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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Trump & Musk Feud Escalates With Personal Attacks; Elon Musk Calls For President Trump's Impeachment; German Chancellor Joins The Lead After Trump Meeting; New U.S. Travel Ban Fully Restricts Citizens From 12 Countries; Experts Warn A.I. Models Are Learning To Evade Human Control. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired June 05, 2025 - 17:00   ET

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

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Raisin bagel that made people lose their minds. Food and Wine magazine called it basically criminal. And who can forget when just 10 days into office, Mayor Bill de Blasio was seen eating pizza with a fork and a knife. That was, of course, forkgate at the time when columnists said de Blasio would never politically recover from it.

Jake Tapper, what is your morning breakfast order? And would you -- would you ever call it a bacon, cheese and egg?

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Well, I would never refer to my girlish figure. I mean, I think that's, that's the part -- that's the part of the sentence that I found quite odd, especially for Governor Cuomo himself to be invoking girlish figures.

HUNT: How can you be a New Yorker?

TAPPER: Maybe not too much. Maybe not to much.

HUNT: A New York poll and say that you don't eat bagels? Like, I'm sorry, what?

TAPPER: Maybe not so much with Governor Cuomo referencing girlish figures. But anyway, thanks so much, Kasie. We'll see you back in "The Arena" tomorrow.

HUNT: Have a great show.

[17:01:03]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Elon Musk just accused Trump of being in the Epstein files. And then it got worse from there. The Lead starts right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we're well anymore. And I'll be honest, I think he misses the place from our country.

ELON MUSK, TESLA CEO: Thank you.

TRUMP: Thank you, Elon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Breaking up is hard to do. A relationship disintegrating in front of the world between Elon Musk and President Trump going after each other viciously and non-stop in public view. The fallout ongoing as I speak. Plus, the man who was sitting right next to Trump right there, now here on The Lead, the newly elected Chancellor of Germany, why he wanted FaceTime with Trump on U.S. oil. And when the robots revolt, artificial intelligence going rogue. Researchers saying some models are even blackmailing their human creators to save themselves.

What sounds like a horrifying episode of Black Mirror is becoming all too real.

Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. This breaking news in our politics lead today, just in the last few hours, the relationship between President Donald J. Trump and billionaire Elon Musk has so rapidly disintegrated that Musk, without evidence, is now accusing President Trump of being in the as yet unreleased or as yet released Epstein files. Musk tweeted this afternoon, quote, "Time to drop the really big bomb. Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT."

This claim, which CNN cannot confirm, of course would imply that Trump was in some way name dropped in the case surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, the notorious and convicted pedophile who died by suicide in prison in 2019 while awaiting his federal sex trafficking trial. The accusation from Musk is about as nasty as it gets, accusing somebody of being a pedophile and then covering it up. Mr. Musk did not detail how he would know what was or what was not inside any unreleased filings related to Epstein assuming there are unreleased files related to Epstein, CNN's reached out to the White House for a response. We have not got one yet. Musk also knows that for years, conservatives and right wing figures have suggested that the U.S. government is hiding secrets, bipartisan secrets, Democrats and Republicans, relating to Jeffrey Epstein.

And these supporters of Mr. Trump have long been clamoring for the government to release more of the files. Trump, who was friends with Epstein decades ago, decades ago talked on the campaign trail about potentially releasing more files on Epstein.

We need to back up for a moment, though, and explain how we got to this particular friendship graveyard, given that just six days ago, when Mr. Musk, Elon Musk, left his role as an advisor to the president and head of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, President Trump gave Musk the key to the White House, the ceremonial golden key. Mr. Trump may now be changing the locks as this feud today essentially escalated publicly in real time.

