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Interview with Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO): Roll Back of Sanctions on Syria, State Department Funding Cuts, Trump's Big, Beautiful Bill; Musk Says He Plans to Spend a Lot Less Money on Politics; FDA Announces Change to Future COVID-19 Vaccine Approvals; North Korea Abruptly Restricts Tourism After Reopening. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired May 20, 2025 - 15:30   ET

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


[15:30:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Mostly stayed out of Syria's civil war. Why would the U.S. need to step in right now?

REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): Well, there is no Syria civil war right now. The last regime collapsed. There's a now a government, a provisional government that was able to push back the Bashar Assad regime and has been able to maintain some semblance of security.

This is actually a generational opportunity. It's a generational opportunity, not just for the United States, but for the world to actually have peace and stability in what has been one of the most vexing parts of the planet.

But this administration needs a policy. They need both carrots and sticks. We need some incentives. I actually agreed with Donald Trump and the administration last week when they said they were going to roll back sanctions. I thought that was a positive step. But you just can't do that by itself. You actually need to have follow on actions, which, of course, they lack right now.

I would like to see us really engage in this region so we can have peace and stability and not have it escalate out of control like it has in years past.

SANCHEZ: I wonder what you make of Rubio saying that adding additional sanctions on Russia would push Putin further away from a peace deal. What's your reaction?

CROW: Well, history doesn't prove that. I mean, there's nothing in history that proves that. In fact, history would prove the opposite.

We actually know Donald -- we actually know Putin very, very well. Vladimir Putin has been around for 30 years. We've studied him. We've watched him. We've seen him make deals and break deals.

He has a very well-worn playbook. His playbook is he plays things out. He bides for time. He stalls. And then he continues to do, you know, his military activities, his wars, his aggression, both overt and covert. That's exactly what he's doing right now. Vladimir Putin will only do what he is forced to do, either militarily or through economic sanctions. So the idea that we can force Vladimir Putin to do anything, in this case, come to the bargaining table in good faith without some sort of pressure is just absurd.

SANCHEZ: I believe, Congressman, you would agree that at least one of the policies that this administration has when it comes to foreign policy is to limit U.S. involvement and certainly U.S. funding going abroad. And to that point, Rubio is defending $20 billion in cuts to the State Department. He cites duplicative, wasteful ideological programs that he says provoke resentment abroad.

He's, of course, alluding to these claims of millions of dollars in spending for DEI programs in Serbia, a DEI musical in Ireland, this transgender opera in Colombia. I wonder, from your perspective, would cutting these programs really harm U.S. foreign policy?

CROW: Let's actually talk about what this administration is doing. This is a crazy combination of isolationism and aggression, right? They just spent hundreds of millions of dollars conducting hundreds of airstrikes against the Houthis, something that's been going on for over a decade.

So there's aggression. There's military buildup. They want to create a trillion dollar defense budget and double down on some of our most expensive conventional military systems at the same time as they want to pull back from our diplomacy, our foreign aid, and our relationships with our key allies.

So basically, what this administration is trying to do is pull us back from all the non-military things and then double down on all the offensive military things. That is an extremely dangerous combination. We know how that's going to end.

It's not going to end well for Americans. It's not going to end well for the U.S. taxpayers. And it's certainly not going to end well for the United States.

So we're in for some crazy times here unless something changes, which is what I'm trying to do here on Capitol Hill.

SANCHEZ: And on Capitol Hill, the question of domestic spending is top of mind, given that the president was there today demanding that Republicans plow through a vote on his domestic agenda. And one key item in this bill that he's pushing, these new rules for Medicaid recipients that Republicans say would block the undocumented and fraudsters from receiving benefits. Where do you stand on work requirements?

CROW: Well, let's be clear about what this administration is trying to do. They're trying to give an enormous tax break to the top 1 percent in the largest corporations. They're going to blow a hole trillions of dollars large in the deficit.

And then they're going to cut health care for upwards of 15 million Americans. That's what's at stake here. That's what the Republicans are trying to do.

It's in their proposal. This is not a debate. This is not my interpretation.

I have 175,000 constituents in my district alone whose health care could be slashed if this bill goes through. Lives will be lost. People will go without medications.

That's what's at stake. It's intolerable.

[15:35:00]

They've done this before, time and time again, trickle down economics. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. It only makes the wealthier more wealthy. It blows up our deficit.

And then the working class people like me and the people I grew up with are the ones left holding the bag.

SANCHEZ: Congressman, I want to get you on the record on something. Do you believe that Congresswoman LaMonica McIver should face charges for that skirmish outside the ICE Center in Newark?

CROW: This is absurd. What the administration is trying to do is they're trying to intimidate Congress. They've been trying to do this for months.

They've been threatening us. We will not be intimidated. Let me be very clear about that, too.

United States Congress and House Democrats will not cow to this administration. We will not be intimidated. They can indict us. They can come after us. They can investigate us. We are here to fulfill our oath.

I went to war three times for this country. I held my hand up high. I took an oath to the Constitution. I will fulfill that oath whatever comes my way.

SANCHEZ: Congressman Jason Crow, we have to leave the conversation there. Appreciate your time.

