Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Jury Shown Texts Between Combs and Ventura After Hotel Assault; FAA meets with Airlines About Troubled Newark Airport; Lawmakers Grill HHS Secretary Kennedy on Budget Cuts, Vaccine Views. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired May 14, 2025 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The 2016 assault in a Los Angeles hotel that was caught on camera, explaining to the jury how she spoke to police after the incident, but was not ready at the time to identify Combs as the person who hit her. Ventura also testified how Combs would repeatedly threaten to embarrass her by releasing videos of these freak-offs. Some of that footage expected to be played for the jury this afternoon.

With us now is former prosecutor and criminal defense attorney Imran Asari. Imran, I am curious about these threats that she said she would get from Combs after the fact. He would pull up, she said, videos of these sexual encounters, which she was very afraid could become public, videos that she thought had already been deleted.

So there was this sense that perhaps whatever happened and whatever evidence there was, she could never be sure that it was deleted. What is the effect of that? How does the law look at that kind of behavior?

IMRAN ASARI, FORMER PROSECUTOR: Well, I think it goes to the state of mind of Cassie Ventura and the fact that she felt trapped with Diddy and coerced and controlled by Diddy with these threats, with these videos. So legally, it's sufficient for the prosecution because they have to differentiate these actions from just a domestic violence incident or a pattern of domestic abuse and fit it in with the federal crimes that Diddy is charged with, including sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.

So this mindset of Cassie Ventura, that she was controlled, coerced, felt that she could not leave Diddy or speak out, really goes to those federal charges and would differentiate it from, say, a standard or routine state level domestic violence case. So it is significant in that sense.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Imran, I don't want you to speculate on something that you may not be privy to being in the courtroom, but we got this update that Combs attorney has said that the defense may have to adjust their strategy because Ventura's direct examination did not go the way that they expected. And specifically, this is about what exhibits the defense might submit into evidence. They're apparently adjusting their strategy.

What could that mean? ASARI: So clearly, the defense wanted to get certain evidence exhibits in with this witness, with Cassie Ventura. Likely, they were going to help the defense theory of the case. But the judge is not letting that in if that's the information coming from court.

So what has to happen now from the defense side is that they have to adjust with the strategy. I always like to say trial is dynamic and you get rulings from the judge as trial is happening. You get testimony from the witnesses in court that you may not have expected.

And you have to adjust your strategy as a trial attorney with the judge's rulings, with the testimony. So if these were a set of exhibits that the defense felt were important to get in through this witness and now they are not allowed to do so with a ruling from the judge, that means they have to pivot. They have to think about another strategy, how they're going to get this information or evidence through another witness or through testimony or another way. It's dynamic and they have to pivot with their strategy.

KEILAR: Imran, the defense has now been admonished multiple times by the judge for not not noticing the prosecution with enough time. There was the issue of Cassie's husband and the defense saying he shouldn't be in the courtroom and the judge narrowly allowing that just for part of testimony potentially. But now this issue of evidence that could be entered into the court.

What do you make of this?

ASARI: Well, I think it's like I said, it's a dynamic sort of situation that you're seeing play out in court. I know the prosecution with those defense exhibits were arguing that it felt like trial by ambush.

What that means is likely the defense did not exchange those exhibits in discovery. They were holding them back, perhaps as impeachment evidence, and the prosecution was crawling foul. They were saying trial by ambush and the judge ultimately will make a ruling or made a ruling.

And if they can't get that evidence in, if Diddy's defense team were relying on that evidence again, they have to pivot. They have to think about how they're going to get that defense theory across through another means, another witness, another piece of evidence so they could keep that theory intact when they ultimately sum up to that jury.

KEILAR: Imran Asari, thank you so much. Another pivotal day in this trial that has captured so much attention.

[13:35:00]

And still ahead of top FAA official reveals that critical hotline between air traffic controllers at Reagan National Airport and the Pentagon has not been working for the past two years. So what is being done to fix it? We'll have that next on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Today, the FAA met with airline leaders to talk about how to reduce traffic at the troubled Newark Liberty International Airport, where there have been chronic flight delays and cancellations because of the shortage of air traffic controllers, as well as equipment issues.

SANCHEZ: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called the gathering a quote, delay reduction meeting. And a short time ago, he updated a House committee about his department's efforts to boost the number of air traffic controllers.

[13:40:00]

CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean is here with the latest. First, Pete, what came out of this FAA meeting with the airline?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, that meeting is still going on right now. And Trump Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy just told the House Appropriations Committee that he actually had his wife change a flight from Newark to LaGuardia because of these chronic delays.

