southern California more on the fight to contain multiple wildfires that are burning right now. And Trump's own Justice Department has cut a deal barring the IRS from auditing any of his taxes. Is there any way to undo this? And how did legitimate questions about Sean Duffy's reality show turn into a litmus test for patriotism? You don't want to celebrate America's birthday, Miss I'm sorry. Well, I support the first time. The president.

for a doll right here. A lot of pressure to vote for uh Ed, but I don't know man, I feel I feel like I feel like Massey is more for the Constitution, so Thank you. The voters have spoken. Turns out it's still Trump's party. Why was Congressman Thomas Massey so easy to pick off? Well, good morning everybody. I'm Audie Cornish and we're gonna talk about how another Republican incumbent has fallen.

Quote, he's still the kingmaker. He will hold a grudge for God knows how long. And quote, occasionally you have to shoot a hostage. This is what we were hearing from Republican lawmakers and advisors and operatives. I want to thank President Trump for his support. His endorsement. and his counsel as I navigated this campaign. Now my focus is on advancing the president's and the party's agenda to put America first and Kentucky always.

In just two weeks, the president has ousted seven lawmakers in Indiana. It was a redistricting fight that doomed five state senators. Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy was Trump's next victim because he voted to impeach Trump in 2021. Now, it was the Epstein Files Transparency Act that was Massey's biggest crime. But with several months left in office, is Massey ready to go scorched earth? We've taken out two dozen CEOs, an ambassador. A prince, a prime minister. A minister of culture. Thank you.

And that was just six months. I got seven months left in Congress. Today in the group chat, Eleanor Muller, White House Economic Policy Reporter for Semaphore, Penny Nant, CEO for Concerned Women for America, and Antoine Seawright, Democratic Strategist. Um, so I want to talk about this because it used to be said that all politics are local. I feel like that axiom is dying with each year uh in into Trump's, you know, basically ten year run.

Um, can you talk about what happened with Kentucky why voters did not respond to him? So Massey has won seven elections, right? And this actually was the most expensive primary of this election season. And so Not money spent by him, money spent by outside groups. Exactly. So he was not an easy person to come after, you know, his particular brand of

libertarianism is something that has really resonated with the people of Kentucky for years. But at the end of the day, I think a lot of them really struggled to reconcile their support for President Trump with their attraction to a candidate who has espoused many of the same values that Trump says he does, right? He's in favor of lower spending, America First, all of these things. Except unlike so many others on Capitol Hill, he did not back down from those values.

When Trump asked something different about his party. I want to flag something that was interesting that came from Rep Rokana. He's a California from Democrat, but he has also been kind of Hip to hip with Massey on the issue of the Epstein files. Um and here is what he noticed in looking at the outcome of this election.

Many young voters under fifty voted for him. He was winning them by over thirty points. And today I say you may not have a home in the Trump coalition, but there is a new generation of populist democrats, and we welcome you to have To help us change this country, change the rotten system, and have a politics that puts the working class ahead of the Epstein class.

Um I this is something maybe he has privy to as a lawmaker. The idea that you had Massey making gains with young voters. What does that mean for Trump and the MAGA movement, which took the White House? Kind of on the backs of young voters and people who were folded into the party.

Well first I'm from Kentucky actually. In northern Br in northern uh Kentucky was where that district was from. So I'm a w I know that district. And it the r issue is that Thomas Massey fell out of favor with his voters because he did not support the Trump agenda, which is the same president that they voted for by record numbers. And so as ti he star he was very well respected. He was a strong libertarian, a principled libertarian. But then it just became about being the naysayer.

and um getting the attention. And so when he voted against some of the president's key agenda items, th suddenly people weren't interested anymore. They couldn't hear what he was saying. He was more interested on standing on the sidelines and lobbing grenades than actually rolling up his sleeves and get to work and that's actually what took him.

Rand Paul, uh another libertarian, saying that he thinks this this is officially the end of the Tea Party era. That chapter is done. Do you agree with that? I don't know. I mean I think at this point there's certain agenda items that the public want done, the American people want done. But we do need to be concerned about our budget and the fact that we're thirty four trillion dollars in debt as a country. That can't go away.

