Return to Transcripts main page

The Lead with Jake Tapper

Waltz Out as National Security Adviser After Signal Scandals; Trump Econ Adviser Says He Expects News on a Trade Deal Today; Trump- Appointed Judge Says President's Use of Alien Enemies Act is Unlawful in First-of-Its-Kind Ruling. 11 New York Teens Charged Over Alleged Hazing Incident; How Technology Is Changing Some Of The Most Remote Communities. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired May 01, 2025 - 18:00   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to the Lead. I'm Jake Tapper.

This hour, a shake up at the White House. President Trump ousts his national security adviser after not one, but two different Signal scandals. But is everyone else who is involved in Signal gate now safe or could more be on their way out the door?

Plus, one of President Trump's top economic advisers said there would be news about a trade deal by the end of the day. Will it really be announced within the next six hours?

[18:00:00]

Which country is it with? How might this apparent deal impact the prices you pay?

Also, the first of its kind ruling handed down by a judge today when it comes to the U.S. deporting alleged members of a Venezuelan gang who are undocumented immigrants to this country. Our reporters and legal experts are standing by to break that down.

And come along on a trip with CNN deep into the Amazon rainforest, where some of the most remote communities in the world are getting access to the internet for the very first time.

The Lead Tonight, President Trump has ousted Mike Waltz as his national security adviser, only to turn around and give him a new job as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins is the White House for us. Kaitlan, tell us more.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jake, obviously a bit of musical chairs happening here at the White House with this move by the president that he was making. It's one that was kind of seen as long in the making here at the White House.

Mike Waltz is standing inside the West Wing, never really recovered after he was caught up in Signal gate, which was when he inadvertently added that reporter to a group chat where it was later revealed, the defense secretary texted sensitive military plants thinking it was just administration officials who were in that message.

And because of that, Jake, we had been hearing this week that something was going on with Mike Waltz's job. There was a moment on Tuesday where CNN's team spotted Mike Waltz, who got on Marine One with President Trump, took the short trip to Joint Base Andrews, just about a ten-minute flight, but then noticeably did not get on the plane with him as we saw there. And so it raised questions, what did this mean? Why was he only taking such a short trip? We were told he was never supposed to be on that Air Force One trip.

But what we have now learned from our reporting is that he was here this week fighting for his job. He was there at the cabinet meeting yesterday. He did a Fox News appearance right here next to where I'm standing, actually just this morning, talking about the Ukraine minerals deal that the White House had just signed. But it was shortly after that, Jake, that I'm told that President Trump informed Mike Waltz he would no longer be serving as his national security adviser, and instead said he was going to nominate him to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Of course, that role, if he is confirmed by the Senate, it would require him being in New York and fulfilling that. It was supposed to be filled by the congresswoman, Elise Stefanik, though she's staying up on Capitol Hill for now.

And so a bit of shuffling, Jake as this now means that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will now be serving as the interim national security adviser either until they find a full-time replacement or until, essentially, Rubio does not want to fill both positions, something that hasn't been done since Henry Kissinger did it for President Nixon.

But, Jake, on the sense of Mike Waltz, I do want to be clear that, you know, a lot of this does have to do with Signal gate and why people were essentially guessing his judgment here. But he was certainly someone who never fully meshed with the president's foreign policy views. There was a lot of speculation about this even when he was selected back during the transition. And so it was almost seemed as an inevitable move here at the White House today, though they wanted to get through that 100-day period first.

TAPPER: All right. Kaitlan Collins, thanks so much. And tonight on Kaitlan's show, outspoken Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, that's on The Source with Kaitlan Collins tonight at 9:00, only here on CNN.

With us now to talk about the Waltz shakeup is a staff writer for the Atlantic, Isaac Stanley-Becker. Isaac, thanks so much for being here, I appreciate it.

So, you share a byline on a new piece for The Atlantic today entitled, Mike Waltz wasn't MAGA enough for Trump. What are your sources telling you about what went down behind the scenes here? ISAAC STANLEY-BECKER, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Well, obviously, the debacle with Signal gate, as they're calling it, was an important public rupture and embarrassment for Waltz and for the White House.

