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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Trump Family's Crypto Empire Raises Ethics Questions; Elon Musk Says, Disappointed By Trump's Budget Bill; Netanyahu Marks 600 Days In War Of Resurrection; Poll: Number Of Teens Using ChatGPT For School Doubled In 2024. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired May 28, 2025 - 18:00   ET

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

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[18:00:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper.

This hour it is Viva Las Vegas for top Republicans and members of the Trump family headlining a crypto conference today, but their appearances are raising major conflict of interest questions as the Trump family is also expanding its crypto empire at the same time dad is in charge of regulation.

Plus, President Trump responds after Elon Musk says he's disappointed in Trump's so-called big, beautiful bill. Is the first buddy falling out of favor with the White House?

Also, you've seen some of their products on your favorite Olympians, and today we're talking to the manufacturer behind some of the iconic 2024 Team USA gear to see how they've been impacted by Trump's tariffs and trade wars.

And a lecturer went viral after detailing how he failed a student for using A.I. to write a paper only for her to apologize and ask for a redo in an email also written by A.I. He's here on The Lead to explain how a growing number of students are using artificial intelligence in the classroom.

The Lead Tonight, the Trump administration fully embracing the world of crypto. Right wing, Trump's family is making money off of it, raising serious concerns about conflicts of interest. Crypto is a digital currency where transactions are often anonymous and as of now not controlled by any government or central bank.

So, how did President Trump's family get involved and why are some Republican lawmakers joining in what many see as the new Wild West, looking to change the landscape of the financial system as we know it?

CNN's Tom Foreman brings us this investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: With President Trump, crypto finally has a champion and an ally in the White House. TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Vice President J.D. Vance came to Vegas to bet big on crypto at a major Bitcoin conference. With the help of two of the president's sons, he's telling folks the digital currency has a sizzling future.

VANCE: Crypto is a hedge against bad policymaking from Washington, against skyrocketing inflation, against a private sector that's increasingly willing to discriminate against consumers on the basis of their basic beliefs.

FOREMAN: Crypto is also the source of a huge, fresh income stream for the Trump family, which raised a variety of crypto products to the market to coincide with retaking the White House.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have a ballpark estimate at this point on how much the Trump family seems to have made off of crypto?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At least $700 million.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, that's not small.

FOREMAN: Only a few years ago, Trump trashed digital currency as highly volatile and based on thin air, noting, as many critics still do, that unregulated crypto assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including the drug trade and other illegal activity.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam. I don't like it because it's another currency competing against the dollar.

FOREMAN: But now his administration is urging Congress and regulators to ease up on already scant crypto rules. Trump has the government buying Bitcoin for a national reserve and he just shared dinner with more than 200 of the top investors in his family's crypto offerings.

It's all raising sharp questions from critics about whether Trump is selling access to the presidency and keeping the change for himself, his press office bristles at the thought.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It's absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency.

FOREMAN: But dollar-by-dollar, day-by-day, Team Trump is pushing deeper into crypto.

VANCE: We want our fellow Americans to know that crypto and digital assets, and particularly Bitcoin, are part of the mainstream economy and are here to stay.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN (on camera): This is so much money and we really don't know where it is all coming from, Jake. What we do know is this. Republican lawmakers were completely outraged when Joe Biden was in office over the mere idea that anybody connected to him could make some money, and yet they are very quiet now that it's Donald Trump. TAPPER: Tom Foreman, thanks so much. Let's bring in someone who's been reporting on the Trump family's involvement with crypto, Bloomberg Investigative Reporter Zeke Faux. He's also the author of Number Go Up, Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall. Also joining us, former Trump White House Communications Director from Trump's first term in office Alyssa Farah Griffin. Thanks to both of you for being here. I really appreciate it.

So, Zeke, let me start with you. As Tom Foreman noted Trump once denounced cryptocurrencies, now he has his own meme coin, which he launched days before he is inaugurated earlier this year. Is the meme coin a moneymaking scheme? Explain what it is.

ZEKE FAUX, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, BLOOMBERG: I mean, right now there's all different kinds of cryptocurrencies. The Bitcoin's been around for 15 years. Original idea, we'd replace the dollar with these cryptos for everyday transactions, that's kind of out the window.

[18:05:01]

They've mostly become like vehicles for crazy gambling and meme coins are like the most extreme version of that. They don't promise to do anything at all. It's just like, here's a coin, I'm famous, buy it before other people do and hope that it goes up.

