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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Trump Threatens New Tariffs on Canada as Soon as Today; New York Times Reports on Explosive Trump Cabinet Meeting With Musk; Incoming FBI Deputy Director Previously Called Agency Corrupt; SpaceX's Starship Rocket Explodes Midflight For A Second Time; Military Set To Remove Enola Gay Photos For Violating DEI Rules. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired March 07, 2025 - 18:00   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper.

This hour, a whirlwind week wraps at the White House from on again, off again, tariffs to White House meeting that reportedly led to Elon Musk fighting with secretaries in the cabinet.

[18:00:09]

What is the strategy behind all this activity and chaos, or is there even one?

Plus, a surge of new measles cases, not just in Texas now, but also in neighboring New Mexico. And health officials in both states are warning that the number of those infected is almost guaranteed to keep going up.

And another explosive failure for Elon Musk's SpaceX, leading to hundreds of grounded flights as rocket debris falls out of the sky. The new investigation into what went wrong.

Our Lead Tonight is the growing uncertainty around the United States as President Trump continues to make dramatic policy pivots back and forth.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny joins us from the White House. Jeff?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Jake, this trade policy and the tariffs toward Canada and Mexico literally have changed day by day. But as the president ends his day here at the White House, he just left moments ago to fly to Florida, he threatened the idea of imposing more tariffs on Canada, particularly in the dairy and lumber sections.

These are two sectors that have long been at the center of disputes over trade between the two countries, but taken together after imposing tariffs on Tuesday, removing autos from the tariff lift on Wednesday, removing other companies on Thursday, this raises the questions, what is next in this trade war here?

It does seem to be one thing is clear, the markets have been very uncertain about the reaction to all of this. But Canada clearly is front and center in the president's crosshairs here. He had a very heated conversation with the Canadian prime minister earlier this week. He's on his way out, of course. So, that clearly seems to be something that's on Trump's mind, even as he has many other examples of whiplash here on the seventh week of the Trump presidency.

TAPPER: And, Jeff, President Trump is today threatening sanctions and tariffs against Russia, I think, for not coming to the peace table quickly enough. What did he say about the state of negotiations to end this war?

ZELENY: Well, Jake, the state of negotiations are very much alive considering how they were just a week ago tonight after Volodymyr Zelenskyy left the White House, was in fact thrown out of the White House after that diplomatic breakdown that we all remember so well. But now the negotiations are back on, U.S. officials are scheduled to be in Saudi Arabia next week, Ukrainian officials are as well.

But the president for the first time today, really, in several weeks, he threatened to impose new sanctions on Russia. But then he dialed that back in the Oval Office today, saying he thinks Russia also wants to make peace.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I'm finding it more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine. And they don't have the cards. They don't have the cards. As you know, we're meeting in Saudi Arabia sometime next week, early. And we're talking. We're going to find that in terms of getting a final settlement, it may be easier dealing with Russia, which is surprising because they have all the cards. I mean, and they're bombing the hell out of them right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: So, officials say the president is trying to bring both sides to the negotiating table, again, mentioning potentially new sanctions on Russia earlier today, and then not repeating that as he talked in the Oval Office. But, again, President Zelenskyy issued a message on social media thanking the United States and saying he's working with Trump officials.

So, Jake, as we end this week here at the White House, dramatically different development in terms of the potential of peace talks with Ukraine. Again, keep an eye on those meetings next week in Saudi Arabia.

TAPPER: All right. Jeff Zeleny at the White House for us, thanks so much.

We're learning new details today from The New York Times about an explosive White House meeting yesterday, where, behind the scenes, Elon Musk clashed with several members of Trump's cabinet. At one point, according to the Times, Musk attacked Secretary of State Marco Rubio for firing, quote, nobody at the State Department, telling him that he was good on T.V., with The New York Times reporters noting, quote, the clear subtext being that he wasn't good for much else, unquote.