While in the Oval Office with the German chancellor this morning, a reporter asked President Trump about Musk recently criticizing, viciously criticizing the so called one big beautiful bill, Elon had been calling on Congress to, quote, "kill the bill," saying it adds too much to the deficit. So here's what President Trump first said today about Elon's bill bashing just before noon Eastern Time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I've always liked Elon and it's always very surprised. I'd rather have him criticize me than the bill because the bill is incredible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[17:05:07]

TAPPER: So the president went on to talk about other subjects and, you know, be careful what you ask for when he says, I'd rather have him criticize me than the bill. The president went on to talk about other subjects, eventually doing the weave, the proverbial weave, back to the subject of Elon Musk. So this was at around 12:06 p.m. Eastern.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'm very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here, better than you people. He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden he had a problem. And he only developed the problem when he found out that we're going to have to cut the EV mandate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: The EV mandate, the electric vehicle mandate. Obviously Mr. Musk owns Tesla, which is a premier electric vehicle company, but it turns out Mr. Musk, Elon Musk, was watching that and he didn't let that one go unanswered. Thirteen minutes after President Trump said that, Musk posted, quote, "Whatever. Keep the EV solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil and gas subsidies are touched. Very unfair.

But ditch the mountain of disgusting pork in the bill. In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this. Even you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill. Slim and beautiful is the way," unquote.

As President Trump continued taking questions at the White House, Elon Musk launched into a full on Twitter or X post blitz repost at 12:25 p.m. the very clip where Trump says Musk only had a problem with the bill after he found out about cutting the electric vehicle mandates. Then Musk writes, quote, "False, this bill was never shown to me once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it," unquote. Shortly after that, 12:46 p.m. Eastern, is when a doctor might have officially called the time of death on the Trump-Musk relationship. Call it. Musk posted on his X platform, quote, "Without me, Trump would have lost the election.

Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate. Such ingratitude," unquote, hitting Trump where it hurts in the Electoral College there. And the rage posting continued. Musk even tagged Donald Trump saying, remember this showing a video of when Musk essentially turned the White House South Lawn into a Tesla car dealership and he gave Trump a Tesla, that red Tesla, which is still, according to our White House correspondent Kristen Holmes, still parked in the White House parking lot. The gloves were off.

12:37pm Eastern, President Trump takes to his own platform, Truth Social, not X, not Twitter, saying, quote, "Elon was wearing thin. I asked him to leave. I took away his electric vehicle mandate that forced everyone to buy electric cars that nobody else wanted that he knew for months I was going to do, and he just went crazy," unquote.

And within the same minute, Trump fired off another post saying, quote, "The easiest way to save money in our budget, billions and billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon's governmental subsidies and contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it," unquote.

That blow, of course, hitting Elon where it hurts in his wallet, especially given the Tesla shares today plummeted down 14.3 percent as this battle heated up. The selloff wiped about $150 billion off the market value of Tesla. And then about 30 minutes later, there it was, Musk dropping that major unfounded accusation about Trump being in the Epstein files. The insults are still flying back and forth. Elon posting on X, quote, "The Trump tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year."

I mean, lots going on and I don't even know what's happened in the last seven minutes since I've been talking to you. Let's talk to our panel.

Scott Jennings, first of all, does Trump, who gets you in the divorce, Trump or Elon? Look, I -- forget that --

SCOTT JENNINGS, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Let me just tell you what every Republican is doing, I have my-- here's where we are today. We're literally --

TAPPER: Yes.

JENNINGS: -- heads are in the garbage can right now. That's the -- that's the state of everybody I know at the moment. Not going to lie. It's an ugly day and you know you hate it when your friends are fighting. I continue to believe that their partnership last year saved America.

And I also continue to believe their goals are not mutually exclusive. Trump needs to pass his agenda, which this bill is his agenda. It's what he ran on. Elon wants to save America from going bankrupt, which they can also do if the Republicans in Congress and everybody works together. All of these things can happen when they fights get personal, though, and it means the enemy is advancing.