But what officials told us today and in recent days and recent weeks is that this was a long time coming and Waltz never really gelled with the president and his team. There was tension with Stephen Miller, the Homeland Security adviser. He wasn't given the kind of responsibility that Steve Witkoff, the president's longtime friend and special envoy was given over geopolitical issues, and he just wasn't really a good fit.

And once the Signal issue happened, that kind of forced it, and as Kaitlan said, they passed the 100-day mark. They didn't want to take that political hit within that window. They cleared that marker. The president acted against the national security adviser today.

TAPPER: So, there's this far right, seemingly unhinged activist named Laura Loomer, who's very pro-MAGA and Trump loves her. She told CNN that she had previously tried to raise concerns about Waltz to Trump during the Oval Office meeting she had with him several weeks ago that did result in six national security advisers -- I mean, security officials being fired without Waltz signing off on it. But, apparently, she said that before she could bring up Waltz, he walked into the meeting. What do you make of the kind of influence Laura Loomer has within the NSA and with President Trump?

STANLEY-BECKER: As I understand it, not only was she about to bring up Waltz when he walked into the room, she was about to show the president a video of an anti-Trump ad that Waltz had appeared in from 2016 in which he accused the first time candidate and businessman of dodging the draft in Vietnam.

[18:05:09]

He finishes the ad by saying, stop Trump now. So, she was about to show this to the president.

I think we have to back up and just think about how extraordinary this is. You have someone who, as you said, is a far right activist, has shared content, calling 9/11 an inside job, a set of inflammatory remarks, coming in, having extended Oval Office audience with the president and coming in with a list and saying, here are the officials who are disloyal to you, who have wronged you and who you should fire.

Obviously, she doesn't get her way with all of them right away. She's now succeeded in getting additional scalps. But think about the perspective of Mike Waltz. He's in charge of his staff. He's the leader of it, and his authority to hire and fire personnel is swept out from under him by this 31-year-old right wing influencer and activist.

TAPPER: That's a nice term for what she is. And a piece you published last week about the disorder breaking out within the National Security Council, you wrote that it stems from, quote, Trump's impatience with process, disregard for the law and insistence on loyalty in place of expertise. Is that how people within the National Security Council feel?

STANLEY-BECKER: Well, I think we have to remember what it is that the National Security Council does. It's this incredibly important, highly sensitive forum within the White House for the president to bring together senior advisers and cabinet officials to consider the most pressing foreign policy and national security issues, involves bringing together experts across the interagency to consider options to coordinate implementation of presidential decision-making across agencies.

And that kind of deliberative decision-making, involving lawyers to vet these actions, make sure they adhere to the letter of the law, that is not something that really comports with the president's style.

TAPPER: He's very impulsive.

STANLEY-BECKER: Well, this is again, why he trusts his longtime friend, someone he's been in business with, knows his family to kind of go out there and cut deals in one part of the world and then the next part of the world. And so we're seeing a kind of, you know, neutering of the power and of the authority of the NSC because it just doesn't really mesh with how the president does business.

TAPPER: And we also heard -- David Sanger was on Kasie Hunt's show, before mine, and he was saying that there was real tension between Waltz and Witkoff. Waltz, who knows a lot about foreign policy and served honorably in the military, first Green Beret in Congress, I think, and Witkoff a dealmaker, and Trump wants deals. And it's almost as if it doesn't even matter what's in the deal.

This is what Sanger was reporting. So, for example, Waltz was saying, this is what we need to demand from Iran. And Witkoff said, this is Sanger saying, well, they'll never agree to that. And so coming to Iran with a much more realistic/humble slate, even though it might not actually be what the national security for the United States and its allies mean.

STANLEY-BECKER: I think that's true across a range of portfolios. We had reporting in our piece today with a number of my colleagues about in the Russia case. And, of course, Waltz has remade his position on a number of foreign policy issues to fit with Trump. He really wanted this job. But one of the areas in which there is still some distance between him and some of the president and some of his key advisers is also on the Russia-Ukraine issue. And he was one of the few senior advisers to the president who was advocating for intensifying -- escalating sanctions against Russia if Moscow didn't agree to a suitable long-term peace deal. And that that put him at odds with other officials who simply wanted to, you know, cut a deal that would end the war, you know, no matter the terms.

