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Sean Combs Ex-Assistant Says She Doesn't Remember When She Told Prosecutors About Sexual Assault Claims; Palestinian Officials Report Israeli Forces Killed Dozens Near Gaza Aid Hub; Hollywood Expands Use of AI in Film, TV and More. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired June 02, 2025 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: A testimony in Sean Combs criminal trial has focused on his former assistant who admitted that she did not initially tell investigators or prosecutors that Combs allegedly sexually assaulted her. The woman who's testifying under the pseudonym Mia said She doesn't remember when she told authorities but says that it was sometime after she got an attorney.

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: So also today Combs defense has been highlighting Mia's warmth and affection shown toward Combs in multiple text messages, despite her claims that he abused her. Combs for his part has pleaded not guilty. He faces up to life in prison if convicted on all counts.

Lisa Bonner is an entertainment attorney and a former litigator and she joins us now. There is a fine line, right Lisa, in terms of questioning Mia with the intent to showcase how she responded to the alleged abuse. There's a line between that and victim-blaming and there's a risk in there. How do you think the defense is handling this?

LISA BONNER, FORMER LITIGATOR: The defense is doing a little bit better job than they did the other day. And let's be clear, Brian Steele absolutely has a job to do. His client is accused of some very horrific crimes, which could land him life in prison -- go in and cross-examine the witness. However, he has -- it's almost risen to a point of browbeating and intimidating the witness where the judge has basically admonished him to, you know, cool it a little bit and just pull back the questioning and not really intimidate the witness so much.

So you do have to be very careful. The judge has noted this and his of his defense questioning has been very aggressive at times. You do have to be careful for fear of alienating the jury.

SANCHEZ: And to that point, the testimony from Mia has been very heartfelt and emotional and descriptive. I wonder what you make of how that dynamic lands with the jury?

BONNER: Again, she is a very credible witness. She said that I would have taken this to my grave. I would have not come forward if I had not been subpoenaed. She has talked about her fear, her intimidation, of Combs. Which has also been a common thread from other witnesses and other alleged victims. So in this instance the continuous, you know, browbeating of a Witness who is coward, who has been very heartfelt in her descriptions of not only the abuse but her Love for Combs, her feelings for Combs.

And we have seen this and I've talked about this on this network before about Stockholm syndrome where the abuse often identify and protect the abusers. We see it all the time in child abuse cases. So you have to be very careful with a witness like this who does appear to be truthful, to be credible, and you do have to walk a thin line and I think that is why the judge has admonished him. And again, you want to be very careful not to badger her to the point of really alienating the jury and making them overly sympathetic to the witness.

[14:35:00]

HILL: To that point, right, given that she is back on the stand today, is there almost a time limit to an sort of unwritten right. But among defense attorneys, I mean, we're maybe someone would say, I think you've gotten what you need out of this witness. It's time to stop.

BONNER: Correct. And the judge basically stated that today, he was like, how much more do we have to continue with this line of questioning in terms of badgering her about your relationship with Combs, your text messages with Combs? So he's now moved on to really ask her about other instances.

Were you able to get a job after it? How did you feel about certain things? So they're moving on a little bit.

I'm surprised to see that the judge and this line of questioning is continuing to go on. In my opinion, it's going on a lot longer than one would anticipate or that is even necessary.

SANCHEZ: Wow. I know that prosecutors are also planning to call a former hotel security worker at the Intercontinental Hotel. That's where the video security video was taken. That was obtained by CNN of Cassie being assaulted by Sean Combs took place.

I understand that that security guard was compelled to testify under an immunity order. I wonder how you think that is going to go and how it fits into all of this.

BONNER: That's a very good question. The immunity order, again, a very reluctant witness coming forward. And when you are coming in and invoking your right to waive your Fifth Amendment right and get some type of immunity, that means, you know, listen, I didn't want to be here and tell the story from the beginning.

So that is a very strong opportunity for the prosecutor to say, basically, we know that you didn't want to be here. You're here under testifying under immunity. It gives credence and credibility of what that person is saying, again, because he allegedly was culpable in some type of nexus between maybe bribery from Sean, alleged bribery from Sean Combs, which is something that we've seen in terms of the predicate crime of RICO. So it's going to be very interesting to see what they come back with. But once one comes in under an immunity order, that is a great opportunity for the prosecution to really hone in on the fact that you are here reluctantly. We presume that you're telling the truth and you had something to lose by coming here.

