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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Trump Says He's Ending All Trade Talks With Canada; Senate Expected To Start Voting On Trump's Mega Bill Tomorrow; Supreme Court Limits Ability Of Judges To Stop Trump; NYC Mayor Eric Adams Launches Re-Election Bid. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired June 27, 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, President Trump cut off all trade talks with Canada. He claimed the country's new tax is a, quote, direct and blatant attack on the U.S., but Canada is the top buyer of American goods. So, what does this mean for the prices you pay?

Plus the White House is celebrating a major decision by the U.S. Supreme Court today, a decision that limits the powers of lower courts who have been trying to block President Trump's agenda. The president claims the ruling means he can now move forward with a whole list of policies, but exactly what are those?

Also, fresh off announcing his reelection campaign as an independent, New York City Mayor Eric Adams is here live. How does he feel about running against Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani and possibly even against the state's former governor, Andrew Cuomo? We'll ask him.

And 30 years ago today, a local news anchor did not show up for work and was never seen again. And now CNN's Randi Kaye is sitting down with investigators in the case to see if they have any new leads or suspects in the disappearance of Jodi Huisentruit.

The Lead Tonight, President Trump immediately ending trade talks with Canada, vowing to announce in the coming days a new tariff rate on the top buyer of American goods, Canada.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is at the White House. Kristen, why is President Trump suddenly ending these trade talks?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's all about this digital tax, Jake. I mean, essentially, Canada has decided to go forward with a digital tax on American companies that would go into effect on June 30th.

Now, this has actually been -- they've gone forward with this since last Friday, but it appears to have just gotten on President Trump's radar. And, in fact, in addition to these digital big companies having to pay this tax, they'd have to actually have to pay a retro tax as well. So, they'd owe billions of dollars when the time comes on June 30th. So, this was clearly brought to President Trump's attention. He said he was going to cut off all ties with trade talks with Canada. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: They were foolish to do it. And so I said we're going to stop all negotiations with Canada right now until they straighten out their act. We have all the cards. You know, we do a lot of business with Canada, but relatively little. They do most of their businesses with us. And when you have that circumstance, you treat people better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: So, a couple of things to know here. One is that this is pretty surprising given what we saw just a week-and-a-half ago when President Trump was at the G7 sitting next to Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada, and they seemed to be getting along. They said that they had differences on trade, but that they were going to work through them and they really thought that they could make a deal before July with each country getting a little bit of what they want. So, this is clearly a 180 there, particularly in Trump's direction.

We also know that Trump administration officials had urged Carney not to go forward with this digital tax. Obviously, there, he went forward with it anyway. And just one thing to note, President Trump in a Truth Social post earlier said that going forward with this digital services tax was a direct and blatant attack on our country. Jake?

TAPPER: All right. Kristen Holmes at the White House, thanks so much.

Meanwhile, President Trump is making the rare move to stay in Washington, D.C., this weekend in an effort to keep the pressure on Senate Republicans to vote on his massive agenda soon after telling reporters that the deadline is, quote, not the end at all. Trump posted on social media earlier today, quote, the great Republicans in the U.S. Senate are working all weekend to finish our one big, beautiful bill, adding, quote, the House of Representatives must be ready to send it to my desk before July 4th. We can get it done.

CNN's Manu Raju is on Capitol Hill. Manu, what are the issues in Trump's bill here that some Republicans are refusing to back down on?

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there are a lot of sticking points still, Jake. And this is a huge gamble by the Republican leadership and by the president to try to force this bill through and providing this deadline on July 4th. There's really a self-imposed deadline. There's really no reason why they must get it done by July 4th other than just sheer pressure and the hope that some of these members who are concerned about some of the key provisions will ultimately capitulate to Donald Trump's demands.

Among the biggest sticking points are cuts to Medicaid. That was one key provision that would help raise revenue for this massive plan that would include a multi-trillion dollar overhaul of the budget deficit, as well as hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending to defense and border security measures. To help fund that, they would call for cuts to Medicaid. But one key provision was struck by the Senate parliamentarian because it does not comply with the rules that they must meet in order to them in order to allow them to pass this bill along straight party lines.

[18:05:04]

Now, at this key moment, Jake, they are still negotiating the details of this bill. We have not seen the final legislative text, even though senators want to vote on this by tomorrow.

And I asked a bunch of Republican senators whether or not it's okay to vote for a bill, but they have yet to see the final text up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: What do you think voters say when they look at the process here that's being employed to push this through and it'll be voted on and people haven't even got a chance to review it?