TAPPER: All right. Isaac Stanley-Becker, thank you so much. We should note, of course, that it's your boss who was added to that Signal chat --

STANLEY-BECKER: That's right.

TAPPER: -- that set a lot of this. We had him on yesterday, Jeffrey Goldberg. Thanks so much, Isaac.

Turning to our Money Lead, this morning, the director of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, said he was sure there would be, quote, news by the end of the day regarding a trade deal. However, we are now past 6:00 here in Washington, D.C. We have yet to hear if a trade deal with any country has been finalized. Of course, the day technically is not over yet, even if the business day on Wall Street is.

CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich and Manu Raju joining us now. And, Vanessa, as we wait news of a new trade deal, you have new reporting on how we could soon be feeling the impacts of Trump's China tariff, in fact, in just a matter of days.

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And the last ships that are coming sort of tariff free from that 145 percent tariff from China are pulling into U.S. ports this week. But next week, it's a different story. Any cargo that was loaded from China on April 9th and onwards, it's going to be carrying that higher tariff of 145 percent. Not only will the prices be higher on those cargo ships, but there will be fewer ships at sea carrying less volume, because, for many importers, it is simply too expensive to do business with China.

[18:10:05]

And we here in the United States buy more toys, apparel, footwear, electronics from China than any other country in the world. You can see the key items there on your screen. Also, JPMorgan is reporting that because of these higher tariffs, they expect a drop-off in imports from China of 75 to 80 percent this year.

Now, Jake, retailers did have stockpiled inventory. Right now, it's about five to seven weeks of inventory. But when that runs out, businesses will have to decide, do we go ahead and place orders and bring those items with that high tariff into the United States, or we do not bring that product in at all. And that's where you get to the situation of higher prices and empty shelves, less inventory, less options for consumers.

Analysts, retail analysts have pointed me to sort of two key shopping seasons, back to school, because those items are coming in now for back to school, and then holiday shopping season, which start starts bringing in imports now through October. Those are key shopping seasons to watch for consumers, whether that inventory is going to be there and then what those prices will look like, Jake.

TAPPER: And, Manu, how are Republicans responding to all of this on the Hill?

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well look, they are having a hard time answering questions about rising prices after campaigning in the last election against rising prices under Joe Biden. And now the fact that this is a concern that prices could rise across the board that Donald Trump said yesterday that children perhaps could get fewer toys as a result are complicated things for Republicans to respond to. And it's a question that I put to a lot of Republicans over the last day or so, including in the aftermath of that comment just yesterday, about whether or not they agree with Donald Trump's message that, as a result of these policies, children may have fewer toys.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Because the president said yesterday, kids may have fewer toys. I mean, is that the message you want to be sending to your constituents?

SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): Well, what I'm talking about is the fact that I'm going to get -- I'm going to continue to work on getting more American jobs.

REP. MIKE LAWLER (R-NY): Obviously, the issue of how many toys somebody has is, you know, not something that I think most people will spend their time focusing on. I think most people are focused on the overall cost of living. And what we saw under the Biden administration was a disaster.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And Republicans are urging a long-term strategy, Jake. They're saying that after Donald Trump's efforts to try to bring back manufacturing jobs to the United States, change the regulatory structure here in the United States, and also pass their sweeping agenda, that includes a massive overhaul of the tax code, that, they say, is when the economy will boom, they argue. But that's potentially a long-term proposition. How will voters react in the short-term, particularly in the 2026 midterms?

TAPPER: All right. Manu Raju, Vanessa Yurkevich, thank you so much to both of you.

Does a former CIA director think that Mike Waltz's ouster from the White House could impact national security? I'll ask him next.

