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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
President Trump Announces New Pardons, Including Reality Show Couple Convicted Of Bank Fraud And Tax Crimes; Trump Pardons Former Virginia Sheriff Convicted Of Bribery; Trump Escalates Attacks On Harvard As Experts Warn Of Danger To Key Public Health Research; Pres. Trump's Vision Meets Hard Reality In PA; Sean "Diddy" Combs' Ex- Assistant Testifies In Trial; SpaceX Loses Control Of Starship 30 Minutes Into 9th Test Flight, Breaks Apart During Re-entry. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired May 27, 2025 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And experts doubt if it would even be possible to deploy hundreds of satellites to detect and intercept missiles by the end of Trump's term in 2029, because, again, technology doesn't actually really exist at this point. What is more likely, experts say, is that the space arms race with adversaries, especially North Korea, especially China, that will accelerate. It's already underway, but if the Golden Dome blasts off, who knows what will happen in space.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Well, thank you very much as always and thanks of course to all of you. We'll see you tomorrow, Anderson starts now.
[20:00:38]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Tonight on 360, breaking news on Presidential pardons -- a reality T.V. couple is granted freedom from federal prison by the President.
Also tonight, the latest in the battle of Trump versus Harvard and the impact it may have on our public health.
And later, a manhunt for a convicted rapist and killer who is also a former police chief. He escaped in a prison -- escaped prison in a phony uniform. Authorities are warning he's extremely dangerous.
Good evening, we begin tonight with the breaking news. New pardons by President Trump, and they're starting to follow a pattern. Late today, we learned from the White House that reality T.V. show couple Todd and Julie Chrisley are both getting full pardons. They spent nearly three years in prison so far after being convicted of conspiracy to defraud banks out of more than $30 million. The couple, best known for starring in the show "Chrisley Knows Best," were also found guilty of several tax crimes, including attempting to defraud the IRS, which means they were attempting to defraud all of us who pay taxes.
One of the Chrisley's children spoke at last year's Republican convention. Today, an adviser to the President posted a video of him calling the couples kids to give them the news.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: It's a terrible thing, but it's a great thing because your parents are going to be free and clean, and I hope we can do it by tomorrow. I don't know them, but give them my regards and wish them --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you so much Mister...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President --
TRUMP: Yes. How are you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to say thank you for bringing my parents back.
TRUMP: Yes, well, they were given a pretty harsh treatment based on what I'm hearing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, you briefly heard in that clip, Savannah Chrisley, the daughter who spoke at the Republican National Convention in July -- she also campaigned for the President on what was billed as the team Trump's women tour.
Also tonight, "The New York Times" is reporting former nursing home executive Paul Walzak is also getting a full pardon. And like the Chrisleys, he too was convicted of tax crimes, accused of siphoning some $10 million from employee paychecks under the pretext it was going to tax us. Instead, according to "The New York Times," He spent some of it on a $2 million yacht for himself.
And like the Chrisley's daughters appearance at the convention, according to "The Times," Paul Walzak's mom raised millions of dollars for the President and other Republicans and attended a $1 million plate dinner at Mar-a-Lago, the paper reported he turned in a pardon application in January, around the time of the inauguration.
"The Times" says the application didn't focus on his crimes, but instead the political activity in favor of the President of his mom and the pardon application even mentioned her efforts to sabotage the 2020 Biden Presidential campaign by publicizing the daughter of -- the diary of his daughter, Ashley Biden.
President Trump has given a full pardon also to this former Virginia sheriff, just hours before he was set to report to prison. According to federal prosecutors, Scott Jenkins, who served as a top law enforcement officer in Culpeper County, was convicted in December of conspiracy and other charges, including accepting more than $75,000.00 in bribes in exchange for appointing several businessmen as auxiliary deputy sheriffs within his department.
Just two months ago, under the Trump administration, Jenkins was sentenced to ten years in prison. Now he is a free man, the President saying in part in a social media post on Monday. This sheriff is a victim of an overzealous Biden Department of Justice and doesn't deserve to spend a single day in jail.
Now, before all these, the President had already pardoned at least 15 others for financial crimes. Since returning to office in January. Here are some of the high profile ones listed on the Department of Justice's website.
In January, on day two, of his second term, the President announced a pardon for Ross William Ulbricht, the founder of the "Silk Road" dark web marketplace. He was serving a life sentence on charges related to the site that the Department of Justice had described as, "the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the internet today."
Rod Blagojevich, the former Democratic governor of Illinois. He was removed from office and convicted of charges that included a scheme to sell an appointment to fill the vacant senate seat left by then- President Barack Obama. He served eight years of a 14-year sentence before he received a commuted sentence in the President's first term. And then in January, just days into his second term, the President gave him a full pardon.
There's also Devon Archer, Hunter Biden's former business partner, who testified before congress about his business dealings. He got a pardon from Mr. Trump in March. Archer was convicted in 2018 of involvement in a scheme involving fraudulently issuing and selling more than $60 million of tribal bonds.
