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Celebrity Stylist Testified in Combs Trial; U.S. Economy Shrank in First Quarter; Rick Newman is Interviewed about Tariffs; Kurt Volker is Interviewed about Putin; Karen Read Retrial Resumes. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired May 29, 2025 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:31:39]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, very shortly, court resumes in the racketeering and sex trafficking trial of Sean Combs. Back on the stand, Deonte Nash, a former stylist for Combs. He made several notable claims already, including that he saw Combs assault Cassie Ventura and repeatedly heard him threaten her.

Nash also testified that Ventura told him she did not want to attend Combs' drug fueled freak offs, at least some of them. Once he is done on the stand, the prosecution says its next witness will be one of Combs' former assistants, who will testify under a pseudonym.

Let's get right to CNN's Kara Scannell outside the courthouse for the latest on what we just saw and will see.

Kara.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.

Yes, yesterday Deonte Nash was on the stand for hours. He will be back on the stand again this morning. But some of the highlights of his testimony yesterday, he said that he was there present in a car with Ventura when Combs threatened her and said that he would release sex tapes on the internet and also send them to the employers of her parents. After that threat, Deonte Nash testified that he spoke with Ventura and said, well, if Combs is on the sex tape, who cares? And that's when she told him that these tapes included her having sex with other men that Combs had filmed. And she told him, according to Nash's testimony, that she didn't want to do it, and that the reason why she did was, quote, "because Puff wanted me to."

So, this is the first witness who has corroborated Ventura's testimony, that there were threats about releasing these sex tapes. That's part of the government's theory of coercion, of why Ventura stayed in the relationship and continued to participate in these freak offs.

Now, Nash also testified that he witnessed other physical violence that Combs had engaged with toward Ventura, including testimony that Ventura had given prior last -- two weeks ago when she testified that Combs had pushed her into a bed frame and ended up with a gash on her forehead. Nash backed up that story, said he was there for that as well.

Now, also yesterday we did hear from some of the investigators who arrived at Kid Cudi's home related to the alleged break in and then the arson. And what one of the LAPD officers who arrived for the alleged break in said that he noticed a black escalade, took down the license plate number, and then was able to track that back to Bad Boy Entertainment. Now, no charges were filed in that case. There was a trespassing report filed, but no one was charged with that.

Now, the arson investigator took the stand as well. He testified that Kid Cudi's car was set on fire intentionally. He said it was targeted. He said his theory was that someone had sliced the roof of the convertible, had dropped in a Molotov cocktail that was lit, and that set the car on fire. So, the jury saw additional photos of the -- the Molotov cocktail bottle in the driver's seat and the aftermath of that fire.

Now, Nash will be back on the stand this morning in cross-examination. And then the former employee who was an alleged victim of Combs will take the stand after him.

John.

BERMAN: We know you'll be inside that court watching very closely. Kara Scannell, thank you very much.

Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, an incredible rescue caught on camera. Officers running toward a burning car to try and save a woman trapped inside.

Plus, Hailey Bieber joining the coveted billionaires club. What we know about the sale of her cosmetics company that shot her to a billion bucks.

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[08:39:12]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Some breaking news. Coming in moments ago, the U.S. economy performing slightly better in the first quarter than first estimated. There's a whole lot more information around that that's important as well.

CNN's Matt Egan joining us now with more detail on that.

What is that detail?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Kate, look, this is confirmation that the U.S. economy went into reverse at the start of this year. It's the first contraction in GDP in three years. Now, this is a revision of the number we first got a month ago. And it

shows that GDP declined at an annual rate of 0.2 percent. That is slightly better than the 0.3 percent --

BOLDUAN: So, it declined slightly less.

EGAN: Yes. But you almost need a microscope to see this improvement.

Why is this happening? Look, it's not really being driven by underlying weakness in the economy, it's being driven by the trade war, right? There is this beat the clock mentality.

[08:40:01]

Businesses were scrambling to import as many goods as they could before tariffs kicked in. And so that's why we saw imports skyrocket. And when imports go up more than exports, it subtracts from GDP.

And you can see the trend here. Clearly we're talking about a significant falloff in the economy relative to how things were going at the end of last year.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

EGAN: But, again, this is a rear view looking -- rearview mirror looking number, right. This is a revision on something that happened a few months ago. It doesn't really tell you much about where things are going.

