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Ex-Rap Mogul Suge Knight Urges Combs to Testify to Humanize Himself; Americans Pulled Back on Spending in April Amid Tariff Rollout; Supreme Court: Trump Can End Deportation Protections for 500K Immigrants; NYPD Detective Allegedly Dropped off Kidnapping Victim; Elon Musk Exits DOGE, Give Farewell News Conference with President Trump. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired May 30, 2025 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

STACY SCHNEIDER, NYC CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: He's going to be asked about all of his alleged underlying crimes that he's not even charged with. It's fair game in this case. We've heard testimony about those underlying un-crime charges, about alleged arson with Kid Cudi's -- blowing up his car, about alleged sexual assaults, about alleged bribery.

There's more that's going to come out in this trial and there is no way a defense attorney would want their client naked up on the stand having the door open to all of that and possibly being put in the position to plead the Fifth Amendment because he would be testifying to perhaps state crimes that were committed.

So it's a dangerous slippery slope and defendants rely on the defense attorneys to connect the dots and at the end of the case and go through the prosecutor's evidence that was presented and poke holes in it to show that things won't stand up based on the charges filed in this case.

And lastly, quickly, a big important part of this case -- and all the lawyers have been talking about this -- is he's not charged with these underlying state type of crimes. He's charged with racketeering and sex trafficking and a lot of the belief among the defense bar is that the types of bad acts that have been testified to might not necessarily make out a case of using his business enterprise to commit these alleged sexual offenses and other offenses.

So it's a complicated case and Sean Combs would only complicate things more for him if he took the stand in this matter.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Stacey Schneider, thanks so much for sharing your perspective.

SCHNEIDER: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Stay with CNN. We're keeping an eye on the White House where President Trump is going to host Elon Musk bidding him farewell from DOGE. We're going to bring it to you live when it happens. BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: In the meantime, Americans are pulling back on spending amid uncertainty about Trump's global trade war.

[13:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: We are following some breaking news on the economy. A report out today showing that Americans are pulling back on spending amid President Trump's unpredictable tariff rollout. A new report capping another turbulent week for the economy as the president's trade agenda is now in flux.

Most of his global tariffs have been reinstated by an appeals court, but it could be short-lived as the legal battle escalates.

There's a new survey on consumer sentiment showing Americans are not feeling encouraged by Trump's trade negotiations. We have team coverage on these developments, so let's start with CNN's Matt Egan. Matt, what can you tell us about these new reports on the state of the economy?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Brianna, unfortunately, we have kind of limited visibility into the state of the economy because we're all living through this confusing trade war. But we do know that consumer spending is the number one driver of this economy. And unfortunately, there's new evidence that consumers are tapping the brakes on spending.

So this new report out this morning shows that personal spending inched up by just 0.2 percent in April. That was a touch weaker than expected. And that is a sharp slowdown from March.

However, we do know that March was inflated by this beat the clock mentality as Americans were racing to buy goods before tariffs kicked in. And now it seems like we're getting a little bit of a hangover here because some of the categories where Americans had spent the most earlier this year, those are the ones that are down, right, including clothing and footwear, autos, auto parts, recreational goods and vehicles. All of these had been up. They're all down.

And this does seem to be a bit of a giveback as tariffs had kind of pulled forward some demand. Now, the news wasn't all bad, though, right, because we did see that spending did increase in some areas, including some must spend areas like health care and gasoline, but also hotels.

And I think this is really important. Spending was up in restaurants. And that's significant because really, if Americans were feeling significant financial pressure right now, that's where you would expect them to pull back at first. And that's really not what we saw, at least not last month.

Now, we also got some good news on another major issue here, right, the cost of living. The Fed's go to inflation gauge showed that prices were up by just 2.1 percent in April. That was a touch better than expected. And when you look at it, that is basically right in line with the Fed's goal of 2 percent. That's what the Fed considers healthy inflation, where prices are going up so gradually that you don't even notice it.

