A 'Disgusting Abomination'
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It's Wednesday, June 4th, and here's what's happening right now on CNN This Morning. Elon Musk burning bridges on his way out the door, calling the president's agenda a disgusting abomination. Could his criticism influence some Senate Republicans to vote no? Plus, is the president having buyer's remorse? His private complaints about his picks for Supreme Court.

Then if you are feeling the squeeze financially, you're not alone. Household debt steadily creeping up. Is this a red flag for the economy? And it ends with us. Drama will seemingly never end. Why Blake Lively is dropping part of her suit against Justin Baldoni. And is this actually a win for his legal team?

6 a.m. here on the East Coast. Here's a live look at Capitol Hill. It was probably a restless night for a lot of lawmakers. Good morning to you. I'm Audie Cornish. Thank you for waking up with us. In just a few hours, President Trump is going to host key Senate Republicans from a crucial committee at the White House as he pushes forward on his so-called big, beautiful bill or disgusting abomination, which is how Elon Musk described it.

So according to the president's biggest financial backer, that bill is precisely that. The world's richest man hopped on X Tuesday to call it massive, outrageous and pork filled and says it will add to America's budget deficit. The social media assault on the bill from one of the president's biggest supporters caught House Speaker Mike Johnson off guard.

My friend Elon is terribly wrong about the one big beautiful bill. Elon is missing it, okay? And it's not personal. I know that the EB mandate, very important to him, that is going away because the government should not be subsidizing these things. But for him to come out and hand the whole bill is to me just very disappointing, very surprising in light of the conversation I had with him yesterday.

While the House speaker may disagree, several Republican senators who have already voiced concerns over the bill agree with Musk. New spending in this bill actually exceeds all the work he did to try to find savings. So I can understand his disappointment that the spending, the new spending actually would exceed all the work they did to find cuts. And I'd be disappointed, too.

joining me now in the group chat evan mcmurray santoro reporter at notice charlie dent former republican congressman from pennsylvania and kristin soltis anderson cnn political commentator and republican strategist i feel like i need to start with a little translation from the house speaker there because as soon as you hear my friend that's kind of the bless your heart of like capital speech and then the other thing i heard was him mentioning ev credits and sort of seeding the idea that musk has

a vested in your nodding has kind of invested interest in getting this bill a certain way I don't know who wants to jump in there's a lot angles here all the angle is it's funny that Elon Musk said the bill is filled with pork

But he seems to be most upset about the removal of the green energy tax credits, which many could call pork. And so that obviously would benefit him and his company. So I think that's where a lot of the anger is. It's over those green energy provisions. Although it's likely that the Senate may restore many of those provisions. So maybe Elon Musk will say something nice if they restore them. And of course, this is happening at...

just after his exit from the White House. And so there's so much speculation about their relationship. But how do you think this actually, yeah, how does this affect this congressional legislation? Well, I think what you said about Mike Johnson is totally right. You know, that was that classic, like, you know, my friend Elon,

He's just a little mixed up. Very much a different tone when it comes to Musk. It wasn't long ago, December of last year, right? Musk came out, said a bill that Mike Johnson liked was a bad idea, that spending bill. And it got squashed immediately. Every Republican jumped on this right away.

It does not feel like that is where things are going right now. I can say that I have not talked to anyone, my colleagues at Noda have not talked to anybody who thinks that Elon's going to kill this bill with this tweet. Yeah, it makes sense given his public polling. Like, he is a very unpopular figure now, but it hadn't been the case with Republicans. Now I'm in your territory polling. Okay, Kristen, don't sit there with your hands crossed letting me ramble. So Donald Trump is more...

influential and powerful with Republican politicians than Elon Musk is. And if back in December there were questions about who really is the voice of influence and power, I think that's all been very clarified by the last couple of months. Donald Trump is the one with the influence and power

over House Republicans and Senate Republicans. And that is why I agree. I think it's highly likely this bill gets across the finish line. Tweeting is easy. Governing is hard. The other thing is that what Musk is pressing for here is for the bill to cut more in spending. And to the extent that there are clashes going on, not all of them are about increasing cuts. You have some folks like Senator Josh Hawley who's expressed some concern about cuts to Medicaid, saying we've maybe cut too much.