CROW: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Coming up, Elon Musk pledging to spend a lot less time and money on politics. Why he now thinks he's done enough. After a quick break.

[15:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Elon Musk giving some insight into his future plans today, saying he will lead Tesla for at least five more years. And as far as political spending goes, he is cutting back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELON MUSK, TESLA CEO: I think, in terms of political spending, I'm going to do a lot less in the future.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And why is that?

MUSK: I think I've done enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: That was just a few hours ago, speaking at an economic forum in Qatar, the world's richest man donating over $290 million on the 2024 election, helping to boost President Donald Trump and other Republican candidates.

CNN's Hadas Gold joins us now live from New York. So, Hadas, what should we make of this?

HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: I mean, pretty stunning. You laid out the number right there. He spent more than $290 million to get President Trump elected.

Then he spent millions more on a race in Wisconsin. And he talked continuously about how electing Trump and how these elections are all about the future of humanity and saving humanity. And now he's saying he doesn't see a reason to do more.

What about DOGE? What about the midterm elections? Republicans have a slim majority in Congress. Things could change. I'm sure there's a lot of Republicans out there who are very disappointed with what Elon Musk said this morning.

Now, it is still possible he will be doing just more, but just behind the scenes. He can get involved without being onstage brandishing a chainsaw like we saw him do in the past few months.

Now, why is he saying this? Why is he taking a step back from politics? We're seeing him take a step back in general from Washington. But a few reasons could come to mind. We saw in that Wisconsin race, he put a lot of money into it, a lot of time into it, and it didn't go his way for that judge.

And we've seen, of course, what's happened with Tesla. Its stock price is tumbling. Its share price is tumbling as more and more people associate Elon Musk with Tesla and Tesla with Elon Musk. And now we're seeing him come back into it.

And then if you take a look, actually, at Elon Musk's own disapproval ratings, they have gone up quite significantly in just a span of a few months. You can see that in February, 49 percent in this poll disapproved of him.

And in just a couple of months, that's popped up to 57 percent. And his approval rating, the amount of people who approve him, has not gone up in any significant way. So you have to wonder how that is affecting him as a person, because when you see his activities online, he definitely cares what people think about him.

But we did see him leave the door open a little bit. And he himself said he's going to be in Washington this week. He's meeting with President Trump for dinner and he's meeting with cabinet secretaries this week.

So I don't think we can officially say that Elon Musk is completely done with politics just yet -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: We'll watch any remarks that he makes to get any hints as to his future plans. Hadas Gold, thank you so much -- Brianna.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Well, you may have a harder time getting a COVID-19 booster shot this fall, depending on how healthy you are. The FDA is changing U.S. requirements for vaccine approval. The move could limit booster shots to people over 65 and those who are at highest risk of illness.

It could also mean millions of healthy Americans potentially lose access to updated boosters. CNN's Meg Tirrell is with us now. Meg, tell us about these changes.

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so we know that we update COVID vaccines typically seasonally in a situation very similar to how we update the flu vaccines. Now, the FDA has put out this new framework today that essentially maintains that system for people over the age of 65 and those with underlying health conditions, putting them at higher risk of severe COVID-19. But for everybody else under the age of 65, they want to require more evidence, specifically clinical trials, which can take a much longer period of time.

The FDA's leadership under the Trump administration writing in a New England Journal of Medicine commentary today, quote, we simply don't know whether a healthy 52-year-old woman with a normal BMI who has had COVID-19 three times and has received six previous doses of a COVID-19 vaccine will benefit from a seventh dose. So they're talking about generating more clinical trial-based evidence to find that out. Experts, however, point out there are existing data suggesting that you at least get symptomatic protection from getting COVID boosters.

They also worry about the availability for particularly young children under the age of four who may not have been exposed to COVID or had a vaccine yet. So a lot of questions still about this policy.

[15:45:00]

KEILAR: Yes, so how many people may no longer be able to access the updated vaccines because of this?

TIRRELL: Yes, so the list of Americans with underlying health conditions is pretty broad. The FDA leaders estimate it's at least 33 percent of the population. If you look at higher estimates, it goes up to three quarters of the population.

These are conditions including obesity, diabetes, asthma, cancer, a lot of underlying health conditions. Anybody who smokes or used to smoke, anybody who's pregnant. So this can still cover a wide swathe of the population.

But there are questions about even folks who don't fall into those categories. Should they still have the option of getting vaccinated? And this is something that RFK Jr. actually said in November. He wasn't going to take anybody's vaccines away. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR., HHS SECRETARY: Somebody, if vaccines are working for somebody, I'm not going to take them away. People ought to have a choice and that choice ought to be informed by the best information. So I'm going to make sure scientific safety studies and efficacies are out there and people can make individual assessments about whether that product is going to be good for them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TIRRELL: And guys, we've reached out to HHS about how that statement aligns with these new guidelines and haven't yet heard back. Back over to you.

KEILAR: All right. Let us know when you do. Meg Tirrell, thank you so much for that.

Still ahead, North Korea shutting the door on foreign visitors after previously rolling out the welcome mat. How a group of social media influencers who toured the country may be the reason.

