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Pope Leo XIV Meets with Media for First Time Since Becoming Pope; Interview with Kevin Hassett, Director, White House Economic Council: U.S. and China Agree to Roll Back Tariffs in Major Trade Breakthrough; Opening Statements Expected in Sean Combs Sex Trafficking Trial; Interview with Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY): U.S. and China Tariff Agreement, Trump to Accept Luxury Jet from Qatar. Aired 8-8:30a ET
Aired May 12, 2025 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:00:00]
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking this morning, CNN meets the new pope, Pope Leo XIV did meet with members of the media for the first time since becoming pontiff. CNN Vatican correspondent Christopher Lamb was one of the few journalists who was selected by lottery for kind of a more intimate meet and greet.
He's with us now. All right, what happened?
CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Well, just got out of that meeting a couple of hours ago. Pope Leo came into the Vatican, the Paul VI Synod Hall. He greeted journalists in English and he spoke about the importance of journalism.
He said the church is in solidarity with those journalists who were imprisoned for seeking the truth. He praised journalists for covering war zones. And then he did meet with some reporters who had, as you said, been selected by lottery.
I was lucky to be among them. I introduced myself to Pope Leo. I said I work for CNN. I cover the Vatican. And then I joked with him saying that I'm now a White Sox fan. Of course, that's the baseball team he supports in Chicago. And he laughed. He thought that was a, you know, he was happy to hear that.
BERMAN: That's, I'm impressed with your joke there. And I'm impressed that he liked it as well. What a very, very cool opportunity for you there.
And nice to hear the pope standing up for journalism. Christopher Lamb, thank you very much.
A brand new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking overnight, the U.S. and China agreeing to temporarily slash tariffs and defuse a global trade war. Market futures up on that news. You can see it there. And we are expected to hear from the president this morning. This hour, the federal sex trafficking trial for Sean Diddy Combs
resumes. The jury expected to be seated today. Who we could see take the stand this morning.
And at any moment, the last known living American hostage is expected to be released after being held by Hamas.
I'm Sara Sidner with John Berman and Kate Bolduan. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.
BERMAN: All right, breaking news this morning. Tariffs be gone, most of them. As Politico put it this morning, war is over.
The U.S. and China announced a surprise pullback on sweeping tariffs over the weekend after meetings in Switzerland. This is a huge reversal for the Trump administration. Under the agreement, for 90 days, the U.S. will cut its tariffs on Chinese goods from 145 percent to 30 percent. And China will cut its levies on U.S. imports from 125 percent to 10 percent. Now, during this 90-day period, the countries say negotiations will continue. It's not clear if there are any concessions from China at all for the 110 percent reduction.
Either way, the markets love the pullback. U.S. stock futures are way up ahead of the opening bell. We are expected to hear from President Trump this morning shortly. This happens shortly as he signs an executive order in the Oval Office.
Let's get right to CNN's Zain Asher for the latest on this. So, look, I mean, big green right now. The market's very happy this morning.
ZAIN ASHER, CNN ANCHOR AND BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Very happy, because when you look at a dramatic rollback like that, what that means is essentially less inflationary pressures, less of a disruption when it comes to doing business. You mentioned the nuts and bolts already, but again, you see it on your screen. These are the Dow futures.
But if we could pull up the nuts and bolts, the numbers on the screen, the U.S. essentially slashing tariffs to 30 percent on Chinese goods. China slashing tariffs to 10 percent on American goods. And the reason for that discrepancy, John, is that 20 percent fentanyl tariffs the U.S. imposed, essentially saying that China is not doing enough to tackle the fentanyl crisis. This is a 90-day pause. This is just temporary. And it's set to go into effect on Wednesday.
I want to play our audience some sound from U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent earlier.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: The consensus from both delegations this weekend is neither side wants a decoupling. And what had occurred with these very high tariffs, as Ambassador Greer said, was the equivalent of an embargo. And neither side wants that.
(END VIDEO CLIP) ASHER: All right, so Scott Bessent is essentially saying that 145 percent tariffs mean you really can't do business at that level. So from the perspective of the administration, how do we punish China for what we view as unfair trade practices without taking the U.S. economy down with it and without forcing American consumers to suffer?