So, three days before the inauguration, Trump announced that he was doing one. Its price soared up to past $70, and then as it meme points tend to do, crashed back down to like $10. The Trump family earned about $300 million from doing that.

TAPPER: And presumably a lot of people were out of money or lost money.

FAUX: Yes, unless you got in early, a lot of people lost out.

TAPPER: And explain what the World Liberty Financial is, who from the Trump family's affiliated with it and what they're doing, how they're making money.

FAUX: So, this is like an even bigger crypto venture from the Trumps that he started promoting during the campaign. And at first, it wasn't even clear what it was. He just started saying, World Liberty is the future of finance. We're going to put the big banks behind and move into the future. But, of course, because it's crypto, he started selling a coin.

And this World Liberty coin, whatever anyone spends to buy it, three quarters of that money is paid to the Trump family as a fee. And they sold $550 million of World Liberty Financial's coin, so that's another $400 million for them.

TAPPER: So, Alyssa, this is not the first time Trump and his family have raised concerns about ethics and conflicts of interest. We have the Trump Hotel, the Trump businesses. This seems rather stark though. How do you see -- how did you see Trump handle his family business connections when he was president, when you worked for him? ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, listen, there were always concerns over his real estate. There were, you know, leaders that would stay at the Trump Hotel near the White House and that he'd be potentially profiting off of that. We're encouraging people to stay at his other properties.

But I think some of the pushback was he's a real estate mogul. This is what he is always done. It's always been the family business. There were even efforts in the first term to say, you know, that he was going to be siloed off from business decisions there be trust that handled them.

This feels so much more glaring because the big thing that stands out to me, like with a crypto scheme like this, you could have foreign investors, you could have people paying for access by nature of buying something through these meme coins. That raises so many national security concerns, corruption concerns, and just sort of a sense of pay-to-play that I think is a lot harder to dismiss, whereas when you're dealing with his real estate, that is always part of who he has been.

And some Republican lawmakers have criticized just, you know, these dinners that he is hosted and the way that he's kind of allowed people to what it feels like is buy access.

TAPPER: And is it buying access and is there even any way -- is it one of the appeals of crypto is that nobody really even knows what's going on?

FAUX: Well, I mean, he literally held an auction where whoever bought the most of the Trump meme coin could come have dinner with him at the Trump National Golf Course outside of D.C. the other day.

TAPPER: And just to underline, this is not a fundraiser for the RNC. This is just personal profit.

FAUX: Yes. And the top buyer of the meme coin, his name is Justin Sun. He's like a big time crypto guy from China, but he was facing an SEC lawsuit heading into the Trump administration. They were suing him for fraud. Once Trump took over, changed the policy, that lawsuit was put on hold. And his purchases alone have put like $40, $50 million into Trump's pockets.

TAPPER: Unbelievable. And, Alyssa, we should note, Vice President J.D. Vance, he spoke at the Bitcoin conference earlier today in Las Vegas, pounding the Trump administration as the champion of cryptocurrency and the cryptocurrency urgency industry, urging attendees to vote in the 2026 midterms. What do you make of that strategy?

GRIFFIN: So, I actually think the Trump campaign was very wise to embrace crypto. I think they were ahead of the Democrats and realizing that there is a big part of this country that really supports this move to the future, criticisms people could have. Mark Cuban actually just said in an interview, he thinks that it was the crypto vote that could have decided the election. Now, that might be an overstatement, but, listen, there's a crypto caucus within the Senate. You've got members of Congress who are active holders of Bitcoin and other coins. So, I think it's smart to be embracing it, but there has to be a policy that follows it.

So, what are the regulations? What are we agreeing to so that there're some rules of the road and how it's used. That I see as a smart move by the Trump administration. The meme coin, on the other hand, a lot of crypto enthusiasts are critical of it. They think the Trump meme coin kind of undermines crypto and makes it seem silly and like something that's volatile, which is something they're always trying to push back against. So, I've heard some crypto enthusiasts actually say they don't like the meme coin.

TAPPER: And, Zeke, what's your take on Vance speaking there and also saying, don't forget to vote in the midterms?

FAUX: You know, I don't know how many crypto voters there are, but there's definitely a lot of crypto money. The crypto industry spent more than any other industry last election cycle. They spent $40 million to defeat Sherrod Brown. So, there's a lot of pressure on anybody who's in Congress, hey, why not get with the program, go along with what the crypto industry wants, and you can avoid having them spend a lot of money to support your opponent.