Also in March, the President pardoned former Tennessee State Senator Brian Kelsey. That happened just two weeks after Kelsey reported federal prison to serve a nearly two-year sentence for illegal campaign finance scheme. He pleaded guilty to back in 2022. CNN's chief White House correspondent and anchor of "The Source," Kaitlan Collins, joins me now.
What rationale is the White House giving for these Chrisley pardons?
[20:05:20]
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: They're arguing in part, Anderson, that they believed the sentences that the Chrisleys got here were too harsh. And that is why they're taking this step. I've been hearing for the last several weeks that this was under consideration by the President. People had seen Savannah Chrisley, his daughter, in town in Washington. And so, there was rampant speculation that this was likely something that that he was considering undertaking, and that it culminated today with that phone call from the Oval Office, from the President to Savannah.
You notice in that video, Alice Johnson is standing just off to the Presidents side. Of course, he pardoned her in his first term in office after a big lobbying campaign by people like Kim Kardashian and others. And so she was there for the call today as he informed the family that that they would be pardoning them.
And for Savannah Chrisley, I mean, you've noticed over the last few months how she has made a real lobbying effort of her own to get her parents granted clemency by the President. She spoke at the Republican Convention. She likened what they went through, Anderson, to President Trump's own struggles with the law and issues that he's had. She said that they were unfairly targeted just because they were reality T.V. stars in this series, that that really showcased their lavish lifestyle. And obviously, prosecutors and a jury agreed to that effect here.
And so this is a step that the White House has now taken. We're expecting to see more movement on this week. Maybe there will be an Oval Office moment with this. That's something that would seem to be under consideration. But essentially that was the argument is that they were arguing that it had been unfairly prosecuted and unfairly targeted when it came to their sentences.
COOPER: Yes, Kaitlan Collins, thanks very much. We'll see you at the top of the hour in "The Source."
Joining me now is bestselling author and former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Toobin. His latest book is the pardon the politics of Presidential mercy and CNN political commentator Alyssa Farah Griffin, who served as communications director in the Trump White House. Jeff, I mean, there -- it's kind of fascinating. These are a lot of them are financial crimes that he is pardoning people for and have some sort of interaction with his campaign or --
JEFFREY TOOBIN, BESTSELLING AUTHOR AND FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Right, I mean, I think the, the connective thread among them all is they have all done something for Donald Trump. Either they have paid actual money, like the person who paid $1 million to -- in the in the fundraiser, or they were political supporters, like the crooked sheriff in Virginia, like the Chrisleys. I mean, it is -- the important point to remember, though, is that this is an absolute power of the President and people can be outraged. People can be unhappy. There is absolutely no check and balance. You know, we spent a lot of time in the early part of this term, you know, debating about whether the President has authority to do one thing or another.
Here, clearly, he has the authority to do it, and he's doing it. And there's nothing anybody can do.
COOPER: How come, Jeff, though, is it in the application for the pardon to cite your mom's efforts, not just on you know, on the President's behalf. You're not talking about the crimes or apologizing for crimes he may have --
TOOBIN: I mean, this whole all is incredibly unusual. I mean, there are a lot of controversial pardons throughout American history, whether its Gerald Ford pardoning Richard Nixon. Joe Biden pardoning Hunter Biden but this and, you know, we haven't even talked about the 1,500 people -- rioters at the at the Capitol on January 6th who were pardoned.
I mean, the President is really aggressively using his pardon power, but not for people who have particularly sympathetic stories, only for people who have done something for him. It's all transactional with Donald Trump. COOPER: He doesn't really care at this. I mean, he's just -- he's fully leaning into this.
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: He's fully leaning into it and it feels like it feels like pay to play to some extent, that the price of a pardon is loyalty to Donald Trump. And what stood out to me as you're watching Alice Johnson standing next to him in the Oval Office there, somebody who many people across the political spectrum supported Donald Trump pardoning --
COOPER: Van Jones talked about her.
GRIFFIN: Yes, this is somebody who was over sentenced and was kind of speaking to a period where were over sentencing certain drug crimes. That is a cause that he could be using his Presidential powers to be championing. There's many people who are wrongly incarcerated or have been for too long at this point, but instead he's focusing on loyalty to him, but I also think these sort of celebrity causes.
I remember in the first term he toyed with the idea of pardoning Joe Exotic, the "Tiger King" character. That was kind of a big show at the time at the end of his first administration. He didn't ultimately do it, but I think he wants people who have given money to him, have proven supporters, but also kind of have a fan base with them.
COOPER: The other thing, Ed Martin, who the DOJ pardon attorney, he posted about the pardon this guy Sheriff Jenkins from his personal account saying no MAGA left behind. Thank you, POTUS Trump for pardoning Sheriff Jenkins.