Markets -- if we could pull up futures again -- markets are really loving this. The Dow is up around 1,000 points. And this is really about expectations. If you had told me, John, prior to Liberation Day that we were going to see 30 percent tariffs across the board on Chinese goods, that would have been really debilitating for the U.S. economy.
[08:05:04]
We would have seen markets really suffer as a result of that. But because it's not the 145 percent that we had been anticipating, markets obviously enjoying it.
I also think it's really interesting that Scott Bessent really went into these negotiations in Geneva, clamping down on expectations, saying, look, don't expect any kind of trade deal whatsoever. Donald Trump talking about 80 percent tariffs.
Obviously, this is much better than what we had anticipated. Again, markets loving this. We will see what the markets open at in about an hour and a half from now -- John.
BERMAN: It will be up. The question is how much. Zain Asher, great to see you this morning.
ASHER: I think so.
BERMAN: All right -- Kate.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good assumption. Joining me right now from the White House is Kevin Hassett, the National Economic Council director. Kevin, thanks for being here.
You have you have said that it is President Trump who gives the final sign off on all agreements. This is this announcement is far more dramatic of a rollback than I think many people expected. What happened before or during the weekend talks that led to this outcome?
KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR, WHITE HOUSE ECONOMIC COUNCIL: I think it's actually quite similar to the things that we've been seeing in the other negotiations. We actually have a fresh start with China. That's the way to think about these negotiations that we've come in with these reciprocal tariffs. We described the non-tariff barriers and tariffs that disadvantage American workers. And folks are coming to the table and it's really stunning how quickly they're moving and how dramatic the changes are. Imagine we're selling beef in the U.K. again and China has the 10 percent tariff reciprocal tariff that we're charging the U.K.
All of this has happened because of President Trump's leadership. He's shown people that, look, we're not going to stand for this ridiculous behavior that we've been observing over the years. But then people come in and say, yes, yes, you got us. And then they work out something that's good for both countries.
And so I think it's really a very historic fresh start in the relationship between the U.S. and China, given how much movement there was over the weekend.
BOLDUAN: What needs to happen to make sure that tariffs don't go back to, you know, 145 percent at the end of the 90 days?
HASSETT: Right. Well, that will be something that will be negotiated mostly with Jamieson Greer at the USTR that we're going to go through. Now, this is obviously two days work and there's 90 days more work to do to make sure that we land the plane.
But, you know, the plane is right there over the runway. I don't think that there's much hope of people who think that this is going to go back. This is absolutely a sound deal.
And most importantly, it's a thing that you didn't cover, that there are all these things both from the U.S. to China and China to the U.S. that were kind of gummed up and stuck, you know, perhaps on ships going back and so on. And all of that is cleared up now. And so the potential for supply disruptions from China, you know, affecting magnets in the U.S. and so on, all of that stuff is cleared up by this really historic negotiation.
BOLDUAN: Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss was on just last hour. I want to play for you his reaction to the news of this 90 day de-escalation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): You've got to give credit to Trump as a marketer. He creates uncertainty and havoc by raising tariffs and then claims victory when he lowers the tariffs that he himself put in place, right? All this does is extend uncertainty for another 90 days.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: What do you say to that, Kevin?
HASSETT: No, I disagree completely. I think that if you look at the U.K. deal and if you look at the text of it, I don't think anyone's saying, oh, what's going to happen down the road? I think that you can see that we've really reached equilibrium agreement.
Now, it's true that we had two days of negotiation, and now there's more paperwork to be to be flown and to sign off on both sides and so on. And so the amount of clarity we have with the U.K. might take a few more days. But this is a historic victory for President Trump.
And the bottom line is, if you start from a world where our countries are getting abused, our workers are getting abused by foreign countries because they're not allowing us to sell their products into those countries, then if you do anything that might change the status quo, then that's going to add to uncertainty. But the uncertainty is on the right side of the American worker, because ultimately if the uncertainty works, then you move to a better place. And that's what we're seeing in country after country after country.
We're moving to a better place. We're getting fresh starts. We're putting American workers first.
BOLDUAN: Lutnick said that the 10 percent is now baseline. Is no country going to see a tariff rate of less than 10 percent in any of these deals?