So I think ultimately, for those who are saying, ha ha ha, look, I'm... But does it put wind in the sails for the people who are reluctant? No, hold on one second, because I think we do have a soundbite here. You remember where some senators are voicing concerns. People, of course, are watching Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins here. Here's what they've been saying.

What we've been hearing mostly from Alaskans is on the Medicaid side concerns that there may be significant cuts to Medicaid that would further deny access to health care. It looks like PEPFAR has been cut and I consider that to be

possibly the most successful public health program that has ever been used in Africa and other parts of the world. So I do not support the reduction of PEPPAR.

So to your point, it's not people who want to spend less. It's people who are like, we need to spend specifically on these things I care about. Well, I think if the bill comes down to Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins, it will look very different than it looks now. That's true.

That's not the pathway for this bill that Republicans are sort of going through here. We have not seen that push in that direction that much. I think that what we're dealing with here is this conversation of how to get these fiscal hawks, right? That's what the conversation was in the House, too. So even though the conversation, the pushback from the White House is, oh, Elon only cares about...

about the subsidies, right, and the EV credits, for example. No one said that before when Elon was talking about doing all the things he was doing in the government with his own conflict of interest with his own companies back then, right? They're saying it now, but he's saying something that they don't like. But this push towards fiscal responsibility, as most people would say it, pushing against the deficit,

That's a very powerful movement. You know, one of the things about this Elon conversation, we have a powerful lobbyist in the Notice newsletter this morning who is saying that, look, Elon and the talk about the deficit, it will not kill this bill. But I won't say that on the record because I don't want to get on the wrong side of these deficit people.

I don't think it's going to come down to PEPFAR choosing Collins wants. I think it's going to come down to how much are they going to cut these programs and what is the political risk that they run and how can they balance that? I think the Senate at the end of the day

is going to do less on cuts less Medicaid cuts less cuts to snap lets cuts to student loans and other program and green energy credits which should please Elon and they're gonna do less on the salt deduction they're not going to do a forty thousand dollar deduction this cap for state local tax deductions so just expect that so the fiscal hawks are probably going to be very disappointed with what the Senate advances and by the way it's really rich though that Elon is complaining about the pork

when you know it but what he's complaining about are things would actually add cost to the bill by restoring the green energy tax credits which the Senate will likely do but that seemed to be his primary yeah and to be clear in this process it goes back to the house because this is a reconciliation bill so this conversation is far from over group chat stay with me we've got a lot to talk about today coming up on CNN this morning a hotel security guard testifies that

He took a bribe from Sean Combs. Could this be a tipping point for prosecutors as they attempt to build a racketeering case? Plus, overnight, President Trump's steel tariffs took effect. What this could mean for your wallet. And an antiquated system. How the Transportation Secretary hopes to fast track a complete overhaul of air traffic control. The equipment's been working, right? It's like I'm driving my car and I'm hearing some knocks. I got some smoke coming out of the back. I see I got some problems.

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It is almost 15 minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup. Two Chinese researchers charged with smuggling a biological pathogen into the U.S. Federal prosecutors say the pair plan to study it at a University of Michigan lab. The pathogen is described as a, quote, potential agroterrorism weapon that can cause disease in certain plants like corn, rice and barley.

And the Trump administration plans to rescind federal guidance issued in 2022 to health care providers granting patients access to an abortion in a medical emergency. In 2022, the Biden administration issued the guidance to provide abortion services when medically necessary to treat emergency medical situations, even in states where the procedure is banned.

And the FAA, looking for a company to build a new U.S. air traffic control system, the department plans to replace core infrastructure to help improve efficiency, reduce outages, and reinforce safety. It's unclear how long the process will take or how much it will cost, but Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says he's depending on Congress to help fund the project.

Ahead on CNN this morning, President Trump not happy with one of his Supreme Court nominations. Why the president is expressing frustration with Justice Amy Coney Barrett behind closed doors. Plus, Blake Lively versus Justin Baldoni. Why are we so obsessed? Good morning, Miami. Parts of the area are actually under a flood watch this morning. There's going to be severe weather rolling through, so please stay safe.

