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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
"Kill the Bill": Elon Musk Attacks GOP Domestic Agenda Bill; President Trump Signs Travel Ban Proclamation For 12 Countries in Middle East, Africa and Caribbean; New Video Of Ukraine's Drone Attack Inside Russia As Trump Says Putin Told Him He Will Respond; CNN Analysis Points To Israeli Gunfire In Area Around Gaza Aid Site Sunday; Evan Osnos' New Book "The Haves And Have-yachts: Dispatches On The Ultrarich" Gives Us An Inside Look At The World Of The Ultrarich; George Clooney To Star In Live Performance Of His Play "Good Night, And Good Luck." Aired 8-9p ET
Aired June 04, 2025 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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MAX FOSTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Fully inside the store at one point, just its tail can be seen wagging as it faces away from the surveillance camera and hoovers up the snacks. After grabbing a final trunkful, the elephant not so gracefully reverses out of the shop located close to a National Park northeast of Bangkok.
Thanks to the help of Park Rangers and Kakaew's coaxing, "Back out, go on," she urges. The shopkeeper is saying first hand, an elephant never forgets, in this case, where the snacks are stored.
Max Foster, CNN.
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ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Isn't it nice to have a story like that? Thanks for joining us, Anderson starts now.
[20:00:40]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Tonight on 360, Elon Musk still raging against the President's tax and spending bill as Congress' nonpartisan scorekeeper reveals the trillions in deficits it will bring and the millions who will lose health coverage if it passes.
Also, as new video emerges of Ukraine's drone strike on Russia, the President talks to Putin. But did he do anything to try and stop the Russian leader from launching a counter strike?
And later, behind the scenes with George Clooney on the set of his play "Good Night and Good Luck," he talks about Edward R. Murrow and why so many people today are finding hope in the story of the legendary newsman.
Good evening, thanks for joining us. We begin with the President's so- called Big Beautiful Bill, which is now before the Senate. Also its best known critic, Elon Musk, who just yesterday called it an abomination and doubled down on that today in a string of posts, one reads: "A new spending bill should be drafted that doesn't massively grow the deficit and increase the debt ceiling by $5 trillion." In another, he writes, "Call your senator, call your congressman, bankrupting America is not okay. Kill the bill." Another simply shows a movie poster for the Quentin Tarantino movie "Kill Bill."
Like yesterday, he did not criticize the President himself, only the legislation and for the President's part, on his social network, he posted Musk's words of thanks to him last week after giving up his role at DOGE. It reads in part: "I would like to thank President Trump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending."
Over at the Capitol, one Republican Congressman, a budget hawk, is openly unhappy with Musk. Not over what he said, though only the timing of it.
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REP. ELI CRANE (R-AZ): My issue is why wasn't he talking about this before the bill, right? Because those of us that were actually trying to make cuts, we could have used his support and that actually might have helped us out quite a bit. And that's what frustrates me. Hey, if you're going to be in this fight, be in this fight when we need you because we needed him.
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COOPER: Well, the congressman got some help making the deficit case today from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The CBO saying the bill, which extends the 2017 Trump tax cuts, would add $2.4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade. Also, that cuts to Medicaid would leave nearly 11 million more Americans without coverage by 2034.
Now, House Speaker Mike Johnson took issue with the report by taking issue with the analysis.
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REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): I don't buy their numbers. We have other estimates. We worked on the bill for almost 14 months. You can't go back to the drawing board and we shouldn't. We have a great product to deliver here.
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COOPER: Well, keeping them honest, though, whatever else you might think of what's in the bill when it comes to the bottom line, this Congressional Budget Office is not alone. Here's the assessment from Yale University's Budget Lab, "The budget bill passed by the House on May 22nd would add 2.4 trillion to the debt over the 2025-2034 window. The University of Pennsylvania Wharton budget model puts the deficit figure at $2.8 trillion. And here's the blunt assessment from Erica York of the tax foundation think tank, which generally favors tax cuts, she told "The New York Times," it really doesn't make sense to triple down on the strategy, to blame the scorekeeper. The legislation is the problem.
I want to check in first with CNN's chief White House correspondent and anchor of "The Source," Kaitlan Collins. Kaitlan, aside from the reposting Musk goodbye note on social media, we haven't heard much from President Trump as the White House concerned about blowback from supporters.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: They're frustrated, Anderson. I mean, we haven't seen this direct level of the President going after Elon Musk and saying anything directly about him yet. But what we've heard from the White House is that this did come up when the President was sitting down with senators to talk about trying to get this bill over the line in the Senate today and what needed to be done in order to do so.
