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Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), Is Interviewed About Trump Meets With Syria's President In Saudi Arabia; New: Book: President Biden Did Not Seem To Recognize George Clooney At 2024 Fundraiser; Sanjay Answers Your Questions About The Future Of Organ Transplants. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired May 14, 2025 - 08:30   ET

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

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Since confirmation hearings and since then just some of the things that is -- that have happened, he started slashing staff from 82,000 to 62,000, a quarter of its workforce. Among other things, he's also pushing the CDC now to study whether vaccines cause autism despite decades of research that we know. Otherwise, it's already proven to not have any connection. So what do you hope to get from him today?

[08:30:27]

SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA): Kate, I think I'm going to focus on the massive cuts to staff. When you essentially shutter the agency that is responsible for mine safety, we -- we have a lot of coal mining in southwestern Virginia, when you make dramatic layoffs to the FDA responsible for the safety of our food and our medicines, then what you see is not only layoffs but significant effects of constituents. And I'm also going to be asking about the core treatment that my constituents are getting from these agencies when they ask basic questions or they try to get the help that they're entitled to as taxpaying Americans. These massive layoffs end up dramatically affecting the quality of service that they get.

BOLDUAN: President Trump is on his now second day of his Middle East trip. I want to play for you the way that fellow Democratic Senator Chris Murphy described the trip, accusing the President of going there to personally profit off of U.S. foreign policy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): He went to Qatar and the Emiratis and the Saudis because they are willing to pay him money. Every single nation is doing personal business with Donald Trump and Donald Trump's companies. The Saudis have been a major investor in his real estate company. The Qataris are buying him a plane.

The Emiratis are the biggest investor in his cryptocurrency. So he's there on his behalf. The United States gives them favorable treatment in a variety of really important ways and they pay Donald Trump money.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BOLDUAN: And in a twist overnight, the President has announced he's lifting sanctions on Syria, seen shaking hands with the new president of Syria when he was still in Saudi Arabia. On the Syria front, which seems a major development in lifting these long held sanctions, do you think this is a good development for the United States?

KAINE: We -- we were surprised at this. I think the smarter move. We -- there's a new government in Syria. They're a little bit untested. We would rather they be cooperating than not. I think the smarter move would have been to suspend the existing sanctions for 90 days to see if there is good behavior from the Syrian government. The President says he is lifting all sanctions.

Is that actually the case? Or did he shorthand it? What are the details? I think the right move is to suspend the sanctions for a period of time and test the behavior of the new Syrian government.

BOLDUAN: That's interesting. And I guess maybe TBD on a little more clarity on that one. The President on the flight from Saudi Arabia to Qatar called the new -- new president of Syria young, attractive. A young guy has a strong past. He's got a shot at doing a good job. Do you have an assessment of the new Syrian president yet? Do you share that sentiment?

KAINE: Look, the Syrian -- the new Syrian leadership also has significant terrorist activities in their past. I -- I think it was good for the world when the government of Bashar al-Assad was toppled finally, because he has led this wonderful country into a death spiral. And so there needs to be a new chapter.

But I think the answer is it's too early to tell. We don't want Syria to fall back into being an Iranian puppet state or being dominated by Russia. And I think the new president offers some opportunity for them to start a new chapter where it's going to be Syria run by Syrians for Syrians.

But as I say, it's too early to tell. And the new leader does have some troubling activities in his past. So again, that would suggest to me that the U.S. policy should be to extend a hand and, you know, to -- to suspend sanctions, say, for 90 days, see what kind of behavior there is. But I wouldn't completely lift all the U.S. sanctions based upon the -- the past track record. We've been disappointed in Syria before. Let's be realistic as we look at the situation now.

BOLDUAN: Yes, a Syria run by Syrians for Syrians for the betterment of the people of Syria would be a great thing right now. Senator, thank you very much for your time. Appreciate it. We'll be listening to that -- the -- the -- your -- your questioning of the -- of the health secretary very closely this afternoon.

