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Trump Heads Back to U.S. After Major Trip to Middle East; Russia and Ukraine Hold First Direct Peace Talks in Three Years; Soon, Ventura Returns to Stand for Day Two of Cross-Examination. Aired 8- 8:30a ET

Aired May 16, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Your files, keep everything, preserve them. He said, we have to find out who leaked this information. They need to be held accountable. Why? Because due process rights ensure a fair trial for both sides, especially Brian Kohberger. And the judge says jury selection is going to take so much longer since this happened, will cost the county so much more money because of the information that was released pretrial.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. And you said you've never seen any of these details. I mean, you know everything about this case top to bottom and there was new stuff that someone must have --

CASAREZ: There was.

BERMAN: That somehow got out there.

CASAREZ: Now, in the hearing yesterday, the defense brought to the judge alternate perpetrator information. They say it's a proffer, it is sealed. The judge says, I need much more information to see if this even would be allowable to come into this trial. But I think one big moment yesterday was when the judge said to the defense, here's a piece of paper, I want you to fill it out. I want to know if you've received your last best offer. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUDGE STEVEN HIPPLER, ADA COUNTY DISTRICT COURT: I'm going to hand you another piece of paper that I would like to get back from the defense sometime in late June or early July, which is a declaration of last best offer, in other words, identifying whether the defendant received an offer and whether he has accepted, rejected, et cetera.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: Now, in Idaho, it is not codified, but last best offer can refer to a plea deal. Death is on the table. This is a death penalty case. And, obviously, sometimes there can be a negotiation so that death is taken off the table and someone lives their life in prison forever. But they will survive and they will live.

BERMAN: All right.

CASAREZ: So, we'll see if there's any development.

BERMAN: Yes. Stay tuned. Jean Casarez, thank you very much.

A brand new hour of CNN New Central starts right now.

BOLDUAN: The breaking news this morning is the United States close to a nuclear deal with Iran? President Trump appearing to confirm there's been a formal proposal given to Iran.

Right now, Russia and Ukraine are meeting for their first direct peace talk since the start of that war. We're standing by for details, though President Trump is already saying nothing will happen until he speaks with Vladimir Putin.

And Cassie Ventura will soon be back on the stand to face round two of cross-examination from the defense team of Sean Diddy Combs. Why the judge says she has to be done today.

Sara is out today. I'm Kate Baldwin with John Berman. This is CNN News Central.

BERMAN: And the breaking news, President Trump is now on his way back to the U.S. after a sweeping four-day trip to the Middle East. And on Air Force 1, as he was leaving, the president appeared to confirm a significant development that Iran has received a U.S. proposal for a new nuclear deal after the president said yesterday, quote, the two sides are very close to an agreement.

Now, remember, President Trump ripped up the last Iran nuclear deal during his first term, and as that's going on, Russia and Ukraine are meeting for their first direct peace talks in nearly three years, they're meeting in Turkey. Neither Russian President Vladimir Putin, nor Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are in attendance, neither is President Trump, who says he plans on meeting with Putin soon, and that's where progress will be made, if there is going to be any.

So CNN's, Jeff Zeleny is with us from Abu Dhabi, Nick Paton Walsh is in Kyiv. Jeff, let's start with you on these latest developments.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: John, good morning. With President Trump saying yet again that no progress will be made on peace talks until he has a personal conversation with Vladimir Putin, that certainly casts a spell essentially on these meetings. And the question is, one, he is giving Putin a pass once again and moving the goalpost for a conversation that has been discussed at the White House for weeks, if not months.

But in other matters, the president is finishing up his trip here and he is on his way back to Washington now. The White House is viewing this as a very successful mission. The president called it historic this morning, but one new development, as you said, is the Iran deal. The American envoy, Steve Witkoff, has been meeting with the Iranian prime minister. We do not know details of this deal, but it is clear that both sides are interested in having a deal. The president said this to reporters a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: They have a proposal, but more importantly, they know they have to move quickly or something bad is going to happen,

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: But those words move quickly or something bad is going to happen. Those type of words that the president has said throughout his travels this week have also sparked some anger by some Iranian leaders.

[08:05:06]

The Iranian president yesterday has said that the American president is naive to think that he can come into the region and essentially threaten Iran.

So, the president was clear, the American president was clear that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, but at issue here is the level of a uranium enrichment that will be allowed, will it be allowed for civilian uses, et cetera, but the president now making his way back to Washington after his first overseas trip of his second term. John?

BERMAN: All right. Jeff Zeleny in Abu Dhabi, thank you.