And they're very frustrated that Elon Musk is not only just coming out and criticizing the bill, but he is going hard against it. He is saying the bill should be killed, that they should start over, and that this bill is just not acceptable, essentially. And so, it's giving, you know, more life to what we've been hearing from some of those Republican holdouts so far in the Senate who have been issuing concerns with what that was going to look like.
And so, we actually haven't seen the President go after Elon Musk or saying anything about this yet, but obviously remains to be seen whether or not that is going to be something that happens as this is going on.
COOPER: And I understand you have some breaking news about the travel ban proclamation that President Trump has signed regarding a number of countries in Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean.
COLLINS: Yes, we had been hearing this was going to happen. This is the proclamation that we just got from the White House with President Trump saying essentially that part of why this is happening is they were looking at the vetting processes that these countries have in order for people to come in and enter the United States. They don't believe that they are sufficient enough. So tonight, he is signing this proclamation banning entry into the United States from 12 countries fully. He's restricting it from several others and basically cites those vetting processes as part of the reason here, Anderson, and also saying that it is underscored and emphasized by what happened in Boulder, Colorado, and that attack by the Egyptian national suspect on Sunday there.
[20:05:28]
And the President -- and several points, as I was just reading through this, saying that certain countries have people who are more likely to overstay their visas if they come from a certain country to the United States, often we know we see that people come to apply for asylum. So the President is taking this step, restricting this travel. It remains to be seen what the impact of this looks like, as were hearing from the White House. And one line, Anderson, that I should point out from this proclamation is it says it does include exceptions for lawful permanent residents, existing visa holders, certain visa categories, and individuals whose entry serves U.S. national interests.
So there do appear to be some carve outs here. It remains to be seen what that actually looks like, though, because of course everyone will hear this. And remember the travel ban from President Trump's first term that he enacted within days of taking office and caused quite a bit of chaos at airports and ports of entry.
COOPER: Yes, Kaitlan Collins, thanks very much. We'll see you at the top of the hour for "The Source."
I want to get some perspective now from CNN's chief political analyst, David Axelrod, former senior adviser to President Obama, also co- founder and editor in chief of the dispatch, Jonah Goldberg and senior politics reporter for AXIOS, Marc Caputo. David, first, I just want to get your reaction to this new travel ban the President has signed there, obviously, massive protests against a similar ban during his first term. This is targeted to specific countries.
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, look, I mean, I think people are going to take a close look at it. Some of these countries were on the list that he has defamed before. What is actually motivating it, what's behind it, I'm sure there are going to be challenges to it and we'll see.
The thing about it is that there are so many -- there are so many fires being set all over the place that it's not going to get the same attention that the travel ban did in the first place. And they do have a responsibility to act responsibly in terms of who comes into the country. But we'll see where this all shakes out.
COOPER: Jonah Goldberg, you know, the President has remained uncharacteristically quiet as Elon Musk continues to attack this bill. It's obviously kind of a -- I don't know if it's a tricky situation for both of them, but what do you make of his silence?
JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah, I think it is a tricky situation for both of them. Elon Musk is the richest guy in the world. He owns the most important social media platform. No disrespect to Truth Social and he's very popular with a big segment of Trump's coalition, including a lot of people in Congress. And meanwhile, Trump is very popular with a lot of people like Elon Musk. It's sort of like that old expression where, you know, you ride a tiger until you have to get off, and that's when the tiger eats you.
These guys have been sort of taking turns riding each other's fame and cults of personality, and they just don't know how, you know, they don't know how to break up. And it creates real political problems for both of them. And it's kind of fascinating to watch.
COOPER: Yes, Marc, I wonder what you think of the President's silence. I mean, you have new reporting about why -- about more personal reasons, why Musk may be unhappy with the President, including the White House withdrawing the nomination of Musk ally to head NASA, the FAA balking at using a Starlink for national air traffic control. And, you know, maybe unhappy about tax credits for electric vehicles being cut by the bill, which is something that Speaker Johnson mentioned yesterday. You also report Musk actually wanted to remain a special government employee past the legal 130-day limit and this was after he was gifted that golden key.
MARC CAPUTO, SENIOR POLITICS REPORTER, AXIOS: Right. He wanted to stay in the white house in some way, shape or form. You can tell Elon Musk really enjoys the power and the intoxication of being in the White House and being in such a powerful position and since he has left it, his posture has certainly changed. I think, to answer one of the questions you asked Jonah a second ago about the silence of Donald Trump, and one of the things motivating it, it is personal. That is, Donald Trump does like Elon Musk.
