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The Situation Room

Now, Cassie Ventura Resumes Testimony in Sean Diddy Combs Trial; Trump Speaks in Qatar Amid Questions Over Luxury Jet Gift; Trump Praises Syrian President as He Considers Normalizing Relations. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired May 14, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, breaking news, back on the stand. Cassie Ventura resumes testimony in the Sean Diddy Combs trial. And we have full coverage and updates from our reporters right inside that courtroom.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And Trump is in Qatar. The president is now on the second leg of his Middle East tour after inking truly historic deals with Saudi Arabia and announcing plans to lift sanctions on Syria.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown, and you're in The Situation Room.

But, first, some breaking news. The former longtime girlfriend of Sean Diddy Combs is back on the stand this morning for a second day of questioning. Cassie Ventura shared shocking allegations of abuse yesterday as she came face-to-face with the music mogul for the first time in some six years. Combs has pleaded not guilty to all charges, including sex trafficking. If convicted, he faces life in prison.

Let's go live right now to CNN Anchor and Chief Legal Analyst Laura Coates. She's just outside the courthouse in New York. Laura, so what do we expect in court today?

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: We just watched Cassie Ventura retake the stand. She's wearing this long gray dress with structured shoulder blazer, very much accentuating her pregnant belly. She is a woman who knows she is being watched by this defendant, as you've said, a man that she's with for over a decade, who she's accused of violent abuse and exploitation is now on trial for his life.

We heard a feisty, we heard a loud at times and we heard tempers flare between the attorneys in this matter today, the lead prosecutor, Ms. Comey, against Mark Agnifilo, the lead counsel for the defense. Why? Because the prosecution has seen them mark certain exhibits to be introduced later, perhaps, and they want them, and they want them. Now, Ms. Comey said this is not to be a trial by ambush. I want the documents now, please. Now, they fought back and said, as defense, we don't have to hand you anything before our cross-examination. We can use what we need to use because you have the burden of proof. This caused the judge to try to let cooler heads prevail and even reprimand the prosecution for not raising this to their attention earlier on, as late as when the documents were due.

You are seeing a fight right now, and it might be bare knuckles including what is being said, as Comey said, gamesmanship.

And then we saw Cassie Ventura retake the stand and she was seated initially, and then the jury came in. She stood up rubbing her belly, almost smiling for a moment with a closed mask smile in the direction of jurors who obviously were returning some level of acknowledgement to her. But we are told that the twin daughters of Sean Diddy Combs, who have been in the courtroom all this time, I'm hearing from my colleague, will not be there today. These girls are attending prom, these teenagers, watching their father on trial.

BLITZER: You know, if you take a look at what's on the screen on the left part of your screen, we're showing that Emily Johnson, the prosecutor, has submitted dozens of exhibits, including photos, messages, and videos recovered from Ventura's devices before beginning questioning today. We're getting these reports from inside the courtroom from our reporters inside because no live T.V., audio or video is allowed in a federal courthouse.

But go ahead, Laura, and give us a sense of what it was like in the hearing yesterday, the rather emotional testimony from Cassie Ventura.

COATES: At times, she was emotional, recalling how much she was enamored, her words, with Sean Diddy Combs, how much she wanted to be with him one-on-one, and how much she was a people pleaser who was sexually inexperienced before meeting him, having her first adult relationship and then describing her humiliation, her disgusting feeling towards herself as she participated in the so-called freak- off, days-long, drug-fueled that last up to 72 hours, at times, four days, including male escorts.

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What you're seeing in terms of that side feed, it's really important to follow along with what CNN is capturing in real time in these moments, Wolf. That hard drive, those different things that they were recovered from her phone, she kept them because she believed there was blackmail on them, if Sean Diddy Combs, or any part of his, what they're calling an enterprise, security staff in detail were to remove it. And so we're about to see some of the graphic video, some of the photography and still photos that might be captured on those devices.

There was a fight yesterday or discussion yesterday, I should say, with the judge about the extent in which the public could see this information. They had media lawyers in the room who essentially were saying, we have a First Amendment right as the public for them to prove their case publicly -- BLITZER: Laura, I'm going to interrupt you for a moment. Laura, stand by for a second, because we're now told that President Trump and the Emir of Qatar are signing an important cooperation agreement right now and they're speaking. I want to hear what they're saying.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: It's going to work out. I think it's going to work. It's got to work out one way or the other. We know it's going to work out. But you were of great help, and other things, but in particular, trade, the trade is the -- Kelly's telling me from Boeing, it's the largest order of jets in the history of Boeing. That's pretty good. And that's 140. Was that a 140 or 160?

