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Trump To Appear With Elon Musk In Oval Office For Musk's Last Day; Rubio Lays Out Detailed Plan To Overhaul State Department; Trump Administration Freezes $2 Billion In Grants To Harvard. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired May 30, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

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[07:32:17]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So happening today an interesting joint appearance at the White House with President Trump and Elon Musk.

This is how the president announced it overnight. He said, "I am having a press conference tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. EST with Elon Musk at the Oval Office. This will be his last day, but not really, because he will, always, be with us, helping all the way. Elon is terrific! See you at the White House."

Those aren't even Oxford commas -- they're just excessive.

With us now CNN political commentator and former Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin. Also with us Democratic strategist and former spokesperson for Al Gore's presidential campaign Christy Setzer.

And Alyssa, you and I have talked extensively about the political role that Elon Musk plays for Donald Trump, but it has become even more interesting because Elon Musk has been vocal, speaking out against the president's economic plan that's going through Congress right now and passed the House. He says it will -- it will increase the debt. He's also spoken out against tariffs, which are in an interesting place right now.

So I have to believe this will be a little bit of a delicate joint appearance in the Oval Office today.

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: I have to imagine that President Trump called for this appearance because he didn't like the interview that Elon Musk gave criticizing the big, beautiful bill and basically saying that it eradicates all of the DOGE cuts.

But if I were a Republican member of Congress right now who wants to see the big, beautiful bill get through the Senate, I'd be a little bit nervous about what might come out of this press conference.

Now I suspect this will be Elon and Trump touting a separate packing of spending cuts that they want to have go through Congress that kind of solidify some of these DOGE cuts. But it does worry you when you've got someone who is actively undermining one of your chief legislative accomplishments who is appearing jointly at a press conference with you in the White House.

So it shows that Trump has delicate dance. He doesn't want to fray this relationship too much, but he also needs to show oh, no, no, no -- we're in lockstep, while not undermining basically his entire legislative agenda.

BERMAN: Christy, I'm bracing myself. After five months of Democrats bashing Elon Musk, I'm prepared for a summer of Democrats quoting Elon Musk, right?

CHRISTY SETZER, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST, FORMER SPOKESPERSON FOR AL GORE'S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN (via Webex by Cisco): I don't know about that. I would say that Democrats should definitely take a victory lap today, which is to say that just four months after Elon Musk arrived in Washington and thought that he was going to remake the city with all of his DOGE cuts, he's leaving somewhat in shame, right?

He put all of his political capital on the line not just in his efforts with government, but also political efforts like in Wisconsin where the fact that he made it about himself was devastating for Republicans, right?

[07:35:00]

So, you know, look, I understand that the White House is having this press conference today because they want to show that Donald Trump and Elon Musk are still on -- we're still on good terms. We're still aligned politically. Everything is all good, everyone.

But the reality is that no, he is leaving and he's leaving as a failure. He's accomplished nothing that he set out to do. Meanwhile, everything in sort of his personal life and his -- you know, with Tesla, et cetera -- with his companies. They are tanking. There is very -- it will be very difficult I think for Republicans to spin this as any sort of a victory.

BERMAN: You have approval from someone in your house of the canine variety that's watching your appearance right now, clearly pleased with how it's going.

I want to ask about tariffs because an appeals court has paused right now the ruling blocking the president's tariffs.

But Christy, let me start with you. It's an interesting political moment right now for these tariffs, which is that the president has benefited politically from backing off to a large extent.

SETZER: Yes.

BERMAN: His poll numbers have gone up over the last few weeks since he reversed himself and retreated on these tariffs.

So I do wonder what direction --

SETZER: Yeah.

BERMAN: -- he will head. He might be thanking some of these courts politically in the next several months.

SETZER: I don't know about that. I do think that most Americans are breathing a huge sigh of relief as is Wall Street when the International Trade Court said essentially you can't do this. Your entire rationale for starting this global trade war was based on a lie. It was based on the idea that there is some sort of national economic emergency. There is not. Joe Biden left you a pretty good economy actually. There is no reason for doing this.

