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Billy Joel Cancels Upcoming Tour Due To Neurological Disorder; Trump Threatens 50 Percent Tariff On E.U., 25 Percent On Apple; Open- Source Data Shows The Cessna That Crashed In San Diego Was Flying Too Low At Last Recorded Point, Officials Say It Is Unlikely Any Of The Jet's Six Passengers And Crew Survived; Music Talent Agency Says Three Employees Died In The San Diego Plane Crash, Including Its Co-Founder, Dave Shapiro. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired May 23, 2025 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:00:15]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Tough talk on trade. President Trump threatened steep tariffs on tech giant Apple and the European Union. But is this just a negotiation tactic? One thing is certain the threats bringing volatility back to the markets.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Plus, Memorial Day travel rush expected to shatter records and put Newark Airport to the test after a series of scary incidents in the air. The FAA has cut flights to help, but will it be enough? We're going to show you how this could impact holiday travel plans across the country. And we're following breaking news, music icon Billy Joel reveals that he is battling a neurological disorder and is canceling his upcoming tour. Ahead, we're going to tell you what more we're learning about his condition. We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

KEILAR: Happening now, fresh uncertainty is President Trump threatens new tariffs on the European Union and tech giant Apple. Earlier, stocks slid almost instantly after Trump suggested all E.U. imports should face a 50 percent tariff. Trump also saying that Apple should build iPhones in America or face a 25 percent tariff. Analysts say if that happens, the price of just one iPhone could jump to $3,500.

Let's bring in CNN's Jeff Zeleny at the White House. Jeff, do we know why this tough trade talk was reignited today?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, the best understanding we can get is that the President has been, agitated and annoyed by the fact that there has been very little progress made toward negotiating these trade agreements with the E.U. countries. Of course, President Trump has long expressed his grievance with the European Union. He bluntly says he believes it was formed, in his view, to essentially screw the U.S. Excuse my language, that's what he often says.

But look, the bottom line here is that the pause on trade deals back in April has set all of the trade deals essentially on hold. For all of the boasting that it would be easy to renegotiate all these deals, that has not been the case. So the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the president was trying to light a fire under the E.U. But, the question is, is this the way to do it or not? Now, putting a new deadline of June 1st before 50 percent tariffs could be imposed. But countries now have gotten onto this. I mean, for every country that the U.S. has threatened a large tariff with, the president has ultimately, eventually backed off or negotiated something else. So, this does seem to just be an attempt to jumpstart negotiations, if you will, Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Jeff Zeleny, thank you for that report, live for us from the White House. Omar?

JIMENEZ: I want to bring in former Trump Economic Adviser, Stephen Moore, who joins us now. Stephen, really appreciate you being here.

STEPHEN MOORE, FORMER TRUMP ECONOMIC ADVISER: Thank you.

So, let's start with what is the latest of what we've heard from the president, now threatening 50 percent tariff on goods from the E.U., citing that lack of progress in current trade negotiations. And I know that the President is using this, as he said, to get the best deal possible. But, do you see any downside to this type of posturing when technically we're still in the negotiation period for the paused retaliatory tariffs?

MOORE: Well, great to be with you, Omar. Thanks for having me. I think your reporter really nailed it, that I think Donald Trump and -- is really frustrated right now with the pace of progress with some of these countries. Remember, we had the deal with the U.K. a couple -- a few weeks ago, and then we had the big blockbuster deal that was announced with China, and the markets just reacted very positively to that. We had a big bull market run.

And then a few weeks have come by, and I think Trump is frustrated that we're not hearing more concessions from the European countries. And I think that's why this is -- you know, you started this by saying, is this a negotiating tactic? Absolutely. It is a negotiating tactic to get the Europeans off their fannies and to start negotiating a better deal for America.