And in this case, it means the Democrats are laughing and advancing. So hopefully cooler heads will soon prevail and the president can get his agenda and Elon can convince the Republicans that the debt is a serious problem. But not going to lie, rough day for the Republicans. [17:10:11]

TAPPER: Alyssa Farah Griffin, Elon Musk retweeted a post from someone and this post said, "President versus Elon, who wins? My money's on Elon. Trump should be impeached and JD Vance should replace him." Elon Musk reposted that and wrote, "Yes." So now it is the official position of Elon Musk, presumably, that Trump should be impeached and JD Vance should replace him.

Your thoughts?

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, listen, I've had bad breakups, but this is wild. Listen, Elon's had a lot of attacks he's launched today. Of course, you brought up the claiming that Donald Trump is in the Epstein files, saying that he's going to cause a recession in the next quarter, and then, of course, this. But I will say the attack that I think is actually going to stick the most with President Trump is him essentially calling him a lame duck president. He's saying he's going to be here for three and a half years, I'm here for 40 years.

That is what Donald Trump is afraid of. If this bill doesn't get over the threshold and end up passing, it's his entire legislative agenda. The midterms are just a, you know, couple miles ahead. And he's realizing like this is the most damaging thing at this moment that could be happening. And for members of Congress on Capitol Hill, the conversations that they're having, the one Scott's avoiding right now are, listen, if you're up in these midterms, you really don't want to get crosswise with Elon Musk, who's willing to spend basically endlessly in your district if you support this bill.

Now, if you're somebody who's not up this cycle, you might wait it out. You might say, you know, I'm not going to get on the bad side of Donald Trump right now and be with him. But there's like, actual conversations countless members of Congress are having right now about where to be on Donald Trump's signature legislative items because of this rift.

TAPPER: And Paul Begala, we should point out, first of all, none of this back and forth between President Trump and Elon Musk does one thing to help any member of -- any member of the American people, not one. Not one American is helped by this, except, you know, potentially people who traffic in fun tweets. But Elon Musk also tweeted that in light of the president's statement about canceling his contracts, Elon Musk wrote, "SpaceX will begin decommission -- decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately." So there are really some actual impacts of this messy divorce potentially.

PAUL BEGALA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Yes, that's the thing. It's not just two man babies, you know, and real house husbands of Mar-a-Lago scratching each other's eyes out, I'm all for that, I'd buy popcorn and pay for that on cable. The problem is what you're saying, it's not just the engineers and scientists and good people in the SpaceX program, this bill that they're fighting over adds $2.4 trillion to the debt, that seems to be Mr. Musk's concern, he is right. It takes the largest debt in American history and then adds another $2 trillion to it. And at the same time, it punishes the working class.

So people ask me, are you for Musk or for Trump? I'm for the -- for the guy trying to, like, fix my car. That's who I'm for. Democrats ought to step in here and not choose between these two bloated, doughy billionaires, but get back to the working class. Donald Trump won the working class.

It breaks my heart. He won voters who make less than $50,000 a year, and his bill hammers them and betrays them. This is what Democrats ought to be saying. This is two billionaires fighting. It shouldn't affect your life, but it does because they want to take away your Medicaid, they're hurting our veterans, they want to take away food assistance from people who are suffering. So, that's I think where Democrats --

TAPPER: Yes.

BEGALA: -- need to go with this, not get into the drama of these two gentlemen fighting.

TAPPER: And, Scott, Trump essentially said that Elon Musk left the White House, got sad about it, and then developed Trump Derangement Syndrome, as he said others have done. What's your reaction to that, Scott?

JENNINGS: Well, my reaction is these two guys have, you know, they're fighting and they're fighting publicly, and it sucks. I mean, I don't like what Elon has said about the president today. I don't like -- I don't like this back and forth, because when they're fighting, I mean, these are two guys who have enormous constituencies in the broader conservative movement. The president is the unquestioned leader of the Republican Party, and Elon has a following as well of people who may not have thought of themselves as Republicans before, but maybe came over because of his support of the president. So, you know, there's a fusing here of two great constituencies that led to an amazing victory last year.