But what I think that the cumulative effect is -- for the American people is just continued economic uncertainty, whether it is the fact that Donald Trump will say that he's going to levy certain tariffs and then back off of it days or weeks later, or it's this back-and-forth with the courts. The fact is that the American people just don't know what to do with their money right now.

I'll give you a quick example. I am a small business owner. I was talking to a friend who is in the real estate industry. We have wildly different businesses and wildly different industries but again, our customers are experiencing exactly the same thing, which is to say we don't know if they can make big or small purchases right now because of what's going on with tariffs. That's a problem for Donald Trump.

BERMAN: There's a lot of -- yeah. There's certainly a lot of uncertainty right now.

Alyssa, I'm really curious because you've been there in this White House or in the White House with this president before. He's caught up between some different waves here. I mean, he has good political sense, and he knows that he's benefitted politically the last few weeks backing off the tariffs a little bit, but he hates being ridiculed. And you have people now talking about TACO trade -- "Trump Always Chickens Out" with these tariffs. And you have his willingness and desire to fight the judges.

I wonder where you think this might be headed for him.

GRIFFIN: So Trump was handed three huge political wins this week if he can accept them and just take the win.

The first, Elon Musk leaving -- somebody whose approval rating is 37 percent. People do not like the DOGE cuts. They think that they're reckless. They're all for cutting waste, fraud, and abuse but they felt like they didn't know what he was cutting. That's a win for this White House.

Secondly, this ruling from the courts. These tariffs have been disastrous. People are already feeling the impact of them. And this is the graceful off-ramp that I think some around the president were trying to -- were kind of hoping was going to happen because his entire legislative agenda and economic agenda is going to be dragged down if these tariffs stay in place as they were.

And then finally, TACO. He's going to hate this. We all know what we saw -- how he reacted to the reporter's question. But that is huge that Wall Street traders have actually learned how to sort of call Trump's bluff. So he's not able to cause this sort of market volatility that we saw in the first few months.

Those are all good things in the long run for Donald Trump's economy and for his future agenda, but all of them look like losses but actually are wins if he can simply take the win.

BERMAN: There's some irony here, but that last question you pose is one of the big ones. Can he take what could be a win?

Alyssa Farah Griffin, Christy Setzer, great to see both of you. Have a terrific weekend -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Also this morning sweeping changes are about to set in at the State Department. Secretary of State Marco Rubio formally notifying Congress yesterday about an overhaul that will include massive restructuring -- closing offices -- and also an entirely new vision.

One of the biggest changes focusing more on the Trump administration priorities, like reducing immigration and deporting undocumented migrants back to their home countries.

CNN's Jennifer Hansler has this new reporting and she's back with us. Jennifer, what are you learning? What is this going to look like? Tell us more about your reporting.

JENNIFER HANSLER, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT REPORTER: Well Kate, the State Department sent this massive congressional notification up to Capitol Hill yesterday that really puts the meat on the bones of their plan changes here at the State Department to overtly align it with the Trump administration's worldview.

[07:40:03]

Now, Secretary Rubio had announced their plans broadly for an overhaul last month, but this really gives us a much better sense of what offices are closing, which offices are being restructured or renamed, and how many people can expect to lose their jobs here in Washington, D.C.

For example, there is a Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration here at State. That's going to shift a lot away from the refugee side of that portfolio and much more to the migration side. Specifically, "Supporting the administration's efforts to return illegal aliens to their country of origin."

One office that's being established there is going to be using State Department funds to actively facilitate these voluntary returns we've seen of migrants to go back to their home countries. Basically, paying them to leave the United States. Another bureau here, the Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Bureau is going to be shifting dramatically towards "advancing the administration's affirmative vision of American and Western values. They are going to establish an office there, part of which is going to be looking at what they call free speech backsliding in Europe and other developed nations.