HASSETT: That'll be up to President Trump. That'll be up to President Trump.
BOLDUAN: Would you be -- well, if Lutnick says it, do you think that that's the case?
HASSETT: You know, there are some products that perhaps will have exclusions and so on, and maybe some countries have a lot of those products. But in the end, we'll see how the dust settles. But 10 percent is the anchor tariff right now for everybody, yes.
BOLDUAN: It was just last weekend that the president had said in an interview that going cold turkey on China, having no trade with China, was actually a good thing because, in his view, the United States was losing $5 billion a day.
[08:10:00]
He was painting it as it is a good thing that we're not doing deals with China right now. How do you square that rhetoric with now this -- you know, we've got to reset, let's give ourselves 90 days to work out a good deal for both?
HASSETT: Right, well, we are going to work out and have worked out a good deal for both. The bottom line is what President Trump was saying, was that if we don't work out that good deal, we'll be fine. America will be fine.
The fact is that we didn't sell practically anything to China. We were buying a lot of stuff from China. We could buy that stuff from other countries or make it ourselves.
And so if China didn't come to the table and negotiate, President Trump was saying, then we'll be fine. We'll work it out. But we've got a better deal for us, a better deal for them, and we're all very pleased to see it, and markets are pleased as well.
BOLDUAN: And we'll see what they look like when markets open. Kevin Hassett at the White House for us. Thank you so much for joining us today.
HASSETT: Thanks for having me.
BOLDUAN: Of course -- Sara. SIDNER: All right, thank you, Kate.
Happening in just moments, opening statements in Sean Combs' federal criminal trial set to begin. First up, though, jury selection needs to be finalized.
We could even see the prosecution's key witness, Combs' former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, testify today. CNN has now learned at least six of Combs' seven children will be in court today to support him. A source close to the family telling CNN, quote, He is holding faith and ready to finally be able to have his side of the story presented in court. This is a long time waiting.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering and sex trafficking. If convicted on all counts, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
CNN legal analyst, criminal defense attorney Joey Jackson is here. All right. So we may see opening statements today.
JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.
SIDNER: And then a key witness. And I am curious, from your perspective, why you put Cassie Ventura front and center first up in that box to testify.
JACKSON: Yes, Sara, good morning to you. Now, what they want to do, that is the prosecution, is start off by telling the story.
Who tells it better than Cassie Ventura? Now, she's noted as victim number one. And of course, we also know that she filed this civil lawsuit and a day later it was settled.
And so bombshell allegations in there as it related to what Sean Combs was up to, how his treatment of her was, right? The coercion that was involved, according to her, the extent to which -- I think prosecutors will lay out -- how he ran his business.
And I think what they will lay out in this really salacious trial to prove those five counts, racketeering, that he ran a criminal enterprise designed for his sexual exploitation and gratification, in addition to the sex trafficking, is the issue of sex, drugs and rock and roll. That's what the case will be all about. And I think what they will try to do, prosecutors, is show the distinction between consent on the one hand and coercion on the other. How did he treat you? What were the interactions? Did he withhold monetary payments? Did he say he would give you monetary payments for acting in a certain way, right?
The drugs. There's they're alluded to in the indictment, which is only an accusation. But she will lay out the extent to which they played a role in whatever she did.
Guns, right? Indictment again that are laid out in there. What was he like there? And then in terms of the rock and roll, his business enterprise, who was doing what for him? Were they doing things, right? His employees and others at the behest of him. So the answer to your question, Sara, is that she lays it all out.
So it'll be an issue in terms of her credibility, in terms of the nature of their relationship and in terms of how she connects with the jury. Let's not forget. She's also appearing pregnant as well.
So that's a concern when you're cross examining someone. The defense will get its turn. How are you going to interact with that? And if you beat her up too much, what does the jury do?
SIDNER: Speaking of which, there is this video. Now the case is not about this video. They are not trying the case about what happened in this video to Cassie.
However, the video is going to be shown that the world has seen, that CNN obtained, where it shows Sean Combs beating her up in a hallway. And so how is that going to be used and how difficult is that going to be for the defense to try to say, well, what?