Now, he's kind of annoyed and not really happy with Musk teeing off on the legislation the way he has and there's a whole bunch of discussion to be had about that. But in the end, he respects Elon Musk, he likes Elon Musk and that's partly in forming this very rare impulse control from President Trump.
The other thing I'm told by White House officials is that Trump doesn't really want to feed this anymore. They don't want to give more oxygen to Elon Musk. These are my words, not theirs but I can tell that there's sort of a hope that Musk will sort of punch himself out. However, as you've seen from Musk's personal life, where he's had a number of nasty breakups, his breakups and the end of his relationships with people sometimes end in a rather acrimonious way, and we're seeing a little sign of that here with the President at least one way from musk to President Trump.
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COOPER: David, I mean, you obviously served in the White House and the Obama administration. I'm always fascinated by how much is political, how much is personal. What do you make of this, I don't know if it's a rift or what to exactly frame it.
AXELROD: Well, look, I think there's a lot going on here, including Tesla, which has taken a beating because of Musk's relationship with Trump. I mean, European sales in April dropped 49 percent. So, I think that a little separation, a fight with Trump isn't necessarily harmful in that regard and there are aspects of the bill that aren't particularly favored by Tesla.
But I'll tell you what it is -- the timing is very, very bad. This CBO report today is going to create a lot of consternation in Congress and Elon Musk is a big megaphone amplifying this. And this bill itself is a Rubik's Cube. The CBO report speaks to that.
On the one hand, you've got these huge deficits that it is going to create. And on the other, 11 million people losing their health care. Trump had suggested that people above 2.5 million, maybe their taxes should go up. And that got beaten back very, very quickly. That would have been an artful move, frankly, because that would have wiped out the need for these other cuts or they could have mixed and matched them.
COOPER: Marc, last night, Kara Swisher told me she thinks Musk really believes in the math views. What this bill will do to the deficit is problematic. What does your reporting show? What do you think?
CAPUTO: Oh, yes, he certainly believes it. But at the same time, Musk has been living in fantasy land about his efforts, his role at DOGE. Remember on the campaign trail, he promised he was going to cut $2 trillion in spending, but then they weren't going to cut entitlements. That's mathematically impossible. So while sure, the CBO numbers are what they are, and that's the default position for us in the media, us in government, us in the United States to say these are what these numbers mean.
Elon Musk has either deluded himself or just been dishonest outright in the extent to which his DOGE effort could really make a meaningful dent in the budget, it essentially cant. If you don't cut entitlement spending and you don't cut defense spending, and you don't raise revenue, that is, you don't raise taxes.
One real quick thing, the CBO also did report separately, which the White House is talking about quite a bit, that Trump's tariffs could raise 2.8 trillion in revenue, essentially offsetting some of the cost of the tax cuts over time. Of course, that also admits that the tariffs are essentially taxes by another name. However, imposing them doesn't seem to bother Congress as much as long as the Trump era tax cuts from 2017 remain in place, or 2018.
COOPER: Jonah, I mean, does musk speaking out like this actually put the bill's passage in jeopardy, or is he sort of diminished in the eyes of some on Capitol Hill because he was promising $2 trillion in cuts and came nowhere near that? And even the cuts that there may be, it's questionable how real those numbers are.
GOLDBERG: Yes, so look, my assumption from the beginning has been that this bill eventually passes in part because the margins are so narrow for Republicans and so much is at stake. No one in the Senate or the House wants to be the one responsible for the thing going down in flames. And that pressure, I still think will get it to pass, but it's less likely now.
I think this is giving people some political cover. You see also in the House now, people like Marjorie Taylor Greene is saying there's things in here I didn't know were in there that I voted for, and you can tell that support is unraveling. And the longer this takes, the harder it's going to go, which is I think if you draw back a little bit, one of the larger meanings of this Musk thing, the Trump coalition is just this absolutely weird, polyglot dogs breakfast of a coalition with all sorts of competing interests and personalities and demographics.
The only thing holding it together is basically the cult of personality of Trump and there's no, much like this, this bill. There's no actual thematic coherence to any of it. And what we're going to or I think we're going to see about this is that this is the beginning of that coalition starting to come apart. The Silicon Valley bros are starting to distance themselves, and we'll see others.
COOPER: That's really fascinating. I mean, you're essentially saying that underneath the surface of, you know, not even sure there's calm waters, but underneath the surface, it's a lot more complex than perhaps people realize.