So a lot of shifts within these bureaus here at the State Department.

Another major shift, Kate, is USAID, which the Trump administration has almost completely dismantled at this point. It's going to be folded in here at the State Department in Foggy Bottom. One of their really important jobs, which is disaster assistance, is going to be folded in here.

So we are going to see a lot of changes and a lot of people -- about 1,000-plus -- might be losing their jobs.

BOLDUAN: Yeah. There is a lot see -- how that all unfolds -- and you've got great reporting on this, Jennifer. It's great to see you. Thank you so much -- John.

BERMAN: All right. This morning wildfires burning out of control across central and western Canada. Two provinces have declared state of emergency. In Manitoba, the fires have forced 17,000 people to flee. Hazardous fire smoke is now streaming into some major U.S. cities. Air quality alerts have been issued in parts of Minnesota, North Michigan, and for the entire state of Wisconsin.

Let's get right to CNN's Allison Chinchar for the latest on this -- Allison.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, AMS METEOROLOGIST: That's right. Now, Manitoba and Saskatchewan are fairly large provinces but the fires from them, especially thanks to a cold front, are now started to spread down into the Midwest. So these fires you see behind are leading to smoke into portions of the Upper Midwest, like Minnesota and Wisconsin, and you can see those here.

This is what we're looking at. So that large red line that you see there, that's where all of the heaviest smoke is going to be. So you can see parts of Minnesota, parts of the upper portion of Michigan, as well as Wisconsin all looking at that heavy smoke.

Now here's the thing. That cold front is going to start to descend across Canada and if it does it's going to spread more of that smoke into other states -- namely, say, like Iowa and Illinois. This is a look as we go through later today. So see how all of that smoke particles really start to disperse outward and farther south.

Then we transition into Saturday. We start to see things clear up a little bit across portions of Michigan and Wisconsin, but now we start to see that transition of a lot of those smoke particles not being across areas of the Dakotas.

So the smoke is still going to be there this weekend -- we're just going to start to see it change directions and shift to different states.

Now, another concern that we have is the air quality because of that. And you can see the entire state of Wisconsin as well as portions of Michigan and portions of Minnesota under air quality alerts because of the intense smoke here. They're recommending that you try not to spend too much time outdoors. Take some breaks and go back inside to the air conditioning where you can get some clearer air.

Another concern that we are also watching is farther down to the South, and this is in the form of severe thunderstorms. We've actually had some tornado warnings in effect across Kentucky this morning. More tornado warnings are possible as we go through the afternoon hours, especially along this section right through here where you see that bright yellow color.

In addition to possible tornadoes we could also see some large hail as well as some damaging winds up around 60 to even 70 miles per hour.

BERMAN: Allison Chinchar at the weather center. I know you'll be watching these storms closely. Thank you very much.

So the end of the entry-level. A top tech CEO warns that millions of first-run, white-collar office jobs could disappear and be replaced by AI.

And then seal on the lam and it caused a huge traffic nightmare. That seal is bigger than the Prius right there. You know, we're going to have the latest on this clearly developing story.

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[07:48:53]

BOLDUAN: So as Harvard handed out diplomas yesterday a judge just miles away handed the university a win in one of its fights against the Trump administration. A U.S. district court judge ordering the Trump administration to leave Harvard's student visa program alone for now. In other words, not allowing them to ban international student enrollment.

But that's just one battle the university is fighting. The Trump administration also froze, you'll recall, more than $2 billion worth of federal grants to the school. That move brought yearslong groundbreaking research to a halt.

Here is what Harvard's president said this week.

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ALAN GARBER, PRESIDENT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: What is perplexing is the measures that they have taken to address these that don't even hit the same people that they believe are causing the problems.

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BOLDUAN: And last month I spoke with Dr. Sarah Fortune, a top scientist at Harvard and a lead researcher on a groundbreaking tuberculosis study believed to be one of the first to receive a stop work order from the Trump administration.