TOOBIN: No MAGA left behind -- that's exactly right. That's what these pardons are. They are pardons for MAGA people. And as I say, President Trump has the right to do that under the constitution but it is compared to how other Presidents have at least tried to show that they are even handed or dispensing mercy, as opposed to political favors. No MAGA left behind --
[20:10:27]
COOPER: So somebody -- if somebody came up to the President privately as one of his, you know. Bitcoin donors or meme coin donors and said, I'll put $10 million in your, you know, I'll get 10 million of your meme coins, if you pardon my cousin, he could do that and that would be fine.
TOOBIN: And that is exactly -- that is a great question and it was answered by the Supreme Court's decision in Trump v United States last year, which said that any official act cannot be prosecuted. A pardon is an official act. It's explicitly mentioned in Article II of the Constitution. So, the President could stand on the White House lawn and take cash in return for pardons and there's nothing criminal prosecution could do about it. He could be impeached, but he couldn't be prosecuted.
GRIFFIN: And by the way, I don't think Donald Trump cares about this and the optics of this in the second term. In the first term, Matt Gaetz and others reportedly sought preemptive pardons when he was leaving office after he lost, and he declined to do those.
I think there was a certain sense of impropriety in how that would be received by the public but he feels very empowered, and it's in part because of the Joe Biden pardons. When he left office pardoning his family. I think he -- I think this White House sees that is kind of muddying the waters with the general public to point to, a lot of Presidents have abused pardon power.
COOPER: I just want to play something that Alyssa, the President, gave the commencement address at West Point Academy. He talked about strong support for Miller, the military also attacked, you know, the usual suspects, drag shows, DEI and he gave some cadet's life advice. I just want to play this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: He ended up getting a divorce, found a new wife. Could you say a trophy wife? I guess we can say a trophy wife. It didn't work out too well, but it doesn't -- and that doesn't work out too well. I must tell you, a lot of trophy wives doesn't work out. But it made him happy for a little while at least. But he found a new wife.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: There was a lot of stuff like this.
GRIFFIN: I think we call that the weave. He hits a lot of different points. It will be something about the military, something about trophy wives, wives, squirrels, sparkles, whatever.
COOPER: He did it at Arlington National Cemetery, paying tribute to fallen soldiers. I talked about how great it is that he is back in office.
GRIFFIN: And he usually goes into these speeches with pre-scripted remarks that do go through a staff secretary process. He reviews them in advance. But, you know, Donald Trump loves to speak off the cuff. And I think in ways that he may be the first time again, that he was in office, kind of felt like he wanted to rise to the occasion at some point when he gave these speeches.
He now feels very empowered, and he thinks the U.S. Military strongly supports him. I think he looks at figures where 60 percent of veterans voted for Trump, versus 40 percent for Democrats. So, he thinks he's speaking to his guys when he's at West Point and doesn't see it as this as more of a sort of sacred, nonpartisan duty.
COOPER: Jeff, there was also a movement in the lawsuits against the administration and the efforts by law firms to fight back. There was a ruling in favor of another prominent law firm, WilmerHale, which was targeted by the President.
TOOBIN: There have been three rulings so far in these law firm cases and in all three rulings, they are almost identical. They've said what the President and the administration tried to do to these law firms is unconstitutional under multiple aspects of the Constitution, and they all these law firms keep winning. However, nine law firms preemptively surrendered, so they are still on the hook for their pro bono obligations to the President.
COOPER: Yes, Jeff Toobin, Alyssa Farah Griffin, thank you very much.
Coming up next, the President opens up a new front in his war on Harvard, canceling the last of billions of dollars in funding that's going to stop important medical research into diseases that impact millions of people.
We also have breaking news on the SpaceX's test launch. It has been going well. Now, there's word that the spacecraft is out of control. We'll have the latest on that coming up in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:18:39]
COOPER: We have some breaking news on the SpaceX launch. I just want to show you this is a live image of the SpaceX rocket. They have lost control of it in space. It is now rolling, we are told, that is what the image we are seeing. It's not expected to survive reentry.
Now, the initial liftoff appeared successful. It cleared the runway. This occurred shortly before air time, but about 20 or 30 minutes or so, and I'm just looking at this right now. According to "Reuters," the starship lost control about 30 minutes into the flight. And that is what the image you are seeing right now. The control room for this craft, they are no longer sending out audio from what is going on in their control room. They're actually just sending out music. We're going to -- this is what we're hearing.
They said we'll be back in about ten minutes. So, they're just playing music now. But these are the images that are still coming out -- let's listen in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... all right, so we are -- I think there's change into today's flight test. You're seeing the light show start as starship is getting closer to its reentry. If you're just tuning in, we were able to successfully make it to orbit, run into a couple of issues as we've coasted to our entry point over the Indian Ocean. At this point, we had lost altitude control of the ship and entered into a spin. The team made the call to do what's called passivate the vehicles or we're essentially venting all of the remaining propellant overboard, and it's going to make an uncontrolled reentry.