Well, yes, but you're right, it's actually 200, including the 40. So it's over $200 billion, but 160 in terms of the jets. That's fantastic. So that's a record, Kelly, and congratulations to Boeing. Get those planes out there, get them out there. But I just want to thank you.

We've been friends for a long time, long before politics. Well, for you it was politics. For me, it wasn't, right? But we've been friends for a long time and this is an outstanding man. He's a great man and we're going to help each other. The United States is in a very strong position, militarily. We have the best equipment anywhere in the world. You're buying a lot of that equipment, actually, and I think we're going to see some of it in action tomorrow at the -- we won't call it an airfare, but it's going to be sort of an airfare. We're going to be shown a display. That's going to be incredible.

They have got the latest and the greatest of our planes and just about everything else. So, I think it's going to be a lot of fun and very interesting. But I just want to thank you for the friendship, for the long time friendship. And, again, long before any of this stuff, we just liked each other. That's not a bad thing. That's a good thing. But we always had a very special relationship.

And we came from Saudi Arabia where we have another great man over there that's a friend of yours and you two guys get along so well and like each other. You sort of remind me a little bit of each other if you want to know the truth, both tall, handsome guys that happen to be very smart. But he's also a very special guy.

And it's good to see all the relationships forming in the Middle East, because the Middle East is really being talked about all over the world. And we're having a lot to do with it. We're helping a lot, but they're doing a tremendous job.

So, I just want to thank everybody very much for being here. I want to thank the media. The media's been very fair actually, and it's great honor to be with you. This is -- you take a look at this room, this room is the real deal. That's called white marble. It's very hard to buy. Believe me, I know very well because you try to buy it and you can't buy it. And you just take a look at what you have here. It's been incredible what you've been able to build as a nation. And we're with you all the way and you know that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you. The ceremony has now come to an end. BLITZER: All right. We're watching history unfold in Doha, Qatar, right now the President of the United States meeting with the Emir of Qatar working out new agreements.

Alayna Treene, our White House reporter, is with us right now. Alayna, this is significant what the president is doing. Qatar and the U.S. have had a longstanding military relationship, a lot of cooperation from Qatar in terms of the U.S. Military Central Command. I've been to Camp as Aliya, a military base outside of Doha. I've been to the Al Udeid Air Base, where the U.S. has a lot of fighter jets based. So, there's a lot of military cooperation between the U.S. and Qatar. But now this controversy has erupted over Qatar wanting to give the president of the United States a plane.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right. And just some other things about Qatar recently as well is that they've been a key mediating force in a lot of the talks that they are having, particularly between the Israelis and Hamas.

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They've been very helpful in dealing with Hamas and wanting to, you know, expand on the ceasefire agreement. That, of course, has now fallen apart. But, yes, right now, we just saw them signing this. They had the signing ceremony on aviation having -- you know, buying planes from the U.S. and then also we're told an agreement on defense, of course.

But I do think your point about the Boeing jet, I mean, that is the one thing that everyone is paying attention to. And actually the president made comments last night. He did an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, where he actually suggested, I thought this was the most striking moment of that interview, where he said, you know, the Qatari suggested to him like, let us help you. If we can help you, let us. And, of course, we're seeing the president show that he's very amenable to that, that he wants to accept it. He's calling it a gift to the State Department.

But, of course, it raises serious ethical questions. We've heard now from a lot of Democrats, but also Republicans and some Trump allies, people like Laura Loomer or Ben Shapiro, saying like this is not ethical, this is not legal. And so that's, of course, something that everyone is watching for today is what's actually going to happen with that.

And, of course, as well, when you talk about the plane, which the president and his team are trying to refer to as this hotel in the sky, is that it would cost still hundreds of millions of dollars to try and retrofit it. It would take years to do that. There are so many different security implications of this. You know, Secret Service has said that this would be a security nightmare. They'd have to tear the plane apart looking for surveillance devices. They'd have to add some of the capabilities we know that Air Force 1 needs.

So, that's going to be a huge deal if that actually comes together, the president himself saying that he very much thinks that he should accept it. He even said he thought he'd be stupid not to.

BLITZER: He said that, indeed. And there's another major development unfolding in Doha, Qatar, today, and that is an Israeli delegation is heading to Doha to continue negotiations with the U.S., Steve Witkoff, the special U.S. Envoy is already there with Hamas to see if they can get more hostages released.