And the risk is, how does the economy perform this quarter and the third quarter and the fourth quarter because of the on again, off again tariffs, because of all of the uncertainty and paralysis being driven by this trade war and other concerns about the economy.

And we don't really know that much about what's going to happen next from this report. But I would just point out, two revisions that were notable here. Consumer spending stayed positive, which is obviously crucial, but it was revised lower. So, that's something we need to keep an eye on.

There's also something called core GDP. It takes out some of the trade and import and export numbers. That also stayed positive but was also revised lower. So, some of the internals do look a little bit weaker than they did before. But again, I think the question is, what happens next in this economy?

BOLDUAN: Well, and also in kind of the -- on where we are currently and kind of the looking forward, there's a new gauge on how big CEOs are feeling about the economy right now. What are you hearing?

EGAN: Yes, not good. This is a -- a really ugly survey. It's put out from the conference board. And it showed that CEO confidence in the second quarter fell by the most since the survey began half a century ago in 1976. The conference board said that confidence collapsed. All the internals here were negative, right? Their views on current conditions plunged. The views on the outlook went down. How CEOs are feeling about their own industries also went down significantly.

And one of the numbers that stood out to me is that 83 percent of U.S. CEOs who were surveyed here expect a recession in the United States in the next 12 to 18 months, 83 percent. That is up from just 30 percent in the third quarter of last year.

But, look, this is a sentiment gauge. And we know people are worried about tariffs and the trade war. But what ultimately matters is what actually happens, right? Do companies start laying off workers? Do people start spending less money? If that happens, that's where you could have real economic trouble. If it doesn't, though, then this economy could keep chugging along.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Is strategic ambiguity working? We will see.

EGAN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: It's good to see you. Thank you.

EGAN: Thanks, Kate.

BOLDUAN: John.

BERMAN: All right, with us now, Rick Newman, a senior columnist at "Yahoo Finance."

All right, Rick, we got a lot of stuff out over the last 12 to 24 hours. You have this court ruling blocking the tariffs. You've got this new economic data which shows that the economy did slow down in the first quarter of last month, maybe not as much as we thought, but still down 2 percent. What are you to make of it all? If you're running a company this morning, what do you think?

RICK NEWMAN, SENIOR COLUMNIST, "YAHOO FINANCE": So, I don't think markets are going to care very much about that very small change in the GDP number from the first quarter. That ended -- that was the quarter that ended on March 31st.

I think markets and CEOs and investors care quite a lot about what's going to happen with the tariffs. So, we're probably going to see a nice bounce in the stock market today. But just because one court said most of the Trump tariffs are unconstitutional does not mean those tariffs are necessarily going away. First of all, the Trump administration for sure is going to appeal that. It's going to end up at the Supreme Court. I'm already seeing some analysts saying the Supreme Court is probably more likely to reverse this court than to uphold this court. And even if the Supreme Court were to say, no, we agree with this -- with this lower court that these tariffs are -- these tariffs are unconstitutional. Trump has many other options for tariffs. So, we just have more uncertainty -- frankly, uncertainty as far as the eye can see.

And this -- this is a real everyday problem for anybody running a business, especially a small business. I've been talking to small business owners and they don't know what to do. If you're -- if you're dependent in any way on imports, you're -- you're sort of trying to guess, when is the import tax going to be the lowest, so that's the point I should place all my orders. So, I -- I don't think this court ruling necessarily helps anybody, but it's an interesting insight into way -- into the way judges think about the Trump tariffs.

BERMAN: Look, it absolutely is.

And then while this is happening there's this other sort of reporting trend where Robert Armstrong of "The Financial Times," you know, coined the phrase the taco trade. Trump always chickens out, where he backs off the most extreme tariff threat that he issues. And he has consistently.

Very quickly, the president was asked about this at the White House. Listen to what he said.

[08:45:01]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You call that chickening out? We had a dead country. We had a country, people didn't think it was going to survive. And you ask a nasty question like that. It's called negotiation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So, what do you think, Rick, at this point? Do you think there is a reason for investors, small business owners to maybe bet on the possibility that -- that -- that Trump will back off eventually?