The Blake Lively/Justin Baldoni case is the around and find out case. It's the I've started swimming from Cuba to Florida, I'm halfway there, and now I am drowning and I don't know whether to keep swimming or go back to shore.

Okay, it's time to go off script now because a reality star talking about a tabloid case is a snake eating its tail because everyone has an opinion on the legal battle between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. So the news is that Lively just dropped her emotional distress claims against Baldoni. This was after a move from his legal team to go after her medical records to prove those claims. But Lively's

Other claims of sexual harassment and retaliation remain. So even though this case is set to go to trial next year, it seems the public is actually still pretty obsessed with it, with fans on both sides offering opinions, and it's sparking conversations about power and accountability in Hollywood. Joining me now to discuss is Fran Hoffner, senior writer at Vulture. Fran, good morning. Good morning.

So the concern was over the medical records, right? She's basically still accusing him of harassing her, still accusing her of retaliation, but she is dropping the emotional distress part?

That's most, yeah, mostly that's correct. I think part of what's just happened is a great example of how this case has been litigated in the public view, which is that her team tried to withdraw these charges and his team then publicly said she's doing this because she doesn't want to release the medical records.

Whereas her team said, we're just doing this to streamline what's happening. We're trying to simplify things for ourselves. And it basically has come to seem as though no legal party in this case can make any decision without the other having to weigh in and there being this mini back and forth anytime there's an update.

The irony of this is the New York Times reporting from a few months ago basically implied that a lot of this was sort of dark arts PR, like a lot of the battle with them and even her concerns about her reputation came from how this stuff is sort of battled among fans, Reddit threads, online. Is that part of what's driving this?

Definitely. I think when there are these extremely public cases now, there is the court of law and the court of public opinion, and that these battles need to be fought simultaneously.

One of the things you've been talking about in your writing is that we've seen a similar public battle play out in say the Amber Heard, Johnny Depp case. You wrote in April that early criticism of that case was compared to the proceedings to Johnny Depp and Amber Heard in their libel suit. The latter case regarded as domestic affairs as opposed to workplace ones, those legal proceedings were also initially pegged as starry right up until it began.

You're talking about the idea of celebrities not wanting to go on court. They don't want to be on trial and that there is, in fact, good and bad publicity, right? Not all publicity, as it turns out, is good. What are the lessons you can take from how the Amber Heard conversation played out to what we're seeing now with Blake Lively? I think when these

celebrity trials are sort of way off in the distance, it's easy to imagine them as being this like star-studded affair the way we might think of a red carpet, where we think because these celebrities know other celebrities, everyone is going to get roped into everything. And leading up to the Depp-Herd trial,

in 2022, there were all these whispers of witnesses who were going to be subpoenaed. James Franco was going to be there. Elon Musk was going to be there. And when it came down to it, this was really just a

you know, domestic violence and libel suit that was litigated between these two people. I think similarly, there has been big interest in this case because of the Taylor Swift of it all and the Ryan Reynolds of it all that people wonder if all these other celebrities that they know are going to get roped into these legal proceedings when most likely if this comes to trial next March, it is going to just be

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. The thing is, I thought that this case was remarkable post Harvey Weinstein, right? Because it is about harassment. It is about onset behavior. It is about this woman saying that she was sexually harassed in the industry, but it really feels like the environment has changed.

Yeah, the environment has been very hostile towards Lively for reasons that feel, for the most part, largely out of her control. The Baldoni legal team has launched a pretty aggressive PR campaign throughout this trial. They've released kind of a really expansive extended complaint that anyone on the internet has access to and can read and judge, despite that also being edited and kind of selectively edited

made available. And I also think

it's difficult sometimes for the perceived more powerful celebrity to get through something like this unscathed. You know, the lively Reynolds empire is quite immense. And I think a certain kind of ire towards the rich right now means that people think of it as a kind of schadenfreude that this is happening to her when this is actually a pretty routine workplace complaint and should be taken as such.

Fran Hoffner, senior news writer with Vulture, thank you for being with us. Thank you so much. Next on CNN this morning, fast track for deportation, why the wife and five children of the Molotov cocktail attacker in Boulder could be forced to leave the U.S. Plus, inflation and debt have Americans feeling the squeeze, why it's about to get even tighter.