JACKSON: Right. So, Sara, the answer is very and the defense knows it's difficult. And that's why they try to preclude, exclude it, not allow the jury to see it. The judge said no.
Any trial is the battle of the narrative. So in the prosecution's perspective, this isn't a one off. This is who he is and who he was. This is his pattern of behavior, not only as it relates to her, prosecutors will say, but as it relates to how he treated people in general. This is part of the sex trafficking. This is how he ran his enterprise.
Defense will say not so fast. That video is an isolated instance showing, right, his conduct. But let's tell you about her conduct. Let's tell you about the fact that there was domestic violence on both sides. And by the way, ladies and gentlemen of jury, this is not a domestic violence case.
[08:15:00]
Even if you take, right, this despicable video, does it make him the kingpin of a criminal enterprise, ladies and gentlemen? Does it make him a sex trafficker, ladies and gentlemen, or does it make him accused of domestic violence, which you're not here to see?
So those are the narratives that'll be battled over. The extent to which one connects with the jury over the other will determine his fate.
SIDNER: We will see how exactly far they get today in the case, but we could see the first witness testimony today. Joey Jackson, it is always a pleasure. Thank you for walking us through all the different possible narratives in this particular case.
JACKSON: The pleasure is mine, thank you Sara.
SIDNER: John. BERMAN: All right, this morning, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says Newark Airport is safe after yet another outage hit the airport, grounding all planes on a busy weekend.
We're standing by for the last known living American hostage to be released from Hamas captivity. New details about the deal that helped secure his freedom.
And then FEMA's future is in limbo after President Trump fired the agency's leader. The new agency head is warning staff not to get in his way or they will be, quote, run over.
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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIDNER: New this morning, Pope Leo met with members of the media for the first time since becoming pontiff, including CNN's Christopher Lamb. He was one of the few journalists selected by lottery for the meet and greet. During his first news conference, the Pope urged jailed journalists be set free.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
POPE LEO XIV (through translator): Let me therefore reiterate today the church's solidarity with journalists who are imprisoned for seeking and reporting the truth while also asking for their release.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: He also urged journalists to quote, choose the path of communication in favor of peace.
All right, starting today, a new federal rule is cracking down on junk fees. The rule applies to everything from concert tickets to short- term rentals, including hotels. The FTC says businesses must now show the full price up front. No more surprise charges when you go to check out.
The goal to protect consumers from bait and switch pricing and help honest businesses compete.
All right, one mom found herself in a sticky and expensive situation. Her son accidentally ordered nearly 70,000 dum-dum lollipops from Amazon using her phone. That mistake cost her $4,200. CNN spoke with her about what happened when it was all delivered.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOLLY LAFAVERS, SON ORDERS NEARLY 70,000 LOLLIPOPS: I originally found out that he had ordered them when I looked at my bank account. And then I immediately called Amazon because I was trying to stop the order. And when I wasn't able to stop the order, they told me to just reject it at the door. But no one knocked on the door for me to be able to reject it. So the next thing I know, Liam went out to ride his scooter and he starts yelling that his suckers were here. So that was just a pit. My stomach just dropped. It was a horrible feeling, to be quite honest.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: $4,200, and look, he's like, mom, it's OK. Leaning on her like that. I know that trick. She said she ended up donating a lot of those lollipops to her community. And thankfully, she did finally get a refund from Amazon.
John, I feel like -- I feel like you might have been up to something like this. Had we had phones like that back in the day, we just say --
BERMAN: Lollipops are good. How do we know it was a mistake? Right, just saying.
SIDNER: Happy Mother's Day, John Berman's mom.
BERMAN: All right, breaking news overnight. The U.S. pulls back on its trade war against China, striking a temporary deal. For the next 90 days, the U.S. will cut its tariff on Chinese goods from 145 percent to 30 percent. China will cut its levies on U.S. imports from 125 percent to 10 percent.
With us now, Congressman Dan Goldman, a Democrat from New York. So, Congressman, what do you think the U.S. got from this?
REP. DAN GOLDMAN (D-NY): We got a lot of turmoil. We had a lot of destroyed 401ks. We had a lot of small businesses importing goods from China that are on the brink or have gone out of business and all to just go back to where we were.