Yeah. Yeah. I find it a little funny that uh a a a member of Trump's party stood up to hold him accountable, which is the job of the legislative branch And and people find that uh somehow or another bad for democracy, bad for the country. Look, no doubt that the tectonic plates have shifted in the Republican Party and they've become more extreme. No one can argue with that. But what I will say is that I don't think that the American people agree

with Trump's agenda. That's why he's underwater on every single issue. I also find it to be ironic that Mass is the first person that's being held accountable for the Epstein files just at the ballot box in the wrong way. When he started to dig deep and found transparency and accountability when it came to Epstein, that's when the tables turn on him within his own What I'm trying to figure out is there's obviously

That's the thing that brought him that's the thing that amplified his profile into the light. And he loved that. When he and Rokana started to elevate the But Antoine, can I ask a question? One of the things that means is that what makes you popular with a national audience does not make you popular at home. And there's a voter out there who says

Whether you think they should be supporting Trump or not, they're like you're no longer effective because your issue is superseding our issues. That's like how I think of how voters Support the person, but not support the policies. What Republicans are gonna have to deal with in November is Trump not being on the ballot, the person and his policies and his agenda being underwater.

with the American people, including Republicans, including independents, and they would then enter the voting group chat come November. The primary voters alone. Primary voters are more inflamed voters. There's a difference between a general election voter.

More about this, especially looking at Texas with John Cornyn who said some interesting things a around this idea of when to speak up and when not to. Um but coming up we want to turn to this. The vice president

Was basically pushing it back, pushing back against the scrutiny over President Trump's stock trades while in office. We're gonna talk about why Vance there shouldn't be any ethical concerns. Plus, after losing his primary race, Republican Senator Bill Cassidy is breaking with President Trump why the Louisiana lawmaker is now going scorched earth with the GOP. This was not the result that I necessarily wanted, but I feel great. Yeah.

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It is 13 minutes past the hour and here is your morning roundup. Today the Justice Department is expected to indict former Cuban President Raul Castro. It's a prosecution 30 years in the making. The 94-year-old faces criminal charges in his alleged role in ordering two aircrafts to be shot down, back when he was the defense minister in 1996. The aircraft belonged to an anti-Castro group called Brothers to the Rescue, and three Americans were killed in that attack.

More than 17,000 people remain under evacuation orders as crews battle the Sandy Fire in the Simi Valley, California. The brush fire has burned more than 1600 acres already. and it's only five percent contained. There are several other fires burning in California right now, including the Santa Rosa fire, which is the largest active wildfire in the state, and that scorched nearly 17

thousand acres, it is at least at 26% containment. Officials say it sparked from a stranded boater making an SOS call. And Republican incumbent incumbent, Congressman Thomas Massey, loses his primary bid. Trump-backed candidate Ed Galeron will advance to the Kentucky general election in November. And in Georgia, Trump's rival, Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who refused to back Trump's.

False claims of election fraud in 2020, lost his bid for governor. The Republican ticket isn't decided. There will be a runoff between Trump endorsed Bert Jones and businessman Rick Jackson. And in Texas, things are heating up before next week's Senate runoff. President Trump has finally made his pick. He's backing Ken Paxton, not Republican incumbent John Cornyn. And that runoff is set for next week. Tuesday.

After the break on CNN this morning, new details about the settlement that set up the quote anti-weaponization fund, how it's saving President Trump from future IRS audits. Plus, the Ebola outbreak is spreading fast, no vaccine. And then there were those cuts to the CDC. So is the US equipped to potentially handle a health emergency? And good morning to our nation's capital. Okay, as of this morning, at least a hundred and thirty-nine deaths thought to be linked to the first time.

According to the World Health Organization, the rollout of any potential vaccine is still months away. And fear is rising. I am afraid of bringing the disease home to my family because I spend the whole day transporting people. I'm afraid of dying. This is what scares me so much. Health experts tell CNN the U.S. is already behind in its response to the outbreak. I'm very concerned about the ability of the US government, especially the CDC, to respond to emergencies like this.