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I don't remember the voters saying anything about Obamacare. I mean --

RAJU: You guys did.

GRAHAM: Well, the process of reconciliation is a one party exercise. We've spent hours and days and weeks and months talking about this among ourselves. We shared it with our constituents.

SEN. BERNIE MORENO (R-OH): I've never discussed things so many times as we've discussed the exact same thing. The final text is not out, but we know where we are going directionally.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So, the final details are key, including on how to deal with those Medicaid cuts in particular, as well as other major sticking points, such as how do they deal with phasing out green energy tax breaks, as well as the state and local tax deductions. There's a big fight over that between House and Senate Republicans.

So, big questions, Jake, about what the ultimate language is going to be, but the ultimate hope here, Jake, is that they can get onto the bill by tomorrow, sometime in the afternoon, and potentially pass this out of the House by tomorrow night or into Sunday morning and then onto the president's desk if it gets to the U.S. house sometime next week.

TAPPER: That keeps sliding though. They were talking earlier about having a vote tomorrow morning. Now, it's tomorrow afternoon. We'll see. We'll see.

Manu Raju on Capitol Hill, thanks so much. Let's bring in Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma. So, Senator, there are significant changes to the bill You have, first of all. Josh Hawley and to Thom Tillis have concerns about whatever changes are being made to Medicaid and whether that's going to affect people. You need to satisfy them, presumably, to get their votes. And then there's also the parliamentarian made this rule about Medicaid as it relates to rural hospitals. It's a shorthand. It sounds like there's a lot of work to do still on the bill.

SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): Right.

TAPPER: Is it realistic to have a vote on it tomorrow?

MULLIN: Yes, there isn't as much work as you think. 85 percent of the bill that the House sent over we're pretty much taking. It's the 15 percent that we're still negotiating and the parliamentarian kicked out some things. You know, we have a very narrow window, for your listeners, the Byrd rule, as we call the Byrd bath. It can only deal with two things. We can only deal with mandatory spending and taxes, so basically revenue. So, if anything is perceived to be policy and doesn't fit inside those windows, then the parliamentarian will remove.

The House doesn't have to abide (ph) by that. The Senate does.

TAPPER: Yes.

MULLIN: So, taking that out does a couple things. One, when they took out some of the stuff that the House sent over, because as I said, they don't have to deal with the Byrd rule, the deficit reduction that we're trying to get our target number's around $1.6 trillion in reducing deficit spending, which will be the most deficit reduction spending that any Congress has ever taken on it.

It's put us in a deficit because about $250 billion -- I'm using rough numbers --

TAPPER: Yes.

MULLIN: -- just rough numbers, but roughly around $250 billion was removed. So, we've got to make that up. And how you start looking at it, you really got to start looking at the fraud and the waste that's in Medicare or in Medicaid, and seeing how you can do that without disrupting healthcare for especially rural hospitals. I'm very rural, you know?

TAPPER: Yes.

MULLIN: And so rural is where I've lived my whole life.

TAPPER: And Tulsa's the big city to you.

MULLIN: Tahlequah is a big city to us. Everybody's laughing at this from Oklahoma to understand that one.

TAPPER: Yes. MULLIN: But so we don't want do that. And, plus, rural hospitals are the lifeblood of a lot of the counties. I mean, not only are the largest employer, but you lose your county hospital, your workers' comp for manufacturing, everything --

TAPPER: You're making my point for me?

MULLIN: Yes.

TAPPER: There's a lot of work that needs to be done. It's not realistic.

MULLIN: Yes, absolutely. But, see, but what I'm saying is there's not that much work to do. It's just making sure what you're doing, you're getting the numbers correctly. And we're able to do that. We've been discussing this. Today, was our 51st meeting on this, as a body, as a whole. We have been working on this since September. We knew we were going to win the election, September, and we knew that reconciliation was coming. Since November, we've been really going after it.

So, we've been negotiating this until really we're blue in the face. It's to the decision point. How are we going to put it in? We had contingency plans. We knew a lot of the stuff the House was putting in there was, realistically, was going to get Byrd bathed out. And so we already had -- we had -- going into this final stretch, we had contingency plans going from A, B, C, and all the way to D.

TAPPER: Okay. So, just to explain to every is at home, the reason that they have to do all this with the Byrd bath is in order to introduce the bill, to have just simple majority vote, and not have the 60 vote threshold that the Senate normally has.

[18:10:01]

That's the difference between the House and Senate, and Byrd is B-Y-R- D, an homage to the late Senator Robert Byrd.

MULLIN: Right.