Plus, our series of talking to small business owners all over the country today takes us to the beautiful state of Wyoming. How might Trump's tariffs have an impact there?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:15:00]

TAPPER: Back with our Politics Lead, just moments ago on his favorite channel, Vice President J.D. Vance addressed the exit of Mike Waltz from the national security adviser role and moved to nominee to be U.N. ambassador, Vice President Vance insisting that this was the plan all along.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: We brought Mike on to do some serious reforms of the National Security Council. He has done that. I like Mike. I think he's a great guy. He's got the trust of both me and the president. But we also thought that he'd make a better U.N. ambassador as we get beyond this stage of the reforms that we've made to the National Security Council.

If the president wanted to fire him over the Signal thing, which, by the way, was a total nothing burger of a story, he would've just done it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Not at all a total nothing burger of a story. What a wild thing to say.

Former Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta with me now. What do you make of the vice president saying that the Signal scandal the vice president, I mean, Mike Waltz starting that Signal chat, in which lots of classified information, mainly, by the way, from the secretary of defense, not Mike Waltz was shared with a reporter, what do you make of him saying it's a nothing burger, and this move today had nothing to do with that?

LEON PANETTA, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: Well, you know, Jake I think one of the big problems with the president and the vice president and the administration, generally, is that they just don't speak the truth to the American people. They're always looking for an excuse. They're always looking to blame somebody else. They're always working to kind of downplay some of the most serious mistakes I've ever seen in terms of security breaches. And I just think in the end, the American people just don't trust what they say, and I certainly don't.

TAPPER: What was your reaction when you heard about this switcheroo, Waltz going from national security adviser, you know, roughly 200, 300 miles up I-95 to work at the U.N.?

PANETTA: Well, you know, I think it was something that was going to happen because he just wasn't a very good fit as national security adviser. I mean, you know, Waltz is a good guy, was a veteran, I think was more of a pragmatist, understood foreign policy, understood why Russia is a threat, understood why it was important to stick with Ukraine. I mean, he had some basic good instincts. And good instincts don't work very well in the White House where they're basically playing another game.

[18:20:03]

And then when you add to that, the problem with what happened in Signal gate, I just think it was clear that he was not long for that role of national security adviser. And so rather than just dismissing him, they're trying to play it down so it doesn't look like it's a shakeup and would draw that much attention. So, they moved him to the U.N. I think it's pretty obvious what happened here. He essentially got fired.

TAPPER: And Waltz was, of course, the one who added Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to the Signal group chat, in which he and Secretary Hegseth shared details about intelligence. Do you have any concerns about him serving as U.N. ambassador? It seems to me, but you tell me if I'm wrong, you were, you're the White House chief of staff and former secretary of defense and former CIA director, it seemed to me his access as U.N. ambassador to classified intelligence will probably be considerably less.

PANETTA: Yes, I don't think there's any question in considering the president and the White House's position with regards to the U.N. They pretty much demean what the U.N. does. And so they're not going to provide a lot of sensitive information to the U.N. ambassador. So, you know, it's basically a way of kind of putting him in a place where it's not going to make that much difference.

TAPPER: Do you have any concerns about Secretary Hegseth staying on as secretary of defense given his involvement in not just sharing sensitive if not classified information on one Signal chat, but two Signal chats, I think since the last time I talked to you? Another one came out where it turned out he had been sharing the same basic attack information prior to the attack on the Houthis in Yemen, with not only Jeff Goldberg in chat number one, but with his wife, his brother, and his personal attorney in signal chat number two.

PANETTA: Yes. Look, I'm very concerned that the White House just doesn't want to acknowledge what was a serious security breach. And, obviously, Waltz had a role to play in it, and Hegseth had a role to play in it as well. I mean, he was basically not only using Signal gate to basically talk about attack plans, top secret attack plans, even though he says they weren't top secret. He talked about weapons, he talked about targets, he talked about timing. And then to share that same information with his wife, with his lawyer, with his brother, you know, these are major breaches of security.

And somehow what really bothers me is that the White House won't even conduct an investigation into what happened so that somebody, particularly the secretary of defense, somebody needs to be held accountable for what are major security breaches. And make no mistake about it, the more we behave that way, the greater the signal and the message of weakness we send to our adversaries.

TAPPER: Former Defense Secretary and CIA Director and White House Chief of Staff and Congressman Leon Panetta, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

PANETTA: Good to be with you, Jake.