The CDC has been hollowed out. There are thousands and thousands fewer staff, many of whom worked on problems like this. Joining us now is Doctor Jonathan Reiner, Professor of Medicine and Surgery at George Washington University. Good morning. Um first I want to talk about this perceived gap between the known cases and the known unknowns, right? That there may be other cases out there. Um do you agree with those health experts who say this could be worse than it looks?

Uh I do. Uh first of all, um there was a very slow recognition of this outbreak. Uh it took really weeks for the world to uh learn that there were outbreaks. in uh the uh uh DR DRC and uh Uganda. Um and it th this particular outbreak is occurring in a region uh that is now uh ripe with with uh conflict.

So it's difficult for aid workers uh to get in. But what's clear is that it appears that the pandemic the pand excuse me, the outbreak is uh spreading uh rapidly in the last twenty four to forty eight hours. Uh there have been an additional hundred and twenty-five or so cases uh confirmed and another twenty-five death. But the death count ma uh is likely uh a stark underestimate because the case fatality rate

for this particular strain of Ebola is close to forty to fifty percent. So I'm expecting that we'll learn that the uh death count uh rises uh uh rather quickly. I wanna put that death count in context because right now there isn't a vaccine for this particular strain, right? I wanna play for you the head of the World Health Organization and and have you respond. In the absence of a vaccine, there are many other measures countries of course can take to stop the spread of this virus.

and save lives, even without medical countermeasures, including risk communication and community engagement. Uh help us square this. No vaccine, maybe one on the way, other ways to mitigate it. What can countries be doing? So for the uh strain that's called uh uh Ebola Zaire, there is a vaccine and there are antivirals.

and in outbreaks now of of that strain of Ebola, one of the strategies is to start vaccinating uh people uh who are at risk in the community and then uh to treat people who are sick with with the effective antivirals. We don't have any of those countermeasures available for the Bunduba uh bigo uh strain of Ebola that uh is circulating now in DRC and and Uganda. So and and the other problem is that um burial practices uh put people at risk even after the patient uh has has has died.

Uh and all this comes at a time where uh aid from the United States to this region has been cut dramatically. And instead of uh this country focusing on prevention and rapid response. we're now really uh more of our back foot trying to uh uh help contain this. And it also comes at a time when the United States pulled out of the World World uh Health Organization. So we're really playing catch up at at at this point.

Should people be nervous? We've got the World Cup coming up, we've got all kinds of major international events just in the coming weeks. Well, I think, you know, our uh public health agencies should be vigilant and the C D C uh has apparently instituted uh border uh surveillance uh looking at uh passengers coming uh who may have been exposed in uh uh

th those regions of of Africa. There's also been a travel ban instituted on non uh US passport holders who have been in uh affected regions in Africa. But it's very difficult you know, to stop people with disease from coming into a country. We learned that uh certainly uh during the COVID pandemic. Um having having said that, this is a different kind of disease uh than a respiratory virus. It's spread

by uh uh physical contact with uh symptomatic uh patients. It's not felt that there really is any pre-symptomatic transmission of of this disease. Uh and it is a disease that that can be uh contained. There was a small outbreak in the United States in in two thousand fourteen when a uh a uh non US US citizen

uh uh developed symptoms of Ebola in Texas. Two healthcare workers were infected uh but survived uh that at the time. So you there certainly are containment and and excellent public health practices in this country in this country should help to contain any uh potential risk should a uh person in this country develop symptoms of Ebola. That's Dr. Jonathan Reiner. Thank you for this context. Appreciate your time. And straight ahead on CNN this morning.

And according to disclosures, thousands of those trades are linked to companies impacted by White House policy. Why the administration says there's no conflict of interest. Comedian Craig Ferguson is going coast to coast to unpack what it really means to be an American today. What could possibly go wrong? Craig Ferguson, American on Purpose. News series premieres May 30th and 9th on CNN and next day on the CNN app.