And when you look at the trend here, you can see that we are miles away from peak inflation three years ago. That's when we had record high gas prices. This has come down very significantly.

I think that normally this is the kind of number that you would expect to have a lot of celebrations from the Fed and from investors. But we're not seeing that because there's still the expectation that inflation could tick back up due to the trade war and the tariffs.

And Brianna, there is a sense that this could be the calm before the storm when it comes to inflation.

KEILAR: Oh, well, that's not great. All right, Matt, we'll see. We'll see if it's the calm before the storm. Thank you for taking us through that.

Let's go now to CNN business and politics correspondent Vanessa Yurkevich.

[13:40:00]

And Vanessa, this legal battle on tariffs is having a big impact on the supplies that we're seeing coming into ports here in the U.S. and how it might impact consumer prices. What are you learning?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna, we've been watching the ports very closely because they sort of represent the front lines of this trade war. They can really tell us just how much trading is happening. And the ports are telling us that May was a really dismal month in terms of imports.

The port of Los Angeles said that in the last week of May, volume was down 30 percent compared to the same time a year ago. And the Northwest Seaport Alliance said that there was a change from April to the beginning of May, a drop in of 30 percent in just one week in terms of volume. They represent the ports of Seattle and Tacoma.

Now, they are expecting a pickup, a little bit of a rebound going into June. But if you compare where we were last year in June, the second week of June, imports into the port of L.A. are still expected to be down 9.4 percent. So if you look at that scale on your screen right there, you can notice that pickup.

But 106,000 containers coming in in the second week of June is actually much lower than it was last year.

All of this is to say that importers, retailers are still struggling with that 30 percent tariff rate on Chinese exports, even though it was dropped from 145 percent. And this is really translating into data that we're seeing from the Census Bureau today that because volume is down, it actually means that the U.S. trade deficit with other countries is actually shrinking, dropping by 46 percent. That is exports minus imports.

And you just saw on your screen there that imports dropped dramatically, about $68 billion, while exports out of the U.S. actually increased.

And it's worth noting though, what does that mean for consumers, for everybody just wondering where prices are going to land? Well, if you have less inventory coming into the country, it ultimately means fewer options, maybe less of some products on shelves and ultimately some higher prices. And we have heard from major, major retailers like Walmart, like Adidas, like e.l.f. Beauty just this morning, saying that they're going to have to raise prices by one dollar on all of their SKUs in August, Target Walmart, Best Buy. Just imagine, Brianna, if these major retailers are having trouble with prices.

Imagine what small businesses are dealing with. They are not faring very well right now, Brianna.

KEILAR: Wow, that is something. Vanessa, thank you for that.

And coming up, the Supreme Court just sided with President Trump in suspending a deportation protection program for half a million migrants. But the legal battle is not over. We'll have details ahead.

[13:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: We're following breaking news this afternoon, a Supreme Court ruling allows the Trump administration to suspend the temporary protected status of around half a million immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela pending the outcome of an appeal.

CNN's Paula Reid joins us now live with the latest details. So Paula, walk us through this decision.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Boris, this is significant because it dramatically increases the number of migrants that the Trump administration can begin to remove. Now we're focused specifically on these countries you just mentioned, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. We're still talking about roughly half a million people.

And this is the second time this month that the Supreme Court has sided with the Trump administration in its efforts to remove certain protections for migrants. The last time the issue was related to work permissions for hundreds of thousands of folks from Venezuela.

Now here, the Supreme Court is focused on a Biden-era program for people from these countries to live and work here in the United States. Now, this is called parole. Now, usually we think of parole in terms of someone who has gotten out of jail, recently committed a crime. This is a little bit different.

This is something that the U.S. government has done since the 1950s, allowed the administration to, quote, parole immigrants or migrants from certain countries. For example, after World War II, they did this for folks coming from Hungary. And they were allowed to live and work here in the U.S. for about two years.

Now, Biden implemented this program, but on day one, Trump ended it. And the question wasn't so much if they had the power to end it, but if they had to go case by case or could do it for this entire category. And for now, the Supreme Court says the administration can proceed with doing this for everyone in these categories.

