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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Musk Says He Will Continue To Advise Trump As He Formally Ends His Time In Government; Musk Reacts To "New York Times" Report On His Alleged Drug Use; Biden Brushes Off Concerns Over His Mental Capabilities; Trump Calls Conservative Activist A "Sleazebag"; Trump Touts "Blockbuster" Deal Between Japan's Nippon & U.S. Steel; Americans Pulled Back On Spending In April Amid Trump Tariffs. Aired 5-6p ET
Aired May 30, 2025 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SMERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Oftentimes written and record labels will say, well, until the debt is paid, you don't get those rights back, which is oftentimes 20, 30 years. By that point, there's any -- there's not any value left. So this might be record precedent setting for a lot of other artists out there to challenge those music industries to say, hey, wait a minute here, I want the rights to my songs, rights to my videos. We'll see.
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I don't know. Taylor is Taylor. I'm not sure that the record industry is going to change, but --
SINGLETON: Maybe, Louie (ph).
GARCIA-NAVARRO: -- maybe. Maybe.
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: She's a singular force.
All right. Phil Mattingly standing by for "The Lead." So how much Taylor in your house? Lots or not so much.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Every single morning when I take the girls to school drop off, it has to be on.
HUNT: I love it.
MATTINGLY: Good role model from a business perspective. Still a little fixated though, Kasie, on Kevin Hassett dropping a Harry Potter reference earlier.
HUNT: Covered on on the stairs.
MATTINGLY: So we're going to need to work through that. Thanks so much, Kasie.
HUNT: Have a great show.
MATTINGLY: We'll see you back in "The Arena" next week. Have a great weekend.
[17:00:45] MATTINGLY: Well, mystery of the day, what was with Elon Musk in that black eye? The Lead starts right now.
The world's richest man getting out of dodge, make that DOGE with an Oval office send off on the same day of a damning report about Musk and alleged drug use. But first, President Trump on the road arriving just moments ago in battleground Pennsylvania and minutes away from touting a deal that will keep steel jobs in the U.S. Plus, photos online and a birthday video. Today's focus in the Sean Diddy Combs trial why his defense attorneys tried to make sure jurors knew all about them.
Welcome To Lead. I'm Phil Mattingly in for Jake Tapper. We are standing by for live remarks from President Donald Trump in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, as he plays up a deal he once vowed to oppose Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel's long announced plans to buy iconic American steelmaker U.S. Steel. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have worried about foreign control of a once keen key component of the U.S. industry. Trump himself saying in December, "I will block this deal from happening. Buyer beware".
Well, investors and union workers now waiting for more details on how this deal is actually going to work. We should know Trump says U.S. Steel will stay under U.S. control and calls this a partnership.
And while one partnership begins, another one ends. Today, first buddy Elon Musk got the heck out of DOGE. We're just going to keep doing that over and over again.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's not really funny.
MATTINGLY: Of course, it is funny. The Department of Government Efficiency is what we're talking about. The time he is legally allowed to serve as a so called special government employee coming to an end. And today the president hosted Musk at the White House for a farewell news conference, even presented Musk, as you see right there, with the key to the White House. Both Trump and Musk implied that the billionaire will still be involved in some form.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Elon gave an incredible service. Nobody like him and he had to go through the slings and the arrows, which is a shame because he's an incredible patriot.
ELON MUSK, ADVISER TO THE PRESIDENT: So I look forward to continuing to be a friend and adviser to the president, continuing to support DOGE's team. And we are relentlessly pursuing $1 trillion in waste and fraud reductions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: We start things off with CNN's Kristen Holmes, who is in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, traveling with the president.
Kristen, as we wait for the president, you heard those remarks from Elon Musk saying DOGE is working to pursue $1 trillion in waste and fraud reduction. That's a trillion less than I think what he said on the campaign. Definitely far away from where they are right now. What's the status of his brainchild?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, I think Elon Musk, like so many before him, Phil, has learned the hard way that it is much harder to get anything done in Washington than it seems. And maybe you should shoot a little lower than $2 trillion on your first go out of the gate. But you know, it's not even close to $1 trillion just to be clear, as well as White House itself has even said that the cuts only equal about $135 billion. Now, obviously Elon Musk and the DOGE, she would argue that these cuts are ongoing. But I do think we should point out that the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service has said that these cuts could actually cost the government more than $130 billion but time will only tell.
And there's something else that time will only tell, Phil, and that is what exactly is going to happen on the stage behind me tonight because we still don't anything about this deal between Nippon, the Japanese steel company Nippon and U.S. Steel. This has been ongoing. As you said Donald Trump had essentially said that this was never going to happen, that this couldn't happen. Now, a week ago coming out saying this deal was on the table, saying it's not going to be a Japanese purchase, it's going to be more of a partnership, of an investment. But there's a lot of questions about that because the Japanese company said it would never agree to those terms.