Turns out there was more to that settlement between President Trump and the IRS. The Justice Department is now forever barred from auditing Trump. The addendum, which was quietly added Tuesday, says that the government cannot examine tax returns of the President. His family, his company, or related companies.

It applies to anything filed before the agreement was reached, which was on Monday. And the settlement also creates a nearly$1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund. The President's acting Attorney General was on Capitol Hill yesterday defending that fund. Simple question. Will elig will individuals who assaulted Capitol Hill police officers be eligible for this one? Well as it makes plain. Just let me know if they're eligible for the fund.

As was made plain yesterday, anybody in this country is eligible to apply if they believe they were victim weaponization. Will you encourage them to have a guideline that says those who have been convicted of violent acts against police officers are not eligible? I will definitely encourage the commissioners to take everything into account when determining who should get compensation.

Okay, joining the group chat we've got Democratic Congressman Joe Morelli of New York. So a lot of your uh colleagues. the opportunity to ask these questions about how the fund is gonna work, who's gonna get the money. But I want to play for you a Republican. It was Mike Rounds who's on the Appropriations Committee and he asked this question.

It would appear to me that you know Congress will have some say because there's an appropriation of funds someplace along the But uh you know, right now just a matter of waiting for details from the lighthouse to come up as to what it is. But this is something that certainly has congressional authority. Already. Thank you. We're not talking a million, we're talking a billion, so uh in this particular case even Congress pays attention to that.

Love that he says even Congress, even though that's technically your job. Um, but there have been funds before. Nine eleven had a compensation fund. Can you all do anything if people like Mike Rounds start to raise questions? Well typically compensation funds are for people who have been wronged in some way. Uh this compensation fund it appears to be Trump's friends or other people who have violated the law.

And are offenders. And the fact that they can't answer the question about whether people who attacked the Capitol on January 6th are going to be compensated is astonishing. Well they've all been pardoned or I mean they are now people with clean records. Yeah, we've well no, they have they don't have clean records, they've been pardoned. But those those I mean, let's be clear, and what we've done is now added complete insult to injury.

Uh by doing this. This is Trump's personal lawyer, Todd Blanch, who maybe has a guarantee of future employment, who knows, who's the acting attorney general who has signed off on granting immunity to the president and his family and his organization.

Literally forever potentially. In return for a one point eight billion dollar amount of money to go to people who have offended, who've broken the laws and Let me play for you a conversation Caitlin Hollins had last night with the vice president, because she was asking this same question, almost the way you're framing it, sounded like this. assaulted a police officer on January 6th should go to prison. So why not rule out giving them taxpayer funded money?

Well Caitlin, what I said is we're gonna look at everything case by case. But why don't we rule it out? Because Caitlin, there are people who I don't know their individual circumstances, and I don't rule things out categorically when I know nothing about a person's individual circumstances. We're not making commitments to give anybody money. We're just making commitments to look at things case by case. Peggy, do you think he answered that in a convincing way for people? Sorry, Penny. Well,

He was great in the press conference yesterday and I thought was very direct on a lot of this. I mean, I think this is a culture change that's happening. Um y listen. In what? Well, I think that DOJ has a long history of punishing with the process. And this is setting a precedent, by the way, for few after this after this administration. I think Democrats and Republicans have had enough of DOJ bankrupting people in their own defense.

And then p perhaps these are cases in which they were politically motivated. I know that you said after this administration, so I'm no I'm say I'm saying that this will live on. This is a precedent. So I'm saying that people like the congressman here maybe shouldn't be a little bit introspective in the fact that this this is about now that we have set a precedent now about a culture change of DOJ. I have friends who lost everything they had.

because they were targeted by DOJ under the Biden administration. Let me And had and had uh had a heart attack because of it. Well this uh this MAGA slush fund, first of all, unconstitutional. Congress has the power of the purse. Um but clearly this is to reward people who try to overturn an election. So I'm not surprised by JD Vance and election deniers comments. The problem with this not only it shows

how morally disconnected Donald Trump and the Republicans are from the American people because people cannot afford gas, groceries and goods. But it's also it's almost like the people who w who shouted, hang Mike Pence, the people where officers died. And I think that's the thing that's a good idea. Extreme things like that. But anyone can apply. Congressman.