JIMENEZ: And on that note, take a listen to a little of what we've heard from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT BESSENT, (R) UNITED STATES TREASURY SECRETARY: I would hope that this would light a fire under the E.U. because, I've said before, E.U. has a collective action problem here. It's 27 countries, but they're being represented by the one group in Brussels. So, some of the feedback that I've been getting is that the underlying countries don't even know what the E.U. is negotiating on their behalf.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[14:05:00]

JIMENEZ: So, a reinforcement of sort of that negotiating tactic mentality here. But, I guess the question is, when you impose tariffs, then they're paused, then they're reinstated, then they're threatened again. Do you run a risk of sort of losing credibility in that threat? Even if the goal stays the same, but I think for the layman person following this, we're trying to figure out, OK, what's on and what isn't? Do you think there is a risk of losing credibility in some of these threats?

MOORE: Well, certainly, it's unsettling for markets to have one policy, so that's created a lot of choppy waters, no question about it, for the economy on the stock market. But look, I've been around Trump for eight years. I've listened very intently to what he has had to say about trade. He is frustrated that these countries have not come forward and given America a better deal. And we would've thought that, by now, the European could have -- the E.U. could have gotten their act together and said, look, here's our counter offer.

But so far there's been a lack of progress. And I think that by the way, the Treasury Secretary is right that, when you're trying to deal with 16 different countries all to come together, it complicates things. And but I -- look, at the end of the day, I think the Europeans will come together. They will make a deal. It will be on the table. And at the end of the day, I think Trump is going to prevail here. I think the Europeans are going to be forced to lower their tariffs. They have pretty high tariffs on American products, and that's a better deal for America.

JIMENEZ: And early last month, when President Trump initially announced the plan to pause the retaliatory tariffs, just for the moment, or I guess for this period, Bessent was really credited with persuading the president to do so at the time, at least as sources told CNN. But you're someone who was advised this president at points and in moments like this, where I'm sure there are a number of varying opinions about how to move forward, what is the dynamic like and what does he typically resonate with?

MOORE: Well, Trump does like to get different voices at the table, no question about it. So, I'm sure there are some people in the Oval Office who said, Hey, this is a really good strategy. Some others say, maybe it might be a little bit dangerous. But, I'm not surprised -- too surprised by this because Donald Trump wants to have these tariffs in place. I mean, he wants the trade deals in place as quickly as possible. And this does -- the fact that we don't have a deal yet, not only hurts the U.S., but it hurts the Europeans as well.

So my guess is, that they're going to you're going to get a response sometime in the next few days from the European leaders and I bet they will come with a deal, at least an initial deal on the table. And that would be good for everyone.

JIMENEZ: And one of the things around that time was Trump cited the bond market getting yippy, I believe that was the word he used. Obviously, we saw Moody's downgrade the U.S.' perfect credit rating, which it had had since 1917. But, lower credit worthiness could lead to the belief that lending money to the government is more risky, which could raise U.S. treasury yields. How much does that worry you in this economic picture? Do you see that as a near-term issue that needs to be dealt with now, or something that, hey, we can mess around with this a little bit and deal with it down the line?

MOORE: Oh, look, I'm pretty bullish right now. I think the big story of this week was the House of Representatives passing that tax bill, which everybody believes is really important in terms of the economy. We would be facing a $4 trillion tax increase next year. So that would be a devastating blow to the American economy. We got to get this done. For the most part, what the Trump tax bill does really is just extend those successful 2017 tax cuts.

So, I think that's the big story of the week. Notwithstanding what was announced today, was we're a big step closer to getting this thing signed, sealed, and delivered hopefully by the 4th of July. And I'm going to make a bet that once that happens, I think you're going to see a very positive stock market response to that.

JIMENEZ: Well, you're positive now. There are a lot of hurdles still in the Senate, even from some Republicans at this point, including --

(LAUGH)

MOORE: That's true.

JIMENEZ: -- that it doesn't go so far to cut the deficit. But you know what, we'll bring you back. Let's talk about it when we get into Senate negotiations. Stephen Moore, really appreciate the time.

MOORE: Thank you. All right.

JIMENEZ: Meanwhile, we're learning new details about that deadly plane crash in San Diego, California. A new CNN analysis of the flight path shows the small business jet may have been flying too low just moments before the crash, early Thursday morning. Now, officials say the plane hit some power lines and then careened into a neighborhood just before 4:00 a.m. You can see what the scene looked like at the time, killing at least two people on board. Though fire official says it's unlikely any of the six people on the jet survived.