TAPPER: I want to ask you about Hawley and Tillis' concerns on the Medicaid cuts. Will this bill make sure, will it guarantee that those who are eligible for Medicaid, American citizens, eligible, are able to get it?

MULLIN: Eligible, yes. We're cutting out the fraud and waste. Here's an interesting statistic. 35 million people inside the United States fit into the poverty level, but we have 70 million people in Medicaid. You got to ask yourself a question, how? And because Medicaid was designed for those that were in poverty, so how do we have 35 more million people, over double, what we have in poverty level, according to statistics?

TAPPER: Do you think they're all -- it's all fraud.

MULLIN: No. I don't think it's all fraud, but you got to say how much of it is fraud. And we have -- the trajectory of climbing of the Medicaid, what I mean by climbing, the way we're spending for Medicaid, is it doesn't have a gradual slope. It's going straight up a ladder. So, we have got to figure out what cuts to have, but we're not looking anyone that qualifies for Medicaid today, qualifies, will still qualify after we pass the bill. We're just getting the fraud and waste out of it.

TAPPER: So, there's this other negotiation going on with the state and local taxes called SALT.

MULLIN: SALT.

TAPPER: It has to do with basically people who represent big tax states, such as New York, to a lesser extent, California, and whether or not they can deduct that on their taxes. Republican Congressman Nick LaLota of New York says --

MULLIN: Deduct it from their federal tax.

TAPPER: From their federal taxes, yes, right. Congressman Nick LaLota says, your proposal to maintain the $40,000 cap on deductions from the house bill but lower the income threshold for that is not a true compromise. That's his view, not mine. Take a listen to what he told reporters earlier this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NICK LALOTA (R-NY): Compromise is a two-way street. If the Senate wants to try to change one of the variables in the SALT's House -- in the House's SALT component and specifically decrease one, it needs to increase another. Otherwise I'm a no. The SALT Caucus is a no.

The Senate thinks they could water down the House deal, that ain't going to work for me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: You know, these House guys, you used to be one of them. You know, the SALT Caucus can kill the bill. Is this going to be an obstacle?

MULLIN: Well, this is how things are negotiating. That was two or three days ago. We were negotiating with the treasury last night until 10:00. The SALT guys, Nick wasn't there. But we've got language now that is really acceptable. In fact, I can't speak for them all, but I'm pretty sure that they're going to be able to find a good landing spot. We're still trying to massage it in the Senate side but we're going to find the solution.

I've always said this. It's not going to be a deal. Not everybody's going to love it. And a deal is something everybody loves or can accept. This is going to be a situation where we're trying to give the SALT guys that want it and the salt guys that oppose it enough reasons to support it, but maybe not love it. And that's called negotiating. And we're at that spot. I think we're really, really close to closing this out probably tonight. And that's one of the sticky points. So, the two sticky points, which SALT is what I've been negotiating for three weeks now, hard, intensively negotiating. And I've had great conversations with Nick and all these guys. The president has weighed in. Secretary Bessent has been phenomenal working with us, the speaker, Leader Thune. We've all been engaged and I feel like we're going to get to a solution this evening. And this is one of those things.

We've talked about it, we've talked about everybody's concerns, but at some point we got to make a decision. And the decision is what can we get 51 votes on in the House or in the Senate? And what is the magic number in the House? Typically, we say 218, but you saw the last time they passed the major bill out there --

TAPPER: 215.

MULLIN: 215.

TAPPER: 214, yes.

MULLIN: Yes.

TAPPER: Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, thanks so much.

MULLIN: Thank you.

TAPPER: The U.S. Supreme Court handed down major rulings today, including ones that affect President Trump's powers, parental rights in the classrooms and porn sites. We're breaking down those decisions next.

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TAPPER: This just in, in our Law and Justice Lead, a federal judge will hold an emergency hearing on Monday regarding President Trump's birthright citizenship case. This comes after the U.S. Supreme Court today, handed down a significant win for the Trump administration in their efforts to end birthright citizenship.

CNN's Paula Reid is here to break down all of this for us. And, Paula, just to be clear now, the court ruled for Trump, but that does not mean that they're ruling, at least not yet, that birthright citizenship is over, right? Can you explain?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right. This is a victory for the Trump administration, because, here, the justices are limiting the power that any one judge has in this country to block one of his policies while the courts assess whether that policy is constitutional. And here, they did not weigh in on whether Trump has the constitutional authority to end or limit birthright citizenship.