GOLDBERG: Yes, look, Josh Hawley is now voting as essentially as, like, a 1980s Democrat in terms of his politics. And you've still got people talking about right to work states. It is a weird mix of Reaganites, non-Reaganites, nationalists, techno libertarians, and the only thing holding it together is like this cult of personality, Donald Trump and hatred of the left.
COOPER: Yes.
GOLDBERG: That's not a sustainable theory to hold a coalition together over the long term.
[20:15:22]
COOPER: All right, Jonah Goldberg, Marc Caputo, thank you, David Axelrod, always, thank you.
Just ahead, where you've likely heard about the funding cuts to medical research. Now, "The New York Times" has a new analysis about just how deep those cuts will affect research on cancer, Alzheimer's, substance abuse and chronic diseases. We'll drill down on that next.
And in the wake of Ukraine's strike deep into Russia, the President's conversation with Vladimir Putin, details on that ahead.
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COOPER: New video tonight of Ukraine's weekend drone strikes on Russia's strategic bomber fleet. The President spoke with Vladimir Putin about it today and posted this, "It was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate peace. President Putin did say, and very strongly that he will have to respond to the recent attacks on the airfields."
What he did not say, though, is anything about warning Putin against doing that, which is raising concerns tonight. Perspective now from CNN global affairs analyst, Brett McGurk.
I'm wondering, what you made about the President's comments on social media, about the good call with Vladimir Putin and the fact that he didn't express any displeasure or opinion or comment on the fact that Russia plans to retaliate for the attack that Ukraine did on the strategic bombers.
BRETT MCGURK. CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: You know, Anderson, ending a war is one of the hardest diplomatic tasks you can have. So, I come at this with a lot of lot of humility, but the President seems to lack just a factual baseline understanding of what's happening. I mean, the last 10 days, you had almost a thousand drones and missiles fired by Russia at Ukraine, cities all across Ukraine at Ukrainian civilians. These included Iranian drones, the same type of drones that have killed American troops. And then the call today, there was not even in that readout, not even one word of lets have restraints. Let's try to work for a ceasefire, basically an acceptance that now you're going to have a big retaliation and this war can continue to escalate.
COOPER: The Ukraine strike on the strategic bombers, just from a -- I'm wondering what you -- I mean, is there a message in that for the United States in terms of our readiness to actually fight a war? I mean, you know, we're focused on big weapons systems, expensive weapon systems. These are cheap drones that are parked near an airfield that had a, I think has decimated more than 34 percent or about 34 percent of their strategic bombers in one go. That could happen here. I mean, if somebody was able to get those drones, drones fly over U.S. Military bases all the time.
MCGURK: This is the wave of the future, no pun intended.
COOPER: Are we ready for it?
MCGURK: I think we're watching it in real time. But one reason I think actually supporting the Ukrainians here, nobody wants U.S. military forces involved in Ukraine, but actually standing up with Ukraine. You're going to learn a lot, they're showing industriousness.
COOPER: We are seeing the new face of war.
MCGURK: Yes, there's an awful lot here to learn. Look, I think Putin is obviously going to respond to this. We're seeing a new -- a kind of new wave of warfare. I know our Pentagon is focused on this all the time. I know our defense industrial base. You have a lot of new companies building drones, building anti-drone defensive systems. But this is coming really, really fast and we need to stay ahead of it.
COOPER: Yes, Brett McGurk thank you so much, appreciate it.
MCGURK: Thank you, Anderson.
COOPER: A deeper look now at the funding cuts to medical research at America's universities during the first months of this administration, which impact almost every aspect of public health, including research on cancer, Alzheimer's, substance abuse, chronic disease.
"The New York Times" has a new analysis of the cuts after digging through detailed data from the National Institute of Health and interviewing dozens of researchers and agency insiders.
Now, according to "The Times," "The NIH, the world's premier public funder of the medical of medical research, has ended 1,389 awards and delayed sending funding to more than 1,000 additional projects."
"The Times" adds from the day Mr. Trump was inaugurated through April, the agency awarded $1.6 billion less compared with the same period last year, reduction of one fifth."
"The Times" also notes delayed funding has suppressed research on new drugs, blood vessel health and injury response. Joining me now is former NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins. How long term is this -- I mean, is this going to hurt medical research and medical advances in this country?
DR. FRANCIS COLLINS, FORMER NIH DIRECTOR: I've got to tell you honestly, the long-term consequences are already quite troubling. You can't basically shut down a medical research project and just decide to start it back up again three or four months later, the people are gone. If you're running a clinical trial, the patients are gone. You've left them in the lurch. This is not the kind of thing where you can dial in and dial out just based upon that particular week's preferences.