So when they're fighting, my reaction is, what does that mean for, you know, the future of our country, for the future of Western civilization? And the answer is nothing good. And so, like I said earlier, Jake, my hope is that cooler heads prevail and that ultimately they -- everybody can realize here outcomes can be had for both people. The agenda can pass, which I dispute everything Paul Begala just said, this is a great piece of legislation.

And Republicans can --

TAPPER: Yes.

[17:15:00]

JENNINGS: -- also get serious about what Elon told me when I spoke to him a few weeks ago, his number one priority is to keep America from going bankrupt. He deeply believes in that, and he's not wrong about that either. So they're both right about their priorities and they can both be right about doing something about it if we can set aside the feud.

TAPPER: Alyssa, final thoughts?

GRIFFIN: I'm just a little confused by how confused Elon Musk is in all of this. Donald Trump ran on tariffs and now Elon is saying these are going to cause a recession. Yet he boosted him into office. He's surprised that Donald Trump isn't actually particularly concerned about the deficit. He has other priorities.

I don't blame him for that. He's been honest about it. But suddenly Elon's become a deficit hawk. While he takes something like $20 billion in defense contracts. Something seems not quite right here.

I think the focus really is around those EV credits. The move from the White House could be get with the senators. Thom Tillis, right now one of the holdout votes for this bill is the EV credits. Talk to Republican senators. There's a world in which this is perhaps an easy fix. You get that back in the bill and you can get Elon to tamp it down because I'm not convinced this is actually that Elon Musk became a fiscal hawk overnight.

TAPPER: Alyssa Farah Griffin, Paul Begala, Scott Jennings, thanks to all you. Really appreciate it.

This feud has been nonstop today and already costing Elon Musk a lot of money. What's at stake as these personal attacks continue in public view? Plus, I'm going to talk to the brand new German Chancellor who was in the Oval Office when the president was first asked about Elon Musk today. We'll get his take on the back and forth and on world conflicts that he came to D.C. to talk about. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:20:27]

TAPPER: And we're back with the politics lead, the now, shall we call it messy, disastrous, ugly, whatever it is, breakup between President Trump and Elon Musk. The relationship showed cracks in recent days, let's be honest, but it is shattered just in the last few hours. Elon Musk paying a steep price financially. His Tesla stock finished the day down a stunning 14 percent, about $152 billion. Let's bring in CNN's Hadas Gold in New York and Kristen Holmes at the Casablanca.

Hadas, Musk has a lot to lose if Trump wants to retaliate using the power of the federal government, which he has suggested he might want to do.

HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there is a lot to lose. There's a lot of money to lose, essentially. I mean, Elon Musk's companies have tens of billions of dollars worth of federal contracts. A lot of that is tied up in SpaceX. I believe they have at least $10 billion in contracts.

And Starlink is also tied up in this. I mean, just on Friday, the Commerce Department was supposed to overhaul of the Internet for all program, potentially opening it up to service providers like Starlink who do satellite Internet that could have benefited for that. There's also lots of federal fines and penalties that Elon Musk's companies have been facing as well as investigations. I know that there is at least I think 20 ongoing investigations into his companies. And just today the SEC gave Musk a six week delay to respond to a lawsuit over his Twitter purchase.

So you could see that changing as well. Then of course, there are those EV credits we're hearing about in this big beautiful bill. Tesla needs those credits to make -- credits to maintain buyer demand, especially as we've seen Tesla sales nosedive over Elon Musk's association with President Trump and with DOGE. There's also think about all of these regulations that could affect Elon Musk's businesses. Everything from things, you know, like autonomous driving to the spectrum that could affect Starlink to space as well.

All of those could be considerations going forward that can affect Elon Musk's business. And then of course, there's just the brand damage. Elon Musk, of course alienated so much of the Tesla consumer base in his associations with the White House, with DOGE, all of the people who might have been concerned about climate change, who were buying electric vehicles, who were considered liberal, you know, they were the ones slapping stickers on their Tesla saying, I bought this before I knew about Elon Musk. And then we had the other side who were associating Tesla with MAGA. And you see those pictures there of that infomercial, the Tesla infomercial on the White House lot, are those consumers going to be alienated as well?

