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Day 2 Of Cassie Ventura Cross-Examination In Sean "Diddy" Combs Trial; Trump Appears To Confirm Iran Has Received A Nuclear Deal Proposal; WSJ: Air Traffic Controller Calls For More Resources Amid Staff Shortages, Tech Outages. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired May 16, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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


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[11:01:18]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, call with allies. President Trump spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders as Trump says he and Russian President Vladimir Putin, quote, have to meet.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: 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.

We begin this hour with another day of tough questioning for the former longtime girlfriend of Sean "Diddy" Combs. Right now, Cassie Ventura is on the stand for a second day of cross-examination in the music mogul's sex trafficking trial. She's already testified for nearly 15 hours over three days.

BROWN: Combs has pleaded not guilty to all charges and if convicted, he faces life in prison. So let's go live now to CNN entertainment correspondent, Elizabeth Wagmeister, right outside that courthouse in New York. Elizabeth, what -- what's going on now with the cross- examination?

ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good to see you, Pam and Wolf. So before we start, I do want to give you a little insight into the environment here. We have some fans of Sean "Diddy" Combs who have been out here to support him. They are very passionate. They are very loud. And what's happening literally right behind the camera in front of me is we have a supporter of Combs and then we have someone on the other side of the aisle and they are fighting.

So I'm only bringing this up because if you hear some yelling in the background, that is what that is. And that's what's been happening at this courthouse because it really is a madhouse, both from the public and from the media. Now, let's get to Cassie Ventura's testimony today.

I just stepped out of the courtroom about 10 minutes ago. And she's been on the stand for about an hour today for her second day of cross- examination. So what's happening right now is that Diddy's defense, they are questioning her a lot about her and Combs' drug use, about what they say, or at least they are trying to portray her as a violent person in the past.

And also they are asking her questions about infidelity. In their opening statement at the beginning of this week, they did say that this was all about jealousy and infidelity. So during cross right now, they are asking her about some of those past relationships that may have upset Combs.

Of course, what they are trying to do here is to portray her in a certain light in front of the jury.

BROWN: Wow, Elizabeth, mad props to you for being able to give that report with all that yelling in the background. Keep us posted on what's going on there. Thank you so much. Wolf?

BLITZER: All right, there's other news we're following, including some new news this morning, a potentially very significant development out of the Middle East.

President Trump appears to confirm that Iran has received a proposal for a new nuclear deal with the U.S. just yesterday. The President said the sides are, in his words, very close to an agreement, significant development potentially. With us now here in the Situation Room is CNN national security correspondent Kylie Atwood. Kylie, you have some new reporting this morning. What are you learning?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so I'm learning, Wolf, according to a source familiar, that this week, following that fourth round of U.S.-Iran talks, which happened last weekend, the United States hasn't put forth any follow-up proposal for an Iran nuclear deal through to the Iranians. Now, what we know is that last week, both the Iranians and the U.S. side came to the table.

Of course, those conversations led by U.S. top envoy Steve Witkoff, and both sides had proposals. That led to hours of discussions. Then, of course, they broke, and Steve Witkoff has been in the region since he's been traveling with President Trump. But following those conversations, there hasn't been any detailed proposal that the United States has shared with Iran, despite some expectations, I'm told, that this week that would come.

[11:05:06]

Now, I spoke with another source familiar with these discussions who said that the Trump administration is expecting that in the fifth round of talks that those detailed follow-up conversations will happen. So we'll watch and see what happens in those conversations. But this comes as President Trump is effectively saying that the United States has put their proposal on the table, and that he thinks that they are incredibly close to reaching this nuclear deal. Listen to what he said on Air Force One today.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On Iran, has the U.S. given them a formal proposal? Has Steve Witkoff handed that over?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They have a proposal, but more importantly, they know they have to move quickly, or something bad, something bad is going to happen.

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ATWOOD: Obviously, move quickly because something bad could happen is what Trump has repeatedly said. If Iran doesn't strike this deal, that the United States is willing to use military force to go after Iran's nuclear program.