The harms that are being done here are unprecedented. Anderson, we've never seen anything like this at NIH in decades. And it's about all kinds of approaches that I don't think America really knows we're involved in this idea of making these cuts. You mentioned Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, pediatric cancer is in there. Women's health, substance abuse, rare diseases like sickle cell. All of those things are in the mix of grants that have been terminated or where they've response to an expected award has been delayed in many instances for months.
COOPER: When you talk about awards and grants, I mean, this is government. I mean, a lot of doctors depend on government funding for research that can go on for a very long time. If it's not funded, there may not be an immediate profit incentive for private researchers to do this kind of research, correct.
[20:25:17]
COLLINS: Correct, Anderson, I'm glad you're bringing that up, because I don't think everybody understands how this ecosystem works.
COOPER: Because, by the way, because when I hear doctors don't get awards, that sounds like they're getting medals. You're talking about funding for crucial research.
COLLINS: Yes, let me explain how you get such a grant. You write a very ambitious proposal. It goes through two levels of absolutely rigorous peer review by experts.
And if you're in the top 15 or 20 percent, then you might get actually an award, which is they'll send you money and say, okay, follow your ideas, see what you can learn. This is how we've made such success since World War II, and it's built our economy as well as our health, an important part of this that's now also suffering.
The way in which the NIH supports those medical breakthroughs is sort of the foundation, then, of what we need to see for Alzheimer's or Parkinson's or cancer. And then industry watches to see what happens when something starts to look like its headed towards a product, then there's a handoff, then you end up with pills in your compartment, in your medical chest, and all of that has to work together.
And what's happening now is we're kneecapping the enterprise that has for the past many decades made us the envy of the world. And China must be looking at this, thinking they had to compete and now they don't have to compete nearly as hard.
COOPER: Someone watching this may think, well, look, A.I. is going to solve all this. It's going to be able to find cures to diseases you know, very easily.
COLLINS: Well, NIH has a big investment in A.I. or they did. But there again, some of that's been cut as well. And let's not be too carried away here, A.I. is pretty good at taking known information and making predictions about things we don't know yet. But you're never going to be really confident about giving somebody an intervention, whether it's a pill or a device, without actually trying it in real time. So, A.I. can be a tool, but it's not going to replace the hard edged part of biotechnology and pharmaceutical efforts, which have been the way in which we've come so far, and we have come a long way.
What's ironic now, Anderson, is we're at this point of remarkable acceleration in progress. We're curing sickle cell disease. People with cystic fibrosis are thinking about how to retire. People with stage four cancer, like some of my friends, are now in remission for long periods of time because of immunotherapy. All those things are happening and we are threatening to cut it off short.
COOPER: Yes, Dr. Francis Collins, it's so concerning. I really appreciate you being on tonight talking about it. Thank you.
Just ahead, well talk to author Evan Osnos on his new book, "The Have and Have Yachts" an inside look at the ultra-rich in America and how their wealth dwarfs anything we have seen in this country's history.
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[20:32:36]
COOPER: Controversial aid operation in Southern Gaza is expected to resume tomorrow after a 24-hour stop. The pause followed three straight days of Palestinians coming under deadly gunfire on their way to a food distribution site. The U.S. and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said it would take today to focus on logistical work to better handle the massive number of Palestinians seeking food.
Also, the Foundation said to give Israeli forces the opportunity to make, and I quote, "Preparations on the access routes to the centers." Now, the first shooting was on Sunday. Doctors and the director of the local hospital say it killed at least 31 people. Tonight CNN's Jeremy Diamond has new expert analysis of the sound, video and eyewitness accounts of what happened. First, a warning, what you're about to see is graphic. Here's Jeremy's exclusive report.
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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Palestinians take cover as pulses of automatic gunfire crackle overhead. Others try and crawl to safety as explosions ring out. For several hours on Sunday, this was the terrifying reality hungry Gazans faced as they tried to reach an American-backed humanitarian aid site in southern Gaza.
We are bringing our food drenched in blood. We are dying to get food, Ameen Khalifa (ph) says amid a hail of gunfire.
The aftermath is grizzly. Bullet-riddled bodies lie scattered on the beach as others emerge carrying sacks of aid these men died trying to get. Health officials and doctors report at least 31 were killed. 17 eyewitnesses told CNN it was the Israeli military that opened fire on the crowd. A CNN analysis of video from the scene, audio of gunfire, and ballistics evidence all point to the Israeli military. In Gaza, more families made to mourn.