KEILAR: The music agency Sound Talent Group says three of its employees died aboard the plane, including its co-founder Dave Shapiro.

[14:10:00]

The agency saying it is deeply saddened by the news. It described Shapiro as a "visionary in the music industry." CNN Aviation Correspondent, Pete Muntean is with us now. Pete, obviously, there's still a lot to cover with the investigation. And look, we know they were traveling too low because the plane crashed. The point here being is the fact that it was lower than it should have been an indication that perhaps the pilot wasn't paying attention to instruments, or --

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: They may have fallen into a trap here, which is called ducking under on an approach path to try and get below the weather, a really disturbing detail as these disturbing details come out all of the time. The NTSB says the private jet, as you mentioned, hit power lines just before hitting that neighborhood. It was that low. So, the focus of the investigation now will be the jet being too low as it descended into land, but also the very poor weather at the time of the crash.

Air traffic control told the pilot of low clouds and bad visibility from fog, but that was the report from Miramar Marine Corps Air Station. That's a few miles away from the point of intended landing, Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport, and the weather reporting system there had been out for two nights, out of order for 30 hours or so. So, the pilot was coming into land at an airport where he had no idea of the actual conditions. This is what Air Traffic Control told the pilot in the exchange before that attempted approach.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For 0955 Zulu with wind calm, visibility one half and indefinite ceiling 200.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. That doesn't sound great but we'll give it a go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: We'll give it a go, fateful last words there. The pilot was flying something called an instrument approach. This is it, a published path by the FAA. So, flights can descend through clouds and make a landing in poor weather conditions. Approaches have limits on how bad the weather can be though, and this approach required the clouds to be no lower than 250 feet, visibility of three quarters of a mile.

Remember, the weather that we just heard in that recording at Miramar nearby had clouds at 200 feet and a half mile of visibility, meaning the conditions at Montgomery Airport were too bad to land. Pilots can also descend if they can -- if they want to see what the actual conditions are like, but there are rules here. The approach said they couldn't go below 673 feet. You never ever go below that because there's no guarantee you can avoid the ground if you get any lower than that.

So, the preliminary flight tracking data says this flight descended to 500 feet, so more than 150 feet below the legal lowest altitude. We don't know right now, why the pilot was that low, really all of these factors are going to be pieced together as investigators are just now beginning this probe.

KEILAR: All right, Pete Muntean, thank you so much for that.

Still to come, details on this brain disorder that is forcing Billy Joel to cancel his upcoming tour. Could this mean the end of his iconic musical career?

JIMENEZ: Plus, was today's prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine a major step toward a ceasefire? We're going to take you into the lab where the Trump administrations fight with Harvard, as well as potentially putting decades of invaluable research at risk. That and much more coming up on "CNN News Central."

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[14:18:07]

KEILAR: We are following breaking news, legendary singer and songwriter, Billy Joel just announced he's canceling all of his scheduled concerts after he was recently diagnosed with a neurological disorder. The performer is seeking treatment for normal pressure hydrocephalus, which is also known as NPH. According to Yale Medicine, it is a very rare condition that "occurs when a person has too much fluid in the brain." Let's discuss with CNN Medical Analyst, Dr. Jonathan Reiner. He's a Professor of Medicine and Surgery at George Washington University.

First, Dr. Reiner, just explain what this is, how it affects the brain, and how rare it is.

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: So Brianna, the brain and spinal cord contain a fluid and are surrounded by a fluid called CSF, cerebrospinal fluid. It's continuously produced by the brain and continuously removed, and it travels through the brain in sort of a continuous manner. If the circulation of cerebrospinal fluid, and by the way, the fluid -- the purpose of the fluid is to, basically, provide nutrients to the brain and also remove waste.\

If the circulation of fluid in the brain is blocked, and the amount of fluid increases in the brain and around the brain, it can exert pressure on the brain and that can cause rather severe neurologic symptoms. And that's called normal pressure hydrocephalus.

KEILAR: OK. So, what do those symptoms look like when there is pressure on the brain? And is that the only -- are those the only symptoms?