Important to note, this is a contingency that is planned for, and we clear the zones in the Indian Ocean where these entries could take place. So, we're not going to come down exactly where we would have had nothing happened. But we do clear a tremendous amount of space out in the Indian Ocean in the event that we run into this. We understand that there are always risks essentially with these flight tests, with the hardware, but we don't really accept any compromise when it comes to protecting people. [20:20:51]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And it is one thing to note is we will actually still reenter in our planned airspace zone, which is good, that that is exactly what we planned for. You know, we do plan for if something does go a little bit off nominal, that we have enough airspace cleared out for situations just like this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, reentry is still just that really critical phase that we need to try and gather as much data, as much information as possible as a fully reusable heat shield has never been flown before in history of spaceflight and that's something that starship still has to crack.
And so we had a whole range of experiments on this one, at this point. And we just started to lose some of our cameras. So it's very possible that well start to lose contact with Starship, a lot sooner than we would have if it was a nominal reentry. So we are expecting it to break up essentially on its reentry over the Indian Ocean.
So, not able to do a lot of our orbit objectives today, but just the fact that we, you know, got it into space was just that was just a really big moment for a lot of the team.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And another thing to note is that Super Heavy did fly for its second flight today. It first flew on flight seven and it made it all the way to our shutdown of all the engines and stage separation, getting ship into its suborbital trajectory today. It did ignite its 13 engines, but it did demise at that point.
We did plan to fly it back down to Earth at a higher angle of attack and we do expect it to stress the vehicle a lot more than what we've seen previously. So, it's not unexpected that we did lose the booster before we got to the actual landing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, so we're going to were going to continue to hang out and see if we get any updates on ship. It does look like we might be getting some video back soon. There we go. So, this is a view essentially on the top part of starship, you're looking up at the payload bay and towards the nose cone. So views are going to be a little bit scarce potentially as again we are in essentially a tumble. We have lost that altitude control. So, Starlink when it's able to connect able to feed this down, we are at the phase where we would expect entry to start --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: I want to bring in CNN -- I want to bring in Miles O'Brien. Miles, talk a little bit about what we are seeing and what we now know from the control room, what's been going on?
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: We are now seeing, Anderson, a spacecraft that is tumbling out of control. Up until this moment, things seem to be going pretty well for Starship on its ninth flight. Certainly better than the last two, which, as you recall, exploded in dramatic fashion. SpaceX likes to launch test, fail and repeat, and this is definitely, you know, three yards and a cloud of dust success for SpaceX but not what Elon Musk would like to be talking about in 40 minutes when he addresses his SpaceX employees about future missions to Mars.
They were unable to attempt a mock deployment of the Starlink satellite system and, of course, now, the question is how safely can they bring it into a splashdown in the Indian Ocean, which was intended?
You got to remember, Anderson, this as much as anything, is NASA's mission in some respects, the Artemis III landing people on the moon, slated for 2027, is supposed to be handled at least the last leg with a modified Starship as the lunar lander. And that's not a lot of time for a spacecraft that hasn't even gone to low earth orbit to be ready to go to the moon and return astronauts safely.
So, a lot was riding on this for Elon Musk commercially. And in the short term for NASA and in the long term for Musk's desire to ultimately put people on Mars.
COOPER: I don't know if we can show both this image and also the image of the launch which occurred, just about 20 or so minutes I think before we went on air. Because, Miles, the launch itself, the countdown paused more than once. But it seemed like a successful, successful launch.
[20:25:30]
O'BRIEN: Yes, the launch seemed you know, NASA would use the term nominal, meaning no real problems there. They had a few fits and starts as they worked out a few issues with ground equipment. But then as it rose to space everything seemed to go well. The, the booster rocket which carries the spaceship to orbit performed as it should. They didn't try to catch it with a giant chopstick device, as you've seen before on this particular mission. But then once the ship got into orbit, the Starship itself or reached the -- it was a suborbital flight, but reached that kind of altitude. That's when the stability problems came into play.
So, there's clearly some problems with the thrusters, which are designed to keep the spacecraft in its proper angle and altitude as it flies in orbit. You see there that shot -- all the boosters, all 13 of them firing as they should, that's a good sign. Everything, at least on ascent, at least to my eyes, looked like it should have.
COOPER: Miles, Reuters is reporting that it was an onboard leak that resulted in this uncontrollable spinning.
O'BRIEN: Well, it certainly would make sense.
COOPER: A fuel leak, they're saying.
O'BRIEN: Yes, a fuel leak could do a number of things. First of all, the leaking fuel itself could act as a thruster -- a thruster you can't control and that is something that you might not be able to counteract with the other thrusters. In space, you're not using wings to fly. You're using small rocket firings to maintain the proper angle and altitude of the spacecraft.
So, if something were leaking out, it might send it in a direction that you can't counteract with the other thrusters.
COOPER: And, I mean, they were saying it's kind of in a spin that they say they know it is going to fall within the area that they had cleared, that they had planned for any kind of incident that it would fall in. How can they be so sure?
O'BRIEN: Well, that's a very good question, at this point without that kind of, altitude control, I'm not sure how they can be so certain, except to say the Indian Ocean is a rather large target. So, let's hope that that is the case and that this is not on any sort of trajectory that would take it anywhere near human beings.