NEWMAN: They have been betting on that. I mean we've seen that action in the markets all along. So, the first thing that happened is that Trump imposed tariffs that were more severe than most people expected when Trump came into office. You know, 145 percent tariff on Chinese imports, that is basically an embargo on Chinese imports. Nobody was importing Chinese stuff at that point.

But then Trump changed that. So, he backs off because he sets -- he sets some of these tariffs at crazily high levels. So, yes, he backs off. But we are going to end up -- we are going to end up with higher tariffs -- higher taxes on imported goods no matter what. And one thing I'm wondering about now is, is this -- is Trump going to take this as a manhood contest and he's going to say, oh yes, you think I always chicken out? Well, look at this, I'm going to raise it from 50 to 70 percent just to prove I can do it.

Who knows? I mean, it's all up to Trump. And there's, you know, God help you if you're trying to run a business in this climate.

BERMAN: Going to be a long summer.

Rick Newman, always great to see you. Thank you so much for being with us.

Sara. SIDNER: All right, coming up, new video catching the moment a

passenger attacks a TSA officer in Miami. The charges that traveler is now facing.

And key testimony in the Karen Read murder re-trial. What we're hearing from a crash expert now who reenacted the collision that may have killed Read's boyfriend.

Those stories and more, ahead.

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[08:50:56]

BOLDUAN: And this just in, a Russian deputy governor and prominent veteran of Russia's war in Ukraine was killed in an explosion deep inside Russia overnight. An investigation into what happened is now said to be underway. And the regional governor there saying, quote, "all versions are being considered, including the organization of a terrorist attack involving Ukraine."

And as the aerial attacks are also increasing between Russia and Ukraine, President Trump is shifting his tone towards Vladimir Putin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Do you still believe that Putin actually wants to end the war?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I can't tell you that, but I'll let you know in about two weeks. Within two weeks. We're going to find out very soon. We're going to find out whether or not he's tapping us along or not. And if he is, we'll respond a little bit differently.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Joining us right now is Kurt Volker. He's a former U.S. ambassador to NATO and former U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations in the first Trump administration.

Ambassador, thank you for being here.

It's interesting, on the two weeks bit, Kevin Liptak, our -- my -- our colleague, he reports that President Trump's I'll tell you in two weeks, we know has a long history throughout his time in politics, especially when it comes to Ukraine. I'm sure you're very aware. And Kevin lists it out for us. As far back as April 24th this year, Trump was saying, check back in about two weeks for a final decision on Putin. Two weeks -- exactly two weeks later, Trump said he'd let people know in about a week if Putin was tapping him along. And then a week after that, Trump said he would take another two weeks to decide if Ukraine was doing enough to end the conflict.

So, take the timeframe with a grain of salt, I think, is --is the lesson in the reporting here. But still, where do you think things stand?

KURT VOLKER, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO NATO: Well, clearly President Trump does not want to impose harsher measures against Putin or Russia. Why? We can only speculate. My best guess is that he really wants to pull Putin in for a deal. He doesn't want to push Putin away. So, he's really reluctant to go down the road of additional sanctions, committing to more support for Ukraine and so forth.

The problem is that Putin takes that as weakness. Putin takes that as a green light to continue the war. And he is actually doing more damage to civilians and infrastructure and bombing Ukrainian cities than he was doing on day one of Trump's presidency.

So, this has clearly not worked, and yet Trump really doesn't want to go down this road. So, this is why we keep hearing more and more delay.

And just to point out, there's nothing new that we're going to learn in the next two weeks that we don't already know. We know Putin launched this war. We know that Putin wants this war. We know he is continuing to attack civilians. We know he has rejected a ceasefire. We know he has laid out unacceptable demands, including, you know, changing the government in Ukraine, permanent neutrality, reversal of NATO enlargement in other parts of Europe, demilitarize Ukraine, recognition of all the occupied territories as Russian land. These are never going to happen. And so there's not much else we're going to learn here from this new two weeks going by.

BOLDUAN: It sure seems that Brett McGurk, who I'm sure -- I know you know. He -- he's right in the same thinking as you because he was on yesterday and he said he thinks diplomacy is hitting a dead end here and that it's time to try a different path, including what you're talking about, this bipartisan Senate sanctions bill. It has 80-plus co-sponsors.