SANCHEZ: Paul Reid, thanks so much for breaking that down for us.

Coming up, there's another twist in the crypto trader kidnapping. Why sources say an NYPD detective assigned to Mayor Eric Adams' detail is now facing questions.

Stay with us.

[13:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Another strange twist in the torture and kidnapping case involving a cryptocurrency trader who is seen here escaping a New York City apartment.

Sources say a detective who was assigned to Mayor Eric Adams' security detail allegedly dropped off this victim to his accused tormentors. New York police say the 28-year-old was then held for 17 days, forced to take drugs. He was shocked, even dangled over a railing.

The man's accused abductors were allegedly trying to get his Bitcoin password so they could access an estimated $10 million in cryptocurrency.

CNN's chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller is with us now on this story. And, John, it's believed this detective picked the victim up at the airport. What else are you learning?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, the detective who works on the mayor's security detail was working for a private security company, we are told by informed sources in the investigation, as an off-duty employment.

He was working with another detective from the narcotics division, also off-duty, working for the same security agency. And they were told this is a big CEO. He's in town for a while. He wants drivers and security. So that was the job they were going into.

What internal affairs investigators from the NYPD want to know is, what did they see? Other than driving them around and picking up the victim from the airport and dropping them off, did they get inside the townhouse? Did they see what was going on? Did they have any sense of it? That's what investigators want to know.

What did these officers know? When did they know it? And if so, why didn't they report it? [13:55:03]

Now, to be fair, at this point, there's no indication beyond driving the cars that they knew anything. But investigators would be remiss if they don't go into that.

KEILAR: Yes, they certainly would be. John Miller, thank you so much for the very latest on this very odd story.

And ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, Elon Musk speaking to reporters alongside President Trump before he officially leaves government.

We'll look at the legacy of DOGE that he's leaving behind and what's next, now that he's gone.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Let's go now to the White House and President Trump and Elon Musk.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... rather extraordinary, and I thought I'd play a tape of one of the people who I've respected over the years from Joe Kernen and Rick Santelli. This just came out, and we'll just play that for a second.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICK SANTELLI, CNBC: Personal income is up eight-tenths of a percent. That is almost triple the expectations. The income -- the income numbers, really, for the first four months of the year, they're stellar. They're really stellar. I mean, I could go back and look at the first four months of many different years. But really very strong numbers, and you're right.

This administration is criticized for just about everything under the sun. I've never ever in my lifetime had glimpses into the politics of an administration in the form of transparency like this one. Why don't we be, you know, give credit where credit is due, income really shooting up.

JOE KERNEN, CNBC: I also thought everybody was going to get one last order of imports that were going to be tariffed, and they were loading up on things. How the hell did they already fix the trade? Or not fix it, but to cut it in half, that's crazy.

So there wasn't a lot of front-loading of things that they needed before the tariffs hit?

SANTELLI: Yes, I'll tell you what, it really does call into question some of the conventional wisdom. And, you know, it's going to be interesting to see what happens next month when we get this number or we see some of the other numbers like current accounts, see how they fared. Because I don't know.

I've been watching these numbers a long time. I don't think I've ever seen the trade deficit cut in half in one month. (END VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: Not bad. Not bad.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on, guys.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: I see Howard and Scott are here, so that's great. If you guys want to stand over here, you might as well. You're the ones that helped produce those numbers, and it'll only get better.

The tariffs are so important, and that's why we were so happy with the decision yesterday where the tariffs continued, because without the tariffs, our nation would be imperiled. We would really be imperiled. I think I can say that with great charity, Scott and Howard.

And so we were very happy to get that decision, that big decision yesterday.

63And today it's about a man named Elon, and he's one of the greatest business leaders and innovators the world has ever produced. He stepped forward to put his very great talents into the service of our nation, and we appreciate it.

And I just want to say that Elon has worked tirelessly helping lead the most sweeping.