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We don't want America's future to be built with shoddy steel from Shanghai. We want it built with the strength and the pride of Pittsburgh. A new set of President Trump's tariffs just went into effect overnight. Good morning, everybody. I am Adi Cornish. I want to thank you for joining me on CNN this morning. It's half past the hour, and here's what's happening right now.

President Trump doubling U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum, which went into effect just a few hours ago. The number now stands at 50%. Now, while the import tax is getting support from the American steel industry, experts warn you can expect prices to go up on construction projects, cars, appliances, and at grocery stores.

And the jury in the movie mogul Harvey Weinstein's New York rape retrial is expected to begin deliberations later this morning. It took the jury five days to convict him of rape in 2020. That conviction was overturned on appeal last year.

And today, aid distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation will be closed for one day. The group's spokesperson says it's because of logistical preparation so that they can better handle the massive number of people arriving. It comes after three straight days of Palestinians being killed near the distribution sites.

And as the new steel tariffs kick in, President Trump expressing frustration there still isn't a deal with China. In the wee hours of this morning, the president posted on Truth Social, I like President Xi of China, always have and always will, but he is very tough and extremely hard to make a deal with. Three exclamation points. The White House suggested this week that there may be a call between Trump and President Xi to talk trade, but as far as we know, that hasn't happened yet.

CNN's Mark Stewart joins me now from Beijing. Good morning, Mark. And President Xi isn't actually going to be pulled into like some Oval Office meeting to talk about any of this, right? So what do you make of kind of how Trump is, in a way, publicly admitting that this is tougher than he thought it would be?

- Well, I'll tell you, Audie, I'm gonna hold up my phone. I keep the ringer up very loud just in case in the middle of the night we get word that the two leaders have a conversation that has still not come to fruition. In fact, this is not the first time the White House has made overtures of a possible phone call between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. In fact, if we look at the beginning of Trump 2.0, at the beginning of his second presidency, after an agreement was reached on TikTok,

he said that he would have a follow-up call with Xi Jinping, and that still has not happened. And as far as whether or not this will truly happen, it's not in China's way it does business. The one thing which I have picked up on from living here in China is that Xi Jinping and the Chinese Party, they prefer back-channel diplomatic conversations. And then once a deal is reached,

a phone call would occur. But obviously, we are seeing some snarls in this process. As we've reported before, there's been a lot of issues with the export controls that China has put on rare earth minerals, which are so important in making products like iPads, like EVs, even airplanes, so many different uses. That has still not come to fruition. So,

That's the sticking point right now, or one of the many sticking points. It was just on Friday I talked to the former U.S. ambassador to China, and he said he felt this 90-day period was rather ambitious and that it would likely have to be extended, this cooling-off period.

The U.S. ambassador to China, David Perdue, the current ambassador, he actually met with the Chinese foreign minister yesterday to your point about back channels. Can you just give me, in a nutshell, in the time we have left, like what is the state of the tariffs between the U.S. and China right now? 10 percent, 12 percent? Like what's the number at this point?

Right. I think the number is a sliding scale. I mean, I think the one thing that China wants out of this is respect. That it's not being told by the U.S. what it has to do. They want – the optics are going to matter. They want a deal that looks equitable to them and to the United States. But look, you mentioned the talks. We see these two leaders sitting side by side. I mean, that was at 11 o'clock last night and then 2.30 in the afternoon when I'm having coffee.

we get this post on Truth Social. So things are fragile right now. I don't know if it's about numbers as much as it is about principle and optics, Audie. All right. That's Mark Stewart in Beijing. Thanks so much.

Okay, entering the group chat because there is a Pittsburgh area code in the group chat, so you care about these steel tariffs. And you know, the notes I was reading is that basically he's saying this is a good thing and there are some people cheering it. What are your concerns? Well, I think steel tariffs are a terrible thing. Being from a steel family, being from a steel community,

There are going to be much more impacts on those who use steel, even in places like Pennsylvania. Just look at the headline in the Wall Street Journal today. Tariffs are projected to slow U.S. growth, raise inflation. This is what we've been saying all along. Now, Trump announced...

these 50% tariffs, at the same time he was announcing the Nippon U.S. Steel Deal, which is a good thing. I'm glad he did that to bring in fresh capital and technology from Japan so we can compete, American Steel can compete better against China. But raising tariffs to 50% is going to harm those people who make the cars, who make the appliances, who make the machines.