[18:10:06]

TAPPER: Alyssa, I do want to ask you about President Trump pardoning reality T.V. brethren Todd and Julie Chrisley. Their daughter, Savannah, just spoke to reporters outside the prison where her dad is expected to be released any moment. Here's what she said when asked about Trump's pardon for her parents. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAVANNAH CHRISLEY, DAUGHTER OF TODD, JULIE CHRISLEY: I've had people say I wonder what she had to do to get this pardon. I didn't have to do anything. I didn't have to do anything other than stand firm in my beliefs and my convictions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: She's wearing a pink Make America Great --

GRIFFIN: Yes, the MAGA hat might be a little too on the nose. Listen, she spoke at the RNC. She was a vocal supporter of Donald Trump's. This latest round of pardons are -- they're totally lawful, they're within the bounds of the Constitution.

He has basically limitless pardon power. But I do think it just comes off very blatantly, like if you're a supporter of the president, if you're willing to financially back him, an added bonus if you have a built-in fan base, you might be more likely to get a pardon.

TAPPER: All right. Zeke Faux, Alyssa Farah Griffin, thanks to both of you. President Trump is responding to criticism today from first buddy Elon Musk who said he was, quote, disappointed by the big, beautiful bill. That back and forth is next.

Plus, they were convicted of plotting to kidnap Michigan's Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer. So, why does President Trump say he's going to look into pardoning them? That's ahead.

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TRUMP: We will be negotiating that bill. And I'm not happy about certain aspects of it, but I'm thrilled by other aspects of it. That's the way they go. It's very big. It's the big, beautiful bill.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: President Trump defending his big, beautiful bill in the Oval Office today after he was asked to respond to criticism from first buddy Elon Musk, who led DOGE and said this about the president's signature piece of legislation in an interview with CBS News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELON MUSK, CEO, TESLA: I was like disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decrease it, in our minds, the work that the DOGE team is doing.

I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don't know if it can be both.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: with me on set, former CNN Senior Political Analyst John Avlon, Journalist Gretchen Carlson, and former Republican Strategist and Pollster Lee Carter. Thanks one and all for being here.

You just heard President Trump. He didn't mention Musk by name, but for some reason, he attacked Democrats for not supporting the bill instead of addressing the criticism that Musk made. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We don't have one Democrat vote. And if I were a Democrat, I'd be voting for this bill and I'd get elected to any position I want as a Democrat. They're crazy. They're voting for a 65 percent tax increase. And they're only doing it for hatred. They're not doing it for any reason. They know it's terrible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So, John, you ran for Congress as a Democrat. If you were in the House, would you vote for this? Would you take his advice? JOHN AVLON, AUTHOR OF WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL AND LINCOLN AND THE FIGHT FOR PEACE: Absolutely not. This bill is the worst of both worlds. It guts the social safety net. It hurts Main Street with a lot of deep cuts, and then it blows up the deficit and the debt.

So, no, this bill is actually the worst of all worlds, and not surprised that Elon Musk was criticizing it, given what he thought he was doing with DOGE. But he shouldn't be surprised either because Republican presidents have added more to the deficit than rep than Democrats in the last 40 years.

TAPPER: So, Lee, what do you think? I'm sure the tax cut part is popular with everybody especially, Republican voters, but what about the cuts to Medicaid, potential cuts to Medicaid and the work requirements and such? Because we hear some Republicans, including Josh Hawley from Missouri, expressing concern about that.

LEE CARTER, STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS EXPERT: Well, I think there's a lot of concerns about those cuts, but when you look overall Republicans, 75 percent of them support the big, beautiful bill, what 80 percent of Democrats oppose it. The big issue that they have is that independents don't support it. Only 30 percent of independents support the bill. And I think that's in large part because they're really concerned about these cuts.

But it's going to be more than just the Democrats coming out and pointing out what's wrong with the bill. They're going to have to come out and talk about what's right because they have a big issue as well. And that as much as we're not supporting the big, beautiful bill, people are looking at the Democrats and they're saying that they don't have a solution that's any better.

TAPPER: What do you think?

GRETCHEN CARLSON, JOURNALIST: I think that Elon Musk is right on, and, by the way, he didn't have a suit on in that interview, which is going to be a problem with Trump. Look, I think that actually this is going to be a big deal for Democrats in the midterm.

TAPPER: Helpful to them?