This is a promise he made on the campaign trail to end a right that has been recognized for over a century, where if you are born here, you are a U.S. citizen. He did this through executive action and they did not weigh in on whether that was legal. They just said, look, one judge can't block that for the whole country while we decide. And we expect, and the attorney general signaled this earlier, that that constitutional question will likely come back before the justices' next term. So, maybe a year from now, I might be sitting here, telling you what they decided.

And, Jake, I speak with many of the president's legal advisers, and while they are usually very confident in their policies and that they're going to pass muster. His effort to end birthright citizenship through executive order is one where, yes, publicly they say they'll likely win, but, privately, they're not so sure that Trump can do this, and this is likely something that would have to be done through Congress.

TAPPER: And, Paula, there were some other really important cases that came down today as well. What stood out to you of all the decisions?

REID: It was really a mixed day for the First Amendment. There were two big First Amendment cases we were watching. The first was whether parents have the right to opt out for religious reasons of LGBTQ curriculum in schools.

[18:20:04]

And this is something that would be protected under the First Amendment and the majority of the justices said, yes, parents can, under the First Amendment, raise religious objections to this kind of curriculum and opt out.

But there was another First Amendment case out of Texas, that state, in an effort to keep minors from accessing pornography online. They have identification requirements for adults to prove their age, and that had been challenged under First Amendment grounds, the fact that you had to provide this identifying information to access porn to prove that you were over 18. But there, the justices disagreed. In an opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, they actually sided with the state of Texas. So, I think it's interesting that they really split on what the First Amendment means.

And, look, Jake, every term is special and unique, but this wasn't exactly a blockbuster term, but this decision on judicial power, this is likely going to tee up, a lot of constitutional questions that they'll have to answer over the next two years.

TAPPER: Right. It's just going to expedite them to get before the court if the district courts can't handle it. What's left for the court to deal with?

REID: So, they're done for the season. It was interesting. There was one question outstanding about redistricting in the state of Louisiana. We expected that was going to be our last opinion. They're going to hold that over until the next term.

So, right now, we're really watching the cases that are going to get teed up for the next term. We have this hearing on Monday, the first one about birthright citizenship. That case could be on its way to the Supreme Court next year, but they take the summer off usually unless there's any emergency matters they have to deal with. And then we'll see what they come back with in October.

TAPPER: All right, nice work if you can get it, I guess. CNN's Paula Reid, thanks so much.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams says he's running for reelection. So, what is his plan to defeat the 33-year-old Democratic socialist who just took down former Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primaries? We'll talk to Mayor Adams, coming up.

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TAPPER: This just in, in our National Lead, a brand new video showing students at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville cheering in support of outgoing President Jim Ryan, who submitted his resignation this afternoon or earlier today, rather. The move comes as the university's under pressure by the Justice Department to dismantle its diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI programs.

In a letter to the UVA community, former President Ryan writes, I cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job. To do so would not only appear -- it would not only be quixotic, but appear selfish and self-centered to the hundreds of employees who would lose their jobs, the researchers who would lose their funding, and the hundreds of students who could lose financial aid or have their visas withheld.

Joining us now to discuss is Harmeet Dhillon. She is the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Department of Justice. Thanks so much for being here, Ms. Dhillon.

So, this move is because the Justice Department and you, in particular, say that the school is keeping its DEI policies, even if it's doing so under a different name. What specifically are you suggesting that UVA did wrong or President Ryan did wrong?

HARMEET DHILLON, ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR THE CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION, DOJ: Well, to start with what we do in the Department of Justice is we make inquiries. And so DOJ has a grant to UVA. And so we started with that, asking about their undergraduate admissions, not just to UVA, but to a total of 70 of the top institutions of higher learning.

TAPPER: This letter went out to all of them. Okay.

DHILLON: Correct, including our former alma mater.

TAPPER: That's right. We should note that, you and I were on college at the same time.

DHILLON: That's right. So -- and then we began to get information --

TAPPER: You and Ryan were at UVA at the same time also.

DHILLON: We were, that's right.

TAPPER: And another coincidence. Anyway, so go ahead.

DHILLON: Yes. So, we began to get information that actually while students for fair admissions is one of the rulings that requires UVA to stop its discriminatory admissions program --

TAPPER: You mean affirmative action?

DHILLON: Affirmative action, but also LGBTQ. And it's not just the admissions part, it's also preferences and special programs while students are at the school that are exclusive based on race, sexual orientation, sex and so forth. And this is all illegal under students for fair admissions. And so --

TAPPER: That's the Supreme Court case that got rid of affirmative action.