They lure us in just to kill us there, this man says. What's happening is wrong, wrong, why? Why are they doing this? We go there just to get our daily bread and they kill us. In the predawn hours of Sunday, masses of Palestinians began trekking down al-Rasheed Street, hoping to be among the first to reach the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation site in Tel al-Sultan before limited aid supplies run dry. But as they reach the al-Alam roundabout, a hail of gunfire forces people to the ground.
[20:35:00]
Eyewitnesses say much of the gunfire came from tank mounted machine guns.
DIAMOND: We asked a forensic audio expert to analyze the gunfire in that video, and this analysis shows bursts of gunfire at a rate of 15 rounds per second. Weapons experts say that's consistent with the FN MAG, a machine gun used by the Israeli military and commonly mounted on Israeli tanks.
Those experts say that rate of fire also appears to rule out weapons used commonly by Hamas. And then you have bullets like this one, which doctors at Nasser Hospital pulled from the bodies of the dead and the wounded. Weapons experts also say this bullet is consistent with the FN MAG.
DIAMOND (voice-over): The Israeli military said they did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the aid site, but that statement is misleading. An Israeli military official acknowledged Israeli troops did fire toward people about one kilometer away from the aid site. The al-Alam roundabout where people were killed is also about one kilometer away from the site.
This entire area with an Israeli military base right here is under Israeli control. This post warns the Israeli military would be active in the area at the time of the shooting. It's from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates the aid site and closely coordinates with the IDF, alerting Palestinians that using the passage before 5:00 a.m. is prohibited, but they posted it at 4:00 a.m. as people were already being fired upon.
Eyewitnesses described volleys of Israeli military gunfire from snipers, tanks and drones beginning as early as 3:00 a.m. on Sunday. More were shot at 4:30 a.m. Others described being shot as late as 06:30 in the morning.
They were shooting directly at us everywhere, this man says, from the sea, from snipers and from all directions. Four people were injured and one was immediately killed. I tried to stand up and escape or go back, but I was hit in my left side. I've seen a lot of soldiers in this war. When they want to clear an area or warn you, they shoot around you. But yesterday, they were shooting to kill us.
At Nasser Hospital, fear and pain are still etched across the face of 13-year-old Yazi Musleh (ph) who was wounded by gunfire from a tank. His father and brother say it was stationed near the aid site.
I saw the tank from afar, Ihab says. He was standing waving his hands to the tank and within seconds, gunfire was directed at him and he was lying on the ground. Two days later, despite the dangers, tens of thousands of Palestinians continued to stream towards that same aid site, a testament to the hunger and desperation still gripping so many. And once again, in the early hours of Tuesday, dozens were killed enroute. This time, the Israeli military acknowledging it fired warning shots and then opened fire. Claiming suspects advanced towards troops in a threatening manner.
The military said it was looking into reports of casualties. It need look no further than this boy crying out over his mother's body, begging her to wake up. Today, she went to get aid. She went to get aid to feed us, he cries, and this is what they do to us. The Americans said come to the safe area to get your aid. Who should trust them? As for Ameen Khalifa (ph), the man who documented Sunday's gunfire, his quest for survival ended abruptly on Tuesday. He was killed while trying to reach that aid site once again. He was 30- years-old.
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COOPER: Jeremy Diamond joins us now. What's the IDF response to these findings?
DIAMOND (on camera): Well, Anderson, the Israeli military declined to answer our questions related to these findings. But as recently as just yesterday, the Israeli military's top spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin categorically denied that Israeli troops opened fire on Sunday, saying that it "simply didn't happen." But after a week, during which more than 60 Palestinians have been killed while trying to reach this aid site, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, they say that they've now reached out to the IDF and they're engaged in conversations around what they describe as civilian safety. Among them, a spokesman for the organization tells me that they're asking the Israeli military to "enhance force training and refine internal IDF procedures." Anderson?
COOPER: Jeremy Diamond, thanks very much. Up next tonight, author Evan Osnos dives into the unprecedented wealth and power of the super rich in his new book, joins me to talk about it.
[20:40:00]
And later, more in my conversation with George Clooney about his Broadway play, "Good Night, and Good Luck."
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[20:45:00]
COOPER: Elon Musk, the world's richest man, spent more than a quarter billion dollars to help elect President Trump. Musk is part, obviously, of an elite group of ultra-rich entrepreneurs who've accumulated more wealth than anyone in history. The rise and lifestyles of the super rich is the topic of a fascinating new book by Evan Osnos, a writer at The New Yorker. It's called the "The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich."