REINER: So, there's typically a triad of symptoms.

[14:20:00]

People and -- and most of the people who have NPH are over the age of 60 or 65, and the symptoms people typically present with involve their gait. They become wobbly. They walk with sort of a strange, almost slapping gait. They may fall. The second symptom that people often have is incontinence. And this can sometimes be the initial symptoms, sudden onset of incontinence in an older person.

And the third class of symptoms has to do with cognitive function. Patients may have difficulty with memory. They may have difficulty with executive function, decision making, and they may be indifferent to their incontinence, that's another clue. And sometimes, the diagnosis of NPH is not so easy because some of the symptoms overlap with dementia. So, people who develop this may often be evaluated first for dementia. But the big difference between this and more classic forms of dementia, such as Alzheimer's, is that NPH can be treated. It can be very effectively treated. So, patients who are thought maybe to have these symptoms undergo a battery of tests such as MRI and CT. They may have a lumbar puncture to drain some cerebral fluid to test. But, if the diagnosis of NPH is made, surgeons -- neurosurgeons can place basically a valve inside one of the sort of reservoirs in the brain -- one of the brain's ventricles that contains cerebrospinal fluid.

That basically becomes sort of a pop-off valve. And when the pressure in one of those chambers increases, fluid gets drained via flexible tube, basically, which is threaded outside the skull, down through the neck and into the abdomen, and drains into the peritoneal cavity. And that's called a VP shunt, ventricular peritoneal shunt, and that allows the pressure in the brain to be reduced, and that will often alleviate the symptoms. So that can be a very effective treatment for people with NPH.

KEILAR: And really quickly, so the prognosis, that sounds positive?

REINER: It's positive if this is primary NPH, meaning it's NPH caused by sort of unknown reasons. There can be some secondary reasons to develop NPH if the fluid is blocked by, for instance, a tumor or an aneurysm. And in order to solve this, problem, you'd have to solve the inciting issue. But if this is primary NPH, without an inciting secondary issue or primary issue, then this can be very readily treated with neurosurgery.

KEILAR: All right, important information as we certainly are hoping the best for Billy Joel. Dr. Reiner, thank you so much.

REINER: My pleasure.

KEILAR: I want to go now to the White House. President Trump is taking questions in the Oval Office.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You said the negotiations are going nowhere. What -- where are the kind of points were there (ph)?

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well, they're very slow moving. They -- I've been saying to everybody, they've treated us very badly over the years. It was formed in order to hurt the United States, in order to take advantage of the United States, and they've done that. We have a big deficit with them. They sell millions and millions of cars, as you know, Mercedes and BMW and Volkswagen and many others. And we were restricted from -- essentially, restricted from selling cars into the European Union which is not nice.

And I just said, it's time that we play the game the way -- I know how to play the game. Nobody -- they've taken advantage of other people representing this country, and they're not going to do that any longer. Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, you are a deal maker, deal breaker? What are you hoping to achieve with a 50 percent tariffs on E.U. (inaudible)?

TRUMP: Well, I think this is -- there's no -- there is no tariff because what they'll do is they'll send their companies into the U.S. and build their plant. We have, I guess, over $12 trillion practically committed. You look at other presidents, they haven't had $1 trillion for a year, for two years, for three years. We have numbers. Nobody's ever seen numbers like we have. And if they build their plant here, then they have no tariff at all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And are you looking for a deal in nine days? Will you be able to do that, sir?

TRUMP: I'm not looking for a deal. I mean, we've set the deal, it's at 50 percent. But again, there is no tariff if they build their plant here. Now, if somebody comes in and wants to build a plant here, I can talk to them about a little bit of a delay, but while they're building their plant, which is something I think that would be appropriate maybe, we'll determine that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is there anything they can do, sir? Is there anything the E.U. can do?

[14:25:00]

TRUMP: I don't know. We're going to see what happens. But, right now, it's going on, on June 1st, and that's the way it is. No, they haven't treated us properly. They haven't treated our country properly. They banded together to take advantage of us. And the people behind me know because they had some of that with their industry. But, generally, we signed a great deal with United Kingdom. We have numerous other deals that are ready to be signed. We have -- we've signed a deal with China. We have some really amazing deals.