And in fact, it's not even where we were, John. It's still a 30 percent tariff, which is a tax that will be passed through to the consumers.
I represent Manhattan's historic China town, and the small businesses there operate on very, very small margins. They are not big box department stores that can weather several months of higher prices. They are -- some of them have gone out of business and that others have suffered from the volatility of the stock market. And it's all for nothing.
We are back where we were before all of this chaos, all of this turmoil. And it is just a reflection that there's no plan here. There's no objective. Nothing is actually going to come from this other than continued higher prices and uncertainty, instability and a pullback in our economy.
BERMAN: 30 percent better than 145 percent, though, in your mind?
GOLDMAN: Well, yes, of course, if 145 percent is completely untenable. But again, this is all just a charade. There's no objective to this.
[08:25:00]
You are not going to go back to the 1950s with our economy. Our economy is going to move forward. There's going to be technological improvements.
We're not going to go back to dirty coal as the solution to everything. And the sooner we realize that what we need to do with our economy is right size it and adjust the jobs to the new technology that's out there, the better off we're going to be. We're never going to onshore all of the old manufacturing.
And if even if we do, that's going to take years. So the whole ostensible purpose of this makes no sense at all because it's just impractical. And instead, it's just Donald Trump's ego and wanting to fight with Xi Jinping and show that he's bigger until he realizes he got his bluff called and he has nowhere to go. And so then he just caves and goes back.
BERMAN: Congressman, apparently the U.S. and Qatar are working out the final details of a gift, a big gift, a giant luxury 747 aircraft that President Trump is reportedly going to accept. And the military is going to convert into being able to use as Air Force One. And then it may end up at the Trump presidential library after he leaves office.
How do you feel about this gift?
GOLDMAN: That it is brazen corruption, a violation of the Constitution, the Foreign Emoluments clause. It is a gift from a foreign government that is expressly not permitted under the Constitution. And given that Donald Trump, as we know, is purely transactional, this gift, which ultimately will go to him, it's not for the United States, of course, carries favor with him.
And perhaps there is not a specific official act that he has taken in return for that payment such that our current state of public corruption law would not apply. And of course, he's he's immune because the Supreme Court has given him criminal immunity. But this is just the latest reflection of an egregious, corrupt presidency that is using the office of the presidency for his personal gain.
This is the the latest one, 400 million, $2 billion crypto deal where Donald Trump himself is prepared -- is prepped to make tens or hundreds of millions of dollars from it, from a foreign country backed deal. This is beyond anything that we've ever seen.
And the fact that from my vantage point, John, as a former 10 year DOJ career prosecutor, to see that the attorney general has signed off on this on one of the most pathetic and weak legal analyses I've ever seen, just underscores how far down the Department of Justice has fallen and how much in trouble we are that Donald Trump has really just remade our government for his own personal interest.
BERMAN: Can I put -- can we put that true social post back up on the screen here so I can read it to the congressman in case he hasn't seen it yet? Because the president seems to be responding to the type of criticism that you're making here. He says, So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a gift
free of charge -- and gift free of charge is all capitalized -- of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One temporarily in a very public and transparent transaction so bothers the crooked Democrats that they insist we pay top dollar for the plane. Anybody can do that. The Dems are world-class losers. MAGA.
So that's what the president says. Your response.
GOLDMAN: It's laughable at this point. First of all, temporarily is a key word there because ultimately it will go to Donald Trump. But this is not Democrats opposing what's a great deal. This is just people following the Constitution. There is a reason that it says in the Constitution that no president can accept a gift from a foreign government because we want to be sure that the president of the United States is always acting in the interest, sole interest of the United States and not on behalf of a foreign country.
Well, if Qatar is giving him a $400 million gift now, who knows what else they're going to give him. And there's no question that his view of Qatar and the Middle East with UAE now backing his own crypto deal, that is shaded. And we're left here to wonder, well, is he doing this because he got $400 million golden palace or is he doing this because it's in the best interest of the United States? That's the point of the foreign emoluments clause is to ensure that there's no question.
And so he can try to explain it away as some deal. Oh, I got such a great deal. It's a gift. I don't have to pay for it.
[08:30:00]