The Vice President talks about doing that on a case by case basis. The president issued a blanket pardon to over a thousand people who are at that capitol who, as Antoine has said, beat police officers. Not all, you're right. But gave an i issued a blanket pardon. To suggest that they're doing this on a case-by-case basis is ridiculous.

Let me play something for you guys'cause more than once I have seen someone in the mainstream media describe this a very specific way. This time I'm gonna yesterday I played the View, today it's gonna be Charlemagne the God from the Breakfast Club on Tuesday morning. Our taxpayer dollars going to this weaponization fund to compensate his allies should piss you off. Okay, you should be outraged. Not only is it corrupt, it is a blatant slap in the face to the economic hardships.

You folks are facing. Okay. Trump told you he don't care what you're going through financially. All right. He's not even acting like he sees what you're going through. All right. He's not even, he's not even detached. Yeah. from people's economic struggles. He just doesn't care.

Um, I am wild by this because when I try and get people interested in a IRS story, you should see the blank stare that goes across their face. This story is traveling, it has legs, it's connected to the next story. You'll get a chance to jump in. The Vice President, as you said yesterday, answered a lot of questions. He also defended the president's stock trade. So if you look at Trump's financial disclosures right now, there are 3,700 trades in his portfolio.

three months of the year and they are worth$220 million. So he's trading on companies like Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Google. Back in April, for instance. He happened to post about Palantir. White when Palantir was having a bad week financially. And then people saw this Truth Social post that says, Palantir technologies have proven to have great warfighting capabilities and equipment, just ask our enemies, which of course included the company's stock ticker.

So these disclosures show that uh basically the president's portfolio has bought half a million dollars of Palantir stock the month before. And in the two weeks after that post, Palantir got a boost, 19%. Here's JD Vance and his explanation for how this all works. The president doesn't sit at the Oval Office on his computer on his like Robinhood account buying and selling stocks. That's absurd. He has independent wealth advisors.

Who manages his money. He is a wealthy person. He has had success in business. He's not making these stock trades himself. Wanted to let you get a word in, because again this is about is the president enriching himself, is he enjoying um wealth that the average American person right now feels like is wildly out of reach, basic goods are out of reach.

There's a question we should all ask ourselves every day when it comes to this. Would it have been okay if this was President Barack Obama, President Joe Biden, conservatives? MAGA extremists, however you want to describe them, we all know what their response will be. It is unheard of and unprecedented for a president, a government official to be enriched the way Donald Tr ma Trump and his family has been since taking over office. And I think there should be some sense of accountability

From the legislative branch about this. But I gotta make one quick point. When you talk about weaponizing the Department of Justice, no one has owned weaponization of the DOJ more than Donald Trump. He prides himself on retribution from DOJ. Ask Tish Jane and others about that. Let me play one more thing for you guys.'Cause I do think um this is important and and to let you have the last word. Um this was C N B C stock guru Jim Kramer.

Who also asked about this. And I always like to play the business press because they only care about the business part of this. Uh and here's how Kramer uh had just what he had to say. According to the filings, the president's been trading some intel in the quarter. Yeah. Got nothing to say to you. Yeah. We gotta go. Speechless wealth. Basically from the

We need to do end stock trading by members of Congress, by the President, by the Vice President, as we ought to get out of everyone out of prediction markets as well. This is insane and the notion that the vice president would defend the president's actions, he should just be quiet sometimes and not sound so ridiculous.

Like we get that the president's sitting at his laptop, but if you don't think the president has the ability to affect the markets, you you must live under a rock somewhere. I mean, this is obvious and the president has enriched himself and his family by billions of dollars and monetized the Oval Office unlike any president in American history. Okay, we're gonna leave it there. Thank you so much for being here, Congressman.