DHILLON: Correct. And there's also discrimination in other areas. There's significant amounts of anti-Semitism on the campus, not according to Harmeet Dhillon, but according to the ADL.

TAPPER: At UVA?

DHILLON: At UVA, Jim Ryan presided over a failing grade from ADL on anti-Semitism, and there are numerous incidents. And so --

TAPPER: So, they say, UVA says, we got rid of DEI, we got rid of diversity, equity inclusion, and we have something called viewpoint diversity, and it's a panel but it's not the same thing. You're saying it is the same thing.

DHILLON: Well, first of all, they never said that to us. I've sent -- I brought letters with me. I sent a chief of letters of increasing urgency, simply asking the university to confirm that they were compliant with students for fair admissions. They didn't. They haven't. And to date, they still haven't, almost three months after I began writing letters to the university, the law school, the medical school, the nursing school, and others.

And so that's really troubling. I haven't gotten anything in writing from UVA. Unlike many of the other institutions of higher learning, I've had chancellors come meet me, I've had lawyers come meet me. They've given us reams and reams of documents, not UVA.

TAPPER: They just didn't respond at all?

DHILLON: They've asked for extensions and extensions and extensions.

And so that's one of the troubling aspects here. And I think the concern, and we began to hear from people we're negotiating with that UVA was unable to certify that it was in compliance with these laws.

And so -- but to your point, they actually did I would call it using a series of euphemisms to simply rebrand and repackage the exact same discriminatory programs that are illegal under federal law. And my job, as the top federal civil rights law enforcer in the country, is to make sure that every school that receives federal funding is compliant with federal law.

[18:30:05]

TAPPER: So, that Supreme Court case that you keep referencing, in that case, there were students that alleged successfully that they had been harmed, that they had been denied admission. Do you have any situations, any anecdotes or examples of students who applied to UVA and didn't get in who you think are part of this admissions process that's a problem?

DHILLON: Well, we do have that, but I don't need that. When there's federal funding going to a school, we can ask for this information regardless of that. UVA receives over $1.3 billion in this last year of federal funding from 18 different federal agencies. But setting that aside after students for fair admissions, where you would normally expect the rate of Asian admission to go up, Asian admission went down at UVA, okay? That's one data point. We have troubling incidents of students with perfect grades at UVA seeking admission to UVA's comms program who were denied it on the basis of race. That's the only explanation because people with lesser grades were admitted who were African-Americans.

TAPPER: So, let me ask you. So, President Ryan stepping down was part of what the Justice Department, what you were demanding to settle the suit. Is that -- do I have that right?

DHILLON: I wouldn't agree with that. I did express to leaders at UVA that we significantly lacked confidence at the Department of Justice that Jim Ryan, given his public statements and his ongoing public statements and his participation in groups talking about suing the Trump administration to avoid having to do exactly what we are requiring them to do, I don't have any confidence that he was going to be willing and able to preside over the dismantling of DEI.

TAPPER: So, they interpreted it as a demand that he stepped down. But that's -- you didn't spell it out. That's --

DHILLON: Not as such. But I will tell you that there's a lot of money on the line here and other schools have lost their federal funding for being unwilling to comply with federal law. It isn't just students for fair admissions. It's Title 7, it's Title 9, it's Title 6. And so, you know, we can't be giving out billions of dollars to organizations and institutions that refuse to follow federal law. That's irresponsible.

TAPPER: So, one thing -- I've talked to a number of people at UVA and other places, and one thing that people ask is the Justice Department does not seem to have a rule book as to what's allowed and what's not allowed. Everybody has their admissions policy. Everybody used to have DEI policies, now they have whatever they have. And it's really just -- is it just up to the Justice Department to assess what's legit, what's not legit, because there isn't really like a rule book? DHILLON: Well, there can't be a rule book. I mean, this is how the law is interpreted. Even dating back to ancient times, as you look at a set of facts, and then you measure them against the rules, which are the laws. Okay. So, when it's not clear, the courts give us those guidelines.

And so what we've been doing as a first step, I think it was my first week in office at the DOJ, after I was sworn in, was asking all these top institutions. But there's 6,000 institutions of higher education in the United States. And I have reason to believe that most of them are out of compliance with students for fair admissions.

TAPPER: Out of compliance?

DHILLON: Correct.

TAPPER: Can I ask you just a philosophical question, do you think, as just a philosophical notion, that diversity, in all things, diversity is good?

DHILLON: Well, I mean, I think it depends what you're talking about. But my opinion is not what's relevant here. What's relevant is what Congress thinks. Congress passed all these laws that require equal opportunity, and it's that, you know, diversity in viewpoint certainly would be a good thing.