And the costs, we will lose far more jobs among the steel users than we will save among the steel producers. Yeah, it'll be interesting who speaks up for it, who does not. It is bad stuff. Okay, I want to turn to the Supreme Court because there is some reporting from CNN that President Trump is very disappointed with the Supreme Court justices that he appointed to the bench. And sources say he is most upset with his most recent appointee, Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

He feels like she's not sufficiently supported his agenda. He doesn't want to attack her publicly though. And in March, after Barrett voted against Trump's plan to cut foreign aid, Trump declined to criticize her publicly then too, telling reporters, she's a very good woman. She's very smart. While the president has been privately complaining for more than a year about Barrett, as well as Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, you wouldn't know it from his public comments.

I withstood vicious attacks to pick and confirm three great Supreme Court justices, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Good people, too. I took a lot of heat. I took a lot of heat. A lot of hits. But we did the right thing. They're great people.

I feel like it's not a coincidence that, you know, CNN is getting this learning from sources about him being upset when he has taken legal hit after legal hit after legal hit in the last six weeks. What's the sort of public sentiment among Republicans about the court?

Well, let's also take a step back to how many of these judges got on the court. There is a lot of infrastructure on the conservative side that during Trump's first term helped propel a lot of these folks into these positions that Trump is now sort of complaining about his first term appointees not giving him the victories he wants, which in my view represents sort of a fundamental misunderstanding of what judges are supposed to do. Judges are not supposed to be loyal to any particular politician.

appointing someone a judge is not supposed to guarantee that they give you what you want down the road. And so I think it's going to be fascinating because for the most part, if you think about those Supreme Court judges, those were huge victories for conservatives. I think about focus groups I've done where you will hear conservatives sort of complain about someone like Mitch McConnell at the same time that my Democratic friends would view him as he's the reason why you have this many Supreme

court justices. That it's just the sort of thing where conservatives being appointed to these courts and these victories by getting them in these seats is not necessarily a victory that is being appreciated by Donald Trump. Well, just to give you an example, right-wing supporter and conspiracy theorist Lara Loomer has been bashing Justice Barrett in their conversations with Trump. I wouldn't normally quote this, but she posted that Barrett was a DEI hire last month.

Well, I would say this. Look, part of this is what makes the Trump administration extremely different. Part of it is what makes it the same. Let's start with the same. A president being annoyed at his Supreme Court picks? Not weird. Happened a lot of times. They hire these people for a lifetime position. They put them on. They're going to be judges. They're not going to be your part of the administration. But I will say this, back to Chris's point, there was...

a time that Trump was seen as a vessel for another conservative movement. Get him in here, you can get the Federal Society judges on there, they do the Federal Society things.

Now we're looking at a moment with Trump where Trump was like, no, I'm the movement. I don't want Federalist Society judges. I want MAGA judges. People are going to do what I want to do. And that is sort of what the Republican Party is dealing with right now. They got a lot of stuff from Trump. But now Trump is saying, no, but I want stuff. And those things don't always sort of align. Yeah.

OK, you guys stay with me because we've got more to discuss today and I want to turn to something else. OK, and I know it's a little early for a quiz, but here goes. What do you get when you combine rising prices, soaring personal debt, sky high interest rates? The answer is economic trouble.

because even though inflation is cooling, President Trump's tariffs are expected to trigger higher prices soon. High interest rates are also suppressing sales of larger goods. And I was talking recently with the CEO of Klarna, the popular buy now, pay later service. He sees American consumers sinking further and further into debt.

I would not recommend anyone to put a burrito on buy now, pay later for clarity. But it is also partially because Kloner in the U.S. has become very associated with buy now, pay later. So according to Business Insider, the average credit card balance in America in 2024 was $6,730. Joining me now to discuss Elizabeth Renter, senior economist at NerdWallet. Thank you for being here with us this morning.