TAPPER: A federal judge handed down a ruling today blocking the White House from quickly deporting some alleged members of a Venezuelan gang. So, what happens next?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:25:00]

TAPPER: In our National Lead, a new wrinkle today, a Trump-appointed federal judge ruled today that President Trump unlawfully invoked the Alien Enemies Act and blocked the administration from deporting some alleged Venezuelan gang members who are undocumented immigrants in the United States. The judge's ruling is the first to conclude that President Trump exceeded his authority by relying on a law that was intended to be used during times when the U.S. is at war or at least under invasion.

I want to bring in CNN's Priscilla Alvarez and CNN Legal Analyst Carrie Cordera. So, Priscilla, this ruling from a Trump judge, what more did he have to say?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: More than a wrinkle, a significant blow for the Trump administration, because he ruled that the president unlawfully invoked the Alien Enemies Act, only used three times in U.S. history, and all during wartime. The last time was actually during World War II. And in his ruling, he finds that there's no underlying invasion or predatory incursion, which are requirements for this 1798 law.

Now, the administration has argued that the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua has invaded the United States, and they have used this as a basis for invoking this law and also swiftly deporting Venezuelan migrants out of the country. But this federal judge is really casting doubt on that exact argument.

And he says, I'm going to read you a snippet of his ruling, quote, allowing the president to unilaterally define the conditions when he may invoke the AEA, the Alien Enemies Act, and then some early declare that those conditions exist would remove all limitations to the executive branch's authority under the AEA and would strip the courts of their traditional role of interpreting congressional statutes to determine whether a government official has exceeded the statute's scope. Bottom line, he does not think that the basis of the administration is provided to invoke this law holds any water.

And this really gets to the core of the matter, Jake.

[18:30:00]

We have seen legal challenges across the country on the invoking of this act and who is eligible to be deported under it. Courts have blocked it in various places, but this goes straight to the basis of it. And so this is likely going to be appealed by the Trump administration and still has a ways to go, but definitely a hurdle. And in the interim, the people, the detainees in his district will not be deported under his authority.

TAPPER: But, Carrie, correct me if I'm wrong, the U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that it's okay for the Trump administration to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, and just for those keeping track at home, passed in 1798, signed by the second president of the United States, John Adams. So, what's the difference?

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: So, in this particular case, I mean, this the Supreme Court said that it had to go back to Texas based on the fact that these individuals were detained there. And so it really did go back to this district court judge in Texas. And Priscilla's absolutely right. I think what's unique about this case, you know, sometimes, Jake, in these cases, we're looking at court rulings that are ruling on standing, or they're ruling on some very narrow aspect, or they say, well, we're going to send it to another court, and they're not really addressing head on. And in the last case, the Supreme Court really didn't take on this issue specifically. So, it didn't actually address the substance of the Alien Enemies Acts on the merits.

That's what's different about what this judge did. This judge went straight to the text of the statute and got to the heart of it, which is whether or not the activities of this Venezuelan gang constitute an invasion under this particular law. And this judge looked at the facts of what it is and said, no. We are observing, and based on what the government has argued, we see what this gang is. And it is not an invasion, as envisioned by the drafters of this statute.

TAPPER: But if these are undocumented immigrants in this country illegally and alleged Venezuelan gang members, does the Trump administration even need to invoke the Alien Enemies Act?

CORDERO: No. No, they don't. I mean, so this was another opportunity for the Trump administration to find a way to go around standard immigration, natural immigration act process, because individuals in the United States still do have to have some kind of process. So, they would've had to go through deportation proceedings, which involve the person gets a hearing and they actually get to go before an immigration judge. And then they would be actually deported if those provisions are followed.

But the Trump administration is trying to bypass that process. And what this judge is saying is, no, you can't use this law to do it.

TAPPER: They don't like process. It's fair to say, I think it's fair to say, they don't like process.

Priscilla Alvarez. Carrie Cordero, thanks to both of you. I appreciate it.

Also in our Politics Lead, Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. yesterday accused his own department, the Department of Health and Human Services, of having in the past been a collaborator in child sex trafficking of hundreds of thousands of migrant children during the Biden administration.