Joining us on the phone, The New York Times Maggie Haberman, who along with Jonathan Swan broke the story. Maggie, what led to the blow ups between Elon Musk and these cabinet secretaries?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: So, Jake, this meeting was called -- this cabinet meeting was called abruptly on Wednesday evening. Not all of the cabinet was there because of that. Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, who's among the people who has had tensions with Musk's effort, was giving a speech in New York and wasn't present.

But a number of cabinet officials have been frustrated with the approach that DOGE is taking, Musk's cost cutting initiative.

[18:05:00]

Not that they disagree with the idea or the concept behind it, but just with the chainsaw, you know, across the board efforts that are not always in close coordination with their agencies. What's more Trump has been hearing directly from lawmakers about concerns that their constituents are voicing.

And so all of this led to this cabinet meeting where Trump said that going forward, you know, the cabinet officials make the decision, DOGE will advise. Some of this also, Jake, is guided by lawsuits that are going on.

But at the top of the meeting, Musk pointed out that he owns or has three companies that have a market cap of tens of billions of dollars and that his results speak for themselves and that sort of set the tone for what he sees the government and the contrast with how cabinet secretaries who have to manage the workforce can operate.

Doug Collins spoke first in terms of a back and forth with Musk, the V.A. secretary. That was fairly stayed (ph). Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, had a pretty contentious back and forth with Musk. He accused Musk of trying to fire air traffic controllers in the midst of what is a crisis for the FAA. And then came Rubio, and that was the tensest exchange. And Rubio has been complaining privately to people for weeks about how disruptive Musk's effort has been.

TAPPER: The president was asked today about this clash between Musk and Rubio. And just for the record, you're one of the most deeply sourced, respected journalists in the business. But President Trump said there was no clash. What was your response to that?

HABERMAN: There was a clash, and he was there, so he knows it. But this was a meeting where he was not -- there were a couple of clashes, although, Jake, maybe not as many as there might have been, had Musk not been so sharp with Rubio in particular, but also Duffy. Most of the cabinet members who were there have privately expressed some version of this.

What Jonathan and I learned as we were talking to people is that the president said very little during this meeting. He mostly just watched the spectacle as if he were watching some kind of a sporting event.

TAPPER: Yes, let them fight. There was also a moment that you talked about where or that you caught you and Jonathan wrote about in the Times during the clash between Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation, and Elon Musk, where Musk made a claim and Duffy said something along the lines of just like, that's not true what you're saying,

HABERMAN: Right. Well, there were a couple of moments of back and forth like that. Musk -- Duffy said to Musk that DOGE had tried to fire air traffic controllers. Musk said that that was a lie and demanded names. And Duffy said there aren't names because I stopped this from happening. And then at another point, Musk said that Duffy has DEI hires, which, you know, the administration's made a huge move to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs, that some DEI hires are still in the control towers as part of the air traffic control system. And Duffy pushed back on that. And, you know, that was one of the many back and forth.

TAPPER: Amazing reporting produced by Maggie Haberman. Thanks so much for joining us.

Let's bring our political panel in. We have with us, former Chief of Staff for Senator Mitch McConnell Brian McGuire. With me in studio, CNN Political Commentator Karen Finney.

Karen, what's your -- first of all, thank God for Maggie and Jonathan. It's always good to know what's actually going on, and good for Rubio and Duffy for standing up for themselves and for the facts and, again, good for President Trump for listening to them. What's your reaction?

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's not surprising because when, you know, when Doge started, we didn't have the cabinet secretaries in place and they're now there and they're realizing they're accountable. I mean, I would imagine Sean Duffy's feeling like, wait a second, I'm accountable for making sure that for air safety. I can't do that effectively if you're just going to willy- nilly cut people. So, it's not surprising.

And, again, this seems to be another example where the rubber is meeting the road as, you know, this sort of same tactic that Musk used when he went to Twitter and just kind of got rid of people and then sorted it out. You can't do that when you're actually accountable to living, breathing human beings who are expecting services and, frankly, 80 percent of the people we're talking about aren't actually here in Washington. They're out in the country

TAPPER: Yes. Look, if Twitter goes down nobody dies.

FINNEY: Right.