Let's turn now to Nick Paton Walsh, who is in Kyiv. There are talks happening right now between Ukrainian officials and Russian officials, something of a concession already by the Ukrainians who didn't want any talks before a ceasefire, but they gave in on this point. But where do they see things now, Nick?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Look, and certainly the Ukrainians wanted talks on a significantly higher level than this. And, yes, it's important to remind everybody the Russians ignored a Ukrainian-European demand for a ceasefire on Saturday backed by the United States, originally proposed by President Trump and now we have the Istanbul meeting at a very junior level. The Ukrainians, frankly, sending their defense ministers, a sign of how seriously they want to take it.

But let's be honest, these are really talks about talks. We understand from the source close to some of these talks on the Ukrainian side that actually they're meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin, which Zelenskyy had proposed this, in fact, would be in itself. That is one of the elements actually being discussed. Yes, some symbolism there, certainly.

But if you look on the Russian side, very junior technical level officials, technical talks is how a Turkish official, Turkey mediating this, described it. Highly unlikely we'll see significant outcome from this. And indeed, President Trump and his Secretary of State Marco Rubio really taking the wind out of the sails of the pressure to speed this up by essentially suggesting that until Putin and Trump meet personally, nothing's really going to happen. Here's what the president had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I think it's time for us to just do it. I said -- you know, they all said Putin was going and Zelenskyy was going. And I said, if I don't go, I guarantee Putin's not going. And he didn't go. And I understand that. But we're going to get it -- we're going to get it done. So --

REPORTER: When do you think you'll meet the president?

TRUMP: As soon as we can set it up. I was going to -- I would actually leave here and go. I do want to see my beautiful grandson.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALSH: Now, just to remind everyone, this is really Russia's timetable, Russia's suggestions. And indeed Russia now has to accept that offer, public as it is now, from President Trump for a bilateral with the White House head. Russia brushing aside concerns about further sanctions, brushing aside the suggestion of a ceasefire and just frankly pursuing its own agenda. Many worried it's amassing forces near the eastern frontier and the summer offensive is what they're stalling for.

BERMAN: Which would be a source of major concern.

All right, Nick Paton Walsh for us in Kyiv this morning, Nick, thank you very much for that. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Also this morning after more than five hours of intense cross-examination, Cassie Ventura will soon be back on the stand to face more questioning from defense attorneys for her ex-boyfriend, Sean Diddy Combs. Over the last now three days, she's testified about their abusive, violent relationship in sometimes painfully graphic detail. Today's expected to be her final day of testimony because prosecutors say it needs to wrap -- they need to wrap it up because Ventura could give birth as soon as this weekend.

Yesterday, lawyers for Combs confronted her with text messages that she'd sent to him throughout their relationship, including messages showing her expressing desire for those drug-fueled sexual encounters she previously testified Combs forced her into. In one text message from 2009, Ventura wrote this, I'm always ready to freak-off, LOL. I just want it to be uncontrollable.

CNN's Kara Scannell is outside the courthouse where it's all going to begin again. Kara, what can we expect today?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, yes, cross-examination of Ventura will continue today and it is likely to be the last day that she'll be on the witness stand. That is because she is very pregnant, due to have a baby in just a couple of weeks. And the judge was telling Combs' defense team that they really needed to finish the cross-examination today. He was saying they should have enough time to get everything that they want to get through done, and he's giving them as much time as the prosecution had taken on their direct examination.

But that's certainly going to be something that may come down to the very end of the day. And yesterday, they were focusing a lot of their questions to Ventura on these text messages that she had exchanged with Combs during the course of their relationship over a decade, focusing on this the question surrounding the sex trafficking charge, because there, prosecutors say, that Combs had coerced and forced Ventura into having sex with prostitutes. And Ventura's testimony on direct was that she was forced into it, she was fearful of the physical threats that she would face and felt like she had no other choice.

So, the defense really focusing on that, pulling up some text messages at the beginning of their relationship where she said in one of them, I'm always ready to freak off. He also expressed some going back and forth about it, whether she wanted to do it or not. But they also showed text messages from 2017, which was toward the end of their relationship where she says to Combs, I'm always ready to freak off. I love our freak offs when we both want to do it. And she was asked about that and testified that those were just words at that point. And Combs' attorney said, but those were words you said to comb, so really trying to get at this question of consent, because his defense is that this was consensual.

Another thing about the coercion is the physical violence. And so they had asked a lot of questions about their drug lifestyle, and Ventura testified that she and Combs were addicted opioids at different points in their relationship, that they used drugs outside of freak-offs, that it was not just during the freak-offs that she was drugged. She voluntarily said that she took drugs. She even went back and forth about potentially going into rehab.