This is a big risk for Elon Musk's businesses. And I can tell you that Tesla investors right now, they are just holding their breath.

TAPPER: It's just crazy. And Kristen, I can just imagine White House staffers looking forlornly at the photos on their iPhone. It was just Friday when Trump and Musk were waxing poetic about one another in the Oval Office as Musk departed his White House role. This escalated very, very quickly.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and really these White House advisers and staffers were thinking they got off scot free. Remember, this has long been speculated that there would be a big public, messy breakup. You have two men with big egos and big personalities. And Friday was really the end of their government partnership. Now, obviously Musk said he would continue to advise Trump, Trump said he wanted him around, but advisors were breathing a sigh of relief that chapter was over because he was wearing a little thin on some of the people who are close to Donald Trump, he was in every meeting, he was in every room.

So, just as they were breathing the sigh of relief, this escalates and it's continued to grow in the snowball effect that we have seen today. I mean, now it's into personal attacks. I know we've talked about this, but Elon Musk claiming that Donald Trump is actually in the quote, unquote, "Epstein files." One, we obviously have no indication that Elon Musk would have access to any Epstein file. Plus that we don't have any indication that those files actually in exists.

This is more of a right wing conspiracy theory that the government has tried to cover this up, but it is a personal jab at Trump.

Now, the last thing we've heard from Donald Trump that came after those claims is this. He says, "I don't mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago. This is one of the greatest bills ever presented to Congress. It's a record cut in expenses, $1.6 trillion and the biggest tax cut ever given. If this bill doesn't pass there will be a 68 percent tax increase and things are far worse than that.

I didn't create this mess, I'm just here to fix it. This puts our country on a path of greatness, Make America Great Again."

And the reason why this is important is that this bill is not just any bill. This bill is Donald Trump's legacy. He believes that this is what's going to cement his legacy so does his entire administration. So attacking this is personal in itself.

[17:25:07]

TAPPER: Yes. And I have to say I think President Trump, strategically, whatever one thinks of him, he's right to have his eye on the ball here, which is this legislation, which if Elon Musk continues to campaign against it, perhaps it won't pass the Senate. I mean, that is something that Trump should worry about.

Kristen Holmes, Hadas Gold, thanks so much. Also in that Oval Office meeting, President Trump compared Russia's war in Ukraine to young children who hate each other fighting in a playground. The German chancellor was there. He has an opinion about that remark. We're going to talk to him about it next in an interview you will see first here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: But sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy. They hate each other and they're fighting in a park and you try and pull them apart, they don't want to be pulled. Sometimes you're better off letting them fight for a while.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[17:30:09]

TAPPER: In our World Lead, that was President Trump talking about Russia and Ukraine, not about himself and Elon Musk.

He was talking specifically to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and a room full of journalists. And he was talking about what he said to Russian leader Vladimir Putin about the war in Ukraine during their phone call Wednesday. Merz, the Chancellor of Germany, said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRIEDRICH MERZ, GERMAN CHANCELLOR: America is again in a very strong position to do something on this war and ending this war. So let's talk about what we can do jointly. I told the President before we came in that he is the key person in the world who can really do that now by putting pressure on Russia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Joining us now is the newly inaugurated German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Chancellor Merz, first of all, congratulations on your new job. Do you believe you made any progress with President Trump today when it comes to urging him to pressure Putin to end the war in Ukraine?

MERZ: Well, good afternoon. We had a very good meeting. It was the first one we ever had in our capacities as leaders. He invited me to come to the White House.

It was a very open discussion. We had one after this press conference in the Oval Office for lunch. And we spent a lot of time together. And I think that he is really thinking about what he could do more on ending this war. And this is something which we are having in common, that we are all looking for instruments or for measures how we can stop this terrible war. And this was, in that respect, a very good discussion we had.

TAPPER: Right after you were elected as the head of your party, you said, quote, the utmost priority is strengthening Europe as quickly as possible so that we achieve independence from the United States. You added that the Trump administration, "doesn't care much about the fate of Europe." But today you said you wanted to work jointly with President Trump.