Thank you. Good morning. So I look at something like debt and credit card delinquencies when I look for sort of red flags in the economy for us, not for Wall Street. What do you look for?

I absolutely look at delinquency. So to your point, consumer debt is rising across debt types. It hit $18.2 trillion in the first quarter. That's a huge number. However, if you look at the growth in consumer debt, it's a little bit more modest if you're controlling for inflation. What is concerning is the delinquency rates and primarily the accounts that are moving into delinquency. So newly delinquent accounts.

accounts and newly seriously delinquent accounts are rising and that could spell trouble for households. And I'm glad you said across loan types because buy now pay later debt sometimes it's not clear they don't have to report all that to credit bureaus and it's not clear how much debt there is sometimes. At what point can personal debt become a destabilizing problem for the bigger economy right? I'm thinking back to the housing crisis in 2008.

Right. Well, I think that's the most obvious answer, right? If you're late on your mortgage and you have to foreclose, I don't see that in the data that we have available to us right now. What concerns me primarily right now at a household level is credit card debt. And that's because credit card interest rates are incredibly high right now. And people are taking on more credit card debt. So

While they may be able to afford their payments now, the probability of having a late payment in the coming three months, that's another metric that's rising. So we do think consumers see trouble on the horizon. If they reach a point where they're having a difficult time making those payments, those high interest rates can really be a compounding effect and make getting out of debt a significant struggle.

While we're talking about this, Congress is planning in their bill to make changes to the student loan program. These things may not seem related, but it means a lot of people may be hit with their debt repayment requirements or new rules very soon. Is that something that we should kind of keep an eye on?

Yeah, absolutely. That and the fact that student loan delinquencies are now being reported to the credit bureau. So this is another type of debt that we're seeing increase in the official data as it's been tracked a little differently after we had, you know, the long forbearance and then an on-ramp period. So these delinquencies are coming into the data now and that will be an additional burden on households that have student loan debt, which is a considerable number of Americans.

Elizabeth, one more thing. You mentioned that social media sometimes can play into people's concerns about prices, the recession. How much should we pay attention to the people who are recession-proofing their life online?

You know, I don't think recession-proofing your life is ever a bad idea. Recessions happen. It's a business cycle. The cycle word implies that it will happen eventually. And so I think looking for the one thing or the things that you can control to sort of tune out the chaos that you're seeing in the headlines is always a good idea, whether it's paying down your debt, bolstering your emergency fund, or revisiting your budget. That's Elizabeth Renters, Senior Economist at NerdWallet. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Still to come on CNN This Morning, a brown paper bag stuffed with cash, a non-disclosure agreement, a hotel security guard explains how rap mogul Sean Combs allegedly tried to buy his silence to keep a damaging video private. Plus, why a U.S. Navy ship named in honor of a gay rights activist is now being renamed. We're going to have more from the group chat after this.

The trial of rap mogul Sean Combs gets back underway in a New York courtroom in just a few hours. We're expected to hear testimony from a forensic video expert and another Diddy accuser. And this testimony comes just one day after a hotel security officer, Eddie Garcia, took the stand. He told the jury he was paid $100,000 by Combs to help make the now infamous hotel hallway video of Combs assaulting Cassie Ventura disappear.

He said Combs told him, quote, I sounded like a good guy, that I sounded like I wanted to help, that something like this could ruin him, and that he was concerned that this video would get out and that it would ruin his career. Eventually, Garcia turned over the video and signed a non-disclosure agreement. Garcia testified the payment was handed over all in cash in a brown paper bag, along with some advice from Diddy, do not make any big purchases with the money.

So joining me now to talk about this, Kelly Hyman, trial attorney and host of Unresolved, the Diddy Cases podcast. Thank you for being here. So this security guard stood out to me because he was testimony. His testimony came with immunity. What were the concerns like? What could they have charged him with?

So he was going to plead the fifth. And so you plead the fifth because of self-incrimination. You don't want to say anything that's going to harm you. Now, what they could potentially charge him with was obstruction of justice.

Also, they could charge him with tax evasion and bribery. So let's go back to the story of what allegedly happened. He was working as a security guard at the Intercontinental Hotel. There was this video that CNN published of Diddy coming out in a hotel. He was hitting Ms. Ventura.