She also testified that Combs was physically violent when he was on drugs. And when he was coming off withdrawals from them, he was irritable. His team trying to get across the point to the jury that his violence was coming from drug use and not from a point of coercion.

Of course, we'll see how that sits with the jury, but her testimony should resume shortly, the cross-examination. Then the prosecution has a chance to talk to her one more time, but the judge urging them to get this done by the end of the day. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Kara, thank you so much. Kara's going to be inside the court room for us when this gets underway shortly.

I want to bring in right now CNN Senior Legal Analyst, former Federal Prosecutor Elie Honig. So, Elie, just broadly, what do you think of the defense team's cross-examination, their approach and/or how effective you think it's been so far?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Kate, it's been both unusual and effective. So, ordinarily, when the prosecution has one identifiable key witness, like Ms. Ventura is here, there's a tendency for the defense lawyers to try to destroy that person, to show that that person is an inveterate liar, has horrible motives to really try to take that person down. But the defense has not taken that approach with Cassie Ventura. I think they've calculated correctly that she was a credible, sympathetic, likable witness. And so instead, what they've tried to do is simply take her own words as she texted them and use them to make their defense arguments. So, they're not trying to tear her down. They're basically trying to undermine this notion that she was coerced using her own words. I think it's a smart tactic.

But I should say it reads better on paper then apparently it's playing in the courtroom, because I was reading about her testimony yesterday. I talked later to Elizabeth Wagmeister, one of our reporters in the courthouse. She said the cross-exam felt long and sort of dragging and repetitive and wasn't all that effective. So, look, I'm always going to defer to the people who are in the courtroom.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. And as we've seen time and time again, it is always impossible to get into the minds of the jury of what's effective and what's not throughout the course of a case.

So, let's the text messages that they presented, I know you said that it may have read better on paper, but when you have her saying, I'm always ready to freak off, that's from 2009, and then the one that they're talking about, the text message from 2017 saying that she enjoyed the freak-offs when we both want it, does that show consent?

HONIG: Well, I think on face value, it could. Look, there's hundreds upon hundreds of text messages, and I think the prosecution's going to have to argue there were times when she said things like this when she said she was ready to do these freak-offs, she enjoyed them. There's even times actually, when she's helping to arrange some of the logistics around them. And I think what the prosecution has to do probably later today when they get a chance to redirect her to ask her questions after the cross-examination is have her put those texts in context. Because just the words on their face do undermine this notion that she was coerced, they do seem to show some consent.

So, look, this is a problem for the prosecution. I mean, they have to show beyond a reasonable doubt that she was coerced. And if there's some doubt about it, if the jurors are wondering, gee, I don't know, that's going to be a big problem. And calling some psychologist later to say, let me tell you about victim syndrome, fine, I've done that, that can help. But if your whole case rests on some outside doctor coming in and saying, in my opinion, this was or was not coercion, that's not great for prosecutors.

BOLDUAN: That's so interesting, Elie, thank you so much. Let's see what happens today.

HONIG: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, a quote from another bench, a quote from the high court bench, what do hospitals do with newborns?

[08:15:00]

The Supreme Court justices continue to struggle with the case when they heard oral arguments yesterday of President Trump's push to end birthright citizenship. So, what happens now?

And a transit nightmare for commuters in New Jersey and beyond today, why engineers on the nation's third largest commuter rail service walked off the job and are now on strike?

And this morning cleanup is underway after parts of the United States we hit by very destructive tornadoes. Just look at that video.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right. This morning, the Supreme Court is sending mixed signals on the president's efforts to end birthright citizenship and whether lower court judges can stand in the way. The justices seemed open to the idea of restricting the reach of lower courts but not necessarily on issues as sweeping and fundamental as birthright citizenship.

[08:20:08]

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, considered a conservative judge, asked, what do hospitals do with a newborn? What do states do with a newborn? The justice expressed frustration when the solicitor general gave vague answers saying federal officials would figure it out.

With us now is one of the 19 attorneys general who have sued challenging the president's order ending birthright citizenship, California Attorney General Rob Bonta. Attorney General, thank you so much for being with us.

What's your reading o of the signals that justices were sending?

ROB BONTA (D), CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL: Thanks for having me. It's hard to read what all the different judges might do, and we don't try to predict that, but we will say that we think the law is very clear and that we think we're going to prevail. When it comes to birthright citizenship, the black letter law, what's right there in black and white in the U.S. Constitution says, if you're born on American soil, you're a U.S. citizen, period, full stop, end of story. The U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted that law as saying that provision of the Constitution, the citizenship clause in the 14th Amendment as saying exactly what it says, that if you're born in American soil, you are a U.S. citizen.