I want to talk about your book because it is so fascinating. You have such an insight into this very rarefied world of billionaires and the Silicon Valley oligarchs, I guess, some would call them. Let's just start with the Elon Musk. I was talking to Kara Swisher yesterday. She was saying that it's inevitable that there would be this fracture between him and Trump. She said there could only be one and it was going to be Donald Trump. What do you make of this breach that we've seen just in the last few days?
EVAN OSNOS, AUTHOR, "THE HAVES AND HAVE-YACHTS": It does sound a bit like an epic fable, but I think there's some truth to that. Look, I think there came a point when we had never had an arrangement like this in American history where the world's richest man, after all had an office in the White House complex, something that John D. Rockefeller and the Carnegies never had. He had a department of government of course, which could allow him to hire and fire tens of thousands of workers. This was unprecedented territory.
And at a certain point, I think the centripetal forces of his, frankly, newfound fascination with policy and with politics collided with the reality of what the American public would accept. When his profits at Tesla dropped 71 percent and his favorability dropped, President Trump didn't get elected by ignoring the public mood, and I think at a certain point the tensions became overwhelming.
COOPER: What's interesting to me about Elon Musk is that he has been embraced as a populist in many ways, and yet, he lives in this incredibly rarefied world that is beyond anyone's understanding and we don't even really know the full details of his lifestyle because so much of it is sort of kept hidden.
OSNOS: Yeah, I think that's part of the risk in some ways of getting so far out ahead of everybody else, is that you can actually lose touch, lose a bit of contact with it. Look, he actually has been very successful in the earlier part of his career in reading the public mood. One of the things that happened, I think, his in a sense misadventure in Washington was born of the fact that he thought he understood where people were. But when he called Social Security a Ponzi scheme, when he said that empathy was a fundamental defect of Western civilization, that just didn't chime with many of us out in the world.
COOPER: Your new book, "The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich," I mean, I do think The Haves and Have-Yachts is one of the great titles of all time and I've told you that many times. It's fascinating because you look at certain aspects of the ultrarich that really, I mean, people kind of know about, but you really delve into it in a way that is incredibly well sourced. You talk about the whole kind of yacht culture.
There are those who have (ph), and then there are those who have yachts, which is hence the title. And you're talking about yachts, you also talking about sort of the survivalists in the tech world who have like bug-out plans when -- if society falls apart. The society that they are creating, if it all goes, if the machines take over, some of these folks have sort of plans for escaping.
OSNOS: Yeah. A CEO of a Silicon Valley firm said to me, I keep a helicopter gassed up all the time. I have a bunker with an air filtration system.
COOPER: I mean, that freaks me out that somebody who is running one of these companies is like preparing for the apocalypse.
OSNOS: I went to New Zealand for this book to try to really -- to follow this as far as I possibly could. I had a lot of conversations --
COOPER: Because you hear about that's where they're getting land to bug out to.
OSNOS: Because it's far away from whatever might happen here. I think it's interesting because it is a little window into the sense that they feel the fragility, a sense of tension that they can read about it. In some cases, one of the founders of Reddit told me that the early signs of the financial crisis in 2008 started popping up on comments on Reddit. It's one of the reasons why as he says in the book, he had eye surgery to get rid of his need for contact lenses in case the supply chain breaks down, he won't need eyeglasses.
COOPER: He actually did that?
OSNOS: He did that.
COOPER: Rich people have always had yachts. But, these are mega yachts that then also have a follow yacht.
OSNOS: That's right.
COOPER: Which -- can you explain this? It is for the toys; it's for the submarine, the helicopter.
OSNOS: That's right. It's a support vessel. You know, we've gotten to the point now where -- and look a Silicon Valley CEO did say to me at one point, he said having a 50-meter yacht used to be a pretty nice thing. He said, now, it's a little embarrassing. 50-meter yacht is --
COOPER: 50 meters is 150 feet, right?
OSNOS: Yeah. It's huge. COOPER: Yeah.
OSNOS: And I think for most people who in -- that you'll encounter, that's the biggest boat they'll ever set on.
COOPER: O'Hara (ph) has written about in the future, the ultrarich being able to enhance themselves with brain implants, I mean, literally changing their bodies technologically to be superior beings, and that that could theoretically be a new kind of differentiation in society.
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That doesn't seem that farfetched.
OSNOS: Not at all.
COOPER: After reading your book.
OSNOS: Actually, I can tell you there are people who are already making those kinds of plans. There was a fascinating memo that came out of the collapse of SBF's empire in crypto. You remember, Sam Bankman-Fried?
COOPER: Right.