TAPPER: That's not same thing. Brian, I want to read you another part of Maggie's reporting, quote, Thursday's meeting, which was abruptly scheduled on Wednesday evening, was a sign that Mr. Trump is mindful of the growing complaints. He tried to offer each side something by praising both Mr. Musk and his cabinet secretaries. The president made clear he still supported DOGE's mission but now is the time, he said, to be a bit more refined in its approach, unquote.

[18:10:06]

I imagine some of this is going to come as welcome news to Republican members of the Senate and House who have been getting an earful from their constituents.

BRIAN MCGUIRE, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF, SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL: Well, look the president's management style, I think, was on full display yesterday. It's very common in Hill offices, and I think a lot of corporate boardrooms for, you know, staff to resolve issues before they go in to see the boss. And the president clearly has a very different style. He likes people to hash it out in front of him. We saw it a little bit in the Zelenskyy meeting where the whole world watched as they essentially negotiated, you know, the U.S. position vis-a-vis Ukraine. We saw it or heard about it, read about it in the reporting The New York Times in that meeting, none of us was in that meeting, but it just strikes me that this is the way the president likes to resolve issues. And he's comfortable with that. I think he was probably comfortable with the exchange that took place and viewed it as constructive.

We all view it sort of, you know, a little bit currently from the outside kind of, you know, as some kind of a scandalous eruption, and maybe, you know, there was some tense moments, but I think this is the way the president likes to do things.

TAPPER: Yes, no doubt. Karen, we're seeing a flip from the Trump administration today. Earlier, the Social Security Administration informed the state of Maine that they were going to cancel a contract allowing parents to apply for Social Security numbers for their babies at the hospital right after the baby is born, that they were not going to do that. So, the parents, you know, were going to have to go to the Social Security office. A lot of complaints, obviously, about that.

Today the Social Security administrator is walking it back, saying they will leave the contract in place for Maine and all states. What's your take on that?

FINNEY: You know, picking up on what Brian was saying about the way Trump likes to govern is by retribution. And I have to say, the first, when I saw that story, I thought, I wonder if this is part of the retribution he is trying to exact against Maine's governor, because remember, they had that tense exchange when the governors were here over LGBTQ and transgender students, and, you know, it was, got down to, I'll see you in court, and I thought, oh, this is, you know, a little bit of punishment. Maybe somebody showed him and said, look, this is how many votes you got in Maine, and he decided to change course.

But thank goodness, I mean, it's another example of the kind of decisions that are being made without really thinking through how it's going to impact people in their lives on the ground. And certainly, the people, new parents in Maine shouldn't be punished simply because somebody didn't, you know, take the time to pay attention to actually what that would have meant for people. TAPPER: I mean, a lot of these decisions, Brian, are having a real world impact. If you call the Social Security office, you will hear this recorded message. Let's play some of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you are calling about the status of a disability application, our average processing time for disability applications is between 200 to 230 days.

The estimated hold time is greater than 120 minutes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Estimated hold time is greater than 120 minutes, and it says that's because of staffing shortages.

At some point -- look, we all want government efficiency. We all want to get rid of waste fraud and abuse. We don't know if this message was in place before President Trump took office, we should note. But there's a lot of attention going to the quality of the services that people are getting. And there's going to be -- are you worried at all about Americans being upset about that if services go in the wrong direction?

MCGUIRE: Look, anybody who's watching the show, who's ever had to get an answer from the IRS quickly understands that government does not move at the pace that we would like it to.

TAPPER: 100 percent.

MCGUIRE: I don't know whether that message was in place before the administration either. But I do know it's taken weeks for me to get answers from the IRS on urgent, you know, tax issues.

Elon Musk is the most successful entrepreneur of our lifetimes. I think, you know, putting him in charge of reorganizing or, you know, streamlining government is a smart move. It's going to be messy. It's going to, you know, have moments of disruption, for sure. I'm betting on Elon Musk to fix a lot of the problems in our government. I think the general public probably agrees with that proposition.