Let me play for you how Brett puts it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRETT MCGURK, FORMER MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA COORDINATOR, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: Diplomacy is not all just arguments at the table. It is actually interests and leverage. And that's where the Senate bill is really interesting. And I think if the White House was seen to be working with the Senate towards imposing those sanctions, it might -- it might mix things up a little bit here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Though there's reporting that Trump thinks that sanctions will push Putin further away. If -- it becomes kind of a binary choice. It's -- which do you think it needs to be?

VOLKER: Well, I -- I do agree that the congressional action could actually help.

[08:55:01]

And the way for that to be presented is that this is a way of strengthening Trump's negotiating hand. If you have Congress breathing down his neck saying, we're going to apply secondary sanctions and we are going to provide a lend-lease program for Ukraine, they can borrow as much as they want and buy American weapons, that is something that Trump can use and say, look, I've got Congress breathing down my neck, I've given you every opportunity to end this war, Vladimir, do it now, that can help. And Trump can do it in a way where he can still portray himself as the good cop, but it strengthens his hand. And I do think that's what Congress really needs to do now.

BOLDUAN: Yes, it can be a critical moment for them to make this move.

It's great to see you, Ambassador. Thank you for coming in.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, on our radar, a dramatic rescue caught on camera. A police officer in Arizona being honored after saving an 18 year old who was trapped inside this burning car. He smashed the window, shattering it enough for her to be able to kick through the rest. The officer, though, initially tried to put out the flames with his hands to try to save her. He ended up with serious burns. He is now recovering. The woman, who happens to be a fire captain's daughter, was in critical condition, but she is expected to survive because of his heroism.

All right, new video just released shows a man hitting a TSA officer at Miami's airport. It shows a man entering the screening area and trying to punch an officer. He then tripped and fell as a second officer tried holding him down. That's when police say he hit the officer three times in the face with his closed fist. It actually happened in December and reports say he will be sentenced tomorrow. The video just coming out.

All right, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations made an emotional address to the U.N., saying more than 1,300 children have been killed since the ceasefire was ended in March. At one point breaking down when describing the dire situation for Palestinian children in the war, some of whom are starving.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is unbearable. How could anyone tolerate this horror? Excuse me, Mr. President. I have grandchildren. I know what they mean to their families. And to see the situation of the Palestinians, without us having hearts to do something, is beyond the ability of any normal human being to tolerate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: It was a powerful speech there.

On Wednesday, a U.N. warehouse in Gaza was broken into by hordes of hungry people, as aid is just slowly trickling into the enclave after being cut off for such a long time by Israel.

John.

BERMAN: All right, this morning, a new day of testimony in the murder retrial of Karen Read. She is charged with hitting her boyfriend, a Boston police officer, with her car and leaving him to die in the snow outside a house party in 2022.

CNN's Jean Casarez has been covering this from the beginning. She joins us now.

The jurors heard from a crash reconstruction expert. Tell us about that and the importance here.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. My -- biomechanical engineer, PhD, John, he took the data. He took the force, gravity, Newton's law, put in on his computer with lasers to reconstruct this accident initially, and determined that Karen Read, after John O'Keefe got out of the car, drove forward, flushed to the curb in front of the house, put the car in reverse, went backwards, 75 percent, accelerator down, 24 miles per hour for 87 feet, clipping John O'Keefe, sideswiping John O'Keefe. And then he turned, fell to the ground and does have multiple skull injuries was the result of all of that.

And so, he went a step farther, though. You're going to see here where he did experiments. His company purchased a Lexus, a black Lexus, the same make, model and year as Karen Read's vehicle. He is the same height and the same weight as John O'Keefe. So, they found the same jeans, the same shirt, same sweatshirt, same sized shoes, same shoes, a baseball cap that was very similar, and he did an experiment where at two miles an hour that car goes backwards and hits his arm, because I think we see from the video right there, if you look at the upper right, that's an autopsy photo. That's an autopsy photo of John O'Keefe's arm, we just saw it a second ago, showing injuries on the arm. And he wanted to figure out how those injuries, and he determined it was hitting the tail light, busting the tail light.

So now on cross-examination, Robert Alessi, and that's where we are now, he wants to totally find this incredible, saying that the analysis is wrong, the data is wrong, even the experiment has no worth to it.

Listen to Robert Alessi on cross.

[09:00:04]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT ALESSI, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Would you agree that you did a blue paint -- blue paint test.