But we're really going to have to watch and see when this fifth round of nuclear talks comes together. I'm told there are conversations about that round of talks, but it hasn't yet been put on the calendar.

BLITZER: We'll see what happens, but the stakes are enormous right now. Kylie Atwood, thank you very, very much. Pamela?

BROWN: All right, thanks, Kylie. And today, airlines are meeting with the Federal Aviation Administration to discuss the possibility of decreasing the number of flights in the Newark Liberty International Airport.

They're aiming to minimize cancellations and delays as the New Jersey hub faces air traffic control, stopping shortages, and radar outages. And in the midst of that, one veteran air traffic controller is speaking out. In a new interview with "The Wall Street Journal," Jonathan Stewart is calling for more resources saying, it's like playing 3D chess at 250 miles an hour.

Stewart supervises the air traffic facility that handles flights out of Newark, which also faced a number of tech outages in recent weeks. New video obtained by CBS News shows the moment blank screens inside that facility came back online during an outage earlier this month. CNN has not been able to independently verify the authenticity of that video.

But let's go live now to CNN Aviation correspondent Pete Muntean in Washington, right here with me actually on -- on set. What do air traffic controllers like Jonathan Stewart say needs to change? It's really alarming.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Controllers at Newark and beyond tell me they're not only overworked by the nationwide shortage of air traffic controllers, still 3,000 short in the United States, but also these ailing equipment issues that really shows equipment is aging fast.

The FAA has now confirmed to me that Newark air traffic control approach controller, Jonathan Stewart, is the latest to take trauma leave. He told "The Wall Street" Journal in his new interview that controllers do not have the proper resources and are stressed on the job as their workload is going up. Stewart joins five of his coworkers who took trauma leave after that April 28th Newark approach control meltdown, the watershed incident that really brought all these issues to light.

Controllers lost radio contact and radar for about 90 seconds, something one Newark controller told me is the worst thing that can happen on the job. Stewart told the Journal he took trauma leave after an incident on May 4th when he helped guide two flights away from a head-on collision. Here is what Stewart said about the decision to take trauma leave, something controllers are legally entitled to take for 45 days. Listen.

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JONATHAN STEWART, NEWARK AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: To say that someone would basically game the system and take trauma leave when they were not traumatized is insulting at best and -- and just, quite frankly, misinformed. No way, shape, or form was that what happened. Nobody walked off the job of their own free will.

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MUNTEAN: One more interesting detail here. Stewart says he lost faith in his radar scope because of these system failures, so he resorted to writing down flight numbers in a notebook as a backup. We've reached out to the NTSB and the FAA about the details of that incident, Pam.

BROWN: Wow, and also we should note that there was another comms outage, right, at another air traffic control center.

MUNTEAN: This was at a facility in Denver. It's called the Denver Air Traffic Route Control Center. It controls planes at a higher altitude, not planes that are descending and climbing out of the Newark airport like this. This happened on Monday afternoon, and we know that two radio transmitters went down also for about 90 seconds.

Sounds a little bit similar to this incident. This was just a radio communications failure, and the FAA says controllers were able to communicate with flights through a backup radio frequency. They never lost radar contact with these planes, and there was never a loss of separation between airplanes, meaning that they never came close to a collision, but still alarming and really shows the breadth of this problem, that it's happening not just in Newark, but at places across the country and really underscores the need to modernize the system, something the Trump administration says it can do in about two to three years if Congress gives them the money all in front.

BROWN: All right, Pete Muntean, thank you so much for that reporting.

MUNTEAN: Anytime.

BROWN: Wolf?

BLITZER: Pete knows aviation.

BROWN: He does. He's a pilot himself. He knows it.

BLITZER: All right, still ahead, Trump officials now say the former FBI director, James Comey, is under investigation after posting an image that the Trump administration considers a threat against President Trump.

[11:10:09]

BROWN: Plus, President Trump is telling House Republicans to, quote, unite behind his big, beautiful bill, but a handful of GOP hardliners are still saying it's a no. You're in The Situation Room.

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[11:15:05]

BROWN: We'll new this morning, President Trump is accusing former FBI director James Comey, who he had fired in his first administration, of threatening him. Comey posted a photo of seashells spelling out the numbers 86-47, prompting swift backlash.