That would have to be completely Japanese own. Now, obviously we have asked the White House for any details on what this new deal has entailed, Donald Trump himself said he wouldn't make a deal unless it was controlled by the U.S. We did get a kind of tiny sliver of information from Senator Dave McCormick, Pennsylvania senator, who said that part of the deal was that the U.S. would control a majority of the board seats and therefore have some control over the company. But we still haven't seen that in writing.
[17:05:13]
And if you talk to the different various union groups, they're still opposed to this because they say they've seen no indication that this deal actually does put the U.S. in charge. But we are waiting to see what this rollout behind me looks like. Donald Trump just arrived a few minutes ago. We'll see what terms he agreed to. Of course, all of this happening as in backdrop Donald Trump, this administration is currently negotiating with Japan over tariffs.
MATTINGLY: Kristen Holmes, everything feels right in the world with you back at a campaign rally, soundtrack behind you. Maybe it's PTSD, but also feels right in the world as well. Kristen Holmes, as always, thank you so much.
While we await these remarks from the president, the panel is here to unpack the Trump-Musk news conference. We'll get -- we'll get into Pennsylvania and the Nippon deal shortly. There's a lot to get into there. But John, I want to start with you. The idea that -- well, first off, the black eye, I should note, was from what Musk said was his child -- he told his child to punch him in the face and his child punched him in the face. Which by the way, if you have kids is actually rather identifiable and understandable. So I believe that.
The idea of maintaining a relationship, friendship, but also advisory role in the Trump orbit and in this White House, how plausible do you think that is?
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, for some people like a Steve Bannon, it has worked out inside. They go in, they go out, they go in, they go out and they're outside promoting and helping the president, even if they're not intimately involved day to day, they sometimes criticize the president or criticize some of the president's people. Elon Musk has gotten into hot water with a lot of close Trump allies saying he disagrees with some of the things in the so called big beautiful bill.
Look, number one, reforming government and shrinking it where you can should be a bipartisan goal in this town. It's the way they went about it. I know a lot of people are focusing on the numbers are going to cost more, you're going to save more. We'll know that as we go through this. It's the way they went about it.
And the chainsaw image was everything. They didn't do it in a compassionate, smart way. And so they angered a lot of people and they made their job a lot harder. They didn't involve the Congress, they didn't involve the agencies, they didn't involve the unions, and they made it a lot harder.
Where does he go from here? He's leaving bruised. He's leaving with his own businesses. You know, he's very rich, right? So he's not suffering at, you know, at the grocery store, if you will.
But he's in -- he has issues with his own boards to deal with. It will be interesting to see as we get into the midterms, he just got burned in the Wisconsin State Supreme Court race. He says he's going to back away mostly from politics. His money, his money was hugely important to Trump and Republicans in the end of the last campaign. Will it be there in the next campaign is a giant question?
MATTINGLY: Yes, I think it's always a caveat. Republicans who wanted it were kind of tired of it, wanted him to leave, are --
KING: They'll take the check.
MATTINGLY: -- absolutely going to be calling him --
KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: They will -- yes, sure.
MATTINGLY: -- begging him for millions of dollars in the next --
FINNEY: Yes.
MATTINGLY: -- year and a half. I wanted to ask Ashley Davis this, you know, Musk said something about kind of how DOGE was perceived and how that ended up being a bit of a hurdle for them. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MUSK: It just became a bit ridiculous where anything, any cut anywhere was (inaudible) DOGE, yet including things that made no sense. And we would agree, made no sense.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: I am of the mind that they were more successful than people probably realize, and that it's very much an ongoing operation at this point in time. But also that Musk was a primary reason why they became a scapegoat of everything, his own actions.
ASHLEY DAVIS, SENIOR PRODUCER, "INSIDE POLITICS": Well, and if I were the inside of the White House, I think it was fine for him to be the face -- the boogeyman, so to speak, of these cuts. I mean, he was. He's the one that gave up his entire reputation because of this cutting the government, whether it was from Bush one, Bush two, Clinton break, I mean, it's really hard to do. And you're right, they went in scorched earth. But just -- I know when we tried to do it under Bush, it just -- it's impossible.
But they caused a lot of really hard problems for the party. And I think him leaving now maybe gives us 18 months to recover from some of this stuff. But one of the things I just want to go back to about you saying he's going to be an advisor or him saying he's going to be an advisor is -- I mean, he is the first, second, third richest guy in the world, depending on what day it is. And he has --
KING: I it's he's always (ph) actually.