CARLSON: I think it's going to be helpful to them. I think that they're going to have to come much more to the center in order to get off of the far left of their party. But I think the commercials that they have out right now are going to be very effective for the exact reasons that Lee just pointed out, the fact that you're taking away money from people who desperately need it. The DOGE cuts that were supposed to, you know, actually cut the deficit, but now this ballooning with this new bill. Real people are being affected by this.

And I think that, of course, they have to come out to the polls to actually vote, but I think that this could be a big win for the Democrats.

TAPPER: So, there's some new reporting we have just in on Elon Musk, a group of Tesla investors want him to pick his priorities and commit at least 40 hours a week to running the company. Do you get a sense that he's going to face more pressure like this if his companies face financial trouble? Is that one of the reasons you think he's distancing himself --

AVLON: I think that's one of the reasons. I think, you know, I mean, Michael Jordan famously said, you know, Republicans and Democrats both by sneakers, right?

TAPPER: Yes.

AVLON: You know, you couldn't get more politically involved than Elon Musk was. And I think he's been a great entrepreneur who's done a lot of really great things, but this has tarnished his brand and the Tesla brand. And I do think this tour he is doing right now is a bit of, sort of trying to put that genie back in the bottle.

TAPPER: Yes. And let's take Democrats out of this for a moment because Republicans are in control. Majority leader John Thune can only lose three Republican votes. Today, Senator Rand Paul, who said he's a hard no on the House bill, agreed with Elon Musk. He posted, quote, the House's version of the one big, beautiful bill would explode the debt by $4 trillion, undermining all the cuts DOGE has made.

[18:20:01]

There's nothing beautiful about that.

Now, $4 trillion, I mean, we've seen a lot of different estimates from the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation, all sorts of independent groups. It's somewhere between $3.3 and $4 trillion. And that's over ten years, we should note. But all of that is disputed by the White House. They say there's no deficit spending here at all.

But, you know, you have Rand Paul and Rick Scott and from Wisconsin, who's -- oh God, his name is Ron Johnson, sorry. Plus you have the two that are like leaning on the left on it, Josh Hawley and Susan Collins saying the Medicaid cuts are too much. That's five. That's five right now. And he can't afford to lose more than three.

CARTER: I mean, the math is over. I think that's why he's talking about negotiating right now. And I think there's a big problem with this bill and that it's really pushed so much as this big, beautiful bill that's supposed to accomplish everything. And this administration is trying to tell us that it's not about the ballooning deficit that we have no issues because this is going to grow us out of it, and it's going to be, in addition to making DOGE cuts permanent, and I don't think that everybody's buying it.

But I do think that when you look at this, at the end of the day, if Democrats just oppose it, Republicans stand behind it, Democrats have a big issue. When you look at -- there's a really interesting study that just came out and the words that are associated with Democrats right now are slaw, slug and tortoise. Those are the animals associated with Democrats. Republicans are lions, tigers and sharks. They're going out there and seen as fighters, whereas the others are looking as obstructionists.

And if we just have Democrats obstruct and not come up with alternatives, and I understand that they're the minority party and it's really hard, they have to come up with something that's better.

AVLON: I appreciate that and I do think a lot of politics is long as strength weakness access. The Democrats do have a problem with their numbers. But the problem here is this bill. When you're cutting massive cuts to the V.A., when you're getting massive cuts that affect kids on Medicaid, when you get massive cuts to food stamps, those aren't going to be popular.

And, yes, Democrats need to make sure they ditch the identity politics. They need to move strongly to the center, but they need to also make sure that they're standing up for the things that make America actually great, which is when we actually lift everybody up. And that's not what this bill does.

CARLSON: And whether or not the DOGE cuts ever become a reality. Because now there's a bill that's going to come up to the Hill that will only actually cut $9 billion. Keep in mind, Elon Musk originally wanted to cut $2 trillion, then he backed it up to $1 trillion. Now, it's only going to be $9 billion. How does that offset this huge, big, beautiful bill? It doesn't.

TAPPER: President Trump was also asked about the unpredictable nature of his on again, off again trade war. He was asked about a term TACO Trade used by a Financial times columnist. It means, quote, TACO stands for Trump always chickens out. Here's part of the exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: What's your response to that?

TRUMP: Kick out?

REPORTER: Chicken out.

TRUMP: Oh, isn't that a chicken out? I've never heard that.