The Department of Transportation used a 1958 law to convene this meeting with officials from all U.S. Airlines that operate in and out of Newark. And the goal is to address the last piece of the puzzle, which is when it comes to these rolling delays, federally mandating a cut to the number of flights. So short staffed air traffic controllers can keep up.

The federal announcement that went out to airlines puts it pretty bluntly and said that Newark is unable to handle current flight schedules, that the airport is unacceptably congested and a meeting is necessary to reduce what is called overscheduling.

The FAA proposal is to reduce the number of domestic flights in and out of Newark to 56 per hour until June 15th, then up that number to 68 per hour through the rest of the summer.

The rub is right now there is no official cap on the number of flights at Newark, something known as slot rules, something United Airlines has been fighting for since its CEO tells me that airlines often jam more than 80 flights per hour into Newark, which quickly causes scheduled meltdowns. Here is what Secretary Duffy said on this meeting with airlines.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN DUFFY, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: As we speak right now, the FAA has brought in together all of the airlines who serve Newark to have a conversation about how there can be a delayed reduction. So if you book your flight, that flight's going to fly. You don't have people at the airport for, you know, two, four, six hours, then a flight canceled.

So we're working through that now. Hopefully in the next week or two, we'll have additional really good news about the telecom progress that we've made.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: The telecom progress Duffy is referring to addresses the other end of the problems at Newark. Air traffic control equipment that has failed at least four times, three times in the span of two weeks. The April 28th blackout of radar and radio comms caused five controllers to take what's called trauma leave. Today in a separate hearing on the House side -- or on the Senate side rather, the FAA's deputy chief operating officer said that a 90 second outage of those systems, it's a long time for those critical systems to fail. And never in his 22 years at the FAA has something like this happened before. So a lot of problems to fix here when it comes to Newark.

KEILAR: That's right. 90 seconds maybe doesn't seem like a lot. But when you're talking about 80 planes an hour, it really puts it into perspective, right?

So we want to talk about this moment in another Capitol Hill hearing that we saw. This involves Reagan National Airport, where earlier this year that Army helicopter hit that passenger plane and killed 67 people. Let's listen to this FAA official who leads air traffic operations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), CHAIRMAN, COMMERCE, SCIENCE AND TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE: Is it true that the hotline, the direct line between the Pentagon air traffic control and the DCA tower has been inoperable since March of 2022?

FRANKLIN MCINTOSH, DEPUTY CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, FAA'S AIR TRAFFIC ORGANIZATION: Yes, sir, that is correct.

CRUZ: Who maintains that hotline?

MCINTOSH The I believe the DOD maintains that hotline. But I think the next question would be, why were we not aware of it and insist upon it being fixed?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Yes, very good question. What's the story behind this hotline not working and how it came to light?

MUNTEAN: This is really coming to light just now for the first time in this hearing is when we're hearing about this. This really is highlighted the importance here because of this May 1st incident where a helicopter, another Army Blackhawk helicopter landing at the Pentagon got too close to the final approach path there at Reagan National Airport, caused two commercial flights landing at National Airport to abort their landings. That helicopter was from the same Army unit involved in the January 29th midair collision.

We know that this landline -- and this is critical for air traffic controllers. They're not just talking over the radio. They're often behind the scenes, not transmitting on the radio, using something they simply called the landline.

They pick up the phone, they call another facility. That's how they pass information back and forth. So this being out is really critical.

And the FAA insists that they're going to do any means possible to try and find another solution to this. Remember, the NTSB still investigating that May 1st incident, also still investigating the January 29th midair collision.

SANCHEZ: Wild that that line has been down for years and now it's coming to light. Thanks so much for the reporting.

On Capitol Hill, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is being grilled by lawmakers asked whether he would vaccinate his own child against the measles. His answer and more of his testimony when we come back.

[13:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Right now, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is testifying before a Senate committee and he's expected to face questions about the deep budget cuts that he's putting in place across the agency. He testified before a House subcommittee this morning where he was pressed on his conflicting statements about vaccines.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you had a child today, would you vaccinate that child for measles?

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., HHS SECRETARY: For measles? Probably for measles. I, you know, what I would say is my opinions about vaccines are irrelevant.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But would you vaccinate your child for measles?