But the European Union, I mean, the sole purpose was really to, not to hurt us, but to take advantage of us. And we're not going to be taken advantage of.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, on Apple, you said this morning that if they don't make their iPhones in the U.S., you're going to hit them with a 25 percent tariff.

TRUMP: Right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you have the power to tariff one single company? And why would you want to hurt an American company in that way?

TRUMP: No, it will be more -- it would be more. It would be also Samsung and anybody that makes that product. Otherwise, it wouldn't be fair. So anybody that makes that product and that'll start on, I guess, the end of June, it'll come out. I think we'll have that appropriately done by the end of June. So, if they make that product -- now, again, when they build their plant here, there's no tariff. So, they're going to be building plants here.

But, I had an understanding with Tim that he wouldn't be doing this. He said he is going to India to build plants. I said, that's OK to go to India, but you're not going to sell into here without tariffs. And that's the way it is. Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why would you hurt an American company --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What makes you confident, sir, that Apple can build in the United States at a price the American consumers (inaudible)?

TRUMP: Oh, they can. You know, they can. A lot of it -- a lot of it's so computerized. Now, these plants are amazing if you look at them, but they can do that. And actually, as you know, Apple is coming in with $500 billion, so are the chip companies. We have all of the chip companies coming in, the biggest. $500 billion, $200 billion, $250 billion they're spending. But we're talking about the iPhone now. And the iPhone, if they're going to sell it in America, I want it to be built in the United States. They're able to do that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When you say that Walmart should eat the cost of the tariffs, is that an acknowledgement that it is U.S. companies that bear the brunt of tariffs, not foreign countries?

TRUMP: No, sometimes the country will eat it. Sometimes Walmart will eat it, and sometimes there'll be something to pay, something extra. I've always been a fan and I've always believed, and if you look -- take a look at what I did four years ago, we had the greatest economy and we had no inflation. Remember that. We had no inflation and yet, we had hundreds of billions of dollars of tariffs that I put on China. Yet, we had no inflation. We had no big cost differential.

Oftentimes, and I've -- I don't like it when a department store, because they'll do a lot of business, but they announce record profits and everything else. They have to take out some of their profits, so make a little bit less money. But, I don't want -- I don't want the consumer -- I don't want the consumer to pay.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But, why impose tariffs that are hurting American businesses?

TRUMP: They're not hurting. They're helping because they're creating jobs in America. We're creating tremendous amounts of jobs in America like you've never seen. We're having investment in America. We're not getting ripped off by every country in the world. We've been ripped off by every country in the world. They're making their product, they sell it. They don't give our people the jobs. They make it with other country's jobs. And we will have something that nobody will ever see again, I think. I think we have a potential to do numbers that we never envisioned in the wildest here.

Look at what's happening, $10 trillion to $12 trillion in literally a couple of months. It's not -- nothing like that's ever happened. It's very special, we're doing a very special thing. We want -- if they're going to sell it here, generally speaking, not for all products, there's some products we don't want to make and frankly, we're much better off getting them elsewhere. But, for certain products, we want cars. We want to make cars. We don't want to have -- and I like Canada very much, but we don't want to have Canada making our cars. We want to make our cars. Oh, it's a phone call. Do you mind? Hello?

(LAUGH)

TRUMP: OK. It's only a congressman.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I'd let you know. Yeah?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, are you considering stopping other universities from taking foreign students (inaudible)?

TRUMP: It's a different congressman. They're all congratulating us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that an iPhone, sir?

TRUMP: yeah, it's lucky. It is. OK, let's go.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you considering stopping other universities besides Harvard from accepting foreign students?

TRUMP: Well, we're taking a look at a lot of things. And as you know, billions of dollars has been paid to Harvard. How ridiculous is that? Billions. And they have $52 billion as an endowment. They have $52 billion and this country is paying billions and billions of dollars and then give student loans and they have to pay back the loans. So, Harvard's going to have to change its ways.

(CROSSTALK)