TAPPER: Yes, no, no doubt. In Zootopia, anybody out there who has kids, you see Zootopia, there's a reason that they had the sloths as the ones working at the DMV.

Brian. Karen, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

He once called the FBI and abomination to the country.

[18:15:01]

So, how are FBI agents preparing for Dan Bongino to take one of the agency's top jobs?

Plus, thousands gathered in D.C. today to protest President Trump's cuts to scientific research. I'm going to be joined by one of them, a cancer survivor, who says the lives of Americans will be put at risk if changes aren't made.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our Law and Justice Lead, MAGA podcaster and former Secret Service Agent Dan Bongino is not starting his FBI deputy director job until later this month, likely because he's still got obligations, financial obligations for his podcast. Meanwhile, FBI employees are bracing for his arrival, given Bongino's past ire and criticism of the agency, criticism he often aired out on his podcast. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN BONGINO, HOST, THE DAN BONGINO SHOW: This agency serves no good purpose anymore. The agency needs to be disbanded. The funding, like I said, expand the funding, not about -- they're not -- you're not funding law enforcement. You're now funding Democrat Party bar bouncers.

The FBI is an absolute disaster. It is an abomination to the country. The corruption needs to be immediately defunded. The FBI should not -- no longer exists as it's constituted now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: But Bongino is going to be deputy director of the FBI as he prepares for his show to end. He wants to make it clear that his opinionated role on the podcast will be separate and distinct from his new position at the FBI.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BONGINO: I am still a political opinion host on this podcast. I've treated it as such. I will treat my FBI position the exact opposite way. I am not a partisan individual in that job. There is going to be a -- it's not a fine line, it is a bold line.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: CNN's Josh Campbell and CNN's John Miller, both of whom previously served different roles in the FBI, join us now.

John Miller, how might Bongino run the FBI not only given his past criticism of the agency, but the criticism of the FBI director, Kash Patel?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, I mean there's three points there. Number one, it's a real stab to morale of FBI agents, whether they're new agents coming out of the academy or whether veterans have been there for years when the person who is coming in as the day-to-day leader of operations, the deputy director, believes that your organization is incompetent, corrupt, beyond repair and involved in criminal activity since he has suggested at various times that the bombs that were left out near the Capitol on January 6th were probably an inside job by the FBI. The second thing is, how is he going to run it? Given that, first, he has to learn it. The deputy director is the person who the director is supposed to rely on, because the director comes from the outside, who has that intimate knowledge of everything in the FBI and how it works.

And, finally, the third point is he basically takes an agency that has one political appointee, just the director, where everybody else's career, so that they're not involved in politics, and adds a de facto second political appointee since he's not coming from within the ranks of the agents.

TAPPER: And, Josh, how are Bongino's past criticism and conspiracy theories, such as the one John just mentioned, where he claims that the pipe bombs planted near the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee ahead of the January 6 Capitol riot was a, quote, inside job, how is this all playing inside the FBI rank and file?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Not very well, and it's interesting, you know, people I'm hearing from, their own personal political beliefs span the spectrum. And it really comes down to two things I'm hearing. First is experience. John just outlined the critical nature of that deputy director job, the person who runs the bureau on a day-to-day or purpose, you know? But you go back and look at his record. He was a Secret Service agent. He wasn't a senior executive. For all intents and purposes, he served honorably inside the Secret Service, but he wasn't in a senior management position. He didn't have that experience.

The second is, as you mentioned his own words, you know, over the years here, criticizing the FBI, calling them corrupt, calling them, you know, all kinds of foul things and spreading these conspiracy theories. Interestingly, so many people inside the FBI believe that a lot of these, you know, lies and half truths that have been told about the FBI over the years was done to try to protect Donald Trump, to destroy the credibility of the one agency that was investigating his alleged crimes.

Now, Jake, as you mentioned, Bongino has said that his politics will not impact his work at the FBI, but for FBI agents and analysts who are trained to draw conclusions based on someone's past statements, they're not so sure.

TAPPER: And, John Miller, this comes at a time when FBI employees gathered just yesterday to bid adieu to a senior FBI official from the New York office who was forced by the Trump administration to retire.

