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Russia and Ukraine Hold Peace Talks After Strikes on Russian Air Bases; Suspect in Fiery Colorado Attack Expected in Court; Harvard Battles Trump Administration in Court Over Grants, Federal Funding. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired June 02, 2025 - 15:30   ET

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


[15:30:00]

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: Right, what it involved in terms of being able to reach across some 11 time zones being in Russia. All of that adding up to this very sophisticated attack in many ways.

He said it's not necessarily a game-changer in the war. This is not shifting the tide wholesale. But it is interesting that as it happened before the talks, the Kremlin didn't back out on the talks today. Is there anything to read into that?

EVELYN FARKAS, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR RUSSIA, UKRAINE AND EURASIA: No, I mean I think the Kremlin is still kind of licking their wounds, if you will, assessing what this means for them. They're not going to show any weakness by not showing up. I imagine that they are planning retaliation against Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.

Unfortunately, you know, the Ukrainians hit military targets, valid military targets. You can expect the Russians to strike back at the Ukrainian people.

It is true, I would agree with Colonel Leighton, that it's not a game- changer necessarily in the immediate sense. But I think it may be, in retrospect, a turning point.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: I wonder how you think the U.S. might look at this as a success for Ukraine, essentially on its own. It's not clear that the United States was directly involved with this operation, right?

FARKAS: Right. I mean, Boris, it shows that the Ukrainian government, the Ukrainian military intelligence community, they are able to conduct this sophisticated operation. They are able to achieve surprise, again, keep it quiet. That they're not afraid of continually taking the initiative.

You know, let's not forget, this isn't the first time that it looked like the war was stalemated and then the Ukrainians pulled a rabbit out of the hat and surprised the world. So this is in keeping with Ukraine saying, look, the stakes for us are existential. We're going to keep fighting and we're going to (INAUDIBLE) you know, we can take down the big Goliath if we need to. HILL: These talks today, pretty short by all accounts, right? Ending after just over an hour. That's according to the Turkish foreign minister.

Each side was supposed to lay out, right, what they what they wanted here. Russia says that it offered Ukraine a ceasefire to last two to three days, but only in some areas. Ukraine, of course, has asked for a 30 day ceasefire, really in an effort to prove that Russia is serious here.

Do you think anything was actually achieved in this meeting today?

FARKAS: No, I mean, unless there's something that we don't know about, maybe a prisoner swap, but no, I mean, nothing consequential, unfortunately.

SANCHEZ: Ukraine did lay out three demands and one of them was a meeting of the leaders of the two countries. It's notable that Russian President Putin had said that he wanted to meet in Turkey a few weeks ago as President Donald Trump was visiting the Middle East. And we saw Volodymyr Zelenskyy go to Turkey essentially in preparation for that meeting. Putin, of course, never showed up.

Do you think it is likely that if they get to peace, we'll see a moment where Putin and Zelenskyy are side by side?

FARKAS: Well, if we get to peace, yes, I mean, the two sides will have to agree at the highest level, but I think we're far from that right now. I do hope that the U.S. government, that President Trump gets more heavily involved. (INAUDIBLE) Strengthening our hand, it's strengthening President Trump's hand.

And not only does he have this impact on the Russian ability to fight and on Russian morale, which is negative, but he also has, you know, the threat of sanctions, which Senator Graham, Lindsey Graham, is helping the President, again, by strengthening his ability to achieve some kind of ceasefire and ultimate peace, because those sanctions that Senator Graham is proposing, bipartisan, 82 members of Congress, Senate supporting, those sanctions would be quite cutting and they would have a real impact on the Russian economy.

SANCHEZ: Evelyn Farkas, thanks so much for sharing your perspective.

FARKAS: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still to come, Harvard University fighting to hold on to its federal research funding. We have the latest on this legal battle when we come back.

[15:35:00]

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SANCHEZ: Back to our breaking news this afternoon. At any moment, the suspect charged in that fiery attack on a Jewish event in Boulder, Colorado, is expected to make his first court appearance. At least eight people were hurt. Multiple victims burned after the

suspect used a makeshift flamethrower and tossed Molotov cocktails. Records show the suspect has been charged with multiple felonies, including federal hate crimes. We're also expecting law enforcement officials to give more information at a news conference about an hour from now.

Let's get some legal perspective from CNN's Joey Jackson, a legal analyst. So, Joey, what are you anticipating we're going to learn?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, this is an initial appearance, Boris, and it's about going to learn is what the specific charges are. And the charges are going to be specific to the conduct he's alleged to have engaged in. And to the extent that there is belief that it was a hate crime based upon his conduct, based upon his words to the police, based upon the investigation thus far, I would anticipate that that's what the charges would reflect.

[15:40:00]

Now, based upon that, what would occur in an initial appearance is that he'll come before the court, that there will be an indication as the process begins in the criminal complaint of what specifically those charges include and entail. There'll be some type of factual recitation with regard to what prosecutors believe they they will prove.