DAVIS: And he's disrupted so many industries in a positive way. I mean, Joe Biden's team used him as a -- as a resource as well. I mean, I don't think he's going to be a political adviser, but I think he could be an advisor on some of the things that he has done well, but also, I think the president likes them.
MATTINGLY: Yes.
KING: Yes.
MATTINGLY: There's clearly a relationship there, because --
FINNEY: Always answer.
DAVIS: Yes.
MATTINGLY: -- let's be very clear, and because of the wealth and because of this very kind of, I don't know, that there's been precedent for somebody like him, at least not since kind of the Gilded Age, he was a very unique figure in the almost even relationship that he had, like, parallel relationship he had on some level with the president.
[17:10:02] FINNEY: Yes.
MATTINGLY: And that becomes particularly acute when you have a report like the "New York Times" today, which detailed allegations of extensive drug use over time, particularly when he was in the White house saying, quote, "Mr. Musk's drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a well-known effect of chronic use." Now, we should note CNN has reached out to Musk. He was asked about it today in the Oval Office. Here's how he responded.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is a "New York Times" report today that accuses you of blurring a line --
MUSK: Wait, wait, wait.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- between --
MUSK: Is the New York -- is "New York Times," is that the same publication that got a Pulitzer Prize for false reporting on the Russiagate? Is it the same organization? I got to check my Pulitzer --
MUSK: I think -- I think it is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- my Pulitzer counter.
TRUMP: It is.
MUSK: But so I think that -- I think the judge just ruled against "New York Times" for their lies about the Russiagate hoax and that they might have to give back that Pulitzer Prize. That "New York Times," let's move on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FINNEY: Yes, he's picked up some tricks from Trump, hadn't he? I do got to give -- as a former Clinton administration official, I got to give some credit to Vice President Al Gore reinventing government. People rolled their eyes, but he actually got a lot done and they did it in a way that didn't freak everybody out.
A couple of things though about Musk, I mean, I don't want to trivialize the drug use because there are people who use it for therapeutic reasons. I don't know a lot about what his use, but he's just an odd guy and he has shown up in ways that were sure people want his money, but this, you know, taking this hatchet chainsaw, pick your, you know, metaphor, one of the political problems that I think that Trump and the Republican Party are realizing, you know, there have been a lot of stories about how their base -- they're increasingly bringing in working class voters. Well, guess what, they care about those steel jobs. They care when you're cutting agencies like the VA or Department of Education. And so I do think that that's part of the tension that we've seen playing out. We haven't talked about it a lot, but part of the tension that's been playing out is the voters who actually care about some of these things are different than some of the voters who traditionally in the Republican base. And so they are getting some blowback. And we're even seeing in the consumer confidence numbers that they don't believe what Trump is telling them. They may not say they don't like Trump, but obviously there's -- they're not so sure about tariffs and all of this. And I do think they're going to -- there's going to be some pressure to fill in the details.
And I certainly think the question about DOGE and whether or not it was a success, you know, it could end up in 18 months being a complete disaster. And Trump and his administration will absolutely own that.
MATTINGLY: The point Karen's making about voters, John, you know, we've all been locked in Washington because there's been a lot of news. It's been difficult to get out. You've been able to continue to get out, as you did throughout the campaign, and talk to people, which is invaluable as your reporting continues to show. What are you hearing?
KING: It depends who you're talking about, right? In the sense of Elon Musk, part of the Trump base, the hardcore Trump base, they love Elon Musk, right? They love Elon Musk because they love his money. He helped Donald Trump win, but they love him because he makes everybody in Washington mad except for Donald Trump, and that's what they like. They like kicking the establishment in the teeth.
They like everybody being mad, even Republican members of Congress. A Trump voter -- a hardcore Trump voter, sees Republicans in Congress, Democrats in Congress, everybody complaining about Elon Musk, and they say, thank you, Mr. President, and thank you, Elon Musk.
My question is the people in that room, right? The slice of people who maybe 20 years ago were Democrats, who vote for Trump, who are not hardcore Trump voters, who don't care about sideshows, they care about the economy. They care about -- they voted -- a lot of them voted for Trump, then voted for Biden and then voted for Trump because of the cost of living and they thought Trump, at least pre COVID, the Trump economy was humming along, I was doing much better, prices were lower, I want that back. They don't have it back today.
We're only four months in. It's not fair to say, aha, Donald Trump has failed. We're only four months in. But he has been his own worst enemy, as you know better than I do, with all this tariff on tariff off, tariff on tariff off. The uncertainty, the tumult in the economy has hurt him.