[07:50:00]

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DR. SARAH FORTUNE, CHAIR, DEPARTMENT OF IMMUNOLOGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: So this project has been 10 years in the making. It is actually what -- the NIH's largest single investment in TB.

BOLDUAN: Doctor, is this work dead if this doesn't continue soon?

FORTUNE: Uh, oh, I hate you to ask that question. I hope not but it's certainly really wounded.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: That was April 18.

And back with us now is Dr. Sarah Fortune. Doctor, thank you. It is good to see you again.

And as -- when we first spoke it was all very much still unfolding in real time -- unclear exactly how hard and long the impact would be. So now, a month-plus in, what has the impact now been of these frozen funds?

FORTUNE (via Webex by Cisco): The impact has been devastating. The extent of the administration's actions against Harvard have become clear. And so not only have my funds been frozen and the funds that went to 14 different institutions out of my program, fund all the way across the university have been frozen.

BOLDUAN: I even -- you were speaking with my producers, and you told my producers there was even a clinical trial of a new therapy trying to cure young children -- babies, infants born HIV-infected. That was also cut midway?

FORTUNE: It was. You know, I'm the department chair and so I've been trying to deal with every grant that was cut in the department. And yes, one of them funded an investigator in our department who is part of an effort trying to cure babies of HIV -- babies born with HIV. And this was a trial of a new antibody therapeutic and yeah, funds were just cut as the trial was not even halfway through.

BOLDUAN: But how does that work? How do you -- you're talking about children. How do you -- how do you stop that treatment partway through?

FORTUNE: Um, OK, you're talking about babies --

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

FORTUNE: -- and we don't have a playbook for how you stop treatment halfway through. This is totally unprecedented. You know, when you set up a trial like that you spend years trying to set it up to do it ethically and then trying to stop on a dime is -- we don't have a roadmap for that.

And the honest truth is that because the federal government has been defaulting on its contractual payments to Harvard, Harvard itself is paying for the completion of those studies such that are ethical obligations to our human subjects are maintained.

BOLDUAN: That's astonishing even in unprecedented times, Doctor.

With all this funding lost what are you doing right now? Are you able to save your study or is your research -- just as I was afraid to ask, right, when we -- when we last spoke -- is all of your research lost?

FORTUNE: Um, right now, it is disaster mode and we're just trying to put one foot in front of another. Honestly, because the federal government defaulted on all of their payments to Harvard starting in April even before the contract were terminated -- so we're in this odd position of having to figure out how to pay the people we owe money to where the federal government is not going to repay us those costs. And so a lot of the work today is just the day-to-day business of figuring out how to move all of that forward.

And then, yes, all of that research -- my research -- a decade of work is unraveling right now, and I honestly have not had time to grieve that. I think that will come later.

BOLDUAN: I am -- I can't imagine a decade worth of work. I mean, this is called -- this was called a moonshot project, which -- what you were working on. I -- that is -- that is tough to swallow.

You talked about the contracts. The Trump administration is cutting all remaining government contracts with Harvard. And the message to the agencies --

FORTUNE: Yes.

BOLDUAN: -- was to find alternative vendors.

How would that work when it comes to research studies like what you've been working on for a decade?

FORTUNE: Uh, I think that is gaslighting the American people. There are not alternative vendors for these studies because these studies were the ideas of scientists who competed in open competition with their best ideas against other people's best ideas and won the awards because they put the best ideas on the table.

[07:55:00]

There is no alternative vendor who can make up that work. I think that's ultimately going to become clearer as we see the damage to the research program of the United States that these actions have taken.

BOLDUAN: And that, sadly, is going to be years of fallout from this. To circle it back to the core of this because it does -- it feels so haphazard. This stems from what the administration has said is a failure to address antisemitism on campus, which is what the president of the university was speaking to that it is perplexing.