Coming up with us, for us, House Republicans worked overnight to advance their ambitious bill to cut taxes by hundreds of billions of dollars. That bill faces an in -- in order to do that, pull off massive cuts to Medicaid in order to pay for it. It though may face an uncertain future amongst Republicans in the Senate, new reporting on that. [08:35:00]

Plus, paging Dr. Sanjay Gupta. He's answering your questions about the future of organ transplants.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So this morning, a new book reveals President Biden did not recognize mega star George Clooney at a June 2024 campaign fundraiser, a fundraiser that Clooney personally co-hosted for the President's reelection bid. This is just one of -- one of the many really stunning details in the new book titled "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again" by Alex Thompson and CNN's own Jake Tapper.

Tapper sat down with Clooney a few weeks ago. You remember we played part of that then, but he also asked him how this moment led him to write his now very famous op-ed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE CLOONEY, ACTOR: It was a civic duty because I found that people on my side of the street, you know, I'm a Democrat. I was a Democrat in Kentucky, so I -- I get it. When I saw people on my side of the street not telling the truth, I thought that was time to --

[08:40:08]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Are People still mad at you for that?

CLOONEY: Some people, sure. It's OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: With us now is CNN anchor, chief Washington correspondent and fantastic author, Jake Tapper. Jake, tell us more about that moment between President Biden and George Clooney and how it ultimately led to Biden dropping out of the race.

TAPPER: So thanks so much for having me, John. So President Biden came into that Los Angeles fundraiser June 15th, and behind the scenes there were little tiny fundraisers for the big, big donors. There was the event on stage with Jimmy Kimmel and Barack Obama, but then also behind the scenes photographs and smaller speeches for big donors.

And it was there that President Biden walked over to George Clooney and Clooney realized and other people witnessing realized that that Biden did not recognize him. This, despite the fact that they'd known each other since roughly after 9/11. They'd had many meetings when Biden was vice president. They'd known each other for a long time. Biden had awarded him a Kennedy Center award in December 2022.

And obviously, Biden, I mean, Clooney was throwing this fundraiser for him, a record-setting fundraiser. And Biden was just walking around saying, hello, thanks for being here. Hello, thanks for being here. And an aide said, you know, George? And the president was like, yes, sure. How are you? Thanks for being here. And the aide had to say, no, George Clooney.

And it was just shocking for everyone involved. And in fact, it wasn't just those in that specific conversation that were shocked. President Obama was there. He was stunned. He attributed it to the rough schedule that Biden had going from Europe to Delaware, back to Europe and then to L.A. But he realized later on that it wasn't just the schedule that was the issue.

BERMAN: Look, and you bring up President Obama because there was a moment at that fundraiser. And that fundraiser really was a key moment for a lot of people in this history, which you so brilliantly document. But -- but President Biden walked down to the end of the stage of this fundraiser for a moment. You can see it right there and seemed to stare a little blankly into the crowd.

And then President Obama tugged on him. You saw that tug and led him off the stage. So you just said you spoke to a lot of people who were there for that. What else did they tell you about it?

TAPPER: Well, Obama's side of that story is he wasn't sure what was going on, but he just wanted to get out of there. And he wasn't going to get out of there without Biden. So he grabbed him and -- and it was more just his impatience than anything else.

But other people who were there and we should note that the Biden White House falsely, when people showed that clip and asked what was going on, said it was a cheap fake. They did this all the time when there was video that seemed to show Biden acting in an odd or unusual, seemingly out of it way. They would call it a cheap fake. It was not fake. It was actual video.

And people in the arena who did not see the horrifying scene behind the stage, but in the arena, Congresswoman Annie Kuster, Jon Favreau, former Obama speech, chief speechwriter and others just from that event. And Biden walking towards the stage thought, oh, my God, something is wrong here. He's not going to make it.