TAPPER: Right.

DHILLON: That's lacking in many institutions.

TAPPER: Right. Because DOJ wrote a letter to Harvard asking for kind of extreme is perhaps too strong a word, but very intricate steps be taken to make sure there's diversity of thought in academia in the departments.

DHILLON: Well, I would agree with that, but I don't think that race in 2025 is a proxy for anything. And it's also illegal to use race as a proxy for whether you were oppressed or whether you would provide a different viewpoint on the campus. That's simply not a legitimate factor.

And when I think about the history of this, when I grew up in the rural south, and in the rural south, the Dixiecrats had a similar view to what we're seeing on college campuses today by administrators and leaders like Jim Ryan, which is, I don't care what the federal law is, we're not going to comply with it. And federal government got pretty aggressive in going in and saying, no, sorry. After Brown v. Board of Education, you have to allow equal opportunity for all people in the United States.

Now, the schools have done that using the shorthand of quotas, and the United States Supreme Court has now told us that's not legal.

TAPPER: I would just say the one thing from my Dartmouth experience, and I don't know what your Dartmouth experience was like, although we overlapped, is I got a lot out of the diversity. And I mean all kinds of diversity. The people who work for the Dartmouth Review, the people who are in ROTC, the Native American program that there is at Dartmouth, just because it exposed me to -- I mean, I'm from Philadelphia.

[18:35:00]

I knew Philadelphians, you know? It exposed me to a whole different world.

DHILLON: Well, I'm not arguing with you, but I'm also not agreeing with the premise that by getting rid of racial quotas and other types of quotas or special programs at UVA, you're going to have a lack of diversity. I don't think that's true.

I think that, again, students for fair admissions is brought by Asian students who were denied opportunity and admissions to Harvard, UNC Chapel Hill and other schools. And so I think you have to look at it in that perspective as that is a philosophical difference, because, to me, the promise of America is equal opportunity for every individual, not groups or group think.

And so Jim Ryan has built his entire career on what was the academic vogue, which is DEI. Now, it isn't. And so I think it is time for new leadership that's willing to comply with federal law. And I think that's the best thing for UVA. I love UVA. I proudly have my law review and my degree on my wall in my office in the Department of Justice.

TAPPER: Harmeet Dhillon, thanks so much. Don't be a stranger. Come back here.

DHILLON: Thanks for having me.

TAPPER: I really appreciate it.

30 years ago, a local news anchor did not show up for her job. She has not been seen since. CNN's Randi Kaye just spoke to investigators to see if there are any new leads in the case, and that's next.

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[18:40:00]

TAPPER: In our National Lead, today marks 30 years since an Iowa journalist disappeared. When 27-year-old Jodi Huisentruit did not show up to anchor the morning news 30 years ago, her news director figured she'd just overslept. She called her at home. Jodi said she'd be right in, but Jodi never arrived. And Jodi has not been heard from since that morning in June, 1995.

It's a chilling mystery that CNN's Randi Kaye has followed for decades.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: June 15th already, I'm Jodi Huisintruit. RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Jodi Huisintruit had never missed a show until June 27th, 1995 when the morning anchor didn't show up for work at KIMT in Mason City, Iowa.

Around 7:00 A.M., the station alerted police and filed this request for a welfare check obtained by CNN.

CAROLINE LOWE, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: When police got to the scene, there Jodi's -- no sign of Jodi, but her car was there.

We're not going away.

KAYE: Investigative Journalist Caroline Lowe has covered Jodi's case for nearly three decades.

LOWE: There were definite signs of a struggle because the bent key indicated that she was probably attacked from behind and there's a lot of force used. And then on the ground, you see her stuff strewn, like her red heels, her blow dryer, her earrings.

KAYE: Authorities searched Jodi's apartment and the surrounding area using dogs, but came up empty. On Jodi's car, a possible clue.

But you can confirm there was a palm print?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got a palm print in evidence.

KAYE: That was all Mason City's Police Chief Jeff Brinkley would say about that. He's the fourth police chief since Jodi disappeared.

Coming up on 30 years, what's the biggest obstacle for you with the case?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People's memories decline.

KAYE: Investigators figure it would've taken Jodi about 30 seconds to get from her apartment to her car.

So, was someone watching her?

LOWE: Her information where she lived, her phone number, home address, were in the phone book.

KAYE: In the months before she disappeared, Jodi feared she was being stalked. Nearly nine months earlier, Jodi filed this police report regarding a suspicious subject who was following her, driving a small, white, newer pickup.