Take a listen to what RFK Jr. said during the cabinet meeting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., HHS SECRETARY: During the Biden administration, HHS became a collaborator in child trafficking for sex and for slavery. And we have ended that, and we're very aggressively going out and trying to find these children, 300,000 children that were lost by the Biden administration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Now, the issue of child sex trafficking in the United States is a serious one, and it is a real one. But what did the facts -- how are the facts comport with what RFK Jr. said?

Let's bring in Daniel Dale to fact check it. Daniel, what's the truth here?

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Jake, at least two big problems with what the secretary said. We know that because we debunked a bunch of this stuff last year when President Trump made similar claims.

So, problem number one, this 300,000 number is not about the Biden administration in particular. That number comes from an inspector general report that looked at fiscal years 2019 through 2023. Donald Trump, of course, was president a few months into fiscal 2021. So, this report spanned administrations.

And then problem number two, the report does not say 300,000 children were lost or trafficked. What it does say is that, first of all, 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children didn't show up for immigration court after ICE released them to HHS, Health and Human Services, which places them to live with sponsors. And then the report also said an additional 291,000 children, ICE didn't even issue them a notice to appear in court.

Now, of course, that is clearly not great. The report said the migrant kids who don't go to court are considerate at higher risk for trafficking exploitation or forced labor. And we also know from other research HHS did not vet some of these sponsors well enough.

So, there are legitimate issues here, absolutely. But does this report, say HHS was collaborating with traffickers? It doesn't. In fact, it focuses on ICE policy, administrative failures.

[18:35:00]

And then does it say these 300,000 plus kids are actually being trafficked, that they're missing, that they're slaves, that they're probably dead as the president has asserted? No.

And if you talk to immigration experts, they'll tell you there are a lot of non terrifying reasons that young migrants might miss court. They might be healthy teenagers who just blew it off. They might be kids being well cared for by sponsors who didn't tell them about the hearing or didn't urge them to go. Some of those sponsors may be undocumented themselves and decided going or interacting with the authorities was risky.

And, similarly, with the other 291,000 young people, all we really know from this report is that they weren't given notices to appear in court. And the inspector general said ICE needed to fix its processes to make sure they were given those notices.

So, again, a real issue, for sure, but a much less dramatic statement than Secretary Kennedy made here.

TAPPER: Yes. And if you want to tackle the serious issue of immigration reform, immigration issues, child sex trafficking, you have to have a grasp of what the actual facts are. Daniel Dale, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

Coming up next, we're heading to Wyoming to see how Trump's tariffs are impacting a small business owner who is already changing her prices.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:40:00]

TAPPER: It is time for our Money Lead, and we're going to continue our series talking to small business owners all over the country, coast to coast, about Trump's tariffs. Some have been optimistic, many are not.

My next guest is Cara Rank. She owns two businesses in Jackson, Wyoming, stationary company, Xowyo, and an event rental business, am I pronouncing this correctly, Obje West (ph), is it -- do you --

CARA RANK, XOWYO PAPER AND PRESS: Correct.

TAPPER: Obje West, but very -- that's very fancy for Wyoming. Which products that you either sell, rent, or use to run your businesses have been impacted by Trump's tariffs.

RANK: Almost everything. So, on the rental side, I buy very high-end plates, cutlery and glassware mostly from the E.U. And all of my shipments for 2025 are coming in the next four weeks. So, I'm going to be paying tariffs on all of those. Plus, on the stationary side, all of my -- almost all of my paper is going to be having price increases.

TAPPER: So, you help to put on weddings for your event planning business, huge part of what you do. That industry as a whole was obviously, certainly negatively impacted in 2020 and 2021 during the COVID pandemic. How much do you expect tariffs will disrupt weddings and event planning this time?

RANK: I mean, I know you're getting this answer from everyone. It is so hard to say. I've talked to my colleagues, especially in the event rental business. All of us plan our purchases to come in right before the season starts, so everyone's receiving inventory, you know, in the next four to six weeks. Like me personally, I have $200,000 of inventory arriving, so that's 20,000 in tariffs that I wasn't planning on paying in the month of May.