BERMAN: So, Jake, you've been at this journalism business for a long time and you know that whenever you go out on a limb like you are right now, you get criticism from a whole lot of people. What do you think of conservatives now criticizing you and the media in general for how President Biden was covered during his administration?

TAPPER: I think some of the criticism is -- is fair, to be honest, of me. Certainly I'm not going to speak for anybody else. But knowing then what I know now, I look back at my coverage during the Biden years and I did cover some of these issues, but not enough. I look back on it with humility. Look, what we learned through our reporting is that starting in around 2019, 2020, there were two Bidens. There was a Biden that was perfectly workable, serviceable, seemed fine.

And then there was a non-functioning one that couldn't come up with names of top aides, that would lose his train of thought to an alarming degree. And that non-functioning Biden reared his head increasingly over and over. It really seemed to exacerbate and get much worse in 2023, 2024.

And what Alex and I, Alex Thompson and I, were able to uncover through this reporting, almost all with just Democratic insiders and -- and operatives, and almost all of which only happened after the election because they wouldn't be candid until after the election, what we learned stunned us, shocked us.

And look, while it was very important, and I'm not dismissing the coverage of Biden tripping on stage or falling off his bike, that was obviously indicative of something serious that was going on, I think what we learned about the non-functioning Biden rearing his head increasingly, not being able to come up with the name of George Clooney, not being able to come up with the name of top aides in the White House.

[08:45:16]

I think that really reveals something even more significant. Something even more disturbing about a President that was not what we, the American people, should expect and be able to demand, which is somebody who is there with it 24/7, there for the 2:00 a.m. emergency phone call in the middle of the night.

BERMAN: Yes, the not coming up with aides names was not something I had seen until this morning. Jake, the book comes out officially, what, May 20th? We keep learning more pieces of this every day. We look forward to talking to you more. Excellent work, as always. Thanks for coming on. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Also new this morning, key House committees worked through the night, we're told, to advance President Trump's, what he calls his big, beautiful bill. The Tax Writing Committee working, we're now told, almost 18 hours to finish their portion of it and to pay for the President's desired cuts. It's called a pay-for. House Republicans are pushing forward with big spending cuts proposed to Medicaid.

And because of those proposed cuts, which could leave millions without health care, the bill faces an uncertain future among Republicans in the Senate, revealing the touchy politics of Medicaid. CNN's Harry Enten is looking into that for you this morning. And Harry, what do Americans think of these proposed potential cuts to Medicaid we're looking at here?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: The politics of this are so bad, it literally blows my mind. That is what the American people think of this. Major spending cuts to Medicaid. Look at this, 76 percent opposed. Just 24 percent favor major -- major federal spending cuts to Medicaid. To give you an idea of how big this 76 percent is, in a separate poll I looked at it, George Washington's favorable rating is 78 percent. Basically, the exact same percentage of Americans who are opposed to major cuts to Medicaid on the federal level. As I said, the politics of this are so extremely bad, it blows my mind, Kate.

BOLDUAN: That is overall. What about amongst Republicans? Because Republicans are obviously the party in the majority and advancing this need to cut some $880 million from Medicaid.

ENTEN: OK, so we see this 76 percent overall. You see it over here. Opposed major spending cuts to Medicaid on the federal level. You get 95 percent of Democrats opposed, 79 percent of independents. And you even get a majority of Republicans, 55 percent opposed major spending cuts to Medicaid. This simply put is not popular on any part of the aisle.

From the left all the way to the right, the opposition is in the majority. When you get a majority of Republicans, majority of independents, a majority of Democrats to agree on anything, you know that is where the American public stands and they stand strongly. And on this particular issue, they stand very strongly opposing major spending cuts to Medicaid. The politics of this, simply put, are atrocious.

BOLDUAN: Which also explains why for everyone out there, why reforms to -- reforms to the entitlement programs, why it doesn't happen, because the politics are so tough. And that's why Republicans are calling it, we're reforming the system, we're not cutting the system.