So I think that's going to be a great opportunity for the prosecution to score some points with the jury in that testimony as well.

HILL: Lisa Bonner, appreciate your insight. Thank you.

BONNER: Thanks for having me.

HILL: Just ahead here, chaotic scenes here in aid hub in southern Gaza as dozens of Palestinians were shot and killed. Stay with us.

[14:40:00]

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SANCHEZ: Some disturbing details to share with you out of Gaza. As desperate people there search for aid, officials say that Israeli forces killed three Palestinians and wounded dozens more who were on their way to an aid site run by a U.S.-backed private foundation. They say that this happened in the same area where at least 31 Palestinians were reportedly killed and dozens more were injured on Sunday.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond walks us through the details of what happened.

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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, eyewitnesses on the ground, doctors at local hospital, as well as the Palestinian Ministry of Health, say that the Israeli military opened fire on crowds of Palestinians who were headed to an aid distribution site in southern Gaza. This all happened in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday morning.

The Israeli military, for its part, says that the military, quote, did not fire at civilians while they were near or within this aid distribution site.

But here's what's interesting. An Israeli military source has acknowledged to us that the military did indeed fire what they described as warning shots towards people about one kilometer away from this aid distribution site. And that's notable because what we understand from a video at the scene where the gunfire was taking place is that this all took place at the Al-Alam roundabout, which is about one kilometer away from this aid distribution site.

And we know that the aftermath of this attack was quite grisly, with eyewitnesses talking about individuals getting wounds, gunshot wounds to the head and to the chest, doctors describing a very similar situation as well. Eyewitnesses also said that many people fell to the ground to try and avoid the bullets. Some of them got up to try and flee, and they were shot in those moments. Doctors Without Borders has said that according to the patients they treated, there was gunfire coming from snipers, from tanks, as well as gunships in the Mediterranean Sea.

Now, all of these individuals were at this site for one reason, and that was because they were trying to get to this new aid site run by the U.S. and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. And this is precisely the kind of danger that humanitarian aid officials have been warning about for weeks as they've been sounding the alarm about this new aid distribution mechanism, which has just a very small, limited number of aid sites in southern and central Gaza, forcing many Palestinians to walk miles sometimes in order to get to these sites and also having to travel through these dangerous combat zones and through Israeli military positions.

[14:45:00]

The UN's UNRWA's executive director, Philippe Lazzarini, he has said that aid distribution in Gaza has now, quote, become a death trap. He and other aid officials are calling for Israel to open up the borders to Gaza and allow large quantities of humanitarian aid to flow in through traditional channels rather than through this Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Tel Aviv.

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SANCHEZ: So every day this week, we're going to talk about artificial intelligence. How it's going to change our lives. If it ultimately lives up to the hype. Because the truth is, nobody knows.

HILL: A lot of unknowns, right?

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SANCHEZ: It's a great new frontier. And if it does work out, it could change our lives in huge ways. In ways that are difficult to imagine, including in movies.

In the Oscar-winning film, for example, The Brutalist, the lead actor, Adrian Brody, won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Not without a bit of help. The film's editor, who also won an Oscar, said that producers used AI to improve the actor's pronunciation of some words that he spoke in Hungarian.

HILL: AI can also be really subtle, like that example. Or like in The Irishman, where it was used to make Robert De Niro and other actors look younger. What about, though, when it's not so subtle?

Or when the technology itself is more advanced? So just last month, Google released VO3. It's a new AI video generation model.

It can create eight-second clips in a matter of minutes. So we used it to create this clip. May not look like much, unless you're the dog. Then they're very proud. In all seriousness, though, it only took -- all it took to generate this was actually one sentence. So what happens when a filmmaker can create a movie just by inputting the plot and letting AI do the rest? How far away is that when it comes to the future of Hollywood?

Dominic Patten joins us now. He's, of course, executive editor of Deadline Hollywood. Nice to have you here today. There are a lot of concerns. Maybe let's talk about those first.