Next on CNN this morning, President Trump's push for security upgrades to that proposal for the White House ballroom. It's actually getting some resistance. We're gonna ask why some conservatives are suddenly raising concerns about that billion dollar price tag. Plus This show is incredibly out of touch with where Americans are. Welcome. To good manga. Mr. Secretary. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy defending his road trip reality show, Democrats blasting him for being out of touch.

I want to turn back to this issue, uh the payback time for two Republican lawmakers just voted out of office after Trump campaigned against them. Last night Kentucky Representative Thomas Massey lost. his primary bid to Trump back candidate at Galrin and take a look at this Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy giving a thumbs up to help pass a motion

That would rein in Trump's Iran war powers, and Cassidy lost to a Trump backed candidate Saturday. Now Cassidy defended his vote in a statement, writing in part, I've heard from people, including President Trump's supporters. Who are concerned about this war? Until the administration provides clarity, no congressional authorization or extension can be justified.

So the group chat is back. Um I guess I wanna figure out if we are now in the YOLO era for all of these lawmakers who are seeing the exits. The yellow era. Massey was already in his yellow era. That's part of the reason why he wound up losing last night. But uh Senator Cassidy very much was not. Senator Cornyn was not. These are folks who were carefully

towing the line while they were waiting for the results of their races. And now that Trump has tipped the scales against them, I think we'll see more and more moves like Cassidy's vote to advance that war powers resolution. We've already seen with Senator Tom Tillis. Just how much damage even one lawmaker can do, particularly in the Senate, he was able to single-handedly keep Trump's Fed nominee from advancing until he was satisfied with the Justice Department.

And so we may see some real hurdles for Trump's agenda in the next few months here. Yeah. I called it YOLO, someone else, Nancy Vu called it. Uh the Senator is entering his Cassidy Unchained era, which sounds a lot more romantic. Noting that since he lost his primary three days ago, this is in three days. Um he said he'd vote against the ballroom, defended the vote to convict Trump, said he'd looked to hold RFK Jr. accountable, called Paxton a felon after Trump endorsed him.

Uh and now talking about this war powers resolution. So Christmas is early for Democrats. Yeah, I mean I no doubt hi his feelings are hurt, but he needs to look at it himself. I mean people were still angry that he had voted to impeach the president. He no longer matched his state of Louisiana. We were talking about this before. You may feel good on the national stage or what you do, but you still have to appeal to the voters. Politics is local, it's still local and Cassidy no longer match

his constituency. By the way, that the entire South has been realigned under President Trump. There is a complete change in the in remember Mary Landrew was was uh senator from Louisiana. She's a moderate Democrat. Kessie was a moderate Republican. Louisiana's changed. Although I think people are gonna argue there's a lot more reasons why it's being realigned under Trump, uh namely also.

I would agree with you that the South is being realigned. That's because the president and his allies are trying to exterminate and eliminate black political representation. across the South by racial gerrymandering. But the old ad is that Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love is true. And it's playing out in these primaries. And you all must be brokenhearted'cause I have not seen who Democrats love this cycle. It's hard to tell.

Well love is a process. We're getting Shout out to Antoine's partner wherever we But but but but it's true that um I think that Donald Trump is putting his um his foot and hand on the scale in the primary. I don't think that's going to be transferable in a journal general election when it comes to the map and the math. Because the people who will have to run on Trump's agenda and running in swing districts are not going to embrace Trump in the same way. And I think that's when it really matters.

Okay, so over and over again we're sensing a trend here, the national versus the local. Do some of the things Republican primary voters enjoy. translate to the rest of us, especially independents. Senate Republicans right now, they're looking to revise a proposal that would steer one billion dollars in taxpayer funds. Toward the president's ballroom. So the Senate parliamentarian has already ruled out language in that initial request saying, look, this doesn't comply with budget rules.

The president claims the ballroom is still free to taxpayers and insists that the billion dollar add-on is for security, and he's calling it a gift to America. You've got lame duck Republican Congressman Thomas Massey, of course, saying that he thinks the public isn't buying it. By the way,

While gas is almost five dollars and diesel's almost six, they're talking about this big ballroom they're gonna build and it looks it looks like Ro the Roman Empire, architecture from the Roman Empire. I see a few analogies there. And people are just trying to make ends meet. Massey does seem like the kind of guy who'd be always thinking about the Roman Empire, but I also want to ask you, who's paying for this ballroom?