And so Diddy allegedly paid him $100,000 to make sure that the video went away. So in regards to bribery, taking money for something in exchange for doing something, obstruction of justice for the fact that he was interfering, the security guard was interfering with a

potential police investigation. Instead he testifies and now prosecutors get to have something that contributes to their RICO charges, right? The idea that this is a criminal enterprise, paying people off left and right would be one of those operations of an enterprise. Right, what Diddy is charged with, he is charged with a RICO. He's also charged with sex trafficking and transportation across state lines. This goes to the heart of the RICO charge because in a RICO charge there's allegations that there was this

criminal enterprise and that Diddy was the kingpin of the enterprise. And so based on these predicate acts, and these are crimes that must occur in 10 years, such as extortion, such as bribery, obstruction of justice, and based on these alleged crimes,

that the prosecution assert that Diddy should be charged and convicted of RICO. - One more thing I have got to get in, there's going to be another accuser to take the stand under a pseudonym, it's a Jane Doe. Is this a significant moment? What do you think prosecutors are doing here with her?

It's a powerful moment for a survivor, someone who represents women that have been sex trafficking and been human trafficked. This is powerful. And this goes to the heart of the sex trafficking charges and also the transportation across

state lines. Jane Doe is not a real name to protect her identity, allegedly is going to testify that she was Diddy's ex-girlfriend and that she participated in these freak-offs without her consent because that is key. To go to the sex trafficking, the argument is that it was forced.

- Right. - Fraud or coercion. - Which is why they were showing Cassie's texts maybe of her speaking sweetly to Combs because they're trying to show that she was not coerced. And you're saying this new accuser is an attempt to sort of show a pattern maybe?

show absolutely show a pattern but also to go to the other charge of the sex trafficking charge as well. Absolutely. But the defense argument is going to be that the person was a willing participant, that they agreed to do it. As you pointed out, Ms. Ventura, there was text with her saying that she enjoyed these freak offs as well.

But ultimately, it's going to be up to the jury to make a determination whether he is guilty or innocent. But it's important to note that in the Southern District of New York, the conviction rate is over 95%. Okay, Kelly Hyman, trial attorney. Thank you for that data point. And if you can't get enough of following the legal ins and outs of this trial, please check out the CNN podcast hosted by my friend Laura Coates, Trial by Jury. New episodes are out almost every day, wherever you get your podcasts.

It's now 53 minutes past the hour and here is your morning roundup. The wife and five children of the Egyptian national charged in the Boulder, Colorado anti-Semitic Molotov cocktail attack are facing an expedited deportation. The State Department revoked their visas. CNN previously reported the family's U.S. immigration status as unclear.

and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordering the Navy to rename a ship honoring murdered gay rights activist and Navy veteran Harvey Milk. This is as June Pride Month gets underway. It's rare for a ship to be renamed. It hasn't happened on the order of the defense secretary in recent memory. We don't know yet what the new name will be, but that will officially happen later this month.

And the nuclear deal with Iran seems to be crumbling. Just a short time ago, Iran's supreme leader called out America's, quote, rude and arrogant leaders, saying they will not abandon their nuclear enrichment. That's a hard line for the U.S. president. Trump posting on Truth Social earlier this week that the U.S. will not allow any enrichment of uranium.

And in just a few hours, Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee will be meeting at the White House with President Trump. They'll be trying to iron out issues they and other Republicans have with the president's big, but apparently not so beautiful, budget bill.

We need to try to reduce spending as much as we possibly can. We want to make the bill better, and so the House, like I said, they sent us a great framework. We don't plan on tearing down the framework. I'm still going through the issues that I see as problematic. I'm looking at the changes in education programs like Pell Grants.

When Notice asked Senator Tom Tillis what he expects to come from the meeting, he said, a miracle. The group chat is back. The author of that story, subtle description of the nuanced conversations at play. What do you see? Well, you know, I'm just harmonizing the great reporting from the Notice reporters all over again. Yeah, but a miracle.