The way the mission was architected, it would include the possibility of these kinds of failures as a possible scenario. And so, we can we can only hope that that is the case. Miles, just stay in with us. I want to bring in Kristin Fisher, CNN space analyst. Kristin, you've been watching this, obviously. It is certainly -- it was a successful launch, but clearly not the desired outcome. Although we've seen these kind of incidents before.
KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE AND DEFENSE ANALYST: Not the total desired outcome, Anderson, but this flight, this mission did make it much farther than the previous two Starships. Starship 7 and Starship 8 -- both of those flight tests ended in that spectacular explosion over the Gulf of Mexico or Gulf of America and caused all sorts of flight delays and those explosions are rapid, unscheduled disassembly, as SpaceX likes to call them. Those happened about eight, nine, ten minutes into the mission.
So, this Starship survived much longer than that. It survived that critical period, when it didn't make it during those previous two test flights. So SpaceX will be happy about that. But if you listen to what Elon Musk was saying in some interviews right before this launch, he said this was a heat shield mission, a heat tile mission.
They really wanted to see how the tiles around starship did in protecting it as it reached those really high temperatures. And because of this leak, because of the loss of altitude control, because it was spinning out of control, SpaceX is not going to be able to test that. So definitely some disappointment for the SpaceX team tonight, but not as bad, not nearly as bad as it could have been.
COOPER: Kristin, something like this. I mean, obviously they expect a certain amount of this, and certainly this company has a high tolerance for it. How many more -- is another launch already scheduled?
FISHER: So they don't have another launch scheduled, but they do have other Starships in the factory that are already built, other boosters that have already flown that are ready to fly again. I mean, this is a massive operation, Anderson.
And this brand new -- this isn't just a, you know, a company headquarters, this is a newly minted, newly incorporated city, the city of Starbase, at the southernmost point of Texas, essentially. And so they don't have another date set, but they have the hardware for the next mission already in development and getting close to being ready to go.
So Elon Musk and his team have said repeatedly that they are ready to fly very quickly after a failed or partially -- partial failure of this mission. The big holdup historically, Anderson, has been the FAA --
COOPER: Yes.
FISHER: -- and the mishap investigations that inevitably stem from this. Of course, with Elon Musk's close ties to this new administration, the hope is that, for Elon at least, is that his close ties to this administration will accelerate the turnaround time from FAA --
COOPER: Yes.
FISHER: -- launch license to his next FAA launch license.
COOPER: Yes, it's incredible. We're seeing images even on the right- hand side of this spacecraft in the spin.
Kristin Fisher, thank you. Miles O'Brien as well.
Coming up, the president's battle with Harvard continues at issue in -- is our public health. We'll have that ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:36:14]
COOPER: President Trump has fired another salvo in his war against Harvard, America's oldest university. Earlier today, the White House directed federal agencies to cancel all remaining contracts with the school, totaling around $100 million. This was after a Memorial Day posting on social media by the president, which read in part, "I'm considering taking $3 billion of grant money away from a very anti- Semitic Harvard and giving it to trade schools all across our land".
Harvard's President, Alan Garber, was asked about the idea of losing the funding to trade schools by NPR. Garber, who is Jewish, was not asked about the charge of anti-Semitism. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
ALAN GARBER, PRESIDENT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: The federal government has the authority through the budgeting process to reallocate funds, but the question to ask is what problem is he trying to solve by doing that?
The money that goes to research universities in the form of grants and contracts, which is almost all of the federal support that we get, is used to pay for work that we perform at the behest of the government. So in reallocating to some other use, including trade schools, it means that work just won't be performed.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
COOPER: The work won't be performed. So let's just talk about that word because much of it is incredibly important research into cures for diseases that kill Republicans and Democrats alike. Garber specifically pointed to Harvard researchers who were just last month awarded what are called Breakthrough Prizes.
The honors, known as the Oscars of Science, included a professor of epidemiology who discovered a leading cause of multiple sclerosis. That professor has been told to end his funded research.
I just want to point out, MS affects millions of people around the world, and I know caring about people around the world is maybe not very popular right now, but about 1 million Americans have MS. This professor's research is not going to be funded anymore by our government.
Another professor who's an expert in tuberculosis, working on better prevention of the disease, has also been told to end her funded research. Both are part of Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health, which has been hit hard by President Trump. This comes amidst massive cuts in medical research by the Trump administration, really across the federal government.
The National Institutes of Health eliminated funding for dozens of HIV-related research grants, halting studies, threatening patient care across the U.S. and the world. They also froze funding for research overseas, which experts say will impact everything from studies of childhood cancer to malaria, just to name a few.
Now, the administration's focus on Harvard began back on April 11th with a letter of demand from the White House Joint Task Force to combat anti-Semitism. But keeping them honest, those demands seemed to go far outside the scope of fighting anti-Semitism on campus.