Because I gave the European Union a 50 percent tax tariff and they called up and they said, please, let's meet right now. Please, let's meet right now.

We had a dead country. We had a country people didn't think it was going to survive. And you ask a nasty question like that. It's called negotiation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What do you think, Gretchen?

CARLSON: I think that this may be the first negative nickname that sticks with Trump actually.

TAPPER: Trump TACO? CARLSON: Yes. No, but chickening out is the big part of this. Look, in Trump's world, he wants to be the most powerful person in the world, and more importantly, he wants to be the person who can make the best deals. If this actually sticks to him and he actually is chickening out on tariffs, and that becomes a reputation, that's something he won't want to wake up to every morning.

TAPPER: No. What he thinks is, his argument is, look, I make a tough offer and then they counter and then like I back off and that's just negotiation, I'm not chickening out, but it certainly got under his skin.

CARTER: It definitely got under his skin. And, look, I mean, he will always come back to the fact that he's making deals, he's negotiating and this is what he's going to stick to, and good for him for always coming back to his central message. But I do think that this attack is really smart, so leave it to Wall Street to come up with something that is going to stick.

I agree with you because this isn't the big looming threat to democracy. This isn't the thing that gets people so scared and overwhelmed. This is actually something that people can point to and say, actually, is that true? What is he going to do? Is he going to chicken out?

In a very similar to when Waltz called Vance and other Republicans weird, it's that kind of thing that sticks that makes a problem solvable, that doesn't make it so overwhelming that you can't deal with it. I think it's a really smart attack on him, and I think he at least responded to it in a very, very positive way. I think getting back to his negotiating and his deals and what he always does and what he is known for. But I'm with you, Gretchen. I think it's going to stick.

TAPPER: John, before we go, I wanted just note, Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger is set to retire this week. He took the job shortly after the January 6th attack. Today, CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked him about a plaque honoring police officers who defended the Capitol on January 6th, many of whom died by suicide afterward because of all the trauma, maybe even traumatic brain injury. It was approved in 2022. It has not yet been installed, this plaque.

[18:25:00]

Take a listen to what the chief had to say.

TOM MANGER, CAPITOL POLICE CHIEF: At this point, I think that it's such a divisive issue that I don't imagine there's any discussions even going on.

My hope is that that both sides can, you know, find some middle ground to find a way to honor those officers that were here on the 6th.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What middle ground needs to be found when it comes to honoring police officers?

AVLON: Honoring police officers is the middle ground. It's not -- it should not be politically divisive to honor police officers who were attacked in an attack on our Capitol. The fact that the speaker of the House has cowardly hidden that plaque is because he is afraid, because he's afraid of Donald Trump, because he's afraid of the wrath. It's the opposite of law and order. This should not be divisive, but it's a sign of how Trump has normalized political violence with these, with the pardons, floating a pardon for the people trying to, you know, kidnap Gretchen Whitmer today.

This is how democracies get in deep, deep trouble. If you don't hold people accountable, you get more political violence. And at the very least, we should be able to honor our police officers that day, both of us, all of us.

TAPPER: Thanks to one and all for being here. I really appreciate it.

Fiery protests breaking out in Israel today as the country's war in Gaza hits the 600-day mark after Hamas attacked on October 7th, 2023. CNN's Jeremy Diamond is sitting down with the former hostage and the family members of a man still being held captive to hear their perspectives on this terrible milestone.

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[18:30:00]

TAPPER: In our World Lead, 600 days, 600 days, that's how long the families of some of the hostages being held by the terrorist group, Hamas, have been waiting for the return of their loved ones. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu marked the 600th day of what he calls the War of Resurrection with a speech confirming that Israel recently killed the de facto leader of Hamas, Mohammed Sinwar. But former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in an interview with CNN's Bianna Golodryga, had a much different view of what the Netanyahu government is doing in Gaza.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EHUD OLMERT, FORMER ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: What is it, if not a war crime? I mean, how can a serious person representing the Israeli government can spell it out in such an explicit manner that we should starve Gaza.

The group of thugs, which are now representing the Israeli government inside Israel, and, of course, the world, are committing actions which can't be interpreted in any other way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Today, a crowd of hungry Palestinians broke into a United Nations warehouse in Central Gaza, resulting in at least two deaths and multiple injuries. This comes only a day after a food distribution site was overrun by desperate Palestinians. Tel Aviv saw protests against Netanyahu's government. Demonstrators surrounded his Likud Party headquarters, set tires on fire, blocked streets, and in some cases were forcibly removed by police.