Now he's about to embrace a deal he once opposed and we don't know anything about it, right? If there's actual U.S. control and this company starts to thrive, then Donald Trump, more importantly for Republicans, Republicans on the ballot in 2026 will benefit from it. If we find out in six months, you know, Nippon Steel, if it wants to, can shut that factory down or shut that company down or cost American steel jobs, then it will become a liability. That is the mystery of Trump. He says a lot of things that don't turn out to be exactly true. He says some things that don't turn out to be at all true. So this is a -- that is much bigger than Elon Musk.
MATTINGLY: Real quick.
DAVIS: This is my hood so I've got a lot to say about it. But we can do it now.
MATTINGLY: Yes. No, no. And to be very clear, we're going to talk about this as we -- as we wait for the president. Everybody stick around because there's a lot we need to get into. This is far more important than what you saw in the Oval Office today, in my humble opinion.
And we'll all be talking about it as we await the president to come up and start speaking. We are standing by to hear from President Trump from Pennsylvania. We will dip into it when it begins.
[17:14:56]
Plus, a public event earlier today former President Joe Biden. His response when asked about reports detailing his cognitive decline. And the Trump's sharp complaints about judges who rule against him. We heard another just today. But why the silence when other rulings are actually going his way?
That and much more. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTINGLY: Back with our politics lead. We are waiting for remarks from President Trump. He's in Pennsylvania celebrating the U.S. Steel deal with Japan, a deal he wants opposed so waiting for the details here which are going to be very important. He will presumably lay them out shortly.
In the meantime, my panel is back with me and I want to talk, Karen Finney, first about --
FINNEY: Of course.
MATTINGLY: -- about his predecessor.
FINNEY: Let me guess, Joe Biden?
MATTINGLY: I asked John about voters on the ground, Ashley about how Republicans are feeling about things, you have the unfortunate roll.
FINNEY: It's only fair.
MATTINGLY: Earlier today former President Biden I spoke with reporters at a Memorial Day event. Watch this exchange with CNN's Arlette Saenz.
[17:20:05]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And there's also been a lot of discussion recently about your mental and physical capabilities while you were in office.
JOE BIDEN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You can see that I'm mentally incompetent and I can't walk and I can beat the hell out of both of them.
SAENZ: Do you want to reply to any of those reports and also to the fact that there are some Democrats who are now questioning whether you should have run for reelection in the first place?
BIDEN: Why didn't they run against me then? Because I would have beaten them.
SAENZ: Do you have any regrets?
BIDEN: No, I don't have any regrets.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FINNEY: Yes, I don't love that answer. I'll be honest with you about that one. Look, I was someone who believed that when he said he was going to be a bridge, I thought that was the right decision and I had hoped that he would do that. And I -- you know, the revelations that we've seen in the book by our own Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson of Axios --
MATTINGLY: Two people. Would that both of them, two people --
FINNEY: Beat them?
MATTINGLY: -- to authors?
FINNEY: The coauthor? Sorry, did I -- yes.
MATTINGLY: He left that somewhat ambiguous.
FINNEY: Yes.
KING: You're connecting the proper dots, I believe.
FINNEY: But look, personally, I've been shocked and very disappointed and it's malpractice. The people who are around him should never have let him believe that he could win because I can tell you myself and many Democrats were looking at data even early in the year, certainly by June, he was not consolidating the base, period, full stop. So there was not a good path. And they were there telling us there was a path. And it hurts my heart that he actually, on this day, that is the anniversary of his child's death, has to be answering questions like that.
And there's a whole number of reasons how we got to that point. But it's -- you know, I think we know that it was not a good decision for him to run for reelection, unfortunately. KING: Yes. He was not going to win the election. And waiting so long made it a lot harder for the vice president to win the election. I don't know that she could have won it. He got up 10 or 50 or 100 days earlier.
I don't know if a Democrat would have won it if he got out a lot earlier. And as Karen said, just announced he wasn't running for reelection. They had a primary process. We don't know the answers to those questions. We will never know the answers to those questions because of what they did, which was the wrong course.
They tried to hold on for too long when they all knew inside the White House it wasn't going to work. And then the debate happened, and they knew it wasn't going to work.
Let me be a citizen for a minute. It was nice to see the former president. We should be happy when we see any of our former presidents. It was encouraging when he said his prognosis for his cancer treatment so far is good.
I think whenever he's talking about looking backwards, first time out since the cancer diagnosis, he was going to speak to reporters. The more he talks about that, the more he's just going to stoke that conversation and he should move on to what is my post presidency and find something to talk about. Because when he talks about that, he not only gives the Republicans fodder to say cover up, he gives Democrats angst and they have to have that debate all over again about, where were you, what did you say, why didn't you do it sooner?