OSNOS: There was a memo inside the company outlining the possibility of buying the sovereign state of Nauru and turning it into a laboratory for human genetic enhancement.
COOPER: Jesus. Wow.
OSNOS: Just a normal Tuesday.
COOPER: And that guy is in jail now.
OSNOS: That guy's in jail right now.
COOPER: Yeah. Maybe he'll be pardoned.
OSNOS: Actually, it might happen.
COOPER: He would like it to happen.
OSNOS: I wouldn't be shocked.
COOPER: Yeah.
OSNOS: I would not be.
COOPER: Evan Osnos, the book is "The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich." It is such a good read. Thank you so much.
OSNOS: Thanks, Anderson.
COOPER: Yeah. Again, I'm a big fan of this book, "The Haves and Have- Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich." It's available now. Coming up, behind the scenes with actor George Clooney ahead of his play, "Good Night, and Good Luck." What drove him to do the play now and continue to speak out on politics?
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GEORGE CLOONEY, ACTOR: I want to be able to look at my kids in the eye and say where we stood and what we did at certain times in history. And I'm not -- I have no problem with that, and my wife certainly doesn't. My wife is the bravest person you've ever met.
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COOPER: I recently had the chance to interview George Clooney on the set of his Broadway play, "Good Night, and Good Luck." It was a wide ranging conversation and many topics we hit on. He spoke about what his hopes were for the audience. Let's listen.
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CLOONEY: I think they feel that they wanted a place and to be in a room together where they could hear and talk about who we are at our best. And I think that's a good -- I think it's a good outlet to give them, is something like that.
COOPER: Because a lot of people feel like in this room, probably who are here, feel that we are at our worst right now?
CLOONEY: I can make an argument that we're not; I can make an argument that we've had much worse times in our history. 1968, every city in the United States was burning. There was -- National Guard was surrounding the White House and the Capitol, and we'd lost Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy in Tet Offensive. But it's a frustrating time, and I think a scary time for many people. It's a scary time to be a news person, to be in your profession.
You've been picked out. "60 Minutes" has been picked out. Most news organizations are under fire. That usually happens with demagogues in a way. Usually is a way of -- the first places you attack are the news because that's how we inform ourselves.
COOPER: Do you think Trumpism lasts beyond this term?
CLOONEY: Don't think so. I think -- I think it'd be very hard to do it. Remember this, Donald Trump is a celebrity. That's what he is. I mean, he's got a -- he has a star in Hollywood Boulevard. I don't have a star on Hollywood Boulevard. He's -- I'm not lobbying for one. I'm just saying.
COOPER: Seems like an oversight, by the way.
CLOONEY: Yeah, what's going on? He's a celebrity and he's the president of the United States. And so he has been elected, duly elected, fair deal. I'm not complaining about that. That's how it works. That's how this democracy works. But, he's also a celebrity and he is charming. And to the people who like him, they think he's funny. To a great many others, they don't.
And so when he is finished and he will be finished, they're going to have to go looking for someone who can deliver the message that he delivered with the same kind of charisma. And they don't have that.
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COOPER: Clooney gave me a tour of the elaborate set which is made to look like CBS' Newsroom and Studio in the time of Edward R. Murrow. And he spoke about how his dad, Nick Clooney, inspired him to co-write the story.
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CLOONEY: When I was a kid, my dad would stand up on a chair like this, and he would do the speech that I start and close the show with, the box of lights and wire speech. He would do it.
COOPER: He would do the Edward Murrow speech?
CLOONEY: Yeah. He would do the Edward R. Murrow speech. So this is a big, and my father was an anchorman for like 40 years, and it's a big salute to my dad and the things that he stands for and believes in and fights for. And he lost a lot of jobs because he wouldn't cave to sort of the kind of storytelling that he was asked to do.
COOPER: Do you worry about, I mean, personally being targeted by the administration?
CLOONEY: Sure, everybody worries about it, but if you spend your life worrying about things, then you won't do things. We have -- we like everybody have a have a family, and we have a life, and we have -- and we try to live and do the things as the best example for our kids. And I want to be able to look at my kids in the eye and say where we stood and what we did at certain times in history. And I'm not -- I have no problem with that. And my wife certainly doesn't. My wife is the bravest person you've ever met. She spent -- my wife spent two years in a bunker in Beirut trying Hezbollah for killing Hariri. She's the only person to put ISIS on trial. She's the bravest person I've ever met in my life. And so, we have other issues besides just worried about an American administration that might want to be unkind and say bad things about us.
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COOPER: Well, George Clooney stars in a special live broadcast of " Good Night, and Good Luck" right here on CNN.