And then there'll be a schedule set in terms of the case being put off so there can be an actual grand jury. Right. A grand jury will convene a grand jury, of course, consisting of members who don't decide guilt or innocence. They just decide whether or not there's enough sufficient evidence to defend it on specific charges. And then thereafter, he'll be brought back before the court, enter into a plea, and then the case will proceed from there.

SANCHEZ: How much, if any, evidence or ideas about evidence that law enforcement has gathered will we get out of this initial appearance? Do you think they might reveal some of the substance of what they found, perhaps on a social media or inside his home?

JACKSON: I think that the they will be responsive to a certain degree to the public. I mean, there's a major interest here. I think that certainly there's communities that are on edge. There's a feeling of a lack of safety, right, in the Jewish community.

And as a result of that, you want to ensure the public, number one, we're doing all we can to take a bad person off the streets. Number two, to hold them accountable.

Number three, to give, to say that we have these charges, to give information, to show, Boris, why there was a federal hate crime charge, to give enough information with regard to what they found, what he said to the police, what he was doing. The 16 Molotov cocktails, the status of the injuries to the people who were actually there. And I think they'll shore up or at least give an indication to the public as to that. But they have to be careful because you can't prejudice the case if you're a prosecutor. But inquiring minds certainly want to know.

SANCHEZ: Joey Jackson, appreciate your time, as always -- Erica.

JACKSON: Absolutely.

HILL: Boris, thanks.

Harvard is expected to lay out today just what the full impact is of the administration's cuts on federal funding for the university. That is set to come in a filing.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz is following all of these developments and joins me now. So this is a filing that we're going to be getting. So this is related to not the foreign student visas, right? These are some of the initial cuts. How much are we expecting in terms of this filing for detail?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is a filing that you expect from Harvard to make their full case. It's called a summary judgment motion. It is the full case where they put together the legal argument.

The administration will have the ability to respond. But this case, it's about a lot of money and it's about a lot of things that the administration had done to Harvard before they abruptly tried to end the ability of international students to go there. That was something that popped up later. And the judge stepped in. Same judge, Judge Allison Burroughs, stepped in and said, we're not going to do this.

The grant funding case, that's what we're talking about here. That's over $2.2 billion in federal grant money that essentially goes toward Harvard faculty that are doing research. They're doing health research, but they're also doing research and getting money from agencies like the Department of Agriculture, Energy Department, the Defense Department, Housing and Urban Development. And it's not just the sort of thing you would think of that's typical for NIH research, you know, cancer research, infectious disease

They're also doing work that benefits the American federal government. Specifically, Harvard does research into military technology, battlefield advancements, even medical treatments for members on the front lines of the military. So Harvard is going to be making their case in full here.

The thing I'm really watching for, though, is what Harvard lawyers have learned so far from the administration's records. They have all those records because this case has moved so fast. And so they get to look at all that evidence and pull it out for the judge and tell the judge in court, this is why we believe this was so wrong for the Trump administration to do this to us, to retaliate against us, to violate in Harvard's estimation their constitutional rights.

HILL: So that has to be filed today.

POLANTZ: It does.

HILL: We will be watching for that to see what comes out of it and what details emerge. Katelyn, appreciate it, thank you.

Still ahead here, innovative doctors using fish skin to help heal a little girl. Now her mom has a new nickname for her, The Little Mermaid.

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[Speaker 33] THE ARENA with Kasie Hunt next on CNN.

[15:45:00]

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HILL: Let's get you caught up in some of the other headlines we're watching this hour. Two separate high-profile jailbreaks leaving communities still on edge. Law enforcement remains on alert.

First in Louisiana, Derek Groves and Antoine Massey are the last two fugitives after they and eight other inmates broke out of a New Orleans jail last month. Groves was convicted of murdering two men in 2018. Massey, a repeat escapee, was charged with domestic abuse involving strangulation. Authorities believe at this point they are likely no longer in Louisiana.

Meantime, in Arkansas, the police chief turned murderer and rapist who escaped from a state prison in late May, Grant Hardin. He was serving decades-long sentences for murder and rape. Authorities believe he actually may still be in an area near the prison. We'll continue to stay on those stories.

Meantime, in Newark, perhaps a bit of good news here. The closed runway at that airport reopening nearly two weeks ahead of schedule. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy made the announcement at a press conference this afternoon. This follows months of construction-caused delays.

The $121 million project began in March. It was set to address what was referred to as significant signs of wear by June 15.

[15:50:00]

FAA officials say they do expect to increase the number of flights in the coming days once that runway is certified for arrivals.

And check this out. A tour group scrambling down Mount Etna as the Italian volcano shoots clouds of ash and rock into the air. The eruption began overnight. Several witnesses said they could hear the explosions some 30 miles away.

Experts say preliminary observations show a partial collapse of the volcano's southeast crater, which has made for some pretty spectacular lava flows in recent months -- Boris. SANCHEZ: Caregivers in Texas faced an urgent, critical case with one of the most fragile patients you can imagine. A life-threatening skin infection was beginning to shut down the organs of a premature newborn who weighed just 3 pounds. But little Elena was too fragile for traditional treatment, so the medical team considered a different approach using fish skin.