DOMINIC PATTEN, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, DEADLINE HOLLYWOOD: Thank you, guys.

HILLS: Great. Let's talk about those first. So you have actors understandably concerned, writers concerned about this.

I mean, this was the focus, obviously, of the strikes a couple of years ago. And SAG-AFTRA's agreement, I believe, was only for three years, so it expires next summer. So could AI actually usher in more computer-generated work, less work for people in the industry?

PATTEN: Definitely so, Erica. In fact, one of the things we're seeing, let's look at it not just on that level, but on the level of Donald Trump's Big, Beautiful Bill. Buried among that, with many things buried among it, is a provision that will take away the right of states to regulate AI.

Now, no disrespect to the great state of Missouri or many others, but clearly there's one state here that we're looking at more than others, California, where, as you discussed, these union laws and regulations that came in during the last strike in 2023, where AI was a factor, were addressed. California has been very proactive on dealing with that. This could now become a new battlefield in many, many ways.

There is a massive amount of interest in AI. You guys are talking about it all week. Let me give you a couple of examples.

For instance, Google, as you mentioned earlier with their new video generator, they've also partnered with Range Media, who's a talent management company here in Hollywood, some of the biggest stars are signed with them, as well as with Darren Aronofsky to make some films showing people about how AI is not so bad. In fact, how it can have positive uses.

So already you're seeing what is a propaganda game taking place here, but the real fact of the matter is, is technology plus job losses equals massive shift.

SANCHEZ: There are also questions about intellectual property and likeness as a property as well, in part when you consider that there are examples in which AI has been used to recreate folks that have passed away, including in the documentary Roadrunner, which used AI to recreate the voice of late CNN host Anthony Bourdain.

Carrie Fisher is another example. She passed away in 2016. She still has appeared in films since then. Producers use technology to recreate her on the big screen. I mean, how do actors think about this phenomenon moving forward?

Could we see a period in time in which an actor simply sells their likeness and doesn't even actually participate in a movie?

PATTEN: Well, actually, Boris, yes, we can. Last year, Lionsgate, who are behind the John Wick films with Keanu Reeves and has the new Ballerina coming out -- the spinoff coming out this weekend, they signed a deal with an AI company that that AI system would generate and learn, for instance, the kind of kung fu and martial arts moves that Keanu uses in John Wick. That, in their mind, is to cut down on post-production costs.

So they're taking a real world approach to this. But the reality is, as we saw with the union moves back in 2023, methods to protect the rights. Do you sign away your rights?

For instance, if you work on a particular movie, do you sign away the rights to your likeness on that movie? Because, you know, realistically, in post-production, they might need to recreate something and you might have moved on to another project or something more. Or even, for instance, like in I believe it was the Justice League movie, Henry Cavill, when he was playing Superman, had a mustache because he was shooting on another movie when they went back for reshoots. So they digitally remove that.

Maybe you could even jump that process, because to be honest, you could really notice the digital removal at that time. So I think in that sense is there are practical uses.

You mentioned The Brutalist in the introduction. I don't think anyone has an issue with that. It was to make Hungarian sound more Hungarian because that's what the characters spoke. But there were issues about timing and their availability.

[14:55:03]

What I think is happening more here, though, is do you sign away your likeness for a film or forever? There were moves back before 2023 to see that happening, specifically with background actors. The speed at which AI has developed just in the past couple of years renders a lot of these discussions moot.

And as we see with The Big, Beautiful Bill and others, there are bigger forces at play here. Hollywood is going to go through an immense transformation. And it's not like Hollywood's having a great time right now with job losses and below the line and this question of runaway productions here in California.

So big changes are coming. They might be bloody changes.

HILL: Yes, they might be. We'll focus maybe on those positives that you pointed out, though, right? Sounding more Hungarian. That's a good thing. We'll take it. My Hungarian accent is terrible, so I would use that. There we go.

SANCHEZ: Yes. HILL: Dominic, appreciate it as always. Thank you.

PATTEN: Thank you, guys.

HILL: Still ahead here. Any moment now, the man accused of setting people on fire at a Jewish community event in Colorado is set to appear in court where he is both facing both federal hate crime and state felony charges. We have the very latest. Stay with us.

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