They ordered the school to, quote, "immediately shutter all DEI programs" and have an outside audit of all students and faculty to determine what the administration called viewpoint diversity. Three days after the letter, Harvard's president announced the university would not comply.
That same day, the Trump administration canceled $2.2 billion in research grants, mainly from the National Institutes of Health, which calls itself the largest source of funding for medical research in the world.
Now, in the six weeks since, there have been hundreds of millions more in funding and grant cuts. The IRS announced plans to revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status. And late last week, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem rescinded Harvard's ability to enroll foreign students. The school is fighting that latest move in court, along with many of these actions by the Trump administration.
In Noem's letter announcing the ban on international students at Harvard, it read, in part, "Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country." Harvard's president was asked about that line from Secretary Noem.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wonder if you agree with that statement, that this is, in fact, this episode is, in fact, a warning to all universities across the country.
[20:40:00]
GARBER: Well, they said it, and I have to believe it. And I've repeated it myself. And that is how it's understood by the other leaders of other universities that I've spoken to. It is a warning. They see this as a message that if you don't comply with what we're demanding, these will be the consequences.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
COOPER: Well, joining me now is Marc Weisskopf, he's a professor in the Environmental Health Department of Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Professor, thanks for being with us. How big of a threat to public health do you think the president's funding cuts actually pose?
MARC WEISSKOPF, PROFESSOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL EPIDEMIOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: It poses a tremendous threat to public health. I mean, it will shut down a lot, at our place, all research, and in many places, a lot of research and advancements in the future, absolutely.
COOPER: There's a lot of people who don't really focus on how research is done. I mean, you say it'll shut down all the research at your institute. Are there a lot of other places doing what your -- the folks at the school are doing?
WEISSKOPF: I mean, yes, there are people in other places doing this work as well, but I will say, and it was touched on in that piece you were just talking about, is that, you know, Harvard has the target on its back right now, and we seem to be the focus of attention.
But similar things are being done to other schools, maybe not quite as high level as what's happening at Harvard, but they are finding other ways to talk with my colleagues in other places about this, to slow money, to stop paying on invoices that had been sort of already prearranged and paid. And so they are slowing the scientific process everywhere in maybe not quite as visible ways, but Harvard is at the top of that, but it's happening across the board.
COOPER: Part of your research, I understand, deals with military veterans developing ALS, which is obviously a horrible disease. What would the impact of these cuts or any cuts on that work do?
WEISSKOPF: Oh, it will stop it if this moves forward. I mean, they've terminated my grants on that, trying to understand why military veterans have about twice the risk of anybody else developing ALS, something we've now known for many years, but haven't been able to get at the underlying reasons why that's happening.
But the cuts for my work into that specific question is going to cause a complete stop in that. I'm trying to continue by hook or by crook in very slimmed down ways, but this can't go on. If this doesn't reverse, that work will just stop.
COOPER: I mean, that's kind of insane to think about. I mean, you're talking about veterans. I didn't know that veterans get ALS at twice the levels other people do. Obviously, I would think that would be something the Veterans Administration would be very curious to know the answer to, that anybody who cares about veterans would be very curious to know the answer to.
WEISSKOPF: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I know the V.A. is interested in this. I also know that veterans themselves. I mean, I go to these meetings on ALS and there are always veterans there, either themselves affected by ALS or their compatriots or their family members are talking about this.
They want to know why, so we can try and figure out how to prevent this within the military process, but also that work will have implications for people not in the military in terms of how these things develop and we can try and improve ways to prevent or treat that disorder, which is a devastating one.
COOPER: And if grants go away, I mean, does -- this research that stops, is it easy to just pick it up again or is it a question of got to recruit, you know, a cohort of people and -- how does it work?
WEISSKOPF: Yes, no, it's not the kind of thing that just turns on and off very quickly. And this affects everybody, whether it's my ALS research with veterans or whether it's any other research going on at our school or others.
You know, different researchers are affected slightly differently by this, but any kind of turning off takes a long time to get things going again. There's a team you build to do this. There are people working on it, analyzing it, all sorts of levels of work.
And if money is cut out, they will eventually have to leave and lose their jobs and just replacing those people is not easy and replacing the whole systems in place to make this work happen doesn't happen overnight.
I mean, I've been doing this kind of work for more than 20 years, right? And it takes time to build this kind of machinery to do these kinds of these projects.
COOPER: Yes. Professor Marc Weisskopf, I'm sorry we're talking to these circumstances and I'll continue to follow up on what happens to your research. Thank you.
WEISSKOPF: Thank you.
COOPER: Over the holiday weekend, President Trump hit pause on his threat to put a 50 percent tariff on goods from the European Union, giving time for more negotiations until July 9th. Now, the uncertainty on tariffs is concerning for business owners, many of whom voted for Mr. Trump.
Tonight, for the latest installment of John King's "All Over the Map" series, he takes us to a key congressional district in Pennsylvania where the president's vision is meeting a hard reality.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Lehigh Valley is a blue-collar battleground, reminders everywhere of America's manufacturing glory days, and of today's big economic challenges.
