It was a tale of two interviews for CNN’s Dana Bash on Wednesday’s Inside Politics as she sat down with Speaker Mike Johnson and left-wing activist and actress Jane Fonda. During her conversation with Johnson, Bash recited Democratic talking points on the government shutdown and wondered if there is “something to that.” Meanwhile, she laughed it up with Fonda and suggested that she had the credibility to say that President Trump actually does pose a grave threat to the First Amendment.

During the Johnson interview, Bash basically endorsed the Democratic position:

Okay, so the Democrats argue that it’s priorities, yes, that are maybe their policy priorities, but they also should be the priorities for people in your district and in Republican districts across the country. The biggest of which, they argue, is extending the subsidies for people who can't afford Obamacare to be able to afford Obamacare. I understand that they don't expire until the end of the calendar year. The argument that they make is that insurance companies start to make a plan, like, soon. And so by the time they make that plan, the subsidies will be — will expire. Isn't there something to that?

Johnson began to respond, “No, that's a December policy issue. It's going to take many months to—” but was interrupted.

Bash then tried to double down, “But insurance companies have to make their decisions well before December.”

Trying again, Johnson replied, “The benefits do not expire until December 31 and insurance companies can make different decisions. Okay. There's plenty of time on the clock. That's an eternity, as you know, in legislative terms, to have three months ahead of us to do that. The reason we put a simple seven-week extension of government funding is to allow for all that debate.”

Later, during the Fonda interview, Bash played an audio clip of Richard Nixon saying Fonda was “on a wrong track.”

After Fonda joked that she survived and Nixon, politically speaking, did not, Bash tried treating Fonda as if she was some authority on the issue of free speech, “He was talking about your anti-Vietnam War activism. You were on his enemies list, I believe. And so listening to that, knowing that history, living that history as you did, and you're still saying this is different. What makes this time so different?”

Fonda, who was on to promote the relaunch of the Committee for the First Amendment, declared, “No president has ever sent troops into the Democratic cities across the country saying 'full force.' No president, as far as I know, has tried to control the Federal Reserve, the central bank. He is amassing power in a way that will destroy our democracy.”

She also tried to portray ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel as a victim of this effort, “But, we want to push back, and we want to model what creative, non-violent non-cooperation looks like. That doesn't mean just showing up for people who are under attack, like Jimmy Kimmel. A lot of us signed that ACLU statement protesting what happened to Jimmy Kimmel.”

Fonda also insisted that, “We want to move forward with love, with unity, with solidarity, and we want to encourage everybody else and all the other sectors of this country to do the same. You know, we don't want to be a pillar of support to this regime that's forming.”

Throughout the interview, Fonda would frequently turn and look away from the camera as if she were reading her talking points off a computer or giant cue card. Meanwhile, the tone of Bash’s interview changed depending on who she was talking to.

Here is a transcript for the October 1 show:

CNN Inside Politics with Dana Bash

10/1/2025

12:02 PM ET

DANA BASH: Okay, so the Democrats argue that it’s priorities, yes, that are maybe their policy priorities, but they also should be the priorities for people in your district and in Republican districts across the country. The biggest of which, they argue, is extending the subsidies for people who can't afford Obamacare to be able to afford Obamacare. I understand that they don't expire until the end of the calendar year. 

MIKE JOHNSON: Right.

BASH: The argument that they make is that insurance companies start to make a plan, like, soon. And so by the time they make that plan, the subsidies will be — will expire. Isn't there something to that?

JOHNSON: No, that's a December policy issue. It's going to take many months to—

BASH: But insurance companies have to make their decisions well before December.

JOHNSON: The benefits do not expire until December 31 and insurance companies can make different decisions. Okay. There's plenty of time on the clock. That's an eternity, as you know, in legislative terms, to have three months ahead of us to do that. The reason we put a simple seven-week extension of government funding is to allow for all that debate. The month of October is going to be very important for us to determine all these things and to have a bipartisan discussion and deliberation over that. But we have to have the lights on in the building to do it. The first and most important function of Congress is to keep the government in operation. Every Democrat who's voting no today has said that many times. We're playing the highlight reel. Just listen to what Chuck Schumer himself has said until today. 

…

BASH: He was talking about your anti-Vietnam War activism. You were on his enemies list, I believe. And so listening to that, knowing that history, living that history as you did, and you're still saying this is different. What makes this time so different?

JANE FONDA: No president has ever sent troops into the Democratic cities across the country saying “full force.” No president as far as I know, has tried to control the Federal Reserve, the central bank. He is amassing power in a way that will destroy our democracy. And so we're going to stand up, you know, we're creatives, we're storytellers. We can do it creatively. We can have a good time while we do it. 

But, we want to push back, and we want to model what creative, non-violent non-cooperation looks like. That doesn't mean just showing up for people who are under attack, like Jimmy Kimmel. A lot of us signed that ACLU statement protesting what happened to Jimmy Kimmel. But, we want to also, we want to be proactive and we want to show what that can look like, and we want to—violence is not—we will not tolerate violence. We don't want any of that, but we want to move forward with love, with unity, with solidarity, and we want to encourage everybody else and all the other sectors of this country to do the same. You know, we don't want to be a pillar of support to this regime that's forming.