DAVIS: He should take the George Bush model and -- well, George Bush, Obama just, like --
FINNEY: Yes.
DAVIS: -- disappear. But, you know, he served this country most of his life. And I think as a Republican, no matter what, I agree with you. We respect the presidency, which does bother me when everyone hates Trump so bad. And I understand you hate his policies, but like, my thing, even if I don't like Joe Biden's policies or Barack Obama's policies, they were elected president of the United States and they're our president.
However, I think this guy's being disgraced. Not saying it's his fault, his staff's fault, I don't know, I don't care. But he's not going to be around much longer. Let's give the guy peace.
MATTINGLY: Yes. I think one of the things -- I -- I agree with everything that John said, and as somebody who's covered him not just in his presidency, but also in the Senate when he was VP as well, but also the -- how should he respond in this moment? Like the fact it's gotten to this point --
FINNEY: Sure.
MATTINGLY: -- and his legacy after his career and given everything that his family's been through. I don't know. KING: It's 2025. We're here to mark our somber day.
FINNEY: Yes. That's right.
KING: It's great to see you all.
DAVIS: Yes. And you don't respond to this.
KING: Yes, it's great to see you all. That's what you do.
FINNEY: And look, I'm going to fight cancer, and I'm going to stay committed to the journey I started with the Cancer Moonshot, right? I mean, he understands more personally than most of us both for himself and for his family, how important. My father died of cancer. I love that he's working on that. Talk about that.
Stay focused on that.
MATTINGLY: Can I ask you, how has George Bush stayed so silent for so long?
DAVIS: He's a very disciplined man. Very disciplined. But he -- and it's not a secret that he's not a huge fan of this president. He's obviously supportive of a lot of his policies, but not supportive of maybe the rhetoric. But he -- that was -- that was what he said when we were in the White House when he was leaving.
Like, it is not my position to comment as a past president on anything moving forward. He'll give advice to people. There are certain people that he has asked to run for Senate because he thought it was important. I remember Senator Hogan like he kind of pushed him over. That didn't work out too well.
Not Senator Hogan, Governor Hogan, excuse me, wanting to be senator. But my point is he does not do anything publicly.
MATTINGLY: Yes. And there's no poll asides. And I was not surprised to see the president do a poll side. This was his first opportunity to respond. It certainly wasn't going to pass that up. Interesting to see how this goes going forward.
[17:25:11]
All right, guys, stand by. You've been watching on your screen as we've been talking. President Trump is getting a briefing right now from, I believe, union workers, steelworkers involved in the company where this transaction is supposed to take place that the president is going to announce later this evening. And we are standing by. Any moment he will be speaking in Pennsylvania about that new U.S. Steel deal.
Plus, Trump's sharp critique of judges who've ruled against him. A conservative voice who advised Trump on many of his judicial appointments is responding to that criticism. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [17:30:04]
MATTINGLY: We are waiting on President Trump to speak in Pennsylvania, celebrating the U.S. steel deal with Japan, a deal that he once opposed. Meantime, in our Law and Justice lead, this afternoon in the Oval Office, President Trump added to his criticism of judges who rule against his wishes and policies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You can't have a judge in Boston running foreign policy in places all over the country because he is a -- he's a got a liberal bent or he's a radical left person. That's what the executive branch is for, and you have checks and balances.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTINGLY: CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig joins us now. Elie, Trump wasn't talking about any specific case in that answer, but liberal or radical judges, to use his terms, in general. You've argued that Trump is cherry-picking the losses that he complains about. Why?
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Jake. Jake, sorry, Phil, I'm used to Jake. Look, it is a fact that Donald Trump is seeking to push the outer boundaries of his executive power. He and his team will tell you that. They will admit it. They brag about it. And when you do that, you're going to win sometimes in court, but you're going to lose sometimes in court also.
And the record really doesn't bear out Donald Trump's complaint. Look, earlier today, Donald Trump won a major victory in the Supreme Court, 7-2 on immigration. He had one of the liberal justices, Justice Elena Kagan, joining the conservatives.
Last week, he won another immigration decision in the Supreme Court. That one was 8-1 with two of the liberal justices joining with the conservatives. So it seems that Trump is indeed cherry-picking his losses and using them as a basis for grievance, but it's really not warranted when you look at the full record.