The day before she vanished, she told people she might change her phone number.

Jodi's disappearance became the top story.

AMY KUNS, HUISINTRUIT'S FORMER KIMT PRODUCER: It's now been nearly two and a half days since the person who usually sits in this chair disappeared. KAYE: No witnesses, no security cameras, investigators struggle to piece it together.

JACK SCHLIEPER, FORMER MASON CITY POLICE CHIEF: At this point, we are focusing on probably less than a dozen people.

KAYE: Including this man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Honestly, she's alive somewhere.

KAYE: John Vansice and Jodi were in the same social circle despite him being 22 years older. He told police Jodi was at his place the night before she disappeared, watching videos from her recent birthday party.

REPORTER: Have the police indicated whether or not you're a suspect?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, they haven't given me any indication. They've interviewed me twice, but they haven't given me any indication I'm a suspect.

LOWE: He absolutely consistently denied he had anything, any involvement in Jodi's abduction.

KAYE: More than two decades after Jodi disappeared in 2017, police put GPS trackers on two cars related to Vansice, according to this partially unsealed search warrant CNN obtained. He was also ordered to appear before a grand jury in Mason City and asked to provide palm prints and a DNA swab.

Why track Vansice's car so many years later, 22 years after Jodi disappeared?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No comment.

KAYE: Do you know if John Vansice has been officially ruled out as having anything to do with Jodi's disappearance?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't have any comment on any of that at this point.

KAYE: John Vansice died last year. This double murder suspect from Wisconsin, Christopher Revak, has also been on police radar since 2009 when he hanged himself in jail. Last December, Mason City Police met with authorities in Wood County, Wisconsin, after learning that Revak's first wife, who is not a suspect, had lived in Mason City at the time Jodi disappeared.

Is he still being considered as possibly being involved with her disappearance?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got investigators that are reviewing that.

KAYE: No official suspect in three decades but Chief Brinkley says, Jodi's case has not gone cold. Tips are still coming in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Under the right circumstances, it could be any day, whether it's DNA, whether it's confession.

KAYE: Fellow journalist Caroline Lowe says, it's time for Jodi to come home.

LOWE: She's one of ours, and I feel we owe it to her as part of our family that I want to help bring her home.

KAYE: Randi Kaye, CNN, West Palm Beach, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: And our thanks to Randi Kaye k for that report.

Next on The Lead, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, as the race to keep his job takes a new turn.

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[18:48:32]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NYC MAYORAL CANDIDATE: Too many New Yorkers and Americans for that matter, are working eight hours and then still feeling like they haven't made enough money to keep living in the city they call home. And ultimately, what I'm focused on is making the city affordable for everyone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: In our politics lead today, that's Zohran Mamdani, the likely Democratic nominee for the New York City mayor's race on why he got into the race.

But after his stunning results earlier this week over former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and the Democratic primary, Mamdani will likely face the current mayor, Eric Adams, who is now running as an independent.

Let's bring in Mayor Adams.

Mayor Adams, welcome back to THE LEAD.

So, you're seeking a second term of mayor of New York in March, a Quinnipiac poll found only 20 percent of registered voters in your city approved of your job, 67 percent disapprove.

Now, that was taken at a time when you were still facing federal corruption charges that have since been dropped with prejudice. What is your message to New York voters and why you think you deserve another term?

MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D), NEW YORK CITY: Well, I think look at the numbers. When you allow New Yorkers to hear the real story of the success and the turnaround, developing more jobs in our city, individual senior years in the history of the city and three and a half years we have ensured that we develop housing that's needed more than the previous two mayors combined.

And then when you look at small business operating, the safety of the city, I ran on a public safety platform, and we delivered on that.

[18:50:04]

The last six months we had the lowest, lowest number of shootings and homicide in recorded history of this city. I am going to be able to tell the real story of how we turned this city around.

TAPPER: Yeah. I want to talk about affordability in a second, but just to talk about this issue, obviously, a lot of people wonder about a lot of voters in New York have the impression that you entered into some sort of private deal with President Trump. His Justice Department would drop the charges against you, and then you would be helpful to him in other ways, including with immigration.

What do you say to voters who look at the whole thing that went on, both with the allegations against you and the criminal complaint, and then the deal with President Trump and think, you know, the whole thing just stinks. What do you say to them?

ADAMS: Well, first I'm out in the streets every day talking to voters at community centers, town halls, schools, and the top issue that they're talking about is public safety, affordability. I have yet to hear them -- look at what we consider and consider -- continue to consider a bogus charges. When you think about someone was indicted for calling the one of the city agencies to do their job. That is just the reality of it.