ProDart is a small family business. Todd Harder, the boss, his parents among the workers trying to keep things going.
[20:45:08]
TODD HARDER, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: So we're kind of slow right now. The money's tight. People are complaining that the rent's really high in a lot of places. The cashflow isn't there. So I think everybody's starting to become a little more conservative on spending right now.
KING (voice-over): Just a handful of employees now, 14 when business was better. Harder voted for Donald Trump, hears him promise tariffs will bring a new manufacturing boom, but sees the opposite so far.
HARDER: My generation right now, it's not going to impact, it's going to hurt us. But in the future for the next generation, it might possibly help them out. But it's impacting the people that are here now today. You know, that's my thing.
KING: In a not good way.
HARDER: In a not good way.
KING (voice-over): This is Pennsylvania's 7th congressional district, Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton. More rural as you head north and west. Trump won it narrowly last year, and voters like Harder also helped flip the House seat from blue to red.
But Harder isn't sure he will vote for the new Republican congressman again. Not sure he will vote at all. He is 55, but had never voted until this past November.
HARDER: You have man on man kissing and everything else and all the transgenders. You didn't have that before. You know, there is a God, I'm Catholic. I was just so disgusted, just how everything is in this world. You know, it's just going to crap.
KING: You going to stay?
HARDER: Am I going to stay in America?
KING: Yes, you're going to stay as a voter. HARDER: If I feel that things are running properly, yes. If I don't see anything changing, then it really doesn't matter what my vote is.
MICHELLE RIOS, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: I just think that I now have a way of helping.
KING (voice-over): Michelle Rios is on the other side of the MAGA culture wars. She helps run a DEI program at a local college, helps students with questions ranging from financial aid and tutoring to rumors about immigration crackdowns.
RIOS: Coming from a immigrant household, being a first-gen student, being a woman of color, being Latina, I know that my purpose is to serve. And so it really is a struggle when there are things preventing that.
KING (voice-over): Rios worries about funding cuts for DEI programs and also to non-profits she works with in the bustling Latino community here, like this food bank.
RIOS: And it just instills fear, and I think that's essentially what the last few months have done to people.
KING: If you had one minute with President Trump, what would you say?
RIOS: I don't think I would want a minute. And that's just being honest. There's a lot of things that come to mind, but I just don't think I would know where to start.
KING (voice-over): She was a student in Trump's first term and says she was constantly on edge. She is trying to stay more calm now, trying to better understand the big jump in Trump's Latino support here.
RIOS: It has to do a little bit with Latino culture. Sometimes we don't want to see, you know, women in a certain position or talk to someone that can help you understand information, but not leaving it up to social media, because I think that's also what made a big difference.
GERARD BABB, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: Do you have gym or art?
KING (voice-over): Family time is what Gerard Babb cherishes most. Babb works here on the Mack Truck Assembly line. Mack is one of the area's largest employers and says as many as 350 layoffs are coming soon. Babb is fairly low on the seniority list.
BABB: I was at 171 when they first announced, now I'm at 218.
KING: So you're trying to get to, what, 350?
BABB: At least, if I can get above 350, it'd be perfect. But as long as past 250, I have a chance.
KING (voice-over): Babb doesn't regret his vote for Trump, but he thinks it could cost him his job. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I only ride planes.
BABB: Definitely with the tariffs, I believe they played a part. I think that, yes, Donald Trump could have had a little bit more finesse instead of using like a blanket policy over everything.
KING: So four months in, how would you grade Trump?
BABB: I'd give Trump right now a B plus. I want stuff to happen right now, but, you know, I understand that the, you know, the gears of Washington move very slow.
KING (voice-over): Too soon, he says, to think about the midterms.
BABB: It's very stressful that I'm going to have to -- I'm going to be out of work in the near future because I want to provide for the -- my wife and kids.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tired.
BABB: Tired.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tired.
KING (voice-over): Much more important worries, front and center.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
COOPER: And John King joins us. Now, what were some of the other concerns voters you spoke to talked about?
KING (on-camera): Anderson, this is one of the most remarkable, competitive congressional districts in the country. One of the top 10 in terms of how competitive it is of out of the 435 House seats.
[20:50:02]
The economy, number one, because this is why, you hear there are two Trump voters that are skeptical about his manufacturing promise. Why is that? Because they have lived this. This has been part of America's manufacturing, whether it's boom or bust times.
Since 1990, manufacturing employment fell dramatically. Now it has rebounded a little bit since then. So they have lived this. Their fathers have lived this. Their grandfathers have lived this. They want manufacturing jobs to come back.
But when you see the manufacturing numbers there, that's 1990 on the far left, that's the peak. And then you see the middle, bottom in the Obama administration, then the COVID dip, then it comes back some there.
They want those manufacturing jobs. They know that's key to their community, always has been. That means the bowling alley is thriving. That means the pizza guy is thriving. That means everybody else is thriving. But they're -- when even Trump supporters say he's naive or overly optimistic, it's because they have lived it. But that is issue number one. This will be a top target in the midterms next year, Anderson, and it gives you glimpses into every big question in American politics.