TREENE: Right. So, this has been a huge deal. I mean, I think, first of all, of course, what has been very encouraging to the Trump administration is what we saw happen on Monday with the release of Edan Alexander, the last living American hostage being held by Hamas. That timing was so significant and very strategic, I believe, on behalf of Hamas because they recognized, you know, they didn't get anything in return for releasing him. And it is, I think, from my conversations with Trump administration officials, they are viewing this as a goodwill adjust. I think the president said so himself.

And so that's really the talks today with Steve Witkoff leading those from the United States side is going to be a key part of this, is how many more hostages can they release. And, of course, trying to view this as how can they get back to ceasefire talks, because we have seen that fall apart.

And all of this comes, of course, as there has been some frustration we've been reporting behind the scenes with Trump administration officials and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A lot of people questioning is he actually committed to ending this war? And I think we should get some more insights on -- depending on how those negotiations go today.

BROWN: President Trump also surprised a lot of us when he talked about lifting sanctions on Syria. He met with Syria's new president and talked about normalizing relations. Tell us about that.

TREENE: Yes. I mean, so that was actually completely unexpected. I mean, we had been tracking, of course, everything that was going to be happening on this Middle East trip. And even some senior Trump administration officials were not expecting President Donald Trump to meet with Syria's President Ahmed al-Sharaa this morning when he was in Riyadh.

A few big things, yes, I think the most notable was yesterday. He said that he was going to be lifting sanctions on Syria saying, that he wants to give them a fresh start. But then on Air Force 1, he also made a number of characterizations. He was trying to describe the Syrian president to reporters. He described him as a great -- he called him great. He said he's a young, attractive, tough guy with a strong past.

I think notable, of course, we know that Syria president had previously founded a militant group that had previously pledged support to Al-Qaeda before backing away from that in 2016. So, those comments are pretty interesting.

But it was remarkable to see these two leaders meet some other big things that he said, the president said, that they talked about was, one, he said he would like Syria to sign onto the Abraham Accord, which would be a very big development. Of course, we know that's been a key part of this trip in the background, is trying to make progress on the Abraham Accord. It's a key focus of the President's first term about normalizing diplomatic relationships between Israel and a number of Arab nations. We saw him say the same thing about the Saudi Arabia yesterday, wanting them to sign on that as well.

He also said he told Syria's president that he wants them to force all foreign terrorists to leave Syria, to deport Palestinian terrorists, help the United States prevent the resurgence of ISIS. All of these things, I think so key because, really, the big picture here is the president is looking with all the leaders he's meeting on at this trip, to really strengthen ties with these partners or, in Syria's case, not even a partner, hopefully now, the president is trying to make Syria a new partner in all of this.

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And so it's really interesting to see him kind of embracing foreign leaders and countries that have many times in the past been adversaries of the United States.

BLITZER: And this new president of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, was an adversary of the U.S. But now, Trump is embracing him, lifting all U.S. sanctions, and hoping that Syria and Saudi Arabia, as you correctly point out, will eventually sign on to the so-called Abraham Accords, establishing full relations, diplomatic relations with Israel. If these two countries were to do that, that would be a huge development, indeed.

Alayna, thank you very, very much.

And we're going to have much more news right after the break.

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BROWN: Right now, Cassie Ventura, the former longtime girlfriend of Sean Diddy Combs, is back on the stand in the music mogul, sex trafficking and racketeering trial. She testified for nearly five hours yesterday, revealing graphic allegations of abuse. Combs has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

A quick note on CNN's coverage of this trial, on the left side of your screen, you'll see information from our reporters inside that courtroom. It's going to continue to update throughout the show because there's no video or audio recording allowed in federal court.

You see right now that the prosecution has brought back that hotel surveillance footage where you see what is happening between Ventura and Combs, and, you know, him dragging her body out of the -- dragged her out of the elevator lobby and so forth. This was video that CNN first obtained.

So, on that note, let's go to Federal Prosecutor Elie. Honig and CNN Legal Analyst and Criminal Defense Attorney Joey Jackson.

To you, Elie, clearly, the prosecution really wants to focus on this video. This is not the first time that it has been brought up. Why is it so significant?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, because it's so visceral. Because if you're a juror or a normal person, when you see that video, the violence becomes so real. And what the prosecutors are doing right now by playing this video with Cassie on the stand is they're doing two things. One, they're supporting Cassie Ventura's credibility. Because what she's saying, the jury doesn't need to take it at her word, they can see it in the video.

And the second thing, they're using Cassie Ventura to narrate that video because it tells you a lot, but it doesn't tell you everything. And if you can have one of the participants explaining exactly to the jury what's happening, that's going to capture their attention and that's going to mutually bolster the witness and the video at the same time.