Alabama GOP Senator Tommy Tuberville, for example, called the post beyond despicable and said James Comey must face consequences. Comey has since deleted the photo and posted this statement, quote, I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn't realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me, but I oppose violence of any kind. So I took the post down.

BLITZER: President Trump says this about Comey's explanation. Listen to this.

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TRUMP: Exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant. If you're the FBI director and you don't know what that meant, that meant assassination. And it says it loud and clear. Now, he wasn't very competent, but he was competent enough to know what that meant.

And he did it for a reason. And he was hit so hard because people like me and they like what's happening with our country. Our country has become respected again and all this. And he's calling for the assassination of the President.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Obviously, he apologized and said --

TRUMP: Well, he apologized because he was hit. Look, he's a very bad, look, he's a --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you want to see happen?

TRUMP: I don't want to take a position on it because that's going to be up to Pam and all of the great people. But I will say this. I think it's a terrible thing.

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BLITZER: The U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says her department and the U.S. Secret Service are investigating an alleged threat made against Trump by Comey. BROWN: All right, let's bring in who we just saw there, John Miller, our chief CNN law enforcement analyst. You are also, John, the deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism for the NYPD. So is this a case you would have investigated, John?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: You know, this is the kind of case that might have come in. We had a threat management unit that was very busy dealing with threats in New York City. And we could take those cases, either to state prosecutors or federal prosecutors.

But the bar is very high for what is a threat versus what is a statement versus what is a message. And when you look at this as, you know, the 86-47, is that a threat? You know, 86 comes from the land of bartenders, when they said, you can't drink here anymore because you're a bad customer. Where it turned into killing, that may be some social media phenomenon, but it doesn't fit the legal standard of a threat that we would have taken on or that a federal prosecutor would have accepted.

BLITZER: John, given your law enforcement and intelligence experience, and it's very in-depth, what is -- what is the law regarding what constitutes a threat versus a political statement?

MILLER: All right. So you would approach this from the federal statute, because they've referred it to the attorney general, the Secret Service, the FBI, the federal statute about making a threat against a government official through interstate commerce, meaning that they use the internet and social media. Then the bar is set at, is the threat a serious threat? Is it a credible threat? Did the person making the threat mean it and have the capability to carry it out? Is it the kind of threat that struck fear into the heart of the person being threatened? None of this seems to approach this bar.

If I had brought this into the Southern District of New York as a threat, they would have said, we appreciate you stopping by, but we don't see a prosecution here. So what you see is a lot of hyperbole. But as my colleague, Jim Murphy, pointed out on this morning's news call, there are still stickers saying 86 Biden, meaning 86-46, that are being sold on eBay.

There's no call to say that those are threats. There's no investigation into eBay for selling them. They're available across the internet on other platforms. They're on sale at a reduced rate because he's not president anymore. None of the distributors are being investigated. So the question here is, how much of this is government weaponization theater versus a real legal problem?

BROWN: And just to follow up with that, you know, whether or not he should have posted that is a different story. You know, in terms of the legal aspect of this, the fact that he deleted it and then said, look, I didn't realize that that meant violence. You know, I don't condone violence. So as a result, I took this down. How might -- how would that typically factor in an investigation? MILLER: You know, that's a great question because when these cases rolled into us, either my people or the FBI and detectives from the Joint Terrorist Task Force would go in and do the interview. This is how you close out the case. What did you mean when you said it? Typically, we had people who would threaten to kill politicians and they would say, I was drunk. I was online. I don't know why I did it. I certainly have no intention of doing it. And the case would die right there.

[11:20:24]

BROWN: All right, John Miller, thank you so much.

MILLER: Thanks, Pam.

BLITZER: Excellent explanation.

Up next, House Republicans are taking a major gamble right now with much of President Trump's agenda hanging in the balance.

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[11:25:17]

BROWN: Right now on Capitol Hill, a key House Budget Committee hearing is underway. And it could have major implications for President Trump's big, beautiful bill.