And then as CNN's Jeremy Diamond reports, there is the continued suffering of the hostages and all of the hostage families.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Lishay Miran has been fighting this fight for 600 days, 600 days since Hamas militants broke into her house and shattered her world, 600 days since they took this father from his home.

LISHAY MIRAN-LAVI, WIFE OF HOSTAGE OMRI MIRAN: At the moment that the terrorists get inside our home when he was sleeping here, I was here with Alma and Ronnie (ph) stand here next to the door with two knives in his head.

DIAMOND: Now visits to the home they once shared are interrupted by the sounds of war, jolting Lishay to her husband's dangerous reality.

What goes through your mind when you hear that?

MIRAN-LAVI: I think about them. I think about Omri, what's going on over there when they hear this. Yes, no, I'm really scared. I'm really scared. And I thought all the time what they think right now.

DIAMOND: And Keith Siegel knows exactly what the hostages are going through.

KEITH SIEGEL, ISRAELI-AMERICAN HELD HOSTAGE BY HAMAS: It haunts me daily.

DIAMOND: He survived 484 days in Hamas captivity. And during abuse --

SIEGEL: I was beaten by terrorists. I experienced physical abuse, psychological, emotional abuse.

DIAMOND: And Israeli bombing.

SIEGEL: I spent most of my time in captivity above ground, and I can tell you that it's scary. I can remember that I was sitting on a chair next to a window in an apartment on the fifth floor. A house right next to the apartment that we were staying in was bombed. I was blown off the chair onto the floor. The windows obviously were all shattered, broken.

DIAMOND: And so as these bombardments are now intensifying, as the Israeli military is threatening to further expand this military offensive, what's going through your mind?

SIEGEL: I worry. I worry about the dangers that the hostages are in. Again, they're in a life-threatening situation.

DIAMOND: It seems like what you're saying is that expanding military operations in Gaza increases the threat to the hostages' lives.

SIEGEL: Yes, I believe so.

[18:35:00]

DIAMOND: Omri Miran is among the hostages he is worried about. They spent nearly six months together in captivity, bonding over music and family.

SIEGEL: We talked a lot about Lishay and daughters, Ronnie and Alma, who are now aged four and two. It was very difficult for me to think about his daughters growing up without their dad.

DIAMOND: After Siegel broke down while filming a hostage video, it was Omri who comforted him.

SIEGEL: He helped me very much. He really calmed me down.

DIAMOND: Siegel also spent 67 days with Matan Angrest, a now 22-year- old Israeli soldier.

It sounds like you carry Omri and Matan with you every day.

SIEGEL: Absolutely. Yes, absolutely, I think about them every day, many times a day. And I worry about them. And I miss them.

DIAMOND: Omri cried out to Siegel and his family last month in this hostage video. His wife saw a different man.

MIRAN-LAVI: His eyes was really like it's -- it's not him.

DIAMOND: But she's convinced their daughters will get their father back.

When they ask you, will he come home, do you tell them that he will?

MIRAN-LAVI: Yes, all the time. You know, I don't know if it's going to be tomorrow, and I don't know if it's going to be in one year from now, but they know, in my heart, I know that he's going to come back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DIAMOND (on camera): And, Jake, 600 days later, there are still 58 hostages being held in Gaza, 20 of whom are believed to be alive. And while the Israeli government is ramping up its attacks in Gaza, the hostage families say it is a deal, not military pressure, that will bring their loved ones home. Like a majority of Israelis, they are calling for a deal that will end the war and bring all of the hostages home. Jake?

TAPPER: Jeremy Diamond in Israel for us, thank you so much.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:40:00]

TAPPER: And we're back with our Business Leaders series where we talk to small business owners from coast-to-coast about President Trump's tariffs. Many are not thrilled with the impacts. Some are feeling enthusiastic.

You've seen the work of today's guest before. His company produced Ralph Lauren's designs for Team USA's opening ceremonies. Look at the Paris Olympics last summer. Ferrara Manufacturing is its name. It's a Queens, New York-based apparel company with experience creating pieces for the military, luxury fashion brands, healthcare and more.

And CEO Joseph Ferrara joins us now. Joseph, thank you for joining. The Trump administration's goal with the tariffs is to bring manufacturing back to American companies, such as yours. What have the tariffs done for your business since they were enacted April 2nd?