Now her mother endearingly calls her her little mermaid. Before we bring you this medical success story, we should warn you, some of the images are graphic. Jacqueline Howard has the details.

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KRYSTAL DEVOS, MOTHER: Who is that?

ARIEL DEVOS: Ariel.

K. DEVOS: Ariel, yes. Is she a mermaid? Are you a little mermaid too?

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER (voice-over): Three-year-old Eliana DeVos in Texas just may be a bit of a mermaid. Shortly after she was born, it was the healing power of fish skin that helped her recover from an open wound on her neck.

K. DEVOS: It looks like a normal scar that you and I would get. You would have no way of knowing that they used fish skin to help expedite that healing process.

HOWARD (voice-over): Eliana was born preterm in April of 2022 at 23 weeks gestation, four months before her due date. She weighed a single pound.

K. DEVOS: What's going on little girl?

HOWARD (voice-over): She spent more than 100 days total in the NICU, but it was about midway through her stay when she developed a serious bacterial infection on her neck. It damaged the tissue under her skin and caused a deep wound.

K. DEVOS: It sounds scary, but it was almost like a flesh-eating disease.

HOWARD (voice-over): Eliana was transferred from a general hospital to Driscoll Children's Hospital in Corpus Christi. Despite her severe wound, she was not a candidate for surgery or a conventional human skin graft. They were too risky.

DR. VANESSA DIMAS, DRISCOLL CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: She was a premature baby. The wound was very extensive, and she was pretty sick, so I did not feel like it was safe to do a surgical procedure on her.

HOWARD (voice-over): Instead, Dr. Dimas and nurse practitioner Roxana Reyna tried something different. They used a medical-grade honey solution to clean out the wound. Medical honey is known to help safely remove dead tissue and support healing.

Then they applied a mixture of that honey with the fish skin to cover the wound.

DIMAS: It's microscopically so close to human skin that it helps the wound start to heal. It gives a scaffold.

HOWARD (voice-over): You see, the fish skin taken from wild Atlantic cod provided a type of platform for Eliana's body to grow new skin tissue. And some of the omega oils and other natural elements helped contribute to the healing process.

DIMAS: Once it basically does its job helping the wound heal, then it sort of just melts away.

HOWARD (voice-over): Eliana's care team appears to be the first to use fish skin in this way in fragile preterm infants.

ROXANA REYNA, NURSE PRACTITIONER, DRISCOLL CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: What we're doing is being able to share our story, share Eliana's story, and to be able to have those positive outcomes elsewhere.

HOWARD: And one thing to note here, Eliana didn't have any side effects with this treatment, but if a child is allergic to fish, this obviously could risk causing a reaction. And fish skin is not the only example of using animal tissue in wound care. Skin from pigs has been commonly used and collagen from cattle.

And we're seeing more and more research in this area. So it is a growing area in medicine.

Back to you.

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SANCHEZ: All right, thanks to Jacqueline Howard for that incredible report.

Still to come, one of the messiest parties you'll ever see. It's time for the Grand Tomatina.

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HILL: Epic food fights are on the menu for you this Monday. Colombia's annual Gran Tomatina festival. Check this out. That is a party there. Revelers hurling thousands of tomatoes to celebrate the tomato. Smashing tons and tons of the fruit into a messy pulp.

If you're worried about how wasteful this sounds, I get you. But here's what we're told. Do not worry about said tomatoes being used in the festival because they apparently were not suitable for eating or they were simply overripe.

They may just be making themselves feel better.

SANCHEZ: I'll be the judge of them being overripe or not suitable for eating. I mean, look at inflation right now. It's crazy. Anyway, the crowd celebrated or marinated in the juicy puree, turning the ground into a giant, slushy pool of reddish. The event is held in Sutamarchan, just north of the capital of Bogota. And it honors the economy, which you might have guessed is centered around tomatoes.

The festival, which ends today, mirrors La Tomatina in Spain. Good luck getting those stains out.

HILL: Yes, I don't think you're wearing those shirts again. I did do a little deep dive because I was trying to find some research about tomatoes being good for your skin. Found nothing. Whole lot of nothing.

SANCHEZ: What are tomatoes good for, other than obviously the taste and the pizza?

HILL: We eat them. They've got lycopene --

[16:00:00]

SANCHEZ: Ketchup.

HILL: -- vitamins.

SANCHEZ: What's lycopene?

HILL: Lycopene's, like, good for you. I think it has anti-cancer benefits.

SANCHEZ: Good.

HILL: Maybe.

SANCHEZ: Good stuff, yes.

HILL: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Sounds good to me.

HILL: There you go.

SANCHEZ: Oh, hey, CNN turns 45 today.

HILL: CNN is 45.

SANCHEZ: Or yesterday, actually.

HILL: Yesterday.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

HILL: It's taking me a while to put my post up so we can keep going today because I haven't found any pictures.

SANCHEZ: Got to think about that one. Got to think about that one. Happy birthday. HILL: I should post this. This moment.

SANCHEZ: That's not a bad idea. Ready, post.

HILL: Happy birthday, CNN.

SANCHEZ: "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts right now.

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