TAPPER: You work up price quotes and contracts for customers months in advance. You just talked about the unpredictability, the instability of it all. How hard is it considering that your business relies on making a plan, I mean, literally, I would guess in some cases, a year or two ahead of time?

RANK: Yes. I mean, I make my cash flow plan in the fall for the following year. So, I have planned out 2025. I planned that out in October. So, now I'm having to go back and make, you know, a worst case scenario, a not so bad scenario, and then the scenario that I planned on. So, it's really hard to plan. Weddings book 6 to 12 months in advance. So, you know, the weddings that I have starting this month, I booked a year ago with prices from a year ago.

TAPPER: Yes. Is that even -- is it affecting people planning weddings or other events?

RANK: We are just starting to book for 2026. So, I think we're going to need another couple of months to see how this pans out. You know, in the segment that I serve, which is luxury and ultra luxury weddings, which is like, you know, people who spend over $100,000 on their weddings, a lot of those people do liquidate stocks to pay for their events. And so if the market continues the way it is, I think budgets are going to be a lot lower in 2026 and we're going to be dealing with something totally different.

TAPPER: Cara Rank from the beautiful state of Wyoming, one of my favorite places to go in the entire world, thank you so much. And I'm so sorry, and I hope you get the stability that you and your customers need.

RANK: Thank you.

TAPPER: 11 high school students have officially been charged after an alleged hazing incident. CNN is on the ground in Syracuse, New York, getting a reaction from a shaken up community.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:47:15]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Shocking story in our national lead. Hearings began today for the 11 teenagers charged in an alleged intense hazing plot. Police are saying that in the middle of the night, a New York high school student had a pillowcase thrown over his head. His hands were tied. He was stuffed in a car trunk before abandoned in the woods, all by his so-called teammates.

The suspects were all members of Westhill High School lacrosse team in Syracuse. They allegedly armed themselves and staged a kidnaping of several younger teammates. This was, they say, part of a hazing ritual.

CNN's Shimon Prokupecz is on Onondaga, New York.

Shimon, what kind of charges are these teenagers facing?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: So despite how severe all of this was, Jake, right now, the students here are facing a misdemeanor. So potentially, if they were to fight these charges and get convicted, it would be up to a year in jail. For the younger students, the juveniles, it could be far different.

But that would be for the adults, those that are 18. And there are a few of them, and they will be here in court, we learned today, on May 15th, that will be their first appearance here behind me at the court. The D.A. agreeing on these charges if they all surrendered, which they all did yesterday, and those 11 are now going to face those charges in the coming weeks, Jake.

TAPPER: This is you tell us, a very tight knit community. How are members of the community handling this shocking news?

PROKUPECZ: Now, it's very shocking for them, Jake. I've been here now for two days, and I've talked to family members on the side of a victim and I've talked to family members on the side of one of the accused. And both sides are just in pain over this because they can't understand how this happened, how this escalated. And quite frankly, when I spoke to an accused family member, their take was just how stupid all of this was. And why would any of these kids think this was a good idea?

But they're also saying that this was a prank. And it just got too far. And now, they are all just reeling from it. This entire community, everybody here knows who was involved in this, and we got a chance to catch up with the county executive here, Ryan McMahon, today, who talked about just how much pain and how much difficulty, this is bringing to this community.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RYAN MCMAHON, COUNTY EXECUTIVE: And what is painful is that everybody knows each other. The parents know each other, the students know each other. And now, it's trying to be accountable so that kids know that this is not acceptable in any shape or form, but how do we move forward as a community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PROKUPECZ: And that's the thing, Jake. Now for many of them, is how do they move forward? The school is promising to work together. There are mental health resources available. So for now, they're just hoping things quiet down here in the community and they could figure out how to get back together, how to unite and try and recover from this, because they are really -- the thing that's so worrying them is that their kids will now be hurt forever because of this, and just how stupid for them, how stupid all of this was.

[18:50:19]

TAPPER: Shimon Prokupecz in Onondaga, New York. Thank you so much.

Coming up next, were traveling deep into the amazon rainforest, where some of the most remote communities in the world are connecting to the Internet for the very first time.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our faith lead, new images show construction inside the Sistine Chapel ahead of next week's conclave.