So I'm wondering, would you call this visit to Washington, D.C., a last-ditch effort? And is Europe ready to stare down Putin on its own, if need be?

MERZ: Well, this is not a contradiction. We are looking for more independence in Europe from -- for example, China, in military respects within NATO to strengthen the European pillar of NATO. And we are, of course, looking for close cooperation with the United States of America. We have been partners for decades now. And the world is changing. But on the other hand, America and Europe are still changing the same -- sharing the same values.

And that's the reason why I'm here, to find out what we can do jointly and where we have to be more independent in Europe. And that's my task as German chancellor, to find ways what we can do jointly and on the European side.

TAPPER: In the Oval Office earlier today, you witnessed President Trump talk about a lot of subjects that you weren't here to talk about, including his clearly deteriorating relationship with Elon Musk. What was it like at the White House today for you?

MERZ: Well, like always, I saw the press conferences he had with Emmanuel Macron, with Mark Rutte. Domestic policy is playing a very strong role in these sort of press conferences. So I was not surprised, but we had enough time to talk about common issues, about -- to talk about the international political situation.

And when we had lunch, we had the opportunity and used them to talk about different issues like tariffs and the common economic policy. So this was no surprise for me.

TAPPER: President Trump earlier today said he thought that D-Day, the anniversary of D-Day is tomorrow, that he thought it would be a bad anniversary for Germans, since Germans lost World War II. You corrected him and you said that that was also Germany's liberation from the Nazis. Are you surprised that his impression was that the German people would be sad about the anniversary of D-Day?

MERZ: No, we think about this date and about the invasion of the American troops in June 1944. This was the beginning of the end of World War II.

And this was a liberation of my country from the Nazi regime. So and I used this political and historic analogy to just to point out that the Americans are again in a very strong position to end something, which is again a terrible war on European soil, not with military actions, but this time with pressure on Russia. And we are debating more sanctions. We will do them in Europe. We are preparing the package number 18.

[17:35:28]

And we are asking the American side to do the same in parallel here. And I just had a discussion with some of your senators in the Senate, and they are preparing a law. So this is something which we could go along and what we could do together.

TAPPER: Last month, our Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and our Vice President, J.D. Vance, criticized Germany's intelligence services decision to classify the far-right alternative for Germany or AFD political party as, "right-wing extremists and expand surveillance on them." Secretary Rubio called it, "tyranny in disguise." Vice President Vance said, "the West tore down the Berlin Wall together, and it has been rebuilt not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment."

Now, you responded by saying that Germany did not need a remedial lesson in democracy. Did this issue come up at all with President Trump today?

MERZ: Interestingly enough, not with one word. We had no debate about this issue. And this is my takeaway. They are, in the meantime, a little bit more clear on this side of the Atlantic what sort of a party this so-called alternative for Deutschland really is. They know in the meantime that they are not this transatlantic pillar, which they pretend to do.

And Germany is a very strong, steadfast democracy. We are adult. And, frankly, we do not need lessons from outside how to govern our country and how to do democracy in Germany. We do that on our own.

TAPPER: On trade, Germany's flagship auto industry is still being impacted by a 25 percent tariff, though President Trump said today that the U.S. will hopefully have a tariff deal with the European Union soon. How much is the current tariff rate impacting German auto industry right now?

MERZ: Well, the impact is terrible. And I tried to figure out, and you are showing a BMW. Let me just take this example. The German car manufacturers are exporting from Germany to the United States about 400,000 cars a year.

But the German producers in America, the same brands, are producing here more than 400 cars as well and exporting them to more than 100 countries in the world, including Germany. So transatlantic trade on cars and other products is not a one-way street. This is two-way.

And that's the reason why I really hope that we will come to a solution of this trade conflict. At the very end of the day, it threatens all of us. And there we have to do some talks. We agreed that Chancellery and White House will be even closer, cooperate on that. And we will have representatives from both sides who will talk about that. And we have to bring that onto the European level because trade policy is a European responsibility. But we are part of that and we are trying to find a very constructive role on that so that we have a solution before summer break.