Can Democrats improve with those blue-collar voters? Do rare voters like Todd Harder even vote when Trump's not on the ballot? And in that district, more than 20 percent of the population is Latino. Trump made huge gains there.
If the Democrats are going to come back, Pennsylvania 7 will be a giant test and laboratory for that.
COOPER: Yes. All right. John King, thanks very much. Appreciate it.
Next, Laura Coates joins to talk about a new witness in the Sean "Diddy" Combs trial who says she was petrified she'd be thrown into New York City's East River. We'll tell you why.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:56:06
COOPER: Here in New York, the third week of testimony in Sean "Diddy" Combs' federal racketeering and sex trafficking trial kicked off today. Jurors have heard from 17 witnesses so far.
The latest being Combs' former assistant, Capricorn Clark, who took the stand, testifying today that she overheard Combs threatening to kill rapper Kid Cudi, who'd had a relationship with his longtime girlfriend, Cassie Ventura.
CNN Anchor and Chief Legal Analyst, Laura Coates, was in court, joins me now. What stood out from her testimony?
LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: This was a witness that was very emotional, but very consequential. We are finally seeing the true inner circle. This is one of the few people who had a lot of access to Sean "Diddy" Combs before, essentially, she worked for him, and then after. They were old friends.
We heard confirmation and corroborating details about that Kid Cudi car incident. We heard about her being administered a lie detector test, not once or twice, but five days in a row --
COOPER: Wow.
COATES: -- because she was accused of having taken some jewels, so that she did not do so. We also heard the -- on the cross, her giving some good testimony for the defense, namely that Bad Boy Enterprises gave the lion's share of attention to Cassie Ventura, even if she did not talent-wise deserve it, that she believed.
And which led the jury, I think, to believe and suggest that perhaps her career was dwindling, not because she was the trafficked victim that she has alleged, but because her addiction and her failure to perform live and not be a studio artist impacted that as well.
But ultimately, this was a woman who was very emotional. She sobbed on the stand sometimes, Anderson, uncontrollably, because she desperately said she wanted her life back, meaning he was a gatekeeper and she had been blacklisted.
COOPER: And, I mean, all of this is about proving racketeering, sex trafficking, did -- where did she stand in that attempt?
COATES: Well, part of the so-called predicate crimes, meaning the criminal enterprise, a group of people, had to get together and actually commit crimes in furtherance of a goal. The prosecution says the goal was to exploit women and maintain his reputation and control.
The predicate crimes could be kidnapping, could be arson, could be bribery, could be the trafficking. And so trying to build a case on the kidnapping, meaning her, taken from her home and brought on location to witness the Kid Cudi burglary that she says happened. The arson --
COOPER: She says she was kidnapped, actually -- the clerk says she was kidnapped.
COATES: Exactly. That's her claim that she was kidnapped and taken against her will to go witness what Diddy was going to do to Kid Cudi at his own home. Arson, meaning the car. But again, the jurors, they have to connect these dots.
Every day in court, they are not told, and this is what we're talking about. Here's the RICO predicate crime. Here's his moment. They have to build their case while the jurors are thinking to themselves, am I witnessing a toxic, drug-fueled relationship that has admitted abuse? Or am I witnessing a mob enterprise where all the bad boy companies are directed just to commit these crimes?
COOPER: And do you think they've -- where they've -- how's the prosecution done with that?
COATES: They have some work to do. It's very hard to think what a juror is thinking or identify it. But it's also very hard to build a case on the connecting of the dots. Right now, we do have statements and testimony. We don't yet have the directions being given by Diddy from the recipient of the actual order.
If we begin to have that, they'll be in a stronger position, but they have to -- have a burden of proof. He is presumed innocent, and so far --
COOPER: Right.
COATES: -- he might still be, according to these jurors.
COOPER: All right. Laura Coates, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
COATES: Yes.
COOPER: Don't miss the special edition of Laura Coates Live at 11:00 p.m. Eastern, focused on the Combs trial.
An update on our breaking news with SpaceX's Starship and its ninth test flight. It's experienced a rapid, unscheduled disassembly. That's how it's being described, which is technical talk for it broke apart as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere.
After a short delay on the launch pad, it had a successful liftoff from Starbase in Texas. That's the successful liftoff right there. About 30 minutes into the test flight, though, the spacecraft started spinning in Space after a fuel leak, we're told.
Eventually, SpaceX mission control lost contact with Starship, made an uncontrolled re-entry, likely disintegrated somewhere over the Indian Ocean, according to officials. The FAA, though, did not immediately respond on exactly how the spacecraft's uncontrolled return to Earth may have affected commercial air travel.
We're going to obviously continue to follow this story throughout the evening and more tomorrow.
That's it for us. The news continues. I hope you watch tomorrow. "The Source with Kaitlan Collins" starts right now. See you then.