It's a complicated question and it's not one that's happening in a vacuum, right? Do you see it happening in public? Like are they donors? Are they who Very unclear. And so that's part of the reason why it's been so politically difficult for Republicans on the Hill to advance this one billion dollars, which would be maybe for social uh secret service, but it would be for them to secure the ball. Also from drones to like make it drone proof but also house some drones but we don't know.

We're getting a lot of crossed signals, and I think that's why we've seen Congressional Republicans again empowered this week to push back somewhat, particularly as their constituents are facing higher gas prices among the war. in Iran, uh pre-existing inflation from Trump's tariffs, all of these things that make this really a tough sell.

And the main Republican I care about here is Senator Thune. When he was asked about ballroom funding, he said, Well look, part of it it involves the need to get fifty votes here. in the Senate than 218 in the House. We're trying to sort all that out and figure it out how we can land the plane. Whenever someone like him starts giving you vote count. The message is we don't have the votes.

But Audit, this is a different question. You ask who's paying for it. I would ask who's asking for this. The American people are asking for relief in their personal lives. Forget about trying to make ends meet. There are people in this country putting two ends together hoping they meet because Magonomics has been a failure and because Donald Trump has taken over this co this economy. And I think when it comes to priorities, I think the Republican majority party are going to answer

uh that question at the ballot box. And I think most Americans if you ask them the famous Mitt Romney question or Republican question, is your life better off because of the people in charge? The answer to that is absolutely itself um you've got fifty six percent who oppose it and another fifteen percent up for grabs maybe the drones will convince them um but the reason why i'm bringing up polling is because we are seeing this movement away from trump on the economy

And at what point does that become a concern given his um his actual promises, right? The promise was not explicit, it was implicit, it was explicit. I will do better than Biden on the economy.

It certainly matters in every election. Pocketbook issues always matter in every election. But if I could just go back to the ballroom, I think anybody that was at the White House correspondence dinner understands there needs to be a large scale location where we can keep people safe when the president's there.

Um and I will add that this is gonna be increasingly difficult because Elizabeth McDonough, who's the White House uh excuse me, who's the Senate parliamentarian, has just declared that it's gonna She she characterized it in a way that's gonna need sixty votes to pass in the Senate. So it's gonna be increasingly difficult to do. However, I think most fair minded people recognize that the White House is

changes the White House Historical Society said the White House has always changed and met the needs of the people. I I think future presidents will be very glad if this happens. And I think people to pay down the debt. Well the debt is an issue, but one point I'm sorry. White house. It's not gonna be the same. But over and over again we're we keep doing stories today. Here I have another one. The president describing um uh the Sean Duffy, I'm sorry, from the transportation secretary.

Basically talking about his great American road trip, right? Like basically talking uh about why he was filming this reality show with his wife and nine kids. while there were all of these transportation issues that were going and you had some senators ask him about this on the Hill and here's an example of how he answered.

Toyota, United Airlines, Shell, Boeing, Royal Caribbean, and Enterprise all sponsored your show. It is literally your job to make sure each of those companies are playing by the rules. So is sponsoring a show starring you, and it is your department, Mr. Secretary, that's Mm.

That's actually what I say to my kids. When they ask me for yogurt, I'm like, do you hate America? Um but again, who's paying for it? This is a question people are asking over and over again, and that is a fair question to any person Taxpayers aren't paying for this. Okay, and then once they aren't, we got a first answer. What kind of influence does that person have for spent making that spending?

Which is rich fodder for Democrats. I think they're very aware of the fact that voters picked President Trump because he would make the cost of living more affordable for them. And you know, now they are doing everything they can to compare what the Trump administration is doing, like this show, like the ballroom, to the high price of gas, to the high price of groceries and so many other things.