JOSEPH FERRARA, CEO, FERRARA MANUFACTURING: Well, thanks for visiting, Jake. I appreciate it. You know, we're a family business. We've been in business since 1987, 38 years manufacturing, as you say, for Ralph Lauren and the Olympics and the U.S. military. And since the tariffs have been introduced, it's had a profound impact, an immediate impact in two regards.

The first small and medium sized brands, they're giving us orders that we haven't seen before and they're increasing orders that they already had. They have shifted production here. We're running overtime tight now. That's not staged overtime. It's real here at Ferrara, in the factory. People are working for those orders.

Second impact is large brands. They're almost in a state of paralysis, wondering where are things going to land, where's the predictability they need to re-shift and re-jig their supply chains. We're waiting to see what large brands do. There's lots of conversations right now about our costing and our pricing.

Our pricing right now is staying stable. What's happened is the pricing around the world has increased nearly overnight. That's been a positive impact for us and we're waiting to see where the impact's going to land for next year.

TAPPER: Have you had to adjust your pricing structure at all given the changes to the supply chain or to keep up with the demand?

FERRARA: Yes, it's a great question. People keep asking that. Our prices have remained relatively stable. Why? Because we're making high value products. We're making high value products, tailored products that require three and four hours of work, labor into those products. So, our main input is labor. Because of that our impact on pricing is not with materials and imported inputs, but rather it's with our labor. And so our prices have remained stable. What's happened is Europe, Italy, Portugal, Turkey, their prices have gone up.

TAPPER: How are tariffs impacting your ability, if at all, to make plans to grow your business in the future given all the big brands that seem paralyzed, in your view, because of all the uncertainty? FERRARA: You know, it's the million dollar question. So, we're sitting here, we have 115 employees, and we're looking into 2026 saying, are we going to hire another 100 employees? The answer is if the big brands, Nordstrom, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, if the big brands say, we want work domestically, we're going to hire a hundred people.

And what's really interesting about hiring 100 people on top of the 115 we already have is 15 of those employees are going to be engineers. We're not looking at this opportunity, and we see it as an opportunity. We're not looking at this opportunity as one to squander. We're looking this as an opportunity to re-imagine manufacturing in the United States, to re-imagine how things are done with advanced automation. Some of the biggest gains we've had has been in automation, and that's been driven by the industrial base and the industrial engineers that we've hired.

[18:45:02]

They're eager -- they're eager to join our industry. Our industry, the apparel industry, we started the first revolution, industrial revolution here in the United States. We developed China to the strength and power that it is today.

I say we can now develop industrial engineer base for advanced manufacturing here in the United States for the next industrial revolution. I know that sounds grand, but we're not kidding. We're dead serious about it.

TAPPER: Fascinating stuff.

The business one more time is Ferrara Manufacturing, based in Queens, New York. The guest, Joseph Ferrara. Thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it.

FERRARA: Jake, thank you very much.

A growing number of students are using A.I., artificial intelligence, to help with their schoolwork. Is that necessarily a bad thing? I'm going to ask a lecturer who just went viral with his post on A.I. in the classroom.

That's next.

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TAPPER: In our tech lead, artificial intelligence is often hailed as the future of technology and, according to some, has the potential to totally upend society as we know it.

One thing, though, is certain, A.I. is perceived by students as great at doing homework. Schools around the country are reckoning with a wave of cheating using A.I. that seems impossible to stop.

[18:50:05] Joining me to discuss is Stephen Cicirelli, a lecturer of English at Saint Peter's University in Jersey City, New Jersey. He has some firsthand experience with students using A.I.

Thanks so much for being here. Thanks for crossing the bridge.

STEPHEN CICIRELLI, LECTURER, ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, SAINT PETER'S UNIVERSITY: Appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks.

TAPPER: So you went viral a couple of weeks ago when you posted about a student of yours who had submitted a research paper written by A.I. You wrote, quote, I just failed a student for submitting an A.I. written research paper, and she sent me an obviously A.I. written email apologizing, asking if there is anything she can do to improve her grade. We are through the looking glass, folks.

How could you tell that the paper and the email were written by A.I.?

CICIRELLI: Well, the email was, I'm speculating about the email, but I got I got to know her writing really well over the semester, as I do with all of my students. I have them do enough in-class work where I tell them their writing is like a fingerprint. I get to know it really well.