And you know what many people don't know? I never met the president prior to him running for office, never met in my life. He talked about the unfairness of the charges while he was on the campaign trail. And the first time we met, he also articulate the unfairness and the Justice Department used the same system that determines if someone should be indicted. They use that system to determine that I should not have been indicted, and the charges were dropped with prejudice.

And so, my goal is to really communicate with our voters and show the success of turning around the city from a city that inherits a COVID public safety issues, unemployment issues. We have been successful and we put $30 billion back into the pockets of working class people.

TAPPER: Well, a lot of people in the Justice Department resigned because they didn't like the deal, but we can move on. What is your response to the possibility that you might be facing former Governor Andrew Cuomo in November, he conceded defeat in the Democratic primary, but he's staying on the ballot on what's called the fight and deliver ballot line.

ADAMS: Well, it's clear that the process is going to play out. You know, I always state -- I don't focus on what other candidates are doing. I focus on what I am doing.

I came from behind when I ran in 2021, I was head of 13-point deficit from the leading opponent in the race. And as you see, we were successful. I know I did campaign, I know how to speak to voters.

I'm a working class mayor. I'm a blue collar mayor, and I would resonate in the residents of this city. They see I'm one of them.

My life came from living in poverty, went into law enforcement, had become a captain in the police department, a state senator, a borough president, and now the mayor. I know how to communicate to the voters and understand the success of this city.

TAPPER: So, I want to turn to your likely Democratic challenger, Mamdani, because you said recently that the Jewish community in New York should be concerned about him. Youve accused him of using antisemitic rhetoric. What specifically has Mamdani said that you think is antisemitic?

ADAMS: Pro-Hamas. Hamas is a dangerous terrorist organization that should be destroyed. When you embrace the philosophies of Hamas, not only what they do to their own people, but what they did in Gaza, to lift them up and praise them, I think that's a clear indicator that something is wrong with that. But he has. And when did he -- when did he praise Hamas?

TAPPER: I don't recall him ever praising Hamas.

ADAMS: There's several -- there's several videos. Even during his days of being a rap artist, of praising Hamas and other terrorist groups. And so, little research, you'll be able to find it.

But I'm not -- I'm not competing against him only for what he's done and praising Hamas. I'm competing against him because this is not a socialist city, and that much of what he's promising to people, which I think is really deplorable, people that are struggling like my family did of living without the means that we needed.

When you promise them that you're going to give everything away for free and you don't have the authority as the mayor to do so, he doesn't have the authority to raise income tax on the top 1 percent of New Yorkers, assemblymen have that authority, and that's who he is. He couldn't do it in assembly. How are you going to deliver it as the mayor of the city?

TAPPER: Well, he has -- I mean, he obviously caught the imagination of a lot of Democratic voters. His victory was pretty handy. He -- he's talking about rent freezes, which he does have the power to do, free bus service, universal child care, child care, creating city-run grocery stores.

Do you disagree with those programs, or just he doesn't have the authority to do it on his own?

[18:55:05]

ADAMS: Let's go back. You said rent freeze. He has the authority to do so. No, he does not.

There's an independent rent guideline boards that independently make that decision. So he does not have the authority to do that. He had the authority to do free busses. I gave him a pilot project to do when he was in the assembly. He failed to carry out on it.

For years in the assembly. He has not passed one bill. He's making promises to people who are really struggling that he can't deliver on the foundation of all the things he wants to do for free is coming from an income tax increase on one percenters.

He does not have the authority as a mayor to do that. He has the authority as an assemblyman, and he did not accomplish. Everything he's talking about doing now, he could have done in the state, but he failed to do so.

TAPPER: All right. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, thank you. Please come back. It's going to be a long campaign. We want to be on top of it.

ADAMS: Yes.

TAPPER: All right.

ADAMS: Thank you.

TAPPER: Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNT: Just in to our national lead, one of the two inmates still on the run after that jailbreak in May has been captured. Antoine Massey and nine others escaped from a New Orleans prison, May 16th. Investigators say they took advantage of some bad locks and some stolen bedding, and a hungry jail employee to escape. It's not clear where Massey was found or if someone turned him in.

Coming up Sunday on "STATE OF THE UNION", my guests will be Republican Senator Katie Britt and Democratic Senator Mark Warner.

That's Sunday morning at 9:00 Eastern and again at noon, only here on CNN.

"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts now, and I will see you Sunday morning.