Look, the details aren't yet hashed out of exactly what it's going to look like, but the politics are rough nonetheless. What -- is there data about why Americans feel this way?

ENTEN: Yes, I think it's a --

BOLDUAN: Like what drives it?

ENTEN: Exactly right. Do you know somebody, or you yourself, have ever been on Medicaid or on it currently? And this, I think, basically says it all. Has been or is on Medicaid, me or someone else close to me. Look at this, 62 percent of Democrats, 62 percent of Republicans. Medicaid is something that touches people from across the political spectrum.

From the left to the right, they're equally felt. A majority of Americans are likely to know somebody who is on Medicaid currently or was on it formerly, either themselves or someone close to them, maybe a close family friend, maybe someone who's a member of their family. And this, I think, drives it all home, which is why cuts to Medicaid are so unpopular. It is because it touches everybody.

And when all of a sudden you take the health insurance away, potentially, from somebody you know, you're going to be opposed to it. And that is why 76 percent of Americans are opposed to major cuts to Medicaid. Kate?

BOLDUAN: All right, thank you, Harry. This is a good basis for what is going to be a long discussion.

ENTEN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: For sure. John?

BERMAN: All right, in a -- in a new documentary, Animal Pharm, CNN chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, explores the science of xenotransplantation, which is putting animal organs into humans. In it, Sanjay speaks with the doctors, geneticists, and ethicists on the cutting edge of this research. Here now with us is the aforementioned Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

And Sanjay, we asked people to write in their questions to you and we got a whole bunch. Paul McIntosh wrote, over the past two decades, work was happening in the area of using one cell makeup to create an organ in the lab. Is this still an approach being considered?

[08:50:11]

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is really interesting. So this is the idea of personalized organs. We've been talking a lot about genetically modifying pigs to create universal donors. But the idea, and I don't know if we have this video, but I want to show this to you.

This idea of taking a pig organ and basically stripping it of all of it cells, so you're looking at that there. That's essentially what's called a ghost organ. Has no biology to it. And then taking that ghost organ and essentially repopulating it with an individual cells, an individual human cells, essentially making a personalized organ for somebody.

So this is sort of a technique that is still sort of in the lab. But this idea that ultimately we could create personalized organs using essentially these ghost hearts, livers, kidneys, that is something that people are working on. That's some video from United Therapeutics who's been working on this for a few years now.

BERMAN: It doesn't seem that far away. So Anne in Kansas asks, how many pig kidneys have they transplanted into people? And has anyone lived long-term with these kidneys? Also, is the rejection medication different?

GUPTA: So the -- the answer is four. There have been four of these pig kidneys that have been transplanted. One person is still alive today. Someone you're going to meet in the documentary. One thing to keep in mind, John, you know this, but -- but when you do these initial sort of compassionate use cases, these are really sick patients. So they're the sickest of the sick.

They're people who did not even qualify for conventional transplants. So it's not surprising that they sadly don't live as long. Tim Andrews is doing well though, you know, 130 days has been the longest so far. He's expected to surpass that as far as the anti-rejection medications. They're very similar.

It's amazing how similar a pig kidney is to a human kidney. Maybe people sort of inherently get that, but they function very similarly. The anti-rejection medication is very similar. Slightly higher doses, but yes, they -- they act very much the same way.

BERMAN: Yes, I don't think it's obvious at all. That's why I find it so interesting when you say this and you lay this out in the documentary.

So Alia in Kuwait asks, how far are we from this being a solution to the organ crisis, the organ donation crisis, which there really is one.

GUPTA: Yes, so really interesting, you know, how fast science can move. I asked everyone basically that question in some way, shape or form. And the answer is probably around five years. Five years for this to become sort of mainstream. OK, now one of the things I want to tell you is that these pig farms that we're talking about, you -- you're going to see a few of these in the documentary, but they're going to change.