And so I -- when I -- if it -- when it doesn't pass the smell test, I'm kind of I then go to Google Docs. So, the email I suspected was -- she didn't write it for sure. Whether it was A.I, I'm -- it had -- it had the feel of A.I., but the paper itself, she was citing real books, but the quotes did not exist. The page numbers were the -- citing page 700 in the book only had 300 pages. So, the paper was easy. But the email, I'm -- I have a high degree of probability, but not 100 percent sure.

TAPPER: Regardless of how any of us feel about A.I., it's obviously not going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, it's getting more popular I think it's fair to say.

According to a poll released by the Pew Research Center in January, the number of American teens who admitted they used A.I. in their schoolwork doubled from 13 percent in 2023 to 26 percent in 2024, and this is admitted. This is the number that admitted it.

What can schools and teachers do to ensure that work is actually being completed by students when A.I. is not permitted?

CICIRELLI: I mean, I think -- I think the Google Docs approach that I've been using has helped, which is I have in my syllabus that if they have to do all of their drafting in a Google Doc, and I can track the document history minute by minute, so I can see if at 12:59, there was nothing written in the document. And then at 1:00 p.m., there was an entire paper. I suspect that it was coming in from somewhere.

I don't even have to prove its A.I. because I just have my syllabus. If you don't do the drafting in the assignment, in the -- in the Google Doc, I'm not reading it. And so, I've caught a bunch of people that way. In fact, that's how I caught the -- how I caught the student that I tweeted about. Also, in addition to the made up quotes, that's - that's a way.

I mean, doing more, doing more in-class writing, I think, too you know, I also, you know, I teach I think its also interesting to note, too, I teach creative writing, and I -- and I write fiction myself, and I haven't had any cheating in those classes.

TAPPER: In fiction.

CICIRELLI: Yeah. When I teach creative writing and I and I wonder if that's because a lot of them are English majors and they've already sort of bought into the idea that human expression is a good thing and that we should we should write right from our heart. Or is it that the assignments actually speak to something about like that's more personal to them, and we need to maybe tailor assignments more that way?

TAPPER: So, the heart of the issue in your -- in your nonfiction class seems to be that there are a lot of students. And this is not -- this is not particular to your students. There are a lot of kids out there who don't want to learn. They just want to pass.

CICIRELLI: Right.

TAPPER: And just get the degree and move on.

What can we do as a society to encourage kids to actually want to learn, not just want to pass and get it over with?

CICIRELLI: I think -- I think a huge part of it is we have to let -- have to show, because I think when we talk, when we have these conversations, I think students, young people, especially -- people who sort of style themselves as technologists, don't even think there's a problem. They think this is just -- this is just like the Internet.

And I think one of the -- a couple of the authors that I really like, someone like Jonathan Haidt, someone like Cal Newport, who's himself a computer scientist, they pointed out that not all screens are created equal. We made a huge mistake as a society in thinking that just because we're scrolling social media on a screen and we watch movies on a screen, that they're -- that they're doing the same thing to us, they're absolutely not. And so at least Haidt showed that.

I think we need to do the same thing with A.I. I don't think -- I don't think A.I. is just like the Internet. I think, when the early Internet came out, we were referring to I mean, we still talk about web pages. It was much more of a book. We understood the internet much more as like a book.

And I think -- I think A.I. is much more like social media. We're interfacing with A.I. and much more the way we are social media, which is that quick dopamine hit of I get to talk to something and get feedback right away, and talk to it, and get feedback right away. I think we're going to see maybe a couple of years down the road that it's having some of the same effects that social media is having on young people. TAPPER: Which is not good. Stephen Cicirelli, thanks so much for

joining us. Really appreciate it.

We're back with our last leads next.

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[18:59:26]

TAPPER: Our last late start in our out of this world lead. Elon Musk says SpaceX will pick up the pace of its starship test flights after its ninth test launch last night ended in failure. SpaceX says the spacecraft lost control during its reentry to earth and likely broke up somewhere over the Indian Ocean. The rocket did make it further into its flight than previous tests this year.

In our national lead, a remarkable headline from "The Richmond Times- Dispatch", John Tyler, the 10th president of the United States who left office in 1840. In the 1840s, has a grandson who just died, Harrison Ruffin Tyler was 96 years old. President Tyler was 63 when he fathered his son, Lyon. And Lyon was in his 70s when Harrison came along. Harrison was a bridge to the nation's complicated past.

A reminder that history is never as far away as we think.

"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts now. I will see you tomorrow.