And when you have complete unlawfulness, like this executive order, which seeks to revoke a constitutional right with a executive order instead of the actual constitutional amendment process, then you need complete relief. The Constitution applies nationwide. The rights enjoyed by people, the constitutional rights enjoyed by people are nationally enjoyed. And so you need a nationwide injunction to provide relief here.

So, we think it's very appropriate to have nationwide relief in a nationwide injunction here and believe the court and hope the court will provide that.

BERMAN: What's your action plan, though, if they don't? What's your action plan if they restrict the rulings of district judges?

BONTA: Well, we'll see how they decide to do that. There were quite a few indications at the hearing yesterday that on this case, as you mentioned, when there's a fundamental right at stake, a constitutional right, a right that's enjoyed nationally by people throughout the nation, then a nationwide injunction is appropriate.

They might do something to restrict nationwide injunctions in some circumstances. We've never said that nationwide injunctions are appropriate in every case. We've never said that they should be prohibited in every case. There are appropriate cases for nationwide injunctions, and this is clearly one of them, when Trump has overstepped his authority by a mile and with this action has done something unlawful, undemocratic, and, frankly, un-American.

BERMAN: So, you are leading two new lawsuits to sort of along these lines against the administration over its threats to withhold billions of dollars in funding to states who don't follow his immigration enforcement policies. Why and what are you arguing here?

BONTA: That it's unlawful to condition coercively funding that Congress has already appropriated and to add conditions that Congress didn't include on congressionally appropriated funding for Homeland Security, for things like anti-terrorism and public safety programs, as well as for the Department of Transportation funding, things to help make our planes fly safely and our roads -- you know, cars drive on our roads and our rail move. And for Trump to add and impose these new conditions, it's unlawful and violates the Constitution, the spending clause and that it's coercive and there's no statutory authority for it as well.

And this is common for the Trump administration. He tries to exercise authority he doesn't have. He has a lot of authority as the president of the United States, but he frequently tries to reach for authority that's outside the bounds of his executive branch and rest in the congressional branch or with the states. And this is yet another example. He has been a repeat offender with unlawfulness.

BERMAN: So, the White House says to the lawsuits, Americans would all be better off if these Democrat attorneys general focused on prosecuting criminals and working with the Trump administration to address the toll of gangster illegal aliens on their communities instead of playing political games. So, your response to that.

BONTA: We're happy to and we are willing to and will work with anyone and everyone who wants to tackle crime. That's what we do. Public safety is job number one, two, and three, we take on fentanyl, organized retail crime, human trafficking, hate crimes, you name it. And the president, the executive branch must act within the scope of the law. The law is our North Star. If all we have is political grievance or ideological or policy difference, we can't and we won't go to court. We'll get thrown out of court immediately. But when the executive branch, when Trump breaks the law, he will be held accountable in court, period, full stop. We won't back down from that. We are resolute in that commitment. The Trump administration needs to follow the law. We filed 22 suits in 16 weeks, because that's how many times he's broken the law and violated the Constitution.

BERMAN: All right. Attorney General Rob Bonta of California, I appreciate your time this morning.

The nation's top health agency may soon stop recommending COVID vaccines for pregnant women and children, a new report this morning.

[08:25:01]

Plus, a major arrest targeting several members of a worldwide sextortion ring that police say targeted thousands of victims, including minors.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: According to the Wall Street Journal, a new reporting, the Department of Health and Human Services is planning to stop recommending routine COVID vaccines for children, teens and pregnant women. The CDC currently recommends everyone six months and older receive COVID vaccines.

The exact timing of the new announcement, not clear, but some are expecting it in the coming days, and that is around the same time the agency plans to launch a shift in how vaccines are tested and approved. A new FDA framework that drug companies will need to follow, possibly requiring more data, more study for vaccine approval.

HHS says it's all about transparency, though,Ssme medical experts worry it's going to actually limit access to vaccines.

Joining us right now is former FDA Commissioner under Presidents Biden and Obama Dr. Robert Califf. It's good to see you again, Doctor. Thank you for being here.

First and foremost, on the Wall Street Journal reporting about dropping the recommendations on routine COVID vaccines, what do you make of it?

[08:30:02]

DR. ROBERT CALIFF, FORMER FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION COMMISSIONER: Well, you know, we're in a different time period now.