Yeah, I mean, look, I think that there are a lot of divides and splits over this bill, sort of what people actually want to see in it, how it's going to work. You know, these various lawmakers are worried about their elections next cycle, right? But

I will say this. We saw in the House a lot of us arguing, but Mike Johnson said we're going to pass it by Memorial Day, and they did. So we'll see what happens in the Senate, but I don't think that anybody has told us directly yet that they're not going to vote for it. But I do think that they do think it's going to take a lot of lift to get it to a place where they can.

The only thing this reconciliation process is about is extending the 2017 tax cuts. All the other stuff, all the cuts, I don't think Donald Trump is particularly interested in it. All they want to do is extend the tax cuts. That is the complete and total motivation. But don't you need the math to work to extend the tax cuts? No, you don't need the math because what the Senate will do is they'll say this, they'll call it current policy. In other words, that the

the law is the law and that if you if it gets into the scoring yeah yeah we're not going to go to a certain there's no impact on the deficit that is good that's what they're gonna do person see once you start explaining once even you know back when we were in the wings just moments ago I was showing them some of my polling that had shown when you ask Republicans and you give them the choice you have to rank what do you care more about lower taxes are cutting the deficit

they tend to pick lower taxes and that's probably what it is. So that to me sounds like a messaging thing because right now when I think about how this bill is talked about, it's about cutting Medicaid. Like I feel like if you ask the average person, they might think it's just a Medicaid bill. Well, that's what the Democrats' message is or I think is the one that they're sort of coalescing around. I think Democrats have been- But like Republicans raising it doesn't help that, right? If you have a- Well, it doesn't in fact cut Medicaid by a lot. So I mean, it's also in the bill, right? I mean-

We have some polling, actually some, it's not, I don't know if it's just the snuff of your polling, but we have some polling in the Newsletter today. Well, it's a Democratic, you know, it's an anti-bill coalition has done some polling. And, you know, they say that there's a lot of messaging that can be done on this. There's only a third of people

actually have a strong opinion on this bill of that third most of them don't like it and when they get told what is in it and they and what these this group you know proclaims to be a neutral way they don't like it because because it does a lot more stuff besides just cut taxes so that's one thing we're keeping an eye on i want to know what else you guys are keeping an eye on this week christian can i start with you sure so i'm a proud florida gator and there's a little bit of

drama happening down in the Sunshine State. The appointment of the next president of the university was put forward by the UF Board of Trustees, but it has to be approved by a statewide board of governors appointed by Ron DeSantis. This candidate, the now former president of the University of Michigan, was accused by those in Florida of being too progressive, of having been too lenient on protesters. Too woke. Just say woke. Well,

Well, and that is part of why this board voted him down. So now UF has to re-begin its whole presidential search. This plugs into so many of the sort of tentacles around this whole debate over what does higher ed look like in the U.S. today. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Charlie. Usually the White House is very chatty on true social, the president. And I'm waiting for the president's tweet or comments on Ukraine's very successful attack

on all these Russian assets. Yes, which was all over social media. Haven't heard anything from the president and also haven't heard anything from the president on, oh, Elon Musk comments yesterday. Again, usually we get a reaction. Okay, Evan. Well, tonight is scheduled to be the first televised debate in the New York mayor's race. A really fascinating time in New York where I live. Democrats are sort of fighting Democrats

a lot right now. The Lieutenant Governor is running against the governor. A former governor is going to be on stage for the first time, really being televised, Cuomo, in this mayor's race. It's a really fascinating election, and I'm excited to see the next phase and what happens now that it really gets in front of the voters. Yeah, and interesting, I feel like New York has become some kind of weather vane about Democratic politics specifically. So it'll be interesting to see what people talk about on stage.

Well, yeah, it'll be interesting because mostly the way this campaign has been run is that Cuomo has not been seen that much in a lot of press events or, you know, taking questions. This is the first time we're going to see like a real test of his campaign against other candidates. OK, appreciate all of you. You got me looking out on Truth Social now to see if Trump's going to say anything about this. Thank you to the group chat and thank you for waking up with us. I'm Audie Cornish and CNN News Central starts right now.

Take a journey with your favorite stars to their favorite places in the new CNN original series, My Happy Place. Join Alan Cumming, Taraji P. Henson, Simu Liu, and more. A new episode of My Happy Place premieres Sunday at 10 on CNN.