How does your research relate to this issue or this problem of which the university has admitted an issue that they're trying to rectify of antisemitism and addressing it on the campus at Harvard. How do you -- what do you think when you hear that is the reason that you have lost this?

FORTUNE: I think it is a pretext because the administration wants to have input into what we study and what we -- what our students study and who are students are. We research the basic biology of tuberculosis. It does not have anything to do with antisemitism.

BOLDUAN: It also doesn't have anything to do with boundaries or foreign students since there are no boundaries when it comes to a worldwide disease like TB.

Doctor --

FORTUNE: They --

BOLDUAN: Go ahead.

FORTUNE: No. I was going to say it has everything to do with boundaries because infectious diseases -- the global infectious diseases surpass national boundaries. They are our world's burden, not other countries' burdens.

BOLDUAN: Dr. Sarah Fortune, we will continue to check in with you on how this is -- continues to unfold. Thank you for your time -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Word this morning that former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik has died. Kerik once worked as a bodyguard and driver for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who ultimately appointed him commissioner. He held the job on September 11, 2001, and received praise for is response to the attacks.

Kerik served three years in prison for tax fraud and lying to officials but was pardoned by President Trump in 2020 along with his former boss Rudy Giuliani. He did work to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

New this morning British comedian and actor Russell Brand pleaded not guilty to charges of rape and sexual assault in London. He was charged in April. Prosecutors say the alleged assaults happened between 1999 and 2005. He had already denied the charges.

And this morning seal on the lam. An elephant seal that weighs more than a ton stopped traffic -- I mean literally stopped traffic with his body in Cape Town. He'd wandered about a half a mile inland, right? It took about nine hours, but a team of specialists sedated him and got him back in the water. But Kate Bolduan, who has done extensive reporting on this, tells me

you know what happened when he got back in the water? He promptly got out again.

This --

BOLDUAN: He may --

BERMAN: Yes?

BOLDUAN: He may have needed a vacation, clearly, from the day-to-day. And his name is Gordy.

BERMAN: Gordy's got some wanderlust. He wants to go see the countryside.

BOLDUAN: Gordy is all of us today. And by the way, could something that big be that cute? Yes -- yes, it can -- J.B. Competition for the cuteness -- the cuteness competition is like, I don't know. There's you and then there's Gordy. Who do I choose?

BERMAN: As someone who frequently stops traffic I do appreciate Gordy.

BOLDUAN: Hey-O. OK, we'll continue with this investigation again.

Also new this morning a warning from the CEO of one of the world's leading artificial intelligence labs. Dario Amodei says AI is starting to outpace humans at almost all intellectual tasks, and that rapid advancement could wipe out thousands of jobs.

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DARIO AMODEI, CEO, ANTHROPIC: I'm a believer in human ingenuity and I'm believer in our ability to adapt. But if we look on a longer timescale I think this is true that AI is starting to get better than humans at almost all intellectual tasks and we're going to collectively, as a society, grapple with it.

Everyone's in the same boat. Even I am in the same boat, right? Like, AI is going to get better at what -- at what everyone does, including what I do, including what other -- what other CEOs do. And we're going to have to think about how to -- how to order our society in a world where that's possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Hmm.

Amodei predicts the loss of white-collar entry-level jobs could spike unemployment to as much as 20 percent within the next one to five years.

CNN's Clare Duffy joining me now. A pretty brutal and startling warning coming from a man who works in AI. I mean, tell us more.

CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: Yeah. I mean, we've heard these kinds of warnings from academics and economists, but this is really striking coming from one of the top CEOs working in this space. I mean, Anthropic is in the same league as OpenAI and Google. And he's a --

BOLDUAN: Yeah. Like, I even know the name.

DUFFY: He is essentially warning that we could see unemployment spike as much as five times in the net one to five years. This is really stark. And he thinks that business leaders and politicians aren't moving quickly enough to adapt to this.