[15:50:14]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: North Korea is closing its borders, again. Months after welcoming foreign tourists and social media influencers, the hermit kingdom is now refusing to issue new visas. CNN senior international correspondent Will Ripley looks at what may have caused this sudden about face.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARRY JAGGARD, YOUTUBER: The Koreans are smiling and waving, heading to work.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): British YouTuber Harry Jaggard had never run a marathon, but when North Korea announced a handful of foreign spots for the Pyongyang marathon --

JAGGARD: This is where all the military parades are.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Harry hit the ground running.

JAGGARD: These are not paid actors. These are real people.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Joining the first group of Westerners since COVID to visit North Korea's capital. JAGGARD: Ten percent of the trip were athletes, runners, and then 90 percent were like content creators.

RIPLEY: Do you think the North Koreans knew that most of the people in your group were content creators like you?

JAGGARD: The tour guides definitely weren't expecting it. They said that the tour guides, they said that they'd never seen this many cameras, like pointing at them.

JAGGARD: Can we not mingle? Can we not mingle?

JAGGARD: They're going to bring one actor.

RIPLEY (voice-over): North Korea tries to carefully control every aspect of foreign tours.

JAGGARD: One of the rules they told us was just like, you got to ask your tour guide to film. If they tell you not to film, just don't film. And people were like filming in places they shouldn't be filmed like --

RIPLEY (voice-over): They could not control questions like this.

JAGGARD: But do you feel like you know him? Kim Jong Un?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes, yes.

JAGGARD: He has a daughter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think so.

JAGGARD: And she will be the next leader? Maybe?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not sure.

JAGGARD: Oh, ok. Ok.

RIPLEY: He looked pretty uncomfortable when you asked him that question.

JAGGARD: He was definitely uncomfortable. I found out after that like they don't really talk about the future, like the future leaders. They just talk about the present.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Soon after the marathon, North Korea hit the brakes, abruptly canceling foreign visas for its international trade fair in Pyongyang.

RIPLEY: You guys already had flight tickets, hotels booked.

JUSTIN MARTELL, TOUR OPERATOR: We had our visas issued and then abruptly canceled. That wasn't just us. That was actually over 200 Chinese and also Russian visitors as well.

RIPLEY: Did they say why? MARTELL: They just said that it was in the national interest.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Tour operator Justin Martell was supposed to lead a 20-person business delegation. He also led tours to Rason, North Korea's special economic zone, earlier this year. Social media influencers quickly snatched up those spots.

MARTELL: Controversy creates clicks, that creates cash. The more sensational your video is, the more views you're going to get, the more followers you're going to get.

RIPLEY (voice-over): That reopening lasted less than three weeks. All trips suddenly canceled without warning or official explanation.

MARTELL: There are some people in Pyongyang or higher up in the North Korean government who looked at the footage that came out from those YouTubers and thought that it didn't reflect positively.

It's called the Hermit Kingdom for a reason. So all we can do now is hope for the best.

JAGGARD: These are the different haircuts we can get.

RIPLEY (voice-over): The closures mean for now, none of this.

JAGGARD: Haircut like Kim Jong Un, Kim Jong Un haircut.

RIPLEY (voice-over): And more of this -- North Korea's carefully controlled state propaganda, a way to project power and military prowess without having to worry about anyone going off script.

RIPLEY: It's important to keep in mind that North Korea doesn't really have social media like much of the world. They also have been hermetically sealed off from much of the world for the last five years, all during COVID. So it might be a simple case of authorities not being prepared for the sea change that has occurred on these tourist trips, where now you have most of people on the trips, content creators, sometimes with millions of followers and just a handful of minors to keep tabs on what they're doing, as opposed to when journalists go to the country, they have significantly more attention and focus to make sure they don't point their cameras in the wrong direction. That was certainly the case for me on my 19 trips to that country.

Will Ripley, CNN, Taipei.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[15:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Air travelers, you have to be sick and tired of eating airplane food. Those sad, stale biscotti crackers. And you're probably fed up with all those fees, too. There's a New York-based influencer that is paving the way for the future. She figured out how to get a first-class experience at economy prices.

KEILAR: Yep, take a look at Chloe Gray just munching on a whole rotisserie chicken on a recent flight. That was not on the menu. I know, right? So surprising. She brought it on board as a carry-on designer bag.

SANCHEZ: This is thinking big right here. Her video has over half a million views on TikTok. She said that she was pulled aside when trying to get the rotisserie chicken through TSA by a skeptical agent.

[16:00:00]

But eventually, she was waved through with her chicken after she explained how hungry she was.

KEILAR: Her message to her followers? Let's normalize eating whole foods in public and not being apologetic about it.

SANCHEZ: I feel like this is the issue that all Americans can get behind. Let us eat what we want where we want.

KEILAR: Not a whole food, but I don't know. I could take like a six- foot sub with me on the flight. No?

SANCHEZ: A pizza, an entire pizza.

KEILAR: Yes, that's a whole food because it's a whole pizza, right?

SANCHEZ: You can share it with passengers. I'm sick of being frowned upon.

KEILAR: "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts now.

END