We're going to see these genetically modified pig farms, big facilities all over the country and probably all over the world in order to be able to create enough of these organs, 100,000 people, John, as you know, on the waiting list for -- for organs. Many of those waiting for kidneys, but these -- these sort of organ supply farms, you know, they're going to become much more common around the country.

BERMAN: Five years, very much in sight.

GUPTA: Five years/

BERMAN: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you very much for all this. And don't forget to tune in. Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports Animal Pharm. Again, we see what you did there with the spelling. It airs Sunday at 8:00 p.m. only on CNN.

[08:53:22]

All right, President Trump says he is considering attending Ukraine- Russia peace talks in Turkey just a day before they are supposed to get underway. He says Vladimir Putin would, quote, like me to be there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: New this morning, President Trump says he is considering attending the Ukraine-Russia peace talks set to begin tomorrow in Turkey. Now, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy now says, though, he will only sit for talks if Russian President Putin is there as well, and the two can talk face-to-face.

Trump was asked, President Trump was asked this morning about the likelihood that Vladimir Putin would show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't know if he's showing up. I know he would like me to be there. And that's a possibility. If we could end the war, I'd -- I'd be thing about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BOLDUAN: That's just this morning. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh live for us now in Kyiv. So, Nick, I mean, how likely is this meeting of the three presidents to be?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: It's interesting to see the amount of noise around it, which, particularly given the repeated comments we've heard from Trump, the demand from Zelenskyy, he'll only talk to Putin, and the sort of purposefully intriguing silence we've heard from the Kremlin so far, who simply will not confirm who is going say they have to get the order for Putin from that.

The building of drama around here would lead me to think something might be afoot, that there might be some last minute brinkmanship. Remember, these three men being together would ultimately be the result of a parry from President Putin, who ignored a demand from European leaders at the weekend for a ceasefire on Monday. That's originally an American proposal and instead said, let's get direct talks happening Thursday in Istanbul.

Zelenskyy upped that request, saying, I'll talk to you directly and only to you, Vladimir Putin. And now we know Zelenskyy is going to Turkey to essentially hope this meeting's happened. He'd like Trump to be there as well. You heard Trump there saying he thinks Putin would like him to be there.

It is really unclear what's happening behind the scenes, but I think there will be a reluctance potentially, given the Kremlin so keen to keep the White House on good terms and prevent potentially the Trump administration deciding to give more to Zelenskyy, that relationship, rocky as it's been, I wonder if Putin will be willing to necessarily shun Trump.

[09:00:10]

And this buildup might be last minute negotiations, it's really unclear. Remember, if Trump, Putin and Zelenskyy are there's a pretty strong chance that Trump and Putin will have their own separate bilateral meeting. That would be something of a win potentially for the Kremlin. Certainly a lot earlier than I think many expected to potentially happen with Trump.

And then on top of this too, we have the background noise about sanctions if indeed this meeting doesn't go ahead. And potentially too if a ceasefire doesn't come from it. Trump just today as well saying that he, you know, continually thinks about secondary sanctions. That would mean sanctioning people who do business with Russia in prohibited ways as well as Russia itself.

And that added sense of potential consequence may into the calculation here as well. But look, bearing no mind, this is a phenomenally high stakes moment of diplomacy in the largest war in Europe since the 1940s. Hard to understate this and also too hard to understate how complex these three men being together would be if indeed that does happen. Zelenskyy makes no bids to hide his contempt for Putin, vice versa. Zelenskyy and Trump had the blowout in the Oval Office that seems to have been healed, but it's still a rocky relationship and the Trump- Putin relationship, while history books be written about that in the decades to come, it's clear Trump doesn't want to upset Putin. Does Putin feel the same way? We'll find out. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Yeah. And the -- the way especially you're describing with all the context is that this is a very intriguing moment to see what happens now as these talks are set to begin tomorrow. Nick, thank you so much, Nick Paton Walsh in Kyiv for us.

A new hour of CNN News Central starts now.