MILLER: And that is not just a stab to FBI morale, this is someone who is regarded within the ranks of the FBI as a hero for speaking up for the honesty and integrity of the agents and the essential nature of their being divorced and removed from politics to operate clearly, and he paid a price for that.

And I think that is the thing that worries them more, which is this is not the last one. Other special agents in charge have been removed. Other executives are being slated to go, so they've been told. And, again, you have a couple of political appointees, now a third political appointee in the Office of Public Affairs. They seem to be moving people out. So, the message is, we're going to be running this, and the White House is going to have a lot of influence on that.

TAPPER: All right. John Miller, Josh Campbell, thanks to both of you. I appreciate it.

An update today from health officials on the measles outbreak in West Texas, which is now spreading to nearby New Mexico. Is there any way to stop the spread?

[18:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: New in our Health Lead today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, says that the MMR, the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, is still the most important tool to prevent measles. That guidance comes as nearly 200 measles cases are now being reported in West Texas, mostly among unvaccinated patients, with the virus spreading more widely outside Texas now.

CNN's Meg Tirrell is here. Meg, what is the latest on this outbreak?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jake, I mean, these cases are spreading so quickly, mainly in West Texas and also in New Mexico and a neighboring county, that now 2025 is off to a start for measles cases where we are almost at the number of cases we saw in 2024 already.

[18:30:09]

So -- and these data that we have here are even slightly outdated because they don't include today's updates from Texas and from New Mexico. But already you're seeing we're approaching that number that we saw last year.

So, with today's update in Texas, we are now up to almost 200 cases, 198, including 23 hospitalizations, and, of course, that death in a school age child. And in New Mexico now, we're learning that there are 30 identified cases. And they are also investigating a death of somebody there who died and then tested positive for measles.

So, they're still investigating the cause of this death, and they're not officially saying it was a death from measles. What they have said is that this is a person who was unvaccinated and hadn't sought medical care. But, Jake, potentially two deaths in 230 identified cases, what experts tell us is that suggests there are a lot more unidentified cases, most likely, because, typically, you don't see such a high case fatality rate.

TAPPER: So, the CDC said that the MMR vaccine is still the most important tool to prevent measles, but the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Secretary Robert of Kennedy Jr., would not directly tell people to get the vaccine. Now, we learn today that the Department of Health and Human Services is making a new request of the CDC having to do with this unproven -- I should say disproven theory of links that vaccines, childhood vaccines cause autism.

This has been studied for decades now. There is -- vaccines do not cause autism, but tell us about what HHS is asking CDC to look into.

TIRRELL: Yes, Jake. We did learn that HHS made the ask to CDC to study vaccines and autism. And The Washington Post also reported this. They said that what they've learned is that the CDC was going to do this using the vaccine safety data link, which is an existing safety monitoring system that they have to investigate sort of rare complications that may pop up.

And so we don't yet know what form this is going to take. But, of course, you know, when we went through the confirmation hearings with RFK Jr., this was something he got pressed on quite a lot. And Senator Cassidy tried to get him to assure him that he wouldn't reinvestigate this thoroughly debunked link, and here we are.

TAPPER: All right. Meg Tirrell, thank you so much for that update.

Also in our Health Lead, protesters convened in Washington D.C. today to voice their anger and their fears about Trump administration cutbacks to scientific research, including my next guest, the first pediatric leukemia patient to undergo a now vital experimental treatment, a treatment that would not have been possible without the very facilities now under threat of being eliminated. Emily Whitehead is here along with her father, Tom.

So, Emily, to get everybody up to speed here, you were only -- you're almost 20. You were just five when you were first diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. And even after you were in remission, it came back a few years later. What do you remember most from that time of your life?

EMILY WHITEHEAD, CHILDHOOD CANCER SURVIVOR: Yes. So, at this point I don't remember too much. Now that I'm getting older, I really only remember the good memories that I had, like in the hospital playroom, the child life specialists were really important, and they were the ones who gave me the good memories rather than keeping the bad ones.