And as GOP infighting over that bill drags on, the President has a blunt message this morning for his party, quote, stop talking and get it done. So let's go live now to CNN congressional correspondent Lauren Fox on Capitol Hill. Very busy morning for you on Capitol Hill this morning. Bring us up to speed. What's going on?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I mean, this committee is so key because you have to move this piece of legislation through the Budget Committee in order to get it to the floor. And as we've reported over and over again, Speaker Mike Johnson wants this voted on before the Memorial Day recess. So that means by next Thursday. That doesn't give them much time.

What the drama is right now in this room is there are four conservative holdouts who are warning they may vote against this in the committee today. If they vote against it, that's enough to potentially stall out Trump's agenda, stall out this piece of legislation. And they are asking for some key demands. But you know, it was so dramatic this morning, right before everything was getting started.

They left, they went back to Chip Roy's office. Then they came back to the committee once they were gaveled in. Then they were ushered off to the ante room where they met with Majority Leader Steve Scalise for more than an hour.

And it's just not clear right now whether or not they're going to be able to get there. We should probably learn in the next hour or two where they're going to be, if they're going to be voting yes for this. But if it stalls out, that could have serious implications for what happens next and whether Johnson can meet that aggressive deadline.

BROWN: So what can the party leadership actually do at this point to sway these holdouts?

FOX: Yeah, so these holdouts are basically arguing, Chip Roy said this earlier today, that this is full of tax cuts that kick in right away and spending cuts that kick in later. So some of the ideas that they have are increasing the timeline for how fast work requirements for Medicaid go into effect. Those currently aren't expected to go into effect until the end of 2028.

That could be sped up potentially, but that is the kind of thing they're asking for. But these are such technical changes. And at this moment, it just takes time to get everyone on board because if you change something over here, you have to get some of those moderates to be willing to accept those changes. That's the challenge.

BROWN: All right, Lauren Fox, thanks so much. Wolf?

BLITZER: We're getting some new details, Pamela, on a disturbing new trend. The FBI now says hackers have been using an A.I.-generated voice message to pose as senior U.S. officials in a bid to gain access to very sensitive classified information. CNN cybersecurity reporter Sean Lyngaas is joining us. He's here in the Situation Room with us. Do we know what these hackers' end goal really is?

SEAN LYNGAAS, CNN CYBERSECURITY REPORTER: Wolf, we don't really know what they're after in the end. It's -- it's one of these disturbing cyber operations where it could be financial fraud, it could be espionage. But for the FBI to warn about it publicly like this is a big deal.

It means that there's a concerted effort going on to hack into these accounts. And, you know, if -- if you're using A.I., it sounds really fancy, but it isn't really. I mean, there's so many cheap tools on the internet where you can just -- I don't have to impersonate Wolf Blitzer's voice.

I can just plug you saying something into a program and spit it out. And it all depends on how well secure the person being targeted is. And this administration has had trouble with its operational security, you know, signal gate, in terms of verifying who they're talking to.

So this is a developing story. And once you use A.I. to try to get into someone's account, then you can effectively take over their identity. So if I'm in your e-mail account, I don't need to impersonate Wolf anymore. I am Wolf. So that's what the FBI is trying to warn right now. We're going to hear more about this in the coming days, I think, in terms of who's been affected.

BLITZER: So presumably the danger is someone could impersonate through A.I. Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, or Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State and pretend to be those people and try to get some sensitive information in a call saying, hey, this is Pete Hegseth, and he recognizes the voice, so he goes ahead and spills the beans.

LYNGAAS: Exactly. And if the A.I. tool is even a little bit good at what it's doing, the voice will be very similar to the actual person's voice.

BLITZER: So disturbing and potentially very, very dangerous. Pete, thanks very much for that -- Sean, thanks very much for that excellent reporting.

BROWN: Spill the beans in a while. Really good reporting, Sean, thank you.

[11:29:35]

All right, well, tariffs, economic fears and President Trump's plans to accept a luxury jet from Qatar. Up next, our weekly series, Your Voice, where we'll talk with a pair of radio hosts about how their listeners are processing what's happening here in Washington and beyond.

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