MATTINGLY: Yes. And just to reiterate, the tariff loss that they had, which has currently been stayed, one of those judges was a Trump judge. One of them was a Reagan judge. They also venue shop the Trump administration when it turns of things that they complained about that they actually also do. I -- I have to ask you, Elie, Trump lashing out at Leonard Leo, conservative legal activist. Leo was the head of the Federalist Society.
Look, to be completely honest, let's use my own words here. No one is more responsible for the kind of full-scale success the conservative legal movement has had than Leonard Leo. Maybe I'm generalizing a little bit here, but the Trump attacked him. What did you make of that?
HONIG: There is a big difference, Phil, between being Trumpist and being conservative in the traditional meaning of the term conservative. You look at Mr. Leo's career, dating back to his work with the Federalist Society. Those are traditional conservative values, but they don't always align with Donald Trump's values.
I'll give you one example. If we look at the way Donald Trump has targeted Harvard, the way he is seeking to have government go in there and micromanage the private speech of students and teachers, that is against every conservative, as the term is properly used, principle ever known over the last several decades.
So while Leonard Leo and Donald Trump's agendas have often aligned, they are not one in the same. They are not one in the same doctrine of legal thought.
MATTINGLY: And not to fixate on the tariff case, but you can tell what I cover in my day job. They lost that case, or at least in the trade court, based on judges citing conservative rule like priorities, essentially, in terms of what they were actually losing on, which we can get into later. But I do want to ask you, Elie, like for his part, Leo's been gracious. He wrote, quote, I'm very grateful for President Trump transforming the federal courts. It was a privilege being involved.
There's more work to be done, for sure. But the federal judiciary is better than it's ever been in modern history. And that will be President Trump's most important legacy. The Federalist Society, for people who are unfamiliar with it, explain its role in shaping the federal judiciary.
HONIG: This is a group that's effect on the judiciary has been so underappreciated. This is a group that goes back to the 1980s that was started really in law schools and academia like -- by people like Leonard Leo. Robert Bork was another prominent driver of the Federalist Society. And if you look at pretty much any prominent conservative, scholar conservative, federal judge conservative Supreme Court justice, they have come up through it's almost like a farm system in baseball. They have come up through that system.
They have been trained. They have contributed scholarship to this. And the basic tenets of the Federalist Society are what I would consider sort of old school, 80s and 90s era conservatism, small government, low taxes, keep the government out of people's private affairs. And as we said in the last -- in the lat point we discussed, Phil, that's not always the same thing Donald Trump is looking to do.
But yes, the Federalist Society is one of the great underappreciated forces shaping our judiciary and our jurisprudence in this country.
MATTINGLY: Before I let you go, Elie, I do want to ask you about your new piece that just published in "New York Magazine's" intelligence section. It's entitled Students Will Lose Trump's War on Harvard. What's kind of the core you're arguing here?
HONIG: Harvard has beaten Donald Trump in the courts and they will absolutely continue to beat him at every step of the way, including if necessary, the Supreme Court. Exactly because what I said before, when the administration, when government says, hey, Harvard, private university, you need to adhere to a certain ideology, to a certain belief system. You need to audit your student body, which is something the administration ordered them to do. That violates the First Amendment by any liberal or conservative reading we've ever had.
[17:35:23]
And the shame of it is, I posit in the article, I don't think Donald Trump much cares if he wins or loses this in court. I think he benefits politically from just picking the fight with Harvard, you know, the rich kids who no one likes in the first place. The -- but the shame of it is Harvard may take on some damage from this, but who's really going to suffer is the students, especially those international students who right now, as of this moment, they are clear to go to Harvard, but that could change at any moment, depending on what happens in the courts.
I don't know what these international students are to do. And they're going to be the real victims. They're the ones who are really going to bear the cost of this fight.
MATTINGLY: Just for clarity, Elie was not saying that nobody likes rich kids. He was -- definitely check out that article.
HONIG: Listen Phil.
MATTINGLY: Yes, yes, go ahead.
HONIG: I have to say, I --I did go to Harvard Law School, but you and I are both state school kids all the way.
MATTINGLY: Yes. You -- you totally undercut your Rutgers bona fides by saying you also went to Harvard. Some of us just state school kids through and through. Elie Honig, my friend, good to see you, buddy. Thanks so much.
HONIG: Thanks, guys.
MATTINGLY: Well, much more to talk about, including President Trump's big steel event in Pennsylvania.
Plus, see how a Republican senator brushed off questions about Medicaid cuts in the President's so-called big, beautiful bill. Stay with us.
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[17:40:56]
MATTINGLY: Welcome back. President Trump has just taken the stage in Pennsylvania. He's there to talk about the U.S. steel deal with Japan, a deal he once opposed. Now we're waiting for details on it. Let's take a listen.