[18:55:00] Crews are assembling metal and wooden beams to accommodate cardinals coming in town to select the next pope. The conclave begins on Wednesday.

We're back with our world lead, and currently, he's best known for his work with DOGE and Tesla and SpaceX. But since the launch of its first satellite in 2019, Elon Musk's Starlink has been providing Internet access to some of the most remote and untouched places on Earth.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh and his team journeyed deep into Brazil's Amazon region and documented once isolated indigenous communities who are now getting internet access for the very first time.

It's all part of Nick's upcoming documentary, the wired rainforest, premiering this Sunday night on the whole story.

And Nick joins me now.

Nick, I can't wait to hear all about your trip. Let's get a small preview of how it went.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A billionaire's pandora is now out of the box across the rainforest.

Starlink, the high-speed global satellite Internet provider run by Elon Musk and commercially bought for supply here. It's changed warfare in Ukraine, sped up Wi-Fi on board airplanes, and let Iranians evade oppressive censors.

But to the kids here, when it arrives, it is just a big cardboard box.

And it's staggeringly fast, how they are suddenly connected to 7,000 satellites orbiting above and the tumultuous power of unlimited information.

For the moment of on, their world will never spin the same again. And the online head rush begins. You'd need to be nearly 100 years old to really know the phone free isolation lost in this very moment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Nick, what was it like to watch these remote communities connect to the internet for the first time?

WALSH: I think what was so startling, Jake, is it really brings home how dominated daily life is by the Interne by the tiny devices that we all look at all day long, to see a place of silence and calm and a lifestyle that's been the same for decades, centuries. Suddenly, in a week to return and find communities hovering around one particular phone, spending hours on a TikTok like app called Kawaii, developed in China and across so many parts of Brazil, was staggering. And across that rainforest, too, it has uses that benefit the communities they're used for medical advice. Sometimes people are getting video links directly as babies being

born, but also illegal loggers, miners, poachers use it to stay in touch and get ahead of the authorities. In fact, we saw one Starlink dish right on top of a boat that was busy, it seemed, doing illegal gold mining. So, it's turbocharging, the exploitation of the rainforest and indeed the contact that isolated communities are having with the outside world.

But the key thing we found, Jake, too, is that even their brief exposure, these communities are realizing, they've got to have rules. They've got to switch it off, or it's going to change everything for the detriment very fast -- Jake.

TAPPER: And, Nick, what was your biggest takeaway from this incredible trip?

WALSH: How much I think not so much. This has changed those communities because they're just getting to understand the Internet now. But what it really taught us about how little we've accepted and confronted, what the internet has done to our daily lives. I mean, it's everything we do is monitored by that.

And to actually see a world where the change of no internet to internet is sudden and a matter of hours brings home how pervasive, how slowly over 20 years. Jake, you and I are old enough to remember fax machines, even possibly a world without the internet being ubiquitous. Absolutely. Everywhere.

We've slowly got used to it, but sort of the boiling frog, some might say. But there in those indigenous communities, you see in just in seconds, minutes, how the change is, how stark it is, and what it does to people's behavior in their minds. It always is so benign, but ultimately the accumulative change is staggering to see there.

And I left really with a very, very different feeling about what this is doing to my life and the life of those younger than me all around, Jake.

TAPPER: Yeah, I have to be honest. I'm kind of envious of the indigenous people before they got the Internet. That sounds -- that sounds kind of nice. NPW, Nick Paton Walsh, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Don't miss this episode of "THE WHOLE STORY", Sunday night, 8:00 p.m. Eastern.

I have two books coming out. On May 20th, that's just 19 days away. "Original Sin", about President Biden's decision to run for reelection and the cover up of his decline, and in October, "Race Against Terror", about the hunt to prosecute an al Qaeda terrorist who killed Americans and was out to kill more. You can check them both out, preorder them at jaketapper.com.

You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Substack, X, and on the TikTok @jaketapper. You can follow the show on X @TheLeadCNN. If you ever miss an episode of THE LEAD, you can listen to the show

all two hours whence you get your podcasts.

"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts now. Take it away, Erin.