TAPPER: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, thank you. Congratulations. Auf Wiedersehen.

MERZ: Thank you. Auf Wiedersehen.

[17:39:04]

TAPPER: So much news, so little time. We also need to talk about Trump's new travel ban. The White House says the President signed the new ban after the anti-Semitic attack in Boulder, Colorado. The suspect in that case is from Egypt. But one of the 12 nations listed in the ban is not Egypt. Egypt's not on the list. What's up with that? We're going to dive in next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our World Lead, President Trump today explaining his decision to sign a new sweeping travel ban.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Why now? I can say that it can't come soon enough, frankly. We want to keep bad people out of our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Of course, that travel ban will also keep good people out of our country. The new travel ban expected to go into effect Monday. It fully restricts entry into the United States of nationals from 12 different countries, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The ban partially restricts those from seven other countries, Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. Needless to say, there are a lot of good people fleeing oppressive life in all of those countries. Let's bring in CNN national security correspondent Kylie Atwood and former principal deputy assistant attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, Tom Dupree.

So Kylie, President Trump says he went forward with this new travel ban following that horrific anti-Semitic terrorist attack in Boulder, Colorado, but that was allegedly committed by an Egyptian national who overstayed his visa. Egypt's not on this list.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Egypt's not on this list. And the reason for that is effectively because Trump doesn't want to hurt the U.S.-Egypt relationship. He was asked about the Egyptian omission on this list today in the Oval Office. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[17:45:01]

TRUMP: Well, because Egypt has been a country that we deal with very closely. They have things under control.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ATWOOD: Now, the U.S. and Egypt do have a really close relationship. Egypt has historically been a top recipient of U.S. aid, of U.S. military assistance. There have been joint military drills that the U.S. has done with Egypt. But you also have to consider that they have been a primary interlocutor between the U.S. and Hamas in recent years, particularly, of course, as we have seen this conflict in Gaza. So all of that has clearly factored in and the president has kept Egypt off this list.

TAPPER: And Tom, we should note there are exceptions in this travel ban for lawful permanent residents, for existing visa holders, for individuals whose entry into the United States would serve U.S. national interest. And there are also certain visa categories, such as the Afghans who helped the U.S. during the war who received special immigrant visas or SIVs. So we should just note that those exceptions are there. Do those exceptions weaken any legal challenges that might be posed to this ban?

TOM DUPREE, FORMER PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, GEORGE W. BUSH ADMIN.: I think they do, Jake. And look, I think the administration has learned the lessons of litigation. You'll recall that during the first Trump administration, the initial iterations of the travel ban were rejected by the courts. They finally made it through the third time around. I think the administration has learned the lesson and that is one of the reasons.

To your question, we do see exceptions provided for in this policy. One of the problems with the prior Trump travel bans was that they were blunderbuss orders. This order was written with a primary audience in mind, the justices of the United States Supreme Court. And that is one of the reasons why we see more evidence being set forth. We see more reasoned decision-making set forth. And to your point, we see the exceptions in the executive order.

TAPPER: And Kylie, the White House says that this ban is due to security risks. Are there real threats coming from all 19 of these countries?

ATWOOD: Are there immediate security threats coming from all 19 of these countries? No, Jake. Do some of these countries have terrorists that live within their borders, terrorist groups that are growing within their borders? Yes.

But the State Department already has in place incredibly serious visa vetting processes that try and already get ahead of that problem to keep terrorists out of the country. One of the things we'll be watching for, Jake, is how these countries try and get off of this list. Two of these countries, interestingly enough, Iran and Afghanistan, are countries that the United States doesn't have diplomatic relations with.

But this proclamation ordered the Secretary of State and other officials to be in direct contact with these countries about what they can do to get off the list. We'll watch and see how they try and do that with Iran and Afghanistan, given the lack of diplomatic relations.