TAPPER: That's nice. Then this was at Children's Hospital Philadelphia?

E. WHITEHEAD: Yes.

TAPPER: It's a wonderful facility.

Tom. I can't even imagine what this was like. Thank God, the story has a happy ending. When her cancer came back, you enrolled her in a clinical trial for a treatment that was new at the time. It's called CAR T-cell therapy. How did you make that call?

TOM WHITEHEAD, EMILY'S FATHER: Yes. Well, at the time, Jake, our options were then take her home and enjoy the days you have left with her or enroll in this new trial where they'll remove her T-cells, take them to the lab, genetically modify them, and they'll recognize and kill her cancer. We knew that the standard treatment had failed her twice over 22 months. And we just knew that we needed something off the shelf, something different. And it had never been tried on any child in the world.

But we were very hopeful and not ready to give up. So, we entered her into that trial and stayed strong. It was a really tough time over the next couple weeks when she was on a ventilator in a coma. We had one night when they told us there was a one in a thousand chance she'd survive the night. And then she did survive, woke up on her seventh birthday from that coma. And it changed the world and gave us a fourth pillar on how to fight cancer, where before we had radiation surgery, chemotherapy, and now you have training in the immune system.

So, we received a miracle and every day we try to pay it forward now and help whoever calls us to find the next advanced therapy when standard treatment doesn't work.

TAPPER: So, Emily, you spoke today at the protest alongside many other people in the scientific community whose livelihoods are at risk, who have devoted themselves -- there you are. Look at you and you look good.

[18:35:11]

That's not easy to speak in front of a big crowd for a 19-year-old.

Anyway, these people have dedicated their lives to trying to find cures to save lives of people like you. I mean, and thank God that those doctors were doing that and those researchers were doing it.

As you know, the Trump administration's federal cuts are targeting facilities and like the one where your life-saving therapy was developed. What's your message to the people talking about these kinds of major cuts?

E. WHITEHEAD: Yes I think the most important thing is that without funding, without the funding that went into the research, they created CAR T-cell therapy, I wouldn't be here today. And I think a lot of other kids would be in the same situation. There were a lot of CAR T patients after me where it was their last option. And without the research that went into developing therapies like that, me and a lot of other kids would not be here today.

TAPPER: Yes, because there's not -- it's not like commerce sees a lot of money in developing experimental therapies to save the lives of kids. I mean, that's not a money-making -- you don't go into it to make money. And we're in a capitalistic system, and that's fine, and, you know, I mean, without the government helping, where are we?

T. WHITEHEAD: Yes. And what I would say is, you know, we're trying to rally the awareness of what happened because there isn't anybody out there that doesn't want to help more kids survive cancer. But when we all work together, it leads to treatments like Emily got in from families like ours and from all over the world, for all the people in the science field and the philanthropy that funded it early on.

And then you know, meeting Dr. Francis Collins at one point, he told me that he kept the picture of Emily on his desk by his children to remind him why he came to work every day. But it really can change the world when everybody works together and puts the funding in an important place like that.

And it did prove too that research in children can lead to treatments in adults as well because it also works in B-cell lymphoma for adults. And it's led to 50,000 patients in over 70 countries finding hope in a trial when standard treatment doesn't work.

TAPPER: So, it's good to have a miracle here in the studio with us, a miracle and her dad. Thanks so much, Emily and Tom. It's really -- it's an honor to have you here. Thank you for sharing your story.

E. WHITEHEAD: Thank you.

Another launch for SpaceX ends in an explosion with debris falling out of the sky. And now, a new investigation into why two launches in a row have been spectacular failures,

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:40:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She is tumbling and spewing fuel. It's like a whirlpool galaxy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: That's a new view of that SpaceX Starship explosion in our, out of the worldly -- Out of This World Lead today. This is telescope video posted on the YouTube channel, Astronomy Live. All the debris from last night's rocket explosion, led air traffic controllers to delay or divert hundreds of flights.