TRUMP: -- at the legendary Mon Valley Works Irvin Plant, Irvin Plant with the proud Pennsylvania patriots who are the heart and soul of U.S. steel. Thank you very much. That's great. Oh, you're going to be happy. You're going to be happy. There's a lot of money coming your way. It's a lot of money.
You're going to say, please, sir, we don't want this kind of success. It's too much, sir. We can't take. Please, we beg you. We don't want this much success. But we do really, don't we? We're going to be so successful. You have just -- you have just started. You're going to watch.
We're here today to celebrate a blockbuster agreement that will ensure this storied American company stays in American company. You're going to stay in American company. You know that, right? But we're going to have a great partner. We're going to have a great partner.
And I have to tell you, Japan has been a tremendous friend of mine during my years as president. And then we had a little hiatus. We had a rigged election. But then we won. We said, let's make it too big to rig. And they made it too big to rig.
And this is a much more powerful term than we could have ever had the other way. So a lot of things. God was looking down on us all for a lot of reason, including right there. A lot of reasons. We were -- we were blessed. And you're going to be blessed.
You're going to see that. It will keep its headquarters in the great city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where it belongs. For generations, the name United States Steel was synonymous with greatness, and now it will again be synonymous with greatness. That's what it's going to be.
The best and strongest steel on Earth will forever be made in America and made in Pennsylvania. And I want to thank a man that I saw right at the beginning of this whole thing during my first term, as we call it, U.S. Steel President Dave Barrett. Dave, thank you very much, wherever you may be, wherever you may be. Thank you, Dave.
And he came to the White House and he said, sir, we're in trouble. We need help. He was put there to save the company, right? I remember it so well. Like yesterday, he was put there. They hired him to save the company. And he came up and he said, we need help, sir.
I said, what can we do? Because all the steel companies were going south. They were all in trouble. He said, if you could get tariffs, sir, and save this company. And I thought about it. I studied it up real quick. It took me about two minutes.
And I said, Dave, I think we're going to make you very happy. And we did make you happy, didn't we? We saved the company. We put 25 percent tariffs on your -- on your company. So we had protection. We were protected from outside horrible influence, including dumping where they were dumping steel all over the United States. And we saved it.
It was a great honor. And Dave was really the first one that brought it to my attention. And I appreciate it, Dave. You did a good job. You did a good job. He more than saved the company. He made the company great. This will be a great company in a very short period of time. Also, the vice chairman of Nippon Steel, Takahiro Mori, Takahiro, thank you very much. He's a great guy. Highly respected. He's highly respected all over the world for what he's done with steel. He's going to make -- this is -- this is going to be his pet project. It's going to be great. Thank you, Takahiro. Appreciate it.
We're also pleased to be joined by a man who's done a fantastic job. He's central. I always say he's central casting Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Where is Scott?
[17:45:04]
MATTINGLY: You've been listening to President Trump as he gives a speech in Pennsylvania? We're going to continue monitoring. We'll likely dip back in when we get more details, because this is a speech. The backdrop is a deal, a deal that Trump once said would not happen, but has been structured in a way that actually the details matter a ton as it pertains to U.S. steel and its purchase by Nippon Steel, a Japanese company.
John, I want to start with you in the sense of what you've seen on the ground in Pennsylvania. You were just there, other side of the state, I believe, recently in terms of what does this mean? What are people seeing out of this?
KING: There's some skepticism, even among Trump voters. I would hope every American listening to this would say, I hope he's right. I hope this is actually a deal that protects this as at least a semi-American company, leaves American control here, protects these jobs and creates more jobs. That should not be a political statement to say you hope the people of Western Pennsylvania have a thriving steel industry and they create new jobs, right?
It's a very important state. What struck me, though, is if you live this, if you live that industry, or I was on the other part of the state, I was in the Lehigh Valley factory town, right, iconic American industrial area going back to the American Industrial Revolution. They have lived since 1990 this, losing manufacturing jobs and then essentially bouncing on a flat line. Lowest point was during Obama, came back during Trump won, dropped during COVID, came back and leveled off during Biden, did come up some, and it's been flat in the first four months of Trump, maybe up a little bit, maybe down a little bit depending on the industry.
They would love this to work, but the workers have lived globalization. They've lived NAFTA. They live China in the World Trade Organization. So when Trump says tariffs, jobs, they say, no, sir, it doesn't work that way. They're Trump voters. They like him. They support him. They wish him well, but they think he's naive or overly optimistic about the power of tariffs, or at least about how quickly. They will say maybe in 20 years, but not tomorrow. And in the short term, tariffs are hurting them.