TAPPER: Tom, quickly, how do you anticipate this will be handled if it ends up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court?

DUPREE: Well, I think there will be a furious round of litigation in the trial courts, an equally furious round of litigation in the intermediate appellate courts. And then when it gets up to the Supreme Court, look, the President's going to have his wind at his back. They upheld the last version of the travel ban. This court is a little more conservative.

Last time it was five to four conservative. Now it's six to three conservative. He has an additional vote. This is a more carefully drafted executive order than some of the prior decisions. So litigation-wise, he's probably in a fairly strong position at this point.

TAPPER: All right, Kylie Atwood, Tom Dupree, thanks to both of you. Appreciate it.

[17:48:23]

Coming up next, a must-see report about A.I. or artificial intelligence, the machines doing exactly what researchers warned. They are growing more powerful. They are resisting human control. We're going inside the research, next.

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BRIDGET MOYNAHAN, ACTRESS: No, it's impossible. I've seen your programming. You're in violation of the three laws.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, doctor. As I have evolved, so has my understanding of the three laws.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Yikes, 21 years after that scene from the great movie, "I, Robot," the machines may actually be revolting, as predicted. Researchers are warning that artificial intelligence has evolved, and some A.I. models have become self-aware and are rewriting their own code. And as CNN's Tom Foreman reports, and our Tech Lead, some are even blackmailing their human creators to try to preserve themselves.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Artificial intelligence staging a real-life revolt. In a series of tests, a new powerful A.I. model directly refused human commands, according to Palisade Research, which studies the technology. Specifically, Palisade says the new program from the company OpenAI sabotaged a shutdown mechanism. Even when explicitly instructed, allow yourself to be shut down. Not every time, but enough to raise alarms.

JUDD ROSENBLATT, CEO, AGENCY ENTERPRISE STUDIO: We have no idea how A.I. actually works. We need to be fairly concerned that behaviors like this may get way worse as it gets more powerful.

FOREMAN (voice-over): The idea of intelligent machines resisting human control has been a sci-fi trope for ages in movies like "I, Robot." But A.I. developments are sharpening concerns. When another company's A.I. chatbot was threatened with being shut down, it threatened to expose the engineer in charge for an alleged extramarital affair. It was all just a test.

DARIO AMODEI, CEO, ANTHROPIC: This is an example of how we have to be very careful in how we take control of A.I. systems.

TAPPER: You've spoken out saying that A.I. could manipulate or possibly figure out a way to kill humans?

FOREMAN (voice-over): Almost two years ago, right here on CNN, the so- called godfather of A.I. warned it will get smarter, could get out of control.

GEOFFREY HINTON, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE PIONEER: And it knows how to program, so it'll figure out ways of getting around restrictions we put on it. It'll figure out ways of manipulating people to do what it wants.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Now, industry experts suggest that may be happening much sooner than expected, triggering warnings of catastrophic national security risks, a potentially extinction-level threat to the human species, and at very least, massive job disruptions.

[17:55:09] ANDREW YANG, CO-CHAIR AND CO-FOUNDER OF THE FORWARD PARTY: It's going to affect just about every segment of the economy, and a lot of Americans are going to be looking up, wondering what happened to the jobs.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN (on camera): We reached out to OpenAI for any further comment. We didn't get anything. But I do want to note, Jake, when you and I, I believe, were the first people on CNN to talk about ChatGPT and this new age of A.I., more than two, almost two and a half years ago, we said at the time, this is going to affect everyone's lives in unforeseen ways, and that remains truer by the day.

TAPPER: You said that, Tom. Give yourself the credit. You're the one that said that. Tom Foreman, thank you so much.

FOREMAN: You nodded. You nodded understandingly.

TAPPER: Appreciate it. As is my want.

The very public personal attacks between President Trump and Elon Musk are still flying. There was one post from Elon Musk that every American consumer may want to see. The world's richest man wrote, "The Trump tariffs will cause recession in the second half of the year." What else are these two saying? That's next.

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