As CNN's Pete Muntean reports, this malfunction and another last month are now the focus of an investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks like we are losing attitude control of the ship.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The investigation is just beginning into why the uncrewed SpaceX Starship spun out of control Thursday, raining fiery debris down on the Caribbean, a near repeat of the previous Starship test flight seven weeks ago, streamed live.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We did see the ship start to go into a spin and at this point we have lost contact with the ship.

MUNTEAN: Starship's booster successfully returned to the launch pad caught by the so called chopsticks, but the out of control upper stage burned up in the Earth's atmosphere, creating brilliant streaks of light but also a risk to commercial flights.

The path of concern ran east from the Starbase launch pad in South Texas, triggering the Federal Aviation Administration to briefly halt flights to Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, and Miami due to space launch debris and causing other flights to delay or divert.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: American 923, we just had the rocket launch and it blew up. If you guyrs are closer to the debris and need to deviate, let us know. If you're just seeing it, that's okay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They've stopped everything. So I don't know how long the delay is going to be for you.

MUNTEAN: It is the latest mishap for SpaceX that has caused problems on the ground. The last launch of Starship on January 16th ended in much the same way, with debris ultimately washing up on shore in Turks and Caicos.

Now, the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees private space launches, is mandating SpaceX conduct another mishap investigation for the second time this year.

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE AND DEFENSE ANALYST: A lot of questions now are going to be asked, you know, did the FAA do a thorough enough investigation into Flight Test 7 before Test Flight 8?

MUNTEAN: Posting on X, Elon Musk called the explosion a minor setback. Progress is measured by time, Musk said, responding to a user. The next ship will be ready in four to six weeks.

GARRETT REISMAN, FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT AND FORMER SPACEX SENIOR ADVISER: The FAA's job is not really to make SpaceX successful. Their job is to make sure that nobody gets hurt.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MUNTEAN (on camera): Again, nobody hurt in this explosion, what SpaceX called a rapid, unplanned disassembly. The private space company insists parts that fell to Earth are not toxic and won't impact water quality.

Though, the impact on air travel was big. The FAA just said a total of 239 flights were either delayed or diverted by falling space debris. Jake?

TAPPER: All right. Pete Muntean, thank you so much.

Let's bring in CNN Aerospace Analyst Miles O'Brien. Miles whatever you call it, a rapid -- I didn't catch that term that SpaceX uses, rapid disassembly --

[18:45:03]

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Rapid, unplanned disassembly.

TAPPER: Yes, which is -- O'BRIEN: Rocket go boom, Jake.

TAPPER: Yes, exactly.

O'BRIEN: Rocket go boom.

TAPPER: That's pretty -- that's pretty amazing.

O'BRIEN: Yeah. You know, NASA used to use or they still use this term off nominal, which I thought was a euphemism. This takes the euphemism to a new level. It's funny watching that image. It kind of looks like a Hubble image of a spiral galaxy.

TAPPER: Yeah.

O'BRIEN: This is -- you know, this is the SpaceX credo is launch, fail, learn, test, repeat, and we're watching it. And here we are on number eight. And they still haven't had a success.

TAPPER: So this launch failed at about the same point as Januarys test. What's going on at -- at that moment in a launch that makes -- makes it obviously so difficult to negotiate?

O'BRIEN: Well, it's two big pieces. There's the super heavy first stage, which worked fine. You saw that being captured by those so- called chopsticks, which is pretty cool. But after separation, the thing we called -- he calls the ship, the Starship itself, which has its own set of engines.

Evidently not all those engines fired. And as that happened, it began to tumble. And once it tumbled, that was the end of the game for that. So they've been tinkering around with the plumbing, looking for leaks. And apparently they didn't get all of them.

You know what's interesting? A lot of people watching space and a lot of people inside NASA watch this and, and would say, you know, NASA would never be allowed to fail like this. And repeatedly, it just would be congressional investigations. They'd want to shut down the whole enterprise.

And Elon gets to play by a different set of rules because it's a private enterprise. And -- and when things go bad, he pulls the plug on the feed. And we really don't know a lot about what happens. They don't operate in the open the way NASA does.