[13:50:00]

KENNEDY: I think if I answer that question directly, that it will seem like I'm giving advice to other people and I don't want to be doing that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Dr. Paul Offit is with us now. He's a member of the FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Offit, what did you think of the secretary refusing to give a definitive answer when pressed on whether he'd vaccinate his own child for measles, polio, and chickenpox?

DR. PAUL OFFIT, MEMBER, FDA VACCINE ADVISORY COMMITTEE: Not surprising. He has said in the past that if he could go back in time, he would pay any amount of money not to vaccinate his own children. But when he says that he doesn't want to give advice, he is the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

He is arguably the top health advisor in this country, but he doesn't want to give advice.

KEILAR: Why is his personal opinion on vaccines as well as other issues of import on public health relevant to his government position?

OFFIT: Because since he has taken office as Secretary of Health and Human Services, he's faced his first major crisis, which is a massive measles epidemic. Although the CDC reports a thousand cases, if you talk to people at the CDC or talk to people on the ground, it's probably closer to 3,000 cases. We've had three deaths from measles.

That's the same number of deaths we had from measles over the last 25 years. We've had two children die from measles, two healthy little girls die from measles. Those are the first measles deaths in children in more than 20 years.

This is a crisis, and he has been unwilling to stand up and unequivocally say get a measles vaccine. And more importantly, we don't have the CDC personnel right now to do the proper surveillance. We don't have money to the CDC to let them go into high-risk areas and immunize.

So we're doing nothing to really stop this outbreak. So what he thinks about the measles vaccine matters.

KEILAR: And he did respond to some criticism. He said, we, meaning the U.S., are doing a better job at CDC today than any nation in the world at controlling this measles outbreak. What do you think of that?

OFFIT: So he was comparing himself to Eastern Europe. And he said in Eastern Europe, they've had 127,000 cases and 36 deaths over the last year. But don't compare yourself to Romania and Kazakhstan, which routinely have thousands of deaths.

Compare yourself to France or Germany or Canada or Mexico, frankly, where we're not doing as well as we should, given our resources, given our technological advances and given our wealth. So I think that what he does when he says that I think that's actually the worst thing he said. Because in many ways, he said -- and he said as part of that quote, we're the envy of the world.

That's true. Grandfathers in these deaths, grandfathers in the deaths of these two little girls like that's OK. We're doing well. I just think it's unconscionable.

KEILAR: There's separately on the cuts, which he's going to face questions on, no doubt. There's this report from Democrats on the Senate HELP Committee saying that in the first three months of this year, the Trump administration cut $2.7 billion in NIH funding for research. What do you worry that means for the nation's ability to fight diseases? OFFIT: Well, look at what the NIH has done for us over the last 20 years. I mean, with things like CRISPR technology, we're much better at treating genetic disease. I mean, advances on antiretroviral drugs make us better at treating human immunodeficiency virus.

The creation of the mRNA vaccines came from NIH with work that was funded back in 1997. The NIH offers us a lot, and I don't think we really appreciate it. I don't think we really appreciate that in many ways, NIH was the hero of this pandemic.

But we lose a lot when we don't appreciate what research can do for us, especially research at NIH, which is really the gem of the world, I think, as far as research is concerned. But now people are leaving because we're really eliminating one of our most valuable resources.

KEILAR: And then I also wanted to ask you about a picture that the Secretary posted with his family, including young grandchildren. He posted a few of these pictures, actually, and they are swimming, kind of taking a dip in Rock Creek in DC. I find it beautiful, the creek, I will tell you, but it is known to have high bacteria levels, and people don't generally take a dip in there.

I ask you about this because the CDC actually warns very specifically about waterborne illness, which is very common when it comes to children. It can cause respiratory issues and diarrhea and the like. What do you think about that behavior that he's modeling?

OFFIT: I think it's consistent with his beliefs. As he says in his book, The Real Antibacterial, he doesn't believe in the germ theory. That's why he drinks unpasteurized milk, putting himself at risk of E. coli and campylobacter and listeria and shigella infections. He doesn't believe that bacteria cause specific diseases, so he's perfectly willing to swim in a vat of bacteria.

[13:55:00]

It's sort of worrisome he has grandchildren standing there.

KEILAR: Yes, I think that's the part that got a lot of attention from people. Dr. Offit, thank you so much. Always great to have you.

OFFIT: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: Ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, at the criminal trial of Sean Diddy Combs, Cassie Ventura, his ex-girlfriend, testifying in detail about their relationship, including health issues that she says she endured after some of these allegedly coerced sexual encounters. The jury could soon see video of Cassie's testimony. Those will have that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:00:00]