DAVIS: The only thing, like I'm seriously, I'm part -- I'm from here, this area, and the people in the audience care how they're going to get their food, how they're going to pay their groceries. And that company was not going to survive at the end of the day. And so something had to be done.
And I actually think if it wasn't an election year, Joe Biden probably would have figured out a deal as well. Like, I think this is something that just had to be done. Japan is an ally. They used the process, then it was a national security issue. Both sides did. But I think, listen, there's not an alternative, really, or there's not going to be how many jobs would be lost if it goes under.
FINNEY: But I think John's point is, it's about the timing, right? I mean, this is a race against the clock back up against the midterms. And what will voters say if, when they realize it's not coming back quickly, I still can't afford my groceries. They don't feel better. Are they going to feel like maybe we need to change some things up in Washington, or are they going to say, we're going to stay the course? I think that's the big question.
MATTINGLY: Yes. A lot of questions still need to be answered at this point, particularly on the details of this deal, which we hope to hear shortly. We'll continue to monitor. Thank you guys very much.
You're going to want to stick around for our next guest and what he's showing us. Here's a hint, surf and turf. Stew Leonard tells us how the newest wave of tariffs are affecting his prices. Stay with us.
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[17:52:16]
MATTINGLY: In our Money Lead, Americans reeling in their spending in the wake of President Trump's tariffs. That's according to new data from the Commerce Department, which said consumers saved more money in April compared to just one month earlier. They're also spending mostly on necessities, such as housing, health care, and groceries.
And now I want to bring in Stew Leonard. He's the CEO of Stu Leonard Grocery Stores, a small regional chain in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Stew, you source much of your food from U.S.-based suppliers. Have you noticed any disruption in the supply chain because of tariffs?
STEW LEONARD, CEO, STEW LEONARD'S GROCERY STORES: No. You know what? There's -- there's a couple groups of -- of tariff products here in Mexico and Canada for fresh foods tariff-free under the NAFTA Act. So we -- we have, like, you know, salmon's really hot right now. We have avocados, which is really the number one fruit in our -- in our whole produce section here. No tariffs on that. So we haven't raised the price.
Prices are the same as they were. You wouldn't even notice it. Now, here's where you do notice a tariff, things like this with bananas, OK? We're getting them from -- from South America. And then also we were getting cherries from Chile. But, you know, California is lighting up right now. We're in the local produce for America right now.
So a lot of things that we were buying from Chile and -- and -- and so forth, we're able to get from California, from Florida right now. And we're coming into local. New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York are producing some great stuff now.
MATTINGLY: So here on The Lead, we talk to small business owners just about every day about Trump's tariffs. Some are in favor, some aren't. One sector seeing some relief has been domestic seafood. Do you reap any of the benefits of that?
LEONARD: Well, oh, yes. You know, instead of buying, like, for instance, salmon from Norway, like -- like I saw you did this in the little thing here, but this is one of our nice 15-pound salmons that we have. The price is not going up on this right now. The same thing with things like this. I -- I know I heard you're a customer there, Phil. So here's something you would love for Father's Day. Right here is a big tomahawk steak. No increase in price on those. They're not tariffs. They're domestic, local products.
So I -- I think what we're seeing right now is there's a couple of things that are being impacted. Like, for instance, they don't grow bananas in the United States right here. What am I going to do? I got a tariff on those things. So what I've been doing with them is splitting it. So I'm eating half the tariff and the suppliers eating half the tariff.
[17:54:58]
That's going pretty well. Some of the time, though, I'm not even -- I'm -- I'm just taking the tariff on if they're a small supplier because I don't want to -- we don't want to hurt a small business that's selling to Stew Leonard's right now.
MATTINGLY: Yes. Please wrap that up. I texted my wife. We're going to be coming by to pick up that steak. That's a one sitting steak in the Mattingly household. Stew Leonard of Stew Leonard Grocery Stores, appreciate it, my friend. Thanks so much.
LEONARD: Hey, hey, Phil. I know -- I know you're on a tight thing here, but it's water safety time this year, right? This is drowning season. You notice that TikToker with 3 million, people just had her three-year-old drowned in the pool. I feel so terrible about it. But be careful with your kids around the water right now. OK, watch them. And it's like designated driver for drinking. You need a designated watcher for your kids around the pool. Please be safe around the water and -- and protect your kids.
MATTINGLY: I absolutely second that message. Really appreciate it, my friend. Thanks so much.
LEONARD: OK. All right.
MATTINGLY: Well, as we -- as we continue to monitor President Trump in Pennsylvania, we're also examining his larger economic agenda and why Trump now accuses China of violating a recent trade agreement.
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