does he manage it all? sara sidner. >> okay. this is one of those things that, like, these are the little details that will stay with me for the rest of my life. there is an actual job called the muppet wrangler and the muppet wrangler was there to make sure that everyone was in their place, that there was no wild muppets running around doing things they weren't supposed to be doing, and making sure that kermit was on time and had all his stuff together. i won't use the other word i was going to use. yeah, there's someone whose actual job it is to wrangle the muppets. >> i will say forevermore. our stage managers will be known as muppet. wranglers. wranglers. all right, sara. that was awesome. kermit was lucky to get to talk to you. thank you very much. we'll talk to you again in a little bit. a brand new hour of cnn news central starts right now.

>> house speaker mike johnson says the president's big, beautiful bill will be up for a floor vote. full floor vote tonight. yet they don't even know what the final version of this massive bill looks like quite yet. a key committee pulling an all nighter. still working right now. are there signs the republican holdouts are giving in? five of the ten men who escaped a new orleans jail are still on the run today. now, a jail maintenance worker is also under arrest and accused of helping them. the sheriff, halting her reelection campaign amid questions about how this all happened. and a 24 year old man is now under arrest after posing as a teenage high school student. how authorities made the alarming discovery. sarah is clearly on assignment this morning. i'm kate bolduan with john berman. this is cnn news central. >> all right. breaking this

morning, the marathon meetings on capitol hill still marathoning the house rules committee convened at the bleary eyed hour of 1 a.m. to debate the president's huge tax and spending legislation before it can move to the floor. we've seen no final version of this bill. neither have members who will vote on it as soon as today, because the house speaker says he wants to put it on the floor as soon as tonight. this is what he told our lauren fox just a few minutes ago. >> is this idea of 40,000 cap over ten years? the deal at this point. >> that's the agreement we came to. and, you know, i think that the salt caucus, as they call themselves, are it's not everything they wanted, but i think they they know what a huge improvement that is for their constituents. and it gives them a lot to go home and talk about. >> yeah. what she was just talking to the speaker about was an agreement over a cap on state and local taxes that you can deduct from your returns there. that was an agreement the

speaker reached with just one part of the republicans on capitol hill. on the other side, there are big concerns about the cost of all this nearly $4 trillion over the next decade or so, and only some of that would be offset by spending cuts, including some deep reductions to medicaid. let's get right to lauren fox, who's been on capitol hill working the speaker, working her sources. what are you hearing? >> yeah, john, this morning, the speaker making clear that despite the fact that he has been in meetings basically all night long, he said he just slept about 45 minutes overnight, that he's feeling really optimistic about where republicans are. he's feeling like they finally are circling around a tentative agreement on that salt cap. that's been really important to some of these swing district republicans from high tax districts. he also feels like, despite the fact that conservatives aren't going to be thrilled about giving these new york republicans part of an increase in the salt

deduction that he believes they recognize, it's important that they have to do this, and that it helps protect the majority in the next election. now, there are a lot of landmines still to come. the house rules committee has been meeting overnight. we expect that this debate could go on throughout the day, potentially even into early evening, before they finally pass a rule that will govern the debate on the house floor for this bill. but he's really optimistic that they could vote tonight, john. and that is something that is obviously an even speedier deadline than what we had been thinking and anticipating. but here's the bottom line on capitol hill. if you think you have the votes, you go to the floor and you vote before that momentum starts to shift, before there's public momentum against the bill. that is certainly where johnson heads at this morning. we'll see throughout the day. and we are awaiting any other potential changes to this bill, which could come at any time. >> yeah. waiting often gets in the way. the memorial day weekend, something i think the speaker fears in this case.

lauren fox on capitol hill. keep us posted when you hear more kate. >> all right. joining us right now to talk much more about this republican congressman andy barr of kentucky. congressman, thank you so much for joining us today. so from your viewpoint, where do things stand this morning. >> giving benefits. back to our seniors? >> well, president. >> trump's engagement yesterday was absolutely critical. and only president trump could have brought the level of unity that we have right now. i credit the president's involvement, his proactive involvement, and this legislation is transformational. it is historic. and for the life of me, i don't know why anyone democrat or the grandstanders would vote against this bill. i think it's political suicide. voting against this bill is voting for a $4 trillion tax increase. it's voting for increases on taxes on middle income americans. it's voting on for tax increases on tips, tax increases on overtime. it's voting to decrease the standard deduction. it's voting to

decrease the the child tax credit. so voting for this legislation is voting for the largest tax cut in american history. and it will it. will be jet fuel for the american economy. so i think it's very politically perilous for anyone to vote against to vote no on this bill. i am a i'm a hard yes because this bill will will turn our economy around. and and the president has been key in, in bringing the conference together to this point. i think we're going to pass the bill tonight. >> and and we will see on that. there's a lot of clearly conversations going on behind the scenes right now. but one thing that we did hear of from some, from some republicans coming out of the meeting, is that the president did not convince them to be on board. they are still concerned that that the votes are not there. let me play this. >> the president, i don't think, convinced enough people that the bill is adequate the way it is.

i couldn't. >> vote for this bill right now. >> i mean, it grows deficit spending right now. so it does raise the debt limit. we need to do that, but it doesn't cut spending. >> i ran. >> on. >> balancing the budget. i don't know that i could sleep at night if if i, if i don't stick to that, i. >> would say that if the vote were held right now, it dies a painful death. >> how do you address the concerns over how much this costs and how much this adds to the deficit? is it even possible to allay those concerns at this point? >> well, look, first of all, the cbo score is wrong. the cbo has been wrong repeatedly. it was wrong when it projected budget surpluses with the inflation reduction act, the green new deal. it was wrong by almost a half $1 trillion. it was wrong when they scored the the first trump tax cuts, they were wrong by over $1 trillion. why? because the cbo doesn't do this scoring dynamically. and what we know about this bill is it's jet fuel for the economy. you and the.

>> congressman, you say the cbo is wrong, but you have your fellow republicans are concerned because the cbo is the only nonpartisan scorekeeper that congress has. and i have seen and i have highlighted over the years in covering congress, how