Yeah. Even though Sean Duffy needed a vacation. When I look at what was going on while he was filming this, what he was doing, you know, at the same time, he was dealing with the forty three day government shutdown, the crisis at Newark, right? The controllers, air controllers issue. Um there was a fatal runway strike in Denver. There was a deadly collision at LaGuardia.

Um and of course there was a crash at Reagan National that killed seven sixty-seven people. I know a lot of people were playing old clips of him criticizing Buddig for taking time off to be with this kid at the ICU. But like is anything allowed to be called tone deaf? Sorry, I think this is petty. I I think he did this on his own time. He wasn't paid for. It's an American 250 event, which everybody will be doing. I think the entire federal government is interested in this and promoting this.

And you know, yes, you're right. Pete Bitterj was gone a lot. He was on eight weeks leave when he should have been doing in Let's see he adopted a kid. He didn't have a kid. He adopted a kid. Very different. Oh I didn't say that. No, I'm not against documents. Not doing that. I don't I'm not saying that at all. Please don't write in. I'm not saying that all that just

I don't I'm not saying they shouldn't have it. I'm just saying that yeah I think it's petty to pick up this one thing that he's doing in his own time with his family and it's a great thing to celebrate it. We have not noticed if there weren't so many crises. Oh I think the people would always notice.

I think peop they're running this administration like a reality T V show. Uh and I think this is entertainment for them. They're trying to entertain the American people instead of govern the country and that's why this country is falling apart. And but the the sad part about it, there's no accountability again from the legislative branch, which is supposed to provide oversight to the executive branch.

Secretary Budaj, can you imagine the hearings that would be taking place on Capitol Hill by Republicans if this were a Pete Buddha Secretary Buddha tea uh taping a reality show? I think we all know the answer to that, and that's where we have to draw the line of hypocrisy straight down the road. Okay. Are you not entertained? Uh we're gonna talk about what's in the group chats. Eleanor, what are people gossip about over at Semaphore?

Uh so what I personally am gossiping about is my You're like just made out of it. Okay. We are in the process of moving my grandparents into a skilled nursing facility and so my aunt has flown out to California and has painstakingly documented all of their belongings to see if any of us Want to take them. So everything from beautiful art to yeah, every single scarf my grandma's ever owned, um, to a inexplicable basket of pine cones. We don't know why they had those or what.

Shout out to the pay the the caregivers. That's amazing. Thank you. And Penny for you. Um I'm changing mine actually. I'm gonna say I am gonna talk about adoption. I am a big advocate of adoption. It concerns women from America. We support adoption. You know, Christians are twice as likely to adopt and three times more likely to be foster parents and everybody should have family leave.

But my group chat is focused on the fear that black Americans are facing all across the country, particularly in the South, as they're trying to redraw lines, particularly in South Carolina. What kind of text are you getting? Are they memes or are people actually talking about the other? No, peop people are very fearful because it was my grandparents' generation that fought for voting rights and voting opportunities.

My parents generation were able to um live it and now my generation is seeing it being a taken away. So that's three generations of progress and then backlash and it's a real thing. Yeah, I'm not gonna lie, the Cornish Hens uh WhatsApp group has also been lit with questions. Uh several people live in the South and they always ask their news buddy, which is me, what's going on. Um so hey guys, good morning. See you in the chat.

I want to thank you all for being with us this morning. We've got a lot of news today, especially the outcome of some of those key primaries around the country. I'm Audie Cornish and the headlines are next. I'm Eva Longoria, and I'm setting out to really experience France, to savor its world celebrated cuisine, and explore the country's rich history. Eva Longoria, searching for France, now streaming on the CNN app.

I'm CNN Tech Reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast Terms of Service, what do we know about how much AI is contributing to energy consumption, energy demand right now, and how does that compare with other industries? The best resource for that is the International Energy Agency, which is sort of the global energy think tank that collects data on all of this. And what they predict is that.

About eight percent of the additional electricity that we're gonna need by twenty thirty, that will be for data centers. The other ninety two percent is for other things, industry electrification, electric vehicles. And AI is really only driving part of that increase in demand. Listen to CNN's Terms of Service wherever you get your podcast.