BROWN: And how might that undercut, Joey, what the defense has been saying that all of this was consensual? I mean, they have admitted, look, domestic abuse occurred, that, you know, Combs is a complicated man, but this is not a complicated case. He did not engage in racketeering or sex trafficking. How is the prosecution trying to combat that narrative with this?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Pamela. It's a powerful argument to make. There are prosecutors all over the country who are very adept at prosecuting domestic violence cases at the state level. And so it's important to note in looking at this video over and over and over again, that, yes, it's horrific, right? No question. If you see it, you have, as Elliot said -- as Elie said, excuse me, a visceral reaction to it. You do.

But the reality is that this is not -- defense lawyers will remind the jury a domestic violence case. This is a federal case involving federal crimes. We've heard a lot about sex, drugs, and rock and roll, quite frankly. And I think the core issue is not whether there was domestic violence. The core issue is whether or not there was coercion with respect to sexual activities. The core issue was whether he was flying people across the country to engage in prostitution. The core issue was whether he was using his business as an enterprise. Last point, and that is that why playing the video over and over again, do you desensitize the jurors to the extent that they look at it and say, okay, here we go again. They played it several times.

To me, they've got to get to the issue of was there coercion with regard to what the sexual activities you were engaging in, were you with that or were you not about that at all. And that's going to be a very important thing the jury's going to have to take away from it.

BROWN: Did you want to jump in?

HONIG: I agree with Joey. I think it's a great point. There does come a point when you can play the same piece of video over and over to where the jury becomes desensitized.

And Cassie Ventura is such an interesting and important witness here because, on the one hand, I think she's doing quite well so far for the prosecution. I think she's coming across as credible, as sympathetic. Her story makes sense. It's easy to follow what she's saying. On the other hand, the defense has taken, I think, a smart tack. They are not -- we should see the cross-examination, I think, later today. There was a dispute about that that Laura was telling us about.

The defense lawyers are not going to try to paint Cassie Ventura as an irredeemable liar. They're not going to say to the jury, you shouldn't believe a word this person says. In fact, what they said in their opening is, essentially, you can believe most of what she said and conclude that this was an abusive but consensual relationship. And guess what? That's not what Sean Combs is charged with here. That's not racketeering, that's not interstate sex trafficking.

So, she's an unusual witness in that she's so high-stakes, but you're not going to see the normal methods of trying to undermine her testimony from the defense.

BROWN: So then on that note, Joey, how should the defense approach questioning Ventura during cross-examination?

JACKSON: Yes. So, remember, Pamela, she's pregnant, and that's relevant because of the sensitivities involved in that. At the same time, I think you have to get to the core issue, right? You could, as Elie said, take what she said, hey, this happened, that abuse happened. You can believe your eyes. They're not lying.

But what I want to focus on, ladies and gentlemen, is the issue of a ten-year relationship. And there came a point in year two where he brought up to you, that is Sean Combs, that we want to do this, we want to be a little freaky, we want to get other people involved, right?

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You had an opportunity to say no. Did you? You had an opportunity to walk away in year three. Did you? Year four, year five, you continued with it. Is that right? In fact, you paid some of these performers and you wanted, and were enjoying these experiences, right? Okay. And so the issue really evolves force, fraud or coercion. And, in fact, you called one of the male sex workers back up to reengage in activities and you quite frankly enjoyed it.

So, it's important to note, Pamela, the issue really is not about a person's sex life on trial. Jurors are not there to be the morality police. They're not there to police whether or not someone has a sex life we agree with, we think it's appropriate. We may think they're sick and demented. The issue is, is it a federal offense? Where's the fraud? Where's the coercion, right? Where is it that there was a gun put to your head and you said, hey, you need to do this? You could have opted out of the relationship, the defense will say, on several occasions. Did you do that? Oh, well, he was affecting my career. Okay. But, right, there are other people besides Sean Combs that you could potentially have relied upon, that you could have potentially gone out with, right?

So, the bottom line is, yes, there are a lot of sensitivities, Pamela, in this cross-examination and a lot of things I said where people may be throwing things at the T.V. screen. But at the end of the day, keep your eyes on the prize. The defense attorneys would say, not about sex, not about salaciousness, it's about criminality.

BROWN: All right. Elie Honig, Joey Jackson, thank you so much. Wolf?

BLITZER: Right now, it's time for the Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy to face question, serious questions from lawmakers up on Capitol Hill. He's not the only member of the Trump cabinet in the hot seat today. We're keeping an eye on all of today's developments.

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