TAPPER: Interesting.

All right. Miles O'Brien, thank you so much, as always for your expertise.

Coming up, why photos of war heroes and history makers are set to be deleted as part of a Pentagon purge. That story is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:51:12] TAPPER: In our politics lead. Take a look at this historic photograph. It shows the aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan in World War II.

But according to "The Associated Press", this is one of more than 26,000 images that have been flagged for deletion from military branches, as Trump's Pentagon works to purge DEI content, diversity, equity and inclusion.

Now, you're probably wondering what on earth DEI has to do with this photograph of a plane. And apparently, it's the aircraft name. The name of the plane, famously or infamously, is Enola Gay. The key word there obviously is gay.

CNN's Oren Liebermann is here.

Oren, when I first heard about this story, I saw it on social media. I thought it was a joke. I thought they were making fun of how outrageous and how outlandish these anti DEI purges are going to be. But it's not just Enola Gay, its other images of war heroes, references to military firsts, the Tuskegee Airmen, et cetera, et cetera. Just erased from history?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: It's -- it's get rid of anything that could be related to DEI and get rid of it fast. And -- and the Pentagon officially is -- is applauding this effort. They say in the rare cases where -- there's a mistake made, they'll deal with it with the component.

But they confirm the database of 26,000 photos, including photos that celebrate Black History Month in the Pentagon, women in the service, which is not something that that has always been the case, that celebrate the history of integration in the military. And they've been flagged as part of a purge, as part of deletion, or at the very least, archiving it so that you can't get to it.

And this is the effort. And it's not just the 26,000 photos in this database. That number, according to a military official, could go as high as 100,000. And they want this effort to go quickly to get rid of anything that that -- that frankly smacks to them of DEI.

TAPPER: But the armed forces were segregated until Harry Truman -- President Truman desegregated them. They -- they want to just erase that from the history. Is this -- is this going to be -- is it going to get worse? Is there are they going to do more?

LIEBERMANN: That appears to be the intent with that number possibly going higher. Worth noting the Pentagon is the first integrated building in Virginia during World War II. Back to the Enola Gay, it looks like they were flagging anything that included the word gay, including pictures in the database where the service members last name was Gay.

TAPPER: It's just stupid. I mean -- anyway, Oren Liebermann, thanks so much.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:58:18]

TAPPER: "THE UNITED STATES OF SCANDAL" is back this weekend for season two. This Sunday's episode focuses on the Abscam scandal. The FBI is complex and undercover and bizarre scheme to offer -- to offer politicians cash bribes through hidden camera meetings with a fake sheikh.

Here's a preview question.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The question in all the trials where entrapment was asserted as a defense was, is this something they wouldn't have done? The problem they faced was when those tapes were played in court.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You came back with $15,000.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I like (INAUDIBLE) gamble. That's one reason.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's a good reason. It's a good reason.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The tapes belied those defenses.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And when people got a look at the tapes, they said, what is this? And ultimately, knowing, but no one could defend that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Video was new. This is the '70s.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: By today's standards. It probably would come across as pretty primitive, but it accomplished what it was supposed to accomplish.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In certain circumstances, I think there is overreach, and there's over criminalization of politics.

TAPPER: So, you know that the public probably, if polled, would disagree with a lot of what you're saying, right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The jury's disagreed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Join me Sunday night for the premiere of season two of "UNITED STATES OF SCANDAL". It starts at 9:00 p.m. Eastern on Sunday on CNN.

Before that, though, on "STATE OF THE UNION" Sunday morning, I'm going to speak with Democratic Senator Andy Kim of New Jersey. Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida and the White House special envoy for hostage affairs, Adam Boehler. That's Sunday morning at 9:00 Eastern and again at noon here on CNN.

I have two books coming out in May, "Original Sin", about President Biden's decision to run for reelection and the cover up of his decline and an October, "Race Against Terror" about the hunt to prosecute an al Qaeda terrorist who killed Americans and was out to kill more. You can check them out at JakeTapper.com.

"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts now. I will see you Sunday morning.